Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to the Harry Potter universe. All rights regarding Harry Potter are in the possession of J.K. Rowling and any natural or legal persons that she has transferred rights to.
Chapter Eight
The Wedding
Ron bolted off his bed the moment he felt the breach of the floo ward. Quickly shoving his wand in his back pocket absently thinking he should find a better means of carrying it, he raced down the rickety, warped steps of his house, made a sharp u-turn as he rounded the landing and continued his dash to the kitchen area. Before he made it inside, however, the door was flung open and out popped Hermione, her expression bright and cheery and instantly filling him with a warm sense of affection. Without missing a beat, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her, lifting her into the air in the process and spinning her around.
She let out a little cry of surprise as she whistled through the air, managing to plant both her hands on his shoulders for support and sneaking a quick kiss that was quickly deepening as he set her back down. Breathlessly, they finally pulled apart and looked at each other.
"Missed you," they both said in unison and then promptly proceeded to blush, Hermione turning her head away as though the sight of Ron were suddenly too intense, as though the wattage of his radiance had suddenly increased ten fold. With her cheek exposed to him, he did the only thing that made sense in his Hermione-addled brain. He kissed her again, and then, deciding that that was not quite enough for him, kissed her once more, only closer to her jaw. Soon, he found himself kissing her along the curve of her neck and feeling her press into him with a warm, content sigh. "Missed you terribly," he whispered into her ear, the breath from his words tickling her skin gently.
"Good God, get a room," Ginny huffed, throwing an ornamental pixie at Ron's head, who absently tried to swat it away as it began buzzing angrily about. "Ger off, you stupid insect!" Ron muttered, continuing to swat futilely at the tiny winged creature whose ire had been provoked. Hermione smiled and then waved her wand, causing the pixie to lose interest and drift back to the railing where it had been perched.
"What did you do to it?" Ron asked.
"A double charm, of course. It's a combination of a cheering charm and a confundus charm. Though I had to modify both to take some of the edge off. Mostly it just calms the recipient and distracts them long enough for you to get away."
Ron made an attempt to process Hermione's words and, when he managed to fail miserably at it, decided to smile beatifically in an attempt to fake comprehension.
Hermione, not being duped in the slightest, only smiled harder and slapped him on his arm. "Come on, let's go upstairs. We deserve a bit of private time before the festivities start."
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Ron said, taking Hermione's hand and leading her up the stairs, all the while Hermione sending him strange glances. When they got to the top, she stopped and asked, "Ron, when did you learn Shakespeare?"
"Er, well," Ron began, blushing to the roots. "I haven't had much to do this summer, and, well, you know, thought I'd pick up a book or two." The last few words were spoken so quietly that Hermione had to make an educated guess as to what they were. "Books?" she inquired curiously, letting the question hang in the air.
"Er, yeah, books. You know, those ruddy things you're always going on about. Thought I'd give one a try, you know?"
This only seemed to make Hermione study Ron more intensely, as though she were scrutinizing him to make sure he was not a figment of her imagination, or possibly a new breed of scrute. Finally pulling back and returning her attention to him, she said, "Who are you and what have you done with Ron?"
"Hey!" he exclaimed indignantly. "I'll have you know I'm perfectly capable of picking up a book and reading it!"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's not an issue of capability, Ron. it's an issue of interest."
Ron nodded, as if conceding defeat. Then, he said, "Yeah, I know. Come on, let's go to my room."
They finished crossing the distance. Once inside, Ron drew his wand and flicked it at the door, casting a silencing charm. He then moved to aim the charms at all the walls. Once done, he started muttering, staring idly at his wand and not really seeming to be pointing it at anything.
"Ron?" Hermione asked tentatively, afraid to break his concentration and whatever it was that he was doing, which appeared to be rather creepy, all things considered. He made a gesture with one hand to silence her. After a minute, he seemed to relax and then said, "There. I think I did it."
"Did what, exactly?"
"I erected a silencing ward."
Hermione's eyebrows shot up, and she gave him that questioning look that said, Are you sure that's what you meant to say?
Ron chose to ignore it and instead went and had a seat at his bed, inviting Hermione to come join him. She acquiesced and there they sat. For the first time, she looked around the room and discovered that it didn't appear to be quite as orange as it had been the last time she had been there, which had only been three days ago, not that it was apparent from the way they embraced downstairs. Having finally taken in the place, she turned to Ron and said, "Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"
"Such as?" Ron responded a bit too quickly. There seemed to be something both grave and mischievous dancing in his blue eyes. "Well, there seems to be a few more books than I last remember there being."
