"Yes," he told him, and the matter was settled.

Cedric did blink at him, once, in a moment of confusion that was more surprise than perplexity.

"Really?" he asked Ron finally. "You really ... you really want to?"

"Yes," Ron repeated, hearing his words fall with heavy significance in the quiet of the deserted Charms corridor.

A grin was finding its way to the corners of Cedric's mouth, making him look for all the world like a child who's been promised free reign in Honeydukes for an entire day. "And Harry?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes." Now that he'd said it, Ron was unaccountably shy, and was impatient to make his escape.

Cedric grinned and ran a rough palm over Ron's jaw and down the side of his neck to his shoulder. He pulled him close and lay a wet kiss underneath his opposite ear. "Brilliant," he murmured huskily before letting go. "Prefects' bath, then? Tonight at midnight? Tell Harry the password's still the same."

Ron swallowed, hard, and nodded, pulling himself away more brusquely than he meant. "Yeah, I'll ... I'll just see you tonight, then," he stammered, then turned and stumbled away toward the empty classroom where Harry and Hermione were waiting for him.

He got to the doorway in time to watch Harry cast a perfect Stunning Charm on Hermione, and reflexively ran to catch her before she could hit the floor. It was a good job he did, because she was aiming to miss the cushion by a good seven inches. Harry raised an eyebrow at Ron, who stood there with a Stunned Hermione in his arms, and raised an eyebrow back. That was the brilliant thing about Harry: he understood immediately, and coloured to the roots of his hair before breaking into a shining smile. 'When?' he mouthed, but Hermione was coming to, so Ron shook his head in an I'll-tell-you-later sort of way, and helped her regain her feet.

"Stunning Charms are looking good, Harry," Ron said quickly, before Hermione could volunteer him to take over as test dummy. "What else did you want to practise?"

They worked for a couple of hours, until dinnertime, and then for another couple of hours afterward. Ron found an opportunity, between mouthfuls of stew in the Great Hall, to whisper the details of their arrangement into Harry's ear. Harry turned such an immediate, hot shade of magenta that Ron wanted to tackle him on the spot, but instead he sought Cedric out across the Hall, finding that he was, indeed, watching them, and looked as impatient as they did for the hours to pass until midnight. Meanwhile, though, Ron and Hermione still had exams looming in the very near future, which meant that around nine o'clock, they bid goodnight to Harry and headed to the library to study History of Magic. Hermione was uncharacteristically generous with her painstakingly thorough notes on the Goblin Rebellions of the Nineteenth Century, but Ron was completely incapable of concentrating. Finally, around ten o'clock, Hermione gave up and sent him back to Gryffindor. "But don't blame me if you don't pass your exam," she admonished as Ron gathered up his books and shoved them into his bag.

At fifteen minutes before midnight, Harry solemnly swore he was up to no good - which was possibly more true than ever before - and spent a few minutes examining the map. Finally he brightened and looked up, pointing his right index finger at a moving dot that was progressing steadily from the Hufflepuff common room toward the fifth floor and was labelled 'Cedric Diggory.' Turning their attention to Gryffindor Tower, they saw a few dots in their own common room, but none at all between the Fat Lady and Boris the Bewildered. Grinning stupidly at each other, they each took an end of the Invisibility Cloak, worked together to cover themselves completely, and started to move quietly down the stairs.

The walk to the prefects' bathroom seemed to take hours. Ron was keenly aware of the muffled sound of every one of their footsteps, of the way a few of the portraits stirred in their sleep as they passed, of the heat of Harry's body next to him, of the painful alertness of his own groin. He feared he was going to embarrass himself completely, the moment he found himself naked with both Cedric and Harry, by finishing before any of them could even start. Then he accidentally brushed against Harry on the way around a corner and Harry moaned desperately, and Ron realised that at the very least, he wouldn't be the only one in danger of ending the party early.

"Pine fresh," they told the door in a low, unison whisper when they arrived, and quickly turned the handle as soon as they heard the lock click open. As they slipped through the door, they slid the Cloak off themselves so that Cedric might not see it. Turning, Ron got his first look at the room.

