Whose Universe Are We In?

A big 'hi' and 'hug' to my reviewer for your lovely comments. I have added to my disclaimer to include further character insertions - hee hee. Please can we have a category within 'celebrity' for either Dan or Tom as I have another novel-length piece with these two as a pairing that I'd like to put up here. Many thanks.

Keep reading enjoying and reviewing folks - the end is nigh!! The Squig xxx


21

July 18th

The sky was thick and grey, the air beneath solid and oppressive. What had started out as a beautiful summer was now dense with humidity and threatening storms. The folk moved rooms to escape from the thick heat and a number of people sought coolness in the dungeons.

Dan and Alan were once more aware of the hum of activity around them, they had grown so used to the silence, but they couldn’t move; they had to stay near to their private space, a space they spent a lot of time in in order to stay away from the sweaty crowds. Outside, the sky was grey and overcast but in the subterranean depths a constant cool temperature was maintained. When they weren’t cluttering up the dungeon dormitories and any other cool nook they could find, the Order, the DA, the friends, warriors and staff all spent significant time in their new Room of Requirement.

Not quite knowing which part of his brain it came from, Dan had found himself schooling the others in tactics, ways to keep him and Alan safe while moving closer through the battle to their final goal. They practised formations and battle positions. They could all drop flat to the ground on a single barked command. They were becoming an army. Ron was an inestimable help with this, being both an excellent chess player and having already proved himself a master at seeing the big picture. Dan admired this side of the man, though there were other traits he wasn’t sure about. In this, Dan still trusted him, though.

Alan fought and practised alongside him and occasionally they let loose bursts of the power they had found, to gasps of awe all round. They mainly rehearsed their joint magic on their own, however. This was their secret weapon, ‘the power he knew not’. And they were determined that he shouldn’t until the Day.

That Day seemed close. Every few hours there were reports of atrocities and massacres that even the muggle Press were picking up on, until the reporters of the Daily Mirror, hanging around the site after all their rivals had run off on a tip about the busty model, Jordan, reported that, despite the report from the Daily Prophet saying that over fifty lives had been lost, the inhabitants of the village of Little Piddling On the Wold were all very much alive, thank you very much, and there had been no massacre at all. Even the weird old bloke on the hill, in his house so closely surrounded by trees as to render the interior in a state of permanent twilight, was still here, despite many of the villagers suspecting him of being magical or demonic in some way.

The story was either exaggerated or a complete hoax.

That morning after breakfast, Hermione rose from her seat with a determined air. An air that screamed, ‘anyone who nay says me is dead’, and said calmly, “I’m off to London. I think I need to do some research”, and before them all, she glamoured herself to blond and blue-eyed. She batted her lashes for effect, swayed her newly rounded hips and strode out of the dining hall.

“Where’s she going?”, Dan murmured to Neville. “The British Library”, the tall gawky, dark-haired man replied. Dan smirked, it figured. Muggle or magical, if there was a problem to be solved, then Hermione would dash off in search of a good book.

****

Actually she went in search of newspapers. In her bag was a shrunken scrap book full of articles from the magical press tracking the atrocities that Voldemort was supposedly committing in his desire to bring his ultimate prey from his lair. Once through to the other side of the Leaky Cauldron, and on the muggle Tube, Hermione dragged the book from her bag, discreetly resized it and read a few of the articles she had clipped. This being London, she was completely ignored.

She walked the rest of the way, arriving at the British Library all sweaty and red. The building was deliciously cool as well as being redolent of the reek of books. She took a deep breath, sniffing shamelessly, how she adored that smell, letting herself cool down, before she found the microfiche machines and waited her turn in the short queue for her time in front of one.

Eventually, a carrel was free and she slipped onto the stool before the vast screen. From her bag she withdrew her scrap books and set about her search for dates. She looked for the biggest atrocities, the ones where many muggles were reported dead. She looked at the Independent first. Nothing. Then the Guardian. No. Okay, the tabloids next. The Sun, The Star and the Mirror. Come on, fifty plus people had died that night, the story had to be somewhere. She flipped to the Daily Mirror’s masthead, sought out the enquiry line and drew out her mobile. As she dialled she flipped forward to another date and searched the papers again. Still nothing. No people anyway, though an anomaly did jump out a bit: that of animals, cows, sheep and the like being mutilated and/or killed. Many suspected ritualists of some sort or another or aliens. She rolled her eyes, some people were such sick bastards.

