Fic: Harry's Beard for ginnyatheart

[wearethestars]

Title: Harry’s Beard
Author: shocolate
Giftee: ginnyatheart
Rating: R for language
Word Count(for fic): 5200
Characters/Pairing: Harry/Ron
Summary: The Trio are finally returning from their Quest, but Harry doesn't want Ginny to get the wrong idea about getting back together.

OK.

Possibly slightly crack.

Live with it.

Betaed by my magicofisis.


Harry’s Beard
****
I blinked at his enthusiastic face.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, Harry…”

I rubbed the back of my neck, nervously.

Now, no one means more to me than Harry, obviously.

Best mates for ten years.

I’d do anything for him.

Whatever slightly deranged plan he came up with - I was there for him.

“I don’t think you’ve thought this one through,” I said, finally.

He grinned and I felt, well, slightly nervous; something tightened in my chest.

“It’s just a bit drastic, isn’t it?” I tried again. “Gin’ll understand; she’s not that unreasonable.”

Harry snorted.

“OK, she is that unreasonable,” I conceded. “But she may have a point. I thought you were going back to her, and all that crap - I thought she was saving herself for you.”

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?” he said. “I haven’t seen her for nearly four years, Ron. I never asked her to wait; I said it was too dangerous for us to be together, but I never said ‘until afterwards’. I didn’t ask anything of her, and I hope she has moved on. But, just in case she hasn’t…” he looked hopeful.

I groaned.

“Harry,” I said.

He gave me his top-of-the-range wounded-puppy look.

The mysterious something squeezed my chest again; nerves, I assume.

“It just doesn’t make any sense as your first line of attack,” I said, seriously, using my teaching-him-to-play-chess voice. “It makes far more sense to go to the Burrow, have a friendly chat, find out what she’s been up to - four years, she’s probably, um, dated - explain, calmly, that you’ll always be friends.”

He frowned. “I don’t want there to be that awkward window when she might think I’ve come back to her,” he explained earnestly.

“So, tell her you’ve moved on,” I said.

“That’s what I want to do,” he said.

“But why tell her you’ve moved on to me?” I asked.

He looked very serious and, despite the insane conversation we were having, I had a hard time keeping a straight face, he was so cute.

Not ‘cute-attractive’, just ‘cute-when-he’s-so-serious-about-something-my-mate, Harry’.

“She’s had two years at school,” he explained. “And two years working for the twins. She’d’ve met loads of blokes. When have I had the chance of meeting anyone?”

“Yeah, but Harry,” I complained. “Can’t you just have ‘moved on’ in general?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Too vague, too ‘sparing her feelings’.”

“Can’t you just have ‘moved on’ to… Hermione?”

He pulled a face. “No!” he said. “Who’d believe that?”

I shrugged.

“No,” he said. “She’d see right through that - and she’d be furious, after all the advice Hermione gave her about getting to know me better and stuff. Besides - me and Hermione?” he shuddered.

“What’s wrong with Hermione?” I asked indignantly.

“Don’t start, Ron,” he said. “If you were still in love with Hermione, you wouldn’t have bollocksed it up with her.”

“I didn’t say I was still in love with her - I just think it’d look better if you had a fake girlfriend, rather than a fake boyfriend.”

“But a fake girlfriend looks fake,” he said, triumphantly. “A boyfriend? Who’d fake that?”

I opened my mouth, but found I had nothing to say, so I closed it with a snap.

He smiled.

“No, Harry,” I said and his face fell. “You can break up with a fake girlfriend in a bit and no one’d think anything of it. Break up with your fake boyfriend and we’ll have people setting us up with other blokes for ever.”

He narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. “Look,” he said. “D’you want to explain to your family just how badly you bollocksed it up with Hermione?”

“No,” I said, aghast. “And you both promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

He waved that aside. “And this would stop anyone looking to closely at what went wrong with Hermione, wouldn’t it? They’d assume it’s because she’s a girl.”

I blinked.

“D’you want us to get a flat together?” he said, changing tack.

“Yeah, that’s what we said.”

“Well, they’d expect us to live together, wouldn’t they?” he asked, as if it made sense. “And d’you want fluttering Lavenders throwing themselves at the Saviours of the Wizarding World? Because I don’t.”

I snorted.

“Basically,” he said, in an annoyingly reasonable tone of voice, “we have two options. One - we go back footloose and fancy free, I face Ginny, you face your mum, we both face the Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, hoards of empty-headed witches in every pub, at every Quidditch match we go to.

