Auror Progression

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

4. Raindrops (naturally)

Harry Potter was a very happy young man.

It seemed to be the first and only time that things were just... right. Harry was sure something evil was at work, that some hidden dark power ready to devour the world was behind this sudden and truly wonderful change in his life. There had to be something evil. Didn't there?

Though Harry spent hours researching in such a way Hermione might cry from the pride, Harry could find nothing sinister at work. At first it flabbergasted him. He even told people that he was flabbergasted. He used the word 'flabbergasted', for crying out loud. Something was very different.

Actually a lot was different. Better different, to be a little more precise. His lessons and classes were going swimmingly. No, scratch that, they were much better than that. His lessons were extraordinary. One day he had to stop himself from skipping to class he was so excited to be going.

But there was more. Not only did he thoroughly enjoy going to classes, he was the best in the class. This was how it should have been since day one, certainly, but now it finally came to be. His instructors simply gushed when he would raise a hand or volunteer. Oh how wonderful that Harry Potter was. Getting every question right, nailing every spell the first time around, he even knew the chemical properties of those potions! Could life get better?

Why yes. At the end of each day Harry would spend time with Piper, his girlfriend. His girlfriend. He blushed every time he thought of that or heard himself say it. "Yes, this is Piper, my girlfriend." It took a few weeks to adjust but it finally became comfortable to him. And because he had a girlfriend that meant that he, Harry Potter, was a boyfriend. Also weird to think about.

At the end of most days, Harry would pop over to Piper's flat and just be with her. They were at that point in their relationship where they didn't have to go anywhere, though they some times did, to have a good time. In fact it was probably better that they didn't go out much.

Because Harry had little to compare to, he thought it perfectly normal to have an extremely physical relationship with a young woman. He had no complaints and Piper didn't seem to mind. Every other night Harry would stay so late at her flat that he didn't even bother returning to his own room until the next morning. He would roll over on his back, sigh with a smile and drift off into sleep. On occasion Piper would nudge him awake accidentally by snuggling up to him. He found it didn't bother him too much.

Today Harry had an exam and though he'd spent the entire night with Piper, he felt ready for it. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing. Nothing went wrong. Harry thought for sure the ghost of Voldemort or someone evil with an equally evil, perhaps even corny name, would burst through the window and curse vengeance of some kind on Harry. He was waiting for it to happen. As he put his quill to his parchment he was certain something, anything horrible would befall him.

"That's silly," Piper said as she swung by to pick him up after class. "The ghost of You-know-who?"

Harry's arm naturally crept around her middle as he walked her down the hall and he felt himself grinning. "Well," he said, looking down at her, "he wasn't exactly keen on dying. He'd love to haunt me."

"Maybe," Piper giggled.

Harry toyed with a few strands of her curly hair as he gazed into her green eyes.

"What?" she asked him with a devious smile.

Harry grinned back at her and swung his arm around her shoulders as he escorted her out of the building. "I can't look at you, now?" he asked with an obvious smirk.

Piper held her head high, making an effort to toss back her hair. "Oh," she said in mock surprise, "no, please."

Harry bit his lip.

The only thing that needed to be done at this point was the introductions. Harry had met a few of Piper's friends but she had yet to meet Ron or Hermione. Rourke and Jonathan had insisted on meeting the woman who was "keeping Harry busy these nights" and therefore distracting him from training and in fact just about everything. Harry wasn't given much of a choice. They liked her well enough. What they really loved about her was the opportunity she gave them to mock Harry. Usually they'd offer crude sexual jokes or slip in sexual suggestions. The writer cannot go into more detail without offending her readers.

But Harry still had that tiny problem of introducing her to Ron and Hermione. He wasn't sure how they would react to Piper. Piper wasn't at all bookish--she relied on gut-instinct rather than the words of authors and strange magical theories. Piper was also unusually confident and might put Ron off, as well as Hermione.

He'd have to introduce them eventually. Just not now. He could go a few more weeks without mentioning Piper to Ron and Hermione. What harm could come from it?

Piper opened the door to her flat and held it open for Harry, who stepped inside like it was his own. Piper shut the door and locked it, grinning at Harry.

He dropped his book bag in a corner and watched her.

Piper was beautiful. She had everything a Victoria's Secret model might have, and fire-red hair to boot. Her hair was naturally curly, but not out of control or frizzy. She had a deep laugh, and a eye-popping smile.

"So," she said as she slowly unbuttoned her shirt, "what should we do?"

Harry could feel his body heat up, preparing itself for what was to come.

"We could study," he suggested, smirking.

Piper raised an eyebrow and walked toward him.

"I like that idea," she said.

