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It started somewhere in the middle of the Barnsley house-elf investigation.
Ron came home one evening to their flat, and found Hermione in the sitting room, sitting cross legged on the sofa, surrounded by yarn, holding knitting needles in her hand and a book balanced on her knee, muttering under her breath, all while Crookshanks paced back and forth in front of her, meowing.
“Are you…knitting?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Hermione said without looking up. “Kirsten said it’s good for de-stressing.” Kirsten was one of her co-workers in Wizengamot. “But I’ve completely forgotten how to cast on.”
She dropped something, and cursed.
“You know,” Ron said cautiously, “I’m sure Mum would be happy to teach you.”
“Yes, I know,” Hermione said waspishly. “I know.”
Crookshanks meowed louder.
“Can you—?”
“Yes, yes,” Ron said, already anticipating the end of the sentence. Crookshanks followed him into the kitchen, weaving in between his legs, and they left Hermione in the living room with her knitting.
As it turned out, the knitting stayed. Hermione made a scarf for her Mum, a hat for Ron, a jumper for herself. Yarn appeared around the flat, tumbling out of the boxes in the wardrobe and baskets in the sitting room. Knitting needles of all sizes multiplied. Hermione progressed from stockinette to moss stitch to cabling. Her work no longer resembled the wooly bladders of her youth.
Ron wore the hat, slightly misshapen as it was, everyday throughout the winter.
It even traveled along with him on an ill-fated trip to the Orkney islands.
The Aurors had met with a particularly angry group of mountain trolls. It had taken them three days to extract themselves.
“Ron!” Hermione flew into his arms as soon as he tumbled through the Ministry floo. “Oh, I was so worried!”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he murmured, rubbing her back. “And look,” he said gesturing, “the hat survived!”
Hermione lifted her face, her eyelashes wet. “Oh,” she said, laughing weakly. “God, it did.”
When the danger came, he did not even know it.
“What is that—?” Ron asked, at the sight of Pig laboring outside their sitting room window with a hefty parcel wrapped in brown paper.
“Oh,” Hermione cried out, wrenching open the window. “It’s my yarn!”
“Poor Pig,” Ron said, as Hermione gleefully ripped open her package. He offered his small owl a treat.
“Look at this!” Hermione said, brandishing a blue skein of yarn. “It’s perfect for the jumper!”
“That’s great,” Ron said absentmindedly, stroking Pig’s head.
“See,” Hermione said, showing him a page from the book she had picked up from a charity shop a few weeks ago. Aran Knitting by Alice Starmore. “This is the one I want to make.”
The picture showed a woman wearing a jumper covered in intricate cables.“Looks beautiful.”
It was not until a month or so later that he finally found out. “I’ve almost finished a sleeve,” Hermione said, holding up her work as she perched on the sofa.
“Looks amazing,” Ron said. He knew from being Molly Weasley’s son to understand that the back, front, and sleeves would be knitted separately and then seamed together. “That’s a great color.”
It was a heathered blue.
“I’m happy you think so—it’ll go well with your new cloak.”
Ron stilled. She was consulting her book again, her head bent over the pages. “…go with my cloak…?”
Hermione did not look up. “Yes.”
“You mean like…so we’ll match?” Ron said slowly.
She looked up. “No, of course not. You’ll be wearing it.”
Dread filled Ron. “You’re making the jumper for me?”
Her brows pulled together. “Who did you think I was making for?”
“I thought it was for yourself,” Ron said.
“No, no, it’s much too big. Why did you think that?”
Ron realized that he had never bothered to examine the measurements of what she was knitting on all the evenings they had spent side by side on the sofa together. He was careful to not touch her knitting even when she had put it aside, lest the stitches slide off the needle.
“Well…” Ron cast about. “There was a woman in the picture—I thought…”
Hermione shook her head. “It’s a unisex pattern. It can be for anyone.”
She was oblivious to his growing horror.
“But…how did you get my measurements? You didn’t measure me.”
“I measured one of your jumpers,” Hermione said proudly. “The maroon cabled one that your Mum made. It has a similar construction—saddle shoulder, bottom up.”
“Oh.”
Hermione returned to her book. “I’m hoping to finish it by Christmas.”
“But….what about your dad?”
“What about him?”
“Maybe you want to give it to him?” Ron said hopefully. “You haven’t made anything for him yet.”
“No, no,” Hermione said. “He can wait. I picked this color specifically for you.” She smiled, looking like a kneazle that got the cream. “It’ll bring out your eyes.”
Now, every time Ron saw Hermione pull out her knitting, he was filled with dread. He needed to tell her, but how could he, when he had already seen how long she had worked to make the one sleeve? Every knitting session, he told himself he would tell her next time once he found the right words.
And every time, he hesitated.
The back was finished, and then the front. A second sleeve materialized. The jumper began haunting Ron day and night. He tried not to look at the basket where she kept her knitting things in the sitting room, but it seemed to always be just out of the corner of his eye.
“Is that what I think it is…?” George asked, one day when he came over to borrow something.
Also being Molly’s son, he recognized the sight of the jumper pieces drying on the blocking mats on the home office floor.
“Yes,” Ron said miserably.
George chortled. “Does she know?”
“Obviously not,” Ron said. “If she did, she wouldn’t be doing it.”
“Well, I don’t know,” George said, a grin splitting his face, “maybe she wants to get rid of you, Ronniekins.”
Ron scoffed. “Thanks for the support.”
