and to this day, when everything breaks, you are the anchor that holds me

[cleverness]

As the sun began to deep from its early afternoon high, birds chirped as they flew through the woods, lingering around the Nook and watching curiously as people gathered from around the city. Flowers bloomed from the branches, uncharacteristically bright and large for the season, aided by a touch of magic. Not far from the house, a small babbling brook snaked through the fields, giving pets and wildlife alike the chance to run around and splash in a bit of water. The wedding decor had been designed to blend into the countryside, tables held up by tree trunks, and shade overhead provided by the stretch of vines and blossoms. The scent in the air was subtle and sweet, light floral mingling with the smell of baked goods wafting from the buffet table. At the end of the table stood a large cake, with white frosting and decorated with orange blossoms and clementines. If one looked closely enough, they would notice that one of the fruits was different than the rest, painted a subtle gold, and occasionally flying around the cake with a rapid beating of delicate wings.

The wedding was a small and intimate affair, meant to be more of a celebration than a formal occasion, and guests mingled with wine and cheer before the time came for the ceremony to begin.


Ron had felt as if he was going to lose his breakfast for most of the day. The truth was, he'd barely eaten at all that morning, anxious about the late afternoon ceremony. In some ways, it reminded him of ages ago, of his first Quidditch match as Keeper back at Hogwarts, his stomach was in knots, he felt peaky, and without realizing it that morning, he'd been so distracted by his own thoughts that he'd idly managed to cast a spell that left a small raincloud lingering over his head for nearly an hour before he managed to rid himself of it.

He knew that he was mental for it, for being worried about any of this. He and Hermione had been together ages now. They loved each other, and this was the next thing. There was no doubt in his mind that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with that bloody amazing woman, but there was still the slightest bit of worry that she'd think better of it— of him— and tell him to sod off. He hadn't had thoughts like that, when it came to Hermione, in ages, but somehow it'd all come flooding back in the hours before the wedding.

Even standing there, waiting for her to walk down the aisle, he tried to push those thoughts away, tried not to look too nervous, like his stomach didn't feel like a crumpled bit of parchment. At least, if it all went sour, he only really knew a handful of people who'd turned up today. And Charlie wasn't George or Ginny, so he wouldn't give him too hard a time about it.

But the thing Ron didn't expect, standing there feeling like he might pass out, what he hadn't prepared himself for, was how she looked when he finally saw her. Because once he finally saw Hermione in her dress, walking toward him, this bloody amazing woman who'd chosen him when she could have had anyone, all the worry melted away. The parchment uncrumpled itself, and he was left grinning so hard he couldn't imagine ever being this happy again in his life.


All throughout the morning, Hermione's heart fluttered in her chest. Even as she listened to the guests mingling in the distance, there was something about the day that didn't feel quite real, even as she worked on zipping her dress and arranging her hair just so. While she had asked a guest or two for help on occasion, Hermione spent most of the morning preparing on her own, letting the enormity of everything that had led her and Ron to this point sink in. She had known, practically since their first year at Hogwarts, that Ron was a person whom Hermione would spend the rest of her years standing alongside. But the depth of what they felt for one another, the deepening of those emotions as they bloomed into something deeper and intangible, was something she never could have anticipated all of those years ago.

Now, she couldn't imagine wanting a single day away from him. As Hermione gazed in the mirror, she noticed how it softened her appearance. Her cheeks, dusted pink even without the help of blush. Quietly, she stole a moment to peek through the window, where Ron and Charlie were speaking in the distance. Everything about the day felt right. Everything was coming together, the final missing pieces of the puzzle.

By the time she made her way to the aisle, Hermione was already beaming, fingers trembling as they held onto her bouquet. Petals of light pink and orange lined the path she took, guests turned their heads to rest upon the bride, and sweet woodwind music played in the distance — but in the moment, Hermione only had eyes for Ron. As she came to a stop across from him, she reached a hand out to lace with his own, and silently murmured, I love you.


Ron had spent hours the day before trying to put the right words together, even though he knew that he was rubbish at that sort of thing. Reports, papers… mostly he just tried to get out of doing them, but this wasn't something Ron wanted to skive off. It was more important than almost anything.

In the end, he'd come up with something, and he'd written it out on a bit of parchment that he'd folded up and put in the pocket of his jacket, but he'd begun to think he wouldn't need it after all.

