WARNING: Well, it's in the title – sex. But nothing graphic.

Chapter 4: The Magic of Sex

At that moment, Harry realised that it was probably his last chance to leave the courtroom unnoticed, without reporters hanging on his heels. Whatever the Wizengamot decided about Narcissa, he had done all he could. He would hear about it later, and it was time to turn his mind to other business.

"See you later," Dean whispered, and while all the cameras were turned to the front, Harry slipped behind the back row and out of the courtroom.

As soon as he quietly closed the door behind him, he saw Ginny. The dark green of her tight dress contrasted with her red hair, and in the flickering light of the torches in the dungeon hallway, she looked smashingly dangerous.

"Why did it take so long?"

"Too many Malfoys," Harry replied distractedly, as they entered the lift. "Let's not talk about them. I want to forget the Malfoys for good."

Ginny's shoulder brushed against his as the doors closed behind them. She propped herself on one arm and wound the other around Harry's waist. He found himself leaning, no, pressed against the wall, overpowered by a dark green boa constrictor that had disguised herself as a red-haired girl for so many years. Harry had a sudden urge to say 'Take me!' in Parseltongue, but couldn't. His lips were sealed by her kiss, a whirlwind of warm pleasure caught his lower body, and he just silently wished she would take him right there, in the lift of the Ministry of Magic, Great Scotland Yard, London, UK.

Alas, the Ministry dungeon was not deep enough for that. Too soon the doors opened again and let them out into the Atrium, a red-haired girl in a green dress and an intern from the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, trying to catch their breath.


The rest of the afternoon was a race against time. Peeling, cutting, frying, baking, cooling butterbeer—that, at least, worked with a simple spell—and above all, getting Walburga Black to shut up.

"Filthy mudbloods! Half-breed mutants!" Walburga doubled her volume, when Hermione walked in with Ron, only an hour after Harry and Ginny.

"Narcissa got three years in Azkaban! No suspension!" Hermione tried to shout over her.

"What?!"

"Taint of shame on this house!"

"Wait!" shouted Ron. He pulled a suspicious looking bottle out of his bag, and sprayed its contents over the portrait. The late Mrs Black was now pulling furious faces and stamping her feet, but silence fell over the dark hallway of twelve Grimmauld Place.

"Ahhhh..."

"Estonian Prolonged Silence Spray. The auditory equivalent of Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder from George's new product line," Ron explained. "A test sample."

"Ripe for the market, I would say." Ginny rubbed her chin, eyeing the muted Walburga.

"Can I preorder?" Harry shouted, hurrying back to the kitchen to check on the carrots.

"Narcissa to Azkaban for three years!" Hermione entered the kitchen and vanished a pile of onion peels. She might have vanished the garlic press too.

It took a few summoning spells to equip everyone with the necessary utensils, and when the main misunderstandings about how to roast chicken were out of the way, the conversation drifted back to courtroom number eleven.

"Makes no sense, if you ask me, that she gets more than he does," Ron said.

"No. Yes. It's absurd." Harry had the carrots self-peeling now, and was trying the same approach on the potatoes.

"Your speech about Snape was great," Hermione said. "Where's the garlic press?"

"You should have seen their faces, the Wizengamot's," Ron added.

"No I shouldn't," Harry said. "If I had seen their faces I would probably not have been able to say a word."

The potatoes turned out to be more stubborn than the carrots.

"It sounds like I've missed the best part again," said Ginny. "Incendio!" And the oven sprang to life.

"That was not the best part," said Ron, sprinkling oil over the chicken. "The best part was that stinky animal that testified against her."

"You should not speak like that of a witch, Ron," Hermione said sternly. "And she has a name by the way." Everyone looked expectantly at Hermione. "Mi— Mio—," Hermione went all red in the face, "Miushe!"

"All right. That." Ron went on to fill Ginny in on the whole 'doorbell bloke' affair and the brawl between the Malfoys' defender and the comic book. When he finished, the chicken had acquired an enticing golden hue.

"I wonder, though," he sat down and stared into the space, "where in the name of Merlin's pants I'd seen that face before."

"You had seen her before? The witness?" Harry stopped mashing the potatoes and Hermione stopped looking for the garlic press.

"I swear I have, but where?" Ron blinked. "Or maybe it was just a déjà vu."


