Chapter 5: From This Moment Forward
Hermione Granger was many things. At this particular moment, she was one deliriously happy witch as she strolled slowly, through the castle toward Gryffindor Tower with her arm looped through the arm of one Harry Potter, her best friend and, now, her boyfriend.
Boyfriend!
She still couldn't believe it. Earlier in the day, she'd been worried that Harry would be disgusted by her recently found desire to have him control her. Now, not only had he agree to try being her Dom, (a title she was still coming to terms with, herself) but he'd also asked her to be his girlfriend.
Okay, she thought, he didn't actually ask you, but he led you there. So, close enough.
Whether he had actually said the words, or not, the end result was the same. Which led her thoughts to something that she, most definitely, was not. Hermione Granger was not the squealing, giggling, girly type of girl. But whenever the words 'Harry Potter' and 'boyfriend' went through her mind, she found that she had an almost overwhelming urge to squeal and jump up and down, just like all the silly girls that had so frustrated her over the years.
She felt as if there was an expanding bubble of frenetic energy growing inside her chest and it was all she could do to limit her outward reaction to a broad, beaming smile. Not that she could have wiped the smile from her face any time soon, anyway. She was just too pleased to be where she was.
After their discussion, earlier, they'd spent another hour just sitting in the empty classroom, mostly talking about inconsequential things. Personally, she had been thrilled that the two, rather dramatic, changes in the nature of their relationship hadn't seemed to change them at all. They were still just Harry and Hermione, and it still felt like being around her best friend when she was with him.
Well, there was at least one small difference, she admitted to herself as a light blush dusted her cheeks. Just before they'd left the room to start their way back, they had shared one last soft kiss, something they'd obviously never done before that day.
She came out of her thoughts to find that they were standing outside of the portrait hole and Harry was attempting to give the password to the portrait of Sir Cadogan, however, he couldn't get a word in over the knight's effusive praise of Harry for 'winning the fair maiden's hand'.
She blushed again and another small giggle escaped her, unable to stop herself, and the sound was sufficient to distract the knight long enough for Harry to give the password.
It wasn't until they entered the Common Room that Hermione realized that there was something important they had completely forgotten to discuss. Namely, were they going to advertise their new status as a couple, or attempt to keep it a secret from the rest of the school?
"Well, well, well, look what we have here, Gred."
"What's that, Forge?"
Hermione and Harry both groaned as a pair of voices reached them before they'd even taken ten steps into the room.
"Hi, guys," Harry said, turning to the Weasley twins as the two redheads approached, both of them sporting disturbingly cheerful grins on their freckled faces.
"Hush, Harrykins," one of them said in a teasingly admonishing tone.
"The big kids are talking."
Hermione couldn't help but smile, just a bit, at the irrepressible duo's antics and unhooked her arm from Harry's to instead hold his hand as they waited for the castle's resident Jesters to get on with it.
"So, what was it that we were looking at, Forge?" asked twin two.
"I believe, that we are seeing the newest couple to grace these Hallowed halls," twin one replied as his brother let out a shocked gasp, mouth dropping open and one hand coming to his chest.
"No!"
"Yes, indeed, Gred," twin one insisted. "Note how close together they're standing?"
"Hmmmm… I do believe you're right, my more intelligent brother. And see how they're holding hands?"
"I had noticed that as well, my slightly better looking half," replied twin one, nodding his head in a contemplative manner. "Also, did you happen to take in the delicate blush coloring the delectable Miss Granger's cheeks? She's just so adorable!"
"And then, of course, there's the possessive glare our favorite Seeker is giving us," twin two continued as most of the Common Room had, by that point, realized that something was going on and had turned their attention toward the group of four near the Tower's exit.
"Are you two done?" Harry asked in a long suffering kind of tone, "or should I tell Alicia and Angelina that you're causing problems?"
"Harry!" Both twins burst out.
"Low blow, honorary Weasley brother… low blow."
"Right below the belt, it was."
"Oh, go on, you two," Hermione laughed, unable to contain her amusement any longer. "Stop making a spectacle of yourselves, or at least don't drag us into it."
"Are we done making a spectacle of ourselves?" one of them asked the other, who looked up at the ceiling as if in thought.
"Why, yes, I do believe we've done enough for one day." Stepping forward he grinned and clapped one hand on Harry's shoulder and the other on Hermione's. "All kidding aside, good for you."
"Yeah, we've thought for a while that the two of you would make a good pair. Don't go making liars out of us," twin two cut in, wagging a finger in their direction.
It took them a few minutes to make their way through the Common Room after that, as it appeared that nearly everyone present suddenly wanted to talk to them. Eventually, however, they managed to work their way through the crowd and over to a small sofa near the fireplace where they tended to congregate in the evenings with Ron when they were finished with their homework and had nothing else to do but relax.
Of course, Hermione had had far fewer of those moments to relax this year than the two years before, but the point remained.
"What was that all about?" Ron asked from his favorite armchair closest to the fire, his attention fixed on the chessboard in front of him.
Hogwarts' newest couple exchanged a look. Really? Hermione thought. How oblivious can you be?
"You mean you really didn't hear any of that?" Harry asked after a minute of surprised silence had passed them by.
Ron shrugged. "Hard to hear much from all the way over here," he pointed out and Harry let out a deep sigh, squeezing her hand gently where he still held it.
"Well… um… Hermione and I are together, now," Harry said and Hermione watched their friend carefully, not a little worried how he might react to that news.
Ron glanced up at them, noticing where they were sitting on the couch. "Well, yeah," he said. "You're both sitting right there."
