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The door to the Slytherin common room burst open, and Theo looked up to see a gaggle of girls escorting a bewildered-looking Draco into the room. His friend looked like he was going to be sick, or possibly like he’d been hexed, or maybe both.
“Mate, what happened to you?” Theo asked, increasingly alarmed as the sheer number of girls supporting Draco grew exponentially.
“He just asked Hermione Granger out,” Tracey Davis answered.
“What? What did she say?”
“No, of course,” Blaise interjected from across the room.
Pansy silenced him with a glare. “Worse.”
“Worse? What could be worse?” Theo asked.
Still in a trance, Draco started mumbling. “There she was, walking by. You know I like it when she walks.”
“Yeah, and the way she looks in her Gryffindor sweater,” Goyle leered, making a crude gesture with his hands.
Draco snapped to attention. “Don’t talk about her that way!”
“Shut it, Goyle,” Theo admonished. “Then what happened?”
“I couldn’t help it; it just sort of slipped out.”
“Actually, he sort of screamed at her. It was a bit frightening,” Pansy added.
“Did she say no?” Theo prompted, ignoring Pansy.
“Don’t be silly,” Draco huffed.
“So she said yes? Well, that’s good, right?” Theo continued. Draco shook his head. “What did you do then?”
Draco buried his head in his hands. “What else? I ran for it. I’m not cut out for this, Theo. I don’t know what got into me.”
“Well, we all know what you want to get into Granger,” Goyle said lasciviously.
His crude comment finally pulled Draco fully back to the present. “Merlin’s beard, do you think she expects us to…”
With practised ease, Theo led Draco away from the common room. “Okay, buddy. Let’s get some privacy, shall we?”
“Spoilsport,” Pansy hissed as the two made their way to the boy’s corridor. Theo pulled Draco into his four-poster, closed the curtains and put up a silencing charm to be safe.
Draco threw himself spectacularly across the bed, one arm over his face. “Oh, gods, Theo. What am I going to do? I’ve gone and made a complete arse of myself.” He sat up abruptly. “What if she doesn’t want to go out anymore? What if she changed her mind? What if —”
“Mate, one problem at a time. First, she said yes, so let’s just operate under the assumption that you’re still going out. Where are you going to take her?”
This proved the wrong thing to say, as it prompted Draco to fling himself onto the bed once again. “Oh, gods! I have to take her somewhere?” He wailed.
“Drama queen,” Theo whispered under his breath, though not quite enough to prevent Draco’s death glare. “Well, you could always take her on a picnic by the lake or stargazing in one of the towers.”
Draco scoffed. “As if Granger would enjoy such a plebian activity. Who do you think I am, Weasley? I would never do something so trite and overplayed. No, Granger deserves the best.”
“Well, what are you going to do then?”
“I….” he was quiet for several heartbeats. “I will think of something.”
Theo nodded sagely. “Well, whatever you do, don’t eat garlic or onions before your date.”
“Wait, why can’t I eat onions or garlic?” Draco asked.
Theo was incredulous. “Are…. Are you serious? How are you so smart and yet so bloody clueless?”
Draco just stared expectantly at his friend, who leaned in close, his mouth at Draco’s ear.
“Think about it, Draco,” he said, voice dropping as he ghosted his breath across the blonde’s cheek en route toward his mouth. “Do you want to be this close to her and have her thinking about your bad breath?”
Draco swallowed hard. “I’m so screwed, Theo.”
“Actually, I’d say you’re the opposite of screwed, mate. Haven’t you ever kissed anybody?”
Draco shook his head, and Theo quirked a brow in surprise.
“I thought you and Pansy…”
“No,” came Draco’s miserable reply. “She made it up to make Astoria jealous. What if I’m rubbish? Merlin's saggy man-tits, what if she wants to go all the way? What should I do?”
“You are asking the wrong person, mate. It’s the wands for me, you know, I’m not interested in cauldrons. Didn’t daddy-dearest give you the talk?”
