[From Litha to Lammas]: Covet, Harry/lots of people, R, 2/4
Part One.
Title: Covet (2/4)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Theodore, Harry/Blaise, Harry/Draco/Astoria, Draco/Astoria, Harry/Zacharias, Harry/Luna
Content Notes: Humor, not epilogue-compliant, polyamory, harem fic, magically powerful Harry, screwed-up wizarding law, angst, brief violence
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 6200
Summary: It turns out that, when various people begin asking Harry for legal and magical shelter, he has the power to marry them all as per an ancient Ministry law that says the conqueror of a Dark Lord can have multiple spouses. Harry knows the marriages are in name only, and it’s not like they require sex, just a magical oath. He thinks he’s doing very well at resisting temptation, not realizing what a temptation he is himself.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year. As you can see from the summary, this fic is not meant to be taken entirely seriously. It should have four parts.
“Well, at least he’s a Hufflepuff and not a Slytherin.”
Theodore spoke words that Harry wouldn’t admit he’d been thinking as he stared at Zacharias Smith, slumped over the kitchen table and a cup that Harry hadn’t bothered putting tea in. Smith needed brandy after the tale he’d blurted out.
And the request he’d made.
Harry stared at the ceiling. I’ve had more discussions here about marriage than I have about food. For fuck’s sake, I only made the decision to marry Theodore a fortnight ago!
Harry turned back to Smith. “You admit that it was your fault that you ventured into Knockturn Alley by yourself and tried to raid Borgin and Burke’s to get this artifact you say was stolen from your ancestor back,” he said quietly.
He could have told Smith something about the real fate of Hufflepuff’s Cup, but he didn’t think he should. If this was going to end up in another ridiculous marriage, it would be just as well to have peace between them.
Smith nodded. “But I promise that’s all I did, Potter! I got to the shop and I noticed what I thought was an Auror in front of it. There shouldn’t have been.”
“How do you know that, Smith?” The git wasn’t an Auror.
Smith raised his eyebrows, managing to look supercilious despite the way that the rain had plastered his hair to his forehead. (That was a word Draco had taught Harry, although Harry didn’t think he was ready to start inserting it into conversation yet). “I have my sources.” But then he lowered his head and seemed to sink back into the reality of what had happened to him. “I honestly didn’t do anything! I paused down the street and stood in a doorway to watch the bloke.”
“And he turned towards you,” Theodore prompted. They’d heard this story already, but it hadn’t taken much more than a few glances for Harry and Theodore to agree that they were going to hear it again, and Smith was going to talk in detail about it this time.
Harry wanted to be worried about how well he communicated with Theodore, better than he did with any of the others, but he’d written a letter about that to Hermione, and she’d sent back a book on marital communication and how it should be excellent. So right now, he was trying not to worry about it.
“Yes.” Smith swallowed. “And he had a dog’s head.”
“You’re not talking about someone who’s embraced the werewolf transformation,” Theodore said. His tone was dark in a way that made Harry wonder if he should have a talk with Theodore about respecting people under a deadly curse, but-well, he remembered Fenrir Greyback, too.
Smith shook his head. “I know what they look like.” His voice had a hollow core, and briefly, his blue eyes locked with Harry’s. Harry remembered with a jolt of empathy that Smith had been at Hogwarts during the attack by the Death Eaters in sixth year and the Battle of Hogwarts. “This was an honest-to-Merlin dog’s head. Brown fur down to the neck, big wet nose, huge furry eyebrows, the lot. And he took a deep sniff and started walking towards me.”
“He smelled you through the rain?” Harry asked. He was getting to ask the questions now, along with Theodore, that they hadn’t managed the first time when Smith had practically beaten down the door of Grimmauld Place, gabbling with fear.
Smith shuddered. “Yes. And he started towards me. I turned around and ran. I thought a freak like that wouldn’t dare follow me out of Knockturn Alley-what’s wrong, Potter?”
Harry glanced away and concentrated on not making his muscles tense up. Theodore’s hand on his shoulder helped. “I just don’t like the word ‘freak,’ Smith. That’s all.”
“I’ll make sure not to use it around you, then.” Smith’s smile was fleeting. “I got into Diagon Alley and looked over my shoulder, and he was still there. And he sniffed, loud enough that I could hear it, and told me he had my scent, and he was going to follow me ‘over hill and dale and to my den,’ so that he could destroy me for daring to approach his employer’s shop with intent to rob the place.” Smith shut his eyes and shuddered all over.
