A seven-shot of Ron having the emotional range of a teaspoon and Hermione having exponentially more.
Wingardium Leviosa
She sits back down in her desk at the end of the lesson, pleased with herself for having been the first to levitate the feather. She's always been top of the class back home, so she expected nothing less. If anything, if she hadn't shown them all what she was capable of, she suspected that life here at the castle would be miserable. It's lonely enough already, falling asleep behind the heavy scarlet curtain, listening to her dorm mates giggle and whisper about the day. Eating at the end of the long wooden table,hearing mindless chatter between friends and siblings as she props up her book up on the pumpkin juice jug. Sitting in the very front of the class, where she can pretend that it's just her and the teacher and her textbook and that learning really is the most important thing in life. She can't possibly think how much worse it would be if she had terrible marks. Her grades are like her friends. She can fish her newest piece of homework out of her bag when she's feeling especially lonely, late at night or in between classes or at mealtimes, and just stare at that little 100% written in red ink that tells her that she's done well, that she's worth something,that it doesn't matter that she's only staring at a piece of parchment, because that little red mark is a reflection of what someone thought of her work.
She puffs out a little sigh and gather up her things, stuffing them into her bag. She hates the sight of everything misplaced in a jumble inside the fabric depths, but there's plenty of time to organize it in the next class. Standing up rather abruptly, she joins the end of the queue to exit the class, ending up behind that ebony-haired boy, Harry Potter, and his ginger friend Ron Weasley. She finds the pair of them rather unsavoury, with their bouts of rule-breaking; first the flying lesson, then the midnight escapade, then the broomstick. The nighttime outing particularly terrified her; if they had been caught, she would have been expelled, and she can't imagine how disappointed she or her parents would be. Although Harry seems alright for the most part, aside from his disregard for rules, it's his friend that particularly incenses her. He's quite rude to her, which hurts her feelings quite a bit. She always has to bite her tongue to avoid saying inflammatory things around him, because then he would just pick on her more, but somehow her tongue never co-operates. As she ruffles around in her bag to restore some sort of order, following the crowd that's filtering out the door and pushing its way into the crowded corridor, she catches the tail end of their conversation.
"...no wonder she hasn't got any friends. She's a nightmare, honestly."
Her eyes widen, and she's surprised that the surrounding people can't hear the snap of her heart. Her eyes prickle, and her throat burns, and two tears escape from her brimming eyes without her permission. Without pausing for thought, she pushes her way past the pair of them, aiming for the toilets, where she can be left alone.
Alone.
Breaking into a run, she crashes into people going perpendicular to her direction, ignoring their angry yells, until she slams into the door. Pushing the heavy wood back, she slips in as quietly as she can and walks blindly to the last stall, her eyes clouded with tears. Once there, she locks the door and sits down on the closed toilet lid, letting her tears stream down her face. A sob escapes, then another, until she's blubbering and can't stop.
It's not as if she doesn't know that she's friendless. She knows perfectly well, thank you very much. But it's one thing to have that knowledge for yourself and come to terms with it, and entirely another to have someone say it- and not even to her face, but behind her back. And maybe it hurts more because it came from Ronald Weasley, who doesn't seem the type to lie to say nasty things. Which means that he really believed what he said, and that she really is a nightmare. Maybe it hurts more because she honestly tried to make friends with both of them on the train ride to school, but she doesn't really know how to make friends and ruined everything by being a bossy know-it-all and telling him that he had dirt on his nose. Maybe it hurts more because she was only trying to help him do the charm properly, but ended up showing him up. She just wishes that she was more than intelligent. She wishes that she was funny, and kind, and pretty, and had friends. Because even though she tries to tell herself differently, she knows in her heart that she doesn't want to be alone.
It's short. Very.
But so am I.