Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The news of Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley breaking up has been in the press every day for a week. Everyone’s been talking about it. The little old receptionist at work, the sisters that run the bakery I frequent, even Thorfinn has been eating up all the tidbits of info and regurgitating them to me fully aware of my goddamn triggers.

The blond oaf was banished from my vicinity days ago and hadn’t stopped sending me little notes of apologies, even a well-mannered howler when I stopped answering the phone altogether, stopped going out save for muggle locations, and took the rest of the week off from work. I made sure to see my mind-healer so a written excuse would be sent for the time off. 

I did not want to go back to Azkaban.

It had been three years of freedom and I largely avoided news about the Granger girl’s life save for an article about research here, some side note about her friendship with Potter there. I can handle that.

But this..this circus has riled me up and sent me into an agitated state. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I’d start drinking again if it weren’t for that compulsion charm Thorfinn helped me with to keep me from drowning myself in alcohol. The little girl that bravely silenced me and thwarted the full wrath of my spell is a grown woman now. 

Everyone could see she was a genius, yet no one seemed to make her feel like she was anything other than a book with legs. She was a gorgeous woman now. A natural beauty. Not plain , or shabby, or whatever nonsense shit they said about her. The research she did on the cruciatus curse’s effects on the magical human body led to the finding of a series of medicinal elixirs that combated the lingering tremors, spasms, and convulsions many people were experiencing post-war. This was before she had even taken her N.E.W.T.S!

Hermione Granger was everything .

At my worst, I absorbed every detail I could about her. Got some of the junior wardens to spill about what it was like to go to school with her. The obsession grew and a frantic monster crawled the earth with my skin and bones over it.

I managed to tame my nonsensical fixation on her - its not like I wanted to fuck her, or kill her or both. Anymore . I just wanted to know more..more..more.

With the break up came news that the Weasley boy was fucking around.

I shrugged at that. Who didn’t see that coming? He was the one who left them in the woods, the pressure too much for him. Of course her brilliance was too bright for him. Stupid boy. The photo of him and his new, incredibly pregnant girlfriend was…well, I do not care for it. Folding their photo out of the way to look at the countless images of her.

The little corkboard Thorfinn gave me to help me organize my life right out of the clink was now littered with photos of this curly-haired witch and her sad brown eyes. There was one in which she was being hounded so much by the photographer, she scowled and began hitting him with her purse.

I pinned that one in the middle. 

Rage is more potent than sadness. It's a better look on her.

I waited a week to calm down, alas every little movement by her or that red-headed shitfuck was tracked and paraded out into the public view. The writers of The Prophet were undoubtedly the very best at what they do, yeah? 

Yeah, right. 

The paper was sent to me religiously every morning and the coins traveling from my hand to the pouch at the owl’s ankle - were a terribly unhinged tithing on my part. I should have stopped them coming immediately. It was too late now, my fixation had grown to a bit of a boiling point.

I looked at my makeshift shrine to her and the one where I could clearly see her freckles and sad, brown eyes going downcast just before she hid her face with some hideous brown pocketbook. I wanted to see her. No, needed to see her. I needed to see how she was really doing. What was she really up to in spite of all this emotional upheaval? The papers weren’t saying anything about her research. Nothing about the marvelous workings of her brain and her compassionate heart. 

She was a lovely woman, maybe too good for any man much less me - 3 years of clean living with very little to show for all of my freedom and ‘good citizenship’.

I rake my fingers through my hair while my leg bounces with anxiety borne of self-restraint. I’ve been holding myself in place since Monday. Adhering to the routine I made for myself when I got out. 

I practically feel myself internally ticking off on my fingers each thing I do to survive the fucking day.

• Wake up with the dawn
• Exercise to get the blood moving. 
• Shower with the possibility of a quick romance with myself.
• Read the paper with a good breakfast. 
• Work from 9-5 because Dolly Parton.

“They just use your mind

And they never give you credit

It's enough to drive you

Crazy if you let it.”

• Lunch break by the river.
• Straight home for dinner during the week, dinner with Little Brother on the weekends. 
• Read before bed most nights.

The awareness of maintaining sanity was enough to make me lose my fucking shit. Like a dog on a tether in the yard just running in circles.

My feet carried me out into the garden, and I shoved my fists in my pockets, gritting my teeth. Word on the street was that she had moved to a new flat somewhere in muggle London leaving the old one to that shitfuck Weasley.

It was only a matter of time before the location was leaked - so many angry old men and widows of angry old men. No one dared to touch her. Sure, she was practically covered in as many death threats as bees covered the little purple blooms on my monstrously untamed rosemary bush. Yet, she seemed untouchable to everyone… except her own.

My fists scrunched up tighter in my pockets.

I walked back into my house and then had to go back outside. 

“Too fucking small for me. Outside! Outside .”

I breathed in deeply, held onto it until my blood pulsed, then released the air in a long whoosh through my lips. A gust of wind blew my hair into my eyes and across my face. 

“ Fuck . Fuck it. Fuck.”

Three quick strides, the slamming open of my little white picket fence and I waited for it to close properly before I spun in place and popped out of existence. Away from the salted air and blowing winds towards the all encompassing smells of the city.

I left the alley and walked through the din of people returning home from work. Through the quiet clanking of dinner in that flat, and that one, and the rising laugh of a group of people sharing a roast in the flat down the way, the scent of it heavy in the air.

It was the trace of my magic that guided my feet to her, to her sunshine yellow door with the cat-shaped welcome mat. My hand splayed out in the air in front of me, feeling the weave of her magic with the tinge of my own running lightly yet hotly in the background. My magic was electric, alive, decisive and hers felt like trying to punch through sand. It was sluggish with sadness. When I pushed, my hand sunk in, the energy enveloped my hand and it wasn’t about to let me out so easily. I nodded to myself as I tested it for any weaknesses, finding the hedge that bordered her building to be a huge oversight. I cannot help but mutter to myself.

“She was distraught and in a hurry. Tsk tsk . Still. This is no good, umnitsa .”

I sussed out my magic from the weave with determination and pulled . A quick finite and there was a hole big enough in the wards for me to climb through the hedge and onto her property without feeling like a direwolf in a tarpit. I turned to the hedge, pushing her magic into it to bolster her wards, adding mine only where things were weakest. I bobbed my head, gave it a shrug - I felt proud of my work and looked up at the side windows as I made my way to the back door. I wasn’t worried about anyone seeing me. 

This late in the day, everyone is showering or making dinner or just coming home. 

I waited through the sounds of late day birdsong in the dying remnants of sunshine and listened for any movements in the house.

Nothing.

I turned the handle to her back door and slid in quietly past a stack of boxes marked ‘Cookbooks 1-4’.

I study the stack of boxes in the kitchen with all the muggle appliances piled up, the selection of books in her living room, I water her geranium in the living room as it looks beat up and rather poorly.

She’s not home. I walked upstairs, noting the ones that squeaked and wandered into her bathroom. I smell her lotion, I lift the cap from her perfume and close my eyes to imagine her lifting her hair to put it up - a waft of vanilla floating over towards me as I watch her. I look under the sink and find everything neat and tidy. An orderly drawer of feminine hygiene products, a drawer of chaos filled with curl gel, butter, hair serums, handmade potions no doubt used to tame her lion’s mane.

I look at the hair in her brush and debate satisfying some other curiosities using polyjuice… I shake my head and talk myself down.

“No no..madness dwells there, my friend.”

I turned on her shower to check her water pressure, finding it lacking, so I threw a couple of charms to boost it without costing her in utilities. I debated a hot water charm, but those can be finicky sometimes and I did not wish to chance being a party to 2nd or 3rd degree burns. I threw a drying spell at her tub and headed for her bedroom.

The bedroom is bright with the last light of day, creamy with sheer, lacy curtains and a bohemian style rug. The bed is on a short four poster frame with very little underneath in case I need a quick place to hide. I opened her nightstand, careful to not knock over the vase of orange tulips, finding something wrapped in a shirt of some kind. I picked it up - curiosity getting the best of me and noted the heft with furrowed brow. 

“The fuck is this?” I speak to the empty room, maybe to the item itself.

 Upon unwrapping it on the bed I find a girthy, flesh-toned dildo crafted with startling realism and I hope to all that is fucking holy that its not some transfigured recreation of the Weasel’s cock.

I wrap it all back up and place it back in the drawer, closing it up without judgment, though my mind rattles with deviant delight. I squint my eye in reflex and suck at my teeth.

Walking towards her closet since the door is already ajar, I find a meticulously tidy array of clothes and shoes. A long drawer is open filled with lacy underthings in every sort of neutral colouring. The drawer below it is the same except in various red hues.

Gods, she is particular.  

From what I’ve heard of the oaf who broke her heart, I wonder how they ever became a love match?

I shake my head as I replace the door to its original positioning and stand facing the bedroom in thought.

I move to the foot of the bed, crossing my arms. It smells sleepy and soft here. Some part of me wants to take all of my clothes off, and crawl into her sheets and fuck the dent in her pillow. Maybe cum between pillow and case and leave it like that for her head to rest on? I wonder if she’d be more likely to dream of me then?

Fuck. Now I’m hard.

I tilt my head up to the ceiling and stare at the rosette in the middle of it.

I laughed then, remembering something I read regarding roses on ceilings in rooms where secrets were shared. That one certainly carried a great deal of secrets including my presence in her home.

I adjust my cock in my jeans - considering once again maybe just fucking something in her house without her knowledge. I raise my hand to my forehead and smack it a few times.

“Shut up, you imp. I will not do these things.”

Just then - the tell-tale sound of a key in a lock and I drop to the ground beside her bed to slide underneath. I hear the quick stomp of her feet, the creaking of the stairs, and then the soft padding as she walks on her bedroom carpet. 

I blink at the wooden slats under her mattress as I listen to her mutter to herself. She sounds frustrated and I wonder if she ran into her idiot ex while she was out? Shouldn’t her friends- that Potter - be saving her from that?

A blouse hits the floor, followed by some pants and then she’s out the door towards her bathroom. The water goes on and I can hear some humming from the other room. It sounds familiar enough that I slide out from under the bed, and creep up closer to the closed door.

The humming continues and then suddenly she’s belting out lyrics  between splashes of water.

“Come on and tell me what you told my friends if you think you're brave enough

And I'll show you what a real woman is since you think you're hot stuff

You'll bite off more than you can chew if you get too cute or witty

You better move your feet if you don't wanna eat a meal that's called Fist City!”

I can’t help but nod and smile to myself. 

I think about the dim prisoner in the cell next to mine early on during the trials. He was only there for a month maybe. The story he told me about this girl and her right hook in the face of that pompous Malfoy boy. Too bad she didn’t get a chance to punch Lucius in the fucking face, too. 

She’ll be alright. 

I push off from the wall and decide to give her space. I head down the stairs and turn towards the kitchen when something catches my eye.

Sitting on the couch is the small, ethereal girl who was there during the battle in the Department of Mysteries and also locked up for some time in the Malfoy dungeons. She turns slowly to look at me curiously.

She half smiles as her eyes trail down my body. The move makes me uneasy, and I look to the back door as I consider doing a runner. She moves to rest her arm on the back of the couch and blinks once her head rests on her hand. I remember the looks on some of my brother’s faces, confusion and introspection were the effect this one had on anyone who spent too much time with her.

There were women in the village back home that had this effect, and I’d just prefer not to have that distraction right now. I raise my hand and point my finger upwards, but it doesn’t stop her airy voice.

“She doesn’t really like shoes in her house.”

I blink. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that .

I lift my foot as if that would help the situation I found myself in and I hear the water shut off upstairs.

“I’ll be right there, Luna!”

Her voice shakes me and the fairy girl smiles before speaking quietly to him, divulging secrets.

“She should be home just before midnight. She calls it ‘Pumpkin Time’.”

I nod, scratching my beard lightly and my body turns away from this strangeness involuntarily. My hand finds the back door and I close it quietly behind me, slinking through the wards like a ghost with my mind full of questions.

Chapter Text

After much pacing through my house and yard for hours and hours, I decide to drop in an hour before this ‘Pumpkin Time’ as she calls it. I easily slide through the wards, finding her house dark save for a light in the living room. I take off my shoes, shrinking them before placing them in my pockets, and head upstairs.

The guest room is on the back end of the upper floor, overlooking the backyard and smells like night blooming jasmine. I notice the overgrowth around the window frame and pick one of the flowers through the open window and hold it under my nose. 

My mother used to tell me that jasmine listened to your heart of hearts and if you were in need, it would somehow make it all work out.

I amble down the hall towards her bedroom, past the faint cloud of humidity and a clean shampoo smell coming from her earlier shower, and carefully lean on the bed to smell her pillow. Vanilla mingled with the sleepy, warm scent of her and that shampoo she uses. Nothing of note, just a fresh, clean scent.

The jasmine flower is small and delicate between my fingers. I twist it in thought, parsing out what I would even ask for, and decide on leaving it up to the flower. I don’t dare insert myself more than I already have, and on that note, I spend a minute wondering what the fuck I’m even doing here and then another wondering where she is as I look at my watch in the streetlight pouring through the opaque curtain and see that it is getting closer to ‘Pumpkin Time’.

I whisper closer to the face of the star-shaped bloom then place it under her pillow.

“I leave it to you, Zhasmin .”

Some time goes on where I sit in the dark of her room with my back against her nightstand. I’m not thinking about anything in particular, just waiting for this woman to come home safely after a night out with that strange little witch.The sound of the lock makes me alert and I listen for her feet on the stairs before sliding under her bed.

I hear her stumble and mutter a few curse words and then her bare feet with their red, angry lines from her shoes are right within reach. I want to massage them back to happiness, they look uncomfortable. 

No cushion charm? Tsk tsk…

She rummages through a bag presumably, and then there is an electronic chirping as she dials numbers slowly.

I recognize it as a mobile phone since Thorfinn was adamant we have them to stay in touch. I haven’t turned mine on in days now that I think of it…

“Luna? It’s me, I’m home safe. Yeah I’m headed for bed. Domovoy? Luna, I don’t - A piece of bread and some chicken?”

She sighs and I listen intently. 

“Ok. I’ve got to wash my face and then maybe I can get back down the stairs safely. Ok. Goodnight. GOODNIGHT!”

She puts the mobile in her purse, I hear it clatter against all the minutiae in there and then she starts speaking.

“Ok, Domovoy. I didn’t know that was a thing, but Luna is.. perceptive . That’s the word I’ll use. I need to sober up just a little and then I’ll put your chicken sandwich on the table in the kitchen. Gods, I hope this doesn’t attract ants.”

She clicks on the lamp on her nightstand, a soft flump of her clothes hitting her closet door and then she pads out to the loo.

Water runs, she drops the lid to something.

I hear her pee and try to think about other things to give her some privacy. 

Then she heads downstairs after the water runs again and is gone for several minutes before she makes her way back upstairs muttering to herself about sandwiches.

She comes to bed and I watch the mattress frame move as she gets comfortable. 

Once she is asleep, I will leave.

Instead she tosses and turns.

She leans over the side of the bed and I scrunch in tightly towards the center, not knowing if she is looking for something where I am. The drawer to her nightstand opens and shuts and the fabric that covered her sexual..aid… is tossed to the floor. My eyes widened as I realized what was about to happen. She whispers a cleaning charm on it, the clatter of her wand on the wooden table follows suit and I hold my breath as I listen to her breathing change and the tell-tale sound of wetness as she….

Fuck. I shouldn’t be here. This is too private. Who is she thinking of, I wonder? 

I think I blacked out at some point from holding my breath. I know what I heard and I know at some point, I touched the underside of the bed to feel the subtle vibrations of her. Any more detail than that is totally lost to the night around us. It was too overwhelming. 

The moment I heard soft sniffling and the sounds of her crying, my brow furrowed. Why was she crying?

Did the alcohol wear off and make her maudlin? 

Or was it loneliness?

I wanted to hold her hand, no, not that one. Maybe I just wanted to hold her as I listened to her cry in the dark until she stilled and her breathing evened out into sleep.

Did she really just make me a sandwich, pleasure herself and then cry herself to sleep?

