Lionhearted

“HARRY!”

The name tore from Ron’s throat, raw with exhilaration, his voice rising above the jubilant clamour of the crowd that had swelled around the Quidditch pitch.. His heart, still hammering from the thrill of victory, as he clutched the gleaming silver Quidditch Cup to his chest. The redhead thrust the Cup into the hands of a fellow Gryffindor who had rushed to congratulate him—he barely noticed who—and, as if the pull was magnetic, tore across the grass, legs moving of their own accord.

Harry had already opened his arms, and Ron all but collided with him, throwing himself into the embrace with the force of someone who’d held too much joy inside for far too long. He didn’t even try to stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth, breathless and uneven, a stream of excitement, disbelief, and joy all meshed into one. Ron was trying to explain the goal he’d saved, the Ravenclaw chaser’s expression when it happened, the moment the final whistle blew—but his thoughts were leaping ahead of his tongue, and none of it came out in order. 

Even after they had made their way back to the Gryffindor dormitory, their hands brushing in secretive, as they ascended the familiar winding staircases, and even after Harry, ever emboldened by private walls and drawn curtains, had pressed kiss after tender kiss to Ron’s lips, cheeks, and the flushed line of his jaw, and Ron had barely paused to breathe between his words.

The warmth of Harry’s affections was a balm, but the rush from the match still thrummed in his veins, uncontainable, insistent, and as they sank into the safety of their shared dormitory space, Ron found himself gesturing with wild hands, eyes alight. He recounted, for the third or perhaps the fifth time, the exact moment something within him had shifted mid-air—as though all doubt had simply been burned away by the sunlit wind in his ears. 

He spoke well into the night—long after Harry had curled an arm around his waist and mumbled drowsy endearments into the crook of his neck, long after the fire had begun to crackle low—and even then, come morning, his tongue refused silence. 

So it startled him only slightly, when he descended into the common room that morning and was met with backslaps and shoulder-smacks from half the House. There was a tall, broad-shouldered seventh-year, whose name Ron scarcely knew, stepped forward and clapped a hand to his shoulder. Not the usual jovial thud. The grip held for a full second, perhaps more, and when the guy finally let go, he left behind a wide, tooth-baring grin that curled with something more than mere congratulations.

Ron returned the smile with a genial, if slightly uncertain, expression, and before he had the chance to properly interpret the exchange, the redhead felt a sharp tug at his wrist—enough to jolt him a pace backwards. He turned at once, mildly startled, only to find Harry standing there behind him. His eyes were glinting beneath the messy fringe of his raven-black hair. The glare he levelled at the retreating seventh-year was anything but subtle, it was the kind of look that might’ve sent a lesser wizard stumbling backwards in apology.

“Harry?” Ron asked, his voice stumbling out in honest confusion. “What was that for?” 

“It’s nothing,” the raven-haired muttered, voice deceptively calm. “I just don’t like the way he touched you.”

“Err?” Ron scratched the back of his neck absentmindedly, glancing around with a vaguely bemused expression. He was still rather muddled from the rapid pace of the conversation, and scarcely had the chance to collect his thoughts when Hermione came bustling in, she had seized both him and Harry by the sleeves of their robes, muttering something about needing fresh air, and promptly marched them out of the common room.

The conversation had, for the better part of an hour, revolved around Hagrid, and his latest, highly questionable endeavour: concealing an actual giant somewhere in the reaches of the Forbidden Forest. And that, of course, might’ve been the end of it—if not for the fact that Ron’s expression, up to that point mildly amused, darkened into something suspiciously close to a glower.

They had the audacity to prattle on as though they hadn’t just missed the most important Quidditch match of the season—had missed ninety-nine percent of the game, by Ron’s count, which he felt was being generous, frankly.

He stared at Harry, incredulous. The sort of stare that didn’t require words—the kind that said, Really? You couldn’t be bothered to watch even the last few minutes? What made it worse was that he'd played brilliantly. Absolutely brilliantly, if he did say so himself. Not even a single fumble. Two saves that had drawn actual cheers from the stands. Even Ginny had said he was “proper decent” this time. It was enough to make a bloke wonder if anyone actually noticed when he did something right.

