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He says it plainly, bluntly, so there is no way to misunderstand.
"Ron, Hermione...I'm gay."
Clear enough so even you can't miss it--nobody could be that thick--except it seems like maybe you are, because for one endless moment, the words just hang there in the air, and you have no idea what they mean.
There is a single shocked beat of silence before Hermione recovers, and then she is babbling a lot of reassuring things and elbowing you so hard in the kidneys that you'll probably piss blood for a week, and it is this that brings you back to your senses. You manage a weak, thready laugh as you join her in assuring Harry that this is absolutely fine. Good for him, whatever makes him happy, blah blah blah, etc. Don't worry, Harry—this will change nothing.
It changes everything.
You don't mean for it to happen, and you don't even understand why—Charlie had a boyfriend, once, and the entire family was bewildered when it turned out Percy wasn't gay, so this is not a new idea, in itself. It never affected you like this before—hell, it never affected you at all before—but for some reason, now, every time you look at Harry, he is gay. He is brushing his teeth, shirtless and gay in the loo every morning; he is eating curry takeaway and gay and listening to Quidditch on the Wireless; he is sitting in his cubicle at work, gay, scratching out a report on that illegal Obliviation in Dorking last week. You think to yourself that, with all this time Harry spends being gay, there ought to be some sort of visible change in him, but he's the same old Harry that he ever was. Instead of being reassuring, this only makes you realize he was probably gay all along, and now it's invaded your memories of him, too—every time you think about Harry at school, or Harry playing Quidditch, or Harry hunting Horcruxes and battling Voldemort to the death, he is gay, gay, gay.
You think you might be losing your mind.
It starts popping up in your head at the oddest moments—in bed with Hermione one night, you suddenly think, Harry would have absolutely no interest in doing this, and you are so disturbed by this line of thinking that you fake a sudden, debilitating leg cramp and go lock yourself in the loo for a bath.
Harry never brings men home to the flat, and you aren't sure if this makes you insensate with gratitude, or insane with curiosity. What type of man is Harry's "type?" What do they look like together? What do they talk about? What do they do? The not-knowing makes you crazy—it feels like you don't know your best mate at all anymore—but you're frankly not sure you could handle the knowing, either. As it is, every night that Harry doesn't come home makes your guts clench with something that feels a lot like jealousy—it kills you that there's someone out there at that very moment, learning things about your best mate that you will never know.
The fifth time you catch yourself zoning out in the midst of one of Hermione's patented Relationship Evaluation Conversations, and realize you are thinking I bet Harry never has to deal with this sort of thing from other blokes, it occurs to you that you have a real problem. It can't be normal—this complete obsession with your friend's sexuality, to such a degree that it is taking over your life. There must be something wrong with you.
More than anything, you wish you could ask Hermione, because Hermione knows everything and probably there is a perfectly rational explanation for this. If there is one, you can bet Hermione knows it, but this does not help you, because you may be thick, but even you know better than to ask your girlfriend for help understanding your fixation on your gay best friend. You can't ask Harry, either, for obvious reasons, which leaves you on your own for this one. It's a lonely feeling; you've never had anything you couldn't talk to at least one of them about before. It occurs to you that this is what a secret must feel like—you've never had one of those before either, not all by yourself like this.
In the end, you do the only thing you can do, which is: Ignore it. Hermione explains things and Harry fixes them, but you've never been especially good at either one, so instead, you just pretend it doesn't exist at all..
It works, for awhile—you go to work with Harry, tracking down Dark wizards (or at least, Underage Magic Decree Violators) and filing reports and pretending this is what you always thought being an Auror would be like, and everything seems perfectly normal again. Harry's still gay gay gay in every thought that you have, but you're almost used to it by now, and there are no more leg cramps interfering with your sex life, and generally speaking, life is pretty good.
Until the night you run into Harry…on a date.
Really, it shouldn't surprise you like this. It was bound to happen sometime, and frankly, it's somewhat astonishing that it didn't happen sooner. You know this, but it doesn't change anything—it doesn't stop the cold rush of shock in your stomach when you see them together (brown-hair-does-Harry-like-brown-hair-muscular-looks-like-an-athlete-maybe-Harry-likes-athletes-must-be-funny-look-at-Harry-laughing) or the sudden, irrational fear that lodges itself in your throat.
Hermione spots them immediately, and drags you over to say hi, and it's all so absurdly normal, and friendly, just as if your whole entire world isn't turning upside down on its head. The next thing you know, you're sitting down to dinner with them, wishing the earth would do that thing where it's supposed to open up and swallow you whole to spare you from things like humiliation, and dinners with gay friends and their (brown-hair-athlete-funny) boyfriends For a minute, you think Harry looks uncomfortable too, which gives you such a sense of camaraderie that you're almost high with the relief of it, but it's gone a moment later, and then Harry's joined Hermione and What's-His-Arse in the sort of casual small talk you were never any good at.
