Harry Potter and the Paradigm Shift
Chapter 2
By Kinsfire
He knew the spells she was casting existed, but he’d never actually seen the spell to enlarge a room in effect. The room stretched out about fifteen metres in both directions. Her eyes flickered to the ceiling, and it rose another three metres above their heads. The size change out of the way, she grinned and began to swish and flick and jab her wand in various places — where she aimed, walls appeared, a kitchen came into being (complete with full island and hanging pot rack above it — he’d once heard someone refer to that setup as ‘storm chimes’, since it would take a major storm to make those pots start to clang together), a fireplace appeared in the area she had obviously decided was the common room-cum-office, and then he noted the bed. It was no longer the small thing barely large enough for him — it had become a king-sized four poster bed, in the Gryffindor colours — right down to the fringe along the edge of the bed.
He looked around the room in wonder, realizing that she had just shown him the real reason for studying. There was a great amount of detail in what she had done, and he was utterly astonished at how easily it seemed to be coming to her. The bed was covered in a thick comforter — alternating squares of Gryffindor red and gold, quilted with gold thread — and the posters on the bed looked carved with Gryffindor lions and the occasional phoenix. The canopy was the same Gryffindor red as that on the quilt, with exquisite short tassels in what almost appeared to be actual gold.
The rest of the place was equally as amazing. The fireplace was not brick, but red marble, and shone as if it had been polished by someone whose entire life was spent doing nothing but that one task. It had a wide mantel above it, gold in colour — again appearing as if it were the metal. Before the fireplace sat a piece of furniture that he’d always heard called a love seat, and never understood why. As his eyes flickered momentarily to Tonks, and then back to the seat, a quick vision of the two of them cuddling in that chair came to his mind, and he finally grasped its meaning. It looked comfortable, and he found himself hoping to spend a night or two with Tonks having fallen asleep in his arms in that chair.
Get real, said a voice in his head that sounded as if he were talking to himself. Do you really think someone that amazing is going to even look twice at you as anything more than the child she has to mind? Yeah, she’s your friend, but get real. There is no way you’ll ever end up with a Tonks in this lifetime. You’re more suited to a Pansy Parkinson. He shuddered momentarily at the thought of waking up next to Pansy, and wondered if he’d have the courage to open a vein if that came to pass.
Harry, that’s not terribly nice, Hermione’s voice admonished him inside his skull. She can’t be all that bad.
She’s a Malfoy sycophant! he replied to ‘her’. Lips that have touched anything on Malfoy’s body will never touch mine, if I have anything to say about it!
Hmm, I can understand that, ‘Hermione’ replied. The issue is whether or not you should pursue Tonks. I think you should. ‘Go for the brass ring,’ the phrase is? ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’? What do you have to lose?
Her friendship, he answered sadly. I think I fell in love with her somewhere along the line, but …
Face it, you’re not worthy of her, his mental alter ego chimed in. You never will be.
"You’re right," he murmured.
"What’s that, Harry?" Tonks said over her shoulder as she continued to walk through the room. Harry had to admit that he was beginning to think of it as their apartment for the summer, rather than a simple room.
"Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself. I’m admiring the magnificent work you’ve done here, Tonks."
"Thank you, good sir. Wait until it’s all completed." With that, she went back to working on the apartment, and he went back to admiring the decor. He suddenly realized that she has actually carpeted the floor with a soft carpet, in the same Gryffindor colours as the bed, fireplace and furniture. "Were you perchance a Gryffindor?" he asked with a laugh.
"What gave it away?" she laughed back at him.
"Your figure. Gryffindor always has the cutest girls in the school." It suddenly connected with him what he’d blurted out and turned an interesting shade of pink at the realization.
"Nice one, Harry," she said, coming over and kissing him on the cheek. "Thank you. It’s nice to know I’m appreciated." She went back to working on the place.
He reached the kitchen, and somehow the change in colour scheme wasn’t as jarring as he would have expected. This seemed to be the only room so far not decorated in red and gold. Instead, it was in the Ravenclaw colours of blue and black. The walls were pale blue and a brighter sky blue that made the area seem larger than it already was, with dark charcoal grey and black accents. It had a large stove, the wizarding equivalent of the Muggle refrigerator, a wizarding ice box, and a number of other things he’d never seen. He was astounded at the care at which she’d shown decorating this room and all the others. The cabinetry was already packed with pots, pans and other utensils. "All we need to do is a shopping trip for food, and we can eat here all summer, and never even bother your … ahem … family." she called, grimacing momentarily. "After I finish the bath-slash-water closet, I'll be done, and you can finish admiring my handiwork." She stepped through the door to the room in question, and Harry kept looking around. He turned to the wall opposite the fireplace and found a pair of beautiful roll-top desks in a dark, rich brown colour. "Hmm, need parchment too," Harry mused out loud. "Gonna need a trip to Diagon Alley, Tonks. I need more supplies for whatever you're going to teach me."
