Work Text:
It all happened sometime during the Halloween party. Dean had gotten his hands on two bottles of Fire Whiskey. He and Seamus invited a few of us to share in the delight of illicit contraband. Hermione made a show of being upset but all in all, everyone was excited to have a little fun.
Lavender kicked the whiskey back like it was water, which honestly didn't surprise anyone. Same as Seamus, he went off on some nonsense about how Irish babies teethed on the stuff. It wasn’t my first time either, Fred and George snuck some from school over the Summer Holliday and dared me to take a sip. It burned like hell at the time and the two bastards laughed up a storm when I spat it all back out.
It didn’t burn as much this time, after a few gulps, the acrid feeling of the liquor down my throat mellowed. I didn’t love how fuzzy it made my brain feel but sitting in a circle on the ragged carpet of our dorm was nice. Hermione was full-on tipsy, it was fun seeing a girl with so much control relax a bit. She and Dean were trying and failing to braid Seamus’s hair.
Neville, it turned out was a sleepy drunk and was dozing on Parvati's shoulder while she gossiped with Lavender. Well, given her general state of inebriation the whispering was closer to a slurred shout.
“We should play spin the bottle,” Lavender announced.
“That, Ms. Brown, sounds like an excellent idea,” Dean said from his perch behind Seamus.
“Hey! Why is my boyfriend so gung-ho about snogging other people?”
“No one would be snogging anybody. Just a peck, no tongue.”
“I’m not sure about that Lavender,” Hermione added. She looked more sober than she did a minute ago. I didn’t want to play the game, but nobody wants to be a killjoy.
“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Lavender just wouldn’t let it go.
“I’ve known you guys since we were first years, it would just be weird. Like kissing a sibling.”
“I’m in.” Harry, of all people, chimed in.
The thing about Harry is that everyone is drawn to him. Whether they realize it or not. He doesn’t notice it, but every time he walks into a room people turn and look. He has a magnetism about him that makes people want to know what he has to say. I used to resent it (I still do sometimes), the way everyone would skip over me to get to Harry. The way people barely noticed me in favour of my brighter counterpart. But it’s hard to hate Harry for being… him. For sucking all the light out of a room. For charming everyone without even trying. For being downright perfect.
I knew the moment Harry was on board with Lavender’s hare-brained idea resistance would melt from the group. And sure enough, it did. We all formed a perfect circle, Dean slugged the remaining whiskey and placed the empty bottle in the center of our circle with an undue amount of reverence.
Lavender was the first to have a go. She flicked the bottle and it spun lively around the circle. We all waited as the bottle slowed and slowed and slowed until it landed on… Neville.
The boy barely had enough time to sit up before Lavender had crawled towards him.
“You okay with this?”
“Uh, sure” The question in his voice didn’t bode much confidence.
And just like that Lavender pulled Neville’s face to hers. Neville barely knew what to do with his hands. They held their position for five seconds before Lavender leaned back.
“Wait, was that your first kiss?”
“No!” He squeaked. Lavender arched her brow. “Okay, it was.”
“Sorry, love. This probably wasn’t how you pictured it, was it.”
“No, but it wasn’t too bad,”
Lavender walked away with a grin on her face.
Dean snatched the bottle after that. He violently whirled the bottle and it wobbled around in a circle until it stopped dead on Seamus. They exchanged a heated look and dove for each other.
What followed certainly wasn’t a peck. Dean wove his fingers into Seamus’s half braided scalp and Seamus, in turn, cupped his boyfriend's face.
“Hey!” Lavender exclaimed as she threw a pillow at the two. “I said no snogging”
“Sorry, we couldn’t help it” Dean interjected and went right back to kissing Seamus.
After that went Parvati, then Neville, then Hermione. The bottle kept spinning and spinning, with sloppy kisses being exchanged with increasing frequency. Thankfully I was able to fly under the notice of everyone. I was ready to fade into the background of it all but, like with most things in the world, I didn’t get my way.
