Watching Her

I've never loved anyone but her.

All those years spent bickering had been a cover up to disguise my true feelings. I'd been so hurt when in fifth year after I told her my feeling's she said she was in love with Harry but I like everyone else had always known she would fall for him. So I settled for watching her from afar.

I missed Harry greatly. The day he died was the worst in my life. I hadn't known I could feel so much pain at one time. He was my best friend; we'd had great plans for the future. We were supposed to get a flat together once we got out of school and have the best years of our lives there. But he just had to go and die. I didn't care that he was a hero or that he saved the world all I could think of was the fact that my best friend had been put into the ground before his eighteenth birthday.

I'd wanted to hide and drown myself in my sorrow but I had to stay afloat for Hermione. I relished the fact that she needed me. It kept me living. It got me through it. I wanted so badly to take her into my arms and tell her how much I loved her, how much I'd always loved her but I couldn't. Her heart belonged to Harry. How could I compete with The Boy Who Died? So I settled for watching her from afar.

Eventually she left me to live on her own. We lost touch after a few months but one night nearly a year later she appeared on my doorstep, giant tears rolling down her cheeks. Seamus Finnigan had broken her heart and the next day I'd gone and broken his face.

I loved having her stay with me again; I could almost make myself believe she really cared for me until she began bringing the man whom she was dating home. It became a recurring circumstance that I couldn't deal with so this time it was I who left, giving her the flat. She stayed for several weeks but insisted I come back home when her current beau dumped her. I knew she only wanted me there for the comfort and solace I could provide her with but I didn't care. I came anyways.

I was kidding myself if I thought I meant more to her than a friend. The only constant man in her life was as he always had been. She kept a picture of him by her bedside table and sometimes late at night I would watch as she clutched the photo of him to her chest and sobbed gut wrenching tears of sorrow.

I wanted to tell her this wasn't what Harry would have wanted for her. He would have wanted her to be happy and in love again. But whenever I so much as suggested it was time she got over him she would lock herself in her room for days without speaking to me.

Harry's death unhinged her in ways I couldn't quite comprehend, never totally getting over her grief she'd become a shell of her former self. She worked hard at her job and became one of the richest witches in England for her work at creating new charms and spells but the laughter and smiles had gone from her life. To her a world without Harry was a world without sunshine.

She dated other guys but certainly not seriously, still visiting Harry's grave once a week, never missing a Sunday. I had gone with her once and watched as she told the marble headstone everything, even more than she told me: her living, breathing best friend. It wasn't healthy but what could I do? So I settled for watching her from afar.

She moved in with Draco Malfoy soon after but came back three months later crying her heart out. She said he'd been wrong for her from the start. Well I could have told her that and saved her a lot of grief but would she have listened to me? No.

It amazed me how oblivious she was to my open adoration. Nearly all my family and most of her boyfriends knew, but they all regarded me with pity because they knew as well as I that all I would ever be to her was her best friend.

On her twenty-fifth birthday upon catching her snogging some guy in the second floor linen closet during the huge party I'd thrown in her honor I decided I was tired of my lacklustre role in her life. I dragged her outside to the balcony and told her I loved her. I never had nor never would love anyone else as much as I loved her.

She cried, not the reaction I'd been hoping for but more what I had expected from her. She didn't do much else these days.

I'm sorry but Ron you know I could never love you that way. You're my best friend

, she'd said.

I'd nodded understandingly though my heart was shattered into a million pieces, packed up all my things that night and left without a word. I wasn't about to become like her, wasting my life away for the one person I could never be with. It was time to move on. So I settled for watching her from afar.

I stayed with Ginny and her husband for awhile while I got established in my new job in Muggle relations, doing my father proud. It was tough work and kept me busy enough that had I wanted to I wouldn't have had the time to answer any of Hermione's constant owls begging me to come home.

Dad and I had a grand time going to movies and learning how to use Muggle money on weekends. I even figured out how to use their transportation with no trouble.

There was a new girl at work; Amber and I had to admit she's quite pretty. She sent me an owl asking me to dinner, which Ginny answered for me saying yes. She wouldn't let me turn down this invitation after all I was trying to get over Hermione wasn't I? I might even have a good time. And I did. I even laughed a little. I may not go out with Amber again but I now know that I'm ready and able to date other people.

I'm going to see Hermione to say good-bye, not forever but just until I'm able to look at her without feeling the pain of her rejection. Since it was a Sunday I waited for her at Harry's stone, patting it fondly.

I miss you

.

It was all I ever said on my visits but it was all that was needed. Wherever Harry was I knew he was watching over me.

Ron

, she's startled to see me again. Ron I've missed you!

I explain everything to her but she doesn't seem to listen to me.

But I need you. Please don't leave me.

And as I walk away I know that I couldn't leave her...not entirely. No matter where my life takes me I'll forever be watching her from afar.