Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 4—Round 12
Team: Holyhead Harpies
Position: Captain
Task: Write a story about your OTP that has an unhappy ending (Romione)
Word Count: 2,996
The Broken Vase
It had been their worst fight yet.
And the worst part was, neither of them could really have told you what it was about. Most of their arguments at least started with some pretty solid reasoning, becoming vaguer as time went by, the last one—which had been their most impassioned by far—seemingly having no reason at all. It had just sort of… happened. Like it was now just expected of them.
Hazy though the origins were, there had, nonetheless, been a lot of swearing (on Ron's part), a lot of crying (on Hermione's part), and a lot of shouting (on both of their parts). Not to mention the vase Hermione had thrown at (narrowly missing) Ron's head, which neither had bothered to repair.
Ron noticed it now as he traipsed into the lounge feeling exhausted and forlorn. Why did he always end up on the sofa? Just once you'd think Hermione would have the decency to bear the lumpy discomfort Ron was about to withstand…
Something within Ron's chest constricted as he identified it as the vase his parents had given them for their wedding. It had been part of a set—the beautiful vase that, every month, Ron had filled with flowers he'd bought for Hermione. For the first few years of happy wedded bliss, at least. He could not remember the last time he'd done so.
Perhaps, Ron thought, as he slumped down onto the sofa, he could buy her flowers tomorrow. With a lazy flick of his wand, the broken pieces of china snapped back together, as good as new.
What a perfect allegory for their marriage, Ron mused. Shattered into pieces in a fit of rage and then repaired in an instant, as though nothing had happened.
His stomach felt hollow, his throat dry. Could they fix their marriage as easily and seemingly flawlessly as the vase had been repaired? Or would there always be cracks? Surely some cracks were too hopeless to conceal, no matter how desperately they wanted to. Ron hated the fact that he was even thinking of their marriage as something broken—in desperate need of patching up.
Where had it all gone wrong? Why couldn't they go even one evening without ending up shouting, and crying, and now, apparently, throwing things? Was Hermione so unfulfilled from attacking him with her vicious words that she now sought to inflict physical injury on him too?
Ron turned over on the sofa with an aggravated moment. He was going to have a sleepless night, he knew it. And not just for the sofa's lumpy exterior, but because of the endless worries racing through his mind.
Why didn't they make each other happy anymore, as they had done in those first years of marriage—when no argument had been unresolvable, no problem too big an obstacle for them?
Why, he thought sadly, weren't they enough for each other anymore?
He'd get her a huge bouquet, he decided. Roses, maybe—something romantic. Or lilies—her favourite. And he would carry them in—a huge armful—tell her how much he loved her, how stupid they were to get so worked up over nothing, and assure her he was deeply sorry for…
For what?
How did one apologise for an argument with no apparent reasoning?
Ron stared up at the ceiling, feeling defeated, his expression blank, his heart heavy. Hermione was directly above him, warm and comfortable in the double bed she had been sleeping in alone a lot recently.
He could have been up there, his wife curled up in his arms, nestling his head into her hair as they both drifted into a comfortable and blissful sleep.
Ron continued to stare up at the ceiling, wondering if Hermione was asleep or whether she was asking herself the same question Ron couldn't help but ask himself.
How much longer could they really keep this up?
Hermione, like her husband, was restless. She felt lost amongst the sea of bedsheets. Why wasn't Ron with her? Why wasn't he lolling by her side, emitting the low rumbling snores she pretended she hated but secretly loved, his long legs entangling with hers because he took up so much space and she was too gentle to disturb him.
Gentle, she snorted, self-disgust consuming her. She'd certainly not been gentle when she'd hurled that vase at him in an uncharacteristic burst of violence half an hour earlier. Neither of them had ever been violent, she thought, horrified that she'd been the one to initiate it.
What would Molly say, Hermione thought sadly, if she'd known the vase she'd presented to her son and his bride on their wedding day would be used as a weapon in an angry row fifteen years later?
Why she'd even thrown the vase at him, Hermione couldn't say. Something inside her had snapped; some boiling bubble of concentrated anger had just burst.
Perhaps the saddest part was that Ron, looking downcast and desolate, had just gone to the sofa in silence, without her ordering him there as she often did. He hadn't protested; he hadn't questioned why she, Hermione, wasn't deigning to spend a night on the sofa; he'd just… gone. Like it was routine. Like it was expected of him.
There had to be a reason, Hermione thought desperately, rolling onto her back. There was always a reason. People didn't just change, marriages didn't just fall apart; there had to be some deep, fundamental reason why their companionship was now so un-harmonious.
But for the first time in her life, Hermione could find no sound answer.
They had two beautiful children. They had loving families, great friends, happy careers… So why didn't they work anymore? How could every other aspect of their life be so wonderful when that core relationship was crumbling every day? And how much longer did they have before it had crumbled beyond repair?
