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sundrop-writes · 8 months ago

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The Way You Miss Me

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader

I’m not trying to say I don’t wanna stay, I just know how this story ends.

Use my body against me - and all of our history.

I hate the way you miss me.

Summary:

Fred broke up with you. He made it clear that he was going to have a new life when he opened his shop, and he didn't need you to be a part of it. You being stuck on him was just another joke in a long line of pranks that he pulled.

And life kept on laughing at you when your fear of crippling heights was triggered by a potentially life ending mission the Order put together that had you dangling hundreds of feet over London, held up only by Fred's strength and determination.

So what does it mean when the two of you land, and he's the only thing that can stop your shaking panic? What does it mean when he's looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes, holding you tight like a lover would?

Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader. Exes to Lovers. Emotional Angst and Smut. Set during Deathly Hallows.

Word Count: 18,500

Harry Potter Masterlist | AO3 Link

Full warnings list and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: this is equal parts angst fic and smut fic; the reader is a cis woman - uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina; there is no mention of the reader's looks, race, hair colour, etc. in any way; this fic does use Y/N (and L/N as in Last Name); this takes place mostly during the beginning of Deathly Hallows, so there are mentions of dark topics, like death, and the cult-like following that Voldemort has developed; this is Exes to Lovers - Fred and the reader dated for a while during their time at Hogwarts and then broke up; (there is flashbacks in this fic to times during Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix); the reader is half-blood - she has one parent who is a muggle and lives in a muggle city and the other parent who is loyal to death eaters (and there is a later mention of the reader's mother being killed due to anti-muggle sentiment as Voldemort becomes more powerful); there is no mention of what Hogwarts house the reader is in; the reader has a crippling fear of heights (which is a large part of the plot for this fic); mentions of nausea and vomiting (as a fear response) (no one actually throws up during the course of the fic); the reader experiences actual life-threatening danger while on a broom - she nearly falls to her death, but Fred catches her; Fred does struggle to hold the reader's body weight, so it doesn't imply that he has super-human strength or that the reader is particularly petite (I wanted his reaction to be realistic for someone of any body weight); for part of the fic, Fred is disguised as Harry using Polyjuice Potion (but there's no confusion about his identity because the reader knows he took the potion); the reader experiences a panic attack due to the life threatening fall, and Fred helps her calm down; mentions of blood and semi-graphic descriptions of George's canon injury (his ear being blasted off); there is general emotional angst from the characters being in close proximity to danger, death, and life threatening situations; Fred calls the reader 'darling' and 'love' and 'sweets' and 'pretty girl' (in sexual and non-sexual contexts).

For the actual smut section: this is not their first time together as a couple and neither of the characters are meant to be virgins; there is undertones of sub/dom dynamics - Fred is a teasing soft dom and the reader is submissive to him (and there is mentions of the reader experiencing what could be considered subspace) (but there isn't any specifically laid out roles - it's more so one person enjoying taking care of the other, especially after experiencing the emotional turmoil of a near death experience together); there is Daddy kink in this (not until a bit later into the smut section, but it just came to me and I realized it suited Fred so well) Fred calls himself Daddy and the reader is way into it; praise kink - Fred calls the reader 'good girl' specifically because he knows she likes it; lots of dirty talk (Fred has a filthy mouth); oral sex - Fred receiving (she blows him as a thank you for saving her life) (also slight ball worship); mentions of the reader 'choking' on his cock (but there is no major breathplay or breath restriction); slight spit kink (it's a messy blowjob and he loves it); teasing and brief orgasm denial (toward both parties); hair pulling (toward both parties) - not with the intention of causing pain, but to direction someone's attention and to show appreciation and affection to the person; thigh riding - she humps herself on Fred's thigh while she is still wearing clothes; penis in vagina sex; creampie kink (I'm not gonna say breeding kink, because there's no mention of procreation or getting someone pregnant, even in theory, but they are both very turned on by the idea of him cumming inside of her); this could be protected sex OR unprotected sex - he cums inside of her raw but we can all pretend that they used a magical pregnancy prevention method if you want even though it's not mentioned in the fic; cockwarming (reader doesn't let Fred pull out for a while after he cums); I think that is finally it for this fic.

A/N: This fic is titled after a song by All Time Low, which I highly recommend listening to paired with this fic. This is actually part of an idea I had for a much longer multi-chaptered Fred x Reader fic, but I kept thinking about this one moment in the fic and how much I wanted to write it - so I did. And I decided that it would make a good oneshot. And I am actually insanely proud of myself for managing to capture the same emotions in under 20k that I originally thought would take me like 50k or 100k to properly communicate. I think this is fantastic, and it's one of the best things I have written in a while - and I really hope you guys enjoy it! Especially if you like angsty, emotional, exes to lovers fics.

...

Very often, you wondered when life had become so complicated.

It seemed that just yesterday, you were a bright-eyed young girl, dancing around a beautifully magical winter ball with the love of your life on your arm - and now, you were a confused woman who was terrified of how your life would end up because of a dark wizard and his cultist followers trying to overtake your world.

These days you didn’t even have that lover to comfort you through all of the confusion and dread that clouded the world around you.

You and Fred used to be perfect. That’s what a lot of people would have called the two of you - the ‘perfect’ couple.

Your story was something straight from a romance novel - the two of you were best friends when you were young, and that friendship quickly blossomed into affection. That affection naturally led into a sweet romance. When you were with him, your life was full of moments where you felt like a beautiful, flowery, desirable protagonist because of how he treated you. Your life used to be full of laughter, full of smiles, full of romantic gestures.

You and Fred were in the same year at Hogwarts, so naturally you knew each other. You weren’t really friends - at least not at first. You knew of each other, especially because you had some classes together.

But you didn’t truly meet Fred Weasley until more than halfway into your first year of classes together. You had the misfortune of accidentally running into a prank that was meant for a Slytherin Prefect - someone who had taken one too many house points off Gryffindor for the twins’ liking. And after being doused with red and gold paint and tripping over a toy rubber snake that had been charmed to hiss realistically when you got near it - you were reasonably frightened and crying, and it left you the laughing stalk of the courtyard - someone to be pointed at and mocked by everyone.

Fred hadn’t meant for it to be you. With the way he looked at you after the incident - full of guilt while everyone else pointed at you and laughed, imitating your frightening screams and attempts to jump away from the fake snake - it didn’t take you long to figure out the culprits behind it. And it didn’t take you much longer after that to plan your revenge. (Especially because, as much as Fred looked guilty, he didn’t simply come forward and apologise. Too afraid to look like a weak moron in the eyes of his brother and his other Gryffindor friends. So - on with your revenge, it was.)

You figured that all good pranksters should be due to be a victim sometimes, too. If the twins couldn’t laugh when they were on the receiving end, then they should stop playing pranks.

So you came up with something that you considered masterful. During your trip home for Christmas, back to Muggle London where your mother lived, you asked her to take you to a shop to buy a couple of greeting cards for your classmates. The ones that sing Christmas carols loudly when the hinge of the card is opened. Something clever, and not needing any magic at all.

And when you returned to Hogwarts after the break, you found a moment where the twins were distracted, and you stole their book bags in order to pull off your epic, amazing prank. You taped those singing greeters into the back of their Potions textbooks - a class that you shared with them, of course, so that you could enjoy the show. And then you waited.

You had trouble containing your laughter when Professor Snape escalated from annoyed to downright scalding angry as his class was filled with the quiet robotic hum of ‘Jingle Bells’, occasionally overlapped by ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. It was made even better by the fact that both of the twins clearly knew that the music was coming from somewhere in their surrounding area, but they had no clue what the exact source was or how to stop it. And with every snivelled demand of ‘just open your books and get to work’ - the music only started up again.

By the time they had been sentenced to detention for disturbing the class, you were nearly breathless and your ribs were aching from trying to hold back your laughter. Which, of course, meant that Fred easily spotted you out of everyone else - who looked equally confused or annoyed with the low hum of the music. And as soon as the class ended, he brought his textbook to you, thanked you for the worthy prank, and asked you how to stop it. He looked entirely amused and impressed when you pulled the tiny device out of the back, and proceeded to ask you a million questions about it.

You weren’t surprised when the next week, the annoying singing greeter ended up inside the teacher’s copy of the textbook on McGonagall’s desk.

From that moment on, his crush on you steeped inside of him like a fine tea, developing from an innocent adolescent attraction to full-blown, ‘drive you crazy’, ‘I would do anything for you’, love. It was lucky for him that you easily felt the same way.

Through the years of being by his side, becoming his best friend, pulling pranks together and trying desperately to get him to study - it was difficult not to fall for Fred Weasley.

You had been overjoyed when Fred invited you to the Quidditch World Cup. Even though you weren’t the biggest fan of Quidditch (and Fred knew that). The only reason you had started attending the games at Hogwarts was because he joined the team. And you only bothered to attend the games he played in, so your bias could be spotted from a mile away. But in his letter, with the ticket to the World Cup slotted into the envelope, he told you that it was ‘the game of the century’ and you ‘simply couldn’t miss it’.

You wouldn’t miss out on spending time with him, so you eagerly agreed to go.

This left you with only one glaring problem.

You had a crippling fear of heights.

It was one of the reasons that you never really gotten into Quidditch in the first place. You had absolutely no interest in playing, and even less interest in watching if Fred wasn’t involved. The idea of even flying on a broom being something that made you nauseated and shaky just from thinking about it.

The mandatory first year flying lesson was the only class at Hogwarts that you ever failed, but Madame Hooch took pity on you when she saw you crying and fisting the grass after only getting your broom about five inches off the ground. So she passed you anyway - just barely.

When you set out to watch Fred’s games at Hogwarts, you usually had to take some kind of anti-nausea tonic beforehand to make sure that you didn’t puke all over everyone else in the stands. And you usually couldn’t even make it up to your seat to watch unless one of your good friends held your hand. But you were alright once the actual game started, because watching Fred doing something he loved was a good distraction from just how high up you were.

Telling Fred about your intense fear had been one of the most honest, vulnerable moments that you ever had with him. Your friendship was usually all pranks and laughter, which you loved.

But one summer day, when you were hanging out with the Weasleys, they wouldn’t stop nagging you to join one of their family Quidditch matches because they needed an extra player to make the teams even. And after the twins’ endless teasing, saying that you were ‘afraid to lose’ or that you would be ‘too distracted by their daring good looks’ in order to play properly, you broke down crying and stormed off into the woods, because you were too anxious to admit the real reason that you couldn’t play.

Fred was the one who found you off in the trees behind the Burrow, tears still streaming down your face, and asked you what he had done to so greatly upset you. He had been terrified at the idea of making you upset, so hurt that he had been the one to make you cry. And after he found out about your fear, he didn’t laugh or mock you for it or play it off as something stupid like you thought would be so typical of him. No - instead, he wrapped a comforting arm around your shoulders and he told you that he was genuinely sorry. And he promised that he would never invite you to play Quidditch again.

When you had accepted the invitation to The World Cup, you had forgotten how much your fear of heights played into watching Quidditch as well. The giant, impossibly tall temporary Quidditch stadium that had been set up for the event had been looming over you all day, but you didn’t want to quit and go home because of some silly little fear.

You wanted to spend the time with your friends. You wanted to enjoy the event because the people you loved most were having fun there. So you pressed on, ignoring the inevitable, letting yourself get caught up in the pregame revelry. You walked around the seemingly endless campgrounds with Fred and George, in awe of all the decorations and the different wizards from all over the world, showing off things from their homes. You chatted and charmed along with them as they collected bets before the game. You let Fred paint your face with large, ugly shamrocks because even though you didn’t entirely care about the teams or fully know them, you were rooting for Ireland to win simply because he was.

But the unavoidable nature of your problem became very apparent as Arthur guided everyone to your seats, and you climbed up more stairs, and more stairs, and more stairs - and the higher up you got, the more you found yourself shaking, especially when you looked down to the ground and saw that the people down there looked like little more than bugs. You hated it when your mind, naturally, went to what would happen to you if you stumbled over the railing and fell down all that way. You would splat on the ground, squashed like a bug. You would die within seconds.

You held on tighter to Fred’s hand - he would have said that he had grabbed your hand in the first place so that he wouldn’t lose you among the bustling crowd, and not simply as an excuse to be closer to you. You didn’t even realise how badly you were trembling in his touch as you looked over the railing (still a few flights down from your final seats) with intense apprehension.

“You alright?” Fred asked you simply.

“‘m fine.” You mumbled out the lie, giving him a large, forced smile - hoping that he would believe it.

You knew that if you told him how you were feeling, he would insist on escorting you back to the tent. Perhaps he would even insist on staying with you so that you wouldn’t have to be alone. So he might miss out on a once in a lifetime Quidditch game all because you had a bit of petty anxiety from being so high up.

So you tried your best to push down all your feelings and ignore them, even if it was making you shake and making your stomach churn. When you got to the top, peering over the edge of the railing of the very, very high up seats that Arthur had gotten as a thanks for his work on helping to organise the whole thing (apparently, the higher up the better to actually see the game), you felt an incredible sense of dizziness, and began swaying on your feet.

This was so much higher up than the Quidditch stands at Hogwarts.

Naturally, Fred noticed. It wasn’t something he would easily admit, or even something he did consciously, but he always kept an eye on you. Partially due to a knack for admiring your beauty, that adolescent love-struck feeling always making him more prone to staring at you. But it was also partially due to the fact that he felt a need to watch over you. Whether it be as a friend or as something else, he always wanted you to be safe, and happy.

And right now, your sickly, terrified face stood out like a sore thumb among the crowd of excited, cheering fans.

“Y/N,”

He called out your name in a serious tone that was so uncharacteristic of Fred, something that snapped your attention from staring anxiously at the ground toward him immediately. He cemented your attention on him when he put a hand on top of your tight, tense knuckles on the railing. His touch was warm, as always, and oddly grounding, removing even just a slight bit of that dizzying anxiety that you were feeling.

“Do you wanna go back down? I can bring you back to the tent,”

Of course. Just as you had predicted.

“No.” You easily answered, shaking your head furiously, biting your lip. “I-”

You didn’t want him missing out on such an important event because of you, but more importantly:

“I - I don’t want to be afraid.” You heaved out, your chest tight with anxiety. “It’s stupid - people do stuff like this all the time, right? I shouldn’t be afraid-”

“It’s not stupid.” He said firmly, quickly squashing down any self-belittling that you might be tempted to do. “You can’t control how you feel.”

Coming from him, it sounded like the most firm truth ever.

“If you want to stay, I’ll be right here with you.” Fred added on, giving you a warm, reassuring grin. “But just let me know if you want to go back down, and I’ll walk with you, alright?”

You nodded, hating that even though his words gave you that nip of courage you needed, you were still pulsing with a dull panic. The undeniable reaction that fear caused in your body.

Fred hated seeing you shaking, hated the deep frown that cut through your beautiful features - so what he did next was instinctive. He took his hand off yours and reached that arm, the one closest to you, around your back, planting his hand firmly on the railing at the other side of your waist. This trapped you in a close-knit hold beside him, something that made you feel instantly more secure - even if it was just from the warmth of him at your side.

“I’m not gonna let you fall, yeah?” He said quietly, leaning closer into your ear to be heard - the warmth of the reassurance causing gentle tingles down your spine. “I would never let anything happen to you, darling.”

Between the intense loving safety that he words wrapped you in with the sweet nickname he added on, and the firm cradle of his arm around your back, you knew that you would have no problem sticking it out for the game. But your brain was still trying to cope, your anxiety so incredibly nagging, and you couldn’t help it when your eyes drifted back to focus on the ant-like people on the ground, becoming shaking and nauseous all too soon from staring downward.

“Down look down.” Fred scolded you gently, using his other hand to grab your chin, forcing your gaze back up - it ended with your eyes locked with his, admiring the way the breeze blew his too-long ginger hair into his eyes. “Just look at me, alright? It’s gonna be far worse if you keep starin’ down there. Just look at me, love.”

“Just look at you.” You repeated in a quiet mumble, already so utterly locked in the powerful orbit of his gaze, feeling like it was near impossible to look away from him.

You felt his forehead brush against yours before you realised just how close he had gotten. But you couldn’t bring yourself to mind.

And ultimately, feeling the stands shaking beneath your feet as a particularly hard gust of wind came through and having another swell of anxiety rush through you was what drove you to closing the gap, sealing your lips on his in your first kiss. Fred made you brave, almost stupidly so, and you hoped that you had finally used that bravery for something good in capturing his lips. (Rather than the stupid mischief that the two of you usually got up to.)

Fred smiled into the kiss and George cheered loudly behind him - you thought it was due to the game starting, and when you pulled back sharply to look around for the players, you were met with nearly all eyes in the group on you, clearly gawking at the fact that you and Fred had kissed.

This included Ginny smirking almost evilly before she said:

“Finally. I thought the two of you were never gonna get on with it.”

This left you squirming with a mild embarrassment, and definitely not thinking about how high up you were anymore.

Looking back, the memory was painful - not sweet or fond as it had once been to you.

But it wasn’t nearly as painful as the memory of the day you and Fred had broken up.

He had asked you to be his girlfriend officially only a few days after the World Cup. He wanted you to know what that kiss meant to him, and he wanted the privilege of more kisses from you, on top of the ‘honour’ (his exact wording) of going back to Hogwarts with you on his arm as his girlfriend, making all the other boys in your year ‘pathetically jealous’. Of course, it was everything you wanted, he was everything you wanted, so you said yes.

The two of you dated for nearly two full happy years - right through your sixth year and into your seventh, until in April of your seventh year, shortly after Fred’s birthday, when everything came crashing down around you.

It wasn’t unusual of Fred to pull you away after a class - his hand in yours, igniting fluttery giggles from your lungs as he pulled you down the corridors to whatever secret little spot he had picked out. Even with Umbridge at Hogwarts, implementing more rules and cracking down on ‘fraternisation’ between students, you and Fred still found ways to sneak off to have your private little moments together.

So when Fred took you off to one of those private corners on chilly spring afternoon, you assumed that this was no different. You fell into the natural rhythm of pinning him against a wall, sealing your lips firmly to his in a kiss and waiting for his hand to sneak up your skirt while his tongue ventured into your mouth. You were shocked when this time, he didn’t kiss you back. He was limp and unreceptive against you, and that was when you realised that you had read the tone of the interaction very wrong - even if him dragging you away by the hand always led to making out in a quiet corner, and more than a bit of groping.

You pulled back, looking at him with confusion and disappointment plainly across your face.

“What’s wrong, Freddie?” You asked, well in the habit of using the nickname for him.

Fred’s expression was filled with sullen dread, and it made your stomach twist. It truly made you fearful of whatever he was going to say next, and you took a step back from him, widening the gap between the two of you in the dusty, draughty old stairwell. You suddenly felt too cold, even with your uniform sweater and thick robes on, and wrapped your arms around yourself to compensate.

“There’s something I have to tell you.” He announced quietly, continuing to lean on the wall that you had pressed him up against, staring at the floor, his eyes unwilling to meet you.

What? Had he cheated on you? Did he want to break up?

What terrible thing could possibly make this bright, funny joker so damn sad and serious?

“What is it?” You asked, filling with dread, your throat tightening up more by the second.

“George and I have decided that it’s about time we take our leave.” Fred announced, his eyes only flickering to you for a moment, looking for some kind of reaction. You were only further confused, and waited for him to explain. “The lease for the shop in Diagon Alley finally came through, and-”

“Well that’s great news, Fred.” You said, trying to sound happy and upbeat beyond the tension that was still tight in your chest. You had no clue why he was so downtrodden - the joke shop was his dream, and now that they had secured a location for it, that dream was coming true.

He heaved a sigh, his eyes turning to gaze out a nearby window for a moment before he turned back to you.

“It means we have to leave, darling.” He said sharply.

Your insides became heavy.

You knew it was a very Fred and George thing - so intent on not doing their exams, desperate to escape any further academics. You wanted to ask why they wouldn’t stay until the end of the school year, but you knew that you would get answers about how they didn’t need marks from exams that they were likely going to fail anyway to run a shop that they now owned.

It was something founded on their own talents and ideas, and they didn’t need the approval of professors marking them wrong or right in order to do it.

It was the life they had always dreamed of. And you were intensely proud of them for it.

So why did you still have that overwhelming feeling of dread?

“So - when are we leaving?” You asked, trying to sound confident and firm in your words even though you knew what was likely coming next.

You felt intensely disappointed when the all too predictable outcome smashed you in the face.

“You’re not coming with us.” Fred said quietly.

“Why not?” You argued gently.

You would drop everything and go with them - you felt far more emotional attachment to being with Fred than you did to finishing your year at Hogwarts. You knew that you could be a useful hand around the shop. Any venture helping Fred would be a worthy one to you. But staring you down were the calculating eyes of someone who had been telling you over the past years how much he didn’t want to disrupt your studies with his antics, because he thought you had a ‘brilliant mind’, and you were ‘so much smarter’ than him and George.

He thought that you could actually pull some decent - no, brilliant grades on your NEWTs and truly make something of yourself. The shop was a big dream of his and George’s, but Fred knew that you were destined for something so much greater that truly challenged and fully utilised your brilliance. So he wasn’t going to let you be dragged down to mediocrity by him.

Realising this, part of you still ached. Why was he so intent on leaving if it meant leaving you behind?

“Please don’t be stupid-” Fred sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, so I’m stupid now?” You scoffed.

He hadn’t meant to let the harsh word leave his lips - at least, he hadn’t meant it in such a harsh way.

“Y/N-” Fred used your actual name, something he rarely did, but you barreled right over whatever he was going to say with your next words.

You were hurting now, and you didn’t entirely care what he had to say.

“If I’m so stupid, then why should I even bother to stay here and take my NEWTs?” You hissed, twisting around his accidental slip into something he had never meant. “Or am I too stupid to even work at a silly little joke shop with you?”

Fred scowled deeply. It didn’t suit him.

“Y/N, this ‘silly little joke shop’ has been my dream since I was five years old!” He barked, now taking your heat of the moment words and running away with them. “You don’t-”

“I guess I was stupid enough to believe that I was part of that dream!” You cried out in return, cutting off his words once again.

‘You are.’ He choked down the words. ‘But I can’t bear to bring you down just because I want to be with you. I could never be so selfish.’

“I-” He choked on whatever he was going to say, swallowing it down. “I can’t do this right now.”

He moved to storm off completely, hoping to speak with you later when you both had calmed down, hoping to have a proper, happy goodbye with you before he and George actually left.

But your next words made him freeze on the spot, and wiped away all of those hopes within him.

“Fred Weasley, if you walk away, we’re done.” You said, now choking on tears.

You were utterly insulted that he wouldn’t even fight for you - that he wouldn’t even promise that his heart would be waiting for you after you graduated. To you, it was a sure sign that he was saying that his shop was more important to him than you were. That you were just some stupid schoolgirl fling to him; that along with the shop, he wanted to move on to other women, to find someone that he actually wanted to marry.

You had never been a part of the dream he had for his life - you had just been a passing fancy in his eye.

For Fred, it was all too painful. This was the conversation he had been utterly dreading since he and George had decided to take their leave, and it was going far worse than he had planned in his head. He couldn’t face the pain - he couldn’t face hurting you. He couldn’t face missing you, even during a few short months apart before you did graduate.

So he then did something so terribly stupid, looking to bomb the relationship wide open - hoping to end all of the pain before it even started.

“Good.” He said, barely turning his head to even look over his shoulder at you. “Would’ve been a waste of parchment writing to you, anyway.”

With those final, painful words, he stomped off down the stairs, leaving you to collapse against one of the nearby walls in a puddle of tears - for the first time in a long time, without Fred to muffle your sobs in a comforting hug.

You hadn’t been there to watch him and George ride off on their brooms when they finally gave Umbridge everything she deserved - you had been locked in your dorm, sobbing into your pillow because of that horrible, relationship ending fight. You had only heard from other people later that they had left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory, and you were the only person who knew for certain where they had gone and what their plans were now.

You hated to admit it - but you missed Fred Weasley.

You tried your hardest to get over him. You threw yourself into your studies, and you did pass your NEWTs with some of the highest marks in your class. But then, any thought of what potential career you might take on was tossed aside when the world went into upheaval at the hands of Death Eaters. And unintentionally, you were right back at Fred’s side again.

It was a dreadful thing - being forced to see your ex on such a frequent basis.

The last time being just a few short days ago when he had come into the Apothecary that you worked at in Diagon Alley, looking for some ingredients for a new WWW product that he wanted to make a test batch of. You had still spent last Christmas with his family, at the nagging insistence of Molly. After your mother had turned up dead and your father was missing, and you had to face the fact that he had likely defected to the Death Eaters out of fear (and the stupidity of his ingrained ‘old ways’), you didn’t really have any other family to turn to, aside from the Weasleys.

You saw Fred a lot more often than you should - more often than you wanted to, in fact. Because the more often you had to see him walk into your shop with a grin on his face and bear the small talk he would force you into before he finally put in his order, the more you ached. You wanted nothing more than to be able to get away - to go someplace far away that Fred would never find you, so that you could finally heal, could finally get over the way he had broken your heart.

But the country, and likely the state of all Wizardkind, was in upheaval. So many lives were at risk, and you had your part to play. You had signed on to become a member of the Order the minute you turned seventeen, and you weren’t prepared to shirk that commitment now, just because of a bit of girlish heartbreak.

It was the reason that you were standing in the now empty residence of Number Four, Privet Drive. You had been called upon last minute to replace Tonks on this particular mission, for reasons that everyone seemed tight lipped about. But you weren’t going to question it - you were just going to step up and do your duty so that Harry could be transported safely, and hopefully go on to defeat the Dark Lord once and for all.

According to Mad-Eye Moody, it was all very straight forward. Six of the fourteen members of the group would take Polyjuice Potion to turn themselves into decoy versions of Harry, making for seven Harrys in total, and the other half of the group would pair off with a Harry each to be their escort.

You weren’t a huge fan of the idea of Fred disguising himself as Harry, essentially putting a huge target on his back - but the plan had already been set in place. He had already agreed to it. There was no room for you to protest now.

“We’re not a big fan of the idea either, mate.” George spoke up when Harry protested against the idea of people risking their lives by being disguised as him.

“Yeah, imagine something went wrong, then we’d be stuck as a scrawny, specky git forever.” Fred added on with his usual humorous tone.

You held back a laugh at this comment, and everyone in the room eyed you harshly as you choked on your own breath. Fred smirked, proud that after all this time, he could still draw a laugh out of you.

Your sense of humour about the whole situation was soon stamped out when Mad-Eye mentioned brooms. The group would have to be flying because Harry couldn’t apparate or use any other common form of transport without the Ministry knowing.

“Brooms?” You questioned, knowing that your tone sounded far too panicked. “We - we’re flying?”

“Yes.” Mad-Eye snipped curtly in return. “What exactly about my explanation was unclear, Ms. L/N?”

His sharp tone and his glare in your direction, along with his use of your surname, instantly transported you back you Defense Against the Darks Arts classes in your sixth year, when you had been intimidated by the man - even if, strangely enough, you hadn’t been taught by the same man who now stood before you.

You swallowed tightly, a large lump forming in your throat already - an involuntary, wicked reaction overtaking your body because of your fear of heights. Fred looked at you with sad knowing in his eyes, and you didn’t notice when he clenched his fists tightly at his sides, resisting the urge to swaddle you in a comforting hold.

“Nothing was unclear, just-” You stuttered, breathing in deeply, trying to calm yourself. “I don’t have much experience with flying, and-”

“Weasley - er - Fred, has already informed me of that.” Mad-Eye said, correcting himself when he realised just how many ‘Weasleys’ were on this mission and how utterly confusing that would get. “He’s insisted on taking you due to your lack of experience. Is that all?”

Obviously, you didn’t want to publicly admit to your fear. You couldn’t reveal it as the terrible weakness that it was, especially not when there were so many other worries at play.

“Yes, it’s fine.” You said, nodding, trying to keep the conversation short and keep the attention off you.

“Good. Now if we’re all done dawdling, we need to get to work.”

It was downright strange seeing Fred transformed into Harry.

Even complete with the dorky clothes and the glasses, you still easily spotted him out of the crowd of ‘specky gits’. Maybe it was the years of practice that you had telling him apart from George that made it so easy for you, but he was still so irritably Fred. The fact that he slid his wand into his back pocket - something you had warned him dozens of times would likely result in the wand crunching in half and breaking when he sat down (and annoyed you to the point of you snatching it out of his back pocket to save it, especially before he sat down). The way he reached up to scratch his nose, the smirk on his face when he kept glancing over at the other Harry you were sure had to be George. Especially with the way they were steadily side-eyeing each other, speaking volumes with their looks and having a silent conversation that nobody else knew of.

The fact that his eyes kept flickering to you every few moments definitely helped you to pick him out of the crowd. Even though you were used to a gentle hazel gazing at you rather than that piercing blue, there was still a unique concern behind his eyes when he looked at you from beyond those spectacles - the same kind of gentle seriousness that you hadn’t really seen from him since he had held your shaking hand on the stairs of the stands on the day of The World Cup.

Stupidly, it only really occurred to you how close you would have to be with Fred, tightly riding behind him on the back of his broom, when you went outside and he ushered you to climb onto the back of his broom behind him. It had been a little over a year since you had broken up with Fred, and since then, you had not touched him.

Every greeting had been friendly, but from a distance. Even when he came into the Apothecary and laid his hand on the counter, you snaked out of the way in time to avoid his fingers so much as brushing by yours. You always laid his order on the counter for him to pick it up himself, so that his fingers wouldn’t accidentally brush against yours. You made sure never to have contact with him. And now, you were being forced to climb onto the back of his broom, to hold him tight.

But you couldn’t protest. You couldn’t demand to switch partners now because of some petty angst you were harbouring about a break-up that had happened so long ago. (Would you call it angst, or stupid, longing, painful heartbreak?) You couldn’t complain - not when this was about transporting Harry safely. This was about something so much bigger.

Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly the same as holding onto your Fred (not that he was yours anymore - you had to remember that). He was Harry-Fred right now, so he was much shorter and thinner, and you could easily pretend that he wasn’t Fred at all. Which is what you forced yourself to think about as you swung a shaking leg over the broom and climbed on, wrapping your arms around his waist, preparing for take-off.

It was a bit harder to pretend that this wasn’t Fred when you caught the faintest whiff of his expensive cologne (something he had only started wearing once the shop took off, something you noticed on him for the first time when he came to visit you at the Apothecary). It was definitely still lingering on his skin, something that was so painfully Fred even while you stared at the back of Harry’s wild black hair.

It pierced your heart a little bit more when he peered over his shoulder at you, striking you as so Fred with those somehow warm, caring blue eyes and gently asking:

“Good?”

To which you replied:

“m fine.”

The most terrible lie you had ever conjured - something that was soon covered up by Mad-Eye shouting some last minute instructions and waving everyone off.

When Fred kicked off the ground, you were immediately met with the most sickening wave of nausea that you had ever experienced in your life. You got way too high up for your liking within seconds, the houses on the ground growing far too small in your view, and you couldn’t fight the urge to shut your eyes.

Unfortunately, it only made you dizzier, but it calmed your nerves a slight bit. You didn’t even realise how tightly you were clutching onto Fred, an utter death grip around his waist, until you heard him let out a grunt of pain from his stomach muscles being strangled by your arms with your fingers digging into him like claws, holding on for dear life.

“S-sorry.” You stuttered out, shivering from the pure fear of it all, rather than the cool breeze that was whipping at your face. “Sorry, sorry!”

“I’m sorry!” Fred replied - it was still strange hearing him speak in Harry’s voice, and you were glad that it was temporary. “I should have told them you weren’t up to this mission, I-”

“I’m fine!” You barked back, hating the idea that your fear would make you unfit for a mission. But in a sense, you knew it was true. You would have spit in the face of any Death Eater, but your fear of heights was so utterly crippling. “Fred, don’t you dare for a moment suggest-”

“We’ve been breached!” You heard someone - Arthur’s voice, shouting from up ahead.

Your eyes whipped open and suddenly, you were filled with an entirely different kind of fear. Smoky black clouds of Death Eaters whipped through the sky around you - somehow, they had discovered the plan. And now, they were targeting all of the fake Harrys, firing off curses in every direction, looking for the real one.

They were targeting Fred.

That was the only thing at the forefront of your mind - they were going to hurt Fred.

“Y/N-?”

“Just get us out of here!” You told him. “I’ll cover you!”

You knew that you couldn’t close your eyes now. Of course you would step up to protect him. No matter if the two of you were lovers, friends, or something estranged - you still loved him in your heart, and you would protect him no matter what.

You grabbed your wand out of your jacket and gripped it stiffly, firing a stunning curse at the first silver mask you saw, still tightly gripping onto Fred’s jacket with your other hand. He used both his hands on the broom, gripping tighter with his legs to steer better, years of Quidditch honed skill coming in handy. His ability to be calm and fly mindfully while Bludgers were flying at his head made him a lot calmer with multiple Death Eaters firing potentially deadly curses all around him. In the back of his mind, he thought that Wood would be proud.

You were still shaking horribly, and a few of your spells didn’t land on the first try, but you kept trying. You centred yourself, remembering what you were doing, who you were here for. In your mind, it wasn’t about Harry, it was never about Harry - it was about Fred. It was because Fred had approached you about the last minute replacement, it was because Fred was the one on the broom in front of you, the one you would have died to protect.

You didn’t see when someone Apparated in a thick cloud of black smoke behind you, and raised their wand in your direction, hitting you squarely in the back with a heavy jinx. It was the force of a brick wall smacking you, something that sent you and Fred tumbling end over end through the sky and sent you flying cleanly off the broom because you didn’t have the instinct to grip the wood with your thighs like he did.

You let out a shrill scream as you felt yourself falling, your worst fear coming to life.

Thankfully, Fred was quicker than gravity - quicker than death.

