Gay Harry Potter-06-2a-Johnny and Alan

by jerome1980

Hogwarts 1996. The Nine O'Clock Club has been set up to get around Professor Dumbledore's security restrictions. Johnny Rudd is a country boy, secretly gay, desperate for his best friend, Justin Finch-Fletchley not to find out. Alan Campbell is a first-year townie, with plenty of relationships within his age-group behind him. Now the Club has thrown them together for a night.

GAY HARRY POTTER-06-2a-TALES FROM THE NINE O'CLOCK CLUB JOHNNY AND ALAN

1. Johnny

John Rudd had been a worry to his parents. They never said anything; never gave overt signs; but every time that Johnny was allowed to play with a magic wand, there was an underlying tension.

So when, at the age of nine, he managed to produce a shower of multi-coloured sparks from his mother's wand, Mr and Mrs Rudd were overjoyed.

Johnny was no more than mildly pleased: yes, it would be good fun to do magic; but it wouldn't have been so awful to be a Squib: his best friend Justin Finch-Fletchley was a Muggle, after all.

By the time he was ten, John Rudd had started thinking about his life: there were some questions that might never be answered; that might always remain mysterious:

Why had he, despite being a pure-blood, have taken so long to show any magical powers?

Why should he, with the ruddiest complexion in town, have found himself part of a family called Rudd?

Why should he, though born into a normal, sexually conventional family, have turned out to be what Dad (Mr Rudd) called a queer—and Johnny had no doubts about that fact?

Was there a special connection with Lorna Darne, the girl next door—Johnny had read a Muggle comic in which the main characters were called John Ridd and Lorna Doone?

One Sunday in April, Johnny sat on a fallen tree in Barton copse, thinking about these issues. There was a Bang! from nearby: Ben Yill was shooting crows, rooks and pigeons in the big field of wheat.

Ben was a Muggle boy; five years older than Johnny; an innocent, happy moron. He had fallen through the cracks of the Muggle totalitarian system, being unknown to the Educational, Health, Social and (surprisingly) Legal authorities, all of whom would have been appalled at the thought of a Special-Needs Youth being allowed free play with a 12 bore.

Farmer Thomas had no such misgivings, using Ben and his parents (a thirty-year-old brother and sister) as providers of cheap, off-the-books labour.

Bang! Ben was working his way towards the far side of the cornfield.

Johnny resumed his meditations on the mysteries of existence—existence in general and his own in particular. The world of magic seemed full of unfathomable interconnections.

Perhaps they would become less unfathomable in a year's time, when he would be going away to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This was a boarding school like the one which his Muggle friend Justin Finch-Fletchley attended—or rather not like it: Mr Rudd often referred to Hawtreys as a Poofs' Paradise, or a Homo's Holiday. Mr Rudd loathed rich people nearly as much as he loathed queer people.

Johnny thoughts were interrupted by the approach of Ben Yill, who had worked his way around the field.

Ben was tiny and walked with an odd gait as if he were deformed, though as far as Johnny knew, he had a sound, if skimpy, body.

Close-to he had the face of a crafty ape.

He rested his shotgun against a tree, walked up to Johnny and told him: "Ben got the 'orn."

"Oh yeah?" said Johnny non-committedly.

Ben untied the cord around his waist and what had once been half of someone's demob suit fell to his ankles. He did indeed have the horn: a startlingly white cock, about as long as a teaspoon and about the thickness of a slow-worm.

"Ben wants to put ee in Mas' Johnny's poo-nest," he said.

"No! Go away!" said Johnny.

There were so many reasons for not taking up Ben's offer: he was repulsive and probably diseased; someone might catch them at it; Ben would expect to be allowed to do it regularly; he would probably blab.

The last reason was probably the strongest: Johnny spent much of his life terrified that, somehow, his queerness would become visible to others; that he might say or do something that would give the game away.

If his father knew . . . or Justin. . . .

Johnny would rather have died.

Justin especially . . . he was virulently anti-queer. Once, he had told Johnny that one of Farmer Thomas's sons had caught Ben shagging a goose. The goose was demeaning itself, he said.

Yes, if he did it with Ben Yill and Justin found out, Johnny would kill himself.

Ben was not in the least put out by Johnny's response to his suggestion: he started rubbing his cock, pulling the loose skin backwards and forwards.

Justin had told him that the boys at his school called this spunking up. He had seen it demonstrated by an older boy in a senior dormitory. Creamy spunk came out the end of his cock. On one occasion, another older boy had asked Justin to use his hand and spunk him up. Justin had told the filthy homo to piss off.

Johnny sometimes rubbed himself in the same way as Ben was now doing. He could not spunk up, of course, but it always produced a mild feeling of pleasure which, at the same time, was somehow incomplete.

He didn't want to look at Ben, but couldn't stop himself. He had never seen another boy spunking up; had never even seen someone else's cock as close as this. He looked at the scrawny thighs, the bony hips and the cobwebby hair at the base of Ben's cock. Then he looked at the purple tip, which became visible with every downward stroke.

And as he looked, a tiny drop of spunk came from end of the cock, followed by a little more, oozing out.

Johnny was still assimilating this new sight when Ben wiped his hand on his already-filthy shirt, pulled his trousers up, tied the cord and returned the way he had come, saying: "Ben go 'an shoot some more birds."

Justin had said that older boys described spunking up as giving a wonderful feeling of pleasure, but Ben had shown no enjoyment at all: he might just as well have been polishing his gun-barrel.

To his disgust, Johnny found that he had the horn too. He felt an urge to rub his cock, but found no difficulty in resisting: it would be really queer to get excited by Ben Yill.

He thought of Justin, who he loved, and who attracted him more than any other boy. Justin was not exactly beautiful, but his curly blond hair, healthy chubbiness and friendly manner made him the epitome of ten-tear-old wholesomeness. Johnny thought how wonderful it would have been had it been Justin standing in front of him rubbing his cock.

He must have seen Justin's cock when they were younger, but for the last two or three years he had never dared to look at it, even when they were pissing together.

Johnny sometimes felt ice down his spine as he wondered if Justin ever suspected the Great Secret.

The next day, Mrs Finch-Fletchley drove Johnny to the railway station to meet Justin, who was coming home for the Easter holidays.

She was dressed in expensive clothes and had an expensive hairdo. As she drove her expensive car, and spoke to Johnny in her ultra-posh accent, Johnny could hardly believe that this woman had spent a year of her life in prison.

Mr and Mrs Finch-Fletchley had run a company specialising in handling investments for gullible Muggles. These investments had mostly gone straight into anonymous foreign bank accounts.

After ten lucrative years, the couple had enough put aside for them to start a family—not that Justin's mother paid much attention to her son when he did arrive, preferring to leave his care to the nursery staff, including Mrs Rudd.

Perhaps, however, pregnancy and childbirth made the Finch-Fletchleys careless. For whatever reason, the Muggle police arrived en masse at half past six one morning and, after pleading guilty in return for a supposed lessening of the sentences, Mr Finch-Fletchley got six years and his wife two.

The Finch-Fletchleys declared bankruptcy, yet the house remained unsold with the wages of the caretakers and gardeners paid on time.

While Mrs Finch-Fletchley was away, Baby Justin was cared for in the Rudd household, along with Baby Johnny, his junior by six months.

Overnight, Mr and Mrs Rudd went from near-poverty to something better than comfortable: Mr Rudd was earning good money as a time-served Wizard Carpenter, and Mrs Rudd was receiving bucket-loads of money from the Finch-Fletchleys' Muggle solicitor; the payments were meant to be for the care of Justin.

All this time Johnny and Justin had been growing up as brothers. They sometimes talked about this, and laughed at the intimacies they must have shared, but neither of them could remember anything.

They agreed, however, that they had a close bond, and one thankfully free from sibling rivalry.

The Finch-Fletchleys had offered to pay for Johnny to go to Hawtreys, but Mr and Mrs Rudd blocked that move—they both felt that eleven was quite early enough for their beloved Johnny to become a part-time son; besides, there was Mr Rudd's socialism and homophobia.

When Justin got off the train, Johnny wanted to kiss him, but it was Mrs Finch-Fletchley who offered him the corner of her cheek, and Johnny had to be satisfied with a manly handshake.

In the back of the Range Rover, they exchanged their experiences in two high-speed gabbles.

The next day, Justin came round after breakfast. Mr Rudd had long since left for his carpentry shop, and Mrs Rudd was getting ready to leave for her job in a cauldron factory—by Apparition, though Justin did not, of course, know that.

"Shall we go to the Lake, Johnny?" asked Justin.

"Looks like rain; I should stay nearer home, boys," said Mrs Rudd.

"We'll wait and see if it clears up, Mum," said Johnny.

"Okay; there's chicken and salad in the fridge," said Mrs Rudd, "Now I'll have to dash for that bus."

"See yer, Mum."

"See yer, Mrs Rudd."

The two boys hung around all of five minutes before losing patience and setting off on their bikes for the Lake, which was ten miles away.

"You're not wobbling!" shouted Johnny.

"You never forget!" said his friend, who did not have a bike at his school.

The lake was deserted except for two anglers who weren't going to let minor inconveniences like the Fishing Season deprive them of their fun.

Still panting from their final sprint, the two friends sat on a bench and lit up cigarettes. With sardonic precision, the first raindrops started to fall. Before long they had to make a dash for the bus shelter on the main road as the rain became torrential, bouncing up so high from the tarmac that it looked as though the road was steaming.

"It can't last long," said Justin.

He was correct: the rain downgraded itself from torrent to downpour. There was no sign of any further let-up.

They smoked some more cigarettes and talked about their schools; the coming cricket season; the books they had read; the latest models of bikes.

Anything rather than admit that they had lumbered themselves with a ten-mile ride which would end up with them being wet through.

Traffic was sparse on the road, the most significant vehicle being a tarted-up and souped-up van.

"That's a brand-new Range Rover," said Justin, "First one I've seen for ages."

"I'd have thought there'd be millions at Hawtreys," said Johnny.

"Plenty of old ones," said Justin, "Very old: parents aren't as rich as your dad seems to think: some of them are really scraping to afford school fees."

"Not much scraping for whoever bought that one."

"Au contraire," laughed Justin, "Lots of scraping: that was Alpine White and it'll need washing every day."

They were still giggling when the Range Rover returned and pulled into the bus stop.

The window lowered, and the passenger said: "Alright boys? Stuck in the rain?"

"Yes," said Justin.

He was quite a pleasant-looking man in his mid-thirties.

"Would you like us to drive you home? We can get your bikes in the back."

The boys glanced at each other, then Justin said: "That would be brilliant. Thanks very much."

The passenger turned to the driver.

"Time for a cig, Alf?" he asked.

"Certainly, Tony," came the reply.

The passenger got out the car, took out a gold cigarette case and proffered it, saying: "Alf doesn't allow smoking in the car."

The driver came out of the car. He did not smoke, but supervised the introductions and subsequent conversation. He was a good ten or fifteen years older than his companion, and talked in a classy accent.

"I hope we're not causing you too much inconvenience, Sir?" said Justin.

"Please, Dear Boy!" said the driver, "Not Sir but Alf; and my partner is Tony."

Johnny thought he was quite a good looking man for his age—he must be nearly old enough to be the boys' grandfather; but not old enough to be Tony's father.

"As to inconvenience, don't trouble yourself: Tony and I specialise in antique furniture, paintings, objets d'art et de vertu, collectibles, and so on. We spend a lot of time driving about seeking superior artifacts and, by happy chance, stumbled on you two lads."

"What Alf means," laughed Tony "is that you two fabulously good-looking boys are high-quality works of art!"

Johnny and Justin said nothing, but Johnny felt himself blushing, and to his surprise, saw Justin's face pinkening a little.

"Don't embarrass the lads, Tony," said Alf, smilingly, "I suppose you two are best friends?"

"Yes, Sir—Alf," said Justin, "but I'm at Hawtreys, so we only see each other during the holidays."

"Ah, Hawtreys," said Alf, "My prep school used to play them at cricket."

For some reason, Tony giggled at this.

"Happy days!" said Alf, ignoring, him, "When I think of the sort of antics me and my best friend used to get up to . . ."

Tony giggled again, and said: "You're still up for antics, Alf; you're a very naughty boy!"

There was a bit more joshing, which Johnny found exciting. Tony paid an equal amount of attention to each lad, but the older man was much more interested in Johnny.

They were two queers! Johnny was sure. He had never met any queers before, but here they were; and the elder one fancied him. If only Justin and the other fellow hadn't been there . . .

When the cigarettes were finished, they squeezed themselves and the bikes into the car.

"Might as well go to my place as it's nearer," said Johnny.

"Yeah, shall we get your Subbuteo out?" said Justin.

"Yeah, it's perfect table cricket weather."

When they got to Johnny's house, they unloaded the bikes and said their thank yous.

Then Johnny asked: "Would you like to come in for elevenses? We've got decent tea and coffee; I'm sure Mum and Dad wouldn't mind me offering you sherry, but I don't think that you'd find it very nice."

"Coffee would be wonderful, Dear Boy," said Alf.

They went in through the back door, into the kitchen, wiping their feet thoroughly. Johnny ushered his three guests into the living-room and returned to the kitchen to get the percolator going.

Almost immediately, he heard the passage door opening. He looked round and saw Alf coming in. He smiled and said: "Justin will show you the loo."

"No, no," said Alf, "I thought I'd come in and see if I could give you a hand."

"It's all under control, thanks," said Johnny, turning back to spoon out the coffee from the open tin.

Then Alf was next to him, looking at the tin.

"Ah, Kenyan," he said, "My favourite too."

He rested his hand on Johnny's bottom.

Johnny jumped slightly, then, feeling that he had been impolite, pressed backwards against Alf's hand.

"Sorry," he said, "You startled me."

He turned towards Alf and smiled.

Alf squeezed his bottom and moved his head closer.

"You're a really special young man," he said, intensely.

Johnny heart was racing—mainly through happiness. A man's feeling me and he's going to kiss me he thought.

Just at the wrong moment, there came a tremendous thump and two yells from the living-room.

Johnny and Alf froze for a moment, then darted out.

Justin was standing dumbfounded and staring at Tony who was lying on the floor.

"What happened, Anthony?" asked Alf.

"I d-don't know!" said Tony, "There were a load of coloured stars and I fell down."

Johnny was still dazed from the astonishing events of the last sixty seconds; otherwise he would have realised that magic had occurred.

As it turned out, he was soon enlightened: there was a loud Crack! and an efficient-looking man dressed in wizard garb Apparated.

"Dawlish, Auror's Office," he announced, "Report of unregistered juvenile wizard committing a magical assault on a Muggle.

"What's going on? Who the hell are you?" shouted Alf.

Johnny noticed that his vowels were less rounded than before.

Dawlish took out his wand and pronounced: Muggletes Dormiant! causing the two men to fall asleep.

"Johnny, what's happening?" said a befuddled Justin.

"The man'll explain," said Johnny.

He couldn't believe it: Justin was a wizard!

"Ah, you're the lucky boy!" said Dawlish to Justin, "Name . . . Address . . . Date of Birth . . . Blood Status . . ."

"Eh?" said Justin.

"Muggle-born," said Johnny.

"Does he know anything at all about wizardry?" asked Dawlish.

"Nothing," said Johnny.

"That was a very strong spell for a Muggle-born. Still, being in the family home amplifies things considerably."

"He's not in the family home," said Johnny.

"I gave you my address," said Justin.

"So you did," said Dawlish, "Funny, though: we thought there was maternal influence. Are you sure your mother's not a witch?"

The two boys laughed.

"Yeah, yeah," smiled Dawlish, "Did your mother perhaps work in this house?"

The two boys laughed even more.

"We're not being rude," Johnny told Dawlish, "but my mother used to work in Justin's house."

"Leading to you two become close," said Dawlish, "Well, Justin, your friend John is a wizard, and it looks like the close bond between the two of you has infected you with his magic. It happens that way quite often. It's usually kicked off by emotional trauma. What happened today?"

"Johnny and Alf—that one—were in the kitchen making the coffee, and I sat down on the sofa," began Justin, "Tony—that one—sat next to me and put his hand on my knee. I thought it was a bit presumptuous, but wasn't all that bothered. Then he . . . then he . . ."

"Let me guess," said Dawlish, "He moved onto your privates."

"I didn't give him any encouragement," said Justin.

"I'm sure you didn't, son. Don't go blaming yourself; he's just an opportunist who probably tries it on with every boy he meets—and every girl as like as not: there's no end of the things these perverts get up to; and there's no end to the number of times it leads to an unwilled outbreak of magic."

He turned to Johnny: "Did the other one do anything to you?"

"Oh no," said Johnny, and thought: More's the pity!

"Who are they?" asked Dawlish.

The boys recounted the morning's events. Dawlish revived Alf and Tony and, after Obliviation and Confunding, they shook hands all round and parted.

Johnny noticed that Justin was visibly cringing when he had to shake Tony's hand.

Johnny saw the two men out, and could not resist giving each of them a pat on the bottom as they passed through the back door.

He went back to the others, and Justin said: "I say Sir: shouldn't we have told Alf that his business partner's a homo?"

"No, the Ministry has a non-intervention policy with regard to Muggles. You'll learn all about that at Hogwarts this September."

"What Ministry? And what are these Muggles? And what's Hogwarts?"

"Have you got time to explain, Dawlish?" asked Johnny, "Why not stay to dinner. There's chicken and salad."

"That would be welcome, thanks" said Dawlish.

"Before then, why not give Justin a demonstration so that he's really convinced?" said Johnny.

"Good idea. Levitation is the usual thing."

"Juggling oranges," said Johnny, "My dad always likes doing that."

"Well, I'm a bit out of practice . . ." said Dawlish.

He got his wand out, and Johnny separated three oranges from the fruit bowl.

He waved his wand, muttered the Charm, and succeeded in causing the oranges to fall to the floor. After a few more tries, he managed to make the oranges wave in a skewed trajectory around each other. It wasn't quite juggling, but it was enough to impress Justin: "I can't believe it!" he shouted excitedly, "Will I be able to do that sort of thing?"

"Yes," said Johnny, then added in a whisper: "Dad can keep eleven oranges going at the same time."

Over dinner, Dawlish, helped by two bottles of Mr Rudd's wizard home-brewed beer, told Justin about the wizard world.

Afterwards, Mr Dawlish reminded Justin: "Remember: tell your parents that Mr Dawlish from Social Services will visit at seven o'clock."

"Oh, Mr Dawlish," said Johnny, "I'm sorry, I thought Dawlish was your Christian name."

"That doesn't matter," smiled Mr Dawlish, "Goodbye for now; see you this evening."

He Disapparated noisily, and Justin was so happy that he actually clapped.

"Isn't it brilliant!" he said, "It's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me!"

"And me; It didn't happen to me till a year ago, though I knew Mum and Dad were magic, of course."

"And you know what the best bit is?"

"What?"

"We'll be at the same school!

Justin walked over to Johnny. For a moment, Johnny thought he was going to cuddle him, but he didn't, which was just as well because Johnny, in his happiness, couldn't have resisted kissing him. Instead, the two friends shook hands. O Englishness! O homophobia!

Johnny went over to Justin's for tea, and sat through Mr Dawlish's explanations.

The Finch-Fletchleys took it much as Johnny would have expected: denial, amazement, interest, satisfaction; but in their case, there was something else; something that can best be described in terms of the whirling dollar signs behind the character's eyes in Tom and Jerry cartoons.

At this point, Mrs Files, the MPC (Muggle Parent Counsellor) who had accompanied Mr Dawlish, spoke up: "I must emphasise from the start that the use of magic in the commission of crime—even relatively mild crimes such as fraud—is viewed very seriously and subject to severe penalties."

