Good Manners - H/R - NC-17
Title: Good Manners
Author: shocfix
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Words: 2170
Rating: NC-17

For the enchanting yaaronet - Happy Birthday my angel!

Um, I have no idea where this came from – it’s no reflection on your adorable self!

Betaed by my magicofisis, who laughed at the appropriate point, so that’s OK….


Good Manners
****
We’d taken care of ourselves during the War and Hermione was adamant about us getting a flat together, afterwards.

And she was right.

Ron didn’t fancy being smothered at the Burrow; I didn’t fancy decaying at Grimmauld Place.

We found a place with three large bedrooms on the top floor of an old house and we took care of ourselves and each other.

Just like it should be.

Hermione started work straight away: the Ministry tripping over its own feet to offer her jobs.

Ron started working for the twins while he decided what he wanted to do.

They had a lot to do, rebuilding and such.

I’d offered to help, too, but no one in Diagon Alley was comfortable with me being around. I hadn’t meant to blow everything up. But it had been worth it, hadn’t it?

So I slept late and watched telly and made dinner.

And I didn’t socialise much. Neville or Dean came over for a few beers and a match on telly sometimes, but I didn’t go out like Ron and Hermione did.

Oh.

No they went out, they weren’t going out.

They had sat me down, after the War was over, and I had felt like the child of divorcing parents as they solemnly told me they weren’t a couple anymore, but that nothing would change for the three of us, and that they would always be there for me.

So Hermione went out with blokes that I called the anti-Rons, and Ron went out with women with huge breasts.

And I grew used to one or both of them grabbing two cups of coffee on a Sunday morning and scurrying back to bed; I grew used to earnest conversations with the anti-Rons over breakfast; I grew used to finding bras amongst the couch cushions after Ron had popped the breasts back into the fire at about lunch time.

But I wasn’t ready for it, myself.

Everyone was scared of me in the Wizarding World, no matter that the Healers were sure I’d burnt the extra magic out of me when I destroyed Voldemort and half his followers.

And I couldn’t face the effort it’d take to socialise in the Muggle world – I’d have nothing to talk about that didn’t make me sound certifiable.

I was happy to lick my wounds and have Ron and Hermione think I was still pining for Ginny. And, you know, there was something about having your last girlfriend dismembered in front of you that put you off women.

So we muddled along, happily enough, and I took care of my two favourite people, and I enjoyed watching them blossom and enjoy life.

Until one memorable morning.

I’d stumbled into the kitchen to put the kettle on and found a pair of boxer shorts on the kitchen table. Shaking my head I’d moved them out of the way and made coffee and cereal and was reading the paper when Hermione and Ron turned up, still in pyjamas and looking sleepy.

Hermione poked at the boxers and wrinkled her nose.

“Why are these on the table?” she asked.

“That’s what I wanted to know,” I said. “Couldn’t your bloke wait until you got to the bedroom?”

“I didn’t bring anyone home last night!” Hermione protested, pointing at her Teletubbies pyjamas.

“OK,” I said, turning to grin at Ron. “Did you have to strip naked in my kitchen?”

“I didn’t!” he huffed, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“Ron!” Hermione snapped. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t shout at me,” he said. “Harry didn’t see anything.”

“Look, I do realise you bring people back,” I said, looking back and forth between them. “It’s fine, really.”

“See?” Ron said to her.

“I do run into them in the mornings, you know,” I said cheerfully. “You don’t have to get rid of them.”

“But these,” Hermione said, nodding at the offending boxers.

“I stuck him straight back in the fire,” Ron muttered. “You’re the one making a big thing of it.”

I blinked at him.

“Him?” I asked.

“Oh!” he said, his eyes wide. “Um.”

“Ron, you promised,” Hermione said.

“He promised what?” I asked her.

“We couldn’t go to his place,” Ron muttered. “He lives with…”

“His wife?” Hermione suggested.

“His parents?” I asked.

