Author's Note: I'm so sorry I didn't get this posted on Friday when I wanted to, RL bit me in the rear and demanded my time over the weekend. Hopefully it's all taken care of now. I also have a question for my dear readers, I'm in desperate need of a beta for the sequel (the one I had has some RL issues and is unable to finish this for me) My main concern is grammar and spelling at the moment. (the rest can be fixed later) if anyone is interested in helping me out or know someone who can I would really appreciate it and there maybe cookies involved;)

Disclaimer: Do I really need to say that I don't own them? I'm just playing with someone else's toys and do return them in the same shape I have found them (well that may not always be the case).

A Year Later

Severus stood outside the closed door of the bedroom Hermione had stayed in while they were married; he had not been inside the room since the day she left. Once he had woken up from falling asleep on her bed he had taken her ring, along with his, and put them on a chain around his neck. He closed the door and had not gone back into the room in the past year.

He had held out a little hope for a while that she would be back; she had said that she would be to retrieve her things after all. She never came back, nor had she ever sent anyone, so he had come to the conclusion that she either had taken her things with her or didn't care enough to come back for them. Either way he decided last night it was time to pack the room up. She wasn't coming back no matter how much he wished it. He had been too….. proud, too stubborn, to go after her, to admit he made a mistake in letting her go.

He took a deep breath as he opened the door. The room looked as it did when he closed the door last year. Why he thought it would be different he didn't know. He gave a flick of his wand removing all the dust that had collected in the last year. He placed the trunk on the bed before going to the still open closet. He could have used magic, but thought it would be better to pack away her things manually, in the hopes of packing away the memories of her with them.

He made quick work of the closet and the dresser in the room; most of the items were the scraps of satin and lace she had left. He smirked as he remembered the first time he walked into the room to her wearing one of these things. He didn't even think about it that night when he laid her on the bed, she had just looked too damn hot in the little pink frilly thing that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. It wasn't like she needed to wear them; he had been turned on every time he came to this room. He never let her know. He made sure that she had every reason to think that he was not attracted to her. If she had only known that the 'potion' he took every time was nothing more than an endurance enhancer. He had wanted to make sure she received pleasure from their encounters; even though he wouldn't do anything she liked. Despite his efforts, she told him she had only enjoyed it twice.

Now he didn't know why he led her to believe different. No, that was a lie. He knew exactly why he did it. Now that he looked back on it, it seemed petty. He had done it to have the upper hand; all it succeeded in doing was making her think all he wanted was a whore. It had all been a mind game that backfired on him in spectacular fashion.

He moved the trunk off the bed, stripping the sheets. The bottom sheet caught on something under the mattress, and he lifted it to find a journal; Hermione's. He wondered if she even knew she left it here. He banished the sheets to the laundry room as he sat on the bed opening the book then closed it. These were her private thoughts, and he had no business reading them.

He looked under the mattress and bed for anything else. Finding nothing, he banished the trunk to the attic. He took the journal to his room. Sitting on the bed, he opened and closed the book several times. He started to finger the rings around his neck. He never realized until she was gone that he would miss her presence in the house. He remembered she spent the majority of time in her room, alone. That wasn't quite true; she had just tried to stay out of his way. Could he really fault her? He complained about her being there enough. Over the last year he wished he hadn't. He had been so petty, even going so far as complaining once that her breathing kept him awake. That hadn't been the case. She had had a nightmare that woke him. He never heard her again, but it was just another thing he made her suffer.

He laid his hand on the journal again. Did he even want to know what she was thinking? He did, but he didn't; what would the book tell him about himself? What would it tell him of how she saw him while they were married?

He took the journal with him as he went to the eat supper, laid on the table taunting him as he ate. Later, in the sitting room as he drank Firewhiskey, he finally picked up the book, opening it to the first page. The date caught his attention first; it was the date they married. The words were that of a young woman with high ideas. She wrote about the wedding, how she was happy and hoped that in time he would be also. She also wrote of his treatment of her that night; she justified it by saying that he would have to learn that she could be trusted. She wrote how much that music box had meant to her, that in time she hoped that he would trust her enough to drop the cloak he wore for the world to show her his true self.

The next several weeks were full of words of her adjusting to living with him and the requirements of the marriage law. She wrote about how her parents had always shared a room but that she knew he had been alone so long that the arrangement would just take some getting used to on his part.

