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Harry and Ron are tucked away in a booth at the back of the Leaky when Lavender and Parvati approach. Lavender, Ron can’t help but think, looks fitter than ever. There’s something about the way the silver scars on her face clash with the bright blue of her eyes and the shiny, coiffed curls of her now-short hair.
Parvati looks brilliant too. Ron notices the way Harry looks up from the bowl of chips they’re sharing and takes her in: long plaits coiled on the top of her head, threaded through with little golden leaves and shards of crystal. Her wrists are heavy with bangles that jingle merrily when she goes to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear.
Ron steals an extra-lengthy sip of Harry’s cocktail while he’s distracted—it’s a pastel purple, sweet and creamy thing that fizzes and glitters, which Ron once made the mistake of drinking in front of George. His masculinity hasn’t quite repaired itself enough to order them for himself yet, but Harry’s the kind of good mate who’ll do it for him and then let him pretend they just want to try each other’s drinks.
“You two are looking good,” Lavender says, smiling at them in a way she hasn’t smiled at Ron in years. Not that he’s seen much of her since the war ended.
“Glad to see you pulled your heads out of your arses,” Parvati agrees. Lavender giggles in apparent understanding, although Ron’s not quite sure where the comment came from. Still, he knows the way he and Harry treated Parvati and Padma in fourth year was pretty solid arse-head material.
“Er, we’re glad too,” Harry replies. “How have you both been?”
“Oh, just wonderful!” says Lavender. “We got back from India last week—beautiful place, though not so good with werewolf rights.”
“Or women’s rights,” Parvati adds. “But I have family there, and the food—”
“The food,” Lavender lets out an ecstatic groan at the thought. “Even the vegetarian stuff, I couldn’t complain about—and us wolves don’t exactly substitute dhal for beef without noticing it. Have you ever been?”
She looks at Harry as she says it, and Ron wants to complain that it’s a bit of a racist assumption, asking the brown guy alone—except it happens that she’s not wrong. Harry hasn’t been to India, but he has been thinking about it. Tracing his family history’s become a bit a mission for him since his life stopped having to revolve around shitty Voldemort bollocks.
“Not yet. But I’ve exchanged a couple of letters with some semi-distant relatives of my dad’s in Delhi and I want to make a trip to meet them once I’ve saved up enough leave.”
Ron’s told him he should just inform Robards that he’ll be taking a month off and bloody go, but Harry insists on doing things the way people who aren’t Harry fucking Potter have to do them. Ron gets it, he supposes, though personally he’s not so averse to taking advantage of the special treatment his name gets him nowadays. It’s nice. Nice to be important, to be thanked, to have accomplishments to his name which he can be really proud of.
“You absolutely must! And Ron, you’ll go with him, right?”
“Um, if it works out that way? Nothing’s finalised yet, so can’t be sure,” Ron deflects.
In truth, he’s not entirely sure whether Harry would want him there or not. They haven’t discussed the issue point blank, but if he does tag along it’ll be more of an imposition on any relatives he stays with. Plus Ron sometimes gets the feeling that the forensic reconstruction of this part of Harry’s identity is something he wants to do for himself, by himself.
Harry nudges him, and takes his cocktail back. “If Ron decides he does want to, then of course we’ll find a way.”
Lavender and Parvati share an affectionate look.
“Aww,” says Lavender. “That’s very sweet.”
Harry shovels a couple more chips into his mouth, obviously torn between appearing polite and having to experience the depression that is cold, congealing strips of deep-fried potato. They’re never the same when reheated, whether you use magic or a Muggle appliance to do it.
“We should leave you boys to it,” says Parvati. “We have a dinner reservation to get to anyway—but I’d be happy to tell you some more about India sometime. I’ve got a few suggestions I think you might like.”
“Oh, me too,” Lavender says. There’s a gleam in her eye which Ron thinks may or may not be the result of the moody lighting in this end of the pub. “I know—why don’t the four of us go out sometime. A double date! Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Parvati smiles and nods, and Ron’s hardly going to protest. Lavender is as beautiful as ever, and something about her enthusiasm just makes him want to go out and enjoy life. That had been a difficult desire to recover, after everything. After Fred, especially.
“Sure,” Harry agrees, sounding a little bit helpless. “Er, owl us and let us know where you’d like us to take you?”
After the girls have departed, Harry and Ron order another basket of chips and another round of drinks. They’d been bloody tired after work and had only ventured out because it meant not having to cook anything back at home, but Ron can feel the strange energy running through both himself and Harry now.
“That was weird, right?” he asks.
“Definitely weird.”
“But not bad.”
“Definitely not bad.”
“Lavender’s looking fit these days,” Ron sighs. “But I really don’t understand why would she want to date me again after all this time? We haven’t even spoken since you, ‘Mione and I visited her at St Mungo’s, and she wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me then.”
Harry just shrugs, articulating Ron’s feelings perfectly in the gesture.
“I guess we’ll find out sooner or later.”
In hindsight, it should have been obvious. The way Lavender and Parvati shared those private, knowing looks. The way they stood close, one’s arm almost always wrapped around the other. They way they knew each other’s lives inside out, and had been around the world together.
Ron’s an observant person, he likes to think—a strategist, and solver of puzzles—and Harry’s supposed to be a keen-eyed seeker. They’re both professional investigators with the Auror Corps, for Merlin’s sake.
Somehow they still only realise what’s going on when Parvati leans over to kiss Lavender on the mouth with a familiarity that makes something in Ron’s gut twist enviously even as it excites him (he pushes down the slight flare of arousal because Hermione would probably find out about it somehow and he doesn’t love the idea of being castrated for using his inevitably male gaze in this way).
Harry’s elbow lands between his ribs, and is followed by Harry’s mouth close to Ron’s ear.
“Do you think…” he breathes.
Ron nods, trying to convey as much as he can without having to say it aloud.
“I need to er, visit the loo,” Harry announces awkwardly. “Come with me?” he turns to Ron.
“Of course. We’ll give you two a moment,” he says, and then, bizarrely, throws a wink at Lavender and Parvati, which he immediately regrets.
“We’ve misread this whole situation horribly, yeah?” Ron whispers furiously as soon as the door to the gents shuts behind them.
“Really badly,” Harry agrees, pinching the top of his nose the way he does when trying to fend off a headache. When he retracts his hand, his glasses come back to rest on the bridge of his nose at a wonky angle. Absentmindedly, Ron reaches out and adjusts them for him.
“I guess they do kind of make sense together.”
“They’ve been pretty inseparable forever. Although if you think about it that way we really could be dating too.”
“Never mind that now, Harry—what are we going to do? We can’t go back out there and admit that we thought they’d invited us to date them!”
The slight panic in Harry’s eyes back there has told Ron all he needs to know: neither of them wanted to suffer a retraction of the heads-no-longer-in-arses validation they received previously. They’d be a laughing stock; the biggest arse-heads alive.
Harry sets his jaw. “So we pretend we’re dating for tonight. It can’t be that hard if we’ve already accidentally convinced them, can it?”
Ron can’t think of a better idea, and they’re officially running out of taking-a-quick-slash time and over into significant-bowel-movement territory. Or worse, Ron realises: quickie-in-the-bathroom territory. Merlin above, Lavender’s going to think he’s in here sucking Harry’s cock or something.
Ron looks at the damp, tiled floor, the peeling paint on the walls and the rusty-edged white basins and cringes at the thought of kneeling.
He looks to Harry, who appears to be having a similar thought. Oddly, Ron’s overcome with the urge to reassure Harry that it isn’t because he finds the idea of sucking Harry’s cock incredibly unappealing that he’s cringing. If he was going to suck any bloke’s cock, Ron can confidently say it’d be Harry’s.
It’s just that he’s not going to suck any bloke’s cock. Charlie’s the gay brother, after all—a niche he had filled before Ron had even grown into an understanding of sexuality.
“I’m going back out,” Ron declares. “We’ve been in here too long. Give me a minute or so and then follow.”
With that, Ron pushes back out the heavy, slightly slimy door and returns to the booth where Lavender is running her fingers over Parvati’s shoulder and collarbone with leisurely tenderness.
