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After the wedding reception, the adrenaline that still pumps through Hermione's veins has made sleep an impossibility, and that is how she finds herself on the big comfy sofa in the Burrow at one o'clock in the morning, she and her brand new mother-in-law sitting in their nightgowns and talking about sex.
"My mother tried to give me 'the talk' the day before my wedding." Molly sips her champagne with a long-suffering gaze toward the ceiling that makes Hermione giggle. "A bit late for me, though of course Mum didn't know that."
"What did she say?" Hermione dares to ask, keeping her voice low despite the Silencing charms that protect the upstairs bedrooms from disturbance.
Molly shakes her head. "Just a bunch of old-fashioned nonsense. Advising me to lie back and think of England, more or less. Oh, there was one thing — she told me not to make too much noise, or Arthur would think I was 'loose'."
Hermione claps her hand over her mouth, shoulders hunched in stifled laughter, half in horror and half in fascination.
"Oh yes," Molly sighs, placing her elbow on the armrest and her cheek in her hand. "Brides were still expected to be virgins in those days. Thank goodness most people have caught up to the twenty-first century by now."
A twinge of shame erases the smile from Hermione's face. She nods vaguely, lifting her own glass to her lips. "Well... some of us are still lingering in the twentieth, I suppose."
Molly sits up straight, her brow creasing in concern. "Oh, sweetheart, are you—? I'm sorry, I've really put my foot in it, haven't I? Happens every time I drink!" She sets the champagne down on the coffee table and places her hand on Hermione's knee, her face earnest and kind. "I didn't mean to say it that way, dear. There's nothing wrong with waiting, absolutely nothing."
Hermione thinks she should just laugh it off, change the subject, but there is something... Maybe it's the exhaustion of the day, or the tipsy muddle in her head, or the warmth of Molly's hand on her knee. But the weight she's been carrying shifts within her, and it comes out all at once.
"I haven't been waiting," she says, not meeting Molly's gaze. "Not like that, anyway. I told Ron I wanted to wait because I... I was embarrassed to still be a virgin. It's stupid, I know," she adds quickly, feeling horribly exposed, "but..."
"Hermione, you are anything but stupid," Molly says, with the practised firmness of someone used to being turned to for encouragement and comfort. "And you're hardly the only girl in the world to be nervous about her first time." She takes Hermione's glass from her and sets it down, then cups both her hands in hers, peering at her with a smile that wrinkles the corners of her eyes. "If you want to talk about it, you can always come to me. And I promise I won't tell you to lie back and think of England."
In spite of herself, Hermione smiles. Having her hands held this way feels good, and Molly's kind, inviting face seems to put out her embarrassment, like a candle deprived of oxygen.
"What would you tell me?" she asks, nervous butterflies fluttering somewhere below her stomach.
"Well, first of all I'd tell you that don't have to do anything that doesn't feel good, and—" Molly raises a finger and an eyebrow, pausing for emphasis. "And. No one knows what feels good to you unless you tell them."
Hermione hesitates. "Well, I don't know if I could actually say..."
"Unless you've married a Legilimens — and believe me, you have not — words will go better. If you wait for a man to guess what you like, you may find yourself waiting an awfully long time."
They share grins, but Hermione still shakes her head. "I couldn't—"
"Oh, of course you can." Molly shifts and settles herself back as though preparing to cast a tricky spell. "Here, I'll go first. I'll tell you something I like, and then you have a turn, all right? Just for practice."
"Um... all right," Hermione says through a giggle, finding herself thrumming with almost as much nervous energy as when she walked down the aisle twelve hours before.
Molly gazes up at the darkened ceiling, considering. "Hm. I like..." As it comes to her, a broad smile spreads across her face with the serenity of happy memories. "I like my hands kissed. My palms, and the insides of my wrists. That feels lovely."
She looks to Hermione with gentle expectation, and Hermione is thinking — that's it? It's that simple? They're sitting quite close together, cozy and intimate, their knees touching, and Hermione's face grows warm as she begins. "Well, I... I sort of like my neck kissed," she manages. "Viktor used to do that, and it— it just felt really nice, I don't know exactly why..."
"You don't need to know why," Molly says, shaking her head. "You like it, and that's enough. Shall I go again?"
Hermione finds herself nodding more eagerly than she means to, wanting more than anything at this moment to share secrets with Molly, so kind and so safe.
"I've always liked to have my clothes taken off for me," Molly muses. "Being undressed, there's something quite exciting about that. Though, don't count on a man knowing how to unhook a bra without instructions."
Hermione grins, feeling a strange, happy frisson at the idea of someone taking off Molly's bra, and then realises that Molly's prompting look means it's meant to be her turn.
"Well, I suppose I..." Hermione isn't sure she can say this, isn't sure the words will come out, but she pushes forward, trying. "This may sound really silly but sometimes when I'm, um... alone, and I'm reading something... erotic..."
Her heart is going a mile a minute, but Molly is just nodding warmly, as though her daughters-in-law tell her about their naughty reading habits all the time.
"Sometimes I read it to myself out loud," Hermione blurts out quickly, before she can stop herself. "I like to hear myself say... say things."
"Oh, that does sound like fun," Molly says with a grin that wrinkles her nose and makes her look, for a moment, startlingly like Ginny. "You're so creative, I've always said that about you. I'm afraid I've never been that inventive in my private time." She tucks her legs up underneath herself on the sofa, tugging down her nightgown. "Probably the most adventurous I've been on my own was the time I diddled myself with the handle of that wand..."
"With your wand?" Hermione gasps, both scandalised and impressed.
