Hermione Granger was getting a bit grumpy. She had chosen to take another voluntary course on top of her classes, Anatomy. Madam Pomfrey was a surprisingly demanding teacher, and without the help of the Time-Turner, the new subject had quickly reduced the hard-working student's free time to a minimum. Sitting cross-legged on her bed, she scratched her back that was aching badly from all the books she carried up the stairs to the Gryffindor bedrooms. Human Anatomy, a Short Introduction by Dandras Lesavio alone weighed more than her cauldron. Her essay about functional arm musculature, due tomorrow, was slowly coming together by the scribe of the Quick-Quotes Quill she had enchanted to match her actual handwriting. There just wasn't enough time to switch between reading and writing if she wanted to get anything done by midnight. Her roommates were already fast asleep, so she had put a silencing charm around her bed to not disturb them with her voice.
"The triceps brachii is an antagonist of the biceps and brachialis muscles, and an extensor muscle of the elbow joint…", she dictated to the Quill, which quickly scratched the words onto the long parchment next to her. She groaned and let herself fall backwards into the sheets, her bushy brown hair sprawling around her tired-looking face. She had just remembered that Madam Pomfrey had requested drawings of each muscle group, too. "I can't just copy the drawings from the book. What should I do?" Hermione was pretty good at drawing if she had a live model. Maybe she could just use her own arm? She sat up and unbuttoned her right sleeve to pull it up to her shoulder. Looking at her lean, pale limb, she didn't expect much when she flexed her muscles. Predictably, while she could see that something was moving below her skin, a triceps brachii was almost impossible to identify. Also, it wasn't easy to turn the lower side of her arm into a good perspective - her attempts were starting to look a little stupid. "All of these years I've been carrying books around, and my arms still look like a house-elf's", she thought and let out a long sigh. "If I had muscles like Ginny, I'm sure I could easily draw them."
Her eyes suddenly widened. "Of course!" She jumped out of bed and quietly walked over to the bed of her athletic friend. Ginny Weasley was sleeping under her beloved broomstick and a picture of her favorite Quidditch team, the Holyhead Harpies (who were snoring quietly in the grass of the field now). She had fallen into her bed early tonight after a long day ending with Quidditch practice, and was breathing peacefully into her cushions. Hermione hesitated for a second, but she knew that Ginny was the kind of person who was always there for her friends - they had been through a lot together already. So she sat down next to the bed, and put her hand on the girl's elbow.
"Ginny?" she whispered. "I'm sorry to wake you up, but I need a favour."
The ginger head moved into the cushions, muttering disapprovingly.
"What is it, 'mione?"
Hermione opened her mouth, but didn't find the right words. She had suddenly realized how ridiculous her request would seem to Ginny in the middle of the night. But how could she back down, now that her friend was awake?
"I, erm, just need some help with an Anatomy essay…"
Ginny sat up in her bed, blinking and rubbing her brown eyes.
"You? Help? From me?"
While Ginny wasn't a bad student, she was usually the one to request help from the smarter, senior girl, and her miniscule knowledge in exotic subjects like Anatomy were certainly not helpful either.
"I am not Dandruff Visageo, you know?" she yawned.
Hermione smiled. "Well, it's not really your brain that I need. I have to do some drawings of human muscle groups. Of the arm, actually. And…"
"…and you didn't think of asking Cormac to flex for you?" Ginny interrupted her in a sleepy, slightly annoyed voice.
"Are you mad? I don't want him to think that I want to…oh. Very funny."
Hermione hadn't expected Ginny to be so cunning in this state, but she was clearly enjoying this a bit.
"No, Ginny. I just need somebody with visible muscle tone, and you're much more trained than I am."
"This is a very weird request, but I'll gladly pose for you", the tired girl said. "You're in luck, I did a lot of strength training this afternoon. They should still be pretty pumped."
"Pumped?" The well-read student had never heard the term in that context.
"You know, when you work out a muscle a lot, and it gets all thick and sore?"
She was looking into blank eyes. The bookworm didn't seem to have any experience with muscle training.
"Ah, never mind." Ginny stood up, stretching like a cat. She quickly changed from her night gown into a sleeveless dark red girly shirt, and followed her friend down the stairs to the common room.
"I wouldn't mind if Harry would show such interest in my body, you know?" she whispered teasingly to Hermione, who was blushing. She had brought her parchment and drawing quill.
"I…I'm sure he likes strong girls. And you're even stronger than Cho…"
"Definitely. And less annoying. Now, let's get this over with. What do you need to draw?" Ginny yawned again, using the back of her hand to cover her mouth, involuntarily flexing her upper arm in the process.
"Hold that pose!" Hermione demanded, and quickly moved a chair in front of her surprised friend. "That's perfect. Keep your biceps tensed."
