Title: Stuck on You
Author: Mad Maudlin
Email:
mekamorph@yahoo.com
Category: Romance, humor
Keywords: Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, slash
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: OotP
Summary: Harry and Ron have always been joined at the hip. Just...never quite so literally.
Disclaimer #1: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Disclaimer #2: Here there be slash. Don't start anything with me.
A/N: Okay, this is about the third version of this fic. The original is a big sprawling mess more than twice as long that's never going to see daylight, I hope. It was written for the Harry/Ron Fuh-Q-Fest, and my challenge was "Fred and George play a prank that backfires, putting Harry and Ron under a spell." Special thanks to Dain, who, when I asked for a beta with twelve-hour turnaround, stepped up to the play. A_A!
"Stuck on You"
by Mad Maudlin
for the HP/RW FQF
Harry Potter stared out the window of the hospital wing, watching the treetops of the Forbidden Forest slowly disappear under a blanket of wet snow. It was better than looking at his right arm, which Madame Pomfrey seemed to find fascinating. Next to him on the bed, Ron sighed and kicked one foot monotonously against the frame.
The school nurse straightened up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her apron. "I would say," she announced, "that you are definitely attached."
"Can you undo it?" Ron asked, almost subconsciously jiggling his left arm. He and Harry were currently stuck together from shoulder to fingertip, the result of a rather explosive delivery at breakfast. Errol, the Weasley's senile old owl, had attempted a crash-landing in the middle of the Gryffindor table, carrying a package stamped Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Both of them had spotted the potential danger of dropping anything the twins had manufactured, and had collided in a clumsy joint attempt to catch the plummeting owl. When the smoke cleared, unfortunately, they couldn't quite get themselves apart.
Pomfrey pursed her lips and prodded the place where their hands met with her wand. "Do you know what was in the package that exploded?"
Ron blinked. "Er—I think it was from Fred and George."
"That's what I was afraid of." She sighed, seeming almost annoyed that they hadn't just broken their necks, or something equally simple. "I'll have Professor Flitwick come look at you, but without knowing what actually did this, I'm not sure I can undo it." She swished away to the end of the ward, and Ron groaned and buried his face in his free hand.
"I'm going to kill them," he muttered. "I can't believe this. How are we suppose to go to class like this, huh? How are we supposed to go to Quidditch practice, or…or change clothes…. Harry—" He suddenly looked up, eyes wide. "How are we supposed to go to the gents?"
Harry blinked. "Er…"
Ron groaned again, shook his head miserably. "I'm going to kill them."
Harry looked down at the place where their hands met. His skin seemed to tingle uncomfortably, or maybe it was all in his head—he wasn't used to sitting this close to someone else, not even Ron. He shifted away a few inches, and their arms actually came apart from the elbow up; that was partly what had Madame Pomfrey so baffled, he assumed. If they'd just been, well, glued together, a simple Severing Spell would've had them apart, albeit painfully. Hermione had even tried one before McGonagall sent them to the infirmary. No, they could move freely, as long as they stayed in physical contact to some minimum degree. It made him think of refridgerator magnets, except the harder he and Ron tried to pull themselves apart, the more difficult it got. It didn't make any sense.
Flitwick appeared after a few minutes and asked them a lot of detailed questions, and prodded their hands with his wand. He tried several exotic-sounding charms, but only managed to burn their hands a bit, and tear Harry's sleeve. "Astounding," he muttered to himself. "Absolutely astounding."
"You can't break it, can you?" Harry said morosely.
Flitwick shook his head, not looking the least bit disappointed. "This is fascinating…you must find out what was in that package, Mr. Weasley. If we could replicate this effect…"
"Professor Flitwick," Pomfrey said, "I think, if we can do no more for them, we should let these young men get back to class."
Harry's stomach dropped. "We can't go to class like this!" Ron blurted.
The nurse stared him down. "There is nothing physically wrong with either of you, aside from this…inconvenience." She quickly scribbled down a pass for the both of them and handed it to Harry. "I'll inform the rest of the staff, of course, but with the start of the holidays it shouldn't be a difficulty."
