disclaim: don't own
Sometimes, cannon Ron is a dick. But what if he really wasn't as shallow as it sometimes appeared he was.
It's a fine line between love and hate.
It's also a fine line between terrified and angry.
Ron Weasley has never been good with fine lines. He likes to put things in boxes. Malfoy, in the box labeled Hate. Chudley Cannons, in the box labeled Love. Boxes don't allow for easy escape into a different box, not like a simple line. Ron is either angry, or not. He never walks the line that Harry can, of angry but not exploding. Ron likes to deal in absolutes, and ignore the shades of grey. In his family, you had to be loud and absolutely something in order to be heard. Bill was cool, and always had been and always will be. Charlie was crazy and athletic, combining the two and being wild and untamable. Percy was good and followed all the rules. Fred and George were the opposite of Percy. Order and Chaos. Ginny was the only girl and the youngest. All of them were absolutely their thing. Mum had been loud, Dad had been obsessed with muggles.
His early life had been absolutes.
But then he met Harry Potter, and later Hermione Granger, and he discovered that not everything can be absolute.
Ron Weasley absolutely loves Hermione Granger. He absolutely loves Harry Potter. They are his best friends. They will always be his best friends.
And during their first year, he faced down death with them. In the form of a chess set, where one wrong move could kill. And he realized he couldn't lose either of them. Not without dying himself. So he offered himself up in their stead. He lived, they lived and everyone was happy. Ron knew he would do everything in his power to protect them.
Year two, and it wasn't easy. He couldn't. He couldn't protect them. Hermione was petrified trying to save them, and he got separated from Harry and his sister when it mattered the most. He spent the entire time shifting the rocks and cursing the world, because he needed to protect them and he couldn't.
He couldn't always protect them. It wasn't absolute. He hated not absolute.
Third year and he was still dealing with the changing worldview. Sirius Black wanted to harm Harry, and Ron didn't know enough to protect him. Ron wanted Harry with him all the time so he could watch and make sure he was safe. Hermione started going insane, but Ron didn't know what to do to protect everyone and ended up taking it out on Hermione when Scabbers, a constant, absolutely always there, disappeared. It wasn't her fault, he shouldn't have exploded,and he just didn't know how to fix it. He didn't do well in complicated situations.
And now, this.
Harry's name had come out of the Goblet of Fire. Harry had to have put his name in. Had to.
If he didn't, that meant that the one year they were suppose to be safe they wouldn't be. If he didn't, someone else did it for him. Someone else wanted to kill him. Ron knew Harry, knew he didn't want eternal fame, glory, or money. But if he didn't put his name in, then someone was out there, watching, waiting. Someone wanted to hurt, possibly kill, Harry and they didn't know who.
And so Ron refused to accept that Harry didn't put his name in, because he was terrified of what that meant. Terrified about Harry's chances of survival. Terrified that one day he would wake up and Harry would be dead and Ron had done nothing to protect him. He was terrified and there is a fine line between terrified and angry.
And Ron is no good at fine lines, and he crossed it into angry.
And angry is safer. Angry means that terrified isn't happening. That Harry will be safe.
Until the First Task and angry was no longer safe. There was no more pretending that Harry would be fine. Angry wasn't working, so terrified it would have to be.
Ron may be called jealous. He may be called a fair weather friend.
But that's not true.
Ron loves his friends, and he can be terrified for them.
He also doesn't know where the line between love and hate is, or terrified and angry. Not when it isn't absolute.