Chapter 1: Learning From the Werewolf

It was at a breakfast much like any other that a rather unexpected announcement was made in the Great Hall. Professor Dumbledore called for attention and a hush fell. Most of the school had been discussing the latest scandal, in a string of scandals in this otherwise relatively quiet year with no dark wizard sightings or Voldemort stirrings. Katie Bell and her boyfriend Lance Hastings had been caught in a broom closet by Professor Flitwick, who had been searching for a footstool to stand on. He had instead found himself face-to-genitals with Katie and Lance, mid-fornication.

The students now fell silent as Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"I am aware," he said, quite gently, "that the school year is well underway, as I can see by some of you buried under stacks of books and parchment, some of you with less than four hours' rest under your eyes, and some of you planning your next devious prank. However, I am standing here to announce that there will be a new subject at Hogwarts to undertake, for all students in fourth year and above."

There was a stir in the school, with many apprehensive mutterings. The last thing anyone—except Hermione—wanted was more work to do.

"The subject," said Dumbledore, "is one that is not to do with spells, and runes, and stars. Nor is it to do with sports, or potions, or fortune-telling. It is one that has more to do… with you. With your lives, as you grow from excited children to bright teenagers to confident young adults. The subject is, of course, ah, how best to say… The subject is, the subject that we all must learn eventually, the subject that without which we would, none of us, be here today, the subject that—"

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.

"—the subject that you will be learning is sex," said Dumbledore cheerfully, "and more particularly, safe, sensible sex. Which will, of course, not pertain to any activities in the castle, nor indeed while any of you are not of age. This is merely to prepare you for when you leave the school, find your partners, and perhaps start a family.

"Your classes have now been added to all your timetables. They will consist of one lesson a week, until the end of term. Thank you, and good day."

Dumbledore sat back down and the Great Hall came alive with conversation.

"Sex education?" said Ron through a mouthful of cornflakes. "Well, that sounds…"

"Like a good idea," Hermione chimed in, buttering her toast.

Harry shifted in his seat and drank some pumpkin juice. "Why?"

"Why?" Hermione swiveled around to look at him. "Harry, we're a co-ed boarding school with some of the most lax rules in the world. Hormones are high, the girls and boys dorms are right next to each other, and students have all sorts of ways of getting up to things without anyone knowing. The least the school can do is make sure, if they can't stop things happening, that people are going about it the right way. And that poor Professor Flitwick doesn't see anything else he doesn't want to."

Harry stirred his cereal vacantly, mumbling an agreement. He hadn't given the matter much thought either way. He vaguely knew what it was all about, based on some conversations with the boys, hearing things from older students, as well as his own experiences with, er, himself. He knew that he was probably more in the dark than most other teenagers his age. Indeed, some of the other 6th years were already active in that department, and some even younger students. But he, Ron and Hermione had almost never spoken of it. The it. It had simply never come up, and it wasn't a subject that Harry, at least, felt comfortable entering into.

"Sex," said Hermione, who was much more comfortable saying the word than Harry or Ron or even Dumbledore, "is going to be a part of our lives soon enough, whether we like it or not."

There was an unpleasant snigger behind them. Harry didn't have to turn around to picture Pansy Parkinson's face as she said, "Surely not yours, Granger. Or have you adopted someone else's body since last I saw you?"

Draco Malfoy gave a loud guffaw as he passed. "Maybe she's counting on Potter or the Weasel to help her on that end. Merlin knows it'd be the only action she could get."

Ron was becoming dangerously red, while Hermione's hands shook.

"Funny you say that, Malfoy," said Harry, still not turning around to face the Slytherins. "When was the last time you got any?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Professor McGonagall making her way through the Hall, presumably to prepare for her classes.

Malfoy was laughing again, and Pansy was giggling. "Oh, I've been getting it all. Anything they're going to teach us? They name it, I've done it. Just last night my girl was doing some howling in the Transfiguration classroom. But she wasn't howling to the moon, if you catch my drift Oh, yes, they don't call us 'Slytherins' for nothing; I've slithered my fingers right into her pussy—"

"Mr Malfoy!"

Malfoy and Pansy whirled around to face Professor McGonagall, who was glaring at the two of them over her glasses with shock.

Ron dipped his head to cover his snigger and Harry innocently scooped cereal into his mouth.

"A word, in my office, if you will?" McGonagall said, sweeping out of the Hall. "Both of you."

Malfoy leaned over Harry as he passed. "You're dead, Potter." But he and Pansy followed Professor McGonagall out of the Hall without any further conflict.

Unfazed, Harry took the jug of pumpkin juice. "Refill, Hermione?" he offered, and Hermione smiled gratefully at him.

"Thanks," she said, and he happily filled her glass.

