Five years after the Battle of Hogwarts
"Can't believe you talked me into this," He grumbled, sifting through all the books and parchment on his desk by shovelling it into crook of his left elbow. Building plans and site maps draped and stuck out at odd angles.
Hermione took a sip of her tea and eyed him over the top of her legal textbook.
"If I remember correctly, I tried to talk you out of it."
He snorted and started rummaging through the desk drawers.
"Yeah, exactly, what was I supposed to do, not do it? Don't think I don't know when you're pulling my strings,"
She couldn't help smirking at this. There was no reason why he couldn't have done a construction internship and hit the workforce faster. But… the idea of him carrying that chip on his shoulder for the rest of their lives wasn't appealing. He was every bit smart enough, and besides, it was what he wanted to do. He just hadn't had the confidence to admit it. Fighting her on it had been an easy way out for him; make it into an issue, make out like she thought everyone worth anything had to have a degree, make it a class thing, make it anything to get out of fronting up to the fact that he wanted to do it and was terrified to try. So she hadn't fought him on it. Do the internship, she'd said, you only really need the degree if you want to design buildings.
"Well, if you know, you can choose not to be influenced, can't you,"
He made an annoyed noise.
"You're insufferable, you know that? Here, you'd better have this now, or I'll bloody lose it in all this mess,"
He tossed her a jeweller's box, dumped his armful of miscellaneous study materials on the desk chair and resumed his chaotic searching through the drawers.
She fumbled and had to drop her textbook. The box was red leather, and quite big, suitable for a watch.
It did not contain a watch.
Hermione frowned.
"Ron,"
"Mmm?"
"Ron, how long have you had these?"
"Eh? Oh. Couple of years. Winkled that old one out of Gran first, and then thought you might prefer something new."
'That old one' was obviously gold and obviously very old. The 'something new' was also gold, a simple modern look, but shaped like a curled feather- no. A quill. And they were both puzzle rings. They each started to disassemble in her fingers as she took them out of the box. She hastily put them both back.
Baffling.
Baffling and bewildering, and was this what she thought it was?
Ron shoved the desk drawers closed and got down on his knees, clunking his head on the underside of the desk as he crawled underneath it, still searching.
He was far too large really, to be crawling around under a desk. One of his socks had a hole in the heel. Again. It was sort of endearing somehow.
Ridiculous.
"Ha! Gotcha." He emerged from under the desk, clutching the deluminator aloft like a trophy. "I'm pretty sure it's got a whole other set of functions, we had this class on mechanical magics and I want to see if I can hack into it… Dumbledore was a tricky bugger. Bloody thing probably has a horcrux destroying option I never found," He eyed it moodily then shoved it in his pocket and flumped down on the couch next to her. "Still, we got them all, that's the main thing."
Hermione cast him a squinty-eyed suspicious look.
"What?"
She turned the box so the rings faced him.
A classic Weasley blush started to chase its way up his neck. He ruffled his hair as though to distract from it.
"I know it's not the time," he said uncomfortably, "We're both broke and studying and you know, whatever, but they're yours regardless, so. And they don't have to, you know, mean anything. Or, they could. 'S'up to you."
"Ron."
He rubbed his hands over his reddening face and then looked at her.
"Yeah, ok, ok, they're engagement rings. But like I said, they don't have to be, it's not like I've got some other use for them in mind, they're just yours. And if, at some point, you want to, you know, then we can do that, but if you don't that's cool too. I'm here for as long as you'll have me, so the rest is kind of irrelevant."
Hermione quirked an eyebrow at him.
"I know they're engagement rings. What I want to know is, is this a proposal?"
His face went a brighter shade of red.
"Uh. I mean. Yes. Kind of. Ah crap." He grimaced.
"So it's not a proposal?"
He sighed.
"It's a bad one. I lobbed a box at you, ignored you, and called you insufferable. Sorry. Do you want to hang on to them and give me a fortnight to finish this assignment and get through these exams and I'll rustle up some wine and uh, I dunno, an after-hours pass to the national library or something?"
A bunch of Ron's weaknesses played out in the space of a few minutes. Messy, clumsy, lazy, rude, flippant. She noticed he was trying to stop his knee from jogging now.
"No. Funny though it would be to watch you completely meltdown with the anxiety of trying to plan a romantic proposal on top of exams and everything else that's going on, I think it's probably best I just say yes now,"
His eyebrows shot up.
"Really?"
"On the strict proviso that you deal with your mum. And she can't know until we have some time to cope with the fallout."
He pulled a face.
"Urgh, yes, good point."
"And we're far too young to get married, so if you've no objection, I think we should have a long engagement,"
She saw relief wash over him.
"Why didn't I think of that?!"
"Bit difficult to ask someone to marry you with a caveat of 'not any time soon'."
"You managed it," He objected.
Hermione snapped the box shut and put it down beside her mug of tea.
"Yes, but, as you pointed out, I'm insufferable,"
She glanced up at him and was pleased to see he was looking amused and mock-exasperated.
"You've got us into a state of perpetual exams and deepening debt; insufferable is an understatement,"
She tried to suppress the smirk and failed.
He grinned at her. That quite specific carefree happy grin, that one that made her feel alive and beautiful and about to have really excellent sex.
She smothered the impulse to throw herself at him.
"Are you going to tell me how they work?"
"The rings? Absolutely not. I'm going to sit here and watch your ginormous brain decode them,"
"Haha."
He gave her an expectant look.
"What if I can't work it out?"
"Even better. I can feel smug and superior until you do."
