Chapter 5: Forbidden Glimpse
The library’s silence pressed in on him after Hermione fled, a thick, dusty verdict. Her scent—ink and faint citrus—lingered, a torment. Harry stood there, his hands still buzzing from where she’d shoved him, the phantom warmth of her body searing through his shirt. Don’t.
That single word echoed. It wasn't a request. It was a wall.
A cold, shameful clarity washed over him, followed immediately by a hotter, more insistent need. He’d been a passive spectator for too long. He was done watching. He wanted to see.
The desire was a physical ache, a tightening in his gut that overrode the jumble of guilt and friendship. He thought of the way her blouse had gaped. The promise of lace. The forbidden landscape of curved flesh he’d only glimpsed in stolen, agonizing fragments. He thought of others, too—Lavender’s obvious bounty, Parvati’s graceful neckline, even the casual, unknowing sway of girls in the corridors. It was a constant, humming distraction. A hunger.
He didn’t go to dinner. The thought of sitting across from Hermione, pretending nothing had happened, of watching Ron shovel down shepherd’s pie in blissful ignorance, was impossible. Instead, he went straight to Gryffindor Tower, wound through the familiar corridors to his dormitory, and flung open his trunk.
From beneath a pile of folded jumpers, he pulled it out. The cloak. Fluid and weightless as a shadow. He ran the cool, seamless fabric through his fingers. It had always meant freedom. Escape. Adventure. Now it felt different in his hands. It felt like a key.
He didn’t allow himself to think. Thinking led to hesitation, to Potter nobility, to the voice that sounded like Dumbledore. He threw the cloak over his shoulders and vanished.
The world shifted, turning gauzy and muted at the edges. He descended through the castle, a ghost in the bustling post-dinner traffic. A group of fourth-year Hufflepuffs giggled past, one adjusting her tie, and his eyes, invisible and ravenous, tracked the movement of her arm across the front of her robes. He moved like a predator, a slow, purposeful prowl. The Prefects’ bathroom on the fifth floor. It was rarely occupied this late. It was private. It was a chance.
He slipped inside on the heels of a departing Ravenclaw boy, the door clicking shut behind them. The room was empty, vast, and swimming with steam from the last bath. The shimmering pool, the polished taps shaped like merpeople and sea serpents, the muted light—it felt illicit. Sacred. He stood very still, listening. The only sound was the drip of condensation.
Then, the door handle turned.
He pressed himself against a cool tile wall near a bank of towels, his breath catching. The door opened, and Cho Chang walked in.
She looked tired. Her long dark hair was loose, shadows under her eyes. She locked the door behind her with a soft click that seemed deafening to Harry’s straining ears. She didn’t undress immediately. She just walked to the edge of the pool and hugged herself, staring into the cloudy, fragrant water.
Harry watched, every sense screaming. This was wrong. He knew it was wrong with a sharp, metallic certainty. But his feet were rooted. His eyes were wide behind the cloak.
With a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the castle, Cho began to unbutton her robes. She shrugged them off, letting the heavy fabric pool at her feet. Her cardigan came next, then her tie. She was methodical, unsmiling. Each garment fell away, revealing more. A pale blue shirt. A pleated skirt. She folded them neatly on a golden chair.
Now she stood in her underwear. Simple, white cotton. Modest. She wasn’t Lavender, all curves and confidence. Cho was slender, almost fragile. Her bra was unadorned, hugging small, pert breasts. Harry’s mouth went dry. He could see the shape of them perfectly through the fabric, the gentle swell, the subtle points of her nipples pressing against the cup. He drank in the sight, a shocking intimacy that made his heart hammer against his ribs. This was real. This was nakedness, or nearly so. He’d never seen anything so privately, vulnerably human.
Cho hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her knickers and slid them down her legs. She stepped out of them.
For a moment, she was completely bare. The smooth plane of her stomach, the dip of her navel, the dark triangle of hair between her thighs. And her breasts, freed as she reached behind to unclasp the bra. It fell away.
He stopped breathing.
They were perfect. Not large, but beautifully shaped, high and pale with dusky pink areolas. They moved with her as she turned to test the water temperature with a toe, a soft, natural sway. The steam beaded on her skin. He could see every detail—the way the light caught the faint slope, the subtle indentation where arm met torso. A primal, starving part of his brain catalogued it all: the texture, the colour, the live, breathing reality of a bare-chested woman, unaware and only feet away.
She slid into the water with a soft gasp, the surface closing over her shoulders, obscuring his view. Frustration, sharp and immediate, clawed at him. But the image was seared into his mind. It was a revelation. It was a fix. And it only made the hunger worse, more specific. This wasn’t about Cho. It was about the fact of it. The sight.
He stayed, frozen, as she bathed. She washed her hair, her arms rising, her breasts breaking the surface, water sluicing over them. She cried a little, quiet washed-out sobs that echoed softly in the tiled room. The ache in Harry’s gut twisted into something uglier, a mix of arousal and a shame so deep it felt like sickness. He was violating her grief. He was everything he hated.
Yet he didn’t leave.
She finally rose, water streaming from her body. He saw it all again, a glistening, full-frontal silhouette against the steam. She was even more beautiful wet, skin glowing, nipples tightened from the cooler air. She toweled off, the rough fabric dragging over her skin, over those breasts, and Harry felt a jolt as if the touch were his own.
She dressed quickly, gathered her things, and left. The lock turned again.
Harry slumped against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold floor, the cloak tangled around him. The room was silent but for the gurgle of the emptying bath. His body was taut with unsated tension, his mind a riot of images—Cho’s bared skin, Hermione’s defiant eyes, the lace edge of her bra.
The victory was ashes. He’d seen what he wanted. It hadn’t helped. It had carved the cavity inside him wider, hungrier. The specific image he craved now was Hermione’s. Not Cho’s graceful sadness, but Hermione’s intelligent, challenging gaze paired with that body. The imagined weight of her breasts, different from Cho’s, fuller perhaps. The reality of her nipples. The sound she might make.
He pulled the cloak tighter, becoming a void in the corner of the opulent room. He had crossed a line. There was no coming back. And the terrible, thrilling truth was: he wanted to cross the next one. He knew where the seventh-year girls’ dormitories were. The cloak was in his hand. The castle was asleep.
He stood up. The decision was calm, cold, absolute. The guilt was a distant echo, drowned out by the relentless, pounding need. He was invisible. The night was his.
He left the bathroom, a phantom in the hallway. As he passed a suit of armor, its helmet seemed to turn a fraction, following his silent passage. A portrait of a sleeping witch mumbled and rolled over. He didn't care. He was a ghost with a purpose, moving towards the spiral staircase that led upward, towards the whispered secrets and the soft, sleeping breaths behind closed doors. Each step was a beat in a new, dark rhythm. He was going to see. He was going to know.
At the foot of the girls' staircase, the enchantment that normally barred boys hummed faintly in the air. He hesitated only a second, then stepped onto the first stair. It did not transform into a slide. The cloak, it seemed, confounded more than human eyes. It felt like fate.
He climbed.