Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

What it comes down to	By : melinda1293 Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 115219 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 24
- 25
- 26
Chapter 25. Three’s a Crowd

Harry stood in the shower bracing his hands against the wall, his head down to let the water hammer against his neck which felt stiff this morning as if he’d slept on it funny last night. He woke up early again today, like yesterday, but this time he wasn’t trapped on the bed between Ron and Hermione. The beds were singles now so he had the freedom to get up if he wanted to without worrying about disturbing anyone else’s sleep. He had tried to stay in bed anyway, to hopefully fall back to sleep because it was still too early to be up, but it was useless. He’d only lain there fidgeting, so he finally sat up, reaching for his glasses on the side table.
He hesitated when he saw the notes from Ginny tucked back into their envelopes and stacked neatly on top of his journal. He didn’t think he’d put them there last night. He must have fallen asleep before Ron and Hermione came upstairs because he didn’t remember seeing them come in either. Quickly replacing the letters in the back of his journal to stop himself from looking at them, to prevent himself from pouring over them again and again like some lovesick sod, he slid his glasses on and headed for the bathroom.
Find yourself, Harry, finish what you have to do, and come back to me. I’m still waiting for you.
The words she’d written were burned in his mind from where he’d read them over and over. He never should have opened them. It was stupid, but as he sat there on the bed last night alone in the empty room, he had a moment of weakness and couldn’t stop himself. He felt lonely watching Ron and Hermione together all day. Feeling like he was back at Hogwarts in their converted drawing room as he sat there having a game of chess with Ron. The impression was only reinforced when he came to bed and found it looking so much like their old dorm. He almost expected to see Neville or Seamus wander in complaining about the latest essay Snape had set them.
Harry yearned for things to go back to the way they were then, like last year, before Dumbledore’s death, when he was with Ginny. Those few weeks had felt like they belonged to someone else’s life. He’d told her that at the funeral when he said they couldn’t see each other anymore, and he knew now it was true. Those were days, weeks, that he’d stolen from someone else and coveted with all his heart, but they didn’t belong to him. They were never meant for him.
Ginny was right. He needed to finish what he’d set out to do, that much couldn’t be avoided. Neither could live while the other survived. He couldn’t outrun it, and he couldn’t stay here and hide from it. But he knew with certainty there wouldn’t be any coming back from it either. Not as the same person, anyway. It was already too late for that. He didn’t know how much of himself would be left to find if he even managed to make it out of this alive on the other side.
He’d thought to write her back last night, to tell her he wasn’t coming back for her, to tell her to stop waiting for him, actually picking up his quill and loading it with ink, but he couldn’t form the words. Black drops merely dripped from the end of the quill he’d held suspended over the parchment, marring the blank page, his mind a jumble of mixed-up thoughts and feelings. He couldn’t give her hope, but he couldn’t take it away either. Or maybe the hope he really couldn’t crush was his own. In the end, his continued silence was all he could manage. She could decide for herself what to make of it. He knew that made him a selfish coward, but he couldn’t help it.
Harry could still remember the feel of her hair as it slipped through his fingers the other night, the soft skin of her cheek against his lips when he whispered his goodbyes, the intoxicating smell of her all around him when he leaned into her, trying not to clutch her to him, to cling desperately to her. If she came back, if he saw her again, he’d likely fall apart completely, get down on his knees and beg her to stay with him and hide here with him forever, but that wasn’t an option for him.
His destiny was coming for him whether he wanted to face it or not. Tom wouldn’t stop searching for him, and he could wait an eternity for Harry. He was the most powerful dark wizard alive, and the fucker was immortal, so he’d likely hold that title for awhile if Harry didn’t hurry up and get off his arse. He, on the other hand, was a mentally unstable seventeen-year-old who just in the last two days was finally able to make it down the stairs without assistance. Bloody hell, his whole life was like a Greek tragedy.
Sighing, he tilted his head farther to the side, letting the nearly scalding water massage the complaining muscle a minute longer. Then he rotated his neck, working the stiffness out and leaned his head all the way back, allowing the water to pound against his face, drumming against his cheeks and eyelids a minute before dropping it forward again to hang between his shoulders.
Harry marveled at how good he felt today, physically; really good, like yesterday. Other than the stiff neck, he didn’t hurt anywhere, and his brain couldn’t comprehend it. The feeling of a pain-free body had become so foreign to him. It made him feel giddy, as if he’d had a cheering charm cast on him. He knew he was freaking Ron and Hermione out with his abrupt change in mood, but he couldn’t suppress it. They couldn’t understand what it felt like to be free of it after so long. It made him feel light, almost buoyant.
Lifting his head, he ran a hand over his face, slicking his shaggy locks back out of his eyes, then grabbed the shampoo and lathered his hair. He needed it cut badly. It was entirely too long, making it even more unruly than usual. He wondered how much damage Hermione would do to it if he asked her to trim it for him. It couldn’t be worse than the haircut Aunt Petunia had given him that one time. It had looked so damned awful, and his dread at having to face his classmates and Dudley’s bullying friends the next day at school made him magically grow it back overnight. Aunt Petunia had given him a week in the cupboard for that, but it’d been well worth it.
On a whim, he tried to see if he could shorten his hair by magic, concentrating hard. But after a few strained minutes of looking, he was sure, like the twins had given him a dose of U-No-Poo, he had to concede he had no metamorphmagus abilities and gave it up as a bad job.   It was either ask Hermione to trim it or leave it long, he decided. It was almost long enough to pull into a ponytail like Bill’s, falling well below his collar now.
Uncle Vernon would raise an almighty racket if he could see what Harry looked like these days. His untidy hair had always been a source of irritation for the Dursley's. It was like a physical representation of their inability to force him to conform to their rules, no matter how hard they tried, unable to make it lie down, to make him lie down for them. His stubborn hair was a constant reminder that he would never fit into their neat, tidy little world. It was as if every cell in his body, every particle of his being went against the grain of their lives, of their smooth-ordered world, right down to the roots of his hair, and blimey, they hated him for it.
