Harry lay in his bed, thoughts racing back and fourth through his mind. Just last night Ron had entrusted him with his most inner secret. Ron Weasley was...wow, it'd be really odd for Harry to actually think it. But, the fact was that his best friend was gay. At first Harry didn't know what to say, then he laughed. Ron punched him, and after that he sat, listening, with a bloodied up nose. Harry sighed as he recounted what Ron had told him. It all made so much sense. It explained every ounce of who Ron was, and why he did the things he always did. Harry was happy for his friend, but he just didn't know how to act around him now. It was Friday night, and he had been avoiding Ron all day. It was almost time for dinner, and he was starving. He rolled out of bed, not even bothering to control his wild hair.
As he made his way through the common room he heard a lot of voice say things like "Oi, Harry, you okay? Haven't seen you all night, mate." and "Are you okay, pal, you look kind of pale?" He ignored these comments and walked straight out of the room and down the many flights of stairs that would lead him to the Entrance Hall. He saw Ron and Hermione chatting excitedly near the luxurious door to the Great Hall. He took a deep breath and walked to them. Hermione saw him coming and ran over to him, engulfing him in a bear hug. "It's so good to see that you're feeling better!" she exclaimed.
"What...you, yeah." He had forgotten that he had lied to them and said he had an upset stomach. He rubbed the back of his messy head with his right hand and stretched his elbow out, trying to think of something to say. Ron slowly talked over to them and smiled weakly at Harry. The raven haired boy attempted to return the smile, but he figured it looked more like a threatening grin than anything else. He never was good at forcing things.
"Harry, can we talk for a minute before we go in to eat?" Ron asked shyly. Harry figured he couldn't ignore his first and best friend forever. He nodded. They both looked at Hermione who just stared back. "ALONE." Ron edged on. Hermione just stared at them.
"Oh...OOH. I'm going, I'm going. Geesh." he skipped off to the Great Hall to eat and left the two nervous boys standing behind her. Ron motioned for Harry to follow him to the stairs, where they sat on the second to bottom step in silence.
"You said you were okay with it." Ron said, almost angrily.
"I am." Harry said with compassion.
"Does it make you uncomfortable? Is that it?"
"No." Harry shifted a little. "Well, maybe just a bit."
"But why?" Ron begged.
"I don't know. Ron, your my best mate. All these years I always thought I knew you better than anyone."
"You still do!"
"I thought I knew everything, Ron."
"Harry, you keep stuff from me all the time. I was scared, that's why I didn't tell you. I didn't want to loose my best friend. I don't want you to be uncomfortable. I just want you to be my best mate again."
"I still am your best mate, Ron. It's just going to take a little getting used to. There's no need to be scared. I'll always accept you, Ron." As if that solved everything, the two friends smiled and stood up. "Let's go eat now, I'm staved. Plus, we don't want Hermione getting angry with us." With that they went off to diner and talked as if nothing ever happened.
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Ron sat merrily on his bed, flipping through a magazine, still filled with warm sweet potatoes. Harry suddenly pulled back the hangings on his four-poster and stared oddly at Ron. "What? Is there something crawling out of my nose or something? Why are you looking at me like that?!" The redhead questioned. Harry laughed and spun his feet onto the ground so he could face Ron.
Ron ran a hand through his flaming red hair before turning to his friend. "What?" he asked again. Harry sighed as if giving up.
"Do you mind if I ask you some questions...you know, about you being gay?" Harry whispered, as if embarrassed to be asking it.
"Sure, if it'll help you understand me better. Oh, and Harry, you never have to be embarrassed it."
"I'm not embarrassed."
"Yes you are."
"No I'm not."
"Yes you so are."
"I most definitely am not!" he started to become infuriated.
"Fine, fine. Let's just drop that. Go on."
"What's it like? I mean...does it feel the same? How can you tell that you are? Do you know of anyone else that is? Can you tell if they are? It's Seamus, isn't it! He is isn't he?! You know, I've always suspected him of it."
"Whoa, whoa. Harry, slow down a bit. Let me back track a bit... It's like...well, I'm not sure. I don't know it's just how I am. I can't really tell you if it's the same or not, because it's who I am and always have been. I can tell that I am gay, because I'm attracted to males, it's not that hard to distinguish. I can guess if other people are, based on how I act, and how I feel...but I can't really say for sure. Although, I too have suspected Seamus, I don't know for sure if he is or not. Anything else?"
"Do you like someone?"
"Of course I do."
"Who?"
"I'm not so sure if I should tell you."
"Come on, Ron, it's me, Harry, your best mate!"
"You'll laugh!"
