"Wow," said Harry, looking around from where he stood, still on the ladder boards with his head poking up through the trap door of the treehouse. "This is great. How come you didn't show me this last summer?"

"Because it was a mess, that's why," said Hermione from where she sat, still brushing her hands off on her shorts. "It does look much better since I cleaned out the cobwebs and all those dead twirly-seed things this morning." She extended a hand toward him. "Dad built it for me when I was about five. I don't think I've been up here since we started Hogwarts, though."

Harry, taking her hand, finished pulling himself inside, still looking around the wooden treehouse. It wasn't tall enough to stand in, but he could kneel upright without banging his head, and it had four walls and a lattice roof and seemed very solid, not particularly affected by twelve years of weather. "Dudley had one of these, once. Uncle Vernon had someone build it, and it was all painted and had trim and stuff. Dudley put this big "Snot-Faced Harry Keep Out" sign on it the first day."

"So you never got to go inside it?

Harry snorted. "Dudley barely got to go inside it. He fell down the trap door the second day. Howled so much you'd have thought he'd broken his neck. Aunt Petunia insisted Uncle Vernon tear it down, and then he howled even worse."

Hermione laughed, and Harry closed the trap door. He looked back at Hermione. "Would it be okay if we had a little light? The moon's up, but I really want to see you better than that."

"Sure. I don't think you can see much through the cracks in the walls, and the roof's why Dad didn't need to cut any windows."

Harry didn't take out his wand. He didn't need to, for this one. "Lumos," he said softly, and the interior of the treehouse illuminated in a warm yellow glow, as if the volume of his voice had dictated the intensity of the light.

"Hey," said Hermione, both pleased and impressed. "That one's useful. You're getting good at this."

"I practiced a few things in particular."

What astounded him was how not nervous he was. It wasn't as if Hermione had asked him to come up to her treehouse and see her etchings. They'd talked about it last night, sitting at the campfire in the backyard after Hermione's parents had gone back in the house. And she'd looked up and said, "There's the treehouse..."

And he didn't really remember the rest of the conversation after that.

He'd barely been able to keep his hands off of her today. He hadn't been able to keep his eyes off her. She was wearing this pair of khaki shorts that showed way more of her legs than he ever got to see, and if he'd had to go back to that twin bed in the Granger's guest room without at least getting to touch those legs, the top of his head was going to explode.

"So you really like it?"

The treehouse. "Yeah, I do. But the nicest thing about it is sitting right in front of me."

An amazing discovery of his: it was true; you didn't need clever lines with girls. You just had to tell them the truth.

She crawled toward him, and he moved to meet her, and then they had their hands around each other's shoulders, and in each other's hair, and were kissing so hard there were little mmph noises every time their lips came together. She tasted of cinnamon and of vanilla ice cream, and he was able to finally touch those glorious legs of hers... It seemed it had been an eternity of watching her in those casual togs, instead of school robes, trying to be very proper about not molesting her in her parents' house, rather than the four days of summer holiday it had been.

When they stopped kissing, her head settling against his chest, Harry's chin on the top of her head--a position, he had recently found, he was growing extremely fond of--Harry said, "Two months, three weeks, one day, and...twenty-one hours. Or so. Don't ask me minutes."

Hermione pulled her head back, a slow smile spreading on her face. "And when do you count it from?"

"Oh--the chasm. Just before my sleeve ripped."

"You do?"

"Yeah, I do. I kind of think it was all rolling toward inevitability after that." He thought he felt Hermione shaking her head against his chest. "Why? How about you?"

There was a pause. "Three o'clock, one week later."

"Was that the mirror?" He felt her nod. "You've got a good memory. I didn't think it was as late as three."

Hermione didn't answer. "You're right," he said after a moment, "it's wrong of me to have started counting at the chasm. I hadn't yet realized how badly I didn't deserve you. Don't deserve you."

She looked up at his face. "Oh, you haven't deserved a lot of things you've gotten." She reached up to stroke the scar.

Funny how she was the only one who could do that and make him shiver in a nice way.

"Well, as long as you agree with me that I don't deserve you."

She kissed him again, and he realized with no little astonishment that she didn't seem shy either. He pulled her against him very tightly, still unable to believe that this was real, this was her; he was kissing her, she was kissing him, her hand on the back of his neck, and he slid his hand to the back of her knee again, unable to keep from doing it.

And she'd asked him here to do more than that.