There was a moment of silence: everyone knew why Mrs Files had said that.

Then they all perked up and talked about more positive aspect of wizardry.

After an interesting and enjoyable evening, Johnny went home and told his parents the news.

He had been expecting a reaction of astonishment and delight, but what occurred seemed to indicate emotions fished out from a parallel universe.

His mother and father glanced at each other, then Mrs Rudd hurried over to Johnny and hugged him tightly, saying: "Oh my darling Johnny! We're so proud of you! We love you so much!"

"Oh Mum!" he said, squirming as she enfolded her ample body around him and kissed him, her blond curls tickling his face.

He glanced over to see if Mr Rudd would rescue him and saw, to his bewilderment, that his father had a tear in his eye.

When Mrs Rudd released him, Mr Rudd came over and wrapped him in a bear-hug.

Johnny couldn't believe it: Dad was hugging him!

The Rudds were a loving family, but, apart from indiscreet noises that sometimes emerged from the parental bedroom at night, undemonstrative. Particularly Mr Rudd, the embodiment of the salt-of-the-earth working wizard.

Johnny decided that his parents' emotional state was due to pride that their son had successfully made his best friend into a wizard.

Johnny didn't believe that he deserved any kudos, but was willing to leave his parents to their opinions, especially as a bottle of Mr Rudd's excellent parsnip wine was broached to drink Justin's health.

After the toast, Johnny told his parents nearly everything that had happened. They didn't tell him off, but directed their ill will at Tony.

"These queers are everywhere, John," said his father, "The Muggles encourage them and our Ministry just sits on its backside doing nothing. Are you sure the other man, wasn't one of them too?"

"I'm sure, Dad; they were just business partners. Alf looked as shocked at me and Justin at what went on. Anyway it was good: it caused Justin to break out just in time for Hogwarts first year."

"That's true," said his mother, "Fate has a mysterious way of going about things."

She looked at her husband hard.

Johnny felt that there were undercurrents of which he knew nothing, but forgot about the mystery as he spent the rest of the holiday in the company of Justin.

A happy summer term at Muggle school, and a happy summer holiday, including two weeks in the South of France courtesy of the Finch-Fletchleys (despite Mr Rudd's use of words like patronising and condescending), passed by.

Then, there was a glorious day in Diagon Alley with Justin, Mrs Files and Mrs Finch-Fletchley kitting up Justin for Hogwarts.

Only the best was good enough for Justin, and he embarked on the Hogwarts Express with a far more luxuriously-packed trunk and a larger owl than Johnny was likely to boast in a year's time.

Mrs Rudd and Johnny accompanied Mrs Finch-Fletchley to King's Cross Station to see Justin off. The women got a kiss, but Johnny had to make do with a handshake as usual. As the train steamed out, Johnny noticed that his mother had a tear in her eye, but Mrs Finch-Fletchley appeared unmoved. The stiff upper lip of the gentry, thought Johnny.

During the autumn term, Johnny tried to forget about sex and being queer. He felt twinges of perturbation when he remembered his dealings with Alf and Tony, but his chief problem in losing the queer feelings came on the sports field: as a sixth-former he was introduced to the game of Rugby.

Johnny was tall and a good jumper, so he was picked as a lock forward.

The open play was good fun; so were the scrums, but there it was impossible not to think about sex: Johnny had to stick his head between the bottoms of two boys in front of him; one arm was cuddling the other lock's shoulder; and the other arm . . . the other arm had to go round another boy's leg and grab the waistband of his shorts.

Yes the scrums were magic; but you couldn't avoid them reminding you of sex.

All-in-all, Johnny had mixed feelings when a pre-Christmas blizzard put an end to outdoor sports. He was able to concentrate on schoolwork and indoor games. Sex could be forgotten . . . or so he thought.

All through the autumn, women in the village had been complaining to the Muggle police that items of clothing—specifically knickers and brassieres—had been disappearing from their washing lines.

The police were flummoxed, and the case might have remained unsolved had not a woman reported that she had lost five pairs of frilly knickers overnight, and the culprit's footprints were clearly visible in the newly-fallen snow.

Sensing an opportunity, the County police force sent a bright young constable to investigate.

And there indeed was a set of footprints leading towards the washing line, along the line, and away from the line.

The officer thought for a while, then decided to follow the steps leading away from the line.

With great skill and courage, he set off.

The steps led by the allotments, along the lane, by two hedgerows and straight to a disused wooden pig-shelter—a hut with one wall omitted.

There was a heap of rotting planks in one corner.

The officer lifted a couple of planks and exposed a black bin-liner.

He opened it, expecting a dismembered body to be revealed, but found instead an enormous collection of female underwear.

A lesser mortal might have been satisfied with the successful recovery of so much stolen property, but this super-intelligent bobby deduced that the tracks leading from the hut might lead him to the criminal.

This proved to be the case: at the Yill cottage, young Ben was still wearing the boots that had left the tracks, and was arrested.

All this, Johnny heard at school, thanks to the local police sergeant's son, who provided further salacious details over the next few days.

Johnny bestowed on Ben the nickname Scrumper and was immediately sorry that he had been so cruel.

The Sergeant's son revealed that Ben was actually wearing knickers and bra when he was arrested; also that the hoard in the pig-shelter was crunchy with dried semen; and smelly: it was clear that Ben never bothered wiping after having a crap.

Johnny was more determined than ever to keep his queerness hidden. He realised that the disgust and contempt he felt for Ben was no different from what his father and Justin would feel should they ever learn the truth about Johnny.

Ben was taken into Care—IDon'tCare as those within the magic community who knew about Muggles called it.

Ben's parents told the police that they were the boy's uncle and aunt (true) and that his parents would appear soon after being away on business for a couple of days (false).

Two days later, when the police returned, looking for the escaped Ben, his parents told them that Ben had been there, but his parents had turned up to take him to Ireland.

One hour after that, Ben emerged from the hen house and reported for duty to Farmer Thomas.

Johnny saw Ben round and about over the next few months, but they didn't come face-to-face until the spring—just over a year since Ben had so memorably spunked up.

Johnny was skimming stones in the stream when Ben came by with a sack over his shoulder.

"What you got there, Ben?" said Johnny, "Knickers?"

"They calls Ben Scrumper now, but Ben don't scrump from ladyfolk no more."

He opened the sack to reveal that it was crammed with asparagus. Johnny knew of a farmer, five miles distant, whose great wealth was based, in part, on producing an early-season crop. Ben had probably been a day ahead of the official pickers. The asparagus would be sold next day, in the neighbouring cathedral city, by Ben's brother, uncle or nephew (these being one and the same person) Marty.

Ben looked at Johnny hard, and Johnny knew what was coming.

"Ben likes Mas' Johnny," said the boy, "Mas' Johnny give Ben the 'orn. Ben wants—"

"No Ben, you can't put it in my poo-nest," interrupted Johnny, then, feeling a surge of pity, he added: "I'll use my hand if you want."

"Oo that's proper!" said Ben enthusiastically.

They went into the trees and Ben dropped his old, filthy trousers; also a pair of Y-fronts.

"Ben's got a bigger ferret now," said the boy, though to Johnny it seemed the same size as a year ago.

Johnny extruded saliva onto his first two fingers and moistened the tip of Ben's cock, as he did when he was rubbing himself.

"Mas' Johnny use his mouth all round Ben's ferret!" said the boy excitedly.

Johnny made no answer, but started spunking up Ben.

Ben's intensely white cock was rock-hard, but with a silky surface. Johnny could feel it throbbing in his hand as he pulled the loose skin back and forth over the bright purple tip.

He didn't have to do this long before the spunk came.

A dribble was left between his thumb and forefinger. He raised his hand to his nose and smelled it: it was like nothing he had ever smelt before: a hint of bleach; a hint of coconut; a hint of fish; a hint of shit—oh no: that was just Ben's general smell.

Ben reached out and felt Johnny's cock beneath his trousers.

"Mas' Johnny got the 'orn. Ben's mouth give Mas' Johnny a mouthin'."

Johnny stepped backward.

"Do people really suck each other's cocks?" he asked.

"Ben mouth Uncle's sin' 'e were two," came the reply, "When Aunty got the rags up, Ben mouth Uncle's mornin' an' evenin'. Uncle says women don' unnerstan' ferrets. An' Gramps. An' Big Gramps."

Big Gaffer Yill was a sixty-year-old great-great-grandfather, famous for having bitten a policeman's ear off, and repeating the feat, though not with the same policeman, twenty years later.

Johnny was astounded at Ben's revelation. Sex seemed a big, big thing for the Yills.

"You shouldn't be telling me this, Ben. It's a big secret. The police will be after all your family."

"Ben know who's a good truster."

"Well, I don't want to hear any more. And I'm glad you're not poaching knickers, though I see you're poaching underpants now."

Ben's monkey face broke into a grin.

"You'm wrong there. This pants was give to Ben."

"Who by?"

"Tommy Thomas."

Guernsey Thomas, universally known as Tommy, was Farmer Thomas's eldest son; thirty years old; short and skinny, but powerful; a renowned hammer of the ladies, despite having been married for twelve years. He had acquired his Christian name, people said, through his father's recourses during the later stages of Mrs Thomas's pregnancy.

"That was kind of Tommy," said Johnny, "Calvin Kleins too. He's got a heart of gold."

"Yeah, but Ben gotta give 'im what for."

"How d'ya mean?"

"Every for'night Ben take him a coupla coneys an' 'e give Ben a scuttlin' an' 'is pants."

"Is scuttling the same as shagging up the arse?"

"Yeah, an' 'e got a proper'un twice as big as Uncle. It don' 'arf 'urt an' it make Ben's cream go like a real Guernsey. 'E bin doin' it to I sin' I were younger than you."

Ben laughed at his joke—or, Johnny suspected, Tommy's joke; but he was staggered: Tommy Thomas! Was the whole village sex-mad? Including his parents: Johnny had once overheard Mr Rudd remarking to his wife how pleasant it was that she couldn't get enough of his cock.

"Scuttling's not so bad then, if it makes you spunk up," he told Ben.

"Pants is better," said Ben, "They bin on 'im a for'night an' they got a rare niff. Gonna gi' Ben an'and 'gen?"

For a moment, Johnny was too busy being re-staggered to notice the question, but when he did, he obliged Ben with another rubbing.

Before the boy pulled up his clothes, Alan said: "Can I have a look at your arse please."

Ben turned round immediately.

His bottom was as surprisingly pale as his cock; and as smooth. His arsehole was big and surrounded by a substantial oval of discoloured flesh. But it was still beautiful to Johnny.

He said thank you, and the two boys parted.

Johnny had not wiped his hand. While he was walking home, he occasionally took a sniff at Ben's spunk. Presumably this smell was a constituent of the the rare niff that emanated from Tommy's fourteen-day-old underpants.

He thought about matters, and came to the conclusion that the queer antics of Tommy and the Yill family didn't make any difference to him: he would still have to keep his own queerness secret.

He thought about Ben's fabulous cock and fabulous arse—or they would have been fabulous had they not been parts of Ben.

The simple boy figured in his fantasies for the next few days. But the strongest fantasy concerned Tommy Thomas and his proper'un.

The months passed, and after a glorious summer with Justin, he was a first-year at Hogwarts.

He was sorted into Hufflepuff house, and from the start, Justin became his mentor.

"There's a lot of homo goings-on in Hufflepuff," he told Johnny, "but they leave you alone if you let them know you're not interested."

Johnny was interested, but not that interested: there was so much going on at Hogwarts; so much to learn; so many new people to meet—including girls, most of whom were much more sophisticated and intelligent than the girls at Muggle school.

He loved being in Hufflepuff. There seemed to be an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

During his years at Hogwarts, the most awful things happened: Basilisks attacking Justin; Dementors; dear, queer Cedric dying; the inhuman Umbridge.

And through all this, the Hufflepuff students remained just and loyal, and unafraid of toil, as the Sorting Hat put it.

There was little temptation to queerness in his dormitory. True Derek Rath was a raving poofter who had frequently gone off with Cedric Diggory, but the other boys were straight as a ruler: Dare Poyner, the most intellectual of them; Colin Goodenough, crinkly-haired and placid; Ronnie Clack, dark, greasy-haired and not very bright. Johnny loved them all.

Life in the dormitory was asexual. The boys wandered about naked, with erections coming or going, and took no notice of each other's genitals beyond the occasional ribald joke.

The dorm queer, Derek Rath, let it be known that he was available, but he was not in the least pushy and none of the boys were bothered.

The shared lessons offered greater temptations: blond Colin Creevey of Gryffindor and dark Adam Watts from Ravenclaw were the two prettiest boys Johnny had ever seen. But the lessons were too interesting and demanding for Johnny to pay much attention to them.

In Third year, the boys started to change one by one. Sheets rustled in the night; showers took longer; occasional demonstrations were given by the more mature boys.

On three or four occasions, the boys sat in a circle and spunked up—at Hogwarts, they called, it wanking, or bashing the Basilisk, or tossing off. While this was going on, they talked about the girls at Hogwarts.

The feeling when they spunked was called an orgasm. Sometimes it was so intense that the boys made noises with their throats. Dare Poyner was the worst offender. Colin Goodenough developed a good imitation of Dare having an orgasm and sometimes produced it in class, producing titters from the boys and puzzled looks from the girls.

His one experience of truly shared sex was in his third year: Danny Jorrocks had casually asked him Coming in? and, just as casually, wanked him off in a Lavvy cubicle. Johnny longed for a repeat, but Danny was much in demand.

As for girls: within two weeks of his arrival at Hogwarts, Johnny had made many friends who were girls. In Second Year he acquired a girlfriend.

Girlfriends changed over the years but one thing was constant: Justin and Johnny always went around in a foursome with their current girlfriends.

He got to know more about girls when he was fourteen. He had snogged and groped the bra-protected tits of Lorna Darne, from next door, a few times, but during a Christmas party at the Finch-Fletchleys, things got hotter.

They were playing sardines, and Lorna had tipped Johnny off. He found her hiding-place at the back of a wardrobe and started a snog, but she pushed him away and took off her top and bra.

It was all in the dark, but he enjoyed feeling up her tits.

"Kiss them!" she whispered.

He obeyed with alacrity. It was nice. He had the horn. He was definitely not queer.

There was an odd sort of musky smell.

He thought about Hogwarts where one hand on a breast was sufficient to kick off every Alarm and Immobiliser charm known to wizardkind.

She took one of his hands and placed it under her dress.

He stroked her legs, moving up her silky-smooth thighs.

She was not wearing knickers and he found his hand touching something moist and hairy.

He fiddled about down there for a few seconds, then took his hand away and resumed a two-armed cuddle.

Her hands found his waistband. She undid the belt and the button, and unzipped him.

Then she was feeling his cock.

"Sticky prick!" she said and slithered down.

Then he felt her lips licking his cock! Then taking it into her mouth and sucking it!

He could not believe that anyone could do this—certainly not Lorna, the nice girl from next door.

An unwelcome thought came into his mind: I wish it was Justin. He pushed the thought away. Then a second thought: I wish I could suck Justin. He didn't have time to push this one away, as his orgasm was approaching.

He spunked into Lorna's mouth. A third thought that needed rejecting came: "I'll pretend it really is Justin.

He heard her gulping: she was actually swallowing his spunk!

He gave her time to recover then told her: "We'd better go and join the others."

When they got into the light he was amazed: she looked the same cool, demure Lorna as before. No-one would think that this sweet little girl had a tummyful of spunk inside her.

Four of the kids were driven home at midnight by the Finch-Fletchleys' chauffeur. After the all the romping and semi-official booze, they were sleepy, but Johnny was sufficiently awake to think of the unwelcome thoughts that had come to him.

As soon as Lorna had started sucking his cock, he had remembered what Ben's father had said: women don' unnerstan' ferrets.

Then he had thought: I could suck cocks.

And when he had been spunking into Lorna's mouth, he had thought: I wish it was Justin's mouth.

He shuddered and reminded himself that he was not queer.

When he went for his last-thing slash, he caught a whiff. He raised his hand to his nose and detected the musty smell that he had noticed before plus another smell: unknown but a bit like . . . could it be . . . fish?

His last waking thought was of resentment that cocks didn't have a strong smell like—he remembered that Justin had said they were called fannies.

He didn't manage to get any safe private times with Lorna until the Easter Holidays, when they had a couple of brief sessions in his bedroom.

He got to look at Lorna's tits and fanny in the light and learnt how fannies work.

On each occasion, Lorna sucked him off.

On each occasion, Lorna seemed to indicate that he should apply his mouth to her fanny, but, being utterly repulsed by the idea, he pretended not to have picked up the hint.

At the start of the summer holidays, Lorna came round to see him and told him: "Mum and Dad are going to the market tomorrow. Come round at nine."

"Okay," he said.

"You don't seem very keen."

"I am, but I'm a bit upset because one of the boys in our house died."

"Oh Johnny, I'm so sorry. How did it happen?"

"It was an accident during a sort of field-day tournament."

"How awful. Don't come tomorrow if you don't want to. I'll understand."

"I'll come, Lorna."

The next morning Lorna let him into her house and led him to her bedroom.

Johnny had an impression of predominant pink; little pony dolls; make-up tubes and caskets; posters of young Muggle males; hair apparatus.

But he had no time for close examination, as Lorna was disrobing.

In no time, she was naked and lying face up on her bed.

"What's . . . er?" said Johnny.

"I'm fourteen now, Johnny; and it's time I lost my virginity; and who better to do it than my oldest friend?"

"But I don't know how to . . . haven't girls got . . ."

The village boys claimed that taking a virginity involved the cock battering through a thick wall of bone causing great pain to boy and girl alike.

"Not every girl has a maidenhead, silly; you should know that: you've had your finger up. Now why don't you get your clothes off and lie on top of me?"

"Er . . . what about pregnancy?"

"It's quite safe."

Thus reassured, Johnny was suddenly feeling quite perky. He stripped off, and commented: "Dressed appropriately," as he positioned himself between Lorna's legs, taking his weight on his elbows.

He engaged her in a kiss and thrust his cock in what he thought was the right direction. With Lorna's help he got it in and started going in and out.

It was surprisingly tight: the village boys had it as gospel that a fanny was never as tight as a fist.

He didn't know how fast he was meant to go, but being a lazy boy, he pushed in and out at a leisurely pace.

The pace didn't really matter: Hufflepuff Basilisks had stayed mainly unbashed since Cedric's death, and Johnny's balls urgently wanted emptying.

He spunked up loads inside Lorna. It was nearly as good as wanking.

He was not even panting, so slight had been his effort.

The second and third pokes had taken longer. After that it was time to dress.

As they sat demurely in the lounge, taking lemonade and biscuits, Lorna told him about foreplay. He nodded politely, but thought it a complete waste of time. If a girl wanted all that stroking and manipulating, she could do it herself and let the boy do what his nature told him to do.

Lorna heard her parents arriving.

"We'll do foreplay next time," she whispered.

Mr and Mrs Darne entered their lounge to find little Johnny from next door chatting sedately with their daughter.

Next time had to be postponed as, once again, the Finch-Fletchleys had invited Johnny to accompany them on holiday—this time, with some tactical lobbying from the two boys, to Italy.

Mr and Mrs Finch-Fletchley's sort of holiday involved beaches, cocktail bars, top-class restaurants, celebrity-strewn pavement cafés and high-profile opera performances. However, they surprised themselves by taking to the Muggle Renaissance tour that the boys had requested.

