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After everything, Harry doesn’t know where to go.
Scratch that.
‘After’ is a relative concept. There is no ‘after’ when it comes to this type of war, one that has its roots so deep in the soil of a society. It lingers and festers and needs to be drained over time, like an abscess. There are still Death Eaters and bad actors roaming free, terrorising innocent people. There are still more people who are neither good nor bad in the traditional, black-and-white sense– those who sat quietly as people were taken from their beds or those that felt they had no choice but to collaborate. Then there’s all the people that fought and suffered and won, but that feel so broken by the path to victory that they’ve been set adrift by its arrival.
So, to be specific, Harry doesn’t know where to sleep once he leaves St. Mungo’s three days after he reduced Voldemort to a very unspectacular pile of ash.
It’s the middle of the night, almost gone three, and Harry is grateful for it. Otherwise, stepping through the Disillusioned storefront that hides the magical hospital might have meant being mobbed by any lingering witches and wizards waiting on news of loved ones.
With the late hour, though, the halls had been deserted when he walked through, just as the rest of London is outside. Or, not deserted, but populated almost entirely by a few stray Muggles. Cab drives and shift workers, mostly, and the occasional nightlife enjoyer. In short, no one who looks at Harry, brittle and haggard, twice.
For lack of a better plan, he starts walking. He considers Apparating to 12 Grimmauld Place, but the very thought turns his stomach. It had been hard enough to be there before their little camping trip. Now, with Remus dead, Sirius’ ghostly echo, reverberating off a singed tapestry and whispering underneath the screeches of Walburga, would send Harry spiralling.
He could go to another Order member’s house. A quick Patronus to Kingsley would get him access to a safehouse where he could crash. Harry has to acknowledge, though reluctantly, that being alone would do him no favours right now.
The Burrow, maybe? There would be plenty of company, what with the three eldest Weasley boys staying there for a while, in addition to Ginny. Not to mention Ron and Hermione, although they’d be leaving as soon as they can procure a Portkey to Brisbane.
But as soon as Harry considers it, he dismisses it. He’d been able to convince the head healer to release him with some well-spun lies, but he isn’t confident that he could Apparate to Devon with how weak he still feels. Flooing into the kitchen in the middle of the night would get him more attention than he wants, as well.
Either way, the idea of being at the Burrow for the first time since the night of Bill and Fleur’s wedding is also weighed down with complicated feelings. A place he used to cherish as being safe and homely, turned into a nightmarish battlefield of fire and curses not once but twice. He hates that this War has had the ability to taint something that, to Harry, borders on sacred.
Neville? No, his Gran’s place is even further than the Burrow. Luna? Harry shudders at the thought of having to be in close proximity to Xenophilius so soon, so that’s out. He flips through a few more friends and runs up against just as many reasons not to as the previous ideas.
So, there’s really only one option. Harry’s feet must have known it, too, since they’ve been guiding him closer and closer to the Leaky Cauldron and the entrance to Diagon Alley with every shuffling step.
Once he acknowledges where he’s heading to himself, it’s like his body remembers how exhausted he is. On shaking legs, Harry rounds the corner into the nearest alley. It takes longer than he’d like to admit to feel steady enough to Apparate. Harry pours his last bit of energy into picturing a vividly purple and orange storefront, lit up with fireworks and identical smiles, and twists into thin air.
~☆☆☆~
In Harry’s fifth year, there had been many nights when he couldn’t sleep. Nightmares– some of them visions, which he’s all too aware of now– insomnia, anxiety, grief, pain… procrastinated homework assignments; there had been countless reasons to find himself awake and in the Gryffindor common room at some unholy hour.
Some of those nights, Harry wasn’t alone.
Fred and George had always been late to bed and late to rise for as long as Harry had known them– constantly skidding into breakfast at the last second and impossible to get out of bed before 10 AM during the summer holiday. So, the first night back at Hogwarts during that horrible year after that horrible summer, Harry hadn’t been overly surprised to find the twins awake and hunched over parchment on their favourite sofa near the crackling fire.
He’d been a mess of grief and angst and rage– some seeping through from his connection to Voldemort, but the rest was all Harry. The twins never held it against him though, not at Grimmauld and not on that first sleepless night.
Instead, they’d shifted over enough that Harry could sit next to George, curled up on the last cushion. At first, Fred had joked about late night trysts and George had slung an arm around Harry’s shoulder as he piled onto the ribbing. It was all Harry could do to stay quiet and scowl, rather than snap like he’d been doing to anyone in his vicinity since his trial.
