Archive of Our Own

In the days after starting his relationship with the twins, Harry is amazed how everything both fundamentally changes and remains the same.

He’s still working as usual in the backroom of Wheezes– sending out orders, assembling lurid pink displays, and, for better or worse, unboxing and stocking Personal Pocket Potters. The newly revised compacts are fresh from their supply warehouse, having been duplicated and branded with the shop’s signature colour scheme on the lid.

So, not exactly normal by most standards, stocking his own face on the shelves, but about as close as he can get while working with the twins.

And, he grudgingly has to admit, the embarrassing little things are a smashing success.

He’s been flitting back and forth between Wheezes and Grimmauld Place, as he’s always done, dodging Kreacher’s disgruntled looks and vitriolic rants. He’s spoken with Hermione, thanked Ron for covering for him, and even visited briefly with his mothball-scented sofa.

With all that’s stayed the same, some things are quite different.

For example, he’s woken up nearly every morning of the past ten days in bed with Fred and George, either at their flat or at Grimmauld. Most mornings, he’s wrapped around a lithe, lanky body; sometimes, he's safely ensconced between both men. On two very memorable awakenings, he’d blinked sleep from his eyes to feel not just warmth from the blankets but from a wet mouth around his morning erection, already tangling fingers in coppery hair while half-awake.

And, yes, he’s still working in the backroom of Wheezes, but that’s occasionally punctuated by a mid-day snog from one of the twins. George in particular seems to like pinning him up against their inventory and kissing him until their mouths are swollen and George needs to fasten his robes fully in order to return to the shop floor.

Fred, unsurprisingly, likes a bit more risk. He’s taken to goading Harry into pushing him into dark corners of the store after hours when they're supposed to be stocking, only just hidden from the glass lining the front of the store that leads to the bustling flagstones of Diagon Alley.

All three of them feel a bit bad about those times because Verity is inevitably put off from certain parts of the store the next day, her jovial expression confused and mildly repulsed as she walks by.

He has no idea what kind of Seer only gets a vague sense of someone having shagged in a public place, but Harry has to agree with George– it’s the only thing that makes sense.

Harry has, of course, been floating through life on cloud nine. He’s had more sex in the past two weeks than he’s had in his entire life and, more importantly, the twins have proven devoted and adoring partners out of bed, as well.

He hadn't really comprehended how physically close they’d all become prior to the revelation at the end of January. But it’s hard to miss– outside of kissing and decidedly more naked encounters, their moment-to-moment interactions haven’t changed much. Fred and George curl up to him just as often as they always have, the only difference being the lips that press groggily along his neck when their film runs late into the night and the whispered endearments over shared pillows.

That and, of course, how his brain will not shut up in any down time he has with all the new fantasy material he’s accrued. Or, it’s no longer fantasy since he’s been engaging in it, but it’s distracting nonetheless.

“Harry, are you alri–?”

“Fuck!”

Harry has to blink the stars from his eyes, willing the universe not to have concussed him four days from Valentine’s when he actually has not one but two fit dates.

“Oh goodness, did you hit your head?” Verity asks much too loudly as she crouches closer to where Harry is partially sprawled behind the checkout counter. “I didn’t mean to startle you, I just saw you on the floor and thought I’d check if you were okay.”

Still recovering from smacking his head violently on the underside of the counter in his surprise, Harry waves off Verity’s concern. He also waves off the reason for his own distraction, namely reminiscing about George frotting against him before the shop opened that morning.

“I was trying to shrink and stock some of the smaller items I think we’ll go through the fastest on the holiday. Easy access during the rush.”

He seems to have convinced Verity she won’t need to Apparate him to St. Mungo’s any second because her usual smile slips back into place, framed by the pink highlights she’s added to her blonde pixie cut for the season. To Harry’s dismay, she plops down on the floor right next to him, obviously getting comfortable for a chat.

“You’re ace, I tried telling them last week they should do that and got the customary ‘Thanks, Vee, on it in a tick.’” Harry has always been both amused and deeply disturbed by her uncanny impression of the twins. She rolls her eyes and continues with, “Which obviously never happened.”

Harry smiles back at her in solidarity, aware of George and Fred’s distractible natures when it comes to the adrenaline of manning the shop floor. They both thrive on the customer interaction and the bustle of it, but they behave much like a pair of snitches, flitting off seemingly at random and without a path.

Honestly, Harry isn’t too different in the being distracted department, although he’s firmly devoid of the twins’ love for interaction with the public. Bashful, he admits, “I originally intended to hide the last of the Sizzling Static Suckers under here and got sidetracked.” He pulls a face, making a mental note to find a different spot for them. “Fred keeps eating them and I’m sick of getting a shock every time he walks past me.”

Verity’s eyes narrow, elfin features settling into good-natured annoyance. “So that’s what’s been happening. Truly, I assumed it was something like those Muggle prank buzzers they started stocking a couple of years back.”

She swipes the half-full container of lollies from by his knee and stuffs them behind the little dustbin under the counter. She adds a simple disillusionment charm over them, the sweets box resembling balled up receipt parchment until you look closely.

Harry laughs and thinks about how he hasn’t hung out with Verity enough, even working together five or six days out of the week. She’s a lovely witch, funny in her own right and more than capable of corralling Weasleys in her professional life. She's always treated him kindly– first as a coworker and then as a friend, but never as a spectacle to gawk at. Last he heard, she was blissfully engaged to a former Beauxbatons alum named Aimée who works at Madam Malkin's.

“Speaking of pranks,” Verity says, interrupting Harry’s thoughts. “It’s been driving me absolutely mental or else I wouldn’t put you on the spot. But really, it’s become worse lately and I’m at my wits end about it; I’m about to confront George and see if I can get him to admit to it. I thought you might know since you spend so much time together.”

It’s pretty hilarious, Harry thinks while suppressing a laugh, to hear Verity call either of the twins by their first name. She’s constantly using a formal Mr. Weasley to their faces, much to their chagrin. He hasn't had the heart to tell them that she's likely doing it for that exact reason, at this point.

Harry cocks his head in invitation, willing down the light blush at the thoughts of exactly what the time he spends with the Messrs. Weasley has been filled with lately. “What is it?”

Verity gives him a bemused smile. “This is going to sound silly, but have you noticed a weird smell in certain areas of the shop? Like, it’s intermittent, right, it used to be a few times a month that I’d smell something odd by one of the displays or in the backroom.”

She looks at him expectantly, but Harry isn’t following yet. Continuing, she says, “I thought it was some product at first, I’ve noticed it almost since I started working here. But it would only be in one place every once in a while, so it can't be from our regular stock. And then Fred and George had that campaign of moving all the displays and furniture a couple of centimetres at a time over the course of a month until I finally noticed. I kept banging my shins on everything. So I know they can be patient with their little antics.”

