You're Being Hugged, Harry

by David Silver

27 - Marital Techniques

"Look!" Tilly was wielding the jar of foot care, the lid already removed. "Lay down, and it will feel better."

Harry hummed. "Shouldn't I be doing that?"

Tilly was quick to scoff. "He is mine, I can do it. He is more mine than he is your owl."

Arnavon sank onto his haunches, looking between both competing sources of want. "What's going on? I like you both. Please don't be angry at each other."

Harry waved a hoof quickly. "I'm not angry, promise."

"I'm not angry either." Silly dipped her hand, getting some magic gunk on it. "Now show me your feet."

"Oh..." That didn't explain what was going on. Still, he, by some measures, had a lot of feet to offer, so he gave out a hand instead, which was also a foot.

Tilly accepted it, grasping it with her other hand. "Feels even better on back feet." That didn't stop her, not a bit, from slathering it all over Arnavon's handpaw, which meant getting it all over her paw in kind. They were both restored with a rain of dust and bits of rocks and debris to the ground. "All better!" She worked between Arnavon's pawbeans to get the restorative goop to every nook and cranny.

Arnavon colored, darkening as the relief spread through his hand. "Oh... Oh! You didn't tell me it'd feel so nice." It, technically, didn't feel nice at all, but the removal of a negative was a positive, much of the time. He was enjoying his impromptu lesson on addition and subtraction. "Thank you." He drew his hand back, shaking it around and feeling its restored form. "Wow... Did you already have yours done?"

Tilly pointed to Ronald. "He has my jar. He won't let me do it myself."

Ronald raised his hands defensively. "I'll do it, promise. You heard the teacher same as I did, you were there!" He elbowed Harry. "You shouldn't have let her get yours."

Harry shrugged at that. "They may have a problem makin' them, but no issues with getting it on. I think both of them had fun."

Arnavon bobbed his head at that. "Yes. May I have the other for..." A thought clearly clicked. "Wait." He took the jar Tilly was holding. "It has the same stuff for both of us, doesn't it?"

Harry chuckled. "I hope so. Same stuff."

Arnavon tilted the jar towards Tilly. "Then we can do yours with this. Lay down."

Tilly crossed her arms defiantly. "No. I asked you first. Lay down."

Arnavon put the jar down on an endtable. "Only one answer."

"Only one," agreed Tilly, taking big awkward steps to the center of the room. She spread her arms out, fingers flexing and unflexing in readiness.

Ronald watched them curiously. "Are they...?"

"I think so." Harry sat down near the edge of the room. "Don't knock things over, kindly."

Arnavon thrust up a finger. "Oh, good good. If anyone knocks something over, they lose." He took up a position across from Tilly. "An extra challenge. Alright?"

"Alright." Tilly clapped her paws just to bring them back away from one another. "Harry, say when start."

Harry had not asked to get that job. Still, there it was. He grabbed a cloth napkin in his magic and raised it high. "Until either of you give up, get knocked out, or something gets knocked over." He swung the cloth down in a flutter. "Go!"

They were on each other in a great crash, their heavy forms colliding as their paws grabbed at one another, hugging tight and trying to toss the other to the ground. They engaged in a sumo contest as much as they wrestled, though one could argue those two things were already related.

"Your horns are... very shiny," got out Arnavon as he forced her back with a great heave.

"Thank you." Not that this at all distracted her from the contest. "Harry knows trick, ask him. Maybe--" Her words were cut off as she crashed, horns to horns, with Arnavon. Both were struck with a moment of disorientation. A dangerous gambit, hoping one was the first to recover. But, it paid off. She snapped back just an instand before he did, hurling him towards the ground.

He awoke, falling, but he was awake. He bounced off the ground, claws digging against it as he propelled around her with the force. He rebounded on her back, squeezing from behind. "Ask after this," he finished the earlier thought. "First... I win!"

Tilly bounced upwards with a powerful push of her massive legs, carrying Arnavon with her. She came down with him as her cushion, crushing him between hard stone and her unyielding back. "Let me take care of you!" Her harsh tone countered with her want to pamper her mate. "Stay down." She scrambled to her feet, looking ready to continue.

Arnavon let out a weary sigh. "Good hug..." He flopped over. "Fine... Fine..." He thrust out a foot towards her, wriggling his beans for her review. "I just wanted to play a little."

"Oh..." Tilly grabbed the jar. "Silly thing. Should have just asked."

Harry rang a bell with a glowing horn. "The winner is Tillybell."

Ronald clapped softly, looking unsure about the whole thing. "That was... some match. Um, Tilly... I don't need any hugs like that."

"Then we shouldn't fight." No threat there. More of a promise. She didn't seem to be ready to back down. With a big smile, she got to working on Arnavon's wriggling feet as she worked the goop into them thoroughly. "Feels good, right? It felt so nice when Hagrid did it for me." A thing she wanted to share with her mate. "Right?"

"Right," Arnavon echoed, sighing with the relief as his paws mended under her care. "I didn't know wizard school had things like this... I should have asked!" It was a good day to learn about asking more often. "Are yours all done? I'd like to do some."

"Very nice." Tilly plunked down the jar next to Arnie's head. "You can go next. This foot wasn't done." She wriggled the toes of the foot untreated. "Please."

"Yes." Arnavon scrambled upright, restored and renewed, but he paused before he started. "I think... I think Ronald wants to do it."

