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“Harry is so lucky he’s gay,” Ron declares, sloshing a bit of Firewhisky on his bed.
Hermione snorts with surprise, holding out her glass for a refill. “What? Why? And I don’t think you’re allowed to say that.”
Harry’d fallen asleep about thirty minutes earlier. He’s been tired a lot lately from Quidditch practices and his clandestine meetings with an as-yet-secret boyfriend.
“Why can’t I say it?” Ron demands, pouring her a healthy glug. “Because now he’s realised he’s gay, it’s so easy for him when he’s having sex.”
Hermione crinkles her nose at Ron, turning from where she’d been watching Harry sleep on his bed across the room. He’s still in his clothes. “What in god’s name are you talking about, Ron? How is gay sex easier?”
“I don’t mean the mechanics!” Ron says. He pauses, makes a vaguely disturbed face. “I just mean like, you have all the bits, he has all the bits. There’s no...bits confusion.”
Hermione laughs so hard a bit of whisky shoots up her nose. “Excuse me. Did you just say bits confusion?” She tilts to the side, slumping against the wall.
“I said what I said,” Ron says, deadpan, which makes Hermione laugh even harder.
“And anyway, that’s not even technically correct. Not all men have penises.”
“For the love of Merlin, Mi,” Ron whines. “You know I was generalising. Don’t make me talk careful around you. It’s hard enough when we’re with other people.”
“What kind of bits confusion do you have?” she asks, her stomach hurting from laughter and her cheeks hot from the whisky. She turns on Ron’s bed, folding her legs to sit cross-legged facing him. She notices that her pyjama bottoms, which she’d changed into before she came to Harry and Ron’s room, have a hole. She frowns, pulls her wand, and watches with satisfaction as the hem neatly stitches itself back together. “Do you need an anatomy lesson?”
“No I don’t need an anatomy lesson,” Ron scoffs, though Hermione thinks he probably does. Ron holds up his foot. “Here, do me.”
There’s a hole in his sock, and Hermione casts the spell to fix it as she says, “If you don’t need a lesson in female anatomy, then why do you have bits confusion?”
“Because it’s all very—” Ron pauses to wave a hand in the air, “—mysterious. Like, if I wanted to wank a bloke, it would not be a mystery. I know what it feels like. Grab and stroke.”
Hermione cheeks heat at Ron’s casual mention of his experience wanking, but she ignores it. She’s overheard her fair share of people masturbating since she started at Hogwarts, including plenty of times in the tent last year, no matter how many Silencing Charms she cast and no matter how quiet Harry or Ron thought he was being.
“But you must feel the same way,” Ron insists. “You don’t know what it’s like to have a dick. When you’re with a bloke it must be like, ‘Wow, wonder what it’s like to have this thing dangling between legs, am I going to break it?’”
Hermione snorts again, vaguely registering that Ron has assumed she’s been with a bloke doing dick things. “Wow, Ron, you’ve got my internal narrative down perfectly.”
He takes a sip of Firewhisky, then leans forward and says, “But am I wrong?” A cloud of whisky steam puffs out of his mouth.
She sighs. “You’re not wrong.”
A smug smile creases across Ron’s freckled face. “I knew it!”
“But don’t you think,” Hermione says, fascinated by the thought she’s just had, “that it’s a good metaphor for the fundamental problem of human relationships? That we can never really know another person? And even if you have the same bits, you have no way of knowing if what you feel is the same as how they feel it. Maybe orgasms feel different for each person; we have no way of knowing!”
Ron scrunches his nose. “Mi, not now. I’ve had too much firewhisky for that kind of conversation.”
“But really!” she exclaims. “We can never know what it’s like to be in another person’s body. It’s unavoidably relative, so we have to, you know, rely on actually talking to our sexual partners. Which, by the way, is the obvious answer to your bits confusion. Just ask her, ‘Does that feel good?’ or ‘What do you want me to do to you?’”
Ron completely ignores her sound relationship advice and jabs his finger at her chest. “Ah, but there’s where you’re wrong! We’re wizards!”
“Magical people,” she corrects automatically, but Ron doesn’t stop talking.
“We can know what it’s like to be in someone else’s body. Polyjuice!”
Hermione tilts her head, contemplating him. He looks ridiculous, firewhisky steam coming out of his mouth, wide grin on his face, a too-small Chudley Cannons t-shirt. “Well, yeah.”
“Oh my god. I’ve just realised. You do know what it’s like to have a dick!” Ron enthuses. “Because you took Polyjuice to become Harry! How did I never ask you about this before?!” Ron vibrates with excitement. He leans forward and bounces slightly on his knees. “What was it like?! Did you like it?!”
Hermione bursts into laughter, leaning back on her hands away from Ron’s eager face.
“Oh my god, Mi, answer me! I want to know!”
“I tried to ignore it as much as possible,” she says, trying to stop laughing. “But it was strange. Walking, I mean.”
Ron laughs, his face turning beet red and tears beading at the corners of his eyes.
“I didn’t even look down!” Hermione clarifies. “It didn’t seem right to like, experiment on Harry’s body. It’s not like I was going to run off to the loo and have an experimental wank. With my penis.” Ron laughs even harder, wiping his eyes with his hand. Hermione catches it, breath heaving between laughs. “I mean, it was during an active battle in a war, you know, and also I’m pretty sure that’d be sexual assault.”
Ron’s laughter trails off. “Yeah,” he says, his face taking on that grieving look that’s so common at Hogwarts this year. He pulls through it though, and meets her eye with a teasing smile. “So you would do it, then, if you had a chance now. In peacetime. With permission.”
She rolls her eyes. “Not with Harry’s body, thanks.” She looks at Harry, still sound asleep, protected from their raucous laughter by a Silencing Charm.
“Would you do it with my body?” Ron asks with laughter in his tone, and Hermione’s head snaps back to him.
She chuckles nervously. “Er, would I do what with your body?”
“Polyjuice into me and wank me—you—off.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Er, maybe? I mean, it’d be excellent for research purposes; you’re right about that.”
“Have you ever done it?” Ron asks, and they’re not laughing anymore.
“Done what? Polyjuiced into your body and wanked myself off?” She raises an eyebrow. “No.”
“No,” Ron says, nudging her with his knee, “given a bloke a handjob.”
“No.” Her heart beats faster, and she wishes it would stop. This is just a silly conversation, and she knows Ron’s not going to judge her for what she’s done (and hasn’t done) sexually. “Have you?”