Still lost, Harry racks his brain for any off-handed mention he might have heard. The twins have never kept him completely in the loop with their pranks and he doesn’t really expect them to start now. But surely they would have bragged about a gag that lasted for almost half a decade.

“What smell? Like a Dungbomb or something?”

“No,” Verity says, shaking her head. “It’s like… oh, you grew up Muggle, you might know them. It’s like those sour apple lollies with caramel that got popular a few years back.”

Harry inhales so violently he chokes on his own spit, eyes watering as he hunches over with the force of his coughs. Verity, much like George from two weeks ago, slaps him unhelpfully on the back as he gets control of his lungs.

“Sorry,” he gasps out, once again grateful that his flaming face can be attributed to nearly choking to death. “Must have disturbed some dust when I was rifling.”

Verity, the utter gem, takes this ridiculous lie at face value.

“Where– uh, where exactly has the smell been?”

“Oh, all over the store, really. Most often in the backroom at the workbench, especially after the Wa- after the shop reopened, so I thought you might have noticed. But sometimes in the shop proper.” She makes the repulsed face Harry has seen a few times in the past ten days. “I’ve been noticing it much more recently, like I said. It seems to have ramped up right after you came back from being sick.”

Harry is immensely grateful that both of the twins are out of the shop at the moment, visiting Gringotts in preparation for the coming week. He would’ve never been able to hold it together otherwise.

“I wish it didn’t bother me so much. I got really sick as a kid after eating too many of these specific apple sweets one Christmas, so the smell just puts me off.”

“Oh that’s awful,” Harry replies faintly, trying to swallow mortified laughter. He plasters a suitably sympathetic look on his face. “They haven’t said anything and I’m not sure they have the attention span to keep a gag going quite that long. But I’ll definitely let you know if they say something.”

Harry shifts the topic as he struggles for composure, getting Verity to talk about her wedding plans with her fiancée. He listens to her describe their agreement to have a long engagement, postponing until Aimée’s family can plan to visit for a few months around the bonding ceremony. Harry offers to put Verity in contact with Hermione, who has a vetted list of all reputable wedding suppliers in the area, and advises her to steer clear of the florist two streets over.

“My friend Neville runs his own horticulture business and is a teaching assistant to Sprout at Hogwarts, I’m sure he’d love it if you contacted him. He has specialty greenhouses to grow flowers from the continent and around the globe, both magical and Muggle.”

Verity lights up, taking the contact details Harry offers before standing up to don her cloak to leave. She gives Harry a hand, hoisting him up with a surprisingly strong grip, before bidding he say goodbye to the twins for her.

After she leaves, Harry dims the non-necessary lighting in the store with a wave of his wand and checks the after-hours wards before fleeing up the stairs to the twins’ flat. He barely gets through and shuts the door before flinging himself onto the sofa, cackling uncontrollably.

-

He’s still breaking into the intermittent giggle twenty minutes later when Fred and George push through the flat door, bags loaded with takeaway containers and their seldom-used, sleek professional robes draped over their arms.

“Hiya, we got sandwiches, hope you don’t mind,” George says in greeting as Fred snags the robes from his twin to drape both over the chairs at the table. George stoops over the sofa to give Harry a kiss before making his way into the kitchen with the food.

Fred rounds the sofa, plopping down almost on top of Harry to give him a kiss as well. He waggles his eyebrows once he pulls back and says, “And dessert. They had apple tart on sale since it was nearly closing time at the patisserie.”

Harry promptly bursts into laughter again, Fred’s confused expression getting blurry as tears of mirth occlude his vision.

“Forge, I think Harry has properly gone ‘round the bend this time,” Fred calls to his twin, who has abandoned the food out of curiosity to walk over, leaning over the back of the sofa and bracing himself against his brother’s shoulder.

“Apples,” Harry stutters out with great intelligence between belly laughs.

George blinks a few times and says, “We always knew this day would come. It was only a matter of time before he went absolutely barmy.”

Harry manages to reign himself back to a continuous stream of giggles, but is not quite coherent yet. “Verity… she– oh Godric… apples in the backroom, she hates apples– and the– the… Merlin, the Wonderous Wands and the sofa and–”

George glances at Fred as they do their speaking-in-microexpressions routine. Harry sees the moment that George, bless him, deciphers the inanity of Harry’s babbling. His face shifts from amused and befuddled to suspicious to dawning realisation to horrified embarrassment, sending Harry collapsing backwards onto the cushions in fresh fits of laughter.

“Oh no,” George whispers, face making a valiant attempt to colour match his hair. Fred stares at his twin, annoyance obvious at not having been clued in. George repeats, “Apples,” with gravity, before tipping himself over the back of the sofa to land on top of Harry and join him in laughter.

“Oi, watch your legs! You still have your shoes on, you prat, who raised you?” Fred’s indignance filters in, tapering off at the end as he connects the dots.

“No– no, that’s not possible,” Fred says, voice a touch too high. George groans through his laughter. “We always used Scourgify after anything, there’s no way she could smell the fucking lube.”

“Hate to break it to you,” Harry says, catching his breath. “But that stuff lingers, it’s honestly kind of ridiculous. And I distinctly remember using a cleaning spell on ourselves the last time we did something in the shop, but not around us since nothing was visibly dirty.”

George’s reply is muffled into Harry’s neck. “So she’s not some weird sex Seer, she’s just… what? Super sensitive to the smell of apples?”

Harry snorts and says, “Got it in one. She’s convinced you’ve been playing a five-year prank on her and is about ready to stage an inquisition over it.”

Fred finally cracks, giggling just as frantically as Harry had been when he first got in the door of the flat. “Fucking Charlie,” he groans, falling forward onto George and pushing an oof out of Harry as he takes both the twins’ combined weight.

George nods his head, his hair getting in Harry’s mouth. He spits it out, confused. “What’s Charlie got to do with this?”

Harry realises that they never did tell him about the origin of the ridiculous apple-flavoured lube. It had slipped his mind to ask again, which is a testament to how thoroughly distracted the twins have kept him.

Because, the thing is, it’s the only goddamned lube they seem capable of keeping in the flat. It’s not just one novelty bottle under the sofa, there’s one in the bedroom and another under the sink in the bathroom. There’s even one stuffed into a hidden drawer in the backroom of the shop that’s been disillusioned so that not even Harry knew it existed before six nights ago. Sure, they could conjure lube and that turns out normal enough, but the real stuff seems to be better in both quality and consistency, so Harry was content to get used to the flavoured version. It’s comical, but he's had little brain power to devote to questioning it of late and it honestly seems like the kind of thing the twins would find funny to keep as a running joke. But… Charlie?

“That absolute twat,” George says, sitting up enough to shove his twin further back on the sofa and allowing Harry to breathe properly again. “The summer after our sixth year, Charlie stayed at the Burrow right after Hogwarts let out. That is, before we ended up staying at Grimmauld.”

