by Harry Potter
“Happy Birthday, Harry!” said Remus affectionately. “It’s your seventeenth birthday, and according to Wizarding society, you’re a man.” Harry felt a wave of relief pass through his body, Remus didn’t know! Tonks must not have told him about the situation that she had found Harry and Hermione in. “So today is your day, Mr. Potter! Well, except for the whole shopping for robes for the wedding you have got to go to tomorrow. We’re off to Diagon Alley.”
“Let me just get some things from my room before we head out,” said Hermione nervously, as she dashed up the stairs to her room.
Several minutes later, after Hermione had inconspicuously changed into some fresh clothes, the group headed to the Headmistress’ office to use the floo. Harry exited the floo into The Leaky Cauldron by gracefully falling flat on his face. Tonks casually stepped over his prone body and helped the young wizard up from the ground. Harry looked into her bright, black eyes and still saw that devilish look, as if Tonks was waiting for the most embarrassing moment to make a rude comment about what she had seen earlier.
“You really need to learn how to land better, Harry,” Tonks offered almost innocently. It was almost innocent, because Harry could tell that she had desperately wanted to say something else, something less than “innocent.” Maybe something like: “Yeah, my knees tend to get weak after a good roll in the hay as well...” or “Good thing you didn’t bite your tongue when you landed; Hermione will want to be sitting on that later.”
As they walked out of the Leaky Caldron, Hermione whispered into Harry’s ear: “I swear, I thought that Tonks was going to say something crude back there when you fell out of the floo. Could you imagine how embarrassing it would be if she did say something, especially in front of all those people?”
Harry nodded his head in agreement while imagining another embarrassing moment that Tonks could’ve created. In his mind, he saw Tonks jump up on a table and announce to all the patrons in the Leaky Caldron, “Hey everybody, look over there; it’s the Boy Who Licked! And over there is the girl he licked!”
The group spent a good three hours at Madame Malkin’s robe shopping (Harry only needed fifteen minutes to find his dress robes, the rest of the time was used by Hermione trying to decide between a lilac dress and a mauve one). Harry made a grievous error halfway through the second hour of what he called “The Great Purple Debate” when he made the suggestion that maybe Hermione should try on something in pink. Hermione was deeply offended at such a suggestion. How Harry didn’t know she looked wretched in pink was beyond her. She never wore pink!
After Harry’s atrocious faux pas, they went to Flourish and Blotts where, unsurprisingly, Harry lost track of Hermione somewhere in the Arithmancy section. After Harry had passed some time by skimming through several books on defense, he found Hermione in a dark and dusty corner of the shop, with her nose buried in a book that had to have been heavier than she was. As the sun set on an exhausting day (shopping, for blokes, is a tiring experience), the foursome headed back to the Leaky Caldron for Harry’s birthday dinner. For dessert, since they couldn’t go to Florean Fortescue’s seeing how Voldemort had developed a wicked sweet tooth and kidnapped the ice cream maker, they had to try Tom’s attempts at ice cream.
“Have a go at this one, folks,” Tom announced, as he placed four bowls filled with scoops of ice cream made up of several colors in front of the group. “Made it meself this afternoon.”
Harry, being a brave Gryffindor (except when it came to dealing with zombies), was the first to sample the multi-colored confection. The birthday boy nodded his head in approval and made a “yummy” noise (he noticed that Hermione had started to blush at the noise. Harry then realized that he must have made a similar “yummy” noise while practicing his new skills on her earlier); the ice-cream tasted like a delicious mixture of chocolate and strawberries. Tom beamed with pride before turning away and heading back to the bar.
“What’s it taste like, Harry?” Hermione asked dubiously, as she eyed a bright pink ripple wedged in-between two forest green ripples.
“Chocolate and strawberries,” answered Harry.
“Oh,” Tonks squealed while spooning up a blue, orange, and what appeared to be black ripples of ice cream. “I love strawberries and chocolate!”
Both Remus and Hermione followed suit as Tonks ate her first spoonful.
“That’s funny,” stated Remus as he worked the frozen dessert in his mouth. “I taste caramel.”
