They would lie in bed together.
It wasn't such an odd solution.
When it came of the talk of leaving Hogwarts, finding Horcruxes, and defeating Voldemort, a crowded common room that possessed a fondness for eavesdropping wasn't exactly the best place to be. So Harry and Ron would go up to the dormitory, push aside the piles of clothes to make it easier to lay side by side on Ron's bed, and as they stared up at the ceiling, discuss the things that needed discussing, without the presence of an audience that never really met your eyes.
Harry thinks he is the one who introduced the idea of closing the drapes around the four poster.
Usually such a small pointless detail would be unimportant, but to Harry, every small pointless detail counts. In this situation, the more he can remember the better. Mainly because he didn't see this coming.
Or maybe he did.
He didn't actually vocalize his desire to close the drapes around Ron's four poster.
One night, after tossing and turning, Harry eventually gave up on sleep. He slipped out of his own bed, his mind fuzzy as it was stuck between that no-man's land of sleeping and awake, and ignored how the cold floor made the nerves in the soles of his feet jump unpleasantly. He padded over to the seat under the window and sat, staring onto the grounds.
There was white blanketing the grass. White that hadn't been there when most of his dormitory had fallen asleep a mere four hours ago. Harry wondered idly how such a slow falling snow could have nearly blanketed the entire grounds.
Maybe it had been falling heavier before.
Maybe a snow storm was going on that whole time he'd tossed and turned in bed, silently, and as soon as his feet touched the cold wooden floor, it had ceased to almost nothing.
Because the clouds paid attention to his sleeping patterns.
Harry smiled wryly, if briefly, to himself. His sleep-deprived brain was beginning to make no sense, twisting words into odd stories.
Mind still somewhat unfocused, Harry rose from the padded seat under the window and made his way back over to his bed. He was about to pull back his drapes and crawl inside to give sleep another chance, when a small rustle and a soft snore made him pause.
Without thinking, Harry let the drape of his bed fall from his hand, and he turned towards Ron's.
When Harry quickly slipped behind the heavy curtains and sat on the end of Ron's bed, Ron didn't even stir. Harry smiled to himself in the near darkness, thinking Ron would never be on guard duty if he could help it when he, himself, and Hermione went off to 'save the wizarding world.' The echo of that phrase made the smile drop from his face and a sigh escape his chest almost involuntarily.
He listened to Ron's steady breaths for a while before he reached out a hand, and taking a hold of Ron's ankle, shook.
Ron just shifted in his bed slightly and resumed his soft breathing pattern. Harry tried again, but when he got the same result, scooted forward on the bed and took a hold of Ron's wrist, pulling gently.
As he tried to rouse Ron, Harry wondered faintly why he was doing it. It wasn't as if he hadn't woken Ron up in the middle of the night before, but that was to discuss tactics or change a plan or just panic without really panicking; that is, stating all his fears in a monotone voice that, to anybody else, would have sounded relatively unworried, but to Ron signaled the beginning phases of an anxiety attack. During those times, he'd sit up groggily and tell Harry why everything was going to work out just fine, and, mildly assured, Harry would go back to his own bed, sleep coming easier.
This time, Harry didn't have anything to say. Nothing important enough to wake Ron up, at least. Nothing at all. That's why when he finally realized that he'd stopped pulling Ron's wrist and Ron was sitting up on his elbows, blinking his deep blue eyes sleepily (blue eyes that seemed even more deep in the moonlight that filtered through an opening in the heavy red velvet hangings), and mumbled somewhat incoherently, "Whazit?" Harry stayed silent for a beat of two seconds before stating, quietly " S'snowing."
There was another brief moment of silence, in which Harry thought Ron had drifted back off to sleep, when his best friend's voice asked quietly, "What's wrong? Dreams, 'gain?" He still sounded tired, but a little more lucid.
Harry shook his head, but not sure if Ron could see him clearly through the gloom, said "No. Just... couldn't sleep"
There was another brief silence in which Harry began to feel increasingly silly. He was about to mumble an apology and make his way back to his own four poster, when he felt Ron shift over to the right side of the mattress. "Come on, then," he said. His voice had dropped back down to a pitch that would suggest he was about to fall back asleep.