This is not healthy.  I wait for her to sleep deep enough that I can slide out from my hiding space and sure enough on the table downstairs, a perfectly made chicken sandwich sits in wait for me. The Domovoy.

I shake my head at these little witches and move the sandwich to a napkin, clean the plate and put it on the dish rack. I unshrink my shoes on her back step and walk slowly down the street towards home while eating.

It was a good idea, this sandwich. I have so much on my mind from the day’s surprising twists and turns and I forgot to eat.

Chapter Text

It took me two days to go back to her. I went back to my Magical Forestry Service job the very next day. The Forest of Dean was waiting for me with late-season wildflowers and an alder tree full of Bowtruckles that had moved in while I was away. Two days of diplomatic relations with them by way of foraging for woodlice for half the first day and then offering the feast to them, deciphering the squeaking enough to know they were happy where they were and certainly not moving any time soon, and then a full day spent picking up any trash in the immediate area while they sassed me from the branches.

Turning to them with a gloved hand pointing in their direction, I give them a piece of my mind. I feel like my Mama when my little sister and I would cause a mess in the midst of her cleaning the house.

“I am not a fool, you know? I do not believe for a second that this is how someone should be treated after giving you so many goodies.”

I return to my task of picking up trash and pluck a bit of newspaper debris from the leaf litter, instantly recognizing the corner of her face on it. All things are held in pause as I make the realization and study her features. She looks directly at the camera and then turns her face away.

The scent of her room, of her pillow, the gentle rocking of her bed and her breathy sighs, the sound of her crying in the dark - all of it comes back to me and my heart feels tautly held in my chest. I didn’t think I held so much of her from that night in my mind. 

I scarcely notice the quietude of the bowtruckles as they watch me sink into my thoughts.

A thin branch with several alder leaves is tucked into my front right shirt pocket by one of the older twiglings and my vision clears enough to cradle them with my empty hand.

The creature, settled neatly against my fingers, points at the picture with a surprisingly clear look of curiosity.

“She is…”

I’m not sure how to word it and if the creature would even truly understand. I mean, I have read about Newt Scamander and his adventures with his bowtruckle - there is an intelligence there. I turn the photo towards the creature who studies it with genuine interest.

“She is someone I know to be heartsick and I selfishly wish to be the source of her happiness somehow.”

I swallow and fold up the piece of paper, tucking it into my left pocket, close to my heart with a gentle pat.

“I cannot be that person for her, so I just watch her.”

The bowtruckle seems to pat my hand and point to the branch it gave me then to the pocket holding her torn image. I take a minute or two to decide if that is a good idea - it doesn’t take much to make me want to see her again. To smell her, to check on her well-being. I will be her Domovoy once more. Maybe just once more. Who am I fucking kidding?

“When I am near her, I forget everything else. I might be gone for a few days.”

The twigling shrugs and points to the tree.

“Yes. Yes. I will put you back so you do not have to walk far. Thank you for the pep-talk, though I feel like you are encouraging my bad behaviors.”

I gently helped the bowtruckle back onto the tree with the rest of its family and before I could finish my walk back to the outpost to let my supervisor know I was calling it a day, a broad blockade presented itself to me by lifting me off the ground in a bear hug.

“Dolly! I’ve missed you, man! You’re at work and I’m proud of you for that!”

I groan at a particularly big squeeze, fearing for my fucking ribs.

“Thorfinn, put me down! Why - fuck, put me down, you beautiful mudak !”

The rather large, blond man wearing a “Troublemaker” tee shirt finally set my feet down on the ground. He was all smiles as he squeezed my shoulders.

“You know me, Dolls, I can’t help it when I see a man in uniform.”

He gave me a devilish smirk and I could only shake my head, gesturing down the path towards the tree. 

“It was a good thing I came back. Some bowtruckles moved in and they needed someone to check on them. They should be well-adjusted in a few days or so if you want to meet them.”

I loved seeing Thorfinn’s eyes light up as they were now. Childish joy on any of our faces after the shit we’d seen and done..hell, after Azkaban for any length of time. It was a treasure. Priceless . His excitement was palpable.

“What are they like? Should I bring them anything?”

I look at the outpost, just within view and think of the wild-haired witch I wanted to see. I nod, and gesture for him to follow me over. I pull open one of the lower drawers and remove a clean jar with a lid.

“They really enjoy snacking on woodlice, or woodpigs, or whatever the fuck people call them. I will call you when it is a good time for a visit, alright?”

The excessively broad-shouldered, heavily illustrated man held the jar with one hand, practically hiding it from view with his large paw.

I untie the bandana I sometimes wear around my head when it’s a bit warm out, shaking it with a simultaneous scourgify before wiping my face.

“Too much time off, I am suddenly unprepared for the amount of work the forest provides.”

I try to laugh it off before cleaning the cloth again and tucking it into my back pocket.

It doesn’t escape my notice that my friend looks at me warily though he smiles with me. I don’t want to talk about any of it, but I recognize that he does. 

I bend down to write in the ledger on the desk, letting my boss know I am leaving - the charm between the ledgers in the various outposts and the main headquarters really doing me a favor.

“Ok, I need to lock up. Have you eaten?”

I fiddle with my keys till I find the right one for the door and turn it three times to settle the concealment charm for any muggle hikers.

When I’m done, I see Thorfinn fiddling with the lid on the jar somewhat nervously.

“Isn’t it a bit early to be closing down, Dolly?”

I give him an unamused look.

“My mind healer said I should honor my limits right now. My boss knows the score. I’m old and tired and I’m headed towards food. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, Thorfinn. Give me a fucking break.”

The man has the decency to raise his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Okay! I hear ya, Dolls. I found this new place, their sandwiches are fucking amazing. You ever had pickled onions?”

I throw my head back and laugh.

“Pickled vegetables is how we survived all those harsh winters! Show me this sandwich place, I could use some nostalgia.”

A cold fizzy drink, slow roasted pork and garishly magenta-coloured pickled onions was just what I needed. For a couple hours it felt like the days before the printed press induced mental break. We laughed about Thorfinn’s most recent disaster dates and the one good one he’d had and I was grateful to not be in that scene for the time being. There was no hope for me there, no one was as intelligent as her.

Eventually, we went our separate ways with reinstated promises that I would call him when it was safe to visit with the Bowtruckles. I could never deny him that.

I showered, allowed myself a 20 minute kip and spun away towards a hidden corner in her back garden. I casually walk through our wards, and across the yard, hearing music in an open window. I peek through the windows on the side of the house, not seeing her in the living room and assume she’s in the kitchen or upstairs maybe.

I open the door under a silencing charm, disillusioning myself as I close the door carefully. Stacks of books litter the rug, the couch, and perch most precariously on the seat of a tufted velvet chair.

Giving the scene a gallic shrug, I hear her singing in the kitchen, my feet walking round the couch towards her siren’s call..

“You waltz right in the door

Just like you've done before

And wrap my heart 'round your little finger..”

One of her dainty feet touches the kitchen floor, while her other leg is bent, resting on the countertop to give her a bit of leverage for putting away dishes.

  “Here you come again

Just when I'm about to make it work without you

You look into my eyes

And lie those pretty lies

And pretty soon I'm wonderin' how I came to doubt you..”

The lyrics don’t register as I’m pinned on the spot watching her inelegantly prop her leg up, and All the Saints above , the oversized light blue shirt she’s wearing, hikes up her legs. I’m fucking done for. I can’t tell if I find it so adorable how tiny she is - why doesn’t she have a step-ladder?  

I make a mental note to get her one, then scratch it off the list as I look at the expanse of her legs and imagine myself behind her with my hand guiding her leg to rest on the counter to give me access. It puts her in the perfect height for me.

I can tell because I’ve moved dangerously close to her.

“Here you come again

Lookin' better than a body has a right to

And shakin' me up so

That all I really know is here you come again

And here I go

All you got to do is smile that smile

And there go all my defenses

Just leave it up to you and in a little while

You're messin' up my mind and fillin' up my senses..”

Then she kneels fully on the counter, though there isn’t much space on it for her because of the depth of the cabinets. She lifts a large mixing bowl, blue with roosters and sheaves of wheat to the uppermost shelf and I shake my head. She bends at the waist and I swallow a groan and I find myself gripping the edge of the sink as I see a peek of her plain cotton panties. I swallow thickly, imagining breathing her in, my warm lips on the back of her inner thigh, the bruising grip of my fingers on her hips.

She’s stopped singing in her concentration to not fall off the edge and Dolly Parton’s voice weaves about us. I blink away my delicious dreamings to watch her struggle bug her way through this.

Has she forgotten she is a witch? 

I wonder idly, my gaze still locked on her legs and then her reddened knees as she drops one leg down to the floor, stretching till her toes make contact and then her other leg comes off the counter. She seems to admire her work and I put the step-ladder back on the list of things to get my króshka who forgets she can levitate things to higher places or even transfigure the counters and cabinets to be a bit lower for her use.

She turns towards the sink with an empty glass in hand and I step out of the way in time for her to refill it. I want to lift the hem of her shirt, dragging my fingers over her flesh. I want her to look up at me with her gilded woods for eyes and place her small hand on my chest.

I  turn my head away from the impossible and spy a small vase, with dashes of blue paint and amorphous looking fruit on the side - perfect for my alder leaf offering from the twiglings. When she is done here, I will set it up for her and she will think her Domovoy kind in comparison to the real ones who might not be real, but never fail to be scapegoats for missing items anyway. If they are real, I am sure whatever one lived here would move out since I have taken its job.

She moves into the living room to change her music and tackle her books as I grab the integral part of my newest plan, and set the vase on the same spot where her chicken sandwich was placed for me, filling it with water and the alder branch. It looks bare, simple, perfect. I am pleased. 

I offer you my protection, Hermione Granger. I offer you my strength. Just say the word and I will answer with determined action.

I leave the kitchen to find a place in her living room to stand watch. She is separating them by subject and then alphabetizing them. The process is maddeningly precise yet efficient and I consider doing the same thing to my own collection in a fit of fanaticism.

At some point, the music ends and she waves her wand casually to lift the arm into its cradle and stop the spin of the player. That’s when she looks at the time, night has darkened the windows and the rest of the house and my feet have become tired from standing so long in observation.

I wonder if this is how guardian angels feel or if they just hover in place with those giant wings?

 I crack my neck and watch her move the stacks of books off the couch, setting the telly up with a movie. I know this from my time with Thorfinn, his house has all the latest muggle gadgets. I tend to lose my temper with them if they are in my own house, so better I visit their use somewhere else.

I follow her into the kitchen and bite my thumbnail as she notices the gift on her table. She checks the presentation for hexes and curses with a flick of her wrist and a discerning eye. I recognize the detection charms as being from someone who worked for Gringotts at some point. Could not have been her as it was widely known the goblins were still pissed about their dragon and her polyjuicing as fucking Bellatrix. 

Mad fucking hag . It is good she is dead. I would have done it myself if it weren’t for that fucking zmeya and the Dark Lord. 

I remember the brief dreams I had of hearing her madness gurgle away in blood and fury - my knife in her neck.

Too vivid, I must breathe. I will not give you my skin and bones, Monster of mine. Kindly fuck off.

I refocus as I seem to recall reading or hearing about one of the elder Weasley boys working for Gringotts as a curse breaker and I nod in thanks that at least someone from that family thought to offer her knowledge and unlimited protection.
I shove my hands in my pockets with wide eyes as she takes out a familiar looking box from my favorite bakery.

“I have had these for a couple of days under a stasis charm. I had to call around to a few bakeries to see if they made anything..erm, Russian in origin? This bakery makes Vatrushka buns fairly regularly for one of their regulars so, I thought, ‘Why not?’.”

Oh the way her tongue rolled that word was heaven to my ears! 

The grin on my face was wild and open.

She places a single bun on a blue and white patterned plate and pushes it towards the center of the table next to the alder.

“You did not pick it up for two days, so I apologize if the charm got a bit iffy. Luna, my friend Luna, assured me you would be around. Oh, I feel silly talking to an empty room. You leave these little offerings, why not leave some of my own?”

She left the box on the table next to the plated one and my heart soared in my chest - first, with the uncomfortable realization at how close she was to my neighborhood and then with her thoughtfulness. I simply stared at the bun hungrily as she moved around the kitchen preparing herself a light dinner.

She wrapped her impossible hair into a chaotic bun and stabbed her wand through the side of it. I had heard that this was something she would do when she was a little girl at Hogwarts. Elbow deep in dusty tomes with her wand in her hair and a quill or two.  That is how Thorfinn and that gormless Goyle boy once described her. It is no wonder her hair was unruly and described as somewhat sentient. All that magic collected in it from her wand’s placement.

I shake my head and smile.

The night is a quiet study in observance of her ability to forget eating for reading books inbetween putting them away on the shelves. I kept subtly pushing her plate into view until she finished her supper. 

She poured a bath to continue reading. I waited until she was in the bath, mostly covered by the water and I sat in the doorway watching her read. The scar I gave her ran from her right collarbone down into the sudsy water. 

My little króshka met my demented side head on, tried to silence me, and I almost ripped her open from top to bottom. I heard much later that she had to drink countless potions for weeks and weeks. That Dumbledore would not let her parents see her and that her cries of pain could be heard outside of the infirmary.

Now, I sit in a silence of my own making watching her put the book aside to run a washcloth over her arms, her face, carefully down her chest.

Does it still hurt, little love? Do you feel my darkness burst to life when you touch it? Would you feel it tenfold if my fingers or my tongue traced its heinous path down your otherwise perfect body?

I got up to lay on the floor under her bed to quell the horrible voice within. Soon she joined me to read a bit longer. That is when I noticed the reflection of her bed in the mirror on her dresser. I turned on my side, snuggling into the darkness under her bed and watched her read. She would pause now and again, tilting the book towards her as she bit her bottom lip and hummed. Obviously finding a morsel of information for her brain to chew on.

I soaked it all up hungrily. The pillowy softness of her lip after her teeth pinned it in place, her curls on the pillow, her perfectly manicured nails, and then her sleepy eyes as she adorably yawned. She tried to fight sleep, but was no match. She leaned over to place the book on her nightstand and turn off her soft, warm reading lamp. 

The darkness covered us together and I closed my eyes only for a few moments, joining her soft snores. It wasn’t safe for me to stay, so I slid out carefully from my spot once again and made my way down the stairs oh, so quietly. I put the bun on a napkin, and washed the little plate for her. The rest in the box are under my arm as I slip out her door.

I wonder if she would like wildflowers?

Chapter Text

I watched from a safe corner in her living room as she received the anonymous package. She signed for it with a confused expression on her face and I couldn’t wait to see it change once she realized how necessary a gift this was. 

She slid the oversized box into the middle of the living room and opened it up. Her first reaction was to laugh, her second was to call a few of her friends to see if they’d ordered it for her.

“Gin - did you or Harry send me a step-ladder? You didn’t? Are you sure? No, it wouldn’t have been Ronald, he’s too much of a bastard. No, really, I’m- Yes, I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have, he relished the fact that I was short, remember that time he hid my work bag after a fight? He always got perverse satisfaction in watching me try to reach anything on high shelves, making them even higher for a damn laugh. Oh, yeah it was super funny, Ginny. I gotta go. Bye. BYE GIN.”

The beep of the call ending was not nearly as satisfying as being able to slam a receiver down to end a maddening call. I watched as she rubbed her eyes with her hands and grunted angrily at her phone in her hand in a miniature tantrum . I stepped forward, wanting to soothe her frustrations. Fucking Weasleys.

She took a deep breath and dialed another set of numbers. I stepped back into place, my heart beating with fury.

“Luna? Hey! Um, did you send me a step-ladder?  No yeah, it’s dead useful! I just don’t have any idea who might’ve sent it. No, it wasn’t them.”

She rolls her eyes and laughs.

“I don’t think it was my little house spirit. No, no. That’s..wouldn’t the Domovoy just transfigure something into one? Like a rock or some leaves?”

I Shrug. Well, yeah I could’ve, but why chance it returning to its original state with my króshka unprepared for such events? No.

