“Come on, Ron!” I call up the stairs.  We have only a small Apparition window of ten minutes and he’s burning through that time.  Hermione stands in the doorway, tapping the face of her watch with a fingernail.  I shrug helplessly.

A moment later, we hear Ron thunder down the steps.  He all but skids into the foyer.  Hermione preventatively casts a Silencing Charm on Mrs. Black’s portrait as the curtains fly open.  Looking between the portrait and Ron, Hermione shakes her head, then murmurs, “Let’s go.”

Three cracks of Apparition later, we arrive in a remote corner of Wales inside the Bryn Celli Ddu mound.  Ron tries to stand straight and hits the back of his head on the overhead stones.

“Shite!” he cries, then adds, “Fuck!” to that when Hermione smacks the back of his head.

“Ronald!” she chastises.  I smother a grin as Hermione pulls a torch out of her rucksack.  Ron shuts his mouth and rubs the back of his head.

“Do you know what we’re looking for, Harry?” Hermione asks.

“Not exactly,” I answer softly.  Every clue led me here, near Godric’s Hollow, to find Gryffindor’s Horcrux.  No clue, however, told me what the Horcrux was or where exactly it would be.

I collapse onto the ground, settling into a comfortable sitting position, and rest my wand in my lap.

“What are you doing, Harry?” Ron asks.

“Shush!” Hermione barks.

“I’m only asking.”

I hold up my hands and they both fall to silence.  Layer by layer, I let down my Occlumency shields.  When I drop the third layer, magic slaps at me, both the ancient magic of the stones and something much more recent.

“Hermione?” I begin.  “Was this place ever excavated by the Wizarding world?”

She twirls a lock of hair around her fingers, tilting her head to one side.  “It’s been excavated by Muggles several times, the most recent being in the twenties.  I don’t think it’s ever been excavated by wizards.”

I make a non-committal noise and drop another layer of shields.  The magic that comes back to me nearly overwhelms me.  I open my eyes, not even realizing I’d closed them.

“All right, mate?” Ron asks, helping me back into a sitting position.

“How did I end up –”

“On the ground?” Ron interrupts.  I nod.

“I don’t know,” Hermione whispers.  “You made a noise, then your eyes seemed to roll back in your head.”

“Can you feel it?” I ask softly.  Even with half my shields in place, the magic is pulsing against me.  It’s nearly a physical thing, the fingers of it stroking against exposed skin.

They exchange a look.  “Feel what, Harry?” Hermione asks cautiously.

“The magic,” I reply sharply.  Why can’t they feel it?

“Harry?” Ron says in the same tone of voice Hermione used.

I slap my hands to the dirt floor underneath me.  “I’m not losing my mind.  The magic is here.  This is the right place.”

Hermione kneels beside me and touches the back of her hand to my forehead.  I moan at the contact and Hermione yanks her hand away as if burned.

“Harry?”  Her voice shakes.

I drop the next layer of shields and another moan escapes me.  The magic here is even more of a physical presence now, pressing against my skin from head to toe as if I were naked.  Lying back, I move my limbs into a spread-eagle position.

Both Ron and Hermione kneel beside me.  Hermione’s knee brushes my thigh and a guttural moan slips from me.  Any touch amplifies the erotic sensation of the magic, it seems.  Drawing a deep breath, I try to calm myself.  I won’t be able to do a damn thing if I can’t think.

Ron leans over me to take the torch from Hermione, his thigh pressing into my ribs as he does.

The sensation is at least twice that of when Hermione touched me, making me arch upward as if under a lover.  Ron jumps backward, landing against the stone wall with a muffled curse.

“What is it, Harry?” Hermione demands.  Ron pushes himself off the wall and makes a move to touch me, stopping dead when Hermione shouts, “No!”  She pushes his hand away and they both move back from me.  It feels as if my skin is too small for my body, stretched taut and tense over my skeleton.  “Don’t touch him, Ron.”

“Yeah, I got that idea,” Ron says sarcastically.

“Harry, what’s happening?”

I close my eyes and allow my senses to just feel.  The magic is still there, but not as overwhelming now that they’ve moved back.  I lick my lips, then gasp at the sensual feel of my tongue against my skin.

“The magic...the magic here...overwhelming,” I finally manage.

“Overwhelming in what way?” Hermione asks.

