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It Should Have Been Me by Mourning Broken Angel
It Should Have Been Me by Mourning Broken Angel
Author's Notes:
I have no idea where such an angsty little one-shot came from, especially since, as most of you know, I'm so firmly entrenched in the D/G humor and fluff categories that you need a bomb to get me out.

Big hugs to Rainpuddle and Dash, "the cutest kitten to ever kitten", for the beta.
It Should Have Been Me



I'm a fan of romance novels, though I'm too ashamed to admit that out loud. Anyone that has ever read and enjoyed one will understand my captivation with 'melodramatic bodice-rippers', as Ginny calls them.

Oh yes, Ginny. Did I mention how she is the object of my torment? Some days, I think having to watch her with him is my penance for all of the wrong choices I've made in my life.

Where was I? Oh yes, romance novels. They all follow the same path, and I'm comfortable with that. I need that. I need to know that happily-ever-after will always be in the epilogue. The heroine (or sometimes the hero, if the author is feeling spunky enough to tweak the formula) finds the love of her life, meets the mad villain, sacrifices everything- even her love- to vanquish Evil and restore peace to the world, returns to her love and they resolve their conflict/ set right the misperceptions and live happily ever after.

It never works out that way in reality, however much I wish it were otherwise. Or maybe it does happen, just not to me. In my more self-pitying moments, I wonder why. Hell, even Pansy knew that Justin Finch-Fletchley was the one for her when he dropped his glass on her foot at the Three Broomsticks. But not me. Nope, I was too much of a prat to figure out that I needed her before I ran out of time. I don't get my happy ending. I get no epilogue here, only one day after another, constantly reminded of my stupidity by a girl with long red hair.

Even standing here, outside a small chapel in God-knows-where, I can't quite seem to make myself understand that it's over, that I blew my chance with her. I try to tear my gaze away from her face. It's glowing with a happiness that even her veil can't conceal. Those big eyes of hers shine, and in a wishful moment, I think that they shine with tears for missed opportunities. Even as I think it, I know it to be a lie. Her eyes are lit by love and hope for her future. Her future with him.

Finally succeeding in dragging my eyes from Ginny's beautiful face, I look to the left, desperate for something, anything, besides her to focus on. My eyes settle on Mrs. Weasley wiping a tear from her cheek and trying to surreptitiously blow her red nose as Arthur Weasley squeezes her comfortingly. Tears and all, even I can see that they are ecstatic. After all, their only daughter is head-over-heels in love with a man that has loved her desperately for years.

I know that I should be happy for her- after all, she's told me over and over what a good friend I am. Friends are happy for one another, aren't they? If that's true, then I suppose I'm only her friend when I've made it to the bottom of a Scotch bottle. Some nights, when I'm flirting with the point of being so drunk that I can't form a coherent thought any longer, then- for just a moment- I'm glad he makes her happy.

Looking back, I think I should have known it at Hogwarts. God knows I was suspicious enough of him and everything he did. I watched him often, waiting for him to pull some sort of self-aggrandizing stunt, and instead began to realize something else in our fifth year. I'd see him around her more often. I never caught him speaking with her, but you're not in that close of proximity to a person that often if you don't speak, right? After the end of term debacle that was the final hurrah of the Inquisitorial Squad, I think both he and I had a much better appreciation for the woman Ginny was becoming- strong, stubborn and quite capable in a fight.

I should have known when I was first accepted into the Order of the Phoenix, when I walked through the front door of the house on Grimmauld Place and saw her leaning against the banister talking to him. There was nothing overt about it, but the way she gave him her undivided attention said that she was deeply interested in whatever it was that he had to say.

I should have known it after the final battle, when she rushed to his side the second the fighting ceased, catching his weary body in her arms as he sagged with exhaustion. I still remember seeing her tears hit his cheek with surreal clarity, tiny drops awash with the rainbow colors of soap bubbles in the summer sunshine. I think I will always be haunted by the tender moment when he struggled to lift a bloodied hand to cradle her face before falling unconscious. Looking back, I wonder why I thought then that it was a childish infatuation, not true love.

I suppose I should have known some time ago, whether it was when we were teenagers or young adults prematurely aged by a horrific war. Still, their beaming announcement two months ago that they were getting married rocked me to my core. I felt anger and jealousy bubble up through a crack in my soul that I didn't know existed. To think that, after everything I'd gone through in the last several years, I was jealous of him. My schoolboy rival, my foil. For every choice I made or act I committed, it always seemed that he did the opposite out of spite or some sort of twisted idealism.

I watched their heads disappear into the wedding carriage, her beautiful red hair partially obscured by the palest blond of his as he bent and captured her lips in a kiss.

Oh, yes, I was envious. More than anything though, I was resigned- resigned to the fact that I was too late, that I was too absorbed with adult problems like saving the world in my sixth year to realize that Fate would only give me so many chances to claim the girl of my dreams. Fate is funny like that. She offers you everything you will ever want, but with a catch. The catch with Ginny was that I had to see the potential in her before the next guy did. I failed miserably. I thought she'd be there when I was done with the hero's quest. I thought that it would be like in my novels. I was wrong, and I dream that I can hear Fate laughing as she sends Ginny on to fall in love with Draco Malfoy.

I pushed the bridge of my glasses farther up my nose and stood between Ron and Mrs. Weasley as everyone waved the newlyweds off. I smiled when everyone else did and agreed that two people so in love deserved one another, but all the while, I was dying inside. It should have been me.


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