Chapter 7

Harry's concerns about how Hermione and Quinn would hit it off were allayed almost immediately. Quinn seemed genuinely excited to meet Hermione, and after giving them a quick tour of the house – which looked remarkably like Number Four, except for the stacks of unpacked boxes – she offered to let Hermione borrow one of her swimsuits so they could go to the pool.

"I think I've got a brand-new blue one that'll fit you perfectly," Quinn told her as the girls ascended the stairs, leaving Harry in the foyer below. "You're like, what, a size four?"

"Yeah," Harry heard Hermione answer. He took solace in the pleasantly surprised tone of her voice.

Quinn had told them that her mother and Aaron were in the Bahamas for the weekend, doing some photo op for the magazine her mother worked for. "Typical Mom," she'd laughed. "Not even unpacked and already on another plane. We should've rented hotel rooms and saved ourselves the mortgage."

While the girls changed clothes, Harry wandered around the living room. Besides the boxes (he couldn't imagine Aunt Petunia living amidst such clutter, though he found it rather charming), the one glaring difference between Number Four and Number Six Privet Drive was the absence of family portraits. Aunt Petunia's favorite décor item was her Ickle Duddey-kins; the Dursleys' house was full to bursting with pictures of Dudley at all ages. Apparently Quinn's mother didn't possess such picture-loving genes – or else the family photos were still tucked away in the moving boxes, which Harry supposed was entirely possible.

"…and so we got kicked out of the pool." Quinn's voice floated down to Harry as the girls reemerged at the top of the stairs. "But I'm hoping they'll let us back in today. Don't you think they will, Harry?"

Stepping around the corner of the staircase, Harry started to say he doubted the pool manager would bother them so long as Dudley's gang wasn't there itching for another fight, but he stopped short and stared. Quinn, as always, looked devastating in a yellow sundress that hid her black bikini; her silky hair was piled up in a loose bun on top of her head. And Hermione…

Obviously, given his dream a few nights before, Harry was capable of thinking of Hermione as a girl. But at Hogwarts, he rarely had the opportunity to see her dressed as one. Now, she stood before him in an ice-blue bikini with her thick, wavy hair spilling around her shoulders, and try as he might not to stare, he had the horrible feeling that his mouth was hanging wide open. Hermione's cheeks turned a becoming scarlet and she hastily slipped a white tee-shirt dress on over her head. She avoided his eyes while she descended the stairs.

Finding his voice, Harry managed, "I, uh, I think we'll be okay. As long as Dudley and his idiot friends don't start anything else."

"You think they'll be there?" Quinn didn't sound worried, just mildly curious.

Even as Harry said he doubted it – he'd overheard part of Dudley's phone conversation the night before, and Piers had some new video game they were all planning to spend hours playing – he secretly hoped they were. Not that he wanted another fight. He just wanted to see the looks on Dudley and Piers' faces when he showed up with not one but two beautiful girls on his arm.

Quinn slipped her hand in his as they left the house. "How're the fat lip and black eye feeling?" she teased, winking over her shoulder at Hermione, who was trailing a few steps behind.

"Better, thanks. I take it you heard the full story?" he said to Hermione, who nodded.

Before he could feel a twinge of anxiety about how left-out Hermione looked, Quinn casually uncoupled from him and hung back to walk with her. Harry waited, too, and soon the three of them were strolling along the sidewalk, Harry in the middle, discussing the differences between America and England and the best new movies coming out that summer.

They spent most of the day at the pool. Quinn, as it turned out, wasn't much of a swimmer; she mostly sat on the edge with her toes in the water, routinely slathering on sunscreen to protect her fair skin, and offering to get refills on their sodas whenever they ran low. Hermione, on the other hand, was a surprisingly strong swimmer. Considering how much time she spent buried in a book at Hogwarts, Harry was startled by how in-shape she was. The two of them raced the length of the pool several times. She beat him nearly every time, with Quinn cheering her on madly and teasing Harry mercilessly whenever he lost. They took turns diving off the highest board, trying to out-do one another with fancy flips. Quinn judged them by writing their scores in red lipstick on her hand.

By  late afternoon they were all starving. They ate at the diner Quinn and Harry had discovered; feeling like quite the lucky guy, he insisted on paying. Once more he was surprised but pleased by how naturally conversation flowed between the three of them. The girls chatted about hair color and make-up, then switched to topics he could join in on, like soccer (turned out Quinn was a fan) and music. They discussed their favorite books (like Hermione, Quinn seemed to be a voracious reader), and Hermione did an excellent job of answering Quinn's questions about boarding school without once mentioning the magical nature of Hogwarts.

