You're The Best Friend that I've Ever Had

In which the story really gets going and we find out how many ways one can phrase "he's crazy"

"Hiya Harry." Ron casually greeted his strange companion.

Harry was pleased to see his best friend. "Hello Ron. I have some news for you." He sang cheerfully.

This declaration made Ron vaguely nervous. "Oh yea?"

"Yep. I've been kicked out of classes and people are shunning me, so it's just me and you." He said, gripping Ron's shoulder.

Ron's face was of horrified apprehension."Oh no."

"Don't worry, you don't have much to fear; you've never done anything to make my life unhappy or difficult. Nothing you have ever done could have possibly lead to my sudden and inconspicuously convenient mental breakdown." Harry stated casually.

"Good Lord." Ron paled. His eyes shifted nervously. "Do you really think I've done nothing to deserve your crazy be directed at me?" He asked slowly.

"Of course I do, Ronnison. Why would I think any differently?"

"Yeah, heh…Of course you wouldn't. Juuust making sure!" Ron over-enthusiastically assured. "Ronnison?"

"Of course you should be careful from here on out. Everybody thinks I'm all crazies and whatnot, and if you betrayed me by agreeing with them and not having faith in me, that would surely break my delicate heart. You also should not pester me into doing things that I'm not comfortable with; like trying to get me to tell an authority figure that another authority figure is hurtsying me. If you do any of that stank I might have to go postal on you."

"Heh, yea I wouldn't ever do any of those things…" Ron laughed nervously. "Wait, er…go what now? What is postal?"

"Oh Ronnie. How simple and disposable you are."

Ron narrowed his eyes and frowned. "Gee thanks Harry. Great thing to say to a person who's been struggling with his sense of self-worth his entire life." He paused, looking thoughtful. "I bet my mom thinks I'm disposable also." He grumbled and pouted.

Harry's eyes lit up as if he had an epiphany. "Hey! With all that emotional and verbal abuse I had growing up…well, I struggle with my self-worth as well! And I know my peeps would be ecstatic and relieved if I were to fail at life. Maybe that's why we're friends!"

"Wow. Harry, that's kind of sad and deep and…dare I say it, kinda beautiful…in a extremely messed up way."

"YEA! It is beautiful isn't it? We're friends because we're as good as the other can get and no one else would ever want either one of us." Harry declared, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Right. I'm going away from you now Harry while I still have a trace of will to live left."

"Alright bye-bye now." Harry waved as his friend trudged grumpily away. Once again the madness appeared to drain away from his eyes, his ambiguous smile suspiciously disappeared as well. He watched his friend until he was but a tiny blur in the distant, as opposed to the big blur in his face that he usually was. He really shouldn't be wearing the same glasses he had when he was four, but hey that's what unwilling guardianship and a group of teachers with too much blind trust in the omniscient powers of a barmy unsuccessful-plan conceiving headmaster will do to a kid.

Later, in the common room, Ron sat on the Gryffindors' plushy dark red couch which could seat three people as long as those three people were as close as Hermione and the boys-quite a convenience in a boarding school common room.

Ron was trying to re-read a chapter in his potions book, this was sadly the closest thing to studying he would ever do, and trying very hard to ignore that weird sixth sense where one can feel themselves being stared at. He was trying to get used to this feeling and the rhythmic puffs of breathe he could feel on the side of his face.

Beside him, Harry sat a close as he could to his friend without actually sitting on him, he leaned his face in close, his two bright eyes staring at the side of his friends face. He had been like this since he sat down, which was about seven minutes ago… I'm sure it felt more like an hour to Ron. Hermione, having sensed her friend's desire to be irritating, had wisely departed to study in the quiet of the library.

Finally Ron seemed to have enough. He sighed and looked at his friend a bit sadly.

"Harry why are you such a freak?"

Harry gasped in delight; he threw an arm over Ron's shoulders and began to rock them both as if grooving—yeah, grooving-to music."Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak-" He started to sing gleefully.

"No Harry! Anything, just anything…but that." Ron nearly shouted, putting his hand over Harry's mouth which was then naturally and inevitably licked and heavily drooled on.

