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Harry rode his motorcycle through the crisp, autumn night. The address his mother had given him led to a suburban neighborhood, not far from their home, but less familiar to him. The party was in a large, somewhat impressive house with a pool and numerous cars parked along the expansive driveway.
Music blared in the distance, confirming that he had found the right location. Harry turned off the engine and dismounted, feeling a sudden surge of awkwardness about how to proceed. He didn't know anyone at the party, which might have been a blessing in disguise.
Several pairs of teenagers sat or drank outside. The front door was wide open, and Harry didn't even need to announce his arrival. The entryway was cluttered with shoes, but he decided not to remove his, given the number of beer puddles visible at first glance. A lo-fi hip-hop beat, cranked up too high, thumped through the house with a bassy rumble.
The living room was packed with teenagers drinking and dancing, or doing a combination of both. Harry maneuvered through the crowd, searching for Astoria, Ginny, or anyone familiar. He worried that he might stand out, but despite assuming it was a high school party, there were plenty of people who looked older, closer to his age.
This was slightly unsettling, as he didn't want to be recognized by old acquaintances after being introduced to Astoria's friend as her boyfriend. That would be the worst-case scenario for Astoria. The sooner he found her and took her home, the better.
Harry spotted Ginny first. She was dancing and grinding against a handsome guy who looked like a football player, a key distinguishing feature being that he wasn't her boyfriend, Trevor. She put a finger to her lips when their eyes met.
Harry tried to gesture for her to come over, and Ginny broke away from her new beau, but a group of teenagers stomping to a rock song cut him off. He lost sight of her when he finally managed to push through.
"Hey!" said a mousy girl with short black hair. "I'm Frannie."
"Hi, Frannie." He forced a smile. "Do you know Astoria? Have you seen her?"
"Kain?"
"No, Astoria."
The girl shook her head. Harry moved past her, focusing on a door that seemed to lead to the kitchen. He was stopped again, this time by a girl in an off-the-shoulder white tank top. She had a big, beautiful smile and a body that Harry couldn't help but appreciate in a peripheral way.
"Want a beer?" she asked. "This way."
"I'm all set. I'm looking for my..." He hesitated, unsure how to finish the sentence. "Girlfriend."
"Ah." She pouted, making Harry share in her disappointment. "Too bad."
"Hey!" A familiar face, Trevor, suddenly appeared in Harry's line of sight. "What's up, Harry? Have you seen Ginny?"
"Yeah, just a minute ago," he said. "She was dancing in the living room. Have you seen Astoria?"
"Sort of." Trevor's face took on a pained expression. "Let me get you a beer."
"No, that's okay."
"I think you'll want a beer."
Trevor gripped Harry's shoulder, a hint of pity in his expression. For a terrifying moment, Harry's mind flashed back to some of the more irritating and jealousy-inducing scenarios he had imagined on the couch at home.
He pushed those thoughts away. He trusted Astoria. That said, he wasn't "really" her boyfriend. He trusted her as a sister and had no claims on her because of the ill-conceived scenario they decided on for one night.
But I know her, too, he thought. I know how much she wanted me to go with her to this party. "Ever shotgun a beer?" Trevor asked.
"Unfortunately, yes," Harry muttered. "But seriously, I'm just looking for Astoria."
Trevor handed him a beer upside down and poked a small hole in it with a pocket knife. "I promise I'll help you find her if you do this for me and Ginny."
Harry sighed and accepted his fate. "Sure."
"Great!" Trevor grinned at him. "Cheers."
Harry endured the familiar experience of drinking beer far too quickly, then tossed the can into an almost full trash bin. Trevor immediately grabbed another beer to shotgun at rapid speed, now with several people cheering him on or joining in. Harry waited a minute before deciding to continue his search on his own.
He wasn't feeling the vibe. Even when he was in college, this wasn't his scene. He wondered if Astoria would ever bother going to such a party if she hadn't been invited by her latest friend. He understood better why she had wanted him to come with her.
He headed upstairs, but he knew enough about how parties worked to guess what was happening in most of the rooms. It felt like a betrayal of his opinion and trust in Astoria to even think she might be in one of them.
Laughter he recognized drew his attention back downstairs. He saw Ginny holding out her phone, showing a video to a group of other teenagers.
