A/N: I don't own Harry Potter or anything associated with it.

This is my first fanfiction, and I'll hopefully post weekly, if not faster than that. This chapter is mostly background, and the point of view will change to first person with the start of the second chapter. Please R&R.


She cried out in pain, but there was no one around to hear her. No, he had left hours before. She had been still, afraid to move, until her body started to numb. She knew she had to move, at least to sit up. That's when the pain came back. Always pain—so much pain.

She knew who he was; how could she not? He beat and violated her daily, only granting her rest when he locked her away upon leaving. She had thought that she loved him, but she'd obviously been fooling herself.

Her pain started right after graduating Hogwarts nearly a year ago. Ron was kind to her, and had been her best friend for a large portion of her life. She thought she loved him, and upon entering the real world, they had bought a flat together. She was in bliss, looking forward to her life with him.

Merely weeks after moving in together, he started talking down to her, shoving her, and belittling her. She told herself it was merely the stress of leaving Hogwarts, or the lingering stress from the war, but she knew better. Ron had always had a nasty temper, although she had never bore the concentrated brunt of it. It was always directed at a cause or at Malfoy, never directly at her. She knew he would only become increasingly violent, but she couldn't imagine leaving him, so she stayed.

Two months later, he was abusing and raping her on a daily basis. She knew she had to get out, to get away from him. She tried to leave silently in the night as he slept, but he had set up wards around the flat. He knew she would try to run, and had taken measures to make sure she couldn't get away. Upon reaching the wards, he was alerted, and she was knocked unconscious.

When she woke, she was tied securely to an unforgiving kitchen chair he had placed in their room. He was holding her wand, or rather, what was left of it. He had snapped it into many pieces, and at that point she knew she couldn't get away. She feigned unconsciousness before he could notice she was awake to avoid the pain of his torture for a few more saccharine seconds.

Upon waking again, she was on their bed. Her whole body ached, presumably from being knocked unconscious and tied to a chair, but she wouldn't have doubted it if he did something to her while she was out. As she thought about what he could have done while she was unconscious, she took further stock of her body. To her dark amusement, she was naked, and both of her wrists were bound to one of the bed posts. Her feet were tied together, and he was sleeping comfortably next to her in only his red boxers. She had to hold back a hysteric giggle. Red. She laughed at the irony. Loyalty wasn't always a good thing, but she had to admit he was a Gryffindor to the core. He believed that what he was doing was the right thing to do—that he loved her—that he was protecting her from the harsh and demanding outside world. She fought back more hysteria, and in her fight, a soft, pain-filled moan escaped her lips. She bit down on her tongue and prayed to Merlin that it wasn't enough to wake him, but she knew it was.

His eyes fluttered open, and she nearly laughed again at the innocent picture he made. She was expecting violence toward her person, so she curled into herself and closed her eyes. He made no move other than to shift to his side, resting his head on his hand which was propped up by his elbow. After a few minutes of silence, she opened her eyes to look at him. What she saw in his eyes would haunt her forever. Pure obsession. She knew she was trapped. She only hoped Harry, or Ginny, or anyone noticed what was going on. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be allowed to leave at all after her failed escape attempt.

It was then that Ron decided to speak. She stayed silent.

"Hermione. Why can't you understand that I love you…that I'm only doing this to protect you?" he sighed angrily. "Now I'll have to keep you inside all of the time, even though I know you loved those trips to that muggle supermarket I've allowed you to make every week. I don't even think you can see Harry—or anyone else for that matter—again. You might convince them to take you away from me in one of these panic attacks you seem to be having recently," Ron muttered, mostly to himself, as she watched him silently. "What to tell them then? They won't accept that you just don't want to come out to see them. It has to be better than that," he thought aloud. "I've got it. I'll tell them you've left. I'm sure I can convince them. What reason do they have to believe anything else?" he said, nodding to himself.

"Ron please let me go. I promise I'll never leave you, just let me go, let me go" I begged him.

"Silly girl. Do you think I'm stupid? I know you'll leave. You're nothing but a little whore anyways; I don't even know why I put up with your whining. When we got together you weren't even a virgin. You claim your innocence was taken from you when you'd been captured, but I don't believe you. I never did. So, now I've snapped your wand, and you will 'disappear' from the world," he explained, all the while wearing a feral grin on his distorted face.

Something small in her mind had snapped and she no longer cared about the pain her words would bring her. "Ronald Billius Weasley! How could you even suggest that was a lie? Even if I would have been a virgin, it's not like you would have respected me any more than you do. You didn't wait until I was ready to have sex; you just took what you wanted against my will, just like that deatheater. As a matter of fact, I think I would have rather had Fenrir Greyback keep me. At least then I might be dead by now, rather than still suffering by your hand. He was gentler anyways," she screamed at him, tears streaming down her face.

He slapped her hard across her left cheek, the force only amplified by his backhanded swing. "Don't ever compare me to that deatheater scum. I'm nothing but good to you," he screamed back at her. She merely looked at him, the life slowly trickling out of her eyes, as the fight left her system, and her adrenaline burned away. Angered by her silence, he struck her again. Her lack of reaction only fed his internal fire, and his eyes promised that she wouldn't like what was going to happen next.

He forced her onto her stomach, and she attempted to disconnect herself from her body. He hadn't done this before, and she didn't know what to expect. She had no idea what he was about to do, but she heard his giddy laugh moments before the blinding pain. She couldn't disconnect herself, the pain he was inflicting was too severe. He pushed all of the way in before grabbing her hair and jerking back painfully. She cried out, and that seemed to excite him. With this knowledge, she decided that she wouldn't cry out for him again; she wouldn't give him the pleasure of hearing her scream in agony. She'd keep it inside. The pain pushed her back into blissful unconsciousness as he continued to sodomize her.

She awoke some time later—hours, days, weeks, she didn't know—and he was gone. She was no longer tied to the bed, but she knew she couldn't escape. He would have made sure of that. She thought of how muggle he was when he did those things to her. He didn't immobilize her, just tied her up. He liked to fight against her struggles. She made to stand up, but fell to the floor from the pain emanating from her backside. She struggled to her feet and made her way to the kitchen in their flat. She knew she had to think of something. She couldn't continue to let herself be tortured—she was close to a breaking point. She had lost an unseemly amount of weight, and the torture was wearing down her resolve to live. She found a knife by the sink and studied her reflection in its silvery sheen.

An idea came to her. She could kill herself. Ron had probably already told everyone she was gone, so they'd be none the wiser and she would take herself away from him. She smiled brighter than she thought was possible before she made to plunge the blade into her chest. It was all going to be over, she was going to be free. Before the blade reached her body, it was stopped by an invisible force. She considered how that happened. It couldn't have been Ron (it was too advanced for him). She remembered something similar happening when she was being tortured by Bellatrix in the Malfoy Manor. After being raped by Greyback, Draco Malfoy had found her, healed her, and cast a few other spells on her. When she was brought to Bellatrix to be questioned, Bellatrix had been able to carve that awful word into her flesh, but when she had tried to stab Hermione, she was unable. Was it something that Malfoy had done? She didn't know, but she cursed him if it was. She knew he wasn't bad; he had saved her life several times when she was in the dungeons, but she didn't understand why, and she really didn't care to.

She collapsed to the floor, hopeless tears pouring down her face. Hermione Granger was giving up. There was no escape…she was trapped.


A/N: Reviews are greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

I huge thanks to Ms. Jane Doe for being my beta!