By the end of the night, you know far more about What's-His-Arse than you ever wanted to. His actual name turns out to be Marcus, which you decide is an unforgivably poncy name, and you avoid using it at any cost. He has a flat in London, and works at the Ministry—Department of Magical Games and Sports, the bastard—and this is his fourth date with Harry and you have never hated anybody this much. He's entirely too familiar with Harry for someone who has been dating him for less than three full weeks, and it makes your teeth itch to watch the way they laugh and joke together. After the meal is over, Harry excuses himself to the loo, and while he is gone, Marcus takes it upon himself to order Harry an "after-dinner drink." Coffee, black, with a half-shot of Firewhiskey--you've never even heard of Harry drinking such a thing. When Harry returns from the loo and sees the drink, he flashes Marcus an easy grin and thanks him--right at that moment, you hate Harry, too.
By the end of the night, you're so angry it shows; Harry is uncomfortable now, obviously so—so are Hermione and Marcus, not that you care—and you won't realize it until later, but this is probably the moment where it all falls apart.
Because it does fall apart. Hermione doesn't speak to you for the rest of the night, and it does not escape your notice that Harry doesn't come home at all. When you see him at work the next day, he pretends like nothing happened, and you let him because it's better than being forced to apologize, but things aren't really the same between you after that. You suspect that Harry thinks you're a homophobe, which is so far off the mark it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic, but you can hardly tell him this, so you ignore that, too.
For your part, the obsession is back in full force, perhaps even stronger than ever. You are deeply suspicious of every brown-haired man in the Ministry, which encompasses a lot of brown-haired men; you are not well-liked at work these days. Things with Hermione slide downhill fast—when she finally sits you down and gently tells you that it's over, you aren't even surprised to hear it. She goes to stay with her parents for a little while, and you try really hard not to resent her for being the one who gets to leave, when you are the one who desperately needs to get away for awhile...away from her, away from Harry, away from this fixation that is ruining your life. You could have left, too, you suppose—nothing's really stopping you from spending some time at the Burrow—but you can't shake the niggling fear that Harry would use the empty flat as an opportunity to bring some bloke home, and the thought of him with some brown-haired man in your very own flat makes you want to vomit, so you end up staying anyway.
You fall into a depression, with Hermione gone—you did love her, after all, even if you are beginning to suspect that it was perhaps not in exactly the way that you should have loved her. Harry is supportive and helpful and gay, and your are every bit as fixated as you ever were, and within a week you're such a mess of confusion and despair that even you are beginning to wonder if you ought to check into St. Mungo's.
Unable to think of any other way to help you, Harry finally resorts to Firewhiskey, and brings home two big bottles to get you well and truly pissed. A bottle and a half in, you are for some reason possessed of the urge to start quizzing him—and so you do, firing off questions in a businesslike, clinical, and drunkenly earnest fashion in the hopes of finally slaking this obsessive curiosity.
Possibly because you have not exactly been drinking alone, Harry actually answers you, despite his obvious discomfort with this specific line of questioning, and you are practically high with the flush of new information: Harry doesn't have a "type," although he doesn't care much for effeminate men. He's dated blonds and brunettes and a couple of redheads, which specific tidbit startles you so much that you temporarily lose your place and spend maybe thirty seconds just staring at him in open-mouthed awe. Harry is deeply uncomfortable with this, and when that fact finally permeates the haze of alcohol in your brain, you return to your questions in a hurry lest he clue in to your train of thought.
And so the information just keeps coming. Harry and his dates talk about "what most people talk about, I guess"—work, and Quidditch, and politics, and music. They do "normal date things," like dinner and occasionally dancing, Quidditch games or Muggle cinema. And, of course, they shag—but when you ask about that, Harry's face turns red, and he refuses to talk about it directly, so you take a more roundabout route with your questions.
His first kiss from a bloke was a Muggle, in that little village on the western coast of Scotland, where Ravenclaw's armband was hidden. He didn't officially "fool around" with anyone until later, just after he finally killed off Voldemort, when he apparently ran into Terry Boot on Diagon Alley and "one thing led to another." After much finagling and negotiation, you finally get him to admit that he is neither a "top" nor a "bottom," but does both fairly equally. He has slept with seven blokes total since discovering he was gay two years ago, and "fooled around" with maybe four more. He once went down on Oliver Wood in the public loo at a Puddlemere game, and this is as close as Harry will come to telling you actual sex stories, no matter how many times you ask him or how drunk he happens to get.
It is a very informative night.
If you expected this new knowledge to help alleviate your obsession, you are gravely disappointed. If anything, you merely have more detailed things to obsess about, although you do finally manage to let up the glaring at every brown-haired man Harry knows.
The days pass by with irritating slowness. Marcus falls by the wayside two weeks after the Firewhiskey incident, and you are not sorry to see him go. Two weeks after that, Hermione comes home, although she stays in her own room now, and there is a palpable strain hanging over everyone in the house. You see her exchange shy smiles with Neville when he comes to visit; it annoys you, and it stings. Then you see Harry exchanging smiles with some blond ponce in the Department of Magical Travel and Transportation, and you have to abruptly excuse yourself before you end up putting your fist through a wall. It is a tense, uncomfortable time for everyone.