When Hermione went to the ladies' room after dinner, Quinn leaned over and rested her head on Harry's shoulder. "She's a doll. I wish I could meet the rest of your friends, if they're all like her."

Harry laid his cheek against the top of her head and closed his eyes. What he wouldn't give for a few minutes' privacy right now… "Thanks for making her so welcome," he said quietly, meaning it.

"Hey, it's not like it's hard. She's cool." Quinn sat up and smiled into his eyes. Although kissing her was becoming a fairly common occurrence, he still felt a tingle of nervous excitement in his stomach as she leaned in close and brought her lips to his.

It was like falling and being caught at the same time. She tasted of strawberry milkshake and smelled of chlorine; weirdly, Harry couldn't think of a more satisfying combination. Just as he was certain he was drowning in her, losing touch with reality as completely as when he'd had the Impediment Curse performed on him, Quinn pulled back.

"Wha-?" he started, baffled.

She inclined her head toward the restrooms, from which Hermione had just emerged. Squeezing his fingers under the table, she whispered out of the corner of her mouth, "Don't worry, Harry. Mum and Aaron are gone for the whole night, remember? We'll have the house all to ourselves."

Harry was glad Hermione reached them at just that second so he didn't have to respond. But he spent the rest of the day (they wandered through the music shop and then went bowling, which turned out to be a blast) with a knot of nerves in his stomach the size of a boulder.

"Mum and Aaron are gone for the whole night…" He wasn't too thick to know what that implied. Or was he? Surely Quinn didn't expect to – well, he had trouble even thinking it – to have sex when they'd known each other only a week!

Or did she?

American girls, his inner voice chimed in. You know what they say about American girls!

By the time the three of them strolled back to Number Six Privet Drive around ten o'clock, Harry was so preoccupied he found making normal conversation difficult. Part of him hoped Hermione would want to come inside with them, or that her being there would give him an excuse not to go into Quinn's house at all. The other part of him – and the part his sixteen-year-old sensibilities told him he should be listening to – couldn't wait to be alone with his girlfriend.

Will I know what to do? What if I'm totally wrong and she was just joking? Or what if she wants to do something but not, well, not THAT – will I know what to do?

He was so focused on torturing himself with those kinds of thoughts that he almost missed Hermione saying, "I'm really tired, Harry. I'm going to go back to your aunt and uncle's and take a shower."

They were standing in front of the gate that led up to Quinn's front door. "Uh…yeah, okay," he stammered. Quinn had nonchalantly taken hold of his hand. Hermione was already slowly backing away. "Do you, uh, want me to come with you?"

Hermione smiled. Was it his imagination, or did it look a little forced? "I think I can find my own way two doors' down, thanks," she said, so normally he decided he had to have imagined the tenseness in her smile. "It was so nice to meet you, Quinn."

"Totally," Quinn chirped back, her face lit up by a grin. "We'll do it again tomorrow, okay?"

In what seemed like a second, Hermione had disappeared down the sidewalk and Quinn was leading him through the front door and into her dark, empty house. "Lemonade?" she asked airily over her shoulder.

He hesitated by the door as she made for the kitchen, flipping on lights as she went. He followed her slowly, almost reluctantly, his heart pounding and his palms sweating.

Why does everything with girls have to be so complicated?

"I noticed Hermione didn't talk at all about your godfather."

Quinn's mention of Sirius stopped Harry dead in his tracks beside the kitchen table. She had her back to him at the counter, where she was filling two juice glasses with cold lemonade. "I thought you said she knew him?"

"Yeah. She did." He accepted the glass from her, but his lips felt too stiff to drink. He had difficulty forming words. Two seconds ago he'd been wondering if he would be decent in bed – now, he was talking about Sirius. The switch knocked him irretrievably off-kilter. "Why?"

"No reason, really. I mean, she probably just thought I didn't know about him."

Harry managed a tiny sip of the lemonade. It was bitter, but it gave him an excuse not to talk. He wasn't sure if he was annoyed with Quinn for bringing up Sirius or relieved that she didn't want to make out.

She went on casually, "People were like that about my dad, though. My friends, I mean. Like everybody was afraid to mention him. Like they thought I'd go to pieces if I even heard his name."

Why are we talking about this? Harry wondered. But he told himself not to be an insensitive jerk – after all, he'd apparently reacted badly whenever Cho brought up Cedric, and he didn't want to make the same mistake with Quinn.

