"A Friend"
by Nina
Disclaimer: Psh, like I have anything at all.
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"I'm not waiting on a lady, I'm just waiting on a friend." –"Waiting On a Friend" by the Rolling Stones.
one.
Girls.
They are everywhere, giggling in flowing dresses and flinging their hair, all smelling of cheap perfume and hairspray, their faces overdone with rouge and lipstick. There is one hanging onto the lacy arm of Ron's dress robes, oohing and aahhing at her friends as they pass by, waving her arm so the bracelets clatter and click together.
It's so fucking stupid, he thinks, staring through narrowed eyes at all of the girls, who wax and wane in the dim, flickering candlelight of the Entrance Hall. Ron cranes his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of his friend, of bushy hair, of a book.
What color dress robes would Hermione wear? Not pink, that's for certain. Not red, or any bright colors. She's probably wearing black, Ron reasons, because black is a very Hermione-ish color. Understated, classic, and normal.
Ron enjoys the girls, though. The dress robes permit more skin to be shown: glistening, sparkling, heavenly female skin. The foreign and seductive line of cleavage, hidden daily behind buttoned white shirts and scarves, hidden from searching boys. Ron's eyes linger at every brunette in the crowd, trying to find a black dress, hopefully cut low enough to—
No.
Hermione is a friend. A friend, a friend, a friend, a friend, friend, friend.
"Where is Hermione?"
Padma's earrings crash against her face as she looks at him.
"Come on, everyone's going in already."
Ron follows obediently, the merging shadow of Padma and himself growing longer as they follow the moving crowd.
two.
She's there. With Viktor Krum. It's her, he knows so because he must have subconsciously memorized her profile or the exact shade of her hair or something like that. But he knows it is her, and he's looking away, squinting in any direction, any corner her laugh doesn't fall towards. Because she is laughing, and it's not something he said, it's something Viktor said in his stupid Bulgarian.
Hermione never laughs at Ron's mispronunciations.
And they're blue. Blue dress robes.On Hermione. Ron muses passionately, wondering why the fuck Hermione would choose blue dress robes when she had never previously worn anything blue…
"Ron, we're sitting this way," Padma huffs, pulling on his arm and sitting him at a table. Other students pour in, and the din grows. Ron was not expecting this, not expecting Hermione to be here with a famous Quidditch player slash champion slash—
It is here that Ron realizes that this entire time he thought he had been waiting on a friend to arrive. A dependable, warm, kind friend who did his homework and kept him in line.
Ron had not found a friend, he had found a lady, laughing and throwing her head back, rubbing together glossed lips and correcting her date's broken English.
Ron had not been waiting on a lady, and did not plan on waiting any more.
FIN.