At the time, Harry hadn't really been thinking about the implications of the second task. He had been cold, soaked, and tired, his lungs still aching from his near-drowning experience.
But now, as he lay awake in his four-poster bed, the sounds of snoring from the four occupants heard across the dorm room, he could finally think back of the events of the day, and wonder….
Why had Ron been chosen as his most cherished?
Don't get him wrong, Ron was his best mate, but considering who had been chosen for the other champions, Ron being his choice seemed weird to say the least.
Viktor's chosen had been Hermione, his date to the Yule Ball, and Cedric's had been Cho, his girlfriend. Both of their respective romantic partners.
Harry supposed that Fleur's chosen had been her younger sister, Gabrielle, so it could be argued that Ron had been chosen because he was like a brother to Harry. But then, wasn't it Hermione that was like a sister to him?
Always nagging, getting him to do this homework, but loyal, brave to a fault, and caring. Harry associated her with that of a sisterly position, the way he would imagine an older sister would act towards him, had he ever had one.
But Ron, Ron was a different story altogether.
Harry thought of the Weasley family as the family he never had, almost like his adopted one. It made sense that Harry should think of Ron as his brother, but that was the problem, wasn't it? He didn't.
Brothers didn't feel a fluttering sensation in the pit of their stomach when seeing the other, brothers didn't blush when the tips of their fingers grazed one another in narrow hallways, and brothers certainly didn't dream of kissing the other senseless when they gave them that lovely, blinding smile.
Harry could count Ron's freckles from his face to the tips of his feet, and had memorised the different tones and inflections of his baritone voice. Gods, this wasn't healthy.
He could feel tears coming to the pits of his eyes, and he rubbed them away.
He turned to face the closed curtains of Ron's own four-poster bed, and let the sight calm him some. Even the knowledge of Ron's presence, his mere proximity, helped ease his nerves, and Harry found himself drifting again.
With dreams of rippling water, billowing seaweed, and a frozen, statuesque Ron, Harry resigned himself to sweet sleep, and resolved to talk to Ron the next day about his troubling thoughts: however badly his choice might turn out.