The Python Defense

The Python Defense
A slightly schizophrenic, occasionally disturbing NC-17 H/Hr three-shot by canoncansodoff

A/N: I was working on one of my existing fics when a section turned into a runaway plot-bunny. Really, I was. Funny thing is, when I tried to turn the bunny into a one-shot, the introductory bit that I tacked onto the front end morphed into a runaway bunny on its own, which demanded its own intro, and so that’s how this “three-shot” crack-fic came to be.

Obvious tips of the cap to Monty Python and clell’s “Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts.”

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

Warning: This chapter contains a few disturbingly graphic descriptions of Dolores Umbridge, Molly Weasley, Petunia Dursley, and Sybill Trelawney. You have been warned.

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Chapter 1: A Bawdy Beginning

The fact that mental avatars lack most of the physical limitations of their “real” analogues allowed Severus Snape to sneer more severely than humanly possible when he dropped into Harry Potter’s defensive mindscape.

“Oh, no…not another castle…what ever shall I do?” he asked with dripping sarcasm.

Snape decided to follow the well-trod path established during other “Remedial Potions” lessons…conjure a chair, sit, and see how long it took for Harry Potter’s overbuilt Occlumency barriers to fall from their own weight.

As soon as he settled himself, a soldier dressed in medieval plate mail and a bullet-shaped helmet called down from the ramparts.

“’Allo? Who is zis?”

The Potions Master rolled his eyes, and shouted, “You know full well who is probing your defenses, Potter.”

He then gave a dismissive wave towards the stonewalls and added, “A more pertinent question is…what is this?”

“’Zis is ‘ze castle of our Master, ‘Arry de la Gryffindor.”

“Oh, please,” said Snape. “The only thing Potter has likely mastered is masturbation.”

“Oh, ho…you wish to play ze word games?” asked the soldier.

“No, I think I’ll just sit and wait for these overly constructed barriers to crumble on their own, just as they have every other time.”

“Very well, you ‘zilly English wizard…we will now activate ze castle’s defenses.”

“Right,” sneered Snape. “And what might those be?”

“I shall taunt you until you become zo frustrated, zat you leave, silly Englishman…you who call yourself a wand waver…you are no more a wizard ‘zen Neville Longbottom iz a Potions Master.”

Snape didn’t bother to respond beyond a roll of his avatar’s eyes.

“You dare to ignore me, English pig-dog?” asked the soldier. “Go and boil your bottom, son of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, you so-called Professor. Thppppt!”

Snape stared in disbelief as the soldier stuck out his tongue, wiggled his fingers whilst his thumbs were stuck in his ears, then tapped his hands on his helmeted head.

“You will show me respect, Potter.”

“I don’t ‘zink so, you empty-headed animal food trough whopper. I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!”

Snape stood and drew his wand. “You insolent little…” he bellowed.

“It is your pee-pee zat iz little, you limp-dicked dunderhead!”

“You dare to…!”

“I dare whatever I want within my own mind, you Umbridge-eating wanker! Go and soil your shorts with dreams of the toad-woman’s titties!”

The stomach-churning imagery that Harry’s insults generated in Snape’s own cranium was so off-putting that he lost all focus on his Legimens attack, and was bounced from Harry’s mind with only the barest of bumps.

As Snape’s mind cleared and he gathered his bearings, Harry Potter did something that had never been seen before in the Potions professor’s office.

He did a happy dance.

“Oh yeah…I did it…Oh yeah…Go me…Oh yeah…”

“Potter!” shouted the “real” Snape.

“Yes, Sir?” Harry asked with a wide smile.

“One hundred points from Gryffindor, and a month of detentions for your impertinence!”

“For what, Sir?”

“For not showing respect! For the insults! For the brain-bleaching taunts!”

“But Sir,” Harry protested, with a smile that faded only slightly. “You gave me permission.”

“I did no such thing, Potter!”

“Yes you did, Sir…during my very first Occlumency lesson, you instructed me to do whatever I could think of to keep you from accessing my mind. And, well…taunting you is what I thought of this time.”

“So you think that my instructions allowed for hurling vulgar images?”

“Have to admit that it worked, Sir, don’t you?” Harry asked. “Once you worried more about how to respond to the banter than focus on your attack, it was easy for me to repel you.”

The Slytherin Head of House seethed at Harry’s logic.

“You think that you’re so smart, don’t you Potter? So witty? Think that you’ve found a way around showing your betters proper respect?”

Snape then let out a deep breath, as an evil-looking gleam gelled in his eyes.

“Tell me, Potter, whose bits do you dream of late at night? What voyeuristic perversions do you dwell on as you wank in the shower? Wait….don’t bothering answering me, I think I’ll find out for myself.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Potter, I am going to shred your defenses, and ferret out every single witch..or limp-wristed wizard…that you dream about…every classmate that you lust over…every perverse memory of lace and flesh that you use as wanking material!”

The Legimens expert grinned when he spotted the fear in the eyes of his nemesis. Snape then slowly counted to ten. While he wanted to get on with the hunt for embarrassing details, he knew that the hunt would be that much more fruitful if he waited.

The reason for this was simple human nature. Tell someone not to think of something, and they can’t help but to think it. Warn someone that all of their embarrassing moments will be found and put on display, and the target will inexorably pull those moments out of long-term memory, and worry over them in their short-term memory banks (which were always easier for a mental invader to access).

Once the count was complete, Snape demanded, “Clear your mind, boy.” He then thrust his wand towards Harry’s face and called out the incantation, “Legimens!” not with the usual shout, but rather, with a sickly-sweet sing-songy voice that dripped with sadistic glee.

Severus Snape had suggested many different ways that Harry might build Occlumency barriers. Nothing too helpful, mind you…just enough instruction to convince the Headmaster that these remedial potions lessons were more than just straight-out mind-rape sessions. Almost invariably, Harry had thought of strong castles defending his memories, or impenetrable steel walls. Snape was therefore caught off guard when he was presented with something completely different.

It was a distance-based defense.

His avatar had been dropped into a barren wilderness…an arid high plains environment, with flat-topped mesas on the horizon, and expansive grasslands in the foreground. The air was hot and crisp, and filled with many strange scents that were not native to the British Isles.

It was an admittedly intriguing mindscape.

Snape’s avatar was able to discern two scents amongst the many…a very distant whiff of dinner, and a dog that was keeping that dinner from him. When he raised his nose to the wind to better locate his prey, Snape was quite surprised to discover that this nose was on the end of a furry snout. And then he realized that his visual perspective was low to the ground, and that his furry bare feet had pads and claws.

The fear was that he’d been turned into Sirius Black’s animagus form was dispelled once he noted the mottled fur coloring, and decided that Potter wouldn’t have made his godfather the representative avatar for predatory mental intruders.

He just might, however, imagine invaders to be wolves, if his protected memories were thought of as a flock of sheep.

And there was indeed a flock high up in the valley of this mindscape…a flock of sheep that the avatar’s lupine eyesight noted was guarded by a large white dog with a lightning bolt-shaped patch of black fur on his forehead.

Snape shook his head dismissively…it would be so simple to sneak up on the flock…even if he chose to play by Potter’s mindscape rules.

The avatar advanced on his prey at a leisurely pace, until a change in wind direction suddenly left him upwind of his targets. That the sheep and their guard caught his scent was soon proven out, as the dog barked and began to push the flock towards a corral that was protected by high barbwire fences. Snape’s avatar howled, and broke out into a dead run across the short grass.

As he closed distance, Snape noted that there were far too many sheep for one dog to protect, and that they had strayed too far from the protective fencing. And the best part? The best part was that the guard dog knew just how vulnerable he had left his flock, and was being forced to make some tough choices on what to save, and what to (literally) leave to the wolves.

There were, for example, an isolated handful of sheep that had ignored the dog’s warnings, and mindlessly continued to graze as the wolf approached.

“This is almost too easy,” Snape thought, as he leapt into the air and pounced on one of these left-behinds. The mental image was released as soon as the wolf’s bite drew blood.

…Molly Weasley’s immense arse wobbles and jiggles freely as she does some nude dishwashing in the Burrow’s kitchen and sings along with the Wizarding Wireless…

“Yuck!” Snape howled, as he spit out the contents of his feral mouth. “The boy is more perverse then I thought.”

He jumped over the downed sheep and bit down on the neck of a second straggler.

…Petunia Dursley removes still-warm knickers from her muggle clothes dryer. She slips them on, and then grinds her silk-covered crotch against the white metal appliance…

“Horrid!” thought Snape, as his avatar vomited. “I can’t believe that….”

A third ewe sauntered in front of the wolf. It was too tempting a target, and Snape bit.

…Professor Sibyll Trelawney lies on the floor of her classroom, dressed only in a scarf and thick glasses. Her legs are spread in the air as she grinds a crystal ball against her hairless fanny and pants, “Oh, Severus! Oh Severus! Oh Severus!”…

Snape’s avatar was left with an empty stomach as he vomited out the “memory.” In between heaves, he caught sight of a grinning dog watching from a distance.

“Blasted Potter!” thought Snape. “These were diversionary false memory traps!”

The planted “memories” designed to repulse Snape and put him off the attack enraged him instead. No Potter was going to get the best of him two times in a row!

The lupine avatar shook his head, and then began to run towards the flock of real memories. The sheep dog yelped, and turned back to establish a last line of defense.

With the guard dog’s focus on the protection of a small group of deliciously plump targets, Snape’s avatar dodged to an unprotected flank of the balance of the flock. Here he found small, lamb-sized targets that were struggling to keep up with the others. The wolf couldn’t tell if the size represented the youthful age of the memories, or their relative importance…at least not until he caught up with one of these laggards and hamstrung its hind leg with a ferocious bite.

…Cho Chang closes her eyes, leans forward, and delivers a very soggy kiss…

“That’s it?” Snape thought to himself. “That’s all that he got from the girl?” He spit out the hobbled lamb, and bit into another unprotected memory.

…Ginny Weasley walks out of an upstairs bathroom in Grimmauld Place dressed only in a towel, and smiles as she passes Harry in the hallway. Just before she reaches the door to her bedroom, the towel “accidentally” slips, giving Harry a glimpse of Ginny’s boyish bum…

The wolf shook his head with disappointment as he cleaned what little bit of meat there was from the bone. Potter must not have had the bollocks to follow up on the red-headed tart’s obvious invitation.

There was a third unprotected memory within easy striking range. It was a little plumper than the other two, and showed much more promise. Snape pounced, and was immersed in the memory.

It was sometime during the winter months in Hogwarts. A flock of owls sweeps into the Great Hall and begins to deliver the day’s mail. Harry is surprised and suspicious when a small brown owl lands in front of him. His gaze immediately shifts up to the Head Table and to Dolores Umbridge.

Ah, Snape thought…it must be a recent memory.

Umbridge’s mail censors have been in full force, leaving Harry with even less correspondence then normal. But perhaps this got through because of the wax seal? Or more specifically, due to mark of an Ancient and Noble pureblood family within the wax?

Harry unties the large envelope from the owl’s leg, then turns and asks Hermione to cast a curse detection spell. She does, and declares the envelope safe to open. So he does, and is surprised to discover a letter from the patriarch of the Greengrass family, inviting Harry to begin negotiations on a marriage contract involving his daughter, Daphne. There is a draft betrothal contract attached to the cover letter with terms that Harry doesn’t understand, and doesn’t think he needs to understand.

He looks up from the documents and across the hall, to where Daphne Greengrass is sitting at the Slytherin table. She looks up from her plate of barely picked at food, catches his eye, then immediately drops her gaze back to a rasher of bacon as her face blushes bright red. Harry is confused, and a bit embarrassed about the situation. When Hermione asks him what the letter is about, he lies and says that it was just some bureaucratic nonsense from the Ministry. Harry then tries to stuff the letter and contract back into the envelope.

And that is when he notices the wizarding photographs that were still inside.

He doesn’t have a clear view of the images, as he was looking at them down the length of the long envelope, but was he does see is enough to causes his blushing cheeks to give Daphne’s a run for her money.

Hermione asks to see the letter, but Harry brushes her off, promising to show her when they were in a more private setting. And only after he had a chance to remove those photographs from the envelope.

The memory faded to gray, but was quickly replaced by a new scene that Harry had apparently mentally attached to the first.

The Fifth-Year Gryffindor walks into his empty dormitory room with the same envelope in hand. He goes immediately to his bed, and draws his curtains. Once a Lumos provides sufficient light, he opens the envelope and dumps its contents onto the duvet. There are three different wizarding photographs in the envelope, each depicting the same two-part sequence of events in different settings: a) Daphne Greengrass nervously smiles at the camera, and, b) Daphne Greengrass gets naked.

One photograph is set in the bathroom, giving Harry an intimate introduction to the order in which Daphne soaps up her different bits. The second is, amazingly enough, staged in Snape’s own classroom, with the Slytherin witch doing a striptease in front of the blackboard. And the third…the third is a nature shoot. Daphne is in the woods, where a unicorn allows her a naked petting session (presumably establishing her credentials as a virgin).

Strong emotions bleed into the memory as Harry examines each photograph. First there is confusion…why would a Slytherin that he’d barely spoken three words to over the previous five years want to marry him? And why would she consent to having nude wizarding photographs taken of her?

But it doesn’t take long for lust to overwhelm the wondering…Harry watches all three images a second-time through, and freezes each at a certain point in time with the tip of his wand. The bath picture stops just as the beautiful black-haired witch pinches both of her hard, soap-covered nipples. The potions classroom striptease is frozen as she sits back onto Snape’s desk and exposes her well-trimmed fanny. And the nature shot is interrupted when Daphne turns her back to the camera, wiggles her heart-shaped arse, and nuzzles the unicorn’s nose with her own.

Snape was furious as he spit out the partially digested memory…not just because one of his snakes had posed in the all-together for Potter’s benefit, but mainly because Potter didn’t think that this memory was worth very much protection. Or perhaps the boy had once again tricked him into eavesdropping on a planted memory?

There was more lamb to munch on within this memory, but Severus had no desire to waste time on what must have been a false image. And he was angry enough to focus on what the Potter boy obviously valued more, so he dropped the dead carcass and dashed towards a six-pack of memories that the sheepdog avatar was desperately trying to herd behind the fence.

As Snape’s wolf approached this small group, the sheepdog turned and tried to scare him off with a ferocious growl. But once his back was turned, one of the six sheep began to stray. The dog’s eyes went wide with fright when he spied this one specific memory walking off unprotected, and he leapt away from the others so as to place himself in between it and the wolf.

Snape howled in delight. Confident that he’d eventually be able to feast on the one memory that Potter guarded above all, he turned towards the abandoned group and selected the nearest memory for a second course.

It is obviously a memory from Potter’s Fourth Year, when he somehow stumbled his way into winning the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Harry had just surfaced from the lake during the Second Task, with Gabrielle in tow. He helps the young girl up onto the dock, where Fleur has clearly been worried sick and waiting. As soon as she spies her sister, the part-Veela leaps up from her chair, throws off her towel and rushes to embrace her. There is a furious bit of dialogue in French that neither Harry nor Snape understand, and then the younger girl grabs her sister’s hand and leads her to Harry. The French champion smiles, and it is at this point that the Fourth-Year notices that Fleur’s wet white swimming costume is translucent. And the fabric is clinging to her skin in a way that clearly defines her perky brown nipples, and the vertical cleft of her fanny.

The French champion pulls Harry into a tight embrace that smashes those brown nipples against Harry’s chest, and the well-defined cleft against Harry’s crotch.

“Zank you for zaving my zizter’s life,” Fleur whispers into his ear. “We owe you a life-debt zat I will repay however you wish,” she purred.

Harry’s mind goes blank, so that he doesn’t notice when Fleur suggests how he might choose to be rewarded by grinding her pubic mound against his rapidly growing erection.

“You don’t owe me anything,” he stammers. “You would have done the same for me.”

Fleur glances over his shoulder to where Ron is drying off, and giggles.

“Perhaps,” she purrs, although she doesn’t really mean it. “But zere iz still a debt so long az my zister and I believe one exists…and if you don’t allow me to repay you, zen I am afraid that my zister will insist on repaying you herself.”

Harry looks at the eight-year old girl and startles as she winks at him, and slowly licks her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Delacour,” he replies. “But I accept. Perhaps we can work out a ‘repayment’ in a few day’s time?”

Fleur smiles, and reaches down to give the young English wizard’s bum a squeeze.

“I look forward to it.”

The friends and classmates of the two Champions come forward, and force the two apart with their concerns and congratulations.

The memory faded to gray mist, and then faded back in with an attached memory where Harry and Fleur meet in an unused classroom.

An impatient Snape waved his arms, willing the memory to speed forward to what he anticipated to be an embarrassing premature ejaculation. But it didn’t…instead, the two teenagers just talked about their lives, their difficulties, and their loves. Neither one has a professed love, unless you count Harry’s love of flying. The emotions tied to the scene include trust, and warmth and friendship…exactly the sort of thing that Snape didn’t want to experience (and force Harry to relive). Deciding that these ridiculously platonic feelings couldn’t be linked with actions that at some point would prove embarrassing, Snape spat out the leg of lamb that he’d been chewing on, and pounced onto another ewe.

He is attending a party after a Gryffindor Quidditch victory…most likely Harry’s third year. It is just the team in the room, and after a lot of butterbeer Fred and George convince the female Chasers to play a game of strip poker with the boys. They begin play, and soon everyone is down to their undergarments. Katie Bell is the last one to lose her robes, and shows off a thong that catches Harry’s eye. Katie then loses the next hand as well, and pouts. She protests, but is eventually chided into stripping off her bra. It’s the first time that Harry has seen bared breasts, and it creates an embarrassingly large tent in his boxer shorts.

More of the game is played, and Fred Weasley and Oliver Wood go starkers. Alicia and Angelina then lose their tops, allowing Harry to compare differences in breast size, breast shape, and nipple color. Alicia teases him about his obvious reaction, and asks, “How many witches can sleep under that tent, Harry?”.

Katie Bell loses the next hand, and all of the boys are excited (well, Oliver is non-plussed, and Harry wonders if that says something about his captain’s interests). The young witch turns around and slowly strips off her thong. Harry notices that the fabric is stuck up in between her arse cheeks, and has to be dragged along as the knickers are slipped over Katie’s thighs.

Once she steps her feet out of the leg holes, Katie swings the thong around on a finger, then throws it blindly over her shoulder. It lands on Harry’s head, and his nose is filled with an intoxicatingly musky scent. He’s embarrassed and aroused as he pulls the undergarment away from his face. Just then, one of Fred and George’s perimeter alarms goes off…a professor or prefect is coming. Everybody scrambles to banish the booze and throw on their robes. Things get almost back to “normal” when McGonagall arrives, and shuts down the party.

Harry realizes that he still has Katie’s knickers in his hand, and he balls them up in his fist to hide them from view. He freaks when he realizes just how wet the fabric is in his hand, and it’s not because his palms are sweaty. As they file out of the party room under Minerva’s watchful eye, Harry brushes up against Katie and passes her the pants. She squeezes his hand, waggles her eyebrows, and mouths the words “Keep them.”

Snape is impressed, and also rather excited…not sexually excited by what he just experienced, but excited about what he had yet to see. If Potter sacrificed this memory to save the others, what are they like? He stopped feeding on this carcass and looked up. Harry’s sheepdog avatar has gotten the other memories behind the fence, and was standing protectively in front of the gate.

Snape sneered as his wolf stood up on its hind legs. With a wave of his front paw he broke through Harry’s constructed lupine form, and replaced the avatar with his own wand-wielding representation. Snape immediately cast a stunning spell towards Harry’s sheepdog, which was too shocked to dodge the attack.

Once Potter’s avatar was downed and defenseless, Snape turned towards the barbwire corral and banished it with a wave of his mental wand.

There weren’t many unprotected sheep on the other side, but the limited menu was rich and satisfying. In short order Snape digested the following memories:

…Two naked witches, Susan Bones and Lisa Turpin, do some lesbian snogging and crotch grinding in the Owlery as Harry watches and wanks….

…Luna Lovegood, the quirky fourth-year Ravenclaw, convinces Harry to join her in a rather chilly nude run during the Winter Solstice in search of dancing ice fairies within the Forbidden Forest…

…Harry sneaks into the witch’s Quidditch field locker room, and watches as the female Gryffindor Chasers share a shower. He is caught out, and given a choice by the three smiling witches…either join them in the naked wash-up, or explain what he was doing there to McGonagall. Harry reluctantly strips down, and walks underneath a warm spray of water as the three girls play ‘rock-parchment-wand’ for the right to scrub his wand…

Snape pulled out of this last memory with a wide smile on his avatar’s face. Potter was already under a lifetime Quidditch band, but the three witches in this memory were still playing, and formed the starting line of Gryffindor Chasers. The Johnson girl was captain of the Gryffindor team as well. If this last scene proved out to be real, rather than a fabricated wanking fantasy, then all three could easily be booted from the team, thereby ensuring the return of the Cup to Slytherin House.

There’d be time enough for direct questioning under Veritaserum on that point, once he backed out of the boy’s mind. But first…there was one more ewe remaining. It had been the stray memory that Potter had protected above all others, and it was the plumpest, and tastiest-looking memory in the flock.

Snape cornered the frightened animal, leapt, and bit down on its neck.

…Harry enters the Hogwarts library, and makes his way through the front tables and into the stacks with a clear destination in mind. Just behind the Transfiguration Section is a nook with just enough room for “their” table.

Hermione is already there, and immersed in a thick book that rests on the tabletop. She’s chewing on the nub of a quill, and idly twisting a bit of her bushy locks with her fingers. Needing to stretch a bit, she arches her back, spreads out her arms, and sits on a leg that she pulls up underneath her. Harry hesitates, not believing what he just saw underneath the table…when Hermione drew up her leg and bent it underneath herself, her robes and skirt rode up onto her thighs and she briefly (and unintentionally) flashed him with a clear view of sheer white knickers over short bushy pubes.

Harry recovers just enough to nonchalantly respond to Hermione’s greeting, and quickly sits down at the table…

The memory faded to gray mist, leaving Snape confused. This was Potter’s most vulnerable moment in his hormonally-charged life? Greengrass sends him nude photographs, the Veela squeezes his bum, and the three Gryffindor chasers invite them into their shower, but this is what he chose to guard? A flash of sheer mudblood knickers?

But then an attached memory faded back into view, and then another, and another, in short order:

…Potter gets an orgasmic rush as he recalls seeing the sheer white knickers…

…Potter gets an orgasmic rush as he imagines that Hermione hadn’t been wearing knickers when she flashed him….

…Potter gets an orgasmic rush as he imagines Hermione’s fingers buried in those sheer white knickers…

…Potter gets an orgasmic rush as he imagines crawling under the table and burying his face behind those sheer white knickers…

On and on they went…fifteen different versions of the same scene, all of which were formulated to help Potter rub one off.

Or rub fifteen off, for that matter.

Snape was so focused on the images that he didn’t notice Harry’s avatar regain consciousness…which also meant that he didn’t notice as Harry turned on Snape’s avatar and tackled him to the ground.

“You fucking bastard!” Harry shouted. “You fucking bastard!”

Snape heard Potter curse over and over again, until he realized that both he and the boy were now out of the constructed mindscape, and back in his office.

“POTTER!”

“What, you fucking bastard?”

“We are no longer within your mind,” the Potions Master said with a smirk. “The ‘you gave me permission to insult you’ excuse no longer holds.”

“Oh.” Harry said quietly. He then stared hard at Snape with eyes that would have been hurling knives, had they been so equipped.

Snape met Harry’s stare head-on for a few seconds, before he shook his head and snorted.

“You couldn’t punch my nose if you Engorgio’d it,” the greasy-haired wizard sneered.

“What did you just say?” Harry demanded.

“You heard me, Potter.”

“But…you read my mind…without using your wand…or saying the incantation?”

Snape snorted. “Alarming, isn’t it…when you broadcast your thoughts so easily that I can read them that way?”

The Potions professor leaned back into his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and grinned.

“I am now well within my rights to dock you those hundred points and issue those detentions,” he gloated. “But perhaps…perhaps there would be a more lasting impact on your demeanor if I used what I just learned instead.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Harry hissed. “My godfather would have your head.”

“He hasn’t the reach from London, now…does he?” Snape asked. He waved towards the door and added, “You’re dismissed, Potter.”

Harry stared at the Slytherin Head of House for a few moments, broadcasting thoughts that involved far more than a punch in the nose. But as there seemed to be nothing more to be accomplished by staying within the office, he stood, and shuffled out into dungeon-level passageway.

“Be sure to say hello to Granger tonight,” Snape called out through the opened doorway. “It might be the last time that she allows you within her hearing range.”

The bellowing laughter that punctuated Snape’s taunts rang in Harry’s ears as he walked down the hallway. He was certain that Snape would make good on the implied threat, and pass what he’d seen within Harry’s mind to Draco Malfoy. And then Draco, or Pansy, or possibly every member of Slytherin house would humiliate Hermione in the morning with the news.

Unless…unless Harry beat Draco to it, and confessed to Hermione first.

The Boy-Who-Lusted-After-His-Best-Friend (and this was definitely not Ron, thank you very much) used the short amount of time that it took to walk to the Tower to summon up all of the Gryffindor courage that he could muster.

He was quite certain that he would need it.

The Python Defense
A slightly schizophrenic, occasionally disturbing NC-17 H/Hr fanfic by canoncansodoff

A/N: Chapter 1 was revised 12 hours after first posting to replace the Y6 Quidditch team roster with the correct Year 5 version. Alicia and Angelina are still on the team. This is important, as I was unable to resist having Harry explain his “memories” to all of the witches involved, and not just Hermione. I should know better than to announce the number of chapters in a story before they’re posted.

Please remember that this is a crack-fic, not to be taken too seriously.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

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Chapter 2 1/4: A less-bawdy start to the middle part

The vial of headache potion was already unstoppered and waiting for Harry when he entered the Gryffindor Common Room.

“Hey, Hermione,” he said softly, as he made his way through the crowded room to her place by the fire.

The Fifth-Year Prefect frowned at the sight of her best friend’s appearance and shook her head.

“You look terrible, Harry,” she said. “Drink up and sit down.”

The raven-haired wizard snorted at her assertive behavior (which others far too often characterized as bossiness). He then smiled, took the offered pain-relief potion and replied, “Yes, Ma’am.”

While Harry knocked back the potion, Hermione drew her wand and summoned a large fluffy cushion from a couch across the room.

“Hey!” complained Vicky Frobisher, who had been sitting on the other half of that couch.

“What…you aren’t using it, are you?” Hermione challenged.

“Erm, no…go ahead,” the young witch replied, too scared to challenge the authority of the Prefect, or to risk the wrath of the Daily Prophet’s whipping boy.

Hermione nodded, then turned her chair around to face the fire, so that she could make space for the cushion on the floor. Before returning to her seat, she opened the front of robes, revealing jeans-covered legs that straddled Harry’s sides when he plopped down onto the floor in front of her.

Hermione pressed her knees against Harry’s flanks and leaned down to hug him from behind. Her curly brown hair locks spilled over his shoulders, and her warm breath tickled his ear.

“Just as rough as the other lessons, then?” she asked.

Harry sighed, and nodded as Hermione sat back up and began to massage his temples with her fingertips.

“Worse, actually,” he replied. “Snape added a taunting twist to the usual routine.”

“How so?” Hermione asked, as she spread her fingers out and raked them backwards against his scalp.

“He…oh, Merlin that feels good,” Harry moaned.

Hermione smiled, and repeated the slow front-to-back traverse through his hair. It was one of her guiltiest of pleasures…the close physical contact that Harry allowed her only because he only thought of her as a best friend. The scalp massages, the back rubs, the “Hermy hugs”…all things that he obviously thought were innocuous, but were actually (for her at least) knicker-drenching. And if it hadn’t been for this “innocuous” contact during the whole Cho episode…she would have lost it for sure.

But that chapter in Harry’s life was thankfully closed now…or at least Hermione prayed that it was closed. Holding her tongue and acting like the best friend that she was (and the best friend that Harry needed) had been the hardest thing in her life. To act as if nothing was wrong, even when her heart was breaking. It had taken Harry’s interest in Cho to solidify her own feelings for her best friend…and her determination as well.

And to think that Harry and Ron still thought it coincidence that she had scheduled the Hogsmeade interview with Skeeter on Valentine’s Day! She hadn’t forced him to choose between Madam Puddifoot’s (and Cho) and the Three Broomsticks (and her), but she was thrilled that he had made that choice. And even more thrilled that the choice had driven Cho off.

“Good riddance,” she thought. “Just need to wait a few more weeks so as to not be obvious when I jump Harry’s bones...”

She indulged herself with a few more passes through his adorably unruly raven locks before she rephrased the question.

“What did Snape do, Harry?”

The Boy-Who-Lived opened his eyes and scanned the room. It was only 2000 hours, and still rather crowded. Ron was in a corner, playing a game of chess with Seamus Finnegan. The Twins were huddling with Lee Jordan over what was likely their latest test product, and Ginny was on the other side of the room…staring back at him with a look that seemed to hover between confusion and concern.

Seeing Ginny reminded Harry that Hermione hadn’t been the only victim in Snape’s romp through his Loony Tunes mindscape. Her Grimmauld Place towel drop hadn’t been something that he’d perved on at all…quite the opposite actually. He didn’t really know why the memory even came to mind when Snape said he was going to pilfer his wanking fantasies…other than the fact that it was a generic display of female flesh.

“More boyish then female flesh,” clarified a voice in the back of his head.

But the fact remained that Snape had seen Ginny’s bum, due to Harry’s failed Occlumency barriers.

His mood grew darker. What would Snape do with those other memories? How badly had he put all of the other witches at risk?

He closed his eyes and shook his head despondently.

“What’s wrong, Harry?”

Harry knew what was wrong, but he couldn’t tell Hermione right there. And the other witches deserved to hear Harry’s confession/warning just as much as she did.

“Not here,” he whispered.

Hermione nodded, and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

“Maybe we should ‘come and go’ then?”

Harry opened his eyes at the electrifying phrase “Maybe we should come.” But then he completed her sentence in his head, and realized that the Room of Requirement would be a perfect place to tell Hermione…and the other witches as well. And while he was at it, warn everyone in the DA that Snape could passively read minds with simple eye contact.

He nodded, and then whispered, “Have your galleon on you?”

“Always, Harry,” Hermione replied.

“Set up an emergency DA meeting to start in a half hour’s time, then.”

Hermione arched an eyebrow, but trusted Harry enough not to question the need. She gave his shoulders a firm squeeze, then pulled the charmed coin from a pocket, and sent out the meeting notice using Harry’s back for cover.

“All set,” Hermione announced, as the warm vibration in his pocket confirmed that fact. The four Weasleys, Lee and Seamus all noticed as well…with varying degrees of stealth each checked their DA coins, and then gave Harry and Hermione a head nod in confirmation.

“Thanks, Hermione,” Harry said, as he reached up, and gently squeezed a hand that was draped over his shoulder. “Think I’ll use the time in between to wash up.”

“Okay, Harry,” she replied. “I’ll wait for you to come back down.”

Harry nodded, and then bolted up the stairs to his dormitory.

oo00OO00oo

It wasn’t the first time that Harry had stood underneath the shower and relived holding Katie Bell’s damp thong, or fantasized about sharing a wash-up with his female teammates. It certainly wasn’t the first time he thought of Hermione’s upskirt display in the library. The difference, of course, was Snape….the bastard who had turned these cherished images into potential blackmail material.

Harry was using the alone-time moments under the shower to go back over Snape’s second attack, and to compile a mental list of actresses who had unknowingly performed for the perverted potions professor. He ignored the older women who had served as diversions…if Snape wanted to act on what he’d “seen” of Molly Weasley or Trelawney within the intentionally repulsive false memories, then so be it. Almost all of the other witches were in the DA, and could be warned off during the upcoming meeting…the exceptions were Fleur, Lisa Turpin and Daphne Greengrass.

Fleur’s physical exposure was limited to what her swimming costume had revealed on the Second Task docks, and that was something that dozens of others had seen…and something that Ron still talked about with a wistfully lustful tone of voice. Lisa’s situation was far more delicate, but Harry could ask Susan Bones to warn her (so long as Susan wasn’t too busy to listen as she hexed Harry’s bits off for peeping on them). But what to do about Daphne?

Harry had returned the photographs to the very embarrassed witch when he formally declined the marriage offer. She’d claimed that her father had forced her to pose for the pictures, and that they weren’t uncommon attachments to a proposed contract, especially when the offer was made to such an eligible bachelor. Harry had sworn that he hadn’t shown the pictures to anyone else, but now he’d managed to break that promise after the fact!

The Boy-Who-Lived sighed. The return of the contract and photographs had sparked the start of what had become a quasi-secret friendly relationship. That the friendship was so improbable allowed Harry to relax in her presence, in a way similar to the camaraderie that he shared with his female Quidditch teammates. He had even indirectly asked if Daphne and her friend Tracy Davis wanted to join his “DADA review group.” She had appreciated the offer, but felt that it would be too dangerous for her in Slytherin House if they were found out.

So inviting Daphne to the DA meeting tonight was straight out, and he didn’t dare travel back down to the dungeons to warn her in person. But still…it wasn’t Daphne’s fault, and there had to be something he could do.

An idea came to mind, and Harry called out, “Dobby?”

The house elf appeared instantly with a quiet pop. He took in his surroundings, and then looked up to Harry.

“Dobby is here, Harry Potter, Sir. What can Dobby be doing for the Great Harry Potter? He be needing some soap or a dry towel?”

Harry shook his head, sending splays of water droplets out from his wet unruly locks. “No thank you, Dobby…I was wondering if you be able to deliver a message for me to Daphne Greengrass…she’s probably down in Slytherin House right now.”

The house elf thought for a moment, and then nodded vigorously.

“Dobby be knowing where Harry Potter’s Missy Greenie is. Dobby can do it!”

Harry gritted his teeth. “Erm, Dobby…she’s not my Missy Greenie, okay? She’s just a friend.”

“Dobby understands, Mr. Harry Potter Sir. Dobby knows that the Great Harry Potter wants Harry Potter, Sir’s Miss Grangy to be his First Missus.”

“What?” Harry asked. “How did you know that, Dobby?”

Dobby gave Harry a quizzical look, as if the answer should be obvious.

“Dobby always be listening for the Great Harry Potter, Sir to call his name,” he explained. “So Dobby always be hearing the Great Harry Potter, Sir call for his Miss Grangy, even when the Great Harry Potter, Sir puts a silencing spell on his bed curtains late at night so that he can calls out Miss Grangy’s name while he rubs the Great Harry Potter, Sir’s Wanking Wand.”

Harry closed his eyes, and let out a deep sigh.

“So what’s this about Hermione being my First Missus?”

Dobby’s eyes lit up. “Dobby be knowing that there be lots of witches who wish being the Great Harry Potter Sirs Missus, and be calling Harry Potter Sir’s name while they rub their kitties. Some be thinking how they be sharing the Great Harry Potter Sir’s Wanking Wand.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Harry moaned.

“Something be wrong with what I do, Mr. Harry Potter, Sir?” Dobby asked timidly.

Harry shook his head, and squatted down to speak to the house elf face to face.

“No, Dobby, you did nothing wrong…I appreciate the fact that you always come when I call and ask for your help.”

Dobby’s big eyes grew even bigger as tears of joy fell, and he hugged Harry’s wet leg with delight.

“Thank You for saying that, Mr. Harry Potter, Sir. You be the bestest most kindest wizard ever!”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Harry admitted. “So about that message to Daphne Greengrass…can you tell her that I’m sorry that I can’t come to see her myself, but that she should know that Snape knows about the contract and pictures?”

Dobby nodded with great vigor.

“Dobby goes right away and tells Miss Greenie that the Great Harry Potter Sir wishes he could see her, because the Nasty Bat-man does be knowing about the nudie pictures!”

“Well, I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that…” Harry replied.

But it was too late, because Dobby had popped away before Harry had gotten a word out. He shook his head, grabbed the wand that was resting on a soap tray, and cast a Tempus spell.

Given a ten minute transit time from Tower to Room of Requirement, and a magic-aided ninety seconds to dry-off and dress, he still had about five minutes to relax under the spray of hot water.

Or so he thought.

Harry was facing the shower room wall and had just swapped out his wand for a bar of soap, when a voice called out.

“Harry?”

A female’s voice in the boy’s shower room was instantly categorized by Harry’s brain as “Not Normal.” And since situations that were “Not Normal” for Harry were more often than not life-threatening, his mind went on automatic pilot.

He dropped the soap, grabbed his wand, and twirled to face the intruder. It was only Dobby’s voice that stopped a hex from being hurled.

“Don’t be shooting, Harry Potter sir, this be Dobby and Miss Greenie!”

Harry squinted, and tried to put a face the voice that…a face that wasn’t blurred by steam and myopia.

“Daphne?”

“Don’t recognize me this way, Harry?” the witch asked with a smile in her voice.

“Don’t have my glasses on,” he replied. “Dobby what is going on?”

“Dobby be helping!” the house-elf chirped, as he levitated Harry’s glasses onto his face. As the lenses fell in place, the two blurry figures resolved themselves into a towel-wearing house-elf, and a nightgown-wearing witch.

A sheer-black-silk-can-see-her-bits-underneath nightgown, to be more specific.

“Oh, Merlin, Daphne! I’m so sorry!” he exclaimed.

“No worries, Harry…I’m wearing more than you are,” Daphne said with a sly smile. “Mind if you lower your wand? I don’t have mine with me…as you should be able to clearly see.”

Harry’s first thought was that it would be impossible to conceal a weapon under the Slytherin’s nightie.

Harry’s second thought was that the sheer garment was, as she suggested, still more than what he was presently wearing.

“Yelp!” he cried, dropping his hands to cover his bits.

Daphne smiled. “Careful, Harry…wouldn’t want you to hex a buttock off…or worse.”

Dobby agreed, and with no sense of “personal space” walked up to Harry and pried his hands away from hiding his crotch.

“Miss Greenie be right, Mr. Harry Potter, Sir. The Great Harry Potter Sir must be acting like he’s by his lonesome in the shower right now… no hands or towels be covering bits.”

“How can I act like I’m alone when she’s standing right there, dressed like that?” Harry asked in frustration.

Dobby smiled. “Dobby be using his elf-magic on Miss Greenie, and making her indivisible.”