“Hermione,” Ron says warningly.  Hermione makes a shushing sound and I can just imagine the hand motion that accompanies the sound.

“Overwhelming in what way, Harry?” she repeats.  I know she’s trying to figure out what’s going on but I’m finding it very difficult to string words together.

“Erotic,” I rasp.  “Pressing down...everywhere.”

I hear her rummage through the rucksack.  “And when we touch you?”

I moan.  “More, it’s more.”  She makes a noise I can’t identify and I hear her stand and walk over to Ron.  Their whispers are at the edge of my hearing.  “More with Ron.”  Their whispers end abruptly.

“The sensations are stronger when Ron touches you than when I do?”

“Yes,” I hiss.  The urge to lower my shields completely is strong and getting stronger, as if the magic is working as a lever against my willpower.

She makes another noise, something between a huff and a hum.  “Are you able to raise your Occlumency shields?”

I don’t want to and that frightens me.  However, to test her theory, I try.  And can’t.  “No,” I whisper.

“Hmm.”  I hear whispering again, then, “Harry, did you know that there is a theory that Godric Gryffindor was gay?”

“Hermione, what the hell have you been reading?” Ron demands.

“Research papers,” she replies primly.  Ron growls, and I recognize the sound as one he makes when he’s utterly frustrated with her.  “Ron, try to dig.”

“Hermione, you’re nutters.”

“Yes, you already knew that,” she retorts impatiently.  “Dig.”

I force my head to the side to watch.  Ron rolls his eyes, grabs a shovel from the rucksack and tries to dig.  I say “tries” because he can’t move the shovel; it’s stuck in the ground as if shoved into wet cement.

“Now go touch Harry,” she orders.  I whimper.

He rolls his eyes, but moves to press his palm to mine.  I arch off the ground once again, an image of pinning him to the wall and doing things to him that I’ve only done to his sister filling my brain.  Ron yanks his hand away at my reaction.

“Ah,” Hermione says softly, her voice carrying that note of triumph she has when she’s figured something out.

“What is it, Hermione?” Ron asks, turning.  Once he turns, I can see that she was able to dig a small hole during the time he and I were touching.  “Shit.”

“It’s the two of you,” she replies.  “The two of you are the ones able to get to the Horcrux.”  She tips her head to the side.  “That is what’s here, right, Harry?”

“Yes,” I respond curtly.

Unable to resist any longer, I drop another layer of my shields.  Not only does it make me more aroused, but sensuous images of me with another man fill my imagination.  Thoughts of being nude and in the Quidditch showers with Ron; of being nude and pressed face-first to a wall with Ron behind me; of being nude and on all-fours underneath Ron.  All with Ron.  I grit my teeth so I don’t beg him to fulfill those fantasy images.

“And he has to be touching you while I search,” she adds thoughtfully.  My eyes roll back in my head as all I can do is grunt affirmatively.  “Go on then, Ron.”

“What?” he exclaims, moving away until he’s once more against the wall of the chamber.

My willpower now gone, my shields fall completely.  The sensations are overwhelming, eliciting a deep groan from me as my cock, trapped inside my jeans, becomes hard enough to hurt.

“Ron,” I gasp, twisting toward him.  I only make it to my side.  Prying my eyes open, I search for him, only to gasp and groan when I find him.  “Please.”

A gamut of emotions run across his face.  I can tell he’s torn between wanting to help and horror.  I can’t help him, trapped as I am inside the magic driving me to him.  This would be so much easier if Gryffindor had been straight.

“Harry, do you have any shields up?”  Hermione’s voice is very matter-of-fact, anchoring me.

“No.”  I pause to writhe a moment under the fresh onslaught of images involving Ron.  “Need....”  I roll onto my stomach, pressing my face into the dirt, sweat caking it to mud on my skin.

“Ron, you have to help him,” Hermione says.  I can almost hear her hands on her hips and her death-glare.  “Can’t you see he’s in pain?  You’re the only one that can help.”

“Hermione –”

“Don’t you ‘Hermione’ me, Ronald.  We’re here to help Harry.  You need to help Harry.”

The silence stretches between the three of us, made worse by my panting in extreme arousal.  Tension coils tighter inside me, both sexual and magical.  There needs to be a release soon or my magic will explode.  A drawn-out groan escapes my throat when I feel Ron move toward me and crouch behind me.

