Sirius slowly drifted into happy wakefulness swaddled in cosy blankets with a comfortable armful of Harry. Taking stock of the unusual and highly welcome situation, he found himself lying on his side, his bare chest snug against Harry's back, an arm curved over his waist and a thigh jammed between his legs… and his morning glory pressed insistently to Harry's unfairly perfect backside. Oh shit.

Sirius decided to correct his overly limpet-like clutch on Harry and slowly slithered backwards, sighing with relief as he stopped jabbing Harry in the arse and lay back at a respectable distance with a casual hand just brushing Harry's shoulder.

Harry however, seemed to lack any consideration for Sirius's self respect and libido and rolled over, clamping an arm and leg firmly over Sirius as he insinuated his face into the hollow of Sirius's throat. Warm breath shuddered over sensitive skin as Harry made himself comfortable with a series of pleased little grunts.

Sirius whimpered and tried to resist the urge to press himself into the sleeping Harry.

Harry was careful not to let a wide grin split his face as he sprawled deliberately over the stiff yet trembling form of Sirius. The day was starting off very nicely. He wriggled happily, rubbing wantonly against Sirius. Enjoying the tiny muffled curses that seemed to want to erupt from the man under him. This pretending to be asleep thing was something he should have tried on Sirius ages ago.

Then a loud knock at his bedroom door made him jump, and pretence of sleep couldn't really be maintained after that. He met Sirius's eyes briefly and managed a shaky grin.

"Are you up dear?" Molly called as she opened his bedroom door.

Yes, very up thank you. Harry thought irritably as Sirius threw himself off the bed with a thud and Harry sat blinking stupidly, pullling up his knees and trying to hide an erection and the fact that his arm was being dragged over the side of the bed as Sirius was forced to clutch at his hand out of sight.

"I'll be serving breakfast in just over quarter of an hour." Molly said cheerfully. "So up you get."

"Thank you." Harry mumbled insincerely. "I'll get dressed and be right down." Hah! Undressed and down on Sirius maybe. Dressed and down for breakfast? Don't count on it…

After Molly shut the door, Harry lay still for a long moment, and then peered over the edge of the bed. "Morning Sirius."

"Morning." Sirius grunted as he struggled to his feet and plunked himself down on the edge of the bed.

"You went down with a bit of a thump." Harry continued as he tried not to ogle naked chest too obviously.

Sirius grimaced. "My bum will be multi-coloured."

Without thinking Harry stretched out a hand and gently rubbed the top of the pained area. "You'll survive." He said quickly, to cover up his forward behaviour.

Sirius nodded, his eyes slightly unfocused. "Yeah."

Harry leaned closer and Sirius licked his lips.

"Fifteen minutes Harry! Don't go back to sleep!" Molly Weasley hollered as she passed his door on her way back down to the kitchen.

Harry jolted back against his pillows.

"Gah." Sirius grumbled. That woman knows how to ruin the mood.

xxx

"Oh! Oh! I'm so happy to see the two of you together!" Molly Weasley exclaimed with pleasure as Ron and Hermione entered the kitchen hand in hand and late for breakfast. "I thought I'd never see this day! Just in time for the Victory Ball too. How lovely you'll look together!"

Sirius couldn't stand hearing any more and gave a great snore of laughter, choking slightly on the toast he had been eating and spraying crumbs unattractively on Harry. Fortunately for Sirius, Harry was too busy trying not to giggle like a schoolgirl to notice the dusting of lightly chewed toast, as he thumped Sirius on the back with the hand not currently under Sirius's shirt stroking absently at his side.

"I'm going to kill you both!" Ron declared as he brandished his wand.

"Not before they fix us!" Hermione demanded shrilly as she tugged his arm down.

The hive of activity that had been the kitchen completely froze, and all eyes flicked between the frazzled looking pair in the doorway and the conspirers lounging beside the stove as they choked down their amusement and hastily finished their breakfasts.

"Ronald?" Mrs Weasley questioned uncertainly.

Harry grinned at Hermione. Her hair was wilder than ever and she looked distinctly harassed, but she also seemed very at ease with her small inky hand tucked comfortably into Ron's large freckled one.