Daphne snorted. “Well that’s good to know…wouldn’t want to be splinched.”

“He meant invisible, didn’t you Dobby?” Harry asked.

The house-elf nodded his head. “Only the Great Harry Potter Sir be hearing or seeing his Miss Greenie, but Dobby can only be doing this to one witch or wizard at a time, so…”

“So only I can see and hear Daphne, but everyone and still hear and see me?”

Dobby nodded, and then turned to Daphne.

“Miss Greenie be calling Dobby when she wants to be leaving,” he stated, just before he popped away.

“Oh, shit!” Harry muttered, looking at the empty airspace where his friend had just been. “Sometimes, Dobby….”

“What’s that Harry?” Daphne asked.

Harry looked up at the Slytherin witch and gasped. The steam and humidity of the shower room had made the thin fabric of her nightgown cling to her bare skin, and was now more transparent than translucent.

He shook his head, and turned away, trying to clear his head of the erotic image.

“What’s wrong, Harry?” Daphne asked coyly. “You’ve seen far more of me than this?”

“Not in real life, though,” he admitted.

“Like what you see, then, Harry?”

“Too much so, I’m afraid.”

“Why is that, Harry?” she asked, as she walked behind him and pinched his bum.

“Daphne, you’re making this impossible!” Harry closed his eyes tight and then asked, “What are you doing here?”

The Slytherin witch smiled, and shook her head. “Ask your house-elf, Harry. He popped up unannounced in my room…scared the daylights out of me, by the way…and said that you wanted to talk to me and was sorry that it couldn’t be face to face. I said that I wished that we could speak face-to-face more often as well, and next thing you know he grabbed my hand and brought me here. Here being…Gryffindor Tower?”

Harry sighed. “Dobby is always looking out for my needs. Sometimes he’s a little too eager to meet them.”

“Your needs, Harry?” Daphne asked with interest. “You were standing here naked in the shower, and you needed me?”

“No, no….I mean, well….yes I did need to talk with you, but I didn’t intend Dobby to pull you here in your…pajamas…and with me…”

“It’s okay, Harry,” Daphne said brightly. “Makes us even in a way, doesn’t it?”

Harry snorted.

“Harry?”

“Yeah, Daphne?”

“I won’t mind if you open your eyes, and even if I did…my wand is back in the dungeons.”

“I can’t.”

“Why is that, Harry?” she asked. “Soap in your eye?”

Harry snorted. “More like Snape in my head.”

“What’s that?”

“Snape,” Harry hissed. “He’s been teaching me to…did you know that he can read minds?”

“Sure, everybody in my house knows better than to look straight in his eyes. There’s talk about him being a fully-trained Legilimens as well.”

“Well, the talk is true, I’m afraid,” said Harry. “And that’s why I needed to warn you. Snape got into my head and saw the memory of me getting that marriage contract. And seeing the pictures of you.”

“Oh,” she said softly. There was a pause, and then she asked, “But why does that mean you need to keep your eyes shut?”

“Because the bloody wanker rummaged through all of the memories that I…that get me excited, and, well…I don’t want him seeing you the way you are right now the next time he makes a run at my brain.”

Daphne chuckled. “Oh, Harry, always the brave protective Gryffindor protecting a lady’s honor.” She reached out and touched Harry’s arm. “Would it help if I told you that we’re fairly certain that our Head of House can monitor every room in our House?”

“Really?” Harry asked. “You mean he can sneak peeks of you and the other witches taking showers, or getting dressed, or...”

“Yeah,” she replied. “It’s something that we’ve learned to live with. The few that have complained to Dumbledore over the years have paid the price for speaking out…not really healthy to upset a Potions Master who has access to your room, and your belongings…”

“That’s outrageous!”

“It’s how it is, Harry,” Daphne replied. “I just try not to think of it…worse off for the boys, of course.”

“What?” Harry asked.

With eyes closed, he couldn’t see the mock look of concern on Daphne’s face.

“Oh my, did I just let out a House secret?”

“Merlin, please tell that you didn’t…it’ll make me worry even more the next time he makes a go at me.”

“Okay, so I won’t tell you that I didn’t,” the Slytherin witch said with a smile.

“Oy, Potter!” called out a male voice.

“Oh shit, that’s Ron!” Harry hissed.

“Guess we’ll see of your little friend’s magic is up to snuff,” Daphne said. “Might want to remove your glasses, though.”

“Thanks,” Harry hissed, yanking them from his face.

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing, Harry?” Ron asked, sticking his head into the shower room. “Hermione’s going to bust a blood vessel if you don’t get back down to the Common Room.”

“Guess he really can’t see me,” Daphne said from behind Harry. “Wonder if he can hear me…HEY WEASEL! I WANT HARRY POTTER’S WAND UP MY SLEEVE!”

“Wha…”

“Something wrong, mate?” Ron asked.

“Guess that he can’t hear me either,” Daphne cooed. She walked right behind Harry and wrapped her arms around him. She raked her fingernails across his chest, nibbled on his ear, and whispered. “But you can see me, and hear me, and feel me, Harry….can’t you?”

“Uh-huh,” he moaned.

“What’s that, Harry?”

“Erm…nothing…I’m just trying to clean off the slime I feel every time that I have a Remedial Potions les….son…”

“Slime, Harry?” Daphne asked with a giggle. “Like your shags all muddy and messy, then?”

Ron frowned as Harry tried to ignore the banter, and the invisible hands that made it hard to talk.

“Erm…right, then,” said the confused red-headed wizard.

“Oh, Harry?” Daphne cooed. “Want to try an experiment? I’m wondering…if I’m invisible, and I go down on you, would Ron think that your willie disappeared?”

The only answer Harry thought he could safely provide was to reach back and give Daphne’s bum a slap.

“Hey!” Daphne chirped.

“You just hear something, mate?” Ron asked.

“Erm, no…did you?

“Yeah, it sounded like you just hit something when you waved your hand.”

“Interesting,” said Daphne. “He can’t hear or see me, but he heard the slapping noise…makes me want to try that other experiment even more…”

When Harry felt Daphne slip down onto her knees and give his bum a love-bite, he decided that drastic action was needed. He pulled her hands away, and jumped out of her grasp.

“Come back here, Harry!” Daphne pouted.

He shook his head and waved her away.

“You sure that you’re okay, mate?” Ron asked.

“No,” Harry admitted. “But who would be, after one of Snape’s lessons.”

“Good point,” Ron replied. “Still…looks like you were swatting at something invisible…”

All of a sudden, Ron grew a wide smile on his face.

“Putting your invisibility cloak to use, Harry?”

“What?” Harry asked.

“What?” asked Daphne. “I didn’t know you had one of those, Potter?”

Ron waggled his eyebrows. “Brilliant idea, mate.” He then looked behind Harry and said, “Plan on following behind us to the meeting, Cho?”

“What?” Harry demanded.

“What?” demanded Daphne. “I didn’t know you were shagging Cho Chang, Potter!”

“I’m not!” Harry shouted.

Ron cocked his head, looking for a glimpse of something he didn’t see.

“Erm, sure mate. Whatever you say…course I’d be more worried if I didn’t know that Ginny was already downstairs.”

“Shagging his sister, too?” asked Daphne.

“No!” Harry shouted.

Ron chuckled, and gave a glance back towards the shower.

“I’d shake your hand and congratulate you, mate…but I wouldn’t want to get any of that Snape slime on me, would I?”

Harry rolled his eyes and grabbed a towel.

“I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes Ron.”

Ron smiled, gave him a wink and a nudge, and walked out of the lav.

Once he was gone, Harry turned on Daphne.

“You little minx, you!” he chided.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Daphne replied. “Come back here, and let me make it up to you.”

Harry sighed, and shook his head.

“I’m going to assume that this was cosmic payback for me seeing those pictures,” he said. “I really have liked getting to know, Daphne, but if you are thinking that there might be something between us…”

Daphne chuckled, and stood up.

“Throwing me away like a wet dishrag, Harry?”

“Well, you are rather wet, right now,” he said with a smirk. “Look, you are dead-drop gorgeous, and a great friend, and any bloke would be thrilled to see you like this…”

“But, Harry?”

The Boy-Who-Live snorted. “Yeah, there’s a but there. And right now I’ve got to go and warn some of those butts that Snape saw them in my head.”

Daphne smiled. “Oh, my, good luck on that.”

“Thanks.”

“So let me know how it goes, okay?” she asked. “If things don’t work out with her…”

“I’m not seeing Cho, Daphne!”

“Did I cough-Granger-cough say any specific witch’s name, Harry?” she teased. “I was just saying that if you’ve still got your bits after tonight, and really do have an invisibility cloak…not that your house-elf couldn’t provide direct room-to-room transport again….”

“Harry!” a witch shouted from the base of the dormitory’s stairs. “Time to go!”

Daphne snorted at the sound of Hermione Granger’s voice. She stepped up to Harry, planted a short but tender kiss on the tip of his nose, and said, “Me too, I guess…good luck with her, Harry.”

Harry nodded, said thanks, and rushed out to dress before Hermione stormed up the stairs.

oo00OO00oo

Harry looked nervously towards the group of DA members who had hastily assembled within the Room of Requirement. Ron looked befuddled, wondering how in Merlin’s name Cho Chang had managed to beat them to the Seventh Floor, but that was more or less a normal facial expression for him, and nobody noticed.

The Boy-Who-Lived began by thanking everyone for coming on short notice, and said that he wouldn’t have done it had it not been important. He then waited for someone like Zacharias Smith to bitch and moan, and was therefore pleasantly surprised when his introduction was met was silent attention.

With a nervous finger run through his messy black hair, he continued on, and broke the news that Hogwarts’s Potion Master had the power to read a person’s surface thoughts without needing to cast a spell. More than half of the students didn’t know that you could read minds even with the right spell, so Harry took the time to explain Legilimency. He emphasized that holding eye contact with a victim made access that much easier, and suggested always trying to avoid looking Snape or Dumbledore in the eyes.

While the information was relatively well received, some questioned the urgency of its delivery.

“So that’s it then?” asked Seamus. “Best not to look Snape in the eyes? What’s with the rush to deliver that bit of obvious advice?”

“Erm, well…there’s more to warn about,” Harry admitted. He looked down at the floor, until Hermione reached over and squeezed his hand for support.

“There’s a special way to defend yourself not just from the eye contact attack, but from the much stronger Legilimens spell,” he stated. “It’s called Occlumency, and Snape has been teaching it to me since Christmas hols.”

“Really?” asked Neville. “So that’s really what you were doing instead of taking Remedial Potions lessons?”

“Right in one, Nev,” Harry said with a thin smile.

“Why the need for secrecy?” asked Cho Chang.

“Erm, well…the Headmaster thought it best if we stayed quiet about this training,” said Harry. He then added, somewhat evasively, “Headmaster has his reasons, I imagine.”

“So that’s the extra bit of news?” asked Seamus.

“No, not at all,” replied Harry. “The thing is, the only way to test whether you’re able to block somebody from reading your thoughts is …is to have somebody try to read your thoughts.”

“You mean you let Snape rummage about in your head?” asked Ernie Macmillan.

“Didn’t have much say in the matter, and it’s certainly not by my choice,” Harry said curtly.

“So he’s seen memories or thoughts that you didn’t want him to see, Harry?” Luna asked quietly.

Harry turned to the Ravenclaw witch and nodded. “I’m afraid so, Luna. You all know how much Snape hates me, and he hasn’t been shy about forcing me to relive painful memories, or times when I’ve been weak and powerless.”

“Fucking…”

“Bastard!” Fred and George swore in stereo.

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “You can say that again. I’ve gotten used to it, and actually managed to make headway in keeping him out of my head, but tonight…tonight I angered him, and he retaliated. Instead of stealing the normal types of memories that were embarrassing for me, he gathered memories that were much more embarrassing for others.”

“Others, Harry?” Hermione asked. “Like your friends?”

The Boy-Who-Lived nodded. “He was rather ruthless…anything that he might be able to humiliate me with, or use to alienate me from my friends and classmates.”

“So what did he get, Harry?” Ron asked.

“Well…that’s rather personal, don’t you think?”

Ron scowled. “Not if it includes that time that you walked in on me in the lav when I was…”

The youngest male Weasley stopped himself when he heard the snickering.

Harry couldn’t stop the corner of his lips to curl upwards.

“No Ron,” he replied. “Snape didn’t pull that memory from me.”

“Oh, right…never mind,” Ron replied with a blush.

A deep breath was taken before Harry explained more fully.

“Snape focused his efforts on the part of my brain that thinks about…well….”

“Sex?” asked Katie Bell.

“Erm….yeah…sex.”

“So that’d be almost all of your noggin, eh, Harry?” Katie joked.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Harry replied sullenly. “He sort of tricked me, you see, into worrying about…things…that I’ve seen...things that I found exciting. Things that I...”

“Get a stiffy thinking about?” chirped Fred.

Harry closed his eyes tight, and nodded slightly.

“I’m so sorry, guys...I tried to stop him, but I just couldn’t...”

“Erm...Harry?” asked Ron.

The despondent Gryffindor reopened his eyes.

“Yes?”

“When you just apologized to ‘you guys’ about having randy thoughts…were you really talking to just the blokes, or was it...what’s that word, Hermione?”

“Generic?”

“Yeah, generic...that’s the one.” Ron replied.

Harry couldn’t help but to chuckle. “Yes Ron, it was a generic ‘you guys’.”

“Whew...had me worried there for a moment, mate.”

Many of the female DA members laughed at Ron’s worries. But it was a strange kind of laughter...a mixture, really. Some of it was nervous laughter, while others was more…hopeful?

Harry wasn’t certain. But he was certain that what he needed to confess didn’t need to be shared with those it didn’t affect.

“So…since I disappointed Snape by not having any wanking fantasies involving Ron, or any of you other guys…and I mean wizard guys…there’s no need for you to hang around to hear the dirty details.”

“Are you sure, about that Harry?” asked Colin Creevey.

“Yes, Colin, I’m certain.”

“Oh, poo!” the boy whined.

“Hey, that’s my line!” Luna complained.

Hermione took a step forward from Harry's side and said, “So, boys…as Harry says, he’s quite certain that your presence is no longer required...and I’m sure all of the witches in the room share those feelings.”

The other witches in the room did indeed share that opinion, and ordered the boys to shove off. They went willingly, for the most part, and all made sure to shake Harry’s hand and offer their condolences.

“Sucks to be you right now, mate,” Dean said grimly.

“Never have envied your lot in life, Harry,” Neville added, as he looked at the collection of witches. “But now I really don’t.”

George stepped up to Harry next, and pulled him into a corner of the room. Once their privacy was assured, he handed Harry a small bit of knitting.

“Fred and I were planning on rounding up some test subjects later this week,” George explained. “But…you might want to give this a go tonight.”

Harry looked down at the object and furrowed his eyebrows. It looked like a miniature knit cap, with an open end that was roughly two inches in diameter.

“What is it, George?”

“We’ve adapted our Headless Hats for the protection of your other head,” the Twin whispered.

“My other head?” Harry asked. “You mean this little hat will make my bits disappear if I slip it onto my willie?”

“Exactly,” George grinned.

“Why would I want to put anything you two have invented anywhere near my bits?”

George snorted. “It’s perfectly safe, Harry…I’ve tested it myself.”

It was Harry’s turn to snort. “So you’ve already…worn…this thing, and now want me to pop it on?”

“Harry…would I do that to you? We’ve applied auto-cleaning charms, of course…a resizing spell as well, in case the fit is a little too…well, in your case, we’ll assume the fit would be too snug.”

“Erm…I’ll take that as a complement…I guess,” Harry hissed cautiously. “What I don’t get is how making my John Thomas disappear would help me any?”

“Well, Mate, the girls won’t be able to hex off your bits if they can’t see them, right?”

Harry winced, chuckled, and shook his head all at the same time.

“Thanks for the thought,” he replied. “But I’m afraid that I’ve taught the DA enough area-effect spells to make accurate targeting unnecessary.”

“Ah…good point,” the red-haired Twin said with a smirk. “We’ll be sure you get a proper wake, then…”

George looked over his shoulder and back towards the other. He spotted his brother, who was having a hushed conversation with Padma Patil, and called out, “Won’t we Fred?”

“Won’t we what, O Brother of mine?”

“Ensure a properly inebriated send-off should Harry not survive the night.”

“Of course we will,” Fred replied with a smile, just as the Ravenclaw witch passed a small money pouch into his hand. He gave Padma a handshake, then strolled over to continue the conversation from closer in.

Harry nodded back towards Padma.

“What was that about?”

“Just a financial transaction,” Fred said with a smile.

George matched his brother’s grin. “Which pool did she put money down on…the day Harry and…a certain witch…shag, or the next day that he’s forced to spend a night in the Infirmary?”

“Neither,” Fred replied. “She asked for odds on a side bet.”

“What did she want odds on?” Harry asked warily.

“For the likelihood that you and that witch shag and you are admitted to the Infirmary, all on the same night.”

Harry rolled his eyes, while George’s eyes lit up.

“Does it have to be his girlfriend that puts him in Poppy’s care?” the Twin asked.

Fred shook his head and smirked. “No, she was afraid that one of the others might beat her to it.”

George nodded sagely. “Smart witch, that Padma…how about the reason for medicinal care?”

“Left that one open, as well,” Fred snorted. “She couldn’t decide whether it’d be hexed bits or exhausted bits.”

Fred and George shared a laugh as they shook Harry’s hand and wished him luck under either scenario. As they headed for the door, Harry noticed that Ron was still there, and was the last wizard in the room besides himself.

Ron turned to Hermione and asked, “Want to walk back to the Tower with me, Hermione?”

“What?”

“Walk back to the Tower with me?” Ron repeated. “I was hoping you could look over my Transfiguration essay. Harry probably needs help as well, and this way you can write mine while he’s still busy here with the witches.”

“Ronald Weasley, of all the cheek!”

“What?” he asked.

“Hermione needs to stay here, Ron,” Harry said softly.

It was Ron’s turn to raise his voice.

“What did you say?”

Harry glanced over towards Hermione, whose eyes were wide within an expression that he couldn’t decipher. He turned back to Ron and repeated, “I need Hermione to stay here with the other witches.”

“Whatever for, mate?”

Harry’s mind raced at the question, and he stood there speechless. He certainly didn’t want to have Hermione learn of his feelings for her this way. But he didn’t need to, as Hermione stepped in with eyes that were now narrow and dangerous looking.

“Harry asked for all of the female DA members to stay back, Ron, and as you so eloquently noted last year, I am a girl.”

“Yes, but you’re….you’re Hermione!”

The bushy-haired witch rolled her eyes, and decided to nip the nascent argument in the bud, just to get rid of the git.

“Think, Ron,” she said icily. “Harry needs me to stay…I was the one that paced in front of the door. That means that I have to be the last one to leave.”

“Oh,” said the red-haired wizard. He visibly relaxed and added, “Guess that makes sense.”

“I’m glad that I have your approval, Ronald,” Hermione said sternly. “And don’t wait on my help with that essay…it won’t be forthcoming.”

“Erm…okay,” Ron said, as he walked out the door. “No need to get your knickers in a twist.”

“Oh!” Hermione hissed, once the door closed.

“Sorry about that, Hermione,” said Harry. He wanted to tell her that there was more than one reason for her to stay back, but didn’t have the nerve to do so, even now that Ron was gone from the audience.

“It’s not your fault that he is such a git,” she replied, wrapping an arm around his waist.

Harry nodded, and turned back towards the other female DA members. Their faces showed the range of emotions that he’d detected before in their laughter…many were nervous, some curious, and one or two seemed excited by the possibilities.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the right one or two that seemed eager to learn that they had starred in Harry’s dirty dreams.

“So,” he said nervously, “I’m guessing that at least a few of you might have a good idea of why you are here.”

Katie Bell shared a look with her fellow Gryffindor Chasers and the three all broke out into a fit of giggles and high-fives. This caused Harry to blush and Hermione’s eyebrows to rise up towards her hairline.

“I don’t think I want to know that that’s all about,” she said.

“Good point,” Harry said quickly. “Look, this is really embarrassing for me, and probably will be for some of you. Wish there were a way that this could be done with as little embarrassment as possible.”

“Oh, Harry, darling,” Lavender purred, in an obviously over-the-top embellishment. “I’d be more thrilled then embarrassed if you thought of me that way.”

“Oh, Harry, darling….me too!” cooed Katie as she winked at him.

“As long as we’re all here…maybe we should help Harry create some more lusty memories for Snape to steal,” added Angelina.

“You aren’t making this any easier for me, you know,” Harry complained, as the Chasers broke out in more laughter.

“Oh, Harry…if we couldn’t laugh about it, we’d have to cry,” Katie replied.

Hermione sensed that Harry was losing control of the situation, so she volunteered herself to take charge.

“I’ve got a suggestion,” she stated. “We’ll ask the Room to change into two separate rooms. Harry will be in one of these rooms, and each of us will meet with him one at a time to talk privately about…whatever needs talking about. That way, nobody has to be embarrassed more than is necessary.”

“Good idea,” said Lavender. “That way, we won’t feel embarrassed if we’re not the star in at least one of Harry’s wet dreams!”

As Hermione had noted to Ron, she had been the one to do the pacing in front of the Room’s doorway, and therefore in charge of requesting any modifications to its setup. She herded everyone towards the Room’s entrance, told them to all close their eyes to avoid the vertigo, and then imagined what she now truly needed.

Well, to be honest…her first preference would have been a cozy little love nest with a big bed that Harry could shag her senseless on, but she could only dream of him seeing her as more than a best friend, and as that best friend, she had Harry’s needs foremost.

The Room seemed to understand that subtle difference.

When the group opened their eyes, they found themselves in a slightly smaller version of the comfortable sitting room they’d first entered, with an opened doorway now built into the opposite wall. They collectively stepped forward, and peered inside this door, finding a small area with a lit fireplace, two chairs, and a small side table in between. Harry’s eyes zoomed in on the large box of Kleenex that sat on top of this table, and wondered whether the Room reckoned it’d be needed for crying eyes or his bloodied nose.

Probably both, he decided.

“Any particular order, Harry?” Hermione asked.

He glanced around at the different faces, and then shook his head.

“Best it be some random order, or else you might be trying to figure out patterns that might not be there.”

Hermione smiled. “You know me too well, don’t you Harry?”

He returned her smile, and forgot for a few seconds that there were others in the room. He grabbed her hands and said, “And I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“Hem, Hem!” growled Lavender, doing her best Umbridge impersonation. The sound was more than enough to cause Harry to drop his grip on Hermione’s hand, and to take a few steps back.

“Erm…since you need to leave the room last, I guess that you’ll need to go last, then?” he asked.

“That makes sense,” Hermione replied. She then spied a cup sitting on a table next to her that contained small stones bearing the necessary quantity of unique numbers.

“Guess the Room thought it a good idea as well,” she added with a smile, as she picked up the cup and raised it to eye level.

“Go on in, Harry…I’ll have everyone else draw for numbers, and mind the door.

“Thanks, Hermione,” he said with a smile. He then entered the smaller room, closed the door, and waited nervously by the box of Kleenex.

The Python Defense
A slightly schizophrenic, occasionally disturbing NC-17 H/Hr fanfic by canoncansodoff

A/N: Please remember that this is a crack-fic, not to be taken too seriously. Thanks to grenouille for looking at an earlier version of this chapter.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 2 1/2: A flirty middle part of the middle section

There were certain conversations with certain female DA members that Harry was dreading, and would have rather not needed to hold. One of those conversations involved the witch that Fate chose to walk first through the door.

Cho Chang approached Harry with her eyes cast downwards. He didn’t take it as a good sign that she reached for the box of Kleenex before taking a seat.

“Hi, Harry,” she said in a soft voice.

“Hi Cho,” he replied.

There was an awkward pause, that Harry eventually summoned enough courage to break.

“I’m sorry, Cho,” he began, “but Snape did manage to catch a glimpse of you during his attack.”

“He did?” she asked, with a voice full of hope. “But…it was only a glimpse?”

“Yeah…only lasted a few seconds, actually.”

“Was that….was that because you got so angry you forced him back before he could see more of me?” she asked.

Harry bit his lip. “Erm…no, it was because that was how long that wet kiss lasted before hols.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, as her eyes began to water. “Nothing about Valentine’s Day, then?”

“Erm…sorry,” Harry replied. “That was a bit of a fia…well, it really didn’t end well, did it?”

Cho sniffed, and nodded her head. “Yeah, could’ve gone better…not the sort of memory that you’d call up when you were…well, not a useful thought in certain circumstances.”

“I’m glad that you see it that way,” Harry replied.

“So was it only memories that Snape was pilfering?” Cho asked.

“Erm…no, a mixture of memories and…well, I guess you could call it wishful thinking, actually.”

“Could you also call them fantasies, Harry?”

“Erm…yeah.”

“And I wasn’t…sniff…I wasn’t in any of these fantasies, Harry?”

“Not in any of the ones that Snape chased after and caught,” he admitted.

The Ravenclaw’s eyes flashed towards Harry. “So you do have fantasies that involve me, then?”

Harry closed his eyes. “Yes, there were a few, actually…and I’d rather leave it at that.”

The black-haired witch nodded. “Were a few Harry?”

“Yes.”

“So why weren’t they in the mix?”

“Dunno,” he replied. “They might have been some of the ones that I saved…couldn’t tell…”

Cho’s eyes began to water again. “But the kiss…the kiss did?”

Harry nodded. “Anything that Snape saw, I was forced to relive.”

“Why the kiss, Harry?”

“Well, it was the first time that I kissed a girl in real life…on the lips, that is.”

“Does that mean that you’ve kissed a girl in…other…sniff…places?”

A confused look crossed Harry’s face. “Yeah…isn’t kissing each cheek the way that Fleur and the other Beauxbatons students do it?”

The Ravenclaw witch thought for a moment, and then her eyes went wide. “What about what I heard your Chasers giggling about outside? There wasn’t any kissing then?”

Harry did a bit of mental recall that caused his cheeks to blush deep red. He wanted to explain the differences between memories and “enhanced” memories, but Cho didn’t give him a chance. She burst into tears and let out an anguished cry at the sight of Harry’s flushed cheeks, grabbed the box of Kleenex, and ran out of the room.

“Hey Cho, wait…I’m sorry…it’s just….”

But Cho didn’t look back.

“Oh, bugger,” Harry moaned. “Might need that box of Kleenex for some of the others girls.”

The Room of Requirement agreed with this assessment, and popped a fresh box down onto the side table.

“Great…Just great,” Harry lamented.

Marietta Edgecombe then walked through the door, with eyes that were focused on something in the other room.

“What did you just do to my friend, Harry Potter?” she hissed.

“Nothing! Honest!” he protested. Harry then added under his breath, “Which might have been the problem.”

When Marietta kept glancing on either side of the door, Harry called out, “Listen, Marietta…you’re probably not going to be surprised when I say that you weren’t in any of the dreams or memories that Snape stole from me. Why don’t we leave it at that, so that you can go be with Cho?”

The Ravenclaw gave Harry a dirty look, then nodded her head and disappeared.

Hermione then popped her head in.

“Everything alright, Harry?” she asked.

“No, but everything is going about as well as expected.”

“Want to take a break, then?”

Harry sighed. “No, let’s keep going…want to get this done tonight.”

Hermione smiled in sympathy, and disappeared from the doorway.

oo00OO00oo

A sigh of relief came from Harry’s lips as Luna Lovegood walked into the door.

“Oh, thank Merlin, I’m glad that you’re next,” he said. “Come have a seat.”

“Okay, Harry,” she replied. The blonde-haired witch then walked straight up and sat down on his lap.

“Erm…Luna, wouldn’t you be more comfortable in the other chair?”

“No,” she replied airily. Luna then wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug.

“Erm...thanks, Luna,” he said, reaching up to pull her arms away from him.

“No problem, Harry,” she said. “You needed a hug, and since Hermione is minding the door…”

“What?”

“Oh, Harry,” Luna giggled. “So you need to talk with me about the faerie hunt?”

“Yeah…sorry about that. It was one of the memories that I really tried to hold onto, but…”

“No worries, Harry,” the witch said, as she planted a quick kiss on his forehead. “It wouldn’t be the first time that Snape has seen me that way.”

“Really?” asked Harry. His thoughts clouded, and he tensed up. “Snape hasn’t…forced himself on you, has he?”

Luna giggled. “No, Harry, not at all… he’s seen me a few times when I’ve needed to air out my robes…you should try it sometimes, Harry…it really cuts down on the wrackspurt attacks.”

“Erm…I’ll think about it Luna,” said Harry.

The Ravenclaw smiled, and then asked, “So our faerie hunt is one of your masturbatory memories too, huh?”

Harry choked. “You mean that…you use that to…”

“Of course,” said Luna, matter-of-factly. “Your penis is very large, after all.”

“Erm….thanks, Luna.”

“You’re welcome, Harry.”

Harry snorted, thinking how strange the conversation had become. He then frowned, and said, “But I’m afraid that Snape saw more than you running naked through the woods, though.”

Luna’s eyes grew large, and she squirmed a bit in Harry’s lap.

“So you’ve had those same dreams too?”

“Erm…which dreams?”

“The ones where you organize a co-ed naked dueling club (TM), and I invent a naked broom ride to rub off on while you spell spank me and witches collect your sweat?”

“No Luna, I can’t say that I’ve ever had that dream,” Harry replied, as he nervously shifted in his seat. “I was talking about the faerie hunt.”

“Oh,” said Luna. “Did I get attacked by wrackspurts that made me forget that you put your very large penis inside me at the end of the run?”

“No,” Harry said stridently. “I was talking about the, erm…the loo break.”

“What?”

“You know,” Harry said nervously. “In the middle of the Forest, when I said that it was so cold out there that my pee would probably freeze before it hit the ground? You said that we should find out, so you squatted right in front of me and let loose.”

Luna thought for a moment, and then nodded.

“Sure, Harry…what about it?”

“Well that was part of my memory.”

“Oh,” replied the Ravenclaw witch. A sly smile then crossed her face, and she asked, “So you liked watching me pee, Harry?”

“Erm…well, it was…erm, interesting, and certainly memorable, but…”

“It’s okay, Harry, you wouldn’t be the only guy into that sort of thing.”

“Into…pee?” Harry asked. “You think that I…no, Luna, it’s not like…well, I am not into that sort of thing.”

“If you say so, Harry,” Luna replied brightly. “So am I running with you when you use this memory to masturbate, or someone else?”

“What?”

“I would understand, of course…not that uncommon to alter a memory and swap out one witch’s head with another’s. I do it all the time.”

“Erm…no, Luna. The memory that Snape saw was all you…don’t think I could imagine anyone else running naked through the Forest with me.”

“I suppose so…Hermione isn’t much of a runner, is she?”

“Exactly. But….erm, why would you think that?”

“Why would I think that you would rather it had been Hermione that was running naked with you in the woods, and that it was Hermione who was masturbating when she thought about your very large penis bouncing up and down when you ran?”

“Erm….yes, or…no…or…dunno,” Harry replied, now completely confused. Trying to dig himself out of a hole with a summary, he then asked, “So…we’re good, then?”

Luna nodded. “Unless you want me to hang around for a three-way…but I suppose you’d first want some time alone with Hermione, right?”

“What?”

“Bye, Harry,” Luna chirped, as she planted another kiss on his forehead and jumped off of his lap.

Harry’s mind raced over what Luna had just jokingly offered. It slowed down a bit to take in the associated images.

“Harry?”

The Boy-Who-Lived was jostled from his thoughts, and looked up. Luna was still in the room, with her hand on the doorknob and a bright smile on her face.

“Something else, Luna?” he asked.

“Guess that sort of thing excites you more than my pee does, huh?”

“What’s that?”

“A three-way with Hermione and me?”

“Erm, what makes you say that?”

“The bulge in your trousers.”

Harry looked down at his lap, and quickly crossed his legs. It was a painful action, but less embarrassing than any other alternative.

“Thanks for the help, Luna.”

“Anytime, Harry,” she replied. “Would you like Hermione to jump the queue so that she could help you take care of your tent?”

“Help me with…no, I don’t think so.”

“Ah, so you want to take care of that yourself,” she replied. “Well, good thing that the Kleenex is within reach, then.”

Harry laughed, despite himself.

“Just send in the next witch, Luna…and thanks again for being such a good friend. I needed that laugh.”

The blonde-haired witch’s eyes went wide, and watered up.

Harry frowned.

“Did I say something wrong, Luna?”

“Am I really your friend, Harry?” she asked meekly.

He tilted his head. “Of course you are, Luna.”

“Oh, Harry!” Luna cried, as she rushed back towards him.

Harry grimaced with the expectation that she’d jump back onto his lap, but she seemed sensitive to this fear, and stood by the side of his chair when she leaned over and kissed him on the lips.

It was another one of those soggy kisses.

“What’s wrong, Luna? Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m so happy, Harry!” she replied. She then grabbed the box of Kleenex and ran out of the room.

Harry shook his head in confusion, and then turned towards the empty side table.

“A little help here?” he asked.

A new box of Kleenex materialized.

“Thank you,” he snarked, using a nasally sing-song voice.

oo00OO00oo

“Hey, Harry,” Lavender Brown purred, as she sauntered into the room.

“Hey, Lavender…have a seat,” Harry nervously replied.

His housemate said “Thanks,” and walked up to the two chairs without bothering to close the door. She frowned at the furniture arrangement, and pulled the empty seat around until it was right in front of Harry’s, and close enough for their knees to touch when she sat down.

Hermione’s head popped into the still-opened door.

“Do you want the door closed?” she asked, frowning at her dorm mate’s seating adjustments.

“Yeah, thanks,” Harry replied, giving Hermione a glance over Lavender’s shoulders.

Hermione held his gaze for a few seconds, and divined what he was thinking almost as easily as Snape could have. She smiled, rolled her eyes, and mouthed the words, “Have fun!”

Harry shook his head, and let out a sigh that was cut short when Lavender grabbed his knee.

“So, Harry…tell me all of the ways that you’ve ravished me in your mind,” she purred. “And don’t leave out the smutty details!”

The Boy-Who-Lived choked on some spittle.

“Erm…well, actually, Lavender…I didn’t have any memories or fantasies that involved you.”

Lavender snorted, smiled, and flashed him a wink as she unbuttoned the top button of her jumper.

“Want to fix that deficiency right now, then?” she asked coyly, as a cleavage-revealing second button popped free.

“Erm, Lavender, I appreciate the interest, and the offer, but…”

“But somebody else comes to mind when you milk your monkey?”

Harry choked, coughed, and wheezed in response. He finally was able to stammer out, “I…I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

“Thought so,” the witch said with a smile. Lavender then grabbed Harry’s knee, leaned over and gave him a surprisingly chaste peck on the lips. She then stood, and before leaving asked,

“Still…if you could hold off for a few days…I’ve got most of next week blocked out in the betting pool.”

“What?”

“Yes, I know, rather pointless of me to hope for that,” Lavender sighed, as she opened the door.

oo00OO00oo

Talks with the next three witches were rather straight forward, and served as a bit of a breather for Harry.

Hannah Abbott was fairly certain that she wouldn’t have starred in one of Harry’s wank-worthy memories or fantasies, and was relieved when he confirmed that fact. She did thank Harry for telling her this in private, and left him by saying that Ernie would be glad for the lack of competition.

Padma and Parvati then insisted on sharing a conference, saying that they always shared everything. Parvati was a little disappointed that more hadn’t been made within Harry’s mind of the Yule Ball date. This gave Harry opportunity to finally apologize for his behavior the year previous. He then apologized to Padma on Ron’s behalf, which was appreciated, as the Ravenclaw held out no hopes that the git would do so on his own.

oo00OO00oo

The pleasant feelings of having made things right with the Patil twins flew out the door when Susan Bones walked in next. This was another one of those discussions that Harry had been dreading, and the first words out of her mouth didn’t bode well.

“Harry Potter, I think that I should be rather cross with you!” she chided, as she marched up to his chair and placed her hands on her curvaceous hips.

“Erm…why…why exactly is that?” he replied nervously.

“Hannah told me that you didn’t have any pervy thoughts about her.”

“Erm, so…”

“Well, why not?” Susan demanded.

“What?”

“Why wouldn’t you lust after my best friend?”

“Erm…”

“She isn’t pretty enough for you?”

“No, not at all…I think that she’s really cute, it’s just that…”

“Oh, so you’re one of those boys who won’t give a girl a second look unless she has huge baps?”

“No, actually…”

“Her bum then…not curvy enough?”

“Well…”

“So it’s the hair color then?” asked Susan. “Let me guess…Snape saw me in one of your memories, didn’t he?”

“Erm, well…I’m sorry, but…yes.”

“Knew it,” Susan said dismissively. “So Ginny was right when she said that Potter men only fancy redheads.”

“No, actually…she wasn’t,” Harry replied. “Why would you think that?”

“Well your mum was red-headed, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah? Well, Ron has red hair too…doesn’t mean that I fancy him, does it?”

Harry paused, and then quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with same sex relationships…”

Susan cocked her head in thought.

“So you’ve perved on me, but not Hannah…and it’s not because my baps are bigger, or bum less boyish, or that I have red hair. You don’t know me any more than you know her, so….what in Morgana’s name do I have that she doesn’t?”

Harry looked at Susan blankly, rather shocked by the verbal assault. The only thing that he could think to respond with was the truth.

“A girlfriend?”

“What?”

“You asked what you had that she didn’t,” Harry explained.

“But…Hannah and I are friends…and she has lots of other girlfriends.”

“Girlfriends-girlfriends,” Harry replied with frustration. “The kind of girlfriend that a girl snogs in the Owlery.”

Susan stared at Harry for a moment, until the Lumos spell lit up above her head.

“Oh, shit!” she muttered.

“Erm, yeah…exactly,” Harry replied.

oo00OO00oo

Susan was shocked when Harry admitted to her that he’d caught her and Lisa in the Owlery that past Fall, saying that they had tried so hard to keep their relationship a secret. Any anger that she might have felt about the fact that he hadn’t left as soon as he spied them was overwhelmed with more shock, when Harry admitted that it had been one of the memories he’d tried hardest to protect from Snape. She asked why, and Harry told her that it was mainly because he didn’t want Snape to know their secret. But then he also had to admit that he held that memory so close because it was one of the sexiest things that he’d ever seen. Susan snorted, and asked if Harry had “seen” that memory more than once. She was flattered by his positive response, even if she didn’t think of wizards “that way.” Susan left him with a promise to warn Lisa, and to ask if she might consider turning him into an “exception sandwich.”

