harryjamesheadcanons:

Harry and Ron + Hugs

Ron has never been shy about physical affection. He’s insecure about many things, but never that. His level of comfort with it is something Harry admires about Ron from the day they meet and throughout their entire lives, and it takes him years to catch up to being as okay with hugging and touch as Ron is, but it happens slowly and surely. 

Their first hug is on Christmas of their first year, after Harry opens his Snitch sweater from Ron’s mum and is so overcome for a minute that Ron finally just puts his arms around him. Harry is awkward – is it…it’s not…possible that he’s never been hugged before, right? – but he seems grateful. 

Their various near-death experiences over the years yield varying levels of hugs, usually from whichever of them watched the other fall first. They’re more to reassure themselves that the other isn’t dead (and sometimes in thanks for their own lives) than a show of affection, but it does open the door, especially for Harry. 

The first time Harry reached out on his own to comfort Ron was when Hermione got Petrified. He’s not sure what he’s doing, really, but Ron seems deeply troubled, so Harry does what Ron has always done to comfort him. It takes a minute to figure out how to rub calming circles on Ron’s lower back, but it seems to work. It’s a milestone for both of them in the giving and receiving of affection. 

Their first full scale cling to each other is the night after the Second Task. Ron is getting ready for bed after a pleasant day of attention and adventure, when he notices Harry staring at him intently. “You alright, mate?” he asks, and sits down gently on Harry’s bed next to him. Harry shakes his head, looking anxious and shifty, and Ron is in too good a mood to let Harry brood himself to bed. 

“When Dobby woke me up this morning in the library, it was ten minutes before the Task, and I didn’t….we hadn’t worked out the clue yet, that you guys weren’t actually going to die.” Ron cocks his head to the side at Harry’s admission, not quite understanding the train of thought. “You did it, though, you got me out. And Gabrielle, too.” 

“I didn’t know I was going to. For all I knew, I could have been the reason you died today.”

“Dumbledore wouldn’t’ve let that happen,” Ron says gently, and puts his hand on Harry’s back. Harry recoils violently. “I didn’t know that,” he snarls, and curls in on himself. It breaks Ron’s heart, watching his best friend hurt like this. “Come here,” he says warmly, low in his throat, trying to make himself sound inviting. At his invitation, Harry hesitates for the space of a few seconds, then launches himself at Ron, burying his face in his best friend’s neck, and clinging on tightly. Ron promises that he won’t be the one to let go, and they hang on until Seamus comes into the room to congratulate them both on the Task, and Harry draws up, looking marginally better than before. 

Their happiest hug happens when Ron conjures his first Patronus in the Room of Requirement. Hermione smiles proudly – even though he achieved the advanced magic before she did. Harry, though, maybe sensing his own presence in the projection of memory yipping at their ankles, wraps Ron in his arms in delight, so proud and happy he can’t contain his grin. The other DA students, the ones who only know him as their stoic leader, are gratified to see that level in humanity in him. 

Nearly a year later, it’s Ginny who sits with Harry for hours after Dumbledore’s funeral, and Hermione who finally gets him to talk about it, but it’s Ron who hugs him and tight and welcomes him back to the land of the living the next morning when Harry comes down to breakfast looking reasonably alert and not caught in a fog of grief. That’s the morning he and Hermione announce that they’re with him, a hundred percent, and are joining him on the hunt for Horcruxes. None of the three of them make it through that conversation dry-eyed. 

That year is cold and anxious. Harry is so taught and jumpy that not even Ron can soothe him. The only time they touch that year is after they reunite in the forest, when Ron pulls him gasping from the water like Harry had done for him three years ago. That hug is there, too, even with the emotionality of the moment in itself. 

After Harry’s momentary death in the Forbidden Forest, he sometimes loses track of his own heartbeat. He wakes up from nightmares, breathing heavily, but unable to ground himself in life. As the only other person in the flat, with Hermione and Ginny at school, it falls to Ron to sit up with Harry some nights, help him find the pulse in his worn wrist. 

Their hugs in later years less fraught, less desperate. They are greetings, congratulations, overflows of gratitude – completely comfortable and no less real for their calm.