Ron: " [...] we don't really talk much. It's mainly [...] "

Harry: "Snogging."

Ron: "Well, yeah."

It had taken Lavender years to discover that other girls felt as bad about their appearance as she did. Having almost exclusively devoured romances since she was fourteen, she thought that the world was full of fire-spitting smartasses, confident in their own beauty, or at least too preoccupied with sword fights and intrigue to care about their appearance. The fact that she thought about how she looked—"obsessed" might be a better word—and found it wanting made her feel alien. Such insecurities didn't belong to Serenas; they were for the chubby sidekicks who sometimes ended up with the Disposable Love Interest or were left single as a punch line, cramming pastry into their faces to suffocate their insecurities.

When she walked in on Parvati crouched over a hand mirror, plucking a fine black mustache off her upper lip and crying, she'd felt . . . free. Like she finally had permission to feel without guilt, or without worrying that she would forever be relegated to sidekick-dom, a footnote in someone else's romance.

Hermione irked her because she didn't seem to have those insecurities. Either she liked the way she looked or cared too much about other things to let it distract her, and she'd often shoot sidelong looks at the girls whenever they shared makeover tips and body complaints. That look, raised eyebrows and pursed lips, had always made Lavender feel weak. A weak, shallow, and silly girl who would never be wanted.

When Ron snogged her for the first time, she'd decided that she was going to marry him. (It wasn't a conscious decision, not then; she might be clingy and desperate, but she wasn't insane.) Any man who made her feel as beautiful and perfect as he did must the The One, and far be it for her to let The One slip through her fingers.

For all she knew, another The One might never come along, and where would she be then?

She liked snogging Ron, but she loved snogging him in public. It'd been embarrassing at first, but feeling the presence of others, knowing that they were watching her be chosen and desired before their very eyes was intoxicating. It was a public refutation of every terrible thought, every guilt-ridden breakdown over tummy rolls or second chins, every teary complaint about her eyes and her hair and her shrillness and her stupidity and her tendency to cry or complain. All of it was wiped away by his fingers, washed away by his tongue. And everyone would see her stroked clean and beautiful.

They didn't talk much, but they didn't need to. Their public displays of affection were everything she could have needed and more than she deserved.

That's why his pulling away hurt her so much. Her self-loathing, caked on by hours and days of critical thoughts, wasn't being swept away; in fact, every time he rejected her it was another sooty smear across her body, her personality. She began wondering if she needed to lose weight, become smarter or funnier.

Parvati could say she was becoming too clingy, but she didn't know how it felt to suddenly feel worthwhile, then just as suddenly have that validation taken away.

Every time Ron chose Hermione's presence over hers, the stains of self-hatred became darker. Soon they would blot her out.

"Look at yourself, Lav!" Parvati finally snapped, waving her hand at her tear-streaked face, the piles of tissues around the bed. "When will you just admit that you're not happy and end the damn thing?"

Not for a little while longer, it turned out.

When she saw him slip out of the common room with Hermione, looking conspiratorial and furtive, it was almost a relief. As she cried and yelled at him, not caring that her nose and mascara were both beginning to run, her heart felt lighter even as it was breaking.

Ron Weasley, one of the Golden Trio, Quidditch Keeper and all-around too good for a dull, ugly girl with nothing to offer, had chosen her anyway. And that felt good. She, the dull, ugly girl with nothing to offer, had dumped him. And that didn't feel too bad, either.

Lavender missed him, not just because of the way he made her feel but because he was cute and funny and had the nicest smile. But she didn't feel empty and desperate anymore, not once she'd gotten back into the habit of being single. She might have been the Disposable Love Interest instead of the heroine, but breaking things off felt pretty heroic anyway.

That night, when she wiped the tears, makeup, and snot off her face, she could've sworn her tissue had a few smears of soot on it.