CPOV

Light footsteps along the corridor alert me to an approach. Much too light for Aberforth, and I'm assuming also for any patrons of the Hog's Head. It must be her. A slight figure in a black cloak steps around the doorframe, the deep hood shadowing the face. As little hands throw it back, I'm confronted by the stunning fact that little Hermione Granger is now no longer little Hermione Granger. This Hermione is classically beautiful, milk-and-roses for colouring, a dusting of golden freckles like cinnamon powder across a straight little nose, and none of the frizzy schoolgirl that I used to know. I knew she would've changed, of course, but I never quite expected her to look quite so grown up. She must be sixteen - I'm sure I remember Ron saying she was the oldest of them all by some way, and Ron's had his birthday. I sent him a card for it. Then I'm recalled to my sense by Aberforth at the door, a big tray in his hands, containing a couple of sharing bottles of Butterbeer and one of Firewhiskey, glasses, and some food.

"I thought Hermione here might be hungry after her walk from the castle. So there's half a cold pheasant there and some bread, a pat of butter, and a chunk of cheese. Not much, but enough to fill the corners and keep the wolves at bay until your dinner."

"Thanks, Aberforth," she says, offering him a pretty smile. A pretty smile which seems to me to be positively indecent when she casts it on me when he leaves the room and shuts the door. "Shall I pour?" she offers.

"Please." She pours two glasses of Butterbeer and sets the bottle down with a clink.

"How have you been?" she asks me. "Any new burns?"

"Yes, here." I show her the most recent, a great purple one across my upper arm. "Courtesy," I say, grinning at her, "of Norbert. Or Norberta, as we must call her."

"So that dragon was a she all along," she muses, staring at the burn. "Did they Heal it up OK?"

"All well," I say grinning at her, and she smiles back.

"You'll have to learn to run faster," she says, smirking. It effectively breaks the last of the ice, and we share a laugh. "Shall I play mother and deal out some of this spread?"

"How's about I carve up the bird and you butter the bread and cut the cheese?" She acquiesces to this idea at once and lays the cheese on the bread slices as kind of open sandwiches. When we're both settled, I observe her for some time. At first she seems unconscious of it, but gradually her cheeks begin to pink up and I can tell that she's beginning to feel self-conscious. She's only picking at her food now. However, I keep looking, and I enjoy what I see most thoroughly. From being the fairly skinny little kid she was, entirely drowned in all that frizzy hair, she's become a real young woman. Soft curves grace her frame now, and there's something delicious about the regular sweater and jeans she has on, and something tantalising about how her breasts look so pert under the green wool. The colour suits her too, bringing out the cream of her skin and the colour of her lips. I notice that she wears little make-up, no layers and layers of powders and the other crap girls so frequently like to cover themselves in. certainly she has on that stuff that is put on eyelashes, but just a light coat, just enough to emphasize the length of those lashes. She looks almost delicate in her slenderness and yet there's strong character in the pretty face, and a determined lift to her chin which tells me she's a tough streak in her, if not downright stubbornness. I also get the feeling that she's doing some observing of her own from under those lowered lashes, and that she would have absorbed a great deal already.

Eventually, I decide to put her out of her unease - I've been scrutinising her for a good while, and as good as she's been about it, she must be fearfully uncomfortable by now. She's long since finished her meal, and is now playing uncomfortably with her glass of Butterbeer.

"So, Hermione," I say, conversationally, and she looks up, a quickly veiled leap of hope in her eyes. "Your request."

"Yes, my request," she says, quickly. "What do you need to ask?"

"Tell me what experience you've had on this scene." She colours a little, but there is nothing of the shrinking violet in her voice when she speaks.

"Not very much. First off, Harry and I have slept together. Several times. At first it was the usual sort of sex, you know." I raise my eyebrows. She accepts my challenge magnificently. "We were neither of us virgins, so it was a response to desire at first I suppose. We both needed physical release, so it all boiled to a head one day after we were tidying after a DA meeting. One minute we were putting away cushions, the next moment we'd looked at each other and then we were taking each other's clothes off and he was using his mouth to remarkable effect. I think Harry's a natural Dominant - even then, before we got a little experimental, he wanted to dictate the pace and I was perfectly happy to damn well let him."

"You speak of being experimental."