Ron won’t have to do that with Harry as part of the charade, will he? That would be… weird. Very weird. They’ve done so much together, but that kind of touching is so far off the map of their relationship that Ron thinks he might suddenly start thinking Harry was a whole other person, a stranger, if he started acting that way.
When Harry slides into the booth next to Ron, however, it’s with a seemingly reflexive peck on the cheek. Ron doesn’t get it—they’d both gone along to the loo, so it isn’t even like Harry had time to miss him—but the small, casual gesture plays well with their audience. Lavender tilts her head like she’s watching the sweetest little crup puppy at play, and Parvati smirks a little knowingly, grasping Lavender’s hand in her own and pulling them up to rest on the table, entwined.
Then she looks at Ron, dead-on, and he can’t deny that there’s a challenge in her eyes.
Suddenly their plan feels conspicuous. She knows, crows an insistent voice in Ron’s head. You can’t convince her—you couldn’t convince anyone that out of everyone in the world Harry Potter would choose you. Even if he was bent.
Ron recognises that he’s a competitive person. He doesn’t like to lose at chess, or at quidditch, or even at exploding snap. He especially doesn’t like to lose when it comes to Harry. He is Harry’s best mate, his family is Harry’s family, and they’ve been through things together that are so unimaginable Ron still has to check with Hermione now and then for confirmation that they were real. If Harry was ever going to suck somebody’s cock in the loo, why the bloody hell shouldn’t it be Ron’s?
Ron grabs Harry’s hand and lays it on the table to mirror Lavender and Parvati’s—although not before he’s lifted Harry’s knuckles to his own mouth for a light but boldly bestowed kiss.
Harry lets out a cute little sigh and budges over so that he’s fully thigh-to-thigh next to Ron. He’s warm, and he smells like Harry even in the muddled cauldron of odours that is the pub. His presence is so comforting that it’s easy for Ron to lean into him, propping his head on Harry’s shoulder. Ron’s blood buzzes and pounds and his skin tingles, hyper-aware that he’s publicly snuggling with Harry right now, in a manner designed to be romantic. Even though, intellectually, Ron knows it isn’t real, he can’t help but enjoy the contact in a way he didn’t realise he could. It’s like not feeling hungry until you start to eat and then realising you’re actually pretty ravenous. Not that Ron is often not hungry to begin with.
“See, Pav,” Lavender laughs, “I told you they’d be more comfortable showing affection if we did it first.”
“It’s hard to, out and about,” says Harry, with surprising ease. Ron can feel the vibration of Harry’s speech thrumming along through where the side of his face rests in the crook of Harry’s neck. “The press are worse than vampires.”
“Much worse,” Lavender grins. “They come out during the day and don’t care if they’re not invited.”
Harry’s laugh rumbles, deeper and warmer than his words. Ron wants to nestle into it, wants to ask Harry just to keep using his voice because it’s soothing and somehow exquisitely intimate: feeling someone’s body work with only skin to separate you from being inside them, like feeling someone’s heartbeat in their jugular or the fine side of their wrist.
“We were sorry about that awful article Rita Skeeter put out about you, by the way,” Harry tells Lavender.
“Thanks,” says Lavender, her smile shrinking, hardening, but remaining. “I don’t care what that parasite prints anymore anyway—and if all she can say is that I’m silly and ugly then it’s clear she knows nothing about me or about personal style.”
“Scars are very in, since the war,” Parvati explains. “A lot of the local runway shows have been using veteran models—and there was that Witch Weekly cover with your brother George, Ron. That was really hot.”
Ron pulls the obligatory disgusted face and Harry laughs.
“And Neville’s centrefold,” adds Lavender. “Poor thing will never live it down. Still blushes whenever someone mentions it to him.”
“Why haven’t either of you boys done any magazine shoots? I’m sure you’ve got the scars for it, both of you.”
Parvati tosses a pointed, overtly approving look at the wavy scars on Ron’s own forearms, where his shirtsleeves are rolled haphazardly to the elbow. The attention is novel but a touch unsettling; he’s definitely never thought about them as positive attributes before. He’s been too busy working to shift them from traumatic-experience residue that not long ago made him want to skin his arms alive to neutral, ultimately superficial attributes of a body not defined by past wounds.
“If they did one together…” Lavender says, the gleam of brilliant revelation somewhat terrifying in her eyes.
“I had no idea scars were in fashion,” Harry cuts in dryly. “Mocked for my fashion sense my whole life and it turns out I was just ahead of my time.”
Ron snorts, lifting his head up so that he can look at Harry’s forehead, at that all-too-familiar scar, larger and silverier than when he’d first seen it that day on the train. He pushes Harry’s hair to either side of it to neaten the way his curly not-quite-a-fringe falls. Harry’s hair is soft between his fingers, even though it looks wiry. Ron likes it.
“What did you think you were famous for?” he jokes. “You’re a fashion icon.”
“Round glasses have never been more popular,” Parvati says sagely. “I swore I read it in the tea leaves back in sixth year but this one didn’t believe me. Said it was a bridge too far.”
Lavender rolls her eyes. Ron suspects the two girls have had this playful argument before. “I said it was a bridge too far for us to act on the trend so long before it came to pass. I never doubted your divination for a moment, babe.”
By the time Ron and Harry stumble out of the floo into their apartment, things have become decidedly tense. Ron doesn’t think it’s his fault—although the moment Harry started looking away like he was hiding something Ron couldn’t help but start acting weird himself.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asks, now that they can’t be overheard. “Did I do something wrong back there?”
Harry shakes his head, looking at the floor. It was nice carpet, deep and soft enough that Ron had slept through more than one night on it in the past, but it didn’t warrant this much sudden attention.
“No, it’s— I just, erm. Don’t get mad, okay, but I should tell you something. I wish I’d had a chance to explain before this whole thing tonight.”
Ron waits, biting his tongue because it’s clear Harry’s fighting to get these words out.
“I… like blokes. Girls too, though—what I mean is, I’m bisexual. I’ve been pretty sure of it for a while now.”
Ron feels his brows hike up his forehead of their own accord. He looks at Harry, who’s growing more distressed with every second that passes without a response. Ron’s not sure yet how he’s going to process this revelation, but he does know he needs to let Harry know it’s okay.
“Cool,” he says, rubbing slightly sweaty palms together. “Uh, thanks for telling me?”
“You’re not angry?”
Ron thinks about the way Harry had stroked his skin in front of Lavender and Parvati, the way Harry’s chapped lips had felt against his cheek. The thought of Harry sucking some bloke’s cock in the loo which was suddenly not so hypothetical at all. He feels some part of himself start to smoke, as if threatening to catch properly alight.
Then he thinks of Charlie, and the jerks who’d forced Ron to watch his big brother cry when he came home from Hogwarts one summer and told Mum that his friends had decided they weren’t his friends any longer. He thinks of Harry, and the long list of absolute arseholes who’ve made him feel like he should be sorry for being who he was and telling the truth as he knew it. Ron’s already made his appearances on that list and sworn there won’t be any more as long as he lives.
“Why would I be angry?” Ron replies firmly. “It’s not like you’ve done anything wrong.”
Harry looks at him then. His eyes are shiny and Ron hates that there’s been this thing his best friend’s been carrying around without being able to let Ron know or help.
“But you’re not, you know, uncomfortable?”
“Nope,” says Ron, and realises immediately afterwards that it wasn’t quite the truth.
Harry sniffs then grins at him, clearly relieved—and oh sodding Merlin’s pants Ron’s going to have to hurry up and figure out what’s wrong with himself, and get rid of the weird prickly feeling his bisexual best mate’s presence is now giving him.
“You’re the best friend I could ever have asked for,” Harry says, pulling Ron into a tight hug.
“I know,” Ron replies, with a light-hearted conviction he absolutely doesn’t feel.
Things are weird. Ron can’t help it. It’s weird that now whenever he and Harry crash on the couch together and Ron lays his head down in Harry’s lap while they watch the telly, Ron wonders whether this means something. Whenever he and Harry go out to grab a bite, he wonders whether it looks like they’re on a date. Does Ron look like the kind of guy who might like other guys? Harry doesn’t seem to think so, and yet Lavender and Parvati do.