He laser focused on you, and suddenly, everyone else was gone. All the supposed danger, all the Death Eaters - even other members of the Order who might have needed his help - they all vanished in his eyes.

It was only you.

He turned the broom into a deadly nose dive, racing down toward you, reaching with his hand out, and in seconds, while you were still hundreds of feet off the ground - he snatched you. He had your wrist gripped so tightly in his hand - slightly sweaty, already slipping. But he wouldn’t have let go of you if Lord Voldemort himself commanded it.

He likely would have died with that tight grip still around your wrist in those moments if someone had hit him with the killing curse.

He slowed the broom down, turning up out of the dive, intent to get you away from the fight, driving forward. Scarily, his arm muscles were already shaking from holding up all of your body weight.

You stared up at him with tears of pure terror dancing in your eyes, and though he was wearing the mask of The Chosen One - in those moments, the terrified, caring, loving eyes of your Fred were staring right back at you.

As much as you trusted him, you felt yourself slipping out of his grip, and more fear swelled inside of you.

“Freddie, help me!” You screamed, shaking, flailing under his grip, trying to reach your other arm up to help as he struggled to hold onto you. “Freddie, please, I don’t wanna die!”

“I’m not gonna let you die!” He replied, desperation gripping his throat. “Just - look at me. Don’t look down.”

Of course, you were distinctly reminded of that day at The World Cup. And somehow, you felt the same sense of safety with him now that you did then - even if you didn’t have the railing or even the gravity of something under your feet.

His muscles shook harder, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto you for much longer.

He had to pull you up.

“I’ve got you.” Fred huffed, straining with the effort. “I’ve got you-”

He tried pulling you up, but his muscles shook harder in protest, and he let out a harsh, murderous scream of frustration. And then he did the only thing that he could think to do. He gripped onto you tighter, and he used his legs and his other hand to do a sickeningly sharp barrel roll, twisting the broom completely around by leaning with his right shoulder. He flipped the entire broom with the hopes that you would get the chance to be flipped back onto it safely.

Luckily, even though you let out another terrified scream, you got the hint and hooked your leg around the wood mid-air, holstering your shaking body back behind him. You gripped onto Fred even tighter then, and one glance around told you that luckily, or unluckily, the fight had cleared off from around the two of you.

Perhaps they had heard you call this imposter Harry by the name ‘Fred’, perhaps you had given the real Harry away and ruined the whole plan. As you squeezed your eyes shut again and shoved your now tearful face into Fred’s back, selfishly, you couldn’t bring yourself to truly care.

The rest of the trip went on too long for your liking - you were still crawling with anxiety and eager to have your feet back on the ground.

Toward the end of it, you felt Harry-Fred’s body shift back into the tall, more muscular form that you were familiar with (somehow a bit more muscular than you remembered, but you tried not to get caught up on that detail). You were more than relieved when you felt your feet brushing against the ground with the landing. Distantly, you heard the familiar, comfortingly worried baulking of Molly’s voice, and you opened your eyes to see that Fred’s head was much higher up than it had been before, and his hair was thankfully returned back to its bright red state.

Molly rushed over to Fred, and there was some conversation, but you couldn’t make it out - blood was thumping in your ears, your body still overtaken by all the horrible symptoms of your fear. The moment that Fred dropped the broom in order to step away from it, you stumbled off into the grass on weak legs.

You hardly realised that you were hyperventilating - you simply felt dizzy, felt your chest aching from the lack of breath; you noticed that your vision was blurred with tears, and you knew that you weren’t getting enough oxygen. You pressed now muddy hands to your face in desperation, trying to usher more air past your lips, and it was then that a streak of orange fell into your view as Fred dropped to his knees in front of you. He had heard you gasping, and of course, rushed to you with nothing more than concern flooding his system once again.

“Hey, hey, look at me.” He murmured, trying his best not to panic himself at seeing you like this - he gently took a hold of your face, guiding your vision toward him. “Look at me. You’re alright now. You’re safe.”

Of course you knew that. You knew that you would always be safe with Fred.

But your body hadn’t even registered the fact that you had landed yet - the panic only now fully setting in, bringing with it the most cruel, shocking symptoms you had ever experienced. You did the only thing you could think of - the only thing that would truly make you feel safe. Something you knew would truly ground you after experiencing such chaos so high up in the air.

You launched yourself toward Fred, pressing your face into his chest, wrapping your arms tightly around his waist in a firm hug as you tried to stifle down sobs. He easily accepted this, his thick arms coming to cradle your back, selfishly thankful to have you back in his arms. He gently rocked you back and forth as he peppered more soothing words beside your ear.

“You’re alright now, darling.” He said, letting the pet name slip so easily that it frightened him. He rubbed a hand up and down your back, feeling your gasping panic all too quickly soothe away under the firm warmth of his touch. “You’re alright.”

Almost instinctively, he laid a kiss on your temple, not entirely realising that this wasn’t necessarily something an ex-boyfriend would do - he was so ripe with the urge to comfort you, the need to make your pain go away. He couldn’t help but take a little something selfish as the empathetic waves of your panic echoed over to him.

“I was never gonna let you fall.” He whispered, almost speaking these words to himself - a sacred promise.

He had regretted every day since the break-up, and even if he couldn’t be your lover, he was never going to let you get hurt.

You gripped him tighter, your breathing almost back to normal now, and you pushed your face tighter into his chest, relishing in the firm warmth of his body against you. This was something you hadn’t felt in far too long. Fred placed another kiss on the top of your head. He was about to say something entirely dangerous when another bit of chaos came tumbling through the garden, distracting him away from you and causing the words to die off in his throat.

Remus, hauling George across the grass - and George, slumped over, a massive amount of blood dripping down the side of his head.

“Georgie.” Fred gasped quietly.

Your head whipped around at this, and in sync, you and Fred scrambled to your feet, rushing to see what had happened to him. Fred lifted George’s other arm to help get him inside and safely rested him on the couch.

It was a horror show.

The flesh of George’s ear had been blown to bits, blood smearing down across his face and spilling down the side of his neck; he was sickly pale and barely conscious. His eyes only flickered, giving you some sense of life in him when Fred called out his name after making sure he was resting comfortably on the couch.

“Georgie?”

There was a rare quiver in Fred’s voice that made your stomach quake. Fear. You were not accustomed to hearing Fred fearful, not of anything. Even when he had abandoned Hogwarts and dove into a career as a shop owner without a single clue if he would find success, he did so without a single bit of fear in his heart.

But of course - seeing his dear brother like this, knowing that someone he loved had been so close to danger - it made him terrified.

“Hey, Fred.” George croaked back weakly.

At least he was conscious enough to speak. That gave you quite a bit of relief.

“How’re ya feeling?” Fred asked.

“Saint-like.” George replied, a tired smirk gracing his lips that told you he was forming a joke - something that was utterly hilarious in his mind that would only make sense to others when he delivered the punch line.

You wanted to sob, you wanted to laugh, you wanted to scream. Of course he would be making jokes only moments after nearly being killed.

“Come again?” Fred said quietly, tentatively.

Perhaps it sounded partially dangerous to him like it did to you. Perhaps George felt Saint-like because he was too close to death.

Both of you and Fred held your breath as you waited for the reply.

“Saint-like.” George grinned. And then he lifted a tired hand and gestured toward the bloody hole on the side of his head before he delivered his glowing punchline. “I’m holy. I’m holy, Fred. Get it?”

Fred grinned, and you let out a gasping chuckle that you knew was mostly tears. Behind you, Molly inhaled sharply through her teeth, running a hand over her forehead with the stress, and Ginny shook her head as she exhaled an exhausted sigh.

“The whole wide world of ear related humour, and you go for ‘I’m holy’?” Fred replied, unable to resist humouring George. “That’s pathetic.”

You knew that if either of them knew anything about the story of the Muggle painter Van Gogh, then they would have been making jokes in that lane.

“Reckon I’m still better looking than you.” George added on tiredly.

“You were always better looking than him.” You said, your voice throttled by tears, unable to resist.

When you turned around to retreat, you saw Ginny clutching onto Molly, clearly hiding tears in her mother’s shoulder, Molly’s face dancing with a kind of sadness you had never seen before. You knew you couldn’t run from your pain. You had known the Weasleys for so long, loved them too much. You had a distinct kind of duty here.

“Molly, do you have a cauldron around?” You asked, hating how choked with tears your voice was. “I can whip-up something for his pain. I do it at the shop all the time. And a Sleeping Draught, so he can get some rest.”

It was true - one of your many duties working at the Apothecary was making and bottling simple, common potions to sell (pregnancy test potions, simple multi-use pain potions, Dreamless Sleep Draughts, cures for warts and other common rashes) - many people liked the convenience of coming in and buying a potion for everyday uses rather than having to make it themselves.

“There’s no need-” George began to protest, but Fred easily cut him off.

“Come off it.” Fred hissed toward his brother, not taking kindly to ‘selfless’ idea of George not accepting something for the pain he was clearly in. Then, Fred rose up from his place beside George and turned to you with a look of intense concern on his features. “Whatever you need.”

…

You had barely begun to set up everything you needed for the brewing when the others finally came in, bringing more chaos with them. Remus accused Harry of being an imposter, which was quickly proven false. Apparently the Order had been betrayed, which explained the presence of Death Eaters on the mission so easily. They had used inside information to know when Harry was being transported - it was only luck that they had been thrown off by the Polyjuice Potion, having to chase down multiple Harrys and not knowing which one was real (even if George got gravely injured in the process).

Mad-Eye had been killed.

You weren’t sure if what you felt was mourning for the man. You hadn’t known him all that well. Not the true version of him, anyway. You continued to weep quietly as you worked on the potions, but you knew it wasn’t specifically for him. His death only served to remind you how truly dangerous the mission had been - how close you, Fred, and George, and the others had all come to death. How lucky it was that nobody else had been killed.

You tried not to let the suffocating gloom that had overtaken the Burrow due to the near failure of the entire mission disrupt the process of making the potions needed for George. When Molly didn’t have some of the ingredients that you needed, you gave Fred your spare key to the Apothecary and he popped over to get them for you. Mr. Michaelchuk, who ran the place, had always told you to ‘take what you needed’, and this was the one time you had actually taken him up on the offer.

When Fred returned, he fussed at George’s side, helping him change into pyjamas (when everyone else had cleared out) and tucking him in comfortably to a makeshift bed on the couch, with lots of pillows and extra cosy blankets, to the point where he got annoyed with Fred coddling him. You always knew that the two were good friends in addition to being brothers, as close as two people can be, but you had never seen so much abundant affection between them. It was sweet.

Molly came back downstairs wearing a plaid dressing gown, with a pair of tiny reading glasses balanced on her nose, her slippers scuffing along the floor. She mentioned that Arthur was already ‘snoring away’ - but of course, she had no intentions of going to bed herself. Because of course, if George was down here on the couch, it was so that she could watch over him while she busied herself with knitting - much like she had when Arthur had been on the ward at St. Mungo’s after he had been attacked by the snake. You had gotten a particularly nice jumper for Christmas that year, one that you still wore often when it got particularly cold outside.

Fred had settled to sit on the couch by George’s feet, and the two had fallen into a hushed conversation, though you didn’t hear most of it. And of course, it wasn’t long before Molly rushed Fred off to bed, just like she had done with everyone else, wanting to give George the space to rest without distractions from visitors.

“-just get her back, you idiot.” You hear George hiss in a whisper before Molly pushed Fred toward the stairs.

He couldn’t possibly be talking about…?

No.

No, he wasn’t.

You didn’t think about it. Instead, you let yourself get lost in the meditative process of brewing, making sure that the potions were perfect. You made sure that George was pain-free and lost to a deep, restful, healing sleep (with a few pre-brewed bottles of the potions to spare that would keep his pain at bay for the next few days) before you finally went upstairs, ready to collapse with exhaustion.

You passed by Fred and George’s room on your way to your final destination, Ginny’s room, where you would be staying with her and Hermione, from now up until Bill and Fleur’s wedding. After which, you would return to your apartment above the Apothecary and try to resume your best sense of ‘normal’ life. All of your things were already unpacked in Ginny’s room, and you had a sleeping bag set up on the floor there.

But of course, you naturally came to a stop at the mouth of Fred’s open bedroom doorway, letting an instinctive caring overtake you and participating in the need to check on him.

The sight you saw made your heart ache.

Fred was sitting on the edge of his twin bed, his posture slumped with pure exhaustion. He hadn’t even changed out of the now ill-fitting Harry clothes that he had to wear for the mission: jeans, a tee shirt, and a grey sport jacket that were now coated in dirt and traces of George’s blood, all oddly short in the limbs and emphasising his tallness, his hands still stained bright red in a way that couldn’t be washed off.

His face was marked with tear tracks, and his tired, dead gaze was fixated on George’s still neatly made matching twin bed. A space that was hauntingly empty across from his - a sign that his brother was missing. A sign of just how easily someone precious could have been taken from him that night.

“Freddie?”

You croaked out, the nickname slipping out in a way you couldn’t control once again, causing him to snap out of whatever distant, depressing thoughts he was caught in. His head jolted toward you, only now realising that you had been standing in the doorway for so long.

“Y/N,” He responded, his voice choked by tiredness, sadness.

It was so alarmingly strange to see someone who was usually the pinnacle of laughter reduced down to this. You had never seen Fred Weasley so sad before.

You had seen him angry, on occasion - like when someone insulted you, or when he had been banned from Quidditch for getting into a fistfight with Malfoy. You had seen him annoyed - like when he found out that the age to enter the TriWizard Tournament was seventeen, and he was only a few months away from being eligible. (You were thankful for that one, and secretly thankful when his Ageing Potion had failed).

You had seen Fred go through a lot - but you genuinely believed that was the first time you had seen him so deflated in the face of the world.

He rose to his feet, turned his back to you, almost as if trying to hide. He raised a hand to his face, and your heart ached more when you realised that he was trying to wipe away tears.

“Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.” You said, moving forward, gently putting a hand on his shoulder, moving up to peel the sport jacket off him.

You knew that the sadness, something he so rarely felt, had paralyzed him. You knew that sleep was what all of you needed right now - some rest to get your heads on straight. And you wanted to help him in any way that you could.

“I can’t-” Fred huffed, stepping away from you, putting some distance between the two of you in the small room. “I can’t do this right now.”

Your stomach curled into a horrible knot as he echoed the words he had spoken to you on that horrible day, when he had broken up with you and relinquished himself from your presence without a second thought.

It truly hit you then - he didn’t want your help. He didn’t want to be near you now. He had only held you close a few hours ago because it had been a matter of life and death. He had helped to calm you down because it was the friendly thing to do. He didn’t want you here now.

“Okay.” You choked out, nodding, taking a step toward the door. “O-okay.”

A hot tear rolled down your face, and you moved to make your way toward Ginny’s room. You were harshly whipped across the emotional spectrum again when Fred stopped you.

“Y/N, no.” He said, reaching out and grabbing onto your elbow. “Wait.”

“What, Fred?” You wheezed, your body breathless and exhausted from the horrible roller coaster that you had been on that night. You knew that you glared at him horribly, but you couldn’t help it. “What is it that you want from me?”

Fred took a step back, as though you had burned him, running stiff hands through his hair. You could have easily run off, turned your back on him and never spoken to him again. Just like he had done to you on that day so long ago. But you waited with your chest tight, waiting for him to finally give you an answer. Did he want to be friends? Did he want you to disappear from his life completely? Did he want-?

“I can’t-” He choked out, clearly struggling for breath. “I can’t…”

He swallowed around a fat tongue, and after a heavy moment, he finally got the words out.

“I can’t lose you.”

The words spooked you more than the sight of George’s bloodied, blown-apart ear.

You stared Fred down with a ghost in your eyes, somehow more terrified than you had been when you had been dangling hundreds of feet above London. He was frantic, rapidly searching for more words to explain himself.

“I - I almost…” He gasped, his throat tightly constricting again. “You almost slipped out of my hands.”

He spoke the words as though they were a horrible curse, raising his hands in front of him as if to demonstrate the point, as if to demonise his own limbs for not having enough strength to hold you up. His hands shook with undistilled anxiety, with anger towards himself.

His declaration gave you that sickly sense of nausea, as though you were back up in the air again. You realised that maybe he hadn’t been sitting on the edge of the bed, mourning about potentially losing George - but instead, he had been thinking about you.

“I didn’t. I didn’t slip.” You replied, the words choked off in your throat, rushing to assure him of the good he had done.

You were unable to resist the urge to reach out and take his hands in yours, steadying his grip with a firm anger of your own. You were unsure how he could be so cruel toward himself when he had saved your life only hours before.

“You held me up, Fred. You didn’t let me fall.”

He let out a huff, shaking his head negatively.

You knew there was something more troubling him - something deeper that he had yet to speak of, or perhaps wouldn’t tell you at all. He grinded his jaw tightly and slipped his hands away from yours. You stood there, looking at him tensely, wondering if he was going to clue you in, or if he would simply say goodnight and let himself stew with whatever horrible emotions he was feeling.

“I can’t live like this.” He declared harshly, his throat raw. “I can’t live with you at arm’s length.”

So what? Was he saying that… he was upset about the break-up?

Was he saying that he hadn’t actually wanted to be apart from you?

A look of pure confusion knit across your features, and in the murky silence, Fred moved on to explaining.

“I let you go once before.”

He whispered, the words so quiet on his lips, a crazed type of regret dancing in his eyes - in an instant, you knew he wasn’t talking about the mission or flying. He was talking about how easily he let you go from his life - the break-up.

“I let you slip away from me far too easily. And it was the stupidest thing I have ever done.”

“Freddie-?” You choked out, more chaotic emotions rocketing through your body now. Anticipation, anxiety - that love for him that you had bottled away slowly creeping back in. But you couldn’t bear to let it flow through you, not yet, not until you knew.

“If one of us were to die tomorrow, I couldn’t live my last day knowing that I wasted it not being yours.” He declared, the pure passion in his words causing every small hair on your body to stand up on end, making you dizzy. “I know that I’m the biggest git on earth for what I did to you, and for not apologising sooner, but please, please, please, darling-”

You couldn’t take it anymore.

You grabbed both sides of the sport jacket and used it to haul him down toward you, planting your mouth firmly onto his, moaning into a kiss that you had longed for, having so sorely missed the touch of his lips on yours.

You had missed him so damn much.

Fred was quick to keep up, letting out a delighted sigh of his own, his stomach doing flips in delight, almost in disbelief of just how lucky he was that you hadn’t slapped him across the face and stormed out.

When your hands ventured down, smoothing across his body - he became even more delighted that you seemed to want more than a kiss out of him. And he was quick to prepare.

He reached to his back pocket for his wand and pointed it at the still open bedroom door, performing a quick spell that slammed it shut and locked it. In the back of his mind, he was thankful that his bedroom had some silencing wards around it from the days when Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes had been in its infancy, operating their prototype experiments out of this room in the darkest hours of the morning. (Percy got sick of being woken up by the twins’ excited voices and the sound of sputtering cauldrons, and put the silencing wards around their room for his own sake, not knowing how much more it let the twins get away with.)

Fred was surprised when you took another fitful grip on the front of his shirt, using it to direct him back toward his bed and shoving him down onto it with a strength that he barely knew you had. He fell sideways across the small twin bed, his knees crumbling along the side of the mattress, leaving him sitting with his feet on the floor and his body half collapsed against the tightly tucked-in covers that his mother had prepared before everyone’s arrival.

He was utterly weak to your whims, anyway, and would have gone wherever you put him.

He was expecting you to climb on top of him, something needy inside of him yearning for the feeling of your body on top of his after missing it for so long. And he found himself further surprised when you dropped to your knees in front of him, settling your shoulders between his spread thighs, forcing him to spread his legs wider apart to accommodate you. The action spiking a sharp breath out of his lips when you shoved up the hem of the shirt that technically wasn’t his and reached for the button on the jeans that fit him even worse as his cock grew to life underneath them.

“Y/N, darling-” He choked out, breathy and sharp through his teeth, an intense wave of lust hitting him all at once.

All night, both of you had been through the emotional ringer - calm determination, fear, possessiveness, mild relief, grief. All while trying to hold back your emotions for each other, balancing right on the edge. Trying desperately to hold each other at arm’s length.

And now he had you right where he wanted you, where he had been dreaming of you being for months since the break-up; and for some stupid reason, some part of him still felt that it was wrong. That part of him screaming that he should be the one on his knees serving you, that he needed to better apologise-

He reached for your shoulder, clearly trying to coax you back up onto the bed with him, and you swatted the touch away.

“Don’t-” You choked in return, continuing on your determined path, ripping his zipper down and tugging at the waistband of his jeans. “Freddie, please. Let me do this.”

You looked up at him with a glassy heat in your eyes that he had never seen before. All the times he had pinned you against walls in quiet corners at Hogwarts, with his hand up your skirt - he had never seen you so wild, so desperate.

Something utterly possessive rippled through you - something that screamed that you needed to have him weak and moaning for you, that you needed to worship him, to thank him for doing the impossible and saving your life. He was a strong, wonderful man and you needed to taste that strength. You needed to know that you were the only thing that could have him weak, quivering, begging.

“Fuck-” Fred hissed out when you reached past the band of his underwear and grabbed his cock - your warm touch wrapped around his shaft felt like a deadly awakening, especially when it had been so long since anything but his own had had touched his cock.

All too soon, he surrendered to you entirely and lifted his hips, slipping the fabric of his jeans and his underwear down completely past his thighs, letting you have whatever you wanted from him. He supposed that’s how it always went with the two of you - he would let you have whatever you wanted, even before you asked. (That’s why the break-up had gone down the way it had - it had been the one time he had been stubborn on something, not simply letting you have your own way.)

You took him in your hand, slowly pumping his length as you admired him, gently re-familiarising yourself with his body, feeling like it had been far too long.

“Did you miss it, darling?” He asked, looking down the length of his body at you with a cocky smile stretched across his soft lips.

You rolled your eyes, hating the possibility of making his ego any larger.

“Oh yes, your wonderful big cock was the thing I missed most about you,” You griped in return, hoping that your sarcastic tone was more than apparent.

“I knew you only wanted me for my body.” Fred chuckled.

As much as you wanted to deny it - Fred Weasley’s cock was a marvel that you couldn’t have forgotten if you had tried.

During your time apart, it haunted your heated dreams, turning them into nightmares of pure want, your mind dangling something in front of you that you couldn’t have. It made things even worse when he would come into the Apothecary, flirting with you and flashing you a smile, showing off his broad shoulders in those fine tailored suit jackets and making your eyes flicker to his zipper in an utterly whorish way.

Now, you felt spoiled to have it in front of you again - the perfect beastly eight inches, lean and tall just like he was, curved off slightly to the side, sticking off from a sparse patch of ginger hair.

Your pussy clenched as you thought about having him inside of you again for the first time in so long, giving you that perfectly full feeling that your fingers never could - but you craved his taste first. You wanted him under your control - you knew part of it was driven by all the fear you had experienced that night, all the chaos that had made you feel so powerless. You needed to feel alive, needed to wield power over someone, something.

You got your mouth on his cock with a downright feral hunger.

Fred let out a deep moan and threw his head back, collapsing onto his elbows as the heat and wetness of your mouth enveloped the heat of his cock - it sent another wave of lust zipping through him, reminding him just how throbbing hard he was, just how much he needed you. This was made even worse when you moaned around him - you couldn’t help but to enjoy the feeling of his cock in your mouth, perfectly full, making you choke in such a beautiful way when you dropped down to take more of him.

“Fuck, darling, shite-”

You quickly became drunk on the feeling.

Your eyes fell closed and you simply let yourself enjoy it, loving the fullness of his big, beautiful cock filling up your mouth. With a hand loosely wrapped around the base of his cock, your jaw wide as you began bobbing your head. Your tongue flat against the base, tasting as much of him as you could while you enjoyed the feeling of him so fat and thick in your mouth, gagging you slightly whenever the round tip hit against the back of your throat. It was a perfect, slow rhythm that agonised him and delighted you, and soon had spit pooling around your knuckles.

The wetness drove him even more insane, especially when it allowed for your soft lips to move slicker against his shaft.

“Goddammit, please, please, oh-”

You could feel his thighs begin to quake and quiver beside you, and you wondered if he was close already.

You couldn’t resist the urge to pull off - wanting to tease him a little. Part of you wanted that bit of revenge, wanting to get him back for the pain he had caused you when he had turned his back on you that day. Though you weren’t entirely cruel, and you didn’t leave him hanging out to dry completely.

You kept your hand pumping on his now spit-slicked cock (it was that slow, agonising rhythm that caused him to pant like a needy dog), and you moved your mouth downward, giving in to the personal urge to lick and suck on his heavy balls. You did want to drive him a bit more insane, and give into your personal curiosity about what the heavy sac would feel like against your tongue.

“Fucking - oh - darling, what are you doing to me-? That fucking mouth-”

Fred wasn’t sure if this was heaven or hell.

It left him stuck in some sick purgatory where the woman he loved had turned into a sex-crazed vixen, but wouldn’t let him touch you everywhere he wanted to most. Instead, he was sentenced to stare at you as your gorgeous mouth teased his aching cock, making him harder, driving him madder with every stroke of your little devilish tongue. He couldn’t take it anymore - not when your pretty fingers gripped around the base of his cock just right and your lips suctioned so perfectly around one of his bullocks.

He wouldn’t waste the night cumming over your fist without getting his hands on you properly first.

He weaved his fingers into your hair and yanked you back, caused you to let out a small yelp - not one of pain, but a bitter sound of complaint as you were pulled off his cock too early for your liking. The sharp tingle of him pulling on your hair caused your tongue to lull out, trailing a filthy bit of spit back to his balls that had him growling.

Before any words could form, he leaned down and used this grip on your hair to guide you to his lips, shoving his tongue into your open, waiting mouth - something that had you moaning once again, and easily following his lead as he guided you up to sit on his thigh.

“Don’t expect that I’m gonna waste it all over your hand, darling.” He murmured against your lips between heated kisses. “When I cum tonight, it’s gonna be deep inside your sweet cunt, yeah?”

You moaned loudly at this.

You had devolved past the point of words now - having his cock so thick and heavy in your mouth only making you fuzzy-headed and more needy for him. You unconsciously canted your hips against his thigh, grinding your pussy against him through the fabric of your jeans, needing more. You panted against his cheek as he moved deft fingers to undo the button and zipper of your pants while he continued to speak.

“I need you, pretty girl.”

He growled lowly in your ear, the pure passion of the declaration causing such intense waves of lust through you that you would have collapsed - if not for the brick wall of his muscled body holding you up. (Hold you up for the dozenth time that night, only for a drastically different reason this time).

“I need to see you cum on my cock. Missed this pretty cunt so much, can’t wait-”

He trailed off in his crazed lustful ramblings when he shoved his fingers past the now open fly of your jeans and into your underwear, quickly finding a distinct wetness and landing on your clit with a firm touch like a magnet.

“Freddie!” You wept into his neck, bucking into the touch as you tumbled into a madness of your own.

He began circling quickly on your clit, enjoying your gasps and other sounds, enjoying the feeling of you bucking so wildly on his thigh. All too soon, he was overtaken by a little pinch of mischief that always crept up on him. The urge to get you back for your earlier teasing. He quickly removed his hand and felt a smirk spread across his lips at the deflated little whimper you made, your eyes snapping open just in time to catch him licking your wetness off his fingers.

“Fred-” You began to protest, sharp demanding in your tone.

“Come on, get these clothes off,” He said, giving you a firm pat on the ass that made you far too weak to his whims.

“Freddie-” You whined this time - and rather than giving into you, he brought up a fantastic point.

“The faster you get your clothes off, the faster I can get my cock in you.” He whispered hotly against your ear, making you shiver.

You hated that he was right.

You stood up, moving to strip your shirt off over your head, glaring at him the whole time while he also began to strip himself.

“Go on, good girl.”

You hated how those words made you even wetter. You hated how easily he manipulated you based on weaknesses he knew so well.

“I hate you.” You mumbled quietly, absolutely no heat in the words as you reached to unclip your bra.

“Oh darling, if only that were true.”

He said pointedly, mourning peeking through that bit of mischief in his eyes. Something you didn’t have too much time to decode as stood to his full height to untangle his jeans from his legs, knowing that you would quake in his shadow and become even more turned on from this.

Once you were both naked, he ushered you down onto the bed, making sure that you were comfortable with your head on the pillow as he captured your mouth in another needy kiss. You moaned against his lips, easily sucking his tongue in as you tangled your fingers into that fiery red hair and gave an appreciative tug. You then tucked your knee up over his hip, opening yourself up to him - this caused his heavy cock to brush against your wetness, making you gasp into his mouth as the two of you made contact for the first time in far too long.

“Freddie-” You gasped, unconsciously bucking your hips up, causing your pussy to wetly slide against his cock in a way that forced a deep groan out of him. “Oh, fuck, oh-”

“Shh, darling, Daddy’s got you,” Fred replied, palming across your forehead and your hair in an almost gentle way while he further parted your thighs with a firm knee.

His words caused you to choke on another moan.

You had heard Fred refer to himself as ‘Daddy’ before - but much like everything else in his life, it was always a joke. He would be buying his favourite sweets and mumble ‘come to Daddy’ before tearing open the package and devouring them. He would say that his codename was ‘Big Daddy’ when setting up a particularly epic prank. (George was ‘Big Red’ and you were usually ‘Darling’ or ‘Garden Flower’. They were not the most useful or top secret codenames.) You had heard him jokingly shout ‘Daddy’s home’ when returning to the Gryffindor common room, only to have the expected laughs and jokes in return.

You had never expected that the name would turn you on so much. But you had never, ever expected to hear it in this context. You had also never expected that it would sound so natural in this context. But it suited him so well. It seemed to only compliment the gentle kind of caring he gave you - how protective he was over you, how safe he made you feel.

“Daddy,” You moaned in return - Fred gripped your hip with a deadly, bruising grip and looked at you with a fierce heat in his eyes.

Hearing that word from your lips turned him on in a way he couldn’t explain. And in that moment, it took every bit of his personal will not to slam his cock into you and hammer his hips forward until you said it again, and again, and again. Until you screamed it.

He took a hold of his cock with the other hand, and you expected him to slide into you, finally giving you both what you truly needed - but instead, he began rubbing the round head of his cock against your clit, further teasing you. You let out a gasp and looked at him with pleading in your eyes.

“Freddie,” You whined, attempting to angle your hips up, fruitlessly trying to trick him to slip his cock inside of you. You knew him too well, knowing that once he got the tip in, he wouldn’t be able to resist fucking you senseless. But he held you down with the hand on your hip, making you barely able to move at all against his muscular hold and the awkward angle he had you pinned with.

“Come on, sweets,” He purred, laying a kiss on your forehead, and then your cheek, trailing kisses down your neck as he murmured against your skin. “Tell Daddy what you need. Say the word and I’ll give you anything you want.”

He began roughly smacking his cockhead against your clit, making you jolt and gasp sharper, making your pussy leak furiously against the bed. You cried out and gripped his hair tightly, almost meanly, desperate for the teasing to end. You didn’t see the way he was staring at your cunt, mesmerised by the sight of your swollen pearl kissing against his cock, glistening, wet and needy. Something that he would burn into his brain forever and most definitely revisit on lonely nights.

“Please, Daddy!” You moaned, hoping the name alone would goad him into giving in. But you knew what he truly wanted, and you couldn’t wait any longer. “Please - fuck - I need your cock. I need you to fuck me, I need-”

Perhaps he was truly satisfied by this, or perhaps he couldn’t take the teasing anymore himself - either way, he finally guided his cock down to your pulsing entrance and pushed in, swearing hotly under his breath when the tight, wet, perfect heat of your cunt began sucking him in for the first time in over a year.

“Oh, oh fuck, Freddie,” You moaned, tugging on his hair. “Oh-”

“Fucking perfect,” He swore into your ear. “Dammit, I’ve missed this pussy so much.” He choked on a groan as he continued slowly inching his hips forward, splitting you open with his massive length, making your pussy ache and burn in the most perfect way. “Good girl. So good for me. So good for Daddy,”

You both moaned loudly once he was fully seated inside of you - you, feeling that deep satisfaction of feeling so perfectly full once again, and Fred so deeply enjoying the wet warmth of your pussy around him that was so irreplaceable because it was you.

Sensing your need, especially after all his teasing, and after spending so long without him - he didn’t make you wait any longer.

Fred began rocking his hips into yours at a gentle, even pace, not wanting to hurt you. From the sound of your gentle whines and the feeling of you squirming beneath him, he could tell that you needed more. He could tell that now wasn’t the time for holding back.

He let out a gentle grunt and you became even more heated and curious as he began shifting around, some clear intent on his mind. You let out a sharp gasp when he raised himself up on his knees, poising himself in the perfect position to fuck you hard, deep, and powerful. Then, he made it even more deadly when he grabbed you by the backs of your thighs, making more air hiss out through your lips when he pressed your body practically in half, pressing your knees up toward your chest before he hooked his arms under your legs to keep them there and planted his hands firmly on either side of your chest.

The two of you were even closer, even more intimate, and you felt him so much deeper inside of you.

“Freddie,”

You croaked out darkly, already feeling him so much deeper as he settled in above you. Your pussy was leaking furiously around him now, clenching tightly and waiting for him to move as a ghost of dark mischief danced through his eyes that promised you were in for the sweetest kind of hell.

“Good?” He asked, smirking at you.

“Yes, but what about-?”

You wanted to warn him not to make too much noise, not to break the bed, which was already creaking in protest underneath the two of you - but he didn’t entirely care. Fred never truly cared about the consequences of his actions once he got an idea in his head - to him, the thrill was more than worth whatever pain may befall him.

The only time that hadn’t been true was when he had made the foolish, heat-of-the-moment mistake of breaking up with you. And now, he had to make up for it.

