Malfoy comes to see Harry every day. Most of the time he's the only human being Harry sees; food appears at regular intervals, and when he leaves a room, he usually comes back to find it clean, but he doesn't get visitors.

All in all, being here is very much like being in a quite nice class of wizarding inn, except that he can't walk, fly, or apparate out, and that every day Malfoy comes for a visit.

Malfoy's efforts to gather information on Order activities are so laughably obvious that Harry has to assume they're only a cover for his real purpose, whatever that may be. Perhaps he's running his own game within the Death Eater organization. Perhaps he's just bored.

Harry's bored, too. He isn't worried -- he's pretty sure that his presence here as the "guest" of the Death Eaters is doing what it's supposed to do, namely distracting attention away from whatever Neville and Dumbledore are doing back up north, and he's picked up a few crumbs of information from house elves, owls, and other creatures too lowly to be sworn to loyalty. But he's used to a lot more activity than this. There aren't even any books to read.

That's his only explanation for why he begins trying to prolong visits from Malfoy, who's downright pleasant to him compared to the way he was at school. Why he starts recounting stories and songs and the plots of films. Why he gives up the chair to sit on the couch next to Malfoy, and then sits a little closer at each day, until they're almost touching.

Why one day, as he's explaining the plot of one of the Star Wars movies, he puts his hand on Malfoy's thigh and leaves it there.

The next time Malfoy comes to see him, his robe is made of much thinner fabric.

"There's a Muggle story," Harry says. Malfoy's thigh is pleasingly muscular. "About a woman condemned to death by a sultan." He slides his hand a little higher.

"Yes?" Malfoy sounds a little breathless.

"She told him a story." One small move of his thumb, and he'd be nudging Malfoy's cock. He makes it. "But every night she stopped in the middle, so he let her live one more night so he could hear how the story came out." There's noticeable movement under the robe. He wonders if Malfoy's even wearing pants, or if this thin layer of fabric is all that's between them. "But after a thousand nights, she ran out of stories."

Malfoy swallows dryly. "And then what?"

Harry at last settles his whole hand on Malfoy's cock. It feels nice and substantial. He presses it for a moment and then lifts his hand. Malfoy makes a surprised noise.

"Tell you tomorrow," Harry says.

-end-

They're still arguing when the door of Kowalski's apartment shuts behind them, and it tells you something about how bright Kowalski isn't that when Ray cuts him off mid-word with an enthusiastic kiss, he actually looks surprised for a second.

Say one thing for Kowalski, though -- he knows how to go with it when it's to his advantage. He's got Ray out of his jacket and half out of his pants before he goes back to wasting that mouth on talking.

"I don't know why I always fall for this. You do this 360 --"

"You mean 180," Ray says, and then, "Fuck," because Kowalski's stuck his hand down Ray's shorts.

"Huh?"

"180," Ray repeats, steering Kowalski's hand back into motion. "A total turnaround is a 180. A 360, you'd go all around in a circle and end up right back where you started."

Kowalski cocks his head to one side. It wouldn't be beyond him to just step back, take his hand off Ray's cock, and insist on a conversation, with this Let's discuss this like gentlemen attitude that he probably learned from watching Bugs Bunny.

Ray really hopes he won't, though. He's been hard since Kowalski unleashed his inner hurricane on Rudy Bostick in the interrogation room, that limp ugly raincoat billowing out until he looked twice as big as life, hair almost visibly standing up -- it made Ray's mouth go dry. He's been that guy, that scary guy in the interrogation room, but Kowalski makes it look so real. If he stops now, Ray might do something embarrassing like beg.

This whole relationship, if that's what it is, is based on the fiction that Ray's the one who calls the shots, because Ray can take it or leave it alone, and just because Kowalski can probably see right through that doesn't mean Ray wants it said out loud.

"Izzat so," Kowalski finally says, and he puts his hand deeper down to close around Ray's balls, nice and soft but with a finely tuned threat. "So what you're saying is, this --"

And he suddenly flips them around, pinning Ray against the wall, and he's got an inch or two of height on Ray, plus he's just batshit crazy and might do anything, and Ray's pulse kicks up in something he knows perfectly well isn't fear. And when Kowalski leans in and uses his free hand to pin Ray's hand against the wall, Ray actually lets out a sort of a groan.

