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He had honestly forgotten all about it.
Ron had got his letter from the Auror Academy over ten days ago, along with the box of chocolate cupcakes his mother had sent, that afternoon’s edition of The Daily Prophet, and the new issue of Quidditch Weekly, which he’d been anxiously anticipating since last week, when he’d learnt that Ginny was to be profiled as one of the “top 10 up-and-coming prospects” in all of Britain.
The letter had arrived inauspiciously, tucked in the talons of a rather ordinary looking owl (certainly not one he would have expected the Academy to employ; there were far more majestic birds in Ministry’s owlrey). The owl had simply dropped the letter beside the bowl of fruit without so much as a hoot to announce its presence, and Ron had been so preoccupied with trying to calm the ever-hyperactive Pig that he hadn’t even paid the letter much mind until his ruddy nuisance of an owl had fluttered away.
Ron knew what it was when he’d finally fished it out from under the small mountain of feathers Pig had left behind. He’d fully intended to open it right then and there until... something stopped him.
He wasn’t even sure what that something was, now that he thought of it. Fear, perhaps. Dread, probably. Nausea. Yes, definitely nausea. Maybe it had been that sick color of green from the envelope, but regardless, he had had an almost physical reaction to it, and he found himself stuffing the letter into his pocket before his brain could make up all sorts of crazy scenarios about what it could possibly have to say.
Later that night, he would take it out again, in the confines of his own bed—when Hermione wasn’t looking, of course. And again, the same nausea overtook him, and his fingers fumbled with the melted wax seal for a mere second or two before he dropped it to his bed and stared long and hard at it.
He’d absently stuffed it in the inside pocket of his jacket the next morning, fully intending to open it some time that day, only to forget about it completely.
Until just now.
He and Hermione had chosen to celebrate his first day off from the joke shop in a while by laying out by the lake in Ottery St. Catchpole for the afternoon--their first chance to be truly alone in what seemed like an eternity. Her head had been pillowed on his arm for the last hour as she napped--how he loved the feel of her weight pressing on him--and he felt her stir after a while, nestling closer into him and draping her arm across his chest. Her hand had slipped underneath his open jacket at that point, and she must have noticed a corner of that green envelope, because not too long after, he felt her prop herself up, then reach into his pocket to pull it out.
“What’s this?”
He groaned, not exactly relishing the fact that he’d been forced to abandon the rather nice dream he’d been having--something about him and Hermione snogging in front of a roaring fire...
“Ron,” she said, shaking him gently.
“Yeah?”
He felt her bring her head down low; her breath was warm and tickled his face.
“What’s this?”
She tapped a corner of the envelope on the tip of his nose, something he would have found incredibly annoying had it been done by anyone else, but which he found somewhat endearing since it was being done by his girlfriend.
“What’s what?”
He pried one eye open, then the other, squinting almost immediately when he felt the sun striking him at its late afternoon angle. He shifted and levered himself up on his forearm, then looked up to see what she was holding.
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“It’s, er... it’s a letter.”
She looked for a moment as if she had wanted to roll her eyes, but stopped just in time, and instead arched an eyebrow at him.
“Well, I had guessed that,” she said. “What is it?”
Suddenly, she furrowed her brow and came to sitting.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, I’m sorry, of course you wouldn’t want... I mean, it’s your letter. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have-”
He smiled at her fretting. She was downright irresistible when she was like this; of course, she’d had plenty of practice over the last eight years or so, what with constantly worrying about him or Harry about something or another at any given point in time. He reached up to give her a quick kiss which seemed to take her completely by surprise, making her blush that beautiful shade of pink that only he ever seemed to be able to inspire in her.
“No, it’s all right,” he said, straightening. “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you.”
She handed it back to him, and for a long time, he merely held it, before he finally laid it on the ground before them.
“It’s from the Auror Academy.”
“The Auror Academy...” She looked up at him, and he couldn’t quite tell at first whether she was upset by the revelation or not, until he heard the slight excitement in her voice when she spoke again. “Ron, you never even told me you had applied!”
He shrugged. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Not even Harry?”
“Love,” he said, “if I hadn’t even told you, did you really think I was going to tell Harry?”
“Well, I just thought...” She reached for the letter again and turned it over, then looked back at him in confusion when she saw that the seal still remained intact. “You haven’t opened it.”
“Yeah, I... reckon I haven’t quite got round to it yet.”
“Ron...”
She placed her hand on top of his, and he watched as she curled her fingers over the arch of his hand caressing it gently with her thumb.
“What’s stopping you?”
“I’m not sure, really.”
“Are you scared of what it will say?”
He sighed.
“I s’pose,” he said. “Bit silly, isn’t it?”
She only smiled and shook her head.
“You know, for a long time, I wondered what it was I saw myself doing exactly once I finished school,” he said softly. He laid back down on their makeshift blanket again, wrapping an arm protectively around her when she settled her cheek on his chest. “Did I ever tell you that Charlie had decided on being a dragon trainer as early as third year?”
“Did he?”
“Yeah. Got top marks in his Care of Magical Creatures class. Came home that summer, apparently, and told Mum and Dad he was going to work with animals when he left school.”
He felt her soft laughter reverberate against his chest.
“And Bill... He started working summers at Gringotts from the time he was fifteen, to earn extra pocket money, and they took him in once he’d finished school. Percy was snapped up by the Ministry straight away, and the twins were already planning their joke shop before they even took their O.W.L.s...”
“And then there’s you.”
