PlayWizard Challenge

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the other characters inhabiting JKR's magical world. If I did, I would at least have broadband...

Harry Potter stared incredulously at the owl that had just landed heavily on the windowsill of the Gryffindor boy’s sixth year dorm.

He’d never seen an owl with a plumage of turquoise and salmon pink. The odd parrot, in fact, with similar exotic colouring, but… an owl? Harry had seen many unusual creatures since he’d first stepped onto the grounds of Hogwarts, but there was something incongruous about such a regular feature of school life appearing in such a gaudy state.

The owl looked similarly discomfited, and – if owls can be said to have expressions – wore a look of weary resignation.

Harry was just glad that Hedwig wasn’t around. He couldn’t be sure if his own avian friend wouldn’t have attacked his colourful visitor on sight, or fallen off her perch in shock.

The owl cocked its head and gave him a baleful stare, then extended its right leg. Gripped in its talons was a large manila envelope. The owl gave it’s cargo a shake. Harry could have sworn the words ‘it’s for you, you bloody idiot’ echoed around his single room. Cautiously he approached the fed-up owl and tentatively grasped his mail, sliding it away as the talons released their grip. As he stared at the thick envelope the owl gave him one last long despairing look, then with a great show of reluctance pushed off the window ledge and started to wing its way back to wherever it called home.

Examining the envelope – bearing in mind Moody’s constant exhortations of ‘constant vigilance!’ he didn’t rip it open as he’d often seen Ron do – Harry felt the weight in his hand. The package was stiff and unbending; no wonder its deliverer had looked as though it had struggled to fly with it. At least it hadn’t exploded yet, which could only be a positive sign. But there was no clue as to who the mail was from. Only his name and ‘Hogwarts School’ in big, bold, capital letters.

Deciding that it was unlikely Voldemort would try to kill him using owl post, Harry plucked up the courage to open the envelope.

Between two protective layers of thin cardboard, there was a magazine, thick with glossy pages bound into a stiff cover. Harry caught the title.

PlayWizard

He caught his breath. Although he’d never bought a copy in his life, he wasn’t so sheltered as to be ignorant of what this publication purported to bring its readers. Its self-proclaimed task of bringing the finest young witches in various stages of undress to warm the hearts (and other places) of the male wizarding population of Britain – those that didn’t swing the other way, of course! Seamus and Dean had somehow smuggled the odd copy into the Gryffindor boys’ dormitory, and for the odd fee had allowed the other boys the odd furtive glance at glossy pictures of naked female skin. Neville had blushingly refused, although Ron had been tempted more than once.

And, of course, there were rumours, fuelled by Ginny, that last summer Ron had sneaked the Quidditch special Holyhead Harpies’ edition back into The Burrow, only for the contraband to be found by an incandescent Molly. Ron refused to comment but Harry gathered the dressing down and punishment inflicted by Mrs. Weasley was legendary even by that family’s standards.

Harry had been tempted once or twice, although he found he couldn’t really relate to the young women who pouted at him from the pages. A little bit of him was afraid of Hermione Granger’s wrath if she ever found out he’d partaken in such voyeuristic pastimes, but it wasn’t that. Somehow, he didn’t seem to find the same sort of pleasure or arousal that the other lads did. Not that he questioned his own sexuality, of course... NO, no way. Straight as a die is Harry James Potter. It’s just, well, a little confusing.

Yet as his gaze moved from the bold title he noticed – or, rather, didn’t notice – the pictures on the cover page. Instead of some bronzed, half-clad beauty, beckoning him to come inside, there was a filmy grey rectangle. Perplexed, Harry started turning the pages. Each one had the same format: grey shapes and the outlines where the accompanying text should be. The articles and adverts were all there, encouraging wealthy young wizards to spend their savings on the latest broomsticks or other such paraphernalia, but this just emphasized that the raison d’etre of the entire publication was noticeable by its absence.

Bloody typical, thought Harry. First time I get my hands on a PlayWizard of my own, and its bloody duff!

He shook it, as though that would encourage the young ladies to show themselves. All that did was to release a single sheet of notepaper that floated down to the floor.

“Wingardium Leviosa!”

Ah, that explains some of it! The paper carried the familiar letterhead of Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes. Bloody Fred and George, he thought. A joke lads’ magazine, although to be honest it was a pretty limp effort on their behalf. At least that explained the long-suffering multicoloured owl.

Then he started to read.

To Harry, our best [sole] investor,

We both know how lonely it gets up in the Gryffindor Tower – well, not for us Twins anyway, but for other sad young men. I bet you’re even now sitting alone in the dorm.

What you need is some female company. Special female company. Special female company not fully-clothed.

Now this is a very rare edition of Britain’s best publication. Don’t show it to anyone else, as it’s actually illegal now. Apparently it upset a lot of witches at the time – the ugly ones, we bet!

All you need to do is think about your fantasy woman – your ultimate dream girl. And like magic she’ll grace the pages of this august publication. Any woman you like. Fred reckons it’ll be Professor Sprout GIVE ME THAT QUILL, GEORGE….

All we ask is just let us know who turns up on paper, as there’s a stack of silver galleons riding on it.

Now, why are you wasting good ogling time reading this!

Gred and Forge

Harry stood there unmoving, his eyes fixed on the note. After a while his gaze drifted over to the empty pages of the magazine. Then back to the note. Then back to the magazine… Indecision reigned.

Finally Harry folded the note up and placed it in one of his robe’s pockets. He didn’t want to leave that lying around so just anyone could find it. Carefully, almost as though afraid it might bite or burn him, he picked up the PlayWizard between right thumb and forefinger.

‘Just concentrate, huh!’

Harry screwed his eyes shut, shutting out the world. He had no idea what his ideal fantasy woman would look like. He’d never really been a breast or a leg man, had no preconceptions about what colour a girl’s skin or hair should be. Sure, he’d tried dating Cho Chang, only to find that prettiness wasn’t necessarily the sole criteria on which to make a judgement.

Whereas Dean and Seamus, and especially Ron, concentrated upon the physical attributes of Hogwarts’ older female student population, Harry unknowingly looked beyond the obvious. Whilst as a teenaged boy he didn’t entirely overlook the downside of dating an ugly bird, he sought more. He’d heard all about how wonderful his own parent’s relationship had been – finally, anyway – and how, despite the internal dynamics of the Weasley brood they still all loved one another (even Percy). Yet his own personal experiences were founded on his treatment by the Dursleys.

To be frank, Harry wanted to be in love, not lust. The problem was he wasn’t entirely sure what love was, having not been the object of familial affection since his baby years.

So his subconscious ignored the athletic litheness of Cho Chang, the more obvious physical attractions of the likes of Hannah Abbott and Susan Bones, and the downright saucy darkness of Tracey Davis.

With a sudden shudder he opened his eyes. He knew that he’d decided upon his fantasy woman. Harry peeked down at the PlayWizard cover.

And audibly swallowed hard!

The woman had her bare back turned towards him. It was obvious she was topless, her unblemished skin lightly bronzed and with just the faintest suggestion of a sheen of moisture that reflected the photo lights.

“Oh Merlin!” Harry croaked through a suddenly dry throat.

The long mane of bushy brown hair swept down across the acres of golden flesh as she tossed her head. Even before she turned her head Harry was certain of her identity.

Deep brown eyes met his. Her eyelashes fluttered as she smiled coyly at him over her bare shoulder.

“Her… Hermione..?”

Miss Granger’s smile grew a little broader, and she started to turn slightly, giving Harry an enticing glimpse of her rounded hip… and was that her…

Harry slammed the magazine down hard on the bed, forcing his eyes away from his best friend’s naked body. The temperature in the room seemed to have risen dramatically in the last few seconds, judging by the amount of sweat on his brow and the burning sensation in his cheeks.

‘Bloody hell!’ Thought Harry. ‘My fantasy woman is… Hermione Granger?’ He’d had the usual erotic dreams most pubescent boys had enjoyed, but never… ‘I mean… bloody Merlin…. Hermione?’

There must have been a mistake. Yes, the Twins! It was a prank.

He glanced back at the PlayWizard. Hermione still sat with her back to him, but there was a perplexed expression on her pretty face.

‘Pretty? When did I start thinking Hermione Granger was pretty..?’

Her fingers drummed impatiently on her arm. He could almost imagine her thoughts: I’m not turning around until you make up your mind, Harry James Potter!

Harry very carefully put down the PlayWizard again, as though frightened he might bruise Hermione’s picture. As he did he noticed his cover girl’s sulky look. He’d expected … her...? to be fulminating at appearing in his fantasies apparently made real, yet ‘she’ seemed exasperated at his indecisiveness.

‘That proves it,’ thought Harry. ‘It must be a trick – yes, one of the twins’ pranks!’ After all, there was no way Hermione would pose in such a way, or even consider her name being linked with what she’d regard as a ‘sexist, chauvinistic rag.’ Clever boys!

Intrigued, Harry’s fingers crept towards the glossy pages again. Just to check on how good the Weasley prank was, of course; there was – of course - no question of him wanting to ogle his best friend.

The cover girl gave him a welcoming smile, seemingly glad he’d finally made up his mind, and beckoned him inside.