She came out of the room she'd been finishing up and smiled at him. "And how do you know that I'm planning on teaching you anything?"
"Because no one is likely to waste the chance to teach me more stuff over the summer," he laughed. He looked around for his trunk, and walked over to it. As he did, he felt his legs start to quiver slightly. "Stressful day, I guess," he said. A few steps more, though, and he found himself in actual pain, albeit quite low level. "What the … what's happening to me? Why am I suddenly in pain?" The burning sensation in his arms, legs and back was getting steadily worse.
"Probably from lifting your fat uncle off the ground, now that I think about it," Tonks said. "C'mon. Let's get you into the bath room, and I'll put you in the whirlpool." At Harry's amused sideways look, she said, "If I'm living with a hunky Quidditch player for the summer, then I want all the frills. Whirlpool bath, marble fireplace, feather bed — all the necessities for a properly sybaritic lifestyle. And the cute guy to go with it, too!" she said, finally steering him through the door.
He stopped suddenly when he caught sight of the room — or, to be more precise — rooms. Placed unobtrusively enough that you had to look for it if you didn't know where it had been set (such as Harry at that moment) was the actual toilet. There was a shower with frosted glass walls. Large enough for two people, I think, Harry mused absently. Four if they’re friendly. He looked again. Really friendly. Near it, under a window with the improbable view of a large snow-capped mountain somewhere, was a tub that she seemed to be steering him toward. Seating him on the edge of it, she began to run water, and then ordered him to strip. He blinked at her for a long moment, unbelieving of her request.
"Do you really want to be soaking those strained muscles in soggy clothing, Harry? Besides, I need you relaxed, and that isn’t gonna happen with you just sitting there. So get undressed!"
"Um, Tonks? Could you …" he asked, more than a little bit embarrassed.
"No. I’m your nurse right now, Harry, and I’m not about to leave you to your own devices where you might actually hurt yourself more. I can use magic to heal whatever damage was done to you, but you need to be relaxed, or else it will really cause no end of problems." She looked at him expectantly.
He shrugged and painfully began to pull the shirt over his head. She carefully helped him, not doing anything for him unless he simply was unable to do it himself, such as removing his trainers. Soon, he stood before her in nothing but his boxers, and she could tell that he was attempting to hide his reaction to being naked before her. "Harry? They’ll have to come off, but I’ll leave the room when the water is ready. I want you in that whirlpool in short order." She added a dollop or two of something that began to foam gently on the surface of the water. "For your modesty. I want you to know, though, that I’m also giving you a proper massage when you’re finished with the soak. You strained quite a lot lifting that two-hundred-and-fifty stone whale." She laughed as Harry opened his mouth. "Okay, so I exaggerated by a factor of ten. I’m betting twenty stone isn’t far off though, to be honest. But when you’re not used to lifting that much, you hurt things. You pull muscles and damage tendons if you’re not careful. Luckily, those are easy repairs for even me to handle — if you’re properly relaxed."
He thought for a moment, and then removed his boxers while she was still in the room, displaying both just how far down a blush can go on the human body, and also a rather pointed interest in the woman before him. As quickly as he could, he climbed into the water.
#####
Great Morgana, how does he have enough blood in his body to do anything else when that … that thing is standing up like it is? she thought with more than a little heat firing through her. Thank the gods, whoever they might be, that I’m a metamorphmagus and can change to accommodate that wonderful monstrosity! Does he even know how … gifted he is? She grinned. Now to surprise him yet again. She reached to her waist and pulled her shirt over her head, displaying the neon pink brassiere she wore. At Harry’s wide-eyed look, she laughed. "You’ll see in a second that the knickers are part of the set."
"What …" he strangled out. "What are you doing?" he finally said.
