The Game
Content warning: Surprise extreme helplessness. Splinch fetish. Using sex and other routines to distract friends and neighbours.
No other subchapters after this one, you may safely skip the entire chapter if you want some —good clean violence— I mean, intrigue. I'll try to have that chapter up quickly also.
"Susan?" said Harry.
Susan stopped and looked up, "What?"
He leaned close, and breathed, "It's your turn again if you want it."
He's flirting with me in the middle of the corridor now? "Hmm," said Susan, "yeah but, usually we do something after classes, not directly after a late breakfast."
"But there are no classes today, we could break tradition if you want."
"Agreed," said Susan, "but … don't you normally sleep on Sunday morning… Oh."
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"You want sex first, in order to get a naked snuggle nap also?"
"Would that I was prudent enough to reliably plan for efficiencies like that."
Susan shrugged, and chuckled, "Lead on, Lord Potter."
When they were on their way up to Lion's-Keep, Susan said, "Just fair warning."
"Oh?"
"If I get bored, I might wander off, not stay for a nap as long as some of your Sunday naps are reputed to be."
"That would not offend me," said Harry.
"Fine," said Susan.
.
"Hello Susan," said Ginny.
"Hello," said Susan.
"Harry?" exclaimed Ginny when she saw Harry grab their latest sewing project from the bookshelf by Harry's desk.
"What?"
"I thought that was for next month?"
"I didn't feel like waiting," said Harry, "Do you want to help give it to her?"
"Wait," said Susan, "you were making those for me?"
"Yes," said Ginny with a … placating glare, "Not sure if you'll like them but Harry designed them for you, I helped him … because I help him, we help each other with runes projects. Not because … just, if you don't like them, throw them away or take them apart and fix them how you do want, don't blame me, alright, it was just a … a surprise alright?"
Ginny hardly ever gets this flustered …
"I'm sure it will be fine," said Susan.
Ginny blushed an unusual colour and went out.
"I thought it was armour, not lingerie," mused Susan.
"It can be both," said Harry.
"No it— …" Susan stopped, the original runes pattern on all their pyjamas included protection against stabbing by blades. Of all the unusual things to worry about protecting from, not that they hadn't all found more useful interdictions to add, and shared them around since.
There was every possibility that Harry would try to include something interesting in everything he made. Whether that meant armour liners that amounted to lingerie or lingerie that was embedded with some new interdiction ward he'd found.
The question really came down to: was he giving these to everyone? and if so, am I last because unlike last time, he'd had access to all his wives and house members immediately? Or am I first because like last time, I'm the test cruppie.
"Alright, Harry," she said, "show me what you've made me."
He relaxed, and she smiled.
He smiled, very tentatively.
So yes, it was going to turn out to be something extremely odd.
She felt her smile falter and tried to reinforce it. Harry caught that and seemed reassured.
More reassured by putting a brave face on it, than by an actual friendly smile; Just what had he put together? And why had it needed a second to help?
He nodded toward the bedroom.
She got out of the way so he could lead. Harry went to the bed to the left of the door. The bed he tended to use when he was offering a private moment to only one of them. As opposed to the one second to the right of the door which he tended to use when he was expecting multiple partners to join or at least watch.
And of course, the big bed was for sleeping and snuggles, not sex.
She joined him standing by it and copied him stripping down.
"How far should I undress?" she said.
"All the way," he said.
"Alright," she said and did. He did also.
"So … what's the surprise?"
"It's sort of an … Auror game or prank or something," said Harry, "I … thought you might find it either amusing once, and once only, or something fun and amusing to …" he shrugged, "to train against."
"Have you tried it on?" said Susan.
"Only the jacket or the pants, not both," said Harry, "Both while supervised by Ginny."
"And you want me to try both at once?" said Susan.
"I think you'd be the one to get the most out of dealing with the surprise of both, and then handling it anyway."
"That's either an interesting complement or … I don't know what, what is it?"
Harry shrugged, "At a minimum, it is a … potentially illegal grade prank item, at maximum it is a trap … I just don't, hmm … I feel like Professor Moody would take points for calling it a trap, something about 'defeatist mental attitude,' and 'Losing before one started'."
Susan chortled, "Now you've got to show it to me."
"Alright," said Harry, "The rules are, I warned you, and I'm sticking with you to let you out as soon as you declare that you want to be let out."
"Warned me what exactly?" said Susan.
"That it is a surprise, and that I'm not warning you what kind of surprise. Only that it is not dangerous in and of itself, but I strongly recommend a spotter."
"Fair enough," said Susan, "I agree to those rules."
Harry smiled, "Arm's up." He unfolded a leather jacket and helped her put it on. The jacket was bulky in the way that jackets only dared when they thought they were 'bad-ass enough to deserve it,' (but obviously, it wasn't, given that it wasn't dragon hide.) And it had way too many muggle zippers in silly places. The shell was loose, but the lining was soft and snug and comfortable. It probably had automatic sizing charms of some sort.
"Comfortable?" said Harry.
She nodded and pulled it a little tighter so she could zipper it up. Harry smiled and offered her a semi-matching set of pants.