He started reading her entry a week later then slammed the book closed. He had no recollection of what he had said to her, until he read it on the page. Of course he was drunk that night, he had forgotten about the damn ring until it started tingling on his finger. He didn't recall going up the stairs, or even bedding her that night. Nor did he remember saying anything to her, but why would she lie in writing her private thoughts?

He drank the rest of the whiskey in the glass then poured another, drained it before refilling, then picked up the book again. This time he read, word for word, what he said to her. Her last line stabbed him the deepest; if he wants his wife to be a whore to desire her I can do that for him. He closed the book, setting it back down. It was what he called her that night, amongst other things. He didn't remember any of it. He thought about trying to pull the memory, to see if she had taken what he said out of context. Not that he thought she did; he just couldn't remember and wanted to see for himself.

He made his way to his room, where he kept his Pensieve. He raised his wand to his temple, locating the memory, and removed it, dropping the silvery strand into the water. Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward lowering his head to touch the surface.

He sat in his chair; he had been drinking most of the evening. It hadn't been a good day, January thirtieth never was. He drank the whiskey that his father had preferred when he was growing up, and hissed when the ring tingled on his finger. He drank another glass before slowly walking up the stairs. He stopped in his room for the potion. He downed one, and picked up another before leaving the room. With his mind the way it was tonight he knew that there was not a chance in hell that he was in the mood to fulfill the requirement. He stood in the doorway of the room, looking at her sitting on the bed, twisting her ring around her finger as she watched him take the potion he always took while he was standing there.

The way he approached her was akin to a predator, stalking his skittish prey. Once he reached the bed his mouth started working, words falling out of their own accord.

"I don't see why you have to insist on dragging this out by being clothed when you know I'm coming. Now be the good little whore that you are and remove your clothes at once."

He watched as she pulled her nightgown over her head. Now that he was watching this from a distance, he could see how scared she was.

"That's a good little slut." He had already undone his pants, and in one swift motion, he shoved her back on the bed and began doing what was required.

He listened as he told her that she'd be nothing more than an unpaid whore to him, that he could find the same, for a price, in Knockturn Alley if he wanted.

In his belittling of her he went so far as to say, "If I close my eyes I can pretend it's Lily I'm fucking and not some whore like you."

He pulled himself out of the memory, not able to listen to his words any longer. If there had been any question as to whether or not she thought of herself that way it was erased. She saw herself that way because he told her that was all she was to him.

It had been the only time he was that drunk when he went to her. He awoke in his bed the next morning with no recollection of the night before. He never drank that much again until the day she left.

He had given her every reason to hate him, never any reason to care for him or love him. The next page of the journal contained more of her thoughts from that night and as he read them, he was struck at how well she had read him.

I know he was drunk tonight. I also know what today is. I am Harry's best friend after all. But alcohol only lowers inhibitions, leads people to say what they really want without censor. Tomorrow I will go shopping for something to wear for him, since I have had time to calm down from what he said tonight. I can see how he wouldn't ask me to dress like that for him unless he was drunk. I wonder if I should also obtain a red wig to wear, I just don't know about that. I cannot be her, I am me and though I could try I don't know how she would have reacted during sex. I really don't want to think about it either, so maybe an image of Lily is all I can give him. Would he really ever see me if I did that for him? I know we have only been married six weeks, and I know it takes time to adjust, but I don't know if my heart will survive the adjustment period. I do know that if he ever trusts me enough, then fair's fair, as they say.

Severus set the book down on the bed. He never once let her have the upper hand in bed. She had been so quiet in the last couple of years that they were required to have sex, the only way he knew that she even achieved climax was her tightening around him. Now that he thought about it, he had made her that way. When they were first married, she would tell him what she liked. He would never do what she liked again, he made her quiet in bed by not giving her what she enjoyed. He had taught her to keep her mouth shut about things she liked by withholding them from her.

He wondered if she ever knew or found out that he never had sex with Lily, that they never went that far. Truth be told, they never went anywhere. They only ever shared one kiss, and that should have been his first clue that they were not meant to be.

He looked to the journal on the bed, picking it up to read the next entry.


Author's Note: Comments really do make me smile and brighten my day.