I so hope this is adequate! Couldn't resist the prompt. Also, really quite sappy.
He’ll go on to be the first of his kind, the only – one in a million, unparalleled, the boy who won -- just like he started.
He’ll be the first first-year to be a Seeker; first Gryffindor to speak Parseltongue; first underage wizard to win the Tournament; first to destroy a Horcrux; first to rid the world of the evil that would seek to rule it. His life will be composed of countless firsts that lesser people will fail to accomplish.
But it’s sitting on the Hogwarts Express that day -- the first day, the first adventure, the first of many – that the most important first is made.
The awkward boy with the flaming hair and the cheerful grin disguising the glumness beneath -- the one the rest of the world deems unexceptional: he walks in to Harry’s carriage, asks for a place to sit, no one else will have him, you understand. (Harry understands.)
And that’s when life starts.
---
Harry will go on to love many things: the train rides to Hogwarts; pumpkin pasties, chocolate frogs, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans; his wand; Quidditch matches; his Nimbus 2000 soon to be followed by Firebolt; lazy evenings in the Gryffindor Common Room; Christmas holidays at the Weasleys’.
He’ll go on to love many people: Hermione Granger; Albus Dumbledore; the image of his cold, dead parents; Remus Lupin; Sirius Black; Dobby the house-elf; Ginny Weasley; his future children.
But Ron is the first: the one who proves that it’s possible, even after a childhood without. Ron breaks the ice; breaks the dam. It comes pouring out.
Harry didn’t think he had it -- so much -- in him.
People will come and go. Ron will always be the first.
---
It’s because Harry knows so little about love, that he never anticipates Ron finally growing weary of being the best friend to a boy who could apparently choose any other.
Harry never asked for the life he leads; never asked for his fame; never asked for the scar on his forehead; never asked for his name to be spat out from the Goblet of Fire.
These things aren’t up to him; he doesn’t get a choice.
There are few choices Harry does have. He wishes he could make Ron see: that for every one, he chooses him.
---
It’s because Harry is slowly starting to learn about love, that it’s not unexpected when Ron walks away again, three years later, his own love turned to hate by the rotted soul they have no choice but to carry.
It occurs to him that Ron should have walked away long before now. It was Ron’s love that kept them together; his own was never enough.
But now Ron’s ruined it; ruined him for all else. Ron leaves, and he takes his love with him.
And Harry’s right back where he started.
---
But then the impossible happens.
Ron comes back.
He comes back, breaks the ice, pulls Harry out of the sea of nothingness freezing him to the core; gives him oxygen after (what seems like) a lifetime without. He saves him.
Once; first; every time.
---
And when the last battle’s over, and they stand victorious (if no longer quite whole), amidst the remains, Ron turns to him and says, voice full of wonder,
“We made it.”
Harry stares back at his oldest friend, and he’s at an utter loss as to how to begin.
Finally he chokes out a reply, far too inadequate to encompass the swelling inside his chest.
Harry/Ron, the one who makes it possible
He’ll go on to be the first of his kind, the only – one in a million, unparalleled, the boy who won -- just like he started.
He’ll be the first first-year to be a Seeker; first Gryffindor to speak Parseltongue; first underage wizard to win the Tournament; first to destroy a Horcrux; first to rid the world of the evil that would seek to rule it. His life will be composed of countless firsts that lesser people will fail to accomplish.
But it’s sitting on the Hogwarts Express that day -- the first day, the first adventure, the first of many – that the most important first is made.
The awkward boy with the flaming hair and the cheerful grin disguising the glumness beneath -- the one the rest of the world deems unexceptional: he walks in to Harry’s carriage, asks for a place to sit, no one else will have him, you understand. (Harry understands.)
And that’s when life starts.
---
Harry will go on to love many things: the train rides to Hogwarts; pumpkin pasties, chocolate frogs, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans; his wand; Quidditch matches; his Nimbus 2000 soon to be followed by Firebolt; lazy evenings in the Gryffindor Common Room; Christmas holidays at the Weasleys’.
He’ll go on to love many people: Hermione Granger; Albus Dumbledore; the image of his cold, dead parents; Remus Lupin; Sirius Black; Dobby the house-elf; Ginny Weasley; his future children.
But Ron is the first: the one who proves that it’s possible, even after a childhood without. Ron breaks the ice; breaks the dam. It comes pouring out.
Harry didn’t think he had it -- so much -- in him.
People will come and go. Ron will always be the first.
---
It’s because Harry knows so little about love, that he never anticipates Ron finally growing weary of being the best friend to a boy who could apparently choose any other.
Harry never asked for the life he leads; never asked for his fame; never asked for the scar on his forehead; never asked for his name to be spat out from the Goblet of Fire.
These things aren’t up to him; he doesn’t get a choice.
There are few choices Harry does have. He wishes he could make Ron see: that for every one, he chooses him.
---
It’s because Harry is slowly starting to learn about love, that it’s not unexpected when Ron walks away again, three years later, his own love turned to hate by the rotted soul they have no choice but to carry.
It occurs to him that Ron should have walked away long before now. It was Ron’s love that kept them together; his own was never enough.
But now Ron’s ruined it; ruined him for all else. Ron leaves, and he takes his love with him.
And Harry’s right back where he started.
---
But then the impossible happens.
Ron comes back.
He comes back, breaks the ice, pulls Harry out of the sea of nothingness freezing him to the core; gives him oxygen after (what seems like) a lifetime without. He saves him.
Once; first; every time.
---
And when the last battle’s over, and they stand victorious (if no longer quite whole), amidst the remains, Ron turns to him and says, voice full of wonder,
“We made it.”
Harry stares back at his oldest friend, and he’s at an utter loss as to how to begin.
Finally he chokes out a reply, far too inadequate to encompass the swelling inside his chest.
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He means every word. He does.
*