“Malfoy,” Ron finished.

“You shagged Malfoy’s boyfriend?” I asked, my head spinning.

“Um,” Ron said. “They had this big row and Malfoy flounced out, so I bought Patrick a drink.”

“You shagged Malfoy’s boyfriend?” I repeated.

“You promised,” Hermione muttered.

“You promised you wouldn’t shag Malfoy’s boyfriend?” I asked feebly.

“He promised he wouldn’t bring men back here,” she said, glaring at him.

“Why?” I asked.

“We didn’t want to worry you,” she said sensitively.

“And blokes are more worrying than some of the breasts he brings home, are they?” I asked. “Because I worry that they are gonna explode, sometimes.”

Ron snorted into his coffee.

“I told you he wouldn’t care,” he said.

He looked at me and gave me a half smile. “Right?”

“Right,” I said. “Sure. Fine.”

Hermione sniffed.

“I’m so pleased,” she said.

“You’re the one who said he’d freak out,” Ron said.

“Don’t argue,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“See?” he said.

She shrugged and he grinned at me.

“So,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Not always,” he said.

“Hence the breasts,” I said.

“Hence the breasts,” he agreed. “Just… sometimes.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Just every five weeks?” I asked.

“What?” he said.

“It’s just a pattern I noticed,” I said. “I meant to ask you about it.”

“What pattern?”

“Every five weeks or so,” I said. “You spend extra long getting ready to go out, but you don’t pull.”

He frowned.

“You noticed?”

Hermione sniggered.

“It’s how my Saturday goes,” I said. “I don’t drink anything after breakfast, because you and then Hermione will be in the bathroom, making yourselves beautiful, all afternoon, so I won’t get a chance to pee.”

He laughed.

“I don’t know why you take so long to get ready, Ron,” Hermione said. “You always keep me waiting for my bath.”

“And every fifth Saturday, you go back into the bathroom, after Hermione has finished, and I only noticed it because by then I really need to pee,” I explained. “And it’s those Saturdays that you come home alone.”

“It’s those Saturdays I go to his place,” he said.

“Whose?” I asked.

“Um, whoever’s?”

“Oh,” I said. “Yes, right. But why the extra visit to the bathroom? Why d’you need to be extra pretty for a bloke?”

“Good question,” Hermione said. “You’re right, Harry, what does he do in there? He doesn’t shave his legs.”

“You don’t want to know,” Ron said.

“Yes we do,” I said.

“You don’t.”

“We’re being supportive friends, here,” I said.

“And we don’t see why you take longer to get ready than for a girl,” Hermione said.

“OK,” he said. “Fine.”

We looked at him.

“For a girl I don’t need to stick a finger up my arse and check he’ll be all alone in there and won’t get a nasty surprise, OK?”

“Ron!” Hermione gasped.

“You asked,” he said, ears flushing.

I blinked.

Wow.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s ever so… considerate.”

He grunted.

“Is that… standard behaviour?”

“What d’you mean?” he asked.

“Well, does everyone…” I trailed off and stuck an explanatory finger in the air.

We all gazed at it.

“I don’t know,” Ron protested. “Who could I ask something like that? It just seems…. polite.”

Hermione giggled.

“Very good manners,” I said.

“Your mum’d be proud of you,” Hermione said, biting her lip.

“Oh, sod off!” he said, grumbling to his feet and all the way down the hall to his bedroom.

Hermione and I looked at each other.

“Um,” I said.

“Are you sure you’re OK with this?” she asked solicitously.

“With Ron shagging blokes or with his idea of politeness?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes.

“He really is impossible, isn’t he?” she sighed.

“We wouldn’t have him any other way,” I said firmly.

But I couldn’t get the image out of my head, after that.

Not just Ron checking that his arse was ready to accept tenants, but the fact that blokes really were having him another way.

I hadn’t had any… homosexual encounters – well, just look at my disastrous record with girls – trying boys was the last thing I needed to do.