"No, Ron," Hermione finally said with an exasperated sigh as she lifted their clasped hands. "We're together, as in Harry asked me to be his girlfriend."
The lanky redhead's mouth dropped open and his eyes darted back and forth between the two of them as his ears slowly started to turn red, one of the early warning signs, she'd learned, of a Weasley blow up.
"What'd the two of you go and do that for?" he demanded, angrily, once he was able to actually form words. "Just trying to ruin everything?"
"What're you on about?" Harry asked. "Ruin what?"
"Us!" Ron gestured between the three of them with one hand. "The three of us. The Golden Trio and all that. What'd you have to go and mess with that for?"
"We haven't 'messed' with anything, Ronald," Hermione snapped, irritated with the way he was acting. "Harry and I like each other. We want to try being together and see how things go. I don't see how our relationship has any impact at all on you."
"Well of course not, high and mighty genius Granger-"
"Watch it, Ron," Harry warned him. "You're my best mate, but that doesn't mean you get to keep insulting Hermione."
"But she's breaking us up!"
"Breaking us… are you completely 'round the twist?" Harry demanded. "Hermione, you, and I. We're friends, all three of us. Just because Hermione and I have decided to try something a little… different, doesn't mean anything. You and me, we're still best mates. And if you'd quit being a berk to Hermione, you'd understand she's been a really good friend to you the last couple of years."
Hermione's cheeks warmed with yet another flush when Harry called what they had 'different' realizing there was another meaning within that word that Ron would never have caught, and the look that Harry gave her out of the corner of his eye told her the boy had done it intentionally.
For a minute Ron just looked back and forth between them, his ears still a bright red and his face fluctuating between outraged and confused before finally settling into something that almost looked contemplative.
"So… so you two aren't just going to go off all the time to snog, and leave me in the lurch?" he stated bluntly, which had both of his friends blushing brightly.
"Ron!"
"Ronald!"
"What? It's an honest question."
"Whatever we decide to do, or not do, is none of your business," she stated, sitting up primly on her portion of the sofa, her hand still clutched tightly in Harry's. "But no, we're not going to just disappear on you all the time."
"She's right. She has all those extra classes and you and I will have plenty of time to hang out while she's doing that. The three of us will still hang out together. Just because we're together doesn't mean the three of us aren't friends anymore."
He considered that again before finally nodding his head, awkwardly clearing his throat as he turned his attention back to his one sided game.
"Well… good for you, I guess. Just… well, might take me a little bit to get used to it."
He was so intent on his game that he didn't notice both of his friends let out a relieved sigh before Harry turned to her and jerked his head toward the stairs.
"What about those books you wanted me to look at?" he asked and she almost jumped in her seat when she remembered the books hidden upstairs in her trunk. She quickly kissed his cheek and then ran up the stairs, ignoring Ron's disgusted groan behind her.
Practically flying into the dorm she checked to make sure she was alone before she opened her trunk and pulled out the books. Thinking quickly she charmed each cover to appear as something extremely boring before she slammed her trunk closed, gathered the books, and headed back down to the Common Room, her head swimming with anticipation and her pulse pounding heavily in her ears.
She slowed to a walk when she reached the bottom of the stairs and strolled casually over to the sofa, dropping down next to Harry and placing the books in his hands. With an amused twitch of his lips he looked over the titles for a moment before he set the books on his lap.
"What're those?" Ron asked, his attention caught by her return.
"Just some books Hermione asked if I'd read for her," Harry explained and the redhead pulled a face.
"See? And that's another reason not to get with the smart girls," he pointed out. "Well… better you than me, Mate."
Hermione's indignant sputtering was lost when Harry burst out laughing.
#####
Saturday morning found the two of them meeting early in the Common room so they could be the first down to breakfast. They both agreed they needed as much time alone together as possible before meeting up with Ron for lunch and neither of them was really certain they'd work out everything that needed to be discussed before then. Walking hand in hand to the Great Hall, Harry felt relieved to note the little signs in his girlfriend that let him know she was just as nervous about this whole thing as he was.
Her grip on his hand was a little tighter than necessary and her lips were pressed firmly together, her posture stiff and tense as they made their way through the castles many corridors and halls. Neither of them said anything as they both sat down to a light breakfast and, at Hermione's previous encouragement, Harry decided to stick mostly to fruits and grains for his meal. He really wasn't sure that his nervous stomach would handle anything heavier, anyway.
While they ate, he let his mind wander back over the last four days of reading he'd done in preparation for this day. Four eye-opening days. The things he'd learned from those three books had thoroughly haunted his dreams, and even some of his waking hours.
More and more as he'd read, he started to understand just how complicated a thing it was that Hermione was asking of him. The level of responsibility that she was asking him to shoulder… he thought he'd understood the situation from the first book, but each of the other three had simply added layers to the entire prospect of what lay ahead of them. And, as he learned, there were varying degrees to almost everything.
How much control would she be willing to give him? How often did she want to or expect to? What did she actually want to do and experience? What things would she be completely against?
That's what you're going to talk about today, he thought, trying to force his thoughts away from the terrifyingly enticing ideas that taken root in his mind. Firmly, he reminded himself of a thought he'd had the night that the two of them had made up about the broom.
If Hermione needed you, there isn't much that you wouldn't be willing to do for her. To protect her. To keep her safe. Right now, with what she's taken on, the workload and stress… she needs you to save her from herself.