“He told mum he got a temporary assignment on the Welsh reserve from his higher-ups, but I think he was just worried after… everything.” Fred winces and Harry tries not to let the memories from the Triwizard Tournament bring down the mood.

“Anyway,” George segues, “We’d just turned 17 and were making a right nuisance of ourselves. Do you know how much more mischief you can get up to when you can legally perform magic?”

Harry snorts. “I did attend nearly five years at Hogwarts with you two.”

“Touché,” Fred agrees with a fond smile. “To make a long story short, we almost gave mum an aneurysm and Charlie may have been our favourite target for both the nostalgia and the novelty.”

“He was usually a great sport about it but–” George cuts himself off, looking sheepish. “We charmed his hair products with itching powder we were testing out. Should’ve lasted an hour tops, but we, ah, forgot to account for certain things.”

Harry furrows his brow. “Things like what?”

Fred coughs, the tips of his ears red where they peek out from his hair. “Things like what happens if someone were to use itching powder-infused conditioner on much more sensitive skin for, um, off-label purposes.”

Harry mouths off-label purposes before it hits him and he cringes in sympathy.

“He ended up having to convince the triaging healer at St. Mungo’s that it wasn’t one of those Muggle venereal diseases after the itching kept up for six hours straight. He wasn’t very happy with us afterwards.

“Oh Godric, that’s horrifying,” Harry says, biting his lip to keep from laughing.

“Honestly, he didn’t even need to yell at us after mum was through with us. I thought she was going to snap our wands.” Fred shivers and Harry is, as always, glad that he’s never faced the full wrath of Molly Weasley.

“He left a couple weeks after and we didn’t think anything of it ‘til we got a package from the continent,” George says. “Did you know that apples are the Romanian national fruit?”

Harry’s jaw drops. “Your brother sent you Romanian apple lube? Why?”

“Ah, we were confused too, at first. The note said something along the lines of ‘Thanks for the embarrassing trip to hospital, here’s something so you can both go fuck yourselves,’ which… was funny to us for numerous reasons.” Fred cracks a wry grin, headbutting George’s shoulder. “We cast spell after spell trying to see if he’d tampered with it, added his own itching powder or something, but we could only detect a replenishing charm.”

“I thought this was supposed to be a short story. You still haven’t told me why it’s the only stuff you keep on hand five years later.”

Fred reaches over to flick him, making Harry grin unapologetically.

“To this day, we have no idea how he did it,” George begins to explain. “We used some of the first bottle for a laugh and it kept replenishing. Got sick of the stuff and, to be honest, Lee kept asking why it smelled like toffee apples in the dorm. So, we stuck to conjured for a while before we tried to buy new stuff during the winter hols in seventh year.”

“Bought a new bottle of the regular kind, brought it home and wham! Apple lube again.”

Harry watches Fred clap his hands and mime the magical transformation, back to giggling over the absurdity.

“No matter what we do, any lube we buy turns into the stuff. It has to be some kind of hex on us specifically, Charlie would’ve had to cast it before leaving, but we’ve never been able to detect it.”

“Actually, we determined it’s any bottle we touch, not just buy. Made Lee get us some and it transformed as soon as we got the seal off.”

“We confronted Charlie when he was here for the wedding but couldn’t get him to budge,” George grumbles. “He laughed himself silly, actually.”

Fred sighs. “We’ve embraced it by now. But I guess we’ll have to remember a more thorough Scourgify in the future. Poor Verity.”

Harry’s cheeks hurt from grinning so much, even if it’s technically at his own expense now as well as theirs. “I think you should tell her it was a prank so she doesn’t get suspicious. You can mention I talked to you and that you didn’t realise it bothered her so much.”

“Can do, the poor witch puts up with enough from us,” George says with a self-deprecating smile to his brother.

Still amused, Harry leaves the twins on the sofa to grab the takeaway containers and some serviettes. They all eat at the low table, bumping elbows, before putting on the television.

A rerun of a programme that came out last year is on, one that Harry has already seen. The twins, who are watching it for the first time, find endless amusement in the bearded man swallowing the Little Book of Calm and his subsequent beatific transformation. When they start discussing ways to combine charm work and potions to create the same effect from an infused biscuit, Harry decides that it’s time to drag them all to bed before he wakes up reciting Magical Me.

-

He’s going to have to come up with a good excuse for why he’s so well-rested and chipper, Harry decides, if they all agree to keep quiet about their changed relationship. Looking in the bathroom mirror the next morning, it's almost comical how well-shagged he comes across, the relaxed shoulders and omnipresent upward curl to his lips a dead giveaway.

Fred shuffles in through the open door, draping himself over Harry’s back.

“Mornin’, gorgeous,” Fred greets sleepily, pushing his cold nose into the side of Harry’s neck. In real time, Harry gets to see how a dopey smile takes over his reflection's entire face, practically radiating tender adoration.

“Morning,” Harry replies, bringing his hands up to his chest to rest over Fred’s. “Where’s your better half?”

Fred nips his neck half-heartedly in retaliation, eyelids drooping adorably. Harry feels an emotion similar to what others might feel around baby kneazles, which occurs whenever he has the joy of experiencing a sleepy Weasley twin.

“He’s still asleep, the lazy sod.”

Harry huffs a laugh. “I think you’re still asleep, too.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not,” Fred whines, thunking his forehead down on Harry’s shoulder and refusing to break contact even as Harry guides them out into the kitchen area.

“I think this counts as sleepwalking,” Harry replies cheekily, turning around in Fred’s grip to gather him into a hug while they lean against the counter.

Fred huddles in, folding himself much smaller than his typical stature to burrow into Harry. Humming contentedly, Harry lets his eyes slip shut and rests his head against Fred’s, simply breathing in the calm and easy affection.

“George is awake,” Fred mumbles into his collarbone. Harry can’t hear anything coming through from the open bedroom door yet, but that’s not unusual. He’s become used to how supernaturally attuned the twins are to each other, especially now that they’ve dropped pretences around him about how close and connected they truly are.

Giving Fred a final rub on the back, Harry disengages to rifle through their food supplies in search of breakfast ingredients. They’ll need to shop soon, maybe tonight since Wheezes is only open until one o'clock and it’s Verity’s turn to cover the shift.

George shuffles out while Harry is whisking eggs in a bowl, the assorted veg he scrounged from the icebox under a steaming charm next to him. Beelining straight for Harry, George presses a kiss to the back of his neck and mutters a greeting before turning to slump between Fred’s legs where he’s hopped up to sit on the counter next to the sink.

Much like Fred had before, George curls himself into his twin, still mostly asleep, as they both wait for the vegetable omelets to be done.

Food and strong tea finally wake the two up, the appreciative hums feeding Harry’s ego. Neither of them are bad in the kitchen, couldn’t be with Molly as their mother, but they always insist that anything Harry makes tastes ten times better.

