December 23rd, 1890 — The Crouch Residence, Irvingly
Reuben Crouch

The quiet peace she had come to enjoy within her home had upended after Pettigrew's Christmas party. Even as she danced her single set with Ben her thoughts were elsewhere, trapped in the gloom of reality. He didn't love her, never would even attempt to, and, more than that, he'd informed his best friend of her treachery. After all the insistence that no one was to know, after the ironing of the details and the frustration when she'd told Lucy, Ben had gone and told Arthur bloody Pettigrew. The aging quidditch player was his best friend, sure, but he was also a drunken fool who couldn't even tend to his own wife! How was such a pathetic excuse for a person — nevermind a man — to be trusted with the very secret that could further ruin their lives?!

Melody refused to address it with Ben. The damage had already been done, after all. It wasn't as though either of them were particularly accomplished with removing memories, so there was nothing she might add that would remedy the situation. No, she had tried to squash it deep within herself and go on as though their lives were normal. As though her trust in him — which, regardless of their trials this last had grown to be a solid foundation — remained steady. However, with the strain of spending her first holiday away from her family, her nerves were too tensed for it all to be fully suppressed.

She could only handle so much.

Which was how they found themselves seated across an otherwise silent supper table. The tension rippled like waves off her body as she aggressively (for her) sliced her roast into pieces. Let him be the first to break the silence, she decided. For none of the words forming in her head were entirely kind.

  

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Melody was quite obviously in a mood, and Ben was sure it was his fault. Their conversation at the Pettigrew party hadn't gone the way he'd thought it would, and he knew even in the moment that it was a mistake to bring it up. Now she was... angry, was the vibe he was getting. At him, at the situation, at the world, he wasn't sure. Maybe she was angry at all of them.

He wanted to do something to make it up to her, but he couldn't imagine what he might be able to say to make her feel better. He couldn't take back anything he'd said at the party that hurt her, and if he tried she'd know he was only doing it to soothe the tension and that he didn't really mean it. After his confession, he was sure a fake sentiment was worse than no sentiment at all, so he'd just let her be angry and hoped that she'd burn through it and be ready to talk about it sooner or later. Hopefully sooner, since they had plans to visit his brothers on Christmas Day and even Aldous and Roman could not fail to notice how tense she was. They certainly weren't going to be selling the lovesick story like this.

She was alternating between glaring at him and attacking her food during dinner, while Ben just sat there awkwardly and picked at his food, his appetite having fled him (he would, most likely, sneak down to the kitchen and eat two dinners' worth of leftovers after she'd gone to bed).

"If you don't want to go to Christmas, I can tell Aldous you're ill," he eventually offered.

  

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For a second, Melody was speechless. Ben's unhappiness she could live with, she supposed, but him giving up on their farce of a marriage was wholly unexpected. Was that why he'd told Arthur? Because he was intending to slowly withdraw from the lives he insisted they lead? She internally winced as the knife scratched the china, the scraping sound louder than it ought to be at a newlywed's dinner table. Did Aldous know, too? They were pleasant enough with one another, awkward for sure, but could hold a basic small talk conversation without flinching. To think she was to lose the only family she had left was more disheartening than she once imagined it might be.

"It's our first Christmas as a married couple," she reminded him with a huff, her eyes still glued to her plate. "I cannot imagine it would be a good look for us to be separated for the day. Appearances and all." That, and the thought of being alone on Christmas curdled her insides.

  

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He'd expected her to jump at the chance, so was momentarily unsure what to say in the face of resistance. She had to recognize that spending the holiday apart was better for appearances than bringing all... this into his brothers' home and just hoping they didn't notice. They were going to notice. Ben picked up his wine glass and swirled the red liquid around as though he were going to drink it, but didn't. With so much bottled up tension in his stomach, he thought even a glass might make him nauseous.

"Even happy wives get sick sometimes," he said, tone neutral.

  

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A bitter scoff added to the mounting tension in the room. A happy wife, right, because she was so blissfully overjoyed. "You're not the only one who has had to master pretending this year," she responded, her dark gaze finally rising to glare at him. Then, with a challenging brow, she asked, "unless you would rather I not attend?"

  

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Ben was entirely at a loss. He knew Melody was angry with him, but he didn't understand what he'd done in this conversation to merit her glare and the challenging question. If she was upset (she was), why not just excuse herself and take a day to do whatever she wanted on her own, rather than having to grit her teeth and muddle her way through a holiday that she wouldn't enjoy?

