The next morning's sun rose behind a veil of dark clouds. Ginny and Hermione were suddenly and rudely awakened by a very elegant shriek.
"Zis 'ees unbelievable!" Fleur wailed, dashing to the window.
"What's wrong?" Hermione mumbled drowsily, rolling over.
"A storm is coming! On ze day of my wedding!" Fleur gesticulated wildly to the window.
"The nerve." Ginny muttered sarcastically, sitting up and realizing she was still starving.
"What's zat, Ginny?"
"Nothing." Ginny smiled innocently, walking to the bathroom to start getting ready.
Hermione yawned widely, pulling her rose pink dress
robes off the hanger and examining them critically.
She'd barely had time to get new dress robes, but was
glad she'd thought of it. Pink wasn't exactly her
favorite color, but it was a nice change. It was
surprisingly fun to just be a girl sometimes.
"Is zat what you're wearing?" Fleur looked over at her.
"Yes." Hermione said somewhat defensively.
Fleur nodded approvingly.
"You would be so pretty if you gave yourself ze chance." Fleur said, patting her condescendingly on the shoulder and flouncing past Ginny into the bathroom.
"Go right ahead." Ginny said through gritted teeth,
flopping back on her bed.
"Come on, Gin. It's her wedding day." Hermione looked over at her friend.
"I know, I know. I'll play nice."
"You want breakfast?" Hermione asked, pulling on a sweater over her pajamas.
"Yeah, I'm starved." Ginny pulled her long red hair into a messy ponytail, following Hermione downstairs.
Most of the Weasleys, Harry, Lupin, Kinglsey and Tonks were already seated around the table, eating a hearty breakfast.
"Morning, girls!" Mrs. Weasley smiled brightly at
them, handing them plates heaped with bacon, eggs,
kippers, and fruit.
"Oh, mother. Now I know I'm not fitting into that bridesmaid dress." Ginny rolled her eyes.
"She means, thank you, Mrs. Weasley." Hermione grinned, taking her plate and sitting in the seat next to Ron.
Mrs. Weasley gave Ginny a "Why-can't-you-be-more-like-Hermione" look, and handed her her plate.
"Where's Fleur?" Bill asked, his mouth full of eggs.
"Grooming herself." Ginny snickered, sitting down between Harry and Charlie.
"Her parents just owled. They're coming in today at
noon from France with Gabrielle." Bill said,
swallowing.
"Oh, good. That will be perfect, dear." Mrs. Weasley beamed proudly at her oldest son.
"The first of the Weasley offspring to get saddled with the old ball and chain." Fred laughed.
"Don't let Fleur hear you call her that." George elbowed his twin.
"She'd probably Veela me to death or something." Fred snorted, getting a reproachful look from Bill.
"Wouldn't be a bad way to go." Ron shrugged, receiving an even more reproachful look from Hermione.
Ginny looked over at Harry, eating his breakfast rather dolefully. He noticed, looking at her quizzically.
"Something on my face, Gin?"
"No. Sorry. You're just so pretty." Ginny laughed,
messing up his hair even further.
"Not while I'm eating, you two." Ron muttered, rolling his eyes at Hermione.
"Yes, because you and Lavender weren't at all nauseating." Ginny grinned.
"Who's Lavender?" Mrs. Weasley asked, looking over at them from conversation with Mr. Weasley and Lupin.
"Ronnie's girlfriend." Fred and George said in unison, matching wicked grins on their faces.
"EX-girlfriend." Ron corrected, hastily looking at Hermione.
"You never told me about her." Mrs. Weasley looked affronted.
"Not much to tell." Ron said, obviously not wanting to discuss this further.
"But you two broke up?" Mrs. Weasley asked.
"Mum, please!"
"It's okay, Ronnie, she probably doesn't even believe you had a girlfriend. We're still dubious of the existence of this "Lavender." Fred laughed.
"Oh, she existed. Rather inescapably so." Harry joined in the conversation, grinning at Ron.
"Come on, Harry! Best mates, remember?" Ron shook his head with disbelief.
"Ron has a girlfriend?" Mr. Weasley looked up.
"NO!" Ron buried his head in his hands, his ears flaming red.
"HAD a girlfriend. Now he's all alone." Ginny corrected, patting her brother's head.
"Why'd you break up again?" Harry looked at Ron,
obviously delighting in someone else being the center
of attention.
Ron didn't answer, nervously looking at Hermione.
"Lavender thought there was something going on between me and Ron." Hermione shrugged, filling in the gap Ron was obviously wanting to omit.
No one said anything, eating their breakfast in silence with knowing smiles on their faces.
"There's not, though." Ron said hurriedly.
"No, of course not." Hermione said just as quickly.
"Ohh-kay." Ginny giggled, getting herself more eggs.
Fleur descended the stairs then, her long blond hair just as perfect as it had been when she'd woken up and wearing attractive silver, flowy dressing robes.
"Darling, have you looked outside?" She hurried to Bill's side, flinging an arm dramatically towards the window.
Ron smiled gratefully as everyone's eyes left him and went to Fleur. He knew he liked her.
"Looks like the backyard." Bill looked up at his fiance, grinning.
"But ze stormclouds!"
"Wouldn't dare strike on your wedding day." Bill said,
pulling her comfortingly into his lap.
"Iz there some spell or something zat we could do?"
"We're wizards, babe. Not God." Bill laughed.
"Oh, haha." Fleur said gloomily.
"Honey, everything will be fine," Mrs. Weasley said,
"It rained fourteen inches on my wedding day, and
things were fine."
"But ze wedding is outdoors!"
"Then we'll get wet," Bill shrugged.
Fleur looked at him, affronted. He took her hand.
"The most important thing is we're getting married.
Right?" He looked at her, still grinning.
