Harry slept like the dead.

Though he’d gone to bed no later than half past seven in the evening, he did not wake until nearly the same time next morning, his body stiff and aching slightly, and he knew immediately he had not moved an inch all night. He sat up slowly. His limbs felt as though they were tied down with weights; he stared with heavy lids at the sunlight seeping in under his bed curtains. The light swirled hypnotically the longer he looked at it. His head felt stuffed with cotton, his thoughts as slow and dull as if he were drugged. Which, he supposed with a slightly loopy smirk, he probably still was. Harry might have sat there forever, entranced by the strip of light, but he gradually became aware that his throat was very, very dry; he swallowed uncomfortably and commanded his sluggish arms to pull back the curtains with difficulty.

He was met with the sight of Ron, sitting up and yawning widely, his arms stretched high over his head. “‘Morning….” he told Harry groggily.

Harry swung his cement-filled legs over the side of the bed and sat there for a moment, rubbing the sleep slowly out of his eyes. He let his arms drop heavily to his knees and stared at the pitcher of water on his bedside table, which appeared to be impossibly far away.

“You alright?” Ron asked as he, too, moved to perch on the edge of his own bed, scratching his head and yawning again. He watched, frowning slightly, as Harry struggled to pour himself a glass of water.

“Yeah,” Harry rasped after he’d taken a few sips, the water easing a cool trail all the way down to his stomach. “Think I slept too much,” he slurred, licking his lips. He snorted quietly in vague disbelief. He’d slept….

“Good,” Ron said with a resolute nod, and got up to search for his school robes.

Yes, thought Harry, and he squinted blurrily at his pillow as the other boys began to stir, it was good.

Harry followed Ron and Hermione down to breakfast, listening to them bicker about something he did not possess the concentration to follow properly; the sound of it bothered him less than usual, however, and he found himself perfectly content to walk behind them silently, staring about. Everything looked somewhat surreal, like a fuzzy, out-of-focus dream, and the constantly looming threat of dizziness he’d got used to lately hovered even closer, making it necessary for him to grasp firmly onto the railings every time they descended a flight of stairs.

As soon as Harry sat down next to Neville in the Great Hall, the same dishes he had requested the night before appeared in front of him, only the vegetables had been replaced with more fruit. Harry stared at them. A deep hunger surged to life in his belly, much stronger than his usual pangs, and his eyes wandered a bit guiltily to the other plates filled with bacon and eggs. Harry helped himself to a whole grapefruit, a handful of strawberries, several slices of apple, and, before he could talk himself out of it, a spoonful of scrambled eggs and a piece of bacon. He ate quietly, the sound of Ron and Hermione’s voices dulling to a drone in his ears, until Neville waved a hand in front of his eyes, asking anxiously if he was alright. Harry startled a bit, looking up to find the three of them watching him curiously.

“Fine,” he assured them, and went back to his plate, only to find that it was already empty, including the bacon and eggs. A squirming sense of shame spread all the way out to his fingers as his friends resumed their conversations; he hadn’t meant to cheat, really he hadn’t, but he was so hungry. He wondered distantly if it was the sleeping tablets making him feel so ravenous…he couldn’t remember if that had been listed as a side effect or not…he would have to check when he got back to his room….

Breakfast finished in a blur, Harry doing his best not to stare off into space again, and he heaved his heavier-than-normal bag over his shoulder and trailed listlessly after Ron and Hermione to the Transfiguration classroom for their first lesson.

Professor McGonagall strode up and down the rows of desks after they had all settled in, collecting homework. Harry sat silently when she came to him, having nothing to hand in, and as McGonagall stared down at him over the tops of her square spectacles, her eyes narrowed ever so slightly, scrutinizing.

“No homework, Potter?”

Harry shook his head mutely, staring at a spot over her left shoulder, unable to meet her eyes. He wanted to apologise, but he did not know what to say, he had no excuse to offer – Harry braced for a reprimand, for points to be docked for his negligence, perhaps even for a detention…but McGonagall simply gave him one last look, the corners of her mouth turning downwards in the barest trace of a frown, and swept away to her desk. Harry and Ron stared after her in shocked disbelief. Never in living memory had Professor McGonagall neglected to punish someone for failing to complete her coursework.

Harry expected Hermione to fume at this inexplicable show of indulgence or leniency or whatever it was, but she was instead staring over at McGonagall with a thoughtful look on her face as she slowly pulled her copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration out of her schoolbag.

Transfiguration passed in much the same haze as the rest of the morning had done – Professor McGonagall paced slowly back and forth at the front of the classroom giving a complex lecture Harry could not even attempt to decipher, and his head drooped further into his hand as Hermione scribbled furious notes beside him. His lethargy lifted slightly towards the end of the hour, but that only made room for a low thrum of anxiety about his slip-up at breakfast to creep up under his skin, and he put his hands under the desk to scratch where Ron and Hermione would not see.

“What d’you reckon, McGonagall going soft in her old age?” said Ron as they left the classroom, elbowing Harry’s side as though congratulating him for winning some sort of contest.

“She’s not that old,” Hermione said automatically, but her voice lacked any real reproach. She still looked pensive and, Harry thought, a little relieved, though he might have been imagining it – his surroundings still did not seem fully real to him.

“I thought you’d be cross,” Harry told her. “She’s never let you off like that….”

“Yes, well, she’s never had the occasion, I’ve always handed in my homework, haven’t I?” Hermione said reprovingly, but her expression relaxed a bit as she looked at him. “Come on, we’ll be late for Potions if we don’t move….”

Hermione did not say anything further on the matter of Professor McGonagall’s behaviour, and Harry let the subject drop, reaching into his bag to pull out the Marauder’s Map instead. Hermione rolled her eyes at the sight of it, but Ron moved in closer to look over Harry’s shoulder, muttering, “What’s old ferret-face up to now?”

Since the whole Dark Mark fiasco, Ron had seemed a bit keener on keeping tabs on Malfoy, and Harry, glad to have company at last in his 'obsession,' as Hermione liked to call it, readily shifted the Map to give Ron a better view as he tapped the parchment with his wand and mumbled, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Harry and Ron bent over the Map as the little black lines and dots appeared, and it took each of them only a second to find Draco Malfoy. They looked up at each other at the same moment, then turned to see over their shoulders in unison. According to the Map, Malfoy was not thirty feet behind them, but it was impossible to see him among the sea of students thronging the corridors.

“He’s following us….” Harry murmured suspiciously.

“Of course, he’s following us,” said Hermione a little impatiently. “He’s going to Potions, isn’t he, we all are….”

But Harry could not accept this explanation: Malfoy had left the Transfiguration classroom well before they had, and as Harry continued to watch him on the Map, it seemed as though he was taking care to maintain that same thirty feet or so of distance behind him, Ron, and Hermione as they moved through the halls. Ron, like Harry, kept glancing back all the way to the dungeons. But Malfoy pretended to be searching through his bag every time they managed to catch him looking, and Harry tried to quell the disquiet that crept upon him as he warily considered any possible reason Malfoy could have for stalking the three of them through the castle like a slithering predator ready to spring.

Harry continued to keep an eye on Malfoy’s movements throughout the rest of the morning, and he spent so much time with his eyes boring into the back of that infuriating blond head of his in Potions that Hermione audibly sighed more than once and even Ron shot him a look of slight exasperation. But Harry continued to stare, as if he could somehow see through Malfoy’s thick skull to his brain, and see what it was he might be planning….

The weird, drugged-out state that Harry been stuck in since he’d woken up lifted almost completely by lunchtime. Regrettably, this only permitted him to feel even more uneasiness about Malfoy’s behaviour, not to mention a distinct resentful annoyance at Hermione’s refusal to take it seriously, and a keen awareness of the hunger pains that had not abated in the least since breakfast. He was in such a foul mood by midday that it took every ounce of willpower he possessed to stick to his planned food at lunch and refrain from snapping at Lavender Brown to shut up when she giggled shrilly at a joke Seamus told her.

Dinner was much the same. Only it was made about five times worse by the fact that Romilda sat down two seats away from Harry, the barest tinge of purple in her cheeks the only sign of what been done to her – “Madam Pomfrey got Professor Slughorn to brew something up, it was a potion in my shower gel that did it, it was an easy antidote in the end….” she could be heard telling her friends – and in spite of Harry’s intense hunger, he suddenly felt the nasty urge to refuse to eat a single thing. It was only the memory of Ron’s disturbed expression at the sight of Harry’s weight loss that kept him in his seat, and he shoveled some mushrooms and peppers onto his plate with great reluctance.

Harry went to bed early again, despite having been assigned another mountain of homework for the week. In the privacy of his four-poster he re-examined the packaging of the tablets Kreacher had got him...headache, dizziness, stomach pain, changes in appetite....

Harry frowned. That did explain it, then. He sat there for a moment, turning the box over idly in his hands, debating...was it really worth it? Bargaining a good night’s sleep for the risk of wanting to eat more than he should? But in the end the prospect of dreams full of screams and pain or, worse, dark broom closets, made the choice for him, and he quickly popped a second tablet out of its tray.

The following week fell into a pattern that Harry seemed to observe from the outside rather than participate in himself. Wake up. Slog through the morning. Rabbit food (Harry remembered wryly that that’s what Uncle Vernon had called it when Dudley had been sentenced to his diet). More rabbit food. Sometimes straying from that when his body managed to beat back his brain…guilt (desperate, awful guilt) when he did stray, and he scratched. Endless piles of homework, and he tried, he tried but he couldn’t focus. The days blurred together, and he needed sleep, and he took his tablets, and he was too tired. He was cold. He was frustrated and worried and hungry, so hungr –

“Will you please put that map away?”

Harry glanced up at Hermione in annoyance, though her tone when she badgered him about his preoccupation with Malfoy had shifted more towards pleading than disapproving the past few days.

