Vulnerable
Harry and CedricMinisinoo



Summary:  Cedric wanking was Harry's favourite fantasy.
Warnings:  As the summary suggests, VERY ADULT.

Notes:  A part of this takes place post-HBP and details some of the war, expect major character deaths (offscreen).  This is book-canon Cedric more than Robert-Pattinson Cedric: more subdued, but feel free to imagine Rob's pretty face.  Written for midnitemaraud_r for Spring Smut 2007.  And while the stories may share a few things in common, this does not fit into the Aorist Subjunctive universe.


Cedric wanking.

That had been Harry's favourite fantasy from the age of fifteen -- although it came about quite by accident.

During the holidays in Harry's fifth year, Cedric had asked (almost begged) for an extra mattress in the room that Harry shared with Ron at Grimmauld Place -- instead of being put in with the twins, who seemed to think "Cedric Baiting" an acceptable sport.  Harry had agreed; they'd grown close since the Tournament.

During the second night of Cedric's stay, Harry woke for no apparent reason, then lay there, listening for whatever had disturbed his rest.  An odd panting came from the mattress brought in for Cedric, and Harry turned his head to peer through the dark to where Cedric lay on his side, back to Harry (and Ron).  His free arm moved rapidly up and down, and at first, Harry had no idea what Cedric was doing.

Then the truth slammed into him, clenching his stomach, tightening his balls, and sending a rush of blood straight to his groin.  Cedric was wanking.  Of course Harry masturbated too -- with increasing frequency of late -- but he'd never seen another boy at it.  Seamus and Ron, and sometimes even Dean, made jokes about it at school, and everybody seemed to realize everybody else did it.  But actual wanking was accomplished in the privacy of a shower, or with the curtains drawn around one's bed.  Here, now, for the first time, Harry was privy to another boy's recreation.
 
And Cedric Diggory's, no less -- fancied by half the girls at Hogwarts, and a few of the boys.
 
Harry didn't think Cedric had intended to be overheard, not given the hour and the older boy's obvious attempt to keep quiet.  Whatever noise had first woken Harry, it must have been slight.  Aside from the heavy catch of breath and the slight rasp of his arm brushing against the sheets, Cedric made no sound.
 
Harry wasn't sure what to make of the erection now lying heavy against his own abdomen, but he chalked it up to sympathetic arousal.  He kept his head turned, eyes boring into Cedric's back, and tried to imagine the rest as the other boy's arm sped up and his panting became desperately quiet gasps.  Then the arm paused before moving a few more times as his hips jerked forward and he issued a tiny grunt.  Harry's erection twitched, and unconsciously, his hand drifted down to grip it under the sheets, pumping just a little -- momentarily seized by the wild notion of getting out of bed to go and crawl in with Cedric.
 
But Cedric was a boy, for pity's sake.  And popular.  Well, he'd been popular; he was less so these days.  He'd become withdrawn since the Tournament.  Harry was just . . . Harry.  If they'd been friendly of late, that didn't mean Cedric would want Harry to know he'd been tossing off, much less would want to toss off Harry in turn.  Cedric fancied girls.  Harry fancied girls, never mind that he was lying here as hard as a rock from witnessing another boy masturbate.  He didn't want Cedric to bring him off.  He wanted Cho to do that.
 
Had Cho ever given Cedric a hand job?  The question floated unbidden to mind and he couldn't banish the mental image of Cho's pretty hand wrapped around Cedric's prick.  But Cho was a good girl and good girls didn't do that -- did they?  Well, whatever the case and even if she had, she wasn't doing it anymore.  She and Cedric hadn't been seeing each other since shortly after the Third Task.  Cedric had never told Harry why.  Hermione said she thought Cho was jealous.  According to her, Cedric had been frantic when he'd stumbled out of the maze to report that the Triwizard Cup was a Portkey and had taken Harry somewhere else.  It wasn't until Harry had come back -- bruised, bloody and traumatized, but alive -- that Cedric had calmed down.  Harry could still remember Cedric's arm around his shoulders when he'd reappeared.  Cedric had gripped him tightly, muttering, "I should have gone with you.  I should have gone with you."