She was staring at him, but Ben had no idea what to say. He eventually made a what do you want from me sort of gesture with his hands, then realized he was holding his dinner knife in one and hastily put it down, clattering against the side of his plate.

"If you're going to do this, then yes, I'd rather you stayed home," he said, obviously furstrated.

  

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"If I'm going to do what, exactly? Be visibly upset within the confines of my own home?" Melody fumed. She was fully capable of suppressing her frustration and pretending as though everything was fine. It wasn't as though Aldous and Roman were great fans of her, anyway, so they likely wouldn't even realize anything was amiss if some of it did seep out.

Then, much more calmly than the statement she'd said nust moments ago, she added, "I am attending Christmas. You do not have to fear me being the morose soul in the room."

  

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Morose was not what he was afraid of. There was no way that Melody actually didn't understand what he was getting at. She was being purposefully difficult, he decided. This entire conversation was part of the punishment she was inflicting on him... punishment for the conversation at the ball, which — granted, that had been the wrong time and place to have that conversation, and it hadn't been anything she'd wanted to hear, but he also didn't really feel as though he'd done anything wrong. He had just been telling her how he felt, honestly, and for her to react like this was... well, it was unfair, frankly. Hurt, disappointed, sad, depressed he could understand, but she shouldn't be angry at him for not having fallen in love with the idea of being married. He'd held up his end of the bargain in their elopement ordeal; he'd put on a good show for everyone, he'd taken care of her as best as he was able, and he'd done what he could to make her happy. He'd never been cut out for this, nor had he ever implied otherwise. He was doing his best, which she'd said on the night of the party would be enough — but evidentially she'd changed her mind in the days that followed, and this was what he had to deal with.

"If you're going to ruin my holiday," he shot back, too frustrated now to bother watching what he said. "With the glaring and the sulking and the passive-aggressive bullshit. I don't deserve this. I was just telling you how I felt because I thought — I mean, I do that all the time for you. Cater to your feelings and try to make you feel better. And the one time I try to share something with you and just be honest for a second — well, I've learned my lesson now," he said hotly. "I won't be doing that again."

  

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"If you catered to my needs all the time, as you just said, then you wouldn't have told Arthur fucking Pettigrew about our bloody sham of a marriage!" She exploded, rising from her seat in a fit of frustration. "Were you that sick of pretending, Ben? You had to tell the least trustworthy person in existence?!"

Yes, Arthur was Ben's best friend, and, ordinarily, she wouldn't have been so blunt in her feelings towards the cad. However, having the truth spat at her like a barb meant he was capable of spreading that truth to anyone else who triggered it out of him. "Was it a punishment for my telling Lucy — who didn't even have the entire story, by the way. Not to mention she died. Or were you hoping he might drunkenly spread it about until your brothers freed you from me? All so you could bloody stop pretending! I mean, really, if that were the case why bother pretending at all?!"

  

Ben wasn't sure what he'd really been expecting from his wife, but certainly not for her to bring up Art Pettigrew. His mouth fell open slightly in absolute confusion as she rose from her chair and continued blustering. Where had she gotten that idea? Certainly not from anything Ben had said or done, he was sure. Ben would never have told anyone, least of all Art — but not, as she said, because he was the least trustworthy person in existence (Art had never, for instance, used a potion to trick someone into marriage, so he at least had that distinction over Melody — but even in the heat of the moment, Ben knew better than to say anything like that to her). No, Ben could never have told Art for the same reason he could never have told Aldous. There was no chance they would have let him stay with her. Art cared too much about Ben to see him perpetually unhappy — as did his brothers, for all their disagreements.

"I didn't," he said when she finally stopped. At first his tone was blank; still in shock. Then, after a moment, he laughed. It was entirely inappropriate, but he heard the noise before he even realized it was happening. He couldn't help it; the entire suggestion was just so ridiculous. "Do you think he'd be coming to dinner and playing nice if he knew? He hates you," Ben said, shaking his head and laughing again. "He's only tolerating you because he thinks I'm fucking in love with you."

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   Arthur Pettigrew

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Ben's laughter infuriated Melody, moreso than she'd been even a minute prior. She was aware of Arthur's hatred just as he was aware of her own. But, why make the comments he made then? Why accuse her of not acting like a loving wife when her and Ben had put up a reasonably solid display of affection all along?

