Be mindful what you toss away, be careful what you push away, and think hard before walking away.
- Anonymous
Hermione and Ron had started fighting long before they had even been friends, so there was nothing surprising about a fight. What was surprising was how painful those fights were when they were in a committed relationship. A simple, or even not so simple, fight between friends only stung for a moment and then it passed. But the wounds inflicted by a lover never seemed to stop aching, not entirely.
Their love for one another had boiled over during the final conflict, and it had been consummated while they both drowned in a river of grief. It had been a bit of a whirlwind in reality. One moment they had been roughing it in the wilderness, the next they were kissing in the heat of battle, and what felt just a second after that they were moving into a flat together having run off during the night to marry without a crowd watching them.
No matter how much that particular decision might have hurt their respective parents, doing things while people were not watching them seemed to be the only thing that Ron and Hermione didn't fight about. They didn't necessarily agree on it, but they didn't fight about it. Hermione was not interested in basking in the limelight that had been thrust upon them for the part they had played in the war. While Ron loved having everyone's attention turned toward him, he respected the fact that Hermione was no interested in joining him on the front cover of the Prophet.
The list of things that Hermione and Ron fought about were much longer, but topping the list of frequents fights was the first fight they had after sharing their first kiss. The two of them fought about Severus Snape constantly. Ron didn't want to hear Hermione's theories about whether or not the man had actually died, and Hermione could not stand to hear Ron's varied opinions of just how evil the man had been. To Ron it didn't seem to matter that Severus had been cleared of all charges and proved to have been on the side of the light for the thick of it, and Hermione had absolutely no patience for hearing how she should be more focused on creating a family with her husband and not on wondering what had happened to a dead man.
Hermione found her refuge from her quarrels with Ron in her best friend Harry Potter, and occasionally through his wife Ginny. Whenever the tense air became too thick, she would escape to Grimmauld place, and focus her mind on having tea and simple conversation with her friends. She would never breath a word of troubles in paradise of course. For all anyone knew, she was a happily married wife, and she and Ron expected to find themselves pregnant any day. She couldn't find the words to tell them that she was miserable, or that she had gone onto birth control in order to avoid birthing the child of a man she suspected didn't intend to stay with her.
Ron found his refuge in other woman. He made a point to let his wife things that he worked late hours, and with every fight they had he got farther from admitting to her that he really didn't work that late at all. He had found the one benefit to stardom that neither Harry nor Hermione had paid much attention to: affection. His wife might be a harpy who seemed absolutely incapable of giving him a child or the real love and affection that he craved, but that didn't mean he couldn't find it in a witch with certain qualities.
Hermione was sitting alone at the dinner table once again. She tried, really tried not to be upset. She had waited until past seven to even begin preparing the meal, taking her time so it would not be plated and ready for consumption until after eight. Yet here it was almost ten in the evening, and she was sitting alone at the table, staring at a cold meal. She was a witch, so of course she could have cast a stasis or even a warming spell to preserve the meal, but she no longer saw the point. Instead, she plucked a bottle of wine from the rack on the wall, a glass from the cabinet, and she made her way out of the kitchen leaving the meal to be dealt with at another time.
She pulled the cork from the bottle, and let it breathe on the bathroom counter while she began drawing a bath. The house was silent around her, without even the quiet sounds of Crookshanks moving about. She automatically stifled the rage she felt at Ron's absolute refusal to allow her so much as a proper burial for her familiar after his passing, let alone allowing her to get another cat.
She poured herself a glass of wine as she tried not to think about how a vein had pulsed in Ron's forehead as he shouted that if she needed someone to care for so badly she could pay a little more attention to her husband or perhaps finally give him a child. She took a long pull from her wine glass before sliding into the warm water and the frothy bubbles. There was one blissful moment where she was ensconced in warm water, with her arm hanging absently over the side of the tub with a gentle grasp on her wine glass, simply enjoying the peace around her.
And then Ronald came home. She knew the second he had entered the house of course, because he insisted on apparating into the kitchen. No heed was paid to his poor aim or how terribly loud he was, but some things never changed did they? She stifled a sigh, and sunk deeper into bathtub allowing the bubbles to obscure her chin and mouth.
"Couldn't even keep dinner warm," she heard him grumbling over the clinking of dishes as he threw them haphazardly into the sink. "Probably got her nose shoved in a bloody book again."
She felt her hackles rise, but she simply finished her glass of wine before gently setting the glass on the wire shelf beside the tube and allowing herself to slip completely beneath the surface of the water. Ron was clearly spoiling for a fight and she simply wasn't interested tonight. She held her breath and stayed beneath the surface until she felt the vibrations and heard the distant sound of Ron stomping into the bathroom. Reluctantly she began to sit up, but before she could emerge from beneath the water Ron's hand latched onto her shoulder and wretched her up. She spluttered wiping the water from her eyes as he glowered down at her.
