Chapter 7: The Long-Awaited View
The common room fire was dying to embers, casting a pulsing, orange light that did nothing to warm the cold knot in Harry’s stomach. It had been two days. Two days of Ginny’s knowing smiles in the corridors, two days of her brushing past him in the Common Room, her shoulder deliberately grazing his arm, the memory of her bare skin a brand on his mind. He’d jerked off twice thinking of it, the image so crisp it felt like theft. It left him ragged, on edge, a live wire of frustrated want.
He was pretending to read a Transfiguration text, the words swimming meaninglessly. The silhouette of her perky breasts under that thin top, the defiant bounce—it played on a loop behind his eyes, drowning out everything else.
“Harry?”
He started, the book nearly slipping from his hands. Hermione stood by the arm of his chair, wringing her hands. She looked… frazzled. Her bushy hair was a wilder cloud than usual, and her eyes, usually so sharp, were wide and troubled. She wore one of those absurdly oversized knit jumpers, swallowing her frame whole.
“Hey. You alright?”
“Can I… sit? Talk?” Her voice was small.
He nodded, marking his page with a finger he knew he’d never return. She sank into the adjacent armchair, tucking her legs under her. The firelight caught the worry in her features.
“It’s Ron,” she whispered, as if the tapestry portraits might gossip.
“What’s he done now?”
“It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he’s going to do.” She bit her lip, gaze fixed on the dying flames. “He’s with Lavender. Constantly. And it’s… it's getting more serious. Parvati told me Lavender’s been asking about… about contraception potions.”
Harry felt a strange, disembodied thrill. Not about Ron. But about the raw, exposed need in Hermione’s voice. It was a vulnerability he’d never seen, and it opened a door in his mind. A dark, hungry part of him, still throbbing from the memory of Ginny, sat up and took notice.
“Right. So they’re probably… you know. Soon.” He kept his voice neutral.
“Exactly.” The word was a puff of despair. She turned her brimming eyes to him. “Harry, what do I do? I can’t… I just can’t watch him be with her like that. Not when…”
“When you want him for yourself.” He said it plainly. It wasn’t a question.
She flushed a deep, painful red, but gave a jerky nod. “But he doesn’t see me. Not like that. I’m just… Hermione. Bossy. Know-it-all Hermione in the baggy jumpers.”
Harry leaned forward, the predator in him uncoiling. This was it. A different opportunity, but an opportunity nonetheless. The wanting ache in his gut, so recently focused on ginger hair and small, perfect curves, now pulsed with a new, parallel heat. Hermione Granger’s tits. He’d wondered about them for years. Imagined them under mountains of wool and buku. Were they large? Small? Pale? He’d spent hours fantasizing, his hand working under his sheets, picturing her pushing those heavy books aside and offering them to him.
“You have to make him see,” Harry said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “He’s a bloke, Hermione. We’re simple. Lavender… she flashes her pretty smile and wears those tight tops. She lets him look.”
Hermione’s face crumpled in disgust. “So I have to… deglamorate myself? Become some brainless…”
“No. Not brainless. Just… visible.” He let the fire crackle for a moment, letting the idea sink into her desperation. “You have assets. You just keep them locked away in the library.”
“What assets?” she asked, genuine confusion in her tone.
Harry’s heart hammered against his ribs. The trap was set. The words felt thick on his tongue. “Well… look. If you’ve got nice… you know… a nice figure. Specifically… if you have nice… tits.” He forced the crude word out, watching her flinch. “That’s the way to a guy like Ron’s head. Straight through his eyeballs. Show him what he’s ignoring.”
Hermione stared at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. Then a slow, horrified understanding dawned. Her hands instinctively crossed over the bulky wool covering her chest.
“Harry! I can’t just… parade around like some… some…”
“I’m not saying parade. I’m saying, give him a glimpse. A reason to look twice. Make him wonder.” He was leaning so far forward his elbows were on his knees. The air between them was charged, thick with shared taboo. “Does he even know what’s under all this?” He gestured vaguely at her jumper.
Her blush deepened to a scarlet that reached the roots of her hair. She looked down at herself, a storm of conflict in her eyes. Shame, curiosity, a desperate, competitive hunger. “No,” she whispered. “Of course he doesn’t. No one does.”
“Exactly.” Harry let the word hang. Then he played his card. The trap snapped shut. “Hell, I don’t even know. And I’ve known you for seven years.” He gave a forced, casual shrug, leaning back as if it meant nothing. “So how can you expect Ron to be interested if you don’t even know if what you’ve got is… you know… worth showing?”
The silence was absolute. The last log in the fire split with a soft crack, sending a flurry of sparks up the chimney. Hermione was frozen, her mind working at a million miles an hour. He could see the calculations, the war between a lifetime of propriety and the gnawing, terrifying fear of losing Ron Weasley to a girl who wasn’t afraid to use her body.
Her brown eyes lifted to his. They searched his face, not for friendship in that moment, but for something else. For the objectivity of a guy. A judgement.
“You…” Her voice was a dry rasp. “You really think that’s what it would take?”
“I know it is,” Harry said, the certainty in his voice absolute and cold.
She swallowed hard. Her gaze flickered towards the staircase to the girls’ dorms, then back to the empty, shadow-cloaked common room. It was just the two of them, the hour achingly late.
“How…” she started, then stopped. She took a shuddering breath. “How does someone even know? If they’re… acceptable?”
Harry’s blood turned to fire in his veins. He was so hard it was a dull, pounding ache against his fly. This was it. Hermione Granger was actually considering it. Asking him.
He kept his expression carefully neutral, supportive even. Just a mate helping a mate. “Well. You’d need a… an opinion. A bloke’s opinion. Honestly.”
Her eyes were locked on his, wide with a terror and a fascination that mirrored his own hunger. “An opinion,” she repeated, numb.
“Yeah. Because if you’re going to use them as a weapon, Hermione, you’d better know they’re going to hit the target.” He managed a weak smile. “Strategic reconnaissance.”
The joke fell into the abyss between them. She wasn’t laughing. She was weighing it. The unthinkable. Showing Harry. Showing anyone. Her fingers plucked nervously at the hem of her enormous jumper.
A minute ticked by. The only sound was their breathing.
Then, without a word, Hermione stood up. She didn’t look at him. She walked slowly to the fireplace, her front to him, staring into the embers. Her shoulders were rigid. She lifted her hands.
He watched, breath held, every sense screaming.
Her fingers found the bottom of the woolen jumper. She gripped the fabric. For a long, agonizing moment, she did nothing. Then, with a resolve that seemed to drain the very color from her skin, she began to pull it up.
An inch of warm, fire-lit skin was revealed above the waistband of her skirt. Another inch. The hem rose past her navel, over her ribs. The fabric bundled under her arms.
Harry’s mouth went completely dry. His vision tunnelled.
She was really doing it. Hermione Granger was about to show him her tits. The fantasy of a thousand lonely nights was hardening into a terrifying, glorious reality in the shaky light of the Gryffindor fire.
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. He just watched, heart like a war drum, as the sweater gathered higher, revealing the delicate clips of her bra, the straining straps. The first, breath-stealing hint of swelling, soft flesh peeking from beneath her uplifted arm.
He was so fucking hard he saw stars.