"I think it's hard for people," he agreed. Even as he said it, he couldn't help thinking about how awkward Ron, Hermione, Lupin, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley – everybody, really – had been around him since Sirius died. Warming to the topic, he went on, "I mean, nobody really talks about Sirius. They just ask if I'm okay."

"Exactly. It's not the same. Because, like, after a while, you're supposed to just answer 'yes,' right? Nobody grieves forever, right?"

Harry found himself nodding, startled by how insightful Quinn was. He hadn't for a second considered telling either Lupin or Hermione the truth – that the grief he felt for Sirius was as raw at that moment as it had been the moment he lost him.

"But then it's like, how do you even talk about the person who's gone without everybody assuming you're not 'handling' things or whatever?"

"Yeah. Absolutely. Even people who knew Sirius, like Ron and Hermione, it's…it's weird."

Quinn set her juice glass down on the counter, crossed to him and took his hands in hers. "I'm glad I have you to talk to," she said softly.

Harry, heart hammering again and just as nervous as when he walked through the front door, started to say that he was glad he had her, too. But Quinn seemed out of the mood for talking. She stretched up on tip-toe – he hadn't realized how much taller he was than her until that moment – and kissed him.

Her kisses felt decidedly different than before, he noted, slipping his arm around her waist to steady her as she leaned into him. She pressed harder against his lips than usual. While he was still adjusting to that (and realizing how much he liked it), her tongue darted past his lips. Harry's breathing increased two-fold. She playfully slid her tongue along the inside of his lips, tickling him; when he retaliated by pushing his tongue against hers, she half-giggled into his mouth and reached up to tangle her fingers in his hair, pulling his face down closer to hers.

She tastes like – cinnamon. Why? Oh, who cares why, damn she's amazing – amazing amazing amazing…

Vaguely aware of the cacophony of thoughts racing through his head, Harry allowed Quinn to push him back against the wall. Her mouth slid away from his and onto his neck, where her warm lips sent delicious tingles through every nerve in his body. She nipped his earlobe; sucked on the sensitive skin beneath his chin; flicked her tongue across his collarbone. When she leaned back, tilting her head to the side to reveal her graceful neck to him, Harry – breathing fast and ragged – immediately accepted the invitation, eager to make her as weak-kneed as he felt.

Beneath the faint, tangy chlorine scent she smelled of vanilla – her soap, he surmised, nuzzling the curve of her neck with his nose. He heard her breath catch in her throat and tightened his grip on her waist. He was afraid, yes – afraid he wouldn't know what to do, that he'd make a fool of himself somehow. But more than that, he wanted to kiss her, touch her, feel her, taste her. A fierce desire the likes of which he'd never known uncoiled inside of him, and he had to force himself to be gentle as he drug his lips across the smooth, freckled skin of her throat. What he really wanted was to push the sundress off her shoulders, find out what else that bikini was hiding, feel the lithe firmness of her slender body under his –

Ring. Ring-ring. Ring. Ring-ring. Ring.

The jingling of the telephone barely registered in Harry's fogged mind. He knew Quinn either didn't hear or chose to ignore it; she framed his face with her palms, silently urging him to keep going. He dipped his head again, wondering with a sudden panic what she would do if he did slide her dress straps down off her perfectly-rounded shoulders.

Well, only one way to find out…

Two things happened in the next second that brought Harry to a screeching halt. First, Quinn's fingertips brushed the scar on his forehead and a bolt of excruciating pain shot through his head. At the same instant that he gasped and jumped back, a woman's voice filled the silent house as the answering machine picked up.

"Quinn, honey," the voice said, "it's Mom, baby. Just seeing if you're okay. Listen, I know you were mad about us leaving this morning, but – "

Oblivious to Harry's pain, Quinn pulled away and sprinted across the room to answer the phone. He was glad she had her back to him so he could clamp his hand over his scar and squeeze his eyes shut tight against the lingering after-effects of the momentarily blinding pain.

Voldemort. Could Voldemort be here, now?

Or is he just getting some disgusting rush off of my – whatever – arousal?

This was a dilemma Harry had never foreseen, despite knowing that he and Voldemort shared a powerful connection. Was Voldemort laughing himself silly somewhere right now, amused by the reckless, sloppy passions of a sixteen-year-old wizard? Harry felt his face heat up even as he imagined it. And what was worse, how was he supposed to ask anyone? He couldn't face the embarrassment of admitting to Dumbledore that making out, in his dreams or in reality, seemed to cause his scar to hurt.

