A/N This is for Unsuspected's forum, Prompts Both Plain and Perfect.
He loved her. He was sure of it, though he was only sixteen, and she was just fifteen. People could say that teenagers couldn't truly feel love, but those had never met Ginny Weasley.
She was perfection. She had a temper, sure, and she could be cruel. Dean knew that she had her faults, theoretically. But looking at her, with her red hair and bright eyes; all that drifted away. She was beautiful, she was fantastic, and she was—
Entirely uninterested. Dean didn't kid himself that she at one point loved him back, that the empty kisses they exchanged meant anything to her. She had been biding her time, having some fun until her hero came for her at last.
But how can you hate Harry Potter? No one with a soul could look at him, the life that he brought to the Wizarding World, the life that he had to lead, the life that could have been his if only his parents had survived, no one could see that and loathe him. But how Dean wished he could, wished that Harry was horrible, and that Ginny was still in his arms.
But Harry wasn't horrible, he was perfection; and so was Ginny. They were perfect for each other, and everyone forgot Dean, Dean the artist, Dean the unextraordinary compared to Brilliant Harry, Sidekick Ron, Brave Neville, Funny Seamus.
So he watched them, perfection, as they danced in what they thought an empty corridor, laughing when one of them messed up, mocking him unknowingly. It was a private moment, a glimpse into the perfection he would never know, but he watched anyway as the girl of his dreams danced with someone who deserved her so much more.
Dean loved her, but he wished he didn't.