Confessions in the Cauldron
It was the final day before their easter hols break, shockingly enough, Ron had packed his bag quite early rather than leaving it for the last possible minute. Even Hermione hadn’t started packing yet, Hermione! Granted she was too busy with studying for N.E.W.T.S. you’d think she’d at least give herself a break to pack up.
Even more shockingly, even Harry had finished packing! They were both waiting on Hermione now, that was an odd sort of change.
Ron was walking through the corridors to the eighth-year dorms, he’d made amends with most of the people still lounging about, even the Slytherins! If only first-year Ron could see him now. He collides with Harry while marching up to the common room.
“Ah, hey mate, didn’t see you there” He truly just didn’t see him there, he was hyper-fixated on talking to Hermione, more importantly about what Hermione is going to do for her hols break, because he certainly isn’t allowing her to just stay at Hogwarts.
“No worries, Ron, hey um-” He stutters. Harry stutters quite a lot but rarely around him, he only does it when he’s anxious around them like he’s hiding some sort of secret nobody’s meant to find out about. “We should go to the Leaky Cauldron, what do you say?”
It’s not unusual for them to go to the cauldron really, they do it often. Even when it’s not Hogsmeade weekends. Playing part in the survival of the wizarding world does have its perks. Well, besides the whole trauma thing.
“Yea no, sure mate why not. Let’s go ask Hermione too while we’re at it?”
“Already asked her, busy as a bee she says, her words exactly too.”
Ron adores Hermione, truly he does. But the amount of pressure that girl puts on herself is indescribable, saves the wizarding world, and yet she’s worried about N.E.W.T.S.! how bloody insane is she.
But for however insane she is, he’ll always adore her in a way he never thought was possible, even when he drank that love potion in sixth year. It had never felt — like this. Nothing could ever compare to what he feels when he just looks at Hermione. He tries and tries, yet to no avail, he can’t even begin to describe what it feels like.
“Not everything feels like something else.”
That’s what he's grown up hearing, if he couldn’t describe an object, it was, simply put, something that could never compare to something else.
It was an indescribable feeling. Bill had first told him this when Ron couldn’t explain why he was upset, or if he even had a reason to be upset, all Ron knew is that he was.
“Okay, Ron tell me what’s going on, what’s gotten you so miffed up?” Bill had crouched down to the floor where Ron was sitting.
That was it, Ron didn’t know, he didn’t know why he was upset. 7-year-old Ron was throwing a fit and he doesn’t even know why. “I don’t know” Ron stared at Bill with glassy eyes, clearly from tearing up, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Bill would have the answer, he was his oldest brother, and he should have the answer.
“Oh Ron” that was all he said, that was it. At first at least. Bill shifts closer to him on the carpeted floor. “This is a new feeling, isn’t it? You just can’t explain it, can you? Ah well, that’s how life goes sometimes. But what we can do to help us, is to simply come to the conclusion that — there’s no conclusion.”
At this moment little Ron had stared up into Bill’s eyes even more confused than he ever was.
“Not everything needs to come to an end, does it? Because not everything feels like something else”
And that’s what stuck with Ron, for the next ten years, anytime he couldn’t describe anything he’d simply realize, that not everything feels like something else.
Ron and Harry take their usual route to Hogsmeade, by half past 1 they manage to coddle up in some booths they found in the bar. They order their usual, butterbeer with extra butterscotch schnapps. Then abruptly, almost out of nowhere “Ron do you ever think you could love someone you once hated?” Madame Rosemerta gracefully places their drinks on the table humming a soft tune.
“Well, I mean, I hated Percy for a bit, you know that. He was out there pretending like we didn’t exist, while I couldn’t forget he existed. It was infuriating really, drove me bloody mad it did.” At this point Harry’s face portrays a frown, a frown so saddening Ron wants to take back whatever he said, — but that’s not what he does. “But I do like to think that we’ve made up, haven’t we? Were on civil terms now. We got through the ups and downs, and it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
“Yeah but, what if you were never that close?” The look in his eyes searches for desperation like he wants Ron to just spit out the answer so Harry would follow it like a deer in headlights.
“Me and Percy were never that close were we though? We were obviously brothers, I won’t deny that, but it’s not like we were close-knit. We were just — brothers; someone I was meant to love the minute I was born. And I do, I still love him immensely Harry. One bump in the road isn’t the end, just makes the destination harder I guess.”