"Couple things, Harry. I like to be comfortable. When I’m not expecting anyone, I’m likely to lounge around my apartment in bra and knickers. Might as well start getting used to it. More importantly for right now, I’m going to do an extremely low level massage , supplementing the mild jets I’m sure you can feel in the water? I don’t want wet clothes any more than you do."
"But I’m …"
"Stiff as a board? Hard as a rock? Standing up like a flagpole? I noticed, and I’m flattered, Harry. And I’ll be dead honest with you; if I weren’t going to be working on you in a personal trainer slash nurse mode, I’d be more than a little tempted to help you out with that problem of yours in a manner that I’m pretty sure we’d both end up enjoying." She stepped out of her shoes, which were rapidly followed by the cargo pants she’d been wearing, and she smiled to herself as she saw his breathing speed up and become shallower. "I’m not trying to be a tease, Harry," Like hell you’re not! "But I’m not stopping there."
"Tonks …" he said in a voice that sounded thicker than she’d ever heard him speaking in. "Please don’t. I … you can’t trust me if you’re in this tub with me. I’m afraid of … I’m afraid, Tonks. Please don’t."
She looked at Harry, and saw the tears in his eyes. I never expected to tell him as fast as this seems to be going, but I need to. She undid her brassiere and let it fall to the floor with the rest of her clothes, and the slid the knickers down, kicking them over with the pile. "Harry? I’m stating this to you clearly and as concisely as I can. I seriously doubt you’ll be able to do what you say you’re afraid of doing to me, given what you did to yourself lifting Vernon, but I promise you one thing in case you do have the capability. No matter what you do to me, it won’t be rape. And raping me is what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?"
He nodded violently, his eyes seemingly unable to move from her pubic hair, which was the same brilliant bubble-gum pink that all her other hair was. She grinned and changed her hair colour to a brilliant red colour — even redder that the familiar Weasley red — and changed the shape of her nether hair to a heart shape. His eyes bugged out slightly, and finally rose higher, but stopped when he reached her breasts. I wonder if he understands what it means when a girl’s nipples are as hard as mine are, since the temperature isn’t that cold in here? She looked down and giggled slightly, which she knew would make her small breasts jiggle slightly. They do stick out a bit when I’m horny, don’t they?
"Tonks?" he asked. "Why are you risking this? I can’t promise that I’ll be able to keep my hands … I mean … oh hell … I’m sorry …" His hands came up to his face, and he began shuddering.
She suddenly realized that he was trying hard not to cry, and climbed into the jacuzzi behind him, forcing him forward. She put her arms around him and gently pulled his head back onto her shoulder so that his face was pointed at the ceiling. "Let it out, Harry. If you need to, just let it out. Cry, scream, whimper … hell, if you can get your feelings out with an earth-shattering belch, then do it!" She felt him start to shake against her, and then heard the chuckle slip out of him."
"‘An earth-shattering belch’?" he asked. "Not usually a way of releasing frustration."
"Sure it is! The frustration of having each a large, gassy meal! One good, house-rumbling belch, and I guarantee you’ll feel better almost immediately!" She laughed quietly as to not deafen him. "See, Harry? You’re in the same water with me, and you didn’t turn into a ravening sex maniac bent on screwing me to the floor." She sighed. "Harry … you need to understand that feeling desire does not make you a potential rapist. Rape has nothing to do with desire, and little to do with sex other than that sex makes a damn fine weapon. Rape is about ugliness, and control, and violence, and wanting to kill another person’s self-esteem. Sometimes revenge figures into it, too. Do you feel any of those things toward me?"
He shook his head vehemently.
"I didn’t think so. Do you feel like perpetrating violence on my fair person? Are you emotionally capable of that?" Another headshake. "Do you even think you physically could? Remember, I’m a trained Auror, and you by your own admission haven’t gotten half of the training you think you should have. Plus you’ve got a back wrenched six ways from Sunday and you couldn’t even reach your feet to take your trainers off a few minutes ago. I guarantee, if you tried anything I didn’t like, I could take you down so fast your head wouldn’t have time to spin."
He was silent a little longer than she expected, and she let her hand slip down below his waist, ‘accidentally’ brushing across his rapidly re-stiffening organ. "Harry, I appreciate the thought. You’re in no condition right now, or honestly for the next few days, to be doing anything more than thinking about it." She paused. "I’ll be blunt. If you want me to, I can make myself scarce for a while later on after I’ve healed you, so that you can … ah, relieve the pressure?"
