Chapter Text
There was and there wasn’t a boy named Ron Weasley. There very much was because he was certainly there, but he was so overlooked most of the time that he felt like he wasn’t there at all. He had five older brothers, but they had all gone out into the world doing what they did best, leaving him with their parents and younger sister.
Ron’s parents and younger sister Ginny were fine people — they loved him — but Ron constantly felt like he had to do something, something so magnificent that he would never again feel like they would somehow stop doing so. And it had to be something different, too: not curse-breaking or dragons or taxing ministry work or running a successful shop that was built on being really funny.
It wouldn’t be a big deal even if he were good at any of that.
This dilemma kept eating him up, especially since he’d now turned seventeen. It had been a nice summer day and he was sat at the edge of the garden with his bag in his lap. He’d had the weekend off from work but ended up helping Mum with the chores. She’d sent him out with a packed tea while he de-gnomed the garden, forgetting that he’d already done it yesterday. Ron inspected for returning gnomes, and thankfully there were only three.
After they had been flung, he sat down for tea and groaned when the smell of corned beef wafted from his packed sandwiches. He repacked them in his bag and instead, very carefully, took out the beloved wizard’s chess set he went nowhere without.
Ron played a great game of chess; hadn’t been beaten in years. But what use was a great game of chess when he had nobody to play with? Dad was at work, Mum was busy making dinner and Ginny was out visiting her friend Luna. He had a friend of his own, but he never really knew where Hermione was these days unless she sent an owl or Apparated before him. He missed her then, but as he turned his head up to the sky, his thoughts of her wisped away like those of the clouds above, into the constant question of how he could prove himself once and for all and just what exactly he had to do so Mum would give him at least one bacon sandwich the next time.
And then a crimson bolt tore through the clouds.
Ron stared at it as he stood.
In the patch of sky, the bolt whizzed around in complicated circles, and Ron realised at once that said bolt was a person on a broomstick, their red robes flapping wildly in the wind. They rolled and ducked several times, desperately trying to escape the flock of birds that was attacking them.
Ron produced his wand. His first thought was to cast a shield, but it was then the birds swooped in hard on their target—
“Molliare!”
The rider shrieked as they slipped off their broom completely. Shrill caws rang out from the birds as they chased the empty and still-zipping broom where it disappeared across the forest, but the rider was now gliding down peacefully towards the forest below. The hem of their robes hung and dangled like banners beneath where the spell had caught and flipped them onto their back. Ron made a break for it, hurriedly stuffing everything back in his bag and racing to where he was sure it’d be safe for them to land.
He stepped through the entrance of the forest, past the first copse of trees and bushes, and sure enough a mass of red robes and unruly black hair lay positively sunken in a large spray of shrub. Ron slowed as he got closer, so as not to frighten them both.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“You saved me,” came the dazed reply.
“I mean… yeah, but are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not,” The mass of robes and hair made a grunt as they tried to free themselves from the bush. Ron rushed over to help, taking their gloved hands in his and pulling them out. A boy just a tad shorter than Ron emerged from the brambles, leaves in his hair and glasses askew. There was something quite familiar about him to Ron.
“Not even a nicking?” Ron asked. “From the birds?”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” the boy took his glasses off and wiped them on his robe. “You’re very gentle.”
If that by itself didn’t startle Ron, his sudden realisation of who this boy was certainly did: the signature round glasses, the dark hair, the golden coat of arms on the robe—
“You’re Harry Potter!” Ron blurted. “You’re the prince!”
Ron immediately wished he hadn’t done that. But when Harry looked up at him with a sheepish smile all of Ron’s shame promptly vanished.
“Yeah,” he laughed as he put his glasses back on, which soothed Ron a great deal. “That’s me.”
“What brings you here of all places?”
“Mostly that bird attack,” Harry said as he palmed at his pockets. “I don’t suppose you could help me summon my wand?—”
“Accio.”
The wand came shooting out of a nearby mulberry bush. Harry in turn used it to summon his broom, a little worried that it might’ve flown too far or that the birds had gotten it.