In anticipation of the discussion they intended to have, last night he'd done two things that would probably have Hermione feeling immensely proud of him. First, he'd finished off a plan that he'd been idly working on for days around what he wanted to do and how he wanted to approach this discussion, at least the start of it. Then, he'd actually made a list. It wasn't a very long list, but it was still a list. Absently, he patted his jeans pocket through his robes, just to make sure he still had his list and felt a sense of relief at the feeling of the folded piece of parchment in his pocket.
He jumped a moment later when a hand suddenly landed on his shoulder and turned to find beautiful cinnamon eyes studying him intently.
"Are you okay?" she asked, the first words either of them had spoken since they'd greeted each other in the Common Room.
"Y-yeah," he stammered. "I'm fine, just… just thinking."
She offered him a slightly shaky smile before nodding to his plate. "Are you done?" she asked and he glanced down, surprised to find that he'd actually eaten the majority of his food, so he nodded, turning back to her.
"Yeah, I don't really feel like eating anymore."
He stood and reached out to take her hand, leading her from the Hall after she had her feet under her. Almost literally before he knew it, they were standing in front of the door leading into, what he was coming to think of as 'their' classroom. As soon as they were inside with the door closed behind them, both of them started casting silencing charms at nearly every surface and Hermione cast something that sealed the door with a loud squelching sound.
"A locking spell, 'Colloportus'," she explained as a blush rose in her cheeks at the curious look he was giving her. "I looked it up the other day."
Which is something I should probably have done, he thought, considering what he'd learned about the responsibility facing him as her Dom. Something like basic security really was something he should have been on top of if he wanted to move forward with this. Am I really good enough for the trust she's placing in me? he wondered.
They moved over to the seats they'd used on Monday, Hermione facing him across a distance of a few feet with the desks between them and she started digging through her book bag.
"So, the point, today, is to work out some of the details of how we want this to work," she started, her voice taking on a very familiar, lecturing tone. "We don't have anyone to help us or teach us how this all works, so we should probably discuss and cover as much of the material as possible, just to make sure that-"
"Hermione!" he suddenly barked, interrupting her speech and her search through her bag as she cut off, her head snapping up to fix him with a wide eyed look of surprise at his sharp, reprimanding tone.
"W-what is it?" she asked.
It took Harry a quick moment to focus as he was just as startled as she'd been by his tone. Startled, and honestly, a touch thrilled by her reaction. He resisted the urge to frown as he considered that brief feeling for a moment.
"What are we?" he finally asked, remembering the plan that he'd developed over the last few days.
She blinked several times, her brow furrowed in confusion as she attempted to puzzle out his meaning.
"I-I don't understand," she admitted, softly and shifted around nervously in her seat.
"I haven't been goofing off the last few days, you know" he told her. "I read those books, carefully. One of them twice and the others I at least referenced a lot while I've been thinking about how this should work. One thing that's pretty clear is… is that th-there's a dynamic that's supposed to be at work here, right?"
He cleared his throat and gestured between the two of them with one hand. "So, what are we? Right now, are we Harry and Hermione? Are you my girlfriend, and am I your boyfriend? Or are you my s-sub, and am I your Dom?"
Stupid time to stutter, Potter!
He took a deep, steadying. death while she thought that over, hoping she wouldn't notice his slip.
She squirmed again in her seat, her hands tightly clasped on the desk in front of her, eyes lowered. "I.. I w-want to be your sub, Harry. More than ever," she whispered, her face a bright, brilliant red.
"If you want to be my sub, then, what am I?" he asked her, letting out the breath he'd been holding out of fear over how she was going to react.
"You are my Dom," she said in a breathless tone.
At that, his head cocked to one side for a moment, and he considered what they'd been saying before he suddenly shook his head.
"No," he said. "You're not my sub, and I'm not your Dom, not yet at least. That's kind of what we're here to figure out, right?"
She nodded.
"Well, as your potential Dom, do you think that you should you be lecturing me like you were? Would you talk to one of your Professors that way?"
Wide eyed, she violently shook her head, her hair bouncing wildly about.
"We're going to need to help each other," he told her, gently, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk in front of him. "You're going to have to explain some things to me at times, I'm sure. Just… be careful of your tone."
"I-I'll try, Harry," she whispered, shifting her weight again, anxiously.
"And I'll remind you, when you slip up," he said and the smile that broke out on her face was probably the brightest he'd ever seen from her.
With a smile of his own stealing over his lips, Harry leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Well, to be perfectly honest, that was all I had, for now," he said and then broke out laughing at the shocked look that took over her face.
"Wh- but… you…" He saw the moment when the proverbial light bulb clicked on and she realized what'd just happened. "You planned that?" she blurted out and he nodded still smiling.
"But… how?"
"I know you, Hermione," he explained. "You said it yourself. You really can be an insufferable know-it-all, sometimes. Personally, I like that about you. I figured you were likely to go off into your lecture mode at some point, and I decided I could use the opportunity."
"For what?"
"I wasn't sure if I could be… well… a Dom, I guess," he said, flushing slightly. "I didn't know if I really had it in me." He shrugged, somewhat self-deprecatingly.
"Well… y-you did a very good job," she muttered.
"And?"
She shot him a confused look.
"How did you feel about it?"
Her answer came in the form of another deep flush that started to creep down her neck as she shifted around in her seat, refusing to meet his eyes.
"It was… oh, Harry it's… it's difficult to describe. I've honestly had some doubts, but… well it's pretty clear to me that I can be submissive to you and… I… I really enjoyed it."
By the time she'd finished her voice had dropped to a low mumble and he almost couldn't make out what she was saying, but he just managed and felt that same thrill run through him that he'd felt earlier.
"What about you?" she suddenly asked, bringing his attention back to her to find that she'd sat up more in her seat, her flush having receded significantly and was looking curiously at him.
