34

So much to do, so little time. 

Winky has secretly been expanding the table in our bedroom, as my piles of notes and research continues getting wider and wider. There's the medicinal pile, where I'm trying to memorize as many healing spells and potions as possible. The Horcrux pile, because everything else we do is pointless unless we can find that final piece of Voldemort's soul. There's the Bond Mate pile, and that's growing at a rate that frankly should be concerning.

The table also includes Harry's stack of war books. As well as his  notes with so-called proof that the final Horcrux is simply lounging around at the school waiting for us to stumble upon it. Ron's mountain of planning and tactical theory has a home on it also. Not to mention the rolled-up scrolls of Azkaban's blueprints, Hogwarts blueprints, and the blueprints for the Ministry of Magic. 

I'm still not sure how Tonks pulled that off and why she didn't question when I asked for them.

That doesn't even include the bookshelves in our secondary closet that has turned into our personal library, holding our personal collection.

Winky advised me just this morning that the spare closet is actually a nighttime nursery whenever the need arrives. She scared me so much I think I may start taking the potion on top of the pill.  I'm not battling Death Eaters nine months pregnant thank you very much. Nor do I have any desire to live in a tent that way either. 

The boy's barge into the bedroom as loud as two teenagers can, Harry discussing the new shield spell they learned tonight that manifests an actual shield for Ron to hold, and Ron complaining that he can't wait to accidentally on purpose hit Malfoy with the practice sword and could they maybe get a sandwich before his stomach eats itself?

Crookshanks scurries out of our bedroom, rubbing up against Harry's ankle as he goes. He's learned the hard way since we moved into the Townhouse that he doesn't want to be stuck in the bedroom with us at night. I keep meaning to research if there's a way we can add a magical kitty door without voiding the wards. 

"Maybe we should start you on nutritional potions, Ronald. You can toss back a vial or two and collect all the calories you need that way."

Ron gives me a horrified expression as he drops into the chair across from me.

"I knew you were a hard woman, 'Mione, but I didn't realize you were cruel." 

Harry bends over me and brings his lips to mine, and I kiss him quickly before turning back to Ron. Both guys are still sweaty, having come straight from the training room in the attic.

Since I don't have a sword to practice with, I've ditched the second training sessions to work on studying instead. 

"I'm only trying to help," I assure him, struggling to contain my smile. "Since you're always so hungry, I thought the potion would help you from wasting all that time eating."

Ron looks like I asked him to keep a Blast-Ended Skrewt as a house pet.

"That's cruel and unusual punishment is what that is."

Ron shakes his head, pulling the book on dementors into his lap. I chuckle under my breath.

"Flip you for the shower?" Harry says, yanking his shirt off over his head.

Dobby appears beside the table and, giving me a sheepish little smile, drops a plate of ham and cheese sarnies and crisps onto the wood before popping away again.

Ron immediately shoves a bit into his mouth, moaning in pleasure at the sensation.

"Ioam gouhd. Ooo go," he garbles through a full mouth, waving off Harry's offer to flip for the loo. Flecks of bread fly from between his lips, and it's like a car crash. It's horrible, and barbaric, yet I can't seem to turn away. 

"Okay," Harry laughs, then heads into the closet to grab a clean set of clothes. "If you're serious about those potions though, Mi, I'll take 'em."

I jerk around in my chair, roughly pulling my gaze from the disgusting view of Ron shovelling food into his face and stare at my husband instead.

He looks good wearing just the track pants, the elastic of his trunks showing over the top of the trousers.

His muscles are already growing from all of the work with that sword…

Ron is here. Ron is here. You cannot shag your husband with your best friend in the room. Harry laughs inside my head and I smack him away internally.

"I was actually just trying to send Ronald round the bin, but yeah, I can get them for you no problem. Why though? You aren't actually going to stop eating, are you? I was kidding about that."

He heads into the loo and gets the shower started, before stepping into the doorway and leaning against the frame.

"No, I'm not going to stop eating. But Ron isn't the only one feeling a little puckish lately, and I figure a decade of malnutrition would only be helped with some of those orange replenishing potions you keep around. Don't act like you haven't slipped me one or two in the past."