She lowered her eyes from the screen as the ringing sounded in her ear. Then it was answered, a bright and chirpy girl on the other end giving her spiel. Hermione had to think a moment and then said, “Could I speak to someone in your archive department, please? My name is Hermione Granger and I’m speaking from the Ashmolean Library in Oxford”.

She was put through without further preamble and after a few rings the phone was answered, “Main newsdesk, Jason speaking, how may I help you?” Hermione laid out her story carefully; she was following up reports that a village full of people had been wiped out on this particular date, either that or they had been abducted by aliens, either way they had disappeared. She heard the man’s laugh over the line. “We sent an old booze-hound to check it out but the residents are still very much alive and mainly pissed off at the press intrusion. Why do you ask?” Hermione said nothing and just closed the call.

She apparated to a couple more libraries around the country then rushed back to Hogwarts, divested herself of her glamour, detoured to the kitchens to grab herself a much-needed snack, then raced to the Astronomy tower and logged on. She had a theory about all of this and it was making her hum as she logged onto one news site after another. She was positively beaming as she shut her computer down and raced back to the Great Hall.

After such a long time away, she expected it to be nearly empty, but the main fighting force was still there, as well as Tom, bless him, looking distant and a bit glassy-eyed, curled into Remus’ side. She rushed in all breathless, looking for all the world as if she had just dismounted a racing broom. She got her breath back and surveyed the room.

There they all were. Albus of course, then fake-Harry and fake-Severus Snape, then Ron, Dean, Seamus and the Patils who were still eating. Her eyes took in Remus Lupin with the quasi-Draco looking Stupefied at his side, although she knew that was just the pain potion he was taking.

She surveyed the room feeling all eyes upon her. She bunched her fists on her hips and glared back. “He’s faking it. It’s all lies”, she declared. There was a silence amongst the ten or so remaining. Then there was a swell of voices: questions volleyed her way. She held up a hand to field them, then started to tell her tale.

“Yes, there was a raid on Much-Piddling-In-The-Wold, but no-one¬ was killed. No-one. Not one. Some of these attacks made the muggle newspapers as strange stories but there were no deaths. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you.....Voldemort... the faker”.

There was a long silence as this sunk in, then a hubbub of conversation springing up all around. Dan didn’t know what to think, but he knew one thing, Hermione Granger was a truth teller par excellence.

Dan was the first to break the silence, “C’mon, ‘Mione, tell all”, but he was cut short as he raised her wand at his head and he had to step back from the evident anger in her eyes, “Don’t”, she hissed, “Don’t ever call me, ‘’Mione’ again. That was.....Harry’s name for me, okay?” Dan raised his hands in surrender and smiled nervously at her, “Sorry, Hermione, I won’t do that again”. It was only then, with her ruffled feathers soothed that she started to outline her theory.

“I’ve checked out loads of the villages – muggle villages he’s supposed to have attacked, you know, erm, decimated, one of his blood-baths, slaughtered all the inhabitants. I kind of have a muggle friend in the Met and had her look first then did a bit of digging about on my own, and guess what? Voldemort didn’t kill anybody in those villages and communities. He’s a liar. He’s exaggerating. None of it is true. News like that, even if it wasn’t in the papers, then it’d be on the Internet somewhere and I’ve really researched...”, her voice tailed off.

Alan was the first of the two to respond, “So you mean that all of his recent....activities...have merely been a ploy to lead us all on?” Hermione took a moment to digest this before nodding, “Yes, Alan, it was a bloody smokescreen”. Another voice leapt in, Neville, “So how long has this smokescreen been up?” Hermione sighed, “I think since last time Harry fought him,”.