Heart racing and mouth parched, Harry turned the pages…

Well, that was a little… disappointing, Harry had to admit. Hermione Granger in her Hogwarts school robes smiled shyly back at him. Then he realised he really was disappointed not to see a little bit more of his friend than was normally visible.

Publication Hermione gave a silent sigh, and opened up the thick text book she’d been cradling in her hands, and turned the open book towards her reader.

Start turning the pages, Harry!

Harry blinked.

Hermione winked.

Hermione winked? But Hermione Granger never… I mean…. Harry’s mind was getting severely overtaxed.

He could see Hermione’s fingers impatiently tapping on the text book’s hard cover. ‘Better follow her instructions,’ Harry thought; ‘after all it’s what I normally do.’ And he carefully turned over the glossy paper.

And his blood started to head south.

Hermione’s robe was gone. Also conspicuous by its absence was her woollen school skirt, although her blouse and Gryffindor tie remained. The previously considered unremarkable bookworm was standing with one foot placed on a small chair.

Harry’s stare was so concentrated he was subconsciously surprised the page didn’t burst into flames. The only thought that flashed across his mind was that ‘Hermione Granger had legs! I mean, I know she has legs, but legs like that?’

They seemed longer than her height would indicate, and instead of small white cotton socks, they were encased in the sheerest of silk stockings. The white blouse was just long enough to reach the tops of her thighs. Harry’s mouth was as dry as parchment, and his tongue felt bloated.

Hermione bent forward, her long hair falling down obscuring her face. Her hands reached down towards a suspender belt and crept along a milky expanse of skin. It was suddenly very hot, Harry considered.

With practised fingers the stockings were set free, and then slowly the filmy material was rolled down, exposing exquisite curves of creamy thigh and then finely toned calf muscles.

Harry’s heart was beating so hard it felt like his ribcage might explode under the pressure.

Back on the page Hermione switched legs and, with a knowing look at him, started to repeat the operation on her left leg. With eyes glued to the magazine, Harry observed the coltish limbs of a girl – no, young woman – that were normally obscured by skirt and robes. Even when she wore jeans, they weren’t of the figure-hugging variety that so many of her contemporaries favoured. He ached to run his hands over what he imagined to be the warm, soft flesh…

With stockings removed, Hermione stood up as tall as she could and ran her fingers through her hair. The hem of her shirt drifted dangerously close to forbidden zones, and Harry found the desire for his eyes to devour more become overwhelming. As though reading his mind, Hermione on the page gave him another knowledgeable smile, and motioned to the side with her head, the implication being he had to move on through the magazine.

With bated breath Harry turned the page… and swallowed hard!

Paper Hermione’s delicate fingers had already unbuttoned the top half of the buttons fastening the crisp, white oxford shirt. What seemed like acres of previously undisclosed smooth skin appeared in an every larger v-shape.

‘I really shouldn’t be watching this,’ Harry’s conscious thought processes tried hard to get through, but his libido had other ideas ‘For Merlin’s sake girl, take the whole lot off before I explode!’

With a coquettish smile, Hermione gripped the two lose ends of her blouse, and ever so agonisingly (to Harry) slowly drew the material apart.

If it had been hot before, Harry’s skin was now near boiling point. In a reflex action, bred into the genes of every heterosexual young male of the species, his right hand had loosened his flies and slipped inside his now very constraining boxers, and was now gently stroking his now impressively erect member.

He was pretty sure no male occupant of Hogwarts had ever seen this side of the bookish Miss Granger. And he had no idea that she had a pair of… those!

School robes did manage to hide most of the girls’ figures, but for those lucky ones who had impressive chests it was obvious, especially to the drooling boys who’d grown to notice such things. No wonder Katie Bell had been such a popular girl, and why Seamus Finnegan had taken to stalking Lavender Brown. Or why most boys seemed to want to pair up with Susan Bones regardless of house affinities.

No-one – certainly not Harry – had ever seen Hermione Granger in that light. She wasn’t thin, but there didn’t seem to be any figure under those all-encompassing robes. And when in mufti she much preferred bulky jumpers or sweat shirts rather than the figure-hugging t-shirts that Ginny had taken to wearing since developing a nice pair of breasts (almost giving an over-protective Ron a coronary in the process).

Yet here Harry could see quite clearly she was possessed of a neat pair of creamy white globes, encased in the minimal amount of black silk with lace edging. The bra must have been magical, Harry considered, as it somehow managed to both push Hermione’s breasts up and together, giving her an extremely alluring décolletage.

The silk was so fine Harry could clearly make out Hermione’s embonpoint. Now his whole being throbbed with the desire to release those beautiful tits from their imprisonment, to weigh them in his now sweaty palms, to find out what those perfectly dusky and erect nipples tasted like…

Merlin, he wanted his best friend, here and now!

As the blouse dropped to the paper floor Harry found his eyes torn away from his best friend’s chest region. The same erotic combination of scraps of lace and silk finery encompassed Hermione’s slim hips, with a now redundant suspender belt positioned above the scanty pair of the finest knickers (Harry hadn’t actually seen all that many, but he just assumed these were somehow special).

“Please,” he moaned, to himself or to his publication-bound companion he wasn’t quite sure. “Take it all off.” The ache in his chest and burning sensation in his loins was becoming unbearable, whilst his right hand was almost singed by the heat from his tumescent member.

Chocolate coloured eyes met his. Her hands disappeared behind her back… then Hermione once again beckoned him to turn the next page.

It was a surprise that, in his haste, he didn’t rip the paper. And, whilst his mind was already racing ahead and imagining what was only a split-second away from being revealed, he didn’t hear – or perhaps just ignored – the sound of a door opening.

“Harry, there you are!”

His face burned with a previously unknown intensity of embarrassment and guilt, as his magazine desire’s real-life counterpart burst into the room.

“I’ve been looking for you all….” Hermione Granger’s voice trailed off and he could feel her eyes registering his position. Especially the placement of his right hand, comfortably ensconced inside his boxer shorts. Her next question was pretty rhetorical.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled slowly. Harry noticed a crimson tide slowly work its way up her face, and her mouth slowly gape open as she tumbled what nefarious activity he’d been engaged in. Quickly he jerked his hand away, expecting a torrent of recrimination to be volleyed at him any second.

Hermione turned away. “Oh Harry! I’m… sorry,” she gulped. “I tried knocking but…” She sounded deeply embarrassed rather than belligerent, even though her tones were muffled by the hands that were covering her eyes – a rather redundant requirement as though she couldn’t bring herself to turn back and face it… him!

Far too busy fastening his zip and rearranging his clothing, although that did nothing for the swathe of heat his scarlet-flushed cheeks were giving off, Harry failed to notice as the PlayWizard slipped off the bed covers and fell to the floor.

Neither seemed ready to attempt to start a conversation, as there could only be one item on the agenda. Harry just wanted to curl up and disappear, preferably for the rest of his school career, whilst Hermione’s mind seemed to have gone into re-set mode, her instinct to flee being overridden by the emotional overload of walking in on her best friend pleasuring himself. She was rooted to the spot until Harry timidly broke the silence.

“Bloody hell, Hermione,” he muttered, in guilt rather than agitation. “I’m…” He broke off, unsure what he could say that wouldn’t aggravate the situation.

Hermione nodded to herself. She appeared to be on the brink of accepting that the only way out of the situation was for one of them to make a tactical retreat, and that as it was the boys’ dorm she would have to be the one to initiate action. Harry just hoped that she’d quickly forget what she’d walked in on – or at least keep quiet about it, as his mind was already racing through the numerous insults that Malfoy and the Slytherins could throw at him if this became public knowledge.

She turned to go away. As she did her gaze flickered for a section on the glossy publication that had fall open on the floor, centrefold up!

Two pairs of eyes fastened on the magazine, although one pair quickly narrowed.

“Harry Potter!” He thought he could detect the hiss of high-pressure steam escaping from Hermione’s ears. “Just what in the name of Merlin is that?”

Hermione’s right arm was extended gun-barrel straight, and her index finger was aimed directly at…

… A totally nude Hermione Granger, skin glistening under the lights, stared back, her paper eyes switching from a confused but combustible flesh-and-blood girl to a boy believing he was under imminent sentence of death.

“Umm…” Harry’s contribution to the debate foundered.

With a movement the rapidity of which would have given a Seeker quiet satisfaction, the real Hermione grabbed Harry’s PlayWizard and stared at it in disbelief. As she did so, Harry instinctively shrank away from her, certain he would be the target of some of the most creative hexing ever carried out by a student at Hogwarts.

“That’s me?” Hermione mumbled. Harry wasn’t sure if she was addressing him, until gimlet brown eyes fastened on him. “That is me, isn’t it?” Hermione shrieked, thrusting the offending pages under his nose. Unable to speak, Harry just nodded dumbly; Merlin, he hoped they’d find enough of his body to give him a decent burial!

Her attention returned to the pages, Hermione’s expression turned from rage to confusion. “But I’ve never… I mean, no-one could’ve…” She shook her head and turned another page over. “I’ve never ever worn things like that,” she muttered. “I haven’t even owned a pair of stockings. Ever!”