After rinsing his hair, he grabbed the rag and soaped it up, working it over his skin, trying not to linger over the places that still felt alien to his touch, each scar attached to a horrible memory that he didn’t want to revisit today if he could help it, and certainly not here in this bathroom anyway. Dwelling on those memories had driven him from the shower in a panic once already, and he wanted to avoid that if he could today. He wanted another good day, like yesterday.
He ran soapy hands over himself, down his stomach and over his cock, which was still semi-hard from the mere fact that it was morning. It continued to linger from the interest it had shown at the images of Ginny still vivid in his mind. This was another reason he preferred showers, he thought, as he wrapped slippery fingers around it.
It had been a long time since he’d had a wank. A really long time since he’d been well enough for it to even enter his mind. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d relieved himself, actually. The bathroom was the only place you could go for privacy in the tent, so he had spent a lot of his mornings taking a little extra time in the shower to divest himself of his morning wood.
It hadn’t even occurred to him since they got here, though. The last time he’d woken up aroused, he’d tried to hump a sleeping Hermione. The memory still made him burn with embarrassment and shame. But he felt good today, better than he had in so long, and he tightened his grip.
Harry stroked himself again, feeling his cock stiffen in his hand, keen for some attention. Sighing, he braced his legs apart and closed his eyes while he slid his length in and out of his fist, working himself slowly to full hardness.
Picturing Ginny at Ron’s birthday party, he called to mind again the softness of her skin, the silky texture of her hair, the way she had smiled at him as she helped him steady himself when he stood up to fix his plate, her arm linked in his, pressed against his side. He thought of the very first time she’d kissed him, the look in her eyes then, and later down by the lake as they’d gotten to know each other a little more intimately without an audience or her brother looking on. Striking up a rhythm now, he pulled at a pace that built up his pleasure.
Then he remembered her face as she came towards him in her bedroom to give him his birthday gift, when she pressed herself against him, backing him into the wall. He gripped his shaft tightly, working his hand faster over himself, becoming more excited by the familiar images he’d conjured, like he had so many times before in the shower, real memories blending seamlessly into fantasies. Envisioning what might’ve happened if Ron hadn’t interrupted them, that glorious encounter providing so much fodder for his imagination.
Sliding her hands into his hair, over his chest, he pictured her grinding herself against him, her mouth at his neck, the heat of her lips and tongue sending chill bumps up his arms. He tilted his head back in the shower at the imagined feel of her lips and body pressed against him, his mouth open, and a moan of longing escaped his lips.
He’d grasp her hips to pull her into him and her hands would slide from his chest down his trembling stomach and over the fly of his jeans, cupping him, rubbing him through the rough fabric. His thumb glided across the head, around the sensitive rim, falling into a kind of mindless nirvana as he stroked himself more firmly, more enthusiastically, while working towards his completion.
She’d grasp his hand, slide it up from her waist to cover her breast while continuing to rub her palm over the straining bulge in his jeans, relaxing her head back and sighing as he begins to knead her firm flesh, running a thumb across the hardened nipple he can feel through the fabric of her bra. Her hair falls down her back in a curtain of flames as she arches into him, exposing the smooth pale skin of her neck to him like an offering, an invitation, and he leans down to her, running his tongue along the column of her throat as they continue to caress each other.
He groaned, squeezing his eyes closed and biting down on his lip, his movements becoming more frantic as his orgasm drew closer, completely in the grip of his fantasy now. He was close, getting so close now.
She lifts her head again, her lips at his ear now, capturing the lobe between her teeth and biting down, mewling her desire as his body begins to shake against her with need.
“Please don’t stop,” he pleads, panting into her hair, into the spray of the shower, as an echoing shudder wracks his limbs.
“Does it feel good, Harry?” she purrs in his ear, her warm breath making him shiver again, making him whine with excitement.
The quality of her voice is something he’s never heard in it before, causing a thrill of desire to shoot through him like a bolt of electricity, leaving him tingling all over.
“Yes…yes,” he hisses through gritted teeth.
“Tell me you want it,” she commands suddenly with a cruel laugh, squeezing him roughly, painfully, through his jeans.
Harry’s eyes flew open, his heart fluttering, tendrils of fear gripping him. He tried to blink away the images that were trying to push forward into his brain. Bellatrix’s fingers were around him, pumping him while he was strapped down to the table, her hand gliding over his straining erection while he arches up into her hand.
“Tell me you want it,” she says, laughing.
“Noooooo.   Please no,” he pleaded, though he couldn’t stop stroking himself now, too close to his release to stop.
Harry tried desperately to pull away from those memories, squeezing his eyes closed, casting his mind around for any other image, but he couldn’t, she’d already corrupted his thoughts, infiltrated his fantasy. He was unable to hold them back now, to stop the rush of images flooding into him then. Images of her above him, his body in exquisite pain, her full, ripe breasts swaying as she rocked her hips against him, the nipples hardened, distended with pleasure, the darkened tips jutting out from her body. The feel of her lips then as they slid over his engorged prick, her moist heat all around him, the walls of her pussy squeezing him.
“Oh, God, no! Ginny…Ginny!” he chanted, trying frantically to return to her, his grip tightening painfully as he thrust into his fist more violently, trying to bring himself off quickly now, to end this fantasy turned nightmare. He was trembling all over, panting with exertion as his hips bucked wildly against his palm.
“Please…please,” he begged, but his orgasm wouldn’t come, his mind fighting both for and against it, prolonging the agony while his tortured mind conjured more images for him, more fantasies.
He pictured her then where he’d longed for her to be, underneath him finally. Her hated face was swollen, turning purple, her hooded eyes wide with fear, gasping for breath as he pounded roughly into her, his hands around her throat in an iron grip, squeezing vice-like, while the other Death Eaters cheered and laughed. Harry cried out from the jolt of desire and revulsion that surged through him at the image, his heart pounding now in his chest.
In desperation, he sucked in a breath and held it, until his body was straining against it. Until his vision started to dim and his knees buckled, unable to climax without the terror and thrill of asphyxiation coupled with this nightmare. He landed hard on his knees in the tub, but didn’t feel it. He wanted to howl in misery, but he couldn’t stop. He was so close, the lack of air making his dick throb in his hand, swelling in preparation for the orgasm that was rushing towards him.