"Quite so. It came about quite unexpectedly. He had this detention with Umbridge, the foul toad. He came to me after, asked if we could speak. We went up to his dormy and he got me onto his bed, closed and warded his curtains, turned to me and told me he needed me badly and said I should take my clothes off, and I did. I had no idea what it was, but his being all commanding like that was turning me on like mad. The next thing I knew, he'd tied my hands to his bedposts with our ties and he was - well, I think the word feasting fits well. He issued orders, Charlie -" and I notice with interest her cheeks are flushed again, and I recognise the lust in her eyes with serious interest. It's stirring in me too. I can imagine her tied like that, spread out deliciously. "He told me to suck his cock and made me beg him to fuck me. And my sweet God, but I was deliriously pleased to obey him on the word. It was stunningly arousing, and it was the single most intense, erotic experience I've ever had. And the most mind-blowingly powerful orgasm. He was fearfully contrite about it the next day - after we'd both slept the clock round - but I told him we had to repeat the whole experience and that I'd rather like to explore the whole dynamic more. He was very pleased to do so. And I went off and researched a little and found out all about it. With regards to how experimental we've been together, really not very. He's spanked me a few times, and tied my hands a lot more, but never more than that."

"I see. So you've had no formal training?"

"None at all. I've picked up a few things through reading about it all, but I've no idea how much of it is accurate."

"Not knowing what you've read, I couldn't say."

"Mostly things like titles and descriptions of playrooms." She looks at me. "Should I be calling you Sir? I read that one doesn't call a Dom Master unless a contract has been signed and/or collaring has happened. Is that right?" I might have to see what she's been reading.

"It is, but you needn't call me Sir - at least, not yet. If I should agree to take you for training, then you would."

"Alright."

"So, Miss Hermione, did you like it when Harry spanked you?"

"I did," she says, softly. "Very much so." She bites her lip.

"Do you recall how that felt?" I ask her. Her eyes flutter closed for the briefest of moments. I sense I'm having an effect on her, and decide to ramp it up a few notches. I get up and go to stand behind her. I put my hands on her shoulders. "Describe it to me." I feel her tense under my hands.

"But -"

"Oh no, Hermione, no buts. I have to be absolutely sure that this is something you are really serious about and not just an experiment you're enjoying with young Harry."

"It was so deliciously painful. The sting of it first, then a burn of pleasure that spread from the point of contact. Wet," she whispers. "The burning would make me so very wet. And it'd throb - there. Sometimes I'd leave a patch on Harry's jeans and he'd say - he'd say that I was his little slut and that always made me moan and even wetter and it'd make me more aroused than ever." I keep my grip on her shoulders, and I can feel her quivering.

"And you want me to make you feel like that, you want me to train you to submit yourself entirely to so, so much more?" She nods, and I run my hands from her shoulders to circle her neck. I tighten my grip enough to make her gasp, and bend down so my lips are beside her ear. "Say it out loud."

"Yes."

"I don't work alone, Hermione. There would be someone else involved in your training." She gasps. "Does that excite you?" She nods again and also murmurs her response.

"Yes." I laugh quietly, and her eyes close. I hear her shaky inhalation, I stroke her neck gently. Her head falls back, baring her throat to me. I slide my hand around it, curl my fingers in to grip her gently. Her eyes are closed, her breathing is quick and shallow. Colour sweeps both cheeks. I want her. I want to have her here and now. There's something so delicious about her, something hypnotic and tempting. Something about her pulls me in.

"I work with Bill. He and I train Submissives together, give you two different styles, and give you far more pleasure than you could possibly imagine."

"Oh God." Her exclamation is all but silent, but I still catch it.

"I take it you'd have no objections?"

"No."

"Remember discussing titles with me?"

"Yes," she says, softly.

"Now you should call me Sir." She swallows, and her eyes flutter open and she looks at me with eyes that have gone very dark.

"Yes Sir." I move very quickly, pulling her from the chair at the same moment I walk from the back of it, and back her into the wall opposite. Her eyes are round and dark, and her cheeks flushed, and her breathing has quickened. I cage her in with my arms and deliberately close all space without getting close enough to touch her.

"Tell me what you're thinking, Hermione."

"I'm thinking I would like you to kiss me, Sir." I stare at her, and she drops her chin after a few moments. I hook a finger beneath it firmly and make her face me. I lean in, kiss her softly on the lips. I linger, but make no attempt to deepen it. She lets it happen, makes no attempt on her own behalf and when I move back, I nod approvingly. This time, when I lean in for a kiss, I deepen it, ask for entry, which she gives me willingly. Her mouth opens and her hands slide to my waist. I take the mass of half-up, half-down curls in my hand and grip firmly, using the other to take her neck again. Her response to my grip is to lean in, to seek for contact and I respond to that before I really think about it. I slam her against the stone work and yank her off her feet. She moans at it, and hooks her legs around my waist. Her hands are sliding through my hair, and she's deliberately pressing closer to me. I can feel the roundness of her breasts against my chest and I curve a hand around one of her thighs, yanking her closer to me. She gasps and her legs tighten.

When I manage to fully comprehend our situation, I rip my lips from hers and rest my forehead on hers. I make no effort to put her back onto the floor. She makes no attempt to get down. Her lips are swollen and her breathing is ragged.