There were murmurs aplenty but Dan stilled all the voices with an up-raised hand, “Since then? Has there been anything else lost that would lead these communities to be reported in the papers?” Hermione frowned, “Funny you should ask, Dan. As a matter of fact there has been. In this village two sheep were slaughtered, in this one”, she pointed at the map in the printout she laid on the table, “there were two cows mutilated and left alive, they had to be shot, their injuries were so bad, but no people. No people”.

Dan frowned down at the map and Hermione’s finger pointing out the site of the animal carnage. He had to ask, “Ron, Hermione, how many of the horcruxes were there left to be destroyed before Alan and I crossed over?”

He watched as they glanced at each other significantly and smiled, “Well”, Hermione began hesitantly, but it was Ron who cut across her with, “Actually, Harry and Nagini were the last two”, blurted out. Dan quirked a half-smile and lifted the small fringe of hair covering his forehead, “You mean here? I can’t feel anything here at all”. She nodded sombrely, “Yeah, we all knew Harry was the last one. It’s what he took with him, wasn’t it?”, she sniffed, dangerously close to tears.

Dan nodded, “Yeah, my scar doesn’t work and neither does Alan’s Mark. Whatever power was invested in these scars doesn’t have any effect on us, even though we both bear the superficial marks, I suppose for show”. It was Alan’s deep voice that sounded the voice of reason, “Might I suggest, in that case, that it is neither ploy nor smokescreen, but these are the actions, dare I say it, of a vastly weakened capacity. After all, if all he carries within him is a mere small piece with a piece in his familiar, then he will be significantly diminished, will he not?”

Ron frowned and stared hard at Alan, “So, he may not even attack this summer?” Alan frowned back. “Ah, no, he’ll attack all right, the dates lining up will see to that: Harry coming of age etcetera. We still must be ready but if he is diminished then he must stay in the background and rely on others to do his main fighting. Knowing this, I doubt very much that he will ride in at the head of his troops, more skulk in the rear until the coup de grace”.

Subsiding, Ron murmured, “Oh”, and shut up. Most of his battlefield designs had been based on Voldemort acting the General triumphant. Bugger, back to the drawing board. He didn’t have long, a mere five days. Ah, he’d come up with something. He usually did when pressed.

As the others all went back to their practice session, Ron required himself a small private room, some quills and parchment and set to work, all the while muttering to himself about tactics and rearguards.

July 19th

Red-eyed from barely three hours sleep, Ron took them through their new paces the next day, having worked out that wherever Voldemort was in the pack then he was bound to be guarded by his strongest fighters, especially if he was in a weakened state. Alan smiled inwardly and bowed slightly when Ron acknowledged him as the author of the idea but the lad had worked hard to come up with this new fighting scenario and the tactics possibly required to combat it. They all knew they were flying blind but they also knew they were being drilled in knowing who your unit were and fighting as a single entity rather than rushing into the fray. By the end of the day they were exhausted and exhilarated. Alan transfigured them all a huge swimming pool and they worked out and relaxed in the cool water.

They allowed themselves to let their hair down that night. After dinner in the Great Hall, the tables were moved to the sides of the room and Hermione, armed with her laptop and a pair of speakers and a small pile of charged batteries, set up music. The house elves provided lethal punches and bowls of snacks and they were all set for quite a party.

The proceedings were quite noisy as Hermione plugged in her Internet dongle and played DJ taking requests from all the DA, dialling them up on YouTube and playing them all at top volume. As the alcohol flowed, Alan nipped down to the dungeons and came back with a quantity of small green phials that he placed on the top table to hear Minerva snicker, “Severus would never have done that, he’d have made the little blighters beg and suffer”. To which Alan smirked and replied, “Then thank God I am not he. We need a fighting force come morning, not a bunch of people with hangovers”. She just laughed at this.

As the evening progressed, everyone got more and more drunk and an atmosphere of barely contained licentiousness prevailed. The music slowed, the room darkened and all of the shadowed corners emitted moans from those secreted within. Alan, on the dancefloor, with Dan crushed against him, noticed several couples and not only amongst the young. It seemed that the threat of imminent death added to copious amounts of alcohol could lower the inhibitions of just about everybody, and, by comparison, he and Dan were amongst the more discreet. Only Albus sat alone, sipping from his drink and seemingly lost in thought.