He was blushing so furiously that she was surprised that the water wasn’t boiling. "That might be an idea," he whispered.
"Consider it done then, Harry," she said. "At some point during this summer, we’re going to have to work out all the tensions — grief, sexual, anger, hurt, and any number of others. Tonight, though, we’ll simply work on purely physical."
"What’s the exact reasoning for my needing to be relaxed when it comes to healing?" Harry asked, grateful (she assumed) for the chance to change the subject from what she really wanted to talk about.
"Honestly? When working on injuries, if the patient isn’t relaxed, then it can cause all sorts of problems that I don’t understand, since I didn’t go into healing as my chosen career. Ever notice how often you woke up feeling all nice and relaxed in the hospital wing? Pomfrey tends to clobber you with a muscle relaxant as soon as you show up. You’re easy to work on then."
"Hmm. Never thought about that. Makes sense, I guess." He groaned as he moved, and she could guess that his muscles were complaining. "I’d say that you should remind me never to do that again, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let him insult any of my friends ever again." He laughed a little painfully. "Maybe I can do a little training with weights so that I can properly lift and throw him next time."
She laughed quietly again. "Consider it one of your classes this summer, then. In the meantime, you need to work on relaxing." She could feel him tensing up beneath her hands again.
She heard him take a ragged breath, and start to speak. "Tonks? You’ll hate me for this, I know, but … well … I can’t relax with you in here with me."
"Why not?" she queried, knowing full well the real reason.
"Because it makes me want to do things I can’t, okay? Can we please leave it at that?"
"Why should we? Perhaps it’s something I can help you with."
His pause was long — long enough that she was afraid she might have pushed too hard. "I won’t say, because it will alter our friendship, and I doubt it will be for the better. I’d rather be tense than lose one of the very few friends I have."
"You’ve got to have more friends than you think, Harry," she said simply.
"Not people I trust at my back and who I can tell stuff to. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Fred, George, and you." He laughed. "I’m not sure if you should be insulted or not. You’re the only adult on that list."
"Remus isn’t on that list? Why not?"
"He cares for me — heck, I think I could safely say that he loves me like a son, or a nephew. But with the exception of you, every adult I know seems to have that attitude of an agenda in regards to me. Dumbledore is probably going to blow a blood vessel, you know, when he finds out what you’ve done behind his back. Worse, he’ll become remarkably disappointed in you in that wonderful way he has." Harry scowled darkly as he finished that statement. "Blaming Sirius’s death on the fact that he wouldn’t stay in the house, implying a certain level of stupidity about not doing something that was for his own good. Hmm, where have I seen that attitude before?" he growled. "Has Dumbledore ever been locked away in one place for a long period of time, forbidden to go anywhere? Of course not! He’s the most powerful wizard in the world! And a hero to boot! Who’d be stupid enough to try that?"
He took a deep breath and continued. "I’d like to see how the old fart would react if someone forced him to live in a damned cupboard for ten years! See how he handled it if he was forced to stay in a single room for twelve years, live on the run after that, and then be locked into a house for a damned year! But no, he sits there in his plush little office, popping in and out of Hogwarts wards, and just generally running everyone’s life that he’s ever come across." Harry was breathing hard through his nose. "Let’s not started on Molly Weasley. I love the woman — she’s like a mother to me — but that’s the problem. She smothers. I’m too young to join the Order. It’s too dangerous. Excuse me, but who’s been fighting Voldemort for four of the last five years, and doing a job worth bugger-all because no one will train him?" he yelled. "Who has to face the snake in the next few years, and pray that he survives it, and that he can take the bastard out?"
"Leave that to us, Harry. The Order will work on that. You should be enjoying life as a teenager."
"I’d like to, Tonks," he said. "I’d like to be like all the other guys my age, trying to get dates and getting my face slapped for the trouble. Problem is, I can’t until Voldemort is dead. That’s one of those other fun things I just love about Dumbledore. Did you know that there’s a prophecy about me?"
"The one that broke in the Ministry, right?" she asked, puzzled where this was going.
"Yup. Thing is, there’s another copy. It’s in Dumbledore’s head, since he’s the one who heard it." Harry closed his eyes to think. "`The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies …’" He reopened his eyes and turned slightly to look at Tonks. "Guess what? You’re in the tub with Target Number One."
She smiled and metaphorically laid her cards on the table. "And you’re afraid that if you even think about doing what your body seems to want to do, that’ll make me a target as well, right?"