“Lucius? Lucius’ idea of ‘the talk’ was to tell me to keep it in my pants until I was married, lest some trollop tries to steal half the Malfoy fortune,” Draco scoffed. “You?”
“Old Teddy Nott didn’t fare much better.” He puffed out his chest and lowered his voice in an impressive caricature of his old man. “Be a man, pierce her maze with your wand, Theo m’boy. It turned me off from women entirely. I was afraid I’d get down there one day and get lost, never to return.”
Draco blanched. “You don’t think there really is a maze down there, do you?”
An identical look of terror crossed Theo’s face. “Maybe?”
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, we really do need some sex ed in this place, don’t we?”
“We could ask Pansy,” Theo offered.
“Absolutely not. She’d never let me hear the end of it, not to mention she’d probably tell Granger.” Draco sighed. “Let’s go to the library. Surely we can find something there?”
They made their way to the library without drawing the attention of the Slytherins in the common room, thanks to the aid of a Notice-Me-Not charm. They settled into Draco’s favourite table, a small alcove that hung over the courtyard in the southeast corner, with Is My Wand Supposed to do That? And Other Questions Teenage Wizards Have, Your Cauldron and You, and The Pureblood’s Guide to Expanding Your Estate. Before either had opened to the first page, however, Madam Pince appeared behind them.
The two Slytherins tried to hide the titles splayed across their table, but the librarian simply scoffed. “Gentlemen,” she said, placing two tiny anatomical models on the table. Without preamble, she cast an engorgement charm, causing the two models to grow until they’d reached life-size.
This is it, Draco thought. This is the moment I die of embarrassment. And I never even got to kiss Hermione Granger.
“I see you gentlemen have some questions about the way your body is changing and the urges you may be feeling,” she began.
Draco prayed that Peeves would show up to disrupt the library or for this corner of the castle to collapse; anything to get out of the conversation he feared was about to begin.
“I want to assure you that all of these feelings are normal. Now, Theodore, I’m afraid I can’t go into the same level of detail for you, but the mechanics are the same.”
Draco recognised the look of mortification on Theo’s face, as it no doubt mirrored the one on his own.
“Madam Pince, er, you don’t have to…” Draco began, but he was summarily silenced by an upturned hand.
“Mister Malfoy, Mister Nott, witches and wizards have been coming to the library to learn about this for years. Look at this nonsense,” she said, opening The Pureblood’s Guide to Expanding their estate to page three hundred and ninety-four. “‘She had to sit on the toilet some minutes waiting for the pee to come. Men, they were able to conjure it up immediately; that was one of their powers, that thunderous splashing as they stood lordly over the bowl. Everything about them was more direct; their insides weren’t the maze women’s were, for the pee to find its way through.’”
“I see where old Teddy got it from,” Draco and Theo both muttered.
Madam Pince continued as if she hadn’t heard them. “This is what happens when we let men write books! A maze down there, have you ever heard such nonsense? No, as you can see here, it’s quite direct. Now, Mister Malfoy—” she picked up the female model “—the clitoris…”
Some years later, Draco found himself in the same alcove, watching his wife hastily reapply lipstick and attempt to smooth her post-quickie hair.
“Honestly, Draco, I don’t know what came over you.”
“I told you this was where I had my sexual awakening,” he said, smirking at the memory.
Hermione looked cross. “You never told me you’d been with someone else.”
“Oh, I haven’t. But Theo and I had quite an enlightening conversation with Madame Pince here the day I asked you out.”
“No!” Hermione gasped. “She got to you, too?”
Draco laughed. “You got the talk?”
She shook her head. “No, but Ginny told me about the time she and Luna heard it.”
“Why do you think I’ve been campaigning for an actual sex education course at Hogwarts? You know I finally figured out how she did it. She had notification charms on all of the books that mentioned sex. She’d just ambush students as soon as they took the books from the shelves.”
“Well, remind me to thank her someday.”