DISCLAIMER: You know I don't own it... I only own the ridiculously thin veil of plot covering the smut (that I swear, is coming soon ... no pun intended ^_^)
A/N: Thanks to everyone who's enjoyed this story so much and for reviewing. I promise there won't be as big a
lapse before the next chapter. Enjoy. ~~ ** LadyTuesday** ~~
PS - Sorry about the HUGE lapse! I didn't realize that I had submitted the next chapter at all my sites but this one! Sorry! The next chapter will be coming much faster, I promise!
Chapter Three - A More Intimate Grouping Is Needed
Hermione gobbled her breakfast with a fervor that made Harry, Ron, and Ginny stare. She merely smiled at them and kept going, eager to get up to the Room of Requirement early to set out a few of the things she had procured for facilitating discussion today. True, many of the items were Muggle `tricks of the trade' that might be liable to confuse the pureblood wizards among them, but she didn't let that stop her. Now that she had been able to gain an even keel on the subject - by making it more a scholarly project than an actual exploration of sex - she was eager to perform to the very best of her abilities. And drag everyone else with her, if necessary.
Ginny smiled as Hermione got up from the table and slung a messenger bag over her shoulder. "Want me to come help?" she asked.
Hermione shrugged. She wasn't really eager to have someone else see all the items she had purchased, but as it was just Ginny … "Sure, come on along," Hermione said brightly, "I suppose I could use another perspective on things."
Ginny finished off her toast and pumpkin juice and dashed after Hermione, who seemed to be capitalizing on her long-legged frame and business-like gait even more than usual. "Slow up there a moment, would you?" Ginny called after her.
Hermione flushed as she slowed her pace.
"What are you in such a hurry for?"
Hermione shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. I just suppose that I want to get this right."
"Relax, Hermione," Ginny said with a smile. "You'll do fine. And if not, they're all too daft to know the difference. Besides, I doubt you've considered this, but I don't think things will be quiet as smooth as they were last time."
Hermione didn't answer right away; she was pacing the corridor in front of the room of Requirement, beckoning back the meeting room for their group. "Hmmm?" she said, as she turned the knob. "Why do you say that?"
Ginny smirked as she ambled into the room and dropped into the nearest armchair. "Because you expect people to actually talk today."
Hermione stopped her activity and turned to Ginny. "So?"
"Hermione, you do remember what we're here for, don't you?"
"Of course I do, how could I forget?"
"Well," Ginny said slowly, with the air of someone talking to a five-year-old, "you can't ask teenagers to talk about sex and not expect them to react in one of two ways."
"What ways are those?" Hermione asked. She sat down in the chair next to Ginny.
"Well, they're either going to be like Lavender and Parvati and be giggly, immature and generally stupid about it all…"
"Or?"
"Or they're going to be too embarrassed about the idea of talking about their naughty bits in front of a group to even ask a question, let alone answer one."
"Hmmph," Hermione said. She didn't want to admit that she had a sneaking suspicion that Ginny was right.
"Especially with that bag of contraptions you have there," Ginny said, pointing to the rucksack which had been abandoned on the front table, next to her armchair.
"You think this was too much?" Hermione said, moving over to the bag and scrutinizing its contents.
Ginny rose, walked past Hermione to the bag, and plunged a hand in with a wry grin on her face. When her hand resurfaced, she brought out an astonishingly large purple vibrator in the shape of a tongue. "You don't think that this is a tad intimidating for our second meeting?"
"Well," Hermione said, coloring, "I figured that it would be good to give people an idea of what was out there and …" When Ginny continued smirking, Hermione scowled. "Oh, stop it; I thought it was a good idea."
"It is," Ginny replied. "But not right away. It's a bit … too much just now." Ginny reached towards the bottom of the bag and pulled out a small cardboard box. "What are these things?"
Hermione laughed. "They're called condoms. They're to stop girls from getting pregnant."
Ginny unearthed a single package from the box and examined it. "What? Do you … eat it? It looks like a candy coin to me … is it medicine? A snack?"
