House : Slytherin
Type : Short
Prompt : Best robes
Word count : 503
...
Hermione Granger sat on the edge of her bed in her underwear, her best robes lying crumpled on the floor. She couldn't help wondering where it had all gone wrong. Thirteen years ago, she had a perfect life. She had the friends, she had the grades, she had the promise of a stellar career. That all came crashing down when she fell in love.
Slowly but surely, she became more and more invested in her relationship. Slowly but surely, she became less available. Slowly but surely, her friends stop asking her if she wanted to go to Hogsmeade. Slowly but surely, she abandoned the person she was to become just a girlfriend. Later on, she became a wife.
She remembered the days when she was still blind to how futile her efforts to keep her relationship alive were. She remembered those days when she still did her hair every morning, just for him. She remembered those days filled with childish naivety and innocence. They were gone.
She got up and walked to her robes, lying on a heap on the floor, picking them up only to let them fall back down to the ground again. The blue satin dress had been a present from her husband, the only one he had given her in years. She had never loved an item of clothing more. However, as she stared upon its crumpled form, torn and dirty, a mere shadow of its former beauty, she couldn't help feeling that it was the perfect allegory for her relationship.
And so, on the eve of her 30th birthday, Hermione Granger was alone, waiting for her husband to come home, and unsure that he even would. Tired of waiting, she curled up on her bed and cried herself to sleep.
Hours later, a man crept into his house, trying not to wake his wife. He couldn't believe he had forgotten her birthday. It was the third year in a row, and he knew he could never make it up to her. He couldn't even bring himself to apologise, because that would mean confessing just how horrible a husband he was. So, he stayed silent, and instead grew more distant every single day.
However, on that day, something snapped. Seeing his wife crumpled on the bed, a shell of the woman he once knew, he could no longer suppress the guilt he felt. Upon taking over his father's business, he had managed to lose sight of what was important, taking for granted that his darling wife would always be waiting for him when he got back from work, no matter how late it was. While she would, it gave him no right to take advantage of it.
Lying down on the bed next to her, he wrapped his arms around Hermione and he, too, began to cry.
"I'm so sorry, darling," he whispered.
Hermione stirred and turned around to face the man she loved, a smile on her face despite the pain in the eyes. "It's too late, Draco."