It’s the same wherever we go now:  girls swarm us.  At first, it was just due to the war.  We were heroes, apparently.  Murdering a psychotic bastard didn’t count as murder for most people.  But after Ron joined the Cannons and helped lead them to their first championship series in over one hundred years, things have become worse.

“Have you heard a word I’ve said?” Hermione demands, nudging my leg with her foot.

I blink at her, drawing my eyes away from Ron.  “What?”

She snorts into her butterbeer.  “You’re in a sad state.”

Leaning back, I cross my arms over my chest.  She raises an eyebrow.  “Why don’t you just admit it?”

“Admit what?”

My jaw clenches when, in the corner of my eye, I see another girl leap into Ron’s lap.  His resulting laugh feels like claws across my mind.

“That you’re attracted to him.”  My attention is fully upon her now as I stare, astonished.  She smiles and sips her butterbeer.

“Attracted?” I ask, voice rising.

That eyebrow arches higher.  I flush.

“You’re jealous.”

“How do you figure that, Hermione?”

She merely grins, happy enough to have planted that seed in my head.  Now she’ll let it germinate.

I growl at her in frustration, making her laugh.  I’m not jealous of his groupies.  I’m not.

That was six months ago, before the Cannons actually won a championship for the first time in more than one hundred years.  Now I have to deal with a nameless girl at the breakfast table more mornings than not, many of them who make it clear they don’t have a problem exiting Ron’s bed and sliding into mine across the hall.  I’ve considered declining by saying I’m gay, but that would cause more problems than it would solve.  Instead, I decline with an icy stare.

This morning I’m lucky – the table is empty.

Had I known this would happen when we moved in together – best mates sharing a flat – I don’t know if I would have made the offer.  Not that I don’t enjoy sharing a flat with him.  I mean, the nights when we watch the telly, drink either butterbeer or beer depending on our mood, and talk are the best.  I never thought I’d consider a night of talking fun but with Ron it is.  But those don’t happen much any more.

Instead, I find myself being dragged from Wizarding pub to Wizarding pub.  Once there, people are more than willing to buy me enough drinks to get me shit-faced while Ron is draped in women willing to do anything – anything – for a man who is both a Quidditch star and hero.

He has the fame he’s always wanted.  So why does it make me miserable?

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not jealous of his fame – he can have his and mine for all I care – but the endless parade of girls gets to be a bit much.  And girls they are, even those in their twenties and thirties.  Ron doesn’t discriminate by age, but all his girls are a bit empty in the head.

Ron stumbles into the kitchen just as the coffee is ready.  He’s bleary-eyed, his pajama bottoms ride low on his hips and he hasn’t yet shaved.  His appearance is like a punch to my gut.

Hermione’s seeds of six months ago have borne fruit:  I want him.  Not just as my best mate but as my lover.  To slake my lust for him I’ve taken several women and, in the last two months a few men, to my bed.  None of them have worked because they aren’t Ron.

“Is that coffee?” he asks, drawing my attention back to him.

“Yes,” I answer shortly, completely distracted by his hand.  He’s scratching his stomach just above those pajama bottoms and the sight has the blood draining from my head.

Ron grins.  “Sounds like you need more coffee, mate.”

I need more than coffee, but if I told him what I really need, he’d go spare.  I don’t say anything though, just shove toast in my mouth.

Ron stretches his arms high over his head.  I’m fascinated by the play of muscle under his skin.  Damn Hermione for making me so aware of him.  Damn me for not being normal and obsessing over someone other than my best mate.

I blink, startled, when Ron waves a hand in front of my face.

“What’s wrong with you this morning?”

“Nothing.”

He narrows his eyes at me then shrugs and turns toward the coffeemaker.  It’s one of the few Muggle things – including the telly – that Ron has learned how to use.  Over the top of my own coffee mug, I watch him.  When he stretches upward for a mug of his own and his pajamas slip so I see the hint of the crack of his arse, it’s all I can take.  I slam the remainder of my coffee back, then all but leap from the table and stumble into my room so I can wank in privacy.

Since that morning a week ago, things between Ron and I have been strained.  If I could get up the courage to slam him to the bed and shag him rotten, the tension on my end would be dissipated.  I have no idea what he would need to dissipate his tension.  I could only hope that being shagged rotten would do it.

The girls haven’t ceased.  If anything, they’ve become more frequent.  The breakfast table hasn’t been empty since that morning a week ago.

When Hermione had lunch with me yesterday, she chided me thoroughly.  When I asked her about her love life in return, she clammed up pretty quickly.

I begged off the nightly routine tonight, preferring instead to sit in front of the telly and watch some movie Hermione raved about.  It has a big boat that sinks, so I don’t know how interesting it’ll be when I already know the end.

Then I hear giggling.  It’s not coming from outside – as usual when Ron returns home – but from down the hall.  I snap the movie off with the remote before investigating.  Ron’s voice underlies the nameless, faceless girl’s, both emanating from his room.  The voices hold me motionless in the hall.  She giggles again before I hear Ron groan.  Her giggle is then muffled, and Ron groans again.

