Some pretty intense sexual content in this one. If you're not comfortable with that, just go ahead and skip to the bottom whenever it gets too much for you.
May 1995
"Can I have a word with you, Liz?"
Frozen in the middle of the common room, Liz blinked at Deirdre for a second, before glancing at the exit. She was supposed to be at a duelling team meeting soon — not a club meeting, where they had to deal with a whole bunch of other people, but just the teams, practising and planning for the tournament in a couple months. She'd left with plenty of time, though, she wasn't in any danger of being late. Of course, part of why she'd left early was because she wanted to talk to Flitwick about something, but she could do that after the meeting just as well. It shouldn't take too long, she didn't think she'd leave Hermione waiting. Deirdre's mind was quiet enough that she couldn't tell without intruding, but it felt like whatever it was was serious, she wouldn't appreciate being blown off.
She guessed this was what she got for using the main exit.
Liz sighed, started moving closer. "Yeah, sure. What's up?"
"Come on, let's sit down." Somewhat to Liz's surprise, Deirdre didn't pick a spot in the common room, instead slipping into the maze of passages that made up the dorms...and down to the house library. Okay, then. She lead them to a pair of armchairs in a little nook in a quiet corner of the room — a glance over the shelves, titles mostly in Latin and French and Greek, probably not used as often.
After Liz sat down across from her, Deirdre started covering the nook with privacy charms, her eyebrows crawling up her forehead. That seemed rather paranoid, honestly. "...Okay. What is this about?" She went ahead and used Gaelic, since she was aware it was Deirdre's first language and all.
Her wand put away again, Deirdre crossed her legs at the knee, sitting straight and vaguely tense. The prickle of attention on Liz's skin was oddly sharp, an uncomfortable, hesitant sort of lurch in Deidre's head. "I've been meaning to talk to you for a while now — I was leery to bring it up, since, well, I was worried you wouldn't appreciate the intrusion. But you are putting me in a difficult position."
And...how was she doing that, exactly? She hadn't even spoken to Deirdre in at least a month. "What do you mean?"
"Liz," Deirdre said, flatly, with an exasperated hiss from her head. "You know the wards on the dorms register everyone who comes and goes, for security reasons."
Okay, Liz was even more confused now. "Yeah? What about it?"
"I know your Gryffindor friend has been coming by. Hermione Granger, I think her name was?"
"...So? I got permission to let her in, ages ago."
Deirdre sighed, her eyes tipping up to the ceiling for a second, her mind lurching with discomfort and sizzling with irritation. "You're not subtle, Liz. Putting me between you and Severus like this is very awkward for me — he's under the impression you're not seeing anyone."
"I'm not? What does that have to— Oh!" Liz slumped back in her chair as what Deirdre was getting at, rolling her eyes. "It's not like that."
"Are you sure about that?" Deirdre asked — with a leading sort of tone, pretty sure Liz was lying and giving her another opportunity to come clean about it.
...Mostly? If she was being honest, she was still very confused about what was going on with Hermione.
They hadn't talked about it, ever. They'd even continued going about their schedule of doing things, Liz's whole desensitisation programme — Tuesday, Thursday or Friday, one day on the weekend. Some days they'd skipped, around the Seventh Task or just if either of them had a scheduling thing that got in the way, but they'd hit most of them. That first night had been the 21st of last month, and it was the 14th now, so, three weeks or so? Subtract a couple for scheduling conflicts, and that was, like, seven nights total.
They didn't masturbate every time Hermione spent the night...but it was, honestly, most of them. Actually, thinking about it, she was pretty sure they only hadn't done it once — Liz remembered, because it'd been the Sunday after it'd happened the first time, and she'd been very on-edge, wondering if it was going to happen again...
She'd just about convinced herself it was a fluke when, the next time, Hermione started touching herself out of nowhere, not long after they'd gotten into bed. And it just kept happening now.
And Liz was very confused. She'd admit to being a bit oblivious about how normal people shite worked sometimes, but she didn't think this was a normal thing people did? Not like she investigated people's memories that closely, maybe she was wrong, but. And Hermione didn't act any different. Liz was a little awkward sometimes, because she was confused and didn't understand what was going on — especially when she was remembering it while there were other people around, nervous she was giving something away — and Hermione noticed, sure, but she...mostly just thought it was vaguely funny? In a silly person being cute kind of way, you know.
It didn't really seem like the way Hermione thought about her had changed at all — she did notice Hermione remembering it now and then, but when she wasn't actively thinking about it, just, same as always. (She was still pretty sure Hermione wasn't actually attracted to her at all, but she didn't know what to call that feeling, either.) Which was honestly slightly exasperating, nothing changing for her, because Liz found it even more difficult to avoid having inappropriate sexy thoughts about her best friend, now that she knew what Hermione sounded like when she came. Very distracting thought, that.
And they, just, didn't talk about it. It'd been weeks, and it'd never come up, not once.
Of course, Liz hadn't said anything about it either. She didn't know about Hermione, but she kept her mouth shut because she...didn't want to make it weird? It was already weird, arguably, but that conversation sounded, just, viscerally uncomfortable, she'd rather simply not. And she didn't want to give Hermione the wrong idea, like, that she wanted them to be a thing. Which she didn't really, she'd rather stay friends — or, if Hermione wanted to try it, she might go along with it, but she didn't want to herself, she didn't think.
(If for no other reason, if they did end up dating, she'd worry she was going to fuck it up and Hermione might not want to talk to her anymore. And she still planned to adopt her, so it would probably ruin that.)
Also, honestly? She thought that, if they talked about it, Hermione might decide it was a better idea to not do it anymore — and Liz didn't want that to happen, either.
Getting off while feeling Hermione getting off felt really really good. Like, way better than just masturbating alone. It was overwhelming enough that she ended up crying every time. Hermione asking once if she was okay was the closest they'd ever gotten to actually talking about it — which had been horribly embarrassing, fuck...
So, yeah, she had no idea what the fuck was going on with Hermione, but, as confusing and awkward as it was at times, she was honestly fine with that. At least, it didn't bother her enough to think it was worth rocking the boat.
But she was almost positive that they weren't dating or whatever now, which was what Deirdre was getting at. "No really, it's not like that. We're, er... She's helping me with something."
A wave of wry amusement washing over Liz, one of Deirdre's eyebrows ticked up. "Is that so?"
"Oh shut up," Liz groaned, gritting her teeth against the traitorous warmth prickling on her face. "I'm being serious, it's not— I, well, it's none of your fucking business, but she's helping me deal with issues I have because of my awful shitty relatives being abusive bastards. We're not dating, but I've been keeping her coming over a secret, because it's extremely private and I don't want to talk to anyone else about it. Happy?"
Gratifyingly, there was a sharp cold lurch in Deirdre's head, leaning back in her chair and staring at Liz wide-eyed. "Ah..." After a couple seconds of silent blinking, her mind churning and frigid, she managed to properly find her voice. "I'm sorry, Liz, I— You're right, that's none of my business." She wasn't sure what Liz meant, still, what exactly Hermione was helping her with, but she could fill in the blanks enough to suddenly feel really badly about confronting Liz like this.
Far worse than she needed to, honestly — Liz sighed. "It's fine, you don't have to beat yourself up about it that hard. And if I were seeing someone, I would tell Severus about it anyway. Not that he wouldn't find out pretty quick if I didn't tell him — we're both mind mages, and I'm shite at keeping myself in. So."