Sometime deep in the night, Alan and Dan slipped away. In a darkened corridor lit only by wand-light, far from the music, Alan pushed Dan against the wall and covered his mouth with his own. The kiss was lacklustre at best and Alan had to keep Dan from sliding down into a puddle at his feet. Damn. He was horny and Dan was pissed senseless. With an impatient snort he hefted Dan against his side and carried his lover home.

After tipping his beloved into bed, Alan switched on the laptop and explored what was on Dan’s hard drive. He found the downloaded porn and settled himself back on the sofa with his trousers around his ankles, a large whisky in one hand, his cock in the other and ‘Some Like It Big’ onscreen and he wanked lazily to the images of the pretty boys fucking and sucking. He finally reached his climax as the older man onscreen did, pumping his jism over his hand as the man spilled and spurted in the lad’s face. He idly watched as the lad got sucked and came all over his lover’s face, waiting for his dick to soften, then Banished all the come on his hand, closed down the movie and went to bed.

July 20th

Downing the hangover potion left out for him, Dan marvelled at magic sometimes as his head cleared enough for him to slip out of bed and tie his gown around him. He used the loo and padded silently on the stones to the living room. He smiled at the laptop still on the coffee table. He opened up and went to log on when he decided to see what Alan had been doing with the computer.

He blushed as he saw the trail left by his lover trawling through his porn and made up his mind. Today they were having a day off. He marched into the kitchenette and rooted in the cupboards before Summoning a house-elf and requesting all the ingredients of a good fry-up. The elf offered to cook but Dan was having none of it. His beloved was going to wake up to a cooked breakfast. Cooked by him.

Alan did indeed grin as he turned over and sniffed the smell of bacon cooking, then raised up enough to down his own potion and let it do it’s work before he slung on his dressing gown, went for a piss then sought out the source of the aromas.

His breath caught at the sight. Dan was before the cooker, stark naked but for an apron hanging around his neck and loosely tied around his hips. In the pocket, he clearly had a music-making device, for wires led up to two buds pushed into his ears. He was singing off-key and screwing his face up, singing into the end of the fish-slice and Alan had to smile at the picture Dan made, twitching his hips as he flipped hot oil over the eggs to seal the yolks.

Alan coughed and entered the room. Dan still didn’t hear. It was only when Alan actually touched Dan, threading his arms around his lover’s waist, that Dan reacted and flinched, breaking one of the yolks with the tip of the spatula. He swore and tore his ear-phones out, “Damn, you made me jump, Alan. I’ve ruined breakfast”. Alan tightened his hold and drew Dan closer, “I’ll have the broken ones and thank you for cooking for me like this. You know how much I love home-cooked food”, and with that Alan buried his face in Dan’s neck and licked and sucked on neck and shoulder until Dan moaned.

He was batted playfully away but smirked at the front of the apron pushing out, giving Dan’s freshening hard-on a quick squeeze before he backed off and let his lover serve breakfast.

Dam sat in Alan’s lap for the meal, a fact that pleased Alan no end. He also told him that they needed a day off. “It’s gonna get pretty intense from here on in and I’d like us to take some time out. Eat. Relax. Fuck. Whatever. I just want to be with you today, not fighting anybody, just here loving you. I want to be close to you all day and not be far from you at all, and, right now, I don’t give a fuck if it’s the bond or what, but I want you and I want you near....close”. For that he got an ecstatic kiss and savoured Alan’s moan in his mouth. Yep, it was going to be one of those days.

****

They made love all morning then went again in the bath. Clean and sweet and heavily glamoured they set off to sneak through the old secret passage to Hogsmeade and spent a quiet afternoon as two quickly-ignored travelling salesmen up for the day from London. No-one at the Three Broomsticks batted an eye when they took a room for a couple of hours and they made love again in the heat of the afternoon before sleeping, their shopping strewn around them.