“I - No, I certainly don’t want to offend them. No, alright, alright. I’ll set it up in the kitchen. Yes I know. Ok. Ta, Luna!”

I smile from my corner and watch her take it out of the box, unfolding it to stand on its own. She steps up on it to test it out and then looks around the room with a sheepish expression.

“Um, spasibo , Domovoy, if you were the one who ordered a ladder for me? How exactly does one order a ladder if you’re a magical creature?”

I watch her eyes shift in the ensuing silence as if waiting for an answer. I comb my mustache with my fingers in thought as I watch her. I’m still simmering with rage about her shitfuck ex preferring to watch her struggle and punishing her in that way. What kind of small-mind.. You’re supposed to LOVE her, you fucking fool! Waste of goddamn space.

She steps off the ladder and walks it to her kitchen to try it out with a soft smile on her face.

I nod my head, satisfied with her reaction and the quality of the ladder as I watch her position it to put a few things away on the higher shelves. The wood and dark aluminum look nice in her kitchen. I stand proudly, silently near her. I’m useful. I can be useful to you and that makes me fucking ecstatic!

My hands are clasped in front of me as I watch her, and my bastard cock is painfully hard - I grip it knowing I really should go and check on what’s-his-face. Get an idea of what is going on there and how I can make something right for her.

I slip out of an open window and dispel my disillusionment for now to find a certain someone.

Hours later, my back against the brick wall of some shop in Diagon, I watch the familiar red-head slip out the back door of his brother’s joke shop. My left eye squints as I notice some similarities between him and his dearly departed uncles.

Not yet. Not yet.

My brain chants as I follow him, throwing a casual tracking charm on his shoes. I watch him duck into an alley and spin away with a deafening crack.

No finesse.   I shake my head.

No, not yet. 

I close my eyes as I duck into the alley, spinning away on the trail of my magic with ease. I follow it with determined steps till I see the simple blue house. I check the wards and blink.

How could they be so stupid? Why are there no wards? This is too easy.

I walk around the side of the house, listening to the sounds of the two of them talking. 

Fairly mundane conversation - his mother called, they discussed dinner which she already had cooking, he listened to the wireless and caught the end of a quidditch match while Ms. Brown must’ve sat quietly beside him because she stopped talking while he shouted obscenities at people who could not hear him. They had dinner at some point and discussed her baby. Why did she specifically say, “My baby..”? Not ‘Ours’. Is it not his? Or does he not want anything to do with it?

Weasley seemed bored as she went on about nursery room colours and input from his mother and didn’t contribute much to her excitement. He cut her off mid sentence and stood up to shower ignoring her closed off look at being dismissed.

I felt the pull of the tracking charm, so naturally I disillusioned myself, crept through an open window in an empty room to follow his dirty footsteps up the stairs to find the shower running, and the Weasley fuck sitting on the loo while talking on the phone. The disarray of his undressing all around his feet. I strained to hear his whispered words, an apology of some sort to someone named Susan. 

“I can’t talk long. No, no. I do want to talk, baby. Susan.. Come on, I have something special planned for your birthday. Yeah… That’s my girl. You know I love you. Yes. I gotta go. Alright, later babe.”

I scrunch my nose in distaste of the way he juggles people in his life. There are not enough hours in the day to follow everyone around and uncover all the intricacies of deceit here. I am certain this will become scattered news sooner or later. Still, I want to know who Susan is. 

As he showers, I wander towards the bedroom to suss out the scene. His stuff is haphazard at best, his dirty clothes piled at the base of the basket instead of within it. I watch as Ms. Brown comes in to flick her wand to put things to rights. Freshening the room with a spell and redressing in lingerie that hid her pregnancy entirely. My eyebrows furrow at that - if it were my child, I would want to see my witch’s body ripen as our child grew.

I stand aside in a far corner as Weasley drips from his shower through to the carpeted bedroom. I cross my arms and watch everything play out. 

He wipes his wet hair lazily with the towel and she walks up to him to take the towel and dry him off. Of course he’s nude and I can see for sure that the sexual device in her nightstand is not him at all. Good thing, as the thought was giving me heartburn if I let it linger too long in my brain.

The Weasel takes the towel from her hands, throwing it on the floor, ignoring her weak sounds of protest. His hands go for her breasts and not her belly filled with his unfortunate spawn.

“Oh I like this one, your tits look amazing in it.”

She blushes and doesn’t notice how he wandlessly cuts the lights and closes the drapes, then turns her onto her knees like some kind of broodmare on the bed.

Fifteen lousy minutes of him rutting aimlessly after his own pleasure, only finishing just as the girl was about to make pleasured sounds.

This is awful. This is astonishingly fucking terrible. This weak-cocked man child.

I’m almost livid thinking of how he must’ve treated Hermione.

Not yet. Not yet.

I watch him with a scowl on my face as he pushes the girl out of the way to turn over and immediately fall asleep in the middle of the fucking bed. All starfished out. My eye twitches.

 The girl, now standing, watches him for a second or two with a resigned expression before casting a drying and cleansing charm on his abandoned towel on the floor. She folds it nicely, hanging it back up on the rack, sits on the loo to piss for a time and grimaces as she wipes away his cum. The state of the bathroom is embarrassing, and what's worse is he’s left his phone to ping and beep loudly. 

Look at the fucking phone. Look at the phone. How many more of you are out there?  

I try to will her to look at the phone.The girl cleans around it, dries the floor, and changes into a pretty, more modest nightgown. I just shake my head. I should probably take the phone, but now does not feel like the right time to do so.

Later.

Miss Brown braids her hair to the side and rubs in a dot of cream or two on her face before waddling downstairs. I follow because stairs and pregnant women are not a good idea. This man…tsk tsk. What an idiot. How can he sleep knowing the mother of his child is taking to the stairs when she can barely see them underfoot?

I watch her clean the kitchen and sort out breakfast things for the next day before turning off the lights and heading back up the stairs for bed.

Once I was certain she was safe from naughty staircases, I left them to it.

It would not be a loss for these women if Ronald Weasley was dead. I just had to be smart about making it happen. 

I check my watch. 

Blyat! I am a little bit late in meeting Thorfinn and this girl he is smitten with. I will blame a burnt dinner. This will be fine. 

I knew as soon as I walked down the small set of stairs and through the dingy red door that the lateness would be ignored and that some kind of fuckery would be at play tonight. Melodic electric guitar and a familiar voice singing in a fucked up, yet enthusiastic falsetto greeted me. My eyes dragged over the few regulars with their patchwork battle jackets facing the stage as Thorfinn, already quite loose, serenaded them. This is the kinda shit my gigantic little brother blasts in his tiny clown car as we speed off into our little adventures.

I raise my fingers lazily off the bartop to the bartender and mouth the word, “Beer.”

I have no intention of drinking it - I can’t. So, I settle for just vanishing it little by little as I ‘sip’ it.

I “drink” and shoot the shit with some of the people who hang out there, mostly I am a bit bored until Thorfinn comes ambling over to pat my back so hard that I wonder if I’ll ever breathe on my own again. I smile at him because he is happy and looking forward to seeing his girl. This really isn’t the place I would bring anyone, but he was being genuine in showing her his truth.

 Inside my mind, I am plotting. I am fairly sure I might just leave the lovebirds early to follow The Weasel to this mystery woman’s house. Kill him in the apparition point nearby or in the house itself. For the joy of the reporters asking who she was to him and why. I am a bit giddy with the prospect of him being knocked down for good. I want to do this for Hermione. I take another fake sip as my brother jokes and carries on in his big booming kind of way.

He leans into me and speaks and all I hear is my heartbeat for 30 seconds afterwards.

“Wait. What did you say?”

He sighs and pulls me closer, to speak over the music. He has one of those rich, clear voices that carries through any kind of noise. Dragons could be fucking on the roof above us and Thorfinn might whisper a word and I would still be able to hear it. 

But this ….

THIS.

“I tried to call you, Dolly, but you were busy or something. I wanted to warn you. I told you I’ve been sort of talking to that Lovegood gal and she’s really close with You-Know-Who. They’re gonna show up in a few.”

“A FEW?! A few what? Hours? Minutes? Seconds? I can’t be here! What are you trying to do to me?!”

I feel his large hands on my shoulders and I see his sparkly baby blues and the concerned look on his face. It does nothing for my racing heart and the flashing montage of death in my mind. Or the sound of her singing. Or climaxing. Or crying.

“Breathe, Dolly…Listen to me. Listen.”

I can smell the beer on his breath, the stale cigarette smell in the air. I rake my fingers through my hair and I attempt to look at him with some kind of clarity as he continues to speak. I really need to go outside with this, but he begins speaking again and my eyes shift back to him.

“I really like Luna. She’s so freakin’ small and reminds me of the stories my Mormor told me about the ancient seers. Man, she sees through my bullshit and speaks in this airy sort of way that really lets you choose whether you’re gonna take her advice or not. There’s no doom and gloom like that quack Trelawney. No, no..and she is so caring. She’s really into magic zoology and I’d love to be able to share the bowtruckles with her. From what I hear, Hermione needs to get out of the house a little and the girls have a buddy system, so we gotta respect that.”

I force myself to nod slowly. I can tell he genuinely likes this girl. I don’t want to get in the way of him having a little normalcy instead of one night stand after one night stand. I comb my mustache with my fingertips a little shakily.

“Ok. Ok. This is a big ask, my brother. If I am uncomfortable, I might just leave and head straight for my mind healer. Yeah? Does she know I will be here?”

Thorfinn pushes his hair to one side and smoothes his beard down with a slide of his hand a few times. He nods his head back and forth as if he is unsure how to answer that question. I push his shoulder ineffectually.

“You fucker . You didn’t tell her that the man who hunted her after scarring her for fucking life might be here?”

He raises his hands in a gesture of peace but I’m already fucking floored with disbelief.

“How can you talk about respecting buddy systems, you fucking idiot! My fucking gods above! You…”

I shouldn’t say it. He never respected our own buddy system. Just ran at the mouth about Hermione-fucking-Granger and her shitty boyfriend despite my telling him not to.

I chew on the inside of my lip. I know my eyes are fucking wild. I feel fucking wild. I want to bite his face clean off and wear it like a pauldron.

I breathe. I breathe with intention. I love this idiot. He is my very best friend, my only one. Give him a look of disappointment, not murder. Disappointment, not murder. Disappointment, not…

The door has been opening and closing with people coming in after a long week wanting to let off some steam with this shitkicker music. And they barely notice two oddly placed young ladies walk in until the ethereal blonde takes a step beside Thorfinn who gasps and scoops her up, swinging her around till she laughs. It's a strange sound that gives me the fucking creeps, but better her laughing than I don’t know..screaming like a lost soul, portending death with wailing and tears. I really don’t fuck with seers.

There’s only so much looking you can do before something looks back at you.

The oaf introduces the elfin girl to me and she does a good job of pretending to meet me until she leans in and says, “The ladder was a lovely idea, don’t worry she doesn’t know.”

I blink at her, her small hand in mine is cool and loose.

“Will she be upset by my presence here? I can leave if so..”

She looks me dead in the eyes and blinks just once then shakes her head.

“All will be well.”

She turns and smiles to my half-giant of a friend, who returns the smile with as much vibrancy as the sun. I look at them, amusement and discomfort melting down my angered panic until I feel eyes on me. I drag my eyes down to the floor and slowly move my head in her direction.

Her.

Hermione.

króshka .

Black ankle boots, rather worn and not at all what I would imagine would be her taste. A short, black crushed velvet skirt, with a Led Zeppelin shirt knotted at her waist. My eyes drift further up, taking in her soft curls and her mixed expression. I was afraid to read it, truthfully.

I’m not afraid of much, but I was facing my golden idol in the flesh without disillusionment charms. My heart was beating erratically, and I’m sure my eyes had bugged out in their charming way. I huffed a sigh and lowered my lids, rubbed my hand - damp with condensation - on my jeans and offered it to her. I prayed my expression was not full of mutilation and mayhem. 

I can do this. I just have to say hello.  

“Salut au Monde, You, daughter of England!”

For one agonizing minute, I watched her appraise me with curiosity and reluctance. Then her small hand is in mine with surprising strength, no weak handshakes for this one. 

And her voice, directed at me for the first time in an age.

“Salut, you of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! You Russ in Russia!”

She smirks as she speaks and my face pulls into a smirk of its own as I give her hand an equally firm official squeeze before letting her hand go. No dead fish in króshka’s hands.

I place my hand on my heart, a gesture I hope she reads into - hope? No, I know she will.

I open my mouth to speak, when Thorfinn inserts himself, grabbing her for one of his patented, all-encompassing hugs.

“I didn’t want to be rude and ignore you, Princess! Thank you for coming out tonight.”

He’s fully hugging and swaying her back and forth and I clutch at my shirt over my heart at his familiarity with her. 

Just how well does he know her?  

When I realize what I’m doing, I settle for gripping my beer bottle and smoothing my mustache down.

I see her push him back towards Luna and away from her with laughter and a few jibes about him being an overgrown golden retriever. He laughs good naturedly and heads to a table Luna must’ve chosen for us all to sit.

I look over at Hermione who still looks vaguely uncomfortable and make a gesture for her to sit on the inside beside her friend.

Taking the seat next to her, I cross my right leg over so my ankle rests on my knee. A suitable slouching, the beer propped on my thigh in a lazy hold. The conversation between Thorfinn and his pixie is not my business, so I settle on scanning the room to do a bit of people watching. My eyes do not linger on any ladies and after no less than 5 minutes of this, Thorfinn gets up to serenade his lady.  

I turn to look at the girl beside me - this absolute goddess who might rather prefer a good book in her quiet little house than this fucking place.

“Would you care for a beer or something?”

She stares at me for a second and I raise my eyebrow to her which causes her to dig in the purse beside her, decidedly not the ugly brown one used to beat insistent photographers.

The moment I see cash in hand, I raise my hands to reject her need to pay for anything ever.

“No. No. No. Please, do not make a fuss on this. Here, come with me, but I pay. You can keep your eyes on the glass for safety. You can’t keep your eyes on stuff if you’re looking down at your wallet.”

She huffs and rolls her eyes. 

“Alright! I’m just a passenger tonight, I see. I won’t fight this.”

I nod and we make our way to the bar. She grimaces as Thorfinn hits a note only dogs can hear in his song for the pixie while I order by pointing. Beers in hand, we head back to our seats to clink our bottles and take our sips. I, of course, do not take a real one and am not bothered if she notices what I am doing or not. She breaks the beat of mutual silence and people watching.

“This is most definitely not what you do for fun, so tell me, what is it you enjoy?”

Her voice is closer to me as the music got louder in Thorfinn’s absence from the stage. I smell the vanilla in her hair and suck at my teeth to give myself pause. I turn to her as she turns her head away, giving me free reign to speak close to her ear. I try to speak clearly enough - my accent gets thicker when I am nervous. Or angry. Or breathing.

“I garden, and read mostly. Sometimes I explore muggle London, but I tend to stick close to home.”

She turns to me, tilting her head in contemplation, her eyes search me overall and I give her a gallic shrug in answer as if to say, “It is the truth. Take it or leave it.”

“Hence the Walt Whitman as a greeting?”

I nod with a small smile forming on my face.

“I am a fan of anyone who speaks of nature and love the way he does.”

She graces me - ME - with a bright smile.

“I can appreciate that. I am a fan of anyone who has a mind for it.”

I blink as she smirks, a faint wink as she takes a sip of her beer.

 Was that a wink? For me? I don’t even know what to do with this. When was the last time anyone flirted with me? Oh, Gods Above and it was her doing it.

I might be blushing. I scrape at the label on the bottle in my hand with my thumbnail. Her laugh is a sweet, life-affirming sound next to me followed by the touch of her hand.

“I have embarrassed you! I’m sorry.”

“What?”

I want her closer to me, I want her in my lap with her words being swallowed by my mouth. 

She leans closer, her little hand is wrapped around my wrist and warm.

“I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you. Surely you are seeing someone and I’ve overstepped.”

I give her a look of disbelief and shake my head.

“No, króshka . I am seeing only you.”