Ginny was blinking in surprise. "Uhm, okay?" She looked at her arm. The bulge of the biceps on her long, normally slim arm was impressive, about the size of a small apple. She smiled happily at it and flexed her muscles a bit harder to reveal a few more details of her athletic musculature.
Hermione was delighted. "My gosh, Ginny. You're amazing!" Her eyes quickly dashed back and forth between the parchment and her model. "I think I never saw you really flexing your arms like that."
Ginny blushed a bit, which was rare, but she couldn't help to feel a bit proud of her body. "Well, girls aren't supposed to show off their manliness."
"Rubbish. It looks really good on you. Most boys would be jealous." Hermione was drawing as fast as she could, working with a very focused expression.
Ginny noticed the open sleeve on her friend's white blouse. "Why don't you get in shape yourself? I'm sure it would look good on you, too."
"I don't think I'm the type. But I'm doing exercises in the morning…well, on some days, at least."
"Let's change that to every day. It's more fun if you do it together", Ginny suggested.
"That could work. But I don't think I will develop muscles like yours anytime soon. Keep them like that for a few more seconds, please. I'm almost done, I promise."
Ginny's arm was actually starting to hurt a bit, but she made sure to keep her flex as static as possible. "Don't worry, I can do this all night."
For a while, the only sound in the room was the scratching of the quill in Hermione's hand. Ginny sat upright and waited patiently, feeling the increasing pain in her muscles that had started to tremble a bit. Something about the whole situation was giving her a warm feeling…
"Done!" Hermione announced and turned the parchment over. Ginny shook out her arm and raised an eyebrow at the drawing. "Aren't you exaggerating the definition a bit?"
"Definition?"
"Never mind. Was that it?"
"I need a picture of your triceps and your forearm, too. Do you know where…"
"Triceps, huh?" Ginny turned around and stretched her fist down, making her slender triceps jump out from the back of her arm. "Like that?"
Hermione's eyes sparkled delighted at the sight of the well-developed muscle. "Excellent. You're probably the strongest witch in the school."
"Muscle definition doesn't equal strength, Hermione. I'm just skinny."
"Indeed, skinny and muscular. Hold tight, I'm drawing as fast as I can…"
"Why didn't you use an Engorgement Charm on your own muscles, by the way?"
"Oh, that would have made me look like a bodybuilder, or worse. The charm grows the target exponentially."
"Exponentially?"
"Never mind. It's a good idea if you want to look like Crabbe." Hermione stopped drawing. "But I think there was a variation spell in the appendix of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4…"
"I will just wait here if you want to go to the library", Ginny suggested.
"Ah, sorry." The student went back to her task, drawing the outlines of the triceps muscles on her model's arm. "If you fall asleep, I can Levitate you back to your bed."
"If you would work out a bit more, you could carry me instead."
"I don't recommend it. Victor did that with me once, banging my head against one of the suit of armour in the gallery. He could be quite a klutz, actually", she giggled.
When she had finished her second drawing, Hermione asked Ginny to stretch out her fingers and flex the muscles in her lower arm, which she did.
"You're really good at this, Hermione", Ginny noticed.
"Making my friends do funny things for me in the middle of the night?", she smirked. "I guess I had a lot of practice in the extra Herbology courses last year."
"How did you end up choosing Anatomy anyway? Is that even related to magic?"
"I just think it's interesting and helpful to know more about the human body, especially for healing magic. But I have to admit, it's pretty dry so far."
Ginny bit her lower lip when her arm started to ache from the constant flex. It was hard to hold, as she really had to tighten her muscles to the limit to make them stand out clearly through her pale skin. But she didn't want to disappoint her friend.
"Impressive, Ginny. I can see all the extensoris carpii, even the digiti minimi…"
"I'm sure they will be happy to hear that…if they don't rip apart before you're done." Ginny said in a strained voice and clenched her teeth.
Hermione nodded and hastily sketched the outlines of the flex that the girl was holding. It was much more detailed this time.
"There are over twenty muscles in the human arm alone, you know?"
"I am feeling it right now", Ginny grumbled.
"I'm done, thank you so much!"
Ginny groaned and gripped her arm, that had really started to throb with the unfamiliar tension.
"I'm happy that I could help you…ugh. That last one was a bit of a torture", she said and tried to massage her muscles a bit with the fingers of her other arm. "But then again, holding onto a broom with one hand is not easy either, so I guess I just have to train more", she winked.
"Let's go to bed. I can add the muscle names tomorrow morning."
They moved back up to their dorm. Hermione couldn't help glancing at Ginny's arms when she walked in front of her. The bulges had mostly vanished, but she could still see the muscles shift under the skin whenever Ginny moved her body.
This image was still in her head when she was back in her bed, staring at the ceiling.
"I wonder how her muscles feel like. How it feels to have muscles like that", she wondered, and closed her eyes with a smile.