Failing to get a laugh, Fred’s teasing grin had slipped into something a little gentler and George had tightened his hold just slightly before pulling back. They’d gone back to their planning, something about bottled weather enchantments, and left Harry to stew.
But not to stew in silence.
They’d switched from the quiet murmur that Harry had heard coming down the dorm stairs, to something just a bit louder. It was subtle– a shift of parchment, a tiny repositioning so that both twins were turned toward him. They asked a few yes or no questions, ones that Harry knew weren’t for either of their benefit.
It was inclusion. Fred and George, notoriously insulated against outsiders– except, maybe, Lee Jordan– were including Harry.
Harry, hazy with exhaustion and impotent anger, had felt the warmth of genuine and untainted happiness for the first time since Cedric’s body dropped to the cold ground in Little Hangleton.
That was only the first night, and it set the tone for many more to come. At first, Harry would just sit quietly, soaking up company that didn’t expect him to contribute or craft a more personable facade. Eventually, he started answering those simple questions, giving his opinion on little things. Then, he joined the brainstorming in earnest, often fueled by the throbbing in his hand and a shared hatred for Umbridge. The twins were leagues ahead of him in terms of potions knowledge and transfiguration prowess, but Harry loved the times when he suggested an application for one charm or another that they hadn’t thought of.
It helped that both the pleased laugh his contributions got from Fred and the celebratory clap on the shoulder from George made Harry’s insides feel like he’d swallowed a Dr. Filibuster’s.
And it had been that simple. George’s tactile warmth and Fred’s easy humour had made even life under Umbridge’s reign viable, if not particularly enviable. Fred’s barbed wit and George’s dry observations made him laugh, loud enough that he sometimes worried about waking up their classmates that slept above. There was also the fact that neither twin ever acknowledged the nights when Harry managed to fall asleep; those nights when he woke from a nightmare to strong arms wrapped around his shoulders; those nights that he inexplicably found himself tucked into his dorm four-poster come morning with no knowledge of how he got there. Harry got more sleep curled on the sofa to the right of the common room fireplace with Fred and George than he did in his own bed, and they seemed only too happy to let him doze off in their company.
By the time the twins left in a blaze of liberated brooms and explosions, Harry couldn’t deny it anymore. What was awe of the older boys in second year, gratitude in third, an unacknowledged crush in fourth, was perilously close to something a bit more ‘L’-shaped by the end of fifth. With every subsequent little moment leading up to what would have been his seventh year and beyond– standing awed in the shop his Galleons helped fund, dancing at Bill’s wedding with exaggerated twirls, Potterwatch, and their wands at his back during the Battle for Hogwarts– there was no doubt.
Harry Potter was in love with both Weasley twins.
Thank Godric they didn’t know it.
~☆☆☆~
Harry’s aim could have been better.
The doorknob of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ side door digs unforgivingly into his ribs. Luckily, his sloppy Apparating job hadn’t landed him with the doorknob in his ribs, so he shouldn’t really complain. He tries to right himself from his current slump, then gives up and focuses on raising his arm enough to reach the knocker.
His fingers are just grazing the door when it swings inward, almost sending Harry sprawling.
“Hey, wait! Fred, it could be anyb– Blimey, Harry!” George’s reprimanding concern towards his twin skyrockets into panic at however Harry must look, washed ashore on their doorstep. Harry raises his head to smile reassuringly. He fails, obviously, as the twin faces looking back at him blanch even paler than normal.
“Hi,” is Harry’s brilliant greeting, before he promptly begins to sag.
“Fuck!” Wiry arms catch him before his knees can hit the ground, easily taking his weight and moving him as gently as possible across the threshold. Once in, he feels the hold shift, his weight being redistributed so that he’s being carried more than dragged. “George, clear the– yeah, perfect.”
The cushions of the twins’ worn sofa hit the back of his legs, and Harry sinks gratefully into it. He releases a breath he feels like he’s been holding since obtaining the discharge order from Mungo’s, sinking a little deeper as his body tries to relax.
Without the added effort of trying to pilot his limbs, he’s able to take stock of both men crowded around him. Fred, still hunched over him after carrying him over, is wide-eyed and looks convinced he’s going to up and faint dead away. Behind him, George looks just as concerned, craning his neck around his twin from his perch on the table in front of the sofa to give Harry a thorough once-over.
