Unofficial Portkey Archive

Smut alert. Harry and Hermione have a sexual encounter in this chapter. Wherein Harry and Hermione discuss their duel, find a hidden place and go through Fleur's questions; Harry makes snap financial decisions; Harry learns a rule of thumb, and there is an encounter.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor claim any other rights in the characters and other concepts created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money, nor do I seek any commercial advantage from this work. As such it constitutes "fair use" as defined in 17 U.S.C. §107.

Thanks to betas Mark Gardiner and Shane.

Chapter 50 - Rather More Than Twenty Questions

Harry's self-walking crutches were marvelous on level hallways, but left something to be desired on Hogwarts' many staircases. By the time Hermione guided him to the third floor corridor, Harry was already beginning to wonder about how long they had before curfew.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, Hermione," he suggested to her. "Maybe I'm just through for the evening - beaten too thoroughly for my own good."

He saw her face start crumpling with guilt. "Oh, Merlin, I'm sorry, Harry. Was it too much….? You'd have beaten me three times over except for the Apparition simulations. We can do it again … without those … and I'm sure you'd do worse to me than I did to you."

Harry stopped, looked around, and spotted a nearby classroom that, not surprisingly, was vacant in the evening. He turned his crutches in that direction and, with a look, bade her to follow. As they entered, the room lit up. Harry left the door partly open.

"What is it Harry?" Hermione asked. With the door ajar, Harry could not have intended to start their snog session early.

Or did he?

He drew her as close as his crutches permitted and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. "I don't want to do worse to you. That was my problem - I never did. Although my head was duelling, my heart wasn't. I did try to win … I'd promised you that, but at the same time I just couldn't…. I hope you're not furious. You were splendid … really…."

Hermione sighed and allowed herself to melt into his arms. Everybody else would think she'd won, but she knew the truth. "I'm sorry … it was a horrible idea. I should have just divided the D.A. up arbitrarily, and if they didn't want me, to Hell with them, let them quit…." She went on, critiquing all her decisions, especially changing the environment, and finding every one wanting.

Harry patiently waited out her rant. "No, no, and no," he told her gently as his fingers swept tears from her cheek. "I could have refused to duel you, and I should have if I couldn't keep up my end of it. We couldn't leave half the D.A. feeling separate and unequal. We don't want people to quit. We couldn't Apparate, so changing the environment was the next best thing…."

Hermione still was having none of it. "I should have declared myself the loser, the first time. In formal duelling, Disapparation means disqualification. But since skilled Apparaters can give chase, I thought we should continue…."

"They can?" Harry showed genuine surprise.

She cocked her head. "You didn't read all the assigned material for our Auror Apparition training, did you?"

"Umm … no," he admitted, "too many other things going on."

"Well, according to the manual, some wizards are good enough at Apparating that, if they act quickly enough, they can follow somebody who Disapparates. The Room's magical powers imitated that. When I changed environments, it was as if I tried to escape and you chased me down."

The odd, quizzical look Harry gave her told her everything she needed to know.

"I … I guess I should have made that clearer, shouldn't I?" she commented. "It looked like a strength, didn't it - when it really I was conceding my weakness…?"

Harry leaned heavily on his crutches since his freshly rehealed leg still ached. "I didn't think to stop it, so I can't complain. That last bit though…."

"Oh, Harry, I'm sorry I broke your leg," she cried. "I feel awful about that."

Harry was thoughtful. "Don't be. It's over, and I'm okay…." Looking down at his crutches, he added, "…more or less."

"No you're not," she corrected. "And everyone's going to think I was just dreadful to you."

"Eh … that has its advantages," Harry brushed it off.

"I hardly see how," Hermione declared. "Now they'll see me as some sort of crazy Amazon or something…. Somebody who broke her boyfriend's leg to win a stupid duel."

"Let them think what they want," Harry dismissed her concerns. "I know better, and I don't care what anyone else thinks. Frankly, I'm right chuffed for Malfoy and his ilk to worry about what you're capable of."

Hermione smiled. "Okay, then, we'll just leave them to it…. And we really ought to be going on." She flashed what she hoped was a seductive look.

That did not work very well, because Harry replied, "Are you sure it wouldn't be best just to call it a night?"

Not to be put off, Hermione gave Harry a kiss on the cheek, ending with her biting his ear.

"Ow! What was that for?" he yelped.

"For being unromantic," she reproached him. "Harry, I'm positive that before this night is through, you'll agree with me that this is a splendid idea. Let's go…."

They set out again. Hermione walked fast, but Harry's magical crutches could outpace her.

"…But, if McGonagall can't find us, she might call out the Order after what happened the other day," he pointed out as they rounded another corner.

"Won't happen," she told him confidently. "I've let Ron know. With Cho away at her Chinese magic studies, he was at loose ends."

Harry stopped in his tracks so quickly that Hermione almost bowled him over. "What?! I thought we were trying for a little quiet time together."

"And some snogging," Hermione broke in, "at least."

"And you told Ron where to find us? Snogging only makes it worse," Harry went on. "He or somebody he told could come bursting in at any time…."

"Relax, Harry," Hermione chided, "I only told him how to find us - not where." She hiked up her robes and pulled a D.A. mirror from the back pocket of her jeans. "He's been with Cho enough not to bother asking where we'll be. He can just use this to reach us. It's an insurance policy to prevent anyone from thinking we've been kidnapped again. I don't fancy having that kind of attention, and I'll wager you don't either."

"Not after the last time - never again." Satisfied with her explanation, Harry refocussed on another concern. "Even thought it's Friday night, I don't know if we'll have time for this. I really don't want to be rushed."

"I know, Harry," Hermione sighed. Sounding a little shy, she suggested, "We have so little time to ourselves - I thought it might be fun to … er … explore each other a bit." She was almost to door she wanted. "Do you have your Invisibility Cloak?"

Harry grinned. His perfect Prefect was prepared to violate school rules if necessary. He yanked the Cloak from his inside pocket. "I don't leave home without it - or the Map," he told her.

"Priceless," she replied. She stopped at a thick, wooden door.

"Well, we're here," she told him. "We may need your Cloak to get back, at least you might. Since I'm a Prefect, I can be out after hours - on official business, of course. You can be my invisible escort, if necessary." After giving him a look that suggested his Cloak probably would come in handy, she fumbled in her own robes for something.

"What are you after?"

"Don't you know where we are?" she dodged his question whilst slipping something into her right hand.

"Umm … looks vaguely familiar," Harry commented, equally vaguely, "but I can't place it." He looked hopefully at her.

"Finite." The object in her hand promptly expanded into her violin.

"Once upon a time, this door led to the Philosopher's Stone," she reminded him. "Behind it I also found the books with the spells I needed to get you back from the Death Eaters. Fluffy stood guard both times."

"Alohomora."

The door's lock clicked. Hermione readied her violin as Harry cautiously pushed the door inward. There was no sign of any beast.

Harry lit his wand, but pulled up short before reaching the trap door. "I'm not sure I can do this with my leg," he warned.

"No, not that way, this way," she corrected him. Hermione resized and stowed her violin, lit her wand as well, and set off down the hall, Harry trailing behind. She cracked open the last door on the left. As before, it was unlocked.

By uncertain wandlight, they moved into a room that, as before, was chockablock with shrouded, ghostly looking furniture.

"You found…?"

"Shhhh," Hermione hissed at Harry as she gestured for quiet. "Surveillius revelato."

`You're paranoid,' Harry commented telepathically.

"You never can be too careful," Hermione replied aloud. "It's clean."

"So this is where you found what you needed to save me?" Harry said in mock disbelief as he regarded the rather disheveled surroundings. "What is all this stuff, anyway?" he wondered as he reached for the sheet that covered the most prominent nearby objects.

"No, Harry! Not that one!" Hermione called to him urgently.

Harry dropped the sheet like it was on fire. Perplexed, he turned to her. "Are we safe here? What am I missing?"

Although it was uncomfortable, she had to tell him. "Er … I know that the Mirror of Erised is under there. I - well, I encountered it whilst looking for the missing books."

Harry's eyebrows instantly shot up at the unexpected information. "I know you," he chose his words carefully, "so I know you looked. What did the Mirror show you?"

"My greatest desire, of course," she answered coyly.

He persisted. "And that was?"

"Enough to confirm that I had to find you, even with all the risks," she told him. "You've already made part of it come true."

"I have?" Harry replied reflexively. Upon further review - particularly after a cross look flickered across Hermione's face - he added. "So you saw yourself as Mrs. Potter?"

"I didn't say that," Hermione responded.

The answer confused and somewhat disappointed Harry. "Then we must not be thinking along the same lines," he muttered.

"Oh, we sure are," she told him as she tilted her head to kiss the tip of his nose. "The mirror showed us married - only you're making assumptions. I'm not planning to change my name. I don't think women should have to do that … unless men do it too."

Harry brightened instantly at her explanation. "Thank Merlin, that was it - because I think I'd see the same thing in the Mirror right now. I don't care about names. Hell, if not for your miserable father, I'd take your name if it would get you to say `yes.'"

"All you ever had to do was ask - and mean it," Hermione answered with a soulful look in her eyes.

Her look reminded Harry, "What's part hasn't come true?" he inquired.

"Hasn't come true, yet," she clarified whilst slowly moving towards him. "You can probably guess - the mirror showed us, well, making love."

Harry grinned and gulped at the same time. She was had a finger on his chest. "I should have guessed," he conceded.

In a soft, throaty voice, she told him, "I could have let you guess, but I wanted to tell you. After all, it's part and parcel of my greatest desire my last time here. Much better than pornos, I suspect…."

Harry's self-walking crutches had slowly inched backwards as Hermione invaded his personal space. Now, he felt pressure on his calves and ankles as he reached the end of the free floor space.

