The Slytherin Kama Sutra

The Slytherin Kama Sutra

'How are they, Poppy?' said a low voice from the hospital-wing door. Harry opened his eyes just wide enough to see that it was Professor McGonagall.

'Potter doesn't appear to have suffered any ill effects,' replied Madam Pomfrey, a bit grudgingly. She never liked admitting a student didn't need care. 'Malfoy --' Madam Pomfrey gave a heavy sigh. 'Malfoy will live, and that's more than I could've said a day ago. A Succubus attack by a fourteen-year-old girl on two fourteen-year-old boys ... Minerva, what is this world coming to?'

Professor McGonagall nodded glumly. 'And Harry had no idea anything was amiss when she kissed him. I've spoken with Severus, about the lessons. We're going to have to start teaching them earlier -- to fourth and fifth-years as well as sixth and seventh.'

Harry shot a disgusted look at the next bed over, where Draco Malfoy lay sleeping, curled up in a tight ball. Malfoy seemed somehow both smaller and younger than usual, and deathly pale even by his own standards, but now Harry knew Malfoy wasn't going to die, he could go back to being furious with him. Not only was he, Harry, stuck in the hospital wing until who knows when, he'd be having extra lessons when he got out -- extra lessons with Snape. It was all Malfoy's fault, Malfoy and his -- his fiancée.

Harry shook his head in disbelief. It was a mad thought, Malfoy being engaged -- having been engaged for a number of years, apparently. Still, Harry didn't imagine the engagement would last much longer, considering what Malfoy's future bride had tried to do to him ...

*

A few days later when Harry was allowed to return to Gryffindor Tower, a piece of parchment was pinned to the notice-board. It stated that on Wednesday afternoon, fourth and fifth-year girls were to report to the hospital wing, whilst the boys were to go to the dungeons.

'Odd, that,' said Ron. 'We've always had classes by house, not boys and girls.'

'It's because of Icicle nearly killing Malfoy -- I heard Professor McGonagall telling Madam Pomfrey,' said Harry. 'Some kind of extra Defence Against the Dark Arts, probably, and Snape'll be teaching it. To the boys, I reckon; our class is in the dungeons.'

'Boys have Snape and girls have Madam Pomfrey?' said Ron, outraged. 'That's sex discrimination, that!'

'Icicle had to kiss Malfoy and me to cast that spell,' said Harry thoughtfully. 'Maybe it wouldn't have worked on another girl?'

He turned to Hermione, who was gazing at the notice in a preoccupied sort of way. Strangely enough, she had nothing to say to any of this.

*

'That was definitely the weirdest class I've ever had,' said Ron, when the three of them were back in the common room Wednesday evening. 'Did you understand what Snape was going on about?'

'Not a word,' said Harry. 'That book he was reading from must've been written in America, though -- they had a Congress instead of a Parliament. Right, Hermione?'

'Yes, in America they call their Parliament, "Congress",' said Hermione.

'I know that,' said Ron. 'What'd you make of the rest of the story?'

'I -- we didn't read it,' said Hermione. 'You must've had a different lesson.'

'What did you do, then?' said Ron.

'Oh ...' said Hermione vaguely, 'Madam Pomfrey showed us how to make a potion.'

'You made a potion?' said Ron. 'You should've had Snape, then, not us -- he's the Potions master.'

Hermione, suddenly quite busy rummaging in her bag, made no reply.

'What kind of potion did you make?' said Harry curiously.

Hermione looked around to make sure no one else was listening. 'A potion to prevent pregnancy,' she said, sounding rather embarrassed.

'Hermione, you're fourteen,' Ron laughed. 'You're too young to get pregnant.'

'I'm not, actually,' said Hermione. 'Not that I'd do something that stupid ...' Clearly eager to change the subject, she said, 'So -- tell me about that book Snape read to you. What was it called?'

'The Slytherin Kama Sutra,' said Harry. 'Most of it didn't make much sense, but there was a Congress in it -- the Congress of the Basilisk and the Chamber of Secrets ...'

Hermione flushed. 'Harry, that wasn't a -- a government Congress. It was congress, meaning --' she lowered her voice, '-- sex.' Seeing Harry's astonishment, she asked a bit patronisingly, 'You do know what sex is, don't you?'

'Course I know what sex is,' said Harry. As Hermione appeared somewhat sceptical of this claim, he added, 'Dudley had a top shelf magazine. Aunt Petunia thought I'd given it to him ...'

Summer before last, Aunt Petunia had come bursting into Harry's room with the offending publication clutched in one bony fist.

'You ... filth ... my baby!' she shrieked. Then she raised the rolled-up magazine and hit Harry hard about the face.

Harry gaped at her, more surprised than hurt. The Dursleys preferred to pretend he didn't exist over the summer, and he did his best to stay out of their way. He couldn't imagine what he might have done to set Aunt Petunia off like this.

Aunt Petunia took another swing at him with the magazine. Harry ducked and snatched it from her hand.

'What are you rabbiting about?' he demanded.

'My Diddly Duddidums ...' she sobbed. 'You gave him that -- that --'

'I didn't,' said Harry. 'I couldn't have, you never give me Muggle pocket money.' He opened the magazine to a random page and held it out for Aunt Petunia to see. 'If this was a wizarding magazine, the people in the pictures would be moving around,' he told her. Harry glanced back at the magazine, then stared. 'What are those women doing, anyway?' he said.

Harry didn't think he'd ever seen Aunt Petunia blush so furiously. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a few seconds, then she whipped around and positively ran from the room. Harry watched her go with grim satisfaction. That had seen her off, all right. He'd just broken the Dursleys' two most important rules -- Don't talk about magic and Don't ask questions.