"Hermione, you've been my best friend, my teacher, my soul mate. You've managed to put up with me for over a decade now, and if you were going to think better of it, I s'pose you would've done it by now. Sometimes— right now, especially— I can't believe I've gotten this lucky. I love you, Hermione. You've been making me a better person since we first met, all those years ago as kids. And I promise that— that I'll keep working at it for as long as we're together, which is the rest of our lives, I hope. I promise we'll keep learning from each other, and that I'll always be there.

"A long time ago, I got lost, and it took a little ball of light to bring me back to you, to bring me home again. But I promise to never leave again. You're my home now, and you always will be."


As Hermione listened to Ron speak, she felt her chest grow tight and her eyes mist over, but she did her best to take the whole moment in, committing every detail to memory. The bright blue of Ron's eyes, as clear as the sky above. The way his hair caught the sunlight. The gentle brush of the wind as he spoke, grass waving merrily in the distance. She ducked her head for only a moment, smiling to herself, knowing that she could never forget the way that her heart felt right then, full to burst.

"As a child, I had always been somewhat of a precocious little thing. I knew how to consume books as though I was breathing air, and I kept my nose buried in them, day after day, like they were my entire world. But from the moment that you entered my life, Ron, you showed me that there was so much more to the world than what I could learn in the shelves of a library. You taught me the value of friendship, you showed me what true bravery meant. And what you taught me, above all else, is about love. What it's like to grow together, and what it's like to feel as though there's another person in the world who completes you. Who makes your world whole. Who shows you, every day, how life can be lived to its fullest.

"You say that you feel like you're lucky, but I feel like I've been the fortunate one to have found my soulmate so early in life. And I can't wait to spend the rest of that life with you."

Trembling hands relaxed as Hermione watched Ron slide the ring onto her finger, and she glanced up with a soft laugh. His warm arms wrapped around her, and Hermione pushed herself onto her toes, hand curling against his chest as she pressed her lips to his.


[ gathering for ronmione wedding! let us know if you're requesting ron, hermione, or both! tag in and be merry. ♥ ]

Comments

[floozyfacade]

"Get me one?" Olive asks, hands folded behind her back as she walks up. Her selection for the day is a simple one, pale lavender and lace number, but she likes the way it feels swishing around her legs, and she really didn't want to overdo it. Hermione is Eduardo's friend, but that makes her feel all the more like she needs to get things right to be here.

It's all so beautiful, though, and she's glad she came, and not just because it's the wedding of two people whose story she grew up on. The love they feel for each other is fairly palpable, enough to make her grateful she was allowed to be here.

[pointzerothree]

"Of course," Eduardo says, casting a brief smile over his shoulder at Olive before leaning past someone to reach for two drinks, holding them up carefully as he steps away from the table. Now as much as ever, he really doesn't want to inadvertently cause any kind of trouble, and spilling a drink on anything or anyone, including himself or Olive, definitely wouldn't do any good. His expression is fond as he holds one of the glasses out to her; it's hard to be anything else right now. "Here you go."

[floozyfacade]

"Thank you," Olive says, sing-song, holding her glass up to tap gently against his when she takes it. For a moment, she actually feels almost shy, and it's the weirdest fucking thing, because she can't remember the last time she felt that way around him. It's just the situation, is all. She may not know the bride and groom, except through someone else's words, but that kind of devotion is still affecting and it's still a wedding. It's hard to sit through that and not think about her own future. About theirs. And when he looks at her like that, it's equally as hard not to be sure what she wants, though it's not something she's really spent any time thinking about.

And she really can't think about it here and now. She cannot get caught up in this moment. "Do you think it's weird for me to be here? I mean, I did once slap his sister when she kissed me. Do you remember that? That was so weird. I'd almost completely forgotten, probably because getting kissed by someone with your face and without your permission is actually fairly traumatic, but now that I'm here, it's all coming back, like war flashbacks or something."

[pointzerothree]

"Oh, my God, I completely forgot about that," Eduardo says, stifling a laugh at the thought. At the time, it hadn't seemed funny at all, commonplace as people looking like each other might have been on the island, just as it is here. Now, though, maybe it's the way she's brought it up, or the fact that it slipped his mind completely until she mentioned it, he can't help if he's just a little amused. It's a good thing they don't seem to be in any danger of that happening here, no one else he's glimpsed at the reception looking like Olive. He might be used to it, but he doesn't have to like it, and that would just be too bizarre at an occasion like this. Sipping his drink, he says, "I don't know, I don't think it's weird. Not unless it's weird to one of them, and they don't seem to think so."

