[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Homunculus to the Life, Harry/Ron/Hermione, R, 2/3
Part One.
Title: Homunculus to the Life (2/3)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Ron/Hermione, mentions of canon pairings
Content Notes: Not epilogue-compliant, angst, present tense, established Ron/Hermione, threesome, drama
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 3800
Summary: In a conversation with Dumbledore’s portrait after the battle at Hogwarts, Harry finds out that he is and always has been a homunculus-a substitute body made to carry the Horcrux so that little Harry Potter, who lies asleep as a baby under powerful charms, wouldn’t have to. Harry struggles to process the news, the fallout, and the discovery that he might disintegrate at any moment.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice, and will have two parts. (I wanted it to be a oneshot, but it had other ideas). Enjoy.
Well, this is going to be three parts after all, as I didn’t get as much written as I wanted to today. And also, the story keeps growing.
Part Two
When they leave the Delacours, even Hermione seems ready to move on. Harry gives Gabrielle and Apolline an awkward bow in front of the manor house. Fleur’s father is at work, as usual, but Harry feels that Gabrielle and Apolline were their real hosts in any case.
“Thank you for having me. Even though I’m a homunculus,” he has to add, because he wouldn’t have felt right if he hadn’t.
Gabrielle shakes her head at him, but Apolline is the one who steps nearer and watches him with a calm, steady look. “You are most welcome,” she says. “You know that you are not a thing?”
Harry squints at her, not entirely sure that he knows what she’s saying. The language barrier might be in the way. “What?”
“You are a person. Not a thing.”
“Some people would disagree with you.”
“Some people,” Apolline says, and her accent gets a little sharper, “think that one’s birth matters. Veela, magic, Muggle. I say it is not. I say it is what you become, you understand?”
It’s a simple statement, so simple that Harry can’t believe that it never occurred to him before. But he finds himself smiling helplessly at Apolline, because it didn’t, and now she’s put it in a way that he can’t ignore.
“I understand,” Harry whispers. “Thank you.”
Apolline nods at him, and then Gabrielle skips up to him and kisses him on the cheek, before shaking hands with Ron and Hermione, which her mother is already doing. Apolline holds his gaze for a long moment as she shakes Harry’s hand.
“Not for Gabrielle,” she murmurs in an undertone. Gabrielle is chattering with Hermione in French and probably won’t notice.
Harry nods. “I understand. I am not-for her.”
“And you have others.”
Harry blinks, his mind going back to what Ron said a few nights ago, but Apolline has already released his hand and stepped away. She calls to Gabrielle, who waves to them all one more time before Hermione takes Harry’s left arm and Ron takes his right, and Harry closes his eyes to Apparate them to their next destination, in the south of Spain.
I say it is not. I say it is what you become.
His heart unexpectedly light within him, Harry concentrates on the coordinates, and Apparates.
*
According to Hermione, the little Spanish wizarding village they’re staying in, which seems to have a different name according to everyone they ask, was once part of al-Andalus. Ron asks what al-Andalus is and why it’s loose, and gets a lecture about history that mostly seems Muggle rather than magical to Harry.
They’re quiet days, sleeping through the forenoon and the blazing heat, wandering the old streets where people seem to Apparate more than they walk, and catching glimpses through arched doorways of grey-haired witches rocking slowly in ancient chairs beside fountains and swirling mosaics maintained with magic. Harry uses the time to watch Ron and Hermione.
They’re both even more relaxed than they were at the Delacours’ house, and Harry sees more of Hermione than he did when she was talking all the time with Apolline. Harry finds himself watching the turn of Hermione’s wrist as she scribbles down notes from the gold-flecked books she’s found somewhere, and the way she pushes her hair out of her face.
He can’t get Apolline’s words out of his head, any of them. Or the way that Ron looked at him the night that he told Harry all of them would die, and him being a homunculus didn’t make him special.
The thought nags at him like a loose tooth. He should be able to get rid of it or embrace it, one way or another.