"No, seriously Ron, you can tell me anything. I swear I won't laugh. If I do you can punch me again. Just please, aim for something other than my nose, I don't know if it could handle another blow." he rubbed it gently, remembering how much pain he had been in the night before.
"Oh really..." Ron looked down mischievously. Harry followed his eye sight and found his hands flying protectively to his groin.
"Don't even think about it! I do plan on having children someday, and your wreak less abusing won't be preventing me from that!" Harry screamed.
Ron just laughed and shook his head before sighing and laying on his bed. He wasn't ready to tell Harry. The truth about everything was that he could tell who was gay or not, but he didn't want to tell Harry that, because he didn't want to have to tell him other peoples business. Also, he didn't want Harry to think he was lying, and assume that he thought Harry himself was gay. However, that was as far away from the truth as possible. During the summer after fifth year, Harry had started some serious training to defeat Volemort, and had gotten pretty strong. Also, he had gotten into muggle sports, and started playing American football, something Ron had never expected. Harry was a manly jock, and Ron liked him just that way.
He wouldn't tell Harry whom it was that he fancied, because not only would he laugh hysterically, but he'd either hate Ron for it or ban him from ever even talking to the person. "I'll think about telling you." he settled on saying, and went back to flipping through his magazine, lost in thought, and ignored the ranting from Harry.
The next day he sat in lunch playing around with his peas. To everyone else, he seemed to be off in a dreamland, but he knew himself to be staring off into the crowd in the Great Hall at his crush. Even though Harry was still the only one he told about his sexuality, he felt a lot more comfortable with it now. However, he hoped his crush wouldn't notice that he was drooling over him. If he couldn't even tell his best friend about it, there was no way he wanted the guy to know. He sighed as the bells sounded through the school and he made his way to Defense Against the Dark Arts with Harry and Hermione. They sat in the front row, for this was their favorite class with their favorite teacher. Yes, Remus Lupin had accepted his job back after Professor Dumbledore practically begged him, wanting to have as many members of the order in the school as often as possible.
Remus conducted his lesson and then asked the class a few questions. "Mr. Weasley, can you tell me what will happen if you put a Succubus in a cage with an elf?"
Ron, unwillingly, averted his eyes from the blue-eyed beauty on the other side of the room, and looked at Professor Lupin. "Well, Sir, even those elves are must more magically powerful, the Succubus would still have a hold over it if it were a male, because elves are human-like."
"Excellent, Mr. Weasley. Mr. Malfoy, do you agree with that?"
Draco stopped talking with his bodyguard friends, and said "Of course not. If the elf was smarter than Weasley here, which even a slug would be, it'd be able to escape an ugly beast like the Succubus. I really don't see what people find attractive about them."
Dean started laughing and said "Of course not, Malfoy, because a Succubus is a female, and your only attracted to blokes!" The Gryffindors burst into laugher...that is all of them besides for Ron and Harry. Crabbe and Goyle pounded their fists into their hands threateningly, and Professor Lupin tried to calm down the class.
After class Ron told his friends he'd catch up with them later, and headed to the front of the room to talk to the professor. "Remus?"
"Ah, Ronald. How may I help you?" the tired blonde asked, his brown eyes never failed to glow with warmth.
"Sir, I need to talk to you... friend to friend."
"Okay then." he stopped what he was doing and sat down, offering a seat to Ron and prepared to listen.
"I don't know how to put this Sir, so I'm just going to cut to the chase. Are you gay?"
"W-what?" this would be a classic cartoon moment where, if he had been drinking something at the time, Remus surly would have spit it out in surprise.
"Well it's just that I've always kind of sensed it, and then this afternoon when Dean made that little comment about Draco, you didn't laugh. You ALWAYS laugh at the Slytherins, even if just discreetly."
"It is true that I didn't find it funny, but Ron, I don't think this is an appropriate conversation for us to be having."
"Then it's true, you are? I knew it!"
"Fine...it's true, but why does it matter?"
"Because I am too Sir, and I really need someone to talk to about it...someone older than me, who I can trust. It just wouldn't be the same talking to Harry."
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It was a lot for the man to process, one of his favorite students, one who helped save the world more than once...was gay? He smiled warmly and said "Ron, anytime you need to talk, you know where to find me. However, I think you should get to class right now. I'll walk you down to the dungeons so Snape doesn't give you detention. He chuckled when Ron gulped at the thought.
