Lionhearted

Ron Weasley, in what could only be described as a moment of sheer, unmitigated catastrophe, had somehow managed to strike himself in the face with a Quaffle.

There had been few witnesses, thank Merlin, or at least none who mattered. If Fred and George had been there, he would have been doomed—condemned to an eternity of relentless teasing that would make even Peeves look like a kindly grandfather. But the absence of his brothers and Harry was, oddly enough, part of the problem. Quidditch practice without them had felt strangely unnatural, as if someone had plucked the heart straight out of the game and left it struggling to function in their absence. 

Ron wasn’t sure why it had thrown him so much—he had flown in countless practices before—but there was something unsettling about stepping onto the pitch without the usual banter, without the usual confidence that the team had everything under control.

Perhaps that was why, as he took his position, he felt a nervous sort of energy, a jittery feeling in his arms that made them react just a fraction of a second too late and too wildly. The Quaffle had been coming straight for him—he had seen it, he had known it was coming—and yet, with a force that could only be described as tragically impressive, the thing had met his nose in a manner that was both excruciating and deeply humiliating.

Pain shot through his face, sharp and unrelenting, and before he had even managed to swear properly, he felt the warmth of blood beginning to trickle down his upper lip. He was momentarily convinced he was about to lose balance entirely, before gripping his broom handle with what dignity remained and descending to the ground with all the enthusiasm of someone walking to their own execution.

By the time he trudged his way to the infirmary, his nose throbbing and his temper steadily worsening, he had already resigned himself to the fact that this was, unequivocally, the stupidest thing he had ever done. Madam Pomfrey, who had no patience for self-inflicted injuries, ushered him onto a bed with a sigh so heavy it could have knocked over a stack of cauldrons.

Ron muttered something incoherent, deeply aware of the burning embarrassment settling in his chest, but before he could string together anything that resembled a plausible excuse, Madam Pomfrey had already raised her wand and muttered a spell that sent a brief tingling sensation through his face. His nose snapped back into place with an uncomfortable crunch, and though the pain vanished almost instantly, the mortification stayed stubbornly—refusing to be healed so easily.

Ron grumbled something vaguely resembling thanks, clutching the cloth to his face as he made his way towards the exit.

In the end, of course, he was fine. Physically, at least. Madam Pomfrey’s magic had done its usual impeccable work that no lasting damage remained. He had only meant to recount the incident, to get ahead of the inevitable humiliation by telling Harry before anyone else could. He hadn’t been expecting sympathy, exactly, but he had certainly not been expecting—that.

Harry had leaned in—without hesitation, without the slightest trace of self-consciousness—and teasingly pressed kisses right to the bridge of Ron’s nose. 

Ron let out a noise of pure indignation, before smacking Harry’s arm with considerably less force than he might have liked. His face was still warm—a traitorous thing—and he scowled at the raven-haired as if he could will the entire interaction out of existence through sheer force of will. "You're disgusting," he declared, with all the conviction of someone who had absolutely no idea how to handle what had just happened.

Harry, utterly unrepentant, merely grinned. "You loved it," he shot back, voice insufferably smug.

The redhead gawked at his boyfriend, utterly scandalised. "I did not—"

"You definitely did," Harry said smugly, flipping a page in his book as though this was just any other evening and he hadn't just destroyed Ron’s ability to function like a normal person. "I’d even say you’re blushing."

"I am not—" Ron clamped his mouth shut, realising far too late that his indignation was only making things worse.

"Your ears are red."

Ron made a furious noise in the back of his throat, torn between throwing himself into the fireplace and hexing Harry into next week. "And you're insufferable.” He wasn”t truly angry—not in the slightest. If anything, he relished the attention Harry was giving to him. 

Ron felt absolutely terrified, his eyes, wide with a growing sense of foreboding, fixed upon the fluttering pieces of parchment being passed unceremoniously along the Gryffindor table. Pamphlets, each filled with all the usual career options, each page promising a bright and fulfilling future to any student ambitious enough to seize it. Hermione, naturally, took the entire process with the utmost seriousness, pouring over every detail, making notes in the margins, and weighing each potential career path with the kind of scrutiny that suggested she was already mentally preparing for every possible outcome.