"That's what you say," Ron grumbled under his breath.
Pomfrey turned to him with one raised eyebrow. "I'm sorry, Mr. Weasley, I didn't catch that."
"Er…um…what if I wrote to my brothers?" he blurted back, the tips of his ears flaring pink. "I could ask them what was in the package…what was in whatever was in the package…"
"You're going home tomorrow anyway," Harry pointed out. "You can ask them then."
Ron looked at him and lifted their joined arms for emphasis. "Not like this, I'm not."
"I'm sure you can work this out between yourselves," Pomfrey said loudly. "Now, this is an infirmary, not your common room, and since you are obviously not ill—"
"Fine," Harry said, as Ron's face sagged. "We'll go." He hopped off the bed and slung his bag awkwardly over his left shoulder. Ron followed him—didn't have any choice but to—and they made their way out of the infirmary, wondering what they were meant to tell their professors.
-x-X-x-X-x-
The rest of day was as bad as Harry expected. Professor McGonagall was remarkable phlegmatic about their predicament, but they'd had Potions in the afternoon, and Snape had been in rare form from the moment he spotted them trudging towards his dungeon. Harry had stood back-to-back with Ron, and they took turns stirring the cauldron and preparing the ingredients, but with Snape hovering around them constantly making snide comments, it was a miracle they didn't blow something up. Even Neville's potion had turned out better than theirs, and he'd been working with Crabbe, who kept trying to eat the mugwort.
McGonagall tracked them down as they were stumbling away from dinner that evening. "Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, may I have a word with you?"
"Er…sure," Ron said, giving Harry a look that asked, What've we done now? Harry shrugged.
She lead them to her office, and even stood aside while they shuffled through a door not meant for two people to enter abreast. Harry sucked in his breath when came up hard against the frame.
Ron winced. "Sorry, ma—hey!"
Harry looked up; Fred and George were standing behind the desk, fiddling with a strange brass device that looked like a combination of a nutcracker, an abacus and a Moebius strip. They put it down quickly when they saw the newcomers. "Er—Hello, Professor," Fred said jauntily, grinning. "All right, Ron?"
"Do we look all right?" Ron snapped, waving his hand at them (and all of Harry's arm in the process). "What the hell've you done to us?"
"Language, Mr….Ronald!" McGonagall said. She took a seat behind her desk. "As per school policy, I sent an owl to your parents this morning."
"And Mum told us to drop everything to come fix you. It was scary—" George said, pulling his wand out of his robes. "Come on, then, let's have a look…"
They submitted to another round of poking and prodded, much less willingly. "What was in the box, anyway?" Harry asked, the second or third time Fred burned him.
"Er…new product sample," he said gruffly with a glance at his twin. "Seasonal item. Obviously still got a few kinks in…"
"Just a few, eh?" Ron grumbled.
George sighed. "None of the prototypes ever blew up! It must've been a one-in-a-million flaw…'course, that means we have to put of all production to next Christmas…"
"What was it meant to be, anyway?" Harry asked.
They looked at each other uneasily.
"Er…"
"Mistletoe, actually."
Ron coughed oddly.
"It's an improvement on the old flying mistletoe gag," Fred explained quickly. "We were going to call it Hot Lips Holly, actually—and I'd like to see you come up with a better name, Ronnikins."
"The gimmick," George explained, "was that—well, it flew, to start with, but that's nothing special. The gimmick was that if you kissed underneath it, you couldn't pull yourselves apart for a couple seconds."
"Good clean fun for the whole family and pets."
"It'll sell like mad when eventually."
Ron rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because people'll hex 'em out of the air."
After a few more seconds, Harry thought of something. "George?"
"Yeah?"
"You two test your stuff on yourselves first, right?"
He decided it was the first time he'd ever seen either of the twins blush. "It's a long story," Fred informed him shortly, and George poked Harry's hand rather harder than necessary.
McGonagall cleared her throat, reminding all four boys of her presence. "What sort of magic did you use to produce such…effects, in the product, gentlemen?"
