The Sweat of a Gladiator
A/N: Time to have fun with a few more canon characters.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc. etc.
Chapter Twelve
With a half-hour's time to kill before meeting Luna and Susan for dinner, Hermione dragged Harry into the Hogwarts Library. Madame Pince looked up and frowned; Hermione's unlimited borrowing privileges had left a measurable dent in the collection, and she was no doubt back for more.
"What's it to be this time, Miss Granger?" she asked.
Hermione smiled. "Do you have any books on marriage customs within the wizarding world?"
After responding with a terse smile and an aloof cocking of one eyebrow, Madame Pince nodded and led them to a section that Hermione had never given more than passing thought to before. Along the way Harry took in the stares of the students who were following their hand-holding movements, and tried to give them a confident smile.
Madame Pince stopped and pointed at two shelves "Never thought I'd live to see the day that you'd be interested in this particular topic, Miss Granger," she whispered. "Congratulations."
Hermione muttered, "Thank you," but otherwise ignored the comment, as she was already busy reading book titles sideways.
"Looks like half of the books on these shelves have been checked out," Harry noted.
The librarian nodded. "It's very popular with the Sixth and Seventh-Year witches…almost as popular as the section on Quidditch is with the male students." Harry snorted, figuring that he could have found the library's Quidditch section in his sleep.
Hermione frowned, not finding what she was looking for amongst the titles present. "Do you have anything on wedding spells and rituals? I'm looking for information on the Betrothal Spell."
That produced a snort from the spinster. She smiled, and said slyly, "You and half the witches in the castle, my dear…come this way."
Madame Pince returned to her desk, and used an unlocking charm keyed to her wand to open one of its drawers. She pulled out a rather thin and dog-eared pamphlet titled, "I Do, But I've Done it Before: the Betrothal Spell and Other Purity Charms," and gently handed it to Hermione.
"Pages have been magically repaired so many times it's a wonder there's anything left for the ink to sit on," the librarian muttered. "Mind you, that's a reference copy that can't leave the library."
Hermione smiled. "Of course, Madame Pince, thank you for your assistance." She grabbed Harry's elbow and steered him towards her favorite desk back by the Restricted Section. Looking over his shoulder as they moved, Harry spied a couple of students craning their necks in order to see where they were going. Thinking that nothing would be accomplished if the curious got any bolder, Harry cast a mild repulsion charm within the aisle, then joined Hermione at the table.
He chose a chair opposite hers, and then leaned forward, asking, "Do you think we could be any more obvious that we're a couple now?"
Hermione thought for a moment. "Is that something that you'd rather hide?"
"Of course not," replied Harry. "It's just that…well, during the two minutes we were in the stacks with Madame Pince at least five students got up and left…no doubt to spread some juicy gossip. I don't mind when it's the truth, but I'm sure it's already beyond that."
"Really?" she asked. "What would they be gossiping about?"
"Oh, come on, Hermione," Harry said. "You could have been a little quieter when you asked Madame Pince for that marriage customs book."
Hermione smiled. "Yes, I imagine that I could have. Hope that you're not too mad at me."
"Merlin, no."
"Because I'd be happy to make it up to you."
Harry was startled when he felt a toe start to snake its way up his leg.
"Behave, Hermione," he warned.
"Alright," she replied with a little pout. "Want to lean over my shoulder and read with me?"
"Erm, no thanks," Harry replied. "Don't trust myself not to start nipping at your ear."
Hermione smiled, then reached down her jumper top.
"Hermione!" Harry hissed.
"What?" she replied innocently, as she pulled out the shrunken rucksack that she wore at the end of a chain. Harry just shook his head.
Hermione expanded the rucksack, opened the flap, and looked inside. She pulled out a quill and some parchment and placed them on the desk. While rummaging for her inkbottle she pushed the quill off of the desktop with an elbow.
"Oh drats," she said with a smile. She leaned forward, so that her breasts rested on top of her arm, and asked, "Harry, be a dear and retrieve my quill for me? I think it rolled underneath the desk."
Harry squinted a bit at Hermione. Her toes had left his trouser seam, and from the way she had squirmed in her seat he was quite confident that her knees were presently spread far apart. Deciding it was time to tease the teaser, he Accio'd the quill without getting up from his chair and handed it to her with a smile.
"Oh you're no fun," Hermione pouted.
"Later, luv," he promised. He then asked, "So are you going to tell me why you want to know more about the betrothal spell?"
"Sure…I just wanted to get a good idea of how much fun we can have without losing our haloes."
Harry smirked. "I would think it would be easier just to write down everything that Susan disclosed when the Headmistress asked if she was a virgin."
Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Oh, that might be a good start, but I'm confident that I could think of a few things that she hasn't."
"Oh I don't know," Harry replied. "She does have a good head start."
"As far as you know."
Harry's eyes went wide, before Hermione reassured him.
"I'm kidding," she said. "Just because she's ahead of me in acting on her thoughts doesn't mean I haven't stockpiled a few myself."
Harry chucked, then shook his head in a bit of disbelief. "I am a lucky bastard," he noted.
"And don't you forget it," admonished Hermione.
+++
The next ten minutes passed relatively quietly. Hermione took notes at a furious pace as she made her way through the pamphlet's text. Harry used the time to reread a letter that Neville had sent the day before about the DA. With the three of them away from Hogwarts more often than not, Harry had decided to take on more of an advisory role to the group, which was now an official school organization four times the size of the original. Neville now was the leader, and Harry had been very pleased at how his friend had risen to the task.
Harry was considering whether a Co-Ed Naked Dueling Club (TM) would be better off on its own, or act as an offshoot of the DA, when he heard his girlfriend swear like a sailor.
He looked up and scolded her.
"Sorry," she responded. "Still…bugger it all!"
"Really, Hermione…you wouldn't want to be kicked out of your second home, would you?"
She let out a deep sigh, and then dropped her quill on the desktop.
"Harry, we can't do it in the pensieve."
"What?" Harry asked. "I thought we proved that we could have pensieve-sex."
Hermione reached up to massage her temples. "Well, yes, Harry…we can shag in the pensieve. The problem is that if we do, I'm pretty sure that we'll both lose our virginity."
"Outside of the pensieve as well as in?"
"Yes."
"Even if Mr. Phoenix doesn't come close to your roost in real life?"
"Afraid so."
"Can you tell me why?"
Hermione renewed the silencing charm on the table, and then began to explain.
The pamphlet that she'd been reading described not only how the betrothal spell work, but why it had been developed in the first place. For many centuries the virginity of a witch was prerequisite to the consummation of an arranged marriage. A witch that lost her virginity before marriage was considered an outcast, disowned by her family and treated little better than a squib. The ability to mask the scarlet status of a young witch had therefore been a very marketable commodity. Healers had developed a spell that would repair a broken hymen for a hefty price, but after a few too many apparently "virgin" births a countermeasure was developed.
The Betrothal Spell acted as a type of veritaserum..it looked into a witch's mind to determine whether she had smutty memories that contradicted a physical inspection. This was the reason why it worked on Hermione and Luna, even after their "accidents;" so long as they knew they were still virgins, the spell revealed them as same.
Harry frowned. "Why couldn't a witch just have her memories "fixed" with an obliviate spell at the same time that her hymen was repaired?"
Hermione gave him a rueful smile. "Because how a girl loses her virginity is one of her strongest and most deep-seated memories, Harry. The obliviate spell needed to upend and erase it would need to be so strong that more often than not it would erase every other memory as well."
"Including the memory that she was a witch that could perform magic, and the knowledge of how to do magic?"
Hermione nodded. "Making her a squib, which is worse than being an unmatchable non-virgin witch."
Harry thought. "So you think that if this kind of spell is smart enough to suss out a shag memory, that my sweat would as well?"
Hermione nodded. "Both of us would remember what we did in the pensieve."
"Happy memories, I hope," Harry said, earning him a smile from his girlfriend.
"So what now?"
Hermione paused in thought. "So now, we work on your control in real life, with fingers and hands…"
"And a mouth, too?"
"You'd be so lucky, Potter."
"Yes," Harry agreed, "I would."
+++
Harry and Hermione were oblivious to what lay ahead as they packed up and made to return the betrothal spell pamphlet to Madame Pince. In the twenty minutes time since they had disappeared into the stacks, the number of students "studying" in the library's main area had doubled. The two most obvious rumor-spreading fish-out-of-water types were Pavarti Patil and Lavender Brown. They knew Harry and Hermione well enough to realize what it meant when other students who had tried to spy on the pair returned from the stacks dazed, confused, and clueless, and had staked out a position near the library's exit.
The two let out small squeals when they spotted Harry and Hermione leaving the book stacks hand-in-hand. They rushed up and flanked the pair. Lavender responded to Madame Pince's shushing by casting a mobile cone of silence spell (given its utility during gossip sessions, it was the only charm that Lavender was anywhere close to being able to cast nonverbally).
"So, Hermione," Pavarti asked, with a smile, "what's new?"