Harry had barely been able to croak, "If you'd gone with me, he'd probably just have killed you," before he'd been pulled away by Dumbledore and Moody -- who hadn't been Moody at all.  The rest of that night was still a horrific blur.
 
Ever since, Cedric had attached himself to Harry's side like a Doberman -- and was no longer seeing Cho.  And if Ron had become as jealous of Cedric as Hermione said Cho was of him, well, Ron was still Harry's best mate.  Cedric was . . .

Harry wasn't sure what Cedric was, but he did know the older boy wouldn't want Harry climbing into bed with him -- wouldn't want to know Harry had witnessed something so . . . private.  Well, Harry wouldn't himself, in Cedric's shoes.  That would take a lot of trust.
 
Now, Cedric sagged and rolled onto his back.  Terrified of being caught playing voyeur, Harry twisted his head away, closing his eyes and pretending sleep.  The only sound in the room was Cedric's rough breath slowly evening out.
 
From then on, Cedric wanking became a staple of Harry's own wank fantasies, although he tried hard not to examine why.  Overwhelming curiosity made him want to catch Cedric at it again, but Cedric occupied a different House altogether, curtailing opportunity until the school year was over.
 
That summer, Cedric took to visiting the Burrow regularly after Harry arrived there.  Living nearby, it was just an afternoon's walk or a moment's Apparation.  "Seen more of Diggory in the last three weeks than in the whole time we've lived here," Ron muttered to Harry not long before the school year began again.  "If he was a bird, I'd swear he had a crush on you."

Those words froze Harry where he and Ron sat near the pond.  A crush?  That was . . . ridiculous.  "That's ridiculous.  Ced's a bloke."

"I did notice that, you know."  Ron threw a handful of rocks into the water.  "Doesn't stop him from following you around, yeah?  He's always been a bit of a nancy boy anyway.  Fred and George think he's a poof."

Harry scratched the back of his head, suddenly embarrassed.  Was he a poof too for thinking about Cedric wanking?  "He's all right."

"To you."

"He helped you prep for OWLs all last year, the same as me," Harry pointed out, but Ron just shrugged.  "I don't think he's a poof," Harry added, although he really had no idea how you could tell.  "I just think he felt really badly after the Tournament and is trying to make up for it now, even if it's not his fault."

"He got into Auror academy, did you hear?  Dad told me."

"Yeah, I heard." Harry felt oddly jealous of that, but also glad to know Cedric would be out there fighting Voldemort eventually.
 
But Ron's assessment -- that Cedric had a crush on Harry -- only made Harry's own fantasies that much more vivid, and he caught Cedric wanking for a second time on the day before he was to go back to Hogwarts.
 
Cedric came to visit and say goodbye.  Ron went off to sulk while Hermione scolded him for being silly.  Harry and Cedric went for a stroll down near the river, although it felt strangely awkward and tense, pregnant with something that neither knew how to articulate.  Harry was turning over the twins' theory that Cedric might be gay, but as for what was eating Cedric, Harry had no idea.  Finally, he just asked.  "What's bothering you?"

"Eh?" Startled, Cedric looked over at him and pulled his hands out of his pockets.  "Nothing.  I mean, well, nothing beyond just, you know, I suppose I've got used to seeing a lot of you in the past year.  Now I won't."

"Don't you want to owl back and forth?"

"Of course."

"And I'll see you over holidays, yeah?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay then."

"I suppose . . . never mind, I'm being idiotic."

"No, what?  Tell me."

"I suppose I'm a bit nervous.  Of Auror academy.  I'm not sure what to expect."

"You'll be brilliant."

And Cedric gave a small smile, his cheeks flushing pink.  "Thanks, Harry.  That means a lot, coming from you."

"You will be."  And they talked then of other things until Cedric said his mum would have supper ready and he should go.  Harry slapped his shoulder as Cedric trotted off towards the trees and the little path that led back to his family's place.  Harry waited, watching -- then followed.
 
