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Author: Majick Story: I Now Pronounce You... Rating: Young Teens Setting: Pre-OotP Status: Completed Reviews: 11 Words: 8,372
Yeah, yeah, ha ha ha... Ginny's tale is bloody hilarious, isn't it? Even after all this time, she never seems to get bored of telling it. She doesn't exactly come off to well, though, does she? Trying to hex her own brother, and even then the best she can manage is a lighting charm? Suffice to say, it was a great mood-killer. Hermione showed up about five minutes later, and she immediately swooped down on Ginny like a mother duck with one of its babies. "Ron," she snapped. "Can't you see that your sister's upset?" Well, what about me? My sister wasn't the one who nearly got hexed by a close member of her family, was she? But I couldn't say that without Hermione - who always picks up on the details - asking exactly why I had been sitting in the dark. I glared at Ginny, who nodded once. At least I knew that she wouldn’t tell Hermione about what I had been waiting to do. It was a bit of a mood-killer, though. I suppose I could have hung around and waited for Ginny to stop grizzling about whatever had got her knickers in a twist, but after nearly having a bloody heart attack when I realised that I was halfway through proposing to my sister... Well, let's just say that somehow, I wasn't in the mood. * Of course, standing here now, sharing a wry grin with Harry, I guess it all worked out for the best. Remus’ anti-hangover potion works wonders, for all that it tastes worse than Polyjuice Potion. It’s definitely a good thing that we’re standing here, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and not still at the twins’ shop, amongst the remains of last night’s adventures. The music starts up, some organ piece that Hermione insisted on. I don’t think that the rest of us cared that much, to be honest. We turn, and there they are. Ginny looks great, and I can practically feel the pride burning off Harry, and then, over Ginny’s head and arm-in-arm with her father, there she is. What the hell took me so long? * I stomped back into the flat like a bear with a sore head. We had a long trip to Bulgaria for a European Cup game the next day, and knew that I was going to regret the late night, but I'd been planning on being in a good mood, and having that keep me going. Now... Pppfffttt. Harry was there, and I was tempted to kick him, but held fire long enough to ask one very important question. "What the bloody hell did you do to make Ginny cry, you arse!" Harry blinked once or twice, and then swore. Turned out that nobody's evening went the way we'd planned it. Harry's plan to pick a honeymoon destination and then slot in the proposal later on in the evening had sounded pretty good on paper, but from what I'd seen, and what Harry said, it was clear that Ginny had not understood. Neither of us was able to work out exactly how Ginny had worked out that Harry was going to propose that night, but I had a feeling that the fancy restaurant had been a bit blatant. That's why I'd settled on surprising Hermione at her flat. Didn't cost me anything when it all went wrong, right? "Not unless you count that hunk of diamond you've got sitting in your pocket, anyway," Harry was kind enough to point out. Well, so what? I love Hermione. I'm crazy about her, and I know that she's going to love this ring. Even if it takes a bit longer then I'd planned. Thing is, there's no bloody way I could propose in a restaurant, anyway. Stupid tradition, all of that 'bended knee, other diners applauding' stuff. I've known a few blokes who’ve tried it, and it's never pretty. Dean tried it with his girlfriend a few months ago, at this pub in Stagsden. Apparently she burst into tears and ran to the toilet, and it took him all evening to get her out of there. Oh, she said yes, but blimey, can you imagine all that fuss? Not that I can see Hermione getting all over-emotional like that, but... I don't know if you know Anthony Goldstein at all, but we got to be quite good mates through the DA, once it became clear that Ginny and Hermione were both off limits to swotty Ravenclaws with their parents' money to spend. Anyway, he proposed in the middle of this posh restaurant, had the orchestra playing her favourite song, spent hundreds of Galleons on the ring, really went for it. Guess what? She said no. You see? What if Hermione said no? Of course, I was pretty sure she'd say yes, but Goldstein's story had become a lesson to us all: You might be wrong. As it turns out, Goldstein's girlfriend was seeing Draco Malfoy behind his back. Funny how that git keeps popping up. I thought that after Harry and Neville put the Curse of the Toad on him a couple of years back that he'd have trouble with women, but I guess if you have a big enough wallet... Anyway, what am I talking about Draco Malfoy for? Sorry, but I get a bit sidetracked when I think about what might happen when a bloke decides to propose. * On the way to Bulgaria - Muggle aeroplane, Circe alone knows how they explain all the brooms and stuff at customs, but when your team's sponsored by a Muggle-born you have to expect these things sometimes - I got talking to Gary Barker, an old mate of Bill's who got married a couple of years ago. "Sounds like you had the right idea," he said. "That's how I proposed to Sandra, anyway. Of course, at first she reacted like your sister and I had to duck a frying pan before I could