“And he followed you here,” Harry said.
“I-I think so. What?” Smith added as Harry took up his wand and stalked towards the edge of the kitchen.
“I can feel him through the wards,” Harry murmured. He was sure it was the creature Smith had talked about, although he’d never felt anything like this combination of grease and corruption before. The likelihood of some other creature he’d never felt before showing up right after Smith made his way to Grimmauld Place was too unlikely. “I’ll get rid of him.”
“If you can. You know why I came here, Potter.”
Harry paused and turned to look over his shoulder. Smith was staring at him with eyes that still looked too wide, but his hands had relaxed on the table and were no longer clenched around the brandy cup.
Harry sighed. “I do.”
“Will you grant it to me?”
Smith sounded formal now. Harry just hoped he didn’t stand up and start bowing or something. From Smith, who had always been a git to him, if at a lower level than Draco, it would have been too weird.
“Unless you have some intention of hurting my other spouses or telling me off for blood politics that are none of your business, then yes,” Harry said.
Smith sank back into his chair and bowed his head in a motion that looked graceful despite the tremble racing through his body. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Harry snapped, and stepped outside to the sound of Smith’s snicker.
*
The dog-headed man was indeed waiting by the edge of the wards, which extended down over the doorstep. He stopped sniffing about when he saw Harry come out and stared towards him, although the spells meant he couldn’t see Harry until Harry willingly created a tiny hole in them, at head-height.
The man’s hands clenched and unclenched. Harry could see that they had short fingers, more like a dog’s toes, and thick nails. “My prey is here,” said the voice, as thick as the fingers, and making it sound like the creature was choking on a chicken bone. “Give him to me.”
“He didn’t actually do anything,” Harry pointed out. “Why did you follow him here?”
“He intended to rob my master’s shop. He is my prey. Give him to me.”
“No,” Harry said, his resolve solidifying. He was pretty sure he knew what this man was now. Not a new kind of creature, but a human-maybe even another thief-cursed with partial human Transfiguration and the undying desire to hunt down thieves. “You are to leave here and not come back.”
“You cannot protect him, Dark-Slayer.”
Harry set his feet and closed the hole in the wards with a small slash of his wand. Beyond the defenses, the dog-man backed up and began to glow. Harry knew he would try to tear through the wards. Someone who had been Transfigured this way could sometimes manage it, since wards were mostly directed at stopping wizards, witches, and creatures like goblins that actually existed.
But Harry had his own weapons.
The dog-man charged the wards with a roar, and Harry let him tear at the place that had been weakened by the hole until he got a hand-paw through. Then Harry called up all his magic through his skin at once, and flared it around him like a corona.
The dog-man screamed as the magic burned his thick fingers. He staggered backwards, burning, blowing on it and then rolling over on the ground to try and extinguish the flames. There was no way that he could, Harry knew with grim satisfaction. Those flames would burn until Harry’s will put them out.
When he heard the screams get desperate, Harry doused the flames with a jerk of his head and murmured, “You will leave my new husband alone.”
The dog-man was getting back to his feet, but he paused on all fours with his head hanging down, so Harry couldn’t see his face. His thick voice said, “Husband.”
“Yes.” Harry thought Smith and Theodore were watching him through the door, but he couldn’t afford to turn around and look at the expressions on their faces. All his focus needed to remain on the creature in front of him, who he felt sorry for, but who was twisted by Dark magic to attack again and again. “I will be marrying him tomorrow in the ceremony that says the conqueror of a Dark Lord can claim multiple spouses.”
The dog-man sat back on his knees, which looked strangely like a mixture of a human gesture and sitting on his haunches. He stared up at Harry and lolled his tongue out, which mangled his words further. But Harry thought he heard him say, “Conqueror of a Dark Lord.”
Harry nodded shortly.
The dog-man stood up, bowed his head, and then turned and walked away to the middle of the street. There, he Apparated. Harry still remained in the door for five minutes with his wand drawn before he shut it and turned back around.
Theodore was standing there looking as satisfied as he did when Harry stared at his bare chest in the mornings in the corridors. (Theodore had odd standards). Smith…
Smith was staring at Harry with a worshipful expression that made Harry cough uncomfortably and glance the other way.