Ron, on the other hand, found the whole thing a little overwhelming. He and Harry leafed through the pamphlets half-heartedly, neither of them particularly eager to commit to anything just yet. "This is absolute rubbish," the redhead declared, throwing his head back dramatically. "How in Merlin’s name are we supposed to decide what we’re doing for the rest of our lives based on a few lousy pamphlets?"

Hermione sighed, clearly unimpressed. "You’re being ridiculous."

"No, I’m being realistic," Ron shot back, waving a hand at the scattered pamphlets. "Look at these! Every single one of them expects us to already know what we want, as if we haven’t spent the last seven years dodging death and fighting off Dark wizards! You’d think they’d give us a bit more time before demanding we pick a lifelong career.”

He had, of course, entertained various ideas. An Auror, perhaps? That had a fine, noble ring to it. It was dangerous work, certainly, but there was something undeniably thrilling about the idea of being on the front lines, of standing against Dark wizards with a badge of authority. 

Or perhaps a Curse Breaker, like Bill—his eldest brother made it look effortless, striding through ancient tombs with the confidence of someone who had never once been told he wasn’t good enough. There was an undeniable appeal in that, in the notion of traveling to distant, exotic lands, unearthing hidden treasures, and navigating the dangers of long-forgotten spells.

Well, wherever Harry went, Ron would follow. That was how it had always been, hadn’t it? From their first year, he had been at Harry’s side. It seemed almost absurd to imagine it any other way. 

For an entire week, the redhead wrestled with the thought, his mind caught in an endless loop of possibilities and uncertainties. What would their future look like? Would they still be standing side by side in a year’s time, in five, in ten? 

As the night drew in that day, Ron found himself lying beside Harry, the two of them nestled once again beneath the heavy blankets of his four-poster bed. He shifted slightly, adjusting his position as though that might somehow rid him of the uneasiness. The moment the redhead allowed his mind to wander, his thoughts turned inexorably towards home. Towards the Burrow. Towards the expressions his parents would wear if they ever came to know about this—about him and Harry.

The thought sent a fresh wave of nerves through Ron, and he exhaled slowly, staring up at the canopy of the bed as though it might somehow offer answers to the endless stream of worries circling in his head.

Harry, seemingly oblivious to Ron’s inner turmoil at the end of the day, shifted slightly, his face relaxed but eyes squinting in the dimness, clearly struggling without his glasses. "The match is this Saturday, isn’t it?" 

Ron, who had been burrowing deeper into the mattress, his head half-buried beneath the blanket for warmth, let out a muffled reply. "Yeah," he said, voice slightly distorted by the fabric. "So you're going to watch me, then."

Harry groaned, the sound one of exaggerated suffering rather than actual distress. "Not if you go and get yourself flattened by a bloody Quaffle again," he muttered, rubbing at his temple. "Not exactly what I want to witness when I’m watching you play."

At this, Ron withdrew his head from beneath the blanket, his ears already beginning to burn. "Oi,” He protested, affronted. "I’ll be fine, won’t I? Well—now that we’re actually talking about it, I suppose I am feeling a bit nervous. And there’s only a handful of days left, and—”

"You’ll be fine," Harry cut him off, “And I'll be there if something happens to you…”

Ron simply looked at him—at the tousled mess of black hair that never seemed to surrender to gravity or reason. He leaned in, pressing a kiss at the corner of Harry’s mouth. “Alright,” he replied, and with that, the redhead willed himself into stillness, praying that Harry wouldn't say anything—because if he did, Ron wasn’t sure he’d have the courage to answer.