“Have I wanked a bloke off?” Ron asks, his face contorted in obvious distaste. “Not besides myself.”
“No!” Hermione cries, laughing. “Have you ever gotten a girl off with your hands?”
Ron looks down at his hands. They’re nice hands. “Er,” Ron says, laughing nervously, “I’ve tried, but—”
“I don’t want details!” Hermione says, throwing a hand out in a stop gesture. She should’ve thought through that line of questioning. The last thing in the world she wants to hear is how Ron tried to finger Lav-Lav to orgasm. The thought of it is so awful it sends a chill up her spine, though she’s not been jealous of Lav-Lav in a long time. She doesn’t crush on Ron that much, anymore. They’re friends.
“I wasn’t going to give you details!” Ron says, then gives a self-deprecating smile and shrug. “Seriously though. That’s what I meant. It’s mysterious.”
“Penises do seem a little more, er, straightforward. Or at least more...easily grabbable?” She’s trying to bring the conversation back to a place of logical analysis, but she lost track of it somewhere there. She winces as she sips her whisky.
Ron nods sagely. “Very grabbable.”
Hermione frowns, staring blankly as she tries to figure out all the ways that sexual stimulation might feel different for different bodies. “What I don’t understand is how the difference in size would affect the sensations. Because penises are obviously a lot longer than clits. So like, is there a difference in sensation between the bottom of the penis and the tip? Like, what’s the difference in how the nerve endings are distributed?”
It’s an interesting question, she thinks, looking back at Ron.
Ron has gone stock still, sitting upright and staring at her with mouth open and face red.
Hermione rolls her eyes. “You’re going to get squeamish now? Please tell me you know what a clitoris is.”
Ron sucks in an offended scoff that turns into a choke. After a moment coughing he says, “Of course I know what it is! I’m just not used to you...er...talking about it.”
“Oh please,” Hermione says, narrowing her eyes. “You were just talking about penises and wanking yourself!”
“Yeah but,” Ron says, “I’m an eighteen-year-old lad. I always talk about penises.” He smiles, apparently having recovered from hearing Hermione say the word clitoris.
“Whatever,” Hermione says. “Then say it. Clitoris. And also say labia. And vulva. And vagina.”
Ron gapes, opening and closing his mouth twice. “Er, sure.”
“Go ahead,” Hermione says, downing the rest of her whisky and leaning back on her hands, waiting patiently.
“Clitorislabiavulvavagina,” Ron chokes out.
Hermione slow claps.
“Oh come on, Mi, you can’t expect me to be comfortable about these things!”
“Tell that to whatever girl you’re trying to sleep with,” Hermione comments, raising a challenging eyebrow. “If you can’t say it, you have no business touching it.”
“I’m not trying to sleep with anyone!” Ron claims.
Hermione gives him a look.
“Well yeah okay sure, like, generally. Yes,” Ron babbles. “But there’s no girl in particular. And not like, right now. Well, obviously. Because you’re the only one here. I’m not trying to have sex with you right now.”
“Oh my god, Ron, shut up; I know.”
“Alright then,” Ron says, still red, turning to grab the bottle of Firewhisky.
When he turns, Hermione looks at his crotch. She feels a bit guilty for doing it but they are talking about it, after all—the bits, and such. Ron’s got a really nice arse. When he’s in jeans, anyway, though even in the joggers he’s wearing now.
Ron turns back around, unscrewing the cap and refilling their glasses.
She finds herself wondering—about what he looks like, down there. Ron’s right. It’s hard to not understand. It’s the kind of thing that you can look at diagrams of in books but still not really understand. How would it feel to wrap your fingers around a penis, to have your penis be grabbed? How would it feel if you grabbed tighter? The amount of questions it would require her to ask a hypothetical sexual partner to figure out—she’s sure no one would want to hear her ask, “And what about if I do this?” over and over as she alters the variables of wanking. She’d sound like a bloody optometrist.
“What are you thinking about?” Ron asks, sipping his whisky. “You have your intense thinking face on.”
Hermione meets his eyes. It strikes her as preposterous that she’s never seen him naked.
“We could do it, you know,” she blurts.
Ron’s eyes widen like a cartoon. “We could do, er, what?”
Hermione is quite drunk, and quite happy, and quite comfortable with Ron. She kind of wants to say, “Get naked and inspect each other’s anatomy,” but she expects that would be a bit odd. And she also expects that he would think she was coming onto him and was angling to have sex, which she wouldn’t be. Or rather, she knows he doesn’t feel that way about her. No, she doesn’t want to seem like she’s coming onto him. That would be a bad idea.
“We could Polyjuice as each other,” she says, because it’s important to not be wishy-washy and she’s already said it so now she’s going to see it through.
“And?” Ron asks, his voice cracking.
“And masturbate,” she says, proud of her bravery. Why is the room suddenly so stifling?
There’s a long silence.
“Just to be clear,” Ron chokes. “You’re suggesting that I could take Hermione Polyjuice, with your consent, turn into your body, and wank you off.”
“Well,” Hermione says, realising how it sounds when you say it like that, “technically you’d be wanking yourself, not me. For research.”
“But your body!” Ron hisses, voice lowered to a whisper.
“It really gets to deep questions of consciousness, doesn’t it,” she muses, trying to ignore her nerves and focus on the issue at hand. “If you have my body but your mind, would you be getting me off, or you? Or both?”
Ron stares.
“Are you sweating?” she asks. “Oh my god, forget I offered. It’s ridiculous and obviously not something you want to do. And it might be bad for, er, our friendship. I just got carried away with your suggestion that we could research it.”
“No!” Ron cries. “Er, let’s do it. If you want. Our friendship has survived a lot worse.”
“Well, I only want to if you want to,” Hermione hedges.
“I only want to if you want to,” Ron counters, looking her straight in the eye.
Hermione stares at him, desperately wanting to get back the atmosphere of joking banter from earlier, but not knowing how. “Well, then. We need to say whether we want to do it, with the assumption that of course we’d only do what the other wanted. So what do you want?”
“What do you want?” Ron asks with an air of desperation.
“This is silly!” Hermione says. “We should just say it. I want to.”
“I want to.”
They stare at each other for what feels like an hour, but is probably only fifteen seconds.
