Everything is J.K Rowling's. I am just borrowing her characters for a brief moment.
Hermione finally left the empty classroom—hoping it had been long enough for the common room to have emptied out, and she could sneak through and just go to bed. She was probably the only Gryffindor in the castle who felt miserable, but no matter how happy she was about the Quidditch match, it couldn't make the image of him with her go away. Its not like she hated Lavender—honestly for being in the same house and sharing a dormitory for five years they didn't really talk all that much, but now…well now everything was different.
She mumbled the password to the Fat Lady, who was obviously still enjoying the Quidditch results—there were empty butterbeer bottles all over the floor of her portrait. "En-hic-ter…but…hic…cheer up! Didn't you hear we won the…hic…game!?" Hermione ignored her and climbed through the portrait hole. Luckily, the after effects of the party were the only thing left in the common room. It seemed everyone had gone to bed—or at least moved the parties upstairs—while leaving streamers, empty bottles of butterbeer, and chocolate frog wrappers to be dealt with in the morning, or by the house elves later tonight. Hermione climbed the stairs up to the girls' dormitory but when she got to the door, Lavender's voice, laced with giggles, came through the door, "Ron is soooooo great! He's the best Quidditch player I've ever seen, and Quidditch isn't the only he's…" Hermione sped back downstairs, not wanting to hear the rest of the conversation, even though she'd heard more than she ever wanted to. She flung herself down on the couch in front of the fire, wishing she wasn't going to cry again, this wasn't worth it…this was stupid..its just Ron. "Get a grip," she forced herself to say it out loud, but it didn't help; it just made her cry more.
Maybe this was how he flet when she was with Viktor, but then again he probably didn't even think about it. He obviously didn't think it was a big deal to parade around with Lavender so its not like he thought about how she might feel. How could he not realize she like him? That she'd liked him since they were all of eleven years old? Sure it was different then, he was just the cute boy who couldn't pronounce his spells then saved her from a mountain troll. But now…she sighed…now things were completely different. Now he was one of her best friends, he was the person she spent the most time with, other than Harry. She had confuded another student just so he could play Quidditch for goodness' sake, and yet here she sat. She didn't want to talk to Harry about it—even though he knew—he'd seen her throw canaries at Ron's head earlier, plus he'd known them both for five years, so he definitely knew. She hated it though, when they put her in the in the middle of their fights, and she didn't want to do the same thing. She debated talking to Ginny, but Ron was her brother and she'd just started this thing with Harry, she didn't want to bother her. She didn't really have a choice though because just as she was thinking about Ginny, she came storming down the stairs, saw Hermione and declared, "My brother is a stupid git!! And his giiiiiiiirllllfriend is worse! I go down to your dorm to ask her to be quiet because we can hear everything she's saying and she kicks me out and tells me to loosen up!"
Hermione almost laughed at how fired up Ginny got when she was angry, but couldn't quite bring herself out of her bad mood. Ginny sat down next to her on couch, still fuming, "And you—you threw canaries at them?! Way to go! Finally someone made them feel like the idiots they are!"
"How'd you know about that?" Hermione looked at Ginny confused.
Ginny went red, realizing that she'd said too much and that Hermione had been crying, "Oh…well…that's why I wanted to make her shut up. Um…she was talking about you and I couldn't sleep listening to that. That's why I came down here, I was hoping to sleep on the couch for awhile, I'm exhausted from the game. I don't have to guess why you're down here, if I couldn't sleep I can't imagine how you'd feel actually in there with them."
"Yeah—I uh heard more than I wanted to."
"I'm sorry. Ron's an idiot and he knows he's an idiot, which kind of makes it worse."
"What do you mean he knows he's an idiot?" It was late and Hermione was too tired and upset to think clearly.
"Oh come one Hermione! He's like you since he came home after your first year here. I don't even think he realized how much he talked about you—I mean he talked about Harry too, but still. You're the first person who actually got him to write letters over the summer, on top of the fact that he now hates his favorite Quidditch player, all because you dated him."
Hermione smiled a bit but couldn't help protesting, "Still he's parading around the castle stuck to Lavender. They're like magnets, and he won't even hug me…"
"He's a boy, Hermione. Look at Harry. He's known I've like him for five years, and it wasn't until I started dating Dean that he actually thought about it, or even noticed."
Hermione sighed, "I just feel like this is impossible. Everything would've been different if he'd asked me to the Yule Ball two years ago, but now it's like there's no chance. He'll never admit he likes me, and I don't even think he gets that I like him—all we do is fight—we barely talk anymore. We don't even know how to be friends right now, let alone anything else—I mean could you imagine us talking about this?"
"Wellll, who says you have to talk?" Ginny couldn't help laughing thinking about how she'd dealt with Harry earlier.
Hermione laughed—"True…but I don't really see Lavender appreciating your…tactics."
They both laughed. Hermione sighed, "Boys."
