A Tale as Old as Time (Harry James Potter x OC)

Chapter 3...Unrequited Love

Ron Weasley wanted to fucking kill himself. Gods above, Ron loved his best friend, but Harry would not stop talking about this damn girl.

"Oh Ron, she was so beautiful. You have no idea."

"After listening to you drone on and on about her for the past hour, I think I do," Ron muttered under his breath as he lazily bit into his chicken wing. Although she was listening intently to Harry's rant, Hermione looked at Ron questioningly. They were at the park; where the hell did Ronald find a 3:00 snack of hot wings?

Never mind that, Hermione was excited for her friend. "That's wonderful, Harry!" She smiled, "Do you have any idea who she is? She must be a Hufflepuff if her skirt was yellow, as you said."

"I have no idea Hermione. I don't know how I never noticed her before," he mused. "She truly is a marvel." Harry's eyes shined with love in his bewitchment.

"Well, Hogwarts makes it a point to put only Gryffindors and Slytherins together for the first two years, so we haven't really had much of an opportunity to venture outside our own little circle."

"Speak for yourself," Ron slurred, an amalgamation of food and spit flying out of his mouth. Hermione wrinkled her nose in utter disgust. He boasted, "I have made plenty of friends from all the Houses."

"Ronald, your fellow food critics hardly count as friends. Just because you found a group of hollow-headed buffoons who care more about what's for dinner than their grades doesn't mean they're your best buds." Ron glared at her coldly.

Last school year, after a particularly horrid argument with Hermione about personal hygiene and manners during public means, Ronald decided it would be an absolutely splendid idea for him to make some new friends who better understood his eating habits. And so, he gathered a group of Hogwarts' most foul boys and started his self-proclaimed "Men's Eating Club."

When Hermione and Ron forgave each other the following day and the ginger shared the news with her, she scoffed in disbelief at the absurdity of his idea and deemed its name to be sexist at its very essence. "What a foul excuse to eat like a slob," she would exclaim. But nevertheless, just as Ron promised, the club met once a week in the Great Hall to enjoy an outrageously hefty meal.

"Focus guys," Harry snapped. "I need to find this girl. She's the love of my life; I swear it." His eyes glazed over with a dreamy, enchanted look.

"Harry, you just met the girl," the ginger said.

"That hardly matters, Ron. Sometimes you just know."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Please, since when have you been such a romantic?"

"'Since I met her," Harry sighed. "And now that I have, I'll do whatever it takes to make her mine, you'll see." He struck out his hand, "I bet you my entire life she'll be my wife one day and we'll pop out five beautiful kids."

Giggling softly alongside Ron, Hermione laughed, "As much as I'd like to see you 'pop out five beautiful kids', I highly doubt that, Harry."

"You'll see. We're meant to be." Harry gazed up at the sun and could have sworn he saw the beautiful blonde's eyes staring back at him in all its golden-light glory.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

While Harry may not have known Rosemary's name, she most certainly knew his. One of her dearest friends, whom she considered a brother at this point, would never shut up about him. Harry Potter this, Harry Potter that. You'd think he was in love with the boy!

Rose's best friend, Draco Malfoy, was always grumbling about how the Potter boy struts through the halls like he owns the place and acts like he is so much better than everyone else. Rose refrained from reminding him that he had once tried to befriend Harry in their first year at Hogwarts out of pure kindness, but Candace and Amanda, who both always hated Draco, never passed up on the opportunity to bring up that particular truth.