It's Not Just Sex

Great News, Everybody! This fic is now beta-ed! Courtesy of the sublime Salon Kitty. All the good stuff was added by her. All the bad stuff is me ignoring her comments and adding new mistakes to the second draft ;-P

I know you were supposed to be getting more DTDM, but the difference between that fic and this one is that I know where this one’s going.


Chapter 7: The Endless Camping Trip

“Well,” said Harry, as the piercing wind chilled him to the bones, “Here we are.”

‘Here’ in this case was a drab, tiny clearing in an unspecified patch of forest. Harry actually had no idea where they were. Hermione had picked their apparition location and she was hardly in the mood to spare any extra words for his benefit at the moment. Nor did his remark elicit any comment from any of his other two companions. Who, ignoring him completely, simply staggered inside their hastily erected tent.

Harry didn’t follow. He hated the tent, which unlike most Wizarding tents was barely bigger on the inside than the out. The tent had just two rooms: the main room, which would have been spacious enough if it didn’t need to be the kitchen and the living room and contain all four beds, and the bathroom. Since they could conjure their own water, this enabled them to stay at least moderately clean and hygienic, though Harry had yet to manage the knack of summoning water that was not at one of the extremes: either near freezing liquid or scalding hot steam. Even Hermione hadn’t gotten the hang of anything more than tepid.

Eventually, however, the ever present threat of hypothermia forced Harry inside. Pansy, Ron and Hermione were already seated in armchairs around the central table, carefully not looking at each other. Sighing in the confines of his head, Harry closed up the entrance and slumped down in the last chair. Still no-one said anything. Harry bristled, annoyed at the utter, mulish impassivity. He forced his emotions back down; the golden locket on his chest glittered slightly. The way things were going, it’d been quite a while before they noticed the locket’s detrimental effect on their moods and even that had done little to ease tensions between them.

Harry felt as if he were teetering over the edge of the abyss. Even Pansy was barely talking to him, he’d chosen a bad time to rebuff one of her advances. He’d been worried about annoying Hermione and had not noticed that the locket had been firmly attached to his girlfriend at that second. Pansy’s reaction had easily qualified as overblown in Harry’s book but what had been worse than the tantrum Pansy had thrown, was getting through the next day when Harry himself was not only wearing the locket but had to endure Hermione shooting smugly superior glances at him all day long.

Even so, it wasn’t the locket’s influence that was draining Harry’s hopes or even the grating personality conflicts going on around him. It was that he was completely bored. Because, even with the locket to study, they still had no idea how to go about destroying it nor did they have any clues on where to find the other horcruxes that they couldn’t yet destroy. Hell, they didn’t even know what the other Horcruxes looked like. The aimlessness of their wandering was becoming more and more apparent and each destination was a regular point of contention.

“So…” Harry said, aiming for irony but hitting a sour note, “what do we want to do first? Have some tea or argue about where we’re going next?”

No-one smiled. The silence proved to be quite elastic and stretched for almost a minute until it broke with a great thunderous rumble of Ron’s stomach.

“Some things never change,” Harry noted with a wink towards Hermione, “I’ll take that as a vote for tea?”

The corner of Hermione’s lip quirked upwards slightly and her expression became just a tad less stony, though this great levity on her part was won at heavy cost. Ron’s brow furrowed and creased into a heavy scowl.

“Sure, take the mick,” he muttered darkly. “Still don’t see why we didn’t bring Kreacher along.”

It was a complaint Ron had made more and more often as the food Kreacher had sent with them had gotten staler and staler.

“He’s a House Elf,” Harry replied, as he always did, “key word there, mate: ‘House’. Now if you know any Tent Elves do feel free to speak up, any time.”

“He was a good cook; that’s what he was.”

“Well,” said Pansy hauling herself laboriously to her feet and wandering over to the tent’s miniature kitchen, “We have many fine examples of his handiwork here. So let’s make the most of it, shall we?”

She poured four small bowls of creamy mushroom soup and passed them out around the table. Harry gingerly took his and regarded it with suspicion, takinga couple of deep sniffs of it. Maybe it was his imagination or maybe those preservation charms on their larder didn’t work as well as advertised. He looked up and saw that Ron had already drained half his bowl with one manly draught. Well then, no need to make a fuss, a nasty little corner of Harry’s brains commented, after all, it’s already too late for that greedy lout.

