A/N: So, I had been mulling over a couple of song fics for a few months now, but when the complete and specific central scene of this little baby popped into my mind while I was still half-asleep bent over my cereal bowl, I had to type it out as fast as I could. And so it was, a little under three hours later, that this story became completed. It is like nothing I have written before, so I sincerely hope you will like it and would kindly ask for your feedback on this, if you would. The song used is 'Don't Wanna Dance' by Lady Linn and her Magnificent Seven, so many of you will likely not recognize it, but I recommend you listen to it, as it is a lovely song. Also, kudos to everybody who recognizes the song Hermione is humming - I bet you know it all. ;)

But now, I'll let you get to it. Enjoy!

A/N 2a: Alright, so posting song lyrics is a form of copyright infringement and is thus prohibited on FFN, so I had to take them out. If you like, I suggest you read the lyrics in parallel with this story. I had originally intended you to read the first half of the song (verses one and two and the chorus) after the next paragraph (at the horizontal line), and the second half (verses three and four, and the chorus once more for good measure) after the horizontal line after the central scene. You don't have to follow my original intentions, of course, so feel free to proceed as you like. I will be writing another Author's Note at the end of this story to explain a little what verses I was referencing in which paragraph.

Also, I had to delete the few lines that Hermione was singing, so you'll find the solution to what song I am referring to in the central scene in A/N 2b as well. I sincerely hope you'll enjoy this story anyway, even without the lyrics posted directly in here. :)

"Marry me."

The ring sparkled at her as if it meant to mock her. Regardless of whether it meant to or not, it certainly did mock her. Or was it the whole concept of marriage that was laughing in her face?

And what kind of proposal had that been? None, really. It was no romantic 'Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?', no lovingly asked 'Will you marry me?'; no, it was not even a bloody question at all. It was a blunt 'Marry me', exclamation mark heavily implied, as if there was, in fact, no question as to her answer.

And really, in the eyes of her friends and her would-be-fiancé, there certainly was no question whether they might marry; the question was only when, and it seemed that Ron was giving her the answer to that. In the short year that had passed, it had become a foregone conclusion that Hermione and Ron would forever be just that, Hermione and Ron, never to be parted, and the whole marriage issue was merely a formality.

Hermione tried to force a smile onto her face. She was glad that Ron had led her out onto a balcony in Harry and Ginny's new summer house where they were celebrating the first anniversary of the Final Battle. She couldn't have stood it if he'd proposed to her in front of everyone else. On the balcony, they were easily visible, but not exactly watched, and for that, Hermione was grateful.

She looked out onto the lawn. On the green, freshly grown grass there were many people laughing between the multitude of coloured pavilions, celebrating life as if the only people who had died were the Dark ones. They were Ministry officials pining for Harry's attention, admirers of the Order of the Phoenix who had suddenly popped up everywhere, as if they'd always supported the Light in their fight against Voldemort and the corrupt Ministry; all of them people who had seen nothing of battle. They could laugh and dance and fucking frolic, because they knew nothing of the horrors others had faced.

Sometimes Hermione wondered how Ron could laugh with them. Yes, there had been a period of mourning after Fred's death, but the Weasleys had been surprisingly quick to perk up. George had once said to her that the best way to remember Fred was to live as he'd have wanted – happily and with laughter waiting around every corner. Hermione could not share the sentiment, nor could Harry for that matter, though his love for Ginny slowly knitted and healed the wounds his heart had taken with the many deaths of people who were his surrogate family.

And that was probably the matter, Hermione mused. Neither she nor Harry had any family to come home to; they had been clinging to the adults in their lives, and when those adults had fallen, so did the two of them fall into themselves. Society had not mourned a poor werewolf and a young author, the mere picture of anarchy with her purple hair and bubbly nature in the constraints of a strongly conservative Ministry. No one had even known that their mindless rescue mission three years earlier had led to the untimely death of a wrongly convicted man. Even when Professor Dumbledore had died, people had been quick to rip the memory of the once highly respected wizard apart, rather believing Skeeter than investing some common sense into their own thinking.

