Author's Note: I know, I know. Lately I've been submitting my short snoglets but I just wanted to get them out before I submit my pièce de résistance. Normally, I'd be scurrying around trying to submit Ma Coeur Fait Boom to all of the fanfic sites but Jaheira, my esteemed co-author said she would submit it instead. Wahoo!

Towel!Harry

Hermione rolled over on the couch and impatiently pushed away the pile of Charms papers she needed to finish for her class the following day. On the pretense of eating dinner, she stole for herself a hearty slice of her mother's leftover pumpkin pie – from a recent birthday her father had had. Now, drowning herself in papers and pumpkin pie, she only started when the doorbell interrupted her from her studies.

Hardly anyone came over to bother her. The only people who really came around were her mother, her father, and, on occasion, Harry and Ron. She hadn't heard from them, however, in eons. And she was only twenty-three – not a particularly good sign, but she supposed they were tied up in relationships, work and whatnot. Now nearing her seventh year out of Hogwarts School, and her sixth in a nearby wizarding university, she had to prove herself if she wanted to become the Charms professor she had aspired to become.

But for now, she had a doorbell to tend to.

With great effort, which she surmised was the effects of eating her mother's scrumptious pumpkin pie, she heaved herself up with an almighty grunt and meandered her way to the front door. The visitor was now knocking, giving up with the doorbell. They probably figured the ringer wasn't functioning. Hey, she lived in a Muggle house, what would they expect?

Hermione pulled open the door – after giving her figure a quick once-over in its jeans and sky-blue T-shirt (it wasn't like she was always dressed to kill) with her hair in a slick ponytail – and positively shrieked in horror. She slammed it shut, breathing hard.

Had she seen what she had thought? Flashes of white skin – no, strike that, she saw almost nothing but skin. And maybe a small article of clothing. But oh, how so familiar those eyes were. Leading herself into temptation, she slowly peered back out of the side window, but couldn't see anything. There were no noises occurring, signifying that whomever was paying her a visit had not budged an inch. What other choice did she have? She opened the door again.

And saw Harry.

He was just standing there, wearing absolutely, positively nothing but a towel and some slippers covered his feet from the cold. It was too bad that towel couldn't cover all of him from the frigidness of that night. His mouth split open into a devilish grin. "Hello, Hermione," he said warmly.

He didn't look any different, at least not to her – excluding the fact that he was almost naked, something she had never encountered at school. "Um… Holy cricket, what in Merlin's name have you done to yourself?" was all she could say as she drank in the image of him like that as much as she could, knowing this would certainly be something to look back on.

"Oh, nothing," said Harry innocently. "Just came to visit you, that's all. I'm allowed, right?"

"In a towel?" asked Hermione faintly.

Harry tapped a slippered foot on the wood of the porch in impatience. "Well, aren't you going to invite me in? It's bloody cold out here!"

Not wishing to see Harry shivering, she led him into her living room, which was cluttered with her schoolwork. "You know, there is life after school," Harry reminded her as he inspected her living room, the parchment and quill on the floor in front of the couch and the half-consumed pumpkin pie on the table next to it.

"I'm sorry my place is such a mess," Hermione apologized as she briskly cleared away the unused books with her wand, "but I've just been so preoccupied with school that I haven't had the time to keep my house clean like I used to."

"What are you talking about, Hermione?" asked Harry. "Your house has never been clean."

"A drink," she said firmly, steering the subject in another direction. "And something… else for you to wear. Jesus Christ, Harry, what gives? A towel?"

"I just took a shower," said Harry sheepishly.

"You could have easily dressed yourself before you came! Common courtesy, Harry Potter, and especially in the presence of a woman! How dare you knock on my door and expect hospitality when all you're wearing is a towel around your bloody waist?" From then on, Hermione exploded into lecturing him on proper etiquette and the public dress code, while Harry sauntered his way over to her original seat on the couch.

"Can I have this?" he interrupted her without even regarding anything she had just ranted about of any interest, and pointed to what was left of her pumpkin pie.

Hermione's face became a furious puce. "I cannot believe you, Harry! What is your problem?"

"I just want some pumpkin pie," admitted Harry with an air of malevolence as he began to help himself nonetheless. The entire pie was consumed in one minute, and all Hermione could do was stand there and watch him in horror.

"Well," she said after an eerie silence, "would you want another article of clothing to put on? Goodness knows you could do with a shirt for Merlin's sake."

