Chapter Text
Hermione stared blankly ahead in the silence of her quaint little cottage in the countryside. The only sound filling her ears was the constant ticking of the grandfather clock that stood across from her in the living area. She didn’t mind the ticking. It reminded her that time never stopped. That she was still alive.
She had always imagined herself living in downtown London. But he had been adamant about a place away from the hustle and bustle of the city. And she wanted to make him happy.
Standing from where she sat on the sofa, she floated to the fireplace, eyeing the gold frame sitting atop the mantle that held a black and white moving photo. She stared at the image of her past self, blissfully happy and in love, dancing with him on their wedding day, six years ago, after the war.
“You look so beautiful, Mione,” he would whisper in her ear over and over again throughout the evening. Her family and friends cried and laughed and cheered with them, the picture of a perfect couple.
She missed him. Gods, she really did.
She let her fingers lightly brush over the frame, lost in the happy memories she saved for moments like this.
She heard the almost silent crack of Apparition come from the kitchen. Flinching at the sound and bracing herself to face an entirely different version of the freckled redhead smiling at her in the picture, she straightened her shoulders.
Forcing her legs into motion, she went to meet him. She could already hear the telltale pop of the cork leaving a bottle of firewhisky, but she chose to ignore it for now.
“Hello, dear,” she sang as she crossed into the kitchen, putting on the mask she forged years ago. “How was your day?”
“Shit,” he mumbled, throwing back the shot he had poured.
“I was thinking stew for dinner, does that sound—?”
“I don’t want fucking stew, Hermione,” he clipped, cutting her off. “Just leave me be, I really don’t want to deal with your shite today.”
She hesitated before asking her next question. “Ron, do you think that, just for today, you could put the bottle down and—?”
The sounds of glass shattering silenced her request, as he threw the tumbler he had held across the room towards her. She flinched and backed away instinctively. He rounded on her, spitting venom in her face.
“What part of ‘leave me be’ do you not understand?! I thought you were supposed to be clever, Hermione?!”
She looked at the floor between them, trying to control the growing struggle of her lungs fighting for air in her chest. She hated the way her name sounded coming from his acid tongue. “I just–”
His fist met her face with a loud crack. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE!”
Clutching her cheek in her hands and trying with everything she had not to focus on the pain spreading across her face from the blow, she scattered out of the room, bolting for the washroom.
She closed the door quietly, locking and warding it behind her, and casting a Silencing Charm on the room. She shuffled to the sink, gripping the basin like a lifebuoy. Her chest was heaving dangerously fast and she felt the corners of her vision go white. The pressure of heavy tears that rolled down her cheek stung against the cut from his hand.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thought. She should have known better than to push him. He told her he had a bad day, why hadn’t she heeded the warning? She should have let him be when he asked, she couldn’t believe she caused him to lose his temper like that. She thought she was learning to manage him.
She gathered the courage to look at herself in the mirror. There was a bruise already starting to form, right under her right eye. She watched it slowly start to spider web across her face, wishing that this had been the first time she had had to endure this same affliction.
But it wasn’t.
Ron hadn’t always been this angry. He was the perfect gentleman in the first year of their marriage. After the war, Ron was offered a spot on the Chudley Cannons as their Keeper. He had never been more enlivened. She never really cared for Quidditch, finding the hype around it to be incredibly boring, but she could see how much the game meant to him, so she made sure to be at every game, cheering him on. He played two seasons before a horrible Bludger accident ended his career.
That was when it all started.
She could see a darkness always lingering over him as he healed from his injury. She had thought that his malice was only because of his situation and that he would come around when he started to feel better. It started with a few snide comments and outbursts and slowly turned into a full-fledged alcohol addiction. He claimed it would numb the pain that wouldn’t go away.
And who was she to deny him that luxury?
Things got better when Harry suggested he apply to the Auror training program. He finally dropped the firewhisky and started to seem more like himself. He would come home from his training and kiss her cheek and ask her how her day had been. He would cook her favorite meals for the two of them and they would eat on the sofa watching Muggle sit-coms. They would laugh and things were seemingly perfect. They were content.
When he failed the Auror training final examination, things got bad again. He had destroyed the entire cottage in a merciless fit of rage. When she tried to sooth him, tried to calm him down, he lashed out and shoved her against the wall. That was the first time he had gotten physical.
She spent the rest of the night repairing the things he demolished, and when she reluctantly crawled into bed that night, he pulled her tight against him and begged for forgiveness. He cried into her shoulder and promised he would never hurt her again. She trusted him because she loved him. He was her husband and he would never intentionally do anything to hurt her.
That was nearly three years ago. He hit her every day since.