Hermione looked at Harry, who rolled his eyes and projected an "I told you so" expression towards her. She then sighed and tried to humor Pavarti. "Oh, same old thing, fighting Dark Lords, staying up on my reading…"
"Yes, we can see that," Lavender quipped, as she tilted her head to take in the pamphlet title. She smiled, "Care to explain the hand holding, Harry?"
Harry snorted at Lavender's directness and smiled. "We got hit with a disabling hex that forced my wand hand to be stuck to Hermione's?"
Lavender giggled as she grabbed Harry's arm and squeezed. "And just who threw that hex at you, Harry," she asked rather breathlessly, "Cupid?"
Hermione gave her dorm mate one of Luna's patented serenity smiles. "Right in one, Lav….and the hexes will be flying in reverse direction if anybody tries to replace my hand with hers."
Lavender let go of Harry rather quickly. "Okay, okay," she replied.
"I'd ask you to feel free to spread that warning around," Hermione stated, "if I didn't already know that you'd be doing it anyway."
"Why we'd be happy to spread the news," Pavarti said. "Anything we can do to support the war effort, and Harry….and you of course, Hermione."
It was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes as they reached Madame Pince's desk. She laid the pamphlet down and mouthed a silent "thank-you" to the librarian, as she was standing outside of their moving silence cone.
Harry and Hermione left the library with the two witches attached to their sides. As they walked down the hallway Pavarti asked, "Any particular reason why you were reading that pamphlet, Hermione?"
"Yes," Harry replied brightly. "The two of use were trying to figure out if we could have guilt-free mind-blowing sex inside of a pensive and still be considered virgins."
Lavender snorted. "There are easier ways than that, you know,"
Harry tried to appear cross. "Did you actually think that I was serious?"
Lavender and Pavarti looked across at each other for a moment before replying (in unison), "Yes."
Harry and Hermione shook their heads with resignation. Hermione then said, "Look Lavender, I will neither confirm or deny our intentions with that book. But on the off chance that you do know something about it, we'd be interested to hear."
"You mean you weren't able to immediately figure out that pensieve-sex still counts?" Lavender asked.
Hermione stopped and stared at Lavender rather incredulously. "How did you know that?"
Lavender shrugged, "Pavarti and I practically memorized that text during fifth year as we looked for ways around it."
"Why whatever for, Lavender dear?" Hermione asked with false sweetness.
Pavarti giggled. "Why, to ensure that our virtue is still intact on our marriage day, silly."
It was Hermione's turn to giggle. "No offense, Pavarti, but after all of the boytalk I've overheard you sharing with Lavender it's hard for me to imagine either of you two passing a betrothal spell test."
Pavarti pouted, "Hermione, I'm disappointed that you think so little of us." Then she winked. "Knowing the ins and outs about how a wizard can be in and out without tripping up that damn betrothal spell is something we've thought about for a while now."
Hermione snorted, while Pavarti grabbed her arm conspiratorially. "You know, Hermione, not to change the subject, but we heard a very racy rumor today that you are the proud owner of a transfigured muggle stapler."
Both Hermione and Harry mentally swore at Tonks. Rudely.
"Ridiculous. Why would I want such a thing?" Hermione asked cautiously.
"Given the supposed size of that monster, what witch wouldn't?" Lavender quipped. She grabbed Harry's arm again and said, "Sorry if we might be talking about you in the third person, Harry." Pavarti and she broke out into loud giggles that bounced off of the cone of silence's invisible walls.
"Is there a point to bringing this unfounded piece of gossip to our attention?" Hermione asked.
"Why yes, I do believe that there is," Lavender replied. But before she had the chance to elaborate they rounded the corner of the hallway and found themselves at the entrance to the Great Hall. A large crowd of students were queued for dinner and the chance to spot them . Someone shouted "There they are!" and all heads turned towards the four Gryffindor students. There was an immediate cacophony of shouts and noises and applause. A bright flash went off, revealing the vantage point that Colin Creevy had staked out with his camera.
"Bugger," swore Harry, under his breath.
Lavender pulled on Harry's arm. "Perhaps we should find another place to continue this conversation?"
Harry nodded, as part of the crowd started to surge towards them. All four turned tail and ran.
Harry led the three witches down one hallway and then another. Thanking the Fates that this new hallway was empty, he ducked behind a suit of armor and opened one of the secret doors that he'd found using the Marauder's Map.
"Come on," he admonished. They followed him and scrambled into the hidden passageway.
Once Harry closed the door, the passageway was pitch black.
"Hey!" Hermione said sharply as she grabbed a hand. "Whoever is squeezing a bum has caught hold of mine, not Harry's."
"Think I didn't know that, Hermione?" Harry said sweetly in her ear.
