Verification

Title: Verification
Author: Emily
E-mail: emnorth2002@yahoo.com
Pairing: D/Hr
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Each and every one of the characters belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Distribution: Quiet Ones archive, AFF.net, and RS.org. Anyone else, if you want it, just ask. I always say yes.
Dedication: To Inell for her always-intriguing challenges!
Summary: Hermione sees something unexpected, and decides she wants to see more. Response to the IATQO September Theme/Kink challenge.


~*~*~*~

The truly ironic part was that before it happened, Hermione was in a very good mood. She had had a wonderful summer, she was very excited for her N.E.W.T. level classes, and her meeting with the prefects and the Head Boy had gone better than she ever could have imagined, considering Draco Malfoy was Head Boy. The blond had actually become somewhat bearable over the past year, since his father’s execution. Alright, so that was mostly because he had become all but silent, refusing to speak outside of class and secluding himself from everyone, including his precious Slytherins, but if his silence meant that there were no more sneered taunts or hallway duels, then Hermione was more than happy to accept it, even if his new isolation meant that he focused more on his studies, bringing his grades dangerously close to matching hers. She wasn’t even angry that he had made Head Boy. As long as he maintained his silence, she was certain they’d be able to work together.

She couldn’t help but feel optimistic. Everything was finally falling into place. She was Head Girl, just like she had always hoped she’d be, she had been approved to start her magical healing apprenticeship to Madam Pomfrey, and she knew exactly where she was going with her future. The only thing left to settle was her love life, and she already knew what she wanted on that front. Hermione had realized midway through the previous year that she was developing feelings for Harry. She supposed it was only natural, with all the time she spent with Harry and Ron, that she develop feelings for one or the other of them sooner or later. And it was so easy to care about Harry. He was sweet, and smart, and fun to be with, and most importantly, he was one of the few people in her life who treated her like she was important.

She couldn’t wait to see him and hear all about his summer. Her parents had insisted on a full-out family vacation, knowing that once she graduated from Hogwarts, she would immerse herself in wizarding life. They pleaded for one, last, old-fashioned muggle holiday, and Hermione hadn’t been able to refuse them. She had thoroughly enjoyed touring Europe with her parents, but she had missed spending part of her summer with her friends. She had been able to catch up briefly with Ron and Ginny just before the Prefect’s meeting began, but now she was dying to see Harry. She hadn’t laid eyes on him since the Hogwarts Express brought them home at the end of sixth year, and the owls they exchanged had been brief, at best. He hadn’t been able to give her any details about his activities, which Hermione took to mean that he was doing something important. Perhaps he had learned Legilimency now that he had mastered Occlumency? Or maybe Dumbledore had him studying how to become an animagus? The possibilities were as endless as they were exciting.

Hermione wove her way carefully through the train, searching all the cars she passed as she went, stopping every now and then for a quick conversation with friends. It was lovely to see everyone, but she was growing increasingly impatient to find Harry, especially since no one knew where he could be found. She was sure he was fine, but worrying about him had become something of a second nature to her through the years. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to relax until she confirmed with her own eyes that nothing was wrong with him. She frowned briefly when she got to the end of the cars and Harry still hadn’t been found. Shrugging to herself, she decided that he might have gone into the luggage car to get something out of his bags. It was, after all, the only place she had not yet checked. Opening the door and pulling out her wand, she let herself into the dark compartment.

“Harry?” she called out. “Are you in here?” Her timing was unfortunate, as right at that moment, the train blew its whistle, signaling that the train was only half an hour from the station, completely drowning out Hermione’s voice. Frustrated, Hermione inhaled, prepared to call out again, when a sound caught her ear. It sounded like whimpering. Human whimpering, like someone was in pain. Was someone hurt? Curiosity and compassion overriding her immediately need to find Harry, Hermione began moving toward the sound, hoping that she could help whomever it was who was moaning so pitifully in the back of the compartment.

The sound grew louder as she approached, clearly whimpering with a bit of gasping mixed in as well. Gripping her wand more tightly, Hermione approached carefully. If it was an injured student, then she wanted to help, of course, but there was always the chance that it might be a trap. Once the Ministry admitted that Voldemort had returned, the wizarding society had been enraged. In an attempt to pacify them, Fudge had ordered the execution of any Death Eater captured in an attack. Gone were the days of Death Eaters being sent to Azkaban. Over twenty had been executed already, with Lucius Malfoy leading the line. The Death Eaters who had evaded capture wanted their pound of flesh in retribution. The chance to capture one of Harry Potter’s friends would be a golden opportunity, indeed. It wouldn’t do to announce her presence until she knew for certain that it was safe. The luggage compartment appeared to be deserted aside from her and this other person. If she was attacked, she’d have to defend herself without any help.

She stepped closer, keeping herself to the shadows, as she closed in on the person whose whimpers were turning into moans. Closer, closer, she was nearly there. Raising her wand in front of her in dueling position, Hermione silently circled around the final corner to face her potential attacker.

Whatever she expected, she definitely hadn’t expected this. The boy leaning against the luggage rack certainly didn’t seem to be in any position to attack her. And while he was most decidedly moaning, it didn’t take someone of Hermione’s intellect to realize that it wasn’t from pain. His face was tense with pleasure, his eyes twisted shut, and his breath coming in gasping moans as the arm that wasn’t holding him upright moved in a steady, up and down motion between his legs.

Hermione felt like the image had been seared into her eyes. She was convinced that she’d see it behind her eyelids every time she blinked for the rest of her life. It was shocking and confusing and almost unbearably seductive to watch him, of all people, totally lost in his own pleasure. It was one thing to know in her mind that he was male, with all the necessary male parts. It was quite another to see him exposed like that, his most sensitive and secret part bared to her view.

She knew she shouldn’t be watching, knew that she’d be horribly embarrassed if she was caught, but she couldn’t manage to tear her eyes away. It was mesmerizing. She’d never seen a naked, male body before, much less a naked, male body with an erection. She couldn’t bring herself to look away from the thick, swollen organ that seemed, at that moment, to be the center of the boy’s world. It was obscene and more than a little frightening and absolutely the most sensual thing she had ever seen in her life. Unconsciously, she licked her lips while leaning forward slightly for a better look.