Harry thought the foreplay needed some work, at least the vocal part of it. Luckily it never lasted long.

Piper closed the distance between them. She had her hands in his hair before he could really register it. She kissed him, her tongue deep inside his mouth, exploring him, as she ripped off his shirt.

Piper pulled back and stared into his eyes. She dropped her gaze to his lips, where her eyes lingered for a time, then they fell further south.

"Studying it is," Piper said, looking back up at him. She wrapped her arms around his bare back and pushed him down on the bed, falling on top of him.

Harry and Piper weren't exactly conversationalists or fellow academics. When Harry would suggest, "let's go to the library," it didn't mean "let's study." One time Harry had meant to go study, but she had come along. As he was searching for the right book, Piper stroked his back and kissed his neck. Eventually she'd worked her way in front of him, her back on the bookshelf and her chest to his. Harry had forgotten what book he'd been looking for, even that he was in a library.

Something about Piper intrigued Harry. She was mysterious somehow, even though he'd seen everything she had. She always wanted to be with him and he found he always wanted to be with her, even when he was supposed to be doing other things.

He was shocked and amazed that he wasn't failing all his courses, and in fact acing them, because he spent so much time with Piper doing "stuff."

Just last week the two had intended to go to a lecture given by a retired Auror, but never made it out of Piper's flat, or even into clothes. Harry had completely lost track of time and only realized they'd missed the lecture when he noticed it was dark outside. Piper smiled up at him from the bed and laughed.

She had a deep laugh that seemed to echo within him. She always laughed like that when he kissed her neck or tickled her in the morning. He loved it when she laughed. He loved it when she smiled. He loved it when she said his name in ecstasy, or when she just said his name in passing. He loved seeing her, being with her, sleeping beside her, making love to her. He loved the way they looked together, hand in hand. He liked how their bodies fit together perfectly.

Breathing hard, Harry rolled off of her to his side of the bed. Piper was smiling and would soon turn to kiss him and beg him for more. Harry turned on his side so he could watch her face and gaze into those eyes.

Half her face was covered by the pillow, but the exposed half smiled at him, eyes hooded in pleasure. She reached out a hand to his cheek and grinned. Harry felt his chest swell as he smiled back.

He'd never felt this way before, this total physical warmth and completeness. Whenever he held her in his eyes or his arms, he felt complete, like he'd always been broken and Piper was his other half. When he made love to her all he wanted was for her to be happy, for her to get what she wanted from him. And he found he didn't mind that thought. He didn't mind giving himself to her if she would take it.

"Harry," she said, touching his lips with her index finger.

"Hmm?" he asked.

"Tell me what you're thinking," she said.

Harry took a deep breath and grinned. "I'm thinking," he started, then moved closer to her so he could touch her, "that I could do better."

Piper failed at hiding a grin. "Practice makes perfect," she said.

Harry swung one leg over her and entwined his fingers in hers. He looked down at her face, her red hair a nimbus, and kissed her lips as gently as he could. "You're beautiful," he whispered, leaning his forehead on hers.

She laughed her deep laugh and caught his lips in hers. "I'm glad you think so," she whispered.

*****

Perhaps it was a Y-chromosome thing, or perhaps it was just a Harry Potter thing, but he kept count of how many times they'd shagged. They'd been dating for roughly a month and slept together nearly every night of that month, actually consummating their relationship 37 times, plus long snogging sessions which Harry didn't keep a mental record of.

Last night alone they'd done it three times. Exhausting yes, regrettable no.

Harry rolled over to his side and smiled as he felt the sun on his face. He was so glad it was Saturday. He enjoyed learning new things and all, but sometimes it was overwhelming. Piper had a way of melting his cares away.

Piper yawned then snuggled into Harry's back, her nose in his neck. "Good morning," she said softly, kissing him.

"Morning," he replied.

She sat up and summoned Harry's shirt to her, then put it on and got out of bed. Harry wasn't sure what it was about her wearing his shirt that was so sexy. It just seemed to look better on her than it ever did on him.

Or it's because she's got gorgeous legs and you can see every inch of them when she's wearing it. Yeah, that could be it.

"How about breakfast?" she asked him as she went to brush her hair.

Breakfast... wait. He was forgetting something important and it had something to do with breakfast. Think, Harry. Breakfast. Saturday. Something to do with companionship and conversations.... Oh.

"Shit," Harry exclaimed, jumping out of bed and scrambling for his trousers.

"What?" Piper asked.

"Ron and Hermione."

"Friends of yours?" Piper asked.

"Yeah," Harry said, as he searched high and low for his trousers. "I'm going to need my shirt back."

"No," she said, smiling ruefully.

