Work Text:
Hermione had left a note in the morning that she was going to be home late. She’d arranged to go for a drink with Ron after work, and she was hoping it would take her mind off the whole Valentine’s of it all. She didn’t want to start a fight with Pansy, but she knew she would be too upset without at least three glasses of wine in her to feel anything but frustrated with the whole affair.
Work was, thankfully, also an excellent distraction. Apparently the black market traders in Yorkshire hadn’t heard the news about Cupid and were instead hoisted by their own petard: a very disgruntled wizard had purchased a “genuine dragon’s egg” from them, only to find it was an ostrich egg they had painted. He’d put in an anonymous tip to the Ministry and now Hermione had a mountain of paperwork on her desk about everything they’d been caught with. It was with satisfaction she checked all the listings, logged them, and signed, sending them off to the Magical Animals department with a swish of her wand.
Unfortunately, it turned out that her eagerness to bury herself in her work would be her own undoing. By the time she’d finished the stack, her wrist ached but it was only half four.
“Knock off early,” said Penelope Clearwater, her boss, when Hermione inquired about more work. “It’s Valentine’s Day for Merlin’s sake.”
“Oh, that’s alright—“
“Seriously. I’ll be sneaking off in a minute anyway,” she stage-whispered.
Hermione thought about arguing, but trying to drag Penelope away from a point was like trying to drag Hagrid away from his blasted blast-ended skrewts (something they had been trying to do for months without success).
Pansy worked nights at the Leaky Cauldron and almost certainly would still be in their flat. It was a nice, cosy little place that they had made into a real home; Hermione couldn’t blame her for staying in quite so often. But that was the whole problem today. Every reminder of the life they were building, that seemed only to exist for Hermione and was just a casual arrangement for Pansy, was too painful to really consider.
Luckily, the Auror’s office was only a few floors down and Hermione found Ron napping at his desk, which was, as always, covered in a leaning towers of papers and old coffee cups.
She slammed her hands down on the wood to wake him.
“I was just resting my—oh, hey, Hermione,” he said, voice laced with sleep. He blinked heavily at her, rubbing his eyes. “Is it 5.30 already?”
“No, but I’m done with work,” she said. “Though, it seems like you’re far too busy to skip out on work.”
Ron gave a huge yawn, stretching up. She was always alarmed to remember how lanky and tall he was; she still remembered him as she first met him, exactly her height and floppy-haired.
“Yeah, just absolutely snowed under,” he said. He got up, grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. “Leaky?”
Hermione nodded. Pansy wouldn’t be starting until 8 at least. She led the way out, stuffing herself along with Ron into a lift with three accountants from the Bursary and the strange guy who worked in Forensic Magics. Then it was across the stone floors of the Ministry to Floor themselves to the Leaky Cauldron. It was already heaving with Ministry types, who had clearly also snuck out of work early. Or, at least, would be pretending to conduct “business meetings” and expensing all their rounds of Firewhisky and butterbeer.
Hermione, of course, would do no such thing, and tutted at Ron when he suggested it. She got the first round in, and she and Ron set themselves down at the wonky table at the back.
“Not like you to skip out on work,” Ron said, taking a sip of her beer.
She shrugged, although she was quite sure it didn’t look as casual as she imagined.
“Valentine’s Day,” she said with a heavy sigh.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Trouble brewing?” he asked. He kicked back, leaning his head against the pockmarked wood paneling behind them. Hermione was glad for the dim lighting in the Cauldron, that made it hard to tell what any of the stains on it were. “I thought you and Pansy were doing alright.”
She pursed her lips. “We’re fine.”
“Sounds like it,” he said.
She hated it when he was like this: right, and sarcastic about it no less. She gave him a dirty look.
“I don’t know, Ron,” she admitted. She sighed and folded her arms. “I just want more, I think, and I know we’re not meant to be that serious, but I want us to be. Or I want to try at least.”
He frowned, though it was gone the next second, replaced with a sympathetic look and a cocking of his head.
“Have you spoken to Pansy about that?”
She grumbled to herself, before she found the words again.
“No, but I already know it’ll scare her off,” she said.
“Oh? What makes you so sure?”
“Because we’ve been doing this for, what? A year now? I think I’d know if she wanted anything more.”
The corner of his mouth quirked. He had that look on his face, the one that told her that he had things to say, but was holding them back.
“What?” she asked bluntly.
He shrugged, smiling.
“Ron,” she said. She was not impressed with his coy act. “Out with it.”
“Look,” he said, laying his hands on the table. “Sometimes, you don’t know everything.”
She wanted to be offended, but he rolled right on without pausing for her to object.
“And sometimes, people can surprise you. Come on, where’s your House spirit? Why not throw your lot in? Is it really better to not risk it, to keep living like this, always wondering and always hoping for more, but being ultimately unhappy?”
All she could really say was, “I’m not unhappy.”
“But you’re not happy.”
She huffed, eyeing him closely.
“When did you become emotionally mature?”
He grinned, obviously chuffed with the compliment and making her regret giving it.
“I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but back when we were teenagers, there was a war on and we almost died. Heck, a bunch of people we know died,” he said tartly. “It really changes a guy.”
