Author's Note: So, a while ago, I happened to hear the song "I Was Never Your Boyfriend" by Tigers Jaw for the first time. It was the second verse that totally struck me. It immediately reminded me of Ron and Hermione and I instantly had in my mind the scenario you can read about below. Later, I realized that the song in its entirety could make for an interesting story as well (I might write that at some point), but for now, I have decided to go with my original idea. I hope you like it. For those who are interested, I have added the verse that served as inspiration to the end of this story. Give it a listen if you like; it's a great song :-)

On a different note, I had a kind of hard time putting this into the correct category. I'm still not sure if my selection fits. There should be a category "Hurt". Seriously.

Disclaimer: I don't own Ron and Hermione. Or their magical world. Or Tigers Jaw's song. Or anything really.

The Worst Part of My Existence

It's just another miserable December afternoon, the sort that comes with low, heavy grey clouds that practically scream in your face that you better not expect anything but torrential rainfall and storms that are sure to sweep the last few remaining leaves from the measly gnarled trees. In fact, it was so miserable that Harry and I couldn't think of anything better to do with ourselves than to go to the library and to actually do our homework.

Without Hermione, it's a seemingly never-ending rough going, of course, but it's still better than in the common room where the unmistakable stink of wet student constantly lies in the stuffy air or in most other parts of the castle where the glacial wind howls through all the leaky windows and makes you freeze your butt off. Here, it's bright and warm at least. One could go as far as to describe the atmosphere as peaceful. Almost.

Well, I shouldn't have thought that out, I suppose, because right at this moment, my lungs catch an all too familiar whiff of vanilla. My head reflexively whips up and I'm almost killed by a scathing look as Hermione walks by, accelerating her steps to get past us as fast as possible.

Harry has seen it, too. "When will you finally stop this farce?" he sighs once Hermione's out of earshot, twiddling his quill between his fingers.

"What farce?" I mumble, lowering my head over my Charms essay.

"You know exactly what mean," Harry hisses, careful not to raise his voice and rouse the oh-so-sensitive Madam Pince who's feather-dusting her oh-so-precious books a couple of shelves away. "You and Hermione not talking - again, as I may add. It's getting ridiculous, you know."

"It's not my fault," I say with a shrug. "I haven't started it."

"You guys are like that ever since you're with Lavender," Harry remarks.

"Yeah, so what?" I say, barely bothering to keep my voice down anymore. "It's not my problem if she doesn't like that! It's not like she has dibs on me, like I'm some little puppy dog that's only there to do her bidding!"

"Like... her boyfriend?" Harry says with a smirk.

I let out a dry, shaky laugh. "Yeah, like her boyfriend. I'm not her boyfriend and never have been. So I have no reason to justify anything to her. She's bloody mad if she thinks I have."

I would never admit that to Harry, but deep down, I know that things have been going catastrophically wrong. I know that I must've hurt Hermione a lot when I started to see Lavender, if her initial reaction to it was anything to go by. Still, I have no idea why. Or, well, actually I do, but that can't be. She can't possibly feel that way for me, can she?

Well, even if she does, it's too late anyway. She's had her chance, after all. Harry may call it childish and everything, but actually, it makes things even better. Let her feel some of the hell I've had to go through for the past two years. See what it's like when the one you really want is out of reach, taken by someone better. Revenge is so sweet.

Two weeks before.

My elation about my - dare I say it - spectacular performance in the match against Slytherin quickly abated, as though it was pressed right out of my heart by a cold vice-like hand, when I was hit by the full impact of her words. I had played really well, for the first time ever since I had become a member of the Quidditch team, and what was she thinking? Instead of being happy for me, her first thought was that I had cheated. Typical. Did she really think so little of me, assuming that I couldn't get anything right on my own, without any help?

Hearing that Harry had, in fact, not given me any of his Felix, Hermione positively looked as though her entire view of the world had been wrecked. Wrecked because I, Ron, the eternal nitwit, had for once been capable of the unbelievable feat of showing an aptitude of my own and accomplishing something all by myself. Of course, why else would she look like that, her face pale, her eyes wide and her lips trembling, rooted to the spot in the middle of the locker room. In any other situation, this would've been a comical sight, but now it only made me sick. I couldn't stand seeing her like that any longer. With yet another surge of fury coursing through me, I grabbed my broom and marched out.