Hermione and Ron, from what he's seen of them, just look happy. Even if it were weird, he suspects that might supersede everything else, and he can't say he'd blame them. If it were him — and that's probably not a thought he should be having, though it's not one he can stop, either — he'd be in the same boat.

[floozyfacade]

"True," Olive says, glancing around to see if she can spot them. "They, um, seem a little otherwise occupied." And yet they both seem to be making the rounds, too, talking to their guests, which is nice. She doubts anyone would blame them for being entirely caught up in each other at a time like this. A day like this only happens once, after all (okay, for some people it only happens once, but she feels pretty secure betting Ron and Hermione are among those people. Otherwise half of her childhood is a lie). She'd be the worst host ever in their shoes.

"Well, good. I don't want to do anything to mess with this. It's so pretty, Jesus."

[pointzerothree]

"It really is," Eduardo says, looking around at everything. While he might not know everything that went into planning this, it seems like it all came together perfectly, and he can't imagine anything nicer for the two of them. It's been a strange thing, befriending someone he knew in a different universe, but he doesn't think he could be happier for Hermione if he tried, or to have Olive here with him for this. "And, yeah, you know, I—" I think I would be, too, he nearly says, but catches himself. Somehow, it feels like too much. "I can't say I blame them for being occupied. I mean, all things considered."

[floozyfacade]

"What, really?" Olive asks, deadpan. "It's only their wedding." It's pretty amazing, she thinks, how things work. From what she understands, Hermione was here without Ron for a while before he showed up, and yet here they are, together despite the odds, married and everything. It's a little bit of a miracle. Somehow that only seems right, though. Those two are meant to be together.

Of course, she mostly knows that from reading about their lives and she isn't going to say so, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

[pointzerothree]

"Yeah, well, you know," Eduardo says with a shrug, teasingly serious in turn, playing along, "seems like the kind of thing that might keep someone's focus elsewhere." He's sure it would, though he's obviously never been in the same position himself. How anyone gets through their own wedding reception actually seems kind of incredible, no matter how many people have clearly done so. But then, nice as this is, he can't imagine wanting to rush through it, either.

[floozyfacade]

"Yeah, yeah, okay, I guess." Olive smiles to herself and sips her drink, wondering idly if J.K. Rowling ever imagined anything as pretty as this. She sure as hell couldn't have imagined the guest list. But that's the nice thing about Darrow, the thing about all of these places that she's come around to. It doesn't change who they are, but being in a place like this undoubtedly changes their course and lets them embrace new possibilities. She's sure she could be happy at home now, if she'd never left, if she were halfway through college and had never known Eduardo. But it would be a different happiness, a different life. And for Ron and Hermione, who've known each other for years, it's a different future than what they would have had, but at least they have it together.

"It's kind of... it gives me hope," she adds after a moment. "I mean, they found each other. Even with different worlds in the way, they made it back together. Where they're supposed to be."

[pointzerothree]

"Yeah," Eduardo says softly, smiling a little to himself at that. He hasn't given it a lot of thought before now, maybe because it's difficult not to think of the two of them as having always been together, but she's got a good point. There aren't even that many people in Darrow, all things considered, who came from somewhere else. The odds of the two of them both showing up here, being from the same world and from a time that made sense to both of them, have got to be astronomically slim. But here they both are, happily married in spite of that. It's reassuring, in a way, to know that people can have that, though short of their first showing up on the island, he and Olive have done all of their universe-changing together. He looks at her for a long moment, taking a small sip of his drink. "Like if it could happen for them, it can happen for other people, too."

[floozyfacade]

"Like it could happen for us." Olive's happy the possibility exists for all of them, she really is. But it's what it means for her own future that matters most to her. Things might be different back where they're from, but it can work. Wherever they end up, they'll figure it out. She used to be much more pessimistic about that. Now she's more certain of the truth of it, and there's peace in that. It leaves her free to enjoy the moments they have instead of counting them, and to focus on the rest of her life instead.

[pointzerothree]

"Yeah," Eduardo says, smile fond. For the moment, he's not considering any alternatives, anyway. Years ago, before they were anything more than close friends, he'd felt certain that, one day, he would have to give her up, that she'd go back to her home and family where she belonged, and he would be alright with that. A lot has happened since then, though, and while he wouldn't want to keep her from them, he's pretty sure the two of them belong with each other, too. It feels naïve to say something like they'd always find each other, but it's nice to think that, whatever happens, they could always wind up together again. "I mean, we've been pretty lucky so far."