Chapter Text
“There are some years that ask questions, and some that answer.”
- Zora Neale Hurston, their eyes were watching god
The year that Harry turned twenty-five was a good year for answering questions.
Questions along the lines of: why was Harry not happy? Answer: because he hated his job and his relationship with Ginny should’ve been put out of its misery years earlier. Instead, they’d both clung to it out of some depressing combination of stubbornness and procrastination until finally, when they looked at it, they realized they were holding on to a lifeless, cold shell of a thing and there was no chance of resuscitation.
Another possible reason Harry wasn’t happy was that, deep down, he didn’t think he deserved happiness because of the way he’d been treated as a child (or so said his Mind Healer, who was kind of a git, honestly, so maybe that reason was a load of bollocks).
Questions such as: why did Ginny spend so much time in Neville’s greenhouse, talking to him about bubotubers? Answer: because she was cheating on Harry with Neville. And she had fallen in love with Neville, but didn’t have the guts to break up with Harry. So instead, she waved the tryst around in Harry’s face until he had no choice but to acknowledge it and end things. Not that Harry could totally blame her, because Neville had gotten fit as hell, and Merlin knew their relationship was in the toilet anyway. But still. She might’ve picked a less painful way to go about things. One that didn’t leave Harry feeling like a complete fool.
Questions like: why did Harry’s heart lurch and stutter in his chest whenever Charlie Weasley took a break from his Romanian dragons and visited them all in London? Answer: because Harry was bisexual and had a raging crush on Charlie. The crush was not necessarily a new thing, but he’d only recently realized that’s what it was. During Charlie’s last visit, when Harry had been reeling because of the flaming disaster that was his relationship with Ginny, Charlie’d come over and Harry and Charlie had guzzled whiskey together and Charlie had let Harry pour his heart out. And then Charlie spooned him on the couch while they watched Ghostbusters, and honestly, what was Harry supposed to do with that? (Besides think about it constantly and sometimes wank to imaginings of what might have happened if he wasn’t such a coward.)
Another question: three weeks after Charlie left, why did Harry wind up having sex with Seamus? Answer: because apparently, between the two of them, Seamus and Harry hardly had two brain cells to rub together, and they both drank way too much.
Afterward, Seamus and Harry agreed to take the secret to their graves, because Dean and Seamus were on a break, so it wasn’t technically cheating, and also, it was never, ever going to happen again, because Harry and Seamus didn’t even like each other like that.
If he wasn’t five or more drinks in, Harry couldn’t even think about it without cringing. When he was five or more drinks in, it became suddenly easier to imagine fucking around with Seamus again, but then again, after five or more drinks, it became a lot easier to imagine fucking just about anything. Since he and Ginny’d broken up, Harry’s cock wasn’t exactly seeing much action on the frontlines. Desperate times, and so forth.
But that was in February, and now it was June. Harry and Ginny had been broken up for nearly six months, and Dean and Seamus were back together, and Charlie was still in Romania, although he was threatening to visit in late July, which was giving Harry a case of the vapors.
And now, Dean and Seamus, thrilled by Harry’s recent declaration that he liked not only women, but men, too, were trying to drag Harry along to some male strip club that supposedly everyone was talking about. Harry’d only heard Dean and Seamus talking about it, truth be told, but then again, most of his friends weren’t the sort to get excited about strip clubs.
Tonight was supposed to be the night, and Harry was positively dreading it. So he’d taken to coughing a lot at work, and when he sat with Ron and Seamus in the Ministry cafeteria, made a show of not having an appetite, and of sipping piteously at his tea. “Mate, I know what you’re doing,” Seamus said. “You’re not getting out of this. You’re going with us to Aspire.”
Harry coughed again. “No, I’m feeling completely shit. I think I might have a temperature. Ron?”
Ron put his wrist to Harry’s forehead. “Oh yeah, Harry. Burning up.” Ron looked at Seamus and rolled his eyes.
Harry whacked Ron in the chest. “I don’t see you offering to come along to fucking Aspire, Ronald.”
“I’ll have you know that I am secure enough in my masculinity that I would have no problem looking at other blokes shaking their arses without any clothes on. No problem whatsoever. I just happen to be busy tonight.”
“Liar,” said Harry. “Busy with what?”
“Erm, Hermione.”
“That’s not, like, an event,” said Seamus.
“Isn’t it?” said Ron, waggling his eyebrows.
“If I went down to Mysteries right now and asked her, what would she say?" mused Harry. "Because I think she’d say, oh? News to me. I didn’t think Ron and I had plans.”
Ron turned a little pink. “No, we do. We definitely have plans.”