“I taste peanut butter,” offered Hermione as she scooped another spoonful.
A bit perplexed by his friends’ tasting something completely different than he, Harry tried another spoonful. He again tasted chocolate with a hint of strawberries at first. Then, slowly, a new and somewhat peculiar taste entered his mouth: prunes with a touch of chlorine. Before he could spit out the nasty combination of flavors, Tonks announced: “Merlin, I’m getting maple syrup flavor now!”
“I think the green color is lobster, and the yellow ripple is raw bread dough!” Hermione stated as she discreetly spit the ice cream into her napkin. Harry noted that she had a very similar distasteful look on her face as the one she had right after she had swallowed his “birthday present” earlier.
Harry and Tonks copied Hermione’s lead by spitting the remnants of the frozen dessert into their napkins while Remus continued to shovel the ice cream into his mouth.
“Remus, love, how can you eat that?” Tonks asked, obviously disgusted.
“I turn into a wolf every month,” explained Remus. “In wolf form, I sometimes eat my own fecal waste. This is an improvement.”
“Not by much,” added Harry.
After they had their dessert, or rather, after Remus finished their desserts for them, the group flooed back to Hogwarts.
“Remus, do you know if the school will be in session for the next term?” asked Hermione as they walked toward the Gryffindor Common Room.
“It’s still up in the air,” stated Remus. “The members of the Board of Governors are still debating.”
“And right now, they’re leaning toward shutting the school down,” Tonks added glumly.
“But, why?” Hermione implored. “Surely a Headmaster has died before. And the school didn’t close when Grindelwald was in power!”
“So why close the school now?” Harry completed for Hermione.
“Yes, Headmasters have died while in office before, but one has never been murdered during term, and on school grounds,” explained Remus. “Making the situation even worse is that Albus was murdered by another teacher.”
The group spent the rest of the journey to the Common Room in silence. Harry pondered sullenly what would’ve happened if he had been able to break through Dumbledore’s Full Body Bind. Would he have been able to help the ailing Headmaster? Could he have saved the old man’s life? ‘Not likely,’ Harry realized. He probably would’ve been killed along with Dumbledore.
Upon entering the dimly-lit Common Room, Remus asked, “Harry, would you light the fire, please?”
“Sure thing,” replied Harry while drawing his wand. After aiming at the dark hearth, Harry muttered, “Incendio,” casting only a small amount of his power into the fire charm.
Harry, along with everyone else in the room, had expected a normal sized fireball (no larger than a snitch) to shoot out of the tip of his wand. They were all shocked when a huge fireball, nearly a meter in diameter, erupted out of Harry’s wand! Not only did the hearth ignite, but the mantle and a large portion of the wall surrounding the stone fireplace caught on fire as well.
Harry, Hermione, Remus, and Tonks all stared dumbly at the growing inferno. After two or three seconds, Hermione, Remus, and Tonks turned their attention to Harry, that is to say they stared dumbly at the bespectacled wizard. It was only after the ceiling had caught on fire that the foursome snapped out of their stupor and used their wands to put out the fire.
“Blimey, Harry!” Tonks exclaimed. “You didn’t have to use that much power!”
&n
bsp; “I didn’t...” murmured Harry. “At least, I think I didn’t.”
After putting out the fire, Remus and Tonks sat on the couch.
“Have a seat you two,” Remus requested. Harry really didn’t want to spend more time with Remus. Not that he didn’t normally enjoy the older wizard’s company. But right now, Harry wanted nothing more than to sneak off into a secluded spot and practice his budding skills concerning his Parselmouth abilities and Hermione’s flower. Unfortunately, Harry’s plans of ravishing Hermione were dashed when Remus said in a serious tone: “We need to have a talk.”
At Remus’ comment, Harry and Hermione shared a concerned look. Did Tonks tell Remus what she had witness and was he upset with the two teens? Would their old Defense professor chastise them for their actions? Or, would Remus give them the dreaded ‘Sex Talk’? Harry imagined an awkward Remus trying his best to give him the ‘Talk.’
