[DanHenceworth]

Chapter 4 – Millacent

“And I thought Hermione was draining,” said Harry in a whisper to Ron at the Griffendor table the next morning. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open and his limbs felt heavy and sluggish. It hadn’t been that way when he left the Room of Requirement after his meeting with the Patil sisters, and he thought that a full night’s sleep would have helped some.

“Fred says sex overrides everything,” commented Ron who seemed to find Harry’s predicament hilarious. He was scooping a huge dragon shaped pastry onto his plate from the platter. Harry himself had managed a bit of pumpkin juice but pushed the rest of his breakfast aside after having fallen asleep face first into his oatmeal. “He says that when you’re, ummm… you know… that you completely ignore how you feel. You were probably this tired then, you just had other more… pressing… things on your mind at the time.”

“You haven’t told them, have you??” Harry asked, a slow fear rising from his gut. The last thing he wanted was “help” from Fred and George Weasley.

“Are you mental? You think I want them badgering me to get my own love life going? I’d never hear the end of it if they knew my best friend was getting lucky every night and I hadn’t even snogged a girl yet.”

Harry just groaned and set his head in his arms on the table.

Ron had been awestruck at first to hear about his meeting with both of the girls at once, and obviously jealous. Harry tried to play up the fact that he would rather have his relationships the normal way without being forced into it, but Ron didn’t buy it. “Sorry mate. You can’t honestly tell me that you didn’t enjoy bangin’ the two most attractive girls in the school, let alone living out the fantasy of every male in our year by having ‘um both at the same time.”

Later, after breakfast, Harry slumped into Defense Against the Dark Arts class and had to be re-awakened three times by Ron before his snores got too loud. If Tonks noticed, she didn’t say anything. But apparently, she had noticed because about halfway into their lessons, she passed by Harry’s desk and pressed a vial filled with an orange-colored liquid into his hand.

“Drink this and see me after class please,” she said moving on to check on Neville behind him.

Harry did as he was told and grimaced at the sour-tasting potion. To his surprise, however, he suddenly found that he wasn’t tired anymore. In fact, he felt more wide awake than he had in days. After class, he lingered behind and waited until he was the only student left.

“Uh, thanks for the… uh, whatever it was that you gave me to wake me up,” he said to Tonks who was straightening things up in preparation for her next class.

“Owl’s Breath,” she said flatly while she waved her wand and the desks aligned themselves back into perfect rows. “Don’t expect it again, it’s highly addictive.”

“Oh…” replied Harry thinking that Tonks was being a little distant. All at once, she finished what she was doing and turned to face him. Smiling, she scooted up onto one of the desks. “So, I assume that Hermione’s charm is still intact?”

He nodded nervously.

“And have you made any progress at all?”

Suddenly, his cheeks felt hot. It was very different trying to talk about something so inherently personal with Tonks than it had been with Ron, and his throat closed up.

After a few moment’s of silence his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher sighed. “Really Harry, there are less than seven days left. I don’t possibly see how you are going to be able to…”

“Two,” he croaked.

“Pardon?”

“Two. I, er… I only need one more.”

“You’re kidding,” exclaimed Tonks, astonished. Harry frowned a little, but did not reply. “Blimey…” she continued, somewhat flustered. “Well done, Harry. I wasn’t sure you had it in you, but, well… obviously you do.” He noticed that she was staring at him in that weird dreamy way again.

“Uh, Professor…” She immediately frowned at him. “Oh, sorry… Tonks… Don’t think that I… uh, I mean…”

“You still need my help,” she finished for him.

Harry looked relieved. “Yeah.”

“Well, Harry, as it turns out I think I have found someone who’s willing to help you complete the charm-break.”

“You have? I mean, that’s great!… Uh, who?”

“Millacent Peridew. You might have seen her. Short, dark-brown haired Ravenclaw who seems to like Batcats…”

“Willy Milly?” Harry had said the name most of the boys in his year used to describe the girl without thinking.

Tonks had a furious look on her face and Harry swallowed.

