His kiss was sweet, loving. She could tell he cared so very much about her with that kiss. But… it didn't fill her heart with passion and excitement like his reckless kiss had. Her heart and body hadn't been overtaken with fire as she'd hoped. She could still see clearly, think clearly. But it wasn't a bad kiss. It was normal, average. Ron was normal.
But she knew she couldn't pretend, not after she'd had so much better. But she also knew Harry would take Ron's side if she tried to break up with him. He wouldn't see Ron and her as she did, a childhood crush between two people who had nothing in common but the friendship of another, deemed to end. He saw HerandRon and HimandGinny living the rest of their lives together. It was Fated. So she knew Harry would never forgive her if she broke Ron's heart.
So she didn't. She said she had to go to Australia. To find her parents. And that he wasn't to wait for her, he was to find his own happiness. She left before he could argue. And 6 months later, when she returned, he had. She had pretended it hadn't stung that he had chosen Lavender Brown. But Lavender Brown was long forgotten when she saw him again.
She remembered – she couldn't help but remember – their kiss, the kiss stolen after the Yule Ball, after Ron had made her cry, their secret concealed by the night. That beautiful, beautiful kiss she sometimes waondered if she'd imagined. But she also couldn't stop herself from remembering everything. The way he'd wiped his mouth with his hand afterwards, with that look. That look of horror, before he turned and ran away from her and didn't stop. After that, he didn't look at her. She couldn't stop herself from looking at him.
And so, she pretended it was okay when every night she sat in the same pub, trying to catch his attention, just like one of those girls she'd always prided herself on not being. And he did notice her. How could he not? She was always there afterall, always looking her best. But night after night he took another girl home and she would go back to her empty house or try to find someone, anyone in that dismal place to remind her she was pretty and beautiful and wanted.
But one day all of that changed. He found himself a girlfriend. Greengrass. Not Daphne, but her sister. Astoria, the name she hated more than any other. The girl she hated more than any other, much,much more than any of the girls from the pub. She was sure that Astoria never thought of her but she couldn't stop herself from thinking of that faultless, flawless vision he had chosen. Never before had she thought of herself as a Mudblood until she saw him with Astoria Greengrass, but now she couldn't think of herself as anything else.
So she did something she never thought she'd do. She went back to Ron. Of course, he was still with Lavender but it didn't take long. Far less long than it should have. Three weeks of pouty lips and fluttering eyelashes and tight clothes. And so when all those years later at Kings Cross when she saw him again, she couldn't help herself from wondering what Rose and Hugo would have been like had they been his. And, when she returned home, she couldn't quite stop herself from picking up a piece of parchment and addressing it to Malfoy Manor.