"I—" have no idea what to say, because if you'd had asked me twenty minutes ago if Harry knew I spiked his pumpkin juice with a nutrition potion for the first month or so after every summer hols, I would have sworn on Crookshanks life that he had no idea.

Harry laughs at me, full-bodied and happy, before going back into the loo and cracking the door.

"Caught ya, huh?" Ron says with a knowing smile.

I—I… He probably pulled it from my mind, the wanker.

Defend and deflect.

"What have I told you about asking the elves to do things for you?"

His face falls into a pitiful pout.

"Come off it, 'Mione. They love it. It's rude not to let them help. I'm only doing what you want me to, making sure they're happy."

"That's not—" I stutter in irritation. "You know—" I don't understand how S.P.E.W has turned into Ron giving me lessons in elvish etiquette. I open a book at random and slam it on the table. "Honestly, Ronald!" I huff, and pointedly ignore him when he smiles around his sandwich.

~**~

Harry joins us ten minutes later, his hair only dried with a towel and his glasses crooked on his nose. 

"We should talk about your birthday," Ron says, using any excuse he can think of to stop reading about Dementors. Or specifically, how to sneak by them without being noticed. Hint, we still have no idea.

"No, we shouldn't. I really couldn't care less," Harry drones. "We have more important things to worry about."

We're having a joint party for both Harry and Neville on Friday with Mrs. Longbottom in attendance. She wanted Neville to come home for a few days, but he told her there'll be plenty of birthdays after we defeat Voldemort. He'd rather stay here with us and learn. Harry practically glowed with pride. 

I feel sorry for Mrs. Longbottom though. She's already lost her children to this war. Now she's sent her grandson off to train to fight in their stead. Like we're in the Middle Ages instead of the twentieth century and every family has to sacrifice their oldest son to the cause. For as proud as Mrs. Longbottom must be of him, she must be terrified as well. 

"Come on, Harry," I plead. "You've got to want something for your birthday." 

"You naked and tied to the bed," Harry answers without taking his eyes from the book in his hands.

Was—did he just say that out loud? Or was that in my head? 'Cause, he didn't even blink when he said that.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Ron shouts, shoving up from the table and covering his ears with his hands. "I can't hear that sort of shite!"

Out loud then. 

"Harry James Potter-Black!" I scold while trying to hold in my giggles.

Harry finally raises his eyes from his book, his eyebrow lifted and a bland look on his face. 

"Look, you have no one to blame but yourself. The thought of tying someone up never would have occurred to me if you hadn't shown me that book."

"You can't say things like that in front of Ron!" I hiss at him, the blood rushing to my face.

"You have BOOKS!" Ron bellows, his eyes going wide then quickly flicking around the piles stacked six high on our table. Then his voice gets so low I can barely hear him as leans in close to Harry. "You have books?" he asks again just a smidgen too earnestly for my liking.

"I've created a monster," I say for the hundredth time. Now there's going to be two of them.

Harry looks up at Ron, who seems to be not so inconspicuously looking for said books around our bedroom.

"Of course, we have books. Look who I'm married to. In the second closet," Harry tells him, pointing over his shoulder. "Help yourself. But leave the one on BDsM, I'm still reading that one."

Ronald almost chokes on his tongue, mumbling under his breath about people being mental and barking up the wrong tree. Then he pushes his chair out from behind him and marches smartly over to the secondary closet. He disappears for a moment, his "Bloody hell," carrying faintly into the bedroom.

He reappears with a stack of books in his hands and storms from our bedroom without another word. Fabulous. He's sharing a room with Neville. Oh Merlin! What happens if Draco wanders into their room…?

I slink down in my chair, shame flushing my skin pink.

Well then. 

That's one way to cut the study session short.

Harry tosses his book onto the table and faces me instead.

"If you don't like it, you know, this monster you've created, you could always obliviate it from my mind. It's not like I'd know the difference."

Harry lifts slightly from his seat, both of his hands gripping the arms of my chair. He crowds over top of me, pushing into my personal space until I'm forced to lean back in my seat to look at him.

