They were listening to Hermione read the latest news when Dean came down with the test.Everyone, even Hermione, was secretly relieved that she had an excuse to fold the Daily Prophet and lay it aside. Lavender and Parvati had stopped listening weeks ago, claiming it didn't help anything to have to hear about it all the time. It was Harry and Hermione who were most insistent. They had to know, Harry said.
But that didn't mean he had to think about it every minute, and all the best minutes were when he could forget all about Death Eaters and attacks. So Dean's announcement that "you guys have to check this out!" was very welcome.
"It's a purity test," explained Dean, passing around quills and scraps of parchment. "You answer questions about what you've done, and at the end you see what your score is."
"What you've done?" asked Ron nervously. "Done like... what?"
"Done like sex," Dean said.
Harry almost yelped. His friends didn't even know about Draco, much less did he want to answer questions about what he had... done.
Everyone was shaking their heads.
"Look, the answers are secret," Dean said impatiently. "That's what the parchment is for - you can just mark whenever you have a yes answer and add them up. It's just supposed to be fun."
"Well, you know me, I can't resist a test," said Hermione lightly, giving them all permission. "Why don't you read a couple of questions and we'll see what we think."
"Okay," said Dean, and Harry watched everyone move to hide their scrap of paper. He cupped his hand around his. Hermione curled up so that her quill was fully hidden by her knees.
"Question One," said Dean. "Have you ever had sex?"
There were a couple of quill scratches, then an uncertain silence.
"Um, define "sex"," said Neville hesitantly.
"Um, well the test suggests that you consider "sex" any manual oral genital or anal activity that could lead to orgasm on the part of at least one participant," Dean rattled off hurriedly, stammering only slightly on "anal" and "orgasm".
"My," said Hermione mildly, "That's - inclusive."
There were a couple more quill scratches.
"Have you ever put memories of sex in a Pensieve?" read Dean. "Have you watched them?" They were all giggling. "In someone else's Pensieve? Without their knowledge?" Ron guffawed.
"Keep reading," said Seamus.
"Have you ever looked in the Mirror of Erised?" Dean read on. Harry made a checkmark on his parchment.
"And seen yourself having sex? With someone unexpected?" Hermione let out a great peal of laughter.
"I haven't done any of this," said Neville. "How many people ever see the Mirror of Erised?"
"Ok," said Dean. "Here's a section on charms. Have you or a partner ever used the following during sex?" Everyone quieted in anticipation.
"An anticonception charm."
"That's very important," said Hermione earnestly.
"Maybe for some people," Dean shot back, wiggling his eyebrows at Seamus. "A disease barrier charm."
"Also important," said Hermione, looking meaningfully at Seamus.
"Been there done that," he said, flourishing his quill and making a big obvious X on his parchment.
"A silencing charm."
And Harry thought of Draco pulling him into the fourth floor supply closet and casting a silencing charm, explaining that he was going to make Harry scream... he checked his parchment.
"A lubrication charm." Seamus snickered.
Draco, stubborn, getting spasms in his neck but refusing to abandon the cause; Harry, getting shooting pains in his jaw but unable to desert the straining body. Lying next to each other, all slick hands and urgent kisses, breathing into each other's mouths...
"A vibration charm."
"A what?" said Hermione eagerly. She looked around at her friends' raised eyebrows. "Um... Muggle electronics... don't work at Hogwarts..." she said feebly.
"I'm just surprised there's a charm you don't know," Harry teased. "Vibratio whatever, that you want to make vibrate, I mean."
"I guess we know how Harry answered that question," said Ron, looking at him with mild annoyance.
Harry blushed and thought of Draco making squeaking noises, his hands fluttering over Harry's shoulders.
"A body bind charm," Dean said loudly, and everybody giggled, and Harry thought of moonlight. Thought of lying there, naked, while Draco pressed the end of his wand against his breastbone. Harry, pale in the moonlight, Draco, fully clothed, tracing the lines of his body with the tip of his wand, his face remote and unreadable. Harry holding still but trembling, his wand out of reach, completely vulnerable as Draco trailed the wand across his stomach, down his arms, across his throat. Harry waiting as he paused, pursed his lips to speak, seconds as vast as empires until Draco murmured, "Petrifico totallus"...
"A levitation charm," read Dean.