"Ah, I suppose you would fix on that first."
"Well?"
Ron shrugged as though it were no big deal. "I suppose I'd gotten to thinking about..." He trailed off, suddenly unsure of himself. It wasn't that he didn't know how he felt within himself; it was more that he wasn't sure he could properly articulate it into words. he had never been the Ravenclaw sort. Finally, he decided that maybe it would simply be better if he talked about the other day, and she, being her usually intelligent self, would simply infer or extrapolate his own motivations. Yeah, he thought, then she can explain it to me. "Mione, the other day I took a walk up the road." He paused, trying to drum up the best way to approach this. He already knew that telling her was going to get him a long lecture about safety and possibly rule-breaking. Not that he cared that much, since he knew he had a solid argument to refute those claims. it was the same argument he had used against first bill and then his father, when they had come to interrogate him on what exactly he had been doing getting mixed up in that affair. You know, he thought, maybe it's not the best thing to be telling her this. It's not as though she needs the worry. She'll understand if you just tell her you... "I'm tired," he said suddenly, fixing his gaze directly on hers for a moment, as he cut off his own train of thought. Taking a deep breath he went on, "I'm tired and I'm angry. I'm tired, because there's this tension that's always around, you know? It's like, I have no idea what's going on around here. I know there's a million and one wards on this place, but I can't name a single one. I don't know how they work, I don't know how effective they are. Does this mean that You-Know-Who can't come here? What about his death eaters? What of muggles? I don't know. It seems that, the more I think about it, the more I realize that there's a lot I don't know about, and I'm tired of not knowing, Mione. I'm tired of wondering whether a death eater's going to pop up behind me or wondering how many aurors it takes to guard a single person or what the death eaters can and cannot do. I mean, they're all supposed to be trained wizards, right? Like they're all supposed to be so much more advanced than me. I'm only supposed to have one year left to go. How much more advanced can they possibly be? What am I missing?" Ron ran his fingers through his auburn hair, and pulled his gaze away from Hermione to stare off into the distance. He felt he was on a roll, even though he knew he wasn't really making much sense. "Chances are, we're all going to die, or at least some of us. I for one would like to go down fighting, hopefully protecting somebody, instead of being the one protected. I don't want to be clumsy anymore or thoughtless or reckless. I want to walk into a situation and know what the odds are - even if they're not good - even if they're non-existent. I'd like to know when death is imminent and how and why. Not just, 'oh the wards fell and we need to flee'. And then I think, maybe if I knew how to ward a thing or two, I could help, and not just be a reserve piece or a pawn. Bill said to me the other day that I'm part of his family and that it's his responsibility to protect me. Well, the way I see it is that he's part of my family too, and that means that it's also my responsibility to protect him. And what kind of a person would I be, knowing that there's all this danger around and here I am trying to wallow in ignorance so I can get a few more laughs in before we all die? so that I can try to salvage some remnant of my childhood? Let's face it - our childhoods have ended. And I for one am not saddened by that fact. I had a good childhood; I was carefree for most of it and we had a good run of things in Hogwarts when we got there - from Norbert to the DOM. It's time to move on. It's time for me to figure out how the hell we're going to make it through this mess once and for all. You and I both know that Harry's going to be at the center of it when all the chips are down, and we're going to be there too. And if we want to give him a clear shot at You-Know-Who-" Ron took a deep breath and tried again, "a clear shot at V-V-Voldemort, then it's going to fall on you and me to keep his soldiers at bay. We know they travel in packs; we know they like to sneak up on you from behind. That means that we're going to have to be good. No, wait, check that. We're going to have to be more than good - we're going to have to be bloody awesome, because chances are, we'll each have like three or four or even ten death eaters to deal with. I'm not saying we're going to have to take them all down. No, that's bloody ridiculous, but we're going to have to hold them off long enough for Harry to have his chance, and if that means throwing our lives away in the process... well, I for one am prepared to do that. So, with all that, I've decided once and for all that I'm going to do what I've been avoiding the last six years." Ron lifted the nearest book off his night table and tossed it at his girlfriend. "I'm going to read."