His head swivelled halfway around. He was centimetres away from another, even larger, sheet-covered object. "What's this?" he asked reflexively.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure…." She put her arms on his shoulders, around his neck. "From some markings I saw earlier, I think it was Professor Binns' before he died. I suppose a ghost doesn't need a bed."

A bed.

And they were here, alone.

And Hermione had just told him her deepest desire.

Managing at once to sound hopeful and fearful, Harry asked, "You wouldn't be thinking about advancing that date for - well - you know…?"

Hermione's eyes widened. She appeared flustered, as if unprepared for a rather obvious question, under the circumstances. "Er…. No, Harry. Not tonight anyway…. You're - you're not ready yet. A compound, spiral fracture, with a Mandrake plaster, and you can't put any undue pressure on it. And I haven't taken the necessary … er … precautions. They need a couple of days to, well, be sufficiently reliable."

Something about her parade of excuses seemed a little off, but her uneasiness was manifest. Whatever her reasons, he certainly would not pursue anything she did not want.

Harry remembered how Ron had once confidentially told him just to ask. Ron was wrong, Harry concluded. No surprise there. Hermione was different from the rest. That was why Harry loved her.

"Not to worry," Harry retreated. "I'm not trying to pressure you at all. Like I said before, I can wait…."

Hermione seemed almost as taken aback by that as with his original question. "Oh, I'd be happy to advance the date, Harry," she declared hastily. "Just not tonight, that's all."

Then she took a deep breath and calmed down. With a slight giggle, she added. "I've other plans for tonight." She moved her hands to his chest and stepped forward as if to kiss him again.

But instead, she gave him a slow but firm push backwards. Unable to put much weight on his injured leg, Harry quickly toppled over. His crutches skidded forwards as he flopped backwards and sprawled on the bed behind him. Harry's fall carried him through the linen sheet acting as a dustcover. The sheet billowed inward, pulled loose, and fluttered down with him. When Harry came to rest, he was flat on his back - completely enveloped in the sheet.

He felt the mattress dip.

Almost immediately Hermione straddled him.

Swishing and flopping noises told Harry she was discarding her bulky school robes.

"AAAAGH!" he yelped as she started tickling him mercilessly.

"I thought we'd have a little fun tonight," she declared happily as her fingers continued tormenting him.

"Fun?! That should be the fourth Unforgivable Curse." Harry growled whilst trying to retaliate in kind. But between the cocooning sheet, his bum leg, and Hermione's weight pinning the sheet around him, he found himself highly constricted.

"So, call the Ministry on me," she snickered as she targeted the sides of his chest, just below his armpits. That was her own worst spot, so she guessed it also might be his. "I've got you now!"

"We'll see about that," Harry loudly protested a second time. "Evanesco." Harry's wandless magic succeeded, and the sheet vanished entirely. Suddenly freed, Harry's arms flew to Hermione's midsection as he flipped her over. Pressing his advantage, he rolled atop her. She opened her arms, and tickling was soon forgotten. Their hands found each other's shoulders - then their necks - and entwined in the other's hair.

Even under optimal circumstances Harry's hair was difficult to control. Soon it was hopeless.

Then again, these were better than the best of circumstances.

The wait was over. Their lips found one another, and all thoughts of anything beyond their each other promptly vanished. Making little, half-choked humming noises each time their mouths adjusted position, they snogged with a passion that dwarfed the heat of their duel earlier in the evening.

She tasted vaguely sweet.

He tasted decidedly antiseptic, from potions consumed in the Hospital Wing.

He ran his hands over her jeans, wishing she had worn something shorter. He so wanted to slide his hands along her marvelous legs. They had been oh so very proper with one another for so long.

It was time to change all that.

After several minutes of bliss, Hermione came up for air. Snuggling next to Harry, she returned his glasses (which she had removed for snogging purposes) and asked, "Now, tell me about this list of questions you wanted to share. Or was that just an excuse - like wanting to show me your etchings?"

He was perplexed. "What etchings?" I don't have any."

"That's the point," Hermione winked at him.

"Oh. Well, in that case…," Harry drawled, "it was supposed to be a secret, but seeing that everyone else who figured in getting Fleur to write them … was …."

Thoughts of death brought Harry crashing back to Earth. He shuddered and seemed reluctant to go on. Hermione immediately felt like the most wicked witch at Hogwarts for asking the question.

She reached over and began stroking his hair. Looking straight in his eyes, she told him, "Harry, I'm sorry. That was appalling of me. If you don't feel like discussing it, then you don't have to…."

Harry halted her attempted apology. "No," he began, "if we're - we're to be married, eventually; you need to know me, everything, even what's unpleasant or embarrassing. It started when I was thought you didn't want me, and obviously Eliza did."

"Oh, Merlin," Hermione gasped. "If I hadn't said those stupid things, then that poor thing wouldn't have died. I didn't like her - jealousy of course - but I never wished that fate on her…."

Harry cut her short again. "Oh, Hermione, stop acting like me - I'm the one with the market cornered on guilt, you know."

"You don't…. All right, Harry," Hermione sniffed. "Tell me about the list, then."

"Well, I was really confused," he began. "Between how I panicked when I thought Dolohov had killed you, and then my reaction to your letter about being withdrawn from Hogwarts, I had pretty much convinced myself that I was in love with you…."

"And then I unconvinced you," Hermione chimed in ruefully.

"Well - yeah, really," Harry admitted. "But I shouldn't have been put off so easily. It's just, you see, I'd cocked up when I had such feelings before, so I was afraid I'd ruin our friendship. And then … she happened. I had no idea what I wanted anymore, or who wanted me, so I was floundering about. And Bill, he noticed. He was good at that."

"I wish I'd been as good at noticing as he was," she sniffed.

"Doesn't really matter any more, does it?" Harry replied. "What's done is done, and what's not, isn't."

"We're not done yet, I guess," she followed, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

Harry slid a hand over hers. "Us? We've barely even started. Anyway, he took me out to the spot - the first time I saw where I proposed to you - and we had a long talk about both you and Eliza. I admitted to him that, if I had the choice, it would be you."

Hermione put her arms around his chest and burrowed into him. "Well, you've got me now," she said. "Just like you wanted."

"That I do," Harry sighed, stroking her hair. "But not exactly how I wanted."

"What more do you want, Harry?" she asked uncertainly.

"I - I didn't want anyone to die," he answered softly. "Especially her. It's just not fair that Eliza's dead because I couldn't figure out what I really wanted."

"Or because I couldn't decide what I really wanted," Hermione echoed. He looked at her askance as she continued. "Harry, I know you. No matter what I … what anyone says, you'll still feel guilty. It's part of who you are. You think you have to save everyone all the time. It can be foolish, but it's also the noblest part of your nature. And because it's in your nature, it's one of the things I love about you…."

He continued gazing at her, not sure where her little speech would wind up, but not really caring either - with the warm feeling welling up from deep inside him.

"…But being in love means sharing, and that means I'm going to share your guilt. Anything you think you didn't do, I can just as easily imagine some way how I kept you from doing it. Remember, all you saw that night was the attack in her flat…."

"Well, that's exactly what it was - and it was quite enough," Harry resisted wherever logic she was weaving.

"…It was much more, actually … much more," she continued. "From my perspective, it was an attack on Muggle London - and it killed thousands. That's what's on my head. So anytime you start feeling guilty, remember it's even worse for me, because I saw a lot more people dying. I saw people buried in flaming debris…."

"But, Hermione…," Harry protested.

"But, Hermione, nothing," she cut him off. "Competitive guilt just makes us all guilty. You've suffered alone for too long. Truce, remember?"

"Yeah, truce," Harry agreed.

Saying nothing further, Hermione leaned over, took his glasses off, and kissed him again. Her chest leaning into his, each felt the other's heart beating as they fought their guilt with the other's caresses. Her hands found his face, cupped his cheeks and lifted his mouth to hers. Their kisses became hot, urgent, and deep. Pushing aside her prissy-stickler-for-the-rules persona, she left demeanor and decorum behind. Hermione moaned as her arms once again encircled his neck and her fingers found his hair. She was kissing him; kissing him in ways that only a short time ago she only could have imagined in her most daring, fanciful, and naughty dreams….

Or in the Mirror of Erised.

She took care with Harry's leg, which meant watching her positioning. She was flushed and breathing heavily when she broke the kiss. "Let's see those questions," she said.

Harry rolled over and pulled them out of his own discarded robes. Unfolding a couple of pages of parchment he took a look at the first question - or tried to. "Umm … I need my glasses back if I'm to read this…."

"I'd Summon them if they weren't in plain sight," she said as she handed them to him yet again.

"Oh, this one's gonna be hard."

"Go on, I'm sure you can do it," Hermione encouraged.

"Well, okay," Harry agreed. "It's in several parts. Here goes. `What's the difference between want, need, infatuation, and love?'"

They looked at one another; wondering more about Fleur's thought processes than anything else.

"Well, go ahead, you first," she prompted. "They're directed to you, you know."

"Want, to me, that's mostly about, well, sex," Harry began; somewhat amazed that he used that word around her without flinching (much). "It's how I am when I want to be with someone physically … like right now, actually…."

Hermione blushed. Once again, she wished she were ready, but things were what they were, and altering them with magic could cause worse problems.

"…It's a desire that really isn't from the mind, but rather from…." He looked down at himself briefly and then continued. "It's how I wanted Eliza that last night - once I thought I'd lost you. Rationally, I knew I shouldn't. I knew I didn't feel the same for her that she did about me. But I wasn't thinking, not with my brain anyway. I just wanted her so much at that moment that I put such thoughts aside."

"Need? Well that's more of a longing. It's feeling that if someone's not there, I'll be lonely. For example, I needed you, and knew it, well before I could identify any other feeling. It's like when Dobby hid all my letters after First Year. I, I needed you - I was so lonely. But it was much more emotional than it was sexual. Back then, I probably needed Ron at least as much."