Visions flooded his mind again, from the first time she’d raped him, when she’d stolen his virginity and began her corruption of him. Her head was thrown back in pleasure as she gripped the chair he was tied to, riding him while her husband strangled him from behind.
His lungs were screaming for air, the deprivation causing a roaring in his ears and his vision to go black. He squeezed his eyes shut and instinct kicked in then, his body’s need for oxygen forcing him to drag in a searing lungful of air. He finally came, exploding into orgasm, shuddering and gasping as he jerked in his hand.
Images of Hermione after he’d raped her were now bombarding his aching, oxygen-starved brain. Cruel images of her chained to the wall, nude and violated, bleeding and sobbing in front of him while his orgasm spilled out of him over his fist.
He was left crying in the aftermath, tears rolling down his cheeks, washed away by the water pelting him in the face as he knelt in the tub. He was trembling all over, too weak to move, panting from exertion, blind and deaf from the force of his orgasm, his head throbbing in pain. Then the blessed numbness began seeping into him in the wake of his ecstasy, the coldness consuming him like it had when that horrific potion had drained out of him. He remained there on his knees while the blackness filled his veins until, mercifully, he could feel nothing at all, until it had finally swallowed him whole.

Harry came slowly awake, feeling pleasantly warm, wrapped up in the blankets, completely cocooned in comfort. He took a few deep relaxing breaths before slowly opening his reluctant eyes, which felt heavy, along with the rest of his body. When his eyes adjusted, he pulled his head back sharply at finding Hermione nearly nose to nose with him, only to bump into Ron, who was pressed firmly against his back.
“Hey, mate,” Ron whispered when Harry stared up at him. “You all right?” he asked, peering into his eyes.
Harry blinked, once, twice, before he could focus, before his mind could penetrate the thick fog in his brain and make sense of where he was. He continued to stare up at Ron in confusion for a minute.
Was he all right? He tried to assess his condition. His brain felt sluggish, thick and foggy like he’d been drugged, but he wasn’t in any pain. He knew where he was and who they were. He finally nodded. But how had he gotten here? Why was he having a kip on the bed? And why were they here with him?
“Wha’s happened?” he finally mumbled, staring around the room again before looking back at Hermione, who was watching him worriedly.
Fear began to trickle into him at her expression, at his inability to recall what had landed him here, pressed between them.
“That’s a question for you,” Ron responded.
What the hell did that mean? Had he blacked out or had some sort of fit, or something?
Feeling dull witted, he pulled a hand out from under the blankets, wiped the sleep out of his eyes and scratched the side of his jaw trying to think, to make sense of this. Drawing a disconcerting blank, he finally looked back up to Ron for help.
“Why am I naked?” he asked slowly then, totally perplexed, asking the first question that came to his mind, or the one that had him the most baffled, the one that didn’t fit into any scenario he could think of.
Ron smiled down at him.
“We found you in the shower, Harry,” Hermione explained. “Do you remember what happened? Did you have a vision or something?”
Harry turned to her, silent for a long time while he worked his mind backwards, trying to unravel the tight knot around the memories of how he’d come to find himself asleep between them and what came before. His head started to ache in warning as he drew near it. As soon as the first thread pulled loose, it all unraveled in a heap, spilling out into his mind in a painful rush that had him screwing up his face from the onslaught. He held his breath against the moan bubbling up in him, closed his eyes then and finally shook his head in response.
“No,” he replied quietly when he could speak.
It hadn’t been a vision. He wished like hell it was.
“Oh, Harry, what happened?” Hermione asked him with concern, but he just shook his now-throbbing head again.
Harry couldn’t tell them. What was he supposed to say? That he’d come completely undone just trying to have a wank in the shower? That Bellatrix had fucked him over so badly that she’d stolen even that solitary joy from him? It had turned into some kind of horror show, his mind playing back for him The Best of: Dungeon Scenes from Malfoy Manor while he worked to get off. Jesus Christ, he was a complete mess!
He continued to lie between them with his eyes closed while Hermione carded her fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him. The headache now an aching deep in his brain that seemed to radiate outward to stab behind his eyes, to push against his skull, so much pressure he feared it would pop his eardrums.
“I don’t know what happened, Harry, but you nearly gave me a heart attack. I swear you’re not going into that bathroom alone again,” Ron told him, and he opened his eyes, tilting his head back somewhat awkwardly to look up at him.
“It’s like a fucking deathtrap for you. I think it must be cursed or something. You scared the shit out of us again and it’s really starting to piss me off.”
Harry frowned up at him.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, feeling like shit for what he continued to put them through. “I couldn’t help it.”
Harry felt like he was splintering apart. He couldn’t seem to hold together the pieces of himself that had broken off, crumbled away, or been ripped out of him in the dungeon. He wasn’t able to fuse them back together again strongly enough to bear up for very long. It felt like trying to hold sand in his fists.
Ron nodded at him sympathetically.
“I know,” he whispered.
“I couldn’t make it stop, Ron,” he tried explaining then, trying to make Ron understand how helpless he was to stop the numbness paralyzing him where he’d knelt in the bottom of the tub, unable to fight it off, to keep it from seeping into his flesh and into his mind until he felt nothing at all. “I think I may be falling apart,” he confessed quietly.
Ron squeezed his eyes closed, looking like he was in pain before he finally opened them again to stare down at him.
“It’s okay, Harry. Hermione and I will help hold you together,” he said reassuringly.
Then he did something so unexpected, catching Harry so off guard that he had no time to react. Ron leaned down to him and kissed him!
Harry heard Hermione give a little gasp of surprise as Ron drew near him, but he was just so startled, so taken aback, still feeling all out of sorts, slow and lethargic as if he were under the effects of a calming potion, that he did nothing at all to prevent it except utter his own tiny squeak of astonishment a moment before Ron’s lips were on his. When shock or madness kept Harry from immediately pulling away, Ron slanted his mouth over his own more firmly, to deepen the kiss, bracing the back of Harry’s neck with his hand, tilting his unresisting, throbbing head towards Ron’s body to hold him in place.