She turns fast enough that her curls assault my face. I want every single one of her curls to do that till the end of time.

I see the look of confusion on her face and I smile impishly and gesture for her to come closer to my voice.

“It is the gift of having eyes, króshka, as you can see with yours that I am only looking at you.”

I’ve got her.

She smiles at me and laughs, her small hand slapping my arm.

I smile in the haze of vanilla and this playful exchange. I can charm giants. I will charm tiny golden goddesses, too.

“I see why you are friends with Thorfinn. Smartassery is the soupe du jor .”

I raise my beer to clink with hers as I confirm her observation.

“A bit of wit to wet the whistle.”

There is a quiet moment between us where we catch one another looking at the other with curiosity and interest. When Thorfinn and his pixie come back to the table, my expression goes serious while she leans towards her friend and they deliberate together. The seer nods her head and pats Hermione on the hand with a smile and before I know it, my little witch leans over to me.

“Let’s go.”

I set my bottle on the table without question and stood up, moving my chair aside to give her room.

It’s fucking deafening in this place and I haven’t noticed till now. I happily follow her small frame out of the club and barely give my brother a look. He doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of any of this working out one way or another.

The door opens and she holds it for me to step through. The air is calmer, my internal dialogue is more relaxed and loose even when she grabs my hand in hers and walks me up the steps. I rub her fingers with my thumb softly.

A few feet down the street, she turns towards me - she still hasn’t let me go.

“I needed to get out of there and Luna is perfectly fine with her mountain. I know a quiet spot in this part of the city if you would like to continue talking with me?”

The look she gives me between dodging other passersby is filled with hope and I will never be the one to crush that. My head bobs of its own accord in compliance with my little witch’s wishes.

Anything to hear her voice unimpeded, or the little sounds she makes alone in her bed. Why not both? 

She pulls me through a labyrinth of streets to a small park with a locked gate.

Her hand runs down the lock and I hear the soft click as it unlocks for her touch.

I feel like my heart just made the same sound and I swallow it back down into my chest.

I would and could eat fire for her at this moment.

Her hand pulls at mine and I stumble over the threshold between the city and a pocket of dark, wooded parkland.

She finds a spot that suits her and she opens her bag to pull out a rather large blanket.

“Oh! She of the illegally extended purse, I bow at your feet!”

I cross myself in jest though part of me feels like her presence is sacred enough to do so in seriousness.

She takes a seat on the blanket, rolls her eyes and pats the spot beside her.

“Sit…Please.”

My feet carry me forward dutifully and I take my shoes off before stepping on her blanket. I need to feel grounded through whatever this night brings me. She hums thoughtfully as she watches me and our eyes meet. I can see a glimmer there in the dark. She is pleased by my actions.

The monster in me purrs and begs to nuzzle her scar and bite her breast.

Do not scare her away, imp! Fucking demon thoughts.

She lays back and smiles at the stars.

“I feel like I can breathe again. I don’t know why all my friends like to surround themselves with so much noise they cannot think.”

I lay back with my hands behind my head, a glimpse of stars twinkling and fading behind intermittent clouds and the thick, black shadows of the tree canopy bordering the secret garden.

“They are avoiding the necessary. For all the distractions they throw in the way, these things they do not want to spend time on will fester and grow until many years later -when all is quiet and settled down -all these little problems will bubble up to the surface as gigantic problems. They will have to face them then because the problems will have outgrown the distractions.”

She is quiet for a time and I share in the silence with her until I hear the sound of her lips parting and an intake of breath.

Her mouth closes and the silence feels heavy and thick.

Finally she breathes out a single word.

“ Wow. ”

I turn on my side and lean my head on my hand.

“What…”

She looks at me, blinking through unshed tears and my heart drops into my stomach. I watch her bottom lip quiver and her hands fly up to cover her face.

I reach for my bandana, cleansing it as I unfold it for her, and tap her forearm with it. She grabs it, covering her face with it before turning on her side away from me.

I stay where I am, simply placing my hand on the back of her shoulder in what I hope is a soothing gesture to let her know I am there. No platitudes, no ceasing of her tears. Let her drain this sea of sorrow she carries in her. Eventually, her shoulders stop shaking and her breathing evens out, so I remove my hand from her to give her space.

Laying back down to bite the inside of my cheek as I look at the stars without really looking at them.

She turns towards me, placing my bandana on my chest and I catch her hand with mine to hold it gently as if it were a bird that alighted there.

“I used a drying spell so it is not too soggy, I hope.”

I shrug lightly, giving her hand a squeeze.

We could live in the middle of the sea, ruling the oceans, drowning as we did it and I would be alright with this.

Her voice cuts through my reverence.

“I am not covered in monsters, despite what the papers might be telling everyone. I am still recovering from..the war..I just..”

She lays her head on my shoulder, her hand still delicately pinned beneath mine though she could move it any time she wanted to.

Vanilla is all I smell in the cool, night air and my body sings for it.

I settle her on my shoulder, bringing my arm around her, my hand resting on her upper arm.

I am a gentleman monster.

Her voice is more solid now as she speaks, and I relish the feel of her jaw’s movements, her closeness, the way she presses into my side for comfort.

“No one wants to think about any of it, or help me get through it. Ron always threw his hands in the air any time I had a nightmare and would take to the couch instead of holding me. He’d make me feel ridiculous for going to a therapist. I just want them to take it all seriously once in a while so we can well and truly be done with it. Am I crazy for wanting that?”

I don’t know what made her seek out my opinion on it, but I wanted more than anything to be useful to her. All the times I wanted to soothe her led to this moment here in a nameless park, on a blanket with my cock trying to tear through my jeans to get to her, and her small hand under mine.

I shake my head quickly.

“Not at all. I have been seeing a mind healer for years as the war was much longer for me, you see, so bigger to deal with. It has helped immensely. Our friends cannot always wear the hat we need them to. Do you understand?”

She nods against me and I close my eyes at the feeling of her.

“If it’s too big for me, and too big for Thorfinn, I need a professional then. I do not disagree that your loved ones should give you more care. It is not an overwhelming feat to hold you now in your time of need.”

She pressed her little hand down on my chest and pressed the rest of herself closer to me. I grip her upper arm with reassurance and a bit of strength. I want her to know I am strong and can be strong for her, with her. Whatever she may need. 

I try not to think about what she said regarding Weasley. Rage - my rage, specifically, has no place in this tender moment. I will box that up and save it for later.

She takes a deep breath and releases it.

I feel the breeze ghost over our joined hands and I give her hand a little squeeze in response.

I wonder when she will ask me about my part I played in her war dealings as I squint through the clouds to the heavens.

Her voice brings me back - she sounds a bit tired from her outing and I hope I haven’t put her off nights with me yet.

“Tell me about your garden. I only have one pitiful geranium that has suddenly decided to do well.”

I laugh. I laugh because I have been taking care of her geranium, sneaking my homemade compost into the pot and talking to it when she isn’t home.

“It took me a long time to find what types of plants wanted to grow with me. You know, you go out, you buy a plant or several and line them all up like a little dragon with a hoard. Maybe they all die because you overwater, or underwater, or the sun doesn’t hit them or hits them too much. You move all of them around in this do-si-do of panic trying to keep them alive when really none of them wanted to grow there. Then one day, you find some beat down plant in the discount area of the nursery and your home brings it to health and happiness. It flourishes almost too much and you start potting it off to friends and family because now it is an overgrown monster.”

She laughs now only interrupted by a sniffle. It is music to my ears and my heart smiles.

I am useful to her.

“Oh! But you asked me about my garden and I went on about the wrong bit.”

I hear her smile, her lips parting over her teeth.

“It was a good bit though. My friend Neville might agree with you.”

My brain supplies the answer of this “Neville” - the boy whose arm I broke in the Dept. of Mysteries. Her first friend, another thing I learned in prison.

“I have a tremendously overgrown rosemary in my yard with hundreds of blue flowers - it is always covered in bees. I have a bunch of chamomile, some roses, and I am struggling with a bastard peony. I want to grow it too much and I think it senses my overeagerness. Other than that, your standard interchangeable flowers for the table. Something nice to look at while a storm rages outside.”

She hums.

“What do you do when the storm on the outside matches the one on your inside?”

I tense briefly and she looks up at me.

“I am sorry. I don’t know why I..”

I shake my head.

“It is ok. I will tell you that I sit on my porch. I allow the wind to come through but not the rain as that would be foolish. The wind helps strip my senses down to the point where I find an inner calm in the chaos.”

The hand on my chest, grabs my thumb and holds it.

“Nature is your nurture.”

I hum in affirmation.

We lay like that for quite awhile before I noticed that she'd fallen asleep beside me. I let her sleep, listening to her breathing and her little sleepy sounds.

I think about her fierceness in the cafe in Tottenham after she survived my curse. I was earnestly trying to take out the other two that were with her. I had extensive plans for apparating away with her to the house I find my peace in now. There is a whole level underground that mimics the above floor. A safe house for her to survive through the war. I wanted her safe even if she were angry with me, or scared of me. There might still be a closet filled with clothes all in her size that I should probably clear out in the happy event she decides she wants to visit me. My little witch was too clever, she would find that room in no time and I would have too much to answer for. And from the feel of her, nothing I bought then would fit.

Moving that to the top of the list.

I think about her magic petrifying me on that cafe floor. The broken glass and ruined pastries all around us and how she knelt in it all over my prone body to look me in the eyes. I could have grabbed her then, my potent magic still buzzed and hummed through her and kept her from being able to do any real harm to me. I was paralyzed by her beauty and bravery as she raised her wand to me and thought she was obliviating me. I tilted my eyes to the side, seeing a piece of glass stuck to her knee cap as she raised it from the ground.

My magic brushed it away from her, healing a small cut that was beginning to form. I was distracted by my care for her.

I let her go feeling confident that she would be safe. If anyone, it would be the Saviour of the Wizarding World and his sidekick that might get her killed. To the woods we went together as I traced my magic through the ether and found her.

Sure enough, those idiots eventually said the taboo.

And all hell broke loose as I ran beside her.
My magic protected her when Bella tortured her. She would never have survived that onslaught. 

I am still furious that Bella left her mark on her. I hold a secret though.

I can heal her. When she lets me, I will be ready to give her my greatest offering.

My fingers absentmindedly press into the flesh of her arm and pull her closer to me.

Mine.

The monster in me lays its claim against the darkness gathering in my minds-eye against our enemies and any future harm.

I feel the claws, needle sharp in my skin as it claims a bigger piece of me, too.

Mine.

She nuzzles against me in her sleep and I magic the blanket to cover her legs against the chill of the night. My blood is far too hot to worry about myself. She turns fully into me, her leg curling up over mine and I push it gently, smoothly between her thighs. If the bandana under our hands wasn’t folded just so, she might awake from the pounding beat of my heart - from the monster’s fists against my rib cage trying to get out to devour her, to suck at the sparrow bones of her throat while her wrists are pinned above her head and my bastard cock ruins her for anyone else.

I close my eyes as I focus on the heat of her.

Restrain yourself. With any luck, you will be able to smell her on your skin and howl into the blustery wind when you cum. Until then, you are a gentleman monster.  

I don’t know how much time passed.

An hour? Two? Maybe 30 minutes? A fucking lifetime?

Her sleepy voice spoke my name for the first time.

“Antonin?”

It was Heaven and all its Holy Angels. When my Babushka lit candles for me and crossed herself, her prayers accumulated and grew until they fell upon my life at this moment. My name was spoken perfectly by her sweet lips. I restrained myself from groaning, but not from grinding my leg against her under the precipice of stretching. Her breath hitched and she pressed onto it further with her own feigned stretch. I might’ve died. 

I chanced her name in a soft whisper against the knuckles of her hand as I brought it to my lips.

“ Hermione ..”

She swallowed, I felt that movement against me and I idly wondered how it would feel with my hand around her pretty little throat while she tried to swallow an offering I’ve longed to give her.

My eyes found hers.

“Why does Thorfinn call you ‘Princess’ when your name is far more pleasing to say?”

She smiles and I want to kiss her mouth more than anything in the world.

“They used to call me the ‘Gryffindor Princess’ and he is a big, well-meaning jerk about it.”

I huff a laugh, crinkling my eyes despite the feeling of unsettlement that he has a pet name for her that should be given to girls who are only useful for cock-warming and the like.

She raises herself up just a fraction to look down at my face. My hand moves off her arm and rests on her back while my hand on hers holds her more tightly as her knee rests just under my apex of delicacy. I restrain myself from grabbing her thigh and crushing her velvet skirt in my hand.

“Why do you call me ‘króshka’?”

I thought about this for a moment. I do not want to offend her. I use my hand to unfold her hand against mine - a visual for our size difference.

“It does not translate well into English, but I assure you I say it with respect. It is an endearment on your size against mine. You are a ‘little crumb’, or ‘little one’.”

She bites her lip.

I rush to add one more point.

“I do not call you this to make light of your powerful presence, or your brilliant mind. I am not making you inferior to me. I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She shakes her head, her curls growing more riotous with the damp night and the closeness of our bodies.

“I believe you, Antonin. I do rather appreciate your clarification though. I have had some unkindness done to me in regards to my height.”

Now it is my turn to raise up a fraction so we are face to face, closer than I anticipated, but there is no backing down. Her leg is pinned between mine - she has the power to knee me in the goods just as much as I have the power to pull that subtle little gasp from her I just heard.

I look at her lips and her eyes and I speak at a volume befitting the late hour.

“I do not understand the cruel lover, Hermione.”

I don’t realize the bandana has fallen between us, it is forgotten to this moment as I pull her hand to my heart. 

I want her to feel the knocking in my breast for her.

“There is more satisfaction in lifting up the one you care for in all ways. Yes, please, I understand this is a great deal of tongue in cheek about height, but I hope you understand my meaning.”

She laughs, throwing her head back and I cannot help myself. My hand reaches up to touch the soft skin of her throat to feel the laughter rise through it against the pad of my thumb and I feel the hitch of her breath, too. Her eyes dance between mine and alight on my softly smiling lips - I am drunk on her without ever having sipped her magnificence.

My fingers slide behind her neck, into her silky tangle of curls and my thumb strokes the space just under her ear as she leans fully into the ensuing kiss. My lips are upon hers, claiming, claiming, claiming with a hunger I have never felt before. My fingers are clenched in her hair and I feel her wince against my mouth, and my tongue slides between her lips to touch hers as my thigh slides against her core simultaneously.

I swallow her little moans, feeding the monster growing in my body. 

Little treats for being so restrained. Remain so. We must savor her. There are only so many firsts.

I lay back, pulling her on top of me and I know as she straddles the junction of my leg and hip that she can feel my hardness. 

Her eyes shift between mine, her wet lips parted and plump.

I bet your other pair are just the same. Will you ride my thigh and chase your pleasure with me? Will you use my body as I wish you to? Gods above I wish you would. You shouldn’t. I should take you home. If I don’t, I might end up wearing you like a fucking hat. Gods help me.

My thoughts are drowned as she leans forward, her hair covering our joining mouths as she-with-all-the-power explores my lips.

Gentle pecks. She sucks on my bottom lip and I return the favor.

I’m going to ruin you.

I feel her seek to deepen our kiss and I let her have her fill of me, though my treacherous hands trailed down over her shoulders, down her back to grab the perfect globes of her crushed velvet-covered ass. I pawed and squeezed them. She hummed as her tongue chased mine and her glorious cunt ground against me seeking more.

I spread her cheeks with my hands and raised my thigh to guide her grinding. Her arms rested on me, her hands clutched at my shirt as the threads of fate thrummed between our bodies.

Her lips broke from mine as I groaned under her. The most beautiful little moan spilled from her mouth over mine as her hips rolled with my hand’s steady encouragement. 

“Oh god!”

Her breathy whisper set me on fire.

“Are you going to cum for me, króshka?”

A whimper and her lips were back on mine.

No no no no.

I want to hear you say it.

 I slowed down her movements, stilling her eventually as she protested by pulling her lips from mine.

