A/N: I wrote this some time ago and I just though I'd post it here.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I'm making no money from this. But you knew that already.

"How long have you known?" Ron asked finally.

"Since sixth year," Harry replied softly, picking restlessly at the grass beside his thigh. "I realized it around Halloween."

"Oh." Ron was incredulous and thoroughly dismayed. When Harry had said he needed to talk to him in private after their match, he hadn't imagined this. Now they lay side by side in the middle of the pitch, the late afternoon sun casting reddish light over everything, and Harry had just told him something far more surprising than any theory about Voldemort's latest scheme could be. How had he not picked up on this? Harry was his best friend. Hell, he was closer to Harry than he was to some of his brothers. He should have known.

"Is this going to be a problem, Ron?"

Turning, he looked down to find his friend looking somberly up at him. Ron frowned. Is that what Harry thought of him? "You . . ." he paused, trying to choose the right words, "you don't fancy me, do you?"

Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses and the color bled out of his face. "No! Oh, God, no."

"And why the bloody hell not?" Ron demanded, offended by the horrified nature of Harry's response. "I'm a right attractive fellow, damn it. I may not have the whole tortured hero thing you have going for you, but I'll have you know there are a number of girls who find me quite appealing."

For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then Harry clamped a hand over his mouth and began to shake. Tears welled up in his eyes. Ron's indignation melted away only to be replaced with concern. He tentatively reached out to touch Harry's shoulder, an apology forming on his lips, when Harry broke. Laughter, raucous and loud, spilled out of him, the hoots and giggles coming so fast, they tripped over each other and threatened to choke him. Ron crossed his arms over his chest, his indignation back in full force. Really. Harry was just being outright insulting now. "I don't see what's so amusing about what I said," he said coldly, trying to mask his hurt.

With great effort, Harry managed to rein in his laughter. "It's not what you think," he gasped out, wiping tears off his cheeks.

"Then why did you act like the idea of fancying me was the most disgusting thing you'd ever heard?"

"Well, the idea of me fancying you sort of is," Harry said. "You're like my brother, Ron. Me liking you romantically would be like . . . you feeling like that about Ginny."

"Oh, Merlin," Ron cried, slapping his hands over his ears. "Don't say things like that. That's … uuugghh." Ron shuddered and viciously thrust the images Harry's words prompted out of his mind.

"See? It has nothing to do with you," Harry assured. "In fact, you're right. You are a right attractive fellow. It's just you don't turn me on, so to speak."

Ron let his hands fall away from his ears. "Okay. Well, good. Things won't get weird between us then."

They lapsed into silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Now that he knew Harry wasn't secretly pining for him, Ron began to wonder what had taken his friend so long to tell him.

"You taking this much better than I thought you would," Harry murmured into the cooling air.

"You prefer blokes," he said with a shrug. "It's not a big deal as long as I'm not the one you fancy. Because that would just be awkward, especially since I like girls. Besides, Charlie told us he was gay back when I was ten, so I'm used to the idea."

"Charlie's gay?" Harry asked, something akin to delight brightening his voice.

"Yes and he's off-limits to you," Ron said fiercely. "Not only is he too old for you, he's my brother. If I'm your brother, so is he."

"Damn, no Weasley love for me then."

"Ugghh." Ron rolled his eyes at Harry's grin before chuckling. Then he turned serious. "How did you know?"

Harry shrugged. "After the whole disaster with Cho, I realized that, while girls are really great to look at, I didn't really want to do more than that."

"Cho drove you to blokes?" Ron grinned. "I'm sure she'd love to know that."

"No, she didn't drive me to blokes," Harry corrected dryly. "There was something underwhelming about kissing her and, what with her crying every time we tried anything remotely intimate, it made me wary of girls."

"So, for all you know, you could be bisexual?"

Harry shook his head as one corner of his mouth quirked into a smile. "Let's just say I find boys much more stimulating than any girl I've ever come across."

"Oh." Ron sat up, folding his long legs and stared down at Harry. "Like who?"

"What?"

"Like who?" he repeated. Ron couldn't help finding this all very interesting. So much of their friendship had revolved around Voldemort and Harry's destiny drama that they didn't really do the whole "talking about who we like," buddy thing. It surprised Ron to realize how atypical their adolescence had been. "What turns you on?"

Harry cocked his head to the side. "You really want to know?"

"I asked, didn't I?"

"Well," Harry began, his voice a little hesitant, "one of the first things I noticed was the way Justin's hair shines in sunlight."

"Justin? Blond, Hufflepuff Justin?" Harry nodded. "So you like blonds?"

"Well …"

"Oh, no."

"What?"

"Tell me you don't fancy Malfoy."

"Well …"

"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, appalled. "Malfoy? How can you possibly fancy him? He's a git. A huge, irredeemable git."

"I never said I fancied him," Harry huffed. "And I agree; he is a git. But he's a damned beautiful one."

