Not Quite a Fairy Tale

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He was a boy, and she was a girl, and in the beginning, neither thought much of the other.

They met on a crimson train, one early afternoon in September, just as the wind was beginning to pick up the slightest chill. When she entered his compartment, in search of a toad, she thought he was just another annoying boy, and he thought she was just another bossy girl. She told him that he had dirt on his nose and flounced away, and they both hoped that was the last they'd see of each other.

They found each other again at a large wood table, realizing that they'd ended up in the same House. They both thought they could simply avoid each other, anyway, as the school was large and confusing. Until the day he told his best friend how annoying she was, and she heard him, only to go sobbing to the restroom. Oh well, he had thought, though very uncomfortably, she ought to know the truth.

When the troll had entered the school, he couldn't leave her there. As much as he disliked her, he couldn't let her die. So he faced the horrors of entering a girl's bathroom to save her, and she in turn told the Professor that it was all her own fault to save him. Thus, they came to a silent agreement, that maybe they weren't quite that horrible.

He kept stepping in front of trolls for her, whether the troll came in the form of a chessboard or of a bully, and she kept giving him a hand out of whatever mess he had gotten himself into that time. While they annoyed each other what seemed like endlessly sometimes, they always knew that they'd be there for each other forever.

There was one year where it seemed like they'd gone right back to hating each other - that horrible year where they'd barely spoken to each other. Then they'd found out the truth - she'd been right, he'd been wrong, as usual, and they'd both been terribly stupid. They vowed not to let such mundane matters get between them again.

The next year brought a ball, the one that made her realize that she wanted him to ask her. But he was being such a boy, as usual, looking for the prettiest girl to ask - and in that competition, she certainly didn't place. When he finally got around to asking her, as a friend, she was already going with someone else. He begrudgingly went with another girl, thinking she lied only to spite him.

When he saw her at the ball, dancing happily with his idol, something inside him snapped. He went off at her that night, saying horrible and hurtful things that he never should have said. She told him that next time he shouldn't ask her as a last resort - and while he argued that that wasn't what he was upset about at all, some tiny bit of his being knew that she was right.

They skirted the matter for another year, silently agreeing to pretend that the entire thing had never happened rather than face up to what had occurred that night. They moved forward, with things as simple as a good luck kiss on the cheek, but they'd always move backward once again, with silly fights and meaningless brawls.

They lived like that for a year, doing a strange sort of complicated dance around each other, never quite moving too far away, but never getting too close. After a while, they seemed to be at a standstill where neither would give in.

In all truth, he was the last one to see that dance they did, for as so many teenage boys, he was cluelessly stumbling through life. It took one very angry little sister to bring him to his wits, to tell him that he should get a life and get his nose out of hers.

It was then that he realized that perhaps she hadn't waited for him as he'd always thought somewhere in the back of his mind. It was at that moment that he stopped waiting for her.

He began to regret that decision when he saw the hurt on her face after he kissed the first pretty girl to cross his path. Still, he couldn't take it back - not now, not when his sister's words burned so freshly on his mind. So he continued on to try to mend his wounded pride, while she soaked her pillow with tears every night.

It was that year that he was poisoned with a love potion. He vaguely remembered stumbling around, pining for some girl he barely knew. He clearly remembered coming out of that stupor, only to realize, as if he'd been punched in the stomach - if that idiotic behavior was just a cheap imitation of love, then what he felt for her...that must be what love really was.

When she heard the news that he'd been poisoned, she rushed to the hospital wing. She kept mentally kicking herself; if he had died, she never would have gotten to say that she was sorry, that she had been stupid. Perhaps he'd been stupid, too, but it didn't seem to matter. Not anymore.

They made up shortly after that. In the midst of it all, they'd realized just how much they meant to each other.

It wasn't long after that the girl he'd been snogging dumped him. He was clearly relieved; she was inwardly ecstatic. But it wasn't meant to be - not there, not then.

There was a war going on around them, and they were a part of it. Their best friend was the Savior of the Wizarding World, you see, and they couldn't abandon him. They had a job to do, and they couldn't ignore it, not even for each other.

They went off chasing the Dark Lord then. For months, they lived in horrible conditions; they searched in caves and old, abandoned buildings. Then, one day, it all simply came to an end.

There was a battle. They fought alongside some of the best, and they watched their own friends, the people they'd known for so long, just die. They watched their best friend fighting the Dark Lord - and they watched him walk away victorious.

At the end of it all, they did not walk away unscarred, but they did walk away. To them, that was all that mattered.

They didn't live happily ever after, either. They still bickered about silly things, and once, she even threatened to leave him. But she never did. They both would tell you that what they had was better than any fairy tale.

He was a man, and she was a woman, and in the end, they meant the world to each other.

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A/N: Thank you for reading. Reviews are very much appreciated.