Which might just be because they don’t want to cook, but Harry doesn’t mind in any case.

Their talk shifts from the mundanity of their plans for the day to what they still need to do to get Wheezes ready for Valentine’s. Some of their friends help with the shop on holidays that they know will be busy, so Harry is unsurprised to hear that Lee and Luna will be joining them starting Monday.

“I was going to ask Angelina, but a little birdy told me she’s got a hot date,” Fred says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Harry’s grin sharpens. “Who with?” He’s got five Galleons riding on Angelina finally, finally asking Katie Bell out, and so does Fred. “Katie?”

Fred’s triumphant look tells him what he needs to know and the nod confirms it. They both look over at George, who seems extremely unbothered for a man who put ten Galleons on Angelina and Alicia getting together.

George sniffs and says, “I think your information must be incorrect. I heard she was taking Alicia to the new botanical gardens in Eastbourne.”

“Absolutely not, Percy told me specifically that Penelope had recommended those gardens to Ange so that she could take Katie.”

“Oh, well, if Perce’s ex-girlfriend said so,” George retorts, tone dripping with sarcasm.

Fred narrows his eyes. “You’re just a sore loser.”

“I’ll show you sore.”

“Oh ho, big talk for such a little guy.”

“We’re identical, idiot. You just insulted yourself.”

“Boys, boys,” Harry interjects, trying to keep from cracking a smile at their mirrored competitive glares, “We’ll just have to wait and see. Either way, we’ll be happy for Angelina, right?”

The twins continue to glower at each other, and Harry fights down the urge to find their childish bickering endearing.

“Right?” Harry puts a little more steel in his voice.

Fred and George turn to him to sulkily parrot “right” in unison. Harry finally breaks, chuckling when they return to glaring at each other with even more intensity after matching each other’s exact tone. He stands from the little table and banishes the dirty dishes to the kitchen with a flick of his wand.

“You’re both ridiculous,” Harry says, stooping to give first George and then Fred a kiss. “But not little, so there’s that.”

Tension broken, they get on with the rest of their day. George offers to get groceries in, explaining that he wants to pop out into Muggle London first, something about children’s Valentine’s cards. Harry decides to reorganise the backroom so that all the products likely to sell out are easily accessible, and Fred joins Verity in the shop to finalise some displays and man the till.

Time slips away from Harry as he loses himself in shifting boxes and containers, levitating the larger crates into order against the far wall.

He’s sweating by the time he takes a break, slumping on his stool and surveying the space. It’s amazing how much extra room is available, now that there’s no haphazard tower of assorted quill boxes leaning against the door frame and the overstock crates have been stacked out of the way. Harry knows it’ll be a matter of days before it’s back to disarray, but he can enjoy it for now.

Swinging his legs around to face the worktable, Harry accidentally kicks the disillusioned drawer he now knows exists under the right side of the desk.

And just like that, his train of thought has jumped the tracks, hurtled over the side of a ravine, and crashed right into the gutter.

He doesn’t even fight it, letting his mind wander to two pairs of strong hands, dexterous fingers, smirking lips, freckled skin. It’s like being a fucking fourth year again, his hormones haven’t left him a moment’s peace in almost two weeks.

Except, this time, he doesn't have to worry about fighting dragons or his best mate drowning in the Great Lake, which really put a damper on his pubescent sex drive.

Suddenly, his daydream about what he had done with the twins two nights ago– Harry may love the flat’s sofa, but his bed at Grimmauld has the extra room for… acrobatics– is interrupted by a memory from his conversation with Verity.

She said she smelled the idiotic apple lube most often in the backroom at the workbench. Yesterday, this made complete sense to Harry, since he knew about the secret stash. But he forgot to ask the obvious question.

Why was it most often in the backroom?

On the surface, it makes sense. The backroom is closed off from the shop, no customers can get in by nature of the runes, and there’s a few choice surfaces to pick from.

Closer consideration reveals the flaw in that logic. The backroom is the only place within the Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes premises that can be Apparated into. Sure, only select people can, but those people include all of the Weasley relatives and their significant others, Verity, and a few friends.

And Apparating isn’t like entering through the wards at the front door, or even Flooing into the flat. You can close off the wards and they give advanced warning of anyone entering. Someone could conceivably Floo in unannounced, but that too gives a bit of warning and the twins have even less people encoded in their personal Floo entrance who can come in directly– Fred, George, Harry, and Lee Jordan. Apparition into the backroom is instantaneous, the loud sound accompanying it too late to be of any warning.

Not to mention Verity had accidentally alerted Harry to the time period where the backroom became the preferred spot. She had said after the reopening– stumbled over mentioning the War, for Harry’s sake no doubt– which… maybe he was reading into it, but Harry starting to work at the shop corresponds with the change.

So it begs the question: Why were Fred and George getting up to things in the backroom often enough to warrant a hidden lube stash right after Harry began working there?

He hadn’t thought about it yesterday when Verity asked, but he had noticed the giveaway sweet scent occasionally. However, his brain became so used to it from lounging around in the flat that, funnily enough given the context, the light scent of apples had become just as homy as the cologne the twins favour and the clean, fresh wool smell of his hand-knit Weasley jumpers.

Harry fights down a bemused cringe at classing the smell of flavoured prank lube alongside his cherished handmade Christmas gifts. He doesn’t know whether to shake Charlie’s hand or strangle him.

He thinks back, trying to pinpoint times to confirm his theory.

He can distinctly remember a day about two months ago, right at the beginning of December and the Christmas rush. Harry had been up to his ears in owl orders and was on his 16th day of work in a row, coming in on weekends and staying late trying to catch up.

Harry remembers unshrinking and opening boxes upon boxes of holiday items, overflow stock, and raw ingredients for the twins’ in-house brewing. They got a massive shipment of rose thorns in, one of the ingredients they needed to brew up the base for the Love Potion variations and some of their infused sweets.

In true Harry Potter fashion, he’d been distracted while opening the packages, tripping over his own trainer laces like a dunce and catching himself with a hand in the container of surprisingly sharp thorns.

Madam Pomfrey would have, no doubt, been unsurprised at his clumsiness.

Peeved and in pain, Harry had tried removing the thorns quickly with magic, only to have some of the little buggers burrow in deeper. George had found him about fifteen minutes into manually removing them one by one with spare potion tweezers. More concerned than the situation warranted, in Harry’s opinion, George had dropped to his knees in front of the stool and demanded Harry give him the tweezers so he could remove them. 

Harry had been pleased to learn that the sensation of George’s warm forearm across his upper thigh, bracing his hand steady to hold his wrist and pilot the tweezers, acted like a pain relief potion. The half hour he spent removing the thorns flew past, George finally healing the dozens of tiny puncture wounds and rubbing over the freshly healed skin with careful hands.