Well, he really didn't mind that they hadn’t watched. Not in the proper sense. He was still absolutely riveted by the story of Hagrid sneaking a fully-grown giant past the edge of the Hogwarts wards. 

"Are you mad at me?" Harry whispered, he was standing so close their elbows might’ve brushed if either had shifted a fraction. The three of them had trudged back from the lake with, as they crossed the threshold of the entrance hall, Hermione paused, offering only a brief glance over her shoulder.

“I’ve got to return this,” she murmured, holding up the dog-eared volume she’d been clutching to her chest. “Professor Vector was kind enough to let me keep it past the due date, but I shouldn't push my luck.” And just like that, she was gone.

Ron then stood awkwardly in the wake of her departure, shifting from one foot to the other. The moment stretched, brittle as ice. Then, rather suddenly, the redhead turned to Harry and said, “Err?” He replied, his brows suddenly furrowed. “No?”

“I broke my word,” Harry murmured, his voice catching somewhere between guilt and hesitation. “I know I did. About the match, I mean. I ought to have stayed until the very end, sat through it properly and supported you like I said I would, but—” 

“What on earth are you on about?” Ron cut him off, the corners of his brows rising ever so slightly. “I don’t mind, Harry. Honestly, I don’t. If it were me, I’d have done the same—gone looking. Bit curious, aren’t we? And it’s Hagrid, after all. We hadn’t seen him in ages.”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know.”

Ron rolled his eyes—not out of irritation, but more in the fashion of someone who had long accepted the quirks of the person before him and loved him all the more for them. “Harry, you great sodding idiot,” he said. “If you honestly believe I’d think less of you over something that daft, then you’ve got even less faith in me than I thought. And that’s saying something.”

Harry, eyes still lowered, allowed a faint, sheepish smile to cross his face. “I don’t know,” he said, “Sometimes I just…I worry.”

Ron shook his head, a touch of laughter in his breath. “Well, stop. You’ve got enough to worry about without adding me to the list.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Harry said softly, pushing his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose, a nervous little gesture that betrayed more than his words ever could. “We could ask Dobby to rustle up something sweet—I heard you’re rather fond of those buttery biscuits he makes, and that lemon drink you pretend not to like but always finish. We could sit down and have them together. You could—well, you could tell me about the match again—”

Ron let out a sudden snort of laughter, he reached forward and gave his nose a firm, playful pinch. Harry yelped—less in pain and more in indignant surprise—recoiling with a wide-eyed look.

“You daft pillock,” Ron said fondly, letting his hand fall to his side. “That sounds brilliant, it does. I’d love that. But not if you’re offering it as some sort of penance. And you’ve heard me go on about that match ten times already, haven’t you? Merlin knows I haven’t shut up about it since we got back from yesterday.”

Harry opened his mouth to protest, already drawing breath to launch another of his heartfelt, if slightly over-anxious, apologies.

But Ron was faster. “Nope,” he said firmly, cutting across whatever rebuttal was about to come. There was a sort of finality in his tone, but it was cushioned in affection. “Don’t be so bloody stubborn, now. Honestly, you're worse than Mum when she’s convinced she’s offended the ghoul in the attic, Harry!” The redhead then crossed the space between them without saying much. He reached out and brushed his thumb across the crease that had set in above Harry’s eyes. “You keep on doing that, you’ll have a face full of lines by the time we hit forty, Harry.”

Harry’s lips curled slowly into a smile—genuine, warm, and with that rare spark that had nothing to do with heroics or expectations, and everything to do with a moment just between the two of them. Ron's heart gave an odd little flutter—startling in its suddenness, though not unfamiliar. And in that moment, with firelight dancing in Harry’s eyes and the world reduced to the space between them, Ron thought almost absently, that he could spend the rest of his days chasing that smile.