Twisted together on the floor of the Charms classroom, trying to figure out how to suck each other off at the same time, and none of the angles working at all until Harry grabbed his wand and levitated Draco a foot off the floor then wiggled underneath him. Draco dangling there, laughing helplessly almost too hard to continue... Draco falling halfway through and almost barely catching himself on his knees on either side of Harry's head, both of them gagging, and Harry coming at the thump of Draco's weight down onto him. Check.
"An engorgement charm. A reduction charm."
"Ain't nothing like a perfect fit!" said Seamus, but Harry didn't get it. Draco was perfect as he was.
"Ok, new section," said Dean. "Partners. Have you ever dated someone picked out for you by a Matchmaking Hat?"
"Oh god, my grandmother made me," said Neville. "It was awful."
"Have you ever hooked up on the basis of your horoscope? Of their horoscope?" Seamus groaned theatrically and Ron patted his shoulder. "Next question..." Dean started laughing. "Have you - have you ever had sex with an Animagus?" he choked out. "In their animal form?" And they all cracked up.
"Anyone fancy McGonagall?" Harry hooted. Even Hermione couldn't help herself.
"Have you ever had sex with a centaur?" Dean went on. "A goblin? A house elf?"
"That's horrible!" exclaimed Hermione, sobering and looking righteous. "Victims of -" Ron poked her.
"A mermaid? A minotaur? A succubus or incubus - oh my god, did you just mark that, Seamus?"
Seamus looked at his hands. "There was one in my grandfa's castle," he muttered.
"Seamus!" Dean said, outraged.
"They don't all steal your soul," Hermione said in what was meant to be a soothing manner. Dean grumbled.
"Ok, I'll read," said Ron, snatching the list of questions. "Have you ever - oh. Um." He turned bright red behind the freckles.
Dean grabbed it back. "Have you ever had sex after taking Polyjuice Potion? To turn into someone of the opposite sex? With someone Polyjuiced as yourself?"
Dean raised his eyebrows. Hermione had turned pink. Ron was almost maroon. Harry, who knew for a fact that Hermione could make Polyjuice Potion, didn't let himself so much as blink.
"O-o-kay then," said Dean. "Moving right along. This section is for Hogwarts students and alumni."
They all whooped.
"Did you ever have sex in the Astronomy Tower?" They all groaned and made checkmarks.
"In the Prefect's bath?"
Harry remembered kneeling at Draco's feet as the other boy paced around him. Check.
"In your common room?"
Sneaking Draco into the Gryffindor common room and kissing in front of the fire, having a tickle fight and letting Draco win. Check.
"In someone else's common room? In Hogsmeade? In a classroom?" Check, check, check.
"On a teacher's desk?" Everybody laughed. Harry thought of Draco, naked, perched gracefully on the edge of Flitwick's desk, one elegant wave of his hand telling Harry everything he needed to know. Check.
"In the Herbology greenhouse?" and Harry looked up in surprise.
"It's really quite nice," said Neville, "It's amazing no one ever thinks of it." People blinked.
"In the Quidditch changing rooms?"
Draco pressing Harry against the wall in the narrow changing hut hall, when at any minute their teammates could be ready and the doors could open. Dropping to his knees, unfastening Harry's robes. Harry saying no, no, but being too excited to stop Draco, splaying his fingers against the cool stone of the wall and trying to hold on. Helplessly coming in Draco's mouth, his eyes on the door across from him. Check.
"In the Forbidden Forest?"
Hermione made a noise of protest, and Harry pictured Draco in the shadows and old leaves, looking nervous but still gripping Harry's wrists firmly. Check.
"Ok, last section, miscellaneous I guess. Have you ever owled someone an erotic letter? Have you ever received one?"
The school owl landing unexpectedly. Opening the letter and blushing fiercely as he read what Draco had planned for him that night. Blushing again, later that week, when he sat in the library struggling to put what he wanted Draco to do to him down in ink, and Hermione stopped by and asked him which homework he was working on.
"Have you ever brewed a love potion? An aphrodesiac? Have you administered one to somebody? Without their knowledge?"
"Don't need to," Seamus said cockily, and they all laughed.
"Have you had sex under the influence of a love potion or aphrodesiac?" Harry marked his parchment. Draco, handing him the vial and refusing to tell him anything but that he would like it...