They moved every one or two days, travelling first-class and staying in good hotels. Johnny had to share a double bed with Justin on four separate nights. It was one thing sharing a dorm with four friends, but a much greater non-queerness test to spend your night sleeping next to the boy you loved most in the world. Johnny passed the test with flying colours, though he was sorely tempted on one occasion when he woke up at six in the morning, with Justin clearly having a wet dream and rubbing himself off against his bottom.

He got to know Justin's cock well—short and long forms—and was pleased that it was similar to his own. This was another bond between them, though not one that was likely to occur to Justin.

It was amusing how often hotel clerks, waiters and casual acquaintances mistook the boys' identities. Ma questo giovane uomo è proprio come te, Signora said one head waiter, indicating Johnny.

Mrs Finch-Fletchley laughed and said: "Johnny has always been our second son, and he's more than a brother to Justin."

The boys both blushed, but Justin firmly laid a hand on top of Johnny's.

Johnny hid the lump in his throat behind a cheerful smile. Englishman didn't talk much about their emotions, but they could deeply love their friends in a totally non-queer way.

They visited Milan, and went to the opera. Mr Finch-Fletchley insisted on them dressing, which meant an emergency dinner jacket for Johnny. They managed to find a hire shop and a genuine Jewish tailor who converted the suit to a precise fit. At the opera, the boys were bowled over by the performance, but amazed that there was nearly as much booing as applause. "I'll never understand Muggles," said Justin, "These people have put their soul into it, and at the very least, they deserve a Well done!"

They had supper afterwards, and the boys felt very proud as they paraded in full black-tie rig—more so when they heard an Italian matron comment through her diamonds on the Due splendidi ragazzi inglese.

As they left, Johnny decided that all eyes in the restaurant were on them. They must appear a glamorous and distinguished party, he thought: the tall, dark-haired patrician, a man you would trust with your life (or your life savings, anyway); his immaculately turned out lady, with her healthy English rosy cheeks; and the two boys . . . so different . . . were they brothers or . . .?

Johnny felt a rush of joy as he guessed that some at least of the spectators would have categorised them as lovers.

They ended the holiday with four days in Zurich, where the Finch-Fletchleys planned to move a lot of their criminal gains about—not to hide the money from the police, but from the tax authorities.

The two splendid English boys had a day in the most wonderful gallery of modern art ("Good job Dad's not here!" said Justin), a day on the wooded hills, and a boating trip.

As they sat on the hillside looking over the lake, Justin said: "I think this is the happiest day of my life."

"I think so too," said Johnny, adding mentally: Now!

He went to bed a happy boy that night, and spunked up over a phantom Justin, while the real one dreamt his own sweet dreams six feet away.

Back home, still in a state of euphoria from the knowledge that he was loved by Justin, he saw Lorna.

After some talk about Johnny's holiday and the village gossip (a leaking cesspit, a missing cat), Lorna told Johnny: "Mum and Dad are going to the County Agricultural Show tomorrow. How about having a barbecue?"

"Brilliant idea!" said Johnny, though he wasn't looking forward to all that foreplay buffoonery.

But Lorna solved that problem: "Why don't you invite Justin over? He can stay at yours for the night."

"Yeah I'll do that."

Johnny felt that Fate was teasing him: Justin would have the spare room. In a week Aunt Nancy and Uncle George were visiting. If only the visits had coincided: that would have meant Justin and Johnny top-and-tailing in a single bed.

Then he brightened up: he would think up an excuse for Justin to stay over again. Then he could innocently sleep cuddling Justin's feet.

The barbecue was a great success. They cooked steaks, sausages, kidneys, bacon, potatoes and tomatoes. They washed it down with Mr Darne's elderflower wine (he had a friendly rivalry with Mr Rudd).

The wine must have been stronger than it tasted: Johnny felt the need to have forty winks in the swing seat.

When he woke up, Justin and Lorna were lounging in recliner chairs. His friends were also the worse for wear by the look of them.

After half an hour of stasis, Lorna got them going by playing music on her portable Muggle boombox. They were still dancing on the lawn when the Darnes returned.

Mr Darne suggested that, after such a lovely day, they should have another barbecue. He drove to the nearest shops and brought back some fish. Mr and Mrs Rudd came round and they had a delightful, convivial evening.

The men enjoyed comparing wines, but the kids stuck to juice and pop.

Fate teased him again the following week: Johnny's relatives came to stay; a barbecue was arranged; but Mrs Rudd unearthed an unexpected camp bed, so Johnny's most intimate contact with Justin was through the sound and smell of his farts in the night.

Aunt Nancy took quite a fancy to Justin, smiling at him, and touching him during their conversations.

"You're such a healthy boy!" she would say, or "So good-looking!"

His parents both seemed to be slightly alarmed, and Johnny saw his mother having a quiet word with Aunt Nancy in the kitchen. She stopped complimenting Justin after that, but still kept her eyes on him when she thought no-one was looking.

Was Aunt Nancy a nymphomaniac? She was still in her thirties, and an attractive woman. She must have known that she wouldn't get near Justin's cock, though, and had never shown any previous lust for adolescents—or men, for that matter.

No, it must just be a maternal instinct; she had always shown a lot of affection for Johnny, after all.

But lying in bed later, listening to Justin's breathing, and discreetly spunking up into his pyjamas, he had a feeling that there must be more to this than met the eye. There was a definite mystery.

For two weeks' Justin's origin was much in his mind. One day, he startled himself by thinking of the word maternal. Mr Dawlish had talked about a maternal influence in Justin's accidental spell.

It was a bombshell: could Aunt Nancy be Justin's mother?

Was it possible that the Finch-Fletchleys had adopted Justin from Aunt Nancy? Had she given birth out of wedlock and put the child up for adoption?

Justin certainly had the looks: similar complexion; similar build; similar hair.

The timescale fitted in too. Aunt Nancy had married a year after Justin's birth. Perhaps Uncle George had refused to accept another man's child.

Johnny felt sorry for Mrs Finch-Fletchley: presumably the Finch-Fletchleys could not have children of their own. Then to be sent to prison so soon after adopting Justin was not at all fair.

Johnny hoped that this his theory was true: it would mean that Justin was his cousin; a blood relative; their closeness caused by something more than a year's shared infancy.

Then Justin came up with his own bombshell.

He cycled over to Johnny's one morning and told him: "Can we talk somewhere quiet?"

They went to Barton copse.

"Johnny," said Justin, "I'm going to tell you a secret. You must promise to keep it secret,"

"I promise," said Johnny.

It seemed that he was going to tell Johnny about his parentage. Johnny was elated. Perhaps Justin would think that it was okay for cousins to kiss.

"You remember that barbecue?" said Justin.

"And Aunt Nancy?" said Johnny.

"No, not that one; the first one: with you, me and Lorna."

"Oh yes."

"And you remember you had too much booze and passed out?"

"Yeah."

"Well me and Lorna had a little snog, and it got hotter and hotter, and we ended up doing it."

"You didn't!"

Johnny was elated again: he and Justin had shared the same hole. It was almost as if their cocks had had sex together.

"We did," said Justin, "Twice."

"Did you do foreplay?"

"What's that? Oh, never mind! This is more important: her period's late."

"But it's school hols."

"Not a school period; her period."

"What do you mean?"

Justin gave some sort of explanation.

"You mean she's pregnant?" said Johnny.

"Probably."

"And she wants money for an abortion. You can have every Knut and penny I've got, Justin."

"Thanks, but she wants to keep the baby."

"But then you'll have to marry her. You'll leave Hogwarts. Your life as a wizard will be ruined."

Johnny was near to tears.

"Don't worry!" said Justin, "Shotgun marriages are off the programme. Mum and Dad will support the child. They want me to end up Minister of Magic and married to a Muggle princess like that spoiled brat who's always on the TV."

"Have you told them yet?" asked Johnny.

"No, I wondered if you'd be at my side when I did. They're pretty easy-going, but they won't be at all happy about this."

"Of course, I'll be there, Justin. I'll do anything for you.

Then Justin moved towards Johnny to bestow, at last, the longed-for embrace; but Johnny, his head full of wild surmises, didn't recognise his friend's motion, and proposed: "Let's do it now!"

Justin restrained his impulse, and agreed: "Yeah, let's get it over with."

As they walked towards their bikes, they came across Ben Yill.

"Ben din'ear nuffin'," ha said, "Ben weren't 'arkin'."

"You were listening, Ben!" said Johnny.

"No. Ben were jus' lookin' to watch an' see Mas' Johnny an' Mas' Justin if they was scuttlin' each other. Ben got the 'orn."

Ben dropped his trousers and expensive underpants, and started spunking up.

"Come on, Johnny, let's go," said Justin.

"Gemm'un scuttle Ben," said the boy, hopefully.

He turned his arse towards them.

Justin gave it a mighty slap which sent Ben on his face.

They left him there, with his cries ringing out after them: "No call for that! Mas' Justin not fair. Mas' Justin shoulda stayed in bucket an' Miss Lorna not in pig an' Ben's arse not 'urtin'."

"That was a bit cruel, Justin," said Johnny.

"Yes it was," said Justin, "It was disgusting, and I had a bad impulse."

He went back to Ben, apologised and gave him some money, which he took with the hand which was not involved in spunking up.

"Mas' Justin gemm'un," he said, "Mas' Justin put Lorna in pig an' Ben put Reeza in pig."

A little bead of cream flew from Ben's cock; the two friends walked away, Johnny with a horn which, thankfully, was not too prominent.

"Who's Reeza?" asked Justin.

"Teresa, Ben's sister," said Johnny, "Or half-sister: her father could be any of a dozen Yills."

"Look on the bright side," laughed Justin, "At least Lorna's not my sister!"

"Justin's been rather silly," said Johnny to the Finch-Fletchleys.

"Oh No!" said Mrs Finch-Fletchley, her face turning ashen, "He won't be sent to that Azkaban place will he?"

Thereafter, it was plain-sailing: as soon as they realised that the problem could be solved by means of money, Justin's parents weren't upset. In fact, by the end of Johnny's visit, it was clear that they had transformed Lorna's pregnancy into a status symbol: village maiden debauched and put into trouble by squire's son was a classic part of English rural tradition.

Johnny left as soon as he could and went to the library, where he read all he they had available on the human reproductive cycle.

The next day he confronted Lorna:

"Is it true? Are you really expecting?"

"Yes."

"But I've looked it up. Justin can't be the father. Is it me?"

"Of course it's you silly!"

"But you said it was safe."

"It was safe: safe that your seeds could find mine."

"You wanted to get pregnant."

"Yes."

"But why? Your life's ruined."

"Nonsense! I can't think of a better life than bringing up a sweet little baby."

"But school!"

"That's another thing: no more dreary school. I bet the other girls will be jealous."

"Do your parents know?"

"Not yet. I'll tell them as late as possible. They might look it up too. They might not believe little Justin was responsible."

"They'd be quite right," snorted Johnny, "Has it occurred to you that Mrs Finch-Fletchley might come round today?"

"She won't. She'll arrange any meeting through Justin, and I'll tell him I'm keeping it secret for the moment as I want to get in as much schooling as possible."

Johnny could not help laughing at his friend's deviousness.

"How much of this was planned?" he asked

"Well, I wanted a baby as soon as possible; and who better to be the father than my oldest friend? Then, when we played sardines, I knew you'd be interested but wouldn't want to become a father. So we had it off, and I wasn't going to muck up your life, so I was going to say it was one of the men from the travelling fair. Then I thought of Justin."

"Why?"

"You are silly! For money, of course. I'll have all the state Benefits and Finch-Fletchley money."

"That's dishonest."

"Nonsense again, Johnny! The Finch-Fletchleys can afford it—their money came from fraud anyway; and don't be hypocritical: your parents did well enough for looking after Justin when he was a baby. They took dishonest money."

"Well, Justin's my friend. I can't stand by and let him be conned."

"Silly again, Johnny! This way everyone's happy: I'll have my baby; Justin and you will each be a proud father, and still be able to swan off to boarding school; me and my parents will be quids in; The Finch-Fletchleys will have a grandchild."

"I suppose so. That barbecue was a set-up I suppose. How did you know I'd get tipsy?"

"A little help from Marty Yill."

"Marty Yill? The one that does the markets?"

"That's right. He's also into livestock-snatching. He's got this stuff they used to make a champion bull woozy so they could lead it into a trailer."

"You put me out with bull-dope! You could have killed me!"

"No, it was safe. The bull was sixty-eight stone and you're nine stone. I've had enough schooling to know that that's a seventh. I actually made it a fifth for safety."

Johnny laughed uproariously and told her: "You're an enterprising girl, Lorna. Your baby's gonna have some shit-hot genes!"

They had a quick kiss and went into the kitchen where Mrs Darne gave them elevenses.

Shortly before the end of the holidays, Johnny decided to talk things over with his parents.

"Mum, Dad can I talk to you?"

"Of course, Johnny," said Mrs Rudd.

"It's about Justin's parentage."

A sort of frozen look came over their faces. Johnny knew that his guess was true.

"The Finch-Fletchleys," said his mother.

"Not the Finch-Fletchleys. It may not be any of my business, but I would like to know."

"Not your business!" said Mr Rudd; then to his wife: "The boy's got so far; he's got a right to know."

"Yes Dear," said Mrs Rudd.

She asked Johnny: "Does Justin know or suspect anything?"

"No, thank goodness," said Johnny, "I wouldn't want him upset."

"Well, it all began when we were still in our teens," she said.

Mr Rudd picked up the story: "I was a poor apprentice to a Wizard Carpenter. On the strength of the wages that your mother was earning as a maid at the big Muggle house, we agreed that we could afford to marry."

"Specially as Mrs Finch-Fletchley's pregnancy gave me the prospect of promotion to nursery maid, with increase in pay," said Mrs Rudd.

"So we got married and rented a tiny cottage near the big house," said Mr Rudd.

"Then Little Justin arrived," continued Mrs Rudd, "I found him absolutely adorable. I worked twelve hours a day helping Nanny. It was paradise on earth, and the other twelve hours were spent in a different sort of paradise: so life was good for us."

"The only hindrance to our happiness was a chronic shortage of money," said Mr Rudd, "At the end of the month, we often found ourselves unable to pay all the bills, and with your mother having to beg a few extra scraps of food from Cook.

"Things weren't helped by the hefty fine imposed by the Ministry of Magic who had detected your mother using magic to borrow a few cigarettes and the occasional bottle of whisky from the Finch-Fletchley drawing-room."

"Then I found myself pregnant," said Mrs Rudd, "We both wanted a child, and worked out that, with the help of the Ministry's Family Remittance, we could just about afford to bring one up. It all depended on getting Mrs Finch-Fletchley's agreement that the two babies could occupy the nursery during the daytime.

"I kept putting it off; but, eventually, I was on the point of showing and had to approach the Mistress.

" 'Oh Ma'am,' I said, 'Rudd says he wants a baby.' "

" 'Well he can't have our Justin!' " she said with a laugh, 'And don't you dare go and get yourself preggers. We've just lost an under-gardener and I couldn't bear to lose a nursery maid as well.'

" 'Men have such ideas,' I said to her.

"Then I went home and told your father.

"Well we dithered for a few days before deciding that we'd have to terminate. It was the saddest decision of our loves.

"I Apparated to Nancy's—she prided herself on her potioneering in those days— and she gave me the Abortion Draft."

"Strictly illegal, but never investigated," said Mr Rudd.

"We sat at home that evening cuddling and weeping," said Mrs Rudd, "Then there was an owl from Nancy: the potion had succeeded in expelling the foetus, but not in removing its life. A healthy male child was currently bawling its head off between sucks of the titty-bottle.

"I was furious, but resigned myself to raising a child on a single wage."

"I was having nothing of it," said Mr Rudd, "I put my foot down: I sent a return owl telling Nancy that she'd fouled up, so she could look after the baby."

"But, I don't understand, Mum," said Johnny, "Was this before you had me?"

"Let me finish," said Mrs Rudd, "I went to work the next morning. I was sad, but I got solace from giving Baby Justin even more love than usual.

"Then the Master and Mistress got arrested so I lost my baby; lost my job; and lost my darling little Justin."

"Then we got a blessing," said Mr Rudd, "A Muggle Solicitor came round. Would we look after Justin while Mrs Finch-Fletchley was inside?

"Would we! We got this house, and loads of dosh every week. It was three months of heaven."

"I always wondered how you could afford this house," said Johnny, "But why only three months?"

"Nancy came round," said Mrs Rudd, "She was getting married and George didn't want a cuckoo in the nest, as he put it. She dumped Baby Johnny on us."

"It was me!" said Johnny.

"Eh?" said Mr Rudd, "You'd better hear the end, lad."

"Well, Johnny was a sickly child," said his wife, "I'm not saying Nancy didn't do her best, but she wasn't a born mother. I nursed that child ever so carefully."

"Saved his life," said Mr Rudd.

"So we had nine more months," said Mrs Rudd, "Then Mistress came put of prison and Baby Justin had to go back. What was I to do? I loved both of the little mites, but one, specially, more than my body and soul.

"I had to lose one: either the flesh of my flesh or the one that I'd loved with the strongest, purest love there ever was on this earth."

"I put my foot down again," said Mr Rudd, "I told your mother: 'We'll send her Johnny.' I knew no-one would recognise the swap—least of all Mrs Finch-Fletchley, who'd scarcely looked at her son."

The room seemed to swim around Johnny.

"So I'm really Justin and Justin's me!" he gasped.

"But surely you knew," said Mr Rudd, "That's why we told you the truth."

"I thought Justin was Aunt Nancy's baby. He looks so like her, and she was so affectionate when we had that barbecue."

"She would be. He was on the point of death for the three months he was with her."

Mrs Rudd was looking pale and stunned.

Johnny crossed the room. He sat on the arm of his mother's chair and cuddled her.

"So I was picked," he said, "I'm so happy and proud."

Tears appeared all round.

"This calls for some blackcurrant wine," said Mr Rudd.

Johnny was in shock for a few days, but it was the shock of being happy. He spent as much time as he could with Justin, and all the rest with his parents.

Justin wasn't, as he'd thought, his cousin; but each boy was being cared for by the other's birth parents. That made him feel even closer to his friend.

He realised that, when they had talked about Lorna, Justin had moved to cuddle him before Johnny suggested they left the copse. He felt a twinge of regret, but decided that Justin's friendship was more important to him than his body.

One evening, he said to his parents: "I think Ben Yill knows about me and Justin."

"Bless you," said his mother, "The whole village knows. They'd seen the two of you often enough. Don't worry: they won't talk. Country folk are all as close as clothes. What did Ben say?"

"He wished Justin had stayed in his bucket."

Mr Rudd snorted with laughter.

"The Yills would be a healthier lot if they'd used the bucket a bit," he said.

At last, it was time to go back to Hogwarts.

It was a year of great tension, with the school divided between those who believed Harry Potter's tale about Cedric's death and You-Know-Who's return, and those who thought Potter was an egotistical neurotic.

Johnny didn't care much either way, though Justin tried to persuade him that the anti-Potter faction, led by the horrible Umbridge, should be resisted. When Justin and some other boys and girls took to sneaking off, Johnny suspected that there was some sort of underground resistance in operation.

Johnny's workload was large, but nothing like Justin's. The older boy (younger, actually thought Johnny) was coming up to O.W.L.'s and had scarcely any spare time, but what time he did have was always spent with Johnny—usually in the company of their girlfriends.

Johnny's girlfriend was a clever Ravenclaw fourth-year called Jonquil Smart. They sometimes sat together in the library and she helped him with his work. He quite fancied her, and sometimes had a sneaky wank, with his hand under his robe as she expounded on their homework. One touch on her tit would be fatal, he knew.