“Or, two - we tell everyone we are together, your mum and Ginny are cut off at the pass, the papers cream themselves at The Boy Who Loved, but then there’ll be no more news and they’ll give up - and we get a flat together and no one bothers us!”

He beamed at me.

I know there was something flawed in his logic.

But he looked so pleased with himself.

“I protect you from Ginny?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“You protect me from Mum’s questions about Hermione?”

“Yeah.”

“We protect each other from an attack of the Romildas?”

“Yup,” he grinned.

“Rita Skeeter climaxes so hard she has a stroke and is permanently hospitalised at St. Mungo’s - but we still have to read about us in the papers,” I pointed out.

“We’d be in the papers, anyway,” he said calmly. “Most Eligible Bachelors, speculation when you’re seen with Hermione, when I’m seen with anyone.”

I laughed, half-hysterically, not really believing I was considering it. “And we get a flat, and no one hassles us, and we go to watch the Cannons together and we meet Neville for a pint, and everyone leaves us alone?”

“Yes,” he said, triumphantly.

I blinked.

“But, wouldn’t we have to…”

“What?”

“Do stuff,” I said, vaguely.

“Stuff?”

“Boyfriend stuff,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

He shrugged. “Not in public,” he said.

“In private?” I squeaked.

He laughed. “No,” he said. “Look. People will believe us; no one is gonna say, ‘go on, then, prove it, kiss him!’ We’re close, anyway, if we just behave like normal, people will believe that we keep the mushy stuff for private. We won’t have to hold hands, or snog or anything.”

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” I said weakly.

“So?” he said, looking a bit nervous. “Will you do it?”

I looked at him.

At Harry.

Well, I’d do anything for him, right?

“OK,” I said, shrugging. “I think you are insane, but I’ll do it.”

“Brilliant!” he beamed.

The door opened and Hermione stepped in as he threw his arms around me and kissed me noisily on the cheek and I shrieked like a girl.

“Do I want to know what’s going on?” she asked. “I’ve got everything I wanted, we can Apparate to the Burrow when you’re ready.”

Harry gave me a Look. “Uh,” he said. “Yeah, I think you’d better know what’s going on.”

She raised an eyebrow and put her packages down on the table.

Harry took a deep breath.

And let it out again.

I snorted. “How’s this gonna work, if you can’t even tell Hermione?” I demanded.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Harry has a plan,” I said, deciding that this would be the only chance I got to actually enjoy telling someone about it.

“We don’t need any more plans,” she said. “We just need to go home. We need to see everyone and try and get back to normal.”

“That’s the thing,” I smirked and watched Harry frowning at me. “What’ll it be like when we get back?”

“Oh, Harry,” she said. “It’ll be fine. The Ministry will try and find out what happened, but if we stick to what…”

“No, no, no,” I interrupted. “Harry’s not worried about the Ministry. He’s worried about being voted Most Eligible Bachelor.”

Hermione blinked at me.

She turned to blink at him.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” she demanded.

“And Ginny ‘waiting for him’; the papers watching who we date; women throwing themselves at us,” I added.

She huffed at him.

She glared at me.

“What have I done?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Women throwing themselves at you? Must be your legendary way with women brushing off on him.”

Harry sniggered.

“That is where his plan comes in,” I said.

“Which is?” she asked.

“Harry and I are officially a couple,” I said.

“A couple of what?” she asked. “Idiots?”

“A couple; together; dating.”

Her face lit up.

She bit her lip.

Hard.

“Oh, just laugh,” I said, throwing up my hands.

She gave in and collapsed with laughter.

“See?” I said to Harry.

“It’s just Hermione,” he said. “No one else’ll laugh.”

She hiccoughed to a halt, wiped her streaming eyes and straightened her hair and clothes.

And looked up at us and started laughing again.

I snorted.

She finally got herself under control.

“Oh, what on earth are you talking about?” she giggled.

“It’ll stop Ginny or the press or any other witches getting any ideas,” I said.

She started laughing again.

“Hermione, I’m serious,” Harry said firmly. “I can’t face being dangled as bait for all the readers of Witch Weekly. I am taking control of my life.”

“By dating Ron?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“I really don’t advise it,” she sniggered.

“Thanks a lot,” I protested.

“Look, you can use it, too, if you like,” Harry interrupted.

She raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“You can tell people that’s why it didn’t work out between you.” He smiled.

“Because he only had eyes for you?” she asked, biting her lip.

And collapsing with laughter again when Harry nodded.

