Author's Note: It seems as though I start an awful lot of Author's Notes with an apology, but I always seem to need to give them out! But school has been crazy, crazy, crazy, and college applications were pretty much my life until about a week ago. I had to prioritize everything, so – sadly – this came last. But with my applications done and first term of senior year done I can (hopefully!) get back to writing. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!Chapter Thirty-Eight –

Hermione felt as though she had gone to bed one night in early summer, and when she had awoken the summer had ended. The days were flying past her so quickly she hardly bothered to look at a calendar anymore. With all of the plans for the wedding, the hours in every day seemed to get shorter and shorter. She was reminded of the panicking time before exams every spring, which was a horrible image because she really didn't want to think of exams when she thought of the wedding. It was late August already, and the wedding was in three weeks. As close as it was, there still seemed to be so much to do, which was another reason why she was now avoiding calendars.

On Saturday, she and Ron had gone to the Burrow for dinner; partially because Molly wanted a finalized list of the guests, and partially because they were both so exhausted from rushing about planning the wedding (well, Hermione was at least) that the two of them hadn't had a decent meal in days. When Hermione wasn't working she was making wedding plans, which hardly left any time for making food, and Ron couldn't be trusted in the kitchen anyway.

The dinner had gone surprisingly well; Hermione had assumed that with the date coming so quickly, the meal was bound to be tense and full of anxious energy. Instead, Molly simply reassured her that everything was under control, and the wedding was perfectly organized, considering the fact that they had planned it in merely a few months time. She told Hermione to relax a little or she'd make herself sick, which was not how she wanted to feel come early September.

Which was why the next day found Hermione sitting in a patio chair in the garden reading a magazine. She usually did neither of these things; but she had taken Mrs. Weasley's words to heart, and she really did not want to be sick on her wedding. As it was the end of the summer, she and Ron were spending most of their time outside, trying to absorb the last of the good weather. They had spent most of the summer inside, working at the Ministry or working for the wedding, and had realized this rather late in the season.

Ron came out of the back door, shakily balancing a tray with two cups of tea on it. Hermione, who had just flipped the page, stifled a giggle from behind her hand at the title of the next page; she didn't want to make any loud noises in case Ron dropped the tray.

"What's funny?" Ron asked, sitting down next to her and relieving himself of the tray. "And what are you reading?"

"It's a magazine my mum gave me," Hermione said regretfully, shaking back the cover so that they were both looking at a vapid bride on the cover, which was mainly taken up by her extremely voluminous wedding dress. Hermione shook her head sadly. She had never thought herself to be someone who would read something like this. "It's a bridal magazine," she clarified, as Ron continued to look confused.

"Aren't I supposed to dread those and burn them or something?" Ron asked uncertainly, and Hermione laughed, flipping back the glossy pages to the article that had made her laugh so that she could show it to Ron.

"You only dread them if I make you read them," she told him, locating the article at long last.

"And are you going to make me read them?" Ron asked fearfully, his eyes wide.

Hermione fixed him with a half-hearted stern look. "Only if you're being really annoying," she told him. "But that's not the point. Read this," she said, pointing at the top of the page. Ron raised his eyebrows at the irony, but Hermione shook her head and gave him a pointed look; her took her silent cue and looked down at the magazine she had shoved into his hand.

"Five most romantic places to have your honeymoon," Ron read out loud, his eyebrows furrowing. He looked back at Hermione. "What's that?" he asked.

"What, romance?" Hermione asked, though she was joking. "It's what you do when you actually have an ounce of maturity in you, and you don't go absolutely crimson every time you make a nice gesture to a girl," she said teasingly, and on cue Ron's ears turned pink.

"Funny," he said wryly. "I think I know what romance is, thank you very much," he said.

"I don't think you do," Hermione said airly, folding her arms across her chest and grinning at him. He grinned back.

"I meant," Ron said, fixing her with a glare, "what's a honeymoon?"

