He hadn't been alone when the night started; far from it, in fact. He had been surrounded, as he had been for most of his life, by his enormous brood of siblings, which had only grown as time went on, as he had brought Harry and Hermione into the fold, as Bill had gotten married.
But no, that wasn't true at all. It hadn't only grown. They were down a number. Weasley siblings: formerly seven, now six. It was why they'd all been down at the pub in the first place that evening. They'd had to bury their brother that day. No matter how many more unofficial siblings married into the family, the core number would never be the same again. Ron swore softly and motioned to the bartender for another pint, which he drank half of in one go.
He was alone now, at the pub. They had slowly trickled back home to the Burrow, starting with Percy who clearly felt uncomfortable being back after the estrangement, and finally ending with Charlie who would have probably ordinarily have gone shot-for-shot with Ron all night except for he was stuck on Romania time and had stuck it out until he was practically snoring into his ale.
Ron had never been drunk before. There was the occasional round of smuggled firewhiskey in the boys' dorm at school, but one bottle split five ways had not gotten him nearly as off-kilter as he was tonight. He had heard plenty of tales from Seamus, ever the Irishman, about the effects of too much alcohol, but he supposed it differed from person to person, and he was quite put out to realize that he was apparently not one of the lucky sods who could forget everything, literally drowning their sorrows away in a river of booze. He remembered everything, much too clearly. His brother, dead. Harry, dead. At least Harry had come back. But Fred…
It had only been three days, but everything had changed. Even being back at home after nearly a year away wasn't the comfort he would have thought it would be. It was all at once much too crowded (one loo for all of them had always been a pain) and excruciatingly lonely as everyone drifted apart to grieve in their own ways, congregating only briefly at mealtimes. Not to mention that every inch of the Burrow held memories of Fred, and it was painful even to look at George. How, how were they ever supposed to carry on?
He felt her presence more than he saw it, or heard her coming. She had neglected the invitation to the pub in favor of taking over the laundry from his mum, who had burst into tears that afternoon after inadvertently washing a left-behind sweater of Fred's and hadn't yet recovered.
So surely she could only be there now to scold him. Charlie had left nearly an hour ago now, so there was the lateness of the hour for one thing, but she also surely wouldn't be pleased at just how deep of a stupor he had drunk himself into. It wasn't enough, though. He was still consumed with grief, and guilt. Because even as they had lowered his brother into the ground that afternoon, Hermione's hand grasped tightly in his while tears streamed down both of their faces, the thought had passed unbidden through his mind: at least it wasn't her. What kind of sick, horrible brother thought something like that?
She settled on the stool next to him and didn't speak for a moment, just watched him polish off the last of his pint before he turned to her. "Would you like some company," Hermione began softly, "or would you like me to stay sober enough to get us home in one piece?" She leaned right up to his ear to add in a whisper, "If it's the former and we're both too drunk to apparate, we can walk."
If he weren't so utterly depressed, he would have laughed. Here was his prim, proper best friend (girlfriend, now? They hadn't properly talked about it, but there had been way too many stolen kisses over the past three days for her to be only his best friend, anymore) sitting beside him in a dingy muggle pub, talking about how they were meant to get home after imbibing too much. He would never have dreamed.
Hermione found her own answer in his silence and motioned to the bartender, who asked for her order with a simple raise of an eyebrow. "I'll take the strongest thing you have," she said boldly, and the bartender's other eyebrow joined the first as he surveyed her. She looked thoroughly out of place, still wearing her simple black dress from the funeral, and her hair still more or less tied back in a dignified updo, but she managed to look perfectly at ease in the dimly lit pub despite this. Ron glanced over at her uncertainly, but she merely shrugged at him and motioned to the collection of empty glasses that still sat beside him. "I've got some catching up to do, it seems." Her tone was matter-of-fact, lacking any of the judgment Ron had feared. Hermione was good with facts. He was drunker than she was. She has to catch up. She made it sound like a basic maths equation.
The bartender returned after a moment with two items for his new customer, one in a shot glass and one that was roughly the size of Ron's pint glass, but that didn't look anything like beer. "If this doesn't do it for you, nothing will."
Ron watched in awe as Hermione reached for the shot first, knocking it back like a seasoned professional (though he supposed nothing could be worse than polyjuice) before her expression twisted, as if she had drank something very sour. Maybe she had. "That's foul. But effective." She pushed the small glass to the side and reached for the larger one. "Cheers," she said without the slightest hint of cheeriness.