"Harry!" Hermione snapped. "Fix us!"

Harry subtly slid his hand round behind Sirius and left his thumb casually tucked into the back of Sirius' jeans, leaving his wand hand free. Both of them began to back away, drawing their wands as they did so.

"What exactly is going on?" Molly demanded, eyeing Sirius as if he was somehow responsible for the drama. (Which of course he was. As usual.)

"Not much." Harry said as he and Sirius circled warily round the table, keeping other diners between themselves and the irate pair facing them.

"They stuck us together!" Ron bellowed.

"But isn't it fun?" Sirius said cheekily.

"Oh it worked then? Brilliant." Two voices chimed in and Harry and Sirius jumped around to face the grinning twins.

Unsurprisingly, Ron and Hermione promptly redirected their fury towards the twins.

"I think we should take advantage and escape in this timely moment of confusion." Sirius muttered against Harry's ear.

Not particularly interested in discovering if the twins actually could unstick them, Harry nodded and they began edging towards the door.

"Don't you dare sneak off!"

"Foiled again." Sirius mumbled as they both turned meekly to face the wrath of Hermione.

"I wouldn't have a clue how to go about un-gluing you." Harry admitted cheerfully to his wild looking friend. "The twins invented this special sticky thingy, me and Sirius just applied it."

"But why?" Hermione wailed.

"Because you and Ron would be great together, but were doing a really outstandingly crappy job of getting together by yourselves and badly needed some kind of emergency help." Sirius said bluntly. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Remus giving him a look that clearly said: You hypocrite. But Sirius carefully ignored him. The two situations were really not comparable.

Ron's mouth fell open and he gaped at his twin brothers and then at his mates.

"Sorry Ron." Harry said as he grabbed Sirius more tightly and backed towards the door. "But it's for your own good and my continuing sanity that this was done."

"Huh?"

"Watching endless flirting and play-fighting that goes nowhere gets very wearing to endure after a while." Harry explained. "I figured that it was high time you two were given a very big push towards each other - the twins just came up with the method."

Hermione raised her wand and Harry and Sirius simultaneously decided that it was time to be gone.

They turned to run, only to almost knock Oliver Wood to the floor.

"Sorry!" Harry flung over his shoulder as he pushed past Oliver and broke into a sprint.

"Harry?" Oliver called, puzzled that his future date should be running away from him - hand in hand with his godfather no less.

As Sirius and Harry crashed back into Harry's bedroom, Harry was starting to feel a bit remorseful at running away from Oliver. It wasn't Oliver's fault that he wasn't Sirius. Really, he owed the poor bloke an explanation.

Sirius saw a brooding look settle on Harry's face and immediately felt his good spirits plummet into his shoes. Harry was still wishing he could go to the ball with Oliver. He was a terrible person to be enjoying getting in the way of that. His earlier happy thoughts of ruining any possible future wedding plans and stealing Harry for himself suddenly seemed mean-spirited and selfish.

"If you want to go with him you can." He began to babble, hoping to make Harry smile again. "Of course you want to… So I can borrow your cloak and hide under it and you can pretend that I'm not there or something. I promise to be good and not stick some of Fred and George's inventions in his drink. But I'll have to be careful that you don't end up carrying around a disembodied hand, so we'd have to do a sticking charm on the cloak to make sure I don't hang out from underneath it. I know I shouldn't stand in the way of true love and all that… so what do you think?" He trailed off sickly, hardly able to believe that he was encouraging Harry to go out with the prat - literally under his very nose.

Harry just stared at him for a full minute until Sirius began to shift uncomfortably under that penetrating green stare. "Those are the most insane words I have ever heard come out of your mouth." Harry said at last. "And I've heard you say some really bloody daft things over the years."

"Sorry. I just happen to know that you really want to go with him."

Harry closed his eyes. Evidently he hadn't made much headway with Sirius if he still thought Harry desperately wanted to date Oliver.

A knock at the door made them both jump.

"Harry?" Oliver said. "Can I talk to you please?"

