(no subject)

[phineasjones]

move along. nothing to see here. i just need to put my wee remix fic here so i can link it in my memories. which is the only place where i have everything i've written. which may not really be the best idea. alas. so, yeah, this is not new. just doing it for my own purposes.



thanks to starbuckle for fantastic beta.

Green (The Blue Mix)


They're picture perfect, standing there on the platform, smiling and waving. Harry sees them through the ghost-like reflection of his own smiling face as he looks out the window of the train. They jostle each other, shift forward and move aside to make room for one another. It looks like an intricately choreographed dance of Weasleys, partners, and children.

When he steps off the train, they descend upon him in a crazed rush of hugs, sloppy kisses and pats on the back. He almost wishes they would slow down, take turns, make it last longer. Two years he's been apart from them and he wants to savor every touch and every word.




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He's listening to Hermione but he's watching Ron's hand tuck around her waist. He's wondered what it would be like to see them again, together. They fit perfectly. Harry notices the way Ron tilts his head to take in the smell on Hermione's hair, the way she closes her eyes for the briefest moment when Ron moves his fingers to trace the patterns of her cardigan - like she's just enjoying the feel of him.

She's in her element. She's talking a mile a minute about ministry business and Harry grins and tries to keep pace. She's as clever as always and he can't help but admire her ease and the way she leans comfortably into the crook of Ron's arm.

Harry didn't know what to expect, what they would be like after two years together. He's thrilled to see them so happy, so comfortable. It all turned out for the best, after all. His work has been hard but utterly rewarding and these two... well, clearly they were meant to be together. Everyone said so. Opposites attracting and all that.

Harry feels Ron's gaze on him and looks up to see his pensive expression. Ron hasn't said much to him and Harry takes it as tacit proof of his contentedness. What else could it be? Harry wonders as he looks around the comfortable Burrow kitchen, hearing the sounds of bustling activity from nearby rooms. Ron is surrounded by loving family, he has a good job at the ministry. He has Hermione.

Hermione pulls him out of his thoughts with more talk of his work, "Harry, you must have realized how important it was..."

"Well, yes," he says, moving his eyes back to her face, "but they needn't have made such a big deal..."


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Harry sighs and leans back against the door of the tiny room that's been his for the past three weeks. It's been another day full of Quidditch and sunshine and huge meals and laughter. Harry pulls off his clothes and slips into his bed, curling onto one side.

Just before they climbed the stairs tonight, Hermione suggested that he and Ron should go on a picnic tomorrow. Just the two of them. To finally give them a chance to catch up without the rest of the family around. Ron seemed pleased, and of course Harry is too.

He can't remember the last time he was alone with Ron. Well... he can. But he usually chooses not to. He wonders whether all Unspeakables share his ability to clear the mind of troublesome memories... or whether it's the result of being an orphan and someone who has been close to death and pain all his life.

Tonight, lying in his bed at the Burrow, Harry feels for the first time like he is safe enough to visit memories he usually considers 'dangerous.' Harry closes his eyes and remembers that night a week and a half before they left Hogwarts for good.

He remembers it was warm and humid and there was a party in common room. In the beginning there was a lot of drinking - some concoction Fred and George taught Dean how to make that glowed with a faint greenish tinge. In the end, there was a deep, quiet sleep. But it's the part in between that Harry remembers best.

The part when he and Ron returned to their room toward the end of the party and found themselves alone.

They were stumbling around and laughing and neither made it successfully across the room to his bed. Instead they collapsed on the floor next to Neville's trunk and sat up against it, trying to catch their breath.

They stopped laughing and Ron looked Harry in the face. His eyes were watery and unfocused; his lips were shining with moisture the way they only did when he'd been drinking. "Hermione kissed me," he told Harry, and watched his face for a reaction. Harry laughed, too drunk and confused to know what else to do, even while he could feel the tightness in his chest.

"Like, really kissed me," Ron went on, "And I think she'd have done more if she'd had the chance." Harry swallowed, trying to get moisture back into this throat. He didn't want to hear this but he couldn't seem to make himself say as much, or move, or anything.

"Harry," Ron started again and Harry looked at him again, sitting so close, every feature softened by the alcohol, "I think you should kiss me too."

Harry tried to force his sluggish mind to think through what Ron had just said, to consider what he was about to do. But instead all he could think about was how much he wanted to kiss Ron and that he had just been invited to do so.

Harry pushed himself up onto his knees so that he could face Ron and he leaned over him slightly. He steadied himself with one hand on Ron's shoulder and leaned forward. Ron had closed his eyes, tipped back his head, let his mouth fall open slightly. Harry paused and just looked for a moment. Through the muddled state of his mind, he had some sense of what he was about to do. Of the weight of it, the irreversible nature of it. He could have stopped then, laughed it off, gone to bed. But there was Ron's mouth - wet, open, waiting, and there was Ron's hand coming up around the back of his head.

Harry stopped trying to think. He fell forward into Ron and he kissed him. Ron's mouth felt soft, slick and pliable. And so, so warm. It was easy, simple, to push his lips into Ron's, to open them, slide his tongue against Ron's.

