Death by Toothbrush

----

It had been a whole week of married bliss.

We hadn't bickered or argued. This could have been, of course, because we'd been too busy doing other things to even think about what irritated us. This morning, we would be going back to work. I wanted to stay home, of course. I preferred to stay in bed all day with my beautiful wife. But Hermione had different plans.

"Come on, love," she said, kissing the nape of my neck to try to wake me up. "You have to go to work."

"Can't we just stay home?" I asked into my pillow.

"We have to go, darling. We've been gone a week. You do realize the amount of paperwork on your desk is going to be colossal."

I groaned, rolling over and finding her fresh out of the shower and wrapped in a robe. My bathrobe. Oh Merlin. Grasping her waist, I pulled her atop me and kissed her soundly, my hands sliding up and down her back.

"Ron," she said against my lips. "We must—" Breaking off to moan in my mouth as I shifted under her, she pressed her hands against my chest and placed her feet on the floor. Hands on her hips, she sighed, shaking her head. "Stop fooling around, Ron. Get up." With that, she turned around and walked briskly back into the bathroom and retrieved her toothbrush from the cup on the sink. I grinned, thinking suddenly of how exactly to get her to stay home.

She brushed her teeth methodically, the product of dentist parents. I knew this. She brushed her teeth on the bottoms back and forth first, making sure each tooth was well-tended. Then, the backs, circularly, as a window washer. The fronts the last of the teeth, up and down to make sure they looked clean and white. Last, the insides of her mouth and her tongue. Today, I fully intended to disrupt that process in the most pleasing way possible.

Quietly, I slipped out of bed, hoping she wouldn't hear my feet against the carpet. I crept up behind her and wrapped one arm around her waist, the other upon her bum. "You look so sexy in my robe," I whispered in her ear. She ignored me.

I moved the hand on her bum to part the robe, placing my hand on her inner thigh. She used her free hand to pull mine away, continuing her ritual brushing. Undeterred, I slipped my hand into through the folds once again, brushing my fingertips along her thigh. Her brushing paused, her eyes closing and her hand slipping out of place at her still open mouth as I inch higher and higher.

Suddenly, she spun in my arms, her arm coming up rapidly. I thought for a brief moment that she was going to slap me. Then, the unexpected happened.

She brushed my chest.

Furiously, her hand moved up and down, side to side, in circles, the many different ways she brushed her own teeth. Her brow was knitted, whether in concentration or ire, I'll never know. She burned her way through a small square on my chest like a woman possessed. I marveled for several seconds that she was so angry that she'd sully her own toothbrush.

And then I began to laugh. A deep, bellowing laugh that I couldn't control. She pulled her hand back just as quickly as she brought it up, wrenching herself out of my arms. "Why the bloody hell are you laughing?" she screeched.

Horrifyingly, the laugh wouldn't stop. "What the—" I paused, taking a deep breath to control myself, an attempt that was unsuccessful. "What the fuck did you think that was going to accomplish?"

She opened her mouth furiously, but nothing emerged to explain herself. It may have been the first time Hermione Granger ever came up empty. I began to laugh again at the unlikelihood of it all. I turned around and went back to bed, stretching out upon it.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked me, back in her place at the side of the bed, hands on her hips, her hair drying in a chaotic imbroglio.

"I'm going back to bed."

"Ronald, you have to go to work!"

"What are you going to do about it?" I asked, my stomach aching. "Brush me to death?"

She huffed unintelligibly, stomping back to the bathroom. When she got back to the mirror, she looked into it and said angrily. "I'm going to have to start over!"

Turning around and finding me unremitting, her eyes trailed down to the red splotch on my chest.

Then she screamed. "And I need a new toothbrush!"

She hurled it at me desperately, hitting me square in the forehead and turned back to the mirror, inspecting her teeth.

I smiled. "This may be a morning for firsts."

She spun around vehemently. "What?" she whispered dangerously.

I began counting off on my fingers. "First marital squabble, first time you've come up without excuses, first time you've ever hit your target—"

"First death by toothbrush?" she asked, fury burning in her eyes.

My eyes widened as she approached me with my toothbrush threateningly, having already tossed hers.

"Listen, Hermione," I started, scrambling across the bed. "Let's be reasonable."

"Reasonable?" she asked, her tone growing higher. "Reasonable?" She came closer, backing me into the corner. Her brow was knitted again, and this time, I'm sure it's anger.

"Hermione, do you even remember why we're fighting?" I asked, not being able to do so myself.

"Yes." she said, pushing me impossibly further into the wall. "And you will go to work today."

"Yes, ma'am," I consented, my voice cracking.

She looked at me menacingly for a moment, her eyes narrowing and then took a step back, going back to the sink. She wet my toothbrush and went back to her mouth. After a few moments, she spotted me at the doorway in the mirror. "I wouldn't have done it anyway," she said, flippantly.

"Not that I'm ungrateful, but why?"

She shrugged. "I needed your toothbrush to finish brushing."

----

Follow-up news story:

"Ronald Weasley Murdered By Wife" by Rita Skeeter.

Ronald Bilius Weasley, hero of the War, was brutally murdered by his wife, Hermione Jean Weasley nee Granger (another War Hero). Her weapon of choice, surprisingly, was not her trusty wand, but her toothbrush. She shoved it down his throat. Harry Potter had only this to say, "Her only regret was what she figured you'd say about it."

This reporter finds that comment both flattering and obviously untrue.

----

A/N: News story by HermyandRon. :D I pound-sign-greater-than you!

A/N 2: On my lessening updates, see my profile.