Harry's POV
The first week was the absolute worst in Harry's memory. Once it became clear that the Ravenclaws weren't even going to support him he considered his hopes thoroughly dashed. Hermione was sticking next to him through everything, but in the end (reluctant as he was to admit it), she just wasn't as fun as Ron. Of course Hermione was one of his best friends, and she could spit out the occasional good natured barb, but given the circumstances Harry was a lot more subdued than normal. Getting him to laugh and enjoy himself would have taken nothing less than one of Ron's at length soap boxes comparing Snape to a Lethifold with an attitude problem. Harry almost laughed at the thought of it.
"What are you looking so happy about?" Harry turned to look at Hermione sitting next to him, her mouth turned up lightly at the ends in a small smile. In a peculiar way, Harry felt like she had caught him in something.
"D-didn't you see that? Neville knocking that wastebasket into Dean?" Harry said somewhat defensively.
"And you've been silently laughing about it and not moving for about ten minutes?" Hermione asked knowingly as she waved her wand. One of the miniature pillow cushions from the center pile in the classroom soared obediently over to her desk and plopped down in front of her. She reached out and felt the plush cushion fondly.
"Very good Miss Granger!" Flitwick pronounced. "Don't forget that nice fluid wand movement. Make sure it's done gradually, otherwise your control on the object could be compromised! Remember to concentrate now!" He belted as he collected the claimed cushions from his stepstool at the front of the room. Harry sighed and raised his wand focusing on a particularly fine orange plush cushion, the cushion dove from its numbers and slid weakly towards him and to a halt less than three feet from it's original place.
"So what were you thinking about that made you smile like that? Also, you're going to have to concentrate more if you want it to actually make it to the desk, Harry…"
"Oh! I wonder why I'm not concentrating?!" He spat vehemently. Jabbing his wand towards the orange plush again. This time it actually skidded away from him. He dropped his wand defeated to the desk.
"I was just thinking about what Ron would say, if he were still talking to me that is." Harry muttered apologetically to the abashed look on his friends face from the outburst. Her look softened.
"You shou-"
"Don't tell me to talk to him Hermione! Besides, he looks like he's having a perfectly grand time without me." That, at least to Hermione might have been a matter of opinion because she turned around in her seat to get a good peek at him.
"Don't look!" He hissed at her. She snapped back to Harry with a curious expression.
"What?" Harry asked, planting his head in his hand, resting his elbow on the desk.
"I think I might be close to figuring something out… I'll get back to that though. I think maybe for the sake of the summoning charm at least, it would help to sort of get these distractions out. You want to talk about it Harry? I won't tell you to talk to Ron if you don't want to, but if you'd like to just get all of your feelings off your chest it could help you feel better." She muttered the incantation and the bright orange pillow Harry had been trying to summon earlier soared into her open arms. Harry stared so pointedly at it Hermione looked somewhat disturbed.
Harry was tempted to say he didn't want to talk. More often than not he liked to just sort things out in his own head, but looking at Hermione clutching the orange pillow he felt a rush of loneliness. It was as if they were a world apart from each other.
"I think that's a good idea actually." He replied. Hermione held the cushion out to him. Harry saw there was gold threading on the edges, but otherwise was a simple looking pattern.
"You want to touch it?"
"That was the one I was aiming for earlier." Hermione smiled warmly and placed it tenderly on his desk. Harry reached out a hand and pressed his fingertips to the center. It was a lot comfier than it looked.
Ron's POV
Tuesday when Ron woke up he just knew it was going to be a bad day. Not that days had been great since he and Harry had fought, but when he saw the Slytherins that morning wearing those dumb badges he all but groaned on his way to what he was hoping was an enjoyable breakfast.
"Hey! Weasley! Where's your boyfriend?" Ron wasn't intending to react, but the word boyfriend just about made him jump right out of his skin. His head jerked up to look at Malfoy sniggering next to Parkinson. He had time to register they were all wearing something on their robes, but not enough time to realize what it had said.
"Did you two have a fight? Maybe you'd like to wear one of these then!" And Parkinson had thrown him one of the badges. For a split second Ron thought they had fired a jinx at him, but upon realizing it was solid reached up to catch it before it hit him in the shoulder.
"SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY- THE REAL HOGWARTS CHAMPION!"
"Press it Weasley!" Almost mechanically, and without looking up at them he pressed his finger into the badge.
"POTTER STINKS"
"Sod off!" And gripping the badge tightly in his hand he sat himself down at the Gryffindor table on the far end of the hall trying to ignore the uproarious laughter at the Slytherin end. Before he could even reach for some bacon though, the Creevey brothers sidled next to him.
