When asking your lady to dance, always be sure to make eye contact, smile, and take her hand in yours. Speak clearly and, above all, make her feel like the luckiest girl in the world get a chance to dance with you.

These were the words echoing in Ron's head as he sat in his seat, eager for the wedding ceremony to be over and the reception to begin. He would finally be able to show off more of what he learned from reading Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches and maybe, just maybe, he would sweep Hermione off her feet and they could both forget about the dangers that lay ahead of them. For just a few moments, it would be just them: no Harry, no horcruxes. Simply her hand in his, his arms around her, dancing.

Ron sat through the whole of the wedding ceremony with the thought of asking Hermione to dance on his mind. He had it planned out perfectly – they would go find a table at the reception, Harry would bugger off somewhere, and Ron would be free make eye contact with Hermione, take her hand in his, and ask her to dance.

But then, he had to go and show up.

They had gotten a table, Luna had just left, Ron was sure to give Harry a significant look so that he'd clear off, but no. He had to come and take Luna's recently vacated seat. He had to go and make Hermione get all flustered and ruin his carefully thought-out plans.

All of a sudden, Ron was responding rudely to Krum and telling, not asking, Hermione to dance with him. The next moment, Ron found himself standing with Hermione among the growing crowd of couples on the dance floor.

They stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, Ron trying not to look at Hermione as his face grew steadily redder. He had not followed the rules of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. In fact, he had gone completely against everything they said about asking a girl to dance. Yet, here was Hermione, who had followed him out onto the dance floor without objection. He chanced a glance at her.

"You look…" Ron started, but he couldn't finish his sentence. "Pretty" was an understatement – Hermione was simply glowing in light of the sunset. "Radiant" and "gorgeous" came to mind as well, but those sounded far to cheesy to say out loud. Hermione was, however, waiting for him to finish his thought: her face lit up and her eyes widened.

"You look, er, good," Ron finished rather lamely, attempting a smile at Hermione. She looked let down for a moment, but in the next second she was smiling comfortingly at Ron. He wondered briefly if she had read his mind and knew exactly how he had wanted to compliment her.

"Thanks," she said, still smiling. "You look good too. Shall we?" she said, gesturing to the dance floor.

"Oh, right, of course," Ron said, blushing a little. He was the one who had asked her to dance, and he was the one standing around like an idiot not dancing with her.

Trying to push his embarrassment aside, he took Hermione's hand in his and put his other arm around her waist, just as she placed her hand on his shoulder. A pleasant, tingly feeling traveled from where her fingers had brushed against his neck down to somewhere in the pit of his stomach, and all of Ron's nervousness seemed to disappear instantly.

They started to dance, Ron sometimes tripping over his own feet. Hermione was flawless, however, never stumbling once. After a few minutes, the song changed to a much more mellow tune. Ron used the cover of the slower tempo as an excuse to pull Hermione in closer to him. She didn't seem to object, as she laid her head gently on Ron's chest in response.

As they continued to sway to the music, Ron's mind was blissfully blank, more blank than it had been in a long time. Ever since this Horcrux business started, it was always about planning their next move, but in this moment with Hermione, it was only about them. The way she angled her face to look up at his and smile, the way she started playing with the hair that curled at the base of his neck.

The song changed again, back to a faster song, and Ron, feeling incredibly heartened by his slow dance with Hermione, started twirling her around.

"Ron!" said Hermione, who was completely taken aback by being spun around. "What on earth –"

"It's dancing, Hermione!" laughed Ron, and he twirled himself, with great difficulty, under Hermione's arm.

More and more people were making their way to the dance floor now, increasing the volume and raising Ron's spirits even higher. He pulled Hermione to him and started to do a little jig with her, pulling her arms every which way as he goofed around.

Hermione was simply bursting with laughter by now, and Ron had never felt happier. Those dancing around them seemed to catch whatever infectious bug that was causing Ron to dance so wildly: the silly dancing spread quickly throughout the crowd. Eventually, the band caught on to what was happening and began to speed up the music even more.

Ron spun Hermione one last time, after which she nearly collapsed in his arms, due to dancing so quickly and laughing so heartily for such a long period of time. Both smiling, they looked into each other's eyes. Ron never wanted to look away. He wanted to spend eternity staring into those warm brown eyes.

The moment was over as quickly as it began, and now Hermione was bent over, catching her breath.

"That was some dancing, Ron!" she was able to gasp out. "Shall we –?"

"Yeah, of course." Ron said, making to follow Hermione back to where Harry was sitting.

Suddenly, Ron remembered a phrase from Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches:

Does your lady look sad? Offer her a hug. Does she look tired? Offer her a chair. Does she look parched? Offer—

"Hey, you head on back, I'll go get us some more butterbeers," added Ron hastily.

"Thanks, Ron, that would be great," she said, beaming at him.

Ron turned away and started walking towards the drinks, grinning and humming the music the band was now playing.