“Not that we aren’t thrilled to have you, mate, but I thought Healer Myndle wasn’t springing you until midday tomorrow, at the earliest,” George says, the question underlying the observation clear.
“I distinctly remember the ‘at the earliest’ part having particular emphasis placed on it,” Fred agrees. “Are we harbouring a fugitive?”
“Depends on if the Ministry has updated my status of being Undesirable No. 1,” Harry quips tiredly, earning narrowed eyes from both twins. He sighs. “No, I’m free and clear. I was able to convince the night staff that I could be released to my own recognisance, or whatever. I just had to promise to take an entire apothecary’s worth of nutrition and hydration potions for the next week or so.”
He punctuates this by gesturing to the discrete paper bag George had laid on the table, charmed to be light and big enough inside to house the literal stockroom’s supply of potions that were pushed onto him before he was discharged.
Fred seems to accept his explanation easily, tension bleeding out of him as he shifts to sit back on his own cushion. George, however, still has a bemused crease between his brows.
“So… you did sneak out, just through official channels. Mum is going to skin you alive.”
“Your mum isn’t going to know I’m gone until tomorrow, so I don’t have to worry about that now.” Harry grimaces at the thought. “It took my entire healer team and Hermione to convince her to leave before midnight today.”
“So what you’re saying,” Fred says with a knowing grin, “is that Mum left at 11:55 and you immediately campaigned to go into hiding.”
“Spot on,” Harry confirms, only partially joking. Molly had been with him at almost all hours since Pomfrey had insisted he, Hermione, and Ron get looked at properly. It helped that Percy had been in hospital for a day after the battle, waiting for the bones in his right leg to be fully set after his run-in with a castle wall and the hasty, field-administered Brackium Emendos that followed.
Unsurprisingly, Harry had been the worst affected by their time with little food and too much Horcrux handling, although Hermione was only slightly better off. Harry put it down to stubbornness on her part, and a childhood of malnutrition and stunted growth on his own. Of course, any sign that Harry was too skinny had always been cataclysmic to Molly Weasley, and she had been particularly high-touch after the events of the Battle– and the past year, all told. Harry had, much to his chagrin, borne the brunt of it.
Molly hadn’t been the only one hovering. Once discharged themselves, Ron and Hermione were around constantly, when they weren’t harassing the Ministry for an international Portkey. The rest of the Weasleys and a few of their friends had been in and out, including Fred and George. The twins had been around almost as much as Ron and Hermione, which Harry had been quietly pleased by.
Andromeda had visited a few times. With little Teddy. Not too much, though, what with the funeral preparations.
The grief and fatigue hit Harry like a blasting curse, any good feelings he gained by being in the presence of Fred and George sucked out of him in an instant. He closes his eyes against the onslaught. Remus. Tonks. Lavender, little Colin Creevey. Snape. So many others. Harry feels heavy, like the combined weight of the dead is resting on his limbs and chest, crushing him into the sofa, making him sink–
“Budge over,” comes a far too gentle voice from in front of him. Before Harry can question why he’d need to or explain that he isn’t sure he could ever move again, he feels Fred pull him forward.
The move creates just enough space that George can slide into the gap, arms immediately encircling Harry’s waist as Fred does the same over his shoulders from the other side. Harry lets the weight of grief and guilt press him into their bodies, greedily accepting the comfort their touch brings him. It’s not enough, yet, to beat out all the bad, but it’s the closest he thinks he’ll get for a long time.
They sit in silence for a few minutes. The one great thing about being so exhausted, Harry thinks, is that he doesn't even have energy to spare to cry. Otherwise, he knows he’d have been tearing up at the first touch of their familiar arms around him.
Quietly, as if he’s afraid of startling Harry, George asks, “Why are you here, Harry?”
Coming from anyone else, that question would have stung like a slap. But Harry knows what George means to ask is why he’s here, specifically, in their flat rather than anywhere else; it’s not a why are you here that’s actually a thinly veiled we don’t want you here. They do want him there, Harry is sure, if the tightening of Fred’s hold and the gentle press of George’s forehead to the side of his head are any indicators.
Harry thinks for a minute. He could say so many things– that he can’t be alone, that he didn’t know where else to go. That theirs was the first place he thought of and that he couldn’t talk himself out of staying away. That he doesn’t really have a home, maybe never has. That they feel like home and have for longer than he wants to admit.
Instead, he simply says, “I needed somewhere to sleep.”