That touched off a new conversation that went far over Harry's head in terms of spellwork and theory. The twins might be troublemakers, but that didn't mean they weren't brilliant in their own particular way. He and Ron sat bored for what felt like hours, before McGonagall stood up briskly. "Very good, gentlemen. How long do you think you'll need to produce the antidote?"
"Er…" George looked uneasily at Ron and Harry. "A few…days?"
"Days?" Ron jumped to his feet abruptly, nearly pulling Harry's arm out of its socket. "We're going to be stuck like this for days?"
"Look, we're sorry," Fred said, cringing. "Believe me, we wouldn't have sent you that in the first place if we thought this would happen."
Ron muttered something darkly, but sat down again. George sighed. "We'll be back here as soon as we think we can undo it, Ron. Promise."
"In that case," McGonagall said, "I think you two can return to your common room, and the two of you have a carriage waiting at the gates. I trust I don't need to show anyone the way?"
"No, Professor," Harry said morosely, standing up. One day stuck like this had been bad enough; he wasn't sure how he was going to deal with more…
They went up to bed early that evening, which was a good thing, because it took twice as long to get ready as normal. Changing clothes was the hardest; they had to stand with their feet braced wide apart, connected by foot, in order to take off their shirts without hitting each other in the head, and when it came time to remove their trousers, Ron flushed oddly and stood with his back to Harry, one arm twisted awkwardly behind him to maintain contact, fumbling on-handed with his fly. After a moment, Harry assumed a similar posture, and didn't turn around until he was sure Ron had his pyjama bottoms on. Ron kept poking him with his elbow while they brushed their teeth.
They both looked at a toilet, then at each other.
"I don't have to go," Ron said quickly.
"Me neither."
"That's good."
"Yeah."
They went back to their dormitory, and Harry looked despondently at the gap between their beds. "I don't think we can push them together," Ron said after a moment, sounding strangely nervous.
Harry licked his lips and reached for his wand. "Maybe we could levitate…?"
It turned out they couldn't; some prescient witch or wizard many years ago had decided that it probably would not be a good idea for students to be able to send their furniture flying around the room, and bewitched it accordingly. They ultimately laid down in Harry's bed and quickly closed the curtains; Ron seemed intent on fitting all his long frame onto about three inches of mattress space closest to the edge. Harry didn't blame him, and scooted away himself, until he felt the bedcurtains at his back; there was a wide gap between them, but in Harry's mind it couldn't possibly be wide enough.
He let his hand rest on Ron's forearm and shut his eyes, trying to go through the mental exercises Dumbledore had recommended to him to improve his Occulmency. It was difficult, though, because he wasn't really comfortable and Ron was breathing in his face, and he was painfully distracted by the knowledge that he wasn't alone in his bed. Neither of them moved, but Harry couldn't tell if Ron was really asleep or pretending really well, so he pretended, and hoped Ron wouldn't be able to tell.
It was a long time before either of them got any rest.
-x-X-x-X-x-
The next day, thankfully, was the first day of the holidays, but their troubles were far from over. Harry awoke to the sounds of the other boys in the dorm getting up and preparing to leave, but he spent several fuzzy moments contemplating what, exactly, he was laying near that made him so warm and comfortable. It heavy and it was solid; it was also breathing. He lifted his head out of the pillows and blinked to see Ron, no longer scrunched up on the edge of the bed but sprawled on his stomach in the middle. Somehow, in the depths of sleep, Harry had wrapped his arms around his friend's midsection, so they were in contact from bottom to top. He might have called it cuddling, under other circumstances, but this was Ron, and, anyway, Harry didn't cuddle.
That didn't stop him from pulling away as fast as his sleep-softened muscles would let him; he flung his feet over the side of the bed and slid his hand towards Ron's arm, away from the warm spot just above his waist where his too-small pyjama top just happened to ride up his torso. The movement caused Ron to stir, and he wriggled sleepily in place. After a few minutes of shaking and prodding, the redhead blinked at the hand on his arm with a scowl. "Bloody hell," he muttered. "I was hoping I'd dreamed it…"
"Sorry," Harry muttered, though he wasn't sure what he might be apologizing for.