She put them on, they were almost matching leather and didn't buckle properly, didn't have a belt, and in general … didn't seem like they had any good way to stay up, except for the skin-tight, ultra-comfortable lining.
"Do they feel alright?" said Harry.
"They don't feel like they're going to stay on," said Susan.
Harry reached between her hands and found two straps from somewhere inside, and snapped them together.
Of course, a matching leather belt wouldn't stand out from leather pants. And no adjustment holes on the belt, just snaps. And they weren't cold like metal snaps, but bigger, some kind of muggle plastic material. Oh, some of the muggle-born had book bags that used similar. Those usually were adjustable on one side or the other, these were not.
She looked up.
Harry raised an eyebrow.
"Shrinking charm powered?" she guessed.
He nodded.
"I wouldn't trust that in a real fight, but it is comfortable enough."
He nodded, and pointed to his hips, "There are more clips from the corners, up to your vest. Like single point suspenders."
It wasn't a vest, calling it a vest had been a weird mistake to make, was it a tell? What kind of tell?
"What?"
"Single point suspenders are not exactly common," Harry agreed, and stuck his fingers down her side to find and catch and pull out another belt end, then knelt to find another belt end inside the lower edge of her jacket.
He showed them to her, and then snapped them together. The clasps looked fairly sturdy, but perhaps like they'd require two hands to operate.
A lot of combat gear only needs one hand to operate, because the other hand might be busy holding a wand or a prisoner.
"Alright," she said.
"And the other side," he got up, probably to circle her, but she was faster and turned in place to give him access to her other hip. She started digging for the belt end inside her waistband while he knelt again to search for the one inside her jacket hem.
He let her snap them together.
He nodded.
"Where there's lining it's very comfortable," she said by way of assessment, "but where there isn't lining, it might be better with drawers."
She walked a couple of steps away, and tried a short dodge-dodge-twirl-dodge routine, and barely kept her balance.
"It's not tight enough to be making me this clumsy," she said.
"Yeah," he said, "we didn't get all the measurements as accurate as I wanted."
She nodded, "alright, you can worry about perfection in the next model, "what's the surprise?"
Harry shrugged and led her to the bed and made her sit down. He's never made me do anything. It was a very awkward several seconds. He could have just said, 'sit down for the next bit' or whatever.
"See if you can figure out how to take off just the leather," he said.
She stared up at him, "The liner is meant to double as pyjamas too?"
He pressed his lips together. And did not nod.
WARNING! not pyjamas.
"Well they're comfortable enough," she said.
"Good," he said.
She looked down at her chest, there were three parallel zippers, the middle zipper had fastened the whole thing closed, and so it would also be for taking the whole thing off again, so the other two should be for taking off just the leather shell.
She took both of those down and could feel how much looser everything was, except the liner. Maybe the leather shell was partly self-sizing too, but that turned off when the zippers were undone.
"Good," he said, "and the pants?"
The belts. The belt at my waist is obviously associated with the shell. The two at my sides felt like they were associated with the liners of the two garments.
She undid the belt at her waist. It was… awkwardly difficult. It wasn't that it took more force than she expected, just that she couldn't bring as much force to bear on the clasp as she expected, as if she was numb, but she wasn't numb. But in the end, she got it.
"Good," said Harry, "Are you ready?"
"For what?"
Harry nodded and looked … very, very … grim.
What in Merlin's name?
"Any old thing," muttered Harry, but there seemed to be no joke in the words, only the wry hate that old-hit witches seemed to have for both surprises and for the green recruits that couldn't handle them.
Susan found herself about to lose her temper, "D'you want to get out of my way so I can stand up and take this off?"
"I'm ready for that," agreed Harry, as he stuffed his hand down the back of her collar to grab some bit of her liner very firmly, "Though I don't exactly recommend the standing up part."
She snorted and leaned and surged to her feet. Harry let her, taking a step backwards to make room for her, and keeping hold of her, even as the leather clothes tumbled off her leaving her in little more than a sports bra and … a pair of golden rings strapped snug around her thighs.
And no legs below.
"What in Merlin's Name!"
She thrashed and the pants thrashed. More carefully she thrashed just her knees. On the floor, the pants thrashed at just the knees. She lifted her thighs, the rings around her missing thighs moved some, but were somewhat restrictive, like she was pulling against automatic sizing charms. And the pants barely moved. She reached down to try to pry one of those rings up where she could look at it and found that she'd left her arms in the jacket that was also there on the floor behind her, thrashing helplessly.
A moan escaped her as she turned her neck to look down at her shoulders. Again, same ring, much smaller, but still big enough to fit so far up that she had no stump, just a ring around her shoulder, and this one wasn't strapped on so much as sewn into the sports bra thing she was wearing.
"Are you alright, now?" said Harry.
Susan looked up at him, he was still holding her.
She closed her eyes. She verified that she still had sensation in everything, it just wasn't attached. Actually given the arithmancy she'd seen Harry and Ginny playing with, they were still all attached, they were just pushed so far through small portals as to be useless to her for the moment.
And he hadn't dropped her. In spite of her insisting on having her 'surprise' standing up.