Despite his busy and conventional life at Hogwarts, the shadow of queerness was always on him.

This year, Hogwarts had gone queer-mad—or gay-mad, he should say.

It started when that Danny Jorrocks, the cleverest wizard in the school, but also the cheekiest, had organised a gay club for first-years. Then boys had started going round hand-in-hand, until Umbridge stopped it. Then pairs started nipping in and out of lavatory cubicles—though Jorrocks had been doing that for years. Finally, despite Umbridge, an organisation of Gay Champions was established which could give advice and set you up with a boyfriend—secret if you wanted.

Derek Rath was the Hufflepuff Champion, and once or twice Johnny was tempted to approach him, but always came up against the problem of where to go with your secret lover. Lavatories were out as far as Johnny was concerned; Outdoors was too reminiscent of Ben Yill; empty classrooms were okay, but you'd be caught sooner or later.

Sometimes his dorm agreed to hire itself out for a couple of hours in the evening, but the identities of the fun-lovers could not be concealed.

So it was as a sex-starved heterosexual that Johnny lived his fourth year at Hogwarts, though inside him lurked a sex-starved homosexual.

Lorna gave birth to a little boy during the Easter holiday. She named him Ian Evan Sean Darne.

It was only a week or so later that Johnny realised that the baby had been named after himself, in Scottish, Welsh and Irish.

He went next door and held the baby in his arms. He was sweet in his innocence and fragility, but Johnny didn't have particularly strong feelings for him. Justin told him that he had been just the same.

Mrs Finch-Fletchley made a single Grande Dame visit to see her grandson—he was indeed her grandson, thought Johnny, but not by the route she supposed. Thereafter, she confined her interest to financial support. Mr Darne bought a brand new car on the strength of this.

The boys were now sixteen and fifteen ("Thirty one between them, anyway," said Mr Rudd) and were allowed to go on holiday on their own.

They decided, once more thanks to Finch-Fletchley money, to visit the Cathar region in the South of France.

The Cathars are the happiest, jolliest wizard community you could imagine. They grow all sorts of magical plants and export them all over the world. They make fine wine and brandy. They have a three-day weekend. Of the remaining two hundred and twelve days of the year, no less than eighty are holidays.

For these reasons, they have been a popular holiday resort—with Muggles as well—since Roman times.

In the Middle Ages a Muggle once heard a Cathar claim that the world was made of their crops (sata). Unfortunately, he misheard this as the world being made by Satan, and a massive Muggle sect came into being, which eventually learnt that the world was actually made of cruel bigots.

Through all the inter-Muggle slaughter, the Cathars carried on singing, dancing, eating, boozing, fornicating and sporting. They have not stopped to this day.

Johnny and Justin traversed the district, taking part in all these Cathar activities except that they substituted fornicating with sightseeing. However, an exotic opportunity for fornication came when they were a week into their tour.

They had checked into a wizard youth hostel in Carcassonne, and met a glamorous Parisian couple in their twenties, Pascal and Camille.

Pascal had the rugged French good looks of the young Jean Gabin; Camille the more obvious attractions of the young Brigitte Bardot.

They chatted over a pastis, then parted as Johnny and Justin went to explore the city by night.

"That Camille's a stunner, isn't she?" said Justin.

"Yeah, I'd give anything for five minutes in her room," said Johnny; and he really meant it.

They had a meal in the lower town. It was called Cassoulet and was wonderful. It was a sort of herb-laden stew with beans, pork, beans, duck, beans, sausages and beans.

"Go easy with the beans, old bean!" said Johnny.

Justin was a champion farter, even on a normal diet.

"Alright, me duck!" said Justin, grabbing the last duck-leg from the bowl.

Upon their return, they found that, it being a holiday, the hostel had set up a griddle in the courtyard; there was food and dancing and until midnight.

They didn't bother with the food, but danced the Hags' Dance, sometimes with their new friends.

The music stopped and people started drifting to their rooms.

"Bedtime for me," said Justin, "I'm whacked. You coming Johnny?"

"Yeah, okay. I'm whacked too."

Pascal and Camille crossed the courtyard.

"You are going to your room?" said Pascal.

"Yes, it's been a long day," said Justin.

"Why not come to our room?"

"We've had quite enough to drink, haven't we Johnny?"

"And a bit extra," said Johnny.

"Come to our room not to drink," said Pascal.

"Spend the night with us," said Camille.

"We're too tired, thanks," said Justin.

"You'll soon wake up," said Pascal.

"Four young bodies can have a lot of fun together," said Camille.

"Er . . . no thanks. Come on Johnny," said Justin. He was already flushed from wine and dancing, but you could tell he was blushing.

Johnny was blushing through his ruddy complexion too.

The boys left for their room.

They lay in their single beds (Didn't the Federation des Auberges de Jeunes Sorciers know about double beds, thought Johnny grumpily).

"What do you make of that?" asked Justin.

"I don't know," said Johnny.

"Three men and a girl. What do you think they wanted to happen?"

"Well the least kinky scenario is for the three men to take it in turns on the girl, but I expect they wanted more."

"What, gay sex?"

"Yeah."

"But that guy Pascal seemed so normal; and with a stunner like Camille."

"You never can tell. Think of Imodium Yill."

"Yeah."

Imodium Yill had brought a beautiful gypsy girl into the Yill clan (a rare piece of fresh blood) but still shagged the local ewes when the mood took him.

"If they were Muggles, they might have been going to rob us," said Johnny.

"More likely we'd have had to pay for doing Camille in another way: Pascal would get to bugger us."

On that cheery note, the boys fell asleep, though passed out might be nearer the mark.

Johnny woke at eight o'clock, desperate for a piss—he'd forgotten to have one last thing.

As he had feared, the room was a fug of digested beans.

He got dressed and went to the men's room.

He had a dull head and a dry mouth, so went for a walk.

Someone else was up early: he saw the divine Camille sitting at a pavement café drinking an orange juice and reading Le Sorcier Vainqueur (The Saucy Wanker, as Justin pronounced it).

He walked up and asked her: "May I join you?"

"Good day, Zhohnny," she smiled, "How pleasant to see you."

He sat down and smiled back.

She still looked gorgeous, but less glamorous than the night before. Her hair was slightly disordered; she had swapped her 50's-style party-frock for a baggy tracksuit in pink and grey; and there was a croak in her voice.

Her face looked slightly blurred, Johnny diagnosing this as due to an inaccurate application of lipstick."

"How are you this morning?" she asked.

"Not too bad," said Johnny, "As long as nobody wants me to think or do anything."

"Me also. And where is your blond friend?"

"Still sleeping."

"Like my Pascal. I went for a little run so I have earned my relaxation."

"You make me feel guilty."

"A thousand apologies! I did not mean to imply—"

"I know you didn't," said Johnny, "I'm sorry for saying that."

"You English are always saying sorry."

"I make you a thousand to one up."

"Touché! You are such a handsome boy. So elegant. English boys are shy. I think that is why you would not join Pascal and me for the night?"

"Well . . . we're not really used to that sort of thing."

"Perhaps tonight—but separate this time: you and I together. Pascal and your friend can do what they please."

Johnny laughed, and told Camille: "I don't think Justin would want to get too involved with Pascal!"

"You should laugh all day. You are so beautiful when you laugh."

Johnny had never expected to be called beautiful by anyone, apart from old Italian beldames. He blushed again.

"I've made you shy again," laughed Camille, "Never mind! Let's take another room tonight. I promise that you can have the lights off."

Johnny laughed too. It was Camille who was beautiful when she laughed.

"A thousand regrets, Camille, me and Justin are visiting the Citadel, then Flooing to Toulouse."

"Too bad; but let me buy you coffee and rolls."

They sat for half an hour chatting about their lives. Camille was a shop-designer for the Pantag Ruelle, the Paris equivalent of Diagon Alley; and Pascal ran an advertising agency.

"We live together, but we like to swing with others," said Camille, "We visit Carcassonne two or three times a year, for obvious reasons."

"It is beautiful and historic," said Johnny, "And such a lot of fun."

Pascal and Camille had both been to Beauxbatons, and Johnny and Camille enjoyed comparing the French school with Hogwarts. They held hands throughout their chat, and Johnny didn't mind the sweatiness.

Then Johnny stood up and told Camille: "I'd better go and see if Justin's up."

"Me also," said Camille.

They walked back, still hand in hand.

"You will perhaps allow me one kiss?" said Camille.

She led Johnny into a side-alley, leant against a wall, and pulled Johnny into a snog.

She was obviously experienced and Johnny pushed his body against hers, then pulled back in embarrassment: his cock was very hard.

But Camille was having none of it: in a frank show of lust, she pulled Johnny back so that their bodies pressed hard together.

This got Johnny so excited that he knew an orgasm was on the way.

For a moment he was embarrassed again, then he remembered that Camille was a swinger, and voluntarily pressed firmly against her.

There was something hard in her region of her fanny. He supposed it was something to do with periods, and he moved a little to one side so his cock could rub itself against her body.

But this caused Camille's hard bit to press even harder.

Good Lord. She had a strap-on rubber cock.

Johnny had heard about these objects before: one of the Yills had been sent to prison and, convinced his sheep could not prosper without his attentions, had ordered his missus to deputise for him.

Forgetting his manners, Johnny removed an arm from Camille's back and gave the cock a tweak.

"Feels like the real thing!" he said.

"Put your hand inside," said Camille.

He reached down the front of her tracksuit, and found a tight waistband.

Slipping his hand under the band, he found something that was hard, warm and sticky.

Merlin's beard! It was a real cock!

He jumped back, removing his hand, and shouting: "What?"

Camille looked equally surprised.

"You didn't know!" she said.

"Of course I didn't know!" said Johnny, "You're a gorgeous woman."

"And you're a gorgeous man. Why don't you put your hand back?"

Had he thought about it, Johnny would probably have chickened out, but the thrill of having someone else's cock in his hands for the first time (Ben Yill didn't count), albeit in unusual circumstances, had filled his mind.

Instinctively, he manhandled Camille, and barged himself behind her.

He leant against the wall and replaced his hand.

He grasped her cock. It was as big as his, not a petite woman's cock.

He started to wank her, at the same time rubbing himself against her bum.

It felt staggeringly good. He felt himself starting to come, and gave a little groan, which seemed to inspire Camille because, almost immediately, she groaned too, and as Johnny discharged cascades of spunk into his underpants, he felt his hand awash with hot, sticky fluid.

He pulled out his hand at once and smelled it: just like his own; just like Ben's. Or was there perhaps a hint of herbs and garlic?

He wasn't in the least embarrassed, even when he remembered that he had released an enormous bean-fart at the moment of climax.

They had another snog.

For the first time in his life, he was consciously kissing a man. He had kissed Danny Jorrocks, but Danny was a little boy though, to give him his due, Johnny decided that he was a better kisser than Camille.

It was at this moment that he decided that he was going to indulge in gay sex in his fifth year at Hogwarts—even if it meant revealing himself to Justin—though he knew enough about their friendship by now to realise that Justin would quickly adjust his homophobic views if Johnny told him he was a queer.

Camille put a hand inside Johnny's clothes and exclaimed into his mouth: "Liver of Nostradamus! You've created a new ocean!"

"Come on," said Johnny, breaking off the kiss, "We have our friends to think of."

As they walked to the hostel, Camille explained that Carcassonne was the wizard capital of Transexualism and all—well nearly all—people who holidayed there knew about it.

At first he and Pascal had wondered if Justin, with his pretty blond curls, had been a girl, but then they had seen his Adam's apple.

Camille said that he worked as a man, and only changed gender for weekends and holidays.

Johnny sniffed his hand occasionally, as though to reassure himself that it had really happened and that he was really a gay boy.

Camille noticed after a bit, and sniffed his own hand.

Then they laughingly shook hands.

Justin was just getting up when Johnny got back to his room. It was only half past nine. How could such earth-shattering events have taken only an hour?

Justin had a little breakfast at the hostel.

They met the others, Johnny having agreed the appointment, at eleven o'clock, and enjoyed touring the Citadel, breaking their tour with another wonderful meal. Justin and Pascal argued fiercely for the right to pay the bill, Pascal winning in the end.

When the moment of parting came, they both kissed Camille, but Johnny surprised everyone by kissing Pascal as well—a good, wet smacker.

"You kissed a man!" said Justin, when they reached Toulouse.

"Well, after kissing his missus, it was the least I could do," laughed Johnny.

"I'll remember that the first time a husband catches me in flagrante delicto," said Justin.

They returned to England via the recently-opened Muggle tunnel under the sea.

They were not being overheard, so Joseph decided to tell his friend the truth about Camille.

He related the events of the morning: the breakfast; the kiss; the hard lump; the sticky cock inside Camille's clothes.

"She's a man!" said Justin.

"Apparently Carcassonne is famous for wizard transvestites. They assumed we knew. When we spoke afterwards about three men and a girl and what would have happened, it would have actually been four men."

"I bet you ran all the way to the hostel!"

"Not at all: I wanked Camille off."

"Oh Johnny! You're a soft touch; too warm-hearted by far."

"Not at all: it was good fun, specially as I was rubbing myself off on her bum at the time. I came gallons and gallons."

"His bum! That's weird."

"Why? She was still an out-and-out stunner; she just happened to have a cock. And that was convenient: I know how to handle a cock, but I haven't got your experience with fannies."

"One fanny, Johnny; I don't claim to be a Great Lover! It's pretty bizarre, you must admit."

"Is it? Hogwarts holds a pretty limited part of humanity; and even Hogwarts has got Tintin; and he's dishy when he's in a dress, you must admit."

Tintin Wilkes was a young effeminate Ravenclaw boy.

"Not when you know it's a little boy under all that get-up."

"It hasn't stopped him attracting no end of followers: Cadwallader, Smith, Summerby, Merryweather, Hopkins, Macmillan, Millar, Berry, Rann, Richards; and that's just in our own house; and they say even Robbie Files was smitten."

"I bet Ben Yill would be smitten too," said Justin.

"That's tautologous: Ben would do anything to anyone and let anyone do anything to him."

The boys laughed.

Mrs Englishen-Latin had told them about tautologies.

The holiday ended and they returned to Hogwarts.

It was Johnny's O.W.L.'s year, so he didn't expect to have much time for sex.

It turned out that there was little opportunity, in any case: Dumbledore had clamped down on evening and night-time activities.

Hufflepuff started a Six O'Clock Club, which tried to facilitate inter-dormitory visits for sexual purposes; but that was shot down by the prefects, including Dare Poyner, Johnny's classmate.

After a week of frustration, Johnny decided to approach Derek Rath—not for sex, but advice.

Derek got in first, however, and showed him a card which Johnny read: first with amazement, then with joy.

A place to go; someone to go with you; secrecy guaranteed.

He read the key phrases again:

Club Premises hold two medium-size beds, one reserved for established couples and one for couples selected at random.

Each Wednesday seven couples and fourteen individuals will be selected at random for the following Sunday to Saturday sessions.

His cock twitched.

"I'm in!" he told Derek.

He was amazed to discover that his classmates, Colin Goodenough and Ronnie Clack had also joined Nine O'clock Club.

Thanks to a Charm provided by Hermione Granger, they found that they were able to talk about the Club without anyone noticing.

"I never expected it of you, Johnny," said Colin, "You always have a girl hanging on to your arm."

"Not any more," said Johnny, "But I never expected it of you, Colin."

"I was just a quiet homo, with nothing but a single wanking in the toilets from Danny Jorrocks," said Colin, "I've been waiting for Mr Right. Now there's going to be lots of Mr Rights. But it's Ronnie who's the dark horse."

"Yes Ronnie," said Johnny, "Have you and Chambers been shagging all these years?"

Ronnie had signed up with Ephraim Chambers, the sixth-year Ravenclaw Chaser, as an established couple.

"No," said Ronnie, "We'd sort of noticed each other before, but we met on holiday at Saltburn this summer and saw a lot of each other. Then one day it just happened: we were racing each other over the dunes and lay down to catch our breath; we were face-to-face and we kissed. I don't know who started it, but anyway, it turned into a snog and, next thing, we were rubbing off against each other and our trunks were a mess so we had to go for another swim."

"And then you were at it every day, I suppose," said Johnny, who hadn't thought of Ronnie Clack as a sexual creature before.

"No, it was nearly the end of the holiday, and there were always people about. It was the real thing: we fell in love. When we got back to Hogwarts, we found out how difficult meeting each other would be and almost gave up hope. Then this Club happened."

"I'm really happy for you and Chambers, Ronnie," said Johnny.

"Me too," said Colin, "I hope you have a wonderful time, Ronnie; and you too Johnny. Have you done much before?"

"No," laughed Johnny, "Just the obligatory wank from Danny Jorrocks in the Lavvies."

Derek Rath laughed: "Danny was something special, and got even more special last year when he learned about oral sex: you could have lined up two dozen boys, and he'd have sucked them off one by one."

"He never asked me," said Ronnie.

"That's a story for the Prophet," said Derek "Boy Overlooked by Jorrocks!"

The following Wednesday evening, Johnny peered through the crowd gathered at the Hufflepuff notice board, and saw:

Sat Cho Chang VII(R) Johnny Rudd V(H)

Michael Corner VI(R) Alan Campbell I(G)

Alan Campbell! Johnny remembered him from the Sorting: a sweet, pretty first-year, with blond hair and blue eyes.

He felt an elation at the magical prospect of intimacy with such a prince among the Juniors.

But he also felt disquiet: what sort of sex could he be expected to have with a little boy like Campbell? He remembered the joyful, sticky wetness flooding his hand from Camille. He wouldn't get that from Campbell.

What would Campbell expect from Johnny? And what would people think?

He talked it over with Derek.

"Don't worry, Johnny," said Derek, "Campbell signed up for gay sex of some sort; and you'll find out what sort is best for the two of you. I know: I've been doing it since I was a lot younger than Campbell. I assure you, you'll have a fabulous time!"

Johnny was encouraged by this, and further encouraged by Ronnie's report next Monday morning.

Ronnie turned up for the first lesson walking stiffly, and with a tendency to fall asleep. Fortunately, it was double Divination, and Ronnie was able to pull himself together before Flitwick.

"It was marvellous," he told them at break, "we were dead embarrassed at first, then he shagged me and I shagged him; then we did it again; then again; and in the morning. Sex is wonderful, and I love Ephraim."

On Wednesday, the second-year Gideon Buchanan, a beautiful and sexually promiscuous half-caste, reported that his little lover, Adrian Woodman, had turned out to be the most romantic eleven-year-old you could meet.

Johnny heard indirectly that Nathan Kirton, from the First Year, had reported his surprise and excitement when Gillies, from Gryffindor, who didn't look old enough, squirted semen all over him. It was said that Kirton hadn't stopped talking about semen ever since.

It was reported also that Jimmy Gloyne, Justin's gangling classmate, had told his friends that holding a naked twelve-year-old all night was the most wonderful thing that he had ever experienced. Jimmy had been paired with Alexander Bell, a Gryffindor second-year who was reputed to be the beautiful Colin Creevey's lover.

Johnny was much-heartened: the Nine O'Clock Club was a great success, and lots of apparently ill-matched boys were having a whale of a time.

Saturday came; the Great Day.

Johnny awoke all of a dither.

He welcomed the workload, as it concentrated his thoughts elsewhere. Thank goodness for homework.

Harold Holmes and Jimmy Gloyne, from Justin's form, wished him good luck at dinner. Harold also described the exotic layout of the Nine O'Clock club headquarters.

Johnny made sure that he was on time, and was standing on the fourth-floor when he heard steps coming up the stairs.

