Title: No One Said It Would Be Easy

Author: loraineee

Rating: PG

Warnings: First HP fic.

Words: 660

A/N - Short and sweet. A first attempt at Harry/Ron. I do love the boys.

hr

It's surprisingly easy to break up with Hermione. He tells her it's off and she looks at him and he looks at her and she whispers 'right' under her breath and it's done. He thinks afterward that he should feel something like regret when he sees Hermione smiling and touching Charlie's arm. It's more like relief.

Harry's shocked to hear the news; even more so to hear it from both Ron and Hermione, talking as if they'd seen a movie or picked up carry out. But Harry waits until Hermione leaves before he starts asking questions Ron can't answer.

Ron puts the carry out boxes in the trash and whispers a cleaning spell over the plates, trying to ignore Harry. But it's hard to ignore Harry when he grabs you by the back of your neck and pulls you over to the couch. Hard. Ow. Ron slumps into the couch and becomes very interested in his fingernails. Huh. Hangnails.

"Well." Harry leans forward in the chair next to the couch, letting his statement hang in the air, eyebrows raised.

"Hmm." It's hard to talk around the cuticle in his mouth. "What, mate?"

Scoff. "You know 'what,' Ron. Six months together and it's over just like that? Like nothing ever meant anything. How could you do that to Hermione?" Ron can tell Harry is staring, but can't look at his face.

His hands. That was safe. No dirty fingernails and hangnails there.

"Ron?" Harry sighs and the hands are gone.

Ron takes his hand out of his mouth and swallows. "Hermione's fine, Harry. She..." knew it was coming before I did. "She's fine. It was just...there was just nothing there."

Harry starts making noises and Ron cuts him off.

"I didn't mean 'nothing.' Hermione's a friend, a best friend. It's still the three of us against the world and all that. It just wasn't there."

"So the five years of flirting and six months of holding hand, was what exactly? Friendly?"

Ron is quiet. He can't exactly tell Harry what he really thinks. That those butterfly/foot-in-mouth/frustration moments were less flirtation and more genuine nervousness. As it turns out, Harry, your best friend isn't interested in Hermione. Isn't interested in girls at all, in fact. And that strange fuzzy feeling I used to get around her wasn't love, just...well, I'm a little afraid of her. Always have been.

He can't see that going over very well with Harry, who's already more than a little confused by this turn of events, so Ron says nothing. This momentary interest in the soap opera of Hermione and Ron will pass and Ron will be the one looking out for Harry once again.

"Ron!" Harry pokes Ron in the shin with his foot. "You're a right git sometimes, you know."

"I know. I'll try to work on it." Ron kicks him back under the coffee table and bangs his shin in the process. "Ow, that hurt!"

"Serves you right, trying to hurt the Boy-Who-Lived. Haven't I been through enough?" Harry grins at the doubled over Ron.

Ron smiles too, knowing it wasn't too long ago that Harry couldn't joke about things like that. "Oi. I'm sorry, Mr. Potter, savior of us all. Can you ever forgive me?"

"I might. As long as you clean the flat for the next month and promise to change your socks at least once a week. Mate, I mean, really. I have to live here and I'd rather not have to share my space with both you and your tremendous odor."

"Come on, that's just plain mean, Harry. I am hurt. Wounded really." Ron picks up a pillow and knocks Harry out of his chair, propelling himself forward into a giggling tangle of harry&ron on the floor.

As Harry retaliates with urgency, batting Ron about the head with a Weasley throw blanket, Ron begs for mercy, smiling all the while. This is right. This is home.