A/N - Man, these chapter titles just keep getting worse and worse .... ^_^ BTW, in case you're wondering, the outcome of Deathly Hallows shall not deter me from my H/Hr smutlet!!! Huzzah!! Oh and get ready, kids, because this is the chapter where the thin-veil of plots becomes tragically (yet enjoyably) see-through as smuttity smut smut smut comes out.
Enjoy!
~~ ** Lady Tuesday ** ~~ Chapter Eight - Harry Lends a Hand
Ron couldn't quite put his finger on what was going wrong between Harry and Hermione, but something seemed … off. Twice this past week they had given each other odd looks over dinner when lessons of any kind were discussed and then each would glare at the other and profess that they each had things to do that would likely take them all night. And when each wandered into the common room well past curfew, Hermione was red faced and Harry looked twitchy and disheveled, as if he'd been dragged backwards through the portrait hole. Ron had a feeling they'd been having a row about something, but he couldn't decide what it was they could possibly have been fighting about all week.
Harry had gotten progressively jumpier all week and Hermione was increasingly chipper. Not a word was ever said about what was going on between the two of them - which actually perturbed Ron a bit, as he was supposed to be their best friend - but he wasn't a fool. He could see that something was about to come to a head. Here it was Sunday and they were still glaring at each other across breakfast table. If they were gearing for a flare-up at 9:30 on a Sunday morning, it was definitely going to be something big and Ron wanted no part of it. He excused himself quietly and wandered out towards the Quidditch pitch. He'd leave the two of them alone to work out their frustrations.
*****
Harry knew that even Ron could tell how fidgety he had been all week. He and Hermione had only gotten the chance to "practice" twice this week, but that was probably a good thing. The more they kissed, the more Harry became uncomfortable with the situation. He was actually quite pleased at the results, surprisingly; kissing Hermione was actually going quite well. But it wasn't the kissing that bothered him. The easier Hermione got with the whole idea of snogging with Harry, the more she treated him as if he were some particularly interesting school project. While Harry knew that what they were doing had actually started as a school project, the idea of Hermione feeling that sex with him was an interactive homework assignment just made him uncomfortable. And what made him even more uncomfortable was that it was Sunday and he knew he'd have to tell Hermione about it today, before things got any further out of hand.
*****
"Morning," Hermione said brightly as she and Harry set down their bags in the cubby holes on the wall. "Big day today!"
Harry smiled, but turned away quickly to hang his robes on the pegs above the cubbies. Hermione divested herself of her outer layers as usual, hung them near Harry's, and plunked down onto the chaise lounger, absent-mindedly adjusting her favorite 'weekend' skirt and a light green embroidered sweater. He sat down on the chaise, but with enough space between them that she could have placed her feet up beside her. She ventured an attempt to fill the space up with chatter.
"Pretty exciting, isn't it? Our first day of solely sexual cont-"
"I don't know how you can be so bloody calm about this," Harry said, abruptly but not unkindly. He was wringing his hands in his lap.
"Well, if you just look at it more as a project, you know … I mean, it's just me, after all … it's not as if it's some stranger asking you to-"
Harry turned to face her. "Don't you see that's why it's odd? Because it is you, Hermione. And I don't know how you can just sit there and … and plan snogging sessions and … whatever the bloody rest of the days are. You did a lesson plan for our first kiss, Hermione. You don't think that's odd?"
"Well, I," she stammered. "All right, I'll admit it's not the most romantic or erotic way to go about things but …"
She could see in his face he wasn't convinced. Something in her throat plummeted into the pit of her stomach. She wasn't entirely certain it wasn't her heart. "We don't have to. I mean, you could go be partners with someone else."
"I don't want-" Harry started, but then stopped. He moved closer to her. So close that when he turned sideways on the couch and his pants brushed her bare thigh, she jumped. "I don't want a different partner. I just want … why do we have to have a plan? Can't we just…?"
Hermione leaned forward, hanging on the end of his sentence. "Just?"