Then Alan Campbell was in front of him.

Goodness he was so pretty!

They shook hands, and Alan told him in a treble voice:

"Hello; my name's Alan Campbell."

2. Alan

Alan Campbell was gay.

At five years old, his parents sent him to a Muggle infant school where he realised, for the first time, that the world was divided into two parts: one colourful, exciting and happy; the other drab and boring. In fact he mentally thought of his female classmates as The Greys.

Throughout infant and junior school, Alan ignored girls as much as he could.

Boys were a different matter, though: the way they looked and moved and dressed; the way they talked—there were more black and brown boys than white in the school; their faces—much prettier than the greys, he thought; and above all, what they had inside their underpants.

From the earliest days, Alan and numerous other boys spent many happy hours in hidden parts of the school playground, the local park and the communal parts of blocks of flats with their trousers round their ankles looking at each other's interesting bits.

Looking became touching, and cocks, bags and bums were prodded, squeezed and stroked. Alan noticed that some boys were almost totally interested in the front and some in the back. Alan enjoyed both: the variety of shapes, sizes and colours of the cocks; the beautiful curves of the bums, with the pink and brown hole nestling in the middle.

Then there was the way that cocks sometimes became stiff and bigger. Every boy's cock was different in appearance and in its tendency to get the horn.

Of course, they were sometimes caught and learned from experience that their activities were naughty and had to be concealed. Teachers and parents didn't seem to be too concerned, though, concentrating their efforts on the few boys who extended the look-and-touch sessions to girls. When this behaviour came into the open—usually through a silly girl talking too much—it was taken very seriously and Social Services were called in, and sometimes a woman called Educational Psychologist. Some boys were removed from school for a few days, and some even had to move permanently to another school.

After two years at infants', Alan moved to junior school, where cocks and bums were of less interest to begin with—partly because of the new configuration of pupils, and partly because of the time-consuming Muggle toys called Video Games.

In the summer, with warmer weather and lighter evenings, outdoors became attractive, and natural curiosity plus whatever hormones are available to little boys drove some of the boys to fresh investigations.

"Shall we go home along the river?" Alan asked his friend, Nigel Stone, one afternoon, as they were walking out the school gates.

Nigel agreed. Alan did not need to spell out that they would be stopping at an abandoned workshop by the riverside, where trousers and underpants would be lowered and bodies checked.

The river bank and the workshop were reasonably safe at this time of day; they would have preferred to have a few more boys with them, but were both too keen for the sight and feel of each other's bodies to bother.

The most dangerous time was at night, and evidence of this lay all along the river: used needles and rubber johnnies.

None of the boys that Alan and Nigel knew injected drugs, but some of the bigger boys smoked dope. Alan had had a puff once and didn't stop coughing for ten minutes. This put him off dope, and had the useful spin-off of putting him off cigarettes too.

As for the rubber johnnies, most of the boys knew all about sex; many, including Alan, had spied on couples doing it in the park; many had spied on parents or siblings at it. One boy was especially envied as his mother was a prozzy, so he got to see loads of different arses on the job.

Sometimes the boys squeezed out the fluid from the johnnies. It was called jizzum and had a smell like no other—something more than just rubber. Jizzum could make women have babies, but the only practical use that any of the boys had found for it was as a sauce for school dinners—preferably the dinners of any of the supervising teachers.

Alan and Nigel hadn't thought of themselves as pioneers, but by that mysterious principle, usually referred to as Something in the Air, other boys were drawn in, and for the rest of the term and the summer holidays Alan frequently joined with groups of boys indulging in what they called Medicals.

One afternoon, a boy touched another boy's arsehole. This was a first, and Alan could sense the boys wondering what their reactions should be. The perpetrator settled this: he sniffed his finger. There were comments of the nature of You dirty bugger! and the guilty boy never appeared again at any of the Medicals. Moreover, he was landed with the nickname Sniffer, which would probably stay with him for the rest of his life.

This was a pity: Alan, and probably lots of the others, would have liked to sample the smell of other boys' arseholes, but were now prevented from doing so. Thus do humans find ways of spoiling things for themselves.

The boys did, however, discover the joys of wanking—possibly autonomously, and possibly from some elder brother's tuition. Thereafter, any boy not busily groping another boy's cock was likely to be wholeheartedly rubbing his own.

The summer holidays came and the Campbells spent two weeks at a wizard holiday resort in Cornwall. Alan found a new friend to keep company with. He was two years older than Alan but so shy that it was Alan who was the senior partner.

The boys name was Stewart Ackerley. On the third day of the holiday, he willingly agreed to drop 'em, revealing such a sight as Alan had never seen: a cock of normal size, but with a huge overhang of loose skin; even when it went hard, acres of skin had to be pulled back before the purple tip was revealed.

For the rest of the holiday, they had at least one Medical a day. Alan felt that he was getting much the better of the deal: in contrast with Stewart's his cock was ordinary. On one occasion, there being no-one around to take the piss, Alan repeated Sniffer's feat, but was disappointed to find no perceptible smell on his finger, though it was quite nice touching another boy's arsehole.

They both enjoyed wanking; sometimes they wanked themselves, and sometimes each other.

They parted at the end of the holiday, promising to meet again next year; and in the far-distant future, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Year Four took the same path as the previous year: nothing much in the winter, and a resurgence of Medicals in the summer term.

Stewart Ackerley did not reappear in Cornwall, but Alan scarcely noticed: he was totally captivated by Wizard Surfing.

During the first week of Year Five a meeting with far-reaching consequences for Alan occurred.

Nigel Stone was staying late for football practice, so Alan set off to walk home by himself. On the way, Richard Stefan waylaid him. Richard was a big, swarthy sixth-year. He had rather a cruel face, but once you got to know him, you learned that, despite his appearance and his secretive manner, he was a normal, agreeable ten-year-old.

"Wanna come to mine?" said Richard, "I've got a new game."

"If it's Fifa Soccer 95, I've been dying to play it!" said Alan.

"No, it's not a video game."

"What is it then?"

"It's a follow-on from Medicals."

"Yeah, let's go!"

Alan led the way at a trot and Richard followed close behind.

Richard was a keen Medicalist; and his long, tawny cock, with its ever-ready erection, made him a popular player.

Alan felt his own cock stiffening long before they reached the Stefan house.

Richard let them in with his latchkey.

"The house is empty; let's go upstairs," said Richard.

Alan could smell Richard's sweat. He was usually revolted by human body odour, but found this to be quite a pleasant scent.

Richard had a big bedroom in which, apart from the area occupied by his computer, every flat surface was covered by Airfix model aeroplanes.

"Wow!" said Alan.

Cocks and arses were forgotten for the next half-hour as Alan scrutinised and handled the plastic models, with Richard giving a running commentary.

When Alan's excitement had died down, it was replaced by a different excitement: it was time for the scrutiny and handling of flesh rather than plastic. Trousers were lowered and they fondled each other's cocks. Alan's was nothing special, but Richard's was fabulous: long and thin, with deep yellow ochre flesh and a magenta knob. It was like the Gloster Gladiator: something exceptional in a field where everything was enjoyable.

They played with each other for a few minutes; then Richard suggested: "Bend over the bed."

"That's a good idea!" said Alan. Bending over would give Richard a better view than standing up.

He stretched over the side of the bed, and felt Richard spreading his bum. He could hardly wait for it to be his turn to have a close look at Richard's arsehole.

Then, with a sense of exhilaration, he felt Richard's thumb touching his hole. In the privacy of Richard's bedroom, fingering was evidently allowed.

Unexpectedly, Richard flopped down on top of him. Was this the new game that Richard had promised? He could smell Richard's sweat again; it was nice.

Then he realised two things simultaneously: that Richard was pressing hard against his arsehole; and that it wasn't Richard's thumb: it was his cock.

Richard was trying to stick his cock inside his arsehole.

Alan felt panic: for no specific reason; just bewildered alarm at the unforeseen.

He pushed Richard off sideways and sprang to his feet.

"What you doing, Richard?" he said, "That's creepy!"

"It's good fun, Alan," said Richard, standing with his magnificent cock sticking towards Alan, "I did it with my cousin during the hols. Come on; you'll like it. Honest!"

"It's dirty!" said Alan, "There'll be shit everywhere; you'll get your cock all shitty. I've gotta go, anyway; it's past my teatime."

They said their goodbyes in a subdued manner, and Alan walked home thinking deeply about what had happened.

He thought about it some more over tea; and in his room, as he played his CD single Don't Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John and a man dressed as a woman.

Then he had an epiphany: Richard Stefan had wanted to treat him as a man treats a woman; and there couldn't be any thing wrong with that if Elton John did it.

Suddenly, the idea of Richard rubbing his cock inside his arse became attractive. Never mind the dirt: it was a better way of Medicalling than looking, or even touching.

He lowered his clothes, moistened his forefinger and pushed it inside himself. He rocked it backwards and forwards as he'd seen men doing to their women in the park. It felt wonderful; he wished it were Richard's cock.

Besides, if Richard wanked using Alan's arsehole, he would be able to cuddle Alan. Even though he was alone in his own room, he blushed. The thought of boys cuddling each other had always embarrassed him. It embarrassed him now on the additional grounds that he suddenly found the idea captivating.

He sniffed his finger: slightly shitty, but it wouldn't matter if Richard's cock got like that.

Next morning he got to school early and waited at the gate for Richard.

He had never thought of Richard as good-looking, but when he turned up, it seemed to Alan that he had a special sort of aura. To his surprise, the word beautiful came into his mind.

Richard smiled at him uncertainly.

Alan realised that Richard must be worried that he would tell people all about last night. The implication was that this must be kept secret.

"Can we do it tonight, Richard?" he said, making sure no-one was within earshot.

"You didn't seem so keen last night," said Richard, losing his smile.

"You surprised me, that's all. Please can we do it tonight?"

"Yeah, okay. Don't tell anyone."

"Let's say you've got some CDs to sell."

"Okay."

That evening, the lads trotted to Richard's home again. They ran up the stairs and had scarcely entered Richard's bedroom before Alan's trousers and underpants were round his ankles and he was bent over the bed, his bare bottom pointing towards Richard.

Again he felt his friend's hands on his buttocks, and again he felt a cock pushing against his hole; but this time it was a welcome guest, and Alan relaxed himself to welcome it.

As Richard lay on top of him, Alan felt the cock pass inside him before the hole tightened of its own accord. He consciously relaxed again to make sure Richard could get it all the way up. It had entered so easily that he guessed that Richard had used spit as all the boys did for wanking.

There had been the tiniest shadow of pain, so Alan knew that a bigger, man-sized cock would have hurt.

Then Richard was wanking—using Alan's arsehole instead of his hands. No: he was shagging Alan. He was using Alan as men used women; as Elton John probably used his friend.

As Richard pounded in a steady rhythm, Alan felt a cosy feeling spreading from his arsehole throughout his whole body. He was used to getting a nice feeling from his cock, but arsehole-pleasure was totally unexpected.

It was not long before he picked up Richard's scent again. It was pleasant—not nasty like adults' sweat. He wondered if the smell of shit would mix itself in, but he didn't care: that would be Richard's problem.

The next few minutes were sublime. His only disquiet related to the possibility of Richard cuddling him: half of Alan wanted it very much and the other half was embarrassed at the mere thought.

After several minutes of action, Richard stopped. He pulled himself out of Alan and bent over the bed, panting: "Come on; you do me now."

"I'd sooner not," said Alan, "Let's have a look at your CDs." He didn't fancy having Richard's shit smeared over him.

They spent another hour doing the sort of things which are acceptable to parents; then Alan walked home with the warm fuzzy feeling in his bottom contributing to a general euphoria.

There was plenty to do that autumn, and the boys thought little about cocks and bums, though Alan sometimes went round to Richard's to get shagged.

On one occasion, it got smelly and messy, which confirmed Alan in his decision never to shag Richard. However, Richard didn't seem to mind getting shit on his cock—not to mention his trousers, trainers and bedroom carpet; and he never complained about not getting shagged.

Occasionally Alan had to fight off a dispiriting feeling that he was abnormal. Sex had to be hidden from adults; but that was true of lots of other naughty activities. However, what he and Richard did had to be hidden from the other boys as well; if they were found out, they would undergo more than Sniffer.

Alan wondered if he would have to spend the rest of his life concealing his sex games from others.

By the time spring came round, Alan found that Richard's cock had grown enough for there to be a need for more careful insertion. Richard was eleven and a half, and getting to be a big boy.

Once he had the new, improved cock inside him, with Richard pulsating strongly, Alan found he was getting more pleasure.

One lunchtime, some of the boys were practising wrestling and Alan pinned down a little fourth-form weed called John Cunningham.

Cunningham called out: "Gerroff, Campbell! Are you gay, or what?"

Alan released the boy, thinking nothing of the incident.

But when he got home, Cunningham's taunt and its context came into his mind, and he had his second great epiphany: Gay!

He had heard the word on the TV news, and as a casual insult between boys, but now he realised the implication: gay was a recognised category of person; being gay meant being part of a worldwide group of people who, despite victimisation, were absolutely normal, but just happened to prefer their sexual relations to be with their own type.

There would be a need to keep his sex games secret, but there was no need to conceal his own nature now that he had discovered it.

"I'm gay," he announced casually at supper that night.

His father responded with a mere "Oh, that's a surprise, Son," but his mother was aghast: "Oh, Alan! You're too young to know about these things . . . and, besides, you can't really tell until . . ."

"Mum, he's winding you up!" said his eighteen-year-old sister.

"I'm not," said Alan, "Loads of people are gay, and I'm one of them."

"No you're not! You can't be!" said his mother, "You're ten years old!"

"You just live your life, Alan," said his father, "Whatever you are, and whatever you turn out to be, we're all a family united—and you can stop that for starters."

The last was aimed at Alan's sister, who had been making limp-wristed gestures, and now said: "Only having a laugh, Dad!" She kissed her brother.

So Alan had an easy run at home, but school was much tougher: there was no physical bullying, but a lot of abuse, and no-one wanted to be his friend—not even Nigel Stone and Richard Stefan. The latter was even more secretive than usual: it was known that Alan went to his house to listen to music, so Richard must have been petrified: it would only take one person to voice a suspicion and Richard would suffer the same sanctions as Alan.

The greys were, on the whole, sympathetic, but Alan was standoffish towards them: to be friendly would only confirm his girlishness to the other boys—and Alan knew that being gay did not mean being effeminate.

After a few days, the fifth-formers began to accept Alan; even to revel in the reflected glory of knowing a genuine gay boy. The situation was helped by the teachers having got wind of the situation (blabbing girls again) and dishing out a few tactical detentions.

Within the sixth form, however, things were different: Dave Burrows, a big, stupid boy was the leader of a gang of like-minded boys. They didn't miss a chance of mocking Alan with such subtle whispered insults as: Gay boy! . . . Where's your handbag? . . . Backs to the wall!

This didn't bother Alan at all, but he was a bit concerned when Burrows and an equally large, equally thick cohort called John Oatley cornered him by the park one evening.

He comforted himself with the thought that, if he did get beaten up, Burrows and Oatley would be excluded from school.

But beatings-up were not on Burrows agenda:

"Are you really gay, Campbell?" he asked.

"Yes, of course I am?"

"Do you like having a cock up your arse?"

"That's none of your business."

"It would be my business if it was my cock."

"Is that a request?"

"Treat it as an order."

"You can't order that."

"Grab him, Oaters!"

The two thugs each took an arm and frogmarched Alan into the park. He started to laugh as they forced him into an area of thick shrub.

"What are you laughing at?" asked Burrows, angrily.

"I was thinking of the faces of the people at school when I tell them about this. Just think: every single teacher; every single boy; every single girl. They'll all be pointing at you and saying: he thinks he's tough, but he's just a gay-boy."

"You wouldn't dare tell them," said Burrows, releasing his hold on Alan.

"Why not? I'm not ashamed of being gay; in fact I'd enjoy boasting about what I made Burrows and Oatley do with me. I bet Mr Burrows would be pleased too."

Mr Burrows was a huge, bad-tempered slaughterman.

"I'm hungry," said Burrows, "Come on Oatley."

They left Alan, who set off towards home, thinking deeply.

He thought he had handled matters well, but truth to tell, he had wanted to be shagged by these two big boys. He didn't think that they had clocked it, but his cock had been stiff all the time that he was in the shrubbery.

That night he gave himself a good wanking and had his third epiphany.

Next day, he picked a time when Burrows was alone in the playground—his mates had gone for a piss—and sidled up to him, saying: "If you really want to shag me you can for fifty pee."

He went away, leaving the thought with Burrows.

That evening, as he had hoped but not expected, Burrows was hanging about by the park.

He gave Alan a coin, muttered "Come on," and led the way into the shrubbery.

Alan dropped his clothes and braced himself against a tree.

He had a look at Burrows' cock so that he knew what to expect. It was about the same size as Richard's. Burrows pushed it against Alan's arsehole, but had a problem getting it in.

"Make it sticky with spit," said Alan; and Burrows was soon embedded up to the hilt and shagging Alan forcibly.

I was born to be shagged! thought Alan, as the familiar, happy warmth spread through his middle bit. The Burrows family knew much less about laundries and baths then the Stefans, and Alan picked up a few strong scents. A year ago, he would have found these revolting, but now they were very sexy. He didn't enjoy Burrows' breath, though.

The big boy thwacked away for about five minutes before stopping and pulling out. He wiped his cock on Alan's bumcheeks. Cheeky use of cheeks thought Alan, but he didn't complain: he was being paid, after all.

"Thank you Burrows; I enjoyed that," he said.

"You should be paying me, then," said Burrows surlily.

"Oh I couldn't do that. The Guild rules say the one taking it gets paid."

"What rules?"

"Guild rules; the Guild of Gay Boys."

"What's that?"

"It's a secret underground organisation which issues the rules for gay boys to obey, and punishes disobedience, and takes vengeance on people who misuse gay boys."

"What sort of punishment? What sort of vengeance?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you; it's dead secret, like the Mafia."

Burrows appeared to accept this, and they went their separate ways.

On the following evening, Burrows brought Oatley.

"Maximum once a day; Guild rules," said Alan. He had a feeling that his arsehole could only take so much exercise.

After discussion, it was agreed that Oatley should take that day's slot.

He had a rather small cock, but that didn't matter: Alan still got his sexual thrill.

Oatley was tall, and what is politely described as big-boned, so his cock came as a surprise, as did the little dainty tremblings that contrasted so strongly with Burrows' wham-bam approach.

From then on, Alan got himself shagged on most days; the only thing that could keep Burrows and Oatley away from his arse seemed to be shortage of money.

Alan would have liked to have an occasional play with his patrons' front and back bits, plus a good look at their arseholes; but the boys seemed to want only a no-frills shag. The customer is always right thought Alan.

He felt quite comfortable with the big sixth-formers now, and they were unembarrassed to be seen talking to him. They were all on Christian name terms.

He explained his burgeoning money-box to his family by inventing a mythical boy called Ian Wilson who he helped with his car-washing round.

The boys in the fifth-form were quite at ease now with Gay Alan, as they called him when the teachers weren't about. They didn't mind wrestling and other physicalities. They accepted help with their homework.

Nigel Stone suggested that they resumed walking to and from school together, but Alan put him off, telling him that he had become a loner and didn't want to organise his life around other people. Nigel then said that they might meet in his bedroom now and then. "I told you: I'm a loner," said Alan.

Richard Stefan still didn't dare to look at him. Alan missed him: he was better company than Burrows and Oatley; and Richard's bedroom was more comfortable than the park, the canal, or the back of the bus station.