"Alright. Soooorry." His friend said as a squeaking Ron vigorously wiped his hand on Harry's jeans—which was quite homoerotic but hey, spittle makes people act irrationally.

Harry took Ron's plea to heart and chose another song. "The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The people on the bus go up and down, up and down. Then people on the bus all throw up, all throw up, all throw up. Vomit gets on the bus driver, he crashes the bus, crashes the bus, crashes the bus; and everybody dies." He finished with a winning grin, his hands high in the air.

Ron, who had squished himself as close to the arm of the couch and as far away from Harry, as he could get after realizing what he had been rubbing his hand on, was now looking quite horrified indeed. "Harry. I think you just emotionally scarred me for life. I may never smile again because of that. "

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought maybe you would think it was funny." He said this looking genuinely apologetic. "Want me to kiss it better?"

Ron threw his hands up in the universal gesture of 'what could I even possibly say to such madness'. "What exactly would you be kissing?"

"Uh, your brain of course silyness. Gosh you're stupid, you may not even have a brain. I guess I'll have to slice open your chest instead and kiss your sad heart all better." He rubbed his hand over his own chest absentmindedly, his eyes getting lost in the potential fun of looking at someone's insides.

At this point, Ron was beyond being surprised by Harry's madness. He just covered his face and shook his head. "Right. Look Harry, this was all amusing and just a little bit off at first, but now you're just really starting to scare me. Are you acting this way on purpose, or are you actually…like this?

"Like what?" He asked innocently.

"Just be honest."

"I love you." Harry admitted softly, hugging Ron's arm tightly.

"Oh geeze."

"You don't love me back?"

Ron looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear this conversation. "I care about you as my best friend…"

"say it…" Harry encouraged.

"Why?"

"Cause of my delicates little heart, Ronald. You wouldn't want to be the reason I jump out one of the windows of this unnecessarily expansive castle. Would you?"

"Harry don't say things like that. You're…distraught enough that I would actually believe you'd do that."

"Then…?"

Ron glowered at Harry but then deflated resignedly. He sighed, then mumbled, "I love you Harry."

Harry beamed at him with his teary 'I just need love' puppy dog eyes. He looked cutely deranged, if one can imagine such a thing.

"What's huh now?" A voice questioned behind Ron.

He turned and saw his twin brothers standing behind him with wickedly delightful smiles on their faces. Ron knew they had heard. Harry must have set him up, so he glowered at the little twerp.

"Why?' He whispered, his eyes a mixture of hurt and anger.

Harry looked at him blankly. There was something happening in his unreadable green eyes-something that gave Ron an immense feeling of foreboding.

And surely enough, Harry shouted with much emotion, and for the whole common room to hear, "because our love is not something that we should have to hide!" Having performed his latest act of disruption, really it must be considered and art at this point, he ran messily toward the boys' stairway making distressed sob noises the whole way.

This left his poor dopey friend behind to deal with the inevitable mortification that would follow any such scene, gay or otherwise. At this point his blush was so great that the ginger was quite living up to the title of 'redhead'.

His brothers both sported boomboom-eating grins. Whether they believed Harry's declaration, or merely enjoyed the incoming onslaught of mortifying attention their brother was about to receive he did not know. But at present he knew the only way to thwart the impending insults and incredulous truth seeking was to follow his loony friend's lead and run off into the less crowded dorm.

But as his foot reached the steps a tug on his arm drew him back. His brother, the one they deemed Forge, had accosted him. "Well, well, well. I knew you and the bespeckled barmy-one-who-lived were close; but I had no idea our wittle ickle Ronnikins was in looooove."

"Stuff it George! You know how's he's been. He tricked me into saying it. Ever since he's gone 'round the bend he's been cunning as all that and manipulative. Leave me be or I'll tell mom about your little business."

Forge's eyes widened. "Okay, okay." He let go of Ron. "As you were."

Ron ran away quickly before someone else decided to harass him further.

a/n

I hope reading this made you feel happy.