"Ok, last question," said Dean. "Have you ever indulged in the dangerous and uncomfortable proposition that is sex on a broom?"
And Harry was racing over the Scottish moors on his Firebolt, Draco's head thrown back, squirming against him. Kissing deeply, Draco's fingers digging into his shoulders, his legs over Harry's thighs clutching at him, trying to get enough friction where they rubbed together. Harry taking one hand off the broom to pull Draco closer, holding him tightly as he came and came, then cradling him against Harry's chest, kissing him as they soared home under a million stars.
"So you just count them up," Dean said, breaking Harry out of his reverie. "Multiply by two, subtract from a hundred and that's the percentage pure you are."
There was the inevitable loud mention of numbers to mess up other people's counting, then -
"76%," said Seamus. "Blow me, I'm three-quarters pure?!"
"I'm 82% pure," said Ron. "That's not so bad."
"Same here," said Hermione, and Dean and Seamus nodded knowingly while Ron raised his eyebrows.
"Victor owled some inappropriate comments one time and I asked him not to," Harry heard her whisper quickly.
"I'm 78%," put in Neville.
"Wait," said Ron, aghast. "I'm more pure than Neville? That is so not right."
"I'm ahead so far!" said Seamus gleefully. "What were you, Dean?"
"Neville?!" Ron was still exclaiming.
"I didn't keep track," Dean said, grinning. "Sorry."
Seamus looked mutinous.
"But I could go back and count," Dean said quickly.
"You do that," Seamus growled.
"How could Neville lose all those points?" Ron was asking.
"It's called sex," Seamus said helpfully. "Howe about you, Harry? How pure is the Boy Who Lived?"
"Um... 60%?" said Harry, tring to sound offhand.
"60%!" Seamus' eyes widened appreciatively. "You da man, Harry!" he shouted, and Harry wanted to explain that it wasn't him at all, that he just happened to have a boyfriend who got bored easily. (A what? squeaked a little part of his brain.)
But... it had been so easy, not telling. No one had ever noticed, no one had ever asked, not when he stumbled into bed near dawn, not when Draco left a bruise the size of a Knut on the side of his neck. He was in the habit, now, of nobody even being curious.
Confronted with Seamus' eager stare, it looked like that habit was broken.
"C'mon, Harry, who'd you do all that stuff with? You've hardly dated... you've been holding out on us, man!"
Hermione and Ron would be so hurt that he hadn't told them. No, Hermione and Ron were exchanging glances, looking - guilty?
Hermione put her hand on Harry's arm. "Oh, Harry, you're our best friend, and here we've been so wrapped up in each other..."
Harry put his hand over hers and squeezed. "It's okay, Herm, you haven't been ignoring me, we just haven't been telling people, because, well..." he trailed off.
"You're having a secret affair!" squealed Seamus. "Ooh, Harry, who is it? Are they cheating? Oh my god, is it a teacher?"
Harry made a face and shook his head. "Ew, no, nothing like that. It's just... um..."
Neville, who had been grinning silently, came to his rescue.
"I should think it would be perfectly obvious," he said.
"It's you?!" Seamus squawked.
Neville rolled his eyes. "Justin would so not appreciate that," he said loftily, standing. "C'mon, Harry, Exploding Snap?"
Harry turned his back on the dumbfounded Gryffindors, laughing to himself.
"Neville and Justin?!" he heard behind him. "In the greenhouse?!"
"With the lead pipe!" Neville called back merrily. "Actually," he murmured to Harry, "It was the water hose. But no need to tell all, right?"
Harry made a cross between a cough and a snort, then sighed.
"Do you think you'll tell them eventually?" asked Neville sympathetically.
"I don't know," said Harry. Draco had complained, once, that his father kept pressuring him for information on the Hogwarts defenses, which he "could figure out by being inside just as easily as you could learn to cast a curse by getting hit with it," he had pointed out.
"I don't know," said Harry again. Draco would kiss him quiet when he tried to ask questions with words like "us" or "future" in them.
"I don't know," said Harry a third time, and it was the truth. But he was already wondering what Draco would look like soaked in the spray of the Herbology garden hose, diamonds of water dripping from his hair as Harry peeled off his clothes. 58% purity, here he came.
::End::
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