Passing
In the beginning, it was nice. There were kisses and hugs, smiles and laughter, joy and happiness. In the beginning, it was easy to close her eyes and lose herself in the sensations, in the pleasures, in the simple joys. It was easy to pretend there was more to their relationship than childlike courtship and fumbling teenage attempts at love. It was so easy just to try.
Over months it became harder. After years, harder still. She'd heard somewhere that it would end soon, that they would slow down and come to have a deeper relationship. She'd heard somewhere that these things always happened with young couples. Oh, you'll get over it soon, she was promised. You and Ron were made for each other. He'll come around. Always had, always did, always would.
But it soon became almost unbearable to wait for him to come home after work. After a while she couldn't stand having to share a bed with him. She'd stay at Lavender or Parvati's flat for weeks at a time and beg it off as tending to sickness. He always called, brutal in his impatience, and more than once his calls ended with her over the kitchen sink in tears, his face in the fireplace dark and defiant in its anger. Then he would call back the next morning and beg for forgiveness, and she always gave it. Always had, always did, always would.
Then one day, a hot, humid, sticky July day, Harry called.
They hadn't talked in years, not since the wedding. He called over a Muggle telephone, one that she kept for her work, and his voice sounded so wonderful in her ears. The call lasted an hour, and they agreed to meet the next day at Seamus' newest pub, to avoid Ron.
And it began.
Covert meetings in out-of-the-way pubs. Secret rendezvous in Muggle shops. It was such a relief to be heard instead of just hearing all the time. Harry understood her like Ron never had, paid whole and complete attention to her the way Ron grew tired of, changed and grew and carried a depth about him that Ron had always lacked. Ron took and took and never gave back, but Harry gave back in generous helpings everything he took.
Eventually, as fate took its course, it reached even further. She came to his working-hours flat in London once. They had dinner at Grimmauld Place another time. He dropped by Parvati's flat once to say hello. Soon he became a regular dinnertime visitor, but Parvati never failed to remind her after he left that Ron was still there.
It was very lucky, then, that after a year of dancing around the fact, of holding back and pretending they were just old friends, of waiting and taking it all in, their first mistake was at his London place.
Afterwards, she ran in a hurry. Didn't call, didn't Floo, didn't stop by. Parvati wouldn't say a word, but every time she left for work, her gaze burned into her back. Ron's calls were answered. She felt guiltier and guiltier with every word she spoke. He was desperate. He wanted her to come back. She wouldn't.
On a cold, sunny day in December, he came to Parvati's flat. Parvati was out working late. She was the only one there.
"You have to come back," were the first words out of his mouth. "I need you."
She couldn't look him in the eye.
"'Mione, you're my wife. I love you." Ron was trying so hard.
She looked at him for a moment, at the boy she once thought was her everything, and tried to see it. The fascination she'd once had. The attraction, the need, the want - it wasn't there. She couldn't remember why she'd ever loved him, at Hogwarts or beyond.
And she realized.
"Ron," she whispered. "I'm so sorry." She closed the door and cried against it until he finally left.
The next day she packed her things and left a note for Parvati in the kitchen. She Apparated out of the flat and re-appeared at the door of an expensive penthouse flat in downtown London.
She rang the doorbell. Harry answered. She walked in and sealed his questioning lips with a kiss.
"You left him," Harry said when it was over.
She nodded.
"You love me," he said, more a statement than a question.
She pulled him down for another kiss. "Always did, always will."
Fin
A/N: Dedicated to Harmony everywhere. This is how it's going to be. This is how it's inevitably going to end up. She always did and always will, folks, and there's nothing anyone can do about that.
~Misao
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