Jealousy

Jealousy

I think there's something really fascinating about the way couples come to be couples in the first place. I mean, when you walk down the street in London on a rainy March evening, every couple has a story of its own. Some couples came to be when the two saw one another from across a smoky room and something deep inside their souls stirred. Some couples slowly formed their relationship on a common interest or friend that drew them together in the first place. And some couples were dear friends for a very long time and then, magically, one quiet afternoon, became some much, much more.

I always like the stories of the last type of couples the most because I always wanted my own life to be just like that. I think there's something so romantic and magical about two people being friends for a very long time and then finally recognizing that they're meant to be together. I suppose my love of that kind of relationship started because my mum and dad had that kind of relationship. It was rather like a fairy tale. They had gone to school with one another for five years (mum was a year younger than dad), and had been close as two people can be. Then, one day, something just changed. Mum once told me that it was a slow, subtle change that happened when she breathed too deeply around him. Suddenly, she noticed the way he smelled of fresh grass and French-milled soap, and that when he laughed he had a rather large dimple on his right cheek. I grew to fantasize about such a relationship happening to me, praying that I was worthy of something so miraculous and spectacular.

When it finally happened to me, when you finally took me into your arms that day after Quidditch and kissed me in front of everyone, I thought everything had finally worked itself out. After all, you never really hear about couples with such a solid foundation like friendship randomly parting ways. I thought that this relationship was it: we were meant to be together. I still feel that way, Harry. I know we're meant to be together. It's just that now...now I'm afraid I'm not everything you want and, much more importantly, NEED.

I guess jealousy is one of those strange things that a girl suddenly develops when she finally gets that guy she's been pining away for so long for. Jealousy is quiet at first. It sneaks like a whisp of smoke into a girl's heart. It's nothing too serious, she thinks, but later that smoke manifests itself into a flame and then into a blazing inferno that she can't quite ever put out.

I used to think it was so stupid, the whole jealousy thing. When I'd see you talking to Hermione, I kept telling myself that it was only natural because she was one of your best friends, and it would simply be wrong for you to stop talking to her just because you started dating me. Of course these words didn't do much to calm the twinge of pain in my heart, but they kept my mind contented that you would indeed never do anything to hurt me, especially not something with Hermione Granger.

But the heart will always win out over the mind, I've found.

You've been one of her best friends for seven years now...probably one of the only true friends she actually has. You tell her things that you'll only tell Ron. She's the one you've gone to for advice, the one who was there when Ron, your self-proclaimed best mate, simply wasn't. Hermione has pledged her life and allegiance to you, Harry. She's always been and always will be willing to sacrifice anything and everything to keep you safe.

I know you'd never cheat on me, Harry, and I doubt very much that you love Hermione in the same way that you love me. But, at the end of the day, I have to ask: which one of us would you choose, Harry? Which girl's heart would you sacrifice for the sake of the other? Would you choose me, the girl who you love, and the one who has pined away for you for such an infinite amount of time? Or would you choose Hermione, the girl whose knowledge about you and about the world around her rivals that has, on more than one occasion, been your key to success in defeating them? Is it better to break my heart, one that is so consumed by you and your love, or is it better to crush hers, breaking the years of friendship and trust you have built. I can't honestly say that we have the same kind of trust between us that exists between you and Hermione. We're not close like that. We never will be, I think.

Why are you with me, Harry? You don't know what my favorite song is, you don't know why my parents named me Ginevra, you don't know that I prefer nonfiction books to fiction books, and you have no idea that I die a little inside every single time I watch you with her. You don't understand that when you tell her things you don't tell me, I can't handle the pain. You just don't get it, and I love you and I know you love me, but sometimes, love just isn't enough.