What if Ron’s missing something about himself that they’ve seen?
Speaking of.
Ron’s finishing up for the day when Parvati comes into the office. It’s not unexpected, given that Padma’s with the homicides squad, but it is a surprise when she merely drops a parcel on the desk Padma shares with Sophie and then makes a beeline for Ron and Harry’s cubicle.
“Parvati,” he greets her. “Something wrong? How’s Lavender?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Parvati assures him. “And Lavender’s perfectly fine. I just came by to ask whether you and Harry would like to come and see Lee’s new stand-up show with us next week. We got four tickets thinking Pads and Michael would come, but they’ve had something come up that night.”
Ron looks at Harry and finds Harry already looking at him.
“I think we’re free,” he says cautiously.
Harry nods. “We thought there was going to be too much paperwork to do next week,” he explains, “but it’s looking more clear-cut than anticipated. We’d love to come and see Lee do his thing.”
“Brilliant!” Parvati grins. “I’ll owl you the tickets tonight. Lav will be so pleased!”
She turns and hurries off, leaving Harry and Ron to exchange a mystifying sort of look. Ron has no idea what Harry’s expression means, which is rare enough. He also has zero clue what his own face is doing, or how to identify the weird knot of emotions in his throat. The closest recognisable sensation he can compare with them is reflux, which isn’t really an emotion outside of Christmas week at the Burrow.
“You’re alright with continuing this whole… pretending thing… for a bit longer?” Harry asks slowly.
Ron nods very fast. “’Course. Like I said, no problems here.”
Harry squints at him, and Ron prays to whatever spirits might be listening that this isn’t going to be one of Harry’s moments of unusual perceptiveness—like when a witness to that Knockturn Alley break-in said she’d had a hair appointment the day before, but still had bad split ends.
“It’s a bit more public, though, Lee’s show.”
Ron frowns. “If you’re not comfortable—”
“I’m comfortable!” protests Harry. “It’s just… it’ll be like me coming out, y’know? And since you’re not actually gay I thought you might not want to go through with it and cause all that confusion.”
I’m already bloody well confused, Ron wants to say. I’m confused because if you come out by yourself you’ll have men throwing themselves at you, lining up to blow you in the men’s if that’s what you want, and none of them will be as good for you as I would be.
If only Ron was gay. If only he was gay and he and Harry really were a thing, that’d be his love life sorted forever. The two of them would work out as a couple for sure.
“I guess you’ve got a point. Maybe I’ll think about it some more. Not because it’s you—if I was gay, you know you’d be my first choice. Good mate; best bloke I know; fit as hell, objectively; knows how to put up with me even when there’s a Cannons match on the wireless—so, you know, don’t be offended or anything.” Ron winds up his statement lamely. Harry hadn’t asked him for any of that detail, and he can feel his whole face colouring like a Remembrall.
“Thanks,” Harry laughs. “But there’s no need to say that to make me feel better. I know you’ll always have my back.”
Something in the way he says it grates at Ron—like even now he doesn’t really believe all those things are true. They are; all of them and a lot more. Harry must know he’s been probably the single most important person in Ron’s life since they met on the way to Platform Nine and Three Quarters.
“Not trying to make you feel better at all, mate,” he replies. “Just telling you the hard truth, whether you like it or not.”
“Hermione,” Ron groans through the floo.
The connection is terrible, given that her connection is a DIY job in her flat near Oxford Uni. She’d wanted to do some higher study entirely the Muggle way, but given her magical contacts either didn’t know how to use a mobile phone, couldn’t get one, or lived with too much magical saturation for signal or internet to work properly, she’d made the concession.
“Ron,” she groans back in imitation. “What’ve you done?”
“Hey! Why do you assume I’ve done something?”
“You look like you want me to tell you how to fix a problem, or tell you what to do. Your mouth always goes a certain way, kind of like you’re sucking on a lemon,” she laughs quietly. “So it must be bad, if you’re admitting you need my help.”
“Come on, ‘Mione, when haven’t I needed your help?”
“True. But what is it this time? You sound ill, and you’re stalling.”
“I…” Ron starts, but to his dismay the words don’t fall out of his mouth. Far from it; he’s not sure he can cough them up at all. Suddenly the gap in the conversation feels too awkward to break, the air feels too thin, and now it’s like the whole confession is overhyped. “Well, er. Harry and I met up with Lavender and Parvati recently, and it turned out they thought we were… well, that we were, you know, dating. And now I think that maybe I don’t think that’s a completely mental idea. More of an idea I’m… surprised by but curious about? As in, hypothetically, what would it be like if he and I were together like that? And what’s it mean that I don’t like the thought of him being with some other bloke? Am I jealous like a friend, or like a… a boyfriend or whatever, and does it make me gay that I’m wondering? And am I okay with that? I mean, it’s not really how I pictured my life going, is it? And do I have to tell Mum? Oh, Merlin.”
“Ron.” Hermione’s smiling kindly down at him as he looks up from amongst the coals of her fireplace. “Breathe. And I honestly think the best thing you can do in this situation is talk to Harry about it. You’re in this together, aren’t you, like always?”
Ron nods. “’Course. We’re best mates.”
“And would you stop being his friend if he told you he was thinking about your relationship this way, and you didn’t feel the same?”
“Of course not,” Ron protests immediately. Then he thinks maybe it would be a bit weird. “I mean… we’d get through it,” he amends. “Like we got through all the other stuff.”
Hermione looks proud. “Exactly. If Harry doesn’t think of you that way, then he’ll just continue thinking of you as his best mate. No matter what disagreements we’ve had, the three of us have always found our way back together, haven’t we?”
The more Hermione reassures him, the more Ron starts to believe that telling Harry about his little dilemma will be easy. She shoos him off, citing a need to study, and Ron withdraws with a new sense of confidence. He goes to make himself a cuppa and flicks the telly on while he waits for Harry to return from his regular Wednesday afternoon Teddy-sitting.
His boldness all but disappears the moment Harry plods through the door, kicking his boots off and stripping the heavy layers off his robes, hanging them haphazardly over the unusual and slightly confronting hatstand Luna gave them for their housewarming. Ron likes the stand better with Harry’s cloak hiding it, but together something about the familiarity of the whole homecoming ritual makes him balk.
He’s been thinking about Harry differently all day, and about some different future he might want them to have—but Harry’s still the same guy Ron lives and works with, and telling him doesn’t happen on some fantasy plane of existence. It happens in his actual daily life, in his home, with his housemate and best mate. The thought of it is making the scene feel uncanny, and Ron doesn’t know what he’ll do if it ends up feeling this way permanently.
“You okay?” Harry asks.
“Yeah,” replies Ron. “Yeah, just um. Well,” he squares his shoulders and thinks of Gryffindor. “Can we talk?”
Harry looks at him curiously. “Sure,” he says. “Can I just make some tea first? Do you want another cup?”
“Thanks,” Ron holds his mug out. “Two sugars.”
Harry really looks at him then. “I know,” he says slowly, like he’s trying to explain Arithmancy to a troll. Because of course Harry’s known Ron’s bloody tea order for years. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Honestly, no. It’s stupid, but I…”
Harry doesn’t interject, just raises those bushy black eyebrows of his. They’re terribly asymmetrical thanks to the slashes his scar puts through the hair on the one side. Ron likes them; has always liked them when he thinks about it.
“I’ve been wondering if maybe I’m bisexual too,” he rushes out. “After what you said, and this whole thing pretending to date with Lav and Parvati, suddenly I can’t stop wondering—if maybe I’m bi, and also what would happen if we weren’t just pretending.”
Harry goes very still at that. Stiff, even. He looks uncomfortable, like he’s been caught off-guard by a petrificus totalus.
“Er, what?” he asks, grunting as if he can’t even make his mouth work.
Ron’s heartbeat ticks faster and faster until it’s like the flapping of snitch’s wings, rising in his throat all restless and metallic.
“Forget I said that.”
