"How could you do this to me, Hermione?!" Slamming his hand down on their dining table, Ronald came dangerously close to throwing his palm against a steaming hot cup of tea on the table in front of the woman who he had yelled at. The snap of his large hand against the wood and his raised voice caused his wife to wince and look away.

"It wasn't planned, Ron… I never meant for it to go on like that." She reasoned, knowing how little any reasoning would impact their conversation. She'd fucked up. It was a big fuck up. The guilt and the horror she'd placed in the very heart of herself had hit a ceiling. He had to know.

"How can you say that it wasn't bloody planned!? You don't just trip and fall into bed with a stranger and have sex with them!" He yelled so hard that his face was almost purple. She met his eye. They looked at one another for a few seconds, wondering what the next steps were going to be. Each brain tried to work out their next individual moves. Hermione sighed heavily, glancing down at her mug of tea.

"You're right." Hermione stated solemnly. The words felt like nails in a coffin, her voice was the hammer slamming them in.

"Then why did you do it? How could you do this? Was he worth it?" By the time Ron asked, he was pacing again. Pacing as he had been doing for the past forty five minutes as Hermione gathered the courage to finally tell him what she had done. Sitting there, still and poker straight in her chair, she found herself watching him, investigating his anger, and realizing that as much as she cared so deeply for this man… It wasn't enough. His anger didn't affect her in the way that it should. She should have been a trembling mess. She should have wanted to beg for his forgiveness. She should have felt like she was about to lose everything - but she didn't feel any of those things. It hurt to see him hurting. She loved him. But not in the ways a wife should love her husband.

"It was a she, Ronald." Hermione told him softly.

His pacing stopped. It got quiet. Her husband stared at her, unblinking. He folded his arms over his chest, his shoulders rolling as he settled himself into the new information, and his eyes squinted as they trained on her face.

"A she… It was a woman?" He asked in such a way that she couldn't determine whether he was just extremely taken aback or just straight up disgusted. His features pinched together like he'd tasted something fowl.

"Yes, it was a woman."

"So you're… What. You're what? We've had sex. Loads of times…"

"Yes, we have had 'loads' of sex, and I tried… I have tried to like it…" Her explanation was cut short by a growl and a pale hand darting out in front of her. She felt like she had to duck but seconds later the smashing sound of china against the wall told her that her tea was now just decoration splashed against the wall behind her and the floor.

"TRIED TO LIKE IT?! YOU'RE MY WIFE! YOU SHOULD HAVE BLOODY LOVED HAVING SEX WITH ME!" The man thundered. By all rights, Hermione knew what he was saying was partially true. She should have wanted and enjoyed making love with her husband. The unfortunate fact was that she didn't. It didn't feel… right. She lifted a hand and ran it back through her hair, collecting herself for his onslaughts, attacks which she knew she did deserve in this case considering their situation; a situation that she, herself, had put them in.

"I'm sorry, Ron. I really am. I tried fighting it, I took fewer hours at the hospital to spend time at home with you, I told her that we needed to remain professional and that we just… Needed to work together and nothing more but the feeling never went away." Admitting this to him aloud felt like a release. All the little bits and pieces she'd hid under layers of expectation unearthed themselves over time, and they felt that no longer should it be allowed that they are ignored or compartmentalized. Confining herself in her marriage, as a mate to another person, never having the opportunity to consider alternatives, Hermione let it happen. She took Ron. She married him very shortly after the war.

It had been a very large error in judgement on both their parts. At least, that's what she could see now by the way he looked at her as though he did not know her.

"So… Six years and you're just a bloody lesbian now? Like everything didn't matter?" He muttered questioningly. She took her bottom lip between her teeth and ever so slowly nodded her head.

"Yes." She replied in the simplest terms. There was little more than that to say to him now. The only thing she could give that meant anything was an honest apology and the truth. She was a lesbian. Nothing he could do could change that fact.

"I love you," He scoffed and shook his head as her words struck him, avoiding the imploring gaze her eyes held. "I have always loved you, you are my best friend. I never wanted to hurt you. I tried not to hurt you."