‘Now,’ Harry heard Remus’ voice in his head, ‘sometimes a unicorn meets a Hippogriff... and... ah... sometimes the Hippogriff likes the unicorn in a very... special way... And if the hippogriff is lucky and the Unicorn likes him back... and she doesn’t have a headache at the time... Something... err... wonderful happens...’
“It’s suddenly dawned on me that no one has talked to you about...” Remus paused, searching for the proper word. Harry’s blood chilled, Remus was going to talk to him about... it! He was going to lecture Harry! Was Remus going to tell Harry to slow down, that he thought they were going too fast? Or worst yet; was he going to talk about technique or even his own experiences? Harry’s blood ran cold as he imagined Remus admitting something like, “Tonks seems to like when I wear a studded collar when we’re fooling around.” “No one has talked to you about...” Remus repeated, drawing Harry out of the disturbing image of his favorite DADA professor on all fours wearing a dog collar. “No one has taken the time to tell you about your folks.”
Harry plopped down in an arm chair with both a sense of relief (because Remus wasn’t going to talk about sex) and curiosity. Remus was correct: no one had bothered to actually sit Harry down and talk to him about his parents before.
“Now it’s true, your father was arrogant during our first few years at Hogwarts,” Remus began. “And he could be... mean, but the people to whom he was mean to usually deserved it.”
“I saw in Snape’s pensieve that Dad just hexed him, for no reason at all,” Harry said dejectedly.
“I’ve been thinking about that incident for a while now. Your father didn’t start that confrontation.” Remus informed him.
“But I saw it,” Harry argued. “Snape was sitting there minding his own business...”
“Severus Snape was, and is, a conniving, self-righteous, bigot,” Remus stated. “He started that particular confrontation the previous day, by hiding in the shadows and hexing your father. Snape was always following us around, trying to catch us in our misdeeds so that he could get us in trouble. And when he couldn’t catch us in the act, he would jinx or hex one of us, just to cause us grief or even harm. His preferred target was usually James.
“I remember it quite clearly. The day before that incident, James was discreetly hit with a Confundus Charm right as we started our Potion OWLs. Throughout the entire test, James kept tipping his cauldron over and Snape would laugh uproariously. Your father ended up failing the test simply because Snape wanted to be the best in the class and James was his only competition.”
“So, did Snape use the Confundus on Mum as well?” asked Harry.
“Why would he have?” Remus questioned with a befuddled look on his face. “Snape didn’t see her as competition. Lily was absolute rubbish at Potions.”
“But Slughorn told me that Mum was one of the best!” Harry said. “The finest he’d ever seen!”
“I’m sure you know this by now, Harry. Slughorn loves to be around famous and popular people,” explained Remus. “And he’s never had a student as famous as you are, Harry. Most likely Slughorn told you lies about Lily and her potions prowess in an attempt to get you to think of him as a connection to your parents. That way, he would be able to continue to ply you to join his menagerie of famous people. He probably used Lily because Slughorn held a grudge against James. Slughorn made sure there were no questions about his attitude toward your father. He decided that James’ poor showing during the OWLs meant that your father had been cheating his entire school career. Slughorn took that as a personal attack against his honor; he refused to acknowledge James ever again. Besides, look at it this way Harry: if Lily truly was the best potions student Slughorn had ever met, wouldn’t Snape have rubbed that fact in your face as a comparison to your abilities? He definitely wouldn’t have missed any more opportunities to humiliate you, would he?
“No, your mother’s specialty was in Charms,” concluded Remus. “Lily was a very special woman, even when we were just kids. She was the first girl who wasn’t impressed by James’ charm, nor was she intimidated by his antics. I think that’s how he first became attracted to her. Lily helped James mature into a good and decent man.”
Remus continued for hours, talking to Harry not just about his parents, but Sirius as well. Some stories were enlightening, others, bittersweet. But most of the stories centered on James’ sense of humor.