Katie Bell was next in line, and she promptly invited Angelina and Alicia into the room. This earned Harry another raised eyebrow from Hermione, to which he shrugged his shoulders. Hermione’s mouth then flew open in shock when she spotted the bulge that Susan’s sandwich suggestion had created, but she didn’t say anything as she closed the door.

Harry’s teammates didn’t let him off so easily.

oo00OO00oo

“So Suzie got your wand wound up, stud?” asked Alicia.

“Hush,” Harry admonished. “You know that I don’t kiss and tell, sweetheart,” Harry then added with a smile, falling easily into the kind of flirty banter with the opposite sex that he’d only risk with his Quidditch teammates.

“So how many dirty movies did we star in, Harry?” Angelina asked, as she sat down on the chair opposite of Harry’s.

“Erm…two, I’m afraid,” he admitted. “I tried my best to keep them from him, really I did.”

“I’m sure you did,” Alicia said, as she casually sat down on Angelina’s lap.

Harry’s eyes bugged out when he saw this, and then saw a gleam in Katie’s eyes. She allowed no time for embarrassment as he did an emergency “adjustment” to his lap so that she could mirror Alicia’s actions with causing him pain.

“Comfortable?” asked Angelina.

Katie smiled, and wiggled her bum.

“I’d say that it’s a little bumpy,” she snarked. “But I’d be lying…there’s nothing little about it.”

“Katie!” Harry whined.

“Oh relax, Harry dear,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “You know that we tease you because we love you.”

“And because you still owe us for that time back in Third Year,” added Alicia with a wink.

“Erm…yeah, about that…”

“You do know that we left the locker room door open on purpose, right?” asked Angelina.

“What?” Harry asked. “You wanted me to see you three in the shower?”

Angelina shrugged. “We were a little disappointed after the poker game…”

“More like a little horny…” said Katie.

“Speak for yourself, Katie,” Angelina said. “I was really horny that night, and…well we all decided that after the next practice we would see if we could all fit under that tent in your boxers.”

“You mean that you wanted me to join you?”

“Join us, go down on us, shag us…just about anything other than run away from us, like you did,” Katie lamented.

Harry gulped. “Erm…yeah, about that…so like I said, you three were involved in a couple of my sheep…”

“Sheep, Harry? I thought getting involved with sheep was a guy thing?”

“No, no…that’s not what I meant,” Harry complained. “You see, I was trying to defend my memories and fantasies by pretending that they were sheep. I was a sheepdog guarding the flock, and Snape was a coyote.”

“A what?”

“A coyote,” Harry explained. “It’s like a wolf, only smaller…find them in the States.”

“Why a coyote?” Katie asked.

“It was one of my cousin’s favorite cartoons,” he explained. “Snape was clueless...he thought that he was a wolf, too. Doesn’t matter, actually…what matters is that I couldn’t hold the mental construction together well enough to guard my thoughts, and one of the scenes that Snape saw was a straight-up memory of the strip poker game that we played.”

“Straight-up memory?” asked Alicia. “You make it sound as if the other memory was enhanced, somehow.”

When Harry cheeks turned bright red, Katie’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, Harry, you bad boy…you inserted us into a wanking fantasy!”

“No, no, it’s not like that,” Harry protested.

“So you were inserting into us during your wanking fantasy?”

“No, no…it begins with me peeking into your shower, just as it really happened.”

“But you don’t run away in your fantasy, do you?” Angelina asked.

Harry shook his head.

“No, in this version you three pull me into the shower and give me a choice. Either I explain to McGonagall what I was doing being a Peeping Tom, or…”

“Or we take the law into our own hands and give you a spanking?” Katie asked.

“No!” Harry protested.

“You punish us for leaving the door open and spank us, instead?”

“Katie!”

“I agree,” said Alicia. “You can tell us your fantasies later, Katie. I’m much more interested in Harry’s wanking fantasy.”

“Hey,” said Harry. “I never said that I wanked to this fantasy!”

“Does that mean that you haven’t?”

“Erm…no, not necessarily,” Harry admitted.

Katie squirmed in delight, which didn’t help the bumpiness “problem.”

“So in this fantasy we give you a choice, then,” Alicia said impatiently. “Either you turn yourself in, or…”

“Or…erm…or…”

“Come on, Harry!” said Alicia.

“I’d rather that Harry comes on us,” giggled Katie.

Harry sighed. “Alright…I had to be your soap boy. There…happy?”

“No, not nearly enough details,” grinned Katie. “So you had to soap each of us?”

“Yes.”

“Soap all of each of us?”

“Yes, Katie,” Harry admitted, burying his face with embarrassment into her sleeve.

“And just how long do you rub our wet naked bodies with your strong muscular hands, and stroke us with those long fingers of yours?”

“Erm…until you come.”

“Until we come clean, or until we come with mind-shattering orgasms that make us shiver, shake and go weak in the knees?”

Harry responded with a groan that resonated along Katie’s robe sleeve. In response, she pulled back her arm, and raised his chin with her fingers so that their eyes met.

“Do we come clean, Harry, or do we come multiple times?”

“More like the second,” Harry said, closing his eyes.

“Ooh, I like this version much better than reality,” Alicia cooed. “And then what happens?”

Their former Seeker turned towards Alicia, opened his eyes, and admitted, “Erm, then…I soap myself.”

“What’s that Harry? I can’t hear you.”

Harry closed his eyes, sighed, and said much more clearly, “Katie says that I’m still dirty, and volunteers to be my soap girl.”

“So Angelina and I don’t want to be your soap witches too, Harry?” pouted Alicia.

“Well, yes…you do,” he admitted. “I suggest that you do some nude soap wrestling and fight for it, but you decide instead to play ‘rock-parchment-wand’ to see who gets to clean my wand. And the thing is, you all know each other so well that every time you try, it’s a tie. So you keep pounding your fists in your hands, and each time you do that your breasts jiggle and sway real sexily, and that gets me so excited that I can’t wait and…and I start to clean my wand myself.”

“Oh,” said Katie, with a soft moan.

“Oh is right,” said Alicia, as her eyes dilated and she squirmed in Angelina’s lap.

“So then what happens, Harry?” Angelina asked huskily.

“Well….this is where the fantasy starts to match up with reality,” Harry admitted.

“So you’re wanking both ways?” asked Katie.

Harry nodded. “In the fantasy, you three turn and notice what I’m doing. And you forget the game because you’re sort of…mesmerized by what you’re seeing, and…”

“And what, Harry?” asked Angelina.

“And then you three can’t help yourselves, either, and you begin to play with yourselves as you watch me. And I’m watching you, and we watch each other, and then…”

There was a pause in the narrative.

“Oh, Morgana, Harry…and then what?” Katie demanded.

Harry snorted.

“And then I clean my pajamas with a Scourgify charm.”

There was another pregnant pause, before the three witches opened their eyes, saw the states that they were all in, and burst out laughing.

“What?” asked Harry. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m a guy, and I fancy girls, and….”

Katie placed a finger on Harry’s lips. “Relax, Harry…we’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing at ourselves.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because our knickers probably need a cleaning charm after that story,” Alicia smirked.

“Speak for yourself, Alicia,” Katie protested.

“What…you didn’t soak Harry’s lap with that story?”

“No. I didn’t wear knickers today.”

“Oh, Merlin…too much information, Katie!”

“More like too much fabric between us, Harry,” the Chaser snarked, as she pulled his head to her chest.

“Merlin, Harry, that was intense!” Angelina admitted.

“Yeah, well…I’m just sorry that I couldn’t keep it all away from Snape,” said Harry.

“That is a definite drawback,” agreed Alicia.

“There’s always hope that Daphne is right about him,” offered Harry.

“What’s that, Harry?”

“Oh, one of the Slytherin witches thinks that Snape is gay. If she’s right, then at least he won’t be using my wanking memory to wank.”

“That is a disturbing thought,” Katie shuttered.

“What, that Snape’s gay, or that he wanks?”

“Either one.”

Angelina snorted. “That might explain things, though.”

“What things?” Harry asked.

“Well…just that there’s always been a few rumors running around about the Headmaster…why he never married. But if he was gay, and so was Snape, then…”

“Stop!’ Harry shouted. “And pass the fucking brain bleach!”

Alicia laughed. “Guess it does spoil that little moment that we were sharing, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, about that,” Harry said, after he caught his breath. “I’m really sorry that I was using you three that way.”

“No worries, Harry,” Katie replied. “Not like we aren’t guilty of the same thing.”

“What?”

Alicia smiled. “I’d tell Katie to speak for herself, but she knows damn well that what she said applies to all three of us.”

“Applies to the whole bloody Gryffindor girl’s dorm,” added Angelina.

“Right…you’re having me on,” Harry replied.

“Don’t think so,” said Katie.

“Be that as it may,” said Harry. “I just thought you should know that I value you all as my friends and teammates, and that I hope that my hormones haven’t messed that up.”

Katie stared at Harry for a moment, then smiled and tussled his hair.

“Of course it won’t change things,” she replied. “I just said that we’re in the same boat, didn’t I? How about taking turns…Alicia, what about sharing that fantasy involving you, Harry, and a tin of chocolate sauce?”

Alicia and Harry shouted, “Katie!” in stereo.

“Or maybe later,” Katie said with a grin.

Harry let out a deep sigh. “Thanks, guys…you three are the best.”

“Of course we are,” said Angelina. “Just wish that you would let us prove that fact.”

“Yeah, Harry,” said Katie. “Just because Umbridge banned you from playing Quidditch doesn’t mean that you’re banned from the Quidditch locker rooms.”

“Or shower rooms,” Alicia said with a wink.

“Erm, thanks for the offer,” Harry replied.

“Uh-oh, girls, I hear a ‘but’ coming,” warned Angelina.

“What are you trying to tell us, Harry?” pouted Katie. “That we’ve been cast out of your wanking fantasies by another witch?”

Harry’s eyes bulged, and he failed to reply with anything more than a stammer.

Alicia sighed, stood up, and pulled Katie from Harry’s lap.

“C’mon, girlfriend, you already know the answer to that question.”

“What do you mean?” Harry worried. In a much smaller voice he added, “Is it that obvious?”

Angelina stood and nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

Harry closed his eyes and sighed. “I do hope that we are talking about the same girl.”

“I’m sure that we are, Harry,” Katie replied.

“Erm, yeah, on that point,” said Harry. He then fumbled in his pocket and retrieved a small package. “I should give this back to you Katie…wouldn’t feel right holding on to them.”

Katie gave Harry a sad smile, then nodded and reached for the package. Inside was the thong that had been lost during the strip poker game.

“Oh look, Katie…now you’ve got something to wear,” Angelina commented.

“A sponge might be more practical at this point,” added Alicia with a smile.

“Shut it, you two,” said Katie. “I think that it’s rather sweet of Harry.” She pulled him up from his chair and into a hug.

“Thanks, Harry,” she whispered into her ear. “You treat her right, or Merlin help me, I’ll wrap this thong around your neck and strangle you.”

The young wizard laughed. “Not a bad way to go, but…you’d have to get in line behind me and her father.”

Alicia and Angelina insisted that they get hugs from Harry as well. Angelia grabbed one of his hands as she broke her embrace.

“I think we all knew that this day would come,” she said, clearing a mock tear from her eye. “Our little wizard has all grown-up, and it’s time for him to spread his wings.”

“More like it’s time for him to spread her legs,” Katie snarked.

“Hush,” Angelina said with a smile. “It’s almost like you’re graduating.”

“Oh, please, Angelina,” Harry protested.

“No, no…it’s true,” she replied. “And I think I speak on behalf of Katie and Alicia when I say that this calls for a graduation present.”

“Absolutely,” said Katie. She turned towards the door and asked, “So how much shag time do you think we’d have before Hermione get suspicious?”

“Katie!” Harry whined.

“Harry,” Angelina continued, “I offer as a graduation present the following bit of advice.”

“What’s that Captain?”

Angelina gave Harry a wide smile that provided a brilliant contrast between her pearly white teeth and chocolate-colored skin. She then leaned forward, winked, and cooed, “Harem.”

Harry lost his eyebrows to his hairline as the other two Chasers giggled and turned this “advice” into a chant.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

The three Chasers made no effort to quiet their chanting as they opened the door and left the room. This garnered some strong responses from Hermione and Ginny Weasley, who were now the only two witches left outside the door. Hermione saw the smile on Harry’s lips, assumed that this was all a joke, and joined in.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Katie snorted, gave Hermione a big hug, and said, “Oh, Hermione…I’m so glad that you agree…it’s so much easier when the Primary approves.”

This produced one last round of raucous laughter as the three witches left the room.

The Python Defense
A bawdy and slightly disturbing NC-17 H/Hr crack fic by canoncansodoff

A/N: This is a crack-fic. Relax and have fun. Bring some bleach, just in case.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 2 ¾: A happy, smutty end to the middle (once Ginny exits)

Ginny stared at the bushy-haired gatekeeper as she walked through the doorway.

“So, Hermione…now that it’s my turn, you don’t need to hold my Extendable Ear in protective custody, right?”

The Fifth-Year Prefect rolled her eyes, and handed over Ginny’s personal version of the Twin’s magical eavesdropping device.

Harry frowned. “You weren’t trying to listen in on the other conversations, were you Ginny?”

“No, of course not,” she replied. “Not that she believed me,” waving towards Hermione. “Made me hand it over before Cho even walked in.”

Harry snorted at the second eye roll that Hermione performed behind Ginny’s back.

The red-haired witch sat down next to Harry, smiled, and forgave him in advance for all of the times that he’s used her naked body within his smutty dreams.

She wasn’t quite as forgiving when Harry told her that the only thing that Snape had been able to find within his “smutty memories” involving her was the bum-baring towel-drop.

“What do you mean you don’t remember seeing anything other than my bum?” Ginny demanded. “How could you forget the time that you saw my bits when I was naked in bed?”

Harry frowned. “When did that happen?”

“Oh, right,” Ginny whined. “As if you could just forget what you yelled while I was in the middle of my third orgasm.”

“Humor me, then,” Harry asked. “What did I yell when you were in the middle of your third orgasm?”

Ginny’s lips broke into a sly grin. “You said, ‘Quit humping me!’.”

Harry coughed violently. “I…cough…you were…cough…humping me in bed?”

“Erm yeah, sort off,” she explained. “It was actually my Harry Potter plushy that I had between my legs, but you failed to appreciate the difference.”

“Oh.” Harry gasped. He then added, “And you’re certain that this happened?”

Ginny shrugged. “Of course, Harry…not something a girl would forget, don’t you think? The way that you stood right there and watched me with your mouth wide open, you were so excited…”

“Could have just as easily been shock,” Harry replied. “So what made me walk into your room uninvited like that?”

Ginny giggled. “What makes you think that you weren’t invited…or that you found me in my room?”

“You mean you were…can’t decide what’s crazier,” Harry muttered. “You wanting me to see you doing that, or you doing that in my bed.”

“It was both,” Ginny offered.

Harry shook his head and moaned. “So when did this supposedly happen?”

“Last Summer, just before your trial,” Ginny replied. “Are you sure that you don’t remember it, Harry?”

“Quite certain.”

“Hmmm…there was that bludger hit to the head that you took during Quidditch try-outs last fall…maybe that did something.”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe if I re-enact it, that would jog your memory?” the red-haired witch offered.

“No, thanks…that’s…quite alright,” Harry stammered. A different thought then came to mind that wasn’t any less disturbing, but might provide some answers. He stood up from his chair, and started to walk towards the door.

“Where are you going, Harry?” asked Ginny.

“Need to ask Hermione a question.”

“But what would she know about this?”

“Hush!” Harry hissed, as he opened the door.

“No, I’m serious,” Ginny whined.

Harry thought about replying with his godfather’s standard line, but didn’t want Ginny to think that he valued bantering with her.

“Right,” he therefore replied.

When he poked his head through the doorway, Harry spied Hermione sitting on a couch pushed up against the opposite wall…about as far away from his position as possible. She had been staring at the floor with her hands worrying themselves, but when she heard the door open her eyes flashed towards it and her hands froze in place.

“Need something, Harry?” she quickly asked.

The Boy-Who-Lived got most of an “I might” response out before his voice faltered at Ginny’s touch.

“We might,” the red-haired witch corrected, placing a protective arm around Harry’s waist.

Harry gave Ginny a stern look as he wiggled out of her grasp and entered the front room.

“Ginny here thinks that I should have remembered something that I can’t for the life of me remember,” he said.

“And would rather have it stay that way,” he thought.

“Yes, Harry?” Hermione asked. “Is there something I can do to help?”

“Yeah, actually, there might just be,” he replied, as he crossed the room and sat next to the bushy-haired witch.

Ginny was rather upset that there wasn’t room for her to squeeze in on Harry’s other side, and took it out on the chair that she flopped down upon. There was a loud scraping noise as she scooted the chair across the floor, until it was physically touching the shared love seat.

Harry frowned at this action, even as he tried to ignore it. He turned to Hermione and asked, “Do you remember about a month ago, when I gave you a small package and asked you to keep it safe for me?”

Hermione nodded. “Of course, Harry.”

“I know that it’s getting late, but could you get it for me…or maybe allow Dobby to fetch it for you from the Tower?”

Hermione cocked her head, then shook it as she reached for her ever-present book bag.

“No need to do that, Harry…I’ve got it here with me.”

“Really?” asked Harry, arching an eyebrow.

Hermione shrugged her shoulders as she rummaged through her rucksack. “I threw it into the moke skin pouch that you gave me for Christmas,” she explained.

“Oh, that makes sense,” Harry replied with a smile.

Ginny’s eyes narrowed, but she held herself from saying anything about how nice a gift that was (totally ignoring the fact that he had given her a “friendship” bracelet that had easily cost twice as much). She didn’t shy away, however, from a little snarkiness.

“Isn’t it a little dangerous keeping something that he asked you to protect in your bag?”

“Not really,” Hermione replied with a shrug. “The pouch is charmed so that only I can open it, and I added a charm that makes it easier for me to find it if it goes missing, or if somebody takes it.”

“Also hard for anyone else to mistake it for their pouch,” Harry said with a smile.

Hermione stopped her search for a moment, so that she could share that smile.

“Except maybe you, huh?” she asked, with eyes that sparkled.

The reason for the sparkling eye portion of this response became clear to Ginny once Hermione retrieved the fist-sized pouch…Harry had paid extra to have one of Colin’s wizarding pictures embedded into the inside of the flap. Ginny scowled as she watched the picture animate.

Harry and Hermione’s faces are shown in profile, as they stand side-by-side. Large fluffy snowflakes fall, and the two try to catch them on the tips of their tongues. Hermione succeeds straight away, but Harry isn’t as quick. When she turns and teases him about his seeker skills, he gets even by leaning over and licking a snowflake off from her nose. They both laugh, and then the wizarding photograph loops back to the start.

“Something wrong, Ginny?” Harry asked, as he raised an eyebrow.

“Erm, no…not at all,” she replied, looking down towards her hands, which were clenched in her lap. The bracelet that Harry had given her, engraved “To my kid sister Ginny, from Harry”, hung limply from her wrist.

“Here we go,” Hermione stated, as she pulled the small wooden box from the pouch.

“Thanks,” Harry said, as he took the box and cast an opening charm on it.

Inside were six small stoppered bottles, filled with strands of gray mist.

“What are they, Harry?” Ginny asked.

“Memories.”

“Memories of what?”

“I don’t know,” Harry replied with a shrug. “Other then the fact that they are things that I didn’t want to remember.”

“How does that work, exactly?” asked Ginny.

“The Headmaster owns a rune-covered stone basin called a pensieve,” Harry explained. “It’s a storage device of sorts that he’s loaned to Snape. Before every one of my Remedial Potions lessons, Snape pulls certain memories out of his brain and sticks them in the bowl, just in case something were to happen and I were to reverse his Legilimens attack and enter his head.”

“So if you pull the memory out of your head, you no longer remember what it contains?”

“That’s the idea,” Harry said with a nod. “I’ve watched him do this enough times to figure out how to do it myself. Didn’t have a basin to store them in, so I used these little bottles instead, one per memory.”

“You think that one of the things that Ginny thinks you should remember might be inside one of these bottles?”

Harry shrugged. “It’s a possibility. I also could have been Obliviated.”

“How would you know?” asked Ginny.

Harry bit his lower lip in thought. “There’s two ways, I think. I could just open the vials and shepherd the memory strings back inside my brain…but that would sort of defeat the whole purpose of me pulling them in the first place.”

“But what’s the alternative?” asked Hermione.

“Get hold of Dumbledore’s pensieve,” Harry replied. “Except that I’m certain that it’s still in Snape’s office, and I don’t fancy running back down there right now.”

“I’ll go, Harry,” Hermione offered.

The Boy-Who-Lived shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

“But she’s the brightest witch in her generation, Harry,” Ginny noted. “And a Prefect as well.”

“Yes, but still…wouldn’t want to risk it. Especially since I’ve got a better idea…Dobby?”

Harry’s hyper-eager friend appeared with a pop.

“Yes, Mister Harry Potter, Sir?” Dobby asked. “Does the Great Harry Potter, Sir be wanting Dobby to be fetching Miss Greenie again?”

“Erm, no Dobby,” Harry said quickly, casting a nervous glance towards an intrigued bushy-haired witch. He paid no mind to Ginny’s reaction…not that there was one, as the younger witch hadn’t spent nearly enough time around Harry’s diminutive friend to understand his patois.

“Do you remember when you fetched some gillyweed from the nasty Bat-Man’s office?”

“Harry!” Hermione admonished.

“What?” Harry said with a grin. “It’s Dobby’s description…not mine!”

“Yes, Mr. Harry Potter, Sir,” the House-Elf said brightly. “Dobby remembers.”

“Do you think that you could still get into the nasty Bat-Man’s office?”

Dobby thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Nasty Bat-Man be putting extra-nasty protections on his supply closet, but Dobby be being able to get to the rest of the office.”

“That’s great,” Harry said. “Is the nasty Bat-Man in his office right now?”

Dobby thought, and then shook his head. “The nasty Bat-Man be…be doing nasty things to himself in his quarters.”

Harry grimaced. “Right, that’s good then…well, it’s not, but…would you be willing to do another favor for me, Dobby?”

The House-Elf nodded with a predictable level of vigor.

“Thanks, Dobby… in nasty Bat-Man’s office, there be being a stone basin that belongs to the Headmaster…would Dobby be thinking that he would be able to be bringing that basin here?”

Dobby closed his eyes and thought, as his small body trembled.

“Would Dobby be thinking,, Harry?” asked Hermione.

“Sssh!” Harry hissed.

Dobby disappeared before he replied to Harry one way or the other. A few minutes later, he returned with the pensieve balanced perilously atop his head. Harry snatched it away and set the stone object down onto a low table before the weight toppled the poor House-Elf over.

“Thanks, Dobby…you’re the best,” Harry replied.

The House-Elf blushed, jumped up and down, and said all of the predictable things about how great Harry was.

“So now what do we do?” Ginny asked.

Harry frowned. “Good question, actually…you two could dive into each memory and experience it for yourselves, except…”

“Except what?”

“Except they might be something terrible…something that I wouldn’t want you two to experience either. Or…something terribly embarrassing that I wouldn’t want you to see.”

“Like what?”

“Erm, dunno…maybe me getting caught…well, you know, in the shower…or in my bed…”

“I’ll take that risk,” Ginny said with a grin.

“Ginny!” Hermione scolded.

“Dobby be being able to help, if Mister Harry Potter, Sir if the Great Harry Potter, Sir be wanting it,” announced the House-Elf.

Harry looked at Dobby for a moment, and then reluctantly smiled.

“You’re able to view memories in pensieves, Dobby?”

The House-Elf nodded.

“Thanks, Dobby, that’d be a big help,” Harry replied. “But I want you to be safe, okay…I just want you to view each memory for a few seconds, and then come back out and tell us who is in the memory.”

“Dobby be able to help the Great Harry Potter Sir that way!” the House-Elf announced.

After Hermione’s concern was noted, and Dobby was warned once again not to stay too long within each memory, Harry dumped the first vial into the bowl. Dobby stood up on top of the table, and leaned his head into the bowl. His legs were so short that Harry had to grab them to keep Dobby from falling completely into the basin.

Dobby pulled his head out five seconds after he dived into the memory.

“This be being a nasty memory of the Great Harry Potter, Sir’s, nasty Aunt that he be blowing up. She be playing with her dog.”

“What’s so nasty about a woman playing with her dog?” Ginny asked.

“I don’t even want to think about the possibilities,” Harry decided with a shudder. He quickly scooped that memory out of the bowl, and replaced it with another.

Dobby dived in.

“This be being a memory of the Great Harry Potter, Sir and his Weasley.”

Ginny smiled broadly, and started to say something, but Harry cut her off.

“Which Weasley, Dobby?”

“The Weasley with the red-hair,” the House-Elf replied.

“We all have red hair,” Ginny said with exasperation. “Was it me?”

Dobby shook his head. “It be being The Great Harry Potter Sir in his bedroom with his not-as-bestest friend Ronald.”

Harry’s face paled.

“Oh, no,” he moaned. “Don’t tell me that….”

“Relax, Harry,” Hermione said, grabbing hold of his arm. “Maybe it’s not what you think?”

“I hope that it isn’t,” Harry replied. “Don’t think I want to…but…fuck!”

“Language, Harry,” Hermione said reflexively. She then turned to Dobby and quietly asked, “Dobby…are Harry and Ron….touching each other…in the memory?”

Dobby shook his head, eliciting a sigh of relief from Harry.

“Were they watching each other as they touched themselves, Dobby?”

“Ginny!” Hermione scolded.

Dobby was shaking his head before she had the chance to tell him not to answer.

“Wonder what was wrong, then?” Harry said.

“Would you…maybe Dobby could whisper what he saw to me?” Hermione offered.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, go ahead…I’ll trust you’ll know what to do with what Dobby saw.”

The House-Elf nodded, jumped over onto Hermione’s lap, and whispered into the witch’s ear. What he said made her eyes bulge, her cheeks flush deep red, and her lips to forget their recent admonishment.

“No fucking way!” she exclaimed.

“Language!” Harry teased.

“No fuck….Harry, I can’t believe it’s what Dobby thinks he saw Ron doing…I’ve got to see this for myself.”

“Is it…are you sure….”

“Look, if it’s just as awful for me to see what was going on as it was for you, you could always teach me how to extract the memory of me seeing it, right?”

Harry frowned. “What did Dobby think he saw Ron doing?”

Hermione looked at Harry, with cheeks puffed out as if she were about to burst. She then looked at Ginny, and they did.

Amongst long stretches of uncontrollable laughter, Hermione gasped out the following words.

“Harry!” laugh-laugh-laugh Walked in! laugh-laugh-laugh “Ron!” laugh-laugh-laugh “Shagging!” laugh-laugh-laugh “Shepherd’s pie!”

It took Ginny much longer to sort out the sentence structure then Harry. So by the time she demanded to see for herself, he’d already scooped up the memory from the bowl.

“We’ll take that as read and move on, I think.” he stated.

Fate was enjoying the scene so much that it ensured that the memory that Harry and Ginny were searching for was the last that Dobby screened. Before getting there, and having Dobby pronounce that “Harry Potter Sir’s Weasel Fan-Girly be shagging her dolly!” they learned that Harry had tried to distance himself from memories involving Molly and Arthur, his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and Colin together with very own Harry Potter doll.

As soon as the memory review was complete, Harry asked Dobby to return the pensieve to Snape’s office, and then to bring three more stoppered vials to the Room of Requirement. When Ginny asked why, Harry explained that he had no desire to remember being told by Dobby what he had tried to forget, and that he planned on extracting the memory of the entire memory of his discussion with Ginny from his head. He then added that he thought Hermione and Ginny might want to do the same.

Hermione quickly agreed, more for Harry’s benefit then her own…if given a choice she would have held onto the thought of Ron plowing a pie.

Ginny, however, flat out refused, and became quite indignant when Harry asked her why. She claimed that he just didn’t understand, and began to cry. The sobs grew stronger when she asked if Snape had seen more explicit memories involving other witches, and Harry reluctantly said yes. He then summoned the box of Kleenex from the other room, and gave it to her, only to have it thrown back in his face when he refused to provide specifics about which witches were doing what with him.

For her finale, Ginny called Harry an “ingrateful cad” (sic), slapped his face, reached down for the box of Kleenex, and ran out of the Room.

Harry scowled, but said nothing as Ginny stormed out of the door.

“I don’t think that I’ll ever understand witches,” he lamented, once the door slammed shut.

Hermione sighed, and wrapped a protective arm around Harry’s shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say that, Harry,” she offered. “There might be a big difference between understanding Ginny, and understanding women in general.”

“Perhaps,” he replied, as he leaned his head against Hermione’s shoulder. “But Lavender and Cho…they didn’t slap me but their attitudes weren’t much different…here I was thinking that the ones to be upset were the ones that Snape saw starkers…the ones that I think about when I…but they seemed more upset that he didn’t see me see them that way!”

“Perhaps they’re disappointed that you don’t think of them in romantic terms,” Hermione offered.

“Or maybe there’s a difference between fan-girls and friends,” Harry replied.

Hermione nodded, and pulled Harry up to his feet. “Well, at least it’s over, right?” she asked. “Let’s head down to the kitchens, and we can commiserate over hot cocoa?”

Harry looked at Hermione and snorted.

“What makes you think that it’s over, Hermione?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Harry said with a sly grin that he couldn’t stop from appearing on his face. “As you told Ron…you are a girl, right?”

“Sure, but I just was so angry…with…him…”

The words trailed off as Harry squeezed her hand and began to lead her into the other room.

“Harry?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“So…it wasn’t just because I needed to be last to leave?”

Harry stopped at the door’s threshold, popped his head inside, and frowned.

“Harry? What’s wrong?”

“Did you ask the Room to change things up a bit?”

“No, why?”

“The chairs have been replaced by a love seat, and the Kleenex is gone.”

Hermione frowned, and popped her head inside the doorway.

“I didn’t ask for the Room to change the furniture,” she stated. “As for the Kleenex, well…Ginny took the box with her, didn’t she?”

“Well yes…but so did Cho and Luna. Each time the Room gave me a replacement.”

Hermione smiled a hopeful smile.

“So…maybe the Room doesn’t think that I’ll be upset with what you need to tell me?” she asked.

Harry thought for a moment, and then nodded.

“I like that better then the other explanation.”

“What’s that, Harry?”

“That an AK doesn’t draw blood.”

Hermione furrowed her eyebrows at Harry, and imagined a dozen different reasons why Harry might think what he needed to share would provoke her to such violence. They all seemed rather ridiculous, but she wasn’t about to say so. But it was also clear that she’d have to do something to convince Harry of that fact.

Harry caught his breath when Hermione pulled her wand from her sleeve.

“Not going to wait for the confession to hex me?” he asked.

Hermione snorted as she flipped the wand in her hand and offered it to him butt-end first.

“Oh ye of little faith,” she said with a small smile. “Why don’t you take it for safekeeping, and come sit down with me?”

“No…Hermione if I can’t trust you then who can I trust?”

“Just take it Harry.”

Harry sighed, nodded, and gripped the offered piece of vine wood and dragon heartstring.

He startled at the warmth that flowed into his hand wherever there was skin contact.

“What’s wrong?” Hermione quickly asked.

“Erm, nothing,” Harry lied, as he pocketed the wand.

Hermione stared at him for a moment, and then said, “Come on, then…let’s have a seat.”

Harry nodded, and hoped that Hermione couldn’t read the smutty thought that had just come into his head.

“So maybe her wand being warm, like it liked me…maybe it’s a sign that we won’t need Kleenex?” he thought. “But it can’t be everything that I could hope for, or else the Room would have sent me a box of condoms instead.”

“Oh ye of little faith indeed, Chosen One,” the Room of Requirement thought to itself. “No need for those muggle things when your lover has been dreaming of this night and been on the Contraceptive Potion since Valentine’s Day!”

oo00OO00oo

Harry sat down on the love seat quietly, and fumbled for an explanation about what Snape saw that didn’t make it seem like he had been perving on his best friend. Even though that is exactly what he’d been doing.

Hermione sat by his side and waited for Harry to say something…but then her own nerves got the best of her, and she blurted out just to start the conversation.

“So, Harry…are you certain that Snape can read our thoughts using a wandless, nonverbal spell?”

The question jolted the Boy-Who-Lived from his musings.

“Erm, yeah…I was sitting there, thinking about punching the git in the face, and next thing I know, Snape looked into my eyes, and said that I wouldn’t be capable of laying a finger on his nose, even if I Engorgio’ed it first.”

Hermione frowned.

“You mean he knew that you were thinking right then?”

Harry nodded. “I don’t think he meant to be so candid, but apparently, if you’re good enough, or your target’s shields are horrid enough…not only can you sort through memories like they were in a file cabinet, but if you can look into their eyes, then you can see in real time what somebody is thinking.”

“And he can do this just by staring into your eyes?” Hermione hissed.

“Yeah, that’s what he claimed…and, well…he seemed to be able to back that claim up.”

Hermione groaned. “That’s really horrible,” she replied. “There ought to be a law against that sort of invasion of privacy.”

“I’m sure that there is,” Harry said with a sigh. “Have to admit, though, it would be dead useful in a duel.”

“You’d know what spell an opponent was going to cast before they even cast it?”

Harry nodded, and leaned his head against Hermione’s shoulder, just as he had done in the other room. It was an innocent motion…something that he done lots of times before. But this time….this time the contact sent shivers through Hermione’s body. Tingly shivers…the kind that she often got an instant before she gave herself an orgasm.

There was a simple explanation for this, of course. The possibility that their Professor of Potions could secretly read minds without need of wand or word had caused her to think back to all of the times that she’d caught herself daydreaming in his class. Well, not daydreaming, actually…more like she allowed her thoughts to wander, while she was performing repetitive menial tasks, like stirring, or cutting ingredients.

This past year, her wandering thoughts had almost always headed straight towards Harry, her cauldron partner.

Many times, those wandering thoughts grabbed Harry by the robes and snogged the daylights out of him. And sometimes….well, sometimes they decided to duck underneath his robes and bury themselves in his crotch.

And then there was just last week…when she caught herself wondering what it’d be like to be bent naked over Snape’s desk, and taken by Harry from behind.

She was, you see, quite smitten by her best friend and Potions partner. Secretly head over heels in love with him, actually. And she was now deathly afraid that she’d been broadcasting her feelings for Harry in Snape’s classroom, for him to pick up whenever he made eye contact with her.

And there had been many, many times, when she’d made eye contact with Severus Snape.

The head-to-toe shudder that this realization caused prompted Harry to twist his neck and look back at Hermione.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Well, no, actually…just worrying and wondering if Snape has made any secret trips through my frontal lobes.”

“I know what you mean,” Harry replied. “No doubt he has a made a perverse habit out of mind snooping.”

Hermione nodded. “And taking advantage of what he discovers, too.”

Harry closed his eyes and sighed, having been reminded that Snape (and Draco too, most likely) would try to use Harry’s thoughts and memories against her.

“What’s wrong, Harry?” she asked, seeing his concern expressed nonverbally.

“It’s what you just said,” he replied, with eyes still shut. “I’m sure that you’re right…Snape is going to take advantage of what he saw tonight and use it against you.”

Hermione arched an eyebrow. “Me?”

Harry let out a deep breath that seemed to deflate him. He opened eyes that were close to watering, turned and said, “Yes, Hermione…you.”

“Oh,” she replied quietly. “So you accidentally saw me starkers, or some such thing?”

Harry grimaced. “Yeah…not the starkers bit, but the some such thing.”

“I see…so….what exactly did he see?”

Harry closed his eyes and whispered.

“Your white knickers.”

“My what?”

A deep sigh escaped from Harry’s lips as he opened his eyes and repeated, “Your knickers, Hermione.”

“How did Snape see my…how and when did you see my knickers, Harry?” Hermione asked, a bit forcefully.

“Three weeks ago…in the library,” Harry admitted. “I didn’t mean to, honest…you were sitting at our table, and needed to stretch, and then you sat on your leg, but not before I….I saw your knickers flash underneath the table.“

Hermione pursed her lips in thought.

“So which pair were they?” she finally asked.

Harry stared at her for a few moments, not knowing how to answer. So he instead, asked a question.

“Haven’t ever done your laundry, or rummaged through your chest of drawers…what are my options?”

Hermione couldn’t help but chuckle, and reveal a bit of her true feelings about the situation.

“Yes! He finally noticed! So maybe I don’t need to cast a ‘Yes-Please-Notice-Me!’ charm on my pants!”

“Did they have a pattern to them?” she asked.

“Erm…no,” Harry said softy. “Reckon that they were a bit too….thin for a pattern.”

Hermione’s eyebrows arched. “Thin, Harry? You mean…thin, like see-thru thin?”

Harry really didn’t want to answer that question, so he reissued an apology instead.

“I’m so sorry, Hermione…I couldn’t help but notice…and I couldn’t stop Snape…tried more than any others to keep it from him but it was too easy to pull it from my short-term memory.”

“That’s okay, Harry,” Hermione replied, patting his thigh. “I forgive you.” She then tried to make light of the situation.

“Guess that it was lucky that I was wearing knickers that day.”

Harry choked on some spittle.

“Wha…you mean that some days you…do you really go without sometimes?”

Hermione came as close to giggling as she dared.

“Not as far as you know….right?”

“Erm, right,” Harry quickly replied.

A comfortable silence fell…far more comfortable a silence then Harry thought he had a right to expect. The absence of dialogue allowed Harry to focus on other things…like the fact that Hermione had left her hand on his thigh, and that the fingers on that hand were gently rubbing against his trouser fabric.

“So they were one of my sheer pair, huh Harry?”

“Erm yeah…I guess.”

“So…you…and Snape…you probably got a glimpse at what was on the other side, then?”

“Erm…sorry, but…yes.”

“I see,” Hermione replied calmly. “So, Harry?”

“Yes?”

“You said that it was a short-term memory that he stole?”

“Yeah, those have always been the hardest for me to protect.”

