Hermione stepped out of the doorway of the tall building which was the home of her workplace. It was only a short walk to her house, which she preferred to Floo powder. Hermione liked to think that if she looked hard enough, she could almost see the sea. Or at least the trees over the road that belonged to the small park there, which she deemed to be close enough. She smiled, remembering the day that Harry and Ginny had come down last summer, how sweet Cathy had looked, slightly dwarfed by the swings that she had insisted on playing on. Hermione blinked as she saw someone else sitting on the same swing, who wasn’t Cathy but bore a definite resemblance to her.
“Ron?” she called out, running down the steps and over the road. “What are you doing here?”
“Ah, well, I had something to do and... Can I walk you home?” Ron finished lamely, shuffling his feet along the grass, reminding Hermione vividly of their schooldays.
“Well, only if you’re going to carry my books!” Hermione said with a short, slightly forced laugh. They walked in silence for a few minutes as they crossed back across the busy road, Ron still not being quite familiar with the ’Green Cross Code’ or Muggle transportation systems, much to Hermione’s distress after four horns were blown at them in quick succession. “So what brings you here, other than a suicide mission?” Hermione asked once she felt they were safe, back on the pavement.
“Well, I just wanted to talk to you really,” Ron admitted with a grin. “That is, if those bloody contraptions don’t kill us first!” Hermione rolled her eyes.
“You came all the way up here just to talk to me? You’ve had three years in which we barely talked at all, and now you travel halfway up the country to talk to me? Must be pretty important,” Hermione mused, looking over at the man by her side, who gave nothing away, only shrugging before he looked away.
“Kind of. I just, you know, missed you I guess.” Ron shrugged again as they walked on, trying not to show how much it had taken for him to admit it. “Not just today, I mean - I missed you over all the years.”
“You couldn’t have told me that over the fire or in a letter?” Hermione asked, a look of surprise evident on her face.
“Well,” Ron said, as they came up to her door. “I could have.” Then, without warning, he leaned over and kissed her. “But then I guess I couldn’t have done that. Besides, you know I‘m no good at writing.”
Hermione stared, not quite able to comprehend what just happened. You’re supposed to be intelligent, Hermione! And you can’t even understand one kiss, Hermione thought to herself in frustration. You can’t even tell when a kiss means that someone’s missed you, or -
Then he kissed her again.
“Ron - what was - ” Hermione broke off, slightly breathless as the light breezed wrapped itself around her, although she suspected that it wasn't just the cold that was giving her goose bumps.
“I don’t know. It was just, the other night I realised how stupid I was.”
“Stupid? Which time?” Hermione asked with a nervous laugh.
“All the time, Hermione!” Ron rolled his eyes. “All the time I never said anything, whether it was ‘will you go to the Ball with me‘, or ‘it’s you I want to be kissing, not - whoever I was using at the time to make you jealous!’ Or ‘help me with whatever work I’m doing at the time, be it homework or real work, not because I need your help, but because I want to be around you,’ or “ or ‘I love you...’“
Hermione stared at him, utterly speechless.
"Ron - I - I had no idea..." Her mouth opened and closed several times before more words came out. "I don't know what to say..."
"You could always say that you love me too," Ron prompted, with a small, nervous smile as they both stood there, still. Hermione shivered as she was suddenly conscious of the fact that they were both still standing on her doorstep. The man standing in front of her now reminded her so vividly of the boy she used to know, the boy she used to love. But they'd both grown up since then. Things had changed.
"I - I can't. I want to, but I can't. Ron, I did love you. But that was a long time ago.... I mean “ you’re getting married, for Merlin’s sake! What about Tiffany?" Hermione brought home the sharp reminder of Ron’s fiancée, something he appeared to have forgotten about, not only by his actions, but the look on his face.
"Tiffany - well, she's great and pretty and funny... But she's not you." Ron admitted in a small voice. "I do love her...but not as much as I love you. I just didn't realise that, I suppose. I tried to tell myself that I was over you, that it was just puppy love. But it wasn't. It isn't!”
"Ron,” Hermione started, looking away, anywhere, down at the stern concrete beneath her, the cool sky above her, all of them which seemed to be judging her. When she could take it no more, she finally looked back at the eyes boring into her, where she didn't find judgement, although suddenly she felt as if she would prefer to. "Why now?" she asked in a small, desperate voice, which threatened to crack any minute, as she knew what she had to say. “I'm sorry,” she tried again, putting off the words that she least wanted to utter “ she could guess how much courage it must have taken for Ron to say all these things to her. Hermione had never been a procrastinator, but right then she wished almost more than anything that she was. “Ron - I did love you. I did. A long time ago..."
