A few days later, Ron almost lost Harry forever, then got him back for good.

It was a near thing, with the Horntail and the Firebolt and the egg, but Harry had been brilliant and brave, and Ron had almost burst into tears, watching him. It wasn't that Ron was usually so prone to embarrassing, girly displays of emotion. It was only that he'd had such a hard time of it, and had come so close to making up with Harry such a short time before seeing him in mortal peril.

Oddly enough, Ron hadn't been as affected by watching Cedric, even when the dragon had lost interest in the rock he'd Transfigured into a labrador, and singed Cedric pretty badly. He'd been relieved when Cedric got past it and grabbed his egg, of course, and had cheered along with the others. Watching Cedric had simply been a little too painful, yet, so Ron supposed he'd managed to make himself act like just another spectator.

But when Harry had been on his broom, flying toward that giant Horntail, Ron's heart had raced like a rabbit's, and he hadn't been able to inhale properly until he'd known Harry was safe.

As soon as it was over, he'd run to find Harry, and had got to the tent right behind Hermione. He'd been afraid of what he would find, after seeing the Horntail's spike dig through Harry's shoulder. He could barely feel his fingers or toes, and everything looked as though he were seeing the world through a pale grey haze.

But when he'd got inside the medical tent, and seen that Harry was alright, he could only watch Hermione throw herself at him with relief. The whole time, Harry was looking at him - at him, like he was the only one who mattered - and Ron knew he must look as scared as he'd felt.

He didn't even pay attention to Cedric's silhouette through the canvas, although he heard him hissing with pain as Madam Pomfrey worked on his burn. All Ron cared about was that Harry was safe, and that he looked happy to see him.

Ron took a deep breath and tried to will away the profound, residual fear he still felt, and managed to say, "Harry, whoever put your name in that Goblet - I - " and his voice had caught in his throat, so he'd had to swallow before he could continue "- I reckon they're trying to do you in!"

He'd felt the world go still as he waited to be forgiven, waited for anything, so he wasn't entirely surprised when Harry said, "Caught on, have you? Took you long enough."

Harry's voice was so cold, Ron was afraid it was too late, that he'd never be forgiven after all. He was dimly aware of Hermione looking nervously between them, but as important as she was to him, in that moment only Harry mattered.

Ron realised he'd been wrong, all this time, in his assumptions about how Harry had come to be a Triwizard Champion. The whole bloody row had been his own bloody fault. Harry hadn't helped, obviously, but it had been Ron who had caused it all, by believing that Harry could lie to him, could exclude him from what seemed such an exciting opportunity.

Without knowing what he could possibly say, Ron opened his mouth to babble out some sort of apology, when Harry interrupted him.

"It's OK. Forget it."

"No, I shouldn't've -"

"Forget it."

And they'd grinned at each other, and Hermione had burst into tears like the frightful nutter she was, and everything had been fine again.

Having Harry back made everything better. It even made Cedric feel a bit more like a distant memory, even though he seemed to be everywhere Ron looked, and Harry even mentioned him sometimes when he talked late at night about his fears and worries for the remaining two Tasks and the clue inside the egg.

When the Yule Ball had been announced, Ron had planned to ignore the whole thing, since he couldn't precisely turn up with a bloke on his arm, and Harry had to find a partner so they couldn't simply go together.

He did want to go with Hermione - even though Ron primarily fancied blokes, there were some girls who made him take notice, and Hermione was quickly inching her way up the short list. Of course even queer blokes were susceptible to Veela charms, as it turned out, so his brain went to mush every time Fleur Delacour was around. But Hermione, she was really as perfect for him as a girl ever could be.

He couldn't understand why she insisted she wouldn't go to the Ball with him.

Hermione turning him down wasn't the worst shock Ron would receive in the days before the Ball, as it happened. No, that honour was spared for the the moment that Ron learned that Harry had asked a girl - his Harry had actually asked an actual girl! - and that, to add insult to injury, she had turned him down because she was already being escorted to the Ball by none other than Ron's ex-boyfriend-or-whatever-he'd-been, Cedric sodding Diggory.