Harry hadn’t read into the light flush on George’s face at the time, as the room had been overly warm to combat the winter chill in Diagon. But now, he thinks of it differently.

The scent of apples had hung in the air the next morning, Harry remembers, because he’d had a shipment of raspberry and strawberry flavouring powder come in that afternoon and had considered whether that could be the source of the sofa’s scent. Fruity, but not quite it.

Thinking back a little further, there was that one time he spilled dried stinging nettles all over himself. He had been moving inventory on the shelf and had to vanish everything except his pants in order to douse himself with multiple Aguamentis– the swelling from nettles left unattended is no fun. Both Fred and George had run in when they heard the commotion since it was after hours, and had laughed themselves hoarse before getting him something to wear.

But he remembers Verity looking a little ill every time she entered the backroom for almost a week after. He’d assumed at the time that she was reacting to something about the nettles and shrugged it off.

Hot coals of arousal settle low in his gut at the thought of the twins bending each other over the surface he sat at most days of the week. And not just at that, but at the nearly confirmed suspicion that they had been discussing Harry and imagining him with them while doing it.

How many times had he come into work the next day for the twins to stare at him sitting where they’d just fucked the night before? How often had one of them come in to chat with him and leaned casually against the table in the same way they did secretively before opening, when their twin had been on their knees?

Harry bunches his fists in the fabric of his worn jeans. He glances at the clock to confirm that Verity is long gone, the store having been closed for a few hours already. George isn’t due back for a little while yet, but Fred is still lurking somewhere in the shop.

Letting a silly grin cross his face, Harry gives in to his baser instincts and goes about setting up a show for whenever Fred comes in to check on him.

As he opens the hidden drawer and grabs its contents, Harry wonders how many times the twins have fantasised about coming into their backroom to find Harry having some… private time.

Probably round about the amount that Harry has thought the same thing but reversed.

He feels a little ridiculous as he hops up onto the cleared off worktop, leaning back against the wall and unfastening his fly. He doesn’t do anything right away, content to recline and close his eyes, imagining Fred’s expression when he walks in.

Harry doesn’t historically go in for a great deal of foreplay before wanking, content to get right to the main event and get it over with. Fred and George have ruined him for that, though, at least in part.

He indulgently slides a hand underneath his shirt, lightly stroking over a nipple before pinching it, while rubbing his lower stomach under his navel. Harry lets himself sink into the sensation, his earlier arousal coming back full force as he imagines Fred’s hand sliding down over his thigh instead of his own.

Harry gives in a few moments later, shimmying his jeans halfway down his thighs before remembering he still has his trainers on. He toes those and his socks off before getting down to just his pants and t-shirt, removing his glasses as an afterthought, before palming his cock through the cotton fabric.

The tingling warmth in his abdomen and groin spreads to his extremities as he slips a hand under his waistband, gripping himself lightly and touching without intent– not yet, at least. Harry spends a few minutes like that, working himself a little higher, before letting his hand drift lower.

He whispers the cleaning spell he’s glad he memorised in sixth year, removing his hand long enough to shuck his pants and coat two fingers with sweet-smelling lube.

Harry doesn’t wait, sliding both fingers past the pucker of his areshole and stroking himself again with his other hand. He relishes the stretch, the slight burn, and likes even more that he can go right in with two because of how frequently the twins have worked him like this in just the past handful of days.

They haven’t moved past that, though, with Harry. He’s fucked each of them a couple of times, and the twins have been vocal in their enjoyment of fingering Harry beyond the point of desperation. But Harry hasn’t pushed them to fuck him yet. It hasn’t happened naturally, both Fred and George obviously happy with bottoming, and Harry would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous.

Which, Harry reprimands himself, is just ridiculous. He wants it, has long-running fantasies tracing all the way back to fifth year of Fred or George– or Fred and George simultaneously, when he decides to leave realism behind– fucking him every way his mind can conceive of and a few that would require magic to accomplish.

But Harry acknowledges a bit of a mental barrier to actually completing the act, which he thinks the twins have picked up on.

He’s content for now, though, to feel the drag of his own fingers inside him, not quite able to achieve the angle to hit his prostate reliably. Above all else, he’s getting off on the obscene picture he knows he’s creating, legs spread with one foot braced on the stool, facing the closed door that he hopes will open soon.

As if on cue, he hears footsteps, distant but getting closer. Fred is already talking before he throws the door open in customary fashion.

“Harry, are you done in here? I was thinking we could–” Harry fights an inappropriately timed laugh as Fred cuts himself off and stops mid-step like a Saturday morning cartoon character, foot still raised a little.

“What were you thinking we could do?” Harry asks, aiming for coy and just sounding equal parts smug and breathy.

Fred stalls out for a minute, mouth quite literally opened in a gobsmacked ‘O,’ before he slams the door shut and glides over to Harry in a trance.

“Circe’s fucking tits,” he manages to choke out, running a hand lightly up Harry’s calf, eyes locked on where his fingers are disappearing. “We can do anything you want. Merlin, Harry, you don’t know what you look like right now.”

Harry smirks. “I have a pretty good idea.” He hooks his ankle around the back of Fred’s thigh, urging him closer. “I think I must look like one of your and George’s fantasies. Just a guess.”

Fred breathes a laugh, and Harry is extremely pleased that Fred’s hands are shaky when they smooth themselves up Harry’s legs to rest on his bare hips.

“You have no idea.”

“Like I said, I have some idea.” Harry takes the hand off his cock to snag the other man’s belt loop to tug him even closer, Fred’s hips bumping against the edge of the table. Fred is already hard, the line of him pushing at the seam of his trousers.

“I was bored back here and I got to thinking: why do you two keep lube in a place that, out of anywhere in the shop, you’d be most likely to get walked in on? And then I thought of what Verity said yesterday. How she kept smelling apples back here more than anywhere else, how it started once she was rehired– after I'd started helping out.”

Fred’s blush extends from his cheeks down his neck and past the collar of his shirt. Harry continues with, “Could be a coincidence. Or… it could be that you and that twin of yours couldn’t help yourselves but to fuck here, where I sit every day, imagining I was there or that I’d walk in. Like what you said about the empty classroom, right?”

Still mesmerised by the movement of Harry’s fingers, Fred’s next puff of air ends on a groan. Harry will never get over being able to fluster either of the usually unflappable twins. He feels almost gleeful underneath the increasing arousal when Fred starts nodding his head slowly, then faster, almost frantic.

“Yes, yeah– We couldn’t help it,” Fred says lowly, finally looking up to meet Harry’s eyes. “You’d sit in here, looking fucking gorgeous, and we’d just– we’d talk about it all the time and then there would be times when we couldn’t resist. Godric, that day you had to strip off and then you were all wet–”

Harry triumphs internally for having figured that one out.

