34Hermione, generally, did not get on well with other students. The problem was a terrible combination of the students' annoyance with her try-hard attitude and Hermione's annoyance with their apathetic attitudes in class. So for the first three years of her tenure at Hogwarts, Hermione kept to herself, and especially so for that third year, during which she'd been granted permission to use a time turner in order to take additional classes. But somehow even with the ability to turn back time, Hermione had no free time for anything. She ended up falling asleep in odd places while trying desperately to catch up on assignments. She had woken up more than once in the library, having fallen asleep with her head resting on a table, hidden behind tall stacks of books she had been sifting through for reference. Usually Madam Pince would wake her to shoo her off for bed, but one night Hermione had been so well hidden that the wakeup call never came. Or perhaps Pince had seen a later or earlier version of Hermione leave the room and assumed she had gone.
In any case, Hermione woke up in the library in the middle of the night, and she was faced with the issue of getting back to her common room without being caught. She did fairly well for a while, pretending in her head that she was James Bond or Harriet the Spy. Then she turned a corner and ran into thin air. Or thick air, as it were.
Hermione stumbled back and landed on her bum as the air said, "Ow!" in a voice that sounded very much like Harry Potter. A light shone at the far end of the hall, one of the patrolling teachers or prefects, and Hermione felt a tug on her ankle. The air parted from the ground up, revealing Harry in his pajamas, frantically waving for her to get under what Hermione realized was an invisibility cloak.
"Get in!" He whispered urgently.
Hermione didn't need telling twice. She scrambled up and held her arms close to her body as Harry put the cloak down over them. Professor Snape came down the hall a moment later, eyes narrowed suspiciously, but his wand light went right through them. He passed by as if they weren't there.
Harry sighed as Snape turned the next corner. "That was close."
"How did you get this?" Hermione asked, then changed her mind. "Why are you out of bed?"
"Not telling you and not telling you," Harry said flatly. He lifted up the cloak again. "I'm heading the other way. There shouldn't be anyone else between here and the common room."
"But-" Hermione stepped timidly out from the cloak. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
Harry smirked. "Not if you don't."
And neither of them ever did.
As far as friends, Hermione and Harry were never quite that. But they were allies, definitely. After that incident in third year, Harry put a quick stop to anyone making fun of her, at least any time it happened within her earshot. He couldn't stop her teeth getting cursed in fourth year, but Hermione didn't hold it against him. She even took pity on him when the Yule Ball came around.
"You need to stop," she said at breakfast one morning, pointing her fork at Harry's dumbstruck face.
He finally turned his eyes away from the Ravenclaw table, and thank Merlin he wasn't drooling. "What?"
"Staring at Cho Chang like you're a puppy," Hermione said, shaking her head. "It's creepy."
"Shite." Harry ducked his head down and messed with his hair nervously.
Hermione pursed her lips to hide her smile, then said, "If you like her, you should ask her to the ball."
Harry folded his arms on the table, his expression pinched. "It's...too early."
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. The Yule Ball had just been announced the day before, yes, but why on Earth would that matter when asking a girl to go? Viktor had asked her just after the announcement, appearing out of nowhere in the library like he always did, as if he were some sort of attractive gargoyle. She honestly hadn't been expecting anyone to ask her, so she'd said yes immediately.
"I've already been asked, and I said yes. Why wouldn't she?" Hermione paused, taking in Harry's oddly nervous demeanor. "Are you scared of girls?"
His shoulder twitched. "No….yes."
Hermione barely stopped herself from laughing. "I've seen you dive at the ground from hundreds of feet up in the air and taunt Professor Snape like it's your mission in life. I didn't think you were afraid of anything."
"Sorry to disappoint you," Harry muttered sulkily.
Hermione twisted her mouth as she saw how miserable he looked, then took out her spare parchment and started scribbling a basic, but sweet, proposal. She ripped off what she wrote and handed it to him. "Memorize this and be by the astronomy tower after classes end."
Harry glanced at the paper, then at her face. "Why?"
She shoved the paper in his hand. "Just. Do it."
Hermione told Cho that Harry needed to tell her something important, so that when she came down for dinner and saw him standing there, she'd walk right up to him. He couldn't possibly mess it up. And he didn't. Hermione felt a bit relieved to see them together, like she'd repaid a debt somehow. Harry dated Cho through the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Hermione had her own problems in Viktor. Not really problems, just...was kissing supposed to be awkward? She found it pleasant when their mouths were closed, but open, it felt like she was getting kissed by a dog or something. The wandering hands were nice, especially when they dipped into her knickers, but none of it seemed to lead anywhere except her getting wet and irritated in the back of the library stacks. Did he know what he was doing? Should she tell him he was doing it wrong?
"Come for me, Hermyown," he whispered in her ear.
Hermione frowned at the copy of Hogwarts: A History sitting on the shelf across the aisle and briefly prayed that this moment would never end up in a book somewhere. Then she made a long, broken moaning sound that she thought might sound like a girl coming (she only had half an idea from films) and clenched herself around Viktor's fingers. Was that what he wanted?
The fingers retreated immediately. Viktor humped against her leg a few more times, then let out a weird grunt and went still. It took Hermione a moment to figure out why.
Oh. Well then.
At least one of them was happy.
When Viktor stepped away, he looked like he was in love with her. Hermione tried very hard to smile through the disappointment. When summer came, and Viktor left, Hermione only wrote to him twice before she stopped.
Fifth year, for the most part, was blissfully exempt of love. Harry and Cho had broken up over the summer (Hermione could guess why; Harry was not the best talker and probably a worse penman). Hermione was so focused on O.W.L.s that a boy could strip naked and helicopter his cock in front of her and she probably wouldn't have noticed. The only boy she had time for was Harry, and only because they were Gryffindor prefects together. She passed the time on their patrolling rounds by quizzing him on material they would need for their exams. He never stopped her. He wanted to be an auror more than anything, and he needed to do well on his exams to get there.