"O-Oh." Ronald rubbed behind his head awkwardly. "Not challenging you, mate." He could still remember that intense, if brief, exchange.

"But she is your owl, and you were shown how to do it." He bounced in place with a smile. "I will watch, so I can do it next time, better."

"You sure?" But a smile and nod were given. "Alright..." He got the other jar, less used for only having spent what Hagrid had taken from it, and he was better at portioning than the eager tsuki were being. "First, you don't need to bury her in the stuff." He crouched down and got to work, using a portion far closer to what Hagrid was doing.

Tilly squeaked and wriggled as he worked. "It tickles." Not that she was really complaining, but her full attention was clearly on the work. "Get under them."

Ronald colored a little as he worked all the more diligently to get in around and under her beans, as requested. "Better?"

"Better." She stretched out her large foot. "So much better. Only way to be better is if Arnavon does it next time."

Ronald sat back, his job complete. "I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure this is at least half about bonding between a wizard and their magical beast."

"Silly." Tilly sat up, bounding on her hinds without leaving the ground. "You'll make the stuff. We can't. So we'll be very grateful. It's your fault we can do this."

Ronald chuckled at that. "It sure is different when your magical beast can talk and reason about it, ain't it?"

"Different topic." Harry casually ignored what was going on. "What's up with that door, and the big dog guarding it?"

"Got me... We could ask about it." He shrugged. "But we're not even supposed to be there... So... right?"

"Point," allows Harry with a defeated sigh. "Guess we should move on. Plenty of classes ahead of us."

Arnavon grabbed Harry, hugging his thick neck. "Sometimes with us!"

Flurry Heart flapped her wings once powerfully. "When do I get a turn? They called me one of those, so you have to pamper me too, or I'll get upset. You don't want an upset magical beast tearing up your room, do you?" She leaned in, horn glowing. "That'd look bad for you, brother."

"Easy." Harry shoved her snout back with both hooves. "I'll ask the teacher tomorrow when you can get in on the schedule. I bet he's looking forward to it, from what I can gather. Do you think he's had a lot of exposure to ponies?"

"Besides you? Not much." Flurry considered that, pacing in place. "And a princess? I doubt ever at all! Well, he better have some good books about it, because I want pamper time."

With that settled, schoolwork resumed. Hagrid, as it turned out, had precious little direct information about alicorns. "However," he assured, finger raised. "I know the address of her dame. I'll write to her for some knowledge. She's also a horse, even if she'd get really mad if you insisted."

Harry frowned at that. "I'm not a horse."

"Just like that," laughed out Hagrid. "Humans get really touchy when you call them simians, but they are that too, and a lot of tricks that work on one, work on the other. When's the last time she had her hooves properly filed?"

Harry curled a hoof to his chin. "They don't really have that around here. Back home, there were salons you could go to and get that done whenever you wanted."

"Must be tough then. She's a lady, Harry. Having her hooves looking in shambles isn't making her happy." He grabbed a book from his shelves. "Here." He thrust it towards Harry, a book on the basics of being a farrier. "How to treat a hoof. You got a few of those yerself! May learn somethin' fer your own. Magic or not, it's good to know. Not a part of the regular curriculum."

"I imagine not..." Harry could see the students, trying to apply hoof care to their lack of hooves or hooved friends. "That wouldn't work well. But..." He floated the book back in his magic towards his saddlebag. "This sort of thing needs tools."

"Tools, or magic. Lucky you, m'boy, got both." He grabbed a file and pick and thrust them at Harry. "And some spells are written down in that book. Learn it the traditional way before you shortcut it."

"Sir... Most teachers just give us the spells, but you don't. Why is that? No offense intended."

"A sensitive topic." Hagrid put his massive hands on his hips. "But I don't use magic, Harry. Yer a wizard, but I'm not. 'sides, I've seen it done both ways. A wizard who knows what they're wizarding is a better wizard. Magic is at least 40% will, so the better you can focus that will, the better the magic. Get me?"

"That makes sense," Harry muttered, working through the idea. "Alright..." He closed his bag, book and tools secured. "Thank you, sir. Tell me if they get back to you."

"I'll do you one better." He waved to the front of the class, where Tilly had stood once. "If I have th' goods, she can have her turn in class. She's well behaved, shouldn't be a problem."

Harry could envision Flurry there, soaking up the attention put on her. "I think she'll like that... Especially if it includes treating her like royalty."

"Well!" He stepped up to the raised platform. "Ah hear she is a princess, so that's just admitting what's already true, ain't it?"

"She is... a royal pain in... Sorry, sir." He aborted that joke with a nervous smile. "Thank you, again." With a proper goodbye, he trotted off to his next class.

Author's Note:

Back to school with you, Mister Potter! But Arnie gets his turn with proper paw care. Now the two bunnies know how to administer each other. Less wizard bonding, but happy friends. That's good, right?

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Comments

[Booster Spice]

Flurry verses teh Basilisk.

A right royal pain in the asp?

Two important questions to ask about any opponant might be, does it take damage passing through stone, or from stone passing through it?

[howard035]

The wrestling was so cute!

[David Silver]

11567855
Their instinctive dominance rituals via wrestling is what makes them such good huggers. To hug without harming is their most sincere way of saying they like you.

[tsaukpaetra]

LMAO Ron had some feelings about the paw massage!
Suppose it is a bit different when they're sapient...