Even without the garlic press, most of the snacks turned out to be between 'Acceptable' and 'Exceeds Expectations'. When the unpretentious crowd of Harry's guests filled the drawing room, enchanted trays came floating from the kitchen downstairs, courtesy of Kreacher the house-elf, and the room sank into cheerful chaos. Douglas was perched on Harry's shoulder with an air of imperious self-importance, until his eye fell upon a suspicious insect on the windowsill. He darted for it, turning over three glasses of butterbeer on an unlucky tray that got in his way.

Lee almost had to use violence to get George out of the hallway, where he spent most of the time walking from one corner to another, and listening to Walburga's silence imposed by his new product in testing. Just in time for the last helping of shepherd's pie, George joined the crowd and spiced the conversation with his black humour.

Kingsley did not arrive until Harry started wondering whether it was time to send the rest of the snacks back to the kitchen and summon the pudding.

"Sorry, Harry, I couldn't make it earlier," said the Minister, loading his plate full with roast chicken, which was less popular than the pies and the salads, and of which there was still a fair amount left. "First the Malfoys, then the Goblins, then the Muggles. Narcissa's trial cost me my lunch," he added, chewing away gratefully at a sorry-looking chicken wing.

After they exchanged birthday greetings and thanks, Kingsley said in a low voice, "I promised myself not to talk to you about work at your party, but since we might not get another chance before you go back to Hogwarts, I'd like to ask you something." He glanced around. They were wrapped in a curtain of noise. "We have indications that Draco Malfoy might be planning to smuggle his father out of Azkaban, or I guess, now both his parents, with the help of some dark object which had been in their family for generations."

"Oh. They still have dark objects? I thought their Manor was searched, like, five times?"

"Six times, in fact. The problem is, we don't know what we're looking for. It could be anything—weaponry, jewellery, cutlery, or even furniture. It could be the chandelier in their drawing room for all we know. Or it might be somewhere else. The Manor is not their only property."

"Okay. What can I do?" asked Harry.

"Now, Draco will go back to Hogwarts to complete his seventh year. This is one of the conditions of his probation."

"Hasn't he done his seventh year already? I thought he—"

"Well, yes, he went to Hogwarts last year, but he couldn't finish his N.E.W.T.s, as he spent the last two months first in custody and then in courtroom number eleven. Besides, Defence against the Dark Arts was a joke, and Muggle Studies was a very bad joke. By the way, Muggle Studies is now mandatory for him. That's another condition of his probation."

"Makes sense. And where am I in the picture?"

"Right. I was wondering if you could keep an eye on him while at Hogwarts?"

"That is, spy on him?"

"Not quite. Rather, keep him out of trouble. See, Draco is not a hopeless case. He fell deep into the mess because of his father, but he might still climb out of the hole if he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Am I his probation officer?"

"No, no. He is being assigned a proper, ministry-appointed probation officer, who he will meet every Hogsmeade weekend. That's yet another condition of his probation. What I was thinking of, well, see, Draco is now the only Death Eater walking free. He is hated by everyone. Hogwarts will probably be no exception. He is a likely target for attacks both from the winning and from the losing sides. Not that he does not deserve it, but I don't know how well he can take it. He might be provoked and strike back, or try to disappear, with or without his parents, and that would be unfortunate."

"So?"

"He really needs someone who doesn't hate him. Do you hate him, Harry?"

"No. He's a prick, but I don't hate him."

"Could you imagine cooling him down a bit if you think he is about to break under the pressure?"

"Are you asking me to be his mother?"

"No, not mother. More like a friend, maybe," Kingsley said with admirable confidence, given how crazy the idea was. "I know it's a lot to ask, knowing your shared history. But I can't think of anyone else I could ask. And if you accidentally notice that he is playing around with some interesting artefact, you could just make a mental note."

"So, it's spy, mother, and friend, all in one." Harry grabbed another glass of butterbeer and offered one to Kingsley. "Are you sure I'm up to it?"

"I'm sure you are the best possible choice!" Kingsley winked. "Cheers!"

Harry remembered the last time he was spying on Malfoy. That time he ended up almost killing him.

"To be honest, I'd promised myself not to spy on Malfoy ever again," he said. "Being friends is only possible if he finally makes up his mind to be a person, and I still can't see that he has, whatever stories Mr Knox will tell about him. As for the 'mother' part, I could give it a try, but I don't think he'll let me. Too much venom has passed between us."

"Why don't you give it a try? And if he does not accept this generous offer, well then. Then it's his problem. He is an adult and a criminal offender. If he messes up, he'll go to Azkaban. Full stop."

Harry thought of Malfoy's relieved face when he stood up from the defendant's chair, and couldn't help marvelling at the git's luck.

