Chapter 24: A Morning of Exhaustion

The next day, waking up had taken a great effort in Harry's part. He was exhausted to the bone, though at least, it was for a good reason. The success of the first round had turned a switch in Susan's mind, turning her into an insatiable machine that took several turns to finally exhaust, and even that required some creative applications of the rope. When she finally left, she was half-dead with exhaustion, too far gone to process the full implications of their encounter.

He was curious about how she would react after she had enough time to process the event. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to seek her to check that. Not if he were to be at his potion's class on time. The last thing he needed was to give Snape any excuse to give him another detention. Despite his progress on his mental abilities, he didn't want to stay alone with Snape, where he might decide to restart the Occlumency lessons on Dumbledore's orders. If he managed to get into his mind. It would be a true disaster.

A quick shower and a mad dash later, he was in front of the Potions Classroom, and just in time, as he could see Snape walking towards the classroom in his usual surly demeanor, sour enough to scare kittens. But he was still at the far end of the corridor, giving him enough time to slip into the class and make his preparations before he could arrive.

He looked around in the classroom as he stopped for a moment. It didn't surprise him that everyone's eyes instantly found him, as, after five years in the madhouse, he was used to being the center of the attention, whether for his latest heroics, or yet another dark event he had been claimed to be responsible without a shred of evidence.

Though this time, it wasn't all negative, as it gave him a very convenient opportunity to go over the surface thoughts of the people. He spent a moment, a quick peek into the minds of the few relevant parties. On Ron's mind, he could see annoyance because of the decreased time could spend with Harry, split by possible strategies to make his unhappiness known, each more idiotic than the last. While on Malfoy's, he had found amused anticipation for a rather dangerous prank he had set up, lining the edges of his cauldron with an ingredient that would react explosively with today's potion. It was pathetic how Snape still allowed those by claiming that it was to defend his cover, while it was likely for his own dark amusement. For a guy that was supposed to hate bullies, Snape enjoyed his students' pain too much.

Still, he ignored both of them along with Snape's psychological issues, not even bothering to craft a retaliatory strike. Ron never had the courage to hit back in his own, and while striking back to Malfoy might be interesting, in the end, it wasn't really worth the reaction it would earn from Snape and Umbridge for harming such an outstanding example of pureblood ideology. And Snape was a hopeless pit of desperation. Also, why would he pay any attention to them when he had two amazing examples of womanhood, both much more deserving of his attention.

First, he sent a glance towards Daphne, and she trembled as their eyes met. A brief hustle through her surface memories revealed that she had managed to follow his direction in terms of avoiding touching herself and looking for outside assistance. It seemed that she had spent a bit too much time under the pressured water of the shower, but as he expected, that only made her pent-up arousal worse.

After a week of torturous arousal, enhanced further with a few subtle spells, she was not too far away from cracking. Harry decided to spend a bit of time with her after the class. She deserved a reward after following his commands as much as she did, though with a small dash of punishment for her attempt to circumvent his orders.

He sent Daphne one last heated glance, which made her tremble in fear and anticipation, before turning his attention back to Hermione, who was standing alone, though, on her face, there was a cold determination.

He could have struggled to deduce the reason, but a glance into her mind was much faster, so he learned that she was unhappy with her loss of control during their last encounter in the greenhouses. But, rather than picking the easy route and partnering with someone else to avoid him, she intentionally arranged so that she could prove her strength.

A nice opportunity to prove otherwise, he decided as he closed in the distance. "Hello, Mione," he whispered, making sure that he stood just a bit closer than a normal friendship would suggest, but not close to justifying her to raise it up.

"Harry," she answered in a soft, even voice, which would have worked as a casual greeting if it wasn't for her eyes, darting around in panic. Before she could say anything else, Snape entered the room and started speaking in his usual charming self, raining comments about the assigned potion of the day. Harry turned to listen, though he made sure to rub his shoulders to hers gently. She shuffled uncomfortably, no doubt remembering their last extended touch.

After Snape finished explanations, Hermione was about to dash for the ingredients cabinet, but Harry was quicker. "I'll get the ingredients, why don't you focus on prepping the situation." As he spoke, he made sure to pull his wand and discreetly cast a cleaning spell on the cauldron, removing the prank Malfoy had set up.

A crowd of students were around the cupboard, trying to be the first to get the first pick from the ingredients, though, due to fear of Snape, it wasn't on the level of actual pushing. Harry carefully picked the angle to slide into the crowd, and managed to find a place next to a certain blonde Slytherin witch. He waited until someone bumped into him, and used the opportunity to act unbalanced, pushing himself against Daphne, creating a window to whisper without being overheard. "Hello, toy. Did you miss me?"