Hermione caught the book, still amazed at her boyfriend's monologue. Glancing down at the title of the book in her hand, she did a double-take. On the spine, it read: 1001 SUCCESS STORIES: A DEATH EATER'S GUIDE TO BEING EVIL. At first, the words didn't seem to register, as though they were making their way to her cerebellum through a thick haze. Hermione rolled the words over her tongue, and discovered that, try as she might, she could not fathom taking a book with that title seriously. The first thing that made her incredulous was the simple fact that there had never been 1001 death eaters to speak of. She supposed that multiple stories could actually be apportioned to a single death eater, but even then it seemed a bit much. More probably, she decided the book referred to stories by other evil doers and death eaters were simply mimicking their behaviour. a third option was that the title was merely an exaggeration. After moving through those possibilities, Hermione then considered the likelihood of death eaters and other such evil doer types actually sitting down and sharing their stories for the purposes of compiling into a compendium of anecdotes. All in all, Hermione was not exactly impressed with Ron's reading material. Ergo, her first question was, "Did Fred or George give this to you?"
"Ron sighed. "No, it was Bill. Just look inside, would you?"
Hermione decided, that, after Ron's speech, the least she could do was indulge him. And so, she found herself opening the book carefully to the first page, and then the second and the third. What she found was something she hadn't ever thought possible. By the time she skimmed the first ten pages, she looked up at Ron in wonder. "This is brilliant!" she breathed. "How did anybody get all this information? I've never read such a clear description of the killing curse in my entire life. I mean, I always knew the catalyzing emotion was hatred, but Sir Borthelrock's description of the difference between hatred borne out of revenge for an individual and that borne out of revenge for the world generally and its impact on the nature, strength, effect and quality of the curse is, well... comprehensive, to say the least. It says here you can actually tell from the colour warmth of the green light whether the spell caster has been wronged by the world or by an individual. Amazing. And then there's the Cruciatus. I'd thought that hate was the main ingredient for that one as well, but here it says it's actually anger, and that, unlike the killing curse which requires an antecedent wrong, real or perceived, committed against the caster, the Cruciatus needs no such prerequisite. In fact, the more you've been wronged, the more likely you're acting out of righteous anger, which will cause the spell to seize up. You need true malice to cast the spell. No wonder it didn't work when I tried it." Hermione seemed to mutter that last part to herself, but Ron heard it, and it nearly knocked him off his bed.
"You WHAT!" he squeaked.
"Excuse me?" Hermione asked, looking up from the book.
"You cast the cruciatus?" Ron asked again, his voice attempting to return to normal.
"Only as an academic matter," Hermione said dismissively. "Not on any real target. Though, I suppose if I had actually gotten something to come out of my wand, I would have tried it briefly on an insect. Or maybe a conjured animal. From what I gather, that's not technically illegal, though it's probably frowned upon. Not that anyone would really have to know about it. Again, it's purely an academic matter."
Before Ron could say anything else, they both heard the call of Molly Weasley beckoning them down for a late afternoon snack.
"Coming!" Ron called, Hermione wincing from having been subjected to Ron's bellow. He then turned to her and said, "Come on, we can talk more over food. There's some stuff I've been meaning to ask you anyway."
"About what?" Hermione asked, getting to her feet.
"It's about perimeter charms. Can't find a thing about them, but I know they exist. heard Bill talking about them once."
"Are you referring to perimeter charms fixed to a stationary object, like a ward on a building? Or are you referring to the ones cast on moving objects, like people?"
"The second one," Ron said as they descended the steps to the growing chatter of people. The main floor seemed suddenly full of all types, ranging from photographers to wedding designers, security detail, groomspeople and so on and so on. Ron cast about, surprised at how quickly the place had filled up, though he supposed he should have known better, given that it was the day before the wedding. He had heard Bill and Charlie laughing about how vilas made even bigger deals out of weddings than purebloods.
Just then, Fred and George came bounding out of the throng of people, eager grins on their faces.
"Oh brother of mine!"
"Yes, our little Ronniekins!"
"Heard you've been getting yourself caught up in your own little adventure."
"And admirers no less."
Ron groaned inwardly. How did those two clowns find out about his 653 debacle? Ron decided that after their honeymoon, he would kill Bill for spilling it, for Ron was confident that there was no way his dad would have gone around mentioning such a thing. Worse yet, Hermione was right next to him and seemed to be trying to piece together what it was that Fred and George were saying. Should have told her up front, he thought grimly.