He put all the power into his muscled thighs (the same muscled thighs that had saved you just a few hours ago by gripping onto his broom and steadying the flight) - and ploughed forward with intense power. This began an unforgiving, hard rhythm of pounding into your cunt in hard, deep, fast strokes.

In seconds, you were putty beneath him - he had you perfectly pinned in place so that you couldn’t have moved an inch if you wanted to, all you could do was lay there and take it. You were weak against the savage movements of his long cock fucking into your swollen pussy over and over again, filling you up in the best way you could have imagined, becoming everything you needed in the world.

As the room filled with the harsh, wet slaps of his skin against yours and your weak moans, followed by his increasingly animalistic grunts - all there was in the world was you and Fred, the space where the two of you met, the place where he had your thighs pinned open so that his cock could absolutely ruin your pussy.

“Good girl, such a good girl for me,” He growled against your lips - you moaned pathetically in return, flooding even more wetness around his cock, making the sound of him fucking into you embarrassingly slicker. “Never should have let you go. Should have kept you right here, right where you belong,”

You wanted to tell him that perhaps the fight was both of your faults, that you should have reached out to him sooner and told him that you wanted him back. That the time apart had been so dreadfully tender for you too.

But your brain was soup, only further stirred up by the tip of his cock poking around in your guts. So any words you could have said chased out of your lungs with every passionate thrust of his hips up into your wet pussy, and all you managed in return was:

“Daddy! Fuck, oh-!”

“Shh, darling, I know.” Fred mumbled into your neck, taking a sloppy, greedy lick of your skin. “I know, sweets. Daddy’s gonna give you what you need. Gonna keep you fucked n’ full. Never gonna let you go again. Never gonna let anyone else touch you-”

Fred’s hips stuttered and you tightly squeezed around his cock at the words.

Perhaps it was a wink of his personal insecurity peeking through. The horrifying idea that because he had broken up with you, you might find somebody else. When in fact, you had been so caught up on him, only thinking about him, waiting for him. (The whole time, thinking that he had broken up with you because he no longer had any favour in his heart for you.)

“Just you, Freddie.” You breathed out, desperately trying to get air past your now very chapped lips. “Always yours-”

“Yes, mine.” He replied, that crazed desperation returning to his voice. “Mine, my girl.”

He sealed his lips against yours, grinding his hips tightly against your pelvis rather than fucking you with any kind of rhythm now - showing you just how deep he was inside of you, just how much he owned you, truly, from the inside out. It was something that made your stomach clench, made your body buzz with electricity, and made you whine around his tongue.

You were close.

Fred knew this - he knew you too well. He moved a hand down to your clit, letting one of your legs drop slightly, and had two determined fingers on your throbbing clit while he picked up the pace again, pulling his lips back from yours.

“You gonna cum for me? Gonna cum for Daddy like a good girl?”

His words, his velvet voice speaking to you so commanding yet so sweet, were what truly brought your orgasm to life in your belly. His voice made the fullness of his cock and the sharpness of his fingers on your clit all the more electric. You likely could have cum just from his words alone if he kept speaking to you that way.

“Yes, Daddy.” You moaned in response.

“Good girl. Come on,”

He breathed hotly against your chin, his eyes now eagerly dancing from your face to the space where your cunt hugged his dick, leaking around him in such a wonderfully filthy way. Clearly, he wasn’t sure where he wanted to look, what part of the show he was more eager to witness after missing out on you for too long.

“Come on, cum on my cock. Cum for me, love, good girl-”

His heated words trailed off as your head snapped back and your eyes squeezed shut, your fingers digging sharply into his bicep as your orgasm rocked your body. Fred grunted as he continued to fuck you through it, his eyes glued to you, taking in every single inch of the sexy beauty that was you, the love of his life, as you thrashed and moaned and came on his cock. It was the most perfect sight he could have imagined, and he easily ingrained into his mind forever, praying that he would never have to miss out on it - to miss out on you - ever again.

“Yes, yes darling, so good for me, so good-” He practically choked on his own words, his voice so thick with lust that it barbed the insides of his throat.

As he felt the last weak spasms of your pussy around his cock, he stopped rubbing your sore clit and became possessed with a new need, becoming slightly selfish now. He fucked his hips forward even harder, determined to find his own pleasure inside the sweet, soft walls of your cunt.

“Fucking hell-” He choked out a groan, dropping his head into your neck again as you petted through his hair, encouraging him through it while he unintentionally sent sharp zaps of overstimulation through your pussy with every needy, sharp push of his hips.

“Freddie,” You breathed out. “Come on, Daddy, cum for me. You’ve been so good to me, come on-”

He let you another loud growl and pounded into you harder, dropping his hold on your other knee and letting your legs rest to cradle around his waist as he blindly chased his own end inside your soft, wet cunt.

“Gonna fill you up, gonna fill you up so good,” He whispered into your neck, chanting like a man possessed, sending another unexpected wave of heat through you that made you moan weakly. “All mine, all mine, darling, all mine, gonna give you what you need, fuck-”

He tried to silence his moans into your neck as he stiffened his back and finally came - his own orgasm hitting him like a firework. He shoved his hips forward stiffly one last time, seating his cock deeply inside of you, stuffing you full, just like he had promised. He gentled grinded his hips against yours in mindless, stuttering strokes while he pumped spurts of hot cum deep inside of you - something that made your body buzz with even more heat and made you moan in return, clutching onto him tightly with your legs around his waist and your arms around his shoulders.

“Oh darling, oh-” He muttered quietly against your neck as the last waves of his orgasm washed over him.

It was so perfect, and made you feel so utterly connected to him. It was a distinct reminder of everything you had missed - his warmth, his caring, the thrill he gave you while at the same time making you feel so damn safe.

When Fred moved to pull away from you, moving to break that connection, every instinct in your body screamed that it was wrong. You clenched your legs around him, digging a heel into his lower back to keep him close, and he let out a grunt - still dizzy from his orgasm and unsure what you were doing. But he settled back into place, creating a filthy ‘squish’ between the two of you.

“Just hold me.” You said, having no clue when the tears had returned to your eyes, making your voice so clearly wet. “I missed you. I can’t lose you.”

“Hey, hey shh.” He said, leaning up to kiss along your cheek, rushing to kiss away those tears. “I’m right here with you, darling. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to lose me.”

He wrapped his arms around you, wiggling his grip between your back and the mattress to do so. This created the most stunning cocoon, forcing your two bodies even closer together - it wasn’t long before he became soft inside of you, but he stayed there for as long as he reasonably could, kissing along your forehead, your cheeks, your neck, uttering quiet reassurances that you weren’t going to lose him, that you wouldn’t have to miss him any longer.

It made you incredibly content and warm. At least while it lasted.

When Fred finally pulled out of you, you felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction and loneliness, which you tried to ignore. Especially because you weren’t sure if he would want you to sleep in his bed - which was something that you wanted very much, especially after the long day you had. But you weren’t sure if he wanted to be left alone to contemplate all of it, to be sure of his decision to take you back.

You jumped to get out of the bed as though it were on fire, and when you looked to your rumpled clothes on the floor - your jeans still stained with dirt from when you had collapsed in the garden, your shirt likely reeking of sweat from the nerves of everything that had happened - the idea of putting those clothes back on wasn’t exactly appealing.

Then, something else came to mind.

“My things are in Ginny’s room…”

You sighed, realising that if you wanted a pair of pyjamas for the night, or even a fresh pair of underwear, then you would have to waltz in and wake her up - and likely be interrogated about where you had been. She was all too knowing anyway, and any excuses you gave about spending the time caring for George or simply having a ‘talk’ with Fred would be seen right through by her.

Fred hummed, and stood, and you were surprised when he comfortably went over to the chest of drawers against the wall at the end of his bed, going right to the top drawer. The drawer where you used to keep some of your things when you stayed with the Weasleys on holidays - and surely enough, a small collection of your things were still in there.

Things that he had never returned to you after the break-up that you had never thought to ask for. You had no idea that he often came to this drawer, sneaking mournful whiffs of your scent - even used your shirts as a pillow case if he was feeling particularly lonely.

He pulled out a pair of your comfortable sleep shorts and a large, soft, worn green tee shirt with a large shamrock on the front and a ‘94 on the back that he had bought for you as a souvenir from The World Cup. It had been your all time favourite sleep shirt, and you had wondered where it had disappeared to when you moved into your apartment above the Apothecary once you started the job.

“I hope these still fit.” He said, handing you the clothes.

“They should.” You said - quiet, careful not to acknowledge the elephant in the room. The fact that he had kept your things all this time.

“Unfortunately I don’t have any panties for you, so…” He trailed off, a filthy grin plucking up over his cheeks once again when the implication hit the air - the fact that you would be commando underneath your clothing.

“Yeah, very unfortunate in your eyes, I’m sure, Fred.” You huffed, turning toward the door. “I should go get cleaned up.”

You let out a small squeak when two strong arms encircled your waist, pulling you sharply back, causing you to collide with the wonderful, bare, muscled, now slightly sweaty body. You couldn’t help but to melt into the touch, and you let out a quiet moan as he began kissing your neck - not in a particularly lustful way, but in a way that was purely loving and affectionate.

“Don’t think you’re getting away from me that easy, darling.” He whispered in your ear. “Please, do come back afterwards. You know I like to cuddle,”

You didn’t think that you had ever heard Fred Weasley say ‘please’ for anything so plainly in his life. But, as usual when it came to him, you wanted exactly what he wanted.

“Only if you insist.” You joked lightly, smoothing a hand over his arm that was still tightly encircled around your middle. “I suppose I can clear some time in my very busy schedule for cuddling,”

Fred quietly let out a ‘yes’ in celebration, and hesitantly let you go. He then collapsed back onto the bed, relaxing spread eagle, still confidently naked against the covers with his hands behind his head against the pillow. You couldn’t help it when your eyes did a once-over of his body, admiring the soft planes of his muscles that had come from hard work rather than a distinct workout routine and the beautiful bit of fat on his lower belly that made him so warm and nice to cuddle. Of course, when your eyes met his, he was smirking at you.

“I’ll be waiting, love.” He told you with a wink.

You rolled your eyes at this, biting your lip to suppress a smile at his somewhat deserved cockiness.

You moved to leave the room with your newly acquired clothes, wanting to freshen up in the bathroom a bit before going to sleep (the bathroom was right across the hall, so you would have to sneak across the way naked and hope that nobody would catch you, but it should be fine at this time of night). But when your hand twisted the knob and it didn’t budge, you remembered that Fred had locked it earlier.

He moved to grab his wand from the pocket of his pants, splayed out in the middle of the floor, but you reached for the jeans first. Your wand was still downstairs beside the cauldron that had brewed the potions for George, but often, you found that Fred’s wand worked fine for you.

Ollivander and other wand experts said that a wizard couldn’t find the same kind of success using a wand that wasn’t their own, but you found using Fred’s to be just as natural, like an extension of your own arm. Perhaps it was because his core was a Dragon Heart’s String, and that heart beat for you just as fondly as his own did. Either way, it was a fine substitution. You unlocked the door easily and tossed the wand back to him where he was sitting on the bed, and then you snuck across the hall to clean up and get dressed.

When you came back, Fred had crawled under the covers and was starting to fall asleep. When you crawled in alongside him, you found that he hadn’t bothered to get dressed, so you locked the door again, just in case. It was a basic charm that anybody could get through, but it would give the two of you a few minutes of warning to make yourselves decent if somebody did come knocking.

It felt like the most wonderfully natural thing in the world to settle beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist while he slept on his back, putting your head on his chest and feeling his sleepy fingers brush across your head from behind.

“Goodnight, love.” He whispered, so quiet as though he was afraid to break apart a beautiful daydream.

“Goodnight, Freddie.”

…

You wondered if all of it had been a dream.

Fred apologising to you, begging for your forgiveness, the two of you having amazing sex - it was something you had dreamt about many times before. It was something you had wished would come true, only to find yourself waking up alone in a cold bed. So waking up next to Fred, with his large, warm body coiled up against your back like a koala was one of the best ways you could have come into a new day.

It wasn’t long before the smell of Molly’s cooking reached your nose - the wonderful fatty sizzle of sausages and the bready warmth of toast that told you she was frying up a full English (likely because she had been having trouble sleeping after the events of the night before). Your stomach gave a painful pang, making you want to get out of bed to eat just as much as you wanted to stay cuddled up with Fred.

You gently petted a touch along Fred’s heavy arm that was wrapped possessively around your waist, and soon, he sucked in a sharp breath as he too began to stir.

“Merlin, I missed this.” He said, leaning in to smother you with more of his perfect warmth as he somehow crowded tighter against your back, kissing along your clothed shoulder and up your neck once again.

Your heart fluttered with the sweetness, the fondness of it all, and you wondered how such a hellish night had made way to such a perfect morning.

“I wish we could stay in bed forever, Freddie, but I think your Mum is making breakfast.” You remarked, finding yourself more aware of your hunger as you woke up more, and more drawn to the delicious smells.

“We can stay here for a bit longer.” He hummed into your neck.

Just then - his stomach let out a loud groan of protest, and you giggled.

“Come on, Big Daddy needs to eat too.” You said, using the nickname in a more playful, joking manner as you patted his thigh, untangling yourself from his arms as you got out of bed.

You were surprised, and slightly victorious when you saw a slight blush tinging his pale cheeks because of the teasing, the way you had used the nickname. It was amazing to see someone like Fred go from so powerful and confident to fluttering with shyness.

“I have to find some trousers,” He remarked, suddenly remembering that he was naked.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” You grinned, walking across to the bathroom, lucky to beat anybody else there before the others started waking up.

When you hit the bottom stair, Fred was standing at the back of the couch with his back to you, now fully dressed in a pair of comfortable plaid sleep pants and an old Chudley Cannons shirt that must have belonged to Ron. (It was only because of many winding discussions about Quidditch among the boys that you hadn’t even wanted to hear that you knew the Cannons were Ron’s team and the twins hated them.)

Fred was leaning over, clearly talking to George, who was still laying where the two of you had left him the night before. You hated that your instinct was to stand back where neither of them had seen you and listen in on their conversation - but you had only learned such matters from Mr. and Mr. Extentenable Ear themselves.

“...well, yes, I would say that it did go well, but I would still have to classify the nature of the relationship as dubious. Or friendly at best.” Fred said in a rushed whisper.

Your stomach gave a twist. This time you had to assume that the twins were talking about you. Talking about what had happened between the two of you the night before.

“Dubious?” George’s voice baulked, clearly trying to stay hushed himself, but having a hard time restraining his volume due to frustration - frustration at not being able to get a better answer out of his brother. “The two of you had sex and you’re classifying the nature of the relationship as dubious? Are you an idiot or was the sex that horrible?”

You choked down a laugh at this, not wanting to be caught just yet, and resisting the urge to speak up and clarify that the sex was, in fact, great.

“No, she seemed perfectly satisfied, thank you very much.” Fred hissed back, full of sass. You would have said more than ‘satisfied’ - for once, Fred was actually being humble. “But I just didn’t think to stop and ask: oh, by the way, does this mean that we’re back together and you still love me? Or were just scared and lonely after almost dying and wanted a decent lay? Can you fill out a post-orgasm survey to clarify, please, and make sure to-”

An arm came up from the couch with a pillow, smacking Fred clear in the chest - hard enough to force a small grunt out of him. George was certainly feeling better. You were glad to know that your potions had done him some good.

“You should have just asked, you numpty!” George scolded him. “You’ve been mooning over losing her for-”

“Y/N,” Fred cut off his twin’s words by saying your name, announcing your presence as that smack with the pillow had caused him to finally turn his head and spot you there.

“Fred.” You grinned, not at all ashamed that you had been caught.

You walked over to the couch, leaning over to find George grinning at you in a way that said he was holding back a barrage of stomach shaking laughter because of the conversation you had caught the two of them in.

“For the record, I would call the sex more than satisfactory.” You said, a mischievous grin coming over your lips. “And I do still love you.” You announced, turning toward Fred. “I was lonely and scared last night, but that’s why I came to you. You’re the only person I want to go to when I feel that way. I missed you. And I want you back if you’ll have me.”

“Merlin, of course I’ll have you.” Fred breathed out a sigh of relief, now grinning as well. “I love you more than anything, darling. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

“I have some idea, and it was bloody annoying.” George muttered out, only to be ignored.

You leaned in for a kiss, naturally, but just as Fred’s lips brushed yours, George let out a loud, fake gagging sound - one that had Molly running into the room, clearly fretting and worried that George was actually ill.

“I’m fine, Mum.” George groaned as Molly began patting down his head with a wet cloth - clearly, his night had been filled by the annoying, but loving fuss of his mother watching over him.

“Yes, yes of course.” Molly nodded, hesitantly putting the cloth down. “It’s time for breakfast anyway - do you feel up for sitting at the table, dear?”

“I would love to get off this bloody couch.” George groaned.

Fred rushed around to help him up, and after a moment of struggle to his feet, you grabbed his other arm to help him along into the kitchen.

“I suppose it all worked out for the better.” George said, smiling at you. “Even if you did end up with the less attractive twin.”

You rolled your eyes, biting back a smile at this.

...

A/N: This fic is a oneshot, and there will not be a continuation or a 'Part 2'. This is a capsule story meant to be read independently, and in terms of the narrative, there will not be a continuation. If you are going to leave a comment, please comment about the body of work that has been written here, do not comment asking for more. If you would like to read more of my fics, please take a look at my Harry Potter Masterlist, more specifically, my other Fred Weasley fic - Kisses Like Fire Whiskey. Thank you if you have gotten this far, and happy reading!

#sundrop writes #fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred wealsey fic #fred weasley x you #fred weasley x y/n #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction

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voguesriot · 1 month ago

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NOT A LOT / JUST FOREVER ✹ sebastian sallow

( summary ) when harry potter said he wanted a reason to skip potions, he didn’t expect to wind up developing a kinship with a portrait of a young witch by the kitchens, but how can he complain when her smile is just as welcoming as her stories?

( pairing ) sebastian sallow x female!reader (mc), platonic!harry potter x female!reader, small mention of ominis gaunt x anne sallow

( notes/warnings ) set during the philosophers stone and the end of the deathly hallows! part of the ‘the house of the rising sun’ universe! this was supposed to be a mostly seb/minorly harry fic but it kind of inverted because i love harry potter and want to wrap him in a warm blanket and keep him safe forever. also!!! this is the first proper fic i’ve written in over a year so pls be kind 🤍. angst but mostly fluff! reader assuming a motherly role with harry! low-key sebastian assuming a fatherly role with harry too! canon-compliant violence mentions! minimal usage of y/n! not proofread!

Harry Potter had known torment like no other. Stood little over 5 foot tall, he had felt blistering rage poured from callous hands and the bitter loneliness nipping at his guts. But none of it, not the broom cupboard, not the scar, would be worse that enduring another double potions class.

And so, the boy who lived took a left turn down a spiral staircase instead of carrying on to the dungeons and followed the candlelit corridors until he found himself facing a dead-end. It was, he thought, maybe the most peaceful part of the castle he’d seen in his two months of admittance. There was no cobwebbed ceiling corners, no scathing suits of armour, no ghastly ghosts taunting his every breath. The walls were barren except for a lone portrait frame displayed on the far wall. Harry walked closer.

It was an empty frame, holding only a background of red curtains and a plush sofa. He wondered who that frame was meant to home and worried his footsteps had frightened them off. He turned to walk away, to find a shadowy area by one of the far courtyards where he could waste the rest of his two hours. But just as he did so, back already to the wall, he heard a gentle voice.

“Are you lost, sweetheart?”

Harry’s head whipped to the frame once more with such speed he wouldn’t be shocked to feel a sharp pain in the morning. Sat on the sofa was now a witch who looked to be older than him, if only by a few years. She wore a white collared shirt with a red tie and a long grey skirt beneath dark brown overcoat. There was a scar on her left cheek that Harry believed he’d find intimidating on anyone else, but something in the way she smiled at him, the softness of her eyes, told him he’d struggle to find an off-putting thing about her.

He hadn’t even realised he’d been staring, lips parted, question ignored, until she let out a small laugh. Harry Potter had been laughed at before, he’d been laughed at before he’d even been born, he knew what it meant for two people to share a look and a giggle when you speak — or, more aptly, don’t speak. But the insult he was accustomed to never came. He felt no wave of shame, no cheeks reddened with embarrassment. In a strange act of fate, he found himself laughing with her.

“I’m Y/n Sallow. Pleased to make your acquaintance…” She paused and nodded for him to introduce himself.

“Harry. Harry Potter.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “I’ve heard many things about you. It’s good to put a face to the name. So, Harry, my question still remains; are you lost?”

“I have double potions.”

She laughed again and so did he. “I see. You know, I remember your professor when he was about your age. Terribly frightened boy, but wildly genius.”

“He hates me for something that isn’t my fault.”

“People tend to channel anger when their other feelings are too confusing. It’s easier for them. But I know how you feel, love. Believe me.”

“Nobody knows how I feel.” Harry didn’t like how self-effacing he sounded, but to him it was mere truth. Nobody else had lost in the same ways he had and been forced to live with its guilt, nobody else was thrust into the war of a world they didn’t understand.

“You only say that because you haven’t taken History of Magic yet.”

Harry looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“Get comfortable.” The boy took off his robe and folded in the floor, sitting atop it and crossing his legs, elbows resting on his knees.

For the next three hours, Harry paid no need to the fact he had missed a charms lesson, as he found himself immersed in the stories she told. Of long-dormant repositories of ancient magic, of goblins, and poachers, and graphorns, and plight, the scale of what he faced seemed not dwarfed, but levelled by that of her own.

She told him of the fears she felt as she entered the Great Hall, how lonely she was on her first day, and Harry felt his heart swell at the fortune of meeting Ron as early as he did. When he said this, she smiled and said Ron reminded her of an old friend, a former Hufflepuff and renowned magiczoologist.

“She said she didn’t have many friends before I arrived, which caught me by such surprise, because I believed her to be one of the kindest witches I had ever met. One of the bravest too. In fact, she led me on one of the most remarkable adventures of my life…” She said, a melancholic smile on her face as she talked of Golden Snidgets and centaurs.

As their second hour drew to a close, she brought her storytelling to a sudden halt. “Enough of me. Darling, how has Hogwarts been for you?”

Harry paused, having barely reflected on the question himself. “It’s been good.” A moment of silence. “I think.”

“You think?”

“It’s just…” His breath caught in his throat, as millions of thoughts came to mind but to words followed suit. “I just feel so out of place. I found out about magic two months ago, and suddenly everyone has these big expectations of me because of what happened when I was a baby.” She nodded in understanding and felt her heart break in her chest.

When you looked at him, you saw him not as a prodigal son or a budding star, but as the child he was. His glasses slightly crooked, almost hanging off his nose, his cheeks red and rosy, his eyes downcast. He looked a mirror of you, and you hated it with a ferocity you hadn’t felt in years.

It was supposed to end with you, the torment of children, the horror of destiny. You still remembered the terror you felt when you first touched that portkey, when Fig told you more of those iron-clad knights would follow, when the fate of a world you knew naught about was thrust upon your fifteen-year-old shoulders.

When Ranrok was defeated and you were told you’d be safe, you were lied to. The poachers still came in droves, angrier, smarter, fit to kill with the taste of your blood in their mouths. More loyalists subscribed to Ranrok’s ideals and strived off the image of your head mounted on a wall. There was always new monsters to fight, new people in need, new reasons to run away and forge a new life.

But you never did, you never took the bait. You knew that if you left, if you abandoned your responsibilities that eventually they would fall onto another you. Another child born with your gift, and they too would know true loneliness and fear and you could not let that happen.

You graduated and became a freelance cursebreaker. If people felt unsafe, you were the first port of call. You risked your life with the sole mission of preventing another child from filling your shoes. You did all this, and it meant nothing. It meant nothing because now, over a century later, a young boy is being punished for actions he didn’t commit, tormented for events out of his control.

Harry Potter was cut from the same cloth as you, and so, you listened.

The bell tower tolled and sent a shock down Harry’s spine. Was it lunchtime already? He stood up and dusted off his cloak. “Do you ever get lonely?” He asked. “All the other portraits have others around them.”

“I rarely dwell in this frame, to be honest. I have a few others around, there’s one by the Magical Theory classroom on the fourth floor of the Astronomy wing. That’s where I spend most of my time, but I’ve got two in Hogsmeade, another in a run-down hamlet southwest of here, even have one in America.” You gave him a sweet smile. “The portrait of the old potions professor, Aesop Sharp, sends word for me whenever he sees someone come down this hall. Say hello to him when you pass, will you?”

He nodded his head, halfway down the corridor before he turned around and hoped you hadn’t gone yet. “Thank you for this. Is it—” he paused again and took a deep breath, “is it alright if I come here again? If I can talk to you again?”

His heart pounded in his throat, caught with a fear of you saying no. Of laughing at him for finding such comfort in a mere conversation. Harry Potter had long since accepted that he’d never truly know the feeling of being cared for, being heard. He had made his peace with such a thing. He was a child now, but he’d grow. He’d grow in his own and he’d grow to be a kind man who cared for others with kindness never afforded for him. He was okay with this, but now that he’d met you, he knew he couldn’t live that way anymore.

He’d never had enough material things to be selfish over, but he’d be selfish now if he needed to. He needed this again, this feeling of being truly seen and understood.

Ever since he came to the wizarding world, Harry had been told he had his mother’s eyes, her kindness and warmth. Looking at you now, he figured you were the closest to her he’d find. In the softness of your gaze, he shed the weight of his worries.

You smiled again and nodded. “Tell dear Aesop to send word whenever you need me, darling.”

His feet felt lighter as they travelled up the steps, eagerly searching for a portrait he hadn’t noticed before until he was outside the potions classroom and read the golden plaque. Aesop Sharp.

The man had a gruff face with rugged stubble and scars on his chin. His lips quirked up with a thin veil of remembrance. “I take it she arrived on time?”

“She said to say ‘hi’. And thank you.”

“She thanked me?”

“I’m thanking you.” Aesop only hummed and nodded.

“There’s nothing to thank me for, boy. Other than the fact that your potions professor will be kept uninformed of your detour.” Harry’s cheeks flushed a deep red and Aesop let out what could almost be considered a laugh. “It’s best you run along now. The rest—the first—of your classes will drag on an empty stomach.”

“I was wondering when you’d return.” Sebastian teased from the frame. “Almost four whole hours on my own with only Weasley for company.”

As you joined Sebastian in the portrait, settling comfortably on the sofa he’d been sprawled across, his arm found a comfortable place around your shoulders, holding you close.

Garreth, whose portrait was on the corner wall to the left of yours by his request, let out a hearty laugh at that. “You say that as though you weren’t the one recount all the old days, Sallow. No need to try impress the lady, you fooled her years ago.”

“Don’t be rude, Garreth. It’s sweet he cares so much after all these years.” Poppy chided from her frame beside his, appearing just as Natty did across from her.

“Where’s Ominis?” You asked, expecting a quip from your dear friend.

“He went to visit Feldcroft. Said he missed the place and wanted to see how ol’ Victoria is holding up.” You smiled as Sebastian mentioned Ominis and Anne’s great-great granddaughter.

“It’s is sweet that they stay in such close touch.” You smiled. “We must visit again soon. Adam is still in London, I think. His daughter is starting Hogwarts next year. Same with Sarah’s son.” Your heart swelled at the thought of the family of your own.

“It’ll be nice not to be the only one here with family visits in the castle.” Garreth said.

“My boy will be nothing like your Percy.” Sebastian defended.

“If he’s anything like you, he’ll be exactly like the twins, though.”

“I heard Imelda gave them an earful last week after they almost blew up her frame by the Trophy Room.” Natty laughed. “They’re definitely Weasley’s.”

“There’ll be more of them than there is Ravenclaw’s with the way things are going.” Poppy commented. “A young boy this year, and a girl next?”

“What can I say, we’re family people! I heard Ron’s befriended the Potter boy.” At this, your ears perked up.

“Harry?”

“Uh-oh.” Sebastian taunted, toying with a stand of your hair. “Something tells me you’ve taken someone under your wing again.”

You pinched his side as the others chuckled joked between themselves. “You say that as though it’s a bad thing. I thought you liked when I cared for people.”

“I do.” He smiled, putting his hand on the back of your head and pulling you close to press a kiss to your temple. “Just find it a bit funny is all.”

“I want all of you to keep an eye on him. I was talking him today and I could feel this— this— this loneliness hanging around him. He was talking to me and it felt like I was talking to myself at fifteen.”

A silence washed over the portraits. They’d seen you through it all. They saw you when Lodgok passed, when Fig passed, when everything worked against you and there was nothing they could do to help. Sebastian’s grip on you tightened, guilt stirring in the pits of his stomach.

It had been almost two centuries since everything with Anne’s curse had come to pass. He’d apologised countless times, kneeling before you with his head hung his shame and your hands held tightly in his, tears staining your skirts. You’d forgiven him just as many. You cradled his face and kissed his cheeks and told him that what happened then mattered no more than what you had for dinner the night prior. He was still your love, and you were the lone focus of his devotion, that was what mattered.

But time does not heal all wounds, and there would always be a part of you that remembered how he had to mean Crucio and how he didn’t write to you at all that summer, just as there would always be a part of him that yearned to go back and beat sense into the younger version of him who saw you as only a means of rescuing Anne.

They all knew how important the safety of the boy would grow to be to you, and made a silent pact to follow through with whatever you asked.

“I still remember when James and Lily were in first year.” Lamented Poppy. “She knew how to put a boy in his place. Could’ve learned a lot from her in our years.”

“She was so lovely, too. I always knew she’d become Head Girl. She reminded me of Amit. Always so smart but just as kind.” Natty sighed. “How’s Amit doing anyways, Y/n? You were the last to visit the library.”

“He’s well. Apparently a seventh year recognised him from his books the other day, he’s just as bashful as ever. Got red even recounting the story.” You grinned fondly.

“I remember how jealous Sebastian was on your first Astronomy lesson when Professor Shah volunteered Amit to share a telescope with you instead of him.” Garreth laughed, a deep laugh that came from the back of his throat.

“I was not jealous!”

“You were.” It seemed Ominis had a penchant for arriving just when Sebastian needed to be put in his place. “I couldn’t see it but I could sense it. You weren’t exactly subtle.”

“I couldn’t tell, if that makes you feel better.” You attempted to console.

“He professed his love to you for a year and you couldn’t tell. That’s no consolation.” It seemed he had a penchant for catching you out as well.

“Easy, Gaunt.” Sebastian warned. “Let’s not forget five years of pining for Anne. Makes our thing look like a breeze.”

Your friend halted and shook his head, a breathy laugh escaping him. “You have me there, Sebastian.”

“How’s Vic?”

“She’s good. Really good. Asking after the lot of you, Poppy especially.” The former magiczoologist furrowed her brows. “Said your research papers on mooncalves have been an invaluable asset to her work on rescuing and rehoming them.”

“I always knew she’d do brilliant things.” Poppy beamed. “It was a guarantee given who her family is.”

You settled further into Sebastian’s embrace as the conversation rolled on, head on his shoulder and relishing in his warmth. This was the kind of peace you so desperately longed for in your girlhood, this was the home you fought so hard to protect, safe in the arms of your love and the company of your family.

You could only pray Harry found the same someday.

It became routine for the boy to visit your portrait over the months that passed, so much so that Aesop no longer needed to send for you when Harry passed because you’d be there already, waiting.

You felt a kinship with him that you could only compare to the bond you had felt with your own children all those years ago. You loved your great-grandchildren dearly, but they had inherited your wanderlust and seemed nearly impossible to get a hold of, a feat made even more difficult given your inability to do… anything, really. But Harry was here, in need of guidance, a service you were more than willing to give.

When you heard he won quidditch matches, you’d leap from your sofa and nearly wept with pride, just as you did with every assignment result he relayed to you. Harry seemed to preen to your praise.

You quickly became his confidant. He told you of his years with the Dursleys, his troll encounter at Halloween (where you had laughed at another similarity between the pair of you), his fears of Voldemort, and, eventually, his plans to find the Philosopher’s Stone.

“You must promise me you’ll be careful, Harry.” You warned. “It’s no small feat you’re about to undertake, do not underestimate it by any means. Without a doubt, you’ll be trialled before you find the stone, you have to keep a clear head. Do not let yourself get distracted, if only for a moment.”

There was a taught crease between your brows and your shoulders were tensed with worry. The boy seemed almost apologetic as he nodded. “I swear it. Ron and Hermione will help me too. I won’t be alone.”

You remembered how happy he was when he spoke of his friends, so similar to how you did. He seemed to glow with the joy of being accepted not despite being know, but because of it instead. “You keep an eye out for them as well. I don’t want to hear any stories of a first year sent to the Hospital Wing.”

An authoritative edge laced your voice that set Harry’s spine straight, heart clenching at the protectiveness you showed over him and those he held close.

“Harry,” your words were gentler now, softer, “you’re a brilliant wizard, destined to do great things, but you do not have to do them now. Not if you’re not ready.”

“I am ready. I have to do this. If I don’t, who else will?”

In a humbling moment, you realised there was nothing you could say to the boy that wouldn’t be wholly hypocritical. “Just—” you sighed, “promise me that you’ll come visit when you’re done, let me know you’re safe, tell me of your adventure.”

“I promise.” He smiled.

Later that evening, when curfew had long been set, you found yourself visiting the Trophy Room for the first time in many months. You smiled at Imelda as you passed through the portrait across from her.

“Hello, old friend.” You grinned warmly, stepping into the portrait of Eleazer Fig, tucked away behind the Goblet of Fire.

The man seemed to melt in your presence, a bright smile taking over his face as he pulled you into a tight embrace.

“It’s been far too long, sweet girl.” He said in your ear, still holding you close.

“I fear an apology is in order.” You said almost feebly.

“What ever for?”

