So here's the next installment of October's Dragon Tales. If there are any improvement that one wishes to see, simply PM me or review!

Prompt- Matters

Summary: To Hermione, Harry's happiness is all that matters

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. If you recognize it, it probably belongs to J.K. Rowling.

Most of the Wizarding World believed Ron and Hermione were the two that were always there for Harry; and if inquired to Harry, he would just shrug and say something along the lines of: "They're some of my first friends, I love them both." And leave it at that. So, everyone always thought of this as a fact, that the golden trio was the closest anyone could ever get to another.

But that wasn't a fact.

It wasn't Hermione or Ron with whom Harry met first on the train, they weren't the ones who understood Harry's confliction at hating Draco Malfoy or snogging him senseless. They hadn't been the ones to stand by Harry's side doubtlessly, always knowing that there was a solution for everything and more times than not, Harry would be the one to figure it out. They weren't the ones who believed Harry when the Chamber of Secrets opened, nor the ones who didn't forget Harry in all the excitement of going to Hogsmeade. It wasn't their shoulder on which Harry cried when he had gotten his godfather back and a chance to leave the Dursley's, only to have it ripped away mere hours later. They hadn't been the ones to know Harry hadn't wanted to join the TriWizard Competition and risk his life and that he had definitely not put his name in the Goblet of Fire. It wasn't Ron or Hermione who knew about the nightmares he suffered through after finally finding all the horcruxes, killing Voldemort, and loosing so many people in the process. They weren't the shoulders he cried on, nor the hands of support he needed desperately. They didn't support him unconditionally; they weren't his secret-keepers and confidents.

If one asked Ron Weasley about his best mate, he'd grin proudly and begin boasting that he knew everything there was to know about the-boy-who-live-twice. He start reenacting all of their daring adventures and life-threatening stunts—making sure he played up his own part in said feats until he, too, was herald a Hero upon the same pedestal as Harry.

But if someone would take the time to question one Hermione Weasley-Granger, they would receive a much different spin on things. She wasn't labled 'Most Clever Witch' three years a row in Witch Weekly if she hadn't anything to prove said title. She saw more than she said, and learned more than anyone believed. Most people believed she had her nose too far stuck in a book to observe the world outside them. They'd be blown far off their brooms if they would take a moment to hear what she had to say.

For if someone would ask if she was Harry's best and closest friend, she would just smile a small, sad smile and shake her head negatively.

"He's like my little brother." She'd start softly, a distant look in her chocolate orbs. "I love him, and I know the feeling is mutual; but to answer your question, I wouldn't be the one closest to him, and neither would Ronald." There would be shock, she was aware, from both the public, and from Ron and Harry. "We haven't always stood by his side. There were many times that we've turned our backs on him, just because the situation wasn't one we were comfortable with. Sure, he's forgiven us for all of said times, but I know he hasn't forgotten, and neither have I. We haven't loved him as unconditionally as we should have and as he has with us. We weren't the people he came to when there were problems too big for him to handle alone; we weren't the ones who would hold him when it became too much; we weren't the ones who supported him completely and we didn't believe him unquestionably. We weren't the ones with whom he came out to first, we didn't know that he and his boyfriend, Draco, were even together until two months later; we weren't the support, voices of reason, shoulders to cry no, comedic relief, or anything else but friends who stupidly ran head-first into many situations and didn't think things through." And if someone were to, then, ask her who had been all these things and more, she would just stare at you, unblinking, before shrugging.

"Isn't it obvious? No? Well, I believe it's time for the man whom has saved the Wizarding Word several times to have some privacy in his life. Don't you think he deserves at least that after everything we've asked of him?"

But no one has ever asked Hermione Weasley-Granger, so she never spoke those words, and the Wizarding World was none-the-wiser when Draco went to George and Fred Weasley, asking them for his and Harry's blessing to marry, for they were the closest Harry had to family, and when the twins were named Draco and Harry's best men for their wedding, only Hermione wasn't surprised. And when the time came for the best men to make a toast to the grooms, she wasn't surprised when the twins spoke of Harry as if he was truly their little brother—complete with the teasing, love, and adoration that came with them being his older brothers.

She had never been made or jealous, like Ron, at the trio's close familiar relationship; she wasn't confused, like the rest of the Weasleys', when a year later, Harry and Draco had adopted a set of twins—Narcissa Gemini and Lillian Luna Malfoy-Potter— from the Wizarding War orphanage to come live with them and the twins were each made a godfather to the young girls while Hermione and Luna weren't named Godmothers; but she knew she couldn't truly say she was happy, like Remus and Sirius, that Harry had found his two best friends in the twins.

All Hermione could feel was a sad acceptance, and a resignation. She'd never be able to be there for Harry like the twins had, and she knew there would never be a competition she could win where the two were concerned and she wouldn't try.

Harry had found his two best friends in a mischievous, red-headed duo instead of her and Ron, and a lover in a snarky, blond-haired dragon instead of Ginny, and children in a horde of orphans needing homes opposed to red haired, green-eyed babies he could have had; but he was happy and that was all that mattered to Hermione.

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~WildFireBurnsTheForest