But Harry seized the moment recklessly, leaning in before Ron had the chance to pull away. Their lips met—and Ron huffed out a quiet laugh through his nose, the corner of his lips curling upwards in a lopsided smile. “I’m going to sleep, Harry,” he shifted back against the pillow as if that would somehow distance himself from the moment that had just passed. “You might as well do the same unless you fancy waking up late tomorrow and having McGonagall glare at you over her spectacles.”

"I haven’t had so much as a single kiss since Valentine’s Day," Harry declared darkly, shooting the redhead with a disbelieving glare, "and you expect me to just turn in for the night without a fuss? I thought, at the very least, you might express a little sympathy. A boyfriend should care about these things."

“Yeah, well, that’s because you pissed me off, didn’t you?” he muttered, turning onto his side as if that were the end of the discussion. "And I care about a lot of things—Quidditch, food, whether I’m about to fail Transfiguration—but your tragic lack of snogging with one and only Ronald Weasley isn’t one of them.”

Harry threw a pillow at him, and Ron barely had time to process the laughter spilling from his own mouth before Harry had launched himself at him, leaving no room for second-guessing. There was a startled scuffle—Ron’s half-hearted attempt to fend him off—before Harry’s hands found his shoulders, and began pressing a flurry of kisses against his face.

“Oi—!” Ron laughed, squirming in vain as he tried to twist away, his ears burning hot with the realization that he was well and truly trapped. And then, just as suddenly as the onslaught had begun, the kisses slowed—until, at last, Harry settled against his mouth, the sort of assuredness that Ron sometimes envied but had long since grown used to. His mouth was warm, and when he pressed forward, his tongue brushed lightly over Ron’s lips—testing, asking, seeking permission rather than simply taking.

And, really, what possible reason could there be to resist? The redhead parted his lips, feeling the heat of Harry’s breath mingle with his own, the taste of something faintly sweet—pumpkin juice, perhaps, or the remnants of a Honeydukes’ chocolate they had snuck earlier in the library while doing their homework.

"Ron," Harry murmured breathlessly between kisses, "Ron, let me touch you, please?"

Ron's nod was a feeble thing, little more than the slight dip of his head. He had already gathered the unspoken intention behind Harry’s words, and there was no need for further elaboration. 

Harry shifted forward, the mattress creaking softly beneath them, and Ron felt the distinct pressure of a knee easing its way between his legs. The mattress dipped under the movement. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” the raven-haired said.

“Y-yeah,” Ron gave another jerky nod.

And then Harry’s hand slipped beneath the edge of Ron’s pyjama shirt, fingers skimming lightly across the skin of his stomach. The contact sent a jolt through Ron’s whole body, and he let out a strangled sound. “Your hand’s freezing,” the redhead grumbled in a rush, squirming away under those touch. 

“Well, you’re warm,” Harry said, just the sort of offhand observation he might make about the weather or a Quidditch score. At the same time, his hand continued its bold ascent, slipping further beneath the waistband. 

Ron shivered, a sudden tremble that started somewhere in his middle and worked its way outwards in all directions. “I’m—ahh…being serious,” 

"Yeah?" Harry replied, his voice distracted, almost distant, as though his mind were only half tethered to the present moment. His eyes were fixed ahead—with those fingers making their stealthy advance—not entirely certain what was happening until Ron felt them graze, quite against his chest. Specifically, against that most delicate and entirely unexpected of places—

“Harry!” Ron squawked, his cheeks instantly flushing with a fresh, furious wave of red. 

“Sorry—sorry!” Harry withdrew his hands as though he’d been scalded. His face had gone a shade of pink, lips parted as if to explain himself further, though the words stumbled at the threshold of his mouth. “I didn’t mean to—honestly—I just thought you’d…well…you’d enjoy it.”

Ron blinked at him, bewildered. His mind, still swimming in that half-dreamed haze, struggled to make sense of Harry’s words. “What?” he squeaked, the confusion on his face was plain. The raven-haired hovered above him, looking simultaneously mortified and oddly hopeful. Ron, meanwhile, wasn’t certain whether he wanted to hex him, hide under the covers, or kiss him full on the mouth. “Oh, this is brilliant,” he thought with a groan, covering his face with one arm. “Absolutely flaming brilliant…”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said quietly, already retreating, his hands falling to his sides, fingers fidgeting in that way Ron recognised from countless moments of nerves and hesitation. “I really am.”

