Finish
Author Name: voldemorts-tap-shoes/smjl
Selected Trope: Weasley Weddings
Brief Summary: Ron and Hermione find time on the horcrux hunt to finish what they started at Bill and Fleur’s wedding.
Any Trigger Warnings: none
It feels like she has packed and repacked this bag a hundred times since the start of the summer. Even with magically infinite space to bring whatever they need, Hermione has second and third and fourth guessed this book and that potion and everything in between. Sometimes she worries that the beaded bag and its contents are all she’s contributing on this mission, and she wants to get it right.
As she reaches in again, her fingers snatch onto floaty fabric that she recognizes by touch alone and after a moment’s hesitation, Hermione pulls out her dress from Bill and Fleur’s wedding, letting the chiffon unfurl toward the dark and dingy floorboards. What a perfect day that might have been if not for—well, everything. Spending the reception dancing with Ron was a bright spot in an otherwise mostly dreary day, from the Minister’s visit that morning to the uninvited guests that crashed the post-wedding party. But even that…
She thought she knew how Ron felt about her, thought that they were making strides toward something more than friendship. But even though he had snagged her away from Viktor to dance, showcasing a jealousy that reminded her of fourth year and the only other time he had seen her so dressed up, there had been nothing more. He hadn’t kissed her, he hadn’t told her how he felt. Of course, she hadn’t done those things either. There’s a war coming—it’s here, really—and what the hell are they waiting for?
Hermione tosses the dress over the back of the sofa and reaches back in for Ron’s dress robes. She’s not sure why they’re still in the bag anyway, why she hasn’t hung them up in a closet somewhere under a preservation charm to keep the dust off. Of all the things that they might or might not need hunting horcruxes, she thinks it’s fairly safe to assume that her dress and his dress robes are a do not need. But they’re also the only things they have with them that remind her of a happier time. Everything else in the bag is so…tactical.
“Hey.” Ron’s voice jolts her out of her thoughts, and he raises a quizzical eyebrow at her as he enters the room. “What are you doing?”
“Packing. Unpacking. I don’t know.” She motions to the pile of clothing draped over the sofa she’s been sleeping on every night, her fingers entwined with Ron’s. That means something, doesn’t it? “I don’t suppose we have any need for these anymore.”
“Probably not.” Ron trails his fingers down the sleeve of his robes. “It’s a shame that we didn’t really get to finish the wedding.”
Hermione shrugs. “It was a lovely ceremony. Fleur looked beautiful, and at least we made it past the cake and everything before the Death Eaters showed up.”
“Oh, er…I meant us,” Ron says, and Hermione’s breath catches in her throat. “We didn’t really get to finish the wedding.”
What is he saying? Did he have plans for them that evening? Was that going to be the night, before everything fell to pieces and they were running for their lives?
He smiles at her, that lopsided grin that’s been melting her heart since she was fourteen, and suggests with a laugh, “We could always get dressed up again, and have our own little celebration here.”
Hermione chuckles too. As much as she would love to do that—to know what exactly they didn’t finish the night of his brother’s wedding—they have more important things to focus on. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I just meant with the mission—”
“No, no, you’re right.” Ron gives her a tight-lipped smile. “I’m gonna go see what I can round up for dinner.”
He leaves her alone in the drawing room without another word, and Hermione sighs, wondering how she always manages to say the wrong thing to him.
She gathers up the clothing, but rather than put the pieces in a closet, she folds them carefully and places them back into her beaded bag.
Maybe one day we can finish what we started.
Ron’s feet are heavy as he trades places with Harry, who’s about to finish out the night watch. The winter air outside is nothing compared to the frostiness inside the tent. Not that he’s surprised. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. But he and Hermione are both as stubborn as they come, and her resolve is stronger than his.
She’s barely said five words to him since he returned to the hunt, so the sight that greets him behind the tent flap hits him harder than a stunning spell: Hermione, wearing that tantalizing lilac dress from Bill and Fleur’s wedding.
Obviously, she’s gone completely round the twist.
Ron takes a step forward into what he now realizes is a suffocating heating charm on the tent, mimicking that same stuffy August evening. Before he can raise any questions, Hermione thrusts a bundle of fabric into his arms. “Put these on,” she instructs, her tone clipped as her lips set into a thin line.
“My dress robes?” Ron asks as he examines them. “Hermione, are you feeling alright?”
“Peachy,” she snaps, the only response he’s apparently going to get. After a loaded moment without further instructions, Ron takes a step toward the loo.