"-- would be a 180," Ray finishes, and his fingers ring Ray's balls and pull, very gently, no pain, no real threat, even, just a wordless reminder of the state of affairs: My game now, Vecchio.

Oh, thank fuck. Finally.

Ray lets his eyes fall shut. "Yeah," he says.

-end-

When the common room is dimly lit by the embers of last night's fire, when the only sound is the occasional snore from the bedrooms upstairs, when the black windows show neither stars nor the first rays of the sun, Neville meets Harry sometimes, and they talk.

Neville is getting up, then; he's always been an early riser, and he likes the quiet. He suspects that Harry hasn't been to bed at all, that he's been out under the cloak, wandering about looking for trouble.

And they don't really talk, not with words. They kiss, frantic and clumsy; they grope at one another's bodies under their clothes with such desperation and lack of skill that they're as likely to cause pain as to give pleasure. Nearly all school year they've been doing this, and they don't seem to be getting any better at it. But it doesn't matter very much. They always come, sometimes more than once -- they're sixteen, so it doesn't take much skill.

And the pleasure isn't really the point; even Neville can figure that out, and he's got even less experience in relationships than Harry has. It's more that, for the time they spend touching one another in the darkened common room, all the rest recedes a little. They don't have to be afraid, then. The inevitable future withdraws a bit before the present, and for just a while, they're just young animals instead of being failed heroes. And they're not alone.

Sometimes Neville likes to imagine something different. He imagines a room with a bed in it and daylight coming in through the windows. Imagines them both undressing, lying down together, kissing slowly with their eyes open, talking -- "Is that good? Do you like that?" Imagines being able to see Harry's face when he comes.

He's pretty sure that's not going to happen. When Harry goes looking for love -- if that's what it is, in that dream of his -- he'll choose a girl, a pretty one, someone who can go to dances with him and give him babies. Neville thinks he'd like babies himself, if he could be sure the war wouldn't leave them orphans, or worse.

But for now, this is enough, better than enough, in the deep darkness before the sun rises, when his classmates can be children again as they sleep, and he and Harry can cling together, and just for a moment be warm all the way through.

-end-

Even when he was sweating blood for every C in high school, it was never that Ray was dumb. It was just that he couldn't learn anything sitting still.

To this day, he probably couldn't tell you the capital of Indiana, or whether a water molecule is bigger than a molecule of, well, dirt or something. But he pretty much knows Chicago from one end to the other, and he can tell who's really ready to shoot and who's just bluffing. And Benton Fraser's beautiful body and twisty little brain? He knows everything there is to know about it.

So when Fraser says, "Slow down," Ray ignores him. Fraser wants to get naked, lie down in a bed, get the two of them in synch. That's what he wants. But what he needs is for Ray to slam him back against the wall and make him come with his jeans still on, and so that's what he'll get.

Ray'll give him slow later. He'll fuck him so nice and slow that Fraser'll get hard again, even though he always says he can't. So nice and slow that Fraser will come again without a hand on him.

And he won't stop then, either, because it's afterwards, when Fraser is totally satisfied and totally relaxed, that Fraser will start talking. "You feel so good -- so good in me -- go deeper, Ray, I need you deeper," slurring some of his words like he's drunk, and Ray will give that to him, too, because this time it really will be what he needs.

"How do you know?" Fraser will say into Ray's hair. "How do you always know?"

And Ray will grin and say, "I know everything."

-end-

Pythagoras says that three is the most perfect of all numbers ...

Harry in front of him, his whole body straining after pleasure, the hair on the nape of his neck spiky with sweat as Ron moves slowly in him.

Hermione on the other side of Harry, making a fist for him to thrust into. Eyes wide. Watching.

... encompassing as it does the beginning ...

She remembers how it felt the first time Ron touched Harry, the first time they passed this feeling directly to each other instead of sending it through her. How her heart leaped and swelled within her.

They feel guilty, as though they're neglecting her, and she's always happy to let them make it up to her after. But it's no hardship. She loves seeing how they love each other.

... the middle ...

God. It's incredible. Overwhelming. Ron in him is like nothing he's ever felt. Hermione's hand on his cock is hot and perfect.