"I'm going to put you down and you're going to pick up your cloak and you're going to go back to the castle. How you get your kicks once there is entirely up to you." She bites her lips. "If you stay, I'll have you, and right now I don't think that's appropriate. Not here, not now, not like this."

"But soon, Sir?" I smile at her words, and her eyes spark.

"Soon enough, don't you worry yourself about that. Bill and I'll write to you here, and I expect a timely reply."

"Yes, Sir." I lower her gently, and set her on her feet. She doesn't stagger or lose her footing, and crosses swiftly to her cloak. She swings it round her shoulders and fastens it, and now I see her shaking fingers. Not as composed as she's acting. Her quick, tempting smile is her last offering before she slips from the room and I hear her footsteps fading out.

I leave for Egypt and Bill that day. I demand to see him, and he comes out from the pyramid where he's apparently been wrestling with a particularly nasty curse. I raise my eyebrows.

"You do know you've got feelers?"

"I've had them for days. They're shrinking though, thanks to the medic. They'll be gone by Wednesday."

"Oh good, because I have a proposition for you, and it'd be helpful if you did not have the feelers."

"A proposition of what sort."

"Can you leave all this?"

"I can." He leads me away to the camp they've set up and leans down. He throws me a beer from the ice box at his feet and sits down on his desk. I take his chair and put my feet up. "So, what can I do for you?"

"Hermione Granger. That's what you can do for me. Agree to take her training with me."

"So, she finally got her head round it." In answer to my raised eyebrows, he grins. "Noticed when I met her over the summer. I was wondering if she'd notice and/or accept it. How'd she know to come to you - for I assume she did?"

"She did. She found my magazines in my room. And we can all be grateful it was her and not Mum. But regardless, will you?"

"Yes."

"Good. Had a feeling you would but obviously needed to check. You have time to draft a letter of instruction to her now?"

"Not right now. I have an appointment with the medic and I really do have to get back. Can you stay?"

"I think I should. You know what they say about Apparating that sort of distance in a day. Can you put me up overnight?"

"Yeah, I should think so. You don't mind the couch, do you?"

"I do not."

The next day, Bill helps me draft a letter to Hermione.

Hermione

A joint effort on behalf of us both. We have discussed you, at length, and we've decided to take you. To really get down to it, we do naturally expect you to commit to certain amount of time. At first, just evenings for two weeks, three nights out of seven. Then we'd need days and then we would work up to overnights and whole days. We'd discuss that. We also assume that you'll be going home to your parents for at least some of the holidays but that you will spend some time at the Burrow also. Please let us know which evenings and days work best for you. As you said to me, you've read up about this, so we're assuming there's some knowledge of what you like. We need you to be entirely honest about exactly what your experience is. Let us know these things by post.

Also, on Saturday at three, you're to meet us at the Hog's Head.

Bill and Charlie.

Her answer is stunningly prompt, literally by return owl, although she does give him a days rest.

Dear Sirs,

I hope that this is the right way to begin such a letter. I started twice, I was so unsure, but thought this was the best way. First, I must say thank you - although I would have sought another had you declined, I am very happy that it's you. I feel I can trust you both entirely.

Weeknights are best for me, although Sunday evenings are also good. My parents like us to eat out for dinner on Saturday's - as they see so little of me now my life is something they don't know or understand, it's our time to reassure each other that I'm still their Hermione. I don't think I would be able to offer you Saturdays when it came to spending days either. I'll be at the Burrow from mid-August, no exact date yet.

As to my experience - I've told Charlie a deal of it already. Harry and I have experimented with restraining my hands and spanking, blindfolding and gagging, but have gone no further. I figure by experience you also mean how many partners I've had and the answer is two. My first time was with Victor Krum in fourth year. The second was obviously Harry. I have engaged in oral sex before - and just to tease, if it isn't stepping over the lines, I love it. Not just taking but also the giving.

Hermione

P.S: Nearly forgot altogether, Saturday is fine. Also, gorgeous owl. I would have written yesterday, but figured you'd want the owl back and therefore gave him a little rest. H.

The next Saturday, we're waiting in the Hog's Head. She does not come, but at half-past three, Aberforth comes in looking his grimmest.

"Message from Hermione. Umbridge found out."

"Found out what?" I snap.

"Ah, so you never knew. Harry Potter and his little collection started a practical Defence class. Umbridge found them out yesterday, and in consequence, Dumbledore has quit the school. Umbridge is now entirely in control and Mr's Potter and Weasley and Miss Granger have been identified as the ring leaders. She sent this note, I'm sure it explains."

"Thank you."

Sirs,

I am so, so sorry. Aberforth will have explained that Umbridge caught us. Not only am I unable to leave the castle, it looks wildly unlikely that I'll ever be released from detention. I can only pray that you'll forgive me. She's watching the Floo network and intercepting every owl that leaves or enters the grounds. Please forgive me - I tried.

Hermione.