"Could you..." He stopped in the middle of the hall and gave her the most pathetic puppy eyes she'd ever seen. "...possibly...tutor me in potions?"
Hermione put a hand to her chest and smiled. "The great Harry Potter, quidditch legend, is asking me for help?"
Harry winced and started walking past her, face flushed. "Nevermind."
Hermione rolled her eyes. Honestly, after all the tripe he'd given her over the years about studying too hard, he should have expected this. She hurried after him and said, "I'm teasing. I'll do it. But you have to tutor me in Defense."
Harry brightened immediately, and Hermione didn't think she was imagining the slight vindictive edge to his smile. "Deal."
It was the most time she'd spent with any one person, tutoring with Harry twice a week. He wasn't nearly as awkward as she thought he'd be, perhaps because he didn't really think of her as a girl. She was just Hermione, the asexual bookworm.
Though, that train of thought did not go both ways.
The closer they got to June, the more Hermione found herself sitting unnecessarily close to Harry during their potion sessions, letting the side of their thighs and arms touch, letting her breasts graze him as she reached for ingredients. He was warm and he smelled nice and he had really pretty eyes. And when she touched him, even a little bit, she felt a greater, more desperate kind of heat beneath her skin than she ever did with Viktor. It was addicting. Harry didn't seem to notice her behavior, and knowing how clueless he was with women, he probably just thought she was a very close talker.
It figured, she thought later, that the first boy she really, really wanted only thought of her as intelligent furniture. He proved that in their last study session, ignoring half of her questions while staring out the library window.
"Is there anything you could use instead of a beautification potion on a Red Cap? Harry?" She frowned and wafted the feather of her quill at his face.
Harry blinked and finally looked at her. But he answered her question with his own. "Do you think Ginny Weasley would date me?"
Hermione paused as a furious indignation she had never felt before swelled in her chest. She knew, logically, that Ginny would be a good match for Harry. They were both very sporty. Ginny didn't care much for the girly things that Cho did, otherwise known as Things That Confused Harry Very Much. They would be the perfect, sporty couple. That wasn't what bothered Hermione.
What bothered Hermione is that he wanted to shag Ginny, when Hermione was quite obviously right there and willing.
Fucking idiot.
"Well…" Hermione said, shoving very firmly back at her anger. "I think she's had a crush on you for a while. She's very impressed with your quidditch playing."
Harry's face lit up. "Is she?"
Hermione nodded, hating herself a little. "All you'd have to do is ask her."
He didn't, not right then, but only because Ginny had just started dating Dean Thomas. Hermione kept a wary eye on Harry after their exams. He'd gone back to his creepy staring habits (instead of, you know, talking to the girl he fancied, like a normal person), and he'd been making increasingly passive aggressive comments to Dean. She thought maybe the summer holidays would do him good, give him time to calm down.
They didn't.
"How are they still dating?" Harry asked on the first day of sixth year, as he stood by and didn't help Hermione herd the new first years at all.
Hermione ignored him for a bit, telling the first years to go toward the boats (one little boy had to physically be steered in the right direction), then said, "Maybe he writes good letters?"
Harry huffed. "Nobody-hold on." The same little boy had started sneaking out of the crowd toward the carriages. Harry grabbed him by the back of his robes, dragged him to the boats, and shoved him in one. "Stay." He turned back to Hermione. "Nobody writes good letters."
Hermione crossed her arms. "Maybe not you."
When she'd gotten her O.W.L.s results, Hermione had been over the moon. She'd gotten Outstanding grades in all her exams, all thanks to Harry helping her study for the Defense practical. She'd sent him a very heartfelt letter of gratitude, and what did he send her in return?
Cool. I got an Outstanding in Potions. Thanks! Have a good summer.
Harry frowned at her. "What?"
Hermione shrugged. He'd figure it out eventually. Hopefully. Maybe.
The first part of sixth year was fairly calm and pleasant until Hermione realized that Cormac McLaggen's comments to her were actually serious. She'd found it hard to tell because he had come onto almost every girl in their year before he'd finally gotten around to her. Not that he was bad looking; he was tall, blonde, and broad-shouldered. He could probably carry her with ease, and Hermione found that basely appealing. However, every time he opened his mouth, she wanted to smack him.
"You know, they say I'm the best keeper since Oliver Wood," Cormac said during one History of Magic class that Hermione suspected she would later give anything to forget. He'd taken to sitting next to her, since no one else ever did, pressing close to her side throughout the lesson in a mimicry of what she'd done to Harry the year before.
Was this her cosmic punishment or something? Enduring Cormac?
Hermione short-handed her notes desperately and muttered, "He was the last keeper before you. That isn't saying much."
Cormac's hand found its way to her thigh, and Hermione hated that she found the warm graze of his fingers pleasant. "Yes, but he was the second best...next to me."
Why? Why did he have to speak?
Hermione shook off his hand. She said shortly, "I hate quidditch."
He leaned, if possible, even closer to her and whispered in her ear. "Then what do you like?"
"Silence," she muttered.
His hand on her thigh slid upward, fingers curling under her skirt hem. "If I stay quiet, what do I get?"
She clamped her left hand down on his wandering one and squeezed her nails down until he hissed. "You can stick around me for ten minutes during lunch, and I won't hex you. Possibly."
He retracted his hand, flexing it, but he didn't move away. He asked, "In a place of my choosing?"
Hermione sighed. "Sure."
He kept to his word. The rest of the class period was silent from his end, and Hermione could finally focus on what was being said. She'd nearly forgotten about their deal, though, until Cormac took her hand in the hall and dragged her into a broom closet.
"What are you doing?" Hermione whispered, glancing around the brooms and utility shelves in confusion.
Cormac picked her up under her hips and set her on top of the tool drawer behind her. "Claiming my ten minutes."
