#whfp

“Okay, but what does that have to do with me?” She raised an eyebrow. “The hat didn’t call my name, now did it?”

Severus stopped and turned to face her with a smug expression. “Indeed. However, as my apprentice, you are obliged to carry out tasks that I set aside for you. Trying to impart such delicate information to immature cretins is something I refuse to do alone.”

Sighing, she nodded in resignation. “Okay, but why am I only hearing about this now? Wouldn’t it have been better if we’d done some sort of preparation?”

“What is there to prepare?” he asked dryly, “Ah, good they are here.”

Heather walked through the door after him and almost froze in shock. What seemed like the entire population of students, from the first to seventh years, were seated in the room, which had probably been expanded for this very purpose.

She caught Severus’ arm and pulled him closer. “The lecture isn’t for all the students, is it?” she hissed, “That’s just preposterous! What we’d need to teach 11-year-olds and 17-year-olds are totally different!

Severus sneered, crossing his arms. “Blame the sodding Ministry. This was not my idea at all. Fortunately, in future years we will only need to give the talk to the first years.”

Heather didn’t know how they were going to pull this off, let alone next year’s.

“Attention!” Severus said, not even bothering with a Sonorus. The whole room quietened, knowing better than to cross their Potions Master. “As you are no doubt aware, this lecture is focussed on sexuality education.” A few snickers sounded. Severus glared around, cowing everyone into silence.

“Make no mistake. This is not sexeducation orsexualeducation. Surely even you lot can fumble through that yourselves without me to hold your hand through it.”

Heather had to stifle a laugh at the innuendo, knowing Severus must have said it on purpose, despite his straight face. She could see a few students half-disturbed and half-amused by their strictest Professor saying anything even remotelysuggestive.

“We will begin with basic anatomy.” Severus produced a large scientific diagram with both the male and female human body, parts annotated clearly. He ignored the sudden chatter for about a minute, before shushing them all.

“We will begin with the male body. Pre-puberty, the testicles are less than 4 millilitres in volume.” The image of the testicles on the diagram lit up. “Puberty is the period in an adolescent’s life when they undergo changes to their body for sexual maturation. Theoretically, after puberty the person is a fully mature adult. Of course, I know this is rarely the case.” He stared pointedly at the seventh and sixth years, who fidgeted in their seats.

“In males, puberty begins with the enlargement of the testicles, typically beyond 4 millilitres. They experience an increase in height and muscle mass. Some pubic hair will grow around the groin. Thereafter, their penises grow in length and their voice breaks and begins to deepen. They begin to grow facial and axillary hair.”

As Severus described the changes that occur through puberty, the diagram changed as well. Up until the picture of the boy became a man.

He then went on to describe the development of females in a similar manner. Though Heather noticed the girls looked a tad discomfited at having a male teacher teach them this.

She was rather impressed that Severus knew that much about this subject, though. She probably wouldn’t have been able to give this much detail, and so clinically, too.

“If you have any questions thus far, you may direct them to Miss Potter.”

Surprised at being called, she straightened to attention. She placed an encouraging smile on her face, stepping forward to receive questions.

A few hands were raised, mostly from boys. There were a few girls that she saw seemed to want to ask something, but were too shy to.

“What does axillary mean?” a third year Gryffindor asked.

Heather gave Severus a look, wordlessly suggesting that he stay away from scientific jargon for the remainder of his lecture. “It is the scientific name for the armpit region. Next?”

Most of the questions were simple and easy to explain. Eventually, she managed to get the shyer kids to speak up as well. The older students, on the other hand, were beginning to fall asleep.

Severus then moved on to explain the mechanics of intercourse and reproduction, speaking so dryly that not even the most rambunctious of students were able to make any dirty jokes.

In fact, some of them were looking rather disturbed by how boring Severus was able to make sex sound.

“Poor Miss Potter. The bat can’t be very satisfying in bed if this is how he’s like. I bet his idea of foreplay is reading a Potions journal.”

Because she was closer to students, she was able to hear the snide whisper from one of the sixth years. Though she didn’t put it past Severus go have heard it anyway. He had ears as sharp as, well, a bat.

Far from being offended, Heather was beyond amused. She certainly had no complaints about her lover’s prowess in bed, not that it was any business of her students’.

She didn’t if know what people said about men with big noses was correct, since a single anecdotal case wasn’t exactly robust evidence, but suffice to say these boys were reallyoff the mark.

Shaking her head, she banished the train of thought from her mind. A classroom was hardly an appropriate place to be thinking of such things.

