Author's Note: This came to me in a storm of plot bunnies, and I was carried away. Just a pointless sort of angsty drabble (what is drabble, anyway?).
Disclaimer: Oh yes, I've also written Harry Potter and the Pillar of Storgé and Harry Potter and the Toenail of Ickilbogg. Massive books. Yeah, right.
They sit in the window seat, rowing with one another. Nobody takes any notice. They're used to these fights.
"I think you're jealous of me, and just because you got your last kiss two bloody years ago, Hermione, doesn't mean we're all waiting around to…"
"It's all a bit of sport to you, isn't it? Just girls, girls you can kiss and then they don't mean anything!"
"Oh, so I kissed a girl! So what! It was my first kiss! Don't tell me you refused to kiss him when he asked! Oh, or did you ask him to snog you?"
"At least I didn't throw away my first kiss on someone who I didn't even care –" Hermione trailed off. Don't tell him anything, Hermione, it means nothing to him in the morning.
"Oh, so you care about him now, do you? You and your famous Quidditch player, he's so wonderful, he's everything you always wanted, oh, nobody can compete with Vicky, can they!"
"Do you want to compete with him? You compete with everyone you know, Ron, I suppose I'm not surprised," Hermione laughed mirthlessly. But at the sight of the look on Ron's face, the false laughter stopped.
Ron advanced on her and gripped her by the forearms. "Ouch, Ron, that hurts, let go!" Hermione snapped.
"Maybe it's true that I compete," said Ron, a completely new expression taking root in his face, of which Hermione could only find one descriptive word for: resignation. "Maybe that is true. But I'm not competing with Vicky because he's slightly better than me at Quidditch, or because he's famous and all I am is the youngest Weasley son. I'm competing with him for reasons you can't even begin to understand, because I don't really understand them myself. I didn't. But it was never worth it anyway, was it?" With a snort of derisiveness, he released her.
"Explain that to me, Ron," Hermione said.
"Explain what, Hermione? Explain why I compete with him?"
"Yes, explain it!"
Ron sighed. "Okay, Hermione, if you really want to know why I compete, I'll tell you."
Hermione stood still, waiting for the answer. It didn't come in the form she had expected.
"I compete with Vick- Viktor, because there's something of yours that he got, and I wanted it first. I wanted to win something, for once in my life."
"Well, if you tried, Ron, really, I'm sure you could win heaps of awards and- mmphh!"
Ron had kissed Hermione.
"I wanted to do that," Ron said, breaking away from her, "before he did. I knew he would. I always knew that one day, someone else was going to get it and I could never work hard enough. Or hope to get a look in. And I was right, wasn't I?" he said to his feet. "Reckon I'll go find… Harry… now."
He kissed me. He kissed me.
Hermione was left alone in the window seat, still warm from their presence, but she suddenly felt quite cold.