“You never tell Ron to quit looking at it, do you, and he’s just as convinced as I am that Malfoy’s up to all this Junior Death Eater rubbish….” Harry pointed out, regretting that Ron was already down at dinner waiting for them; he could have used the backup. His eyes found the Slytherin’s dot again, which was positioned, predictably, not very far away from him and Hermione at the moment.

“No, I don’t,” Hermione said meaningfully, but she did not say anything else as they descended a narrow staircase.

Deciding not to even attempt to interpret that, Harry ignored her and kept his gaze trained on the Map – ever since Monday morning, Malfoy had been sticking to Harry, Ron, and Hermione like glue – well, this wasn’t exactly true. He’d been sticking to Hermione like glue. Harry had checked the Map as often as he could between classes and meals, and, almost every time, Malfoy had been there, lurking somewhere behind them – except for when it was only Harry and Ron. Malfoy seemed to lose interest then. Sometimes Harry caught sight of him on the Map, loitering outside the library or a bathroom, like he was waiting for Hermione to come out. Harry’s insides writhed and seethed furiously at the thought, a venomous hatred pulsing in his brain, and he glanced over his shoulder again, catching a glimpse of Malfoy’s pale, pointed face through the group of fourth year Ravenclaws that stood between them.

Making up his mind on the spot, Harry decided that the time for caution had long since passed and he hastily refolded the Marauder’s Map and stuffed it back into his pocket.

“Got to go to the bathroom – you go on, I’ll see you in a minute,” he told Hermione quickly as they came around a corner, already turning away from her.

“Hurry up!” she called after him, and she disappeared down another staircase.

Harry doubled back to the corner of the corridor and leaned against the wall, doing his best to appear casual and thoroughly innocuous as the cluster of Ravenclaws walked past. A couple of the girls giggled when they saw him, which did nothing to improve Harry’s frazzled nerves, and he just barely stopped himself fixing them with a withering glare. A minute later, they had also climbed down the stairs, and then there was only one more set of footsteps making their way up the hallway.

Harry waited silently, barely breathing as he drew his wand.

Malfoy came around the corner and Harry sprang forward, seizing the front of Malfoy’s robes, ignored the outraged “HEY!” that echoed furiously through the halls, and pulled him roughly around to slam him up against the wall.

In the split second that Malfoy was frozen in surprise, Harry brought his wand up, jabbing it threateningly into the side of his neck. Malfoy immediately began struggling, clutching at Harry’s wrists as though the touch of the wand at his throat had released him from his shock. Malfoy’s nails bit into Harry’s flesh, and Harry let a low growl, yanking Malfoy away from the wall and slamming him back again…blood was pounding in his brain, a blinding rage surging up inside him, rushing up his throat, making his face burn and his fist close even more tightly around his wand….

“Get off of me!” Malfoy snarled, stray strands of his blond hair flying around his face as he plunged a hand into his robes and pulled out his own wand, pushing it sharply up underneath Harry’s chin, right over his jugular. But Harry did not release him, and they both stood there, breathing heavily, with their wands pressed against each other’s throats, glaring at one other with unadulterated hatred and disgust.

“Why have you been following her?” Harry demanded through clenched teeth, twisting Malfoy’s robes viciously in his fist.

Something like astonishment flickered in Malfoy’s grey eyes, and Harry felt a savage burst of satisfaction; Malfoy had not been aware that Harry knew exactly what he was doing. But Malfoy’s face contorted into an ugly grimace as he spat, “Who?”

“You know exactly who I mean! Hermione, you slimy little – ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Potter. Why would I possibly want to follow that little Mudblood around?”

Harry’s vision nearly went blurry with rage as adrenaline coursed through his veins, his ability to keep from hexing Malfoy into oblivion hanging on by barely a thread. A sharp pain flared suddenly in Harry’s chest, and then his vision really did seem to be going blurry as a wave of dizziness overtook him.

“I know it was you, Malfoy, the graffiti, that Dark Mark,” Harry panted, trying desperately to hold himself together as another pain flared in the region of his heart. “You’re not going to get away with this, you’ll be chucked out for good…I know it was you,” he said again, pushing his neck even more firmly against Malfoy’s wand, half-wishing Malfoy would try something, would give Harry an excuse to fight him, to unleash all the anger and frustration and panic that had been simmering underneath the surface for so long.

But Malfoy shoved Harry away from him, and Harry’s grip broke easily as another swell of lightheadedness crashed over him. Malfoy straightened his robes with a few sharp tugs and ran a hand smoothly over his head, slicking his hair back into place as he smirked at Harry.

“Prove it,” he whispered.

Harry glared at him, his breath catching harshly, channeling the force of his outrage and loathing to keep himself on his feet. “You stay the hell away from Hermione, you understand me? You touch her and I swear I’ll – ”

“You'll what? It’s a free country,” said Malfoy, “And I don’t take orders from stinking half-bloods….” He looked Harry briefly up and down, his lip curling as he took in the sweat at Harry’s brow, his heaving chest, the hand shaking around his wand. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?” he sneered. “Golden Boy of Gryffindor losing his nerve?”

Malfoy gave a derisive snort and set off down the hall, bumping Harry’s shoulder forcefully as he went. Harry wanted to turn and go after him, to call out a retort, to do something to wipe that bloody smirk off his face, but it was all he could do to stagger unsteadily over to the wall as Malfoy disappeared around the corner.

Harry dropped more than sunk onto the floor, leaning heavily against the wall and gasping for breath, clutching at his chest, which was now bursting with pain. With sharp, jerky movements, Harry dug out the Invisibility Cloak and swung it over himself, cringing at the thought of anyone coming along to see Harry Potter sprawled out, sweating and trembling helplessly on the floor. The pain in his chest seemed to be suffocating him, and Harry wondered suddenly if he was having a heart attack. It was beating so fast in his ears…what if he died, right here in this hallway?

A hysterical thought popped wildly into his head, and he wondered if he shouldn’t take the Cloak off so no one would trip over his body –

But after a few minutes, the pain lessened, and then dissipated, and he could breathe again.

Harry pulled himself shakily to his feet, still trembling underneath his father's Invisibility Cloak. He stared at the spot of stone floor where he’d just been sitting, as though expecting some sort of dark apparition to rise up out of it and attack him.

Harry shook himself, rubbing his knuckles nervously against his hand, and set off quickly down the corridor, keenly aware that he was already very late for dinner, and that Ron and Hermione would be wondering where he was.

A cool, slight breeze ruffled Harry’s hair as he walked along, the vast blue sky silent above him. His footsteps were muffled and uneven, and he looked down, discovering with pleasant surprise that he was walking upon clouds as white and fluffy as fresh marshmallows…well, of course. Why shouldn’t he be walking on clouds? Everyone did.

Patterns swirled hypnotically up in the atmosphere, winding and curling like snakes, and Harry leapt gently off the surface of clouds and floated up to one of them with ease, thinking that it was really very pretty…he reached out his fingers, and touched it – the swirling thing broke open, and a murder of crows, each with six bulging eyes and four ravaged wings, burst out of it, flapping around him in a frenzy, attacking his face, his hands, pecking at his eyes, and Harry threw his arms over his face, curling into himself as the murder bore down upon him, driving him down through the clouds, and Harry was falling, falling fast….

The crows disappeared as suddenly as they’d come, and Harry looked around to find that he was standing in a dark cave, rosy pink firelight flickering sinisterly off the damp walls. He was naked. There were disembodied eyes, scarlet and slit-pupiled like a cat’s, staring at him from every dark corner, and he backed away, hitting a wall, out of which long, thorny vines grew in an instant, winding around his legs and arms, binding him against the clammy surface. Terror exploded in his stomach, and he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out...a school bell rang, loud and sharp, echoing around the cave, whose floor kept shifting and changing like quicksand, and a girl appeared in a puff of purple smoke right next to the pink fire, roasting squares of chocolate over the flames as though she’d been sat beside it all along. She smiled at Harry as the chocolate dripped into the fire, each drop transforming into a tiny Snitch as it fell, and then flying away before Harry could catch it…he strained at the vines holding him to the cave wall….

The girl laughed, an ugly screeching sound, and suddenly she was standing right in front of Harry, her dark hair swirling around her. She caressed his face with a hand that felt like sandpaper, and Harry knew that if she wanted to she could score the flesh right off his skull….

The vines holding him down disintegrated to ash as she pressed her body to his, but still he could not move. She kissed him then, a thick, bubbling liquid pouring into his open mouth, choking him – the girl stepped back and looked at Harry sadly.

She spoke, and her voice echoed as though there were three of her speaking together. “I’m so glad you came to see me. I’ve been waiting. I’ve been eating rats to survive, you see….” She gestured over to a pile of little skeletons, and only their eyes remained, staring back at Harry blankly….

‘I’m so sorry,’ Harry wanted to say, and he wasn’t sure whether he meant it for the rats or the girl, but he suddenly found that he had no mouth, only a smooth stretch of skin below his nose, and he looked down at his own body to find that he was a skeleton, too, as if all his flesh had been melted away.

“It’ll be okay,” the girl soothed. “You have me, now….” And Harry’s horrified gaze found her face, which was now grey and taut – she looked dead. Dead like the four corpses standing behind her with sunken expressions of accusation and hatred on their gaunt faces as they looked at Harry, blaming him, he knew, for what had become of them….

‘I’m sorry!’ Harry tried to tell them. ‘I’M SORRY!’ But he still did not have a mouth, and his body was fading away…the dark-haired girl stepped up to him again, whispering, “I can help you…” and moved into him, so that she became a part of him, and their bodies became one body, and Harry screamed, clawing at his bare bones –

With an almighty wrench, Harry dragged himself out of sleep and into wakefulness, still screaming so loudly he thought his throat might tear, the taste of iron on his tongue. His body attempted to thrash, to bolt up, but it was paralysed, stuck to the sweaty sheets as though a giant mass were sitting on top of him, pinning him to the bed. His scream cut off abruptly with a choked, desperate whimper – his lungs were frozen in his chest, his brain starved for oxygen, and with an enormous push of willpower, Harry forced his lungs to fill, to expand, and he sucked in the deepest breath he’d ever taken in his life. Sweat poured off of him, his heart hammering fit to burst, and a sharp pain in his tongue told him he had bitten it in his sleep.