“It may be that they’ll back down now that they realize you’re under my protection, Smith,” Harry said. “Do you want to go through with the marriage after all? We could wait and see if they actually renew their threats.”
“Of course I want to marry you.”
Harry turned back with a frown. “What do you mean, ‘of course?’”
Smith swallowed and glanced around the visible rooms of Grimmauld Place as if all the furniture had rearranged itself and he wanted to memorize the new positions. “I don’t know how much you know about my family.”
Harry shook his head. “That you’re related to Helga Hufflepuff. That’s all.”
“If we’re going to have a family discussion, we should go in the kitchen where we’ll be more comfortable,” Theodore said, and herded them back down the stairs with a sharp clap.
Once they were back in the kitchen and sitting down at the table, Smith swallowed half his tea and muttered, “Yeah, we’re related to Helga Hufflepuff. And we’re huge. I mean, half the families on the Continent are related to us one way or the other, and a bunch of families here. And my family branch is always trying to do something to prove that it’s better than the others. We were supposed to be perfect as kids, my cousins and I. I’m my parents’ only child, which makes it worse. I had to be the best at Charms, the best at Herbology, the best Hufflepuff, the most loyal. It was insane. Contests and competitions and all that sort of thing.”
“So that’s why you were in Knockturn Alley looking for this artifact that your family lost,” Harry said softly.
Smith glanced up, startled, then nodded. “Yeah, it would have set me above some of my cousins for at least six months.”
“All right. But what does that have to do with me? Or marrying me temporarily?”
“You stood up to that creature for me.” Smith’s hands were shaking, and he had to put down his teacup. “No one’s ever done that. Not just because I’m me and I asked them for help. I mean, Professor Sprout was pretty kind, but she would have done that for every Hufflepuff.”
Harry shifted uneasily. The worshipful look was starting to creep back into Smith’s eyes. “I would have done that for anyone who came to me for help, too.”
“But it still didn’t have anything to do with my family or my heritage or my House. Just because you’re you.” Smith leaned across the table and linked his fingers together with Harry’s. “I want to marry the man who can do that. Even if I just spend a year and a day under your protection, I think I’ll learn a lot more about what a good marriage looks like than I ever would otherwise.”
Harry cast a desperate glance at Theodore for help. He thought Theodore might say no. Other than Smith being a pure-blood, it seemed unlikely Harry’s Slytherin spouses would have any connection to him. And it sounded like Smith’s family had set him up as a git to everyone, not just Harry.
Theodore smiled at Harry and mouthed something that looked like, “He’s in.”
Harry sighed and glanced at Smith. “Yes, all right, you can marry me. But,” he continued hastily past the joy that had spilled across Smith’s features, “no acting like the prat you did in Hogwarts. I don’t care what the temptation is.”
“You don’t need to worry about that.” Smith’s voice was husky, his eyes locked on Harry’s face as if he wanted to memorize it. “I want this.”
“All right, Smith-”
“Call me Zach.”
Harry hesitated. “Not Zacharias?”
Smith gulped and shook his head. “Everyone in my family called me Zacharias because Merlin forbid we be informal. And then I made everyone at school do it, too. I always thought that if I had friends or a loving family someday, I wanted them to call me Zach.”
Theodore beamed the harder. Harry tried to divide his face between glaring at him and smiling at Zach, but he had the impression it didn’t work, so he settled for the smile and the pat on Zach’s shoulder.
“I’ll give you what you need,” he said.
Zach took a breath that sounded as if it was on the edge of a sob, held still, and then nodded. “Thank you.”
*
For some reason, Luna had wanted to attend his wedding with Zach, a simple ceremony that echoed the ones he’d had with Theodore and Blaise. Harry had said that of course she could. She wasn’t his witness-Hermione had chosen that role, after she had cornered him, shaken him, and asked what the fuck he was thinking-but she was welcome.
Luna showed up in the garden of Grimmauld Place with dazzling sky-blue robes that were so bright they made Harry’s eyes water. She smiled at him, and Harry smiled back.
And then she marched towards him when the ceremony was done and he had exchanged a delicate kiss with Zach that had promise in it, and Harry felt a faint twinge of dread.
“Harry. It was a lovely wedding.”
“Thanks, Luna.” Harry glanced at her robes and had to wince away again. “How did you get your robes that bright?”