"What about me?" he asked, confused by the question.
"How did you feel about it? About… commanding me like that?"
He shrugged. "What does it matter? This isn't about me, really. It's about you, and what you need."
"But… but it doesn't work that way, Harry," she said, visibly stopping herself from saying more in the way her lips pressed tightly together.
"What do you mean?"
"I told you, before, this could help you too. And, well, if you don't enjoy it, if you don't want to be my Dom, do you honestly think it could work?"
He frowned at that, not really having considered his part in it beyond the responsibility he was facing and what he would need to do to help her. He remembered what she said, about gaining some control in his life and he couldn't argue the point. If he was being completely honest with himself, he really had enjoyed what he did, and how she'd reacted. He'd been so focused on trying to maintain the commanding style he'd adopted that he really hadn't been paying much attention to those feelings very well at the time.
He didn't exactly answer her, but his grin spoke volumes and a moment later he sat up straighter in his seat and leaned his elbows on the desk again.
"So. We've got a lot to figure out, don't we?" he asked and she nodded, also gathering herself to focus on what they needed to discuss if they wanted to make a go of things.
"I… uh, I had a suggestion, I think we should do, before we start getting into things," she said.
He didn't say anything but nodded for her to continue.
"Well, can we agree that we want to keep… keep this separate from the rest of our lives? That is, I'm only your sub in here, or when we're actually going to be in a session, and you're only my Dom at those times, too?"
"Right, there's different levels of… of commitment, I guess," he muttered. "What was it called… T… T... something?"
Hermione opened her mouth but at a sharp look from him she flushed and her mouth closed with a snap. A moment later he snapped his fingers, brightening considerably. "TPE," he said. "That was a full time situation, right?"
She nodded. "Total Power Exchange. Meaning keeping the dynamic twenty-four seven. I don't think that would really work too easily here, and I'm not sure it's necessary. At least to start, when we're still learning?"
"Makes sense," he said, shrugging. "So what's your suggestion?"
At that she took a deep breath and started to talk.
"Well, I was thinking that I could call you 'Sir' and you could have a name that you would call me, because if we want to keep the dominance and submission separate from our relationship outside of it, it would be easier if we had specific terms to refer to each other by when we're in session, and also you know the books talked about the headspace, that submissive or dominant mindset and I thought we might be able to more easily keep that separate by having a specific term that we would use only when in here."
Harry stared at her when she finally finished, his mouth hanging open and his eyebrows up near his hairline in surprise. After several long moments he seemed to shake himself and closed his mouth.
"Okaaayyy," he said, drawing out the word for several seconds. "I'm pretty sure that entire thing was all one long sentence and… I'm not certain you stopped to breathe during it. But… you're not wrong. It's not a bad idea at all."
His eyes suddenly narrowed, studying her carefully from her flushed cheeks to the slightly hunched posture and the way she wouldn't meet his eyes. Her eyes would dance around, darting to meet his for a half a second before shooting away again, looking somewhere else in the room.
"I think we can do that. You can call me, Sir. On one condition. You tell me why you really want to call me that."
"What do you mean?" she squeaked out.
"Hermione, you only talk like that when you're trying to gloss over or hide something. Why do you really want to call me, Sir?"
Her cheeks burning, she lowered her head and mumbled something that he couldn't hear.
"Hermione," he said, sternly. "Look at me."
Slowly, she lifted her head and looked at him, her cinnamon eyes dark with some emotion he couldn't quite identify, her face still flushed, sweat beading slightly on her forehead and her hair wild around her head and face.
"Why do you want to call me, Sir?" he repeated in a firm, demanding tone.
"I… I'd like to call you, Sir, when we're… when we're like this, because I like what saying it does to me," she finally got out in a low but steady voice.
He considered asking what it did to her, but he was pretty sure he could guess, based on her appearance.
"Hermione, you seem really nervous about this whole thing," he said after a few more minutes spent just looking at her. Not that he wasn't nervous himself. His own cheeks had been flushed more often than not since they'd entered the room, but her behavior was very different. "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? I don't want to make you uncomfortable."
"Yes, I'm nervous," she admitted. "But… well it's… talking to you this way is making me so…" she trailed off and ducked her head again and for a moment he was reminded of her slip of the tongue from the other day, how she'd told him that she touched herself thinking of him, dreamed of him, thought of him controlling her and how wet that would get her, and he honestly couldn't stop a bit of a smirk from turning up the corner of his mouth.
"Okay then," he said. "You can call me, Sir, if that's what you want, and I'll have to think of something for you, I just don't have anything right now. Is that okay?"
That beaming smile appeared on her face again, and she nodded. "Yes, Sir," she said, visibly shivering, just slightly, as the word left her lips.
He had to admit, when she'd said it before, the night before she left for home, and the day she'd given him that first book, the context had been different. Now, with the understanding of why she was using that deferential term to refer to him, he rather liked hearing her say it.
"Okay, we really need to get to why we're here, or we'll be at it all day," he pointed out and she nodded her head again, going back to digging in her bag.
"Right. So, one of the books was all about contracts. I thought it might be a good idea for us to write one."
"Why?" he asked. He'd looked over that contract book and hadn't considered what use it might have for them. The arrangement they were discussing seemed a little too… casual for something as serious in nature as a contract.
"Mostly just so that we can keep the rules we decide on clear and easy to reference, Sir," she said as she pulled out all four of the books she'd received and a roll of parchment. "I already copied one of the contracts from the book, mostly just for the different sections and without filling in any of the information."