“Alright then,” Hermione says, cheeks hot, trying not to look at Ron’s crotch even though she knows he must be imagining her naked, too. “So we’ll get some Polyjuice, then.”
“Shit, we need to wait a month?!” Ron says.
Hermione laughs, the awkwardness slowly melting away into the haze of the firewhisky. “We are of age to leave the castle and visit the apothecary, unlike when we were twelve.”
“Cheers to that,” Ron says, reaching his glass to clink Hermione’s.
Harry doesn’t think it’s strange that Hermione asks for privacy at the apothecary in Hogsmeade. She’s not sure if he’s uncomfortable about “women’s issues” and happy to leave her to it, or if he assumes she needs contraception potions like the other eighth years who pop into the apothecary whenever they venture into Hogsmeade. Harry doesn’t ask, because he’s a good friend.
She buys the Polyjuice, signing about a billion legal waivers reminding her that it cannot be used without the consent of the person you will be impersonating and that it is illegal to use it in any schemes political or criminal, and walks back outside to join Harry and Ron.
Ron gives her a look, and she nods, tucking the paper bag of potions into her backpack as Ron trips, banging his knee into a bench.
“Alright, Ron?” Harry asks with a smirk, and Ron flips him off. “What’s up with you today?”
“Nothing!” Ron says. “Nothing. Just, er. Enjoying the day. In Hogsmeade. With my best mates.”
Harry turns to Hermione and raises an eyebrow. Hermione shrugs, hoping that Harry can’t tell she’s blushing.
“You’re both being weird,” Harry says, shaking his head. “Ah shit, it’s almost five. I need to go, remember?”
Hermione runs in front of Harry and grabs his shoulders. “Tell us who he is!”
Harry smiles, shaking his head. “Not yet.”
“Come on,” Ron goads. “One tiny hint!”
“Nope!”
“Fine,” Ron says, pushing Harry away. “Have fun, mate. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Would you suck cock?” Harry asks. “Because—”
“LA LA LA!” Ron shouts, putting his hands over his ears, but they’re all laughing as Harry disappears around the corner, off to who knows where with who knows who.
“Where’s Neville?” Ron asks, looking around. “I still swear it’s Neville.”
“I haven’t seen him,” Hermione says, checking behind them for signs of someone off to meet Harry for a clandestine tryst.
“You still think it’s Malfoy?” Ron asks, wrinkling his nose.
“I don’t know!” Hermione says. “My twenty Galleons is still on Malfoy, but honestly I feel like Neville is just as likely. Or maybe even Ernie.”
“Macmillan?!” Ron hisses, outraged. “No. No way.”
“Why not?” Hermione asks, hoisting her bag up her shoulder. “He’s got quite a nice arse.”
Ron stops walking. “You like Macmillan?”
“No!” Hermione says. “Not at all; I’m just saying. Objectively. I don’t go out of my way to look at his arse.”
“Whose arse do you go out of your way to look at, then?” he asks, grinning.
She freezes, then walks around him onto the path to Hogwarts. “No one’s!” She knows it’s a lie; at least she’s not in denial. She only ever purposely looks at one person’s arse.
“Suuure,” Ron teases, falling in step next to her. “So you got the stuff?”
“You make it sound like I just bought drugs in an alley. It’s perfectly legal, what we’re planning. No need to be so circumspect.”
“How much was it?” Ron asks. “So I can pay you back half.”
“Ten Galleons.” Hermione would happily pay it, but she knows Ron doesn’t like to be treated like a charity case.
He reaches into his pocket and hands her four. “That’s all I have on me. I’ll grab the rest when we get back to the dorm.”
“No rush.”
“So are we really going to, er,” Ron says, staring straight ahead.
In the (sober) light of day, their plan seems both insane and brilliant. Hermione wants to know what it’s like to have a penis, for it to become erect, to know what it feels like when it’s stroked, to know what it’s like to ejaculate. To understand how rough you can be with testicles. She has no clue. And she doesn’t mind Ron seeing her naked; she quite likes the prospect of seeing Ron naked. No, what seems insane is that it could complicate their friendship. It could dredge up her old feelings of desire and jealousy that she’s been doing a fairly good job of ignoring ever since the war got bad.
And what will it make Ron think of her? She knows him well enough and trusts him enough to know that he won’t take advantage, that he won’t see her as some purely sexual object after, or something. But it’s still awkward. He’d know what it was like to touch her, he’d know how she’d feel.
“Yes,” she says, hoping she sounds more confident than she feels. She knows she’d regret it if she backed out now. “We’re Gryffindors—we forge ahead with our barmy plans.”
Ron laughs and turns to look at her, his cheeks flushed pink. He stares at her for a moment, then swallows and looks at the castle in the distance. “When?”
“There's no time like the present,” Hermione replies, cringing a bit at how she sounds reminiscent of Professor McGonagall.
Ron stops. “What, now?”
“Why not?” she asks, vaguely worried that Ron isn't as eager as she is. “Harry won't be back for ages.”
“But it's—it's still light out!”
Hermione raises an eyebrow. “People have sex during daylight hours all the time. Presumably the same goes for wanking each other's bodies. Unless, of course, you don't want to.”
“No!” he fairly shouts. “Now’s good. Unless you don't want to.”
It’s the most awkward walk back to the castle in all of recorded history, Hermione’s sure. Ron keeps stealing glances at her, and she’s trying not to imagine him imagining her imagining him.
By the grace of some god, they make it back to Gryffindor and into Ron and Harry’s room. Ron spins towards the door, shooting a few spells at it.
“You ward it, too—you’re better at it,” he says. “Don’t want Seamus barging in.”
Hermione tries to laugh—it’s funny, the idea of Seamus finding them—but she’s so nervous, all that comes out is a choking noise. She wards the door, trying not to think of all the times she used these charms last year.
When she turns around, Ron’s staring. He opens his mouth, but closes it.
Oh, Merlin, she thinks—this is too awkward. They definitely shouldn’t do it—
But then Ron takes one long step forward and wraps her in a tight hug. Her face is pressed into his chest, his nose in the mess of hair on the top of her head. “I still want to do it,” he whispers. “But we don’t have to.”
“I still want to,” she confirms, her lips brushing against his t-shirt. She brings her arms up to his back and squeezes. Goodness, he feels so—firm. So real. His heart races against her ear. “Well,” she says in a let’s-get-on-with-it tone, “I’m ready to wank you.”