"I suppose. I only meant to..." She sighed, one hand coming up to idly play with her long plait of hair. "We are meant to tell parents who their children are seeing, if they ask, and, well... Your guardian also being my boss maybe made me a little...overly nervous about it. Like I said earlier, difficult position. I could have been more delicate about it, I'm sorry."
"It's all right, really, I'm not angry."
Deirdre huffed a little, a shiver lifting from her mind. Shaking her head to herself with a wry little smile, she said, "You're more forgiving than I am, then. One of my friends confronted me about another girl back in third year, and I never forgave him for it. Though, he did also out me to my parents, that doesn't help..."
"Yes, well, it's kind of late to out me to anyone, isn't it." It'd been in the bloody Daily Prophet, because her sexuality was apparently everyone's business, for some fucking reason.
"True," Deidre muttered, grimacing.
"Speaking of private business being splashed all over the papers, I haven't seen anything about you and Emily lately. About the stuff around breaking your engagements, I mean. Is that because nothing more is going on with that, or did the Prophet just learn to keep their noses out of it?" She honestly doubted it, as gossipy and intrusive as these bastards could be — if they thought Liz's shite was their business, she didn't see why such a juicy scandal as Emily and Deirdre's stuff shouldn't be. After a second, she noticed her own hypocrisy, added, "Oh, um, you don't have to tell me, just wondering..."
A little flicker in her head, amused, Deirdre said, "It's all right — I expect you'll be seeing it in the papers next month anyway. I'm being disowned."
For a couple seconds, Liz could just gape at her. "What?! They– Are you going to be okay? I mean..." In their legal system, getting disowned was a very big deal! Basically, the only reason people had legal protections was because they were a part of a house — being kicked out instantly made a person an alien, meaning people could do all kinds of shite to them...
"You're sweet, Liz," she said, smiling, "but I'll be fine. With the Strykes pressing a claim, my Lord Uncle had to do something to distance the family from me, for appearance's sake. If he wanted to be cruel about it, he could have just disowned me immediately — he warned me over a month ahead of time, so I could arrange a safe place to land."
"Oh, so, you have an adoption lined up, then?" Honestly, Liz had been a few seconds away from offering to adopt her herself...
"I have — the Slughorns are taking me in, in fact. Though I might end up marrying into the Scrimgeours in a few years, it depends on how we're feeling about it by then — Lady Slughorn made a joke about replacing Emily's contract with Gawain, so. Don't worry about me, Liz, I'll be fine. I knew there would be consequences when I did it."
Yes, well, just because she knew there'd be consequences didn't mean they didn't fucking suck. "Can you do that? Marry Emily, I mean, I thought it was illegal."
"It is. There are ways." She changed the subject without explaining what she meant, which was a little annoying, honestly. Well, when Liz thought about it, she guessed the Scrimgeours could just adopt her in turn, and have the wedding anyway — she didn't think the law preventing marriage in the legal sense would stop people doing the party or ceremony or whatever. "I was honestly more worried about keeping my job here. There are a lot of people who are unhappy with their children being exposed to someone like me, you know how it is. It looks like I'm going to be fine there, though — there was a meeting of the Board about it, but I'm told the staff stood by me, so. It could have turned out better, but this isn't going so badly, all things considered."
"Jesus..." Liz was suddenly very glad that nobody could do shite about her. Print embarrassing things in the papers, sure, be a rude bitch to her in person, but that was about it. The only person who could fucking disown someone from the House of Potter was Liz herself, so. Severus probably could make her life difficult for her if he wanted to, but that didn't seem likely to happen, did it?
Also, like, half of that bloke's friends were lesbians, it was very weird.
"Anyway, um..." This was awkward, she really didn't know how to... "I was on my way out to a duelling team meeting."
"Oh, of course, go on then." Just as Liz started to move, Deirdre spoke, she paused. "Ah... If you do ever need to talk, about a girl or anything else, I'll be here."
"...I might take you up on that one day, actually. I did talk to Narcissa about it, sometimes, but I'm not speaking to her anymore, so."
Deirdre gave her a thin, wry smile, probably remembering their previous conversation about Narcissa. "Talk to you later, Liz."
"Yeah, sure." Feeling a little awkward, Deirdre's attention crawling over her, Liz turned and started on her way out. She let out a heavy breath once she was out of sight, shaking her head to herself — that was bloody weird.
She wasn't quite the last person to show up at the duelling team meeting, but she was pretty close to it. Since there was some planning and paperwork stuff going on today, they were starting in one of the sitting rooms on the ground floor — these had been getting more frequent use this year, they'd probably had to kick people out. She quick stopped by where Flitwick was talking to the Captains, to apologise for being held up and saying she wanted to talk to him about something after, before going to sit with the rest of her team. Katie and Susan and Chelsea were together on a sofa, Artaimís perched on one of the arms, Draco alone in a two-seater. She hesitated for a second, before sitting next to Draco — they did still get on, for the most part, she just found him annoying sometimes.
Thankfully, it was only a couple minutes — Draco talking about quidditch and asking what she knew about the Eighth Task, which was inoffensive enough — when the last missing member of the senior team showed up, and they could get started. There wasn't that much to discuss, they'd already gotten most of their planning out of the way. A couple people had paperwork issues that'd come up — the duelling authority would have already written them about it, Flitwick just reminded them to make sure they straighten that out before the deadline, or they wouldn't be allowed to compete. They had to do a second medical exam a couple weeks before the event itself, to confirm nothing had changed and that they were still healthy enough, Flitwick handed out the paperwork for those. Not to be done right away, of course, hold on to the papers and bring them to your healer over the summer.
There were small issues with doing that, primarily for Chelsea and Artaimís. Muggleborn teenagers didn't have easy access to qualified magical healers, generally speaking, and Artaimís had discovered that the ICW, in fact, didn't consider the healers her family normally went to to be qualified. Without really thinking about it, Liz offered to bring them to see a healer with her around the right time — it would need to be almost immediately after her blood alchemy thing, but that was fine. She would just have hers done in private by Severus, but...
Oh hey, she could actually just ask Severus if he could do them. If he couldn't, for whatever reason, then yeah, Liz had no problem bringing them somewhere. No, don't worry about the money — she'd just ask Severus about a clinic somewhere in France they could go for free, it was fine. After a bit of discussion, they decided to do that, Katie and even Susan volunteering to join in on the trip. Katie made sense, since her family was dirt poor and likely couldn't afford proper healers either — Liz had honestly assumed the Dunbars had been covering that sort of thing, alongside her educational expenses — but Susan didn't really need to, probably just wanted to make a trip for fun out of it.
...Appointments for full medical exams for three people (maybe four, if Susan wasn't just coming for the company) would be difficult to fit in one day, especially with travel time. They might end up needing to stay a night or two. That was fine, Liz could pay for the hotel — she didn't say anything about that just now, though, didn't want to make the poor people on the team even more uncomfortable than they already were.
There was a little bit of talk about their chaperones, some informational packets to bring them, but there'd also been a problem with one of her team's. They preferred to have one man and one woman for each team — Severus was filling in the man's spot again, obviously, but the woman they had had lined up (some relative of Gladwin's) had needed to pull out for some reason. Draco immediately suggested he could ask his aunt Irénée, she was a freelance artificer and occasionally joined duelling events, so she should be able to make the time for it. It kind of seemed to Liz that one of the chaperones being gay kind of defeated the point of having one of each sex, but she agreed that Irénée would be a good choice anyway. She seemed nice, so.
