one-shot

At first, she just saw it out of the corner of her eye as she passed it on her way through the empty common room. Unable to believe that she really had seen what she thought she saw, Daphne took a couple of steps backwards to have a closer look. There it was, lying on a table like it was just a random and completely innocent magazine. This one wasn't even remotely innocent.

Quickly, Daphne looked around to make sure the common room was still empty and that nobody had seen her looking, but there wasn't a single soul in sight. She looked back at the cover. The naked woman on it was writhing and making kissy motions at her.

Blushing brightly, Daphne picked up the magazine by the corner with just two fingers, as if it was something particularly filthy. She couldn't let it stay here for anybody to find. Especially the younger children. Now that she was a seventh year, Daphne felt a certain responsibility for her youngest housemates. She might not like them much, but they were still just children, and it was as if the Slytherin prefects couldn't really be counted on in that respect.

She wondered what to do about the magazine. Her wand was still on the little nightstand next to her bed. She had just come down to fetch her forgotten Herbology book, because she hadn't wanted to Summon it with magic in case she woke up the other girls. The fire had almost gone out, and the remaining embers wouldn't be enough to burn the magazine completely before morning. She couldn't just put it in the bin; anybody could fish it out from there.

Eventually, she decided to take it with her. She could hide it at the bottom of her trunk and then spell it away later when she was alone. Just to be on the safe side in case someone else was awake, she slipped it in between the pages of her Herbology book and hurried back to the dorm.

The light was out in the dorm; all the other girls were sleeping behind their bed curtains. Even so, Daphne kept an eye and an ear out for any sign of someone waking up as she hid the magazine at the bottom of her trunk. Even though they were all sleeping, she didn't want to risk them waking up by starting to do magic at this hour. She would rather no-one caught her with it. Hopefully, she would have the chance to get rid of it in private, sooner rather than later.

Safely under her duvet and with the bed curtains drawn shut, it was hard to fall asleep. Her thoughts kept returning to the magazine hidden in her trunk, and she had to remind herself that nobody knew it was there. It wasn't as if its presence somehow showed on the outside of the trunk. Mostly, the picture of the naked woman on the front just kept distracting her. Her saucy looks and kissy faces had looked so much like the act that Daphne just couldn't understand how anybody could find it enticing at all. To Daphne, it had just looked ridiculously exaggerated.

Still, the more she tried to think about something else and go to sleep, the more it haunted her thoughts and the more curious she became. It couldn't all be like that, could it? Daphne hadn't been oblivious to the existence of such magazines before, and the fact that they apparently sold rather well, but she had never seen one before, let alone had one in her possession. It just wasn't something that had ever interested her. How did such magazines even sell? What appeal could there possibly be to something so obviously vulgar? And, if it was that bad on the cover, then what was it like on the actual pages? Maybe she could take look, just the smallest of peeks, so she could find out and hopefully go to sleep again.

It was now or never. When she got the chance to get rid of it, she couldn't risk being caught looking in it first, and it would raise questions if she were to hide behind her bed curtains during the daylight hours. Now was the only time she could do it in relative safety. Daphne felt ashamed of herself for even considering it. Her mother would shout her ear off if she knew, and Daphne really ought to be sleeping now. She had double Arithmancy in the morning, which was difficult enough without the added complication of being sleepy. She wasn't sure how long she debated back and forth with herself, but the more she tried to stop and go to sleep, the more awake she felt, and the more curious she got. It didn't matter what she did at this point. She would still be exhausted in the morning. If she gave in rather than lie here speculating about it, she might actually get to sleep sooner.

Quietly, she crawled out of bed and tiptoed to her trunk. Moments later she was back in bed with the bed curtains pulled as tightly closed as she could and a handful of charms in place to make sure that no sound or glimpse of light could be heard or seen from the outside. She held her breath, waiting for any sound of the others waking up. There was nothing.

"Lumos," she whispered.

She knew her charms were consistently good and reliable, but she still couldn't make herself trust them completely in the current situation. Once again, she waited for any sound of the others stirring. Still nothing. Daphne breathed a sigh of relief. Now she could finally see for herself what all this fuss about dirty magazines was about and hopefully still get enough sleep to be able to follow tomorrow's classes.