"What surprises me though is that you want to make him that offer. I still can't believe he is getting a milder punishment than his mother."

"That's the law, Harry. Draco was underage, and nothing he did caused anyone to die, whereas Narcissa's actions resulted in an actual dead body. There is no way around it. We were as lenient with both of them as we possibly could, and it's just three years for her, not a life sentence."

"I wouldn't survive a week there."

"You forget that we don't employ Dementors any longer. She'll be fine, I assure you."

"But—" There might have been gaps in his understanding of law, but— Now Harry suddenly remembered. "What happened to his Unforgivables, actually? Why wasn't he—"

But when Harry looked up from his butterbeer, Kingsley was gone. He had been swept away by Mr Bell, and they were now clapping each other's shoulders and wondering how long it had been since they had last seen each other.

'Why wasn't he charged with the Imperius on Madam Rosmerta?' Harry was left alone with the unanswered question, and cursed silently, because he was thinking about Malfoy again. He had been determined to forget him! Now, fat chance, if he were to take Kingsley's task seriously.

Harry's guests were having lots of fun though. Hagrid had been trying to impersonate Fleur in a game of charades, but 'giant squid' was the closest guess offered. Luna struck up a friendship with Douglas and complimented Harry on his choice of owl. She told him that screech owls had a rare ability to attract Umgubular Slashkilters, and that Harry might be lucky enough to add one to his household one day. Harry enquired as to the exact nature of that attraction, but Luna could not answer with certainty. The relevant branch of magizoological research was poorly funded, she said.

Not counting Lee and George slumped behind the sofa, knocked out, all the guests left on their own feet, past Walburga still fully affected by Estonian Prolonged Silence. She had stopped trying to scream, and was covering the background of her portrait with inscriptions 'filthy mutants', 'foul mudbloods', and 'subdue our freedom of speech'. All in all, the party was a success.


There was one last thing on Harry's agenda before they left for the holiday. Tomorrow he was visiting Dudley Dursley at number four Privet Drive, to collect his remaining possessions that he had not been able to take along on his Horcrux hunt and which he had had to leave at that sad place of his underage imprisonment. He had never expected to see his things again. He had actually never thought he would need them again. But since he decided to go back to Hogwarts and complete his seventh year after all, he did not fancy buying a full set of new school supplies just for one year.

Of course, the chance to get his stuff back from the Dursleys was slim. They had probably tossed it away, or burnt it, or, well, they would have definitely liked to do something even more drastic to his magical books and equipment, but Harry did not deem them endowed with enough imagination for anything more than burning.

When he called the Dursleys from the Ministry's muggle line a week ago, he first had to listen to half a minute of Uncle Vernon's heavy breathing, followed by a heated speech which came down to 'How you even dare to call, after all we've done for you, and you ruined my business!' Apparently, uncle Vernon's drill company was not running so well while he was in hiding under the Order of the Phoenix protection. When Harry was about to hang up without even asking about his things, he heard sounds of struggle on the other end of the line, and then Dudley's voice:

"Harry, what's up?"

To Harry's great surprise it turned out that Dudley had saved some of his possessions from the bin and kept them in a box for him to collect. To keep the emotional damage of Harry's visit to a minimum, they arranged for him to come next Saturday, when Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would be gone for a spa weekend which his aunt had won in a Good Housekeeping competition. That was tomorrow.

On Saturday afternoon, Harry apparated to a small grove at the edge of Little Whingings and walked from there to Privet Drive. When Dudley welcomed him with a hearty handshake and offered him a beer, Harry was mildly surprised by this outright display of hospitality. He took the handshake, but refused the beer, and Dudley took him straight upstairs. He proudly showed him the freshly renovated room that used to be Harry's for a few years and was now back under Dudley's reign. Only very recently though, because Dudley had not managed to make a complete mess of it yet, and one could still sense the gluey smell of the new furniture. The most remarkable new piece was a super king size bed. Seeing that Dudley had lost rather than gained pounds since the last time Harry saw him, the extra width could not be intended for Dudley alone.

They went to Dudley's old room, and just as he was about to pull a moving box from under a pile of broken gaming consoles and old computer accessories, Harry heard a metallic buzz: "Ti-di-doo-da ti-di-doo-da ti-di-doo-da-da". Dudley pulled a small object the shape of a piece of soap out of his pocket. He stared at it briefly, his face lit up, he pressed a button and held the thing to his ear:

"Hi there!" he said "Oh yeah, they are."