"Piper, I'm serious," he said, as he fell to the ground trying to get dressed.

She laughed. "Well you're going to have to take it from me."

"I can't!" Harry replied. "I don't have time for this! I promised I'd meet them for breakfast at nine. It's--" he examined his watch, "ten thirty!"

"Well you're already late, what's another half an hour?" she asked.

"Fine," Harry said. He got his wand and conjured another shirt. He buttoned it up as quickly as he could, but as always when you're in a hurry, fingers enlarge, vision blurs, and the mind never works properly--only when you need it. He told himself to clam down, that Ron and Hermione would understand. There was probably some unwritten rule about it being okay to ditch your two best pals who've always been there for you, fighting beside you, willing to die with and for you, if you're going to get shagged. It was a no-brainer.

Harry finally got his fingers on the buttons (telling himself it would've been easier to just conjure a t-shirt, idiot) and did up his shirt. He stumbled into his shoes, all the while Piper was laughing at him, zipped up his trousers, and Disapparated out of Piper's flat back to his room.

There were two beds in his room--his and Jonathan's, his flip-flop wearing roommate. Currently Ron and Hermione were sitting on Harry's bed. Hermione had her arms and legs crossed and a smoldering face, with glaring eyes, probably capable of shooting laser beams into Harry's stomach and sucking life out of him.

Ron also looked put-upon. When he saw Harry he examined his watch and made a cluck sound with his tongue. He'd obviously been spending too much time with Hermione lately.

"Library," Harry said, scratching the back of his head. "I was studying last night. I have a killer exam on Monday on Theory of Charms. Charm Theory. I, uh, feel asleep in a private reading room. It was really quiet. Super quiet. Kinda warm, too. I'd eaten this huge dinner. Potatoes and beef of some kind. Went up to study and I fell asleep...which I already said. Just woke up--just now. I, uh, remembered that I said we should have breakfast together, the three of us, just now. S-So, here I am. Sorry." He looked down at them, feeling guilty about being late and now about lying to them.

Hermione pursed her lips and looked down at her shoe. Ron squint at Harry and stood up, pointing at Harry's neck. "Were there leaches in that library?" he asked.

Hermione snapped her head up, stood beside Ron, and re-crossed her arms.

"Huh?" Harry asked, blushing. He clapped his hand to his neck and walked over to his mirror to examine it. Bugger.

"Leaches? No, not a leach, actually. I, uh, er...burned myself. Yeah, burned myself. Actually I didn't burn myself, someone else did, with their wand. We were dueling, Rourke and me, yesterday, before I went to the library that is, and he hit me with this burning hex. But he didn't do it right, so it didn't really hurt, so I forgot about it until now. Thanks mate," he said to Ron, not looking at him. Harry went to his armoire and got out a turtle neck to cover it up. Besides, though magic was a wonderful thing, it never broke one of the fundamental physical laws of the universe: energy is neither created nor destroyed. So the conjured shirt would vanish eventually. Better to change now.

Hermione still looked like the Ice Queen as Harry put on a new shirt.

Ron, however, was smirking at him.

"Library eh?" Ron asked. He was smiling now. "So, where are your books?"

Shit. "Books?" Harry asked, blushing again.

Hermione snorted. "Yeah, you know those paper things, bound together, with information in them. If you were studying, where are your books?"

Harry swallowed. "Oh. I uh, left them there. I was in such a hurry to get over here to explain to you, that I forgot!" he said and hit his forehead. "Oops."

Ron turned to Hermione. "I always forget my books when I fall asleep at the library, do you Hermione?" he asked.

Hermione stared daggers at Harry, not finding the situation as funny as Ron obviously did. Harry noticed that she was dressed nicely, ready for a good day, starting with a nice morning with her friends. Her hair was pulled back out of her face, she wore a silver necklace, and nice robes of blue. Harry hated himself for forgetting.

"I'm really sorry," Harry said.

"For forgetting or for lying to us?" Hermione asked.

Harry looked down at the ground and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Both," he mumbled.

"Where were you really?" Hermione asked.

Harry hesitated. Well, they needed to know about Piper anyway, so why not just tell them now. Harry opened his mouth to speak when someone knocked at the door. Jonathan wouldn't knock on his own door, so Harry figured it was his other friend, Rourke. Harry went to it and opened it. But it wasn't Rourke.

Piper leaned on the doorway. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a black halter-top. She appeared to be a little chilled. She smiled when she saw him and picked up his book bag to hand it to him. "You left this," she sang, swinging it in front of him.

Hermione came over to the door to see who had called.

"Who are you?" she asked abruptly.