Harry huffed a bit, but then looked as if he'd been hit by divine inspiration. Hermione yelped in surprise when Harry's hand suddenly slid up her leg towards her thigh. She almost brushed him away. Almost. Hermione fought the nervous urge to squirm as Harry leaned towards her, his hand moving up her thigh, then up over her hip towards her stomach.
"Isn't this better than following a lesson plan? A script of what to do next?" he said as he leaned over her.
Hermione barely registered the fact that she was now sprawled against the rounded back of the lounge couch. Harry's hand was on her stomach and she could feel the heat of his fingertips even through the sturdy sweater as they traveled up, skimming the light pattern of embroidery just over her breast. She sucked in a breath loudly and he leaned closer.
"Still want that play-by-play, Hermione?" he whispered close to her cheek.
She just barely managed to make her body shake her head no. Her whole head was swimming and her world seemed to have narrowed to the movement of Harry's finger, idly swirling along the patterned flowers stitched onto her shirt. When she made no move to stop him, Harry flattened his hand across her breast. She could see his pulse hammering at the side of his neck and, while he seemed to have gotten his way in chucking her planned way of doing things, Harry now seemed to be at a loss as to what to do next.
Hermione raised her hand and placed it atop his. He jumped and looked up into her eyes as if it was the first time he'd noticed her there. "Perhaps if we …" she said but trailed off.
"Yes?" Harry said, leaning closer.
For once, Hermione Granger did not think about her actions. Instead, she closed the remaining scant distance between them by pressing her lips to his. Harry responded instantly, kissing her back, his hand now closing more firmly over her breast. Hermione mewed a little against his lips through instinct, and she could hear a rumble somewhere low in Harry's chest as she slid her arm up his to lace around his neck.
Harry's tongue slid gently across her lips and she opened them to permit him entrance. They had done this only a handful of times before and it still seemed so new and thrilling. She could feel her pulse leaping as his tongue swirled in her mouth, exploring excitedly, and she tilted her head to a different position, exposing more of her throat and allowing her to arch her chest up against Harry's hand. He seemed startled for a moment, as if he only just remembered what had started the whole kissing process, but quickly recovered and kneaded her breast tentatively. She drew away from his mouth for a moment, placing her hand against his and guiding his movement. She kissed the throb of pulse at his throat as she felt his fingers skim her nipple. She hadn't noticed when it became colder in the room, but between that and the light trail of Harry's other hand at her thigh, her breasts were certainly making their enthusiasm well known.
Harry groaned as she kissed his neck again. "Hermione," he said in a raspy voice. "Hermione, help me …"
"Mmm," she said, "you're doing fine, Harry."
He drew away from her kiss a little and smiled. "No, really, show me; show me what you like."
Hermione repositioned herself against the back of the lounger so that her back arched and her breasts were thrown upwards. With a smile, she reached down for Harry's hand and she laced her fingers over his, moving the tips lightly across her nipples, smoothing them in large flat grasps over the whole of her breast, and eventually dropping to her sides as Harry's instincts became stronger. She hissed in an audible breath as Harry's other hand began to run up her thigh and under her skirt. She squeaked out in surprise and snapped open her eyelids as Harry's hand brushed against the fabric of her knickers.
Though his face was flushed and his voice unsteady, he said, "And here? Will you tell me what feels good here?"
"Harry," she said, fighting the urge to throw back her head and moan as he grazed her inner thigh with his fingertips. "Harry, I don't know if-"
"I won't go … under," he said as he grazed her knickers. "Not if you don't want me to."
"Not yet," she said, nervously. "But you can … touch around there if you like."
Harry smiled again and allowed his hands to wander over her body. Hermione dropped her head to the side of the couch, biting her lip against gasps and moans of pleasure as Harry's touches grew from inquisitive and eager steadily to hungry and passionate. His lips began to roam across her wrists, elbows, arms and throat. And then, with an abrupt sweep of his hands that had Hermione nearly weeping with frustration, Harry moved and sat up away from her.
"Harry," she panted, straightening up, "Harry, what's wrong? Did I do something wrong?" She was startled at the wild look on his face, his hair mussed and his glasses askew. She had to fight the urge to pounce on him at once.