Harry found even his fear couldn’t override his curiosity and he risked a quick peek at the pages as Hermione riffled through them. Merlin, how sexy she looked dressed in even something as simple as a Gryffindor Quidditch robe… and nothing but that robe! As he tried to gaze surreptitiously at these new images he was suddenly aware of how deathly quiet the room had become.

Hermione hadn’t moved an inch, the magazine still tightly gripped between her fingers, her head bent down as though trying hard to burn a hole in the glossy paper through sheer concentration alone. Except her eyes were no longer focussed on the eroticism before her; instead she’d noticed Harry’s movement and had fixed on him from the corners of her eyes.

His first thought was ‘Merlin, I never noticed how sexy she looks when she’s annoyed!’ followed with the swift realisation of ‘Oh shit – she’s royally pissed at me!”

Her published image rippled as she gripped the magazine, distorting the pages as her grasp tightened. Harry barely noted the colour draining from her face, instead anticipating a verbal assault.

Instead her words were spoken so quietly that he had to strain to catch them. “I know its not real pictures of me, Harry,” she whispered, her voice tremulous with what he assumed was repressed anger. “What is it?”

Harry gulped. He pointed shakily at the Twins’ discarded note, lying at the foot of his four-poster. Hermione spared it but a glance, then slowly closed the pages of the magazine. Harry glimpsed the cover girl giving her real life counterpart a disapproving stare.

She seemed to be struggling for words, her face portraying a conflict of emotions. Harry was disappointed when she seemed to purposefully avoid looking him in the eyes, but with a sinking heart he knew why: he’d blown away nearly six years of friendship over a few stupid moments of self-gratification. He tried to reach out, to start to mutter what could never be an acceptable apology, but she shied away. Harry caught a glimpse of her face and was wounded to see she was obviously near to tears.

“Who… who else has seen… this?” Hermione’s words caught in her throat as she waved the offending publication in Harry’s direction.

“No-one,” he croaked. He saw a brief look of distrust flash across her face. “Honest, Hermione,” he pleaded. “I swear. No-one!” Harry looked rapidly around and his eyes alighted upon the thick envelope discarded on the floor. He picked it up. “See!” He waved it in the air, for a brief second feeling self-justified. “I’ve only just got it.” Then Harry realised this hadn’t removed the pain in Hermione’s look. “No time…” he mumbled. “No-one…”

She stood there, just staring at him, her expression unreadable, for what seemed like hours. Harry felt he should say something – anything – to at least save some shred of their friendship, but had no idea what. The silence was suffocating and Harry felt a chasm begin to open between them. Neither moved as much as a muscle.

“Hermione… please..?”

She looked away. Harry felt a sudden ache in his chest. Was this it? The final rupture in their relationship?

“I believe you,” she whispered. Harry felt a thrill of relief, which was swiftly stilled when Hermione cast her eyes back at him. She looked… defeated? “I… I – we – need time…” she said, quietly, but Harry was more alarmed by the tone. She sounded beaten, flat, and careworn.

Harry reached out a hand but again his best friend for over five years shrugged it off. “Please Harry?” she said flatly.

And then she turned, magazine in hand, and dragged herself out of the room. As she left Harry caught cover-girl Hermione’s expression; it was one of utter dejection.

The dull light of the afternoon swiftly perished to the early darkness of a late December evening. Sleet showers sped across the lake, ripping through the water’s surface with an effect like gunfire, and curtained off the Quidditch pitch so that it was no longer visible from Gryffindor Tower.

‘Perfect,’ a thoroughly demoralised Harry Potter thought. ‘Matches my mood exactly.’

He’d stayed cooped up in the boys’ dormitory, not daring to leave in case he ran into what must now be his ex-best friend. It wasn’t that he was frightened Hermione would hex off all his dangly bits – well, perhaps a little – just that if he ever came face to face with her again there was a high probability that he’d shrivel up and die of embarrassment.

‘Bloody great wizarding world’s hope I am,’ he thought grimly. ‘Can’t even have a wank without bolloxing everything up! Voldemort must be shaking in his shoes…’

The ever-faithful Dobby had supplied him with an evening meal that seemed to Harry to turn to ashes in his mouth. Seldom had the fruit of Hogwarts’ kitchens seemed so unappealing to a growing lad.

His mind replayed the afternoon events, changing things he wished he’d said or not done, imagining a brighter outcome, one where Hermione might consider ever talking to him ever again. There again his thoughts strayed to alternative scenarios where the news of his – ahem, misdemeanours – spread throughout the school. Malfoy wore Potter’s a Wanker – Official! badges that lit up the gloom; the boys shunned him, aghast at his ineptitude, whilst the girls just laughed at his lack of prowess – except for Hermione, who regarded him with crushing disgust; and then there was the teachers – McGonagall’s searing sense of disappointment – and, oh Merlin – Snape’s cold sneer lightened by this wonderful news.

Yes, staying put in Gryffindor Tower for the next millennia or so looked like a damned good career plan!

Yet even as Harry contemplated his future life, his quest for isolation was rudely interrupted by the light rap of someone knocking on the door. Harry ignored them; whoever it was would just have to go away.

They didn’t. The noise grew a little louder and more insistent. ‘If I just keep quiet, they’ll either think I’m not here or take the hint and push off,’ Harry thought sullenly.

“Harry, I know you’re in there.”

The blood once more drained from Harry’s face. Even muffled by good solid magical oak, the voice was unmistakably that of Hogwarts’ keenest student mind for many a year.

“Harry!” There was a note of exasperation. “Dobby told me you’re in there.”

For a brief second, thoughts of house-elf betrayal crossed Harry’s brain.

He could almost hear Hermione’s sigh through the door. “Harry, we need to talk.”

‘Strange,’ thought Harry, ‘she sounds… sad.’ He’d anticipated anger or disdain. Still, if he said nothing, Hermione would soon go away – although knowing Hermione and how stubborn she could be, there was a distinct chance she’d still be there on the morrow. At least the locking spell was fairly secure…

“Alohomora.” The unlocking spell sounded clear, and much to Harry’s shock the dormitory door swung open.

Despite her action, Hermione seemed to tarry at the threshold, standing there uncertainly as though worried about crossing the line and entering Harry’s place of sanctuary. She glanced at him, and then looked down at her feet. ‘She’s disgusted with me,’ Harry thought, ‘and who can blame her?’ He made no effort to welcome her in, just waited for the axe to fall.

“Harry… we – we need to t-t-talk,” she stammered.

She looked as nervous as she sounded, whey-faced and with red-rimmed eyes, a dead giveaway she’d been crying. There wasn’t a trace of anger or reprimand on her face. That worried Harry even more than outright rage would have. ‘Oh Merlin, she’s come to finish our friendship!’

Harry jumped up from his bed; he didn’t miss the half-step back that Hermione took, as though trying to distance herself from him. “Hermione, please?” She looked stricken. Harry felt an enormous weight settle over his heart. “There’s nothing I can do to… what I was doing….” His voice trailed off. What could he say to retrieve some vestige of their previous comradeship?

“Please, don’t end it,” Harry almost begged.

Hermione appeared undecided, hesitant where normally she was so certain.

Harry wanted to tell her that what he’d been doing was normal for a teenage boy starved of sexual relations, that everyone else did it, it wasn’t a crime, that he’d never ever look at her again like that… but he realised the last part wasn’t true. He’d always wonder now if Hermione Granger was so hot underneath those all-concealing robes. He wished it had been another girl that had appeared on those forbidden pages, then again his mind conceded that was another untruth; it was his desires that had brought Hermione to life within the magazine.

“I, um, figured it out.”

Harry’s head shot up at Hermione’s halting words. There was a slight blush appearing on her pale cheeks.

“The magazine, I mean,” she said, a tremor underlying her speech.

‘Bloody hell! What did that mean?’

She took another hesitant step inside the room, but she couldn’t meet his eyes, her face turned away and down.

“I was annoyed,” she started, her voice low as though ashamed. “I mean – I saw…me…” She trailed off, and sat down on the end of Harry’s bed, perched on the edge as though contemplating flight.

“Hermione, I’m really sor-” Harry began but Hermione gestured for him to keep quiet. He didn’t think it possible but his morale slunk even lower. She wasn’t prepared to hear him out; instead he was going to be treated to a trademark Granger lecture that would break both their five-year friendship and his heart.

She was quiet for a moment. Harry could hear her breathing, rapid and tremulous. ‘She’s struggling to hold back her temper,’ he thought, ‘and that just means the eruption will be all the worse when she blows!’

“Only it wasn’t the real me,” she whispered. She glanced up at him, and Harry was surprised not to see a look of admonishment, but twin tracks of tears sliding down her pale face.

“That Hermione – your Hermione…” She looked down again, and her voice became almost inaudible. “She’s… she’s just a glamorised image of me. She’s not real.” This time she looked up and Harry couldn’t believe the anguish written on her face.