Blond Ponce turns out to be called Edward. You try not to feel too maliciously gleeful when Harry catches him sucking off their waiter in the loo on their second date.
Gradually, things around the flat return to some semblance of normalcy. It's nice to have Hermione back, even if you don't really have Hermione back, and Harry seems to finally be getting past his lingering embarrassment from your impromptu interview session. Hermione begins dating Neville officially, and you're almost able to be happy for her.
The tentative façade of peace lasts more than two months, during which time you manage to delude yourself into thinking that maybe everything is finally really okay.
You're wrong, obviously. You usually are, about most things.
It's a Weasley family Christmas party that proves to be your undoing, when Harry manages to land himself under the mistletoe with George, of all the ridiculous things. Time actually slows to a red-hazed crawl around you, as you watch your brother--your own brother!--laughingly bend Harry right over his arm, and give him a great dirty snog.
There is much laughter and cat-calling around the room as they stand back up. "Damn, Harry!" George exclaims. "If I'd known you could kiss like that, I wouldn't have wasted all these years believing I was straight!" Harry actually takes a bow, much to the amusement of everyone present, and gives George a playful leer and an offer to "experiment any time."
Your glass explodes in your hand, along with the mirror above your head.
You ignore the exclamations of concern and your own now-bleeding hand, and Apparate the hell out of there and back to the flat at once, physically shaking with rage and jealousy and the most intense, blinding fear you have ever experienced in your life.
Harry appears barely an instant behind you--he's worried and oblivious and gay, and for some reason, he seems to be under the impression that you left because you're sick. It is while he is half-dragging you down the hall toward the bathroom--he's noticed the bloody hand even if you haven't--that the last of your sanity abandons you, and the next thing you know, you've flung him up against the wall and shoved your tongue into his mouth.
He plants his hands against your chest and pushes you away so hard and fast that you crash into the wall on the other side of the hallway. He doesn't even ask you what the hell you think you're doing--he just stands there and stares at you, wide-eyed and flushed and panting and bewildered, and somehow it's the sexiest fucking thing you've ever seen.
And now you know.
You know why you've been so obsessed, why you've fixated on this--on him--to the point where it ruled your entire bloody life, why you've wanted to strangle every single man who touched him. You know, and it's terrifying and exhilarating and horrifying all at once, because you finally know how much you want it...but Harry pushed you away.
You open your mouth, because it's time to explain--and God, that's gonna take awhile--and probably time to apologize, too, and there's about a million things you need to say to him right now but somehow all that comes out is:
"I want you."
You panic--that isn't what you meant to say at all, or at least not to start with--but before you can fumble around trying to fix it, the beginning of a miracle occurs.
Harry's wide eyes go dark with something that looks a lot like lust.
You can practically hear a thousand questions hanging in the air around Harry's head, but fate and Harry are unbelievably kind to you just then, because he evidently decides that explanations can wait.
This time, it's you with your back against the wall. George wasn't wrong about the way Harry kisses, and you cannot believe you've been missing out on this for all these years. And then there's no time to think of anything at all, because there's a tongue in your mouth and a cock in your hand and a low, urgent voice in your ear, whispering your name with so much heat it makes your brain melt, and when he drops to his knees and sucks you off, there are actual tears in your eyes.
You never, ever knew it could be like this. It's all heat and sweat and blinding need--fast and a little rough and absolutely fucking perfect, and when you come it rips through you like lightning.
Eventually, it is over, and you're just two blokes in a hallway again--slumped and exhausted, with your pricks hanging out of the clothes you never bothered to remove--and the time has finally come for explanations, except now you find you don't know what to say.
"Just couldn't stop thinking about it...about this," is what you finally come up with. It is far from being your most eloquent moment.
But Harry's known you for ten years now, so it's not like he expected better. He nods, a little warily. "Got it out of your system, now?"
What he really wants to know is if he was just an experiment, and it kind of blows your mind a little that he doesn't even realize he just obliterated every other sexual experience you have ever had. Sometimes, Harry still thinks he's just a little boy in a cupboard.
You've never been one for flowery speeches--neither has Harry, come to that--so in the end you just meet his eyes directly and say "No."
And Harry smiles, so you know he understands all the touchy-feely crap you're not saying out loud--stuff like how he could never be just an experiment, and how he's still your best mate and always will be, and how now that you know what his mouth tastes like, you're pretty sure he's stuck with you for basically the rest of eternity, because there is no way in hell that this is ever going to be "out of your system."
"Yeah," says Harry, flushing slightly. "Yeah. Me, too."
There is a short silence in the hallway.
"So," Harry says, a moment later. "Want a beer?"
He stands up, tucking his prick back into his pants, and heads for the kitchen without waiting for an answer. You hear the Wireless switch on a moment later, and then Harry is shouting down the hall for you to hurry up, because the Cannons are playing Falmouth, and the game's about to begin.
You can't help grinning as you haul yourself to your feet.
It is, you decide smugly, really good to be gay.