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“We really shouldn’t be drinking while we’re on watch,” Harry commented, setting the half-empty bottle of whiskey down on the rock between them. Not firewhiskey – just regular whiskey, the kind Uncle Vernon had proudly displayed in the drinks cabinet for fifteen years without touching. Harry understood why, as the liquor burned its way down his throat. It wasn’t something you drank for the taste.
“I’m on watch,” Ron reminded him, “you should be sleeping.” He picked the bottle up and took a swig; Harry watched the apple in his throat bob as he swallowed. He felt a familiar heat prickle in his cheeks, the kind that reminded him of Quidditch practice and summers at the Burrow, so he looked out across the valley to distract himself.
They’d chosen a good spot tonight, pitched the tent on a ledge halfway up some sort of quarry high in the uplands. Behind them, a sheer cliff rose thirty feet; before them, a drop plunged twice that distance. There would be no sneaking up on them here. Ragged shrubs clung to the rock, some adorned with purple flowers, others with red berries, although it all turned grey in the light of the blue flames flickering in the jar between them. There was a storm brewing in the distance, Harry noted.
“You really should be sleeping,” Ron pressed.
Harry shot him a crooked grin. “What, do I look that bad?” He didn’t need a mirror to know he must look terrible: his hair, unshorn, was starting to curl at the nape of his neck, and the bags beneath his eyes almost had a physical weight. He was skinnier than he’d been in years, and his clothes hung off his frame. Ron glanced aside with a polite cough. “Subtle, mate. You’re not much of a looker yourself.” Lies. While life on the run had left Harry emaciated, Ron had a few more fat reserves, and the impromptu diet had only served to highlight his muscles and sharpen his jawline. There was still a light in his eyes that Harry worried had died in his own; it was certainly gone from Hermione’s. Stupid pretty prat.
He reached out and took another draught of alcohol to save having to speak. Some of Ron’s spit lingered on the rim of the bottle. Was this the closest Harry would ever get to tasting his lips?
Don’t have thoughts like that.
But it had been hard, lately, to avoid them. Maybe it was the constant proximity between them; perhaps it was the locket, working some subtle trick on him. When Ron wasn’t in eyeshot, Harry was thinking about him – usually worrying. The other night, when he’d been lying sleepless in his bunk while Hermione took watch, he’d heard Ron… well… in the bed below him. He’d hardly dared to breathe, horrified at himself and terrified he’d miss a single quiet moan or drawn-out gasp, until Ron started snoring. Then he’d stayed awake until it was his turn to take the watch, and he could finally have some peace to sort himself out.
Now was not the time. “I can’t believe you got this,” Harry said, placing the bottle back down. “You don’t even have ID.”
Ron shrugged languidly, leaning back against the rock face. “Figured you could use it. Figured we all could.” Blue flames made blue eyes shine like stars, it turned out.
“You figured right.”
“Just take it easy, yeah?” Ron asked, taking a deep swallow from the bottle. “Mum’ll kill me if I bring you back a hardened alcoholic.” Harry snorted a laugh, and Ron chuckled at the sound. God, how long had it been since they’d laughed?
Raindrops started to patter down on the dirt between Harry’s crossed legs, so he scooched back into the shelter of the tent’s extended tarp, as far as he could go. The cliff face was freezing against his back, but it was better than being exposed on all sides. Ron shuffled over, joining him. “Makes you wish I’d figured out that weather charm, huh?” he asked, pointing his wand at the sky with an experimental swish. Unsurprisingly, the clouds did not react.
Harry nodded his agreement, trying not to tense up at how close Ron was sitting. They’d been closer than this before, they’d been closer at breakfast that morning, but…
“Still, no use wishing, I guess. You’ve got to act in the moment.” Ron took another swallow of whiskey, and Harry almost jumped out of his skin as he felt his friend’s arm loop around his shoulders. Almost, but not quite. After a heartbeat passed, he leaned into it, and Ron held him closer. “You should go to sleep,” Ron said again, with all the authority he could muster. Harry felt much more inclined to comply with Ron’s reassuring warmth pressed against him. “I’ll wake you up when it’s your watch, and then I can sleep on your shoulder.”