Ron groaned as he squeezed his eyes tightly closed. A shaft of mid-morning
sun was trying to sear brutally through his eyelids and fry his few
remaining brain cells.

What was it about good friends plus alcohol that made you feel all cuddly
and fuzzy at the time, but in the morning had you upchucking so violently
you'd swear major organs had liquefied and also been purged?

Oh god.

Ron could have sworn it had been dark only minutes ago. It was the last
time he'd scrambled out of bed and darted into the bathroom. He shrank back
further into his tangled sheets as that beam of monstrous light had the
audacity to creep between his curtains and into his bed.

Lifting his head off the pillow was more difficult then it looked. Muscles
refused to budge on command and his head throbbed in protest at being
disturbed from its resting place. Still, with much grunting, he managed to
flip himself over and bury his head in the warm expanse of naked skin
nestled beside him.

Fuck.

He sprang from the pillow into a sitting position, only to groan in agony
as a particularly nasty thud of something...well bloody nasty indeed
stabbed at his brain insistently.

"Oh fuck," he gasped and collapsed back on the pillow. There was someone in
his bed, but he was damned if he cared right at this very moment. Ron
closed his eyes and nuzzled into the warm body aligned with his. He decided
he'd fret about that after the mountain troll had grown tired of stomping
on his head.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Harry was finally able to exhale the moment he heard Ron's breathing turn
from erratic, to the gentle even breath of one deeply cradled in peaceful
dreams, or so he hoped.

He'd watched Ron stumble practically naked from the bathroom and back again
all night. He couldn't sleep and it wasn't because of any hangover. Harry
had built up a tolerance to alcohol over the summers spent in Dudley's
company. No, as always his insomnia was due solely to the very presence of
his friend.

Except it wasn't Harry that got to share his bed, oh no it was Seamus who
nabbed that pride of place he had hungered for so long. Seamus who got to
have Ron's lips grazing his shoulder, those arms curving possessively over
his hips, Ron's every breath ghosting over his warm flesh, trickling down
his spine... the sweetest, most agonizing pleasure imaginable.

How he hated Seamus. Harry seethed with bitter jealousy that the Irish git
had beaten him to the ultimate prize.

As he shook with fury under the covers of his bed, Harry wanted nothing
more than to march right over there and yank Seamus from Ron's bed. Holding
him up by his scraggly hair, he would punch him in the face for even daring
to get that close to what was by rights...his.

Then something happened that Harry could not have predicted. Ron blindly
reached for the neglected blanket that had been dispatched to the foot of
the bed, fisting a handful, he yanked hard, elbowing Seamus in the process
and much to Harry's extreme delight, sending an unfortunate companion
rolling over the side and crashing to the floor.

Harry tried not to laugh, really he did, but when Seamus head finally
popped up and he turned his dazed expression on a very smug Harry Potter
and then switched to glaring angrily at him. Harry could not help it; he
burst into hysterics at the timing of such an incident.

Ron, on the other hand, appeared to be so immersed in the dream world that
he hadn't even stirred when Seamus was shoved so dramatically out of his
bed. If anything he seemed to find the absence more than welcome as he
stretched out luxuriously over the mattress, a smile curling at the corners
of his mouth.

Seamus was rubbing his palms into his eyes and moaning incoherently. Harry,
unlike before, when he'd been more than sympathetic to Seamus plight, had
turned his back and closed his eyes to the obvious agony being voiced
behind him. Served Seamus right for getting into bed with Ron, he deserved
every ounce of pain that the hangover could wring out of him and more.

Harry was secure in the knowledge that once Ron had slept, he would still
be in need of a best friend to comfort him in his pain. That was a job
Harry was more than willing to fulfil. All he had to do was be patient and
wait.

Behind his eyelids he registered a flash of intense light, followed by a
small popping noise and then silence on Seamus part. Harry's eyes snapped
open wide. He froze in a slightly curled foetal position, holding his
breath while the wool blanket suddenly felt prickly over his bare chest,
causing a desire to itch like mad. Gritting his teeth against the
spiralling need to scratch, it took a warm breath ghosting over the back of
Harry's neck to wrench a full body shiver out of him.

Harry jumped, flipping over onto his back just as the curtains around his
bed were yanked back violently and the wind was knocked out him as someone
landed squarely over his prone body...straddling his torso.

Immediately, Harry began to struggle but the other person had the advantage
of being on top of him, bloody heavy and unfortunately in the position of
trapping his arms ruthlessly against the mattress. The individual's hair
whispered across his face, tickling his nose and generally driving him
insane, as well as blinding him from identifying his attacker.