It was strange, thought Harry, to be entering a classroom without textbooks, parchment, or quills. He had to wrestle Hermione's from her hands when she tried to bring them with her, in the afternoon after their last Potion's class.

"But," she said, trying to reach for her stationary, "we might need to make notes!"

"But we're not going to be tested on this," said Harry.

"Yeah," said Ron. "They're just giving us 'the talk'. We've all had the talk already, this is just going to be from McGonagall or Lupin, instead of our parents."

But Hermione was still trying to take her quill back from Harry. Luckily for her, his grip relaxed, and she was able to snatch it from his hand.

"You have had the talk, right, Hermione?" asked Ron, peering at her.

"Of course I have," said Hermione, quite dignified, but she didn't meet Ron's eyes.

"You haven't?!" Ron almost yelled, and Harry shushed him.

"Well," said Hermione, turning pink, "my parents don't think they have any reason to give me the talk, right? I could've just read about it like I read about everything else! Besides, it's not like I'm going to be putting any of this into practice anytime soon!"

Harry watched her carefully, knowing that she was embarrassed.

Ron looked dumbfounded. "So you don't know—I mean, you just turned seventeen, and you haven't learned about the—"

"Oh, I'm not oblivious, Ron!" snapped Hermione. "I know where things go and what they do and how it works. But it's the other things. The… details." And at this she shut up and didn't look at either Ron or Harry.

"I haven't had the talk either, Ron," said Harry, feeling the need to even the playing field, as it were.

Ron now whipped around to Harry so fast he heard his neck crick. "What? What about all those times we were talking about—"

"I was just playing along," Harry interrupted, before Ron could reveal just what they had talked about. "That's what I've been doing since I came into the Wizarding World. Just nod and smile and pretend I get what everyone else is talking about. Besides, I don't have parents to give me the talk, remember? And I don't fancy Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia ever even thought about giving it to me."

Ron seemed lost for words.

"Come on," said Harry, trying to defuse the awkward moment, "we're going to be late, we won't be able to sit at the back, out of the firing line." And he pulled Hermione along, leaving Ron to catch up behind them.

"The most important thing to know about sex," said Professor Lupin as he paced back and forth in front of the blackboard, "is that it is a natural and very human thing to want and even need to do, hardwired into our very DNA. I doubt sometimes whether even the most powerful witch or wizard can resist the, er, urge to fornicate, when the time seems right, and everything in their body is telling them to shed their inhibitions and allow the frisson of sexual energy to take them over."

Lupin tapped the blackboard with his wand and two—quite well done, incidentally—drawings appeared, one of a man and one of a woman. The man was facing the woman, his member engorged, sticking out from his midsection like a fifth limb.

Lupin cleared his throat. "Let us call these figures A and B."

Someone sniggered.

Lupin cast a baleful eye over the class. "Dean. Anything you'd like to share?"

Dean, leaning back in his chair, let it fall back on four feet. "No, Professor Lupin, sir."

Lupin tapped his wand against his leg impatiently, and Harry thought that he must rather be teaching anything but this. "Didn't think so. Now, figure A, obviously, is a man. Figure B, a woman. Figure A is in a state of arousal. So is figure B, but my drawing skills are rather limited and the female state of arousal is less eye-catching than the male one."

More sniggers, and some of the boys cast glances around the room, as if wondering which of the girls in the class might be hiding a state of arousal. Harry fixed his eyes on the blackboard, determined not to show any immaturity and disrupt Lupin's lesson more than it was about to be.

"Arousal may be brought upon by many things," Lupin continued, every word sounding as though he was holding in a deep, weary sigh. "But in the usual way of things, it happens when a couple is engaging in what we call foreplay. Yes, usually it starts with first base. Kissing. Snogging, making out, whatever you might like to call it. If things get, er, hot and heavy, it is a usual response for the pheromones in our body to send signals to our lower regions, sending blood flowing. In the men's case, causing the penis to harden and become erect, as you can see in figure A."

Harry looked sideways at Ron and Hermione. Ron seemed mostly uninterested, but slightly amused. Hermione was sitting upright, her eyes fixed on the chalk penis. Harry almost laughed at her expression of concentration, but restrained himself.

Lupin went on to describe, in great detail, how regular, heterosexual intercourse was done.

"Penetration may occur in a variety of positions. Through trial and error a couple may find out what works best for them. But the most important part of all this, is to find a way to safely undergo intercourse. What I mean by that is using your head. This head," Lupin added, tapping himself on the head with his wand. "Unless you're trying to have a baby, you need to practice contraception. You also want to make sure yourself and your partner are clean, in other words, without disease."