Liz definitely wasn't backing up Draco just because Irénée was pretty or anything.
(If Irénée ended up coming, they were going to have such a high lesbian density on their team — including the chaperones, that was three out of nine...three and a half, if you counted Katie. But she guessed certain stereotypes about lesbians in magical Britain existed for a reason.)
After that, there was a bit of talk about where they were going, and what the schedule of the event was going to look like. There had been some complicated organisational issues that weren't really important to get into just now — what it came down to was that the participants were going to be housed in Syracuse, but the events were going to be hosted in Catania, a separate city about fifty kilometres to the north. In order to accommodate transportation time, they'd had to fiddle with the schedule a bit, so an extra day had been added to the trip. All their expenses were going to be paid for, as usual, but they might want to bring some pocket money for their days off.
If they didn't want to catch other people's duels when they were off, there would be events being put on in Syracuse for them, especially by the University and a couple theatres and the like in the city — the benefit of going to those was that they were free for tournament participants, so. Also, Sicily was hot — they could expect the lows to be in the high teens and the highs to be in the low thirties the whole time they were there — and very sunny, so be prepared to deal with that. No, seriously, be prepared to deal with that, and mention it to anyone coming to watch — the arenas were going to be outdoors, and while the waiting rooms and the like would be climate-controlled, the seating for the audience and the field itself would not be.
Liz grimaced — duelling under the hot sun, ugh, that was going to suck...
When Flitwick got through all he had to say about the trip to Sicily, answering a few questions (mostly from the new members who hadn't done one of these yet), they were done with the talking part for the day. They moved over to the duelling hall — which they also must have had emptied, random people had been playing around in here a lot this year — and had a sort of informal practice, not working together on any particular thing so much as just messing around with whatever they felt like.
Liz spent most of their short practice time working with Artaimís on her footwork. Between the seven people on the team, Artaimís was definitely the weakest link — which was just expected, of course, she was the only third-year. She wasn't bad, but her shields were still a bit weak, which meant she had to be lighter on her feet to compensate. There was a bit of talk about stances, and working on aiming spells while moving — Liz added in some exaggerated somatic forms to that, which would help the younger girl get more power into the spells — and also a fair bit of Liz (and Chelsea, who was helping) firing hexes at Artaimís as she tried to dodge. When playing this game, she was allowed to block spells, but Liz and Chelsea could use shield-breakers or polarised spells that would just go straight through the standard shields, so it safer to try to dodge most of them anyway.
Artaimís did better at it than the last time they'd played this game, but after fifteen minutes or so she was completely wiped out. Liz played around with deflection for a while, out of lack of any better ideas of what to do with herself for the rest of their time — she was getting pretty good at this, but occasionally she'd misread a hex and use the wrong barrier, not perfect yet. They ended today's practice with a trio play-fight, Katie, Susan, and Liz on one side and Gladwin, Chelsea, and Draco on the other. This match-up was completely unfair, of course, Liz's trio won quickly, leaving them enough time to do a second one, which they also easily won. The other trio were all good, of course, but between Katie being the only person on the team who could do conjuration worth a damn and Liz's mind magic and quick-step, they didn't really stand a chance.
Liz would be in two trios at this event, again, one with Katie and Susan and the other with Artaimís and Draco. She wasn't so sure about the second one — Artaimís was improving, but she was still their team's weak spot — but she felt very certain that she, Katie, and Susan would be winning this time. Not a Seer thing (she didn't think), but she'd been to enough of these events now to realise that there were likely to be very few other trios who'd be able to do shite about them.
Susan caught Liz checking Katie out, more than once — she couldn't help it, Katie was in just these little shorts and a muggle tee shirt, it was very distracting. Thankfully she didn't comment, would just smirk at her occasionally, her mind warmly bubbling.
They'd started late tonight, before too long they were done, their group breaking up again. Liz watched them go, waiting for the room to empty out — Flitwick and Alex were talking about something, but that was fine, she wasn't in a rush. Or, um, was she? She checked the time quick, but no, she still had time before curfew, right.
Eventually, Alex was walking away, Liz hopped down off the stands. Before she reached him, Flitwick turned to give her a toothy goblin grin. "Well done today, Miss Potter. Your trio is coming along nicely."
"Yeah, we're definitely winning again this year. Did you have a minute?"
"Of course, of course! I recall there was something you wanted to talk to me about?"
"Yeah, um." His attention on her making her feel annoyingly uncomfortable, she suffocated the urge to awkwardly shuffle her feet. It's not like this was a big deal or anything, just, she was worried Flitwick was going to find it a bit, well, frivolous. "I had some thoughts for next year, about the uniform."
"Oh?" he asked — bright, metallic mind seeming more curious than anything.
"Mhmm. I was wondering if we could get a second version of it? I mean a more, er, feminine one, I guess. I don't like wearing trousers at all if I can help it, is the thing, they're uncomfortable." Also, people tended to notice her arse way more, which could be terribly distracting, but Flitwick didn't need to know that part.
"Ah, yes, I did notice how you dressed for the Fifth Task. I have no objection to that. In fact, you needn't wait until next year — it's too late to get a second design out now, but you may work up something you prefer with your tailor for the event this summer."
Liz blinked. "Wait, really? You can just do that?"
Grinning again, he said, "Yes, why not? So long as you use the correct colour scheme, the correct enchantments, and keep the jacket more or less the way it is, you may make whatever adjustments you wish. If you like, we may use whatever you come up with as an alternative standard to add to the design notes for next year, for whoever else may wish to wear it."
"...Oh." Well, that was easy.
A glint in his mind, Flitwick's smile tilted more towards a smirk. "Did you think I would say no?" he asked, a bit of a dry note on his voice.
Shrugging, she admitted, "Maybe, yeah. I was worried you might think it was, I don't know, silly?" Girly was the word she was thinking of, but she had a feeling that might result in another I hate to break it to you, Elizabeth, but you are a girl moment, and that would just be vaguely embarrassing.
"Ah, but when one is competing, it is ideal to reduce potential distractions so much as is feasible — even the smallest discomfort at the wrong moment may be enough to turn victory into defeat. It may be only a small margin, but your performance will be hampered when in clothing you find uncomfortable. There is nothing silly about it at all."
...When he put it like that, that should have been obvious. "Right, you're right, just overthinking it I guess. I'll do that, then. Thanks. That's all I had, so."
"Of course. Until next time, Miss Potter."
"Good night, Professor."
Hermione was waiting for her, as should be no surprise to anyone, in the library. It was rather unusual for her to be alone in there. With final exams coming up next month, she'd been increasingly falling into one of her obsessive revising schedules — quite simply, she spent far more time on it than any of their other friends wanted to bother with. It wasn't quite so bad as Liz would expect it to get in the last couple weeks before exams, when she often practically lived in the library, but she had been spending more time reading alone lately. Or in Liz's room, sometimes, since she had her Competency stuff she wanted to work on in private anyway.
Liz had to fight off a memory of Hermione reading on her bed, naked — for fuck's sake, she was in public right now, behave, brain...