Ron sips his butterbeer finally being able to revel in its taste. Ron can briefly hear Harry grumble, clearly this hasn’t answered any of Harry’s questions that swarm his mind.
Ron finally plucks up the courage to ask why such a random question.
“I’ve apparently fallen in love with someone who I absolutely despised — I think. I don’t know! It's just- it’s a lot. And I don’t know how I’m meant to deal with it.”
“You don’t deal with it Harry, bloody hell.” He's exasperated, what else would be a proper response to what Harry had just told him? “Love’s a delicate thing, I never truly got that until Hermione. Harry what’s important is that the love you feel isn’t clouded by other people’s judgments or thoughts or whatever bollocks other people think. Not the people at the daily prophet. What's important is you.”
Ron once again takes a sip of his butterbeer.
“You think?” is all Harry can come up with. Ron was never the motivational speaker, but when the moment occurred, he was bloody well going to be the best one there is.
“I know Harry, — you’ve been smitten with him since third year. I saw those notes, I was sitting right next to you.”
Harry truly just looks gobsmacked, mouth pressed into a thin line like he's not sure what’s to come next. Harry finally takes a sip from his butterbeer and clears his throat.
“You- you knew?”
“Bloody hell mate, I was the first one to even realize, I mean the way you two look at each other. Merlin.”
“First one? You mean to tell me more people know?” Harry sounds visibly under stress
“You didn’t think you were being sneaky, were you? I mean, practically the whole castle knows by now.”
“WHOLE CASTLE?” Harry practically chokes on his butterbeer, the mere idea of people knowing him and Draco were a thing had sent him into a frenzy.
“Calm down mate, okay maybe not the whole castle, but I’m certain Luna knows, oh, and Neville and Blaise. They’ve been so hush-hush with each other it's practically ridiculous not to connect the dots really” Ron wouldn’t put it past Luna to realize, she knew everything that little bugger. He always thought she was part Seer, he wouldn’t put it past her.
“Merlin’s beard, were we really that obvious.”
“If you were to have a sign that pointed to you and Draco at all times and just said ‘were dating’ it would’ve been less obvious.” Ron can’t help but chuckle, it’s a funny thing really.
He would never have thought little Ron Weasley would be unconditionally and irrevocably in love with little Hermione Granger. It took a lot of change to get them where they were now. If he hadn’t followed Harry into that compartment in his first year, Ron isn’t sure what his life would be now, he couldn’t even imagine changing it.
Ron always hated change, absolutely loathed it actually.
Bill moving out? Change.
Charlie leaving for Romania? Change.
Percy becoming an absolute git at the ministry? Change.
Fred dying? Big fucking change
Seeing George alone? Change
Looking at Ginny and thinking of the chamber of secrets? Change.
Change, change, change. That’s what it’ll always add up to and he despised it, yes there would be a few exceptions where change truly led to all good things, but on a balance? The bad change would conquer all above.
But this wasn’t change, was it? It wasn’t something Ron hadn’t expected, he’d been expecting it for a while. He knew Harry and Ginny weren’t meant to be it wasn’t a love story between them — it was more of just a story.
Ron had seen it all coming, it was like slowly approaching a door until you finally had your hand on the knob. It was time to turn the knob.
Harry and Ron walk in tandem out of the Leaky Cauldron, they were Like two bowtruckles in a branch. One never left the other alone to long.
However just a few moments before they left, Madame Rosemerta told the pair something along the lines of: ‘Love isn’t one feeling, it's many compiled into one, where love conquers all. Remember that boys.’
This had weirdly resonated through Ron like somehow everything made sense now.
Harry also seems noticeably relaxed, like some giant weight on his shoulders has finally been assigned to some other poor bloke. Which in a way, it has. Ron isn’t sure how long Harry had to deal with these feelings alone.
“You know you can always tell me anything yeah?” Ron nudges Harry’s side a bit as they move up the trail back to the castle.
“Yeah — yeah, I know. I just felt like I needed to sort some things out myself honestly.”
“Well, did you?” Ron has to ask, it’s been 4 years, some things ought to be clear to him now.
“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Harry’s all smiles now and it elates Ron, he wants nothing more for Harry other than a break.
By the time they get to the castle and up to the eighth-year dorms. Hermione has finally packed her things up.
Harry and Ron sent a comforting smile in Hermione’s direction, and she staggered to them. Somehow, Ron knew everything was going to be alright.
This wasn’t change, this was growth.