"It's my girlfriend," he whispered to Harry.

Dudley had a girlfriend?! Harry could not imagine what kind of girl would agree to have Dudley, but by the sound of it, some rare specimen had found joy in his cousin. Now, that explained both Dudley's bed, and his weight loss, and his sudden developmental leap in social skills.

"Sure, but not right now, maybe in an hour?" spoke Dudley into the soap.

"She figured out that my parents are away and wants to come over," he whispered to Harry with a meaningful wink.

"In an hour, okay?" he said to his girlfriend. "See you! Me too!" and he pressed the button again.

"My mobile phone," he introduced his new toy to Harry, "Very useful. When you have girlfriends. You should get one, too."

"A girlfriend?"

"No, a mobile phone." But at that moment the phone went off again "Ti-di-doo-da ti-di—"

"Yes, honey? What? Who I'm talking to? Oh, that's my cousin, Harry," said Dudley, and then to Harry in a hushed voice, covering the receiver with his hand, "She's jealous!"

"Yes, I have a cousin. He even used to live with us until not long ago," he said into the phone again and then listened. "Oh, that's because he, um, went to a different school."

"She wants to meet you!" he said to Harry, but Harry protested silently.

"Another time, sugar. He is in a hurry," he said into the phone. "Yes, see you in an hour!"

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Dudley asked with vivid curiosity, freeing the box from the clutter under which it was buried.

"Er. Yes, I do."

"Is she pretty?"

"Yes, very."

"You should bring her along some time," Dudley suggested.

Harry thought hard of an excuse not to.

"Is she one of your," Dudley added warily, "w-folk?"

"Oh yes, she is a witch," Harry said with emphasis, and Dudley's curiosity faded. He finally managed to separate the box from the jumble, and Harry took a brief look inside. There were still his school robes, and cauldrons, and some books.

"Thanks. It's great you kept it."

"Do you need a lift?"

"Oh, no, thanks." Harry pulled out his wand, and pointed it at the box. "Reducio!" The box shrank to the size of Dudley's mobile phone and Harry dropped it into his backpack. Dudley's body stiffened and his face froze in an expression of bewildered awe. He would have probably stayed that way until Harry left, if it was not for his phone buzzing for attention again:

"Ti-di-doo—" Dudley picked it up quickly. "Sure, lollypop. He's leaving. You can come over any time. See you!" he said with a shade of relief and reawakened anticipation, and followed Harry downstairs.

"If you need to call me, better not call that number," Dudley said, pointing at the land line phone in the hallway when they were standing at the front door. He scribbled a number on a piece of paper and handed it to Harry. "Call my mobile. Then you get me and don't have to talk to them."

"Have a good weekend, big 'D'!" said Harry. That girl was a good influence, he thought, and in order not to taint Dudley's romantic afternoon by disapparating right in the Dursleys' front garden, he headed back for the grove he came from.


The next morning Harry took the floo to Crannborough House, a rundown wannabe mansion surrounded by an automobile graveyard. It was a portkey station with a high capacity connection to the floo network through no less than four stately chimneys. The halls had a confusing layout and were full of witches, wizards, goblins and hags, but soon Harry found his friends in the crowd. He just managed to grab a Sunday Prophet from a news stand by the exit, when Hermione urged them to hurry outside and join a fat wizard and a family of three half-breed vampires at an old rotten tire. Just as the vampire kid started complaining "Mummy, I'm thirsty," they swirled through the air, and when his mother finished saying "You have to wait until we're at grandpa's, darling," they were already stumbling over a sun-dried clearing of their destination. The fat wizard disapparated immediately, the vampires followed, and Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Ron were left alone in a desert of scattered junk.

From a rusty kiosk at a distance, a man came running, waving his hands wildly. Every word he shouted sounded like an ancient dark spell, but his body language was clear enough. He pointed at the sun, then at their broomsticks and then pulled his hand across his neck. That was what was going to happen if they were to use their broomsticks during daytime, obviously.

"Why don't they trust us to disillusion ourselves for the flight?" Ron asked, as they followed the guy to the kiosk.

"Because disillusionment wears off," Hermione said. "The most common cause of losing a wand is messing with it while you're above sea on a broomstick."

Their Galleons disappeared inside the kiosk and out came bags of local silver coins.

"Aparatirati! Frajga!" Hermione had picked up a few of the mysterious incantations the guy kept spilling, and this was the outcome of her negotiations. They hung on the man's sweaty arms, plopped through the space, and a second later were standing on a slope of a hill among trees and shrubs.