"Right," Ron said shortly, looking away, missing the tears building up in Hermione’s eyes.
"I'm sorry, I - "
"No. Don't be. I should probably go." Ron said abruptly.
"Yes." Hermione agreed softly, blinking back the tears. “Tiffany will be waiting."
Ginny sighed as she pinned back her hair for what felt like the hundredth time. It wouldn't seem to stay either up, out of her eyes, or form anything that looked even remotely presentable. There was no getting around it - she just did not like weddings. Bill's had been awful, what with Fleur floating around everywhere with her silly accent, Gabrielle constantly reminding her that she was no longer with Harry and just being a general annoyance at her side to add to her own misery. With her own wedding she had been far too stressed to enjoy most of it, Harry had been no help whatsoever. Although, she thought in retrospect, it was a nice dress. And the honeymoon followed...
"Ginny, please could you fetch a hair clip for me?" Tiffany called out desperately. Ginny smiled, glad to know that she wasn't alone: Tiffany seemed to be suffering just as much as she was. "Argh! And can you also get me a drink?"
"Sure. What type?" Ginny answered absentmindedly, not being able to find a spare hair clip she pulled one out from her own hair, causing a strand to fall over her eyes again.
"I want to say water, but that's just not strong enough! I also want to say Firewhiskey, but I think I'll leave that for later. How about some coffee?"
"You can't drink that!" Ginny said indignantly before she could stop herself. As Tiffany's startled gaze fell on her, she was suddenly glad of her hair's inability to stay put, as it shielded her from the bride's sudden cold look.
"Why not?" Tiffany asked suspiciously, narrowing her already fairly small eyes as she pulled her hair back to fix her gaze upon Ginny.
"Because, um... I've heard it can be... What about your baby?" Ginny surrendered under Tiffany's penetrating stare.
"Oh Ginny, I don't plan on having babies until at least a few years have gone by!" Tiffany explained with a little laugh, as she relaxed into fluffing up her hair in the mirror. "What's the fun in a honeymoon and being a newlywed if you have to look after a screaming baby right away? Not that I don't respect your decisions, I mean, Cathy's darling and I can't wait until there are a few of my own running around, but I want to focus on my career and having fun for now."
"What about the baby you told Hermione you were pregnant with?" Ginny asked angrily, unaware of how loud her voice was getting.
All of the time that Ron had been dating her, Ginny had wanted to hate Tiffany. Mainly out of respect for her friendship with Hermione, and the fact that she would yearn for the days when the four them would hang out together, which she knew wouldn't happen if Ron was with someone else. Try as she might, after the first month it became harder and harder to dislike Tiffany. She just seemed too generally nice. Of course, she had her moments, but the few Ginny had been around to witness she hadn’t really been able to build up any ammunition with. But now she had an iron-clad reason - almost.
"Oh," Tiffany said in a low voice, her cheeks collecting a tinge of pink. "I didn't even mean to say anything; it just, sort of, slipped out! She said she wouldn't tell anyone," she retaliated accusingly, trying to mask the colour in her face by dabbing on more powder.
"It just, sort of, slipped out," Ginny answered dryly, arching an eyebrow.
"Look, the reason I didn't tell anyone was because it was still pretty early and I wasn't even sure! All I knew was that I'd been throwing up a bit and everyone said that I was acting really moody, but I just put it down to pre-wedding stress and testing all those wedding cakes.” The words tumbled out of Tiffany’s mouth, seeming to speed up as they fell out, which joined the ever increasing colour in Tiffany’s cheeks as she went on. “Then I took a pregnancy test, just to make sure - and it came up positive. So I went to St. Mungo's yesterday evening - on my way back from Hermione's - and they said that it must have a been a false alarm, that it really was just down to stress and too much cake," she admitted, looking away.
"Why didn't you tell Hermione then?" Ginny asked, her voice still raised, her mind unsure how much of Tiffany's explanation to believe. "She still thinks that you're having a baby!"
"But how would it change anything if I wasn't?" Tiffany asked sharply, looking up to meet Ginny's gaze.
"Well - " Ginny faltered. "It doesn't, I suppose... But she should still know! What if she...brought something for the non-existent baby?" she finished lamely.
Tiffany shrugged. "Then she could take it back. Or give it to you, anything. Does it really matter? All that matters is that I love Ron, right?"
Ginny nodded dully, but she couldn't help but think that the tone in Tiffany's voice might suggest that she was trying to convince herself as well as Ginny, as she turned back to preparing for the wedding.