Ron laughs, and when he pulls away his face is so red all his freckles have disappeared into the flush.
Focus, she thinks. She turns away, because Ron’s nervous face will make her nervous if she lets it. She drops her bag to the floor, pulling the Polyjuice out. She’d bought two single-serving phials, and she uncaps them and sets them on the desk. She tugs out a piece of hair and drops it in, watches as the potion changes colour and makes a faint swirling motion.
When she turns to yank out one of Ron’s hairs, he’s already holding one out. She steps aside so he can drop it in the other phial.
Then they stand there. She has no idea what to say! Maybe they should’ve got squiffy. But, no. The whole point is research. Yes.
Ron shoves his hands in his pockets. “I guess you should change. You’ll probably ruin your clothes if you transform into me wearing them.”
“Oh, right.” Hermione looks down; she’s wearing a pair of jeans and a striped shirt. “Seems silly to get into extras of yours, though, just to take them off. Can I have a dressing gown?”
“Right.” Ron points a finger in her direction. “Because we’re going to be naked. Naked. Nude. So, er. I don’t have a dressing gown. I guess you can wear Harry’s. As long as take it off before we, er. You know. I’m guessing Harry wouldn’t like that.”
Hermione turns to where Harry’s dressing gown is hanging on a hook. Facing the wall, she pulls off her shirt, trying to ignore Ron’s sharp intake of breath behind her. Honestly—he’s about to see a lot more than her back. She reaches back to unhook her bra, lets it fall to the floor, and pulls on the dressing gown before tugging off her jeans, pants, and socks. She pulls it closed and turns around to find Ron staring at her with his mouth hanging open.
“I feel like I just got told to change into a gown at the doctor’s office,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Please don’t give me a pap smear.”
“A what? What’s a doctor’s office, again?”
“Nevermind.” She picks up the Ron Polyjuice and sniffs it. It smells vaguely of figs. “Are you ready?”
“No,” Ron says, picking up his phial. “But when has that ever stopped us?” He raises it to his lips and chugs it.
Hermione follows quickly, not wanting to still look like herself while Ron looks like her. That seems important, somehow.
It tastes rank, as expected, but the process is at least, like last time, better than the time she became Millicent Bulstrode’s cat.
Her thoughts are interrupted by the disturbing burbling of skin and organs that accompanies the transformation of every cell of her body into Ron’s cells. There’s a horrifying stretching sensation, and her ribs expanding, a feeling of emptiness where her breasts no longer touch her arms and her thighs stop touching between her legs.
It’s over. She blinks, and it’s wrong—she’s way too tall. Like on a ladder. Blinking back at her is herself, standing with a surprised expression in clothes that are hanging off, too long trousers bunched up at the ankles.
“Whoa,” Ron says in her voice. He looks down at her body, then snaps his head back up as if he shouldn’t look.
“You can look,” she says, jolting at the way her voice comes out all deep and rumbly. That is weird as fuck. “That’s the whole point.”
Ron stares back at her. “This is so bloody weird, Mi.”
She laughs, and it vibrates her chest strangely. “Sure is. Should we...er, get naked?”
Ron, looking like Hermione, lets loose a completely unhinged laugh.
“Ron,” Hermione scolds, putting her hand on her hip but then realising that she sounds like Ron imitating her and letting it fall, “hold it together! Do you need me to strip you or can you do it yourself? I swear, sometimes it’s like you make me do fucking everything.”
Ron blinks, then reaches down and tugs off his t-shirt.
It’s strange, to see her own breasts from across the room. It’s the wrong perspective. Usually she sees them from above, in silhouette. It’s bizarre. “My breasts look fantastic,” she says, impressed.
Ron’s eyes widen, and he looks down. “Er. Yep. Yes they really do.”
Hermione takes a breath, trying not to get carried away by Ron admiring her breasts. It’s just—she’s never really been sure what people think of her looks. They admire her for her brains, and her plans, but no one ever says anything about her breasts. Not that she wants them to! That’d be awful. But it’s nice to know that Ron, in particular, thinks they’re nice.
And—what the fuck is that? Oh, sweet Circe, she thinks, she must be getting an erection. She’s had a penis for less than a minute and already it’s hard. Is this what it’s like for them, all the time? What a nightmare! “Your penis is getting hard,” Hermione says blandly, looking down at where she’s holding the robe together.
Ron throws Hermione’s hands in the air. “For once, that is your problem, not mine.”
She pulls the robe off and lets it fall to the ground at her feet, but she’s looking at Ron, who looks like her. She hasn’t looked down. It’s strange, because she can feel the erection. It’s not so different from being turned on as a woman, really—things swell down there, regardless. It’s just that the bounds of the swelling are so much more—expansive. And swollen vulva don’t bob in the air.
Ron blinks at her, then reaches to unbutton his trousers, pulling them off. He’s standing there, Hermione’s body in his boxers. He turns to the mirror and stares. “Fuck, Mi, but you look hot in my pants.”
That’s...interesting.
“Take them off.” She crosses Ron’s arms nervously in front of her chest. “I don’t want to look at you until you can look at me.”
Ron pulls off his boxers. She looks at her body on him—eyes dropping to the stomach, reflexively checking to see whether she looks fat. She scolds herself for it, then, because she shouldn’t always be looking like that. She should love her body without judgment. She shouldn’t be worried about whether her stomach is flat enough, because that’s letting the patriarchy win.
From across the room, it’s easier to appreciate her body for what it is. The curve of the belly looks...good, in a way.
Ron looks down, and Hermione watches as he licks his lips, looking at her body. “Oh, fuck,” he says in her voice. “Shit. I—” He meets her eyes. “It’s not as different as I thought. Being turned on as a girl—woman—I mean.”
“I was thinking the same,” she says, wondering if her pale face is bright red. “Can I look?”
He nods.
She looks down. No breasts—strange. His chest is freckly and firm, stomach soft and flat, with a trail of red hair below the navel. And then there’s the penis. It’s sticking way out, hard. She’s never seen one erect before, really. She looks up, a laugh catching in her throat. “Good god, it’s like walking around with a fucking handle bobbing around!”
Hermione’s face contorts into a very Ron expression of amusement. “Well, yeah, what’d you expect?”
“But how do you ever ignore it?!” she asks, still not used to talking in Ron’s voice.