“I can’t just forget,” Harry finds his words this time. His tone’s one of frustration—maybe even brewing anger. Ron hopes he’s not going to throw a proper Harry tantrum. Not now, not about this. “This is out of nowhere, Ron! I mean, have you ever been interested in a bloke before? I only just came out to you, and you didn’t say anything then! Now I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think.”
“Did you just—you can’t think I’m just saying I could be bi to copy you!”
It’s hard not to be incredulous, hard not to yell when Harry is clearly not having a calmly-taking-things-in-stride kind of day. Ron should leave him to it and wait for him to simmer down—but Ron is only human as well. Ron’s only human, and he’s stubborn as Godric, and the more his questioning is dismissed the more adamant he becomes that it shouldn’t be. Dismissal’s always hurt him; Harry’s especially.
“So what if I haven’t been interested in a bloke before?” he bites out. “There’s always got to be a first, for everyone—but seriously, do you even remember Viktor Krum? Or were you too busy thinking about Cedric and using Cho to cope with it?”
Harry steps back. Then, with clenched fists, he strides forward again. Scruffy hair and trainers notwithstanding, he looks like the man who defeated the Dark Lord. He looks like that terrifyingly powerful wizard, and like the guy Ron watches dumb game shows with when sleep is too much to hope for, and the guy who makes Ron’s skin prickle when he leans in close to bestow a deceptively sweet kiss upon Ron’s cheek. Harry’s so many things at once, and Ron is in awe of all of them equally.
“It wasn’t like that with Cho,” he says, low and dangerous. “And you’re one to talk—you were just jealous of Krum because of him and Hermione!”
“Maybe it was both, and I just didn’t recognise it at the time!” Ron throws his hands up, the frown heavy on his face. “That’s allowed! The same way I’m allowed to question who I’m attracted to even though you did it first! You may be the Chosen One, but you’re not the only bi person in the world, Harry. Why are you being so weird about it?”
“Because it is weird,” Harry shoots back. “It is. You’ve always been so straight—you liked Lavender, and Hermione, and you were so dazzled by Fleur. It’s not unreasonable that I’m having trouble processing; I’ve never thought of you that way before.”
“You do realise that this is exactly what you did to me two bloody days ago, don’t you?”
“No it’s not, because I’d actually thought about my sexuality for more than five seconds before announcing it!”
“Because you’re Mr Cautious, never made a rash decision in your life—”
“This isn’t like—”
“Will it be that terrible if I’m bisexual too? I don’t see how it should be any different—”
“But it is!” Harry bellows. “It’s different. I never thought—but now you’re saying…”
Harry trails off, and Ron lets the argument fizzle while he thinks.
“You never thought what, Harry?” he ventures when Harry doesn’t finish his own statement. “Are you, y’know, interested?”
“No!”
Ron must look stung, because Harry pushes a hand roughly through his hair and doubles back.
“No, sorry, I just mean that I don’t know,” he says instead. “It’s never seemed possible enough to even consider. Thinking about blokes this way doesn’t mean I’ve thought about all of my friends this way- wait, are you? Interested?”
Ron shrugs, offering a wan smile as the remaining anger seeps out of him. “Maybe? It’s not like this isn’t a new idea for me too. But I think I am, and that’s why I’m realising it now that I know you go both ways. If you don’t feel the same then it doesn’t have to change anything.”
“Sorry for yelling,” Harry mumbles, not meeting Ron’s eyes. “I don’t have an answer for you right now.”
“That’s alright,” says Ron. It is, and it isn’t, but he’s got to give Harry some time to think either way. And, if he knows his best mate, some time to ask Hermione what he ought to do.
The next several days are so busy they barely see each other even though they’re on the same case. And, you know, sharing a home.
Ron spends a lot of time with R&D, helping to tweak their standard ward sensors for use with the weird new airborne potions-based ward fields their suspects are using to guard a couple of known safehouses. The months he’s spent helping George out in the shop on his days off have resulted in a level of potions proficiency Ron only wishes he could go back and rub in Severus Snape’s smug, sneering face.
For his part, Harry spends a lot of time being dragged around by Robards and Shacklebolt delivering the bad news that several more Muggle victims are now confirmed to have suffocated when they walked too close to the toxic fields. One of these days Ron swears he’s going to personally sack up and tell the Minister and the Head Auror to stop using Harry as their own convenient bad-press neutraliser. It’s not going to work, and he’ll probably earn himself an unofficial desk duty sentence (or worse, find himself permanently in charge of Mr Ghezelbash’s noise complaints) but he’ll recruit Hermione to the cause and maybe she’ll be able to fix it somehow.
Ron bloody well misses Harry. It’s so much worse missing the person you might have a bit of a pash on when they’re also so much else to you. He finds himself regretting pushing Harry into reconsidering their relationship. He was right: Ron should have waited before blurting out what he was feeling. He’s a chess player, a detective, a keeper on the Quidditch pitch—where was his patience?
He resolves to do his thinking now, belatedly. While he sits in the Ministry cafeteria eating his lunch, he observes the many blokes going about their business around him. It’s harder, spotting an attractive man than a beautiful woman, and after his half-hour’s up he’s disheartened, having found only two he wouldn’t object to a bit of a snog with. Both had dark hair, one with a rich tan and the other with skin even paler than Ron’s, and without the universal Weasley freckles. Did this mean dark-haired men were Ron’s type? His taste isn’t so specific when it comes to women; on them he likes blonde hair, dark hair, hair charmed into strange colours, long or short, straight or curly or anything in between. He’s never specifically fancied a bald woman before, but that doesn’t mean he never will. Maybe it’s the same for men who aren’t dark haired, then?
Anyway, the tanned bloke’s hair had been short, parted at the side and combed smooth until it shone. The other one had looked in need of a good brush and perhaps a rubber band for the knotty waves hanging down to his shoulder blades—so there didn’t seem to be any other trend there.
Maybe noticing men is something he’ll get better at with practice? Still, he doesn’t think he’ll get excited over that many of the others he’s seen. In Ron’s opinion, there just aren’t as many fit men out there as women.
Merlin, maybe he’s not really bisexual and he’s just confusing his platonic love for Harry with romance; his need to feel chosen by him with a desire to engage him in sexual monogamy? And now he’s gone and argued with Harry about it, like an arse.
Still, he lies in bed thinking of what it felt like when Harry kissed him. He rubs his cock to the thought of it and comes with such a slow, deep shudder that it knocks him right out.
Ron wakes up in the crusty mess of a bed he’s made for himself. It’s a wrong-side-of-the-bed sort of day, and the confirmation that his dick feels the same way the rest of him does about Harry appears not to have not settled his nerves at all.
He’s distracted, and that’s probably why his wand motion’s off when he performs the (overly long and complicated) ward-disarming spells at the latest abandoned safehouse they’ve discovered. It’s already been classified as a low-level threat; the ward field is the only active magic left that’s likely to do anyone any harm, and they’re equipped to handle that. Ron is equipped to handle it.
He’s not equipped to handle the way his lungs seem to snap shut, the nasty energy biting down around him when he goes to enter.
Ron wakes up for the second time that day in the crunchy sheets of a hospital bed. There’s a hand holding his. He feels almost fine, just a bit tired. Until he tries to speak, at which point it feels like he’s been for a really, unacceptably long run and grated the insides of his lungs away in the process.
The owner of the hand yelps as Ron’s fist closes tightly around her fingers. He tries to keep his breaths even. He wonders if this is what dragons feel like when they get sick. He’ll have to ask Charlie if dragon tonsillitis is a thing.
“Harry!” Hermione’s calling. “He’s awake.”
Leaning over him now, Hermione puts on what Ron knows she believes is a soothing voice and lectures him on how he ought to position himself, appropriate breathing exercises, and each of the things that had been done to him since he arrived at St Mungo’s. It’s what she does when she worries, and he can’t resent it, but it does suck that he can’t interrupt her.
He’s grateful when Harry does it for him. “Ron!” he says loudly. “What the hell happened?”
Harry lingers in the doorway, which is weird. He looks pretty ragged, dark circles under the eyes and all that. He waits for Ron to meet his eyes, then makes a horrible, awkward gesture as if he’s asking permission to come closer. Ron ushers him over with an unsatisfyingly bro-like tilt of his head. After that, Harry’s leaning in close along with Hermione, and Ron finds he can breathe a bit more freely.