"Hey Ron! Um… we saw just now what happened. And we were wondering…" Ron's stomach tightened as he looked up at Colin. This was it, they were going to ask about the boyfriend comment, he just knew it. What would he say? He could always pass it off as a joke.
"Could we have that badge?" Ron started looking down at the badge, startled he was still holding it.
"Why do you want it? Aren't you supporting Harry?" He asked. Surprised, that the same pair that always followed Harry everywhere, and adored everything about Harry, would want a SUPPORT CEDRIC badge. With a twinge he thought maybe nobody was planning on supporting him. Guilt settled over Ron like a dark cloud.
"Of course we are! We just wanted to try to fix them to say 'SUPPORT HARRY POTTER' instead!"
"Yeah! Don't you think it would be great?" His brother squeaked.
Ron snorted, luckily the brothers hadn't noticed. He passed over the badge.
"Yeah, I think that would be a great idea Colin. He needs the support." The Creevey brothers ran off, most likely to begin work on correcting the badge.
His stomach ached, which he forced himself to think was because of lack of food. He piled some sausage and bacon onto a plate and was just heading into some of the fluffiest eggs he'd ever had when the twins appeared on either side of him. It wasn't often that the twins actually spent time with him to be honest. True, they were closest in age and when they were home they used to spend time together, but the companionship waned once the twins got a little older, and Ron had made friends with Harry and Hermione. They didn't speak at first, but occupied themselves with loading their plates. It wasn't until George bit into his toast that Fred spoke from Ron's right.
"You want to tell us what's going on?"
"No." He said icily. If the twins thought he needed company they were sorely mistaken.
"Alright, but just so you know, at some point you'll have to stop acting like you have kneazle dung for brains." George commented on his left.
"I realize that." Ron said taking a sip of his pumpkin juice.
"Until then, we'll be here with you." Ron stopped eating for a moment, and looked up curiously at George.
"Did I tell you that I needed you?" Ron fired back to his brother, who was smiling in a sly knowing way that really grated Ron's nerves this early in the morning. Ron felt Fred's hand on his shoulder and he turned to face the mirror image on his right.
"Oh, Ronnie, you didn't have to say anything."
Ron sat back, not so interested in his breakfast anymore. An odd cold sensation had overcome his stomach completely removing his appetite.
"How long have you been in love with Harry, Ron?" George said nonchalantly from the left. Ron swung around wildly about knocking his glass over with his elbow.
"Would you keep it down?! How the blazing hell did you find out?!" Ron sputtered trying to catch his breath.
"Please, Ronnie, how could we not notice with you practically undressing his robes with your eyes everywhere you go?" They were being so carefree about it all Ron was very close to forgetting composure completely and clocking one of them square in the jaw.
"If you leave your mouth open the doxies will fly in there little brother." Ron had the distinct impression they were enjoying how flustered they were making him so he forced himself to turn forward and dig through his breakfast.
"Last year." The twins nodded in understanding. "The dementors drained him so much last year, and…" He wanted to go on to relay his guilt at keeping Pettigrew as a rat for several years without knowing, but the twins couldn't know about that.
"I just wanted to protect him and I thought it was relatively normal until the last Quidditch match." Ron murmured to his plate, shoving an errant bite in to have something to do more than from actual hunger.
"Ah, Quidditch, plaguing us with sexual needs our bodies are too young to understand." Fred replied wistfully while Ron about choked on his bacon. George thumped him on the back.
"You remember that time in the changing rooms Fred?"
"How could I possibly forget Georgie?" They looked fondly toward each other breaking into simultaneous grins while Ron struggled to understand what was going on in between them. He caught them looking at each other, and something clicked into place. He sat back.
"You know, I knew you had to be doing more than making products up in your room. Occasionally, there would be noises. I knew they were one of you somehow.."
"Brighter than you look, little brother." They said in unison, and grinned in appreciation of the other. Ron always found it to be somewhat unnerving how they managed to do that, because it never sounded rehearsed. More like a part of their brains were in sync somehow.
"So, if you said it was so incredibly obvious that I like Harry, then why hasn't he noticed?" Ron asked, pointedly. Focusing more on sweeping the newfound facts about his brothers under the rug to contemplate later.
"Well, Harry has a lot on his plate right now." Fred responded, mouth full of hash. "Not literally of course, since I don't see him at the table…"
"But you know what we mean." George finished as Fred struggled to swallow his rather large mouthful.
"Then, it's not completely obvious then, is it?" Ron replied waspishly. As irritating as he was at the moment the conversation was actually serving to siphon off some of the things that had been weighing on him recently.