"No, I-bugger," he spat. "I mean, it's lovely; this is lovely, but I-I mean, couldn't you …"
He was gesturing vaguely, but Hermione just didn't understand.
"Couldn't I …?" she mimicked, hoping to coax out more of an answer.
He looked away and his cheeks were now flushed with embarrassment from whatever he was trying not to say. "Couldn't you … couldn't you touch it?"
"Touch …?" she said, bewildered, but then followed his gaze to his lap. She hadn't noticed the obvious swelling in his trousers when she had first sat up, but now that he was trying to look away from it, she could hardly miss it. What a fool she was! Of course he would want-
"Oh!" Hermione said aloud. "Oh, of course, you want me to touch-"
Harry nodded, but still wouldn't look her in the eye. "It's awfully difficult sitting here, doing that to you and not-"
"Of course," she said meekly. "But, um, are you sure you want me to-"
"Yes," he said as quickly as he seemed able.
"What I mean is, are you sure you want me to?" Hermione's eyes were suddenly full of vulnerability. "Because I don't want you to feel like we have to, just because we happened to be paired up and we-"
"Hermione, you're killing me," Harry said with a smirk before he raised his eyes to her. His face was suddenly serious. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't want you."
Hermione smiled. She moved closer to Harry and sat up next to him. Twice she started to move her hand over to his lap, but just couldn't decide how to go about doing it the right way. "How …?"
"Trust me; just touching it would be splendid right now."
Hermione smiled again and placed her hand tentatively on his thigh. Her heart pounded so loudly she was certain he'd be able to hear it. But as she slid her hand higher up towards his hip, she was certain that his must be hammering just as relentlessly: he was practically panting as he leaned backwards to allow her space. Both Harry and Hermione inhaled an audible gasp as her hand first brushed his erection. Harry groaned just a bit when she flattened her palm over his penis, just barely contained within his jeans now. Her mouth formed a little moue as she tentatively squeezed just a tiny bit.
"Oh my God," Harry said quietly.
Hermione quickly withdrew her hand. "Did I hurt you? Oh, my goodness! I'm so sorry!" She felt her cheeks flushing.
"No, no," Harry said, grasping her hand gently. "It felt wonderful. Wait a minute though," he added. She looked away as Harry pushed a hand beneath the waistband of his jeans, seemingly rearranging himself a bit.
When she looked back, it seemed as if he had positioned his erection to lie flat against his stomach, pointing up towards his navel. When she seemed to be staring, he sheepishly muttered, "I just thought it would be easier to … you know, handle it that way."
She nodded without changing expressions. Eager to regain the "Oh my God" status, Hermione ran her hand back up his thigh and placed it over his erection. She smiled to herself as Harry's breathing ran ragged again as she tentatively stroked her palm up and down his length. She never imagined it would feel that way. She was mesmerized as she continued to stroke him, testing his reactions to light pressure, skimming her fingertips, and other manners of her grip. She knew she was doing well when Harry had started to unconsciously thrust his hips against her movements. In a moment of insecurity, she started to worry because Harry had suddenly brought his own hand up to cover hers, squeezing her grip tighter and moving fitfully against her palm.
"God," he said roughly, "oh God … oh, yes … feels … feels so good but it's not enough …"
With a lopsided grin and a stroke of genius, Hermione moved her hand up to his waistband, flicking the button open with a twist of her wrist.
"But, I thought," he said with a slight gasp. "I thought you only wanted to …"
But Hermione was already releasing the fly of his jeans and opening them. He nodded in understanding as she stopped at his boxer shorts, finding the thin cotton much more conducive to the touch he desired. The flimsy material also allowed her to curl her fingers almost all the way around his erection, eliciting a loud groan from him as he coiled his long, thin digits around hers when she began to stroke his penis again.
She barely thought about it as she leaned over his chest, breathing deeply in the strong, heady smell of his skin, the desire that was leaping off him in almost visible waves. Harry moaned out when she began placing light kisses along his throat and collarbone and his hand began roaming once more across her breast. Hermione moaned as she captured Harry's lips hungrily. She found her body rocking against his as she stroked more heavily, a delicious friction scraping against her breast as his t-shirt collided with her sweater. It was almost unbearable.