****

They sneaked back to Hogwarts as the sun was finally dipping over the quidditch pitch and they were observed returning from on high. Minerva McGonagall’s lips were tight and pinched as she watched the two men stifle their laughs and hug as they made their way back to the castle, their arms thrown loosely around each other. At Minerva’s shoulder, Albus chuckled at the sight, “So in love, my dear, and so powerful. They look rested from their day”. At this he dipped his head forward and nibbled at the woman’s neck. Minerva made a small sound and tilted her head. Seeing this as permission, Albus let his tongue out to play and was extremely pleased to hear the purrs moments later.

****

Back in the cool of the dungeons, Alan and Dan gave each other gifts purchased that day and kissed with each present, then sloughed off the day’s dust under a shower that ended with Dan screaming as he came all over the pristine white tiles, his face mashed into the wall as Alan fucked him until he came moments later, groaning and clutching at Dan’s hair.

Alan apologised for his roughness and Dan smiled, “Don’t, lover. I love it when you’re rough with me, when you fucking take. I’d already cum, remember. I was on fire for you, babe, and you might have to admit to yourself that you have finally met your match, sexually”.

Holding his Danny tight, Alan kissed him until they both were gasping, then said, “Danny, my love, I have more than met my match. I have never asked another to cleave to me permanently until you, such do I feel for you”. Dan smiled into the hairy chest, loving being crushed like this, owned, possessed. He tightened his own arms around his own beloved. Their sleep was deep and dreamless that night.

July 21st

Entering the Hall for breakfast, his arms twined around Alan’s waist, Dan was quite prepared for a few comments but none were forthcoming. In fact most of the people in the room seemed to be either paired off or in intimate groups of three. Standing at the entrance, the two dropped their hold, Alan’s hand trailing down Dan’s back, over his arse then found Dan’s hand and held it. They weren’t the only ones to have benefited from a day off, it seemed.

Most looked up as they walked down the room. All smiled and seemed relaxed and some still yawned and rubbed at eyes and sleepy faces. Dan scanned them, {Bloody hell, love, do they all look well-shagged, or what?} Alan snorted softly, {It appears as if we missed the party}. Dan flashed him a quick look, {Ew! I’m not sure if I want to go there, even in here, in our heads}. Alan snickered mentally, {I’m not suggesting there was an all-out orgy, you chump. Merely that there have obviously been.....joinings....pairings-off, hmmm, some threes too, or my eyes deceive me..., but no, not orgies. Eurgh, the very idea!}.

Smiling back at everyone externally, they took their seats and breakfast appeared in front of them. It was only after his second bacon sandwich (with HP sauce on, of course) that he noticed Tom sitting to his left and tucking in heartily to black pudding and mushrooms with a helping of scrambled egg, shovelling in the food with a turned-up fork in one hand while itching furiously with the other. It was the restless movement that Dan noticed.

He put out a hand and stilled Tom’s. The blond looked up, “Sorry, I’ve made myself come off the potion except if I need it. It was...um...well, is, making me a bloody junkie. I can’t be doing with that, so Remus carries a phial of it around with him and it’s been modified so I can’t do anything but swallow it”.

Dan’s eyes widened at this, “How were you, um, taking it? It was supposed to be swallowed”. Tom snorted and looked down, his eating hand stilling, too, “I dried it out after adding a couple of things and it rendered most of the ingredients back to their original state. One of the Slytherins taught it me, well, they taught it to someone else and I listened in. Very handy for knowing what someone’s trying to give you. Anyway, I separated out the smack and I’ve been, erm, snorting it. It got so I was hardly eating and I hadn’t shat in a fortnight. Oh, sorry. Dining table. Eating. Had a couple of days of the sweats and now I’m itchy and starving for something that isn’t strawberry ice cream and coca-cola. Yuk, I’ll never touch them again. Anyway, I’ll be pants on the battlefield if I’m wrecked, won’t I?”

Blowing out a long breath between pursed lips, Dan let his cheeks inflate as he exhaled, “Bloody hell, Tom, I knew you were a bit spaced out but I never realised it was getting that bad. Sorry”. Tom grinned shakily at him and started to eat again, “Fuck, the food here’s good”, he mumbled around his egg. Dan turned back to his own food quite stunned. Alan read his mood, {What is it?}, he asked in the ‘dark’ inner voice. Dumbledore was in the room.