"Infatuation, that's easy," Harry said. "In a way it's like love - maybe even more distracting. But it's from afar. That was Cho. She was much better from a distance than up close. I thought about her almost constantly for more than a year. As long as I was afraid to talk to her, I thought she was perfect. But when she started wanting me around, and I sort of dated her … well, in person she wasn't nearly as perfect as the image I'd had of her. I liked her better before we kissed than after."

"Love's sort of the flip side of that. It's when everything is best when you're … when I'm with that person," he looked deeply into her eyes, fathomless in the half light. "Like right now. That person's you. I was never infatuated with you. I never felt light-headed around you. Nervous, yes, usually because I'd bollixed something up. But mostly, when I've been around you - for a long time now - I've just felt like … like I belonged, I guess."

He gave Hermione a meaningful look, which she returned for an unnervingly long moment until breaking off and looking down. "Er … how about you?" he asked.

"I don't think I'd answer this one very well," she admitted. "I don't see them all as categorically different. Except for infatuation. I don't know that one at all. I've never been infatuated…."

"What about Gilderoy Lockhart?" Harry broke in.

That stopped Hermione in her tracks.

First she looked thoughtful.

Then she smiled.

Then she smirked.

Then she started laughing. "Oh, Merlin, yes…. You're right. So much has happened since then; I completely forgot that plonker. Did you know I kept something he signed for months? Not only that, I slept with his get well card under my pillow. I guess you're right."

"I successfully corrected Hermione Granger," Harry declared. "I'll remember this night forever."

"Maybe, but not for that, I hope," she intimated. "Anyway, I've never been infatuated - with anybody my own age- not with you, not with Viktor, not with anyone."

"And the other things?" Harry reminded.

To me, the others - want, need, and love - are all interconnected, maybe because I've never experienced them separately."

Harry was unsure of what she meant. "So you and Viktor…?"

"Not at all, Harry," Hermione cut off that tangent. "Viktor wanted, needed, and may even have loved me, but I never felt any of that. I suppose I felt, well, flattered more than anything. He had this outsized persona - all those Quidditch accomplishments, and Durmstrang champion on top of that - that I was far more gratified for his interest in me than I was ever actually interested in him … since you weren't interested at the time."

"Then what do you mean about never experiencing them separately?" Harry pressed.

"I mean you, Harry," Hermione answered, pressing her forefinger into his chest. "We've known each other since before I was old enough to have those feelings at all. I knew you too well ever to be infatuated, but then … maybe even that first time you went to face Voldemort…. Well, I started wanting you, needing you, and loving you all at the same time. It was slow, and it was tentative, but then we rescued Sirius together, with the Time-Turner and Buckbeak. After that, all you ever had to do was say the word."

"But I never did," Harry admitted.

"But you never did," Hermione echoed, "not until five and a half days ago. So I've never had any of those feelings for anyone else - not romantically. I've just never experienced them separately."

Harry smiled as she finished her explanation. "I love you," he whispered. "I just wish I hadn't been so thick. I've wasted who knows how much of whatever time we've got together." He touched his forehead to hers and lightly kissed her.

"But if you weren't that way, you wouldn't be you," Hermione told him. "In no small measure, it's what keeps you so casually wonderful."

"What is?"

"That you can't see just how wonderful you really are, that's what," Hermione explained.

"Okay, next question," Harry said, choking up slightly at her more than satisfactory answer. Squinting at the parchment in the half-light, he read, "When did you fall in love with her? Why?"

Harry cringed. "Oh, Merlin, let's see if I can remember back that far."

She squeezed his hand.

"I suppose it depends on whether `falling' means the process or the landing," he mused. "You mentioned a pretty good starting point, Sirius' rescue. I probably took the plunge then, but I wasn't aware. I was so … infatuated is the word … with Cho for more than a year after that. Damn, I never realised I was actually falling for you, and hard. I never thought how you were the one - the only one - who never doubted me when my name came out of that goblet. I finally got over Cho when I chose you over her, and she dumped me. At the Ministry, you were almost killed, and later almost taken away from me. Then, I knew that my feelings towards you went far beyond friendly. But even then I couldn't stop falling, nor figure out how deep I'd already gone…."

Harry trailed off, obviously embarrassed. "…I'm just so … well, it's hard to express…."

Hermione squeezed his hand again, bidding him to continue. "Go on, I promise I will never think less of you," she whispered in his ear.

He swallowed and continued, "It was a couple of days before she died - the day before the Reims speech, actually, that everything finally became clear. I'm not proud of this, but Eliza confessed that when the Death Eaters attacked the night … night that … that Bill died … she knew she loved me. She said fearing I would die made her understand. Then it hit me. I'd felt that way, too, at exactly that time - but about you. When you lit up my ring, I went crazy. You were all that mattered, the only thing. I would have done anything to get to you, and I almost did. Well, that's when I knew, but I was with her…."

"Oh my," Hermione gasped as she realised what had happened. "You felt love … for me?"

"Absolutely," Harry reaffirmed, nodding his head for emphasis. "A rare moment of blinding clarity for me. I just had to avoid hurting her. But then I learnt about, well, Cho, and I buggered everything up."

"No you didn't, Harry," Hermione told him fervently. "I cocked everything up, because I felt your love through our affinity - except I thought you'd fallen in love with her." She slowly shook her head as it hit her how wrongly she had interpreted his disembodied feelings. "I thought you loved her, and I basically gave up. I was in despair. I thought I'd lost the only person I'd ever really cared about that way. That's why I asked Dumbledore to sever the link."

"Hermione, lighten up … please," Harry told her. "I can't forgive you any more than I already do. Now it's your turn. When did you start caring about me `that way'?"

"Like I've already said, by the end of Third Year, I knew. From then on, it always bothered me when you'd look at Cho the way I wished you'd look at me. It bothered me that Ron asked me to the ball - tardy that he was - but you never did. And it bothered me with Eliza most of all, because I blamed myself. But you had to find it within yourself. I would never risk our friendship by throwing myself at you. I was too … too … scared, probably. But for me, I knew where I stood when I had my arms around you on Buckbeak's back. How long I'd actually loved you before, without knowing what to call it, I have no idea. Hell, love at first sight? Maybe. But that's when I stopped denying it to myself."

With Hermione stroking his hair thoughtfully, Harry raised the parchment again. "The next question on the list is, `Have you ever been in love with anyone else'?"

"That's easy," Harry continued. "No. Now that I know how love actually feels, I'm confident I never felt this way for Cho. That was infatuation. And whilst I liked Eliza - and surely lusted after her at times - I never felt an emotional bond to her like I feel with you. You're just the glue that holds me together. How about kissing me again?"

Hermione happily obliged. After a minute or so in hazy ecstasy, they parted and he looked at her. She nodded.

"Easy here, too - probably even easier," she stated. "The answer's no. Nothing even close. If I'd felt for Viktor even half of what I feel for you, I'm sure I'd have jumped at the chance to marry him."

"Thank Merlin you didn't," Harry commented.

"Yes, thank Merlin," she agreed.

"Here's an odd one," Harry went on. "It asks, `Is love something that just happens? Or do you have to work at it'?"

"Well, I'm sure Fleur thinks it's something that just happens, but I'm not so sure," Hermione allowed. "I know for certain that it's something to work at. I think we've both proven that. Even after we were both one hundred percent sure how we felt - and even me having that blasted link to you - we still messed everything up so badly. Yes, love definitely takes work, at least for us, or else any number of terrible things can happen."

"But I thought you just said it might have been love at first sight," Harry observed, a questioning look on his face.

"I did," she admitted. "That's why I say I'm not sure. If it weren't for that, I'd be sure that love never just happens. For me anyway, it's so hard because it's something that's so entirely beyond logic."

"I know love just happens," Harry rather disagreed. "It happened with Eliza. She never intended to fall in love with me. But with you, no, I know it didn't `just happen,' not on my side anyway. With you - love topped off a whole bunch of feelings that went all the way back to when that troll was about, and I grabbed Ron and set out to find you."

"It was you, then," she interrupted. "I always suspected…."

"No, it was the both of us," Harry reiterated. "Ron was there every step of the way, and he knocked out the troll."

"But you took the initiative," she added. "If you'd waited for him to think of it, I'd be dead."

"Well … yeah," he admitted. "But that's sort of the point. There's always been something different about you. Something that stirred what you've called my `saving people thing.' Something that meant I couldn't ignore you even if I'd wanted to - and those times you'd nag us, I really wished I could have."

"I hope that, looking back, you understand I only do that because I care about you," she reminded him.

"Oh, sure," Harry admitted. "I know that. I even knew it at the time … well, most of the time anyway. But that doesn't mean I had to like it. But I agree on the more important part - love takes lots and lots of work to get right, or at least for me to make it right when I mess it up."

"You have made it right, though - spectacularly," she sighed happily as she leaned into him with the intent (ultimately successful) of getting him to put his arm around her.

"Next question," he went on. "Oh, sod it, here's a more difficult one, `I've been told there's an issue with money. What is it, and what do you think you can do about it'?"

"It's no longer a problem," Hermione declared strongly. "That was one of the many things that I decided to chuck whilst you were gone. I had to separate what mattered from what shouldn't. It doesn't matter any more. It really doesn't. I know you'll be the same Harry I fell in love with whether you have as little as when I first met you, or as much as you will after tomorrow."

"You know all about that," Harry began to answer. "More than I ever wanted you to know - at least whilst I was alive, anyway. I'm sorry you had to find out like that, but you're the only one I could trust to break up the Black Estate once and for all."

"Well, I hope that now, you'll do that job yourself, so it never falls to me," Hermione sighed. "You had a pretty good idea what you wanted done if you'd died. Don't you have better ideas for dealing with this yourself?"