Panic pounded through him, still unable to move, and he stared, wide-eyed, up at the canopy of his four-poster, trying to get his brain to communicate with his muscles. It felt like he was Petrified – terror slammed his heart against ribs, and he choked on a sob. Move, he snarled at his mind, move, move, move, move, MOVE!

His fingers twitched. His knees jerked. Slowly, the feeling returned, and he was able to drag himself up to rest against the headboard, panting heavily. He realised his face was wet with more than just sweat, and he thrust a hand jerkily back behind his pillow, seizing hold of his wand like a lifeline and clutching it to his chest.

“L-l-lumos,” he whispered, his voice breaking. He coughed and tried again. “Lumos!”

His bed filled with light, and amongst the shadows cast by his rumpled bedspread, he saw a smear of blood on his sheets. Harry stared at it. He repositioned his wand and raised his trembling hands to his eyes. The outsides of his wrists were torn open again.

The damage was not nearly as bad as it could have been, and a small part of Harry was grateful that he had not been able to move properly in his sleep – he could not have asked Ginny to heal him again. The look in her eyes if he did was enough to make him want to crawl straight into a hole to shrivel up and die.

Harry clenched his hand into a fist, feeling the congealed blood underneath his fingernails, and he threw back his covers, forcing his wooden legs over the side of the bed. He doused his wand and pulled back his hangings. He had to make it to the bathroom. He had to clean himself up, but he didn’t know if he could even stand….

Harry rose slowly, clutching at his bedpost for support – he could hardly feel his feet under him – the bathroom seemed miles away, and he tamped down the urge to give into despair. He focused every last particle of his brain on putting one foot in front of the other. He stumbled unevenly, barely making it to the bathroom doorway before he collapsed. His knees gave out and hit the floor with a sickening flash of pain and he bit down on a grunt, determined not to wake the others. Harry half-crawled into the bathroom, closing the door behind him with a shaking hand. He stared up at the sink, yearning for a drink of water, for a splash on his flushed, sweaty face, but he did not even have the energy to prop himself up against the wall, and he crumpled weakly onto the freezing floor, rolling over to stare at the underside of the counter, his heart thumping madly again from exertion.

The desire to call out for Ron like a child in the night rushed up inside him, and he felt traitorous tears prick at the corner of his eyes again as he lay there, prone and miserable. Harry curled up, like he had in his dream, and he pressed his eyes shut at the phantom sensation of gruesome, six-eyed crows pecking him all over, stabbing, hurting him.

Ever since he had started taking the sleeping tablets, he had slept more solidly, but almost every day he had woken up with vague memories of strange, eerie dreams that left him slightly on edge all morning. But tonight…tonight had been something else entirely. His nightmare had been so…real. Vivid and disturbing and unnervingly psychedelic, he had never had a dream quite like it. The image of his skeletal body intruded sharply, and he opened his eyes, looking down at himself just to make sure he was still all there. His hand twitched up to his mouth, feeling for his lips….

Four corpses staring back at him through empty sockets….

Harry shuddered, forcing his eyes shut again. He lay there for what felt like hours until some modicum of strength returned; he carefully placed his trembling palms against the floor and pushed himself up. He rested briefly against the sink before grasping the edge of the counter and hauling his shaking, shivery body to its feet. Determinedly avoiding looking at his reflection, Harry turned on the tap and stuck his hands under the stream, rubbing lightly at the dried blood. He winced at the sting, but when he was done they looked much better. Or he thought they did, anyway. He had left his glasses beside his bed. Harry splashed some water on his face, washing away the salty remains of the sweat and tears, and gulped down a few mouthfuls, feeling marginally better.

Breathing as deep and even as possible, Harry hobbled to the door and opened it, startled nearly out of his skin to find Dean waiting beside the door, squinting and sleep-mussed, on the other side.

“Harry,” Dean whispered. “I was just about to knock, you’ve been in here for – are you okay?” he asked suddenly, taking in Harry’s appearance. Harry could not see Dean’s expression clearly without his glasses, but there was a slight note of concern in his voice, and Harry thought he saw his eyes flick down to Harry’s wrists, which Harry shoved hurriedly behind his back.

“Yeah,” Harry whispered back. “Sorry, all yours.” He let Dean past him; Dean cast him another fleeting look and closed the door.

Harry dragged himself back over to his bed and dropped onto it wearily, his brain teeming with uncomfortable, unwanted thoughts. Abruptly, he shoved a hand under his pillow, pulled out the package of sleeping tablets, and threw them into the drawer of his bedside table, closing it firmly.

Well, that was the end of that, Harry sighed to himself.

Tonight had been ten times worse than any of his normal nightmares, and if he was being honest with himself he was a little relieved to have an excuse to stop; the dreamlike numbness that had coloured his whole week had been, he had to admit, nice in a way. But it certainly wasn’t doing him any favours as far as his schoolwork situation went, which was now beyond desperate. He was certain he was in danger of failing about half his classes at this point. However, without a doubt the worst part had been all the extra food he had been unable to stop himself from consuming. Not to mention the fact that he’d felt so drowsy and slow that he hadn’t managed to drag himself out of bed once for a morning run…a restless hum of anxiety pulsated just underneath his skin….

Dean came out of the bathroom and got back into bed. Ron muttered something in his sleep that sounded like ‘can’t go to the dance, got to help take these flowers to the zoo, I’m the manager’ and Harry allowed himself a small grin. He turned over and stared at Ron’s raised silhouette, thinking.

He’d just have to be a bit stricter with himself.

That was the safe thing. And the only way to make up for this last week – no more options or choices or leeway, he just had to grit his teeth and do it. Something subsided in him at the thought, like a monstrous serpent being lulled back into a doze, and Harry reached eagerly over to his alarm clock, setting it early enough for his run. After a second’s thought, he pushed it back another half hour. He’d need time before breakfast to go down to the kitchens and tell the house-elves about the adjustments that needed to be made.

Harry buried his face in his pillow, thoroughly exhausted, and closed his eyes – the vivid, too-real images of his dream threatened to overwhelm him, and once or twice his eyes snapped open, expecting to see dozens of scarlet eyes staring at him from the shadows. Eventually, the sound of Ron’s quiet snores and the promise of much more manageable days on the horizon eased him to sleep.

A storm was raging outside the window when Harry’s alarm went off, testing his resolve to follow through with the plan he’d outlined for himself, and he momentarily let his eyes slip closed again, sinking back into his mattress, before he sat up with a jerk, jumping out of bed as suddenly as if he’d been poked with a cattle prod.

No choice, you’ve got to go, you said you’d go, Harry told himself firmly, and he shoved his glasses sleepily onto his face, taking comfort once again in the idea of a decisive, clear-cut routine, even as a flash of lightning cracked apart the sky outside the dormitory, followed by a low, ominous roll of thunder.

He had to stop by the kitchens first anyway, and the storm might have blown itself out by then. Gathering up his things, Harry left the dormitory, closing the door quietly behind him, and ran through his list of meals in his head, over and over again like a recitation, all the way down to the kitchens so that he wouldn’t forget.

Ron and Hermione were not happy with him.

At all.

Nor was Ginny, for that matter, who had taken to sitting right next to Harry at meals whenever Dean was not with her.

None of them had actually said anything outright, yet, but he did not know how long that was going to last – their pointed looks from his plate, to his set jaw, and back again spoke volumes. As did the way they kept pushing dishes of food towards him, though, true to his promise to himself, he had so far wordlessly refused to touch any of it.

He had to follow The Rules, and The Rules told him exactly what he was allowed to have:

Breakfast: half a bowl of cornflakes with milk, or one grapefruit.

Lunch: an apple, a salad with tomato, and broth.

Dinner: Tomatoes, broccoli, and carrots, one cup each.

No snacks. End of.

Water.

Tea. No sugar, no cream.

Any more than that, and it was an extra lap around the Quidditch pitch. Even though sneaking out was a bit trickier these days – there were now security trolls posted outside all the secret passages during the night in addition to the rotation of Aurors guarding the front doors.

But this had not stopped him in the end – Harry knew how to get by trolls, after all.

Perhaps Ron, Ginny, and Hermione sensed that attempting to reason Harry into eating more would be ineffective (which, Harry thought with a fierce twinge of self-satisfaction, it would be), or perhaps it was the fact that Harry had now secretly started wearing two jumpers under his robes that eased their worry enough for them to refrain from commenting on his stringent eating habits. Harry knew he had lost several more pounds, and something told him that unless he kept it from showing, he was not going to like the consequences.

The tension between all four of them was palpable. Harry, who had already been trying to avoid too much contact with Ginny, was now doing everything in his power to make sure they did not run into each other in the halls or the common room, made more than a little difficult by the fact that Ginny was having none of it. She made an effort to engage him in conversation, even when he did nothing but mumble lame responses at her, and she continued to wave or smile at him when they saw each other outside of meals, even if he pretended he did not see it. She insisted on treating him normally, even as he was trying his best to pull away from her, and it was truly, inexpressibly maddening.

Ron and Hermione were taking much the same tack.

Even though neither of them were directly trying to address Harry’s behaviour at mealtimes anymore, Hermione always seemed to attempt to bring the subject of food up organically. She would start conversations about the new line of sweets Honeydukes had come out with, or the best Christmas dinners they had ever had, or an interesting book of wizarding recipes she had found in the library. Harry largely ignored these attempts, partly because he knew exactly what she was trying to do, and partly because he had tried to warn her to watch out for Malfoy, that he was tailing her for some as yet unknown nefarious reason, and she had told him that he was being ridiculous, a transgression for which Harry had yet to forgive her.

Harry had told neither Hermione nor Ron about his confrontation with Malfoy, and he did not think it to be a wise idea at this point, for Ron, despite hating and suspecting Malfoy quite as much as Harry did, seemed to have taken it into this head to appoint himself Harry’s keeper.