And yet, he finds himself inching out over the canyon of wanting his two best friends as if he balances on a plank over a steep drop.
Harry always accepted them being there. There was never a question that he would tell them about the prophecy, or that they would come with him on the Horcrux hunt. But being there is different from being with, at least the way Harry is putting it together in his mind.
He watches Ron sleeping between two chairs, which he declares is more comfortable than the hammock Hermione conjured. Ron sprawls everywhere, his hands dangling beside him, his snores filling the air with a comfortably familiar sound.
He watches Hermione laughing as Ron spits his first taste of spicy food out and chases after a glass of water, her eyes brilliant as she giggles behind her hand.
He watches Hermione smile when she catches Harry’s eye, and the way her mouth moves when she sits down next to him to tell him about the discoveries on homunculi that she’s been making in the old books, and how Dumbledore might have been wrong about the idea that Harry’s body would just decay and crumble in time.
He watches Ron tilt his head as he stretches in the morning without a shirt, and return Harry’s smile with a slow one that he’s never seen before.
And slowly, the shreds of the courage and the wholeness that Harry thought might have been destroyed forever with Dumbledore’s revelation are coming back.
*
They’ve Apparated to Italy and are in a section of wizarding Florence filled with more gelato shops than anyone could possibly need before Harry asks the question.
“Apolline told me she didn’t want me dating Gabrielle,” he says, as he and Ron and Hermione sit together in the cool little room above a winding stone street. Hermione’s newly-modified charm floats beside them, radiating blue and green light as it sucks up heat from the air and releases it as waves of cold. It’s better than any Muggle fan.
Hermione’s hand stills where she’s writing in her book. She glances up. “Did you want to?” she asks quietly. If Harry wasn’t listening for it, he doesn’t think he would notice the vulnerable tone in her voice.
“A little young for you, mate.” Ron’s voice is sharper where he looks away from the window and watching the people in the street.
“Yeah, I know.” Harry steels himself and makes the plunge that he’s been working up to for days now. “The only two I want are you.”
The air is still enough for a moment that Harry thinks he’s made a horrible mistake. And then Hermione is beaming hard enough that it looks as if she’ll crack her face, and turning to Ron with a little laugh. “I told you that he would find a way around his own nerves!”
Ron rolls his eyes and takes a Sickle from his pocket, tossing it to Hermione. She catches it with another laugh.
“You were betting on me?” Harry tries to feel outraged, but he can only find room for a vast amusement.
“Yes.” Hermione shrugs. “I was the one who thought we would probably have to bring it up to you ourselves. Ron thought you would get it, after he apparently made some kind of little display in the Delacours’ house?”
Her voice shows her disapproval of that clearly enough, but Harry smiles at Ron, who’s looking at him with a quiet, happy intensity that it seems no smile can probably contain. “He told me that I should stop worrying about my homunculus body falling to pieces. He said anyone can die at any time, and we should make the best of what we have while we have it.”
“Ron!”
“It got him here, didn’t it?”
It seems likely, from the huge breath Hermione takes, that they’re going to get a storm of a lecture, but Harry doesn’t leave her the chance to do it. Instead, he gets up from his own chair and comes over. Hermione blinks at him, caught off-guard, and Harry leans down and kisses her.
He never thought, really, about what kissing Hermione might be like. It turns out that it’s excellent. Her lips are cool and chapped, and her mouth is warm when she unexpectedly opens it, and the back of her neck is even warmer as Harry burrows his hand into her hair.
Hermione sighs when Harry cautiously moves backwards. “Oh,” she coos. “We should have been doing that years ago.”
Harry glances at Ron, a little concerned that he might be jealous-after all, years ago he was upset about Krum taking Hermione to the Yule Ball-but Ron is snickering. “Yeah,” he says. “Think of all the lectures we could have been spared.”
“Ron Weasley.”
