Following the girls' discharge from the hospital wing, the school attempted to reclaim a semblance of normality, though it proved difficult after the sheer magnitude of recent events.
The young women openly enjoyed their budding fame despite their physical lingering injuries. Those wounds, fortunately, would barely last two or three days before fading completely or becoming imperceptible. In the meantime, they converted their injuries into war medals to boast about and joke over. It became a daily scene to watch one land a playful elbow to a classmate's side, causing her to double over with a dramatic groan while the aggressor fled down the corridors amidst laughter.
The overall atmosphere at Hogwarts regained an overflowing vitality. The veil of paranoia had finally dissipated, and students were back to roaming the castle without the latent fear of being attacked by the Heir of Slytherin.
There was even a media event when I secretly extracted the basilisk's immense shed skin and deposited it on the castle's outer grounds. The girls fielded relentless press interviews right in front of it, which, far from bothering them, they were beginning to enjoy. They posed proudly alongside the colossal serpentine skin for the cameras of The Daily Prophet, allowing both the student body and the general public to confirm the truth of the legend and the existence of the monster, even if the beast's final whereabouts remained shrouded in mystery.
As expected, greed was quick to awaken. Professor Snape was the first to swoop in, eager to lay hands on a thousand-year-old basilisk skin for his potions; the Brazilian professor from Castelobruxo didn't hide his fascination either, and as soon as the news transcended the school's borders, the list of potential buyers multiplied. Overwhelmed by the commercial pressure, the girls sought my advice. I made it clear to them that while they hadn't fought the basilisk, it was their trophy and they could dispose of it as they saw fit. Thus, overnight, they found themselves forced to debut in the arts of negotiation and financial management.
Of course, dozens of curious onlookers attempted to locate the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, but care was taken to spread the version that, following the Heir's fall, the magical access had been sealed forever and its location altered. A slight modification on my part to the plumbing in the girls' bathroom provided enough visual weight to the lie to settle the matter once and for all.
Amidst that dizzying atmosphere, the final days of the term brought both departures and returns.
The delegation from Castelobruxo prepared for their journey back to Brazil. It was a somber farewell without much fanfare; after the tensions they had endured, the foreign students longed only for the warmth of their homes. Nevertheless, the departure proved tough for a few Hufflepuff members who had forged deep bonds with them. Just as had occurred during our stay in South America, the parting was marked by exchanges of gifts and promises to write.
On the other hand, the school witnessed the return of the students who had been temporarily transferred to St. Mungo's, among them Percy Weasley. Although his condition was far from optimal, he personally demanded a voluntary discharge. Percy carried a devouring guilt, feeling betrayed and broken on levels few in the school could empathize with. He needed to return to the castle and try to bury the memory of having been manipulated like a puppet, in a desperate attempt to rebuild his life, sensing that surrendering to self-pity would ultimately destroy him. Added to this was the bitter financial reality: prolonged treatments at St. Mungo's far exceeded the Weasley budget. Percy would heal, but the process would be slow. Luckily, the administration proved lenient, and Snape offered to brew restorative tonics for him, ensuring he would be fully recovered by the start of the new school year.
Although most treated the girls like heroines, the perception toward Percy split between the suspicion of a few and the compassion of the majority, who viewed him as just another victim of the horror. The sugarcoated version published by the press had helped clean up his image, even drawing the sympathetic gazes of a few female students. However, his pride was reduced to ashes upon realizing that what little attention he received was a collateral reflection of my reputation as an "alchemist" and our other sister's notoriety as a savior of the school. That blow buried whatever little ego he had left, driving him to completely forgo teenage romance to take refuge obsessively in his studies. After all, the only girl he had ever felt a genuine interest in had not only made her disinterest clear, but had also kicked him squarely in the balls during his possession... Furthermore, it would take him years to ever trust anyone who spoke to him with kindness again. Tom Riddle had inflicted a deep wound, and Percy swore that until the day of his graduation and the attainment of top marks, his mind would remain closed to love.
...
The girls rejoined their academic routines surrounded by unprecedented attention. Both their peers and the teaching staff observed the group with renewed respect, fascinated by the solidity and versatility they had displayed. They had consolidated themselves as an elite group, with so many members who had perfected themselves in various specializations. With restrictions lifted and the guard disbanded, they reclaimed the freedom to roam the castle galleries as they pleased.
At this moment, I was walking beside Hermione along one of the upper floors. The corridor was deserted, flanked by sparse talking portraits and dotted with high windows through which the afternoon breeze filtered. The rest of the group had dispersed moments ago, leaving us alone in what could well be considered an impromptu date.