He doesn’t touch me yet.  “Harry?” he asks tentatively.  I don’t know if he’s asking if it’s okay or asking me what I want, but it doesn’t matter.

“Now, Ron,” I groan from behind gritted teeth.  I part my legs instinctively, inviting him to move closer.

When he does, once he moves inside the “bubble” created around me by the magic inside this mound, it’s all I can do not to attack him.  It’s as if something slides into place, the penultimate piece in a puzzle, and I want more, need more.  A murmured spell leaves both of us naked.

“Oh my,” Hermione whispers.

Rising to my hands and knees, I shove my arse backwards at Ron.  I’m not entirely in control of myself at this point, both in thrall to the magic and my own lust.  The first touch of his hand against my hip makes me quiver, cock bobbing against my stomach.  He slides that calloused hand over my sweat-slicked skin, tracing the bumps of my spine.

“Please,” I beg, hoping he’ll understand.  I need him.

I feel him kneel, only inches separating us.  The knowledge tears at me until I thrust backwards again.  He’s hard.  His cock nestles between my arse cheeks as he grips my hips with sweaty hands.

“Please, Ron,” I whisper harshly.  I’m going to go mad soon.

But then he responds.  I feel the touch of his wand at the base of my spine, then a cold gel fills my arse, startling me.  Ron trails his fingers over my tailbone, then lower, slipping one inside me.  I cross my arms and drop my head onto them.  It feels as if my skin is prickling with static electricity, like my magic is just going to explode out of me without control.

Ron drags his finger out, replacing it with the head of his cock.  I shove backwards again, restless – then startled and in pain when that movement drives him inside me.

“Oh my,” Hermione rasps.

“Damn, Harry, hold still!” Ron orders, gripping my hips tightly enough to leave bruises later.

I can’t, I can’t be still.  I need to move, need to have him, just need.  “Fuck me, Ron, hard, right now.”

“But Harry –”

“Now!”

He withdraws nearly all the way before thrusting in to the hilt once again.  Sound around me dwindles to hearing our mutual heavy, raspy breathing punctuated by our skin slapping together.  The magic in the air feels heavy and close, hovering just above and around us, waiting for something.  In the back of my mind, it does occur to me that the situation is odd, but the thought skitters away before I can consider it fully.

I brace my hands so I’m on all-fours just before I drop my head into the dirt once again.  Ron releases one hip to reach around for my cock, tugging it roughly.  My fingers curl into the dirt, digging furrows.

“Bite me,” I growl.  I’ve never liked that sort of violence during sex before, so I can only guess that the burning need I have for his teeth on me has to do with the magic here.

“Where?”

“Shoulder,” I pant.  “Close...please...harder.”

Something builds inside me, something more than a simple orgasm, when Ron bends over me and presses his lips to my sweaty shoulder.  As if there is a knot of magic in my belly that needs escape, I can barely wait for Ron’s teeth, and buck upward to meet him.  He mumbles a curse against my skin before sinking his teeth into the muscle there.

“More,” I pant.

I feel his initial reluctance until the first wave of my climax all but melts me.  His teeth sink deeper, drawing blood, as I groan gutturally and come over his hand.  Ron shifts and comes as well.  The magic building inside me explodes when the first drop of blood falls to the dirt beneath me.

It takes both Ron and Hermione to drag me away from the hole rapidly opening in the floor.

I’m not surprised this time when I find myself staring at the ceiling of the chamber.  I need a shower.

“Harry?” Hermione says tentatively.  I blink.  “Harry?”

“Yes?”

“You, um, might want to, um, put something on,” she mumbles, tripping over her own words.

Damn, even if this isn’t the last Horcrux, discovering a way to make Hermione speechless is worth the effort.

After my first attempt to sit up fails, Ron takes my arm and helps me up.  He’s dragged his jeans and shoes back on, but nothing else.  I blink.

“You...okay?” he asks.  Somehow “okay” doesn’t seem to be anything near how I feel, but I nod and he gives a relieved half-smile.  “You want me to heal that?”  He waves absently at the angry bite on my shoulder.

I shrug – wincing as I do so – but shake my head.  Not only do I have the suspicion I might need to make use of my blood before we’re done here, but I want the reminder of Ron, of what we did.