“Harry,” Ron said, propping himself up onto his elbows, his hair a ruffled mess and his face still annoyingly hot, “I never said you had to stop. I just—well—it caught me off guard, that’s all.”

The raven-haired up then, eyebrows slightly raised, his expression shifting from apology to something closer to cautious curiosity. “It did?” he asked, as though he hadn’t quite expected that answer.

“Just—just go on and do whatever it is you feel you ought to,” Ron mumbled bashfully. “So long as it doesn’t…you know…hurt.”

"So…you’d rather I go easy on you, then?” Harry smiled gingerly.

Ron’s gaze dropped to Harry’s hand, which had been poised somewhere just between them, and now, without haste, returned to rest lightly on Ron’s chest. “Yeah,” he blushed, tilting his head back slightly, the movement unconscious—exposing the pale column of his throat. “Oh,” the redhead gasped loudly, as Harry’s lips descended with hunger. He could feel the soft brush of breath just before the first warm press of Harry’s mouth met the pale skin of his neck—the mouth lingered, open and damp, at every freckled inch, pressing kisses that deepened into small, possessive bites. 

He tried, rather hopelessly, to stifle the low, needy sound building in his throat. Ron's hand found the tangle of sheets beside him, gripping them in a fist as Harry’s fingers ghosted their way upward, callused thumbs brushing—no, teasing—at his nipples. His toes curled, quite without permission, and he felt his whole body responding, bowing subtly toward the heat of Harry’s touch. Merlin, he thought wildly, if this is what it felt like just to be touched, then what in the world was coming next?

“Harry…kiss me,” Ron uttered, his voice hoarse, almost pleading, the syllables dragged out with the sort of desperation that made his entire body tremble. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his breath catching in his throat as Harry’s lips roamed over his sternum, trailing damp warmth across the pale skin of his abdomen. 

The raven-haired looked up through those lashes of his, crawling over Ron until their mouths met. The kiss was not graceful, a heady clash of lips and breath and tongue. It was wet, unpractised, utterly imperfect…and it felt, to Ron, wholly devastating in the best of ways. Ron's hands tangled in the back of his boyfriend's hair—that perpetually unruly mop—pulling him closer, closer still, as if he could melt them into one.

Ron gasped softly into the kiss when he felt Harry’s arousal pressing firm against his own. Instinctively, he rolled his hips downward, seeking more of that pressure, more of that affirmation. 

Harry pressed forward with a need that had long since abandoned subtlety, burying his face into the curve of Ron’s neck. Layers of thin pyjama fabric offered a poor barrier to the friction that was building—maddening, all-consuming—as their erections pressed and strained against one another. His legs trembled where they tangled with Harry’s, and his hands clawed instinctively at Harry’s back, fingers bunching in the cotton of his shirt.

Their breathing grew heavier, Harry’s mouth murmuring incoherent things against his throat, every word a ghost of heat. "Y-you’ve no idea what you do to me…" The raven-haired exhaled, shuddering, his voice all gravel and need, catching on the cusp of a groan. “You’re so good…bloody perfect. So fucking good for me, Ron.” The words fell from him in a rush, half-lost in the feverish grind of his hips, which pressed down with a hunger that was almost frantic. 

“Harry…” Ron let out a strangled cry—his mind, usually so filled with bumbling thoughts and scatterbrained notions, had gone utterly blank.  

“R-Ron,” Harry gasped, he adjusted his position, pressing down with a force. 

"Harry—Harry, I think—I, ohhh…” His muscles seized, his eyes squeezed shut, and a strangled moan left his lips as he spilled, helpless and utterly undone, the release tearing through him with a force he couldn’t have imagined. It pulsed through the front of his pajamas, damp and hot, humiliating and glorious all at once. 