"Are you very sure about this?" he asked her for what had to be the millionth time. "Because if you're not, this would be about the time to tell me. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to listen to you in a few minutes more."

"Yes," she said, her voice, the look in her eyes, gentle as dandelion fluff. "Do you know how many times you've come close to death? I've stopped counting."

"I haven't," said Harry. "There was the troll in the bathroom, and the night we ran into Fluffy, and--"

Hermione went to silence him with her fingers on his lips, but he took them and kissed them instead. "I just wanted to point out that most of the times I've been close to death, you've not exactly been tucked cozily into a nice safe bed, either."

"No, that's true too. We aren't the type who usually live long, Harry Potter."

"Because of who I am."

She smiled. "You say that like I didn't choose to be with you. Like you spread the danger everywhere. Harry--you inspire people to come together to fight the danger. The sort of people who are--"

"--suicidal."

"You're talking about me, too, Potter! I should be very insulted."

"Yes, you should be." Suddenly he turned around and lay back so that his head was in her lap. "Fine, then. Keep me here all night and teach me some manners."

"Ooh, would you like that?" she teased.

"I'd like this." He reached up, slid his hand to the back of Hermione's head, fingers buried in her hair, and pulled her down to kiss her.

When their mouths separated some minutes later, the mockery had gone from both his face and voice. "Right," he said, a little catch in his throat. "I really think that was your last chance to say no, you know."

She shook her head. "No it wasn't. If I believed that, I wouldn't be in love with you."

"Hermione, I'm a Magid, not a monk."

"And I'm neither." She kissed him again.

This time when they stopped, he said, "You might be wrong, you know. Dumbledore doesn't know everything about everything."

"Harry..." She brought her face close to his again. "I can assure you that whatever else is true, this is one thing I am sure of: Dumbledore does not think... I am a monk."

And when they kissed again they were both giggling. It was exactly what they needed to break up the seriousness of it.

Finally Harry said, "Do you want me to...you know... go first?"

Hermione snorted, "No, you prat, I was thinking we'd make love together."

"You know what I mean! All right, that's it." He lunged for her wrists, got one, and held it away just far enough from her side to tickle her armpit. Hermione shrieked, tried to pull sideways, but Harry hung on. "Nope, you were asking for it, Granger! Now you're in for it..."

It ended with Hermione shaking with laughter on the floor of the treehouse, with Harry on top of her, digging his fingers into her ribs (which had turned out to be her most ticklish spot), playfully demanding, "Give! Give!" while she howled, "Aaaahhh! Unforgivable Curse number f-four, Potter! I'll have the Ministry on you!" until at last he desisted and sank down with his chin on her breastbone, laughter still bubbling out of both of them, but it was slowing, like soup that someone had just taken off the stove.

When he was at last quiet, when she was at last quiet, and both of them had just been looking into each other's eyes for a few moments, Harry slowly moved his head just a little. Keeping his gaze on hers, as though giving her a chance to stop him by just changing the look in her eyes, he kissed the slope of her breast.

Her expression did change. But what he saw there was nothing that was asking him to stop. It was as if all the trust and desire and love that was in her heart was trying to write him a love letter; no, that wasn't quite it, there was a sweetness in it that belied the embarrassing squelchiness of a love letter, more like it wanted to make him the biggest paper Valentine heart in the world, with pink cardboard and glitter and little silver foil stars and a million X's and O's and one of those arrows coming in the back and going out the front of it. It was a look that melted him to a puddle and yet set him on fire at the same time, like the marshmallow that had gone to ash over the little campfire they'd had last night.

He sat up, and he was straddling her, and he didn't need to ask how to proceed now; he began to unbutton the front of her blouse with fingers that were amazingly steady.

And then he had it undone, and pulled it open, and it was at one and the same time the most wonderful moment in his life so far and yet so embarrassing that his new-found confidence almost left him completely.

He stared at the glorious exposure of Hermione's breasts within nothing but her semi-sheer nylon bra, and swallowed past the catch in his throat, which was there for two (three? Shame on you, he thought) very different reasons.

"Um, Hermione..."

"In the front, " she said.

Harry noticed that though she sounded amused, she was smiling with him, not at him. "Um," he repeated, not sure how to put it into words that that still wasn't enough information.

But he didn't have to say more. Hermione reached up and took a hold of his hand, and wordlessly, held his fingers in her own and used them to open the catch on her bra. Harry knew that was a lesson he was only going to need once.