Harry’s eyes are still closed, but he can almost feel the warmth of their smiles. Fred chuckles a little and jokes, “Ah, I knew those advertisements for Gred and Forge’s B&B that we sneaked into The Prophet were worth the fee.”
“Our famous hospitality is at your disposal.” Harry tries not to shiver as George’s breath brushes against his ear.
“Will you be booking any spa treatments?”
“Mani-pedi, perhaps?”
“Massage? I’ve been told my hands are both devious and clever.” Fred’s offer sounds completely sincere. Harry wills down a blush.
“Oh, and for breakfast–” George starts.
“–we can do a full spread–”
“– with freshly squeezed pumpkin juice.”
“Squeezed by my own bare hands, if you can believe it.”
George snorts. “No, Freddie, I don’t think Harry is out of it enough to believe that.”
Harry cracks his eyes open just enough to catch Fred opening his mouth to continue the banter. He loves listening to them bounce back and forth, but right now, his brain is having trouble keeping track of the conversation and he’s in danger of falling asleep right there on George’s shoulder.
“Just sleep, for now.” And damn if he doesn’t sound as tired as he feels. Fred nods, playfulness softening into something kind, before glancing at George over Harry’s shoulder. Some type of communication passes between them in the silence.
“You can have our room,” George says, and Harry almost protests when he withdraws and shifts to stand. Fred follows suit, wandering off through an open door down the hall.
Harry does protest when what he’s being offered sinks in. “No, I couldn’t take your room. I'll take the sofa, I don’t want to kick either of you out.”
“You’re not kicking us out,” George reassures. Harry shoots him a skeptical look, and the taller man looks down at him, scratching absently behind his remaining ear. Harry blinks a few times, able to count on one hand the number of times he’s seen either Fred or George embarrassed.
“We, uh… well, the bedroom hasn’t seen a lot of sleeping since, y'know, Saturday. Bunch of Death Eaters throwing Killing Curses at all your friends and loved ones tends to make sleep a little… untenable.”
George glances to the side, and that’s when Harry notices the pile of pillows and blankets that must have been hastily shoved off the sofa, the empty glasses and plates littering the table, the sheets of loose parchment and prototypes strewn across the space underneath it. They had been suspiciously awake for Harry's 3 AM drop-by.
“We’ve mostly been on the sofa since the Battle. It’s… just easier to fall asleep together out here instead of separately in there.” George motions back to the bedroom where Fred can be heard rifling around. “He– I– You saw it. The wall.”
Harry doesn’t need George to elaborate. His heart had almost stopped when the castle wall had crumbled, missing Fred’s head by mere centimetres and catching Percy’s leg under a few pieces of rubble. He can’t imagine what George felt at that moment. Staying close on the sofa seems like the most reasonable thing in the world to Harry.
He only wishes he could stay with them.
“I– Can I kip out here, then? I know there’s not much space, and I don’t want to impose or–”
Fred cuts him off, reappearing in the bedroom door. “Mate, we’d normally say yes. But you look like a stiff breeze might take you out.” He gives Harry a conciliatory grimace. “I think you need a real bed.”
Harry wants to protest, but… they’re right. He hasn’t slept in a real bed– not a cot, or the ground, or a hospital bed– since Shell Cottage. Before that, it had been months.
Waving his hand at Fred in reluctant agreement, he starts to lever himself off the sofa. Halfway up, he goes lightheaded, only saved from an embarrassing return to sitting by George’s hand under his elbow.
“Time for one or two of those potions, then bed?” George asks. Harry nods, a little disgruntled at feeling like an invalid but not up to stomping his foot about it.
A few short minutes and three truly revolting potions gulped down finds him standing in the twins’ bedroom. Two twin beds– ironic, Harry thinks– are pushed into opposite sides of the room. On sight, he can tell that the right side is George’s and the left is Fred’s. The piles of socks and other clothing spilling out from under the bed on the left give it away, as does the dark green of the bedspread on the right. It had always been a point of contention that George’s favourite colour is green, and Fred is notoriously something of a slob.
“Take your pick, but I do recommend George’s, if only for his fancy, billion thread count sheets.”
Squeezing in around his brother, George rolls his eyes and corrects, “They have a 400 thread count, you numpty, which is fairly normal. It’s not my fault you like your scratchy sheets.”
“Whatever, I still say you’re a diva for special ordering them. But Harry may as well benefit from your sensitive constitution.”
George scoffs but drops it. Both twins turn towards Harry expectantly.