As the days inched ever closer to the impending O.W.L.s, a shift settled over the castle. It was no longer about house points or Quidditch scores, nor even mischief or the latest whispers around corridors. No, now it was revision timetables hastily scrawled on parchment, whispered incantations repeated under breath, and the clatter of quills scratching late into the night. Ron found, much to his own reluctant frustration, that time had become something of a luxury neither he nor Harry could afford to squander. The camaraderie that usually came so easily between them now hung suspended, tucked away beneath layers of textbooks and obligation. Everyone had retreated into their own little islands of panic and self-preservation, navigating the oncoming storm of examinations with all the grace of a first-year mounting a broomstick backwards. 

Harry had, at some earlier point, made a somewhat solemn promise, not the sort of vow one announces to the heavens, but rather the sort, made in the glow of shared understanding—that he’d refrain from touching him. Ron appreciated it, in his own way, especially in a place where personal space was increasingly becoming a luxury sacrificed to stress and sleeplessness

Unfortunately, It happened one morning, when the light was still a pale wash over the dormitory walls. Ron stirred first, bleary-eyed and caught somewhere between sleep and thought, the heavy comfort of blankets still holding the warmth of the night. He turned slightly, leaning in, intending to kiss Harry in the same familiar way he had done once or twice before. 

But just as the distance between them narrowed, Harry tilted his head back, his brow creased with a look that was not cold, but questioning. “I thought we said we weren’t going to—touch,” the raven-haired said, just puzzled, as if trying to remember whether they had crossed a line or merely approached it.

And Ron—Merlin, Ron had completely forgotten. The conversation they’d had days earlier, hushed and awkward, agreeing it was best to keep things simple, to give each other space until the storm of exams had passed. He felt the heat rise to his face at once, blooming across his cheeks and ears in that familiar, mortifying flush. “Oh—right. Of course!” he said too quickly, his voice a touch too high, a bit too falsely cheerful. He tried to laugh, but it faltered halfway through, hanging there between them, uncomfortable and unconvincing. 

He was embarrassed, he didn’t want to be the reason Harry lost focus. Not when the pressure was mounting and every waking moment was meant to be devoted to studying and revision. So Ron did what he always did when discomfort struck: he reached for distraction. The redhead busied himself with the mess on his bedside table, began rearranging his quills and parchment, opening books he’d already read and pretending to make sense of them all over again. And so, with a half-hearted yawn and a mumbled remark about needing to revise, Ron buried himself in pages and ink, pretending that the moment had passed without consequence. But somewhere deep down, it lingered all the same, quietly unanswered.

Harry, for his part, seemed entirely unbothered by the incident. If he’d noticed the awkwardness that had bloomed between them that morning, or the way Ron had practically folded in on himself with embarrassment—he gave no sign of it. He carried on just as he’d promised he would: keeping to himself, and not so much as brushing against Ron unless necessity demanded it. True to his word, he hadn’t touched him at all since—no hand on the arm in passing, no shoulder leaned against during long hours of reading, not even the quiet intimacy of a hand held beneath the covers when the world had gone dark.

And for Ron…well, it was puzzling, to say the least. They had agreed, hadn’t they? To not touch. But Ron, in his own mind, had taken that to mean something more specific—he'd assumed the agreement had been about restraint in that sense, about the sort of closeness that crossed a line. Holding hands, though? That had never felt like crossing any kind of boundary. That had felt safe. Reassuring, even. It was the one small thing that had grounded him on nights when the pressure of exams and expectations made the very walls of the castle feel too tight. He hadn’t expected Harry to withdraw from that as well.

“Uhm,” Ron began, his voice hesitant, catching slightly in his throat as he spoke into the stillness of the late afternoon. 

The library had thinned out by now, and they had claimed a quiet corner near the windows—just the two of them, cloistered in a sun-drenched silence—and the hours had passed in shared concentration, or at least the pretense of it. He glanced across the table at Harry, who sat hunched over his notes, lips moving soundlessly as the raven-haired recited the same line of incantation for what must have been the fifth time.

Harry looked up at the sound, eyes unfocused for a moment as he surfaced from his thoughts. “Hm? What is it?”

Ron swallowed, the tips of his ears already flushing red. “It’s just that—you haven’t touched me at all. Not once. Not even accidentally. I thought…” He trailed off, pressing his lips together, willing the words to fall into place. 