"Hermione?” a faraway voice drifted in from the fireplace. “Are you there?”
Hermione jumped up from the curled up ball she had been lying in on her chair, still not being entirely accustomed to seeing heads popping up in her fireplace.
“Luna? What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to mask the astonishment in her voice.
“Well, I was just passing by, and - “
“You were just passing by my fireplace?”
“Yes, on the way to Ron’s reception,” Luna explained, as if it were obvious.
“How exactly were you planning on getting to - where?” Hermione fell back onto her chair. Her head was enough of a mess as it was, she really didn’t need a conversation with Luna Lovegood right then to complicate things even more.
“Ron’s reception. Say, isn't his wedding starting soon?” Luna asked as she stepped fully in to Hermione’s living room.
“Yes,” Hermione agreed with a small sigh.
“Well, why aren't you there?" Luna asked, looking Hermione up and down. “Not quite finished getting ready?” Hermione’s hair was pulled back loosely off from her face into a bun, but strands were falling out everywhere. It completed the rest of her look, which was composed of a light purple dressing gown pulled tightly around her, along with a pair of old, ratty orange slippers.
"I‘m not going," Hermione replied in a clipped tone, although it was fairly obvious that she was close to tears.
"Why not? Haven‘t you been invited? I‘m sure that Ginny said - "
"I have been invited, I’m just not going!" exclaimed Hermione with a scowl. “Shouldn't you be getting there now anyway?” she hinted grumpily.
“No, I can stay and talk for a bit,” Luna replied lightly. “I’m only going to the reception.” Luna sat herself down across from Hermione cheerfully, and Hermione noticed how little Luna had changed. They still saw each other every now and then, and to Hermione it was quite like being seventeen again. Of course, Luna had grown taller, her hair was longer and she wore different clothes - different being the key word - but she was still Luna Lovegood, the strange, funny little girl who came down to fight Death Eaters with them, who kept them informed of the latest creatures on her father‘s hit list. The girl who Hermione had been wary of at first - not only because she kept her wand behind her ear, but because she seemed to have taking a liking to Ron “ Hermione stopped her train of thought there. No, Luna Lovegood and her connotations were not what she needed right then.
“So why aren't you going to the wedding?”
“I just don’t feel like it.” Hermione lied blankly, avoiding Luna‘s steady stare.
“It hurts, doesn't it?” Luna said suddenly, with a small, knowing smile.
“What?”
“Pretending you’ve fallen out of love.”
Luna never ceased to amaze her. Hermione just sat there, her mouth open until she retrieved some piece of mind and managed to close it, before thinking of a reply.
“What are you talking about?” Admittedly, it wasn’t a very good reply, but it was the best she could come up with at such short notice.
“You’re pretending that you’ve fallen out of love with Ron,” Luna repeated matter-of-factly. “But you haven’t, and you know it. That’s why you can’t go to the wedding.”
“No it’s not,” Hermione replied truthfully. “The reason I can’t go to the wedding - “ Hermione took a deep breath as her throat choked up and tears threatened to spill out of her eyes. “The reason I can’t go to the wedding,” she repeated, a few octaves higher, her voice cracking slightly on some of the words. “Is because...” She paused again, looking away from Luna's encouraging nod and down at the table, where a snapshot seemed to have materialized. Or more likely it was just still lying there, forgotten from where she had left it the night before.
She looked down sadly at the picture, remembering how she had pulled it out from her pocket the night before, and how she had sat in the same position she was in at that very moment, simply staring at it all evening.
It was the picture of her, Harry and Ron. It usually stayed by her bedside table, but even though Hermione would store it in an album, put it in a drawer, it always seemed to find its way back to her. She smiled sadly as Harry reappeared in it briefly to punch Ron lightly on the arm and laugh at Hermione, before going again. She felt a tear pass unwillingly down her face as it landed on the picture, on her photographic self. She felt more tears begin to form inside her as she saw herself glare, then saw Ron offer his coat to her. She felt the tears all fall down unstoppably as he accompanied this with by putting his arm around her.
Unable to tare her gaze away, Hermione realised that it wasn't the memory that was making her cry, or the notion of Ron putting his arm around her to keep her warm. It was the fact that if she, or someone, anyone, didn't stop the wedding, that would never happen again.
“Because,” she repeated, this time in whisper. “Because when the wizard says, ‘Are there any objections?’ I don't think I could trust myself not to say yes."
No Other Way by Oppungo
Chapter Notes: Sorry I took so long to get this up - I'll be a lot quicker with the next chapter, I promise!