“Why did you do it, Harry?” Hermione pleaded, her words now thick with suppressed emotion. “I know I’m not pretty.” She aimlessly swung a foot out, as though brushing away Crookshanks, and again directed her gaze at the floor. “I can’t even hold a candle to Ginny or Cho or Lavender,” her voice now high, resonant with false humour, “let alone glamour models.” Then she stared straight at him, eyes full of… loss?

“So why my face superimposed on their….” Her voice trailed off as something caught in her throat, and she gave a small choking cough.

Harry was dumbfounded for some seconds. Then he realised what she’d meant. “No, Hermione, that’s not it…”

He automatically took a step towards her, but his heart sank once more as she nervously sprang from her seat and moved to put the bedpost between them. Harry thought she looked like a young fawn trapped in the headlights, wanting to run but afraid that any move would bring down the hunters on her.

“If you’d asked…” she sobbed, the tears now welling afresh in her eyes. “If you wanted…. I would have…” Hermione turned away and Harry barely caught her next mutterings. “I would have done anything for you…”

Harry took a couple of steps forward and reached out, intending to give her a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but at the first brush of contact Hermione shied away, backing further into the space between Harry and Ron’s beds and the wall of Gryffindor Tower. Her back bumped into the rough stonework.

Harry didn’t know what to do or say. He wanted to move closer to her, but felt that would be like closing the trap and she might bolt, never to face him again. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, that he hadn’t actually intended to see her in print, but felt she could take that the wrong way, as a final insult that would irrevocably shatter their friendship.

Hermione looked up, her face blotchy and tear-stained. She sniffed in a rather unladylike fashion, trying to clear her nose and throat from the congestion brought on in a state of near panic. Then, voice thick with emotion, she spoke.

“If that’s what you really want of me, Harry…”

With one toe of her right foot, Hermione inelegantly slipped off her left shoe, then repeated the act with the other, kicking her eminently sensible flat shoes away and standing on the cool floor in her stockinged feet.

Then, taking a deep breath as though trying to draw in courage, her shaking fingers moved to the clasp of her Hogwarts robes. She was so visibly nervous and it was to her obvious frustration she couldn’t undo the fastening as smoothly as she’d hoped. It was with a rather irritated gasp, audible to Harry that she was finally able to shrug off the robes.

Harry just stood there, not entirely sure what was going on. One thing was that Hermione seemed to be in such a mood that he’d get hexed rather quickly if he tried to interrupt. So he stayed still, watching her, standing there in standard-issue school uniform of a charcoal-grey jumper over white oxford shirt and a heavy woollen skirt of a slightly lighter grey. The only flash of colour was the red and gold Gryffindor house tie that appeared for a few inches between shirt collar and the v-neck of her sweater.

She was taking very shaky deep breaths now, attempting to keep calm. Harry recognised the signs of Hermione in decision-making mode; he could almost hear the cogs turning and a flywheel spinning inside her head as she battled with what was an obvious internal dilemma.

Then, with just the cutest little shake of her head as though banishing any doubts, she grasped the bottom hem of her jumper and pulled it over her head, emerging flushed and hair mussed, trembling with what Harry couldn’t determine was nerves or excitement.

Hermione turned her head, glanced at Harry whose eyes were fixed on her, and then she looked away, towards the ever-darkening winter evening outside the window. “Please, Harry,” she said tremulously, “I’m not sure I’ve got the courage to carry on…”

Harry gulped his mouth suddenly as dry as the bottom of Hedwig’s cage. Even his slow-working brain had started the process of assessing the external stimuli his senses were under bombardment with, and was starting to form the foggiest notion of what was going on in front of his very own eyes, but he couldn’t quite form words when Hermione folded her jumper neatly and placed the discarded garment on Ron’s bed, then grasped the knot of her tie and loosened it.

Somehow the brain’s higher functions summoned up enough strength to finally force words past Harry’s lips. “What are you doing?” he croaked.

Hermione carefully folded her tie in two, tucking the thin end through the loop of the maker’s label, and then folded it again before placing it on top of her jumper. She flushed deeper, the curtain of red glowing on her face and exposed neck. Hesitantly, she took hold of her school-issue shirt and pulled it loose from her skirt’s waistband, so that the tails hung like a white curtain in front of the grey material. Fingers shaking even more, she started to undo the small hard shirt buttons.

Harry sat down on the side of his bed, mesmerised by events unfolding – or should that be undressing? – Before his goggling eyes. His brain was fighting a losing battle with his teenaged libido.

As each button slipped loose, an increasing area of pale skin came into view. Harry’s blood flow, already heading due south, accelerated its progress. Finally the undone shirt hung open, allowing just a glimpse of something black across Hermione’s chest. She looked into Harry’s eyes for the briefest of seconds, and he could have sworn her impossibly deep blush took on an even more crimson hue.

Slowly, unsteadily, her hands moved towards her skirt’s waistband, and unpopped the fasteners. The grey material slid down over her hips and continued its descent until it pooled around her ankles. She stepped out of the garment and kneeled down to retrieve it from the floor. As she did so Harry received a very revealing view of her breasts, encased though they were in what seemed to him to be a lacy black bra. Harry thought he’d seen it somewhere before but his mind was truthfully preoccupied with other matters.

Equally incongruous was the fact that, peeping out from underneath her now loose shirt, was what appeared to be the most sheer set of black silk stockings that wizard kind had ever produced. It almost seemed that Hermione’s legs were covered in liquid smoke so fine was the weave. ‘Didn’t she say something about never having had a pair?’ Harry thought idly.

Harry was far too engaged in taking in as much of the partially undressed Miss Granger – the real, live, in-the-flesh, model – that it took him some minutes to realise that the disrobing appeared to have halted for some unknown reason. His eyes were drawn back to her face, and he saw to his dismay that she was silently crying. Her hands had drawn together the ends of her unbuttoned shirt and pulled them tightly around her body, trying to shield what she had partly revealed.

Her eyes met his.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled falteringly. “I thought…” she trailed off, then let go of her shirt and held her head in her hands, covering her face as she half turned away.

“I thought I had the courage…” Harry could barely catch the words, thick with uncertain emotion, muffled as they were by whitening fingers clutching at her face. “I thought I could…”

Then she dropped her hands and Harry felt distraught at the pain evident in her anguished expression.

“But I can’t,” Hermione cried with sudden frustration, flinging out an arm in the general direction of the staircase, causing her shirt to billow loosely and expose more of her bare upper torso than she realised. “It’s not me!” Then she succumbed to depression, and her voice fell again, full of self-loathing. “It’s not me and never will be.”

Feeling he was duty-bound to say something, Harry could only come up with one thing that was relatively neutral at this point and summed up his state of confusion and rampant teenage hormones. “What?” he said, more loudly than he’d intended.

Hermione stared sadly at him, and took what was supposed to be a calming breath, but judging by the shakiness of her breathing she was still in deep emotional conflict. Harry just hoped she didn’t have one of her “pre-exam” panic attacks; he wasn’t sure how he’d explain away the presence of a distressed, partially-clothed Hermione in the boys’ dormitory to Professor McGonagall.

She bit her bottom lip, always a sign that she was trying to reach a judgement or was afraid of the reactions to her next utterance. When her teeth released it, Harry could almost see by the harsh firelight the deep red impressions in her lip.

“I thought that… that – if that was the way you wanted to see…” Hermione’s sentence trailed off in a loud sniff, and she pointed her finger tentatively at her own chest. “Wanted to see me like… that, well…”

She sounded so depressed, so low, so weary. Harry thought she finally looked beaten. There was none of Hermione’s usual spark behind her words, only a belated acceptance of bitter defeat.

Then she started crying again. “But it’s not me, is it?” she cried. “This…” her hands gestured to her own body. “This isn’t the same, is it?”

Harry couldn’t take much more of this. He hated to see girls cry, but to observe Hermione in such distress at close quarters sent a sharp ache through his heart. He knew he had to try something to calm her down before she did something impulsive, un-Hermione-like. He didn’t stop to consider that the whole episode was already so terribly out of character for Miss Granger, the smartest witch to attend Hogwarts for many a year.

Trying hard to keep his voice steady, Harry replied. “What isn’t, Hermione?”

She looked at him, her eyes full of self-disgust. “Me.” Again the finger jabbed back at its owner. “Look at me. I’m nothing like those… pictures.”

Guilt stabbed through Harry. He couldn’t think what to say.

“I thought – really thought – that if that’s the way… you wanted to see me…” The words tumbled out in a torrent, every so often breaking over the rapids of indecision. “You know, like that… then perhaps you’d finally notice me,” she cried plaintively. “I mean, that is…” Again the words trailed off, and Hermione hesitated, then recommenced in a slower, calmer tone. “I’ve always liked you, you know that Harry,” she stated, as though explaining something simple to a child. “But I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I didn’t think you’d notice me, being plain old Hermione Granger – the buck-toothed, bushy-haired, bookworm. Not when there are girls like Cho and Ginny, or Lavender, Padma and Parvati. Susan Bones. Even the Slytherins like Daphne Greengrass are better looking than me.”

Harry was trying to make sense of this unscripted information flow, so felt in no position to contribute to Hermione’s internal debate.