“Please…”

I ground my cock against her in reply to her sweet begging and groaned with delicious, all-consuming need. I wanted nothing more than to tear her little cotton panties off and plunge my hardships into her fire to burn them away as she deafened my ear and clawed at my flesh.

I restrain myself. The monster tore at my guts and tightened my balls in a vise.

“Please, what? I need to hear you say it.”

My fingertips find their way to the gusset of her panties to tease her dampness.

Filthy little imp. Make her cum, then take her home.

I chastise myself while driving her to find her voice.

And gods above if I don’t feel a renewed gush of moisture under my lazy tracing fingertips.

“I… I want to.. cum for you.”

I feel the most evil spread of pleasure in my blood. Surely I must be grinning dangerously enough to make her rethink her choice.

No.

My little goddess tilts her hips to give my fingers better access and while I would love to slide my hand down the back of her panties to part her lips and feel that pleasurable sucking and clenching of her inner walls, I stick to what she is allowing me to do.

“That’s it.”

I feel her little hands clutching my shirt again as she rides my thigh and I lean up to capture her lips with gentle kisses and whispered encouragement.

“Look at you. I want you to feel every pleasure.”

She tries to keep her whimpers quiet and I nip at her lip.

“Don’t hide your sounds from me. I want to hear your body sing.”

I press a finger into the cloth over her soaking wet entrance and tease at it before sliding over her slit some more.

Her breathy sighs entrance me more than my wildest dreams could ever imagine. How did I get to be with her here?

I feel her movements become more feverish as she arches her back and I remove my hands from the center of her desires to slide upwards from her hips to her modest breasts.

Her nipples are hard and I imagine the texture of her crinkled areolas on my tongue and lips. I yearn for them.

Just lift the hem of her shirt and suck a bruise onto one of them. Mark her. Make her remember you.

 I sit up abruptly, and she throws her arms around my neck to keep from falling away from me as I lift the hem of her shirt. I pull it completely off her body - she surprises me by allowing me to do so. 

I kiss her lips while pulling the straps of her bra down her arms to free her sweet little chocolate-tipped mounds.

Her scar is in view and I barely notice it as I sip one breast and then the other, sucking each one into my mouth hard enough to make her cry out my name.

“ Fuck ….You do not know what you encourage by doing that, króshka .”

I mutter into her breast as I pinch and pull and suck on her soft, sugared flesh. She pulls her skirt up around her hips exposing her legs to me and rocks and rolls against my thigh as I bruise and bite so close to the original marking of mine. I feel the electricity of it on the tip of my tongue and the way it tingles through my teeth.

I suck at the darkness buried in the cells of her being as she moans for me and trace the upwards swipe of it with my tongue.

I know she’s cumming and she is cumming harder than she ever has before with any weak-dicked lover or phallus-in-a-drawer. She cums for me with my name in her mouth as she pulls at my hair and scrapes my scalp with her short nails.

I kiss her throat as she breathes heavily in my arms. I gently bite at her jaw, satiating the need to tear flesh by simply feigning to do so.

My magic thrums in my body, I’m fairly sure I haven’t cum in my pants though I feel a cooling wetness. I must give her my thanks.

“That was incredible. Thank you for my gift…”

“Hmm..no, thank you.”

I smirk into her hair and kiss her neck just once.

“I should get you safely home. Do you think you are capable of apparating?”

She shakes her head as it rests on my shoulder.

I push her curls behind her ear and kiss her temple. We hold each other for a few minutes - finally finding a similar pattern of breathing to calm ourselves with.

“Let me put you to rights.”

I pull her bra back up over each breast with a kiss to each one, then I lift the straps up over her shoulders, followed by finding her shirt.

I spend a moment putting it right side out, then dressing her in it.

“You didn’t get to cum.”

She says it with a pout in her voice and I shake my head.

“Another time, sweet one..if you wish it.”

I give her a most hopeful, and earnest look.

A tilt of her head as she gives me a calculating look. She stands, fixing her skirt, then offers me a hand to help me stand.

My heart beats wildly as I wonder if this was it. If this was all there was ever going to be. 

I step off her blanket, putting my shoes and socks back on as she folds it up to place back in her bottomless purse. When she is ready, she addresses me once more.

“I feel comfortable apparating, will you side-along with me?”

I held her gaze, biting the inside of my lip where a tenacious bit of magic still tingled, and nodded my assent.

I bent down to pick up the bandana, shoving it into my back pocket with a pat as I looked around to make sure nothing was lost.

A shared look and then she was pressed against my side and we spun through time, landing on her cat-shaped welcome mat.

I lifted my foot to look at it as if it were the first time I had done so and was rewarded with a giggle from her, so I smirked as shyly as I was able. I wanted to lift her against the door and fuck it down. I felt as far from shy as possible.

Her hand touched my stomach and she smiled up at me as she spoke.

“I didn’t know what to expect from tonight, but this was infinitely more than I ever imagined.”

I held her chin between thumb and forefinger as I looked into her eyes only dropping them when her tongue flicked out slowly to wet her bottom lip.

I stared at the porch light reflection in the center of her lip as I asked when I might be allowed to see her again.

She stepped closer, a kiss on my lips, another and then her hand brushed my hardness as she opened her door to turn away and step in.

I grabbed her wrist before her hand lifted from my crotch. The rapid movement shocks her for a second, and I soothe the shock with a kiss to her palm. You are safe with me. For now. Eventually the imp will get what he hungers for.

 I wished her goodnight before I could ruin anything.

I stepped down towards the street and watched her close her door.

When I twisted away into the night to stroll through my garden, my steps were light and my determination was set. I turned away from my porch, the wind blew my hair into my eyes and I pushed it out of the way.

“Time to clear out the safe house for our clever little bird.”

My hand squeezes my length..I know I will howl into the night in my completion for her. My fingers smell like her and I suck on them hungrily looking for any trace of her musky honey as I squeeze myself through my jeans. That's when I feel an unfamiliar texture under my hand and I look down, casting a quick lumos to find she’d left her mark on me when she found her completion.

My trousers cannot come off me fast enough. I shuck off my shoes and socks and pull the legs over my feet as fast as I possibly can. My cock bobs in the cool wind, free from its tortuous confines as I press my nose to the hardened spot where she came for me. I drop onto my knees in the grass and shout nonsensicals into the growing bluster as I let the monster howl and preen at the smell and sight of such an offering.

“I AM A WORTHY DOMOVOY FOR HER! SHE CAME FOR ME! SHE FOUND ME… - ME - WORTHY OF HER PLEASURE!!”

I beat at my chest as the wind carves at my madness. It howled through an open window in the house behind me. All of my plants clamoured and shook with each gusting blow through the yard. My voice was a whisper, easily carried by the air.

“I devote myself entirely to Hermione. She will have everything I am able to give and I can give her everything.”

I stroke myself feverishly to the mental replay of the night. Her small body curled around me, her tits in my mouth and the sound of her..oh, her sounds! The way she said my name. The salty smell of her tears and the shake of her body wracked with sobs when she tried to hide them from me. My lips hummed from the phantom feeling of hers on them.

I pull at my cock the way I pulled at my magic in her wards and in her skin and I knew I would have her in every way possible, I would raise her high above the world that does not deserve her, tear at the veins of those that mistreat her, and stop the life of Ronald Weasley damning his name even after Matka Ziemia holds him in the deep, brown earth.

“Hermione!”

I roar before I begin to lap at the stain on my jeans, sucking the flavour of her from them as I cum into the wind and let it carry my essence across the earth.

This is my offering to Matka Ziemia to be ready for my red-headed offering and to bless my seed for the one I have promised myself for.

My breath is the wind as it dies down. The wind is my breath as I settle down from the rampant expenditure of energy I just put myself through.

I look down at my cock, finding it proud and sure.

I too feel like I was on the precipice of a volcano, having just shouted it out of dormancy.

There is no backing down from this, Antonin Dolohov.

I nodded in reply to the voice, not sure if it came from within or without and not really caring either way.

I stood up, gathered my clothes in my arms, and went inside.

Sleep overtook me until an owl tapping gently on my window woke me up.

Chapter Text

A letter from Thorfinn asking if he might bring his pixie girl by on Wednesday to meet the bowtruckle branch was what awaited me in the morning. There was some overshare on his part of their night together which I skimmed through, and some questions about how my own night went. I had no intention of answering any of it save for the magical creature query.

Thorfinn -

Wednesday would be great. Any time between 9-5, as you know. Don’t forget the woodlice.

~ Dolly

The owl took my note away through the garden and I got up to water the plants and wash away any residuals from my impromptu ritual.

A few light exercises, a quick bit of romance with myself and Hermione whereby I imagine her taking everything she is owed by me in the middle of my garden. I imagined the strange depressions in my lawn from her knees and then my knees. The press of our hands and leaves in her curls.

Breakfast was a distracted affair as I wondered what she might be up to only to be forgotten completely when a small owl flew in right through my window to sit on the back of the chair across from me.

I tilted my head as we studied each other.

A teensy pale green envelope in its beak was lifted up and I put my fork down gently to reach over for it.

It felt heavy despite the miniscule nature of it which changed as soon as I had the thought to a more appropriate size. I moved my plate aside. No time for this when there are more nourishing things in hand.

There was a letter, and something else that fell onto the table.

A picture of her on her stomach on the bed in her guest room. It is a reflection in a mirror with her face unfortunately, yet cleverly cropped out. She is wearing a pair of white panties and a white top to match and I wonder if she might wear it for me? Her legs sway back and forth in the air behind her.

So playful. So enticing. Is she inviting me or testing my fortitude?

I open the folded parchment to find a short note.

Antonin ~

I wish to see you again and again and again.

What are you doing around 3pm today? 

x.

~ Hermione

PS - We might have company for a time.

Of course I look up at the little owl.

“Wait just a moment, yeah?”

Back out into the garden, this time with my little snips to gather a small bunch of roses in white and pink from the bushes I planted in memory of my Мама and Babushka.

I put pen to paper and in my neatest scrawl I attempted to be light-hearted and earnest instead of hungry and desperate.

Króshka -

How can I say no to an invitation such as this?

I’m incredibly jealous of your pillows and your sheets. I want to hear the sound of your heartbeat.

I will be on your welcome cat at exactly 3 pm.

Yours,

A.

I shrink the letter and the roses.

“Ok, my friend. Travel safe to her.”

The little owl hoots as it takes off out the window in the direction of her home. I watch it for a time before lowering my gaze back to her photo, her legs moving back and forth idly. 

I want to kiss her feet, the backs of her calves, spread her legs further and press the front of my body against her back.

I want to whisper romance and filth in a tug-of-war for dominance into her ear with my hand gripping her curls.

My mouth waters at the thought and I pull myself back to the present.

Right, I have things to do before I fly like an absolute demon to her house and her arms.

Today -

• Clean up the safe house
• Donate her clothes.
• Find a nice frame for her picture.
• Maybe also buy a jasmine from the Longbottom Nursery.

A heavy sigh and I move the coffee table and roll up the rug in front of the couch. A wave of my hand lazily reveals the trap door and staircase leading downwards into madness. I stare at the darkness.

Perhaps there is no longer a need for its original purpose, yet the space would be perfect for more unsavory acts?

I roll my eyes as I take the first few creaky steps downwards into the dark and stale glorified prison.

“We are not like our former brethren. There’s no need for whips and breeding benches. Besides, her pleasurable screams will be better in the sun with open windows.”

I bagged up all of the clothes I bought for her a decade ago while continuing to talk sense into The Thing With Claws in my mind. I freshen the bedding and the air, change the charm on the windows to a shoreline view at the base of the cliffs, and brighten the paint on the walls. Overall, it simply looks like an unused and nice extra room in case of a storm and less like mental collapse or potential imprisonment. I nod to the room - pleased with the outcome and drag the bags upstairs so I wouldn’t forget them.

My eyes catch the corkboard of pictures and I take each photo down, cast an impervious charm on them and lower them into one of the many safes under the floorboards. This one has a few stacks of muggle cash, and the deed to the house. 

If she finds this, who knows what she will think, but it will not be bad for me.

I close and cover the trapdoor, replacing the rug and the coffee table.

I spin away from my third task, landing behind the bushes in her side yard. I’m far too early for our meet up, but I wanted to see her and was too nervous to approach her friend’s nursery to buy the jasmine.

The wards dilate for me to walk through as I disillusion myself. I peer through her windows, finding the bottom floor empty. I amble through her kitchen, my alder branch is under stasis with a gathering of jasmine and the roses I sent her. My chest implodes. I’m certain it has caved in at the sight and now that my eye rests on the jasmine, I waggle my invisible finger at it.

I see you, Zhasmin. You have been hard at work. You have my thanks. Perhaps our first daughter will share your name?

I remember to take off my shoes, shrinking them down to place them in my pocket. Upstairs is also quiet and Hermione-free. I assume she is running errands, or spending time with the Potter brood as she sometimes does on the weekends. The outfit from the photo she sent is laid out neatly on her bed and I kneel down to smell her delicious scent from the bottoms. My needy cock has been hard since I landed and I return to my contemplation of possibly relieving myself of this insolent burden on something in her house.

I place a single kiss on the inseam of her slightly soiled, cotton bottoms. A secret promise for her to wear on her skin later.

Her closet door is ajar and I spy a wicker laundry hamper with a devilish grin on my face.

I remove the lid, finding a crumpled pair of black panties underneath her shirt from last night. My hands are shaky as I unfold them, the fabric has hardened overnight and it took a bit of manipulation to straighten out the ridges that had formed. 

I remember well how wet she was under the tracing of my fingertips. 

These will satisfy the need.

I walk them into her bathroom, turning on the cool water to add a few drops with my fingers. The leavings of her precious arousal are revived somewhat - enough for my needs, and I turn off the water. 

Now, where to settle this?

I slid under her bed, my favorite hiding place and placed her panties on my chest while I unbuckled my trousers, undid toomanyfucking buttons and released my bastard cock. I smelled a trace of her arousal and it made me buck my hips hard enough that I thought I might fuck a hole into her mattress.

I brought her panties up to my nose and tentatively licked her slightly congealed essence, feeling the slick against my tongue. I moaned and my eyes rolled up into my head. Then I stilled myself to listen for any changes. Finding none, I took myself in hand.

I’m not proud of the breathy groans and deafening slap of my hand stroking my cock ardently as I licked and sucked her panties like some creeper under her bed. It paled in comparison to the short moment I shared with her and any moment thereafter where it might be her impossibly small hands working me to completion instead. It got the job done and satiated the need within.

I slid out from under her bed to point my cock downwards into the open gusset, rubbing the tip against our deviant collaboration until my cum spurted powerfully into the fabric.

We would make a glorious mess together. I would have my Króshka sit like a queen on my mouth, rubbing herself on my lips, catching herself on my nose. Maybe she would cum again this way and drown me in the product of our joining? I would beg her to sit like this until she was empty again and then I would beg her to let me fill her once more.

Those idiots she’s been with before have never begged her like I would. They’ve coaxed her, sure. Tricksters!

No, no. She would hear the sound of my sweet begging. It might embarrass her at first. She will grow to love it.

   My arm holding me up was shaky, and my breath was turbulent in that quiet room. I sat up on my heels, my dripping cock still semi-hard and reddened with lust and friction. I  unbuttoned a few buttons on my shirt and dipped my little finger into the messy puddle of creation and dot my rabbiting heart. I dipped it in once more and lifted her pillow just high enough to dot the sheets under it before replacing it perfectly as it was.

I tucked myself away with a blank mind, crumpled her panties back up and tossed them under her shirt in her hamper. I righted everything in her house as it needed to be in time for her to come home with a covered dish from someone’s house and a tired countenance. I watched her with tight concern where I had just been loose from exertion and bad romance. 

She put the leftovers away and slumped onto the couch with a sigh. A few minutes passed until her phone rang. She picked it up, looked at it and for once, ignored it. It rang again a minute later and I leaned over the back of the couch to see, “ASSHOLE” on the screen.

I scrunch my nose and narrow my eyes at why someone of that caliber might be insisting on calling. I felt a sudden uneasiness coming from the wards. I rolled my shoulder and watched as she huffed angrily a moment before there was thunderous knocking on her front door. 