It was even more spectacular than Harry's description had led him to imagine. The white marble glowed richly in the light of the dozens of candles in the crystal chandelier. Black night behind the tall, thin, steam-fogged windows only heightened the sense of exclusivity. Ron's eyes scanned the rows of differently jewelled taps, the diving board, the mermaid painting. Unlike in Harry's account, the cavernous tub was already filled for their arrival, probably by the golden-skinned prefect whose head and bare, slick shoulders rested against a cushion along one of the farther edges.

Probably hearing the door click shut, Cedric opened his eyes and, seeing both of them, grinned widely. "Hey," he called softly, the sound echoing and rebounding into a muddle of honeyed voice in the middle of the room. Ron and Harry looked at him, both seemed to notice the pile of robes on a bench behind him, and then met each other's eyes. Harry's pupils were so dilated it was a wonder he could see at all. Ron gave a sheepish grin and a shrug, and for lack of a better idea, walked to the closest bench he could find and began throwing his clothes onto it. He quickly found himself being helped, with Harry's thin, confident fingers undoing his flies and tugging down his trousers and pants. Ron whirled around and began undressing Harry, pulling off his robes and tie and unbuttoning his shirt. For a moment, it didn't even matter than they were in this lush, sensuous place or that the object of Ron's lifelong crush was watching. Getting naked with Harry never got old, never got less exciting, never made Ron less inclined to start immediately licking and sucking at Harry's neck and jawline or to squeeze Harry's arse in both hands or to pull him tight against him so that their hips and thighs met and groins pressed together.

Harry let out a contentedly urgent moan and manoeuvred a hand free to cast aside his spectacles. Ron heard them land on the pile of clothing with a very quiet thud. Opening his eyes, Ron saw that Cedric was watching them, had probably never stopped watching them since he'd seen them come in, and that the water in front of Cedric was rippling as though being disturbed rhythmically beneath the surface. Ron pulled away from Harry enough to take his hand and to lead him to the edge of the water, where they both slipped in and began to make their way across to where Cedric waited for them.

As soon as they were in the water, it became evident that Harry was not as comfortable with swimming as Ron was and Cedric appeared to be. He wasn't a weak swimmer, precisely, but he clearly hadn't grown up spending half of every summer in the water the way Ron and Cedric had. Paddling up behind Harry, Ron encircled his waist with one strong arm and tugged him along as he swam. The fact that this arrangement pressed Harry's warm, slick hip between Ron's legs was only an additional benefit to the primary objective of closing the distance between them and Cedric as fast as possible.

The nearer they drew to Cedric, the more obvious it was that he was growing pleasantly frantic from waiting to touch them both. Ron felt Harry's shoulders stiffen awkwardly as they reached a distance of arm's length, but Ron couldn't take his eyes off the hunger in Cedric's face. For the first time, ever, he felt like Cedric's equal, like a coconspirator, and he grinned when their eyes met around Harry's wet, plastered down hair.