And then he was kissing her. Hermione frowned, but she allowed it out of curiosity. Cormac was a more aggressive kisser than Viktor. Definitely cleaner, at least. There wasn't spit everywhere. He was just very...invasive. She kind of liked it, but she also wished he would calm down a little. Then she heard the clink of his belt. She pushed him back.
"What're you doing?"
Cormac shrugged. "Well, I figure in ten minutes, you give me a hand job, I finger you, we go to lunch."
That was surprisingly practical and a bit alarming at the same time. Hermione looked down at this open trousers curiously, and not without wariness. "I don't know what to…"
Cormac grinned excitedly. "Here."
He quickly shimmied his briefs and trousers down, and his cock sprang up. Hermione had so many questions. Did they all look like that? Was the red color normal? Why was it leaking? She thought it'd be a bit bigger than a few inches. Was that a normal size? Merlin, she really needed to read more about this.
Cormac grabbed her right hand and wrapped it around his hard, little cock and said, "Move up and down like this, grip hard, go fast. Yeah?"
Hermione tried what he said. It was a bit difficult, as she wasn't used to the movement and the angle was weird, but Cormac's face flushed red and he started making little noises, so she assumed he liked it. His own right hand quickly shot up her thigh, and Hermione jolted as two fingers shoved aside her panties and harshly thrust inside her. He didn't do much more than wriggle them. It wasn't comfortable.
She decided pretty quickly that her forearm muscles really were not made for this handjob business, and just as she thought she might get a cramp or something, Cormac made a squeaking sound, then Hermione's hand was covered in a gel-like, warm, white substance that she knew was his come. She scrunched her nose and opened her hand to inspect it. The spunk stretched stickily between her fingers.
Ew.
Cormac's fingers retracted immediately from her, and she rubbed her thighs together with relief. Hermione scourfigied the mess on her hand while Cormac put himself back together. He smiled, panting, and said, "That was good, yeah?"
Hermione thought about being nice, but she wasn't dating Cormac like she had been Viktor. She didn't owe him anything. So she primly fixed her skirt, grabbed her bag, and said, "No."
She walked out without waiting for his reaction.
He never talked to her again, but he did manage to tell everyone in their year what they'd got up to in the broom closet. Arse.
Sixth year's Christmas holiday approached with a bit of danger, not that Harry had any idea until it happened. The night before the train set out, they were out patrolling the halls before bed, and Hermione was muttering the events of the Centaur Rebellion of 1812 to herself in preparation for their next exam. Harry dragged his feet, tuckered out from the last quidditch practice of the year. He'd been doing really well as captain, she thought, even though she didn't know much about the sport to begin with. She'd just heard that Gryffindor team was looking to be in the finals, and that sounded promising.
She heard the crinkle of a wrapper as Harry took a chocolate bonbon from his pocket and popped it in his mouth. He was probably trying to stay awake with sugar, bless him. Hermione listed the major players of the rebellion on both sides in her head, counting on her fingers, and she only noticed that Harry had stopped walking when she heard him moan behind her. She stopped and turned around. Harry was pressing a hand to his forehead and leaning against the stone wall.
"Harry?" she asked, tilting her head to see his expression better. He looked dazed. "Are you alright?"
"I...I'm just…" His hand relaxed back to his side, and a dopey smile crossed his face. "I'm missing Romilda, that's all."
An image of a girl with dark wild hair, still somehow better tamed than Hermione's, came to mind. She was the same girl who giggled whenever Harry walked by her and gave him uncomfortably strong bedroom eyes at lunch. Hermione hadn't thought Harry noticed. "Romilda Vane? The girl who has a crush on you?"
"Does she?" Harry looked positively blissful. He brought a hand to his chest as if moved by the news, then started walking forward. "I have to go to her. I have to see her."
"Harry," Hermione said nervously, whipping her wand out from her pocket and pointing it at his chest. "Stop. I think you've taken a love potion."
"I do love her," Harry said firmly. His dazed face turned serious, eyes only slightly unfocused, and he took out his own wand. "Let me go."
Hermione took a half step back, feeling a sharp edge of panic. Harry was much better trained at dueling than she was, and if he kept even half that ability while under the influence, she could be in serious trouble. Hermione didn't wait for him to curse first. She sent an expelliarmus at him and fumbled to catch his wand as it flew from his hand, which reacted only after the wand had left it. The potion must have been strong, then, if it slowed down his reaction that much. However, it didn't slow down his thinking at the same rate.
While Hermione put his wand in her pocket, Harry strode forward and decked her in the face. Hermione's mind didn't even have time to process it. One moment she was catching a wand, the next she was on the floor and the world was doing a weird fading in and out thing that she didn't really care for. The only thing she could properly process was the searing pain radiating from her nose and the side of her head that hit the floor. She deftly clawed at the stone ridges on the floor tiles, then the wall, to drag herself up. When she was righted and standing, the world seemed a bit more stable. She still had Harry's wand in her pocket and her own curled in her right hand. In his delirium, he must have forgotten to reclaim it.
Hermione walked back up to the Gryffindor common room as quickly as she could, feeling a bit queasy as she went. Blood flowed freely from her pulsating nose, and she hadn't bothered to check the aching spot on her head. She knew she was probably a bit concussed. She kept swaying into the walls. When she finally made it through the portrait hole, she was met with minor chaos. Harry had apparently tried to climb the girl's staircase, which set off the alarm and turned the stairs into a slide with a ringing alarm system. He was still on the floor in shock when she arrived, and curious girls slid down the staircase as boys descended their own, normal, stairs to see what was going on. Harry got up and made another bound toward the stair-slide, and Hermione hit him in the back with a silent incarcerous spell. Ropes wound around him tightly. He struggled against them in a worm-like fashion that would have otherwise been funny.
A shrill, scottish voice sounded behind Hermione. "What on Earth is going on in here?"
McGonagall had entered the room in her tartan bathrobe, looking highly agitated, then slightly shocked when she saw Hermione. "Miss Granger?"
It was, in the end, a very long night.