“Yeah, how’d that even happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Um, how’d you even end up getting tangled in that? A bird attack?”
“Oh,” Harry scratched his neck. “I didn’t see them above me when I was, ah, pulling out of a dive. And then I knocked out their leader…”
Ron winced. He felt a surge of joy when Harry copied him and topped it with a grimace, but made sure it didn’t show. He couldn’t have Harry of all people getting the wrong idea about him.
Harry squinted upwards, checking for his broom. There was still nothing in sight except for the rapidly darkening sky. Ron sighed. Dinner would be ready soon.
Then Harry spoke again: “So what brings you here of all places?”
“H-huh?”
“What brings you here of all places?”
Merlin, Harry was now looking at him. Looking him up and down, in fact. Ron suddenly heard his mum’s words echo in his head, that old warning from when everyone was still little and grass-stained, suds and wand in her hands:
Don’t go out looking shabby now, you never know who you might run into!
He looked down at his ghastly maroon jumper, patched jeans and ancient trainers that still miraculously fit. And then at the packed tea in his opened bag.
“I’m having a picnic,” Ron blurted for the second time.
“That’s nice,” Harry said, sounding like he really did find it nice. “I hope I haven’t ruined too much of it.”
“What? No!” Ron laughed. “I’m all done and I’ve… still got leftovers!”
For reasons unknown to Ron, he had the gall to show his uneaten corned beef sandwiches to the blooming PRINCE. And for even more reasons unknown, Harry actually stepped closer. He took it, rustling the wrapping tissue with his soft gloves.
“Do you mind if I…”
There was no way this was happening.
“Be my guest, but they’re really dry—”
Harry tore into the sandwich and it was gone in three bites. All the while Ron discreetly kicked at his own ankles; for any sign that this was just some mad Fred-and-George prank on him. But still he found himself standing in the gloaming, in the middle of the forest, with the very real and famous royal quite literally eating his tea.
“Thank you,” Harry said when he was done. “It does seem a great place for a picnic. You ventured out here by yourself?”
“Yeah, ‘s just me.”
“Do you live here?”
“What, here? No,” Ron chuckled. “I wish I did though. Sometimes. It’s nice getting away and having some peace and quiet.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
Ron hadn’t realised how close they'd gotten until he felt Harry’s robes flutter against him from the wind. His already messy hair was mussed more than ever, and Ron caught sight of that scar for a second before Harry took a step back to smooth his hair back down. A feeling of breathlessness gripped him.
“I— I should probably go,” Ron swung his bag around and stepped back, and it was just as well that Harry’s broom came flying through the forest path right then. “Ah, here’s your broom. Don’t go crashing into any more birds or fall off again.”
“Where are you going?” Harry asked, swiftly mounting his broom. “Do you need a ride? It’s the least I can do to repay you.”
“Oh Merlin, I don’t need repaying.”
“You saved me from breaking my neck!”
“It was the right thing to do,” Ron said reasonably. The sky was properly dark now, too, and he didn’t want to worry Mum. “I really should be going now.”
“Wait!” Harry hollered when Ron had jogged some distance away. “I don’t know your name!”
“I’m Ron!” He hollered back. If he wasn’t kidding himself, Ron would swear that he saw Harry smiling at him. “Ron Weasley!”
And with that, Ron sprinted the rest of the way back, his heart beating wildly. He would’ve stayed in the garden to keep an eye out for Harry, but Ginny was standing there with her arms crossed.
“What were you doing in the forest? I was ready to go get you myself!”
Ron pursed his lips. There was no way she would believe him.
“I met the Prince.”
Ginny blinked. “You what?”
“Prince Harry himself nearly plummeted into the forest off of his broom but I caught him. Also, he ate Mum’s sandwiches.”
Ginny stared at him in confusion before snorting.
“And I’m the late Queen Lily,” she said, turning around and ushering him back home. “C’mon now, Mum’s made a roast…”