"Well, seeing as we noticed-" Fred started, recovering just enough to reach for his goblet of pumpkin juice.
"And Hermione noticed-" George said conversationally as he bit into a ham croissant, while Ron sat reeling.
"HERMIONE?!" He hissed, feeling his blood pump in his ears. His words were completely drowned out by the post owls swooping into the Great Hall, but his brothers seemed to have guessed what he had said.
"Well yeah, it's your own fault you got stuck being friends with the smartest girl in school. Did you really think she wouldn't put two and two together Ronnie? Get you head out of your arse for one bleeding minute and you'd see what's happening." Ron could not believe he was having this conversation with his twin brothers, both of which were going about their morning acting as though this whole scenario were nothing more riveting than commenting on the weather. Fred had just detached the morning prophet from an owl, still searching the ceiling as though expecting something more, and George had grabbed the sports section the minute the paper was set down, muttering about the new Ballycastle Bats lineup. It was so surreal he felt like he was about to explode.
Not to mention the bomb that had just been dropped on him. Hermione knew. How had she found out? And here he thought he had been pretty reserved about his feelings. He felt certain she would tell Harry when she found the opportunity, or had she already told him? His heart sunk. What would Harry do once he told him? Would he ever speak to him again?
"So are you going to finish your story?" George asked brightly from behind the paper.
"Wha-?" Ron snapped, breaking away from his thoughts. Fred was staring at him expectantly finishing some bacon rinds.
"Last Quidditch match, go on." Fred nodded encouragingly. Ron gaped at him, and shaking his head slightly to clear his head he took a swig of pumpkin juice.
"I dunno. He was just so sure of himself, the way he handled that dementor. Well, technically it was Malfoy…" Ron smiled lighty at the memory of Malfoy blasted to the ground by Harry's protective charm. Robes flying behind him, raven hair swirling delicately in the wind, one arm pointed mercilessly toward the ground holding his wand, the other hand stretched before him for the snitch.
"I remember that Malfoy kid." said George smiling from behind his paper.
"Fucking prat." The twins chimed together.
"Sorry to interrupt-" George intoned.
"Please, continue." Fred gestured politely.
"Well, I guess that was the first time I ever acknowledged him, physically in any case. It just hurts knowing that if he found out, he might not even want to be friends anymore, he might be so disgusted he can't look at me or something. I mean, he could easily be friends with anyone in this place, he's Harry Potter." Finally he was able to say what was truly bothering him, and to his surprise it was to his own brothers. He had seriously underestimated their tolerance for him if nothing else.
"How do you know he doesn't like you mate?" Fred asked conspiratorially from his goblet.
"And what's this rubbish about him not wanting to be your friend or replacing you? Merlin's beard Ron, you defeated McGonagal's chess set to go toward You-Know-Who for him. Which seems like an amazing display of stupidity to me, but-"
"And your second year, going into a girls toilet, to access Slytherin's Chamber of Certain Death, to help Harry fight off Salazar's pet Basilisk with fifty year narcolepsy and you think you're replaceable?" Fred snorted and shook his head as George put down the paper with a stark look on his face. Fred leaned forward expectantly.
"Lineup?" Fred said, switching sections with George.
"They set Lewinsky as the second beater." George said, kneading his brows. Fred made a disgusted noise from across the table.
"Grindewalds' Gangrene! I knew it was coming. What are they thinking? He doesn't have the upper body strength for long term endurance. If any match lasts over forty five minutes or longer he'll be next to useless." Fred prattled on.
"Gods forbid if he gets injured." George raved throwing his hand in the air. They both took a minute to sigh about the condition of the bats, and gave Ron a bit of a reprieve. He even started to relax a little bit, maybe the twins were right. He had done a lot of stuff for Harry, and even this little spat wouldn't destroy their friendship. Maybe his feelings weren't so much of a curse of death either.
"Well, Ron, we could sit here all day reassuring you about your own abilities, but you alone know what's right and what isn't-" Fred replied now picking up the sports section.
"In any case, that's not what we're here for." George said, rifling through the Marketplace section of the Prophet.
"Yeah, about that. Why are you here again?" Ron asked. They both looked up at him surprise.
"Moral support." They intoned in that eerie simultaneous way of theirs. Ron nodded slowly.
"When you're finished, can I see the sports?" The twins cracked into grins, and Fred silently handed over the section.
END OF SECOND CHAPTER
Thanks for reading! Make sure to comment, and I always take suggestions! Especially for Harry/Ron because they are my absolute favorite!