Chapter Nine
A Fulfilment Not Postponed
They kissed and let their hands roam free to explore intimacies that were driving them to an even deeper longing. Harry ran his fingers through Ron's hair, over the crest of his shoulder and down his chest. He perceived the effect of his touch on him as Ron's tongue shot into Harry's mouth. Harry caressed him, playfully running his fingertips near his sides (he knew Ron was extremely ticklish) and back over his chest. His fingers made circles on his chest, each one progressively smaller and centring on a target Harry sensed would bring much pleasure. Ron was softly moaning now as each passing circle was getting nearer and nearer the teat. Harry licked a finger and found his target, rubbing and pinching it as Ron's head arched back in ecstasy. Their legs were again entwined, now brushing against each other. Harry felt the firm muscle of Ron's thighs moving against his. He felt the hard warmth of his passion prodding against him.

Ron had shown great cunning in his plans to kiss Harry. Now that they were in bed together and Harry was passionately responding to his initiative he was becoming submissive to his every move. Harry realised that Ron had desired this moment for so long that with each touch he was receiving pulses of pleasure he'd never dreamed possible. For Harry, too, it seemed that every nerve of his body was electrically charged and somehow tuned for the touch that only Ron could give.

Harry sat up looking at Ron. He was on his back at peace and released from his insecurities. His face glowed with love as he looked up at him. Harry thought he could spend the rest of eternity just kissing him. He bent over and kissed Ron's lips. Then he tasted his neck, beginning to slide down the bed, his tongue exploring his chest and making him moan as he licked around his teats. Harry was moving down Ron's chest and abdomen while his free hand caressed Ron's thighs.

"Hey, no!" Ron pulled Harry upright.

Harry was stunned.

He felt like a boulder had suddenly fallen into his stomach. He had been so focused on giving him pleasure that he had misjudged what Ron wanted. Ron only wanted to kiss and cuddle.

It felt like the world was about to crash around him. He was sure that Voldemort had somehow come back from the dead, planned this whole devilish charade and was about to burst in with high-pitched laughter as he killed him. But he was beginning to feel dead already. Ron didn't really want him. The fulfilment he needed, the incarnation of intimacy he craved, would never be his. His every desire was to give Ron pleasure and he didn't want it. He was humiliated. He didn't think he could ever look Ron in the face again.

Ron nudged him to look at him. It was Harry's turn to have eyes filled with fear and the dread of losing the one person he needed most in the world. It was like some emotional cruciatus curse. Beginning to weep he forced himself to look at him, bracing for the rejection that would bring death to him more powerfully than anything Voldemort could ever have done.

"Harry, there's a better way. I once caught Fred and George doing it and…

"Hey, relax! (Ron had spotted the insecurity in Harry's eyes) I just want to give you the same pleasure I think you were about to give me that's all. We can do it together, see."

He kissed him and gave him an assuring hug, then Ron had Harry lay on the bed turned to one side while he lay down in the opposite direction. Harry, so relieved that his fear had been needless, now instinctively understood what he had in mind. In seconds they were entwined again in a union of passion that surpassed anything they would have thought possible. Harry tasted Ron and tingled at the touch of Ron's tongue on him. They were kissing, licking and tasting each other as their bodies rocked together in a harmony of calenture. With every movement he made to please Ron Harry felt Ron also driving him further to the edge of felicity.

It was a night unlike any other. It was a night of discovery and confirmation. They fulfilled desires that were unknown before they had fulfilled them. Harry moved to provide every pleasure to Ron and he reciprocated taking him to the heights of passion as they opened to each other every avenue of desire's fulfilment. Ron's love throbbed in Harry and his devotion echoed in the depths of Ron's soul. They become as one, united as definitively as humanly possible. It was a union, forged through years of struggle together against a common cause, that had been transformed by their manifest need for each other. They became one, to be whole only when together, united in a passion that melded their souls into a unity of love no magic, wizard or muggle could break. They had found their freedom in the absolute need they had to always be with each other.

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Dawn rose over the Retreat House. Light played with the shadow cast by the curtains of the bedroom.

Two souls lay entwined together, the youngest son of hardworking civil servants, and the orphaned son of heroes he would never know. They had been fragile, mortal creatures, incomplete and adrift in the world... Until they met each other.

That had now been so long ago and they had suffered so much. Yet they had survived it all. Ron had found the star in whose light he cast no shadow. And Harry Potter, the boy who lived, found a love, a companion, the soul mate that understood his every need and who lived to bring him the fulfilment and peace he could never know with anyone else. Theirs was a union of immortality. A feast that knew no end. A consummation that found wholeness in the shattered remnants of battles that had no hope.