Lavender and Pavarti, who wouldn't have minded a little groping of their own, settled for a good giggle as Harry cast a Lumos spell to show the way.
After they had traveled fifty feet or so, Hermione decided to pick up the interrupted conversation. "So Lavender, what were you saying about the Betrothal Spell?"
Lavender thought for a moment before remembering her train of thought. "What if we were to tell you," she finally said, "that Pavarti and I have an ironclad way of getting around purity charms?"
"I would say that I'm not surprised," Hermione said with a bit of curtness.
"What sort of way would you be talking about?" Harry asked with a bit of curiosity.
"Well," Pavarti replied slowly, as she prepared to set the hook, "it might be that we have the female equivalent of that stapler."
"What would that be?" Hermione snarked. "A transfigured donut?"
"Better," replied Lavender, "A custom-fitted artificial vagina."
"Blechhh," said Hermione.
"You mean one of those anatomically-correct muggle blow-up dolls?" asked Harry.
"No, something much more life-like," Parvarti claimed. "It's an adhesive strip."
"Huh?" asked Harry.
"An adhesive strip doesn't sound very life-like to me," Hermione stated.
"Depends entirely on who it's stuck to, and where," Lavender replied.
Harry turned a corner, and led them to a spiral stone staircase. After a few moments of silent climbing, Harry turned and said, "Okay, so you've caught our attention…what would this adhesive strip have to do with any transfigured stapler Hermione might have?"
"Notice that he isn't denying it, Lav?" Pavarti asked.
"Hard not to," Lavender replied. "Speaking of hard," she said, "Pavarti and I were thinking about an exchange."
"What?" asked Hermione, "You want me to give you the stapler?"
"Oh no," Lavender replied sweetly. "but thanks for confirming it exists."
Pavarti nodded. "We don't want it…we just want to see it, and maybe transfigure copies, and then we'll show you our Pleasure Strips."
"Pleasure strips?" Hermione asked.
"Copies?" Harry asked.
"Sorry, Hermione, that's what they're called," Pavarti explained.
Harry shook his head. Just how in Merlin's name did he get involved in this conversation? He stopped at the head of the stairs, turned towards Lavender, and asked, "What makes you think that if there was a transfigured stapler that Hermione would be carrying it around with her right now?"
Lavender said nothing in reply. Rather, both she and Pavarti turned and looked expectantly at Hermione. Hermione, for her part, just stared at the ground and bit her lower lip.
"Hermione?" Harry asked.
She looked up at Harry rather guiltily. "Well, you never know when something like that might come in handy," she explained.
Harry shook his head and walked down a new hallway as the laughter echoed around him.
Once things calmed down behind him, Harry asked, "So you two will show us this artificial what-ever, but only if Hermione shows you the stapler?
Lavender nodded. "Just think of it as `I'll show you a copy of mine if you show me a copy of yours'."
Harry shook his head. "Fine…just so long as I'm not there to witness the exchange."
"Why Harry," Lavender said as she batted eyebrows. "Just what do you think we'd be doing once we get your stapler and our pleasure strips together?"
Harry didn't dare voice what he was certain they would do, if Hermione let them. "So are you two carrying your strips along too," he asked, "or do we have to go somewhere for you to retrieve them?"
"Oh, Harry, it's not like we wear them all of the time," Pavarti replied sweetly.
"So they're in your dorm room, then?"
The two witches nodded.
Harry turned, put his ear to a bare wall, and after listening for a moment opened a hidden door.
"We're just down the hall from the Fat Lady," Harry stated, as he pointed out the door towards a much more familiar-looking passageway.
Harry stepped out into the hallway and allowed the three witches to pass. As Lavender gave the password Hermione turned, grabbed Harry's hands, and pulled him into a kiss.
"Sure you don't want to see what these two are up to?"
Harry sighed, then shook his head. "I might want to see it sometime if you'll share the memory, but I don't think I want to be a part of it….you run along."
Hermione smiled and gave him another kiss. "Thanks, Harry. You know, my wild side might just become good friends with these two….where will you be?"
Harry pulled his invisibility cloak from his rucksack. "Think I'll go find Neville…got a suggestion for him."
Hermione cocked her head. "That suggestion wouldn't involve Susan, would it?"
Harry replied, "She would be so lucky."
"Sure," Hermione agreed, "but the real question is whether Neville will get lucky, right?"
Harry kissed the top of her forehead.
"Go on, they're waiting," he said. "Just remember that I'll want to live vicariously through your memories later on."
"Should that make me less naughty or more naughty?"
"What do you think?"
Hermione looked down at his trousers and smiled. "I think that Mr. Phoenix has already answered for you."
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