"Yeah, well… You did," Ron stated viciously, his bloodshot blue eyes returning to rest on her face. "Eight months, Hermione… You fucked her for eight bloody months and didn't say a damn thing until what… You were afraid of getting caught?"

"I realized I could fall in love with her and I broke it off because it wasn't right, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but… I couldn't help myself - I wanted her."

"A nurse? All this for a fucking nurse?!"

"Yes." She answered him, as simply as she had before.

After looking at her for a time, and she at him, he shook his head and laughed. It was a small, bitter laugh. Very quiet, indeed. He averted his gaze and glanced across their dining room into the kitchen for a second, gathering himself up, before he looked at her again.

"You realize that you've just lost everything, right?" Hermione stared at her husband. For the first time in their talk, an almost puzzled look split the mask of calm she wore.

"What are you saying?"

"Me… My family, our friends, everything: You have just lost 'everything', now take off your ring and leave, Hermione."

"Ronald…" She began to say slowly, leaning forward in her chair to rest on the table, but he again stepped toward her and raised his fist.

"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" Hermione thought for sure he was going to hit her. She turned her face away and lifted hands, but his hand didn't connect with her at all. It connected with the table.

That was the last thing spoken between them before she left that night. She took off her ring, left it on the table, and walked out the door with nothing more than a singular suitcase. Ronald sat in the dining room while she packed and said no other word than repeating under his breath 'get out of my house'.

It wasn't what she hoped would happen. It wasn't something that she wanted to have to happen. Freedom was terrifying in equal measure that it was desired. Freedom was needed.

Three Years Later…

A rustling roused the woman laying in bed but she didn't move. The other, as quiet as could be, pulled on yesterday's jeans and felt along the carpeted floor for the place where her blouse had been thrown. In the early morning hours, at the crack of dawn where barely a light would shine through the windows, the healer tried so mightily to clothe herself while the woman in bed lay sleeping to make a very quick escape.

Darkness and being unfamiliar with the place, which was not her own bedroom or apartment, made the location of her shirt far more difficult than it had to be. She could have sworn it was thrown at the end of the bed. On her hands and knees she felt along the floor and cursed quietly under her breath when still not able to find it.

"This'll help."

Hermione froze. A second later she heard movement between the sheets and a switch to a lamp was turned. Suddenly, she could see.

"Ah, well, yes… Light helps. Thank you." A head of mussed curls popped up at the end of the bed, bare shoulders, and slightly erratic eyes. With the light of the lamp, she found her shirt which, apparently, had been flung against the wall and not at all where she thought it had been.

The woman in bed pulled a pillow behind herself and sat up, watching the other woman curiously as it seemed she was desperately getting herself ready to leave. Hermione rose to stand and pulled on her blouse, buttoning it. Her focus then fell upon finding her jacket and wand.

"You know, you could have stayed in bed… Christ, it's like 5:30 in the morning…" Sleepiness dampened that cheerful voice from the day before and those pale, conventionally pretty features that had captured Hermione's attention. She paused for a second as she pulled on her coat and glanced at the woman watching her from the bed. There was a look of expectancy…

Hermione felt herself sigh deeply, her hands regaining their life as they lifted and untucked her hair from the collar of her blazer coat.

"Listen, Sandra…"

"Sarah - my name is Sarah."

"Right! That it is," Hermione forced a smile, checking her pockets for everything that she needed; work badge, wand, wallet, keys… She was set. "Last night was… Great, super great, but I don't really do sleep overs or… Sleep ins… That stuff. But thanks!"

The look she was being given now she had seen many times before. Usually in a bedroom that didn't belong to her. Usually by a woman who she couldn't really remember the name of. 'Sarah', or at least that's what she called herself even though Hermione could have sworn she said her name was Sandra the night before, peered at her with those pretty grey eyes and suddenly appeared miffed. Hermione expected it.

"So your plan was always going to be trying to sneak out of my apartment without even a goodbye?"

"I don't really do goodbye's either, I'm sorry, Sandra."