Every time Harry tried to disappear to his bed hours early, or go to the library by himself, Ron provided some excuse for Harry to stay, or be accompanied, as if he was of the opinion that Harry was spending too much time alone. An opinion Harry might have shared, if only Ron were acting a bit more like himself. As it was, Ron had become almost…Hermione-ish, expressing the concern that Harry was putting off too many homework assignments, and teaming up with Hermione to make a weekly schedule for Harry to follow so he did not fall too far behind. Harry privately and grudgingly agreed that Ron perhaps had a point, but it did not stop him missing his best mate and how things had been only weeks ago, before everything had got so…complicated.

Harry let out a low sigh, tapping his quill rhythmically against the side of the table.

He had decided to try to work out a response to Lupin – the man had sent another letter full of thinly-veiled worry, apparently having dismissed Harry’s claims that all was well – taking the opportunity to do it while Ron and Hermione had been called away to a Prefects’ meeting. But he could not think at all what to say. He stared dejectedly across the common room, watching a couple of third years have a riotous belching contest, empty Butterbeer bottles strewn about the floor around them…Harry wondered distantly if there was an acceptable way to say ‘I really don’t want to talk about Sirius, or anything else, thanks, but if you would keep sending letters anyway, that’d be great because it helps’ but somehow he didn’t think so….

The portrait hole opened and Ginny clambered through. Quickly averting his eyes, Harry focused on the letter before him and prayed that she would not stop to talk to him. As usual, however, the great cosmic forces of the universe did not see fit to take what he wanted into account, and Ginny came over, falling into the seat across from him and plunking down a plate of chicken and potatoes. “Hey. What’re you working on?” she asked him.

“Letter,” Harry grunted, still staring at the parchment.

“To whom?”

“Lupin.”

“Oh, I miss him,” Ginny said fondly, and Harry could hear the small smile in her voice. “I wish he could have stayed on as Defence teacher, he was a right sight better than Snape." She said Snape's name like a curse word, and Harry suffered a twinge of endearment. "Anyway, I brought you some dinner – roast chicken. Your fa-a-avourite!” She said in a sing-song voice, nudging the plate a bit closer to him.

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” he said quietly, his eyes flickering up ever-so-briefly to meet hers before looking back down quickly as though he’d been burned.

“You’re not, huh?” Her tone was neutral enough, but there was the faintest undercurrent of a challenge.

“I already ate my dinner.”

“You didn’t have dinner, Harry. Or lunch.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and Harry knew that if he were to look up he would see that hard, blazing look in her eye again.

“Just because I wasn’t in the Hall doesn’t mean I didn’t eat anything,” Harry said coolly, brushing the feathered tip of his quill across his fingers. “I went down to the kitchens.” He turned his head to watch the third years with the Butterbeer again to avoid the temptation to look at Ginny. He could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head.

They sat there together in silence for a moment.

“Damn it, Harry….” said Ginny, so quietly it was almost a whisper, and it sounded so unguarded that his heart twisted with guilt.

Just then Dean came down the boys’ stairs and spotted Ginny. “Ready to go?” he asked her when he had crossed over to them, and Harry had never thought he’d be so glad to have Dean interrupt them.

“Yeah, let’s go for a walk, we can go by the greenhouses. I’ve been dying to see Professor Sprout’s new Flame Flowers – Neville told me about them,” Ginny said, giving Harry one last glance. She stood and heaved her bag over her shoulder.

“Flame Flowers?” Dean asked curiously. “What do they do?”

“They don’t do anything,” Ginny explained. “They’re non-magical, they’re just nice to look at.”

“Well that’s a bit boring,” Dean complained, and Harry felt a stab of annoyance, his eyes trained on his paper again. Was it so difficult to just go see some stupid flowers with her?

The two of them turned to go, and Ginny added loudly, “Maybe we can stop by the kitchens on the way. I’m quite sure the poor house-elves haven’t had much company lately….” And she disappeared through the portrait hole hand-in-hand with Dean.

Harry tried to focus on the letter before him but had to give it up as a bad job. He twirled his quill in his hands and looked sideways at the plate of chicken. He supposed, really, that it wouldn’t be so bad to have some – in spite of what he’d told Ginny, he hadn’t had anything since his grapefruit that morning, which meant he had some calories to spare. He was a bit hungry…and Ginny had taken the trouble to bring it up for him….

So? said a nasty little voice in the back of his head. She left you to go off with Dean….

Besides, what was it to him if he didn’t get lunch or dinner – he had gone far longer with less at the Dursleys’, and he didn’t really like to eat meat anymore anyway. Rolling up the nearly-blank parchment with a few sharp movements, Harry snatched up his quill and headed for the staircase, but his foot had hardly touched the first step when someone called his name. He turned to see Ron and Hermione coming in through the portrait hole.

“How was the meeting?” Harry asked them after they’d fought their way through the sea of people returning from dinner.

“It was great – ”

“Yeah, a great big load of sh – ”

Hermione cut him off with a sound like an angry cat, nodding pointedly at the first years sitting within hearing distance, and Harry smirked.

Ron shook his head bitterly. “Why have we got to sit there for half an hour and talk about the Hallowe’en decorations the school’s going to put up? I mean, call me in two weeks’ time when they actually need putting up and until then….” He snapped his fingers as though a brilliant idea had just occurred to him. “You know, I bet they’re concerned we wouldn’t be able to take all the suspense,” he nodded sagely.

Hermione mouth twitched in a smile, and she turned back to Harry. “Listen, Ron and I were talking, let’s go down to Hagrid’s, we haven’t been in ages….”

“Tonight?” Harry blinked.

“Yes, why not, we have some time before curfew – I saw him at lunch and he threated to sic Fang on us if we didn't come down to see him soon,” she said, clucking her tongue. This was, after all, not much of a threat as Fang was about as harmless as a newborn bunny.

“It’s only just over an hour till I’ve got to be at Dumbledore’s office,” Harry reminded her with a stab of regret. As eager and anxious as he was to begin his second lesson with Dumbledore, the thought of seeing Hagrid loosened the ever-present knot in his chest ever so slightly.

Ron shrugged. “We don’t have to stay for long. C’mon, it’ll do us all some good….”

“Yeah, alright,” Harry conceded, and Ron and Hermione beamed.

They dashed upstairs to get their cloaks and ten minutes later they were striding down the sloping lawn in the crisp autumn air towards Hagrid’s hut, where they could already see lights in the windows as dusk faded to darkness around them. A gentle breeze blew up from across the lake, carrying the faint sound of crickets and the hoot of an owl. For a second, Harry felt almost completely at peace with the world, and some of the worries that had been wrapped around his heart like a straitjacket fell away.

Fang’s booming barks sounded from within Hagrid’s hut as they approached, and they heard Hagrid’s voice attempting to quiet him. Hermione made a nervous little noise behind Harry, and he looked round to see her staring warily at Buckbeak, who was secured to a post just outside the front door. Ron caught Harry’s eye and rolled his own, and Harry patted Hermione’s arm lightly, fighting back a grin as they climbed Hagrid’s front stairs. Harry raised his fist to knock, but before he could, the door swung open and Hagrid’s massive frame filled the threshold, Fang jumping at his back.

“Who’s tha’ – ? Oh, it’s you three,” he boomed cheerfully, smiling down at them, and he stood back to let them past. “Come in, come in – no, down, Fang – finally remembered me, have yeh?” He chuckled, but Harry glanced up at him, frowning, as they all removed their cloaks and sat down at the scrubbed wooden table, Fang bounding over at once to lay his head upon Harry’s knee – he thought he had seen Hagrid’s face fall for a split second after he’d opened the door.

“What have yeh lot bin up to, then?” Hagrid asked them, his back turned towards them as he rummaged about in the cupboards and started hot water going for tea.

“We’ve been terribly busy,” Hermione told him, looking slightly harassed. “There’s so much to learn this year, I don’t know how we’ll ever get through it all….”

“Agh, yeh’ll get through it jus’ fine, always do, don’ yeh? Brains like yers?” he said, bringing over a tray laden with three enormous mugs, a cup the size of a small bucket, a teapot, and plate of rock cakes. “All three o’ yeh,” he added gruffly, winking at Harry and Ron. Hagrid poured out the tea and passed a steaming mug to each of them. Harry wrapped his hands around his gratefully, soaking up the warmth.

“I’m sorry we didn’t carry on with Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid,” Harry blurted out, and he meant it. None of the other sixth years had signed up, either, and Harry couldn't help but feel guilty. “We wanted to. We really did, it’s just – ” He glanced at Ron and Hermione for help, but they merely grimaced. Hagrid, however, waved him off.

“Never mind, knew yeh probably wouldn’t be able ter, in the end,” Hagrid smiled, though a bit sadly. “‘Sides now I can spend a bit more time with Grawpy, he’s learnt nine more words – nine! An’ Dumbledore’s got ‘im all set up with a nice big cave in the mountains, now – good thing, too, he was always scarin’ the unicorns an’ the Thestrals right outta their wits on account of rippin’ up all those trees when he was livin’ in the Forest, poor things….”

“Well, that’s – er – good,” Hermione offered. “And you are being careful, Hagrid, aren’t you, I mean, you are being safe….”

“O’ course I’m safe, Grawpy wouldn’ hurt a fly, least not on purpose anyways, he’s too sweet,” said Hagrid, taking several big gulps from his massive cup.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione glanced at each other and looked away very quickly; ‘sweet’ was the very last thing any of them would have chosen to call Hagrid’s little brother, who had, on the last occasion Harry and Hermione had met him, terrorised an entire group of angry centaurs into fleeing for their very lives. Hermione coughed and changed the subject to the decorations going up for Hallowe’en (“I thought we’d decided it was too early to be talking about this,” Ron muttered to Harry out of the corner of his mouth) and Hagrid spent the next fifteen minutes proudly informing them on the status of the giant pumpkins he was growing for the Great Hall in the vegetable patch behind his house.