He watched several clouds shift about in the sky, making random shapes against the glare of the sun.
“And then there’s me. Plain old, average me. Nothing special-”
She’d pulled away from him so sharply that he looked up in surprise.
“What did you just say?”
Oh no. This was the part where he would usually wrack his brain to come up with whatever offensive thing he’d unintentionally uttered, and start forming an appropriate apology in his head.
“I said-”
“Ron Weasley, don’t ever let me hear you say such things.”
He blinked back at her. “Say... what?”
She pulled up upright so that they sat face-to-face, her sitting on her shins, and him sitting cross-legged.
“You just said you were plain. And average. That you were nothing special.”
“Well, I’m not-”
“If that were true, you’d’ve never thought to apply to the Auror Academy.”
He let out a laugh that came out sounding more like a snort than he had intended.
“That was me having delusions of grandeur,” he said. He saw her open her mouth to protest, but he cut her off effectively before she could get a word out. “C’mon, what business do I have trying to be an Auror? Even Barty Crouch didn’t think I was Auror material-”
“Barty Crouch,” she said, “was off his head.”
Ron couldn’t help but laugh at that. It wasn’t often that Hermione spoke ill of others (Professor Trelawney or Draco Malfoy notwithstanding), but when she did, she always did have something amusing to say.
“Well he was,” she said. “You’re not actually going to base your self-assessment on his shotty evaluation, are you?”
“Hermione-”
“Please tell me you’re not-”
He sighed. “He’s not the only one to think so.”
She let out a deep breath, and for a moment he thought she would get all blustery again, and talk in that really animated way she did sometimes, when she was especially passionate about something. But instead, she only reached out to cup his face.
“Well, I don’t think so.”
“You’re my girlfriend,” he said. “You’re supposed to say that.”
“Harry doesn’t think so, either-”
“But-”
“And don’t tell me it’s just because he’s your best friend and he’s supposed to say that.”
He grinned. “Well, he is.”
“Ron...”
He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. And after a while, she got up, then pulled his legs from their position so she could sit on his lap and lay her head in the crook of his shoulder.
“Would you say I’m the type to settle for something?”
“What?” he said, puzzled over her sudden change of subject.
“Just answer me,” she said. “Do you think I’m the sort of person to just... settle?”
He thought about it for a while. She did come from a fairly well-to-do family. Her parents were dentists, and from what Harry had told him, Muggle dentists were apparently quite well-off. And she was an only child--Hermione had even admitted to him once or twice that she had been relatively spoiled growing up. First-rate schools, first-rate clothes, first-rate holidays. She’d developed a very refined taste for everything as a result.
“I s’pose not,” he finally said. “Although your taste in cats leaves a little something to be desired.”
She swatted him on the arm before responding.
“Well you’re right,” she said. “I don’t settle for anything in life. Anything. And that includes...”
She reached down and kissed him, gently and sweetly, the way her kisses had been when they’d first got together.
“That includes?”
“That includes you, silly.”
“Me?”
She brushed away a piece of fringe from his eyes. “Especially you.”
“Hermione-”
“If you’re too short-sighted to see just how incredibly special you are, Ron Weasley, then I reckon it’s up to me as usual to set you straight.”
He grinned at her.
“Who looks after us all the time?”
“You,” he said.
“Who looks after us--and makes sure we don’t forget to take the time to relax... and have fun... and smile, when there’s nothing to smile about?”
He opened his mouth, but she placed a finger on his lips, which he mischievously took into his mouth, eliciting a half-shriek, half-laugh from her.
“Who used to stand up to Malfoy all the time when he was giving us grief?” she said. “Who stands in the line of fire every single time his friends are in any kind of danger? Who stood up to Sirius--on a broken leg, no less?”
“Anybody would have done that.”
She shook her head. “No, Ron,” she said. “Not just anybody. You. You did that. And you did it without anyone asking you to, and you did it when you knew you weren’t even going to get credit for it. It’s just what you do.”
He brought her upright again, and he started to reach for the letter, but she beat him to it and snatched it first, then handed it to him.
“Open it,” she said. “Whatever it says, it won’t change the fact that you’re wonderful and amazing and someone I can’t imagine my life without.” She tilted his chin up. “And if it says what I think it says, I think you’re going to be very happy you opened it.”
He laughed. “So sure, are you?”
“Come on,” she said, “you should know by now I’m never wrong.”
“Well, that’s true.”
He stroked her face with his thumb, then placed his other hand on her cheek and slowly pulled her towards him. Nothing he wanted to express to her in that moment could not possibly be contained into mere words, and so he poured everything into his kiss: his doubts and his fears, his hopes and his dreams. He knew she would understand them all.
“Here goes...”
She wriggled in his lap, circling her arms around his neck and leaning her head against his, watching him as he slid his finger underneath the seal and broke it open.
“Dear Mr. Weasley... we are pleased to inform you...”
He never did hear himself get to the end of the sentence. Hermione had screamed out loud before he ever got to the next word, leaping to her feet and pulling him upright as well, then flinging herself into his arms.
“I knew it!!” she shrieked. “I knew you’d get in!!”
She took the letter from him and proceeded to read the rest of the letter, and he watched her, still immersed in the shock of it all. When she’d finished reading, she looked up at him again, smiling that brilliant smile of hers that no one else ever got to see apart from him.
“Still think you’re nothing special?”
“What I think,” he said, “is that I’m pretty damn lucky...”
He smiled and swept her up in a kiss before she had a chance to scold him for swearing, and he felt her smile against his mouth.