Hermione Says I Do
Summary: When Harry Potter asked Hermione Granger to help him get back into the 'singles scene,' she figured he needed some advice about women. But Harry's suggestion that they share a few practice dates threw Hermione for a loop. Could she really date her best friend?
The answer was a resounding yes! Harry was sexier-and a better kisser- than Hermione could have imagined. Suddenly, marriage-shy Hermione was considering saying "I do." But first she'd have to convince her reluctant would-be groom to do the same…
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Harry Potter series. Anything that you do not recognize though, does belong to me.
Prologue:
While they were known to friends & family as Hermione, Ginny and Luna, they called themselves The Wedding Belles.
None of them was absolutely certain who had first suggested the nickname. However, they all agreed that the appellation had been inspired by the bridesmaid's gifts given to them by Lavender Brown the weekend before she married Ron Weasley.
The gifts were belle-shaped silver lockets on delicate silver chains.
"Oh, wow," Luna breathed when she opened the velvet-covered box that contained her present. She looked up at the bride-to-be, her pale blue eyes luminous with pleasure. A flush pinkened her blotched face. "This is great."
"It's beautiful," Genevia Weasley declared softly, lifting her locket with slender, impeccably manicured fingers. A willowy, blue-eyed red head of twenty one, she was one of the two women who'd spent six years sharing a common room at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with Lavender.
She was also living proof that looks could be very deceiving. Judging on appearances alone, few people would ever guess that such a coolly elegant young woman had spent a significant portion of her formative years in places where the only available running water was that found coursing between the banks of a river.
"Let's wear them for the wedding," Lavender's dorm-mate, Hermione Jane Granger, suggested with characteristic decisiveness. Where Ginny resembled a picture-book princess, she was the epitome of the all-English, no-artifice-necessary girl. Of average height, Hermione had an athletically slim figure. Her sable brown hair was thick and glossy; her creamy skin glowed with good health. She exuded an aura of energetic confidence.
Lavender's lips curved into a radiantly satisfied smile. "I was hoping you'd want to."
"These will look fantastic with our dresses," Luna commented, tracing the exquisitely engraved surface of her locket.
"Anything would look fantastic with those dresses, Luna," Hermione declared, her long-lashed brown eyes sparkling. "Unlike some brides I could name, Lavender has excellent taste."
"You're not going to start complaining about your second cousin's wedding again, are you?" Lavender grimaced. "It happened years ago!"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Hermione countered. "I still suffer from flashbacks about being one of Barbara Jeanine's bridesmaids. I think I've got some kind of postnuptial stress disorder. Or maybe a chronic of taffeta phobia."
Lavender and Ginny looked at each other and groaned.
"What was so awful about your second cousin's wedding, Hermione?" Luna wanted to know.
"Chartreuse," came the succinct response.
"Huh?"
"The bridesmaids' dresses were chartreuse," Ginny explained. Her uninflicted tone suggested she was repeating information she'd heard many, many times before.
Luna pulled a face. "Oh, disgusting."
"The dresses also had hoop skirts," Hermione noted.
"Oh, seriously disgusting."
"Don't forget the parasols," Lavender said.
"Or the picture hats," Ginny added.
"I looked like a bilious mushroom," Hermione gestured expressively. "It was a marriage made in heaven, with bridesmaids dresses straight from Hell."
"Heaven?" Lavender scoffed. "You said Barbara Jeanine and what's-his-name—Marvin? Melvin—got into a raging fight at the reception and wound up throwing chunks of wedding cake at each other! I thought they filed for divorce before the honeymoon even started."
"They did," Hermione conceded easily. "But I don't believe in letting facts get in the way of a clever turn of phrase."
"If that's the case, you should consider going into advertising," Ginny quipped. That little remark received a snort for an answer.
"Well, we don't have to worry about food fights or ugly dresses where Lavender's wedding is concerned," Luna asserted. "It's all planned out and it's going to be perfect."
"Lavender does seem remarkably calm," Hermione observed, cocking her head to one side. "I mean, most brides-to-be I've known spent their final weekends as single women popping tranquilizers, breaking up with their fiancés, or plotting to murder their mothers. Sometimes all three."
"My mother and I did have a minor disagreement before I came to meet you," Lavender admitted with a smile. "But aside from that, everything's fine. I've only got one real concern."