“Fuck!  No teeth,” Ron says.

A blow job.  She’s giving him a blow job.

Knowing I shouldn’t be listening, I slide down the wall and loosen my jeans.  This is wrong, very wrong.  But with Ron’s next groan, my cock doesn’t care.  Each of his groans and grunts hardens my cock further.  I wrap my hand around it and pull to ease my ache.

I’m pathetic.  I’m listening – wanking – to my best mate, the current object of my lust, getting a blow job.

Even those thoughts don’t stop my hand.

“But I wasn’t done,” she says from inside the room.

“I want to fuck you, not come in your mouth,” Ron replies.

The next sounds are of a squeaking bed, grunts and moans.

My imagination supplies the idea that Ron flipped her onto her back, spread her legs and drove inside her.  It gives me the image of his face, mouth twisted in concentration, as he thrusts.  Pressing my thumb to the underside of the head of my cock, I add to my mental image how Ron’s cock might look as he thrusts, how it throbs as he slides in and out of her.

A shudder wracks me at the thought of being under him and watching a bead of sweat drip off Ron’s brow and fall onto my face, near my mouth, where I can taste the salty bead.  My imagination supplies how his face would look in concentration as he labored over me, driving his cock deep into my arse.  Shagging me rotten.

My orgasm explodes so quickly I don’t get the chance to stifle my shout of completion.  Dismay holds me still despite the aftershocks I’m suffering.

And, sure enough, the bedroom door flies open to reveal Ron with only in a sheet wrapped around his waist clutched closed in one pale hand.  Horror holds me motionless, still on the floor opposite the door, one hand still wrapped around my cock with come drying, sticky and glue-like, on my hand and cock.

Ron’s eyes dart from my face – which I hope is impassive and not reflecting the abject misery I feel – to my lap.

“Harry?” he asks, twitching the sheet higher.

I can’t move, pinned by embarrassment, until I hear that damnable female voice from his room:  “Harry Potter?  Invite him to join us, Ronnie.”

I’m barely aware of my Apparition until I find myself in the shower.  A half-hearted wave of my wand spills cold water over my head.

I wonder if I can just freeze to death rather than face Ron.  Why did I do that?

Self-recriminations are cut short when I hear Ron again.  I could Apparate to Hermione’s, but then I’d have to explain myself.  That would be worse right now than the situation I’ve gotten myself into.  I can just imagine how that conversation would go:  Hermione, Ron found out how I feel.  Yeah, he caught me wanking.  No, I won’t show you.

“Harry?” Ron calls quietly.

I crouch further in the corner as if the water will wash away what I’ve done.  Self-loathing fills me.  Can I drown in a shower?

The curtain twitches back.  Ron, now-dressed in jeans and only jeans, stares down at me.  I bury my face in my knees.

“Harry?”

Fuck.  I’m a coward and can’t face him.  I just had the best orgasm of my life wanking to my best mate fucking a bird.

The curtain rattles as Ron leans in to shut the water off.  The only sound after that is water dripping into the tub.

Finally, when I can’t take it any longer, I look up.  Ron, leaning against the sink, seems bemused.  When I flush red, he merely raises an eyebrow.  I swallow hard to work up spit enough to speak.

“Where is she?” I manage to ask.

“Threw her out,” Ron replies.

He...he threw her out?  Is there hope?  Or did he just want her gone for the fight we’re going to have?

Ron tips his head to the side, seeming to study me.  “What’s going on, Harry?”

“Going on?”  I really hope my voice didn’t squeak like I think it did.

He pushes off from the sink, crosses his arms and stares down at me.  I swallow nervously, my breath catching at the sight of his flexing muscles.  When he licks his lips, I’m done for.  Groaning, I drop my head against my knees once again.

“Harry,” he says once again, softly this time.  “Look at me, Harry.”

“I can’t,” I say to my knees.

A startled shout escapes when Ron grabs my arm and pulls me upward.  Before I can recover or pull away, he does the unthinkable.  He pulls me forward against him by wrapping an arm around my waist.

“Look at me,” he growls.

I raise my eyes slowly, captivated briefly by the pounding of his pulse in his neck.  When I finally meet his eyes, I’m stunned.  He’s not horrified.

“How long have you been wanking to me?”

“Listening or thinking about you?”

Both his eyebrows shoot upward.  “Listening.”

“This was the first time.”

He makes a noise that falls somewhere between a grunt and a huff that I don’t quite know how to interpret.  This isn’t how I expected this to turn out.  I hadn’t intended for him to find me, for one.  The waiting for his judgment is worse than waiting to face Voldemort.

After a prolonged silence, he asks, “Why?”

Should I be totally honest and risk destroying our friendship?  Or do I lie?

I take a deep breath and smell him, the scent of his sweat and sex.  Honest.

Reaching up with both hands, I grasp his head and tilt it so I can slant my lips over his.  Using my tongue, I coax his mouth open.  When he parts his lips, I slide one hand behind his head and hold it still, ravaging his mouth.

