Jaded

JADED

For Summery, warnings, spoilers and disclaimers see chapter one.
A/N: This is one of those chapters that are moving along someone else’s plotline just in case I feel like doing something with it later on.

As usual my thanks goes to my betas- Dragon and Kat (who I welcome back from the cold and harsh wilderness of computer virus.)

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Chapter Thirty-one: The one night stand that wouldn’t go away
(That's what Vincent said about Nathan in the Britt 'Queer as Folk' so I bet Michael said it about Justin at some point…)

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Harry slipped from the bed regretfully. There was nothing he preferred more than staying in Remus’ arms for all eternity, but he knew that he should at least make an appearance at the dorms. On the way out of Remus’ quarters he picked up his robe and tossed it on himself carelessly. It was still very early and the chances of others being around was slim. He forced himself not to look back at the sprawled form of his lover because he knew the temptation to slip back into the welcoming warmth of the sheets would be too great to resist.

Harry hummed softly to himself as he waltzed back to the Gryffindor tower. His arse was sore but his entire body was thrumming with pleasure. His whole future seemed so much brighter in the dim light of pre-dawn. He was feeling so happy and so complete that if Voldemort himself manifested in front of him right now, Harry was pretty sure he could take the old snake down.
When he turned the corner to the tower’s entrance he saw Seamus Finnigan standing there, looking rather perplexed and angry and all because the fat lady had finally passed out from the wine she’s been consuming lovingly throughout the evening.

“Hey, Shey, what’s up?” Harry asked conversationally as he came to stand by his friend,

“Hey Harry, the old banshee has fallen asleep.” Seamus sneered at the portrait before turning a curious face to Harry, “You’re coming in a bit late… Where have you been?”

“I could say the same for you.” Harry replied pleasantly, and Seamus snickered,

“I just came back from Hogsmede.” He answered proudly, and at Harry’s questioning gaze he blushed slightly, but still beamed with pride, “Oliver rented a room in the ‘Three Broomsticks’.” Harry’s jaw dropped,

“Oliver? Wood? Holly shit!” He cried and slapped Seamus’ back, “Good on you mate.” Seamus beamed at him,

“And where are you coming from?” Now it was Harry’s turn to blush,

“Professor Lupin’s quarters.” He answered haughtily and Seamus was beside himself with glee,

“No bloody way! You scored the hottest professor in the whole school!” Harry preened and shrugged, “You dog!” The two looked at each other for a moment, each basking in the glow of their own relationship before they burst into hearty laughter. The ringing sound of mirth woke the fat lady in the midst of a particularly loud snore and she gruffly opened the portrait for them, complaining loudly of her aching head.

Once inside the common room, the two made their way up to the dorms. Harry was quite please with this turn of events. Not that Seamus was a difficult person, in fact he was pretty sure that the easy going Irishman wouldn’t mind if he said he came back from Professor Snape’s dungeon, but it was still nice to get a positive feedback on his relationship. Somehow it made it easier to think about dealing with Ron.

Seamus opened the door to the seventh year boys’ dorm, but before either boy could take a step in they heard the shuffling sound of feet. Seamus' hand shot out and grabbed Harry's, seeking reassurance in the other boy's presence. Out of the near pitch blackness of the room loomed the gangly form of Neville, walking towards them. Harry let out the breath he was holding, feeling his heart doing a particularly vigorous salsa against his ribcage.

"H-Hey, Nev." He stammered. Feeling relieved and scared at the same time, Neville's eyes were open but blank and he stood there for a moment, gazing into space before he turned around and disappeared in the shadows again. Harry felt a tag on his hand, and turned a wide-eyed gaze to Seamus who was white as a sheet. Together the two backed away from the room, Seamus shutting the door quietly before they turned and fled down the stairs to the common room.

Harry slumped on the sofa and curled into himself as Seamus perched himself next to him and pointed his wand at the fireplace, igniting the logs back to life. He was desperately trying to calm the beating of his heart- for the love of Merlin; he's faced the bastard that was considered to be the scariest son-of-a-bitch in the Wizarding World, on a yearly basis no less and here he was trembling like two years old at seeing his friend sleep-walking. Seamus leaned back on the sofa and let out a long sigh,

"Oh, gods that was scary…" Harry nodded his assent,

"No shit." Seamus turned to him, looking at him with a semi-accusatory glance,

"Did you know that Neville was a sleep-walker?"