“I suggest, Harry, that you refrain from calling her that in her presence as it will almost certainly cancel any chance you have of getting her to help you.” Her stare was cold and very misplaced on the face of someone he considered to be almost perpetually bubbly.

“Sorry, it just sort of slipped out.”

“Well see to it that it doesn’t ‘slip out’ again.” She continued when he nodded. “I believe you have a free period after Friday’s Potions class, yes?”

He bobbed his head again.

“Good. I’ll arrange to have Hermione kept busy so she doesn’t… interfere, and you are to meet Miss Peridew in the Great Hall. She’ll be waiting for you. I know it’s cutting it close, but you only need the one more.”

When Harry didn’t respond, she sighed again. “Harry, you do understand what I’m saying, don’t you? What you need to do?”

“Sorry. I think the potion you gave me… the Owl’s Breath, is starting to wear off. Meet Millacent after Potions.”

“Right. And Harry, just because she’s willing to help you in this regard, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t treat her with all respect.”

“I know. I think that’s part of the problem. I want to break the charm, but I wish I didn’t have to… If there were some other way that didn’t…”

Tonks features softened. “This really is hard for you, isn’t it?”

“You have no idea,” he replied as the feeling of a heavy weight started to settle over him once again. He felt the desire to have more of the potion that Tonks had given him and decided that she was right. It would be highly addictive.

“Willy Milly!?” Ron ducked and lowered his voice as they talked at one of the study tables in the Griffendor Tower. “Blimey, Harry. She’s even more cracked than Luna.”

“Look, Ron, I don’t like it much either, but if I’m going to have any chance at all of breaking the charm then it’s got to be her. She’s, er… willing.”

“Well no kidding, Harry! Why do you think they call her Willy?! She’s a maniac!”

“She’s a nice looking girl,” said Harry as he stared down at his barely started essay on the Five Uses for Dragon Lillies.

“Sure she is,” continued Ron. “Some say she’s half Vella, too, or maybe even Dryad born.”

“Dryad’s? What are you talking about?”

“A girl who’s Dryad Born is one who was conceived in view of a forest spirit. They inherit all sorts of weird… urges.”

Harry frowned and turned to look at his best friend. “You’re kidding, right? You sound like Hermione.”

“She’s an absolute nympho, Harry! Dean Thomas said she can put a hex on you to make you want her even more after the first time… Something even worse than this Venus thing. He said she’s downright intoxicating.”

Now Harry knew that Ron was just babbling. Nothing could possibly be worse than the Charm of Venus. Could it?

The next five days came and went with a painful slowness that left Harry struggling with every minute. He was just so tired that he could barely concentrate. He hardly remembered what he was learning in his classes, and Hermione certainly wasn’t slowing down. If anything, she had only increased the frequency of their little trysts. Gratefully, they skipped that week’s DA meeting due to the fact that everyone was preparing for mid-semester exams. And that in itself was strange. He fully expected Hermione would let off a bit since she usually went a little bonkers preparing for what she often referred to as the most important thing ever, their future placement in the wizarding world. But with this round of tests, she hardly seemed bothered. Harry just figured she had gotten so far ahead of the rest of the class that she wasn’t worried anymore, until she mentioned something while they were resting from an exceptionally active humping session.

“That was simply delightful, Harry,” said the panting girl as they laid next to each other in a large bed in the Room of Requirement. “You really are learning. Your rhythm is… spot-on.”

“Yeah, well… Practice makes perfect.” He heard her chuckle next to him. “Speaking of which, any chance you can let up a little for a day or so? I’d really like to pass my exams.”

“Tsk, tsk, Harry. Your loss is my gain,” she replied smiling.

“Oh come on, Hermione. If our situations were reversed, you’d be begging me for time to complete your Arithmancy project.”

She rolled to face him, her hand sliding sensuously over his belly and chest. “No I wouldn’t.”

“You would! I know you… or have you already finished it?” He knew that it was to be turned in as part of her final exam, but it wasn’t beyond Hermione to have it done at mid-terms.

She laughed. “Nope. I decided there were more interesting things to do with my time.” Her hand was moving down into his lap, lightly caressing him. He also noticed she had begun kissing his chest and her legs were slowly snaking over his. Groaning, he felt himself starting to react. Not that he had a choice, but she just seemed insatiable while he grew more and more exhausted with each day.