Was I really such a loser, I wondered, as I angrily stomped on, my strides so forceful that I was whirling up grass and soil with my shoes. Well, I probably was. Judging by my current record on the pitch, she barely had a choice to think otherwise. I gritted my teeth at this thought. Quidditch had always been something I was good at. Good enough to even put Fred and George in awe at times and certainly much better than Hermione who barely dared to go up higher than three feet on a broom. I'd been so sure that by joining the house team and showing her what I could do, I could finally impress her. Ha, wishful thinking, I reckon. Turned out that when I'm on an actual pitch with actual spectators, my effing nerves would wreak havoc and render me unable to save even the easiest goals. But this time, this one time, I had managed to get those bloody nerves under control and to show her my true ability. But no... I had cheated. Yeah, right. I wondered what the fuck had gotten into me anyway, thinking that that plan of mine had more than a bloody snowball's chance in bloody hell to work. It was pathetic. I was pathetic. I guessed no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, there was just no way that I could please Hermione.

A light drizzle was coming from the sky, threatening to slowly drench me. I started to feel cold, but I didn't care and just kept on walking. I wondered if Hermione had always thought of me like that, had spent all those years believing that I was nothing but an incompetent idiot, someone that couldn't be trusted. She probably had. The mere fact that she hadn't come after me was proof enough that she didn't care about me at all. Surely she was now sitting up in the warm cozy common room, laughing with Harry and Ginny about my stupidity (given that she was thinking about me at all), while I was out here, alone in the cold and getting soaked.

I didn't want to go inside, afraid that I'd see just that if I went into the common room, so I decided to stretch out my walk. I smirked when part of me imagined Hermione running after me, shouting my name and, when she'd finally found me, telling me how sorry she was and how much I'd amazed her and that I should please come inside for I'd catch a cold out here. That'd be so nice. But I guess something like that could only happen in my imagination. The other part of me actually wasn't so sure if I really wanted to see her. Or anyone for that matter. I suppose she'd only make me more angry and I didn't fancy thinking of the things I might do or say then.

But this whole train of thought was useless anyway. I was now making such a ridiculous detour, even weaving between the first single trees of the Forbidden Forest, I highly doubted that Hermione would be looking for me here of all places, even if she wanted to find me. But that was not the point. She would never run after me like that, wouldn't she?

I really didn't know her well enough.

The rain became harder and then the sky was shortly split in two by a crashing lightning bolt. I should probably go inside. But all of a sudden, as if the crash had hit realization into my brain, it dawned on me. Perhaps they had both schemed beforehand, Hermione and Harry. Perhaps this was all a great charade, a shifty plot to get them a good laugh at me, to let me know once and for all that I didn't stand a chance, to have me out of the way and to let them finally be together. The next moment I wondered if I was getting paranoid. Hermione and Harry were my best friends, for fuck's sake, and I'd trust them both with my life. They wouldn't do something like that to me, would they? But then again, I'd also been certain that Hermione had at least the tiniest bit of faith in me, so, yeah, I guess my judgment of people was a little bit screwed. Maybe I'd been wrong all along and they'd never really wanted me with them and I was a complete moron for needing so long to see that. It all made absolute sense at any rate. Come to think about it, Harry bloody Potter would probably be the only bloke in school Hermione would consider good enough for her. Oh, yes, they'd be a match made in heaven, wouldn't they, he, The-Chosen-One-Who-Lived and Miss I'm-So-Effing-Perfect-I-Can-Twist-Insanely-Rich-And-Famous-International-Quidditch-Players-Around-My-Finger. And you know what? If you will, you can have each other. I don't bloody care anymore. Be happy and perfect and live your happy and perfect lives together. I'm done. To hell with you all.

I sighed and a feeling of self-loathing washed over me when, somewhere in the back of my head, I heard a voice say that I was horrible for thinking of Hermione like that. She didn't deserve that, kind and brilliant and caring and pure and, well, utterly amazing as she was. And the fact that I couldn't properly resent her made me resent her even more.