"Yeah," she said, "What the hell do you call this, anyway?"
"No idea," he said, "I figured on something splinch related though."
"Yes, well," she said.
"Do you mind if I put you down on the bed?" said Harry.
"That's fine," she said.
He put her down, gently, on her stomach. Being on her stomach made her half more paranoid that he might try something sneaky. Half reassured her that he wasn't planning on sex while he had her helpless. And the fact that he'd backed her up against the foot-board meant he couldn't sneak up behind her without moving her again. Not that sneaking mattered if she couldn't do anything to escape.
Or can I escape? Hmm…
"Alright," said Harry, and walked to the far end of the bed and sat down.
"Alright, what?" said Susan.
"I had three ideas about how this might go," said Harry.
"Listening," said Susan.
"One, you declare this 'not particularly fun' and tell me to get you out, immediately. Upon understanding this request, I will comply as fast as I can. This remains an option for the duration."
"Understood," said Susan.
"Option two," said Harry, and stretched out on his back and stared up at the canopy above them, "I take a nap, which, granted will impair my speed at understanding and responding to any 'option one' type request."
"Um," said Susan.
"Option 2A, while I sleep, you try to escape or whatever else you might wish to do when alone in bed with a sleeping me."
"Ah," said Susan, she could see where he could have assumed that would be her preferred choice. It might still be the choice she preferred to advertise as having been hers. You believe I'm stuck, therefore sleep comfortably while I escape or sneak up and take advantage of you, or whatever.
"Option 2B," said Harry, "you … have better things to worry about in this situation than whether you can escape, and offer to be my pillow for the duration, or whatever, and use the time either to sleep or to work through whatever meditations you want to about how far you trust me or something.
Susan nodded, "Option A, a game of 'can I rape you in your sleep even when I don't have limbs,' Option B, a game of 'can I trust you, and can you prove yourself trustworthy without me being able to retaliate,' Option C, stop playing."
Harry nodded.
Susan nodded.
"Do you want sex? or only a pillow?"
"I want sex," said Harry, "But my preferred type is equals, not thralls, and …" he shrugged and looked away.
She wasn't his equal enough to be desirable unless she proved it by not being as helpless as she currently looked, or by escaping, or by demanding rescue.
"I was thinking that for either option 2a or 2b we set a time limit," he said, "we might even agree that regular sex should be an option after, regardless of what we do or don't manage before that."
"Sensible," she agreed. And looked away to think.
He seemed to take her taking her eyes off him as … permission or a request for him to look away also. He lay down and made himself comfortable. Which wasn't quite what she'd meant, but … it did give her more time to think.
Given that he enticed me here with an offer of sex, option B not involving sex seemed mildly anti-consensual. On the other hand, offering sex as a prize or a concession for playing through this 'nightmare scenario' seemed more … good-spirited.
"I'm seeing the 'try and r— err a 'try and initiate sex like this' challenge and the 'try and escape' challenge as two significantly different games," said Susan, "Do you mind if I were to request to try them both, but only one of them today?"
Harry, who had been laying on his back with his hands behind his head, relaxed. A lot.
Oh, Merlin, he'd been that tense. That concerned I was going to declare enmity or broken trust or whatever based on a little nightmare splinching fetish scenario for which he'd managed to cobble together an actual practical implementation.
She'd never figured him for splinching fetish though.
Or was he.
Maybe he wasn't … but then what was all this?
He didn't seem to have any helplessness fetish either, from what I've seen of the way he'd acted on many occasions in which he could have taken advantage of lots of different people.
Oh.
His fetish was for … anti-helplessness. He wouldn't admit it, probably didn't realise it, what he wants is for me to like this, and prove I can escape fast enough to tackle him in his sleep. He wants me to be so un-helpless that I can ask to be put in this position repeatedly, maybe working up to being left alone, or asking for him to 'rape' me, just so I can try a more challenging escape condition.
Circe, I love him!
And he'd been afraid she wouldn't get it.
And yet, he'd seen something about me that had made him sure enough to risk investing several afternoons to construct these props, props which might please me, or might buy my eternal enmity.
And he'd been convinced that none of the others could understand it, or at least not in the moment, not in a way that they could appreciate.
And yet … Ginny had helped him build it.
What the hell was up with Ginny?
How much had he told her?
How much had Ginny also seen about me? But she'd neglected to claim any credit, no, 'I helped Harry make this gift for you' instead it was merely 'Harry made this gift, I helped my husband because I help my husband. You have my permission to hate it and destroy it, or turn it back into the constituent pieces of clothing we made it from.'
The things that seemed like huge gold bracelets were probably those runic electrum mirror plates I helped them order. Which Harry had gone about learning how to slice through with cutting charms.
Apparently to make slots for straps.
She wiggled far enough onto her side so that she could look down at how it was all connected, wiggling was unexpectedly difficult with most of her shoulders and most of her hips missing. She was lots more streamlined like this, which wasn't necessarily a good thing, depending on what she was trying to accomplish.