“So I thought if you saw the real me, then perhaps…” She turned and looked at him again, and her defeated expression wounded him deeply. “But I can’t. I mean, what would be the point? You’d look at me and I’m nothing like those…” Her eyes narrowed for a second, then she spat out “…pictures!

“You’d just be disappointed. I thought I could do it, but there’s no point, really, is there? I know you don’t think of me as a girl, Harry.” Her shoulders had slumped and dejection was written throughout her body. “I wish I could be like those pictures, but look at me.” Again she gestured with her hands at her self-perceived inadequate figure. “I’ll never turn your head, Harry,” she said mournfully, and started to fasten her shirt buttons.

Finally Harry understood. “You’re so wrong, Hermione,” he breathed softly.

Hermione obviously hadn’t been expecting him to intervene, so she was startled by his words, and stood as though once again petrified with hands working at buttons. “Harry, I can’t carry on deluding myself.” The words dripped with anguish. “You’ll never feel the same for me as -” she hesitated, then continued in almost hushed tones. “As I feel… for you.”

Harry froze.

“You see Harry, I think ever since the troll at our first Halloween, I’ve been falling in love with you.”

His heart seemed to seize up.

“I’d hoped you’d come to see me as more than a friend. Even those pictures gave me some sort of hope.” She sighed, ending in a sniffle. “But then I realized that wasn’t me, some sort of glamour-model type.” Hermione gave him a piercing look. “I don’t know why you had those and -” she held up a hand to forestall any protest. “And I don’t really want to know. I hurt too much as it is.” She turned away and bent down to pick up her skirt. “If you’ll just let me leave, and perhaps we can pretend this…” she swept her hand around the room “…never happened.”

Before she could make another move, Harry had stepped across in front of her. “No,” he said, lowly but with sincerity.

Hermione looked up at him. It had amused him when he realized his late growth spurt had given him a few inches height advantage over her where once they’d pretty much been equals. Now as Harry looked at her face, blotched and puffy from crying, her normally sparking brown eyes red-rimmed and full of more unshed tears, he tried to school his expression so that any trace of emotion other than sheer truthfulness was wiped away.

“No?” she whispered fearfully, once again the doe trapped before the hounds.

Harry put his hand gently to her cheek, and wiped away the remnants of her last batch of tears. Trying hard to keep his voice nerveless, he asked: “I just need to understand one thing, Hermione.” She clutched the skirt to her chest, as though trying to maintain a barrier between them. “Then, if you want, you can go and we won’t mention this ever again.”

Her mouth hung open, perhaps at the audacity of his trying to prevent her flight.

“Am I to understand that you… love me?”

Hermione looked down at the floor, and gave a slight, sad nod of her head.

Harry’s hand moved from her left cheek to gently lie on her shoulder, where her blouse just hung on. He couldn’t keep some befuddlement out of his voice. “Let me get this right. You, Hermione Granger, think you’re in love with me, Harry Potter?” With his last words Harry tapped his chest with his left index finger.

He couldn’t help it. A small, nervous snort of laughter escaped his lips. Hermione’s head shot up and fixed him with the most thunderous glare, as though he’d suggested he’d got better marks in Arithmancy than her. “If you don’t get out of my way, Harry,” she growled menacingly, “I’ll hex you so you’ll never forget it!”

Harry moved fast to assuage any hurt his previous words had aggravated. She obviously thought he was laughing at the idea that their friendship could ever be anything but platonic. This whole episode had opened his eyes to a prospect he’d never really considered, but as he gazed fondly down at the fuming Hermione he realised something.

The girl he’d rescued from the troll, and had stood up against the rules to help him through to the Philosopher’s Stone.

The girl who risked losing his friendship for ever over concern for a potentially cursed broomstick.

The girl who risked her life to save his godfather from the Dementors’ kiss.

The girl who stood by him when even his best friend abandoned him after the Goblet of Fire spat out his name, and without whose help he’d have been a Hungarian Horntail’s lunch.

The girl who stood up against Umbridge and nearly died at the Ministry, despite him ignoring her warnings.

Now, the girl – rather, a young woman – who he saw as a soul mate. It became clear to him why the twins’ present had revealed itself in such a way. It had prised open a hidden desire.

“I’m not laughing at you, Hermione,” he whispered, trying to placate the in equal parts fuming and humiliated witch. She fixed him with a disbelieving glare. “It’s me. It’s taken a ruddy magazine to make me understand what’s been in front of me all these years.”

Her expression altered subtly from querulous to quizzical. Harry put his free hand onto her right shoulder, squeezing affectionately.

“Do you know how that magazine works?” He wasn’t embarrassed about that anymore. And he knew that Hermione, despite her earlier protestations, couldn’t resist the chance to absorb new knowledge, a fact proved by the brief look of indecision that crossed her face.

“It shows the reader – me, in this case – the woman I desire.” That wasn’t strictly true, but a little white lie wouldn’t hurt. He thought if he owned up to subconsciously fantasising about Hermione he may well still receive the Mother Of All Hexing.

She shook her head, sadly. “But that’s not -”

Harry quieted her by the simple expedient of gently placing one finger on her lips. “It is you.” She looked a little confused. He thought quickly of a better explanation. “Rather, it’s how I see you.”

Hermione gave a short sniff of self-denial. “What, with a body like that, all bronzed and curved?” She let the folded skirt drop from her hands to land at their feet. “No wonder none of the boys ever ask me out. I’ve nightmare hair and my breasts couldn’t fill an egg-cup!”

For a second Harry pondered Hermione’s insecurities. He had to try and negotiate his way through this conversation or they’d both be mentally scarred for life. “I can’t speak for the other boys, but I know I’ve been stupid and blind to what’s been staring me in the face. We’ve been friends for nearly six years now, and that’s what’s kept me from seeing you as a woman, Hermione. Even after the Yule Ball. I hope you can forgive me for that.”

“But the pictu-”

He gave her a knowing smile and a little self-derogatory shake of the head. “I reckon those pictures revealed how sexy I think Hermione Granger is. Until tonight, I’d had to imagine what you really looked like.”

Hermione stared disbelievingly at him. “Then you must be disappointed?” she whispered, fearing the reply.

He gave her a rueful smile. “I think Hermione the person is the one I’m falling in love with. And you could never disappoint me.”

“Never?”

Harry grinned. “Let me show you how.” He slid his hands gently under her unbuttoned shirt, and eased the virgin-white material off her shoulders so that it collected in folds along her arms. She gazed at him with a mixture of incomprehension and a little trepidation, then without taking her eyes off his face moved her arms so that the shirt soon joined the discarded skirt.

Hermione blushed as Harry took a small step back and allowed his eyes to feast over her newly-uncovered body. He guessed that, aside from her father and the odd doctor, no male had ever seen her so exposed. Her body wasn’t tanned like his fantasy version of her; Hermione obviously wasn’t a sun-worshipper as her smooth skin was pale cream with a hint of pink, except where the crimson flush of blood made her glow under his observation. Neither was it unblemished. There were freckles along the collar-bone, and the remnants of a pale pink scar that slashed across her chest, a reminder of Dolohov’s curse that almost killed her at the Department of Mysteries. Yet despite her imperfections, Harry thought that stood before him, clad in only the briefest scraps of black silk and lace, was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

He noticed she was trembling, and his eyes moved back to her face. He could tell she was afraid of rejection, that for once Hermione Granger would not be up to the examination. She visibly held her breath, awaiting his judgement.

Harry moved closer to Hermione, who closed her eyes.

“I know I’m a fool, Hermione,” Harry said quietly. “It’s taken me some time, but I know that I didn’t fall for some idealised version of you.” He placed his fingertips carefully on both of her cheeks, feeling the damp remains of shed tears on the warm flesh. “Hermione Granger the person; that’s who I’m in love with.” Leaning forward, he inhaled the rich scent of her hair. “The whole package.” He moved one hand up to gently run his fingers through the dark brown mane.

The only sound was Hermione’s breathing, quickening in pace to become a nervous little rasp, as she stood transfixed. Without realising it, her head leaned into Harry’s hand, and her eyes closed, as though wanting to keep this fantasy going. It was only when Harry’s fingers left her hair that a small sigh escaped her lips, although the dreamy look on her face remained.

With a boldness that surprised him, Harry’s hand dropped to Hermione’s shoulder. Her skin felt hot and silky smooth under his fingers. His free hand came up to grasp her lightly by the opposite shoulder, and his thumbs made little circling motions in the hollows between her collar-bone and her slender neck. Then he ran his fingers agonisingly slowly down the length of her arms, his touch light and yet Hermione found it to be oddly intoxicating. She kept her eyes lightly closed, afraid that if she opened them this would all prove to be a figment of her imagination, drawn up to shrug off disappointment.

His fingers briefly entwined with hers, then dropped to lightly hold her flanks, just above the brief scrap of lace pretending to be her knickers. Her rate of breath was faster now, tremulous as his fingers carefully danced their way over the ridges of her ribs, skirting the pinkish scar that he found not to be a blemish, rather a mark of loyalty.

Then the progress of Harry’s hands stopped, his fingers gently resting on her side whilst his thumbs barely scraped the underside of her cloth-covered breasts. He noticed that she was holding her breath, but couldn’t guess if it was in fear or anticipation. Harry gazed at her face, but with her eyelids shutting away her brown eyes he couldn’t read anything from her expression.