“Ron, I don’t think you’ve spun the bottle even once!” Lavender said after smooching Seamus.
I froze the mellow buzz hanging around me quickly dissipated.
“Come on, you have to do it at least once. Even Hermione and Neville had a go” Seamus added.
I didn’t want to spin that bottle. I didn’t know why, well that isn’t entirely accurate. I knew why. There was an aching feeling in my gut, a wrongness at the thought of it. I just wasn’t ready to confront that in front of a group of drunk, horny teens.
“Guys, leave him alone.” Hermione butted in. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, Ron”
And there it was. I was making everything awkward, ruining everyone's fun. Why couldn’t I just do it? It wasn’t a big deal. Everyone was doing it. I was getting flustered. I could feel the red creeping up my cheeks.
“No, I-I can do it,” I said finally. Oh god, now I actually had to spin the damn bottle and kiss someone. My arm crossed the distance to the bottle. What once felt like a fairly small distance became an impassable chasm. My palms were sweaty, but I managed to give the bottle a weak twirl. It lazily rotated around only to stop in front of Harry.
Bollocks.
Harry turned to me, a question in his gaze. The alcohol brought the cutest flush to his cheeks. I couldn’t meet his gaze. There was a lump in my throat I could barely breathe past, my skin felt too hot, too tight. Why couldn’t I just kiss him? Everyone else was doing it, it wasn’t a big deal. For Merlin’s sake, I liked Harry. The crackle of tension between the two of us stayed taught. I could feel Harry’s eyes burrowing into me, everyone else’s too. It was all getting to be a bit much.
And before I could even process what I was doing I bolted out of the room, sprinted down the stairs past the half-empty common room and out the door. My head was pounding, my heart skittering in my chest. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe. I had no clue whether it was the alcohol or the panic attack, but each gulp of breath felt like a razor blade against my lungs.
I needed air.
Eventually, I found a small window facing out towards the Quidditch field. The sky was the colour of a tender bruise and the moon shone bright and full. The gentle breeze flowing from the window cooled me down a bit.
I had no idea what the hell I was going to do now. I certainly couldn’t face everyone. Why did I have to be such a cock-up? Maybe I could switch houses? We only had Herbology with Hufflepuff, if I managed to get in there I could easily avoid Harry for the rest of my life.
Footsteps approached me. Great, I thought, embarrass yourself in front of your closest friends and get caught by Flitch on the same night. This was truly becoming the worst day of my life.
“Ron?” It was worse than Flitch, Harry had found me. My master plan of avoiding him for the rest of my life failed at the 10-minute mark.
“I just wanted to see if you were alright.”
“I’m fine. You can go back to the dorms now.”
“Ron, can we talk about this.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Fine, you don’t have to talk, but hear me out.”
I turned to face him hoping he couldn’t see the redness in my eyes.
“I’m sorry” Harry rushed out. “You didn’t want to play the game and I didn’t speak up for you.”
“No, Harry, this isn’t your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault but mine. I made everything so awkward.”
“Not wanting to snog your best mate isn’t a character failing, Ron”
“That’s the thing, Harry, it is!” Oh, Merlin why did I say that.
“I don’t want to snog you, or anybody for that matter. I know I’m supposed to want that and everything that comes with it, but I just… don’t.”
“What do you mean, Ron.”
“Snogging and sex, I don’t think I’ll ever want that. I’m asexual.”
“Ron, there’s nothing wrong with that”
“When everybody in your year is talking about sex all the time it’s hard not to feel like an alien for not wanting anything to do with it.”
“Ron you are perfectly normal just the way you are and there is absolutely nothing wrong with you.”
And somehow when Harry said it I believed, just a little bit.
“Come on, everyone started playing Gobstones after you left and I want to see Neville try and fail to aim.”
Harry wrapped an arm around my shoulder and we walked slowly back towards Gryffindor Tower. The warmth of Harry’s arm and the chill autumn breeze made me feel for the first time that night completely at ease.