Sitting on the top of the duvet with the magazine in front of her, Daphne spent a while just looking at the writhing woman on the cover in the light from her wand. She almost couldn't bring herself to touch it, much less open it. When she finally did, it turned out that the witch on the cover was nothing in terms of vulgarity compared to what was to be found between the pages. Daphne blushed bright red as she looked at the moving pictures of naked men and women. Nothing at all had been left to the imagination. Daphne nearly closed her eyes, unable to look at it.

She flipped a few pages, but it didn't get any better. It was mortifying to look at, but Daphne began to understand how it could sell. It was quite difficult to look away from. She had seen a naked man before, but she had never seen one who was sexually aroused. It wasn't anything she would call particularly pretty, but it was remarkably fascinating anyway, and it was causing her body to react, much against her will.

The last thing Daphne wanted was to admit to herself that this turned her on. Sex had never been something to occupy her mind an awful lot. The others her age all seemed to be curious to try it or bragging about having done so, but it seemed that Daphne was the only one who had never really thought that much about it. She thought it probably had something to do with the fact that none of the boys had ever shown even the slightest interest in her, and none of them had ever caught Daphne's fancy either. She told herself that the interest in sex would come once she met someone she thought she would like to do it with, or who would like to do it with her, but sometimes she just wondered if it meant there was something abnormal about her.

Turning a few more pages and looking at the pictures, Daphne frowned. Obviously these positions were for the benefit of the camera, to get as intimate a picture as possible. It looked horribly uncomfortable to everyone involved, but the people in the pictures didn't seem to be complaining. Maybe the pleasure made up for the discomfort? Daphne thought it was probably a question of the models pretending to be enjoying themselves more than they really were.

A few pages later, she came to some pictures of the same woman who was touching herself on the cover. Daphne had tried doing that a couple of times, wondering what the big deal was about. Sure, it had been kind of nice, but it hadn't really been all that special either. Certainly not something worth such a devotion of energy and interest as the other girls seemed to think. Of course, Daphne hadn't gone about it with the same sort of enthusiasm as this woman did. Perhaps she had done it wrong? Daphne studied the pictures. The first one showed the woman wearing only a pair of tiny knickers, and she was touching both her naked breasts with her hands.

Daphne hesitated for several minutes, before she finally decided that if she had been doing it wrong until now, then this was her only chance to figure out how to do it right. It would be her best chance to find out if there really was something wrong with her, and all she had to do was mimic the woman in the pictures.

Cautiously, Daphne checked her silencing charms and peeked out from behind her bed curtains. There was nothing amiss with the charms, and everybody was still sleeping. She would just do this, and then it would be best to go to sleep. It was probably already later than she had thought it would get. Quickly, she pulled her nightgown off. She didn't own knickers as small as the ones the woman was wearing, but that shouldn't make any difference. Daphne tried to position herself in the same way as the model, as best she could while still being able to see the magazine, and cupped her breasts with her hands. It didn't feel any different from touching any other part of her own body, and she had to resist the temptation to skip a few pictures ahead. If she had to do this, it ought to be done right. She just wondered how long she should continue with this before she could move on to the next picture, because frankly, it was getting a bit dull.

That had to be enough. Moving on to the next picture, Daphne moved one hand down over her stomach to touch between her legs. That felt a bit different, but it still didn't cause the sort of pleasure shown on the woman's face. That was definitely an act, then. It made this whole thing seem all the more vulgar, and for a while she wondered if she should just stop.

Her knickers had felt a bit damp when she had first touched them, and when she started rubbing lightly with her hand more of the dampness seeped through the material. She found it was also a rather nice feeling, and it made her stop considering giving up. Closing her eyes with a small sigh, she took a moment to just enjoy the sensation. It was already a better start than the previous few times she had experimented with herself this way. After a moment, she remembered that there were still several pictures left, and she forced herself to open her eyes and take a look.