Luna beamed up at him, reminding him of Astoria for a second. “Aren’t they wonderful? I asked some spiders from Hogwarts to come to my house and interact with a recording of a Heliopath’s light for half an hour each day, and this is what they spun.” She paused. “You know, I didn’t have many friends growing up.”
“I know,” Harry said. “I wish I could have known you then and helped you.”
Luna shook her head. “We can’t go back in time and do anything about it, so it doesn’t make sense for you to worry,” she said. “But I was just thinking that it would be great if we could do something about that in the future.”
Harry blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You live in a big house with lots of people,” Luna said. “I would never be lonely if I lived with you. And if I had the Black money and the Potter money, I could go on explorations that I don’t now.”
“I’m happy to pay for anything you need,” Harry said, taking her hands. He was madly aware that from the other side of the garden, Zach and Hermione and everyone else was watching. But he didn’t drop Luna’s hands. It wouldn’t be fair. “And you can visit whenever you want. But you don’t need to do any more than that, Luna. I don’t want you to think like that.”
“I’m also thinking I’d like a husband and lots of sex,” Luna said.
Harry choked so hard that he felt as though someone had shoved a block of ice down his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione drawing her wand and Blaise stalking towards him with a murderous look on his face. Harry waved his hand, choked, tried to say something, choked some more, and coughed.
“Did I say something wrong?” Luna asked. “Did you think I was looking for a wife instead?”
Harry at last managed to get his breathing and talking under control, and shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Luna,” he said, and he absolutely believed it and was able to say it. “But I’m not having sex with my spouses, you know.”
“Isn’t that sort of a waste?”
Luckily, at this point Harry had braced himself a little-the way he should have when he was having a discussion about his marriages with Luna, he thought, so he only had himself to blame-and he choked for two seconds. Then he said, “They married me because they needed protection, Luna. Not because they were attracted to me. Draco and Astoria are actually already married to each other. None of them married me for sex.”
There was a noise behind him, and Luna’s eyes darted over his shoulder. Harry turned his head in suspicion, but found Blaise staring up at the sky. Harry frowned at him. If he had come over here to make fun of Luna, then they would be having words.
But Luna didn’t seem distressed, so hopefully whatever expression Blaise had had before that one hadn’t upset her. Harry turned back around. “They didn’t,” he repeated firmly.
“Oh.” Luna seemed to consider for a second, her hands twitching in the cuffs of her blindingly bright robes. Then she smiled. “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t.”
Harry didn’t put his hand over his face, but it was a close thing. He said, “Luna, I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Marry me and have lots of sex? Why not? Do you not think I’m pretty?”
This time, from the sound, Blaise was the one who had choked. Harry slid his hands into his robe pockets and forced himself to contemplate Luna’s face and not the sky. “Of course I do,” he said, gently. “But we’re friends. I haven’t thought of marrying you. And I don’t have sex with my other spouses. It-wouldn’t be fair.” He thought that was an argument that might appeal to Luna.
“Why not?”
Okay, maybe not. “I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of your desire to live in a house and have a lot of friends.”
“But I’m the one who proposed it to you. So how would it be taking advantage of me?”
“That’s what we’d all like to know,” Blaise muttered behind him.
Harry decided, reluctantly, that that didn’t sound quite like Blaise was making fun of Luna, and so not quite as though it was an excuse to abandon the conversation. He made his face as calm as he could. “I know that you aren’t thinking of marrying me because you’re madly in love with me,” he said. Neither did anyone else. And yes, there was a slight tinge of bitterness to that thought. “So it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of things I’m just as willing to give you without that. You can live at Grimmauld Place with us and have all the money you need.”
“I’d like sex, too, though.”
“But it wasn’t the first thing you mentioned.”
“Oh. I was just going alphabetically, you know. Friends, money, sex.”
“Of course you were,” Harry muttered, feeling a rush of affection fill him. That was so Luna. “Well, I haven’t thought of having sex with you, Luna.”
Two chokes behind him this time. Harry glanced over his shoulder just to make sure that he could identify his spouses by the noises they made. Yes, Theodore and Zach. Zach’s eyes in particular were wider than they should have been. Harry wondered if he should be worried about him.
“Not before now,” Luna said. “What about now?”