Hermione and Harry both were taken to the hospital wing. She did have a concussion, as well as a broken nose. McGonagall had Romilda brought into Dumbledore's office for inquiry. Harry was given an antidote, and he immediately wracked himself with guilt over hitting Hermione. He planted himself at her beside the moment Pomfrey turned out the lights.
"I'm sorry," he said miserably. "I'm so sorry."
His admission soothed something in Hermione that she didn't understand. Where had she been angry in the first place? It wasn't his fault. She knew that. Maybe it was just the comfort of the attention. She decided not to think too hard on it.
She gripped his hand and rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. "It's not your fault."
He winced and said, "I hit you."
"Romilda drugged you," Hermione said sharply. "I know that's a muggle term, don't argue. She-you would've gone to her room, but it wouldn't have been the average fooling around. You couldn't have consented. Do you know what that means?"
Harry nodded, head so low it was touching the sheets.
"I couldn't let her rape you," Hermione whispered to him. "A punch to the face is nothing, okay?"
He was shaking. Hermione couldn't imagine. Harry craved control almost as much as she did. To have all of that confidence stripped away in an instant would be….it would be horrifying. Hermione pulled his hand close to her abdomen and curled herself around his bowed head. Harry's free arm came up and rested over her thigh, hand on her hip. The pain potions that Pomfrey had given her worked quickly after that. She felt warm and safe. She fell asleep.
They woke when the sun had just started to turn the sky light blue. Hermione's bed curtain ripped open, and she flinched. Harry reacted to the twitch of her hand and lifted his head. Hermione squinted tiredly at the couple behind her curtains. One was a red-headed woman, the other an older version of Harry. His parents.
"C'mon, love," the woman said softly. "We need to talk."
Harry got up and left, and Hermione's sheets felt unbearably cold after.
Romilda Vane was given detention for the entire rest of the year, which was extremely lenient considering she essentially poisoned the Head of the Auror Department's son. Given that the incident had happened just before Christmas, she had six months of detention in her future. And in the meantime, Harry wouldn't leave Hermione alone.
Come their return to school in January, Harry's puppy eyes were back full force, but this time they were remorseful and hopeless. He didn't hover, necessarily, but she felt him watching her all the time. Someone really needed to teach him how to talk to girls. She finally snapped when she caught him staring at her during breakfast, halfway through January, and she spilled a bit of oatmeal on her skirt. For Merlin's sake. She got up and strode over to him, sitting down at his side with purpose, and Harry's puppy eyes suddenly turned panicked.
"Stop acting guilty," she said firmly, furrowing her brow in a way that made first years nervous.
Harry held up his hands in surrender. "I can't help it."
"Why? Would you feel like that if I were boy?" Hermione saw his hesitancy to answer and curled her lips into a wry smirk. "No. And why not?"
Harry shrugged. "Because boys are better equipped to defend themselves?"
Yes, that was what she'd thought. He wasn't feeling guilty so much that he'd hit her than that he'd hit a girl. "And how do we fix this, then? Because I guarantee that staring at me won't help."
"I-er…" He pouted, confused, in the way he did when he needed Hermione to answer a question for him in History of Magic.
"Self defense lessons," she said.
Harry's eyebrows raised in surprise. "For you?"
Hermione smirked. "I was thinking for girls in general, but yes, also me."
If someone had told Hermione that the entire second half of her sixth year would be partially dedicated to kicking Harry Potter's arse, in front of an audience, she would have laughed. And yet, that was exactly what happened. Once a week, Harry would go over a basic self defense movement with Hermione, one spell and one hand-to-hand, and then later in the week they would hold a lesson, open to all female students, demonstrating those same techniques for others to learn. Harry even sent letters to a woman named Tonks, an auror at the ministry, asking for any tips specific to situations women might find themselves in, and Tonks herself showed up as a guest demonstrator. Hermione felt a bit bad for how thoroughly she enjoyed watching Tonks strangle a very embarrassed Harry with his own shirt.
Things were a bit more complicated, however, when Ginny started showing up for lessons in April. Dean hadn't been wanting her to go, as was the same with a lot of boys with girlfriends, suspicious of how close, exactly, Harry would be getting to them. The answer was actually not at all. The girls practiced on each other, and Hermione was the only one who touched them to correct positions. Harry was purely an overseer, and he only demonstrated with Hermione, his furniture-for-friend.
However, Ginny did not seem to see Hermione as furniture. She saw Hermione as a threat. She walked up to Hermione after her first lesson with a disturbingly fierce expression on her face and asked, "So, are you and Harry dating now?"
Hermione waved her hands and shook her head, feeling a tinge of panic. "Oh, no. No, no. We're just...I think we're more like colleagues, really."
Ginny nodded, relaxing a little, but she still stared at Hermione with vague suspicion. "Okay. Cool."
Hermione left that situation with the haste of escaping a burning building. She grabbed Harry by the elbow as she went, dragging him away from explaining the auror training process to a first year girl until they reached the room corner.
She didn't let him ask questions. "Ginny is definitely interested in you."
Her chest lanced with a curious sharp pain as Harry's whole face lit up. "Really?"
"Yes," she said seriously, taking a step back from him. "I think you should offer her extra lessons. One on one."
Harry frowned. "Why?"
Hermione closed her eyes and gathered her patience. If there was a God, he needed to help this boy. "So that you have an excuse to be alone with her. You can teach her that thing where she flips you on your back. Do you see where this is going?"
"Y-yeah, hold on."
She watched Harry try to walk casually across the room. He looked a bit ridiculous, to be honest, as if someone had shoved a stick up his arse and told him to strut. Hermione couldn't watch any more than that. She left.
The next time she saw them together, Ginny and Harry were holding hands. Then she caught them snogging in the hall when they were supposed to be classes. Then in June, Harry asked Hermione if she would mind for Ginny to take over demonstrations. Hermione didn't really understand why a feeling terribly close to hate rose inside her, but she reasoned to Harry anyway that exams were coming up. Of course she didn't mind switching with Ginny.