Then Ron ended the kiss and pulled up slightly to stare down at him.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he announced, looking stunned himself at what he’d just done, still holding Harry by the head, which felt too heavy for him to manage on his own.
Harry, for his part, merely stared dumbfounded back up at Ron, his feeble mind completely unable to process what just happened.
“I said I wanted dinner, or something, before I let you take advantage of me,” Harry finally muttered, still feeling bewildered, nervous, and now stupid, too, trying to make light of the awkwardness that surrounded them in the aftermath of what had just occurred, while his brain continued to push relentlessly against his skull.
“Shut up,” Ron replied with a quick, lopsided smirk, leaning down to him again.
Harry had no idea what he was doing, why he was letting this happen as Ron captured his lips for a second time, apparently deciding his initial experiment had been a success.
But he didn’t like blokes, Harry reminded himself. He was pretty sure Ron didn’t either, since he was shagging Hermione. And Harry was in love with Ginny, Ron’s sister! But he didn’t know how to stop this, his mind still not fully comprehending, unable to grasp what was going on here or why. His body was still so heavy that he continued to lay limp and unresisting, held firmly in Ron’s arms.
Ron ran his tongue along Harry’s lower lip then and they parted, his mouth opening automatically, reflexively for him. Ron growled, the sound a low rumbling in his throat as his tongue invaded Harry’s mouth at the perceived invitation.
Yielding completely to him, Harry surrendered instinctively to Ron’s slow exploration of his mouth, utterly compliant in his grip. He heard Hermione give another little moan of surprise as Ron took control of him.
Ginny had said it looked like Ron was eating Lavender’s face, the way they had snogged in the common room, but it didn’t feel like that at all. It was…Oh, God! It certainly seemed as if Ron had gotten some practice in with her, perfected his technique. Holy Hell!
He’d never been kissed by a man before, and Ron’s tongue was more demanding, his lips more urgent, more forceful than Ginny’s or Cho’s had been. The kiss was more carnal than anything he’d ever experienced before. Harry could do nothing but hold on, clutching at the blankets now to anchor himself as Ron plundered his mouth while Hermione’s hands began traveling over his bare chest and down his ribs. He was whimpering into Ron’s mouth in both fear and longing, his body sandwiched between the two of them, naked and vulnerable.
Explosions were going off in his head, making him dizzy as he continued to submit completely to Ron. Every swipe of Ron’s tongue sent a stab of fire straight to Harry’s cock and a jolt of pain to his brain, making him lightheaded, making him moan in both pleasure and pain.
His body suddenly felt so starved for them, for their lips and hands, for the warmth he was wicking away from them, drawing it into his own body like a sponge. It built in him, warming his insides and then spread outwards to his limbs. He hadn’t been touched, hadn’t been kissed since his birthday in Ginny’s bedroom, not like this, maybe not at all.
“Tell me what you want, Harry,” Ron whispered into his ear as he released his mouth finally to breathe.
His words sent chill bumps down Harry’s spine, leaving him panting for breath, his head thumping to the rapid beat of his heart.
“Tell me what you need, and it’s yours,” he promised.
Oh, Jesus! Harry thought he might have tried to say something then, but it was totally incoherent, probably some form of wretched begging. Then Hermione turned his head back towards her, sliding her hands over his jaw, rough with stubble, to grasp him on both sides of his face. Taking her turn, she pressed herself against him and captured his mouth for her own before he could even offer up a defense, his mind still reeling from the heady confusion of Ron’s lips on his, at the unexpected longing that had flared inside him from his touch.
Her kiss sent his head spinning and desire coiling in his gut as she pressed him further into Ron, who clutched at his bare hip, holding Harry more firmly against him. He heard Ron groan in approval, and then his teeth were on the cord of Harry’s neck.
The sensation was driving him mad. He was tingling all over, as if his body was finally coming out of its heavy sedation, waking up with his arousal, yearning for more of them. Writhing between both of their warm bodies, Harry quaked with need, moaning wantonly. Hermione’s smaller tongue was now circling his, coaxing it back into her own mouth as Ron continued to work his lips and teeth and tongue over Harry’s neck.
Rocking into his backside, Ron pressed his arousal into the cleft of Harry’s arse, forcing him to rub his budding erection against Hermione’s jean clad thigh.
Warning bells were going off in his brain. Shaking all over now, wild with lust for them both, he was mewling like a kitten between them utterly shamelessly. He couldn’t help it. The engine inside him had come to life again, roaring in his chest, his whole body vibrating with it.
Harry didn’t know what madness had come over him. He was surely cracking up. He’d told Ron he thought he was falling apart. Now he was certain of it. He didn’t know any longer if this was real, or just some bizarre, heavily sexualized dream his fractured mind had concocted. A kinky, erotic wet dream he’d immersed himself in to hold off the reality of what had happened to him in the bathroom.
Harry had never desired Ron before. Never! But he sure as hell wanted him right now! Whatever madness that had taken hold of him had obviously infected Ron, too, because it was clear that he was more than interested right back. He’d been fighting his desire for Hermione for a while now. It was only natural, he reasoned. She was the only female in the house, and he already had carnal knowledge of her. It was to be expected that he would want to experience her again, to feel the warm tight heat of her all around him again. The sensation perfectly preserved in his mind, though he’d tried to shut it out, filled with shame and self-loathing at the memory of it.
He wanted desperately to take what they were offering him, yet he was terrified at the same time. Terrified of giving himself over to it, of what it would mean for all of them if he did. At how much damage would be wrought on their friendship if he let this continue. But, God, he craved it so badly. He wanted the comfort of them. He wanted to share in the intimacy they had with each other, but he couldn’t. It was selfish. It was wrong.
He was trying to steal it from them, to suck it out of them, and they were so blind to it that they’d let him take it from them. They’d let the demon inside him suck their happiness away; drain them of it, like a leech, like a parasite. He’d become a cancer, not just on them, but on everyone around him, slowly destroying them all, eating away at them.