Unaware that he was now holding his breath as well, Harry slowly moved his right hand round to ever so carefully cup one small lace encased breast. He didn’t press on her flesh, just letting it lightly rest in his palm. It felt … well, wonderful.

Hermione let a brief gasp escape her lips. Suddenly Harry was terrified that he’d gone too far too fast, and he froze, unwilling to give up what he’d captured, but finding it impossible to gather up the courage to go any further.

Unwittingly it was Hermione who made the next move. Not much of one, only a fraction of an inch, but a decisive move nonetheless. Barely perceptible, she leaned into the pressure of Harry’s hand, pressing her breast into his grasp.

‘How could something be so firm and soft at the same time?’ Harry wondered. Tentatively, he gave the lightest of experimental squeezes, feeling the heat of her flesh under his fingertips.

This time it was a moan that escaped Hermione’s lips, and Harry couldn’t help but notice the ends of her mouth quirk upwards in the slightest of smiles. He gave another gentle squeeze and was rewarded with another delightful little sound from the back of her throat, one that only increased his sense of arousal. He rotated his hand slowly, fully encompassing her breast, and then slowly ran his thumb over her nipple. Even through the lace he could feel it harden under his touch.

Again Hermione made a sound that was something between a groan and a growl. Emboldened, his left hand came up to fondle her right breast. Careful not to press too hard, he gently rotated his hands, his fingers lightly squeezing, pressing her breasts together so that they pushed upwards and outwards. He was encouraged in his ministrations by the little gasps and animalistic sounds emanating from Hermione’s lips. The feel of warm flesh and fine French lace was starting to drive him crazy.

Hermione’s arms, which for all this time had stayed compliantly loose at her sides, now reached back towards her back, seeking the brassiere catch. As she unfastened it, Harry felt the pressure under his fingers increase slightly as the bra cups and Hermione’s breasts were released. He pressed that little bit harder into the fullness.

Now she opened her eyes. This wasn’t a dream. Harry’s gaze was riveted on her chest with a look of childlike wonder. Hermione raised one finger to his chest, capturing his attention. As he looked into her eyes he found that they were full of unfathomable emotion. She took a half step back, but before Harry’s brief flash of fear that this wonderful girl would leave him on the very edge of fulfilment, she slowly pulled the bra straps down her arms. The cups fell away from her breasts to the floor. Taking a calming deep breath, Hermione willed her arms back to the passive position they had been, standing there topless under his renewed gaze.

Harry realised this was the first chance he’d had to really explore the glory of the female body. Again he reached forward, his eyes as riveted as they ever were when searching for the Golden Snitch. Hermione’s bosom wasn’t large but, in his astonishment, he now cupped a perfect mound in his hand, and felt the nipple grow harder beneath his touch. He took his hand away and took full account of the beauty of creamy skin, untouched by sun, of the tracery of blue, tiny blue veins, of the ethereal beauty of the pinkness of a nipple, of a nipple grown hard as a small cherry, or perhaps a cherrystone.

He ached with some deep desire to discover how she tasted. Bending down slightly he let his tongue play over the curves of her breast. The skin burned beneath his touch. Sensations of salt and something else – an essence, vanilla perhaps? – played on his taste buds. His tongue swept over the slightly rougher texture of the areole, then flicked the taut peak of her nipple.

A different sort of groan escaped Hermione’s lips, one she’d never ever thought she possessed, full of carnal desire and lust. As Harry hesitated, she brought her hands up into his hair, encouraging him to stay where he was and continue their mutual pleasure.

This time Harry took the stiff little bud between his lips, applying the most gentle of suction. He was rewarded when Hermione arched her back, desperate to offer him more of her breast to devour. He sucked hard, all the time tantalising the tip with his tongue. He couldn’t decipher the sounds Hermione was now making, but he got the general drift. His left hand now fastened onto the unoccupied right breast, kneading the soft flesh and playing with her nipple.

“Harry!” A breathless request, darkened by desire. “Oh Merlin, Harry!” Hermione’s gasps were coming faster now. He could feel his arousal pressing painfully against his jeans, so hard even Hermione must have been aware of it despite the layer of denim. But he couldn’t tear himself away from her breasts, switching his attention to her right tit, letting his mouth cover as much of her buttery-smooth skin as possible.

Her head thrown back, Hermione was in the throes of sexual excitement. The burning sensations she felt in both her breasts were matched – nay, exceeded – by that rapidly growing in her lower abdomen. With a decisiveness that matched that she showed when working out an Arithmancy problem, her hands, which had been preoccupied with running through Harry’s unruly locks, swept down and grasped him by either side of his face. For a split second, as his head came up from her chest region, he wondered what he’d done wrong. That was until he saw Hermione’s brown eyes darkened with passion. Then her lips dove for his.

For some couples the first kiss is chaste, gentle, with perhaps a promise of greater things to come. This wasn’t. It was a full-blown lovers’ kiss, lip bruising, face sucking, and tongue battling. There was no grace, only smouldering sexual tension. As Hermione hung on for dear life, Harry’s arms wrapped themselves around her slender frame, pulling her body closer to his, until he could feel her breasts squashed against his chest, their stiff little peaks obvious even through his shirt. The pressure on his groin was both painful and sensuous as Hermione’s movements rubbed her body against it.

They toppled over, luckily landing at an angle on Harry’s bed, drawing a startled little squeak from Hermione before her mouth resumed its battle for dominance over Harry’s tongue. Her hands seemed everywhere, seeking the hem of his t-shirt, running through his hair, gliding over his stomach muscles, pulling him closer …

Harry’s fingers were equally busy, latching onto one of Hermione’s breasts and causing her all sorts of muffled exclamations as he experimented with squeezing, rubbing, fondling and pinching. In their passion they rolled over, until Harry was bearing Hermione’s bodyweight, then back again so that she was trapped under him in a tangle of teenaged limbs.

Somehow Hermione had retained enough control to finally grasp Harry’s shirt and – despite the loss of mouth-to-mouth contact, whip it over his head and fling it into a far corner of the dorm. Harry’s mouth dove back into action, seizing upon her lower lip, gentling teasing it with his teeth.

They couldn’t stay still; their arms and legs kept them in perpetual motion, seeking new areas of skin to explore. Harry’s right hand dropped and started to caress the milky white skin of Hermione’s upper thigh, finding the contrast between the silky sheen of her sheer stockings and the oh-so-smooth curve of skin highly erotic. He ran his fingers over that delightful junction of hip, thigh and stomach before skirting across the firmness of her bottom, more curvature beneath his tips.

This situation was only hesitated when that same hand slipped between the elasticated waistband of Hermione’s panties and the burning-hot skin. His fingers moved southwards, through a light patch of hair until they found their goal. For one unbelievable second Harry stopped: she was hot and – oh Merlin – wet.

Harry’s efforts also brought Hermione’s attention back from raining kisses on his face. For a split second she stiffened, before an almost feral growl escaped her pursed lips. She arched her back, pressing herself more into Harry’s wandering hand. Not slow to take the hint, his index finger pushed through soft, warm folds of flesh and into her liquid centre. Hermione threw back her head, exposing her neck and collarbone to Harry’s mouth. As he kissed and licked and nipped at this defenceless region he shifted his finger in and out in a slow thrusting motion.

“Ohh God … Harry!”

The first spoken words between them for what seemed a lifetime only encouraged him more. As he reinforced his index finger with one of it’s brothers, he bent his head down, his tongue covering the valley between her breast, again encountering that intoxicating blend of salty sweat and that vanilla-esqe essence, before detouring to the creamy globes either side, whilst his free hand moved to the small of her back, pulling her closer.

They were almost sitting up now. Her hands were on his shoulders, alternately pushing him back to thrust her pelvic region closer to him, then pulling back so her breasts could keep the full attention being lavished on them, when she towered above him, her hair falling in curtains around his head. Her breath was coming in gasps now.

The pressure in his pants was almost unbearable now. Drawing a sharp intake of breath from Hermione, he pulled his right hand away from inside her knickers and his mouth reluctantly disengaged from her marvellous nipples, before he caressed her left cheek with his fingers, still laced with her very essence. He recaptured her attention with a long, slow kiss, during which both his hands dived for the top of his jeans, working on releasing the popper and unzipping the denim in record time.

Suddenly Hermione’s hands were there, pushing the stiff material away down past his hips, before retracing their steps and ever so gently feeling it through his boxers. Harry caught a glance of her expression: it was one he recognised so well from the classrooms, the anticipation of imminently discovering some new knowledge. He eyes were rapt with attention as she slipped both hands inside his boxers before grasping him gently but firmly. Her touch brought more heat to that region as she tentatively ran her fingers along his length, encircling him in an attempt to mentally catalogue his dimensions. Harry caught his breath.

Time stood still.

Curiosity apparently sated, Hermione returned her stare back to Harry’s face. She looked at him almost shyly through her eyelashes and a fringe of brown hair that had become misplaced during their recent activities.