He wanted to kiss her breasts, wanted it so much there was a roaring in his ears, but that would have meant that he would have to stop looking at them, just as he was now, the way they were now, and that seemed such a tragedy.

He became aware he wasn't breathing. He let his breath out; it came out very shakily. "Twin lilies..." he murmured. "Now I know what that polygamous old bastard meant."

"What?" asked Hermione.

"Oh..."said Harry, wondering if this was the time for such an explanation, but he was the one who'd brought it up, hadn't he? "One of my Uncle Vernon's sisters. My Aunt Edwina. Very religious. The Dursleys would never tell anyone I was a wizard, of course, but I think Aunt Petunia told her I was heavily into Satanism. I tried to tell her I'd never bought Metal music in my life, but..."

"And?"

"And she kept pushing me to read the bible, saying it would save my soul. Aunt Petunia threatened to filet me if I didn't do as she said, so I just memorized about two pages out of The Song of Solomon and recited it as loud as I could to all of them. You should have seen their faces. I got nothing to eat for three days but it was bloody worth it."

Hermione was shaking underneath him as she giggled. Harry saw what that was doing to her breasts and thought, Oh, my god, I've got to think of something else to make her keep laughing...

But his mouth was too dry to say anything else. She was putting her arms around his neck again and drawing him down into another kiss, and this time he could feel the softness of her breasts against his chest, only one cloth layer away from his own skin--and having them out of that bra made a remarkable difference; they'd kissed before, and he'd felt those round pillows brushing his body, but not like this.

And now he pulled his lips away from hers, too impatient to wait longer and hoping she'd forgive him, and kissed one bare breast, and then the other, and it seemed almost sacrilegious to kiss those coin-sized nipples, they seemed like they were too good for him to kiss, so that when he did it, it was with such reverence that Hermione felt her own heart melt and she actually heard herself sob, and she clutched Harry to her suddenly, her arms around his shoulders as he kissed her nipples over and over, not yet daring to tongue them but just kissing, and she suddenly realized he was murmuring something between kisses: "... thy two breasts are like twin roes that feed among the lilies...thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one look of thine eyes..." He looked up at her face again.

"What do you know, " Harry said, wonderingly. "I do remember it."

Hermione reached up to touch his face with her fingers. "Do you know," she said softly, "how remarkable you are, Harry Potter?"

"Some people keep trying to tell me that," said Harry. "But don't worry. I have Draco to keep me from getting a fat head."

He kissed her breast again, and now her nipples had stiffened into little pastilles like those pink candy mints, and now it seemed a shame not to taste those, so he licked at one nipple, and heard her inhale, and he wasn't sure if it was the taste of her skin or the sound of that breath that was better, they were both wonderful, and he licked at it some more, and she was starting to move and breathe so marvelously under him, her arms still around his shoulders, but now moving down his back, and she'd pulled up the bottom edge of his t-shirt and her hands were touching his skin at his waist, and suddenly it was way too warm in that treehouse, despite it being after sunset, and he took his hands off her shoulders long enough to take a hold of the shirt himself and pull it up, and he sat up and pulled it over his head--and of course it would have to get caught on his glasses, how bloody predictable, and by the time he'd pulled it free and looked down Hermione was propped up on her elbows, shrugging out of her own shirt and her bra and pushing them off to one corner.

Then there was nothing for it but to lay his full length over hers and kiss her again, wrapping his arms around her and she hugged him back so hard he decided that breathing was terribly overrated, and suddenly he needed to roll over, taking her with him so that now she was on top of him and he could feel her weight as he kept kissing her, her hair getting caught, messily, between their faces but he didn't even bother spitting it out of his mouth as it tried to become part of their kisses, let it, he loved her hair, loved it when it was straight and shining and when it was starting to go frizzy at the ends, as it was now, and then he wanted to be on top of her again so he rolled over again, and now her hair really was getting tangly in between them, so he stopped and pushed it out of her face, and she was smiling and so was he, and he thought that he'd love to see her face above his again, but they were really out of rolling space in that treehouse unless they went back the other way. And that seemed just a little silly for some reason.

He saw Hermione bite her lip, still smiling. "You know, I was so concerned about making sure we were going to be careful tonight that I couldn't figure out how to make sure we were going to be comfortable, too. These boards are hard."

"Your dad did do a nice job on them; I don't think either of us is going to be picking splinters out of our bums."