With the assistance of both of them, I stand.  It’s too much effort to find the clothes I Banished earlier, so I conjure jeans and shoes while ignoring Hermione’s sigh.  From the edge of the chamber, I pull Gryffindor’s sword from where I’d hidden it earlier.  I didn’t know what I’d need to do to get to the Horcrux and didn’t want the sword damaged.

Hermione sighs again.  Ron and I both glare at her, making her narrow her eyes and hiss at both of us, “Two handsome men in nothing but jeans?  And you don’t expect me to have a little fantasy, especially with what I witnessed?”  Ron both pales and blushes, something I didn’t know was possible; I merely roll my eyes.

Amused, I turn my attention to the brand-new hole in the ground, ignoring how uncomfortable I feel.

About seven feet in diameter, it sits nearly dead center inside the mound chamber.  Two steps puts me to the rim of it, knocking pebbles loose.  I can’t see the bottom, but the clatter of the pebbles tells me it’s about thirty feet.  Taking care not to fall, I sit on the edge and dangle my feet over.

“Levitate each other?” Ron suggests, looking at Hermione for verification.

“We don’t know what’s down there,” she protests.

“It’s the Horcrux,” I say softly.

“You can’t be sure.”

I glare at her.  “If it weren’t there, the sex magic Ron and I performed wouldn’t have opened a portal.”  Ron flushes again.

She has the courtesy to look abashed.  “You first, then?”

Once the three of us are inside the pit, Hermione casts a bluebell flame for us to see by.  I shouldn’t be surprised when the first thing the flames illuminate is a door.

“Just once I’d like this to be easy,” Ron mutters.  Hermione coughs something that sounds a lot like Harry was but I ignore it.

The door is suspiciously plain but for the knob.  The knob doesn’t have a traditional keyhole, but a fitting.  Kneeling, I motion for Hermione to bring the flame closer.  I grin and lift the sword.  The jewel in the end of the hilt fits perfectly, but the door still doesn’t open.  With an annoyed sigh, I switch hands, holding the sword with my left, so I can reach up to the still-bleeding bite and coat my palm with blood.  The door springs open once I touch the knob with my bloody hand.

In the corner of my eye, I see Hermione and Ron exchange a look between them, but they follow me into the room.

There is a small table with two chairs, an empty sideboard and a single shelf, all oddly free of dust.  None of that is what draws my attention.  Hanging on a rusty hook on the wall is an intricately worked leather scabbard.  The Horcrux.

Cautiously, I lay the sword on the table before crossing the room.  I stretch my magic out, using it to search the room as well as my eyes.  The background magic, what so drove me over the edge when we first arrived at Bryn Celli Ddu, has dissipated.  It’s still there, but no longer overwhelms me.

I wipe my shoulder once again, coating my hand with my blood, before grasping the scabbard.  With each of the other Horcruxes we’ve found since June, there has been some residue I could feel, as if there was an oily magical sheen to the item.  There is nothing to this one, but I know it’s a Horcrux.

“This one feels different,” I say softly, laying the scabbard on the table.

“Different how?” Hermione asks, moving to my side.

I run my hands over the worked leather, feeling each of the etchings as if it told a story of its own.  There’s just a different sensation from this Horcrux, one I can’t quite pinpoint until I smile.

“Menace,” I answer.  “There’s no menace emanating from this one.”

Hermione sits so quickly in one of the chairs that I glance over to make sure she hasn’t fallen down.  Ron takes the chair opposite.

“No menace?” he clarifies.  “No Dark Lord feeling from this one?”

I shake my head.  There is some feeling of Riddle in this, but not much.

“Could it be the last one he created?” Hermione suggests.

“Possibly,” I murmur.

Narrowing my eyes, I grab the sword with my right hand and the scabbard with my left.  Before either of them can stop me, I sheath the sword.

When I open my eyes again, I find myself staring at the ceiling.  Again.  Seeing stars this time, too.

“You stupid fuck!” Ron screams at me.  “You could have killed yourself!”

“Ron!” Hermione chides, brushing the hair back from my forehead.  When she pulls her hand back, the fingertips are bloody.

I cough when I try to speak.  Hermione helps me sit up then conjures a glass of water.  I sip it slowly, watching Ron pace and mutter under his breath.  I only catch a few words and most are about my brain, lack of it, whether my parents were married and if my mother dropped me on my head as a baby.  While he’s a fine one to talk about doing stupid things, he does have a point.

