Hermione was sad to see him go. Not nearly as much as she should have been, as his wife of nearly forty-five years, but enough.
Ron's eyes were closed, and she watched as the mediwitch rolled him away.
That's it. Done. Over. Gone.
Was she sad? Yes. She'd loved him, in the beginning, even after she learned that he was unfaithful to her. To their children.
Was she also relieved? Yes. Oh, Merlin, yes.
It hadn't been with Lavender Brown, who would have been many's guess. She still looked a treat, though, especially since they came out with magical cosmetic altering agents.
Instantaneous, easy, do-it-yourself Permanent Youth and Beauty Brew. No one could guess just how old anyone was.
Of course it had seemed silly to Hermione. That didn't stop her from using it.
The sixty-four-year-old woman sitting numbly in the curtained-off section where her husband had just died only appeared to be twenty-five, at the oldest.
No, not Lav-Lav. Ron had been sleeping with Hannah Abbott for most of their marriage.
When Hermione found out, she kept quiet. Her cheating husband never knew that she had discovered his secret. Or that she'd gotten the Permanent Youth and Beauty Brew in the hopes that he would find her attractive enough to ditch his mistress.
He never noticed.
That rankled her more than Hermione cared to admit. Even when young and (relatively) beautiful, he never saw fit to even comment on it.
She wanted to tell people. Hermione dreamed about popping over to Harry's manor and telling him everything. She couldn't help but want to make Ron's life miserable, as he'd made hers.
Hermione closed her eyes and thought. She tried to conjure up a memory of her husband that was free of bitterness and poison, wracked her brain for just one. It was hard to admit to herself that she could not, because there wasn't one. Forty-five years was spent in sour silence, and Hermione regretted it.
The woman hadn't divorced him. She wanted to, more than anything, but Rose was on the way and Hugo was playing about her chair as she worked. They grew into beautiful young people. They were each in their forties, now.
How could she tell her children of her weakness? Their father's weakness?
Besides, Ron was not the most discreet of men. There was something about Hannah Abbott that kept him going back to her for years, something that made him want their relationship to be private. One look at the other woman's timeless beauty answered that question for Hermione.
Hannah Abbott had the nerve to show up at the funeral, garbed in a black dress and veil much more intricate and comely than Hermione's. She had the nerve to cry over his coffin as if it were her husband being lowered into the grave. He might as well have been.
Everyone was offering their condolences for her loss. Some said it blandly, tonelessly. Some just held her. Some said it through their tears, probably wondering why the widow hadn't shed a single tear.
Harry, who looked every bit of his sixty-three years, folded her within his embrace, and she finally cried. Not for Ron, she had already done that. She cried for Harry, who looked so utterly lost now that his best friend was dead.
That's it. Done. Gone. Over. Dead.
He went away with his wife, Ginny, to stand by the new grave.
Hannah Abbott was the very last to approach her. "I'm so s-sorry for your loss," she sobbed. Then, without any warning, she threw herself into Hermione's arms, weeping piteously.
Hermione gazed coldly down at Ron's mistress's head. A bubbling sludge rose in her chest. Hermione fought down the blazing rage that was trying to force itself over her tongue and pour into the air and ears surrounding the pair. She couldn't set it free. Holding it in was the only thing that made her better than Hannah. The only thing that made her better than Ron.
"Shh," she said, partly to comfort Hannah, but mostly because she was tired of the noise. "It's all right." She stroked the woman's hair, like she used to do for her children when they were upset. Then, quietly, very, very quietly, she whispered, "I forgive you."
Hannah stopped breathing.
"I knew the entire time. I forgive you."
Oh, she wanted nothing more than to scream to everyone that Hannah Abbot has been fucking my husband for forty-five years, but, no, she couldn'tcouldn'tcouldn't.
I don't forgive you, you bitch! How dare you come here and cry at me like I should PITY YOU!
I SHOULD THROTTLE YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!
How dare you?
How dare you?
Hermione made it through the funeral. She made it through her children's tears. She made it through Ron's siblings' sorrow. She only barely made it through Ron's mistress's.
At the end of that very, very long day, Hermione Jean Weasley née Granger Apparated to her home. Waving her wand, she collected all of her clothes and belongings into her bag, folded neatly in stacks.
She was running away. She was running from Hannah, who had been taken in by her best friend by the end of the funeral. She was running from her children, and the urge to tell them the truth. She was running from Molly's memory, of the broken-ness that she would have displayed, had she been alive.
Then, she stopped.
She was a Gryffindor, no matter what anyone else said. It was nothing short of cowardly to run from her family now that the silence was gone and replaced with real problems. Hermione had botched the majority of her life, and she could not run away from that, even if she tried.
So she unpacked, throwing the bag back into the closet where it belonged.
Settling her new bones on the bed, she slept, determined to wake up to a new chapter in her life. The real story.
Tomorrow, she would tell Harry the truth, and damned the consequences.
A/N: I don't know if you guys like this revised version any better. However, I'd like to take the time to thank all of you for reviewing. Imagine my delight in watching the reviews pile up over the course of two hours! Twelve, now- that's more than the rest of my stories have all together!
If you do have any questions, I would be more than happy to answer them!
Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Annie