“I believe I now know the torment you felt in our year together.” A laugh escaped you. “I’ve developed a friendship with the young Potter boy.”

Fig nodded his head in understanding. “You worry for the child?”

“With every dawn. To know he’s in such danger and I am unable to help— it’s a cruel torture.”

“I know.” His hands found your own. “No child should have to face what he will — what you did. But if you stand by him whenever he calls, know that is the help he needs. The support of someone who has seen what he has and come out to lead a better life will give him the hope he needs to persevere.”

You hadn’t realised there were even tears in your eyes until they dropped onto your cheeks. It was one of Fig’s many talents to draw the rawest, most powerful emotions from within you.

Over the years, you’d gone to him when the slightest problems left you upset. You’d run to his portrait whenever you didn’t want to sit through History of Magic and sit on the floor and tell him everything there was to tell, from your breakfast that day to the deepest fears in year heart.

“Believe me, child. If he is in any way like you, he will shock you with abilities. I know you shocked me.” He moved to cradle your face softly, resting his forehead against your own.

“I feel so helpless. None of what he stands before is fair. He’s only a boy.” He knew the truth of your words, for they’d been said to him before Harry Potter had even been born. I am so helpless. None of this is fair. I’m only a girl.

“All you can do for him is let him know that you will always be there, never to judge, only to support. The boy needs comfort and normalcy, so that is what you must remain.”

“You’ve always known just what to say.” You smiled at him, face wrought with melancholia.

“It has always been easy to speak with you, friend. You were the closest I’d ever gotten to a child of my own.” His own eyes shone now. “Miriam truly would’ve adored you. The pair of you would’ve driven me mad.”

You let out a watery laugh and pulled him into another tight embrace, your chin tucked over his shoulder, anchoring you to him as you stayed that way for an indiscernible about of time before making your way down to your lone portrait to anxiously wait for Harry’s arrival.

The end of the school year drew close faster than any of the others had, you were sure of it, and soon Harry was sat before you, still shaking with the excitement of winning Gryffindor the House Cup, telling you of how happy the last year had made him.

“I’ll miss you, though.” He frowned. “Don’t suppose you have any portraits near Surrey?”

“I’m afraid not, sweet one. But I’ll be here when you return, eagerly awaiting your stories of summer. Maybe I’ll have some new ones myself too.”

A comfortable silence passed through you both, Harry pulling at him fingers and you looking down at him warmly. “I’m so proud of you, Harry.” He looked up at you quickly, a flicker of shock on his face.

“You’re so brave, so strong, so kind. You’ve dealt with more danger this past year than most wizards do in their lifetime, and you’re still here to tell the tale, still smiling while you do it. It’s a remarkable thing. I hope you know that.”

A tear caught the light trickling in from the corridor’s high windows as it dropped from his eyes, irises swimming with gratitude and remnants of pain he was not yet willing to divulge. He thanked you once more with an earnest sincerity that was so rare to see, and then left to pack his things, swearing to visit you again on September 1st.

As Harry sat staring out his window in The Leaky Cauldron at the dull night sky, knees pulled to his chest and hands clasped tightly together, he wondered how it was possible for him to feel more alone than ever, exiled from the house he grew up in, waiting anxiously for his thirteenth birthday to come.

He wanted to be back in Hogwarts. People cared for him in Hogwarts. You cared for him in Hogwarts. Here the bed creaked and the pipes clanged and the wind whistled as it came through the windows and his loneliness made him feel sick. So Harry did what he always did when he needed a distraction, he went for a walk.

The floorboards groaned beneath his weight, a small sound seeming so mammoth when laid before a silent hallway. If he listened hard enough, Harry could hear the quiet drone of conversation and drunken laughter from lingering patrons downstairs, but he carried on his path away until it was just him and his steady breaths.

“Are you lost?” A portrait asked making the boy jump from his skin. A masculine voice, deep and authoritative but complete with a soothing edge Harry likened vaguely to Arthur Weasley or Dumbledore.

Harry turned to face his frame. It was a simple model, nothing fancy enough to seem out of place in its dwelling, but polished enough to know it was revered. The man was beautiful, Harry thought. With freckled cheeks, big brown eyes, and a slightly flattened nose. He smiled at Harry’s hesitation, a small, kind thing, as though he were welcoming an old friend or coaxing a fawn from hiding.

Sebastian Sallow. Auror. 1875-1938. The golden plaque beneath him read. The last name made Harry’s breath hitch. Sallow.

You’d told him stories of your lover many times, of how you found each other just as you needed it most, how you stayed by him when no others would and how he returned the debt in kind. Harry had almost been able to fall in love with the man through your words alone.

“You’re Y/n’s husband.” He blurted without thinking, and Sebastian’s small smile grew to split his face, a deep laugh rumbling from his chest.

“It is one of my grander accomplishments.” A confident content that could almost be confused for smugness settled on his face. “And you’re Harry Potter. I’ve heard many things about you. Seems you’ve managed to quite entrance my wife.”

A dark red flooded Harry’s cheeks. “She’s very kind.”

“She is indeed. Though, she’d kill me if I didn’t ask what brings you here.”

Harry paused. “I couldn’t stay home any longer.”

Sebastian clicked his tongue, humming in acknowledgment. “I understand. Are you alright?”

It was a simple question, one he normally would’ve brushed off without second thought, but Sebastian seemed to share your ability of coaxing out Harry’s deepest truth. “I don’t know.”

A tense beat passed between them, neither knowing exactly what to say, both knowing you would if you were there, until Sebastian eventually broke the silence. “I remember when I felt like that.” Harry looked at him inquisitively.

“Christmas in our fifth year, I had… a falling out with my uncle and sister. The thought of going back home made me feel ill, so I didn’t. For the first time, I spent the holiday in the castle, just as she did.”

December 22nd, 1890.

A grey cloud seemed eternally settled above Sebastian’s head and the sight of your friend’s unspoken torment made your skin crawl. Ominis had just departed for Gaunt Manor, making hushed comment on the fact he’d likely be back within a week. You wished he hadn’t left at all.

Your worry for Sebastian had been gnawing away at you ever since the events surrounding Salazar’s Sciptorium. You feared for the path he threatened to follow, the darkness settling into the far corners of his mind. His nose was always stuck in the damned book you found in that room, reading, searching, and scouring for anything that would help Anne.

A small part of you knew he would give his own life to absolve her of that pain, a larger part feared he would give yours too.

“Have you eaten?” You asked him, taking a gentle approach with deliberate steps towards his hunched-over frame, careful not to startle him.

“Hm?” He hummed in half-acknowledgment.

“I said, ‘Have you eaten?’” There was a smile evident in your voice as you pulled out the chair beside him.

“Oh— Uhm, not yet.” He brushed off your concern. You thought Sebastian was clever, but if he truly was, he would’ve known you wouldn’t let up that easily.

You sighed, standing up again and patting his shoulders. “Up.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Up. You’ve been sat here every day this past week from dawn till dusk and I will not let it carry on any longer.” He hung his lead low and shook it slightly and you could tell he was fighting a smile. “If you won’t move for the sake of yourself, do it for the sake of chivalry. I intend to go to Hogsmeade and don’t wish to go alone. For safety.”

“You and I both know you’d best any opponents that cross us before I could even ready my wand.” He laughed, but he was slowly gathering his things and tucking them beneath his arm.

“Not if my opponent is loneliness. Come on, Sebastian. Entertain me.” You didn’t even attempt to hide your smugness as he stood by your side, holding his arm out for you to take. “How charming.” You commented, your hand resting on his elbow as he guided you from Hogwarts.

After spending almost every day of the past three months in your company, Sebastian had come to think nothing of mindless affection.

He noticed it first in your interactions with Natsai. How you pulled her into a tight embrace after she won a round of Crossed Wands, only letting go when it was your turn to duel.

Then it was with Poppy. How the pair of you always seemed to sit or stand close enough to each other to touch in some way. How she’d place her head on your shoulder and you’d rest yours on top of hers.

Even with Anne, who you had only just met, you placed your hands on her shoulders ever-so-softly as she told you of her strife. It seemed to natural for you to touch those you cared for.

He realised you were more hesitant to show affection to your male classmates. You’d hold Garreth’s arm as you laughed at a joke, but always retracted after a few seconds. But the Scriptorium changed everything.

In the moment, he supposed it was mere adrenaline, that the way you tightly squeezed Ominis after his parseltounge display was a mere product of high tensions. But when he cast Crucio, he saw Ominis react in a way he never had before. Ominis grabbed you and held you close as you cried and thrashed in his arms, hands shaking as he fought every urge in him to leave you alone and fend off him own haunting memories.

After that, you and Ominis became more freely affectionate than ever, sparking more than a few courtship rumours that made Sebastian’s heart race more than they should have. The blond boy would let you lead him through crowded areas where his wand might have failed him. You’d let him lean against you in History of Magic.

Your closeness with Sebastian was forged from a moment of weakness on his end.

A week prior to the Christmas break, the day Sebastian decided not to return to Feldcroft, you’d caught him sat on a bench by the greenhouses, watching the wildflowers billow in the moonlight. His hands were clasped before him, his knee kept bouncing, and his brows were furrowed into a deep line.

You approached him just as you had in the library, with a soft tenderness, inviting him to the Room of Requirement for some space to clear his mind.

He took his anger out of conjured training dummies and yelled so loud you had to move your diricawls to a different vivarium so they wouldn’t get scared until, eventually, he collapsed onto one of the sofas you had set up in the middle of the room. The last thing he remembered of that night was your fingers combing through his hair. And then he woke up, his head resting in your lap, your hands still in his tresses. He sat up quickly, instantly aware of how compromising such a position could be.

You were fast asleep, head tilted back on the sofa in a way that must’ve been most uncomfortable. His cheeks warmed at the thought of you sitting through that for his sake. He took off his robe and draped it over your frame, smiling as you subconsciously curled around it.

From that night on, it felt like a barrier had been broken between the two of you. Sebastian’s hand would seek yours beneath tables, his touch would linger on the small of your back in Hogsmeade.

“She always made me feel welcomed.” He said to Harry, eyes glazed over as he stayed half-distracted is his reminiscence. “She did that for everyone.” A laugh bubbled out of his mouth. “I remember all of our daughter’s friends wanted to come stay at our home just to see her. No matter how busy she was with work, she’d make them food and sweets and entertain whatever stories they had to tell her.”

Harry found himself laughing too, a sense of longing rooting him in his spot. He watched Sebastian, who he’d read about as a formidable curse-breaker unafraid of anything, turn to nothing more than a smitten schoolchild at the recollection of your younger memories and wondered what it would’ve been like to hear such stories from his own father.

“When she passed, it seemed as though the world itself stopped to grieve. Our Annie didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know how to help her. I mean, how can you tell a child her mother is dead?” Sebastian was vaguely aware that he was preaching to the wrong choir, but he so rarely got to wallow in the pain he felt all those years ago and found himself swept into its storm all over again.

The word ‘child’ caught Harry’s ears and made him look at Sebastian in confusion. “How could Anne be a child when Y/n passed? She said you had her at thirty.”

Sebastian’s mind cleared, shock melting to realisation on his face as the fact you’d kept your death from Harry dawned on him. “She was thirty-eight when it happened.”

“How?” Harry found himself asking without care for how insensitive it may have come across.

“It was supposed to be her final mission before retirement. She’d been worked to the bone for over twenty years, and if I carried on in my post, we’d have had more than enough money to carry on comfortably while she minded Anne. She was promised an easy case to finish it off, something about a loose canon in the south of France. She insisted to bring me along for ‘aid’ but I knew it was because the year prior I’d made comment about wanting to visit.”

“The case itself was fine, an old witch had written a barely legible spell book centuries before our time and passed it down from generation to generation as nothing more than mantle decoration, but it fell into the hands of a reckless wizard. Between the two of us, he was contained easily, but he had a wife who didn’t know the full story. She saw none of his wrongdoings and only us defeating and detaining him. She cast a killing curse on me whilst my back was turned and—” His breath caught in his throat.

“Her valiance had always been both my most and least favourite trait of hers. She pushed me out of the way before anyone could blink.”

A heavy silence settled over them both. A pit weighed in Harry’s stomach, stoking a fire of anger at the injustice of the Wizarding World.

His mother was a kind woman. His father was a kind man. You were kind. And what kindness was afforded to you in return? A cold death by an uncaring wand? Is that what truly came from devotion? Is that what would come to him?

“I’m sorry.” Was all he managed to say to Sebastian.

“There’s no need. I’m with her now.” The man smiled back. “It’s funny, when we were younger, I would be so annoyed every time an artist requested to commission a painting of her because it took away from the time I could spend with her. But once she passed, I couldn’t have been more grateful for them, because it gave me infinite chances to speak with her again.”

It wasn’t long before Harry felt the gentle temptations of sleep crawl to the forefronts of his mind and he bid Sebastian adieu after making the portrait promise to say hello on his behalf.

Decades had passed now since that first fateful day in the potions corridor. Harry had grown from a feeble and uncertain boy to a man weathered by grief but uplifted by the love he gave and received in turn.

He recalled you saying once how you wished for him the same family you made with Sebastian and he liked to believe that he now did. His eldest son radiated a nervous energy as he hovered by the front door of his girlfriend’s parents house, his other children stood behind him, giggling at their brother’s anxiety, Ginny stood by his side and smiled up at him with a knowing look.

It was the first time they were meeting the girl’s family, having met her once or twice in passing when they dropped James Sirius off at 9 3/4, and Harry couldn’t have been more excited if he tried. The way his son seemed to glow at the mention of the girl put him in mind of how he did with Ginny, how Rob did with Hermione, how Sebastian had that night in the Leaky Cauldron.

He wondered how the two of you fared in the years since he last spoke with you. It seemed as he travelled for auror work, he found less and less time to spend in the Three Broomsticks speaking with a painting over a few too many firewhiskeys. He hoped you were well and that you’d be proud of what he managed to accomplish, that he carried on the ‘chosen one’ lineage with a happy ending just as you had before.

Before he could wallow any longer, the door swung open to reveal a woman with a warm smile and brown eyes. “Hello!” She beamed.

“Amelia?!” Ginny exclaimed with a bright before introductions could be made. The woman’s jaw dropped in shock.

“Ginny Weasley?!” The redhead ushered her children inside to give the other woman a tight hug. “Merlin, you’ve changed since Hogwarts.” She let out a breathy laugh, holding Ginny by the shoulders.

“We were in the same year.” Ginny explained to her husband while Amelia told the children her daughter was just ahead in the front room.

“Lovely to meet you officially, Harry.” Amelia smiled and shook his hand. “My husband’s just popped down to the shop to get some wine and I’m finishing up the dinner, so make yourselves comfortable. Food should be ready in about ten minutes.”

Ginny went inside to greet the girl her son was so besotted by while Harry stayed back to hang her coat. As he walked toward the front room, he took his time in admiring the artwork lining their walls. They were all nice pieces, although nothing seemed to grab his attention until he saw the plaque on the last one before the door.

He could hear the fire crackling and his family laughing, but there was only one thing he could focus on. Y/n and Sebastian Sallow.

He dared not look up for fear he’d somehow misremembered the name of the woman who saved his school time sanity and raised his hopes for naught. He kept his eyes firmly in the plaque until he heard that same soft voice once again.

“Hello, sweetheart. I thought you’d gotten lost.”

©voguesriot 2025

taglist (comment or send an ask if you want to be added!): n/a

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts #legacy #hogwarts legacy mc #hogwarts legacy x reader #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow x mc #ominis gaunt #garreth weasley #poppy sweeting #natsai onai #anne sallow #harry potter #harry potter x reader #platonic!harry potter x reader #🪬 the house of the rising sun!universe

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hollowed-theory-hall · 26 days ago

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Can we talk about Harry having leadership thrust upon him in Deathly Hallows, please?

Like, I know he had a leadership role with the D.A. and with the Quidditch team to a lesser extent and he was always the leader of the Golden Trio, but I kinda want to talk about the flavor of leadership the wizarding population thrusts on him and how Harry is essentially the "promised king"/Jesus during DH. Like, there were 2 quotes specifically that really stood out to me, and I kinda wanted to talk about them even though I mentioned some of the points I bring up here before (if not in the same post in this way).

Like, I talked before about Harry's charisma and how others seem to see him, but there is something about the reverence he gets in DH, that makes me feel things.

I talked in the past about how Harry is the defacto leader of the Golden Trio when shit gets dangerous, and the D.A. treat him like the leader since fifth year:

“I think we ought to elect a leader,” said Hermione. “Harry’s leader,” said Cho at once, looking at Hermione as though she were mad, and Harry’s stomach did yet another back flip. “Yes, but I think we ought to vote on it properly,” said Hermione, unperturbed. “It makes it formal and it gives him authority. So — everyone who thinks Harry ought to be our leader?” Everybody put up their hands, even Zacharias Smith, though he did it very halfheartedly. “Er — right, thanks,” said Harry, who could feel his face burning.

(OotP, Ch18)

But, the rest of the WW kinda treat him like that too, even when he's a young child. Even in book 1, Harry isn't really seen as a person; he is a saviour, a public figure, a beacon:

Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron. [...] Harry shook hands again and again — Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.

(PS, Ch5)

His time, his body, his existence isn't seen as his own — it's everyone's. It's why the Prophet keeps writing about him like they do, it's why everyone feels comfortable to stare and whisper about him to his face. It's why no one (in the wider population/school) is really concerned when Harry faces danger (like the tournament) — because he's Harry Potter. He isn't just some child, he's The Boy Who Lived.

And Scrimgeour and the Death Eaters all understand the political threat he could pose, if he was inclined to it, ad the asset he could be:

“It would give everyone a lift to think you were more involved, Harry,” said Scrimgeour, sounding relieved that Harry had cottoned on so quickly. “ ‘The Chosen One,’ you know . . . It’s all about giving people hope, the feeling that exciting things are happening. . . .” “But if I keep running in and out of the Ministry,” said Harry, still endeavoring to keep his voice friendly, “won’t that seem as though I approve of what the Ministry’s up to?” “Well,” said Scrimgeour, frowning slightly, “well, yes, that’s partly why we’d like —” “No, I don’t think that’ll work,” said Harry pleasantly. [...] “I don’t want to be used,” said Harry.

(HBP, Ch16) - I love how smart Harry is here. He has that Slytherin cunning when he wants to. He sees right through Scrimgeour and plays him so well.

“That’s certainly part of it,” said Lupin, “and it is a masterstroke. Now that Dumbledore is dead, you—the Boy Who Lived—were sure to be the symbol and rallying point for any resistance to Voldemort. But by suggesting that you had a hand in the old hero’s death, Voldemort has not only set a price upon your head, but sown doubt and fear amongst many who would have defended you.

(DH, Ch11)

And Dumbledore purposely set him up for this position. Everything Dumbledore did, giving Harry the credit for his misadventures at school, putting him through fifth year in the public's eye only to come out as the Chosen One the ministry prosecuted unrightfully (because Dumbledore planned for that. He positioned Harry with him and set the stage for when he lores Voldemort to show himself). Harry was set up to be seen as a saviour to the Wizarding World. To be the symbol and Dumbledore's successor in the public eye.

The instructions Dumbledore left for the Order to follow before his death fit this goal too (Remus implies it at least). He sets Harry as his successor, whether Harry wanted it or not:

Lupin hesitated. “I’ll understand if you can’t confirm this, Harry, but the Order is under the impression that Dumbledore left you a mission.”

(DH, Ch11)

“Romulus, do you maintain, as you have every time you’ve appeared on our program, that Harry Potter is still alive?” “I do,” said Lupin firmly. “There is no doubt at all in my mind that his death would be proclaimed as widely as possible by the Death Eaters if it had happened, because it would strike a deadly blow at the morale of those resisting the new regime. ’The Boy Who Lived’ remains a symbol of everything for which we are fighting: the triumph of good, the power of innocence, the need to keep resisting.” [...] “And what would you say to Harry if you knew he was listening, Romulus?” “I’d tell him we’re all with him in spirit,” said Lupin, then hesitated slightly, “And I’d tell him to follow his instincts, which are good and nearly always right.” Harry looked at Hermione, whose eyes were full of tears. “Nearly always right,” she repeated.

(DH, Ch22)

They back him up in spirit, they resist in small ways, but none of them is waging a war, not yet. Everyone, adults and teens, is waiting for Harry's order to start the real fight. They are waiting for Harry to lead them into battle. The Order is literally just focusing on hiding and keeping its members alive and hidden until Harry's orders:

“What are we going to do, then, Harry?” asked Seamus. “What’s the plan?” “Plan?” repeated Harry. He was exercising all his willpower to prevent himself succumbing again to Voldemort’s rage: His scar was still burning. “Well, there’s something we—Ron, Hermione, and I—need to do, and then we’ll get out of here.” Nobody was laughing or whooping anymore. Neville looked confused. “What d’you mean, ’get out of here’?” [...] “I sent for her,” said Neville, holding up the fake Galleon. “I promised her and Ginny that if you turned up I’d let them know. We all thought that if you came back, it would mean revolution. That we were going to overthrow Snape and the Carrows.” [...] “We’re fighting aren’t we?” said Dean, taking out his fake Galleon. “The message said Harry was back, and we were going to fight! I’ll have to get a wand, though—”

(DH, Ch29)

That's insane.

Like, all these people were readying for a fight, they were prepared for months. Neville led a whole underground resistance on his own, Kingsley led the Order in hiding and kept the idea of Harry alive, he goes on to become the next minister — but neither of them really does anything on their own. At least nothing big. They don't help the muggleborns in the Ministry, they can rally people, but not in their own right. Like with Hermione and the D.A., Kingsley and Neville are rallying people around Harry.

And all their preparations and machinations are just waiting for Haryr's word. Just waiting for the king to give his general (Neville) the word to rally the troops — because this is what happens at the end of DH.

I specifically want to talk about this quote:

The most recent of these, shining brightly over sixteen years’ worth of magical graffiti, all said similar things. Good luck, Harry wherever you are. If you read this, Harry, we’re all behind you! Long live Harry Potter.

(DH, Ch17) - Quote number 1 that really stood out to me.

"Long live Harry Potter"

Like, this line stood out to me. This is a "long live the king" sort of line that's so on the nose. And I know as a Fandom we call Harry a war symbol, but I don't think we really talk about it. and how much Harry is aware of it, and somewhat accepts it, because he has no choice.

About how the WW truly hinges their salvation on this 17-year-old kid. How Harry just being alive is a sign of resistance.

How when he arrives at Hogwarts, everyone is convinced he's there to lead a battle. Adults look to him to tell them what to do:

“Time’s running out, Voldemort’s getting nearer. Professor, I’m acting on Dumbledore’s orders, I must find what he wanted me to find! But we’ve got to get the students out while I’m searching the castle—It’s me Voldemort wants, but he won’t care about killing a few more or less, not now—”’ not now he knows I’m attacking Horcruxes. Harry finished the sentence in his head. “You’re acting on Dumbledore’s orders?” she repeated with a look of dawning wonder. Then she drew herself up to her fullest height. “We shall secure the school against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named while you search for this—this object.” “Is that possible?” “I think so,” said Professor McGonagall dryly, “we teachers are rather good at magic, you know. [...] “Harry, what’s happening?” said Lupin, meeting him at the foot of the stairs. [...] “They’re evacuating the younger kids and everyone’s meeting in the Great Hall to get organized,” Harry said. “We’re fighting.” There was a great roar and a surge toward the foot of the stairs, he was pressed back against the wall as they ran past him, the mingled members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore’s Army, and Harry’s old Quidditch team, all with their wands drawn, heading up into the main castle.

(DH, Ch30)

Everyone turns to Harry to tell them what's happening and what to do. McGonagall, Lupin, and everyone else who was called to the battle arrived because of Harry. They were ready to fight and die to end Voldemort, but they were only willing to take the risk because Harry told them they had a chance. Because they had faith in Harry.

If they believed they could do it without him, they wouldn't have waited. But they waited for Harry's order. He didn't even need to tell them anything beyond: get the innocents out and fight. He didn't force anyone to do anything; he didn't really order anyone — they are just willing to follow him to a crazy degree.

And Harry doesn't like it, but he knows how to lead people and stay calm under pressure; it's what he does because he never allows himself to show weakness. Harry is looked at by adults way more experienced than him because Dumbledore told them "Harry would know what to do". Harry was thrust into this position and is crumbling so badly but no one except Ron and Hermione see it... and even they don't see it all.

They try to help, and get him to get help from others:

Harry looked from Ron to Hermione, who murmured, “I think Ron’s right. We don’t even know what we’re looking for, we need them.” And when Harry looked unconvinced, “You don’t have to do everything alone, Harry.” Harry thought fast, his scar still prickling, his head threatening to split again. Dumbledore had warned against telling anyone but Ron and Hermione about the Horcruxes. Secrets and lies, that’s how we grew up, and Albus. . . he was a natural. . . Was he turning into Dumbledore, keeping his secrets clutched to his chest, afraid to trust? But Dumbledore had trusted Snape, and where had that led? To murder at the top of the highest tower. . .

(DH, Ch29)

The message is against Dumbledore's secrecy, that trusting and asking for help is good... But in the end, Harry is alone. He is much more similar to Dumbledore than he wants to be. He accepts the position Dumbledore set him up for. When he faces death, he leaves Neville with a mission, just like Dumbledore:

“No,” Harry lied easily. “’Course not . . . this is something else. But I might be out of sight for a while. You know Voldemort’s name, Neville? He’s got a huge snake. . . . Calls it Nagini . . . ” [...] But he pulled himself together again; This was crucial, he must be like Dumbledore, keep a cool head, make sure there were backups, others to carry on. Dumbledore had died knowing that three people still knew about the Horcruxes; now Neville will take Harry’s place. There would still be three in the secret.

(DH, Ch34)

This above section kills me. Because it is exactly what Dumbledore did (except Dumbledore chose the position, Harry didn't). Harry, as much as he dislikes it, is a leader; he knows people, he understands he can't show weakness, and that there are things he has to do alone. He knows he needs contingencies, that he needs to lie... He is a leader when push comes to shove, always was.

What's insane to me is that Harry is this wise, and has this understanding of sacrifice at 17! Sure, Dumbledore understood all of these things too, was as politically savvy as Harry (well, a bit more), as charismatic and as good of a liar, but we (and the Wizarding World) saw him like that when he was over 100 years old! Even when he fought Gridnlewald, he was 64 (he was born in 1881). Harry is so young for all of this. When Dumbledore chose to die for the mission, he was 115, Harry was 17.

I just... Harry, man. He's so mature because he never got to be a childhood in the first place.

(I think, like Dumbledore, if Harry asked to be Minister (which he would never), the WW would say yes)

And, like Dumbledore, Harry is alone in his position. The position of a figurehead is a lonely place. You keep secrets, you lie, you can't show weakness. And even if Harry had Ron and Hermione (which Dumbledore didn't), who cared for him and knew him and his struggles, and loved him as just Harry, at the end of the day, he is alone. The Wizarding World looked to him. When they arrived at the RoR, everyone looked to Harry. They were happy to see Ron & Hermione, but it was Harry who carried their hopes.

And when he walks to face death, he does it alone:

The castle was empty. He felt ghostly striding through it alone, as if he had already died. The portrait people were still missing from their frames; the whole place was eerily still, as if all its remaining lifeblood were concentrated in the Great Hall where the dead and the mourners were crammed. [...] The Resurrection Stone slipped from between his numb fingers, and out of the corner of his eyes he saw his parents, Sirius, and Lupin vanish as he stepped forward into the firelight. At that moment he felt that nobody mattered but Voldemort. It was just the two of them.

(DH, Ch34)

And then, again when he faced Voldemort after he came back from the dead:

“I don’t want anyone else to try to help.” Harry said loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried like a trumpet call. “It’s got to be like this. It’s got to be me.” [...] They were still moving sideways, both of them, in that perfect circle, maintaining the same distance from each other, and for Harry no face existed but Voldemort’s.

(DH, Ch36)

Harry's strength of character kills me. I love him, and he didn't deserve any of it. Nor did he ask for it. But he felt it was his responsibility — his duty. Dumbledore taught him that he can only count on himself and Dumbledore's plan, and this is what Harry does, regardless of all his doubts about Dumbledore — because he doesn't have a choice.

The other scene in Deathly Hallows really hits home the Jesus/"long live Harry Potter" bit for me, is this one:

Harry could not hear a word that anyone was shouting, nor tell whose hands were seizing him, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, hundreds of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it was over at last—

(DH, Ch36) - Quote number 2 that really stood out to me.

I know he died and came back; there are plenty of religious allegories when it comes to Harry and his story, but I care more about the Wizarding World & Harry's reaction to it than the actual symbolism itself in this post.

Because this mirrors the first time Harry arrives at Diagon Alley. People flock to him (a saviour — not a person, the Boy Who Lived — not Harry), to try and touch him. Like just being in his proximity could be their salvation. Harry is someone who sacrificed everything (both unwillingly and willingly) for them — his childhood, his studies, his parents, his godfather, his happiness, his health, his life — but they don't see the sacrifice for the most part. They don't see Harry when he's tired or crying because Harry learned long before he arrived at Hogwarts to hide his pain, that no one cared if he cried.

I just love how empty "long live Harry Potter" is. He is their saviour, the promised king who would return to save them when they need him most. He is Jesus come back from the dead, he is King Arthur returned, he is the Boy Who Lived — he is everything except just Harry.

And Harry doesn't complain because when did that ever help him. He lets everyone try to reach out to him because he understands on some level (since he's 11) that he unfortunately isn't just his own. That he was never just Harry. (mentioned it a little here)

(One of the other things that bother me about the epilogue is that it ignores all of that. Like, I can't imagine the Wizarding World acting normal about Harry anytime soon after DH. They were never normal about Harry, and after he came back from the dead and defeated Voldemort again, you're telling me people would treat him like he's any other celebrity? Like, he is The Boy Who Lived Twice, and you're telling me people would be normal about that? After they practically worshipped this poor kid for a whole year, maybe more, depending on how you count?)

#this post has been sitting in my drafts for weeks #since I finished my DH reread #But I finally got around to finish it #harry potter #hp #hp meta #harry james potter #my best boy hjp #harry potter meta #wizarding world #hollowedtheory #deathly hallows

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plaidos · 5 months ago

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It's weird how JK Rowling is anti autistic, yet made an autistic coded character (Newt Scamander).

It also says a lot about her how the majority of the Harry Potter cast want nothing to do with her now that she's full mask off and has proven to be a bigot.

Also, I feel sorry for the Harry Potter fans that grew up loving this series only to eventually find out what a piece of shit JK Rowling is.

I also feel bad for the cast. There's a couple of pictures I've seen where Emma, Daniel, and Rupert are at the premiere of the first Harry Potter film in 2001, and one of Deathly Hallows part 2.

The three have distanced theirself from her and I'm glad they have.

i mean. it isn’t really weird at all? like JK Rowling isn’t nebulously “grrr i hate autistic people” she is just ableist in a way that enables her to say shit like “autistic people are too confused to be allowed to transition”. i doubt she meant Newt Scamander or any of her other autistic-seeming characters (it’s been a while since i gave a shit but Luna Lovegood springs to mind) to be like, literally actually autistic, she probably was just like “oh i want to make one of those soft boys with particular interests. one of those real Sheldons. a straighter Alan Turing”. the same way that Sheldon Cooper actually is canonically NOT autistic — because if they make him autistic canonically (which he would undeniably be diagnosed as were he real) then suddenly all the jokes about what a mean loser he is for having a spot become obviously bigoted.

autistic coded characters are in fact incredibly popular amongst people who are bigoted towards autistic people, because the way anti-autistic bigotry manifests isn’t as overt hatred of autistic folks (usually) but of condescending pity to us & hatred of the ways we are inconvenient to them.

this, i think, is part of the problem with people just posting “Um JK Rowling hates autistic people, she’s anti autistic” like no not really, she’s not really any more ableist to autistic people than any other rich white neurotypical british cis woman, she literally only gives a fuck about autistic people at all so she can use them as a token in a debate. by accepting that premise i think people are being as intellectually dishonest as she is.

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velvet4510 · 13 days ago

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Drarry Horcrux Hunting Fic Rec: Where The Shadow Ends on AO3

Where The Shadow Ends by thewitchwholived is a newly-finished Drarry rewrite of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, canon-divergent from Chapter 11 onwards - starting when Remus leaves Grimmauld Place. It is an epic, 65 chapters long. (It is locked on AO3, so only those with an account can read it.)

This is seriously not only the BEST Drarry Horcrux Hunting fic I’ve EVER read, but it has replaced canon in my head. This is Deathly Hallows for me. It doesn’t have NEARLY enough hits or kudos, so I’m spreading the word here because it deserves ALL the love and attention from anyone still sore about Draco’s lack of canonical redemption and the canonical lack of Drarry!!

Draco’s character development, relevance to the plot, and relationships with the Golden Trio are expanded and fleshed out so thoroughly here. Everything JKR ignored, this fic focuses on. You’ll be AMAZED at how beautifully it’s all developed.

Some specific details I must single out for praise:

Draco actually feels like a true Slytherin here, in the BEST ways. His role in the Horcrux hunt brings out his cunning intelligence and remarkable resourcefulness in surprising and satisfying ways. His skills at Potions, Occlumency, and Memory Charms prove invaluable not just to the hunt, but also to the Golden Trio’s safety multiple times. There are so many moments where you think, “wow he’s a GENIUS.” He wasn’t 2nd only to Hermione in school for no reason!!!

Draco gets a really special Patronus.

There is a recurring parallel between Harry’s visions of Voldemort and Draco’s continuous PTSD nightmares about Voldemort. This proves to be a source of intimate empathy and bonding between them that makes the Drarry of it all so profound and believable.

There’s some incredibly sweet scenes where Draco introduces Harry to classical music and to the beach for the first time.