I had no idea how I'd gotten there, I couldn't remember going up there anyway, but I was suddenly jerked out of my thoughts by loud music and boisterous voices, the unmistakable sounds of a party in full swing, and found myself in front of the portrait hole to our common room. For a second or so, I was baffeled by how people could be reveling in earnest when I was here, feeling like shit, but then I numbly remembered that we had won.

I clambered inside and when I saw all those people celebrate, I imagined for a fleeting moment how happy this all would've made me if it hadn't been for my row with Hermione. But right now, I couldn't care less about our victory or this bloody party. I just hoped that Fred and George had managed to smuggle some Firewhisky in. Boozing my brains out, drinking myself into a nice warm stupor, seemed like the most brilliant of ideas.

But before I had done as much as starting to walk over to the next best table holding drinks, people were storming towards me, hollering, grabbing me, thumping my back and saying things to me that I neither understood nor bothered to listen to. I was hoisted onto somebody's shoulders and I forced myself to smile and look happy when the crowd carried me through the whole room, whistling, singing and cheering.

At least I had a good view over the room from up there. Against my better judgment, I looked around, searching for Hermione. Maybe she was there somewhere, finally deciding to come around and to celebrate with me, for me, and things could be fine after all. But, no, she was nowhere to be seen, and I hated myself for keeping my hopes up like that. I should've known better. Hermione didn't care for such things. I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd been sitting there somewhere, hidden behind some crazily huge tome and scowling at the party because it disturbed her sacred reading session. Sadly, even that would've been better than last year, when I had learned that I had made it into the team and she'd seriously been sleeping - right, sleeping, bloody snoring away - through my entire party. That goes to show how important I was to her.

I was finally set back to the ground and after some struggling through the crowd, I managed to get to the drinks, only to realize that there was nothing but stupid butterbeer. Leave it to fate to do a bloody damn good job when it comes to screwing me. But then I felt a warm hand on the small of my back and I warily turned around.

It was Lavender. She was wearing a top that was so tight that it threatened to burst with the load of boobs underneath and she had a ridiculous amount of make up on her face. I know that tall, well-formed and blond as she was, she was commonly considered one of the most attractive girls in school, but I couldn't help thinking that Hermione was much more beautiful even without all that rubbish.

"Hey," she said breathlessly.

"Hey," I replied with considerably less enthusiasm.

"You were so great today," she said, simpering, and batted her lashes. I wished Hermione was in her stead, saying that. But Hermione would never deign to say such a thing, wouldn't she? Not to me at any rate.

But there she was. Lavender. Someone who believed in me. Truly, wholeheartedly believed in me. Just like I was. Who didn't compare me to some abnormally perfect git with bloody superhuman skills and shitloads of money. Who wasn't a constant reminder of how inadequate I was. Who I could, for a change, just be myself with, without permanently feeling little less inferior than the dirt on her shoes.

Maybe this was the right thing after all.

Well, sod it. Sod it all. I was so tired of it. Tired of making a fool of myself just to have fate laugh into my face again and again. Tired of fooling myself. Tired of chasing after her, thirsting for the tiniest spark of hope. In a way, the knowledge that, being her best friend, I would always be there for her and do anything for her to be happy, was bad enough as it was. But that... That was just too much. I had already wasted two years with that. I couldn't go on like that forever. It had to stop. 'Better to make a painful break than to draw out the pain', they say, right? Might just as well get it over with.

"Well, I'm great at many things," I said, waggling my brows. "Wanna know what else?"

God, how cheesy. How unbelievably, indescribably, sickeningly cheesy. If Fred and George had heard that, they probably would've had laughed their guts out by now.

Lavender, however, just blushed and giggled. "I... I'd love to," she hiccupped when she eventually regained her ability to speak, still red as a beet in the face.

I goggled at her. She really fell for that? That was easy. Much too easy. But to hell with that. Who cares?

I made a step towards her, closing the distance between us, and she heaved her chest as though trying to direct more of my attention to her already expansive rack. I noted that she was bearing a glittering sort of lip gloss. With a jolt of recklessness, I placed my hands on her shoulders and leant in.

The last thing I did before our lips met was wishing that Hermione would see me like that.

And if you see me looking back
Or if you see me better
The worst part of my existence
Is you can call whenever
But I can't wait forever