Author's Note: Okay so here is the start to very long and rocky road to a happy ending, don't say you haven't been warned;) A small warning also, the following contains some bad language (more like a few bad words than anything) Enjoy!

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 woke 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 not going back into the room in the last 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. She never came back, never sent anyone either 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? 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 opened closet, he could have used magic but wanted to do this as a way to pack her memory along with what she had left behind.

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, no he had been turned on every time he came to this room. He never let her know, he made sure as a matter of fact 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 though he wouldn't do anything she liked and told him she did 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 why he did such a thing 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 when the bottom sheet caught on something under the mattress he lifted it up to find a journal. Hermione's journal, 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, 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 even miss her presence in the house. He remembered she spent a majority of time in her room, alone. But 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, he went 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, it was just another thing he made her suffer though alone.

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, it set on the table taunting him as he ate. Then later in the sitting room as he drank firewhiskey. Finally he picked up the book opening it to the first page, the date caught his attention first. It was the date they married, then 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 it would just take some getting use to on his part at having her around.

He started reading her entry a week later then slammed the book closed, he had no recollection of what she wrote he had said to her. 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 then why would she lie in writing her private thoughts?

He drank the rest of the whisky in the glass then poured another drinking it before pouring another then picking up the book again, this time he read each word she had wrote that he said to her. Her last line was what 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 told her…. Called her that night among many other things that night. He didn't remember any of it, he thought about trying to pull the memory to look at it to see if she had taken it out of context. Not that he thought she did, he just couldn't remember and wanted to see for himself.

He stood going to his room where he kept his pensive, he finally found the memory of drinking that night. He pulled the slivery strand dropping into the pensive, taking a deep breath he leaned forward lowering his head to touch the surface. He was pulled into the sitting room….

~~^~~ Pensive Memory~~^~~

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 whisky that his father had preferred when he was growing up, he hissed when the ring tingled on his finger. He drank another glass before standing, he slowly walked up the stairs. He stopped in his room for the potion then picked up another downing it 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 on her finger as she watched him take the potion he always took while he was standing there.

He stalked over toward her, for there wasn't another word for what he did, like a predator and she was some skittish prey. Once he reached the bed his mouth started working, words falling out of their own accord.

"I don't see why, when you know I'm coming that you have to insist on dragging this out by being clothed. Now be the good little whore you are, 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, he shoved her back on the bed in one swift motion he was 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 Knockture alley if he wanted.

In his demeaning of her he went so far as to say to her….

"If I close my eyes I can pretend it's Lily I'm fucking and not some whore like you."

~~^~~ End Pensive Memory~~^~~

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, when he woke in his bed the next morning no recollection of the events 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 that night, as he read them he was struck at how well she had read him.

~~^~~ Journal Entry~~^~~

I know he was drunk tonight, I also know what today is I am Harry's best friend after all. But alcohol only lower inhibitions, leads people to tell 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, 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, I know it takes time to adjust. I just don't know if my heart will survive the adjustment period, I do know that if he ever trust me enough turnabout is fair play, as they say.

~~^~~End Journal Entry~~^~~

Severus set the book down on the bed, he never once let her have the upper hand in bed. Hell she had been so quite in the last couple of years 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, they never went that far. Hell 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, reaching over he picked it up to read the next entry.

Author's Note: Comments really do make me smile and brighten my day. Also I wanted to let you know that I have a couple of Severus/Hermione videos on youtube, the link is in my profile.