“But you said that happened weeks ago, Harry…it should have been converted into a long-term memory by now.”

“Erm, yeah, about that,” Harry said glumly. “It wasn’t the kind of thing you see once and don’t think about again.”

Hermione smiled. “No I imagine not, if that was your first time that you saw up a skirt.”

Harry frowned, not wanting to say that he’d seen far more then that with some of the other witches.

“So how many, Harry?”

“How many what?” Harry asked, wondering if she was asking about memories, or witches.

“How many times have you thought about my sheer white knickers?”

Harry muttered something that Hermione couldn’t hear.

“What was that, Harry?”

“Well, you see…erm…too many to count, I guess.”

The bushy-haired witch snorted, in an effort to keep from shouting out a self-congratulatory “Yes!”

“I’m so sorry, Hermione.”

The brown-haired witch smiled and patted Harry on the shoulder.

“No worries…like I said, at least I was wearing knickers, right?”

“Yeah, about that…”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione chuckled. “Don’t tell me you have also caught a glimpse of me without my knickers on.”

“No, no,” he said defensively. “It’s just that…Oh, Merlin this is so embarrassing.”

Hermione smiled. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s not that…well maybe it is, but…I have to Hermione. Like you said…if Snape saw it in my mind then he’s going to take advantage of it, and I’d rather be the one to tell you…”

“Tell me what, Harry? Have you seen me going Regimental?”

“No,” Harry said strongly. He then reluctantly whispered, “But I’ve imagined it.”

“What was that last bit, Harry?”

“I said that I’ve imagined you without your knickers on,” Harry repeated, perhaps a bit too forcibly.

“Oh,” Hermione replied, using a tone of voice that conveyed more arousal then surprise. She then purred the word “So,” and added, “You’ve imagined what I look like under my clothing. Was this out of some kind of idle curiosity, Harry? As an intellectual exercise?”

Harry snorted. He had gotten lots of “exercise” whilst perving on Hermione’s knicker flash and its extrapolations, but would never admit it unless Hermione asked him directly.

Which of course she promptly did.

“Or were these closer to stimulating sexual fantasies?”

Harry hissed out a deep breath.

“Closer to the second,” he admitted.

If Harry’s eyes hadn’t been firmly shut from embarrassment, he might have seen Hermione’s cheeks flush a very deep red at this response.

“So you…you think of me that way, sometimes, Harry?” she whispered. “You use the memory of seeing my knickers to…you know?”

Hermione eyes bulged when Harry responded with a head nod, and she vocalized a sound that was in between a laugh and a whimper. Harry looked like he’d rather be anyplace else in the world, and made to scoot as far away from her as he could, but she would have none of that and pulled him into a tight embrace.

“Oh, Harry, I’m so sorry for you!” she said.

“What…I’m the one that should be apologizing, Hermione!”

The young witch, who was still locked in an embrace, shook her head, then turned and kissed the side of Harry’s head.

“Harry…you were the one who was violated by Snape’s actions, not me.”

“But…”

“But you had every reason to expect that your private thoughts and memories are just that…private,” Hermione added.

“But…it wasn’t right for me to perv on…”

Hermione caught her breath as she waited in vain for Harry to finish his sentence. But he didn’t, so she had to force the issue. She pulled back, and pushed Harry’s chin up so that she could catch his eye.

“Harry, I’m not trying to fish for compliments, but is there a reason why it wouldn’t be right for you to fantasize about…or to perv on my knickers?”

“It isn’t respectful,” Harry said glumly.

“What if I didn’t mind?” Hermione asked.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Hermione whispered. “How could I be upset about you thinking about me in that way…if Snape would be able to pull the same kinds of fantasies and the same kind of use of those fantasies from my head?”

Harry broke eye contact for a few moments, as he processed that statement. But once he got it, or at least thought he’d gotten the gist of Hermione’s statement, he looked back up with eyes full of wonder.

“You mean that…you…you do, too?”

Hermione gave Harry a brilliant smile as she leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.

“Yes, Harry…I fancy you too.”

The-Boy-Who-Lived stared at Hermione, stunned speechless by the most perfect spell that she could have cast over him. His head stayed motionless as Hermione gently pulled his eyeglasses away from his face, and then kissed the red marks on the bridge of his nose where those glasses sat. No movement came when Hermione’s lips moved down to the tip of his nose, or when she planted a chaste kiss on his closed lips.

Concerned by Harry’s lack of reaction, she pulled back and stared into his eyes.

“Harry…are you okay?” she asked. “Is this….is this okay?”

The eyes that stared back at her began to water.

“This…this is beyond brilliant,” Harry whispered. “I’m just…I’m just afraid…”

Hermione reached up and cradled Harry’s face with her hands.

“Afraid of what, Harry?”

“Afraid of….afraid that he’ll see this…that he’ll take this from me…from us…”

Hermione smiled.

“Oh, Harry,” she said with a happy sigh. When her thumb reflexively rubbed away a tear from his cheek, she decided that it was time for them to forget Snape for a while.

“Can I make a suggestion, Harry?” she asked.

Harry nodded, although with Hermione’s hands where they were it could also have been characterized as a nuzzle.

“Please don’t take this literally,” she asked, “but….Fuck Snape!”

Harry snorted into her hands.

“What?”

“You heard me, Harry…forget about him for a few minutes…and trust that we’ll come up with a way to make sure that he doesn’t do anything like this ever again.”

Harry looked at Hermione with wonder in his eyes. Then, he reached up and pulled her hands away from his face, and moved those hands to spots behind his neck. When Hermione smiled, and began to scrape her fingernails against the base of his skull, Harry moaned.

Then he moaned a second time.

And then he jumped Hermione’s bones.

The Room of Requirement, anticipating this reaction, lengthened out the love seat so that Hermione’s head didn’t hit the armrest as she welcomed Harry into a horizontal snog.

oo00OO00oo

A few minutes later, when Hermione tried to encourage Harry’s hands to roam, he panicked, and broke their embrace.

“Harry…what’s wrong?” she asked breathlessly, reaching up so that she could pull him back down.

“It’s Snape, damn it,” Harry hissed. “I know what you said, but…if only this had been more like one of my wan….my fantasies!”

Hermione smiled. “Were you going to say ‘wanking fantasies,’ Harry?”

Harry closed his eyes, sighed, and nodded his head.

“It’s okay, Harry,” she replied. “You can say those things in front of your….”

Harry’s eyes went wide. “You’d…really…you were going to say girlfriend?”

Hermione nodded. “If that’s okay with you, Harry.”

“Let me think about that for a moment,” he replied with an impish grin. “Okay, I’m done thinking.”

“And?”

“And, well maybe I should do this officially?”

Hermione smiled. “If you’d like to.”

“Would you be my girlfriend, then…Hermione?”

“I’d love to,” she replied instantly, pulling him back down for another embrace.

Hermione’s answer provided enough happy distraction for another five minutes of intense snogging before Harry thought of his thoughts being stolen again.

“Fucking Snape!” Hermione hissed, as Harry pulled back from her a second time. “I’m not going to let him ruin this for us!”

Harry sighed, and shook his head. “Like I said…if only this had been one of my wanking fantasies….”

A clever idea popped into Hermione’s head.

“Harry?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“What kind of wanking fantasies do you have?”

Harry’s mind raced at the question. The last thing he wanted to do was push his new girlfriend away with a full disclosure of his ‘impure thoughts’.”

“Why do you ask?” he replied.

“You mean beyond my natural curiosity?”

Harry snorted, and nodded his head.

“Well…my first thought about Snape was that we could just call Dobby and ask for a couple of more vials to store the memories of what we’ve done, and what I want to do to you tonight.”

Stalling for time while he could imagine what she meant by ‘what I want to do to you tonight,’ Harry asked an open-ended, “But?”

“But...there’s no way I’m going to risk losing these memories,” Hermione replied. “What would happen if they got lost, or stolen, or the vials destroyed?”

“Good point….so, there was a second thought, then?” Harry asked.

Hermione nodded. “Do you think that Snape could tell the difference between actual memories and your pervy fantasies?”

Harry thought quietly for a moment. “I’m not certain, although there didn’t seem to be much difference between the two when he forced me to relive them.”

“So when you perv on me, you don’t imagine me with huge baps?”

“Of course not,” Harry protested. “Why would I want to do that?”

Hermione bit her lower lip. “Well, you have to admit, Harry, they aren’t exactly the biggest pair in the Tower…”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Fishing for complements, Hermione? You’ve got perfect-sized bits, as far as I’m concerned, and they look no different in my dirty dreams then they do right now.”

Hermione smiled, not at all upset over the fact that Harry was staring at her jumper-covered breasts instead of her eyes at that moment.

“Thank you, Harry,” she said brightly.

“So where are you going with this, Hermione?” he asked.

“Into your dreams, if I have anything to say about it,” she replied.

“How is that?”

“I said into your dreams,” Hermione replied. “If Snape can’t tell the difference between memory and fantasy, then we could reenact one of your fantasies tonight, turning it into reality, and he’d just think that he was seeing the same thing over again!”

“That’s brilliant!” Harry replied. “except….”

“Except what, Harry?”

“Couple of things,” he replied sadly. “First is that all of the fantasies that you star in take place in the library.”

Hermione’s eyes dilated, and a soft moan escaped from her lips. “Sounds good to me, Harry,” she cooed, fidgeting in her seat. “Why is that a problem?”

“Because the library is closed right now?” he asked.

Hermione rolled her dilated eyes.

“Harry…where are we right now?,” she asked, ordering him to close his eyes. When she told Harry to open them back up, he found himself within the Room of Requirement’s version of the Hogwarts library.

“Was that the only issue, Harry?” Hermione asked.

“Erm, no.”

“What else is wrong, then?”

“Erm… it’s just that….well, it’s just that they’re wanking fantasies you see, so….”

“So they aren’t appropriate for kiddes to view at Saturday matinees?”

“You can say that again,” Harry admitted.

“I see,” Hermione replied. She thought for a moment, and then reached for her rucksack.

“Here, Harry,” she said, offering him a quill and some parchment. “Why don’t you write down the particulars of these fantasies, and we can see if any of them sound worthy of a go?”

“You want me to describe them for you?”

Hermione shrugged her shoulders. “Think of this as a play, Harry. You’re the lead actor, I’m the lead actress…leave out for now the pervy fantasies that involve more than one actress…we’ll look those over another day.”

“What?”

Hermione laughed. “So this will be a play, and you need to write out our dialogue, and our actions…you’ve already given us the setting.”

Harry looked at his new girlfriend like she was crazy…which she was, actually, if “crazed with lust” counts.

“I don’t know….”

“Too embarrassed, Harry? You shouldn’t be, you know, but…if it would help any…”

Hermione’s sentence fell off as she retrieved another quill and more parchment.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked.

“Writing down the stage instructions for my wanking fantasies,” she explained. “It’ll create equal opportunity for potential embarrassment.”

“Or make me cream my jeans,” Harry muttered.

Hermione snorted, reached over, and squeezed high up on Harry’s thigh.

“You make that sound like it’s a bad thing, Harry,” she purred. “Now get to work.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Harry growled lustfully.

oo00OO00oo

Fifteen minutes later found Harry with only thirteen scenes on his list. Whist trying to remember the other two, he looked over at Hermione, and didn’t know whether to be frightened or aroused by the fact that she had already filled out nine feet of parchment.

“All done?” she asked, feeling Harry’s eyes on her. “Let’s see what you’ve got, then.”

“You make it sound like I’m revising my Transfiguration homework,” he said with a smile, as he handed her his handiwork.

Hermione chuckled. “That’s actually number five on my list.”

The chuckling stopped once she began to read what Harry had written.

“Oh, my,” she said softy. When she was half-way down the list, she looked up to ask Harry for a clarification, only to frown when she discovered his eyes shut again.

“What’s wrong, Harry?”

“Erm…don’t know if you realized it, but…you were playing with your nipple while you were reading.”

“I was?” Hermione asked. She looked down at her chest and shrugged “Well, you can’t blame me, can you Harry? If this were an erotic fiction class, this assignment would more than Exceed my Expectations!”

“Erm, right, so…well…there is some nipple tweaking in what I wrote, but it takes place back at our table.” Giving a wave to the front of the Room’s “Library,” he added, “And not here."

“Well that’s easily fixed,” Hermione replied. “So tell me Harry…are any of these your….favorites?”

Harry coughed. “Erm, well, they all….they all get the job done.”

“I see,” Hermione replied, with a mischievous grin on her face. “Are there any that you’d like to try tonight?”

Harry’s cheeks flushed. “You mean you’d be willing to…to do any of those?”

Hermione laughed. “Well, we might want to work up to your Number Thirteen, but…”

“Eep!” Harry chirped, before he wheezed out, “Number thirteen?”

“Yes, Harry…the one where you bend me over the table and I ask you to….let’s see, what were the exact words?” She looked down on the parchment and smiled. “Yes, that’s right. You flip up my robes and I yell, ‘Shove that bodacious wand of yours up my bum!’”

Harry winced in response. “Erm, sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize, boyfriend,” Hermione said with a smile. “I’m certain that ‘bodacious’ is a highly appropriate choice of adjectives.”

“Hermione…” Harry whined.

His new girlfriend giggled…and this time it was a no-holds barred, Parvati-worthy giggle.

“Okay, then we’ll hold off on that route for now…let’s see…one through four just has me sitting there chewing “sexily” on my quill while I flash my fanny in different ways and you wank…I’d rather there be a little more physical contact….how about number six, Harry?”

The raven-haired wizard arched an eyebrow, and asked to see what he’d written down.

6. Starts out the same as 3…You are sitting down with legs spread and no knickers. I start to wank in the stacks at the sight of your fanny. I think you might have seen me, but you pretend that you didn’t and decide to give me more of a show. You reach down and begin to play with yourself. I wank harder, and quickly come. When I open my eyes, you are staring at me and smile. The hand that is diddling your fanny waves at me from under the table, and then motions me to come towards you. I look around, and not seeing anyone, walk towards you with my robes open and dick still out and hard. When I get to the table the hand points to the floor, and I know that you want me on my hands and knees underneath the table. You reach out and let me lick your fingers, and then I bury my face between your legs.

After reading the “script” Harry looked back up at Hermione.

“You’re putting me on, right?” he asked.

“Not at all…will that one work, or….well, number seven is similar, except I show you my baps as well. Although….that might be a problem…”

“What might be a problem?” Harry quickly asked, suddenly deciding that fixing problems was a priority.

“The problem, Harry, is the potential difference between fantasy and reality,” Hermione explained. “You already said that you didn’t inflate my breast size, and…I assume that you didn’t mentally adjust the size of your bits?”

Harry quickly shook his head.

“Great, so that just leaves the nipples….I’m going to also assume that you haven’t seen my bared breasts in real life?”

“No,” Harry admitted. “Is…is that a problem?”

“Could be…how big are my nipples in your fantasies, Harry?”

“Erm, well…don’t really have a ruler around my dreams…”

“Tell me when, then,” Hermione replied. She then made a small circle with the thumb and forefinger on her right hand and pressed it against her jumper-covered breast.

“Are they this big around, Harry?”

“Erm…bigger,” Harry admitted.

Hermione smiled and said, “Say when, then.”

As she slowly increased the size of the circle formed by her fingers, Harry said, “I can’t believe that this is….stop. That’s good.”

Hermione looked down and smiled. “Not a bad guess, Harry…and close enough to match. Now, how about color?”

“Color?”

“Yes, Harry…what color are my nipples…pink, or rose-colored, or brown?”

“Erm…can’t quite say.”

“Are they like Ginny’s, then?”

Harry frowned. “How would I know, I’ve never seen….well okay, I guess I have seen them but that’s been purged from my mind, thank Merlin.”

Hermione smiled, and nodded. “Well, then…in your fantasies, are they closer to Katie’s in color, or Alicia’s?”

“Hmmm…I’d say Katie’s….hey!”

“What, Harry?” Hermione replied with an impish grin.

“How did you know that I would know the color of the Chasers' nipples?”

“So it’s Angelina too, then?” she asked. Hermione giggled, and then explained, “It was an educated guess. You can decide whether or not to share how you know about such things with me at another time.”

Harry sighed in relief. “So we’re good, then?”

“Sadly, no,” Hermione replied. “Mine are much closer in color to Alicia’s…so no bared titties tonight.”

Harry snorted. “Oh, well…guess we’ll muddle through somehow, right?”

“That’s the spirit, Harry!” Hermione giggled. “Guess that there’s one final thing then.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, two things actually,” she replied, as she reached up under her robes and pulled down a pair of red silk knickers. “That takes care of one,” she stated. “Now I just need trimming instructions.”

“What?”

“My fanny, Harry,” she explained. “I’m going to assume that in your fantasies my curtains match the rug?”

“What’s that?”

“My pubes are the same color as what’s on my head?”

“Oh, well….yeah, that’s right.”

“So how much hair down there, Harry? Am I bald, furry, or somewhere in between?”

Harry looked down at the floor and blushed. “Erm…I guess I’d have to say somewhere in between.”

“Great, then I’ve got something to work with,” Hermione replied with a grin. “Any specific shapes, Harry?”

“What?”

“Fancy my pubes trimmed into the shape of a heart? Or maybe a snitch?”

“Hermione!” Harry chided.

“Yes?”

“To think that….well…when I think about Number Six, you are, sort of clean on the bottom, but hairier on top, but …I don’t know!”

“No worries, Harry,” Hermione replied, as she sat back on one of the library tables. “Just gives me a chance to show you a new spell.”

“Erm…what kind of spell?”

Hermione smiled, pulled out her wand, and hiked up her robes.

“A depilatory charm,” she replied brightly.

Harry stared down at Hermione’s bared crotch and dropped to the floor in a faint.

“Oh my, I’m afraid that I’ve broken him,” Hermione replied with a grin.

“Can I get a little help, here?” she called out.

The Room replied by placing a small first-aid kit next to Hermione.

“Thank you,” she said in response.

“Let’s see what we’ve got, then," she said, as she opened the kit. “Smelling salts, good…pepper-up potion…yes, that might come in handy.”

A large grin broke out onto her face when she read some of the other labels.

“Stamina potions...lubrication salves...pain relief potions...and back up contraceptive potions? Guess the Room thinks we might get farther down Harry’s list then I had hoped!”

Hermione’s suspicions were gloriously played out once Harry was revived, and they demonstrated over the next several hours that the Room was truly capable of providing that which was truly Required.

The Python Defense
A bawdy and slightly disturbing NC-17 H/Hr crack fic by canoncansodoff

A/N: This story (and those of you who enjoyed it) deserved an ending. So I began to write, and what I wrote grew, and grew, and grew…so I’m still not done with the story. But I am getting closer, and I think those who have liked this story so far won’t mind…too much.

Please do recall that this is unabashedly presented as crack, and is not to be taken seriously.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 5: Sleeping Between Fantasy and Reality

The toe-curling goodnight kiss that Hermione and Harry shared in the Common Room made each of them wonder why they didn’t spend the night within the Room of Requirement, under the plush covers of the lavish four-post bed that they had both really needed. Or why, for that matter, Hermione didn’t just follow Harry up the stairs and share his less lavish (but perfectly serviceable) dormitory bed. But plans had been made back in the Room of Requirement… and those plans required the assistance of those most at risk due to Snape’s Legilimency attack.

Hermione’s hips swayed and bum bounced with each step as she began to climb her dormitory stairs…in part because she knew Harry was watching, and in part because their reenactments of his wanking fantasies had left her loins wonderfully tender and sore. When she reached halfway up the first flight, she stopped, turned around, and caught him staring up at her with lust in his eyes and a bulge in his trousers.

“Can I add to the flock, Harry?” she asked coyly.

“Huh?”

Not waiting for a more articulate response, Hermione checked the stairs above her, then ripped open her robes and gave her lover a full-frontal flash.

“Hermione!” Harry hissed weakly. “What if Snape steals this memory the next time he attacks my mind?”

His bushy-haired girlfriend smiled brightly as an idea came to mind.

“Well, better he sees my bits when I am halfway up the stairs, than see them when you were nuzzling them with your nose…right?”

“Erm, yeah…I guess…”

“Just think of it as an extra layer of protection, Harry.”

“What do you mean?”

Hermione slowly dragged a finger down the middle of her chest as she grinned down at her boyfriend.

“A dilution-based defense,” she explained. “Fill your head with less-important secrets, or memories, or fantasies…Snape can’t view them all at once, right?”

“No, he’s got to go one at a time, but…”

“So fill your short-term memory banks with thoughts about me standing her like this…or by imagining me walking into my dormitory room with my robes opened…or if I were to dress like this for meals…or had my bits exposed like this during classes…”

“Urrrrrrrr……You’re killing me…..”

“Think about me walking naked within the library stacks, Harry,” Hermione purred. “Running my fingers along the…thick…hard…book bindings, then running those same fingers up the inside of my naked thighs…..”

“Hermione!!!!”

“Have I filled your head yet with pervy thoughts?”

“It was full of pervy thoughts before we even left the Room of Requirement.”

“Then we’re good, then.”

“No, doesn’t work that way,” Harry whined, his eyes following the path of her fingers. “Snape just tricks me by getting me to think about what I’m most afraid of him seeing, then zeroes in on those thoughts and memories…memories like right now…”

Hermione sighed, shook her head with disappointment, then pulled out her wand.

“Well in that case, I’ve got a little message for him,” she replied.

Using the flaming letters spell Harry had first seen within the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione spelled out the phrase “YEA, FOCUS PUNK!”

Harry snorted. “I’m impressed…any specific spot you want him to focus on, then?”

Hermione frowned. “Focus? Oh, sorry…hang on….”

The mostly naked witch waved her wand and rearranged the fiery anagram until it read “FUCK YOU, SNAPE!”

“There…that’s better,” she decided. “That pathetic wanker can kiss my arse.”

“But…”

“Butt…bum…arse…whatever.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“Minx!”

Hermione giggled and nodded her head in agreement. As the fires died she gathered the bottom of her robes, so that her boyfriend had a clear view of her bare “whatever” while she resumed her climb up the stairs.

She was both proud of…and slightly scandalized by…her brazenness. But it was, after all, too late to worry about their Potions professor “seeing” her that way within Harry’s mind. Sticking to the script of his pervy fantasies in order to fool Snape had lasted all of three-minutes time…because she was aggressively impatient, and because he hadn’t imagined in his wildest dreams that she would be that aggressive in bed.

Or that she could ignore her gag reflex, for that matter.

There was one last wink and one last flash, one before Hermione finally said her last goodnight and disappeared from Harry’s view. She sighed, buttoned the front of her robes shut, then drew her wand…fully anticipating an angry confrontation with Ginny Weasley. But the door to the Fourth Years’ room was shut as she climbed past it, and the excitable redhead was nowhere to be seen.

Hermione bypassed the entrance to her own dormitory room and instead entered the Sixth Year’s room. But Katie Bell wasn’t to be found, and the other two Chasers weren’t in the Seventh Years’ Dormitory either. Hermione checked the shared lavatory without success, then decided (after making use of its facilities) to give up the hunt and head for her own bed.

Parvati and Lavender’s bed curtains were closed, giving their bushy-haired roommate a gossip-free opportunity to quietly undress. Hermione’s mind drifted back towards the Room of Requirement as she unbuttoned buttons, and a warm flush traveled from her cheeks down towards her chest. Fingers strayed almost on their own volition from button holes to breasts, and a low growl escaped from her mouth as she twisted and tweaked nipples that Harry had lovingly suckled off-script.

The need to revisit all of the places where her lover’s mouth had explored that night overwhelmed the teen-aged witch...so she kicked off her shoes, forced half-undone robes over her head, and threw them in the general direction of her desk chair. Then she ripped open the bedcurtains and…found a bed full of scantily dressed witches playing cards.

“Oh great, you’re finally here,” said Katie Bell. “Shall I deal you in?”

“Looks like she’s already been playing strip poker,” Luna Lovegood observed.

“And lost,” grinned Daphne Greengrass.

“I’d say that she won, if she was playing strip poker with Harry,” snarked Susan Bones.

Hermione stared at the gathering with shocked disbelief. Easy enough to figure out how the Gryffindor Chasers had gotten into her dorm room. But there was Luna…and Lisa Turpin from Ravenclaw, Susan from Hufflepuff…and a Slytherin?

“Well…are you going to join us, then?” asked Daphne.

Hermione frowned, then looked back over her shoulder towards the closed curtains of the other two beds. Not wanting the group discussion to grow any larger, she nodded, then climbed onto her mattress, squeezing in between Luna and Daphne.

“How did you all get up here?” she hissed. “How did you keep so quiet?”

“Potter’s House-Elf…and charmed bed curtains,” Daphne explained.

“Dobby?” asked Hermione. “House-Elves can carry students from one part of the castle to another?”

“Apparently from one bed to another,” Susan stated.

“Useful way for Harry to get around the stair alarms, don’t you think?” Angelina snarked. “In fact…why don’t we get the little guy to bring Harry here right now?”

“Erm, no, let’s not,” Hermione replied. “At least not before you all tell me why you’re here.”

“You should know,” said Daphne. “Dobby popped into my bed a half-hour ago, said that The Great Harry Potter’s Sir’s Alpha did be wanting to talk to the rest of his harem, and next thing I know I’m sharing your bed with a half-dozen different witches.”

As Lisa, Luna and Susan echoed that story, Alicia Spinnet giggled, and took up the “Harem! Harem! Harem!” chant. Hermione shushed her and said, “Well, I never said harem…or claimed to be Harry’s Alpha…I just said that those of us at risk from Snape’s snooping should get together to make plans. Didn’t think that Dobby overheard us, or that we’d be meeting now, dressed like this.”

“Or undressed, in your case,” teased Katie.

Hermione reached over and slapped the Sixth-Year’s arm. “Stop it!”

“So do you know if everyone is here, then?” asked Lisa.

The naked bushy-haired witch snorted. “Yeah, for the most part…Ginny flashed her arse at Harry once, but from what he said, and from what I’ve seen of it, that’s not a whole lot to worry about.”

“Worry, in terms of Snape taking advantage of it, or in terms of tempting your boyfriend to stray?” teased Katie.

“Both,” Hermione snorted.

“Interesting that you didn’t deny being Potter’s girlfriend,” Daphne slyly noted.

Hermione smiled sweetly, and replied, “Yes it is, isn’t it?”

Katie squealed, and leaned over so that she could pull the younger witch into a hug.

“It’s about time!” she declared. “So tell us all the naughty details, girl!”

“Erm, no.”

“Not denying that there are lots of naughty details, though?”

“No, I’m not,” Hermione grinned.

Susan Bones glanced at Lisa and shook her head.

“So, Hermione…I suppose that Harry told you all of our own naughty details?”

A serious expression immediately formed on Muggleborn witch’s face.

“No, actually…he didn’t,” Hermione declared. “He just said that everyone here had the most to worry about from what Snape had seen.”

“But Harry didn’t tell you what he saw?”

“Nope.”

“And you weren’t the least bit curious?”

Hermione chuckled. “Well, maybe a tiny bit. But there I was…on top of my favorite table in the library… naked in my boyfriend’s arms. Do you really think that I wanted to talk about other witches right after we had…”

“Shagged for the first time?” teased Katie.

“Then shagged for the second and third times?” added Alicia.

“Shagged three times in the library?” asked Susan.

“Stop!” hissed Hermione.

“You really did stop at three times, then?” asked Daphne.

“I’m not going to answer that.”

“You really did shag in the library?” asked Susan.

“No, it was just the Room of Requirement, pretending to be the library.”

“But you’re not denying that you shagged in a room pretending to be the library…”

Hermione rolled her eyes.

“So,” asked Luna, “Harry didn’t tell you about the time that he and I peed in the Forbidden Forest?”

“Erm, no.”

“Would you like me to tell you about the time that Harry and I peed in the Forbidden Forest?”

“Maybe later.”

“Okay,” Luna replied brightly.

Lisa Turpin finally joined in on the conversation.

“Why did you want to talk with us Hermione?”

“Revenge,” the Gryffindor witch said with determination. “Revenge, and damage control.”

“Revenge I can understand,” said Daphne. “But what’s that about damage control?”

“There are ways that we can limit the damage caused by Snape’s snooping,” Hermione explained.

“How?” asked Lisa.

“Harry is convinced that Snape is going to try to use what he saw as blackmail,” said Hermione. “And the best way to neutralize a blackmailer’s power is to get whatever secrets he’s trying to use out into the open.”

“What?” asked Susan. “You want us to come out about what he saw?”

“Not necessarily,” Hermione replied. “Well, maybe, depending on what he saw…look there’s two ways Snape wants to use this stuff. First, he thinks that it will isolate Harry…that if we knew what Harry saw, or that Harry has been perving on us…that we’d get angry if we found out, and stop being his friends.”

“The idea that he’s perving on me wants me to be even friendlier,” snarked Katie. But then she saw the dangerous look that Hermione was giving her, and quickly added, “Friendlier, of course, in a non-sexual way that wouldn’t at all pose a threat to his girlfriend.”

“Of course, Katie,” Hermione said sharply. “Look, my point is…Harry dealt with this on his own tonight, by telling us in advance…and apologizing, where needed.”

“No need here,” said Daphne.

The opinion was quickly shared by all of the other witches, limiting Hermione’s ability to worry, or become cross with any single one of them.

“Well, I’m glad to see that Harry won’t lose any friends over this,” she decided.

“Close female friends, at least,” observed Angelina. “Didn’t think that Ron took the news all that well…”

“Or Colin,” added Luna.

Hermione chuckled. “Yes, well…Ron is a git, and I think that Colin will just have to live with a broken heart.”

“So what’s the other way that Snape could use this information?” asked Alicia.

“Well if he can’t hurt Harry this way…he could try to hurt Harry’s friends.”

“By using what he saw against us…personally,” whispered Susan.

Luna nodded. “Openly declaring that we know about what Harry saw offers some protection.”

Hermione nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got some ideas there…which is why I want you all to meet us before breakfast tomorrow.”

She then explained her plans to everyone’s satisfaction.

Katie then noted, “So that would only leave us vulnerable if what Harry saw or did with each of us was illegal.”

“Well no worries for me, at least,” said Daphne. “My father forced me to pose for those nude photographs…and they’re not uncommon attachments to proposed marriage contracts.”

“A marriage contract?” hissed Hermione, suddenly remembering the package that Harry had reacted nervously to within the Great Hall.

Daphne snorted. “More worried about that, then the thought of your boyfriend perving on pictures of me flashing my fanny in the Potions classroom?”

Katie snorted in response. “Sounds like Hermione flashing her bits for real in the Library trumps your candid photography.”

Lisa nodded. “And it also sounds like she has nothing to worry about with that contract…or else Dobby would have been calling you Harry’s Alpha, instead of Hermione.”

Daphne looked at the expression on Hermione’s face, noted that she was in Gryffindor Tower and vastly outnumbered by Gryffindors, and quickly backtracked.

“No worries, Hermione,” she said. “Harry was a perfect gentleman, and returned the pictures when he turned down my father’s proposal.”

“No worries about us, either,” added Angelina. “Harry didn’t touch us…he didn’t even fantasize about shagging us after we teased him in the Quidditch locker rooms.”

“Well, there was the strip poker game…and Katie’s knickers…” Alicia noted.

“Not! Helping!” hissed Katie. She then turned towards the red-faced bushy-haired witch and said, “Nothing happened, really!…Tell you later.”

“Harry held my hand when we ran naked in the woods,” Luna confessed. “But he let go of my hand when we urinated.”

Not know how to respond to that statement, Hermione stared at Luna with opened-mouth shock. Once she gathered back some of her wits, she said, “Well, then…so far it doesn’t sound as if any of us were doing anything that could get us thrown into Azkaban...”

Katie cut in and added, “Or worse… expelled?”

“Oh, geez…am I ever going to live that one down?”

“Probably not.”

“What about you, Hermione?” asked Katie.

“What do you mean?” she replied. “There’s no law against accidentally flashing your knickers in the library.”

“What about laws against underaged sex?”

“Doesn’t apply,” Hermione replied quickly. “I’m sixteen, Harry is fifteen, and the age of consent within the wizarding world is twelve.”

“Twelve?” Katie asked incredulously.

The bushy-haired witch shrugged. “Don’t ask me…I don’t make the rules.”

“Rules that you no doubt carefully researched before tonight, right?” snarked Angelina.

Hermione replied with a small smile, then turned towards the two witches who had not yet shared their stories.

Susan bit her lower lip, then looked down at the bed linens.

“Hermione…you really don’t have a thing to worry about from Lisa and me,” she whispered. “We didn’t do anything with him…didn’t even know that Harry was watching.”

“Watching you do what?” asked Daphne.

Susan gulped, then reached for Lisa’s hand.

“Doing something to each other that could practically get us dumped in Azkaban.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hermione.

“Oh, honestly, Granger,” snorted Daphne. “Lisa and Susan are both pureblood witches.”

“So?”

“So society expects that they’ll marry pureblood wizards, and make pureblood babies…instead of being witch’s witches, and munching on each other’s carpets.”

“Oh.”

Hermione turned towards Lisa and Susan, and knew the truth of the situation just from their downcast expressions.

“It’s going to be horrible,” Susan whispered. “My Auntie could lose her job if word gets out.”

“Should have thought of that before you two tickled and tongued, eh?” asked Daphne.

“Hush,” Hermione admonished.

A lull in the discussion allowed the bushy-haired witch to focus her thoughts, and to come up with a potential work-around.

“Right then…I think that we can deal with this,” she declared.

“How?” asked Susan.

Hermione looked at the two lovers with a critical eye.

“Are you sure that you two don’t want to steal my boyfriend?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Are you sure that you two aren’t going to perv on my boyfriend?”

“What do you mean?” asked Susan. “He saw us naked…neither of us saw him the same way?”

Hermione bit her lip, wondering what might happen if that situation were rectified. But she knew Harry would be devastated if what he’d accidentally spied caused trouble for Susan and Lisa…or for Susan’s aunt. And she also thought that she could trust Susan and Lisa.

Not that there wasn’t merit in the phrase, “Trust, but verify.” Or that there wasn’t nervousness all around, for that matter, when the meeting broke up and there were only two left in bed.

oo00OO00oo

There wasn’t all that much difference between fantasy and reality when Dobby dropped two naked witches into Harry Potter’s bed…which is what Hermione had not only expected, but planned upon.

The Boy-Who-Was-Masturbating let out a manly shriek as he clamped his legs together and covered his erection with the hand that hadn’t been tugging on it.

“Thinking of me, sweetheart?”

“Erm...”

“Can I assume that you silenced your bed curtains, Harry?”

“Hermione?” he rasped. “What the hell?”

“Wow…I’m impressed,” said the other witch. “A bit disappointed, though, Hermione…thought that you would have tired that big boy out back in the Room of Requirement.”

“Susan?” Harry asked incredulously.

“You have to ask, Harry?” she teased. “Don’t recognize me dressed…or undressed this way?”

“Not wearing my glasses,” Harry muttered, trying to pull his bed linens up high enough to cover his exposed crotch. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on perspective), Susan was sitting on them.

“So, Harry…thinking of me, I hope?” asked Hermione.

“Erm, yeah…obviously,” he said. “So what are you doing here?”

“You mean you don’t want to be in bed with your naked girlfriend?”

“Well…but…Susan?”

“You don’t want me to share, then?” Hermione pouted.

“Share…wha…is this some kind of boyfriend test?” Harry demanded.

Hermione giggled, then leaned forward until her face was fully resolved within the dim light and Harry’s near-sightedness. She then leaned forward a little more, until her breasts touched his chest and her lips were within kissing range of his lips.

She kissed those lips, then forced them open with her tongue. Harry was too dumbfounded to resist (not that he would have resisted any stronger if his mind had been clearer).

They snogged until Hermione decided that she’d teased her boyfriend long enough. So she slipped down along Harry’s side, and while Susan watched from the front corner of the bed, whispered an explanation into his ear.

“Susan and Lisa could get into big trouble if anyone else finds out that they’re lesbian lovers,” she said. “We’re afraid that Snape is going spill the beans, based on what he saw in your head, so we’ve decided to create some reasonable doubt.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…tomorrow morning Susan is going to march into breakfast holding her boyfriend’s hand.”

“Boyfriend? Who?”

“Why you, silly,” Hermione teased, as she nipped his earlobe with her teeth.

“Me? But what about you? What about Lisa?”

“We’ll be right behind you two, along with your other Dreamgirls.”

“So…so Susan is going to pretend to be my girlfriend?”

“That’s right…at least until we permanently deal with Snape.”

“But…if Snape says otherwise…and it’s my word against his?”

“Ah, yes…that’s where we’ll need your help.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think that Dumbledore can scan surface thoughts and memories as easily as Snape can?”

“Probably.”

“So tomorrow, if Snape claims that Susan is a lesbian in front of you and Dumbledore, you are not only going to claim otherwise…you’re going to think otherwise.”

“What….how am I going to do that?”

“By remembering how Susan is going to sleep naked in your bed tonight, Harry.”

“Erm….wha…..?”

“Susan is going to spend the night in your arms,” Hermione explained. “And she is going to wake up naked in your bed tomorrow morning. And then she’ll cover herself with a sheet, and be ‘accidentally’ caught by one of your roommates when she leaves your bed in order to use the loo.”

“She is?” Harry squeeked. “Why?”

“Independent lines of evidence,” Hermione replied. “If Dumbledore sees your thoughts about Susan staying here with you, and just happens to drop into Ron’s or Neville’s heads as they remember what they’ll see tomorrow morning….”

“Brilliant,” Harry hissed. “Scary, but brilliant.”

“We thought so,” Hermione replied brightly.

“And you’re really okay with that?” Harry asked. “And Susan….you’re okay with that…and Lisa knows about this?”

The Fifth-Year Hufflepuff giggled as she stretched out on Harry’s other side, and brought her face into his clear field of vision.

“Yes, yes, and yes,” she replied. “It was Hermione’s idea, after all…and Lisa helped flesh it out.”

“So to speak,” Harry snarked.

Both witches replied with endearing giggles.

“But…you’re just going to allow your boyfriend to sleep with another girl?”

“Yes, Harry…I trust you, and Susan trusts you…and Lisa trusts you.”

“Don’t know that I trust myself sharing a bed with somebody so beautiful…and naked…”

“No worries,” Hermione said brightly. “I’ll be right here the whole time.”