That night, in the dormitories, Ron had waited until everyone else was asleep and then had crawled over onto Harry's bed, pulled the curtains closed, and poked Harry awake.

"Wha - Ron? Whadyawan'?"

"Huh?"

"What do you want, Ron?" Harry enunciated a bit more clearly as he sat halfway up, fumbling outside the curtain for his glasses.

Ron looked at Harry, so sleepy-faced in the light of Ron's lumosed wand, and took a deep breath before speaking.

"Did you really ask Cho Chang to go to the Yule Ball with you?"

Harry gave him a suspicious sort of half-scowl.

"Don't you dare take the piss," he responded coolly. "I've fancied her a long time, alright? I can't believe I actually asked her." This last sort of tapered away into an awed whisper as Harry's eyes skittered away into a dark corner of the bed.

Ron nodded, trying to ignore the knots in his stomach. What did that cow have, that made both of the most important blokes in Ron's life want to be with her, rather than be with him? "And you're sure she's going with Ced- that is, with Diggory?"

Harry nodded, eyeing Ron again.

It didn't escape Ron's notice that Harry's lips somehow looked softer and sweeter than they normally did in the daylight. Nor did he fail to take in the deep, sea-glass green of Harry's eyes behind his oversized spectacles. In fact, at the moment, everything about Harry appeared astonishingly, irresistibly attractive to Ron, and he knew he had to say something now, or risk driving himself utterly mad by never having another chance.

Ron took a deep breath and leaned forward. "Then we're both out of luck, aren't we?"

"Why?" Harry looked as confused as Ron had assumed he would.

"Well, you don't get to have Cho," he answered slowly, steeling himself against Harry's reaction to the rest of the sentence, " ... and I don't get to have Cedric."

Harry blinked, opened his mouth as if to speak, then blinked again and closed it. He repeated the entire sequence once more after that.

"You ... Cedric?" he stammered at last.

"We had a ... sort of a thing, for a week or two before the First Task."

Harry blinked again. "Really?" His eyes lit up. "Then he doesn't really fancy Cho, so I could ..." but he must have seen Ron's face fall, because he trailed quickly off into silence. "... or does he?" asked Harry at last.

Ron gave a miserable shrug. "Dunno," he said. This wasn't going at all the way he'd hoped.

Both sat silently for a very long time, in the oddly dim and unflickering light of Ron's wand.

After a while, Ron started to realise that Harry was looking at him, not only as though waiting for him to speak, but as though trying to see him all over again.

He was working up his courage to ask Harry what he was thinking, when Harry leaned forward suddenly and kissed Ron forcefully on the mouth. Ron didn't stop for a moment to wonder what Harry's reasons might be, or to analyse anything at all about the situation, but dropped his wand, plunging them both into darkness, so he could fling his arms around Harry's slight, pyjama-clad frame. Harry's momentum had been greater than either of them noted at first, so Ron was already in the midst of falling backward with Harry on top of him before he had properly processed what was happening.

Harry was so much smaller than Cedric, it was almost like having nothing at all on top of him, except that Harry's sweet, soft mouth was working against Ron's and the edges of Harry's glasses were poking at Ron's face and the flimsy layers of their pyjamas transmitted every bit of heat from Harry's body into his. The thin fabric left no contour to the imagination, either, so that Harry's bony hips ground into Ron's lower belly, along with a much larger, more insistent bulge.

Ron grunted and shifted and tilted his head down so he could keep kissing Harry while aligning their groins for the most satisfying friction. He lost himself in Harry's mouth, struck suddenly by the intensity of his feelings: this was more than an infatuation, more even than a lifelong obsession, this was his Harry, and he was kissing him and holding him, and Ron squeezed Harry more tightly in his arms for the sheer joy of having him there.

Harry let out a quiet sort of happy laugh, pulling away just enough that he could murmur toward Ron's ear, "Who needs girls, anyway?"

Ron laughed and rolled him over, pushing both of their pyjama bottoms down far enough that he could take hold of both of them in one large, strong-fingered hand, and stroked until they moaned and cried out together, making a mess of themselves and Harry's bedding, and confirming that they had both found what they really wanted most in all the world.