He couldn't have explained why.  Cedric was probably just going a little way into the trees to Apparate, but Harry followed anyway as if tethered, moving as quietly as he could.  Apparently, Cedric suspected nothing (and he'd have to work on that, if he wanted to stay alive as an Auror) because he never looked back.  About five minutes into the trees, Cedric arrived at a fallen log that he must have known was there as he made straight for it, plopping down, and then laid back.  Staring up through the green branches above, he unzipped his trousers beneath his robes, tugged them a little way down his narrow hips and freed his erection.  He was already hard, which surprised Harry.  Although really, the entire thing startled him.  Whatever he'd said, Cedric clearly hadn't been going home to eat dinner.  Hiding behind an old ash trunk, Harry looked on with amazement, intense curiosity, and almost painful arousal while the other boy rubbed himself.  Without even stopping to consider that he was invading Cedric's privacy or might be caught at it, Harry unzipped his own trousers and reached inside, gripping himself and wanking in rhythm with Cedric's hand, imaging it was Cedric's hand on him, and his on Cedric.
 
The older boy was clearly better at the whole masturbation thing than Harry was, or at least more patient and practiced.  He also wasn't in a hurry.  He drew it out, strokes alternating between slow and leisurely, head turned sideways on the log as if half asleep, then fast and urgent, head thrown back, chin up, lips drawn away from clenched teeth.  Harry tried to keep pace, squeezing and teasing his own prick in the same pattern that Cedric did, a thumb rubbing the slit, slick from pre-ejaculate.  He wanted to groan and hiss, but bit his tongue, keeping as silent as he could.
 
Cedric wasn't silent at all, and maybe that's why he'd come out into the woods to find a bit of privacy.  He moaned and gasped and hissed and grunted with fevered intensity, and once or twice, muttered, "Yessss," and "Ooooh" when he let his long fingers play around the head, circling the flared ridge of purple flesh.  Harry could feel his own balls tighten and the hot flush deep in his groin that meant he couldn't hold it back anymore, so he sped up his own strokes, hips jerking forward into his hand until white semen spurted from the end in little bursts like three sneezes.  He had his eyes squeezed shut and his teeth gritted with the pleasure of it, and so almost missed seeing Cedric climax.  He opened his eyes just in time to witness the other boy thrust up hard, one hand frantically moving, the other cupping his balls as his back arched off the log.  "Ahh!" he shouted, and Harry bit his lower lip so hard he tasted salty iron blood.
 
But what happened next stole Harry's wits entirely.  Eyes closed, Cedric rolled towards him, a look of pure bliss on his face, and murmured:  "Harry."

Frozen with the same kind of shock he'd felt at Ron's assertion that Cedric had a crush on him, Harry just stood there, mouth agape, staring.  He forgot about his semen-sticky hand, his trousers down around his knees, and the fact he was standing in the middle of a little copse of trees where, really, anybody could stumble upon them.  After a minute, he remembered all that, and realized, too, that Cedric himself might open his eyes and spot Harry standing there with his mouth hanging open and his limp prick still in his hand.
 
Jerking back behind the tree again, Harry tried to make himself as thin as the trunk and wished for his invisibility cloak while he tucked himself back into his underpants and pulled up his trousers.  But Cedric didn't notice, apparently cleaning up too, because a few moments later, Harry heard the distinctive crack of somebody Disapparating.  Glancing around the trunk, he found the little clearing quite empty.  Feeling guilty and foolish, but compelled all the same by some emotion he couldn't qualify, Harry stumbled over to the log and ran his hand over the half-stripped bark where Cedric had been lying, as if he could touch the other boy thereby.  It was still a bit warm.
 
He noticed a few drops of white winking in the late afternoon sun that filtered through the branches overhead, and bent down on a knee.  Semen.  Cedric's.  Reaching out, he touched it, half curious, half a bit repulsed.  What was he doing, fingering another boy's jism?  Almost, he lifted his finger to his mouth to taste it, then shivered hard all over and stood abruptly, wiping his hand on his trouser leg with haste.  He ran all the way back to the Burrow and never told a soul.
 
But he had an answer now about Cedric.  He just didn't have an answer about himself.
 
They wrote as promised.  Harry told Cedric all about what was going on at Hogwarts and Cedric told Harry all about Auror training.  They saw each other over the Holidays as promised too -- four times in as many days, much to Ron's annoyance.  It was the day before the day before Christmas that everything changed. 