He begged her for it. Said words he'd never said out loud. But they make him so crazy. Ron is making sounds. Hermione's eyes are so bright on them. So good. So good.

He never knew he could be so hungry for it. Never knew he could feel so safe.

... and the end ...

Ron can stop moving in Harry for a second, but it's coming, no stopping it, it's like when the ground drops away and you're airborne --

He shoves deep, and Harry makes a shocking animal sound and clenches down, and Hermione whispers something awestruck, and Ron loses himself in one long shuddering spasm of pleasure.

Before he's even finished, Hermione has plastered herself to Harry, holding him as tightly as Ron is, and Harry is breathing in sobs but he's laughing a little, too, and he says, "I love you," and they both know he means them.

... in one perfect whole.

-end-

Ron pulls off Harry's glasses with hands so nervous and clumsy that Harry squints so he won't get poked in the eye.

They haven't even kissed yet, though they both know they're going to, and this little detour for the glasses throws them both off a bit. But Harry understands the impulse: It's a step toward real nakedness, a signal that they're not playing, that this is for real.

Ron rubs his thumbs over Harry's temples, where the frames always leave a mark at the end of the day, and Harry closes his eyes, and Ron kisses each one, and hovers there for a moment before moving on to Harry's mouth.

Ron's skin, close to, is a fascinating pattern of freckles, even in places that probably don't see the sun much, like the insides of his upper arms and the hollows of his hips. Harry associates Weasley coloring with comfort and safety, and he knows sometimes Ron worries that Harry sees him as just another member of the family, but Harry knows Ron -- knows how his hair is lighter than Bill's but darker than Percy's and Ginny's, how his eyes have an undertone of gold that no one else in the family has. How his is the only mouth in the family that Harry has ever wanted to kiss. Maybe the only mouth in the world.

Tears gather in the corners of Ron's eyes when Harry pushes inside him. Harry knows what pain looks like on Ron's face, knows it all too well, and right now Ron doesn't really look as though he's hurting, but Harry pauses anyway, just in case, holding his breath against the almost irresistible urge to move, to go deeper into the sensation. He kisses Ron's temple, tasting salt, and a tear spills over and wets his lips.

Ron turns his head to the side, though it's too late to hide. "I was hoping you couldn't tell," he says. "Without your glasses."

Harry nudges his face back over so he can kiss him. "This close," he whispers, "I can see you just fine."

-end-

Sirius won't look at him. His hands are frantic on Remus' back, in his hair, drawing him closer, clinging with something that feels like desperation, but his eyes remain stubbornly shut. Remus wonders how he can be so deep inside Sirius and still feel like he's being kept out. It's a familiar feeling these days.

Something's going wrong, not just between him and Sirius but with all four of them. James is so afraid for Lily and the upcoming baby that he's willing to live in the glorified house arrest that is Fidelius. Peter drinks too much, and every time he's drunk he gets more sentimental, until he's alarmingly near tears, making dramatic speeches about friendship, as though one of them were terminally ill or moving to China.

And Sirius goes out drinking with Peter, and when he comes back, he won't look Remus in the eye.

"Sirius," Remus says sharply, and pushes in too hard, and Sirius' hand makes a fist against his back. "Sirius."

What he wants to ask is, Why? This is no time for secrets, now when everything's getting so frightening. When the Black family owl comes more and more often, and Sirius sometimes takes it into the other room before he opens the message. When Sirius watches him arrive and watches him leave but won't meet his eyes.

Sirius arches his head back, baring his neck, and Remus leans forward to lick it, bite it. "Moony!" Sirius says, bending back still further, bringing his knees up around Remus' hips. He's panting, trembling, all physical vulnerability.

It's just like -- just like back when he --

The pieces fall into place. Sirius is ashamed of himself. He's gone off and done something stupid, and now he's just waiting for the truth to come out, and with the times being what they are, this secret probably makes the old one look trivial. Remus doesn't want to think about what it might be.

Because he's still Sirius, and the sight of his flushed cheeks, the feel of him convulsing around Remus' cock, still takes his breath away, and around those stubbornly closed eyes the lashes are wet, and it's all going to fall apart, and if this isn't the last time it's probably damned close --

"Sirius!" he cries, despairingly, and while he's coming, Sirius opens his eyes at last, and the look in them -- shame, suspicion -- breaks his heart forever, once and for all.