Trying to act normal, and not like she was a total creep, Liz walked up to her table, leaned against the edge. Hermione didn't react to her showing up, unsurprisingly, too absorbed in her reading. "Hey."
Hermione jumped, her mind flashing, startled. "Oh, Liz. Hello. Is it that late already?" she muttered, reaching for her watch tucked away in her bag.
"Yeah, we've only got twenty minutes or so before curfew."
"No, really? It can't be that..." She trailed off, blinking down at her watch. "Oh, dear. Lost track of time. I'm sorry, I'll just..." Marking where she was at with a spare strip of paper, Hermione folded the book closed, started packing up her things. "So, how was duelling practice?"
Liz shrugged. "All right. My trio with Katie and Susan is definitely winning this time."
"Yes, well, I can't imagine you'd do worse than you did over the New Year."
True. "We spent, like, half the evening talking about planning stuff, more paperwork, you know. Still did enough that I really should wash up before bed."
"That's fine, I did bring along my bath things."
She hadn't really been suggesting Hermione necessarily had to go with her, she could just stay in her room while Liz was doing that, but whatever. Liz quick double-checked nobody was listening, before saying, "A shower is probably a better idea. Sometimes you really don't sleep enough when you get like this — the sooner we get to bed the better, especially since we have class tomorrow morning."
Her mind shivering, cool and gritty and warm and fuzzy at once, Hermione sighed. "You're right, of course. Thank you, Liz." For looking out for her, she meant. Liz had no idea how she was supposed to respond to that sentiment, so she just didn't respond at all.
On their way downstairs, once again taking Parseltongue-sealed hidden passages that led straight into the dorms, they mostly talked about the duelling tournament coming up over the summer. Hermione would be trying to make it, if she could, but she wasn't sure if that would be happening this time — there was her new baby sister, and family stuff going on to do with realising each other already knew about magic, she wouldn't want to be away too much. Though, since her French relatives were in the know, it was possible they might take a brief trip down together? Hermione had been to Italy before, but never as far south as Sicily, she was interested in going but they'd have to see if it worked out.
Liz mentioned her conversation with Flitwick, and that she'd have to squeeze in an appointment at Malkin's to get new uniforms (and probably pay extra to rush having them made) at some point after her blood alchemy thing, which was going to be a pain...which Hermione said was actually kind of convenient. She was confused at first, before Hermione pointed out that she was probably going to be shaped a bit differently after the procedure — she was going to need new clothes anyway. That honestly hadn't occurred to her...though she didn't think it was going to be as much of an issue as Hermione was implying. Liz was a skinny bitch, she probably wasn't going to get much in the way of tits, so. Still, when she didn't have to worry about her scars showing she could wear different things, and she'd like to start wearing corsets and stuff, so, yeah, she should probably try to squeeze in a couple shopping trips between the procedure and the tournament.
And that was on top of the thing with getting Chelsea and Artaimís (and Katie) to a healer that she'd already agreed to — those couple of weeks were going to be so busy...
Asking about how many days off she was likely going to have and what else she might want to do as long as she was in Sicily, Hermione mentioned beaches...and Liz could, theoretically, do that, since she wasn't going to be all disfigured by then. That was an odd thought, not sure how she felt about that. Might be worth stopping by a muggle place and picking up a swimsuit just in case, she'd think about it.
Hermione made a joke about getting a tiny little bikini to show off for Katie, Liz just rolled her eyes.
(She didn't think she'd ever actually said that she liked Katie — Hermione was just observant like that sometimes.)
Actually, she didn't know how to swim at all, which was maybe a problem, since the next task would be out on the Lake? Not sure how she could fix that just now, though — besides, she was pretty sure falling in the water meant she was eliminated anyway, so whatever.
Liz quick covered Hermione with an attention-diverting charm before stepping out of the secret passage into Slytherin. It was getting late, but not so late that there weren't people about, they passed a few in the halls, nodding at or saying hi to Liz as they went by but Hermione going completely unnoticed. Quick dipping by her room for Liz to pick up her shower/bath bag and a fresh dress, Hermione retrieving her bath and teeth-brushing things, they then headed straight for the bathroom — thankfully one of the showers happened to be available.
Over the last couple months, Liz had gotten a lot better with this stuff, but the most difficult part was still undressing at the beginning. Thankfully, Hermione realised that — after dropping off her things by the sinks, she turned away towards the shower half of the room, her attention consciously kept away from Liz. She was undressing back there, which was a little distracting, Liz just tried to ignore that.
The actual shower part was a little awkward. The thing was big enough that they weren't constantly bumping into each other, at least, but it was a little cramped, and Liz reflexively tensed when she felt Hermione's attention on her. And there was, you know, the whole being naked part. She was better about that than she used to be, sure, but still terribly jittery and self-conscious at times — especially when she felt Hermione's eyes on her scars, or anywhere, er, sensitive. (Not anything creepy or even that intrusive going on in Hermione's head, her eyes just had a habit of wandering was all.) Doubly so because needing to wipe herself down was kind of, you know, even worse when it came to any, er, sensitive places, but at least Hermione knew to look anywhere else when Liz made a point of turning away.
Though, being a bit uncomfortable and anxious for those reasons was probably all that stopped her from having different problems. Because Hermione was also naked, and also washing herself off, which was very distracting. Even with her stomach tight and her skin prickling with nerves, she still had to fight off inappropriate sexy thoughts multiple times. The general discomfort kept her from getting too horribly turned on, at least, but it was still a bloody pain.
Liz got a little distracted at one point, watching Hermione scrubbing herself — she didn't even notice she was staring until Hermione actually caught her, the sharp clunk in her mind tipping Liz off. She wrenched her eyes away, gritting her teeth, suddenly feeling very warm and twitchy. An apology caught on her tongue for a few seconds, hung up because she wasn't really sure what to say, or if she should even say it at all, drawing attention to it just might make it worse...
And she never did get the apology out, reflexively slipping into Hermione's head, what she saw there cutting her off. Hermione was a bit embarrassed, sure, but she wasn't really offended at all. It was even weirdly (that is, Hermione herself thought it was weird) gratifying that Liz thought she was distraction-worthy at all.
In fact, Hermione was kind of looking forward to getting to bed. For reasons.
...
Okay, that wasn't helping her sexy-thought problems, not at all.
She managed to get through the shower without making a total embarrassment of herself...at least not any more than she already had, anyway. After wrapping up her hair in a towel and drying herself off with a second one (trying not to feel too self-conscious about the process), Liz stepped into her dress, tried to ignore Hermione's attention crackling on her as she tied it closed. When she was done, she turned a raised eyebrow back on Hermione — she was still naked, of course, Liz tried not to glance downward. "What?"
"Nothing, I suppose. I only noticed you didn't put any underwear on first."
Feeling the warmth on her face, Liz made a twitchy little shrug. "We're just going straight back to my room anyway. Besides, I didn't bring clean pants." She did cast a light attention-diverting charm focussed on her chest, though — without a vest or two on under it, she could easily tell she was lopsided.
"Ah, that's true." Hermione paused for a moment, absently patting at her hair, clockwork mind ticking away. There was a funny little thrill to it she didn't know how to read, Liz wasn't actually in there at the moment... "You were going to cover me with an attention diverting charm, right?"
"Yeah? Just in case there's someone out there, you know."