“Er,” Harry says, looking sidelong at Hermione, “you could go grab that cuppa now, if you wanted.”
They’re obviously not talking about Hermione grabbing an actual cuppa, because she agrees and leaves the room.
“I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” Harry says, his hand hovering over Ron’s like he isn’t sure he can take it the way he always would have done, when they were a pair of best mates who weren’t engaged in a confusing and perpetually wrong-footed dance around their feelings for each other. “When I heard—” he breaks off, getting that guilty look he always does when someone he cares about gets hurt, when he thinks about not being able to see someone again.
Ron nods sympathetically, because it’s the best he can currently do, and pulls Harry’s palm down against his own. He wonders whether this is going to be the moment where Harry confesses that he does want to be with Ron, and the shock of nearly losing him has made things clear. It’d be a nice silver lining.
“I can’t lose you,” Harry says. “Obviously. And I think it’s why I’m so… unsettled by what you said about us being together like that. The panic I felt today reminded me of that conversation. Because it’s easier to make a friendship last, isn’t it? And if we tried to be something different and it burned out, would I have lost you altogether?”
Ron frowns at him in an effort to indicate that this is not the correct reaction to his near-death. Maybe he’s not the only one who’s been cursed; maybe someone’s turned Harry back into an angsty teenager, and obliviated him of the fact that Ron and Hermione dated for a year and are still good friends. Better, even, for having navigated that together.
“I want us to have the best possible chance of- of growing old together. Being godparents to each other’s kids, and all the normal stuff that hasn’t worked out for so many people we’ve known.”
“Arse.” Ron forces out this rasping declaration of his discontent, then descends into a coughing fit that has him sniffling and blinking through tears until the nurse comes in and gives him an awesome new potion that relaxes the muscles cramping in his neck. Even without the potion, though, it would have been worth it.
All of Hermione’s suggestions require Ron to be very reasonable, and Harry’s apparently not responding to that sort of thing—so once Ron can talk again he talks to Charlie.
“Maybe you should make him jealous,” his big brother advises.
“Thought about it,” Ron answers, swigging from the firewhisky that his healers (and Hermione, and his mum) would definitely tell him off for drinking. “But I don’t think I can go out there and use some poor sod like that. Bit of a fourth year move, that. Harry might be acting like he’s back at Hogwarts, but I can be the mature one.”
“That’s why you don’t actually go and date someone else, you knob—you find someone who’s willing to pretend for a bit.”
“I don’t know any other blokes who are, y’know, out. Besides Dean and Seamus, but they’ve practically been married since they were eleven.”
Charlie looks thoughtful, the same way he does when he’s figuring out a new and fiendish method of capturing a loose dragon. Ron braces himself for something he won’t like.
Sure enough, Charlie comes out with: “Draco Malfoy’s definitely gay, and he works with Bill so there’s a conversation starter.”
Ron chokes, despite his preparations. “I’m not fake dating Malfoy!” he protests. “He’d never agree, and I’ll never agree, and Harry would see right through it because there’s no way we’d make a convincing fake couple.”
Charlie just rolls his eyes. “Don’t fake date him; fake shag him. Just let Harry see him heading out one morning. It’s Draco, so you know he’ll want to know what’s going on.”
Ron can’t help but share the smirk twisting Charlie’s mouth. It’d be pretty funny, he’ll grant.
But.
“With my luck it’ll just make him so mad we won’t even be mates anymore. Or he’ll start stalking Malfoy again and decide the ferrety git’s fitter than I am, or some other bollocks.”
“Hate to break it to you, little brother, but he is fitter than you. It’s alright though—you and Harry have got along famously for ages. Draco and Harry have famously seen eye to eye about zero times in history.”
“It’s still not going to happen. Haven’t you got any straight friends who wouldn’t mind pretending? Or anyone who needs a safe way to come out? I’ve got street cred these days! People would have to be cool with it.”
“Why don’t you just go for a drink at the Two Broomsticks. Put yourself out there. Invite Harry so he knows you’re going.”
“The what, where?”
“Ah, Ronniekins. You’ve got a lot to learn.”
The Two Broomsticks, it turns out, is a speakeasy sort of place that’s been buried beneath Diagon since early in the twentieth century. It’s nothing at all like the Three Broomsticks. For starters, everyone is a lot less casually dressed—or just a lot less dressed overall. There’s loud music, some of which Ron recognises from the Muggle mixtapes Ginny distributes to her hapless brothers on a monthly basis. (Ron doesn’t really have any musical preferences, so he’s put them on once or twice when some background noise was warranted.)
Charlie’s hand on his arm is insistent, tugging him through the crowd (surprisingly dense and energetic for a Wednesday night) towards the bar. Ron feels like he’s being taken pity on, but it’s also evident that Charlie’s enjoying introducing him to gay wizarding London a bit.
There’s an impossible array of liquors and liqueurs stacked up behind the bar, and as he hears Charlie ordering something called a ‘rainbow cherry popper’ Ron realises that if there’s any place to order a fizzy purple thing without shame it’s got to be here.
“I’ll have a lavender cream spritz,” he says firmly, when the skinny bartender turns to him.
“Nice choice,” the man smiles—and it may be a trick of the flashing lights in the room, but Ron gets the sense he’s being looked at with some pretty dark, intense eyes. Bedroom eyes. He considers the bloke—a bit young, nearly as tall as himself, slim-waisted with wiry, tanned arms coming out of his slightly sheer white t-shirt.
Charlie’s elbow is nudging Ron’s side, hidden just below the bar bench. It’s not that Ron doesn’t see what’s possibly happening right now—just that he has no idea whether he wants it, or how to proceed if he doesn’t, or how to proceed if he does. He smiles back at the guy, says a polite thanks when his drink is placed in front of him, but that’s about all he can manage.
“Let’s find somewhere to sit,” Ron suggests, trying not to sound too pleading. Most people are on their feet, crowding together as they move to the thumping beat of the music, but there are a few seats tucked away in the far corner. Not wanting to give Charlie any opportunity to drag him onto the dancefloor before he’s even drunk, Ron cuts a determined path around the edge of the crowd.
They arrive at a small wooden table that’s pressed up against the rough brick wall, and overhung by an ornate wall lantern which casts a very dim, yellow glow.
“Weasley,” someone says, as the music falls into a dip, ready to build and drop again. Ron almost doesn’t recognise the voice, because it doesn’t pronounce his name with as much venom as it once did.
But there he is, when Ron turns around: Draco bloody Malfoy.
“Draco,” Charlie greets him with a friendly handshake. “How are things? Fancy a seat?”
“I was here first,” Malfoy tries to point out, though obviously that’s bollocks. Ron was here first.
“We’ll call it a draw,” Charlie declares. Ron does not agree with this, but it’s so weird watching his own brother in playful conversation with the blond git that he can’t figure out how to protest.
Malfoy looks… like Malfoy. A bit less buttoned up, less stressed, better fed—but that’s just how everyone looks now the war’s over. He’s wearing suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a couple of buttons undone to show off the pale column of his throat. His hair’s neat, but not Sleekeazyed to the point of plasticity.
Malfoy sits down at one end of the table, and is soon joined by Blaise Zabini. Ron remembers Blaise vaguely from Hogwarts—remembers sort of resenting him for how tall he managed to be without suffering any gangliness whatsoever. He looks just as good now—poised, and muscled in a refined sort of way, like that actor Ron saw on Bramwell once named Idris Elba.
Ron thinks he’d quite fancy a snog with Idris Elba.
Charlie’s elbow is in his ribs again, and Ron realises with a start that he’s staring at Blaise Zabini, who is not Idris Elba, but a mate of Draco Malfoy’s, a Slytherin, and… smirking at him knowingly. Great.
He sits down, suddenly feeling very tipsy. Charlie sits next to him. Ron wonders whether Zabini’s here because he fancies blokes, or just because he’s being a supportive friend to Malfoy.
