Trying to Settle by TheQuillowTree
This is all Jo's world, all Jo's people. I'm just writing with them 'til I get good enough to use my own.
Trying to Settle
She has never scheduled her arrival. It could be two in the morning or ten at night, it could be sunny or stormy, and Fred never NEVER let's surprise linger on his face. She is so scared of planning nowadays, she always comes on impulse. Fred is so scared of never seeing her again, he takes her in whenever she appears on his door step.
In the relationship Fred would like to have with her, there is never silence. They banter constantly and she opens up to him, letting him be the flirtatious person he is by nature. In reality, there are no words. What does a married woman have to say to the man she makes love to late at night? They never say hello or goodbye, the sudden finality scares her, and he will do whatever it takes to see her again. The only time she makes any noise at all, the only time she feels anything, is during their dark act. She moans and screams and sighs, but never utters a word. It has been like this for a year, and she has never said his name.
Tonight is no different from the others. He opens his door to the wet dog of a girl, who throws her grey raincoat onto the front bench. She wears nothing underneath. Looking over her shoulder at Fred the woman's dull eyes motion to the stairs. They climb, and as Fred opens the bedroom door he takes her small hand in his. She gasps and shivers, from his touch or the rain he doesn't know, and backs toward his bed. He leans her over and kisses her, starved from not seeing his lover for so long. His kisses are bruising, and she moans with pleasure under him. Things Progress quickly from there, and the noises only change when she is long down the road to climax. Her moans become a high keening that goes on and on until she climaxes and let's out a primal scream, her back arching her whole upper body off of the bed. Fred rolls off her then, and runs his hands through her curls while glazed eyes stare at the ceiling and she catches her breath. This goes on for eight minutes, no more, no less, and then she sits up in bed. Fred lays there hypnotized by her curves and curls as she exits the room and walks down the stairs. She is still naked, and showing no emotion. It is only when he hears her pick up the coat that he lurches out of bed. Like a hunted man her careens for the stairs, he has realized he loves her, he's going to make her stay, until he reaches the top step. Perfectly timed, as usual, his front door clicks shut, and he sees her hair sway one last time before he is alone again. The house seems grey as Fred makes his way to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of whiskey. He then sits in his front window for eight minutes, waiting to see the grey coat run back towards his house, praying she'll call out his name, and then he falls asleep. He sleeps well and will wake in the grey dawn of morning. It is routine, and a small part of him accepts it.
A week later he is at the funeral, the whole family is. Hell, half the wizarding world is out standing in the rain for her. He is the only one who doesn't cry, he doesn't feel anything anymore, other than an ironic sense of amusement. She broke him alright, she'd said she would, and she had made him exactly like her. Funny though, that in the end she couldn't handle it, that she'd broken herself, that in the end, faced with what she'd done, she just couldn't settle.
IMPORTANT NOTE: In case you didn't get this vague fic...Hermione had married Ron as everyone expected, but she wasn't happy. Fred and her began having an affair and she told him that if he continued she would break him, destroy him. Fred is intrigued by her damaged soul, and persists. He comes to need her, and her couplings with him become the only time she feels anything. One night, while walking away she realizes she loves him and turns back, only to be faced by her affair and demons of war. Unable to handle the pressure of these expectations and realizing she can't settle for life with Ron, she takes her own life. The funeral at the end is Hermione's.