"Maybe not, but still. I didn't want to be too obvious about it; I told Mum I wanted to show you the treehouse, so she knew why I was cleaning it up this morning. I think she expected us to be up to some serious snogging, but I could hardly tell her I meant it to be more than that. So I could hardly sneak sleeping bags and pillows out here, could I?"

"You could have apparated them, you mad girl!"

Hermione shook her head. "No, I couldn't have. They would have had to come from somewhere, and if I'd taken pillows out of our house, Mum would have noticed. Believe me, she notices everything."

"Well, then..."

Harry concentrated on the space next to him. Something began to materialize. It certainly appeared to be a sleeping bag. It was pink.

"Disney Princesses? Oh, Harry, didn't you learn anything from Dumbledore in Ireland?"

Sheepishly, Harry said, "It's this bloody treehouse, Hermione. I keep getting vibes of what you'd have wanted as a girl."

"Well, try it again. Something less girly."

Obediently--he didn't want Cinderella staring up at him either--he pointed at the sleeping bag. It did change... to a nice neutral navy blue...

...with trains on it.

Hermione snorted. "So now you're thinking of what I'd have wanted as a boy? And they all look like the Hogwarts Express."

"I'm Harry Potter, Hermione, not trainspotter. I haven't seen all that many of them to make a nice little collage for your sleeping bag." The trains faded.

"Much better. You told me your favorite color's blue, didn't you?"

"No." He reached out and put his hands on both sides of her face. "My favorite color's the color of your eyes."

"Urfff. That was a terrible line." But she was grinning as she said it.

Well, sometimes, even the truth didn't work.

But sometimes it did. She leaned in to kiss him, and shortly she was pulling him on top of her as she leaned back, the sleeping bag under her this time ("Mmmp--much better," she said as she lay down), and he went to continue kissing her nipples again, and she let him, but this time, he sensed a little impatience in her, and he said, "What?" and she said, "You think you're the only one who wants to kiss someone's chest?" And with that, she was sliding down until she had her head at the level of his breastbone, and he had to prop himself up on his hands, which were none too steady as she kissed him there, and there, and there, and she started licking his nipples as well, and he breathed, "Hermione..." because there was nothing else he could say.

Just before his arms gave out, which was surprisingly soon, given that he'd thought his upper body strength had been improving this year, he said, "My turn again--please?" hating to be selfish but fuck it, he was going to fall over anyway, and he pulled Hermione up and began to kiss her breasts again, and this time he didn't just lick her nipple, he pulled it into his mouth and caressed it over and over with his tongue, a little afraid he might hurt her--and Hermione could feel that too, that tenderness in him as he suckled her, that sweetness that made her heart break a dozen times a day when she was with him, made it impossible for her to think of him as her love without also needing him as her lover.

Harry didn't think there was much that could distract him from Hermione's breasts, but his hands were moving all along her exposed skin, and when the tip of his finger touched the hollow of her navel, it was as if an entire section of map had started glowing neon, pulling his attention from the YOU-ARE-HERE-ness of her breasts. With an odd little jerk of Oh, that's right--there's more, he moved his mouth to her belly, kissing his way around it, lingering on her navel like she'd jeweled it with some legendary stone that dazzled its beholder into abject worship.

His fingers were on the waist of her shorts. Somehow he knew it was all right if he didn't ask.

He unbuttoned them, eased the zipper down (thank god he didn't need lessons in that), but then went no further, not yet; instead he returned his fingers to her torso, to trace and touch, to divine and translate, to learn as much of her flesh as could be learned, given how mutable it was, how it changed with every sound from her throat, every breath from her lungs, and he felt all at once that what he was doing with his fingers, and what she was doing with her body, was conjuring, and he remembered that there was a lot of wizard poetry out there about what it felt like to fly, and what it felt like to perform magic, but that both of those subjects combined were utterly dwarfed by the sheer volume of poetry they devoted to love.

You're no poet, Potter, an inner voice said.

Perhaps not, but this was the girl who inspired him to remember biblical love poetry and understand it for the first time, rather than just a smarmy piece of dirty stuff to shock his loathsome relatives with.

His fingertips were just inside the open fly of Hermione's shorts, grazing the skin, finding the elastic band on the satiny material of her knickers. That did it.

Though Hermione had been right--Harry would have made himself stop anytime she asked him to--there was something animal that rose up in him now, feral and hungry, that abandoned any thoughts of love poetry and only knew that he needed to get her shorts off right now. And his jeans, too, yes, dammit, now.