Fleur sighed.
"Of course. Zat's ze most important thing." She smiled her brilliantly white smile.
"All right, well, everyone should probably start
getting ready soon." Mrs. Weasley rose from her seat,
collecting dishes.
"I'll help clean up!" Tonks volunteered.
Mrs. Weasley looked doubtful of letting Tonks anywhere near her kitchen.
"Are you sure, dear? I don't mind."
"Of course I'm sure." Tonks gave her a rather meaningful look, as if to say they had something to discuss.
Mrs. Weasley smiled when she noticed this.
"Oh , all right."
Tonks and Mrs. Weasley gathered everyone's dishes.
Ginny watched Tonks carefully to see if she noticed
anything between her and Lupin. These two were like
freaking spies- they'd barely even looked at each
other the entire breakfast.
But as Tonks passed by him, Ginny noticed she gave him
a rather sly wink. Ginny smiled to herself. Sneaky,
sneaky. She could never get away with one of those
secret romances.
Hermione had finished putting on her robes, arranging
her dark curls into something resembling a bun.
Whenever she just left them down, they got very unruly
very quickly. And she wanted to look nice tonight. It
would probably be one of the last occasions any of
them would have to just dress up and have a nice time.
The next year would almost certainly not be full of
dances and parties.
Suddenly, she realized someone else was in the room.
She spun around, seeing Ron standing in the doorway.
"Ronald! For heaven's sakes, how long have you been standing there?"
"Oh, ages." Ron raised an eyebrow.
"What are you doing?" She demanded, trying to clasp her necklace behind her neck.
"Got the wrong room."
Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I actually wanted to talk to you."
Hermione blinked.
"Really? Why?"
"Well...we're going to the wedding kind of together,
aren't we?"
"I don't know. You never asked me." Hermione said rather cooly.
"Oh, come on, Hermione." Ron sighed.
"What? You want to go together, ask me to go with you."
"I'm rubbish at this stuff." Ron crossed his arms awkwardly.
"Didn't seem to have any trouble with "this stuff"
when you were with Lavender." Hermione pointed out.
"Well, I never actually really asked her out. It was more just like I went up to her and...you know."
"What?" Hermione asked innocently.
Ron shifted his weight from one foot to another.
"Need help with the necklace?" He asked, obviously casting his mind for anything else to talk about.
"Sure. Brilliant dodge, by the way." Hermione laughed,
turning around so he could put on her necklace
properly.
There was a moment of awkward silence as he fiddled with it, finally clasping it. Hermione smiled. Ron was criminally cute when he was nervous.
She turned around, standing very close to him.
"So...?" She said quietly.
Ron noticed how close she was standing. He also
noticed that her dress was lower cut than things she
usually wore. He swallowed hard. Best to get this over
with quickly. Besides, if he didn't say something,
they were pretty close to doing something entirely
different. Not that that sounded unappealing in the
slightest.
But everytime Ron even came close to kissing her (and there'd been plenty of times this last year), he always backed out at the last minute. They were getting awfully close to something happening between them, and they both knew it. He knew it was getting ridiculous, but somehow the thought of kissing Hermione terrified him more than any giant spider ever could.
"Would you like to go to the wedding with me tonight"
He said, the words all strung together in a nervous
mumble.
"I'd love to." She replied, still not stepping away from him.
"Okay then. You know where to find me." Ron said,
laughing awkwardly.
"You really are terrible at this." Hermione shook her head.
"I know." Ron's mouth twisted into the little half-grin that always gave her a pleasant little twitch in her stomach.
Hermione looked at him, swallowing hard. Here they were alone again. Here was that same strange tension between them.
She leaned forward, kissing his cheek, something that had become quite familiar to both of them.
"See you then." She whispered rather throatily in his ear--NOT something she usually did.
She didn't pull away from him, her hand still on his shoulders. Ron instinctively felt himself closing the space between them, his hand sliding up her mostly bare back.
This was just getting weird. Weird, but really nice.
Despite all their near-misses this year, they had
never quite gotten to this point.
Hermione pulled back from his shoulder, looking at him
straight-on. He had such nice eyes. Everyone always
fixated so much on Harry's, but she had always liked
Ron's. His hand reached up to her cheek as he leaned
towards her slightly. Ron was better at this kind of
thing than he gave himself credit for, she thought,
closing the distance between them as a nervous little
thrill shot through her. Their lips brushed-
Suddenly, there was a crash downstairs.
"TONKS!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked.
Hermione laughed, looking down.
"You better get dressed." She said, her voice sounding strangely pitched and shaky.
Ron looked at her--he didn't laugh. He looked disappointed and disoriented.
"Yeah. Sorry about that." He said, motioning between them.
"Ron," Hermione looked exasperated, "Don't apologize.
It's just...we can never seem to get this right, can
we?" Hermione said, looking at her feet.
Ron laughed.
"I should just jump out from behind a corner and snog you senseless sometime. Maybe no one else could mess it up for us then."
Hermione raised an eyebrow.
"Fine with me." She said, looking rather mischievously pleased at the shocked look on Ron's face.
"I-I was kidding."
"I wasn't. Go get dressed." She ushered him out the door, still laughing at the look on his face.
Ron ambled away, and Hermione couldn't help wishing
he'd really try that sneak-attack plan. The thought of
kissing Ron passionately in some darkened corner-
Hermione shiveed pleasantly. That was better than any
of the other soppy romantic scenes she'd offhandedly
wished for. Soppy and romantic wasn't very them
anyway.
Come on, Ron, she thought to herself--surprise me.
A/N- Thanks for all the apples- no doctor for me this
year! You guys are the best--thanks so much for the
awesome reviews. Keep 'em up and I'll keep a-writing!
Next chapter- wedding bells are ringing.