Eventually she pulled herself together and accepted that Harry had made up his mind.

And mine.

“I still think you are both clinically insane,” she said. “There is no way on earth that this won’t create more problems than it solves.”

“Well, they’ll be our problems,” Harry said and I shrugged, helplessly.

****
We Apparated to outside the wards at the Burrow, not wanting to scare anyone; even though people knew that You-Know-Who was no more, there was still plenty of Death Eater activity.

It looked just the same as I remembered and my heart leapt.

A few random chickens were pecking around the back door and they did no more than spare us a one-eyed glance until the back door flew open and Mum screamed.

She flicker her wand at the wards and the chickens scattered as I met her half way across the yard.

She wound her arms round my neck and strangled me as she pulled me down to her height.

After a long, tearful hug she rounded on Harry and then Hermione, sniffling incoherently before returning to me and running her hands over my face.

“Oh, Ronnie,” she gasped, before throwing herself at me again.

Attached to my arm, she eventually led us into the house and sat us down at the kitchen table, before grabbing the Floo powder and frantically flooing Dad and telling him to bring everyone home.

She fluttered between the larder, the cooker and the table, alternately muttering about how thin we were and stroking my hair.

A scarily random selection of dishes had reached the table when Dad flooed in and flung his arms round me. Ginny and George followed, dragging a half-dressed Fred with lipstick marks on his neck.

Angelina’s colour - I well remember the imprint of her lips on my cheek after we won the Cup in fifth year.

Amidst a huge group hug, with much backslapping and a few tears, there was an angry crying sound and Bill and Fleur arrived, each carrying a red haired, squirming thing.

“Twins?” I gasped.

Bill smiled, ruefully.

“Excellent,” I said and Fred laughed.

We all sat round the table and I noticed Ginny’s slight frown as Harry sat between Hermione and me.

She sat opposite us, relieving Bill of his burden, and Bill helped Mum load the table with food.

There was a lot of laughter and general catching up - without mentioning Horcruxes - and I was explaining something through a mouthful of food when Fred rolled his eyes and threw a piece of bread at Hermione, to get her attention.

“Still not taught him any table manners, then?” he laughed.

“We haven’t sat at many tables, lately,” she said, wryly.

“Still,” George said. “You’ll have to train him, before the wedding.”

A ringing silence.

“No,” Hermione said. “We… we’re not together.”

Mum stood up and whacked George on the head. “Not together?” she echoed.

“We were,” Hermione said. “For a bit.”

“What happened?” Fred asked, and Bill shoved him.

“People… um… change,” she said weakly.

Everyone looked at me.

And, compared to my mum ever finding out just why we had to Obliviate that Muggle woman in Wigan, well, being with Harry didn’t sound that bad.

“I’m…” I said, before getting stuck and looking past Harry’s frozen profile at Hermione.

“He’s…” she said, before shrugging.

“We’re…” Harry managed to stutter, turning to look at me.

“Fuck,” Ginny spat, looking between me and Harry, eyes wide open.

“Ginevra!” Mum snapped.

“…together,” Harry finished quietly.

Mum looked wildly between Harry and Hermione, frowning. “No,” she breathed.

I rolled my eyes, picked up Harry’s hand from his lap, and plonked them on the table, barely missing a spotted dick.

Everyone gaped and Mum sat down hard, one hand to her throat.

“You cannot be serious,” George gasped.

“Why not?” I asked flushing, wondering how on earth I was going to justify this and cursing the power Harry had to turn my life upside down.

George made a strangled noise and pointed between the two of us, wildly.

“Leave them alone, George,” Dad said, suddenly. “Is this true?”

He looked earnestly at the pair of us and I felt awful.

I felt Harry try and pull his hand out from under mine, but how stupid would we look if we admitted it was a ‘joke’?

So I squeezed his hand firmly. “Yes,” I said, trying to look Dad steadily in the face.

Dad nodded. “Well, welcome to the family, Harry,” he said, with a small smile.

Fred snorted. “Just like that?” he asked.

“Harry’s always been part of this family,” I said indignantly.

“I know that,” Fred replied. “But…” he gestured at our hands.

“It’s none of your business, boys,” Mum said quietly. “Leave your brother alone. And your… and Harry.”

“Thank you,” Harry whispered.

I chanced a look at Ginny.

“Congratulations,” she said brittlely.

I shrugged one shoulder at her and she shrugged back, excused herself and left the room.

“Oh, dear,” Mum said. “I wish you could have warned us, Ron.”

