A/N: This is written for Aiiimy's Love Triangle Challenge on HPFC. I asked for Harry, she told me to make a triangle with Ginny and Draco. At first I had a few humorous ideas, but this came to me during a conversation with my best friend and I couldn't wait to get it down.
I don't own Harry Potter. Thank JKR for creating the wonderful world of HP and leaving many of us with much thinner wallets for it.
Enjoy, and please review.
As the old saying goes 'if you love something set it free; if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was'.
What a gigantic load of bollocks.
I let her go. I did it to protect her. It was the least I could do to keep the target off her back. I let her go and ran off to do my mission, to save the wizarding world, to kill Voldemort. All those months on the run I fantasized about holding her, kissing her, showing her the love I had been holding back. Right after the war we kept our distance for a while. Too many people had died. I had to get used to the idea of not having Voldemort constantly trying to kill me. I needed to get my two best mates back to where we were before our forced 24/7 contact. I thought she would wait. We were meant to be.
Everything calmed. The dead were buried. Ron, Hermione, and I were closer than we had ever been (though Hermione was glad someone else was catching the insults for poor cooking). I was a free man. And I finally went back to her.
I went to her one night. She was waiting in the garden, looking like an angel, red hair shining in the moonlight. It was perfect. I would profess my love, confess everything down to watching her dot on the Marauder's Map. In my mind she would smile, we would hug, we would kiss, and everything would be right in the universe.
In reality she looked uncomfortable being alone with me. When I told her everything she looked like she wanted to bolt. The pit in my stomach grew until she told me that she had thought I wasn't interested anymore. That she had waited patiently the whole time I was off hunting Horcruxes, and had expected me to come running into her arms the moment everything was over. When I hadn't she had realized that her waiting would be in vain. So when someone else had asked her out she had accepted. She was waiting in the garden not for me, not to be alone in her thoughts, but to be with him.
He arrived then, and I had never seen someone so hideous and handsome at the same time. His smile was not the smirk I knew so well, that I had seen so many times, but somewhat apologetic. All those years with his father had taught him to read people, to analyze and use their weaknesses. He had analyzed my weakness, the redhead who was flitting excitedly to his side, but he wouldn't use it against me. Never again. I watched them disappear and took her place on the bench, eyes looking in front of me, but not seeing. They never saw. Not until it was too late.
I held out the slightest hope. They were so wrong for each other. The daughter of the biggest Blood-Traitor family and the Slytherin Prince with the Dark Mark still on his arm. It's just a phase, I would tell myself. He's an expert at charming people. He's used to getting what he wants. She'll get tired of it soon.
But she didn't, and here I sit, looking down from Ron's bedroom on the sunny grounds of the Burrow's lawn, watching the red-haired vision in white walking towards the mass of people sitting under the canopy. And there was her white-blonde almost-husband standing, impeccably dressed in the finest clothes, smiling as his bride moved across the lawn to him. My heart broke a little more as she reached him, her eyes staring up at him in deep love. I couldn't bring myself to be down there with everyone else who was celebrating the love and happiness of the day.
I loved something. And I let it go. And it was the stupidest mistake of my life. If you love something, hold it tight, and make sure it knows how much you love it so you never have to let it go.