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Harry leant back in his seat, running his hand through his hair as he watched the scene in front of him in horror.
“Hermione is going to kill me,” he groaned, shaking his head.
Seated in the chair beside Harry’s, Bull laughed as the two of them watched Ron practically salivating over the stripper dancing over his lap.
“At least I can blame this particular mess on George,” Harry said, waving his hand at his best friend. “I had no part in… this.”
“Come on, Harry,” Charlie called, from across the table. “You can’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it! You might like a bit of—”
“Nope. I’ll leave that to you.” Harry shook his head. “Just make sure you wear a raincoat.”
He was used to Charlie’s ribbing; the man was openly bisexual, though most people were of the opinion that Charlie subscribed to the age-old mantra of ‘any hole is a goal’.
“I’m going to the bar,” Harry said, pushing himself to his feet. He squeezed past Bill, and then paused. “What do you want this time?”
Bill had made it his personal mission to try every cocktail on the menu, and while he’d made a decent dent in the list, he still had quite a few to go.
“Hmm? Oh.” He picked up the menu and scanned it quickly. “Molten Lava?”
Harry blinked. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Get one for yourself,” Bill suggested, tilting his head slightly so that he could look up at Harry. “Live a little.”
Shaking his head, Harry replied, “Someone has to stay sober enough to make sure we get Ron home. I promised Hermione.”
Bill snorted. “You know that we will, Harry. Besides, one drink isn’t exactly going to knock you on your ass, is it?”
Harry shrugged and smiled easily as he left the VIP area of the nightclub, heading across the floor to the bar. He caught the attention of the bartender who had been serving them all night, and perched himself on a barstool.
“Same again, darling?” the bartender asked as he approached, wiping his hands on the navy blue apron tied around his waist.
“Mostly,” Harry agreed, rattling off the order and adding Bill’s cocktail onto the end. He picked up the cocktail menu from the bar. “And what do you recommend?”
“For you?”
Harry nodded.
“Euphoria,” the bartender said, with a cheeky smile.
Harry raised his eyebrow and then nodded his head, smiling back. “Sold.”
“Go on back to your table, handsome,” the bartender said, gesturing with his chin. “I’ll have the drinks brought over in a few minutes.”
Harry looked back at the tables they’d taken over to see that three more strippers had arrived, one happily giving Charlie a lapdance, and the other two were focusing on Percy, which was hilarious.
“I’m good here, I think,” Harry replied, turning back to the bartender.
“You’re not a fan of strippers?”
“I have nothing against them,” Harry said, honestly. “They’re just not really, ah, my type?”
“Who’s the groom?”
“How’d you know it’s a stag party?”
The barman chuckled. “What else could it possibly be?”
Harry conceded the point. “Fair. The redhead on the far left corner in the black shirt.”
“Thank you for clarifying; there’s a lot of red hair up there.”
Harry laughed. “I know.”
The bartender placed the first of two trays on the bar, and Harry picked it up. “I’ll take this one.”
“Thanks, handsome.”
Harry carefully wound his way back to the VIP section and placed the tray on the table. The bartender was only a few steps behind him, and between them, they handed out the drinks.
The last drink to be handed over was Harry’s. The bartender gave it to him with a small smile.
“Euphoria. Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to come and see me if you need anything else,” he told Harry, standing closer than he needed to. He winked before he left for the bar.
Harry retook his seat, eyeing the drink with distaste.
“You took my advice,” Bill murmured, leaning over. “What did you get?”
“Euphoria, apparently,” Harry replied, a little dubiously. “It’s green. Bill, why is my drink so green?”
Laughing, Bill shook his head. “It is a bit green.”
“A bit? No consumable item has the right to be that green.”
“What made you choose ‘Euphoria’?” Bill asked, curiously.
Harry shrugged. “I asked for a recommendation. You know I don’t normally drink fruity drinks.”
Bill opened his mouth, closed it, and then frowned. “He was flirting with you. I… I don’t like that.”
Harry blinked. He was about to ask what Bill meant by that when Ron slipped off his seat onto the floor, distracting him completely.
…
“You’re my hero,” Ron muttered, as Harry placed both a takeaway cup of coffee and a vial of hangover potion down on the table in front of him.
“Uh huh,” Harry replied, handing out the same to the others to aid their recovery from the night before.
He’d ordered the potions in bulk beforehand in preparation for the hangovers he knew would be coming, and had woken up early enough to enjoy a shower in peace and visit his favourite coffee shop before anyone had even opened their eyes.
“I’m getting married in three hours,” Ron commented, idly.
Harry paused, waiting for the moment he knew was coming.
“Holy shit. I’m getting married in three hours,” Ron repeated, sitting up straight.
“There is it,” Harry said, shaking his head as he finished handing out the coffee. He sat down at the table, inhaling the scent of his own coffee. The shop he frequented had a specific blend that he absolutely loved, though they wouldn’t tell him where he could buy it.
He supposed it was good for business, since he visited at least once a day on his way to work, and half the time, on his way home as well.
Sitting back in his seat, he watched Ron working himself up into a panic.