She lay flat and tried to wiggle around to face over the edge of the bed so she could see her limbs. Instead, she only managed to wiggle straight forward. She tried adding some chin presses to the mix and only managed to steer a little more towards Harry. Also, that put less weight on her neck than she'd expected, the lever from her waist to her chin was lots shorter than from her knees to her chin. Also, apparently, she'd never properly considered the ratios of how her mass was distributed among her limbs and torso, The centre of her remaining mass now seemed to be less at the top edge of her hips and more at the lower edge of her ribs.
Harry picked up his head to watch her coming. He smiled.
"It's interesting," she agreed, "and I'm seeing a sudden morbid desirability to being small enough to fit into a pillowcase."
He chuckled. She arched back hard and grinned at him, then relaxed and inched forward the next two feet until she rested hard against his side. And only then paused to consider her next move. As if that was where she'd been aiming to start with.
"What do you want?" he whispered.
Half the time, said in that tone, those words were an invitation for her to request sex.
She almost said what she wanted, but the spirit of this game got the better of her, so instead, she said, "I'm still figuring out how to move, um, lay back, I want to try something?"
"Sure," he said and lay back. He left his elbow out to the side.
She kept inching forward, and as she expected she could throw herself about a quarter of the way up onto his arm, not enough to get anywhere, but plenty to make herself comfortable if there was a pillow to be had, and enough to prop herself against to roll over. Wait.
She wiggled differently, in a way that hadn't worked at the other end of the bed, but did now that his side was within easy reach. She propped her hip on top of his hip and rolled over.
Good, now …
OK … now I'm stuck. She could spin around easily but not move anywhere.
She craned her neck and looked at Harry, who was now watching her again.
"Ok," she smiled, "I lost round one, could you reset the game to the beginning."
"That doesn't sound like, 'let me go'," he said, "What are you asking for?"
She tried to point and then remembered where her hands were, "Could you put me back at the foot of the bed, on my front."
"Oh, sure," He said, and picked her up and put her there.
Somehow being moved around like a game piece didn't matter when she was the one asking for it, unlike being pushed back onto the bed right at the beginning, even if she now understood he'd only been worried she'd release the bludgers before the whistle, and discard her limbs while she was still standing.
He returned to his earlier position also.
She found a rhythm to spin around, like that which had finally worked on her back. She inched forward toward the gap between Harry's feet and the end of the bed.
Harry sat up a little to watch her.
She tried to go a little faster, and suddenly she realised: She didn't need limbs to crawl, she just needed a rhythm that put opposite corners down long enough to lift and move the rest of her weight. She went to the edge of the bed and glanced at her limbs on the floor, limbs which she suddenly missed about a quarter as much as she had less than a minute before.
She lifted her head to look at Harry.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Spread your legs?" she said.
"What?"
She shrugged, "if I have your knees nearby to work with, I think I can wiggle up on top of you enough that we can make out. I have my doubts about managing more than that without help."
He opened his mouth.
That didn't look like surprise. More like 'intent to argue.'
He closed his mouth into a smile and spread his legs.
Good boy.
She wiggled between them and up until her ribs were up over his hips, and then his stomach was too soft and too narrow for her regular crawl pattern to work properly. She lifted her head up to grin at him.
He grinned back.
She put her head most of the way down and focused on putting maximum weight on her chest and her nether regions.
She had at most half of her normal weight right now. On the other hand, she didn't have thighs keeping her weight away from her sensitive bits.
A bit of concentration to find a wiggle pattern that pleased her, and a little more concentration to keep that while she lifted her head without arching her stomach down and her weight off the four pressure areas that mattered most to her, right then. One of his and three of hers.
When she got her head up far enough she found his eyes.
"Harry," she said, "You're allowed to help if you want."
He smirked, "If you're sure."
"I'm sure that I want some kisses," she said.
He grinned and wrapped his hands around her. His hands seemed so big compared to her when she was so diminished, even though none of that had actually affected the size of the ribs his hands were wrapping around.
He lifted her until he could put her down on his chest and kiss her. That had most of the pressure off her chest, but about the same amount on her groin, and pressing against a warm smooth belly was better than the cold sheet.
They kissed for long enough that Susan almost forgot and almost went with her instinct to turn Leona-with-piercings. Except … what would that do in my current state?
Surely these portals were safer to transfigure around than dragonskin was, but … I'm not going to risk it. I'd prefer that test be conducted with a field mouse stolen from Care of Magical Creatures rather than my own legs and wand arm.
Wait a second. She concentrated on her left arm. Yes, the dragonhide of my holster has weakened the sizing charm on my left sleeve. Many more things had now become possible. Good old dragonhide.
She relaxed and thought:
Sex would be good, now that for sure it would happen. Escaping without help would be fun, now that for sure it seemed possible.
Both at once: not a huge advantage, especially if it distracted Harry enough that the sex stopped. Better to wait for it to be over, and then be ready with her surprise.
Yes, that was fine.
She pulled back from his lips and gave him her best 'enraptured' smile, and wiggled backwards as if trying to engage their sex organs again.
"How much help do you want?" whispered Harry.
"Don't care," she whispered back, and shrugged, "As much as you want," she shrugged again, "yes, please?"
He shrugged back, then smiled, "Was there anything that wasn't permission for?"