But Ron brought the occasional bloke home, and I looked at their bodies and I wondered what Ron saw in them. And I looked at their mouths and I pictured them kneeling before him. And I looked at the outline of their cocks through their invariably skin tight trousers, and I pictured them kneeling behind him and pressing into his well mannered arse.

And I was jealous.

And Hermione watched me.

And she noticed.

One fifth Sunday, when Ron had walked gingerly into the kitchen and made two cups off coffee, before going back to bed, she watched me watching his tender arse leave the room.

“Maybe it’s time you dated, Harry,” she said gently.

“Hmmm?” I asked.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, while you were so obviously disinterested,” she said. “While you never looked at the enormous breasts – or at my chaps. But you’re looking, I’ve seen you. The way you stare at Ron’s chaps…”

“I don’t,” I protested. “I have absolutely no interest in Ron’s chaps.”

She gave me a look so pointed you could sew with it.

“The jealous way you stare at Ron’s chaps,” she said.

“What?”

“Why would you fancy Ron’s chaps, when they are all scrawny and dark haired?” she asked.

“What?”

“And when it’s Ron you want.”

I glared at her.

“I don’t want him,” I protested. “It’s just… he’s just…”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I’m just surprised, that’s all,” I said, with as much dignity as possible. “I didn’t expect him to swing both ways.”

“I think he just likes the attention,” Hermione said blandly.

“What?” I spluttered. “No one is gonna sleep with blokes for the attention!”

“Oh, well,” she waved that away. “He’s always liked attention, hasn’t he?”

I snorted.

“Well, I’ll bow to your greater knowledge,” she said, getting up and taking her mug to the sink. “Because you were always starved of affection, and I wouldn’t want you to fall for a bloke just for the attention.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“It means you had better be sure that you really want him, and not just access to the well mannered arse.”

She left to get dressed and I stared at the doorway.

I had become a bit fixated on his well mannered arse, but I was pretty sure that that was because it was attached to my Ron.

I really hadn’t felt a twinge of interest in any of the dark-haired blokes he’d brought home.

I blinked.

She was right. As usual.

They were always dark haired and skinny.

Was this a coincidence? Was this a clue?

I sat there, with my stone cold coffee, hearing Hermione Floo off for lunch and hearing Ron pop his date in the fire an hour later.

“Hey,” he said, wandering into the kitchen and frowning at my pyjamas. “You still breakfasting?”

I looked up at him.

Did I want him?

Yes.

Was it just because of that polite arse?

Well, I was pretty sure his arse would be anything but polite, having just hauled himself out of bed after a night of what I could only assume was debauchery.

So I’d say I wanted him, despite the fact that his arse had had a lodger the night before.

“You OK?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, nodding slowly.

“Uh, good,” he said. “Shower.”

He ambled back down the corridor and I watched him hauling his t-shirt off, over his head, revealing pyjama bottoms so low slung I could see the top of his crack.

Almost despite myself, I got to my feet and followed him to the bathroom.

He was whistling tunelessly and turning on the shower and he saw me in the mirror and raised an eyebrow.

“Harry?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“D’you need anything?”

“Um,” I said, watching his pyjama bottoms defy gravity.

He watched me staring at him for a little while.

“Harry?” he said again. “I’m, um, gonna have a shower now.”

I nodded.

He hooked his thumbs under what on any normal person would be called the waistband, but on Ron would have to be called a pubes band, and inched it lower.

“Care to join me?” he asked.

I looked up at his face so swiftly I gave myself whiplash.

“Huh?” I gulped.

He shrugged one shoulder and left the pyjamas hooked over what looked like a stirring cock.

“I just reckoned you looked, um, interested?” he hazarded. “Maybe you could wash my back for me.”

I took a step closer and unhooked his pyjamas.

“Maybe I could check your arse is being well mannered?” I whispered.

“I thought you’d never ask!”