“Really?” asked Harry. “You’re staying too?”

“Yes.”

“But…won’t that kind of muddle up the idea that Susan is my girlfriend and that I’m only sleeping with her?”

“Not if you focus on what you see, Harry.”

“So how do you expect me not to keep my eyes my incredibly sexy girlfriend’s body?”

“Oh, Harry, you’re so sweet,” Hermione cooed. She gave him the kiss that the comment had earned him, then cracked open his bed curtains and borrowed his wand.

It was surprisingly (or not so surprisingly) compatible.

“Accio Invisibility Cloak!”

oo00OO00oo

It wasn’t worth Hermione losing a full night’s sleep, given all of the trust, so rather than sit up and invisible in the front corner of the bed, she stretched alongside the far side of the bed. Susan, with a bit of prodding and encouragement, cuddled against Harry’s other side.

So there he was, flat on his back, with an invisible real girlfriend on one side, and a visible fantasy girlfriend on the other. His erection, which had never really gone away during their talk, had no intentions of leaving once Hermione gently pushed Harry’s neck against Susan’s face, and pulled Susan’s leg over Harry’s leg. And this didn’t go unnoticed.

“Susan!” Harry hissed.

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

The Hufflepuff giggled.

“I’m doing nothing, Harry…see? Here’s my hands.”

“Oh, right…Hermione!”

“Sssh,” replied his girlfriend. “And Susan…get your hands out of his eyesight.”

“Whaaa….why?”

“Stop talking, Harry….stop thinking…and start looking and feeling.”

“What do you….”

“Sssshhh…focus on Susan’s face,” instructed Hermione. “She can’t see what’s going on down here…and you couldn’t see whose hand is doing what even if that hand wasn’t covered by your cloak.”

“So you’re going to…while Susan is….”

“While Susan is pretending to be your girlfriend I’m going to…stimulate…the intensity of this memory.”

“Erm, if that’s what you want to call it…”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Erm…”

“Didn’t think so.”

Harry couldn’t believe what was happening was actually happening. Or what was seemingly happening, but wasn’t really happening exactly how he saw it. Or apparently was going to remember it. But given circumstances, was he going to complain?

Would any wizard complain, in similar circumstances?

Susan’s face was too beautiful, and Hermione’s invisible hand too skilled, for him to remember that Colin Creevy might have been the exception that proved the rule.

The Python Defense
A bawdy and slightly disturbing H/Hr crack fic by canoncansodoff

A/N: Only incremental progress, but 4k words, and a ridiculously fast update (at least for me). Fair trade, no?

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 6: Setting Their Own Stage

Hermione Granger emerged from underneath the cloak and shared a smile with Harry’s other uninvited (but certainly welcomed) guest.

“So the shower room stories are true, I guess?” asked Susan.

“Which ones?”

“The ones told by frustrated witches whose boyfriends always fall asleep right after they come.”

Hermione shrugged. “Well, I really couldn’t say…at least not until I collect more data.”

“More data?” whispered Susan. “You mean…by sleeping with other boys?”

The bushy-haired witch chuckled as she reached out and began to play with the thin trail of hair that led down from Harry’s belly button.

“No, silly…by sleeping more than one night with this one boy.”

“Oh…I never imagined spending even one night with a boy…much less The-Boy-Who-Lived.”

“Never?” teased Hermione. “Not even as part of an exception sandwich?”

The pretty Hufflepuff blushed.

“So you two talked about me back in the Room?”

Hermione chuckled. “Yeah, we talked a bit…when we weren’t otherwise busy.”

“And you still trusted me enough to share his bed?”

“Meh…I trust Harry well enough…and I am chaperoning. If you ask me, it’s your girlfriend that’s being asked to show the most trust.”

“I suppose…still, to be here like this…I’m naked, and he’s naked…”

“And I’m naked, too, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, yeah…I’ve noticed.”

“Yet it’s Harry’s bits that you keep sneaking peaks at?” teased Hermione.

“Erm, well….sorry. You’ve got, erm….very pretty bits. But this is the first time that I’ve seen a naked boy, much less been this close to one…unless you count the times that I’ve changed my nephew’s nappies.”

“Slight difference, then?”

“Nothing slight about the differences,” Susan giggled. “I just couldn’t believe it, when Dobby popped us here, and he was hard, and big…and he was holding it, and he was…”

“Yeah, seemed a little unbelievable to me as well,” said Hermione. “I mean, really…I know that teen-aged boys are supposed to have a lot of stamina, but four times in less than two hours?”

“Four times?” Susan gasped. “So you...and Harry…three times?”

“Yes, well…four minus one is three, isn’t it?”

“Why aren’t you more sore, then?” blurted Susan, blushing when she realized just how coarse her question was.

Hermione chuckled.

“There could be a difference between Harry coming three times, and Harry coming three times inside me.”

“Erm, right….sorry for being so nosy.”

“It’s okay,” said Hermione. “I’m probably just as curious about what it’s like when you and Lisa do it.”

“Really?” asked Susan. “You mean that you’re curious….bi-curious?”

Hermione blushed. “No, no, not that….not that there’d be anything wrong with me if I was, mind you…”

“Right. So…you’re just curious from an intellectual perspective.”

“Exactly. I mean, the girl-girl scenes are shot to get het boys hot and horny…no reason to expect that real lesbian sex would be like that…”

Susan’s eyes went wide.

“Girl-girl scenes?” she gasped. “What are you talking about?”

“Erm…well...nothing, actually.”

“Oh, no…you’re not getting out that easy.”

“Alright,” Hermione sighed. “It’s all the Room’s fault.”

“The Room of Requirement?”

“Yeah. It’s just too good at what it does.”

“You mean when it provides what you really required?”

“That’s right.”

“So one day you decided that what you really required was to watch lesbian sex?”

“No, no…not exactly.”

“So what was it that you really needed, Hermione?”

“Erm…well…some instruction, actually.”

“What?”

“It was a few days after we first found out about the room,” Hermione explained. “One of the twins was joking about what the room would do if Harry opened it…but instead of him thinking that he needed a spot for the DA to practice, they joked about him being a normal teen-aged wizard and thinking that what he really needed was to lose his virginity.”

Susan giggled. “So what did the Room look like, then?”

“Oh, no…it was just a joke.”

“No, not then…what did it look like tonight when Harry lost his…erm…”

“It was very comfortable,” Hermione replied. “And that’s all I’m going to say.”

“Fair enough…so about you watching lesbian sex?”

“Oh, right…so, the joke got me thinking.”

“There’s a surprise.”

“Hush!” Hermione hissed. “I was curious about just how powerful the room’s magic was…and that was at a time when I was really beginning to crush on Harry. But I’ve never had a boyfriend before, and while my mother sat me down a few years ago for The Talk, and gave me a few books to read…”

“There’s another surprise.”

“Yes, well…they weren’t picture books. And I really wanted to be ready, and see how to do it properly…if I ever…if Harry and I, well…but I certainly didn’t want to gain that kind of experience with another boy…”

“So they don’t pass around those kind of magical paintings in your dormitory?”

“Yes, they do…but I was too embarrassed to ask to borrow one of them.”

“But you weren’t too embarrassed to ask the Room to provide you with some paintings?”

“More or less,” Hermione admitted. “I snuck out one night, and went to the Room, and thought that I really wanted to see how sex works. But when the door opened, I walked into the basement of my parent’s house.”

“Your parent’s house? You mean that you watched your parents shag?”

“No, no, no…oh God, no! There wasn’t anyone else in the room. Just me, our family’s entertainment system, a comfortable chair, and…and the kind of videotapes that my parents hide in their sock drawers.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s how Muggles watch other Muggles have sex,” Hermione explained. “At least, how they watch it in their own home…their version of magical porn paintings.”

“Oh, I see,” said Susan, not really seeing, but not wanting Hermione to take the time to explain further. “So this is how you were able to watch witches have sex with other witches?”

“Well, they weren’t witches…probably weren’t even real lesbians…just actresses, but…yeah…the movies always had at least one girl-girl scene.”

“So…what did you do, then?”

Hermione shrugged. “I sat down and watched. Got some helpful pointers on techniques and positions.”

“From those girl-girl scenes?”

“No, no…from the others…the ones with one man and one woman in them.”

“Made use of those pointers tonight, then?”

The bushy-haired witch blushed.

“Right, that’s a yes, then,” Susan teased. “Can’t believe that you, Hermione…so naughty!”

“Well…”

“And you’re really curious about lesbian sex?” asked Susan. “Well, I guess it’s only fair.”

“What do you mean?”

“After you’ve let me have a close up view of your boyfriend’s wand, and heterosexual sex…not that I could really see much with you underneath that amazing cloak. Still, it’d be rude if I didn’t at least invite you to watch Lisa and me go at it as well.”

“Oh, well, erm…not really necessary….thanks, but…”

“Relax, Hermione…I’m just teasing.”

“Right, I knew that.”

Susan doubted that statement, but let the comment pass.

“I suppose you could get the same answers by letting me watch those…videotapes, you called them?”

“You’d want to do that?”

“Why not?” Susan asked brightly. “We could make it a pervy double date…you and Harry, Lisa and me. Maybe I’d even learn some new techniques or positions.”

“Susan! That’s so…so....naughty!”

“Says the naked witch who rubbed her boyfriend off while another naked witch lay next to him and pretended that she was doing all the work?”

“Um, well…guess when you put it that way…”

“So what do we do now?” asked Susan.

“Stick with the plan…we fall asleep, you wake up tomorrow in Harry’s arms, and get spotted trying to leave his bed underneath his invisibility cloak.”

“But how can I get spotted if I’m under the cloak?”

“By letting it slip a bit,” Hermione replied. “Wouldn’t flash too much skin…especially if it’s Ron that spots you…just raise the hem.”

“Right,” said Susan. “And in between the waking up in your boyfriend’s arms and leaving his bed?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was just thinking,” Susan said carefully. “If I were doing this with Lisa, in Lisa’s bed…and if Harry and I are pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend…”

“You two would kiss, at the very least,” Hermione agreed. “You might even expect Harry to return the favor and rub you the right way.”

“Of course I wouldn’t expect that…I mean…I’m not…wouldn’t want…not that there’s anything wrong with heterosexual activity…”

“Relax, Sue…I’m just…although maybe, as long as we’re here…”

“What?”

Hermione gave the other witch a wicked grin. “So you’ve just given your pretend boyfriend a pretend hand job…ready to do a little more pretending?”

“More ….what are you suggesting?”

Hermione waggled her eyebrows and licked her lips. That she did this while staring at Harry’s crotch gave Susan a very good idea of what she might be practicing to pretend.

oo00OO00oo

It probably couldn’t rank as the most significant night in Harry Potter’s young life…given what happened on the evening that his parents died, or the night when Voldemort was reborn…but it was easily the most pleasurable and strangely memorable night. And that strange and intensively pleasurable night blended smoothly into a very pleasurable (and no less strange) morning.

He woke covered not by bed linens, but by a naked witch. Well, to be accurate, she was only partially covering his own naked body…leaning across his stomach, propped up on an elbow and her back turned so that she was facing the front of his bed. Far enough down his torso that the near-sighted boy couldn’t see her clearly in the dim light that filtered through his bed curtains…he could just make out her red hair, tied up in two pig tails that swung back and forth when her head bobbed up and down.

But what he woke up almost seeing within a blurry field of vision wasn’t nearly as important as what he woke up feeling… the friction and suction provided by a pair of lips that were wrapped around morning wood.

But whose lips?

“Susan?”

The question startled the witch whose tonsils were being tickled, and she responded involuntarily.

“Wha….ouch!!!!!Teeth!!!!No Bite!!!!!”

“Oh….sorry, Harry,” his Hufflepuff bedmate quickly whispered.

A barely conscious wizard wondered how Susan could verbalize her apology and maintain suction at the same time. Seeking answers, he reflexively reached for his glasses.

“Please, don’t, Harry,” Susan whispered. “I’m still kind of shy about being naked in bed with you…can you just lay back down and let me do something memorable for you?”

The Hufflepuff’s emphasis on memory jogged his own.

He smiled, and gladly complied with her request.

“Absolutely…Susan.”

Harry briefly thought about teasing the real girlfriend who was hiding under his cloak by moaning out his pretend girlfriend’s name, or by reaching down and squeezing his pretend girlfriend’s bum. But then he remembered his real girlfriend’s teeth, and where they were presently located, and thought better of it.

oo00OO00oo

“What the….Susan?”

“Eeep!”

Harry waited a moment before he popped his head through his bed curtains…just in time to see a pair of disembodied feet dash out the door. He smiled, then looked across the room. The expression on Neville Longbottom’s face was priceless.

“Mornin’ Nev…sleep well?”

“Not…not as well as you, apparently,” the boy replied incredulously. “So…Susan?”

“What about her?”

“She just….I just saw her…a lot of her…”

“Really? I just saw a bit of leg…maybe the Twins have dropped the brims on their headless hats?”

“No…she was…the cloak slipped as she crawled out of your bed…saw her face, and her….”

Harry’s disembodied, curtain-draped head winked at his dorm mate. “Oops?”

“Oops?” squeaked Neville. “What happened last night after you kicked us blokes out?”

“Well, like I said…I had a few confessions to make...and hexes to dodge…and hearts to break…”

“Not all of them, apparently?” asked Neville, glancing back towards the dorm room entrance.

Harry smiled. “Yeah…still can’t believe how it worked out…that somebody as beautiful, and smart, and sexy could feel the same way about me that I feel about her…”

“Wow, don’t know what to say, Harry…I’m happy for you, but…I always thought that it would be you and Hermione…”

“Yeah, you and the rest of the house, apparently.”

“Does Hermione know?”

“Hermione knows a lot things, Nev.”

The sarcastic comment didn’t go unnoticed. But the playful slap on his bum that the comment provoked did go unnoticed, as it was obscured by silenced-charmed bed curtains and Neville’s general cluelessness.

“Does Hermione know that Susan spent the night with you?”

“Of course,” Harry replied. He winked again, and added, “Who do you think helped with the travel arrangements?”

“Really? Wow, that’s just…dunno what to say. Nice to have friends like that.”

“It is…isn’t it?” Harry replied. He yawned, and added, “Well…still a bit early…think I’m going to try to sleep for a few more minutes.”

“Right…well, I’d say sweet dreams, Harry…but I doubt that you going to need my help there.”

Harry chuckled, and turned towards the other two beds in the room. Both had drawn curtains, and the loud snores from Ron’s bed indicated that at least he was still asleep. And if Seamus had overheard? Well, the more independent lines of evidence, the better.

oo00OO00oo

The bed curtains on Hermione’s bed had been closed when Dobby popped her into the girls’ dormitory, a few minutes before Susan had made her own escape. Which was a good thing, because her brain had been too worn out to come up with a quick excuse on why she’d flown “Air Dobby” naked, and with a goofy smile on her face.

She stretched out, and took a few minutes to compose herself and review the situation…Susan knew more than the “Harem,” the “Harem!Harem!Harem!” knew more than the other female members of the DA, who knew more than the boys. But everyone one needed to “know” a single story that contained a healthy mix of bare-arsed truths and bald-faced lies. So she reviewed her cover story, and (once she got out of bed) promised to tell that story to her roommates right after she showered.

Hermione wasn’t at all surprised to find a much larger audience waiting for her return from the lavatory.

“So?” asked Katie Bell.

Hermione shrugged innocently as ran a brush through her wet hair.

She didn’t feel very innocent, but she was a very good actress.

“So…not much to say, really. Like Harry said, I had to be the last one because I was in charge of the room.”

“Still don’t believe that excuse,” Ginny huffed.

“Believe what you will…we walked back to the Tower, and I said good night to him and left him standing at the base of the stairs.”

“So Harry was able to walk, then?” asked Lavender.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, nobody hexed him after I left?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Nobody shagged him so silly that he couldn’t walk either?” giggled Parvati.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Parv…that’s exactly what happened. Once Ginny left, I jumped Harry’s bones and we shagged ourselves ragged. Then we ran naked through the hallways back to the dormitory, and then I snuck into his bed and we shagged even more. And then….”

“And then you woke up!” Angelina laughed.

“Sounds like my kind of dream,” sighed Alicia.

Those who didn’t know the truth laughed at Hermione’s apparent over-the-top sarcasm. Those that knew that there really was a fair bit of truth within Hermione’s dramatic description laughed even harder.

The bushy-haired witch was able to satisfy the curiosity of the Harem!Harem!Harem! girls with a wink and a silent, mouthed promise of “Later!” Then she raised everyone’s curiosity by opening her school trunk and digging a bag out from deep within one corner.

“What’s that?” asked Parvati.

“The start of our push back,” Hermione replied.

The group of Gryffindor witches gathered around her as she dumped a small pile of “Potter Stinks!” badges out onto her bed.

“What are were doing with those in your trunk?” asked Katie.

“Waiting for the right moment to get some good use out of them,” she replied.

Hermione picked one of the badges up in her left hand, and concentrated as she cast a modification spell using a wand held in her right. Once she was finished, the words “Support Cedric Diggory – The True Hogwarts Champion” were replaced with a shorter, much more personal statement….

“Proud to be - Harry’s Dreamgirl!”

“Who…so we’re going to advertise the fact that Harry perved on us?” asked Katie.

A satisfied smile formed on Hermione’s lips as she nodded her head and pinned the transfigured button onto the front of her robes.

“Why are you wearing it then?” snapped Ginny.

Hermione tried not to catch the infectious giggles that were threatening to escape from the lips of the Gryffindor Chaser line. Then she tried to bury Ginny not with bullshit, but with a blizzard of truths.

“Do you really want to know, Ginny? Know how Harry confessed that his willie stiffened when I accidentally flashed my knickers in the library? Or how I forgave him by sharing my perviest fantasies, and asking him to tell me his? Want to hear how I taught him the depilatory charm, and then hiked up my skirt and let him practice on my bits?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ginny waved dismissively. “And then you two shagged like bunnies, and then you ran naked in the halls, and then you shagged some more in Harry’s bed.”

Hermione grinned. “Well, to be honest…we did throw robes over our hot, sweaty, sticky bodies before we left the Room of Requirement…”

“And then you woke up again!” Lavender chimed in.

Again, everyone laughed at the truth (as they knew it…or thought they knew it).

Alicia asked, “So what about the rest of the button?”

Hermione let her magic speak for itself, and willed the button pinned to her robes to display its alternative modified message. The “POTTER” part was unchanged, but “STINKS!” was replaced with “STUD!”

“POTTER STUD?” giggled Parvati. “Aren’t you missing a verb or two?”

“Looks perfect to me,” Lavender declared. “Could I get one?”

Hermione snorted.

“Did you star in any of Harry’s pervy fantasies?”

“No…but I’m working on it.”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed as the other witches laughed at the joke that wasn’t really a joke. But as she had a cover story to maintain, she shook her head and shrugged. There were, after all, a few spares that could be passed out…even after Ginny claimed one for a boatload of delusional reasons.

oo00OO00oo

George Weasley let out a whoop when Hermione walked out of the stairwell with a smile on her face and a “Harry’s Dreamgirl” button on her chest.

“I knew it!”

“Knew what?” asked Hermione.

The answer wasn’t so obvious when several other girls came down the stairs wearing identical buttons.

“Erm…knew we should have offered shorter odds on a harem,” he joked.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!” shouted the three Chasers, before breaking down into giggle fits.

“So…a preemptive declaration?” asked Fred.

“I always knew you were the smart one, George,” Hermione joked.

“Hey, I’m Fred!”

“No you’re not, but she got it right anyway.”

Romilda Vane, who’d been doing some last-minute homework revisions in the corner of the room, looked up and asked, “Can I have a button?”

“Gotta talk with our Alpha,” Katie announced.

“Who is the Alpha?”

“Why, the first wife in our harem, of course,” Katie replied.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“Sorry, Romilda,” Hermione replied with mock-seriousness. “I’m not taking any more applications right now.”

Colin looked up from his chair by the fire and pouted.

“Oh, Poo!”

“That’s Luna’s line!” Hermione joked.

“So does she need a button as well?” asked Ginny.

Hermione looked towards the stairs leading towards the boys’ dormitory and grinned.

“Harry’s the one to answer that, I think.”

“Ask me what?” asked a messy-haired wizard, as he stepped into the Common Room.

“Harry!” shouted Lavender.

“Harem!” shouted Katie.

“Harry!” cooed Ginny.

“Harem!” Alicia shot back.

And the chant began in modified form, using this call and response.

“Harry! Harem! Harry! Harem!”

“You’re all loony!” Ron shouted. “And I’m hungry.”

“Geez, what a surprise,” snarked Fred.

“All set then, Harry?” Hermione asked.

Her secret boyfriend watched her button flash back and forth, then snorted.

“Brilliant!” he declared. “Cuts them off at the knees if they think they’re going to surprise any of you.”

“That’s the idea,” Hermione replied.

“You’re the best,” said Harry, pulling his best friend into a hug that meant more to each than it appeared.

“Hey now,” she teased, pushing him away. “Wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, right?”

“Nope,” Harry grinned. “And, erm…about that…”

“Something to share?” Hermione asked.

The-Boy-Who-Lived rubbed the Back-Of-His-Neck.

“Actually…after you went up the stairs….I kind of…”

“Can’t whatever you’re trying to say wait for the breakfast table?” whined Ron.

“Well, you see…”

“C’mon, Harry,” Hermione said. “I think we might have a few more buttons to pass out in the hallway.”

“Does that mean that you’re going to take harem applications out there, then?” Romilda hoped.

“Sorry…just approving a few that have already been submitted.”

“Oh, Poo!”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

oo00OO00oo

Harry crawled out of the entrance and fell into the arms of a nervous Fifth-Year Hufflepuff.

“Hey there, Harry,” Susan blushed.

The-Boy-Who-Lived remembered the self-promise to be assertive, and to let the Gryffindor within play a bit. He smiled widely, pulled her even closer, and replied, “Hey, there, Sweetheart.”

The roar from the crowd that had spilled out behind Harry rang down the hallways as he grabbed her hand.

“So, Hermione…I think that we need a few more buttons?” he asked sheepishly. “For Lisa…and Luna…and Susan…my girlfriend?”

The bushy-haired witch nodded, then stepped forward and pulled the pony-tailed witch into her own hug.

“Oh, Susan…I’m so happy!” she declared, taking one step back so that she could pin a “Dreamgirl!” button onto her robes. “Harry finally got his head out of his arse!”

“Whoa…didn’t see that coming!” exclaimed Fred.

“And good thing that none of our customers did either!” added George.

“So…so….so…when did this happen?” squeaked a crestfallen Ginny.

Harry shrugged. “Well, after I escorted Hermione back to the tower, I…well…I needed to share a few things with Susan.”

“Like your bed, mate?” joked Seamus.

The Irish wizard thought he’d delivered a punch line. But the giggles morphed into gasps when the inadvertent truth within that joke caused both Susan and Harry to blush deeply.

“Don’t tell me you two….” Parvati hissed with excitement.

“Okay, I won’t,” Harry parried. “If you don’t mind…I’ve had enough of my personal life exposed over the last few hours.”

Hermione nodded in agreement as she handed buttons out to Lisa and Luna, who’d been waiting patiently at the entrance with Susan.

“So is that everyone, Harry?” she asked.

The-Boy-Who-Lived blushed, then stayed in character by turning towards his “girlfriend.”

“Erm, one more, I think…might have to get her in the Hall, although it might not be safe for her to admit that I saw…erm…sorry, Susan.”

The red-haired witch displayed her very cute dimples as she smiled.

“That’s okay, Sweetheart…everything worked out in the end, right?”

Harry nodded, and pulled Susan into a hug that placed his back to Ginny’s, and allowed him to wink at his real girlfriend.

“Yeah, it did.”

Ron sighed. He might have been using this time to reflect on how he interacted with witches, and with Hermione in particular. But given the hour, he could still only think of his first love.

“Can we go now? I’m hungry!”

Ron’s brothers rolled their eyes, and cuffed his ears as they passed by. After taking a few steps down the hallway, then turned and asked, “Well?”

Harry laughed, took Susan’s hand, and walked towards the Twins. Hermione hooked arms with Lisa Turpin (in a totally platonic way) and fell into step behind, followed by Luna and the three Chasers.

They tried not to laugh too much as they were led down to the Great Hall in true Fred and George style.

"Make way for the Heir of Casanova!”

“Seriously sexy wizard coming through…"

“Make way for The-Boy-Who-Lived-And-His-Harem!”

The Python Defense
A bawdy and slightly disturbing H/Hr crack fic by canoncansodoff

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 7: Skirmishes

Daphne Greengrass could barely hear the Twins above the sound of her own heavy breathing. She slowed down from her dead run, then rounded the corner of a third-floor hallway and came face-to-face-to-face with the red-haired leaders of the processional.

“Ambush,” she wheezed, holding up her hand in warning.

Fred and George stopped, then stepped apart so that a semi-circle formed in front of the Slytherin witch.

“Who?” asked Harry.

“And where?” asked Hermione.

Ron scowled from farther back in the ranks and called out, “Why?”

“Does Malfoy really need a reason to ambush us?” asked George.

“No, I mean…why would we trust anything that slimy snake has to say?”

“Okay, fine Ron…your pig-headed short-sighted concerns are duly noted,” Hermione snapped. The bushy-haired witch then turned towards Daphne and apologized.

“Sorry, our friend here is suffering from diarrhea of the mouth this morning.”

“I’ll second the apology,” Harry added. He arched an eyebrow and asked, “Shall I introduce you, then?”

The Slytherin witch looked over Harry’s shoulder at the group, paused, then shrugged.

“Now is as good a time as any.”

Harry smiled, took a few steps forward, then turned back towards the group and wrapped an arm about Daphne’s shoulders.

“This is Daphne Greengrass,” he announced. “She’s a Fifth-year Slytherin…and a friend of mine. Somebody who was put at risk by Snape’s assault as much as any of my other Dreamgirls.”

“Oooh, now there’s a story I’d like to hear,” said Parvati.

“Not now.”

“Does that mean yes later?”

“No.”

“So now you’ve got at least one girl from every house, Harry?” teased Katie.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Harry shook his head, and turned back to Daphne.

“Don’t mind them…so where is Malfoy set up?”

“Marble stairs, landing in between the main entrance and first floor.”

“Unusual choice,” noted Fred. “Nowhere to hide and hex from the shadows.”

“They don’t think they need that today,” said Daphne. “Going to be a verbal assault…they figure that the taunts will be hurtful enough.”

“Hoping that we draw our wands in response?” Harry asked. “Let me guess…Snape will swoop down just at the right moment.”

When Daphne nodded, Hermione sighed.

“Well at least some things never change.”

Harry took a look back at their group…mostly DA, but not all, and more than a few younger ones in the back like Romilda Vane.

“This is an annoyance,” he decided. “We know what he’s going to say, and we’ve got it covered. Draco’s not the main problem here. Not worth the fight.”

“Think they’ll let us past them without a fight?” asked George.

“Probably not,” Harry decided. He thought about asking Dobby to help bypass the ambush, popping them by one at a time. He really didn’t want to advertise his friend’s newly revealed transport capabilities over something minor. But maybe Dobby could help diffuse the situation all on his own?”

“Fred….George…with me for a minute?”

“Sure thing, Harry.”

The black-haired wizard caught Hermione’s eye and nodded towards Daphne. She nodded, and invited the Slytherin witch to stand with them while they waited. A “Dreamgirl” button was offered, taken, and pocketed by with the promise that it’d be worn when it mattered.

Those in the group that focused on Harry and the Twins watched them walk half-way back up the hall. Words were exchanged, heads nodded and smiles formed. A house-elf was called. He arrived, exchanged words, then nodded his head vigorously and smiled. Then he popped away. He popped back a few moments later cradling a stack of wands in his arms. Fred picked one of these wands up, then smiled, nodded his head, and returned it to the pile.

Once the house elf popped away for a second time, Harry and the Twins walked back to the head of the line.

“Okay, I think we’ve got things taken care of,” Harry announced. “If this plays out as advertised, I don’t want anyone drawing wands unless I do.”

“Can we at least have them drawn?” asked Ron.

“If you want to hold onto them in your pocket or up your sleeve, okay…but let’s not give the bad guys reason to claim that we’re the bad guys…right?”

Daphne frowned. “What have you got planned, Potter?”

“Oh, the usual,” Harry grinned.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” snarked Hermione.

“You should stay behind, Daphne,” Harry suggested. “Unless you’re ready to publicly join my harem?”

“Harem!Harem!Harem!”

“Oh, stop it, you three,” Harry whined. “It was just a joke.”

“Harem!Harem!Harem!”

Dobby reappeared by Harry’s side.

“All set, Mr. Harry Potter, Sir,” he announced with a spiffy salute.

“That’s great, Dobby,” Harry replied. Then he squatted down and said something into the house-elf’s ear. Dobby looked towards Daphne, smiled, and nodded his head.

Harry stood and leaned over to whispered into the Slytherin’s ear.

“After we leave, Dobby will take you wherever you want to go…unless it’s my bed or my shower.”

Daphne smiled. “Oh, darn.”

“And next time you need to do something like this, just call for Dobby…he’ll get you here without you needing to break a sweat.”

The pretty Slytherin thought about making a witty retort, but decided that there were enough wand-bearing witches eying her suspiciously.

“Thanks, Harry.”

“No, thank you, Daphne.”

When The-Boy-Who-Lived returned to Susan’s side and took her hand, she squeezed his hand and teasingly asked, “Should I be jealous over you whispering into a very pretty witch’s ear?”

Harry chuckled and shook his head. Once they got moving down the hallway again he squeezed back and quietly asked, “And should I be jealous over you thinking that Daphne is a very pretty witch?”

“Hush, you!”

“Yes, Dear.”

oo00OO00oo

They were met on the stairway by Draco, his two goons, and his girlfriend.

“Oh, look, Pansy,” the blonde-haired wizard noted. “It’s the Gryffindor pervert himself.”

Fred and George pointed towards each other and asked, “Who…Me?”

“No…Potter’s the Perv,” declared Pansy.

“Get out our way, Malfoy…breakfast is half over,” Ron shouted.

“Hey Pervy Potter…think any of these girls could keep their breakfast down if they knew what you’ve seen or done?”

“I don’t know, Draco…think they’d vomit if I told them about the time your mummy found you playing dress up with the family house elf?”

“What’s so pervy about that?” asked Fred.

“They were borrowing from his mum’s collection of unmentionables.”

“Liar!” Draco shouted. “You’re just trying to change the sub…what are you doing holding hands with the Huffledyke?”

“Mind your tongue, Draco!” Harry hissed. “Especially when you’re talking about my girlfriend.”

“Right…and does your ‘girlfriend’ know that you rubbed one off while she was using her tongue on Turpin?”

“Is that a fact?” asked Susan. She glanced back at her secret lover and apologized for her boyfriend’s active imagination. Then she turned towards Harry and asked, “Sweetie, I thought your fantasy involved a three-way with us and Pansy?”

“What!” the Slytherin squawked.

“So does Pansy need a button now?” asked Hermione.

“Erm, sorry, but you know how active my imagination can be…sweetheart,” Harry confessed.

Susan smiled and kissed Harry on the cheek. “You’re forgiven, honey. So does this mean I need to add Hermione to our fantasy harem?”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Speaking of the Mud…Hey Granger do you know your friend Pervy Potter likes looking up your skirt in the library?”

Hermione smiled sweetly and replied, “Yes, I do, Draco.”

“But…but….but that doesn’t bother you?” Pansy demanded.

“Hmm…it might if it was during my monthlies,” Hermione replied. She then turned to boyfriend and asked, “Was I wearing my ugly grandma panties when you looked up my skirt, Harry?”

“Hermione! I’m sure that your grandma is a lovely woman,” he chided.

“Harry....”

“Okay, fine...actually, you weren’t wearing any knickers at the time.”

The Muggleborn witch shrugged her shoulders and turned back to Draco. “Well there you have it…no worries.”

“Do you really go around without wearing knickers, Hermione?” Ron demanded.

“Relax, Ron, her bits were covered,” Harry stated. He then slyly added, “Of course, given how sheer they were, there wasn’t that much of a difference.”

“Hermione! I can’t believe that you...!”

“Hold on,” Pansy hissed. “What’s Pervy Potter’s ‘girlfriend’ think about Granger flashing her bits at him?”

Susan shrugged. “I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?” Pansy screeched.

Susan smiled. “Actually, I enjoy hearing my boyfriend’s fantasies…it gets me hot and makes the real thing so much better…and so much bigger.” She then winked at the Slytherin witch and added, “I suppose Draco’s stories about him dressing in his mum’s bras and knickers do the same for you?”

Draco pulled out his wand, aimed it at Susan and yelled, “Shut up!”

The dramatic tension was diminished when the wand turned into a rubber chicken.

“What...hex them!” shouted Draco.

Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy drew their wands and suffered the same result. And then they suffered through a roar of derisive laughter.

Harry grabbed Susan’s hand and took a step towards the four Slytherins. “Step aside, chicken man, Susan and I have an important announcement to make.”

“Hey Draco, do you want a Dreamgirl button?” asked Hermione.

“Absolutely not,” Harry snapped. “Draco can’t join my fantasy harem.”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“But Harry….he was nice enough to pass his buttons out last year…it’s only right that we do the same and give him one.”

“No!” Harry stated.

“No way in hell!” Malfoy yelled.

Hermione sighed and nodded her head in sympathy.

“You don’t need to work so hard at acting, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s quite understandable that you’re disappointed that Harry doesn’t think of you that way.”

“Of course I’m not…to think that….”

“It does no good to repress those feelings,” Luna chimed in.

“Hey, I don’t mind,” said Harry. “He can repress of those kinds of thoughts about me as much as he wants.”

“Like I’d want to…” Malfoy spat.

Susan giggled. “Says the boy who is waving his rubber cock in Harry’s face.”

“POTTER!” bellowed a voice from above.

Harry looked toward a greasy-haired wizard who had been standing quietly in the corner under a just-cancelled Notice-me-not charm.

“Professor Snape…what a surprise finding you here.” Harry grinned.

“What did you do with their wands!”

“I did nothing to them…as I’m sure you know from having watched this whole encounter.”

The Potion’s eyes narrowed even more than they had been.

“Potter! You! Me! Now!”

“Erm, actually…I’m with Susan, now, Professor…sorry.”

“Why you! We’ll sort out detentions later. The Headmaster is waiting for us.”

“So we’re meeting right now, then?”

The Head of Slytherin House glared down at Harry. He sneered at everyone else within earshot, then nodded and spun on his heels and began to stride down the stairs.

“Guess that means yes?” asked Harry, watching the Potion’s professor’s robes billow.

“Are you sure that you want to…”

Harry shrugged. “Better this is done away from Ministry ears.”

“But Honey!” Susan whined. “What about our grand entrance, walking hand-in-hand into the Great Hall? I so want to make every other witch in the castle jealous.”

“Except for the other witches in the harem,” Luna noted.

“Harem! Harem!....”

“Okay, enough of that,” Hermione decided, waving off the Chasers.

“POTTER!” Snape bellowed.

The-Boy-Who-Lived glanced over at the rubber chicken-wielding Slytherins, then gave Susan a peck on the cheek.

“Watch my back then?”

“So long as I can watch your cute bum at the same time.”

“Can I watch it too?” asked Lavender, as Harry rushed to catch up with Snape.

“No!” Susan and Hermione replied in tandem. Susan then turned to Draco and added, “And that goes for you too!”

“I’m not going to…!”

“Now Pansy…Pansy can perv on Harry’s bum, given that she’s already part of his fantasy….”

“Harem!Harem!Harem!”

“I am not part of Potter’s harem!” Pansy insisted.

“Are you sure?” Hermione teased. “No matter,” she decided. “I think that you four have better things to do than perv on Susan’s boyfriend…like figure out where you might have left your wands.”

The fact that Draco and his friends were still holding rubber chickens was compounded by the fact that their Head of House was no longer protecting them. The tipping point was reached when the Weasley Twins casually drew their wands out, and the four Slytherins ran away.

“Wait! Pansy! You forgot your button!” Lisa shouted.

Hermione worried her lower lip with her teeth as she watched them scurry off.

“Dobby!” she whispered.

The house-elf popped up underneath the table.

“Yes, Harry’s Potter Sir’s Alpha Missus?”

Hermione knelt down and whispered into Dobby’s ear.

“Is there any way you can watch us without being seen or heard? Harry has just been summoned to a meeting with Professor Snape and the Headmaster, and well…I’m afraid they might do something.”

The house-elf straightened his back and narrowed his eyes.

“Dobby does be keeping the Great Harry Potter Sir from harm!”

Exactly how he was going to accomplish this task was left unstated as the house-elf immediately popped out of sight.

oo00OO00oo

It had been more than eight months since Albus Dumbledore had made eye contact with Harry Potter…eight long months of being forced to divine his young charge’s thoughts rather than determine them certainty. This restraint was necessary, given the Headmaster’s fears that Voldemort could look through the boy’s eyes just as readily as the boy saw through his own…and use that conduit to steal the Headmaster’s most heavily guarded thoughts and memories.

But there were other things that were almost as scary...things like losing his supply of lemon drops…or losing his Death Eater spy…or losing control of the Boy-Who-Lived.

It was therefore worth the risk.

The Headmaster stared into the young wizard’s defiant gaze, seeking evidence to support the boys’s claims…then quickly looked away. The brief dip into Harry’s surface thoughts was so disturbing…so alarming…that it took all of his skills as a Master Occlumens not to react negatively to them.

It wasn’t that Harry was at risk…it was his control of Harry that was at risk. If the boy’s relationship grew with the Bones girl…and he grew to trust the girl’s Aunt more than his Headmaster…

Disaster.

There was a pregnant pause in the heated, closed-door conversation…a silence that built up the dramatic moment, and allowed the Headmaster to winnow though the shifting sets of schemes and paths forward.

He finally nodded, and said, “Harry, you must continue your Occlumency training, despite your stated concerns regarding Professor Snape’s methods of instruction.”

“It’s not instruction…it’s an invasion of my privacy, and he’s trying to use the information against me and my friends!”

Snape snorted derisively.

Dumbledore held up a hand, weakly asking his Potions Professor to exhibit some restraint.

“Harry, my boy…you must realize that it is the only way to test the strength of your mental shields?”

The-Boy-Who-Lived shook his head emphatically. “He’s gone way beyond what is necessary.”