Once again, Harry dragged his lips away from hers and forcibly stilled her hand. "Hermione, could we … I thought …could we …?"
"What is it, Harry?" she whispered fiercely. She was nearly drowning in desire and his warm, familiar yet, at the same time, altogether new smell. "What do you want?"
His cheeks were reddening. "I wondered if we could try something I read about in a Muggle magazine once?"
"Harry, I-"
"We wouldn't have to," he stammered, "it's not …. The Muggles call it, um, dry sex, I think?"
"You mean, where we move as if we're … but with clothes on?"
Harry nodded frantically. His fingers were still straying across her breasts, and she found she hadn't the want or need to deny him that. She was curious, after all …. Without a word, Hermione grabbed at the waist of his jeans and pushed them down over his hips and towards his knees. She unlatched her skirt and pushed it away, moving to sit astride him in nothing but her knickers and shirt as he leaned back against the couch.
"Oh, good Lord," he whispered as she settled astride him, her weight hot and heavy but comfortable against his lap. His hands twined in her hair and brought her neck to his lips. He rocked up so that his hips ground against hers. She moaned at the contact of his erection beneath his boxers against the upper inside of her thigh.
"God, it feels … beautiful, you're so beautiful," Harry murmured against her ear.
Hermione felt a trickle of tears as he said this, but quickly lost them amidst of a flurry of hands and mouths and kisses. Harry actually cried out when she first moved her hips so that his erection pushed against the center of her body. She knelt over him and bit her heavy bottom lip to stifle a moan as his hands whisked off her shirt, hungrily seeking her cotton clad breasts with both his fingers and lips.
She rocked against him, one of Harry's hands straying to her hips to guide her as the motion was repeated again and again. She pushed the heels of her hands flat against his shoulders, using him to steady her body as she moved, grinding down against him so that the tip of his penis, even with the boxer shorts and knickers between them, would press against that aching sweet spot between her legs. Their movements were jerky and wild, uncoordinated and desperate as they bucked against each other; a few times they very nearly knocked heads, Harry's glasses sliding to some unknown place.
"Hermione," Harry rasped out. "Hermione, you've got to stop."
"Not on your life, Potter," she purred as he sucked at the skin above her brassiere. She bucked her hips even more frantically, craving the tingle that was beginning to build up in her body. Harry called out loudly.
"Hermione, if we don't stop, I'm going … going to-"
His words repeated a few more times, in tandem with her motions.
"Tell me, Harry," she said wildly. "Say it."
"If we don't stop, I'm going to cum."
She smiled in wicked triumph. "Me too," she said and licked his earlobe.
"I … I … oh my God," Harry babbled. "No, it's … well it's sort of … messy … you don't like things that are messy."
"I don't care, Harry. I want you to; I want to cum right here, right now, with you cumming against me too." The voice that escaped her throat hardly seemed hers; the Hermione that was speaking sounded frantic and bold, a brazenness she'd never imagined would have been in her. But she was transfixed. She jerked her hips a few more times, so quickly she was certain she'd have friction burns on her thighs the next day.
Harry started to speak, but Hermione captured his lips, cutting off all words. And then, Hermione felt something like an explosion. As Harry's clothes-sheathed penis pressed up against her once more, she felt hot and shaky and weak and as if every nerve ending in her body had been struck all at once with a velvet-encased hammer. She cried out loudly and felt Harry shake in a flurry of paroxysms beneath her. She clutched onto his shoulders tightly, riding the wave of tingles as they crashed against her, Harry jerking against her body as he buried his face in her breasts and called out her name in a raspy voice.
Hermione realized suddenly that she had been raised up high on her knees, and with her sudden wobbliness, came crashing down onto Harry's lap with a thud. He was panting beneath her. They held a wrenching grip around each other's backs until the jerking tremors of Harry's hips slowed to a halt. Neither Harry nor Hermione moved while their breathing slowed back to normal. Hermione suddenly became aware of the fact that the knickers between them and a patch on her stomach were hot and wet and slightly sticky.
