Title: Perfect Ruin

Type: One-shot/songfic

Pairing: Romione/Dramione

First Person POV: Ron


If anyone had to break my heart, I'm glad it was her; all smooth skin and sarcasm. If this pain in my chest was what I had to endure in order to have heard her laugh, to have had felt her beneath me, to have enjoyed beating her at chess and drinking until the dawn, then it will all have been worth it.

To be honest, I don't know where it all went wrong. No, that isn't entirely true. I know the timeline. I know the catalyst. I know the reasons, but I just don't know why it had to happen.

There was never another woman before her that held my attention long. Perhaps that was the problem. I went into the relationship with hearts in my eyes and my guard down. She had easily hopped the wall I'd built around me, so I figured, this time, it would work out. Our conversations were never dull. She was always on about some new political agenda, scientific breakthrough, or philosophical conundrum, and while I couldn't always keep up with what she was saying, just watching the light in her eyes as she spoke was enough for me. Boring, most would snicker behind her back at University, but boring was not the word I'd use when describing Hermione Granger.

No, Hermione Granger was enamoring. She was beautiful, intelligent, and downright infuriating. I don't mean to say that in a bad way. Of course, our relationship had never been quite normal, so most people wouldn't understand when I say that she was infuriating in all the right ways. There was a fire inside of her and it came out when she was angry, and I liked that fire. It was the first thing I noticed and I craved it. It excited me. Looking back I realize how messed up that was. It would have been different had I been able to keep up with the spitfire that she was, but I couldn't. So I let her talk over me and I pretended to listen. I pretended to be upset because we always had the hottest makeup sex afterward.

I didn't realize it could turn ugly if we weren't careful. I didn't realize how blinded in lust and love I was that I ignored the problems arising.

She probably caught on before I did.

She was just too noble to say anything. Either that or she thought it would work itself out.

After all, we had a great home life. Our friends would tell us how we were meant for each other and I believed them. Even though she got her degree in half the time it would take me, and she was going in a totally different direction career wise, it never felt like our life together would change because of it. As long as she was sitting beside me, smiling, talking, laughing, I was happy.

But it could never last.

The moment she got her big break I felt my warm feeling of security slip. I started doubting myself and our relationship. I had always known she was a different kind of intelligent than I was. She was a different kind of intelligent than any of us. It had never bothered me before, but the first day she came home from M&B Inc. I had felt something shift. The smile she gave me when she walked into the door and started talking about her job was the brightest one I'd ever seen. I was so used to the one I put there, and seeing this, this smile that lit up the whole damn flat, felt like a slap in the face. What had relit that flame inside of her? The job? The people? The atmosphere?

All of the sudden I felt as if she was slipping away from me.

And so began our decent into perfect ruin.

The rows got worse and the silences got longer. I found myself wondering how long could we do it? How long would we stand on opposite sides, digging in our heels in order to prove the other wrong? How long could we continue in this way before we snapped? She just had to be right, even when she wasn't. She wouldn't back down, and the very thing that had made me fall in love with her in the first place had suddenly become a noose around our relationship. But I didn't want to lose her, no matter how many times her stubborn attitude caused strife between us or her friends. I would fold my hand. I would give her what she wanted. She was my everything, and maybe that's why when shit hit the fan, I refused to let go.

The rowing had moved from the playful banter that let too passionate and sometimes angry sex, and moved on to playing on each other's insecurities. The unshakable trust turned into suspicion as the days got colder and the nights got quieter.

"There is a really important meeting I have to attend." She would say in the morning at breakfast. "Don't wait up for me."

"It's fine. "I would tell her, giving a similar excuse. "This thesis I'm writing is really kicking my arse. I need to focus anyway."

I did have a thesis, but Harry had helped me finish it days before. What I really had was a passive aggressive pity party that later turned into a jealous rage. Sometimes I wonder how long we would have gone, how far we would have allowed ourselves to live that way, if not for the incident. I was wrong. I can admit it freely now. Accusing her of sleeping with her boss while gone off of whiskey was not the right thing to do. But how could I ignore it? Draco Malfoy was everything she could ever want in a man, attractive, witty, rich, intelligent to a fault. He could keep up with her where I couldn't. He always gave her the big deals because he trusted her to make it happen. He trusted her to help him run the company. And that was the problem. He trusted her more than I did.

I saw the way he looked at her at her company parties. I heard the way they spoke with each other during conference calls, and when they interacted outside of work. He wanted her. My mistake was thinking that she wanted him back, at least while she was still with me.