He takes a long suck on the curly straw sticking out of his drink, and then asks, “So, you’re both gay then?”
Zabini just laughs, deep and easy and refined. “Draco here certainly is,” he replies. “I just go wherever there’s a good time to be had.”
“Blaise is a harlot,” Malfoy fills in.
“And Draco is a prude.”
“I’m discerning.”
“But,” Ron interrupts, although the whole things is actually rather entertaining, “you both like shagging blokes?”
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Yes, Weasley. We both like shagging blokes. Any particular reason this has become a pressing question for you?”
“Uh,” Ron flounders when Malfoy turns a curious, intent stare on him. “No, I’ve just always thought you were straight.”
Malfoy just cocks a brow. “That’s because you’ve never been even slightly observant, Weasley. So, trouble in paradise with Potter? Are you and Charles getting it on for the rebound? Face only a brother could love?”
The utter arsehole lounges on his bar stool and looks between them amusedly. Ron takes back what he’d thought earlier about Malfoy not being so bad; he’d clearly just been waiting for the right moment to start spouting rubbish. Ron wants to fucking punch him, just like Hermione did that one time. Definitely one of the top five most inspirational moments of Ron’s life, that was.
“Easy,” he hears Charlie warn. “He’ll think you mean it.”
Malfoy gives a hand signal that seems to say ‘pish posh’. “Oh please, I’ve not said a single thing I meant in years. Say, Blaise, would you mind ordering me another of these horrid lavender cocktails? I just despise them.”
“The lavender cream spritz?” Ron perks up. It’s like whiplash, this whole conversation.
Malfoy nods solemnly. “Indeed.”
“Never pictured you as a lolly-coloured cocktail drinker.”
“Nor I you,” Malfoy smirks again, and this time it almost feels like Ron’s in on the joke. “And yet here we are.”
“They’re weirdly good.”
“Perfectly disgusting.”
It feels a bit like talking to George, if Ron’s honest; there’s a constant level of sarcasm, with verbal traps laid just waiting to be sprung. And sure, there have been plenty of times Ron’s wanted to punch George in the face, but never half as hard as he wanted to punch Malfoy back at Hogwarts. It’s not comfortable, per se, but it comes infinitely closer than Malfoy’s old belligerence. Also, Malfoy is not teasing Ron about his embarrassing purple drink. Malfoy is drinking one himself.
“Blaise,” Malfoy calls out as his friend starts towards the bar, “a spritz for Weasley here, too, if you’d be so kind.”
Blaise smiles, shrugs elegantly. “It’s your tab,” he says.
And that is the story of how Draco Malfoy bought Ron Weasley a drink.
Ron’s possibly still a little bit drunk the following day, because he finds himself buzzing at the breakfast table. He eats as much bacon and toast as he can, as fast as he’s able, and when Harry trudges down already in uniform, Ron bursts out:
“You’ll never guess who I was out with last night!”
Harry looks a bit alarmed by how chipper Ron is. “Er, who?” he asks, bewildered.
Ron takes pity and passes him a mug of coffee, which he takes with visible gratitude.
“Draco Malfoy!” he reveals. “Also Blaise Zabini. Charlie and I ran into them at the Two Broomsticks. Zabini looks like Idris Elba.”
Harry coughs into his coffee. “You went to the Brooms?”
“Yeah? They have good drinks there. Lavender spritzes.”
“You went to the Brooms with Malfoy?”
“No,” says Ron, patiently, because mornings can make Harry a bit slow sometimes. “I went with Charlie. We saw Malfoy there—and he was alright, actually. Still a git, but more like he was poking fun at how seriously he used to take himself, you know? And he’s a good dancer—the Muggle sort of dancing, not just old-fashioned pureblood rubbish.”
Harry moves his mouth for a bit, and eventually the words “But… why?” come out of it.
“I s’pose he goes out to clubs quite a lot,” Ron speculates. “Or maybe he’s just a naturally good dancer, same way as you and I are both naturally bad?”
“That’s not what I— wait, I could be good at Muggle dancing!” Harry exclaims, inexplicably indignant. “You don’t know that I’m not!”
Ron just lets his brows hike up his forehead.
Harry deflates. “Fine! I’m no good. Go dancing with Malfoy and see if I care.”
“You could come.”
“I don’t want to go dancing with Malfoy!”
“Neither do I! Bloody hell, Harry, you’re the one who doesn’t want to- to go out with me.”
Ron’s still a bit manic as he scoffs the rest of his food, but not in a nice, cheerfully energetic way. Harry’s resounding silence starts to give him a headache, transitioning smoothly into a hangover he doubts any potion will fully eradicate.
It’s not his fault, he reassures himself, that Harry’s being an arse about this. If what he wants is Ron’s friendship, then he doesn’t get to be mad at the thought of Ron going out and meeting somebody else. He may think that dating Ron would ruin things, but getting mad over things you’ve no right to be mad about could end up being a pretty effective way of ruining a friendship too, if he keeps it up.
“Bye,” Harry says gruffly, as he dumps his plate and cutlery unceremoniously in the sink and stalks out the door in a huff, Auror robes flaring behind him.
Ron doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t think about how good Harry looks storming around in the trim, formal robes. He might have a nice arse, but when the whole of him is acting like one it rather takes away from that fact.
Ron starts his standard day-off routine with a visit to Wheezes. It makes him feel better, being around all the laughing kids and teenage pranksters trying to pretend they’re not buying skiving snack boxes for any kind of nefarious purpose.
It’s apparently not enough, though.
“What’s got you down, little brother?” George asks before long, while spelling a customer’s change into her palm.
Ron’s restocking the behind-the-counter jars of individual sweets. The Manly Musk Sticks have been doing very well with the younger crowd, much to Ron’s nose’s dismay. He shrugs, despite the fact George can’t see it.
“Harry’s been a bit weird lately.”
“And?” George says, smirking, but Ron knows he’s genuinely concerned underneath it. “He’s a weirdo, you’re a weirdo. What’s new?”
“Just…” all of a sudden the lifting of weight that came with his day off disappears again. He was an idiot to think he could evade it like this—and George of all people should know. Running the shop certainly wasn’t enough to mask his grief right after the end of the war. Ron’s probably never given him the emotional credit he deserves.
George turns around and cocks a challenging brow at Ron once the customer he’s been serving leaves. He tosses up a muffliato.
“Harry told me he’s—that he likes both, girls and blokes.”
George is frowning quite deeply when Ron manages to meet his eyes. “You know that that doesn’t qualify as weird, don’t you Ronald?” he says, not really asking at all.
“Yeah!” Ron defends. “’Course I know that! What’s weird is I… well, we ran into Lavender and Parvati, and they asked us out on a double date. We thought they meant they wanted to date us, but actually they’re dating each other. And then it was weird, because—well, Harry’s bi, and it got me thinking that maybe I…”
“Ah,” George says. “I see it now: a crisis of sexuality. Well, brother, we’ve all been there.”
“We—you have?”
George just grins, a bit wickedly. “Just after Fred and I left Hogwarts, Lee started doing drag. The man’s a goddess in girls’ robes, so yeah, we wondered if there was anything more to it.”
There’s another customer, and the conversation pauses while George helps the deceptively spritely old woman find appropriate toys for her great-granddaughter. Ron watches numbly as his brother delights in showing her which items will give her unpleasant granddaughter-in-law the most grief.
“So,” George says when the transaction is finished, “you’ve got a crush on your best friend. Highly original, little Ronnie. Have you told him?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“And…?”
“He says he doesn’t want to lose what we have as mates.”
George snorts. “Stubborn idiot,” he mutters. “That’s classic Harry, though. And he calls himself a Gryffindor.”
“Not helping.”
“Have you tried making him jealous? You know it worked on Hermione.”
“When we were in fourth year.”
“Do it like an adult, then.”
How, Ron doesn’t bother to ask, do you make someone jealous of something they don’t want?
It’s been a hell of a week, and he only remembers about Lee’s show when an owl swoops through the window at Wheezes, proffering a letter from Lavender. Ostensibly, it asks whether he and Harry are still coming, but there aren’t actually any question marks.
“Hell,” Ron sighs, and writes a note to Harry.