"Not really," Harry admitted. "I spoke to Blackie Howe about it, and he said, whilst I could move the money around any way I chose, the estate - the land - was entailed and it was virtually impossible to sell. I hate it. I really do. But I'm stuck."

Harry noticed that, as he was speaking, Hermione began chewing on her lower lip - denoting that she was thinking hard. That usually meant an idea was forming in her head. This time was no exception.

This was one of many things he adored about her. He dropped his arm from her shoulder to around her waist.

"There might be something you could do," she offered tentatively.

"And how do you know that?" Harry asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Well, when I was trying to save you, I assigned myself the legal section of the library, amongst other things. It was a complete waste, but I figured that wizards are a relatively litigious lot - as you're well aware - so maybe somewhere an affinity of sorts might have figured in a case. That was rubbish, but I do remember coming across a reference to foreclosure against an entailed estate."

"You do!?" Harry exclaimed. "Well, what is it?"

"I'm afraid I don't remember anything more … except that it involved your friends, the goblins," she told him. "You see, it wasn't about affinities - and I hadn't learnt of your will yet - so I paid it very little attention. If it didn't help get you back, it was of no use to me."

Harry sighed, deflated at a potential lost opportunity.

"But, I'll bet I can find it again before tomorrow's meeting with the goblins," she added.

His face brightened again. "That would be great, Hermione."

"Now the other thing about your money," she added. "Has Dennis ever told you about his odd financial ideas? Before we got you back, he offered to help with financial planning when it looked like I might inherit your estate."

She cast her eyes down as she recalled that very troubling time.

"I don't think so. What's this about?" Harry asked.

"It was mostly about Muggle computer stocks in America," Hermione recalled.

Harry looked puzzled. "What good are those?"

"Well, he made it sound logical, but rather much of a flutter," Hermione described. "Apparently, the Muggles are all bothered about an old shortcut that now could bollix their computers when the year 2000 comes. They have to spend lots of money fixing this, all before the millennium. Dennis thinks computer stocks are a good investment until then - with all this demand…. And after that, he said he'd sell almost immediately."

She looked at him, uncertain as to what Harry might say. "Hell, I suppose that'd be okay," Harry agreed. "Blackie will be disappointed though. He's been angling to place that business himself. Who knows, Dennis might even be right."

"You know he's absolutely loyal and would never cheat you," Hermione reminded him. "And since you don't really want the money…."

"…Now there's an understatement," Harry said starkly, talking over her.

"Oh, and there's something else he mentioned later on," Hermione added.

Harry rolled his eyes. "What more could there be?"

"It was something he spotted whilst reading. Something about buying the rights to some half-made Muggle cinema movie," she explained. "It's over budget, and the current backers think it's too long. The director disagrees, and as a result Dennis thinks the rights could be bought cheap. He tends to agree with the director…."

"What's the movie about?" Harry cut in.

"That's what worries me," Hermione continued, "it's a love story, supposedly, but also about a sinking ship … the Titanic…."

"Romeo and Juliet on a boat? Nah, I'll pass on that," Harry decided. "Me and motion pictures - that's just too far fetched. Anyway, I'm tired of talking about money. It's bloody boring. Next question."

Harry picked up Fleur's parchment and read, "`What does her name signify to you'?"

"You know, I never thought about that much," he admitted. "I suppose some sort of pretty flower, since Hermione sort of rhymes with `anemone,' which is a flower. What does your name mean anyway?"

He loved to hear her talk because she knew so much about so many things. Here was another opportunity for him just to lay back and listen.

"Well, `Hermione' dates from Greek mythology," she told him. "She was the only daughter of Helen of Troy - before she went to Troy - and was the object of a rather sorry fight amongst some suitors. But I wasn't named for her, not directly anyway. Mum is a LaFayette by birth, and I'm named after the ship `Hermione' that took the Marquis de LaFayette to America to help the Yank revolutionaries. That's sort of ironic, since almost all my ancestors, except the Marquis himself, ended up in Britain as émigrés after the French Revolution and the Terror."

Harry was impressed. "I - I never knew any of that. I'm sorry. I hate to think what a run-of-the mill name like `Harry' might signify."

"Let me answer that," Hermione requested. "I think that `Harry' is just right. If it matters, your name's shared by some pretty famous people. The current Prince Harry, of course; but also Henry the Fifth and Harry Hotspur from Shakespeare; Harry Truman, who was an American president. He dropped the bomb on Japan. There's also Harry Houdini, Harry Belafonte … even Bing Crosby was originally named Harry…."

"And some guy changed his name from `Harry' to `Bing'?" Harry asked sceptically.

"That's right," Hermione confirmed. Harry had no reason to doubt his know-it-all fiancée.

"Well, if somebody named me `Bing," I think I'd change my name to `Harry'," Harry declared. "Bing? Give me a break - he must have really hated being Harry."

That put Hermione on the defensive. "Well, I think he was dumb. Harry's a perfectly fine name. To me it signifies someone down-to-earth who never puts on airs - regardless of money or fame. `Harry' is also solid. Someone who's not flighty and not just a fair weather friend. My `Harry' is always there, through good times and bad. He's someone who, no matter how long his reach, keeps his feet firmly on the ground. Someone who knows who his friends are. Someone unique, but not stuck up about it. Someone altogether worthy of all the love I can possibly give…."

Harry was stunned. She had made the mundane seem almost lyrical. "Hermione, I can't conceivably deserve you," he whispered in her ear.

"If you believe that, then Goyle's a genius by comparison," Hermione countered. She moved forward and ran her index finger along his scar, suddenly thoughtful. "Really, Harry, a lot of things happened to you that you don't deserve - I glad I'm one on the plus side. Now come here and kiss me again."

Hermione did not wait for Harry to move. She rolled over to him and captured his lips. They felt each other's hot breath on their cheeks, as their lips and tongues met. She wiggled just a bit, because another part of her felt Harry's obvious desire - a desire he would probably try to deny if asked about it outright.

She wanted him badly, too, and she entertained not just second, but third thoughts over deciding to wait. But tonight had become a problem - during that stupid duel, no less. Their first time, if not perfect, at least had to be as uncomplicated as she could make it. That was not how she was tonight.

After they came up for air, they went through more of Fleur's questions: What they thought about when they thought of each other; whether they ever thought that way about anyone else; their best features, and their worst; what they most liked to talk about, and the least; what they found most rewarding about the other.

At some point, Harry ceded control of the list to Hermione. "Oh, here's one that's pretty obvious for you, but I'm sure that you'll have no idea of my answer. `What single song best personifies her? Why?' You rescued me with `It's All Too Much,' after all."

Harry looked thoughtfully at his fiancée. "That was then, but not now. That song makes me think of you, certainly, but I chose it because I needed something that would also make you think of me thinking of you…. If I'm making any sense here."

"Yes, I think you are," Hermione prompted. "I had to know it was you. Go on."

"I chose All Too Much as much because I thought - prayed almost - that you'd recognise it as something I knew about you. But it's not actually you. You don't have blonde hair and blue eyes, for one thing. And it's a rather extravagant. Now, after we've, well, you know, gotten together. There's another Beatles song that is closer to how I feel now."

Harry cleared his throat, and did something he hardly ever did. He sang - or rather tried to.

"Something in the way she moves…."

A radiant smile spread across Hermione's face, as she recognised the song almost immediately.

"…Attracts me like no other lover. Something in the way she woos me. I don't want to leave her now. You know I believe…."

At that point his voice cracked under the strain of falsetto, and Harry began hacking so badly, he had to stop and clear his throat. Embarrassed at his own presumption, he shook his head. "Well, you know how it goes, I'm sure. I think `Something' better describes my feelings about you since you've said `yes'."

"That's beautiful, Harry," a still glowing Hermione replied. "Here, let me help you." She flipped out her wand and laid it gently against Harry's throat. "Sinatrus," she incanted. "Now try again."

Harry did, and whilst the words were the same - the voice certainly was not. Obviously distracted, he carried on until finally he could take it no more. "`…I don't need no other lover. Something in her style that shows me….' Whoa, Hermione what did you do to me? I sound great, but that's not me!"

She laughed and ended the spell. "Well I guess Old Green Eyes isn't back after all," she remarked. "How about a different voice?" She laid her wand against his throat again.

"Umm … I'm not at all sure how I feel about this, Hermione," Harry told her.

"Just once more," she inveigled him. "Bonorus."

Harry started singing again from the beginning, but had performed only a few bars before Hermione dissolved in laughter.

"No - definitely not the right voice for that song," she giggled. "Too disconcerting…. Finite."

"What are you doing?" Harry asked perplexedly.

"Just playing with magical syntax, that's all," Hermione answered. "I wasn't sure it would work - or even that I'd channel the proper Sinatra - but since Sonorus amplifies ones own voice, I suspected that something related, incanted in the same manner, could have a parallel effect. I made you sound, first, like Sinatra, Frank, that is … so there must also be an intent element. Then I had you singing like Bono. Sinatra could definitely cover `Something,' but it's just not Bono's style."

Seeing that Harry's sceptical look remained, she asked what was wrong.

"Umm … I know who Bono is, but who's this Sinatra bloke?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Harry, I was being presumptuous," Hermione apologised. "He's a Yank singer, pretty famous, but probably before your relatives' time, and certainly before yours. Frank Sinatra was one of the few good things Daddy picked up from his time in America."

Harry concluded he could hardly care less, so he brought the conversation back to the original point. "Well, that's my song for you, Hermione. What's yours?"

"It's not nearly as famous a song as yours," she told him, a tad nervously. She was even less the singer than Harry. "I doubt you know it. It's certainly not your relatives' style, and Dudley - whilst he's been better this year, but I doubt he listens to women singers much." She was stalling, and she knew it.

"Okay, but there has to be something out there that you think fits me."