"It's SARAH, not SANDRA… SARAH!" The woman corrected her haughtily. Hermione cursed and snapped her fingers.

"Shit, sorry… Anyway - Lovely night, you should probably get some sleep." With nothing more, nothing less, the brunette flashed the woman a smile and strolled out of the once foreign bedroom and meandered down a hall, leaving nothing but shouted swearing and quite animated fuck you's behind. When she found the woman's front door, she crept out and closed it behind her. Immediately, her shoulders sagged when she stepped into the apartment hallway and she sighed, leaning against the door for a moment.

"Fucking nurses…" She murmured under her breath.

In the years that carried on between her divorce and her blossoming career, what Ronald had said that night never did come to pass. She didn't lose everything like he so promised her she would. Yes, there were times in the beginning where their friends truly couldn't fathom what had happened, they took his side in the matter for seconds or minutes, but they knew her. They knew who she was. She had made a terrible mistake - that mistake was marrying Ronald Weasley. Time healed wounds. Ronald and she could be in a room without him wanting to hex her into oblivion now. Harry, Ginny, Ron, and herself could sit around a dinner table with Molly and Arthur and the other siblings without it being awkward and unwanted. They'd only just gotten into that space where it was insanely uncomfortable. She hadn't gotten her best friend back but it was a start. Especially, once he realized that she was serious.

Leaving behind the apartment she'd woken in, Hermione set off down a winding side alley toward the greater Diagon Alley neighborhood. Sure, still in the clothes from the night before did grant that bit of 'walk of shame' vibe but she wanted a coffee. She wanted to somehow magically feel refreshed. So, rather than immediately go home, she decided to pop into the Leaky Cauldron for a quick fix of caffeine and something to fill empty stomach with. She had all the time in the world before her interview, she wasn't nervous about it.

Spending much time in her studies, she completed five years of rigorous training at St. Mungo's. She was considerably far more advanced than the majority of her class and work mates. As soon as she graduated she accomplished two things: Marrying her best friend, who supported her endeavor whole heartedly, and getting into their training programs for healers. The institution was a teaching hospital, after all. She flourished in her environment, she loved her job, at least… She had loved her job. Hermione Granger was a medical badass. She could spend upwards of fourteen hours in a delicate procedure to save a life without so much as breaking a sweat, even though her arms and legs felt like they were ready to fall off. She could brew complex potions without so much as batting an eye…

Yet, somehow, something happened after her marriage fell apart. She became someone who she didn't exactly like but didn't quite know how to stop being. She never let her job slip, she tended to her patients with the highest level of care, yet, at any given opportunity, if a pretty pair of lips smiled in her direction a little too long, she'd find herself tugging at a delicate hand into an empty on-call room, where Healers and Nurses were supposed to sleep between their shifts, and bed someone who she hardly knew beyond 'they are great at their job'. What was worse was that they always ended up expecting or wanting more from the Healer than she could give. It felt wrong to date. A strange guilt would fill the space of her chest. It felt too soon. There was no perfect fit. Deducing the environment wasn't good for her anymore, a change of work path was required. She needed to put a great bit of distance between herself and the addictive quality of the women who seemed far too eager to fling themselves in the direction of a brilliant, single doctor who had no desire to make good on their assumptions proceeding a single night of passionate sex.

Stepping into the Leaky Cauldron, she took an order of coffee and a breakfast biscuit to go. She had a few hours still to kill and decided to stroll from there to home, munching on breakfast and sipping black coffee as she did. It wasn't far, and it wasn't long until she crept into own apartment and had a shower, changed her clothes, packed a few suitcases preemptively, even though she had no idea whether or not she would get the job. She wanted to assume that she would. She was, after all, Hermione Granger. Anyone should have wanted to kill to have her as part of their team.

To be continued.

Hey Readers!

I have no idea what I'm doing with this story so I'm just gonna have fun with it. I hope you enjoy it! Please like and subscribe for more content LOL. (Or put a little review to let me know if you want to see more. :D )

It's loosely based on a song called 'Oh GOD' by Orla Gartland. Which is super brilliant.

Thank you!