Hermione snorted through her nose. "Ah, no. They are shaped to … well, sort of like a balloon really, only they go onto … onto a boy's …"
Ginny was twirling the condom package idly from finger to finger, but had redirected her attention to the bag of `toys' that Hermione had brought with her. Losing interest in Hermione's verbal floundering, she commenced fishing around in the bag for the rest of the collection. "Where in Merlin's name did you get all this stuff? Or, more to the point, the money for it?"
"Some of the books in the back shelf had rather elaborate order forms. Seeing as how I had some birthday money left over, I decided to do a little … field research," Hermione said in her most studious tone of voice.
Ginny cackled. "These are fabulous." The redhead grinned mischievously as she held up what was clearly supposed to be a wizard's hat and tapped it with her wand. When it began to hum loudly, vibrate, and emit a sort of musky scent something like cologne, Ginny threw her head back and howled with laughter before jabbing it into Hermione's stomach. Hermione squealed in surprise and laughed as she pushed the younger girl away.
"Tried any yet?" Ginny said, winking ostentatiously.
"No! I wouldn't … not if I was going to bring them to the group. That's so … unhygienic!"
Ginny smiled again. "Well if you're not going to, could I borrow one later?"
"Ginny!" Hermione said, scandalized, but smiled despite herself. Ginny had picked up the tongue one again and was pulling a face, with her own tongue put out, to resemble the contraption. Hermione couldn't help the flood of chuckles that poured out of her throat.
"That's terribly attractive, you should do it more often," Hermione said.
Ginny laughed for a moment, but then her face lit up with a sudden realization. She rummaged around in Hermione's bag until she found a more anatomically correct vibrator and unearthed the condom package again.
"Wait, wait, I know," Ginny said and triumphantly ripped open the condom package. "So they go on like this, yeah?" she asked, rolling the prophylactic onto the head of the plastic penis.
"Exactly," Hermione said, smiling.
Ginny held it away from her and studied her handiwork with a serious face. "It's not terribly sexy you know. Leave it to Muggles to want to wrap their bits in little pieces of cling film."
"It's not cling film," Hermione huffed and began to launch into an explanation of their purpose.
Ginny, however, had other plans. She headed off the rest of Hermione's diatribe on the sensibility of condoms by prodding Hermione with the now vibrating penis, immensely amused when the older girl squealed and moved away. With an impish grin, she began to chase Hermione around the room with the whirring instrument, brandishing the thing like a samurai sword. Releasing a triumphant cry, Ginny tackled her to the floor and began tickling her with the very realistic head of the toy. Both girls laughed riotously as Ginny straddled her waist, pinning her to the floor, causing Hermione to squirm against Ginny, fighting for freedom. She was losing spectacularly amidst shrieks of laughter.
"Well," said a voice just over their heads, "isn't this just the fantasy of every teenage boy in the world? Or fairly near it, I'd say. You're both still fully clothed, so it could use some improvement, but all in all-"
Hermione looked up from the floor into the upside-down face of Harry Potter. Ginny was still astride Hermione's waist, gape-mouthed in surprise, the vibrating penis still dangling from her grip as she remained poised above Hermione's stomach.
"Er," Ginny floundered before she gathered her wits and turned of the vibrator.
Hermione practically leapt into the air when Ginny moved enough to allow her to get up. She hurried back across the room and began stowing the toys they had unearthed back into her rucksack. "You're right, Ginny," Hermione said, trying to keep her voice light, "I think this is definitely too much for the second day. And you," she added in Harry's direction, "need to work on your timing-"
"I'd say it's worked out very well for me so far," he interrupted with a grin.
She put her hands on her hips but couldn't keep from smiling. "How do you always manage to catch me at the most embarrassing possible moments?"
"Just lucky, I guess," Harry said.
*****
Silence.
Hermione hung her head and squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. She hated to admit that Ginny was right, but here she was, standing in front of nine people, most of whom were old enough to be considered adults in the wizarding world, and yet they couldn't bring themselves to ask questions about the subject they had come here to discuss.