They walked together down a few flights up stairs and down some corridors until they reached the dark and dank stair case leading to the dungeons. He looked over at the redhead walking slowly next to him, putting off having to go to class. Lupin was very surprised at how comfortable Ron was with his sexuality. He couldn't believe he just came out with it like that. He figured he had been accepting of it for a long time now, but decided not to tell anyone. He himself, had battled with it for years before he decided to tell Sirius about. Even after telling the rest of his group about it, he was still shy. He thought more highly now of Ron then he ever thought possible, he was a brave young man for being so open. Remus only hoped things would go better for Ron then they had for him.
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Ron sat down in potions after a scolding from Professor Snape, even though Lupin excused him from the class. He took out his kit and started chopping up some seaweed. He could have kicked himself for blurting out his thoughts to Remus, but he was nervous, and had no other way of putting it. However, it all worked out for the best. He decided he would visit Remus before dinner so he could talk to him about his crush, and how to deal with it.
"Ron, are you okay?" Harry asked as they worked on their potions.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just needed to talk to Professor Lupin. Hey, can I borrow a vial? I'm running out, I keep breaking them all. Mum promised to get me some before we came back to school, but apparently buying Ginny a new cauldron was more important."
"Sure, here you are." Harry handed him one. "So...when you talked to Remus, did it have to do with that I think it did?" Harry whispered.
Ron looked around to make sure no one, including Hermione, was listening. "Yeah... I'll tell you later."
After classes, when Harry went off to play some sports with his jock friends, and Hermione went to Astronomy club, Ron went off to Remus' office. He heard his professor gently say "Come in." after he knocked on the large door, and walked in.
"Hello Remus."
"I suppose your here to talk?"
"Are you busy?"
"Not at all...go on."
"Okay, well... I told Harry Thursday night, and he's okay with it and all...it's just that he wants to know who I fancy, and I'm not ready to tell him."
"It's not him, is it?"
"No! No, of course not. It's just that it's someone that he hates, and I'm afraid that he'll be upset with me."
"Ah, well Harry's your best friend. I've never seen him get angry with you before, I'm sure he'll accept it."
"Yeah, Harry's good at control his anger...I'm usually the one screwing up our friendship...and I don't want that to happen again. Especially now that he and Hermione have all of their new friends from everything that they're involved in...I just can't risk making them angry with me."
"I see... it seems to me that there's more issues to this then just your crush. Am I right?"
"Unfortunately, yes Sir."
"Well Ron, you're all growing up, and it's only healthy that you make other friends and explore the world, but it doesn't mean that they love you any less. Perhaps you should make some new friends as well."
"That'll be a little hard to do, considering I'm not involved in anything besides Quidditch."
"Humm..." the blonde took a moment to think. "Well I did hear that Professor Sprout is starting a pen pal system within Hogwarts."
"Just in the school?"
"Yeah, well think about it. This place is huge, you'll probably never even meet everyone of it's students."
"True... I'll do it!"
"Good, good. Now if you don't mind...I have some questions of my own to ask you."
"Oh, and what would they be?"
"How long have you know?"
"Know what? That I'm gay?"
Lupin nodded.
"Oh." Ron laughed. "Since third year, I just never told anyone, but I was completely okay with it since the second it dawned on me."
When he left Lupin's office, he knew he had a renewed and better friendship with the teacher. They talked for nearly an hour about anything and everything. After dinner he signed up for the pen pal system, and went off to the common room to play Wizard's Chess with Harry.
"So what's with you and Remus?" Harry asked as he moved a pawn.
"He's gay." Ron whispered, which made Harry drop the piece and stare, open-mouthed, at Ron in shock.
"You can't be serious!"
"Oh, I am. It's actually very convenient. I can talk to him, you know, he understands because he's been through it all."
"Oh..." Harry said with a bit of jealousy.
"Please, Harry, don't act like that. Your still my best mate, and we can still talk. It'll just be easier to talk to him about certain subjects that you can't help me with."
"Whatever... checkmate."
"Nope... your queens in the wrong position, Harry. Will you ever learn? You just can't beat me." Ron moved his own queen. "Checkmate."
The next morning at breakfast, Ron was finishing up some pumpkin juice when he received an owl. He knew that it would tell him who his pen pal was, but before he opened it, he looked across the hall... he saw his crush sitting beautifully perfect and hoped with every once he could, that some miracle would happen, and he'd receive that wonderful boy as his pen pal. He took a deep breath and opened it, skipping the rules at the top, and skipped down to the name...
Draco Malfoy.
Ron was in absolute blissful heaven.
!$!$! So, what did you think? I love feedback, comments, reviews, thoughts...just please don't trash or flame...I'll cry! meep! Ignore any typos for now...I just wanted to get this out there and see what people think. I'll try to update soon if you guys like it! 3Ambz !$!$!