Harry took a careful sip of his bowl and stayed silent. The brief meal passed all too quickly and all too quietly for Harry’s liking but then at least they were all managing to sit in the same room without full blown duels breaking out. Still, what he was going to say next was probably going to change that.

“About our...” He began but Hermione cut him off briskly

“We’re not going to Godric’s Hollow, Harry,” she said.

Pansy snorted.

“Customarily, it’s considered polite to let someone finish before you shoot down their ideas,” she said, shortly.

“Why?” Hermione challenged bluntly. “We all know what he’s going to say. Exactly what he’s going to say, in fact. I could bloody well recite it by now. And nothing’s changed. It’s still a bad idea.”

“Because you’ve been overflowing with better ones?” Harry snipped, “Where do you want to go?”

Ron sighed loudly and slouched down in his chair, folding his arms. He’d been as affected by the Locket and stress as any of them but seemed to have had the opposite reaction. Apart from complaining about food, he barely got involved in the fights at all, maintaining a steady neutrality on most matters. He didn’t even try to keep the peace anymore. Leaning back, he closed his eyes and let the snipes and retorts just shoot over his head.

“As someone once said to me, ‘Because me not coming up with a better plan totally negates the fact that the one we have is stupid,’” Hermione pointed out sardonically, “You-Know-Who knows you, Harry, you don’t think he knows what Godric’s Hallow means to you? Means to him? It will be a trap.”

“So you don’t have to listen to me,” Harry growled, “But I have to hear you repeat the same arguments over and over? Nice.”

“Well, clearly you don’t hear what I say, anyway,” Hermione retorted, “since you can’t seem to recognise the bleeding obvious when I say it. Even when I use really small words.”

Harry flushed, came to his feet and strode out of the tent flap again.

The harsh winter winds were much less caustic than Hermione’s shrill whinging after all.

~O~

Curled up on a too small cot, under a too thin blanket; Ron tried to sleep. He’d been trying all night to no avail. Laugh as his friends might, the rumbling of his stomach and gnawing ache of hunger was keeping him awake. Although he had managed to master the knack of lying still enough with his eyes closed that his friends, who after all never paid much attention to him , thought he was asleep. In any case, he wouldn’t have to pretend much longer, he thought. Surely it was almost time for his ‘shift.’ In a typical bout of paranoia, Hermione decided her secrecy spells were not at all sufficient to keep them, well, secret and they should all take turns standing in the cold outside the spells area and keep look out. Which of course did not make them more likely to be seen or at all conspicuous, thank you very much.

As if summoned by his thoughts, a cold gust of wind entered the tent at that moment. Ron’s eyes opened the tiniest amount to tiny blue slits. To his very great surprise, Harry appeared coming to be coming back in and passing Hermione who was going out for the third shift. Ron’s head burrowed back into his pillow. Damn! he thought, Its not nearly as late as I imagined.

Eyes still only just open, Ron watched the dark blob that was Harry move around to his bed, to lie down. He’d probably start snoring, knowing Ron’s luck, right now. However, Harry quickly ran into a problem.

His bed was already occupied. By another dark haired figure.

Harry was undeterred and, kicking off his trainers, he slipped in under the covers.

“You’re in the wrong bed,” he muttered in Pansy’s ear, his voice was only just audible to Ron.

“Hmm,” there was a sleepy response, “Yours was all warm and comfy when I came in…”

“Well, it’s very comfy now,” Harry said lightly. There was another feminine moan.

Ron was slightly confused. Granted, neither Harry nor Pansy had quite his broadness but still he barely fit on his bed, how did the two of them manage to stay on? The moan prompted his eyes to widen another half-millimetre almost involuntarily and bring the two of them into clear focus. They were both lying on their sides and there was not even a sliver of room between her back and Harry’s front. One of Harry’s arms was curled around his girlfriend’s body. Ron’s eyes followed the line of his sleeve down to where Harry’s pale scarred hand gripped at her, then he felt his ears burn slightly as he realised exactly what part of Pansy’s body was being squeezed. Ron’s gaze flashed back to Harry’s face but found it now buried in Pansy’s soft, sable hair.