He sighed, looking at the roll for a minute before turning his eyes to hers. She looked concerned by his reaction and he gave her a soft smile, attempting to reassure her.
"I'm tempted to burn that thing and have us start over," he admitted. "I'm… I'm trying to keep the mindset you were talking about, in mind, so to speak, and I think that you doing that without consulting me is overstepping, just a bit."
Her eyes widened and she appeared to shrink in on herself.
"I'm sorry, Sir, I… I was just trying to help."
"And that's why I'm not going to burn it," he told her. "I just… weneed to figure out the rules of all this, what we each expect so that this kind of thing doesn't happen, right? At least you didn't fill it in and expect me to just agree to whatever you put down."
"I knew better than that, Sir. I just thought I'd save us a bit of time from having to copy it out now."
"All right. So first I've got a couple topics that I'm most… not interested… well, topics I think are the most important to get out of the way first and to be as clear as possible."
"You do?" she asked, looking surprised, and pleased.
"I told you," he said as he pulled open his robes to retrieve his list from his jeans pocket. "I've been working on this. You say you need this, and I'm not certain I really fully understand why you'd think that, but I want to help you. I also don't want to screw anything up. I'm certain it would be very easy to make a mistake or do something wrong that could really hurt you and I don't want that to happen. So," he held up the parchment. "I made a list."
"May I?"
She held out one slightly trembling hand and he nodded, handing over the list. It was short, only having three items on it.
One: What kind of sub do you think you are?
Two: How do we want to handle punishments?
Three: What are your limits?
"I thought those were the most immediate things that needed to be decided," he told her as she skimmed it over.
"What do you mean by what kind of sub?" she asked and he frowned at that, leaning back again to cross his arms over his chest as he tried to articulate what he was thinking.
"From what I was able to gather in the reading, not everyone enjoys the same thing. That's obvious enough. But it means there's no single definition of what a sub is or does, really. Some of the letters those subs wrote? Some of them talked about enjoying bondage. Some enjoyed pain or being punished, so they'd do something on purpose to earn a punishment. Some really liked being humiliated and degraded."
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, suddenly feeling far less confident than he'd managed to so far. His nerves came back with a vengeance after they'd vanished during his commanding her not to lecture him.
"Some of those things… Hermione, I honestly don't know if I coulddo those, to anyone, but especially not to you. I care about you too much to treat you like that."
"But what if I want you to?" she asked, her soft tone causing him to look up from the desk in front of him to meet her eyes. "What if I discover I'm masochistic? I don't know, Sir. We might find out I do have a thing for humiliation. Honestly, calling you, Sir, is a form of humiliation, in a way. It's… it lowers me, makes me less than you." She let out a short laugh. "When I was first reading the abbreviation D/s with the large 'D' and the small 's' irritated me to no end. That it made the Dom seem more than the sub, or superior to them.
"That was before I was willing to admit that I could have a submissive streak in me. And now… it feels… it feels wonderful to treat you that way, Sir," she whispered. "It's… I know you don't think of yourself as more important or better than me. And for that reason I enjoy calling you, Sir, because I know you would value what it means. My willingness to be lower, to be less than."
"You've been thinking about that for a little while, haven't you?" he asked.
"At least two weeks, Sir. Since I first admitted to myself I wanted to try this and that I wanted no one but you to control me," she confirmed, nodding calmly. Her embarrassment and nervousness seemed to have evaporated into nothing as she, the one who would possibly suffer at times during what she wanted from him, took a moment to reassure him that it was okay.
I'm really not worthy of her, he thought and he sat up again, squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw, determined to see this through, for his Hermione.
"So," she said. "I guess we don't know what kind of sub I will be. That's something we'll have to learn as we go along. Punishments? Case by case basis?"
He considered that. Not all the punishments that were mentioned included pain and he understood the concept that a punishment could be anything, as long as the sub found it unpleasant. Hell, for Hermione, he could take her favorite book away from her for a week or something as a punishment. Oh, no, that wouldn't work, he reminded himself, since they're keeping things only to during sessions.
"And you have to agree to it. I won't do anything that you don't consent to," he stated, firmly and was answered by another smile.
"And that's why I trust you to do this for me."
She trusts me. Average student. Trouble magnet that's dragged her into danger so many times already when she's so… so much morethan that.
"Limits?" he asked.
"That'd be for both of us. I imagine there's probably some things you might like that I wouldn't care for and vice versa."
"How do we figure those out?"
Hermione fell into thought, tapping her chin lightly with the feather of her quill for a few moments before her eyes focused back on him.
"Part of me wants to say we don't set any limits, but that's not a smart thing to do at all," she added the last before he could protest and he nodded emphatically.
"Damn right that wouldn't be smart," he said and she frowned, just slightly at his language but didn't say anything.
"My concern is that we don't know enough to say what we might like or not like," she pointed out. "Maybe… what if we went through the lists in the books, there's a fair number of things mentioned, not everything, but a lot. If we go through them and we just pick out things that we would absolutely be unwilling to even consider much less actually do, then we take everything else case by case again?"
He considered that for a moment before agreeing. It made sense to just remove the absolute 'no' items and they could discuss the others as they went along. The next hour was spent going through everything they could find and discussing each one. Scat was immediately vetoed by both of them with nearly identical disgusted expressions on their faces, though Harry's face morphed into astonishment when Hermione didn't immediately veto watersports (after she'd explained to him that it didn't have much to do with a pool or bath).
"It's not harmful, and I'm not saying I want to give that a try tomorrow, or something," she'd said, completely unable to even look at him. "But it seems silly to completely dismiss something unpleasant out of hand. Scat could make you incredibly sick and that's not just unpleasant but absolutely disgusting. Same with vomit. No, thank you."
