Disclaimer: do not own Harry Potter
Written for: LJ com writerverse
Prompt: whisper, 200+ words
He loves her more than you.
It's a whisper, an echo, and while the words are not yours the voice is. You can remember when they first came into existence, circa young-Voldermort, and you counter with it's not true as you always do. There's a lie somewhere, but you're desperate and quick to dismiss everything from that year. Including this. (Especially this.) That such doubt has continued on through the years only testifies to evil genius and masterful manipulation.
He loves her more than you.
He, of course, is Harry; she is Hermione. You watch them interact.
They touch as you remember, sure and carefree. Hand to hand and hip to hip. In the lag-time between greeting and parting they settle against one another like two heavy objects on a pillow: inevitable, absolute. When they are together there is no room for you, not in the spaces between them anyway. You are left to linger on the edges, as if your gravity is less than their shared history.
It's not. It's not, it's not it'snotNO!
He loves her more than you.
And it's not true, it can't be. Because he is yours. Because she is someone else's. Because they do nothing -nothing!- to make you feel as if your place beside him is less. She is not more. How can she be? She is the one who leaves. It is you he comes home to. That too is absolute.
So you watch them interact. Closely. And you hate them both, really, but you love them more.
It's why you stay.