Chapter Text
"We are now officially out after hours," whispered Harry, with the same grin he had sported all day still plastered to his face, "If we don't go in soon, we'll both get detention."
"Mmm, then I suppose you better say the password, if you've got the nerve," cooed Ginny as she kissed up his neck.
Harry closed his eyes and leaned further into her touch until they stumbled and leaned against the wall, laughing as they held each other.
"It was your idea to stay out this late, you say it," Harry teased her, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. He was starting to get excited every time her hair got messed because it gave him a chance to fix it again.
"Please, for the love of all, someone say the password!" the Fat Lady groaned, averting her eyes.
Harry and Ginny jerked apart and blushed, but never stopped smiling. They hadn't stopped smiling since they left dinner early to go "study" in the library. It was a Saturday, so there weren't many students, which made it easy to find a secluded corner where they could continue to become better acquainted with each other. Until, of course, Madam Pince discovered them and had nearly hexed them as she chased them out of her library. They had spent the rest of the evening finding empty classrooms until, tragically, their first day as a couple was coming to an end.
Harry wasn't too disappointed though, because now he got to experience their first night as a couple. He'd go to bed as Ginny Weasley's boyfriend for the first time, then he'd get to wake up as Ginny Weasley's boyfriend for the first time. Everything Harry did seemed new and exciting, as if he were doing it for the first time.
After giving her the password, a very grateful Fat Lady swung open and they climbed through the portrait hole. They crossed the common room, hand in hand, and apparently they were still interesting to many people, as heads turned to watch them, particularly the lower-year girls who could not stop giggling. Even Seamus grinned and waggled his eyebrows at them, even as his best friend glared intensely down at their game of Exploding Snap. Harry couldn't bring himself to care about any of it.
They finally approached the fireplace on the other side of the common room and (for the first time as Ginny Weasley's boyfriend) he sat down on a squashy sofa with Hermione, who was still beaming like she had just gotten a question right in class. He expected Ginny to sit next to him on the middle cushion, but was pleasantly surprised when she instead sat sideways right in his lap, leaning against the armrest.
"Is that absolutely necessary?" asked Hermione, rolling her eyes, "You're going to annoy a lot more people than just Ron if you keep being that shameless."
"Hermione, I'm not as swotty as you, so sadly I don't have the vocabulary to truly express how much I do not care," said Ginny, wrapping her arms around Harry's neck defiantly. She looked around, "Where is my dear brother, anyway? Not being able to see him get all flustered takes half the fun out of this."
"Half?" huffed Harry, raising his eyebrows at her.
"Well okay, I suppose it might be less than half," she reassured him sweetly and kissed him again.
"Ron is already up in our dormitory," said Neville quickly, squirming uncomfortably in his armchair and proving Hermione's point. He seemed to want to keep them talking so they were too busy for other things. "He actually….I'm pretty sure he's waiting for you, Harry. I've got the feeling he wants to talk to you before Seamus, Dean, or I go to bed."
Ginny threw her head back and groaned dramatically. Harry's heart sank. Ron had seemed just mildly annoyed at dinner. After everything they had been through together, did he really still think that a threatening lecture was necessary to protect Ginny? The happiness Harry had been feeling all day finally started to slip away. He wondered if things would ever be normal again, or if his relationship with his first friend really had been changed forever.
"Hey, don't you start that!" Ginny chided him, having noticed the look on his face. "He's happy for us, and don't let him convince you otherwise. He just thinks that playing the 'protective big brother' is what he's supposed to do, he's going through the motions."
Harry smiled weakly at her, reluctantly (very reluctantly) moved his girlfriend off of him, and stood up. Ginny took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly.
"Do not pull your punches with him," she ordered him.
"Explain to him in no uncertain terms how ridiculous he's being, or I will," added Hermione.
Harry left them behind and started climbing the staircase to the boys dormitory, feeling a bit like he did going into his hearing at the Ministry. He opened the door and saw Ron sitting on his bed, fidgeting his fingers on his thigh. Harry drew a bit of comfort from the fact that Ron looked just as uncomfortable as Harry felt.
"Er — hey," said Ron, "You mind if I….talk to you for a second?" he gestured to Harry's own bed.
Harry decided to focus on his own irritation rather than his fear.