"Well," Hermione said, trying to cover the silence, "you can't mean to tell me there isn't anything you want to know about sex? I mean, we've only talked about anatomy so far; I wanted you to give me an idea of where to go next."
Everyone stirred anxiously in their chairs but still remained silent. Ginny cleared her throat and opened her mouth, but when Hermione looked at her hopefully, she too shrank into embarrassed silence.
"What about kissing and things?"
Lavender and Parvati started giggling.
"All right," Hermione said, "more to the point … raise your hands if you've kissed someone before."
Lavender and Parvati started laughing even louder than before and Lavender put her hand up quickly. Eventually, Harry's hand rose tentatively, and Ginny smiled and put hers up. Dean and Seamus looked at each other uncomfortably before Dean raised his hand too. Neville blushed and started at the floor; Ron, after a dark looked from Lavender, coughed but then surreptitiously raised a single finger. Luna started humming `Love and Marriage.'
"All right then, so … so it's Neville, Luna, Seamus, and Parvati that haven't-"
"What about you then, Hermione?" Seamus asked loudly.
"Well, of course she has," Parvati said chirpily. "Wasn't she the favorite of Viktor Krum?"
Parvati giggled, but Lavender scowled. "And if not, she was certainly the favorite of Cormac McLaggen last year and someone else more recently."
Ron harrumphed loudly, but then gave Hermione a pointed, expectant look.
"Actually, I haven't," Hermione said, barely audible. Her cheeks quickly became scarlet.
"What?" Ron said, abandoning all pretense of embarrassment or manners.
Hermione cleared her throat. "Viktor and I … it wasn't … well, it wasn't like that. I mean to say that he wanted it to be but I didn't … anyhow, as for the other …"
Ron cleared his throat, in an interesting counterpoint to Hermione's and Harry, sensing disaster, cut them both off.
"Let her be," Harry said. Everyone turned to look at him. "Let her be, unless you all want to share every detail of your snog history."
The entire group quieted except for Luna, who merely said, "Those who don't remember history are doomed to relive it."
Hermione looked to her, an eyebrow raised, before continuing. "So, if half of us have had a bit of experience, but the rest of us haven't, then perhaps we should just have those who-"
"Hermione, we can't just blather on about snogging people," Dean said, his voice cracking.
Hermione sighed. "Well, then we can go back to asking questions …." As the entire group recommenced clearing throats and looking away, Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I don't see what-"
Ginny raised a hand to Hermione, interrupting her gently. "I think that it's that nobody wants to ask questions in front of the whole group."
Hermione glanced around at a chorus of nods. She did some quick thinking and her face lit up with an idea. "All right then, we'll split the group up into pairs. That way you only have to ask one person. Will that do?" At a chorus of small nods, Hermione continued brightly. "Okay, let's try and pair up the people with experience with those without it as much as possible. So … Dean, you can be paired with Parvati-"
"Does it have to be boys with girls? I dunno if I feel comfortable asking those sorts of questions to girls," Neville asked, flushed.
"How else do you expect us to ask questions?" Lavender said with a scowl. "A girl can't ask another girl a question about a boy's bits, now can we? Isn't that the point of this whole thing?"
Ron just smirked smugly and crossed his arms. "I don't know what all the questions are going to do … it's pretty straight forward, eh? Insert Tab A into Slot B, and all that?"
All the boys of the room started to laugh, even Neville chuckled quietly, but Ginny just folded her arms across her chest and sneered back. "Don't forget about pressing on Button C," she said slickly and crossed her legs, making all the girls snicker.
For a moment, Ron looked frozen and then the smile slid off his face and he turned and whispered to Harry. "There's a Button C?"
Over a raucous wave of laughter from the girls, Lavender spoke up, "Can I register my request that I not be paired with Ron?"
More laughter from the girls echoed as even Harry broke into a shy smile. Ron scowled and Hermione continued with the pairing, trying to hide a grin.
"As I was saying, Dean, you go with Parvati, Neville," he looked up at her, fear plain on his face, "you go with Ginny …"
Neville sunk just a tiny bit, but smiled nervously over at Ginny, who seemed to be trying to hide confusion.