Harry suddenly made an incoherent noise from the depths of his throat, for he couldn't speak with the pumpkin pie in his mouth unless he wished for it to disperse itself all over Hermione's floor. He swallowed once he knew he had her attention. "Hermione," he said, seriously, eyes boring intensely into hers, "I show up at your doorstep wearing nothing but a towel, and your reaction is, 'would you like another article of clothing to put on?' I believe that I did have a good reason for the towel, Hermione."

"Oh, you wanted to use my shower?"

"No, Hermione." He sighed, clasping a hand to his forehead.

"What did you want to do, then? Eat my pumpkin pie?" She sat down next to him on the couch and gawked at him, more so his chest than his face where she should have been.

Being sexually educated by his fellow friends at Hogwarts School and Ron, who knew nastier terms than even his parents and Fred and George Weasley did, Harry grinned. "In a sense."

Hermione floundered. "Excuse me?" When Harry merely smiled at her, her gaze narrowed. "Harry, what did you want to do? This?" She picked her homework and laughed at her own joke. "My homework?"

"No," said Harry, openly exasperated. "This." Without even thinking, or paying enough attention, he heaved himself forward, snaked his arms around her, and kissed her.

He hadn't been lying; he certainly had taken a shower. His hair smelled some sort of melon. She finally concluded on watermelon, since it smelled the best and was one of the only ones she knew, as he leaned in unexpectedly to his kiss. It was sweet yet shy. The first kiss always was. Silent, tense, but nonetheless truly blissful. She allowed herself to fall in full force as she wrapped her own arms around him, but feeling nothing but the slippery – and slightly chilled from the cold – bare skin that was his back. Their teeth clashed, pearly whites over pearly whites, and suddenly, she felt something probing her mouth that also came to her as an oddity: his tongue was roaming… but, being the blushing little virgin she was, she wondered if that was okay. And, since Harry was doing it, she supposed she was obligated to do it as well, letting her tongue slip and slide over his. Harry let out a little groan, and she felt his lips form into a smile. One of his hands had found its way inside of her shirt and was fondling her bra strap. Within seconds, he had the clasp undone and was rubbing the spot where the clasp marks had imprinted into her skin gently. Their legs were suddenly rolling over one another as they shifted back and forth in varied positions, none of which worked very well.

Suddenly he was on top of her, both with breath reeking of pumpkin pie, hands roaming one another with highly defined desperation. As Hermione moved her hand out of the way, she felt it strike the plate that had held the pumpkin pie at one time, and it clattered to the floor, her not having a care in the world about it. Harry pushed Hermione's hair out of the way to see all of her face, and made a soft trail of kisses all along the perimeter of the oval-shaped face that she possessed. She left out a giggle and went for his neck, but one of her legs, in the middle of another shift, careened against some cloth.

It seemed like Harry's towel was suddenly in the way.

Not a predicament to Hermione. A hand grazed the snugly fit tie he had made and began to pull at it. But he pushed her away, trying to talk between ragged and sharp intakes and outtakes of breath, as he sat up and looked down at himself.

"I'm… not… wearing anything underneath."

"I know that!" said Hermione excitedly. "That's the good thing!" She reached her hand out again, but was only stopped once more.

"Damn you, Harry!" she snapped angrily. "I just want… in!"

He laughed, gently pushing her away. Now her bra, leaving her to hang pendulously like before, was of no virtual use to her. Very carefully, she pulled each arm back through the sleeve of her shirt. Harry stared longingly at her, thinking she was going to take her shirt off entirely, but she did not. She deftly pulled her arm back through the bra loop and repeated the same step for the other. Then, through one sleeve, out slipped a lacy, black bra.

"Good taste," he said. "Do you know what black means?"

"What?"

"You want to have sex soon." His eyes glimmered viciously.

Hermione chuckled. "That saying only goes for black underwear. Not bras."

"May I check your underwear, then?" The same glimmer was there, only twice as bright.

A nasty grin played across Hermione's face. "You may… may I check under your towel?"

He paused, answers forming quickly. "Sure… " he said slowly. "But you must respect me."

She eyed him in turmoil. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that… " he trailed off again, "anything you see that you are not… erm, satisfied with, is to remain strictly confidential."

She laughed hollowly. "Boys will be boys. But you mustn't be so juvenile about… measurements."

"It's not a measurement!" burst Harry. "It's just the fact that you may run off and tell all of your girlfriends that I was only… such-and-such." His face was stiff as he finished, and then relaxed momentarily. "But I have won in the measurement department."

"All right," she said impatiently, "now I'm driven." Without further hesitation, off her shirt went, and she pulled him back on her, dispersing his glasses onto the floor roughly six feet away.

That towel finally came off. "Wow," Hermione murmured, as Harry the Captor leaned in and snagged his prize.