"Ready?" Ron murmured into Harry's ear, but wasn't sure he could have stopped even if Harry hadn't nodded against his face as they floated ever forward. Still holding Harry before him like a shield, or an offering, Ron swam directly up to Cedric and reached his free hand out to grasp firmly behind his neck, pulling his face forward for a deep, ravenous kiss. Harry's hot, soap-slicked body was trapped between them, and Ron quickly lost track of whose hands and arms were whose as he slid his hands down Cedric's back and grabbed his arse firmly, bucking as he tugged, so that all three sets of hips crushed together and Ron's hardness slid precisely into the indentation between Harry's buttocks and Harry's and Cedric's groins must have met up because they both gasped and began rolling their hips against each other. Cedric's tongue was still deep inside Ron's mouth, and he was panting and moaning, and Harry's jaw was working where it rested against Ron's which meant he had probably started nipping and sucking at Cedric's earlobe and throat. Letting his legs float up, Ron circled both Harry's and Cedric's waists until he could feel his ankles meet again and pulled tight, grinding harder against Harry's perfect arse. He slipped a hand between Harry's and Cedric's bodies, finding their twin erections and closing his fist around them, pumping and stroking and revelling in the contrasting chorus of moans this elicited. Someone's hand found its way onto Ron's own arse and began kneading and stroking, encouraging him as he flexed his strong thigh muscles to crush their bodies all together. Soon Harry was panting and bucking wildly, and Ron's erection slipped even more perfectly between Harry's arse cheeks so that he was getting stimulated - oh Merlin, like that, exactly like that - the way he needed it, and was quickly moving as quickly and jerkily as Harry was. It was all Ron could do to keep the presence of mind to pump his fist faster as he did, so that Cedric's eyes also rolled back and soon all three of them were panting and pawing and grinding and miraculously not sinking and so close, so close, but only Harry shouted out, tightened his grip (so it had been Harry's hand on Ron's arse) and went still.

Cedric, between panting breaths, grabbed his wand from the side of the bath and flicked it toward the water, muttering something unintelligible, which Ron hoped was evidence that Cleansing Charms worked in the water. Cedric's eyes were dark and supplicating, and Ron barely had to think before nudging Harry aside and pushing Cedric up on out of the water where he sprawled on his back and Ron could reach to take him in his mouth and begin sucking intently. Thanks to the magic bubbles in the water, Cedric tasted of sweets and fruit and flowers, all mixed together, and the scent of him was a perfume of cleanliness and delicacy. Under Ron's attention, Cedric was quickly moaning and bucking again, but Ron was still painfully underfulfilled. He'd barely had time to entertain the thought, however, when Harry swam up behind him and wrapped a hand around him while pressing up behind him with his miraculously recovered hardness. Ron moaned around Cedric's smooth, hard length, and Cedric whimpered in turn from the vibrations. Harry had found a flannel somewhere, and was using it to stroke him slowly, torturously, the roughness heightening the sensation so that Ron was seeing sparkly brightness even as he struggled to find release. Trying to stay focussed on what he was doing, he thrust the tip of his tongue against Cedric's vein and raked it along as he bobbed his head, which almost immediately sent Cedric over the edge, spilling across Ron's lips requiring the use of another Cleansing Charm.

Harry was still working with the flannel, pressing himself ever more tightly against Ron from behind, but try as he might, Ron wasn't quite finding the right angle, the right point to let himself go. Cedric and Harry must have come to some unspoken agreement, because Ron found himself hoisted out of the water, landing near where Cedric's knees had been, and then Harry and Cedric were kissing around him, lips and tongues meeting and battling and lapping at him as they wrestled. He could feel one pair of lips purse around him and slide off, then the other take a turn, alternating so quickly that the tantalising cold/hot/cold/hot wanted to drive him insane. Blindly, he flailed out to thread the fingers of each hand into the soaked hair at the nape of each neck, and it took every ounce of control not to force the heads to bob or to thrust into the mouths that covered and uncovered him, until they returned to licking him simultaneously from both sides, and one of them (Ron suspected it was Cedric) did the tongue-against-the-vein trick he'd so recently done, and it had the same effect on him so that he finally saw stars and nearly wept as he came over both of their faces.

Ron expected to hear Cedric mutter another spell, but when he'd regained his vision enough, he looked down to see Cedric and Harry kissing, licking Ron's release from each other's faces. Ron felt himself twitch again from seeing it, but as soon as it caught the others' attention that he was regaining his strength, they dragged him into the pool and began licking his neck, sucking on his earlobes, pressing their naked, soap-slick bodies against him from either side. Ron lost himself in the sensation, lost track of how many times each of them finished or how many different positions and methods they tried. By the time they were all too exhausted to continue, the clock on the wall was softly chiming two o'clock and by unspoken mutual assent, they all knew it was time to find their way back to their respective dormitories.

By unspoken mutual assent, they also all knew they would be returning at the same hour the following night.