The Sweat of a Gladiator
Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc. etc.
Chapter Fourteen
It was 10:30pm later that night when Hermione led Harry to the guest bedroom in her parent's home, having been at the Grangers for a little more than a half-hour's time. They'd suffered through a tedious meeting of nearly the entire Hogwarts staff, convened by the Headmistress to discuss exactly what to do about the sweat collection needs. Harry quickly saw the benefits of independent action, as Professor Slughorn, Professor Vector and Madame Pomfrey all jockeyed for control of the sweat research. He finally had stood and stated that he and Hermione were needed elsewhere, and would be away for most of the week. Harry suggested that in their absence, any decisions made by the staff should be discussed with Neville, Susan and Luna. He then dragged Hermione away from the table before she or anyone on the staff had time to object.
A short brisk ride on his Firebolt took Harry and Hermione outside of the Hogwarts wards, where they apparated to The Leaky Cauldron. Hermione used the bar's floo connection to make a private call, telling Harry only that she'd explain after he saw her pensieved memory. They then took a short cab ride to the Tower, where they had a car parked for under-the-magical-radar transit. With the city's street long past rush hour, it only took thirty minutes time for Hermione to drive them to her parent's suburban residence.
Harry's fears for a chilly reception at her parent's house turned out to be totally unfounded. He thought that it might have helped that, after they had explained (in a highly edited manner) all that had transpired since the morning, he had asked to talk with Mr. Granger privately. During that conversation, Harry asked for his permission to "court" his daughter. Roger Granger mentioned it somewhat odd to be asking permission to court a girl he was already living with, but said that Harry's concern meant a lot to him. He even congratulated Harry for his newly admitted relationship with his daughter.
It was her father's words that were the front of Harry's thoughts when he noted, "Well that went better than I thought."
"Harry, they both really do love you like a son, you know."
"Yeah, I know," he replied, as he bent over to open the enlarged overnight bag and removed his change of cloths and bathroom kit. "It's kind of nice, actually."
Hermione smiled as he sat next to her and pulled him into a kiss and embrace.
"Hey!" Harry said with mock seriousness after they broke contact. Taking care to observe a parental request, he whispered, "Not with the door open, you minx."
"Oh you're no fun."
"Well if that's what it takes to keep me in your parent's good graces," Harry replied, "then call me Mr. Boring." He then stood up straight and retrieved his pensieve from his pocket. Enlarging it with his wand, Harry asked, "So is it `later' yet, Hermione?"
She smiled as she pulled out her wand. "Oh, I suppose so."
"Should I call Dobby?"
"That's okay," Hermione replied, as she focused her thoughts. She pulled a silvery strand from her temple and cast it into the pensieve, which Harry had set on the bed. "I'll keep watch while you dive in."
"Awww," Harry pouted. "Don't want to do some pensieve-petting?"
"I didn't say that," Hermione replied. "You were the one worrying about what my parents might think if they walked by…need I remind you what the two of us looked like after we pensieved this afternoon?"
"Good point." Harry then waggled his eyebrows. "Anything you want to disclose before I see it with my own eyes?"
"Just what do you think we did, Harry?"
"Well, you were asking about being naughty."
"Oh, please," Hermione replied. "File those three-way girl-on-girl-on-girl ideas away in your dreams."
"Who says they aren't already there?"
"Perv."
"Tease."
"Go," Hermione commanded, "before I fish that memory out."
"Yes, dear," Harry replied, earning him a swat on the arm as he turned his focus to the pensieve's bowl.
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Harry's field of view slowly resolved to reveal a space that was similar in size and layout (if not decor) to his own seventh year dormitory…a bit more pink, and a lot less Quidditch on the walls. Hermione, Lavender and Parvati were spread out within a small sitting area that consisted of a couch, club chair and low table. It looked as if they were sitting where a four-poster bed should have been, and a brightly lit vanity sat in lieu of a desk, leading Harry to conclude that Hermione had allowed her dorm-mates to make use of her space.
An open bottle of firewhiskey and half-filled glasses in the hands of each of the three witches suggested that they'd been drinking even before Harry had sent the round of ales to their room. Lavender and Parvati had also taken the liberty of shedding their school robes, and traded their uniforms for flannel pajama bottoms, fluffy slippers and hoodies.
He watched as pensieve-Hermione put her glass down onto the low table and got the ball rolling.