Harry couldn’t let it happen. He had to stop this while he still could.
“I need…” he began on a strangled sob, fighting against his raging desire, against his own will as he pulled away from Hermione.
“I can’t do this… you’ve got to move out,” he panted, his voice full of agony. “I need both of you to move out of this room. Now!”
“What?”
“Harry, please—”
“You can’t stay here anymore,” he cried, burying his face in the mattress and curling into a tight ball between them. “Get away from me!”
“Harry, you can’t mean that,” Ron argued, stroking his bare back soothingly.
His fingers traced the path of Harry’s curved spine, making him moan, trembling as his skin prickled with gooseflesh at Ron’s touch.
“Go. Please…just go,” Harry implored them, his voice muffled against the sheets. “Please, I’m begging you.”
His head felt like it was going to explode now, his eyes watering from the pain, the pressure so intense he thought he might vomit.
“We just got carried away,” Ron tried again to placate him. “I’m sorry, Harry, you’re right, we were moving too fast. We’ll take it more slowly, okay?”
“No,” he moaned, shaking his head. “No, I can’t…I can’t do this. I don’t want this. Please, just leave me alone.”
They were both silent then, frozen on the bed. Then Hermione spoke, her voice calm and low as if he were a wild animal she was trying to soothe.
“All right, Harry, we’ll move out if you really want us to, but you’re not staying in this room alone. We’ll all move to the rooms we had before. Ron and I will take the room Ginny and I shared, and you can have the old one you and Ron shared, but you’re not staying in here. Not by yourself, okay?” she told him as she slid off the bed.
“No,” Ron argued angrily.
“Ron, please,” she pleaded with him. “You can’t push him into this. Harry has the right to say no.”
“Fine,” he growled, getting to his feet as well.
Then both of them waited for Harry, apparently serious about not leaving him in here alone. Not even for a minute.
Harry stayed there, curled in a ball for a few minutes, the room totally silent while they waited stubbornly for him. Finally he spoke.
“Can I maybe get some clothes first, please?”
Hermione grabbed her bag from the side table and dropped it on the bed. Sitting up then, the blanket falling to his waist as he hunched over the bag, he fished around inside until he came up with something to wear. He lay back again to slide his boxers on under the blanket, trying to preserve what was left of his modesty, though he’d just been grinding nude against them both a moment before.
When he’d worked them over his hips, he sat up and pulled on the shirt he’d dug out of the bag, and then tugged on socks before he slid out of the bed on the same side as Ron to crawl into his jeans. He kept his eyes down as Ron and Hermione watched him dress silently, flushing with embarrassment.
Ron stepped close to him then, reaching for the bag he’d left on the bed, and Harry jerked away from him instinctively. Stilling, Ron turned to frown up at Harry before pulling the bag to him and straightening up.
Harry’s heart was pounding again, his head throbbing, as they all stood there in awkward silence.
“Are we ready then?” Hermione asked finally, breaking the weighty silence.
Ron nodded his head and came around to stand next to her with a heavy sigh, picking up his wand from the side table. Harry continued to stand there a few more moments, reluctant to leave.
The truth was, he didn’t want to move out of Sirius’ bedroom. It had started to feel like home to him here. But he could understand their concern, and he certainly never wanted to go back into that bathroom again.
He sighed too, finally coming around where they stood to get his own wand and journal. They waited in continued silence for him as he skirted the bed to get around them to the table. Ron’s ears went red, and he reached down to collect Harry’s things for him. Harry flinched at the sudden movement.
“Stop it!” Ron barked abruptly, making Harry flinch again, even more violently. “Stop acting like if you get too close to me you might accidentally trip and fall onto my dick, or something.”
“Ronald!” Hermione screeched in outrage.
“Well,” he growled angrily. “He keeps acting like I’m going to attack him!”
Then he turned back to Harry.
“I’m not going to run at you, you know? I didn’t force you… I would never.”
He paused, taking a deep breath to calm down.
“You wanted that, too. You participated in it, enjoyed it even. I know it,” he accused. “But if you’re not ready, if you don’t want me to touch you right now, I won’t. Just stop flinching when I get near you. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m never going to hurt you, Harry,” he promised, and then he sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll keep my hands to myself, I swear it.”
Harry stared at him for a long time, his mouth turned down in a frown. Then he finally nodded.
“M’sorry,” he whispered. “But I can’t do this, Ron. It’s a mistake…it’s wrong.”
“I don’t believe that, and I don’t think you do either.”
Ron was irritating him now, the pain in his head making him cross.
“You’re blind, both of you. You don’t want me. You’re just acting out of pity, and I don’t want it!” he spat. “You can keep it.”
“Fuck you!” Ron shot back angrily.
“A brilliant argument, Ron, very succinct,” he mocked, watching as Ron’s ears went red again. “You’ve been in love with Hermione for years. Are you going to tell me you’ve felt that way about me all this time, too? That it hasn’t just been in the last few weeks or days that it’s been different? That’s pity…or… or guilt or gratitude or something, but it isn’t love!” he yelled, waving his hands around angrily.
“And you,” he said, turning to Hermione and pointing an accusing finger at her anguished face. “If you’ve wanted me all this time, why didn’t we get it on back in the tent after Ron left, huh? Or hell, while he was still there, I guess, since we’re obviously all so horny for each other.”
“I don’t know what brought it on, all right?” Ron interrupted. “But I’m not sorry I acted on it.”
“You don’t really want me, either of you. This whole experience has made us all crazy.”
“Harry, that’s not true...”
“I’m broken, Ron!”
“No, you’re not! We can fix you. Hermione and I can help you, if you’ll let us,” he argued.
Harry’s anger flared at the idiocy of that statement, at Ron’s naiveté. As if a simple Reparo could fix all that was wrong with him, as if it could return all the fractured pieces of him to their proper places.