“Uh…okay. Be right back.”
Hermione’s request makes absolutely no sense, but he’s not really in a position right now to deny anything she asks of him. If putting on his dress robes will get her to talk to him, it seems a very minor sacrifice to make.
He puts the robes on as quickly as he can and then heads back out to the main area of the tent, where Hermione is waiting. They’re a pale echo now of themselves from that night—clothes hanging loose from months without proper nutrition, both a bit scraggly and in need of a haircut, and a shave in Ron’s case—but she’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Her expression is one of grim determination, but her brown eyes are wide and bright as she looks up at him.
“You said we never got to finish the wedding,” Hermione says softly.
“You want to now?” Ron asks incredulously, shock winning the battle against common sense. He had suggested this, only sort of joking, back at Grimmauld Place and she had shut him down. The conditions now are even less ideal, and he’s flabbergasted that she’s bringing it up.
“I need to know if I’m crazy,” she answers, and though Ron has some thoughts on that at the moment, he wisely keeps them to himself, “or imagining things. I need to know what we didn’t finish that night.”
“Hermione—” She holds a hand up, silencing him instantly.
Stubbornness grips them both again as they stand frozen, eyeing each other across the room, neither willing to look away. She doesn’t know what she’s asking. She doesn’t know that he had every intent of pulling her out to the back garden to tell her how he felt, to maybe finally steal a kiss, but a combination of having fun dancing and debilitating nerves at the idea of taking that step had kept him putting it off for one more song. One more glass of champagne. Until there was no more music and no more champagne, only fear and chaos, and their focus had been forcibly shifted to other things.
She doesn’t know any of that, so what does Hermione think they’re finishing?
Sod it. She’s the brightest witch of their age. Maybe she does know.
Ron crosses the room to the wireless and gives it a couple of taps with his wand until it’s playing the soft, slow song that had been the last one they heard at the wedding. He turns back to Hermione, who holds her hand out in invitation. “Come and dance?” she whispers his own words back at him, her voice shaky as her eyes glisten with unshed tears.
He takes her hand and wraps his other arm around her waist, pulling her in close, and Hermione’s head settles against his chest as they barely sway to the music. Even before he left, they haven’t been this close since the wedding, and Ron never wants to let go again.
“Do you really want to finish this the way I wanted to at the wedding?” Ron asks softly as the song ends and then starts over. “You’re hardly even speaking to me, let alone—” He cuts himself off with a sigh. Despite Hermione being the one to initiate this, kissing her feels like a boundary he shouldn’t cross.
Hermione pulls away to look up at him, but holds onto his hand. “When you left, it made me question everything I thought I knew about you. About—us.” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “So yes, I want to know. I need to know. Unless—”
She stops, and Ron braces for her rejection. Maybe he should’ve just kissed her and not second-guessed himself. Hermione bites her lip anxiously and drops his hand, and his fingers dangle uselessly between them, still half-reaching for her. “Unless what you want has changed since the wedding because in that case there’s no point in pretending that—”
Whatever else she’d intended to say gets swallowed up by Ron’s lips. What he wants hasn’t changed at all, only gotten stronger, and he doesn’t want to wait any longer to show her.
Hermione melts against him, her hands finding their way into his hair, and kissing her feels like coming home. Every brush of her lips against his is a taste of forgiveness, and he drinks it in like he’s dying of thirst.
He doesn’t stop kissing her until he tastes salt, and he pulls away to find tears streaming down Hermione’s cheeks. She leaves her hands tangled in his hair to keep him close, though, and presses her forehead to his to whisper in anguish, “Why did you leave, then? If that’s what you wanted, Ron, why did you leave?”
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. He never expected it to be. Ron sighs. “That’s a story for a different night, I think,” he replies, and at that Hermione does let him go with a hollow laugh.
“Of course you’re not going to tell me,” she scoffs. “Why would this change a damn thing between us?”
Ron reaches for her again, tugging at the chiffon that hugged her body like a glove four months ago but is now loose enough for him to grab an entire handful. “I just meant—not this night.” He motions to their outfits, to the purple dress and the navy robes that aren’t yet tainted with thoughts of the locket. “Let’s get changed, and I’ll tell you everything.”
Hermione trails her fingers down his lapel as she looks up at him. “Promise?”
“Yeah,” he agrees easily. All he’s wanted to do since he got back is tell her the truth; he’s just been waiting for her to want to hear it. “I promise.”
