Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its contents, and I'm not making any money off this.

A/N: This isn't properly British.

"It's just an experiment," Ron justifies, as soon as the door closes. With Seamus back out of the room—like he's supposed to be—they pick up right where they left off five minutes ago. Those five minutes were possibly the most awkward moment of Harry's life, with both him and Ron squirming and avoiding each other's eyes.

Harry always hates when he has to do that. Not talking to Ron, not being able to look at Ron, not seeing Ron breaks his heart pathetically quickly, and Harry can't stand for that to happen again. Ron's the most important thing that ever happened to him. Ron was his first friend, gave him his first sense of real family, and made him smile on Christmas for the first time in his life. It's almost Christmas again, and there's nothing Harry wouldn't do to keep Ron by his side for that.

Ron's now twitching nervously and hurries to add, "You don't have to, of course! It's just, you know... it's a practice sort of thing?" He licks his lips, and Harry's eyes follow the movement.

"Practice?"

"Well, yeah! I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't have that much kissing experience, and with mistletoe everywhere, who knows which girl we'll get stuck under there with! We should know what we're doing, right? I mean, we're friends; we know we're friends; friends help each other out, right?" He looks at Harry desperately, like it's taking the world not to take it all back right now, and go back to normal like none of this ever happened.

Harry wonders vaguely why Ron isn't asking Hermione, their other friend. But he doesn't want to pull too much at that thread. So instead he just nods numbly and mumbles, "Uh... yeah, sure."

"Sure?" Ron perks up hopefully. "Sure we can...?"

Harry flushes and says quietly, "We can... experiment."

And then he moves to jerk all the curtains closed around his four-poster, which they're both sitting on. There are three other boys that could wander in at any moment, and Harry doesn't need Ron testing out experiments with them.

Harry wants Ron for himself and plans to hang mistletoe right over Ron's bed. He licks his lips and leans, and Ron follows suit surprisingly quickly.