Chapter Text
Hermione: Present Day
If she could just...
She flicked her wand, drawing a slow, deliberate circle, and poured her magic into the runes scored into the salt ring around the doll.
The symbols shuddered, then flared a vivid orange, heat prickling against her palms. The pressure eased at once.
She exhaled.
There. Done.
Carefully, she rose from the floor, knees protesting, and surveyed the room. Ancient artifacts lay scattered everywhere: hexed mirrors leaning against cursed cabinets, bone charms tangled with rusted iron, wards chalked half-finished across the stone. It looked like chaos. It always did, no matter how long she worked in this god forsaken place.
Nott Manor was her personal purgatory. An endless procession of objects demanding attention, each more inventive in its cruelty than the last. The Notts—both those still haunting the corridors and those mouldering politely in the graves out back—had possessed a particular fondness for nail-removal curses.
A detail she wished she could unlearn.
She reached the main hall and nearly collided with the man of the hour.
“The doll is charging under reinforced protective runes,” she said briskly. “Within the hour it will stop sending telepathic messages predicting your progeny’s demise.”
Nott clasped his hands together. “You are a saint,” he said, that saccharine smile sliding effortlessly into place. “I shall name my firstborn after you.”
She snorted. “Let me finish the parlour room before you make that sort of commitment.”
“Nightcap?” He lifted his glass, firewhisky catching the torchlight as he swirled it.
“Nightcap?” She glanced at her watch. “It’s two fourty-five.”
“Day cap?”
She laughed despite herself. “You know I have my meeting with Patterson.”
“Yes, yes,” he waved a dismissive hand. “But might I suggest blowing him off and having fun with me instead?”
“I’m not blowing off my boss.”
His brows arched. She flushed immediately.
“I mean—I’m not.” She rolled her eyes. “See you Monday, Nott.”
She gave him a departing wave.
“Always a pleasure, darling!”
—
Back at the office, the familiar quiet wrapped around her like a balm. She adjusted the files under her arm and headed toward Mr. Patterson’s door.
“Hi, Sheryl,” she said as she passed reception.
“Oh, love,” Sheryl replied gently, peering over her spectacles, “he had to cancel today’s meeting.”
“Cancel?”
In four years at the private equity curse-breaking firm, Mr. Patterson had never cancelled a meeting. The man ran his life like a drill schedule: precise, unyielding. An odd trait for a curse breaker, a profession dominated by brilliant, but chaotic minds.
“Yes. His son had an emergency less than an hour ago.”
“Oh goodness. Is he alright?”
“I don’t know yet, sweetheart. St. Mungo’s. We’re hoping for the best.”
“I’ll send him a gift basket-”
“We already are, dear,” Sheryl said with a reassuring smile. “I’ll sign your name.”
She returned the smile, sincere. Sheryl was nothing if not thorough.
As much as she hoped Mr. Patterson’s son would recover swiftly, she couldn’t help the quiet bloom of relief in her chest.
She finished her transfer paperwork in record time—fourteen minutes and forty-three seconds, thank you very much—and hurried straight for the cave. Or, more accurately, the devil waiting inside it.
“Hermione, Hermione,” he purred, somehow making her name sound sinful. “Just can’t keep yourself away, can you?”
“Can it, O’Haley.” She dropped her file onto the counter without ceremony, then set a warded wooden box atop it with considerably more care. “Brought you a new gift. Jewelry this time.”
“Ooo.” He perked up immediately, pushing off the slate counter.
The cave was an affectionate nickname for what was, in truth, an actual cave beneath the building—one Hermione was fairly certain had been excavated illegally. It served as the holding center for recovered objects after the company’s curse breakers had stripped them of whatever lethal magic had once clung to them.
Rows of artifacts rested along iron shelves carved directly into the damp stone walls, each piece still locked behind layers of wards and runes until auction clearance came through. Some looked harmless now: jeweled goblets, silver combs, signet rings dulled with age. Others still carried enough residual magic to make the air hum unpleasantly around them. Torches hissed against the rock face, their light glinting off gold, gemstones, and ancient metal that had once ruined lives before ending up here.
A jagged rise of black stone had been shaped into a reception desk near the entrance where Cillian O’Haley handled intake and security like a ferryman of the underworld.
“A brooch,” Hermione continued, sliding the box toward him, “with a delightful scalping curse and some sort of blood curse that kills you in under ten minutes.”
“And you removed them just for me?” he asked, smirking as he leaned far too close. At six foot something, O’Haley had a habit of crowding people on purpose.
“Mainly to keep my job. But if pretending otherwise gets your signature faster, then yes.”
