Author's Note: Hello Gang. Some of you might recognize this fic from over at HPFFA and it is under a different name. I assure you, I AM the author of this story, simply posting it under a different name on this site for personal reasons. This story contains explicit sexual content, graphic material, and occasional foul language. There will be scenes of BDSM and a D/s relationship and is not meant for kids at ALL. Adult readers only. If none of this interests you, dont read. I will attempt to place warnings on each chapter if there's going to be something particularly sketchy going on ie. Watersports, blood, gore, etc.
Disclaimer: I dont own the potter franchise. Nuff said.
I'll be posting from now on both here and at HPFFA to hopefully reah a wider audience. Hope you all enjoy and here's chapter one of Two Little Words.
Two Little Words
by,
Kender Speak
Hermione Jean Granger was many things. She was a bookworm (and proud of it). She was stubborn. She was independent. She was frighteningly intelligent. She was fourteen-years-old. And, most unusually of all, she was a witch. A true, honest to god, cauldron stirring, wand waving, witch.
In her third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she was one of, if not the, top student in most of her classes. And oh, what classes they were. Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic, Muggle Studies, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes.
Yes, she had a very full schedule. Which led her to the last, or at the least, the most pressing thing that she currently was.
She was one very stressed witch!
Merlin's beard, she thought. Have I finally bitten off more than I can chew?
"Hermione?"
I mean, really, do I need all of these classes? Muggle studies is so out of date as to be ridiculous.
"Hermione."
And Divination… ooohhh! If that bat predicts Harry's death just one more time I'll-
"Hermione!"
Hermione blinked, startled out of her musings by the sharp voice coming from her right and she turned to find herself staring into a pair of expressive green eyes. For a moment, she was transfixed by that worried green gaze before she shook herself out of her trance. She was eternally grateful that the warm, red light of the dying fire would mask her blush.
At least, she hoped it would.
"I'm sorry, what was that, Harry?" she asked, trying not to sound irritated with her best friend for interrupting her thoughts.
"I've been trying to get your attention for a few minutes, now," he said.
She frowned. "Well, I'm sorry," she snapped. "I was thinking."
"I could see that," he shot back, grinning slightly. "I was beginning to worry that smoke might start pouring out of your ears at any moment."
She huffed, angrily, and leaned back in her seat on the small sofa near the fireplace, her arms crossed over her breasts.
Harry sighed, running a hand back through his unruly black hair as he realized that his attempt at a joke had fallen flat and he dropped heavily onto the sofa next to her, casually draping one arm over her shoulders as he pulled her unresisting body against him. It both thrilled and frustrated her to no end how he could so easily do that to her. She knew how much he disliked it when people touched him. Except with her. He didn't have a problem touching her, or being touched by her, and she loved that about their friendship.
What frustrated her was that she didn't quite know what to do with what it did to her. How it made her feel. So, she did her best to ignore it.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, quietly. "I was trying to get you to laugh, but that wasn't a very good joke."
"Wellll…" she drawled out, "it wasn't bad necessarily. Maybe just your timing could have been better?" she offered by way of truce.
"What are you still doing up?" he asked, silently accepting her peace offering. "It's late."
"I was going back over the exams," she told him in a slightly exasperated tone. "I think you've known me long enough by now to know that I always do that."
He laughed, a low chuckle that resonated up from somewhere deep in his chest. "Yeah, that's you to a tee," he admitted. "But you know you don't have to go over it all tonight."
"Best to do it when it's fresh in my mind."
"How can your mind be at its it's best so late at night?"
She shrugged one shoulder, smiling softly. "It's what I do."
"I'm worried about you," he spoke up after a few minutes spent sitting in a companionable silence. "You've not been acting like your usual self. You disappear and reappear with no warning or explanation and you're really stressed and irritable, lately. I don't like what this year is doing to you."
"I'm fine-" she started to say when Harry cut her off.
"You're about as 'fine' as I am whenever I pull that crap," he said, flatly. "I'm the reigning champion of 'fine', so it's not going to work on me."
She said nothing, her teeth worrying at her lower lip as she stared into the fire. How could she tell him the truth? That she wasn't fine. She was tired and stressed and worried. Sirius Black was out there and he was apparently after her best friend. She was so worried about him and his habitual rule breaking and the nearly pathological need he seemed to have to throw himself into danger. That, on top of her class stress, and she was going completely spare with worry.
"Do you know what F.I.N.E actually means?" he asked, startling her out of her musings, again.
"It has several different definitions-"
"It means Fucked-up Insecure Neurotic and Emotional. Please. Talk to me, Hermione."
When she still said nothing, beyond a rebuke for his language, he started poking her side with one finger. "I'm not going to leave you alone, Granger, until you talk to me," he told her in a sing-song tone as she squirmed and wriggled in a vain attempt to ignore or escape his fingers.