“Impudent whelp!” hissed Snape. “You dare tell me what is necessary for something that you haven’t even begun to understand?”

The young wizard gave the Potions professor a defiant glare. “Let’s say that you were trying to teach me how to keep students from gaining unauthorized access to the library’s Restricted Section.”

“What relevance…”

“It’s an analogy,” Harry snapped.

“What’s…”

“You don’t know what an analogy is?” Harry sneered. “It’s like a comparison…”

“I know what an analogy is you dunderhead!” Snape bellowed. “I simply don’t know what the relevance of your…analogy…is to this conversation!”

“Well if you wouldn’t keep interrupting me,” Harry snapped.

“How dare you lecture me on….!”

“Severus, please,” Dumbledore interrupted. “So, Harry…you are comparing learning how to construct mental shields to learning how to keep students from gaining access to the Restricted Section?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And would there not be a need, in both instances, for an instructor to directly test the student’s defenses?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then I am afraid that I fail to see…”

“Headmaster, if Snape…”

“Professor Snape!”

“If I tried to defend the Restricted Section, and Professor Snape was able to get past my defenses, why would he then think he had the right to read any of the books on the other side?”

“Harry, all of the Professors have full access rights to all of the books within the Hogwarts library.”

“Do they also have full access rights to all of the pervy fantasies or memories within the unprotected minds of Hogwarts students?”

“I’ve had enough of this….” Snape hissed, making his way towards the door.

“Hold on, Severus,” asked Dumbledore. He then turned towards Harry and tried to conjure up a beatific smile. The effect would have been enhanced if he hadn’t been so afraid to look the boy in the eyes.

“Harry, my boy, I can assure you that the goal of your lessons is to protect your mind from Voldemort. Professor Snape would never try to seek gain from whatever he learned during those lessons.”

“Bullshit!”

“Language!”

“Dragon Dung!” Harry countered.

“Detention!” Snape bellowed.

“If Snape wouldn’t try to take advantage of me, then why did he threaten me last night with what he thought he saw in my mind? And why did Malfoy already have that information this morning, and try to use it against me and my friends?”

Dumbledore sighed. “Harry, we must focus on the greater good, here…”

“No.”

“Selfish, obnoxious, brat….”

“No!” Harry stated even more clearly. “I’m done with Remedial Potions!”

“But Harry, you must continue!” said Dumbledore. “If not for the Wizarding World, or even for yourself…then for your friends, at least. And for your girlfriend.”

“What do you mean?” Harry spat. “Are you going to try to blackmail me with what Snape thought he saw as well?”

“No, no…not at all, Harry. I was thinking of Voldemort…what would happen to Miss Bones…or to Miss Weasley or Miss Granger…if he were to gain access to your mind and see what Professor Snape saw?”

“Oh, oh…I know the answer to that one!” Harry snarked. “If Voldemort tried to hurt me by invading my mind, just like Snape did, then he might try to blackmail or humiliate me…just like Snape did!”

“Professor Snape, Harry…and you know that Voldemort would do far more than that.”

“Doesn’t make what Professor Snape did any less terrible…and funny how you’re more interested in correcting what I say than what he does…or did.”

“I was getting there, my boy,” the Headmaster sighed. “But, unfortunately, the first classes of the day are to begin in a few minutes. Shall we continue this discussion later this evening?”

“I’m not leaving until I find out what Snape’s punishment is going to be for what he did.”

“It’s Professor Snape, Harry…someone who was only trying to help you.”

Harry shook his head.

“Then if he’s only trying to help me, and wouldn’t think to take advantage of what he saw last night, or what he thinks he saw…I want an oath.”

“What?”

“I want Professor Snape to swear on his life and magic that he has not revealed, and will not reveal, what he’s learned during my Remedial Potions class to anyone else without my permission.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort!” hissed the Slytherin Head of House.

“Why not?” asked Harry. “If you aren’t guilty, then you have nothing to worry about, right?”

“You won’t get rid of me that easily, Potter!” Snape declared.

“Harry,” interrupted Dumbledore, “I have asked Professor Snape to keep me informed of your progress under his tutelage. Those progress reports would, by themselves, run afoul of your proposed wording.”

“So would telling Draco Malfoy about my fantasies, or trying to impugn the integrity of any of the witches that I might fancy.”

“Nevertheless…I am sure that Professor Snape would be willing to promise, on a go forward basis, not to reveal to others what he learns while testing your mental defenses.”

“Not good enough…I want an oath, and it needs to include not only what he might learn in the future, but what he’s already seen.”

Snape sneered at the younger wizard. “Oh ho, so it is true that your so called girlfriend is really a witch’s witch?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah…just like it’s true that I heard Trelawney moaning your name as she ground her fanny against her crystal ball.”

“Mr. Potter, some respect!”

“I need that oath, Headmaster…even more so now that it’s clear that Professor Snape can’t tell what is real and what is fantasy.”

Dumbledore shifted his gaze back and forth between Snape’s glare and Harry’s chin (still not wanting to make any unnecessary eye contact with the boy). He then conjured quill and parchment, and reluctantly began to compose the exact language of an oath that all three of them could all live with.

oo00OO00oo

Snape seethed as he watched the door close behind Harry.

“How could you do that to me!” he hissed. “How could you allow a student to have that kind of control over a professor…to act with such impudence and disrespect?”

Dumbledore sighed.

“There are times, Severus, when we are asked to make personal sacrifices in service to the greater good. And there is never a good time to make powerful enemies by propagating baseless accusations.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that your accusations were groundless.”

“How can you say that?”

“I can say that having risked scanning the boy’s surface thoughts when you accused Amelia Bones’s niece of being a lesbian.”

“You did what….after all this time saying that you couldn’t risk that sort of thing?”

“It had to be done, both to regain the boy’s trust and to keep the MLE from throwing you into Azkaban.”

“What?”

“The Bones girl is not a lesbian.”

“Of course she is…I saw for myself what Potter saw!”

“What you no doubt thought you saw was a teen-aged boy’s hormonally-fuelled fantasy.”

“What did you see that I could not?” Snape demanded.

“The Boy’s unguarded thoughts,” replied Dumbledore. “While you were standing there, claiming that Miss Bones was a lesbian, her boyfriend was summarily dismissing the idea by mentally reliving recent experiences that proved otherwise.”

“What kind of experiences?”

“He has shared his bed with her, and she, in turn, has shared her body.”

“Impossible…I bit down on every juicy, pervy memory that the brat tried to squirrel away, and the only one that Puff was in had, erm...”

“Careful of your oath, Severus,” Dumbledore scowled. “So I take it that Mr. Potter’s accusations regarding your intentions were accurate, then?”

Snape ignored the question. “How do you know that Potter wasn’t just dreaming that he was shagging the little bint?”

Dumbledore chuckled. “Severus, my boy…these memories were quite realistic.”

“So? So were the false memories that he sprung on me last night.”

The Headmaster looked towards the door and sighed, thankful that Harry hadn’t forced him to make the same kind of oath that Snape had just taken.

“There are two distinct reasons why I know that the boy was mentally reviewing real experiences regarding Miss Bones,” he declared. “You would, of course, have no reason to think of the first.”

“And why is that?”

“Because unlike Harry or myself, you do not require corrective vision.”

“His glasses prove that he shagged the girl?”

“Just the opposite, actually,” Dumbledore replied. He took a moment to fish a lemon drop out a pocket and popped it into his mouth.

“Young Harry was broadcasting a first-person perspective of his liaison…he allowed me to look through his eyes, as it were.”

“No different than many of the perverse fantasies and memories that I saw,” Snape said dismissively.

“Indeed? Tell me, Severus…did any of the images that you…reviewed…were they blurred, in any way…or was there full clarity?”

“They were…there wasn’t any blurriness, that I recall.”

“As is to be expected, my boy…even when the owner of those mental images wears glasses. Either because they are true memories of times when he was wearing those glasses…or because they are imaginative constructs.”

“So how does that relate, then?”

“Mr. Potter inadvertently shared with me a memory of a very blurry Miss Bones servicing him orally. It was in Mr. Potter’s bed, and he recalled the girl modestly asking that he not put his glasses on.”

“And just because he had the equivalent of a bag over the bint’s head, you believe him?”

“I do,” Dumbledore replied. “But that is only the first piece of evidence. Tell me Severus…if you were going to fantasize about someone you fancy performing fellatio, would that memory include a painful moment when lips were accidentally replaced by teeth?”

Snape stared at the Headmaster with disbelief.

The Headmaster decided that he probably should have been more specific.

“Irrespective of your…predilections…do you think that Mr. Potter would have oral sex fantasies that involved pain and teeth?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Harry’s surface thoughts suggest that his girlfriend needs to work on her technique. The boy also was thinking about Miss Bones subsequently being caught out by Neville Longbottom as she attempted to escape his bed underneath his cloak. Do you honestly think that he would want to fantasize about either one of those things?”

Dumbledore waited a few moments to see if Snape’s stuttering, spittle-fueled response resolved into something more coherent. When it failed to do so, he decided to push on.

“You are bound by your oath, now, Severus,” Dumbledore stated. “I was not asked to do the same…either because Harry forgot to ask, or because he didn’t think that he needed to ask. So I could, if I wanted to, act on what you observed last night. Everyone whom you confided with last night could as well…young Draco, for example.”

“But…you think that…”

“It does not matter what I think about your acts or intentions. What does matter is that there is not a shred of corroborating evidence that the two witches in question were engaging in illicit activities. There is, in fact, evidence to the contrary…not that it matters. The evidence was obtained using methods and abilities that neither you nor I want revealed.”

“So you are just going to let this all pass?”

“Yes, Severus…and so are you. I suggest that you refrain from doing any type of mental surveillance over the short term…either passive or active...outside of your lessons with Mr. Potter.”

“But the oath only binds me to information gained during the brat’s lessons.”

“And there is nothing, in turn, keeping the boy from spreading word on how you gained that information...either within the castle’s walls, or beyond. It is hard enough for me to deal with parents who are upset with your potions instruction…don’t give them or the Board of Governors any more ammunition!”

“Is that an order, then?”

Dumbledore shook his head.

“Consider it some strongly worded advice,” he tiredly replied. “Advice provided by someone who knows a bit too much about what goes on inside your own head.”

Snape considered the Headmaster’s words, wondering about the implied threat behind them. He swore just over his breath, then stormed out of the antechamber in disgust.

He might have kept trying to change Dumbledore’s mind, had he not known that a second-year potions class was meeting within the hour that would serve as an outlet for his anger and frustration.

Dumbledore followed close behind Snape, leaving only one other in the room…a diminutive being who was smart enough and loyal enough to realize that keeping his master from harm sometimes required a bit of eavesdropping.

oo00OO00oo

Harry and Hermione had two shared classes that day, but could find neither the time nor the place for him to provide a full brief of the meeting. Part of this, of course, was due to the pretending…while Harry and Susan weren’t in any shared classes that day, he still walked her to her classes and held her hand. This caused all sorts of excitement (and for some heart-struck witches, disappointment). By midday there was a huge entourage behind the couple as they headed towards lunch…big enough for Harry to suggest that they no longer needed to make any kind of grand appearance to get the news out, and that they could therefore find someplace less crowded and intrusive to share a meal.

Given how close the kitchens were to the entrance to the Hufflepuff dormitory, it was a simple enough thing for Harry and Susan to slip away from the other students (with some help from his cloak) and tickle the pear. Dobby almost fainted with excitement when he was presented with the opportunity chance to serve the young couple. He went all out, with a red tablecloth-covered table, a bottle of wine, and candlelight. He even convinced another musically-inclined house-elf to play the violin tableside. Harry and Susan’s good moods were tinged with bemusement, enough for them to allow Dobby to decide what they’d have to eat.

It was the first time that Harry had eaten oysters.

He laughed out loud when Susan quietly told him why she thought they were on the menu.

They were careful about discussion topics, as there were far too many other oversized ears in the kitchens, and two too-many magical portraits hung on the walls. He did tell her about the confrontation with Snape, since it was something that he would have done if his real girlfriend was there. They also shared observations about how everyone was reacting to their coming-out (so to speak).

Harry and Susan both had really basic questions about each other, since it was their first substantive conversation. But since they figured that they should already know things like the names of siblings, or the size of the basilisk, they pushed on as if they already knew the answers to these questions. Which made for a few awkward moments…but not too awkward. Each found it surprisingly easy to talk to the other...in no small part because they knew each other’s sexual orientations (as well as each other’s girlfriends). Harry found the lack of sexual tension a bit odd, given how intimate they’d been in his bed. But odd and different were pretty much normal conditions for his life, so it didn’t bother him too much.

The need for reticence was proven just as soon as they finished the meal, thanked Dobby, and left the kitchens hand-in-hand. Loyal house-elfs and magical portraits were summoned to the Headmaster’s office, and asked to provide a full accounting. These reports added more lines of independent evidence for the puzzle master who deigned himself the designer of the puzzle that was The-Boy-Who-Lived’s life.

Dumbledore spent a full hour alone in his office. It was time spent contemplating options, and ignoring the heartburn that he knew had nothing to do with what had been on his plate during lunch.

oo00OO00oo

They decided to eat separately that evening. Susan wanted to prove to Hannah that her best friend wasn’t going to abandon her now that there was a boyfriend in the picture. A few members of the Harem!Harem!Harem! who knew better might have thought it was Lisa Turpin who needed that kind of reassurance…especially given how well Lisa’s girlfriend had slipped into her role as Harry’s girlfriend.

Not to mention Hermione’s skills as both an actress, and an acting coach.

The bushy-haired witch was sitting on Harry’s right hand side. The salt and pepper were sitting by his water glass on his left.

“Oh, sorry for my bad manners, Harry,” she said, reaching across his plate.

Her right hand went for the salt… her left aimed lower.

“Um, oh…no, worries!” he replied tightly, trying hard not to reveal her groping to either his house mates or the Hall.

She smiled, and leaned closer.

“Give your girlfriend some ‘I miss you’ looks, Harry!” she whispered.

He turned towards his best friend and began to apologize.

She shook her head (slightly, but firmly) and pointed her gaze towards his “other” girlfriend.

“Oh…right, thanks,” he replied. “Guess I’m still kind of new at all this.”

Harry leaned away from Hermione until he could see Susan at the Hufflepuff table. When their eyes met he smiled, and gave her a little wave.

“So, I imagine that I’ll see you two at the library tonight?” Hermione asked.

Her messy-haired secret lover furrowed his eyebrows.

“Hadn’t planned on it…is there some assignment that I’m forgetting about?”

“Yes, you berk…your assignment to spend some quality time with your new girlfriend!”

“Oh…right.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Harry, you really need to stay on top of these things…find ways to spend quality time with Susan. I mean, it’s not like your girlfriend is a Gryff that you see all the time in your classes or the Common Room.”

“Quality time…in the library?” snorted Lavender, who’d been sitting just down the table. “Only you, Hermione, would think the library was a romantic location.”

Harry chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know, Lavender…strolling down the long, narrow stacks hand-in-hand…rubbing your fingers up and down those…thick…books….with their ribbed…leather…bindings…”

Lavender’s breath caught. “Oh…well, when you describe it that way…”

“Careful, there, Harry,” Parvati joked. “Susan might get jealous, the way that you’re making other witches blush.”

“Nah, you’ve got it all wrong,” said Fred, as he shouldered his way onto the bench opposite Harry. “Hermione’s just all hot and bothered at the thought of Harry, here, studying a new subject, and needing some help with his homework.”

Ginny had been failing miserably in her attempts to not look like she’d been eavesdropping. So nobody was really surprised when she snorted and offered up a snarky comment.

“Blind leading the blind, if that’s the case.”

She got as many dirty looks as laughs with her joke, with all of her brothers firmly in the first grouping.

Ron scowled, and said, “You’d better be just as blind, little sister!”

“Are you suggesting that I’m not?”

“Oh, relax, little brother,” Fred called out. “Everybody knows that you only go blind if you’re alone when you wank.”

“Well that can’t be right,” said Ron.

“And why is that?” Hermione teased.

“Because I can see perfectly……”

Ron let his response drop when he realized what he was saying…not that anyone could have heard his sentence end above the laughter.

Once things settled down enough for his voice to be heard without shouting, Fred winked at the younger wizard.

“You know, Harry…now that you’ve decided on some advanced study topics…I might have some study aids for you.”

Harry cocked his head to one side.

“What are you on about?”

The red-headed twin waggled his eyebrows and looked up the table, down the table, and over his shoulder. Then he pulled one of the lapels on his robes to the side, revealing an inside pocket.

“Let’s see…they should be right here….”

Harry’s eyes went wide and Hermione let out an “eep!” when Fred reached into the pocket and began to pull out a foil strip of Muggle condoms.

“Fred!” Harry hissed.

“What?” the older wizard teased, flashing the widest of smiles. He made a big show of pulling the strip forward, so that he could look behind it and into the pocket. Then he shook his head, pushed the condoms back down, and closed his robes.

“Oh, sorry…never mind…must have it back in the dormitory...What? You two thought I was talking about…”

George laughed. “Couldn’t have been, brother of mine. Wouldn’t Harry have to know what they were first…or how to use them?”

Harry let out a deep breath and growled.

Hermione sighed, and tried to calm him down by patting the top of his hand.

“I don’t know if Harry should be angered or relieved that you think that to be the case,” she stated. “Besides, I’m sure that he is a thoughtful, responsible boyfriend…and if there had been need last night for…that kind of study aid… Harry would have discussed pregnancy prevention with his girlfriend beforehand.”

Ginny shook her head dismissively. “And let me guess, Hermione….you know that’s the case because you are really Harry’s girlfriend, not Susan. And you were the one that talked with Harry about not wanting to get knocked up…and you were the one that rolled the raincoat onto his wand…right before you two shagged, then ran naked through the halls back to the Tower before you shagged the rest of the night.”

Liquids swallowed at the wrong time flew out of noses, and giggle fits broke out down the table. Hermione scowled at the three most vociferous members of her boyfriend’s Harem!Harem!Harem!

“Oh…oh…I’m sorry, Hermione,” Katie gasped. “It’s just such an…outrageous…story.”

Alicia nodded. “Still sounds better when you tell it, Hermione.”

Harry’s eyebrows got lost in his hairline.

“What kind of stories are you telling, Hermione?”

His secret girlfriend smiled, and patted his thigh.

“Oh, don’t worry, Harry…this morning Ginny was thinking that something wild and crazy happened after she left us alone last night. So I just told her the truth…the truth about the two of us rutting like rabbits, and running through the halls naked.”

And there was much laughter.

Harry looked at his secret girlfriend as if she had just gone round the bend. Just for a moment, though…before he caught on and smiled.

“But Hermione?” he asked innocently.

“Yes, Harry?”

“We didn’t run naked through the hallways, did we?”

“Er, yes, dear…you’re right. Threw on our robes first.”

Harry shook his head and smiled. “And what’s this about raincoats?”

“Oh, Ginny was just adding to the story, boyfriend,” she replied slyly. “It’s no big deal,”

“That’s what she said,” George cracked.

Some of the other wizard laughed at the tired old riposte, but Hermione just shook her head, and decided to be a little catty.

“Hey, Ginny?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“Are you doing extra credit projects in your Muggle Studies class?”

“Uh….no. Why?”

“Oh, well, I was just surprised…you knowing that ‘raincoat’ is Muggle slang for condoms.”

Ginny cheeks went bright red. Her brother’s eyes all narrowed.

“Erm, well…yes. Well you know …easy to overhear girls talking in the lav…or in the Quidditch locker rooms.”

Seamus laughed. “Do I know any of those girls, Gin?”

The Fourth-Year turned towards the Irish wizard who’d been sitting next to her and slugged his arm. His piggish question and her response did much to divert the table’s attention away from her knowledge of slang (at least until Ron thought about it later that evening, confronted his sister in the Common Room, and got a bat-bogey hex as a response).

Harry’s real girlfriend let it drop, and aimed her sights on a different Weasley.

“Oh, and Fred?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“It is a really big deal.”

Fred chuckled. “I’ve suppose that you’ve measured it, then?”

Hermione both distracted and reassured her secret boyfriend by rubbing a hand down his thigh.

“Why Fred…haven’t you been listening?” Hermione purred. “I measured Harry several times last night…measured him in several different ways…and several different places.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…which is why I know that what’s in your pocket couldn’t have helped us even if we had needed them.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because, Fred, you’ve got regular-sized rubbers there. Harry needs double extra-large.”

This time, the comment drew laughter mixed with cat calls and moaning “whoaaaa!s”

Oh, and blushing…Harry was definitely blushing.

Even more so when Susan walked up to the table.

“Hey…what’s all this about?” she asked, placing an arm around each twin.

Ginny tried to get back at Hermione for the raincoat comment.

“Oh, nothing much, Susan,” she called out. “Hermione was just describing how she measured your boyfriend’s willie last night.”

Everyone tensed up, wondering how the Hufflepuff would react to the snarky comment. Susan stared at Ginny for a moment, then caught Hermione’s eyes and engaged in a bit of wordless conversation.

And then she snorted.

“Well, that’s a bit of a surprise,” noted Susan.

“It is?” asked Lavender.

“Yeah…I don’t remember seeing a measuring stick in his bed...unless Hermione was hiding it from Harry and me in a very naughty place?”

The roar of laughter that followed caught the attention of the entire Hall. Until, of course, this attention was diverted by a rousing chorus of “Harem!Harem!Harem!”

That there were far more than just the three Chasers singing in this choir prompted Harry to bang his head down onto the table.

The Python Defense
A bawdy and slightly disturbing H/Hr crack fic by canoncansodoff

A/N: Spam, spam, spam, spam....Crack, crack, crack, crack...

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 8: Broom Closets and Coconuts

Most of the anger and frustration that Harry carried away from his second meeting with Snape and Dumbledore was tempered by the knowledge that every step further away from the Headmaster’s Office was a step closer to his girlfriend.

The balance of that anger and frustration vaporized when he entered the library and spotted the familiar mass of bushy brown hair.

She was at “their” table, sitting at her normal place…facing away from the entrance, with a scenic view of the Restricted Section. The seat opposite her (aka “his” spot) was unoccupied. Susan was diagonal to Hermione, in the chair that Ron used on those relatively rare occasions when he patronized the library. And Lisa Turpin sat next to Hermione, in the chair that the Muggleborn witch always reserved as a place to stack her personal cache of books.

Harry took this to be a clear sign of Lisa’s acceptance within their little group.

Susan spotted him first, and gave him the same little wave that he’d given her during dinner. This caused Lisa and Hermione to turn and smile at Harry, who smiled back. This caused all of the other female witches who were watching the scene play out to smile. Or almost all…Madame Pince’s expression was much more sober, and a few others were going for more of a flirty, seductive look as Harry waded through the other tables in the study area.

“Hey there, boyfriend,” Susan whispered.

“Erm…hi, Sue,” the Gryffindor replied, slipping down into his chair.

The pig-tailed Hufflepuff’s eyes sparkled mischievously as she leaned towards Harry and puckered her lips. Startled, he quickly glanced across the table at Hermione. She rolled her eyes and mouthed the words, “Kiss her!”

So he did. On the lips. Barely made contact with them, but it was enough to get a rise out of their audience. Harry responded to all of the giggles and gossiping with his own eye roll.

“Haven’t they got anything better to do than to stalk and stare?” Harry asked.

“Probably not,” Lisa replied brightly.

“Ssssshhhhh!”

Harry turned towards the scolding librarian, shrugged his shoulders, and whispered, “Sorry!” He then waited until Madame Pince turned her hawk-eye glare away from their table before he reached over the table and touched Hermione’s arm.

“Can we go someplace to talk?” he whispered.

“No,” Hermione hissed. “The Room is busy and there’s research to be done here.”

“Still looking for some suitable curse or hex for our revenge?”

“Ssssshhhh!” hissed the librarian.

Hermione winced a bit, then shrugged.

“Why is the Room busy?” Harry whispered.

“Twins are using it.”

“Ssssshhhh!”

Susan leaned forward and whispered.

“So why can’t we just cast a silencing spell, again?”

“Because shushing us gives Madame Pince a sense of purpose,” Harry snarked.

“Sssshhhh!”

Deciding that something needed to be done, the Muggleborn witch got Harry’s attention and mouthed the word “Map.” He looked at her for a moment, then looked around the room…hoping that he’d be able to pull the Marauder’s Map from his rucksack and whisper the activation phrase without bringing attention to himself.

This was, of course, a non-starter, as the library was filled with gossiping schoolgirls who had been gleefully giving Harry and his girlfriend their full attention from the moment he walked into the room.

“Not here,” he decided, as he closed the book in front of him and pushed it towards Hermione.

oo00OO00oo

“Not here” turned out to be an appropriate location description for just about any place Harry and the three witches tried to go. A dozen different witches spontaneously decided that their night at the library was also done just and followed the four out of the library. Most of these girls weren’t within the DA, and a few (like Pansy Parkinson) may have had more reason to follow them than a simple quest for salacious bits of gossip.

Once it was clear that they were being followed, Susan squeezed Harry’s hand and whispered, “So what do we do now?”

The black-haired wizard took stock of their surroundings, and the situation. He turned to Hermione, who smiled and whispered, “Follow my lead...and do try to keep up.”

Hermione and Lisa stepped in front of the hand-holding couple, and continued walking down the hallway at the same pace. When the four started to pass by a set of stairs, Hermione suddenly turned and launched herself up the steps two at a time. The other three were quick to follow. The other witches were not as fast, causing them to temporarily lose sight of the four as they reached a landing and rounded the corner.

So of course they couldn’t see Hermione urge her three companions to keep going up the stairs…or see her draw her wand…or see her cast a sticking charm onto the steps behind them that caught the pursuing witches like flies on fly paper.

When Lisa reached the top of the stairs she dashed down the right-hand side corridor and urged Harry and Susan to quickly follow. She stopped at a broom closet doorway thirty feet down this hall, and pulled open the door.

“Inside!” she hissed with an arm wave.

Susan immediately followed her girlfriend’s instructions and rushed into the closet, while Harry stopped and look back towards Hermione. She had just cast a new spell on the hallway floor, and was now running towards him with a manic gleam in her eye.

“Come on!” she hissed, as grabbed a handful of Harry’s robes and pulled him into the broom closet behind her.

It was a tight fit which got only tighter when Harry reached back and closed the door. Funny that nobody was complaining too much.

Hermione immediately spun around to face Harry and pulled his head down into snogging range. He couldn’t see much beyond her face, given the dim light, but from what Harry could hear it seemed that Susan and Lisa were doing the same, with the Ravenclaw witch standing back-to-back with Hermione.

Any worries that Harry had about being caught in a broom closet with three pretty witches was overwhelmed by the realization that he was in a broom closet with three pretty witches! And any thoughts about joking on the expanded filling inside Susan’s “Exception Sandwich” were tossed aside when Hermione opened the front of her robes, wrapped her leg around his bum, and began to grind hard against his crotch.

Eager to keep this point of contact, Harry reached inside Hermione’s robes and grabbed her bum with both hands. He thrust forward to catch her lips with his, pushing Hermione backwards until she was pinned against Lisa’s back. From what he could feel on the backs of his groping hands it was clear that Susan had the same kind of hold on her girlfriend’s arse. So there was a furtive mosh pit of connectivity, with four hands groping and two bums grinding all in the same tight space.

Hermione broke off the snog for a breath of fresh (if steamy) air. She then attacked Harry’s neck with her lips while she reached in between their embrace, unfastened his robes, and unzipped his trousers. He closed his eyes and groaned in pleasure when fingers met flesh.

“Ssshhhhh!”

The teen-aged wizard opened his eyes looked at the three witches who had all shushed him. Hermione shook her head slightly before relaunching her attack on his neck. Lisa smiled at Harry, then turned back towards Susan and squatted down until her nose was within nuzzling range of breasts. This left Susan and Harry facing each other, with clearance to gaze into each other’s eyes and share a “Can you believe this is happening?” look.

Harry found it much harder to maintain eye contact with Susan when Lisa unbuttoned the pig-tailed witch’s blouse and lifted her breasts out from their bra cups. Susan was trying just as hard not to let her own eyes drift down towards where Hermione was hard at work.

The Muggleborn witch smiled when she realized his predicament. She leaned forward and whispered into his ear.

“Why aren’t you watching what Lisa is doing to her girlfriend?”

Harry frowned and nuzzled against Hermione’s ear.

“You want me to look?”

“You didn’t have any qualms in the owlry, did you?”

“No, but...that was before we...and with you here...”

“Relax, boyfriend!” Hermione cooed.

And then she did something that made it all that much harder to relax...she dropped down to her knees.

Harry’s eyes followed Hermione’s lips, and stayed there. So he didn’t notice when Lisa followed his girlfriend’s lead and dropped down onto her knees in front of Susan. And he didn’t see the hemline of Susan’s skirt pushed up towards her waistline, or follow the path of knickers as they were yanked down to knees, or watch as a face was buried in between thighs.

And if Harry was so focused on what Hermione was doing that he didn’t take note of all that, then he certainly wasn’t paying attention when a house-elf silently popped into the broom broom closet right next to Lisa and Hermione. Until, of course, that house-elf whispered into their ears, then grabbed Lisa and Hermione by the arms and spirited them away.

“What the...!”

Harry’s gaze involuntarily left the spot where Hermione’s lips had just been, travelled across the empty space where Hermione and Lisa had just been, and settled on the exposed bits where Lisa’s lips had just been. Susan’s focus shifted from the place where Hermione’s lips had just been to the door, and to the muffled voices that could now be heard on the other side.

“Bugger!” she hissed. She lunged forward and pulled Harry into an embrace just as the door opened. Light spilled into the closet, followed at the speed of sound by a giggle.

“Well, well, well...what’s all this then?”

oo00OO00oo

Harry didn’t doubt the sincerity of Hermione’s warm smile when she spotted his return to the Gryffindor Common Room...it was the twinkling in her eyes that betrayed her playful evil side and raised his blood pressure.

“Hey there, Harry...busy night?” she asked.

“Yeah, you could say that,” he huffed.

“Did you escort your girlfriend back to her dormitory?”

“No, Ernie and Hannah insisted on doing that without my help.”

Hermione closed the book that had been resting on her lap and patted the space next to her on a sofa.

“Why don’t you have a seat, then, and tell me all about it?”

Harry looked around the room and took note of who else was there. He then shook his head and replied, “Might singe the ears of some of these little tykes if I did.”

Parvati called out from across the room, “I’ve got some burn salve, if that’s the only thing holding you back!”

“Ah...thanks, I’ll remember that,” Harry replied.

Hermione stood and took Harry’s hand. “C’mon, then...let’s go upstairs to your room.”

Her dormmate’s eyes flashed mischievously.

“Oooh...Harry, what’s your girlfriend going to think about you bringing another witch into your bedroom?”

Harry rolled his eyes at Parvati’s playful question.

“Who says that she’s not already up there waiting for us?” he asked.

The brown-skin witch waited a few moments to answer, so that three witches far away on the other side of the castle could satisfy their sudden urge to shout in unison.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

oo00OO00oo

Harry’s dormitory room was empty, but this didn’t keep Hermione from climbing into his bed and casting silencing charms on the closed bed curtains once he joined her.

“Isn’t this going to look suspicious?” Harry asked.

His girlfriend shrugged. “It’s not something that we haven’t done dozens of times before. Might seem even more suspicious if we didn’t do this debriefing right after you met with Snape and Dumbledore.”

Harry snorted and reached for his trouser zipper. “So...you want to debrief me Miss Granger?”

“Keep it covered, Potter...and tell me what happened.”

“What happened earlier in the Headmaster’s Office, or what happened after you and Lisa abandoned us and Prefect Hannah and Prefect Ernie caught me on the verge of spraying Susan’s baps in the broom closet?”

“Yes,” Hermione replied playfully.

“You and Lisa set that up, didn’t you?”

“No...that was all Dobby’s initiative.”

“So he set that up?”

“No, he just was keeping an eye out for us, and for any potential trouble,” Hermione explained.

“Then why didn’t he take all four of us?”

“He can only take two at a time.”

“Then why didn’t he come back for Susan and me?”

Hermione smiled and patted the duvet. “For the same reason why Neville was allowed to catch Susan sneaking out of this very bed this morning.”

“Dobby was helping us build our cover story?”

“It worked, didn’t it? Now if Snape rummages through Hannah and Ernie’s minds, you’re covered.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “It only took a bit of exposed ankle to convince Neville that Susan and I were together. Did I really need to show Hannah and Ernie my stiff willie to do the same?”

“Well, Ernie can be a bit thick at times,” Hermione quipped. She then asked, “Didn’t you two have enough time to cover yourselves?”

“Yeah, we did...until Ernie got all batshit territorial and yanked me out of Susan’s grasp and out into the hallway.”

“He didn’t!”

“He did,” Harry replied. “Left me out there and hanging. At least Susan’s skirt dropped down quick enough to keep her fanny flashing to a minimum...not that her breasts were hanging out for all to see.”

“You mean for Ernie to see?”

“No, he was too busy watching me while I stuffed it back inside my pants.”

“He wasn’t!” Hermione hissed with surprise.

“He certainly was watching me, the wanker,” Harry whined.

“Why would he...you don’t think he’s gay, do you?”

“God, I hope not,” Harry sighed. “Probably isn’t...we are talking about Ernie, after all. He probably just wanted to know how he measured up against The-Boy-Who-Lived.”

Hermione giggled. “You boys and the need to compare yourselves!”

“Hey it wasn’t me that was comparing!” Harry protested.

His girlfriend sighed and pulled him into a comforting hug. “I know, Harry...I know.” She thought for a moment, then broke out into another giggle.

“What?” asked Harry.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me!”

“No, I was just being catty...and wondering if Hannah would be able to make that comparison.”

“Well I hope that she doesn’t think that...”

“Think what, Harry?”

The teen-aged wizard shook his head. “It’s just that... it was kind of cold and drafty in that hallway...”

“So?”

“So it was cold enough to take the edge off my....”

“Your erection?” Hermione teased. “So you’d calmed down a bit, but you’re worried that Hannah and Ernie might think that you were really fully erect?”

“No! Well....maybe...it’s just that...”

Hermione laughed, and pulled Harry into another hug.

“No worries,” she said. “Susan was there, so she’ll set Hannah straight about how big you really are.”

Harry snorted. “Yeah, well she’d certainly know after last night.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Hell no.”

“Good.”

Harry paused for a moment, and then asked, “But why would Susan say anything to Hannah about my size?”

“Well, she is your girlfriend?”

“Yes, but...”

“And Hannah and Susan are friends, right?”

“So is this a common discussion topic between female friends?”

Hermione reached down and groped Harry.

“Only when it’s such a huge discussion topic,” she purred.

Harry’s focus flew out the window.

“Oh, God...you left me just before...it hurt to walk back here...,” he moaned.

Hermione sighed, released her grip, and scooted apart on the bed.

“Got to keep a lid on it,” she noted. “We have to expect frequent bed checks the next couple of days.”

“Really? So we can’t...”

“You and I can’t...at least not now,” Hermione replied.

“What about my cloak?”

“Useful, but not fool proof...you’ve said more than once that you suspect that the Headmaster can see through it, right?”

“I could have be wrong?”

“Maybe later, boyfriend,” Hermione stated.

“Promise?” he hopefully asked.

Hermione sighed. “So, what about your meeting with Dumbledore and Snape?”

Harry snorted.

“Now there’s a erection-killing segue way,” he quipped. He leaned back against the headboard and added, “The meeting started almost exactly as we predicted. Snape claimed that he was teaching me Occlumency the same brute force way that he was taught, it worked well enough for him, right?”

“And Dumbledore didn’t mind?”

“Not really...just tried to take some of the blame for not discussing teaching methods in advance.”

Hermione sighed. “And you need to continue your lessons, and Snape’s the only one who can provide them, so he can’t be sacked and forced to leave the castle?”

“They also said that Snape needs to be here to help keep tabs on what the Ministry is doing.”

“By doing what...reading Umbridge’s mind?”

Harry snorted, and nodded his head.

“Merlin, now there’s the world’s nastiest job,” snarked Hermione. “Can you imagine?”

“I’m trying hard not to.”

“So then...?”

“So then Dumbledore did something that we didn’t expect,” said Harry.

“What’s that?”

“I said that if Snape wasn’t going to be punished for what he did, then I wouldn’t let him anywhere near my head again. That’s when Dumbledore portkeyed the three of us to Grimmauld Place for a little chat with Sirius.”

“No! So what did Sirius say?”

“He said that my dad would be proud of me.”

“For standing up to Snape?”

Harry snorted. “No, for bagging the MLE director’s niece and having a half-dozen other witches chanting about forming a harem.”

(They were too far away to hear three witches on the other side of the castle once again take up their chant).

Hermione rolled her eyes. “So what about your lessons?”

“Oh, right. Sirius told me that I needed to keep learning Occlumency, even if Snape was a greasy-haired git.”

“Really?”

Harry let out a deep breath. “Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. Thought he’d support me...until I realized something.”

“What’s that?”

“I realized that Dumbledore had made the portkey before the meeting even started, and probably had talked with Sirius before we went there tonight...and I also realized that Sirius’s freedom depends on both Dumbledore and Snape keeping mum on his whereabouts.”

“No!” Hermione hissed. “You really think that the Headmaster would blackmail Sirius like that?”

Harry sighed. “Yes, I do...and yes, I think he did. But...even so...I know that Sirius would have told them to sod off if he really thought my life was being put at risk by all this.”

“So Sirius might have told you to keep up with the Occlumency lessons even without the blackmail?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking,” Harry replied. “Either that, or he was just trying to stall for time until he comes up with a better plan.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because he kept on emphasizing it,” said Harry. “Said that there was plenty of time between now and my next lesson, and that things might look better after a week’s time...things like that.”

Hermione quietly sifted through possibilities and probabilities.

“So that’s how things were left,” Harry finally said. “I’ve got another lesson with Snape next Monday, and he’s bound by magic not to reveal or act on anything he learns or has learned when he’s inside my head.”

“And we’ve got most of a week to at least plan our revenge?” Hermione added.

Harry nodded and waggled his eyebrows. “As long as some of that week can be devoted to other things.”

Hermione looked at her watch and shook her head.

“Almost curfew,” she noted.

Harry groaned. “But...can’t we finish off what was started in the broom closet?”