"No." Seamus slumped back, eyes fixed on the fire,

"I just can't believe it!" He cried, "We shared a bloody dorm for seven bloody years, how come we never knew that Neville was wondering about at nights on a regular basis?"

"I'm just glad we found out this way rather than have him crawl into our beds…" Harry said with a shudder. Not that he didn't like Neville, after all it was nearly impossible not to like Neville (unless you were professor Snape of course), but it was still a far cry from having him as a friend and having him crawling into Harry's bed for a cuddle in the wee hours of the night.

"I'd rather have spent the next few hours in oblivion than ever finding out." Seamus said with conviction. In just over three hours he would never have to know this little titbit and be very happy about it.

"Poor Neville." Harry sighed,

"Neville? Poor sodding Neville? I'm the one who nearly had a heart attack!" Seamus cried indignantly. Harry smiled, knowing that this argument was lost. He stared at the flames for a long moment, when Seamus' voice broke through his thoughts, "So… Tell me all about you and the naughty professor…" Harry chuckled, his eyes still staring forward and answered easily,

"I'll tell him you called him that. I'm pretty sure he'll manage to squeeze one more detention with Filch for you." He glanced side-ways at his friend, "What I want to know is how you managed to score the hottest Quidditch Captain to walk these halls. Last time I checked he left school when we were thirteen…"

"Yes he did, and no, I wasn’t shagging him then."

"Good." Seamus chuckled,

"I met him again at the World Cup." Harry rolled his eyes,

"Not much better!" After all there was very little difference between the end of third year and the end of the summer between third and fourth year.

"It was a couple of hours before the match," Seamus started to tell his story, the glazed look of reminiscing shining in his eyes, "I had just decided to take off for a bit, mainly because me Mam managed to get herself into a fight with a couple of Bulgarian fans. So, here I am, wondering aimlessly through the tents when I heard the noise."

"What sort of noise?" Harry asked, enthralled despite himself. He just couldn’t resist a good story and Seamus was quite famous around their dorms as a great story-teller.

"The Noise," Seamus repeated, stressing the words, "The noise of two hot male bodies moving together to reach completion." Harry shook his head in amusement,

"You could have just said the sound of sex, you know…"

"Yeah, but that wouldn't have been half as fun watching your confused expression," Seamus said with a wide smile at Harry's insulted expression. "So, being a barely fourteen years old virgin I naturally followed and when I rounded the corner I saw them. Oliver, the man of every red-blooded boy's dreams shagging some faceless guy against a tree."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. I couldn’t do anything but stand and stare at them. I fucking watched them climax, grunting and moaning like a couple of pigs in heat. And it was the most arousing thing I have ever seen. They were just buttoning up when the guy finally spotted me; standing there all wide-eyed and hard and he smirked at me and said something like 'Maybe we can invite him to our next round'. Oliver didn't really like that remark, and I knew that he recognized me because there was a fleeting smile on his face for a second until he realized I just caught him having sex." Seamus smiled softly, gods the face Oliver made when he realized he was just caught with his pants down, it was priceless. And it was something that Seamus knew he would never forget.

"Oliver shoved the guy away, telling him 'There will be no next round' and then guy just left, sneering at me like it was my fault that he was a jerk. When I turned my gaze back to Oliver he had already composed himself and he gave me a once over and pushed himself from the tree he was leaning against. He walked over to me and brushed my cheek, leaning in and whispering in my ear, 'Look me up in a couple of years, Finnigan'."

"Holy shit!" Harry cried, "He did not say that!"

"Yes he did. And then he left and I didn't see him for two years." Seamus confirmed,

"So what did you do?"

"Went back to Hogwarts of course, what else could I do?" Seamus said with a shrug, "Fourth year was kind of a drag, nothing good happened that year." Harry nodded; yes fourth year was definitely a low point in his academic career, although when that hell ended came the fifth year and made the previous year look like a bloody walk in the park. "Fifth year was a bit better, I decided I wasn’t just going to sit idly by and do nothing. I wasn’t going to come to Oliver a blushing virgin and make a complete fool of myself again. So I hooked up with Weasley."

"Ron?" Harry asked incredulously before he could stop himself, Seamus shuddered at the thought,

"NO! Ew! First of all, Ron would never let me anywhere near him with a stick, secondly, there are six bloody Weasley boys, at least a couple of them are gay and you chose the one that has the word 'straight' practically tattooed on his forehead?" Harry shrugged in apology. Ron was his first association to 'Weasley', he couldn’t really help it.

"So, which Weasley did you score then?"