Eventually, however, she caved and started giggling uncontrollably.
"Harry!" she squealed. "Stop it! I ca-can't say anything! I'll get in trouble!"
He suddenly froze and she looked up into his broadly grinning face, her face flushed and her chest heaving with every heavy breath. "So there is something," he crowed, triumphantly. "Please, talk to me, Hermione. Let me help you. You've helped me so much over the last two years, I'd really like to return the favor. I swear, I won't breathe a word to anyone, not even Ron. I'll take a magical Oath, if you want, just… please don't shut me out."
By the time he'd finished his voice had dropped to something small, and scared. In that moment, she almost blurted out one of her other secrets. One of her most important, and treasured secrets, but she just managed to hold it in.
"Oh, Harry," she breathed, turning to pull him into a tight hug. "I'd never shut you out, you're too important to me."
"Thank you," he whispered before he pulled back a bit and continued in a stronger voice, "now spill, Miss Granger, or do I have to start tickling you again?"
With a small, rueful laugh, she shook her head and finally gave up. Harry Potter was very nearly as stubborn as she was, and if he thought she was being hurt, he'd out stubborn her any day of the week, to try and help her. Looking around the Gryffindor Common Room to make sure they were alone she moved slightly away from him and turned in her seat so she was facing more toward him.
"All right, but you really can't tell anyone," she insisted and his head nodded up and down rapidly. Sighing, she reached for the neck of her jumper and pulled a thick necklace from under her clothes. Once removed, she let it dangle from her neck, the tiny hourglass set into a framework of metal rings hanging just on top of her breasts.
"What is that?" he asked, studying it curiously. He was so focused on the item, that he failed to notice her flushing brightly as she realized that it looked as if he were staring at her chest.
"It's called a Time Turner," she explained. "It lets me travel backwards in time in one hour increments. It's how I've been attending all of my classes."
"That's how you keep vanishing and popping back up!" he blurted out before suddenly turning thoughtful. "But then… aren't your weeks something like ten to fifteen hours longer? And that'd be just attending classes, not counting the time spent on the extra homework…" He trailed off, his brow furrowed as his mind raced furiously for a moment. "You can't go on like this, Hermione. You're going to burn out."
She sighed and moved to burrow close against his side, ignoring how her mind kept screaming at her to get away from him. "I can't just stop," she muttered. "I need it to get to my classes."
"You're pushing yourself too hard. At least drop a class-"
That caused her to jerk away from him as she cut him off. "I have never quit a class before," she burst out, conveniently ignoring the fact that she had been considering doing exactly that before he'd come along and broken into her thoughts. "Never. And I'm not about to start now."
"Hermione!" he cried, throwing his arms up in exasperation. "This whole Time Turner thing is driving you 'round the twist. You've been cranky and snapping at people. I'm serious, I'm really getting worried about you. Next term will be a lot harder and you will make yourself sick stressing about all these classes. If you won't lighten your workload, you at least need to find a way to release all the stress, or relax, before you go and bite someone's head off!"
He was so earnest, so genuine in his concern for her, that her annoyance melted away and she couldn't help but smile as a warm feeling grew in her chest. Her smile slowly grew into an amused smirk.
"Is that an order, Mister Potter?" she asked, a defiant tilt to her head.
For a moment he could only gape at her before he suddenly burst out laughing. "If it helps, then yes," he said before he sat up straight and continued in a much more commanding tone of voice. "Consider it a direct order. Find some way to relieve your stress, Miss Granger, or I might have to give you detention."
She grinned again and, without thinking, ducked her head slightly, so that her eyes were shadowed by her bangs.
"Yes, Sir," she said, and he laughed again, reaching out to cup her chin and gently tilt her head up so that her cinnamon colored eyes met his emerald green.
"Good girl," he murmured, smiling warmly.
As those two, softly spoken words reached her ears, a warm flush passed through her body, but before she could attempt to analyze the sensation Harry was standing and had started collecting her books from she'd still had them spread out across the low table in front of her.
"W-what are you doing?" she protested, the feeling momentarily forgotten.
"Packing," he replied, simply. "It's after one in the morning and we both need to sleep. You're still going home to your parents, right?"
She nodded. "I'd like to stay, especially with Black out there, but they really miss me, being away so much of the year."
"And you miss them, too," he said, to which she nodded, almost reluctantly. "It's all right to want to spend time with your parents, Hermione," he told her. "You don't have to try to spare my feelings. I'll be okay."
Despite his words, his eyes were sad and she leaped off of the sofa to envelope him in another hug.
"You're a good man, Harry Potter," she muttered against his neck and he hummed some wordless, non-commital sound in the back of his throat.
"I mean it," she insisted, pulling back to look him in the eyes. "You're my best friend, the most important person in my world, aside from my parents. I know you better than you know yourself, so stop doubting me and just accept it when I tell you you're a good person."