Piper looked her up and down, then looked back at Harry and smiled. "Hermione?"

Harry nodded subtly.

"Piper," Piper told her, then walked inside with Harry's book bag and dropped it on his bed. "It's a pleasure to meet you," she said to Hermione. "Harry's told me nothing about you."

If it was humanly possible for smoke to come out of ears, Hermione would set off fire alarms. She glared at Piper, arms still crossed, looking like she wanted to hex Piper into the next century.

"Uh," Harry said, coming forward. "I--this is Piper. Like she said," he added lamely. "This is Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, my friends. We were just leaving."

"We were just leaving an hour and a half ago, Harry," Hermione said nastily, still staring at Piper, who was staring back.

Ron walked over to Piper to extend his hand. "Nice to meet you," he said, looking at her chest.

"And you," Piper said. "So, how long have you two known Harry?" she asked.

"Over seven years," Hermione answered.

Piper smiled and nodded her head. "Long time then."

"You could say that," said Hermione.

"You'd think he'd tell you when he had a girlfriend."

"Only if it was important."

"OKAY!" Harry said, clapping his hands and trying to laugh. "And here I thought this would be an awkward moment!"

Piper broke eye contact with Hermione and walked over to Harry. "I'll see you later then, right?"

Harry looked down at her then glanced at Hermione, who did actually appear to be smoking from the ears, then back down at Piper. "Sure," he mumbled.

"Great," Piper said and grinned. She clasped his face between her hands and kissed him as deeply as she ever had, worrying Harry that things would start to...lift off, then she moved her hands down his back. She unlocked her lips and smiled at him, winking her left eye. "I'm missing you already." She dropped her right hand to his butt and squeezed, then left, giving Hermione a wave as she went through the door.

Harry wiped his mouth and looked at Ron and Hermione's feet. Silence prevailed for a few minutes. Finally Ron, doing what he does best, managed to break it.

"I like her," he said.

Harry looked up at him and managed a feeble smile. He ventured a careful glance at Hermione, whose face was indifferent but firm.

"Sorry," he muttered. "She can be a little intense." He cleared his throat and stood there, feeling self-conscious and stupid. "I wanted to tell you about her in person, of course. She's not really letter worthy."

"Is she the leach?" Hermione asked.

"Huh?"

"The love bite on your neck," Hermione said, pointing. "Is she the one who did it?"

Harry's face turned scarlet. "Uh," he said, clearing his throat, "yeah." He shuffled his feet and noticed Ron, who stood behind Hermione with his hand to his mouth, presumably to keep from laughing at Harry's predicament.

"So you weren't at the library yesterday, were you?" Hermione asked.

"Not really."

"'Not really,' or no you weren't?"

"I wasn't."

"Were you with her last night?"

"Sort of. I mean yes, I was."

"So she really is your girlfriend?"
"You could say that, yes."

"For how long?"

"About a month or so. A month-ish. A month. Four weeks."

"Any time you want to jump in here Ron, you go right ahead," Hermione said.

"Oh," Ron said, shaking his head. "You're doing great, Herm."

"So you were going to tell us, when--after you got married?" Hermione asked.

"M-Married? Whoa. Hermione, I was going to tell you today. I just lost track of time last night."

"While you were shagging her senseless?" Hermione asked viciously.

All right, now that was too far. Harry took a deep breath and crossed his own arms. "I don't appreciate your tone," he said.

"I don't care. You said, you promised even, that you'd be here at nine so we could, the three of us, go out for breakfast. And you were late! You were staying with her!" Hermione yelled. "You completely forgot about us! How do you think that makes us feel?"

"I said I was sorry! What else do you want me to do?" Harry asked.

"Well try not to lie to us, for a start! You can't even trust us with a simple fact like you're dating someone, that you have to lie and make us look stupid to that woman you're seeing?"

"I'm sorry, all right!" Harry yelled.

"You are not sorry," Hermione growled. "You would've kept lying to us if you thought you could get away with it."

"That's ridiculous!"

Ron cleared his throat. "Should we go to breakfast now?" he asked.

"I'm not hungry," Hermione said, looking at Harry. "Maybe you could have breakfast and sex with that tramp!" Hermione yelled at Harry.

"Piss off, Hermione!" Harry yelled.

Hermione turned on her heal, marched to the door, opened it, looked back at Ron and said, "Coming?"

Ron looked from her to Harry, then back again. "No thanks," he said.

Hermione scowled at the both of them and slammed the door as she left.

Harry, fuming, stared at the door. He heard his heard pound violently in his ears. His face was hot, his muscles tense, his eyes wide.

Ron scratched his nose. "Well," he said, "I thought that went rather well."