-end-

She'd said yes.

He couldn't even -- he'd thought he'd have to -- jesus, he couldn't even take it in. She'd said yes. And she was here, and she'd be here, in his arms, in his bed -- better get a decent bed, one that was worth of her, his golden Stella, not just tonight but forever.

She'd never been like this. He was so nervous his hands were shaking as he got her out of the new dress her father'd bought her for her birthday. And he knew she was always hot for him, even when she didn't want to be -- that was how he knew she loved him, deep down -- but now it was like a wall was gone, some last barrier.

No playfulness, no mischief, no superiority -- they'd have all that back again, because it was hot as hell, but tonight it must be the same for her as it was for him, because she just melted. Christ, she was giving up everything for his trembling hands. She was really and truly his.

He was touching her like she was made of gold, and this time she was going to let him. She couldn't stop him, even if she wanted to; she couldn't pull herself together enough to take any control. For once she was going to let him just worship her, the way he always seemed to want to. She didn't even want him to stop.

This morning she'd vowed she was going to break it off again, for real this time. She was an adult today, damn it, and it was time to give up the thrill of having Ray at her beck and call, time to choose one of the right kind of boys, one who was like her.

And then he'd asked her. She'd never thought he'd have the guts to actually ask her. Though it was more like a command, really, murmured fervently against her mouth: Marry me, Stella, come on, what're we waiting for, I want you to be mine. And now she lay back on his crappy little bed in his crappy little apartment and felt relaxed for the first time maybe ever. No need to fight it. This was what it was from now on. It was too late to change her mind. She'd already said yes.

-end-

Over the months, the sight of Lupin gradually ceased to fill Snape with rage and became simply a part of his life -- a rather welcome part, truth be told, as Lupin didn't require subterfuge, as the Dark Lord did, or gratitude, as Albus Dumbledore did, but simply wished to receive his wolfsbane, exchange a few words of restfully banal conversation, and take himself away.

When he arrived one day bearing a bottle of only slightly inferior red wine, Snape bestirred himself to offer to share a glass. He had never been practiced in such social graces, and even those very limited ones he possessed were dusty with disuse, but a Gryffindor was unlikely to know the difference. And Lupin seemed accepting enough.

A monthly glass became two, and then a bottle, at which point Lupin was revealed to be a sparkling conversationalist, not to mention a surprisingly attractive man. Snape briefly considered attempting a seduction, regretfully gave it up as beyond his abilities, and then was spared the effort when Lupin simplified matters by climbing into his lap and giving him a slow, wet, surprisingly accomplished kiss.

Lupin, as it turned out, had any number of surprising accomplishments, enough so that Snape was grateful when he began arriving earlier in the day so as to have more time to get to them all. Snape himself discovered that it was not too late in life to begin mastering certain skills, and that there was real satisfaction in inducing the normally self-contained Lupin to pant, groan, and whisper his name.

Inevitably there came a night when Lupin failed to rise and depart before moonrise. Snape, who had always been secretly fond of dogs, adapted better than he had expected to the sight of his erstwhile colleague in canine form snoring on the hearthrug.

When the moon set, he was gratified to see that his potion -- the formula for which he had begun surreptitiously tinkering with each month -- was now sufficiently perfected that Lupin slept right through the transformation. Snape awakened him later, his own way, and got a noise out of him that suggested he had forgotten whether he was man or wolf.

It seemed that when one saw a person every twenty-eight days, then, will one or nill one, a relationship of sorts would begin to develop.

-end-

It was on the morning of Harry's third day hiding in the dungeons that the bells began to ring.

A jar of powdered spleen slipped from Snape's hand and shattered, unnoticed, on the stone floor. "That's it, then. It's over," he said in Harry's general direction.

Harry came out from under the table and dropped the cloak and stood, listening. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd moved. Maybe he'd been crouched under the table since it had happened. The far-off chimes were joined now by slightly louder ones -- that would be the Hogsmeade town bell -- and then by another, a mellow, deep bell, almost overhead. "What is it?"

"Helga's bell," Snape said. He spoke in his usual sharp tone, as though he wasn't aware that there were tears on his beaky face. "I've never heard it. They say it rang a peal when Grindelwald was defeated."