"Ron, can't we just skip this whole part?" said Harry tiredly, "You know, I can't help but take it personally that you think you have to—"
"Just five minutes, Harry," said Ron, raising his hands defensively, "Humor me, will you? Just let me be overprotective for five minutes, and then we can move on with our lives, okay?"
Harry sighed and sat down on his own bed. At least Ron was aware that everyone was just humoring him.
They just sat there in silence for several seconds. Harry raised his eyebrows expectantly. "Well….?"
Several times, Ron opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. He finally got up himself and started pacing back and forth.
"Look Harry, you know you're my best mate, but sometimes….well, you tend to just charge into things, don't you? If something feels right, you go all-in on it no matter what the consequences might be."
Harry was about to tell Ron that he had actually spent a lot of time thinking about this and this wasn't at all a spur-of-the-moment thing, but decided he wasn't quite ready to tell his best friend that he had been fantasizing about dating his sister for months.
"You're more of a Gryffindor than all of us, truth be told," Ron continued, "and normally I have no problem with that, it's saved my life before, but you have to admit it's burned you. And I know you hate it when people treat you like you're made of glass, since you've already seen so much…."
Harry was furrowing his brow in confusion. He had been expecting a short, straightforward, "mistreat my sister and I'll hex you," not this long, nervous speech. He truly had no idea where Ron was going with this.
"...but it's precisely because you've been through so much muck that people sometimes feel the need to make sure you don't get it even worse. I just know that on top of finding Horcruxes and killing You-Know-Who, you really don't need to be dealing with girl problems on top of that—"
"Wait, wait, wait!" said Harry, putting up his hand. Something had clicked in his brain and his eyes had grown wide. There's no way Ron could possibly mean….
"Hold on, are you saying," said Harry slowly, leaning forward, "when you said 'let me be overprotective'….you meant being overprotective….of ME!?"
Ron looked puzzled. "Uh….yeah? What, you think Ginny needs shielding from scheming boys who will take advantage of her wide-eyed, innocent naïveté? Please, you saw what she did to me after we walked in on her and Dean."
He paused for a second with a thousand-yard stare, like a soldier remembering a terrible war, before shaking his head clear.
"That kind of thing is what I'm worried about, that's what she does," Ron continued, "You piss me off, I'll just call you a git or hit you. You do something to anger her, though, and she'll….destroy you, from the inside out, knowing just what to say to inflict maximum damage."
Harry hesitated, and then just shrugged. "Well then I suppose it's a good thing I'm not planning on angering her," he pointed out like it was obvious.
"Yeah, that's easy to say now," Ron scoffed, crossing his arms, "the only reason you're so blase is that you've never done anything to properly rile her up. Not yet, at least. But she's just as stubborn as you are. She always feels the need to prove herself, and she hates it when people want to keep her safe while they themselves go off into danger, which of course you do bloody constantly. It's only a matter of time before you do something stupidly noble that she takes as an insult."
"...Wow, you've put some thought into this, haven't you?" said Harry dryly, "Well I'm touched, Ron, I had no idea you were capable of being this sweet and sentimental."
"Hey, I just don't want to get stuck with cleanup duty later," said Ron aggressively. He overcompensated by making his voice deeper and more masculine, trying to dispel the idea that he actually cared and had feelings. "Like I said, you go all-in on everything, and you're already nearly all-in with her. You've had that dopey lovestruck look on your face all day. If she ditches you, it'll be me picking up the pieces of what's left of you."
"Oh, come on, Ron," Harry rolled his eyes, "don't you think it's a bit ridiculous that Ginny and I haven't even been together for 24 hours and you're already making plans for our breakup?"
Ron shrugged. "Well, that is one of the two possible outcomes of dating, innit?"
Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes. If Ron saw every budding relationship in terms of a choice between a catastrophic breakup or marriage, it was no wonder he was so scared to risk finally getting things started with Hermione.
"Look mate," Harry began carefully, "I appreciate it, but you don't have to worry. I like that Ginny can be so brutal. It's—"
He had almost said "it's hot."
"—it's endearing. Sometimes, it's exactly what I need, you were there when she got me to stop shutting myself off last year, and she's been the only one to call me out if I'm up myself during Quidditch. There's so many damn mysteries in my life it's refreshing to know that if something's wrong, Ginny won't be afraid to tell me in no uncertain terms."