"Like you’d even seriously think about that," he murmured under his breath.
"About what, Harry? About maybe making you hard again, by doing a strip tease, and then dropping to my knees in front of you and trying to take that gorgeous cock of yours into my mouth? About maybe laying back on that bed out there and begging you to come over and shag me so hard that I can’t move afterwards?" She grinned at his shocked look. "Harry, I may ruin our friendship by admitting this to you, but it’s my intention, sometime this summer, to do exactly what I just said."
"Don’t you know that knowing me might kill you?" he asked, horrified. "Ask Sirius! Oh, I forgot, you can’t, because my stupidity killed him!" He inhaled a shuddering breath. "If it’s at all possible, Tonks, please don’t do anything more than a desire to have sex with me. Following through, or making the mistake of falling in love with me …" He scowled again. "Yeah right. Arrogant little arse, aren’t I, assuming that a woman like you could fall for me?"
"You’d be right, though," she said quietly. "Because I already did. Why do you think I’m here, Harry? Yeah, everything else I said is true, but there’s the extra agenda of finding out if the feeling is mutual."
She felt his entire body stiffen beneath her hands, and he suddenly jumped from the tub and ran from the room. She stood to follow him, and heard an incoherent roar of rage and pain, followed by a loud crash and the splintering of wood. She left the room, dripping, to see Harry taking out his feelings on one of the roll-top desks. He was doing a fairly good job of destroying it as the chair he held, made from the same mahogany that the desk had been made from, kept swinging down to crush more and more of the offending piece of furniture into flinders.
"Why?" he was crying. "Why did she have to fall for me?"
*CRASH*
"People who love me get hurt!"
*CRASH*
"Ginny, with Tom’s diary!"
*CRASH*
"Hermione and the basilisk!"
*CRASH*
"Ron and those brains!"
*CRASH*
"Sirius! The veil!"
*CRASH*
"My parents …" With that, Harry seemed to suddenly run out of steam, and the chair fell to the floor with a resounding crunch onto the pile of what once had been a beautiful desk. He looked up and noticed Tonks standing there. "Don’t love me, Tonks. I’m not worth it. I’ll only hurt you." His gaze fell on the rubble he had created, and he managed to deflate even more. "Look at what I did to your beautiful handiwork, Tonks. All I do is destroy. Do you really need that in your life?"
She walked over and grabbed her wand, flicking it toward the pile. "Reparo." The pieces shot back together as if they’d never been apart. She repeated this with the chair, also damaged in Harry’s outburst. "Good as new, Harry."
He shook his head. "You shouldn’t have to clean up after me, Tonks. I’m simply not worth it. My job is to fight Voldemort, assuming Dumbledore decides this year to actually teach me something worthwhile."
"Excuse me, Harry," she replied quietly, "but I’ll thank you not to go around telling me whom I should and shouldn’t fall in love with." She paused. "Besides, it’s already too late for that. I’m already in love with you." She kissed his cheek.
She stood and offered her hand to him. "Come on, Harry. I need to get you more relaxed, especially after what you probably did to yourself while taking your frustration out on the poor helpless furniture. I offered you a massage." She flicked her wand again, and a massage table appeared. "Lie down, and I’ll start working on you."
"But what if I get, uh, you know … again?" he asked, with some embarrassment.
"For one thing, you’ll be lying face down. Second, I have no intention to jump you today — you’re too damned fragile. It would do you far more harm than good, and I will not do that to the man that I love."
"I’m only fifteen, Tonks," he said quietly as he climbed onto the table, which instantly moulded itself to him.
"And more of a man than some others, such as Severus. You know how to forgive. He doesn’t."
She began a very gentle kneading of his shoulders, and felt him begin to calm almost immediately. As she worked her way down his body, she felt him calm more and more, and chuckled as she heard him begin to purr (it was the only word she really had to describe the sound) under her gentle ministrations.
As he lay there, under her fingers, she felt him tense slightly, and realized that he was about to ask a question. "Hey Tonks? If what you did is so easy, why don't more witches and wizards do it? I mean, the Burrow could be significantly larger. Why don't I see more of it?"
