It Happened One Night

CHAPTER 19: Downward Spiral





A peek into the mind of Ron Weasley-







Ron Weasley sat on the sofa in his small flat and stared at the pile of empty bottles covering his coffee table while taking a long drink from the one in his hand. Life wasn’t going to get any worse. His team had lost the World Cup, Hermione had been stolen right from underneath his nose and now his family was on his ass constantly about his drinking.





He didn’t have a drinking problem. They were the ones who had a problem with it. He was quite content to stay in the clarified world that drinking provided him. It was in that world that the true reason for his unhappiness became clear. It was all because of her.





He had been in love with her since he was a child. He had always known that they were meant to be together. Finally, they had gotten it together and things had been perfect for awhile, but then he began to notice the differences between Hermione and the other player’s wives and girlfriends.





The other wives and girlfriends were at every game; even the away games and they were always dressed to the nines in the most stylish clothes. Hermione would only come to the home games and the very rare away game. She was always in her simple clothes, jeans and a jumper or one of the track suits she was so fond of and she never did anything with her hair, it was always a ponytail or pulled back in one of those headbands.





The other women fawned all over their player, treated them like they were the only thing in the world that mattered but not her, she was always sympathetic when they lost and enthusiastic when they won, but she was more involved in her own career and in the research she liked to do than in making his professional career a priority. So he had ended things, at least until he had completed his contract.





But she hadn’t even cared enough to wait for him like he figured she would. No, she had to run off like a bitch in heat when that werewolf came sniffing around. He should have known something was off at the wedding. Hermione didn’t like to dance and Lupin never danced, ever. Yet there they were on the dance floor, all over each other in the middle of his sister’s wedding and in front of all his family.





Ron kicked his foot out and jostled the coffee table, sending the bottles clattering to the floor. For months she had been sneaking around with that Were and she looked incredible. She was always dressed well. Her hair was fixed, makeup on and her skin glowing. Why hadn’t she looked that good for him? If she had, then maybe he wouldn’t have felt like he had to find someone more image appropriate. Not to mention the fact that according to the rumors, she and Remus were shagging like mad. George had said they were even sneaking into little hidey holes during the birthday party and from the sounds of things Lupin had Hermione singing a rather merry tune.





She definitely had been a rather cold witch in the bedroom, so he found it hard to believe that she was suddenly wild for it. It had taken him two years to get her into bed and then she had never really been all that enthusiastic about it. It took her forever to get off and even then she never seemed like she really enjoyed it much. He knew it had to be her, the other women he had shagged hadn’t complained.







Hermione was the reason his life had spiraled so out of control. Her and that creature she married. How could she marry him? And on such an important night for him too. His team had just secured a position in the finals and he had confessed his intent to win her back. What does she do? She runs off with that damned Lupin and gets married!





Ron got up and walked into his kitchen for another beer, he twisted off the top and threw it across the room, not really caring where it landed. His house keeper would arrive soon enough and clean it all up, just like she did every day. His mind kept wandering back to just before Christmas. He had watched her house every day, wanting to see her alone but Lupin was always there. He reached up and rubbed his nose where Remus had broken it. He still couldn’t believe he had been attacked by Remus Lupin, the man who up until he started shagging Hermione, Ron had believed to be gay.





Then Christmas had just been disgusting. The two of them had spent the evening making gaga eyes at each other all night, always touching and kissing and holding hands. Ron had felt physically ill at the sight of it. It was just wrong; he was too old for her. What had she been thinking marrying a man his age? He couldn’t be that good in bed that she could over look his obvious faults. He was too tall, too skinny and too scruffy to be considered handsome yet Hermione stared at him as though he were some male model stepped right out of pages of a magazine.





It had nearly killed him to watch them enter the banquet hall on New Years. He had stood in the corner watching, doing shot after shot of whisky. She looked better than she ever had in her entire life and everyone could see it. The dress she had worn was like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of seeing on Hermione. Hell, even Draco and Lucius Malfoy had admired the changes in her and that in and of itself was disturbing. Harry had openly admired her, and even Ginny had ogled her curvy body in appreciation.





So why was she wasting it on a man like Lupin? It didn’t make sense. Ron was wealthy, famous, reasonably good looking and strong from playing Quidditch. Why would she turn herself into such an amazing beauty for Remus and not for him?





Ron tossed the empty bottle of beer into the sink and decided that since it was after the noon hour, it was perfectly acceptable to switch to whiskey. He filled a juice glass with the amber liquid and tossed it back in one swallow before reaching out to refill.





He needed to talk to her alone, completely alone without that hovering husband of hers nearby listening in and ready to attack. He needed to get her away from Lupin so he could hammer some sense into her, make her see that she was wasting her youth on a man too old and not worthy of her. She was meant to be his, she had always been his and he would not let her go so easily.





Ron looked at the calendar stuck to the side of his refrigerator and he noticed the phases of the moon depicted in the corners of each calendar day. There was a full moon in three days. That meant Lupin would be holed up in his cell and Hermione would be alone for the night. Ron smiled; it would be the perfect time for him to convince her of her error in judgment. The wolf would be gone and he would be able to talk to her alone, really alone and make her see that her destiny didn’t lie with that filthy creature but with him.