“We will now be covering our last main topic. Menstruation. Sometimes referred to as monthly bleeding or periods. You will find, of course, that not every person’s menstrual cycle is the common 28 days. Each person’s body varies, so naturally no two cycles are exactly the same.”

A group of boys began making a ruckus. One foolhardy one amongst them stood up with a defiant tilt to his chin. “Why do we have to sit here and listen to this? It’s gross, girly stuff! Sir.”

The female yearmates sitting around the group all pinned their collective ire on them. Heather foresaw that these idiots wouldn’t be enjoying the next few months. It was when she saw some younger girls hunch in on themselves, ashamed, that she wanted to throttle the boys herself though. Puberty was difficult enough without ignorant people making them feel embarrassed about their own bodies.

Severus got to them before she could.

“Farley,” Severus intoned lowly. The single word was enough to make the boy pale and look regretful of his decision to speak. “Tell me, do you have a mother, sisters, aunts, any females close to you?”

The boy, Dorian Farley, looked back to his friends for help, but none of them dared to meet his eyes. Heather resisted the urge to scoff. Typical.

“Answer the question!”

Farley jumped, visibly gulping. “Y-yes, sir.”

She nodded to herself. The boy was a middle child, with two sisters. One of whom had been in the same year as Rian and the other, a third year sitting right in this very room.

“Tell me then, why you would disparage a natural process that occurs in most women, a process, I might add, that was crucial to your very existence? Any reason other than pure ignorance and selfishness, of course.”

His younger sister, Bella Farley, was glaring daggers across the room at him, eyes promising some sort of retribution. The girl was a spitfire, Heather knew.

“Well, don’t keep us all waiting, Farley. Surely you have a good reason to dismiss this heavy burden placed on women everywhere by nature. Perhaps you do not deem it necessary to learn more because you do not respect the hardship they have to face on a regular basis and you have no intention of doing what you can to ease the struggle?”

A few moments passed before Farley realized that Severus really wouldwait for his answer before continuing. The combined stares of everyone in the room might have done the trick as well.

“N-nothing, Professor. I don’t have a good reason. Sorry.” His words all but slurred together as he forced them out, face burning red. He sat down hard enough that a ‘thump’ echoed through the room.

Severus continued to Lookat Farley for a moment more, before stating, “Now, as I was saying…”

No one made a peep during the rest of the lecture, especially not the boys.

By the end of it all, Severus was on the receiving end of multiple starry-eyed gazes, not the least of which was her own. He had made himself something of a hero, with his passionate speech. On the menstrual cycle, of all things.

He had always been considerate of her during her periods – understanding when she felt a little moodier and not holding it against her, casually handing her a hot bottle charmed to remain at a perfect temperature, even handfeeding her chocolate, on some memorable occasions.

“If any of you have any personal questions that you don’t feel comfortable asking now, please feel free to arrange a meeting with either of us, or submitting a note if that is easier for you.” Heather said, as Severus wrapped up the lesson.

Heather beamed up at Severus as the last student filed out. “You did a wonderful job! I barely even needed to do anything! I don’t know why you insisted I be here.”

Her lover turned his back to her to pack up his diagrams and models, not saying a word.

Pursing her lips, she pondered over his behaviour. A delighted smile took over her face. “You were nervous!”

“Of course not!” he rebutted, too quickly. He faced her with an indignant frown. “I was- concerned, that I would not be able to instruct them properly. I’m not the first person anyonewould go to for matters of such a delicate nature.” He ended his sentence with a deprecating twist to his lips.

She shook her head fondly, going up to wrap her arms around him. “Severus, believe me when I say that you handled that excellently. The only thing I would find fault with is your use of too-complicated language. If you had perhaps dumbed down your words a little, then it would have been perfect.”

“It went better than I expected, I admit.”

“Oh come on, that’s an understatement if I ever heard one. You’ve amassed quite a following amongst the female student,” she said teasingly, “And who could blame them? You were quite thorough in your advocation for menstrual cycle awareness. My gentleman.”

Pink dusted over Severus’ cheeks. “Nonsense.”

Giggling, Heather leaned up to peck his lips. “I’m not joking. And I really am impressed with your lecture. You really got them to take the topic seriously. There were hardly any dirty jokes at all! Well, aside from your own, of course.”

Severus rolled his eyes. “Well, at any rate I’m glad that’s over.”

“Mmh. I’d say you deserve some reprieve after all that. Why don’t we head back to our quarters and just relax.” She lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “Don’t worry, I can do all the work.”