Diamonds

Prompt: [Harry x Daphne] Diamonds
for gwen-devilliers

"Diamonds?" Harry asked as he stared at the ring between his fingers as if it might be able to answer his desperate query. "Are you sure?"

"Of course, I'm not sure," Hermione sighed. "I told you, multiple times, that I was the very last person you should take ring shopping." Hermione paused as Luna - who was also along for the ride and ill-equipped for the task at hand - added a gaudy, eighth ring to her left hand. "Well, maybe not quite the last, but I'm still not useful. What would I know about what Daphne would like in a ring?"

"You get along now, don't you?" Harry asked with an unexpected hint of panic. Had he somehow failed to observe that his best friend and his girlfriend hated each other?

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course we do, we both love you, Harry, so we try. But we casually like each other, we're not close. I have no idea what she would like as her engagement ring. You should have asked Draco or Blaise." Harry made a face. "You could have asked Theo if the others were not an option."

Harry placed the ring back on the ostentatious pillow the assistant was still holding out and gave her an apologetic shrug. He took a short look around the room before he went back to looking at the cabinet he had been returning to all morning.

"You know I would never ask Malfoy for help, especially not with this. Can you imagine how insufferably smug he would have been."

"Yes," Hermione replied seriously, "with great ease, smug is one of Draco's specialities. But, smug or not, he would have made sure you got a good ring. He might have been tempted to pull a prank, but his general snobbiness would have prevented him from letting you buy subpar jewellery."

Harry eyed the significant rock on Hermione's finger and conceded there was nothing 'subpar' about her engagement ring. When Ron had seen it for the first time, after the ferret had unexpectedly proposed to their best friend, he had asked where the figure skaters that came with it were.

Harry rubbed a hand through his hair and tried not to panic. This was all supposed to be on gut feeling, wasn't it? He was supposed to know Daphne so well that he would know exactly what the right ring was without even trying. What did it mean if he didn't know? Did it imply he didn't love her enough? Was it a sign she would say no?

"Harry," Luna's voice chimed from the other side of the shop. Seemingly unconcerned by his dilemma, she was placing a second necklace around herself and dancing in front of the mirror to watch it sparkle.

"Luna, I'm a little busy right now."

"I can see that," she replied, though Harry didn't know what she meant as she wasn't looking at him. "Why don't you just buy the vintage sapphire and diamond one you keep looking at, and then we can go to lunch."

Harry stared down at the ring and wished he didn't feel so indecisive. "How do I know it's the right one? I don't even know why I keep looking at it."

"Of course you do, it's the same blue as her eyes," Luna said as if she was talking to a small child before swapping the necklace for a less dramatic one.

Harry looked again, and sure enough Luna was right, nestled between two large diamonds was a sapphire the size of his thumbnail in the precisely the same mystifyingly captivating blue of Daphne's eyes.

Harry smiled. "Can we take this one?" he asked in the general direction of the counter.

"Oh, thank Merlin," Hermione muttered. "Come on, Luna, let's start getting you out of all of this stuff."

Harry barely noticed. He had a full five minutes of relief until he realised he still had to plan a proposal.