{Tom’s off the potion, said he’d been using the base ingredient a bit too much. Fuck, he stopped himself getting addicted too much, stopped it before it really took him. I’m well impressed actually. Remus keeps some on him for medicinal purposes but maybe we need to go back to the drawing....}. Alan leaned in and kissed him to shut him up. {With any luck, this might not last much longer. If all this ends in a few days then the point is moot}.

Dan grinned sheepishly, {Yeah, I suppose so, but maybe Snape’s got some salve that’ll stop the itchies at any rate. Remind me to look later}, and they slowly pulled away from each other to carry on with their breakfast. Lifting his eyes, he saw Luna across the table from him, grinning, “You two look so damned hot when you telepathise”, she murmured, her low voice drowned out on either side but Dan heard it. Maybe she was using magic. He blushed and hid behind his teacup until his face had calmed down. He saw her smirk, look down, and attend to her own meal.

****

As the plates were cleared, Albus looked up into the vaulted ceiling of the Hall, now showing the splendid ribs of stone, so delicate and strong, that held it all up and waved his wand at it, moving it in small slow circles, “Let’s see what the weather’s doing, shall we?” and Dan gasped as the ceiling disappeared to be replaced by blue skies patchworked with small scudding clouds moving at high speed.

A voice from across the table said, “Looks like perfect flying weather to us”. Dan discerned it as one of the Weasley twins though he was still hard put to tell them apart. Their younger brother agreed, “Yeah. This isn’t charmed sky that we’re seeing, is it, sir?” Ron directed his question at the headmaster. The old man lowered his head and smiled at the Gryffindor, “Certainly not, young man. If you chose to run outside right now, I believe you could still see that cloud that looks like a poodle before it breaks up”, he pointed at a particular formation.

Ron grinned, “Flying sounds good to me. Exercise in the dark is all very well, but sometimes a guy just has to feel the wind in his hair. C’mon, Dan, do you fancy it? Harry was a great flyer. Come on, come and have a fly. It’s the one thing we don’t know about you”. Dan was about to retort that there were many things that Ron didn’t know about him but the words died on his lips as the familiar deep-seated panic began to take hold.

He hated heights. Like, really hated them. All the wire-work he had ever had to do was low to the ground and the detail was filled in by the CGI crew. Shit! He really wasn’t sure how to handle this. He dipped his head a moment, thinking, then said, “I don’t want to fly. Not flying is sort of what reminds me of who I really am. I’m not Harry. I don’t like heights. I’ll come outside though and watch. I’ve never seen flying for real”.

As a body, those remaining in the Great Hall all made their way outside, clutching light cloaks around them to ward off the unseasonable chill. The temperature was more early Spring than Midsummer and the humidity had lifted. Everyone’s spirit lifted at the bracing air and the scudding clouds.

Before Ron took off into the air, he laid a broom in front of Dan. It was a splendid thing, all well-trimmed twigs and sleek, polished, cared-for handle, “You know, just in case you feel like having a go”, the redhead said gloomily before doing a running take-off astride his own, far scruffier broom.

Dan and Alan took time to take in the quidditch stands and wandered the perimeter of the pitch, Dan keeping a tight hold on the broom. They watched as several people zoomed about on brooms. At one point, Dan paused as he watched them, “I should be able to do this, but I can’t, the very idea shits me up”, he murmured.

“In one way I’m glad, Dan. It means you can’t injure yourself this way. After all, Harry was always in the Infirmary for one sort of quidditch mishap or another, was he not?” Dan shrugged, “Dunno about that. Most of Harry’s quidditch injuries came either from him being fouled during a game, or attacked, ditto. They didn’t tend to happen because he was a lousy flyer”.

Alan ceded the point with a dip of his head, “Of course. We all know that Harry was a superior flyer but not everything changed about Dan Radcliffe as we crossed over. Dan, you are still you, under all the Harry Potter stuff and, loath though you are to acknowledge it, this is a part of your ‘Dan-ness’, for want of a better term. Harry was a sportsman and excelled at heights. You are not he and you don’t. Recall if you will that I still cannot face making potions containing the parts of live animals. We can do a goodly part of the roles that we have been assigned but not everything. Therein lies our Achilles heels and we have to not show them as much as possible”.