One or two of his form-mates dropped hints which he found quite easy to laugh off.

In May, Alan had a more demanding suitor: a sixth-form black boy called Cameron Thompson started hanging about the playground with him.

He was certainly keen: every time he saw Alan, a bulge appeared in his trousers. When he followed Alan into the bog, the bulge was revealed as a stiff cock of normal size. This was disappointing, as Alan had heard that black boys had very big cocks. However, Thompson's cock had an intriguing brown-and-purple colour scheme.

Thompson would ask Alan what he was doing after school or whether he wanted to come and hear some hip-hop in his bedroom over the weekend. When he asked Alan to be his official bitch, Alan thought of raising the subject of money, but decided instead to refer him to Dave Burrows.

The next day, Dave and John were in the playground talking to Thompson, and Burrows waved Alan over.

"Thompson wants your arse," said Dave, with typical subtlety, "What yer think?"

"Okay by me," said Alan, "If it's okay by you two."

"Yeah, we worked it out: as he's a nigger he should pay a pound a poke, and me and John should get a reduction to thirty pee. That way you're still ahead of the game: you're ten pee up."

Alan shook his head: "Sorry Dave. You know the Guild rules: once a day and a fixed price for everyone—whether they're black, white, or any other colour."

Dave turned to Thompson: "Then you should pay us commission: twenty pee each."

"Sounds like you pimping this boy," said Thompson.

"Not pimping: compensation for missed opportunities," said Dave.

He turned back to Alan: "You leave it with us, Alan. Just be at the park after school."

Alan left them arguing. He rather hoped that it would be Thompson. A change—especially an exotic change—would be welcome.

He got his wish: Thompson was at the park, paid his money, and hurried Alan into the shrubbery.

"Burrows told me what to do," he said, "You tell me if I'm doing it right."

Alan took up his usual position, and Thompson fondled his arse.

"You got the sweetest little pussy," he whispered.

Then Alan felt the cock sliding into his arsehole.

Thompson immediately began a fast-and-furious shag. And short: after thirty seconds, he grunted and groaned, as though in pain, and came to a halt.

He crouched, panting, for a minute or so, with his cock going limp inside Alan.

"You is one hot little number, boy," he whispered, then did something the other two never did: he reached round and fondled Alan's cock.

"Hotrod!" he said.

A twiddle of Alan's balls produced the comment: "All man!"

Then Thompson used his own saliva to moisten Alan's cock and started to wank him gently. He could feel Thompson going hard, and soon he was off on the shag again.

This time it was slow and long, but after several minutes, he reverted to fast-and-furious, and the shag terminated with the same grunts and groans.

Alan gave Thompson time to get his breath back before ejecting him and moving clear. He reckoned that this kid would carry on all night if he let him. His arsehole was feeling slightly sore.

It had been worth it: Alan felt happy and dreamy. He was formulating these words in his head when, by chance, Thompson whispered: "Dreamboat!"

It was funny: if black and white people were so different, how come he felt more rapport with Thompson than the other two? Perhaps it was because he was a wizard, and therefore an outsider, as black boys were within British culture.

As they left the shrubbery, Alan said: "I know you never took your cock out, but that was two shags. Burrows was right: you should pay a pound."

Thompson immediately fished out fifty pee.

Alan recoiled, saying: "No, no! That was a joke!"

"Take it anyway."

"No; Guild rules for commercial transactions."

"What is this Guild? Burrows was talking about it. Do they really tax you?"

"It's secret; I can't really talk about it."

"It's a load of bullshit! See yer tomorrow."

Thompson was manifestly more intelligent than Burrows and Oatley.

Shortly after his first session with Thompson, Alan acquired a fourth partner: Richard Freem, another sixth-former.

Freem was, at first glance, a quintessential nerd: skinny, of less-than-average height and totally devoid of hunkiness, he seemed the last person to inspire terror.

Yet terrible he seemed to his victims: his eyes, enlarged behind pebbled spectacles, could reliably detect fear and nerves; his quick brain generated crushing sarcasms which emerged through his cemetery teeth, and his ugly blob-lips, to reduce boys and girls to tears; his mousey, wiry hair seemed to raise itself on end in response to the disgust and contempt he felt for his victims; even his fingernails, regularly trimmed as neatly as any girl's, gave him unchallenged accuracy in the projection of bogies, which he produced in abundance.

Alan quite admired him. Freem seemed to have a sense of fair play: all of his quarries had done something reprehensible—even if they didn't always fully deserve the mauling that Freem handed out.

One day, Freem came up to Alan and said: "Campbell, you're gay, and I've seen who you talk to, and where you meet up after school. I wonder if I could join in?"

"I'd like that. I do it for money. Burrows'll tell you all about it."

They glanced over to where Burrows was lording it over a dozen boys and girls.

"I'll talk to him when I can," said Freem.

So it came to pass that Alan found Freem waiting for him after school.

Freem's shagging style was similar to the second helpings that were taken by Thompson: a slow start leading to a frenetic conclusion; but in Freem's case, accompanied by squeaks and whimpers rather than grunts and groans.

There was another important difference from Thompson: Freem reached not one, but two arms around Alan; not to wank him, but to cuddle him tightly.

This was the best thing about the whole year. Alan realised that all his life, he'd been longing to be cuddled by another boy. He'd like to have cuddled Freem back, but the best he could do was to to remove one of his hands from the tree and use his arm to squeeze Freem's arms.

"Gonna do me now?" asked Freem.

"No; don't like it."

For the rest of the term, Alan shared his arsehole with the four sixth-years, but he liked going with Freem—now known as Rich—the best.

Rich took to kissing Alan where the neck meets the shoulder. Alan loved this. He'd been ill at ease with the concept of boys kissing boys, but feeling Rich's lips and tongue working on his flesh, shifted him into acceptance. If Rich had asked for a kiss on the lips, Alan would have agreed readily, but unfortunately, he never did.

Sometimes, Rich sucked so hard when he was kissing that he left a bruise. On one occasion, he brought his teeth into play, leaving a clear set of bite-marks visible. Alan had to ask him to ease up, though one advantage of the kissing was that it muffled the noises that Rich made when he was reaching his pleasure-peak.

Then the summer term ended, and suddenly, Alan's sex-life evaporated; worse: his mother had gone back to work, so Alan was shunted off to relatives in the North; even worse, his school report was so bad that his parents insisted on hiring a tutor to top up his academic capabilities.

"It's not all spells and Quidditch at Hogwarts," his father had said, "Basic literacy and numeracy are needed if you're going to be allowed to take up your Hogwarts place at all."

Alan was annoyed at having his holidays ruined, but he had only his own slacking to blame. He was ashamed—especially as he guessed that his mother had gone back to work to raise the money to pay for the tutor.

The tutor himself was a pleasant old boy called Dr Maxim Grubbly-Plank. He came from an old family of pedagogues—a very distinguished family if the Good Doctor was anything to go by.

Alan worked hard and was soon able to parse an English sentence and knew his tables up to twenty times and prime numbers up to a thousand.

Seeing that Alan was so dedicated, and knowing the importance of variety when cramming the brain, Dr Grubbly-Plank started Alan off on Latin, Greek and French.

There was a two-week break in the middle, when the four Campbells went off to Cornwall.

Alan had hoped to see Stewart Ackerley, with his voluminous foreskin, but was disappointed once again.

The beach resort was underpopulated this summer: despite assurances by the Ministry and the Daily Prophet that Harry Potter's claims about the return of YouKnowWho were claptrap, people were obviously nervous enough not to be too ambitious when it came to holidays.

Mr and Mrs Campbell took the view that, even if YouKnowWho was back, he wasn't going to come after them.

There were a few old faces including Mr and Mrs Files, who had been at Hogwarts with his parents.

Mrs Files was full of her son, Robbie, who had just left Hogwarts, having been Head of Hufflepuff, and who was currently on a tour of Transylvania with his girlfriend.

She showed them some photographs. Robbie was an absolute sexpot, and Alan got the horn just looking at the pictures.

He spent two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon studying, which pleased his parents.

The rest of the time he spent doing Wizard Surfing and Beach Quidditch. He was not much good at either, but blamed it on the hired boards and brooms.

His best hope of erotic action was an attractive boy called Michael Weeks; a tall boy, with a long, pale, angular face and pale brown hair. He had a beautiful body too: Alan saw a lot of him in his swimming trunks when he went surfing.

Michael was four years older than Alan, but didn't mind wandering around the town with him in the late evening.

On the plus side, Michael did not appear to be interested in girls; on the minus side, he also showed no interest in boys.

Alan dropped a few hints: Fancy a piss? . . . He's a good-looking boy! . . . You look fit when you're surfing, Michael! . . .

But it was all to no avail.

However Michael was excellent company: he was knowledgable, clever and witty—always capable of telling Alan something he hadn't known before, or making him laugh—often simultaneously.

Alan managed to have a piss in Michael's company once. Michael's cock was nothing special—but you probably never knew what was going to appear when a man got an erection—Alan had never seen a man's erection.

The depressing thing was that Michael hadn't even bothered looking at Alan when they were in the urinals together.

On his last night he decided to be a little bolder and told Michael: "I've got the horn and my arsehole's twitching!"

Michael had not glanced at the bump, but merely commented: "Probably something you ate."

So Alan went back up North, with his arsehole quickly lapsing back into a state of virginity.

Alan had caught the learning bug and, during his last year at Muggle school, he worked hard—both at school subjects and at his languages.

Despite being a known gay boy, he was accepted into the show-and-touch games of his classmates, but he never allowed them to develop, even when Nigel Stone asked him if he knew what bumming was. "I think so," he told Nigel, "but I'm not interested."

He wanked once or twice every day, but was too wrapped up in his books to chase cocks and wasn't bothered about his loss of income.

He met Cameron Thompson in town one day.

"Hi Alan!" said Cameron.

"Hi Cameron. What's it like at the comp?"

"It's okay. Some tough gangsters there."

Alan knew about that: the local press had reported that regular searches for knives had been instituted at the local comprehensive school. Thank goodness he was bound for Hogwarts!

"You getting much?" asked Cameron.

"No; not really bothered. What about you?"

"I got plenty of girls, but I fancy some boy-minge. Coming to the park?"

"No, I'm gonna look at the model stall."

"Yeah. Good idea."

The two boys went to the outdoor market, where they ogled the new (cheap) and vintage (expensive) wares.

As they left, Cameron murmured to Alan: "If I slip you a fiver, will you go to the park?"

"Okay," said Alan, though he was pretty sure that Cameron's flushness derived from dealings in illicit drugs.

Hidden within the familiar shrubbery, Alan's arsehole appreciated what it had been missing.

Cameron's style was as before: a quick bumming (as Alan now knew it was called) followed by a slow bumming.

Alan stayed motionless: for five pounds, he was quite prepared to grant Cameron thirds if he wanted.

But even Cameron couldn't manage that. He remained breathing heavily, with his limp cock inside Alan, and his hand clutching Alan's cock. Then he withdrew.

As the boys pulled up their clothes, Cameron said: "You're the hottest boy in the world."

"Thank you," said Alan.

Cameron suddenly grabbed Alan, wrapped his arms around him and kissed him on the lips.

There was a sudden whiff of Cameron's sweat.

Alan intuited that the emotion of the kiss had released a lot of new sweat, which had wafted the old sweat through the air.

It was quite an okay scent, but it had a dominant component which was unique to Cameron—or, Alan guessed, unique to black boys.

"You wanna stay at mine Saturday night?" asked Cameron.

"Not really, thanks."

"You'll be safe. My bros won't say nothing."

"No thanks. Saturday night's our family night."

Alan was aware of Cameron's own huge family. For all he knew, the five brothers shared a bedroom. As like as not, they would want to share Alan's bottom. Alan would have welcomed service from Cameron's two younger brothers—particularly Frank, a cute eight-year-old who went to Alan's school.

However, he had no intention of letting the two older brothers near his arsehole, which was currently giving him some discomfort from Cameron's attentions.

"Would twenty pounds make a difference?" asked Cameron.

"No, really; I've got too much on."

"You won't have anything on if you come to mine," laughed Cameron.

"Maybe some day," said Alan.

Cameron kissed Alan again, and paid his fiver like a gentleman.

That night, Alan lay in bed playing back his time with Cameron.

He had been kissed by a boy. He wasn't sure if he liked it: it wasn't in the least repulsive, but it was like wanking: he was left with a feeling of incompleteness.

And what had been going through Cameron's mind? It was one thing to enjoy bumming people (what a useful word that was); another to kiss them.

Was it because Alan was good-looking?

His mother had described his hair as honey-blond and his eyes as cerulean blue. His sister had once described him as pretty; mockingly, but with an undercurrent of genuine admiration.

Perhaps Cameron loved him. He must at least like him if he was prepared to pay twenty pounds for a night together. No; it must be his arsehole that he liked.

He wondered whether boys could genuinely love each other.

By a coincidence, Richard Freem called at his house on the following Saturday morning.

"Fancy coming out?" he said.

Alan had been conscientiously slogging away at French colloquialisms, but welcomed a break—especially with good company and the prospect of a shag—his encounter with Cameron had left his arsehole urgently needing more.

"Okay," he said, "Shall we go up town?"

As they walked, they talked:

"What's it like at the comp?" asked Alan.

"Pretty good. The work's okay; the kids are okay; there's just one thing missing."

"What's that?"

"Alan Campbell."

"Don't talk wet. You don't miss me."

"I do. I've often wondered about the town hoping to meet you. I really, really miss you."

"I miss you too; and Dave and John and Cameron. Talking of whom . . ."

Alan told Rich about his meeting with Cameron, though without mentioning the money or the kissing.

They went to a junk food place, and Rich insisted on paying for Alan's milkshake.

They sat on the rim of the fountain in the precinct.

"Alan?" said Rich.

"Yeah?"

"You know I said I miss you?"

"Yeah."

"I didn't explain it properly."

"How come?"

"I don't simply miss you; I think about you every minute of the day and night. Even in my sleep: I dream about you, Alan."

"That's weird, Rich; I'm nothing special."

"You are special. Alan, I'm totally in love with you."

"Rich, I'm ten and you're eleven—"

"Twelve."

"Twelve. Late Happy Birthday. We're old enough to be gay, but not old enough to be in love."

"Bollocks! I know one hundred percent that I'm gay and I know one hundred percent that I'm smitten with you . . . what's so funny?"

"It's just that your specs are steaming up. Calm down dear. It's not Hollywood; it's only two mates confessing to each other."

"Mates! Do you mean it?"

"Of course I mean it. Scout's dishonour. We'll see each other, and you'll shag me in the arse—did you know it's called bumming?—and we'll have a wonderful year. There's only one snag."

"If we're mates, there's no snag."

Rich was almost shouting. Fortunately, the noise from the fountain maintained their privacy.

Alan could not believe that this boy who was throwing his dignity to the winds was the same sardonic, sarcastic boy who had been such a terror at junior school.

"I've got to work hard at school and at home this year, Rich," said Alan, "I'm going in for a scholarship to a boarding school."

This was the standard cover story for young wizards and witches who lived among Muggles.

"That doesn't matter," said Rich, "I'll see you whenever you want."

Alan had the horn.

"No time like the present," he said, "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly. In other words, let's go to the park."

Alan was on his feet at once.

"I see you've got the horn too," he said, noting the bulge in Rich's tracksuit bottoms.

As they walked too the park, Alan asked: "Why did you leave it all these weeks, Rich?"

"I didn't know where you lived."

"So how did you find me?"

"I left school early on Thursday—told them I had a headache—and followed you home from school."

"Clever."

They reached the shrubbery, and Alan dropped his jeans and underpants. He took his usual position, braced against the tree, but Rich turned him round and kissed him—a different sort of kiss from Cameron's: Rich had a slightly-open mouth which he pressed hard against Alan's. He pushed his tongue between Alan's lips, and started licking the inside of his mouth.

It was the most wonderful feeling that Alan had ever experienced. It was as though the sexy sensations that he got from his lower regions when he was being bummed had suffused through his whole body.

And the taste! You don't taste your own saliva, but Alan could taste Rich's. It made him feel that they were together—that, even more than bumming, their souls as well as their bodies were coupling.

They embraced, squeezing and stroking each other's backs and bottoms.

It seemed that time had stopped. They kissed and kissed.

Then Rich stepped back and lowered his clothes. Alan looked at his cock, knowing that it would soon be boring its ways into him.

He prepared to take up his bumming position, but couldn't bear to turn his back on Rich and drew them into a resumed embrace.

This time, Rich's bum was naked, which made things even better; and their cocks, flattened against their stomachs, pressed against each other.

This time it was Rich that broke off the kiss, and Alan braced himself.

He felt Rich positioning his cock against the hole before easing it inside.

Then Heaven came down to Earth: he was being shagged, hugged and kissed; and by someone who loved him.

He hadn't thought much about Love before, but it was while Rich was treating him with the odd combination of tenderness and violence that makes up the act of sex that he had his fourth great epiphany: falling in love isn't necessarily the passive process that the phrase implies: it was possible to think yourself into love.

He thought about being in love with Rich, and over the next few minutes felt more and more warmth towards the boy—to the extent that he didn't complain when he felt Rich's teeth biting into him.

They had another snog before entering the public domain.

Alan's arsehole was slightly sore: Rich was a growing boy.

They arranged to meet the following Saturday.

By the sort of chance that Fate arranges so well, there was a late-night comedy show on Muggle TV that night, and it featured a panel of comedians giving their Tips of the Week.

The queer comedian offered: If you're got cucumbers and KY on your shopping-list, buy them separately, or you'll get some funny looks at the checkout.

Alan's queer antennae reacted: surely, the cucumbers were to be used for bumming, so what could KY be?

A visit to the library gave him the answer, and a visit to the supermarket the product.

"What a brilliant idea!" said Rich, smearing some on his cock.

As hoped, Richard's entry into Alan was smoother, and his arsehole ached much less afterwards.

On the next occasion, Rich tried a new variation:

"I'll put some on your pussy too," he said.

Alan turned and felt Rich's finger spreading the lotion over his hole.

Then he slipped his finger inside Alan and wiggled it about!

It felt fabulous.

After another wonderful session, Rich said: "No secrets, Alan?"

"No secrets Rich."

"Well, I confess that sticking my finger up had nothing to do with KY: it was for pure, kinky pleasure."

"No secrets, Rich?"

"No secrets Alan."

"I got more pleasure than you; so it's not kinky."

They giggled and accidentally barged into each other.

A little further on, Alan said: "No secrets Rich?"

"No secrets Alan."

"I love you."

And there, on the High Street, Rich grabbed Alan and kissed him—not a long kiss, or a showy kiss, but a kiss that celebrated their elated spirits.

The weather turned cold—too cold for exposure of bare flesh in the open air.

Alan and Rich had problems: the Freem household was teeming with brothers and sisters; the Campbell household was blessed with a mother who had given up her job and who did the shopping while Alan was trapped in school.

Rich visited—even spent time in Alan's bedroom; but there was no question of locking the door—not that it had a lock; and no question of doing anything naughtier than the occasional brief snog.

Then came a window of opportunity: two weeks before Christmas, Mrs Campbell decreed a visit to Diagon Alley. It was to be mid-week, to avoid the weekend crowds. Mr Campbell and his daughter would take a long lunch break and meet Mrs Campbell in the Leaky Cauldron at eleven.

The great day came. Alan and Rich bunked off school and lurked until ten o'clock.

Then they ran up to Alan's room and stripped off.

Alan had never seen a naked twelve-year-old before, and had to hold Rich off while he inspected him all over.