Harry wasn’t sure he could keep that mixture of lust and impatience off his face. He was sure he knew what he wanted the next step to be, regardless of how fast they’d come in just a few minutes. It was just that he wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase the question.

He didn’t need to. Hermione just gazed deep into his eyes, then, apparently reading the unspoken question, just as she had done so many times in their friendship, she offered the glimmer of a nervous little smile and gave the smallest of nods.

Releasing a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in, Harry rolled off the bed and, with a Seeker’s skill, landed on his feet. In a flash his jeans were discarded, then he grasped his boxer’s waistband.

Something made him look up. Hermione was still kneeling on the bed, watching him. He felt a hot flush of embarrassment colour his cheeks, and for a second thought of turning his back to her. Then he thought better of it, and carefully lowered his boxers, stepping out of them, before standing stark naked in front of Hermione. As his now impressively rigid member sprung up and struck the base of his stomach with a soft thud, he realised the self-control Hermione had shown earlier in stripping before his eyes.

Hermione was the one who was now unknowingly holding her breath. For a few seconds Harry was afraid that the first sight of his penis might have finally have brought sensible, rule-following Miss Granger back to her senses in place of this sexy vixen.

She shook her head, snapping herself out of her reverie. She reached for her stockings, but some deeply ingrained part of Harry’s libido brought forward the first words to pass his lips in some time. “Keep ‘em on … please?” he growled.

Hermione hesitated but a second. Now her cheeks flared once again as she took hold of her lace knickers and slowly, wiggling her derriere then her curvaceous thighs, slid them down her legs and placed them gently on the bed cover. Harry thought it strange that, at this late stage, she covered herself with one hand as she slid off the bed to stand facing him.

The decision already made, they now both hesitated, looking each other in the eyes as though making some final unspoken pact. They were both checking each other out – trying to be surreptitious but that was rather difficult given the circumstances, and they both exchanged wry grins. Hermione let the hand that had been covering her nest of auburn curls fall away to the side, exposing all of herself to Harry for the first time. She was trembling slightly, whilst Harry thought it took more courage for him not to cover up himself than he’d ever displayed in the TriWizard Tournament.

Whilst the magazine version of unclothed Hermione represented an adolescent boy’s impression of a naked woman, it paled into insignificance against the version in the flesh. Whilst the curves weren’t as pronounced, there was still enough to throw small areas of skin into shadow, areas that Harry just ached to explore further. Cream rather than bronze was the colour scheme, and instead of a knowing smile there was a nervous grin, as Hermione’s teeth worried her bottom lip. Her hair may have been messed up by their earlier activities, her face a little blotchy and her eyes still reddened, but Harry had never seen such a brilliant sight in his life, and he drank it in. It was the difference between a knock-up family game at the Burrow and the World Cup Final; image and imagination versus the beauty of reality.

Finally Hermione extended her left arm to touch Harry’s right shoulder, and drew him close to her. As his arms encircled her waist, she drew hers around his neck, tipping her own face up slightly to gaze deep into eyes – deep into his soul.

“I’ve never- “

“It’s my first- “

They spoke at the same time, then stopped mid-sentence. In a sudden break in the rising tension, they both laughed nervously, Hermione’s a stumbling giggle, Harry’s a quiet bark accompanied by his anxious grin.

He leaned down a fraction, tilting his head slightly so that he could give her another kiss. This one was so unlike their first, with a tenderness that spoke of promises to come. Both nervy as hell, the embrace tightened. “You’re beautiful,” Harry whispered into her ear. He was sure he could feel her smile into the crook of his neck, and received a gentle kiss to his earlobe in return.

Acutely conscious of his erection trailing over the soft skin of Hermione’s stomach, Harry took a step back, and drew back first the duvet cover and then the sheet from his bed. Reaching out with his left hand, he took her by her right and led her to the side of his four-poster. Harry gazed deep into her eyes and saw a mixture of love, anticipation and nervousness – much as he felt himself. He had to ask.

“Are you sure, Hermione?”

She gave him a little anxious smile and nodded her head. “Yes, I’m sure,” she replied softly.

Harry put his right leg onto the bed, half-kneeling on it, and drew Hermione close to him again. He scooted back towards the middle of the bed, and watched as she followed him, until he was fully kneeling, while she faced him, sat in Indian fashion, her legs crossed beneath her.

He took a hold of her left shoulder with his right hand, and encouraged her to lie back. Her head rested on his pillow, her hair spilling out across the light blue cotton in a sea of brown. She looked up at him, eyes full of trust. Harry leaned over her and gave her the gentlest of kisses on her now slightly bruised lips, whilst his right hand trailed down from her shoulder and gently moulded itself around her left breast.

Hermione moaned once again, and Harry’s lips started that southwards trail, down her neck, feeling her lifeblood flow beneath his lips, then across her collarbone and down her breastbone, gently exploring the valley between her stiff peaks. His right hand moved ahead, slipping into that nest of auburn curls.

Her legs had straightened out when she’d laid back. Shifting his right leg over her thighs, Harry encouraged Hermione to spread her own legs a little wider, and he rested his right knee in between them. He could tell from her wetness that she was physically ready for him, and the delicious little sounds that greeted the actions of his fingers indicated she was hormonally up for the challenge, but he had to be sure one more time. He glanced up and saw her staring back.

“Please … Harry!” she groaned.

He moved back up the bed until his eyes were level with Hermione, inches apart, their foreheads almost touching. Then he felt Hermione’s fingers caress him, stroking up and down his length and cupping his balls. It was his turn to moan, and he could tell from her expression that Hermione was equally as turned on by his reactions as he had been by hers.

Now Hermione took him in a firm but surprisingly light grip, and guided him towards her centre. Harry could feel her heat even before his tip made contact with the soft, moist folds of flesh. His hand moved down to join hers, and he gently opened her up with two fingers, whilst Hermione adjusted his angle of approach.

Her legs slid over the back of his thighs, the exquisite sensation of silk encased calf muscles caressing his skin. As he moved into her a fraction, Hermione’s hand left his and joined its twin in grasping at his shoulder blades, her arms entwining around him, working with her legs to draw him in.

It was only fair to comply.

With an awkward stabbing forward thrust, Harry half-sheathed himself inside Hermione Granger, drawing a short gasp from Hogwarts’ brightest witch. He found himself confronted with a barrier; to penetrate further would mean no holding back; it would mean loss of maidenhood and he knew it would hurt the girl in his arms.

Once more he looked to her for permission. Through half-lidded eyes, she gazed back, then took a short intake of breath, steeling herself against the pain, then gave a curt nod.

Harry thrust forward at the same time as Hermione pulled him in with all of her limbs, her ankles locking behind his knees, and pushed her pelvis up off the mattress at the same time. Harry found his face buried in the rich softness of her hair.

There was a short, sharp cry in his left ear, a muffled exclamation. Hermione’s arms went rigid for a second. Harry looked down and was shamed to see her intelligent brown eyes full of unshed tears.

What had he done?

“It’s okay,” a soft voice crooned in his ear, tremulous but certain. Harry was momentarily stunned. He should be the one consoling her! One of her hands moved up to caress his cheek. “It’s alright.”

Harry saw one tear escape its prison and run down the side of her nose. He brought up his hand and tenderly brushed it away with his thumb. Hermione sniffled and, eyes shining, gave him a brave little smile. He felt increasingly compelled to move, but as he’d just hurt her, he thought he’d better seek permission to continue before he caused her more pain. “Is it alright to ..?”

She seemed to know instinctively what he was asking. “Move, Harry,” she whispered huskily in tones he’d never have associated with the previously unconsidered bookworm. He felt her stiffen her sinews, ready for the oldest dance of all.

Slowly Harry withdrew a few inches, drawing a muffled groan from the girl – no, young woman now – beneath him. Then, he pushed back more rapidly; she was so warm and soft, it felt like paradise. The animal-like sounds emanating from Hermione’s throat just encouraged him all the more.

He started to press in and out, gradually picking up the pace, and moved so that his bodyweight was no longer pressing down on Hermione; his hands he placed on the bed either side of her abdomen, and he used his elbows to increase the rapidity and ferocity of his thrusts. Hermione picked up the rhythm and pushed herself up off the bed in time with his downwards motion, deepening the penetration, all the time pulling him in with hands, arms, elbows, thighs, knees, legs and feet, wrapping him up and whispering endearments or desires into his ear. The headboard thumped against the wall and the slap of moist flesh slapping against same echoed around the dormitory.

He could feel the pressure build up as she entreated him to go faster or harder. Her breathing was rapid and staccato, hot on his face. His balls felt ready to explode. Was it him gasping for air or Hermione? He’d never seen her lose control before but now she was, in the best of all possible senses, coming apart under him. Few words escaped her lips between grunts and moans and cute little squeaks when he moved his fingers just so! But there was enough old Anglo Saxon to fuel his fire.

There was tightness behind his eyes. Recognising he was approaching the point of release, Harry tried to restrain himself, desperate that they should both experience the thrill of climax. It was well nigh impossible, what with her legs drawing him in, the silk-clad calves now rubbing gloriously against the point where his thighs met his arse. He moved his hands until he’d grasped her own cute little derriere, pulling her up in time with his own pace.