He scoffed and dragged a quill across the transfer papers.
“You’re in a rush,” he observed. “Hot date?”
She shrugged, despite knowing perfectly well Ron would almost certainly rather stay in tonight. He didn’t like going anywhere unless he knew press was going to be there.
“Just have a rare chance to get home early, and I’m not wasting it.”
With a lazy flourish of his wand, the signed papers vanished one way while the brooch disappeared another, headed for processing deeper within the warding vaults.
“Tell Wesley if he doesn’t take you out, I will.”
Hermione rolled her eyes, already turning toward the tunnel exit.
“Have a good weekend, O’Haley.”
“You too, little mouse.”
She answered with a middle finger over her shoulder, not breaking stride at the stupid fucking nickname. She’d seen one mouse in the cave one time—one time—and the bastard had never let it go.
She flooed home. The moment she stepped inside, she toed off her heels and shucked them into the corner. Tossing her purse onto the couch with a tired groan, she made her way to the kitchen.
She found Crookshanks meowing on the counter top and she stopped to give him a couple pets before beginning on her tea. She was waiting for her kettle to boil, ideally messaging her neck while twirling her head from side to side to strain the muscle.
Then—thump.
She froze.
Another sound followed, heavier this time, from upstairs.
Her skin prickled. Every ugly possibility rushed in at once. A break-in. A kidnapping. Some new resurgence, an unfinished war clawing its way back into her life. If someone wanted to make a statement, this house, two-thirds of the Golden Trio, would be exactly where they’d start.
She darted out of the kitchen rushing to get to her purse as if she was about to be hexed in the back. Which she very possibly could.
Another bump. Louder.
Her pulse roared as she fumbled through leather and parchment, fingers finally closing around her wand. The relief it brought was thin, brittle.
She tried to think of her happy memory. It has changed over the years. Originally her parents, till the memories turned bittersweet and distant. Then it was Harry and Ron- their brighter moments in the war till something brighter came along. She clung to her most recent Patronus memory, her wedding. Though “recent” was generous; it had been eight years ago.
They spun together beneath strands of golden light, the air thick with late-summer warmth and the open windows breathing in a soft breeze that lifted the edges of her hair. The fiddle sang bright and fast, and the Weasleys—every last one of them—clapped along, the newlywed Potters laughing and cheering from the edges of the floor. Ron twirled her, careless and grinning, and the room blurred into honey-colored light and motion. Her laughter rang out unrestrained and effortless as the wind in her hair.
Her otter burst forth from her wand. “Find Harry Potter,” She whispered to the glowing light, “Tell him I need him and Aurors immediately at my home.”
She moved for the stairs, whispering a silencing charm over her stockinged feet. Her heart lodged itself in her throat, every step deliberate, breath shallow.
At the top landing, she swallowed hard. The sound came again, clear now. From her bedroom.
A thief, then. Petty. Jewelry, maybe. Something small enough to explain the noise.
She reached the door, wand raised—
—and a moan cut through the air along with the unmistakable sound of skin on skin.
The fuck? Someone broke into her house and decided to have sex on her bed? What was it some kind of desecration of muggleborns or something?
She kept her wand pointed and opened the door.
Nothing—nothing—could have prepared her for the sight.
Her heart that had been in her throat sunk to her toes. It felt like all the blood had rushed out of her body as she watched her husband, naked, thrusting in and out of another witch.
He held her by the hair, pushing her head down into the mattress as he roughly took her from behind.
Her nightstand banged against the bedframe at a particularly rough thrust. Her eyes fixed on the picture frame of her and Ron becoming esque. Her hand cream falling down to the ground.
It wasn’t a Death Eater. It was her nightstand being moved.
Her nightstand was being moved because her husband was plunging in and out of a witch too roughly.
The thoughts couldn’t process in her brain. The dissonance was too great even as she heard the sounds of sex all around her.
Her eyes drifted to the girl as a pornagraphic whine came from her throat. “Oh, yes Ron! Oh!”
She didn’t know her. Or at least she didn’t think she did. It was hard to gauge when half of her face was obscured by her favorite green paisley sheets.
“Yeah that’s fucking right!” Ron groaned. Her eyes drifted to him, his face twisted in pleasure. “Look at you taking me like you’re fucking made for it.” He grabbed her hips putting one foot on the bed as he punctuated his next words with harsh pulls into him. “Such a Good. Fucking. Girl.”
Hermione couldn’t breathe.
He gave a firm slap to her arse, the sound cracked through the room—and something broke loose in Hermione’s chest. A sound of pure horror tore from her throat.