In the next one, the woman's tiny knickers had disappeared, so Daphne removed hers as well. The mood was somewhat ruined by the distaste at the state they were in, and she was tempted to try doing something about it right away. What would the elves think when they found a pair of knickers in the laundry looking like this? What did the other girls do with their underwear when they had done this? Pushing it from her mind, she paid close attention to what the model was doing. She had spread her legs and was giving Daphne a prime view of her genitals. It looked like the picture was merely there to show them off, so Daphne moved on to the next one instead.

She moved her hand back between her legs, hesitating just a bit before actually touching. With her thighs further apart and her knickers removed, it was a much more direct touch than before. She gasped in surprise at the sensation. How strange that her own fingers could do this. Finally, she was beginning to understand the allure of sex. If her own hands could make her feel this way, then how would it be if it were someone else's fingers?

There weren't any boys in Slytherin her own age that she would ever dream of allowing to touch her like this, but maybe in one of the other Houses? That Ravenclaw, Terry Boot, who sat just in front of her in Arithmancy class, for example. Daphne had never spoken to him, but he didn't seem to be as hostile towards Slytherins in general as some of the others were. Mostly, it seemed like he just ignored them. He had nice hands too, masculine, but not too large.

Daphne circled a fingertip around her nub as she thought about him and tried to imagine that it was his fingers doing that and not her own. The magazine and the woman in it were quite forgotten. Instinctively, she changed the movements of her fingers, increasing the pressure, and experimented with what felt nice. It wasn't until her middle finger slipped further down to the entrance of her vagina that she stopped. Even in the darkness and privacy of her own bed, she could feel her cheeks turning hot. She wasn't entirely certain that she was ready to stick anything in there. Remembering the magazine, she removed her hand and picked it up. It looked like she hadn't been too far off the mark, and she skipped several pictures ahead. Her eyes widened as she saw the second to last picture. There was no way she was ever going to be trying to fit her entire hand in there, and absolutely nothing was going to be stuck up her bum, ever!

Shuddering, she closed the magazine and pulled her nightgown back on before tiptoeing back to her trunk to hide it at the bottom again. Maybe it was a good thing that she hadn't bothered to look through all the pictures before she had started. At least she had got this much out of it. She was on the right track.

It had come as a surprise to her, how easy it had been to forget everything around her and everything concerning that dirty magazine once she had started imagining someone else's hands on her body. Daphne couldn't figure out if it was just because the idea of someone wanting to touch her like that was appealing or if it had something to do with Boot specifically. His face seemed to be haunting her thoughts now. Just because none of the boys had ever caught her interest before, it didn't mean that she had never thought about what made a man attractive. Boot had nice hands, and he had friendly looking eyes. Especially when he smiled.

She sighed, thinking about that smile as her fingertip circled her nub again. Until that moment, she hadn't even realised that her hand had snuck inside the clean knickers she had put on. She felt a little guilty, knowing that she ought to go to sleep, but it seemed to be impossible to move her hand away now. Just the thought of stopping now made her feel inexplicably frustrated. Terry's face and Terry's hands and Terry's eyes and Terry's smiling mouth kept swimming in her mind as pressure started building and finally released. When had she started thinking of him by his first name, she wondered as she lay quietly afterwards catching her breath, and more importantly, how was she going to get through Arithmancy class tomorrow, sitting right behind him and looking at those small hairs at the back of his neck that she really wished she could reach out and touch? She just knew she was going to be unable to look him in the face. She was going to be blushing like an idiot from the moment she saw him, and then he would guess. It was bound to be a humiliating experience.

On the other hand, Daphne knew that he would be unlikely to look at her at all. Why would he want to do that? She was just another Slytherin to be ignored and not a particularly pretty or memorable one at that. Closing her eyes, she wrapped the blanket closer around her, willing herself to go to sleep. It wasn't as if she had any reason to believe that he might suddenly decide that she was worth talking to, so there was no reason to be worried. Her secret would be safe. It was just strange how the idea of status quo could be so disappointing when she had never even considered it before. She wished she possessed the courage to approach him, if there was any chance he might have bothered with her at all.

Fin.

A/N: This is kinda partly in a way built on Daphne Greengrass as I play her at OneAV RPG on Livejournal, except this doesn't really fit as real backstory for her there at all, since I don't believe that particular incarnation of Daphne ever did this.