“–It was like out of one of the magazines the Muggleborn kids used to bring to school.” Ah yes, Harry has fond memories of Dean’s stash, it’s how he definitively figured out he liked other boys. “I think Georgie and I fucked each other raw in this room for five days straight after.”

“And how does it feel to walk in on the real thing? Think George will like it when he gets back later?”

Fred’s hands twitch and he blurts out, “You know he will. I– Harry, will you let me touch you? You– I need to–”

Harry pulls his hand away from himself, wiping lube off on his bare thigh, impatient to feel Fred’s long fingers in him since the moment he walked in the door.

He reaches for the bottle to hand to Fred, but he’s stopped in his tracks by hands framing his face, lips catching his in a deep, filthy kiss. Something warm flicks against the seam of his lips almost immediately and then Fred’s tongue is pressing into his mouth, rubbing against Harry’s.

Groaning into the kiss, Harry tangles his hands in wavy red hair. They’re pressed together now, and Harry is oddly titillated at the thought that he’s nearly naked while Fred is still fully clothed, the other man too desperate to touch him to shed his own kit.

Suddenly wild to feel the buttons of Fred’s shirt pressed against his bare chest, Harry breaks the kiss long enough to rip the fabric over his head before pulling Fred tight against him. He presses another devastating kiss to Fred's mouth before it’s moving down, trailing open-mouthed kisses and light bites down Harry's neck and across his chest.

Harry vaguely feels a hand fumble for the bottle of lube, but he gets distracted as Fred takes his nipple into his mouth. He hadn’t known his nipples were sensitive until the Wednesday before last, but the tight suction and hint of teeth goes straight to his cock.

He jolts a little as fingers with cold lube on them rub against his hole. Fred kisses his nipple in apology before pulling back to watch Harry’s face as he sinks two fingers into him.

Fred curses under his breath as Harry moans, legs tensing and then going lax at the delicious feeling of fingers sliding deeper in him than he could reach on his own.

“You feel incredible,” Fred murmurs, pushing an errant curl of hair from Harry’s brow.

Harry lets his head fall back against the wall, toes curling against the outside of Fred’s thighs as he pulls his fingers out and pushes back in to the third knuckle.

“Did I ever tell you, ah, how much I love your fingers?” Harry asks.

Fred gives him a quick, lust-addled smile. “No, do tell.”

“I used to watch you and George in the Great Hall, when you’d write letters or pass notes about Wheeze ideas.” His breath hitches as Fred curls his free arm around Harry’s waist, using the leverage to pull Harry towards the edge of the table and flush against him.

Harry hooks his leg around Fred’s again, the other one hanging off the edge of the table. “They always looked so strong but also almost… elegant. Teaching the DA was torture because I’d get distracted watching you two grip your wands as I taught the spells.”

Fred kisses him again then, fingers grazing his prostate with the shift forward. Harry whines into his mouth, liquid heat settling in the base of his spine as he hits it again and again.

“It was impossible to be in the DA, with you commanding the whole room and doing your teacher schtick,” Fred says against his ear. Harry busies his hands with rucking the shirt out from Fred’s trousers and running them along the revealed skin. “Do you know how hot you look when you’re teaching people how to kick Death Eaters’ arses?”

Harry laughs breathlessly and feels Fred press a third finger against his rim. With the additional finger, words become harder. Harry succeeds in getting the buttons of Fred’s shirt open in fits and starts, and then the fastenings on his trousers.

His prick is leaking precome and he’s grinding down on the fingers inside of him just as much as Fred is pushing them up into him when the tell-tale sound of Apparition fills the room.

Both Fred and Harry swivel to look at a slack-jawed George, gawking in the middle of the room much like Fred had been fifteen minutes before. Harry fumbles for his wand just in time to banish the groceries to the flat, George’s hands having gone slack against the bottom of the bags in his shock.

George’s gaze is locked for a moment on where his twin and Harry are joined, before he turns wide eyes to Fred.

“I know, I thought the same,” Fred says, voice saturated with appreciative arousal.

George seems to unglue himself, striding over to pull Harry into a series of bruising kisses, before doing the same to Fred. Harry groans as Fred’s fingers stutter in their rhythm when George licks into his twin’s mouth.

“He looks… You both are just like–” George stammers out when they break apart, already winded.

“Like a dream you’ve had?” Harry says cockily.

George gets a hand under Harry’s thigh, lifting it out to the side and exposing him further as he nods distractedly. Squirming at the increased attention, Harry focuses on the hands touching his skin, on George’s joining his under the open panels of Fred’s shirt.

He gets frustrated a moment later. The position doesn’t allow him the access that he wants to both men, and his arse and back are starting to ache from holding himself atop the wooden desk.

No sooner has Harry voiced his frustrations than the twins take action. George strips out of his robes, shirt, shoes, and socks, leaving them in a heap before taking a look at the room. Fred glances at his brother and there seems to be consensus, because George uses his wand to levitate one of the longer, medium-height crates away from the wall to Harry’s token protest.

He decides that the undoing of his work is alright by him, actually, when George casts a cushioning charm on the surface of the crate and ditches his wand on his pile of clothes.

Harry yelps when Fred removes his fingers and scoops Harry up by the back of the knees. He clings to freckled shoulders, not sure if he’s thrilled or mortified by the proof that the twins can pick him up with ease.

Thrilled wins out as he’s deposited on his back, the cushioning charm a blessing to lay on after the table. Both twins are down to their trousers and Harry salivates at the upside down view of the vee of George’s hips right at eye level.

He hears Fred kneel and then Accio the lube from the desk before three fingers are against his arsehole again. George comes around and sits on the crate so that he can kiss Harry, who works a hand into George’s pants.

George’s moan gets lost between them, and Harry spends the next little while relishing Fred’s fingers, the bruise he’s sucking into his hip, and George’s heavy exhales against his lips when Harry twists his wrist at the head of his prick.

Fred’s lips leave his skin to say, “Georgie, budge up and shift Harry.”

His twin complies, giving Harry a last peck before walking around to stand by the top of the crate again, helping him move back until Harry’s head is no longer supported. It hangs down, the cushioning charm making the drop of it more gradual, manageable to maintain.

Suddenly, Harry gets the idea, why this specific crate was chosen. Fred shifts, bringing Harry’s legs up to drape over his shoulders, the new angle pressing his fingers that much deeper.

“Alright like that, nothing hurts?” George asks, running his hands over Harry’s clavicle and across his chest.

Harry is practically drooling already, pulling George closer by hands on his arse. “No, it’s perfect.”

“You’re perfect,” Fred retorts from below him with a twist of his fingers, but Harry is too busy lapping at the head of George’s cock to reply.

Harry contemplates how he’s come a long way from the singular blowjob he gave in a bathroom stall at a club the year prior. George’s prick bumps into his palate as he takes him in quickly, not wanting to tease like he normally might. Not with Fred’s fingers hitting his prostate every few seconds and his palm pressing Harry’s cock firmly against his stomach.