“Do you know what it’s like to have the stuff of your nightmares be the stuff of your fantasies, too? Do you know how fucked up that is? Every touch, every sexual thought brings up a memory of something horrible. Something I did… to her,” Harry bellowed, pointing at Hermione again, who was standing open mouthed now, “or was done to me by that fucking bitch and her friends.”
He gripped his head then, clutching it in his hands to keep it from splitting open.
“I can’t even masturbate without images and memories of her flooding my mind. That’s what sent me into a black hole today. You wanted to know… well, that’s what it was. I was just trying to have a normal morning wank in the shower, like any other bloke,” he admitted with a humorless laugh.
“Harry, I’m—”
“Do you want to know what it feels like to picture the person you hate most in this world and get an erection from it? Do you want to know how it feels to be in total agony and still have your enemy pull orgasm after orgasm out of you? It was different with Greyback and the others, Ron, they just wanted to hurt me, humiliate me. Yes, they raped me, but they didn’t make me come. They just used me. I was just a vessel for their depravity. They didn’t make me participate in it, enjoy it.”
He started keening in agony then, panting, dizzy with the pain from the mounting pressure in his skull.
“Harry!” Hermione called in alarm as he staggered, sitting back down on the bed and wiping away blood from his nose.
“Shit,” he groaned.
“We need to call Madame Pomfrey!”
“No!” he yelled. “It’s just a headache. Don’t you dare call her here!” he warned her threateningly, pinching his nose closed and tilting his head back to stop the flow of blood.
“It’s no big deal, a simple nose bleed, and she won’t thank you for rushing her over here for that,” he insisted.
Hermione pursed her lips together, staring uncertainly at him for a bit before finally sighing and nodding her head in reluctant agreement.
Ron walked into the bathroom and returned with a handful of tissue that he held out to Harry. He stared at Ron a minute and then reached up and pulled it from his hand.
“Thanks,” he said thickly, pressing the wad of tissue to his nose while they watched him, all of them awkwardly silent in the wake of his startling confession.
When the bleeding had stopped, he wadded up the bloody tissue in his fist and got back to his feet.
“Harry,” Ron started again, as if intermission was over now, as if they’d called an injury time out when Harry’s nose started to bleed.
Harry gritted his teeth in frustration.
“Hermione and I love you, you have to know that. We just want to be with you.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you let me touch her? Why would you let me get anywhere near her again? I...I raped her, Ron. I stole something from her that I can’t ever give back. I took her by force, and you’re just going to hand her right back to me? Just open your arms to me? Do you know how fucked up that is?” he asked incredulously, feeling so damned weary as he turned back to Hermione again, staring at her shocked face.
He wanted to wound, to push them away for good now, to end this, because his head was still throbbing in pain and his resistance was weakening.
“You’ve got Stockholm Syndrome or something,” he told her. “You think you love me, but it’s just some warped delusion. I forced myself on you, Hermione. I raped you.”
She flinched, and he raised his voice in response, digging in deeper.
“I fucked you up against the wall while you cried into my shoulder! I took away your will. I took what I wanted from you, and I didn’t stop because it felt so damn good, even though I knew I was hurting you,” he growled viciously, his chest heaving while he shuddered with revulsion, belying his words.
She swung then, striking him hard across the cheekbone with her open palm. The slap cracked loudly in the room, jerking his head to the side. The force of it burst a blood vessel under his eye and made him see stars as it rattled his aching brain. It took him by surprise because he was expecting the blow to come from Ron.
Grunting in pain, he staggered back against the bed. Then he straightened back up, holding his hand against his burning cheek. His nose dripping blood again, Harry stared at her, blinking in shock. Tears were rolling down her face at his deliberate cruelty. It made his heart break for her and made him burn with shame for the pain he’d caused her.
“I’m so sorry, Hermione,” he apologized brokenly, unable to hurt her anymore, unable to follow through as his own eyes welled up with tears. “I didn’t mean that…I didn’t mean any of that.”
“I know,” she cried, nodding her head and sniffling back more tears.
He reached a hand out to her, and she grasped it, squeezing his fingers a moment before releasing them. His arm fell back to his side, and then he replaced it over his aching cheek.
Harry wanted to take her in his arms, to hold her to him, to take back his words, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Instead, they all continued to stand there; Ron still red faced and furious but silent, Hermione still battling back tears, and Harry back to dabbing at his nose with the soiled tissue, still holding his flaming cheek with the other hand.
Then Hermione turned and walked from the room without another word. Ron waited for him to go first as if he were afraid Harry would lock himself in if he left before him. After another minute of them silently watching each other, Harry grabbed his things and reluctantly left the room, Ron following behind.
Hermione stood in front of the door of the bedroom he and Ron had shared during the summer before his fifth year. He walked past her into his new room, moving to the bed farthest from the door, and set his wand and journal on the side table. Then he removed his glasses, folded them and set them on top of the journal, before he lay down on the bed and curled up on his side, facing the wall.
“Harry?” she called tentatively when he’d settled on the bed. “Will you take a pain potion?” she asked, and when he didn’t respond, she added, “Please?”
He shook his head. He heard her sigh and turn from the room, leaving the door open.
Closing his eyes, he drew in a deep breath. The smell of the two of them lingered on his skin as if it were permanently burned into his nostrils. His head ached with their absence, grieving their loss, his body cold without them. Yearning for them both, he finally fell back into a fitful sleep.

When he woke up again, it was late afternoon. His stomach was growling with hunger, but his headache had finally subsided to a dull ache. He sat up and pulled on his glasses, feeling disoriented again for a moment at finding himself in an unfamiliar place. He was startled to find Remus sitting on the other bed, watching him.
“Good afternoon, Harry,” Lupin greeted him in his soft hoarse voice. “You’re making quite a fashion statement with that hairstyle.”
Harry reached up and ran a hand through his hair, which was standing up in all directions.
“I don’t even think James could’ve competed with that unruly mop,”
He frowned, and Lupin grinned at him, rising from the bed and coming over to re-seat himself on the end of Harry’s bed.
“What’s happened to your face?” he asked in concern when he got a closer look at Harry.