Then she quivered in his arms, her whole body in spasms, as her internal muscles contracted around him in the throes of orgasmic pleasure. She cried his name once, long and drawn out, but falling away sharply at the end with a row of exclamation marks! That only spurred him on, and he came himself with one long, last thrust, the feeling of release taking his breath away.

“Oh, Hermione!” he cried himself, his arms giving out as his own muscles clenched, and he collapsed inelegantly on top of his – well, what could Hermione be now but his lover?

They were both breathing hard now that their race was run, their bodies coated with sweat, hot and oddly intoxicating. Harry lay with his left cheek pressed against Hermione’s breasts, whilst her arms loosely enfolded him. He could hear her heart racing and thought it one of the most special sounds he’d ever heard.

They lay there for a few minutes, their bodies too tired and their minds too preoccupied to do anything else. Harry was feeling increasingly drowsy, in a self-satisfied sort of way, when Hermione nudged him with a little shrug of her right shoulder. “What?” he mumbled, before coming to his senses and realising that her slight body was bearing most of his weight. “Oh, sorry,” he whispered, and rolled off to the right, pulling her with him so that he ended up lying on his right side facing her.

Being totally inexperienced in the ways of love, and with little of schoolboy scuttlebutt mentioning the correct post-coital etiquette - it obviously concentrated on the ‘how to get some’ and ‘what to do stages’ – Harry was just a little perplexed to see an expression of sadness on Hermione’s face, instead of that of rapt emotion. Before he could say a word, she turned and swung her legs off the bed. Even before his mind could begin to process this and form a reaction plan, he was briefly distracted to see that, instead of those sheer black silk stockings, the only items of clothing she wore was a pair of white cotton school-issue socks that had obviously seen better days, judging by the holes in them.

She stood up, giving Harry an uninterrupted first-time view of her from behind. Her back was unblemished, her vertebrae showing underneath the pale skin and curtains of hair that fell unhindered around her shoulders. Her bottom, as his hands had previously testified, was curvaceous but not large, and segued nicely into a fine pair of legs that hadn’t yet lost their long and loose-limbed teenaged coltishness. As she knelt on the ground, searching for something in the dim light, his brain finally clicked back into re-set mode after the overload of pleasure. “What’re y’doin’, ‘Mione?” he drawled.

She didn’t turn around. Her shoulders gave a slight shudder, and he thought he heard a little catch in her throat before she replied.

“I’m … looking for my …” She didn’t finish the sentence, instead sniffing as though once again trying to hold back the tears, as she picked up an old white cotton bra and pair of very safe, conservative knickers.

Harry sat bolt upright. “You’re not going, are you?” he asked hesitantly.

Hermione stood but still didn’t turn around, her underwear hanging loosely in her hands. “I thought that … after … well, you know …” Her voice was very small and uncertain.

It was if someone flicked a switch and turned on the light inside Harry’s head. He didn’t know whether to feel affronted or relieved. “You didn’t think this was … just a quickie, did you?” he gently admonished.

Hermione cleared her throat and nodded, just once.

Harry rose from the bed. Hermione’s back was still drenched in sweat, like rainwater on glass. He moved close behind her. Seeing one large drop of perspiration run down her spine, he licked his thumb and placed it over the bead of moisture. He heard a quick intake of breath as Hermione shivered under his touch.

“That I’d throw you out afterwards?” Harry leaned forward and placed a light kiss on her left shoulder.

A small voice replied. “I thought that … you know, after …” She stopped for a quick sob, and then continued. “I just didn’t know …”

Harry wrapped his arms around her from behind, encircling her waist and drawing her back into his chest.

“I think I want to wake up with you in my bed,” he whispered into her ear. “I want to go to sleep with you at my side every night.”

Hermione twisted around and buried her head against his chest, crying copiously. Harry moved one hand to her hair and held her gently in place, occasionally planting kisses on her head with his lips.

“Oh Merlin, how long I’ve wanted this,” a muffled voice coughed out between sniffles. Harry let his free hand drift down as he leaned back slightly, placed his fingers under her chin and gently tipped her head back so he could look into her eyes. Frankly Hermione Granger looked a bit of a mess, with red-rimmed eyes, a face still flushed from the aftermath of sexual intimacy and marked by tracks of salty tears, her nose a little snotty, and her hair so bushy even a Slytherin couldn’t find an insult accurate enough.

Harry thought he’d never seen anything so perfect. His girl. His Hermione.

He planted a long, slow and soft kiss on her lips, and was gratified when she gave him a brave little smile in return. He hoped he was in this for keeps.

Hermione shivered. “Cold?” Harry asked quietly.

“Umm hmm,” she murmured.

“Then let’s go back to bed.” Once again he took her by the hand and drew her back to his four-poster. He caught from the corner of his eye her underwear, discarded once again, drop to the dormitory floor. After they’d settled down, Harry on his back and Hermione lying on her left side, leaning against him, he pulled the cover back over them.

As she laid her head on his chest, Harry had to ask. “What’s with those, huh?” he muttered, jerking his head in the direction of the plain white bra and panties.

“Oh, I forgot.” Hermione twisted downwards and when she resurfaced clutched that pair of old school-issue socks in her hand. “I … um, well, thought that … since I didn’t have anything like that in the magazine, I’d better get some.” Harry raised an eyebrow. “Transfigured my own,” Hermione mumbled rather shamefacedly.

Harry leaned down and kissed her on the nose. “That’s my Hermione, always the clever one,” he replied.

“Your Hermione?” There was a twinkle of amusement in her question.

“Mine,” he softly emphasized. “And I’ll buy you all the sexy lingerie you want.” He gave an amused grin. “Although I much prefer you like this.” And he gently squeezed her to make his point, eliciting a surprised little squeal of mock outrage.

They settled down again, Hermione’s head resting on his shoulder, her right arm thrown across his chest and her right leg draped over his. “You’ve no idea …” she murmured.

“Huh?”

Hermione twisted her neck so she could look up at him. “How long I’ve wanted us to be like this.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Naked in bed?” he asked in a very unserious tone.

She playfully slapped at his hand, which was making lazy circles around her lower back. “No!” Then she grinned. “Well, possibly,” she conceded. “I meant to have a relationship – a proper one, not just best friends.”

Harry shifted a little uneasily in bed. As he did so there was a rattle of hail against the window, like a whiff of grapeshot, that induced the delicious side-effect of making Hermione snuggle even closer to him, as if that was possible.

“How long?” he asked, his throat just a little dry.

Hermione propped herself up on her left elbow, her hand supporting her head so that she gazed down on him from a few inches height advantage. Her right hand was idly playing with his chest hairs. For not the first time that night she seemed mortally embarrassed.

“I reckon … nearly five years,” she admitted.

“Five years ..?” Harry was doing the math in his head. It was a startling conclusion. “Then that’d be …”

“End of first year,” Hermione finished for him. “That night you found the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Harry was stunned. “That long?”

Hermione nodded her head. Harry couldn’t find any words, so let his actions do the talking. He pulled her close again.

“I owe the Twins,” he whispered.

“We both do,” Hermione murmured as she nibbled at his ear lobe.

“I’d never have realised what you mean to me without that kick-start,” Harry admitted.

He could almost feel Hermione’s smiling into his neck. “And I’d never have got up the courage to do what I did without realising there was some hope.”

“Best thousand galleons I’ll ever spend,” observed Harry.

Hermione pulled away a little so she could look him in the face; there was a hint of mischief in her hazel eyes. “That’s all I’m worth, is it, Harry Potter?”

Harry smiled. “You,” he said gently. “You’re priceless.”

And he forestalled any further words on the matter as he dove to capture her mouth, rolling them over so he was once again on top, and could remind both of them just how much they’d learned that day.

The Proprietors

Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes

Diagon Alley

London

Dear Fred & George,

As you have probably heard from Ron or Ginny, Hermione and I are now a couple and are making a go at a relationship that we’d both been blind to for years. We’re both very happy at how things have finally turned out. I think you can now guess who was the Play Wizard cover girl on that particular issue – please let me know which one of you (if either) won the silver galleons. Pomona was never in the running, I’m afraid, although Hermione’s intrigued as to whether either of you thought it would be her.

We both feel that we owe you something – no, there’s no need to worry, as Hermione’s not thinking up a new hex for the two of you, although she has told me on the quiet that she’s thought up some good charms that you might be able to market! She says next time we’re in Diagon Alley she wants to pop in and have a little chat. The magazine opened both our eyes and without it we may well have danced around each other in denial for months, possibly never having the courage to do something about it.

Ron probably hasn’t told you, but a few days ago he was rummaging around in my trunk (don’t ask – it involves Draco Malfoy, a transfigured white ferret, and an invisibility cloak) and came across the magazine. Hermione and I had agreed to keep it for old times’ sake. Is it uniquely keyed to me or to any boy who picks it up? I just ask as Ron now seems to believe that Pansy Parkinson is the hottest witch at Hogwarts! Hermione has tried to warn him he’d be hexed if he continued to stalk her.

Well, me and my girl have got to take a stroll around the lake before it gets too cold.

All the best

Harry (& Hermione)