"Frajga!" the man said, swung a broad gesture at the surroundings, and disapparated.

Frajga was the ghost village where they were going to spend their holiday, but all they could see around them was an olive grove and a faint hint of a path leading downhill. In the absence of other straightforward options, they silently followed the path and soon started noticing abandoned and destroyed houses, inhabited by vines and goats. The houses became more frequent as they walked on, and the path became wider and turned into a dirt road. Trying not to step on goat droppings, let alone on snakes, sunbathing on the limestone slabs that kerbed the road, they made their way under fig and carob trees to what looked like the centre of the village. But no human being was in sight.

"Why don't you ask one of those things?" Ginny said. "Hope they speak the same Parseltongue here."

But Harry had already been wondering why the snakes were so silent. He should have perceived bits of their chitchat by now. When he tried to address one of them, he got the final proof of what he had suspected all along. His Parseltongue was gone. What a shame. For once, this sinister talent could have served a truly peaceful purpose of asking for directions to their holiday accommodation. But that meant that Voldemort was finally out of his system completely. Harry breathed in the hot air full of strange dormant scents. He was free and clean—a blank page for a new story.

They had to turn a few rounds of the ruined settlement, until they found the hostess. The scraps of the local dialect that Hermione had picked up from the apparickshaw man got them so far that the witch gave them a huge basket filled with what looked like dollhouse furniture, and made them tap an empty water tank with their wands.

As they did so, the air suddenly filled with music and laughter, and when they turned around, they saw it. The village stretched out like an accordion. Hotels, restaurants, pubs, and fountains unfolded from what until that moment looked like patches of impenetrable undergrowth. The ruins that they saw on their way were still there, but were now separated by rows of well-kept houses and serpentine streets full of witches and wizards walking, sunbathing in colourful deckchairs, or playing wizard chess on shadowy terraces of sweet-smelling cafés.

The hostess directed them into one of the quieter side streets, until they stopped in front of a house with broken windows and a sunken roof, enclosed in a thicket of lush rhododendrons. There they were. This was their home for the next couple of weeks.

Harry couldn't help heaving a sceptical sigh.

"That's not half as bad as North Tower before Trelawney's departure," Ginny said, and in a matter of seconds, she raised the roof, restored the masonry and reforged the glass panes. What a woman, Harry thought, and for the first time in his life was shamelessly proud to be the Chosen One! Chosen by Ginny Weasley!

The house ended up having two small rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen opening into a tiny garden, and when the floor was free of thistles and reassembled from the broken tiles, they brought the basket inside and went on fishing out chairs and tables and enlarging them to their natural size.

Harry felt a small jolt of anxiety when his Engorgio charm produced an enormous bed that almost filled the room that he was to share with Ginny. This was the place where he would soon part with his virginity, and something turned around inside him. 'Are you a Gryffindor or what?' he reminded himself, and continued to pull the sheets over the mattress. But his courage was in a strange mood, and Harry had an unpleasant feeling that it might leave him at the most inappropriate moment possible.

In the first four days though, his courage was in low demand, because Ginny was on her period. On day five, they slipped away from Ron and Hermione during a hike across the hills, and hid among the shrubs.

"This is— You are— Oh my god!" Harry lay pinned to the ground, thorns scratched his arms and back, but it didn't matter, because Ginny's hair fell over his face, hiding him from the blinding sun, and her lips were wet. In one movement she rolled over to her back, and dry grass cracked under her.

"Be careful," Harry whispered. "I can't negotiate with them if they get angry." A long glossy body slithered past not five feet away from them.

Ginny stiffened, and the magic of the moment faded with the rustle of stirred vegetation behind the leaving snake.

They walked for another half hour until they stood in front of a tiny abandoned chapel. The door yielded effortlessly to Ginny's Alohomora, and the ball of light from her wand illuminated a thick veil of dust, whirled up by their arrival. Behind it the eye could guess incongruous fragments of the remaining plaster. If it weren't a church, the place would be perfect to hide an ancient monster.

"Imagine meeting a Basilisk, but she turns out to be an Animagus," Ginny said and looked into his eyes.

If Ginny were that Basilisk, he would be dead this minute.

"And you fight it, but the moment you're about to strike her down with your sword, it's a woman."

Harry made another effort to see a Basilisk in Ginny, but this Basilisk didn't attack, and the thought of swords seemed out of place. Ginny pulled him into the darkness. She came to a halt and sat on—

"Ginny, it's the altar!"

