Four.

Why does everything always have to get so complicated? You think you've got it all figured out, or maybe you don't even think that because you never thought about anything before now... at least not anything like this... I definitely never thought this way before...

What was I supposed to do? Ask you to go to that bloody stupid Ball with me? Really? That's what you wanted? I didn't believe that...

It only just started to matter that you might actually have someone who wanted to go with you somewhere that I couldn't follow. Or maybe that's just because it had never really come up before. We were always together - me and Harry and you. We never did things with other people. It just didn't happen. So when you said you had a date, I just didn't believe you. But somewhere in the back of my mind I was scared... terrified. Harry's shrugs and brush offs didn't help to convince me that I had nothing to worry about. I don't know why that should surprise me. After all, I never told Harry that I was worried about anything. I suppose it might have crossed his mind, maybe been a bit more obvious to him than I'd like to admit... but what right did I even have to care if you went with some secret person to the Ball anyway?

And why is it that with everything that happened to us that year, that ruddy useless Ball is the only thing that I really spent much time thinking about?! Even the argument I had with Harry seemed trivial in the end.

I guess it all started at the Quidditch World Cup. For some reason, things felt different that summer, like we were together just... because. It was the first summer that you spent part of with me, the first summer you spent away from home... and the fact that it was me (and Harry) that you spent that important summer with was so... wonderful.

When we returned to school, everyone was so excited about the tournament. I guess I wanted to enter, and I know Harry knew it. I believe I really would have if I could have, if I had been of age. Then, like every other time, Harry was the one that stood out, the one people talked about, the one who would go on to do something great, something else to be famous for. What right did he have to go behind my back, to do what he knew I wanted without letting me at least try against him? Sure, I knew that in the end, with me against Harry... well, no one would have been cheering on my side, let's just say that. And that got me wondering, because I knew it in the back of my mind... I knew it. If Harry was against me, if both of our names had gone in and you had known it... you would have picked Harry.

Okay, so you wouldn't have said it that way, and maybe you wouldn't have even really chosen him because you liked him better. Maybe that's what my immature fourteen year old mind angrily chanted when I was lying in bed at night seething over Harry being chosen when I didn't even have a chance to try... but it wasn't true, not exactly. You would have thought about it all very logically. Harry had a better chance because he had accomplished more, not because I wasn't as good, but because I hadn't been forced, under extreme circumstances, to prevail in situations that others our age couldn't even fathom. That's what you would have thought... and what you would have said if I had asked. Because you're you. Because you never lie, even when you have to hold on to tiny threads of truth to do it.

But, in the end, the truth is that Harry would have been the better candidate, the one who would go on to succeed, as he did, in the end. How would I have really fared against a dragon? I don't even like to think about it...

So I knew, finally, that it hadn't been Harry's fault, that he hadn't tried to trick me, to outsmart me, to go behind our backs and enter just to spite me. Because that isn't Harry. Because Harry loves us both. Because Harry's worth everything, worth dying for, worth sacrificing our happiness for, worth saving... Because even though he doesn't want to be, he's special, he's important, he's going to do something someday that even you and me, those who know him best, can't really believe.

And isn't that the problem? Isn't that the very reason why I knew that I'd never win? Why did everything have to be a contest? Just when I thought one battle had been won, or at least canceled, just when things were starting to go well again... you walk through those doors in your dress robes looking like a girl, a girl that I would die for, a girl that I... that I fancy. Because, well, I do... I did then too. I don't know why it took a moment like that to knock me down, to show me what I was hiding from myself. You on Viktor Krum's arm. My hero. Now my greatest enemy. Screw Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, You-Know-Who... I wanted Krum to suffer...

But who is the real coward? Let's add that to the growing list of characteristics of Ron Weasley. Too afraid of a girl to tell her that he fancies her.

But not just any girl. A perfect one. I guess that's why this is so complicated, isn't it...

And just so you know, you were never my last resort, not for a second. Maybe some day you'll really know that.