"Right." And Hermione just continued drying her hair, without explaining what that was about. Okay, then.
Putting another attention-diverting charm over the door, Liz quick dipped out to grab one of her tooth potions — they might as well get everything else they needed to do before bed out of the way as long as they were here. She ditched her dirty laundry, and Hermione was brushing her teeth by the time she got back, hadn't even bothered dressing yet. Her tits were kind of bobbing and swaying with the motion, which was distracting. For fuck's sake, Liz, stop staring, don't be such a fucking perv...
When Hermione was done with brushing her teeth, she...picked up her bathroom bag, and scooped up her dirty laundry. "Ready to go?"
"...Like that?"
"Sure," she said with a little shrug. "Don't forget the charm."
Um. Okay, then. There wasn't anybody in the bathroom at the moment, Hermione ditched her dirty laundry — she kept her uniform robe, she was going to need that tomorrow — they stepped out into—
She jumped at the unexpected voice, hard and tense— "Oh Liz, there you are."
There were two minds out here, Liz recognised them before she turned to look — Tracey and Millie. It was Millie who'd spoken, straightening up from where she'd been leaning against the wall. "Um, yes?" Her voice came out a bit squeaky, nervous, she cleared her throat. "Did you need something?"
"Yeah, did you have the current L.M.P. catalogue? Tracey's and the library's are both a couple months old — I was looking for the new Anastacia Carew book, but I couldn't find it."
"...I should have it, yeah." Luca, Merge, and Pandemos put out an owl-order catalogue together, and her romance novels were mostly published by Pandemos, she'd been getting the new version every month. Reflexively, Liz started glancing back toward Hermione, grit her teeth to stop herself...
She was perfectly calm. Maybe slightly on edge, but not really nervous, or embarrassed, or anything. The thought of being caught undressed didn't freak Hermione out nearly as much as it did Liz, of course, but she still thought there should...
She trusted Liz to keep the charm up. Even with Tracey and Millie standing right there, she wasn't concerned.
...Huh.
"Um, one second, I'll go get it." Liz turned toward her room — her light linen dress fluttering around her, suddenly very conscious of the fact that she wasn't wearing pants right now, Tracey and Millie's attention pressing in on her, her face burning. Fine, she was fine, just, get Hermione into her room — she tried to keep her body between the other girls and her hand, so their attention wouldn't be drawn to Liz holding hands with someone they couldn't see (which might accidentally break the charm). Tossing her bathroom bag toward her closet, she walked over to her bookshelf, her catalogues were here...LMP, she had last November, this February, March, um...
"Here," Hermione said, holding out a roll of magazine stock.
"Oh!" That was the May catalogue, she must have left it on her desk. She barely stopped herself from saying thanks out loud, biting her tongue. Back out in the girls' circle, Tracey and Millie's attention immediately finding her, Liz forced herself not to cringe. Her steps felt clumsy and unsteady, like her balance was off, her face and neck noticeably warm — she was uncomfortably aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing anything under this dress right now, feeling uncomfortably exposed. Though, she really didn't need to be, since she was dressed — Tracey thought she was acting slightly odd, but not suspiciously so, and Millie didn't notice anything off at all — but her ridiculous stupid fucking brain wasn't always rational like that. Reaching the girls, she held out the roll toward Millie. "There you go. I don't need that back, I already looked at it."
"Thanks. Let's see if they have it..." she muttered, started paging through the catalogue right away.
Liz was about to excuse herself, but Tracey spoke before she got there. "You were just at a duelling team meeting tonight, right? Sicily this time, I think, was it Palermo?"
"Um, no, Syracuse. Well, they're putting us up in Syracuse, the duels will actually be held somewhere else. Um, Catania, I think it was called. Why?"
"Right, that makes sense — Syracuse doesn't really have the space for that kind of event. Daphne and I were talking about grouping up with the Hufflepuff girls, maybe a few others, like Lily." Their friends who were either muggleborns or too poor to manage this kind of trip themselves, she meant. "Do you know if Lily already has plans with Hermione? Hermione could just come with us too..."
"She said she doesn't know if she's going to be able to make it. Not like you all have to go out of the way just to see me duelling, honestly. But, er, family stuff, you know — she might show up with some of her French relatives, she's not sure. You can probably just go ahead and ask Lily yourself."
"Right, thanks, that's all I wanted to know. Didn't want to make her too uncomfortable about it." She meant, having all of her friends pelting her with offers to pay her travel expenses, rubbing it in that she was poor and everyone knew it.
Liz did went to get out of here quickly — she was unreasonably nervous, folding her hands behind her back to hide the twitching in her fingers — but she was suddenly having a thought. "Blaise. I mean, you might want to talk to Blaise, they might have plans already. And there's Shannon too, but whether she wants to come might depend on whether she and Susan are still dating by then — I guess I'd wait until closer to the end of term before talking to Susan about it." Liz was more confident that Lily and Blaise would still be together in a few months, but Susan and Shannon's relationship was still kind of new, and Shannon was really shy about it — presumably dealing with muggle attitudes about queers she'd absorbed, like Liz had (and still had moments sometimes) — so it was hard to say. Of course, Lily might not be comfortable travelling with her boyfriend...or her parents might veto it...but still worth asking.
"I've got a better idea, actually — I'll talk to him about getting his mum on bored. Lady Zabini could help split the cost, and we might as well see about bringing Penny along. She's starting next year, and we're going to have other younger siblings with, it might be nice for her to know a couple people, you know." Penny must be Blaise's little sister, Liz was sure she'd been told the name before but she must have forgotten.
"I still think it's ridiculous to spend so much effort just to come to watch us compete, but knock yourselves out, I guess."
Tracey smiled a little, funny cool sparks in her head. "It's not just about you, Liz. Sure, we want to be there to watch you and Susan compete, but it's also an excuse to spend a week doing something interesting together. Don't be too self-conscious about it."
...Well. Good point. Especially a nice thing to do for their poorer friends, since they might not be able to go on holidays like that on their own, so.
Her mind shivering with a warm, shuffling feeling Liz didn't know how to read, Millie said, "You been doing some reading, Liz?"
Before she could ask what Millie was talking about, she turned the catalogue around — holding it on one of the pages for Pandemos's romance books, the page heavily marked up, ones she'd already read crossed out and the ones she'd ordered this month circled. And the page wasn't at all subtle about what kinds of books those were, of course. The flush only got worse, her face fucking burning, her stomach squirming and her skin– ugh. "Um. Yeah."
Leaning forward to look at the page, Tracey snorted, her mind twitching. She turned to give Liz a flat, one eyebrow raised, very Slytherin sort of expression. "Really?
Liz just shrugged, trying not to cringe away from the crawling prickly feeling of their attention on her skin.
"Are they any good?"
For a couple seconds, Liz could only blink up at Millie. She...kind of hadn't expected that question. Not like she'd expected to ever have this conversation at all, honestly... "Er. Some of them, sure."
"Can I borrow some? I've been looking for some new stuff to read, if you think they're good it's worth checking out."
Tracey rolled her eyes, a bit exasperated, but Liz and Millie both ignored her. "...You know I'm only going to have lesbian stuff, right?" Liz didn't mention that they were all basically porn — the catalogue made it pretty clear what kind of books they were.
Her lips twitching, a warm embarrassed bubble of humour in her head, Millie said, "I do still like girls too, you know."
