WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

"You don't know," he said. "Nothing is the same any more."

"Tell me," I said.

And he did. I listened to his quiet, toneless voice in the darkness, as he recounted the things that had been done to him. Dumbledore had told us some things, of course, Hermione and me, and really, it was not all that difficult to figure what had happened. You-Know-W-- Voldemort had wanted to get his magic at first, before killing him, that was why he'd kept him alive for so long.

Harry's voice had been screamed hoarse and his eyes red with burst blood vessels when the Aurors had found him. I knew about 'Crucio' and other spells and hexes that had been used on him. Was it stupid of me not to think there could be, had to be *more*?

He was silent and pale when he got out of the infirmary, but I thought it was normal, after everything he'd been through. We were with him, we his friends, and finally everything had to work out. I believed in it - even though he flinched every time when someone touched him... even though his eyes got that haunted look when he saw someone touching in his presence, like Hermione and me holding hands.

I thought he'd get over it. Everything would be okay, eventually.

Tonight, he came to my bed and slid under the blanket, his bare feet icy but the rest of his body burning. I didn't ask anything, just moved aside making some room for him. Hermione might have been right: I'm not a particularly deep person. But for Harry I always wanted to be here; whether he needed to talk or to be silent.

He told me everything. How they pulled his legs apart, held him down, how their hands touched him everywhere and he couldn't do a thing to prevent it. He told me about them entering him, one after another, until he lost count even though he couldn't lose consciousness. He told me he didn't know how many of them had taken him, the first time and later, when he had been on his hands and knees. He told me what they had made him do and what they had put into him.

I didn't want to hear it. My sweaty hands clenched on the sheet as he was talking, and I gnawed my lower lip not to say anything, not to interrupt him. I didn't want to know about it. I knew such things happened, of course I knew; but it was wrong that they could be done to someone so close to me. To him.

I wanted him to stop but he was my friend, and if he needed to talk, I was ready to listen. And in the end he added, nearly inaudibly, in the same dead, dull voice:

"But after a while... not everything of it was pain."

He was just in inches away from me, under the same blanket - I could feel his long, skinny body so close - he'd grown up a lot during last summer and became even thinner. I could feel how he lay there, very still, his arms at his sides, not touching me. In the darkness I saw the faint glimmer of his eyes, eyelids falling and rising, as he looked at the ceiling above him.

He was Harry; my best friend. Everything about him was so familiar; his closeness had always been so comfortable. I couldn't let things change just because of what they had done to him.

It would mean hurting him more, and I didn't want him to be hurt.

"Do you hate me?" he asked, and there was a small chuckle in his voice, a mirthless one. In silence I reached out to touch his face, his slightly parted lips.

His mouth was soft and warm and his breath a little moist, and I heard him gasp, a sound almost like a sob, and then it felt as if he stopped breathing entirely, so quiet he became.

I ran my fingers over his lips and a little bit over his cheek, nearly as if patting a cat.

"No," I said, "I will never hate you."

He turned his head and pressed his cheek to my palm, and his skin was so hot, and the glimmering of his eyes was almost feverish.

"Then will you help me, Ron?" he asked. "Please. Please."

"Yes," I said.

His hand rose, reached to me, traveled over my chest and lower, under my pajama jacket; his fingers were freezing cold, and I shivered, and he stopped, and I said again:

"Yes, Harry."

I touched him too; his chest was hard, his belly smooth and warm, moving faintly with the shallow breaths he took. I stroked him, traced the hard line of his hipbone and the soft warm place where his thigh joined the pelvis. He moved his legs apart and I felt wispy curls in his groin under my fingers.

He felt - kind of wrong: flat-chested, and he didn't have any curves, and I could feel slight down covering his thighs. But he was my friend. I moved my hand a little, finding the hot, silky column of his cock.

He moaned through his clenched teeth, and his hands, much more decisive than mine, curled around my straining shaft.

It was good; so good that I stopped thinking about anything else for a time being. Better than touching myself; better than almost anything else. My head was swimming and my limbs growing weak; all I could do was lie and take it, but it didn't matter because Harry did everything. And when he straddled my hips and lowered himself onto my cock, swiftly, boldly, I only gasped and writhed, my body arching - towards him, trying to enter him deeper, as deep as possible. And he seemed to want the same thing, his motions harsh and nearly violent as he slammed down on me.

He didn't make a sound, just gasped once, when coming. And I bit my palm, hushing my shriek as I climaxed.

I wrapped my arms around him after that, and he lay against my chest, and I felt his heaving ribcage moving against mine. His wet, hot face was pressed against my neck, and his tears trickled into the hollow over my collarbone, getting cold there. He cried and I stroked his face, feeling his fluttering eyelids and the burning, swollen line of his scar.

"I'm sorry," he said, he voice thick and husky and, strangely, more alive than it had been in ages. He sniffed, and I felt him move away from me a little. "I shouldn't have. You and Hermione... you won't say anything to her, will you? I don't want to spoil anything for you."

"All right," I said tightening my arms around him for a moment, before letting him go. "I won't tell her anything."

He turned on his side, facing me, and I sensed more than saw how he put his palm under his cheek and closed his eyes.

"I'll just stay here for a little while, okay?" he muttered.

"Sure," I said and heard him sigh. And as I listened to his breath getting steady and quiet, I thought that it had been the right thing to do, everything of it.

He was my friend, and I would always be here when he needed me.

THE END