He makes a mental note to try this position again in the near future. He was momentarily worried about getting leverage, but George is sliding over his tongue by nature of the angle, forcing Harry to relax to accommodate him. The almost shocked moans he’s letting out as Harry sucks him are intoxicating, making Harry grip his arse firmly and drag George further in on the next twitch forward.

Harry closes his eyes and focuses on the weight on his tongue, on the pressure building in his groin and at the base of his spine, on Fred pressing wet kisses against the head of his prick. Suddenly desperate for more, Harry locks his ankles behind Fred’s head, pushing himself down hard on the fingers inside him.

“Harry?” Fred asks, thrusting in roughly again like Harry had initiated. He groans around the cock in his mouth, making George gasp and slide even further in so that he has to fight his gag reflex.

George shifts back a little and Harry takes the opportunity to pull off for a minute.

“I want– oh shit, more. I want more, give me–” he pants, sucking in air. He catches George’s eyes, whose pupils are nearly eclipsed, body practically vibrating with lust. Purposefully, Harry lets his head relax, lets his mouth fall open, telling the man nonverbally what he’s after.

George groans, looking almost pained. “Freddie, give him a fourth finger,” he says as he lets his cock slide against Harry’s tongue again, thrusting shallowly for the moment.

“Yeah?” Harry hears Fred’s breathless tone and moans, hoping it sounds like enthusiastic agreement.

A feeling of emptiness causes Harry to whine before Fred’s fingers are back, the addition of the fourth, even with the added lube, causing Harry a moment of too much before the pressure turns to blinding pleasure. He’s never been so full– literally, with George pushing deeper into his mouth and his arse clenching down around most of a hand.

He can feel how his fingers are digging into George, unable to stop even though it must be just the right side of painful. George finally takes the hint, letting himself slide forward fully, and Harry relaxes his throat around the intrusion.

Fred had told Harry a few days ago, in an effort to tease his twin, how much George liked when someone could take all of him. The information is now coming in handy as Harry uses the little strength left in his arms to pull George into fucking his face, the choked off sound the taller man makes every time his pubic hair brushes his chin driving Harry closer and closer towards the edge.

He can hear Fred below, the wet sound of his fingers pushing into Harry matched by the rhythm he must have set with a hand on his own prick. Fred’s thumb, the only finger on his hand not inside Harry, presses into the sensitive strip of skin right behind Harry’s balls and begins rubbing firmly

“Fuck, Harry, you’re a fucking dream,” Fred rasps, and Harry moans as best he can at the fucked-out quality of his voice.

He hears a second quiet fuck before he almost chokes around George. Fred gives no warning before taking Harry’s cock into his mouth, swallowing around him and teasing the tip with the flat of his tongue.

Involuntarily, Harry’s legs clamp around Fred’s head and his back bows off the crate, allowing George to shift just a tad further down his throat. Not expecting it, George cries out sharply before Harry feels his cock swell against his palate. With his last remaining wits, he holds George still and swallows around him convulsively, using his tongue any way he can given his full mouth and choked-off airway.

George makes a sound like he’s been punched in the gut before hunching inward as his orgasm hits him. The one downside of the position, Harry thinks muzzily through the haze of sensation, is that he can’t swallow everything, not with how his neck is bent. He can feel come leaking from the corner of his lips and knows he’s going to look a mess after.

He doesn’t have time to worry as Fred sucks particularly hard around him while the combination of his four fingers and thumb press into Harry’s prostate from both sides. Harry is glad George pulled back and half-collapsed against the wall as his own orgasm overwhelms him, clenching down reflexively around the fingers in his arse and dragging in air around his gasps.

The pressure against his prostate is suddenly too much again, but Harry is barely able to get a word out, body jerking as a final spurt of come is pushed out from the force of Fred’s fingers.

He hadn’t heard George move, but he’s suddenly right behind Fred, pulling him away from Harry enough to dislodge the legs around his shoulders and his hand, getting him to stand. Harry cranes his neck to watch as George pushes Fred’s trousers and pants down, the large damp patch at the front of the pants giving Harry a thrill. Gripping his twin’s cock almost roughly, he starts stroking Fred with quick jerks, biting the delicate skin below his ear that makes him shudder.

“Look how beautiful he is, how open you got him,” he hears George pant. Fred is barely blinking, staring at Harry laid out on the crate with something like awe. Looking at Harry over Fred’s shoulder, George continues,  “Maybe he’ll take more than your fingers next time, let you fuck him after you stretch him out again.”

Fred closes a vice-like grip around George’s wrist, holding on for dear life instead of trying to get him to stop. Harry has finally gathered enough brain cells to join George in sending Fred over the edge.

“I want it, Fred. I need to feel you filling me up like your fingers did, I know it’ll be even better.” Harry lets his legs fall a little more open, runs his hand down over his thigh to feel the hot skin where he’s been stretched so thoroughly.

And that’s all it takes. George uses a hand around the front of Fred’s neck to angle his head, swallowing the loud exhalation his twin makes in an aggressive kiss as he comes across the front of the crate.

George guides Fred into an uncoordinated slump against the crate before crawling over top of Harry to crush their mouths together. Harry’s cock makes a brave effort at expressing its approval when George breaks off to kiss all over his face, cleaning the remains of his own come off in the process.

“You absolute marvel,” he breathes against Harry’s lips. “I thought I was going to pass out when I first Apparated in, I didn’t know I could even get hard that quickly.”

“Seconded,” comes the tired reply from Fred, who shuffles around on his knees to be near both their heads. “He was fingering himself when I came in to see if he wanted to help me with a display. Thought I’d have an aneurysm.”

The kisses across his entire face start up again, making Harry laugh. Fred frees him, giving Harry his own lazy, pleasure-addled kiss.

Harry makes noise about cleaning up and going up to the flat after a few moments. The twins perform every cleaning spell they can think of on the backroom surfaces, returning the christened crate to its stack in the process, before Fred has the bright idea to cast a gentle Ventus to further air the room out.

Harry hopes that it's enough to beat Verity’s bloodhound senses.

-

Later that evening, Harry is safely tucked between two warm bodies in the bed that is now practically one-third his own. Fred is snuffling lightly at his back, already asleep, and Harry has been trying to let the gentle sound lull him under, as well.

Harry, for better or worse, is still feeling wide awake because of how busy he knows they’ll be tomorrow, even with two more people on the shop floor. He sighs quietly, willing himself free from racing thoughts and to drop off into a dreamless sleep.

George stirs in front of him, alerting him to the fact that he’s not the only one still awake. He turns over in the circle of Harry’s arms to face him.

“Alright there?” George says softly, pushing dark hair away from his forehead.