"So, er, how's the joke shop?" Ron asked, trying to divert their attention in what he knew to be a rather lame attempt.
"Now, now," Fred said, wagging a finger in front of Ron's face. "No sense trying to change the subject on us. Tell all, little bro." George threw an arm around Ron's shoulder and began steering him to the kitchen. "Yes, we want the details. The way we figure it, you're-"
"Fred! George!" Molly's voice came issuing from beyond the doorway to the kitchen. The quartet stopped, Fred and George giving each other sideways long glances. "Er, do you s'pose she found the mayhem marshmallows?"
"I'm thinking she might've," George agreed.
"S'pose we'd maybe better beat a hasty retreat. Shop's be needing us and all." And with that, the twins disappeared just as quickly as they had come, their red hair disappearing in the maelstrom of bodies that were trafficking about.
"Hey have you seen Gabrielle?" a witch in flowing red robes asked, coming up to Hermione.
"Er, no, is she around?"
"Yes, we're just doing some preliminary photos of the de la Coeur family." Seeing that she was not going to find her prey near Ron and Hermione, the stranger disappeared. Before another moment could pass, the hallway seemed to be thinning out a bit as people went outside to arrange for the apparent photo shoot.
"Bloody ridiculous," Ron muttered. "Come on, let's eat. And maybe pray this madness will stop by the end of tomorrow."
"Yeah."
The day passed relatively uneventfully. Ron and Hermione talked; people shifted about from one end of the house to the other, busily decorating, expanding, charming and, warding for all kinds of situations. Ron and Hermione had been forced to have their dinner early, with assurances from Molly to Ron that he would be entitled to a midnight snack. There were so many people bustling about that she had to feed on the eve of the wedding that, even despite the multitude of expansion charms that had been used to accommodate the additional guests, there still wasn't enough room. Ron still remembered the blowout when Fleur's parents suggested holding the wedding somewhere a little more - Ron thought the term they had used was modernist, though he wasn't quite sure what that meant. At any rate, Molly would not hear of it, and even went red at the thought of it being a catered event. This was her eldest son's wedding and it was going to be at the Burrow come hell or high water. It didn't hurt that the Burrow had become a fortress, and with the loss of Dumbledore and the congregation of many of Voldemort's enemies at this one event, security was a critical issue. Not that Ron thought an attack was likely. He had, quite frankly, been surprised at the moves that Voldemort had been making since his return. he had always imagined Voldemort to be something akin to a dragon - a larger than life mythic creature that went around terrorizing people in an attempt to satiate an endless bloodlust. It wasn't so much that he believed that on a conscious level; rather the fear with which people referred to him always gave Ron the impression that there was a lot of senseless killing going on. From what Ron could tell, the killing seemed rather sensible. He didn't agree with it of course. Killing was generally a bad thing in his books, though if asked, he probably would have agreed that capital punishment was acceptable. If he probed himself a little, he would have realized that he really knew nothing about capital punishment, or the debates surrounding it, and that would be why no one ever asked him anything related to anything remotely serious. All that was fine by him, as far as he was concerned. or at least it was last month.
That night, Ron and Hermione found themselves tucked away together in the Weasley living room, Hermione pressed up against Ron and nestling her head in the crook of his shoulder and sighing in a contented fashion intermittently. Ron stared into the fireplace, which had a magical fire going, courtesy of his wand. He had made a point of learning one new spell and one surveillance/countersurveillance measure each day. The fire he was now playing with was a testament to that. In addition to being dead useful for creating a cozy atmosphere with his leading lady, it had the added ability to only be subdued through magical means. It was the kind of thing wizards had historically used to torment muggles, because muggles had no means of putting it out. Water was completely ineffective and so the only recourse had been to box off the fire and wait until the magic ran out. The only disadvantage was that it didn't burn through muggle chemicals the way non-magical fires did, which Ron supposed, was actually a good thing because some of those muggle things could be really explosive. Or so he had heard. Wizards didn't really have bombs, or compressed gasses, or highly flammable liquids. they also didn't understand that the ingredient in air that caused combustion was oxygen and that it only composed a minority fraction of the stuff they all breathed. It was a woeful ignorance.
"Hermione?" he asked tentatively.
"Mmm?" she said, snuggling closer and sighing yet again.
Ron instinctively put an arm around her, letting his hand come to rest on her mid-section. He stroked it absently as he began speaking. "Why do you like me?"