Blood, needles, knives, and permanent marks or body modification were added to their list soon after and, with an hour left to go before lunch Hermione leaned back with a simple, completed contract written out in front of her. There were some very basic rules such as not bringing things from outside a session into it. So, Harry couldn't punish her in session because she'd upset him earlier in the day, or something. (He'd been quite insistent on including that one) There was also plenty of space for them to add rules and specific guidelines on when and how those things could be changed.
Near the top there were two lines for the terms they would call each other and Hermione proudly wrote 'Sir' on the first line in her neat script before she turned to him.
"Well, Sir?" she asked. "Have you thought of something to call me?"
He hadn't, really, though he'd been wracking his brain for a while. He'd even read off some of the names other subs wrote that they'd been called to her and none of them quite seemed to fit in his head. Pet. Kitten. Slut. Cunt, that one he had not read aloud, but she'd already read it, so she knew it was there and had flushed brilliantly when he'd suddenly cut off speaking in mid sentence.
Harry's eyes were fixed on the roll of parchment, his mind turning rapidly as he struggled to come up with something. The contract wasn't binding in any way. The only way it had to actually bind them was their own willingness to adhere to it. But the wording of it. Hermione had insisted that it state that she belonged to him during their sessions. She was his to use, train, teach, and abuse as he saw fit. There was no doing anything half way with this girl, and that had always been something he loved about her, but at times like this, her single minded manner of throwing herself fully into whatever she did was… rather intimidating.
Hermione Granger. Advocate. Hates inequality and inequity. Hates bigotry and people acting as if they're better than others, wants to consider herself nothing more than property during these times. My property. My property!
Harry sat up, sharp and sudden, causing Hermione, who had been watching him carefully, to jump at the abrupt motion. If she wanted to be his… well… he would see just how willing she was before they signed that thing.
He turned his head, bright green eyes seeming to pierce her as his stare focused intently on her and he stood, gesturing to the center of the room.
"Stand up."
#####
The last few hours had kept Hermione on an up and down roller coaster of extreme embarrassment, that for some reason turned her on to no end, and just plain being turned on by how her boyfriend (my Dom) was acting. When he'd broken into her nervous lecture and forcefully demanded to know what they were, explaining that she was the sub… damn if she didn't almost have an orgasm right there.
She didn't.
But Merlin, was it a close thing and she couldn't understand just how much and how quickly she'd come to the mindset of being controlled by Harry Potter. Maybe it was the fact that he'd always controlled her, in a way? She'd been willing to do many things she'd never have even considered before because of him. She'd broken rules, she'd broken laws. She'd set a teacher on fire, for Merlin's sake!
The books had given her fertile imagination a starting point. Erotic images flooded her brain and it kept inserting herself and Harry into the original subjects places. As she'd learned more about what was possible in the dynamic she wanted to build with him, it had just become easier and easier to imagine different ways that he could control her. Her actions, her body, her mind. And the more she thought about it, the more sublime the feeling became. To let him use her however he wanted. She would already do nearly anything for Harry, and had, and now she was more than willing to forget everything else and simply be whatever he wanted her to be.
The world could have vanished outside their classroom and as long as he continued to give her those piercing stares and as long as he spoke to her the way he was, she wouldn't have another thought for anything else in her life. When he let her call him Sir, she couldn't stop the shiver that ran through her body. Her nipples were damn near painfully hard within her bra and she was sure she was nearly swimming in her knickers by the time they finally got down to the topic of those details they needed to discuss.
The disappointment on his face when she'd brought out the copied contract… she had never experienced such a stabbing sensation of guilt before. For a moment, she almost begged him to forgive her but she'd held herself together. You'll probably be begging him, one way or another, soon enough.
She'd shivered again as the thought went through her mind but had quickly forced herself to task, focusing on the details that needed to be dealt with before she could give herself over to him.
There was only one small, black cloud hanging over her head by the time she'd finished penning their contract and had written her term for him on the top line. She still didn't know what he would call her, and she desperately wanted to know. She carefully held her silence as he thought, bright green gaze never wavering from the roll of parchment on the desk in front of her for several long minutes when he suddenly sat up, startling her, and then stood, gesturing toward the center of the room where there was a wide space between the front row of student desks and the professor's desk at the front of the room.
"Stand up," he said.
She blinked, surprised at the sudden command and at first, she completely failed to react. When he arched a single brow at her after a few moments of her staring at him in silence she jumped again and almost leaped to her feet, moving to stand with her back toward the desk so she was facing the rows of student desks. Harry shrugged out of his robes, leaving him in his too big jeans and one of his uniform dress shirts.
"Take off your robes," he told her, holding one hand out expectantly and that time she moved quickly to do as she was told as another shiver ran through her body.
"Harry, wha-"
"Quiet."
He reached out and took her robes from her, laying both sets across the professor's desk behind her. She desperately wanted to turn around and see what he was doing but she was already kicking herself for using his name instead of calling him Sir a moment ago, so she kept still and fought the urge to fidget. The cold of the room had another, entirely different, shiver running through her and a moment later Harry came into view, walking around her to pick up the contract from the desk where she'd left it.
"This might sound like a stupid question," he said, his focus on the parchment in his hands. "Especially since you wrote it. But I'd like to know, do you know what this contract means? Or… maybe, what does it mean to you?"
Confused, she considered the question for a few seconds.
"It's our agreement," she finally said. "It's the rules and expectations we will agree to abide by while we… while we give this dynamic a try."