He liked the front view, but the rear view included a particularly attractive arse: rounded and chubby, and looking exotic, posed as it was on top of a pair of laughingly spindly legs. Suddenly, the thought came into his head that today he fancied bumming his friend.

"Take your socks off," said Alan.

"Bloody hell!" said Rich, but took them off anyway.

Alan surprised himself by finding Rich's nipples attractive. A Muggle comedian had once said: If God's so clever, how come he gave men nipples? Alan knew the answer now.

Rich was also discovering nipples: he reached out a forefinger and tickled Alan.

Alan reciprocated, and Rich gave a great forward jerk with his hips.

"Come on, Alan!" he said, "My cock's gonna burst!"

Alan bent over the bed, as he had done so often for the other Richard, and enjoyed Rich's finger, slithery with KY, exploring his arsehole; then the special emotions as Rich's cock found it's way inside and rubbed slowly, changing to quickly as Rich, no longer having to limit his sounds, yelled and screamed in exultation as his climax came.

No sooner had Rich finished, then Alan said: "Can I do you Rich?"

Agreement came, of course, and Richard was given the pleasure of receiving a finger, then a cock, from the boy he loved.

It was fabulous doing the things that Rich did: hugging his friend tightly; kissing his neck; stretching his arsehole.

As always though, he didn't come to the wild climax that Rich achieved. He had hoped that having his cock in an arsehole rather than a hand would make things special. He was very slightly disappointed: apart from that, everything else was perfect.

Being gay was the best thing in the world.

They had a very long, very wet snog; then Rich gave Alan a second bumming.

Alan's arsehole was a bit sore now, but it was a pleasant pain, as though Rich was still inside, reminding him that he loved him—not that he needed reminding, as Rich continued to verbalise his feelings while they were dressing.

They left the house and went on the lurk again until the schools had finished. As they walked, they talked.

"Rich, you know you get all excited at the end when you bum me?"

"Yeah."

"What's it feel like?"

"Can't really explain to anyone who doesn't get the same responses. It's just the best feeling you can have."

"How come I don't get it?"

"You get something. I can tell."

"It's nice. It's a sort of warm itchy feeling in my cock; but it doesn't drive me wild like you. Is that what you get, only stronger?"

"It's more than my cock; it's everywhere down there. It's a bit like having a piss when you're bursting; or eating and drinking when you're hungry and thirsty. I can't explain, but I love you."

"I love you, Rich."

That, alas, was the only occasion when they had a full session. There were plenty of visits to the shrubbery when the warmer weather came, but these were second best.

During these final months before Hogwarts, Alan sometimes had a thought that he couldn't reveal to anyone—even Rich—and which mortified him even though he kept it to himself:

Cocksucker!

This was a casual playground insult, but Alan took to wondering about a literal reality.

He wanted to have his cock sucked; worse, he wanted to suck Rich's cock; even worse he wanted to suck any boy's cock; and worst of all, one day when the master was wearing shorts for games, he saw the outline of a cock that he wanted to suck.

"Are you alright Campbell?" asked the master.

Alan had flushed with the worst embarrassment that he had ever experienced.

But sexual thoughts were put on hold with the excitement of going to Hogwarts.

He was nervous, of course, but as soon as the Hogwarts Express was in motion, he relaxed and chatted with the pleasant pair of greys who shared his compartment.

The fourth occupant was, like Alan, an English boy with a Scottish name. He was called Lachlan Tibbs; not particularly good-looking, but with an interesting face; and very, very sexy.

Like the greys, Tibbs was friendly; unlike them, he was uncommunicative; he spent the journey reading textbooks, with a little white cat on his knees.

Alan wondered about the opportunities for sex at Hogwarts. He could hardly pop back for a session with Rich every weekend.

He was sorted into Gryffindor and saw the famous Harry Potter, the boy who was always defeating You-Know-Who.

He nodded to his old acquaintances, Michael Weeks and Stewart Ackerley, who were in Ravenclaw.

He looked up and down the Gryffindor table, but was most interested in the boys with whom he was to share a dormitory, and perhaps more, for the next seven years.

He was impressed: Young, Treharne, Johnston and McKay were of every size shape and tint; but they were all equally friendly and seemed as pleased as Alan was with their companions.

He wondered whether any of them were gay.

At once he wrote off the dark Cornishman, Gareth Treharne: he chatted to, and showed off to the greys.

But then he noticed that Treharne sometimes glanced at him as though sizing him up; also that, when Treharne glanced up the table, it was at the boys rather than the girls.

He didn't know the layout of the dormitory, but he resolved to try and bag the bed nearest Treharne.

Everything about Gryffindor was brilliant: the portrait hole; the common room; the spiral staircase; the circular dormitory, on the second level.

True to his resolution, he tailed Treharne, but found, to his joy, that Treharne was tailing him.

They barged into each other and laughingly occupied adjacent beds.

The five boys spent an hour telling each other about themselves and swapping gossip that they had heard about Hogwarts.

Then they went to bed, but were almost immediately woken up by an Alarm. They had to go to the common room to hear a lecture on entering and leaving dormitories. This was billed as a defence against Dark intruders, but its primary effect, thought Alan, would be to reduce opportunities for gay boys to go bump in the night.

His very first lesson was shared with Slytherin, and hence Tibbs. It was clear that this boy was a real eccentric.

He partnered up with Treharne, and under the torments of Snape and Slughorn, they became friends.

During the rest of the first day, Gryffindor shared lessons with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, so all the first-years got to meet each other.

That night, Alan heard a rustling from Treharne's bed. He knew the sound, pulled out his cock, and had a companionable wank.

Then he heard Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! a sound clearly related to those sounds produced by Cameron and Rich when they reached a peak of pleasure.

"Who's that? Are you alright, Treharne?" came from David Young.

"I think he's having a bad dream," said Alan.

"Thanks pal," whispered Treharne.

Over the next few days, Alan deduced that there was quite a lot of gay activity at Hogwarts. There were lots of boys who were always together and who smiled, whispered and touched as Alan had seen lovers doing. He even learned that the pair of Gryffindor fifth-years who had their own room were actually married.

The most intimate couple—the elder a fabulously pretty boy called Colin—turned out, to Alan's disappointment, to be brothers, but they always hung out together, accompanied by the married couple and another couple (Beauty and the Beast the blunt Treharne called them) from Ravenclaw.

Within the first-years, there was a Ravenclaw boy called Christopher Bloom who was so effeminate that Colin wondered if he was actually a grey.

The most noticeable students in his year were identical twins: Scottish, and so dazzlingly beautiful that it almost hurt one's eyes to look at them. But sexually, Alan's fancies were for rougher-looking boys: Treharne, Tibbs, and one of Harry Potter's friends, called Seamus.

He was delighted that, as well as Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts, Gryffindor shared Games with Slytherin. During the first lesson, Alan and Tibbs found occasion to sympathise with each other on their poor broomstick performances.

On Thursday morning the five boys came down for breakfast and found a poster on the Gryffindor notice board inviting first-years to a Juniors in Gay Support (JIGS) meeting.

"Makes a change from having to put up with you girls," said Treharne, who had taking the opportunity to slip his arm around the shoulders of two slow-reading greys.

"Looks good fun!" said Alan.

"You're not going are you, Campbell?" said Treharne.

"I probably need advice: Are you interested in other boys? Yes. Are you interested in Gayness? Yes. Do you think you might be Gay? Yes. Would you like to support Gay boys? Yes. Do you just want to make real friends? Yes. What do you think I should do?"

There was much laughter at this, and Treharne said: "Well I'll join you for the ride, not that I'm gay myself."

At break, they talked about JIGS.

"Are you really gay, Alan?" asked David Young.

"Yes."

"Well, you have my support, but I'm not going to a ruddy meeting to prove it. All credit to you, though, Gareth."

"Well I told you I'm not gay, but in Cornwall we have some traditions," said Treharne. He told them a little about these traditions.

When he had finished, little Ruairidh McKay told them: "I think I'll go for the ride too."

He jumped onto Gareth Treharne's shoulders and was borne into Potions.

That afternoon, during Games, Alan talked about JIGS and gayness with Tibbs: to such cross-purposes that Tibbs wrestled him, giving him the horn. Yes, Tibbs was a sexy creature.

On Saturday night there was fun and games. As they were being sent to bed, Gareth murmured to Alan: "Can I slip into your bed tonight?"

"Better not," said Alan, "We might get caught. What would the others think? What would the teachers think—and do? Anyway, it's best to see what happens tomorrow."

"Yeah, that should mark our card," said Gareth.

JIGS was a revelation: nine out of twenty first-year boys attended, of whom four were solidly gay and the other five hedged themselves round with weasel words: I don't know . . . hadn't thought about it . . . not gay, but . . . might be.

Alan wanted sex, but he also wanted love. He had got used to being loved by Rich, but he would not see Rich until Christmas, and he wanted to take a lover before then. But who?

Lachlan would be ideal, once he learned what gay meant, but they were in different houses; any sex would be hole-in-corner as it had been with Rich and the others.

He admired a hunky third-year called Jimmy Peakes, but the boy was probably hetero, and even within houses, having a private session was difficult.

The biggest revelation of the JIGS was that Alan's embarrassing fantasies about cocksucking had actually been put into practice by others: Gareth Treharne and Scott Fong had each done it—or, more likely, had it done to them.

He felt a warm glow inside: in a matter of days or weeks, he knew that he would suck someone's cock and get his own sucked. But who would be his partner?

At first he thought of Gareth, but Gareth lay in the bed next to him every night. He didn't think of Gareth as a potential lover, but more of a good friend with whom he would have sex when he was not tied up with his lover.

Then he thought of whose cock he would like to suck. The answer was: more or less anyone's. Any of the other nine boys in the Jiggers' meeting; anyone in his dorm; anyone in Gryffindor; anyone in the school.

If there was no-one special, was there a special cock?

At once his thoughts turned to Colin Creevey: there had been a tale at lunchtime about Colin having been seen by the third-year boys, who reported that he had a gigantic cock; but then, Alan had never seen a post-pubertal cock and they would probably all seem gigantic to him.

In any case, Colin's brother was in Third Year, so the sudden emergence of the story seemed suspect.

The meeting had ended and Gareth whispered another invitation.

"Let's leave it a while, Gareth," he said, "I need to get things sorted in my head."

But he and Gareth sat squeezed together on a sofa as the five first years talked to David Ward about the meeting, and they both had the horn.

Then Alan's plans and dreams were exploded by a new development: beautiful (definitely), big-cocked (possibly), warm-hearted (probably) Colin Creevey came round with a card describing the Nine O'Clock Club, where boys could spend the night with a randomly selected, or established, partner in a safe confidential environment.

This was surely Fate.

Alan would not have to make any decisions, but would find himself in bed for the night with a strange boy, perhaps doing nothing; perhaps doing a little; perhaps doing a lot; and all by mutual consent.

Alan had never even shared a bed with a boy, and had expected Gareth to become the first, but now he would wait and see what Fate provided.

The three first-year Jiggers, Alan, Gareth and Ruairidh signed up immediately.

At first they were restrained in talking about the exciting prospect, but then realised that there was a powerful charm that prevented non-members of the Club hearing anything spoken about it.

Alan and Gareth agreed to put their own activities on hold.

Seven o'clock on Wednesday would have taken an eternity to come had it not been for the enormous Hogwarts workload. Alan had not considered the amount of work needed to become a wizard. His father and mother had not thought to enlighten him, and Alan had assumed Hogwarts would be a dawdle.

It turned out that he lost most of Monday and Tuesday evenings to homework, and it was with surprise that he realised that Wednesday had arrived.

Gareth and Ruairidh found him in the library.

"Watts-Poxon put up the rota," said Gareth, "We're not on it but you are."

He raced to the common room (More haste, less speed said the Fat Lady) and there it was:

Johnny Rudd V(H)

Alan Campbell I(G)

He stared in surprise. A fifth-year! A boy four years older than himself! For some reason he had assumed that boys would be matched in age; but there had been nothing about that in the Nine O'Clock flyer.

He didn't know whether to be pleased or not. He would see Colin Creevey for advice.

He looked for any other Jiggers. Adrian Woodman, professed gay, a blond boy, with spectacles, had got a Hufflepuff second-year; Nathan Kirton, the vicar's son, had got Chris Gillies, a Gryffindor third year—one of those who had seen Colin's gigantic cock; Scott Fong had got Euan Abercrombie, a Gryffindor second-year who Alan found sweet. Alan had heard his dorm-mates teasing Euan about his noises, so he guessed that, like Scott he had orgasms. That would be a deafening session!

He glanced, without much interest at the established pairs.

Then his eyes goggled: the Creevey brothers had put themselves down as lovers! Every pair of brothers that Alan knew had been quarrelsome rivals, whatever deep-down family love they may or may not have had.

The thought of one Creevey shagging another was surreal; but then Hogwarts was a special school, with some very special boys.

On Thursday they had Games with Slytherin after lunch, and Alan got a semen-preview from Tibby.

The Slytherin boy had been bummed at lunchtime—he didn't say who by—and it was leaking out his bottom.

Alan touched Tibby's soaking underpants and smelt something that was stronger and subtly different from the contents of rubber johnnies.

Ruairidh went one stage further and put his hand inside Tibby's underpants and came out soaking wet. The smell was a little stronger, but not, Tibby assured them, as strong as the real thing.

As dinner was coming to an end, Alan got up and approached Colin Creevey.

"Colin," he said, "Can you point out Johnny Rudd?"

"Oh yes. You've got him a week on Saturday, haven't you Alan," said David Ward, from further down the table.

"Are you in it too, Wardy?" asked Alan.

"No, but I've been taken into the Charms so we can talk about it at JIGS."

"Anyway, Alan," said Colin, nodding two thirds the way down the Hufflepuff table, "He's got his back to us sitting between the crinkly-haired boy and the greasy-haired boy."

"Got him! Thanks Colin."

Rudd was tall, fairly thin and black-haired. That was all that Alan could deduce from the rear.

After the meal, he buttonholed Wardy, and they strolled outside, under the warm evening sun.

"I'm worried, Wardy," said Alan, "He's four years older than me. He's probably sophisticated and I won't know how to please him."

Wardy laughed, then told Alan: "Sorry to laugh, Alan, but you've got such a wrong perspective, it really is comical. It's not about sex; it's about friendship. All you have to do to please him is spend the night with him."

"But suppose he wants to bum me? I've only ever done it with little boys cocks."

"I don't suppose either of you will want that on your first night. And anything is by mutual consent."

"I still feel green."

"He won't mind about that. Remember he's a gay boy too. He signed up, so he must be willing to accept what comes—a great big hunk like Ritchie Coote or a little squitch like Ruairidh McKay."

"I suppose so."

"The very worst thing that can happen is that you make a new friend."

"That's always good. You are a comfort, Wardy."

"And what we'll do at Sunday's JIGS is go through bumming in great depth, so you're better placed to make up your mind."

"Thank you Wardy."

On Sunday, Alan was delighted that the two pretty MacKenzies turned up. They seemed to be special friends with Tibby. Tibby's other friend, MacFarlane from Slytherin also joined the group. Alan was pleased for David Ward who was obviously delighted that the headcount was now twelve.

David was as good as his word, taking them through every detail of bumming, and teaching them Lubricio! the Lubricating Charm.

Thereafter, the week went in a torrent of hard work.

Alan took every opportunity to peek at Johnny Rudd. He liked what he saw: a pleasant face, with a healthy, outdoor sort of colour; black hair. Best of all, he was mates with Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Hufflepuff sixth-year who everyone said was a thoroughly good egg.

Once Alan saw Johnny peeking at him. Their eyes met. They smiled and looked away quickly.

When Saturday came, Alan was quivering.

He had a shower after lunch, and another before dinner.

He sprayed his armpits, his torso and his feet with three different Muggle mail toiletry products.

He was filled with a reawakened worry that he might not know what to do.

There was one thing that he could do: that was to be on time.

At ten to nine, he walked down the fourth-floor corridor.

Johnny Rudd was waiting outside the door of the boys' toilet.

Alan felt himself trembling.

Then Johnny smiled and Alan smiled back.

The boy held out his hand, and said:

"Hello; my name's Johnny Rudd."

3. Johnny—with Alan

As they shook hands, Johnny had an initial twinge of discomfiture at the sweatiness; but then realised that Alan was sweating too.

"Do you think the others are already inside?" asked Alan.

"Let's give them a few minutes," said Johnny.

The boy was sweet.

But he was so tiny: he was a good ten inches shorter than Johnny, and what they were planning to do seemed ridiculous.

Then he remembered Alf, the dodgy antiques dealer. Johnny had been only just ten when they'd met, but he had been eager to be kissed by Alf, and to do whatever else Alf had wanted.

"How do you like it at Hogwarts?"

"I love it," said Alan, "though the work's hard."

"I think they deliberately stretch you to begin with. It's easier afterwards, and a lot of fun."

The boy reddened and Johnny, realising that he had accidentally said something risqué, blurted out: "What's your favourite subject?"

"I think it's Defence against the Dark Arts, though you've got to put up with Snape's sarcasm."

"Last year we had Umbridge. She more-or-less taught us nothing: it was all to do with Politics—you know—Harry Potter and all that."

"Do you think he's really the chosen one?"

Johnny snorted: "It's just the Prophet trying to sell copies. They've got no credibility: they damned him last year; they're beatifying him this year. Why can't they just leave him alone?"

"Do you think he's gay? Nobody seems sure."

"Well if Gryffindor's not sure, I don't suppose the other houses can be either. He certainly went out with Cho Chang, who you'll meet soon, but people say that was just survivor's guilt—Cho was potion-deep in love with Cedric—that's the boy who died."

"Some of the Gryffindor boys say that Potter's dorm is the straightest in the school."

"You can never tell," said Johnny, "Lots of the older boys like me are under pressure to keep it secret. Things have relaxed over the last twelve months, and they'll probably relax more, so that lots of Nine O'Clock Club members will be shouting their gayness from the top of the Astronomy Tower within a few weeks."

"Will you be doing that?" asked Alan.

"I've got family views to consider, so I don't know."

"How long have you been gay, Johnny?"

"Sort of since I was eight, but I've sort of been interested in girls too—but only if they're pretty and clever; I'm much more forgiving in my tastes for boys."

"Thank Heaven for that!" laughed Alan.

"What about you: how long have you been—Oh, here they are."

The two lovers were running and laughing along the corridor.

"Just made it!" said Michael Corner.

He was a serious-looking boy. People occasionally described him as weird, but that was probably because of his long black hair and pale complexion, which seemed to demand piercings and tattoos.

In truth, he was a caring, hard-working and courageous young wizard—and very clever: he had achieved "Outstanding" in all the O.W.L.'s that mattered.

"Wouldn't do to get banned," he said, "And we can't blame ignorance: we were here two nights ago."

"I don't think Eddie Carmichael's that strict!" said Johnny.

"No," said Michael, "But it's a matter of respect and politeness."

The Nine O'Clock Club was Eddie's brainchild.

"I'd better introduce you," said Johnny, "This is Alan Campbell, who I've just met; Alan, this is Cho Chang . . . and Michael Corner."

They shook hands.

"Let's go!" said Cho.

He was an effeminate Chinese boy. His hair was even blacker and longer than Michael's, but, against the racial norm, was slinky and glossy. Cho kept it cut in the style of the Muggle model Sophie Dahl.

The four boys entered the lavatory. It was as Harold Holmes had described: wash-basins behind the door; urinals to the left; cubicles to the right.

They went through the wardrobe and up the steep staircase.

Johnny and Alan inspected the peepholes that had allowed generations of Hufflepuff boys to spy on other boys pissing and shitting—and presumably doing other things in the cubicles.