"Right, so that leaves Lavender with Seamus and … erm …"
Hermione looked at the people who had yet to be paired up. Ron, Harry, Luna and herself. Ron was looking at her expectantly once again and Harry was staring at his lap. Unexpectedly, Hermione realized that Luna was gazing pointedly at-
"Ron, you go with Luna and I'll pair up with Harry," she finished quickly.
She could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on her face as she looked down at her parchment, scribbling the names of the pairs. She could almost feel the wave of indignation coming from Ron and the confusion of the girls sitting on her right-hand side. Ron's partiality for Hermione was clear despite their recently flubbed relationship from the summer, but the way he had been staring at her just now had unsettled her. Her knee jerk reaction had been to distance herself from it and now her throat was tight and she felt nervous that someone would question her judgment.
"All right then, everyone?" Hermione said, looking around the room.
Lavender and Seamus had already moved next to each other, grinning and making big cow eyes, while Parvati seemed to be sizing Dean up from across the room. Ginny smiled at Neville but threw a questioning look to Hermione before scribbling some notes into the pad on her lap. Ron had crossed his arms around his chest and was looking at Luna doubtfully, who seemed to be completely unruffled by the scowl. Harry, however, had tilted his head to regard her strangely, as if he'd never seen her before. He looked as if he were either going to start laughing or break into pieces. It unnerved her.
"Well," Hermione said," if nobody has any problems then I'd say we can just split up into pairs and decide when to meet within our little groups. Now," Hermione fished for a calendar that she had stowed in her bag, "there are ten weeks before Christmas holidays; let's say that we take the nine weeks for group work and meet back on the Friday night before everyone leaves for home?"
There was another general murmur of assent and then everyone began moving towards their partner. On her way to a blushing Neville, Ginny sidelined Hermione. "What are you on about partnering me with him? I mean, Neville's sweet and all, but-" Ginny cast a hooded gaze over to where Harry was straightening up, chuckling at something Dean had said and smiling at Parvati.
"Come on, Gin," Hermione said softly, "you and Harry broke up six months ago. It would just be awkward and uncomfortable if you tried to talk to each other about those sorts of things. Same thing with me and Ron. Things are … easier this way."
Ginny nodded gravely, and then composed her face before heading over to Neville with a winning smile. Ron was staring at her from across the room as Luna chattered happily about being more than willing to work around his prefect duties and Quidditch practice.
"Hermione …"
Harry's voice surprised her and she squeaked in surprise, upsetting the bottle of ink she had been stowing in her bag so that it splashed across her jumper.
"Blast!" she growled, and muttered "Scourgify."
"Sorry," Harry said, "I didn't mean to startle you."
"That's all right," she replied without raising her eyes. "So when would you like to get together for our first meeting as a pair?"
Harry ignored her question. "Why did you pair us up, Hermione? Ron-"
"Oh, I thought it only too appropriate," she gabbled over his sentence, "Head Boy, Head Girl, you know. Rather like those old American Muggle movies about the cheerleader and the head athlete, you know, and-"
"You're not afraid of what Ron will say?" Harry asked over top of her stream of words. After a moment of silence from Hermione, Harry put out his hand and turned her chin so she was forced to meet his eye.
She squirmed for a minute under his gaze but steeled herself. "No," she lied confidently. "After the way he's behaved for the last few months, I would really feel uncomfortable asking him those sorts of questions."
Harry nodded, but there was something odd in his expression.
"Besides," she continued a little softer, "I trust you Harry."
"Mmm," he said absently, his face unreadable. "Trust. Right. Well, I trust you too, Hermione."
Hermione waited, sensing there was more he needed to say; when it didn't come, however, she found the measure of his gaze uncomfortable. "So," she said brightly, "when should we meet?"
"As soon as possible," Harry answered and smiled. "I've lots to ask."
"Excellent," she said, trying to keep her curiosity from putting questions to him already. "How about this coming Thursday night then? Right after Quidditch practice?"
"Perfect," Harry said and then strode out the door quickly.
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