The wedding was perfect. Sparkling green eyes watched the bride come down the aisle, her hair falling in copper waves onto her bare shoulders. The ceremony elapsed with bright smiles and distant voices and trembling hands sliding a golden band onto her finger. A tender kiss, and she was his.
To love, honor, and obey
She was so beautiful. All the men were jealous. He just wished she would stay home, with him. All these "girls' nights out" were driving him to the flask he kept in his night stand. Those nights became blurs of color and sound, and he awoke to a splitting headache.
Where did the bruise on her cheek come from?
In sickness and in health
She never went out anymore. This would have made him happy, but all she did was sit on the couch. Very still, looking down at her hands. As if she were afraid to move, afraid to look at him. As if she feared him.
She had so many bruises now, shining dark blue and purple against her ivory skin. Sometimes her lip was cut open and bleeding.
Why were his knuckles throbbing?
For better or worse
Something had gone terribly wrong. There was so much blood. On the floor and the walls and on the blade of the knife that was held tightly in his hand. She wouldn't move. He shouted her name, shook her roughly. She simply stared at the ceiling, her beautiful brown eyes blank and accusing.
He shut his eyes as a flood of horrible images rushed through his mind. Her cowering against a wall, her face contorted with fear and stained with tears as his fist came closer to her. There was a painful twisting at his gut and he shook his head in denial. He couldn't have. He wouldn't . . . And yet, the proof of his own actions lay in front of him, in the form of a beautiful red-haired corpse.
He picked himself up off the floor and walked to the telephone with a resigned expression. He punched in the digits that he knew by heart.
"Yes, I need someone to come quickly."
A pause.
"My name is Harry Potter. I murdered my wife."
Til death do you part
*~*fin*~*