Hermione was slightly taken aback. "You've never heard of it?" she asked him, taking the article back rather sadly; he had missed the point then. "I suppose you wouldn't have, I think it might be a Muggle thing. Anyway, it's what you do after you get married, you go on holiday."

Ron's eyes lit up. "You go on holiday just for getting married? That's excellent!" he exclaimed.

Hermione laughed. She liked when she taught him things because he had a strange, new way of looking at the things she took for granted, like going on a honeymoon. "It's when newly married couples…get to know each other," she said slowly, knowing fully well that Ron wouldn't understand the wording.

And sure enough, "Get to know each other?" he asked. Hermione rolled her eyes, even though she supposed she had set herself up for this one.

"You know," she said pointedly. "When couples are...celibate until marriage," she said, and Ron had a look of dawning comprehension.

"Oh," he said slowly. "So are we going to do one of those?" he asked, after considering this for a moment, then taking a sip of tea.

Hermione gave him a questioning look. "Do one of what?" she asked.

"A honeymoon," Ron clarified, handing Hermione her cup of tea.

"I think that's what my parents wanted to talk to us about tonight," she said, referring to the fact that they were having dinner with her parents that evening. "I think that's going to be their wedding gift for us, mum hinted at it a few days ago when I was over there after work."

Ron squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, and Hermione knew exactly what was going to come next. He always reacted the same when confronted with the topic of money. Even now that he had money, he still didn't like talking about it. "They don't have to do that," he mumbled.

Hermione tried to give Ron a kind look, but it might have turned out more exasperated. "Ron, it's a gift, I think it's something they want to do. We're getting married at your parent's house; I think they want to do something too." When Ron continued to look uncomfortable, she leaned over and kissed him softly. "We'll talk about it tonight. Anyway, now that you know what a honeymoon is, read the article," she said, shoving the magazine back into his lap.

"Five most romantic places to have your honeymoon," Ron repeated. "Five, the Caribbean. Warm and always sunny, the Caribbean is –"

"Skip to number three," Hermione said impatiently. Ron obliged.

"Three, backpacking through Europe," Ron said, looking up from the magazine, grinning. He looked back down and finished reading. "Whether it be in bed and breakfasts…what's a –"

"Not important," Hermione said, growing slightly impatient; now that it had taken him so long, the article might not be funny anymore. "Just finish reading!" she cried, and Ron rolled his eyes, smoothing the article out and reading again.

"Er, oh, here it is: whether it be in bed and breakfasts, five star hotels, or a..." Ron paused, looking down at the article disbelievingly, a slow smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Hermione waited patiently. "Or a cozy tent, backpacking across the beautiful scenery of Europe can create a romantic setting for a more adventurous couple," Ron said, barely making the last few words out for laughing.

"It's good, isn't it?" Hermione asked, laughing as well. It was still funny.

Ron nodded. "I didn't realize, the year we were camping out, how romantic it could have all been. I was too busy freezing my backside off to realize that the 'beautiful scenery' would have made it ideal to light a few candles and finally tell you how much I fancied you," Ron said sarcastically.

"Of course," Hermione said, laughing, "We had a few things on our mind."

"Like being chased down by the evilest wizard of all time," Ron said.

"And being caught in the middle of nowhere without knowing where anyone else is," Hermione said.

"Though according to your magazine that's romantic," Ron said dramatically, and Hermione slapped him playfully on the arm.

"I guess the magazine doesn't account for the fact that the beautiful scenery can be a little isolating," Hermione said rationally.

"Or a little cold," Ron added. Hermione nodded, and Ron pushed on. "Or completely lacking in any decent food," he said quickly, jumping up just in time to avoid her hand hitting his arm.

"I tried my best!" she cried, standing up as well, "It's hard, you know, trying to find food on a mountainside," she said, putting her hands on her hips.

Ron tugged at her hand and brought her closer to him, kissing her softly on the lips. "I know, and I know you couldn't do much because food-is-one-of-Gamp's-Five-Laws-of-Elemental-Transfiguration," he said, grinning at her, saying the last words very quickly, in a clear imitation of her familiar, know-it-all tone. Hermione ignored it.