And now –

"'Mione?"

Ah, there it is, Hermione thought, finally a question.

Six months earlier.

"Hermione?"

An insistent knocking on her apartment door woke her up. Tightening her grip on her wand underneath the pillow where her hand never left the precious piece of wood, she quickly gained full possession of her senses and stealthily crept towards the door. Her war-honed reflexes had not left her yet, as only a few months had passed.

"Identify yourself," she called to the man knocking on her door.

"It's me," he replied, "Harry."

"Identify yourself," she reiterated firmly.

"Christmas roses," came the answer. "The night we visited my parents' grave, you Conjured a wreath of white Christmas roses with pink centres to lay down."

Hermione took the last few steps to the door, dropping the heavy wards around it as she went, and opened it.

"Harry," she greeted, "what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"

Harry brushed past her into the apartment, grabbed her jacket and helped her into it.

"Shoes?" he asked.

Hermione pointed to a pair and he laid them before her feet where she stepped into them.

"Where are we going?" she queried, re-erecting the wards even as the door fell shut behind them, Harry already pulling her down the stairs.

There was not even the question whether she would follow him in the middle of the night, clad only in her nightgown, a leather jacket and a pair of flats. They had come too far for that together to pose such questions now.

"Mexico," he said.

"Mexico?" Hermione echoed. "Harry, we can't go to Mexico, not now. You're getting married tomorrow, don't you remember?"

"Who said anything about going to Mexico?" Harry asked, confused, as they turned around the corner into a narrow and thankfully empty alley.

"Well, you –"

Whatever she'd been about to say was cut off as the pull of side-along Apparition robbed her of her breath. When the uncomfortable feeling of being squeezed through a much too thin tube faded, Hermione was already tagging after Harry as he pulled her towards a broken telephone box.

"Harry?" Hermione asked once more. "Harry, what are we doing here, of all places, and in the middle of the night no less?"

But Harry was already hacking the numbers into the old keypad and when asked what business they had to conclude in the Ministry of Magic, he answered, "A burial."

Hermione blanched.

"Harry," she hesitantly whispered, "Harry, love, please talk to me."

He finally looked at her.

"When he was on the run, he spent some time in Mexico," he said. Hermione did not need to ask who he was talking about. "He said that the magical population there had a ritual when people died that involved a certain dance on the deceased's grave. He said that it had moved him, and that he would want that for himself. He wanted people to remember him in happiness, and to not cry over his dead body."

Too late for that, Hermione thought to herself.

After Sirius had died, Harry's anger had taken a long time to recede, but she knew that when his rage had gone, it had left a sorrow so deep that he'd spent many a night crying with her. Much as Hermione had often looked down on Sirius for his childishness that had never quite vanished as the years in Azkaban had robbed him of the time he would have needed to mature, and for his pettiness towards Kreacher who had been the image as well as the product of his parents' hatred; as much did she mourn him when he was gone, father figure that he had been to Harry and fellow Order member and friend that he'd been to them all.

Meanwhile, Harry was pulling her towards the elevators. Together, they rode down in silence. With a chiming sound, the doors opened, and a pleasant voice that sent shivers down Hermione's back presented, "Level Nine: Department of Mysteries". And suddenly they were walking along the black-tiled corridor, blue sconces lighting the way in an eerie atmosphere, and through the door they went.

The circular room spun around them, so fast that they both got a little dizzy. When it stopped, Harry plunged on, but Hermione was still swaying on her feet. The nausea she felt had little to do with the spinning of the room around them, however.

Harry seemed to notice that she had not moved when her hand that was still held in his kept him from going any further. He turned around and she saw the question in his eyes disappear as he reached for her other hand and lifted it from her collarbone where Hermione had absentmindedly and involuntarily begun to rub the scar she had received here, over two years ago.

