Lovely

1

Pain.
That's the only thing she could think. All she could feel. She held her hand firmly over her mouth, doing the best she could to mask the sobs that threatened to escape. With one last deep, shaky breath, Hermione closed the latch of the trunk she had just packed with all of her things.

Ron snored loudly, his body barely hanging onto the settee he had passed out on. The war had taken its toll on the entirety of the Wizarding World, but that was no excuse for the alcoholic, abusive tendencies he had grown over the past few years. Hermione believed him when he'd cried to her the first time it happened, but she grew tired of the apologies that he never held up. Every night Ron would come home, the scent of firewhiskey strong on his breath, and take out all of his anger, frustration, and sadness on his fiancée with seemingly never ending blows to her face and body. But Hermione had had enough.

With a final look at the red haired boy whom she used to love so dearly, Hermione aparated to Harry and Ginny's flat. Harry answered the door with a confused look on his face, and Hermione really tried to hold back her tears, but she couldn't stop herself from breaking down right on the doorstep.
~

"I can't believe you didn't come to us sooner, 'Mione. You can stay here as long as you need to," Harry stated comfortingly as he set up the sofa, Hermione's home until she could find a place of her own.

Hermione looked up at Ginny. She hadn't said a word the entire time Hermione explained why she had shown up so late, unannounced, with bruises covering her face, neck, chest. Ginny's eyes were so full of anger, and sadness, and bewilderment. "That foul GIT!!" Ginny finally erupted, standing. Tears spilled from her eyes as she began pacing the small living area, arms swinging every which way. "The war affected us all, but that doesn't excuse this! How dare he lay a hand on you! And for two years? Hermione, d-" Ginny faltered, "Did he ever- force you to-" she didn't get to finish. Hermione cut her off, "I'd rather not talk about that right now," she said, a sob catching the end of her sentence.

"I learned a charm that could cover the bruises," Hermione explained, "That's how come you didn't notice sooner. I assumed it would end, I loved him so much and I didn't want to lose him. But it never did. It just kept happening and I kept enduring it because I was so hopeful that he would come home one day sober and his apology would be sincere."
Hermione eventually drifted into sleep, Harry stayed with her in the living room, and Ginny left to the office where she wrote two letters; one to her mother, in which she described in a tattle-tale manner all the foul things her brother had done to her best friend for two years, and the other a howler with many not-so-nice words addressed to Ron.

~

Two weeks later, Hermione's bruises were mostly healed and she could stand to be awake without a hollow pain in her chest. She was off her Potter friends' couch, and moving the last of her belongings into a quaint little two bedroom flat she had just signed off on. She set an ad in the Daily Prophet for a roommate, but she had enough saved to cover a few months rent by herself, so she wasn't fretting. Unbeknownst to Hermione, however, a certain fair haired ferret was in the market for his own apartment, and had just picked up a copy of the paper.

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