"It's amazing you still remember that," she said slowly, kissing him again. Ron grinned proudly at her.

"Are you joking? I'd never forget that one. Even if I wanted to… which I don't," he said, though with the air that they should probably drop the conversation now, before it stopped being fun and instead entered more dangerous waters.

They sat back down, Hermione returning to her appalling magazine, and Ron to the edition of the Prophet he had brought along with the tray of tea. They sat in amicable silence for a few moments; each lost in their own thoughts. Hermione bumped her toes against Ron's leg, keeping a steady rhythm; she was finding it so hard to keep still the last few days, what with all the nervous energy from the wedding.

"What time do we have to be at your parent's house?" Ron asked, "And ow, by the way," he said, glancing down at his leg where Hermione was still bumping her foot against it. Apparently, she had been increasing her force until she was almost kicking him. She stopped.

"Six thirty," she answered, flipping a page in her magazine, and starting to tap her fingers against the arm of her chair. She felt Ron's eyes watching her, and she looked up. "Sorry," she said. "And sorry about your leg," she added.

Ron grinned, shaking back his hair. He needed a haircut before the wedding. "It's fine. I think you may have given me a bruise though," he said, lifting up the leg of his trousers to inspect his shin. Hermione leaned in closer to examine the damage she had done as well.

"Sorry," she said again. "I just can't stop moving," she said, and she blushed despite herself. Ron stopped looking and his leg and looked up at her. There was a raw sort of happiness behind his eyes that she loved as he looked at her.

"Me too," he admitted, his ears turning red. "I actually rearranged my drawers yesterday at work just for something to do," he said, laughing.

Hermione smiled. "That must be the first time you've ever cleaned anything," she said jokingly, though in the back of her mind, she wondered if it was. Ron was notoriously untidy, something that she had hoped he would grow out of, but hadn't.

Ron gave her a look of mock-hurt, though he caved and grinned as well. "You know, I think it may have been," he said, scratching his chin and squinting his eyes as if trying to recall a date very far in the past. Hermione laughed. She felt very strange; the nerves were certainly getting to her. She felt as though she was drifting slightly, always about an inch of the ground. Mundane things seemed hilarious to her, she felt as though she had always had slightly too much sugar to eat. With Ron it only got worse because she knew he felt the same.

"So, are we going to a restaurant tonight?" Ron asked eagerly, and Hermione couldn't help but smile endearingly at him. Some of the novelties he found in her parent's life seemed to never wear off for him, like the television in the sitting room, and going out to restaurants. He found it absolutely amazing that you could ask for whatever you liked, and then it would be brought to you. She had told him this was ironic, because at school the elves had brought food for him. He had asked her if she was going to start a campaign to help liberate the restaurant waiters. The conversation had ended there.

"I'm not sure," Hermione said vaguely, casting the magazine aside and picking up the Prophet Ron had discarded instead. They fell into comfortable silence instead.

"We could go to Paris," Ron said suddenly, after a few minutes. Hermione, who was completely engrossed in an article about foreign affairs over the Potion trade, only half-heard him.

"That seems awfully far for dinner," she said, then looked up as Ron's words finally sunk in. Ron was looking at her expectantly, a slightly bemused grin on his face.

"Paris?" she repeated, putting the newspaper down and turning in her chair so that she was facing him again. "On our honeymoon, you mean?" she asked, and Ron nodded. She had been to France with her parents when she was thirteen, though they had mostly stayed in inns in small towns and the countryside. She had always wanted to go to Paris; the city and its mystique had intrigued her since she had glimpsed its skyline as they flew over it on their way back home.

Ron nodded. "Why not? Of course, I don't know any French, so you'd have to do all the talking for me. But if what you said about honeymoons is true…" he said, drifting off and looking up at her anxiously, as if asking permission to say something immature. Hermione only rolled her eyes; she was too preoccupied thinking about Paris. Ron seemed to take that as a yes. "…then there won't be much talking," he finished, ducking as she slapped his arm again.