Hermione hated to think like that, but she had to. They would have to talk about it, she decided. They couldn't keep going on the way they were—the same vicious cycle over and over again.
Something was fundamentally wrong with their relationship, something that had been building for a while now.
Hermione almost wished there was something obviously wrong. There was no infidelity, no secret affairs; there was no recent trauma dragging them apart; there was no conflict, or violence, or difference of opinions (despite their little display that evening). They just argued. They just clashed. And not in the amusing, almost endearing way they had as teenagers, when it had all been fuelled by a veiled longing for the other and an inability to express how they really felt.
It was like they were no longer compatible. Like they simply argued because there was nothing else to do—because that was their new default.
There was no easy reason to leave him.
Hermione gasped, thankful that Ron had no indication of the thought that had so flippantly crossed her mind.
Leave him? Was that what she really wanted? To walk away, to end her marriage? Because… what? Because she didn't love him anymore?
Because she did. Hermione knew she did.
So—what? A small but sure voice spoke to Hermione so clearly that she almost thought Ron had wandered into the room and spoken to her.
Because we just don't work anymore.
It broke Hermione's heart in much the same way the vase had shattered against the wall—the thought of leaving Ron and ending their marriage. But there were so many reasons that pointed towards why it would be so much healthier for them to separate…
The kids, another voice, as clear as before piped up. Think of the kids.
Rose and Hugo were so young, the latter only being in his first year at Hogwarts. Thank Merlin they were at Hogwarts, though. God forbid they'd witnessed their parents' daily shouting matches.
Perhaps that was it. Up until that year, they'd had the children, but now they were gone, their family was falling apart.
Hermione tried to clear her mind of all thoughts. She was still disturbed by her abrupt and shocking consideration. Emitting a long, drawn-out breath, clutching at the duvet that didn't nearly compensate for the warmth her husband could have offered her had he been there, Hermione realised, painful as it may be, there was only really one person she should be talking to about this.
And she wasn't nearly looking forward to it.
Despite their restless minds, both Ron and Hermione had drifted into deep, undisturbed sleep for the remainder of the night. But when they awoke, neither felt refreshed. Sometimes, after an argument, they didn't even speak of it or properly resolve it—they just slipped back into their routine lives, like nothing had ever happened to disturb the peace.
But both knew, this time, they couldn't get away with that. Which is probably why Ron had left for work without a word to her, Hermione considered as she hesitantly entered the living room to find it empty.
The vase, Hermione noticed with a sharp twinge in her heart, had been resealed and set back on the windowsill—a reminder of her violence the night before. Perhaps it would be safer, both emotionally and physically, if she left.
Hermione knew it would have to be her who walked out. She could not force Ron away, as innocent and confused as he'd be, in the same way she so readily forced him onto the sofa—that would just be cruel. He hadn't asked for this, after all. Would it come as a shock to him, Hermione wondered, if she broached the idea of separation to him?
Would he, and Hermione could barely think to imagine it, give a sad nod and confess he, too, had been thinking that separation was in their best interests? Would she be relieved if he did?
Hermione shook her head as she headed off to work herself. Her heart felt no less heavy than it had done last night. Thank Merlin Ron didn't work at the Ministry anymore. Hermione wasn't sure she'd be able to retain her composure if she happened to see him in passing.
That night they would finally have to stop avoiding the elephant in the room and reassess just what in Merlin's name their marriage was, if they could even call it a marriage anymore.
Hermione was not looking forward to the inevitable. But she held her head high, sucked it up, and forced a calm, neutral expression onto her face as she closed the door behind her.
The blood was everywhere. It pooled around him like a dark crimson flower erupting into blossom—a disturbingly morbid display to romanticise.
Hermione could not look away. Her whole body was screaming, violently convulsing as whoever was holding her struggled to restrain her. She didn't even know who it was. Harry? Ginny? One of the random Muggle policemen who'd been called to the scene?
And then Hermione realised it wasn't just her body that was screaming in protest as she looked down at her husband's broken body; she was screaming. The sobs racked through her body with each convulsion, hot tears surging down her face as her mind struggled to grasp the situation.
It had not been a pleasant day, due to last night's lingering feelings of exhaustion and upset, and the burden of the uncomfortable impending discussion, but Hermione had certainly not been prepared for the abrupt notification that Ron, whom she'd last seen in a fit of violent rage as she'd thrown the vase at his head, had been in an accident.
She did not understand.
Any aggression—any mild feeling of hurt or dislike that had lingered from the previous argument—had been wiped out in an instant, as though somebody had cast Obliviate on her, to be replaced with only a soul-consuming feeling of dread.
She, Harry, and Ginny had all arrived within seconds of each other. And then Hermione had crumpled, all the breath leaving her body, much like the breath had been crushed out of Ron's. And then she'd been screaming, and someone was gripping her to stop her from doing anything reckless, and she didn't understand.