Right, now that Millie was pointing it out, Liz was remembering noticing Millie have rather gay thoughts about her at the Yule Ball. Never mind. "In that case, most of the ones I have are in Cambrian and French."
"My French isn't very good, but the rest won't be a problem," she said — in smooth, somewhat slurred, natural-sounding Cambrian.
"Right. Sorry, forgot." Millie didn't tend to talk much when they were in public, it'd completely slipped her mind that she was a native Cambrian speaker. Liz was just making a fucking idiot of herself over and over again tonight, apparently. "Um, sure, I guess— Can we talk about it later? I mean, er. We can...go through the books I have, and you can borrow some, but, not right now. I've had a long day, I want to get to bed." Also, Hermione was hiding in her room at the moment...very naked, which would take some explaining...
"Sure, thanks. Goodnight, Liz."
"Goodnight." She turned to walk back to her room, her steps feeling a little stiff and clumsy, feeling very flushed and prickly and...
She was kind of beating herself up for saying they could go through her books later — that conversation was going to be so embarrassing.
Once she was back in her room, the door closed behind her, Hermione said, "If Millie's borrowing the Cambrian ones, can I check out some of the French ones? I know they're romance books, but, I don't know, I've never read that sort of thing before, I'm curious."
"...You know they're basically porn, right?" She wasn't going to point out that they were lesbian porn, Hermione must have already overheard that anyway. And, you know, assumed.
"Erotica."
"What?"
Hermione shrugged. "There's a difference."
...Okay. She didn't care about the 'correct' term, but the point was that it didn't really seem like Hermione minded that it was basically porn, so. Liz groaned. "Fine, whatever. You can look through them later, just, I don't have them here right now. The ones I've already read are all back at the house."
"All right, thanks. So, were we going straight to bed, then? You did make a point earlier about my sleeping better."
"Yeah, just..." As worked up as she was at the moment, both from stubborn sexy thoughts and also that super embarrassing conversation just now, there was basically no way she was getting to sleep very easily. But Hermione did plan on getting off tonight, so, that should help. "Go ahead, I just need a minute."
Liz did want to pack up her bag for tomorrow's classes first, but at least part of the reason she'd suggested Hermione focus on getting ready for bed was so Liz could take off her dress while her back was turned — as jittery and self-conscious as she was already feeling, that'd be way harder if Hermione was actually looking.
Even with the diversion of packing up her bag, she didn't get an opportunity to calm down before bed. In fact, it only got worse: as had become routine when Hermione was sleeping over, she helped with Liz's hair. Not only did Liz just like the feeling of someone playing with her hair — which kind of made her feel like a perv, honestly, but she couldn't help it — but Hermione was sitting very close behind her, the occasional brush of a finger against Liz's neck or shoulders bringing her mind washing up against Liz's. So she noticed what Hermione was thinking, feeling, an edge of tension, the constant ticking clockwork of her thoughts seeming a bit faster than normal, stuttering now and then.
Hermione was really looking forward to getting to bed. She'd been preoccupied with it since their shower, had kind of worked herself up a little. Liz could feel how turned on Hermione was, which was kind of...
She basically planned to start as soon as the lights were off and they were both in bed. And that thought was making Liz preoccupied, memories swirling in her head and her heart pounding in her throat...
She was even more worked up by the time it was actually time to get to bed, was the point.
Since they'd come up with the solution to keep their minds (mostly) separate that first time, Liz had been keeping two sets of sheets and blankets in her room at all times — when Hermione wasn't going to be here, the extra was set aside near her closet. Hermione had already sorted them out while Liz was talking to Millie and Tracey, so they didn't need to take care of that. By the time Liz was done returning the chair to the desk — the lights already down, worried Hermione would be able to see anything suspicious — Hermione was already settled in on her side. She loosened the straps of her wand holster, set it down on her side table. The corner of the bedding folded down, she slid in between the layers, the sheet and blanket folded over to make a pocket, the fabric smooth and cool against her flushed skin.
And she lay there for a few breaths — curled on her side, as narrow as the bed was a pressure against her back from Hermione's side behind a few layers of sheets and blankets — hot and wound up tight, twitching with tension, breath rasping in her throat and her heart throbbing in her fingertips and her teeth and between her legs.
Hermione hardly stalled, couldn't even be a minute. There was always a moment of indecision, nervousness, a shade of embarrassment, some part of Hermione stubborn about this being the wrong thing to do. But she'd gotten better at ignoring it over these weeks, mind sharp and sizzling with anticipation and excitement — and an edge of curiosity, her thoughts clicking away too unfocussed and indistinct for Liz to quite follow it. (If there was one feeling that characterised Hermione, Liz thought, it was curiosity.) As close as Liz was listening, she noticed her hand shift downward, fingers lightly trailing over her mound, vicarious anticipatory tingles breaking over Liz, she shivered, her heart throbbing harder and the stubborn flush flaring hotter, her own fingernails running along the top of her thigh, biting her lip...
Liz heard her breath catch, faintly, as Hermione's fingers ran along her lips (already noticeably wet, worked herself up earlier), another warm wave of prickles crawling over Liz, legs squeezing tighter together, heat against the top of her thighs, her breath thick in her throat and warmth spreading through her middle...
Folding one knee over the other, twisting tight, rolling her hips just slightly (the movement subtle, Hermione didn't notice), the pressure enough to feel it. Another small motion, holding her breath through it, her heart throbbing in her fingertips and her teeth and between her legs, pleasant warm tingles sprouting out, Hermione's fingers on a slow back and forth over her lips, warm soft pleasure pressing in on Liz, subtle but present, like bathwater against her skin. And they kept like that for a little bit, Hermione was starting slow, dragging it out, and Liz was enough in her head to see she was doing that on purpose: she was aware Liz picked up an echo of what she was feeling, and was kind of teasing her.
...Um. That was a...thing for Hermione to be doing, but okay.
But she didn't hold out that long — a thrill shivered through her as Hermione's fingers found her clit, for a second her body seeming to thrum, her hair near standing on end. Hermione heard her breath catch, amusement and fascination and an odd warm slithery feeling she didn't know how to read, her mind ticking away...
With Hermione getting properly into it, Liz didn't stick it out much longer than that, reaching for her wand on her side table, her fingers twitching and fumbling, it took her multiple tries to draw it. She duplicated her pillow, another charm to slightly adjust the texture of the fabric on the copy. Her wand set down with a clacking of wood against wood, she turned over onto her knees, the real pillow cool against her flushed face. Hermione's attention brushing over her (indistinct in the darkness), noticing her moving, a clacking of thoughts — she found it a little odd that Liz did it this way every time.
Mostly she'd started just because touching herself directly kind of grossed her out, for what she realised were due to her fucked-up issues with her body and stuff — the thought of touching other girls didn't gross her out, or that time Daphne had kind of gotten stuff smeared on her thigh, it really was just herself — but, even after Tamsyn told her about that charm, so she could get around that, she still preferred doing it like this? She didn't know why, just one of those things. Hermione had tried it before, but she'd found it kind of frustrating, and had also been pretty sore the next day — which, yeah, Liz had the first couple times too (if not as badly as Hermione, in better shape), but she got used to it.
She kind of liked the subtle stiff burn of her muscles she was sometimes left with the day after, honestly. Though it did make it kind of hard to not get distracted with sexy thoughts, it was kind of nice despite that. (Or, in a way kind of because of it.) Couldn't put her finger on why, just one of those things.