"You're the one with the wand most handy," she said, "if you want inside me, you're responsible for the contraceptive charm."
"Sure," he said, "Do you want me inside you?"
She nodded, then frowned, "I … don't want you treating me like a rag doll, but you usually don't. I do want you to feel free to help like you usually do."
He nodded and looked thoughtful, "I'd have the clearest aim if you were on your back. Like usual. May I put you on your back, for that and then do you want to be put back to where you are now?"
She shrugged, then shook her head, "Instead of putting me down, I'd rather you just tip me on my side a little, I can tell you if your aim wasn't good enough."
He frowned, then understood and complied. She helped him roll her onto her side, still balanced precariously on her hip and ribs at the very edge of his hip and ribs. She'd have easily rolled off onto the floor if his arm hadn't been behind her balancing her.
His contraceptive charm went plenty deep on his first try, but she didn't find the words to tell him so before he tried a second time.
"That's good," she said and tipped herself back onto her stomach.
She arched back to smile at him again.
He returned the smile and reached behind her back to lift her slightly by a strap she didn't know was back there, or rather, she knew it was back there connecting her two hip rings, but she hadn't contemplated how ideal that strap might be for supporting her during the manoeuvre he completed next.
"You good?" he said.
She nodded and began wiggling side to side, the only direction she could wiggle at all fast enough for her tastes.
He watched her. She watched him. She smiled.
"May I help?" he said.
"Help how?" she said.
He looked bemused, then put his hands on her ribs again and began moving her in a more normal thrust direction. "Like this?"
"Yes," she said, "That's fine."
After she was sure that they were both happy with the motions they were each making, she turned her head away and lay it flat on his shoulder.
She kept moving to make sure he kept moving, and meanwhile, she writhed her arms until she got her left wrist pointed in the correct direction, and her right hand around to slip into her left sleeve and catch hold of her wand.
Exerting enough force to draw it was another question and it took her several tries just to be sure she was causing it to move and several more cycles to get it clear from leather.
Several times she had to rest and pant and make sure her wiggle pattern was still compatible with his rhythm. And then she managed to aim in the general direction of her hip. First, she cast a narrow warming charm, just to decide how close her aim was.
A bit high. Down. Better, that was my side. Now away, was that right or left in this situation?
Good enough. There's the shadow of the belt latch.
Alohamora.
It came loose but did not fall away. A slight change of wiggle pattern and it slid down a few inches, not enough to get free or anything, but enough to get her hip back, (and therefore a lot more control of her balance, if they hadn't been perched precariously close to the edge.) That was fine for him, but he must not realize how risky it is for me.
Or did he? He'd kept an arm between me and the edge even before … even when…
Now, how to get the other strap off? Then perhaps I'll have the option of sliding the 'vest' off over my head, or … or would the unlocking charm undo one of these zippers? Or a hover charm to push it laterally?
If I asked to stop for more lube, would he tip me up on the same side again? That might give me a clear shot at my other side strap. If he tilted me up on the other side, I might get clear aim at the zipper down my front, but … he might also see that one of my hip rings was loose.
Did that matter?
Just because I want it to be a surprise, didn't mean that it needs to be.
She relaxed her wand arm and let herself lose focus among the floods of pleasure that were competing for her attention.
They seemed to be bordering on the place in the cycle when squeezing tight on him could increase both their pleasure.
She lifted her face to watch his expression and squeezed.
He smiled and modified his rhythm to match the difference.
She smiled back.
"Is this going to be a one-time thing?" he asked.
She shook her head, "Definitely not an always thing, but not a never-again thing either."
He smiled, "You're welcome."
"You put a lot of work into it, didn't you," she said.
"Yeah," he said.
"Why?" she said, "I'm surprised you didn't … ask for a lot of reassurance first, instead of after."
"If you'd hated it, I think there are still lots of things we might use the portals for. It seemed like I needed to get them working in Greek and on metal regardless of whether this particular project found approval."
"Well yeah," said Susan, "There have been several suggestions floating around that needed a safer foundation than leather."
He nodded, his eyes wide.
She grinned.
"Just how far is this safe?"
"We don't know, but when I explained it to Sirius he guessed a small whole number fraction of twice the distance an average mage can apparate."
"A small whole number fraction of 576 km?"
"That's what he said, and suggested I not mail half a letter successively to Godric's Hollow, your house, Diagon alley, and Ottery St. Catch-pole, to test that range."
"You know there's a lot of difference between one small whole number and another small whole number when both are denominators for a numerator that large."
"Yes," said Harry, "But we'd already tested it the length of Hogwarts grounds, and then all the way to the shrieking shack, I didn't fly all the way over the centaur forest just to check something like that. The ministry might not recognise that as an international incident, but the centaurs do."
Susan blinked at him, "You've read the Hogwarts charter much closer than I thought you had."
Harry grinned.
"Anyway," said Harry, "It's safe from here to Hogsmeade and that's far enough for everything I'll need it for, for a while."
She nodded, "Fine."
"And I guess you already figured out, Ginny wasn't kidding about taking everything apart into normal clothes again. We barely had to cut anything, just added straps and zippers."
