Disclaimer: I own nothing belonging to the magical world of J.K. Rowling.
Summary: Ron and Hermione never met at Hogwarts. In fact, they're not even wizards. They're just ordinary people, like you and me, waiting in the universe for the "one". Hopefully, Fate will be able to bring them together, even if they're not wizards. A story about the power of love, not even for our lovable wizarding couple, but for everyone out there.
The Power of Love
When I turned twenty-four, I thought the world was my oyster. I had a wonderful job with lots of growth opportunity, I had good friends and a family nearby, and I had an affordable, brand-new apartment. I was perfectly content with my life the way it was.
I have always been a creature of routine. In my early twenties, I knew that I wanted to work slowly toward my Ph.D. and focus on my career. Marriage and family were not even a part of my grand design. Always wanting to be in control of everything, including my emotions, I never mapped out for myself the undeniable power of true love.
The weekend after my twenty-fourth birthday, I went out with my girlfriend Sarah. She insisted on taking me to the latest club in Boca Vista, aptly named Heaven. Anyone who is single and living in the New York Upper Manhattan area can tell you how old the club scene becomes once you're past the age of twenty-two. I was sick of flirting with tourists from other places who were only out to "score" with a New York girl. One-night stands were not my thing. I really didn't want to go to a club, but after much arm twisting from Sarah, I finally went.
I remember standing in the club with my friend, my arms folded across my chest. I had a scowl on my face that would've intimidated most any person, and yet there came Ron, walking toward me. I wonder even today what could have been remotely inviting about me! Nevertheless, he introduced himself, and Ron and I talked and danced all night. He was everything I was not looking for: a tourist from London who was in New York visiting his relatives. I felt I was wasting my time even chatting with this guy. But maybe it was a look he gave me, or the way he laughed. Whatever "it" was, it was starting to happen. I'd never given my number to a guy in a bar before. On this night, I made an exception.
Ron snuck in a quick kiss on my cheek as the valet brought our cars around to the front of the club. I expected never to hear from him again; but he began calling at eight A.M. the next morning. Over the course of the day, he invited me to go to the beach and finally to dinner with his entire family. I declined, unable to see getting past the introductions. "Mom, this is Hermione. I picked her up in a bar last night..." We finally agreed to meet again, just the two fo us. I couldn't believe myself as I gave what amounted to a total stranger my address and directions to my apartment. But something inside me was pushing me towards this, and it just felt right.
I felt breathless when I saw Ron standing at my door in a suit (I have a weakness for suits!). He had sparkling blue eyes and a generous, loving smile.
At a waterside restaurant, we giggled about meeting in "Heaven", and we laughed even harder at the fact that I had been a studious, organized bookworm in school and he was the laid-back, spontaneous procrastinator. What a pair we made! There was no topic we couldn't discuss, it seemed, and we felt we had known each other for a lifetime. What clinched it for me was when he asked permission to kiss me goodnight. I remember saying something like "What took you so long" and as he kissed me, I felt my knees weaken and my heart begin to race. He was different in some inexplicable but wonderful new way.
We went out every night that Ron was in New York, and he called me the night he went home to London. After talking nightly on the phone for several weeks, I went to London to see him. I wanted to know if there was really anything more than an initial attraction between us. He was so nervous when he picked me up at the airport that we kept getting lost as he attempted to drive us back to his flat. At the end of the weekend, when we were confirming my flight home with my mother over the phone, Ron asked me, "Does your mom know I love her daughter?" I didn't "say it back" until two weeks later, when I flew up to attend a wedding (the wedding of his sister, Ginny, and his best friend, Harry) with him.
For six months we survived endless plane trips, outrageous phone bills, and frustrations with loneliness and unsupportive friends. But through it all, a powerful love was blossoming between us, distance and all.
Somehow, looking back, I had to have been so totally in love that rational thought was no longer part of my state of mind. Where was my head, to go and quit my great job, give up my graduate school opportunities, leave my friends, my family, my secure lifestyle, and move to London to live with a man I had seen only a few days a month for less than a year? And so, with all rational sense tossed aside, I packed up and moved. No friends, no job, just love in my heart. Looking back, we were nuts!
Shortly after I'd made London my new home, we were driving over London Bridge. Ron asked, "Hermione, will you please marry me? I want to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. I love you." Through tears, I said "yes" a hundred times over.
Our honeymoon has never ended. We've built a life together, bought a home, had a child, with another on the way. We always talk about our future. We have discovered that, as much as we have in common, there are many things we feel differently about. But it's those differences that make us fall in love with each other again and again each day.
Now I'm thirty, and as I look back, I can say without a doubt that love is a powerful thing. It binds unlikely people together and helps them discover qualities within themselves and others that they never knew they had. To think I expected to plan out every step of my life! To think that I believed there were no such things as soul mates and deep, passionate love. How was it that I had become so set in my ways at such a young age, determined to live my life according to a self-imposed code that left no room for chance, for magic, for the unpredictable power of love?
FIN.