I pour a bit of water over my dirty hands, then reach up to scrub my forehead.  Ah, my scar was bleeding.

“What happened?” I ask upon regaining my voice.  Ron stops and stares at me before shaking his head again and resuming pacing.

“You, um, apparently destroyed the Horcrux,” Hermione answers softly.

“‘Um, apparently’?” I repeat, voice rising.  “Hermione.”

Now it’s apparently her turn to pace.  After Ron runs into her once, he sits down to watch the spectacle of Hermione in a rant.

“I should have known the rumors were true, okay?  If I’d known the rumors were true, both of you could have been prepped beforehand and what you had to do wouldn’t have come as such a shock.  Well, maybe prepped isn’t the right word.  Or is it?”  She huffs and changes direction.  “Then I would have remembered the other story I’d heard.  The one about Gryffindor and Slytherin.”

“Wh –” Ron begins, but stops when I reach across the table and lay a hand on his arm.

“Why would I think that would be true, of all things?  I mean, honestly.  But then you destroyed the Horcrux that way, Harry, and I knew.  Oh, I wish I could write about these things.  Don’t get that look, Ronald, I wouldn’t tell them how you opened the second chamber, but imagine if I told the truth!”

She finishes breathlessly, all but collapsing on the edge of the table.

Ron meets my eyes behind her back and grins mischievously.  Poking her in the thigh with his index finger, he says, “Hermione?  What the bloody hell are you on about?”

“Don’t curse, Ron,” she says primly.  I cough to cover my grin at that – as if she didn’t get off on watching Ron and I together and didn’t complain once about our cursing then.  “The Horcrux, of course.”

Ron nods sagely, but ruins the effect with a laugh.  “What other story about Gryffindor and Slytherin?”

She huffs, hops off the table and paces again.  I close my eyes to listen because watching her is making me dizzy.

“The first rumor I’d heard was the one I told you earlier:  that Godric Gryffindor was gay.  The other rumor I’d heard was that Gryffindor and Slytherin were lovers.  It makes sense.  It helps explain why Harry didn’t sense the Horcrux like he had with the others.”

“It does?” Ron says.

“Yes, it does.  Don’t you see?  Gryffindor’s artifact wanted to keep that part of Slytherin that Tom Riddle put in there!  And when Harry sheathed the sword, they could no longer coexist.”

I feel all of twelve when the memory of Ron sheathing his sword makes my face flame.

Ron scratches his head.  “They couldn’t?”

I open my eyes, startled, when Hermione slaps her hands on the tabletop.  “The sword was made for the scabbard, two parts of Gryffindor.  The Horcrux was created from the scabbard alone because it’d been separated from the sword for a long time.  When Harry reunited the sword with the scabbard, it cleaved the Horcrux from the scabbard.”

“So why is my scar bleeding?” I ask.  It’s never bled with any other Horcrux destruction.

“Well, mate, um...” Ron fades out and looks to Hermione to explain.

“Boys, it’s a wonder you can pull your pants on in the morning.”  She settles herself on the table before explaining.  “When the Horcrux was ejected, it didn’t die immediately, but tried to find a home.”

I feel ill.  “My scar,” I whisper.

“Your scar,” Hermione confirms.  “But Ron prevented it.”  He won’t meet my eyes this time.  “He shoved you to the ground and kissed you, and kept kissing you until the Horcrux, which had partially attached itself to you, died from love.”

“What?” I whisper, astonished.

She huffs again.  “Stupid boys.  You’re in love with each other.”  As we begin to protest, she raises a hand and we subside.  “Yes, yes, I know, you aren’t gay, you don’t like boys and all that shite.  But you’re in love with each other.  You think about that and I’m going out into the sunshine.”

We both silently watch her leave the room then hear her levitate herself back to the main chamber.  When the silence has become uncomfortable, I finally look up at Ron.  He’s looking at me.

A half-smile tilts one corner of his mouth.  “We’re good?”

Something lifts from my heart, though I don’t dare say it out loud.  “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Don’t forget the sword and scabbard, Harry!” Hermione calls from above.

“Guess we should leave now,” Ron murmurs.

“Reckon so.”

We’re both dirty, bloody and sweaty, but when he pulls me up from my chair, wraps his arms around me and kisses me, none of that matters.  He’s mine.