"Yes..." Ginny's hands slid below his waist line and were approaching a point that Harry would prefer to stay unaware of in a place of worship, guarded by a Basilisk or not. "Bet Ron and Hermione did it here an hour ago."

"I don't think so. It's a church!"

"It's not a church any more..."

"No, Ginny, not on the altar."

"Are you religious?"

"No!" Harry couldn't think of a rational explanation why he minded. The Dursleys had never taken him along to church, and on those rarest of occasions where he had seen one on their TV, it burned into his mind an impression of something totally unsexy. "It just gives me the wrong vibes."

After those more romantic locations, the safety of their bedroom and the unforgiving rectangularity of their mattress presented a challenge of their own. There were no snakes, no altars, and no other excuses, and the same evening Harry stood leaning against the wall, ready to surrender and wondering what was going to happen.

A vision of Ginny grabbing him by his belt and turning him around to face the wall dashed through his mind. At least, that would be kinder than looking into his eyes, when coming from a Basilisk. But the vision was dispelled by the sight of the real Ginny lying on the bed, and yes, looking. She was waiting for something. Harry's stomach twitched as he realised that the hour for his Gryffindor courage had struck.

"What would you like me to do?" Harry asked and moved to the bed.

"Surprise me," Ginny said with a mischievous smile. "What would you like to do?"

When Harry had imagined this moment, he had always thought that it would just happen to him. The thought of having to do something, let alone of being given a choice of what to do, was completely new to him.

"Just do what you want." Ginny certainly meant it to make it easier for him, but it didn't.

What did he want? He wanted to lose his mind inside her, eventually. But he first needed to get there, and right now the task felt like nothing less than breaking into Gringotts. Ginny's unreadable expression made him think of the Goblin at the counter and of his own total failure to predict where he would run against an invisible security trap. It had been the Imperius curse that ultimately broke his way into the desired vault. No! He did not want his sex life to have anything to do with his experience of bank robbery.

That night Harry got away with licks and kisses. In places that had been radically out of bounds so far, mind you! So it was undeniable progress! The following nights Ginny became more and more demanding. Her ideas about what he should do took shape, and Harry's lips and tongue were getting into an athletic condition. One time they were almost blessed. Almost! But the entire exercise now demanded from him a level of concentration that made his own lust ebb, and Ginny never missed the point when his passion made way for mechanics.

A bit more patience on Ginny's part would have been welcome, Harry thought, but she was desperate to return the favour.

"Surprise me!" Harry said after giving it some thought and not coming up with anything in particular he wanted her to do.

But Ginny's first attempt to surprise him ended in a way that even the word Quidditch seemed long in comparison. Was that even possible? Harry's face was burning, and he didn't know what to say.

Ginny's following attempts became more cautious, and, well, less surprising, and if Harry was honest with himself, they just missed the point. His fantasies revolved around their intimate moment at the Ministry. Perhaps, they should try doing it with clothes on, he thought, maybe in a lift or similar. Maybe that chapel was not such a bad idea after all... But even if he were to overcome the shortage of suitable vocabulary, sharing these ideas would defeat the purpose of the game. If he asked Ginny to smash him against the wall, it wouldn't be a surprise any longer. Harry tried to relax and to concentrate on the here and now. The occasional groan they could hear from the room next door added to the frustration.

When after a week of trying, Ginny was on her knees in front of him, and... Harry would rather forget what happened then, again, or rather, what did not happen. He stood, his eyes pressed shut, not daring to face life, while Ginny showered ideas from her past experience with disconcerting matter-of-factness.

"Ginny, I don't have to know what worked with Dean! It has nothing to do with what works for me!" was the last thing Harry said before pulling on his shorts and T-shirt and walking out into the night.

Crickets chirped, Harry lay on the beach, the sea murmured soothingly, and the sky was beset with stars. The outline of Ginny's naked body formed in the darkness of his imagination. The memory of her scent and the tickle of her bush on his nose brought him back into the state of combat readiness.

"Now you wake up! What's wrong with you?" Harry hissed at his crotch.

He fell back and looked into the depth of the sky. The stars... So beautiful and simple! And predictable...

When he got back to their house and went to bed, Ginny was asleep. When he woke up next morning, she was gone. So were her dresses, swimming suits, and broomstick. On the bedside table Harry found a message:

Dear Harry, I feel that we are on the wrong track, and talking has not helped so far. Before we fall into a pattern that suits neither of us, we'd better take a step back. Right now I want some distance and some time to understand what's wrong. See you at Hogwarts. Ginny.