But she wasn't surprised it wasn't Hermione's thing — she wasn't as fit as Liz was, so it took relatively more effort for her. Of course, while part of her thinking was not understanding why Liz did it this way, there was an edge of fascination to it too. Hermione's characterising feeling being curiosity, and all.
(Liz was still certain Hermione wasn't actually attracted to her, but that didn't mean she didn't pay attention when they did this. An embarrassing, almost uncomfortable amount, honestly, she wasn't sure what feeling was motivating that — Liz could tell the difference though, after Daphne.)
The copied pillow folded between her thighs, pressing down, a lurch in her stomach and a warm shiver crawling up her spine, she sighed against the pillow, Hermione heard it, a warm pulse of undifferentiated pleasure washing over her in response. A couple little squirms back and forth, finding the right spot, a slow long roll of her hips, pleasant tingles building, coiling warm low in her stomach...
Hermione had gotten less shy about it, over the last few weeks. Not that she'd ever been that shy about it, really — she had done it in the first place. But, Liz had noticed— Her parents' bedroom was right underneath hers, she thought Hermione had been accustomed to trying to be quiet, not wanting to be overheard. Gradually, over however many times they'd been doing this, she didn't hold onto it so tight. As more warm pleasant pulses broke over Liz, sighs and hums, burning in her ears, her own breath harsh against her (real) pillow, warm tines of squirming heat summoned with each motion, hot and tense, Liz getting a little light-headed...
Another echo thrumming hard through her, fingers slipping in (two, Liz could tell), Hermione letting out a groan, the sound ringing in Liz's ears, she hitched up for a second, tense and hot and shivering, shook it off after a second, twitchingly rocking, one hand going down to fist in the pillow, holding it in the right shape, tipping up on an elbow, the air rushing cool on her flushed face and neck and chest, heat twisting up tighter, her breath harsh in her throat, glittery sharp sparks shooting through her with each roll of her hips...
At an unthinking moan from Liz, Hermione had to hold in the random urge to giggle.
Rocking in an uneven, stuttering rhythm, the added pulses from Hermione pushing her hot and tense and dizzy, she could feel Hermione's mind narrowing in, clockwork mind jittery with ecstatic sparks but with fewer gears ticking away at once, thoughts dropping away in favour of a hard synchronised clunking, that odd curiosity simmering at the sound of Liz moving next to her, the bed subtly shifting, gasps and moans...
(After doing this however many times, Liz knew Hermione thought she was kind of loud — not like she was an expert or anything, but that was her feeling. Liz didn't even notice it happen herself, most of the time she really had very little idea how much noise she was making. Which was a lot embarrassing, honestly, but Hermione's primary reaction seemed to just be fascination, so Liz tried not to let it bother her too much. Besides, at least now she knew to definitely never forget the privacy charms.)
Hot and tense, her whole body seeming to thrum with each motion, heat coiling tight, starting to ache a little from the workout, the bedding had slipped down her back, she just ignored that (it was too dark for Hermione to really make her out anyway), the air cool on her flushed sweaty skin, her breath harsh in her chest and throat, light-headed from the steady pulses from Hermione, couldn't think, just move, sharp tines shooting between her legs and up her spine—
"Liz." She twitched at Hermione's voice, thin and high and breathless, unexpected. It wasn't that she wasn't still in Hermione's head — she really couldn't control it, too much going on — but she hadn't really been paying attention, lost track of what was going on in there...
Laying on her back, Hermione had curled to the side a bit, her head leaning off her pillow — Liz could barely see her, just a vague indistinct blob, the reddish tone of the lights seeming to give her a glow but too faint to really make out much. Looking up at Liz, attention on her vague and indistinct (mostly lost in the pulsing warmth of sympathetic pleasure, coming fast and hard now), her tightly-focussed mind loud and jittery, simmering intense with fascination, words on the edge of her tongue, but not getting out, held back, nervous...
Dizzy and almost delirious (close), Hermione wanted to try kissing her, but she wasn't sure if asking was a good idea. If Liz would react badly.
She wanted to see what it was like. She had kissed Neville, yes, but that was different. She wanted to try it, was all.
(After all, if there was one feeling that characterised Hermione, it was curiosity.)
Not really thinking about what she was doing, moving, she lurched over, finding Hermione's shoulder with her free hand — mind pressing hard against hers, a shudder slithering warm and tingly through her as the sympathetic pleasure got much much louder, her head spinning and her body throbbing — blindly climbing up her neck her fingers reached Hermione's jaw, dipping down, her lips finding hers—
An odd lurch dropping through Liz's chest, tingles spreading over her scalp and down, Hermione's surprise ringing through her, immediately followed with an odd prickly thrill, rainbow glittery sparks behind her eyes. Kissing her back, a little clumsily (hadn't done this much), fascination sparking bright at the feel of Liz's lip ring. Liz pulled back an inch for a breath, her nose against Hermione's cheek, adjusting the pillow with her other hand, Hermione's shoulders rolling, a rustling of cloth, she wormed her right arm free, hand finding the side of Liz's neck (fingers noticeably warm and damp), kissing her again, bone-deep thrums of sympathetic pleasure battering her as Hermione's other hand started up again, jerking against her pillow, moaning against her lips, a funny warm flutter in Hermione's head...
Hermione hung up with shock for a second, her skin crawling, as Liz leaned in, her mouth opening — her breath turning cool and prickly with the mint from the toothpaste. She hadn't done this before. But she eased after a second, her fingers tightening around the back of Liz's neck, uncertain and cautious at first, but the eager thrill in her mind, hot and tight and tense (close), meeting her quickly, tonguing Liz's lip ring (curious), gasping at a nip on her lip, thrumming through her and echoing into Liz, the hot sharp throb between her legs insistent, motion of her hips turned twitchy with tension, more sympathetic pleasure breaking over her.
Freeing her arm had shrugged the bedding off a little, Hermione's chest unsteadily rising and falling with her breath, skin hot and speckled with sweat, Liz's fingers running along her clavicle, a shiver running through her. Her hand jumping away from Liz's neck, tearing at the blanket between them, breath harsh in her throat and nerves spanging, Liz reared back, grabbed at the bedding on her side, ripped it out from under her and away — thoughtlessly almost losing her pillow, catching it with her knees — Hermione pushing and Liz pulling her half down, crawling over them—
Her knee against Hermione's thigh, skin crawling and sparkling, hand finding Hermione's face guiding her in, settingling against her side, twitching, teeth clicking at first, Hermione letting out a breathless giggle, giddy, quickly smothered, humming, simmering ecstatic sparks in her head egging Liz on, hand slipping over smooth hot sweat-streaked skin, soon finding the mound of her breast, soft and giving against her fingers, Hermione moaning into her mouth—
Liz twitched at a touch on her side, sharp tingles racing down her spine and her hips jerking, fuck, she'd messed it up getting rid of the blankets, pulling back for a second, leaning her forehead against Hermione's shoulder, fixed the fold of her pillow with her free hand and her thighs, hard to pay attention to what she was doing, Hermione's fingers tentatively tracing her ribs, sympathetic pleasure thrumming through her again and again, making her head spin, she eased into the proper spot again, drawing out a groan, catching hard in her throat—
Hermione's breath harsh and thin and fast (close), she squeaked at Liz's thumb tweaking her nipple, her hand coming down Liz's side, following the motion of her hips, Liz gritting her teeth for a second, the heat in her middle clenching and her eyes prickling, found her lips again, the mintiness overpowering, with her mouth blocked Hermione's breaths coming out in high nasal moans—
She could feel it coming, Hermione moving against her, her mind narrowing in sharp and hard, the pulses washing over her deep and almost constant, her face turned away, needed the air, Liz leaned back a bit, pressing harder into her pillow, twitching at Hermione's hand tightening on her hip. She let her hand drag down Hermione's side, sharp tines of heat and sparks, gritting her teeth and her eyes prickling and a sob clenching at her throat (she wasn't far off either), passing across Hermione's hip, her fingernails scraping along her skin low under her stomach, Hermione letting out a sharp high groan, hand clutching at Liz's thigh, back arching—
Liz could always feel it when Hermione came, of course. Which was really nice, honestly, but it wasn't new. And, of course, what she picked up of people's feelings was far more intense when she was in physical contact with them.