She said nothing, the way she trembled worked as an answer for him. It was unfortunate that the crowd pushed him away, making him leave her proximity, but not before he could whisper one last statement. "Wait for me after the class."

With his side quest complete, he picked the ingredients from the storage and walked back to their bubbling cauldron, where his immediate target awaited him with the twitchy demeanor of a rabbit. He put the ingredients on the desk wordlessly while watching her from the corner of his eye.

She started chopping ingredients immediately, the unwarranted concentrated expression on her face suggesting that she wanted to busy herself in order to avoid the emotional distress born from their closeness. He had no intention to allow her to succeed with that, of course.

He walked behind her before closing in, something she only noticed when his arms appeared on her sides, almost like he was hugging her. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and whispered. "You're holding your knife wrong," he said as his fingers intertwined with hers, and he took the knife off hers. "Try to use it like that," he added while holding it almost the same.

"Okay," she managed to whisper as he pressed his body against hers, creating a fleeting contact between her rear and his erection. Thanks to their closeness, he was able to see her eyes grow. At that moment, he wanted to push her down and recreate the moment without the clothes in between.

Unfortunately, the classroom wasn't the place to do that, especially the Potions. So, Harry pulled away, however reluctantly, and left her to prepare the potion while he focused on preparing the potion.

For the rest of the class, he made sure to mix quite a bit of accidental touches, friendly touches to redirect her movements, and class-related directions whispered in an unnecessarily throaty tone. Hermione tried to hide the fact that it was getting to her, but towards the end of the class, her nerves were as fizzled as her hair.

"Careful," he said as he grabbed her wrist gently, preventing her from adding the last ingredients too early. "You need to pay more attention, Mione, that would have ruined our efforts," he whispered. "You don't want to deal with Snape's annoying drivel, do you?"

"Sorry," she murmured as he took the ingredient from her fingers, but he made sure that his grip lingered. She stopped breathing for a moment, her eyes jumping between his face and her wrist. He could even feel a slight tremble under his grasp, suggesting that the situation worked even better than he had been hoping for, especially when, unlike Herbology class, there was no Susan to split his attention. Unfortunately, Daphne was untouchable in the limits of this class.

He examined her carefully once again while Snape collected the potion samples. She was just as he wanted, a mixture of panic and arousal. After a peek into her mind to make sure of her mood, he bid farewell to her and started walking away, leaving the class before the others. The last thing he heard from was a hurried cleaning spell before he left the class.

He slowed his steps the moment he stepped into the corridor. He wanted her to catch him, after all, and disappearing before she could see his direction would be counter-productive. Only when the sound of her hurried footsteps reached his ears, he started walking at a normal pace. Then, he took a turn to a less-used corridor.

It didn't take long for her to catch up with him, though he made sure that when he stopped, he was just a step away from a broom closet. "Hermione," he said with a fake surprise. "Is there something wrong?"

"No," she managed to say between her quickened breathing. "I just need to talk to you."

"Sure, go ahead," he said, but she said nothing. "Come on, we still need to catch the next class," he added, his foot tapping the floor.

"We can't talk it here…" she murmured in a sudden shyness. "Someone could overhear us."

He let out an exaggerated sigh of annoyance, only to cut short as he looked at the broom closet. "Easy to solve," he said as he grabbed her wrist once more, and pulled her along as he walked into the closet. "Here, now you can talk without the risk of being overheard," he said after casting a silencing spell that would prevent any eavesdropper.

The sudden expression of panic that bloomed on her face was beautiful, though the fact that she had frozen wasn't really convenient. He didn't want her to start fearing him. But when he reached into her mind to fix the issue, he realized he misunderstood the reason for her panic. Her mind was on their last similar encounter, wrapped in darkness, with a tight grip; the night that he visited her dorm.

The night that ended up with the loss of her virginity.

He didn't bother to hide the predatory gleam in his smile, trusting the shadows to do it. And she was sufficiently distracted by her memories. Instead, he focused on reaching the same memories she was viewing, and pulled them closer to the surface, almost intense enough to be a daydream, with all the associated feelings.

He let her enjoy the experience for a while before putting his fingers on her cheek. "Mione, are you okay?" he asked, his tone carrying an exaggerated concern. "You seem distracted."

It took a moment for the question to push into her consciousness, and during that, he kept his hand on her cheek, softly caressing. "I'm okay," she managed to stammer, but on his fingertips, he could sense the increasing heat of her face.

"Are you sure? Your face feels a bit hot, like you have a fever. Let me check." He didn't wait for her permission, just leaned and pressed his lips on her forehead, earning another shiver. "It feels a bit warm, but not enough to be a fever," he said as he pulled back, but still keeping his hand on her cheek.