Harry smiles back reassuringly. “Yeah, just don’t feel sleepy. I keep thinking of things I should’ve done to get ready for the week.”

George’s fingers land on his hip and rub reassuringly. “Want me to summon a quill and paper? It always helps me to write that kind of stuff down.” Harry must make a face at the idea of journaling, because George shakes his head thoughtfully. ”It’s like… if I write it down, I don’t have to worry about remembering it. I can let go because I have a physical list of to do’s instead of a mental one.”

Even after a decade of friendship and blatant examples of how much the twins care about him, it’s these little moments of sensitivity that make Harry melt.

He can’t help but kiss George, light and affectionate. Pulling back, he tucks fine copper hair behind George’s remaining right ear, earning a crooked smile.

“I love you,” Harry says quietly. Even though they’ve had the love talk and everyone is clear where they stand, it’s still so novel to say it out loud. Harry has found himself using it sparingly, as if the sentiment will lose its power if he says it too much.

He knows the feeling will never lose its power. It would be silly, then, to deny himself the pleasure of the twins’ joyous smiles whenever they hear it just because his brain sabotages him sometimes.

Levelling him with that same joyful smile, George kisses him again before replying, “And I love you. Tomorrow is going to be brilliant and chaotic, as will the rest of the week.” His grin turns playful. “Try not to worry, running a joke shop shouldn’t be such serious business.”

Harry snorts. “That’s true, you two jokers make sure of it.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

George’s smile dims a little after a moment, expression becoming– hypocritically, Harry thinks– more serious.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asks.

“Nothing, really,” George answers, continuing his reassuring rubbing. “I, ah, wanted to make sure that you were alright after earlier in the backroom.”

Harry crinkles his brow. “You mean to ask if I’m okay after the positively mind-blowing sex I initiated with my two devastatingly handsome partners?”

George blushes, and Harry realises this may be the first time he’s referred to either of the twins as his something since this all began. Before he can backtrack or feel embarrassed, George replies with, “Indulge the more handsome of your two partners in his questions, love.”

“I didn’t know Fred was awake, what does he want to know?” Harry smirks at him, using cheek to hide how the endearment makes his heart flutter.

George scoffs, pinching him lightly through his pyjamas. “That is monaural discrimination.” When Harry doesn’t repent, he huffs and says, “Fine, indulge me, then.”

Harry gives in and says, “I’m better than alright. It was incredible, you both always make me feel incredible.”

“Good, it’s the same here,” George replies with a pleased smile. “More specifically… I wanted to make sure that you knew what I said at the end– well, that neither of us have any expectations about what boundaries you may have or your preferences.”

Harry searches the endorphin-clouded memory of their earlier encounter, confused until he remembers what George said to Fred right before he came, what Harry agreed with. Relieved, he smooths a hand over the beginnings of George’s stubble, brushing a thumb against his cheekbone.

“You mean about Fred fucking me?” Harry asks, getting a nod in return. “You’re too sweet, you know that?”

George scrunches his nose, rote denial already readying itself at his lips.

Harry interrupts. “No, you really are, both of you. But if you think either one of you is getting away with not fucking me in the near future, you’re wrong.”

Delighted, Harry watches as George’s pupils grow, black eating up the brown of his iris as the declaration sinks in.

Licking his lips, George asks, “You’re sure? We’re both perfectly happy doing it the other way around for the next millennia. And… correct me if I’m wrong, but it seemed like you were a bit… hesitant, before.”

Harry nods. “I think I was nervous, although I couldn’t tell you why.” He smiles self-deprecatingly. “I like everything we’ve done so far and I’ve fantasised about you two bending me over any available surface for at least the past five years.”

He’s cut off by George pressing their lips together with a little more heat, tapping him to continue once he pulls away.

“Like I said, I think it’ll be amazing. And even though we’ve done so many other things–” Harry chuckles at George saying under his breath And what wonderful things they were. “– I’m glad the first time for this will be with one of you. Or, well, both of you. Not at the same time in a physical sense, obviously, I think that would be a lot but–”

George stops his rambling with a laughing brush of lips. His eyes sparkle in the dimmed light of the room when he says, “Heard, no double penetration for your first time bottoming.” Harry snorts, too loud in the quiet. George’s expression softens, smile turning genuine and dopey. “I’m glad it’ll be one of us, too.”

“Dibs,” comes a sleepy mumble against the back of Harry’s neck.

Chest shaking with laughter, Harry watches George’s brow furrow indignantly at Fred’s addition to the conversation.

“Oi! How romantic, dibs. Really, how are we identical?”

“Harry thinks I’m funny and romantic.”

George rolls his eyes. “Harry doesn’t know any better. Wait until he’s dealt with your idea of an anniversary surprise being an exploding cake that catches the ceiling on fire.”

“Is that what that mark is from?” Harry asks through his giggles.

“It was a great idea, I just added too much Erumpent extract to the fondant.” Fred retorts.

“Don’t listen to this hooligan, love,” George directs to Harry with a mixture of real and false disappointment before focusing back on Fred. “You’re insufferable, truly, sleeping through my heartfelt and emotionally intelligent talk with our beloved Harry only to swoop in thinking a dibs is going to work.”

Harry feels Fred shift behind him, no doubt raising his head to glare at his twin. “First off: I was awake for some of it, that’s what happens when your bed partners are talking right by your ear. Second: You have the emotional intelligence of one of Umbridge’s cat plates.”

Fred ignores his brother’s affronted squawk. “Third: You can’t break dibs protocol. Right, Harry?”

“Right,” Harry agrees solemnly, before he breaks into laughter again at George’s playfully betrayed glare.

“Cruel, I don’t know what I did to deserve this,” he says, flopping onto his back on the scant extra space available on the bed with the back of his hand over his eyes. “Here I am, checking in with you… you said I was sweet! Only to be denied by that ruffian I call my twin first access to your sweet, virgin arseho–”

Fred’s pillow, which he so kindly hands to Harry, cuts George off with a thwack. Harry smacks him a few more times for good measure before passing it back over his shoulder.

Pouting, George says, “And now they’re hitting me. I don’t know how I’ll ever recover from this betrayal.”

Harry pokes the exposed side of his underarm, knowing it’ll get the reaction he wants. George squeaks, slamming his arm down against his side, and squirms to face Harry again.

“Fine, I concede,” he says, with the air of a man under great duress. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Freddie, though, that scoundrel.”

Feeling both entertained and sleepy in equal measures now, Harry purses his lips in bemusement. “Hooligan, ruffian, and now scoundrel. What are you, a Jane Austen character?”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

Fred shifts again, curling himself more firmly into Harry’s back as they all settle. The quiet stretches for a moment until Harry is floating drowsily on the edge of sleep. Fred’s voice wakes him a little, saying, “It only makes sense that I go first, really, seeing as I am older than you.”

This time, it’s George’s pillow that sails over Harry’s shoulder.