“You don’t, you tosser. And now you’re coming, too,” said Seamus, grinning. “Male strippers of the world, hold onto your thongs, because Ron Weasley is coming at ya.”
“Oi, fuck off, Seamus,” said Ron, shoving a soggy chip into his mouth.
Harry was unreasonably anxious that night as he got ready at Grimmauld Place. It was stupid, because it wasn’t like this was a date. He wasn’t going to actually interact with the naked men. And it wasn’t like he was going to meet someone at a strip club either, although Seamus did say it was supposed to be very gay-friendly, catering to men rather than the usual hen-party crowd that tended to flock to these types of places. Thursdays were dedicated to burlesque and Mondays were for drag queens, in fact, but not tonight. No, Fridays were for stripping, pure and simple.
Harry chugged down a double whiskey while he showered and shaved and put on a little cologne. Because he was fucking nervous and whiskey helped. “Harry!” came a voice from downstairs.
“Hey!” Harry called, relieved that Ron had come here first. He ran down the stairs. “I don’t want to go. Let’s just stay here and get fucked up, yeah? I don’t want to go see a bunch of blokes in thongs, really. I mean, it’s so stupid.”
“Seamus said you’d try to pull this. We’re going, okay? Seamus wants you to get your jollies, and to be honest, mate, I do too. You deserve it.”
“I deserve to watch, like, greased-up, steroid-enhanced bodies writhe around to Ginuwine? Really?”’
“Come now, Harry. They might dance to something classic like It’s Raining Men. Or something a little newer, like that Get Low song? You never know.”
Harry laughed. “Very funny.”
“Look, if I can drag my straight arse in there, surely you can manage. If it sucks we’ll just pound drinks until it sucks less, alright?”
Harry sighed, feeling intensely grateful for his friend. “Yeah, alright.”
Ron offered his arm and they apparated to Dean’s.
Dean and Seamus had a weird relationship. They broke up constantly, but when they were broken up, they would see each other at parties or bars and just make out the whole time. When they were together, though, as in not broken up, they were completely chill about it, and rarely ever even held hands or cuddled. It made no sense, but then again, love sometimes didn’t, Harry supposed.
They decided to play a few rounds of Three Man to get solidly inebriated, and then realized they couldn’t very well apparate in their current condition. Since they were going to muggle London, flooing wouldn’t work, so in the end, they called a taxi.
“Can’t remember the last time I rode in one of these,” said Harry, watching the city lights go by in a blur.
“We should’ve called the Knight Bus,” Ron said. He had ended up sitting in the bitch seat in back, and his long legs were all crowded up against the center console.
“Nah, I would’ve sicked up,” said Dean. “Not a good way to get around when you’re pissed.”
“Good point,” said Seamus, who was sitting up front next to the driver. He turned around. “You’ve great foresight, Dean.”
“Well, we’ve done it before,” said Dean.
“Done what?” asked Seamus.
“Sicked up on the Knight Bus,” said Dean.
“Oi, have we?” asked Seamus, giggling. “I honestly don't remember that at all.”
Harry recalled when he had someone to share those sorts of exchanges with, the sort where you knew everything about the other person, even things they themselves didn’t know. He knew his relationship with Ginny hadn’t been good, not for a long time, maybe years, but still. He missed her then, in that moment.
Aspire was enormous and served a full menu’s worth of food. Harry wondered who the hell was grabbing supper while watching naked men dance. It seemed odd. Like, did a lot of body oil and glitter wind up in the food? Not very hygienic, Harry thought, vowing not to eat so much as a chip.
They stopped at the first bar they saw, one located near the entrance. The stage wasn’t visible from here, but the waiters were, which was sort of like a preview. The waiters who floated from tables to the bar and kitchen and back again had little white collars around their necks with rainbow bowties and wore tiny tie-dyed lycra shorts on the bottom. They were all muscley and tan, and some of them had nice faces, but not all. They made Harry feel embarrassed and he wasn’t even sure why.
“Oh, Merlin, look at that one,” said Seamus, elbowing Dean. “He’s fucking cute.”
Dean looked. “He’s okay. That one’s better.”
Ron leaned over to Harry. “Could you just imagine Hermione and me arguing over which scantily-clad waiter was cuter?”
Harry burst out laughing. “Not so much.”
“Maybe I should turn gay, too. It seems rather fun.”
“Oh yeah,” said Harry wryly. “Just look at how much fun I’m having. It’s a barrel of laughs.”
“No, seriously. I could date you, Harry, and we could spend our nights ogling strippers together. Boy and girl strippers, it wouldn’t even matter. It would be brilliant.”
“Great, count me in,” Harry said, feeling quite unsettled in the aftermath of that comment.
