Envy - H/R - R
Title: Envy
Author: shocfix
Pairing: Harry/Ron, Ron/Hermione
Words: 1750
Rating: R

Written for cork and _littlun_ to accompany their beautiful artwork for hp_creation.

Go and tell them how beautiful the artwork is...


Envy
****
Look, the thing is, I'm rather more sensitive about people's expectations than I thought.

You might think, coming from a slightly eccentric family, that I'd be able to stand up for myself more. Do my own thing.

But apparently not.

Let's start at the top, shall we?

My mum.

Assertive. Forceful. Does care dreadfully about what 'people' think actually, and when I say "people's expectations", I mean Mum's.

My dad is a great bloke, a great dad and I love him to bits, but he's widely renowned as a bit of a fruitcake.

Bill.

Oh, I always wished I could be like Bill.

The hair, the clothes, the glamorous career. He never cares what people think – not even Mum.

Harry always thought Bill was the coolest bloke we know. And he has Veela throwing themselves at him.

Charlie? Could have played professionally, but did exactly what he wanted and went off to live with his precious dragons.

Percy.

Well.

I was gonna say that he was the only one of us who really, really cared about what people thought, and that he moulded himself to fit in with their expectations.

But 'people' didn't include his own family, did it? He dropped us to be exactly what he wanted to be.

Fred and George.

Say no more.

And Ginny gets more like them every day.

Leaving me.

Mr Mediocrity.

Mr Doing-What-Is-Expected-Of-Me.

Mr Proud-To-Get-The-Prefect's-Badge.

My one glorious moment of standing up for what I wanted, no matter what anyone said?

Before I had a chance to tell Mum and Dad that I wasn't going back to school, that I was going with Harry; Professor McGonagall closed the school, anyway.

So, yes, I went with Harry.

People's expectations of me last year?

That I stand by his side and don't lie by Hermione's.

Yeah, my mum gave me such a lecture about behaving like a gentleman.

Hermione and I had come to a sort of understanding, anyway. Dating on a Horcrux Hunt was impossible and was shelved indefinitely.

And I did what my mum expected of me.

And I barely even peeked when I caught Hermione changing.

And I stood with Harry when he defeated You Know Who; and I brought him home; and I was Mr Mediocrity again.

Professor McGonagall worked like crazy to have Hogwarts open again for this September, if only for years five and above.

We didn't have to go back; I was eighteen and the thought of another year back in school – another year back in uniform – wasn't appealing.

But, apparently, I'd always regret it if I didn't finish school; didn't take my N.E.W.T.s.

Yeah, Hermione's expectations of me.

So, I went back.

I was even made Head Boy.

And Hermione's other expectations?

I was even made Hermione's Boyfriend – and yes, that is what the twins Charmed my badge to say.

Well, what can I say?

It's what everyone expected of me.

We dated.

We held hands in the corridors.

We went to Hogsmeade together.

We kissed in deserted classrooms, but not in the Common Room.

Hands above clothes.

Everyone knew; it wasn't even worth gossiping about.

"Did you see the Head Boy and Head Girl together last night?"

"Yes, they were going through patrol schedules."

And I'm not complaining.

It's what I'd always wanted; what Hermione had always wanted; what my mum had always wanted.

And, as everyone knows, I've done the meaningless snogging thing.

And this was far from meaningless.

I loved her dearly.

It's just that there was a complication.



A complication with hooded green eyes, who was the only one who watched Hermione and me together.

A complication who had only come back to school because I was coming back.

A complication who had spent the summer beating himself up over all the people he hadn't been able to save.

Who wouldn't listen to Hermione about all the people he had saved; who were able to return to their normal, safe, boring lives working with dragons and such.

Actually, Harry was complicated like an onion.

On the outside was a thick layer of guilt; then there was a layer of being focusless as the One Who Isn't Chosen Anymore; inside that was a very complicated layer of being uncomfortable at being left on his own by me and Hermione, but even more uncomfortable when she made a point of us making time for him.

I never made a point of us making time for him.

Because of his innermost, central, most complicated layer.

Because of the day last summer, when he was feeling hollow and lost. When Hermione was up at the school helping Professor McGonagall and Harry and I were alone at the Burrow.

When I was lying in my room reading a Quidditch magazine, vaguely aware that Harry was prowling aimlessly back and forth between the door and the window.

I was always vaguely aware of where Harry was.