“So you’re planning on finishing it later then, ughnnn… oh gods…” he asked as her body slid up on top of his. Her legs dropped to either side of his hips and her hands between them were already lifting and positioning his manhood.

“No. It’s just a stupid grade. Nothing really matters till our NEWT’s anyway.”

After that, Harry was sliding into her at an alarmingly arousing angle and found it very hard to concentrate. But her words stuck with him as she started to slowly rock atop him, her body, and his he realized, already caught up in newly rising passion.

Later, he mentioned it to Ron.

“I think all that sex has finally fried her brain, Harry. Hermione not caring about a grade? That’s just… wrong.”

“Maybe. I wonder if the Charm has anything to do with it?”

“What,” said the ginger-haired boy as he stuffed another chocolate frog into his mouth. “Woo fink it akes ‘er orny or umuh?”

Harry laughed as the frog despirately tried to escape from between Ron’s lips. “Well, I don’t know if horny is the right word, but it just seems like she doesn’t care about anything like she used to.”

His last Defense Against the Dark Arts class for that week was Thursday night, and he offhandedly mentioned Hermione’s strange behavior to Tonks as he was packing his bags to leave. Tonks had surreptitiously asked how Harry was handling things.

“Well, so long as I can stay awake, I think I’ll scape at least an Acceptable in all classes, which is more than I can say for Hermione. She just doesn’t seem to care. Either she’s awfully damn sure of herself, or she’s going to fail spectacularly.”

Tonks frowned. “She’s not usually flustered around test time?”

“Oh she’s flustered alright. Normally she’s downright bothersome to the rest of us, trying to get us to study harder or read such and such books over again…”

“But not this year?”

“No. I just figured maybe she had so much of my magical energy that she didn’t even need to try and study. You think she’s alright?”

Tonks was frowning, lost in thought. “I don’t know, but I need to check something out. You go ahead and run to your next class, you’re almost late.”

When Friday Potions class arrived, Harry was so tired and nervous about his upcoming meeting with Millacent that he completely flubbed the Disapating Draft he had been working on so that it bubbled over and spread across the surface of his desk, causing large portions of it to fade from view.

“Congratulations, Potter,” sneered Professor Snape with a half smile. “You have succeeded in producing an almost perfect… nothing, for the day.” He was staring at the missing spaces on the furniture in front of Harry. “Stay after to clean up your… lack.”

By the time he had finished scrubbing away his mistake, the act of which had a frightening habit of making his fingers disappear, he was nearly late for his date. He entered the empty hall at a run and completely out of breath. He heard a soft female giggle to his left.

“I like boys who are eager to see me,” came the words of the only other occupant of the room, her syrupy voice slightly echoing in the vast space.

“Sorry…. S-snape,” he panted. Millacent put up her hand.

“Say no more. It doesn’t matter, you’re here.” Her tone hadn’t been cold, in fact, Harry thought she sounded slightly amused. “Come on then,” she motioned as she hopped down from the end of the table she had been sitting on.

Not knowing how he should act, Harry took one last deep breath and followed the short girl. He knew that she was at least his own age, maybe a year ahead, and in one respect, Dean Thomas was right… She was certainly intoxicating. She didn’t have the sheer natural beauty of the Patil twins, yet something about her was powerfully attractive in another way. When she stopped near one of the massive support pillars and beckoned him closer, he realized abruptly what it was. She was sexy.

Harry had never really looked at a female that way, even Hermione, with whom he had been intimate nearly every day that week. Yet here was a girl who was projecting a very clear message to Harry without using a single word, and it made him literally weak in the knees. Swallowing in nervousness, he came forward until he was standing just in front of her. After a small pause, she reached out and grasped his left hand in both of hers, causing him to jump slightly.

“Relax, Harry,” she laughed. “I usually don’t bite.” She said the last with a playful smile and a slightly shy dip of her head, and he found that he couldn’t hold back his own smile.

“Sorry. I’m a little new at this sort of thing.”