"Oh it is," she confirmed. "Some of the lyrics seem so appropriate…."

He continued to watch as she squirmed. "Go on," he prompted. "I embarrassed myself for you - again - so you can do the same. After all, we've both done lots worse."

"All right, then," Hermione gave in, her voice quavering. "Please, just - don't laugh."

She pointed her wand at her own throat and spoke the spell in a similar fashion. "Benetrus." Then she screwed up her courage and started singing.

"…You said, `Oh girl, it's a cold world, when you keep it all to yourself.' I said, `You can't hide on the inside all the pain you've ever felt.' Ransom my heart, but baby don't look back. `Cause we've got nobody else…. We're running with the shadows of the night…."

Although she had almost refused to sing altogether, when she heard her transformed voice, Hermione quickly gained confidence, and unlike Harry, she carried the song through to the end.

"…Midnight angel, won't you say you will?"

"Merlin, Hermione, that's an amazing spell," Harry gushed when she was done. "You normally can't sing a lick."

"Well, thank you, Harry," Hermione responded with a dark look to a truly backhanded compliment. "It's nothing, really, just a magical sort of karaoke…."

"Kara who?"

"Doesn't matter. It's just a Japanese word for artificial singing," Hermione told him. "Now my point is that the song speaks to me about you, since you're the all-time champ at bottling up your pain, and neither of us have anyone else in our lives anymore. I listened to my Benetar CDs quite a bit over the summer whilst I was wrecking our relationship."

"Hermione, don't…."

"Please, Harry," she mumbled, on the edge of tears. "Just…. Just never - never `let me down' - easy or any other way. I love you so very much…."

"I can't find words for how much I love you," he murmured. He enfolded her in his arms and started kissing her forehead and cheeks.

He picked up the parchment after it fell from her hands and read off a few more questions. They discussed "dream" movie roles - or rather she did, since Harry had only been to the cinema a couple of times in his life. For herself, Hermione favoured Katharine Hepburn in "African Queen." For him, she allowed that he "would make an awesome Atticus Finch."

They also discussed what flowers they reminded each other of. He reminded her of sweet water lily; he would forever associate her with luminescent rhododendron.

"Okay," he said. "`If you could only give her one gift, what would it be?' That's easy. I want to give you what I still kick myself for not doing already. That's a real ring. I mean - what kind of berk proposes marriage with no ring?"

"The only kind I'd say `yes' to," she replied. "You were so honest, so unrehearsed, that I couldn't possibly refuse, even though we're so awfully young."

"We've had to grow up too fast. Still, I don't think I ever felt older than the moment I asked," Harry allowed.

"Well, we're younger than that now, don't you think?" she answered. "Still, I don't need another ring. I was already wearing your ring, and I still am." She flashed her (once his) Auror's ring at him.

"I mean a real I'm-in-love-with-you-and-want-everybody-to-know ring," Harry persisted. "Not something you ended up with by accident."

"It was no accident, Harry," she said in a low, soft voice, whilst giving him another of those looks. "Tonks deliberately saved it and gave it to me as your partner. We both thought you dead. But then, I kept it once I realised you weren't."

"That doesn't change that I need to get you a real ring," he of the one-track mind declared.

She took his hand, "Harry, don't. This is good enough - really. I don't like the way the miners are treated anyway."

Harry grimaced at her interposition of social conscience. "But there must be something," he protested.

"Maybe," she allowed, "but it's nothing we have to deal with now. It's something for the future - just like what I most want to give you."

"Which is?" he prompted.

"Well, what do you think?" she parried.

"Might it be something we're planning to do in the near future?" he queried suggestively.

In spite of herself, Hermione blushed. "Well, no … not exactly. Although they're not entirely unrelated. Remember what you saw when you first looked in the Mirror? Your family. That's what I want to give you someday - a real family. After you've done what you have to do, and we're older, more mature, and more established…. Of all the things I you to have, that's what ultimately I need to give you the most."

"Merlin, I'm so glad I asked you to marry me," Harry choked out. Tears formed in his eyes as he nuzzled her neck through her curly, brown hair. "You're why I have to beat him - not only should, but must."

Wrapping her arms around him, she leaned over to make herself more accessible. She saw the parchment lying beside him. She noticed they had just finished the last question on the first page. She moved her hand and the parchment floated into it. Letting the first page fall away, she squinted at the second.

"Oh, my," she squeaked. "I should have to count on Fleur."

"What is it?" Harry responded to her comment.

"It's just page two," she answered. "It's rather more - explicit."

That got his attention. He drew a bit back from her, asking, "Let me see."

Retrieving the parchment, he recited, "`Can you and she be publicly affectionate?' That's not too hard - not now. I used to worry that anything of the sort would encourage Voldemort to go after you. But since you beat his O.W.L. marks, he's after you anyway. So … no, I no longer have any problem kissing you, holding hands, whatever, in public. And I don't even miss the House Points."

"I pretty much agree," Hermione added. "Just you be reasonable. No borderline lewd behavior - in public, that is. If anyone tells us to `get a room,' we should."

"That's fine," Harry concurred. "I wouldn't want you to feel - well, dirty, or anything. Nothing like Cho…."

A shocked look came over Hermione's face.

"…Cho and Ron, I mean," he backtracked, grasping what she must think he'd meant. "It's just - I wouldn't go feeling you up in the hallway like he sometimes does her. I think we'd both be embarrassed."

"I know we would," she added. "Now what?"

"`Have you ever kissed her? How did that make you feel?'" Harry read. "Now that's not hard. Every time I've kissed you, it's been wonderful, and I know how stupid was I to wait so long to do it. I don't think I'll ever get tired of it."

"Right in one, Harry," she agreed before physically demonstrating her answer. His glasses came off again. As she moved her lips over his, he understood how much had changed. She was no longer the least bit shy with him. He ran his hands over her back, pulling her against him very tightly. He felt exhilarated, yet unworthy, having to convince himself that this was real. He was with Hermione. He was kissing her, and she was kissing him. The most fantastic girl in the world actually wanted him. He wondered some sort of charm could replace breathing - at least temporarily - because this was better.

Knowing none, he came up for air and dove back in. Relaxing, he stretched out fully next to her. She responded by moulding herself to him along his entire length, wrapping her top leg over his and rocking gently against him. A twinge reminded him that his injury was still there, so he readjusted. He rolled over with her in his arms so she was on top of him and her weight more evenly distributed. He got a mouthful of her hair for his troubles, but ignored it as just another part of her to kiss.

Even when it was frizzy, he liked her hair. With it now straighter and softer to the touch, he positively adored it. His hands moved into it further and became hopelessly tangled. That produced a yanking sensation at the sides of both their mouths which finally brought them to a halt. He noticed her smiling at him as he sorted out her hair from his teeth. He supposed he was smiling too.

"Oh … that was wonderful," he told her.

"Wasn't it though," she said slyly. "I wonder if that helps with the next question."

"Merlin, I hope so," he panted. "Let's see what it is."

Hermione knowingly nodded her head as he fished the slightly crumpled parchment from beneath himself and read. "'When you…'?" he stopped abruptly.

"Please continue, Harry," she prompted, with a bit of a giggle.

"Er … `When you … masturbate, do you think of her'?" he sputtered out.

"Well, do you?" she repeated in a low voice, her hand lazily stroking his hip not far from the part of him to which the question pertained.

"The truth?" he asked.

"The truth," she replied,

"Umm … for the longest time, never," he confessed, not knowing whether she would approve his answer. "You were my friend, and it seemed - well, disrespectful - to fantasise about you in that way. Then, for a bit, at the end of last Term and into the summer, I couldn't help myself and did. But then we messed things up, and Eliza came along. She basically took over my naughty thoughts. Then you were hurt, and you went right back on the pedestal again. Since then, it's been mostly Fleur."

"Fl - Fleur?" Hermione asked worriedly. Of all the girls he could have mentioned - Cho, Parvati, Lavender, even Ginny - Fleur brought out Hermione's worst insecurities. Whilst others (first, Cho, and later, Ginny) had caused flutters because they shared Harry's interest in Quidditch, and were much prettier, none of them (save perhaps Ginny with her Order of Merlin), had accomplishments remotely rivalling Hermione's.

But Fleur? She had been a Triwizard Champion, the best at her entire school. And she was impossibly beautiful.

Harry was plainly awkward about the entire subject, but he answered her question. "Yeah, back in Fourth Year, at first, because I was around her so much - so for a while I put Fleur on a pedestal, too. Not as high as you. That wasn't possible, but up there. That stopped when Fleur left, and then she was with Bill. But lately she's actually been interested in me, mostly as revenge for Voldemort killing Bill, I think. Whilst you were … you know … she even asked me to the Masked Ball."

An icy feeling shot through Hermione's heart. Harry had never asked her outright to the Ball. She had just sort of assumed. What if she were wrong?

In a brittle voice, she asked, "And did you accept?"

Harry's jaw dropped, as much from her fearful tone as the question itself. "Of course not," he told her. "What kind of cad do you think I am?"

"I'm not sure how to answer that," she replied, relieved about the Ball, but still worried about Fleur. "Anyway, what are you going to do about it?"

Harry gulped, and Hermione realised her question had been rather vague. "Well, at some point, I thought you and I were going to - well, you know - make love…." He had a wonderfully cute, hopeful-but-embarrassed look on his face.

"Don't worry about that, Harry," she responded warmly. "Everything will happen naturally. Actually, I meant what do you want to do about the Ball?"

He looked less embarrassed and more hopeful. "Er … I sort of assumed you would go with me - we sort of discussed it when you agreed to marry me and all."

"Actually, we talked more about sex," she said, grinning at him. "It's just - it's always good to ask."

"Right," he nodded. "Then, will you go to the Masked Ball with me?"