“How?” George scoffed. “Dear Mum, You Know Who dead, I’m shagging Harry.”

Bill sniggered, Mum huffed and Fleur covered her baby’s ears.

****
So, everyone took it quite well, in the end.

Mum panicked about letting Harry sleep in my room, but Dad put his foot down, pointing out we’d been independent for four years, and it would be shutting the door after the Thestral had flown.

The twins and Bill went home, and we went upstairs.

We hadn’t been in my old room long when Hermione slipped into the room.

When she saw what we were staring at, she collapsed with the giggles again.

Going to the other extreme, Mum hadn’t dug out a camp bed for Harry, she had transfigured my old bed into a double.

“Oh, it’s not like you haven’t slept beside each other for years,” she sniggered.

“But not in a double bed,” I pointed out.

“Anyway,” she said, sobering. “I think Harry should go and talk to Ginny. He owes her that much.”

Harry pulled a face, but we both glared at him and he stomped down the stairs.

Hermione and I sprawled companionably on the big bed.

I took her hand. “So, how are you with Harry’s Plan?” I asked.

She sniggered. “Oh, it’s quite entertaining, really.”

I huffed.

“Actually,” she said. “It does work out quite well for me, Harry’s right. Insane, but right.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll get all the sympathy, without having to explain that woman’s reaction to inappropriate Engorgement Charms.”

I snorted.

She grinned. “In fact,” she looked shifty. “Can I ask a favour?”

“Of course,” I said nervously.

“Can I tell Lavender that she turned you gay?”

She collapsed laughing and I shoved her off the bed just as Harry came back into the room.

“Well. It’s clear I have saved all women from your tender mercies, Ron,” he said, with a raised eyebrow.

“She’s gonna tell Lavender that she turned me gay,” I complained.

Harry sat on the edge of the bed and hauled Hermione up from the floor. “So’s Ginny,” he said.

I boggled and Hermione bit her lip. “What?” I shouted. “What has that got to do with Ginny?”

“I think,” Harry said slowly, “that the theory is that she turned you gay and you turned me gay. Because you were so pitiful with Lavender.”

“Oh, this is unfair,” I complained. “How have I turned this camp when I was just trying to help you out?”

“Out of the closet?” Hermione giggled, and Harry pushed her off the bed again.

“Go to bed, Hermione,” I said. “Go and commiserate with Ginny about how gay your ex-boyfriends are - but you do not mention Wigan - you promised!”

“I promise,” she said, getting up off the floor and kissing each of us on the cheek.

When Hermione had left, I started to undress, muttering complaints under my breath.

I was down to my boxers when I noticed Harry watching me.

I flushed like a new bride and he sniggered.

“Oh, this is pitiful,” I said. “Look what they’ve done - it’s just us.”

“Yup, just us,” he said, undressing and slipping into bed.

I blew out the lamp and slid in next to him and lay there, in the dark, trying to ignore his body heat.

I had slept this close to him a hundred times in the past few years - the three of us had curled up together for warmth in caves and abandoned buildings.

Why was it any different in a bed?

That everyone knew we were sharing.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly.

“What for?” I asked.

“Buggering up your life,” he said.

I snorted. “I thought we’d agreed we didn’t have to do anything?”

“Git,” he muttered.

“But I’m your git,” I smirked.

He laughed and tried to shove me and kind of missed and I shoved back and he was suddenly on top of me and trying hard to pin me to the bed, but I had the advantage of older brothers and flipped him over and pinned him and he went limp, laughing up at me.

“Hah!” I said.

“My hero,” he snorted.

I was suddenly aware that we were in our boxers, and that a lot of skin was touching, and that nervous feeling was back in my chest, but it was no different than when we’d wrestled in previous summers.

When we were younger.

And not a ‘couple’.

I flopped onto my back. “This is gonna be weird, isn’t it?” I asked.

“No,” he said firmly. “We don’t have to behave any differently, just because…”

“Because they think we’re shagging,” I interrupted.

“Just you wait,” he said. “We’ll get a flat and we will have the best time. It’ll be fine, Ron, really.”

“Yeah, it will,” I said. “Of course, neither of us will ever have sex with anyone, not if we’re supposed to be a couple.”

“Oh, we’ll work something out,” he said, yawning. “A good looking bloke like me, and his friend? We’ll work something out.”

“Git,” I snorted.

“G’night,” he said.

“Night,” I echoed, and lay there and listened to his breathing as he fell asleep.