Quinn had said a few terse words to her mother and now turned back to him, looking sheepish, as she hung up the phone. "Okay, so, not how I pictured this evening going," she admitted lightly. "Man, how horrifying! My mother calls while I'm making out with my boyfriend!"

To Harry's surprise – and relief – she suddenly giggled. "God, when I heard her voice, I thought she was here, in the room! And the way you jumped!"

Although that had nothing to do with the phone call, Harry wasn't about to tell Quinn that he'd had a terrible pain in his scar while kissing her. He couldn't possibly explain that in a way that would make him sound like anything other than a mental patient. So he offered a smile he didn't feel and lied, "Yeah. I thought we'd been caught."

Quinn walked over and kissed him softly on the cheek. "You're so handsome," she said, making his face heat up again. "But look, Harry, I mean…I hope you don't think I'm some kind of slut who hops into bed with a guy she barely knows."

Mmm – is there a safe answer to that question?

 "No! I mean, we were just…kissing. That's a long way from, you know, anything else."

Shoot me. Shoot me now…

"Yeah. But it felt like it could have, you know, been more than kissing. Quickly." They shared a rather awkward smile. "And I was really only teasing this afternoon, about having the house all to ourselves. I just didn't want you to have the wrong impression of me."

She laughed again before he could say anything. "And wow, now I am so making myself sound like the queen of mixed signals!" She brushed her fingers down the side of his face, making him shiver. "Things are a little messed up for me right now, Harry. I don't mean to be all over the place. I hope you're not, like, ready to never see me again or something."

She looked so anxious, and that thought had been so far from his mind, that Harry answered automatically, "Of course not!" She looked skeptical, so he took a breath and went on more honestly, "I, you know, I kind of wondered if you were serious about your parents being gone and-and…everything. But well, I got a little carried away, too."

Bloody brilliant, Potter, you fuck-head! Why not admit that you're afraid  to have sex? Moron! Idiot! Ninny!

VIRGIN!

Harry waited in miserable silence for her to decide he was a complete ninny and tell him to leave. True or not, he didn't know any guy his age who didn't claim to always be ready – more than that, eager – to jump into bed with a pretty girl. And Quinn was more than pretty; she was drop-dead gorgeous.

She's probably had really experienced boyfriends, not big pansy morons like me. God, I must look so ridiculous to her –

But Quinn was smiling and looking much more at ease. "Well, so, yeah, I think we can both agree that we have some serious physical chemistry," Harry blushed but nodded, "and we need to be much more practiced at self-control before we're alone in a dark, empty house again. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Because," she stepped up to him and slid her arms around his neck, "I really like you, Harry, and I don't want to mess this up. At all."

His knees went weak again. "No. Yeah. Absolutely." She cocked an eyebrow quizzically, and he managed to laugh at himself. "I mean, what you said."

Quinn giggled. They kissed a bit more – softly, on the mouth, hands chastely on hips and shoulders – before she told him good night. As he walked back to Number Four, Harry couldn't wipe the enormous grin off his face. Nor could he think clearly about the possible implications of the pain in his scar. He was simply too happy.

Hermione was already in bed with the lights off when he slipped inside, careful not to make any noise that might wake his aunt and uncle. The last thing he wanted was a run-in with the Dursleys about curfew. He changed into his pajamas in the darkest corner of the bedroom and then, feeling nervous again, eased in beside Hermione.

His bed was small, but it fit two people relatively comfortably. At least Aunt Petunia had thought to bring him an extra pillow, although she had put it on the floor, where she assumed he would be sleeping. Luckily, the Dursleys weren't brave enough to come snooping in his room anymore; he doubted even the threat of wizards' curses would have kept Aunt Petunia from blowing her top if she discovered her nephew sleeping in bed beside a girl.

"Harry?"

Thinking she was asleep, Harry almost jumped out of his skin when Hermione said his name. "Yeah?" he managed, sounding as anxious as he felt.

"Quinn seems really nice."

He was glad the bedroom was dark and she was facing away from him so she didn't see how deeply he blushed. "Yeah. She's great." He hesitated, waiting for her to speak again. When she didn't, he added, "Uh, thanks for, you know, being so friendly with her today."

But whether Hermione heard him or had already drifted off to sleep, he couldn't be sure, because she didn't reply. Harry lay awake for quite a while, torn between memories of Quinn's soft lips and an almost uncontrollable longing to roll over and drape his arm around Hermione's small form.

And though she didn't make a sound or move a muscle, he had a sneaking suspicion that Hermione was awake, too. But what thoughts were keeping her from sleep he could only guess.