She chuckled. "Ah, one of the areas that no one ever really teaches the Muggleborn. There are a lot of problems with doing something like that and making it permanent. All sorts of fun spells, like weight reduction and the like." She sighed. "Damn, I could probably spend a school year describing this, but I'm going to give you the nutshell version. First, let's start with the increased space in here. It doesn't really exist, Harry. It's here, but it's not. We're sort of connecting to … I don't know … somewhere. We're pinching off some of that space to do stuff in. Unless you use those permanence spells I mentioned, this place will go away in about two weeks. I'll renew it before then, never fear for that. And putting a permanency on it causes other problems. We'd need to do weight reductions on this area if it were permanent, because then it would have real weight. When you make it permanent, you sort of steal the land from the Other Place, which means that the weight comes along for the ride." She paused her ministrations for a moment. "Hermione could probably make a career of researching where weight goes to when we reduce the weight of something."
She shook her head, laughing, and went back to the massage. She conjured up some oils and gently spread some on his back. "Don't worry — it's just to make the massage easier. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. That pretty well explains the space, but now we get into McGonagall's area of expertise. Conjuring and Transfiguration. You do know the difference between a real object and a transfigured one, not to mention conjured ones?"
"Real is permanent, transfigured turns back if you cast a Finite on it, and conjured simply goes away eventually."
"Exactly. It's the reason that you don't wear conjured clothing, unless you happen to want to let everyone see the real you," she chuckled. "Knew a girl at Hogwarts who wore conjured knickers on those dates she intended something to happen. Anyway, that's one of the biggies."
"Interesting side effect of conjuring something is that no one other than the conjurer can transfigure it once it's been made. I think that also explains one of the reasons not to eat transfigured or conjured food. Conjured food is literally empty calories, and you'd starve to death. Yeah, you can create an apple that's just as tasty and just as nutritious, but it will eventually disappear, and that's even after it's broken down and entered your system. And if it does that after having actually been assimilated by the body? It can get very ugly when that happens. You still see the occasional case arrive at St. Mungo's, and it takes them forever to fix the damage. Transfigured is even worse, since you'd probably take something inedible, like a rock, in order to try to make it edible."
It was at this point when she had finished with his lower spine, and decided to keep working lower. I need to keep working, but he may react badly when I massage his bum. Oh well, can’t be helped. She carefully began to move the kneading lower, finally touching him directly on his posterior. Oh gods, I really want to get sexy with this massage, but that’s for another day. Morgana give me strength — he’s got such a great arse! He didn't react, so she relaxed and kept massaging. "Now, again, it's perfectly edible that way, right? Now cast a Finite on the person. Watch them try to digest gravel. Even worse, wait a few days for the body to have used all that wonderful fuel before casting your Finite. Make sure that you have a coffin nearby, just in case."
"Of course, I have seen it used to eat something that you simply could not stand. Liver, for example. Lots of iron in it, and really healthy for you. I can't eat it worth a damn. So, if I can't get out of eating liver, I'll Transfigure it into a steak or something, and then cast Finite on myself afterwards. Edible to edible is just fine. Parents making their children's spinach into applesauce, and then doing a Finite."
She grinned. "Now to blow my own horn." I will not tell him that he's long and large enough, not to mention limber enough to … heh … blow his own 'horn'. "How impressive the conjuring you do ends up looking depends purely on how good you are at visualizing. I'm a metamorphmagus, and I have practiced for years on noticing the little things that make the up difference between being the duplicate of a person and being someone who could pass for their twin. As you can see around here, I can visualize down to some damn fine details. Which is why my conjurations tend to make jaws drop, just like yours did." She stopped her massage for a moment. "So, what do you think of my quick and dirty lesson, Harry?" She laughed softly to herself as he answered her with a very quiet snore. Through that gentle snoring, she finished her massage, cast the healing spells she needed to, and gently levitated him to the bed.
Looking at the clock, she discovered that it was only twenty-thirty, but she found herself rather tired. Summoning her clothes, she dropped them in a hamper and found a pair of simple pink cotton knickers. Bad enough on his psyche that he’ll wake up in bed with me, but if he at least realizes I was wearing knickers, and they’re still on me, then I can head off that problem. She slipped them on and slid into bed with him.
His arm unconsciously came over her and pulled her closer, so she carefully rearranged herself to be in the spoon position, her derriere pressing lightly against his groin. He released a sound of contentment as she settled in, and she felt her heart swell in her chest. Thank you, whoever you are out there, she said silently. "Good night, my sweet prince," she said to Harry, and slid quickly into a deep slumber, feeling safer in his arms than she had felt in more years than she could remember.