"Hmm," said Susan, "I might need more zippers in my life."
Harry's eyes widened, "What?"
"They're so exotically muggle," she said.
Harry smiled. "Not arguing, but … you should have seen your face when you said that. Also, they aren't that hard to order, if you tell me what lengths and colours and strengths you need."
"Strengths?" she said, "What sort of range do they come in?"
"Large metal for industrial safety clothing, like fireproof suits, Medium metal for jackets and jeans. Large plastic for sleeping bags, Medium and small plastic for dress clothes and tents."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"What?"
"If you really want to know, ask Parvati or Lavender," said Harry, "I tend to ask engineering questions about how clothes feel, not style questions about how they look. They either look how I want and I check if they are comfortable or not. Or they don't look how I want and I ignore them."
Susan remembered that. She nodded, "Never mind that. I'm thinking seriously, not about destroying what you made, but about altering it to make it…
Susan paused because she didn't have the words to describe exactly what she wanted.
Enough of my limbs to still crawl and move and fight, but little enough of them to still be small and light and … invite people to underestimate me. But somehow she knew exactly how long she wanted each limb, and she felt extremely certain and without the usual amount of desire to experiment to verify what she knew.
Oh.
"I want to have stumps exactly as long as my animagus limbs."
Harry's mouth fell open with astonishment, his eyes went wide with … excitement.
Then he grinned, "Yeah, that might be a fun kind of thing to be able to experience."
It was Susan's turn to raise her eyebrow in question, "What are you thinking of?"
"Sometimes Parvati convinces me to submerge without shifting, and let her shag with Sher."
"And that works?"
Harry shrugged, "it's a meditation exercise."
"Is it safe?"
Harry shook his head, "Lions aren't, but we're learning what we're doing, and trust each other to … defend without inciting further violence, and snap out of things when called."
"Seriously?" said Susan.
Harry shrugged.
"And I thought I liked to play dangerously."
Harry shrugged again, "you're not going to tell me that bulldogs are safe, even if they are tame."
Susan grinned, "no, and hufflepuffs are loyal, not tame. There's a huger difference between those than between domesticated and tame."
Harry nodded again, "I keep forgetting that you don't shag and talk at the same time, like Hermione and Padma."
"I can if I really try," she said, "But only really good at one or the other at a time."
Also, I'm splitting my attention more ways than usual, what was the other thing?
Harry nodded, "Permission to start moving you again?"
"Permission for you to take a turn on top if you want it," she said.
He shrugged and rolled them over, away from the edge of the bed. Then he started really moving.
And again, without most of her thighs to get in his way, he could bring a lot of pressure to the bumping stop at the end of each thrust.
It meant less rubbing all up the inside of her thighs and knees, but a lot more grind for her middle portions.
"Circe!" said Susan and almost lost herself in the flood of sensation, and the abrupt transition between rubbing against warm Harry and almost-no-rubbing against the warm lining of fake armour, even though that border was in different places on her left leg and her right and … that reminds me!
She aimed low this time and brought her warming charm up and to the side and down. Nope, not good enough. The bed's in the way. Need to get my wand higher, hmm … Where are my legs?
It would have been easier to pile them up while I had the vantage to look down on them.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on other ways of knowing where things were, and how they were moving.
Eventually, she got her wrist farther away and propped up higher.
Now the warming charm again?
There's my side, and there's the shadow of the strap.
Alohamora!
The strap unsnapped, and her other hip portal plate started riding loose, and both of them drifted down together instead of separately.
She could levitate him off of her and have, no, that wouldn't quite give her clear aim at the zipper on her chest, because the corner of the mattress would still be in the way. The way she'd stabilised her wand wrist on her hip helped, but probably didn't lift her point of aim that high. (Also because why would she interrupt him while he was shagging so well?)
Instead, she hit him with a cheering charm, tinted to blue-immediate.
He noticed quickly, and for only a moment did he seem like he would summon the discipline to throw it off, or just the raw magic to expel it from his body, and then he gave in and welcomed it in, and dove wholeheartedly into its suggestions. Leaning down on top of her, burrowing his hands up under her shoulder blades to pull her chest tight against his, and his belly tight against her clit, which he sometimes seemed to almost forget about, and rarely touched without invitation, and probably had forgotten she couldn't help by petting for herself without her hands.
It wasn't long before they both shivered through her orgasm.
And when she could speak again, he opened his mouth and said, "The ministry might not remember, but the ward scheme reflects it. Hogwarts isn't Ministry-controlled territory."
"What?" said Susan.
"If you want to feel the blue cruciatus, here is as good a place as any."
"You are so weird," she said.
He shrugged.
"Wasn't the point of that, that I'd be able to get carried away all I wanted and not worry about hurting you, because I'd feel it if I was hurting you?"
"Yes," he agreed and shrugged again.
"And wasn't your reason for not putting me under the blue cheering charm was that you didn't quite trust me to not get carried away?"
"Yes," he said, "But that was more of an 'only for your first time' sort of thing."
She nodded, "and right now, we are both in just about the minimum possible danger of me getting carried away?"
He smirked, "well-argued, are you ready?"