****
And, you know what?

He was right.

Ginny came round - she even gave me a big hug and told me how proud she was of us, for facing everyone like that - I felt like shit.

Mum fussed over the two of us.

The twins tried out humiliating products on us.

The papers were full of You Know Who’s defeat and our return, and speculation on what we had done.

Speculation on what we would do next.

Interviews with the Romildas who stalked Harry as we looked for somewhere to live.

Until Fred told a reporter to “Bugger off sharpish, before they do it for you, because they are as bent as an eighteen Sickle coin.”

Which wasn’t the ideal way to come out to the Wizarding World, but it was effective.

And we found a flat.

We hadn’t found jobs, yet, but Harry just paid the rent and ignored my protests.

“You can repay me in bed,” he leered and I threw my toast at him.

Everyone stared at us, when we went out in public, until they realised we weren’t going to put on a show.

That we sat and watched the Quidditch when we went to a match; sat and drank our beer when we met Neville at the Three Broomsticks.

Six months after our return, we had everything sorted.

I worked in Magical Sports, Harry was reserve Seeker for the Arrows.

We had our cosy flat, full of dreadful, mismatched furniture, where we sprawled and listened to Quidditch on the wireless, among plates covered in week-old aloo gobi and chicken dhansak, until Mum came and tidied up.

We met Hermione for lunch as often as possible.

It wasn’t weird to be around each other - we never gave it any thought at home - Harry would wander into the bathroom and have a slash while I was in the shower, no problem.

We had even worked out how to have sex.

With women.

We went to Muggle pubs and clubs, where our success depended on putting in actual effort - not on flashing Harry’s scar.

Actually, more often than not, we had a few drinks, together, and then went home.

See, we couldn’t bring Muggle women back to the flat, and, as for asking if we could go back to theirs, well, I for one never worked out at what point in a chat-up you were allowed to ask if she knew of somewhere we could shag.

We’d been back for a couple of years and were jogging along nicely, until the oddest thing happened.

Someone made a pass at me.

Now, I’m not as vain as the twins, but I wouldn’t kick me out of bed.

The thing about being ‘attached’ to Harry was, no one would approach me.

Which is what we wanted.

Not being approached at the Three Broomsticks because everyone is really impressed with your implied sexiness and dead jealous because you are shagging the Chosen One - well, that is much better than not being approached because you’re just not fanciable.

Although there is always an underlying, well, what if you’re just not fanciable?

Then, one night, Harry had gone up to the bar to get a round in, and someone sat in his seat.

I hadn’t seen Terry Boot since we left school, and he looked as if he was doing well.

We chatted about people for a bit, and work, and I got a bit worked up about the problems the last World Cup had caused for my department and he was nodding and smiling and I am not very good at these things, but a tiny voice in my head was suggesting that he might be flirting with me.

When a shadow loomed over the table.

We looked up at Harry and Terry leapt to his feet.

Harry didn’t look very welcoming, which was strange, because he had always got on well enough with Terry at school.

I frowned as Terry muttered his goodbyes and left, and Harry sat down and passed me a beer.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“What did he want?” Harry said, ignoring me.

“I dunno,” I said. “We were just chatting, until you scared him away.”

“He was chatting you up,” Harry said gruffly.

“So, you were just being in character?” I asked. “Seeing him off as the jealous boyfriend.”

Harry blinked at me.

“Harry?”

“Yes,” he said. “I… I guess I was.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and Harry was unnaturally quiet the rest of the evening, even when Neville came down from the school.

"Everything OK, Ron?" he asked when Harry went to the loo.

"Everything's great," I said.

"Harry seems a bit off," he said gently.

I decided to go with the truth - well, the outside world's version of the truth - I'd have to have a word with Harry later.

"He was a bit pissed off, before," I said. "He thought Terry Boot was flirting with me."

Neville snorted.

"Not like Harry to be jealous," he said. "It's obvious you'd never look at another bloke."

"Yeah," I said vaguely.

"I mean, I saw you together for six years," he said in a cheerful voice. "Joined at the hip, you two. I'm not surprised you ended up together."

I blinked. "Really?" I asked. "You've never said."

"Well," he shrugged. "You know better than me. There's never been anyone more important to you, has there?"

"No."

"There, you go. Didn’t take much of a push to fall for him, did it? Never seen someone so in love."

I stared at him.

"And the same goes for Harry," he said simply and I blushed. "I'm jealous. Wish I could have what you do; falling for your best friend."