"That Ron won't show up at the church?" Hermione was teasing, of course. She had good reason to know that the chances of the groom in question leaving his bride-to-be standing at the alter were nil. After all, she was best friends with the gentleman and she was also the one that urged Ron to open up his feelings to Lavender sixth year. Once it was done, sparks flew. They became romantically involved and were inseparable after that. If ever two people were made for each other…
This wasn't to imply that matchmaking had been Hermione's objective when she egged Ron to tell Lavender his feelings. Yet within thirty seconds they were together after he spilled his heart out, hands touching and eyes meeting, it had been obvious that Lavender and Ron were bonded for life.
Of course, tumbling into love like the clichéd ton of bricks seemed to be standard operating procedure where the men she knew were concerned. According to her research on it, her father had proposed to his future wife in the middle of their first date. Seamus Finnigan, first time he laid eyes on his now wife of two years, vowed he would never look at another female again. And Hermione had watched her other best friend, Harry Potter—loose his heart to a girl that pretty much didn't want anything to do with him, on the first day he laid eyes on her.
"Bite your tongue, Hermione," Lavender retorted. While her tone was chiding, her serene expression indicated that she harbored no doubts about the strength of her husband-to-be's emotional commitment to her.
"I know," Ginny said, her sky-colored eyes dancing. "You're worried about what you're going to do with four food processors."
"Five," Luna corrected with a giggle. "There was another one delivered to Lavender's house yesterday afternoon. I heard her uncle Ralph tell her dad he should raffle off the extra ones to help pay for Lavender's reception."
"Aha!" Hermione fixed the prospective bride with a triumphant look. "You're worried that your uncle Ralph is going to do something embarrassing at the wedding!"
"Uncle Ralph always does something embarrassing at weddings," Lavender responded dryly. "At funerals, too. It's a family tradition."
"So what do you have to worry about?" Ginny questioned. She frowned considerably for a few moments then continued in a pseudo melodramatic whisper, "Could it be…the wedding night?"
"Oh, I'm all prepared for that," Lavender replied airily. She cast a conspirational wink at Luna. "Luna lent me the magazine she wrote an article in. I believe it's the Quibbler, correct?" Luna nodded.
"So? What does that have to do with anything?" Ginny asked.
"Oh nothing really, just that she wrote on a sex education and added in some…explicit pictures and instructions."
"Really?" Hermione looked intrigued. "Has Ron seen it?"
Lavender's mouth quirked provocatively. A wicked glint appeared in her crystal grey eyes. "Actually," she drawled, "I thought I'd let the facts of life-ahem-come as a surprise to him."
"Lavender!" Hermione and Ginny gasped.
"What?" The inquiry was the essence of innocence.
"Girls who plan to get married in virginal white aren't supposed to make dirty jokes," Hermione informed her primly.
"Who's joking?"
"Well, if that's the case," Ginny said, "You should at least give Ron a chance to skim the article to get ideas."
"I'd be glad to lend him my notes," Luna volunteered. While the blush on her cheeks hinted she was not completely comfortable with the bawdy banter going on around her, the impish light in her eyes indicated she was game to join in the fun. "I mean, I've got plenty of notes and pictures left over."
"Really?" Ginny asked, arching her well-groomed brows. She sounded sincerely impressed.
The color of Luna's face intensified. "Well, it's because the editors believed my story to be too…informative."
"Forget about lending your notes to Ron, Luna," Hermione said, starting to chuckle. "Give them to me!"
"Me too," Ginny concurred, joining in Hermione's humor. A split second later Luna was laughing, too. Within a matter of moments, all three prospective bridesmaids were helpless with hilarity.
"Ladies...please..." Lavender reproved, gesturing for decorum like an old-fashioned schoolmarm. "Settle down."
It took a while, but order was eventually restored.
"You..." Hermione paused to catch her breath. "You still haven't told us what you're worried about, Lavender."
The soon-to-be Mrs. Ronald Weasley looked blank for an instant, then the corners of her lips curled up. "Oh. That."
"Yes?" Ginny prompted.
Lavender's smile widened to embrace her three dearest friends.
"I'm worried about which one of you is going to catch the bouquet...and be the next bride."
A.N.- So how did you like? I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And to the people that were reading my other fic 'Until you Came' I'm really sorry for not updating. I haven't abandoned it, I just haven't had time to do anything with it. I just had an idea and it popped out of my head onto the computer, so I wrote this one. But believe me, I haven't forgotten about my other one. Please review and tell me how you liked this one though.