"Yes," she said.
He drew his wand and cast.
There was definitely something different about how he perceived sex.
But then, he kept on hinting that the experience of sex covered the whole range between tension, itch, and pain on one side, and relaxation, pleasure, and relief on the other, if the cheering charm really did only cover the positive half of those, or only one of those, spectrums, no that didn't sound right.
Then the world went bright cyan at that weird spot where eating snow hurts your mouth in the wrong place, except instead of pain it told her everything was impossibly soft and tingly and she could really relax. Because she was really safe. And there was nothing to fear because in spite of death there was life and hope and community and…
Oh, Merlin, did men really feel like they were justified throwing themselves away in battle because the children were safe at home under the protection of reliable mothers? When all this time she'd been feeling like sex meant she'd found at least one man willing to partner with her in protecting. Were they really this different?
But no, hormone instincts were one thing. Honour and philosophy were something different, and Harry had specifically rejected a contract that would have limited his responsibility toward her children.
And now he was experiencing and trying to focus away from a bittersweet regret that whatever fraction of a possibility that he could have been using that event and this fluid to produce an heir, he'd squandered merely reinforcing a friendship, no matter that the friendship was scheduled, eventually, to bring about some children.
She'd felt that sense of loss before, but at her monthlies, not after sex.
No wonder he didn't … want it all the time the way she did. It wasn't as purely 'a good' according to his instincts.
Though … somehow perhaps that would change the first time he knew he'd gotten her pregnant, or maybe even the first time any of them were pregnant.
She'd had the inkling that Aunt Amelia intended for Susan to go first, have her heir safely through nappies and toddling around before she took time off work to manage the same. And there was a lot of sense to that plan.
But just for a few hours, Susan intended to give in to the fantasy of convincing Aunt Amelia to have a first child immediately, just to bend Harry's brain around closer to the way Susan wished it already were.
Though she had no reason to think that it was susceptible to being bent that way, and even if it could, no reason to hope it would transfer to any of the rest of them, especially not … well all of them except Luna had well-advertised goals about what they wanted to study, or were duty-bound to study, after Hogwarts.
Harry's panting slowed, and he said, "what's next?"
"What do you want to happen next?" she said.
"Napping eventually," he said, "But there could be showering first, there could even be … letting you go and letting you have a turn on top first."
She shook her head, "Pick me up like a baby, and dance with me, and kiss me."
He shrugged, "Alright," he climbed out of her and off the bed, then leaned over and lifted her up and squeezed her against his chest. She hummed a not-too-slow waltz and he fell into steps somewhat resembling what she hoped for.
For a moment she'd feared he'd taken the 'like a baby,' to misunderstand what she'd wanted, but apparently the 'and kiss me' had gotten enough across that he held her the right way up, and after less than a dozen steps, her thigh portal plates slipped down. Leaving her legs where they belonged and she kicked the portal plates far enough away to seem safe and she danced with him.
He noticed, either the extra weight or the moment when her toes caught enough of her weight to lift her out of his arms. He swayed out of rhythm for only a moment, then caught himself and hugged her tight again, and they danced, and they kissed.
When they parted for air, he panted out, "can you free your arms also?"
"I know at least two ways," she said, "If you wouldn't stand between my wand and my chest. But I'd rather you just held on and danced with me."
"Alright," he said.
So they danced.
"What's wrong?" she said.
"Do you like this?" he said.
"The surprise, or the challenge, or the adventure of trying to adjust to it, or the …"
"Not just that," he said.
"I already told you," she said, "the challenge was interesting, the adventure was exactly the right size for my tastes, and I'm still trying to decide whether to keep the clothes as they are, or change them to be a better mirror of my animagus form, or to keep them as they are and ask for the animagus play suit thing next."
"Oh," he said.
"That wasn't what you were asking either was it?" said Susan.
"Not this time," he said, "but thank you for telling me. I was wondering about this," he said, and hugged her again, not around the neck, or the ribs or the shoulders, but around her current lack of shoulders. His arms didn't press in uniformly from all directions, front and back the pressure was the same, the pressure on her arms wasn't felt directly on her arms that weren't there, nor on the portal plates, but as a distributed tension on her upper arms, spread across a lot of that super soft and stretchy liner material hidden away inside that jacket sleeves.
"It tickles a little," she said, "But only if I think about it very hard, if I don't then it's just a hug that for whatever reason you're mostly pushing me against your chest by squeezing my back."
"Oh, alright," he said.
"I don't dislike it," she said, "you may keep doing that."
"Alright," he said.
They kept dancing until they'd each lost the tune enough times to feel inadequate.
"You cannot tell," said Susan, "but I'm holding my arms over my head, would you mind pulling my shirt off."
"Sure," he said and grabbed her—whatever it was—by the shoulder seams and lifted. It slid off her like a sock, a little too tight and a bit annoyed at not being unzipped and peeled off properly, but it slid off just the same.
Susan flexed and swung her arms as if to shake the circulation back into them, except they'd been perfectly comfortable and that wasn't the problem. The problem merely had been that they hadn't been seeming to be working before and she had to convince herself that they really were.
Instincts were weird.