"But you've never been on holiday," Hermione reminded him. "Isn't there anywhere you'd like to go?"

Ron didn't hesitate for a moment. "I'd like to go to Paris, because you'd like to go to Paris," he said, and Hermione felt as though she was floating a little bit higher. She was completely speechless, which was an unsettling and strange feeling for her. Shakily, she got out of her chair and sat down next to Ron on his. There wasn't much room, but it didn't matter, not at all.

"You're amazing," she finally managed, her voice rising and falling. She thought she might cry, which might alarm Ron if she did because she wasn't sure he knew what was going on in her head. She kissed him softly, and she knew that he would understand.

"Come on," Hermione said, after ten minutes. Ron pulled her to her feet, which Hermione was grateful for because she wasn't sure she would be able to walk. "We should get ready for my parents, we have to be there in half an hour," she reminded him.

Forty minutes later (they were, once again, late) Hermione pushed open the door of her childhood home. Her parents never kept their doors locked, which still frightened her. Even though they lived in a quiet suburb and no one on the street locked their door, she hated the idea that their home was so open. Her parents maintained that in the thirty years they had lived in that house, they hadn't had any problems, and Hermione had finally dropped the issue. She hadn't told her parents that she had cast protective charms over the entire neighborhood.

There wasn't anyone in the front room, and no one made any movement to greet them as Hermione shut the door behind her. She looked around, slightly confused. Usually, her parents tripped over themselves to say hello; they rarely saw Hermione because of their work schedules, and with the wedding so close their visits had been even more infrequent.

"Mum?" Hermione called into the silent house. "Dad?"

"We're in the den," her mother called, and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. She and Ron made their way into the den. The strangest sight greeted them. Her parents were standing in the middle of what seemed to be Hermione's entire childhood. How she had amounted to that many boxes rendered her almost speechless; she stood in the doorway, mouth slightly open in shock. Her eyes traveled over the room: faded art projects and stacks of papers. Photograph albums were scattered among the masses of picture books and dolls, the latter of which seemed to be less handled than the former.

"What is all of this?" Hermione asked breathlessly, "And where did it all come from?" she asked, which seemed to be a more pressing question. She moved a box of stuffed animals from the nearest sofa and sat down, motioning for Ron – who seemed a bit shocked – to do the same.

"Well, it builds up over the years," her mother said defensively. "I didn't have any patients today, so I decided to do some cleaning. I came across one box of your primary school work and, well, once you get started you can't stop," she said, and Hermione was reminded of her conversation with Ron earlier about not being able to stay still.

"You didn't throw any of it away?" Hermione asked, amazed.

Her father shook his head. "Apparently not," he said, giving his wife a look.

"It's nice to have things to look back on!" Her mother said defensively. Hermione raised an eyebrow and picked up a crumpled mass of what may have once been paper mache. "Well, maybe we can get rid of a few things," her mother conceded. Hermione, however, wasn't paying attention. Ron had just picked up a photo album and was flipping through it with a very amused expression.

"No!" Hermione cried, trying to wrestle the book out of his hands. "Don't look at that!" but Ron held it away from her, out of her reach. He was grinning.

"Why?" he asked. "Do you think I won't want to marry you if I look at…wow, look at your hair!" he exclaimed. Hermione stopped trying to fight him to see how bad it was. Deeming it safe, Ron put the book back in his lap so that they could both see.

Hermione covered her mouth with her hands, eyes wide in embarrassment. It was one of her more awkward stages; her hair was bigger than the picture was wide, some of it was cut off by the edge of the photograph.

"Wow," Ron said again, flipping the pages and revealing more horrible photographs where Hermione and her hair were always the focus of the picture.

"I wouldn't say anything else if I were you," Hermione's father advised Ron from the midst of a pile of books, which looked on the verge of avalanching.