Hermione wouldn't stop talking, enthusiastically describing how the pain in her chest had vanished and how pleasant it was to breathe without difficulty again. She meticulously detailed how the group planned to preserve scraps of the basilisk skin to craft bracelets and trophies for the den, reserving the rest for sale to Snape or a few of the families in the group.
Noticing that the hallway was absolutely deserted and under the cover of the shadows, I cut off her speech by abruptly cornering her against the wall.
"Well... I believe the time has come to properly reward you, like the girlfriend you are," I whispered, dripping with lust, sealing her lips with a possessive kiss while my hands molded firmly to her waist.
Hermione flushed violently under the impact of the kiss, freezing against the wall and staring at me with wide eyes. I was displaying before her the same passionate intensity she had shown in the depths of the Chamber of Secrets—something that perturbed her just as much as it fascinated her. However, the true shadow of doubt in her gaze didn't stem from the kiss itself, but from the implicit insinuation that this "reward" promised what she still feared...
"Red... I... we... should wait a little longer..." Hermione murmured with evident tension.
The memory of her painful first time still haunted her, so she hadn't the slightest desire to experience it again. She liked kissing—longed for it, even—but she detested that other part which, in her youthful mind, she believed was meant solely for a boy's enjoyment.
"Well, Hermione, but I still need to give you your well-deserved reward..." I retorted, showing not the slightest sign of stepping back.
A pang of panic crossed Hermione's eyes. She fought mentally to conjure an excuse to convince me not to continue, terrified on top of that by the possibility of being discovered in the middle of a school hallway. She would never yield to doing something like that in an exposed place; she would die of embarrassment if someone caught them. Yet, to her absolute surprise, I didn't attempt to forcibly undress her or push her further against the wall: I slipped down with agility until I was kneeling right in front of her.
Before she could react, Hermione only managed to let out a muffled gasp as she tried in vain to ask me to stop. With a swift and precise movement, I parted the fabric of her uniform, removed her panties, and pulled up her skirt until her delicate intimacy was completely exposed.
Her hands immediately rested on my head, trapped between the panic that someone might round the corner and the sheer breathlessness from the suddenness of the gesture. I gave her no room to protest: I attacked her vagina directly with my mouth.
My lips molded firmly to her pelvis, and my tongue traversed every inch, devouring her folds outside and in, ultimately concentrating on her clitoris. I savored the taste of her tender interior while simultaneously piercing every pleasure point with my tongue.
Hermione completely lost her breath. A bright crimson covered her face as her gasps grew increasingly frantic. She hadn't expected anything like this; the sensation—foreign yet profoundly electrifying—surged through her mind like a warm current tearing down all her defenses. Until that moment, she had been convinced that sex was something unpleasant and painful, but she never imagined this type of contact could provoke a delight that far surpassed any passionate kiss. Even so, she felt it was wrong, that it was dirty, and that my mouth was dirtying and becoming dirtied by doing this... yet her subconscious mind seemed to crave for me to continue and discover where this feeling would lead her.
Her inexperienced body collapsed under my technique. Unable to maintain a steady rhythm of breath, her fingers tangled tightly in my hair as her orgasm rocked her brutally against my mouth. She lost the firmness in her legs, remaining upright solely thanks to the wall behind her and my grip on her thighs.
She was left panting continuously, her eyes glassy with tears from the climax, looking down at me with a mixture of bewilderment and fascination.
"That... that was..." she managed to stammer, unable to articulate a complete sentence.
"Did you like your reward?" I asked with a teasing smirk, deliberately running my tongue over my lips as I looked up at her from below, delivering one last kiss/suction to her clitoris that made her nearly wet herself.
Hermione's heart was beating at a thousand miles an hour. A part of her mind felt a tinge of disgust at what she had just witnessed—the thought that I had put my mouth on her...—but the surging tide of pleasure and arousal crushed any lingering prejudice. She tried to process that while penetration was averse to her, this form of stimulation was simply wonderful. In her internal reasoning, trying to absolve herself of guilt, she concluded that if I insisted on repeating this in the future, she would be "forced" to yield. She thought that if I did this every time... sex might eventually become acceptable as well—a sort of sacrifice for this delight. A trade-off her analytical mind was willing to sign off on to keep us both happy.
However, I had no intention of letting her off with just a taste. Taking her by the hand, we made our way to the Room of Requirement.