But Hermione sounds too joyous to be prim, and Harry takes the chance to go over and puts his hands on Ron’s shoulders. Ron immediately stands up to face him. For once, Harry doesn’t mind about Ron being taller than he is. It makes for a different kind of excellent when Ron bends down to kiss him.
Ron’s mouth is even warmer. Harry clasps his hands around the back of Ron’s neck, and swears he can feel every one of his freckles.
“Holy hell,” Ron blurts as he abruptly lifts his head.
Harry looks at him, concerned. Was kissing a boy too much after all? He thought that Ron would react worse than Hermione if it turned out that one of them was opposed to being with him after all.
But Ron is only looking at him in admiration and a covetousness that thrills Harry down to his bones. “How did you not have a girlfriend or a boyfriend already?” he asks. “When you can kiss like that?”
“There was Ginny,” Hermione begins, because Hermione is constitutionally incapable of leaving a question unanswered.
Ron rolls his eyes. “Don’t want to think about my sister snogging my bloke, thanks very much.”
My bloke. Harry’s heart feels as if it’s been lifted up to a mountaintop, and part of him-the part that was convinced that he wasn’t “real” no matter what happened, that a homunculus couldn’t really be human-dies a death forever.
*
It’s amazing how well they fit together, after that, and how little changes.
It’s still Hermione who decides where they’re going next, and busies herself getting Apparition coordinates out of people with her expertly-cast Translation Charms. It’s going to be Sicily this time. Harry still watches her laughing and lecturing and reading with her nose buried so close to the page that it looks like she’ll get ink on it and going into a new bookshop with that possessive gleam in her eyes, but this time, he does it with a different kind of fondness.
It’s still Ron who finds the best places to eat, ambling around the streets and smiling and gesturing when his Translation Charm wears off. Sometimes, that works even better than Hermione just talking to people. He brings back more gelato, and pasta that Hermione devours, and some kind of sweetened bread that Harry can’t get enough of. Harry still watches Ron’s hands gesture and hears his laugh boom, and now he does it with contentment settling into him like the joy did.
And he becomes more aware-or aware for the first time-of how much he’s the center of Ron and Hermione’s gazes. Their eyes are always on him, it seems, even when he’s stepping out of the bathroom in whatever place they’re staying, or just waking up in the bed that they now share. So far, they haven’t had sex, just a lot of kissing and touching, but Harry thinks he knows what it’s going to be like when they do. It’s going to be like the warm glide of Hermione’s and Ron’s eyes going over him, and the smiles that Hermione can’t contain, and Ron’s arm slung suddenly around his shoulder as they walk somewhere, the gesture that Harry knows means, Hands off, he’s ours.
It’s…heartening.
*
They make love for the first time on a Mediterranean beach. Hermione has managed to locate one that has sand instead of inconvenient rocks, and spread out a Cushioning Charm that will keep the sand from being a problem, either.
Harry lies back on the charm with his clothes off. That might have been a mistake, to undress himself first, because Ron and Hermione are staring at him in what honestly looks like awe. Harry laughs softly in the shimmer of the sunlight and the Privacy Charm that Hermione has also raised around them.
“What, Dumbledore did a good job forming this body?” he asks, and stretches his arms and makes his muscles ripple.
“Harry Potter.”
Harry thinks about telling Hermione that that isn’t his name, either, but she doesn’t look to be in the mood to hear it. He smiles up at her and reaches up, and she comes over to him, kneeling down and waving her wand over herself with a murmured word. Her robes shuck themselves off over her head and land on the beach, so that she’s in her…underthings.
Harry’s breath comes faster and faster as he reaches up to unfasten Hermione’s bra. She closes her eyes as his fingers skim softly over her breasts. They’re paler than Harry thought they would be, for some reason, although of course they are, it’s not like Hermione walks around exposing them to the sun. And her nipples are soft and pink, although rapidly becoming less soft under his fingers, and her knickers as she sheds them are soft and wet-
“My turn,” Ron says, and kneels down next to them, as if he thinks this is going to make it better. Harry keeps softly touching Hermione’s breasts, massaging them and listening to her make noises, while watching Ron take off his clothes. He removes his robes and the shirt and pants he’s wearing beneath them all at once, his smile deepening as he glances down at Harry’s erection.
