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[deluminate]

He was supposed to give a speech.

Maybe it wasn't not a speech exactly, but he knew he was supposed to say something on Saturday, when he and Hermione got up in front of friends and family— though not as much family as Ron thought there'd be when this eventually happened— and got married.

He was rubbish at this stuff.

Reports when he was an Auror and when he'd had them for homework at Hogwarts... those had been the worst parts of all. He'd managed to skirt by in school by getting answers out of Hermione when he could, and he'd had a stack of overdue reports as long as his arm on his desk before he'd ended up in Darrow, so his track record with them wasn't particularly good.

This though, Ron wanted it to be something special. It wasn't every day you got married, and he wanted to make sure what he said on Saturday was perfect.

Sat at a picnic table in the park, Ron had managed about three words before he wanted to bin the bit of paper he was writing on. It wasn't good enough. Maybe he wasn't good enough. It'd crossed his mind a few times since Hermione had accepted his proposal, but stuck there with only a few words on the piece of paper in front of him, he couldn't push away a feeling in his gut that Hermione'd think better of it and decide it wasn't worth it after all.

"Bloody hell," Ron said, and crumpled up the paper shutting his eyes as he scrubbed one hand through his hair. He needed to pull himself together.

Comments

[notaretriever]

"Stuck on what?" Luke asks, glancing down before he looks away. There's a crumpled up paper, but that isn't an invitation to look at what Ron is working on, so instead of trying to stick his nose in where it might not be quite welcome, Luke instead slides onto the bench on the other side of the table, folding his hands against the top.

He's writing something, that much is clear, but it could be any number of things. It's not likely homework, which is really the only thing Luke has experience helping with, and even at that thought, there's a pang of longing to see Clary's homework spread out across the counter in his bookstore. He remembers getting on her case for making such a mess, but he'd always rather liked it.

[deluminate]

"Um. Wedding vows," Ron admitted, and he didn't know Luke very well, but with less than twenty-four hours before he was supposed to get married, he was feeling a bit desperate. Luke had been looking to own a bookstore, so maybe he knew something about writing. Maybe he'd have an idea or two.

Or maybe Ron was doomed. The only thing scarier than Hermione being annoyed, he thought, was Hermione being disappointed, and he was on the verge of being the cause of that, just now.

[notaretriever]

"So it's rather important," he says, spreading his hands on the table and looking down thoughtfully. He's never been married, but he's thought many times about what he might say to Jocelyn should the opportunity finally and truly present itself. He'd asked her to marry him once, though she'd declined and since then Luke has left it alone. But he knows what he would say.

"I've never been married," he says as a disclaimer. "But I know what it's like to dedicate your life to someone." Even if she had never really known that was what he'd been doing. "The only advice I can give is to say exactly what you feel. Why are you marrying her? Why did you ask her?"

[deluminate]

"Because I bloody well love her," Ron replied without hesitation, "I can't imagine my life without her."

There'd been a time, back when they were kids that he'd thought that she was an insufferable know-it-all, but over time, he'd realized how amazing she was. He'd been a bit of a tosser when it came to Hermione, when they were teenagers, come to think of it. Mostly, Ron was glad he'd gotten over that before it was too late.

[notaretriever]

Luke smiles faintly and says, "Well, that's a start. Maybe leave out the bloody well part, though. Why do you love her? What about her makes you smile about her like you did that first day we met? What's special about her that a hundred other women don't have?"

Jocelyn isn't going to slip between worlds and join him here, he knows, but as he asks Ron just why he loves his fiancee so much, he finds himself thinking about his own time spent alone, waiting for her to look at him. He makes himself a promise then, silently, that if Jocelyn does ever arrive, he'll tell her again. He has to risk it. There's nothing else for him to lose.

[deluminate]

Ron nearly laughed. "We were eleven when we met," he said, and it had been his first time at Hogwarts, so it was a day that he'd probably always remember. Meeting Harry, the sorting hat, their first feast in the Great Hall... all in all, it'd been a pretty brilliant day.

"I thought she was a nightmare," Ron went on to say, but there was fondness in his tone now, "She's got to be the cleverest person I've ever met, though. Brave. Amazing."

[notaretriever]

"There's a good place to start," Luke says. Maybe he'll never be married himself, he's long since accepted that he'll most likely live a quiet life alone, but he still thinks the best possible vows are honest ones. Words from the heart.

"All you have to do is tell her you love her and promise her all the things I'm sure you think about promising her every day without even realizing," he continues.

[deluminate]

Ron nearly protested that if he didn't realize he was promising Hermione things, then how was he supposed to get them down on paper? But really, it didn't sound like a bad idea. That was what the whole thing was about, wasn't it? The two of them promising themselves to each other?

"Yeah, well you make it sound easy," Ron replied.

[notaretriever]

"Isn't it? To tell her you love her, isn't it easy?" he asks. If he could, if she allowed him, he would have said it to Jocelyn every day. Countless times a day. He would have done anything in the world for her if she had only let him.

Then he smiles again and shrugs. "But as I said, I'm not married and never have been, so it's entirely possible I have no idea what I'm talking about."

[deluminate]

"No— no that... that sounds about right," Ron replied, because there'd been a time, years ago, when Ron couldn't even properly put his finger on how he felt about Hermione. They'd done a lot of rowing as a result of him being a tosser, really. But these days, he wanted to tell her all the time, even though he was sure he knew.

It was easy. Just like the decision whether or not to ask her to marry him in the first place had been one of the easiest ones of his life.

"That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, mate."

[notaretriever]

Luke smiles then and he truly doesn't know if he's helped at all, but he hopes he has. Ron seems to think he has and he supposes that's what really counts. He still hasn't made the trip to Ron's fiancee's store, but he decides to make a real effort soon.

"I'm sure your vows will be everything she wants to hear," he says. "And I'm sure the wedding will be beautiful, too." He's always been a romantic, has always loved weddings, but there had been so few in Idris. Wolves didn't often get married despite entering into relationships the same way humans did.

[deluminate]

"Yeah, I hope so," Ron replied, and it was a day that'd been so long in the works that he could only imagine it'd be great in the end.

If he managed to not muck it up, of course. Maybe he was feeling a bit better about the whole thing, but he still hadn't properly written what he was going to say yet. Only once he'd managed that did he think he'd feel completely alright.