His fingers hooked into the waistband of her shorts, starting to pull, and she lifted her hips to let him. The sight of Hermione's bare feet coming free of the shorts as she pulled her knees up to help--when had she kicked her sandals off? He hadn't noticed--made him feel like some primitive savage as he pitched her shorts into a corner.

But the sight of her immediately after that--naked but for her knickers, flesh- colored but lighter than her summer tan, looking up at him with her hands on the floor behind her--reminded him what a rare and wonderful thing he had here, and suddenly Worshipful Harry was back, but Harry didn't mind, he was loads better than Has No Clue What To Do Harry (who had made such blessedly short appearances tonight Harry figured he was about bloody due again), and so far Hermione hadn't seemed to mind him.

He gathered Hermione into his arms again, kissing her mouth, and now for some reason her hands weren't around him, they were curled around each other just at her throat, and he realized the shyness had just hit her this time, and he kissed her again, and again, careful to be gentle, and found himself saying, "If you really aren't sure..." - and astoundingly, it wasn't a thought that stabbed him to the heart; he wanted so much to make her happy, if they went no further tonight, he didn't think he was going to develop rogue Magid powers and go off and decimate a small town or anything.

But she shook her head, and opened her hands and now she did put her arms around his neck, and said, "No, it's all right..."

"Are you cold?"

"No." And he sensed that she was making herself be brave as she reached for the button on his jeans, but he also knew that for him to dissuade her was not what she wanted him to do, and so all he did was put his hand over hers as she undid the button and the zip, and then she followed suit in what he had done by returning to run her fingers over his torso, kissing his mouth, his chin, his chest.

It seemed to him he should get rid of his shoes soon, or he was going to look a right git trying to get his jeans off over them. He detached a hand from Hermione's shoulder to push at the back of his sneaker, sliding it off without bothering to untie it. As an afterthought he got the sock off as well; his jeans would come off over them, but he'd look equally stupid in just those and his briefs.

He repeated the process with his other shoe and sock. Then he shifted back from Hermione, to give him just enough room to start to shimmy the jeans down his own hips, then he got up to his knees to complete the process. And when he had them off, Hermione was on her knees in front of him, and they reached for each other at the same time, and as he kissed her, as they pressed against each other, he couldn't let himself shy away from letting his erection push against her belly, aware that it was a test of sorts: if she couldn't tolerate his doing it, if he couldn't, when they were both still partly clothed, then it would be time to reconsider what they were doing. But her hips didn't move away from his, though he wondered if she was making herself be brave again...but then, what did that matter, when he was doing the very same thing.

His mouth knocked against hers, clumsily. "I love you. I love you, Hermione. Tell me again if it's okay."

"It is. I love you, Harry, oh, I do..."

There was more, as they kissed, that she murmured, but it seemed more like another language, one that had a lot of soft consonants in it and was never meant to be spoken above a whisper. He wanted to get her underwear off, right now, but thought that it really should be him who finished undressing first; he wouldn't be changing his mind based on what he saw when Hermione was completely naked, but he had to make sure Hermione had even this last opportunity to say no.

He paused in kissing her long enough to say, "I'm going to finish getting undressed. Is that okay?"

Mutely she nodded, and he didn't move away any more than he had to to slide his briefs down--he didn't want to be bloody posing; the waist-down view of a seventeen-year-old boy was probably more interesting to other boys than it was to girls of a similar age.

But it was she who moved back a little more, to take in the view of him, naked on his knees. And yes, her eyes were lingering on his hips, but that was what he wanted, wasn't it? To have her not turn away gagging in disgust?

"Can I touch it?" she asked.

Harry let out his breath. "Actually don't take this the wrong way--please don't take it the wrong way, but I'm not sure you should," he finished shakily.

She gave a short giggle.

"Just--you know what I mean, I don't think I'll last too long if you--"

"I know."

"Can I touch you?" he asked, more out of a rising terror that he had to change the subject than anything, but meaning that too.

Hermione nodded.

Harry reached out between them. He touched the waistband of her underwear, and instead of pulling it off, turned his hand palm in toward her belly and slid it inside. He'd thought the hair there was supposed to be some curly tangle, but it seemed more a slick pelt, pressed flat against her lower belly by the material of her knickers. He moved his hand lower.

He was lost. No, it wasn't poetic, he was really lost.

Just tell them the truth.

"I'm not sure what to do," he whispered. "Will you show me?"