“All right there, mate?”
“More than.”
Harry wonders if he should apologize for the thickness of his voice, but it doesn’t seem he needs to, as Ron groans and bends down to take his mouth, and Hermione moans and presses against his hands.
For a while, it seems as if hands are everywhere, and Harry never knows from one moment to the next if he’s going to find smooth skin under his touch, or hard shoulder blades, or gently rolling breasts, or a muscled thigh. But when heat and kisses and tongues leave his body for a bit and clarify things for him, Harry’s head clears, and he can appreciate what’s in front of him.
Hermione is kneeling astride his hips, her head half-bowed, but her hair doesn’t fall into her face enough to hide her blushing cheeks. Her hands flex for a second, then settle on his shoulders. Harry leans up to kiss her, exquisitely aware that that’s enough to make the head of his shaft brush against her dripping folds.
Hermione hisses aloud, and Harry asks, “All right?”
“All right with you?”
Harry nods, and accepts her hips into his hands, and she eases down onto him.
The warmth, the sensation of being inside Hermione, the shock, all combine to make a loud grunt fly out of Harry’s mouth. But at least he doesn’t come right away, even if he has to scrabble around on the sand for a minute, and finds a harsh grain of it that somehow escaped past the Cushioning Charm. It stings his finger, and Harry swears and shakily strokes Hermione’s hip with the one hand that stayed in place.
“I wonder if you’ll be able to do both of us at the same time,” Ron says thoughtfully.
Harry wants to say something, but he’s too busy being overwhelmed. He does hope, though, that Ron isn’t talking about sliding into him or Hermione while they’re busy like this. It’s-
Hermione squeezes down and rocks a little on him, and Harry shut his eyes and tilts his head back as far as it’ll go. His brow is streaming with sweat. His eyes sting as if he’s got the sand in them. He tries to say something, and manages to make another grunt.
“Oh, Harry,” Hermione whispers.
At least she sounds as catapulted into the depths as he is. Harry reaches up and blindly finds her breast with one hand, and cups it, and Hermione gasps and wobbles on him, her knees feeling as though they’re about to crush his ribs.
“Merlin, Hermione, let him breathe.”
Harry would like to tell Ron that he’s all right, really, he just hasn’t felt something like this before and he’s trying to get used to it. But his eyes can’t open, and his hips can’t stop.
It feels as if he lies there for an hour with Hermione riding him and gasping and his own pleasure shooting through him and joining hers, but it can’t be. Harry forces his eyes open at last, against the sweat, and meets Hermione’s. She smiles at him.
It’s the purest smile of happiness that Harry’s ever seen.
He comes with a smile like that on his lips.
Hermione comes, too, he thinks, although she’s so quiet about it he’s honestly not sure. And it’s not like a woman coming has the same visible signs as a bloke would. But on the other hand, from the way Hermione reaches down and touches his chest, Harry is pretty sure she’s satisfied, and she would let him know if she wasn’t.
“Mmm,” she says, and lifts off Harry in a great wet pull. Harry gasps and shivers, suddenly cold. They didn’t cast a Warming Charm to go with the Privacy Charm and the Cushioning one, and they should have, obviously.
“Can you do me, mate?”
Harry blinks at Ron for a second, and then says, “I-I don’t know if I’m ready to have you inside me yet.”
Ron laughs gently. “I meant suck me off.”
Harry can feel his face flushing as brilliantly as sunburn. Of all of them, he didn’t think it would be Ron who would say that so openly, so casually.
But at the same time, he looks at Ron’s cock, which is red enough to hide any freckles on it, and he wants. He just doesn’t think he can do anything about that want that involves standing up or rolling over or riding Ron the way Hermione rode him.
That last thought, though, sends a flash through him that says he’ll probably be doing that sometime soon. Right now, lying back and getting his mouth on Ron is the nearest he’ll get to it.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “Come here.”