The raven-haired nodded slowly, setting his quill down beside his open book. “Yeah?” he said, cautiously, as though unsure where the question was going.

“I thought you meant, you know, that sort of touching. I didn’t think you meant—not holding hands. Or not sitting close. Or not—” he stopped, suddenly feeling rather stupid for saying it aloud. 

Harry turned to face him, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and dawning realisation. His eyes, bright with a kind of startled clarity, widened ever so slightly. “Oh… oh.”

Ron felt the heat rush into his cheeks with alarming intensity, as though the very air around him had ignited. His ears burned, and for a wild moment, he found himself wishing the floor might grant him the mercy of swallowing him whole. He nodded uncomfortably, the shame burning afresh with humiliation. 

The both of them hadn't managed to say more. Words had barely begun to take shape in the space between them when Hermione had arrived, her hair in a frazzled halo that suggested she'd either run a great distance or been at war with it—probably both. Her arms, previously burdened with the weight of at least three textbooks on Ancient Runes, now hung loosely at her sides as she exhaled with frustration. “Honestly—why can’t these corridors be better lit?" she was saying—well, more to herself than to them. "I’ve not had a wink of proper sleep. Not one. I was up revising until Merlin-knows-when and I still can’t remember the difference between Elder Futhark and the newer, reconstructed set, and—”

Ron turned slightly, one hand still half-raised in the unfinished gesture of whatever thought he’d meant to give voice to a moment ago. His gaze, letting it settle on the open pages of the book he’d been holding—some dense, underlined volume on Defensive Spells or perhaps something even more irrelevant, given that he hadn’t properly registered a single word of it in the last half hour. 

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Harry’s hand slipped across the narrow gap between them. A folded scrap of parchment, pale and creased, landed lightly between the pages of Ron’s book, nestling there as though it belonged.

Ron didn’t look up. He waited a moment, gave the air time to settle, then flicked his eyes downward and gently thumbed open the note, its simplicity stark against the mess of his thoughts.

Let’s talk later.

It was meant to have been a conversation—simple, unobtrusive, conducted beneath light filtering through dust-cloaked windows on the fourth floor. The old classroom had long since been forgotten by timetables and timidity alike, left to the silence and the soft decay of unused magic. What began as talking dissolved—slowly, messily—into something Ron hadn't the will to stop. Or perhaps he had never intended to. A week—seven endless days—had passed since they’d last touched, and Ron, in all his stumbling attempts at stoicism, hadn’t realised how deeply the absence had taken root.

It has made him restless, irritable even, and now that Harry was on him, hands bracing his sides, mouth urgent and unrelenting, Ron felt himself nearly unravel. He responded with a hunger he hadn’t had the presence of mind to hide, his hands rising instinctively to Harry’s shoulders, fingers knotting into the fabric of his robe. The only sounds within that forgotten room were the raggedness of their breathing and the soft, slick pull of their tongues meeting, over and over again.

“I thought you said we were just going to talk,” Ron managed, though the words emerged unconvincing, rough-edged and breathless. 

The raven-haired had pressed his face to Ron’s chest, right where the top two buttons of his shirt had come undone—undone, Ron wasn’t sure when. Perhaps he'd fumbled them open himself in a moment of carelessness—or perhaps Harry had done so with that swiftness he often wielded when intent overtook him. 

Either way, the fabric now lay parted, exposing pale skin to the cool air and to Harry’s mouth, which was currently doing something wholly unruly. Ron then gasped, or nearly did—stifling it through clenched teeth and a jaw wound tight with restraint. It was the sort of sound that might betray just how easily Harry could reduce him to this: a bundle of nerves and wants, pinned against old stone and undone by the press of a mouth.

Harry, without lifting his lips at first, let out a muffled hum that seemed more amused than repentant. And then, slowly, he looked up, his cheeks touched with colour, his fringe damp and dishevelled. “Did I?” he asked, his tone maddeningly innocent.

