Harry brushed his teeth doubly hard that night. He wanted to make sure to remove the after effects of all the beer he had drunk with Hermione's father, which were far easier to shift from his tangy mouth than his foggy head, which was still a bit wobbly and fragile. It must have been something to do with sitting with a dentist all night, Harry reasoned, that oral hygiene had suddenly thundered to the top of his agenda.

Chuckling to himself, Harry switched off the tap and dropped his toothbrush into a little glass with a light tinkle. Then he had a light tinkle, washed his hands as the toilet flushed, and marvelled that the water swirled the wrong way down the plug hole on this side of the world. That was very strange.

But not nearly as strange as the sight which greeted him upon leaving the bathroom.

"Hermione? What are you doing?"

She was lounging, lithe and sylphlike on his bed. She was wearing the satin, periwinkle blue camisole nightdress Harry had bought for her in Canberra on her birthday. It was far too figure-clinging and revealing for her to model it for him, he thought.

But here she was, draped like a goddess over his bedsheets in nothing but it.

Harry blinked at the newness. He'd never been jealous of bed linen before. But there it was. Then he realised he couldn't see properly, and it was nothing to do with the residue of the alcohol still swirling around in his brain. He reached for his glasses.

"Leave them off," Hermione purred.

"But I'm practically blind without them," Harry argued.

"You've seen my face enough to know what I look like," Hermione whispered sultrily, slipping off the bed towards him.

It's not your face I'm interested in right now! Harry thought to himself. He felt his pulse speed in his neck. He noticed how his skin was prickling with heat.

"How did you even get in here?" Harry asked through his arid throat. "I locked the door."

"I'm a witch, Harry, I have all sorts of special powers," Hermione replied, still retaining that vampish lilt to her voice. Harry shivered as each sexy syllable kissed its way along his earlobe.

By now Hermione had reached him. Harry drew a sharp breath as her fingernails softly caressed his chest. A chest he suddenly remembered was bare. After all, he hadn't been expecting company.

"Hermione!" Harry protested weakly. He tried to back away, but his legs had picked that exact moment to decide not to work anymore. "I'm only in my boxers here!"

"It's nothing I've not see before," Hermione breathed. "They're no different to swimming shorts."

"Fair enough, but I can please put my glasses on at least? I feel so exposed."

"I just want you to relax, Harry. We have a long flight home in the morning and I want to make sure you're feeling refreshed tonight. And you don't need to see for that ... just feel."

"Feel?"

"Mmm-hem," Hermione confirmed. "Come to bed."

"Wha? Come to bed?"

"Oh, silly me," Hermione giggled in an oddly girly way. "I meant come to the bed."

"Oh, that makes more sense."

Hermione took Harry's hand in her own, maddeningly soft palm, before leading him gently to the king-sized mattress at the centre of the room. She eased Harry down into the middle of the bed, then moved behind him. She sat very close, with her thighs straddling his own. Harry's mind went into a frenzy, tickled by the softness of the satin nightgown on his electrified spine and the even softer brush of Hermione's moon-cool skin against his white-hot own.

"I'm just going to give you a massage," Hermione whispered, her warm breath on his ear causing Harry to erupt all over with spiky tingles. "I'll start with your head, then move down to your arms, your chest, your back, legs, and finally finish at your feet. Sound good?"

"Sounds amazing," Harry whispered back. "And when you're done, can I do you?"

Hermione leant her head in close. Her wild hair prickled against Harry's exposed neck. It was all he could do not angle it for better access.

"We'll see how good a boy you've been to earn that."

Harry swallowed as though it were his last breath.

"Alright ... pumpkin," Hermione continued breathily, her warm air still caressessing Harry's ear. "Are you comfortable?"

At that moment Harry struggled to define the word comfortable. But he knew that neither hell nor high water would drag him away from this exact spot, so he thought he'd better nod an affirmative to Hermione's question.

"Good," Hermione murmured lowly. "We're going to start with a few deep breaths. I want you to fill your lungs to the count of four, hold it till seven, then release by the time you reach ten, okay? I'll breathe with you."

Harry felt a smooth hand snake ticklingly under his armpit and across his chest. With almost imperceptible movements, Hermione eased Harry back into her body. He bit his tongue as he felt the spongy weight of her unhindered breasts flatten against his shoulder blades.

"Okay. Breathe with me," Hermione hushed into his cheek, for her head was resting on his shoulder now, her lips brushing lightly against his jawline as she spoke. "Breathe in, be aware of your breath, focus on it, then let it go. Pwwww. And relax."

Relax? Harry felt inert! Being relaxed was a more stressful state than he was in. This was blissful. He felt his chest rise and fall with Hermione's, where it was pressed flush against his back. They were in complete unison, total rhythm. It would have been impossible to tell where one finished and the other began. There were a perfect symbol of infinity in that moment.