“Aren’t you supposed to be calming him down or something?” Bill asked, sitting down at the table with them. “Best man duties and all?”
Harry shrugged. “He’ll tire himself out in a few. He’s happy about this and he knows he is, and he worships the very ground Hermione walks on. He’ll be fine.”
Bill snorted. He opened his mouth to say something else, but a knock on the door drew all of their attention.
Harry got up to see who it was, and arched his eyebrows when he found two Auror’s standing in the doorway, wearing matching smirks. He recognised one of them—Robard’s had taken over the department when Kingsley became the Minister for Magic—but he didn’t know the other. He looked young though; Harry thought that he was likely a rookie.
He stepped back to allow them inside.
“What can we do for you?” he asked, once they were all standing in the kitchen.
“We’ve had reports of petty vandalism in the early hours of this morning, and some quite mortified eye witnesses place Harry Potter at the scene of the crime.”
Harry snorted, while Ron groaned, rubbed at his eyes. “It wasn’t him.”
“We know,” Auror Robards said, laughing. “We’ve heard all about it. Another complaint came in around the same time about a group of women stealing a ladder from a garden and attempting to use it as stilts. We just called in to let you know that there’s a couple of fines to be paid.”
Harry shook his head. “I don’t want to know what Hermione got up to last night. Just gimme the fines.” He held out his hand for the money orders that he knew Robards would have fetched with him.
When he was handed them, he winced at the amounts. “Merlin, ouch.”
He leant them against the wall to sign his name, and then handed them back with a sigh. Robards thanked him, still grinning like a loon.
“Congratulations on the wedding,” he said to Ron, before he and the rookie took their leave.
“I’ll pay you back,” Ron promised.
Harry waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, call it a wedding present if you must.”
“Hermione is going to kill me,” Ron said, shaking his head.
“I don’t know,” Bill said, laughing. “If the ladies were stealing ladders, I’m not sure that she’s got much of a leg to stand on.”
“Wait,” George interrupted, frowning. “I don’t remember vandalising anything.”
“Do you remember getting back?” Harry asked, impressed despite himself.
“Well, no. Actually, I don’t think I even remember leaving the club. What did we do?”
“Percy thought it would be a good idea to paint the side of the bar we were in… and you just happened to have some magical spray paint available.”
There was a pause.
“Percy thought?” George asked.
Harry nodded again. “Yes. Percy thought.”
Bill looked around. “Where is Percy?”
“Still asleep in the back guest room,” Harry replied. “He was the drunkest—and also the most likely to vomit in my humble opinion—so I put him in there with a sick bowl and a monitoring charm, to be on the safe side.”
Bill snorted. “Looks like it was a good job that you decided to stay sober, huh?”
“Apparently.”
…
“I know you find me attractive,” the woman said. She was very clearly trying to be seductive. “I’ve seen you looking at my breasts.”
Harry shook his head. “Um. No.”
“But—”
“Really,” Harry interrupted gently. “No.”
The woman stalked off in a huff. Harry shook his head. She was the third of Hermione’s cousins to come on to him in the last hour, though, admittedly she’d been the most… forward.
The wedding had, thankfully, gone off without a hitch, and his duty as best man was just about over. His best friends were practically glowing with happiness, and he was so happy to see them so happy.
Harry was about to go and—finally—get himself a proper drink, when he noticed slightly raised voices coming from the dancefloor. He pivoted, moving closer to the argument.
He wasn’t intending to get involved if he didn’t have to, but he was ready just in case it got out of hand. He wasn’t interested in letting anyone ruin Ron and Hermione’s day.
A badly aimed punch missed its target, and Harry was about to separate the men when he realised that the assaulter had caught the side of Hermione’s head when he’d missed the person he was actually aiming for.
His temper was lost immediately, and he grabbed the offender by the arm and physically dragged him outside, pushing him up against the wall. The man flailed for a few moments, before he settled, eyeing Harry with trepidation.
“Harry?”
Bill had followed him outside.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Harry said, still glaring at the man he had pressed against the wall. “I’ve just got to take out the trash.”
Bill came closer, tugging Harry back with gentle but firm hands. He eyed the idiot with distaste. “I suggest you leave.”
The man didn’t need telling twice; he skirted around Harry and left, muttering under his breath about overreactions.
“I need to go and calm down,” Harry said, pulling himself out of Bill’s grasp.
“How?” Bill asked, his lips titling up in a smirk.
Harry could tell that he was trying to make him smile, but he was still too angry, and he really wasn’t in the mood for thinly veiled innuendo. “It’s a toss up between a very alcoholic drink, or committing homicide. He can’t have gotten far, can he?”
Bill chuckled, shaking his head. “Go and get a drink… make sure it’s not green this time, hmm?”
Harry rolled his eyes, though he did manage a small smile. “I’m sure it’ll give me more satisfaction than ‘Euphoria’ did, as well,” he retorted, walking back inside with Bill just a step behind him.
…
“You okay?”
Two drinks later, and Harry had calmed himself down enough to go and check on Hermione. She wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank you for getting rid of him,” she said, softly. “I don’t even know him! He was one of my cousin’s plus ones.”