Ron looked up, startled, then he looked carefully at Hermione, as if fearing an explosion. Hermione said nothing; she was too mortified by the album in front of her to say anything else.

"Look what I found!" Hermione's mother exclaimed, holding up a large cardboard box over her head.

"What is it?" Hermione asked hesitantly, thinking to herself that it couldn't get any worse. Her mother opened the lid of the box and took out a cassette tape. Hermione's heart sank; apparently it could get worse than the photographs.

"What is it?" Ron whispered in her ear, clearly embarrassed that he didn't know.

"Home videos!" Hermione's mother answered, wading through the sea of Hermione's childhood to get to the television.

"You don't have to do that," Hermione said faintly.

"I don't get it," Ron said. "I still don't understand what that is."

Hermione tried to think of the best way to explain. "It's kind of like our pictures; that tape has a moving picture and it talks. People record things so that they can look at them later," she said, knowing that even if she didn't explain it well now, he would understand in a few minutes.

Mrs. Granger checked the dates on the two tapes, and chose the one in her left hand. "Do we have to watch them?" Hermione pleaded, though her mother ignored it.

"Yes we do," Ron answered, putting his arm around her shoulders and sitting back in the sofa. Hermione groaned but sat back as well, though she kept her hands in her lap in case she needed to put them over her eyes.

The video started off as a shot of the staircase and Hermione groaned; she remembered this video, and she wondered if her mother had chosen it on purpose. She decided that she probably had. The frame stayed on the staircase for a few seconds longer; Hermione could faintly hear her father, who was filming, breathing softly.

"I thought you said there were people in these," Ron whispered in her ear, and Hermione shushed him, and sure enough there was a scuffling sound at the top of the staircase.

Hermione fought very hard against the urge to bury her face in Ron's shoulder so as not to see the six-year-old version of herself that had just appeared at the top of the stairs. Ron made a quiet sound that might have been a struggle to keep from laughing. In the video, she looked as though she had fought her way out of a thicket to get to the landing. Her dressing gown, which was a horrid shade of pink that her mother must have bought for her, was hanging off on one side, revealing her pale and very bony shoulder bones. Her hair seemed to swamp the rest of her body; some of her face was hidden by it. She was wearing mismatched socks and clutching a book firmly to her chest.

"Happy Christmas, Hermione," her father called from behind the camera. The six-year-old Hermione beamed down at her father, revealing a missing bottom tooth and two very large front teeth. She resembled something like a jack-o-lantern. She padded down the stairs in the awkward way that children do; stepping down first every time with her right foot, her hand stiffly sliding down the banister. When she approached the camera she smiled again, her teeth seeming even larger close up. Hermione noticed that Ron wasn't holding back laughter anymore.

"Happy Christmas," she said, and then temporarily disappeared as she hugged her father, and then her mother. Her mother murmured something in the background.

"There are lots of presents waiting for you under the tree!" her mother exclaimed, and the camera panned to Hermione and Mrs. Granger, who were both making their way into the living room; the room that they were all in now. Where her father was sitting was almost exactly where the tree was, and where she and Ron were sitting was where the six-year-old version of herself sat down, waiting politely for her mother to hand her a present. Even as a child she had been reserved; never throwing herself into something unthinkingly.

"Thank you," the six-year-old Hermione said, meticulously pulling back the wrapping paper back, slowly so that it wouldn't tear. Ron's hand found hers; she knew he was thinking that that part of her had not changed.

"Come on, you can just rip it off you know," Hermione's father joked from behind the camera, and Ron squeezed her hand again. When she had finally succeeded in parting the paper from the gift, she held up the present so that it could be documented by her father's camera, a grin plastered to her face. For some reason, Ron squeezed her hand again.

"What is it?" Hermione's mother asked, adopting the vapid tone that one used when asking a child a question they knew the answer to.