Besides his chemistry with Harry, Draco unexpectedly makes amends and bonds with Ron and Hermione in different ways. Their bad history is not forgotten; they acknowledge it, and it continues to haunt their interactions. Yet they slowly but surely grow together. By the end, Draco feels like a true and unanimously-valued part of the group, and we know he has earned Ron & Hermione’s eventual approval as Harry’s BF.

The four of them share a genuinely heartwarming makeshift Christmas celebration in the tent, at about the halfway point.

Romione still get their special moments, as well as a few beautiful new moments. (Their first kiss is unchanged, don’t worry!)

Dobby, Fred, and Remus are all spared.

#NotAllSlytherins comes into play brilliantly leading up to and during the Battle of Hogwarts, as Blaise, Theo, and Pansy want nothing to do with the Death Eaters and instead help our heroes.

Draco has some truly awesome moments where he finally stands up to his parents, Bellatrix, and even Voldemort himself. (There’s one moment during the final battle that is the absolute 180 antithesis of young Draco’s terrified first reaction to seeing Voldemort in The Philosopher’s Stone.)

Dumbledore and Snape are not idolized or completely forgiven at the last minute. Their flaws are not swept under the rug in the finale, and Harry’s feelings towards them remain complicated, as they should.

Harry becomes master of the Elder Wand through an act of love from Draco, not through combat defeat.

Harry’s NDE is altered in the most beautiful, heartwarming, and tearjerking way. I won’t spoil it; you’ll have to read it for yourself. You’ll find yourself unable to deny that this is exactly what that scene SHOULD have been, and needed to be.

There are some incredible Wolfstar crumbs toward the end, brief but profound.

The fic itself is Harry’s POV, but there are two “spin-offs” that retell two major chapters from Draco’s POV.

A few fair warnings for explicit-Drarry die-hards and canon experts:

Draco and Harry’s slow burn is in fact SO slow that they never technically get together in the fic itself - but they will in the ongoing sequel Where The Light Begins (which updates every Wednesday and Sunday.) Yet one of the upsides to that is it makes the fic feel all the more “real” in terms of fitting established canon - like this COULD have been the official 7th book, if JKR hadn’t hated Draco so much or been so homophobic. The subtextual growth of their feelings is still rich and layered.

Also, several canon plot points are changed, moved around, or omitted entirely due to Draco’s presence. But the alterations are great in their own way, and nothing of substance is lost.

PLEASE check this fic out! You will not regret it!!!

If you’re already familiar with this fic, I hope you’ll back me up here on how phenomenal it is.

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moattemptstoarticulate · 3 months ago

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Seamus Finnigan and Irish Stereotyping

Hello,

This is my first attempt at a Tumblr post so forgive me if this lacks all sense.

For context, I was born and raised Irish, if that's important for this post.

I've been in the Harry Potter fandom since the age of eleven. During that time I've dipped in and out and have gained more knowledge and nuanced thought towards literature in-between. Admittedly these books are not well-written even if you ignore the immense bigotry drowning anything JKR does. I've seen many conversations surrounding the blatant transphobia of JKR and the racism, anti-semitism and homophobia within her work. All of these are extremely important topics that we, as a fandom, need to continue the discussion on. One of the more subtle forms of hate shown through her work that I don't often see talked about, is her treatment of Seamus Finnigan and her portrayal of Irish society and it's people through that.

The more obvious stereotyping is seen through Seamus and his "proclivity for pyrothenics" (a quote from McGongall in the Deathly Hallows Part 2). A key point to note about the books is that they were written during and in the aftermath of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I'm not going to do an in depth explanation of the Troubles itself as that would require me to recap over 800 years of British Colonial rule and oppression over Ireland but I will give a brief run-through for clarity incase anyone reading is unaware of the conflict.

The troubles as it's known today spanned from 1968-1998 and resulted in an estimated 3600 deaths. The stereotype of Irish individuals having a supposed "proclivity for pyrotechnics" comes from the IRA (Irish Republican Army). This group was formed by Irish civilians to fight against Catholic Nationalist communities oppression through violent means. This post by no means is an attempt to jusitfy the horrifc actions of the IRA during the Troubles. It is only an attempt to shed light on the harmful stereotyping JKR imbedded in her primary Irish representation in the Harry Potter series. Saying your Irish Character has a penchant for explosives, during a time in which Irish people were in the midst or recovering from such a violent conflict, leaves the assumption that Seamus, the only real reoccuring Irish representation, is a part of the IRA or that Irish people in general love to blow things up and cause chaos. This is harmful, especially when being read by young british people. Political relations in Northern Ireland and between Ireland and Britain were incredibly strained and still are in some aspects. Pushing the narrative that Irish people are dangerous does not help heal these relations and subtly increases the bad image of Irish people in the eyes of British society.

Another issue with Seamus Finnigan's character is the mentions of alcohol. It's a common stereotype that Irish people love alcohol and this has been used to demonise our culture in other areas of media. In The Philosphers Stone (keep in mind Seamus would've been 11-12 years old at the time.) Seamus actively tries to turn water into rum. The spell itself can be implied to be of Irish origin "Eye of rabbit, harp string hum, turn this water into rum" as the harp is the Emblem of Ireland. Having your Irish character, at the assumed age of 11, try to turn water into rum is incredibly harmful and builds on this "drunken Irish" stereotype. Not to mention the spell results in multiple explosions, linking back to my first point of his "proclivity for pyrotechnics."

My final point, which is simultanously the most subtle but quite frankly the craziest and most damaging is Seamus' initials matching that of the party Sinn Fein. I've already given a brief synopsis of the Troubles and a key thing to note about Sinn Fein is that they were heavily intertwined with the IRA with the two initally starting out as the same group before splitting into an armed group (the IRA) and a political half (The party Sinn Fein.) So intertwined that their president during the 80s, Gerry Adams, was also the tactical leader of the IRA (alledgedly...). Once again JKR has managed to subtly (yet not so subtly if you know what to look for) imply her primary Irish character is a memeber of the anti- british violent organisation through his initals.

Another point that is more of a reach than my other points is that Seamus is the first of Harry's friends to turn on him in ootp. The only Irish character turning on the British hero and in a sense leading the hate train against him? Given the clear views JKR holds against the Irish, it's not too much of a jump to assume that she'd start by villianising Seamus.

Overall it's clear JKR had some very strong opinions on the Irish that she felt the absolute need to inform everyone on through her work aimed at children. Rather unfortunate as a young Irish reader who watched their idol not only begin a campagin agaisnt their rights as a trans individual but also perpetuate horrible ideas against a country still feeling the impact of decades long violent conflict.

Once again it comes far too easily to condemn JKR and her horribly damaging actions agaisnt her own readers.

#harry potter #anti jkr #fuck jkr #seamus finnigan #irish #marauders #jkr is trash #stop stereotyping #the troubles #i hate jk rowling

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aethon-recs · 8 months ago

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This Week in Tomarrymort (4 – 10 October 2024)

Another week chock-full of updates! October is always such a rich and amazingly productive month in fandom, with such an explosion of new ideas and fics with the many prompt challenges going on. And a few more @tomarrybigbang fics as well!

As with last week, please feel free to add some extra context to your fic update in the reblog, like a little bit about the chapter(s) updated. For this format of weekly list, there’s no space to add a summary or extra info about the fics, so I’ll rely on the authors to share a bit more about their updates, if you’re so inclined! 🤍

A recap of the author notes from last week:

such unholy heaving by @cealesti (M, 10k, WIP) “A horror/suspense F/F Tomarry fic set in a D&D-inspired fantasy setting.” These Fragments We've Shored by @rowena-rain (M, 28k, WIP) “GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon General, Harry Potter should not drink alcoholic beverages while resurrecting Lord Voldemort because of the risk of...everything. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to operate Deathly Hallows, and may cause, er, problems. Aka, Harry gets hammered and decides it's a great idea to drunk "text" (i.e., summon) Voldemort with the Stone. Voldemort isn't one to pass up an opportunity to exploit vulnerability for personal gain.” Do It Over by @marrythemonstersao3 (T, 46k, WIP) “A depressed postwar Harry has taken Death's hand, reunited with the horcrux he mourned, and traveled into his own past Now he wakes up on the morning of his eleventh birthday, ready to do things differently this time. He has no grand plans, just the instinct to be close to the man whose soul he shares.” Anytime, Anywhere, Always by @moontearpensfic (E, 18k, WIP) “A role reversal AU! In this latest chapter, Tom tells a scary story for Halloween to get Harry hot and bothered.” on line sex & rabbit stew by @izharmilgram (E, 3k, complete) “Includes time-travelling Professor Harry Potter, phone sex in the 1950s, horcrux shenanigans, parseltongue, Tom being sexually frustrated... fun stuff.” The Brief Fiery Plummets by @marrythemonstersao3 (T, 1k, WIP) “A series of 100-word drabbles exploring different moments Harry might have woken up in after traveling back to the past in When the Weight is Gone.” forgive me father by @cindle-writes (E, 2k, complete) “A PWP one-shot where Tom sneaks into Harry's bed while he's sleeping and seduces him, featuring adoptive father Harry and shota boypussy Tom.”

Tomarrymort One Shots and Completed Fic

Chapter 15 (Completed) of Just Business by @holaolla1

One Shot | family friends by @reggieblk

One Shot | young lust by @xodahafez

One Shot | the precarity of virgin souls by @izharmilgram

One Shot | roughly, dry and painful by @2sidesofthesamesoul

One Shot | don’t wake me (i’m not dreaming) by @dreaming-in-the-dark

One Shot | The Sweetness of Your Tears by @v33r00

One Shot | sleeping with ghosts by @theonceandfuturequeenoftarts

One Shot | Newly Forged by @obsidianpen

One Shot | bad guy by @circleofplanets

One Shot | nineteen (ever so priceless) by @midsummersins

One Shot | Consequences of Murder by @penrot

Tomarrymort Ongoing Fics

Chapter 3 of friend of the devil (a friend of mine) by @shyinsunlight

Chapter 37 of Part One - The Solitude of Suffering by @iseliljathedreamer

Chapter 63 of Holly & Yew by @lovely-lotus

Chapter 7 of Anytime, Anywhere, Always by @moontearpensfic

Chapter 15 of Sits the wind in that quarter by @mosiva

Chapter 1 of it’s hard being casual by sansaerys

Chapter 12 of Saint Harry by @alenablack @chaos-bear

Chapter 9 of Ills of Murder by @shadow-of-the-eclipse

Chapter 3 of a pound of flesh by @ictyn

Chapter 7 of Hole in the Wall by tomrddle

Chapter 11 of Aphelion by TimaeusKosmou

Chapter 36 of Seeing Sand by @valkyrie-chemist

Chapter 14 of the stars, my destination by @milkandmoon-ao3

Chapter 2 of Lunacy by @crowcrowcrowthing

Chapters 1 and 2 of What quickens me is the violence in thee by @i-dream-of-libraries

Chapter 1 of The Sacred Art Of Repression by @goldenzingy46

Chapter 2 of such unholy heaving by @cealesti

Chapters 5 through 7 of The Brief Fiery Plummets by @marrythemonstersao3

Chapter 4 of Fate's Coffin by @noxxytocin

Chapter 1 of Infinite by @moontearpensfic

Chapter 5 of i am anonymous, you are a concrete wall by Pensievable

Chapter 1 of Plague by @a-sentimental-man

Chapter 5 of Forbidden Darkness by @neurowriter14

Chapter 4 of Memories of a Killer by @chemfreak89

Chapter 1 of the alchemy by @cindle-writes

Chapters 126 and 127 of Liquida Tenebris (Remastered) by @dymis

Chapter 1 of despite everything, it's still you by @boromirsayshi

Chapter 8 of all you do is kill, love snakes, and lie by @soopsiedaisies

#tomarry #tomarrymort #harrymort #tomarrymort recs #aethon recs #tomarry recs #ao3 recs #fanfic recs #hp fic recs #harrymort recs #tomarry weekly #this week in tomarrymort

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blorger · 8 months ago

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So, picture this:

Here I am, sat in an internet-less room, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for time to crawl ever so slowly by. For lack of a better alternative, I start flipping through the pages of Chamber of Secrets and I notice A Thing.

"My, how peculiar" I say to myself, fully intending to let The Thing be, but alas; time moves slowly, boredom persists and, not unlike the tell-tale heart, The Thing calls to me.

"Come," it beckons, "notice me further". "Compile some data" it begs, "that's surely the most productive way to pass the time"; like a moth to a flame, I am caught.

This, dear reader, is how I found myself tallying all the different ways the word "mudblood" is used in canon. So gird your loins and let me introduce you to

The Mudblood Chronicles, or what's in a name?

part 1: methodology

Since the purpose of this exercise is to analyse the use of the term "mudblood" as a slur, I'm not going to count the times in which the word is not being used with malicious intent. Throughout the books this happens on several occasions, those being:

during the course of the narration (it happens once in the context of "everyone present knew mudblood was a very offensive term")

when Harry uses the term, since it only happens when he either recalls someone else saying it (one time with Draco and once with Snape) or he's forbidding Kreacher from using it (twice).

when Ron uses it; it happens once to explain the slur's meaning and once (in conjunction with Ginny) to demand Kreacher stop using the term.

when someone is quoting themselves. Draco quotes himself to Dumbledore once ("you care about me saying mudblood when I'm about to kill you?"; incidentally, it's also the last time he ever utters the word)

I am counting instances in which a muggleborn character uses the term to refer to themselves, since it happens in the context of reclaiming the insult and I am interested in who the author chooses to highlight thusly.

part 2: the results/ WHEN

The word "mudblood" and its plural "mudbloods" are used as an insult a total of 62 times in the Harry Potter books. Here we can see the book by book breakdown:

Unsurprisingly, The book where "mudblood" is used the most ( a total of 34 times) is Deathly Hallows since it takes place during a war about muggleborns. Chamber of Secrets, where the term is introduced, follows with 10 mentions, after which is Order of the Phoenix (7 mentions), followed by Goblet of Fire (6 mentions) and Half-Blood prince (5 mentions). The term "mudblood" is not used in either Philosopher's Stone or Prisoner of Azkaban.

part 3: the results/ WHO

So who is our biggest culprit?

Draco Malfoy is our uncontested lead, having both the advantage of appearing in all books and of orbiting around our narrator. Both Bellatrix and Kreacher make a good showing, with Bellatrix's 6 times being especially notable since they all occur during the course of Deathly Hallows.

Let's break this down further, shall we?

Despite introducing us to the term, Draco appears to scale back his usage of the slur as he ages.

Before partaking in this experiment, I was under the vague impression that, in the wizarding world, "mudblood" is seen as a childish insult. I can now see why: in times of peace (i.e. before Voldemort's resurrection), Draco is the only person in Harry's day-to-day life saying it and he himself peters off in the usage of "mudblood" as things get more serious. To Draco, it appears, "mudblood" IS a childish insult, and we'll see further proof of this at a later date.

part 4: the results/ HOW

Let us now look at how the term is used:

Unsurprisingly, the person "mudblood" is hurled most often at is Hermione. As a main character, she is the most visible muggleborn in the narrative and, if that wasn't enough, she is more often than not the only muggleborn present, even when it doesn't make much sense (Hermione is the only known muggleborn member of the order of the phoenix, an organization whose supposed aim is the fight for muggleborn rights.)

There are no known instances of the word "mudblood" being used to refer to any other muggleborn student during Harry's time at Hogwarts. Lily Evans is the only other school-aged character who gets the dubious honor of being a "mudblood".

Let's break this down further and look at who people are referring to when they say "mudblood":

*= Walburga's portrait never directly addresses Hermione, she only alludes to the presence of various filth (muggleborns, blood traitors, werewolves..) in her home. That said, Hermione is the only muggleborn we ever see in Grimmauld Place so it must stand to reason that Walburga is referring to her, just like she's indirectly referring to Remus Lupin when she mentions werewolves.

**= Both Hermione and Lily use the term mudblood to refer to themselves in an attempt to reclaim the slur, they both do it twice.

***= Our only "other" is mr Ted Tonks, who Bellatrix only mentions in order to disavow when Voldemort talks about Remus and Tonks's marriage.

Interestingly, the only people who ever refer to Lily Evans as "mudblood" to her face are Severus Snape (one instance recounted three separate times) and Lily Evans herself. Voldemort uses the insult when talking about her with Harry long after her death.

Of further note, our only written "mudblood" comes by courtesy of a ministry pamphlet Harry finds in Diagon Alley, heavily implied to have been written by one ms Dolores Umbridge.

part 5: a brief interlude/ Draco's language

Draco refers to Hermione as “Granger” 13 times and, while their interactions often consist of him talking about her blood status, he uses "mudblood" instead of her name only 4 times. Furthemore, there are 4 additional times where he uses both mudblood and Granger (as in "that mudblood Granger").

The very first time Draco mentions Hermione in the books occurs during this exchange with Lucius:

I find this interesting because, even in private, his first instinct is to use her given name. It's only after he is scolded by Lucius* that we get our first "mudblood", in a scene where he is once again feeling threatened by her.

*= Guess who never utters the word "mudblood"? Lucius, that's who.

part 6: conclusion

I am not a linguistics expert, I cannot tell wether JKR uses the slur she made up in a way that mimics real world slurs. What I can do with the data I compiled is try to track various characters' attitudes towards muggleborns in the books by looking at what they call them.

People whose views remain unchanged (Voldemort, Kreacher, Walburga) remain consistent with their usage of "mudblood"; Draco, who grows up as the books progress, scales back. Snape only ever uses the word once, in the past, and the incident is retold multiple times to signify its importance.

As the situation in the wizarding world worsens, more people feel emboldened to use an otherwise taboo term, as seen by how most one-off utterances of "mudblood" take place in book 7, during wartime.

Finally, I would like to note that we only ever hear two muggleborns' (Lily and Hermione) opinions on "mudblood" as a slur, the rest of the time it's mostly purebloods (and the occasional half-blood) telling us how to feel about the insult; I find that very interesting.

There. Now all this useless information is out of my brain and into the aether, where other nerds can ponder on its significance while this nerd here sleeps the sleep of the truly righteous.

xoxo

#hp #hp meta #Draco Malfoy #Tom Riddle #Voldemort #Hermione Granger #the Thing was Lucius's lack of “mudblood” in CoS btw #harry potter meta #the Blorger Special #Voldemort: reasonable fellow

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whinlatter · 14 days ago

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author’s note | chapter 15: beasts (i) 🗡️

now the dust has settled somewhat… it’s about time we talked about chapter 15, a chapter that sure did take its sweet time coming. at long (long) last, we are back and kicking off our flashback chapters, where we find out what went down in crookshanks’ ginny weasley’s war. a picnic it was not! let’s get into it - it being these indulgent author’s notes i love to subject you to and that you love to humour.

✨ spoilers for this chapter below the cut ✨

writing notes and headcanons

chapter titles: these flashback chapters are called beasts because baby it’s all been building up to this! this chapter and the ones to follow are really the heart of this story - the title track, if you will. at last, ginny is talking, plunged back into last year as she testifies at the inquiry. the beasts of the chapter title, and the fic at large, are people - or, at least, the parts of a self that lies within all people; the beasts within - but the beasts are also the memories of the war themselves, unwieldy and untameable, memories which expose all the savagery, brutality and hypocrisy on which the wizarding world is built. (these chapters have been my personal beasts to wrangle with for far, far too long.) pls be reassured, askbox anons, that calling these chapters beasts does not mean they are the final chapters! the final chapter has had a name for a very long time and is in fact something different. i suspect we have a good 6+ chapters to go yet. (and if experience has taught me anything, it’s that i will probably split some of those in two. chapter plans! who needs em! not this clown!)

writing ginny’s war: there have been many many brilliant attempts to write ginny’s war in fic over the years, and i feel very aware of the danger of reinventing the wheel. i’m also aware that there are tropes that abound (for good reason) in such fics and that are hard to avoid. nevertheless, any hinny writer worth their salt tends to want to take a run-up at writing DH from ginny’s POV, a book she spends largely off stage, glimpsed only in passing mentions of her that harry witnesses or in memories that haunt harry as he embarks on the horcrux hunt, and gosh darn it i want my turn! the trouble with writing nny’s war, though, is that you have to write chapters that are strongly anchored in plot rather than vibe, except you’re not working with your own plot, but much more tightly confined by canonical timelines and major narrative landmarks, which demands a lot more scrambling around on potter search if - like me - half the fun of writing fic is playing around with trying to write a story that is more strictly canon coherent. still, we love a challenge, and it’s just as much fun to subvert harry’s narration/assumptions of what is happening elsewhere in the wizarding world during DH (and especially what is going on at hogwarts) as it is to get stuck into the text. i set myself a series of rules, one of which is that whenever harry thinks ginny is somewhere or doing something, she has to be doing the opposite of that. he’s terrified she’s in danger at the wedding? she’s sat on the sofa with gabrielle snotting veela snot down her arm. he’s sure she, neville and luna are sat together on hogwart’s express plotting snape’s demise? she’s obviously too smart for that. yung hazza has fucked around long enough and now that young man is about to find out. more of this in future author’s notes once we’re back at school proper - let these serve as little light hints about how things might go down… but for now:

the order and resistance: in deathly hallows, harry and co crash out of the wedding the night the wizarding state is seized in a coup by voldemort, ejecting ginny from the centre-stage narrative but also detaching the trio from the trajectory of most of the wizarding world for august 1997 - at least, until they go to the ministry to get the horcrux from umbridge - and from the workings and wartime activities of the order of the phoenix. this happens, ofc, just as the order becomes the official underground resistance. of course we know, as readers, that the plot and the outcome of the war will hinge on the trio succeeding on their quest: this is harry’s series after all. but to imagine the perspective of the order off-stage, the trio - three teenagers who have needed order fighters to rescue them from battles with death eaters two years running - are just off doing a weird dumbledore sidequest while the real business of fighting this war and actively resisting voldemort’s regime must surely fall to the order. nevertheless, the order lack an obvious general post mad-eye’s death and clear direction beyond low level sabotage and surveillance. we are told the burrow is now official headquarters and that the weasleys remain in their home and resume going about their daily business as a fig leaf for their resistance activities.

the order and the traitor: crucial context that harry largely dismisses but that is clearly on the older order members’ minds in the summer of 1997 is mundungus’ betrayal and the idea that there might be a rat. harry is so convinced he would not be betrayed: remus calls him naive for it, which harry bristles at but ultimately decides to disregard. would the others, though? the order are still smarting from the wounds inflicting by the apparent treachery the night of the seven potters (a betrayal that cost their most seasoned fighter his life); fleur, for her part, spends the run-up to the happiest day of her life convincing hagrid is going to get binned, hop on mic and reveal harry’s whereabouts half-way through the cutting of the cake. kingsley and remus were livid at the idea of a traitor the night of the rescue; remus, of course, for obvious and deeply personal reasons, though he also makes himself suspicious by vanishing (to run out on his preggo wife), no doubt raising some eyebrows among his fellow fighters. all this adds an extra layer of tension to the summer of ’97 at order hq, especially when there are yung women wandering about who are about to go back to the den of vipers that is hogwarts under death eater control. and speaking of…

what about ginny? one can only assume, then, that under these circumstances ginny must have gone back to much the same unglamorous infantilising existence she endured in the holidays during ootp: living at order hq, barred by virtue of her age and mother’s protectiveness from order activities, only without harry, ron and hermione to keep her company as kindred spirits, underrage and overlooked. for this reason, i have ginny spend this chapter confined to the claustrophobic house, becoming much closer to a grimmauld-like space than the burrow has ever been so far in canon, and almost entirely alone: protected as is possible, but shut out, left to her own devices. it is at once a very safe position to be in but also a vulnerable one - too much time to think and stew, a lonely character whose loneliness has previously driven her to ruin, back to being lonely again. i wanted there to be shades of sirius and ootp harry in it - restless, cooped up, prowling around, growing bitter and isolated - and also (as the echoes to chapter 2 suggest) echoes of an earlier time in ginny’s life when she was lonely, and vulnerable, and ripe for the picking. too much time to think, especially to think about…

those pesky horcruxes: in revisiting late HBP/DH and preparing to write these chapters one of the things that i found most baffling was how astonishingly cavalier and clumsy the trio seem to be discussing crucial information about horcruxes around ginny or within her plausible earshot. ginny of course knows harry has gone with dumbledore the night the tower is struck. after dumbledore dies, the four of them spend ‘all of their time together’, harry carries the locket everywhere with him in his pocket (‘not as a talisman, but as a reminder of what it had cost and what remained still to do’). hermione may wait until the door up the dormitories closes behind ginny to talk about RAB, butt it’s not exactly a watertight way of remaining out of earshot (especially given ginny’s canonical curiosity and expertise at listening at doors). while at the burrow, hermione still stays in ginny’s room, presumably packing up all manner of clue-like items around her: molly may try her best to use ginny as a barrier to the trio getting together to plot next steps, hermione still manages to slip away and leave ginny in order to seek out harry and ron to plot next steps elsewhere in the house (‘Oh, Ron’s mum forgot that she asked me and Ginny to change the sheets yesterday’). what’s more, the trio openly invite order members’ views on the items in dumbledore’s will, and we know that this encounter had such a lasting impression on ginny that she commits to stealing back harry’s rightful property (the sword of gryffindor) at great personal risk having presumably stewed on it for quite some time. the most fun i had in this chapter was adding in the little hints that, had the trio invited ginny into their confidence, they might have found someone quicker on the uptake on some of their trickiest mysteries than the three of them ever were. wouldn’t ginny the quidditch enthusiast and former seeker know that snitches have flesh memories? doesn’t it seem possible - even probable - that ginny explored grimmauld place thoroughly and found the little sign on regulus’ room long before harry even set foot in grimmauld place? wouldn’t ginny, of all people, remember exactly what gryffindor’s sword was used for last time and start to wonder why it need be used again? she is so close - and yet! so far. but isn’t that always ginny weasley’s way?

the weasleys’ dilemma: i have had a fair few very compelling messages in the askbox criticising harry for leaving ginny to it, assuming she would be safe (how could she be!) and taking insufficient interest in her wellbeing beyond pining for as a comfort for himself on lonely tent-watch nights. i have also had a few criticising the weasleys for much the same thing. i think these are very very reasonable and understandable takes with a lot of truth to them. what i will say though is that this is a period of the narrative where nobody had good choices to make, including harry, but also including ginny’s whole family. the weasleys deciding to send ginny weasley back into hogwarts when she is very obviously and publicly close to both harry potter and to the order is, on the one hand, a completely mental proposition. but the other thing to remember, and that is consistently and widely overlooked about the weasleys, is that they are a family of soldiers. they are generations of committed resistors and agents of conscience, ideologically-committed and devoted to an extremely morally worthy cause that actually really, really matters. the new state is carrying out an attempted genocide: if ever there were a time to bang on about the greater good, to not put your own family’s safety over the safety of hundreds of others of innocent victims, wouldn’t it be this one? i care a lot in this fic about making clear that although there are malicious bad actors in this narrative whose actions cause harm and pain, there’s also lots of proper goodies trying to do their best and make the best moral choice under exceptionally difficult circumstances - whose actions also cause harm and pain. often they have to make very tough utilitarian choices about what the right course of action should be: they have to live with some amount of pain being the direct result, often pain for the people they love most in the world. and so the weasleys send ginny back to hogwarts, telling themselves she will be safe as a pureblood, as their family (and the trio’s) cover: business as usual, nothing to see here.

voices of dissent: it was important to me to have two voices in this chapter who raise doubts about sending ginny back. one i’ll come back to in a later author’s note, but is charlie, although he does not fight for ginny to stay at home, and stays silent as her family sees her off. the other one is molly weasley, the consistent voice in canon for children being allowed to have a childhood, overly protective and patronising but fundamentally trying to do something powerful and good: letting kids be kids. of course, as soon as ginny has set herself the sword quest, she is a one-track mind: she is going back to school, she is getting the trio the sword, she is helping fight voldemort, and she is not listening to her mother. would ginny weasley want to be protected, really?

reading list

not fics but real books can you believe!

the feast by margaret kennedy (fabulous devastating postwar ensemble novel, sank it in one sitting, claustrophobic and wry and searing and o the doom is building, vibes are very very very good)

silence of the girls by pat barker (silence becomes a woman)

testament of youth by vera brittain

"I am writing this in front of an open casement window overlooking the sea. The sky is cloudless, and the russet sails of the fishing smacks flame in the sun. It is summer but it is not war; and I dare not look at it. It only makes me angry with myself for being here — and with the others for being content to be here. When men whom I have once despised as effeminate are being sent back wounded from the front, when nearly everyone I know is either going or has gone, can I think of this with anything but rage and shame?"

songs from the playlist for this chapter

one properly stand-out song that i considered just having standalone is king creosote’s please come back, i will listen, i will behave, i will toe the line. the opening is so chilling, and the song proper is so rousing, the lyrics childlike, the protagonist pleading their way through grief (please come back, and take me with you next time). that whole album absolutely fucking slaps. but these other songs are good too!

…and a sneak peek from chapter 16, including the return of fan favourite/everyone’s favourite grouchy stoner king:

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ A rough hand grabs by the wrist. Two years without a word uttered to Michael Corner and now he’s dragging her by the arm down an empty corridor, iron grip as she tries to pull away. Once out of sight, around the corner, he rounds on her. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he hisses. ‘It’s insane that you’re here.’

#beasts #author's note #o lawd do i love yapping!#authors note #AN #hinny #ginny weasley

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cressida-jayoungr · 2 years ago

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Reblogging for the month of weddings!

One Dress a Day Challenge

Black and White October

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1 / Clémence Poésy as Fleur Delacour

I actually never saw the last few Harry Potter films, so I had missed this really gorgeous black-and-white wedding dress. The way the black feather designs trail down the back while the skirt underneath erupts into delicate feathery ruffles is a spectacular effect.

The bottom two sets of pictures show the costume in comparison with a dress by Alexander McQueen which apparently inspired it. The birds on the McQueen dress are peacocks, while I believe the ones on Fleur's version are phoenixes.

#harry potter and the deathly hallows #wedding dresses #clemence poesy #Clémence Poésy #one dress a day challenge #one dress a week challenge #wedding costumes #movie costumes #2010 films #2010 movies #harry potter movies #harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1 #alexander mcqueen

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sundrop-writes · 2 years ago

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King For A Day

Poly!Golden Trio x Fem!Reader

Fem!Reader x Harry Potter x Ron Weasley x Hermione Granger

You want a martyr? I’ll be one.

Summary:

You have always had a special relationship with Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and the one and only Harry Potter.

When you set out to help them find and destroy Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, it seems that your intimate knowledge of them is the one thing keeping them together - until the unique dynamic shifts, thanks to one of those pesky pieces of dark magic.

Angry voices carry, and it turns out - moans of pleasure do too.

Poly!Golden Trio x Fem!Reader (Fem!Reader x Harry Potter x Ron Weasley x Hermione Granger). FWB to Poly Lovers. Smut (with a slight bit of Angst). Set during Deathly Hallows.

Word Count: 22,400

Harry Potter Masterlist | AO3 Link

Full list of warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: This fic is about the formation of a polyamarous relationship, and before that, the reader has individual friends with benefits relationships with each of the Golden Trio without them knowing about each other; there is dom/sub dynamics in this fic, but no explicit BDSM play - Hermione is a switch (bratty sub and controlling but soft dom), Ron is a rough, mean dom, Harry is a whiny, needy sub, and the reader is a switch - she is submissive with Ron and Hermione, but dominant towards Harry. While the reader is the one who connects all the characters here, there is definitely threads of Harry x Ron and Hermione x Ron and also Hermione x Harry going on here. (So there is wlw action and mlm action in this fic.)

Emotional angst - general emotional angst due to the circumstances (the Golden Trio + reader being pressured to save the world, the war going on, emotional and physical isolation during the Horcrux Hunt); mentions of food insecurity as was canon during the Horcrux Hunt; mentions of becoming thin from lack of food being available; mentions of hunting and killing for food; mentions of emotional disturbances due to the presence of the Horcrux Locket - everyone is affected, including the reader; the reader experiences severe depression and intrusive thoughts about self-harm while wearing The Locket (this is something that is a very small part of the story, about a paragraph); the reader is mentioned to be in Gryffindor but because this is a Horcrux Hunting fic that fact is easy to ignore and you can imagine the reader to be in whatever house you want; mentions of Ron and the reader being childhood friends/growing up together before Hogwarts (it is mentioned that they had their first kiss together when they were young); mentions of past Harry/Cho (as a very fleeting fling, as it was in the canon).

For the actual smut: unprotected sex all around? but hey they're wizards so we could just say that Hermione did some anti-pregnancy spells when they were done (but there's definitely no condoms involved); the reader masturbates/touches herself (very brief); the reader gets caught masturbating by Harry but they both pretend that he didn't see anything (or maybe he didn't); mentions of Harry, Ron, and Hermione masturbating (mentioned in passing); Ron being possessive over the reader, partially due to the Locket's emotional influence; slightly dubious consent - it's very clear in the narration that the reader enjoys everything that is happening, but Ron does not explicitly ask for consent, and while Harry watches on, he worries for her well being due to the roughness of the acts; Ron is very rough with the reader because the Locket amps up his anger and he takes out on her (through rough sex, not through overly harsh painplay or sexual torture); hair pulling (Ron pulls the reader's hair); rough kissing; biting/marking (Ron bites the reader so hard that he draws blood); Ron slaps the reader across the face (only once) but it adds sexual arousal for her; some manhandling (nothing that implies Ron is superhumanly strong or implies that the reader is dainty thin).