He noticed one of them was definitely part of the group that had bullied Astoria when he went to pick her up from school on Thursday afternoon. He slowly approached the group, deliberately coming at an angle that placed him behind Ginny and out of her line of sight. He got close enough to see the phone's screen and barely hear the sound.
"Play it again!" one of the girls said.
"She really had no idea it was you?" asked one of the boys.
"None," Ginny replied. "She totally fell for it. I've got tons of these videos."
She pressed play. Harry recognized Astoria's room, though with enough differences to warn him it was from a few years ago. Astoria appeared on screen wearing cat ears, makeup whiskers on her cheeks, and a painted black nose. She wore skimpy clothes and had on a choker and leash, which was more humiliating than fitting the role she played.
He felt rising anger as he watched her smile and bounce, making catlike movements for "Daniel," her fictitious boyfriend. She wiggled her butt and generally acted like a girl who was stupid and slutty for someone she loved. Harry reddened and pushed deeper into the group.
"You filmed this?" he growled.
"She filmed it," Ginny said. "And then sent it to Daniel, her boyfriend. Then he disappeared. Weird, huh? I didn't do anything, Harry."
"She thinks you're her friend," he said, baring his teeth in anger.
"I am her friend," Ginny said haughtily. "She's lucky to have me as a friend. She's kind of weird and awkward, not to mention crazily immature. It's really kind of her fault that people bully her."
"Fuck you," he said.
He snatched her phone. Ginny practically leapt at him, trying to get it back, but Harry was already moving. One of the windows overlooking the yard and pool was open, and he unceremoniously tossed her phone into the water.
"You asshole!" she screamed. "You'll pay for that!"
"Where is Astoria?" he snarled.
"How the fuck should I know? She left after like ten minutes."
Harry turned and headed for the door.
"Hey!" Trevor suddenly stepped in front of him. "What the fuck was that about?"
"Get out of my way, Trevor."
The teenager pushed his shoulders. "Give me your phone! You fuck with my girl's shit, I fuck with yours!"
"Your loyalty is a bit misplaced," Harry said. "She was just grabbing some other guy."
He barely noticed Trevor's fist collide with his jaw, but the punch wasn't strong. He wiped the blood from his lip.
"Are you eighteen?" he asked Trevor.
Trevor nodded. Harry hit him much harder than the punch he received, watching as Trevor stumbled back, grabbing at the wall.
"You psycho!" Ginny yelled.
He pushed through the crowd, entirely done with the party and the situation. He needed to find Astoria.
It wasn't difficult once Harry stopped thinking about where Astoria might be. It had been four years since he spent a lot of time with his younger sister, but he clearly remembered her favorite place.
On the outskirts of town, there was a small dog park that most people, who weren't looking for a place for their dogs, avoided because of the grass and soil rich with droppings. In the center, there was a carefully selected circle of trees, through which anyone with enough patience could slip to find a small, clean patch in the middle, free of animal droppings and usually other people.
He remembered Astoria showing him this spot for the first time when they were kids, pulling him by the hand and insisting they make a secret base there after she played with Sirius transformed into a dog. Harry was more than happy to amuse her, even though he didn't want to play the husband-and-wife game she tried to pull him into. He chuckled to himself, wondering how they had come so far without really going anywhere.
"I heard you coming," Astoria said as he approached.
"My motorcycle has a pretty distinct engine," he replied. "Room for one more in there?"
"For you? Always."
It took him a minute to maneuver through the fence of branches, shrubs, and thin tree trunks. Astoria was using her phone's flashlight. She still wore the cute outfit he saw her leave in, tight jeans and a flirty blouse, though she looked much more girlish sitting there with her knees pulled up to her chest.
The missing bottle of wine, the one their mother had interrogated him about, lay next to her, uncorked. Harry picked it up, more to check how much was left than to take a sip. It was almost empty.
"Did Mom send you to look for me?" she asked.
"Technically, yes, but I came willingly," he said, sitting next to her. "I went to the party."
She made a disgruntled sound. "So, when I ask you to go to a party with me, you refuse... and then you show up after I leave? How is that fair?"
"Older brothers never play fair. You should know that by now."