There was a blazing fire going in the hearth, and the heavy weight of Fang’s head on Harry’s knee was a soothing comfort – he sipped at his tea, the mug still warm under his fingers, and listened to Hagrid talk as he sank into a comfortable drowsiness.

“So, how’s yer Quidditch practice comin’?” asked Hagrid, and Harry sat up a bit straighter, blinking.

“Great,” said Ron, attempting to take a bite of rock cake then setting it gingerly back down on the table as he massaged his jaw. “The Cup’s got Gryffindor’s name on for sure, really good team this year, and Harry’s a brilliant captain – ”

“Of course he is,” Hermione said staunchly, and Harry could not help grinning at both of them.

“When’s yer first match?”

“Six weeks,” Harry told him. “Slytherin.”

“And yer up for it, are yeh?” Hagrid asked, eyeing Harry with the same troubled look in his eyes he’d had when he had first opened the door and clapped eyes on the three of them.

“Yeah,” said Harry, taken aback. “Why?”

“Dunno,” Hagrid said, turning his cup in hands, still surveying Harry’s face with a deep frown. “Yer lookin’ a bit pale, is all. Thinner, too, I reckon. Have yeh been ill or summat?”

“No,” said Harry, a bit defiantly, and he looked to Ron and Hermione to confirm this, but they were both staring back at him steadily with expressions that said quite plainly that they agreed with Hagrid. Hermione’s jaw wiggled slightly, as though debating whether or not to say what she was thinking, and a spill of hot anger tinged with betrayal seemed to fill him up all the way to his throat: Was this why they’d asked him to come? So they could recruit Hagrid to their campaign to make Harry do what they wanted?

Harry opened his mouth, but as soon as he did, Hermione seemed to come to a decision and she said, very quickly but deliberately:

“It’s because he won’t eat.”

Hagrid’s cup stilled in his hands. There was a heavy silence for a second, in which Harry fixed Hermione with his fiercest glare. Her lip trembled slightly, but she crossed her arms and did not look away. Fang whined at Harry’s knee.

“Whadda yeh mean he’s not eatin’?” Hagrid said in a low voice, narrowing his eyes at Ron and Hermione as though wondering if had understood correctly. But before either of them could answer, he rounded immediately on Harry, his expression ominous. “What do they mean yer not eatin’!”

Fang scuttled off to hide under Hagrid’s bed, and Harry couldn’t help but wince under the force of Hagrid’s indignation. He sat there with the three of them watching him, feeling mutinous, and stared at a barrel of giant grubs in the corner, grinding his teeth together. He wrenched his jaw open and said shortly, “I eat.”

Ron snorted forcefully. “Barely.”

“I do – ”

“You were. Well, sort of,” Hermione said, and though Harry was not looking at her, he could hear the threat of tears in her voice. “And I thought…but now it’s, it’s practically nothing, Harry – ”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Harry ground out, his temper rising, and he tightened his hands around his mug in an effort to contain himself.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Hagrid growled. The cup in his hands groaned as he squeezed it, threatening to shatter, and he let go of it quickly. Hagrid sighed heavily, getting control of himself, and brushed one of his dustbin-lid-sized hands through his wild hair in agitation. “I know that yeh – yeh’ve had a hard time of it lately, but yeh can’t just - just give up, Harry…yeh gotta take care o’ yerself – ”

Harry stared so hard at the barrel of grubs that everything began to blur together. He felt like screaming at them all, he could feel himself shaking with suppressed anger. They were not being fair, they didn’t get it. He wasn’t giving up. He was trying. He was trying so hard…they could not know, any of them, how much it was costing him to keep himself together….

“I’ve got to go meet Dumbledore,” Harry said, fighting to keep his voice even, and stood automatically, refusing to look at Hagrid’s face – he did not want to see the worry there, or acknowledge that the guilt of disappointing Hagrid might even be enough to make him stay.

“That’s not for half an hour,” Ron insisted. “Mate, c’mon – ”

Harry grabbed his cloak and threw it around his shoulders. “Gives you lot more time to talk about me then, doesn't it?” he snapped, though his voice caught on the last word, rather ruining the effect. He turned around and strode towards the door.

“I'm tryin’ ter talk to yeh, if yeh’d just sit down fer a minute! Harry, come here – ” Hagrid called after him, his voice cutting off abruptly as Harry slammed the door behind him, breathing heavily. He took off towards the castle, shoving down a mixture of relief and hurt when Ron and Hermione did not follow him. Good, he thought viciously, stay there and fill him in, leave me alone….He could not believe the two of them, using Hagrid against him like that…and now Hagrid knew, and Harry had to avoid him, too, and he didn’t want to do that.

Harry fumed all the way back to the castle and up to the seventh floor, coming to a halt in front of the gargoyle that stood sentry outside Dumbledore’s study.

Ron had been right, of course; it was a while yet before he was supposed to present himself for his lesson, and he stood staring at the gargoyle, doing his best to master his temper and rubbing irritatedly at his wrists over his robes, trying not to scratch. After a few minutes, feeling jumpy and restless and desperately wanting something else to think about, Harry gave the gargoyle the password and stepped onto the spiral staircase that carried him up like an escalator to stand in front of the gleaming oak door of the headmaster’s office, hoping that Dumbledore would not object to him showing up a little early.

Harry knocked a bit harder than he meant to, and he heard Dumbledore’s voice from within call “Enter.”

Dumbledore was standing in front of one of his office’s many shelves, a very large book open in his hands, and he looked up, his silver eyebrows rising in faint surprise as Harry entered. “Harry! Gracious me, is it eight o’ clock already?”

“Er – no, I’m sorry, sir, I know I’m early. I – I can come back….” said Harry, unsure, his hand still on the doorknob.

“It is no matter, Harry, indeed a pleasant surprise, come in,” Dumbledore smiled kindly, and Harry stepped away from the door. As he moved further into the room, Dumbledore lowered his book, peering more closely at him. Harry supposed something of his anger and resentment must still be showing on his face, for a crease appeared between Dumbledore’s eyebrows, and he closed the book entirely and set it down on an empty corner of his desk.

“What has happened to you?”

“Nothing,” Harry said at once. His heart seemed to be beating somewhere in the region of his throat. He realised abruptly that he was trembling, and he crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

“What has upset you?”

“I’m not upset.”

“Harry….” Dumbledore chided gently, his expression stern.

Harry shook his head, averting his gaze from the headmaster’s penetrating scrutiny. “It’s…I had a row with Ron and Hermione, it was nothing….”

Dumbledore paused. Harry knew he was still watching him. “That is understandable,” he said softly. “I would imagine that their perception of things differs a great deal from yours, at the moment.”

Harry frowned. He looked back to Dumbledore in confusion, but before Harry could ask what he had meant by this, a voice issued from one of the portraits above their heads.

“I have just spoken with Lourdes,” said the painting of Sirius’s great-great-grandfather, Phineas Nigellus, as he sidled back into his frame. “Hanson would like you to know that he’s available on the – ”

“Yes, thank you, Phineas,” Dumbledore said repressively, cutting him off, and Phineas looked round in surprise.

“Ah,” he said, spotting Harry. “Yes, of course. We shall discuss the matter later, Headmaster….” And he settled into his painted armchair without another word, staring down his nose at Harry with unusual interest as though he were examining a strange new specimen.

Dumbledore circled his desk, sitting down, and gestured for Harry to do the same. “I am truly sorry to hear you have been arguing with your friends. It happens even in the closest of relationships, I’m afraid –  I find it usually works best, under such circumstances, to sincerely listen to each other’s concerns.” His chin lowered a fraction of an inch, and he studied Harry over the tops of his half-moon spectacles. “Have you been confiding in them?”

Harry fidgeted in his seat. “Sir?”

“You asked me, I believe, after our first lesson together if you would be allowed to tell Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger everything I had told you – have you discussed it with them?”

“I….” Harry recalled, dimly, the conversation in which Ron and Hermione had interrogated him about his time spent in Dumbledore’s study, and how he had balked at the thought of discussing Merope and Tom Riddle and the circumstances surrounding their union and the subsequent birth of their child…. “Not really,” he said finally.

The Pensieve sat on the desk between them, throwing little specks of silvery light onto the surrounding portraits and ceiling. Harry stared at it, wishing that the headmaster would just get down to business and start their lesson so he could focus on something besides the uncomfortable buzz pricking under his skin. Dumbledore lowered his head another inch, trying to catch Harry’s eye, and Harry unwillingly met his gaze.

“As I said before, you need your friends, Harry. Keeping secrets from them will only make things more difficult for you, and for them,” said Dumbledore shrewdly, and Harry got the distinct impression that he was not only talking of passing on the matters of these lessons. He wondered, again, what Dumbledore had meant by Ron and Hermione’s perceptions differing from his own, but Dumbledore was already standing, indicating the Pensieve on the desk, and after a brief review of what they had covered previously and an introduction to where they were headed next, Harry was plunging face first into the cool surface of the contents of the Pensieve and falling down through darkness into Dumbledore’s memory of a boy Voldemort.

Quite a while later, after Harry and Dumbledore had emerged from their viewing of a shabby little London orphanage run by a Mrs. Cole and the calculating, disquieting version of a young Tom Riddle who had spent his childhood there tormenting the other children, they sat with the desk between them again and discussed the boy-Riddle’s tendency towards secrecy and domination, and his odd, magpie-like habit of trophy-collecting.

The sky outside the window had now grown dark and starless, and Fawkes was dozing softly behind the door with his head under his wing.

“And now, Harry,” said Dumbledore, “I think it is time for bed. But firstly, I would like to ask you something.”

Harry, who had made to stand up, sank back into his chair and waited, apprehensive.

Dumbledore considered him for a moment, and Harry rather thought that the usual twinkle in the piercing blue eyes looked just a bit dimmer. Dumbledore pressed the tips of his long fingers together. “I want to know,” he said gravely, “if there is anything you would like to tell me.”