"Right," I murmured, just as Harry returned to the table.

Neville had some Fanged Geraniums to tend to and he slapped us on the back and went whistling out into the night.

We didn't speak much after that; both sat staring into our beers and flooed home earlier than usual.

I said goodnight and went to my room, where I failed spectacularly to fall asleep.

I lay there and thought of Harry.

Neville knew us pretty well, and thought I was in love with him, thought we were adorable together.

My family had been fooled and were supportive; they treated us the same as ever - except Fred, who still made remarks about buggering every now and then, to try and make me blush.

But they all believed we were together.

And me?

Why had I let it go on for two years?

Yeah, we'd been too young to settle down, then - well, properly, for real, with someone else.

And I'd assumed this would change in a few years, that we'd meet other people and 'split up' amicably; that everyone would be impressed that we'd stayed friends.

That we'd date women and people would nod and smirk and say they'd always known it was a phase.

And Neville would say it wasn't that we were gay, we'd just always been so close.

But what did I want now?

Did I want to 'break up' and date the Muggle women we met in bars? I hadn't even made an effort to chat one up in months.

Did I want to 'break up' and date witches? No one I knew.

Did I want to 'break up' and date Terry? No, but the idea didn't send me screaming into the night, so I wasn't completely against the idea of dating a bloke.

Well.

No.

My gay lover was asleep in the next room.

Harry.

I thought about Harry.

Did I want to 'break up' with Harry?

No.

No, I didn't.

I wanted to go to him and ask why he'd been so jealous of Terry.

I wanted to go to him and ask if we were still sticking to the plan.

I wanted to go to him.

And I was taking the revelation unexpectedly well.

Well, I guess everyone else had been shocked to discover I was gay, but it had been a bit of a bombshell.

I’d had two years to get used to the idea.

I had no idea when I started to think of him like that, but I had to speak to him.

I swung my legs out of bed and slipped into the hall.

Standing in front of his door, I paused.

What the fuck was I going to say?

That I wanted to date him?

That I wanted to be with him?

That I wanted him?

I had no idea; this was so not my strong suit.

I pushed the door open and entered, closing it softly behind me.

“Ron?” came a voice from the darkness. “What’s wrong?”

Ah, he was awake and I still hadn’t decided what to say.

Not that sitting on his bed and watching him sleep would have been much better.

He lit his bedside lamp.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said, crossing to sit on the end of his bed.

“It’s two am,” he said, checking his watch.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said feebly.

“Me neither,” he said, sitting up, cross-legged, and letting his blankets fall into his lap.

Harry slept in boxers and a ratty old t-shirt, that used to be mine.

I’d seen him like this a million times, without being attracted to him.

I looked at him.

Well, he was an attractive bloke.

Not as good-looking as Terry, though. Or Oliver, obviously.

But I didn’t want to see them in their boxers.

They weren’t Harry.

They hadn’t been my best mate for twelve years; with me every day, saving my life, trusting me to save theirs.

Cheering me up or taking the piss out of me, as I needed it; letting me take care of them when they were sick or scared or lonely.

They weren’t my Harry.

I realised I’d been staring at him for quite some time and still had no idea what to say.

“About earlier,” I said finally. “At the pub.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What for?” I asked, baffled.

“The Terry thing,” he said in a small voice. “I overreacted.”

“You did?”

He shrugged. “Well, I guess Terry thought it was alright,” he said. “Jealous boyfriend, and all that. I just… I didn’t like him flirting with you like that.”

“Wow,” I said. “You didn’t?”

“I know it sounds stupid,” he said, looking down at his hands. “’Cos we’re not…”

“Y’know what. Harry?” I said and he looked up at me. “I think we are.”

His eyebrows shot up so fast I thought they’d fly off his face.

“What?” he said.

“Neville said he’d never seen someone so in love,” I said, feeling suddenly calm.

“Oh, Ron,” he said. “I tried not to be.” He looked so contrite and I bit my lip to stop smiling.

“He meant me,” I said carefully, watching his frown lift.

“You?” he said quietly.

I shrugged. “Apparently so.”

“And… are you?”

“Apparently so.”

His face lit up but then he snorted loudly. “Not the most romantic declaration,” he pointed out, grinning widely.

I moved closer. “Ah, well, how romantic am I supposed to be? We’ve been together over two years - the honeymoon period is over.”

“So… I never get the romantic, new relationship stuff?” he asked indignantly.

“I dunno,” I said. “Let’s see how it goes, shall we?”

And I kissed him.