"Okay, that's good, Harry," Hermione breathed. "Now we're going to start with a head and face massage. Just relax, sit still and enjoy it."

"Yes, Miss," Harry replied dreamily.

Hermione's fingertips began to roll in circles on Harry's temples. Her touch was angel-soft, and Harry was powerless to prevent a sigh of contentment from leaving his throat. Then Hermione began adjusting Harry's eyebrows, rubbing gently between them as a sinus drainer. Harry felt like she was soothing a headache he didn't realise he had.

The pads of Hermione's thumbs ran up Harry's jaw and cheekbones next. She hesitated teasingly at the corners of his mouth and the top of his chin, tantalisingly close to his lips but purposefully leaving them devoid of her touch. Harry might have felt sleepy, if it wasn't for the fact that his body was more alive than it ever had been in his entire life.

And then ... Hermione traced a finger delicately up his cheek ... and ran it the entire length of the lightening-shaped scar on his forehead.

"Oh!" he gasped breathily in surprise. The Dark Magic which had caused it would ensure the scar tissue would never be fully repaired, and it was tender and sensitive still. But Harry had never had it touched like this before. He turned his head involuntarily into Hermione's caress.

"Is that okay?" she whispered.

"It feels like healing," he mumbled back, his eyes closed in contentment as he rubbed his head against Hermione's fingers.

She continued to smooth the jagged line for a few moments longer, before moving up to Harry's hair. She began to thread her fingers rhythmically through his messy locks, which were still a little bit wet from his earlier bath.

"I'm going to give this a quick brush," she hummed to him, letting his hair flow from her wrist to fingertips in soporific cycles. Harry nodded his compliance, but he totally under her power anyway.

Hermione conjured a brush from somewhere, but before it even touched Harry's hair, she held it close to his ear, first the left side then the right, and lightly drummed her fingernails against the wooden reverse side. The tap, tap, click, click so close to his ear made Harry burst out in yet more of those wonderful tingles. They popped all over his skin, thrilling his body from his head to his toes and everywhere in between. It happened again when Hermione ran her hands slowly and deliberately against the teeth of the brush on the other side.

"What are you doing to me!" Harry breathed in euphoric helplessness.

"It's all part of the massage," Hermione whispered back, her mouth so close to his head that Harry could have sworn her teeth grazed his earlobe. His body exploded with another wave of those shuddery, prickly sensations, so much so that Harry felt as if he was being electrified.

"Now, lie back," Hermione encouraged, easing Harry into a face-down position on the bed.

Utterly powerless to resist, Harry went where he was guided. Then Hermione's fingers found the old Triwizard wound on his shoulder blade.

"You have so many scars," she winced lowly, as though hurting for him, as though his wounds were her own. "I should never have let you face that dragon."

"Without you, it would have killed me," Harry reminded her. "I'm lucky that all I have is a scar to show for it."

"Lucky isn't the word I'd use," Hermione muttered. She traced the outline of the Hungarian Horntail's assault with that gossamer-fine touch of hers. Harry trembled as she did so. "Okay. I'm just going to do a quick assessment of your body."

"And what are you looking for?"

"Areas of bad energy," Hermione replied softly. "And when I find them I'm going to pluck them out and flick them away."

For some reason, she delicately enunciated the clucking sound at the end of each pluck and flick, inflecting them upwards as she carried out her 'assessment'. Harry felt the effect travel through his body as though Hermione had licked the length of his spine. Now what in the hell was that all about?

"The only problem is we have a barrier," Hermione purred vapidly. Then Harry felt her snap at the elastic of his boxer shorts. "These are in the way. I'm going to need to take them off."

"Hermione!" Harry protested shrilly. "I'd be naked then! You do realise that?"

"Of course, but how can I give you a full body massage while you are still covered?" Hermione asked, fairly but in the sexiest voice Harry had ever heard from her. "I need to get your gluteus maximus when I get down that low."

"Well, it is the biggest muscle in the body," Harry accepted reasonably.

He lifted his hips slightly, and Hermione slipped his underwear clean off in one movement ... almost as if she'd done it before. Hermione shifted position to lift her thigh over Harry's body, straddling him just above his buttocks.

Then Harry felt a tangled mass of slightly moist hair scratch against the base of his spine. With a shock of understanding, Harry realised that Hermione wasn't wearing any underwear, either.

This new knowledge sent Harry's mind into cartwheels. He could focus on little else. Not when Hermione began gently squeezing his shoulders, not when she conjured warm oil from somewhere and began dripping it mercilessly along his overworked spine, nor even when she began running first a feather and then her own hair with tantalising slowness over his searing hot flesh.

His mind was in one spot, on that warm triangle pressed firmly into his lower back.

Then Hermione leaned in low and spoke again. "Turn over, Harry."

"I don't think I can," he moaned back.

"Turn over."