It took a moment for Harry to realize what Ron meant. He stared blankly at the empty, warm spot beside Ron, one thought cutting through the haze that was his mind; he'd never spent the night in Ron's bed.
But it wasn't like it was a big deal or anything, he reasoned almost immediately. They were best mates. Best mates shared a bed sometimes.
Right?
A little voice in the back of Harry's head reminded him that the act wasn't that common. And if it was, he'd never heard of it. Although, if the talk in the locker rooms were true, a special brand of 'best mates' slept in the same bed...
Before Harry's stomach could drop fully at the implications of the information this little voice carried, Ron's grumble cut through the silence. "Are you just going to stare or actually get in?" If there was an odd note to his voice, Harry didn't catch it.
Shrugging mentally, Harry began to crawl up to the space made for him next to Ron. He settled under the sheets and pulled the blanket up around him. They both lay in silence for a while, both on their backs, staring up into the darkness. Or near darkness.
After staring at the small shaft of light on the red blanket for a minute, Harry sat back up and pulled the four poster shut, blocking out all light.
He didn't know if Ron was still awake or not.
Either way, he said nothing as Harry settled back down, and soon his soft snores filled the small space once again
Harry honestly can't decide who to blame (maybe blame isn't the right word to use, Harry muses) when it comes to finding out who cuddled up to whom first. But waking up to Ron's randomly assorted limbs assorted around him and his face buried in the soft skin of Ron's neck, breathing in the smell of clean sweat and soap and sleep, Harry honestly doesn't care. But he is inclined to blame himself, because he is Harry Potter and that is what Harry Potter is wont to do.
Although, sleeping in the same bed gradually became a regular thing (it was Harry crawling into Ron's bed at night after all) the stolen looks Harry can attribute to Ron.
Harry had long perfected the art of ignoring the flippy feeling he got in his chest and stomach when he would crawl into Ron's bed three or four nights out of seven, so it was second nature to try his hardest to prevent that feeling during the day. Which meant act like everything was normal (because it was anyway. Nothing had changed. Right?). Which also meant no staring at each other in lessons or meals or anywhere really, in a way that meant that everything was, indeed, not normal.
They were in Potions. But of course they were. Situations that usually ended up turning his day upside down usually ended up occurring in the dungeons.. Today wasn't a practical lesson, and thank Merlin it wasn't. Harry wasn't up to doing a potion wrong today and watching Slughorn's bemused expression as he lamented the sudden loss of his favorite's student's aptitude for his subject. He hadn't slept well last night; ordering his beating heart to slow down as Ron's sleep heavy arms wrapped around him, pulling him close, had taken quite a bit of effort.
He was busy running the feathers of his quill up and over each of his fingers, eyelids feeling heavier at the pleasant feeling, as he watched Hermione's own quill scribbling away. He smiled slightly to himself. It didn't matter what was going on around them, Hermione's first priority while in Hogwarts remained to be her studies. Her consistency made a warm feeling seep into his chest along with a surge of affection.
The warm feeling added to his lethargy. He blinked slowly; he wanted to sleep. He wanted to go back up to the tower, take a warm shower, put on his pajamas and crawl into bed with Ron...
As he thought these things, his face began to warm up, and he couldn't help but shoot a quick look at the object of his thought, who was sitting between himself and Hermione.
The look on Ron's face made him feel as if the breath got knocked out of his chest. Ron was looking at Harry like he was a chessboard; eyes intense and focused, his jaw hard. Only the intense look in his eyes made Harry feel more like he was prey and Ron was the hunter. He looked hungry. He looked like he wanted to grab Harry. Grab him, and pin him to the ground and-
Harry tore his eyes quickly away from his best friend's. His heart was beating erratically, all thoughts of being tired fleeing from his mind. He'd never, ever seen Ron look like that. Look at anything or anyone like that. Look at him like that. The effect was strong, as his cheeks were flushed, his breathing slightly labored, and, he couldn't help noticing, a certain part of his anatomy was straining uncomfortably against the front of his trousers.