Lupin described the methods of contraception. Muggles, he said, normally used what they called condoms, placing it on the penis so that it was covered when it entered the vagina, and the sperm was prevented from ejecting itself into the womb and fertilizing an egg. "But witches and wizards," he said, "have a spell which does the trick, as long as it's done effectively. This is a spell that forms—for lack of a better word—a magic sheath, which can be done either on the man or woman, creating an intangible barrier between penis and vagina that blocks out the sperm but otherwise does not affect intercourse. This spell can also, of course, be used between same sex partners, and has the effect of preventing the spread of any disease, and keeping the sensitive areas clean. Another method used for heterosexual contraception is a spell which neutralizes the sperm, however, if done incorrectly, this spell can cause permanent sterilization: meaning you may never have children. Therefore it is widely recommended to use the sheath spell: the incantation of which is as follows: operir virgam!"

Several students repeated the spell, which caused Lupin to smiled lightly. "Yes. That's it. But you won't be needed it for quite some time."

There were several knowing chuckles and Lupin closed his eyes briefly in resignation. "Are there any questions?"

Nobody seemed to want to raise their hand, not even Hermione. She was biting her lip and still staring at the blackboard, which Lupin had changed to a drawing of the man penetrating the woman, her legs wrapped around his hips.

Lupin gave a sigh that clearly said, thank God. And he clapped his hands. The blackboard cleared, and he put his wand away. "Well, then, that concludes this lesson! We managed to cover quite a lot, so we may not have a lesson next week. I shall see you all in Defence Against the Dark Arts Monday morning. Have a pleasant weekend."

And Lupin swept out of the classroom as if chased by Voldemort himself.

The class broke out into hushed conversation as they all stood up to go. Seamus remained seated, staring blankly at the blackboard, seemingly struggling with something.

Hermione had stood up very fast, and was almost at the door by the time Harry had picked up his bag.

"Wait up!" he called, and she allowed him and Ron to meet her in the hallway.

"That wasn't very good, was it?" said Ron grumpily, as they headed down for dinner.

"How do you mean?" asked Harry, surprised, because he himself had learned loads from Lupin's—admittedly awkward—lesson.

"That was all the basic stuff, wasn't it?" Ron explained. "I thought we'd be learning stuff like, how to go down on a girl, or how to last longer in bed, or what to do when you have… wand malfunctions. Not—'snogging makes you hard', 'penis goes in vagina', 'don't have sex when you're a teenager or you'll get pregnant and die'."

Hermione harrumphed irritably and Harry shrugged, not knowing what to say. He supposed none of this was new to Ron, who had undoubtedly been taught all this by his parents, and probably his older brothers.

Dinner in the Great Hall was a noticeably more raucous affair. Everybody seemed to have found their respective sex education lessons wildly amusing. Several of the boys kept catcalling for no apparent reason. Some Hufflepuff girls were attempting to cast the contraceptive spell, creating shimmering silver sheathes over their sausages. One pair of Ravenclaw students were pretending to have intercourse at the entrance, gyrating against one another in a greatly exaggerated manner. They were quickly swept away by Professor McGonagall, while Professor Flitwick stood far away, looking as though he was having flashbacks to a very savage, traumatic war.

Harry felt discomfited by the whole thing. He didn't find it funny at all. Quite the contrary, he did want to know more; like Ron had said, now that he knew all the basics, he was eager to learn more about what it was like to actually put it into practice. Not that he would have an opportunity to. He didn't have a girlfriend. He and Cho had never even got past kissing, and he had never found himself aroused when they had done in the past. He had never even seen a naked girl, either in person or in a photograph.

He knew what they must look like; he had pictured several of the older Gryffindor girls naked before, a thought which even now made him feel ashamed of himself. But what was the harm, just picturing them, if he never told them or acted on it? But perhaps what he needed to do was act on these thoughts, if he was ever going to put into practice what Lupin had taught him.

He thought, for a moment, of writing a letter to Sirius and asking for advice, then thought better of it. Sirius would probably have too much to say. He would probably also tease Lupin incessantly about his new 'subject'.

"What's the matter with you two?" Ron complained, having finished his meal, and his second helpings. "I like a chat while I eat, and you haven't said a word."

"Sorry," said Harry guiltily, "just tired. Long week, I think."

Hermione hastened to agree. "I might call it an early night," she said, wiping her mouth, though she had barely eaten.

"But it's Friday," said Ron. "We haven't any class tomorrow, we can sleep in!"

"Just because it's the weekend," said Hermione, "doesn't mean I want to stay up all night partying and sleep all of Saturday away. In case you hadn't realized, we've got exams coming up soon."
Ron waved his fork dismissively. "We've loads of time to prepare for those."

Harry shrugged, as he was want to do when Ron and Hermione disagreed. Ron grunted in disappointment, and reached for the pudding.

"Would've thought you'd have loads of books about this stuff," said Ron to Hermione.

Hermione looked at him. "About pudding?"

"No," said Ron through a mouthful of treacle. "Sex."

