It seemed like a matter of seconds before Harry found himself whisked upstairs to the twins' room and divested of his formalwear, though the heavy bracelet remained stubbornly around his left wrist despite their best efforts. The twins, too, shucked off their robes and hung them in their wardrobe; Harry was bemused when they left their rings on, getting a wink from Fred when he was spotted staring at them.

"We've got a special lesson tonight," said George, pulling out the soft rope that Harry was quickly becoming very fond of.

Fred lounged on the bed looking edible and said, "A couple of lessons, in fact. Snape suggested them."

"He's been ever so helpful in working out your practicum," said George, leading Harry to the end of the bed.

At some point they'd borrowed or conjured a brass footboard for the bed, in a swirling pattern of intertwined rails that Harry couldn't wait to be tied to. He allowed himself to be manhandled up onto the bed on his knees, back to the rails and legs spread as wide as they'd go and feet poking back through. His arms were brought up and draped over the shoulder-high top rail, and he felt his breath quicken; his prick had gotten hard when Snape walked into his room in those smoky grey robes, and hadn't really changed its mind since, though it made a valiant effort to get even harder now. He felt the haze of desire rising through him, clouding his thoughts and opening his thighs just that touch wider as his whole body relaxed.

"You're going to have to keep alert tonight, Harry," said George a bit sharply, snapping Harry out of it.

Harry blushed and nodded, trying to control his breathing. Fred began trailing his hands over his own body with a look that was half intent and half mischievous. "Tell me what to do to myself, Harry," he said, even as George began winding the ropes meticulously through the bed rails and around Harry in an elaborate pattern that cocooned his limbs and torso in a growing web of white. "If you stop talking, I stop doing."

"That's the first lesson," whispered George in his ear, and Harry moaned.

"I... you... pinch your nipples," said Harry, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

Fred slid his hands sensually up his chest, then closed thumb and forefinger around each nipple and squeezed, biting his lip as he did so. "Tell me how hard," he said breathlessly, hips giving a little involuntary rock that set his prick bobbing, smearing precome over his flat belly.

"Harder," said Harry, licking his lips. It was strange trying to both give orders to Fred and obey George's whispers, to keep his mind on Fred and Fred's pleasure while George's hands roamed over Harry's own body, wrapping him up in the soft ropes that slithered over his skin like a dozen strange caresses. "As hard as you can stand, and still like it," he added, nearly whimpering when his bonds began to tighten, holding him firmly up against the tall footboard.

Fred moaned as his fingers tightened, eyes locked onto Harry's and dark with need. "Twist them," said Harry, shivering in his bonds. His desire was different tonight, now that he was being forced to stay alert instead of just riding his need; it was as if he was trying to keep his head above the seductive waters of his own submissive inner whirlpool, which tried to pull him down into the peaceful waters beneath at every turn. Harry floated in his bonds as his weight was slowly transferred from his arms to his entire body, until he felt weightless.

George's hands came through the bars and mirrored Fred's for a moment, giving Harry's nipples a rough twist that drew a gasp from Harry's lips. Harry felt his head starting to slip below that surface again where the world became monochrome, simple and safe, warmed and coloured by his own rising desire. "Keep talking," said George in his ear, hands smoothing the rope patterns on Harry's chest and stomach before withdrawing.

Harry swallowed and bit his lip, trying to force himself to think. "P-put two fingers in your mouth, from your left hand," said Harry, too distracted to keep any kind of continuity now that Fred's hands had fallen to his sides during Harry's moment of inattention. "Use the other hand to pull your balls up, so I can see," he said, his voice rough with lust and embarrassment.

"Yes, sir," said Fred, a twinkle of humour showing in the depths of his lust-dark eyes. He slid the first two fingers of his left hand into his mouth, then brought up his knees and spread his legs wide. His right hand slid down his body in slow motion, teasing over one thigh before cradling his balls and tugging them up so the dark cleft was visible. Harry couldn't quite see his entrance yet, only the ginger hairs that dusted around it, but he knew Fred would comply.

As long as Harry kept talking, anyway. As long as he could keep treading water, instead of drowning.

"Bring your knees up, I can't quite see it," said Harry, just the thought of it sending a shiver through him that set his cock to bouncing in the cool air. "I want to see your h-hole and how much you want it filled," he said. Harry blushed, mortified to be talking so crudely even to the twins after their evening of polite innuendo. At least his discomfiture helped to keep him lucid despite the increasingly restrictive bondage and of course the sight of Fred drawing his knees nearly up to his chest so his pink entrance peeked out from the shadows of his crevice.