"Alright, you two," Hermione said. "I should warn you that I intend to share a pensieved memory of everything from this point on with Harry. You should act and talk as if he's in the room with us, because in a way he will be."
"You mean he's got a pensieve like a barrister or the MLE?" asked Parvati, who had heard wireless dramas describe such things on the WWW.
"Even better," replied Hermione. "He's got Dumbledore's big pensieve…the kind that you can dive into, and walk around in."
Lavender thought for a moment. "Does that mean he can open up my knickers drawer and take a peek inside?"
"No," Hermione replied. "He can't manipulate anything that's part of the memory, so he'd only be able to see what's in plain sight."
"Well then, we'll have to fix that," Lavender said with a wink, as she leapt up and dashed over to the other side of the room. She opened the top drawer of her dresser, pulled out a lacy black bra in one hand, a teal-colored silk slip in the other, and shouted, "Here you go, Harry, have a good look!"
Hermione shook her head and sighed. "No need to shout, Lavender…he'll be able to hear you just fine. Even if you whispered, he can walk up right next to your lips to listen."
"Really?"
"Sure," Hermione replied. "He could even walk inside you, as if he were one of the ghosts."
"And see what I could see with my eyes?" Lavender asked.
Hermione nodded. "He can even see what I can't right now…the pensieve memory will show him the entire room, and not just my field of vision."
Lavender smiled, then dropped her undergarments onto the floor, and pulled the waistband of her pajamas out in front of her. Looking down, she announced, "Good view of the knickers I'm wearing and more, if you want, Harry."
Hermione coughed loudly, stood and turned to face her dorm mate squarely, with hands on hips. "You didn't forget what I said about any witch that wanted to replace my hand with hers, did you Lavender?"
"Of course, I didn't," Lavender said sweetly as she winked at Parvati and let the waistband snap back.. "Just having a bit of fun."
Parvati smiled as she took her friend's cue and, with Hermione's back turned, grabbed her sweatshirt-covered breasts and pinched her nipples for the invisible audience of one. She then dropped her hands innocently back down to her lap before winking back at Lavender and adding, "Yeah, Hermione, just a bit of fun."
"Any particular reason why you two would want to tease Harry?" Hermione asked.
Lavender smiled. "Oh, we're not teasing Harry, Hermione…we're teasing you."
"Yeah," added a smiling Parvati, "You're so much easier to fluster now that you've got a boyfriend to protect."
Hermione shook her head as reached for her glass of firewhiskey and emptied it. Realizing that it was her third drink of the day, she wondered if circumstances prompted the firewhiskey, or the other way around.
"Okay, you two, we did come up here to do more than gossip and drink?"
"We did?" Lavender asked.
"Yes, Lavender, we did…now, you two were talking about your `Pleasure Strips'?"
"And you were talking about your transfigured stapler?"
Hermione nodded as she opened her enlarged rucksack. Looking up and noticing that the other two hadn't moved, she insisted that the displays occur simultaneously. Lavender and Parvati sighed before they retrieved fist-sized golden boxes out of their chest of drawers. Returning to the sofa, they laid the boxes down on the table. Hermione did the same with her rucksack, and on the count of three each witch revealed her treasure.
Pensieve-Harry's eyes followed the phallus as Lavender snatched it from the table and shared a careful and caressing inspection with Parvati. His focus thus distracted, he didn't see Hermione reach into the boxes and pull out two thin flesh-colored strips of material and spread them out on the table. By the time he did notice, Hermione had already cast several diagnostic spells on the two objects, and was presently prodding one of the two strips with the tip of her wand.
Harry got down onto his hands and knees and crawled into the table's image to get a better view of the strips. He quickly realized that Lavender and Parvati had accurately described them: three-dimensional anatomically correct representations of a female's vagina. And based on the differences in labia size, shape and skin color, Harry bet that each wasn't just any old vagina, but a hairless full-scale model of their owner's real bits.
He watched with fascination as Hermione laid Lavender's strip down onto the table top and spread the faux outer labia with her wand tip. When she gave a tentative push, the wand tip disappeared without resistance, only to reappear when Hermione quickly pulled it back out.
