Green Around the Gills

Ron woke up suddenly, being startled by a loud banging outside his room, and jumped out of bed. As soon as his feet hit the floor he lost his footing and fell to the ground. Sitting on the floor he realized that his head was swimming and he felt quite nauseous.

Ron groaned loudly when the happenings of the night before started to dance across the backs of his aching eyelids. Squeezing his eyes shut even tighter and clamping his hands tightly over his ears in an attempt to keep his head from swimming and his brains from trying to come through his temples, he sat silently.

"Ron, mate, what are you doing in there?" Harry screamed, well at least it sounded like screaming to Ron. "We've got two hours until we have to be there!"

"Be there?" Ron mumbled to himself. "Be where?" He opened his eyes and slowly scanned the perimeter of the room. Once he got about half way around the room, his eyes settled on the thing that brought him back to reality.

"That's where," he said quietly, still grasping the sides of his head as if it would explode otherwise. "She's going to kill me if I show up like this!

"Harry?" he asked tentatively.

"I don't want to know what happened last night, but did I have a good time? Because if I didn't, this is definitely not worth it," Ron whined.

"You had fun," Harry responded, "but don't worry, you didn't do anything Mione would be upset about. Your brothers were feeding you shots of firewhiskey like it was going out of style!" Harry chuckled to himself a bit when he thought back to the twins trying to get Ron hammered. "They eventually wandered off after two witches at the pub."

"Okay, well if I'm going to be able to function on a higher level than a slug, I suggest you find me something to get rid of this hangover immediately," Ron said miserably, as he crawled on his hands and his knees to the door. He gripped the doorknob and hoisted himself up to a stooped position before pushing the door open with a deafening creak.

Ron slowly walked out into the hallway and placed either hand on the opposite wall to brace himself and made his way towards the kitchen with hopes that all the clattering Harry was making, that he was concocting some type of potion to rid him of this terrible hangover. He stumbled into the kitchen and sat dejectedly in a chair resting his head on his forearms.

"Here you go, mate," Harry said jovially while thrusting a slightly steaming glass of a foul smelling liquid in front of him. "Drink up!"

"Holy hell that smells horrible," Ron grunted. "What is it?"

"Does it really matter?" Harry asked. "Hermione's not going to be to pleased if you can't stand on your own. And I definitely don't think she'd be too happy if I had to stand up there with you!"

"Fine," Ron bellowed, "I'll drink it!" He grabbed the glass, sloshing quite a bit onto the table in the process, and chugged the rest down in one gulp. He slammed the glass down on to the table coughing and spluttering.

"That was the most wretched tasting stuff I've ever tasted. You could have at least mixed it with some pumpkin juice, or something. I mean -"

Harry cut Ron off abruptly. "Feel better yet?"

"Actually, I do," Ron replied reluctantly. "Fine, thanks, mate. I appreciate it. Let's keep this between you and me though, no need worrying Mione on her big day!"

With that, both boys headed off to their separate rooms to prepare for the days events. After about twenty minutes they both emerged dressed in their best. Ron was still looking a little green around the gills, but that was more to what was coming up, rather than what had happened the night before.

Today was Ron and Hermione's wedding day. After dating since their sixth year, after Ron had finally gotten the nerve to ask Hermione out, they had been together for five years. Hermione was working at the Ministry doing research and Ron and Harry had both gotten jobs at the Ministry as well; Ron in the Magical Games department and Harry as an Auror in training, but had since become an Auror.

Through all of Ron's thick-headedness, idiotic mistakes, and verbal mishaps, he had eventually asked Hermione to marry him. The occasion had been more romantic than anyone could have even expected. Ron had talked to Professor McGonagall and gotten permission to use the Room of Requirement for the evening. Ron thought hard about what the room had looked like the night they had first kissed after finally admitting that they like one another. He was able to conjure the room to look almost identical, except this time there were candles and flowers everywhere, along with an abundance of soft squishy pillows on the floor. The evening went off without a hitch, ending perfectly with Hermione saying yes.