"No, seriously, Hermione," Harry begged. "I cant! Please!"

"I know exactly what state you are in on the other side," she purred softly. "At least, I hope you are in that state, if I've worked you up right. I want you to be like that, Harry, so there's no need to be embarrassed. Now, turn over."

It was a command Harry had to obey. He had no choice. In any case, his groin was so pressurised that it just had to be freed before it exploded. He turned, slowly, and when that firm part of him met the warm, slick part of her a sensation hit Harry that he had zero concept of how to describe. He just sat back and tried to catch his mind where it was trying to escape his body.

"What is this, Hermione?" Harry pleaded. "What's happening?"

Hermione ran her fingers over the sore remnants of Harry's Locket Horcrux scar. He felt no pain, only more hot senselessness crash into his body. Hermione looked into his unfocused eyes.

"I love you, Harry. I've always loved you. For one night ... let me make love to you."

And Harry gave to her with a willing sigh.

"Yes."

So she did. She was slow and sensual, she built Harry to peaks, then eased off to let him calm down, before starting the whole process again. She pleased him in every way she knew how, showed him how to please her, causing feral noises to escape her throat time and again, the type of which Harry had never even imagined she was capable of making.

Time. What was that? Harry had lost any notion of what it meant or how to mark it. But all too soon Hermione was getting up from him, pulling her nightgown back on and kissing him sweetly.

"I'm just going to freshen up," she whispered, before sashaying off to the bathroom.

Harry grinned as he watched her leave. Then he began to frown, for someone was knocking on the hotel door.

Knock, Knock.

Harry tried to ignore it.

Knock, knock.

They must have the wrong room. They'd give up soon.

Knock, knock, knock.

Harry looked at the door in cross frustration. Who could be knocking? He was more than a little annoyed. His body had recovered sufficiently now, following his first round with Hermione, and he was cheekily hoping for a chance at an encore.

A further three knocks. Scowling deeply, Harry threw on a robe and crossed to the door.

"Yeah, what?" he demanded before he'd even fully opened it.

"Good morning to you, too! I was just seeing if you wanted to come down for breakfast. But I see your mouth is already full with joyous welcomes!"

Harry's jaw hit the carpet, his eyes popping in shock.

"H-hermione?" he stuttered, stumbling backwards in his surprise. "How did you get there? Did you Apparate?"

"No, Harry," Hermione quipped brightly, following him into his suite. "I walked. Are you okay? You look a little peaky. Hungover, by any chance!?"

But Harry was still just staring at her, gobsmacked. "You cant be here, Hermione."

"Look, Harry, I know we discussed this and decided not to share a bed anymore," Hermione replied with a gentle snigger. "But a room? I'm sure we can show some restraint, cant we!?"

"No! You don't get it," Harry implored desperately. "You can't be here, because you should be in there!"

Hermione followed the line of sight to where Harry was pointing. "The bathroom? I should be in your bathroom? And why is that again?"

"Because you just ... we just ... look, I'll show you!"

Harry grabbed Hermione by the wrist and hauled her over to the bathroom. He practically kicked open the door and looked frantically around inside. It was empty, but perfectly ordered, apart from the fact that the hot tap had been left running and had steamed up the mirror.

"Harry? What's going on?" Hermione asked seriously. "Why do you think I should be in your bathroom?"

"Because you just walked in here, that's why!" Harry insisted desperately. "You've been with me for hours and you just stepped in here to freshen up."

"Harry - I've been with my Mum all night," Hermione told him with a concerned expression.

"That's impossible," Harry argued hotly. "You've been with me."

Hermione looked curiously at him. "If I just walked in here, where did I come from?"

"From my bedroom ... from my bed, Hermione," Harry muttered lowly in his confusion.

Hermione didn't know how to respond to that. She investigated the bathroom herself. Maybe someone had Polyjuiced into her. Maybe someone who looked like her had crept in. Harry wasn't wearing his glasses, after all, and he was blind as a bat without them. But the room was totally empty. Though Hermione did spot something unusual.

"Harry? What's that? What's that on the mirror?"

Harry joined her and peered in close at the glass. "It's writing. Someone has written something in the steam on the mirror!"

Hermione bent down to see for herself. "It says ... H/Hr ... inside a big heart! What does that mean?"

Harry gulped hard. "I think it means ... Harry ... and Hermione! They are our initials!"

Hermione lost her breath in a sharp rush of air. "Harry ... this person you think was in here ... this other me ... what were you doing with her?"

Harry turned and looked sheepishly at Hermione. "Well, actually, she did most of the doing," Harry confessed shyly. "Or you, because it was you, Hermione. One hundred percent you."

"And what did I do?"

"You made love to me. And it was utterly perfect. I wouldn't have wanted to lose it in any other way."

"L-lose what?

"My virginity," Harry smiled at her. "Right here, in this room ... you took my virginity last night, Hermione."