She was always the strong one. Morally and emotionally. I was always the first to jump into the fray with little to know facts and the first to take offense. I should have known she wouldn't have an affair. I should have known that the distance between us wasn't coming from her. I was the one that was pushing her away. It had happened so slowly that I hadn't noticed it. I was jealous of her success, of her beauty, of her outside friendships. I was the one with the problem.

It was sobering.

It was a sobering fact, but the lesson about myself had come too late. The damage was done.

Angry tears, cracked nails, splotchy skin, and packed bags greeted me the morning after I'd confronted them in front of a client. "Don't leave. I'm sorry." Words that no longer held any meaning for her.

"I can't live like this anymore, Ron." More tears. More anxious pacing. "The indifference I could handle. The nights I slept alone I could handle. But the distrust, the jealousy, and the total absence of tact are things that I cannot handle. And I shouldn't have to. I did nothing to earn that."

It was true. I hadn't trusted her. Look where it got me? I should have agreed and let the situation cool, but we were fighting. That fire, that pain, that love flared up inside of me.

I could have agreed, but instead, I deflected. "It wasn't you. It was him I didn't trust."

A glare. An impatient huff. "I am a grown woman. I can handle Draco Malfoy."

"That's what I was worried about." It was meant to be a sarcastic whisper but she had heard it loud and clear.

The suitcase in her hand thudded against the floor and the look she gave me was one I'll never forget. It was the face of a women realizing she was no longer in love. I was a stuttering mess, backpedaling and pleading my case but she'd already made up her mind. There may have been a chance of redemption had I chosen to let her go, let time cool our tempers, but no. I couldn't do that. I had to have a good row with her to feel alive.

Harry later told me that she ended up on his doorstep that night, a bawling mess, holding onto Ginny until she hiccupped herself to sleep. But the night after that and the night after that she'd spent in the blond bastard's penthouse. After everything that had happened the last time we'd spoken it was no surprise to me that she'd ended up in his arms. There was a connection between them, there always had been. But she would have never pursued it, would have never toyed with the idea had I not sabotaged our whole relationship.

It was my fault.

The pain. The heartache. The tears. It was all on me.

For months I barely ate or slept. I lived one day at a time and every day I resisted the urge to call her, to seek her out, to show up outside of her new flat. I got into a routine of working at my tiny office job and took my exams and drank away my sorrows at the pub down the street. Harry and Ginny had taken pity on me but had made it clear that they would take no sides. I didn't blame them. I asked about her less and less as the weeks wore on and eventually, I felt my breath come easier. The hole inside me wasn't as gaping as it'd been before. I was slowly moving on with my life.

I finally graduated from University that following spring, getting my bachelor's in History. My friends and family threw me a party at my family home in Yorkshire. It was a great time and as the night was winding down her familiar face came into my view. She gave me a quick hug and peck on the cheek, offering her congratulations. "I knew you'd do it." She said with a smile. She looked so good in that red dress. I ached to touch her, to hold her, but I knew she was no longer mine to hold. She was smiling, though, and that smile was directed at me once more. I could live with that. Just knowing that some day we may be able to move past all of this and become friends once again gave me hope. Sure, she hurt me and I hurt her, but if it was possible for us to be cordial, to interact, then hope was not lost.

And I was right. We slowly started attending events and parties of mutual friends and having the occasional luncheon with Harry. We were friends. It was weird going from lover back to a friend but it seemed to work for us. So when I saw the announcement for her impending marriage on my sister's countertop I didn't immediately burst out in tears. I still hated Malfoy on principle, but I couldn't deny that the fire I'd fallen in love with, the fire I only saw while we rowed, was lit all the time around him. He was to her what she was to me. He encouraged her, helped her, brought out the best in her.

I'm not angry anymore. Still brokenhearted a bit, maybe, but I try to find solace in the fact that I had her love for that brief moment in time. I know she loved me. I could feel it. I can still feel it, deep down. And maybe if I had done things differently we would still be together, but honestly, I don't believe that. I think our love was destined to fail, it was just a matter of time. I am telling the truth when I say I am grateful for our time together, though. Those years of friendship, of comfortable love, were the best of my life. I am the person I am because of her love. She pushed me to be better and yeah, I screwed up, but she helped pick me back up. She let me make mistakes and fix them. She saw all the good in me that I couldn't see. She taught me to love myself. Her love moved me. Even when things ended, when my life powered over me, she was there to help me along. She never abandoned me, even in the midst of our ugly break up.

I will always love Hermione Granger.

But I am strong enough now to wish her all the happiness in the world.