Harry kissed Cedric.
 
He hadn't meant to.  It just happened.  They'd been outside, Cedric glancing about a bit nervously because dark was coming on and he seemed to think Voldemort or a whole pack of Death Eaters might show up at any moment.  Alastor Moody's admonition of "constant vigilance" was making Cedric overly jumpy, Harry thought.  Or maybe it was something else, because Harry was standing a bit closer to him than normal, and Cedric seemed unable to quite meet Harry's eyes.
 
So Harry kissed him.  No ceremony, he just pulled down Cedric's head, hand around the back of his neck, and kissed him.
 
It was sweet and gentle, lips moving against lips, just a bit of tongue.  Cedric's hands ran through Harry's hair, mussing it even worse than usual, and Harry's ran up and down Cedric's back.  The older boy tasted like the cinnamon coffee he'd been drinking earlier, and oatmeal biscuits, and Harry had real trouble getting enough oxygen.
 
Then Cedric abruptly jerked away, staring at Harry wildly.  "Sorry," he said, as if he -- not Harry -- had been the one to initiate the kiss.  "Just . . . Merlin's beard.  Harry, I'm sorry.  That was completely out of line."

"What?  Cedric -- "

But Cedric backed away five steps, grey eyes wide with something like terror, then twisted and was gone.  Harry didn't know what to think, and being at the Weasleys, he wasn't able to floo Cedric to ask.  He tried writing a letter instead, but Cedric sent it back unopened, a brief note scrawled across it:  Harry, I'm sorry.  What happened shouldn't have happened.  I'm going to leave you alone now.  With affection and respect, Cedric. 

No further owls to Cedric were accepted, and no letters came.  Harry let himself get caught up in the riddle of Tom Riddle and the Horcruxes, and tried to forget about Cedric and kisses and wanking.  But it was the death of Dumbledore that brought closure to it, or so Harry thought.  Cedric was at the funeral along with the other Aurors, dressed in formal red robes, but he stayed far away from where Harry sat beside Ginny, and Harry -- whose confusion and sorrow had turned to irritation and resentment -- made no attempt to talk to him either.  A week later, Harry received an owl.
 
Dear Harry,

First, I must apologise for being so childish and rude earlier this year.  I should've just talked to you instead of running away but, well, I didn't know what to say or do.  It wasn't until seeing you at the funeral that I realised I've been a real prat, but it still took me a week to muster the courage to send this letter.  If you send it back to me like I sent yours back, I wouldn't blame you. 

Six months after Christmas and I'm still not sure what to say except to apologise again for what happened.  At first, all I could think was that you were kissing me and I was getting the Christmas present I'd most wanted.  Then I remembered how much younger you are, so I stopped it before it turned into something else, something you aren't ready for and don't need.  You're normal, can be normal, have a normal life.  I'm not.  You have quite enough to be going on with, I think, without that too.  Stick with Ginny.  She'll be good for you. 

With affection,
Cedric

The letter just made Harry angry at the presumption that Cedric knew what Harry needed better than Harry did.  He didn't write back at all.  He had enough drama in his life without Cedric's melodrama on top of it.  If he wanted to wallow in his self-imposed isolation, let him, as far as Harry was concerned.  That Harry had done something similar to Ginny just a week before didn't cross his mind.
 
Nor did Ginny herself much after that.  It wasn't Ginny who Harry thought about at night.  At almost seventeen with the weight of the whole Wizarding World on his shoulders, tossing off had become more for Harry than just normal adolescent randiness.  It was stress relief, pure and simple.  And it was Cedric who Harry fantasised about most, even though he refused to find out what Cedric was up to these days.  As Cedric had said, Harry had quite enough to be going on with, finding Horcruxes.
 
The search cost him.  Dearly.  He lost Hagrid just a little after Christmas.  Hagrid had taken on thirteen Death Eaters so that Harry, Hermione and Ron could get away.  According to later reports, he'd stood his ground like Leonidas at Thermopylae, holding them off for almost twenty minutes.
 
