Lipstick and Bruises

The horrible creature in the mirror blinked solemnly back at her, and for one long, agonizing moment, she contemplated flinging herself at that image, flailing her fists at that terrible thing until the glass shattered and her blood ran thick and deep and red over the tiled bathroom floor. But in that instant, the urge was gone, and the only thing she did was retrieve a Kleenex and carefully begin to remove the deep scarlet lipstick smudged across her lips.

She had waited till he was asleep to creep away--well, no, asleep didn't really describe it now, did it? More like, comatose from excessive amounts of hard liquor. She should have known when he'd arrived at home, reeking of Firewhisky with bloodshot eyes, just to stay out of his way. Little things tended to set him off when he was in that... condition. But then again, she was in just as much danger avoiding him. That tended to set him off, too. It was a game, treading softly across thin ice, taking just the right steps to make it safely to the other side. Tonight she'd fallen through. Again.

Tossing the smeared Kleenex into the trash, she next dug for her wand, and began the more tedious task of concealing the fresh set of bruises that now marked her slender body. The last batch hadn't even begun to fade yet; she'd have to perform a few quick charms on those, as well. By now, she had the best spell combinations down by heart, the perfect way to make her flesh smooth and flawless as ever, so no one was the wiser. Including herself.

It hadn't started out this way, their marriage. Well, of course it hadn't. She never would've married him in the first place if she'd known it would come to this. But the man she had married only five years--five years? More like five lifetimes--ago was not the man that currently lay passed out upon their bed. He had seen things, lost family and friends, lost parts of himself... but they all had, really. One didn't encounter a force like Voldemort and come away unscathed; it just wasn't possible. They'd all lost something in that horrible war. So why were his losses so much more devastating that everyone else's? What made him such the case to pity?

Harry had stopped by earlier that day, just to check up on her. She'd almost cried to see that wonderfully friendly, familiar face grinning at her from the doorway. She'd almost broke down and told him everything when he cheerfully asked her, "How've you been?" But the living room was full of wedding pictures, and each set of her husband's blinking eyes forbade her to silence. And so she went along with the lie, conjuring what she hoped was a believable smile and trying not to wince when Harry hugged too tightly around her fractured ribs.

As she'd watched her dear friend walk out the door, none the wiser to her plight, it seemed as though a tiny part of her had died. Just one more lost piece to a puzzle that was quickly becoming nothing but an empty frame.

The swollen, purply-blue mass that was her left eye was proving far trickier to charm away than she'd first realized. It stung more fiercely, pulsed more vividly than any of the others as she poked and prodded it with her wand, forcing it away bit by bit. She ignored the twin rivers of tears that had cut paths down her cheeks, outlined in black by her running eyeliner. Crying had become little more than a reaction to her, no longer accompanied by emotion and heartbreak as it was in the beginning. Did she even have a heart to break anymore?

Harry had said something peculiar as he'd gotten ready to leave. He'd stared her deeply in the eyes, for so long that she'd started to squirm uncomfortably beneath his gaze. His larger, broom-callused hands had closed carefully around her smaller ones, thumbs stroking over the tortured flesh, as she did all she could not to cry out when he unknowingly brushed over concealed bruises. Then his voice, softer than a whisper, "If anything's ever wrong... if you ever need me... I'm always here. You know that, don't you?"

She had nodded, not trusting herself to speak. And then he had left.

Harry knows about this, she mused decisively to herself as she wiped out another bruise, this one wrapped around her wrist and shaped suspiciously like a handprint. She was somehow unsurprised that he knew; Harry had always seemed to know things like this, especially with her. It was part of their connection, she supposed, forged so long ago when they'd been at school together. She had loved Harry, back in those days, loved him very much, and had been quite convinced that someday they would be together. But suddenly Harry was with someone else, and she... she was left with her Doctor Jekyll, fully unaware of the Mr. Hyde he would become.

Harry had always been the savior, the rescuer. Was it now she whom he was trying to save? Did she even deserve saving?

She winced painfully as the last of her bruises was finally concealed, her appearance once again returned to its healthy-looking (albeit faux) norm. Tucking away her wand, she glanced into the mirror, and chose to ignore once more the scars she knew still lingered on her interior. She flicked the bathroom lights off with a finger that throbbed dully with pain and shuffled back into their bedroom on feet that had somehow come to bear the weight of the world.

She stared down at her unconscious husband, feeling the slightest glimmer of the only emotion that had yet to be drained from her. Through cracked lips, she whispered, "I hate you, Ron." And with that, Hermione lay down beside him on the bed and gazed up at the empty ceiling till dawn arrived.