Harry jumped into his shorts and rushed out of the room. There was evidence of a recently finished breakfast for three on the kitchen table, but no one in the house. He dashed outside and saw Hermione looking up the road. He followed her gaze: At the top of the hill where the road seemed to hit the sky, Ginny and Ron were standing with their backpacks and broomsticks. Ginny took Ron's arm and, without looking back once, they disapparated.

"What the hell is going on?" Harry blurted out, alarmed to the bone. Hermione gave him a one-armed hug and led him back into the house.

"Ginny insisted on leaving before you woke up."

"What the fuck!"

"Exactly my and Ron's reaction," Hermione said. "But Ginny, if she takes something into her head..." She sighed.

"And what is it exactly that she took into her head? I just got this," he showed Hermione Ginny's message, "and it sounds like 'Bye Harry, was nice meeting you, have a good life!'"

Hermione read the message silently.

"No, it doesn't."

But Harry had to wait half a day, before Hermione explained what she meant. She left for a guided tour of the haunted villa of some five-hundred-year-old Italian bishop, which she had signed up for and did not want to miss, and Harry made an honest attempt to dump his frustration in the sea, and the memory of... what didn't happen. He swam like a mad merman, until hunger pulled him back ashore. He walked to the local fisherman's tavern, dripping water on the pebble, crashed into a beehive chair on the terrace, so the wicker moaned under him, and dug the two-week-old issue of the Sunday Prophet he brought along from Crannborough from under his wet towel. It had been stuck forgotten at the bottom of his bag the whole time. Now he had the time to read it from cover to cover.

The width of the front page was taken by the Malfoys' three faces. "Guilty", "guilty", "guilty" ran in huge letters across their pictures. The report of their trial continued on page two, which showed more pictures; more Malfoys, Scarlett Kaye, one of Harry giving his Snape speech, the comic book on the floor, as well as the physical confrontation between Inquies Knox and the mysterious witness of the prosecution. That was the largest picture on the page that gave a marvellous perspective on the witch's face full of fury and determination to punish her offender.

Apart from the Malfoys, there was only one mention of Death Eaters in the whole issue—a short column on page four about the death of what was left of Barty Crouch jr. The Dementor had devoured his soul after the tragic finale of the Triwizard Tournament, but his empty body had lived on for three more years. Now it finally came to its physical end.

For the rest, the issue was full of normal everyday stuff. There was an interview with McGonagall about the future of Hogwarts and the upcoming challenge of accommodating all the students who signed up for the remedial programme because they could not attend last year as Muggle-borns, because they were busy fighting Voldemort, or because they simply could not do their N.E.W.T. in Defence against the Dark Arts after the subject had been dropped from the curriculum under Snape's rule. By the sound of it, the extra expenses were generously covered by the Foundation for Wizarding Minorities and Underprivileged Groups and there was nothing to worry about.

The next page offered some gossip about who was and who was not invited to Harry Potter's birthday. Next to it, a story about Rita Skeeter, who landed in St Mungo's with serious injuries after being attacked by a Hebridian Black. All those simple things people were interested in when they didn't have to worry about whether they'd be killed before or after breakfast. The war was over. Peace was settling in.

Harry was reading away, trying to distract himself from the disaster in his private life, until Hermione was finally back from the villa. After they finished their fish soup and ordered a second round of butterbeer, Harry took a deep breath.

"Can you explain women to me?" He wasn't fuming anymore. His anger had turned civil and bitter.

"Women? All women are different," Hermione said. "But I take it that you want me to explain Ginny."

"Right. Why did she leave? What did I do wrong?"

"Don't take it personally. You didn't do anything wrong. Ginny loves you, and she wants you. She just needs some time to sort herself out and start afresh."

Harry tried to read Hermione's expression. It sounded like she knew more than he had thought.

"What did she tell you?" He tried not to miss a single stirring in Hermione's face, which now emanated so much softness and compassion that Harry almost felt mothered.

"Not much," she said, "but it sounded like you didn't find common ground, um, in bed."

Clearly, 'not much' was a blunt understatement. That he would ever have to talk to Hermione about these things... Harry wouldn't have imagined that in his weirdest dreams. On second thoughts, Hermione was less bad a choice than any alternatives he could think of. At least, she wouldn't gloat at him.

"I don't understand," Harry said, looking into his half-empty glass of butterbeer. "We both wanted it, but it just didn't work."