Then, early in the summer, Hermione was researching in a library in Paris when set upon by Bellatrix Lestrange and Crucioed into near insanity, like Neville's parents.  Harry sat by her bedside in St. Mungo's, willing the sense to return to her eyes, until Viktor Krum hurried to London from Sofia and took Harry's place.  The mediwitches said that if anything could bring her back, it would be devotion like that.  Harry suspected that he and Ron needed Hermione more than Hermione needed them, so guilty but driven, the two of them left her in Viktor's quiet care and went on.  It was three months before Harry stopped turning to say something to her, only to remember she wasn't at his right hand any more.
 
There were other deaths, of people Harry knew and people he didn't, but none hurt like the loss of Ron.  His closest friend for eight years, his treasure during the Tournament, and the one steadfast certainty in his life, Ron was his brother in every way that mattered and it didn't seem right that he'd die by accident.  Heroes deserved a heroic death, like Hagrid or Dumbledore.  Ron died from friendly fire, struck down by a stray hex even as the Death Eaters were retreating.  Harry never found out who'd cast the hex and didn't want to know because he'd not be able to rise above hating him or her.  So he didn't ask.  And nobody told him.  Ron was buried beside George and their ancestors in a graveyard outside Ottery-St.-Catchpole a little over a year and a half after Dumbledore had been laid to rest on Hogwart's grounds.
 
Harry saw Cedric at that funeral too.  Funerals seemed to be the only time they ever saw each other anymore.  As usual, they kept their distance and all Harry could remember was how Cedric had used to make Ron jealous.  Talking to him at Ron's funeral seemed . . . disrespectful.
 
Hermione was there as well, sitting up in a wheelchair, wrapped in blankets and looking as wan as a sprite, Viktor hovering protectively.  She didn't speak much, but she was there, and hugged Harry.  Then Viktor took her back to St. Mungo's.
 
And for the first time since he'd been eleven, Harry found himself alone.
 
Not literally.  There were Order members to support him, and other friends, but without Sirius or Dumbledore or Hagrid, Hermione or Ron, he was stripped back to just himself.  Vulnerable.
 
Or so he thought.
 
He became aware that he had a stalker shadowing him about four months after he'd buried Ron.  At first, he wasn't sure whether the person was a Death Eater on the hunt, or somebody from the Order assigned to look after him.  Whichever of those it might be, his first instinct was to lose the person.  He'd had quite enough of being watched without his consent back before his fifth year.
 
Losing his shadow proved impossible, however.  The person was far too good at what he did and stuck like a burr, but Harry became increasingly convinced that whoever it was meant him no harm or he'd have made an attempt on Harry's life by now.  So Harry kept up his search for the final Horcruxes and essayed occasional, half-hearted attempts to duck his shadow that never succeeded.
 
Eight months after the passing of Ron, Harry stopped trying to evade whoever was following him.  His shadow had become an odd friend, familiar if never seen.  Instead, Harry began to leave notes that amounted to variations on:  You could just come out of the shadows and share a pint.
 
Which were invariably answered by:  I don't drink on the job.
 
Christmas was nearing and the anniversary of Ron's death, and Harry was nineteen with one last Horcrux to find when he finally decided enough was enough.  He owled Kingsley Shacklebolt, asking him to come to the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade on the day before the day before Christmas.  Kingsley arrived around noon and Madam Rosmerta showed him upstairs to the room where Harry was hiding.  "Harry Potter! This is the first we've heard from you in months."

Harry's smile was wry.  "No, I suspect you've known where I've been all along.  Getting regular reports from whoever you assigned to follow me?"

Shacklebolt's expression showed surprise.  "There's somebody following you?"

Harry held up one of the notes.  "I don't know who this is, but I'd like to meet him finally.  Or her."

Puzzled, a frown on his dark face, Shacklebolt took the note written in neat block script and scanned it quickly.  "I don't know, Harry.  It's not a member of the Order."

"Don't lie -- "

"I'm not," Shacklebolt said, handing the note back.  "We haven't assigned anybody to track you."

"Then the Aurors -- "

"If so, I don't know about it."

"You're not lying?"