Chapter Text

I watched as she took out her wand when the knocking began. She looked breathless and startled and that pissed me the fuck off. She made her way to the door with me following behind near enough to thwart any major threats with immediacy. She tapped the hinge of her front door and muttered, “ Cardea ”, then peeked through a peephole I’d never seen before.

My umnitsa. Let us see what you have here.

Gods, I was proud of her.

She was on tiptoes for a second before she rested her head on the door and sighed. Whoever it was on the other side was unwelcome. And angry .

The knocking was more insistent this time and she raised her head off the door. A voice hissed outside, apparently this ward caused pain to unwanted visitors. Too bad it doesn’t melt the flesh from his hand.

“Ow! The fuck? Mione, come on! Open the door!”

My eyes narrowed as she opened her door. I trust her to know what she’s doing, but wish she was a little more ruthless in regards to her safety.

The red-headed shitfuck stands on her welcome cat, a sheepish scowl on his face. He rubs his hand and I am disappointed to see no visible injury.

Fucking Weasley .

“Ronald. I believe we’ve seen enough of each other to last a lifetime. Why are you here?”

He tries to approach the door and is stopped immediately by an invisible wall. His ears turned red as he looked around for the source of the barrier and then back at her with a frown. He attempts to speak quietly, yet the tinge of anger is definitely present. I don’t fucking enjoy this..this audacity. 

“Why did you leave when I got to Harry’s?”

I cross my arms as she does at his press for knowledge. Look at us, we’re already in sync.

I watch her scowl and say nothing to him. 

Good. Spare no further words on this catastrophe. This is none of your business, go lay your bad decisions elsewhere. Go away, you fuck.

“Mione..”

My queen is unmoving, unflappable, and unimpressed.

Why should she? That is not her name, you imbecile.

She stares him down until he starts showing signs that he’s unnerved by her and then she begins to close the door.

“ Wai-!”

And the door closes, locking solidly. I walk around her to peek out the window, watching him try to beat on the door only to be knocked back outside of the wards on his ass.

That reminds me I need to bolster the wards against him on the outer perimeters. Add more to the overall and even the windows upstairs. I see a familiar hulking presence and his little pixie-seer stop on the path next to the Weasel’s prone form and I check the clock on the wall above the door.

Almost time.

I witness a muffled disagreement outside and feel Hermione moving towards the window beside me, opening the curtains just a bit with a shake of her head. 

The pixie walks around the madness to knock on the door, prompting my króshka to open the door and hug her warmly.

The disagreement on the street is louder now, but the girls are too busy greeting each other to hear the thud of a fist meeting a face. I hear a snippet of the conversation between them.

“I’m so glad you two are here! I really must thank you for the surprising blind date last night.”

Followed by the airy, seer’s voice.

“It will be good for him to be here today. I think he will be here soon. Perhaps we should get the refreshments ready while Thorfinn settles up outside.”

The front door is closed and the happy chatter continues through the house without a backwards glance.

Maybe my little witch is ruthless enough after all?

Outside, I hear Thorfinn.

“Don’t look at her house. Look at me. You are not welcome here. Take the fucking hint.”

I sigh quietly and pass the two witches. The Seer distracts Hermione with a bit of replay from her own night while I slip out the back and make my way to the front.

I will not kill him in the street in front of her house.

I will not kill him in the street in front of her house.

This is my mantra as I walk down the street, pretending to be surprised by the scene in front of me. Nevermind that my fist is clenching and unclenching and my fucking eye has started twitching. I hope I look calm enough as I get closer to them.

“I know one should never arrive empty-handed when invited to one’s house, but this seems…equivalent to bringing her a, what was that muggle term? A bag of dicks?”

My brother’s threatening gaze softens when he sees me but his evil gaze turns back once more to the redhead, so I join his focus with a query.

“Thorfinn, why are you doing this in the middle of this quiet street?”

“He had been thrown out onto the street by Princess, I think. Was like this when I found him.”

He gives me a cheeky grin when I notice Weasley’s eye bruised shut and blood running down his nose. I turn his head towards me to get a better look. 

Not too fast, you don’t want to break his fucking neck. You do. But you don’t.   

The redhead looks startled when his one good eye registers who I am.

“You!”

I nod and clap my brother on the shoulder, tightening my grip on Weasley’s hair briefly causing him to wince.

“I see you’ve got this well in hand, though perhaps we should call him a Knight Bus and send him on his way?”

I watch the mountain of a man frown, clenching his fist till his knuckles crack.

It’s a tense minute as the shitfuck looks between us both until we step back. The bus screeches to a sudden halt in front of us and we throw the menace through the doors, stepping away as it drives off. I shove my hands in my pockets to contain myself as we watch it blur in the distance.

“I do not like him, Thorfinn.”

My big, baby brother scourgifies his hands and then pushes his shades up to rest on top of his head. It looks like my beloved dirtbag brushed his hair.

His ensuing smile does not reach his eyes which dart to the front window of Hermione’s house.

“Who knew we would be better friends to her than her own?”

It takes me a moment before I smile darkly at his response, and brush my hair back to both ease my mind and take some of the wildness off my goddamn brain.

I look up at him, straighten myself to my proper height and take sure steps towards her door, knocking a couple of times as the blond hulk takes the first step behind me.

“You gonna tell me how your night went later?”

I turn to him with a false gasp of disbelief. I clutch pearls that are not there.

“Thorfinn Rowle! You should be ashamed! A lady never kisses and tells!”

He leans in, the meddlesome fuck.

“Oh! So you kissed !”

I bare my teeth at him and then the door opens with my past, my present, and my future all aglow in front of me. I turn my snarling visage into a smile immediately .

She smiles at me as she leans on her door, a blush gracing her cheeks and then her eyes dart just behind me to Thorfinn. I don’t care what he says, I’m too entranced.

Look at her. Effortlessly overwhelming my senses. Those freckles! I wonder if I could kiss each one? I want to connect the constellations on her skin with my tongue until she births new stars under me. Gods wept! Fucking help me! 

It didn’t even matter that I’d just been in her home a moment ago, this was the first time I was looking at her for the day because she was looking at me, too.

Then her small hand was pulling mine into her home and I vaguely registered larger hands pushing me from behind. I let them. 

Their hands left me when Thorfinn scooped up his ‘Princess’ for a hug and I turned my head to look at her bookshelf, then took a step in that direction to peruse the spines I was already incredibly knowledgeable of. I took a battered “ Field Guide to Magical Plants ” off the shelf and opened it to the middle which seemed well-perused by the little witch. I thought about the times I saw her studying it to make sure the plants she was foraging were safe and not rather fit for one-time use.

The Pixie stood beside me, leaning over my arm to look at the page.

“I heard you’re friends with a Bowtruckle branch in the Forest of Dean? That is quite fortunate.”

I close the book and put it in the correct spot on her shelf, pushing it just so with my pointer finger to line it up how she likes.

I nod with a back and forth move of my head.

“Friend is a big word. I understood enough of their squeaking to know they weren’t about to move from the tree and then they spent the rest of the time being rude little twiglings. Very naughty.”

Her deep blue eyes smiled genuinely at the thought and then did that thing where they looked right through you. I felt my expression change to some kind of unamused amusement that she was perhaps poking around where she shouldn’t.

Not everyone likes to be read, Pixie Girl. I had enough of this with the dark Lord. You wouldn’t enjoy what you might find in the back of that particular closet.

That is what my eyes were trying to tell her. She stood there, as if in an open doorway just staring into a darkened room, then took a deep breath and came back to the present with a few rapid blinks.

I walked around the creepy little lady giving her the old ‘I-Told-You-So’ face and headed for Hermione who was carrying a tray of goodies out the kitchen door. I scooped the two pitchers off the table and followed her outside, setting them where the Queen of My Heart pointed out. I can take direction, this is her show afterall, and I want her to feel pleased with this social gathering. Especially after that problematic fucker came unannounced.

“Antonin?”

I blink and look up at her. Fuck, I wasn’t paying attention.

“Hmm?”

“I said that I was happy you could make it. I..I hope that photo I sent wasn’t too much?”

I shake my head rapidly while my hand reaches for hers and her small fingers curl around mine. My heart, O’ my evil little heart shatters into dust at her willing touch. My eyes trace down from the blush behind her freckled cheeks, to her red dress and black leggings. She looked like a Bozh'ya korovka , a ladybug. 

I pull her close to me, pressing her against the end of the table, one hand on her hip and the other holding her hand against my heart. The sigh that escapes me matched hers - the closeness was overwhelming. I almost didn’t believe any of this was actually happening.

It was incredibly disorienting being in Azkaban for all those years before and then again after the war..after her - she was a war within me, a new master whose feet I either wanted to kiss or encase in concrete and throw in the North Sea to be rid of it altogether.

Fuck.

You are a murderer, no matter how beloved by her.

I move my hand from her hip after squeezing her, maybe too hard. My little bird, I wanted to hold her and wrap her in gentleness - the likes she’s never seen before. That is, if she would let me, which was incredibly doubtful. 

I was painfully hard, pressing against her pelvis with equally painful, slow thrusts. 

“ Króshka … We are like two magnets, instantly compelled to touch. I should apologize for having so few words and too many actions.”

I lightly kiss her forehead, her temple. I am trying desperately to not take her on this table when she whimpers under my touch and my kiss. Her voice stammers with desire and the fight to be clear-headed. I only press myself against her harder.

“M-Maybe we should..”

The corner of my mouth turns up and I nod, giving her space and letting her go. I don’t want to do this. I want to leave an impression of her body in the ground at our feet to plant flowers in.

“Yes. You have company. Tsk tsk tsk ..neglecting your guests like this..”

Her impossibly small hand slaps my chest and I catch it, kissing her palm to satiate the incredible need to devour. 

The Domovoy in me wants to help in human form so I ask the first thing that comes to mind.

“What more needs to be brought out onto the table? Or..?”

I look up behind her distracted by Thorfinn suddenly closing the kitchen curtain, she turns her head to follow my gaze and narrows her eyes.

“I’ve got this.”

She walks away from me and I follow as if pulled on a fishing line behind a small motor-powered boat.

I watch as she lectures the Giant about spying, nevermind his little Seer lover spying in a different way, then shoves a tray with artfully arranged fruits and cured meats in his hands - threatening him if he messes any of it up.

Thorfinn is quick to offer reassurance that this is not too complicated for him and even walks away slowly, holding it with both hands.

Just imagine if this little demon was old enough to tangle with us on a level playing field. We would have switched sides immediately.

Gods above, I want to be cowed by her. I want my face numb from her little hands slapping it. I want blood in my teeth and a knife to my fucking throat. 

I push my hair back and take a deep, steadying breath.

What the absolute fuck?

A couple of hours spent chatting in the shade in her backyard, eating and dodging cheeky questions from Thorfinn about the previous night. It was quite revealing if you knew what to listen for otherwise. The Potters were too busy with their own lives to check on her during what she not-so-affectionately called her “Weasley Years”, and in some cases didn’t believe her when she did speak up. Thorfinn and I glanced at each other here and there, sharing an incredible dislike for how she was treated. He looked like he was employing some of his calming techniques to keep from going berserker like the old days. This does not bode well.

“So, how did you become acquainted with my brother here? Hogwarts?”

I watched her eyes glitter with amusement at the hulking idiot sitting across from her who had the smirkiest smirk I think I had ever seen on his face.

“In my first year, I accidentally caught him doing something with one of his girlfriends in the library. I was trying to figure out how to get through the wards in the Restricted Section without needing a permit and followed the left-hand perimeter and there he was with his pants down.”

They both laugh uproariously, the Seer just smiles vacantly at him and I gather a handful of berries to eat to stave off any rage about her seeing my brother nude at all.

She continues her story unaware of my plight.

“I froze. I was vaguely brand new to magic and then this was the first ..you know..I’d seen.”

She blushes. God I want to bite her cheeks, feel the heat on my lips . I eat a few more pieces of fruit instead.

“Of course, he was mad because I’d ruined his moment and well, he sort of bullied me mercilessly after that.”

I watched my brother look down, fiddling with some food on his plate. He wasn’t proud of himself, that much I could see. Good. 

“I’ve apologized for that, by the way.”

He says it to me and then turns to his pixie to extend that knowledge to her. She pats him on the arm to soothe his worries.

My króshka continues on.

“So, that was only my first year and then he graduated. I don’t think I saw him until..well…”

That would be the night Dumbledore died.

“And then…you two.”

The fucking cafe. She was so beautiful, her hair still charmed from the Weasley wedding. The way her eyebrows furrowed as she studied me up close thinking she was perfectly safe to do so. It was like those nature programmes I’d watched after I got out of the clink. The grizzly, knocked out with tranquilizers, and the researcher holding the deadly paw with such curiosity and respect. I am fooling myself.

I blink the thought away and fold up the corner of my paper napkin nervously to ask what I had never thought of before.

“Thorfinn must have explained some of that from his point of view already?”

Her head bobbed slowly, a look that seemed ashamed for having knocked us down, but promised that she would do it again if she had to. Good.

“Maybe a year ago now? Ronald tried to turn him away from the door but Thorfinn was adamant about apologizing and wouldn’t leave unless I turned him away myself. I wasn’t about to, I earned that apology. He said his piece through the doorway over Ronald’s ridiculous fury. It was the best apology I’ve ever received, honestly.”

I look up at my brother, a mixture of shock and pride. I know he was serious about his therapy, his group sessions which he was leading by now. What I didn’t know - couldn’t know - was his closeness to Hermione. Sure, he shared stories about her, but I had no context behind them. I tried to figure out if I was mad about any of it. Then again, I was pretty upset when he started talking about her again and look where we are. 

Ronald’s Fury?

I frown in thought. No wonder my brother was so enthusiastic about this break up. He had insider knowledge. I wonder how much she had to sacrifice in letting Thorfinn apologize? What was I doing a year ago?

I’m not aware of how long I burned a hole into the table with my eyes, but it was enough for the little Seer to touch my hand, bringing me fully back to reality with a simple touch.

“Thorfinn and I will say our goodbyes now.”

I pull my hand out from under hers to scratch my cheek absently and nod. 

“I will see you both on Wednesday, yeah?”

The strange girl cuddles my brother’s arm and smiles brightly while my brother smiles at me smugly. He flicks his eyebrow up at me in his troublesome way.

“Wear that one set with the tight pants, Dolly.”

I knew it was coming, but I shake my head anyway. The goofy fuck.

“Yeah..yeah.. Should I wear an off the shoulder kinda thing or?”

The big oaf stands up, leaning over the table to twinkle his bright blues in my fucking face.

“No, baby. I like unwrapping you.”

Jesus Christ on a bicycle. Please fuck right off!

There is beautiful laughter next to me.

“Thorfinn?”

“Yeah, big bro?”

“Please kindly take your tiny pixie and fuck off.”

My króshka nudges me.

“I might want to see this uniform before Thorfinn does. What do you do?”

My idiot brother, I swear to fucking.. He steps away from the table, grabbing both pitchers with one of his big stupid hands, and flips his sunglasses down.

“What you’ll see, I have already seent, Princess!”

He flips his hair and grabs the pixie with the other arm, throwing her over his shoulder as she squeals.

I suck on my teeth and stand up to stack up plates and silverware.

“I work for the Magical Forestry Service in the Forest of Dean.”

She doesn’t say anything, but I can feel her eyes on me. When I finally am brave enough to look, she has the most incredulous look on her face. Not angry..more like..wondering if I maybe was telling some kind of fabrication.

I was not. Of course.

“Did you…No. That’s stupid.”

She huffs a laugh and gathers the rest of the dishevelment of meal time away, walking beside me to the kitchen. I ask earnestly because I want her to ask me anything. Everything.

“Do I what, króshka?”

She piles the things in the sink, points to the fridge for the pitchers for Thorfinn to put away and spends 5 minutes saying goodbye to them with kisses and little hugs while I agonize deeply .

When she closes the front door, she finds me washing up and leans on the counter beside me.

“Is there a tent by the river warded to the absolute tits, by chance?”

All of my worries crumple like a house of cards. 