Harry looked at her, and despite himself, pictured her soft pale hair wrapped around his hands as he knelt down between her legs, as he opened his mouth to press it against the soft flesh there, as she touched-
And he was having an inappropriate reaction in a public place, as Hermione probably would have called it. Harry coughed and averted his eyes. It was a little strange that none of his spouses had said anything, but they weren’t used to Luna the way he was. Probably they were too stunned to speak.
“So you can see it now,” Luna said happily.
“Er,” said Harry.
“So can we get married?”
Harry shook his head. “Luna, because of the way that I’ve married other people, I would have to take you under my protection in a similar marriage ceremony. It couldn’t be a traditional wedding.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“You don’t need my protection that way.”
“But I’d like it.”
Harry looked at her sharply. “Do you need it? Is someone teasing you again?”
“No,” Luna said in a patient voice. “I said I’d like it.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you just because of what you’ve said.”
Luna beamed at him. “That’s okay. I have other arguments.”
*
And sure enough, a few days later, still not entirely sure how she’d done it, Harry found himself standing in the garden of Grimmauld Place with his hands in Luna’s, while he spoke the words that meant he was taking his first solo bride-
(God, that sounded terrible).
-under his protection. Luna smiled at him the whole time, even if she also interrupted the ceremonial words to tell him that she thought he needed a little more stubble on his chin. Then she returned to them, and amazingly, it went off without a hitch. Harry shook his head. Perhaps even the words of the rite recognized that when you dealt with Luna, you just had to accept some things.
His spouses hadn’t raised any more objection to Luna than they had to Zach. Zach had even smiled and joked that he was glad he wasn’t the “youngest” anymore. Harry had stared at him in horror, and Zach had quickly changed the subject.
When Ron (who had agreed to be his witness again, because apparently marrying Luna wasn’t as weird as marrying a Malfoy) had pronounced the marriage sealed and Harry had leaned down to kiss Luna, she threw her arms around his neck and snogged him hard. Harry had to brace his hands on her shoulders to keep himself from falling over, and then he was having a reaction inappropriate to a public place again.
At least Luna got swarmed by the rest of his spouses after that, with Astoria kissing her cheek and the others shaking her hand, and Harry got to stand there with his eyes shut and will himself down.
“You needn’t do that on our account, you know.”
Harry started and opened his eyes. Theodore was standing in front of him, staring at his groin with bright grey eyes. Harry flushed and turned a little so that he didn’t have to see it. “I’m sorry. It’s good of you to say. But I know why you married me, and-”
“Do you? Do you really?”
Harry gaped at him. “Of course I do. You told me yourself. Your father would have imprisoned you.”
A shadow drifted across Theodore’s face, and he nodded. “But, Harry, you must realize that I didn’t have any objections to the idea of what a marriage like this would entail. None. At all.”
He was staring at Harry with big, hopeful eyes, and Harry had the definite feeling he was missing something, but he didn’t know what it was. He turned back to Luna, who was nodding in response to something Astoria had said. Maybe they would both enjoy having a female friend, Harry thought, a little desperately. Outside of Ginny, he didn’t think Luna had any, and Ginny was out of the country doing travel and training for Quidditch most of the time now.
“What time do you want to have sex tonight?” Luna asked him.
Somehow, Harry got away with an inarticulate answer.
*
“Is sex embarrassing?”
Luna had come to the bedroom that had been Harry’s alone since he renovated Grimmauld Place. She was standing in the doorway in those bright robes she’d worn to his wedding with Zach, not the ones that she’d worn to their wedding that day. And she was looking up at him with earnest eyes.
Harry rubbed his hair back from his forehead. Behind him, the fire crackled quietly on the hearth. Kreacher had reacted to Harry getting rid of the huge, hideous bed that had dominated the room before he moved in by replacing the modest hearth with one that stretched down the wall, and covering the stone floor with a sprawling black-and-red rug.
Harry tried not to imagine how Luna would look spread on that rug in front of the fire. He failed.
“Well, is it?”
And Luna was still waiting for an answer to her question. Harry sighed and turned back to face her. “I don’t think so.”
“Then why are you so embarrassed to have it with me? With your other spouses?” Luna ducked under his arm and looked around the room for a second. “I like your room. But it needs some bookshelves, like mine.”
