-1She Wasn't
or, Love At the Expense of a Ravenclaw's Heart
By Lady Pyrefly
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The portrait hole swung open. A cry of "I HATE you, Ronald Weasley," was heard, followed by a swish of brown hair disappearing. Ron stepped through into the Gryffindor common room.
"Broke up with the Ravenclaw girl?" Hermione asked, not taking her eyes off the large volume of Hogwarts, A History that lay in her lap.
"She has a name, you know," Ron said, slightly bitter.
Hermione still didn't look up at him. "What was it again? I've forgotten." An honest question.
Ron shrugged. "I don't remember either."
"Ah. Why'd you end it?"
"She wasn't anything I liked. She wasn't funny or stubborn or encouraging or…"
Hermione didn't want to hear it. Couldn't stand another moment of listening to all the things that Ron loved. Because they sure as hell weren't her.
"…and Hermione, she wasn't….she wasn't you." The words simply popped out of Ron's mouth unbidden. He could have died.
Hermione's breath caught in her throat.
"…which is actually a stupid requirement because, I mean, I know they aren't you, but I date them anyway, except for I always wished it was you but it's never going to be because you're my best friend and you could never ever ever like a idiot like me, I mean look at me with my red hair and never any money and I'm such a git to you all the time, like when you give me advice and I don't want to hear it or when you were dating Viktor who I only didn't like because I liked you and that one time when I thought Crookshanks killed Scabbers and I really felt bad because you hated me but I hated you too which doesn't really make sense because I liked you at the same time and I'm really really sorry about this because now I'm just rambling out all this stuff and you probably don't love me anyway so our friendship is now just gone and I'm going to bed now because…"
His ears were pink and he was rambling. Hermione found this rather endearing.
"Ron?" she asked, feeling like her brain was broken and not just from Ron's mind-numbing soliloquy, "Shut up."
Quickly crossing the room to where Ron had paced to, Hermione lifted onto her tiptoes and pecked him once on the mouth. "Don't ever, ever assume you know who I like, Ronald Weasley. Do you hear me?"
Ron's mouth opened and closed for a while, giving him a distinct resemblance to a redheaded fish. "Oh…okay…"
Hermione kissed him again, a bit longer and a bit more than a peck this time. "Poor Ravenclaw girl," she said with a bit of a grin, "Doesn't know what she's missing."