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]

"Oh, wow, thanks," Olive says, looking reflectively down at her own dress. It's hard not to imitate Kate's swishing, so she just goes ahead and does it, though she has considerably less to swish. It kind of makes her regret going with something simpler today. "I just got it. I mean, I really just like it 'cause of the pockets." She sticks her hands in them to demonstrate.

Any dress is better with pockets.

"Have you got a wedding dress yet? Or are you guys gonna do, like, matching costumes? Oh, my God, that would be amazing."

[everyonetakes]

"I am getting a gorgeous and perfect gown, because it's not every day I have a totally socially acceptable excuse to spend way more money on a dress than any person ever should," she admits with a laugh. She might not be going for the whole white gown thing, but she's finding herself a pretty dress all the same. "And Newt looks way too good in a really nicely tailored suit for me to let him go as a kaiju, which he probably would, but I figure everyone else can dress up if that's what they want to do."

After watching Charmaine -- or not really watching, just having the memories come back to her, which is super weird -- totally fall apart over her wedding, Kate is convinced she doesn't want to worry that much. She doesn't want to think about all those stupid rules. She just wants people to have fun.

[floozyfacade]

"That's awesome," Olive says decisively. In the event she ever gets married — and it's really hard not to think about that at a time like this — she doubts she and Eduardo would have that kind of wedding, which is kind of regrettable. It's only right someone else should get to have that. "You have to make sure you have a designated photographer, 'cause that's gonna be the shit."

[everyonetakes]

"Photographer and food are like, my top two priorities," she says with a grin. She wants to remember the day, but she also wants to eat some really delicious food and drink some really delicious cocktails. "Thank god Newt's a genius scientist, because apparently they pay those folks pretty well. If I tried to pull off a wedding on the Dressing Room salary, we'd all have to sit on the ground and eat peanut butter sandwiches."

[floozyfacade]

Olive stifles a snort of a laugh. "Okay, but you have to admit, that could also be pretty awesome," she says. "I mean, is the peanut butter crunchy or creamy? And what kind of jelly? Those are the big questions." She's pretty sure those two would find a way to have an awesome wedding even if they were penniless and living in a box. It's just something about the both of them, a vibrancy she thinks the world needs more of.

[everyonetakes]

"Oooh, both kinds of peanut butter and a variety of both jellies and jams. So the guests can choose," Kate decides and she's joking, but she's actually sort of not. It sounds like a really good idea and totally original and maybe it's not typical of wedding food, but nothing they're doing is typical really. That's exactly how she wants it to be.

"You're the expert party thrower, does that sound awesome and totally lame?" she asks. She loves Olive's parties. It actually makes her own birthday a little easier because she never has to worry about planning anything when Olive always throws an amazing party the day before. She totally gets to ride on her seriously amazing party throwing coattails and it works for her.

[floozyfacade]

"That sounds totally awesome," laughs Olive. "No, seriously. Like, I don't know, it's not what I would do, but that's kind of the point, you know? That it's your day and you do what's gonna suit you. And if you are an awesome PB&J person, then... yeah. Like, it just sounds like a lot of fun to me." At the core of it, that's who she thinks they are, too. Not that Newt and Kate don't have something real and serious, but that they're just fun people, and that's part of the core of that relationship. "The whole thing does."

[everyonetakes]

"I think it'll be fun," Kate says and she doesn't mean the sandwiches exactly, but everything. The whole ceremony, the whole day. It's the sort of thing she had never even realized she wanted, the sort of thing she was actually pretty sure she'd never do because weddings were total shithouses and marriages were even worse. Her whole life, she'd been convinced that getting married just made people miserable.

But now here she is and she wants to do it.

"I'm nervous, though, too," she admits, then she shrugs and smiles. "So what about you? I mean... not the marriage thing. I hate when people ask questions like that. Like, 'oh, so when's is your turn?' I don't know, it seems weird. I just meant like, what's going on lately?"

[floozyfacade]

Olive huffs out a laugh, eyes rolling. She's been lucky, she thinks, that no one has asked her that, since it's not something she gives much thought. It'll happen eventually. She's pretty sure of that. Beyond that, she'll get there when she gets there. It's hard not to think about on a day like this, though.

"You know, the usual," she says, "working on events for Phoenix, which is great. I'm still so glad Eduardo is letting me do this. Still trying to pick a major... Getting ready for school. Are you ready? Are you psyched? 'cause I'm, like, I'm actually kind of freaking out about this no major thing I've got going on."

[everyonetakes]

"That is super cool," Kate agrees. Olive's good at stuff like that, throwing these great events and amazing parties, and while Kate has no idea if she wants to do something like that for a living, she's really good at it and she seems to enjoy it. If nothing else, at least she can keep doing it for Eduardo.

"Oh, god, yeah," she says at Olive's question. "I'm kind of terrified. I never figured college was for me and now..." She trails off and flaps her hands around, as if that explains what she's feeling and it sort of does. "When are you supposed to have a major by? I never understood any of that shit, to be totally honest."

[floozyfacade]

Hand flapping is pretty much exactly how Olive feels about it right now. "Um, second semester sophomore year," she says, "so you've got some time. I, on the other hand, have approximately seven months to make a decision. Like, I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere in the social sciences and I wanna do something that helps people, maybe like psychology or sociology? I don't know if I'm cut out for social work. Or patient enough for grad school."

[everyonetakes]

Seven months doesn't seem like a lot of time in which to figure out something like that, but Kate figures Olive definitely doesn't need to hear something like that, so she keeps her mouth shut on that whole subject. She'll be terrified when that time comes, she knows she will, even though she already has a pretty good idea what she wants to do.

And she doesn't have a whole lot of trust in the social sciences either, but Kate knows that's her own issues with her mom colouring her judgment there. Olive is different, though. Olive isn't Dr. Ocean. "Maybe something like counseling?" she asks curiously. "You'd be really good at that."