Dan frowned, “You mean I have to learn how to fly?” Alan sighed, “Harry was a flyer. If you are to truly convince Voldemort then maybe you have to be one too. I count myself fortunate that nowhere in the books is Snape described in flying terms. I believe he has used a broom: knows one end from another, so to speak, but is not the consummate flyer that his Harry is”.

“Bugger”, was the gist of Dan’s next series of rants.

Alan let his lover carry on for a moment then pulled Dan to his chest and held him tight. {I know, lover, I know. I’d really rather that you didn’t fly, if it’s all the same. I don’t want to have to scrape you up off the field but I think that you should at least give it a little go, stay close to the ground, have an experienced person handy}. Dan slumped in the encircling arms, {Can’t I just ride pillion with someone else? Do brooms hold two people?}

Alan’s chuckle was deep, {I can’t believe how they fly with one person on them, never mind two...}, his send was cut off and Dan felt Alan’s head turn by the digging of his chin changing on his scalp. He turned too, Hermione was approaching them. She stopped a few feet from them.

“Do you want me to teach you to fly?”, she asked. Dan’s brows shot up, he had no recall of ever reading of Hermione on a broom. Instead he went sideways a little, “Oh, I was under the impression that you weren’t keen on flying”. She grinned but there was steel in it, “I’m not. I hate it and, to begin with, I was scared of heights, couldn’t stand on a chair without breaking a sweat. But then we all got embroiled in this war and the ability to fly gives one another dimension whether for fighting or fleeing, so I sucked it up and learned. I’ll never play quidditch or anything, I’ll only ever be a ‘Sunday driver’, but I’m good and I’m careful and I don’t have accidents. Have you ever ridden a motor bike?”

Dan backed up at this sudden change of direction, “Yeah, well, not a real one. I had a scooter last year for getting around on. If it helps, I’ve been a pillion passenger on larger bikes loads of times and I’ve had a bicycle ever since I was a kid”. She grinned and seemed pleased with this reply, “That’s good then, ‘cos that’s how you use your balance on a broom only you lean quite forwards like you would on one of those thin little racing bikes with the dropped bars”.

He hadn’t thought about it like that. “So, you mean, you bank on turns just like on a bike, putting your weight into them rather than trying to oppose it?” She nodded simply, “You don’t need any more than that, other than take-off and landing, admittedly a bit tricky for the newbie but soon learned”. Okay, that was the technique sorted but it was still the thought of the height that made sweat start between his shoulder blades and his hands clammy.

Looking down, she noticed him wringing them and said softly, “My, you are nervous. Just like I was. I promise faithfully we’ll not go outside your comfort zone until you are ready to handle it. Alan, it might be an idea if you take a few lessons, too. You have to remember, it’s not all fancy quidditch moves, it’s just a form of transport, like a push-bike in the air and just as responsive but most of the time you fly in straight lines. If you like, we’ll go away from here away from the players and we’ll get you a broom, Alan, and we’ll play about, no higher than a metre off the ground, what do you say?”

Explained like that, Dan found himself nodding, “Yeah, okay, I’ll give it a go, but I don’t want the others to see”. She smiled, “Yeah, I didn’t let any of them teach me, either. It was Professor Snape who taught me”. This surprised both of the actors, “Really? So he was quite a flyer, then?”, Alan asked dubiously. Hermione nodded, “Yes, he was an excellent ‘driver’ and a very patient teacher, in that at least. I miss our little jaunts, to be honest”, and the two watched her blink a couple of times then swallow back her emotion until she was all business again. Extending an arm in a direction away from the quidditch pitch, she murmured, “Shall we?”, and they trooped away.

****

Several hours later, they gave up as the light was fading. Alan had surprised himself, becoming reasonably adept in so short a time. Dan realised in fairly short order that he had inherited absolutely no flying skills from Harry Potter. None whatsoever. And that was depressing. He quite fancied a go even if he stayed close to the ground with his feet almost touching the grass but he couldn’t seem to get the hang of it at all. He was all tension.