All of a sudden, Harry feels like the worst thing that could happen is for him to pick a bed and have the twins leave him in this room, in the dark, alone.
“I can’t–” He cuts himself off and decides on a white lie. “I don’t know if I can actually sleep yet. Maybe I can stay up with you two for a bit and then try–”
A jaw-cracking yawn betrays him, stifling the rest of his last-ditch attempts to stall. At the identical raised eyebrows, Harry lets his shoulders slump in defeat, shuffling to the right and dropping down on the bed. The sheets are soft.
If Harry had been looking at the twins, he would’ve seen the considering look pass between them.
“Harry,” George begins. The hesitancy in his tone instantly grabs Harry’s attention. “Do you want one or both of us to stay in here with you?”
He’s too tired and too grateful to feel embarrassed about being so transparent. The relieved smiles both twins give him when he nods also help. It feels like… maybe they want him to be alone even less than he does, but were just waiting for him to say something.
“I– Only if it’s not a bother. But where…?”
“Leave that to me,” Fred says.
Another few minutes, and Fred has transfigured both beds into one large one, the twins’ bedside tables pushed to the edges of the room. Harry crawls under the bedding– George’s, obviously, transfigured to fit the new size– and feels a twin slide in on either side of him.
There’s a brief moment of hesitation as Fred and George shift to get comfortable, a noticeable few inches of space hovering around Harry like an invisible barrier. Harry will blame it on being semi-conscious if confronted, but all he thinks about is feeling safe when he drags George against his front with one hand and nudges Fred with his toes until he curls close against Harry’s back.
“Good?” Harry slurs, blanketed in glorious body heat and the rich, sweet scent that is distinct to Fred and George.
He barely feels Fred nod against the back of his head or hears George’s gentle, “Perfect. Sleep, love.” Harry is asleep before the question fully leaves his lips.
~☆☆☆~
Time passes in a series of vignettes. The soporific effect of George and Fred surrounding him, coupled with clinically diagnosed and well-earned exhaustion, force Harry into some of the deepest sleep he’s had in… years, maybe ever. The prescribed Dreamless Sleep Draught he’d taken a swig of prior to turning in is helping too, his subconscious blessedly and unnaturally quiet as he drifts.
It is also the only real sleep he's had since before the Battle. Brief snatches of unconsciousness while at Mungo's had only counted in name as sleep. In reality, there was too much noise, too much light, too many unfamiliar faces that read like could-be threats to his hypervigilant psyche for him to get any rest.
The first time he wakes, it’s not really waking at all. Worse, he doesn’t remember where he is for a second and flails out blindly for his wand before registering the scent of the blankets and pillows surrounding him. He’s already relaxing back into unconsciousness when Fred, whose movement must have woken him, soothes, “Just going to the loo, be back.” George, he thinks, presses Harry into a firmer embrace, shoving him back under the rippling waves of sleep.
Next time, he’s woken by hushed voices through the closed bedroom door. Arguments held in a whisper are always funny to Harry since being told he’s a wizard. Even those who grew up with magic can forget things like muffling charms in the heat of a good row.
He wants to drift back off, but his front feels surprisingly cold and he recognises Molly’s voice, then Ron’s, then George’s. The first is shrill and worried, the second is harried, and the third is bordering on the type of irritation that usually precedes a thorough pranking. The idea dawns on Harry that he’s likely the source of these varied emotions, which stirs him into reluctant half-wakefulness.
“Wassat?” he feels himself mumble.
Harry becomes aware of another body sitting up against the headboard beside him, their outer thigh a long line of heat down his back. The leg shifts slightly, and then Fred whispers, “Mum’s sussed you out and is convinced you scarpered from St. Mungo’s without permission.”
Fred chuckles at Harry’s affronted grunt of protest. “No, I know. Your healers even reassured her. But… you know Mum.” The pillow jostles slightly as Fred presumably shrugs. “George is heading her off, and Ron’s supposed to be helping. Fat lot of good he’ll do.”
Harry snorts. He tries to open his eyes but they seem spelled shut. Sleep beckons, but he made a promise to the lovely healer who signed his discharge papers. “M’ potions?”
The bed shakes slightly, and then the herbaceous odor of the nutrition potion wafts towards him, making his nose wrinkle. Fred laughs at him again, but patiently holds the phial to Harry's mouth for him to down blindly.
“Need anything else?” he asks as Harry smacks his lips against the taste. Wonderfully, a breath freshening charm sweeps across his teeth before he can breathe a word.