Harry then followed—his breath catching in a raw, broken sound as he shuddered above him. It was quick, unrefined, a sudden collapse of control that seized him whole. His body tensed once, twice, and then softened, dropping with an exhausted thud onto Ron’s chest, every muscle in him spent and trembling.

Eventually, as though some quiet instinct took over, the redhead lifted one shaky hand and threaded his fingers through Harry’s chaotic tangle of hair, still damp with sweat and clinging in unruly curls to his forehead. It was a gentle touch, his fingertips lingering against Harry’s scalp with a sort of stunned affection he wouldn’t know how to voice, even if he tried.

They remained there, in that closeness, for a full minute—though it felt far longer, and Ron wouldn't have minded if it had stretched into hours. Harry then stirred, shifting onto his side, he leaned forward and pressed the briefest of kisses to the very tip of Ron’s nose—the redhead blinked, heart thudding in that bashful, giddy way it did whenever Harry did something so Harry-ish, so unexpected and maddeningly sweet.

And so, Ron lay there, finding quite to his surprise, that his mind had grown curiously still. The only remaining concern now flitting through his thoughts was Quidditch, and even that, which on any other night might have set his nerves jangling and his stomach somersaulting, felt distant. Manageable. Almost trivial. The roar of the crowd, the tension in the air, the weight of the match—all of it paled beside the simple, anchoring reality of the boy now asleep beside him. And for the first time in recent memory—the redhead didn’t feel nervous at all.

“This is ridiculous,” Ronald Weasley muttered under his breath, pushing his half-eaten kipper about the plate with a fork, the times scraping mournfully. He sat at the farthest edge of the Gryffindor table, isolated from the warm buzz of conversation where he usually sat. It had all begun that morning, quite early, when Fred and George had spotted the faint, purplish mark on his neck as they sauntered into the dormitory. 

“Bit of a souvenir on your neck, eh, Ronnie?” Fred had smirked, nudging George with an elbow and pulling back Ron’s collar with far too much interest. “Someone’s been busy for hours.”

“It’s not—I mean—shut up!” Ron had spluttered in embarrassment, trying to swat their hands away, but the damage was done. 

George had given a low whistle. “Mum’ll be thrilled to hear you're revising anatomy before your O.W.L.s.” They’d yanked him aside, like a pair of overly dramatic uncles at a wedding, before launching into a pointed lecture. According to them, spending every stolen moment ‘snogging in shadows’ with Harry Potter of all people was not only scandalous but wildly irresponsible. 

Ron had stammered through some half-hearted defence, cheeks flaming. The redhead hadn’t even realised the mark was still visible. And it wasn’t as though he and Harry had gone looking for trouble. But how was one supposed to explain something like that? How did you justify wanting someone so much that even exam timetables faded into a hazy irrelevance?

So, Ron found himself hunched over breakfast alone, feeling a bit like a schoolboy told off for kissing behind the greenhouses. The sausages tasted of sawdust. The eggs might as well have been stone. 

Naturally, Ron had brought the matter up with Harry—more than once, in fact—and had done his fair share of grumbling about the whole business. But to Ron’s dismay, the raven-haired hadn’t been as outraged as he’d hoped. If anything, there was a look in Harry’s eyes, a sort of reluctant understanding. 

His instincts, never particularly sharp but occasionally accurate, were whispering that the twins had already had a word with Harry. This whole blasted business about being a distraction—it was getting out of hand. As though two people sharing a moment of affection in a bloody corridor were a threat to the entire academic order. The twins had probably learned with those self-satisfied grins and reminded Harry, in their own inimitable way, that the upcoming examinations weren’t to be trifled with. That their marks, their futures, their very livelihoods depended on how many charms they could remember or how well they could regurgitate dates from the goblin rebellions.

And all the while, they acted as though anyone engaging in the slightest bit of snogging was single handedly steering the train off its tracks. Of course, they meant well. He knew they meant well. But there was something infuriatingly smug in the way they presented it—as if studying for exams and maintaining a spotless reputation were the only things that mattered. As if there wasn’t more to life than books and job prospects.