It didn't stop. "They'll have found the body, then."

"And Malfoy's Ministry will have stepped down or been driven out." The sound was growing louder. "They're ringing the end of the war, boy."

Other bells were joining in, until it felt as though the air were throbbing with the sound, as though his very blood were swelling with it. "How long -- " He raised his voice. "How long will they go on?"

"A peal," Snape said, and when Harry just looked at him, "Five thousand forty changes make a peal. It's a number of great arithmantic significance. It will take several hours."

It was hard to think straight with the air full of bells, sounding as if they were saying, over and over, Free, free, free, free --

"It's over, boy," Snape said, grasping his shoulders. "Over." He didn't sound happy, exactly. He sounded the same way Harry felt. Terrified. Harry's hands grasped his arms, and through the close-fitting practical sleeves they were warm, alive, muscles shifting. An ordinary human body, fragile, enduring. Harry surged up from his crouch and caught Snape up in his arms.

Snape struggled, pushing at him, and Harry held on, because he couldn't bear to lose the contact. Snape mumbled, "Let go, you fool. I'm trying to --" and shifted them somehow so that one of Harry's arms slid up to the back of Snape's neck, and then he tilted his head and pressed his mouth down on Harry's.

He was rough, grasping, hungry rather than sensual, but that was all right. Harry wrestled him down onto the floor and spread himself out on top of him and kissed him wildly.

When Snape grabbed his hair and pulled his head away, Harry felt himself ready to fight, like a dog held back from its food. But Snape only rolled them over, saying, "Have you never learned to kiss properly?"

Harry started to say that he'd hardly had the time, but Snape's mouth was on his again, still harsh but slower, drawing him out until his lips were vibrating with pleasure, and then abandoning it to lick and bite at his chin, his jaw, his ear, his neck -- to tear away his clothes and suck stinging kisses onto skin that no one had ever touched while the bells shivered the air around them and Harry came with a cry that not even he could hear.

Snape knelt over him, hauling off his own clothing with jerky, impatient movements, and Harry jackknifed upright, speared by the shock of all that ordinary skin, sunken belly and stringy black hair, brown nipples rising in his mouth before he'd even registered that he was moving, sac dragging softly over Harry's thigh as he maneuvered to get closer. Snape's chest vibrated under Harry's mouth, but if there were words, Harry couldn't hear them.

He couldn't crouch low enough to get Snape's cock in his mouth until Snape tipped them back onto the floor again, and Harry squirmed awkwardly into position and sucked it clumsily, gagging in his eagerness to get it all, until Snape's hand left Harry's shoulder and came down to grasp at the root of it and offer only the tip, and at the sight of that, Harry was hard all over again.

When the bells fell silent, he was kneeling behind Snape, fucking him slowly as they both clung to the edge of the table. In the sudden quiet, he could hear Snape panting. The sound raised gooseflesh on his thighs, and his hips began to thrust more sharply even as he muttered, "D'you want me to stop?"

"Fuck, no," Snape said, and the unexpectedness of the word sent Harry into spasms far sooner than he expected. Beneath him, Snape's chest heaved -- he was wheezing out a rusty, unused sort of laugh. After a moment, Harry laughed, too, and Snape eased them apart and flung himself down on his back on the wreckage of their clothing with a gusty, satisfied sigh. He was still hard, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry.

"Did we just -- er -- for three solid hours?"

"We and a good percentage of the wizarding world, I should think," Snape said, adding in an irritated tone, "Oh, lie down, Harry; it's a bit late for decorum." Harry lay down beside him, wondering why, under the circumstances, it should feel so odd for Snape to call him by his first name.

With his head on Snape's bare shoulder, he could look across his naked body and see the spatter of browning spleen and broken glass where Snape had dropped the jar. It wasn't like him to leave a mess. Or perhaps it was. "D'you feel any different?"

Snape stretched; the muscles under Harry's cheek tightened. "I feel shagged out, rather thoroughly mauled, and completely relaxed for the first time in several decades," he said. "I smell rather foul, though. I suppose that will begin to matter again, now."

Harry sniffed his own body and wrinkled his nose.

"Welcome to the new era," Snape said, and closed his eyes, and after a moment Harry did the same.

-end-