"No, Harry, I'm not.  I can't be sure it's not somebody Robards put on special assignment, but I don't know of anybody.  Are you certain it's not one of You-Know-Who's?"

"I don't think so.  If it is, he's taking his time about killing me, wards or no wards.  He sticks like a burr.  Or she does."  Harry narrowed his eyes, then turned over the parchment to write something on the back.  "Do you think you could find whoever it is?"

"I don't know.  If the person's an Auror, using Auror techniques, probably I could."

"And would you agree to stand guard on me tonight?  Here in Hogsmeade?"

"I suppose."

"Good."  Harry finished his note and handed it to Kingsley.  "Then please give this to whoever is following me."

His note read:  Tonight you're off duty.  Shacklebolt is on.  How about that pint?
 
Six in the evening came and went and the pub below filled.  Harry waited in his room, listening to the sound of patrons laughing and talking, and the music of a flute playing Christmas carols.  He feared his gambit might be futile, and whoever it was owed allegiance elsewhere with techniques Shacklebolt didn't know.  But finally, a little after seven the door opened without a knock and Harry leapt to his feet, wand out, half expecting Shacklebolt admitting defeat.
 
Instead he found himself facing Cedric Diggory.  "It's you," he said, startled.  He hadn't expected Cedric.  Tonks, or maybe Moody, but never Cedric.  "Did Robards assign you to me?"

"I assigned myself.  I'm not an Auror, not formally; I left training after Ron was killed."  And he certainly wasn't wearing the red, although on assignment, red robes might have been a bit . . . conspicuous.  He shrugged and came over to the little table set near the bed, plopping down and propping his feet up on another chair, looking utterly relaxed.  Yet Harry suspected he'd be on his feet in an instant with wand drawn if any danger presented.  "You needed somebody to watch your back."

"So why the bloody hell have you been lurking in the shadows?  Isn't that a bit silly?"

"I didn't think you'd really want to see me."

Cedric had a point.  Harry wasn't sure he would have.  "Why change your mind now?"

"I dunno.  Bad judgement?  The fact you took the trouble of calling in Shacklebolt to find me?  The fact I'd really like a pint?  The fact it's almost Christmas?"

Harry crossed the small room to look down at him.  He was still beautiful with his wide, clear grey eyes, but not so feminine.  His jaw and mouth wore a hard line these days and there was a scar on his neck that ran from under his left ear across his collarbone to disappear beneath his robes.  But his dark hair still looked soft.  Harry ran a hand into it.  "Don't tell me who to love.  It pisses me off.  And don't tell me I should be normal; I haven't been normal since Voldemort killed my parents and I became the Boy Who Lived."

"What about Ginny?" But Cedric hadn't drawn away and Harry continued to ruffle his hair.
 
"What about her?  I had a crush on her when I was sixteen."

"And you're so much older now?" Cedric sounded amused, but his eyes had drifted shut like a cat content to be petted.
 
"Sixteen feels like a lifetime ago.  I've killed people since then."

The grey eyes snapped open.  "I know.  So have I."

Harry's fingers trailed down to the scar.  "Who gave you that?"

"Rodolphus Lestrange, I think.  Or it might have been Antonin Dolohov.  I was fighting both of them at the time so I'm not entirely certain."

Harry remembered the vicious curse that had struck Hermione in the Department of Mysteries so long ago now.  "Was it purple?"

Cedric's eyebrows went up.  "Yes, actually, it was."

"Dolohov then." Harry's fingers trailed back up Cedric's neck to touch his pulse beating under the smooth skin of his throat.  It ran fast, and that was all Harry needed to know.  Tangling fingers in the hair at the base of Cedric's neck, he tugged.
 
"Ow."

Harry kept tugging until Cedric rose to his feet.
 
And so Harry kissed Cedric for the second time exactly three years after he had the first.  But this wasn't sweet or tender.  It was hard and hungry and angry, and their hands didn't stroke or caress skin, they pulled hair and yanked at robe buttons and belts and trouser zips.  "You're sure about this?" Cedric asked as he removed Harry's glasses and Harry pushed him backwards towards the bed.
 
"Shut up, Cedric."

