This...well,this was unexpected.

I truly thought I was through with fanfiction. Writing it at least, I'm sure I will have the guilty pleasure of reading it for some time to come. But I read a little ditty called "MY MUGGLE MAID" and slowly the inspiration bloomed. I entertained the idea in my head for some time, but last night I started jotting down a few lines lest I forget my own daydreams. What ended up on my computer screen is what you now read, or rather, what you shall read in a moment or two (hopefully). So I owe credit to KAMIANGEL for inspiration, and endorse her story for inadvertently spawning the creation of mine (though they are both quite different, save for one aspect).

The title and lyrics below are from Nick Cave's song "O'Children" which I am sure you will all recognize as the tune Harry and Hermione danced to in Deathly Hallows, which was cute, but still didn't make up for the fact that we didn't get to see R/Hr dancing at the wedding. Smidge of bitterness. Anyway, lovely bit of depressing music!

I own nothing and all that, so read and (I hope you) enjoy!

"Forgive us now for what we've done
It started out as a bit of fun"

There was a bottle of liquor in one of her highest cabinets, opened but barely consumed. Without speaking she turned on her heel and strode across the small room, glad for the gentle slap of her footsteps against the cheap linoleum to drown out the din of her raucously beating heart. Yanking the cabinet open, she pulled the bottle down from the self and unscrewed the cap with shaking hands. She needed something to do, any excuse to turn away while she composed herself. Or at least, attempted to. She grabbed two glasses and filled them both, sloshing a bit of liquid over the side in the process. The mess she made puddled on the counter, and she was glad she couldn't see her reflection in its amber surface. Her face felt tight and drawn, and surely all the color had drained from her complexion. She wondered, somewhere, in the selfish part of her mind, if she looked different to him now. But that was preposterous thinking, and must be pushed away. She gripped the edge of the counter to steady herself, took a breathe, and turned around to face him.

He said nothing as she slid the drink in front of him, but lifted it to his lips regardless.

Her trembling left hand, now empty, moved to join its mate at its resting place on her own glass, fingers intertwining as she struggled to maintain some semblance of sanity. The drink she held remained immobile, and she could not watch as his made its journey to his mouth, or the silent gulp as he drained half of the contents, or the slow bob of his adam's apples as the muggle whiskey burned a steady path down his throat. The action seemed too intimate for the people they were now, and she felt like an intruder in her own kitchen. Instead she focused on that hand, on his hand as it came back down to rest in front of him. He clenched the tumbler tightly in his fist, fingers wrapped around its surface, obscuring the little alcohol it still contained from view. His knuckles were white with the heavy tension that hung about the small room like an unbearable fog, and she knew her own matched him in that. But this was where the similarities ended. These hands, always large but once clumsy and fumbling, were the hands of a grown man now. Even from her distance she could see that they were rough and weather-beaten, and she was sure if she were to taken them in her own she would find them a great deal more calloused than the last time they brushed her cheek.

Of course, she couldn't, not now…but the very thought of the sentimental gesture broke something inside her, and without thinking she closed her eyes and let go of the word in the softest of whispers,

"Ron…"

"Bloody hell Hermione!" Her eyes flew open at the sound of his voice, harsh and thick with emotion so much so that she wouldn't have recognized it…if it hadn't been the exact same tone her had used after he had flew into a rage at Fred's death. She had been the one to calm him that night, but she was the cause for his condition now. There was barely a moment to take in the horrible sound he made before the noise of his glass colliding against the wall caused her to flinch. His arm remained outstretched, quivering from the power he had put behind the pitch, but she did not see it. She had done it at last, and despite her best efforts. When he first spoke her eyes went immediately, unthinkingly to meet his gaze, and now she found herself trapped in their intensity and unable to look away. "This wasn't a decision you were allowed to make!"

"Ron-" she tried again, still softly so as to try and mask the unsteadiness of her voice.

"No! No, Hermione no!" He moved his outstretched arm, pivoting it in her direction and curling his fingers back, all but one, to point his index at her accusingly. "You had no right. No right!"