Too busy with work, Harry writes back with an immediacy that rather belies the excuse. You should go though.
“Bollocks,” he says, just as a horde of small children descend upon the store. A stern witch who must be one of their grandmothers shoots him a sharp glare. “Sorry,” he says, though he privately thinks he deserves a bit more sympathy. “Oi, George, are you going to see Lee’s thing tonight?”
“Nah, we’re planning on beers afterward though. You should come. Cheer yourself up a bit.”
Ron shrugs. “Sure, thanks,” he answers, because George is actually being nice, and one should never look a gift brother in the mouth. “I’ve still got an extra ticket to the show, though.”
“Ange and I have a date, sorry—but it’s sold out, I’m sure you can find some attractive witch or wizard who’s willing to be seen with you just to get in the door.”
Ron snorts.
“Look, he’d do—weren’t you in his year at Hogwarts, Ronnie?” George gestures somewhere behind Ron, who turns and is alarmed to find Idris Elba Junior right behind him.
“Merlin, do you make any sound?” he grumbles in place of a greeting.
Zabini just arches one perfect eyebrow and says, “I can be quite loud, with the right… inspiration.”
And fuck it all, but Ron’s nearly half hard in his pants just from the words and the searing gaze that accompanies them.
“You must really want that extra ticket, mate,” George butts in.
“Ticket?” Blaise queries, as if he couldn’t hear their conversation in the first place. “Whatever for?”
“Lee Jordan.”
“My goodness, I had no idea there were any spares to be found. I’m quite willing to pay you for it,” says Blaise, suddenly leaning closer, a slight excess of excitement brightening his usually aloof manner. Interesting.
“No need,” Ron tells him, with a cheerful but even tone he’ll congratulate himself for later. “Reckon you got an extra round of drinks the other night; come along and we can call it even, yeah?”
And this is how Ron ends up taking Blaise Zabini on a date.
Blaise is really funny, Ron discovers. One on one he loses that inaccessible haughtiness and becomes a hilarious mishmash of awkward and posh. He opens the door for Ron, and then gets stuck holding it as two dozen more people rush into the venue. He gathers Ron’s coat up when they get inside and sets off in search of a cloakroom which the tiny theatre-bar does not have.
“You’re all bonkers,” Ron pronounces, when Blaise has returned with a firewhiskey for himself and something clear that has actual flowers floating on top of it for Ron. “You Slytherins. First Malfoy, and now you—when you stop being all mysterious and stuck up, you’re just some really odd guys who happen to be really rich.”
So, the lavender spritz Ron had before this new bouquet-in-a-martini-glass has kicked in.
“We were mysterious?” Blaise asks, sipping his drink.
“As if you didn’t work at it,” Ron scoffs, then starts as the empty seat beside him fills.
“Ron!” Parvati squeals excitedly. “Isn’t this place so cute? Lav says it’s—oh, um, where’s Harry?”
“Harry is caught up at work,” Blaise answers, and suddenly he’s all smooth and suave again, holding out a large, manicured hand for Parvati to shake, then Lavender. “Blaise Zabini. I’ve had the honour of stealing the ticket he’s left behind.”
“Lovely to meet you,” says Lavender with a smile, but Ron can see she’s pulling on a mask too. “Properly, that is.”
Ron realises he probably should have mentioned that he was bringing one of Draco’s friends, after everything that happened to Lav at Hogwarts. The whole gay club night with Charlie and the Slytherins may have been significant enough to Ron to make the bad old days of Draco Malfoy slip his mind, but he can’t expect it to be the same for others.
“Likewise. Is that Ashverna and Goldie, by any chance?”
Ron thinks Blaise is talking about Lavender’s dress, but it’s hard to be sure.
“Yes! Oh my god, you’re the first person to recognise it ever.”
“Auntie Verna was a very close friend of my mother’s,” Blaise tells her. “Mum has quite a few sample pieces around the house that she never wears; to an appreciative home, she may even be convinced to part with a few.”
And just like that, Ron ends up on a date with Parvati while those two talk across them about fashion.
“He’s very handsome,” Pav whispers in his ear as the lighting dims and the audience quiets in anticipation.
Ron gives her an affirmative sort of shrug.
“How’s Harry feel about it?”
Ron gives a more irritated shrug, and then is saved by Lee bounding his way across the stage and into the spotlight.
The show is good, although now all Ron can do as Lee tells his jokes is imagine him doing it in women’s clothing. He is additionally distracted by Blaise’s total transfixture, eyes glassy and wide as if to try and take in as much of Lee’s act as possible. Ron feels a Slytherinlike glee at the fact that this time he isn’t the one with his cards on display. This time he’s in on the secret.
It’s no surprise then when Blaise situates himself near Lee at the pub table after the show and chats eagerly with him for the rest of the night. Ron, for his part, takes a seat near George and watches the whole thing unfold, laughing as his brother commentates on the seduction like it’s a quidditch match. Parvati and Lavender join them for a bit before citing an early morning and heading off. For a little while Ron doesn’t remember to be sad about Harry—just sips the weird cocktails recommended by Lavender and another girl across the table from them, who’s here because she works with Lee. Just enjoys the company of family and old acquaintances who’ve turned into new and better friends.
Two weeks later it ends up in the paper that Lee Jordan and Blaise Zabini are a couple. Ron knows this isn’t strictly true, but they’ve certainly been shagging consistently, so it’s close enough. The following Wednesday, some Skeeter apprentice suggests that Malfoy is seducing Blaise away from Lee—which sends their whole table at the Brooms into fits of uncontrollable laughter because it’s just that wrong. A month after Lee’s show someone who must have seen Ron and Blaise arrive together talks to a reporter who writes that Blaise is an opportunistic playboy.
“Not technically false,” Charlie whispers in his ear as plates of cake and sandwiches float down onto the café table Ron, Charlie, Parvati and Malfoy are sitting around, washing down hangover potions with afternoon tea.
“I heard that, Charles,” Malfoy says sternly. “And I’ll have you know that you are entirely correct.”
Ron laughs. “He’s kind of a nerd, though, Zabini is,” he says, loading his plate up with the tiny cucumber sandwiches Malfoy ordered. He’d have gone with something else, but then it’s Malfoy’s tab. It’s always Malfoy’s tab, which is part of the reason Ron’s ended up hanging around the old ferret on a weekly basis. He can be very generous when he doesn’t hate you.
Malfoy gives him a nod that’s almost proud. “Your observational skills are improving, Weasley.”
“Yeah, that’s how I know you’re a nerd too.”
“You wound me.”
“Truth hurts.”
“Stop flirting,” Parvati teases, and then seizes the best-looking fairy cake while they’re busy protesting. “I’m taking this home for Lav,” she declares, enfolding it first in a preservation spell and then a napkin.
“So gay,” Malfoy mutters, taking the second-nicest of the cakes.
Ron’s not mad. Even the smallest of them tastes brilliant.
“I’m taking this one for Harry, then,” he declares, and copies Parvati’s spell, though his napkin folding is less artistic.
Nobody really talks to him about Harry. He still gets maudlin when he thinks about the weeks passing with no change, and nobody wants to kill the conversation that way. They wait for him to bring it up—especially Lav and Pav, who think they’ve actually broken up.
“Gay!” Malfoy says again, just as he had to Parvati. “You’re all such flaming homosexuals, I can’t bear it.”
“You literally bought that French barista an entire box of eclairs last week because you liked the contour of his hairline,” Charlie points out. “So really: cauldron, kettle.”
“They were bloody good eclairs, too,” Ron recalls. “He was a fool not to take them before he shot you down.”
“Ingrates. You’re all such ingrates. I won’t stand for it. See if I share my rejection eclairs with you ever again.”
Malfoy laughs at his own joke, the sound jangling along with the busy coffee shop’s door bell—until, abruptly, his expression goes flinty. It’s as if he’s travelled back in time, back to old Malfoy who was full of hateful insecurity.
“Er, hi,” says Harry’s from over Ron’s shoulder.
