“Shit,” Harry swore under his breath, lifting his head an inch off my chest to look at the door.  Another solid round of thumps pounded on the door. “Fuuuck,” he muttered.

“Harry, wha-“ he cut me off, pressing his finger to my lips to shush me, shaking his head as he turned his gaze to meet mine.

“Shhh.  She’ll go away and we can sneak out,” he whispered.  My eyes widened in panic as my lips parted against his finger, my words getting tangled on the way out.

“But she- what if she- does she know we’re in here?” I asked quietly.  He shrugged tensely at me as his mother called his name once more.

“She might just be looking for us…” he suggested hopefully.  We were silent as we listened closely with bated breath, waiting to hear another sign of his mother outside the door. 

“Did you lock it?” I asked nervously, the silence on the other side of the door unnerving me more than relaxing me.  He nodded and I let out a sigh of relief.  At least there was that. 

Neither of us dared to move in fear of making any noise to alert his mother who may or may not still be hovering outside the door.  When it was quiet for a full minute, Harry slowly pushed himself off me and climbed out of bed with surprising stealth.  He gently crept toward the door, grabbing his boxers on the way and slipping them on as he pressed his ear to the wood, listening closely. 

He frowned then shrugged, baring his teeth to me.

“I think she’s gone,” he said quietly, triggering the release of the tense breath I had been holding.

“Thank god,” I said.  I was already blushing at the mere thought of her bursting in and finding us together.  I shuddered; mortifying.  Harry bent to retrieve the remainder of our clothes off the floor, scooping up his shirt, pants, and my dress from the various places they had been strewn around the room.  He tossed me my dress with a sly grin on his face, clearly still proud of himself for what he’d done to me.  I shivered at the memory, my body still feeling the after shocks of my orgasm. 

I searched around the bed for my undergarments, struggling to find them among the huge, fluffy comforter.  My search was paused as I got distracted my Harry stretching his arms behind his back to put his shirt back on; his stomach muscles pulled tight as he did so, their definition increasing even more as he arched his back to pull his arms through the sleeves.  My throat felt dry as I swallowed, unable to peel my eyes off him. 

“Baby, as much as I love seeing you naked, you need to get dressed,” he prodded, smirking when he caught me staring.  I pouted out my lower lip as I found my bra and reattached it before pulling my panties back on.  Crawling out of bed, I pulled my dress back on as Harry did up his pants, his shirt still hanging open.  I had the dress over my shoulders but couldn’t reach the zip as I twisted my arm behind me, attempting to get to it unsuccessfully.  Harry, seeing my distress, let out a deep chuckle before crossing over to me and grabbing my hands, kissing the back of one before letting it fall and moving behind me. 

His warm fingers slid up my spine as he slowly did up the zipper.  When he was finished, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the hollow below my ear.  I hummed quietly as I turned to face him, gripping either side of his shirt. 

“Thank you,” I said quietly, smiling softly at him as my thumbs tickled across his skin. 

“Mmhmm.”

I leaned forward to press a kiss over his heart before letting my fingers do up the buttons on his shirt reluctantly.  Once I was finished, I smoothed my hands down his torso, leaning up on my tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips.  It was only when I pulled back that his hair was extremely ruffled, making him look freshly and thoroughly fucked.  Shit. 

My hand reached up to run through his hair, attempting to smooth it into the devilishly handsome style it was in earlier, but to no avail.  He grimaced when he realized what I was doing, taking note of my own hair, which was surely a horrific mess.

“I don’t think there’s any fixing that, babe,” I muttered, still attempting to calm his hair while he just looked hopelessly at mine.

“Hopefully no one notices,” he laughed.  I blushed; a small part of me was kind of turned on at the idea of people knowing what we had done in here, although preferably, those people would not be Harry’s immediate family.  “Ready? We better go before my mom gets even more suspicious.”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

He gripped my hand in his, kissing my lips once before pulling me toward the door.  After listening closely once more and apparently hearing nothing, he swung open the door.

“Harry, tuck in your shirt you slob,” I teased as he turned back to grin at me guiltily.

“Yes, Harry.  Please tuck in your shirt.”

My blood ran cold in my veins as the unamused voice floated through my ears.  Why hadn’t I waited to speak until I had been sure we were clear?  Harry and I both whipped our head guilty towards her voice, eyes confirming what we both already knew.  Much to my horror, Anne sat perched in a chair in the corner of the landing we were on, her arms crossed firmly over her chest as she glared at us. 

Blood rushed to my face as I sucked my lips into my mouth, eyes widening in terror as she regarded us with her stone cold glare.  My hand was pressed into Harry’s lower back where I had just been about to playfully shove him, frozen against him as we both stopped in our tracks looking extremely guilty. 

“Care to have a chat, you two?” Anne said coolly, her eyes sliding icily back and forth between us.  Harry cleared his throat, fidgeting with the sleeves us his shirt as he pushed them up his forearms. 

“Um… sure,” he said, his tone clearly indicating he would rather do literally anything else.

“Great,” she replied, standing up and smoothed out her dress, marching promptly straight past us into the room we had just emerged from.  If possible, I felt myself growing a deeper shade of red as I glanced nervously at Harry.  His expression mirrored mine- utter horror accompanied by a heated flush, rounded off nicely by extremely obviously destroyed hair. 

“We’re fucked,” I mouthed at him silently.  He grimaced and nodded as he turned to re-enter the room.  I followed him sheepishly, attempting to hide behind his wide shoulders. 