There was something unreasonably fascinating in watching this, Ron found. He knew he shouldn’t be seeing this and yet he didn’t make a move, unable to close is eyes or even make a sound to signal his alertness. He couldn’t say why he was so fascinated with them shagging, it wasn’t like he hadn’t done it himself Or at least had the opportunity to, Lavender had certainly been willing. They’d almost done it too, until he’d been savaged by Canaries which had rather broken the mood. After that well… the moment had never seemed right again to Ron. There always had seemed to be something missing.

Harry, however, clearly had no such problem as he fondled Pansy’s breast. The girl tried to stifle her moans but made a bad job of it. Eventually she twisted up to look at Harry, shifting on to her back so their faces were very close together.

“Harry,” Pansy’s voice was low and soft; barely audible over the lashings of the wind against the cloth wall behind Ron’s back, “Harry, we shouldn’t…”

The only response that Ron could see him make was that he stopped nuzzling her hair and instead started kissing and even sucking on her neck.

“That’s not fair, Harry,” Pansy whimpered, “you know how much that turns me on.”

“It’s supposed to,” Harry husked into her ear.

“Granger will throw a fit…” Pansy’s protests were becoming increasingly faint. Ron suddenly noticed that Harry’s hand had left her chest and disappeared under the covers. Given the renewed moans that escaped Pansy’s lips and the way she was suddenly squirming, figuring out where it was now wasn’t difficult.

“She’s already put silencing spells all over this place” Harry answered.

“And Ron?”

Ron grew very still as their gaze flickered over to where he lay.

“He’s a heavy sleeper.”

With that one terribly ironic statement Harry seemed to quash any further reservations Pansy might have had. Her hands locked around Harry’s head and yanked him down, their faces mashing together in such a forceful kiss, Ron wondered why they hadn’t knocked each other’s teeth out. A part of him wanted to snigger and insist they just looked silly but a larger part of him was in awe of the sheer intensity of feeling that seemed to wash over them, he was quite sure he’d never felt anything like that personally.

The couple’s movements were clumsy in the way of people trying to move with great haste, yet remain unnoticed. Hands shoved at garments, blankets tangled at shifted legs and their bodies merged into one inseparable dark blob covered in a blanket. The only definable features Ron could see were Pansy’s hands gripping at Harry’s back with white knuckled force and the pairs of feet sticking out over the end of the bed. A pair of larger feet in the middle and smaller ones, clad in what Ron recognised as school socks banded in Slytherin acid green, hooked around the corners of the bed.

“Oh hurry, Harry,” Pansy moaned, her voice tripping over the words slightly. “Hurry, hurry, hurryyy”

Suddenly the contoured dark shape that was the couple became a lot less contoured as curved section midway down them flattened and pushed down. Pansy seemed to lose the power of speech her voice modulated into a long ‘ooo’ sound.

Harry set himself in motion, slowly, but still with obvious energy. His body rising and falling over Pansy’s, each downward motion greeted by a tiny moan and upward flex of her own body, and by the tightening of her grip on the blankets at the small of Harry’s back and the slight curls of Pansy’s toes. Harry lad lifted himself slightly on his arms and Ron found himself gazing at their bodies, silhouetted in the gloom. His eyes straining, Ron could make out the sleek lines of his friend’s toned chest and the swaying motion of Pansy’s perky tits; her erect nipples visibly breaking their curves even at this distance. Their faces hung merest inches away from each other and they frequently exchanged soft kisses. Even from across the room, the sense of intimacy and connection between them was palpable. Ron was suddenly struck by a renewed sense of wrongness. There were always boundaries in relationships; lines that you did not cross. Staring at your best friend’s girlfriend’s tits while they shagged was so far past that line that it would be the horizon if he ever looked back.

As the leaden feeling of guilt weighed on his mind, Ron finally managed to tear his eyes away from their undulating forms but it didn’t help; he could still hear them; their hoarse mingled gasps grated against his senses. Harry’s thrusts caused the camp bed’s springs to squeak in a way that almost seemed cliché as the pair sped up and increased their volume, becoming so fast and rapid it became almost unbearable to hear. Ron was seconds away from breaking, making a noise, anything to stop it, when there was a sudden silence and the moans and gasps were replaced by the sounds of deep breathing, slowly slackening off as their owners relaxed.

But even as the lovers lay increasingly still, entwined on their bed, Ron still couldn’t sleep. He was cold, he was hungry and he had a raging hard-on.