Ron feels his own shoulders tensing, his own mouth doing something twitchy he can’t control. He catches Malfoy’s eyes for a moment, and is at least comforted to see a flicker of character in them again as Malfoy’s reflexing mask thaws, coming away to reveal a version of him that’s had more time for composure.
“Harry,” Charlie says cheerfully, turning to squeeze Harry’s arm in greeting. “Didn’t know you’d be coming. You can have your cake now, then.”
“Cake?” Harry asks faintly. He looks sort of lost, like he’s wandered in completely by accident. Who knows, maybe he has.
“Yes. Ronald has thoughtfully saved you one,” Malfoy fills in.
Ron unwraps the cake to show him, before realising it would have been easier just to hand it to him still bound in the napkin.
“They’re good,” he says helplessly. “Want to sit?”
Parvati has already nabbed a chair from the empty table next to theirs, and is on her feet manhandling Harry into it, so the question is a bit redundant.
“Sure,” Harry answers with equal futility. “Thanks.”
“So, did you need something, Potter?” Malfoy drawls.
Harry scowls, and this time Ron intervenes: “Be nice, Draco. He’ll think you’re still a prick.”
“Tea?” Charlie offers. “It’s Malfoy’s tab.”
“It’s always Malfoy’s tab,” adds Malfoy. “But do join us; it’s possible you’re more bearable than I once thought, given that your friends here are in fact rather pleasant.”
There’s a whiff of burnt toast coming from the café’s little kitchen, and Ron can see Harry clocking the scent, probably wondering if he’s having a stroke.
Harry sits, accepts a cup of fresh tea from Charlie, and peels the paper away from his cupcake ready to take a bite.
“I was looking for Ron,” he explains.
“Something wrong?”
Harry hesitates, then says, “no, nothing’s wrong. I just thought… we should go to the shop and find something fresh to cook for dinner tonight. We’re all out of cheese.”
“Can’t have that,” Charlie grins at Ron, who, okay yes, does enjoy his cheese.
“How lovely,” Parvati says. “You should go to Klarisse’s organic market—they’ve just opened up a stall in Diagon Alley. Everything is grown in naturally magical soil, so they don’t have to use any potions or harsh charms to protect the food as it grows. It’s so much healthier for your magical core, and it’s important to support local growers.”
So gay, Malfoy mouths across the table at Ron and Charlie.
It’s completely mad, the way it feels like a first date. Harry holds the basket and Ron reaches for things that look tasty, then aborts half of these motions as he second-guesses his choice.
“What do you feel like eating?” he asks for the third time. “You know I’m happy with whatever.”
But Harry just shrugs, like he’s never been and will never be capable of making decisions. He’s so quiet. So much more reserved even than the lost boy who boarded the Hogwarts Express with Ron that first time. That boy bought everything the trolley had to offer—not knowing what it all was, but wanting to dive in and experience it all the more for its mystery.
“Right,” says Ron, stopping in front of the onions. “We’re making burgers.”
When Harry and Ron first moved in together, burgers were the only thing they cooked. This was partially because they were a favourite of both his and Harry’s—but mainly because they were easy, and Mum never made them, and Harry’d never been ordered to make them by any horrible relatives. Burgers were neutral ground.
Ron fries onions while Harry slices and butters the buns, toasting sliced cheese onto the bread until it bubbles. Ron cooks the meat and Harry cuts tomatoes, lettuce leaves and pickles. Ron spreads relish and Harry wrestles with the lid of the mustard bottle, eventually triumphing.
“I thought we’d have forgotten how to make these by now,” Harry says, pouring a schooner of butterbeer to go with his dinner.
“After a thousand consecutive burger nights? Not likely. It’s in our muscle memory, now and forever.”
Harry bites into his burger, chews approvingly and washes it down with a chilled, frothy gulp of his drink. “I guess some things never really change,” he says, and an ember of hope in Ron’s chest glows orange.
“I’ve missed you lately,” he says, brave as any Gryffindor. “Who’m I meant to watch Bramwell reruns with when you’re not talking to me?”
“I haven’t—” Harry starts, then stops himself. Ron surmises that he’s been talking to Hermione about this. That’s good, probably. “I’m sorry,” he starts again. “I’ve missed you too you know.”
“’Course you have. Who else could give you a proper, unbiased analysis of the Cannons’ matches?”
“I mean it, Ron.”
And now Ron shivers, because in the way Harry says his name is that saviour-of-Britain conviction he so rarely wheels out these days. In the way he’s looking at Ron is the fearful courage that faced down the darkest wizard since Grindelwald and won.
“I mean it too,” Ron says, trying for just as much strength.
“This,” Harry gestures broadly around them, “is what I want. I’ve never been great at having what I want. Not many chances for practice. Pretending to date, and then coming out, and you coming out too—all of it hit me so fast I didn’t know what to do with it. I freaked out.”
Harry presses the palms of his hands down on the benchtop in front of them, like he’s trying to contain a tremor, or hold himself up. Ron wants to cover them with his own hands. Harry’s fingers are shorter but wider, with neater nails and tufts of black hair on the planes between his knuckles. They’re always cold, except when he’s been duelling intensely or doing wandless magic. Ron’s hands are always warm.
Not so long ago he’d just have bloody done it and nobody would have ended up in a crisis. But this is delicate. Ron can wait, and he will—for however long it takes them to be on that level again.
“To be fair, I was freaking out too.”
“You were more reasonable about it,” replies Harry—a true statement which Ron accepts with a nod. “I’ve been a mess, because—I really do love you, mate. As much as I love anybody. As much as I’ve ever loved anybody. It’s just that’s always been the case, hasn’t it? How was I to know it could be different?”
Ron snorts gently. “Probably by doing the usual—chucking ourselves into a situation and hoping it works out?”
“Maybe I should have,” says Harry. “It’s what you did.”
He turns his face towards Ron’s. Side by side at the kitchen bench, there’s not more than two feet between their faces. Ron swallows. His throat is very dry.
And Harry asks: “Want to watch some telly with me?”
And Ron breathes: “Yeah.”
They settle on the couch—not touching, but close enough for the electricity to jump between their bodies. Ron couldn’t say what’s on the telly; it’s less absorbing than the nervous thrum of Harry’s magic beside him, like a tropical storm cloud thick with the promise of relief.
Ron wakes up with a ninety degree crick in his neck and a foot kicking him lightly in the shoulder.
“What the…” he starts to ask himself, because he’s an adult now and is sure to sleep in a proper bed whenever one is available.
“Sorry,” Harry mutters, and the foot kicks once more before it’s out of Ron’s way. “Morning,” Harry adds.
“Morning,” groans Ron. “Why in Godric’s name did we sleep on the couch?”
The TV, which is still on, disturbs the peace further by blaring out an aggressive ad for carpets. Ron finds the remote stuck to his calf and swiftly dispatches the noise.
“Because we’re idiots,” Harry replies, hauling himself up into a seated position as Ron does the same.
He can feel the warmth of Harry’s body as they lean against each other, heads tipping tiredly toward shoulders. He flinches, ticklish, at the sensation of wiry hair where their legs cross each other at the shin. All of it is so familiar that when Ron tosses his arm across Harry’s shoulders he doesn’t even have to think once about it.
“Right fools,” Ron agrees, and kisses him.
Epilogue
Harry and Ron are tucked away in a booth at the back of the Leaky when Lavender and Parvati approach. Lavender’s dressed in a vibrant pink dress and lipstick to match, with big silver earrings accenting the scars on her face. Parvati is more reserved in white jeans and a grey t-shirt, although her wrists are heavily decorated as ever. Her newly cut bob curls naturally around her face, one side pinned back with a clip shaped like a butterfly.
Ron steals an extra-lengthy sip of Harry’s cocktail while he’s distracted—it’s a bar special tonight; iced and spicy at the same time. Ron’s still not sure whether he likes it, and Harry’s been humouring his need for extensive ‘taste testing’ like a champ.
“You two seem better,” Lavender says, smiling at them.
“Glad to see you pulled your heads out of your arses,” Parvati adds with a wink and a giggle.
Ron grins, and finds Harry looking at him with a matching expression. “Yeah,” he says, nudging Harry’s thigh under the table. “We’re bloody glad too.”