“Nuh-uh,” Harry mumbles, curling into himself with a sigh.
He’s so tired, he just wants to drift off again. But his arms feel like they’re at odd angles, nothing he does to position himself making them comfortable. Finally, Harry gives up, rolling laboriously onto his other side.
“Alright there?” Fred asks, the tail-end of the question becoming amusingly squeaky as Harry winds his arms around Fred's torso, smushing his face into Fred’s hip and nuzzling in until he’s blessedly comfortable.
Harry starts to drift, managing a near-silent, “Uh-huh.” The last thing he feels before slipping fully under is calloused fingers carding through his hair.
After that, Harry wakes a few times, but briefly. One or both of the twins is always with him, either asleep themselves or working on something beside him in the dim light of the room. He doesn’t keep track, but he thinks there’s at least six more doses of the various potions and several stumbling trips to the bathroom. The number of potions means he’s been sleeping on and off for days, rather than hours, but Harry thinks maybe that’s exactly what his body– and mind– needs.
When Harry surfaces again, it feels different. The weightiness that had settled over his bones and eyelids seems to have lifted, at least partially. Sleepiness lingers, but the all-encompassing fatigue drains out of him in increments as he tunes into the quiet conversation being held over his head.
“–won’t be very fun after the first lick. Who wants to eat an ice lolly that’s guaranteed to give a brain freeze every time?”
“Point. But you still want the cooling effect for the breath, yeah? We can only modify the base potion so much thanks to the bloody Bursting Mushrooms.” Harry smiles a little into the duvet as Fred’s huff ruffles his fringe.
A careful hand from over his shoulder rights the disordered mop of his bangs, pushing hair behind his ear to fix what Fred disturbed. Harry’s traitorous heart does an embarrassing somersault as George idly plays with the locks on the back of his head as he continues the discussion.
“So what we need is something that creates frost and cold, but that doesn’t grow icicles on the roof of the person’s mouth. Brilliant.”
George works a tangle out, lightly pulling on his hair, and Harry decides that they need to know he’s awake, right now.
“Y’could try dry ice. Muggle stuff. Modify the properties to have it react only to something in the ice lolly,” he suggests, voice cracked and raspy from disuse. The hand in his hair disappears in a flash, and Harry mourns its loss.
Blinking his eyes open slowly, the first thing Harry sees is Fred’s freckles. There’s a riot of them across his cheeks and nose, a few sprinkled over his eyelids and up into his brows. The three in a line that dot his dimple disappear as his face creases into a smile.
“Barely awake and already providing our sorry arses some much-needed help. Our Harry is a wonder, eh, Georgie?” For whatever reason, Fred looks quite smug when he glances behind Harry towards his brother.
George coughs lightly, before agreeing. “Where would we be without our wise and benevolent benefactor?”
He must be well and truly awake if he feels up to rolling his eyes at the twins’ dramatics. “You’d probably be in the Janus Thickey ward with some self-induced disorder or other.” With that thought rattling around, Harry cautions, “Dry ice can kill you if ingested, so I’m serious about messing with the properties. But it freezes things quite quickly and makes a cold… fog, I guess.”
“Sounds delightfully life-threatening, right up our alley,” Fred says. At Harry’s glare, he reassures, “We’re always careful, right, Forge?”
“Right you are, Gred,” George agrees. Harry shifts reluctantly, turning to be on his back so he can see both of them. As expected, both twins move to make room, which has the unfortunate side effect of leaving Harry very un-cuddled.
He will not pout. Fred and George have been incredibly kind to him, indulging his whim of commandeering not just their flat but their beds and company while he recuperated. It’s daft to think they’d continue feeding him their warmth and touch and support when he’s finally fixed up enough to not strictly need it.
“So…” Harry asks, rubbing a hand over his mouth and feeling a great deal more stubble than he was expecting. “How long was I out?”
“Mm, are we counting the time you got here as being a night?” Harry nods at George. “Then three nights and two full days. It’s just about nine in the evening.”
“Christ.” The Muggle swear slips out unbidden, but fits Harry’s sentiments exactly. “I feel a bit better, at least.”
“You needed it, mate,” Fred says, peering down at him with his head propped on his hand. “I hear killing a Dark Lord really takes it out of you.”
With anyone else, the joke might’ve been too soon. But Harry can’t help the giddy laughter that breaks out of him, grinning wider as Fred’s expression melts into delight at having made him laugh.