Unfortunately, while her eyes focused on the sight in front of her, she completely forgot the wand she had clutched in the dueling position. When she shifted forward, her hand inadvertently loosened on her wand. Before she even realized she had dropped it, it hit the floor of the car with a disproportionately loud rattle. The clatter caught the boy’s attention and his eyes flew open, locking with Hermione’s.

They stood there like that for a few long moments, both too shocked to move, before Hermione remembered how to breathe.

“Hi Harry,” Hermione finally managed, in a high, strained voice. “How was your summer?”

“P-pretty good,” Harry stammered. “How, um, how was yours?”

“Nice,” Hermione answered. Her hand made a jerky gesture toward Harry’s midsection. “Don’t you think you should put that away now?”

Harry blushed scarlet and tucked his rapidly fading erection back into his boxers, refastening his pants and his belt. “Sorry ‘bout that.” He bent over to pick up her wand, very carefully *not* using the hand that had so recently been wrapped around his own ‘magic wand.’ “Here’s your wand,” he said, holding it out. She grabbed hold of it gratefully, rubbing it against her robes for a minute to get off the dust before stopping, furiously blushing, when she realized what her rubbing movements resembled.

“About what you just—”

“I’m so sorry I—”

Harry and Hermione both stopped abruptly when they realized they had begun to speak at the same time, and Harry gestured that Hermione should go first.

“I just… I’m sorry I walked in on you like that. I heard… well, you know what I heard, and it sounded like you were in pain, so I just wanted to make sure that you were alright and I… I’m sorry, Harry. *Really* sorry. So… what were you going to say?”

“I just… um…” There was another loud train whistle, causing both of them to jump. They were only fifteen minutes away from the station now.

“You should probably go change into your uniform,” Hermione stated when it became clear that Harry had no idea what he was going to say.

“Right. I’ll, ah, go do that right now,” Harry choked out. “I’ll see you later, then.” Without another word, he scrambled out of the luggage compartment as if he was being chased by dementors. Hermione was left standing alone in the luggage compartment.

“Good to see you, too, Harry,” she whispered before exiting the compartment.

~*~*~*~

Hermione followed her classmates automatically, moving in something of a daze behind their lead as they poured off the trains and into the carriages to Hogwarts. With her mind busily processing what had just occurred, she paid no attention to the first years rushing over to join Hagrid, or the other students scrambling to get into carriages with their friends. Fortunately, nothing occurred that really required her supervision or attention, and with all the fuss and bustle of the arrival, no one noticed that the Head Girl was strangely silent, or that she had an exceptionally pensive look on her face. Even if they had noticed, they would most likely have thought that she was in a euphoric stupor over being named Head Girl, or that she was mentally making plans for all the things that she’d accomplish in her position.

When they finally arrived at the Great Hall and the sorting ceremony began, her distraction was more readily apparent, but everyone passed it off under different causes. Ravenclaws, bitter over the fact that they had been outscored by a Gryffindor, leading to her selection as Head Girl, spitefully imagined she was mentally reciting her textbooks, already memorized so she could outscore them again. Hufflepuffs, always eager for a good time, hoped she was mentally planning a school event. Slytherins, eternally suspicious, theorized that she was plotting ways to take points from their house. Gryffindors, always oblivious, simply dismissed it as her having another one of her Hermione moments. No one could have guessed that she was mentally deciding what steps she needed to take to develop her sexual relationship with Harry Potter now that she had seen him naked.

Hermione wanted him; that much was certain. She had wanted him for a while now, and what she had seen had done nothing to change her opinion. She certainly had no problems with what he looked like; there was no question about that. Harry’s muggle relatives might have treated him like dirt, but their regime of minimal food combined with maximum manual labor had given Harry a body that was surprisingly well-toned, without so much as an ounce of fat. He’d never have an overly muscular build, but his lean, wiry Seeker’s frame was more than enough to make Hermione shiver. She squirmed in her seat at the thought of that body pressed against hers, especially one particular part of Harry that she had never had the chance to see before that day.

She had liked it. She had liked seeing Harry exposed, vulnerable, and absolutely awash in pleasure. The thought of sex, much like the thought of anything that was instinctual or primal in nature and could not, therefore, be learned from a book, scared Hermione more than a little. But she could never be scared of Harry. She knew he’d never do anything to hurt her, just as she would never do anything to hurt him. And the thought that she might be able to give him that kind of pleasure that she had seen clearly written on his face was very empowering. She wanted to please him, wanted to touch him, wanted to open his robes and unfasten his pants, and learn how to stroke him in just the way that he had stroked himself in the luggage compartment, so she could bring that look of overriding pleasure onto his face.

He hadn’t seemed to mind too much that she had caught him. He’d been embarrassed, of course, and had blushed in that absolutely adorable way that had always made her feel just a little weak in the knees, but he had still been so very sweet and considerate, as always, getting her wand for her off the floor, and apologizing to her as if he was afraid he had offended her. And he certainly hadn’t seemed in any hurry to put it away once he knew she had seen it.

Maybe he had even wanted her to see him like that. He had to have known that she’d be looking for him after the prefect meeting. If he had wanted privacy, wouldn’t he have gone to the lavatories instead of hiding in the luggage compartment where anyone could find him? Hermione’s mind raced with possibilities. Maybe this was Harry’s way of giving her a wake-up call, just like Hermione had done in fourth year at the Yule Ball with Viktor. Maybe Harry wanted her to notice him as a man, not just as a friend. If that was what he was after, it certainly worked like a charm. Hermione couldn’t *stop* thinking of him as a man now, and she couldn’t stop thinking about that particularly manly part of his body that she couldn’t wait to explore. If Harry had wanted her to see him like that, then that meant that he wanted her, wanted her the same way that she wanted him, and that brief encounter on the train was just the beginning.