Hermione drank some juice. "No," she said. "What do you think I do, go to Flourish and Blott's and pick up every erotic novel and dirty magazine off the shelves? Besides, all the books on sex in the library here are in the Restricted Section, and Madam Pince is very strict about those. I don't think she's given any to a single student in all the time we've been here."

Ron looked at her shiftily. "Bet she'd give them to you; you're her star patron. Hermione Granger, wanderer of the shelves, purveyor of the literary art, devout apostle of the written word."

Hermione managed a short laugh at that. "I don't think so. She probably just keeps them for herself, or for the teachers, if any of them need anything to, er, ease the stress, so to speak. I reckon Snape could use a dirty magazine or two, maybe it'd make him less miserable and he'd stop taking out his frustrations on us."

Ron groaned loudly. "Why'd you go and put that thought in my head for?" He let his fork clatter onto his plate. "That's it, let's go up to the Common Room. I feel sick."

Harry and Hermione followed Ron to the Common Room, barely talking.

The Gryffindors were up late that night. Fred and George were giving their own version of a sex education lesson, conjuring up magic drawings in mid-air of penises and breasts, making them dance in very suggestive ways. The twins didn't seem to mind that they were being made to repeat their final year and earn more NEWTS. Quite the contrary, they seemed to revel in the opportunity to do even less work than before.

Ron excused himself very early on to go upstairs. Harry and Hermione sat together on the couch by the fireplace. Hermione leafed through a book while Harry watched Fred and George's floating penises having a spectacular sword fight, silver sprays erupting from their ends with each strike.

Harry tried to start a conversation with Hermione, but she was very focused on her book, and wouldn't let him see what it was she was reading. After half an hour, he gave up and went to see where Ron had got to. When he opened their room door, there was the sound of someone scrambling around in bed. He entered, and saw Ron sitting behind his hangs, a pillow in his lap, a magazine in his grip. He hid the magazine behind his back and looked up guiltily at Harry.

"What're you doing?" said Harry curiously. "Thought you'd be joining Fred and George making dicks float about."

Ron had turned quite red. "Just doing some reading," he said.

Harry, now very suspicious, said, "Oh. Hermione would be proud."

Ron was casting about the dorm. His eyes locked behind Harry. "Hey, mate," he said, "would you mind getting my robes from the bathroom? Think I left them in there."

As he was already up and had nothing else to do, Harry shrugged and went into the bathroom, as per Ron's request. He didn't find Ron's robes there, however. Returning to the dorm, he found Ron now standing up.

"Not there," he told him.

"Oh," said Ron carelessly, "that's odd." And he walked past Harry without a word and headed back down the staircase.

Befuddled, Harry peered around Ron's hangings to observe his bed. The sheets were wrinkled as though he had been moving around a lot, and his pillow still lay close to the bottom of the bed. His trunk, by the side of the bed, was partially open. A page of a book was sticking out of it. On a whim of boredom rather than an urge to help Ron keep his things tidy, Harry reached down to push the page back in, but instead, a sleek magazine slipped right out of the trunk.

He picked it up and made to open the trunk and throw it in, but he stopped, looking at the cover. Busty Witches was written on the top in red writing, and right under that was a photograph of a very attractive, curvy witch in very revealing lingerie, touching a hand to her lips and blowing a kiss at the camera, bending over in a suggestive manner.

Harry stared at her, his eyes roving down her body.

The door swung fully open and her started, clutching the magazine to his chest.

"Oh, hi, Harry!" said Neville. "Having an early night, too?"

Harry tucked the magazine into his robes and turned around. "Er, yeah, Neville," he said, making a show of stretching and getting into bed. "Goodnight, mate."

Harry lay down, trying to think of a way to slip the magazine back into Ron's trunk without Neville seeing, but just then, Dean and Seamus entered, talking loudly, declaring they were going to play some chess in the dormitory. Harry groaned silently; there was no way he could return the magazine now. He would have to wait until everyone was asleep.

He put his hands into his robes and felt the sleek magazine there, against his chest. He lay in bed, listening to Dean and Seamus arguing, hearing Neville tossing and turning, and the muffled party from downstairs. His mind went to the busty witch on the cover, and to the diagrams Professor Lupin had showed them today. Something came over him, an improper sort of excitement.

Well, why not? he thought.

Greetings fellow witches and wizards!

Sorry for being away from the fanfiction world for so long. As you can tell, this fic is going to be decidedly more adult. Explicit content and language will be included. I hope that's okay! And I hope you will indulge my amateur attempts at eroticism. As you might expect, I own nothing in this fic but my own words. All the characters and the world belong to J.K Rowling.

It was intriguing to me that Hogwarts has no form of sex education. And of course we never saw a hint of sexual activity going on while Harry was at school. But there undoubtedly was…

Please follow the fic if you'd like to see more, and I will hopefully see you in the next chapter!