I laugh loudly then gradually allow seriousness to enter my face because I know why they left it there.

“Yes, yes there is. They really didn’t know what to do with it because any time anyone tried to approach it, they would be teleported to various parts of the forest.”

She smiles as she watches me drying my hands, replacing the tea towel on the handle of the oven door to her standards.

“The only thing that can ever get close to it is a doe that has been seen year after year unravaged by time. It tries to eat the scarf hanging out in front of the tent sometimes.”

I shrug.

“Magical forests, am I right?”

She looks at me with a vaguely haunted light behind her otherwise happy eyes. I cannot make heads or tales of it.

Finally, she breaks the silence, pulling me close to her.

“There is no pressure for you to dole out apologies, you know?”

I bob my head this way and that.

“You know as well as I do that I have so much to answer for. Yes, I was not in my right mind in the Department of Mysteries. I still had seawater and moldy rocks in my skull. I was not a whole person, króshka. ” 

She touches the center of her chest- some kind of reflexive motion - and I can taste the electricity in the air. “Still. I am sorry for throwing that curse at you.”

She shakes her head, and her pretty curls frizz. The magic there tingles with the current of my own. 

I don’t want to do any of this talking, honestly. I want to lift her up onto the counter and suck bruises down the length of my mark on her. I want her screaming out of her lacy kitchen window while I try to suck her cunt dry.

I sigh instead and look forlorn enough.

“And now?”

Her hands are pulling me closer to her body and I place my own on her hips so she doesn’t feel the lie as my bastard cock drips with hunger.

“Now? Hermione, now I want to start anew. I want to..”

“Hermione? You there?”

She tilts me to the side with an annoyed look at the slightly muffled voice shouting through her door with a definitely intrusive and overly authoritative knock. She fucking sighs with the tiredness of a mother whose kid maybe just broke something in the other room while she is mid-bite of some gloriously well-heated food.

“I’m sorry, I need to answer this.”

I eye the knife in the block when she leaves to answer the door fully prepared to chuck it clean through the center of whoever it was at the door.

Breathe 5, 4, 3..2..1. Ok. Go see who the fuck it is.

She opens the door and I step one step to the right to see who it is.

The bespectacled nightmare and shitty friend that is Harry Potter. Crowned saint of politsiya. His blindness is a curse for looking away at Hermione’s pain. This fucker. 

“I see Ron wasn’t lying. Where’s Rowle?”

He dares look at me with those eyes. I would wear them as cufflinks. 

I interject innocently. I am innocent, afterall. Super good citizen, Antonin Dolohov.

“Is there a problem here?”

I look between them, my hand finding her upper back, showing my support and nearness. She keeps her eyes trained on Potter who just looks angry and confused. He is trying to wear his protector badge but it is too late for that shit. 

He tries to lean towards her to whisper, but he is an idiot. I hear it all. Like I haven’t been listening to whispers for two decades.

“Mione! He’s dangerous . He’s murdered people. Rowle, too. Gin and I had to talk Ron down and repair his face. ”

She sighs again. 

It’s a tired sigh that tells me she might need a nice long bath after all of this and for me to dry her off afterwards with my tongue.

This fucking woman smells so good right now. Too good to be sighing in her doorway instead of under me.

I raise an eyebrow as she answers.

“We’ve killed people too, Harry. We don’t have a monopoly on war-time antics. Most of us only pretend to have civility instead of savagery.”

The Boy-Who-Lived-Because-Hermione-Worked-Her-Ass-Off took a full step back, his jaw dropping in surprise.

“What you should be focusing on..”

This glorious woman goddess dances on my chest even further as she takes a step forward, gaining ground.

“.. is how Ronald even knew where I lived. Then ask why my leaving your house would matter to a soon-to-be father with a protection order against him. You did serve him with it, yes?”

The idiot glanced between us both, his mouth tightening on his lack of argument.

He probably opened his mouth and closed it a couple of times and I moved my hand to the small of her back reminding her I was unobtrusively there.

“Harry? Please go home.”

She closed the door abruptly in his face and I pulled her into my arms.

To need a protection order against someone tells me almost too much. I feel my blood sizzle. I try to call this off. Leave somehow with polite words and beg-offs.

“If I am causing you too much unrest, I can go…”

She covers my mouth with her tiny hand and shakes her head silently as she searches my eyes. 

“Stay.”

I don’t know how we managed to get up the stairs with her clothes coming off piece by piece, dropping to the floor like leaves.

I kissed her lips till they were swollen and pressed her against the wall as picture frames fell around us with her legs wrapped around me. 

I really don’t know how I got her in the bed, yet my hand was holding her thighs up as I sucked and bit her beautiful cunt until she cried out and even then I refused to stop.

“Again.”

The monster demanded on its knees to the heaven laid bare and flooding around my fingers. I was happy I had managed to remove my shirt when the third time my little witch came for me, she blessed me with a screaming eruption of her waters. 

“That’s it, moya rusalka , drown me…”

“Antonin, please ..” 

I nibbled on the inside of her thigh, my wretched fingers never ceasing their frenetic pull within her.

I looked up at her, propped up on her pillow, the one I wanted to fuck. The one I might still fuck because after we are done, my essence will already be everywhere. I shrug internally and growl onto her clit just before sucking it into my hungry little mouth. 

Yes, Antonin. Make her cum for us, ruin her. She will never leave and if she tries, this is the first bite we will have to keep her with us forever.

My eyes shift just enough to look at her through my hair. She had been gripping my scalp like a mighty Sirin , and at some point she let go to clench the sheets under her leaving all the joys of being with her deeply in my skin. 

I begged her to rip me apart with her fingers as I pulled another little death from her. 

No more of these bad lays buried in this beautiful cunt. I will pull them all out with my fingers and tongue to plant sweeter deaths within her. My seed, my offering for Matka Ziemia.

“Ahh! Please! ”

“Please what, my darling?”

She whimpers as she comes down from a smaller orgasm, closing her eyes to me and the world.

No.

No.

I need to hear her. All of this watching I’ve done… I need her words to be to me.

I pull my fingers from her abruptly, her legs open wide as her little feet grip my shoulders. I suck on the tip of my little finger.

“You need..”

Then the tip of my ring finger.

“To tell me..”

My middle finger is next, wrinkled. Her sweet cream pooled up in my knuckle and the web. A goddamned benediction.

“What you mean when…”

My index, again, another pool of sweet cream. 

“You say ‘please’ to me. I won’t ask again.”

She watches as I move her feet off of my shoulders and stand up.

I think I see a whisper of a frown on her face.

I take off my belt. I won’t hit her with this. Are you fucking crazy? I might be, but no, no. I just want her to shiver, just a little fear to taste in the air.

 I place the belt on the bed beside her slowly and pull her into a seated position by her wrists.

She reaches for me, to touch me with a shaky hand and a heavy breath.

Maybe she needs a glass of water before we go further?

Okay bastard cock, you can wait longer.

I look at the little table on this side of her bed.

I could transfigure a pencil, but that has lead in it, which would not be good for drinking.

I narrow my eyes at a figurine of an otter, having not noticed it before, I point to it.

“ Króshka, I am going to transfigure that into a cup so you may drink some water. You should rehydrate yourself, my little siren. You cannot drown me in your perilous waves if you are dehydrated.”

She laughs quietly and nods.

“Yes, as long as I can return it to its original state before you leave.”

I transfigure it with a twist in my hand, filling it with an aguamenti while wondering why anyone would treat her this way.

As she drinks, I seek to reassure her. I kneel at her feet, my hand lightly touching her crossed ankles.

“I want you to know that I am not the type to prank like that. I would always respect your things and you.”

I uncross her ankles, and kneel at the floor to kiss her feet, her calves. She lowers her glass and watches me with her eyes flecked with fire.

“Drink up, darling. I didn’t tell you to stop.”

My little witch lifts the cup to her lips and drinks till her head tilts back. She turns the cup over her body, a single drop falling down the length of her scar, cresting just over her rib. 

I pounce like a thirsty man to sip at her skin where the bead of water trailed, the electricity in her skin from the proximity to our mark overwhelming my fool fucking mind.

I suck at the skin of her stomach, and the skin just under her breast. I kiss to soothe the bites I am barely cognizant I am making. I utter a warning in my reverence.

“Gods the feel of your skin between my teeth and the little sounds you make. I lose myself in you, Hermione… I am a man gone.”

I divest myself of the rest of my clothing and her legs open at the feel of my heated cock directing itself into the caldera of her body. I groan at the tightness of her, the close fit of my cock carving away her previous lovers. 

I belong here.

This is mine.

I pull out shallowly and thrust in further, stretching her open. 

Her gasp seems too far away. I open my eyes to find myself far too upright.

I need her breasts against me. Heart to fucking heart. Easier for the feral fucker in my chest to crawl into her body, digging into her guts to find a place to sleep.

“Oh my f- fucking … god …please..don’t stop.”

I pushed myself in deeper, her legs wrapped around me cricketing to roll and move her hips with my thrusts.

Her voice in my ear, the tight grip of her cunt on my cock and her fingers on my shoulders. The scrape of her breasts against me..

“Oh, my girl, I could never. I could..”

Thrust. Her sigh mixed with a moan.

“Never..”

Thrust. 

I feel like the ghosts of her bad fucks, any teenage fumblings in the dark..they have fallen out onto her sheets and around my balls. I am not concerned by them. 

I bit the spot on her neck under her ear just shy of bruising.

“Stop now..”

She whimpers as her walls flutter around me. I pick up the pace as the demon begs. I don’t know which one I am listening to. Me or her. I prop myself up on my forearm and pinch at her tight chocolate bud. 

Her ensuing cry is sweet and far too encouraging. 

I practically devour the entirety of her breast, raking my teeth over the soft globe of flesh and lightly across her nipple as her breathing speeds up and her sound of delight deafens the neighborhood. 

“That’s it, my girl. Take your pleasures from my cock as it carves a home into your body.”

You are ready for my seed, yes? I will give your friends something to worry about when they see you round and maybe a little ashamed by it. I will worship your body until you love it. 

Her legs are spring-loaded traps opening wide and closing around me as she shakes and moans. I am the fox with my paw inside. The only difference is that I would rather die in her body than ever leave.

I fuck her harder, relentlessly jostling her little frame. I have no mercy to give her as she comes down - we want more.

She hardly stops screaming and my hand reaches for her throat, to feel the powerful noises wrecking her vocal chords over the sound of our breathing and our bodies slapping wetly in the middle of her bed.

“I belong here. You are mine .”

She nods through another orgasm. My little ladybug enjoyed that more than I thought.

The hold I have on her throat is still gentle, but I feel the grip getting tighter.

“ Króshka, I want to hear you say it. I..”

Thrust. Ffffuck, I want to live inside her.  

She tilts her head back to cry out.

“Belong..”

Thrust. 

Only her. Only her.

“Oh fucking gods yes yes yes!!” 

She cums loudly again. I calmly continue and pick the pace back up, tightening my hold on her throat again. No rest, my heart.

“Here.  Now - Repeat. Tell me. I want to feel the words flow out of your pretty little throat while I fuck you.”

Gods, she is so vocal. Her voice practically stammers with each push of my being into hers.

“ Antonin ! You ..mmm..you belong here.”

I almost faint when she hums.

I know the demonspeed of my hips falters. I suck on her lips with a groan as I fill her. I want to swallow every little breath, every bit of sadness.  I want to take it all into me as I put all of mine in her.

I am nonsensical when I whisper prayers over her lips. I’m thanking the gods, I’m speaking of ruination. Heaven and Hell are in this goddamn room. I am impressed we have not set something on fire accidentally. Perhaps she has charms up for just that very thing.

My girl, so prepared to entangle with me.

I hum as she kisses me back, her claws in my hair. She could knife me in the throat and I would probably just cum again. 

She makes a small sound. Enough to make me look up at her with some concern.

“Oh.”

She gentles a deep red clawmark on my arm with her sweet, caring fingertips. I pull her hand to my lips to kiss her fingers.

“I have had plenty of horrendously beautiful talons in me, my sweet girl. None like yours, nor will there ever be. I am a thing with teeth thoroughly enchanted and ensnared by you. Only you.”

She welcomes my weight on her body, though I try to brace my arms to take a little of it off. Her arms are cool as they pull me closer. She whispers to me breathlessly.

“Are you mine?”

My ear is against the taut, purpled skin of the sash I gave her.

I hear a buzz and her whisper joining hundreds of others. I hear the thumping of her heart.

“More than you know, Hermione.”

Some moments with her tender fingers tracing circles on my back and on my sides. I relish it all. Who knows when it may suddenly stop?

“Why?”

She has been pondering this for a good long while and I feel the weight of her question.

“Hm. I am..I am not sure if I can answer that indoors. I can try.”

Oh, good. You don’t sound too crazy.

“When we first met..”

I pull myself from her warmth to sit up.

“I was..not in a good place. I might not have noticed you over the cacophonous sound of waves, the repetitive dreary memories of my family dying, and the flashing lights of rapidfire spellwork between Dumbledore’s child soldiers and terrifying mental illness in human forms.”

She sat up somewhere in the midst of that, folding herself around her legs to rest her chin on her knees in the dark.

“You were defending your friend whose arm I broke and you whipped a silencio at me. Suddenly, there you were, clear as day through all the haze. I am not sure if you silenced the noise in my head, but you cut through it enough that I saw you. I saw your fierceness and your fear. I wanted to play, so I threw a couple of spells your way and you handled them. I threw a few more, faster and not of any real dangerous caliber. Well…”

I bob my head back and forth and tilt my hand in the same manner.

“Ok, maybe one of them was an entrail expelling curse. You handled those and you threw back just as good as you got. I ratcheted my curses up too high. I threw a couple that you managed to block but only barely. Then I threw that one. It didn’t..I…”

I close my eyes and take my breaths. 

“I created that curse myself. I know well what it does, I am not sure why I chose that one or why it reacted the way it did. You should have died, Hermione! There would have been no marks on you. At all.”

I see her lift her head off her knees. Her voice is quietly befitting the darkened room. Again, we reveal ourselves to the night.

“I have a hypothesis that because it was nonverbal, it didn’t react the same. It was more of a grazing than internal. That is why I split open.”

I move to hold her.

“I am sorry that I did that. I took it too far. Those years where I was sent back to Azkaban afterwards, it was all I could think of. I have gone over it loads of times with my mind healer.”

Her hands grip my arms and she leans into me, mumbling something I didn’t quite catch.

I lift her chin up.

“What was that?”

She tries to tilt her head down, but I refuse it.

Of course she sighs.

“It’s not even the worst of my scars.”

I flick on the bedside lights with barely any movement. Our eyes adjust to the brightness enough to look at each other in the face. I emphasise my anger towards Bellatrix without reluctance. I want her to know of it.

“I know about the one that crazy fucking hag gave you. I would have murdered her myself, Hermione, I wanted to..”

She shakes her head and my brows furrow in furious question.

And that’s when she lifts up her left arm. I release her face to hold her wrist gently, so gently to the light.

A long pink scar bisects the horribly carved slur on her arm and I feel my heart drop lower than it has ever been. It might be under the bed where The Domovoy is right now.

I didn’t know she tried to kill herself!

“Your life is so precious, Hermione! Please tell me you do not feel this way still!”

She shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears.

“It wasn’t me. H–he grabbed me so hard when I ..I wanted to break things off with him. Then he wouldn’t let me get it healed at St. Mungo’s. He k-kept me in our flat after taking me to a muggle hospital to get it fixed. Confunded everyone who saw me there without worry for repercussion because he knew he could use his fame to escape charges. I had a cast for several weeks while he threatened to break it again if I acted against him.”

She shakes her head at the scenes behind her eyes. I can’t help but ask the big question. Why didn’t anyone notice she was missing? Wouldn’t they have found any of it suspicious? Where was Thorfinn during all of this?

“Hermione, weren’t your friends worried that you were missing?”

Her wild hair swayed against my chest as she shook her head with a sniffle.

“He called my work and told them I was needed at my parent’s for a few weeks while I ‘sorted things out’.”