Vaginal fingering (Ron does this to the reader); undertones of humiliation kink (Ron teases Harry for not knowing 'how to fuck' and because he can supposedly fuck the reader better); literally one spank (from Ron to the reader); size kink (Ron Weasley has a big cock and everyone is admiring it); unprotected penis in vagina sex (between Ron and the reader) - very rough sex; Harry watches while Ron fucks the reader; Ron calls the reader 'cockwarmer' and 'good girl'; Hermione walks in on Ron fucking the reader (while Harry watches) and questions the consent of the situation (only for a moment) before she decides to join in; Hermione gropes the reader and fingers her; there is unprotected penis in vagina sex between Ron and Hermione and also between Harry and the reader; unintentional edging due to being passed from partner to partner (toward the reader); Ron is generally degrading/condescending toward all the other characters (he's kind of an asshole but it's hot and he is sweet afterwards); creampie kink (no breeding kink); overstimulation; multiple orgasms; mentions of anal sex (does not happen during the fic); Hermione eats the reader out, Harry sucks Ron off (mentions of 'choking' on a cock but there is no severe breathplay), cumplay.

Sex flashbacks - the reader cockwarms Harry (in a flashback); the reader riding Harry while being dominant with him; the reader uses Harry's Gryffindor tie like a leash; the reader 'teaching' Harry how to increase his stamina (really, it's just code for edging him/torturing him); the reader calls Harry 'darling'; in a separate flashback - Hermione and the reader have sex in the bathroom at the Burrow; so - semi-public sex; the reader eats Hermione's pussy; the reader fingers Hermione; Hermione presses on the reader's neck but does not choke her; Hermione calls the reader 'good girl'. I think that is FINALLY it.

A/N: The title of this fic comes from a song of the same title by Pierce The Veil. I think it's a song that so perfectly encapsulates the storyline around the Locket - how Ron makes himself into a martyr, how it feels like they are living with ghosts in the walls when they wear it. Anyway - I am so excited about this fic.

When the idea was presented to me: Ron being pissed off because of the Locket's influence, and feeling particularly jealous of Harry, it just felt so genius. Ron has always been one of my favourite HP characters, if not my singular favourite. When I first start reading and watching the series, I fell in love with Ron so quickly. I deeply related to him - his insecurities, his fears (how he doesn't try to act brave when he's scared), his stubbornness, his feelings of inadequacy.

This fic perfectly encapsulates my love for Ron, and with something I couldn't resist the urge to do (the whole 'childhood friends' thing) - my deep urge to be Ron Weasley's special girl has bubbled to the surface harder than ever before. But with maturity comes the urge to also want to be Harry Potter's special girl and Hermione Granger's special girl all at the same time and have them share me like a KitKat bar. So everyone please thank Orgy Anon for giving me this idea, and please enjoy the fic!!

Also, I didn't think I was ever gonna write more rough, demanding (kind of asshole) Ron smut after Caffeine Cold - but it's something that weirdly works for his character. It's something I actually really love writing with him, turns out lmao.

...

When you woke up that morning, there was a persistent, annoying ache between your legs. Even the bitter November chill that had seeped into the tent couldn’t dampen it.

It was a strange and tedious thing. You were months into a perilous, life-threatening mission that would ultimately change the fate of the world, and yet, all you could seem to think about was the fact that you hadn’t been able to orgasm in weeks. You could blame it on the mental strain that the journey was causing on you and your companions - between the lack of food and the presence of a certain dark object weighing on you all, irritability among your small group was skyrocketing. And you were desperate for a distraction.

But you had always been someone who was more inclined toward the physical - someone whose sexual needs stuck out as more important to you. It’s why you had three different partners regularly ‘servicing’ you for quite some time now. But you hadn’t been with any of them since the start of your travels, and it felt like far too long. It felt like forever.

You reached down and palmed your cunt through your cotton sleep pants, hissing quietly through your nose at even the slightest bit of relief. You listened to Ron’s heavy snores and Hermione’s quiet breaths, knowing that Harry was out of the tent on his watch. If you could be quick about it, you could cum. You clamped the other hand over your mouth, ready to silence your own moans as you moved your own touch past your waistband. You let out a sharp whine into your own palm as your fingers found your clit through your cotton underwear.

It had been so long.

And just by that fact alone, your pussy was aching, wet, and needy. You began to rub circles on yourself through your underwear, feeling your cunt clenching around nothing, so damn needy to be filled up, and-

“Y/N?” Harry’s voice whispered your name frantically through the dark.

The sound instantly startled you, causing your lungs to seize up and your heart to race all at once. You stopped moving your hand upon instinct, feeling terribly caught.

It was lucky that he hadn’t lit his wand, clearly not wanting to wake up Ron or Hermione, or you most definitely would have been caught outright, even though your hand was under the blanket - your actions still would have been blatant to the eye.

“Are you alright? I thought - I thought I heard a noise.” Harry whispered when you didn’t respond.

You quickly cleared your throat, taking your hand away from your mouth and slowly moving your other hand out of your pants as you found the glinting lenses of Harry’s glasses looking at you in the dark.

“I’m fine.” You croaked quietly. “I - I was just stretching. This cot is terrible on my back, you know.”

You hoped that you could pass off any sexual sounds that had escaped you as sounds of pain, soreness from poor sleeping conditions.

Harry nodded.

“Right.” He said quietly. “Well - it’s your watch.” He announced as he sat down on his own cot and began taking off his boots.

You didn’t say anything further, but simply got up.

You changed out of your pyjama pants and into a thicker pair of cargo pants, wanting to shield yourself against the cold. As you undressed, you were completely uncaring to shield yourself from Harry’s eyes in the dark. He was likely too tired to keep his eyes open, and it was dark enough that he wouldn’t see too much of you anyway. And if he did look, you didn’t care too much anyway.

He watched you completely unabashed, squinting hard through the darkness, utterly focused on the shape of your ass moving around as you looked for thicker socks and gathered a notebook to write in to pass the time.

He only wished that he could see more than the silhouette of your ass covered by white cotton panties as you moved in the shadows, pulling your pants up, and then left the tent. He went to sleep with his cock hard, thinking about pressing himself up against those cotton knickers, dirtying the fabric with his cum - thinking about hearing you whine like that again.

…

You didn’t think that tracking down and destroying all of Voldemort’s Horcruxes was going to be easy by any means.

But you didn’t think that it was going to be this tedious and boring. You knew that there were a great many wizards out there who yearned for your head on a platter. People who would have captured you in a moment and tortured you until your dying breath just for a chance to hear you give up information on Harry Potter’s whereabouts. But it was difficult to feel the urgency of the life threatening situation you were in when you were living in such seclusion.

It was difficult to feel anything other than the crushing weight of loneliness and depression, living like this.

For nearly three months now, you, Hermione, Ron, and Harry had been living in a tent, picking up and travelling from place to place with the effort to be as isolated as possible so that no one would be able to find you. But this meant that no one you loved could know where you were either.

No owls, no contact with anyone else in the outside world - you went from day to day, not knowing if they were safe or not, waiting to hear their names on the obituaries, or the missing persons listings on the radio.

All of you had been living off scraps of food because you couldn’t even go to the shops for fear of being seen. You had been living off the canned food Hermione had squirrelled away before the trip, and you had been reduced to stealing - nicking eggs from chicken coops in hopes that the owners wouldn’t notice. Luckily, some things from your childhood had come back around, and you had been able to snare some rabbits for food, as much as Hermione cried and tried to pretend she didn’t hate killing something so cute and innocent in order to eat it.

So far, the only real progress the four of you had made in terms of truly defeating Voldemort? You had gotten a hold of the real Locket of Slytherin. But you had no clue how to destroy it.

This left you stuck with the incredibly dark piece of magic. The four of you took turns wearing the Locket - even though it hadn’t taken Hermione long to observe that the object had some kind of dangerous emotional aura due to the dark magic that tainted it. But you were unable to simply leave it laying around somewhere in case it got misplaced, which would have been intensely foolish.

You had to keep it close in the more likely case that the group had to run off in a hurry if you were confronted. It was too precious of an object to lose - perfect leverage to bargain with if one of you did happen to get captured, and ultimately critical to your overall mission.

Unfortunately, the isolation and general bickering between you and your companions left you aching for a distraction. Although you were surviving day to day and trying to balance the fate of Muggle and Wizard kind in your hands, food and safety and progressing the mission were your greatest concerns.

But there was a certain loneliness that crept in.

Living in the tent like this - physically, it was the closest you had ever been with your three best friends for such a period of time. Although the three of you had lived in the Gryffindor Tower during your six years at Hogwarts, and you had shared a dormitory with Hermione, it had never been like this before.

The three of you had never shared such close quarters day in and day out for so long without some kind of break for other things - meal times, classes, Quidditch practice, time spent with other friends. It was a large tent, but it was an intensely cramped space for four people to be packed into, especially with the Locket and the depressing atmosphere and the emotional pressure of the mission causing tempers to flare up.

It was a Herculean test of your friendship, that was for certain.

Each of you were coping in your own ways.

Harry was pouting.

It was something that he did best, in your experience. He was a chronic pouter, as you had discovered over the years of knowing him. Whenever a bad mood overtook him (which was, unfortunately too often due to the unfortunate circumstances that haunted his life), he could mull around and pout for days, sit in sullen silences without talking to anybody with a grand stubbornness.

He would do it until the loneliness truly broke him, or until someone broke the barrier of stubbornness and talked to him first. (The ladder was more likely to happen when you were around. You hated to see him pouting and you usually always approached him first.)

Usually his pouting came with locking himself in a room, a purposeful isolation from others when he needed them most. Like when he had locked himself in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place for nearly the entirety of winter break when he believed that Voldemort was corrupting his mind with the evil dreams.

This time around, he had taken to sitting in corners by himself, as far away as he could get from the three of you in the cramped space. He ate his small meals alone without talking to anyone, speaking as few words as possible and only grunting out small responses when asked questions like ‘are you going to sleep now?’ or ‘are you going to take watch next?’.

He had also taken to pulling out the Marauders’ Map often. He studied it with astute eyes as though it was going to tell him something important. But you guessed that he was simply watching over your friends at Hogwarts like some godly protective force. Even though he couldn’t intervene if anything bad happened to them, he felt like the weight of the world was already on his shoulders, so he guessed that he should be watching over people like a god in the sky too.

Hermione, of course, was reading.

Whenever there was trouble, Hermione Granger had her hands on a book.

She found comfort in knowledge, comfort in pouring over books looking for the answers to her problems. Naturally, this was no different.

When she had packed for the journey, she had brought along every possible book she could find about dark magic and the subject of immortality. Any reading material she could possibly get her hands on that might mention Horcruxes, how to find them, and more importantly - how to destroy them.

And thus far, even though all her reading had come up empty, she still took a pile of books in her arms every night and read through them, often sacrificing sleep in the name of staying up to continue her search for answers. Some of those books she had read over two or three times before that she was rereading again now, developing a kind of madness over searching them cover to cover, looking for something.

It was clear to you that she felt an intense pressure - most of it, she was putting on herself. She thought that her brilliant mind, her stubborn ability to continue on despite nothing turning up would be the thing that finally solved the issue. She thought that it had to be her. She had helped Harry so many times before, so of course - it had to be her.

You were someone who coped by comforting others.

This is where the loneliness became even worse, because the more you tried to fuss over Harry, Ron, and Hermione, the more they pushed you away. The more you chased them down in small ways - putting blankets over them, trying to provide small comforting touches, trying to have small conversations just to satiate your own loneliness, even yearning for a short cuddle, the more they shrugged you off and the more each small rejection stung right to your core.

Even though you were yearning for some affection, you knew consciously that they weren’t there to simply fulfil your needs. You knew that they weren’t actually ‘yours’ in that sense, not in a way that would demand them giving you attention just on the basis of your loneliness. As much as you had dreamed of it being that way, it simply wasn’t true.

But you found yourself aching more and more after each rejection, knowing how incredibly stubborn the three of them were. Maybe they were yearning for the affection too, but they were too stubborn to show it on the surface. But maybe, they truly didn’t need it. They were hardened stones, and you were a delicate flower. Even though it hurt you, it was why the four of you had always worked so well.

You had always softened their edges. Every single major argument that had gone on between them, any bickering between Ron and Harry, or Harry and Hermione, or Ron and Hermione, or god forbid, a blow-up between all three of them - it was something you had been able to reign in and calm down. You had always gotten them to calm down and ignore their worst impulses, and simply talk it out. At the end of the day, you always got them to apologise to each other.

And of course - there was the sex.

As far as you knew, no single person in the group knew that you were ‘involved’ with the others in that special, intimate way. They all thought that they were the only one. They all thought that you only had platonic, completely friendly relationships with the others. Even though you made no effort to hide it. You would still flirt with them, compliment them, cuddle them out in the open, hold hands.

But it was something that had never been discussed, and at certain points, they had emphasised hiding the sexual aspects of your relationship and jumped apart from kissing you or groping you when one of your other dear friends came into the room. So you never pushed to open that can of worms and start a big argument over it because things were good. There was a balance to it, a silent status quo.

It’s not like you set out to be some scamming harlet. Most definitely not.

Each of your individual relationships with them mattered to you so much. You loved them in such special and unique ways. But they were all so stubborn, and they acted like kissing and sex was some grand secret that needed to be locked away from the world and could never be discussed with anyone else. So as long as you kept those secrets, they never knew about each other. It turned into threads of private time, special bonds that you built with each individual person.

And now, living so closely with all of them, it left you feeling so intensely stuck.

You had three of the greatest people so close to you, and if you asked one of them to fuck you in the name of sexual relief, then the other two would be offended. It would be incredibly difficult to sneak off for a secret romp like you used to, because you were supposed to stay close and keep an eye on each other for safety.

So this left you with your own hand. You knew that when you touched yourself, you weren’t quiet, and you weren’t quick. You had tried a few times so far during the trip, and it had only left you more wanting when you had failed to cum for fear of being caught. It left you needier than ever when you had been interrupted by someone else’s presence - someone waking up or walking into the tent, and stopped because you didn’t want them to catch you.

There had even been times when you had woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of Harry or Ron wanking, grunting roughly in the darkness, and it burned up your insides so badly that you practically wanted to beg them for cock. But you didn’t want to embarrass them by outing their ‘secret’ relationship with you to the other two, so all you could do was lay there and let the flames of your arousal burn you up.

You had no clue how Hermione had gone so long without touching herself. You guessed that she was either doing so off in the woods during her ‘reading time’, when she thought that she wouldn’t be disturbed, or she was too afraid of possibly being caught in order to even try. She was a lustful person, you knew that from experience. But oftentimes, her rule oriented mind won-out and kept her from doing truly mannerless things (like letting you touch her under a desk during class, much to your disappointment).

The more time you spent in such close proximity to them, the more you craved their touches. You knew that you were going to break soon. And you were going to do something truly mannerless.

In the meantime - you sat in the cold, early morning darkness, keeping an eye out for danger that likely wouldn’t come because it didn’t know where to find you. And as you kept watch, you tried your best not to think about the hot ache between your legs.

…

You had managed to spend most of the day distracted from your… cravings.

You spent the morning on watch, watching the sun kiss the sky orange and break beams of light through the trees. It was nice to go from ice cold, your fingers numb in the darkness to feeling the warmth wake up around you. It made you feel alive.

When you were supposed to switch off with Ron, you continued to sit with him for a while. You smiled at his sleepy state - his hair messy and his eyes barely open as he forced himself to be up and about. When he yawned wide, he truly reassembled a lion with a wild red mane.

You actually managed to hook him into a pleasant conversation about some of your childhood memories. He pointed out that one of the trees nearby looked primed for a treehouse. You smiled and reminded him of the treehouse that the Burrow used to have before Fred and George blew it up. This easily spiralled into a long conversation about nights that the two of you had spent camping in that treehouse looking at the stars, and a time where the two of you had technically had your first kiss when you were ten years old.

This left Ron with a smile on his face, which made you happy. You left with a kiss on the cheek while Hermione hollered your name through the tent flap, needing your for something else. She wanted your help to translate something from one of the books - something written in a different language that she didn’t know that you just happened to be very well versed in. After you spent some time helping her with this, she gave you a small smile and a nod and then rushed off to look up something in another book, seemingly pursuing a lead - which pleased you.

And then it was time to help Harry prepare the evening meal. It wasn’t much; just some canned soup and a few pieces of bread. But Harry came out of his pouting long enough to make a joke about how you were a ‘five-star chef’ and when you giggled brightly at this, he gave you a genuine smile back.

It was officially upgraded from a good day to a fantastic one when you actually managed to gather everyone at the table for dinner. Harry wasn’t off pouting in the corner, Hermione wasn’t sitting in her bed or off outside propped against a tree with a book in hand. Though she did read through the entire meal, you still considered it a win. And although Ron only ate half his food before not-so-subtly scooping the rest into your bowl with a grunt of ‘not hungry’ (the biggest lie you had ever heard in your life) - you were glad that no arguments had broken out at the table.

Ron giving you his food was something that had been happening more and more lately.

See, Ron’s method of coping was more complex than Harry’s or Hermione’s, or even yours. And it was something that could only be quantified if you watched him very carefully. It was likely only something you could name because you had known him for so long, and you had seen him do this so often throughout the years.

Ron was someone who suffered.

It was strange to put a name to, but that’s what it was. In all the years you had known him, whenever Ron found himself in emotionally troubling times, he put himself through purposeful suffering - a kind of martyrdom - in order to cope.

Back when you were kids, a few months before his eleventh birthday, he had been so worried that his Hogwarts letter wasn’t going to arrive. He convinced himself that he simply wasn’t good enough - that somehow, even though his parents and all of his brothers before him had gotten their letters, he just wasn’t going to get one.

He worked himself into such a frenzy about it that he spent hours doing the most difficult, painstaking house chores that he could think of, simply to prove to himself that he was useful. And to perform some suffering because that was how he coped with the anxiety and the emotional pain. After his letter came, when the worry left him, he didn’t bother with any more chores. He didn’t make his bed for weeks, no matter how much his Mum nagged him to do so.

After Harry’s name was pulled out of the Goblet of Fire and Harry was named the Fourth Champion - that was one of the worst states you had ever seen Ron in. (And Harry, but in a different way.)

Hermione thought that Ron went cold on Harry because he was angry with Harry. But you saw it for what it truly was - Ron was trying to end the friendship because he thought that he didn’t deserve Harry as a friend. The Tournament was presented as a chance for eternal glory, riches, praise. And Ron was being reminded yet again how entirely unremarkable he was. So he wanted to sink lower. He wanted to be as unremarkable as the Malfoys and everyone else told him he was. He didn’t even want to be associated with Harry - the wondrous fourth champion, if it meant getting a modicum of praise for it.

But as usual with Ron, his own insecurities presented as annoyance, and anger toward other people. He pretended to be mad at Harry for not giving him the ‘secret’ of putting his name in the cup.

Ron went for weeks without talking to Harry. Not as a punishment to Harry, but as a punishment to himself. In reality, he was dying inside, not being able to talk to his best friend. He wanted to berate Harry with questions about the process of the Triwizard Tournament, he wanted to become excited with his best friend about the whole thing.

He told you at one point that he would have even preferred to hash out the whole argument, loudly, and simply have it over with. But he froze out Harry with bitter silence, simply because he felt that he deserved the pain of being separated from his best friend.

After a few nights of contemplation, Ron had realised he was wrong to blame Harry for it. It was a short-sighted response out of anger. Really, what kind of numpty, especially Harry, who hated the attention, would willingly put their name into a death tournament?

But still - he went on for weeks without talking to Harry, instead of simply apologising, because he felt that he deserved the punishment of being away from his best friend. He felt that he should be punished for being lowly and unremarkable, and for not simply believing Harry in the first place.

Ron partook in suffering and self penance as a distraction from dealing with all of the true, deeper pain that he felt inside.

And this time, his self imposed punishment came in the form of Slytherin’s Locket.

The Locket affected all of you negatively. That much was clear within the first few days of the object being in your midst.

When you put it on, you could best describe it as - heartbreak. A deep, awful ache in your chest that simply made you sad more than anything else. It made you want to burst out crying at any moment, it made you feel as though any happy thing had gone from the world, and any goodness you once knew would never be possible again. You would almost compare it to the feeling of a Dementor’s presence, though it didn’t come with the bitter chill in the air or the horrible memories flashing through your mind.

Often, this came with a terrible headache - pressure building under your skull, almost as if your brain was bubbling into soup between your ears. At times, it made it difficult for you to focus on anything other than the heartache, in an almost dizzying way.

Sometimes, when you wore it for too long, it… made you want to hurt yourself. It made your skin feel too tight and made your mind screech with the most horrible thoughts. Thoughts you almost couldn’t ignore. Ideas like - tearing all of your skin off, revealing the bloody viscera underneath. Telling you that would be the only possible way to make that horrible feeling go away. That part was something you had never told the others, and probably never would.

Hermione guessed that your more ‘sensitive’ nature was what made the Locket trigger sadness in you, rather than irritability or anger. It gave Hermione a more quiet, reserved anger - a contemplative rage that you had only seen in her before she had trapped Rita Skeeter inside that jar.

And for Harry and Ron - it made them snap. It put them on edge, made them entirely irritable. But with Harry, likely because of his tolerance toward things like the Imperius Curse - it took much longer of wearing the Locket for those feelings to truly affect him.

Ron seemed to be the most vulnerable to its effects, unfortunately.

You wouldn’t say that he was weaker, not by far. You would say that he had a tender heart, and a very unfortunate tendency to ignore his heart’s greatest needs. Ron was someone who was always harder on himself, he criticised every inch of himself far more than others did. Every ounce of pain that he felt - he didn’t let himself truly feel it. He turned it bitter, he released it as annoyance, or rage, or resentment.

The Locket clearly felt that in him, and took advantage of it. The Locket knew that Ron had never truly dealt with his pain, so much negative emotion stored up inside of him, and the Locket was feasting on Ron like a buffet of negativity. It certainly didn’t help that Ron kept volunteering to wear it for longer and longer periods of time - wallowing in his martyrdom, desperate to keep you from taking your turn because he couldn’t stand to see you crying again.

(He had said to you before that if you weren’t crying on his cock, then there was never a good reason for you to. And he would punch any prat in the face who caused those tears but him.)

As you helped Ron clean up the dishes from the evening meal, Harry took the Marauders’ Map and went back to the camping chair that he had planted in his usual pouting corner. Though tonight the energy coming off him didn’t seem nearly as foul as he muttered ‘I solemnly swear that I am up to no good’ and began pouring over every inch of the map as he usually did.

Hermione gathered some books off her cot with a huff and began to walk toward the mouth of the tent, clearly going out to take her watch. She had told you before that even as it got cold, she enjoyed the isolation of sitting outside the tent alone - she enjoyed the peace and quiet.

You weren’t sure why you bothered, but you stepped toward her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder to stop her for a moment.

“Do you want some help with those books?” You asked. “Maybe a second pair of eyes looking that stuff over could be useful.”

“No. I’d like to be alone, thank you.” Hermione replied.

Even though it was a relatively polite sentence, she delivered it in the most curt, edging on snide manner possible. Clearly she was eager to have her alone time as the tent flaps bellowed behind her in a comically speedy way as she left the tent.

You felt a pang of hurt at her words, but you certainly understood where she was coming from.

You turned back to help Ron finish up the dishes, thinking nothing more of it.

But it was his next words that inadvertently set off a hurricane.

“That’s so Hermione isn’t it?” Ron scoffed. “So damn stubborn that she would turn down such a perfectly polite invitation for help. Needs to do every bloody thing by herself.”

“It’s fine, Ron.” You sighed quietly, taking the last bowl from him to dry it off with a dish towel. “I under-”

You were about to take up your usual job - mediating any potential conflicts or sore spots between the group. But your words were cut off when Harry’s annoyed voice came from behind you.

“Yes, Ron, because you’ve been so bloody helpful lately.” Harry griped, his tone entirely sarcastic. “It’s not surprising that Hermione is used to working on her own. You don’t have to sit around and criticise her while she does it.”

Ron whipped around then, fixing Harry tightly in a dangerous glare while he pretended to be more interested in the Map. He kept looking at the thick enchanted parchment in his lap while Ron bitterly spat out a reply.

“Oh yes, because you’ve been wracking your fuckin’ brain, actively working on solutions, now have you?” Ron argued back, his voice rough and rude as you had ever heard him. Obviously, he was bitter over the insinuation that he wasn’t helping. “Sitting around staring at that bloody map all day, what’s that gonna do?”

Ron’s words, his harsh tone even stung you.

You rushed to step between him and Harry, even though Harry was still sitting in his brooding chair, attempting to seem unphased. He was putting up a wall of calm, not giving Ron the response that he so desperately wanted. Ron wanted Harry to be just as frustrated and aggravated as he was. Rather than sitting back calmly and spitting well-calculated sass.

But you hoped that it wouldn’t get to that point. If they were both angry, you wouldn’t be able to interfere. You wouldn’t be able to get their attention off of anything but pissing each other off more until it fizzled out on its own - or until Hermione stepped in. Which would be the worst possible result.

You needed to direct Ron’s attention away from the argument so that it wouldn’t blow up into a massive fight.

“Ron, let’s go for a walk?” You posed, gently putting your hand on his cheek, trying to get him to look at you. “Come on, let’s go get some fresh air.”

He was still glaring at Harry with a harsh bite in his jaw. You could feel the rage grinding his teeth together under your touch. It was something that made you nauseous.

Ron didn’t reply to your request before Harry spoke up again.

“I spend so much time looking at the map because I’m making sure that the people we love are okay.” Harry explained, his voice dull. “Not that-”

“They’re at Hogwarts, and we’re here.” Ron cut him off sharply, completely ignoring you and your attempts to get him away from the conversation, which was very quickly going off the rails. “Even if they’re in trouble, dying, what are you gonna do about it?”

Harry inhaled sharply at this, but mustered no reply.

You glanced over your shoulder at him, not taking your comforting touch off of Ron. You saw the depth of sadness swimming in his eyes at this. You knew this was something that cut him deep.

He looked at the Map every single day because he could rest slightly better knowing that the people he loved - Ginny, Neville, Luna, Seamus, Dean - were safe. He liked to watch them walk the halls, attend their classes, go about a routine. But if they did come into some kind of danger, he had no clue how he would stop it. He couldn’t stop it. That idea was something he had considered, time and time again. And it hurt him greatly. He couldn’t do anything until he had secured and destroyed all the Horcruxes - something you were nowhere near close to doing.

You thought perhaps this would be the end of the argument. That Harry would go back to brooding quietly and Ron would take you up on that offer to go for a walk. But your hope fizzled away when Ron opened his mouth again.

“I suppose The Great Harry Potter doesn’t need to work at things, now does he? Because every fuckin’ thing just falls into his lap, huh?” Ron sneered, sounding as though the words ‘Harry Potter’ tasted awful in his mouth.

You knew that this wasn’t just about the Horcruxes, not by far. Ron was talking about so many things in life. Things that haunted him that he had never allowed himself to let go.

The House Cup during their first year, Harry’s position on the Quidditch team, his Invisibility Cloak, the Triwizard Tournament - even the affections of girls and the admiration that came with his name. All things that Ron had long been jealous of that had literally fallen into Harry’s lap with no difficulty whatsoever.

“Ron, please, let’s just go take a breather.” You begged.

You hooked your fingers into the front of his thick woollen jumper, tempted to try pulling him out of the tent and away from Harry completely before things got worse.

And then, things got worse.

Harry burst like a game of Exploding Snap. He jumped up out of his chair suddenly with a shout, causing you to jolt while Ron kept glaring at him, unflinching.

“Fuck off, Ron!” He screamed. “I would love it if my name could get us out of this mess! But right now, it seems more people in the world want me dead-!”

Ron reached around you, pointing an accusing finger at Harry as he cut off the other man’s words with a shout of his own.

“I wish I would have known that when I signed on to be your best friend years ago-!”

“Best friend?” Harry repeated, halfway between a gasp and a sarcastic sneer. “Some friend you are. What have you done for me in the past few years aside from scream at me and gripe and complain?”

“Stop it!” You shouted this time, whipping your head toward Harry, done with trying to haul Ron away. “Both of you, stop! You both love each other and this is nonsense!”

It was the truth. But they were entirely blind to the truth right now.

Naturally, they both ignored you.

“And what have you done for me, aside from nearly getting me killed?” Ron snapped back.

“Ron, stop!” You squealed at him, trying once again to stop the fight.

You had never seen any of their bickering or arguing come even close to the level of friendship ending. But under the circumstances, you feared that if it didn’t stop soon - this might be it.

You dug your fingers into his jumper again, this time actually trying to haul him toward the mouth of the tent by force. He didn’t seem at all bothered by this - he simply continued engaging in a very fierce glaring contest with Harry.

When his jumper stretched down slightly, you saw a glinting around his neck, and then you realised:

He had been wearing the Locket for nearly two days now.

You thought that Hermione was supposed to be taking her turn, that it was outside the tent with her and her books. But surely enough, when you reached inside his jumper, your hand came back with that green locket. As you looked at it, you found that the sight of it almost mocked you.

“Ron, take it off.” You demanded sharply. “Come on, you don’t mean any of this, it’s just-”

“Who says I don’t mean it?” Ron snapped, reaching up and batting your hands away from him. Surprisingly, he then tucked the Locket back inside his jumper, rather than taking it off.

He was still actively punishing himself. And it was likely that Harry’s comment about him not being helpful was only playing into the toxic circus already going on in his mind that made him feel the need to wear it for longer. The Locket must have been loving the dark cloud of emotions that Ron was feeling right now.

Harry took a step toward you and put a hand on your shoulder, trying to pull you away from Ron.

“Come on, Y/N, it’s no use talking to him. He’s being a complete idiot right now, he’s not going to listen.”

Typically yes, that would be the case if Hermione or Harry tried to talk to him. When Ron was angry, their personalities did not mesh well. He would put up nothing but a wall of silence or brute stubbornness toward them.

But when you talked to him, it was different. When he was greeted by your warm empathy, your gentle understanding, it was different. In the worst cases where you truly needed to break through to him, you ended up with your mouth on his cock to break that stubbornness. But either way, you would get him to listen to you, and eventually he would calm down and talk it out.

Ron’s glare was like a sharp poison dagger, piercing the place where Harry’s hand met your shoulder.

It seemed that those words from Harry’s mouth, so casually calling him an idiot, along with Harry’s touch on you - even though it was the most casual, platonic touch he could have performed. All of it brought Ron’s anger to a boiling rage, and under the influence of the Locket - he snapped.

“Don’t touch her!” Ron growled. He reached around you and shoved Harry squarely in the chest in order to get him away from you.

You would be lying if you said that the words and especially his tone carrying them didn’t send a distinct zap through your cunt, instantly awakening the lust you had been trying to push down all day.

Harry let out a sharp gasp as Ron’s hand hit his chest, and stumbled backwards a few steps - partially because of how hard Ron had pushed him, and partially numb from shock. His fights with Ron had never turned physical before. He found himself flushed with fear, and not one due to intimidation of his best friend’s physical stature. He was afraid to potentially lose the friendship. He was afraid that he had taken things a step too far.

You looked between the two of them, tingling with shock yourself, completely unsure what to say or do. You were tempted to shout for Hermione, but then Ron began speaking again and shocked you and Harry even further.

“This may come as a surprise to you, Harry, but you don’t own everything in the goddamn world.” Ron said, spitting Harry’s name through his lips like it was a vile poison.

Was he seriously insinuating that Harry put a hand on your shoulder because he thought that he owned you?

Was Ron getting possessive over you?

“Excuse me?” Harry squeaked out, clearly having as much difficulty processing the words as you were.

If anything, Harry was jealous of your relationship with Ron.

The two of you had been so close before even coming to Hogwarts. When Harry had seen the two of you idly chatting and laughing so hard that you could barely breathe when he had approached your train carriage during that first ride to Hogwarts, he had been purely intimidated. On that day, Harry had felt like he had no one in the world, like he was so damn alone, and Ron already had you as a best friend.

Harry had always been jealous of the closeness that you had with Ron. The inside jokes from your childhood, the stories of the things you got up to as kids that he only heard about secondhand. Harry had always wished so hard, yearned deep in his heart that he could have grown up in the magical world so that he would have known Ron sooner and could have been his best friend for as long as you had. Every single time Harry arrived at the Burrow, you were already there, laughing it up with Ron, making him feel like he was the biggest third wheel to your already amazing friendship.

To this day, Harry was still surprised that Ron gave him the title of best friend and not you.

“Ron-?” You questioned numbly, and he cut you off.

“You heard me.” Ron growled, his voice dark.

It was something that made your stomach jump, a mixture of shock and lust flooding you. It made you numb and limp and turned you into a perfect ragdoll, your body entirely receptive to Ron’s next chaotic, unpredictable movements.

“She doesn’t belong to you.” Ron ground out, his throat scraping against the words in a gravelly way that made your pussy so wet.

“I never said-” Harry gaped quietly in protest, but he cut himself off with a quiet gasp when he witnessed what his best mate did next.

Ron threaded a hand into the back of your hair, a grip so strong and commanding, a touch that immediately said ‘I own you’.

You released a small gasp in response, arching into his touch as shockwaves of pleasure pittered through you from this point - from feeling his large, strong hand gripping you there. He didn’t waste a moment before he ripped on your hair, forcing your head backwards so he could have a good angle to shove his mouth onto yours.

Dizzy with the combination of pain and pleasure, your mouth so easily fell open to him. You had nothing but ripe, burning moans for him as his rough, unshaven face scratched against yours and his demanding tongue shoved past your lips. He was almost forcing you to choke on his presence as your needy lust came back with a vengeance, thumping hard between your thighs.

Harry found himself confused.

He was still so bitterly angry, that annoyance from the argument still sizzling through his veins. But he found his cock quickly swelling to hardness at the sight of Ron taking you so savagely, treating you to roughly, doing things to you that Harry had definitely never done.

Harry was always soft with you. He didn’t know anything but softness when it came to his intimate time with you. Witnessing this was so absolutely hot, and Harry couldn’t deny that. He should have been more upset by this revelation - by the familiarity, by the natural way you just let Ron kiss you.