She bit her lip, and took a hold of his wrist. Pulling his hand back a little, she said, "D'you feel that?"

He didn't, but what mattered was if she did. "There?"

Her eyelids fluttered. "Oh... yes. That's--not quite so hard... yes, bett--oh..."

He stroked that spot, just the way she'd showed him, and suddenly her knees were trembling, he could feel it next to his own legs, and he put his left arm around her, and laid her back onto the sleeping bag, his hand still pressed against her, inside that thin layer of satiny material, still stroking. And Hermione tipped up her hips up toward him, and arched her neck back, and said "Oh..." again, and all he knew was that he had to hear that syllable come from her lips again, needed it more than air or light or life, and when he touched her mouth with his again they were these little pullings of his lips against hers, as though he could coax her to cry out again by just using his mouth on her mouth, though his finger still touched that spot between her legs, and whichever one it was, she was making tiny whimpering sounds, and they made him kiss her harder, stroke her faster--he wasn't quite sure that he'd call what he was doing stroking, it was such a small shift of his finger, to be having that effect on her--and he murmured, "Hermione..." against her mouth as if it were he who was the one writhing.

He heard her inhale so hard it was a note of music. "Stop for a moment--please, Harry..."

He stopped immediately--but he didn't take his hand away; god, he couldn't. "Am I hurting you?"

"No, just--where did you put my shorts?"

She sat up, took a hold of his wrist, and as she slowly drew his hand away, she kissed his mouth hotly, as if in compensation. Then she crawled the short distance to the corner where Harry'd flung her shorts.

Harry sat back and waited, trying to control his own breathing.

Hermione took a small square foil package out of the pocket of her shorts, left the shorts where they were, and crawled back to Harry. "I didn't ask about these last night because I knew I had them and I was too embarrassed to ask if you did,"she said, all in a rush. She held the condom out to him.

Instead of taking it, Harry reached up and put both of his hands around the one she was holding up, enfolding both her hand and the small package and kissing the tips of her fingers very lightly. "Hermione," he said, "what if I told you that my Magid abilities meant we didn't need that at all?"

"I would believe you," she said simply.

He took the package from her fingers. "And when your mum asks you if we're lovers, are you going to tell her we are?"

"If she asks, yes, probably."

"I thought so." He tore the foil package open. "Then what's important isn't whether you believe me, it's whether she will when she asks you if you're being careful."

Hermione remembered that she'd once thought of him as unperceptive. (Well, he'd been unperceptive.) When had that changed? She wanted to kiss him again but thought she'd better wait until he finished with what he was doing.

Harry got the condom out of its wrapping and wordlessly rolled it on. "Okay?" he said, looking at her.

"No--wait a minute, isn't there supposed to be... You're supposed to leave a little at the end, you know, for--"

"Oh-- hell." Nice one, Potter. On the other hand, she knew he hadn't done this before. "Sorry. Do I just--pull it down, or...?"

"No, I don't think you're supposed to, it might break. It's okay, I brought another, just in case--"

"Hermione..." Harry exhaled in a shaky laugh, reached for his discarded jeans. "I've got nine of them in my pocket."

Hermione looked at him. "You don't need them--because you're a Magid--but you brought them anyway?" And before Harry could read the expression on her face--was she angry that he'd presumed?--she said, "Oh, Harry..." and brought her fingers to his face and was kissing him all over again.

When she let go of him he was laughing. "I would have bought the whole section of the chemist's, if I thought it would have gotten that reaction."

They were both laughing now, at the image, and then he kissed her again, and she put her arms around him and held him to her, and he kissed her shoulder, starting to get lost in the taste of her skin, but before he did he said, "Give me a moment..."

He pulled another foil package from his jeans pocket. Before opening it, though, he carefully slid the first condom off. "We cannot forget to get rid of these."

"You're telling me?"

"Yes, because there isn't much blood going to my brain right now, Hermione."

"Well, then..." She extended a hand. "maybe you...should let me do that?"

He looked at her. For a terrifying moment he thought he was going to be shy again.

If I turn that one down, I might as well tell Voldemort to come and get me: there's no reason to go on living. He put the package in her hand.

He leaned back, propping himself up on his elbows, watching her. Hermione scooted forward a little, opening the package. He saw how she looked at him, and at the circle of rolled latex in her fingertips, and he knew she was thinking of the physics involved, and he thought, I am NOT going to lose control. I am NOT going to come getting the fucking condom on! I'm a bloody Magid, for fuck's sake...