Hermione stayed in a daze all the way through dinner, thinking of what her future would be like with Harry. They would be very happy together; she just knew they would. She would keep him focused and grounded and showered with all the love he’d never gotten in his life, and he’d teach her about pleasure and happiness and how it felt to be truly important to someone. She’d learn how to please him, and together they’d figure out how to please her. She’d be at his side through anything and everything, and when the war was over and it was finally safe to settle down, they’d start to build a life together.

Mentally decorating her dream-home with Harry got Hermione all the way through dinner without taking in anything going on around her. She stayed in a daze as Professors Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall escorted her and Malfoy to the Heads’ Suite and gave them the password to the fresco. It wasn’t until they were left to their own devices that she snapped back to reality as she rushed back into the hallways toward the Gryffindor Tower. She needed to find Harry so they could talk and get started on all the wonderful dreams formulating in her head.

She practically flew through the halls in her excitement, and was out of breath by the time she arrived in front of the Fat Lady. Finally, she was able to gasp out the password, and watched eagerly as the portrait swung open, allowing her to slip into the common room. The room was busy and crowded with all the students running around, and no one noticed the Head Girl walk in. Her eyes lit up when she spotted Harry and Ron tucked away in a corner with an open board of wizard’s chess between them. Practically trembling with excitement and anticipation, she gave into one of her rare, playful impulses, and snuck up on the two of them to surprise them.

“… and then Hermione walked in on me,” she heard Harry say as she approached, freezing her in her tracks.

Ron snorted. “Hermione walked in on you having a wank?”

Harry nodded, smiling sheepishly. “I think I scared her half to death.”

“Is it any wonder?” Ron answered. “She’s such a mini-McGonagall. I’ll bet she even *showers* fully clothed. She’s probably never even touched herself in her life. You’re lucky she didn’t pass out straight away at the sight of you.”

Harry laughed. “I’m just glad it was her that walked in, and not someone else. It was embarrassing, but not *that* embarrassing, since it was just Hermione. Imagine if it had been someone I was attracted to!”

“Like Lavender?” Ron replied slyly, chuckling when Harry blushed. “I can’t believe you got so turned on just by seeing her that you had to go have a wank in the *luggage car* of all places.”

Harry’s blush had darkened until he closely resembled a tomato. “All the loos were taken by people changing into their robes. What was I supposed to say, ‘This is an emergency; I’m horny and I need to get myself off?’”

“Might have worked, at that,” Ron retorted. “Look on the bright side; at least Hermione took care of that problem.”

Harry laughed again. “Yeah, I suppose I should thank her for that. Having Hermione walk in on me definitely deflated me in a hurry. I haven’t had that kind of reaction since my aunt walked in on me in the shower!”

“Try growing up in a house with five older brothers and a nosy sister and mum,” Ron muttered as he moved his knight to capture Harry’s bishop. “I thought I’d never get a stiffy again after Percy caught me. Read me the riot act right proper.”

“Lucky for me, Hermione’s not quite *that* bad. I didn’t even get scolded. If it wasn’t for her blushing, I might’ve thought she didn’t know what I was doing.”

“She might not’ve, at that,” Ron replied thoughtfully. “S’not like she has any brothers to walk in on, and when else would she have had a chance to see a bloke like that?”

“True,” Harry answered absently, frowning at the chessboard and trying to figure out the best move to make. “Good thing, that. With her living with Malfoy, I’d almost be worried, if it was anyone but her. They say he shagged his way through every pretty girl in last year’s class, and is working his way through this year. But I doubt he’ll go near Hermione. She’s not his type at all.”

Ron snorted loudly. “You can say that again. If she didn’t wear a skirt, he probably wouldn’t even know that she was female.”

Harry chuckled in response, and Hermione realized that she simply couldn’t take anymore. All her castles in the air had shattered to pieces, and her pride and self-esteem were cracking into fragments along with them. She had to get out of there before she truly embarrassed herself by bursting into tears. No one noticed her slipping through the portrait hole again, and back out into the hallway.

No one noticed her as she trailed through the hallways, her steps as slow and hesitant now as they had been fast and eager before. No one noticed her as she arrived at the Heads’ suite and listlessly gave the password to the fresco. Draco Malfoy, seated on the couch in the common room, noticed her as she slunk through the room to her bedroom, but she didn’t notice him as she stepped into the room and half-heartedly pushed the door closed behind her. Wrapped up in her pain, she was oblivious to the gray eyes following her every step. And she certainly didn’t notice that her unenergetic push hadn’t managed to close the door all the way.

~*~*~*~

Hermione fought hard to stay rational. Her rational mind was her saving grace, and had been for the whole of her life. Whenever she was hurt or neglected or abandoned or ridiculed through the years, she forced herself to see the situation rationally. In primary school, she reminded herself that the other children made fun of her because they were jealous that she was a better student. When she arrived at Hogwarts, she told herself that the other students were angry because she knew all the answers when they didn’t. When Ron and Harry didn’t speak to her for a huge portion of third year, she told herself that they were too in love with Quidditch to appreciate what she had done to protect Harry.

Rational thought was always what she fell back on when her feelings were hurt far too badly to ignore. It didn’t stop the hurt, but it helped her put it in perspective. At the moment, she was hurt, badly hurt, but she wouldn’t let herself focus on that just yet. Instead, she would analyze what Ron and Harry had said and try to decide for herself whether or not she believed it to be true. There were times, painful times, when analyzing the remarks of her detractors helped her realize some truths about herself. She hadn’t needed Ron to say in first year that she was an impossible know-it-all; she had figured that out in her soul searching when she was seven years old. If she found verification that the things Harry and Ron said about her were true, then it would be best for her to get used to the idea sooner rather than later.

Ron had started by calling her a mini-McGonagall. In some ways, she supposed that that was true. Certainly, she had taken the Transfiguration professor as something of a model, admiring her both personally and intellectually. But she got the feeling that Ron wasn’t referring to her Transfiguration skill or self-discipline when he compared her to McGonagall. He was calling her dried up and washed out. McGonagall was old in a way that made it seem impossible that she had ever been young, much less sexual in any way, shape or form. That’s what Ron thought she was like. Maybe he was right. Hermione wasn’t at a point where she could tell. He had seemed so certain. And besides, he was dead on the money on his next point.