Harry lifted that hand to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss of friendly support against her fingers curled around his before nuzzling his face into her palm until she was cupping his cheek.

"Why today?" Hermione asked. "Why me?"

Harry sighed.

"Ginny wouldn't understand," he confessed. "I love her with all my heart, and I can't wait to marry her in the morning, but I have to do this before I start my own family. I have to properly say goodbye."

Hermione nodded. No further words were needed to explain. She understood exactly how he felt.

"Besides," Harry added, "you and I have a history of dancing together."

Hermione answered his toothy grin with a gentle smile of her own. She remembered fondly how he had asked for her hand in a dance in the cold solitude that was their tent, back when Ron had left them.

She nodded once more, and without hesitation Harry led them through the closest door into the Death Chamber.

They descended the stairs together and stood in front of the veiled arch, much closer than Hermione would have liked. She started when the whispering that Harry had talked about years earlier became audible to her.

"I can hear them now," she whispered in awe, "the dead."

"You hear them because you listen, Hermione," Harry explained. "You have not merely seen death, you have experienced it with an intensity that few others have, even those with us in the Final Battle. You came close to it, and this closeness has never left you, even when you escaped its grasp. You remember those who died, you honour them, and you honour the concept of death. Thus, they talk to you, because you listen."

They stood in front of the veil for a while, neither of them speaking. Hermione wondered when her best friend had become so wise. She assumed it had to do with the fact that he'd been forced to grow up and face the darkness in the world much too fast, as had she subsequently, standing at his side.

Eventually, Harry turned to her.

"May I ask for this dance?"

Hermione gladly put her hand in his offered one, resting the other on his shoulder as Harry's arm twined around her waist.

"We don't have music," she suddenly realized.

Harry looked into her eyes.

"Don't we?" he asked, and leaned his head against hers, their cheeks resting against one another.

He started swaying them in a soft rocking motion, and when he had settled into a stumbling rhythm, Hermione begun to hum softly.

The song reminded her of summers spent in France with her parents, where she had first listened to it. Now, she could not stand the smoky voice of the original singer. Her big eyes resembled too much those of the bitch who had kneeled above her, slicing scrawled letters into her flesh. She had soon found the American version of the song, though, and now the soothing tones of the trumpet filled her ears as the rich voice of the singer calmed her heart.

In the Death Room, her tiny voice was multiplied tenfold as the ceiling reflected back the musical notes that wavered as she struggled not to cry for the man they were 'burying'. Harry released her hand to put it around his neck, then softly stroked her hair until she laid her head on his shoulder. Clinging to each other in a tight embrace, they continued to sway as Hermione started to sing.

It did not matter that the song was little fitting for a burial, nor did it matter that they had no idea how the ritual dance went. For the two of them, and for the one they were honouring, it was enough to be together, and to remember. The whispering of the arch lent them a strange courage, the closeness of the veil calming them into a comfort that was more than each other's arms. The moment held a certain wholeness that neither of them had felt after experiencing so many losses in such a short time.

Whether they swayed for a few minutes or for a few hours, Hermione could not say later. She simply kept repeating the verses, humming followed singing followed humming, and together they danced and remembered. How they knew that the moment had passed and that Sirius had been properly laid to rest, she did not know, but they both stopped swaying at the same time. They listened together as the last note faded into nothingness in the high, vaulted ceiling of the Death Chamber.

When the music stopped, Harry took her hand without words, and together they made their way back to the streets of London. There, Harry embraced her once more and they Apparated to the tiny alley near Hermione's apartment. The sun was rising above the horizon as Harry walked her to her door. Samhain had dawned, and with it the ancient wizarding tradition to give thanks for a bountiful summer and to dance and hope for a prosperous autumn, followed by a forgiving winter. Incidentally, this particular Samhain was also stage to a wedding.

"Thank you," Harry said sincerely. The emotion behind his words was almost palpable.