“Er, do we ever ignore it? I guess. I don’t know! We ignore it when it’s not hard. Merlin, it’s really hard right now. How are you not touching it? Do women have more self control than men? Because if you were a lad, you’d be touching it.”
“We do not have more self control,” Hermione insists, annoyed by his gender essentialism, but then she stops, because maybe that isn’t the point she wants to make. “I mean, I’m not touching it because you haven’t said it’s okay. Is it okay?”
Ron nods. “And...same?”
She nods, letting her hand grab the penis. Oh, fuck, the pressure feels good. But her eyes are on Ron, who has one hand on her stomach and one squeezing her breast. Her chest constricts with affection, because Ron in her body is so earnest. He’s so—reverent, the way his hand is on her belly.
She finally looks down, at how it looks for Ron’s hand to be on Ron’s penis. He must have seen this view a thousand times, and no one else has ever seen that exact view, until her right now. She’s seeing it. She moves his fist up and down experimentally, and a vague sensation of pleasure and heat builds deep in her gut. “Oh, fuck. Wanking is easy, isn’t it?”
Ron laughs, looking up at her, and freezes when he sees the vision of himself wanking. “Er, yeah. Did you think it would be hard?”
She laughs, lets Ron’s head fall to the side. “It is hard.”
“Oh my fucking word,” Ron moans with Hermione’s voice. Ron reaches her hand down toward her crotch, but he hesitates.
“Do it,” she insists. “Don’t be scared; it won’t bite you.”
“Where?” he whispers, looking to her for guidance, face nervous like he’s being asked to answer a question in front of the whole class.
“Just take a stab,” she says, mouth curling up. “You’ll figure it out.”
Hermione strokes Ron’s penis without any intention of actually getting off yet, because she’s too busy watching her own body across the room. He reaches her hand down through the hair, between her legs.
“Maybe we should sit,” she says.
Ron’s sort of crouching over to reach her bits, and Hermione knows from experience that it’s easier lying down. Plus, who wants to focus on staying upright whilst getting off?
Ron stands, pushing her hair out of his eyes. “Yeah. I guess we shouldn’t use Harry’s bed though. He’d never forgive us. Come over here.”
She walks to Ron’s bed, amused at how the erection sort of bobs around between her legs as she does. She stops and gives Ron’s hips a little shake, watching as it floats through the air.
“Will you stop it, woman!” he mock-scolds, and it sounds bizarre in her voice. “What are you doing?”
“Oh come on, as if you haven’t done this before,” she challenges. “Honestly.” She shimmies again, watching the penis springing around. “It’s fun.”
“Come and wank off like a normal person,” Ron says, sitting on the bed and scooting backward.
It’s an odd view of her body, and it distracts Hermione away from her penis antics. She joins Ron on the bed, sitting at the foot. The erection hits her leg as she gets onto the bed. “You can really whack this thing about, can’t you?”
“I’ll whack you about, if you don’t stop pissing about with it. This is serious.” Ron is squeezing one of his breasts.
“Oh, sooo serious,” Hermione mocks, making a calculated wanking motion. “Was that a serious enough wank for you? Should I make a more serious face? Or should I have a porn face, to be serious enough?” She lets her face drop into a wanton moan.
“Stop it!” Ron says, kicking her with her foot. “This is so fucking weird. You should never make porn faces. And you should definitely never make porn faces while wearing my face.”
Hermione laughs. “You don’t like porn faces?” She starts to wank slowly, but she’s more interested in hearing what Ron has to say.
He wrinkles her nose, an odd echo of his expression on her face. “I mean, it’s not real, porn, is it? Those faces always seem like, dishonest, you know? I mean, not like it’s not hot, I guess, I don’t know.”
“I don’t look at porn,” Hermione admits. “So I don’t really know. I mean, I’ve seen porn before, in the dorms. But I don’t really need it or like it, so. I’d be more likely to read it.”
Ron reaches his hand down—he seems to have discovered the clitoris, which makes Hermione smile. “I always think about the time Bill started yelling at me, Fred, and George about porn.”
Hermione laughs. “What?!”
“One time Bill found this magazine. I think it belonged to one of the twins, who knows, but Bill was angry about it because the magazine was gross. I never even saw it! I’ve always wondered what the fuck was in it to have made him so mad. Anyway, he sat the three of us down—not Percy, I never understood how Percy got out of this, because of course Percy can’t have been a kinky fucker because he wears glasses or some shit—and gave us this lecture about how porn isn’t real and how we need to have real world expectations about sex. I don’t even know. Anyway, you shouldn’t make that face. It didn’t look real. I like your real face.”
Hermione blinks and feels her face flush. She looks down and is somewhat shocked to find a view of Ron’s naked body, hand on penis. “I like your real face, too. But I can’t see it right now because I’m wearing it.”
Ron laughs. “Fuck, this is weird.” He’s got his fingers massaging between her vulva, dipping inside her vagina. She can’t stop watching him. She knows what that feels like. “Not weird bad, weird good. It’s so warm and wet.”
Hermione finds herself wanking faster. “That’s what they say, about vaginas, isn’t it.”
Ron closes his eyes and laughs. “Mmmmm yeah, but hearing it and feeling it are different, yeah? It’s not really a words thing, is it? More a feeling thing.”
“Yeah,” Hermione says, Ron’s voice cracking as she tries to say the word. She looks down and holds up the penis experimentally, off to the side, so she can get a look at the scrotum. She grabs at it, rolling the testicles experimentally.
“Are you playing with my balls?” Ron asks, amused.
“Feels good.” She’s not going to be ashamed of it. Hermione lets the penis sproing back to its previous position and resumes stroking. “I’ve never masturbated with anyone else, you know. I don’t mean like, with anyone else’s body, I mean, at the same time as another person.”
“I probably have without realising it, seeing as I’ve lived in a house with six siblings and a dorm with five other blokes.” Ron breaks off into a moan, which he seems to be trying to hold in.
“You should play with my nipples,” Hermione whispers, unused to how that sounds in Ron’s voice. Her hand moves faster.
Ron opens his eyes. “You should—” He reaches for his wand with his free hand and leans forward. “Gimme your right hand.”
Hermione’s heart is beating fast, erratic. She lets go of his penis and holds out her hand.
He whispers a spell and her hand fills with lube.
“Thanks,” she whispers, returning her hand, surprised at how incredibly hard the penis is and how good it feels with the lube. She glances up at Ron in her body—his fingers continue to stroke her, and he’s moved his other hand to grab at her nipples.