Hermione smiled and shook her head. “You’re on your own, I’m afraid...unless you can hold off until you see me in your dreams tonight?”

“So you think I should wait, and not take matters into my own hands?”

His girlfriend took her own turn waggling eyebrows.

“I’ve read that REM stage and dreaming don’t start for at least seventy minutes after you’ve fallen asleep,” she stated. “And if last night is any indication...that’s more than enough time for you to recover, isn’t it?”

Harry smiled. “Should be...so long as I’ve got some really nice dreams to stimulate me.”

Hermione nodded, leaned forward, and kissed him.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

oo00OO00oo

Later that night, Harry was roused by the weight of naked flesh pressed against his naked thighs.

The owner of that naked flesh smiled as she reached down in between her legs to take hold of Harry’s erection.

“Hermione? What are you…”

“Ssshhh...I’m not Hermione. I’m your dream girl, silly.”

“My wha…?”

“You’re dreaming, sweetheart.”

“I am? But…Susan…”

Hermione smiled, wiggled forward, and rubbed just the right spot against him.

“You’re such a naughty wizard…dreaming about your best friend this way.”

“But….I…”

“Don’t deny it, Stud,” she teased. “Does Susan know that your best friend can make you this hard?”

“Erm...yeah, I think that she’s seen that first hand.”

“And do you think your girlfriend would mind if your dream girl best friend shags you silly?”

Harry choked on his own spittle.

“Erm...I don’t think she’d mind...this is just a dream, right?”

“You keep thinking that, Stud.”

Harry took the briefest of moments to consider the situation as Hermione rocked her hips back and forth against him. And to reflect on everything that had happened over the last twenty-four or so hours. It had been beyond brilliant…but also mostly beyond his control.

Not that he minded that Hermione had taken the initiative and joined him in his bed in the middle of the night…they never would have done ninety percent of what they’d done if she hadn’t taken the initiative.

But maybe turnabout was fair play…and maybe it was time to let his aggressive Gryffindor out to play.

He growled as he reached up and pulled Hermione tight against his chest. Then he rolled her onto her back, and waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Harry…what are you doing?” she asked nervously.

“Don’t play coy with me, Dreamgirl,” he demanded, rubbing his length back and forth against her. “If this is a dream, and you are part of my subconscious, then you should know full well what I’m doing…and what I’m about to do.”

“I…I should?”

“Unless one part of my brain thinks that the other part can’t be trusted?”

Hermione’s eyes narrowed slightly as she considered the situation. Upon reaching a conclusion/assessment, she smiled and waggled her own eyebrows.

“Your Dreamgirl knows what you want,” she purred. Then she pushed Harry off of her and flipped over onto her stomach. She pulled her knees up underneath her body until she was on all fours, and lifted her bum up into the air.

“So give me what I know you want to give me, Stud…before you wake up.”

Harry chuckled...not really surprised at Hermione’s reaction. Or how she had returned his volley in their role-playing game.

Assuming, of course, that this was a real-life game, and that he really wasn’t dreaming.

What was his next step, then? There were a few options there…options that were literally right under his nose. Variation #13 was a tempting choice. But that probably was too much, too soon…and if Hermione really was hinting at anal sex she probably would have followed the details of his scripted wanking fantasy, and instructed him to ‘Shove that bodacious wand of yours up my bum!’

So he decided to set his sights a little bit lower…both figuratively and literally.

And she decided to reward him for this choice…and for knowing what his Dreamgirl really wanted.…and where she wanted it.

oo00OO00oo

There were a hundred different thoughts and pervy memories running around Harry’s head as he walked down the stairs the next morning. It was almost too bad that Snape and Dumbledore were thought to be poofs...if they fancied women and the sight of womanly flesh then they’d never get beyond the incredibly erotic surface thoughts if they tried to invade his brain.

A few less-pervy thoughts crowded their way up into his frontal lobes when Harry entered the Common Room and spotted Lee Jordan and the Weasley Twins…and their Medieval minstrel outfits…and their Medieval minstrel instruments.

“What are you three up to?” he asked.

Fred and George grinned as they swung a guitar and lute into position and Lee began to sing.

“We were patiently waiting…for Sir Harry of Gryffindor.”

“Oh, bugger,” Harry whined. “Is this real, or am I still dreaming?”

“Wouldn’t think there’d be room for blokes in your dreams,” said Fred.

“Given the size of your harem,” added George.

A chant of “Harem! Harem! Harem!” drifted down the girls’ dormitory stairway.

Harry turned and yelled back up that stairway.

“Hermione!”

“Coming!”

The bushy-haired witch stepped out of the stairwell a few seconds later and asked, “What’s wrong, Harry?”

“A witch! A witch!” Fred and George shouted, pointing their fingers at the Muggleborn. “Build a bridge out of her!”

Hermione glanced at the two brothers and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, yes….want me to turn you into a newt?”

“No thank you.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “So what were you guys doing last night?”

“We were doing research!” George protested.

“And are these kits part of that research?” Harry asked. “Does your research require you to dress funny and sing songs?”

“Geez, Harry…relax!” said Fred.

“Yeah, mate…it’s not like we were expecting the Spanish Inquisition.”

A jarring chord of music filled the room as Katie, Alicia and Angelina suddenly appeared wearing red capes, fake goatees and red skull caps.

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!” they shouted gleefully.

“Oh, bugger,” Hermione sighed. “You three as well?”

Kate replied, “Nee!”

And of course the others two joined in. As did Dean and Neville once they came down the stairs.

“Nee!” “Nee!” “Nee!”

Hermione sighed and turned towards the new arrivals.

“So why aren’t you two done up in costume, then?” she asked.

“Don’t need costumes when you’ve got coconuts,” Dean replied brightly. He pulled two empty halves of a coconut shell out of his rucksack and began to bang out a trotter’s pace.

“Where’d you get those?” Harry asked.

“Erm…we found them,” Neville replied, as he produced his own coconut shells.

“Found them…in Scotland?” quipped Harry. “But coconuts are tropical!”

“Harry!” Hermione whined. “Don’t encourage them!”

“It’s nothing to do with encouragement,” Harry replied. “It’s a simple matter of weight ratios.” He then turned back to Dean and added, “Presuming, of course, that these shells were carried by swallows?”

Hermione sighed and turned her attention towards the three cardinals.

“Are all of you actually going down to breakfast dressed like that?”

Angelina looked down at her cardinal’s kit, then kicked the floor, sighed, and swung her arm in an “Oh, drat!” motion.

“Yes, oh…it’s not a very good costume,” she agreed. “Not even from the same movie.” Then she vanished her fake facial hair, then ripped open her red cardinal’s robes and let them drop to the floor. The other two chasers followed suit, revealing gauzy, long-sleeved full-length gowns underneath.

“There, that’s better,” she declared, as they all added a veil-draped hat to their costumes.

“The cardinal costumes were Zoot’s fault,” Katie grinned, pointing towards Alicia. “Wicked, bad, naughty, Zoot!”

“Oh yes. Zoot is a naughty person, and must pay the penalty!” Angelina declared.

Fred chimed in, “And you know we have but one punishment in this Castle, right Harry?”

The black-haired wizard did know, if fact. But that didn’t keep the Chasers from reminding him.

“You must tie her down to a bed and spank her,” Katie declared. “And then you must spank me as well.”

“And spank me, Harry!”

“And spank me!”

“Yes,” said Katie, “you must give us all a good spanking. And after the spanking….”

“The oral hex?” Hermione asked sharply, as she aimed her wand towards the three witches.

Ron added his own closure to the scene when he burst out of the stairwell with his shirt tails half-out and his hair disheveled. Taking absolutely no notice of kits or coconuts, he asked, “So, I haven’t missed brekkers, then?”

Hermione glanced at her wrist watch and shook her head.

“We’ve probably kept Susan and the others waiting,” she decided. Then she turned to the three Chasers and asked, “So this is what you’re really wearing to breakfast then?”

Angelina responded by reaching into her book bag and pulling out her “Dreamgirl” button. She smiled, and pinned it to her gown. The other two did the same, then formed up in rows behind Hermione.

“Every harem needs an official uniform,” Katie explained, as they made their way through the portal.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“So that means that Susan and the others are….”

Hermione’s unfinished question was answered by the matching smiles and maiden gowns worn by the three witches who were waiting patiently in front of the Fat Lady’s portrait.

“Oh, bugger,” she muttered.

“Good morning, sweetheart!” Susan said brightly, as she walked up to Harry and pulled him into a tight embrace.

Susan’s “boyfriend” was ready for this bit of staged intimacy. But what he wasn’t ready for was Lisa walking up to Hermione and giving her a hug.

“Good morning, Sister!” she lovingly gushed.

Luna followed suit and dived into a group hug with the Chasers.

“Good morning, Sisters!”

Ron gawked at all of the hugging with disbelief…and a bit of lust.

Fred and George put a tune behind their own bit of lusty disbelief.

“Bow-chicka wow wow…bow-chicka wow wow…”

Harry’s head turned sharply towards the twins.

“What did you two just say?”

The Weasley brothers repeated the bit of sung verse, adding in some improvised hip thrusting choreography.

“Bow-chicka wow wow…bow-chicka wow wow…”

“Bloody hell!” Harry swore. “Hermione…I thought you just set them up with Python videos?”

“Language, Harry!” she chided. “And I did! I checked and made sure that those other tapes were locked up before I left.”

“Those other tapes, Hermione? And what kind of tapes were those other tapes?”

The bushy-haired witch chewed on her lower lip for a moment as she surveyed the group’s expressions. Fred and George were waggling their eyebrows. Luna and the Chasers were giggling.

Ron didn’t have a clue what was being discussed, however…and Hermione was inclined to keep it that way. So she sighed, gave Harry a guilty look, and whispered her confession.

“Bow-chicka wow wow movies.”

Harry’s breath caught in his throat, leaving the highly amused Hufflepuff who was still in his arms and had overheard to reply.

“Wicked, bad, naughty, Hermione!” Susan teased.

“A spanking! A spanking! A spanking!” shouted the Chasers.

Luna nodded. “And after the spanking, the oral sex!”

“Too quick for me!” Hermione whined.

“Too silly for me!” Ron grumbled, oblivious to what Luna had just suggested. He walked up to Harry and began roughly pulling him by the arm down the hallway. “C’mon mate, we’re going to miss breakfast.”

“No, that’s okay, Ron,” Harry snarked. He looked back towards the witches and claimed, “I can tackle this lot single-handed.”

“Yes! Yes!” Katie shouted. “Let him handle us single-handed!”

Susan shook her head and budged in between Harry and Ron.

“There will be no single-handing, no spankings, and no oral sex.”

“Oh, shit!” Angelina whined.

“Breakfast!” Ron whined.

“Dobby?” Susan called out.

The house-elf immediately appeared by her side.

“What cans Dobby be doing for Mr. Harry Potter Sir’s Girl-Girl friend?”

Susan blushed at Dobby’s description, and hoped that anyone who did not know the truth was simply assumed that the house-elf was stuttering.

“Dobby will you please give Hermione and Harry their outfits?”

“Rights away, Missie Girl-Girl friend!”

Hermione and Harry were both in too good of a mood to protest as their robes were transfigured. Hermione was given a gown befitting her station as a harem maiden from Castle Anthrax, while Dobby insisted that Harry wear a crown, chain mail, and a white tunic trimmed in gold, with a frowning sun emblazoned on its chest.

Ron frowned at Harry’s outfit. He turned towards Dean and asked, “Who’s he, then?”

The Muggleborn smiled, and replied, “Must be a king.”

“Why?”

“He hasn’t got shit all over him.”

Neville rolled his eyes as he stepped up and offered to be Harry’s squire. He agreed, and they all began to clip-clop down the hallway towards the Great Hall.

Harry and Hermione thought that they were getting off easy when Fred and George stayed quiet over the first half of their walk. But as they got closer to the Great Hall and began to pass by other students, Fred, George and Lee proved that they were merely waiting for a bigger audience when they began to sing to a familiar melody.

"Sexy stud Sir Harry, walked forth from Gryffindor...

He was not afraid to share, oh sexy Harry!

He was not at all afraid to confess his lusty dreams.

Brave, brave, brave, Sexy Harry!"

"He was not afraid to say that he perved on Daphne’s pics,

Or to tell Hermione that he peeked under her skirts.

He dared reveal the shower scene where he rubbed our Chasers bits,

Then rubbed his own John Thomas till it was raw..."

"That he ran bare-arsed naked with a pretty young miss, and got very stiff when she squatted and pissed,"

"That he wanks every night to the fantasy, of his girlfriend acting a little lezzie...

That he dreams of Sue as she wiggles her tongue, in those womanly places where babies come from...

"That she grinds her muff, and..."

“That’s - - that’s, uh, that’s enough music for now, lads,” Susan decided.

“Right,” agreed Lee. “Well then…shall we sing about Snape instead?”

“Must you?”

Fred and George looked at each other for a moment, then turned towards Susan and sang some more.

“Severus Snape deserves to be mashed into a pulp,

And to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken.

To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away,

And his limbs all hacked and mangled, Severus Snape!

His head smashed in and his heart cut out,

And his liver removed and his bowels unplugged,

And his nostrils ripped and his bottom burned off,

And his penis—“

“That’s - - that’s, uh, that’s really enough for now, lads,” Harry interrupted, as they reached the entrance to the Great Hall. “Unless you want to completely turn every one's stomachs off to breakfast?”

Fred and George sighed, and settled for clomping coconuts.

The group’s dramatic entrance caught every-one's attention within the Great Hall.

Some laughed. Some frowned in confusion. A few fumed.

And one person began to mentally draft Educational Decree Number Forty-five.

The Python Defense
A bawdy and slightly disturbing H/Hr crack fic by canoncansodoff

A/N: Spam, spam, spam, spam....Crack, crack, crack, crack...Although, the fact that I’ve rewritten the opening section of this chapter three different times might mean that I’m taking this story far too seriously for my own good. Also, this was the chapter that spawned “Gamp’s Finest Blend of Pretend.” This version of Hermione’s basement is a bit different, and I’ve ignored Gamp’s law to keep the plot line of this fic (such that it is) moving forward.

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 9: Home, Sweet Home

Harry needed a firm clamp of his thigh to keep him in his chair that evening, and to remind him that a proper fake boyfriend wouldn’t leave his fake girlfriend behind in the library just because his real girlfriend and his fake girlfriend’s real girlfriend had gathered their things and announced that they were calling it a night.

Harry also needed a firm elbow in his ribs to silently remind him that a proper fake boyfriend doesn’t ogle his real girlfriend’s cracking arse as she walks away from him...at least not as long as he is sitting next to his fake girlfriend.

“Hey!” Susan hissed.

The Boy-Who-Lived snorted, then turned and gave the pig-tailed witch his best attempt at an apologetic look.

“Sorry.”

“Ssshhhussh!”

Harry rolled his eyes, and scribbled a question down on a piece of parchment. Susan looked at the passed note, then scribbled a response. He read the response and nodded.

Ten minutes later, Susan began to gather her things into her book bag. This time Harry got it right, and followed her lead under the watchful eye of the school librarian and a gaggle of doe-eyed girls.

A look over his shoulder as they left the library caused Harry to roll his eyes.

“How many following us this time?” asked Susan.

“Just two.”

The red-haired Hufflepuff glanced back towards the young witches whose robes were trimmed in green and silver. Then she leaned towards Harry and whispered, “They could be just heading back to their dorm?”

Harry sighed. “Or they could be Snape’s little spies.”

Susan smiled and squeezed his hand. “Shall we put on a little show, then? I know a broom closet that’s big enough for four.”

Her fake boyfriend chuckled, and shook his head.

“Nothing wrong with me walking my girl back to her dormitory, right?”

“Of course not.”

They continued walking at a measured pace, with the two witches trailing ten feet behind.

“This is nice,” Susan noted. “Almost like it’s just the two of us.”

“What...didn’t care for the coconuts?”

“Wouldn’t matter if I did, given the latest Educational Decree,” Susan snarked. “I still can’t believe that Umbridge banned galloping in the hallways.”

“Well I’m just disappointed that McGonagall didn’t need a Decree to demand that we switch out of our costumes before classes began this morning.”

“You mean you liked being king?”

“Not as much as I liked watching my harem walk around in their silky gowns,” Harry joked.

The two young witches who trailing behind the couple giggled, and called out, “Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Incredulous disbelief showed on Harry’s face as he stopped in his tracks and spun around.

“What was that?” he demanded.

The Slytherins looked at each other, giggled a bit more, than chanted, “Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“Yeah, okay...I know that’s what you said,” Harry flustered. “But...”

“How old are you two?” Susan asked.

“We’re first years,” one of the girls replied.

The older witch chuckled. “Aren’t you two a little young to be applying for membership in Harry’s Harem?”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“Right...stop that!” Harry demanded.

“Don’t want to,” the slightly taller witch replied.

“Yeah, they are paying out a sickle each time we do it,” the other added.

“Who...who is paying you to do what?”

“Your Chaser teammates...they are paying us to follow you around and chant whenever you or someone that you’re with says the word ‘harem’,” the first witch explained.

This prompted the other girl to call out “Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Her friend frowned, and shook her head. “Margaret...I don’t think it counts if we say it first.”

“Oh.”

Harry sighed. “I can’t believe that those three would...I mean, paying Slytherins? Who would have expected that?”

Susan giggled. “Harry...you should know by now that nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition.”

Her faux boyfriend paused for the jarring chord of music that someone had magically keyed to that phrase. He was actually disappointed that three witches dressed in cardinal’s robes didn’t subsequently appear...it would have given him a chance to throttle the Chasers for their cheek.

“So, whenever you two are ready?” asked one of the Slytherins.

The raven-haired wizard stared at the young witches and swore under his breath.

“Language!” Susan chided brightly.

“Yes, Dear,” Harry snarked. He stared a bit more at their shadows, then shook his head, took Susan’s hand, and turned away from the Slytherins.

“Shall we, then?” he asked.

Susan smiled and nodded. “We shall.”

They remainder of their journey down to Susan’s dormitory was completed in silence...so long as you didn’t count Harry’s huffing and puffing, or the odd giggle or two. Mindful of their audience (and still wary of their audience’s intentions), Harry pulled up just short of the entrance to Hufflepuff House and pulled Susan into a hug.

“Good night, sweetheart,” he said, placing a chaste kiss on her cheek.

Susan giggled, and looked over Harry’s shoulders towards the two Ickle Firsties.

“Would you like to come in for a bit?” she asked.

“You’re inviting me inside...inside your dormitory?” asked Harry.

“Well, it’s only fair for me to return the favor after I visited yours,” Susan whispered.

“Funny, I don’t remember me offering an invitation to pop into my bed.”

“Is that a complaint?”

Her fake boyfriend was about to snap back a perfunctory “Hell, no!” when he realized that that might not be a “good boyfriend” kind of response. He hoped that an enigmatic smile would serve as both a safe and sufficient response.

Susan took the smile as an acceptance to her invitation and turned towards the still life painting that guarded the dormitory entrance. A large colorful bouquet of flowers filled the canvas (in contrast to the fruit bowl in front of the kitchens). When she placed her hand against the center of a yellow sunflower its petals contracted around it (Harry couldn’t tell whether it was her hand that partially disappeared into the painting, or the petals that magically lifted off the canvas and enveloped her hand). Either way, the painting recognized Susan’s right to gain access and swung free from the entrance (once the petals freed her hand).

“Would I get my fingers back if I tried that trick?” asked Harry.

Susan waggled her eyebrows as she grabbed his hand and led him through the barrel-shaped threshold. “Please don’t try...I’m rather fond of your fingers.”

Harry took one last look back at the young Slytherin witches, smiled, and whispered, “Harem.”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“Why did you do that?” Susan asked, as she closed the door.

“Because it cost those three troublemakers another sickle,” Harry replied. “Maybe if I say harem enough times they’ll run out of money?”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Susan and Harry rolled their eyes as they turned around and traced the new source of this old chant back to the smiling face of a witch sitting by the fire.

“Oh, Merlin,” Susan whined. “Are the Gryffs paying you too?”

Megan Jones shook her head. “No, I’m just offering some encouragement.”

“Why” asked Harry.

“Because I’d like to apply for a position in the harem.”

“What kind of position?”

“Oh, your choice, Sweetheart...missionary, doggy-style, reverse cowgirl...”

“Back off, Megan...he’s mine!” Susan snapped.

The Fifth-Year witch chuckled and shook her head a bit dismissively. “Of course he is, Dear.”

Susan scowled as she dragged Harry through the loose arrangements of comfortable armchairs, towards one of two perfectly round tunnel entrances that had been chiseled into the wall opposite the fireplace.

“Need any help getting your door closed, Susan?” asked Megan.

“Thanks but no thanks,” the pig-tailed witch replied tersely.

Harry was himself worried about closed doors, and what might happen if he tried to follow Susan into what he assumed was the Hufflepuff girls’ dormitory. But he also assumed that she knew what she was doing, and was therefore only mildly surprised when klaxons weren’t triggered and he wasn’t spat back into the Common Room when he followed Susan across the threshold.

The long narrow tunnel was tall enough for Harry to walk through without crouching, but round enough to keep them from walking side-by-side. Susan took the lead out of necessity...not that Harry minded all that much, given the pleasant sway in his pretend girlfriend’s gait. He only felt a little guilty about the ogling, though...he did have a role to play, right?

Torches cast out a warm light from wall-mounted sconces set at regular intervals down the length of the tunnel. Facing side tunnels branched out every ten feet or so, leading to sleep quarters that were only big enough to accommodate one or two people...which, given the large number of branching tunnels, made sense.

Once glance down a side tunnel and into a bedroom offered up a revealing view of a Sixth-Year witch, who smiled back at Harry, and didn’t seem to much mind the fact that he’d caught her in just her bra and knickers.

“Eyes forward, Harry,” Susan whined.

“Yes, Dear...sorry, Dear,” he snarked. “You sure this is okay...me being here?”

“You mean you being in Hufflepuff House, or you being in the girls’ dormitory?”

“Either.”

“You’re a trustworthy kind of guy...right Harry?”

“Erm yeah, I guess...but that doesn’t mean I can visit the girls dormitory in my house.”

Susan looked back and rolled her eyes. “Is that so?”

“Erm...well...at least the stairs are charmed to keep boys out.”

“But not the other way, huh?”

Harry shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

Susan nodded as she acknowledged a Third Year Hufflepuff witch and a Third Year Ravenclaw wizard who were sitting on the tunnel floor as they chatted, then apologized as she stepped over their outstretched legs.

“There, see? You’re not the only one here,” she noted.

“Yeah, but are you the only one for Harry?” the younger witch snarked.

“Hush!” Susan scolded. “Here we are,” she then added, leading Harry down one of the side tunnels.

The raven-haired wizard needed to duck his head to clear the smallish entrance at the end of this short tunnel, and to enter a room that contained two four-poster beds. It was obviously a girl’s room, based on the quantity of chintz and pastel colors.

“Home, sweet home,” said Susan.

Harry nodded as he took a closer look at the furnishings and decor.

“That’s your bed, then?” he asked.

“What makes you think that, sweetheart?”

“Erm...maybe it’s that poster of me surviving the Second Task hanging next to it?”

Susan smiled as she led Harry by hand towards that bed and patted the duvet.

“Can you blame me?” she asked brightly.

Harry sighed as he examined the magically animated image more closely.

“No, actually...think it’s Colin that I need to blame for that one.”

“How did you know he took that photograph?”

“Because he’s got the same bloody poster hanging above his bed?”

Susan chuckled and pointed towards the image of Harry helping Ron out of the water. “Can you blame him?” she asked. “That was a rather snug fitting swim costume, and with the thing you’d miss most being a boy...rather than a girl...”

“Hey, I didn’t have any say over that,” Harry complained. “Bloody Headmaster.”

“There, there...I’m just teasing. Nobody’s doubting your sexual preferences these days, given the size of your... entourage...”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“Oh, bollocks!” Susan hissed. She jumped off of the bed, strode towards the opened doorway and shouted, “I didn’t even say Ha...that word.”

“No, but you were thinking it,” a female voice called back.

Harry tried to change the subject.

“So...nice room...Hannah is your roommie?”

“Yeah,” Susan replied. “Got lucky there...Megan can be such a cu...I mean Unpuff... sometimes.

“Megan Jones?” asked Harry. “So what was she talking about back in your Common Room?”

“You mean about help with the door?”

“No...about being a reverse cowgirl,” Harry teased.

Susan shook her head dismissively as she walked towards her chest of drawers and opened the top one. “And I should know?”

“Fair enough...so what about closed doors?”

The Fifth-Year witch looked back over her shoulder towards the opened entrance to her room. Then she smiled, and kicked off her shoes.

“It’s one of the hard and fast rules that we do have in the house,” she explained. “Can’t have the door closed if you have a boy visiting you without somebody else in the room.”

“Oh, well that makes...sense,” Harry replied, distracted by his fake girlfriend as she bent down and grabbed the hem of her robes.

“So what are you doing?” he asked.

“Changing,” Susan replied slyly, as she gathered her robes and lifted them towards her waist.

Harry’s breath caught as the pretty Hufflepuff’s thick black tights were exposed, his mind drifting back to the previous day’s tour of a broom closet.

“Should I...want me to step out?” he squeaked.

“Why?” Susan asked, taking hold of the elastic waist of her tights. “It’s nothing you haven’t already seen.”

“Erm...not really...it was kind of dark...”

“Even when we were dragged out into the hallway by Hannah and Ernie?”

An even bigger breath of air caught in Harry’s lungs as Susan matter-of-factly pulled down her tights and stepped out of them. The hem of her robes had dropped along with her hands...but not fast enough to keep Harry from seeing a whole lot of pale white flesh.

“But that was an accident...” he muttered.

“Yeah, an accident caused by the only two people who might otherwise have a right to complain,” Susan huffed, throwing the tights into a dirty clothes bin. “But relax,” she added, “I change under my robes like this all the time.”

“Really?”

“Well...whenever the door has to stay open.”

“So...you’ve had other boys in here?”

“Why wouldn’t I have?”

“Because you’re a...erm...”

“Because I’m a Puff, and Puffs are friendly and convivial?” Susan asked a bit sharply.

“Erm...right, exactly. You’re very convivial,” said Harry.

“And so are you, boyfriend,” Susan replied. “How could you not be, given the size of your...”

“Don’t even think it!” Harry hissed.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“Oops, too late,” quipped Susan.

Harry watched with more than passing interest as his pretend girlfriend rummaged through her chest of drawers.

“Ah...here we go,” she announced brightly, as she pulled out a pair of lacy green knickers. She stretched them out in front of her waist and spun to face Harry.

“What do you think, Loverboy...they match your eyes?”

“They do?”

“Oh, yes,” Susan purred.

“Well they’re....they’re very nice.”

“Good,” Susan replied, as she sat down on the bed next to Harry.

He quickly averted his eyes as as she leaned forward, stepped into the knickers, and shimmied them up her thighs and over her hips.

“Oh, Sweet Merlin!” he hissed.

“What?”

“I’m...I’m assuming that you just didn’t slip one pair of knickers over another?”

“Why would I do that, you silly boy?”

“Then you weren’t wearing knickers today?”

Susan giggled. “I don’t like panty lines very much...do you?”

“Erm...”

Harry was saved from answering (and saved from additional embarrassment) when Hannah walked into the room.

Or so he thought.

“Hey, Susan...oh, hi Harry.”

“Oh, hi Hannah...great, you’re just in time.”

“Just in time for what?” Harry whispered.

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“It wasn’t me thinking that this time!” Susan proclaimed. “Do close the door, would you Han? That chant is getting tiresome.”

The blonde-haired witch laughed as she pushed the door shut. “And you don’t think I’ve been offered a sickle per chant as well?”

“No, I think that you’re too good of a friend to tease me that way. That, or else my boyfriend might be a dear and offer you two sickles each time that you don’t,” Susan replied, as she unfastened her robes and let them drop to the floor.

The latter action kept Harry from forming a snarky comeback to the former statement.

Susan acted as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to slip off her blouse in his presence, and to then sip her bra straps off of her shoulders.

“Unhook me?” she asked.

“Erm...you really need my help?” asked Harry.

“You really want to question my need?” Susan replied.

“Good point,” Harry replied, as he reached up and unfastened the two bra hooks.

“Thanks, hon,” Susan replied, as she slouched forward and slipped off her bra.

Harry had no problems acting as if he was excited by Susan standing there dressed only in her knickers. Because he was....he was a very good pretend boyfriend. Yeah. Pretend excitement. That was it.

Susan couldn’t help but turn towards Harry when she saw Hannah’s eyes go wide. She couldn’t help but giggle as she watched Harry try to hide the evidence of his excitement with a well-placed throw pillow. That giggling created some bare-breasted jiggling, which couldn’t help but to make the “problem” even more pronounced.

“Oh, geez...get a room, you two,” Hannah snarked.

“We did,” Susan quipped. “But then you showed up.” Taking pity on Harry, she turned away from him and quickly slipped on a pair of gray sweatpants and a very familiar crimson-colored shirt.

“Hey, is that...?” asked Hannah.

“Yeah, Harry is such a sweetie, letting me sleep in his quidditch jersey,” said Susan, as she spun around and showed her roommate the name and number embroidered on the back.

“Very nice,” Hannah said with a sigh. She cast a Tempus spell, then asked, “You two going to...”

“Not as far as you know,” Susan replied.

“Erm, right...time for he to head back to the Tower,” Harry announced.

“Oh, you don’t have to leave,” said Hannah. “I can change under my robes and hide behind my bed curtains just as easily as...”

“Just as easily as I do when Ernie is visiting?” asked Susan.

The question got the intended flushed cheeks reaction.

Harry’s mind was about to explode, given where he was and what he’d seen and heard. He really needed to find someplace safe...someplace where the odds of Hermione not kicking his arse weren’t quite so close to certainty.

“No that’s okay. I really do need to head back to my dorm,” he stated.

Susan slipped on a pair of slippers and said, “I’ll walk you out, then.”

Harry bid Hannah good night as his fake girlfriend led him by the hand back out into the hallway. He, in turn, pulled Susan into the first unoccupied side tunnel and cast an area-based silencing charm.

“How did you get my jersey?” he asked.

“Hermione gave it to me.”

“How did she get...never mind. Why is she letting you wear it?”

“She said that she now had something better to wear when she goes to bed.”

“What’s that?”

“A smile.”

“Oh. Well....I guess that’s okay...”

“I would think so,” Susan teased. “Look, you know what we’re trying to do here...and if your girl clears it in advance...”

“What about your’s?”

“My what?”

“Your girl.”

“Oh. Well...our girls are together right now scheming, so it’s got to be okay, right?”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“Well...not that safe for the two of us to be seen together, given...you know...”

“Why not? I’m sure Air Dobby can drop you naked into her bed just as easily as he does mine.”

“Just so we can get caught by Cho or Marietta?” Susan asked. She shook her head and added, “Lisa says those two have been snooping around her dormitory room big time ever since your lesson with Snape. Wouldn’t at all be surprised if they were told about what he saw.”

“Great,” Harry sighed. “Just the same, I would like the four of us to talk things through.”

“Me too,” agreed Susan. “Say...they’re in the Room of Requirement right now with the rest of the...”

It was only the strength of Harry’s silencing spell that kept the Chasers from shelling out another sickle.

“Thought she was just setting the Twins up for another movie night?” asked Harry.

Susan shook her head. “No, she said she was going to show Life of Brian tonight, and figured that she’d have to stick around to explain all of the cultural and religious references.”

Harry chuckled. “You mean that cheesemakers aren’t just as blessed in the Wizarding World?”

Susan shook her head. “I imagine that would be funnier if I were Muggleborn?”

“Right...I see what you mean.”

“So what do you think...I could meet you there in a few minutes?”

“I’ve got my cloak with me,” Harry countered. “We could just sneak out together?”

“No...you need to be seen leaving the dormitory alone. And there’s a ward that keeps track of us House members as we enter or leave, so I better get Dobby’s help once I’m behind my bed curtains.”

Harry thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Might be more convincing if you do slip out alone under my cloak. Dumbledore and Snape both know about it, and might figure we’d be using it inappropriately.”

Susan giggled. “What’s so inappropriate for a boyfriend and girlfriend wanting some alone time?”

“Exactly,” Harry replied brightly, as he reached into his bag and handed over his Hallow. Susan held the ephemerally shimmering garment in her hand, then looked down at her present attire. Lacking pockets, she figured the safest thing to do would be to slip it down the front of her pants.

“Hey,” Harry glibly chided. “Shouldn’t I by rights at least have a hand inside that cloak when it gets inside your knickers?”

“Hush!” Susan replied, lightly smacking him in the shoulder. “Now lets get out to the common room, where I can give my boyfriend a proper good night kiss.”

“Wouldn’t want it to be improper, would we?”

Susan rolled her eyes. “Only if Megan is in the audience.”

“Why her?”

“Don’t think she’s quite convinced about our relationship,” Susan explained.

“Oh, yeah...even I picked up on that when we came in,” said Harry. He let out a faux sigh and added, “Well, it’s for a good cause, right?”

“So, is protecting a secret all you get out my kisses, Mr. Potter?”

“Gah...how am I supposed to answer that without either you, Lisa or Hermione hurling a Reducto towards my bits?”

Susan laughed and shook her head. “You are a very good actor, Harry...and Hermione is a very lucky witch.”

“Well, you are a very good actress, Susan...and Lisa is a very lucky witch.”

“Right, so now that we’ve clarified those points?”

“You know, this isn’t really fair,” Harry observed

“How is that?”

“Well if Megan is out there, and we need to convince her with a really steamy snog...much easier for me to pretend you’re Hermione than for you to imagine me as your girlfriend.”

“Because?”

“Because you’ve got the same bits as Hermione,” said Harry. He snorted, then added, “More or less.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that last part,” said Susan. “As for the rest...well, I haven’t had problems playing this role so far.”

“Even when I hold you close, and our chests mash together, and I...I react?”

Susan smiled. “It’s your lips, Harry...I focus on your lips. They’re just as soft as Lisa’s. And as for the difference in bits...well, let’s just say that one of us is far more likely to reach for the strap-on.”

“Say no more!”

“Is that another Python line?”

“Yes, but no...really...please don’t say any more...it’s making it hard for me keep a lid on...well, getting hard.”

Susan waggled her eyebrows as her eyes drifted south.

“Is that a leftover codpiece from this morning’s march, or are you just happy to see me?”

“Minx!”

“Is that a complaint?”

“I’ll let you know after we have that chat with our girlfriends.”

“No worries,” Susan replied. “All part of the role...you’d still have a semi if it’d been Hermione who’d flashed her titties in your face a few minutes ago, right?”

Harry chuckled, and nodded towards Susan’s chest. “Erm...right. Just like your nipples would still be this hard if it’d been Lisa who’d been perving on you a few minutes ago?”

Susan sighed. “And now that we’ve got those points clarified...”

“Your points look more perky than clarified to me...”

“Harry?”

“Right...time for my dramatic exit,” he declared. “I’ll even lead you onto the stage so that you get equal time.”

“Equal time doing what?”

“Admiring the view.”

“Does that mean that you were admiring the view when you were walking behind me?”

“Erm...a boyfriend would be expected to admire that kind of view, right?”

Susan giggled. “Yes, that’s right. How could I forget?”

Harry let the question go unanswered as he cancelled the silencing spell and stepped into the hallway.

Megan Jones was still in the Common Room, prompting the two to put on a very convincing performance in front of the threshold...the kind of snog so intense that Megan needed no further evidence of where Harry and Susan’s relationship stood.

And the kind of snog that could cause a chorus of very small voices to chant out, “Harem, Harem, Harem,” in the back of Susan’s brain.

oo00OO00oo

That tiny chorus had gone silent by the time that Susan entered the Seventh Floor hallway under Harry’s cloak of invisibility (and thankfully so, as far as she was concerned). She found him standing in front of the Room of Requirement, closely inspecting the portrait that hung on the side opposite. She smiled as she slipped off the cloak and suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision.

“Waiting for your girlfriend, Harry?”

He snorted. “If you think I was going to face our girlfriends alone...”

“What’s to worry about?” Susan asked.

“Erm, right,” Harry replied, noting that she was still wearing his tight-fitting Quidditch jersey. And nothing under it, from what he could tell.

She noticed where his eyes had drifted and smiled. “Still have roles to play on the other side, so long as the Twins are there...right?”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe. Those two are plenty smart and very perceptive when they choose to be.”

“And what if your buddy Ron is there?”

“Then he’ll be watching your chest far more than the movie, I’m afraid.”

“Right...can’t be helped,” Susan declared. She turned towards the doorway and asked, “So she didn’t hide it this time?”

“No, I think she did,” Harry replied. “Didn’t appear until I approached it.”

“In case we wanted to catch a movie as well?”

“One way to find out,” he replied. Grabbing Susan’s hand, he opened the door and walked into what Hermione had really needed earlier that evening.

Harry was surprised by his real girlfriend’s sense of interior design. It was a large room with Muggle decor and furnishings, wall-to-wall carpeting, and a relatively low ceiling. There was a ping pong table set up right in front of the them, close enough to block the Room’s door from freely swinging inward. To their right, a large group of students were gathered in front of what appeared to be a Muggle entertainment system, laughing at the animated antics of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner while they snacked on popcorn and fizzy drinks.

A dartboard and arcade-style stand-alone Pac-man game were standing against the far wall, on either side of a door-sized opening and a set of carpeted stairs that led upwards. A wet bar was set up on their left, complete with brass rails, bar stools, and hanging wine glasses. Hermione was standing behind the bar, pouring fruit into a blender as she chatted with Lisa Turpin. The two witches waved for Susan and Harry to join them.

Lisa stared at the Quidditch jersey for a moment, then shook her head and sighed.

“Hey, nice shirt.”

“Thanks,” Susan replied a bit nervously.

“What are you two doing here?” asked Hermione.

“Avoiding Hannah,” Susan sighed.

“She catch you two in a broom closet again?” Lisa smirked.

Harry snorted. “No...she caught us in her dormitory, and was probably expecting us to act like it was a broom closet if we stayed there any longer.” He then nodded towards the blender and asked, “What do you have going there?”

“I’m making a batch of virgin daiquiris.”

“Do you have to be a virgin to drink one?” Harry teased.