"No, I think you're wrong about that," said Ron urgently, sitting back down on his bed and leaning forward, "Ginny is absolutely capable of playing mind games, you don't understand how manipulative she can be. There was this one time, when I was eight—" his voice choked up with emotion "—she used Fred's broomstick without telling him, and of course she crashed it, but then she acted like the innocent baby sister and convinced him that it was me! She managed to fool the twins, Harry, at age seven! And they made my life miserable for that! They turned the insides of my Martin Miggs comics into just pictures of spiders!"
Harry, to his credit, was trying his absolute best to not laugh at his friend's traumatic memory. "I'll take that under advisement, Ronald. Although I'm sure Fred and George will give me Hell in any case, if that makes you feel better."
"Okay, fine, don't take this seriously," said Ron, throwing his hands up. "But you know what?" he wagged his finger at Harry suspiciously, "I'm still not convinced she didn't intend for us to walk in on her and Dean snogging so you'd notice her—no I'm serious!"
Harry's resolve had broken and he was now laughing hard.
"No, no, think about it!" said Ron urgently, "You just happen to catch her...with her boyfriend, thereby being forced to acknowledge that she's someone who snogs, and is worthy of snogging. She's doing it in a 'hidden' passageway," he made quotes with his fingers, "so you won't think she's shameless or a hussie, but it's a "secret" passageway that she knows that we know about and take all the time!"
"She is truly a diabolical mastermind," said Harry.
"Okay, just answer me one question," said Ron, "Was that the moment you started to fancy her?"
Harry's smile faltered a bit. "It's….complicated."
"I knew it," groaned Ron, rolling his eyes.
"No, it's not like that!" said Harry, "I don't fancy her just because I saw some other bloke snogging her. That might have been when I was forced to realize it, but in hindsight it really started last summer, maybe even before the end of 5th year."
Ron looked away and grumbled, "Yeah, that was when she really started poking her nose in our business."
"'Our' business?" Harry repeated skeptically.
Ron shifted uncomfortably. "Well….you know, it's always been the three of us, right? You, me, and Hermione. When we were kids, mum always basically treated Ginny and me like we were twins, there was hardly anything that was just mine, that I didn't have to share with her. When I was with you two, that was something that was just mine. But...that's not gonna be the case anymore, is it? Everything's gonna change." He hung his head sadly.
Harry wasn't laughing anymore. He frowned somberly along with Ron, collecting his thoughts.
"Ron," he said quietly, "That was going to happen no matter who we started dating. You already started splitting your time between us and Lavender."
"Well yeah, but that's different."
"Because you never even intended that to last or be serious?" Harry asked pointedly.
"...Can you think of a way to phrase that that makes me sound less like a git?"
"My point is, Ron, that we were always going to have friends besides each other. I mean, Hermione doesn't want to be an auror, after we leave school she's going to work with a whole bunch of other people who she'll probably get close with."
Ron crossed his arms and still didn't look at him. "Yeah, I know, doesn't mean I have to like it," he mumbled.
They sat in silence for a while as Harry figured out what to say.
"And honestly Ron, even if all of the things you're scared of happen, even if Ginny and I break up horribly and I'm a wreck afterward, it will be completely worth it just for today. Today was the best day of my life. I truly didn't know it was even possible for someone to be this happy. It almost feels wrong, like I'm not supposed to be this happy, my life is supposed to be filled with nothing but tragedies and near-death experiences. The whole world just seems more—"
"Okay, okay, I get the picture, you sappy sod," said Ron, like he had just smelled something foul.
"And if I have to start splitting my time with someone, isn't it better that it's with someone who you have to spend holidays with anyway?"
"...Yeah, I suppose," muttered Ron, "Like I said, I don't fancy the idea of my best mate being my sister's ex-boyfriend, but her boyfriend? I guess I could live with that, if I really had to. She was always gonna end up with some prat, but I suppose you're slightly less of a prat than most. Slightly."
Harry was smiling again. "We all appreciate your sacrifice and understanding, Ronald."
They lapsed into silence again, with nothing more to say. Eventually, they stood up at the same time to head back downstairs.
"You know, maybe you could return the favor," said Harry, "When you start something that you actually do want to last, have it be with a girl I already get on with."
Ron stiffened and looked at Harry suspiciously. "What are you talking about?"
Harry shrugged. "Nothing, never mind," and opened the door.