It had got dull outside the Maze, waiting for something to happen. From the spectators' seats, Ron had heard the occasional scuffle or shout and a scream that had sounded like Fleur. He had seen when the red sparks had gone up which had turned out to be sent up above an unconscious Viktor Krum. But all of this had taken place over more than half an hour, and as the waiting had grown more stressful, it had also grown more tedious in the way that a body can only produce excited adrenaline for so long before the senses go numb and even danger starts to seem like another delay to the inevitable outcome that someone would emerge victorious and they could all leave the chilly, damp benches and go inside for some warm Butterbeer and a party for whichever of the two Hogwarts Champions it was who ultimately won.

Beside him, Bill and his mum chatted lightly while peering into the darkness around the hedges. On the other side, Hermione bit her fingernails and looked miserable. Ron could tell that a battle was raging in her mind over whether or not she should seek out Krum and see whether he was alright. Her arguments were almost audible: on the one hand, he would want to know she cared; on the other, she wasn't sure how much she did. On the one hand, it would seem callous for her not to go to him; on the other, Karkaroff might not let her near his favourite student. Hermione finally huffed, crossed her arms, and sat back in her seat, scowling as she kept her eyes glued to the Maze. Ron smiled indulgently in her direction and leaned lightly toward her, and thought he felt her lean lightly toward him in return.

Almost imperceptibly, the energy of the crowd changed, began to build in intensity, until a wave swept across from the far side and the words were all jumbled up and indecipherable, but the names 'Harry' and 'Cedric' and the word 'dead' started swirling around and Ron felt himself go white and cold and when he looked at Hermione and back at his brother and mum, they all shared his expression.

He wouldn't remember having done it, later, but Ron leapt to his feet and sprinted around the crowd, using his height to find a gap in the bodies where he could see: Harry, lying in the grass, Triwizard Cup discarded beside him, eyes open and lips moving while Dumbledore crouched before him, left hand clenched tight around Cedric's wrist, and Cedric - oh Merlin, Cedric �

As minimal as Harry's movements were, they had caused a rush of relief to course through Ron's gut, with a surging hope that, because Harry was clearly alive, the word 'dead' had referred to something else, or even been a different word entirely that had had its phonemes twisted in the muddled crowd so that it had confused itself by the time it had met Ron's ears. But as minimal as Harry's movements were, Cedric looked still as stone beside him, not even his chest rising or falling the way it once had under Ron's ear while they had caught their breath after one of their illicit rendezvous.

Cedric. Dead. Cedric. The longer Ron watched the body not move, the less it looked like the boy for whom he'd formed so many fantasies, the boy who had wrapped a strong arm behind him in the bath only the night before, the boy whose eyes always lit up with joy when Ron or Harry ran and hungry hand roughly down his muscled front. Even at this distance, Ron could see that the eyes that stared blankly at the night sky held no light, no joy, no Cedric.

Someone pushed by him in the crowd, and Ron had barely recognised him as Amos Diggory before Dumbledore was reacting to something Fudge said, leaving Harry's side and moving to intercept Mr. Diggory, and behind him, Mad-Eye Moody was pulling Harry to his feet, dragging him away toward the castle, and it didn't look right, and Dumbledore didn't even see �

The next twenty-four hours were pure misery, from when Ron finally got to Dumbledore and pointed out Harry's absence, to waiting with Hermione and Bill and his mum in the Infirmary, first for Harry's arrival and then the vigil while Harry slept, to the news of Barty Crouch, Jr., receiving the Kiss before he could be interrogated and Fudge's unwillingness, even in the face of Harry's testimony, to believe that Voldemort had returned. He'd seen Harry's frustration and anger and deep sadness in the infirmary, had watched Harry skirt the edge of tears and avert his eyes as though wishing Ron would look away, but couldn't stop watching. This was his Harry, and they had lost their Cedric, and Harry had been there, and Ron didn't know what to do to make it hurt any less, for either of them, but he couldn't imagine leaving Harry's side for even a moment, even if there was nothing at all that would ever make it better.

It wasn't until Harry was back in Gryffindor, shaken and pale and thinner than ever but also carrying that visible thread of strength inside him, that Ron started to feel even vaguely normal again. He still rounded every corner of every corridor expecting to see Cedric's shining, teasing smile, but at least he could hold Harry again, could stroke his hair and murmur nonsense syllables of comfort into his ear, could curl up around him in bed without even having to make excuses or apologies to the other boys in the dormitory, because they wouldn't begin to object or to ask why.