"Do you know what it means to me?" he asked, looking up to meet her eyes and she shivered yet again, suddenly feeling the extreme arousal that had abated some during their long discussion over the contracts details come roaring back to the fore, grabbing her attention firmly.
Slowly, she shook her head, suddenly more grateful than she'd ever been that, as a girl, he couldn't clearly see just how turned on he was getting her. The weight of his gaze settled on her, pressing down like a physical presence and she eventually lowered her head. A moment later her chin snapped back up, her eyes wide as she clearly saw the distinct evidence of his arousal with their current situation.
Merlins sack! she thought. He's actually getting off on treating me this way!
The sound of her voice inside her own head was… triumphant? Exultant? Gleeful? Hell the exact word didn't matter, she was just ecstatic to see the effect she could have on him, the physical evidence that he found her attractive. Sure, there was probably a mix of him being a teen boy being in the same room with a girl that he knew was willing to do any number of exciting new things with him, plus the fact that he'd enjoyed commanding her earlier. It probably wasn't just her that caused the tent in the front of his jeans, but she was definitely a part of it, and she'd take whatever she could get.
"To me, this contract says that you're agreeing to belong to me. As you worded it, you basically become my property. You're agreeing that I can use you, in any way I want. You're agreeing to let me do whatever I want to you and your only option to stop it is the safeword we agreed to. The trust you're showing me… I can't see how you think I'm remotely worth it."
A tingling sensation spread out through her from somewhere near her middle as he spoke, the possessive nature of the words having an immediate effect on her already amped body and she had to bite the inside of her cheek not to moan.
Harry turned and set the contract down before turning back and walking up until he was barely a foot away from her. In the cold room she could feel the warmth of his body, and his green eyes seemed more vibrant and bright than ever over that short distance.
"Like you said," he murmured, "it's your choice to submit to me. Your choice to let me do what I like to you. So, you can also choose to stop me, whenever you want."
Merlin's fucking beard, I don't want to stop you, just do something!she practically screamed inside her head.
He leaned even closer and his voice dropped to a whisper that she had to honestly strain to hear. "I'm going to touch you, Hermione," he said. "If you're sure you want to be my property during these times, then I think I should inspect that property, before either of us sign anything. If you want me to stop, just tell me."
A low whimper crawled its way up her throat and into her mouth, just escaping past her lips and she felt her already ruined knickers soaking up even more of her juices.
A moment later the tips of his fingers brushed her cheeks and her eyes slid closed, completely against her will. She was so nervous she could hardly stand it. She worried he'd find her wanting. She worried he'd be disappointed in her. She worried that he'd decide there was someone else better.
Her worries banished themselves to some far corner of her mind when his hands moved and suddenly all she was capable of doing was feeling. Slowly, his fingers moved across her skin, brushing against her cheeks, her jaw, her chin, even across her forehead and over her scalp, burying his fingers in her tangled mass of curls. She had to fight the urge to giggle when his calloused thumbs brushed over her ears and then she had to suppress a disappointed groan when his fingers moved down the column of her throat without coming into contact with her lips.
Rough palms smoothed down either side of her neck, his thumbs gently caressing the front of her throat until they separated, sliding across her shoulders and beginning a tortuous journey down her arms as she cursed the fact that she'd worn a long sleeved v-necked shirt that day as she lost the feeling of his skin against hers until he reached her hands.
He lifted first her right, then her left, smoothing the pads of his fingers across the backs of her hands, her palms, the sensitive skin at her wrists and then brushing along each of her fingers before he lowered her arms back to her sides. With his right hand on her left shoulder, he walked around her, letting his hand slide across her upper chest as he moved, his fingers trailing along the exposed ridges of her collar bones due to the shirt's low neckline, and her whole body shuddered at the sensation.
Once he was behind her, he lifted the tangled curtain of her hair for a moment, getting his hands under it to run down her back, tracing the track of her spine with one thumb, palms sliding across her shoulder blades and down along the tightly coiled muscles of her lower back until he reached the waistband of her jeans. For a moment, his fingers had caught on the strap of her bra through her shirt, but he'd adjusted well enough that it hadn't caused her any discomfort.
His hands settled on her waist, gripping her body just above her hips firmly, but not enough to hurt. It felt distinctly possessive in the way he held her and another wave of warmth flowed outward from those two points of contact until she was positive every inch of her skin must have been flushed a bright red.
Suddenly she felt his breath against her ear as he leaned in and whispered to her. "You're shaking. Are you okay?"
Shaking? She was startled to realize he was right. Her entire body was trembling and she hadn't even noticed. If she could have thought clearly she might have realized that, though he probably had no idea exactly what he was doing, he'd succeeded in reducing her awareness to nothing but her body, the physical sensations running through her, and his presence behind her.
Jerkily, she nodded her head, not trusting her voice enough to try and speak as she let out a shuddering breath when his hands moved again, toward the center of her back until his thumbs met at her spine, then her eyes popped open in surprise when he rotated his wrists so his fingers were pointing down, toward the floor and his palms slid down to cup the curves of her arse just before he gave her a firm squeeze.
She jumped, and a loud squeak escaped her. Behind her, he froze, holding perfectly still for several moments until she shifted her hips, pressing her arse back into his hands, her eyes sliding closed once again. She hummed quietly as his hands trailed over her curves, caressing every inch of her before moving back up and then around until both of his hands rested on her belly, just above her waistband.
He slowly started stroking her sides and then around to her front, back and forth, tracing the lines of her ribs and with each pass, his hands climbed higher up her torso until he stopped just below the cups of her bra.
"Please."