No, he realized. Right now he was just a boy alone with a girl he loved, and she was carefully, very carefully, remembering his warning, sliding the thin sheath over his erect cock, and he watched her watching him as she did so, the look of innocuous concentration on her face enough to make him want to leap up and seize her, rip her knickers off and take her like a stud bull, and also to take her back into his arms and kiss her gently until she wept his name like salt water.

He compromised. When she was done he didn't let her fingers linger on him but sat up and pulled her down with him, kissing her mouth, and her temple, and her closed eyelids, and then he rolled on top of her. He took a hold of the elastic waistband, and she did that little hip-arching thing again so that he could get them off over her bum, and that alone almost drove him over the edge.

They moved against each other like it was driving them crazy that they couldn't get all of their skin to contact each other's at the same time: her legs were twining around his, and his arms went around her back and only then did he realize he was still clutching her discarded knickers in his hand, and he tossed them away, he didn't care where, and then he was tonguing her breasts again (had it really been that long that he'd been away from them? That was awful), and he felt her hand travelling over his hip as if to confirm that the muscles in his thigh connected with those in his torso somewhere, and his erection was against her belly and it was going to be too much, really it was, he had to make himself wait.

He slid to her side, his hand moving between her legs again. "Open for me, please," he breathed, hardly aware what words he was using, "I want to touch you again..." And she put her hand over his again, to show him where, because he still wasn't particularly experienced at this--it wasn't like the bloody bra catch--but his fingers remembered once she showed him, and he began to stroke that spot lightly, like the touch you surreptitiously give to a statue at the museum when you can't resist seeing if the marble is as smooth as it looks, despite the guilty thought that you probably aren't supposed to touch anything in the place, and she turned her face back toward his, her eyes closed as she shuddered against him, murmuring, "Harry..."

He pushed his fingers lower into the crevice of her; he couldn't help it. There was a wetness there that clung to his fingers, warm as she was; and again he thought that was going to be the end of his control, but he took a breath, and returned his fingers to the point she'd shown him and touched her there again, and again, and she moaned his name again, and then sighed, "Oh--stop now, please..."

He didn't ask if he was hurting her. "'Mione," he said, throat so dry he couldn't even get her entire name out, "I know--this is supposed to hurt the first time... if you want me to keep doing this first..." He hadn't had the courage to say instead, not at this point.

"No--no, it's all right, I know it's not going to be perfect, not the first time, but--"

"It's already perfect, Hermione. I love doing this. Do you want me to--"

But she shook her head, vehemently, so he could not miss it, and said, "No. You're ready. I'm ready. Do it now, please. Just--go slowly..."

And whatever powers Harry had, he was not going to be able to resist that. He pushed himself up, and spent a few awkward moments trying to configure his body around hers, finding that his first impulse to be straddling her hips wasn't going to work, he needed to be kneeling between her legs, and as much as he wanted to throw himself on her, he wanted to keep from hurting her, he needed to see what he was doing.

Instinct led him to the source of the wetness within the petals of her. But from there he was still no expert; Hermione reached her hand down to him and adjusted the angle at which he was trying to enter her, saying, "There..." - and suddenly the head of his cock was encased by her, and he knew he wasn't going to last much longer, but when he started to push forward Hermione inhaled sharply, though she didn't pull away, and he remembered what he'd been told of the two schools of thought when it came to female virginity: either get it over with fast or go as slow as you can, though the latter was said to be no better sometimes, just prolonging the agony; but he thought that if he just plunged forward and heard Hermione cry out in pain he'd never forgive himself, and she'd asked him to go slowly, dammit. If she bloody well changed her mind she'd tell him so; and so he waited, waited for her to become accustomed to the feeling of him just inside her, and then pushed a little further, only a fraction of a distance, and he told himself that if he didn't think he could hold back like this he would make himself think of fucking Quidditch, whatever it took, because she was breathing slowly, not completely at ease but nowhere near as tensed as she'd been a few moments before, and he moved inside her again, and said, "Okay?" and she nodded, reaching out to take a hold of one of his hands in both of hers and kissing it, and he put his other hand on her hip to brace himself, make sure he still didn't go too quickly, and he was inside her a little deeper, and deeper still, and suddenly she'd gripped his hand hard and a tiny little hiss came from her lips and she moved, not away, but against him, pushing her hips forward as if to be sure it was going to be done, that that pain wasn't for nothing, and he still did not let himself just plunge inside her but slowly, slowly eased himself within her until the front of his hips were moulded against her, and he almost crumpled on top of her, trying to get at her mouth with his even as he let his entire weight settle into his hips, into her, and Hermione folded her arms around him, pressing her hands into the small of his back, and he repeated, "Hermione, Hermione..." amazed at how wonderfully perfect it was that her name contained the syllable my.