Harry remembered Dumbledore asking him much the same thing in second year, when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, and people had been getting Petrified left, right, and centre, and Harry had been so worried that he might actually somehow be the heir of Slytherin....

Harry thought, now, about his growing dread about Malfoy and what he was doing following Hermione around. He thought about the broken skin on his wrists. About the empty ache in his belly, and the sleeping tablets in his bedside table. He thought about how he was just the tiniest bit nervous to leave Dumbledore’s office when they were done here, because last time there had been someone waiting for him…he thought about the extra layer of Mrs. Weasley’s jumpers he was wearing at that very moment, to protect himself from the cold, and from suspicion. He thought about how very, very tired he was.

“No, sir,” Harry said in a flat voice, looking into Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes. “I can’t think of anything.”

In the corner, Fawkes let out a low, soft, musical cry.


I lay on the lounger, letting the sound of the lapping waves flow over me. This weekend had been another level of exhibitionism for me. So many times, in so many 'innocent' circumstances, some gent had seen my breast or breasts, often enough that included at least a part of my areola or nipples. I can't recall the number of up skirt 'accidents' that have happened since we began our play in earnest, progressing over time to upskirts with tinier panties, and then none at all!

I was overwhelmed, honestly, with the emotions I felt during the time I was trapped in the KDE hospitality convention cycle. Trapped might be too strong, but it wasn't voluntary, and my exposure always expected. Not my choice of when or where or how, or for whom. Granted, it was exciting, and I gained a new appreciation for the fact that men did find me sexy, lovely, or hot. But since then, as Tony and I had explored my exhibitionism on our terms, I'd gone from just dressing in a more revealing fashion -- away from home and work -- to where I was now.

I can't say if anyone had ever taken a picture of me before yesterday and yet, ohmigod, this morning, I'd posed completely naked for a guy I knew was taking pictures and was sharing them! It excited me in a profound new way!

Roberto, the pictures, his note. All of it crept into my mind as I tried to listen for the knots of people I'd seen coming up the beach. The first group was for sure four guys. The others, well.... The note, what had he said? Oh, I wanted to check my phone to read it again, how my "intimate area" was something he'd never actually seen before. Did he mean, could it be I was the first real, live woman whose pussy he'd seen? Or did he mean just in "such a state of...," how did he say that? Had he just never noticed with other women, certainly such a handsome young man couldn't still be a virgin? I'd stared wantonly, curious, at the bulge in his pants. That was new, mostly I just noticed that guys were getting hard, could see some tenting if it was a more than momentary exposure I gave them. And Thom, I'd seen the tenting, I'd reached over and place my hand on his erect cock! Yes, he had his shorts on, but that was new. Should I feel guilty? I didn't.

All this running through my mind, my heart rate was elevated as I heard the voices come closer.

"Phones," Thom whispered next to me. He might as well have handed me a personal massager.

I inhaled deeply and arched my back, then settled back in the lounger, letting my left leg fall off the side. I could only imagine their view, I knew what I hoped it was. I hoped Thom, laying within arm's reach, was also seeing me. And Tony, wherever he was. Oh god, I wanted Tony here, sharing this madness with me!

What felt like an hour passed before I heard Thom say, "Rita, looks like that's all the looky-loo's for now."

Then he added quickly, as I reached for my hat. "No, please stay just as you are, I want to walk down to the water and back, to see what all these lucky devils have been seeing." My heart leapt into my throat! He wasn't anonymous, we'd talked and been in class together, he was a professional colleague. I was so turned on! I dropped my hand back to my side, enchanted that he wanted me in this way.

He must have relished the view, as time seemed to drag on before I heard his voice again. In the interim, either by design or not, I certainly grew hotter, my breasts aching with amused gratification.

"Hey, that kid's coming with your drink, you want to cover up?" Thom said from the foot of the lounger. I wondered how long he'd been there. I felt a warm pulse in my core, overjoyed that he'd been so close, looking. I wondered too how the material of this suit showed wetness.

"He's over twenty-one, what do you think?" I replied from under my hat, a smile he couldn't see wide across my face. I heard Thom return to the lounge chair next to me.

Thom told me later Bradley had approached from along the beach, my drink on a small tray covered with a napkin, and had stopped and made a questioning motion. Thom had nodded 'yes" and waved him to come on up with the drink. He said he was surprised Bradley hadn't stumbled, his eyes being on me and not where he was walking through the sand until he reached the end of our loungers. At that point Bradley uncovered the drink and offered the glass to Thom, but Thom realizing that my desire was to be seen by as many men as possible, shook his head and pointed at the little table. Bradley had then sidestepped between the chairs, his head down and apparently memorizing my chest and likely well noticing the pubic hair sprouting along the suit bottom, until he bumped the table with his leg. He let out a little "oops."

"You trying to steal my drink, handsome?" I said as I reached my arm around the leg at my side essentially trapping the young man.

"No, ma'am," Bradley practically squeaked.

I pulled my hat off and acted surprised, but kept my arm around his tanned, well-muscled leg. "Oh, hi Bradley. I thought Thom was trying to get my drink again," making no attempt to cover myself with my hat.

I turned my gaze to the tented shorts eighteen inches away and smiled, "Is that for me?"

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, then taking his eyes off my chest to notice where I was looking, stammered, "Ah, no ma'am. The drink..., you ordered a..., he said you wanted me to bring... oh god," he was rattled.

"Bradley," I said, looking up into his eyes and sliding my hand up to mid-thigh inside the leg of his shorts, "are you still calling me ma'am?"

"Ah, sorry," and before I could react, he grabbed the glass off his tray and squatted to set it on the lounge-side table, trying to do something to change the situation. It changed; my hand went up his shorts leg where I discovered in that instant that he wasn't wearing any briefs. He froze, his eyes wide. To his credit, he didn't drop the tray on me or my drink.

"That was my fault, Bradley, I'm sorry," I said, our eyes fixed on each other, the back of my hand inside his shorts and resting against a very rigid, warm phallus.

His mouth opened but nothing came out. I withdrew my hand, dragging my fingers along the length of his thigh and smiled at him. "Your girlfriend is a very lucky young lady."

He nearly sprang up and spun toward Thom. "I'm really sorry, sir. It's just that she, Rita, ah, your wife, is really fucking hot. I mean, ah, sexy, ah..." he blurted out. "I didn't mean stare, or...ah,..," he placed the tray over his midsection.

"Bradley," I said trying with great difficulty to stifle my laugh seeing Thom's shocked expression. "That's not my husband. Thom's just a friend I met at the conference." Okay, friend was a stretch.

"But I gotta agree with you, dude," Thom finally replied, "she is very sexy. I'm having a hard time not staring at her myself."

Bradley looked at each of us a couple of times, thoroughly confused. Although, his eyes weren't focused on my face alone. He recovered himself and smiled, "Will there be anything else, Rita?"

Oh, what the fuck. "What's your cell number?"

He looked at me without comprehension.

"Bradley," I said softly, "can I have your cell number, please?" He gave it to me.

I messaged Tony. 'Please send this wonderful young man a photo of me for "inspiration!"'

Bradley still looked confused, but asked again if there would be anything else.

Our phones buzzed at the same time. Mine said 'done,' his with the picture took longer to process.

"You'll probably want to answer that," I smiled at him.

His eyes went wide. He glanced at me, then his phone, then back at me (I think comparing the breasts to the picture's), and again at the phone. "Jeezus," he said and sat down on Thom's lounge-chair.

Thom began to get up and try to see the phone, but I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him back, then rolled toward the two of them and moved my hand to cover the phone from Thom's view. "Uh-uh, that's a gift for Bradley, not you, Wisconsin."

Thom pouted, "Yeah, well I'm the one paying for the drinks."

"Patience and a good attitude," I winked at him as I came to a sitting position with my legs on either side of Bradley's. I was fairly certain that my already scrunched bikini bottom was revealing quite a bit of me, but didn't care.

I looked at the phone that Bradley cradled protectively on his lap, and smiled with some self-satisfaction at the photo Tony had chosen to send to him. Mygod, was I really comfortable with being displayed like that? I mean, talk about full frontal! Hell, I was hot and proud of it!

I tapped my knees against his, drawing him to look up. "Just one rule, okay? That never goes online and you never tell anyone my name."

Bradley smiled, "Yes ma'am, that's a deal. Thank you, Rita."

I kissed him on the cheek and nodded, "Get back to work."

Bradley stood, his still hard manhood at the most distracting height just in front of me. I honestly considered planting a kiss on his shorts, but instead leaned back, pushing my chest out and opening my legs wide to reveal my barely covered bottom. His eyes touched every part of me wantonly, with unadulterated desire. His smile was soft, his eyes between pleading and crying. He looked at the picture on his phone, stroked me again with his eyes and sighed. "I'll know at least that you weren't a dream," he said raising the phone. "Have a safe trip home, ma'am?"

"Thank you, Bradley," I said, moving my leg so he could step past. I watched him walk down the shoreline, swinging the tray in one hand and the phone in the other.

"He'll be hard for a week," Thom said.

"And you?" I nodded at his tented shorts as I closed my knees and brought my legs back on the lounger, sitting. My last move, for Bradley, had caused the bottom to roll between my labia majora and bury the tiny strip of fabric just hiding my wet angel wings, but providing a provocative invitation for Thom's eyes.

Thom laughed, "I'm not as young as he is. I don't think I could stay hard that long."

With a devious grin I answered, "Maybe you just need motivation?" I reached back and grabbed the glass, taking a long, sensuous draw on the fresh glass of superb Irish whiskey, my upper body turned to Thom. I could feel his eyes squeezing my taut nipples, hardly as innocent and guileless as Bradley's had.

I set the glass down, reached under my chair and pulled out my sunscreen from my bag. "Would you mind?" I asked, extending the tube to him. He sat up quickly, taking the tube, then chuckled as I turned and lay on my stomach.