The word came out in a pleading, desperate whimper and she was shocked to realize that it had come from her!
"Please, Sir," she whined and she pushed back against him. Her head fell back against his shoulder, her back against his chest and her arse pressed firmly into his groin, trapping the hard length of his erection between their bodies.
She let out a long sigh as his hands slid up the rest of the way to cup her modest, b-cup breasts through her bra and she shuddered again against him, slowly grinding her arse back into him as he held her.
Far too soon for her liking, his hands, and his body moved away as he walked around in front of her again. Her eyes slid barely half open, eyelids feeling heavy and she watched as he knelt in front of her, running his palms down the front of her thighs, feeling the way the muscles in her legs coiled and tensed at his touch. He gently caressed both her legs, front, sides, and reaching around her to slide down the back all the way to her ankles.
Her hands had already moved to grip his shoulders in order to keep her balance, when his started to move up the inside of her calves, over her knees, her thighs, until he stopped a few inches away from her center, practically the only untouched part of her body left to him.
Mewling keening sounds escaped her mouth, now, and her hips moved, almost involuntarily, attempting to get him to touch her. He stood, left hand moving to her hip while the fingers of his right traced lazy patterns on her inner thighs.
"Don't… don't stop," she whimpered, beyond caring how desperate she must have sounded to him, beyond caring about much of anything but feeling him touch her.
"Open your eyes," he murmured and she did, wondering briefly when they'd closed again, to find his green gaze barely two inches from hers.
"Please!"
"Please, what?" he asked and she groaned.
"Sir. Please, Sir."
He shook his head.
"That's not what I meant," he told her, one finger sliding an inch higher up the inside of her thigh. "What do you want?"
"Touch me," she whispered breathlessly, her chest heaving.
"I am touching you."
She groaned again, her head falling forward against his shoulder as her hips jerked another time.
"Touch me… touch me... there… please."
"Where? 'There' is kind of vague."
Damn him, he wanted to make her say it. She couldn't think straight. Her entire body hummed and tingled like it never had before, her mind awash in the sensations running through her, drowning out rational thought as she struggled for the word. A moment, or maybe an hour later, she honestly couldn't tell, a word popped into her head. A word from one of the sub letters. One she'd never have used before, but there she blurted it out without thinking.
"My cunt! Please, Sir, please touch my cunt. I need you t-to…"
Her words trailed off into a moan as his hand slid up to press against her sex, cupping her firmly and the rough material of her jeans ground through her knickers directly over her clit.
Her body jerked, grinding his hand against her once, twice, then every single muscle seemed to tense all at once. Her head fell back, eyes squeezed tightly shut, mouth opened wide in a silent scream which slowly gave way to sound, a low, gasping, guttural moan that seemed to curl up from somewhere near her toes until it poured from her throat.
The next conscious thing that she realized was she was sitting in Harry's lap, his left arm supporting her upper back as she sat curled into his chest with his right hand actually trapped between her tightly clasped legs. Every so often he would wiggle his fingers, as if trying to restore feeling, and the sensation sent a wave of shivers through her already trembling frame.
Slowly, she moved her left leg, her muscles twitching and trembling, in order to free his hand and he murmured a thanks, pulling his hand away and flexing his fingers a few times. It was at that point that she noticed a damp sheen on his hand and her face suddenly burned as she blushed and buried her face against his chest.
"Oh, Merlin," she gasped, utterly mortified to realize that she'd actually soaked through her knickers and her jeans.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, gently and she tilted her head back to look up at him, an incredulous look on her flushed and sweaty face.
"You've had me turned on for hours, now, and you just made me come so hard that I soaked through my jeans. How do you think I'm feeling?"
He chuckled, his eyes dancing with amusement.
"Well, when you put it that way, I'd imagine you're feeling pretty good, and exhausted."
She nodded, laying her head back against his chest again.
"I believe you misspoke with your tone, there, however," he pointed out in a low voice and her head snapped up immediately.
"I'm sorry, Sir," she blurted out.
"We'll let it slide, this time," he said. "We're still not exactly settled into our roles and we haven't even signed the contract you wrote up for us," he pointed out, to her relief.
"I'll try harder," she promised.
The smile he gave her caused a warm feeling to grow in the center of her chest for a moment before her scattered thoughts latched onto something he'd said.
"Oh! The contract!"
"Right, I've been waiting for you to come back to me so I could tell you what I've decided to call you."
Her grin was infectious as she sat up in his lap, her expression suddenly eager and a touch apprehensive as well as she waited to hear what he'd decided.
"Mine."
She blinked several times in surprise and he let out another laugh at the quizzical look on her face.
"It's similar to your name. Hermione. Mine. But it also is meant to indicate what you are when we're in here," he added with a gesture to take in the room around them. "By the way you worded that contract, you're agreeing to be mine. My property. My sub. My, Mine."
Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and she wrapped her arms tightly around him in a crushing hug as she pressed her face into the crook of his neck.
"I love it, Sir," she whispered. "Thank you, so much. Thank you for not thinking less of me and for agreeing to do this with me. It's only been a few weeks since I even learned about it but… I couldn't imagine doing this with anyone but you."
Gently, he coaxed her away from his neck and tilted her head back, leaning down to kiss her and she let out a contented sigh as she realized that, aside from her feet, which were still inside her shoes, he'd touched every inch of her with that kiss.
When he broke away from their kiss he smiled down at her. "Go get the contract, Mine," he ordered gently and she beamed at him again before she gingerly climbed to her feet and moved over to retrieve the contract and her self inking quill before bringing it back and taking a seat on the floor next to him where he motioned for her to sit.