The bartender finally produced their drinks and they made their way further into the club. “Oh, I like that,” Seamus said, pointing to where people were dancing beneath the stage, sort of like it was a regular club and not a strip club. Except the dancing people were periodically sticking money in men’s thongs and staring lustily at them, too. But it was less awkward than sitting in a chair, watching, or at least it seemed that way to Harry.
“Let’s go dance,” Harry said.
“Yeah, let’s,” agreed Seamus.
Ron and Dean shrugged, so they made their way to the dancing people below the stage.
The place was not totally devoid of hen parties, and Ron quickly moved towards one such group and bestowed a broad smile upon them and started talking to a couple of the girls.
“He’s such a flirt,” said Seamus.
“He talks to other girls, but that’s it. He’s loyal,” said Harry.
“No, we know,” said Dean, nodding. “He’s still mad about Hermione.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, looking up towards the stage in time to see a Greek god of a man with shoulder-length black hair fall to his knees, lean back, and begin to hump the air. “Merlin, they really do not leave much to the imagination.” The man had on a silvery thong, and you could see the exact shape of his cock through it.
“No they do not,” said Dean. “I love it.” He got on his tip toes and stuck a muggle bill in the man’s silver waistband. In response, the man came closer to their side of the stage and turned around, flipping his hair and waggling his arse, which was an objectively nice one. Then he left them to go dance on a pole.
“Doesn’t that hurt your bollocks?” asked Harry. “sliding up and down a pole like that?”
Seamus nodded. “I’ve always wondered. Now, we could cast a spell of protection on our bollocks, but muggles? I dunno.”
They all watched as the man twirled around, his legs woven around the pole, and leaned back so that he almost fell off but didn’t.
“Oh, bravo,” said Harry. “That was really good.”
“Yay, you’re having fun!” cried Seamus.
“S’alright,” said Harry. “I guess.”
After a few more drinks, it was easy to relax and enjoy himself. He was surrounded by attractive, mostly naked blokes, which wasn’t all that terrible, and besides, he was having fun dancing with Dean and Seamus. Seamus, who was completely pissed, danced up behind Harry and reached around for his cock, but Harry swatted him away and Dean just laughed at the whole thing, looking fond. Weird couple, Dean and Seamus. Harry wondered if Dean would even care if Seamus revealed that he’d slept with Harry. Maybe not.
Ron pulled Harry over to the hen party and Harry danced with Ron and the girls for a while. It felt rather strange, to be dancing with girls, when his mind, at that moment, was very much not on girls. It was on sex, though, so dancing with anyone at all was nice.
“So, like, are you two boyfriends?” asked one of the girls, maybe named Tessa, Harry couldn’t really remember. She looked away and hooted at the stage for a moment.
“Ron and me?” Harry replied when she finished cheering. “Ah, no. Friends. He’s straight,” Harry said.
“Oh, too bad,” said maybe-Tessa. “You’d make a cute couple.”
“Er,” said Harry.
“Come on, let’s see how straight he really is,” said maybe-Tessa.
“Um, no,” said Harry. “Pretty sure he’s one-hundred percent straight. His girlfriend is my other best friend.” But maybe-Tessa was dragging him over by Ron, and putting Harry in a maybe-Tessa/Ron sandwich, and putting Ron’s hands on Harry’s hips. Behind him, Ron was laughing, tickling Harry’s neck with it, and Harry felt so uncomfortable he wanted to die. He stared studiously up at the stage where a very handsome man with tawny skin was twerking, but, not surprisingly, that didn’t help matters any.
Maybe-Tessa crowded in towards Harry, brushing against the front of his jeans, and pushing him closer to Ron. She nosed at his neck playfully, and Harry suddenly wondered if she’d sleep with him, because that might be fun, even if she wasn’t a bloke and Harry was rather in the mood for a bloke. She was quite pretty.
Then, all his thoughts about sleeping with maybe-Tessa vanished, because all of a sudden, Harry felt something at his back. And that something was Ron’s erection.
Harry jumped forward, nearly knocking maybe-Tessa over, and yell-mumbled something about a drink, and then fled to the loo.
He stood in there for a while, staring at himself in the mirror and willing the two bright spots high on his cheeks to go away. Ron was probably turned on by maybe-Tessa. She was lovely. And she danced rather scandalously. Ron had not had a hard-on because of Harry. No way, and even thinking about it was dumb, even dumber than sleeping with Seamus, which had been really fucking dumb.
Harry splashed a bit of water on his face and headed back out.
And then the loud, chaotic, colorful world, the seething mass and rush of people, ground to a halt and everything in Harry’s head became silent and still.
Because Draco Malfoy had just taken the stage.