Even after a massage by his lover that was only two degrees away from obscene, he still couldn’t get the hang of staying on the damned thing, the balance required was far finer than staying on a bike, but he did try, and try, and try until he threw his hands in the air and admitted defeat. The sun was dipping behind the castle when Hermione had an idea. She held out her broom, “Here, try this one, instead”.

Frowning, he exchanged their brooms and straddled this older model, using the hand-hold he’d been taught, clenching knees and arse cheeks as the stick snuggled in. He felt his balls moved slightly. He took the few steps and took off gently, reining back the speed to a slow crawl and his now six feet off the ground back to a less heart-racing three feet. Sweat dripped off his brow, stinging his eyes, but he was flying. He was really flying and it was pretty cool, actually.

He turned to grin and the broom lurched up and sideways but he swung it back on course and gasped and panted for a moment. Hermione came alongside him on Alan’s broom. “Whoa, Dan. Steady on. It was the broom. It must be. So Harry’s broom is charmed? I’m not surprised. Let’s ride back to the castle but take it nice and slow, Alan’s following us on foot. He doesn’t want to risk a possibly hexed broom”. And so Dan enjoyed his first ever flight, albeit at not much more than walking speed and definitely no more than four feet off the ground. Hermione knew the rest would come with practice and if someone threw a broom at him in the thick of the fighting, he’d know one end from another. That was good enough for her.

They arrived at the main doors just as the quidditchers did to low cheers and back-slaps as Dan brought himself to a graceful stop and jumped off. George Weasley asked, “What did you do with Sna-Alan?” Dan looked back, there was his lover trudging up with the Firebolt. “He’s been flying this all afternoon and Harry’s has been playing up all afternoon. I’ve only actually been flying for about twenty minutes. Alan volunteered to bring Harry’s broom”.

Fred’s voice came out of the crowd, “I know Harry put ownership charms on it, but you’ve been able to get through them all so far, haven’t you?” Shrugging, Dan nodded, “Yeah, I can get into anywhere that he protected so, yeah, I’ve no idea why his broom wouldn’t let me fly on it. Perhaps I should pick another one to use and leave it alone”.

Ron stepped forwards as Alan drew near and asked to look at it, “My brother, Bill, he’s a cursebreaker. He could take a look at it, see if there’s anything on it, if you like. It’d be a shame to see a fine broom go to waste ‘cos it can’t be flown” Dan took it from Alan and handed it to Ron, “Sure, go ahead but I think I’ll do the broom a bigger disservice by being the vicar driving a Maserati at a steady twenty. This one’s a racing broom. I need a roadster. Here, clean it up and you can have it. I’m sure Harry would have wanted you to....erm....you know....when he died. Here, take it”. Keeping his eyes glued to Dan’s he closed his hand around the shaft and they both felt the jolt as it travelled up Ron’s arm. Dan smiled as he relinquished it, “I guess that makes you the new rightful owner, doesn’t it?” Ron grinned, tomato red in the face, “Yeah, s’pose so. I’ll still have Bill check it, though. Can’t hurt”, and on that note, they trailed in after the others and went to freshen up before dinner.

They took it in turns to bathe so as not to get distracted but by the time Alan emerged from his it was to see Dan stretched out on the bed still in his towel, fast asleep. Levitating his lover, Alan divested him of his towel and lowered him into bed, covering him up and kissing his brow.

He turned to the wardrobe to select a shirt and couldn’t resist turning back at a movement behind him. Dan had dragged his pillow into his arms and was cuddling it in his sleep. That decided it for Alan, they could always call a house-elf later and order in. Whipping off his own towel, Alan hopped into bed beside his beloved and removed the pillow replacing it with himself.

As he lay down, he felt Dan’s heavy arm go around his waist and Dan’s soft breaths on his shoulder and decided there was nowhere he’d rather be right now, dinner be hanged. Slowing his breathing to that of his lover, Alan let the fresh air and exertion do it’s work and soon he was as deep in slumber as his lover.