Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot. Disclaimer applies for all following chapters.
Prologue
Hermione sighed, brushing back her hair with her hands. She looked down at Ron who sat across from her, watching with sorrowful eyes.
"This really isn't working out Hermione, is it," he stated, rather than asked.
"No, it isn't." She twisted a curl of her hair, feeling anxious.
"I mean, I love you and all, but like a friend, not like… not like a girlfriend," he said, almost remorsefully.
"Likewise. I think that the best thing would be for us to stop pretending to be in love and go back to just … I don't know."
Ron stood up and hugged her, a distant but friendly hug, and kissed her forehead lightly. "I'll call you when I get home, 'kay, Mione?" he said, referring to the flat that he and Harry rented. He pulled his hat over his fiery-red hair and stood to leave
"Mhm," Hermione sighed. After walking Ron out, she shut the door and leaned against it, wanting to cry. She felt heartbroken. 'How could it not have worked out?' she thought depressed. 'Ron and I were meant to be together from the start. I knew it. Everyone knew it.' She went to make herself a cup of tea, focusing her thoughts on filling her kettle and lighting the stove and being grateful for the complexities of muggle tea making giving her something to take her mind off of what happened.
There were only so many steps, however, that one could go through in setting a kettle to boil. She sat down at her kitchen table waiting for the slightest whistle of the kettle. 'I've failed,' she thought. What now was she to do? She had planned her post-Voldemort life around being with Ron and now that very important part of her plan was gone. How now was she to find a husband and start a family. 'Maybe I should just focus on my work for now. That's something that I can hardly fail at right?' She perked up at this sentiment, knowing that her particular shortcoming in her relationships did not extend to all aspects of her life and that it was still entirely possible for her to get everything back on track as soon as she got over Ron. At this, she returned her disparaging line of thinking. 'I wasn't supposed to be bad at having a relationship with Ron. We were excellent together, outstanding even. Work isn't as temperamental as men but bosses certainly are only huma-' A high screech from the stove behind her tortured her ears and she hurried back to the stove, turning off the flame.
She reached for the kettle's metal handle. "Oh curse it!" she muttered upon realizing she had burned herself. "Where's a mitt when you need one?" she asked rhetorically. Her sepia-toned eyes searched the counters for an oven mitt, perhaps dangling from a hook above, but she did not find one. "Urgh," she groaned, sitting again to wait for the kettle to cool enough to pour out her tea. She didn't feel like tearing up her already cluttered kitchen to find one or going to her room to find one. She just wanted to sulk and wallow in her own self-pity. And perhaps learn where everything had gone wrong. Rubbing her face in fatigue, her finger moved from her chin up past womanly cheeks and a high forehead before tangling themselves in honey-colored curls. "Ron…" she croaked.