“What are you going to do?” George said, as they both contemplated the object on the floor. “Why did you even let her make you a jumper?”
“I didn’t let her,” Ron said exasperatedly. “This is Hermione. She just started doing it one day, and I didn’t even know!”
The day of Ron’s doom came one evening in mid December. He was in the home office, looking over some case files that he still needed to review, when Hermione appeared in the doorway.
“Look!” she said, holding up the jumper. “It’s finally done!”
A smile lit up her entire face.
Dread filled his stomach like concrete. “Oh.”
“Well, go on,” Hermione said, stepping further into the room, and holding the jumper out to him. “Try it on.”
“I…” Ron reached out and then stopped, letting his arm drop. “I…can’t.”
“What?” Confusion clouded her brown eyes.
Ron took a deep breath. “I…I should have said this earlier, Hermione. I’m so sorry I couldn’t figure out how to tell you. But I can’t put it on—because of the curse.”
Her brows drew together. “Is this a joke, Ron?”
“No, no—”
“Because it’s not a very funny one.”
“I’m not joking.”
“What on earth are you on about?” The confusion in her eyes was replaced by irritation.
“There’s a curse in the Wizarding World—if there’s a couple, and one of them makes a jumper for the other one, and they put it on—they always break up.”
“And…you believe this?”
Ron spread his hands. “It’s a real curse.”
“This is completely ridiculous,” Hermione said, eyes narrowing. “You’re not going to wear the jumper that I made for you just because of some silly magical superstition?”
“It’s not a superstition! It’s real! A real curse!”
“There is no way that is a real thing.”
“It happened to Aunt Muriel. She had a boyfriend that she was going to marry back at Hogwarts, and she made a jumper for him, and then he broke up with her, and then, well—she never married anyone. As you can tell.”
“But you are not going to break up with me, are you?” Hermione said dangerously.
Ron lifted his hands. “No, no, of course not. But it’s a real curse. If you make a jumper and the other person wears it, the couple breaks up.”
“That’s called a coincidence, Ron,” Hermione snapped. “God, the Wizarding World makes me crazy.”
“It’s not just a coincidence,” Ron said. “Ask my Mum, ask my Dad, ask anyone raised here. It’s real!”
“I have spent hours and hours making you this! It took me 4 months!”
“I know, I know!”
“You watched me make it! How can you refuse to wear it?”
“I want to wear it!” Ron said desperately. “I want to! But I don’t want us to break up!”
“We don’t have to break up!” Hermione was shouting now. “You’re being ridiculous!”
“Hermione, please,” he said pleadingly.
“Don’t ‘please’ me…” Hermione said furiously. Her eyes were bright with tears, her face flushed red. “I can’t believe you.”
Looking down at her, a solution occurred to him.
“Wait—I have an idea….“
“What?”
Ron lifted his hands. “I have to…just wait a second.”
He started towards their bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Hermione demanded.
“I’m just—wait there—“
She ignored him.
“You can’t just run away from this conversation,” Hermione said, following him into the room, still carrying the blasted jumper.
“Hermione, please, just wait in the sitting room,” Ron said over his shoulder, rummaging through the drawer in his bedside table.
“Not until you explain what you’re doing!”
It was still there, nestled under a few old quidditch magazines and a concealment charm. He took it into his hand, counting on the fact that she could not see it since he was bent over the drawer.
“Will you please just go back into the sitting room?” Ron said, rising to his feet.
“No,” Hermione snapped.
“Will you at least put the jumper down?” Ron said.
Hermione clutched it tighter. “No.” Her hair was practically sparking. “I am not putting it down, Ron. You are going to stop this nonsense and put it on!”
She was so worked up that she did not even notice what he had in his hand.
“All right, then,” Ron said. He glanced around at the floor. “Have it your way.”
And he dropped to one knee.
“Hermione Jean Granger,” he said, opening the box.
“What the fuck,” said Hermione, staring down at him.
Ron chuckled. “I love it when you swear.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“You are the cleverest, most brilliant, most stubborn witch I have ever known. And I have loved you ever since I was fifteen years old. Will you make me the happiest wizard in Britain and marry me?”
They had talked about marriage before, of course. Hermione Granger was never without plans. But they had not decided on when exactly, just that they would get engaged sometime soon.
“So do I have this right…” Hermione said, brows drawing together. “If I agree to marry you, you’ll put on the jumper.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t believe you’re proposing now because of this ridiculous superstition.”
“I was going to do it in a couple of weeks, but…”
“Well…” A flush rose in her face, and for a moment, she was the girl who pinked when he asked her to dance at Bill and Fleur’s wedding all those years ago. “Yes, of course, yes. Get up, Ron,” she said, tugging at him.
They met in the middle. She was still clutching the jumper, him the velvet box.
“I love you,” Hermione murmured against his mouth.
He cupped her cheek with his free hand. Her eyes, warm and brown, reflected the light. Her curls tumbled across her shoulders. She was so beautiful. “I love you.”
“Now put on the fucking jumper,” said Hermione.
Ron grinned. “Ring first.”
It only took a few moments into their arrival at the Burrow for Christmas Eve for someone to notice.
“Oh my god!” Angelina exclaimed, catching sight of Hermione’s hand. “Is that—?!”
They were engulfed by a storm of congratulations and hugs. It took them almost half an hour to make it from the doorstep to the sitting room.
But when the fuss had died down, Mrs. Weasley ran an appraising over her son.
“That’s a new jumper,” she said.
“Yes,” he said, grinning broadly. “Hermione made it.”