No, she didn’t shower fully clothed. But she had never touched herself sexually. It just never seemed right somehow. Touching herself felt awkward. Her careful, experimental touches after her mother gave her the sex talk when she was ten years old hadn’t aroused anything resembling passion or lust in her. After a couple of tries, she pretty much gave up. She sometimes felt the weight of desire in the pit of her stomach that made her squirm in her seat, but she never knew what to do to relieve the ache, and by the time she managed to get some privacy to take care of it, it had usually disappeared. She had assumed that if she was ever with the right person, things would just happen naturally, and all the pieces would fall in place. The overheard conversation made her think that she might be wrong. Maybe the reason she hadn’t been able to find the right person was that there was no one who wanted her that way. Maybe she really was a mini-McGonagall: utterly sexless in every way.

The next part of their conversation hit her in an even more vulnerable spot. For Ron to dismiss her was one thing; he had the habit of reacting too quickly. Not to mention the fact that he had the emotional depth of a teaspoon. If she had potential, he was the last person she would expect to be able to see it. But Harry… she had hoped for more from Harry. He was supposed to be the one who realized her worth. He was supposed to be the one who noticed her and made her feel special and helped her learn how to pleasure a man and be pleasured in return. For him to dismiss her was acutely painful. And that was precisely what he had done. He flat-out stated that he was *relieved* it was Hermione who walked in on him and not a ‘real’ girl that he might have been interested in impressing. It didn’t bother him that she had walked in on him since she was ‘only’ Hermione. While she had been imagining giving him her virginity, he had been thinking how thankful he was that he hadn’t been interrupted by someone who really mattered.

Like Lavender. That hurt her pride mostly, but the pain was still quite real. Harry had always made it very clear to her and to Ron that he thought Lavender was something of a twit. He rolled his eyes when she went on one of her rants about clothes or make-up and he had told Hermione more times than she could count that he was relieved that she didn’t blather on about that nonsense the way Parvati and Lavender did. He didn’t actively dislike Lavender, but he didn’t enjoy her company and he had no respect for her intelligence. And yet Lavender was able to arouse him and Hermione was not. Harry had been so turned on by *Lavender* of all people that he hadn’t been able to wait to an available loo to get himself off.

She thought back with disgust at the way she had actually managed to convince herself that Harry wanted her. She had been a fool to believe it. Her fond imaginings that Harry had wanted her to catch him were dashed to pieces. Instead of her being able to arouse him, he had used to sight of her to turn himself *off*. It was humiliating. He had compared her to his *aunt* for crying out loud! He hated his aunt! How was it possible that seeing her while he was touching himself had the same cold-water effect on him as getting caught by his aunt?

The last bit about Malfoy had just rubbed the salt a bit further into her ravaged self-esteem. Yes, she knew she wasn’t as pretty as some of the other girls her year. Yes, she knew that that meant that she wasn’t Malfoy’s type (something she had never aspired to in the first place). But that last remark of Ron’s had been the worst. When he said ‘If she didn’t wear a skirt, he probably wouldn’t even know that she was female,’ she realized that that wasn’t just how they imagined Malfoy saw her, but how they thought that *everyone* saw her.

She might have been able to salvage her pride after realizing that Harry wasn’t attracted to her. Yes, it would have been difficult; she had been, after all, so very ready to fall in love with him; but she knew that tastes varied. If Harry didn’t want her, she could have lived with that. But Harry and Ron seemed absolutely convinced that not only were *they* not attracted to her, but that no one *else* would ever be either. If she didn’t wear a skirt every day, no one would even realize she was female. Ron and Harry, the two boys who knew her best and cared about her the most, didn’t want her and firmly believed that no one would *ever* want her.

Hermione didn’t cry. It hurt too much to cry. Instead, she rose to her feet and walked over to the full-length mirror in the corner of her room. Raising her wand in a surprisingly steady hand, she cast a silencing charm on the mirror, preventing it from speaking, and then began slowly and deliberately to undress. This would be the final verification: the ultimate proof that she’d only ever be alone. Her movements were efficient, automatic, and completely unemotional. There was nothing to get upset over. This was just verification of something she already knew to be true.

Her robe was unfastened and carelessly dropped to the floor. Her Gryffindor tie soon followed. The sweater vest was pulled over her head in one smooth motion and dropped on top of the rest of the pile. She toed on her shoes at the same time that she quickly and efficiently unbuttoned her blouse. When that had fallen to the ground, she pulled off her knee socks, then unfastened her skirt. She did not pause or hesitate before reaching behind her to unfasten her plain white bra, following closely after by hooking her fingers in the waistband of her panties and pushing those to the floor as well.

For a few, long moments, she simply stood there, staring at her reflection in the mirror. It was an uninspiring sight. She mostly avoided looking at herself in the mirror, except to check for stains, or make sure her shirt was properly tucked in. Sharing a room with Lavender and Parvati meant that access to mirrors was difficult at best, and she knew from experience that comparing her body to theirs was a sure-fire way to put her in a bad mood. Years of spending most of her time in libraries meant that she didn’t have Parvati’s lovely tan. The figure she had inherited from her mother had too much flesh to match Lavender’s lithe slimness and she didn’t need a mirror to tell her that her bushy, frizzy hair could never compare to either of theirs.

By third year, Hermione had learned that her ego was best served by dressing and undressing as quickly as possible, without allowing herself to make any comparisons between herself and her roommates. There was no one to compare herself to during the summers at her parents’ house, but her bedroom there had too many bookcases to accommodate a full-length mirror. As Hermione stood naked, staring at her uninspiring reflection, she tried to remember the last time she had looked at herself so carefully. It was no use. She simply couldn’t remember.