Ron had honestly thought—hoped, even—that all this talk about knuckling down, focusing on exams, and keeping one's hands off one’s boyfriend had finally come to its natural, blessed conclusion. He had reckoned the whole matter had finally been put to rest when Fred and George decided they’d had quite enough of Hogwarts. The twins made their exit in a glorious blaze of rebellion—brooms in hand, smirks fixed on their freckled faces, and not a care in the world for what Professor Umbridge or anyone else had to say.

The redhead was still staring at the open sky, the faintest trace of twin-shaped figures now vanishing into the horizon, when he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. He flinched—just slightly—and turned his head, eyebrows knitting together in surprise. “Harry? Where’d the hell you come from?” Still, he didn’t make a fuss about it—well, not aloud, anyway. So instead of questioning the hows and whys of it all, he simply turned, meeting his boyfriend's with an expression that softened into a smile. 

And then—without a word—they reached for each other’s hands. Ron tilted his head, a roguish glint playing about his eyes as he leaned ever so slightly forward, “Whatever happened to that whole noble vow of yours—no snogging before exams, eh? You were dead serious about it, too, all solemn and pious not two days ago.”

His eyebrows wiggled in mock innocence, though the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth betrayed the laughter he was holding in.

The raven-haired let out a soft snort, the kind that wasn't quite a laugh but wasn’t far off either. He ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair. “I’m just...worried about everything, that’s all.”

Ron blinked, then shook his head with exaggerated disbelief, the sort that said, Here we go again. He gave Harry a good-natured nudge in the shoulder, not hard enough to cause injury, but firm enough to snap him out of his own head. “Oh, come off it,” he said. “It’s just an exam, mate. We’re not walking to the gallows.” He paused, thoughtful for a brief, theatrical second, before adding with a grin, “Well...unless you’re Hermione. She might actually drop dead on the spot if she doesn’t ace the whole bloody thing.”

“I know,” Harry said wearily, the words dropping from his lips as though weighed down by exhaustion. 

“Oi,” Ron reached out and gently but firmly took Harry by the sleeve, guiding him away from the throng of passing classmates and into the shadowed alcove near the statue of the one-eyed witch. “What’s goin’ on, then? Has something happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Harry muttered, he glanced down the hallway as if searching for a pause in the chaos of the day, then continued, his hands buried in his pockets. “Well—Professor McGonagall asked if I’d given any thought to what I might do after school. She wanted to know which subjects I was planning on taking next year...and seventh year too, if I make it that far.”

Ron winced sympathetically, as though even the idea of thinking that far ahead brought on a sort of intellectual chill. “Blimey,” he said, his tone half-pitying, half-panicked. “She’s already onto that? I mean—Harry, don’t get yourself in a knot over it. You’ve got enough to worry about without piling on the future.”

“I’m trying,” His boyfriend replied sharply, before letting out a sigh, the kind that carried months of frustration in its folds. “Honestly, I am. But it’s all just—well, it’s all a bit much, isn’t it? And then there’s this whole Occlumency thing, I suppose there’s no real chance of escaping it.”

“Well, we can’t very well do much about it now, can we?” Ron said, his freckled face flushed a faint shade of red as he leaned forward, planting a quick, almost clumsy kiss on Harry’s cheek. It was not a gesture made lightly, nor one meant to draw attention, but rather an offering of comfort. He pulled back quickly, eyes darting to the floor as though embarrassed by his own boldness. “If doing that means you’ve got even the chance of keeping You-Know-Who out of your head, then…”

Harry’s cheeks flamed with sudden colour, he ducked his head quickly. “Yeah…I s’pose so,” he muttered, eyes still averted. "Fancy heading back to the common room with me? Hermione’s probably there already, might be halfway through her third book by now.”

“Alright,” Ron gave a small laugh, relieved by the return to familiar ground, their shoulders brushing ever so slightly as they walked.