And then he wanted to tell her that he was sorry, that it was impossible for him to wait even a moment longer, but he could no longer speak at all, and he pulled back and thrust once into her, and he heard her moan, and again he wanted to say sorry, but her knees were clasping him and he thrust into her again, and again, and the sound that came from his throat as he ejaculated was strangled and wordless, and he buried his face against her hair because it was the only thing to do at that moment, other than hold her and melt with her and drown in her.

And at about the moment when Hermione wondered if he really was all right, he was so still on top of her, except for his breathing, he moved his face to kiss hers, and shifted his body just enough to be able to slip his hand between them, without dislodging from inside her, and he touched her again, exactly right, with no need of correction from her, and began stroking, and this time she didn't need to make him stop, she could keep her arms around his neck and moan his name and murmur, "Faster, yes..." as he stroked her towards orgasm as well, the images in her head focused on more than just their entwined bodies, more explicit than she was going to reveal to Harry--at least today, especially the ones involving the leather--and she bit her lips together as she arched against him, whining behind her bitten lips as she came, clutching him so hard that her first words to him a few minutes later were, "Did I hurt you?"

She heard him snort laughter. "I thought that was my line."

"No--your shoulders, I mean."

"I hope you did." He lifted his head, smiling down at her. "I hope you left scars. That'll give them all something to talk about besides my bloody forehead." He bent and kissed her. "I love you, Hermione. I love you because you can make me laugh, and because you're the only one who makes me want to fight to be called a hero, rather than be mortified by it." They kissed again. Harry seemed to be unable to keep silent, as though he knew she needed to hear him be himself after the profound intimacy they'd shared. "D'you understand--I don't love you more after tonight, it's not possible, because I already love you so much I couldn't love you more."

"So... you don't want to do it again?" she teased.

"Well, I didn't say that. You don't think there's eight more condoms in my jeans pocket just because I was worried about factory defects, do you?" But he didn't make any move to withdraw. Instead he propped himself up on one elbow above her, pushed a strand of hair away from her face.

"When Draco comes to visit in three days, he's going to know right away, you know," he grinned.

"Wh--Harry!" Hermione laughed, but she couldn't keep the embarrassed sound out of it. "How's he possibly going to know that?"

"Hermione, look at this." Harry pointed to his own face. He was still grinning. If it had been on anyone's face but Harry's she'd have called it a stupid grin.

"This," Harry said, "is going to be my expression for the next bloody month, Hermione. You think he's not going to figure it out?"

"Oh, you." She kissed the grin. She would have thought it wasn't possible for someone to kiss back and yet still keep grinning, but Harry managed it.

Three days later, Harry was trying to get several of the tree's smaller branches to grow into a formation that would spell out HP + HG, when he heard a squeal from the other side of the house. It sounded like Hermione. It didn't sound like something drastic had happened, so he took his time walking around to the front.

There was Draco on the front lawn, his hands in Hermione's, who was chattering something at him delightedly. Surely he hadn't just apparated to the front yard of Hermione's house? This was a Muggle neighborhood, the stupid git...!

He shook his head. What was he thinking? This was Draco. He'd known; he just hadn't cared. Or rather, was making a point of showing that he couldn't be bothered to care.

More amazing discoveries, Harry thought. He was watching Hermione holding Draco's hands, thrilled to see him, and he didn't feel the least bit distressed.

His foster brother... god, now that was going to take some getting used to.

The two of them turned to see Harry standing there. Hermione gave him a smile that hit him right between the eyes--nope, nothing to worry about there, he thought - and turned quickly back to Draco, saying something else, giving him a hug, and then dashing toward the front door of the house.

He and Draco faced each other as she went inside. But Draco had been smiling back at Hermione, and the smile didn't leave his face... it just got a little sloe-eyed as he approached Harry.

"Potter," Draco drawled. "Found out something last week you should know: Dumbledore forgot to warn us that Magids should never order saganaki in a Greek restaurant. You wouldn't believe --"

He stopped.

Really looked at Harry's face.

"You son of a bitch," he laughed. "You two bloody did it, didn't you?"