When his laughter tapers off, Harry turns slightly to George, craning his neck to meet his eye. He doesn’t have to ask, George can read the question plain enough.
“Mum’s been in and out, we have enough food to feed the entire Alley. ‘Mione and Ronald are still around, she seems resigned to flying to Australia the Muggle way, since the transportation and immigration section of the Ministry is in shambles. Percy is walking around with no issues. There’s been no major news since you left the hospital, no credible sightings of Greyback or Malfoy.”
Harry breathes out in relief as the update of information settles his nerves. However, Fred makes a face in his periphery and George sighs, which has Harry tensing right back up.
“Andromeda dropped by the Burrow yesterday. She sends her well-wishes.” Harry flinches a little at the mere mention of Andromeda– at the grief she represents, the things he’s going to have to decide in the coming weeks, the funerals he’s going to attend.
“Anyway,” Fred interjects, breaking Harry from the beginnings of an internal spiral. “Can I interest you in some real food? Mum made cottage pie, roasted veg… there might be some cold cuts and bread left for sandwiches.” When Harry shakes his head because, truthfully, he doesn’t feel hungry, Fred wheedles a little more. “Biscuits? Fruit? Please let the proprietors of G&F’s B&B satisfy your every craving.”
Here’s the thing. Harry knows Fred is trying to lighten the mood and help him at the same time. It’s easy to see in his goofy grin, in George’s scrunched nose as he watches his brother’s antics.
The problem is that it’s beginning to sink in for Harry that he essentially crash-landed at their flat and made himself their problem. Took over their living quarters, their time, their beds. Now that the haze of weariness has lifted, the shame is free to roll in– the shame of being a burden, the shame of his helplessness, the shame of having caused them to worry. Not to mention the shame of exactly what cravings Harry has regarding both men, none of them food-related.
“I… think I should be going.” Harry purposefully doesn’t meet either man’s gaze, but he feels them both stiffen. “Y’know, now that I’m… less of a walking corpse. Thank you for putting up with me, I know I kind of hijacked your life, but I’ll ask King for–”
“Woah, Harry,” George interrupts. “Slow down. We don’t mind–”
“You’ve taken care of me enough!” Harry just barely manages to keep that clawing shame from his voice. He switches tracks. “Don’t you want your beds back? And I can get out of your hair, you don’t need a repeat of my fifth-year tendencies.”
The twins exchange a look over his head, one that he can’t even begin to interpret. Fred raises his eyebrows, George frowns, Fred thins his lips and nods just slightly, George gives the tiniest shake of the head. But Fred ignores his brother, facing Harry head-on with a considering look.
“Wow, and here George and I were going to thank you for– How did you put it? Making us put up with you and hijacking our life.”
Harry is officially lost. Maybe he’s still more tired than he thought.
“...What?”
Fred grins back, unbothered by Harry’s confusion. “Yeah, you solved a real crisis of wills for us. That sofa out there was becoming a real pain in my back, literally. Your brilliant idea to share the bed has saved Georgie and I from both nightmares and pain potions–”
“My idea?”
“–And what’s this slander about fifth year? I’ll have you know I cherished our product planning sessions with sleepy Harry. You’d do this cute thing when you’d nod off and curl your fingers into George’s jumper, it used to make him–”
“Fred,” the twin in question interrupts, “it’s not the time.”
“George,” his brother returns evenly, “there’s the saviour of the wizarding world in our bed, now is the perfect time.”
Harry is still lost, but he doesn’t miss that, for all of Fred’s outward nonchalance, he’s nervous about something. There’s tension running through him, matched by George, his fingers tapping an inconsistent beat on top of the duvet.
“A perfect time for what? This has been a rough week for me, you’re going to have to spell it out.” And it really has been, Harry thinks wryly, Merlin has it ever.
Fred stares at George, expression suddenly deadly serious. Whatever George can see in that look that Harry can’t, it sparks a resolve Harry has only really glimpsed on either twin on the Quidditch pitch or during a fight.
“You don’t have to go,” George says quietly. “We don’t want you to go.”
Harry blinks a few times, trying to process the statement. The twins… want him to stay. But–
“Okay,” he says slowly. “But where would I sleep? I can’t keep taking over your bedroom, you need your beds back.”
He almost jolts when Fred slides closer, right against his side, breaching the bubble of space that formed around Harry once the twins knew he was fully awake.
Fred looks at him closely and asks, “What if… we didn’t want our beds back? What if we like this new sleeping arrangement better?”
