Title: Onyx is for Engagements
Pairings: Neville/Hannah Abbot and James Sirius Potter/Alice Longbottom II
Rating: G
Period: Post Hogwarts
Summary: Onyx was their favorite gemstone. Not that it soothed the nerves. Proposing is a very nerve wracking process.
Disclaimer: I don't own the world of Harry Potter and I make no money from this.
A/N: Written for the proposal challenge from xxArtemisFowlxx on HPFC. The challenge was to write a proposal scene with the prompts. My prompts were the month of June, a party and the pairing Alice Longbottom and James Sirius Potter. A took a few liberties with it. :) Read and Review.
Onyx is worn to defend against negativity. It helps to release negative emotions such as sorrow and grief.
Neville had chosen it for none of those reasons. They were horrid reasons to use onyx as an engagement ring. If onyx hadn't been Hannah's favorite gemstone he'd have chosen the elegant diamond engagement ring he'd seen while shopping.
Anxiously he twisted the onyx ring in his fingers. This was wrong, too public, and not romantic at all. He was a horrible boyfriend.
He looked around the partying crowd that filled the bewitched lobby of St. Mungo's and silently cursed them and himself. He'd lost Hannah to a gaggle of Hufflepuff girls a few moments ago and now alone with an engagement ring he felt foolish.
"Neville," Ginny greeted him sweetly. She paused just before embracing him in a hug and then leaned away, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing."
He put his arms around her, quickly hugging her while scanning the crowd for his girlfriend.
"I know that look. It's the look of uncertainty. What are you thinking about?"
He shook his head releasing the redheaded wife of his friend.
"Nothing."
Ginny took a flute of champagne from a passing house elf. Neville looked nearly green, anxious and sweaty.
"Talk to me."
"It's stupid."
"Probably not."
He mumbled a few words that Ginny tried to hear, but failed.
"What?"
"I'm going to ask Hannah to marry me."
"WHAT?"
Neville buried his reddened face in his hands and began mumbling some more about how dumb his idea was.
"Neville speak up," Ginny ordered in her motherly tone.
"It's stupid and completely unromantic. Who asks someone to marry them in a hospital?"
Ginny shook her head and took the onyx ring that Neville offered her. She looked the silver band over appreciating the deep darkness of the stone.
"You're not stupid."
Neville scoffed. He kept ranting about how horrible of an idea it was. He told Ginny about how if he couldn't even come up with a way to propose to his girlfriend how in the world could he expect her to say yes. He didn't notice that Ginny had gotten a strange glint in her eye.
"-it's an onyx ring, too. Do you know what onyx symbolizes? The release of negative feelings! How idi-"
"Why here?"
"What?"
"Why'd you choose St. Mungo's in the first place?"
Neville turned a shade brighter of red and Ginny worried that if he kept going he may match his burgundy dress robes sooner rather than later. He mumbled again which Ginny couldn't hear over the music. She glared.
"It's as close to my mum and dad as I could get."
Ginny held the ring in her closed fist and turned away from Neville to prevent him from seeing the tears forming in her eyes. When she had composed herself she turned back to him. Holding the ring in her open palm, she looked him in the eye.
"You should do it."
Onyx had been the stone in her mother's ring. That was the reason he'd chose it. In fact he'd made the big mistake of reading about on onyx. The stone was used to release negative feelings… what sort of strange women were these Longbottoms?
James looked himself over in the mirror. His hair was imperfect. It looked as though he'd just rolled out of bed. He hadn't just rolled out of bed. He'd spent twenty-five minutes trying to tame his hair. He cursed his father.
Stealing one more glance at the ring, the onyx ring, he gathered the bouquet of roses in his hand. His stomach gave a lurch and he put down the roses and the ring. He turned back toward the mirror. Perhaps something could be done for his hair?
James considered sneaking into his mum's room to steal some of her hair potions. Surely something would tame this mop of hair his father had cursed him with.
"James!"
Speaking of his mum. The door flung open and Ginny Potter strode into her son's old room.
"What in the world?"
She looked at his wardrobe. There sat a bouquet of red roses and nestled in an open jewelry box an onyx ring. She gasped.
"Mum… I-Uh… I"
"You're going to propose?"
James nodded suddenly aware of the noise from the party downstairs.
"Hannah?"
Neville had found her sitting in a corner with a few of her old schoolmates. She beamed up at him.
"Neville, love, I'd feared I'd lost you."
He shook his head unable to speak. Were men always this nervous when they proposed?
"Do you mind if I have a moment alone with her?" Neville asked the girls that flanked his soon to be fiancé on either side.
They left without a word, or at least not a word that Neville remembered. He sat beside Hannah and took her hand in his.
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"I- I" he faltered slightly, "I wanted this moment to be special. I thought about everyplace imaginable, but nothing seemed to be quite right. There was always something missing."
Hannah looked anxiously at Neville. Her confusion was clear, but Neville simply gave her hand a comforting squeeze.
"Neville?"
He sank down onto one knee in front of her. He fumbled with the ring as he took it from his pocket.
"Will you marry me?"
He'd managed to convince his mum to get Alice alone in the garden. It was probably the least romantic thing in the world for a guy's mum to sequester a young girl on the day of her graduation party but the butterflies in James' stomach had migrated to his brain stopping all rational thought.
She stood underneath the large oak tree he'd played in as a kid. The one he first learned to climb and the one he later circled from above on his broom.
He stepped out in the shadows holding the roses in front of him like a shield. Alice was turned away from him looking at the party through the open back door. Her chestnut hair fell in waves down her back and James knew if he could get close enough she'd smell like jasmine.
He knelt a few steps behind her.
"Alice?"
She turned slowly to face him. Her face displayed her emotions clearly. Confusion. Shock. Love.
He held the roses out for her to take. With unsteady hands she took the bouquet.
"Ja-"
He pulled the box from his robe pocket and slowly opened it up to show her the silver and onyx ring. The black stone reflecting the twinkle lights that were strung in the oak tree. He'd spent time preparing a speech for her. I love you more than I thought I would ever love anyone in my entire life. And I want to be with you for the rest of my life.
It all went to the wayside when he looked up at her and she looked back at him with big hopeful eyes.
"Will you marry me?
"Yes."
Neville slid the ring onto Hannah's finger with shaking fingers.
"It's beautiful," she whispered reverently.
"So are you."
It was cliché, but it didn't matter. She'd said yes. She'd said yes. He wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs. He settled for kissing her.
"Mummy," six year old James Sirius Potter whispered to his mother tugging on her robes disrupting her spying on her friend from the fringes of the St. Mungo's children's benefit gala, "Uncle Neville is kissing Hannah."
Ginny smiled and picked up her son. Someday he'd understand.
Alice Longbottom looked down at the ring which matched the shade of her boyfriend's hair perfectly. That wasn't the reason she liked onyx. She loved onyx because it kept the sorrow away.
"Yes."