Ron, her brave, brave husband, who had fought dark wizards and embarked on reckless, heroic adventures with her and Harry in their youth, could not have been struck down by something as trivial and mundane as traffic. He was not a Muggle; he was not just some random pedestrian. He was a Gryffindor; he deserved a hero's death!
Death—Hermione did not want to think it. But there was so much blood, ever pooling around his pale, battered body, and someone would have done something by now. If it were possible…
Hermione screamed again, hoping the shrill, piercing release would take away some of the pain clawing at her chest. But the pain did not cease, and nor did the tears.
She could barely listen to what the panicked, horror-struck Muggle man was desperately trying to explain to anyone who would listen—Hermione, Harry, Ginny, the police. He was no doubt the owner of the abandoned car beside Ron's lifeless body.
It wasn't a suicide—the words reached Hermione as though being spoken to her underwater. They were murky, distant.
She supposed it was intended to comfort her—the assurance that her husband had not taken his life by flinging himself in front of a passing car. But it didn't. It made another sharp convulsion override Hermione's body, because what if he had.
What if, spurred on by Hermione's increasingly aggravated attitude towards him, their marriage being ripped apart at the seams, he had decided he could take it no more. Her throwing that wretched vase had been the nail in the coffin.
He was distracted, I could tell. There was something on his mind, he wasn't paying attention to the road. He looked troubled…
And Hermione knew she had killed him. She had yelled and cried and refused to let him share their marital bed, and not even tried to resolve anything with him; his mind had been consumed by the same anxious and demoralising thoughts that hers had. And because of that, he had not been paying attention. Because of Hermione, he had not seen the car that had ploughed straight into him as he crossed the road.
Why was he crossing the road?—Hermione thought desperately. Why was he wandering around in the middle of the day?
And then Hermione saw them, and her heart, had it not already, shattered.
A bouquet of snow-white flowers, now morbidly contrasting with the scarlet streaked across the road, surrounded Ron, as broken as he was. Lilies—her favourite—lay across and around Ron's body as though no time could be wasted in having a funeral.
For her, Hermione knew. To apologise, (even though he had done nothing wrong). To be displayed in the vase she had hurled at him—the lasting memory he would have of her.
Hermione, a new surge of raw emotion ripping through her, broke free of her restraints and threw herself down on the ground, clutching at Ron. She did not care that she was getting blood on her finest work suit, only that her husband, his body cold, his heartbeat undetectable, was in that state because of her. If Hermione could not be blamed for Ron having thrown himself in front of the car in despair, nor being the reason his mind was so preoccupied that he'd wandered into the road by accident, she would certainly blame herself for the undisputable fact that Ron had bought the flowers for her.
Had she not argued with him last night, denying access to the double bed she was no more entitled to than he was, he would not have slipped out that morning without exchanging words; he would not have felt obliged to make amends for the mess she was just as responsible for; he would not have bought flowers; he would not have been crossing the road, his mind preoccupied, just at the exact moment the unsuspecting Muggle had sped around the corner…
"Please," Hermione whispered, her throat raw from the screaming and her lips trembling. She brushed aside his hair, so vividly orange amidst the dark scarlet, grateful that no one was attempting to drag her away. "Please," she begged, "please don't leave me."
Hermione could not live without her husband—without Ron. While true she had been considering walking away from him, from their marriage, (and Merlin, how had she ever thought she could!?) she was certainly not prepared for having him so abruptly taken from her.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," she pleaded, rocking back and forth, trying to rock the life back into him. "I love you, Ron. I love you, I love you." The words she should have said last night—before, during, and after the argument. She should never have stopped saying those words. She should have said them every day, every moment she was with him. With every breath in her body she should have told him she loved him.
"I look at you, and I'm home. Please… I don't want that to go away," she whimpered. "I… I need you. I can't live without you. I love you," she tried again, as though those words alone could revive him. "Ron," she begged.
But Ron did not stir. His eyelids did not flicker. Not even when Hermione's tears splashed onto his face, mingling with some of the blood on his nose. He looked, she thought with deep distress, as fragile as that vase. He had shattered just as easily.
And all because of her…
Hermione's voice was so hoarse and raw that her words surely weren't intelligible, but she willed them into being with every ounce of strength she still possessed, the tears still sliding down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry."
The Valentine-Making Station Challenge (by TheNextFolchart):
Stickers
Butterfly – Write about someone emotionally, mentally, and/or physically fragile
Cupid – Write about a love that is painful
Heart – Write about your OTP
Honeybee – Write about a couple that lived through a war
Picnic Basket – Write about Ron
Ribbons
Bronze – Write about Hermione
Red – Write about a Gryffindor
Candy
Hershey's Kiss – Write about a relationship that lasts past Hogwarts
Miscellaneous Decorations
Glitter – Write about a big mess that's difficult to clean up
Cinema Competition II (by TheNextFolchart):
Finding Nemo – Write about any sort of creature. / "I look at you, and I'm home. Please...I don't want that to go away."