Ron moaned in a low pitch that vibrated against Harry's chest. He liked it. He liked Ron making the noise, he liked feeling it against him. He liked Ron against him. He slid to his side on the floor and pulled Ron down with him, on top of him.

They kissed more, longer, harder. Harry could barely breathe but he didn't care. He only cared that Ron was on top of him, kissing him, arranging their legs so that Harry could feel him everywhere. Harry was too drunk and too in the moment to worry and he pushed his hips upward, shamelessly rubbing himself against Ron, pushing for as much contact, as much friction as possible.

"Harry, Harry," Ron was whispering now as he pressed his face against Harry's neck and pushed back at him. Harry could feel him, hard against his hip, sliding, grinding. Ron's breath was hot on his neck. Harry pushed up to meet him, wanting more - more sounds, more pressure, more wet kisses against his collarbone.

It was so simple, in that moment. He had spent so much time thinking about his, wanting this, imagining it. And there it was, happening, and it felt so good. It felt so right that he had no thoughts for the future, no thoughts for the next morning or the next night or two years from now. His mind was entirely occupied by Ron kissing him again and making squeaky, desperate sounding noises in his throat that matched the faster rhythm of his hips.

When Ron came he opened his mouth over Harry's and Harry could feel the hot breath on his lips. He opened his mouth too and they breathed at each other until Ron opened his eyes again and shifted up on to his knees. Harry had a moment of quiet fear that that was it, that Ron would leave now that he was through, and Harry would be left to finish himself off.

But no, he felt Ron's hand on the button of his trousers and reaching inside his pants to touch. And oh, it was too much, an almost overwhelming surge of lust and need. He bit at Ron's lips when Ron leaned forward again to kiss him. Ron's hand was moving hard and fast over him and Harry came suddenly, powerfully, fingers digging into Ron's shoulder.

He can't remember how long they lay on the floor before they made their way to Harry's bed. They didn't clean up, they just fell into a deep, drunken, sated sleep, curled together on the bed behind the curtains.

Harry awoke when Ron shifted and raised his head off the pillow. Through his lashes, Harry could see the faint light of early morning through the crack in the curtains. He didn't open his eyes, didn't move. He was waiting to see what Ron would do. Ron slid quietly away from Harry and pushed himself up off the bed without a word or a look back at Harry. Harry said nothing. He would regret that a thousand times in the days to come.

It was like it didn't happen. Like Ron didn't remember. Harry knew it wasn't true. He had been inclined to think he had dreamed the whole thing but the mess on his clothes had proved that false. It must have been the same for Ron. But he never asked. And Ron never said a word.

Three days later, Harry came back to their room to find Ron and Hermione there, together. Very much together. He muttered an apology and backed out of the room as quickly as he could. He wondered for a moment how Ron had convinced Hermione to sneak into the boys' dormitory, but that petty thought was silenced by the more important one: Ron had made a choice.

So Harry made one too. A week later, he walked into Dumbledore's office and accepted his offer to work as an Unspeakable after graduation. More than anything, he wanted them all to be happy. If Ron and Hermione made each other happy, fine. Harry knew he wouldn't be happy until Voldemort was destroyed, so he would do everything he could to bring that about. And Ron... well, as long as he was happy, it was all worth it.

'No regrets,' he says to himself whenever the memories start to creep in around the edges of his thoughts. And he'll remind himself of that tomorrow when he is alone with Ron. They're both happy this way. No regrets.


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It's a beautiful spring day. The sky is a bright, cloudless blue and the air is full of the fragrance of flowering trees. As they make their way to the old apple tree, they talk easily of Ron's family, of Bill's children, of Quidditch. The lunch Molly packed is simple and filling and soon they are sprawled on the grass under the tree, full and sleepy.

Harry's almost asleep when he hears Ron stir and turns his head to look at him. He sees the expression on Ron's face , the crease in his brow. He sees so much there now, so much that has been invisible these past three weeks. It hits him suddenly, an unexpected punch to the gut: Ron is not happy. Not here, not with Hermione, not at work. Harry feels nauseated. He thinks he might be sick.

But as Harry watches, Ron's expression clears. Ron sits up and leans over Harry and Harry hears him inhale as though he's about to speak. But instead he kisses him.

Harry responds to the kiss, he can't help it. For years he's done all he can to convince himself that he doesn't want this, doesn't need it, and most certainly can't have it. For years, he has separated himself from everyone. For this. Because of this.

He pulls away from Ron. His head is reeling. What is happening? Everything, every choice he made seems wrong now. Everything he believed was untrue. He stares at Ron, willing him to explain this, to make it right again.

"If I can't be happy then why should you be?" Ron mutters, turning away.

No, Harry wants to say. No. It's all wrong. He feels like he's lying in his dormitory bed and Ron is slipping away through the curtains again. It can't happen. He can't let it. For two years he's told himself that he will be happy as long as they are, as long as Ron is. But he can see it now, clear as the sky on this perfect day. He had it all wrong.

None of them will find happiness in a lie.