“If you like sharing the bigger bed, then you keep it. I’d still have to–”
Harry cuts himself off mid-explanation as it sinks in. Granted, the idea that Fred and George want him to stay– as in stay in the flat, stay in their bed, stay tucked between them– takes a bit to really permeate. There's a definite connotation to it, one that Harry's besotted brain is rabid to believe is true. Once it does sink in, Harry spends another suspended second trying to convince himself that he's figured wrong. But all signs, including George carefully sidling closer and Fred's hopeful grin, point to him having interpreted this all correctly.
“George? Is that what you want?” Harry asks, because he needs to be sure.
A lopsided smile finally breaks through George's unreadable expression. Instead of answering directly, he asks another question.
“Why are you here, Harry?”
The answer that had tried to come out three nights ago is still sitting, ready, on the tip of Harry's tongue. It hadn't been a lie, saying he needed a place to sleep. It hadn't been the complete truth, either. He needed somewhere to be safe, to be warm, to feel cared for without being smothered. He wanted to sleep, yes, but he also wanted to laugh. He wanted to curl up and get that same hit of lighthearted but steadfast support that got him through fifth year. So, yes, he needed a place to sleep but really…
“I just want to be.”
“Good.”
George’s smile is so sweet, and his one-word answer is filled with more depth of meaning than seems possible in four, short letters. Or maybe, Harry considers, four letters is perfect to encompass what he sees resting molten and careful in George's gaze.
The soft press of lips against his should catch Harry by surprise, but it’s the most natural thing in the world. George starts with a hesitant brush, barely there but enough to have Harry’s eyelids fluttering shut. He lets out the smallest noise, and then George’s mouth is firm against his. Still careful, still caring, but sure and consistent and steady.
Harry lets himself fall into it, urging George to curl down closer with a gentle hand on the side of his face. His fingers brush over the beginning of scar tissue where an ear used to be just as a warm kiss is pressed into his shoulder from his other side.
By some unspoken cue, George pulls back, chuckling as Harry tries to coax him back into the kiss. Before Harry can protest, his face is being turned towards Fred, who beams at him before leaning in, a little quicker than George had.
Fred’s smile is still buried between them, one that Harry matches, even as their lips meet. Where George had directed Harry into a slow, gentle kiss and not allowed him to increase the pace, Fred seems more than willing to let Harry get quite a bit bolder from the get-go. Harry shudders as the graze of his tongue against Fred’s lower lip is met by an appreciative noise, the action being returned.
Harry would love to deepen the kiss, draw Fred’s tongue in and settle into the heady feeling of George’s fingers running lightly across his side under his t-shirt, but his own body betrays him. He parts his lips just slightly, then has to pull back quickly so that he yawns into his own shoulder rather than Fred’s mouth.
George places a laughing kiss against the side of his neck, and Fred smooths a thumb over Harry’s flushed cheek, smirking at his obvious embarrassment.
“...Maybe a few more hours of sleep wouldn’t hurt,” Harry says. “And then you can show me the other benefits of the new sleeping arrangement?”
Fred snorts unattractively while George props himself up enough to be in Harry’s line of sight, shaking his head and failing to fight off a grin. “Smooth, Potter, very smooth.”
“But as your attentive bed and breakfast hosts, I think we might be able to accommodate that request.” Fred brushes another quick kiss to Harry’s lips before reaching for the bag of potions Harry can now see resting on the bedside table. “What do you say, Georgie?”
“Have to earn the rating G&F’s got in Witch Weekly, don’t we?” George replies, watching as Harry swallows the potions his twin passes over. Harry grimaces at the bitter aftertaste of the Dreamless Sleep, feeling groggier by the second.
“I think you already did,” Harry murmurs, slipping down even further between them and burrowing into the blankets. He buries his face in George’s chest, Fred’s arms winding around his stomach from behind. With sleep pressing down on his limbs and muffled by George’s t-shirt, Harry feels brave enough to continue. “Got two boyfriends out of the deal. That’s what I call all-inclusive service.”
The silence that follows his little quip should scare him. But it doesn’t– it’s filled instead with a kiss to the forehead from George; with Fred’s hand rubbing over his chest while his arms tighten; with wordless reassurance and joy, even in the wake of some of the hardest days Harry’s ever gone through.
There’s a million things Harry’s going to have to do in the coming days and weeks, not least among them trying to get his body back in order. Uncomfortable things, hard things, devastating things.
But, after everything, he’ll know exactly where to go.