Chapter 2: Library Temptations
The library’s silence was a palpable thing, a vast, dusty hush broken only by the occasional rustle of a page or the scratch of a quill. Sunlight sliced through high windows, illuminating spiraling motes of dust in columns of gold. In a secluded alcove near the restricted section, Hermione sat surrounded by a fortress of books. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, but her hand was paused over her parchment.
Ron sat across from her, chewing on the end of his own quill, staring blankly at a diagram of lunar phases. The air between them was still stiff, chilled by the memory of her anger two nights prior.
The heavy oak door groaned. Boots scuffed on stone, followed by the distinct scent of grass, sweat, and cool autumn air. Harry slumped into a chair next to Ron, dropping his broomstick care package with a thud that earned a sharp "shush!" from Madam Pince somewhere in the shadows.
"Good practice?" Ron mumbled, not looking up.
"Brutal," Harry said, running a hand through his damp, messy hair. He let out a long breath and leaned in close to Ron, his voice a whisper meant for only them, though Hermione inevitably heard. "Couldn't focus for a second. Ginny was seeker for the Chasers’ drill. Those new practice robes… Merlin. They’re like a second skin when they’re sweaty. Just… glued to her. Every curve." He made a vague, mapping gesture over his own chest.
Ron’s head snapped up, his ears pink. “That’s my sister, you prat.”
“I’m not saying anything you don’t already know,” Harry said, a lazy, challenging grin on his face. His green eyes were bright, predatory. “You’ve seen her. You’ve got eyes. Right now, you’re picturing it. Her tits in that tight blue fabric, all defined, probably bouncing a bit when she dives. Aren’t you?”
Ron’s mouth opened, then closed. He couldn’t formulate a denial. A flicker of unwanted, guilty imagination crossed his features. He shook his head violently. “Shut up, Harry.”
Hermeroine’s quill pressed so hard into the parchment it tore a small hole. She didn’t look up.
“Fine, fine,” Harry said, leaning back, stretching his arms. The silence returned, thicker now. He scanned the towering shelves, his gaze drifting over the spines of ancient texts, then landing on Hermione. She was wearing a simple, high-necked grey sweater and her usual school skirt. It was baggy, concealing. A stark, deliberate contrast to everything they’d just been talking about. His eyes lingered on the subtle, soft swell of her chest where it met the table. She shifted, pulling her robes tighter.
“Change of subject,” Ron blurted out, desperate to steer away from thoughts of his sister. He kept his voice low, conspiratorial. “Hypothetical. If you could… you know. See anyone’s. Anyone at all in the school. Uncovered. Just… bam. Who’d it be?”
Harry didn’t hesitate. His eyes never left Hermione’s hunched form. “Granger.”
The name hung in the dusty air. Ron choked on nothing. Hermione went perfectly, utterly still.
“What?” Ron squeaked.
“You heard me.” Harry’s voice was calm, analytical, as if discussing a tactical problem. “Think about it. She hides them all the time. Always in these massive jumpers or those buttoned-up robes. It’s all… secret. Makes you wonder what’s under there. They’re not massive like Lavender’s, obviously. But they’d be perfect. High. Really fucking perky. You can tell by the way they move when she walks, just a little bounce even under all that wool. Probably have these perfect, small pink nipples that’d get hard if you just blew on them.” He said it with a crude, detached certainty.
Ron was staring at Hermione now, too, his earlier guilt forgotten, replaced by a dawning, scandalized curiosity. His gaze became clinical, inspecting the very shapes Harry described. He imagined the layers of fabric dissolving. “Blimey,” he breathed, the word barely audible.
Hermione finally moved. She looked up, and her face was a mask of cool, disdainful fury. But her cheeks were flushed a deep, hot scarlet. “Are you quite finished?” Her voice was ice, but it wavered, just a fraction. “I am a person, not a… a catalog of body parts for your juvenile fantasy league.”
“It’s hypothetical, Hermione,” Ron said, but his eyes were still wide, fixed on her sweater.
“It’s degrading. It’s vile.” She stood up, beginning to shove books into her bag with jerky, violent motions. But her hands trembled. The anger was real, scalding. Yet beneath it, buried under layers of outrage and principle, a treacherous, forbidden thrill sparked in her gut. Their words, so crude, so objectifying, had painted a picture. And in that picture, she was desired. Not for her mind, not for her spells, but for her body. By both of them. The thought was shocking, offensive… and electrifying.
Harry watched her, unfazed by her anger. “See? You’re thinking about it now, too. Aren’t you?”
“I am thinking,” she spat, swinging her bag over her shoulder, “that I would rather spend the evening in the company of acromantulas than listen to another second of this.”
She strode away, her footsteps echoing sharply in the quiet. The boys watched her go, the shape of her retreating figure now forever altered by the words they had given it.
Ron slowly turned back to Harry, his expression a muddle of awe and guilt. “You’re a madman.”
Harry just shrugged, a faint, knowing smirk on his lips. His scar was a pale line on his forehead. “It’s the truth. You were thinking it, too. You agreed.”
Ron didn’t deny it. He looked down at his ruined lunar diagram, his mind now light-years away from the moon’s phases, lost instead in a sudden, vivid, and deeply shameful curiosity about what Hermione Granger’s small, perfect, perpetually hidden breasts actually looked like. The library’s silence now felt charged, humming with a new and dangerous kind of knowledge.