"You're a real..." he began

"Choose your next words carefully," I warned as I stretched out.

"Honest," he said, "I was going to say 'motivator', you're a real motivator. A sexy, gorgeous motivator."

"Mmm,," I said, turning my head and tossing my hair to one side as I relaxed into the now flat lounger.

"please be very thorough, I don't want to get burned... anywhere. And tell me about the folks who passed by earlier..." I shuddered and closed my eyes. This was new ground; Tony is the only man who has ever lotioned my body. A little voice asked me how I meant that.......

Thom started, perhaps still tenuous as to where this was heading, with my neck and shoulders as he narrated what had transpired as I lay topless for the roving beach pedestrians. There were pictures from all of the first group and I found that I was thrilled with the idea, with one of the men taking a few steps across the sand toward me to get what Thom described as a close-up of "where my legs met." The alcohol and the lapping of the waves, along with the fine doctor's soothing, expert touch relaxed me as I "saw" everything he described.

The guy who had stopped and simply stood for several minutes, the wife with the look of having swallowed a whole lemon, dragging her grinning, rubber-necking husband past this row of hussies displaying ourselves like this. The two men in business suits, pants rolled up and carrying expensive dress shoes, socks tucked inside, as they appeared to rate each of us who were topless, trading comments, pointing, nodding or shaking their heads. I wondered where I fell on their scale? All the while, he spread the sunscreen thoroughly, having completed my back to the line demarcated by the side ties of my bikini bottom. I felt him rest his hands as if trying to decide how to proceed, or just enjoying the touch on the small of my back.

My heart was not resting, though this was quite relaxing. He had lingered and slid his hands as he got to my side-boobs. I'm small, and know there is not much there when I lie down, but he'd taken his time and moved his hands as much as he dared along each side, nudging his finger-tips between the towel and the flesh of my breasts. I'd tried to remain neutral, neither encouraging or rejecting, still toying with how much I was going to allow, - how much I wanted.

My ears pricked up when Thom said, "And the last guy, in the black Speedo, really thought you were hot as hell." His hands came off of me just then, but in a few seconds I felt the sunscreen drizzle across my glutes and Thom began to work it in.

His circular motion, I recognized, was meant to lull me as he spread my cheeks, - I did not tense. The last guy had walked past, then come back and stood, moving this way and that a few feet to truly study me. Thom said it was obvious that he had a hard-on, one the suit could hardly contain.

Thom put a dollop of lotion on my right calf and I realized he'd moved himself down to the end of my lounger, apparently kneeling between my legs. I almost laughed at myself for not realizing that I'd opened my legs, my feet on each side of the lounger giving Thom a place to rest himself. His motion was nearly massage-like as he worked the protective layer into my skin. He said he'd lost sight of the guy for a moment and had just about decided to sit up when he saw the man approach the side of my lounger, no more than two feet away. He had squatted and taken a shot "of the most nubile breasts" on the beach, catching a magnificent profile of my nipples "erect and proud, looking so wonderfully suckable."

Thom was working on my left calf now as he stated, "from the way he looked to be framing the shot, it's probably just your gorgeous breasts, with those amazing, perfect nipples of yours saluting the heavens, and the ocean in the background."

The lotion dribbled all the way up the back of my leg from knee to my bum, Thom adding "I'd pay a tidy sum to have that photograph hanging on the wall of my bedroom, but would probably have it right out front in the living room for everyone to see." I thought I'd scream when another drizzle went up the back of my other leg. Then Thom crawled up a bit, his knees touching mine and urging them apart as a hand touched each leg at my knees and started to work upward in dizzying unison.

My phone vibrated in the sand beneath the lounger. Tony.

I had to concentrate to pick it up and read the message as Thom's hands worked on both my legs, running the length up the inside of each leg to just a shade, -oh so achingly close-, to my feminine folds and then upward and out, spreading me, and then back to my knees. I peered between the vinyl slats of the lounger.

"u ok"

"yes" I thumb typed one handed. "can u see"

"YES!!!!!"

"u ok"

"u r so HOT!!! Yes! I luv u!"

"lub u" I managed before dropping the phone back to the sand.

I brought my hand out and reached back, finding Thom's crotch. I cupped his scrotum and then gripped his erect shaft through the shorts. "Make sure you don't miss anything, alright? I don't want anything sunburned." I gave him a little squeeze and removed my hand, dropping it over the side of the chair.

His hands started back up the inside of my thighs. He didn't miss anything.

"I'm pretty sure you've got the sunscreen well worked in, don't you think?" I said with a pleased smile, turning as much as I could to Thom. I could just get my elbows under me and my head turned to the side as he was fairly well kneeling over me with his knees at my mid-thighs.

"Just trying to be thorough," he smirked with a sheepish grin.

"Mmm, you were, thanks." I nodded at him and then at his chair.

"Oh," he said. He scooted down a bit and then climbed from between my legs, standing and stretching.

"I guess I am a pretty good motivator," I said, running my hand over the front of his shorts as I sat up. He jumped, and I laughed.

"I just, ah..."

"No problem," I smiled demurely and lowered my eyes. Peeking up at him, and pouting just a bit, I said, "I was hoping to get lotion over the rest of me too," holding the sunscreen out to him.

Thom glanced around. "Here?"

"Well, why not? I could just take this off..." I reached for the side ties on my bikini bottom.

"No!" he said louder than he meant to. "No," he said less panicked. "It's just, well, everyone could see what we were doing... I mean..., if you were..., if I was doing the front of you."

"Okay," I said, squirting a glob of sunscreen into my hand and beginning to do my arms. "But if you think no one knew what you were doing, what you were touching on me...., why do you think the couple next to us walked off like they did?"

He had a deer-in-the-headlights look as he whipped his head around to see the lounge chairs nearest us now empty. "I...uh..."

I giggled, "There's putting on sunscreen for a woman, and there's spending ten minutes running your hands over her pussy lips. I could spend the next week out here naked with that much sunscreen," I said shaking my head. I plopped another daub of lotion into my hand, rubbed some onto my other hand, and began to do my collars and breasts nonchalantly.

The tease was terrible, but I was also trying to lower my own arousal level. Thom knew how to touch a woman.

"Have you..., do you put sunscreen on that girl you're dating the way you just did me?" I asked batting my eyes trying to be coquettish. "She'd be crazy not to marry you," I said honestly.

Thom blushed. "I read a lot, watch videos. Tracey, that's her name, doesn't..., she's pretty conservative."

"And you?"

"Well, I didn't freak out when you said you liked to be naked in public, did I?"

"Grab your towel, Wisconsin, and we'll head down the beach a bit, strip naked and sunscreen each other, then lay out and let people see our privates. You game?"

He had a grin on his face, but worry in his eyes. He sighed, "I really, really want to see all of you, Rita. To touch you...., but..." he shrugged.

"Hey, if no one's told you, you're in love with that girl," I smiled, standing and wrapping my arms around him. "Get yourself back home and propose to her," I said looking into his eyes, "Then show her all you learned from those videos and books," I winked.

"And one practical sunscreening application?"

I hugged Thom again. "Yeah, but take it slow, and remember that it's all about loving and caring. The sex will take care of itself if the love is there."

He nodded and picked up his shirt. "Safe trip home," he said, taking my hand and giving me a little squeeze.

"You too, Thom," I smiled.

He began to turn and I called, "Thom."

As he looked back, I brought the hand I still held to my breast. "Freebie," I laughed.

He dropped the shirt and brought his other hand up and took my uncovered breast in it, caressing them both for a long moment, kneading them gently and catching my nipples between his fingers as he stared into my eyes.

I shuddered, "Damn, what videos were those?"

He laughed with joy, turned, picked up his shirt, and walk back toward the hotel.

My phone was vibrating again as I slumped into the seat.

"u heading back now?" Tony asked.

"nope, I'm gonna do this" I typed and added a shocked emoji.

I got back the goggley-eyed, tongue-hanging-out one from Tony.

It took me a couple minutes to apply sunscreen to my tummy and legs. I figured I'd just have to take the tube with me to finish the one area still unprotected. I tossed back the rest of my whiskey, grabbed my bag with the clean towel, stuffed my top into it and headed down the beach away from the hotel, - heart skipping.

A couple times I'd walked topless along beaches where that was an accepted practice when Tony and I had taken vacations. Alabama law states that you can't take you suit top off if you have the intent of arousing another person who isn't your spouse. My intent was certainly to arouse Tony -- and as many other men as I could! Hell, women too, if they were interested. And it was not going to be just my top.

After maybe a quarter mile, I found a lovely area of smooth beach -- and about eight or ten guys already sunbathing nude, along with two couples, also nude. Nobody was too obviously creepy, but I also wasn't worried. I wanted to be seen and desired.

Right by the highwater mark, so everyone walking the beach had an opportunity to walk very near me, I stopped and dropped my bag. Taking a breath -- was it all adrenaline and anticipation? -- I undid the ties on my bottom and stuck it in the bag as well. I stretched a little, then pulled the large beach towel out of the bag and flipped it out, perpendicular to the shoreline. I could feel the tautness of my nipples, a sign of the excitement of this adventure, already shooting through me.

Movement to my right caught my attention as I was trying to decide if I should put on my sunscreen standing up to draw more eyes, or after I sat down to ensure I did a more thorough job? Eyes were evidently not going to be the problem as the movement that had distracted me was an evenly tanned man of about forty-five, his pubic area completely shaved clean and his cock about half hard, stretching out a towel maybe fifteen feet from me. I could swear I'd seen him when I arrived, about fifteen

 away. As I turned to retrieve my tube of sunscreen, I noted another guy with his towel ambling in my direction. Now, maybe, it was a little creepy.

"Well, one or two would be nice," I said out-loud to myself, making my new neighbor look up at me, interest in his look. Oh! -- I had a sneaking suspicion what he thought or hoped I meant. I should have considered some sort of adult resort, one with thirty and forty somethings; maybe the guys would look better? I knelt on my towel and leaned to grab the sunscreen still unsure how I was going to proceed.

