Work Text:
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 30
1:
Ron loves Harry, but the bloke is horrid at chess.
“Mate,” he presses out through a laugh as Harry inches his rook forwards, “what are you doing?”
Harry, eyes wide, peeks up at him from where he is slumped over the chess board. He’s run his hands through his hair repeatedly and it’s adding to the overall vibe of desperation he is giving off. It’s adorable. “Not good?”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Ron says, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “Go on.”
Harry goes on, and Ron has him pinned against the wall in two moves.
Metaphorically, of course.
*
2:
Ron loves Harry, but sometimes he’d like to kick him.
“What were you thinking?” Hermione shrieks, hands on her waist. “Going off like that! On your own!”
Hermione is a little too protective, sometimes, but this time Ron’s with her. Clearly, Harry hasn’t outgrown his reckless streak.
Ron sort of wants to yell, too, but one glance at Harry’s curled shoulders and he softens.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” Harry mutters. “Besides, the war is over.”
Ron just rolls his eyes. “So what? Wake us. I don’t need my beauty sleep that bad.”
Harry’s answering smile is endearingly lopsided.
*
3:
Ron loves Harry, but there are limits.
“No,” he says. The darkness and the drawn curtains of his bed swallow some of the vehemence. “Sorry, mate, but that’s just weird.”
Harry is wearing the t-shirt he sleeps in. It’s too big, slipping aside to reveal fragile skin and muscle with every nervous twitch. “It is, right? Sorry. I’m just… I’d like to know I’m doing it right. Once I do.”
“I’m sure you will,” Ron says. “It’s pretty intuitive.”
His best friend smiles, bright and sunny, before clambering back into his own bed. Ron watches him go, cheeks strangely hot.
*
4:
Ron loves Harry, but sometimes, he feels like his family loves him even more.
It used to hurt, but now it doesn’t. He’s stealing blackberries from where Mum’s making a pie (thwack! “Ronald!” every few seconds) and watching Harry wrestle a quaffle from George, laughing.
“That boy,” Molly says, and all the head shakes in the world can’t drown out the affection she says it with, “I do wish I knew why he refuses to move in with us. That old house is so dark and cold!”
“Let him be, mum,” Ron shrugs. “He needs his space.”
Molly sighs mournfully.
*
5:
Ron loves Harry, but it’s hard to say how.
He thinks he loves him like a brother, until he realises he misses him more than his siblings. The house is boring without him.
“You’re moping,” Ginny says one day.
“Am not.”
“Fred caught you counting the days until we go back to school. That’s pathetic.”
“I wasn’t!”
Ginny steals his fudge. He throws a pillow at her. Misses. She cackles and runs away.
Ron loves Harry unconditionally, like he loves his family. Maybe, he thinks, sending the now empty plate back to the kitchen, not quite like a brother though.
*
6:
Ron loves Hermione, but she’s not Harry.
Not that he would want to date Harry. Just, when you realise you laugh harder at your best mate’s jokes than your girlfriend’s, he figures it’s some kind of sign.
When he talks to Hermione about it, she just smiles.
“I figured this was coming,” she says and kisses him on the cheek. “Friends?”
He hugs her tightly. She smells like citrus. “The best.”
It turns out it’s that easy. It leaves him with a lot of newfound free time, which he defaults to spending with Harry. It’s the easiest solution.
*
7:
Ron loves Harry, but it is a bit unfair how fithot the bloke’s got.
The giggling alone sets his teeth on edge.
“One would think they’ve never seen a fit man,” he snarks as they rush past a gaggle of Ravenclaws. Hermione snorts. Harry just blinks owlishly at him. He’s still not as tall as Ron, of course, but he’s filled out. His skin is sunkissed, there’s freckles going on, and his eyes are really absurdly green.
“Don’t be jealous,” Hermione sing-songs.
“Yeah, you’re plenty fit yourself,” Harry adds, grinning.
That’s not the point, he thinks, and swallows it down.
*
8:
Ron loves Harry, but it takes him a while to get there.
Like the unfurling of a flower, one petal after the other, Ron realises, until he looks at Harry, snacking on a liquorice wand while upside down in a common room armchair, and thinks I love this idiot.
Nothing changes. Harry is the same bespectacled boy, the same moody teen, the same surprisingly attractive man that he has been for as long as Ron’s known him. He’s hilarious, he’s beautiful, he’s so courageous it hurts. He’s a little shit, his handwriting is atrocious. Loving him is easy as breathing.
*
9:
Ron loves Harry, and he’s not planning on telling him ever.
Being, as he is, a strategist, his plans usually work out. What he forgets to account for is that Harry’s presence in any situation has the approximate effect of releasing a rabid niffler in Gringotts: Chaos.
“Are we going to get married after Hogwarts?” Harry asks on a random Tuesday. They’re “studying” by the lake (read: Harry is dozing with his head on Ron’s stomach).
Ron pauses the movement of his fingers through Harry’s hair. “Who?”
“You and me. Who else?”
Who else? He asks, like it’s obvious.
“Yeah.”
*
10:
Harry loves Ron.
There’s a special privilege about having seen his best mate grow. Ron and Hermione are his family, more than the Dursleys could ever be. Ron’s an idiot, of course. He’s stubborn and oblivious, and he never stops being insecure. When he runs out on them in the forest, it breaks Harry’s heart, and it takes a few months to understand.
Ron breaks up with Hermione, and Harry gets it then. Or maybe he got it from the first day: That loving Ron’s easier than flying.
He’s a Potter, after all. Falling for the redhead’s what they do.