An Unexpected Turn of Events

Hermione rolled over and stared blankly at the ceiling as light shown brightly into the bedroom. It was about seven in the morning and Ron was still asleep beside her.

‘Great…He won’t wake up for another half an hour, and I have to go to the bathroom.’ Hermione thought, staring at her furnished bedroom and patting her stomach. Only two months until the scheduled delivery of her twins and Hermione was very nervous.

After graduating from Hogwarts seven years ago, Hermione had married her Hogwarts sweetheart, Ronald Weasley and they were now expecting their first children, a set of twins. A boy and a girl. Everything in their life would appear to be perfect. Ron had become a very successful Auror, working alongside Harry and making enough money to help them live a stable, but not luxurious lifestyle. Hermione should have been very very happy. However, she was not.

Not too long after they had gotten married, Ron became very jealous, always thinking that Hermione was going to leave him for another man. Several times they had gotten into a very intense yelling match and he had hit her occasionally to get his point across, sometimes to the point where Hermione had to cover her face when she went to Diagon Alley. Ever since then, Ron locked the bedroom door at night and kept Hermione locked inside until they got up the next day. This, he thought, would prevent her from leaving him during the night.

Now, he wouldn’t even let her go hang out with Harry and Ginny or any of her other friends. They hadn’t gone to any of the big Weasley family outings in years and she hadn’t seen her parents since they got married. Ron refused to let her use any type of Muggle equipment in the house. Ever since her marriage Hermione’s life had gone down the drain and left her unhappy and somewhat afraid of her husband who she once trusted.

The twins kicked a little inside of her, making the fight to hold her bladder extremely stressful. She rubbed her enormous stomach, trying to soothe the children into being still. At least for a little while, however, it was no use. The girl, who was situated on the left side of Hermione’s uterus thrashed about despite Hermione’s soothing attempt.

‘Come on baby. Be still. Twenty more minutes, please.’

But the longer Hermione waited, the more uncomfortable the kicking of the babies became. She had to wake up Ron. Of course the other option would be to ruin the sheets, neither of which were very comforting to think about. She decided to go with waking her husband. After all, he had to get up in twenty minutes anyway. Hopefully he would be less angry with that.

“Ron.” Hermione shook Ron’s broad shoulders lightly. He grunted, but refused to move from his sleeping position. She contemplated trying to wait it out, but her baby girl made thinking about something else virtually impossible. So Hermione took a deep breath and got up the courage to try again.

“Ron. Please. I can’t wait anymore. I have to go to the bathroom. Ron? Please!” Hermione pleaded with her husband, shaking him a little bit more than she had before. The urge to use the bathroom was growing more and more the longer she waited. Ron suddenly realized he was being awoken and sat bolt upright, drawing his wand and pointing it at his wife. Hermione jumped back slightly. Ron stood up, furious with rage and seized Hermione by the neck.

“You want to wake me up to go to the bathroom?” Ron’s voice was harsh and violent. His hair, uncombed, flew about his face and his eyes were fierce and frightening. Hermione cringed under the pressure of his hands. She struggled to answer him, but her response was too slow. He slapped her soundly across the face and spoke again.

“What made you think you had the right to wake me up just so you can go to the bathroom? You’re a witch, open the damn door yourself!” Ron yelled louder as Hermione struggled beneath him.

“My…my…” Hermione couldn’t manage the words. His hands released her throat and he simply pointed his wand at her. She trembled in fear and placed her fingers where he had just been grasping her. Ron looked horrified that she was actually going to try and answer him.

“Your what Mione! Your what?” Hermione cringed backwards and without realizing it, backed herself into a corner. She looked around for a way out, but suddenly she was trapped with her husband bearing down on her. Out of nowhere, he punched her in the face and pushed her to the floor. He laughed mildly when she cringed, gripping her stomach. He had knocked the wind out of her.

“Do you want your wand Hermione?” Ron kicked the back of her legs. Thankfully he had no shoes on and was simply kicking for the right to kick. When he let up, she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

“Why are you doing this Ron?” She stared at him, waiting for him to strike her again, but thankfully he did not. Her brown eyes met his, but all she saw was anger and cold vision. Ron turned and pointed his wand toward the bathroom door.

“Aloha Mora.” The locked clicked open and the door swung inward. He turned back and glared violently at his wife. “Use the bathroom.”

Hermione raced into the bathroom, shutting the door and sat down on the toilet, bleeding and sobbing. This was not how a Tuesday morning should begin. From outside of the bathroom, Hermione could hear the alarm sounding, telling her that it was officially 7:30 am. If she had just waited, hopefully, none of this would have happened.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

After a good fifteen or twenty minutes, Hermione came out of the bathroom, still dressed in her maternity nightgown and went to her drawer to search for something to wear, hopefully that had a matching scarf that would cover the painful strangulation marks on her neck. Hopefully Ron was downstairs trying to make breakfast and make everything better. He always did.

In the past, when Ron would beat Hermione, he would feel remorse and apologize profusely. It was always because of the stress at work, the nerves of becoming a parent, the fact that his family didn’t want anything to do with him outside of family get togethers. Everything just escalated and when she would pull out a single flaw in him, he would over react. Ron always apologized and tried to make things better. Flowers and chocolates, fancy dinners and new clothes. Ron tried everything he could to make up for his actions. He even went to great lengths to build a safe nursery for the twins.

Suddenly Hermione was pulled from her thoughts when she noticed something. Something very very wrong. All of her underwear were missing from the drawer she kept them in.

Hermione shook it off. Obviously she must have put them somewhere else. Pregnancy does make a woman crazy. But the underwear weren’t in the drawer below that either. She searched frantically everywhere in the room and it suddenly dawned on her. All of her clothes from her underwear all the way to her expensive robes were missing.

Panicked, Hermione walked down the stairs as fast as she could to discover Ron sitting at the dinning room table. Hermione approached him, hoping maybe this was his idea of an apology.

“Ron, where are my clothes?” At the sound of her voice, Ron turned and looked at her. He smiled lightly and laughed. He put his arms out and reached out to her. He hugged her gently and whispered in her ear.

“Run go out and get the wizard mail, and I will have a big surprise for you when you get back!” Ron’s good humor lightened Hermione’s spirit a lot and she dashed out to the owl house to get the mail. She looked around. It was a nice day, almost October and the air was crisp, but not too cold. Apart from the pain of the bruising, Hermione felt much better.

Out in the owlery, Hermione found several letters. Two letters of bills that had to be paid, a letter from Harry and Ginny, Lavender’s wedding invitation and a letter from…Ron. Thinking the letter was part of the big surprise, Hermione tore open the casing and pulled out the parchment.

“Hermione -
I don’t think you should live in this house anymore. In fact, this is a letter telling you that I am throwing you out. You will find your suitcase sitting underneath the large oak tree. I was nice. I left you a little bit of money. You will find it in the owl waste tray.”