Harry placed a hand to his cheek, poking around on it with the tips of his fingers. It was puffy, swollen and tender across the bone and under the eye. Hermione had caught him in just the right spot so that it would blacken his eye spectacularly.
Brilliant, he thought. That way, she’d be sure to be reminded of the horrible things he’d said to her every time she looked at him for the next several days until it faded. Still, if Ron had let loose on him, he’d be in a lot worse shape. He’d probably still be unconscious or spitting out teeth. Not that he didn’t have it coming to him, of course.
The idea of having to confess to Remus that Hermione had slapped him senseless made him cringe, though, and also feel slightly hysterical at what must be going through Lupin’s mind. The reality of what was really going on here was even more absurd than he could possibly imagine.
“S’nuthin’. I just managed to offend someone else and got walloped for it again. I’m quite good at it, if you’ll remember,” he answered wryly, hoping Lupin wouldn’t pursue it further.
“You should get some ice on it to try and minimize the damage,” he advised.
Harry nodded, and they went silent for a moment.
“Besides the shiner and that…uh, hair,” he said, his lips quirking, “you look much improved from when I last saw you.”
“You, too,” Harry replied. “If I remember it right, Madame Pomfrey worked on you quite as much as she did on me the last time you were here.”
“Indeed, she did. Are you feeling well, though, are you ill?”
Harry shook his head.
“No, I just had a bad headache earlier. I was sleeping it off, is all. I’m feeling better now except for being hungry. I think I missed both breakfast and lunch.”
He felt shaky and slightly queasy from the combination of his empty stomach and the lingering threads of his headache.
“Would you like Dobby to bring you a sandwich, perhaps? You don’t need to miss any more meals, you know.”
“I think your parenting instincts are starting to kick in, Remus,” he joked. “How is Tonks, by the way?”
“She’s well, Harry. Very near term now so I’m sticking close to home. It’s been a difficult pregnancy, what with all that’s going on in the world,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Also, I don’t know if you know, but they found her father’s body a short while back, and it’s been terribly hard on Dora and her mother.”
A jolt passed through Harry at this revelation.
“I…I didn’t know, Remus. I’m so sorry.”
Remus nodded.
“I only met him that one time when Hagrid and I crash landed in their pond when we fled my relatives’ house. He was very kind to me…patched me up. We ran across them, Hermione, Ron, and I, while we were in the tent, though they didn’t know we were there. He was travelling with two goblins, another wizard and a classmate of ours, Dean Thomas. Do you know if they’re…”
“One of the goblins was also killed, Gornuk, I believe, as well as the other wizard, Dirk Cresswell. Dean and the second goblin appear to have escaped.”
Harry sagged in relief at the news about Dean. For some reason he didn’t think he could bear it today if he’d been killed.
He thought of the conversations they’d overheard between the wizards and goblins by the stream that day. It was the day that Ron left, when they’d had that huge row and he’d stormed from the tent, Hermione running after him.
Finally Lupin spoke again when it appeared that Harry had nothing to say.
“Hermione asked Ginny to get word to me that you all were requesting a visit from me, Harry?” he prompted.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Harry agreed, finally realizing why Lupin had come. “We needed to ask you, or rather, Tonks’ mum…I can understand if she’s too upset…but we needed to ask her something.”
“I know. I’ve been here a while, actually, waiting for you to wake up, and have already discussed with Ron and Hermione the reasons for your request,” he interrupted. “I don’t think Andromeda will be of any assistance to you, however. She’s been estranged from her sisters for many years now, Harry.”
“I didn’t think so, but it was worth a shot.”
“I don’t suppose you can fill me in on why you’re looking for information about the location of Bellatrix Lestrange’s home?” he asked.
Harry flinched at her name. Remus searched Harry’s face at his reaction, but said nothing.
“No, I can’t, Remus, I’m sorry,” he finally replied.
Lupin nodded his head.
“Yes, Hermione already said as much, but as you say, it was worth a shot.”
Harry snorted softly, and Lupin grinned at him again. Then he called Dobby, who appeared immediately beside the bed. Lupin requested some sandwiches for Harry, and a short time later, the elf reappeared with a large platter loaded down with a huge assortment of sandwiches and biscuits, followed immediately after with a pitcher of pumpkin juice.
“Thanks, Dobby,” Harry said in some amusement at the sheer lengths to which Dobby went to please him. Still, he was hungry enough that he might eat them all.
Lupin selected a sandwich for himself and Harry grabbed one off the top, both of them eating silently for a while.
Harry polished off three before he got up the courage to ask Lupin what was weighing heavily on him.
“Remus,” he started, his voice low, staring at his hands now. “You told me about…about Greyback…and about what he did to you.”
He paused, taking a deep breath, picking crumbs out of his lap so he didn’t have to look his mentor in the eyes as Lupin nodded.
“How did you get past it? How do you overcome being…being raped?”
Remus was silent a long time before he finally spoke.
“I don’t know that you do, Harry. You just have to pick yourself up and move on.”
“What if you can’t? What if you can’t get up from that?”
“You lean on those close to you to help you. Ron and Hermione, the Weasley's, and me, who love you and will always support you.”
“Does Tonks know?” Harry asked then. “Did you tell her what happened to you?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“What if there are secrets you can’t tell them? Would you tell them even if they’d leave you if they knew? What if you were a monster, Remus?” he whispered, tears starting to fall into his lap.
Remus scooted closer to Harry, but to his credit, did not attempt to touch him.
“I am a monster, Harry, but the bites you sustained…you aren’t truly infected with lycanthropy. I have explained—”
“No, I know, it’s not that,” Harry interrupted, wiping at his eyes.“But they made me do things, Remus. They made me hurt…people. They turned me into something horrible.”
He was shaking again, falling apart in front of Lupin, but he needed somebody to confide in, someone besides Ron and Hermione, someone who understood about what he’d gone through, parts of it, anyway.
“Have you ever bitten anybody during the full moon? Did you ever hurt anybody like that, even if you didn’t mean to, when you couldn’t help it? Did you ever hurt somebody you loved?”
Harry could feel Lupin’s eyes on him, but he continued to stare at his hands, too ashamed to look him in the face.