"It's perfectly normal if it doesn't work the first time."

"You two don't seem to have these problems."

Hermione's blissful smile did not escape his eye.

"It didn't work the first time for me and Ron either. We just started trying earlier."

"You didn't break up after the first mishap."

"Ginny didn't break up with you! It's just her way of dealing with it. She'll be back before you know it."

"I hope you're right." Harry took a sip and a deep breath. "How did you two figure it out then?"

"Oh," Hermione blushed, "we talked about it, and tried different things, and— But the first thing is really to understand yourself," Hermione rummaged in her bag and retrieved a tiny little book, which she put in front of Harry. "Engorgio!" And the book turned into a still relatively small paperback volume titled:

In your own skin.

It was a simple muggle book, where pictures and paragraphs quietly stayed put where they were printed.

"You can have it if you want," said Hermione. "It was useful to me. For someone who's a bit too cerebral, it's a good idea to try to connect to your own body."

"You don't think I'm cerebral, do you?" Harry flipped aimlessly through the pages.

"No, but... Maybe you, too, need to make friends with your own skin, you know?" Hermione gave him her motherly look again. "The Dursleys didn't teach you tenderness, did they?"

That was true. Harry tried to rewind his childhood experience of hugs and kisses and was surprised to realise that the first ever kiss he got was from Hermione when they said goodbye at King's Cross after their fourth year. And it was not like the skin-to-skin contact made much of an impression that time. He was more worried about the return of Voldemort than responsive to kisses. Did his mother use to kiss him? She probably did, but that was beyond his memory's horizon.

"And then there is also"—Hermione rummaged in her bag again, and pulled out another tiny book—"this."

When she enlarged it, Harry wished she had kept it to half the size. The book popped out to a tome six times the volume of In your own skin and almost overturned Harry's drink. The title on the cover in huge shiny letters said:

The Magic of Sex.

"This is for when you know what you want but wonder how to do it."

"Why do magic books always have to be so big?" Harry quickly turned to the table of contents, to stop the golden letters from reflecting the early afternoon sun in all directions and attracting the attention of strangers on the crowded terrace.

"It's not why magic books are so big, it's why Muggle books are so small!" Ron's voice droned suddenly from behind his back. "Because Muggles have to carry them around unreduced!" Harry's heart skipped a beat.

"Are you working on Harry's sex education?" Ron said to Hermione and gave her a kiss. He sank into the chair next to her. Hermione gave him a reproachful look, and an apologetic one to Harry.

"That was quick! I thought you wouldn't be back before nightfall," Harry said, not without disappointment. Talking about it to Hermione was scary enough. With Ron added, it was approaching horror.

"There was some space on an earlier portkey to Mikulov with a connecting one to Crannborough, and Ginny took it. And I just apparated. Didn't have the patience to wait for dark to fly."

But Harry was now examining the table of contents and coming to admit that the book's coverage made up for its cumbersome physical manifestation. It started with a chapter on all the magical methods of how and how not to get pregnant. Then there were separate chapters on sexual practices between a witch and a wizard, two witches, and two wizards. Followed by a short chapter on Sex with Muggles... Come on! That could not be that different! Or maybe it was... Next there was a very long chapter on... what?! Sex with non-humans capable of consent? Then it was Sex in transfigured states! Then a chapter on love- and sex-related potions, obviously. The last chapter of the book carried the title Dark sex, whatever that was.

Harry did not quite like the way Muggles were sandwiched between the w-folk and non-humans, but couldn't help marvelling at the richness and complexity of this whole new subject in his magical training. He opened chapter five just to have a quick look at what could be so special about the Muggles, and did not notice how Hermione left for the bathroom. When he looked up again, it was just Ron sitting opposite him.

"Impressive, isn't it?" he said. "You can have the other book, but this one, we are still working on it."

Harry did not dare to ask which chapter they were 'working' on. Instead, he pulled a page from his old Sunday Prophet and wrapped it around the Muggle book. Even if it was not as conspicuous as its magical brother, the photo on its cover showed more skin than Harry was comfortable to reveal in public.

"Is it hard work then?" Harry asked, hoping to taunt Ron a little.

"Getting Hermione to shut down her brain for a few seconds? Oh, yeah!"

"Seconds?!" was Harry's second attempt at taunting.

"Seconds is a start!" replied Ron cheerfully. It was hard to miss the sparkle of pride in his smile. Harry knew exactly what Ron was thinking. Finally, there was one thing at which he managed to beat Harry Potter flat out.