The speed at which she bolt upright was downright frightening, Ron decided. Her eyes, which had been closed and unfocused a moment ago, were now keenly searching his face like a predator stalking its prey. "Why do you ask that?"
Ron gently coaxed her back down into a submissive position, once again putting his arm around her and enjoying the comfort of her warm body against his. "Relax. It was nothing. I was just thinking."
"About what?" she asked.
Like you didn't know she was going to probe, he thought, and then collected himself to respond. "You're really smart. And you're mature. You're thoughtful, disciplined, considerate of others." Ron wanted to add that she was beautiful too, but decided that that was getting off track. So, he continued while reigning the impulse to espouse to her the virtues of her physical attributes. "Sometimes I think that we're both rather different. I love Quidditch, and you love books. I'm clueless about the muggle world, and well, it's part of you, isn't it? It's part of you and I know nothing about it." Ron raised his hand in a pacifying gesture, as Hermione seemed ready to object. "let me finish. I'm not saying we're no good for each other or that you're not my type or some other such rubbish. I just think that maybe..." he wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. He knew what it was he wanted, but he wasn't quite sure how to say it without making himself sound like a clod. Shaking himself of that feeling, he barreled onwards. "I think that maybe I want to be better than I am. For so many reasons, and not just because of the war, though the war's part of it. You're a wonderful person, and you're worth fighting for. You're worth trying to become a better person." Ron wasn't sure he had expressed himself fully, but he knew that anything else he could add would just be garbled versions of what he'd already stated. As such, he finished by saying, "That's what I was thinking about."
"Ron," Hermione said, sitting up and leaning close to him. "That may very well be one of the sweetest things you've ever said to me." She leaned in closer and kissed him full on the lips, which he returned happily, both of them snaking their arms around one another to fit more comfortably. When they pulled apart, Hermione began talking, "I don't think I'm nearly the saint you make me out to be. I know I was a bit extreme when we were younger. Even last year, there was so much I wanted to say to you, to tell you how I felt, but I couldn't bring myself to do it because I was afraid. Afraid of getting hurt." Hermione let out a quiet little laugh. "I can't tell you how many times I fantasized about hexing both you and Lavender - Lavender for taking you from me and you for making me feel this way." She stopped and considered her words more carefully, thinking about what Ron had just told her. She was aware that it had been something difficult for him, and that it was deeply personal. She wanted to return the gesture, and in a meaningful way. "Ron," she said carefully. "You probably know that I'm a bit of a feminist. Well, maybe you don't know what that word means, but, well, I'm sure you understand the idea. I think that women should be treated equally and have equal rights. I think all creatures should have that, and that they should be taught from early in their lives to enjoy certain basic rights and have freedom from oppression and the kind of teachings that tell them not to exercise those rights." Hermione bit her lip, concentrating on how she wanted to phrase the next part. Then, she continued, "If someone told me last year that I couldn't handle something, then I set out to prove them wrong no matter what. It's one of the reasons I came to love and need knowledge. I never wanted to be pushed down. I never wanted to be sheltered or regarded as someone who needed protection, because I wasn't independent enough or strong enough to protect myself. But since I've been with you, I've started feeling like I would be proud to be protected by you. When you stand up for me against Malfoy and those others, it gives me a warm feeling inside. I've never felt that way about anyone before."
After Hermione's speech, silence reigned for a long time between them, and she chose to settle back down against him. After a time, when Hermione had decided that Ron wasn't going to speak, he surprised her by saying only two words. "Thank you."
With that, Ron pulled his feet up onto the couch and stretched them alongside Hermione's so that they lay next to one another, Hermione spooned against him and packed tightly on the couch. Hermione took her wand and expanded the couch slightly so as to give them more room. Ron meanwhile, puffed up their lone pillow and proceeded to hold her until they fell asleep.
The wedding was a boisterous, two day affair. There was an enormous cake, a bottomless bar with fifteen different kinds of firewhisky, not to mention liqueurs and wines of all different sizes. Ron was introduced to a 1986 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from the south of France, courtesy of the de la Coeurs. The ceremony itself took place on a recently fashioned veranda that had been ornately decorated, expanded to accommodate a hundred or so people and overlooked an escarpment that led down into a chasm of torrential rivers that were both awe-inspiring and fierce. the charms work that had been done on the Burrow's backyard to make the image of the cliff-side was among some of the most enviable in the world.