"I didn't mean my wand, I do that all the time," Molly says offhandedly, taking her champagne glass from the table and finishing the dregs. "Mm. The adventurous bit was when I used Arthur's wand."
Hermione's jaw drops. "Molly! Did you tell him?"
"Oh, yes. You know what they say, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission..."
After a moment, they both burst out laughing, collapsing onto each other there on the sofa, and for Hermione it feels like finally breathing after being underwater for ages, such relief. She finds herself cuddling up against Molly, head resting on her soft, warm breasts and feeling the vibration of her chuckles as they fade. Molly cradles her in her arms, stroking her hair, as though it's the most natural thing in the world.
"I like this," Hermione says, and she's surprised at how easily the words come out, simple and naked.
"I do too," Molly says.
Hermione doesn't know why she does it, though she'll ask herself often in the coming weeks and months. She sits up a bit, and takes Molly's hand in hers, and presses her lips very gently to the inside of Molly's wrist.
Molly draws in a short little breath, and their eyes meet. Molly's are dark and dilated, and she nods in answer to Hermione's wordless question.
Kissing Molly's hands is like nothing Hermione has ever imagined, nothing a salacious novel could prepare her for. Pressed against Molly's body, feeling her tiny jerks and sighs as Hermione's lips map out her wrists, her palms, her fingertips...
"You're a quick study," Molly half-whispers, seemingly caught somewhere between humour and surprise.
"I've always tried to pay attention to my teachers." Blushing, Hermione withdraws a little, afraid she's gone too far, misread everything, ruined it all.
Placing her hand on Hermione's shoulder, Molly gently moves her back, and, smiling, presses a kiss against the side of her neck.
Hermione gasps and half-giggles at the almost ticklish sensation of Molly's soft lips and tongue exploring the sensitive places of her neck, and then her jaw, her cheek, and — with a feeling like a free fall dive on a broomstick — her mouth.
Molly's kisses are sweet and gentle, what Hermione had always wanted kisses to be, but never quite had been. Hermione feels like her mind is melting, unable to process the insistent thought that she is kissing Molly Weasley and produce any kind of a logical response.
Because, right now, the logical thing seems to be to slide her hand beneath the hem of Molly's nightgown and to lift it up, exposing her legs, remembering how Molly's voice sounded when she said Being undressed, there's something quite exciting about that...
"Yes, that's it." Molly shifts so that her nightgown can be pulled up past her waist, exposing her plain white knickers and the soft curve of her belly. Hermione finds herself drawn to the imperfection of her, tracing fingers along the silvery-pink stretch marks that curl along her skin. She is real. This is real. And right now it doesn't matter that Hermione's never done this before, nor that her husband of half a day is sleeping just upstairs, exhausted after yesterday's insomniac night. Right now all that matters is the two them here together on this sofa, in the dim half-light.
"You can touch my breasts," Molly breathes as Hermione's hands move tentatively up, as she looks for permission in Molly's eyes. The older woman is beaming, smiling down at her like she's something wonderful. "I want that."
Hermione's been aware of sometimes looking at women's breasts before, aware of liking to touch her own, but touching Molly's breasts is like a bolt from the blue — so soft, surprisingly heavy in her hands, and strangely awe-inspiring, like being permitted access to something secret and rare.
"I was almost going to tell you earlier," Molly says, and trails off. Hermione glances up, questioning, and with a lovely, dark smile, Molly says, "I absolutely love to have my nipples sucked."
They are both laughing, and Hermione almost can't bear the beauty of it, of leaning in and taking this broad, stiff nipple in her mouth, and hearing Molly's chuckles blend into moans.
"Oh, yes — Hermione, darling, yes, I love that. Oh! Lie down, or you'll tweak your back."
Hermione's head is swimming as she turns round and lies down with her head in Molly's lap, and Molly offers her her breast like a baby. "Please—" Hermione breathes, and then she is suckling again, reaching up to hold, and being held.
Hermione must have imagined a thousand times what her first time would be like, and this is so far outside anything she'd ever conceived of, that somehow it does an end run around all her fears and worries, and cuts straight to pleasure, burning more pure and intense than she's ever known. She's never felt this good with another person before, writhing her thighs together and moaning desperately into Molly's breast.
"Oh, Hermione, I'd never have believed..." Molly's gasps are almost sobs as she smooths Hermione's hair, and even that is erotic, sends tingles throughout Hermione's body. "Would— would you like it if I touched you?"
Pulling off Molly's nipple, Hermione is too out of breath to answer, but she hitches up her nightgown and pulls her knickers down, just as she does when she's going to touch herself.
But this time, for the first time, it's someone else's fingers carefully stroking, rubbing. The glorious newness of it, of Molly touching her, not the same touches she's felt since she was thirteen. Unpredictable, but gentle, and so good.
At some point lying with her head in Molly's lap gets uncomfortable, and Molly guides her up, lets her sit in between Molly's thighs, in front of her. It's good this way, feeling Molly's breasts against her back, grinding her bum into the sofa as Molly touches her.
"There's no pressure, love," Molly says into her ear. "Just let it feel good, don't worry about anything else..."
But it happens anyway, they get into a rhythm with Molly's fingers moving up and down just so, and Hermione begs her not to stop, and she doesn't, and all at once Hermione is coming, she's coming in Molly's arms, someone is seeing her come for the very first time.
It takes a few minutes for Hermione's ragged breathing to slow, for her eyes to flutter open. Molly is holding her close against her, easy and warm.
At last, Hermione starts to say, because she thinks she ought to, "We shouldn't have..."
But Molly says, softly, "Let's not worry about that, just now."
And somehow, when Molly says it, it makes perfect sense.