His voice shook violently, and he made no attempt to try and conceal or control the anger boiling within him. The sky blue of his eyes was icy with it, and all of his rage was directed at her. Pain, a dreadful cleaving of a deep wound that had never really healed, ripped through her. She shook with the effort of trying to contain the sobs threatening to wrack through her, of trying not to collapse on the floor at his feet. Years ago she would have, or maybe shouted something dreadful at him before she fled into another room to lose herself, but know she couldn't, she wouldn't. Instead she held her ground, heart heaving and heavy but throat dry.

She didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say. There was no way to justify what she had done…no way that he would understand.

"Ron, please! You don't understand!" She pleaded, the first tear escaping as she spoke. She hated herself for letting it fall, hated the weakness the precipitation portrayed. She wasn't a frail little girl, not anymore... she wasn't a girl at all.

His hand dropped from its accusatory position in front of her to slam, palm down, against the counter. The dishes in the sink rattled against each other at the force, and she wrapped her arms around herself tightly as if to try and hold the crumbling bits of this charade she had concocted together. She was breaking, just like the glass against the wall, his anger the cause of both their destruction. The tears were flowing freely now, and she knew it was futile to try and hold them at bay any longer. "Please…" she repeated, more of a whimper this time.

The sound that came from his lips could have been a laugh, but it wasn't his. His laugh, or rather, the laugh she remembered him having, was long, loud and unabashed. It was the kind of laugh that made you smile, even if you had no idea what was so funny, even if you were determined to keep a solemn face to teach him a lesson. No matter, he could always coax a grin out of her. This, however, this was the sound of another sort entirely, something almost sinister, something she never expected from him. He had always been the one with the temper, a short fuse and a jealous streak a mile wide, but his dark was too slight to hold back all his bright. It seemed the tables had been turned though. Because this was the laugh of a man who has nothing in the world left to laugh for.

And she was the one who took it from him.

"I don't understand? I don't understand, Hermione?" His voice rose to a pitch like that of a madman and she when she shivered it had nothing to do with the November weather. "You're bloody well right I don't understand! I don't understand why you're here, in America for Christ's sake, and why I'm not! I don't understand what the hell has been going on these past three years! I don't understand a damn thing, so why don't you try and explain it to me then? Why doesn't the know-it-all do what she does best and lord her supreme knowledge over us poor common people? Oh, and try to break it down in small words for a stupid, sodding git like me, please. We aren't all-"

He was preoccupied, wrapped up in his fury and lost in his rage. His cold eyes were wild and unseeing, and she knew this was her opportunity to take what she knew might be her only chance. She hated herself as she reached for it, cursed the coldness that had grown in her own damaged heart that she could even contemplate such a thing at a time like this, but despite all of that she didn't doubt herself for a minute. She didn't regret her actions, not a one. All she could regret were their results, only the pain she had caused to those she loved. She still knew she hadn't had a choice, and that she had done what was best for both of them. He would never see that, never understand why she had to do what she did, and she could never explain it to him. Slowly, stealthily, she drew her slender wand from inside her shirtsleeve, the spell tingling unpleasantly on her lips as she waited for her moment, for him to turn his flushed face from her so that she could have a clear shot. It would hurt her so much more than he was hurting now, the ache in his soul was nothing compared to what she would endure, what she had endured these many years…but it would be worth it, and what he never knew couldn't cause him pain any longer.

"Obliv-"

"NO! EXPELLIARMUS!"

His reactions were infallible, his reflexes like lightening, the true mark of the Auror he was now. He held her wand along with his own before she had even seen him move to draw it from underneath his heavy coat. For a moment she thought he would snap it in two with the slightest clenching of his shaking fist, so great had his wrath grown. The thought appeared to have occurred to him as well, for it was with a great effort that he stowed the vine wood and dragon heartsting weapon on his person and out of her reach. Angry sparks flew from his own, as smoldering a red as burning embers, a hue to match his fevered skin, and he stared at them for a long time, breathing deeply until they dimmed and burned out. He seemed to die along with them, and though he kept his eyes trained on his wand, she could see his shoulders slump and his face go slack. When he spoke a moment later his voice no longer shook.

"No." He said, his speech no longer angry, but low and tired, the tone of a weary old man. "No Hermione, not again."

I don't believe I've ever written angry!Ron before, but he does have quite the temper, so it wasn't hard to imagine. Hope you found it satisfactory, but I do not have a beta so any mistakes or constructive criticism would be accepted with open arms!