Ron shook his head. "Never mind. Let's just…um…d'you need to go to the bathroom?"
Now that he mentioned it… "Er, yeah," Harry stammered. "And we, uh, need to take showers…"
Ron's head dropped into the pillow, but his ears flamed pink. "Crap."
They managed to brush their teeth. They managed to use the toilets, with a little ingenuity. But after a few minutes of looking at the tiny shower stalls with their high, solid walls, Harry knew that they were in trouble. It was bad enough being stuck together when they were both clean…
Ron knocked on the side of one stall experimentally. "D'you think we could…well, no, that wouldn't work…"
An idea came to Harry, thankfully before Ron started knocking holes in things. "What about the locker rooms?" he asked.
Ron sagged with relief. "Brilliant. Let's go."
While most other students were making their way down to the school train to go home, Harry and Ron shuffled across the snowy grounds in pyjamas and cloaks towards the Quidditch pitch. The locker rooms had showers for the players to use; they weren't as nice as the ones in the dormitories, but one of their primary faults had suddenly been converted into a virtue. These showers were open, undivided by stalls. It would be easy to get washed up without things getting too strange…though, compared to other things Harry had experienced, he supposed sharing a shower with Ron wasn't all that strange, in the balance.
Getting undressed was just as awkward as before, and it took a moment of coercion for the taps to produce actual hot water. They stood back to back most of the time, so there was no opportunity to peek—and Harry refused to dwell on just what he'd be peeking at, or why he'd want to. For his part he tried to scrub up quickly and not think about the warm, wet body next to his, or the slippery slide of skin over soapy, wet skin, or how Ron's hair got a shade deeper when it was soaked with water. Part of him wanted to get out of there quickly and go back to Gryffindor, back to what was familiar and safe. Part of him wanted this moment to last forever. And one rebellious part wondered idly what might happen if Ron were to suddenly turn around and say—
"Get your back?"
The soap squirted out of his hands. "Wh-what?" Harry stammered, wondering if maybe he had water in his ears.
Ron cleared his throat, and put one hand on Harry's shoulder. "D'you—want me to—to get your back for you?"
No water. No ambiguity. Harry swallowed. "Um…okay."
He felt Ron's washcloth ghost over his skin for a split second, before Ron pressed more firmly and started scrubbing at the base of his neck. It felt…weird. Good weird, though. Harry felt he ought to be doing something, participating in some way instead of just starding there with his arms limp, clenching his washcloth in one fist. He just didn't know how. Ron was touching him—Ron was really and deliberately touching him, all over, and maybe his back and shoulders weren't too terribly special but that wasn't the point. Ron was touching him. Harry liked it. Harry liked it a lot…
It stopped, abruptly, just above his waist—about where his trousers would've started, had he been clothed. For Harry it was a bit like waking up from a pleasant dream, and their situation seemed all the more strange and uncomfortable for it—especially given the problem he was currently developing below the waist "Er. All done," Ron said, and stepped back so just his hand maintained the necessary contact between them.
"Thanks." That sounded ridiculous; he just didn't know what else to say. Harry willed his unruly body to behave itself, then asked hesitantly, "Do you want me to—?"
"Sure." Was Ron perhaps a little too eager? "I mean, if you want to."
"Okay."
They shifted positions, nearly slipping on the slick tiles, so that Harry was faced with the long, pale expanse of his best friend's back. He tentatively soaped the washcloth, then put it to Ron's skin; when he wasn't struck by lightening or swallowed by the earth, he started gently soaping Ron's shoulders. This was weird, too—different weird, but still a good weird, and Harry was just getting into it when his hand slipped and Ron grunt and tensed. "What?" he blurted, pulling back.
"No—" Ron shook his head and rolled his shoulders. "It's just—I'm a little sore back there. Slept funny, I guess…."
"Oh. Yeah." Harry hesitated for a second, wondering if he had the courage to do what one rebellious part of his mind was telling him to do. He decided he did. Returning to the same spot, he started rubbing it, using the strength of his fingers. Ron inhaled noisily and held it; just when Harry was ready to stop and apologize, Ron let out a long, low, wonderful groan. "Okay?" he asked, feeling oddly breathless.