Hermione threw him a mock glare and prodded the rings with the tip of her wand. The old one was probably something fairly obvious; puzzle rings were common in pureblood families, goblin-wrought and designed to ensure blood purity, though why Ron thought it was appropriate- unless…
She pulled it out of the case and let it collapse into its composite pieces, a little tangle of twisted gold loops. There would be a way of positioning them, weaving them together and holding them so that you could lock in that last piece. She examined it carefully. She passed her wand over the top of it a few times.
Hermione considered Ron's innocent-and-very-pleased-with-himself look.
She put her wand down, fiddled about until she had the pieces in position, and slipped the final twist into place. She held it out to him.
He grinned.
"One down,"
"Does your Gran know you stripped the enchantments off this? It looks very old,"
"Gran thoroughly approves of you, as well you know. She insisted on adjudicating the meeting with the goblins to have the enchantment removed. You know they only did that in the first place to stop wizards taking goblin wives? By taking, I mean kidnapping. Apparently, that was a big part of what kicked off the goblin rebellions. Never covered that at Hogwarts. I'm starting to think they should replace Binns, he's clearly been pushing a pro-wizard agenda."
"Mmmm," Hermione was already distracted by the second ring. This one was all magic. Out of the box it flattened immediately into a tiny golden quill, unexpectedly soft, the gold faintly flame coloured, as though it had been pinched from a miniature phoenix. It was tiny, and velvety, and Hermione could not explain how she knew… she changed her grip to hold it like a pen, and it flared out, full sized, and elegant plume of golden orange, tipped with a golden nib. Self-inking. Of course.
She risked a glance at Ron. Ron had popped the old ring on his little finger and was twisting it around idly, while trying not to look… embarrassed? He had that pink-about-the-ears, at risk of saying something awkwardly romantic look. The look he'd worn all evening the one time they'd gone out on a formal date. It had been extremely uncomfortable. He'd set the tablecloth on fire by accident. Yet another reason it was better to avoid a formal proposal. Ron… couldn't really handle formal. Or romance. Or formal romance.
Hermione considered the very lovely quill in her hand, the feather tip curling softly. It must mean something. But if you were to tell the story of their relationship only in feathers… there had been quite a lot of feathers. They hadn't had a huge amount to do with Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, not really, but there was Buckbeak… that was reasonably significant; and also certain hormonally-charged pillow fights they both pretended hadn't happened; vast quantities of homework, handwritten with quills- some of them he'd given her, in fact; sugar quills from Hogsmeade… Hermione was momentarily diverted back to the butterflies of that first trip, just the two of them, Ron's self-conscious politeness, the magic of being out and having him there, wanting to spend time with her, just her, not Harry, just the two of them… but she couldn't imagine that sugar quills held quite the same romantic weight in his mind… they'd sent plenty of owls to each other over the years…
She laid the quill down across her left palm, and it reverted to its tiny form, a little golden stripe across her hand. It was possible he was harking back to before they'd even been friends… that was something that was important to him. Where was the beginning? The train? The first charm they'd ever learnt?
Hermione eyed him suspiciously. He was still a bit pink. Still expectant. But he stopped fidgeting with the old ring when she picked up her wand.
At the swish-and-flick, the little feather dashed up, leaving a little gold flash in the air behind it as it traced an infinity symbol, and slipped back down to her palm again.
Even non-verbal, it should have worked.
She knew the answer now, could feel Ron grinning like a loon beside her, knew he'd probably hoped she'd say it out loud so he could correct her-
"WingarDEEum levioSAH,"
The feather whipped into the air, coiled up like an irritated hedgehog, feathery spokes sticking out like spines, and then, before she had time to finish rolling her eyes, it settled neatly into its ring shape, and plonked back into her hand. Hermione ran her thumb over it and it unfurled again.
"You're a prat, you know that, right?"
He was grinning ear to ear.
"It's a multipurpose ring," he said, positively preening, "It does other things too. In case you get stuck without a wand."
"Uh huh. So it's actual phoenix feather then," she said, holding it like a wand, and watching as it shifted in her hand, now a golden twin of her wand, but lighter, and marked all over with the fine lines of the feather barbs.
"Well," he went very pink, "Yeah. I mean. Hard to get hold of unicorn hair, and I'm not one for killing dragons, so. And, uh, phoenix feather seemed, erm, apt."
Hermione blinked at him.
"You know," he said, his face positively beetroot, "Because we, uh…" he ruffled his hair and rubbed the back of his neck, "You know, fight a lot, but we erm, always sort it out eventually…" he trailed off.
Hermione gave herself a little moment to collect herself. She covered her eyes with her fingers for a moment.
"Ron. Are you telling me this is a phoenix feather because, like phoenixes, our relationship keeps rising from the ashes?"
Ron, who was now as red as she had ever seen him, including that time Harry had walked in on them, made a strangled noise and muttered something about dragons.
Hermione charmed the ring back into shape, slipped it onto her finger, and clambered onto Ron's lap, pressing kisses all over his freckled and wildly overheated face. He made a sort of embarrassed grumbly noise and blinked at her under his lashes. She tried to squash a grin, put her hands over his radiant ears, and continued peppering his face with ridiculous kisses. The vivid delight she'd felt earlier surged back as he wrapped his arms around her.
"Insufferable," he declared, blue eyes alight with adoration and annoyance, that specific grin returning. He kissed her properly, seriously, on the mouth, and a surge of an entirely different sort of magic assured her that neither of them would be getting any study done any time soon.