He finally quirked a small, lopsided smile and nodded. He didn't say anything, but the sadness in his eyes had faded somewhat, and that, at least, made her feel a bit , they finished packing away her books and supplies and said goodnight at the base of the stairs before they separated, each heading up to their own dorms.
In the darkened third year girls dorm, Hermione quietly closed the door behind her before making her way over to her large, four poster bed. Setting her bag down on top of the small chest of drawers beside it, she went about brushing her teeth and changing for bed and, by the time she finally closed her bed curtains and slid beneath her blankets, dressed only in a pair of knickers and a tight t-shirt, it was closer to two o'clock than it was to one.
Sighing deeply, she closed her eyes and attempted to push Harry from her mind. Half an hour later, her thoughts were still filled with him, her body flushed and tingling as her mind replayed their conversation over and over. The minute she'd laid down, that warm, flushed feeling she'd experienced when Harry had cupped her chin and called her a good girl had wormed back into her mind and she couldn't understand it, or shake it.
It felt… good. Like how she felt when she knew she'd done well on a test. Or when she'd solved a particularly difficult puzzle. No... It felt better than that and she stopped trying to study it for a few moments and simply let the memory of it wash over her. As she did, a warmth pooled between her thighs and she blinked, startled to realized that, unconsciously, the tips of the fingers of her left hand were trailing across one braless breast, over the thin material of her shirt, sending further tingles throughout her body.
She groaned, aloud and let her right hand slide down the front of her body, slipping under the waistband of her knickers. "Damn you, Potter," she muttered, just before her middle finger easily found her clit. It would be some time, still, before she managed to get any sleep.
#####
The ride to Kings Cross from Hogsmeade was spent in quiet contemplation. Never before had Hermione been so grateful that she was so isolated from her peers. Harry and Ron were really her only friends which... actually made being isolated from her peers in the compartment rather easy, as no one really wanted to speak with her. Not even Malfoy or any of his ilk, as he'd apparently elected to remain at the school again this year.
Before, that would have bothered her. On this particular day, however, it gave her time to think over the conversation she'd had the night before with her best friend, and the joking 'order' he'd given her to follow. As much as it pained her to admit, he was right. She really did need to find some outlet for the stress she was putting on herself. She was heading for a breakdown if she kept on the way she was. A bad one. She was willing to admit that to herself, at least. What was causing her specific confusion and frustration was just one small part of the previous evening's discussion, and it also seemed to be closely tied to what she'd done after she went to bed.
Despite what most of her classmates might say, were one to ask, Hermione was not the prude she appeared to be. She was a healthy, fourteen-year-old girl, with a maturing mind and body and a full accompaniment of hormones racing through her system. She had masturbated plenty of times in the past. During those times, however, she hadn't exactly been thinking of anyone specific, choosing instead to focus on the feelings her hands and fingers produced in her body to bring herself to release.
Last night, a definite person had been on her mind. The remembered sensation of his hand cupping her chin, and the pleased words that had come from his lips. The warm feeling she'd experienced had filled her and she'd orgasmed harder and faster than ever before, leaving her a breathless and sweaty heap in the middle of her bed. Then she'd done it twice more before she was able to sleep.
Which, of course, only served to further confuse her. Why had it hit her so hard? Was it because of Harry, or was it the words he'd said to her? And with either of those, what exactly did that mean?
That morning, she hadn't even been able to look Harry in the eye at breakfast before leaving to catch the train, and she knew her behavior probably hurt his feelings. She sighed despondently, realizing she would have to do something nice to make that up to him when she got back. Hurting him was absolutely one of the last things she would ever intentionally do.
It wasn't the first time she'd had a thought of a more sexual nature regarding Harry, but those past thoughts she'd waved away with the understanding that her two best friends were boys, and not bad looking boys, at that. It was really only natural that she'd have some kind of thoughts about one or both of them as time went on, she assured herself. But somehow, what she'd done felt almost like a betrayal of her best friend, and she wasn't at all sure how to handle that. He trusted her, and she felt like she'd somehow broken that trust.
Harry had been there for her when no one else had even tried. Saving her from the troll in their first year, she knew, had been entirely his idea. He'd had to force Ron to come along even though the redhead had dealt the knockout blow with the thing's club. Harry had sat beside her bed while she was petrified the year before and talked to her for hours, frequently sneaking back into the Hospital Wing under his father's cloak after Madam Pomfrey had kicked him out, just to keep her company. She frowned, thinking over the fact that she still hadn't told him that she'd been able to hear every word he'd said to her while she was lying there, petrified. He'd bared his soul to her in the dark of the Hospital Wing, and she responded by using thoughts of him to get herself off like some kind of… some kind of slut!
