Sidekick

by She's a Star

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.

A/N: Harry and Hermione are not going to end up together. Noooo way in H-E-double hockey sticks. But I needed to pretend they were for the purpose of this story, 'kaisies? All righty then.

R/H all the way.

~*~

Why does this have to bloody happen?

Suspect I should have seen it coming. Maybe in the back of my mind I did, but tried to ignore it.

Well, I can't ignore it much now, can I?

Not when my two best bloody friends are bloody snogging right down in the bloody common room for everyone to bloody see.

I'm such a git. I mean, I should have known...the hero always gets the girl, right??

But...I thought it would be different with Hermione. She's smart-she doesn't just go along with whatever the storybooks say. She's too good for that.

Or I thought so, anyway.

And now the worst bloody part is I'm going to have to keep acting the way I always do. Support my best friend the Boy Who Lived in everything that he does, make the sarcastic wisecracks at exactly the right time so that Harry will smirk and Hermione will chide.

They think they've got me trained, I suppose. Think that they can go off falling in love with each other and I won't even care at all.

Well, it's bloody hard not to bloody care when I've been in bloody love with Hermione since fourth bloody year.

I don't know why the bloody hell I thought she liked me too. Must have been all of stupid Ginny's pesterings: "Ron, she really likes you! Wake up, you dumb prat! Why can't you realize it?" "Ron, it's obvious the two of you are meant to be together! Face it!"

Right, Ginny. Look how bloody splendidly things go when I do face it. Bloody spectacular.

In the seven years we've been friends, Harry and I have only gotten into one fight. One bloody fight. Fourth year.

Since then, I just decided not to. I could tell Hermione thought it was because I realized I was so much more than just the sidekick, and Harry's too dense to even consider that that's what I am. But really, I just figured, "Why try to fight it? I'll always be Ron Weasley, the loyal wisecracking sidekick. Not good enough for anything else."

I could turn him over to You-Know-Who if I wanted to. He has spies everywhere; all I have to do is find one of them, let a little information spill, and there's my revenge for stealing the girl I love.

I really want to do it right now; just go out and scream at the top of my lungs, "YOU-KNOW-WHO, I CAN GIVE YOU ALL THE INFORMATION YOU WANT ABOUT HARRY POTTER! JUST MAKE SURE HIS DEATH IS SLOW AND EXCRUCIATING, WHY DON'T YOU???"

He's always stolen everything from me. I've never once felt what it was like to have the spotlight on me, never once. Now, I'm not greedy, don't think I'd do very well with lots of attention, but I hate that I've just faded into the background. I'm not even Ron Weasley anymore. I'm just Harry Potter's Best Friend.

Hermione and I used to share that title.

Now she'll be promoted to Harry Potter's Girlfriend, I suspect.

That's just great, you know. The girl who was my first kiss, my date to the last two Yule Balls, is going to end up with Harry in the end.

More than anything I want to see him writhe in pain right now, want to see him pay.

I have the power to do that.

But I know already that I won't, that I never could.

I'm not like others.

I'm not going to repeat the past.

I'm not some dirty rat.