            "None of that, now," he soothed, brushing the hair from her temple. "Hurting you was unforgivable. Perhaps not to you, my dear Hermione, but it was to me. And I had never felt that before. Like the pain of hurting you would consume my very being. What’s more," he continued, reaching between them to tip up her chin with a finger. His face was watery, warped. Hermione blinked rapidly, trying to clear the tears. To see his beautiful face again. "I knew that if Black were to die, and I were to live, I could never survive seeing you suffer. To watch you wither away under the agony of the broken marriage bond."