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She hated seeing him with her. He didn't know how she felt, how could he, she had never told a living soul but that didn't change the fact that she loved him and couldn't bear to see him with her.

She hated her. It wasn't the way that she said his name, or how she gossiped continuously, or how she couldn't hold of proper conversation with him, or that she worshiped Trelawney in their third year, believing everything she said. No, it was that she had him. That she could kiss him, hug him, touch him and she couldn't.

How could he not realise that her heart smashed into little pieces every time she saw them together. Harry knew. She saw him watching her with sad eyes. He had felt this pain, he knew what it was like, she saw it in his eyes every time he looked at Ginny. He understood how much it hurt her.

It wasn't just that she wanted Ron back as a friend. She wanted to have him wrap her arms around her, to tell her that she loved him and to kiss her in the hallway between classes, behind teachers backs. She wanted to sit with his arms around her, as Harry and them talked, did homework, or she sat in his arms reading, feeling his heart beat against her back, his breath on her face.

Shut up. She told herself. She couldn't think this, she just couldn't. It would make it harder than it already was, if that was indeed possible. She had never experienced a pain worse than this. She lay awake at night hearing Lavender breathing softly in her sleep, and every cell of her body was jealous, jealous that she was Ron's girlfriend. That she wasn't. It made her sick to her stomach, every time she looked over at him, which was more than she was willing to admit.

She wanted him. That was all she wanted. Nothing else, just him, the one thing she couldn't have. Was the one thing she wanted with all her heart. She sat there, staring out into space, her fork hanging limp in her hand, thinking. Thinking about what would have happened if she had told him how she felt, before he had kissed her. Would it be her that he kissed goodnight? That told her that he loved her every time he saw her? Granted he did neither to Lavender, but maybe, because he didn't love her.

Not yet. A small voice sounded in her head. Would he one day? Or was he incapable of loving her simply because he was in love with another? Someone he had been friends with for years? Someone with brown frizzy hair?

Not likely. Another voice whispered. One could only hope and that was what she decided to do. She tried ignoring her feelings, blocking them out, but that failed miserably, she had to accept them. Now she had chosen the tactic to pretend he was secretly in love with her, not Lavender. Although this argument faded a tiny bit more each time she saw him stick his tongue down her throat.

"Hermione?" A faint voice came from far away.

Pulled out of her thoughts, her eyes came back into focus to see Ron hovering inches from her face wearing a curious expression. He was close enough to kiss. She could just lean a little bit closer, and he would know. She would kiss him and everything would be better.

But she wasn't that girl. She wasn't the girl to kiss someone who had a girlfriend. She wasn't the girl who confessed her love, put herself on the line. She wasn't the girl who got the guy, she just wasn't.

"Yeah?" Hermione said, trying hard not to reach out and kiss him, trying hard not to lose herself in his beautiful blue eyes.

"You dropped this." Ron said, extending his hand out, a piece of parchment with her writing slanting over it.

"Thanks." Hermione said, taking it from his hand, their fingers brushing, sending a bolt of electricity through her. Smiling shakily at Ron, she lowered her eyes to the parchment, her food lying forgotten on her plate beneath her trembling hand, holding the parchment.

Inside she was fighting a battle, part of her desperate to yell his name, or to run after him, the other part telling her to stay seated and suck it up. Her eyes followed Ron as he walked away, slowly at first then sauntered off out of the Great Hall, without looking behind him.

Sighing, she folded the parchment and stuffed it into her bag, before rising from the table, dropping her fork on her half-eaten lunch and slowly walking out of the Great Hall, feeling worse than ever. His touch giving her a moment of exhilaration but now all she was left with was a longing for more.

Little did she know that he felt the exact same way. He wanted her more than anything. But he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would never feel the same way. He loved her, but she would never love him. He would always be the boy with dirt on his nose, the boy who wasn't able to make a feather fly.

She would never see him as someone who she could kiss, hug, or date. He would always be that little boy to her, who puked up slugs for hours after he used his broken wand, or the boy who wore his mother's maroon jumpers. And that broke his heart.

Both of them were left with a deep longing, a throbbing pain in their heart. Neither of them knew that the other felt the same way and it would take them another year to figure that one out. By which time the rest of the world would be a different place entirely.

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