“It’s not about embarrassment.” Harry turned to face her, aware that he was helplessly hard in his pants again. Luna’s back was visible where the fire lit her brilliant robes transparently instead of the sparks that sunlight created. Harry swallowed and glanced away.
“Then what is it about?”
“They came to me out of obligation. It would be wrong to take advantage of that by having sex with them.”
“Oh.” Luna looked at him again and reached back behind her neck with both hands, undoing the braid that had confined her pale hair. She did it without looking, even in the mirror that was over near the door of the bathroom, and Harry caught his breath as her hair tumbled in a shining veil around her. “But what if they wanted to have it?”
“They might say it, but they would still be feeling the pressure. None of us were friends before the weddings. Why would they possibly be attracted to me?”
“But you’re very attractive.” Luna smiled at him and reached down to unlace the blue ribbons that did up the bodice of her robes. “And if people are walking around without shirts and proclaiming that they’d like you inside them, why would you think it’s just obligation?”
“Wait, what?” Harry shook his head. “Blaise and Theodore just-like to walk around without shirts on. And Zach was making a joke when he said that bit about me being inside him.”
“Okay,” said Luna, although with a lifted eyebrow that conveyed cynical doubt in a way Harry had never thought she could. And then she undid her robes and stepped calmly out of them, and she was-
She was very, very naked underneath them. Harry spun to face the wall, his face so heated that for a second he had to check on the distance between him and the hearth.
“Luna,” he hissed.
“Am I not pretty?”
“Of course you are.” Harry ran his hand through his hair and wondered if he was going to have to walk out of the room and down the stairs to the library or something. He honestly didn’t know if he could, with the ache in his groin spreading up his chest. “I just-I can’t take advantage of you like that.”
“I came into your room, and I took off my clothes. Why are you the one taking advantage of me?”
Harry shook his head and buried his head in his hands.
“Harry, look at me.”
Her voice had a touch of sadness that turned Harry around despite himself. And he tried his best to focus on her bright pink face, and her slight smile, and her big blue eyes that held a soft sheen. He hoped it wasn’t tears.
“I know what I want,” Luna said.
Harry swallowed and tried not to feel that the bulge in his throat was as big as the one between his legs. “Do you find sex embarrassing, Luna?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never had it.”
Harry groaned softly. “Luna, that just makes me scared that I might hurt you.”
“It’s not like you’re going to charge over here and ram it in me, is it?” Luna took a step forwards and rested her hand on his chest. Harry started. He honestly hadn’t realized they were that close. “You’re not an Erumpent. They do that, you know.”
And Harry found he could laugh, and that laughter was an important part of easing him past his own hang-ups. He reached up, took Luna’s fingers, and brought them gently to his mouth as he kissed her fingertips one by one. “No, I’m not an Erumpent. And I’m not going to ram it in.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
Her eyes were brilliant, a challenge in ways that Harry hadn’t known a challenge could exist. He bent down and kissed her, gently, not the way he had in front of the other guests, because there he had been all about focusing on controlling his own temptation and not embarrassing Luna or himself or anyone else in the garden.
Now, he just kissed her to please her, and to ease his hunger.
Luna made the softest noise he’d ever heard from her, and parted her lips. And Harry kissed her harder, some of the pent-up temptation from the last few weeks surging out of him at last.
It turned out that it was a lot like he’d imagined it, and different at the same time. That would sound stupid if Harry ever had to say it aloud to anyone, but he didn’t have to say it aloud to anyone.
He laid Luna down on the big rug in front of the fireplace, and spent a long time kissing her between her legs. She liked that a lot. She really liked it. And when her fingers were clenching in his hair to the point that it felt like she was going to rip out a chunk any second, Harry slid his tongue gently inside her and hummed.
She shrieked. Harry did not compare her to an Erumpent.
Her orgasm was a noisy thing, a big thing, bigger, it seemed, than her body. And when it was done, then Harry took off his clothes and let her look at him, and examined her body, too: the pink shadows where the firelight touched her breasts and the soft golden hair between her legs, the curve of her knees, her lips that shone with her breath, her grace as she stretched out unselfconsciously on the rug and reached for him.
“It’s pretty big,” she said in breathless contentment. “Thank you for not ramming it in.”
Harry moved towards her on his elbows, and knelt above her while Luna watched him with endless amusement, bright contentment. “I should probably prepare you some more,” he said, even though his body was practically vibrating with the need to be inside her.
