Fatherly Feelings

Two

Arthur Weasley had always liked young boys.

As a child, before he went to Hogwarts, he had loved to play with his younger brothers. He had always been as enthusiastic to enter into anything they suggested as they were to go along with his ideas. For hours on end, the three Weasley sons could disappear to play quietly – sometimes not so quietly – with each other.

Their mother encouraged Arthur to take care of his younger brothers. ‘You are the oldest,’ she told him. ‘You are responsible for them.’ Then she smiled and told him how proud she was of him and that he was a good boy. Arthur was happy to please his mother. He barely let his brothers out of his sight.

Their favourite games included Healer at St Mungo’s (Healer Arthur Weasley had always been very fastidious about checking every inch of his patients’ naked bodies for clues to their mysterious diseases) and Auror and Dark Wizard (Auror Arthur Weasley had been most meticulous in checking every rogue wizard for wands or nefarious dark objects hidden close to their body).

They rarely quarrelled, although as they grew older, Arthur and his next brother, Bryce, developed a passion for wrestling. Rolling around on the floor, pushing and thrusting against each other was worth the hidings they got for destroying furniture and their mother’s good china vase.

After Arthur had started at Hogwarts, things had changed. He didn’t much want to play Healer any more. He was more interested in Quidditch now. And as the years went on and first Bryce and then Bilius came to Hogwarts as well, earlier games were forgotten, and they played Quidditch together and drove their parents to distraction with their mock-duelling.

When Arthur was made a Prefect, he was terribly nervous about this new responsibility. He had to be an example and role-model now. He didn’t know if he could do that. But he soon found out that, while he had difficulties maintaining authority with other students from his own year, taking care of the younger ones was no problem. They reminded him a bit of his brothers.

The young students loved him, and not only those from his own house. Amazingly, there was the occasional Ravenclaw of Hufflepuff that came to him when they were homesick or in trouble with students from Gryffindor House. It made him very proud. He felt he was doing a good job.

And taking care of the young ones was so easy. They came to him when they were homesick or when they’d had nightmares. There was nothing he loved better than having a first-year snuggle up to him while he hugged the young one and tried to soothe him. They asked him to help them with homework and prepare for classes, and he showed them around in the library and explained how they could find the books they needed. They had to stand in close groups, or else Madam Pince, the new librarian, would throw them out. Huddling in a dark corner between the shelves, one or two boys pressed close so that they could hear his whispering, made him feel very warm inside.

It never felt that good with girls. Arthur thought that must be because he had no sisters and was used to having younger boys around.

His best memory from his fifth-year, the one he used for conjuring his Patronus in Defence classes, was that of Thomas Barnley climbing into his bed and asking him if he could sleep with Arthur that night. He felt lonely without his Ma and his Da, he said.

Arthur smiled at the pale young boy with the large, pleading eyes and lifted his blanket. Thomas looked relieved and quickly slid into bed next to him. He wriggled until he lay within the curve of Arthur’s body, then sighed happily and went to sleep again. Arthur wrapped his arms around Thomas’s small form.

He couldn’t fall asleep for the longest time he was so proud and pleased. He must be doing a very good job as a Prefect if younger students came to him when they missed their parents. It made him very happy that Thomas felt at home and save with him.

His heart was beating very fast and he was feeling very hot. This, then, he supposed, must be what being a dad feels like.

He never thought about what it might mean that his cock got hard when he held Miles Ronán close to soothe away the boy’s homesickness, or when he leaned into Paul Hennessay to take down a book for him from the upper shelf, or when Thomas Barnley slid into his bed. He was only mildly embarrassed when he woke up the next morning and found himself pressing his leaking prick against Thomas’s cute little arse. He supposed that must be something inside of him preparing him to be a good father.

Only when, toward the end of his fifth year, pretty vixen Molly Prewett pulled him behind a suite of armour and snogged the breath out of him, he wondered. His feelings for Molly were definitely not fatherly, but his cock was hard and aching when she danced away from him, blowing him a kiss over her shoulder.

For five painful, confusing days he wondered what it might mean. Were his feelings for pretty Molly perverted? Or should he not feel so ardently for the young boys? Was there maybe an excess of emotion inside of him? People always said that red-heads were fiery. Only, he didn’t feel very fiery. Only terribly confused and insecure. Molly’s knowing smile made matters only worse for him.

In the end, he wrote a very embarrassed, awkward letter to his father. There was no one else he possibly could ask for advice. He spent the next two days is breathless apprehension. Then his father’s owl delivered the answer.

Arthur waited until he was alone that night before he read it. All day long, the creamy envelope travelled with him, hidden in his bag. He lost five points for inattention in Herbology and couldn’t eat dinner. When he was finally able to draw the curtains around his four-poster to read in peace and solitude, he heaved a huge sigh.

With shaking hands, he opened the letter and, by the light of his wand, read what his father had to say. It seemed all even more confusing to him at first.

His father only spoke about his feelings in regard to Molly. Arthur wondered if perhaps he had not explained the circumstances well enough. Had he left out anything? Had he not written precisely how his body had heated up and hardened when Thomas had slept in his bed?

But what his father had to say about his feelings for Molly answered his every question so well that Arthur began to think that the way his cock grew hard in response to a boy was, after all, a fatherly urge. Perhaps stronger than with others, but then, he did have red hair.

The reaction of his body to Molly’s kiss, his father had written, was his natural destiny. The female had to arouse the male in that manner so that a union was possible. This union would, in due course, produce offspring. There was nothing wrong with a young man reacting in this way to a pretty woman. Nature demanded reproduction. However, his father went on, Arthur must not allow any witch to lure him into a coupling. Not only was he too young to start a family, but coupling with a woman that a man was not sworn to in marriage was dishonourable.

There was a lot more in the letter. His father wrote at length about love and marriage. He even included a short paragraph on what exactly was happening inside of Arthur’s body when his penis grew rigid, and what was the natural outcome. Arthur read this with very red ears but thankful for the information.

When he had finished the letter, he read it again, and then laid it aside to think about his father’s words.

It was a relief to know that his body’s reaction to Molly was not perverted but very natural. Arthur was glad to know that. He had rather liked Molly kissing him. Now he could try to make her kiss him again without having to worry he was doing something wrong. What he had to think about longer, though, was his body’s reaction to the boys, about which his father had written nothing.

He read the letter again. There was really nothing about that. His father had written long-windedly about perversions, but that couldn’t refer to Arthur’s questions, could it? It only said there that he must never allow himself to submit to actions that were not natural; actions that perverted everything love and marriage stood for. Arthur was not quite sure what that meant. Coupling with a woman he wasn’t married to, perhaps?

He stayed awake very long that night and pondered his father’s letter. It was only after midnight that he extinguished his wand and lay down to sleep. But by then he had figured it all out.

His father said it was natural that a woman, that Molly, aroused him, because it enabled the union of male and female. From this union came children. So he had been right before, thought Arthur sleepily. If his cock got hard when he hugged or touched a boy, it meant that his body was preparing for fatherhood. He had worried all for nothing.

With this calming thought he fell asleep.