Harry should have been jealous. He should have stormed away to brood at the fact that you had clearly been fucking Ron behind his back for as long as you had been fucking him. But he couldn’t find himself angry about that. He only found it to be a turn-on.

Part of his brain screamed that he should have known all along. A girl as perfect as you wouldn’t have just one boyfriend, definitely not. (Was he your boyfriend? The two of you had never discussed that part…)

The first time you had ever kissed him, Harry just felt exceedingly lucky. And he had felt similarly confused, wondering why the hell you had snogged him so suddenly, without seeming to show any interest in him beforehand.

That night in the Gryffindor Common Room, after everyone else had gone to bed, he had asked you if he should be concerned about his kissing technique because Cho had been crying while kissing him and afterwards, and Ron had made that joke about how Harry must be horrible at snogging, then.

And without even answering, you pulled him forward by the length of his Gryffindor tie and snogged him furiously. (At the time, he had been embarrassed by how easily he had moaned into your mouth - something he had definitely not done with Cho - but you had assured him later that you found it cute.)

And then you explained to him that his kissing technique was more than fine, and that Cho was still hung up on Cedric, and he should stop ‘playing with her fragile emotions’. He had been too pleased to have you that he hadn’t cared at all about turning Cho down for Valentine’s Day.

So naturally, he hadn’t questioned the nature of his relationship with you since.

In this moment, he was still bitterly mad at Ron. But he watched to watch. He found you beautiful and irresistible, even if he should have hated seeing you with Ron. He just found it hot. And he was confused as to why that was - but he certainly wasn’t going to move unless you or Ron yelled at him to bugger off.

The whole time that Harry contemplated this, Ron thoroughly explored your mouth with his tongue. This left you whimpering and writhing to get closer to him, despite the tight grip he had on your hair. You were needy for more, arching into him, needing to be closer to his warm, Quidditch-hardened body. Your hands tightly gripped his biceps through his thick jumper, wishing you could feel more of him, more of his delicious bare skin that you had experienced under your hands before but missed so dearly.

“Ron-!” You squeaked out in protest as he pulled back from the kiss.

The movement resonated a wet smack through the tent and left Harry’s mouth flooded with his own saliva as he saw the thread of spit that tangled between your two mouths. He would deny that it was out of pure want.

He stared in awe as he saw how swollen and used your lips already were after just a few moments of Ron’s rough kissing.

Typically, that was an imagery that Harry could only get from you after hours of kissing, slow and sweet. Or something he would see on the rare occasions when you had sucked his cock for hours, pinned him down and teased him until he was begging for more. Naturally, that thought made his cock give a needy pulse inside his trousers - but he refused to touch himself.

He didn’t know when he had gotten so damn hard, but he knew that he was standing at full attention, and he hoped that Ron wouldn’t look over to see the very obvious bulge at the front of his pants.

Something that truly mystified Harry was the look on your face.

You had such a doll-like expression; your eyes glassy, your jaw slack, your lips parted. Your gaze was locked on Ron, tracing his every movement as though you had been hypnotised. If Harry didn’t know any better, he might say that you were under the Imperius Curse. In all the times that Harry had taken you to bed before, he had never seen that look on your face.

Whenever you gleefully climbed on top of him (or the spare few times when you let him climb on top of you) you were always so present. Often, Harry was surprised by how composed you could be when he was the one begging and falling apart. Whenever he looked up at you, there was an almost wild look of mischief behind your eyes as you decided with pure, intricate calculation what you were going to do to him.

And Harry could do nothing more than sit back and enjoy the ride. He supposed it was the one area of his life where he didn’t have to panic about the decision making. The one time where he didn’t have to fret about being responsible.

“Ron,” You moaned out weakly, gently begging him for more.

Harry then realised - Ron did that for you. And you must have liked it a whole lot.

Because you made absolutely no protests as he mouthed along your cheek roughly, the short, coarse hair of his short beard clearly scratching your skin along the way. You only let out more beautiful moans as he began sucking savagely on your neck.

“Ron, ah-!”

Harry only became worried when he saw Ron quite clearly dig his teeth into your skin right at the neck of your shirt, biting down hard enough to draw blood. He continued to yank on your hair, holding your body in a tight arch to keep you from squirming away. You didn’t yell out any protests at this, but the sound you made was a sharp holler - perhaps it could have been from pleasure or pain.

You had never made sounds like that with Harry, so he couldn’t exactly tell.

Either way, it had Harry reaching to his back pocket for his wand. But he didn’t yet draw it out and point it at Ron. He was too damn curious to let this continue and see where things went. Especially if you didn’t want it to stop.

“Y/N?” Harry questioned, his voice ripe with concern.

He needed to check on you. If you even so much as uttered the words ‘no’ or ‘stop’, then he would put Ron on his ass without hesitation.

You let out another moan, and his cock throbbed with need, trapped inside of his pants. He hoped that he could forget about it for now.

You let out a small whimper as Ron tongued over the bite harshly, seemingly enjoying the taste of the blood, before he picked a new spot and bit down again. You made another wounded noise and Harry gripped his wand tighter before you finally responded to him.

“I’m fine, Harry.” You breathed out, sparing him a quick sideways glance - barely able to turn your head with Ron’s strong grip holding you still by your hair.

“Don’t you dare say his fucking name!” Ron growled out, clearly insulted that you were talking to Harry when all of your attention was supposed to be on him. “Not until I’m done with you.”

In a fraction of a moment, these sharp words were paired with the sound of skin stinging against skin.

Harry let out another gasp as he watched Ron’s large hand come down across your cheek. It was hard enough to make a distinct sound, and throttle your head to the side. But it definitely wasn’t hard enough to shake you out of the lustful haze you were in. If anything, the stiffness of his palm colliding with your cheek seemed to add to it.

More shock pulsed through Harry when he heard you let out another moan, definitely a pleasurable one. He pulled out his wand and held it at his hip, not yet prepared to threaten Ron. Because if he wasn’t mistaken, you were enjoying this.

“Ron,” You gasped quietly.

You found yourself shocked by the way the slap had caused your pussy to throb between your legs.

“That’s right.” He grunted back before he leaned back in, taking your mouth in that entirely commanding way once again.

You could do nothing but moan pathetically and hope that soon he touched you where you needed it most.

Sure, Ron had been somewhat rough with you before.

He was always more of an animal in bed - Ron always fucked dumb and wild, climbed on top of you and let loose like a mindless animal until he was done. And you always liked it that way.

You went to him when you wanted to be sore and full, when you wanted to lay back and forget about your day. You thought it was sweet of Harry to check on you. He had always been so different when it came to sex.

You went to Harry when you wanted to be taken care of with intense softness and slowness. Sex with Harry was always more like making love - a devoted worship of you or you worshipping him. You liked to have his sweetness completely under your control, to know that he would do anything you said at a moment’s notice.

And of course, Hermione was completely different. You went to her when you wanted to fight for dominance and sometimes lose, or win and have the pleasure of having her at your mercy. She was a very rule oriented person, so she was the type to have you stand in the corner with a book balanced on your head while she finished writing an essay and then give you a reward for not dropping it. But she was also someone who liked to be mind-broken and forget about all the rules sometimes. You liked that it was so unpredictable and surprisingly non-routine with her.

While you knew each of them well, intimately - you were somewhat surprised.

Ron had never been this mean before.

Mostly, you were surprised by how quickly you were coming to like the meanness in him, especially when it was presented as a sexual aggression toward you. You knew that it was something you would crave long after this was over. (You hated that you could imagine yourself purposely pissing him off just to get this result.)

After a few moments, Ron pulled away from the kiss again, leaving you panting, entirely breathless. He leaned his forehead against yours in a move that Harry would almost consider tender - quite a contrast to his other actions, staring daggers of dangerous passion into your eyes as your chest heaved.

“I’m fine.” You muttered quietly, wanting to assure Harry that you were okay with everything that Ron was doing. More than okay - but you weren’t quite ready to admit that just yet. “It’s fine.”

Your words were clearly intended for Harry, who you could see out of the corner of your eye was clearly prepared to take Ron down if need be. It was a nice safety net to have, but with your cheek stinging as much as your needy cunt - it was an unnecessary one.

You kept your eyes locked on Ron as he teased a thumb across your bottom lip. You were tempted to tease him, tempted to call out Harry’s name again just to see what would happen. But you were worried that he would get you all worked up and then not let you cum, and that would be the most pitiful punishment of all to you on this day.

“Fine?” Ron chuckled darkly. “I’ll show you fine.”

He wretched your neck back harshly again, taking advantage of the hold he had on your hair. You couldn’t contain the moan you let out as he shoved his tongue past your lips once more, his free hand coming up to grope your breast through your shirt so harshly that it ached.

He reached for your pants and tugged on them so hard that the button went flying, making a small ‘tink’ on the floor as it disappeared somewhere on the other side of the tent. You distantly hoped that Hermione could sew, or that she knew some spell for mending buttons, but that was a fleeting thought in your mind at the moment.

Ron shoved his hand past the waistband of your pants without a second thought, without even a breath of asking permission. It was that boldness, the way he simply took you like you belonged to him - it was that feeling of being owned by him that made you clench around nothing, further soaking your cotton panties as he shoved his fingers into them.

Ron pulled back from the kiss, letting out a breathy chuckle against your cheek as he felt that heady wetness. He had to pry the sticky fabric off your cunt to make his way to the source, and it only made him more sure of himself. He made bold, cocky movements when he posed two of his fingers rigid, sweeping up the length of your needy pussy. He gathered the wetness thick on his fingertips before he found your clit with practised skill and rubbed it in mean strokes.

“Ron!”

Your knees bent and your fingers dug into the fabric of his jumper, desperate to hold on to something. Your thighs clamped down around his hand, and when you let out a whining moan, Harry’s cock pulsed sharply when he realised he could hear the sound of your wetness audibly, even though it was slightly muffled, still trapped inside of your pants - he could hear each mean, wet stroke as Ron touched you.

“Ron, please!”

You were already begging to cum.

But he had no determination to finish you off right now. He didn’t want to make you cum yet - otherwise, the show would have been over too soon. He only did this for a moment before he pulled his fingers back out of your pants, now absolutely soaked and glistening with your wetness. Then he shocked you and Harry yet again when he purposefully held the hand up for Harry to see.

“More than fine.” He scoffed, referring to your earlier words. “Look at how fucking wet she is for me.”

An incredibly tempting thought came over Harry. To cross the room and put his lips around those fingers, to taste your essence (something he was already intimately familiar with) while enjoying the thickness of Ron’s digits on his tongue. But there was still that part of Harry that was pissed off, and somehow, that part won out.

“You’re mad.” He barked out, pocketing his wand again and crossing his arms tightly over his chest, setting his jaw and giving his best enraged expression. “You’re disgusting.”

Ron let out another bitter chuckle. “You’re still watchin’, mate.”

Seeing as it was not a demand to fuck off and stop watching, Harry continued to keep his eyes locked on the scene. All while trying his best to keep putting up that front of anger while arousal overtook him.

Ron used the hand in your hair and a hand on your hip to throw you toward the table, finally releasing the grip on your hair to manhandle you until you were positioned how he liked. He bent you over the table with your palms supporting you on the surface, your ass sticking out, with your knees grazing against the attached bench in what must have been in an uncomfortable way. It put you and Ron sideways to Harry as Ron got behind you, showing off your profiles to him. If Harry wasn’t mistaken, Ron was purposefully showing off, making sure that Harry had a good view of whatever he was going to do to you next.

You moaned again as Ron tucked his grip into your pants and underwear and ripped them down all at once, shoving the fabric down to your knees. You let out a pitiful, beautiful whimper as he put a hand on your jaw, forcing your head back painfully so that you could look up at him as he towered over you. He wanted you to know how much power he held over you.

It made your cunt throb even harder, and you were sure that Harry could see the wetness glistening on your thighs.

Ron’s body was warm against your back, the muscly hot furnace that he always was. Without warning, he shoved those two still wet fingers inside your cunt, and began fucking you open without mercy. This caused you to moan harshly and arch into the touch, aching for more.

“It’s funny, innit?” Ron posed, a dark laughter dancing in his voice. “Someone had to show The Great Harry Potter how to fuck. One thing that didn’t just come to him with natural grace.”

Over the sounds of your moans and Ron’s fingers moving slickly inside your cunt, Harry felt a wave of humiliation rise up in him. He would absolutely deny that Ron speaking so harshly to him like that, combined with his best friend for once looking down upon his name - actually made his cock throb harder. A big part of Harry internally scoffed. Did Ron honestly think that Harry was some blushing, clueless virgin?

“I know how.” Harry replied, the words entirely daft to his own ears once they came to the open air. He sounded like a petulant child pretending that he hadn’t eaten a cookie before dinner. Absolutely no truth or proof behind his own words.

Ron let out another dark laugh at this, and Harry’s stomach clenched with a strange combination of humiliation and lust.

If Harry was being completely honest with himself, there was a time in his life when he had been taught how to fuck. It wasn’t something that came naturally to him without a bunch of nervous fumbling. But Ron certainly wasn’t his instructor.

You had been the one to teach him how.

…

Harry let out a needy whine, deep frustration radiating through him as your hips slowed down on top of him yet again. He wanted to cry as you sat down on top of him completely, trapping his cock in stillness, leaving him leaking and needy inside of you as your leaking pussy sheathed completely around him. It was the most beautiful torture - every inch of him sheathed in your hot wetness, but dear god, he needed you to move.

“Hush, now, darling - there’s no need to whine.” You scolded him, your voice oddly sweet and soothing for words that brought such a disappointing lull over him.

“But-” Harry breathed out a protest, and you yanked sharply on his Gryffindor tie. This caused the words to die off in his throat as his neck was jerked with a short snip of pain.

He was still mostly clothed - still wearing his cardigan, unbuttoned and slumping down his arms, and his white shirt with a few stray buttons undone. With his trousers undone and pulled down to his thighs along with his underwear, letting his cock out. Usually, when you fucked him, no matter how undressed he got, you kept his tie around his neck. You had found that it was a very convenient leash - a very easy way to shut him up and make him obedient at a moment’s notice.

It was something he was now unconsciously trained toward, which he both loved and hated. Ron and Hermione had no clue why Harry went so slack and became a puppet following your every whim if you even so much as grazed a suggestive touch near his tie during classes - it was something that made his brain go fuzzy and made his cock harden at an alarming speed.

This afternoon, you had decided that the chosen form of torture - well, intensely wet, pleasurable ‘torture’ - would be riding him. You had shed your clothing and you were now sitting astride his lap naked, alternating between fucking him hard and fast for a few moments before you slowed down and then slopped completely until he begged for you to continued.

It was a move that simply dared someone to come into the Gryffindor boys dorm during the class that the two of you had skipped and catch the two of you while you humped up and down on Harry’s cock. But he couldn’t even bring himself to care about the possibility of getting caught, as you easily made him forget about everything other than the feeling of your warm, tight, wet cunt clenching down on his cock.

“I told you, Harry, we need to train up your stamina.” You whispered, speeding your hips up once again, daring him to hurl off the edge of oblivion into a mind-bending orgasm. “It’s like Quidditch - if you don’t practise, then you’ll never get better.”

Harry only sputtered out a moan and clutched onto your hips tightly, pressing his face into your breasts as his over-edged balls ached and he internally begged for mercy.

So what? He didn’t often last long with you. You were a goddess, and your pussy was perfect, who could blame him? What he lacked in stamina, he usually made up for in enthusiasm and the intense willingness to eat his own cum out of you afterwards, which you more than enjoyed.

“Y/N, please-!” Harry grunted out desperately.

…

“Ron, please!”

Harry’s mind was abruptly sucked back to the present by the sound of your voice, begging in that needy, airy tone much like he had been begging you for release all that time ago. He found it remarkable how someone as composed as you could be taken apart so easily by Ron. Perhaps he might just end up asking Ron for some tips after this - even if it would inflate the git’s ego a bit too much.

“If you’re so great, then how come she’s not begging for your cock, hmm?”

Ron teased, seeming to take great joy in focusing his attention on mocking Harry while his fingers fucked your pussy raw. He ignored your whines and pleas and the way you rocked your hips back into him, clearly so desperate for his cock as he had pointed out.

“Watch and learn, Harry.”

Harry wanted to make some sassy comment about how he didn’t need to learn this from Ron, but he was far too intrigued, his eyes glazed over with lust as he watched.

“Ron-!” You let out his name in a gasp as he pulled those fingers out of you abruptly.

He then slapped your ass, streaking those wet fingers across your behind in a way that made the hit sound even sharper, and you choked on your own breath and arched back into the touch. You looked fucking magnificent. Harry would absolutely catalogue this in his mind forever - though he hoped that this wouldn’t be the last time he got to watch Ron fuck you.

Ron then used the hand that wasn’t slick with your arousal to pop open the button on his own trousers. Harry hoped that Ron wouldn’t make a comment about how intently his eyes became glued to his best friend’s cock as it fought to be freed from his pants - no underwear keeping it from fighting against the zipper as Ron easily shucked down the pants over his hips.

Harry had snuck glances at Ron before. It was difficult not to grow curious about what your best mate’s cock looked like when sharing a room with him for six, going on seven years. Especially when the latter of those years had been filled with Ron growing into a tall, broad man that easily overtook Harry in stature. And Harry had spent an increasing amount of time thinking about Ron’s cock when he woke up to the sound of Ron wanking with deep, ragged grunts.

He had caught sight of Ron coming out of the shower before. After Quidditch practices, and when racing to use the bathroom at the Burrow before anybody else could take up the already cramped shower schedule. And while Harry had admired Ron’s muscles, he had never dared to look down before. He would never be so blatant. He had never wanted to be called out for his curiosity. He never wanted that curiosity to turn into desire.

But now, his eyes focused boldly on Ron’s cock, seeing as it was the only naked part of him available to stare at.

Even though Ron’s red hair was one of the most distinguishable traits about him, Harry was surprised by just how bright and fiery his pubes were - like a hellish flame from which his cock sprung out. And boy, was it an impressive one.

It was eight inches long, maybe a bit more, and it was thick. The only way to describe Ron’s cock was fat. It was quite pale, just like the rest of Ron, with a slight pink flush around the head that was swallowed up by his foreskin. But still, Harry found himself fixated on just how massive Ron’s cock was.

Harry found himself wondering what the thick shaft would look like wrapped up in your hand, or the dainty, delicate touch of Hermione’s, and his throat became particularly dry when he imagined this.

Strangely enough, even though Harry’s cock was a good two inches shorter and it was skinnier (much like his general stature when compared to Ron’s) - the first thing that Harry felt when looking at Ron’s cock wasn’t jealousy or inadequacy, but rather - awe. A horny type of marvel, like he was looking at a brilliant sex monument that he had just discovered.

A small pang of worry flashed through his insides at the idea that Ron was likely going to take you so roughly with his obnoxiously large cock. He knew that Ron wasn’t going to be gentle all of a sudden. Harry worried that a cock of such size might hurt you. But again, he knew that he could step in if you asked him to.

Ron grabbed his cock with the hand that he had previously been fucking you with, spreading your wetness over his shaft with a few good pumps. He poised a touch on your hip and then, with a hand on the base of his cock, began running the now exposed, throbbing tip along your weeping slit.

Harry thought that he might push in after a moment, especially when you let out a whimper and arched your back toward him, daring him to sink in.

“Ron, please. Please, baby. Come on.” You begged, your voice half caught in your throat as you were overtaken by need.

Harry’s cock was freely leaking into his underwear now, and he almost shouted for Ron to begin fucking you out of his own dizzy desperation.

But then, still teasing his cock along your swollen pussy lips, Ron put his other hand under your jaw. He squeezed your cheeks tightly between his thumb and forefinger - and he turned your head toward Harry. You had previously been facing the wall of the tent with half-closed, dopey eyes.

Harry found himself deeply surprised by this. Of course, the whole point of this (supposedly) was to direct your attention away from Harry. Ron had even banned you from speaking his name. So why did he want you to look at Harry now?

When your glassy, lustful eyes met Harry’s, his stomach jumped. He swallowed harshly around nothing and he knew that you saw the bobbing of this throat. You let out a whimper, squirming in Ron’s hold, still trying to fuck yourself back onto his cock. This caused Ron to let out a displeased growl and move the hand that he had on the base of his cock to your lower back, shoving you toward the table so that the edge of it cut into your hips.

While keeping a tight hold on your face, making sure that you never looked away from Harry, Ron leaned in and grumbled something lowly in your ear. Even though you were panting harshly and Harry’s own heartbeat thumped in his ears, he could still hear the words so distinctly from across the room:

“Go on. Tell him how badly you want my cock.”

“I want it.” You whimpered.

This wasn’t good enough for Ron.

He yanked on your hair again, keeping your face locked on Harry. But at the same time, he made sure you stayed focused on the task at hand with his cock kissing at your entrance, the fat head of it just barely teasing in - but not nearly giving you enough to be satisfied.

“Tell him who.” Ron barked out. “Tell him who you need.”

“I need you, Ron!” You whined. “I need Ron’s cock.”

These finally seemed to be the words that set him off.

He slammed into you without further ceremony, digging his fingers into your hip and keeping the other hand in your hair for leverage. He began fucking you like a wild animal, his hips a blur of flesh that lit up your insides with pleasure. It was what you needed, and you instantly thanked him with a chorus of deep moans echoing from your throat.

“Good. Fucking. Girl.” Ron ground out these words, driving each syllable home with a hard thrust of his hips.

His movements filled the whole tent with nothing but sounds of his hips colliding against your ass, your wet pussy eagerly swallowing up his thick cock. Paired with his rough, animalistic grunting as he claimed you, complemented by the sounds of your withering moans - your lungs already wilted and tired, your body begging for release. You loved being used by him, and you knew that if he kept up the pace, you could cum just from the feeling of his big cock filling you up.

It was this symphony of sounds - the very obvious signs of fucking - that drew Hermione’s attention back toward the tent.

She had been roused by the yelling, originally. She didn’t want to intervene in the bickering like she was simply the ‘mother’ of the group, imposing rules and order on everyone. That role did become annoying after a while. So when it died down naturally, she had been thankful, and simply went back to her book.

But it was the sounds of fucking that truly caught her attention. Completely against her own will, it started a fire between her legs and drew her up. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was your girlish lilting voice calling out Ron’s name. She knew that Harry wasn’t asleep and she hadn’t seen him leaving. So were the three of you-?

“Fuck, take it! Take it like the little fuckin’ cockwarmer you are!”

That deep growling voice couldn’t possibly be Ron - could it?

With her pussy beginning to ache annoyingly between her thighs, Hermione pulled back the tent flap and stepped inside. The sight she found before her quickly made her gasp.

Ron was fucking you.

He had you bent over the table. There was something in the back of Hermione’s mind that screamed ‘that is where we eat, this is not sanitary’ - but she ignored that part of her mind in favour of the headliner.

Which was the beastly way that Ron was taking you, harsh grunts pouring from his lips as his very large cock pounded into your pussy with seemingly no care. This made your poor pussy more swollen by the second, and seemingly - more coated in natural wetness as you creamed all over him, taking nothing but pleasure in his rough movements.

You were moaning breathlessly, hanging onto the edge of the table for dear life, your face shaped into a perfect O as hot breaths poured from your lips. With your back arched out, showing your ass to Ron in a perfectly pornographic picture that was right out of one of the magazines that Hermione had accidentally seen under Ron’s bed.

Your whole body rocked with his thrusts, the table creaking under the pure force of him - something that made Hermione realise just how strong he was for the first time ever. It was a thought that made her slightly dizzy and made her throat dry. The expression on his face was like nothing Hermione had ever seen before - tight-browed determination, not a lick of uncertainty anywhere among his features. Clearly, this was something he was confident in. And that confident power suited him so well.

And Harry was watching.

He was standing a few feet from the table, his arms crossed over his chest and a very obvious bulge in his pants. A stiff expression on his face as he stared at the scene more intently than she had ever seen him with anything other than Quidditch.

The lick of heat that Hermione was feeling quickly boiled into a hellfire. Although she knew that her cheeks were pink, and suddenly her jacket felt overwhelming to have on, she didn’t ask to join in. But rather stupidly:

“Ronald, stop this! Now!”

Hermione hated that her first instinct was to scold Ron like a child, to order him around like this.

But the dominant energy pouring off him in waves was certainly not something she was used to, and she had the utmost urge to stamp it out. Though you seemed to be enjoying yourself and Harry seemed perfectly intent to watch, Hermione’s gut told her that there was something wrong with the scene. On the surface, it was Ron’s apparent roughness with you, making Hermione worry that he was handling someone as delicate as you the wrong way.

But deep down, she knew it was her own spiteful dominance washing up - a possessiveness she felt over you. Something that made her want to challenge Ron for you and have the pleasure of being put in her place. Or, have the pleasure of winning and taking you in front of him.

Perhaps, what her gut truly wanted to tell her was wrong with the scene was that she wasn’t a central participant in it.

Ron let out a sharp growl of frustration when Hermione’s shrill voice hit his ears. If there was any boner killer in the world, it was Hermione’s whiny, authoritative voice calling him by his full name.

He pulled his cock out of you before you could blink. Harry made a choked sound at the sight of Ron’s now angry red cock parting from your swollen cunt with a sticky string of wetness, much like when you had parted from that breathless kiss at the beginning of all this.

“Ron!” You whined sharply, wondering what the hell he was doing. Your orgasm had been a tight knot in your belly, but now it was fading off so quickly that it hurt.

Hermione would deny that she stared. She would deny that she could a good eyeful of your pussy as it gaped around nothing, clearly aching for Ron’s cock, spilling more clear wetness out onto your own thighs with each aching, empty clench. Drool gathered in her mouth at the sight of your body so desperate.

And a sight she had never seen before - Ron’s hard, bobbing dick, bright red and absolutely coated in your wetness. She almost mourned not being able to stare at it for longer as he tucked it back into his trousers and zipped them back up with a clearly frustrated haste. She would deny that the sheer size of his cock amazed her and made her own cunt clench with a filthy, hungry ache.

“No-!” You squeaked out a protest, looking over your shoulder at Ron and sighing in defeat when you saw that he had tucked his cock away.

Then you turned your gaze toward Hermione, looking at her with pure disappointment floating in your eyes.

“Hermione!” You whined out, a clear plea for her to let the whole thing continue.

She almost couldn’t stand the kicked puppy look from you, especially not when she was so used to giving in to you, giving in to all your little whims. Especially when your pussy was wet and your eyes were glassy with lust - she couldn’t resist you like this.

You didn’t rush to pull up your own pants, unlike Ron. You didn’t see the point, seeing as, even if they didn’t all know it yet, everyone in the room had seen this part of you quite a few times before.

“You just have to ruin everything, don’t you, Hermione?” Ron barked, clearly making his way toward the entrance of the tent to leave.

It was likely that he wanted to sulk off between the trees for a wank since Hermione was becoming all ‘protective’ over you. He was far more afraid of anything she would do to him than whatever vague threats Harry had made earlier.

“What if you were hurting her?” Hermione said meekly. “Did you even ask her if you could do that?”

It was rare - so very rare that she admitted she was wrong. The minute she had told Ron to stop, she regretted not simply cheering the scene on. But she wasn’t going to go back on it now. She needed to be in control. She needed the whole thing to be her idea now.

During the entire exchange, Harry remained eerily silent. Ron was glaring at Hermione with the fierce vengeance of the Locket still pulsing through him, and Hermione was giving him the stiff jaw that she usually did before they burst into an epic argument. If Harry was lucky, another argument would lead to more fucking, and he wasn’t going to speak up and ruin that.

You whimpered again weakly as you straightened your back. You reached for the waistband of your pants and pulled them up slightly to give yourself some mobility in your footing, rather than having them hooked around your legs. But you didn’t pull them up to completely cover your pussy yet. You were still very needy, desperate for an orgasm. If someone else didn’t fuck you soon, you would either have to push Harry to the floor and take him or lay back on the table and start masturbating out in the open without care.

“She liked it.” Ron growled, entirely confident in this statement.

Hermione barely contained a whimper of her own as Ron’s hot breath fanned over her face. The condescending glare he gave her only emphasised their height difference, somehow making her insides hotter.

“But it’s just so easy to blame the big, bad Ron Weasley for everything, isn’t it?” Ron huffed out.

He turned his back then, and you knew he was about to storm out of the tent, so you finally scrounged up your voice and managed some words.

“Take it off.” You choked out. “The Locket. Take it off.”

Whatever happened next, you didn’t want it to be caused by anger.

You wanted it to be caused by desire - by need.

You knew that you weren’t the only person in the tent who needed this. You could see the way Hermione was unconsciously clenching her thighs together, and Harry’s cock was testing his zipper mightily. And even though Ron had started touching you out of a possessiveness, it wasn’t the first time that anger had sparked this kind of wild fucking from him - it was just an intensely exaggerated reaction under the Locket’s influence.

But you knew that it would likely put everyone more at ease if he took it off.

“You’ve been wearing it this whole time-?” Hermione gasped, reaching for the neck of Ron’s jumper as you had earlier. Surprisingly, he let her.

“I still liked it.” You announced, wanting to assure Hermione that even if Ron’s need to brutally fuck you was prompted by the influence of the Locket, you had intensely enjoyed it.

“I absolutely enjoyed it. In fact, I think Ron is the only one around here with any sense.” You said.

It was then that you felt the draft from the tent flap blowing cooling air on your wet cunt - something that finally prompted you to pull your pants up the rest of the way.

Harry almost begged you not to, not wanting sex to be off the table, not yet. Ron had to contain a laugh when you reached to fasten your pants with a button that was sitting on the floor in the corner.

“Beg your pardon?” Hermione gaped, entirely shocked by your words, partially confused as to what you meant.

Ron grinned wickedly at this revelation - he knew exactly what you meant.

So, he made no moves to fight her when Hermione took the Locket off him and stashed it in her pocket, rather than putting it on. (She wanted to be clear headed for what she hoped would happen next.)

“If we don’t stop fighting and start fucking, then we’re going to drive each other insane with all the damn bickering.” You explained.

Hermione looked between Ron and Harry, who were both very still and refused to look at her, much like they did when they thought that they were in trouble. It was quite clear that they were waiting for her to take the lead, to make the important decision as she usually did.

And then she looked at you. She found herself quite taken with your sex-messed hair, your kiss-swollen lips and the pure need that glazed over your eyes, a few wet tears kissing against your lashes.

“Hermione, please.” You begged, that pure need swallowing up your chest, making her name sound so beautiful coming off your lips.

She was distinctly reminded of the last time she had heard those words coming off your lips, begging her for something in a distinctly similar way.

…

“Hermione, please.” You murmured sharply against her lips, already untying the front of her cotton pyjama shorts. “I’ll be quick, I swear.”

You had her pinned against the sink in the bathroom at the Burrow, licking the taste of spearmint toothpaste off her teeth. It was just after the two of you had completed a nightly routine, preparing for bed.

You thought that routine should include an orgasm or two to help with better sleep, but Hermione feared getting caught. Even though the two of you seemed to be the last ones awake, everyone else already finished with their night and in bed. The house was quiet with sleep, even with the number of family members and guests gathered there, staying over in anticipation of the wedding.

“Y/N-” Hermione choked out your name, reaching a hand up and putting a thumb on your pulse point, pressing down sharply as a warning.

This was something that caused you to whimper against her mouth and pause the movement of your hand against her wet panties. It was a technique she had developed with you, a soft spot of yours that easily got you to behave or focus when she needed you to.

“Hermione.” You replied, your voice full of breath, a quivering need balancing on your tongue. It was like a Veela’s call that delicately invited her to give you exactly what you needed.

Hermione let out a sharp sigh. You held your breath as she gently rubbed her thumb over that spot on your neck, knowing that you would either be denied, or she would soon give in. There was no amount of begging you could do if she had already made up her mind.

“Quickly.” She told you, her voice sharp and authoritative.

It was like she was reminding you when an essay was due or telling you to pull down your skirt because your knickers were visible. But instead, she was pressing the fact that you had to make her cum quickly so that the two of you wouldn’t get caught.

“Quickly.” You repeated the word with a nod.

You then descended to your knees as you helped her half sit up on the sink, taking her shorts and underwear down to her ankles.

“Good girl.” She praised in a strained whisper.

She had to forcefully muffle her own moans with a hand tightly over her mouth as your lips latched onto her clit.

Most of the time, Hermione didn’t know if she was a potent authority in your life, or if she let you run her like the brilliant scam artist that you were. But either way, she loved you enough to let you have the things you wanted. Most of the time.

…

That had been just a few short nights before the ensuing blur of preparing for Bill and Fleur’s wedding, and the chaos that had everyone tumbling out of there with urgency. That was the last time that Hermione had cum before setting out on this entire tedious ‘adventure’. So of course, her lustful need was worse than ever, if only from starvation of touch over time.

“Please.” You breathed out the word again, your voice desperate as ever. “Please, I need this. I think we all need this.”

This drew her attention back to the present, back to the authority she had over you - well, you and the boys right now.

Now that she thought of those boys -

“You’re speaking for Harry now too?” Hermione chuckled, turning to look at the one person who had been silent through all of this.

He raised his brows, looking rather caught. His mouth gaped like a fish as he desperately searched for the words to say ‘I was hoping that I would be included in the dirty filthy fucking without having to ask’.

Harry didn’t get a chance to come up with a reply before you trampled over him with your own words.

“Oh please, he’s been hard since Ron first kissed me. Also, for the record, you don’t have to ask Harry for sex, you just tell him it’s happening and he nods and takes off his pants.” You announced, looking at Harry in an intensely knowing way.

Hermione let out a breathy chuckle at this, giving Harry a very interesting sideways glance - studying him like she would study a particularly interesting book. Harry’s stomach bubbled with excitement and lust because you had given him a similar look so many times before. It made him imagine being trapped between you and Hermione while you both came up with increasingly naughty ways to torture him, and he found the fantasy to be equal parts scary and thrilling.