"Of course, Harry, I wouldn't have it any other way," she squeezed his hand. "It's just - I guess Fleur intimidates me a bit, that's all. She's so beautiful…,"

"Like you," Harry added.

"…so talented…,"

"Like you."

"…and so Veela."

"But you're brilliant, and that's more important," Harry said forcefully. "So, what about you?"

"What about me?" Hermione echoed him.

"What about your answer to the question?" he smirked. "You made me tell you about all my naughty fantasies, so I want to hear yours."

"That's simple," she responded evenly, although her pink cheeks gave her away. "You, and only you. As long as I've known how to do it - and been so inclined - you're the only one I've ever wanted in that way. And that's the truth. Next question."

"Not even Viktor?"

"No," Hermione answered immediately. "It was a conscious decision. I was afraid of being emotionally confused."

"Okay," Harry was pleased to move on. "`Have you had more sexual activity with her than anyone else?' If not, why not'?"

"Well, that's certainly some question," Hermione observed. "Obviously Fleur knew about Eliza - no doubt second-hand from you telling Bill. I'm afraid my answers will be very boring if the rest of the questions are like this. I haven't done anything with anyone … yet."

"Yeah, I read your testimony about the unicorn," Harry chimed in. "That was brilliant."

"Actually, you made that same unicorn's acquaintance earlier this evening," Hermione informed him.

"And almost got myself skewered for my trouble," he chuckled.

"So my basic answer to that question is `no,' since it's impossible for that to be less than zero. So how about…."

A buzzing noise interrupted her. Harry whipped out his wand with one hand and pulled the sheet over them both with the other. Then, keeping his wand trained on the door, he grabbed the Marauders' Map out of his trouser pocket, turning the pocket inside out in his haste.

A second buzz sounded.

"Wait, Harry," Hermione whispered. "I think it's my mirror." She reached above the compartments built into the headboard. "Yup, that's it exactly. I set it on `vibrate'." Soon the mirror vibrated again, buzzing loudly as it jiggled atop the headboard.

"Who could be trying to reach us?"

"Why Ron, of course," Hermione answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be interrupted during an intimate tête-à-tête. "He's the only one who knows we're out of the dormitory. Good thing we're fully dressed."

She could hear Harry's abrupt inhalation at her last remark. "Good" was a relative term.

"Hi, Ron," Hermione said cheerily.

"Hi lovebirds. Hope I haven't interrupted anything…."

"No, Ron," Hermione said with less bounce to her voice. "What's up?"

"You are," Ron replied. "I just wanted you to know - in case you'd lost track of time - that it's after curfew. You're in the clear though. Nobody's the wiser."

"What do they think?" Hermione asked.

"Well, everybody thinks Pomfrey sent Harry straight to bed," Ron recounted, "and your story's that you swapped patrolling assignments with Hannah Abbott. I'm not entirely sure Neville believes me, but I've let him know he's better off not looking into it."

"Thanks, Ron," Hermione told him," and you can be sure that the next time I catch you and Cho - I won't."

"Anyway, I'll let you get back to it," Ron closed. "Be good. If you can't be good, be safe. And if you can't be safe, don't name it after me."

"Ronald Weasley!" she squealed at him, but he was already gone.

"So, he really thinks we're shagging?" Harry asked her.

"I don't know what he thinks," Hermione mused. "I know that's what he thinks he and Cho would be doing if they were in our shoes. Speaking of shagging…."

Harry tensed.

"…What's your answer to the question? I know you didn't do that, but you must have done something. What I felt through the affinity couldn't have been that far off that often."

The cause of Harry's tension changed immediately, but hardly lessened. She had just asked him for details of three of the most stressful - and the last one, terrifying - experiences of his life. Still, if they were to be married, she had a right to know his secrets, especially his sexual secrets.

So he told her everything - as much as he understood, anyway - about his sexual encounters with Eliza. The first one was just embarrassing. Eliza had wanted him, had touched him, and had all-too-quickly driven him beyond his minimal, sixteen-year-old-boy's staying power. Having messed everything up, even the best efforts of Eliza's skilled hands could not recover him. He mentioned the mental block that had developed.

"…And no matter how much of her fiddling about after that, she couldn't get me back," he revealed. "I know I felt badly out of sorts. What she was doing, it just felt wrong for some reason - not bad, but inappropriate. I couldn't perform after that. And when it looked like she was going to resort to, well, other things. The Fifth Element in me - I didn't know what it was back then - it became defensive, and I started to glow."

"I certainly hope you wouldn't have blown her up just because you weren't ready to have sex with her," Hermione observed. "If that happens with me, please, just tell me you're not in the mood."

"That's the funny thing about it," Harry shook his head. "While I can't say what would have happened if she hadn't backed off, I'm not at all concerned about you. I don't think it could ever get that far. I'm not even sure I could…." His voice faded to a mumble as his expression went blank. "Hermione, I honestly think it was you."

"What did I do?" she snorted. "I wasn't even there. I was at home feeling miserable."

"No, I mean that even then something in me wanted you - I knew without knowing it that it should be you, not her," he meandered. "It wasn't right because it wasn't you. But I'm with you now…."

He said no more as she leaned over, plucked his glasses off of his nose, and kissed him again. He responded in kind, his hands on her shoulders, drawing her in, kissing her back - so fervently that her spine seemed to be turning to jelly.

Hermione did not want to move, or even think. His hands were on her back pressing hard and kneading her shoulder blades intensely. Pressed against his chest, she noticed through her breasts the steady thumping of his heart. Her tongue whipped across the hardness of his teeth and worked his lower lip. She felt her own heart keeping time with his.

Harry broke their kiss first. "Bloody brilliant idea, as always," he murmured, his voice so deep with a desire that, had it been other than this wretched day, it would have induced her instant surrender.

He initiated the next kiss. It started gentle, but after he heard the sound she made into his throat, he pursued her with an ardor that left Hermione unable - or at least unwilling - to form any conscious thought beyond how he made her feel. Gone were earlier sweet and antiseptic flavours. Both now tasted of salt, sweat, and heat.

Hermione pulled back, took one look at his half-focussed eyes, and dove back in. He relaxed, sinking into her warmth. In the heat of the moment and the bliss of her touch, he left behind the worries that came with being Harry Potter. Her tongue curled out of his mouth and fluttered down his cheek to his neck.

He felt an increasing sense of urgency in his privates. "Oh, Hermione," he gasped. The lava-like desire welling up inside him began pouring forth. It melted through those icy barriers of fear and uncertainty that held him in thrall since his bout of Death Eater-induced coitus interruptus.

With Hermione, he need not be afraid any more.

With Hermione, he need not be self-conscious any more.

Pulling his mouth away from hers, he told her the truth. "I never deliberately let Eliza get to me like this. You need to know. Except when she caught me by surprise, I never actually did anything with her - just to her. That second time, I wanted you, not her. I let her teach me to pleasure her, but that was to keep her from doing me. I swear that's the truth. Only after I thought I'd lost you, was I ready for her. And fate intervened before … that happened."

That poor girl was killed, and Harry brutalised, so it was nothing to be happy about. Still, Hermione could not help but be pleased with how little he had done with Eliza - far less than she suspected. It also meant she could do something give him a first time tonight, after all. "Let go of it, Harry," she urged. "Let me love you like I want to. Let me make up for the duel."

Burying her face in the base of Harry's neck, she flicked her tongue over his throat's warm, slightly scratchy (he had not shaved since morning) skin. He turned and she felt his hot breath across her cheek. There was hunger in her now -prickly, throbbing hunger for him. Whether she would act on it was no longer a question - only how.

From everything Harry had revealed tonight, and from his previous scattered comments about sex - she knew the poor boy was thoroughly traumatised. His three prior sexual experiences had all been disastrous. His own eagerness ruined the first, along with some unresolved issues, probably involving her. Harry's midstream epiphany he was with the wrong woman spoilt the second, leading to a bizarre episode of orgasmic keepaway could only have confused him even more. His third time had simply been unspeakable, beginning in desolation and ending in death and disappearance.

Was it any wonder Harry was hesitant about anything sexual? She should consider herself lucky he did not run away screaming at the mere mention of it. Whatever of that nature would happen, she would need to initiate.

She raised herself to a half-sitting position and looked into his amazingly green eyes. "I love you, Harry. Please let me in. I promise I'll make your dreams come true."

"You know … I'm likely to be rubbish," he panted.

"I'm sure you'll be just fine," she reassured, deliberately running her hand over the bulge in his trousers - a first for her.

He let out a long, low groan.

"Is that a yes?" she asked again, having received no firm answer to her first question - although he seemed plenty firm enough.

"Umm … yes, Hermione," Harry finally let himself to believe she really wanted to do this - right now and right here. "If it's what you really want, well I'd like it too, a lot, actually … you've no idea how much."

She felt breathtakingly bold. "I think I do, lover. Don't doubt one minute I feel the same." She unbuckled and unzipped his trousers.

"Harry, I want to touch you. Is that okay?" she asked him, her voice only quavering slightly.

He reached out and took her hand in his. They locked eyes; his intense gaze boring into her. "Is this…? Is it really what you want?" he asked huskily. "Would you want this even if you hadn't broken my leg?"

"Harry, I've wanted this since the day you proposed, and before," she told him as honestly as she knew how. "I wish we could go the whole way, but we can't tonight. Please, just take of me what I can give - please?"

"I love you, Hermione," he responded, a faraway grin spreading across his face. "I don't deserve any of you - not like this."

"You deserve everything, Harry," she reassured him, "everything I can give you, and more."

He gasped as her hand went all the way into his pants. "Everything's all right, Harry," she went on. "I'm a consenting adult, now. For once, don't worry about a thing." Her fingers slid the length of his shaft, causing him to twitch with excitement. Harry felt warm and smooth, the surface almost velvety. Willing herself to be brave, Hermione shifted him to the palm of her hand, and closed her fingers around him. He fit snugly into her grasp.