"Harry," Ron glared at him, "you promised. No touching until after the exams. They're only three days away, and we've worked too bloody hard to throw it all away now." But Harry, ever the contradiction—stepped forward with calm stubbornness that always amazed Ron more than he’d ever admit aloud. There was no argument, no attempt to justify or wheedle. 

Because Harry was kissing him again. And in that moment, the wall Ron had so carefully built up—brick by laborious brick, each representing sleepless nights, revision schedules, the weight of his mother’s expectations and his own half-spoken dreams—buckled under the pressure of his boyfriend's warm touch.

Ron’s hand, as though acting of its own volition, found its way to the nape of Harry’s neck, his fingers curling into the familiar strands of hair. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, Harry pulled away.

Ron let out a soft, involuntary sound—half a sigh, half a protest. He hated how exposed he felt in that moment, as though something vital had been wrenched from him. He blinked, his cheeks flushed, his breath unsteady, and all the redhead could manage was a whisper. "You really are the worst at promises.”

“You enjoyed it all the same, anyway.” Harry said with a sly grin. “Come on, we’d best not rouse Hermione’s suspicions. She’s cleverer than both of us combined, and if she so much as sniffs we’re up to our old antics again, she’ll have our heads off.”

“And whose fault d’you reckon that is, then?” he muttered, tugging absently at the collar of his shirt. It had twisted awkwardly beneath his robes, and there was a peculiar, stinging sort of sensation at the side of his neck. He reached up with a grimace, fingers brushing the tender skin, and winced at the realisation. “Oh bloody brilliant,” he groaned, more to himself than anyone. He shot Harry a pointed look, one filled with the tired indignation of a man who’s learned too late not to trust his mate’s impulse control. “Harry, you absolute pillock. I told you—specifically told you—no marks. What part of ‘no evidence’ didn’t make it past that oversized head of yours?”

He sighed, the way a man sighs when he knows he's made a poor decision and is now living in the long, slow consequence of it. The dull throb beneath his fingertips was a scarlet badge of idiocy, one he was now condemned to explain—or conceal—from the most perceptive witch either of them had ever known.

Harry laughed, but clapped a hand over his mouth, attempting to stifle the sound, but it was no use—the laughter had already taken hold, shaking his shoulders and turning his face a shade too close to crimson. “Oh come off it, Ron,” he choked out between wheezes, wiping at his eyes. “You didn’t exactly put up much of a fight.”

“I never put up a fight when it comes to you two and your daft schemes,” Ron shot him a look so flat, so utterly unimpressed, it could have dried up the Black Lake. “That doesn’t mean I’ve given you a bloody invitation to go ‘round branding me in the middle of a unused classroom like some kind of half-starved Hippogriff—”

He jabbed a finger at his neck again, though he avoided pressing the sore spot directly. “This is going to be impossible to cover. She’s going to see it the moment I sit down and tilt my head a millimetre to the left.”

Harry was still grinning, though at least he had the decency now to keep it down to a smirk. “Well, then don’t tilt your head,” he offered unhelpfully, straightening his tie with the air of someone who'd just given sage advice. “Or tell her you ran into a Bludger. Or—no, better—say it’s a rash. An allergic reaction. To...what was that awful tea she made you drink last week?”

“Chamomile,” Ron said bitterly. “She said it would calm my nerves. Instead I nearly vomited.”

“Perfect. Say it’s that. Say your skin rebelled in protest.” Harry’s eyes gleamed with the satisfaction of someone thoroughly enjoying his own joke.

The redhead groaned, tilting his head back to glare at the ceiling. “You are the worst, you know that, Harry? Absolute menace.”

“And yet, you keep letting me do this to you.”

“That’s the tragedy, isn’t it?”

They stood in silence for a moment, the weight of their ridiculous situation settling like dust around them. Ron’s fingers brushed the mark on his neck again, and for all his grumbling, there was a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Harry caught it, of course. He always did.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Ron said, jabbing him in the ribs. “You’re not charming enough to get away with this forever, Potter.”

“I don’t need forever,” Harry said, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Just long enough to make you forget you were ever angry in the first place.”

Ron snorted. “That won’t take long. I’ve never been any good at staying mad at you.”

And damn him, but Harry knew it.