Lavender was sixteen when she began dating Ron Weasley, and she'd honestly thought it was never going to happen. She knew how the other students at Hogwarts saw her: the shrill one who didn't know how to shut up. The gullible one, who fell for the tricks and trappings of Divination when fortune-telling was so passé. The annoying one. The dumb one. The girly one. Even the professors thought so; they might not say it, but she felt the slings and arrows of every wrong answer, every sigh that she just knew was directed at her, every grade that she couldn't drag higher than "Acceptable" no matter how much time and effort she put in.

She was worthless.

With Ron, however, she became something else. Pretty, mostly. Desirable. A hanger-on of the "Golden Trio," as some of the more fawning students called Harry and his best friends. Special, instead of another dull Gryffindor with dull hair and dull eyes and a dull mind.

And . . . the "other woman."

"Yeah, right," she snorted, and then covered her mouth. Did she really say that out loud? Did anyone hear her? No one was looking at her, everyone else in the library buried nose-deep in musty textbooks, but it was several minutes before she could recover from her mortification enough to return to her studies. Her desperate, scrabbling attempts to finally get an O in something other than Divination, which other students thought was useless and stupid anyway, so getting good grades in that class only meant you were extra-stupid, right?

That was what Hermione Granger thought, anyway. And as much as she hated to admit it, in Lavender's mind, Hermione was the standard-bearer for all things smart and level-headed. The opposite of herself, in other words, and the girl she was "othering" by her mere presence.

"Other woman." It conjured up images so unlike herself: a sultry temptress with flowing black locks and bright red lipstick, who sauntered around in slinky dresses and brought men to their knees while frumpy-but-more-worthy wives and girlfriends watched in impotent rage.

Everyone thought that Hermione deserved Ron more than she did. After all, she was the one who'd been friends with him since their first year, who'd helped save Hogwarts countless times at Harry's side, and who glittered with that "goldenness" that had earned the trio their nickname. It was almost a foregone conclusion that eventually Hermione would overthrow her and take her rightful place as the True Girlfriend.

Parvati said she was overreacting—Parvati said that a lot—but that was easy to say from the outside, when you didn't have to worry that the whispering students were talking about you, when you didn't feel like an outsider just by your proximity to the most talked-about students in school. Parvati was her best friend and always would be, but she could never understand how Lavender felt.

Ugh. She wasn't getting anywhere with studying, not with all these thoughts swirling around in her head. She slammed the book shut and rested her chin in her hand. Just a short people-watching break, she told herself. Sure, there wasn't much to look at but a bunch of kids reading, but such things always become more interesting when trying to avoid homework. Maybe someone would start practicing spells; that was always good entertainment.

Her eyes landed on Ron the second he walked in, flanked by Harry and Hermoine. Without consciously ordering them to, her hands quickly combed through her dirty-blonde curls, her tongue snaked out to moisten her lips, and her spine straightened to best display her chest. Pretend to read, she told herself, wishing she hadn't closed her book and imagining the picture she could've made, her neck curving gracefully over the pages, her lip captive between her teeth as though in deep concentration.

But in the end, as she did every time, Lavender couldn't run the risk of his not noticing her. "Ron!" she exclaimed too loud, cutting through the sepulchral silence. A few students looked up; one or two winced, and she wondered if her voice was really that shrill. Speak lower, dummy! And for Merlin's sake, don't wave like that! It makes you look desperate.

But she was desperate. That was the problem.

Ron's eyes met hers reluctantly. He muttered something to the others and branched off, shuffling to her table with his hands in his pockets and his gaze on the floor. "Hi, Lav," he said, plopping into a chair and shifting his focus from his shoes to the book she'd been reading. "Doing homework?"

He used to have this giant, dopey grin whenever he saw her, his ears turning as red as if they'd been boiled. He used to hurry with long, loping strides, giving her a slightly-messy snog that was all chapped lips and probing, inexpert tongue. But things couldn't always stay the same, she knew, and passionate romance always had to fade to something more comfortable. It was a natural enough progression, she supposed.

She came back from her thoughts to find herself talking—and from the somewhat-glazed expression on his face, not about anything interesting. Her face heating up, she trailed off, tucking her hair behind one ear and biting her lip. "Soooo, you guys doing anything fun?"

He shrugged. "Just homework. In fact, I should probably get back . . ."

"Oh! Of course."

He clambered to his feet, his long limbs reminding her of a spider. "We'll, er, hang out later, right?" he mumbled, his eyes darting to her face and down to her chest, his ears turning pink.

"Sure, Won-won!" she said, loud enough for the rest of the library to hear and ignoring his wince; she knew he hated that nickname, but she couldn't help herself. He was hers, and she wanted everyone to know it.

With a sigh, she cracked open her textbook, reaching into her bag and grabbing a slimmer volume. Making sure to keep the cover from view, she slipped it into the larger book and held both up to her face until only her eyes were visible.

"'You don't love him, do you Serena?' Nicholas asked her boldly. His purple eyes gleamed in the dim light like mini-suns, glowing stars she revolved around.

"'No! I do!' she exclaimed, throwing her long blood-red hair back in defiance. But she wasn't sure . . . was she? If she loved Michael, why did she dream of this rogue pirate's silky raven hair and violet orbs? Why did his touch thrill her so?

"Without another word, she Apparated out of the stable, her heart pounding and her emerald eyes filled with tears."

Parvati thought Lavender's choice of literature was a little silly, but she didn't understand. The sweeping rush of forbidden love, the melodrama brought on by different social situations or an evil plot or a prior love interest (who would be neatly disposed of by the first or second sex scene), the toe-curling erotica she wasn't experienced enough to know were unrealistic . . . It was a world in which everyone was beautiful and quick-witted and the lovers always rode, sailed, or flew off into the sunset with the wind in their hair and their arms wrapped around one another.

A much better world than the real one, if you asked her.

But lately she hadn't found herself enjoying Love's Stormy Seas or any of the other books nestled at the bottom of her underwear drawer. She couldn't help but feel bad for the disposable love interest, who didn't do anything wrong but date the wrong person at the wrong time, but who had to be a villain because he—it was almost always a he—stood in the way of true love. It wasn't his fault, after all. How could Michael know that the beautiful redhead was destined to marry a pirate? He deserved true love too, didn't he?

But then again, if he'd just been more passionate, more courageous, maybe he could have altered destiny. A duke could be just as romantic as a pirate, if only he'd tried harder. A few bouquets of flowers, maybe a duel, and things could've gone differently.

You had to fight if you didn't want to be a Disposable Love Interest.