The end of the towel behind me, nearer the water, blew up just then. Flustered, I reached into my bag, grabbed my sandals and swung around to weigh down the corners of my towel with them. I realized a second too late what this move did, and the view I was presenting to all the people sunbathing nude behind me.

he voice in my head snickered. If you're going to jump into a cold pool, you just do it, and so I stretched out, my bottom in the air, and smoothed my towel back in place. Feeling the midafternoon sun on my most intimate part was exhilarating. I almost giggled.

Sitting back on my haunches, I squirted a glob of lotion into my hand, rolled off my lower legs to sit on the towel and, completely ignoring the older guy fifteen feet away, I took my time to cover the delicate skin and every fold of my pussy with sunscreen as I sat splay-legged with my knees bent. In for a penny, in for a pound. Peeking, but showing no reaction, I saw that he was on his side facing toward me and touching himself. I had hoped I'd feel more; perhaps I just didn't find him attractive?

Glancing up and down the beach, I could see walkers coming from both directions. Heart thumping loudly, or so it seemed, I rolled up my bag into a sort of pillow, lay back, and moved my hat over my face. I could make out the edge of the water as I looked down my naked body, which was good as I had no one with me to tell me if anyone stopped to look. Ohmigod, I wanted to do this! I cannot describe the euphoria I felt being completely nude on a public beach for the first time.

As I concentrated on my breathing to calm myself, the sea breeze tantalized my skin bringing every cell alive and focused. Every gust, every grain of sand blown on or over me, was savored for the sparks ignited, tingling my senses and concentrated in my core. I'd been out without panties any number of times, but not like this. It was dizzying, making me light-headed and giddy as the warmth of the sun and the breeze combined to set alight an inferno undulating in, over, and throughout my core. I could feel the blood flow swelling me, and knew my nipples stood our straight like flags whipped by a gale force wind. I trembled with eagerness, I wanted to be seen, to show anyone and everyone. I smiled under my hat imagining a large, flashing, neon arrow pointing to me -- I wanted scream "Look!"

I heard the whisper, my senses all turned past 'maximum' on their sensitivity dials, saw the feet on the beach. "Fuck, I wish her legs were open..."

"I know, man, but she's gorgeous," and then the feet moved on.

Shocked, I think I held my breath as I watched the feet go out of my visual range. I glanced down my body to see, beyond the patch of black hair drenched in full sun, that my toes were touching. My entire leg was clamped tight to its neighbor. Reaching out with my senses, I realized I was stiff, not relaxed at all, a pretty, plastic mannequin on a towel.

I inhaled forever, and then let out just as long a breath sending my thoughts from my belly outward as I did in meditation, relaxing each part of me as the thought wave flowed out. That felt so much better, I'd even had my butt clenched! Several more breaths, calming and cleansing, brought more relief. It was nerves, excitement, anticipation.

I stretched, then moved my legs apart, bending my left knee up and out, opening myself more. My arms moved themselves and I appeared asleep. The breeze licked me; would my voyeurs know that was my own dew or think it sweat? I didn't care, but I cared so much! I craved the exhilaration, the wickedness, the abandonment of expectations. Should I 'scratch' some imaginary itch and pull my angels wings open a bit? Later, I thought, let them see you like this for now. The smile under my hat was one of delight and satisfaction.

Another set of feet. They stopped. A sigh and they moved on. Thank you, I thought. I can't wait to share this with Tony!

Tony! Was he still around? He knew I wanted to try this, we'd talked about it a few times -- and again on the phone last night. He'd been able to see Thom and me, so he had to have seen me head down the beach. Suddenly I craved his presence, to see me here, in public, completely nude, mischievous in a way that thrilled us both.. And not just nude, but I had my legs open, not obscenely, but enough that I was certain my labia could easily be seen. I wanted him to see me doing this, enjoying myself, to rise with pride -I still had the effect on him, thank god -- as others looked at me. We did this for each other, it excited and fulfilled us in some inexplicable way.

"Oh my god, did you see that woman?" Two more sets of feet. If he didn't, my dear, thank you for pointing me out because he was certainly looking now. One set stopped. "George!" came the perturbed whisper and the second set of feet fumbled moving away, being dragged. I had to stifle a laugh.

Another set stopped in front of me a few minutes later, coming from my left. They stopped right in front of me, and I saw him squat no more than inches beyond my right foot, knees open, and his cock and balls dangling before me. After thirty seconds -- did I hold my breath?- his cock was no longer flaccid. 'That's brazen,' was my first thought while simultaneously happy for his complimentary sign. I fought to keep my breath even. He set down a bag next to him, then dug out a phone, and extended his arm to get an even more intimate view of my treasure, snapping several shots one-handed. I was definitely getting wetter; in my hyper-attuned state I felt a droplet run down my perineum.

"Stunning," he breathed, slipped the phone back in his pack and rose. I could imagine his cock preceding him, swinging to and fro, as he walked off. Did he know, or had he simply guessed that I was awake?

Over the next fifteen minutes, I watched several more sets of feet pass by. None stopped, but by the pace I guessed each was at least glancing at the sand area, covered here and there with nude bodies. The two couples I had seen on arrival were young, both members of each good-looking. Of the single guys who were there, most I would guess to be in their forties and fifties, and by their tans, long time naturists. Average guys, mostly, though two were rather overweight.

I decided I should probably turn over, as well as reapply my sunscreen. To my surprise, there were three guys all within about ten feet of me in the sand further up the beach. My heart leapt seeing Tony to the right, a sparkle in my eye noting he was nude and quite erect, as were his two beach-mates. I didn't care about them, but I was going to scold him later if he'd forgotten his sunscreen- after we made love!

I nodded and smiled politely to the three guys as I sat facing them cross-legged and dug into my bag for the cream. I also needed a long drink of water, which tasted great even though it was quite warm, making a point to lean back tilting the bottle up and pushed my chest out toward my admirers. Capping the bottle and laying it down, I grabbed the tube and shook it, while casually looking around.

A bit further back, one couple had a few guys around them. He appeared to be asleep, though I'm sure he wasn't, and she had her head lying on his chest, her body perpendicular to his, and had an arm over her shoulder fondling his semi-rigid cock. She was watching her admirers as she lazily opened and closed her folded legs, her shaved pussy glistening in the sun.

"Need any help with that?" I heard, distracted from my realization that I wasn't in the least disturbed by her display, or the two guys quite plainly stroking their cocks in response.

I blinked. "Just guessing you were going to flip over, I know the back's hard to reach," a sandy-haired guy, I guessed to be around fifty, with fabulous green eyes sitting to my left smiled. I looked at the tube, then back at him. I let my eyes, I hoped hidden by my sunglasses, jump to Tony. He had a very tiny grin, and made the slightest nod. I swear his cock jumped at the same instant. I'm sure I kegeled.

"If it's no trouble," I smiled.

He stood to walk over, his cock swaying. He touched my hand as he took the tube and said, "Just relax."

I stretched out on my belly, folding my arms so I could keep my face up to see Tony's face. I was quivering and hoped it didn't show. He knelt at my waist, on my left. I heard the spurt of lotion from the tube and felt the warm glop on my back. I know my eyes went wide, Tony smiled, his own cock telling me what he too was thinking. Could my lotion helper see the look between us?

I relaxed into the hands rubbing the lotion into my shoulders and back. It felt so sensual, he wasn't rushing but soon was at my lower back. It was a symphony of emotions, what I was feeling, what I saw in Tony's eyes, the notes being played on my body. And somewhere deep, a fear, a teasing that we were on a fine line and could tip over into an abyss.

Another splash of sunscreen, right at the top of my derriere. He moved, tapping the inside of my leg, and I felt a knee move between my legs. His hands were on my buttocks, and he nudged my leg with his. Tony still looked accepting, his cock bouncing, so I opened my legs. Then my tawny haired acquaintance's other knee came down and he was kneeling between my spread legs, urging me wider, my knees against his. His hands slipped to the splash of lotion and began slow circular movements at the small of my back. I fought to relax, overwhelmed with his touch and Tony's obvious -- very obvious -- pleasure. I wasn't scared in the least, Tony was near, but the electric shocks dancing over my body and the near euphoric psychedelic flashes in my brain were almost too much.

His hands slid up my body, curved outward, and came down along my sides lingering ever so slightly at the swell of my breasts. Three more times he repeated this motion, his fingers curving under at my sides each time, lingering, searching. On the fourth sweep, his hands came all the way down to grip my hips, his thumbs at the small of my back. He circled there a few times with just his thumbs.

Another splash of sunscreen, I dropped my head, my sunglasses tumbling into the sand. I brought my unfocused eyes up seeking Tony's. He cleared, and I saw him as near the edge as I was, our eyes penetrating each other, his hand slowly stroking his swollen, leaking phallus. The man behind me brought his hands together on my back, swirled them in the lotion, and slid them out and under me, moving upward. Only fingertips ran across my crazed nipples as I raised myself to give him room, but he did not linger and moved then up and out, around to my shoulders. He stretched, and I felt the fullness of his manhood press on my buttocks, not seeking entrance but simply, deliciously, the magic touch of warmth on warmth.

Incredulous, though not breaking the hold Tony and my souls had on each other, I bit my lip. My mouth opened in a silent, rambunctious scream of ecstasy as I erupted in an unbridled orgasm and watched Tony peak as well, his seed splattering in the sand between us.

The world began to rotate again some time later, breath returned to my lungs, sound to my ears. I lay tummy-down on the beach, nude, my legs still spread wide to the ocean and anyone who cared to look, my post orgasmic state brilliantly clear to any who might. My amazing, supportive husband, his cock still full but no longer erect, now just two feet further up the beach from me, a long, sticky drip falling from him. We still gazed at each other, the two of us abandoned by our recent audience, my helper vanished.

"I love you so, so much, Rita," Tony said softly.

I smiled, "I love you, Tony. You are my life!"