"Brilliant," Ron sighed. "Don't stop."
Harry grinned.
He worked his way up and down Ron's back in a one-handed massage, and Ron responded every now and then with a sigh or some small noise. It filled Harry's head with all sorts of vague ideas and feelings he fought to ignore, because certain parts of his anatomy weren't behaving in the slightest, and just being close like this and touching like this and seeing Ron through a veil of water and steam was making it hard enough to control himself. But then he came to the same invisible barrier above the waist, and he hesitated, unwilling or unable to go any further, even when Ron looked over his shoulder with knit brows.
"Harry…" Ron licked his lips. "D…don't stop."
Harry dropped the washcloth.
Later he wondered what, if anything, he would've actually done. Unfortunately it was something of a moot point. Before he could even fully process Ron's statement, the tap above them coughed once before the water turned ice-cold, ripping hoarse yelps out of the both of them. Harry tried to leap out of the frigid spray, but Ron did the same thing in the wrong direction, and they both tumbled into a soapy heap on the mildewed floor.
And just when Harry thought it couldn't get any worse than that, Andrew Kirke stuck his head in the room. "Hello? Who's in here?"
"Get out!" Ron bellowed, scrambling for his feet.
"What the hell?"
Harry groped for the towels they'd brought with them, though the cold water had already taken care of the only evidence of what had happened between them. Whatever that was. Ron managed to climb to his knees and shut the water off, just as Jack Sloper stuck his head over Kirke's shoulder and peered into the showers. "What's going on?"
"That's what I asked."
"I SAID GET OUT!"
Harry glared at the two Beaters, who showned no sign of complying. "We were taking a shower," he ground out, wrapping a towel around his waist.
"Oh?" Kirke blinked at them. "Together?"
Ron growled and gathered up his shower things; Harry tossed him a towel, and they pushed past their teammates to get dressed. But Ron didn't look at Harry the entire time, and he stayed stonily silent as they trudged back to the school.
-x-X-x-X-x-
For the rest of the day, they didn't talk about the shower. Or much of anything, in fact. To be perfectly clear, Harry and Ron hardly talked at all, to each other or anyone else. Hermione was not amused.
"Where'd you two disappear to this morning?" she demanded of them.
"Shower," Ron grunted.
"Outside?"
"Quidditch pitch."
"Why were you showering at the Quidditch pitch?"
"Couldn't fit in the dormitory ones."
She nodded, slowly. "Why didn't you go to the prefect's bathroom? And are you ever going to answer me in whole sentences?"
Ron frowned, blinked, and buried his head in his hands with a groan.
Personally, though, Harry thought that the prefect's bathroom would've been even worse than the Quidditch showers. Or better. Or something. He wasn't entirely certain what had happened in the first place, except that for some reason being alone in proximity to a wet naked Ron had been one the most…well…exciting things he'd ever felt. It wasn't that Harry had never felt this sort of thing before, but he'd been a bit too busy lately to worry about it, and anyway it was usually directed at girls. This seemed a little different—or maybe he'd just never had the opportunity to shower naked with a girl and wash her back. Or maybe he'd just never liked a girl half as much as he liked Ron.
Well, that was unfair to Hermione. He liked her at least half as much as Ron…probably more than two-thirds, come to think of it. But she was just so Hermione sometimes, and when he didn't feel like being responsible or sensible or right about everything, she drove him starkers. Ginny wasn't bad either, but except for Quidditch they didn't have very much in common, and she didn't seem to have any trouble finding her own boys to date. As for other girls, well, they were nice…and some of them were pretty…but Ron was nice, too, and Harry trusted him, and he never had to worry about whether he'd act like a fool in front of him.
But for pretty…girls were pretty. Ron was Ron, with his long arms and big feet and freckles in places Harry was sure could never have seen sunlight. He was too tall by half and still thin as a rail, though his shoulders had broadened and his voice had cracked over the summer. Not really handsome, not pretty…but Harry certainly didn't mind looking at him, especially in the shower…
"Oi, Harry?"
