Sometimes, in the dead of night when the wind whispers ghost tales against the cracked siding of the house and the pine tree scratches an unknown tune on our bedroom window, I can forget all that has happened and be content. In the dark, everything is easier - I cannot see his eyes then, those eyes that can turn blistering cold in a heartbeat. All I know when the dark folds us in its strange embrace is that he loves me, in the only way he can ever know how. I cannot help it, cannot help but love him in return.

Without question.

Without judgment.

I know, logically, that I should leave. That I should run - I know this, even as I know I never will. You see, my husband is a monster. Not the furry horned kind you see in movies or during Halloween, but a human one, a simple man that has not faced his own demons and so turns on the ones that care the most.

Me.

He could help it if he tried hard enough. He knows it isn't right. He knows what he does is something that likely has broken me, caused cracks to spread in my already world-worn soul.

My husband, the man my heart aches for and the reason my tears fall, silver in the early moonlight, with guilt for staying and with guilt for thinking to leave. My husband, who when his voices raises into rumbled thunder I begin to shake, hit me again today.

And hit, of course, is putting it mildly.

Today he almost killed me.

And yet, afterwards, when it was over and I had caught my breath and pressed ice to one of the knots rising from my skull, I held him close and whispered words of sweet forgiveness to him. True words, because I love him and do not want him to feel like I do not. His head still rests on my chest, bruises blossoming underneath the shirt that flutters with his breath, and I stroke his hair.

If I stay, he has someone to love him and care for him despite who he is, and perhaps, deep down, because of it. If I leave, he will be alone but perhaps he will be happier. He knows he is a monster. After the storm of his flashfire temper resides, the guilt in his eyes as he looks at what he has done to me breaks me even more. My presence hurts his soul.

I know this, and I stay.

"Ville? Neville?" I whisper, my voice jerky. He grunts, not wanting to talk - he never does, not when we recover like this, when I hold him and ensure him that I am okay. Not when I ask him what he wants, because he does not know. He used to tell me we would get divorced, and then I would tell him I trusted him not to do this to me anymore.

Now he wants me to stay because he thinks he needs me, and maybe he does.

But he wants me to leave, because its the only way he knows he won't kill me, like he almost did tonight. Its the only way he knows how to keep me safe, but he is selfish.

And perhaps I am too.

It all started out innocuous enough - he didn't actually hurt me until we were married, bound together by law and something more. Something that I don't fully understand even now, after a year of this.

I am quite certain that is the reason I cannot leave - I am compelled by our marriage vows to stay with him. Harry and Ron might say that it is because I champion the underdog, and I want to save my husband from himself.

I don't think that is it - in every other aspect of his life, he is perfect. Well, perhaps he is not the bright and shining intellect I am, but then, few are. He has talents, a career, and he provides for me well, and when he isn't angry, he is funny and very attentive to me.

He really isn't angry that often. Just today, there was a wrinkle in his lucky robes and it was an important hearing at the ministry and his client lost the suit. If I thought about it, I know it was just because no one could have won that case. If I pointed it out to him, I really might be dead. Instead, it was promises of doing better, apologies that I failed, and now croonings that it was not his fault. That I understand and I am okay.

Tomorrow, I tell myself, tomorrow will be better. He is letting me continue my education, finally, after I told him that having my own career would generate more income. More money meant buying him presents, or that he could more readily purchase land in France to build the summer home he wanted. I don't care about Tomorrow, I begin my Potions apprenticeship, and even though it is under the dour and exacting tutelage of Professor Severus Snape, I count myself lucky.

I have a husband who, for now, is meek and compliant in his guilt, and the professor notoriously avoids taking apprentices. He is hard to impress, but I must have done it. I never have before, and part of me wonders what I had done to do so.

Eyelashes flutter without any recollection of having slept, but I know I must have - Neville is gone, my body aches, and the sun is slow to inch its way to the sky, and I am due at the laboratory in one and a half hours.

I shower, glamour the bruises on my neck and take a pain potion. It won't happen again. He knows he went too far this time, and he will be more careful. He still has nightmares of the war. Deep down, something murmured that these are all excuses, but they were all I had.

I probably even, sometimes, deserve it.

I know I have a sharp temper. I know that. I know I don't handle my stress well, especially after the war. Sometimes I get so caught up in reading that I forget to do basic cleaning, and if I am in research I might not even answer 'Ville if he speaks to me.

I stand in the kitchen, make it immaculate so he has nothing more to say tonight, and decide I am too queasy for breakfast with a sigh. My nerves aren't holding up very well, clearly. It could just be because of seeing Professor Snape again after so long with his exacting demands, but it was more than that.

He might notice.

No one had noticed yet, and it had been two years of this. It happened as often as once a week to as infrequently as once every two months, but it hurt. And it has been escalating.

I don't think he will do it again, though.

I'll be a better wife.

I smile with the resolve, try to chase away the butterflies in my stomach, and with a crack I am in front of the gates of Hogwarts.

I guess I can try this again. Sorry Neville is such a butt, I figure war does things to people and sometimes you don't expect that out of people.

For those of you that might read/have read my other story I do plan on one day finishing it. More likely when I have a computer to type at instead of my phone.