"What?" Asked Ron slightly apprehensively. This was the most he and Harry had spoken for several days now.
"I… you know…" Harry paused and bit his lip. "Ok, when you said you fancied me… I… I told you I didn't think of you that way, didn't I? Well… I… the thing is…"
Ron watched Harry carefully as he took a deep breath.
"I lied." Harry blurted out. "I do feel the same way, Ron. It's been driving me nuts, I so desperately wanted to tell you, but I thought you'd be mad with me for not telling you sooner. I'm sorry."
The silence that followed was the loudest Harry had ever heard. Ron avoided Harry's gaze, staring instead at the floor.
"Ron?" Harry asked taking a tentative step toward his best friend. "Are you ok?"
"We'll be late for astronomy." Ron replied heading for the door and still not looking at Harry.
Harry's heart sank. He had hoped that maybe Ron would talk to him again, but Ron was obviously still digesting the information Harry had just thrust upon on him.
The pair wandered in silence up to the astronomy tower and met up with Hermione.
"Did you tell him?" She hissed in Harry's ear as Ron started to set up his telescope.
"Yeah," Harry replied sadly. He began to set up next to Ron and got out his books.
The lesson seemed to drag on for hours and whenever Harry glanced up he caught Malfoy's malicious grin.
Towards the end of the lesson Ron went to hand in his planet chart, when Malfoy sauntered over.
"All right, Weasel?" Malfoy asked handing his own chart to Professor Sinistra.
"Bog off, Malfoy." Ron said without even looking at the Slytherin.
"Ooo, touchy, aren't we?" Malfoy hovered over Ron as he packed away his telescope. Harry gave Malfoy a quick glance, but didn't say anything.
"Do you want something?" Ron spat, his fists clenched into tight balls. "Because I want to have a chat with my best friend, if you don't mind."
Harry's eyes lit up at the prospect of Ron wanting to talk to him.
"Well actually, I wanted to tell you something about him." Malfoy's eyes narrowed and he smiled his hateful smile. "Did you know that the 'boy who lived' is gay and has a crush on you?"
Malfoy spoke quietly, but Harry heard what he said and by the way she paused, it looked like Hermione had as well.
"For your information I did. Now if you're done trying to destroy our friendship…" Ron packed the last of his stuff away and began to help Harry.
Malfoy was slightly taken aback by this.
"Well I guess you won't mind if the whole school finds out will you?" Ron made to follow Malfoy but Harry stopped him.
"Let him go, he's not worth it." Harry whispered gently.
"But he's going to tell everyone." Ron said with a pained expression on his face.
"Yeah, but I don't care. Let them talk." Harry smiled slightly as he continued to pack up his stuff. "Let the lower mortals prattle."
The two boys left the tower with Hermione and made their way quickly back to Gryffindor tower. As they climbed through the portrait hole, several people, including Seamus, Dean and Neville bad them good night.
"Night, Harry. Night, Ron." Hermione said climbing the staircase up to the dorm.
"Harry," Ron began when they were alone. Harry sat in one of the armchairs and glanced up at Ron.
"S'ok, I know." Harry kept playing with his hands nervously, as though unsure what to do with them.
"So…" Ron sat in the armchair next to Harry's. "Where… where do we go from here?"
Harry looked up sharply and suddenly realised what Ron meant. He had opened up a whole new world for the both of them, but neither had any idea how to navigate their way around it.
"Well… we… we could always…" Harry struggled to get the words out. He couldn't understand why he suddenly found it so hard to express to his best mate his thoughts.
"Before we do anything I think there's something you should know." Ron swallowed, not looking at Harry. "I… I've never… kissed anyone before…"
Ron turned bright red. Harry stared at his feet.
"Yeah, well, I've only had one…" Harry said quietly. "And it wasn't exactly the most wonderful of things."
Ron smiled and looked up.
"It's just…" Ron bit his lip. "I'm scared…"
Harry nodded understanding.
"We don't have to do anything if you don't want to." Harry stood up. "C'mon, it's late, we can think about all this in the morning."
Ron followed, subconsciously rubbing his bandaged wrist. Harry paused in the doorway to the stairs and looked back at Ron.
"What?" Ron asked, he stopped his rubbing and let his hands fall to his sides.
Harry smiled and took Ron's bandaged hand in his own, leading him up the stairs.