June was a trial of Harry and Ginny snogging in alcoves, of Ginny sneaking back into the girl's dorms as Hermione was leaving early in the morning, and of Hermione looking at herself in the mirror, trying to convince herself that she was good enough even without Harry's approval.
Summer was a relief in that she didn't have to think about it any more.
The Head Girl badge with her letter was expected, but it didn't bring her much comfort. Sometimes, she thought, the wizarding world accomplishments were just placeholders for what she could have gotten as a muggle. She could have had school awards at a normal school. She could have been reaching out toward Oxford by now. She could have been Diane in Say Anything, instead of Brian in The Breakfast Club. But no, she showed up to King's Cross station for her final year every bit the nerd, primly dressed and alone. Harry, meanwhile, was dressed in a band shirt and jeans, his mum and dad there to send him off as his girlfriend tackled him familiarly from behind. Had they been seeing each other over the summer? That would certainly overcome Harry's letter problem.
They weren't very early, and Harry didn't seem concerned, so she assumed he forgot about their duties. Hermione primly patted her skirt, straightened the strap her small purple purse, and clenched her fingers over the handle of the wicker basket which held her cat, Crookshanks. Then she hesitantly approached the Potters. Hermione knew the family only from glimpses in the paper. James Potter was head of the auror department, so he often gave statements to the press, and Lily Potter had her own popular store of lotions, soaps, and balms in Diagon Alley. Between them, they were mildly famous in wizarding Great Britain.
"Hello, sorry," Hermione said with a nervous smile. Everyone turned to look at her, and her eyes shifted awkwardly to Harry. "I just want to be sure you remember we are hosting the prefect meeting this year."
"Mum, Dad, meet school mum," Harry said, gesturing to Hermione, who waved and hoped his parents didn't remember her from the hospital wing.
"I made color-coded notecards," Hermione said. Ginny gave her a slightly dark look, and she suddenly wished she could shut up, but Harry's parents were looking at her, and she was nervous, alright? "I think it'll make the transition easier for the fifth years."
"I'm sure they will," Harry said patiently. His eyes flicked around her curiously. "Where's your trunk?"
"In here," she held up her purse, which she had riddled with extension and lightening charms. Harry's eyes widened, and she saw him about to ask more, but she also saw Ginny's hands tighten on his arm. Hermione took a step back. "Well, I should get in there." And to his parents - "Lovely to meet you."
She turned and walked toward the train, hearing Harry call out behind her, "I'll be right behind you?"
He wasn't right behind her. He showed up halfway through the Prefect meeting with a hickey on his neck, and the Prefect girls tittered at his casual commentary to Hermione's lecture. He shirked his duties, and they still loved him better. She forgave him then, and again, and again as he showed up late to their rounds, and then to their meeting to talk about their project as Head Boy and Girl.
He came running into the library at the tail end of the meeting time they'd set up, his hair messed more than usual and lips red, just minutes before the library would close for the night. He spotted Hermione at a table near the back and sat down across from her. "I'm sorry I'm late, I-"
"Harry, it's fine, just…" She wanted to tell him that she'd been really glad when he made Head Boy instead of Malfoy, because she knew that Malfoy would have just put all the work onto her instead of sharing the load. She understood that Harry had other things going on, but she was studying for more N.E.W.T.s than he was. His love life did not trump her future. And yet, she only pulled together a tight smile and said, "It's fine."
He looked guilty, puppy eyes returning, but he took her for her word. "Alright, what are we going to do?"
"I don't know," Hermione felt a wash of anxiety flow over her. As Head Girl and Boy, they had to come up with a project to complete by the end of the year. The project had to be large and for the betterment of the school. It could be anything from renewing charms on the suits of armor to taking donations for the poorer students to actual renovation. They could do anything, and Hermione didn't know how to work with that wide of a scope. "I really don't know. Is there anything that needs fixing, that you can think of?"
He shook his head. "No idea."
Hermione sighed and tossed her quill on the table. "What about your parents, or Professor Lupin? Would they help us think of something?"
Harry snapped his fingers, face suddenly alight and alert. "I've got it. The Shrieking Shack."
The shack? What did that have to do with anything? "What?"
Then Harry told her what was, actually, a pretty horrifying tale of how Professor Lupin had been locked in the shack once a month to transform. Since it had been before Wolfsbane was invented, his wolf form had torn apart the shack in desperation. It was a house of shambles and deterioration now.
"But if there any other werewolf students in the future…" Harry trailed off, and gestured at Hermione to finish. She understood where he was going now.
"Then it would be better for them to have a comforting place to stay, since they'll still be in their right mind."
"Exactly."
They technically had to renovate the shack on their own, but Harry's parents, godfather, and 'Uncle Remus' had given them a list of possibilities to add as they went along. Hermione got started right away, following Harry's instructions to get there through the tunnel under the whomping willow. She'd told Harry that she would be going to get some prep work done, but she hadn't expected him to help (and he didn't). He had his first quidditch tryouts as team Captain that day, anyway.
Her first task was to remove the dust and unsalvageable debris from the first floor, which consisted of a sitting room with a fireplace, a small foyer in the middle, and kitchen/dining area on the other side. She came back two more times, always telling Harry first, and always on a night he didn't have quidditch, before he finally showed up.
"Holy hell, Hermione," he said, the night he came. She'd completely finished the sitting room and foyer, only leaving the piano and the grandfather clock, which she thought she might be able to fix. The dust was gone and floors clean, although everything was still scratched up. "You did all this yourself?"
She shrugged stiffly, not wanting to bring up how much she'd done without him. "I just figure, the faster this gets done, the quicker we can focus on our N.E.W.T.s, you know?"
"Yeah…" Harry trailed off and cleared his throat. "So, er, what do you need me to do?"
