Hello Readers:)
This is going to be a long story and I am a very busy person. I run my own store and I have a little boy who will be 2 in April so between the two I have no time to my self. So I would like to apologize for the lack of frequent updates right away. I don't want anyone to get their hopes up. I would really appreciate it if you kept up with it though because I have been working on this story for over a year now. I have half of the chapters written but the are complete out of order. I am really getting ahead of myself with posting the intro but I feel like I need this to get me motivated again. I am really invested in this story. Thank you:)
It was days like this when she wondered why she fell in love with him in the first place. It wasn't as if it happened that long ago. Four years was not nearly enough time to forget why you loved someone. Wasn't marriage supposed to mean "... and they lived happily ever after?" Once the "I do's" & "Til death do us parts" are said, your search for your soul mate should be over.
Two years ago Miss Hermione Granger became Mrs. Hermione Weasley. With the new title came a new life, a new family and a new beginning. Time to start her life with her new husband who she loved more than anything. Ronald Weasley was the perfect balance to her life. He kept her on her toes and things were never boring.
She jumped right into her career right after completing her N.E.W.T.S. She was adapting nicely to life as a curse breaker. She was 3 years strong in her division and kept climbing the ranks. She was one retirement away from becoming Head of her Department at the Ministry.
Her & Ron had moved into their own flat just before the wedding and those first two years of their now four-year long relationship were seemingly perfect. They were happy. Perfectly happy. She had never had a big family of her own. it was just her, her mother and her father. No one else. She was now accepted into a rather large family. Sunday lunches were a priority. She had made the mistake of missing one and she never heard the end of it. You already knew that when Sunday rolled around you weren't going to make plans unless they were early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Sunday afternoon belonged to Molly. Hermione never minded it either. She was such a big part of their lives and Molly loved her as if she were her own. Just as she loved Harry. Hermione would never miss a Sunday lunch ever again.
Then of course there were days like today. Days when she wondered what had happened to the Ronald Weasley that she had so eagerly married two years earlier. If anyone would have told her two years ago that the man she loved, the man she cherished, the man she had married, would turn into the man that she knew today, she would have laughed in their face. The Ronald Weasley she knew certainly was not the one she had agreed to marry. This man was manipulative, unreliable, selfish, a very good liar and a very bad drunk. He never knew how to quit until he was plastered, angry, vulgar and just downright mean. Even then he still didn't quit, he just passed out and slept it off.
There was one good thing that came from days like this, just one. The guilt. The guilt was always the best. It brought on the apologies, the flattery, the gifts, the cards and flowers, and of course the best part... the make-up sex. Boy was the make-up sex worth it.
Days like today really made her think. Was today finally the day? Was today finally the day when she said enough was enough. She would contemplate it over and over again. Then, like always, she would decide against it. She would only leave him if necessary. Unfortunately she hadn't yet found a good enough reason to constitute divorce. If they were simply just a couple Hermione would have left some time ago. She had made a life long commitment to love Ron forever and she would, even if he didn't deserve it, which for the record he definitely did not. There was an 87% chance that tomorrow would bring a pleading Ron to her feet. He would beg for her forgiveness and exploit every soft spot she had for him. That's just what he was good at. A con-artist through and through. How he had become one, she could not tell you. She would cave in and he would win, he always won. Of course there were consequences and of course he would spoil her endlessly but he would still win. There was never more than one reason. The same reason every time. She was completely and helplessly in love with him. As the days, weeks, months and years passed, the reason had become steadily unclear.
Merlin only knew why she stayed with him. Why she put herself through this torture day in and day out. He was the first and only man she had ever been with intimately. He was the only man she had ever fallen in love with. Sometimes when she was upset with him or just fed up in general she would let her mind wander. Not too far of course out of respect. She would wonder what her life would have been like if she had chosen someone else. She needed someone who would treat her the way she deserved. Someone who thought about her before they decided to act. Someone who would rather spend their time with her, not sitting at a different bar every other night surrounded by beautiful strangers. Someone who would bring peace to her hectic life.
Ron loved her, she knew that. Of course he loved her. She was the best thing he had going in his life. When he messed up she was there to pick up the pieces that were left in his wake. Not to mention the nights that he stayed out later than two in the morning. She was the one who kept his transgressions out of the papers. She was the one who did damage control while he was at home sleeping it off. Unfortunately she always had a hard time with it simply because of Rita Skeeter's hatred towards her. Only a few had slipped through the cracks. It only made him look like he partied too hard one night here or there. No one knew what it was really like, just Harry and Ginny and at times George and Charlie. They all did their best at hiding it from the wizarding world. Twice a week was his minimum and thank Merlin he always went some place new. She didn't need him becoming a regular anywhere. Then again if he did she would at least no where he was.
He was headed down a path of self-destruction and it was only a matter of time before she had enough of her husband's behavior. He started making friends with the alcoholics and keeping the company of women she had never even met. She wasn't sure if it was jealousy or disgust that she felt so intensely. It was probably a mixture of both. Somehow he would talk his way out of it and things would be okay between them again. She would go a couple of days with him being sweet and apologetic then it would happen again. She was stuck in a never-ending cycle. As soon as she let her guard down then go and brag about how good he was doing to her friends he would go and mess things up once again.
The worst part was that he was so good at it. So good at breaking promises. So good at letting her know exactly where she stood in his eyes. At best, she was a distant second to the world around him.