He jumped. Ron and Hermione were staring at him. "Er…what?"
"Do you want to go to lunch?" Hermione said slowly.
"Oh…sure."
-x-X-x-X-x-
They went to lunch. They went to dinner. They still didn't talk.
As other students made their way up to their dormitories, Harry decided they were at an impasse. He was tired, having not slept well the night before, and Ron was yawning every so often, but he hadn't suggested going to bed yet, and Harry wasn't about to bring it up. Somehow sharing a bed with Ron would be all the weirder after what happened in the shower, or more precisely, what almost happened, or at least what he thought had almost…oh, forget it. He didn't want to go up bed yet.
So he read the assigned chapters from his Transfiguration book three times over while Ron fiddled around with a chessboard, outlasting even Hermione before the end. They were seated in separate chairs in front of the fire, each with one leg slung over the arm so they were touching knee to ankle. Harry glanced at Ron several times over the edge of his book, but Ron was always busy with the chessboard balanced in his lap, apparently playing against himself. He refused to ask.
Why? he asked himself. What are you afraid of?
That I'll get a stiffy laying next to him and he'll freak out and try to kill me.
Oh. Right.
He started over his chapter for the fourth time, and Ron yawned…and the fire burned down…the words in front of Harry's face went blurry…
And the next thing he knew he was once against snuggled against Ron's sleeping frame, in Ron's bed, in the dormitory.
He lifted his face out of the curve of Ron's shoulder and blinked. They both still wore their clothes from the night before, minus shoes, and the curtains left wide open so that pale winter sunlight poured in over their faces. Harry managed to roll over, and found his glasses, a large plate of toast, and a note written in sloppy, childish handwriting.
HARRY POTTER DOBBY IS FINDING YOU AND WHEEZY IN THE COMMON ROOM AND DOBBY DID NOT WANT TO WAKE HARRY POTTER BUT HARRY POTTER AND WHEEZY IS OUGHTING TO BE IN BED SO DOBBY PUT HARRY POTTER TO BED BUT WHEEZY COME TOO SO DOBBY LEAVES HIM DOBBY IS SORRY IF HARRY POTTER WAS WANTING TO SLEEP IN A CHAIR DOBBY IS LEAVING BREAKFAST
He shook his head after he'd deciphered it; he supposed it was just his luck that a mad house-elf would take personal responsibility for him. He crumpled the note and tossed it in the general direction of the wastebasket. Ron began to stir.
"Mmmm…mmmrph? Hhhhrmmm…" He blinked dully at Harry and at the bed, and then suddenly blushed a brilliant scarlet. "Oh."
"Morning," Harry said, not sure how to respond to that.
"Morning." Ron sat up, and swung one leg over the side of the bed, putting as much distance between himself and Harry as possible. "How'd we get up here?"
"Dobby." Harry pointed to the toast.
"Oh."
They both stared at the mattress, where they were trapped by their own connected hands.
Harry was about to break the silence himself when Ron suddenly sighed and looked away. "Er…look, Harry, about…about yesterday…"
"What about it?" Harry said, too quickly. He kicked himself. Ron was probably just about to explain how he didn't mean it how Harry had thought he meant it and he thought Harry was a giant pervert and really didn't want to be stuck to him anymore…
"…I'm sorry."
Harry's stomach fell somewhere to the vicinity of his knees. "What?"
Ron was looking away, though, cringing. "I'm sorry. I mean, I didn't—I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't—I shouldn't—I was just stupid, okay?"
"…huh?"
Ron looked up, and seemed surprised by Harry's blank expression. "What d'you mean, 'huh?'"
"I mean…er…what are you apologising for, exactly?"
"I…didn't mean to, you know, freak you out."
"Okay…"
"I mean, things just come out of my mouth sometimes," Ron said, settling into a full-blown ramble, "and I don't know why, or what the hell…I shouldn't have, have said that to you. I was just…you were…you're not mad at me, are you?"
That, Harry could answer. "Of course not."
Ron's shoulders sagged. "Thank Merlin."
"Why would I be mad at you?"