Hermione brushed a hand over her hair and went through the mental list of things she'd already planned to do on her own. She hadn't been sure about Harry's participation, so she hadn't made a schedule with him involved yet. "Look, if you want, we can alternate who comes down here when. I know you've got a lot to juggle, between class, quidditch, Ginny, and this."
"No, it's alright," he said quickly. "Ginny and I aren't...together, anymore."
"Oh." Well, she hadn't been expecting that. She had seen them getting tetchy with each other in the halls the other day, but it didn't look like anything world ending. "What happened?"
Harry's eyes averted to the floor, to the clock, then back to her. She'd forgotten; he didn't like talking about emotional things. "It's like you were saying, I suppose. I've got a lot to juggle. And frankly, she isn't a priority. Isn't that a shite thing to say?"
"It's honest," she said. She was actually a bit proud of him. He was putting his future first, finally. "You know what else is honest? You've got dust in your hair."
He laughed and allowed her to ruffle his hair, and she realized then that she'd missed him.
Why, Hermione wondered, was it always just them in the end? It was just the two of them learning spells to help repanel and fortify the wooden walls and floors, just them re-bricking the fireplace (it looked a bit like a drunken gnome had done it, but Harry assured her that it brought character), and thankfully not just them bringing in new furniture (donated by Harry's dad and godfather) when they'd finished the sitting room at the end of November. It was encouraging to see one room completely done. Hermione had fixed the clock, and Sirius had hired someone to fix the piano. There was a cushy red couch and burgundy rug in front of the fireplace. To cover the boarded-up windows, Hermione had asked her parents to purchase portraits of landscapes: one in yellow, one in blue, one in red, and one in green. She didn't want the shack to be too inclined toward any one house. They also asked Professor Lupin to donate books to put on the mantel, books that were favorable toward werewolves or else gave an accurate and fair depiction of them. There weren't many, only three, but Hermione hoped to find more.
"It's actually cozy in here," Hermione said dazedly, one evening in December, while she and Harry drank firewhiskey in front of the fireplace. He'd insisted on celebrating their progress before going home for the holiday. She didn't ask where he'd got the whiskey from. They sat on the floor, backs to the couch, bare feet stretched to the fire, a glass on either side of them.
"Except for the fireplace," Harry said, pointing to the bricks that looked like crooked teeth.
Hermione laughed and pressed her face into his shoulder. The room felt overwarm, and a tingling sensation edged deep into her skin the more she drank. She felt brave. She felt brave enough. She propped her chin onto Harry's shoulder, simply enjoying that he let her for a moment, then said, "Hey, can I ask you something?"
Harry hummed a yes before sipping his glass.
"Have you had sex yet?"
Harry choked and bent over, coughing into his hand.
Hermione panicked a little, rambling. "I'm only asking because everything I've experienced so far has been, well, maybe I'm just not a foreplay kind of girl?"
"Er-" Harry wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, eyes staring with embarrassment at the fire. "Ginny and I did pretty much everything else, but not that."
"Oh." A thought occurred to her, and through the whiskey haze, she didn't see any reason not to ask. "Well, do you want to have sex with me?"
Harry stared dumbly at her for a moment. "What? Really?"
She nodded, already thinking about the mechanics involved and, "Yeah. You're attractive and intelligent. I think we could make it work."
Harry bit his lip, looking like he was trying not to laugh, then said, "That's...encouraging."
"Good." Hermione immediately moved to unzip her skirt, then shimmied it, her knickers, and her stockings down in one go.
As she pulled them off her ankles, Harry said, "Oh my god."
And covered his eyes.
Hermione huffed, unimpressed. "For future reference, no girl wants you to do that, ever." She got up to her knees, pulled down her tie, then pulled it off with her shirt. "Take off your clothes. Let's go."
Harry laughed. His face under his hand was red, and he looked torn between embarrassment and delight. "Oh my god. You are so drunk."
Hermione pointed a finger at him. "Do not laugh at me when I'm naked."
Harry choked off his laugh with a snort, though the smirk stayed on his face. "Sorry. Not laughing."
"Hey," she said, unclasping her purple bra with a wince. The whiskey had made her fingers a bit numb. "I am a fairly attractive girl. You could probably do better, but you could definitely do worse. I am doing you a favor by cutting your odds." She dropped her bra, and pried his hand off his face. "Don't be a baby. Look at me." He opened his eyes, and they flicked almost unconsciously to her breasts (bigger than Ginny's, she thought with vindictive satisfaction), then lower, then back again. She saw the moment his eyes clouded over, pupils dilating, and the laughter left him.
"I-er-uh-right," he said demurely.
Oh, good. He did think she was attractive then. She snapped her fingers. "Get naked. Let's go."
Harry paused for a moment, and Hermione imagined he was running through any moral reason why they shouldn't, before he said, "Sod it."
He pulled his own shirt over his head, and Hermione watched with interest as he unbuckled and pushed down his trousers and boxers. He was a good couple inches larger than Cormac. Good. That would give her decent diversity in variables.
After he pulled his trousers off his ankles, Harry mimicked her and got up on his knees. He still looked like he wanted to laugh as he shuffled closer to her, green eyes mirthful behind his glasses. "Now what?"
Hermione bit her lip nervously then said, "The basics, I suppose."
She pressed her chest to his and gasped a little at the feeling of her hard nipples grazing Harry's warm skin. He tilted his head down and caught the gasp from her lips. There was no tongue at first, just warm, dry, soft press. His hands slid to her back and pressed her close. She could feel his hardness between them, and she braced her hands on his shoulders to roll her hips curiously.
His mouth opened in surprise, and Hermione's lips followed. When they pressed together again, his tongue brushed over hers, just a little, and Hermione chased it with her own. He was testing her, she realized, waiting to see how she reacted.
Smart.
She pulled back a bit and tugged on his shoulder. "Here, come here."
He followed her down to the floor, and in the better lighting, she could see how flustered he was. She liked it. His glasses, however, didn't. They dropped onto her chest as soon as they lay down. Harry picked them up quickly, mumbling a nervous, "Sorry."