"I'm s-"
"Don't do it," Harry warned her, laying a kiss behind her ear up near her hairline.
"Don't do what?"
"Say you're sorry. Don't do it. I should be s-"
"Don't you either," Hermione said with a smirk. "How are you feeling?"
Harry looked up into her face, his green eyes shining like blazing emeralds. "Best day of my life so far."
"So far?" Hermione said with a cheeky grin. "Well, that sounds very much like a challenge, Mr. Potter."
"Might just be," Harry said.
After a moment, Hermione rose off his lap and muttered a few well placed cleansing charms at her knickers. She scowled as she realized that she wasn't completely clean.
"Oh, don't pout; it's not your spell. I find that Expurgo works best," Harry said, and as proof, her knickers as well as his cleaned themselves thoroughly at his spell.
"How'd you know that one?" she asked, puzzled.
Harry smirked. "Hermione, I'm a seventeen-year-old guy; you don't think that's the first time I've had to clean that stuff off something, do you?"
Hermione blushed just a tad and put out her tongue at him.
"Promises, promises," Harry said. "Isn't that particular act on the docket for next week?"
Hermione gasped and slapped him playfully, then chuckled. "Easy, Trigger, that one's not for quite a while."
"I'm beginning to like your lessons, Hermione," Harry said, winking cheekily at her. When she began to beam, he added, "Don't let your head get too big, Granger. Remember, if I hadn't insisted on chucking the lesson plan, we never would have gotten anywhere."
"Wanker," she muttered.
"Exactly," Harry said and followed her out of the Room of Requirement and back towards Gryffindor Tower.
*****
"Hermione?" Harry's voice cracked just a tad and he quickly cleared his throat.
The object of his inquiry looked up from an essay she was currently hacking away at in the middle of the large table in Gryffindor common room. The anxiety in his voice pricked her humor more than a little. In the twenty-four hours since their meeting, Harry had been unusually chipper and couldn't seem to stop staring at her. This sudden … eagerness, Hermione decided it was, just reinforced the amusement that she had come to feel at his new attention.
"Yes?" she said, a smile quirking her lips.
"Well, I've been thinking," Harry said and then cleared his throat again. He looked around quickly to see if any of the handful of people still left in the common room at this late hour could hear him from their places in front of the fireplace. He had apparently decided they could not, and charged on. "After the way things went yesterday, I was thinking that maybe a new approach was needed."
Hermione could feel her brow furrow as she set down her quill. "Yes, it did get a bit out of hand, I suppose. I do get a little zealous when … learning something new, so maybe we should slow it d-"
"No, no!" Harry said loudly, to which Hermione's frown turned into something akin to a smirk. "I mean, that's not what I was getting at. I meant that I think that, given how well things went this week that perhaps we should institute some practice as a regular course of routine. You know, so we make sure we have it perfect by the next lesson."
"Regular practice?" Hermione said, skeptical. "You mean homework?"
"Just so!" Harry looked quite pleased with himself. "If we practiced for a little while each day throughout the week, we'd be sure to be ready for the next lesson every Sunday. Practice each lesson as homework."
"Homework, eh? You're not just looking for a way to work in a daily snog and fondle?"
Harry's cheeks colored deeply as he looked around again. Hermione noticed that just in the last few minutes, the common room had emptied completely, leaving them alone. She just barely reigned in a laugh by biting her lip as Harry leaned in close to her.
"And would that be so bad?" Harry asked, a slightly uncertain but roguish smile on his lips. Feeling a little more daring now that they had some privacy, he reached out a single finger and stroked it over the round of her breast beneath her sweater.
Hermione's breath caught in her teeth for a moment before she smiled. "When have you ever known me to shy away from homework?"
Harry grinned back at Hermione and lifted his hand to the back of her neck, pulling her towards his lips. As she leaned across the table towards him, she dropped a hand to his leg and squeezed his thigh. She smiled against his lips as she felt his breath quicken. Hermione loved doing homework, and had no doubt that this project would be no different.