"Would you like to see me fuck him, Harry?" George asked, tying the last knot and coming around to sit on the edge of the bed.

Harry nodded, a little whimper escaping his throat. "F-first I want to see him fuck himself on his fingers," Harry said, whimpering again when Fred's spit-slick hand began the slow path down to his arse. "Then..."

George held up a hand to interrupt him. "One thing at a time, Harry, you have a lot of talking to do after all," he said, his expression utterly wicked.

Harry's attention drained away from the perceived unfairness, flowing to where Fred's fingers were teasing at his entrance, that glint of gold on his smallest finger reminding Harry that he'd it was only chance and luck that made him the bottom tonight, and not George. Harry swallowed, his mouth going dry, then said, "Put one in." He found himself straining against his bonds, wanting to touch, taste, help, and moaned with frustrated desire when he could do nothing of the sort.

Fred nodded and slipped a fingertip inside, and Harry gasped; it seemed terribly intimate, to watch Fred's finger sliding inside his body, disappearing into the hungry little opening. "Kiss him, George," Harry said, though he wasn't sure that his authority extended to both twins.

George nodded, then leaned in and captured Fred's mouth for a kiss. All three of them moaned for different reasons, for the same reason, as Fred's finger vanished inside him, as Harry trembled with the force of his helpless wanting, as George tasted deeply of his brother's lips.

Though he hated to interrupt them, Harry forced his mind up from his own neglected body and said, "George, get the lube."

"Your wish is our command," said George, snagging the phial from the nightstand.

"At least for now," said Fred, slowly pulling his finger out before pushing it back in deeper, making the taut flesh around it bow inward as it gave token resistance to the welcome invasion.

Harry stared in fascination as the finger came back out, the same opening that had tried to keep it out now trying to keep it inside, the puckered flesh grasping at the slick digit in a way that made Harry think of Fred's mouth sucking greedily on his own cock, of what it felt like to have George's finger buried in his own arse. He whimpered, then forced his eyes up to where George was poised with the lubricating potion, awaiting Harry's next order. "Get your fingers slick," said Harry, wriggling in his bonds, "and then put a finger into your brother. Fred, keep fingering yourself too, I want to see both."

Fred moaned and complied, finger going in and out just a little faster while George oiled his own hand, then slowing to a stop as George's finger sunk in next to it, stretching Fred's hole in new and delightfully obscene ways. "Kiss him," said Harry, and the two obliged, snogging intently while their fingers worked in tandem, in and out of Fred's body, tangling close and then pulling apart so it seemed that Harry could almost see into Fred, a tantalizing glimpse of pink before their fingers shifted and the gap between them closed.

The fingers slowed and Harry's eyes travelled up their bodies to find them both looking at him with identical smug, wicked expressions. "What now, Harry?" asked Fred, kneading his balls just a little.

"Don't stop," said George, nibbling at Fred's ear, "or we will, too."

Harry moaned and gathered his wits. "Two fingers each," he said, hoping Fred could handle the extra but wanting to see it -- if all he could do was watch, he'd indulge his imagination, and he didn't think the view would be nearly so good once they were fucking.

They went back to kissing without being told, each twin adding a finger to Fred's little hole so it wasn't so little anymore, stretched wide around four thick digits and then pulled even wider for another of those teasing glimpses inside. "God, it makes me want to fuck him myself," said Harry without thinking, his mind full of the idea of it, sliding his cock into Fred's tight arse and feeling that silken slickness all around, hot and tight.

"We wish you could," said George, the teasing note gone and a different sort of light in his eyes.

"We'd keep you for yourselves," said Fred, shuddering as someone hit something nice inside in their haphazard finger fucking.

George nuzzled and kissed Fred, and then said, "But your heart's already taken."

"S-sorry," said Harry, feeling that submissive desire swamping the edges of his consciousness, and washing away anything but the idea of being kept, being wanted, being someone's.

Fred chuckled at that and shook his head. "You're not really," he said, fingers working in and out of himself as though they weren't discussing their other lover.

"And you shouldn't be, either," said George, his own fingers sliding slickly, getting Fred's body ready for what they all knew was next.

Fred arched up, obviously ready to get on with things as all four of their fingers worked him wide open. "Love can't help being what it is," he said, not looking at Harry this time but into George's face.

