When Ginny was still a young girl -- at age eleven or twelve or something around there -- and at the height of her uncertainty and immaturity, she one time asked Ron how boys were able to be friends if they didn't talk about feelings or people they liked or anything, as she put it, normal.

Ron had thought about that for one moment. He had only been friends with Harry for one (or two) years at that time - and he was a twelve or thirteen year-old so what the hell did he know about friendship anyway? After all, when they had first met on the train, they mostly talked about how Harry grew up with Muggles and the witches and wizards on the Chocolate Frog cards and their mutual uncertainty at entering school for the first time. Ron talked - about his family and about the wizarding world in general - while Harry had sat back and absorbed it all.

He still thought about that question, up to sixth year. Where did friendship start? Where did trust start? Did it start at the mutual dislike of Draco Malfoy and (at first) Hermione Granger? Their mutual struggle at adjusting to a new life at Hogwarts? Mutual age? What was it? Or was it not mutual at all, but the stark contrasts between him and Harry?

But then Ron couldn't find any real contrasts that could be highlighted and taught ("And this, children, is why Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are so different..."). After all, both were Gryffindors - Ron suspected that he had been put in that House for a reason other than bloodline. While many times he did not think himself brave, he also knew it took no wimp to go through all he had gone through with Harry and Hermione over the years. Hell, even Neville had some guts to him. And, after all, they were about the same level when it came to school (excluding Defense Against the Dark Arts, but then again Harry had a right to be better than anyone at that); all he knew was, since first year, as early as the 'duel' Malfoy had proposed in which Ron had claimed fiercely to be Harry's second, that he felt immense loyalty to this short kid with green eyes and messy hair.

But why?

While they never sat down and had a long, heartfelt conversation about it, Ron suspected that he knew more about Harry than quite possibly anyone -- even Hermione or Dumbledore. True, he had a rather crappy way of showing it during fourth year (which he still felt endlessly ashamed about), but he had known all along that Harry would never willingly flaunt himself or put himself in such danger at a young age for no apparent reason. The kid had to deal with enough crap as it was, why in the hell would he heap a dragon and a couple of merpeople along with it?

But he still knew Harry. Ron knew that he was never quite the same since he emerged from the maze; he knew that during all of fifth year there was something troubling him (but, of course, they never sat down and talked about feelings). He knew that during all of sixth year Harry felt even more misunderstood than ever before, with Sirius dead and that whole crap situation with Malfoy and Snape.

No, Harry changed even more after Dumbledore's death; he turned quiet and aged years. Although Hermione still believed that Ron had the emotional range of a spoon, he knew from slight body language and voice tone and context when Harry was especially troubled; he knew that Harry hated being repressed and suppressed and forced to do things -- he knew these things, and they didn't need to be said and it was just understood.

How?

All Ron could think of was the sheer action their friendship consisted of. It went from Quidditch to the Sorcerer's Stone to the Chamber to Sirius to the Ministry to facing down the Death Eaters very recently to not one but two members of the Weasley family being saved by his best friend (which, of course, brought up the other side of the question on why Harry was loyal to, of all people, the Weasley family). But was that it? Just what they've been through that laid the foundation of friendship and undying two-sided loyalty?

They understood each other - was it because they were both loners in the society that was Hogwarts? Of course, that would bring Hermione in nicely, too, seeing as she was the only witch in school who paid attention during History of Magic. Was she the key? He knew that she acted like the glue; she held them together with logic and briskness during especially difficult times, such as the entirety of fifth year and most of fourth year (after all, without her would he have ever really apologized?). But that couldn't be it; they were friends for months before she came into the picture. But would it have lasted without her? Maybe not. Maybe girls had this whole friendship thing down, after all.

Or maybe it was just a Hermione thing. Perhaps that was why he had fallen for her, the glue. While he had been slightly defensive concerning her and Harry (because he was the hero and she was the heroine and it was basically a rule that they got together in the end), he knew without telling that Harry privately knew of Ron's feelings for their friend. And Ron knew that if he couldn't trust Harry with his little sister that he couldn't trust anyone.

To this day, Ron had never figured out exactly what his and Harry's friendship was built on, around, and in. He didn't know in second (or third) year, and he didn't know now. But then, you ask, how did he answer Ginny's question when she was still a young girl?

He shrugged and suggested that maybe girls were just stupider than boys in that way. (It had sent Ginny scowling and stomping off.) But, really, he was a twelve-or-thirteen year-old boy at that time -- what did he know about friendship anyway?

just a little thing i wrote in half an hour at midnight for reasons still unknown. review?