Furious with herself, and the meandering, fractured direction of her internal debate, her right hand balled into a fist and slammed itself into her thigh, nearly without her conscious will. She bit her bottom lip as a brief flare of pain shot through her leg. For a short moment, her mind went blissfully silent, focusing only on the pain in her leg before it faded into the background and she went about gathering together her scattered thoughts.
The lady with the snack trolley came by half way through the trip, but Hermione remained oblivious to her surroundings, lost in her musings, book open on her lap but not actually seeing the words printed on its pages. Honestly, what exactly had caused her to act that way? It was such a simple thing. Two little words. An affirmation of her doing a good job. That he was pleased with her. Had she developed some kind of pavlovian response to such words, after the praise she'd received from various teachers for her academic achievements over the years?
Off the top of her head, that seemed to be the most logical answer, but it didn't explain the severity of her reaction. That hadn't just been pleasure in a job well done, that had been… visceral. It had been primal. It was something she simply could not wrap her head around no matter how she tried. But how to test to see if her conclusion was correct?
By the time the train pulled into the station she was no closer to an answer than she'd been at the start of the journey and she did her best to shake the circling thoughts from her mind, looking forward to seeing her parents again. As soon as the train stopped, she grabbed her bag, preferring to leave her full trunk behind at the school for the few weeks she would be gone, and hurried off the train. Due to her haste, she was one of the first off and had a clear path to the barrier leading out to the muggle side of Kings Cross and she made a beeline for it, rushing through to find them waiting for her.
"Oh, Hermione! We've missed you, so much," Her mother said, enveloping her in the kind of hug she knew she herself had a tendency to give to Harry, and Hermione took a moment to relish the feeling of safety and security that she always felt with her parents.
"Hey, mum," she murmured, her eyes closed to the sensation. "I've missed you, too."
Helen drew back and looked down, just slightly, at her daughter, her brown eyes studying her carefully. "Look at you. Every time I see you, you seem more and more grown up."
"So, does dad not get any love, here?" Richard asked from the side, grinning brightly at his wife and daughter and Hermione answered with a grin and a rib cracking hug of her own, practically throwing herself into her father's strong arms.
After pulling away, the three of them linked arms and made their way out of the station to the car parked a block away. For part of the drive home, Hermione talked almost non-stop about what she'd seen and done at school that term, finally thrilled to be able to heap praise on a Defense teacher, since this year, it seemed Dumbledore had actually managed to hire someone competent at the job. Her parents shock at the Dementors was completely expected, but she reminded them that, as vile as they were, they were under the control of the Ministry. (She expressly did not mention the fact that the train had been stopped and boarded on the way to school in the first place.)
Her late night, and the time spent sitting in her compartment thinking, finally took its toll, however, and twenty minutes into the drive, she fell asleep in the backseat, only waking when they were already back at the house to find her father gently shaking her arm.
"Wake up, Pumpkin," he murmured as her eyes blearily opened. "We're home."
Groggily, she nodded and undid her seat belt before she went to climb out of the car. Her father already had her bag in hand.
"Why don't you head on up and take a nap?" he suggested.
"M'not tired," she muttered and he chuckled for a moment.
"You're barely conscious, sweetheart. We'll wake you for dinner. Go on, there's a good girl."
With one foot on the ground and the other still in the car, Hermione froze. Her eyes shot wide open and all traces of sleepiness were instantly banished as those two little words flitted across her consciousness.
"What did you just say?" she asked, more like demanded, and her father blinked, straightening up in surprise at his little girl's tone.
"I said. you were barely conscious," he said, entirely confused by her reaction.
She shook her head, her bushy mane flying wildly about her head. "No. Not that. At the end. What did you call me?" she demanded, staring intently at him and he frowned for a moment in thought before it came to him.
"Good girl?" he asked.
Hermione blinked several times, her eyelids fluttering rapidly for a moment as a small smile appeared on her lips, and she leaned forward to hug her father.
"Thank you, daddy," she muttered, and then moved around him to hurry up to the house, a definite bounce in her step that hadn't been there moments before, leaving her bewildered parents standing in the driveway, looking after her.
After a few moments, they shook themselves from their stupor and her mother unlocked the front door, letting Hermione hurry ahead of them to dash up the stairs to her room where she threw herself on her bed and rolled over onto her back, her wild hair splayed out around her head as she stared up at her cream colored ceiling.
There was a definite smile on her lips. Good girl. She'd felt a similar warm glow, hearing that from the man that was her father. A man she respected, loved, and trusted. It wasn't quite the same as what she'd felt the night before, of course, this was her father, after all. But she'd definitely felt something similar, and that gave her a place to start.
Just before she drifted off for a well needed nap, she realized that there was one more thing that Hermione Jean Granger was. With something new that she needed to research, she was a witch on a mission!