"I'm not sick," she managed to say, but her breathing started to lose its cohesion due to their proximity, and magically-enhanced memories of her first night didn't exactly help her to control her emotions. She took a deep breath, trying to relax enough to get a hold of her emotions, but it was the excuse Harry was looking for.

"I see, you're stressed," he said, like he had come to a huge realization. "It shouldn't have bothered you that much, Mione. We're best friends, after all." As he spoke, he put his arms on both sides of her, underlining her trapped status. He stood still a moment, watching in enjoyment as her breathing went out of control under the combined effects of arousal and panic, then he leaned forward.

"It's not that-" she tried to say, but in her hurry, she didn't think about turning her head away, allowing him to silence her with a kiss, a long, searing one that communicated much more than just friendship. Her hands reached to his chest in an ineffective imitation of resistance, but her trembling arms failed to put a real effect.

He could have started undressing her, but he wanted to see the power of his kiss, so his lips lingered over hers. The push from her hand started to weaken, and Harry started to close the distance between them, so that Hermione was squeezed between his body and the wall.

When she put her hands on his body and pushed it away with a newfound strength, he feared that his whole plan was a waste of time, but that opinion changed when, instead of continuing to push him, her hands started unbuttoning his robe with a great hurry, harsh enough to rip more than one button.

He couldn't help but feel happy with the result. At first glance, the situation was similar to the earlier one in the Greenhouse, but with a huge difference. Back then, she was just accepting his treatment passively, while now, it was replaced by an active, aggressive desire. Her desire finally won over her fears.

He put no resistance as she forced him to remove his robe before treating his shirt the same, both bundled on the floor, leaving him with a naked torso, while their lips stayed connected meanwhile. Her hands landed on his torso once more, this time busy tracing the contours of his muscles rather than trying to push him away.

The situation was unfair, he decided. And while he could have unbuttoned her robe properly, he had a more fun way on his mind. He grabbed it on both sides, and a moment later, the buttons flew away. Her shirt suffered the same treatment a moment later. He didn't even bother to remove her bra, just pushed it up with a flick of a hand, revealing her breasts, perfectly proportioned to fill his palms, free for his attention.

A moan pushed through his lips' ability to silence her, loud enough to fill the confines of the broom closet they were occupying as his fingers sank into her breasts. He was glad to see that a few days without some close attention worked wonders to unlock her hidden desire.

A hiss left his mouth as he felt a sharp pain his back, accompanied by a warm liquid moving down. He pulled back in surprise, not expecting her to be aggressive enough to draw blood.

"That's how you want to play," he said as he met her eyes, which was shining with a strange challenge, accompanied by an unfamiliar smirk. She just nodded, her smirk widening even further. "As you wish, slut," he said as his hand slid in her hair. "It's always the quiet ones," he murmured in amusement as he painfully pulled her hair, making her reveal her neck, which then he adorned with a dark red bite mark, though, unlike her nails, not hard enough to draw blood.

She pushed him back hard, which caught him in surprise, and made him smash his back on the other side of the closet. But before he could consider whether he pushed her too hard, she followed him, and her eyes found his belt, unbuckling it with a familiar manner, freeing him from the confines of his pants, and a moment later, his boxers.

It was unfair to be the only one with that revealed state, he decided as he slid his hand under her skirt, and pulled her panties down, stained wet with her arousal. That made her froze, like losing the last piece of protection reminded her of the exact situation she was in, but it was too late for resistance. Mirroring her earlier action, he pushed her back, but differently, he kept a hold of her arm like it was twisted dance, and gave her a twirl on the way, so that when she smashed on the other side of the closet, she was looking directly at the wall.

"Ready?" he asked as he put his hands on her hips, even though he had no intention of actually waiting for an answer. Admittedly, when he pushed the crown of his shaft into her entrance, he was planning to subject her to a slow tease until she begged for more. But the feeling of her warm grasp, intensified by her wetness worked wonders in changing his mind, and he pushed his full presence into her, earning a pained cry from her, which had the chance of making him pity her a bit if it wasn't for his warm blood trickling down his back. Instead, it just made him more aroused.

"Did you miss me, slut," he said as his hand met with her bottom with a loud slap while he pulled out, then he pushed inside her right back with a sharp push. Another pained cry left her mouth, but this time, it had a thick edge of pleasure.

Her reaction, combined with her tight hold around his girth, brought him quite close to a climax. Luckily, his Occlumency had a beautiful benefit on that subject, preventing the situation from coming to a premature ending.

He had no intention of letting her go that easily…