hackthis_archive | HP – Harry/Ron

hackthis_archive

serialkarma: Is this spoilery for Goblet of Fire?

hackthis: Err.

serialkarma: I mean apart from having read the book already.

hackthis: *snicker* That depends.

serialkarma: Your own personal interpretations of subtext do not count as spoilers in my opinion.

hackthis: WHAT? I speaketh the gospel! I am the Metatron! Okay, calming down now, before I am smote.

serialkarma: Sweetie, don't you remember? Alan Rickman is the Metatron. And Snape. Does that mean Snape is the Metatron? Oh, god, what a horrifying thought.

hackthis: Because Slytherins RULE!1111!!!!

Harry Potter
Harry/Ron
Improv: grease, thin, pulp, graze
Originally for

scribblinlenore Kissing Challenge, but not so much so anymore. I will have to write another entry. Woe the sadness.

Our Day Will Come

i. living in the past

In an ideal world, Ron's first kiss with Harry would go something like this:

There is no war.

There is no You Know Who.

Harry's parents never died and Harry is a happy, well-adjusted regular wizard. He doesn't have a scar; he doesn't have nightmares. Harry James Potter is just another boy with specs and unruly hair, and he's been best mates with Ron Weasley since they were both in nappies.

When they were accepted to Hogwarts –- there was never any doubt that they would be -– they immediately began talking about classes and Quidditch –- they would both make the team in their first year, obviously.

On the Hogwarts Express they met Hermione Granger, who was really a nice girl, not too talkative or obnoxious. The kind of girl that Ron would've dated if he were interested in girls at all.

And so their twosome became a threesome, and everything was fine and happy until their fourth year when Hermione tried to chat up Harry, and Harry told her that he was sorry, but that he fancied Ron instead. And then Harry snogged Ron in front of Hermione, and their entire year –- in the Great Hall no less –- and it was the sort of first kiss that people talked about in those trashy, pulp romances that Ron's mum ate up with a spoon.

There were fireworks, and Ron's toes curled, and Harry nearly twisted Ron's head off of his neck with the force of his grip. It was the sort of kiss that put every other kiss in history to shame. And they lived happily ever after and all that rubbish.

Except that Ron's not sure he would ever know how to be that happy.

Plus, Harry's too much of an arse for that to ever happen, and there's the little matter of war, and Harry not actually fancying him, and that's just too unbelievable, even for Ron's wild imagination.

ii. living in the future

It is also possible that Ron's first kiss with Harry might go like this:

After the war is over Ron and Harry get a flat together, because it just sort of seems the thing to do. They're comfortable living in each other's pockets, and really, Ron doesn't think he could ever live alone. He doesn't necessarily need to live with eight other people again, but it helps to have someone else banging around to stave off the brooding, and the sitting on the sofa for days on end, doing nothing but wondering how the rest of the world can go on after all the horrors he's seen.

So, yeah, Ron and Harry have a flat, and they both have jobs at the Ministry, because that's where everyone works. Maybe they're both finally training to be Aurors -– that would be nice, too. Hermione and Ginny might stop by every now and then, just to visit and make sure that they're actually eating and doing the things that normal people do in their everyday lives.

Maybe Harry's the one helping Ron to cope, because there's something about seeing part of your family killed before your very eyes that makes it hard to ever breathe or feel normal again. Ron knows that people are going to die, people die all the time, it's just different when it's someone like Dumbledore or -– or Charlie.

It's always different, and sometimes Ron doesn't want to go to work.

Sometimes Ron just wants to sit on the sofa and watch the Stupid Muggle Box and turn himself off.

Sometimes Ron does this for days on end.

Sometimes those days become weeks, and those weeks become months, and people come to see him, and Ron pays no attention at all. He doesn't hear their shouting or their coaxing. He doesn't hear anything but noise. He doesn't shower, he doesn't change. He eats whatever Harry's put in the refrigermator and this is his life.

Until the day that Harry grabs him by the scruff of his Quidditch shirt –- his mum had saved it for him -– and drags him into the toilet and shoves him in the bath –- fully dressed.

Ron bangs his arm, and his head, and his arse. Everything hurts. Everything is wet. And he doesn't know if the water on his face is from the bath or from his tears, but Harry is there, because Harry is always there.

And Ron doesn't know if he snogs Harry or Harry snogs him, he just knows that it happens, and that it's wet and salty. It tastes like sadness and need and exhaustion. There are thick tongues and scratches from jagged nails. When it's all over, Ron feels as though they've been kissing for days, and for the first time in ages, he sees something in his future instead of living in the past.

iii. living in the now

And that would be all well and good, except that Ronald Bilius Weasley does not fancy boys. He does not fancy their gangly legs and broad chests. He doesn't fancy their sporadic stubble or the way they brag about the way their voices dropped over the summer. Ron is not excited by hairy legs and smelly socks and thick fingers and brutish manners. His pulse doesn't quicken when he thinks of someone stronger than him touching him, and he certainly doesn't jerk off thinking of narrow hips and green eyes and bending himself into positions that aren't really natural for any man.

No, of course not.

Ron was never jealous of Hermione for hanging on Viktor's arm when Krum didn't even know who he was.

Ron never wanted Cedric Diggory to wink at him either. Diggory never winked at Harry, or at Hermione, so wanting something like that was stupid. Ron didn't even know if Diggory winked at anyone, so how his mind could've created such a dream is beyond his realm of understanding.

Ron is not going to dwell on it, because the fact of the matter is that Ron isn't keen on boys. Or not on a lot of boys at any rate. Ron doesn't fancy Seamus –- too flirtatious –- or Neville –- too toothy –- and never Malfoy. No, never Malfoy. Which, really, only leaves Harry.

It's purely a process of elimination thing.

Or it would be if Ron fancied boys -- but he doesn't.

Except, many years later Ron's first kiss with Harry goes like this:

iv. living for tomorrow

They are tired and hungry and dirty. Ron's hair is coated with a thin layer of grease and filth. He doesn't even remember what it feels like to be clean, and his fingers are permanently cramped because of the way he clutches his wand in his right hand.

There is dried blood caked along Harry's hairline -- which is, he says, a mere graze -- and his always unruly black hair looks as though someone hung Harry by his ankles and shook him a lot. It would be a funny image, if it weren't the truth.

Harry's glasses are cracked and taped together, impervious to magical restoration after falling apart one too many times, and because Harry was never as good as Hermione at Reparo.

Ron's limbs have ached with exhaustion for so long he doesn't remember it not being there, and Harry's talking to him, because Harry hasn't stopped talking since the war began.

Harry has talked even more since Hermione died, and Ron has talked less just to stop competing for once in his life. This is one game that Ron's not interested in winning, and as long as Harry talks his words will fill up all the spaces and all the holes.

If Ron tries hard enough, Harry's words might fix everything that's wrong with their lives. So Ron lets him talk about plans and strategies and people that are never coming back. Harry's words fill the gaps in their hope, until the morning Ron wakes up and Harry has nothing to say. And Ron does what he's always done, he supports Harry.

Even when Ron says nothing, he's still on Harry's side, so he grabs Harry by his filthy, greasy hair, and he kisses Harry deeply and hard. He presses against Harry's chapped lips with his own, and he breathes life and words and love back into Harry in hopes that Harry understands all the things that he's never said and all the times they've missed out.

--end--

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serialkarma