Harry saw the expressions pass over their faces, the communication that they never needed words for, and knew what his next order had to be. "Make love to each other," said Harry, feeling as though this was something he needed to see to understand properly, a necessary voyeurism that might be the key to his own heart.

They moaned in unison and kissed passionately, then George slicked his cock, no longer bothering to keep up the tease now that the tone of the lesson had changed. "Gladly," he said, kissing Fred again and positioning himself between Fred's legs. Fred pulled his knees up to his chest, angling his hips upward so Harry could just barely see what was going on; though George's bollocks blocked most of the view, Harry could still tell when George sank into Fred's body. The moans would've told him anyway, but he was perversely grateful to be able to watch the head of George's prick push through the puckered opening before everything was hidden and the next thing he knew George's balls were resting against Fred's arse and Harry was once again straining forward in his bonds.

This time, though, it wasn't so much pure lust as envy he felt, watching them so obviously in love, so right for one another in a way Harry could only hope to someday be for Severus, or with someone else if that proved a foolish boy's dream. "Please, move," he begged, wanting more, needing to see everything he couldn't yet have.

George did one better; he rolled them over and sat up so Fred was in his lap and Harry could see now where they were joined, could see the flex of muscles as Fred began to ride George's thick cock, could see the gleam of emotion in George's eyes just before they closed for another kiss. Harry was falling forward into the ropes, as though gravity had shifted sideways and they were all that was holding him back from being drawn into the twins' love. He was losing himself in a different way, now, not succumbing to the peaceful undertow of his own submission, but burning up with the fierce desire to be a part of something like what they had now, that slow give and take of true lovemaking that owed nothing to anyone or anything outside of the two doing it, right there before his eyes.

Fred was still just riding slowly up and down George's cock, torturous and languid at once, and Harry managed to gasp out a strangled, "Faster."

They turned and grinned at him as though they'd forgotten he was there at all for a moment, and then began to move faster, George's hips helping as well, the two of them moving in the sort of tandem that only twins could manage, at least to Harry's mind. Harry found himself breathing in time with their thrusts, panting and moaning, and he wondered if he'd get punished if he came just from watching them, because he was nearly there already, his own hips moving, rubbing his skin against the soft ropes just to get some friction somewhere on his body, even if it wasn't where he wanted it most.

The room filled up with sighs stacked upon sighs, moans curling through the dense air and little whimpers dancing through it, and the low slap of flesh and slide of skin on skin beneath the rest like rhythm, or a heartbeat. Harry's eyes wandered up and down, connecting freckles in his mind and always snapping back to the weight of George's balls and the pink wetness of his cock slipping in and out of Fred's hungry arse, thick and hard and perfect enough to make Harry's mouth water.

Everything started to speed up more, growing erratic and rushed, and Harry suddenly knew just what he needed to say. George's balls drew up and Fred's head arched back and Harry let the order slip from his mouth, pulling the inevitability back into their game and grounding them all together. "Come."

And then they were all three doing it, Fred and George like they were two halves of the same creature and Harry gasping like a fish out of water as he spilled and spilled over the rumpled sheets, his cock untouched and his whole being straining still for something he couldn't have, for someone who wasn't even in the room.

The moment held for a dozen heartbeats and more, and then Fred was chuckling and George's eyes were open and fixed on Harry's come-spattered form. "Someone was naughty," said George, though his expression was fairly impressed.

"I guess he earned his spanking after all," said Fred, turning and gathering the drop of fluid off the tip of Harry's prick and licking it away with a smirk.

Harry laughed and flushed, relaxing in his bonds as things returned to normal, friends showing a friend what to do and Harry the sweet student at his lustful, mischievous tutors' mercy. "I guess so," he said, and then shyly, before the atmosphere could dissipate completely, "You two are beautiful together."

Fred blushed and George grinned, and Harry ducked his head. "Thank you, Harry," said Fred, curling a bit more into George's embrace as though reluctant to leave it, now that their lovemaking was done.

"You'll be his, one of these days," said George, understanding the unspoken longing in a way that made Harry wonder if George was always this understanding, or if Harry was just that transparent.

Not that it mattered anyway, it wasn't like he had anything to hide from them, especially not now that they'd trusted him with this, seeing them together with no artifice or hiding, just them as they were born to be. "Someday," said Harry coyly, giving a little wriggle in his bonds. "Now, someone said something about a spanking?"

A Question of Etiquette XVI: On This Natal Day