Disclaimer: My writing cannot compare with the mind-blowing talent of JK Rowling and therefore it should be obvious that I own nothing.
AN: It is supposed to take place somewhere before the end of DH.
She had often wondered what love felt like – since she wasn't sure she'd ever experienced it, it was a difficult thing to ponder.
Could it be the chill that slid up her spine (that wasn't entirely unpleasant) when Viktor had first approached her in the library that day? Could it be the fluttering anxiety that squirmed in her stomach (noticeably more unpleasant) when she asked Cormac to Slughorn's party? Could it be the first time she'd laid eyes on Ron, trying to suppress her laughter at the utterly adorable smudge of dirt on his nose? The latter certainly brought the biggest smile to her face when she thought back on those times.
But love didn't rely on her and her feelings alone. She thought it odd that she had never seen any of Viktor's fans as rivals. Legions of girls fawned over him at matches, he told her so in his letters. Similarly, Cormac was the object of many affections at Hogwarts, and, to be frank, Hermione was rather grateful for the opportunity to slip under the radar and let him forget about her. But when it came to Ron, plain old Ron who had struggled so long to find a date for the Yule Ball, who was teased mercilessly by Ginny for his lack of female attention, who finally hooked up with that trout Lavender Brown…well, that was certainly a time when she'd had to exercise extraordinary self-control not to pick up her wand and hex everything in sight.
Love – or her suspicions of what it actually was – was not always the beautiful, sparkling, accompanied-by-a-Hallelujah-chorus affair that books and the media made it out to be. It didn't feel that way when Viktor had kissed her before the ball. Well…that was nice, but it was sort of awkward, and she knew instantly that she didn't feel the same way he did. But she had been younger then, and not too worried about it overall. And when Cormac had suctioned her face under the mistletoe at Slughorn's, it was far from a perfect kiss – it spoke volumes about his personality: arrogant, possessive, and disturbingly melodramatic. But Ron, the other boy in this trifecta, the one she'd known the longest, fought with the most, and been strangely, unexplainably attracted to, she had never kissed. No, her most intimate moment with him had also been one of the worst in her life. She could remember the sound of his tears. Quiet and dignified and gentle. She had put her arms around him, sure that he would shrug her off, but he hadn't; instead, he had buried his face in her shoulder and cried harder and she understood that he wasn't interested in being strong right now. He let her wipe his face, her thumbs brushing away his tears and he looked straight at her, still crying, and it was all she could do not to look away from him. But she held the eye contact, and though she found herself crying too, she grabbed his face and told him the same thing over and over. "He will be okay. He will be okay."
AN: That last line could refer to a number of different male characters, and I have the intended in my head, but make of it what you will…and tell me in your review?