AN: I like First Came Marriage, by AMBERJANUS.

Marital Spat

[1]

Ron Weasley stared at the ceiling, basking in the sun coming through the windows. He smiled, not knowing if it was actual happiness or just relief.

He was married, as the law dictated that he had to be. He'd hated the law, and he still did. But in some ways, he no longer felt like he was in a prison from which there was no escape.

[2]

The day was Tuesday in August. In and off itself nothing extraordinary. That day had been spent tracking down a rogue wizard, who went by the name Fabio Garrow. The strange name had made Ron laugh, but that laughter had dried up when he'd gone to St. Mungo's to see the man's victim.

Her name was Victoria Colson. She was 16 years old, and of African and Asian descent. Her hair was in a modest afro and she had a scar down the side of her face, diagonally. The girl had been hit with the Imperius Curse. Ron's blood had run cold...and then extremely hot.

But the nurse, Hatchet, had put his mind at ease...at least a little bit. The girl hadn't been sexually assaulted, and the scar hadn't been from an attack, but from an accident years ago.

She remembered the name of her attacker. They tracked him down to his home. Instead of a perverted man in his 30s or 40s, what they got instead was a boy even younger than Colson. Fabio was a Hogwarts student, bright but also strangely cruel. He was the family backyard, in the middle of setting his sister's hair on fire.

Harry disarmed him, and Ron paralyzed him.

"Are you Slytherin?" Ron asked him, and of course he would be, and Ron would be hit with the usual bullshit about blood purity and about how Colson was half-blood and therefore worthless. Second verse, same as the first children.

"Nope." Fabio said, to Ron's total surprise. Surprise so obvious on his face that it made Fabio laugh.

"Then why do it?"

"Why do what?"

"Don't play with me, chum." Ron said softly. "Why curse that teenage girl? Why curse your sister?"

Fabio just shrugged his shoulders.

[3]

Ron's work day ended at 8:00, which was late but still a lot earlier than what he'd expected. His wife wasn't there anyway. He didn't know why, and he honestly didn't care. Most days it was hard to care.

He got a snack from the fridge and was eating it at his desk when there was a pop. It was his wife in the kitchen.

Pansy Parkinson (Weasley now) was pretty—even beautiful. Her black hair flowed down to her shoulders. She wasn't pug-faced at all...so long as she wasn't scowling. And these days Ron was the only one doing any of that.

She was covered in dirt and sweat. She had gardening clothes on: a pair of overalls and an undershirt. Wrapped around her head was a blue towel. She worked at Neville's Forest.

"I gotta take a shower." she said, before he could say anything.

"Fine." he said flatly.

She came out twenty minutes later, wearing sweatpants and a clean undershirt.

"You couldn't make dinner?" she asked.

"Why should I have to make dinner?"

"You got here first." Pansy said.

"Yeah, after me and Harry caught a sociopathic wizard. It's been a long day. I had no idea he'd turn out to be a Ravenclaw."

Pansy rolled her eyes, sitting on the couch next to him. "Why? Because all bad wizards have to be in Slytherin?"

"The only Death Eater that wasn't a Slytherin was Pettigrew."

"And Greyback." Pansy argued.

"Brilliant!" Ron raised his hands into the air. "That's two to...how many Death Eaters? Five hundred?"

"Eight hundred and twenty-two." Pansy said miserably. "So we're all guilty. I'm guilty too? Is that right?"

"You tried..." Ron started, and then stopped.

Pansy tilted her head to one side. "Yes, I know Ronald; I tried to hand over Potter."

She was close to tears now. He sensed it.

"That was years ago. I even apologized to him for it. You were there. I mean, do you even care?"
She leaned toward him on the couch.

She said: "I can't use a wand anymore, Ronald. Draco can't. Blaise can't. Daphne Greengrass and her sister can't and their family wasn't even with the Death Eaters."

"Ginny and basically all my brothers petitioned the Ministry to change that."

"But you didn't, so the question remains. Do you even care?"
Ron spoke softly: "Every single time I was picked on in Hogwarts, it was either Draco, his idiot lackeys, or you, Pansy."

Pansy looked truly wounded at that. But he kept going.

"If Riddle had won, do you know what would've happened to me? My family? Hermione? Her family? We would've had something much worse happen than our wands being taken away. You already know that."

"Well thank Merlin it didn't!" Pansy shouted. Now she was crying. "I'm glad you're not dead. I'm glad your family's okay! Sometimes I've even glad to be your wife!"

"W-what?"

"You go out and you help people! You believe in justice, which is something completely foreign to my parents. You're such a stubborn blockhead but you go out there and catch the bad wizards. Sometimes I even think I even...like you!"

Ron gaped at her. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Pansy buried her face in her hands. "But none of that matters, because I'm always just going to be a nasty bitch from Slytherin to you! You're never going to stop hating me!"

"I don't hate you!" Ron shouted back. And he really didn't. Every bit of his frustration at her was really just at this stupid marriage law. How could these people in the government just arrange marriages between two twats that really didn't even really know each other at all.

"Then prove it." Pansy said. Her face was wet with tears

"What?"

She kissed him. Kissed him hard. He put his hands on her chest by reflex and nearly pushed her. It took every ounce of his will not to push her. Had he done that, it would've been it; she would never approach him again. Their marriage would've been written in stone as a failure.

Instead he grabbed her waist and held her.

She pulled away from him. "See? Not so bad."

Ron couldn't speak. It really hadn't been. He was no great kisser. Both Lavender and Hermione said so. But what they neglected to bring up is that they weren't exactly pros themselves. Especially Hermione.

"Not bad." Ron repeated. Because he didn't know what else to say.

"In the bedroom." Pansy said, standing up.

"But—"

"Be quiet. Stand up."

He stood up obediently.

[4]

They were naked and she was on top of him.

"Pansy, I don't know-"

She put a finger to his lips. "Just trust me, for once, Ronald."

And he did.

[5]

Now it was morning, and he needed to be at work in two and a half hours. Usually it made him feel excited. But as he turned to see his wife—still sleeping, and with a rueful smile on her face—he felt sad.

He kissed her cheek. And as he did so, Pansy opened her eyes and smiled at him.

"Again." she said.