He would undoubtedly fit snugly somewhere else. But not tonight - for that everything had to be perfect, and tonight was not.

She stroked him a couple of times. "Be careful, Hermione," he warned in strangled tones through clenched teeth. "I don't want to ruin things with you like I did before."

She stopped her motion and sighed. "You can't ruin things with me - I love you and don't care. Whatever happens, happens. Just relax and enjoy yourself, for once."

She started stroking him again, loosening her grip. Whilst anything he did would be fine with her, she understood he might be bothered. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel he had failed her.

He made little huffing noises in time with her ministrations. That was good.

She whispered, "I'm going to take them off now." Harry uttered an indistinct "okay." When he felt a slight tug around the waist, he tried lifting himself to assist. A nasty twinge shot through injured leg and Harry dropped himself heavily back down. "I'm sorry, Hermione, it just hurts too much."

"Since, it's my own doing, maybe I can make that all better," Hermione suggestively replied. "Just lean back and relax." Continuing to pump him lightly with her left hand, she slipped her wand into her right and let it rest lightly on his calf. "Accio trousers," she said softly. Harry's trousers slipped down of their own accord until the waistband grazed the tip of her wand.

"Oh," Harry shivered. "That was nice."

"Actually, quite naughty," she murmured. He held his breath as she reinserted a couple of fingers beneath the elastic of his undershorts. "Wouldn't want anything to get caught," she whispered. "Accio boxers." His boxers joined his trousers at the tip of her wand, leaving him completely and gloriously exposed to her for the first time.

"Now that's nice," Hermione declared. "The Full Potter at last."

Almost instantly, Harry was self-conscious. He felt like he was posing for Playwitch. He always considered himself rather scrawny, anyway - not anything that would interest a girl like Hermione.

Harry had never been more wrong in his life.

Hermione leaned back on her haunches to remove first, his socks (he had kicked off his trainers long before), and then the clothing she had summoned, taking care to leave his Mandrake plaster in place. She shifted back a bit, to get a better look of him - naked from the waist down. As her eyes lingered on his hips, Harry caught their unmistakable look of desire. It brought him to attention once more.

"May I touch you again?" she asked.

"Just be careful," Harry hissed as he exhaled. "You can guess how much you excite me, so if you keep this up…."

She sniggered, and he stopped short.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"Just - just the way that came out," she laughed again. "I have to say you're keeping it up quite smartly yourself, Mister Potter."

"Umm … don't know," he responded. "Like you said, you've nothing to compare it with."

"True enough," she replied, "but don't think I'm totally ignorant. I'd say you easily satisfy the `Rule of Thumb'." She squeezed him again - enough to make him jump (and ooze) just a bit.

"Ooooh," he groaned. "What's that - and how do you know?" he asked with his eyes glinting in surprise. Who was this secret Hermione Granger he was about to discover?

Hermione grinned as she lay down closer to him. "It's from a women's magazine on subscription for Daddy's dental surgery - the kind that lay about for years before eventually falling apart. But if Daddy ever read that one though, he'd have cancelled immediately. Anyway, the `Rule of Thumb' estimates if your lover is the right size for you. Do you really want to hear this?"

"Sure," he said, chuckling a bit to himself. "Just like you to conduct research."

"As I've said before, I try to do everything well," she huffed, "and this is no exception. The `Rule of Thumb' for length is like this. Take one hand … here…."

He twitched as she firmly grasped the base of his member.

"…and put the other hand here." She added her other hand. It rested lightly above the first, leaving both her hands wrapped firmly around him.

"Good rule," was all Harry could muster.

"If you can't see the tip, then, he'd be on the small side," she instructed. "Umm … I guess you can tell, that's not your problem."

Harry grinned - he could tell just by feel that she was right. Finally, one problem he did not have.

"Anyway, since your bell end's quite visible," she continued, "the rule adds the top joint of the thumb…."

Hermione removed her bottom hand, brought it up, and rested her thumb, pointing outward like a hitchhiker's, atop of her remaining hand. Harry craned his head forward and saw that his tip was just about even with the tip of her thumb.

"What does that mean?" he asked her.

"It matches you almost exactly. Basically, you're just right for me." She gave him a squeeze. "A bit shy of the high end of just right - any longer and according to the magazine I'd have to ask you to be careful."

Hermione smiled. The "Rule of Thumb," beyond building his confidence, was also dampening their anticipation enough to relieve excess tension. Her little lecture was relaxing him and her as well. Since she was in uncharted territory (where he had had problems), that was a very good thing.

"That's length," she continued. "Now thickness should vary between where the nails of my two longest fingers meet my thumb's first joint - on the small side - to where my thumbnail meets the end of my two longest fingers…."

For emphasis, she squeezed him a couple more times.

"Once again you're right within the Goldilocks range - neither too small nor too big…."

"I love you," Harry moaned as she carried on. He held her loosely about the waist.

Hermione's right hand found his left. She raised it to her bosom and pressed it against her. He throbbed in response. So he would last, she kept her movements slow.

"You can take this off me," she told him.

"Oh, Merlin," he groaned. From a supine position, he fumbled ineffectually with the buttons on her blouse. She lowered herself to be more accessible

"You may use magic if you'd like," she encouraged. "You won't violate the no-magic-in-the-hallways rule here."

Concentrating, Harry made a chopping motion with his hand. Hermione's blouse fell open up from top to bottom, revealing a filmy ivory-white brassiere.

"Oh my, you're awesome … just beautiful," Harry gurgled.

"I'll bet you say that to any girl who shows you her tits," she laughed, whilst trying to keep herself from shaking - both with excitement and uncertainty.

"Maybe, but I've too little experience to say," Harry answered. "Don't care to find out, either." He ran his free hand through the cleft between her breasts. Hermione lost her battle and began shivering with intensity.

"Cold?" he asked."

"More like excited," she admitted - her perky points emphasising her words. "Clasp's in the front, by the way."

Harry's eyes went big again. "You mean…?"

"Of course." Without another word, she lifted her hand to his. Clutching his fingers in hers, she showed how to unfasten the simple clip. Her bra sprang aside to reveal ample but hardly excessive breasts, their nipples dark in the half-light of the canopied bed.

"I'm a quick learner," Harry grinned. "That's one lesson I'll only need once."

"I'll hold you to that," she said with a knowing wink. "And to these, too."

She let go long enough for him to sweep her loose clothing off her shoulders. For an uncertain moment her still-buttoned sleeves obstructed matters. A quick spell or two resolved that problem.

"Go ahead, then," she purred, "I want you to."

Uncertainly, he cupped her breasts. Even a light touch raised exquisite goosepimples all over Hermione's upper body. She lowered herself towards him.

She ground herself into his hands whilst cooing, "They won't break. Just don't pinch."

It occurred to him to do something more. Meeting her halfway, he ran his tongue along one breast, and the other. Then he kissed them properly. Her nipples were just shy of the size of those little cooking marshmallows he had occasionally nicked from his aunt - but no marshmallow in the world ever tasted so sweet.

Hermione went boneless as he followed one luxurious kiss with another. He - and she - shared the same thought - `Merlin, that feels so wonderful.'

Harry continued until Hermione tired of supporting her own weight. She let out a squeak, then a groan, and lowered herself until resting partially across his chest. Her breasts pillowed against Harry's ribs.

She reached for him, stroking faster. She wondered if she had drawn the process out too long.

"I want to please you, Harry," she whispered in his ear. "You can stop fighting it."

She felt his body stiffen, as he began moving in time with her rhythm. "Oh Hermione - if you don't stop I'm going to…."

He felt the mattress shift and squeak with her shifting weight.

"Oh, Hermione, what do you think you're…. Aaaahhh!!"

He almost fainted with rapture as he felt her warmth and wetness surround him. Her lips slid along the top of his shaft as her tongue simultaneously slid around the bottom, all the way to the base. This wave of new friction - of her upon him - drove him rapidly to, and then over, the edge. His ability to think coherently vanished, followed almost immediately by his muscular control.

It was the best twenty seconds or so of his life.

"H-e-r-m-i-i-i-o-o-o-n-n-n-e-e-e!!" he cried, delirious with ecstasy.

As he bucked, she held on tight.

Spastically he jerked towards her as waves of pleasure, each more intense than the last, washed uncontrollably over him. Little white dots meandered across his field of vision. Reflexively he reached for her - wanting only to caress the source of his remarkable, almost unimaginable feeling.

As he started coming down, the first thing he noticed was her batting his arms away. Hearing her grunt in protest, he immediately drew back.

Panting roughly, Harry comprehended what had just happened. "Hermione - love - you didn't have to … to do that…!"

He felt her draw back; her breath was as ragged as his. She made some guttural sounds, clearing her throat, before responding forthrightly, "But I wanted to. It was for you."

He reached for her again. This time she easily slid into his arms, telling him once again in hushed tones how she loved him more than anything - telling him she had done what she had wanted, exactly when and how she wanted.

In exhausted, spent silence he held her against him as tightly as he dared, savouring her scent and feeling her heart pound beneath her silky, smooth breasts. He wished he could just dissolve into her. What had just happened was amazing … mind-blowing … and more than a little disconcerting.

"Hermione, are you okay … with that…?" he whispered. His right hand absent-mindedly rubbed between her shoulder blades.

"Of course," she answered. "I love you. I wanted to be your first - at something - tonight. You, you don't have a problem with it, do you?"

"You were … everything, Hermione…." His voice faded, and she knew he was thinking about something - something he either did not want to say, or had difficulty putting into words.

"What is it, Harry?" she asked gently. "Really…?"

She felt him draw a breath and let it out. "It's just - that didn't - didn't feel … well, degrading, did it?"

Exactly as she had suspected.