Ron’s head snapped to her in an instant, his pleasure instantly being replaced by shock.
“Hermione,” he said breathlessly, balls deep in another witch.
For one suspended second, no one moved.
Then chaos erupted. Ron scrambled back, dragging on his trousers. The witch squeaked and rolled away. She rolled on her side of the bed. Her bare fucking cunt on her side of the fucking bed.
She fumbled for cover and grabbed… Hermione’s bathrobe.
Her fucking bathrobe.
Seeing that finally snapped Hermione free.
She crossed the room in a blink, slamming the witch back against the bathroom door, her forearm pressed to her throat.
The witch screamed, her hands clawing at Hermione’s forearm.
“Ron!” The witch cried in fear, tears collecting in her blue eyes.
“Mione,” She felt his hand gently touch her arms and didn’t think twice before rounding on him and punching him in the face.
Both parties screamed in pain, Hermione cradling her hand and Ron cradling his nose.
“Hermione!”
No. No. No.
Harry burst through the door, wand raised. His eyes flickered through the room quickly as aurors flanked his sides bursting into the room, wands raised and ready for attack.
“Oh mate,” Harry let out, his wand dropping and his defense standing withering into nothing.
She locked eyes on his green ones.
It felt as if the world stopped and it were just them.
“False alarm,” she said weakly. He sighed through his nose, his face the paragon of sympathy.
“It’s-” Ron hissed, eyes blinking as he cradled his nose. “Fuck!” he groaned, "it's not what it looks like.”
“It looks like you were sticking your pathetic dick into Maisy from archives.”
No. Not him. Anyone but him.
“No one asked for your input, Malfoy!” Ron snapped back.
“Harry,” Hermione said weakly, feeling as if she was going to burst into tears at any moment.
He came to her, cradling her in his arms as he began walking her from her bedroom.
“Hermione! Hermione, please it didn’t mean anything. Hermione!”
“Take one more step, Weasley. I’ve been looking for an excuse to hex your bollocks off for years.”
She distantly heard more bickering between the two but tuned out their voices. She only focused one foot in front of the other, Harry’s warm hands never leaving her biceps.
“Rodgers” He barked and she flinched at the loud sound cutting through her shock, “I’m taking Hermione Granger to a different residence for the night. Could you finish up here?”
“Sure, boss. Any specific scans you want forensics to do?”
“No, no,” He sighed, “It wasn’t a break in. Just a- erm- unforeseen circumstance.”
The sounds that came out of her was a mix between a sob and laugh.
“Please tell Malfoy there’s no need for a report.”
“Oh god,” she groaned, burying herself in his robes at the prospect of Draco Malfoy getting a front row seat to this.
Him finding Ron cheating on her. It was too cruel to process.
“Is she alright?” Rodgers asked,
“She’s in shock.” Harry replied though the tone of his voice was hardly convincing. “Ta,” And then Harry was calling out his home.
The heat of the Floo faded, replaced by the quiet crackle of Harry’s hearth and the heavy stillness that followed. He didn’t rush her, didn’t say a word—just guided her forward and let her lean into him as if gravity itself had shifted. Hermione pressed her face into his shoulder and let herself break.
-----
The terrible thing about your life falling apart at 3 in the afternoon is that you had to go on existing the rest of the day.
You couldn’t go cry yourself to sleep, lick your wounds and try to process the events with a fresh mind.
She had gotten twenty minutes of crying on Harry’s shoulder, a cooling charm on her knuckles that he kept fresh, before chaos erupted around her.
All three children burst through the door with Ginny hot on their heels. They were a cacophony of sound, a ball of energy tumbling into the otherwise silent house.
She stood quickly- lest her niece and nephew find her crying on the couch in their fathers arms.
She stood with her back to the entrance they were going to walk into any moment, hastily wiping the tears from her eyes. Using her sleeve as a replacement for a proper tissue.
She got one moment of that before, “Aunt Mione!”
She turned, catching Lilly in her arms and lifting her easily on her hip.
“Hey sweetheart.” She pressed a kiss to her flaming hair. “How was your day?”
“I learned about dinosaurs!” She said excitingly.
“Oh did you,” She disguised her sniffle by falling her head back and shaking out her hair. “And what sound do they make?”
“Roar!” Lilly screamed in her face, her hands in claw like motions.
“Oh goodness, I’m terrified!” She screamed, letting her down.
Both boys had already run into the backyard- no doubt to collect their brooms and begin playing. Harry and Ginny however were in a hushed conversation.
Ginny looked up at her, a fire she hadn’t seen since the war blazing in her eyes.
“Lilly, go play outside with your brothers.”