After that, they didn't talk.  Their hands were insistent down the front of underpants, gripping pricks because they couldn't get rid of their clothing fast enough.  Cedric's hand on Harry wasn't especially gentle and Harry didn't want it to be.  He needed this, a passion strong enough to beat the grief and isolation out of him, make him feel something, make his heart beat faster, make him live.  And for a few minutes, it was all about the fast slide of palms over engorged flesh, up and down, up and down, and the bright streaks of ecstasy like falling stars behind Harry's closed eyelids.  His mouth was open and pressed to Cedric's but they didn't kiss, mostly just breathed each other as Cedric's body weighed his down into the mattress.
 
This was better than wanking, even though Cedric's rhythm wasn't quite as fast as Harry might have liked and he sometimes paused at the wrong moment.  But it was better because the exact nature of Cedric's touch came unanticipated, more arousing for the startle, and Cedric's little noises of intense lust sent flutters all through Harry's chest and belly and groin.  He relished the feel of Cedric's erection in his grip, spongy and hot and soft on the surface like doeskin.  It stiffened further as the insistent pound of Harry's hand pushed him closer to the edge even as Harry felt himself pushed that way too.  "Faster," he breathed, grunting as Cedric obeyed, his hand almost frantic with speed.  Then Harry felt it start, the warm rush from his balls through the length of his prick and the sharp spike of orgasm like an arrow to the spine.  Cedric squeezed so hard it almost hurt as Harry spurted against his fingers, groaning wild in his throat and Cedric followed him over the brink, his hips pushing against Harry's abdomen, his semen coating Harry's skin.
 
They both kept stroking a little to finish, then their hands stilled.  Cedric's forehead dropped against Harry's half-bare shoulder.  Harry felt boneless, and hot and sweaty despite the December cold.  Their clothes were all twisted around in uncomfortable ways and their hands were sticky.  "You're on top," Harry murmured against Cedric's hair.  "You get the loo first."

Cedric grunted and rolled off Harry to sit up.  His trousers were around his ankles and his robe pushed up to his waist.  He divested himself of both and went to the toilet in his underpants, socks and a t-shirt.  Harry watched through half-closed lids, getting out of his own clothing and leaving them in a pile on the floor beside Cedric's.  When Cedric was done, they traded places, and when Harry emerged, naked now, Cedric had the sheets down and was waiting, lamps out and only the fireplace burning.  Harry hurried over the wooden floor and dived in beside Cedric.  They still didn't talk about anything that mattered, just low murmurs, their kisses gentle now and a bit sleepy, fingers tender on skin and hair.  Harry no longer felt alone, but he supposed he hadn't been before.  Cedric had been there all along. 
He wasn't sure when he fell asleep but he woke on Christmas Eve morning, spooned back against Cedric's front, bare skin on bare, his head on Cedric's arm and Cedric's other arm around his waist.  Cedric was snoring and Harry smiled, warm and sleepy still.  He let his hand slide back to stroke up and down Cedric's thigh so that Cedric woke slowly, snore ceasing and arms tightening around Harry, nuzzling the back of Harry's neck.  "Don't want to get up."

"Then don't."

"Got to piss."

They took turns as they had the night before, each warming the other's cold flesh when they returned to bed, and Harry twisted to lay with his back to Cedric's front again.  "You know," he said conversationally as Cedric ran a thumb along his spine, "It's a lot easier to watch my back if you're sleeping against it."

Cedric's hand stilled a moment, then resumed it's slow motion up and down.  "People would talk."

"They've talked about me since I was eleven -- even before, I suppose, I just didn't know it.  I don't care if you don't care."

Cedric's hand moved from Harry's spine down around his waist again, tightening protectively.  "I could get used to this spot."

"And I could get used to you in it," Harry replied.
 
It was another seven months and Voldemort dead for three of them, the summer warm and languid and Harry turned 20 before the Big Three Words were uttered.  For once, it was Cedric who took the lead.  "I love you."  They were lying by the river not far from the Diggory property, Harry's head on Cedric's stomach, dressed in swimming trunks and drying in the sun after a dip.
 
"I know," Harry replied, not bothering to open his eyes, just turning his head so that his cheek lay against Cedric's bare skin.
 