Her hand lifted her glass on its own accord, flinging the contents of her wine on him. "He knows, Ben," Melody scowled. "He can fucking hate me all he wants, you can never love me, whatever. It makes no fucking difference, that's nothing new to me. Arthur knows, he might as well have said as much when I was trying to fucking help him the other night."

  

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Suddenly Ben had wine in his eyes, and he wasn't particularly pleased about it. If that was how Melody was going to argue, if they'd devolved to that level, it hardly mattered what else she wanted to say. Ben had been in brawls often enough that that was where his mind went immediately on being hit in the face with her drink — either throwing his arms up in defense or reaching for his wand. Both impulses precluded him from really listening, or else he might have registered that she was referring to an event he had no prior knowledge of.

"Well, I sure as shit didn't tell him," he spat back, wiping his napkin over his face to clear it of wine and blinking to try and get the alcohol out of his eyes. "If I'd told him — if I'd told any of my friends or family — we'd be divorced by now, and you can believe that."

  

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Perhaps she was wrong, perhaps Ben hadn't explicitly announced her trespasses, but it didn't change the fact that Arthur knew something to be amiss. Otherwise, why else phrase the question as he had? Melody couldn't shake the feeling that the roof was about to cave in on them, that their lies were about to begin unraveling at a frantic pace.

And then ... and then Ben mentioned divorce — the very out she'd tried to give him all those months ago, and Melody could do nothing but stand there dumbly for a second. He still thought about it, then, which was possibly how Arthur knew. Vague references could be just as telling as an outright admission, after all.

Slamming her hands down on the table, Melody heatedly asked, "why don't you tell them, then? Since that's clearly what you want? Tell them, divorce me, and forget about anything that's happened this past year." Maybe then he would finally be happy.

  

Had she made the suggestion at any other point in their relationship (and she had), Ben would have told her she was being ridiculous. He'd made his choice to stand by her the day after they'd eloped, and while there certainly were days when he regretted it, he'd never considered backing out of his obligations as her husband. He'd helped make this bed, with all the actions he'd taken prior to February 14th, and now he intended to lie in it, because the alternative was... well, there was no alternative for Melody. From the moment her family had disowned her, this had become her best possible future, sorry and strained as it was.

Now, though, he hesitated. Melody had just thrown wine in his face. They were fighting now because he'd tried to extend some sympathy to her, giving her an out for Christmas. He'd stood by her through all this turmoil during the past year and he'd tried to be vulnerable with her fucking once and she was still upset about it. He felt as though he could give and give forever and never get anything meaningful back from her, and if that was the case, what the fuck were they doing here?

"Don't say that unless you mean it," he warned in a low voice.

  

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She didn't mean it, not in the least. Ben's acceptance of their marriage had granted her a sense of security she would otherwise be entirely unaware of. The past few months weren't perfect, of course, but she thought she was happy. More importantly, Melody had foolishly believed Ben to be happy, too.

"I meant it in Paris," she reminded him. They might've been spared this grief and frustration had he only thought of this sooner. "And I still mean it now. I'll not condemn you to a life of lies and misery. Do what you will."

  

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Ben should have said no; he should have shut down that train of thought and told her not to bring it up again. He should have, but his mouth felt like it was being physically blocked. As though the tension in the room had manifested into a mass of bile that just lingered in his mouth and prevented him from saying anything. The air was electric. The entire room seemed to crackle with the potential of this moment; it prickled his skin and made the tiny hairs on his arms stand on end.

He hesitated. He should say no.

It wasn't just his investment in this charade that he'd be throwing away if he agreed to a divorce. Aldous had made a significant financial investment in this marriage, by procuring them this house and paying several months of the lease — not to mention that he had put aside his misgivings and tried his best to be civil towards Melody on numerous occasions, as had November and Roman. Both of his brothers had dealt with at least snide remarks at work, if not more actively detrimental things. Ben's friends had made room for the pair of them — even Art, though he obviously disliked having to put up with Melody. They were too far in this to just throw it all away now, weren't they?

But that bile was lingering in his mouth, and he found himself unable to say that he didn't want out.

"I can't talk about this right now," he finally said, pushing his chair back from the table and moving to leave.

  

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