And that sports bra type thing wasn't a bad design or far from her size.
"Did Ginny design this part?" she said.
"Yes," said Harry, "Though I did model Leona for her to take some of the measurements from."
Susan nodded, "makes sense, give it here, I want to see how it all fits together."
He handed it over.
She found the zipper start pieces and got it put together after only a little trouble and with only a vague memory of one of Hanna's cousin's coats she'd taken a long chance to look at when she was eight or so.
Someone had the sense to orient all three zippers in the same direction so that it was hard to mistake which one went where. At most you could try to start them in the wrong order, but that couldn't progress too far because the fabric behind them couldn't actually go together in an X. And anyway, they were three subtly different colours of grey and brown. If you were looking closely enough.
The side straps were a bit more tricky: The straps and plates of the false underwear strapped to side straps in the pants, connecting the straps to the top would pull the connectors to the bottom straps to an angle that almost guaranteed they'd give way easily. That could very easily be corrected, by connecting them differently, or just not connecting them at all, or adding another strap that went straight from the shell of the pants to the shell of the jacket.
Susan giggled.
"What?" said Harry.
"Imagine," said Susan, "you talked about a pillow-Susan, and I talked about a stuffed-animal-Susan, what about a dress-up soldier Susan. Add another plate around my neck, and fill up the torso between with … basically scarecrow padding. Then I walk onto the piste and take a flame charm to the chest?"
"Um?" said Harry, "I haven't tested to what temperature the plates are safe."
"Never mind that, I just pull my limbs in like a frightened turtle and seem to burn up completely."
"Oh!" said Harry, "that does seem familiar somehow. Would soapy water work just as well as fire?"
"What? Why?" said Susan.
"Dirty mop water?" said Harry, "or perfectly clean mop water dyed the appropriate colour to seem dirty?"
"Oh," said Susan, "depends on what you're trying to accomplish, and my state of mind at the time, but under the right circumstances, yes, it might."
"Hmm," said Harry and smiled ominously.
"Just what kind of heist are you envisioning, that a dramatic disappearance through Mr. Filch's mop bucket would make it better?"
"And with a little more work, and a platter-sized portal we might could get a disappearance of everything-but-robes to work just as well."
"Yes, but mop water?"
"No, in this case, it would be just in time to not be hit by a glowing sword," said Harry, "But never mind. We might need Hermione or the twins in on this conspiracy before it can be properly implemented."
"What conspiracy would this be?"
"Put on a short play, that the muggle-borns will recognise and cheer, and the purebloods will wonder what in the world we're trying to communicate."
I'm pureblood, "What would we be trying to communicate?"
"The House of Potter and allies are literate in muggle classic literature and can do things with magic that no one else remembers how to do, and we aren't afraid to use it to make dramatic statements," said Harry, "Except at the moment I don't have any dramatic statements to make, so whatever."
"I don't remember you being this weird," said Susan.
Harry stared at her. "I hold a troll's attention so that Ron can kill it, I wrestle a possessed professor to death, accidentally, I kill a basilisk and a Horcrux, I sacrifice my childhood to bring justice, I take sex tutoring from Bellatrix Lestrange, I protect my thralls by making them invisible, I 'cooperate internationally' to keep braver idiots than myself safe, I adopt little sisters," he tapped her on the chest without stopping, "for helping me and my pet death eater to locate more of the previous dark lord's Horcruxes for destruction, I tutor young veela and teenage mages in cooperation, I steal captives from criminals and distract terrorists with sex changes, I crush dementors into boggarts I marry two girls on the same day, and watch them snog each other, counting my marriage contracts as two, I have four breeding related contracts with five women." He sighed.
"So?"
"And you ask when I've found the time to go weird?" he asked.
Susan shrugged, "I just don't think of you as … I don't know, the pranking type."
"Oh," he said, "No, you're right, I'm not, usually, but Sirius suggested it might be my only legal recourse regarding certain things, so I'm trying to get a handle on how it's done properly."
She nodded. "This is about Angelina Johnson, and her escalating levels of harassment?" she said darkly.
Harry nodded.
"Alright," said Susan, "I'll think about it."
Harry smiled shyly.
For all that they were letting him lead their faction, he was dangerously unused to receiving help when he asked.
Maybe that had been Ginny's point about helping him, she hadn't been talking to Susan, she'd been talking to Harry. Ask for help more often, damn it, ask for help.
Susan turned away to hide her grimace and finished folding up her prank armour then stood and crossed to the towel rack where she kept her yellow quilt and extra uniform. It would do, for now, another logical place for it to belong would be rolled up on the bookshelf by her desk.
She turned back to Harry, "You still want a shower before your nap?"
He nodded.
They went into the bathroom together, and for once the shower curtain did not seem too cramped for one, it seemed just right for two (if only her elbows didn't take up so much extra space.)
The nap went well, and apparently, everyone left her alone, because they were so used to leaving Harry alone for his Saturday morning nap. That was nice.
Or it could just be that they'd always have left her alone if she'd just gone through the trouble of closing the curtains.
...-...
{End Chapter 25}
A/N: Also, I just lost The Game. Sorry.