Now that she finally was taking a good, long look at her body, she couldn’t say she was terribly impressed. Her hair was still as wild and bushy as ever. She had picked up a bit of a tan during her vacation with her parents, but every place her conservative, one-piece bathing suit had covered was still fish-belly white. Her stomach wasn’t as flat as she would have liked, and her legs weren’t as long. The tangle of dark brown curls between her legs looked messy and unattractive to her. She couldn’t imagine anyone looking at it with the same desire she had felt when looking at Harry’s exposed body.

Deciding to try one last thing, she stepped her legs apart enough to give her room to place her hand between her legs. With a frown of concentration on her face, she stared at her reflection, watching her mirror-image fingers part her folds and slip between them. She winced slightly. It wasn’t comfortable, but she wasn’t ready to give up quite yet. She kept prodding till she found her opening. She winced again. This wasn’t working. It was bordering on painful now, and felt all wrong.

In spite of herself, tears welled up in her eyes. It was a lost cause. She really was as sexless as Harry and Ron thought. No one would ever be able to come along and make her feel beautiful or desirable because she *wasn’t* beautiful *or* desirable and no one would ever want her, as long as she lived. She stood there, unmoving, as the tears spilled out onto her cheeks, completely unaware of the crack of her not-quite-closed door widening as the person who had been watching from the doorway came forward to enter her room. It’s possible she would never have noticed him there if he hadn’t chosen that moment to speak.

“Could you use a hand?”

~*~*~*~

Hermione jerked around to face the doorway, her shock clearly evident as she came face to face with Draco Malfoy. Her hands flew up to her face to wipe away her tears. She didn’t want him of all people to see her crying. She didn’t bother making any move to cover her body. She wasn’t wearing her skirt, after all, and that meant that he most likely wouldn’t even notice she was female. In her haste to wipe away her tears, she didn’t notice the way his eyes fastened onto her breasts as her movement made her bounce. Nor did she notice the way his hand dropped discreetly to his crotch as he quickly and efficiently adjusted his response to the sight of her naked body facing him, instead of simply reflected in the mirror.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” Hermione asked with forced bravado, hoping to distract him so he wouldn’t notice the tears.

“You looked like you needed help,” he said in his most innocent of tones, stepping fully into the room.

“And what exactly do you think you could help me with, hmm? Telling me that I’m unattractive? Undesirable? A mini-McGonagall with the sexual appeal of a melted cauldron? You needn’t bother; I already figured that out for myself.”

He raised a single eyebrow, but did not confirm or contradict her statement. “You looked like you weren’t enjoying yourself,” he replied instead, slowly crossing the room toward her. “And there’s something off about that. Touching your body would give anyone enormous pleasure, so if you didn’t enjoy touching it, then you must have been doing something wrong. If you need a tutor,” by this point, he was standing right in front of her, close enough to touch if he reached out his hand, “I’d be glad to volunteer.”

Hermione’s bravado crumbled. “It’s no use,” she whispered, breaking eye contact with him to stare at the floor. Even her toes were ugly, she decided absently. “I… I don’t think I’m capable of pleasure.”

She expected him to laugh at her. She expected him to sneer and poke fun, and ridicule her for being so undesirable. What she didn’t expect was warm, gentle hands closing on her shoulders and turning her around so that she faced the mirror. She looked up to see Draco standing behind her, his hands firmly planted on her shoulders, watching her with a look in his eye that she had only ever seen before when sneaking a peek at him with her omnioculars during Quidditch matches. It was a combination of determination and eagerness and excitement that she never, ever thought would be directed at her. Maybe she was in shock or maybe she was intrigued by that look on his face, but whatever the reason, she didn’t pull away.

“I can’t have you thinking that,” Draco murmured, his lips brushing against her ear. “So I’ll just have to see what I can do about it. Will you let me?”

Holding her breath, still expecting this gentle facade to fall away at any moment, Hermione nodded her head.

“Good girl, he praised, smiling approvingly. His hands started rubbing her shoulders, soothing away the tension. “Just relax. Let me take care of you.” Again, Hermione nodded silently, letting her body relax into his.

Tell me what arouses you,” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” she answered shyly.

His low chuckle made her shiver. “Then I guess we’ll have to find out, won’t we?” He planted a soft kiss on her shoulder, sliding his hands down her arms to take hold of her hands. “Now close your eyes,” he commanded. She obeyed.

“Breathe in, breathe out.” His voice was low, soothing, almost hypnotic. In spite of herself, Hermione felt the tension drain from her body, causing her to lean back against him, settling her body against his. “Just relax,” he purred. “Think of a place where you feel safe, and happy. Some place that you like to go to alone. Some place where you know you’d never be hurt.”

Hermione pictured the beach house in France, loaned to them by family friends, where she had stayed with her parents for two weeks that summer. Her parents had spent most of their time in the town, but she had enjoyed going out behind the house, on the private beach that was attached to the property. She’d lie in the sun and read, or doze, or swim if she felt like it. She had felt perfectly safe there, happy and content. She let out a small sigh as she remembered it, unaware that her head had fallen back to rest against Draco’s solid chest.

“Tell me where you are,” Draco ordered in a gentle voice. Hermione described the beach, and the days she had spent out there in the sun. Draco made approving noises as he traced light circles on the backs of her hands with his thumbs.

“Alright,” he stated softly when she had finished. “You’re out on the beach. It’s a beautiful, cloudless day. Can you feel the sun on your skin?” Hermione nodded, falling deeper into the fantasy. She *could* feel the warmth of the sun on her skin. She almost imagined she could hear the water, just beyond her feet. “It feels good, doesn’t it? Lying in the sun like this? Do you like the feel of sun on your skin?” Again, she nodded, nestling back against him a bit more as she imagined herself settling into the sand to soak up the warmth of the day.

“The sun feels so good,” Draco continued, “that you decide to take off your bathing suit to feel it all over.” Hermione made a murmured sound of protest, and Draco redoubled the soothing circles on her hands. “It’s alright,” he cooed. “You’re safe. There’s nothing to hurt you. It just feels so good to lie in the sun like this that you want to feel it on all of your body.”