"And?" Cedric prompted.
 
"And what?"

Harry felt Cedric shift and opened his eyes to see him propped up on his elbows, looking down the length of his torso at Harry.  "And?  Is it one-sided?"

"Of course not," Harry replied, a little amused at the expression of annoyance on Cedric's face.  "I've loved you a long time."

"Why didn't you ever say so then?"

"I reckoned you knew."

"It's taken me months to screw up the courage to say those words."

Harry sat up so he could look down at Cedric.  "I didn't need to hear them to know."

"How did you know?"

Harry ran the back of his hand down Cedric's sternum.  "Wank for me."

"What?"

"I want to watch you."

"Harry, we're sort of in a public place."

"But nobody's around, nor likely to be.  I want to watch you."

Cedric breathed out heavily, nostrils flaring, but then he shook his head and untied the inside of his trunks.  Harry knew Cedric had a hard time refusing what he wanted, then he held his breath as Cedric pushed his trunks down over his hips and arse, his prick half hard.  Harry touched it, fingers wrapping around it and moving the loose skin up and down, sliding the foreskin back from the head.  Cedric's chin was pointed at the sky as he lay in the grass and pumped into Harry's hand.  After a moment, he muttered, "I thought you wanted me to do that."

"I do."  Harry let him go, moving his hand to grip his own erection through the loose trunks.
 
Cedric wrapped his hand around his prick, summer-brown fingers still a pale contrast to blood-dark skin.  He watched Harry watching him, his pace lazy, his grip loose, just thumb and forefinger making an O around the shaft.  After a moment, he said, "Take off your trunks too."

Impatient, Harry did so, then his hand went back to himself, moving in time with Cedric.  He felt even hotter than the day had been, his skin tingling, his tongue pinched between his teeth and lips a little open.  Cedric's own mouth was open too, his breath growing heavy, his pupils so dilated only a small ring of grey was left despite the bright sun.  Harry's eyes moved from Cedric wanking to Cedric's flushed face.  His pace sped up; so did Cedric's.  "Yes," he muttered.  "Faster.  Yes."

Cedric's free hand drifted from where it had lain limp on the grass to caress Harry's thigh then up over his hip.  Needing to shift, Harry stretched out beside Cedric, head on a level with Cedric's pelvis so he could see better without his glasses.  Cedric's prick was very rigid now, the big vein on the underside standing out, and his motion had grown jerky.  So had Harry's; he knew Cedric was watching him too, and this was the most open he'd ever been.  With anybody.
 
Cedric rolled sideways, arm still moving, the other hand cupping his balls and rolling them.  He was making little whines and groans, his thumb shifting so it could strike the head on each upstroke, rub over the slit in the end.  His other hand moved to the base of his cock, gripping to prolong his pleasure and his fist took on an odd rhythm of down and up, down and up, pause, down and up, down and up, pause.  Harry matched it.  He was so close.  He could feel the need to come burning in his groin and curling low in his belly, all his muscles clenching and his toes curling.  "I can't hold it," he gritted out.
 
"Oh, fuck," Cedric muttered in reply as his hips jerked, his hand closing over his cock head.  He groaned.  Loudly.  Harry came too, eyes narrow but not closing.  He didn't want to miss anything, even the slowing of Cedric's hand on himself.
 
When they were finished, they lay panting a while before Cedric Vanished the mess and they pulled up their trunks.  Then Harry sat and shifted, lying down again face-to-face with Cedric.  They didn't touch, just looked at each other.
 
"That's how I know you love me," Harry said finally.
 
"Because I'll wank for you?"

"Yes."  He didn't know how to explain what that meant to him that Cedric would make himself vulnerable like that, and he couldn't quite meet Cedric's eyes, stared at his bare chest instead and ran fingers through the light brown hair there.  "You wouldn't let me watch if you didn't really love me."

Cedric scooted closer and pulled Harry to him.  "You let me watch you too."

"Yeah, I do."

"I reckon that should tell me something?"

"I reckon it should," Harry replied, stretching out so Cedric could lay his head on Harry's shoulder.  Then they dozed together in the sun.
 

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