She knew he loved her, though. He had been through a lot over the years, and she reasoned that he had unresolved issues from the war and his injury. He almost always apologized for hitting her, telling her it hurt him to hurt her. She thought that things would improve when he started working with George at the joke shop, but they never did.
They started to see their families less and less, despite the constant requests from Molly to visit. She struggled to remember the last time she heard from Harry and Ginny. She didn’t blame them. They were very busy taking care of baby James and Harry being head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She knew they weren’t aware of Ron’s behavior towards her, and she wanted to keep it that way. She didn’t want them to view Ron differently, the way she did. She missed them on days like today when she could use a bit of magic in her life.
But it was okay. She was handling it.
She stared back at the mirror, wrapping her fingers around her wand and casting a silent Glamour Charm to hide the new bruise. She checked the others she had hidden as well and searched for the healing potion she had brewed to help with a suspected broken rib from the last hit she had taken.
It suddenly became overwhelming. Her chest felt tight and she struggled to control her thoughts. What if this never stops? What if he gets too angry one day? What if he—?
She slammed her Occlumency walls into place, a habit she picked up a year or so ago. Moving him into the corner of her mind, she focused on counting the bricks of her wall. She eyed herself again in the mirror, having built the walls so high that she hardly recognized the witch looking back at her. She watched all the emotion seep from her eyes, leaving behind a dull muddy brown in its place.
Good. This is good, she thought. I can control this.
Taking a few deep breaths, she started the shower. She worked slowly, washing away every flaw, biding her time in hopes that he would be well and asleep when she finally made it to bed.
She started with her hands, working her way to her arms and chest, and down her stomach to her legs. She had lost some weight, she realized with a frown. She had never had much meat on her bones, but she found she was losing more and more over the years.
After shampooing her massive heap of curls, she turned off the water, casting a simple drying spell to ensure that her hair didn’t frizz throughout the night.
Desperate for more time to herself, she conjured some parchment and a pen, jotting down a list of things she needed to do for her workday at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She received a memo from her boss that she would be getting a new partner at the start of next week, and there was much to do to get him or her up to speed on the latest laws the department was working on to present to the Wizengamot.
Work distracted her. Work was good. Work, she could control.
When she couldn’t stall any longer, she slipped into her sleeping clothes and quietly unwarded and cracked open the door. She could hear Ron snoring in their room, so she tiptoed her way to her side of the bed.
He had passed out fully clothed on his side, obviously drunk. Trying to jostle him as little as possible, she wormed her way under the covers but stopped dead when she felt him shift beside her.
Her breath quickened and she felt panic surge through her veins, even through her Occlumency walls. Please, please don’t wake up.
When he continued to snore, she sat up against her pillows, holding her face in her hands. She tried to think of something else to distract her mind again, but nothing seemed to stick.
She eyed the little bottle of blue pills on the table next to her, her breath stuttering and hands clenched into fists.
About a year and a half ago, her older cousin had come to her at a family dinner and innocently commented on how exhausted she looked.
“I’m just not sleeping well these days,” Hermione vaguely supplied, taking a sip of her wine.
“Oh well, I have something that can help with that, dear.” She rummaged in her bag, pulling out a notepad and a pen, scribbling the name of a Muggle medicine Hermione was fairly certain she had read about before. “I’m a chemist at the shop just up the road from that new Thai restaurant, you know the one? This should help you get some rest.” She tore off the prescription and handed it to Hermione.
527 days later, Hermione couldn’t go a day without them.
Her mother used to tell her she was too giving as a child. That she couldn’t trust people not to take too much from her.
“I know you mean well darling, but you can’t give all your pennies to those who haven’t worked for them. It’s okay to save them up for yourself. Do you understand?”
She hadn’t thought much of it throughout the years. She loved to take care of him. She had been doing so since she was eleven. She recognized the pattern now, of course. She would empty herself for him, and he would watch. He would take and take and take, until one day she woke up the shell of the person she had once been, fully devoid of everything she had dreamed of becoming.
She turned to the pills because they would fill her with something that let her escape the throbbing pain that was her life. She could forget everything. Forget him.
She knew that was a horrible thing to want. He was her husband. But she would eventually wake up and the cycle would continue.
He would stomp around their life, collecting her pennies and demanding more when she didn’t give enough. He robbed her of all that she was and she, the ever-loving and caring wife that she was, would let him. No matter how much it killed her. No matter the cost. Then she would pick up the scrap pieces he would leave behind, while silently cursing herself for not listening to her mother sooner.
But it was okay. She was handling it.
Letting out a deep sigh, fairly certain he was deaf to the world around him, she reached across his limp sleeping body to collect the half drunk glass of firewhisky he had left on his table. She opened the pill bottle, swallowing her sanctuary, ignoring the tears gliding down her cheeks as she settled in for her escape.