Work Text:
“What’re we gonna do about the Yule Ball?” Harry despaired as he and Ron worked on their transfiguration essay- for once, they were doing it well before the due date- like two whole days- but without Hermione, who had of course done it yesterday, when it was assigned, and was off somewhere doing something that she wouldn’t tell them about (“Honestly, I love you guys, but that doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything,” she’d told them with an eye-roll, when they wondered what she could possibly be doing without them as her sidekicks).
“Cedric already going with Cho then?” Ron asked sympathetically.
“Yeah, I was too late- but I mean, how was I supposed to ask him? He’s just so… he’s Cedric, Ron! I mean, have you seen his eyes? They’re so soft- like warm honey.”
“It’s kind of funny, isn’t it, that he’s going with the person you have a secondary crush on?” The redhead snickered as he moved his pawn to take Harry’s rook (they’d eventually abandoned their essays and turned to chess instead).
“No, it’s not funny!” Harry groaned. “It’s bad enough that Ginny just out and told me that I was bi- I was perfectly happy to not realize that I become a complete mess whenever someone cute so much as looks at me, thank you- but now there are two very attractive people together and it is doing things to me, I tell you!”
“Mate, relax- I’ve seen you be totally calm with having a bone sticking out of your elbow, so you don’t need to go full drama queen when you have a crush,” Ron just raised an eyebrow at him, unaffected by his best friend’s profession that life was simply unbearable.
“I’ve seen you stand on a broken leg, look a supposed murderer in the eye, and tell him without so much as a stutter that he’d have to kill you if he wanted to get to me, but Viktor Krum walks into a room and you become a complete mess, so you have no room to talk,” Harry pointed out, and indeed, Ron’s cheeks went pink at even the mention of his celebrity crush.
“Okay fine- fair point,” the redhead sighed. “Boys are cute, girls are cute, quidditch is a turn-on. The point remains that in spite of being attracted to literally everyone, we have no dates.”
“Er, maybe the Patil twins don’t have dates…” Harry furrowed his brow as he tried to think of potential options.
“Why Harry,” Ron affected a chastising tone, teasingly wagging a finger at him, “when in doubt, turn to your other Indian friends? I never thought you so cliche.”
“Ha, ha,” Harry glowered at him. “But seriously, do you think they’d wanna go- as friends, maybe?”
“Parvati’s already going with Lavender, though,” Ron reminded him.
“I didn’t know that,” Harry frowned- another option gone, then.
“That’s because you are, in Hermione’s words, ‘as dense as Platform 9 and ¾,’ but the point remains that she is right an annoying amount and she was also right about us needing to try to find dates sooner.”
“What about Daphne Greengrass?” Harry asked. “I mean, we’re cordial enough with each other, and it would be really funny to watch everyone lose their minds over a Gryffindor going with a Slytherin.”
“Daphne’s going with Blaise- she wasn’t going to go at all, but then Blaise’s boyfriend broke up with him,” Ron crushed Harry’s desperate shot in the dark again.
“How do you know all this?” He looked at his best friend in confusion.
“Myrtle,” Ron shrugged. “Wait, what do you talk about when you drop by to visit her?”
“The history of feminism- oh, and the complexities of Hogwarts plumbing,” Harry gave a sideways grin. “She’s got a lot of interests.”
“Why don’t we visit her together, again?”
“Because I was trying to figure out that damn egg and you, quote, ‘didn’t want to hear the screaming,’ but then we give up and end up just chatting like we usually do anyway.”
“Right,” Ron winced as he the memories came screeching back into his mind. “But hey- speaking of stuff we do together, why don’t we just go? I mean, we’re like brothers and everything,” he clarified when Harry made a face, “but it would take care of the problem if we just went as friends- that’s what you would have done with Daphne or one of the Patils anyway.”
“Okay, yeah- that sounds good,” Harry let out a sigh of relief. “I mean, not that you’re not a catch and everything, but you had me really worried for a moment- it’d be like, incest or something. Like, there’s no way I could go out with any of you- your mum has tucked me in, for Merlin’s sake.”
“I get it bro, really,” Ron laughed as Harry managed to blush visibly even through his skin tone. “But I can’t believe you actually…”
“Well I didn’t think so, but you guys are always saying I’m so oblivious and stuff,” Harry said defensively, hiding his face behind his hands and slumping in his chair.
“Fair enough,” Ron snorted as a number of examples of Harry’s endearing obtuseness came into his brain.
“So, if we’re going together, should I get you some dress robes that don’t look like they came from your Great-Aunt Muriel?” Harry asked, and Ron just smirked.
“You know what- let’s make a spectacle of it,” he laughed.
“Well, in that case,” Harry’s green eyes sparkles with mischief, “do you wanna help me charm mine to be a little more interesting?”
______
When McGonagall saw them, Ron in his old, potpourri-smelling Maroon robes with yellowing lace frills and Harry, his lovely green silk charmed temporarily to sport cantering unicorns, she merely groaned as memories of James and his brother’s antics came rushing back full force.