From the way Ron stared at him, he wondered if he'd suddenly grown a pair of horns. "But…in the shower yesterday…you looked at me like I'd done something horrible."
Harry cringed. "Sorry. I was just sort of…surprised."
Ron paused.
"Bad surprised or good surprised?"
Harry thought about it.
"Good."
For a minute Harry wondered if he'd done something horrible, from the way Ron's eyes bugged out, but then he recovered, biting his lower lip and looking around with a contorted expression as though he couldn't believe what he'd heard. Harry, who couldn't quite believe what he'd just said, didn't blame him. And then Ron was looking at him with an intensity in his eyes Harry had never seen before. He opened his mouth to say something—he never did remember what.
At the same moment, Ron suddenly surged forward, and their noses hit each other squarely. Then Ron turned his head to the side, and his lips hit Harry's face, somewhere in the region between his nostril and his cheek. He jerked back, but on the third try Ron found his lips, and there was no misunderstanding something like that. They kissed, grabbing at one another to keep their balance in the middle of the narrow bed, and Harry decided immediately that Cho Chang had nothing on his skinny best friend.
They broke apart to gasp for breath, faces millimeters apart. "All right?" Ron asked.
"Brilliant."
"Just checking."
Harry got his hands around Ron's shoulders and pulled him as close as he could get…yes. Full-body contact from neck to knee, and it was wonderful, and bloody hell, was that Ron's tongue? It was. Oh, wow. Harry groaned a bit when Ron's tongue slipped into his mouth, and when he felt Ron's hand on his arse he completely toppled over amidst the sheets.
Ron landed on top of him without hardly missing a beat. Harry squirmed, unused to being pinned down like that but finding it not entirely unpleasent. He could feel something between them poking into the place where his leg met his hip, and even with the reduced blood flow to his brain at that moment it wasn't hard—er, difficult—to work out what it was. He groaned again and arched his body upwards, trying to show Ron without words that he felt the same, and Ron broke off the kissing momentarily to curse out loud.
But that simple motion set them both off, grinding and rubbing against each other with incoherent grunts and gasps, and Harry couldn't believe how good it felt, or how much he wanted it, and for a moment he thought maybe he was still asleep and dreaming—
Somebody knocked on the door. He was awake. Damn it.
Ron's eyes went comically wide as Hermione's voice carried through the door of the dormitory. "Are you two awake yet?" Harry saw the knob turning, and Ron flung himself sideways, off and away. Unfortunately, he ran out of bed. Harry grabbed his arm, but Ron landed sharply on his backside on the floor, dragging the duvet with him—and nearly Harry as well.
Hermione gaped at them when she stuck her head into the room. "What on earth is going on it here?"
Ron scowled, though his face was vivid red. "I fell out of bed," he said, "what's it look like?"
"I can see that, there's no reason to get cross. Did you know it's nearly lunchtime?"
Harry sighed. "We were up sort of late last night."
"Obviously, if you didn't even bother to change." She shook her head. "I'm going ahead to the Great Hall. Please at least put on some clean clothes before you come down."
Ron rolled his eyes at the door after she'd left. "Bloody bossy…we need more locks around this place." He kicked away the duvet and climbed to his feet, rubbing his tailbone and wincing. "Ow. Ow."
Harry was momentarily too occupied with various possible comments about Ron's injury, each one more off-color and ridiculous than the last, to realize something had changed. Then he looked at his hands. He looked at his feet. He looked at Ron, who was leaning against the bedposts and mumbling. "We're free."
"Huh?" Ron looked himself over, then at Harry, who was still in the middle of the bed. There was a good foot of empty space between them now, and they hadn't even felt it when they seperated. "What the hell? How?"
Harry shrugged, saying the only thing that came to mind. "They did say it was mistletoe in the box…"
Ron shook his head, but after a moment's pause looked up at Harry with a funny sort of half-smile. "You know…Hermione doesn't know yet…"
"Should we tell her?"
"Later." Ron reached out and put his hand on Harry's knee. "D'you wanna use the Prefect's bathroom?"
Harry grinned. "Does it lock?"
~Fine~