Hermione smiled in realization as she pushed the wand back in, this time halfway down its shaft. Harry, who had yet to share that realization, ducked his head down under the table to see where the wand went, only to find an undisturbed undersurface. Amazed, he popped his head back up to find that Hermione had picked up Lavender's Pleasure Strip with one hand, and was pumping her wand in and out of the strip with the other. Again Harry noticed that the back side of the strip showed no disturbance as the wand disappeared.
Hermione then interrupted Pensieve-Harry's thoughts with a question. "Can I steal you two away from my stapler long enough to answer some questions?"
Lavender noticed what Hermione had been doing and quipped, "Well it didn't take you long to figure that out…do you want me to provide the sound effects that go along with that motion?"
"No thank you," Hermione replied. "I've heard you making those kind of sounds before."
Parvati chuckled. "So what do you want to know, Hermione?"
"I guess my first question is where does the wizard's wand go when he slips it inside these things?"
The other two witches looked at other and shrugged, before Parvati admitted, "Haven't a clue."
"Haven't a clue?" Hermione asked incredulously. "Do you know what the insides of these fake vaginas most likely are?"
"No."
"They're probably either portals into a parallel universe, or worm-holes to a different part of our universe."
Lavender and Parvati looked at each other and shrugged again.
"So?"
"So?…So when a wizard sticks his willie inside it's probably appearing out of thin air in that other world!"
Parvati thought for a moment, then asked, "And?"
"And? And what would you do if all of a sudden a disembodied penis appeared right in front of your face?"
"Erm….give it a good firm shake?"
"And what if you were a carnivore, rather than a witch?"
"Hmmm….guess it'd depend on how hungry I was."
"Exactly!" Hermione cried out. "Don't either of you care about the possibility of a boy losing something rather important inside one of these things?"
Parvati shrugged. "Well, Poppy has helped more than one boy whose bits have been hexed off before, hasn't she?"
"Besides," Lavender added, "it did come with a money-back guarantee."
"Oh, I'm sure that'd be comforting to the wizard in question," Hermione snarked back. After a bit of scowling, she calmed down to ask a few more basic questions.
"So where did you get these things?"
"South India," Parvati replied. "From a witch that works at my uncle's wizard resort in Kerala State."
Hermione nodded, recalling that Lavender had accompanied Parvati during a visit her relatives that past summer. "So your uncle helped you get these?"
"Oh, no," Parvati replied with a smile. "It was mum that arranged all of it."
"Your mum?"
"Sure," Parvati said. "Maintaining one's technical virginity is even more important in India than it is here in England…these things have been used as protective devices for more than two hundred years."
Lavender added, "Her mum talked to mine, and both figured out that with the uncertainties of the war that the Hogwarts broom closets would be busier than normal this autumn." She shrugged her shoulders. "Guess they decided that this was an effective safeguard."
Parvati nodded, adding, "It's also the ultimate in `safe sex' devices."
Hermione snorted. "So does the guy even know?"
Parvati smiled. "Boys are clueless to begin with, but why don't you judge for yourself?"
"How?"
"By using a finger instead of that wand, you silly girl."
Hermione initially cringed at the idea, but got over her insecurities with thoughts of objectiveness and scientific inquiry. She put her wand down, and with a great deal of caution inserted the tip of her index finger.
She jumped when Lavender let out a loud moan.
"Oh, that's not funny," Hermione said, after she realized she was being teased again. She had her answer with only a fingertip's worth of observation, but pushed in and up to her second knuckle just to be sure.
"It feels just like it should feel," she said with amazement. "Even the angle is right."
"Of course it is," Parvati replied. "That's the top of the line model. Custom made and fitted."
Hermione nodded as she compared the two strips. "I can see the differences in the details." She then noticed that Parvati's model was longer than Lavender's. "So what's with the extra length?" she aske Parvati.
Lavender jumped in with the reply "Parvati's mum sprung for the super-deluxe extended version."
"Extended?"
Lavender gave Hermione a wicked grin. "It has an extra hole."
Hermione paused for a beat before letting out an "Ewwww!"
"Oh Hermione, don't be so prudish," Parvati teased. "After all, that extra hole is why the thing was invented in the first place."
"How so?"
Lavender snickered. "The story goes that the first strip was created by a witch whose wizard husband want to have anal sex."
"Oh, that makes sense," Hermione replied. She then smiled, and asked, "So do they come with instructions on when to fake cry in pain and how to walk stiffly afterwards?"
"Oh sure," Parvati said saucily. "They have a class for that after the final fitting."