"Where would the fun be in that?" I ask him. "Unless you meant it would be fun for me as I get to show it to you for the first time again. Knowledge is power. Even when it comes to sex." 

Maybe especially when it comes to sex. Though, I never realized what a quick learner Harry was when he was interested in the subject. I had always assumed his accelerated learning of DADA was some combination of necessity and enjoyment, but now I'm starting to think he's just that fast a learner when he puts his mind to it. 

Theory still escapes him, but he's a deft hand at practical application.

"I'm cashing in one of those I.O.U's," he whispers, his lips hovering over mine.

"Which one is that?"

We've tallied so many, back and forth over the last several years that I can't even keep track at this point. A book sails from his bedside, disguised as 5th year Transfiguration and lands deftly into his hands. He kisses me once, twice, and pulls away when I try to deepen the kiss into something more.

I'm utterly embarrassed with the way I whine when he removes his lips from mine.

Instead, he flips the book to the appropriate page and holds it open for me to see.

This again.

"But whyyy?" I pout, looking at the incredibly graphic picture of the witch sitting on the bloke's face. Sure, she looks like she's enjoying herself, but I just can't get over how…personal that position is. What if I'm too heavy? What if he suffocates? Imagine Mortimer's expression when Harry ends up dead again because I smothered him with my quim.

I can't do it. I can't.

"Stop babbling. You weigh like eight stone tops, and if I had to die, you sitting on my face would be the way to go."

"Stop reading my mind!" 

I try to push him away, but he crowds me until I can barely breathe without inhaling his scent. Harry takes the book from my hands and drops it on the floor. I look from it, to him with horrified eyes.

"Hey! You can't just treat a book like—" I'm rudely cut off when Harry brings his lips to mine, silencing my outburst. He shucks his hands up the side of my shirt, and with a swift yank on the material has it up and over my head before I can even blink.

"Let's make a deal," he says, hauling me to my feet and deftly walking me backwards. It's hard to kiss and walk at the same time, but I give it my best shot.

"What?" I ask distractedly, when his hands find the buckle of my jeans and work the zipper down. His fingers slide into my knickers, and I stumble when he twirls his digits around my clit.

"We can take turns. I pick something from a book, and then you can pick something from a book. We'll just methodically work our way through them, like we would any other research material."

That's a low blow, even for Harry. He knows how much I love research.

"What's in it for me?" I ask, using my feet to finish pulling my jeans the rest of the way off and leaving them on the floor. My knickers are next, and it takes a moment for me to realize that I'm completely starkers and Harry still has all his clothes on.

"You can take notes," he says as I help him pull his shirt up over his head, "and add it to your paper," he mumbles against my lips. He's only wearing sleep trousers, and they fall to the floor in a heap.

Merlin. He's hard as a rock inside his trunks, the fabric tented between his hips and the muscles in his thighs flexing to an obscene degree when he squats slightly to pick me up.

I wrap my legs around his hips and let him take me to our bed.

"And all the orgasms you can handle," he adds as if research for my Bond Mate paper wasn't enough to seal the deal. 

He drops me on the mattress, then quickly shoves his pants down his legs before climbing up after me.

"Tit for tat?" I confirm. "I can pick anything I want?"

Smugness surges along our bond, as Harry realizes he's won.

"Love, you can tie me to the bed and stick a bow on my ass for my birthday if it'll get you to sit on my face tonight."

Well. There's an offer a girl can't refuse. 

"Yeah, okay?" I say. My entire body flushes with embarrassment and desire. My heart is beating like a hummingbird's wings when Harry lays down in the middle of the bed and reaches out his hands for me.

Merlin.

I crawl on my knees over to his head and with shaking limbs fling one of my legs over to the other side of his shoulders. "Shit!" I squeal when Harry surges up to grab my hips and yank me down on top of him. I flop against his torso with zero coordination, barely keeping myself from face planting into his crotch.

"Harry!"

Harry's hands are running up and down my thighs, the bond pulsing with excitement and determination. He runs his fingers up my back, sending goosebumps over my extremities. I think he's trying to calm me down, but all he's doing is hyping himself up.

"You can lie on me, Hermione. It's fine. You're fine. Merlin, you look so good like this."