convince her I wasn't a burglar or anything, but it makes the story a bit funnier whenever it gets told at family parties." "Anyway, arrange to meet her at her flat, get there early, light some candles, get some romantic music playing on the stereo and just do it. Best decision you'll ever make, right up until the point where you say ‘I do’ and the minister does his ‘I now pronounce you’ spiel." "Yeah, I think you're right," I said. "Not sure about the candles, though. I've had some bad experiences..." I trailed off as I remembered the first and only time I tried impressing Hermione with candles. I shivered. "Yeah," I repeated. "I definitely think you're right." * Hermione, Meet me at the flat after work. Love, Ron So I sat there for hours, waiting for her to come. She's still at the Ministry, and sometimes she can't get away from work on time, sometimes she's even slept over there, but not if she knows that I'm waiting for her. Eventually, when it was nearly midnight, I gave up. I wasn't sure exactly what was wrong, but clearly I'd messed up somehow. We hadn't spoken much since Ginny spoilt my first attempt at proposing, and I know that she wasn't very impressed by my 'insensitivity', as she called it, but I thought that things were okay, really I did. I left her flat, locking it as I did so. It's nice that Hermione trusts me enough to give me her keys, even if I could get in with a quick Unlocking spell. It's the symbolism of it. Guess what? I actually understood that when she gave me the keys. For once, I didn't need Harry to explain it to me. I hesitated, thinking about popping the keys back through the letterbox, but I didn't. If things were that bad, Hermione would have said something, wouldn't she? Wouldn't she? I didn't know. She'd never stood me up before. It could hardly be a good sign, right? She'd been acting really odd recently. Now that I came to think about it, she always seemed to be thinking about something else. It wasn't often that Hermione was the one to drift out of a conversation, but more and more I'd noticed myself having to wave a hand in front of her face to get her to pay attention. It worried me. I went downstairs and out into the rain, too miserable to Apparate home. A walk, I thought, would do me the world of good. People darted here and there as I made my way to the nearest Floo point, a pub about a mile down the road. I'd taken Hermione there many times, and Harry and I had hatched the proposal plans over a few pints there a couple of weeks beforehand. Of course, he'd got second thoughts and I'd had to spend ten minutes calming him down over Hermione's phone-thing one night, but Harry's a right wimp when it comes to my sister. It was how I knew that he was serious about her; he never got that bad about Cho, that's for sure. I thought about Cho as I trudged soggily through the umbrellas that shielded everyone else from the rain. She was Seeker for the Tornadoes now, and a good player, too. The gossip pages were always full of stories about her latest boyfriends, and the relationships never seemed to last very long. There had been a spell when some of the Cannons players had been pinning the stories up on the team notice board, right up until Puddlemere visited and Harry went ballistic. He came storming into the Cannons dressing room and threatened to hex whoever it was unless they stopped. I know that Harry will always feel guilty about Cedric, will always think that's he's partly responsible for his death. Nothing anyone can say will ever change that, although he doesn't say much nowadays. With Sirius, and Dumbledore, and even Snape and Flitwick, we got through to him, but Cedric is Harry's personal nightmare, the first to die because of Harry, although I'd never put it that way to anyone else. I know it's not fair, but there is a logic to it. It's not Harry's fault, but for a time no-one close to him was safe. Anyway... I guess there's a part of me that wonders when Hermione's going to realise that just being around me is stopping her being whatever she wants to be, when she'll turn to me and say that I've ruined her life, that she's leaving, that just being around me makes her feel ill, and that she's wasting her time. That night, as I squelched through the mud, that part of me was going wild. By the time I was halfway to the pub, I knew that it was over. If she wouldn't even pop back to her flat for five minutes, she clearly didn't want to see me. My face wasn't just wet because of the rain. I wasn't really looking where I was going. The rain was so heavy that I could barely see two feet in front of my nose, and to be honest, I wasn't paying much attention anyway, just hurrying to get away from there, get home, get to bed and then in the morning go into work and ask for a transfer. I hear Portree's nice this time of year... When I walked into someone, it barely registered. If they hadn't fallen over into the mud with a loud splash, I imagine that I would have just kept on walking. Rude, I know, but sometimes a bloke's just not in the mood, right? But Mum bought us all up to be polite, so I stopped, and stuck out my hand, muttering an apology as I pulled the other person upright. I wasn't surprised that they'd been knocked over - they were as light as a feather. It wasn't until they were fully upright and standing close enough that I could see their face that I realised just who 'they' was. It was Hermione.
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