Disclaimer: Not mine. Definitely not mine.
Warning: As I stated in the summary, this story contains slash. If that bothers you, for goodness sake's don't read!
Author's Note: I swore to myself when I first started writing slash that I would never, never would write a Harry / Ron fic. I guess I'm eating my words with this one then.
It's as if my heart has been replaced by a time bomb that pounds against my chest, threatening to explode. I feel it most when I laugh with you at the breakfast table or when we struggle to finish that Transfiguration assignment at the last minute, in all those little moments when your blue eyes sparkle as you throw your head back, tossing thick, short waves of red hair.
I get carried away just thinking about you and I feel myself strain against the burning need to touch you, to tell you everything inside of me. I used to tell you everything, but now the very thing that most tortures me is the one I can never admit to you. And it doesn't matter if we sit and talk all night long with our voices lowered so no one can hear. It doesn't matter how close we are or how much we share if we can't be even closer.
I want to be closer. I want you to be mine.
Because I feel safe with you, just as I should. You've never let me down; when Sirius was murdered and I cried, you held me. It wasn't clumsy or awkward as you wiped away my tears and I knew it could only be love I felt for you. I wanted then to tell you what I felt, that we should share more than just a lukewarm friendship. I wanted to press against you, rise up onto the balls of my feet so we were the same height, so I could capture your lips with mine and pour into that kiss all that you meant to me.
But I didn't and you stepped back, asking me if I was better now. My calm had left with your arms but I didn't say that. A wholly different pain consumed me then.
It was wrong to have those feelings for you, unnatural and misplaced. What did I know about love? How could I separate it from friendship when I had never before been as close to anyone as I am with you? But I want something more, I need something more because I'm dying inside if I can't touch you.
Loneliness and longing flush through me when our hands accidentally brush against each other and I have to bite my lip to stay under control. There's nothing I wouldn't give for one kiss, one night of peace with you in my chaotic world. I can't continue to deny this overwhelming need and yet I must. You don't see what it means to me when you take my hand in what seems an innocent display of support; all the emotions I am forced to fight down when you absently run your fingers through that copper mass atop your head.
If it wasn't taboo, I could explain everything. Explain why I have to walk away when you come in after Quidditch practice covered with a tantalising mix of sweat and mud. But most important, she is what stops my tongue from revealing the truth. Your Hermoine, your wonderful girl, our barrier.
They say it's all or nothing, take the chance or let it go, and if I can't bring myself to tell you . . . We may be closer than ever, Ron, but we're so far apart.