Hermione calmed, playing the scene out in her mind. Yes, he was right. She was safe, and it felt good to lie out there in the sun. Too good to let a bathing suit get in the way. She stripped it off in her imagination and relished the warmth on her skin.

“Someone joins you,” he continued, his voice going softer and deeper. “Someone who makes you feel good, makes you feel happy. Can you see him?” Hermione tried to imagine someone who fit that description. Someone who made her feel good, and happy. Just a few hours ago, her mind would have instantly turned to Harry, but that dream was over. Harry no longer made her feel good, or happy. Not anymore. Now, thinking of him only made her feel that same pain and sadness she had felt when she overheard his conversation with Ron. No, Harry wouldn’t work for this at all.

So who else was there? What other boy had ever made her feel anything resembling safety or pleasure? She tried to concentrate, but she kept getting distracted by the feel of Draco’s hands wrapped around hers and Draco’s body pressed against her back. Draco… Draco who hadn’t said a word against her in over a year. Draco who had always treated her like she had value, even if it was only as an adversary or competitor. Draco who never hurt her like Harry and Ron had. Draco who was making her feel good and happy and safe and all sorts of other pleasant things she had never really felt before. With a happy sigh, she nodded and let herself slip back into her fantasy of the beach and the sun, and Draco appearing beside her with a hint of a smile on his lips and that impossibly intriguing look in his eyes.

“He lies down next to you,” Draco’s voice went on, “so close that you could reach out and touch him if you wanted. Instead, he asks if he can touch you. What’s your answer?”

Hesitantly, Hermione nodded again. Draco’s hand tightened around hers, bringing it up slowly to touch her face. Softly, carefully, he ran her fingers over her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. When her lips parted in a soft sigh, he slid their joined hands down to her neck, tracing them lightly over the line of her throat, and down further. Hermione gasped as the hands slid over to cover her breast.

“He asks if this is alright,” Draco whispered, his voice tentative, as if afraid of breaking the spell. Instinctively, Hermione arched her back slightly, pressing her breast more firmly against their joined hands. Apparently, Draco took that as a yes, as he guided their hands in squeezing and caressing her breast.

It felt good. Very good. That unfamiliar pleasure was building up in her stomach and her skin started tingling. She found herself rubbing up against Draco, enjoying the friction of his clothes against her bare skin.

“He wants to touch you here,” Draco stated, guiding her left hand, wrapped in his, between her legs. He aligned his fingers with hers and separated out their index fingers, brushing them gently against her folds. She gasped with pleasure. It had never felt like that before. It had never felt like anything even remotely *close* to that before. Her folds weren’t dry anymore; they were wet and slick and they seemed pull her fingers in. Draco let her take the lead as she brought both of their index fingers into the soft, beckoning wetness, whimpering softly at how good it felt. Gently guiding her, Draco led her index finger upward to a nub, stroking it softly.

Hermione’s knees went weak and she would have collapsed on the floor if it wasn’t for strong arms wrapping around her waist, holding her up. She didn’t pay any attention to it. She was too wrapped up in the amazing sensations pounding through her body. Her fantasy had taken over, and she lost herself to it completely. All she could see was Draco, spotlighted by the sun, eyes blazing with desire as he made her feel more incredible than she had ever known was possible. Her strokes against her clit became faster, harder, more fervent, and she didn’t even notice when Draco lifting her trembling body into his arms and laid her on her bed, nor did she notice his weight causing the mattress to shift when he crawled up next to her, lying on his side to watch her while she touched herself.

Her breath was coming in hard pants now, and she knew she was close. Draco’s arms wrapped around her again while he whispered encouragement in her ear, planting soft kisses on her neck and shoulders. The words blended with the fantasy and Hermione found, to her amazement, that she had reached the point where she couldn’t hold herself together for a single moment longer. She opened her mouth in a silent scream as every molecule in her body exploded in a dazzling flash of light.

A few moments later, she remembered to breathe again. A few moments after that, she gathered the energy to open her eyes. The first thing she saw was Draco, lying next to her with his arm wrapped gently and protectively around her waist, caressing her back with long, soothing strokes, while he watched her with a surprisingly soft look on his face.

“I didn’t know it could be like that,” she whispered, with more than a little awe evident in her tone.

His lips quirked in a half-smile. “It can be even better than that,” he replied, “with the right partner.”

Some of Hermione’s euphoria faded. “I guess I’ll never know.” The look of confusion on Draco’s face made it clear that he didn’t understand. “I’ll never have a partner,” Hermione clarified, “because no one could ever be attracted to me.”

For a moment, Draco stared at her in complete, dumbfounded shock. Then he began to laugh. Hermione had never seen him laugh like that. He laughed so hard, his face got red, and his eyes got teary. He laughed so hard, he ran out of air and continued to shake soundlessly with laughter. And the harder he laughed, the worse Hermione felt. She knew that she was unattractive and undesirable, but she hadn’t know that even the thought of her having sex would be perceived as *laughable*.

Tears filled Hermione’s eyes as well, though the cause was most definitely not laughter, and she turned away to climb off the bed, away from Draco and his condemnation. She didn’t get very far. Draco’s arms tightened around her as soon as she tried to pull away, and the next thing she knew, he was on top of her, his legs tangled with hers and his body pinning hers against the mattress. His eyes sparkled and his cheeks were still flushed from laughter. Teardrops clung to his eyelashes. He looked so beautiful. Hermione was suddenly humiliated to even be in the same room with him. Of course he’d find the idea of her having sex to be laughable. Why would any creature on earth ever be attracted to her while specimens like him were available?

Draco looked at her expectantly, as if waiting for her to speak, but Hermione was too caught up in her misery to realize what it was he wanted her to notice. Unaware of the cause of her distraction, he rolled his eyes at what he perceived as her obliviousness and rocked his hips against hers to drive the ‘point’ home. “*Now* tell me no one will ever be attracted to you,” he purred, nuzzling her neck for a moment before lifting his head to watch her face. His grin turned smug when he saw realization strike.