“Cheers, professor,” he waved at her cheekily as she tried to force his hair to lie flat, to no avail.
“I should have guessed,” she shook her head in fond exasperation as a stray curl popped straight up at the back of Harry’s head. “All the boys and girls in this school jumping at the chance to go out with you, and you take your partner-in-crime instead.”
“Stick it to the man,” Harry quoted Myrtle, giving her a thumbs up. “Oh, and the woman ,” he added, thinking about what a field day Rita was going to have with this and not dreading it like he did with everything else she printed.
“You know, I usually see more of your mother in you, but this is pure James,” she chuckled, and Harry beamed at her- people were always comparing him to his dad, and nobody ever said anything about his mum except that he had her eyes. That she could see bits of both of them in the way he behaved just made his night.
“To the floor,” Ron adopted an air of bravado as the music for the first waltz started.
They were stepping all over each other’s feet and laughing about it when Hermione came in, looking like an absolute queen in her dark blue robes and with her spirited, normally-frizzy curls tamed just enough to be pulled up into a high ponytail, a mother-of-pearl clip delicately shaped into a lily glittering above her ear. Years later, when she and Ron were married and with children who watched muggle movies over and over and over again, the redhead would remark that she looked like Tiana from Princess and the Frog, except a thousand times more beautiful, somehow.
Their jaws dropped as she descended the stairs with Viktor Krum on her arm, and Ron looked like the combination of two people he admired so much looking ready to climb into a royal carriage just might have broken his ability for rational thought process.
He and Harry both stopped dead, tripping over each other and going crashing to the floor. Hermione saw them from across the room and rolled her eyes, and for Harry, at least, that broke the spell.
“You look beautiful, ‘Mione,” he said when the dance finally ended, ignoring the chuckles that came their way after the disastrous waltz.
“Do you have anything to say, Ronald?” She quipped, quirking an eyebrow.
“Merlin, Mia- I mean, I knew you were a girl, obviously, but you didn’t tell us you were a goddess too,” he blurted, then looked mortified. When Viktor smiled at him, pleased someone else saw how amazing Hermione was, Ron lost the ability to speak completely. When the Bulgarian said hello, he merely squeaked.
“I think we’re gonna go get some punch,” Harry was grinning widely as he dragged his dazed friend over to the snack table.
“Panic much?” He asked, gripping his ribs as he tried to hold in his laughter.
That, at least, seemed to help Ron remember how to use his limbs, as he socked his best friend on the arm.
“I hate you,” he muttered, still blushing furiously from their conversation with Hermione.
“Is that anyway to treat your date, now?” Harry teased, and Ron grabbed a walnut from a bowl on the table and chucked it at him.
“Ooh, the tango!” The dynamic 4-4 beat broke through the buzz of conversation, and Harry perked up excitedly as he dragged Ron to the dance floor- he’d seen enough of Dudley’s dance lessons through the slats of his cupboard to know what not to do, and that was more than he could say for anything else that would play tonight.
“Come on,” he ordered, stopping by a wreath on the wall to pull two roses out of it, putting one in his mouth and giving the other to Ron, who laughed and bit down on it.
Bum, bum bum bum, went the orchestra as Harry tried to dip Ron, who, because he was so much taller and heavier, nearly crashed to the floor but managed not to with a little overcompensation that brought Harry spiraling against his chest as they both wobbled dangerously. They looked ridiculous, but it was fun.
“Enchilada,” Ron deepened his voice and waggled his eyebrows, fake-seductively, and Harry snorted, nearly choking on a leaf of his rose. Hermione, who was watching, mentally assessed her opinion that they couldn’t possibly look more adorably stupid- they were clearly determined to outdo themselves.
“What?” He chortled, still coughing around a petal.
“That’s the only Spanish word I know,” Ron shrugged, and Harry raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Uh, taco?”
“Oh, right…” They strutted, linked hands stretched out in front of them, to the table where the Triwizard judges stood, making sure that Barty Crouch could see as Ron dipped Harry nearly to the floor, giving the man a good look at the rose in his mouth, his atrociously messy hair, and the SPEW button on his lapel.
“Is this where we switch to Flamenco?” Harry smirked, and Ron got the hint as he transfigured the heels of their shoes into a nice loud metal.
The racket was gloriously cacophonous, their rhythm disjointed, and Harry had never felt so free with so many eyes on him.
“Thanks, Ron, for being such a good friend,” Harry said, smiling widely and feeling better since he had since the tournament started.
“You’re my brother,” Ron replied easily. “It’s what we do. We’re there for each other- always.”
“Always and forever,” Harry, filled with fondness and gratitude, threw his scrawny arms around Ron’s torso, squashing him in a hug.
“Unless you suffocate me first,” the other replied, even as he hugged Harry back. “Bloody hell, you’re strong for a little guy.”
“Fuck off.”
“Never. You’re stuck with me, remember? Always.”