“The night after you were born,” Remus said while laughing, “James told Sirius that he was your godfather. Well, Sirius was so proud that he Apparated right to the Leaky Cauldron and announced to everyone there the happy news! So there he was, standing on the bar no less, shouting at the top of his lungs that he, Sirius Black, was Harry Potter’s godfather! The only problem was that Sirius didn’t know that your father placed a Transparency Charm on his clothes before he Apparated away! Let me tell you, everyone there got an eyeful of Sirius that night! For weeks everyone referred to him as ‘Godfather Willy’!”
Remus was about to start another story when Hermione unsuccessfully tried to muffle a yawn and Tonks let out an unladylike snore. Remus checked the clock above the mantle (the clock which had to be repaired because of Harry’s super-charged fireball) and saw that it was a quarter to one in the morning.
“Oh, dear, it looks like I’ve kept you up long enough,” Remus announced. “We have a big day tomorrow, so off to bed everyone.” Tonks chose this time to let out another loud, rafter-rattling snore. “Everyone except Tonks. No need for her to go to bed, she’s already asleep.”
Harry didn’t care how late it was; he wanted to stay up the rest of the night, just so he could hear more stories about his parents. The young wizard was about to protest when both Remus and Hermione let out yawns.
“We’ll have plenty of time to catch up later, Harry.” Remus told Harry and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. Harry nodded his head in agreement.
“Good night, you two,” said Remus and he pulled out his wand. With a few simple wand movements, the older wizard conjured a small cot next to the couch where the pink haired witch was sleeping.
Harry and Hermione shared a look; they both knew that they wouldn’t be able to “experiment” with Remus and Tonks in the Common Room. So they bid each other a simple good night and turned to their respective rooms. Harry was about to walk up the stairs when a sudden, uncontrollable urge came over him: he had to kiss Hermione good night. He didn’t care if Remus found out. Harry turned around and saw Hermione was about to walk up the stairs leading up to her room. He also saw Remus watching him. The latter smiled slightly at Harry and, luckily for Harry, turned his attention to fluffing his pillow. Harry rushed over to Hermione and as silently as he could, spun her around and before she could utter a sound, placed his lips to hers. Nothing mattered to Harry anymore, not Remus, not Tonks, not Voldemort or his stupid Horcuxes, and certainly not the world. All that mattered to Harry at that moment was Hermione, she was his everything.
While the two teens were kissing, Harry could swear that he felt two pairs of eyes watching them. He couldn’t care less; he was kissing the most wonderful wo
man in the world. When they finally broke their kiss, Harry turned to see Tonks still sleeping on the couch, but Remus was still diligently fluffing his pillow. Harry quietly made his way up to his dorm room.
Harry wasn’t ready for sleep just yet, so he decided to read another chapter from his ‘special book.’ Harry pulled The Magic of Making Love out of his bag and opened it to a random page near the middle. The chapter that Harry had gone to was entitled: “Pleasure Pressure Points: The Touch of Love.” Unfortunately, this chapter didn’t contain any interesting magical photos, but it did have numerous diagrams and drawings. According to the diagrams and specifications, a witch had “pleasure pressure points” all over her body. If a wizard were to touch one of these “points” and gently force his magic through it, the empowered touch would give the witch physical pleasure. The text stated the different points would elicit different levels of pleasure. One example stated that if the wizard were to gently, yet steadily, force his magic through a point on the small of the back, the witch would rapidly orgasm. As Harry continued reading he noticed that the range in the physical reaction was truly stunning. According to the book if the same wizard were to use the same technique on a pressure point on the back of the witch’s hand, she would experience only the amount of pleasure equal to that of a kiss, pleasurable, but not orgasmic. Harry read and reread the chapter, skipping over theories and benefits, trying to remember the most of the “pleasure pressure points” as possible.
XXX
Harry awoke in the morning with his ‘special book’ open and lying on his chest. Apparently, he had fallen asleep while rereading “Pleasure Pressure Points: The Touch of Love” for the fourth time. Harry noticed the clock and saw that he had less than an hour before he had to get to the Burrow for Bill and Fleur’s wedding! He took a rapid shower and had dressed so fast that he almost forgot to put on his shoes. Harry hopped down the stairs to the Common Room while trying to tie his shoes at the same time. When he got to the Common Room, Harry found Hermione waiting for him.