He was erect. *Very* erect. She could feel it, pressed against her thigh: hard and throbbing despite the layers separating her body from his. “That’s… um… because of me?” she squeaked.

“Mmm,” he nodded while rocking his hips again, with no agenda this time, except for the fact that he seemed to enjoy it. “Funny, don’t you think? You believed, honestly *believed* that no one would ever be attracted to you; meanwhile, I’m right next to you with a hard-on I could use to cut diamonds just from watching you.”

“You want me? But… you *can’t* want me! They said—”

“Who said?”

Hermione looked away, embarrassed. “Harry and Ron,” she answered quietly. “I overheard them. They said that I was safe from you, in spite of your reputation with other girls, because you’d never look twice at me.”

Draco slid a hand up to cup her face, forcing her to look him in the eye. “I didn’t have to look twice,” he stated. “Seeing you once was enough to get my attention, and hold it.”

“So you…” Hermione’s voice sounded doubtful, “you really want me?”

This time, it was Draco who seemed embarrassed. He hid it by burying his face in her neck, licking and nipping at the soft skin. Hermione was tempted to turn his face back to hers so she could look him in the eye, but his mouth felt so lovely against her neck that she sort of forgot to stop him.

“Is it because you don’t want me?” he asked between nibbles. “Is that why you have such a hard time believing that I could want you?” He redoubled his attentions. “I could make you want me,” he continued, his voice almost sounding pleading. “I know I could. I could make you feel so good, you’d forget that I ever gave you anything but pleasure. If you let me, I could—”

“That isn’t the problem; I already want you,” Hermione blurted out. The warm lips on her neck froze in place.

“You do?”

“You were the one I was picturing when you… when I… when you told me to think of someone. I thought of you.”

“Did you, now?” Draco responded, all signs of pleading gone from his voice, which was instead filled with a far more familiar tone of smug satisfaction. Somehow, Hermione didn’t mind it nearly so much now as she had in the past. “Well, isn’t that interesting. You want me, and I,” he rocked his hips against hers again, more firmly this time, causing both of them to moan, “quite obviously want you. Whatever do you think we should do about that?”

“You really want me?” she asked, timidly.

He lifted his eyes to hers again, staring into them fully. That look that had caught her before was in his eyes again: that look she had only seen on him when he was chasing the snitch, the look that said he was intent on capturing something that was vitally important to him. That look gave her the answer she craved long before he opened his mouth.

“More than anything.”

“There’s just one problem,” she continued, in the same quietly earnest voice.

“And what’s that?” he questioned gently.

“Well, I’m not sure,” she said, her eyes starting to sparkle mischievously in spite of her attempts to maintain a serious tone of voice. “But I do believe you’re overdressed.”

“Oh *really*, Miss Granger,” he retorted silkily. “And what do you intend to do with your hypothesis?”

“I thought I might undress you,” she stated in her best snooty-Head-Girl voice. “Just for the purposes of verification, to see if you really *are* overdressed. You wouldn’t mind if I did that, would you?” Boldly, she rocked her hips up against his, making him groan. “In the interests of science?”

“I suppose I could allow it,” he drawled. “For the betterment of society.”

“You’re very generous,” she teased, a smile blossoming irrepressibly over her lips.

“Oh darling, in just a few minutes you’ll be seeing just how generous I can be,” he promised, twisting over onto his side to help her remove his clothes. With their combined enthusiastic efforts, he was naked in almost no time at all, with his body once more positioned on top of hers, working his way down with his tongue.

“So what was that nonsense Potty and the Weasel spouted about you and me?” he asked as he covered her navel in kisses.

“They said… mmm… they said they didn’t have to worry about us sharing this suite because… oooh, right there… if I wasn’t wearing a skirt, you wouldn’t even know… oh god, don’t stop… that I was a girl.”

Draco chuckled. “Well, from the position that I’m in, I think I can definitively say that you’re not wearing a skirt at the moment, and I’d like to volunteer to spend the rest of the night showing you just how very aware I am that you are, indeed, a girl.”

“Volunteer?” Hermione questioned breathlessly, fisting her hands in his hair to push him where she wanted his mouth to go. “Such a good citizen!”

“I told you, love, just a few more minutes and my actions will speak for themselves.”

~*~*~*~

Ron and Harry were, at most, only about three quarters awake as they stumbled into the Gryffindor common room the next morning. They had been up late playing game after game of wizarding chess, waiting for Hermione to join them. They had allotted her an hour after dinner to ooh and aah over her new rooms with its bookcases and extra large desks and, no doubt, various other little items and decorations designed to send their little bookworm into raptures before coming to join them, as always. They had been very surprised when she didn’t arrive and had stayed patiently in the common room, convinced that she would come in at any moment, until close to three in the morning.

“Bit strange, don’t you think?” Harry asked Ron as they tied on their ties while exiting the portrait hole.

“What?” Ron managed to ask around a gargantuan yawn.

“Not having Hermione waiting for us in the common room so we could go into breakfast together,” Harry explained. Ron nodded his agreement.

“You… um…” Harry stammered nervously, “you don’t think she’s still embarrassed about yesterday, do you?”

Ron’s hands paused on his tie while he thought about it. “She might be, mate. This is Hermione, you know. It’s not like she’s had any experience seeing blokes like that. Of course she’d be embarrassed about it.”

“Do you think that’s why she stayed away last night?”

Ron shrugged. “Maybe. Makes sense, don’t you think?”

“Maybe we could stop by her new room and ask her to join us for breakfast, if she hasn’t left yet?” Harry suggested, smoothing his tie into the front of his vest. “When she sees us acting normal, she’ll know that it wasn’t a big deal. Then we can all forget about it, just like it never happened.”

Ron nodded his approval, and the two boys headed off toward the Heads’ suite, in search of Hermione. They were just a hallway away when they heard her voice.

“Wait for me just a minute? I need to find my other shoe and then we can go down to breakfast together.”