This time, it was a lot.
The waves crashing over, her whole body seeming to vibrate in sync, fuck fuck fuck, her head spinning, clutching at her pillow and at...some part of Hermione (her hip maybe?) for balance, her heart insistently pounding, hot and tight and twisted up, breath burning in her chest but her throat locked up, she couldn't move, could do nothing but ride it out, washing through her, soft and slippery and hot and tingly, and overwhelming, she couldn't, fuck...
It eased off in time, Liz could feel the tension dribble out of Hermione's body, her breathing high and thin, occasionally hitching from aftershocks, echoing through Liz...
She couldn't move.
Ratcheted up, her muscles painfully tense, her fingers gripping the pillow hurt, her jaw from gritting her teeth. Her heart pounding almost deafening in her throat and her teeth and between her legs, sharp heat coiling almost painfully tight, burning and throbbing from anticipation, her skin crawling, she needed to— But she couldn't move, limbs frozen, she tried to move, to shift against the pillow, even just a little bit, anything, but she couldn't move, limbs tense and hard like a compressed spring, grating like shards of glass rubbing together, seeming to shiver from the pent up tension.
What the fuck was happening, she could hardly even breathe, a tiny bit of air slipping past her tangled up throat now and then, sounding half-strangled, turning a little lightheaded. She needed to, her body thrumming in desperation, it almost hurt, but she couldn't move, tears hot under her eyes and starting to streak down her cheeks, as much from the too-much-feelings-stuff-can't-handle-it thing as just sheer bloody frustration, fucking move already, just—
Hermione's hand bumping against her wrist, she could feel the pressure worming against the pillow, enough in Hermione's head to see what she was doing, an odd thrill, her skin prickling and—
—a deep thrum radiating out, the taut tension holding her rigid abruptly melting, some kind of noise grinding out of her throat, she collapsed limp against Hermione, head thunking into her shoulder, Hermione let out a sharp breath, for a second Liz almost apologised, but then her fingers were moving again, stealing her breath away, forgot—
—completely out of control, she couldn't even think, narrowed down to the hard sharp pleasure stabbing into her, so intense it almost hurt, she could feel herself squirming and twitching, as though trying to pull away (hand too close to the hob), but Hermione kept on her, fingers setting a quick, insistent rhythm on her clit, Liz's hair practically standing on end as fingers pressed in close on either side, but she quickly lost any sense of the details, building to a hot sharp hard intense odd sort of numbness—
—her skin crawling and her whole body thrumming with each stroke, she clutched blindly at Hermione, her face ended up tucked into the crook of her neck, silky muggle shampoo and sweat on her breath, coming in a tangled, indecipherable mess of sobs and what Hermione labelled as sex noises, too out of it to be embarrassed about how much of a mess she was at the moment—
—the heat coiling tighter, warm-cool prickles breaking over her skin and her head throbbing, close, Hermione's hand on her back, the tension building to a peak crawling up and strangling her breath, a funny little squeaking whine slipping out, fascination simmering in Hermione's head, bright and colourful, everything else fading out of awareness, increasingly numb, save for the hot slithering sharp glittery pleasant pressure twisting her up, she couldn't feel anything else, she couldn't breathe, ratcheted up too tense, shivering with it, and—
—and she completely fell apart.
Rippling waves crashing through her, overwhelming...
...no sense of time passing or even where she was, jerking and shivering, body wringing itself out...
...swept away, numb, nothing but dizzying pulse after melting throb, thick and hot and tingly...
She came to after a timeless thoughtless moment, her surroundings slowly trickling back bit by bit. Laying half over Hermione, soft pressure of one breast against her ribs, her skin prickling with sweat. She belatedly realised she was crying, grinding sobs wrung through her aching throat, Hermione's fingers idly tracing over her back, mind soft against hers smooth and warm and slow (sleepy). Numb warm-cool tingles sparking over her skin, shaking, an occasional thrum running through her, her hips jerking and her hands clenching and her breath catching, loosening again with a shiver, sniffling and coughing.
Slowly, a shade of stomach-twisting embarrassment started to niggle at her — she was such a fucking mess.
She levered herself up a little, but it took a couple tries, her legs numb and shivering and useless, her arms weak. Trying to breathe through the sniffles, her chest tight and convulsing, she focussed for a moment, another — finally, her magic obeyed her, she swept a cleaning charm over Hermione's chest and neck, getting rid of all the snot and whatever. (Not that Hermione seemed to care or even notice, already half-asleep, but Liz was feeling all squirmy about it, so.) There was a flinch in her mind — the gunk being whipped away was a little cold — but she quickly relaxed again with a little blissful hum.
Awkwardly, her legs still completely useless and her body weak and shivering, Liz rolled over — the duplicated pillow got kind of tangled up in her legs, in the way, a blind dispel in that direction and it was gone. There was a little whine from Hermione, uncomfortable, Liz was still on her right arm, clumsily managed to get her weight off of it, leaning on one shaking elbow, helped direct it over toward Hermione's side of the bed.
Liz curled up on her side, a dull throb between her legs at things shifting around, she sucked in a short breath, coming out in a cough and a sniffle. Her bum was pressing against something, Hermione's mind still loud against hers (if soft and unfocussed, near sleep), Liz blindly reached back, tugged up enough of Hermione's side of the bedding (she'd lost track of hers) to make a barrier, the mental noise easing off, Liz letting out a sigh.
Still sniffling and coughing, feeling flushed and sore and tingly, weak and shaky. She tried to catch her breath, dizzy, her hand idly slipped between her thighs without really thinking about it. Hot and wet and puffy against her fingers, the touch raising a pulse of dull cool prickles, twitching, a faint little moan leaking out between the sniffles.
She stared blankly out into the dim reddish light filling the room, too little to actually illuminate anything, just the vague features, the subtlest sense of motion in the picture frames on her side table. The tears eased off, breath thin, still feeling numb and weak, shivering, dull tingles lingering between her legs. Thoughts simmering in her head, confused and unfocussed, it was hard to think, tired and warm and slow...
...
What the fuck just happened?
Um... Hermione, you're confusing Liz, again — and probably also the audience, again. Stop that.
One more scene for this fic — more definitely normal and uneventful stuff, I'm sure — before jumping back to First Contact for a scene. Woo.