Ron walks over and kneels next to him, a ridiculous look on his face as he gently touches Harry’s chest. He doesn’t seem put off by the wetness draped over Harry’s hips at all. Harry smiles at him, and glances sideways at Hermione, who is waving her wand to clean herself up. Although from the way she’s watching them and sliding her hand down between her legs, it’s going to be wasted effort in a minute.
“Harry. Look at me.”
Harry turns back to Ron, and opens his mouth. Ron makes a soft, shocked sound, although Harry doesn’t know if that has to do with his expression, or them just being here.
Ron slides a hand under Harry’s head and raises it a little, maneuvering him until Harry is the way he wants. Then he kneels over Harry almost the way Hermione did, straddling his chest, and arches his hips slowly forwards, feeding his cock in.
Harry never thought about this, although since he realized he wants his best friends he’s spent more time thinking about all the boys, like Cedric and even young Tom Riddle, who drew his eye. But he knows that it’s going to work out just fine, because it’s Ron. And him.
Ron’s cock is heavy and as warm as the inside of Hermione. Harry carefully works his tongue and mouth around it, trying as best as he can to shield his teeth. He doesn’t think the best way to make this work is to scrape Ron up with toothmarks.
“Mate…”
Ron is the one whose head is tilting back this time, and his hands are clenching his own hips, his legs trembling. Harry can tell that he’s holding back with difficulty, and he wishes there was some way to tell Ron that he’d be welcome to thrust as long as he doesn’t do it too deeply.
Hermione hisses next to them, and Harry hears the soft wet sound of her hand working in herself.
It gives him an absurd amount of courage. He reaches up and gently grasps Ron’s hips, easing him forwards and then back in short, shallow shoves.
Ron lets his head droop, forwards this time, and nods. “All right. I can do that. Harry.”
The last word is so laden with wonder that Harry smiles, and Ron seems to feel it. He glances down, and smiles back.
And after that it works, just the way Harry thought it would. He eases Ron in and out, and Ron rides the motion with him, barely blinking, his mouth hanging a little open. The wonder and joy deepen in his face, and then the pleasure, and Harry thinks for a moment of the way he feels when Ron is flying next to him in a Quidditch game.
I like being the one to make him feel this good.
He sucks Ron in hard and deep for the last bit, and tries his best to swallow everything, even though he ends up coughing and having to tear his head away so he can turn to the side and spit out a little liquid onto the Cushioning Charm. Ron sighs, exhausted and sated, from the sound, and rolls off Harry much the way Hermione did. They lie side-by-side and stare up at the sky.
“Honestly.”
Ron snorts and glances over. “I know you got yourself off to Harry getting me off, Hermione, don’t act prim.”
Harry thinks the last thing Hermione looks like is prim. Her legs are soaked, her skin is flushed, her eyes are shining like the sun on the ocean. She still manages to be more put-together than they are, though, as she strengthens the Privacy Charm and then stretches out next to them.
“Just a short nap, and then we need to go back to the hostel so we don’t get sunburned.”
“Yes, madam.”
Harry starts laughing at the sound of Ron’s pretend-cowed voice, and Hermione laughs with him, leaning her head on his shoulder. Harry strokes her hair. Ron looks perfectly happy to be tucked along Harry’s side, next to the two of them.
“I know very well she cast charms to protect against sunburn,” Ron whispers into Harry’s ear, his lips stirring deliciously against Harry’s skin. “She just doesn’t want to chance her Privacy Charm wearing off and everyone else getting an eyeful.”
“Of course I don’t,” Hermione says immediately, at a normal volume, without opening her eyes. “You’re mine.”
Harry turns on his side so he can embrace her, and feels Ron doing the same behind him. And they fall asleep like that, in the middle of the first day of pure happiness Harry can remember in years.
Could a homunculus who wasn’t human feel like this?
But that’s not something that worries Harry for very long before he falls asleep.
Part Three.