Shit, it’s hot to see him doing that. It shouldn’t be hot, should it? That’s her body. But it’s not—it’s Ron.
She closes her eyes. It’s all too much—she needs to focus on the feeling of it, rather than get distracted by how her own body looks. She’s not used to seeing that, not from a distance, anyway. She’s definitely not used to thinking about what Ron is thinking about when her body is making that face.
It feels good. It’s unusual, having a shaft there. It’s like, too much surface area to deal with. She suddenly gets why they want to stick it into something so badly. Her fist is simply not big enough for this, really. Much easier with a clitoris. She wonders if there’s a way to fix that with a charm. She thinks of Ron’s fingers, dipping into her vagina—how that would feel, in place of her hand. Oh, fuck—she’s about to—Ron lets out a choked moan on the other side of the bed, and Hermione feels a gathering of heat deep in her gut and scrotum—she moves her hand faster, and she’s coming, her head tipped back, mouth open.
The ejaculating is strange. Not so different from a regular orgasm, she thinks, only the muscle contractions are...messy.
She waits until the feeling washes away, and then peeks open an eye. Ron’s still going.
“Do you need advice?” she asks, wincing at her phrasing, but also wanting to be a good teacher both in word and in body.
“Do I—” Ron’s fingers are clearly circling her clitoris, and it’s so bizarre to watch, but it’s hot, and her face is flushed. “Fucking hell,” he says. “You’re so—Mi, fuck.”
She watches as Ron shudders, her body stilling with pleasure, mouth open.
Ron opens her eyes. “Bloody hell.” They stare at each other for a moment. “You can—I can go again, right?”
Hermione laughs. “Sure.”
“I’m not leaving this bed until the Polyjuice wears off. You can go, if you want.”
He’s joking around, but he’s also serious—and it shocks her, sometimes, how much she loves him. And she can’t really deny it anymore, can she? That this is what that is.
She doesn’t leave. She would watch him all day.
It’s lucky that body insecurities are such that one feels unselfconscious lazing about nude in another person’s skin, but not in one’s own. Hermione would be concerned that her desire not to sit around naked in her own skin is some kind of internalised misogyny, except it is Ron who suggests dressing before the Polyjuice is set to wear off. Hermione puts the dressing gown on, and after the unpleasant transformation is complete, she pulls her regular clothes back on.
At this point, Hermione and Ron sit on the bed together. It’s not a comfortable sort of sitting together. It’s awkward as fuck, and they manage to endure it only by sheer force of Gryffindor will. Hermione resorts to small talk about the Cannons.
It’s also problematic because Hermione is still really quite turned on, now she’s back in her own body. She has no idea how Ron feels, because she hasn’t asked. But she can’t even decide how their activities register now—has she orgasmed once (in Ron’s body) or multiple times (with Ron’s consciousness)? Either way, she’s quite worked up at the moment, and even Ron’s blathering on about Newt Rutherford’s Beating tactics isn’t putting a damper on her libido.
Hermione is considering whether she should harness her impulsiveness and propose a second round—to figure out how orgasms work in the aftermath of Polyjuice, of course—and Ron is talking about the Keeper’s record from last season, when Harry bursts through the door.
“Hogwarts is nothing but a castle full of inconsiderate cockblockers!” he says, slamming the door behind him.
Good thing they’d got dressed.
“So I’m out at the lake with Redacted, and things are going well, you know? Like, really well. And Ernie fucking Macmillan walks over and he must have taken an actual bath in Brut because the smell was outrageous. It put me off my dinner in addition to putting me off my, er, redacted. So we decide to give it up as a bad job, right? Because we’re both so nauseated, and then I’m on my way back in and we head to redacted to try to find a new location for our liaison, and who comes up but some fucker wanting help on Sprout’s Shrivelfig essay. Do you know how unsexy it is to talk about Shrivelfigs? There’s no way you can keep it up! I’m just saying—absolutely impossible. After about five minutes of that we escaped to the library thinking, you know, the stacks. And do you want to know what happened? A book called Boils, Burns, and Oozing Pustules fell off the shelf onto my foot, where it started bubbling ominously like it was going to eat my shoe. I didn’t know the secret to get the book to stop acting like that horror movie The Blob so we had to send up sparks for Madam Pince to come rescue us. At which point Redacted and I decided to just give up. Maybe I’ll try again later with the cloak if the Brut and the Shrivelfig and the blasted pustules haven’t cured me of sexual desire for good. Why are you two sitting like that? And why was the door warded?—I had to disable like six charms to get in here.”
“Studying,” Ron says.
“Just chatting,” Hermione says at the same time. She throws Ron a look.
Harry frowns at them, but doesn’t press it. “Ugh, I am so exhausted now. Traipsing all over the grounds and castle and all for nothing.”
“Aw, come on, mate. You had some nice quality time with…” Ron trails off expectantly, as if waiting for Harry to finish his sentence.
“Nice try,” Harry says, snorting and flopping onto his bed. “I’m not telling you who he is. What’d I miss?”
Hermione’s brain helpfully supplies an image of Ron’s penis poking through her—his—fist, and she blurts, “So when you were leaving the library, did you see whether there were any stray quills in the Charms corridor? Because I think I dropped one.”
Harry raises an eyebrow. “I’m not answering questions that will tell you whether Redacted was heading to Ravenclaw or to the lower common rooms. For all you know, he’s a Gryffindor.”
Ron kicks Hermione hard in the shin. She rolls her eyes. “Yes, Ron, I know who you’re betting on.”
Harry grabs a balled-up pair of socks and chucks it across the room. “Stop trying to figure it out. You’ll never get it.”
“The ghost of Snape,” Hermione says, tapping her mouth with one finger.
“Dennis Creevey.”
“Terry Boot.”
“Flitwick.”
“I should interrogate you two about your love lives, see how you like it.” Harry points at the desk, where they’d left the empty Polyjuice phials. “What’re the phials from?”
Hermione feels her eyes widen and looks at Ron. She can’t think of a single reason why they’d have potion phials!
“Er,” Ron says, eyes wild, “recreational potions.”
Fuck! She should’ve said it was research for a school project!
Harry’s eyes flit from Ron, to Hermione, to the phials, and back to Ron. “They’ve got apothecary labels, so I assume they’re legal. You two aren’t being stupid, are you?”