They had not finished flitting from peephole to peephole when they were joined by Cho and Michael.

The older boys were bollock-naked.

Johnny was embarrassed, and annoyed with himself for being embarrassed.

He reminded himself firmly that here were four gay boys, who had semi-publicly acknowledged their need for gay sex.

He forced himself to say something: "Crikey, I never realised how lovely naked boys could be!"

It was true: he didn't notice the other four boys in his dormitory any more.

He had clearly said the right thing: the Ravensclaw boys smiled broadly, and Alan said: "They are lovely, aren't they! Come on Johnny: we're overdressed."

They took their clothes off.

Alan couldn't wait to get his eyes on Johnny's boy-bits, but Johnny was interested in Alan's entirety—noticing that the boy's privates were tiny—but then what did he expect from an eleven-year-old.

But the body! Smooth, slightly tanned here and there, totally hairless, and a perfect shape.

Professor Flitwick had once described a Charm as Not efficacious, but with great aesthetic attraction.

Johnny thought of this as he looked at Alan: Not sexy, but with great aesthetic attraction.

Yes, the boy was beautiful; every boy of that age was beautiful, but when it came to sex, Johnny would have preferred a Michael, or a Cho . . . or a Justin.

They would have liked to sit—all four of them—in a bed-cubicle, but that was not allowed, so each couple sat at the end of their designated bed, and the four of them chatted.

"I was asking you how long you'd been gay, Alan," said Johnny.

"Since before I knew anything about sex," said Alan, "I've known that boys mean everything to me, and girls nothing, for as long as I can remember."

He was the only one with a stiff cock.

It was sweet.

"I was like that, said Cho."

"I thought I was a normal straight boy in love with Ginny Weasley," said Michael, "Then I went overboard for Cho, and with a little help from the Creeveys, we came together, and now we're together for ever."

He and Cho had an arm around each other. They had a little kiss as Johnny thought about Colin Creevey.

"The Creeveys seem to have given lots of people lots of help," said Johnny, "They should have been in Hufflepuff; then I might have had a proper sex-life."

"Have you had any sex-life, Johnny?" asked Michael.

Johnny told them about Ben Yill and Camille.

They laughed uproariously when Johnny described finding a handful of cock under Camille's tracksuit.

"Cho sometimes goes girl," said Michael. "She's gorgeous. I did it for James Poxon's hen-party. I felt very sexy."

"You were very sexy," said his lover, "The prettiest boy at the party."

"No, that was somebody else," said Michael, kissing Cho again.

"What happened with Camille?" asked Alan.

"I bashed his Basilisk and squirted my underpants. But never mind me: what about you, Alan?"

Alan told them about his days as a tiny tot; about Richard Stefan, Dave Burrows, John Oatley, Cameron Thompson and Richard Freem.

Then he told them about JIGS, and about his joy when he realised the high number of gayboys at Hogwarts.

All four boys had their cocks pointing heavenwards.

Johnny looked with admiration at the Ravenclaw boys' parts: like his own, but different. Every set of cock and balls was different; but wonderful in its own unique way.

"Bedtime!" said Cho, and the two couples retired to their own compartments, drawing the curtains across the foot of their beds.

Johnny and Alan lay side by side gazing at each other's bodies.

Then Johnny stretched out a hand and reached around Alan.

He stroked his back and felt a shudder of happiness as Alan reciprocated.

He moved his hand lower, and stroked the boy's bum—cupping each cheek in turn. It was such a tiny bum; so smooth; soft and firm at the same time.

He felt Alan's hand move downwards, and then experienced the exquisite pleasure of his bum being felt by someone else.

He felt a surge of Love and Peace—such a cliché when mouthed casually by Muggle hippies, but such a forceful truth when genuinely instilled by another human being.

He moved tentatively for a kiss, resting his lips against Alan's.

The boy took the hint eagerly, returning the pressure and sliding his tongue into Johnny's mouth.

They snogged deeply.

This was better than snogging Danny or Camille: there were no time constraints; they could do it all night if they wanted.

He was conscious of Michael and Cho telling each other: I love you . . . I love you, and his heart overflowed with love and hope for every gay boy in the world.

He lay on his back and pulled Alan on top.

They continued their kiss for some time, each taking it in turns to ream out the other boy's mouth.

Johnny could scarcely believe that this wasn't fantasy: it was really happening! He was tenderly, but ardently, kissing a beautiful boy while stroking his back and head; and he was fondling the boy's superlative bum.

There were sexy sounds coming from next door: a rhythmic creaking of bed-springs; a rustle of sheets; whispered words of love.

They were scuttling, as Ben would say; it sounded as though Michael was shagging Cho.

He thought of Cho's arsehole being adoringly stretched by Michael.

The image led him to move his hand between the hemispheres of Alan's arse; inside the crack; to his most hidden part.

Alan's arsehole was tiny, like the rest of him. There was no possibility of sticking his cock up, but the image of buggery was powerful . . . incredibly powerful . . . the sort of power that could lead to rape.

Surprisingly, he thought of the muscular Tommy Thomas raping little Ben Yill. Then this image played together with an image of Johnny raping Alan.

Love was replaced, or amplified, by Lust. Johnny was suddenly very excited indeed, and his loins jerked, seemingly of their own accord, as he rubbed his cock against Alan, holding him tightly.

Then he was spunking up. A massive splash of cream slammed into Alan's lower thighs. Then again; more and more.

Johnny had more than a week's worth of cream stored up, and it seemed that it would last out forever, but, all too soon, things came to an end, and Johnny stopped his jerking.

Alan moved immediately: he shifted to a praying position, and sniffed hard at Johnny's spunk.

Johnny's privates were awash and the bed was soaking.

Alan scooped up some spunk in his hand, held it to his mouth, and inhaled deeply.

"Wow!" he said.

Johnny felt pride: lots of things that night had been a first for one or other of the boys—or both; but this was special: Alan had obviously never been exposed to spunk before, and it was Johnny's spunk that had thrilled and delighted him.

He drew Alan into a resumption of their snog.

He felt so happy and knew that Alan was happy too. He sensed that things would get even better if he kissed the boy all over.

He moved down to the boy's neck, then his shoulder.

Some primitive instinct drove him towards the nipples.

He kissed one of Alan's nipples, then sucked it while tickling it with his tongue.

It was wonderful, of course, but marred by the fact that Alan had sprayed some Muggle perfume over his body.

He abandoned the armpits, his next intended target.

He knew a place that Alan wouldn't have sprayed!

He shifted down to Alan's stiff little cock.

There was no smell.

He took it into his mouth: no taste, but a hotness; and simultaneous firmness and softness; there were twitches as though the cock had a life of its own; but Johnny knew that the twitches sprang from Alan's lust. Lust for Johnny. He felt proud and privileged again.

He started sucking and moving his head backwards and forwards. Instinctively, he wiggled his tongue about and got an immediate response: "That's good!" said Alan, "Go on!"

Next door, things were coming to a climax: the rustling was going at a high rate; Michael was gasping: Oh Yeah! . . . Oh Yeah!; Cho was squeaking.

Then Michael was shouting: Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! . . . I love you . . . Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! . . . YEAH!

Cho was shrieking: YEAH! . . . LOVER MICHAEL! . . . TA MADO WOODLE DUNG MEN! . . . OH!

Johnny felt the happiness of the loving couple spilling over as a spiritual enhancement of what he and Alan were doing.

He sucked and stimulated Alan for some time, until the boy jerked backwards: he'd had enough.

Of course, the boy couldn't spunk up, but Johnny had hoped that he could come to a proper climax, as apparently some little boys could.

Johnny thought of what would have happened had it been Justin: his friend would have spunked up and filled Johnny's mouth with cream.

The wonder of the Nine O'Clock Club was that, sooner or later, he would be paired with someone who would christen his mouth. It would not be Justin, but it would be a good second best.

His cock throbbed with lust when Alan gave it a little feel.

Then, out of a vacuum, a completely original thought came into his mind: he knew another place that Alan wouldn't have sprayed!

In Ben Yill's shameless ramblings; in the night-talk in the dorm; in Justin's homophobic lectures: nobody had ever mentioned the concept, but Johnny decided he would like to get close to Alan's arsehole—he couldn't shag it, but there was something else.

He was going to kiss Alan in his most secret place.

With perfect, ironic timing, Alan farted a little-boy fart, and said: "Sorry! I need the toilet."

"What? Number two?" asked Johnny, as the boy got up.

"Yeah; no peeping!"

"Are you kidding?" came Michael's voice.

"Oh, don't; it's embarrassing," said Alan.

"No it's not," said Cho, "It's an extra thrill for all four of us; and you'll be able to check out whether the peepers are detectable."

So Alan went downstairs, and the other three gathered round the appropriate peephole.

They had their arms around each other's shoulders. Johnny noticed that Michael's cock was still dripping.

There wasn't much to see—in either direction: Alan gave them a thumbs-down to tell them that the peephole was lost in the ornate plasterwork of the lavatory ceiling.

The boy flushed and washed his hands.

Upstairs, Johnny and Michael smoked cigarettes, Cho taking an occasional girly puff.

Then they went to bed.

Johnny offered to sleep in the wet bit, but Alan told him that he wanted to feel Johnny's wetness all night.

In the end, it didn't matter, as the two boys went to sleep in a tight clinch, lullabied by a last set of I love yous from next door.

Jimmy Gloyne had been right: holding a naked little boy all night was the best thing in the world.

In the morning, Johnny woke fairly suddenly. He remembered where he was, and who he was with.

Alan was stirring too.

What had awakened them was immediately apparent: Michael and Cho were hammering away again.

Johnny moved his hand and squeezed Alan's wondrous bum.

"Morning!" said Alan.

"Morning!"

"Do you want to try that?"

"Do you mean—"

"Yeah; I want you to bum me."

"I think you're a bit petite."

"We can try."

"Okay."

Johnny performed the Lubricating Charm, and inserted his finger in Alan's arsehole.

It was incredibly tight; but also incredibly smooth: the Lubricating Charm was a winner; his finger had slid in easily.

"I think it's too tight, Alan," he said.

"No, there's a lot more give: try a second finger."

Johnny's second finger went in, but now it was really tight.

"That's nice," said Alan, "Jiggle it about."

He played about for some time. It was the most intimate experience he had ever shared with another person.

Then Alan said: "Come on! I want to be shagged!"

He lay on his side, and Johnny positioned his cock at the right spot, pressing very gently. He was prepared to go extremely slowly, entering the boy an eighth of an inch at a time.

"You say stop and go," he told Alan.

"Okay."

It turned out that there wasn't much need for gentleness.

Matters were finally settled when Alan gave a mighty backwards heave which left him fully impaled.

Then Johnny could start.

He went slowly and gently, holding Alan tightly and tenderly.

But soon his resolve got itself lost, and he was giving the boy a fast, strong shagging.

It was a truly magnificent feeling. He could think of no better way of spending his life than by shagging boys. What these heteros missed out on!

The climax came all too soon; but while it was with him, what ecstasy! Holding the hot, quivering body; kissing the white, fragile neck; and, above all, the perfect release of his juice inside the boy.

He felt as though he were educating Alan; making him a true man; sharing a cosmic adventure with him.

He carried on jabbing the boy, even after his balls must have emptied themselves; then lay, panting, knowing that this was the most significant day of his life.

They separated and Alan had a close look at Johnny's cock; then a peep at his arse.

They got dressed.

It was ten past six: time to slip back to the dormitories.

The four boys had six kisses between them (Must remember that number if I'm ever setting up an orgy thought Johnny) and went to their three dormitories.

Johnny had an extra-large Sunday breakfast, and told the story of the night to Ronnie, Colin and Derek.

Dare was present, of course, but could not hear a word.

Johnny thought wryly that Alan had seen something that he had not: a big boy's arsehole.

Still that would be put right soon: perhaps in the Club, and perhaps in the dorm. . . . He was beginning to get some thoughts about his three gay dorm-mates.

That evening, Owen Cadwallader, the big seventh-year, convened all sixteen of the Hufflepuff Nine O'Clockers in a corner of the common room.

To non-members they seemed to be playing Riddles.

Owen had broached some Hufflepuff Punch, and gave them the toast:

"To a New Life!"

"To a New Life!" they shouted.

4. Alan—with Johnny

As they shook hands, Alan's knees seemed about to give way.

This was a man!

Alright, he was only fifteen, and he was sexy and handsome; but he was still a man, and for Alan to go with him seemed an enormity.

But then, after they'd talked about Hogwarts, Harry Potter and being gay, everything flipped, and Alan felt utterly at home with Johnny, as though he were Alan's big brother.

He had expected to be nervous of the other couple: they were big boys and Established lovers. Would they view Alan and Johnny as dabblers?

But no-one could be nervous of the sisterly Cho, and Michael Corner turned out to be much less intimidating than his appearance threatened.

Alan was intrigued by the peepholes, but forgot them when Michael and Cho appeared nude.

He was elated: he had peeped at men and older boys in urinals in the past, but for the first time, he could get a good look at mature male genitals in all their beauty.

Here were two cocks like his own, but longer and fatter, presented in the picturesque frame of black triangles of hair and dangling, leathery ball-sacks.

He could hardly wait for Johnny to get undressed: then he saw Johnny's cock; here was the kit that he would be able to access later; like the other two, but unique. There was the same agreeable variation that had pleased him so much in little boys.

He laughed when Johnny told them about his sexual adventures—limited but amusing.

Then he told them about his own life.

This had its funny moments too, but they didn't laugh when he told them about the love that he and Rich had for each other: they found it acceptable that little boys could have emotional feelings as intense as bigger boys or adults.

This was surely the point of the Nine O'Clock Club: age, size, looks, intelligence, fitness meant nothing: being gay meant everything.

While Alan was speaking, the three big boys went hard.

Again, three similar, but unique cocks.

Alan looked closely at Johnny's cock—his cock tonight.

It was beautiful, but huge: it must be nearly six inches long.

For a milli-second he felt fear: this thing would rip him apart.

Then he remembered Dave Ward's encouraging words at JIGS: when any two gay boys get together, they can discover as much pleasure from the back as from the front.

He wanted Johnny's cock up his arsehole, and would put up with a lot of pain to get it there.

He wanted to feel all three cocks, but didn't know whether this would offend gay etiquette—or, indeed, Club rules.

They went to bed, and Alan again felt a little nervy; but Johnny did the best possible thing to relax him: he cuddled and stroked him.

As he lay there cuddling and being cuddled, Alan had a sense that the most important thing wasn't sex: it was sharing your life at the most intimate physical level with someone else.

This transcendent sense continued, even when they were stroking each other's arses.

Then Johnny drew him into a kiss, and suddenly life moved into another dimension.

As he lay on top of Johnny, kissing and being kissed, it was as if they would do this forever; and morning seemed forever away.

Even when Johnny's finger brushed his arsehole, it seemed to be nothing to do with sex.

Then there came a rude—and very welcome—awakening: he felt Johnny's body tense up, the way Cameron and Rich had tensed up when they'd been shagging him.

Johnny was going to have an orgasm! Johnny was going to discharge semen!

He considered shifting so that he could see it coming out of Johnny's cock but Johnny was too quick: Alan felt a warm wetness against his legs; a wetness that spread and spread.

And it was hot! Not scalding hot, but surely hotter than human body temperature.

He moved quickly to have a look. There was so much—much more than there'd ever been in any of the rubber Johnnies.

And it was creamy—not like the watery stuff that he had so often squeezed onto girls' and teachers' dinners.

And the smell! Not a trace of rubber. His nostrils were hit by an acridity which delighted him: this was the essence of maleness; this was the abstract concept of gayness materialised into a strange potion that was more wonderful than anything that could be devised by Professor Slughorn.

He collected some on his hands and rejoiced in the texture and odour.

Johnny pulled him down for another kiss, and he surreptitiously licked a finger—he still wasn't sure what was acceptable in the gay world. He wanted this mystical substance to fill his mouth; to fill his arsehole; to splash over him until he was covered from head to toe.

The kiss was extra-special: he knew now that Johnny was so excited by Alan that he could come simply through Alan's proximity, without wanking or sucking or shagging.

Then, suddenly, Johnny was sucking a nipple. So that was okay, too.

He was somewhat frustrated when Johnny took his mouth away, but lifted back to Heaven when he felt Johnny's mouth closing around his cock.

He could not believe it. He was being sucked by a fifteen-year-old.

Then Johnny started tickling the sensitive area with his tongue.

It was such a wonderful feeling; and it was enhanced by the noisy orgasms from Michael and Cho.

The next-door orgasms finished, but Alan's wonderful feelings continued, and there was all the time in the world for him to enjoy them.

In practice, ten minutes was enough: Alan's cock became slightly sore and tickly, so he broke away from Johnny's mouth.

He felt Johnny's cock: it was hot and hard. Even though it was bigger than anything he had experienced before, he had to have it inside him now.

Mouth or arse?

At that moment his bowels heaved.

What a moment to need a shit!

He was too annoyed to be embarrassed, but wasn't too happy when the other three wanted to watch.

But it turned out that it was all for the best: shitting in the knowledge that his three friends were looking at him through the spyhole just added another little grain to their shared intimacy.

Johnny had a cigarette before they went to bed.

Their goodnight kiss tasted of tobacco. Alan didn't smoke; but it was such a manly flavour.

He had intended to suck Johnny's cock, but he was very tired, and went to sleep holding Johnny tightly, and feeling his hand on his arse.

Morning came and Johnny still a hand on Alan's arse.

He could hear the two big boys shagging in the nearby bed, and resolved that he and Johnny would follow suit.

Alan felt a strong need to be shagged and didn't have to work too hard at persuading Johnny.

Then it was a stairway to heaven—the stairway that Wardy had described at JIGS: one finger; two fingers; a cock-tip; and finally, with a gesture of impatience by Alan, the whole cock.

He'd rushed it and it hurt quite a bit, but he concealed the pain from Johnny and soon it had gone.

And then there was total Heaven!

Johnny was holding him tight and shagging him; and all the while the hold was getting tighter and the shagging harder.

Then Johnny's orgasm came. Alan could hear the throaty noises; feel the slippery sweat; enjoy the kisses on the neck, and the tickling from Johnny's hair.

He could not feel more than a fuzzy sense of joy in his arse, and the rest of his abdomen, but he knew that Johnny was pumping the essence of maleness deep inside him.

He was so happy. Everything was perfect. He wished that they could go back to sleep, still connected by Johnny's cock; but, alas, it was time to go back to the dormitories.

Before they got dressed, Alan crouched to get a look at Johnny's cock. It was limp, but slightly engorged; it was still wet, but there was no sign of shit.

He turned Johnny round to have a quick arse-inspection: a beautiful arse—a man's arse; between the parted cheeks a little brown arsehole obscured by a surprising amount of hair.

Then it was goodbye and back to Gryffindor.

He was about to go to bed for a couple of hours' sleep, when Gareth Treharne called him.

He went through the curtains and sat at the foot of Gareth's bed.

"Go okay?" asked Gareth.

"Brilliant."

"Tell me all about it then."

"I'm not telling you."

"It says confidentiality is not an option."

"I said I'm not telling you. I'll tell you and Ruairidh."

Gareth grinned and got up.

"I think it'll work best if we're in the nude," said Alan.

Gareth grinned again and the boys got undressed.

So little Ruairidh McKay woke up that Sunday morning to find two naked boys sitting on his bed.

He looked totally amazed, but, like a true Gryffindor, reacted with courage and quick thinking.

"Shall I take my pyjamas off?" he asked.

"What do you think?" said Gareth.