"Don't think I haven't seen the way you stare at your best friend...Harry.
You think you're so composed. I guess this will come as a nasty shock to
you..." the voice hissed in his ear, those dry lips rasping over the shell,
as each word was carefully enunciated for effect.

"He. Knows!"

Harry's heart thumped painfully in his chest. Shit! He knew this day was
coming, but he'd just planned for it to be later, perhaps at Christmas when
everyone was home with family and he had Ron to himself at Hogwarts.

If Ron knew how he felt, then it was over, all of it, their friendship, the
possibility of more...he'd never have the chance now. If Ron was indeed
aware and not calling him on it, then that said it all. Ron wasn't interested.

Honestly, he'd suspected that Ron had known; still, now it was confirmed.
Harry wasn't sure how to handle any of it. Harry had been entirely prepared
to be Ron's shoulder to cry on, him waking up still in the throes of
hangover hell. Now that plan had been ditched, he had no alternate strategy
and no idea what came next.

" Harry!" Ron blurted out in a voice that was husky from lack of sleep and
threaded with barely repressed pain. He was propped up on one elbow staring
at what he could only guess was foreplay he'd interrupted between his best
friend and one Seamus Finnigan.

Harry could hear the distress in Ron's voice, but it wasn't until the
person straddling his body leant their head back slightly and he could see
the wicked grin on Seamus' face, that he understood why he'd been
manipulated in to this pose. All of it had been meticulously planned.
Seamus wanted Ron to see what he'd been ignoring all this time. He wanted
to show Ron who Harry Potter really was, what he really desired and he
should have struggled, fought, instead he just laid there and let it play out.

Then maybe it was time for Ron to know and as Seamus bent down towards him,
angling his head so that when his warm lips caressed Harry's, the alignment
was just so, that he could arch his neck up to meet Seamus midway.

Harry had forgotten that they had an audience as a wet, hot tongue pushed
into his mouth causing a moan to be immediately stifled. Harry gave in to
need and thrust his own tongue into the mouth so eagerly attached to his.
Capturing Seamus tongue between his lips he began to suck on it perversely,
implying it to be only a taste of what was to come.

Frustrated with the whole aspect of not having the use of his hands, he
wrenched them out of Seamus iron grasp and clasped them to either side of
his lovers head. Harry glided his hands upward, into sandy hair. The
texture of those silky locks increasing his excitement as he combed his
fingers through each gorgeous strand.

Seamus panted into that hot mouth, his heart pounding as he struggled just
to hold on as Harry consumed him in the most devastating way. He'd expected
Harry to balk, to hit him and then warble out some explanation to Ron, all
red faced with exaggerated innocence of being touched in such an
inappropriate manner.

He hadn't bargained on this, not that he was complaining.

His muffled groan was devoured by Harry's ferocious kiss as the 'boy who
lived' thrust his pelvis up off the mattress and directly into his
painfully hard erection. Seamus was fairly certain that he was already
leaking through his underwear, but now he was positive that if Harry did
that again&well it was going to get decidedly messy very quickly.

It was probably just as well then that Ron chose this moment to trip over
his own feet as he hastily fled across the dorm for the haven of the
showers. Picking himself off the floor with a grimace at twisting his
ankle, he half hobbled to the bathroom, not once did he dare look back at
the two writhing on the bed.

Ron firmly closed the bathroom door and then leant heavily back against it.
For a second he entertained the idea of using a locking charm, but then
realized he was being far too paranoid and there were other people who may
need the facilities, especially considering the night they had all had.
Okay, yes he was freaking out. Because bloody hell who wouldn't be? His
best friend, a man he considered to be like a brother to him was kissing
another male.

Slamming his head back against the solid oak door, he let a stream of
curses fall uselessly from his lips. Ron was in shock and his brain refused
to comprehend just what he had witnessed. He was disgusted and he couldn't
think what else there was to say on the subject. He knew he shouldn't be
acting this way, he did know about Harry and how he felt about him, but to
see it, to see them doing...

Ron waved his arms about in horror as if even the mere thought of what
those two had been about to do was just too revolting for even his mind to
voice.

Some how he had wandered from the door to the shower stalls without even
being conscious of his feet moving at all. Ron gasped, shrugging helplessly
as he reached out to turn on the taps directly before him, a slightly
glazed expression on his pale face.

Warm water pelted down on his bent head, trickling over his shoulders and
down his long spine, only to cascade deliciously between his cheeks. Recent
images flashed uninvitedly across his ravished mind. Ron moaned feebly into
the empty stall. Its echo mocked him as his fingers urgently grasped his
hard cock through a sodden layer of thin cotton. The first agonizing stroke
almost became his complete undoing.

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