“It’s quite legal, thank you very much,” Hermione says. “Just because you’re off with Filch every spare minute, ignoring us, doesn’t mean we can’t have fun without you!”
“Ew, Filch?” Harry says, and starts to laugh. “That is actively disgusting. You guys are such kinky freaks. No one would ever believe me if I told them.
“You’re projecting,” Ron claims, and they somehow manage to avoid any more awkward conversation.
Hermione keeps catching Ron’s eye the oddest times, and it’s clear that each of them are thinking about masturbating the other’s body.
It happens once while eating breakfast with Ginny. She’s spreading marmalade on toast and asking Hermione about taking a trip over the summer, and Hermione looks up and locks eyes with Ron, who looks at her intently for a moment too long and then takes a sip of tea. He chokes on it. Ginny slams Ron on the back and continues to ask Hermione about going to Greece. But all Hermione can think about is that Ron had his fingers up her vagina and she didn’t even get to feel it!
One time Harry is asking for help with a Charms essay, and Ron starts explaining the wand movement for the Knitting Charm, and he catches Hermione staring at him and loses the train of the metaphor he’d been using.
“Right then,” Hermione says after Ron answers her knock on his door later that night. “We need to talk about the erumpent in the room. Is Harry off with Nicolas Flamel?”
Ron smiles, but she can see the nervousness in his eyes. “Yeah. I told him I was onto his little rendezvous with Kreacher, but he just laughed and left.” He lets Hermione in and folds his arms across his chest.
“So,” Hermione says. If Harry can walk to his death at Voldemort’s hand, she can do this. “I think we need to talk about what happened the other day.”
Ron nods. His face is bright red. He meets her eye, Gryffindor will shining through, and says apologetically, “I don’t know what to say.”
She laughs. It doesn’t have to be awkward—it’s just Ron. They can be honest. They’re been through everything together.
“Are you regretting it?” Ron whispers, interrupting her gathering of courage.
She looks at his face, and he’s devastatingly worried. Hermione reaches out, puts her hand on his forearm. “No! Goodness, no. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you think that. It’s not that at all! It was—great.”
His eyes widen, the blue of them like an ocean. “Great?”
“I mean,” she says, completely flustered—and stop being flustered, Hermione!—”it was very, er, educational. And enjoyable.”
“Educational,” Ron says. “Yes. Right. It was very—that.”
“In fact,” she says, her face burning, “it strikes me that there’s more to research.”
Ron takes a step backward. “Erm, what?”
“Well,” she says, “it was supposed to be a learning experience, yes? And we certainly got a, er, feel for how bodies of the opposite sex function, but it occurs to me now that knowing how to masturbate oneself is quite different than knowing how to get off another person with those parts.”
Ron stares.
“Because,” Hermione continues, “when one is masturbating, one has immediate feedback from the pleasure, whereas that isn’t the case when performing, say, a handjob on another person, wherein there’s no pleasure feedback. So, we’ve really not learned what we set out to learn, which is to say, how it works to get off a person of the opposite sex while we aren’t in their body, as it were.”
“That sounds,” Ron says, his voice cracking a bit and he coughs to gain his composure, “kind of theoretical. Can you tell me what you’re saying we should do about it, in, er, practice?” His face looks like he’s worried he might say something wrong—like he doesn’t want to overstep.
“I’m saying we should practice on each other’s bodies without the Polyjuice,” she blurts. “Only if you want to, of course.”
“Yes,” Ron says, reaching out and placing his hands tentatively on her hips.
Oh, wow—that’s nice. She smiles. “We didn’t touch each other last time.”
“Like fuck we didn’t,” Ron says, his mouth twisted up into a lopsided, dimpled smile.
“I suppose that’s true.” She looks up at his face—they’re so close. She really wants to press their lips together, but it’s not as if they’ve agreed to that. They’ve agreed to handjobs. But that’s silly, there’s no reason they can’t renegotiate as they go along. “What are your feelings on kissing?”
Ron blinks. “Er. My feelings on kissing...are...it’s good? I’m pro-kissing.”
“Sorry.” She shakes her head, laughing. “I can’t even string together a clear sentence. What I meant to say is, do you want to kiss me, or should we restrict ourselves to the er, other stuff.”
His gaze drops to her mouth. “I want to if you want to.”
She surges forward, leaning up, and presses their lips together. He’s warm, his chest and arms around her, like a steady presence that will contain her sudden ambitions. His arms snake around her back, grabbing the back of her hips, and she wonders if she’s doing this right. It feels right, it feels good, but this isn’t all of what people usually do, is it?
People do tongue, so Hermione opens her mouth, and Ron’s body tilts forward, resting against hers as their tongues explore each other’s mouths. Her hands snake upwards on his back, squeezing the space of his shoulders.
She can feel his erection pressing into her lower stomach, which makes her smile, because they’re figuring it out—they’re doing it right, and it’s good, and it’s Ron, and it’s safe, and fun.
She pulls back, her face splitting into a huge grin. “You’re fun, Ronald Weasley.”
He laughs, his face crinkling up and shining like the sun. “You never do anything by halves, do you?”
“Nope,” she says, still grinning, and nudges his stomach with her finger, pushing him backward towards the bed.
“Would you perhaps like to snog on my bed?” he asks like the cheeky bugger he is.
“Don’t tease me.” She tries to frown at him, but she’s pretty sure she’s still grinning. “We don’t have to snog on your bed.”
“I want to,” he says quickly, flopping onto the bed and pulling her on top of him, leaning up to capture her lips—and they’re doing it, kissing on his bed, and Hermione hasn’t really thought this through because now she’s laying on top of him, his erection pressing into her thigh, his hands on her hips, and she is really turned on—she wants—she wants everything.
She pulls away, sitting back on her heels. “In the interest of full disclosure, I really want to do more, but I didn’t plan ahead. I don’t have contraception potion, or condoms, or anything. So it’s not possible to change the plan, away from the hands plan.”
Ron manages to frown and look awed at the same time. “You want to—erm, you want to have sex. Like, proper sex.”
“Don’t say proper sex, as if the only legitimate sex is penis-in-vagina.”
Ron waves his hand as if to say you know what I mean. “Is that what you’re saying, though?”
“What I’m saying is I want to, but we can’t.”
“I want to, too,” he says. “But obviously that’s fine. I can’t believe you want to.”