As part of their wedding vows, they both made a solemn affirmation on their magic that they would be there for one another until the end of their lives. Bill had spoken his in French as a sign of respect to the de la Coeurs, and Fleur had conversely done hers in English. Bill had also executed a traditional goblin rune ritual, binding their magics together and creating a marriage bond older than that of the Ministry itself.
all in all, it was a good two days. That is, until Ron and Hermione spotted Kingsley Shacklebolt appearing out of the floo connection and talking quietly to Arthur Weasley in one corner. This seemed like a particularly bad omen, because, for one thing, Harry was late, and for a second, he was supposed to be showing up with Shacklebolt himself. The fact that the powerful auror was appearing alone seemed to suggest only one thing to the intrepid adventurers. Of course, that was only the beginning. When attempting to question Ron's mother, about Harry's whereabouts, they discovered that Molly was under such stress regarding the preparations of the appetizers, that she responded simply by saying, "Go ask your father."
This, however, proved to be extremely difficult, for, shortly after having seen the conversation between Shacklebolt and Arthur, Ron and Hermione discovered that both Mr. Weasley and the auror were conspicuously absent.
"There's really not much we can do about it," Hermione said in a defeated tone.
"Yeah," Ron agreed half-heartedly. "It's not like we could fly an enchanted car to Little Whinging and hunt down the blighter for getting himself in trouble again."
"If only it were that easy."
They stood in companionable silence for a long time before Ron finally said. "Harry's capable of taking care of himself, I reckon. Besides, he's supposed to have that blood ward thingy operating, and if anyone can find him, it'll be dad and Mr. Shacklebolt. There's really nothing we can do."
"Yeah," Hermione agreed. "And besides, we should be here for Bill. It is his wedding, after all, and it's probably all around rather important to him. He wants his entire family around, I'm sure."
"Of course, of course," Ron said, nodding, almost as if to convince himself. "I mean, he'd miss us if we weren't there. Why, he'd probably go apoplectic if he scanned the crowds of adoring onlookers and saw only six bundles of red hair."
"Well, it really would be more than six, wouldn't it? I mean there's your cousin Iashi and her half-sister with the fake freckles."
"Ah, yes. Runswel. I'd almost forgotten about her. Brunette, that one."
Yeah, yeah. Bushy hair, if I recall."
"Very bushy," Ron agreed. "The bushiest, in fact."
Ron turned his eyes from the window overlooking the fake escarpment and cast his eyes downward at the freshly polished, scrubbed and buffed imitation hardwood floors his great aunt Virginia had gotten at a discount lumber yard. At first, his mind wandered to the fact that they were clearly very cheap, and only the presence of a sophisticated illusion charm was fooling any of the guests. Their whole house, in fact, had become a parody of what they all were. He supposed it couldn't be helped, since Bill and fleur came from opposite sides of the social world. Upper class aristocratic French vilas on the one hand and financially down-trodden, pureblood nuclear family Brits on the other. The wedding was doomed to be a sham from the start. It never had a chance, really. Just then, Ron spotted something on the floor - something which seemed distinctly out of character amidst the bronze sheen of the floor polish, and, curious about it, he knelt and studied the tiny brown hair that had settled cross-wise on the grain of the wood.
"Ron?" Hermione asked.
"Hmm?" Ron began, not really paying attention to her. The sight of the tiny hair was nothing special, he supposed, but it seemed to call to him from some time-darkened pit. Some memory from long ago was crying to be let out, the flavour of it tempting the tip of his tongue. "Nothing," he said distractedly, getting to his feet. "Just thought I saw something." He then turned to Hermione, who was biting her lip in a very Hermione-esque way. It meant, I want to say something but I'm not sure I should for fear you'll explode in a huff. Ron idly was amused by the fact that he knew her so well. it made him feel good inside, and so, with such warmth in his heart, he decided to be charitable and speak her mind for her. "What say you and I take a little trip to Little Whinging?"
"Yeah."
And with that, they both walked straight out the front doors and down the street, past the apparation point where they immediately apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. From there, they took a taxi and drove the hour all the way to Little Whinging, settling themselves into a comfortable silence, knowing that they were going to be in big trouble for it and not caring. A piece of them had gone missing and, as far as they were concerned, if it weren't up to them to reclaim that trinity, then it was really up to no one.