Harry shook his head. “I suppose it’s not a wedding without at least one fight, right?”
She rolled her eyes and tugged him onto the dancefloor with her. “I hear you had fun last night.”
“What happens on a stag, stays on a stag,” he replied, motioning zipped lips.
“Uh huh,” she murmured, amused. “I’ve told Ron that we’re both going to be selling kidneys to pay you back for the fines.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry replied, airily. “Everyone behaved perfectly fine last night. There were no fines.”
She laughed, shaking her head at him. “Really though, how was last night? Did you have a good time?”
Harry smiled. “It was… loud.”
“Only child syndrome,” Hermione replied, laughing again. “It’s a bit much for those of us without a million siblings to be around the Weasley rabble.”
Harry could only nod his agreement. “Did you have a good hen party?”
She shrugged. “That’d be telling.”
“Uh huh. Also, you didn’t tell your cousins that I was single, did you?” he asked, taking a moment to spin her around. “Only a few of them have been a bit, uh… forward?”
Hermione rolled her eyes at him. “You have absolutely no idea how hot you look in a tux, do you?”
“Erm. No?”
She grinned. “Speaking of hot, Bill Weasley hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off you whenever you’ve been in the same room together today. What’s up with that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s—”
“Gay, single, and very clearly in lust with you,” Hermione finished for him. “And you’ve had a crush on him for years.”
Harry sighed. “Yeah, but he’s a Weasley. I don’t want things to get awkward if… well, if anything went wrong, you know?”
She shook her head. “Harry, you deserve to be happy as much as anyone else. If Bill will make you happy… I say go for it. The rest of the family love you enough that even if you did get together and then break up, they wouldn’t abandon you.”
Smiling indulgently at her, he led her off the floor to the bridal table. “You stay here, I’m going to go and get you a drink.”
She nodded, accepting the end of the conversation and pressed a kiss to his cheek before she sat down. She was quickly pulled into conversation with her mother.
…
“Are you pulling double duty as best man and bartender tonight, or something?” Bill asked, when Harry entered the room where they’d stored all of the alcohol.
“Or something,” Harry replied, pouring a glass of Hermione’s favoured wine, and then a respectable measure of whiskey for himself. “You’ve been quiet today,” he added, quirking his eyebrow in question at Bill. “You okay?”
Bill stared at him for a moment and then said, “You didn’t say anything last night. When I said that I didn’t like the barman flirting with you. Why?”
Harry snorted. “Because Ron fell off his chair, and then Percy decided that he wanted to break the law for the first time at his big age.”
“So you weren’t avoiding the conversation?”
Shaking his head, Harry replied, “I’d forgotten about it to be honest, what with trying to make sure that all you drunkards ended up safely tucked up in bed. So. Why didn’t you like the bartender flirting with me?”
Bill smirked. “Take Hermione her drink, and then come back here.”
“Why?”
Stepping forward, BIll leant down to whisper in Harry’s ear, “Because I wouldn’t want to deprive the bride of a drink on her wedding day while I ravish the best man in the back room.”
Harry swallowed hard, his pulse speeding up as he stumbled back a step. “Nuh uh, no ravishing in the back room,” he replied, shaking his head. “Bad idea.”
Escaping the smirking redhead, Harry handed Hermione her drink and then made his way through the crowd and went back outside. The fresh air felt wonderful on his heated skin, and he tipped his face up to enjoy it as his heart calmed to a steadier pace.
“Why are you running from me?”
“I. Uh.” Harry cut himself off, turning to look at Bill, who’d once again followed him outside. He was leaning against the wall, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. “I’m not running.”
“What are you so scared of?”
Harry fought the urge to Apparate away when Bill pushed himself off the wall and slowly walked over to him.
He liked Bill—really liked him—but the idea of a romantic relationship with, well, anyone really, scared the life out of Harry.
Because he liked Bill.
It wouldn’t just be a quick fuck. Not for him.
He watched Bill get closer and closer, until he was so close that there was barely room for air to pass between them.
Bill moved slowly, giving Harry all the time he could have needed to move. To say no. To run.
Harry didn’t take it.
The kiss was chaste, gentle, and sweet, until it wasn’t.
Until it was teeth nibbling on lips, and hands gripping at hair.
When they parted, both panting hard, Bill squeezed Harry’s hip, leaving his hand there to hold him in place.
“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?” Bill asked, his voice rougher than it had been just minutes ago. “Merlin, Harry.”
“Hey,” said a voice from near the door. “What are you two doing out here? We’re about to cut the cake!”
They both turned to see Ron standing in the doorway, waving them inside.
Harry laughed when Bill let his chin fall to his chest, sighing deeply.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” Harry promised his best friend, waving him back inside.
“My little brother,” Bill murmured, sighing again. “The ultimate oblivious cockblocker.”
Harry chuckled, but a little bit of his insecurity shone through when he asked, “We have time, right?”
Bill reached up with his free hand to caress Harry’s cheek, his eyes full of affection. “All the time in the world.”