Ron’s brows knitted together with intense thought and he looked between you and Harry.

Harry caught Ron’s eye, and he began to turn cherry red when he realised he had been outed as very needy, and very easy. He thought perhaps Ron was judging him - he had no clue that now his best friend was looking upon him with a newly formed sexual appetite.

“Well, then. Y/N, I suppose you’re right.”

Hermione huffed out these words before marching across the room toward you with determination. She placed the few books that she had tucked into her arm on the table behind you before she tangled her fingers into your hair in an entirely possessive and well-known manner. Then she forced your lips towards her, kissing you fiercely, but much gentler than Ron had.

The realisation truly hit all three of them then, that you had been having sex with the other two the entire time. But through some ingrained embarrassment and some intense need not to throw off the balance of the friendships with pining and jealousy, they had always begged you to keep it secret. The worst part of realising it now was - they all knew that they could have been sharing you and each other the whole damn time.

Naturally, Ron was the one who had to say it out loud.

“So, you’ve been havin’ me, and him, and her?” He said, pointing to himself, and Harry, and then to the back of Hermione’s head as she feasted greedily on your mouth, driving home the point. “The whole time?”

Hermione pulled away from the kiss, leaning away from your body slightly, letting both the boys pointedly stare you down for a moment before you answered the question.

“Yes.” You answered honestly, that lustful breathiness coming back into your voice. “I wasn’t really under the impression that I was supposed to be monogamous.”

“Mono - what?” Harry finally spoke, the first one to prod at these words with a confusion that he and Ron were both feeling.

“Monogamous.” Hermione repeated, stripping off her jacket and tossing it to lay on one of the benches beside the table.

She then reached for your pants, noticing the absent button but ignoring it for now as she ripped the material down over your hips again. She took you with a carelessness that said she already knew she owned you and she could do whatever she pleased with you as she once again exposed your needy, hot pussy to the open air.

You let out a throaty moan as Hermione continued explaining the term to the boys.

“Monogamy describes a type of relationship where two partners are exclusive to each other, romantically and sexually, and any romantic or sexual contact with other partners outside of that is considered cheating.”

Hermione explained this in the textbook fashion that she usually spoke about things. As usual, her flawless intellect and perfect composure only turned you on more. She snaked one hand under your shirt while the other reached between your thighs and began gently teasing her fingers along your wetness. You let out a moan when she gripped onto your breast and her fingers grazed your clit - she was pleased to find you braless.

“I believe what Y/N has been engaging in with all of us would be considered polyamory. A person in multiple romantic or sexual relationships at once.” Hermione added on.

“What if we were all - you know - together?” Harry posed, clearly feeling curious about the idea.

“That would still be considered polyamory.” Hermione said.

Hermione wanted to mention the concept of a closed off poly relationship - the idea that the four of you would just be the four of you, with no one else involved. How it should be. That’s what always seemed right. It was right in front of her the whole time, and she felt foolish for not being able to see the reality of things sooner.

“I don’t want anyone but the three of you.” You moaned quietly.

Hermione let out a small grin when you voiced this for her.

“You sure that you haven’t been fuckin’ any other tossers on the side?” Ron piped up. “You are a little desperate, love.”

Your pussy quaked at his degrading words combined with the sweet nickname, and you choked on a harsh sound because of it.

“Shut up.” You whined. “It’s just us. It’s always just been us.”

Harry liked the way you said that. Us.

You humped your hips into Hermione’s touches as she worked her fingers inside of you - there was a slight gape around her delicate touch, plenty of room where Ron had furiously fucked you open.

“Did Ron cum inside of you?” Hermione asked, shifting the conversation dramatically and unexpectedly. She pulled back her fingers to inspect for that telltale streak of white.

Harry choked on his own spit at the filthiness of her words, entirely surprised by it, and though Ron was shocked by her dirty words, he rushed to answer.

“Didn’t give me the bloody chance to.” He grumbled in complaint.

Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes at this.

She pulled back from you completely then, causing you to whine out in protest as you were once again teased and left hanging. She ignored your neediness as she turned back toward the boys.

“Hermione-!” You called out, collapsing against the table as your face curled into defeat. She ignored you for now.

Hermione walked over to Harry and grabbed the front of his jumper with one hand and then fed him the fingers that she just had inside of you, clearly eager to test out that needy compliance of his that you had mentioned earlier. Harry didn’t question her and fell so easily to her touches, something that caused her to bite back a smile as she gave out her next instructions.

“Well, Ronald, if you behave yourself, then maybe you’ll get to cum inside me tonight.” Hermione told him, using that bossy tone to say his name in a way he had previously hated so much.

The bossiness combined with the pure filth spilling from her lips was now something that made his cock throb and protest against the confines of his pants.

Harry continued greedily sucking on her fingers, letting out quiet moans around them as he bobbed his head, forcing Hermione to speak louder to be heard over his humming and the sounds of his wet sucking.

“Now that I’ve seen your cock, I want to try it out.” She said, looking at Ron, seemingly paying no mind to Harry as he devoured her fingers. “So you’ll fuck me while Harry fucks Y/N, alright?”

You cunt tingled at her words - she said it like she was doling out a homework schedule, posing it like a question while leaving no room for her authority to be dethroned.

It seemed that rule-oriented Hermione was entirely good at making them, and in this situation, nobody was going to protest.

…

A short while later, the four of you were in the middle of the floor - none of the cots were near big enough to fit all of you at once. And sure, Hermione was talented in Transfiguration and could have fixed that, but her patience was worn thin and it was easiest just to toss the blankets on the floor in a pile and close the tent flap so that nobody’s bits got cold.

Hermione had everyone strip down.

The boys were much more efficient in following her orders when getting their clothes off than they ever were in following her study schedules. You were no different, of course, being used to falling under her strict, but merciful reign.

You took a moment to admire each of your companions, especially when Ron let out a comment about Hermione ‘catching up’ and she began to peel off her clothing too.

Ron was strong and muscular, pure bulk with a perfect bit of chub on him. (Sadly, less chub than he had a few months ago thanks to the lacklustre food situation). His love for food and Quidditch had paid off, resulting in a body that was broad, like a wonderfully warm, soft brick wall. He had filled out his once gangly height so that he looked much more like a professional athlete now than a clumsy toothpick.

You found his muscular shoulders to be so thick and admirable, a sign of his humble power, especially now that he had the scar from being splinched still healing pinkly over his skin as a reminder of his strength. His soft stomach and thick thighs were utterly perfect in your eyes, a perfect frame for that magnificent, large cock.

Harry was opposite to Ron in almost every way, and still so utterly perfect.

He was thin, as you had always known him to be, and he was shorter than Ron by a good two or three inches. (You had always liked that about him because it meant he was easier for you to manhandle.)

Where Ron’s skin was smooth and freckled and he was naturally pretty hairless over most of his body, Harry was well - hairy. The dark chest hair was something that easily attracted you, a contrast off his pale skin, making a trail down his chest to the nest of dark pubic hair from which his cock sprang out. His cock was smaller than Ron’s but never failed to impress, especially when you had him beneath you and had that cock at your mercy.

Naturally, after he stripped down, Harry kept his glasses on, wanting to be able to see everything that was going on. His eyes kept bouncing between Ron and Hermione so fervently, taking in all the new flesh as it was revealed to him. You definitely couldn’t blame him for doing so.

Hermione was a goddess. No other words could describe her.

Her skin was soft and pale, dotted with beauty marks in some places. You noticed that she too was starting to become a bit too thin, and you vowed that you would put a bit more on her plate during the next meal. Nonetheless, you had always found everything about her to be so perfect. From her pert breasts with soft pink nipples to the small patch of hair between her thighs that was surprisingly a bit lighter in colour than the hair on her head.

The scene that had unfolded was nothing short of erotic - something stolen right out of your most epic fantasies when you thought of the three people that you loved the most.

Hermione had been barking orders at everyone and her bossy nature couldn’t even be dampened down when Ron sheathed his cock inside of her for the first time. She simply took the thickness in stride, fucking back into him while she was on her hands and knees.

The blatant confidence of her voice wavered only slightly with her pleasurable moans, but it seemed that the sex was turning into a battle between the two of them. Ron’s stubborn urge to fuck her harder, to make her break until she was nothing but a brainless mess (for once in her life). Versus Hermione’s own stubbornness, her urge to continue ordering everyone around even while an orgasmic coil wound tight in her stomach and became increasingly more distracting.

You were on your hands and knees in front of her, mirroring the position so that you could kiss her, and she could touch you freely. She petted sweetly along your face, fisted your hair, or groped your breasts as she pleased while balancing herself with the other hand, and you lavished in the attention.

Once again, Harry was a grand contrast from Ron as he fucked into your needy pussy from behind. He was entirely different from the beastly version of Ron that was brutalising Hermione’s cunt without care, creating slick slapping sounds throughout the room.

Harry - as usual - was like a puppet that needed to be pulled on a string. His cock was more than enough to fill you perfectly, but he wasn’t someone who could be rough or fuck you brutally. You were quickly learning that he couldn’t even pound into your cunt harshly to satisfy that deep ache when he was prompted, it seemed.

“Harry, harder, please!” You moaned, fucking your hips back into him as you fisted the blanket beneath you. You were desperate to recreate the feeling Ron had performed on you - raw, unfiltered possession, pure need taken out on your pussy.

But Harry being needy was an entirely different form.

Where Ron was rough and possessive, taking out his need on you by setting out to prove that he owned every inch of your body - Harry was soft. He needed to be the one owned.

Harry bit down on his lip hard to muffle his whines, fucking you in bouts of fast, rabbit-like strokes before slowing down as the need to cum tightened in his balls. Not wanting to disappoint you, he would then grind deeply into your pussy, trying to will away his own orgasm.

It wasn’t working very well.

Especially not when he looked down and saw your wetness leaking out around his cock. Not when he remembered how good you had looked with Ron stretching you open, causing an impulsive need for him to fuck into you quickly again. But his strokes never built up into that harshness you were craving before he let out a deep, throaty whine and slowed down again, fearing cumming too quickly and being scolded for it. (Or being disappointed in himself, honestly.)

You wished more than anything that you had a Gryffindor tie to put around his neck to direct him how you wanted to, or a literal leash to tug on.

Harry was a good pet, but he needed to be treated like one.

Without a leash to hang around his neck, you hung your head between your shoulders and let out a moan of disappointment as his slowing movements caused your orgasm to edge off once again. He was inadvertently torturing you, making your cunt ache more angrily than ever as you throbbed around his cock in red hot waves. You supposed that it was payback for all the times you had made him wait so long to cum.

“Harry,” You warbled out in a whine, his name harshly scraping against the back of your throat.

He couldn’t see your face in this position, couldn’t see your expression of pure anguish - so he thought it was a sound of encouragement. He thought that he was doing very well. But of course, Hermione quickly knew what it was, even with Ron fucking her so hard that he was practically driving her hips out of placement.

“Harry, you - you have to go harder!” Hermione barked at him, still managing to give orders, even in her current position. “She’s never going to cum like that!”

Ron let out a throaty chuckle at this, highly amused.

“Mate, do you need me to show you how again?” He asked.

He slowed his brutal fucking of Hermione only for a moment, long enough to catch his breath and let Harry get in a reply.

Harry let out a wounded sound at this, entirely similar to a kicked puppy. As much as the idea of Ron pushing him out of the way to take your pussy roughly and ‘show him how’ was intensely hot, Harry wanted to prove himself.

“No, I don’t need to be shown, I’m perfectly capable of making a girl cum, thank you very much.” Harry replied, his sass partially throttled by the dryness of his throat, your cunt clenching around his cock making him breathless.

“Ron, don’t you dare stop!” Hermione ordered sharply, trying to fuck herself harder back on his cock.

Ron reached down and grabbed Hermione by the jaw, much the same as he had done to you earlier, and tilted her head up. His lips met the flushed skin of her cheek as he leaned down, draping his hot, sweaty body across her back.

It was something that she likely would have called grotesque before - the act of Ron’s sweaty skin against her - but she let out a needy whimper. And she didn’t squirm against him as he held a tight grip on her face. Harry nearly came at how tightly your pussy hugged his cock then, both of you intently watching what happened next.

“I’ll bloody well do what I like.” Ron said, his voice still taking on that dark, menacing quality even though he was no longer wearing the Locket. “And if you behave, I just might let you cum tonight.”

He mirrored her earlier words back to her, clearly mocking her. Before Hermione could come up with any clever reply, she was cut off with a gasp out of her own lips as Ron released his grip on her face and began fucking into her harshly again. This knocked her forward so hard that she had to restabilize her arms against the floor to keep herself from falling flat on her face.

“Harry, turn me over.” You told him, thinking he would have more success if you were on your back.

Harry mumbled out a ‘yes’ and then pulled out of you. This caused you to whimper with disappointment before he put gentle hands on your hips and helped you get comfortable on your back.

Without asking, he put a pillow under your head - it was that kind of sweetness that had always drawn you to him.

In this new position, you were almost between Hermione’s spread arms, your face surrounded by a wild curtain of her hair as she hung her head low between her shoulders. She was panting heavily with the effort as Ron continued to fuck her roughly and now had a two fingers on her clit - determined to finish her just to show that he could.

While Harry situated himself between your naturally parted thighs, Hermione leaned down and seized your lips. Her kiss vibrated hot moans into your mouth while Harry pushed back into you, and Ron fucked her so hard that he jostled her head, making her unsteady in the kiss.

“Oh, fuck!” Harry sighed, entirely delighted in the feeling of your wetness around him.

When you reached down and began rubbing your own clit with determination, he then began fucking you at a quick pace, no longer worried that he would cum before you. Even if he did, he would see you through it and make sure to take care of you, he mentally vowed.

He was soft, but quick, his hips pattering against yours in speedy movements that actually treated your pussy rather gently. He chased his orgasm inside of you while creating a warm tingle through you that met up nicely with the hot stinging your own fingers made on your clit.

Eventually, your kiss with Hermione turned into the barest contact of lips on lips as her mouth parted with hot moans, the pleasure absolutely mounting inside of her. Ron’s grunts echoed in the background as the sharp, almost vicious smacking of his hips against her ass continued.

“Fuck, Ron!” Hermione cried out, all hot breath against your cheek. “I’m cumming! Fuck! Don’t stop!”

“Take it!” Ron growled. “Take my fuckin’ load, pretty little bitch!”

On any other day, in any other situation aside from giving her an orgasm with his cock buried deep inside of her, Ron Weasley calling Hermione Granger a ‘pretty little bitch’ would have landed him some pretty severe injuries. But in this instance, it made her moan so hard that her voice cracked, and it was most definitely one of the things that triggered her orgasm.

“Ron-!” She choked out.

The sweet sounds she made combined with the absolutely feral noises coming out of Ron lit your whole body on fire. You knew that this sweet symphony was what caused Harry to fuck into you like a mad rabbit for a few seconds before you felt pure heat spilling into you. Upon instinct, you reached around him with your free hand and dug your nails into his arsecheek, forcing him to fuck you through his orgasm even while he gasped and choked on his breath from the overstimulation.

“Y/N-”

You let yourself get some lasting pleasure out of extra moments of his hard cock filling you up, and with your own touch on your clit, you rolled into a gentle, but deeply satisfying orgasm.

“Please-” Harry choked out, and you finally released him, letting him pull back.

You moaned at the sight of his cock coming out of you - the tip bright red and still weeping bits of cum, almost crying out in protest of the overstimulation, much like the tears that dotted the edges of his eyes. You had made him cry much more severely before when you had more time to tease him, and it was something that you had highly enjoyed.

He collapsed on top of you and began kissing along your shoulder, being the sweet boy that he was, and he groped one of your breasts. When you tilted your head to look toward Ron and Hermione, she let out a few last pittering moans and he let out a deep grunt before pulling out of her.

She collapsed entirely then, and it was only her last bit of mindfulness, directing herself as she fell that kept her from falling right on top of you.

Ron still had a warm hand on her hip, and as you looked down the length of her body, if you weren’t mistaken - he was still raging hard, even after he had cum. (It wasn’t the first time it had happened. Sometimes Ron worked himself into such a frenzy that he needed to cum two or even three times in a night before his cock fully went down. It lovingly surprised you every single time.)

“Good?” Ron posed, his voice gentle for the first time in hours. He patted Hermione on the hip, clearly directing the question at her.

Of course, he was still tender-hearted below the surface. He would never fuck someone’s brains out like that without ensuring that they were okay.

“I’m good.” Hermione replied, choking on her own breath.

She spared him a glance over her shoulder, and he gave her the most utterly timid grin - it was such a roaring contrast to his earlier bold words and his rough touches, but it was somehow a fantastic assurance toward Hermione that he was, of course, still the same Ron. She could still boss him around in every other aspect of life, but if she needed a break from all that bossing, he could do this for her.

Satisfied with this, she leaned in to kiss you again.

You sighed with delight into her mouth and snaked your tongue past her lips, more than enjoying the attention you were being ravished with. Your pussy still nagged for attention between your legs and you hoped that Hermione wasn’t too tired to play with you.

“You know Harry, you don’t have to keep starin’ at it.” Ron joked. “It’s not gonna bite you, mate.”

There was a slight slick sound, and when you pulled away from Hermione’s mouth and opened your eyes, you realised that it was Ron pumping his hand on his still very hard cock, wanking with the combination of Hermione’s wetness and his own cum that he had gathered there.

It took your orgasm-hazed brain a second to realise that he was talking about his dick. When you glanced over your other shoulder, you realised completely that Harry’s focus was no longer on peppering kisses over your neck and shoulder, but very much on staring at Ron’s cock.

With Harry’s body still flush against yours as he laid on top of you, you felt the deep sigh that he let out. You could see the contemplation in his eyes, the slight fear to express his desires that you had seen in him before. You reached up and ran your fingers through his hair, encouraging him.

“What is it, darling?” You asked gently.

“I keep staring at it because, well…” He sighed again before continuing. “I want to… what is it that Hermione said? ‘Try it out’.”

Harry highly resisted the urge to hide his head in your neck with embarrassment after this admission. He looked from you, to Hermione, then to Ron for some kind of approval - or simply looked not to be mocked.

“Oh, you should.” Hermione said, giving a moan of contentment as she stretched out her back like a cat.

She had finally regained some energy after being so thoroughly fucked, and she turned from where she had collapsed on her stomach to lay on her side, showing off her gorgeous body to all eyes in the room.

“It’s magnificent.” She added on with an almost dreamy sigh.

Hermione smiled - a sweet, coy smile, and you let out a giggle as Ron caught her eye, his brows raised in shock. It was one of the few things she had complimented him on without hesitation. This whole thing had certainly turned the group’s dynamics upside-down.

When Harry looked to Ron, he found concern knitted in those freckled features.

“Harry, typically, I think when blokes do it, there’s a bit more… um… preparation… involved, innit?” Ron posed, hesitation taking up every inch of his voice for the first time that night.

Clearly, he thought that Harry meant he wanted to take Ron in his ass - and he was concerned about Harry’s inexperience versus Ron’s sheer size.

Harry flushed red, perhaps from embarrassment at having this pointed out to him, or from the lust of considering what it would be like to have that beautifully large cock splitting him open. (You did feel Harry’s cock give a pathetic twitch against your thigh). This time he did lean into your shoulder to hide as much as he could.

“Yes Ron, please tell me more about how much preparation it would take for me to handle your very giant cock.” Harry drawled sarcastically, trying to make a joke out of it.

Hermione let out a chuckle at this. When you caught Ron’s eye, you could see a distinct heat swimming there. Obviously he enjoyed Harry talking about him this way, even if it was with his typical sass.

“You should suck him off.” You said, running your fingers through Harry’s dark locks again, trying to be gently encouraging. “Unless you’re afraid that he’ll break your jaw,” You made a joke of your own, and Harry let out a sarcastic scoff against your skin.

Harry didn’t need anymore convincing when Ron got a hand in his hair, practically hauling him off of you. He let out a lilting moan of his own as Ron handled him into place, much like he had done to you earlier.

Hermione then crawled over to on weak bambi legs and laid herself on top of you, pressing her body against yours - chest to chest, lips against yours with the usual sharp determination and an almost lazy exploration of her tongue through your teeth. She hooked her thigh over your hip so that she could press her sloppy, used cunt against yours.

This inadvertently made one of the hottest sensations you had ever experienced when she began grinding her pussy against yours and Ron’s cum began spilling out of her to meet Harry’s cum in a sloppy mess between your thighs.

It was truly a perfect union of all the people you loved the most.

While you sucked on Hermione’s tongue, you heard a sloppy gagging sound beside your head that more than caught your attention. You couldn’t help but to pull away from the kiss with the curiosity to look. Hermione began kissing down your neck and lavishing your breasts with attention while you craned your neck to look at Ron and Harry.

Ron had Harry on his back, and had mounted his chest. From the kind of sideways angle you had, Ron had a commanding, tight hand in Harry’s thick, black locks and held him still while he rocked his cock into Harry’s mouth. His eyes were screwed tight, clearly trying to concentrate on pleasing Ron, gagging with each movement as he struggled to accommodate such an intense size.

“Relax, Harry.” You said, reaching out to gently pet your fingertips up his arm. You let out a moan when Hermione sucked harshly on your nipple - clearly she was seeking joy in getting a reaction out of you. “It’ll be easier of you just relax and let him fuck your throat.”

That was something you knew from experience, on both sides. Ron’s cock was massive to accommodate, but it was easier just to sit back and take the ride. And Harry was intense, thoughtful, a worrier. He wanted to please and know that he was doing well. But he did better when you fucked every last thought out of his head.

“Yeah, come on.” Ron grunted quietly, trying to force more of his cock down Harry’s throat. “You’ve got a sweet fuckin’ mouth when you’re not usin’ it to talk back.”

Harry moaned at this praise and you saw him visibly relax, and you gave him a few more sweet pets as you added on:

“Good boy. Come on, be good for him.”

Which seemed to truly encourage him, and he let Ron start up a good rhythm. He was much gentler than he had been with you or Hermione, taking mercy on Harry for being so new at this. It was an easy back and forth that gathered drool on his chin and soon at him moaning around Ron’s cock as he enjoyed the fullness on his tongue.

You let out a moan of your own when you felt Hermione’s fingers prodding at your well-used pussy and felt her soft lips lingering around the top of your mound.

“Looks like Harry left me a little present here, hmm?” Hermione sighed, sounding overjoyed at the fact that Harry had cum inside of you.

You knew that Hermione was filthy - pin you down and shove her hand up your skirt while in one of the carriages on the train filthy; sneak you into the Prefects bathroom in the middle of the night filthy; crawl into your bed in the Gryffindor girls dorm and clamp her hand over your mouth to keep you quiet filthy - but this was reaching all new levels. Even for all the things you knew of her, all the dirty secrets that the two of you shared.

“Oh, fuck!”

It just caused you to moan, especially when those fingers breached you sharply, taking you like she owned you once again. Her tongue prodded at your entrance eagerly as her touch caused Harry’s mess to spill out of you. She just lapped it up, filthy and eager.

Her tongue worked on you so perfectly.

You couldn’t help but to put a hand down and grip that wild hair, arching your hips to hump against her face as she fucked her fingers into you gently and tongued along your clit. She was treating your pussy lovingly, each touch commanding pleasure out of you, but not possessive or rough.

It was the same way she handled tests, with a deeply ingrained knowledge making each answer meaningful. It was that beautiful thing about her that made her quiet and reserved in her performance, not having to command the room with arrogance or noise. Her tongue danced along your cunt with confidence and grace in a way that had your toes curling in minutes. Her fingers curled inside of you while she smiled against you, knowing how she already had you teetering on the edge.

“Such a good girl for me.” She sighed.

“‘Mione,” You moaned back at her, the loving nickname dancing on your lips as a warning that you were already close.

“Oh, come on Harry, you can gimme one more.”

You heard Ron’s voice grunting roughly above you, and when you craned your neck again and spared the boys a glance, you were incredibly turned on by the sight.

Ron had Harry pinned under him, and now, rather than having his cock shoved down Harry’s throat, they were pressed hips to hips and chests to chests as you and Hermione had been before. Harry was breathless and gaping for air underneath Ron - from what you could see, Ron had both of their cocks in his large fist, sliding them together in a mess of cum, trying to milk another orgasm out of the spent, whining, overstimulated Harry against his own, still somehow hard cock.

“Ron, fuck, please-!”

Harry could do nothing but cry and buck up against the touches, desperately trying to suck air in through his parted lips, his cock weeping for more. It was a sight that sent a sharp jolt of pleasure through you, and had you squeezing around Hermione’s fingers, hurling over the edge toward your orgasm as she gently sucked on your clit.

“Oh, fuck, ‘Mione!”

Hermione sighed with satisfaction and licked you through it, making your thighs quiver with your own overstimulation as she shoved her tongue deep inside of you. Seemingly, she was determined to lick you clean, to lick the essence of your existence right out of you.

When she was done with this, she then began to kiss her way back up your body and shoved her tongue in your mouth again. You moaned with delight at tasting yourself on her tongue, and the lingering salty traces of Harry there too, and you held her face between your hands as you indulged in the kisses.

You were only distracted from her sweet lips when you heard Ron’s voice again, even more ragged as he had another orgasm.

“Fuck, Potter, take it-!”

Him calling Harry by his surname in such a degrading tone made your stomach curl with a unique arousal, and it certainly got Hermione’s attention too. She planted her hands beside your shoulders and looked up to survey the scene while you cricked your neck awkwardly.

Ron was kneeling on either side of Harry’s chest once again. His stomach was covered in his own mess and he was panting in an entirely filthy manner with his mouth open while Ron sat above him, fisting his own cock with the clear determination to make himself cum.

His release splattered across Harry’s face in wide, white streaks, painting Harry’s tongue, his open lips, his cheeks, and dirtying his glasses in the most filthy manner that you had ever seen him - Ron let out a deep satisfied grunt as he came, and his cock finally softened in his fist.

(Perhaps it was because the part of his ego that had started the entire argument, the thing that felt jealous of Harry in the first place was finally satisfied.)

“Ron!” Hermione called his name in her ‘scolding’ voice once again - perhaps she thought cumming over Harry’s face was just a step too far, just a bit too degrading.

She reached off to the side for her wand, and for once in his life, Ron didn’t flinch. It was like an unspoken air in the room that she didn’t intend to curse him with it as a consequence, but rather - she simply intended to clean up Harry’s face with magic.

“Just let me enjoy it.” Ron said, reaching out with his clean hand and stopping Hermione with a gentle grip on her wrist. “Just for a minute.”

Harry - who seemed to be so fucked out now that he was barely present - let out a hum of agreement, and licked some of Ron’s cum off his lips.

This gave you a brilliant idea.

You gently rolled Hermione off of you and then you crawled over to Harry. With all of them watching you intently, you licked a path across his cheek, gathering quite a bit of Ron’s spend on your tongue before you shoved your tongue into Harry’s mouth - engaging in an entirely filthy kiss where you exchanged the taste of Ron between the two of you.

It was something that reverberated a hot moan through Harry, had Ron groaning, and even caused a small sigh of delight from Hermione.

“All of you are degenerates.” Hermione sighed, shaking her head, pretending to be displeased by the whole thing.

“Yeah, and you’re our leader.” Ron reminded her with a laugh.

…

When you woke up the next morning, the entire tent had a different energy.

Before you even opened your eyes, you heard giggling.

When you managed to peel open your sleep-stuck eyes, you saw Harry and Hermione standing at the small kitchenette, preparing what you guessed was breakfast. Harry was speaking quietly, and you couldn’t hear him, but it surprised you entirely when he made a grab for Hermione’s ass, groped her so boldly through her loose sweatpants. And rather than slapping him or scolding him - she let out another bright, air giggle, and simply smacked him with a tea towel in the most playful manner possible before he let out a laugh too.

The events of the day before had not been some loneliness induced hallucination on your part. All of it had happened. And it had shifted everyone’s mood for the better.

You moved to get out of bed and this drew both of their attention toward you. Harry proceeded to stir whatever Hermione had in the pot on the stove to distract himself while she watched you carefully.

After you had successfully gotten your boots on, when you looked up, you realised that she was wearing one of Ron’s jumpers. Clearly one from a few years ago, something that would have been too small for him now that fit her well, comforting and worn-in with the large R in the middle that signified it had been made by Molly some Christmases ago.

It was something she could do now without fearing setting off jealousy in any of you, and that fact made you smile.

“Where’s Ron?” You asked, feeling a single piece missing from the quaint scene.

“He volunteered to take watch.” Hermione noted, motioning toward the tent’s entrance. “Even though I’ve told him the wards are fine and he really should rest, you know he hasn’t been getting enough sleep lately-”

“I’ll get him to go to sleep after breakfast.” You told her. “You know him, he just wants to keep a watchful eye. He’s protective.”

You crossed the room, and in a move that felt so utterly natural, you gently kissed Harry on the mouth and then kissed Hermione - so out in the open, no shame, no hiding. You felt like a wonderful weight had been lifted off of you as they both smiled at you. Smiled - no jealous glaring, no arguing.

You couldn’t have felt better as you grabbed your jacket off the back of a chair and put it on as you went outside.

Ron was sitting a few feet away from the opening of the tent in one of the camping chairs. He stared out into the open as the sun crested over a nearby hill, just kissing everything with a bright, blinding streak of light. There had been a frost overnight that coated everything in bitter white and put an awful chill in the air. So you zipped up your jacket as you went over to him, and he gave you a small smile when he saw you.

When you stood in front of him, he reached out to you naturally, and you easily gave in to his movements as he pulled you into his lap. There was a worry in the back of your mind about how well an old camping chair might hold the both of you at once, but you figured it would be a good laugh if you broke it. So you simply planted your ass in his lap and strung your legs over the arm of the chair. He wrapped his arms protectively around you and nuzzled his head against your arm.

You frowned when one of the first things you spotted was that glint of silver poking out of the neck of his jacket.

“Ron, you’re wearing it again.” You sighed, reaching out and picking up the Locket between your fingers, thumbing along the serpent with distaste.

“I’m fine,” He replied, taking it from you and tucking it back inside of his coat.

“Ron-” You were going to argue, but he cut you off.

“Really, it’s not as bad as it was.” He said, his voice sounding genuine and light, sounding like the Ron that you usually knew. His voice wasn’t grinding, angry, or annoyed like he usually did when he wore it.

“What do you mean?” You asked, your curiosity most definitely peaked.

“After yesterday, it’s like…” He struggled to find the right words to explain it, and you were patient with him. “Everything is out in the open now. Genuinely, I used to feel like shit, because… I was jealous. Proper jealous. And not just jealous of Harry… I honestly thought that there was a point in my life where I would just… end up alone.”

Him saying those words broke your heart, and you swallowed harshly around the lump in your throat, holding back tears while he continued.

“I thought that you would leave me, and Hermione would stop finding excuses to be around me. I thought Harry would realise I’m a shit friend and stop wanting to be around me. And I think the Locket knew that I just spent so much time being afraid - and… it turned that fear into jealousy.” He explained.

It was similar to what you had believed, but somehow, worse.

“Whenever I would see you touch Harry’s arm, or if I would see you and Hermione whispering, talking to each other about stuff you read in the fucking books… or even if I just saw Hermione look at Harry, I thought it was just one more reason I was gonna be alone. I thought it was all of you plotting against me to leave me faster. Bloody bonkers, I know.”

“Ron.” You said his name gently, your throat clutched by those tears - you put a hand on his cheek and titled his face toward yours, gently laying your forehead against his before you said your next words. “We love you so much. We all do. And after everything we’ve been through together, we’re all just stuck with each other. So you’re definitely not getting rid of us.”

“I know that now.” Ron chuckled. “I think that’s why it’s easier to wear the damn thing. Because now I just feel… lighter. I don’t feel like you guys are having secrets behind my back. None of us have any secrets anymore.”

You nodded at this.

“I like it better this way.” You sighed happily. “Truthfully, I could never see myself just going and… pairing off with someone. I just want it to be like this, always. You, Harry, and Hermione are the only people I’ve ever wanted.”

“We’re going to need a massive bed, then.” Harry’s voice piped up behind you, his body just barely peeking out of the tent flap, his comment making both you and Ron chuckle.

“S’pose you could afford to buy us one,” Ron commented, causing Harry to roll his eyes and give a very sassy pout.

“You coming for breakfast or what? Or is your gigantic cock weighing you down and you can’t get up?” Harry replied, his tongue entirely quick.

You got up off Ron’s lap to let him up, and on his way into the tent, he picked up a handful of frost-covered leaves and shoved them down the back of Harry’s jumper. He let out a yelp at this, causing Hermione to call out ‘boys!’ in that entirely motherly way that she did.

It was so entirely different, but so entirely the same. Truthfully - you would never want it to be any other way.

...

If you want to see more Poly!Golden Trio fics, I would like to see this fic reach 10 Comments and 15 Reblogs!

(This can include anonymous asks, because I always leave the anon option turned on for people who need it, and I don't care if the 15 reblogs all come from the same person, as long as it shows enthusiasm for the fic.)

If I were to write more Poly!Golden Trio, I don't know if it would be a direct follow up to this or set in the same 'universe' at this fic, but I love the pairing of Poly!Golden Trio x Reader, so I would love to write more about them if you guys want to see it.

I would also love to hear your input/feedback, and if you want to see more, what kind of fanfic ideas would you want to see with this pairing? What kind of kinks or situations would you like to see played out with this pairing? I often take inspiration from requests and random ideas that people send me - just like I did when writing this fic!

#sundrop writes #harry potter fandom #harry potter fanfiction #poly!golden trio #poly!golden trio x reader #ron weasley #ron weasly imagine #ron weasly x reader #hermione granger #hermione granger x reader #harry potter #harry potter x reader

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