“Why can’t you believe it?” She reaches into her pocket for a hair tie and pulls her wild hair away from her face, tugging it into a ponytail. “You think girls don’t want to have sex? Don’t be an arsehole.”
“No, I just—I didn’t think you wanted me that way.”
Her face falls. “Oh. I—of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”
Ron shrugs. “I’m nothing special. I’m Harry’s sidekick and the sixth son. I fucked off and left you in the forest. You’re amazing—the smartest person I’ve ever met.”
She forgets, sometimes, that she isn’t the only one who suffers from insecurities. They all do, she thinks. Her, Ron, even Harry. She looks straight at Ron and shakes her head. “Don’t pretend to be less than you are. It’s unbecoming. You’re incredible, and you are a war hero, and you make me laugh and you get me like no one else does. You support me, but you don’t assume that I’m nothing but a smart girl. And you’re good-looking, so.” She grins, hoping he lets the words sink in.
“Mi,” he whispers, reaching up to push a stray strand of hair out of her face. “Is this only about research? This thing we’re doing right now.”
Her throat constricts, and it’s scary. She shakes her head and speaks anyway. “No. Not for me.”
Ron lets out a gusty exhale. “Oh, thank Merlin. Not for me, either. So can we be, you know, really together?”
Her eyes widen. “You want that?”
“Of fucking course I do.”
She huffs a laugh. “Oh. Yes. We can—we can be a couple.”
Ron pushes himself up on his elbows and presses a warm kiss to her lips. It’s tender, less tentative than their other kisses. He flops back to the bed and puts his hands behind his head. “Well then. In that case, you can research on me all you like. Have at it.”
He’s preposterous.
Hermione laughs, a deep belly laugh that distracts her from the task at hand, and Ron catches it. He tugs her arm and she falls over, heaving with laughter, falling next to him on the bed.
He sucks in a breath and manages to squeak out, “Was that not what you wanted—to conduct scientific research on my body? Am I not enough of a specimen for you?”
She laughs and puts her hand on his stomach, relishing the feel of it expanding and contracting with each breath under her hand. “Who needs specimens? We’re just people.”
“Merlin, I—” Ron stops himself. “You’re great.”
“Can we take our shirts off?” she asks, turning her head to look at him.
He rolls towards her, grabbing her hem and pulling it over her head. “Can you get the bra off? I’m not going to pretend I have any idea how to do that.”
She reaches behind and unclasps it, pulling it off, while Ron tugs off his t-shirt. When she turns back around, he’s staring at her breasts.
“They’re even better when they’re not on my body,” he says, cocking his eyebrow in a teasing way.
She grins. “Oh really? Why’s that?”
“Because I can do this,” he says, leaning forward and shoving his face between them.
Hermione rolls her eyes, but she’s laughing. She pushes him off her onto his back. “If you get to do that, I get to do this.” She presses her face into his stomach and blows an enormous raspberry, which makes Ron squirm because he is the most ticklish person she’s ever met.
“Geroff me, you absolute fucker!” he shouts, pushing. “I need a safe word!”
Hermione finishes laughing and locks her eyes on Ron’s, leaning forward to kiss his lips. She pulls back, looks at him, and kisses again. His hands reach for her head, and just like that the laughter is gone and they’re snogging properly. Ron raises one of his legs to nudge Hermione on top of him, tangling his foot around hers.
“You’re hard,” she whispers. “You like this.”
“Well yeah. You were in my body—you saw what it’s like.”
“That thing’s a menace.” Hermione nods seriously, moving her hips to press into him.
He tilts his head back. “Fucking hell. You’re the menace.”
“You know, we don’t need contraceptive potions to experiment with mouths,” Hermione says, trying her best to sound as matter-of-fact and un-anxious as possible, but she’s worried it comes out sounding pedantic. Though, if she hasn’t put Ron off with her pedanticism yet, it’s unlikely she will now, especially given that she’s proposing oral.
“Only if I can go first,” he says.
Hermione shrugs. Not like she cares who goes first, but that’s a bit presumptuous, is it not?
But Ron’s grinning, pushing her off him and onto her back, and tugging off her trousers. Oh. He wanted to be first to give. Hermione presses her lips together tightly, because it feels like her entire soul might escape her body out of excitement and embarrassment and anxiety about this whole thing. Her and Ron—together. She hadn’t thought it was actually possible. Why had she thought that? She’d felt like she’d missed her chance, maybe. But now he’s between her legs, tugging off her knickers.
He looks up at her, face smiling and honest. “I have no idea what to do.”
She laughs. “Me neither. I don’t think Polyjuice would help with this.” She reaches a hand to brush through his hair. “Just give it a go.”
“Tell me if anything feels bad, okay?”
She nods, and his hands are there, spreading her labia, and it’s odd because she feels like she’s being visually inspected, but deep breath, it’s okay, it’s just Ron, he’s just trying to get his bearings.
“Do you need a map?” she whispers, somewhere between amused and solicitous.
She expects a joking retort, but she doesn’t get it because suddenly his tongue swipes hot around her clit and farther down—she closes her eyes, rolling her hips towards his mouth. “Oh, wow. That is good.”
He pulls back for a second, looking up at her. There’s no teasing or disgust or anything weird on his face—just honest curiosity. “Fingers too?”
“Sure,” she says, and he’s pushing fingers inside, his tongue back on her, and she closes her eyes, smiling.
They’ll figure it out together. They always have.
The door slams open.
Hermione freezes. They’re naked in Ron’s bed, and had been kissing languidly, but that must be Harry!
They turn apprehensively towards the door. Hermione’s not keen to see the look on Harry’s face as he finds his two best friends naked in bed. They don’t even have the duvet pulled up.
But what they see is the back of Harry’s head, his leg out behind him holding the door open with his foot, with someone else’s fingers tangled in his hair.
Harry is laughing, leaning out of their view for a moment, and then he turns his head to come into the room, his hand reaching behind him like he’s about to tug another person in behind him. His eyes travel over the room without focusing for one moment, and then they shoot back to Ron’s bed. His mouth drops. “HOLY SHIT!” He steps backward, grabbing the door handle to slam it behind him as he retreats into the corridor.
“Oh no he doesn’t!” Ron shouts, jumping out of bed and sprinting naked towards the door. “WHO IS IT, HARRY?” He throws the door open and runs into the corridor. “WHO IS IT?”
Hermione, on the bed, watches Ron’s arse as he runs out of the room, and bursts into laughter.