When he groans, my control breaks.  After having gone from total orgasm to abject misery and back again, my nerves are shot.  I push him backwards until he’s flat against something, whether it’s the door or the wall I don’t care.  I grab his hands and pin them to the – wall?  yes, wall – and move my lips to his neck.

“Damn, Harry,” he whispers.

I pull my head back and look at him, no longer drowning in shame.  “I am damned.”  Without waiting for his reply, I drop to my knees and tug open his jeans.

He’s half-hard already.  Whether this is leftover from what I interrupted or for me, I don’t care.  He’s mine now.  I’ve done this only once before, but it wasn’t Ron and that makes all the difference in the world.

I stroke him gently, eliciting a soft groan, before grasping his cock at the base and engulfing it in my mouth.  He rests one hand on the top of my head.  For a moment I worry he’ll stop me.  Until that hand tightens in my hair – then I know he’ll not stop me.

My tongue pressed to the ridge under the head of his cock, I suck with varying rhythms until he’s fully hard.  He tugs my hair, fingers tangling painfully, to urge me to continue.  I begin to hum softly as I work him with my mouth, distracting him from the fact my hands are sliding his jeans off.

“How...how long, Harry?” he gasps, thrusting into my mouth.

I back off just far enough to look up at him.  After meeting his eyes, I glance down at his cock, then look back up at him.  “About eight inches.”

“Bastard,” he smirks.  With the hand still tangled in my hair, he tugs me upward.  I don’t protest when he grabs my arm again, steps out of his jeans and leads me into my room.

“Not yours?” I ask.

He glances over his shoulder at me.  “Not until I change the sheets.”

Does that mean what I hope it means?  This isn’t a one time thing?

I study his body language as he climbs atop my bed.  Shock holds me immobile as I realize he’s teasing me, giving me views of that perfect body then hiding it.

Stunned, I whisper, “How long?”

He waits to reply until he’s stretched out on his back atop my bed.  With deceptively lazy motions, he begins to stroke his cock.  Then he turns his head and meets my eyes.  “A year.”

A year?  My brain sticks on that fact as I watch him wank.  Watch him wank.

My cock, which had been shocked to silence, becomes painfully hard.  I shift my weight, drawing Ron’s attention.

“Strip off already, Harry,” he murmurs, thumbing the head of his cock.

I need no further encouragement.  Within seconds I’m as nude as Ron.  I’m not even halfway onto the bed before he grabs my arm and yanks upward.

I land awkwardly on him.  That only lasts as long as it takes him to flip me onto my back.

When our cocks brush, we both groan.  I arch upward and Ron gasps.

“If...if you’ve...fuck,” I stammer as we rock against each other.  “If you’ve wanted....”

“You,” Ron gasps, sliding his hands up my arms, ending with pinning my hands above my head.

“Me,” I groan.  I’m never going to last.  “Why the girls?”

“Distraction,” Ron admits.

I laugh even as I arch upward again.  “We’re so fucking stupid.”

“That’s...that’s what Hermione said,” Ron moans.

It finally occurs to me that Hermione engineered this whole thing.  I can’t be angry at the moment, though, not when Ron is hard and naked over me.

My breath freezes when Ron releases one hand to slide it between my legs to my arse.  I spread my legs and groan like the most wanton slut Ron has ever had in bed.

“Lube?”

“Drawer.”

Between the two of us – suddenly as eager as puppies, in sharp contrast to my mortification earlier – we find the lube and get it open.  A moment later, Ron’s lubed fingers are prepping me, spreading me open.

“Done this before?” I hiss, trailing off into a moan.

“Only brought home the girls,” he answers.

My brain stutters then skips forward at his response.  He’s been with men before.  Practice or frustration?  Then he spreads my thighs wide and rests his cock at my opening.  He’s going to fuck me...he’s going to fuck me.

“Inside,” I demand.

His grin is wicked as he grips my hips and presses in.  The burning sensation is offset by the fact this is Ron.  The expression on his face is better than I imagined:  total concentration and arousal.

“Fuck, Harry,” Ron groans.

“Please,” I respond with a grin.

He pulls out and slams back inside with a laugh.

It’s not long before both of us are panting.  My hands slide over his sweat-slicked back while he uses one hand on my hip to brace himself and the other hand to stroke my aching cock.

And when that bead of sweat I imagined earlier forms on his brow, I watch it with greedy intensity.  His thrusts grow more forceful as we both approach orgasm.  I’m surprised, though, when he shifts my legs to his shoulders.  With that move his cock hits my prostate with nearly every thrust.

The anticipated bead of sweat from his brow falls on my face as I arch upward and come.  I coat both our stomachs and my thighs with my come – once again soiling myself but much more pleasurably this time.  It takes three more thrusts for Ron to come, filling me.

Only when his weight on my legs becomes uncomfortable do I shift positions.  I try to pull away, to take a shower to clean myself rather than from shame this time, but Ron wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me to spoon back against him.

“Are we angry with Hermione or not?” he asks, amused and slightly sleepy.

“We should let her stew,” I reply, yawning.

“Sounds good.”