She was nearly halfway through her drink before either of them spoke again. "You ought to not be encouraging this behavior," Ron pointed out, though he accepted a refill from the barkeep without hesitation.
"I've left my prefect badge at home, incidentally," Hermione returned with a hiccup. "You're stuck with the debaucherous version tonight, I'm afraid."
Ron wondered briefly just what exactly sort of behaviors the "debaucherous version" of Hermione might tolerate or encourage, and he could almost hear Fred's voice in his head, making some joke about how it made perfect sense that Ron would rather lose his brother than a girl he might get a leg over with. That thought, of course, came full circle back to the thought of Fred joking when he'd died, the haunting image of his face still frozen in laughter, and it was all Ron could do to keep from busting out sobbing right there in the middle of the pub, in front of everybody, in front of Hermione.
"You really shouldn't, though," Ron protested, not at all certain why he was making a point to do so. After all, she couldn't possibly think he was enjoying himself, that this was just a normal thing he might do as a bloke, just out for a round or two with the mates after Quidditch or something. He was fully content to keep drinking until he couldn't remember why he'd started in the first place, and it seemed vitally important for Hermione to know that. "I—" He tried again, faltering as Hermione raised her now empty glass in the direction of the bartender. "I'm a fucking mess, Hermione," he finished quietly, tracing stripes down the side of his glass in the condensation.
To his surprise, she didn't recoil, or run away, or tell him off for swearing, or anything else he might have expected her to do. She merely placed her free hand, the one that wasn't rattling the ice cubes around her empty cup, on his leg and gave it a light squeeze. "I know," she replied softly. "It's why I'm here."
The pub was raucous tonight, Ron thought as he looked around. Aside from the predictable sea of red hair that was his family, there seemed to be other celebrations going on as well, other families, other friends, just lots of happy people. It was sort of funny, actually, how different the pub looked simply as a reflection of the mood of the people in it. He hadn't been here in years, not since right after the war, and though everything in the pub had remained the same—the rickety barstools, the light fixtures that looked like they hadn't been dusted since perhaps the last time Ron had been here, even the gruff bartender—he couldn't have felt more differently.
Ron laughed as he saw Charlie passing out a round of shots, which he could tell even from across the room that Hermione was doing her best to be polite about refusing. Charlie finally pressed it into her hand, and she gave him a weary smile before drinking it quickly, making the same adorably disgusted face that he remembered, and earning her a round of cheers from Ron's siblings, all of whom (with the possible exception of Percy) were far more drunk than he was. Charlie looked positively giddy when Hermione took another of the tiny glasses from him, but she turned and headed straight for Ron, a mischievous grin on her face. "Your turn," she said, leaning so close to him to be heard over the din of the pub as she handed him the glass that her lips brushed his ear. "Evidently, my getting absolutely sloshed is a prerequisite to my joining the family. So says George, anyway." She nudged the glass in his hand. "Go on, then, drink up."
Ron obliged her with a smile, before pulling what must have been a very similar face to Hermione's and causing her to erupt in a fit of giggles. "Exactly how sloshed are you at this point?" he teased.
"Sloshed enough to be a Weasley," she replied with a grin. "You may need to confer with your brother, but I do believe that last shot made it official."
"And here I thought it was the ring I gave you." Ron gave a falsely beleaguered sigh and clutched at his chest dramatically.
Hermione's eyes flickered to the congratulatory banner above the bar as she fiddled with the delicate ring on her left hand. She'd been doing that a lot in the couple of days since he had given it to her, always with the same shy smile she was wearing now, like she couldn't quite believe it was real. Ron understood; he couldn't quite believe it either. He had asked, she had said yes, and now they were getting married. She was his fiancée. A sudden surge of giddiness coursed through him, and he swooped her up to kiss her. He distantly registered more cat-calling from the general direction of his siblings, but he didn't care.
"What was that for?" Hermione asked breathlessly when he pulled back.
Ron smiled and shrugged and accepted the new drinks that Harry had stumbled over to give them (his best mate had always been a bit of a lightweight), handing one to Hermione. "For making it official."
She beamed at him and clinked her glass a bit clumsily against his. "Cheers."