She made a small noise of agreement. Harry wasn't sure how to bring up Ginny and what he had discovered just before leaving. Regardless of whether he could find the tactful words or do it gently, she deserved to know the truth.
"Your friend Ginny... was part of your bullying," he said. "The fake boyfriend."
"I know," Astoria replied. "I knew it when I first realized what was happening, when I realized Daniel was just a few Instagram photos and empty promises. I liked him too much for her not to be a part of it, using my secrets against me. I don't know why Ginny hated me so much back then, but I know she did. She came to terms with it. She helped."
"I thought maybe, when she started talking to me again, she felt guilty. That she wanted to make up for it. Or maybe that's just what I told myself. I had no one for so long, no friends, Harry. I guess I rationalized it in my head. I was so lonely and..."
"Hey." He put an arm around her and pulled her closer. "It's okay."
"Maybe I'm just a loser. Not just for being bullied, but for being so stupid. I knew she did something terrible to me. But I was so hungry and desperate for someone to just see me and care about me. Isn't that what being a loser means? Being so desperate that you pretend someone didn't stab you in the back? Pretending that your own brother is..."
She began to cry, and Harry held her close. He felt his heart break into pieces, slowly, like a band-aid being ripped off in the most painful way. He regretted not doing more than just destroying that bitch's phone.
"Do you want to know something funny?" he whispered. She shook her head.
He told her anyway. "I threw Ginny's phone into the pool."
Astoria let out a small, reluctant giggle through her tears.
"Want me to do it again when she gets a new one?"
She laughed a bit more, and Harry reached over to tickle her under her arms like he used to when she was younger. She tried to retaliate, and his head hit a sharp, broken branch. He tilted at a bad angle, and she toppled over with him. They wrestled playfully on top of him, but the tone changed almost immediately as their bodies pressed together in the middle.
"Harry..." She whispered into his ear and began kissing his neck. "I'm not ready to go home yet."
Every muscle in his body, especially one, screamed at him to flip her over and see how tight those jeans were. But he was still her older brother. She had drunk an entire bottle of wine, weighing barely a hundred pounds. She was emotional and, yes, probably struggling with a real, illicit attraction to him.
"Astoria." He pulled away slightly and placed a gentle kiss on her head. "I love you so much. Enough to want to protect you from everything. Including... this. Whatever the hell this is. Especially when you're this drunk."
"How is that fair?" she muttered in the clearest voice she had. She reached for her phone, which still had the flashlight on, and lit up both their faces as she sat up. "Tonight was awful, Harry. I just want my big brother to make it all better for me and... what happened to your lip?"
"Oh." He touched it, noticing it wasn't bleeding too much but was definitely a bit swollen. "Spencer punched me in the face."
"Who? Wait, you mean Trevor?"
"Whatever his name is. I punched him back after confirming he's eighteen."
Astoria laughed and began stroking his face, avoiding his lip but tracing his jawline and cheekbone as if looking for a bruise. "You really are the coolest."
"I know."
"I feel like... you should at least get a reward, right?" Her hands slid lower until they were suddenly on his thigh. "Something to even the score. You had to take a hit for me."
"It wasn't for you, Astoria." He sighed, wanting to stop her but still mustering the willpower.
"Still..." She began tracing his erection with her fingers, and he started to harden at record speed. "I bet I could think of something you'd like as a reward."
She leaned forward, resting her chin on one of his legs. The thought of little Astoria's sweet lips wrapped around his cock was almost enough to make him come. He only wished they were in the dark, that he couldn't see her sweet expression, her embarrassed, blushing cheeks, her gaze as he popped and unloaded his cum into her mouth or all over her face.
He was a bastard of a brother, and she was still drunk.
"Have you ever thought about becoming a nun?" he asked, gently pushing her by the shoulders.
"You're so mean, Harry!"
"Come on," he said. "It's almost one. I told Mom I'd try to get you back before midnight."
She sighed but followed him as he slipped out of the fence. Harry couldn't stop wondering if she regretted him being such a responsible older brother.
Chapters 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 are already available at Pat re on.
If you want to support me, read the next chapters of the story and more, I invite you to my
Patreo n .com(slash)BoobsHunter (Remove spaces)