"It's alright," she said. "I can fix that."
She reached for her wand, by her whiskey glass, but it was just out of the way. She wriggled, flexing her fingers to roll it a little closer, but she stopped when Harry suddenly started suckling her right nipple. The warmth of his mouth sent a tingling pleasure through her, and she arched into it. Harry's hands came to her hips, thumbs pressing into the groove of her bone, and a flash of something like excitement shot through her. She jolted and moaned before she could stop herself.
Harry pulled back and looked at her, only squinting a little. Near-sighted, then. "What?"
Hermione reached down to the hand on her left hip and pressed over his thumb with her own. The feeling came back, like being tickled but better, and her breathing changed to pants. "Here."
Harry rubbed his thumb over the patch of skin, and Hermione squirmed. He moved his head back down, but he kissed her stomach instead, then lower, to that inner part of her hip. When his tongue grazed the spot, Hermione's mind shut down completely. She was a moaning mess as he sucked a hickey there, and after his thumb found her clit, moving over it in a quick and practiced fashion, she didn't take long to feel the shiver of a climax wracking through her. Harry paused as she went quiet and arched, her mouth open and body shaking in waves.
"Did you just-" He asked, eyes open wide in amazement.
Hermione hummed and dazedly rolled her wand into her hand. "Well, this is already setting a high bar."
Harry laughed into her stomach. She nudged him with her leg. "Come here. I'll put your glasses back on."
He crawled back up. Hermione was hyper aware of his cock as he relaxed back onto her, her thighs clenching eagerly over his hips. She tapped his glasses with a light sticking charm and slid them back on his face. "There. They won't fall now."
"Thanks," he said quietly. His eyes scanned over her face. She knew she was probably just as flushed as him, if not more. "Are you sure?"
Hermione tilted her hips and folded her thighs up, reaching down between them to grasp Harry's cock. It was wet in her hand, and he immediately started shaking above her. She rubbed his tip down over her folds, then over her wet entrance. "Yeah."
Harry shifted forward, and she frowned as her entrance resisted, wet enough but too small, until he gave a harder thrust, then he was in, halfway, almost effortlessly. Hermione panted at the feeling of him inside of her, though she had to stop him from thrusting all the way in at first, her walls catching on the dryness of the base of his cock. She moved her hands to his hips to still him. "Wait, wait, slower."
She pushed and pulled gently on his hips to guide him out and in at a slow rhythm, working his cock in a little more each time. It hurt and it didn't. It was an odd teetering sensation of wanting him to go ahead fuck her and knowing that it would hurt like hell if he did. When they finally got there, Hermione could tell. She could feel his tip pressing deep inside her, and her body responded in a bundle of energy right there, at that point, that made her want him to keep pressing as far in as he could. Harry looked like he wouldn't say no to that, his expression that of harried bliss as he bottomed out.
"Oh merlin." He rocked against her, and Hermione forgot how to breathe for the feeling of it. He said, breathless, "I'm...I'm definitely not gonna last long."
"It's alright." She expected that, honestly. The more experienced girls at school had said it was a normal occurrence for teenage boys. This whole thing was already way more than she expected, anyway. She just wanted him to get to the point of it before he finished. "Fuck me."
Harry's head fell to her shoulder, and she felt him reel from hearing that with another rock against her. She still ached from the movement, but not nearly as much as the pleasure of him hitting her cervix. The next thrust after was harder, startling a moan from her, and she grabbed his shoulder blades for purchase as his thrusts quickened, turning her moans into staccato sounds as he slammed into that point inside her. The wet sounds and the slapping of their hips was obscene. The last thing she expected was to find that attractive. It was a mere minute of pleasure before he came, as promised, with a choked sound, his cock twitching inside her and his hips rocking slowly again, again, again. And then he relaxed, panting, on top of her chest. She didn't mind it. She was only dimly surprised that she didn't feel him come, not really. She only felt his softened cock slip out of her after, his semen dripping out thickly behind it in a warm, melty way that made her squirm.
After a few seconds, Harry lifted himself off her, giving her a guilty stare. "Sorry."
Hermione shook her head, smiling. She was still pulsing with want, but she wasn't angry. "Now we're even."
Harry smiled, chuckling, and moved off to lay down at her side. They stared at the ceiling for a moment. Then he asked, "Can we do that again?"
Hermione laughed a bit. "Today or in general?"
"Both," he answered quickly.
"Yes," she said, smiling wide. "...and yes."
Renovating the shack after that became an exercise of willpower. They still had to get things done, but what they really wanted to do, any time they were alone, was decidedly extracurricular. Hermione would be busy charming the freshly-painted walls of the upstairs bedroom, making sure they would be basely resistant to scratches, and Harry's stare from across the room would send such heat through her that she found her charms slipping around the edges.
He never asked.
She wondered if he even knew how to ask.
So he waited instead, until they were done for the day. Hermione always left enough time for them to have fun at the end. Even in this, she was a very good planner. They skipped finishing the kitchen and dining area in order to finish the bedroom first. It was the fastest room they'd finished for a very good reason, even though they only had time to work on the house a couple times a week. When they were done for the day, Hermione would lead Harry up to the bedroom and tell him what she wanted, and how she wanted it.
She, of course, had a list.
One night she undid his trousers and shoved him on the bed before getting down on her knees. "Tell me what feels good," she said.
Harry had no complaints. He was the most vocal he'd ever been, moaning in a wonton fashion as Hermione focused on covering her teeth with her lips as she sucked him off. He stuttered corrections a few times, telling her to pump where she couldn't reach, to suck harder at the tip. She wasn't expecting him to come so quickly and flinched back. He coated her face instead of her mouth. Her entire face. Boy's come was much more energetic than her own, and she wasn't crazy about it.
Harry dozed on the bed while she cleaned up her face and got her uniform straightened out. Then she shook his thigh. "Get up. We should go back soon."