"Nobody can make me feel degraded without my consent, Harry," she told him, softly but firmly. "Least of all, you. You said so yourself. You have me on such a high pedestal that I think you're just surprised that I could be so - well, whatever…."

"Whatever, what, Hermione?" he asked lazily.

"Why … slutty, or some such, don't you think?" she giggled at him.

"See, you said it yourself," he observed pointedly. Before Hermione did … it, Harry was only familiarity with … that … had been Bill's book, Cho's Internet portfolio, and momentary exposure to other wizard and Muggle pornos.

"Only for you, Harry," she let him know. "You're the only one who gets to see all of me, unguarded - including when I want you more than anything."

"But even Eliza…," he protested.

"Only because you wouldn't let her, I'm sure," Hermione talked over him. "Bloody noble Harry Potter and all. With me, you won't get away with that so easily."

"But you pushed me away at the end," he observed.

She clutched him tighter as she replied, "Only because you - it's…. Well, it can be a bit hard to breathe, and I'll admit some of it's rather … er … an acquired taste. I just don't want to be constrained, that's all."

"But it doesn't do anything for you," he blurted, midway between a question and a statement.

She stretched out her arms; her fingers remaining firmly intertwined behind his neck, and looked Harry straight in his emerald eyes. "Don't give me that. It does everything. You have no how idea how empowering it feels - to have you at my mercy like that … to know that I - the misfit bookworm that pretty girls make fun of - can make you feel that way."

He sighed and smiled dreamily. "I love you," he mouthed. Even in bed, she was intense. As if magnetised, he drifted towards her.

"That's right. Kiss me," she said, and did just that.

He fell easily into her embrace - her lusty lips - her magnificent mouth. As he surrendered himself again, he became aware of the somewhat strange, slightly off-putting taste - him mixed together with her own distinctive flavour. It was new, and different.

It was he. It was she. It was both of them together.

Together.

Together from now on.

Not long ago, she had asked what part of `yes' he had not understood.

Now, he understood.

Harry redoubled his efforts, ravaging her teeth, her tongue, her lips - everything his own tongue could reach. Warmth return to his core, warmth she had generated, and drawn off, not long before. He slid his hands along her back, bringing her closer. He knew what he wanted to do. He reached his hand down … for her.

He felt her tense as he reached that something damp and fiery between her legs. He would do what Eliza had taught him. He could pleas her. Just as he was about to begin, he found felt Hermione's hand, block him, trying to push him away.

`Not tonight, please, Harry,' she Legilimenced as her kisses stayed intense - giving every bit as much as she got on that front.

`But I want …,' he responded similarly. `I want you to feel as wonderful as you made me feel, if that's possible.'

Her head was spinning - something inside her shouting to give herself to him - but she could not. `I want it too, but not tonight, please. I'm just…. I'd gross you out.'

Surprised, Harry broke the kiss, looked longingly into her wide, chocolaty eyes, and saw her uncertainty and hesitancy.

"You won't gross me out, I promise," he reassured, stroking her cheek. "This I've done before. It's the only sexy thing I really know how to do. I love you, and I want to make you feel at least something like what you just made me feel."

"I did that for love, not for a quid pro quo," she replied tartly.

"So, let me do the same for the same reason," he pleaded. "Please? I want to make you feel as brilliant as you just did me…."

"So do I, Harry, but just not tonight," she repeated. "I want it to be … perfect … for our first. I'm too afraid right now that I'll put you off."

"Don't be silly, Hermione," he floundered, genuinely perplexed at her continued hesitation. "It can't, it's you…."

"It's not me the way I want to be," she responded. "I'll be better, I promise."

"I'm afraid I don't understand," he shook his head.

"Don't be a git, Harry," she sighed. "Do I have to spell it out for you?"

Still bewildered, he replied "I am a git, you know. I've proven that over and over."

"You're my git, though."

"Try me, then."

"Oh, all right," she gave in. "It's that time of the month, Harry."

"What time? It's twenty-seven September…. Oh - that's what…. Sorry, Hermione. I am a git."

She turned off the death glare and told him, "I just hope next month it'll be over before Halloween."

"But, you're the cleverest witch I know," he reminded her. He reached out and caressed her neck until her captivating breasts drew his hand slowly found down. "Surely there's a spell, or a potion, or something?"

"Yes, there certainly are, but those they all have knock on effects, especially at my age," she explained. "Being female isn't something I can turn off at will with no consequences."

"I'm sorry, Hermione," Harry apologised as he rolled over - he noticed his leg no longer hurt - another of her miracles. "I wouldn't want you to mess yourself up in any way."

"Harry, I'd do it for you - gladly," she gazed into his eyes and brushed his cheek. "Except the literature, well, there's a possible adverse fertility effect, and even occasional use can worsen PMT symptoms. I don't think you'd want that. I haven't ever really felt like I've had PMT."

Harry was nonplussed. The only time he had heard that mentioned before was something Ron said. "What's that anyway? Ron thought you had it all the time."

Hermione glowered. "That's short for `pre-menstrual tension,' Harry, and whilst Ronald Weasley can't have it, he is a bloody carrier. He's quite accomplished at setting both me and Ginny off. I'm just glad Cho can stand him. But I won't go there. Believe me, Harry; you don't want to see me with PMT."

With that warning, Harry retreated. He still had questions, but the answers seemed less than pleasant. "No, I guess I wouldn't. But even so, I'm still willing to give it a go if you are."

"I'm sorry, Harry, I'm not - at least not the first time," she resisted. "Tonight was my amends for forcing an unwanted duel on you and then hurting you atop all that. You can allow me that, can't you? I promise I'll be even better with more practice."

Harry started to repeat the standard male spiel. "You know I'd never make you do anything you don't…. Er … what do you mean, `practice'?"

"Umm … I practised, Harry," she confessed. "I want to be good - for you - so I do what I always do, research and practise."

Harry was astounded at the thought. "But I thought you said you'd never…?"

"With a banana, Harry," the exasperation bubbled in her voice. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

"Oh, Merlin, now I'm jealous of a ruddy piece of fruit," he remarked with a yet another chuckle. Still, that latest factoid produced decidedly mixed feelings. Had she actually practised - that - for him?

"Stop pulling my leg, Harry."

"Well, you're not letting me pull anything else, it seems."

"Shut up, Harry," she giggled as she pounced on him to enforce her order. They hungrily went at each other one more time.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do - for you?" he asked her with an almost pleading look in his eyes. "My leg seems all better, so you needn't worry about that."

Silence. She was thinking. A sly smile came to her face.

She was, and remained, the cleverest witch of her age, and she had come upon an idea.

His mention of duelling was all she needed to crystallise it.

"But I think there is, Harry," she gasped, trying not to wriggle with anticipation. "I think it's time you showed me the appropriate use of that Orgasimos Charm."

"But Dumbledore said it's addictive," Harry informed her. With Hermione, after all, it was no one-night stand.

"Dumbledore's a bullshit artist," Hermione responded bluntly. "I'm studying pretty advanced healing with Madam Pomfrey, so don't you think I'd have checked that one out?"

"Umm … yeah, that makes sense," he agreed.

"OK, then trust me, it's not addictive, it won't make you go blind, nor will you grow additional, unwanted hair," she rattled on. "So get out your wand - your other wand - and get over here."

* * * *

Author's notes: Separate and unequal was used to describe segregated schools in America

The breaking Harry's leg is a reworking of something from Lori's "Show That Never Ends" fic

"Don't leave home without it" and "priceless" are taken from credit card commercials

Hermione's encounter with the mirror took place in Chapter 33

I don't think Hermione would change her name after getting married, so she won't be in this fic

A compound spiral fracture accurately describes the fracture Harry suffered at the end of Chapter 49

"Plaster is British for "band-aid"

Asking to "show" someone "my etchings" is a rather cheesy pick-up line

The talk with Bill occurred in Chapter 19

The nature of Hermione's hesitation becomes clear towards the end of the chapter

Harry's epiphany took place in Chapter 26

In canon, Harry initiated what turned into the troll rescue in PS/SS

Hermione's idea about the Black Estate will be revealed in the next chapter

Dennis' Y2K idea will make Harry a great deal of money. So would his movie idea, since the film was "Titanic." That movie had the indicated problems

The description of "Hermione" is accurate. The Lafayette connection is how I chose her mother's name

The information about the various people named "Harry" is also accurate

Frank Sinatra, who did a version of "Something," said it was the best love song ever written

There's a line in "All Too Much" about blonde hair and blue eyes

Old Green Eyes is a play on Old Blue Eyes, a Sinatra nickname

There's also a Nancy Sinatra

Hermione favors "Shadows of the Night," by Pat Benetar

Atticus Finch is the lawyer character from "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Resolution of the ring issue will lead to a disconcerting discovery

"We're younger than that now" is a Bob Dylan line from "My Back Pages"

The problem of too much hair in the mouth while kissing is personal experience

The buzzing mirror is like my Blackberry

The "Be good….." line is an old joke

Fiddling about is from the Who's "Tommy"

Naughty and nice are Christmas carol references

"Full Potter" is a take off on "Full Monte," I've seen it used mostly with respect to Dan Radcliffe's nude scene in Equus. Lori apparently also used it

The "Rule of Thumb" is entirely made up, but it's the kind of thing one could see reading about in Cosmo

Neither Harry nor Hermione have extraordinary sexual physiologies

Goldilocks reference is to "just right"

This sexual encounter follows the pattern in E. Sheldon's Transmahora Tablets, but only the pattern

The "nobody can make … without my consent" comes from something similar about inferiority attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt

Unfortunately, Hermione's period had started earlier in the evening - I'm cruel, I know

The "not have … but is a carrier" is from a line about ulcers

In America PMT is known as "PMS"

Ron's PMT comment was in Chapter 25

Hermione picked up the banana at the Slug Club party

Going blind and growing hair are two old wive's tales about masturbation

31

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