Ron was running up a flight of stairs toward the Gryffindor Common Room. He had left breakfast early, leaving Harry and Hermione alone in the Great Hall. He gave them the excuse of having to get some books he left in the dorms before classes started in hopes that he could get some alone time.

As Ron reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, he slowed down and ended up walking right past it. He was lost in thought.

'Why did that happen? Why did I feel that way?' Ron asked himself, 'Oh, Merlin, I'm so confused!'

Ron heard someone walking quickly up behind him and hoped that no one was in the hallway with him; he hoped that they were just in a rush. But that person tapped them on the shoulder.

Ron didn't really want to talk to anyone at the moment; he just wanted to think. But when he was tapped on the shoulder again, Ron turned around and glared at the person. When he realized who it was, though, he stopped glaring and apologized.

"Look, er, sorry. I was just thinking," Ron blushed.

"Would you like me to leave you alone then?" Harry asked.

"Oh! No, it's fine. What do you want?" Ron responded.

"Well you kind of just ran off, so I came after you and when you walked past the Common Room, I got worried that something was wrong," Harry told him.

Ron was so lost in thought when he was leaving the Great Hall that he didn't realize that Harry had come after him. "Nothing's wrong," Ron insisted, hoping that that would give Harry the cue to leave. But, to Ron's dismay, Harry didn't leave and kept walking with Ron.

"Are you sure? You've been acting strange lately," Harry replied.

"Oh, that's only because I've been trying to figure out how to tell Hermione something," Ron confessed. That was the truth, too; he had been meaning to tell Hermione a couple things.

"Really? Anything you can tell me?" Harry nudged Ron in the ribs with his elbow.

"Well," Ron began, thinking that he could tell Harry at least one of the things he was going to tell her, "You know about Hermione and I, right?" he asked.

"Of course. How could I not know?" Harry answered. Harry, who had dated Ginny a bit last year, had moved on, and so had Ginny to his knowledge. But that was beside the point; Harry had moved on to someone else. He had known he had feelings for this person since fourth year, but he always tried to think it was just because they were friends. At the end of the last school term, he finally gave into his feelings. Harry had started liking Ron 'in that way', as he would put it, when he realized that the person he would miss most would be him. Ever since the last school term, Harry had tried to show Ron how he felt in many different ways. Harry would bump into him in the hallways and he would watch him in the Quidditch changing rooms. . Not only that, but Harry loved to see how many freckles he could count on Ron's back before Ron would turn around and start talking to him. Ron was just way too dense to figure out what was going on around him.

"Well, I'm trying to figure out a way to say that I don't really like her 'in that way' anymore," Ron said.

"Oh?" Harry was surprised, "Do you like someone else?" he asked.

Ron paused for a moment, "Yea, I think so."

"Any bird I know?" Harry asked. He thought that any girl would be lucky to have Ron fancy them.

"No," Ron replied quickly. 'If only it were a bird,' he thought, 'Why do things have to be so difficult?'

Harry, feeling that the situation was becoming a bit awkward, decided to change the subject. He hated when things became awkward. "We should head to class now, it's about time anyways."

All Ron wanted to say to Harry at that moment was 'I fancy you Harry,' but he just couldn't get the words out.