Harry hummed and peered open his eyes. His cheeks were still splotched red in the way they only ever did during sex. He stretched out his legs and locked them around her own, pulling her forward until she collapsed clumsily on top of him on the bed. Harry laughed as she squealed in surprise, brushed back her hair, and kissed her. Then he winced.
Yes, she thought viciously. Your come doesn't taste good at all.
But he surprised her when he asked, "Has anyone ever gone down on you?"
Hermione couldn't help reacting with surprise. So far, she'd been taking the lead in this. She hadn't expected him to offer something that. "Well, no."
Harry grinned and flipped them over. Hermione bit her lip as he sank down to where she had just been, on his knees on the floor. His fingers hooked around the sides of her pink panties and slid them down, then off. Then he pushed her skirt up and her thighs open wide. Hermione immediately felt herself blush at being so exposed, with his face right there, but she only thought on it for a moment before he placed a warm, open kiss on her cunt. Her thoughts immediately narrowed down to a pool of warm, warm, soft, fuck, yes. She could always tell when Harry was doing something that he had done before, though she could never describe exactly how, as he acted so sure of himself even when he had no idea what he was doing. Probably because she knew him so well, she knew when he was confident and when he wasn't, and he was definitely confident in this.
He held her hips firmly to keep her from squirming or bucking against his face like she wanted to (and that was embarrassing to admit but Merlin, his tongue felt good). He toyed with her, probably gauging for what she liked best, but it was all so equally overwhelming that she couldn't have said if she wanted. He flicked his tongue over clit, then pressed it flat and moved his head, and Hermione didn't even know what sounds were coming from her throat anymore. Harry's arms kept her thighs from clamping over his head, so her arms flailed about instead, her hands desperately curling over the sheets as his tongue slipped lower and started fucking her, dipping in and out and squirming inside her. Hermione struggled desperately and begged, "Oh, please, please," because it wasn't enough.
Harry pulled back "What?"
"Fuck me. Hard. Please."
He nipped her thigh, then shuffled back to flip her over. He liked her tits and arse, and at the moment her girls would take too much time to uncover. Hermione always liked how practical Harry was, in general, but she especially appreciated that about him in sex. He kneaded her cheeks as he stood up, then tilted her hips back for a better angle. Despite her plea, he didn't just dive in. He never did. He eased in little by little, knowing that when she twitched in discomfort he would need to back out a bit and try again. Hermione hoped that this wouldn't be a lifetime problem, but Harry had no complaints about how tight she was.
"We alright?" He asked, a bit breathless, when he was all the way inside her.
Hermione rolled her hips back and clutched the sheets again, moaning, "Yes."
The pace he set wasn't as quick and harried as their first time, but it was, as requested, harder. Each pound knocked a short, throaty cry from her lips as he slammed into the spot she liked. She clawed at the sheets for purchase, and when she glanced back, she saw Harry's eyes were trained on the jiggle of her arse as his hips smacked against her. When he came, he thrust so hard that he had to chase her onto the bed, and Hermione reached down to rub her clit. She came, hard, with a sound that could have been a whine or a moan, while his cock still twitched inside her. She felt his knees buckle against the bed, but he stayed inside her until she stopped clenching around him.
When he pulled out, he hissed in surprise. She felt him pull her arse up, and his come leaked out as he did. "Merlin. Is it always like that?"
Hermione hummed, her head still hazy. "You do come a lot."
He pulled on her left hip to flip her back over. She peered at him contentedly, though he looked less relaxed as he asked, "You are on the potion, aren't you?"
She nodded. She'd been taking it for a few years, actually. It did wonders for acne and menstrual pains, and Pomfrey supplied it to any girl for free. "I don't think that's the question we should be asking here."
Harry smirked as he tucked himself back into his pants. "Oh yeah?"
Hermione nodded, rubbing her thighs together uncomfortably as his semen started to dry. Harry kneeled down, and she felt him put her feet back into her knickers. He pulled them back up her legs, and she asked, "Do you ever think about how we're keeping the shrieking bit of the myth alive?"
Harry laughed, and he nipped her thigh as he slid her knickers all the way up. "Merlin, I would love to prove that, but we have to go."
In the end, the shack looked like a home. It was piled with fun games (per Harry) and good, educational lycanthropy books (per Hermione) and the furniture was well broken in (per both of them). They both hated to declare their project finished at the end of the year, especially after all the free time they had after their NEWTS.
For two weeks between exams and going home, they practically lived in the shack, breaking in the bed. They fucked out the anxiety about their grades like they were starving for it, and by the end, they both knew exactly what the other liked, how to make it last, how to make it good.
But there was never enough time in the world.
Hermione breathed deeply after the last time they shagged that year, cradling Harry's head to her chest as he rested, feeling his come drip out of her in the way that she liked and thinking about the other boys who had so carelessly disappointed her before. She couldn't go back to that, to them. She liked-
No.
Yes.
She liked Harry Potter. And that was a terrible thing to finally admit, given that he wouldn't know a girl's emotions even if they were clearly printed North and South. But how many boys, realistically, would treat her as he did?
The problem, really, was that if he made all his NEWTS, he would be going off to auror training soon. And he would hardly see anyone for a year after. He'd be too busy for her, but he wouldn't be too busy for some random girl in a bar. She knew that if he ever learned, he'd be very good at going on the prowl.
She never wanted him to learn.
"You can come visit me," she said, petting the sweaty ends of his wavy black hair as he breathed against he left breast. "When you have time, in training. To...you know, do this."
He propped his chin on her chest to look up at her. "You'd let me just show up at random and shag you senseless?"
She smiled and curled her fingers around the hair at the base of his neck, like she knew he liked. "Yeah, pretty much."
His pretty green eyes fluttered as her fingers clenched, and he smirked. He turned and caught the nipple of her right tit, his favorite one, in his mouth and yanked on it with his teeth until Hermione bucked against him from the pain-pleasure it caused, then he gave it a sloppy apologetic kiss and said, "Deal."