The little box arrived by owl on the day that he was meant to be returning to Durmstrang. Hermione would not be accompanying him this year so he was forced to arrange an opportunity to gift it to her among the already hectic preparations for the school year.

Berg had left all of his school belongings scattered around his cottage and had indicated in his most recent letter that he would be meeting him at Durmstrang to save the trouble of two trips to the portal. Gellert thought that was all very well, except now they had to pack everything for him. Digging through Berg's underwear drawers whilst Hermione read extracts of his brother's draft love letters to his muggle girlfriend was not the right opportunity to give her a gift.

Nor was it the right time when he was scrambling under his own bed in search of missing quills, or standing on a stool in the front room whilst an elf tailored a new uniform. Hermione, oblivious as usual to any of his romantic overtures, was reading his divination notes and discussing his visions.

'This one seems like the past - American revolution, I believe... or maybe the French... I can't remember which ones it was that wore that red, white and blue rosette.' She pushed aside the page into one of the piles of her own making.

'Future... definitely. 1910' she decided, putting an image of one of the muggle horseless carriages with giant wands fixed to the top into the far right pile. She hesitated over the image of her in the courtroom, the one that had puzzled Gellert because it showed her at her current age. Then it joined the furthest future pile.

'Past.' She decided, 'I'm pretty sure I saw him in the dungeons.' Hermione waved an image of the late Lord Dolohov, then she froze. 'Wait, this was the night that they were taken by the Revolutionaries. I remember that coat.'

Ignoring the protests of the elf, Gellert left the stool and joined her. He peered over her shoulder at the image. It was entirely unremarkable - an elf served Herr Dolohov with a thick, vibrantly magenta coloured soup. He was ignoring the creature, as usual, and laughing at something someone had said. Despite the jovial expression on his lips, his eyes spoke of the stress of war. The coat that Hermione spoke of was not particularly memorable, but she was tapping a tiny detail that he almost hadn't bothered to add - a button that had been stitched on with the wrong coloured thread. It was the kind of thing that would be fixed by an elf properly next time the garment went to the laundry, and if it had still remained when Hermione had seen him, it was almost certain evidence that this image had been of the day that they were abducted.

'Put it aside.' He instructed. Hermione tucked it into the shelf of other things relating to the events in Russia - three bottled vials of memory, two drawings and pages of dream notes. He reviewed it every couple of mornings, but nothing had come to light yet.

Her mood evidently spoiled, his sister sat in one of the large armchairs and gazed into the fire. It was miserable for a summer day, so the elves had stoked it high. He had vague memories of his mother sitting in that very same chair and reading when he was very young, back when she'd worn gowns in bold colours and her hair had been a glorious golden blonde. He'd often imagined that someday his own betrothed would sit in that chair to work on some embroidery whilst he worked at his desk; she'd be just like his mother; dressed in a rich silk dress, skin as fair as snow and golden hair not a whit out of place, bedecked in a wealth of his family jewels, delicate and vulnerable so that he could protect her.

Now, looking at Hermione in that very same chair, he couldn't figure out how in the name of magic he'd ever thought that would be perfect. Hermione didn't embroider or paint, she read heavy, advanced magical tombs and had ink staining her fingers and face more often than not. Her hair was a wild mess which was often barely restrained into braids and although her fingers were heavy with rings, none were decorative and she wore no other jewellery. She didn't need to be decorated to be beautiful - her magic glowed with vitality and power that shimmered like an aura around her, her eyes sparkled with mischief and kindness. And she was his equal, who could share the burden of responsibility, who could stand up to him when he was wrong and help to steer him back onto the right track. She was perfect.

He found himself pulling the box out of his pocket before he'd even realised it and by the time he found himself kneeling at her side, it was too late to change course. He'd planned some great event, a declaration, a speech. Instead, he just wordlessly opened the box and showed her its contents.

'Is this betrothal jewellery?' She asked, a sharp note in her voice.

'No, no!' Gellert quickly assured, a weight settling in his gut to tell him that he'd messed this up. 'It's semi-precious, and not in house colours.'

Hermione pursed her lips, then leant forwards to take a look inside the box. Her eyes lit up as soon as she saw it and she reached in to lift out the silver chain. The necklace was incredibly fine, barely visible as a glimmer against her skin. Every couple of centimetres a slight blue pearl shimmered like the water in the cove it had been pulled from.

'Are these..?'

'The pearls from the mussels we picked. A reminder of your first date.' Gellert informed her with a smile. Hermione gasped, knocking the box from his hand as she threw herself forwards and wrapped her arms around him.

'Put it on me, please?' She pulled away and pressed the chain into his fingers in a poor substitute. He fiddled for a couple of seconds with the tiny clasp, then looped it around her neck. She swept her braided hair out of the way so that he could do it up behind her, then he spent a couple of seconds arranging the little hanging pearls so that they splayed out over her neck prettily. She edged sideways so that she could look at it in the mirror.

It was small and subtle and he desperately hoped that he'd been right in his assumption that she would prefer emotionally significant jewels to decadent ones.

'I love it.' She exclaimed, her hands coming up to adjust the tiny stones. 'I'm going to show your mother.'

Then she rewarded him with a quick kiss to his cheek and danced out of the room. He was glad that she'd gone, because the adrenaline had worn off and he suddenly found his legs very shaky. He sank into the chair that she'd occupied only minutes earlier. Giving girls jewellery was exhausting.