Late that night, when Harry woke again, from the third or fourth consecutive nightmare, Ron had been surprised to feel Harry's hands on him. The sick, hollow feeling in Ron's gut had removed any thought of physical needs from his mind, but when Harry reached into his trousers and looked up at Ron with naked, pleading eyes, Ron hadn't considered refusing him for even a moment. He'd drawn the curtains closed around them, unbuttoned his own flies and then Harry's, and reached forward to grasp onto the warmest part of Harry.

They were together every night after that, for the few that remained before the end of term. They were always quiet, and a bit grim, a bit businesslike, and they always held each other very, very tightly when they were through. Ron was sure he heard Harry sniffling, felt a hot dampness that leaked onto his cheeks, but never said anything, because he knew Harry didn't want him to have noticed.

When, in the Leaving Feast, Dumbledore raised his glass to Cedric and then to Harry, Ron glued himself to Harry's side and kept silent vigil for any hint that Harry would need to be rushed away from people and into a quiet corridor where the hundreds of pairs of eyes wouldn't be able to follow. Harry made it through, though, even to the end of Dumbledore's speech, to the end of the meal, to the end of the walk back to Gryffindor. They packed in silence - Ron suspected that everyone, throughout the castle, packed in silence that night - and fell asleep together in Harry's bed.

Hours later, Harry poked Ron awake. Somewhere in the castle, a clock was striking midnight. Harry was already standing, holding the Invisibility Cloak up in invitation for Ron to join him under it. "We have to go," he told him, and Ron didn't think to deny him, even for a moment. It didn't take long for Ron to realise where Harry was taking them. Harry's voice was thick with tears when he whispered "Pine fresh" to the fourth door past Boris the Bewildered, but Ron let himself be led inside, watched Harry fold the Cloak on a bench and start the taps and begin to remove his pyjamas. He was on the last button of his top when Ron grabbed his hands and looked imploringly into his eyes.

"Harry," he said, "what are you doing?" Harry's face was wet with tears and Ron was near panic with protective worry. He could feel his own eyes leaking, as well, but only cared in that it made it that much harder for him to offer Harry his strength, when he had so little to give. "We don't have to do this," he added lamely.

Harry fixed Ron's eyes defiantly with his own. "Dumbledore said, 'Remember Cedric Diggory,'" Harry told him. "That's what I'm doing." With that, he Summoned a pile of towels and knelt on them before Ron.

Ron gasped when Harry tugged down his pyjama bottoms and covered him with his mouth, but quickly pulled away and dropped to his knees to bring himself level with Harry. Tears running down his face, he gathered Harry tightly in his arms and crushed him to his chest, hanging on as if for dear life.

"We'll remember, Harry," Ron told him, stroking his impossible hair and letting his tears leak down the side of Harry's neck. "You and I will always remember Cedric. I promise." Harry nodded and, for the first time Ron could ever remember, broke down in audible sobs, clutching at Ron's back and keening against his chest. Ron held on with every last ounce of his strength, not caring that they were kneeling in the prefects' bathroom or that Harry's top was mostly unbuttoned or that his own trousers were halfway down to his knees.

He didn't know it then, but in about a month's time, a letter would find him at Grimmauld Place - a place he'd not heard of yet on this last night of his Fourth Year - with a shining red and gold badge inside that would bestow upon him a wide range of rights and privileges. If he'd known it, he wouldn't have been surprised to hear that the very first thought that would cross his mind would be the memory of this moment and of the three nights he and Harry had spent in this room with Cedric, and that in his very next thought it would occur to him never to use his prefect's bathroom privileges, because the memories would be too painful to relive, and even more painful to lose by diluting them with frequent visits to this room.

Ron and Harry would keep on together, over the summer at Grimmauld Place and on into Fifth Year. They would have sex less often, due to Harry's nightmares and the attack on Ron's father, until they were only holding each other through the night. They would eventually stop doing that, too, except for extremely rare occasions, but it was only because their need for each other had changed, not because it had diminished. Ron would always have his Harry, and Harry would always have his Ron, in their own way, and that would never change, for the rest of their lives.

As for the prefects' bathroom, Ron would eventually decide that he should act like a prefect and bathe there, when he had time for more than a quick shower. He would never bring someone to the room with him again - not Harry, and certainly not Lavender, when she came along in Sixth Year - but he would take a proper bath nearly every week for the remainder of his time at Hogwarts, and when he did, he would always spend the time thinking quietly of Cedric.

Ron could trace his thoughts of Cedric back to his earliest memories. All in all, Ron reckoned he'd been mad for Cedric for most of his life. And everything that happened to Harry, and to him, and to Hermione and Ginny and Neville and Luna and Sirius and Dumbledore and everyone else who worked with them and fought with them, it had all started the night of the Third Task, in the cemetery, with Harry and Cedric and Wormtail and Voldemort.

Whatever else happened, Ron would make sure he remembered that.