And it had been a very good question, really. What were those women in the picture doing? Harry turned back to the magazine and began reading. Soon he had a fairly good idea of what, although why was still something of a mystery ...

'I hope you didn't take anything you saw in that magazine too seriously,' said Hermione disapprovingly. 'The women in those things are all heroin addicts and desperate for money, otherwise they wouldn't be doing half that stuff.'

Harry nodded wisely. 'That explains the courgettes, then.'

Hermione went bright scarlet.

Ron was eyeing the two of them with great puzzlement. 'Heroines?' he said. 'Courgettes?'

'But a Basilisk?' frowned Harry. 'Wouldn't that be very dangerous?'

'Not a real Basilisk,' said Hermione. 'It's, you know, a -- a symbol.'

'A symbol? What ... oh!' said Harry.

'Would one of you mind explaining what you're talking about?' said Ron crossly.

Hermione's cheeks were still rather pink.

'When we're back upstairs I'll tell you,' Harry muttered to Ron.

He ended up telling the whole dormitory. Ron and Neville for the most part really hadn't known what sex was. At first they refused to believe Harry when he told them about Dudley's magazine. Fortunately Dean Thomas, who also came from a Muggle family, backed Harry up.

'Mum caught my brother with one of those magazines and she went spare,' he said. 'It was just a few weeks after some of the women from her church tried to get the shop at the corner to quit selling them.' An arrested look came over Dean's face. 'You mean Snape was reading to us from a sex manual?' he said incredulously. 'And the bit about the Basilisk -- finding the entrance -- to the chamber -- under the -- under the --' Dean couldn't finish his sentence for laughing.

Next lesson, he wasn't the only one. Snape had barely started in on the Congress of the Flesh-Eating Slug and the Abandoned Boomslang Burrow when the fourth-year Gryffindors were overcome by a wave of uncontrollable sniggering -- even Neville Longbottom, who seldom laughed at anything and had never previously displayed any emotion besides terror during Snape's classes.

Snape looked up from the book with an expression of extreme displeasure. 'I see some of you are already familiar with this material,' he said coldly. 'Five points from Gryffindor, Thomas ... Finnigan ... Longbottom ... Weasley ...' His eyes fell on Harry, whose face was still perfectly straight. (The third most important rule for avoiding trouble with the Dursleys was knowing when and how not to laugh.) 'Potter ... don't tell me your friends figured it out and didn't tell you?'

'No, sir,' said Harry. 'I told them.'

'I should have known,' said Snape. His eyes glittered. 'Come to the front of the room, Potter.'

Harry nervously did so, wondering what Snape was planning

'Now,' said Snape with a twisted smile, 'you can tell everyone else.'

The fourth and fifth-year boys gazed at Harry curiously. Harry stared back at them in panic. He felt as though he must be nearly as red-faced as Aunt Petunia had been. His voice seemed to have scarpered off somewhere to hide ... perhaps in the Boomslang's burrow with the Flesh-Eating Slug ...

Then Harry pulled himself together. He'd told the Gryffindor fourth-years; this was just more people. He would have preferred that Draco Malfoy not be one of them, but if Malfoy made any sneering remarks, mentioning Icicle ought to shut him up quick enough.

Harry took a deep breath and began. 'You know that Basilisk Professor Snape was telling us about last lesson? Well, it wasn't really a Basilisk ...'

He managed to explain the meaning behind the metaphor without stammering or blushing much more than he already had done, to Snape's obvious disappointment.

'... and when a girl kisses you, it's not supposed to feel like you're freezing to death, even if she is a witch,' Harry finished.

If anyone had ever bothered telling him that, he'd have reported Icicle the first time, and none of them would have to be here. Most of the class appeared too shocked to benefit from this sound practical advice, however. A surprisingly large number of them seemed to have known as little about sex as had Ron and Neville. This included Malfoy, who was trying to maintain his usual bored, supercilious air with no success whatsoever, and Crabbe and Goyle, sitting on either side of him, who looked absolutely gobsmacked.

A few students, mostly Muggle-born, were in fits of hysterical laughter. They evidently had known about sex, but until now simply hadn't connected it with what Snape was reading them.

Snape glowered around the room and then down at Harry. 'And how did you find this out, Potter?'

Harry would rather have kissed Icicle again than explain the Congress of the Courgettes to Snape.

'I -- from -- from my aunt,' he said.

'Your aunt told you?' said Snape disbelievingly.

'She didn't -- tell me,' said Harry. 'She -- showed me.'

It took him a while to identify the extremely peculiar expression that crawled over Snape's thin, sallow face: he had never before seen Snape look horrified. Harry suddenly realised what Snape must be thinking.

'She -- she didn't show me personally!' he choked. 'She used -- she had -- a magazine.'

Snape looked slightly less horrified, but only slightly. Nearly half a minute passed before he composed himself sufficiently to send Harry back to his seat, and tried to restore order.

On this occasion, however, Snape's natural ability to control a class utterly failed him. He couldn't even cow poor Neville Longbottom into silence. At Snape's baleful glare, Neville froze for an instant, emitted a rising series of high-pitched squeaks and dissolved back into giggles. Snape finally had to call an early end to the lesson, warning the class that if there were any more such outbursts next time, they would all be in very deep trouble.

As they were gathering their things to leave, Snape said in his most dangerous voice, 'One word of caution before you go. You are being given these lessons at a younger age than you normally would have been, as some of your number are constitutionally incapable of staying out of trouble ...'

He scowled at Harry, who bristled at the unfairness of this. The only reason Icicle had attacked him in the first place was because Malfoy put her up to it.

'They are being taught to you for informational purposes only,' Snape went on. 'Should any of you be tempted to ... put the theory into practice, you should be aware --' he paused and gave the class an exceptionally nasty grin, '-- Peeves will be watching you.'