A/N: This fic is inspired by the song 'Burn' from Hamilton the musical (if you haven't heard it I strongly suggest listening to it - not that you need to for the story just because it is amazing), set a few years after the war Hermione finds out that Ron has been cheating on her in the worst possible way but what will she say to the wizard who has burnt her world.
Rating: Rated M for language
I have had this little brain worm circling in my mind and just needed to get it out. This is the first I have really written in quite a while and is just for fun so please do be kind.
Disclaimer:- I own neither Harry Potter or Hamilton but deeply with I had the kind of creative genius to do so. That being said I do own this story :) Please don't republish anywhere without my permission. I hope you enjoy.
Burn
Hermione's heart felt as though it had shattered into a million icy shards as the words she had read over and over again in the newspaper ran on a loop in her mind.
"I kept every single letter you wrote to me Ronald!" she screamed, tears stinging her face as he stood there unmoved. "Every letter, every note note. I thought you were mine, you said you were mine. I thought you were mine."
Ron flinched as her raw voice broke and moved to hold her, but she held out a hand all but stopping him in his tracks.
"Do you know what my friends said when I showed them the first letter you wrote? They told me to be careful of you Ron, of you! And me being the blind fool I have been for so long told them they were being silly. I mean it was you, you would never hurt me. How wrong was I?" she was shouting again, waving a stack of letters in his direction. "They warned me after the war, when we fell into the fame you so prize that you would do whatever you needed to survive, whatever you needed to stay in the limelight and I didn't believe them."
"Sweetheart I -"
"No. You don't get to call me that!" she interrupted throwing the letters at him.
She felt like she was drowning, choking on emotions and memories, her chest hurt, her mind whirred and all the time he stood there staring at her trying to utter remorseful words that didn't meet his eyes.
"You and your words Ronald. You always knew how to win me back, how to cajole and persuade me, you built me paragraphs and cathedrals out of words and it was so unlike you, so wonderfully new that I believed every word you wrote."
She closed her eyes, breathing hard. After the war she had been so against falling into a relationship with him, telling him the kiss was a mistake, reluctant to ruin their friendship but he had courted her. Wooed her, sent her flowers, gifts, books - treating her with his new found wealth, and when he realized that wasn't going to work the letters started to arrive. Love letters penned by his own hand and it was so out of character for him, so deliciously sweet, that Hermione thought he was changed, that he was doing this all for her and only for her. When reality was he was doing it for himself, she saw that now.
"You… you…" she started, choking on the sentence.
Ron stared at her as she stopped speaking. She dropped her head for a moment, turning her back to him breathing hard and he reached out to touch her. His hand on her waist seemed to snap her out of it, the anger taking over the despair and the sorrow once again as she turned pushing him away hard enough for him to stagger back a couple of steps.
"You don't get to touch me anymore!" she screamed. "I re-read the letters you wrote me. Your words left me defenseless, you never wrote and yet for me you did. I scanned the words over and over for answers, for signs for anything!"
"Hermione I - "
"Was it ever real Ron?"
Her voice was raw, face blotchy red and stained with tears and it was then that Ron realized how badly he had messed up this time. Up until that moment he was convinced she would forgive him, she was Hermione, she always forgave him eventually, but maybe not this time.
"It was real." he breathed reaching again for her but she stepped back, the fire in her eyes stopping him from pursuing her. "It is real. We're Hermione and Ron, we're meant to be!"
She scoffed, a harsh sound that seemed so out of place coming from her.
"If we were really meant to be you wouldn't have done what you did. You wouldn't have done that to me Ronald. How could you do this to me?"
She barely recognized the man standing before her. Her love, the man she thought was her soulmate had been morphed into a fame hungry, jealous, thoughtless joke of a wizard.
"I looked over the letters Ron," she repeated, "I read every single word and looked for a sign, for something to say you were ever really mine."
"I am yours. I am yours and you are mine." he argued even as she shook her head rejecting his words.
"I burned for you Ron, I burned and burned so hot I was sure our love would burn me up, burn the whole world up. I loved you so much and you did this to me. You brought that woman into our bed!"
She was sobbing now, the barrier broke, her knees threatening to give out but she forced herself upright. She would not break before him, she would not give him that. He didn't retort, didn't respond to her anger in any way other than to stare at her, the blue eyes that she had loved so much clouding with regret. Well regret wouldn't fix this issue and she wouldn't cave to them this time.
"That would have been betrayal enough Ronald but you went one better. You published the letters that she sent you, the notes, and gave details about your affair. I found out about this from a newspaper."
The air seemed to crackle with power and Ron felt fear prickling along the back of his mind. Hermione was a very powerful witch and usually so carefully controlled that she did not want to see the blow out that would happen if she ignited the magic threatening to spill out, accidental magic was no laughing matter as he had so often been reminded, it was dangerous and uncontrolled and he had no doubt that it would be aimed at him.
"I didn't know what else to do Hermione." he begged.
"Do you know what Luna said when she read what you wrote?" she asked quietly, "She said 'you have married an Icarus, he has flown too close to the sun'..."
He frowned, obviously confused and not understanding the reference at all, he never had been the brightest of sparks and his ignorance only served to make her angrier.
"Who the fuck is Icarus?" he snapped back.
"You were so concerned with enjoying fame and chasing the next thing. You indulged in everything you could and you have ruined our lives! You have torn my world apart Ronald." She ran a hand roughly over her face in a futile attempt to wipe away the tears streaming from her honey eyes. "You published it all Ron, you told the world how you brought that woman into our bed, how you betrayed me… in clearing your name you have ruined my life. You humiliated me in front of the entire wizarding world, you broke my heart all over again and you didn't even have the decency to warn me."