Except that I was suddenly acutely aware that Harry was on my bed.

And not in the casual, card playing, gossiping way he'd been on my bed, on and off, for seven years.

But in a pinning me to the bed, kissing my neck and fiercely whispering that I was all he had in the world kind of way.

Part of me would have pushed him away; part of me had hundreds of years of People Expecting another litter of little Weasleys – even the most Muggle loving blood traitors love Muggleborn witches, not wizards, after all.

But part of me – the part whose hands came up to hold his fragile collarbones, the part whose head tipped to the side to allow his mouth to fasten itself to my skin, the part whose eyes drooped closed as I smelt his hair – part of me gasped, "Harry!"

He reared up to look into my face, and his eyes were more alive than they'd been for months, and he said, "I'm so sorry."

But he didn't pull away.

He just went very still – I think he stopped breathing – just a pulse flickered under my fingertips as he waited for me to shove him off.

"Harry," I whispered and his hand came up to touch my face.

"I’m sorry," he said, as his thumb ghosted over my lips and his fingers slid into my hair and his mouth came down on mine.

And I didn't stop him.

I held him tight as he thrust desperately against my thigh.

I let him kiss me.

And I kissed him back.

And it wasn't just because I was eighteen and horny.

And it wasn’t because I'd had no more that a few soft kisses from Hermione.

It was because it was Harry.

And he was in my arms; in my bed.

He kept saying he was sorry between kisses, but he didn’t stop moving against me and soon he cried out and shook with the force of his climax.

I held him and stroked his hair and kissed his forehead and his breathing returned to normal.

And he tensed.

“Don’t say you’re sorry again,” I warned him.

He snorted. “Like I haven’t put you through enough crap,” he muttered. “And now this.”

“It’s OK,” I said, though it felt far from OK.

It felt scary; it felt like he had the power to walk into my life and tip it upside down whenever he wanted to; it felt like something I had never expected to happen.

More expectations.

He pushed himself up on an elbow to look down at me and I looked into his face and realised that it really was OK.

It was Harry, and I knew he’d always had that power over me.

“You don’t want this,” he said.

I rubbed my neglected erection against his leg and he sniggered.

“What do we do, now?” he asked.

“Apart from deal with this?” I asked, as suggestively as I could, and he shook his head.

“What do we do about Hermione?” he said.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “This has nothing to do with Hermione.”

“But you’re seeing…” he stopped and frowned at me. “You’re not going to break up with her, are you?” he asked slowly.

I flushed. “It’s not that simple,” I said. “Everyone has always expected me and Hermione…”

“But what about this?” he asked.

“This is separate,” I insisted. “What d’you want from me, Harry? To snog in the Common Room?”

He looked hurt. “So I have to watch you with Hermione all day?” he asked.

“I… well, yes,” I managed to look shamefaced about it. “I can’t break up with her.” I said feebly.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because this,” I gestured vaguely between us, “just isn’t done, Harry. I can’t… my mum would…”

“And what about me?”

“We share a dorm,” I said desperately. “We can get time alone together.”

Which was appalling, I know.

But it brought me to the mess I am currently in.

Doting boyfriend by day; doting boyfriend by night.

Of two different people.

It makes me cringe to say it out loud.

Hermione didn’t like being affectionate in public, anyway, so Harry rarely had to see anything that’d make him uncomfortable.

But, during our scheduled alone time, we would find a deserted classroom and we would kiss, and I would bury my hands in her ridiculous hair and I would whisper that I loved her, and she would tell me that I was so sweet and that she loved me too, and let me slide my hand up inside her shirt and caress her through her sensible cotton bras.

With a half-empty school, Harry and I had a room to ourselves, where he would wait for me to come up to bed after kissing Hermione goodnight.

And I would brush my teeth, and ignore the clean pair of pyjamas under my pillow and climb into bed stark naked.

Only the house elves knew we only used one bed.

Where Harry would be waiting for me, with cool hands and filthy words and hot kisses and acres of bare skin that I was allowed to touch and taste.

Where I would fuck Harry though the mattress all night, then rise to shower off his smell and tame my hair.

And I would go downstairs to greet Hermione with a chaste kiss and she would take my hand and we would go down to breakfast.

Harry’s envious eyes would track us all day, watching the small intimacies allowed of a public couple.

I tried to do no more than put a friendly hand on his shoulder while we studied, or shove him while we flew.

But I think Hermione was growing suspicious.