Written for The Golden Snitch - Prompt of the Day: (emotion) doubt
I do not own Harry Potter, and now you may enjoy
Not including title/ author's note, this is 517 words long.
Words, After All, Are Just Words
Did she love him?
Well, sometimes, he actually thought it might be possible that she might. Sometimes, he could convince himself that she did, when she gave him that fond smile of hers while shaking her head at whatever he'd done this time. When he was alone and away from her, he could never quite understand what she loved about him. He was Ron Weasley, always the second best, the one who is forgotten in favor of others. She was Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age. She was a woman who would change the world. He had no doubt that she would never be forgotten. But he was Ron Weasley- he was easily forgettable. She deserved another, someone who would shine as brightly as she did. Not Ron Weasley.
Maybe a better question would be this: should she love him? He had nothing to give her that couldn't be given by another who was more powerful, more wealthy, more intelligent. By that logic, he did not benefit her in the slightest, and she would be better off giving her love to someone else, someone better.
Yet, here he was, wondering if the words she'd said as she left his house really meant a thing. Words, after all, were just words. Meaningless.
To her, words were everything. She read them constantly, and she could write them effortlessly. He didn't have her way with words. He'd been staring at a piece of blank parchment with a quill gone dry hovering over it, unmoving, for the better half of an hour, as he was trying to find words to explain what he was thinking, what he was feeling. Blankness stared back at him, like some sort of reminder.
The reminder consisted of the two main truths of his life: He was Ron Weasley, the easily forgotten Weasley. And words meant nothing.
He supposed that was another mark against him in the pointless dream he had of one day being deserving of the love of someone like Hermione Granger. She should love someone who shared her passion for words. She should love someone who believed in words like she did. He couldn't, no matter how much he wanted to find what she found so enthralling behind them, no matter how much he wanted to believe words had real meaning. He wanted to try, and to succeed in this endeavor- but he failed every time.
There was another truth- Ron Weasley, the failure of a Weasley.
I love you, Ron Weasley- words, meaningless words, that he wanted to believe in more than anything he'd ever wanted, but he couldn't. He couldn't help doubting words. Those words couldn't mean a thing, especially not when they were directed at Ronald Weasley, the forgotten, the failure. All of these F's he used to describe himself. Failure, forgotten, faulty, faded, faithless, feeble.
It was his lot in life to remain alone in the background, watching his family and his friends become great, and gain all of the things he wanted to have but couldn't.
He was Ron Weasley, second best. And words were just words.