The third wheel. No one likes being a third wheel. Especially when there are awkward moments where the other two wheels try to include you in stuff. Or when they’re making out and you’re sitting there right next to them in the carriage. Not nice. Particularly when the carriage hit a bump and they fell on top of me, still making out. I am traumatised for life.

You’re probably wondering who I am and what I’m talking about. Well, my name is Harry Potter and my two best friends; Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger started dating a while ago. It was driving me nuts when I could tell they ‘liked’ each other without doing anything but now they were doing something about it, it was driving me even more nuts.

I discovered this romance when I was at The Burrow sharing Ron’s room for the holidays. You know what’s worse than having nightmares? Getting to know you’re best friend too well. I was actually sleeping pretty well for a change when I heard moaning. Ron’s moaning.

My eyes snapped open. Was he in pain? But then I checked him; he was just sleep talking. I rolled my eyes and was about to go back to sleep when I heard him say something.

“Mmm, Hermione.”

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep well for the rest of the night. I was very embarrassed to ask him about it the next day but I did notice he was paying particular attention to Hermione in her practically see through nightdress. In fact, he was paying so much attention to her he spread butter on his hand instead of his toast.

“Ron, what are you doing?” Hermione asked.

His ears turned that shade of red the only way a Weasley’s could. His mouth opened and shut a few times like a goldfish’s and a few stutters came out.

“Honestly Ron close your mouth I can see bits of toast rolling around in it,” Hermione said and picked up the paper. Ron decided to forget breakfast and left the room.

From then on I noticed the way Ron acted around Hermione. Not to mention the dreams he kept having afterwards… Eurgh. That first one was scary enough but later it got scarier and scarier. When I started wearing earmuffs he began to notice something was up.

“Mate, what’s with the earmuffs?”

“Erm… Well your snoring has been keeping me awake the past few days so I’ve decided to take action.”

“Harry, you’ve never had a problem with my snoring before.”

Damn, he’s getting smart. “Er…”

“And you’ve been looking at me funny too. What’s up with that lately?”

“Er, you don’t wanna know. It’s very embarrassing.”

“Come on you can tell me, we’re best mates!”

Hmm. How do you tell your friend that your problem is really his problem? Well really, there’s nothing real delicate you can do about it so it’s just easier too be blunt.

“Lately I’ve been hearing you sleep talk. And some of the stuff you say is pretty… disturbing.”

“Oh. What did I say?”

Damn, he just had to keep pushing it didn’t he? “Well you’ve been groaning about Hermione.”

That did it. His ears were red and he never questioned me about my precious pink fluffy earmuffs ever again.

Later on I unwittingly found Hermione’s side of the story. You know how girls constantly gossip about things? Well, when we started Hogwarts once again for our seventh year I overheard Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown talking.

“You know Hermione?” Parvati said.

“Yeah of course I know Hermione she shares the dorm with us,” Lavender snapped. Must be one of those PMS days.

“Well anyway she keeps a photo of Ron – do you know Ron?”

“Hello, I dated him last year!” Lavender screamed. Yep, definitely one of those PMS days. “What does she do to that photo?”

“Actually she has heaps of them in all of her school books.”

I nearly choked on my toast and immediately began spluttering food onto the table. The unfortunate people sitting across from me got sprayed with toast, kipper and heaps of my spit. Most of them were disgusted with me, which was fair enough. Except for Colin Creevey of course who got as excited as ever.

“Wow, Harry Potter’s breakfast and spit on me! I’m never going to wash these school robes ever again!”

Then he walked off with an expression on his face that reminded me of Loony Luna. He’s a disturbing one that one.

“Are you okay?” Parvati asked.

Was I okay? HELLO, I’ve just been choking here for the last few seconds; of course I’m not okay!

What I actually said: “I’m fine.”

I learnt three very disturbing things that day. One, Colin Creevey now has a set of school robes covered with my breakfast and spit on them hanging like a shrine in his room. Two, PMS must be very painful and you don’t want to approach any women at that time of month. And three, Hermione also liked carrying stalkerish photos of Ron everywhere. None of these things of which I wanted to know.

From then on I started noticing the looks they gave each other and the little things about how they behaved around each other. And if they thought it was weird, they should have seen how I felt! This was the beginning of becoming a third wheel – you start getting left out. In the case where you’re two best friends starts ‘liking’ each other, you get left out because you don’t join in the blushing or looking-at-the-other-when-he-or-she-isn’t-looking game. Which I think is fine but that doesn’t make it any less awkward. The worst part was when tried to consult me about it.

“Hey Harry, how’ve the earmuffs been working for you lately?”

When your friend is trying too hard to put on a normal tone when it clearly isn’t you can tell something is coming up. Also he’s talking about something he hasn’t talked about in months – the earmuffs.

“Yeah, they’ve been working fine,” I replied. “Though, they’re starting to crack a bit I think – I’m starting to overhear some of Neville’s disturbing dreams now.”

“Oh. Well, um, you know Hermione?”

Yeah she’s our other best friend. What I really said. “Yeah.”

“What do you think I should say to her?” he blurted.

Jeez, he was asking me of all people? The guy who had the girl ask him out on his first date? That’s desperate.

“I dunno, I don’t know much about this love stuff. Maybe you should ask Hermione, she’s usually good at it,” I said.

Ron just looked at me as though I’d been smacked in the head with a gong.

“You idiot, Hermione is the problem, I can’t talk to her about it! Argh!”

From then on he never asked me about love again. I think he may have tried asking Ginny but she got weirded out talking to Ron about all this stuff so he gave up.

Hermione was also trying to sort out this problem with great difficulty too. It’s amazing; women know exactly what to do when it comes to other people’s relationships but when it comes to their own problems they’re completely lost. However, she wasn’t desperate enough to ask me yet. She just asked Ginny, who told me about it later.

I bet Hermione was hoping Ginny would keep it a secret, which is actually pretty stupid. Girls can never keep their mouths shut about gossip. It’s in their nature to talk. Hermione of all people should understand that herself. So it shouldn’t have been such a huge surprise when everyone in the Great Hall began talking about it.

“GINNY!” she screamed. This time I’m sure PMS had nothing to do with it.

Hermione gave her a huge lecture about not telling people things before she collapsed onto the table in worry about whether Ron liked her or not.

“Hey Hermione!” Lavender called out during this. “Are you going to ask Ron out to the Seventh Year Ball?”

“There’s a ball?” Hermione paled.

And that’s about when it all gets worse.

A/N: Just so you know, I know Harry is very out of character and this fic isn't very well written. This was just a short fic to try and clear up writer's block which I'm dealing with right now for my other two stories, 50 Wrongs for Prongs in a Date and Hogwarts Carol. I'm not quitting on either of those yet! Dunno whether to expand this any further, reviews appreciated.