Harry and Ron exchanged a grin. Hermione, as organized as she was, seemed to be constantly losing her shoes. She had the tendency to kick them off whenever she entered the common room, without ever paying much attention to where, precisely, they landed. Before she learned the summoning charm, she had spent many a morning hunting the common room for missing shoes, often enlisting the two of them to help.

“Ginny must’ve come up to visit,” Ron suggested. Harry agreed. Who else would Hermione be talking to, asking to wait for her? Ginny wasn’t in the common room when Harry and Ron had finally managed to drag themselves out of bed. She must have come to see Hermione. Now they could all four walk down to breakfast together.

Circling the last corner, Harry and Ron stopped in surprise at the sight that greeted them. Instead of Ginny’s unmistakable red hair and petite figure, Draco Malfoy, bane of their existence, was the only person in sight as he stood leaning against the wall with his eye on the open portrait hole. Before Ron and Harry had a chance to process the possibility that Hermione might have been speaking to the Ferret, of all people, Hermione herself bound out of the portrait hole, stunning Harry and Ron speechless and quite literally stopping them in their tracks.

The sight of her, on its own, would have been enough. With the exception of her constantly missing shoes, Hermione was not one to be seen in the hallways out of uniform. Harry and Ron had always had the tendency to finish buttoning their shirts and robes and fastening their ties as they walked toward the Great Hall, but Hermione was rarely seen without her robes correctly buttoned and her tie firmly fastened. She was never rumpled. She was never disheveled. And she was most certainly never exposed, in any way, shape, or form.

Her appearance at that moment was in sharp contrast. Her robes were on, but unfastened, and the body underneath them was clearly displayed with her skirt showing quite a bit of leg, her tie hanging loosely around her neck, and her blouse fastened only part of the way. The body on display was not at all as Ron and Harry had remembered. They hadn’t seen her without robes covering her since the summer before fifth year, and they hadn’t seen her in anything that displayed any part of her body other than her hands, face, and feet since the summer before fourth year when they went swimming while Harry and Hermione stayed at the Burrow. Hermione had worn a very conservative swimsuit, and Ron and Harry had, forthwith, dismissed her body as something not worth their attention. It appeared, however, that there was a fairly sizeable difference between a girl of thirteen and a girl who was a few weeks shy of sixteen. The curves she had now certainly hadn’t been there then. They would have remembered them.

Hermione *never* displayed herself like that, even when she was solely surrounded by friends. Her body was usually fully covered and concealed with several layers of very baggy clothes, massive quantities of very bushy hair, and more than a few very large books. Hermione seemed to prefer it that way. Her body was, quite clearly, something she was uncomfortable putting on display. Her friends had always accepted that. In fact, they had appreciated it. It saved them the difficulty and complications of being forced to view or treat her as a female, instead of simply a friend. Her whole appearance now was on the opposite end of the spectrum. She looked like someone who had just rolled out of bed. More than that, she looked like someone who had just rolled out of someone *else’s* bed, feeling too happy and sated to take much trouble with clothes.

Yes, Hermione’s appearance all on its own would have been enough to shock Harry and Ron. But the clincher that truly froze them in place while they tried desperately to convince themselves that they were still sleeping and this was a nightmare was when Hermione flew straight from the portrait hole into Malfoy’s arms. Harry and Ron watched, jaws dropping to the floor, as Malfoy wrapped his arms around her, holding her close while giving her a kiss that could be described as anything but chaste.

And she responded. Eagerly. Who the hell had taught her to kiss like that? Who the hell knew she was *capable* of kissing like that? Harry and Ron watched in a mixture of shock, awe, and overriding disbelief that wasn’t broken until they saw Hermione’s hand drop down to Malfoy’s arse and give it a firm squeeze.

Ron let out a sound somewhere between a gasp and death rattle that caught the attention of the couple. They looked up at the same moment, without releasing their hold on each other. To Ron and Harry’s surprise, they smiled. Identical, Cheshire-cat, I-have-a-secret-and-it’s-absolutely-bloody-wonderful smiles. Then Hermione’s pulled out of Malfoy’s arms just to take his hand and lead him down the hall.

“Hello, Harry, Ron,” she stated breezily as she approached. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

“Hermione… Malfoy… hex… damn ferret…” Ron wheezed, unable to form coherent sentences at the moment.

“Hermione, fight it,” Harry stated in a low tone, his face tense with worry for his friend who was, undoubtedly, under an Imperio curse from Malfoy. “You’re stronger than this; don’t let him control you.”

Hermione’s laughter echoed through the corridor. “He didn’t hex me, Harry.” She threw a sly smile to Draco. “He did… a great many things to me, but he didn’t hex me.”

Draco pulled his hand from Hermione’s to wrap his arm around her waist. “If you’re interested in control games, kitten,” he murmured in her ear, just loud enough for only her to hear, “all you have to do is ask.”

Harry couldn’t hear what Malfoy said, but he could see that it made Hermione blush, drawing his attention away from her body to focus on her face. She was glowing, he noticed. Literally. Not just her eyes or her smile, but her entire body seemed to be lit up with happiness. It made quite a difference. Eyes that were plain brown the day before seemed a brilliant amber now. Hair that they had always thought of as bushy now seemed wild and exciting. The smile that had always been sweet, even with buckteeth, had become radiant. She was lovely. When had that happened? When had their Hermione become lovely? And how had they missed it?

“Just because you don’t *believe* that he’s controlling you doesn’t mean that he’s not,” Harry insisted stubbornly. “Think, Hermione. You *hated* him just yesterday; how could that have changed so quickly?”

Hermione tilted her head to the side, pretending to give the matter careful thought. “Well,” she drawled after a moment, “it started with his eyes. After that, it was his hands. His voice helped, too, but that was really just enough to get me started. In the end, what really changed things was that he sees me as a woman, a *desirable* woman, with or without my skirt.” Flashing her two friends with another radiant grin, she patted Ron on the head before leaving them both behind, dumbstruck in the hallway, while she headed off to breakfast arm in arm with her lover.


THE END