Disclaimer: Not Jo Rowling, don't own Harry
A/N: I told myself I'd never do one of these…but here it is. I had to get out of that angst hole I'd thrown myself into. Hermione PoV, post HBP, minor HBP spoilers.
Summary: Ron asks a question without saying a word.
He asks—if one can call it asking—on a Friday in late February.
They have spent the better part of the day waiting for Harry to return from an errand either could attend under the pretense that she was still recovering and shouldn't be left alone. Now, she thinks, she should have found it more suspicious when he agreed to remain so easily.
Outside the world is a blur of grey with the steady drip of the rain against the window keeping them company, the flickering light from the oil lamps making the pearl sitting on the ring in his fingers smile up at her.
It's a simple ring, a thin gold band and a smooth cream colored pearl, most likely an heirloom, from his grandmother or great aunt, something that has passed through many hands, seeped with his family's magic, their history.
There is an odd sort of determination set in the lines on his face and his eyes are bright.
His hand shakes terribly as he holds her own left hand, the smooth circle of gold held just at the tip of her finger as he waits for an answer.
There is something to this moment that breaks her heart, which while saddening, seems fitting for the two of them in the sort of way that were she to think about it she would realize all Ron Weasley has been doing for the past six years is breaking her heart before fixing in that clumsy way of his.
She stares at him, counting the freckles over his right eyebrow, unsure if she has ever imagined this moment. Surely in all her day dreams (for even Hermione Granger is allowed to day dream now and again) she must have stumbled blindly across this moment. She must have picture a situation where he would get down on one knee, remove a little box from his cloak and ask.
But this, this is nothing like that. He's sitting for one, and her eyes are heavy with sleep and surely her hair is mess, propped up by too many pillows, all of which have lost their plump softness years ago. He produced the ring from an empty bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans, and most noticeably of all, he didn't breathe a word.
She wishes, not for the first time, that she could write Ginny or her mother or Mrs. Weasley, and ask for advice or at the very least share the happenings of the past six months (she wonders vaguely if anyone knew she almost died not two weeks ago).
She realizes a silence has settled over them and he begins to fidget with the ring, his thumb brushing absentmindedly over the knuckle of her left ring finger.
"Of 'course."
She says, her voice is low, surprisingly steady (she would have expected to be a blubbering mess by now). She watches as he slides the smooth band down her finger, surprised by how right it looks, resting there.
His entire body visibly relaxes and the silence around them transforms as he smiles at her, his eyes dancing, pulling her into a somewhat awkward hug.
She feels the dull pain spring up in her healing shoulder, feels his laughter vibrate in his chest, and finds her own laughter rising in the back of her throat and suddenly she's laughing and crying and he's kissing her.
An odd thing called Hope fills her, an amazing warmth she hasn't felt in oh, so long.
She finds herself picturing a fall wedding, with their family and friends, Harry at their side, smiling in the way every person should. She peers further still, into the blurry future and sees a son with his grin and a girl with brown eyes that melt her heart as easily as her father's. She wishes to keep looking, to see them old, and older still, wrinkled and greyed but living life to it's fullest.
What she does not picture, does not know, is that one-day, in the years that will follow, when these days seem surreal and oddly detached, he will ask again. He will ask with candles and flowers and all the tangible markers of the thing some foolishly call romance.
But for now, this, the moment, will have to do. She cannot give herself to the dream yet, cannot abandon the present for the after, for even within the circle of his arms the weight of the world presses down.
It just feels slightly more bearable.
End
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