“Oh, hush, you!” his girlfriend chided, as Susan and Harry pulled out bar stools on either side of Lisa’s.

“Nice place, Hermione,” Susan offered.

“Yeah, real comfy,” Harry said with a grin. “Thought we were supposed to be doing research, though.”

“We are.”

“How?”

“By watching penguins on the telly,” Hermione replied. “And don’t complain, because it’s all your fault.”

“How is it my fault?

“You told the Twins about the Python Defense, and they wanted to watch the original source material.”

Harry looked around at the Room’s decor and asked, “So why aren’t we in a movie theater right now?”

Hermione shrugged. “Because some of us aren’t old enough to get into a theatre showing an M-rated movie?”

“So....?”

“So the Room recreated the spot where I got my first dose of Monty Python...the basement in my parent’s house.”

“Movie night at the Granger’s?” Harry teased.

Hermione smiled. “Home, Sweet Home...Complete with a functional Muggle entertainment system and a rather complete video collection.”

“Complete with bow-chicka bow wow movies, then?”

“Never you mind.”

“How about your parents? Are they lurking around?”

“Let’s assume that they’re not,” said Hermione. “Makes it easier for me to risk raiding Dad’s liquor cabinet.”

Susan shook her head and smiled. Taking a look back over her shoulder, she asked, “Not the entire DA, then?”

“No, just the entourage.”

Alicia, Katie, and Angelina all glanced back towards the bar and gleefully shouted, “Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Harry chuckled. “Well, at least they didn’t have to pay for that one.”

“What?” asked Hermione.

“Tell you later,” Harry replied. He nodded back towards the other side of the room and asked, “Thought you were doing the Hogwarts premiere of Life of Brian tonight?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “I gave up half-way through...it had gotten to the point where I was stopping the movie every ten seconds to explain to the purebloods why the rest of us were laughing.”

Harry smiled, and nodded his head. “Only half-way, then?”

“Yeah, why?”

“So Ron didn’t get the chance to cream his jeans when Judith goes Full Monty?”

“Full Monty?” asked Susan.

“Different film,” Hermione stated. “And no, we didn’t make it that far. Just as well, I think...with as snarky as the Chasers are acting they would have used the balcony scene as inspiration for tomorrow morning’s breakfast costumes.”

“And that would be a bad thing?” asked Lisa.

“Only if more than Harry was kitted out that way.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “So I don’t get to follow along and beg for the welease of Woderick?”

“Would you like to spur on the Chaser’s imagination, Harry?”

“Don’t think they need any spurring.”

“Oh yes, please...spur me, Harry!” Katie shouted out.

“And spur me!” added Luna.

“And me!” said Angelina and Alicia.

“And then,” all four declared in unison, “the oral...”

Hermione drowned out the predictable request by turning the blender up to its highest speed.

“So let’s hear more about this Python Defense,” said Susan. “I feel kind of bad, not knowing the nickname of my boyfriend’s willie.”

Harry sputtered, “The Python Defense isn’t a defense of my…it’s not….not like I’ve named it….”

“Not a bad nickname, actually,” Hermione teased.

“No it isn’t,” agreed Susan. “Although, given his size, ‘The Basilisk Defense’ might be more appropriate.”

“Susan!” Lisa hissed.

“What? I’m just saying…from an objective viewpoint…”

“And exactly how close was that viewing point, Susie?” Lisa asked.

“You should know, Lisa…you were in that broom closet with us.”

“But it was too dark to see anything!”

“Not once you two popped out and Ernie pulled Harry and his basilisk out into the hall way.”

“Is that a complaint?” Hermione teased.

“No…just an observation,” Susan replied brightly. She then turned towards Lisa and quietly asked, “So what’s all this concern about…you were in the closet with us, right? You and Hermione were teaming up on Harry and me, right?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t there when Hermione and you teamed up on Harry the other night.”

“Really, Lisa…I share a bed with another sexy witch, and all you are worried about is whether I was perving on Harry?”

The Ravenclaw witch glared at Susan for a moment, before replying with a fake throat clearing.

“Cough – Exception Sandwich – Cough”

Sue rolled her eyes. “That was a joke, Lisa…honest!”

“So was that nickname, I hope,” Harry muttered.

“Oh, no…no joking about Mr. Basilisk,” Hermione teased, choosing neither to comment nor dwell upon Susan’s comment about sleeping with a sexy witch. Then she leaned forward and covered the Ravenclaw’s hand with her own.

“Look, Lisa…everything went according to how we planned it the other night. I was there the whole time, and despite all these silly chants about...you-know-what...I’m not inclined to share. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have shared on the night that my boyfriend finally got his head out of his own arse.”

“And put his other head into yours?” teased Susan.

Harry chuckled. “No, Sue...we still haven’t crossed Number Thirteen off of our list.”

“Harry!” Hermione chided.

“What?”

“I didn’t think you’d be the kind to kiss and tell!” Hermione gently chided.

“Says the girl who brought Sue into my bed for some show and tell?”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Hell, no.”

“Good,” Hermione replied.

oo00OO00oo

It was close enough to curfew to announce the end of cartoons once the compilation that had been playing finished out. As usual, they left in ones and twos, with Harry paying close attention to the Map as each group departed.

He asked Fred and George to wait closer to the end, so that they could chat for a bit.

“So, how did the inspiration go?”

“It was brilliant,” Fred replied. “A bit of haggling for a few fake beards, and everybody can get the chance to throw stones at Snape.”

“Think he’d stand still?”

“Fair point,” said George. “That’s the whole problem, given what we’d like to do.”

“What would you like to do?” asked Harry.

“Besides start our own harem?” Fred joked.

His brother looked around. Lisa, Susan and Hermione were the only witches left in the room, so he took it upon himself to chant in falsetto.

“What?” he asked. “A sickle is a sickle.”

“What were you two thinking about doing to Snape?” Hermione clarified.

“Drive him insane.”

“Haven’t you been trying to do that for the last several years?”

“Yeah, but....this time we’d do it right,” George declared.

“How?”

Fred and George looked around the room, as if to make sure it was safe to conspire. They drew Hermione, Susan and Lisa into the conversation, then leaned forward and said, “You remember that experimental potion you nicked from us before Christmas, Hermione?”

“I remember several experimental potions that I confiscated from you two before hols.”

“Right, well...remember the one that was supposed to act a bit like a liquid Imperious?”

“A bit like an Imperious?” Susan asked. “How can anything be just a bit like an Unforgivable?”

“The idea wasn’t all that bad,” Fred said defensively. “It only allowed for strong suggestions, and only then if the person really wanted to do what they were told to do.”

Hermione nodded. “That one actually had potential, if it was limited to helping people break bad habits...like smoking, or nail biting, or...”

“Or chanting?” asked Susan.

“Absolutely.”

“So why’d you nick it?” Lisa asked.

“Because they were experimenting on Firsties,” Hermione replied. “Never mind the fact that it wasn’t working.”

“It was working,” George protested. “Just not quite how we intended.”

“Instead of doing what somebody else told you to do, the victim...”

“You mean patient, right brother?”

“Right...patient. So, the potion makes you do whatever it is you most like to do.”

“Reinforces compulsive or habitual behaviors?” asked Lisa.

“Right in one,” Hermione replied. “So instead of helping somebody stop their nail biting, it just makes the nail biting worse.”

“And this was going to play into our revenge how, exactly?” asked Harry.

“What do you think Snape’s most compulsive behavior might be?” asked Fred.

“You’re hoping that he’d wank himself to death?”

“No that’s why we kept Ron away from the potion,” George snarked. “We’re thinking that Snape is a habitual mental eavesdropper.”

“Makes sense,” said Susan. “So this potion would compel a habitual mental invader to read people’s mind?”

“That’s right.”

“So all we’d need to do is park in front of Umbridge? Wallowing inside her head would certainly drive me over the edge.”

“Yeah, but you’re normal,” said Fred. “Aside from the Boy-Who-Lived, basilisk-slaying, Dark Lord-defeating harem building parts.”

“Harem! Harem! Harem!”

Harry glared at George. “You know, if that last bit was all that I was known for...I think that I could live with it.”

“Assuming that your girlfriend didn’t murder you for the trying,” Hermione said sweetly.

“Erm yeah....assuming that SUSAN doesn’t hex me,” Harry replied, just as sweetly. Then he turned back to the Twins and said, “So the problem would be figuring out who’d be able to drive Snape insane?”

“Oh, no...you’ve proven that just about any of us could turn him off with the right real or false memory,” said Fred. “The problem is the fact that whoever is feeding up Snape’s mind candy would be forced to experience it right along side him.”

Harry thought back to some of the false memories that he’d laid down as traps for Snape and was forced to agree. He probably couldn’t stand to watch loops of Trelawny rubbing off on her crystal ball any more than the greasy-haired git could.

“So, we’d need to find somebody with a stronger stomach than Snape,” Harry mused.

“Or maybe...maybe somebody with no stomach at all?” Hermione whispered.

“What?” asked George.

Hermione gazed off in the distance for a moment, then shook her head. “Let me sleep on it.”

“Okay,” said Fred. “So then, there’s one more movie to watch?”

“Yeah, Meaning of Life,” said Hermione. “That should be easier for everyone to understand without me constantly stopping to explain.”

“Hello, we’ve come for your liver?” asked Harry.

“Exactly,” Hermione replied. She glanced back towards the Marauder’s Map, then looked at her watch and nodded.

“Right then, you two are off,” she told Fred and George.

George grinned. “So you four will turn off the lights, then?”

“Before or after the snogging?” his brother asked.

“Out!” Hermione ordered.

The Weasley Twins snapped off crisp salutes, and made their exit. Hermione closed the door, then rolled her eyes at Harry. Then they heard some giggling on the other side of the room, which gave her more reason to roll her eyes. Lisa and Susan had drifted back towards the couch, and were acting as if they didn’t have to act any more.

“Geesh, get a room, you two!” Harry teased the snogging couple.

Susan looked up from her neck nuzzling and smiled.

“Why, what a good idea!” she declared. She looked around the room and asked, “So Hermione, if this is the basement to your house, does that mean there’s an upstairs with some empty bedrooms?”

“No stairs, so no upstairs,” Hermione stated.

Lisa chuckled as dropped down onto a comfy chair and pulled Susan onto her lap. “Guess we’ll just have to share this room, then? Unless you two wanted to pop off to someplace more private?”

“And just what would you be doing with my girlfriend if we did?” Harry teased.

The Ravenclaw witch wrapped her arms around Susan’s waist and said, “Probably the same thing that you’d be doing with yours.”

Hermione snorted and leaned closer to Harry’s ear.

“Have they got the right bits for that?” she whispered.

Harry let out a deep belly laugh. “Do you really want to know?”

His bushy-haired girlfriend looked at him cross-eyed and slugged his arm. “Maybe I really want to know how you know the answer to that question.”

“Enough with the flirty banter and love taps,” Susan called out. Then she nodded towards the cabinets above the television and asked, “So where are these bow-chica pow wow movies that I’ve heard so much about?”

“Yeah,” Harry said with a laugh. “We want to watch a brown chicken bow wow movie!”

Hermione glared back a response.

“Erm...you did say that you know where they might be stashed?”

“She should,” Susan stated. “How else would she have been able to watch them by herself?”

“Seriously?” asked Harry. “Well, well, well....when did you share this bit of information with my pretend girlfriend?”

“Keep it stuffed in your pants, Potter.”

“Yes, dear.”

“So?” asked Susan.

“You two really want to watch porn?” Hermione asked the girls. “Like I told Susan...they were all het-orientated. Male heterosexual-oriented, to be specific, and the girl-girl scenes were shot to get that target audience off.”

“Hermione?”

“Yes, Harry?”

“This is the Room of Requirement, right?”

“Yes?”

“The same room that was smart enough to provide what we really needed the other night?”

“So you think....”

“I think that if you really needed the kind of porn that Lisa and Susan might enjoy that the Room might be able to conjure it up.”

Hermione chewed on her lower lip as she considered the possibility. Then she shrugged and asked, “Do you have that knife Sirius gave you for Christmas?”

Harry nodded and fished it out of his pocket. Hermione used the knife to open a nominally locked cabinet above the television set. The VHS display boxes stacked up behind the cabinet doors had titles that were definitely new to her.

“Sort Me Sappho?” she asked incredulously, as she read off the spines. “The Coven of Prefects?...Professor Sinistra’s Seraglio?”

“That second title sounds dodgy,” Lisa opined. “But the last one has to be a winner!”

“The Arithmancy professor is a witch’s witch?” Harry asked.

“If only!” Lisa purred.

“Hey! I’m right here, sitting on your lap, you know,” Susan pouted.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t had thoughts about her solving your equations!”

“What’s a seraglio?” asked Harry.

Hermione looked back towards Harry and rolled her eyes. In a rather cartoonish voice she replied, “Harem! Harem! Harem!”

“Careful, the Chasers might be getting to you,” Harry teased.

“That will be the day,” his girlfriend shot back, pulling the last title off of the shelf. She shook her head when she took a close look at the explicit cover.

“Yeah, this is definitely a Room of Requirement production,” she decided. “Unless our Arithmancy professor is moolighting in the Muggle porn industry.”

Susan jumped off of Lisa’s lap and snatched the video case from Hermione’s hand.

“Morgana’s Nasty Knickers!” she hissed.

Lisa craned her neck for a glance at the plastic cover and snickered.

“Do you really think that thongs were around back in Morgana’s time?”

“So pop it in the machine, already!” Harry chided.

Hermione shook her head as she started the tape playing. She grabbed her boyfriend by the hand and led him back towards the bar.

“What I really require the most right now is my boyfriend’s complete and undivided attention,” she explained. The she hopped up onto a bar stool, pushed Harry down to his knees in front of her (and with his back to the television screen), and hiked up her skirt.

“You didn’t wear any knickers today either?” he asked with wide-eyed wonder.

“Your full attention, Harry,” Hermione instructed.

Her boyfriend grinned widely as she lifted her legs onto his shoulders, and pulled him close by digging her heels into his back. He chose not to point out the fact that Hermione’s attention could well be divided by her clear view of the both the lesbian movie and the lesbian couple that was coupling on the couch as they watched it. And while he was a little disappointed that he could only hear the movie’s soundtrack (as well as the soundtrack linked to what Lisa and Susan were presently doing), he knew that he probably could convince Hermione to join him in their own private screening at a later date. And in the meantime...

Harry leaned forward, and dove into that warm, loving, and exciting place that he could easily consider his own home, sweet home.

The Python Defense
A bawdy and slightly disturbing H/Hr crack fic by canoncansodoff

A/N: Spam, spam, spam, spam....Crack, crack, crack, crack...There is no Python to speak of in this chapter, and it brings us no closer to Snape’s revenge. But I thought that Lisa deserves some screen time, and wanted to show how Harry pretending to be Susan’s boyfriend is not a healthy or viable long-term option.

This chapter has a fresh lemony scent to it. Those not interested in reading the smuttier parts of this story can probably safely skip over/wait for the next chapter (which will move GetSnape! plot line forward).

Disclaimer: Not my characters, no money being made, etc., etc.

oo00OO00oo

Chapter 10: Moving in That Direction

“Hermione?”

The Muggleborn witch opened her eyes and stared at the Tempus-spelled numbers floating in front of her face.

It was 5:15am.

She caught a short breath and held it in as her brain worked furiously…far too furiously, given the hour.

Hermione was in her bed, lying on her side dressed only in boxer shorts. She was sharing her bed with someone…someone who wasn’t the owner of those boxer shorts. Someone who was spooning against her…a female someone with bared breasts pressed against Hermione’s back. Someone who had pushed down the covers far enough to cast the Tempus spell…presumably with the wand held in the hand that was now loosely resting on her hip.

But why?

She remembered, then released the breath, and looked back over her shoulder.

“Lisa?”

“Sorry…you wanted to be awake and ready?”

“Yeah…thanks.”

The Ravenclaw gave Hermione’s hip a friendly squeeze. Then she slowly scooted her own hips back, reestablishing the gap that had been set before they’d fallen asleep.

“Sorry for the cuddling…didn’t mean to...”

Hermione snorted, then flipped over so that she could face the other witch.

“No worries…Harry and Susan are probably spooning right now too. Doesn’t mean that anything is going on, right?”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Yeah…the things going on stuff won’t start until they wake up.”

Her bed mate frowned. “That is the plan, right?”

“So why are we going to do this, then?”

“Because you did such a good job ravishing Susan last night that she’s got nothing but lesbian on the brain?”

“Oh…yeah, I forgot,” admitted the sheepish Ravenclaw. “Sorry about that, by the way.”

Hermione smiled. “Nothing to apologize over…with all of this pretending we both needed the chance to spend some quality time with our lovers…right?”

“But still…with you two in the same room…”

“Taking advantage of the opportunity just like you two were…”

Lisa nodded, her mind drifting back to what she had seen…and heard…and done the night previous. Her cheeks began to redden.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Hermione.

“Erm…well…”

“Was my Harry stealing glances at what you two were doing?”

Lisa giggled. “No more than his Hermione was, I think.”

The Muggleborn witch blushed.

“Any more than you were looking back towards us?” she weakly countered.

“Probably not,” Lisa admitted. “Sorry for that…last night was…”

“An educational experience?”

“And…I have to admit…helpful as well.”

“Really?” Hermione asked. “You mean the movies were helpful?”

“No…I mean, yes…I mean…the movies were, erm…stimulating and interesting, but I was talking about you and Harry.”

“What?”

An excitable and amazingly alert House Elf popped onto Hermione’s bed, preventing Lisa from elaborating.

“The Great Harry Potter’s Sir and his Girl-Girlfriend be starting to wake up,” Dobby announced.

Hermione immediately sat up and leaned against the head board. She didn’t care that in doing so she flashed her breasts to the House Elf; he didn’t care, and she’d traveled Air Dobby completely naked before.

“Thank you for warning us,” she replied. “So you remember the plan, then?”

Dobby nodded vigorously. “Dobby be going back to minding the Great Harry Potter Sir’s bed, and be watching the pretending with his girl-girlfriend. When she be all excited and be hiding her face in the pillows and pushing her bum in the Great Harry Potter Sir’s face and be telling him to ride her like a hippogriff, then I be fetching you two and bringing you to the Great Harry Potter Sir’s bed.”

Hermione smiled, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “That’s right, Dobby. And thanks again for your help.”

The House Elf smiled broadly. “Dobby be bursty happy to help The Great Harry Potter sir to be playing and loving his girlfriends!” He then popped away before Hermione could remind him of the difference between girlfriend and girl-girlfriend.

And one floor above them, in the Sixth-Year Girls’s Dormitory, Katie Bell mumbled “Harem! Harem! Harem!” in her sleep.

Hermione rolled her eyes as she reached for the invisibility cloak that she’d stashed underneath her pillow.

“Almost show time?” she asked.

Lisa nodded as she threw back the duvet, uncovered what she had stashed under her pillow, then rose to her feet.

“Maybe we should practice the choreography?” she asked, as she hooked her thumbs under the waistband of her knickers and pushed them down towards her feet.

There was no immediate response to either her question or to her full-frontal nudity, as her bed partner’s full attention was focused upon the strap-on dildo that was now sitting out in the open.

“Hermione?”

The bushy-haired witch startled, and looked up at Lisa with flushed cheeks.

“Sorry….so, yeah. The choreography?”

Lisa smiled when she noticed that Hermione’s gaze was drifting back down towards the pillow.

“You can take a closer look at it, if you want?”

Hermione’s blush deepened.

“Sorry, it’s just…didn’t realize that you’d brought it with you...”

“It’s part of the plan, right?”

“Well, yes,” agreed Hermione.

She made no effort to disguise her continued interest as Lisa picked the sex toy up off of the pillow, stood up on the bed, and stepped into one of the leg straps.

“Can you do that by your…need any help?” Hermione squeaked.

“I can manage, thanks…unless you want to hold it in place?” Lisa teased.

“No…that’s okay.”

“Right.”

There was some more semi-awkward dead air time while Hermione watched Lisa adjust the leather straps that were fastened above each hip. Trying to get off that particular topic, she then asked, “So you were saying that last night was educational for you as well?”

The Ravenclaw nodded. “I’ve…I’ve never seen a wizard and witch do those sorts of things before,” Lisa admitted. “Watching what you were doing to Harry…watching how he did you…helps me with my pretending.”

“Helps you do Susie…with that?” Hermione asked.

Lisa looked down at her fake appendage and shook her head with a smile.

“Budge over,” she said, as she sat down next to Hermione.

“So it helped with…?”

“My other pretending,” Lisa replied quietly. “Me pretending in my brain that I’m into boys, in case Snape or the Headmaster try to spy.”

Hermione worried her lower lip with her teeth as she mulled over that statement.

“Do you mean that…you were putting yourself into my shoes last night?”

“Were you wearing shoes while you and Harry were…”

“You know what I mean.”

Lisa smiled. “Yes, I do…and yes, I did,” she admitted. “But it’s not like I was perving on your boyfriend…really. I was just…this might sound terrible, but…now I can pretend fantasize better by putting other boys’ heads onto Harry’s body, while I pretend that they are putting their smaller heads into me.”

Hermione nodded. “Is it hard?”

Lisa chuckled as she looked down and gave her dildo a stroke. “It’s always hard, Hermione.”

“I mean…is it hard to pretend that you are heterosexual?”

“A little bit,” the Ravenclaw admitted. “But maybe not the way that…”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

Hermione reached down and gave the side of Lisa’s thigh a playful slap.

“Tell me!”

“Oh…into spanky spank?”

“Don’t change the subject.

Lisa snorted. “Ok, fine. The thing is, well….”

She paused long enough to do another tip-to-base stroke. “If you haven’t noticed, I tend to be more butch and Susan tends to be more femme.”

“No, really?” Hermione teased. She boldly reached over and slapped the tip of the dildo so that it bounced back and forth. “How would I have ever guessed?”

“Hush!” Lisa gently hissed.

“So imagining that you are with a boy isn’t as hard as imagining that you are a bottom?” Hermione guessed.

Lisa shrugged. “Right in one.”

“So don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t pretend that you’re a bottom,” the Muggleborn explained. She nodded towards the toy and asked, “Have you ever imagined using that monster on a boy?”

Lisa gasped. “Have you?”

“Erm, no.”

“No…or not yet?” Lisa teased.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing…beyond the fact that now that you’ve seen a strap-on up close and personal that it might be…inspirational?”

“You mean that I might be thinking what it would be like to use a strap-on on a girl?” Hermione asked.

“Girl…boy…whatever…” Lisa teased.

Hermione sighed.

“Right…so you wanted to go over the choreography?” she asked.

Lisa nodded, and crawled down to the foot of the bed.

“C’mon, then.”

“What…do you want me to pretend that I’m Susan?” Hermione asked.

The Ravenclaw paused for a moment…long enough to imagine Hermione on all fours with her fanny waving in the air. She released that thought and replied, “No…grab the cloak, get down here and pretend that you are you.”

Hermione nodded and crawled down to Lisa’s side. With both of them now on their knees facing the pillows, she said, “So let’s assume that they’re awake now. They’ll cuddle for a bit…or pretend to cuddle…then Susan will get on her hands and knees and say…”

“Wait…”

“What?”

“Aren’t they going to have to do more than cuddle to get Harry hard?”

Hermione turned and gave Lisa an incredulous look.

“No.”

Lisa sighed. “Okay, fine. So Susan says the code words that alert Dobby, and he comes back here to fetch us.”

“You should already have the cloak on by then,” Hermione noted. “Might as well put it on now, right?”

“Sure,” said Lisa, taking the offered garment and slipping it around her shoulders.

Hermione helped the other witch with the hood and buttoning, and chuckled when the Ravenclaw reached down and slipped the dildo through the front gap.

“What?” Lisa teased. “You’ve never seen a disembodied dick before?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Hermione replied. “So…you’ve got the cloak, and Dobby will use his House Elf magic on me. We’ll pop over and…”

Hermione was interrupted midsentence when Dobby popped into her bed and turned words into action. He wiggled his fingers at her, then touched her breast with one hand and Lisa’s dildo with the other and transported them both behind Harry’s closed bed curtains.

Their naked lovers had assumed the correct position...for the most part. Susan was on all fours with Harry lined up behind her on his knees. Susan’s face was buried in a pillow, but there wasn’t anything in the script that called on her to moan into that pillow as Harry ran his fingernails up and down her back.

Hermione scowled as Harry reached forward to scratch Susan’s neck.

“Mind the gap, Potter!”

Harry looked down, then jumped back immediately, pulling his hands off of Susan’s back. He looked down once more to reevaluate the distance between his bits and her bum, then looked over his shoulder towards Hermione and started to reply.

“Don’t say anything!” she hissed. “If Dobby did me right, then you’re the only one that can see or hear me.”

Harry thought for a moment, then nodded.

Hermione rolled her eyes, reached forward, and gave her boyfriend’s bum a slap.

“So get out of the way, already, before Lisa pops her thing into some place you wouldn’t want it to go.”

Harry’s eyes darted from Hermione’s face down to the dildo that appeared to be floating in the air.

He quickly (but carefully) slipped out of the way.

“Ask Susan if she’s ready to be shagged silly, Harry,” Hermione instructed.

He complied.

“Oh, Yes Harry! Ram it home!” Susan declared…in a voice clear enough to be heard even with a face full of pillow.

The demand was met not by Harry, but by the disembodied dick. Harry could feel Lisa brush by as they swapped places. And what he could see…well, that was something quite amazing. His hand drifted down towards his crotch, and…

“Need some help there, boyfriend?”

Harry swatted her hand away and shook his head.

Hermione smiled. “I see you grabbed your glasses too? Wanted to make sure you got a clear view of Susan’s bits?”

He started to explain, but thought better of it and pretended to lock his lips with his fingers.

“Yeah, yeah…you can explain later.”

Harry rolled his eyes and mouthed a silent protest.

“Oh, no worries,” Hermione replied. “I suppose you did need proper vision to keep proper distances.”

Her boyfriend nodded, touched his nose with his index finger, and pointed towards her. She smiled, and said, “So…I probably should also assume that you were just stalling for time when you went off-script and gave Sue a back rub?”

Harry nodded vigorously, causing his lower head to bounce to the same beat. This caught Hermione’s eye.

“Merlin, Harry…you look like you are ready to explode right now.”

He blushed, looked towards the other two witches in his bed, then lifted his hands up and shrugged in a “Can you blame me?” gesture.

“No, I guess I can’t blame you,” said Hermione with a smile. “I’m kind of turned on myself.”

Harry tore his eyes away Lisa’s efforts and arched an eyebrow at his girlfriend.

“What?” she asked innocently. She smiled, and added, “I kind of like this kind of invisible…with you being the only one that can see or hear me.”

Harry nodded.

“Funny that you didn’t mention that Dobby could do this trick before,” she added. “Or how Daphne benefited from it while you two did a bit of naked chatting in your shower room?”

“But…” Harry loudly protested. Hermione covered his mouth with her hand before he could say anything more.

“Yes…Harry! Spank my butt!” Susan gasped.

Hermione glanced over at the Hufflepuff and nodded.

“Smooth,” she noted. “Susan is quite the good actress, isn’t she?”

Harry shrugged, then jerked his attention back towards the sound of slapped flesh.

“Yes! Spank me again, Harry!”

Hermione reached over and grabbed her boyfriend’s attention.

“Hey, just don’t get any ideas, Mister. Lisa can spank her own girlfriend, and I don’t get turned on by pain or submissiveness.”

Harry looked down at where Hermione had grabbed his attention. He covered her hand with his, then looked into her eyes, smiled, and mouthed, “Yes, Dear!”

She sighed, and said, “So you remember the script, Harry?”

He nodded, and moved Hermione’s grasp up and down his shaft.

“Not just yet,” said Hermione. “Because you are a thoughtful boyfriend, right? And thoughtful boyfriends don’t come until their girlfriend has at least one orgasm.”

Harry waggled his eyebrows and looked down towards the boxer shorts that Hermione was wearing.

“Oh, I suppose you think that should apply to me as well right now?”

Harry nodded and smiled.

Hermione giggled and pulled her hand away from his bits.

“I suppose a proper boyfriend should be perving on his real girlfriend, if he is given a chance,” she noted.

Harry nodded and smiled emphatically.

“If you insist,” she teased. As she slowly reached underneath the waistband of her shorts she added, “Just remember the plan…when you’re close…announce it, then give Lisa enough time to get out of the way…and make sure you’re pointing towards a safe part of Sue when you burst!”

Harry nodded, and gave Hermione his entire attention while she began to rub herself…even when her attention drifted elsewhere. Because while watching your girlfriend play with herself was amazingly hot…watching your girlfriend play with herself while she watched two other girls play was even hotter.

oo00OO00oo

“Harry?”

The Muggle-raised wizard opened his eyes and stared the numbers floating in front of his face.

The Tempus spell read 7:15am.

Harry caught a short breath and held it in as his brain worked furiously…far too furiously, given the hour.

He was in his bed. He was in his bed naked, and sharing his bed with someone…a naked female someone who was spooning against him with bared breasts pressed against his back. A naked female someone who had pushed down the covers far enough to cast a Tempus spell…presumably with the wand that was now gripped in a fist that was balled against his lower abdomen, holding him close. And he could read the spell’s output because he’d fallen asleep wearing his glasses.

But why?

He remembered, then released the breath, and looked back over her shoulder.

“Susan?”

The Hufflepuff giggled. “Expecting somebody else to be snuggling with you, boyfriend?”

The-Boy-Who-Lived snorted as reached down and covered the witch’s wand hand with his. Noting carefully the relative positions of their wand tips, he gently lifted Susan’s hand away from his belly and scooted his hips forward until he could safely turn over and face her.

“So…”

Susan dropped her wand onto the bed linens, reached up, and interrupted Harry by covering his lips with her finger. “Give me a few seconds,” she purred, as she closed her eyes and smiled.

“Sure,” he replied. He was guessing that she was trying to fix that morning’s scripted events firmly into her memories. He was also guessing that Susan was using auditory and tactile stimulation to help that process along. Or at least he was hoping there wasn’t another reason why she was laying there in front of him, softly moaning as she slowly dragged her finger in circles around the perimeter of one of her exposed nipples.

Harry sighed. All of this intimate pretending was getting dangerous…and more than a bit frustrating. Not in a blue balls sort of way, mind you…Hermione had been willing and eager to stay on top of that “situation.” Several times a day for the past few days, actually. But here he was, sharing a bed for the first time with Susan (and just Susan, assuming that Hermione and/or Lisa weren’t lurking about under either the cloak or Dobby’s magic). And they were naked, and the covers were down to their waists, and she was mewing oh so sexily as she lifted her hand from her breast so that she could move a thick strand of unbraided strawberry-blonde hair off of her face and tuck it behind her ear.

He knew that Susan liked girls, but that didn’t make her any less attractive physically. He closed his own eyes, and tried to focus his thoughts on his real girlfriend, rather than the fake girlfriend who was within arm’s reach, fixing into her short-term memory banks a staged sexual encounter that involved him riding her doggy-style.

The shift in thoughts didn’t do anything to lessen the sexual tension in the air, though…or to diminish the dangers. Because when Harry’s thoughts turned to Hermione, he pictured her as he’d last seen her…in that very bed a few hours previous, rubbing one off as she watched Lisa and Susan play with their toy. And then he imagined Hermione sharing her bed with Lisa…and Lisa’s toy…and while he trusted his girlfriend, and while she trusted him, and Lisa and Susan trusted each other, and they all assumed that the Chasers were teasing when they charted about harems…Hermione and he had been boyfriend and girlfriend for just a few days (and nights). Where was all of this heading? How much longer would they have to pretend? Was it going to continue to be “pretend” for all involved…and was the pretending going to involve more than what the four of them did early that morning?

“Harry?”

The-Boy-Who-Worried opened his eyes and caught Susan’s gaze.

“Good morning, girlfriend,” he said.

“Good morning, boyfriend.”

“I’d kiss you except…”

“Yeah, morning breath,” Susan giggled. “I should get going, before…”

“Need my cloak?”

Susan nodded, and closed her eyes again. A few seconds later, she opened them, smiled, and said, “Cut.”

“Cut there?” asked Harry.

The Hufflepuff nodded. “I just appended a trip back to my dormitory under your cloak to the scene.”

Harry snorted. “And what a scene it was, huh?”

“Oh, yeah…”

“We’ve got your brain in the right place, then?”

Susan giggled, her gaze drifting down towards the point just below his navel where bared skin was covered by duvet.

“How could it not be…you are a very good lover, Harry,” she purred.

The black-haired wizard frowned. “I thought we ended the scene?”

“We did,” Susan replied. “I was talking about you and Hermione…last night?”

“Oh, yeah….sure,” Harry replied. “You too…you and Lisa, I mean.”

“Of course you do,” Susan teased, reaching out and giving Harry’s thin strip of chest hair a playful tug.

“Hey!” he protested, swatting her hand away.

Susan snorted when Harry pulled the covers up towards his chin.

“Now you get modest?”

“Now I get protective,” he countered. “It took me a long time to grow those hairs.”

Susan giggled.

“I really should get going,” she declared. “Can I borrow your cloak?”

“Why don’t you just ride Air Dobby?”

“Because when Professor Sprout checks the house wards she’ll know that I left the dormitory last night, but didn’t return,” Susan explained. “If Dobby pops me back into my bed without first passing back through the front door…”

“Yeah, we really should keep Dobby’s capabilities under our hats,” Harry agreed. “So you going to flash my roommates again?”

“Do you think I need to?”

Harry snorted. “No, between what Neville saw and what the others have probably imagined…”

“Good. Then I’ll cover up and ask Dobby to pop me in front of my dormitory entrance...that will shorten my walk of shame.”

“You don’t have anything to be ashamed about,” Harry whispered.

“Why thank you Harry…you say the nicest things,” Susan replied, as she smiled and pushed herself up off of the bed. Harry kept his gaze firmly planted on her pillow, mindful of the fact that she was standing naked over him as he handed her his cloak.

“Pretend to escort me out of your bed after I’m gone?” she asked.

Harry nodded.

“Sure thing,” he replied. “See you later, then?”

Susan giggled. “What? You haven’t seen enough of me this morning?”

Harry risked looking up from the pillow.

“I can’t see you at all right now,” he noted.

“Well that doesn’t seem fair, since I still can see all of you,” Susan teased, dragging an invisible big toe half-way up his leg.

Harry tried to trap the toe by clamping his knees together. He missed.

Harry tried to reach up and tickle the giggling invisible witch. He missed, and Dobby popped her away.

Harry thought about trying to bang his forehead against the headboard in frustration. But then he thought about everything that had happened in the previous twelve hours…everything that he had done…and pretended to have done. Everything that he had seen…with his glasses on. Everything that he had heard…and touched…and tasted…and smelled…

The teen-aged wizard grinned, and flopped over onto his back. Umbridge, and Snape, and Dumbledore, and Voldemort, and the ridiculous homework assignment in Divination…there was no room for these things within Harry’s thoughts. They’d been shoved into the shadows by shared beds and shared bits…well beyond the edge of what mattered most to him at that moment. And all of the worry that he’d experienced earlier, when he was still in Susan’s arms, had vanished as well, allowing him to properly enjoy his unbelievable good fortune like any “normal” hormonally-fueled teen-aged boy.

Harry’s lust-tinged trip down short-term memory lane was cut short by the tip of a bludger bat…a bat that somebody had discretely slipped in between his spell-silenced bed curtains. A handwritten note stuck to the end of the bat read, “IT’S 7:30…BREKKERS?”

The-Boy-Who-Lived chuckled as he pulled his wand from beneath his pillow and cancelled the silencing charms on his bed curtains.

“Thanks,” he called out. “Give us a minute, then?”

Laughter broke out on the other side as the bat was pulled back.

“Interesting choice of pronouns,” declared Neville.

“Could just be conversation, you know,” Harry replied. “Like ‘Give us a kiss, luv’?”

“I suppose,” his friend offered.

Harry waited a few seconds, then pulled back the curtains dramatically. All four of his dorm mates’ faces were staring back at him.

“Good morning, Harry.”

“Erm…good morning, Neville.”

“Good morning, Susan!”

“Sod off, Seamus.”

“Should I get the door for any invisible guests?”

“You can sod off as well, Dean.”

“Didn’t answer the question, did he?”

“Haven’t you guys got anything better to do?” Harry asked, as he climbed out of bed.

The other boys looked at each other and grinned.

“No.” they replied in unison.

Harry rolled his eyes as he walked over to the door and opened it for his pretend invisible friend.

“Leaving anyone behind?” asked Seamus, as he patted down Harry’s bed linens.

“He’s only got the one cloak,” Ron noted.

“Oh, yeah…that’s too bad.”

“It’s still probably big enough for more than one witch, though, if they’re small,” said Ron.

“Nothing small about Susan’s baps,” offered Dean.

“Think they’d fit if she pressed those baps tight against the other witch?” asked Seamus.

“There’s a thought,” Ron whispered.

A chorus of “Harem! Harem! Harem!” drifted up the stairwell.

“That’s enough!” Harry growled, as he fingered his holly wand.

“Two witches are enough, you mean?” Seamus quipped.

The Irish teen ducked under the flatulence hex that Harry hurled in his direction, grabbed a towel, and dashed towards the lavatory. Dean and Ron were quick to follow, nervously tracking The-Boy-Who-Lived’s wand tip.

“You aren’t going to hex wandless wizards in the back, are you?” Ron asked.

Harry gritted his teeth and fumed quietly as Neville (who’d already readied himself for the day) held up his hands and backed out the doorway on his way down towards the Common Room. But being left alone in their room opened up other possibilities.

“Dobby?”

“Yes, Harry Potter, Sir?” asked the quick-to-respond House Elf.

“Dean, Ron and Seamus just left for the showers,” Harry noted. “They are all a little hot and overexcited…would you be able to cool them down?”

The House Elf smiled and cracked his knuckles.

“Dobby can be cooling down The Great Harry Potter Sir’s dorm mates!”

“Thanks, Dobby, you’re the….”

But the House Elf popped away before Harry could finish thanking him.

The black-haired wizard sighed, grabbed his own towel, and headed towards the showers.

That towel proved a useful barrier just a few seconds later, when Harry leaped out of the way of three screaming naked teenagers who were being chased by three animated disembodied shower heads that were nipping at their heels with full blasts of ice cold water.