"There are some things I just don't need to hear, Harry."

"You asked."

Ron glared at his prone friend and refused to acknowledge the truth of his words. "Anyone else? Please don't let it be anyone traumatizing."

"Well, Crabbe did get pretty beefy over the summer holidays …"

"Gross," Ron declared at Harry's laugh. "Remember, I know where you sleep. I could easily get to you and exact revenge for this ghastly mental abuse."

"You could try."

"Yeah, well. Anyone else?"

"Well, Zabini's rather gorgeous, but I suspect he's also high maintenance."

"Higher than Malfoy."

Harry shook his head. "Malfoy would be high maintenance because you're trying to keep him happy and relatively civil. I think with Zabini you'd be too busy trying to keep everybody else from trying to steal him from you."

Ron laughed. "So do you like any of these blokes?"

"No."

"Is there someone you like?"

"Well …"

"There is, isn't there?" Ron practically shouted. Now this was really interesting.

"Yeah," came Harry's quiet reply.

When he didn't elaborate, Ron nudged his shoulder impatiently. "You gonna tell me or not?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"I think I've proven that I'll understand more than you think I will."

Harry stared thoughtfully at Ron and Ron returned his gaze. Just when Harry opened his mouth to answer, the sound of footsteps jogging toward them cut him off. Ron turned toward the newcomer while Harry pushed himself up on his elbows.

A minute later, Neville slowed to a stop and smiled at his dorm mates. "Hello."

"Hey, Nev," Ron greeted casually.

Harry didn't say anything but offered a weak smile instead.

"Hermione asked me to come down and tell you two that dinner'll start in about an hour and that you should come back to the common room since it's getting dark," Neville rattled off in one breath. Then he grinned and Ron noticed that Neville had a very nice smile. "Is she always like that with you two?"

"Like what?" Ron asked, ready to defend Hermione against any insult Neville could think to utter.

"Motherly," the boy answered, a hint of wistfulness tingeing the word.

"Yeah, she is," Ron said, his defensiveness down again. Then he smirked. "Bloody annoying it is, too."

Neville shrugged musingly. "I can see that, I guess. But I bet it's nice having someone look out for you like that." He gave a little laugh and shrugged. "Anyway, you should come before she really starts to fret." With that, he turned and trotted back to the castle.

Ron turned back to Harry, intent on resuming their conversation. Harry, however, was leaning back on his hands, his eyes tracking Neville's progress. His mouth had fallen open a little, his head tilted to the side as if to get the best angle. Ron glanced back and forth between the two for a moment before his own mouth dropped open. "Oh, my … no!"

Harry's head whipped toward Ron, his eyes wide and dilated. "What no?"

"You like Neville."

"What?" Harry's voice squeaked high and shrill.

"You. Like. Neville."

Harry's mouth worked for a moment before he gave up and sighed. "Am I that obvious?"

"Just a little." Ron fought off his smirk. From Harry's defeated posture, he could tell his friend had it bad. Over Neville. "I guess I can see it. He's shot up over the hols, lost his baby fat, and he has arms and shoulders worthy of a Beater."

"And an arse like granite." Harry's mouth dropped. "I cannot believe I just said that."

It was Ron's turn to burst out into helpless laughter. Harry bore Ron's mirth as graciously as he could for the first minute. Then he shoved Ron's shoulder. "Let's go."

Still chuckling, Ron got to his feet beside Harry and they started back to the castle. Finally, he said, "Why don't you just make a move?"

"Huh?"

"On Neville," Ron elaborated. "Why don't you ask him out or something?"

"He's like that?" Harry asked, hope sending his timbre up a notch.

"I don't know."

"It's not like I want to ask Lavender out, Ron. I don't want to offend him or anything if he's not into boys."

"Makes sense," Ron admitted as they climbed the steps to the great oak doors. "So what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

They quietly argued the entire way to Gryffindor Tower. Ron felt that Harry should at least feel Neville out and see if he'd be receptive to Harry's feelings. Harry felt just as adamantly that it would best to leave things as they were. With the war bearing down on them, trying to negotiate a romance was a distraction Harry didn't think they could afford.

"So you're just going to moon over him?" Ron demanded as they stumbled to a stop in front of the Fat Lady's portrait, furious with his pig-headed friend.

"I'm not mooning over anybody," Harry said firmly before giving the password and entering the common room. "Just let it go, Ron. Please?"

Harry didn't wait for an answer. He joined Hermione on one of the sofas near the fireplace and fell into conversation with her, Ginny and Neville.

Ron neared the group, noticing Harry cast furtive, longing glances at Neville, who was completely oblivious. As he joined them, he decided that Harry had gone through and sacrificed too much to give up on romance. He was going to find out if Neville was capable of returning Harry's affections and, if he was, nothing under the sun would keep Ron from putting those two together. If anybody deserved to be happy, Harry and Neville did. It was the least he could do as their friend to see that it happened.