I don't even have a chance to respond before his arms are up and around my hips and his hands are pulling my arse cheeks apart. 

"Gah!" I say inarticulately when his tongue licks a stripe up the middle of my pussy, stopping somewhere along my bum. His fingers pull my slit wide and already it sounds wet and lewd when he laps against my flesh.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

I hate cussing, and Harry has reduced me to a vulgar heathen.

I grasp the base of his cock and leverage myself up on one hand so my mouth is level with his tip. I try to latch my mouth around him, but he buries his fingers into my quim, and I end up missing his dick altogether. Instead, I land a haphazard openmouthed kiss along his shaft, and Harry thrusts up into my hand. 

We stay like that for a time, me dropping open mouth kisses up and down his dick while Harry teases my entrance, circling his fingers and barely pushing in before pulling out to start the taunt again. I freeze when I realize I'm thrusting back against his face, and —

"Fuck!" I cry out when Harry smacks my ass, the sound of it loud and shocking in the near silence of our room. My fingertips start to tingle, and I work my hand up and down his length again, attempting to put it in my mouth.

The best I can do are kitty kat licks across the top of his head.

"You're not very good at this, are you?" he says with a smile.

His mouth is against my quim when he talks, and the vibrations do wonders against my pussy lips.

"Would you—" Another wave of pleasure rolls through me, making my toes curl. "Would you lay off me for just a moment, please, so I can concentrate?"

"Uh-uh," he hums with his lips around my clit and my head droops onto his thigh, my nose an inch away from his testicles. I dart out my tongue and lick at those instead, and Harry's lazy thrusting into my hand peaks up speed. 

He wraps his arms completely around my waist and hauls my crotch onto his face, so I feel his every breath pulse against me.

"Slow down," I beg, or at least I think I do. I can't be sure of anything at this point. The muscles in my belly are coiled tight. The nerves at the base of my spine are radiating in a thousand different directions.  

He shakes his head like a dog between my legs, flicking his tongue this way and that.

Harry smacks my arse again, the other cheek this time, and who the hell is this man underneath me? I open my mouth to yell at him, but he smacks my arse a third time, and rather than yell I sort of moan pathetically into his pubic hair.

The fingers on one hand, are pumping in and out of my pussy, the rhythm determined and intense. The other is circling the tight rim of my ass.

I'm going to die and Harry is going to die because I'm gonna kill him when I die prostrate across his chest and face.

"Harry, I'm—"

"Uh-huh," he moans again, and a single finger slips past that first ring of muscle on my forbidden hole. 

Harry flicks his tongue against my clit faster than I thought possible, and I come undone on top of him. My orgasm doesn't simply happen, but consumes me from the inside out. Every neuron in my body spasms in a painful wave leaving devastation in their wake. My muscles clench where he's penetrating me, and I pull him that much deeper inside my body.

"Oh God, Harry," I cry out, bucking against his tongue. He pulls his fingers from my person and pins me to his face to lap at me while I ride out the flood. I collapse completely on top of him, but he doesn't seem to mind, instead he begins jerking his hips into the loose facsimile of a fist I have wrapped around his dick. 

I'm twitching and jerking and whimpering against him, but now it's from over sensitivity and not simply overwhelming pleasure. I lift my knee from beside his ear, and almost sag in relief when he lets me go. I'm on my back beside him no longer than a heartbeat, though, before he's settling himself between my knees.

My second orgasm, just an echo compared to the first, starts the minute he fills me with his prick. Honestly, I can't tell if it's my second or his first. Maybe both.

He thrusts for less than a minute, his pace fast and brutal, before his hips stagger and his back arches and he drops his forehead to mine, emptying himself inside of me. He collapses to the side, and pulls me into his arms.

My chest is still heaving as I recover my breath.

"Do you have a colour bow in mind?" I ask him, still listening to our merged heartbeats thundering away in my ears, "because I'm going to take you up on that whole tying you to the bed thing for your birthday."

Harry chuckles under his breath, his eyes closed and his smile relaxed.

"Anything other than pink," he says playfully.

Looks like I need to go shopping before Friday.