“Why?” she asked, and reached down and gripped him. Harry gave a snort of shock. Luna eyed him. “You’re kind of like a Snorkack.”
“I thought…if this is your first time, and you’re not wet enough…”
“Virginity is only useful to attract unicorns,” Luna told him, and spread her legs further, and then she guided him into her far more forcefully than he would ever have done it. Harry clung to her, overwhelmed. “I have other ways of getting them to come to me. Now, come on, I want to see what the big deal is about being fucked.”
Harry snorted again in shock, but her body gripped him so tight that he was too pleased to do that for very long, and then he was showing her, and Luna sat up and gripped his shoulders and adjusted the angle so she got to see other ways, and by the end Harry was flat on his back with Luna riding above him, her smile small but radiant.
And when she came, it was the best sensation Harry’d ever felt, those sheer flutters around his cock, and he came himself with a sigh that Luna luckily didn’t have the words to compare to anything. She lay down on his chest afterwards, curling up and whispering when Harry shifted a little.
“We should probably get into the bed,” he told her.
“No one else comes in here because you won’t believe they want you, so what does it matter if we’re on the bed or on the floor?”
Harry would have argued against that more if she wasn’t so warm, and if he didn’t touch something soft and intriguing every time he wrapped his arms around her with the thought of moving. And so he slept one wedding night in front of the fire, and if Kreacher shrieked in horror when he entered the bedroom in the morning, Harry didn’t hear him.
*
Harry woke early to a knock on the door. He knew it was early because the daylight coming in through the muffling shutters on the window in his bedroom was, well, still twilight. He sighed, gently pushed Luna aside, kissed her, endured her kitten-like sound of protest, and went over to open the door.
Only when it was swinging open did he realize that he didn’t have a shirt on. Or anything else. He stood behind the door and tried to look stern and dignified.
Draco was standing there, his face concerned. “My lord, Luna isn’t in her room.”
Then he stopped, and seemed to note Harry’s bare chest, and looked into the bedroom beyond Harry’s shoulder as if he could see Luna there, although Harry thought-or hoped-that nothing would be visible except some firelit shadows. His eyebrows crept slowly up to his forehead. “Ah.”
“I didn’t force her,” Harry said hastily, hoping Draco would take his word for it. “It was her idea.”
“It must have been.”
Harry blinked. There was an undercurrent of resentment in Draco’s voice, which he unfortunately knew well from Hogwarts, but hadn’t thought to hear from his husband now. “What do you mean?”’
“We’ve done everything but parade into your bedroom naked with a sign that says ‘Fuck us,’ and you still won’t take us to bed.”
Harry felt his jaw drop open. It was an odd experience, like he was outside his body and watching from somewhere up above, near the ceiling. “I-I married you to give you protection, or independence, or-other things. It would be a violation of ethics and everything that’s good to take you to bed.”
Draco stepped towards him and cupped his cheek. Harry was glad that the bedroom door hid his reaction to that.
“We can marry you for those things, and still want you as a person,” Draco said. “I want you to fuck me. Astoria’s dreamed about sharing you with me. She told me that. Blaise and Theodore aren’t wandering around with bare chests because they just like to. And Zach told me in detail about how much he wants to suck you off.”
“He wouldn’t,” Harry said at once, because Zach was reserved, still, and he was-
If he had to deal with Draco wanting him in a fashion Harry hadn’t thought he ever could, still, he wouldn’t put up with Draco attributing his desires to others.
“He got drunk last night,” Draco said. “Really sobbing drunk, and confessed all his fears that he’s not good enough for you because you haven’t ordered him to kneel yet.”
Harry closed his eyes. “He said he wanted family. Not a lord.”
“He can have both. We could all have both, if you weren’t so bloody self-righteous.”
“I can’t take adv-”
“Grow up, Harry, and know where your cock’s welcome,” Draco snapped, and then grabbed him in a snog so fierce it was like a punch in the mouth. While he was still reeling from that, Draco nodded to him, said, “You know you’re welcome in my bedroom and Astoria’s this evening, Six,” and marched down the stairs.
Harry stood there and watched him go.
“I told you,” Luna said from behind him. “They all want to spend time in your bed. I don’t mind, I’ve had my turn, and it’s fair. Can you come and fuck me again before breakfast?”
Part Three.