Charms Practice

"I'm sick of Ron at the moment, I don't know what I'm supposed to have done..." HBP, Chapter 14

After all these years, all the battles we've faced together, after he's supported me against the Slytherins, when his smile has filled me until I could sing, after I've felt so important to him, after the Ministry, when he scared me to death with those brains wrapped around him, the stinging memories... now all I can remember is third year, when he didn't believe me that Crookshanks hadn't eaten Scabbers—what kind of a world would we be in now if Crookshanks had eaten him?—and his stupid childish strop at the Yule Ball, when I was finally with someone who treated me like a girl, and he couldn't handle it...

After all that time, why… why would he be so angry with me, why would he pay me back for something I didn't even do! by letting that—bimbo—wrap herself around him. Like the brains did. Just as poisonous. For me.

Why did he turn on me? Why did he get so angry about the Yule Ball? Why didn't he ask me first? Was he really so clueless that he couldn't have thought of asking me, even for a moment? Yes, he really was. What an arse. He's so freaking childish, I don't know why I…

Why I… let him bother me. It would be so much easier to … whatever, with Harry. Simple, uncomplicated Harry, too self-involved to notice anything but Ginny, and only because she's always been there. Cho was just a joke. Someone had to kiss him his first time. Ginny's going to have a lot more experience than him if he doesn't watch it.

What if I kissed Harry? That would pay him back—but I can't, I just can't. It's too weird. Oh god, why do I feel like this about someone so dense he doesn't even know when I'm right in front of him all the time?

And then those hours at the Yule Ball. I was going to be so happy there; I'd convinced myself he didn't see me that way and that was that, there was Viktor, and he saw me as something more than just a sidekick, just a library to sort out all his little problems. Viktor was smart, he read the same books as me, he taught me things… and yes, he was a great kisser. He was also a good guy, lest we forget. He was a flipping international Quidditch player, for heaven's sake, but he had no airs and graces at all. He knew Karkaroff had probably fiddled the Goblet to get his name out of it, but he wanted everyone to know he was going to win on his own merits. Oh, hell, it would have be so much easier to stay with him. I could have floated through these next three years, seen him in the holidays, joined him after seventh year. Who knows, we could have been great together. But no, I have to sit here with six canaries over my head, with a big hole in my chest for a giraffe of a ginger with no personal skills whatsoever.

You want to know the truth, Ron? It would have been very very easy to have sex with Viktor. Do you know how strong he was? The muscles on his arms alone made my knees weak, and you should have seen his abs. And he knew what he was doing. Honestly, we did everything but. Well I wanted to learn, you see. I told Harry we used to sit in the library while Viktor watched me study, but what I didn't say—because it's none of Harry's or your business—is that afterwards we had a spot in the trees next to the quidditch pitch. Or behind that trick tapestry, if we got a spare second. And sometimes he made me feel so… bloody womanly, and I know I was only fifteen but I heard your damn Lavender had already been with half the Gryffindor sixth form by then. But stupid, stupid, romantic fool me, 'saving myself.' Will you, I wonder? I could bet a thousand Galleons you won't. Oh I've been such an idiot.

Now I have to watch you and her doing what you and I should have been doing ever since… well, since the Yule Ball, if you hadn't been such a moron. And your pathetic friends cheering you on, and Harry looking at you all indulgent, as if he didn't have any idea… and I know he does because he has at least got the capacity to notice what other people are feeling.

Maybe I could just keep writing to Viktor. Maybe I could fly out there at Christmas and give him what he wanted two years ago. God, I was so naïve.

Maybe I could… show you that I've moved on too. Speaking of morons… does Cormac McLaggen have a girlfriend at the moment?