“Sit.”  I tried not to wince at Anne’s harsh tone as she pointed at the small sofa across from the armchair she had perched herself in.  At least she wasn’t making us sit on the bed- I would have absolutely died of embarrassment.

“So. Dears. Care to explain?” she asked sternly, arching an eyebrow at us.  We both remained silent as I looked anywhere but at her, unable to look her in the eye.  It was blatantly obvious she knew exactly what had happened.  If our mysteriously long disappearance and disheveled appearance weren’t enough, I could practically feel the words writing themselves across my face.

I just fucked your son. Sorry.

My face was positively burning in humiliation at being caught.  

“Mom…” Harry started, his voice catching in his throat before he cleared it again.  “Can we please not do this?” I was surprised when his hand drifted over to capture mine, weaving his fingers between my own. 

“Oh, no, Harry.  We are going to talk about this.  Right now.”  She glared at both of us. 

Harry sighed and put his face in his free hand, pinching the bridge of his nose before shoving it through his hair distractedly.

“Why don’t you start, then?” he said, somewhat exasperatedly.  She pursed her lips before opening them to speak.

“Look, I know you two are… incredibly close.  I can’t deny that- it’s obvious. But that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with you being… intimate.”

I tried not to cringe at her choice of words, let alone the subject.  This was the most mortifying moment of my life.  Harry frowned at the carpet before raising his gaze to her, actually wincing as she spoke.

“Mom, come on.  We’re 18,” he said simply, hoping that would end the conversation.  No such luck.

“I don’t care, things can happen when people have sex no matter how old they are,” she said severely.

“Oh my god,” I breathed, so quietly no one heard it.  Hiding my face in my hand, I prayed the couch would open up and swallow me and save me from this horribly mortifying moment.

“We’re not idiots, we know that.  We’re… safe,” he explained awkwardly, looking to me for back up.  Only my desperate undying love for him was enough to make me speak, coming to his aide.

“I’m on the pill,” I said quietly into my palm before raising my eyes, pointedly staring at a stop on the wall just above her head.  I chanced a fleeting glance at her face, slightly relieved to see she at least didn’t look so angry anymore.  Strongly disapproving, yes, but angry, no. 

“I still don’t like it.  Things can still happen, relationships change, anything,” she said stubbornly. 

“Ours hasn’t,” Harry said boldly.  “If anything it’s gotten better,” he said before he realized that was probably too much information for his mother to hear and clamped his mouth shut.  Heat flushed my face yet again.  I squeezed his hand in an attempt to reassure him even though I felt no better on the inside.

“Anne, look, I’m sorry you found out this way but… I don’t know, I just really love him so much.  I don’t know how this helps,” I mumbled, not sure what point I was trying to make.  My voice sounded an octave too high.  “But it’s true.”

She studied me closely, eyes scanning my face as she absorbed my words. 

“I know you do, Joey dear,” she said finally, visibly relaxing her tense posture as she sighed.  “I’ve never doubted that for a second, it’s just… a lot for a mother to accept.”

I nodded slowly, unsure of what to say and hoping silence would seem like the appropriate response. 

“And you know how much she means to me, mom.  How much I love her,” Harry added quietly.  He surprised me yet again by leaning over and pressing a kiss to my temple, never releasing my hand.  I leaned into him, the warmth radiating of him soothing my frazzled nerves.  My lips pressed lightly to his shoulder in a light kiss.

Anne watched our little exchanges, fighting the small smile that was forming on her lips.  She shook her head quickly, wiping it away, struggling to maintain her stern disapproving-mother demeanor.

“Well… I guess if this was going to happen I couldn’t hope for a better situation,” she admitted reluctantly. “But if I ever catch you two again, so help me you will not want to see what I will do,” she threatened, pointing her finger back and forth between us.  The tiniest of playful glints swum in her eye, letting us know that while she didn’t approve, she wasn’t going to forbid us from doing anything.

Thank god.

Not that we'd have listened, it would have just added another entire level to this quickly building tower of awkwardness. 

We both breathed out a heavy sigh of relief, glad to be excused, it seemed.

“Now,” she said sharply, clapping her hands together in front of her. “I suggest you two go downstairs and have a good, wholesome time at the rest of this wedding.  Harry, I think your Great Aunt Elizabeth would really appreciate a dance or two,” she said, smirking slightly at her suggestion as Harry groaned.

“Seriously? She’s awful,” he grumbled, eyebrows furrowing together.  I nudged his shoulder gently and gave him a disapproving look, which he cocked an eyebrow at.  

“You will dance with your Great Aunt, Harry, and you will like it,” she said sternly, making it clear he had no other choice if he wanted to be let go. 

“And Joey, I think we could probably find a suitable dance partner for you as well,” she smiled at me, the threat behind her words clear.  I grinned tensely at her, showing all my teeth.

“I would love nothing more,” I said, making my best attempt to look pleased.  She nodded curtly at me, satisfied.  Rising from her feet, she waved her hands upward, urging us to rise as well. 

“After you.”

Harry held onto my hand as he quickly led me out of the room, practically running in hopes of escaping that horribly awkward moment forever.  I was fairly certain my face would be red for the remainder of the night, but as awful as that had been, I couldn’t bring myself to regret anything I had done. 

Nothing at all.  

**

Just wanted to say how much I appreciate you all so much, thank you for everything :)