"Get some rest," Hermione answered gently. "You are getting married in a few hours."

And Hermione knew, as Harry greeted Samhain with a stunning Ginny Potter in his arms, that with their opening dance, two more dead were laid to rest, only to be reborn years later as children to the boy they had died to protect.

"What do you say?"

Ah, right, Hermione was pulled out of her recollections, the question.

"I don't want to dance," she said.

Ron looked more than a little taken aback.

"Err… that was not exactly the question, 'Mione. I was asking you to marry me."

"No," she countered, "you weren't. You did not ask, Ronald, you merely implied, albeit heavily, that it was time to marry you; and if you had been asking me to do something, it would be to smile and dance and bloody frolic at your side as the happy little wife you've always wanted for yourself. And my answer is that I don't want to dance. Nor to laugh, since we're at it, nor do I see myself able to frolic in the near future."

When hurt spread over Ron's face in as obvious an expression that it seemed to scream her in the face, Hermione realized that maybe she was not the only one in pain, though Ron's pain at least she could lessen.

"I'm sorry, Ron," she apologized. "I love you, I really do, and what we have, what we've been through together – I would not give that up for the world. But I cannot marry you. I cannot make you happy, and I cannot love you in the way you deserve to be loved. I would love you like an older sister, admonishing you as you stumble your way through life, and guide you where you need me to. You need, no, you deserve a girl who stands by your side as an equal, following you wherever you go, supporting you through the good times and the bad, and laughing and dancing and frolicking with you as your happy nature dictates. Me, I cannot do that. I'm too broken, too caught up in my own sadness right now to be that woman for you. Maybe I was never able, nor meant to be that woman for you.

"But look," she said and pointed out onto the lawn. "The world is open to you. You are a war hero, remember?" She graced him with a smile that he first hesitatingly, but soon toothily returned. "Go and get them. Find that girl, marry her, and raise a family together."

"And what will you do?" he asked, the hurt at her rejection still visible in his expression, but visibly dulled as well.

"Me?" Hermione wondered. She had not thought of that actually. "Travel the world, I guess," she eventually suggested, more to herself than to her now ex-boyfriend. "Study foreign magicks, different traditions, ancient cultures. Get some perspective, learn to see life with new eyes."

Ron nodded.

"That sounds exactly like you," he confirmed, though his tone held none of the mocking it used to during their school years, when any mention of her studying had made him roll his eyes. "And when you get back, we will all be here, waiting for you."

He studied her face for a moment, his smile faltering.

"You will get back, won't you?"

Hermione smiled. Too often these days she was afraid of looking back on the months of war. Her tears had long dried up, and she feared that should she turn to look back now, she would turn to a pillar of salt. Coming back, though, was a different matter altogether. Coming back meant going somewhere in the first place, promised a future, promised a home.

"Yes, Ron," she answered. "I don't know where I'm going, or for how long I will be gone, but don't worry. I will always be back."

A/N 2b: Alright, if you're interested, here comes a short explanation of how I incorporated the words of the second half of the song into the final scene of this story. If you're not interested and just here to confirm what song Hermione was humming in the DoM, it's 'La Vie en Rose', originally by Edith Piaf but she has Louis Armstrong's version in her head. Now feel free to interpret Lady Linn's lyrics as you like, but I here is how I thought of them:

Verse three: Hermione sees her relationship (party) with Ron as over and decides to travel the world, because there is nothing keeping her in the UK now that the war is over.

Verse four: She will try not to think too hard on the past lest she get stuck and, as I wrote above, turn into a pillar of salt, as I believe the line here is referring to the Bible, when Noah and his family have to leave during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. She still loves Ron (feeling his music), but can't stay with him any longer in good conscience.

And that's pretty much it. Thanks for reading, and please do leave me a review or PM me to let me know your opinion or discuss anything you might like to discuss about this or pretty much anything else. :)