"Really?"
"No."
Hermione laughed a bit at her own innocence, then asked. "Is there a reason why they're hairless?"
"Makes for a tighter fit," Parvati replied.
"Do you really use adhesive then?"
"Just the magical kind," Parvati replied. "Whole point is the avoidance of pain, right?"
"Well, that and deception," Lavender added with a grin.
Hermione gave Lavener's strip a closer look. "So does it mold itself over the real curves and ridges?"
"Absolutely," Parvati replied enthusiastically. "Tight enough for the guy never to know the difference, even when his face is buried."
"Want me to demonstrate?" Lavender asked.
"Erm, no, that's quite unnecessarily," Hermione replied. "So the tongue disappears too," she decided, before asking, "And you really don't feel anything when the wand is pumping away?"
"Just the external pressure," Lavender replied. "Like someone's giving you a good rub through your knickers."
Another question popped into her head. "So if the witch that's wearing one of these really doesn't feel any internal friction from entry, why is it called a `Pleasure Strip'?"
"Oh, that's talking about the wizard's pleasure."
"But he really shouldn't notice the difference, should he?"
"Well sure, if it's a custom job that's attached to a witch in the right place. But think about some wizard stuck out in the middle of nowhere without a witch in sight and with urges that need fulfilling."
"What?" Hermione asked. "So a wizard will buy a generic version of one of these to replace or instead of the real thing?"
"Sure," Lavender replied. "Why not? It isn't any different than a witch who buys a dildo, right?"
"Erm, guess I never thought of it that way."
Lavender smiled, saying, "All's fair in love and sex toys."
At that moment Winky appeared in the room with a tray of food. The memory began to fade just as the three witches put their toys away to make room for their dinners, and a moment later Harry found himself pulled back into the guest bedroom.
"Welcome back," Hermione said. She was lying on the bed with her torso propped up by her elbows.
"Good to be home," Harry replied with a smile, as he tilted the bowl towards Hermione and she retrieved her memory. As Harry shrunk down the pensieve she asked, "So did you learn anything?"
"Other than it's impossible to tell whether Lavender's carpet matches her drapes?"
"Yes," Hermione said, "other than that."
"Well, it sounds like a fun toy….if you can get your hands on one."
"Lavender offered to lend me hers."
"Ugghhh," Harry replied, "You did politely decline, of course?"
Hermione reached over and pulled Harry's head into an embrace. "Of course I did, silly…no real need to, after that floo call I made."
"I suppose you booked a vacation for the two of us to visit India for a few days?"
"Better than that…I got Parvati's mum to see if she could jump the year-long queue of witches waiting for their own fitting."
"Really? So how long would it take?"
"Oh, only a day or so…we leave tomorrow afternoon, right after my doctor's appointment."
"How'd you manage that?"
"Mr. Patil's high up in the Indian wizard consulate. He's going to arrange for us to use their open portkey connection between London and Delhi."
"So if it only takes a day for the fitting, when are we coming back?"
"Five days from now."
"And we'll use those extra days to…"
"To practice, of course," Hermione said with a smile.
"So when do we pack?"
"Oh, no need to pack anything," Hermione replied. "It's an all-inclusive resort, right down to the robes and sandals."
Harry pouted. "So does that mean you won't be bringing the green thong?"
Hermione smiled. "The beach there is clothing-optional."
Harry let out a soft laugh. "Perfect for the budding exhibitionist."
"Is that a complaint?"
Harry kissed Hermione on the forehead. "Most certainly not."
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A/N: This chapter sets the story up for one final chapter (i.e. sweat collection after H/Hr return at week's end). If it seems rushed all of a sudden, that's because it is (unless, of course, you are one of the many readers who have complained about the delay, diversions and extraneous plot meanderings…then it's right on pace).
When I complete a chapter not with a smile on my face, but with worry about what the drop-off in reviews and tone of the reviews posted will be, it's time to move on (maybe to another story, maybe to another hobby). And so I'm ending this as quickly and gracefully as possible. Sorry for the loose ends that will necessarily be left behind.
I had a lot of fun writing this story, and have been thrilled by the response (particularly for the first six or seven chapters). However, the drop-off in reviews and readership these past few chapters supports (in my mind) those lukewarm and negative reviews that have complained about the story going off-focus. Not that I don't appreciate the constructive criticism…it does make this a learning experience.
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