She narrowed her eyes on him.
“I take it back,” she said, grabbing her drink. “You haven’t changed one bit.”
He laughed. “Nor have you. Always right about everything, don’t need to consider anyone else’s advice.”
She wrinkled her nose. Again, he was right and, again, she hated it.
“So what are you saying? I go back and declare my love for her?” She wriggled in her seat. Even saying it out loud made her uncomfortable.
“You don’t have to get Celine Warbly—“
“Celestine Warbeck,” Hermione cut in.
“Whoever, to write you a ballad. You could just, you know, go home, ask her out on a date, and see where it goes. Have you two actually been on a date?”
“I mean, we’ve been in the same place and the same time,” she said.
Her raised a very skeptical eyebrow.
“That is not the same thing,” he said.
She took a swig of beer. This was beer from a new goblin brewery, and it was more bitter than she usually enjoyed — what she got for trying new things. But she was stalling. She needed time to think, to calculate, and Ron was rarely patient enough to let that happen.
Unfortunately, what he was saying made sense and she didn’t have many good arguments against it. It was especially difficult when asking Pansy on a date did sound nice and she would have done a lot to be able to just spend a night eating with her, seeing Pansy’s soft features cast in candlelight.
She sighed, putting her glass down. Ron was giving her an expectant look.
“I’ve never seen you like this,” he said, tapping at the slick table with one of his knuckles.
“I know, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said. She shook her head. “It’s just, what if she says no?”
“She won’t say no,” Ron said.
“You don’t know that.”
Ron gave her a small smile. “I actually know more than you think — don’t give me that look, I mean it literally. I’m telling you, Hermione, you go home right now…you might find someone has moved the needle for you.”
Oh no. This set her stomach aflutter, as if it needed any encouragement towards sick hopefulness. It was the kind of thing she was always careful to keep far away from and now Ron was dangling it in front of her face.
“What does that mean?” she asked. She had meant to keep her tone light, but it came out clipped, interrogatory.
“I can’t say more,” he said, though she began to talk over him quickly.
“Ronald Bilius Weasley, tell me what you know,” she said. She leaned forward, placing her hands on the table.
He raised his hands up and shook his head vehemently.
“No,” he said. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy!”
“You’re kidding,” she spat.
“Hermione,” he said, gently but firmly. He brought his arms down. “Will you just trust me for once?”
There was a fire brewing in her, but the look on his face was so frustratingly disarming that it managed to douse the flames.
Still, that he would keep secrets from her — that he was even capable of hiding things from her! It would hardly stand.
“Once I find out what this is, I’m going to hex you six ways ’til Sunday,” she said. She wasn’t sulking of course — Hermione Granger did not sulk — but she was very upset about the fact her “cheer-up” drinks had turned into “my-best-friend-is-keeping-secrets-about-my-pseudo-relationship” drinks.
Her glare did nothing to move him, though it so rarely did.
Of course, deep down, she knew she wasn’t that angry with him. But she was trying to ignore the tingling of yearning that was building beneath her ribs. And, as she sat, staring grimly at Ron, who regarded her with an open, easy expression as if she wasn’t quite mad at him, she thought this might be the first time she’d let herself feel that. Merlin, it was possibly the first time she admitted to herself how much she wanted this. How much she needed her relationship to be more.
She grabbed her coat.
“If this is all a mean trick—”
“Would I do that to you?” he asked. He looked quite genuinely concerned. “I’m not a complete arsehole.”
She paused, arm through one of her sleeves.
“You’re right,” she said, and patted his hand. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, sitting back. “Get on with yourself.”
She smiled and gathered her bag up.
She kissed him on the cheek before she left, and he waved her off.
The air was bracing when she left the Cauldron, and she pulled her peacoat tight around her. She apparated, too antsy to walk the twenty minutes to their flat, and landed on their doorstep. It was a wonder, with the excitement fizzing through her body, that she didn’t splinch herself in half.
Her hands shook as she uttered the lock charm to let herself in, and she almost tripped over herself putting down her bag and taking off her coat.
The flat was quiet, suspiciously so. Pansy was usually listening to raucous metal, but instead there was only a gentle orchestral tune coming from their living room. Hermione had to take a deep breath before she walked any further.
It was just a few short steps in their hall to the living room doorway.
And there was Pansy.
She was dressed in purple, a short dress, the same one she’d been wearing when she had Hermione had first hooked up, not two months after the war had finished. Her face was open, expectant. She was more nervous than Hermione had ever seen her.
Behind her, the table was adorned with food — tiny cakes dotted with flapping butterflies and twirling candy jewels, a bottle of Hermione’s favourite wine, and a big cast iron dish in the middle filled with what Hermione suspected was coq au vin. There were candles all around the room, floating up and down in time with the music.
It was beautiful.
It was perfect.
She looked back at Pansy, who looked like she was going to hyperventilate at any moment. Hermione’s heart was thudding in her chest.
“I love you,” Pansy said.
Hermione had always imagined that hearing those words would send her spinning. But instead, for the first time in a long time, she felt grounded. She felt right.
She stepped towards Pansy, taking her in her arms and kissing her softly.
“That’s good,” she said, kissing her again. “Because I love you too.”