“And that’s life, love.”

I’m sure we’re taller in another dimension.

You’d been dating Hermione for as long as you could remember. So long it felt less like a beginning and more like a constant, like breathing, like gravity. Not that anyone else could ever know.

She never told her friends about you. Begged you not to tell yours. Said it was easier that way. Safer. You told yourself you could live with it, that secrecy was just another compromise people made for love. But it hollowed you out all the same.

No affection. No hands brushing in corridors. No leaning into each other during late-night study sessions when everyone else was gone. In Harry and Ron’s eyes, you weren’t lovers, you were rivals. Gryffindor and Slytherin, always circling each other with sharp words and sharper looks, playing a part that made everyone else comfortable.

Yet everything that was you had a bit of her in it.

The way you argued. The way you learned. The way silence stretched between you like something sacred and dangerous all at once.

The Yule Ball was supposed to be happy. Glittering. Warm. A night where the castle felt less like stone and more like a promise. You’d let yourself hope just a little that maybe this would be different. That she’d choose you. Even quietly. Even secretly.

Instead, you found yourselves in a hallway with no witnesses but flickering candlelight.

The overhead candles swayed, wax threatening to drip between the space you refused to close. Your arms were crossed, jaw tight, your heart hammering loud enough you were sure she could hear it.

“No one would understand,” Hermione said, voice sharp with something close to panic. “We’re—”

She stopped, swallowed.

“We’re small,” she finished. “Not worth the mention.”

The words landed like a curse.

Your throat burned, tears stinging the corners of your eyes, pride forcing them back. You stared at her like she’d just rewritten everything you thought you were. Everything you thought you were to her.

Small. Unworthy. A secret she could outgrow.

Everything felt like it was slipping away, your future, your certainty, the version of her who whispered your name like it was safe. All that remained was that familiar emptiness, the one that never really left, only changed shape.

Jealousy crept in, ugly and bitter. A toxin in a potion you never asked her to brew.

She asked Ron to the Yule Ball.

Ron—with his loud laughter and obviousness, his place already carved into the world. A boy she could stand beside without fear, without explanation. A boy who didn’t have to be hidden.

You had every right to be furious.

But beneath the anger was grief. Because loving Hermione meant loving someone who was still afraid to be seen standing next to you. And maybe, in another dimension, you were taller,braver, free enough to hold her hand in the Great Hall without it costing either of you everything.

Here, though, you just stood beneath the candles, watching the wax drip slowly down, wondering when love stopped being enough.