Harry realized he was squeezing his quill too tightly and set it down carefully, keeping his eyes on its pattern but not really seeing it. A few moments later there was a large shift in movement around him, and Harry realized the lesson was over. Keeping his eyes down, he placed his books into his bag and slung it over his shoulder. In the flurry of students, Harry snuck a look at Ron who was looking dutifully abashed at Hermione's "... didn't see you take one note, Ronald? Honestly. And I bet you think you'll be able to just look over my shoulder at my parchment during review, don't you? You'd think..."
There was no trace of the look Harry had seen minutes ago, and when Ron looked up and met his eyes over Hermione's hair, there was nothing amiss in his expression. Regardless, Harry kept his own eyes averted, instead choosing to scan the dungeon, and eventually, the lighter stone walls as they ascended the stairs and made their way to dinner.
Harry never saw that same hungry look in Ron's eyes again, but their gazes still met more than was necessary - in the library as Hermione fussed over N.E.W.T.S, in the common room while Hermione fussed over their last failed attempts at Astronomy homework, during Quidditch practice (but never in the showers. Harry just couldn't look at Ron then, especially around their mates), and in lessons. Each and every one making his face flush, his heart beat faster, and his palms to become slightly damp, instantaneously.
Even though these looks officially made it harder to act as if everything was normal, Harry couldn't find it in himself to be upset with Ron; this was attributed to some reason Harry didn't regard as safe enough to investigate.
The touching, Harry decided, was inevitable. They would sleep in the same bed (almost every night now, but starting off in their own separate beds as to not draw the suspicions of their housemates. Not that there was anything to be suspicious about, mind.) so they were used to touching.
Or so Harry thought. Turns out he and Ron were used to touching with the excuse of being mostly unconscious when it happened.
Harry can pinpoint the moment he felt Ron's hand come to rest on his lower back automatically, protectively.
Snape had slunk out of the shadows, demanding to know why Harry, Ron, and Hermione were still out so late, when curfew was a mere twenty minutes away. The hatred that had welled up inside Harry had been so strong, the image of Dumbledore's broken body fusing with the oily slickness of Snape's voice as he cast aspersions to their intentions, and Harry was reaching for his wand before he could consider it to be a bad idea. But before he could reach it, he felt a weight settle on his lower back. A large, warm weight, and his eyes shot up to Ron, who wasn't looking at him, but glaring at Snape, who's own wand was already in his hand.
Harry's focus was on the large warm hand on his back and the calm that seemed to seep from it. He leaned back into it briefly and then straightened, as he looked Snape in his cold soulless eyes and informed him that they were just on their way to Gryffindor tower. He strode past him quickly, taking advantage of the 'Headmaster's' momentary surprise at Harry's uncharacteristic self-control.
He didn't see Ron's one last glare at Snape, but Harry soon felt him catch up to his stride easily, with his long legs. Harry also didn't see Hermione hurry past Snape as well, not glaring, but instead her brow furrowed in deep concentration as she wondered if the dynamic in their group was changing and if it would be for the better.
That night, Harry feel asleep with Ron wrapped all around him, enjoying the feel of Ron's long, pale fingers tangled in his ebony hair.
Touches on his back and shoulders. Fingers gently squeezing that back of his neck or curling in the soft hair at the nape. A large solid hand on his knee or a large arm around his waist. Harry reveled in all of these touches, as they set his soul at ease..
It was only a matter of time really.
The touching has led here, to this, Harry thinks. Well, really, all those little instances have. All those little instances have led to what feels like this very big instance. To laying in Ron's four poster, face to face, with the curtains drawn. To his hand resting on Ron's broad chest (Harry never really liked being smaller than Ron, but now he enjoys it quite a bit) and Ron's hand resting heavily on his hip, while his thumb rubs circles softly on Harry's hipbone.
To their breath mingling and his heart beating out of his chest while simultaneously feeling at peace with everything and everyone. To Ron, his eyes home to that hungry look once more, moving forward slowly, so slowly. To Ron's face, arms, legs, everything so close to Harry's own that he has to close his own eyes, because he's drowning in contentment.
To their lips meeting and Harry's heart skipping, and then stopping
Yes, Harry thinks, every single little detail counts.