“But muuummm,” She whined.
“Now.” Her tone brokered no argument, an intimidating eyebrow raised.
Lilly groaned, dragging her feet till she opened the back patio door.
“I’ll kill him.” Ginny growled. “More than kill him I’ll fucking hex him into next month.”
She was pacing the back of the couch, her purse still in hand.
“Where does that imbecile get off?”
“Gin,” Harry broke in lightly but she continued on her pacing and tirade.
“My best friend? He cheats on my best friend?!”
Hermione couldn’t help but flinch. It hadn’t set in fully. She had been so blindsided by it. So utterly and completely blindsided. And hearing it outloud…
“Gin,”
“I’ll tie him like a fucking hog. Castrate his-”
“Gin!”
She finally stopped, turning to her husband.
“What?” She let out, annoyed at the interruption of her plans.
“Perhaps Mione would like sometime to process this without having to hear about him.” He said gently.
“Oh,” She deflated, “Of course, whatever you want Mione.”
She dipped her head in acknowledgement, not really knowing what she wanted.
She needed to clear her head- get some air.
“Could I- erm borrow some shoes?”
“Shoes?”
“Yeah, I think I’m gonna take a walk and I left my shoes-” at home.
Was that even her home? Was she going to stay married to him? Did he even want to stay married to her?
“I just need to think for a bit.” She settled on.
She knew that Ginny hated the idea based on the twist of her lips but she simply said, “Of course. I’ll go grab them.”
Ten minutes later—after too many sympathetic pats from Harry and a stream of low, murderous promises from Ginny—she finally found herself back in silence, alone with nothing but her thoughts.
Ron cheated on her.
The words landed one after another, heavy and irrevocable.
In their house.
In their bed.
Which meant this wasn’t the first time.
The realization slid into place with awful clarity, like a puzzle piece she hadn’t known was missing. He’d been too practiced. Too comfortable. People didn’t start with their own marriage bed. No they started at work or the single one’s house.
Well Perhaps Mabel? Maisley? Whatever the fuck her name was- The whore from archives wasn’t single.
Unwanted images of them fucking across the archives level flashed into her mind.
Her stomach lurched, bile rising sharp and sudden, and she had to swallow hard against it.
She sank onto a nearby park bench, the wood still warm from the sun. Spring air brushed against her skin: gentle, almost kind. Light filtered through the trees, dappling the ground and glinting across the pond in lazy, shimmering ripples. Ducks drifted peacefully along the water. Somewhere, a child laughed.
It was absurdly beautiful.
The perfect place to fall apart.
Oh god—how many times?
The question spiraled, multiplying faster than she could stop it. Her hands came up, palms pressing hard into her eyes as the tears started again, hot and relentless.
She had never—never—believed Ron capable of this. If someone had asked her an hour ago, she would have said she was happily married without hesitation. She would have smiled. She would have meant it.
Apparently, that had only ever been true for one of them.
Apparently, Ron had been living a different version of their life. One where vows were flexible. One where she was… insufficient.
The thought hollowed her out.
What if it was her?
The idea slithered in before she could stop it, cruel and familiar. She thought of the last two years—the weight she’d gained, the way her clothes had begun to fit differently, how she’d had to buy new dresses to accommodate softer hips, a fuller belly. How mirrors had become something she avoided on tired days.
Her chest tightened.
No.
No, that was ridiculous.
She straightened on the bench, forcing herself upright, drawing in a shaky breath through her nose. Gaining two stones was not an excuse or justification for him to… with...
They had taken a vow, goddamn it!
Did that mean nothing to him?!
The memory of it rose unbidden—standing beside him, wand in hand, voice steady as she promised a lifetime. Only an hour ago, she had drawn on that same love, that same certainty, to cast her Patronus.
Her hands curled in the fabric of her skirt.
God. They had taken a bloody vow.
The enormity of it pressed down on her chest, sharp and suffocating.
But beneath the hot, indignant anger, she saw something else entirely.
A broken eighteen year old girl, face streaked with cuts, an acid hex burning along her side, walking hand in hand with a limping Ron across the bridge at Hogwarts while Harry snapped the Elder Wand in two.
Memories of Shell Cottage surfaced next. Ron sitting beside her bed, patiently nursing her back to health. Feeding her spoonfuls of soup when the tremors in her hands were too violent to hold the spoon herself.
Did that mean nothing?
They had been forged in war together, bound by things most couples could never understand and he had thrown it all away for sex?
Perhaps too much time had passed. Perhaps they faded and became warped in time.
Perhaps she had never meant all that much to him at all…
God.
How could he?