Harry gave Sirius a frustrated look and opened the door, Sirius who was of course still clutching his hand was forced to stand beside him fidgeting as he tried not to glare too menacingly at Oliver.

Harry likes him. He repeated to himself. I must not be selfish. It might hurt Harry. Hurting Harry is bad.

Oliver's eyes quickly tracked their joined hands and his face twisted. "My mistake. I can see that I'm not wanted."

Harry reached out to grab his arm, unwilling to let his old friend and comrade leave with bad feelings between them. "I'm sorry Oliver. I didn't expect any of this to happen. When I agreed to be your date tonight I meant it. Things have just happened since."

Oliver nodded slowly. "Thank you. But still. It doesn't leave us with much to say right now."

"It was a potions mistake." Sirius finally blurted, unable to stand the guilt of spoiling things for Harry even if it could benefit himself. Though of course generosity and honesty could possibly give Harry good thoughts about him… so it might not be a total loss. "He doesn't really want to go to the ball with me, I just messed up and accidentally stuck him to me, so he's kind of… stuck with me."

Harry felt his hopes crumble even as Oliver started to look hopeful.

"But I still can't go with you tonight." He reminded Oliver quickly. "Stuck to Sirius and all."

Sirius opened his mouth and Harry hastily clapped his free hand over it, afraid that Sirius would launch into plans for yet another impractical scheme for getting Harry on a date with anyone who wasn't him. Could the man make it any clearer that he doesn't want to be with me… and just when I thought I actually had a ghost of a chance? Harry thought painfully, unaware that his heartsick feelings briefly showed on his face.

Oliver blinked at the look on Harry's face, the reasons for his behaviour suddenly all too clear to him. Unrequited love hurt.

"I'll leave you to it then." He said as generously as he could, wishing that Sirius Black knew exactly what he was doing to Harry. "In fact, if you don't mind Harry, I think I'll ask Neville to join me tonight. Last I heard, he didn't have a date and he's a bloody nice chap."

Harry frowned at the sudden about-face from Oliver; unable to understand what had triggered it and desperately wanting to ask but knowing he didn't currently have the right to. "I think he is still free." He said instead, relieved that Oliver hadn't taken things particularly badly.

"Good." Oliver said. "Then I'll probably see you there tonight – hopefully with Neville on my arm." Then he turned to Sirius, wishing that he could bluntly point out what he was missing, but knowing that Harry would have a conniption fit if he did. "Cheer up mate. There are worse people to go out with than Harry - even if he can't dance to save his life." Ignoring Harry's splutters he continued ruthlessly. "You never know Sirius, you might have such a good pretend date with Harry that you'll have to ask him out again for real. Maybe even find out if he dances better horizontally than he does upright."

Sirius just made strangling noises and Oliver departed, satisfied that he'd shaken things up a bit for Harry. After all, they had been mates first.

"He's going to go with Neville now?" Sirius gasped as Harry calmly closed the door. "Aren't you upset?"

Harry gave a jerky shrug. "I like Oliver. He's a good looking, Quidditch-mad, Gryffindor war hero, and he's fun to be around, so I would have been happy to be his date - but I'm not in love with him or anything."

Sirius grinned. He couldn't help it. "Well that is good news. I thought for a while that I was going to be buggering up the passion of the century."

"Well, you never could see what was under your nose." Harry snapped.

Sirius blinked at that unexpectedly biting retort. "I don't? Ouch, and I thought that maybe you had kind of a soft spot for me."

"Oh I've got a soft spot for you all right. But I think it's in my head."

"Okay." Sirius said warily, unsure of what it was that had transformed Harry into this bad tempered creature.

They stood in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, until Sirius felt an unwelcome suspicion creep into his mind. He tried to reject it, but it returned with a vengeance.

"You are in love with him, aren't you?" He blurted angrily. "You're just trying to be noble about it."

Harry felt the tide of fury rise a bit higher as Sirius persisted in not seeing the truth, despite Oliver apparently showing unusual perception and almost spelling things out for him.

"Sirius! Leave. It. Alone." He said dangerously.

Sirius nodded and resolved to leave it alone. For as long as it took Harry to calm down a little bit anyway.