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“We can’t keep doing this,” Draco whispered, head over his shoulder as it was his turn to be the lookout. “Harry’s going to catch us, and I don’t want to see his face.”
“I know,” Ron groaned, the sound muffled by his head in his hands. “Me either, but what choice do we have?”
“We could come clean,” Draco hedged, biting his lip. Merlin knew he didn’t want to do that either, but they couldn’t keep going as is. Harry was getting suspicious.
“I don’t know,” Ron grimaced. “If you think Harry will be smug, you haven’t spent enough time around Hermione.”
“No thanks,” Draco drawled. Granger might be able to hold a conversation with him, but they didn’t get along and no amount of time was going to change that. “I’ll pass. You spend enough time with your wife for the both of us.”
Ron lifted his head just to flip him off. Rude. Absolutely no decorum.
“We might be overthinking this,” Ron said.
“You’d have to use your brain in the first place to overthink.”
“Piss off,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. “I’m just saying, what if we are making this bigger than it needs to be? They might not even react.”
“After all the valid shit I’ve said about you over the years?” Draco scoffed. “No one is going to believe that we’re friends.”
“You never know, they might—wait—what do you mean valid?”
Draco smirked. “Keep up Ronald, will you?”
“Why am I friends with you?”
“My charm, obviously.”
“That’s not it.”
“My dashing good looks.”
“That’s definitely not it.”
“My sharp wit.”
“You’d have to have wit in the first place.”
Draco lapsed in maturity as his face twisted in a mockery of Ron’s words. “You think you’re clever.”
“One of us has to be.”
The day he willingly became friends with Ron was clearly a mistake. His judgment had lapsed right along with his maturity.
A shame, truly a shame.
“I can’t fucking stand you.”
Ron elbowed him in the side. “You can lie to yourself, but you aren’t fooling me. I’m your best friend.”
“You are, and that right there is a cry for help. Surely, someone will hear it and save me from you.”
Another elbow to the side had Draco contemplating poisoning Ron. The brute knew that he bruised easily and still used his bony elbows on the regular.
“You’re so damn dramatic. If I didn’t know you, I’d wonder why Harry was with you.”
Draco looked down at his hands in an attempt to hide a wince. “You did wonder that, though.”
“Yeah, but—hey,” Ron turned to Draco, all humor gone as he covered Draco’s hands with his own. “Don’t second guess yourself now. The two of you have been together for years, longer than we’ve been friends, but I know enough about you to say that your insecurities can go fuck themselves.”
Draco snorted, hating that Ron always knew how to cheer him up. “I wish it was that easy.”
“He’s going to say yes, you know.”
His heart skipped several beats. “You don’t know that.”
Ron scoffed, eyes rolling before he pinched the back of Draco’s hand. “Don’t be stupid, that’s beneath you.”
“I know,” Draco closed his eyes. “But there’s a difference in being the boyfriend to me and being the husband.”
“Harry loves you, Draco. I know it, you know it. The whole world knows it because the two of you can’t stop making out in public. Sometimes doing more than that, you nasties.”
Draco laughed, hating that it came out wet. The weight of the ring box in his pocket felt heavier than it had in the month that he’d been carrying it everywhere with him.
“What if he says no?” Draco asked, looking at Ron pleadingly. “Don’t deflect and tell me that he will. I want to know the truth. What if he says no?”
Ron’s hands tightened their hold. “Then he says no, and you reevaluate your relationship. Decide if that’s a deal breaker or not.”
Draco nodded; stomach uneasy at the idea of being rejected. He appreciated the honesty, it’s what he needed.
“Just know that I get to keep you in the breakup if he says no,” Ron said, laying his head on Draco’s shoulder.
Draco rested his head against the top of Ron’s, smiling despite everything. “He’s your best friend, he’ll want a shoulder to cry on.”
“He can keep Hermione; she has shoulders too.”
“Okay,” Draco said, taking a deep inhale. “I’ll do it.”
“Yeah?” Ron asked, head moving until he could look at Draco with eyes bright and a wide grin. “You’ll do it?”
Draco nodded, resolve strengthening, and diminishing the morose mood he had been in.
“I’m going to ask my boyfriend to marry me.”
“Where’s Ron? He said he had to go to the loo an hour ago.”
Harry rolled his eyes, propping his feet on the table, glad that Draco wasn’t around to see it. “Off with Draco I imagine.”
Hermione’s lips quirked as she looked out the window. “How long do you think they’re going to pretend to hate each other?”
“Forever.”
“It’s been four years. They can’t think we’re stupid.”
“No,” Harry agreed, placing his hands behind his head. “I think it’s more that they think they’re that smart. That we wouldn’t have the foggiest clue that they sneak out to spend time together.”
“Idiots,” Hermione shook her head. “The both of them.”
“How long are we going to let them think we don’t know that they are friends?”
There was a mischievousness in Hermione’s eyes as she leaned forward and repeated Harry’s words.
“Forever.”