"George." Harry's jaw dropped,

"What? George? George is queer? How come I never knew that?"

"Could be because you were far too busy taking the piss out of the pink toad to notice anything that was going on around you?" Harry opened and closed his mouth several times, yes, Umbridge certainly took up a lot of his time back then but still, Fred could have said something that summer they were together…

"Fred and I had a thing in the summer between fifth and sixth year… Oh, gods Molly would go ape when she hears of this…" He chuckled to himself; Ron would shit himself for sure if he found out his twin brothers were swinging both ways.

"Yeah, hopefully there will be an ocean between us when she does. George told me that she nearly blew the entire house up when Bill told her he was moving in with his boyfriend and cancelled his engagement to the French chick."

“Yeah, it was quite spectacular. Fred and George were rather envious; they never managed to get that particular shade of puce on her.” The two shared a small laugh at the short fuse of red-heads before Seamus returned to his story,

“Anyway, George and I were fooling around for a bit, which was fun, for the most part. And then there were several other blokes that were just as insignificant in the grand scheme of things. And then, two years after that World Cup, the time was right to collect my promise.”

“How did you even find Oliver?”

“I went to the pub where all the Puddlemere fans drink and hooked up with a girl who was positive that she was going to be Mrs. Wood and it was only a matter of time before Oliver realized it himself. You have no idea how happy she was to learn that I know Oliver first hand. She pumped me for every last scrap of information she could get.”

“What did you tell her?”

“What I remembered and then some things I didn’t.” Seamus replied casually, and Harry gasped in shock,

“You lied to her? You actually made up stuff about Wood? That’s mean! What if it’d ended up in the paper?” If there was one thing Harry knew it was that once the lies have been printed black-on-parchment it was very hard to convince others they were just that, lies.

“It wasn’t anything major, just little stuff. Like, did you know that Oliver’s favourite desert is chocolate éclairs?”

“No.” Seamus shrugged,

“Neither do I, but everyone likes chocolate éclairs, so I figured it’s not going to harm anyone.” Harry shook his head, he would have said something about how far one would go to get his lover but then again, going back in time and then cajoling his loved one when he returned didn’t really leave him much ground to pass any judgement on others. "After a week with her, which by the way was the longest week of my entire life… she finally invited me to a game with her, and the best bit was- she scored locker-rooms passes!" Seamus grinned happily, as if he was telling the story in real time and not almost two years in retrospective.

"So what did you do when you finally saw Wood?" Harry asked excitedly, unable to resist feeling the bubbling enthusiasm rolling off of Seamus,

"I went over to him, and I said in the most seductive voice I could muster 'It's been two years Oliver'." Harry was howling with laughter, rolling on the sofa and holding his stomach,

"Oh, gods…" He mumbled and whipped tears of mirth from his eyes, "I can’t believe…"

"I know… And believe me I have no idea how I did it, I mean, I still cringe with embarrassment every time I think about it, but I did it!"

"And what did Oliver say?"

"He gave me a once over and just jerked his head for me to follow. He took me over to the players' private floo and took me to his place." Seamus said smugly,

"You scored Wood. I'm just… Good on you mate!" Harry clapped a hand over Seamus' back, while the Irishman was practically glowing with self-pride.

"Well, after that night we sort of started, something," It was a bit hard to define what they had, it wasn’t a 'relationship' because it was one seriously dysfunctional one if it was, and it wasn’t really 'just sex' because it was obviously much more than that.

"Something that is still going on." Harry stated and Seamus nodded, a small secretive smile gracing his lips, "And you want more than what you have." Seamus turned his head to his friend, narrowing his eyes; this sort of shrewd observations was usually Dean's fort, not Harry who was as dense as they come.

"I didn't before, but now things are different. I'm out of school and we have to see how this goes." The two sat in silence for a while. Harry could tell that Seamus wanted more than just casual sex here and there but he didn't really know what to say, after all, it wasn’t like he still had any liaison to Oliver Wood and he could help his friend. Slowly the pair on the sofa drifted to slumber, too exhausted from their nightly escapades to stay awake until morning.
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A/N: My sister did it to me once, the whole sleep-walking bit. It was scary as hell, I can tell you that!

If you have forgotten and need a reminder (like I did…) Harry's entire and must I say rather unexciting sexual history is on chapter 11.

This was supposed to be the chapter where Harry and Remus go and get tats, but then Harry met Seamus and they started talking and blah-blah-blah… Why do I always get side-tracked? You really should stop me when I get like that. So next chapter would be Harry and Remus do London.