She had been at work when the newspapers were released with the published letters and exclusive article written by the war hero himself. Confused by the pitying looks and sympathetic glances thrown her way, baffled why everyone seemed to be avoiding her eyes and unsure of what to say to her or to talk to her at all for that matter she had stumbled through her day completely oblivious to the betrayal. It had only been when Ginny and Harry had barreled into her office expecting to find her in a crumpled heap on the floor that she had found out. Her fingers still burned from where she had brushed her hand over the print, reluctant to believe what was there for the world to see. She had flooed from the office to their home, put up her wards and blocked everyone except her and Ron from their home, pushing the knowledge that there would now be reporters camped out on her road eager to hear from her.
"I had to do it Hermione, if I didn't then she would have. I worded it as best I -"
She spun from him storming into the kitchen, leaving him midsentence and grabbing up the crumpled tear stained newspaper from the unit where it had been abandoned upon his arrival.
"You think that you worded it well? You never were any good at writing Ron. You want a review?" she snapped, "You sound paranoid in every sentence, it borders on senseless and you are obsessed with your legacy and your image and your fame and it is all right here for the world to see!" She threw the paper at him as he approached and he batted it away. "You are paranoid about how the world perceives you and unbelievably jealous! You and only you and that is all you care about!"
"That's not true."
"It is." she argued. "It is all right there in black and white."
"What will you do?" he asked quietly. "They will want to know… they will wonder how you reacted, we're public figures after all."
"Well they can wonder, when the world wonders how I stand it, how Hermione Granger reacted when you broke her heart they can wonder. I want to erase myself from this narrative Ron, I... I can't do it. You have torn it apart Ron, you have torn everything apart and now I am left here, alone to watch my world burn."
He flinched as her voice broke, it was rough, horse with raw emotion and completely unlike anything he had ever heard.
"The wizarding world will - "
"I am watching my world burn." she repeated cutting him off. "The world has no right to my heart, the world has no place in our bed, they don't get to know what I said! I'm burning the memories Ronald, I'm burning it all!"
She spun away again, marching to a shelf and pulling down an ornate box throwing it on the ground at his feet. The lid fell off revealing piles of letters, his letters, and photos and trinkets - a map of their relationship. He opened his mouth to object but before he could a stream of light shot from her wand and the box exploded into flames forcing him to jump back to stop from being caught by the fire. He stared at the flames as they climbed high, carefully controlled by the woman he had loved and ate up the carefully collated memories.
"I am burning the letters you sent, the words that might have redeemed you in my eyes. I am burning it all Ron, the photos, the words, the trinkets the whole lot."
Her voice was soft now, still raw but quiet as if the flames had also burnt up all the anger that was simmering in her veins and left only pain and sorrow and exhaustion in their wake.
"You know what is so stupid Ronald. I was warned about this." she breathed.
"Someone told you that this exact situation would happen?" he asked skeptically, unable to help the bite to his voice. He never was a good loser and he could tell he had lost her.
"Draco Malfoy told me to be careful when he found out about us."
"So you are taking relationship advice from death eaters now?" he shouted.
"He was right though." she whispered, ignoring him. "He was right about you Ron. He warned me not to trust you, that I was going to get burnt and I didn't listen. He told me you would break my heart, told me you didn't deserve me, that I was settling and could do a million times better than you. I didn't believe him because you were you. You were special, one of my best friends, I thought you would never hurt me. I thought that you were someone that it turns out you are not and he was right all along."
Ron had turned an ugly shade of red, his fists clenched at his side.
"So you like the ferret?" he shouted jealously.
Hermione's head snapped up, she couldn't believe him. He had cheated on her multiple times in their own home, their own bed and then published details for all the world to see without so much as a warning or a whisper in her direction and yet he was angry at the idea that she fancied another man.
"No I don't but if I did it would no longer be any of your business." she shouted back.
The anger was back, and it was better than the hollow emptiness that had filled her before so she clung to it, grasping it with both hands and shooting to her feet, wand in hand. She advanced on him and something in her eyes must have warned him not to mess with her because he was backing away and continued to back away till they were near the door. With a flick of her wand the door opened and he stumbled out of it into the front garden.
"You have forfeit all rights to my heart, you forfeit your right to my bed, you forfeit your right to my thoughts, to my feelings, to everything!" she shouted.
Ron glanced back towards the street where reporters crowded, hoping for one or the other of them to leave the wards that shielded them and prevented them from hearing the angry words.
"Please Hermione." he begged.
"You forfeit all rights to me Ron. You are not welcome here."
"But where will I go?" he asked, already knowing that he would be barred by Harry and Ginny and that his own family were unlikely to want to see his face after what he had done.
"I don't care Ron. Sleep in your office instead, sleep in your office surrounded by photos of us with only the memories of when you were mine to occupy you. I hope you burn Ronald Weasley."
And with that said she stepped back into the house slamming the doors and amending the wards to forcefully evict him, a small satisfied bubble pooling about her as he screamed her name when the wards evicted him. She stared at the now empty house and breathed, leaning against the door as the anger stripped away leaving only heartbreak in it's wake. A broken sob tore from her throat seeming to echo in the room as she sunk to the floor hugging her knees and cried as her world went up in flames.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed my little story, currently a one-shot but if the brain worm returns I will be sure to add to it