“No, Harry. I have been very lucky.”
“Everyone’s dying because of me. Because I can’t get past this, and I don’t know what to do. I’m trying, but I don’t know if I can. I don’t want anyone else to die for me.”
“Everyone isn’t dying because of you, Harry, or for you. They’re dying for what’s right, for what they believe in. Even if there were no Harry Potter, no Chosen One, they’d all still be fighting against The Dark Lord and what he stands for.”
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it. I think I’m going to fail,” Harry confessed.
“What is it that you’re trying to do, Harry? Why can’t you confide it in me? Why can’t you let the Order help you?” Remus asked him pleadingly.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Dumbledore wanted it kept secret. I can’t tell you. Only Ron and Hermione can know. But I think I’m already dead, Remus, it just hasn’t found me yet. I’m not afraid of it anymore, but I don’t want it to find Ron and Hermione, too.”
He looked up then, finally, reaching out to grasp at the sleeve of Lupin’s robes, feeling suddenly frantic.
“Help me, Mooney! Help me get Ron and Hermione out of here. Take them with you, get them over to Muriel’s, where they’ll be safe with the rest of Ron’s family,” Harry begged him then, knowing Lupin must think he’d gone completely mad now. “We’ll stun them if we have to. Please, Remus!”
Lupin’s mouth fell open at the fear and panic in Harry’s voice, at the terror in his eyes as he clung to him.
“Harry, you can’t take their choice away from them. It’s not for you to decide.”
“Please!” he pleaded. “If you could have saved my mum and dad, if you could have saved Sirius, wouldn’t you have done it? If you had known your fate, the fates of your friends, wouldn’t you have intervened to stop it?”
Lupin looked stunned.
“I…I …” he stuttered, speechless, as if Harry had knocked the wind out of him. “Yes, I suppose I would have,” he finally admitted. “But Harry, you need them. Whatever it is you’re doing, you can’t do it on your own. You can’t stop them from trying to help you. Don’t you remember Sirius? Don’t you remember that Dumbledore tried to keep him here safe, just like he tried to do with your parents, just like your parents tried to do for you? Just like you’re trying now with Ron and Hermione? It won’t work, Harry. They won’t stand for it.”
Harry shook his head in denial of Lupin’s words, still searching for a way out of this for them. He felt so afraid he was leading them all to their doom. So terrified of Bellatrix, of coming face to face with her, that he was dissolving into pieces at the mere thought.
“Don’t push your friends away, Harry. I made that mistake recently. I tried to push away the people that I love. I tried to run away from them. Some swotty young man told me what a coward I was for it, too. And that man was right,” he said, smiling sadly at Harry. “From one fool to another, Harry, trust your instincts. They’re nearly always right. But this is your fear talking, your love for them clouding your judgment.”
Harry released Lupin’s robes, letting his hands fall back into his lap. Defeated, finally, he nodded his head in acceptance, and Remus let out a relieved breath. Probably thankful he wasn’t going to have to stun Harry to get away from him.
“I have faith in you, Harry,” Remus told him then. “I know the kind of stock you come from. I’ve watched you overcome huge obstacles before now. You can overcome this, too. That’s why Dora and I have chosen you as godfather for our child.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in.
“What?” Harry yelped finally in stunned surprise. “Me? You can’t be serious.”
“We’ve quite agreed. There’s no one better. No one we’d trust more to look after him or her if we’re not able,” he said, beaming at Harry, as if he’d been bursting to tell him this news since they’d arrived at Grimmauld Place.
Harry felt overwhelmed, astonished.
“I…I don’t know what to say, Remus,” he confessed.
“Say yes.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, but Lupin just continued to smile at him. “Yeah—all right—of course I will,” he finally agreed.
Beaming, Lupin shook Harry’s hand then, clasping him on the shoulder.
“Cor blimey!” Harry said after a few minutes, still totally flabbergasted, feeling winded, but the overwhelming fear that had been weighing him down all day had finally eased some. It had stopped gripping him so tightly that he couldn’t breathe, and he relaxed for the first time that day, the remnants of the headache finally receding completely.
He agreed to return to the drawing room with Lupin, stopping in the bathroom first, where he ended up taking longer than expected to examine the shiner Hermione had given him, and to wet down his hair because he looked completely absurd. He didn’t know how anybody had kept a straight face around him all day.
Remus smirked at him when he entered the room a few minutes later with damp hair.
“Much better,” he announced. “Oh, and I told Ron and Hermione, I love the changes you’ve made to this space. It’s my favorite room of the house now. I don’t know why Sirius didn’t do something like this to this old place when it was headquarters for the Order. I think he would have enjoyed being here so much more if he had,” he said, sounding wistful.
Harry glanced at Ron and Hermione nervously, hovering near the door. There was some uncomfortable tension between the three of them that Lupin seemed oblivious to.
Hermione winced when she saw what she’d done to his face, and Ron watched him apprehensively as he made his way to one of the chairs finally, and sat down.
When Lupin departed, Harry was left clearheaded for the first time all day. He, Ron, and Hermione had called an uneasy truce of sorts, though they were all still careful not to touch each other and their conversations were awkward and felt forced, uncomfortably cordial.
When they’d gone to bed that night, Harry returned to the bed in the far corner of the room while Ron and Hermione took the room across the hall. His door remained open as a concession to them, and they did the same.
He was still desperately lonely for them, but he could set it aside now that there was some distance between them, now that time from this morning’s events had settled and given him more perspective.
Settling onto his back, Harry thought over his next move.
Hermione had confided to him finally what she’d learned this morning, before he’d thrown a spanner in the works of their day, before everything went pear shaped. They knew now, perhaps, the town where the Lestrange family hailed, but they needed more information than that.
Harry thought he might have one more alternative, one more person that would, perhaps, help him…if he could trust him.

~ . ~

So...You didn't really think it would be that easy right? It wouldn't be my story if it weren't full of angst... and apparently dialogue, LOL Sheesh with all the chin wagging that goes on here now.
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What it comes down to

Chapter 25. Three’s a Crowd