"What the bloody hell are you doing?" he shouted at her before turning toward the counter and swiping up the bottle of wine. "Is this the bottle my mother bought us for our second anniversary?"
"I'm not sure," Hermione admitted as she fumbled for the towel hanging off the end of the wire shelf. "I just grabbed a red, I didn't even really look much at the label to be honest."
"Of all the times for a bookworm to decide not to read," he snapped before tossing the bottle into the sink and shattering it. "That bottle was supposed to be saved until our fiftieth anniversary!"
If Hermione hadn't been frozen mid flinch, she might have pointed out that they could have saved the rest if he hadn't just ruined it. Instead she stood from the tub, wrapping the towel securely around herself, and made a point to avoid eye contact with him while she stepped onto the bath mat. Instead she turned to him with her chin lowered, barely meeting his gaze.
"I'm sorry," she sighed quietly. "Is there any way for me to make I up to you?"
Ron quickly forgot about dinner as well as the wine, but Hermione did not.
"I think you could make money if you sold these Hermione," Ginny said as she reached for the canvas Hermione was handing her.
"I just need them out of the house," Hermione sad lightly, trying not to think about yet another row she and Ron had about her painting. "I don't want to sell them, I just want to put them in storage and get a little distance from them."
"They're good though," Ginny pushed. "I mean a bit dark obviously, but very well done. Anyone who fought in the war would be able to relate to these paintings."
"I'm not comfortable selling them," Hermione sighed, again not saying that she'd have to find a believable lie about where the money had come from if she wanted to avoid another fight. "Storage is the right choice, for now."
"Ok, you don't want to sell, I get it," Ginny sighed. "But seriously, if you're only going to put them in storage, can I put this one up at Grimmauld place?"
"That's a little morbid don't you think?" Hermione hedged.
She stared at the oval canvas that had been the cause of the largest row between her and her husband. It had also been one of the most cathartic paintings she had made. It was predominately red, showing the anger and pain that such a memory brought up in her. The problem for Ron was that Severus Snape took up most of the painting. It didn't seem to matter to her husband that she was trying to process having witnessed the man bearing the brunt of so much pain and doing nothing to help him. To her the image of Voldemort torturing Severus Snape was a still image of what a majority of the war had boiled down to. For her the painting was an attempt to let go of the pain. To Ron it was a reminder that when the moment came for a choice at the end of battle, she had chosen Snape over him.
"I think it's certainly intense, but it captures something that should never be forgotten," Ginny said quietly, her eyes never leaving the painting. "Harry would never forgive me if I let you shove this in a storage unit somewhere."
"Go ahead, but put it somewhere Ron won't see it," Hermione said dismissively as she began shoving the other paintings into the back of the car she had rented for the day.
Hermione almost wished she hadn't begun painting when she thought of all the trouble it had caused between her and her husband, and yet the thought of giving it up was tearing her apart. A lead weight settled in her stomach, and she was certain that the nightmares were going to start again.
She hadn't been wrong. She had gone to bed alone, again, and it hadn't taken her long to slip into the nightmares that still plagued her years later. She was jerked out of the world full of deadly snakes and gasped awake to find herself incased in Ron's arms. She gratefully wrapped her arms around him, and pulled herself tightly against him. She breathed in his scent with the thought of comforting herself, but then she stiffened when her nose was filled with the scent of another woman's cologne.
"What's wrong," he asked as she shoved him off of her, and threw herself out of bed.
She stopped moving, other than to turn and stare at him. She was at a loss for words. Was he actually asking him what was wrong? Was he that stupid?
"You'd think after five years of marriage you'd at least have the decency to rid yourself of the smell of your latest floozy before you join me in our bed!" she shouted at him, grabbing her robe and throwing it hastily over her body.
"Seriously Mi?" he shouted, and she cringed at the once endearing nickname. "I try to comfort you after a nightmare, and that's what you want to say to me?"
She stood her ground as he lunged up off the bed, but she was a bit afraid of how angry he looked now.
"I thank you for waking me up," she said stiffly. "But I won't thank you for besmirching our marital bed."
"Oh for the love of Merlin," he snapped, drawing closer. "You're smelling Ginny's perfume, I went over to Grimmuald place for a couple drinks."
"Your sister would be offended to hear you insinuate she wears a whore's perfume," Hermione snapped.
Apparently that was the last straw. Ron's face went redder than his hair, and then he slapped her.
"Get out," she shouted at him, cradling her cheek and fighting not to cry. He obeyed immediately, his face torn somewhere between anger and shock, and suddenly she found herself alone. What had happened to them? When had they changed so much? When had they turned into these people who hated each other so much?