~O~

The next morning, everything went to pot, which was sad because Harry had been in quite a good mood. He’d even been humming as he stood in the light snow that was falling around them; the whiteness in front of him slowly turning yellow , as he relieved himself. (The quartet had started to mistrust the Tent’s bathroom toilet which had tended to produce strange odours after use) Soon, Ron clomped up alongside him.

“Plenty of other trees around here, Ron,” he said, grumpily, but the other boy just ignored him and fiddled with his own trousers. As they stood there in silence, Harry became uncomfortably aware of just how much taller Ron was than him. They’d just zipped up and were turning back towards the tent when Ron broke the uneasy silence.

“Sleep well, Harry?” he said, softly, in a slightly knowing tone that set warning bells a-ringing inside Harry’s head.

“Ungh” Harry said, barely vocalising.

“I imagine you did,” Ron continued blithely.

“Ungh,” Harry

“I mean, you wore yourself out pretty thoroughly when you went to bed.” Ron said, with that same hint of knowledge. When you went to bed, Harry noted, not before. He fought down the flush of embarrassment easily but the redness of anger rushed to his cheeks and forehead instead.

“I’m sure,” Harry said, carefully enunciating each word to keep his voice at something approaching a level tone, “I don’t know what you mean, Ron.” Last Chance, Ron Added the angry part of Harry’s brain. The part of him that was tensing his muscles, squaring his shoulders and drawing him up to his full, if not entirely impressive, height. Ron seemed unaware of these small clues from the alpha male though because he ploughed on.

“Don’t you?” he said, an eyebrow cocked and a conspiring grin played across his lips.

“Have you been spying on me?” Harry growled, his voice deep and dangerous.

“Let’s just say…” Ron said, taking a step forward, “I’m not as heavy a sleeper as you might imagine.”

The step forward had been a mistake.

It brought him inside what Harry considered his personal space. It didn’t help that Ron was taller, broader and more thickly muscled than he was. He felt crowded and reacted badly. He shoved Ron hard in the chest with both hands.

The expression on Ron’s face was completely shocked and, to Harry, really quite funny. Even more so, as he stumbled back and fell into a snow drift with an audible splat, Harry guffawed loudly for the first time in weeks. Ron’s face darkened but he didn’t try to leap up and return the bodily attack in kind, instead he simply cupped his hand, scooped up some snow and hurled it at Harry who twisted aside a second too late as it splattered over his chest and left shoulder.

“Oh you’ll pay for that,” He grinned predatorily as he charged.

To Ron’s credit he managed to throw two more snowballs from his seated position; one of which grazed Harry’s hip the other caught him fully in the face and utterly failed to dissuade him from bodily tackling Ron. The two wizards wrestled in the snow like boys, laughs and cries escaping them in great bursts of pale misty breath. They rolled about, grappling as they did so. Ron was bigger and stronger but having no desire to actually hurt Harry had trouble bringing his advantage to bear, and Harry was a slippy little bugger and completely impossible to grab a hold off. By the time Harry gained the upper hand and managed to regain his feet, both of them were soaked and muddy. Harry managed to grab Ron by the back of his jumper and started half carrying, half dragging back the way they came.

“Now, you’re going to get your reward for spying on me, Ron,” Harry said in an amused voice.

“Whu?” Ron twisted and looked where they were going, at the slick patch of yellowed snow. “Oh no, Harry, that’s sick, Come off it…” His voice was torn between amusement and genuine revulsion.

Harry kept moving, resolute.

“Look I’m sorry, OK? It was an accident, all right?” Ron struggled against Harry’s unbreakable grip.

But before they had even got halfway back to the relevant patch of snow, there was a colossal bang and the two wizards sprung apart from each other, each crashing into the snow in opposite directions. Dazed, Harry looked up at where he had been standing a second ago; in his place was a translucent circular pattern of energy, Harry frowned at it for a second before recognising it as a shield charm. He looked at Ron on the other side of the shield then both their heads turned to see where it had come from.

Hermione Granger stood very still, wand arm outstretched towards them; only the mistiness of her breath made them sure she was even alive while at the same time making her look remarkably like a nesting dragon in Harry’s (experienced) opinion. They all stared at each other, motionless.

“Just what,” and every word Hermione spoke, reverberated with fury, “do you think you are doing, the pair of you?”

“Nothing,” Ron muttered, sullenly.

“’Nothing’ here having the meaning of a punch up?” Hermione snapped back, “a fight, a daylight brawl? What, you weren’t getting along and a good scuffle would just lighten everyone’s moods?”