"A book!" Hermione exclaimed, looking down fondly at its cover; she remembered that book. It was The Princess Bride; it was one of her favorites, she had read it a dozen times since that Christmas. She watched as her child-self flipped through the pages, eyes wide as she gazed hungrily at the printed words on the page. Her joy in that book, in that moment, seemed to leak through the screen into the present-day sitting room; Ron hadn't stopped gripping her hand, if anything he was holding it even harder.

The Hermione on the television pushed hair impatiently out of her hair, flipping back to the first page and beginning to read. She had apparently forgotten that her parents were sitting in front of her, that she was being taped. She was so entirely, and familiarly, engaged with that book.

"Hermione, don't you want to open your other presents?" Hermione's mother gently encouraged, and her arm appeared in the frame as she held out another present. Hermione gently placed The Princess Bride on the floor next to her and smiled at her mother, taking the present. "You have all these gifts that Santa brought you," her mother added.

Hermione looked up at her mother, temporarily distracted from the present in her hands. "Santa doesn't bring gifts. He can't," she said, quite matter-of-factly. The real Hermione did a slight double-take; her tone was exactly the same.

Hermione's parents in the video laughed. "What do you mean? Of course he brings you the presents," her father's disembodied voice said.

Hermione now focused on her father. "A man who flies around the world in a single night, visiting every house through their chimney and giving children all of the presents they asked for? It's impossible," she said, in that same rational tone. Hermione wasn't sure if she should laugh at herself or not.

"It's not impossible!" Her father said from behind the camera.

"Maybe it's magic," her mother added.

"There's no such thing as magic," Hermione responded, as if she was teaching her mother a lesson. The Hermione in the video was sitting there quite naturally, the early morning sun falling on her through the window, sitting there calmly as if she had not just denounced a childhood dream. "There can't be magic, it can't be proved," she added.

Hermione remembered the video for that exact moment; because five years later she had gotten a letter that had given her proof that magic did exist; that she was even a part of it. That the things she could do sometimes shouldn't be ignored and put in the back of her head; there was a reason for them, there was an answer.

The video carried on for a few more minutes; her father taped for a few more minutes as Hermione opened two more presents, and then the camera was turned off. Hermione's mother walked over to the television and took the tape out, beaming at Hermione.

"See, that's why I keep things like this. Isn't it nice to look back on these things?" she asked. In the kitchen, the oven timer began to beep and her mother rushed to turn it off. She hesitated in the doorway, Hermione's eyes locked onto her mother's as Mrs. Granger surveyed the scene. Then, her eyes fell on Ron, and something in her face changed. "Bill, will you help me in the kitchen for a moment," she asked, and Mr. Granger got up from the floor, grumbling but obeying his wife's desire. He patted Hermione on the shoulder, apparently oblivious to his wife's intentions.

Ron and Hermione were alone in the sitting room now. Hermione turned to see Ron, wondering what his expression could be for her mother to leave the two of them alone. His face was slightly shocked, as if he was trying to work out what he had just seen. Their hands were still intertwined between them.

"So," Hermione said, breaking the silence that seemed to stretch far too long. "What did you think of your first video? I know I didn't explain it very well, but…" though she trailed off; she wanted – needed – him to say something.

"That was incredible," Ron said finally, his voice hoarse. "You…there…you're….that was amazing," he said, blinking uncertainly around the room. Whatever reaction she had been expecting, this wasn't it.

"I had hair enough for two people and teeth that gave my parents nightmares," she said, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment. She did not know why she was ashamed of this; she had never been a materialistic person, her appearance meant practically nothing to her. She did not know why she cared so much at this moment, why she was so terrified.

And then she realized that she was embarrassed for the same reason that Ron was awed. Though she saw an awkward, bookish child, Ron saw one that was impassioned and thrilled by the simple joy of a book; intelligent, yet warm enough to light a room years in the future. And although they both saw something different, they saw something that was the same as well. In their minds, they were substituting her frizzy brown hair for his red, her love for books equalling his love for Quidditch.

Author's Note: I hope you all liked it; please review if you can. Next up will be the day before the wedding, and I'll bring Harry back into the story. Thanks for reading!