“We were just blowing off steam,” Harry said, temper suddenly frayed once more, “Chill.”

He knew it was precisely the wrong thing to say. He said it anyway.

“Chill?! Chill?!” Hermione screeched, “That’s the sage advice of our leader is it, chill? Don’t worry that I’ve dragged you out in the middle of no-where, driven your family into hiding and set out on a quest to retrieve the deadliest and darkest of objects with no plan at all! Just chill, because I just want to mess about!”

“’Mione,” Ron said slowly, “You know that’s not fai-” But Hermione had built up such a head of steam now that there was going to be no stopping her. Harry would dearly like to retort, but couldn’t; his teeth were grinding together so hard that his cheek muscles had seized up in a painful case of lockjaw.

“Don’t you dare defend him, Ronald Weasley!” She snarled, “And don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking the same thing as we just wander around in circles waiting for more Horcruxes. Horcruxes that, I might add, we don’t know how to destroy, but we’re just hoping will fall into our laps one day!”

Harry’s jaw unlocked.

“And who’s been telling us to go around in circles?” Harry roared, “Who’s been squashing any ideas we might have for finding other horcruxes? You! You want to go some place new, someplace that might helps us? Fine, we’re going to Godric’s Hollow!”

Drawn by the loud voices, Pansy had come to the door way of the tent, looking barely happier than Hermione. While part of that might have been the uproar, the horcrux glittering at her chest spoke of a different cause; since the trio had all rushed out leaving it unattended, she’d had to re-donned the malevolent device.

“No. I. Am. Not.” Hermione said and stormed back towards the tent, shouldering past Pansy to get inside. Harry just reached the door way in time to stop things getting ugly, Pansy’s oaken wand was in her hand and levelled at Hermione when he reached the tent.

“Easy, love” He murmured gently, directing her wand in a safer direction, “Don’t let her get to you.”

By the time he looked up at Hermione she had her beaded bag in hand and was wandering the tent seemingly at random grabbing things and shoving them in her bag.

“Hermione,” He said evenly, “what are you doing? I said we’re going to Godric’s Hollow.”

“And I said I’m not. You can go and get yourself killed if you like Harry, but I’m not going with you. I’m leaving.”

She stormed towards the door only to find it blocked by Ron’s bulky body, standing cross-armed in the way.

“What are you doing, Hermione?” He said softly,

“I’m leaving,” she repeated, with a stubborn jut to her jaw, “He doesn’t want me here. He doesn’t want my help and he certainly doesn’t want to listen to reason… so I’m going.”

“Going? Going where?” Ron’s voice sounded like he was on tenterhooks, just the tiniest nudge could shatter him.

“Anywhere!” Her eyes gleamed and her face softened just slightly, “Come with me!”

What?” Ron’s eyes grew huge, his blue orbs flickered to meet Harry’s green irises. With that glance Harry suddenly knew that his friend would like nothing better than to accept that offer, to disappear into to the night with Hermione. He knew the exact way his friend’s heart was pounding at the offer. Harry tried not to communicate anything with his own glance; he didn’t want to influence Ron’s decision. His eyes flickered to Pansy and knew just how Ron felt.

But even before Ron could form some kind of coherent thought, let alone an answer, the offer was taken away. Hermione’s face closed again, stony and cold.

“Of course,” she said, mechanically, “I knew you’d pick him, really.”

“No!” Ron cried out and darted forward to take her hand, “I want to be with you, Hermione! I just know that you don’t really want to leave. If you’d stay and think about it for a second, I’m sure you’d realise it too.”

“Oh, Ron,” Hermione said, sadly, “I wish I could believe that.”

And then she vanished.

Harry and Pansy stared blankly at the spot where she had been. Ron’s knees failed him. He tried to sit down in the nearest armchair and missed, ending up on the floor.

Slowly it sank in: Hermione was gone.

She had left them.

Eeee! I feel like I’m probably going to catch some flak for this…

Yes, I know, the tent in the book was the same one as from Goblet Of Fire. This is fanfiction, I have altered it. Pray I don’t alter it any further. Besides the descriptions in DH seemed very different from GoF. The one I gave lined up closely with the DH tent.

Thanks for reading, peeps! As ever, I’d encourage you to review this now you’ve got this far.

Next Chapter: Disaster