I wipe the tears off her cheek with my thumb. It is a slow, unconscious movement while I listen instead of reacting poorly. The anger rolled off her like a landslide - the energy piled up all around us like loose boulders. No roads were spared, a village would wake up with homes filled with mud and trees and impossible rock formations. There was devastation in her voice, it poured through her body into mine and I kept myself upright in the flow. My anger refused to be crushed or buried.

“They all listened to him. When I cried to them about how he was verbally abusive with me for getting the job I’d always wanted, hiding my work bag on the shelf the night before my first day, at the top of our closet - which he’d extended to put it further out of reach. They laughed it well off. I had bruises on my legs from…”

I held her firmly, keeping her supported through this downpour, outpour, this veritable dam break.

I wanted to spin away in the middle of her room to go find him. I just wanted to have a little chat. Maybe break his arms and leave him in the safe house for 6 weeks. I don’t care that I am naked. 

I cannot leave her with this. I cannot leave her alone with this. I cannot make her worry.

She saved us all from ruination. So many of my brethren knew she was the intelligence behind those two absolute meatheads. 

Something in me fucking howls for her. For her . FOR HER.

When she steadies her breath to keep going, I nuzzle her hair. I will listen and bear witness when so few did. 

“They kept their eyes on other things. Their children, their own lives, the careers they chose and were supported in their choosing, on quidditch, or nights out. The war was over for them and I was no longer useful to them. They begrudgingly dragged me around, but he started to make even that impossible. I either wasn’t allowed to, or he would go with me on what should have been a ‘Girl’s night’ to keep an eye on me. He’d get too drunk every single fucking time. Then he would fight any man who talked to me even if they worked there. We never went to Diagon or Hogsmeade for anything because people would stop me to express gratitude and he would stew on it. Spinning me away back home angrily long after the interaction was over. He wanted me to suffer because I remembered how he was the one that left us in the fucking snow. It was awful, Antonin.”

I let out a heavy breath over the top of her head as she clutched her battered arm to her chest.

“Thankfully, he was less watchful when I was with Luna. He underestimated her as everyone does. They forget that she was in the battle with us the whole time. They forget she survived in the Manor far longer than we were there.”

I can only look at the clothes crumpled on the floor leading into her room, and listen to her breathe. It makes sense as to why the strange seer was always around now, and perhaps I chide myself a little on the inside for being a bit rude to her.

It takes me a long time to say something. I just want her to know my heart and my vow of protection for her. 

“Hermione, if someone ever makes you feel stupid, or weak, or powerless again, remember that I am out there. I am dangerous, and I am looking out for you.”

She scoffs at my words lightheartedly.

“I’m tough.”

I nod. “I do not dispute this.”

She sits up tall enough that my arms fall away from her and she looks me dead in the eye with a proud face and red eyes.

“I can take care of myself.”

I sit up, combing my mustache down with my fingers as I take my fill of her naked beauty and poise. She lights up the whole room and I am the moth wanting to beat myself off against her gleaming body.

“You have. You still do.” 

I gesture to her house and then touch the knee that is closest to me, leaving my palm open in hopes her small hand might touch mine.

“You always will, Hermione. I will never stand in the way of that, but I have joined you. Now we will take care of each other.”

She looks at me and I wish I were small enough for her to crush if she wanted. 

I insinuate myself into her life too much. It’s only the first time we are together and I am too bold.

Fucking idiot. 

And then her warm hand slides into mine and the magic we share clangs together like a mighty bell in the very cells of my being. My eyes roll up into my head when she tightens her grip and then she pulls me forward to scorch me with her soft lips. I feel the beat of her heart on the back of my hand, and the press of her nipple on my forearm.

My wild witch crawls onto my lap. I am moments from blacking out over the sensations jarring my nerves. I am rattled beyond reasoning and suck in my breaths between the tangle of our mouths.

  I am just trying to keep my head above water, but the panic has set in, my arms are flailing, right? No, it’s only her. You signed yourself up for this, Antonin. 

Let yourself sink. 

Do not fight this.

I feel the heat of her far lower than my brain can fully register and hear the soft sighs of rapture and hunger with their vibrations against my lips and the meat of my tongue. The echoing of our pleasured groans in my open mouth bouncing off my palate and down my throat.
The scent of our sex, and the shroud of jasmine covering us as we go under.
When she tilts her head back to shout down the rosette of secrecy on her ceiling, I whisper onto her collarbones between careful bites.

“Someone will have to put a stone with our names on it overlooking the sea we float away on.”

Chapter Text

Her sleepy voice rises from the now sun-brightened bed when I finally decide I really need to get up for the betterment of my health.

“Where are you going?”

“Shh..shh..I am needing to relieve my bladder of the evils of a fruity refreshment or seven. Rest, Hermione.”

I stumble away from her slurring protests which at this point do not even sound like actual words.

I stand in front of her toilet to do what needs to be done when I spy one of her head hairs wrapped around the base of my cock.

I smile at it, knowing I have been inside her makes me feel beautiful. That her hair has claimed me, even more so. 

I wonder if this is what it feels like to be engaged? I don’t dare unwind it.

After relief is found, I decide to fill her tub with nice, warm water. I scoop out her fancy salts from the container beside the tub and then I am off to retrieve my sleepy witch.

It is an unfortunate thing that my moment is ruined when I spy movement outside down on the street. A familiar person with red hair looks up at the house from the sidewalk across the street.

What a fucking nightmare. No, this will be FUN! 

He is at the tippy-top of our list. Let us play now.

I make my way down her stairs, disillusioning myself before I walk out of her kitchen door to remain unnoticed.

I take careful steps around the front, looking up and down the street finding it peacefully suburban. Everyone has their rubbish bins out except for my lover and that is when I get The Idea .

A thoroughly wicked grin crawls across my face and I know without a doubt that my bastard, beautiful cock is straining at the thought of what I am about to do for her.

Always for her. From here until my last breath and even then I might fight death to keep watch over her.

I see him standing there with his hands in his pockets as I casually stroll right up to him. I can smell the alcohol from possibly the night before rolling off him. It is worse than the stench of dark magic. Worse than inferi.

Oh, wouldn’t he make a lovely one though? No, no. Let us just give Ms. Brown a break and Hermione some peace. Mmm..all aboard for fun-time!

I am vaguely aware of being painfully hard at the taste of destruction stretching through my mind. I can feel the cool air of the early morning on my hot skin bare to all the elements, my teeth clench tightly with the need to keep restraint.  

It is too bad that we are in the most muggle of neighborhoods because I would love nothing more than to have this man destroy himself in the open air. I would be awash with his blood and his screams would scatter the birds from a nearby tree. The mess would be easily taken in by the soil and all its little unseen inhabitants - the creeping bugs, mycelium, at night the foxes, perhaps? I could order a whole new set of knife blades and whittle new handles for them.

I would carve his bones, inlay them with his polished up teeth and gift one to Hermione. This is her victory, too, for surviving him. He broke her bones and her spirit for a time... I would teach her how to wield her pain.
The thought makes me squeeze myself just once. 

I need to keep my mind present.
I inhale deeply, and exhale across the side of his neck.

“ Imperio. ”

A lover’s whisper in his ear, his shoulders tense only for a second, and his eyes glaze over, something falls from his hand but I only have a mind for steering this ship aground.

I have you. You have no idea the absolute danger you have over-confidently and obsessively walked into.

I bare my teeth at the side of his face. 

I want to bite his skin, take something from him. His eyes? You cannot grow those back. Alastor Moody found that out the hard way. 

Ugh! The impatience I feel at not being able to do these things will only make it worse for all of us. 

Fuck it. Silencio.

I grip his shoulder to silence him for surely he might scream through this next part.

“Transfigure yourself into a rubbish bin.”

I watch him shakily pull his wand out of an inner pocket in his jacket. Good to know where he keeps it. Just as good as knowing how absolutely awful he was at transfiguration.

I step back, my cock in hand as he morphs painfully into the object as requested. The lid is covered in red hair, and the main body of it is red and white plaid like the shirt he was wearing.
I shake my head as I appraise how truly unpleasant this transformation looked and the muted pain I wish more than anything I could hear.

We must be good neighbors, right, króshka? 

 Fuck - this is a thing of monstrous beauty. I wonder if I can see his insides when I open the bin? I will save that surprise for myself later. I deserve a little surprise. I have been so good.

I pick up his wand with a twirl between my fingers. They were stupid enough to keep my wand when they let me out, never realizing that they’d be unable to track my magic. Idiots. 

My eyes catch sight of his mobile phone and I pick that up as well- turning it off for now.

Wheelsley.

I giggle when the thought pops into my head as I wheel him over to the back border of Hermione’s yard. With no one to change him back, he was agonizingly stuck. I shrug once I tuck him behind some unminded bushes and head back inside after cleaning my feet. The house is still peaceful in slumber when I tuck his wand and phone into the deep pocket of my jacket.

Coffee brews downstairs while I stretch out the morning’s vibrant brutalities by her bedroom window. The trailing fingers of today’s morning light make all the dew on the rooftops across the way glitter prettily. It is nothing like the dew on the leaves in the forest when I have the rare early morning shift, but it still has a calming effect on my mind.

I hear the sounds of her waking, and watch her stretch her arms up to the heavens, yawning big and wide. She notices me looking at her by the window, rubs her eyes and cuddles up like a little pea in a pod with the blanket she no longer needs to share.

Gods she is so fucking adorable.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

I smile as I walk towards the bed to crawl over it, planting kisses on what little of her face I am able to.

“I told you, Króshka. I am seeing only you.”

I laugh when she groans and covers her face from me. 

“Ok! Ok! No hiding from me.” 

I jump off the bed to stand at attention for her. I gesture to the sunlight as I decide then and there to pull out some Whitman for my umnitsa .

” Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?”

She naturally unveils her languid beauty at the recitation. Again, I tell you, I can charm tiny goddesses, wee wise women, and miniscule monsters-in-waiting.

I tap at my temple as I explain my wakefulness.

“I am a man of action in the mornings. It keeps my mind sharp. I was thinking - I will add some wards to the perimeter today if you will allow me?”

Her eyes dance over the length of my body, the depth of them in this lighting reminding me of rainwater caught in hollowed out trees.

She peels the blanket from around her, exposing the loveliness of her shoulders, lovebites left by some absolute vampire across her perfect peaks, and a glimpse of her belly which I imagine with a bit of a curve in it already though that is impossible. The way she looks at me has my blood pumping again, my beautiful cock twitches as it rises further upwards, directing itself to the true north of her body.

“Antonin, I would allow you almost anything.”

I cannot help it - I take myself in hand with a slow stroke and a twist of my hand. Her eyes follow with interest. I break her concentration when I release myself almost violently.

“ Almost anything?”

I ask her playfully, yet in my heart I have the knowledge that there would be very little she would negate.

She shrugs.

How is that so incredibly seductive?

“I’m just being conservative. I don’t yet know my limits with you.”

My bastard cock bobs for her, for all the imaginations of explorations we might try under the guise of, ‘Have we hit our limit yet? No? Ok, keep going.’ 

Fuck, and now I am dripping for her. I bet she is for me, as well. One day I will touch the tip of her darling little clit - a kiss to link the bridge of my arousal with hers. I wonder how far backwards I might be able to walk before the link disconnects? Surely, I should always remain within those parameters forever more. Once you know, you cannot go against it.

Her sweet, pink tongue flicks out as she watches the thin, glistening web my cock has begun weaving for her.

One of my hands runs down my stomach to firmly hold and pull my bollocks. I want her to see what I will allow her to do to me.

Destroy me. Grab the very makings of future souls and name them, my heart.

My other hand runs up my stomach, the gooseflesh making my nerves sing, my nipples hardening as the wash of sensation ripples in all directions. My mind is beginning to burst with fireworks of colour on the edges of my vision. I scratch down my chest and across my ribs while handling myself with only minor cruelty - no matter how it looks.

She kicks the blanket from her body and crawls towards the edge of the bed with her eyes locked on mine.

She sits, watching me as her eyelids grow heavier with want. One of her small index fingers finds the point of power between her legs, which she widens for better access. The view she gives me causes me to shudder as I begin to stroke myself for her once more.

I would give you anything.

My temptress circles it slowly, the tight rotations widening until she is coating her finger in the slick moisture at her entrance.

The unthinkable, the damning - as she raises her shiny finger to the scar, zig-zagging along the length of it. I whimper when I feel the charge between our cores flash on and off under her ministrations. I am unprepared as the strings that create the weave of our magic are plucked one by one and I feel my body shake with the vibrations. I open my eyes an eternity later with my fingers gripping the tops of my thighs apparently having fallen to the carpeted ground on my knees. 

I looked down around myself - Surprised that I hadn’t made a mess of myself. 

She sits patiently with a look of amusement and curiosity. 

Gods above, of course she knows about the weave. We have not found my limits, little bird. Nor will we ever. Though, this is admittedly a bit of a vulnerability I had not foreseen.

“Antonin, get up.”

I clamber to my feet. I feel wrung out and deep inhalations are slow to wake me up. The moment I find my feet, she points to the ground in front of her. I am all too willing to comply. My queen will place me where she wishes.

Yes, my little witch. I am yours to destroy. Are you mad at me? Do you love me? Why not fucking both?

Her warm little hand reaches for mine, holding my fingers with a light squeeze. I looked down at her affectionately and for just a moment I relived that feeling of the sun on my face after I left prison. The warmth forces all the chill stuck in my marrow to recede away. 

And then in one swift movement, her free hand pats my balls and pulls my cock. The sickening feeling in my stomach melds with the pleasure I feel. 

I wince and groan and reach for the back of her head with my other hand.

My words come out choked and winded.

“Fuck…Hermione. Again! ”

The deadly move happens once more and I have visions of sirens pulling on the cocks of love drunk sailors, disemboweling them with their terrific teeth. I see in my mind’s eye the hapless fools who followed their song with their ragged ribcages exposed to the salty mist in the air and the equally salty glazing of their near-death spasming.

I’ve had this dream before. Was it always her? I have spent too long unmoored yet grounded in the middle of the fucking sea. Gods help me.

I almost cum and have to slow her hand.

“Hold steady, my queen. I am overwhelmed. I might end this too soon.”

I feel her cheeky little hand squeeze my shaft and drag itself off the head of my cock with a tight squeeze.

I fucking groan and clutch her tiny hand that is still holding mine, and pull at the curls on the back of her head. 

I want her to have her way with me, but I also might want to stuff her mouth with my cock till she knows what it feels like to drown.

 I exhale loudly. I feel like I might be dying but it also feels like falling in love. How can I know the difference? I haven’t done either, have I? My balls tighten when she says my name with her perfect fucking mouth.

“That’s ok, Antonin. I will just have to make you hard for me again.”

Gods fucking above me! Is it too soon to tell her I love her?

I touch her face, the crinkle mark left from the fabric she slept on. 

She is divine. She is everything.

What a difference a night of worship does for her.

I nod as her mouth opens -  my cock and my mind descend into darkness. It is my turn to shout down the rosette of secrecy. 

When I pull myself back to the surface, there is a glimpse of her lips coated in my cum which I suck and kiss at until her lips no longer taste like me.

I push her backwards onto the bed, placing the pillow I slept on under her hips. I am consciously aware that I am lapping at her cunt, my fingers displacing my seed from last night onto said pillow while she begs for more - much too loud for that early an hour.

I remember Weasley in the back garden and I grin as The Thing With Claws tickles my decision-making.

“We are being bad neighbors, króshka. Did you forget the silence charm? Everyone will hear you beg for me to fill you.”

My fingers work a fevered pace within her while I persuade her to join me in madness.

“Is that what you want, Hermione?”

She is so close. So close. 

“Oh GOD! Please, Antonin! PLEASE please please!!”

I deny her my cock until she soaks my fingers, my face and everything underneath her. 

I plunge into her at a brutal pace while she bites my fingers which muffled her moans and utterances not very well, I should add. I think I just wanted her to taste herself and clean them off but we got carried away.

Our teeth knocked together when she spit out my fingers rudely and pulled my face towards her for a kiss. I apologize instantly.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head, her eyes squeezed shut through her climb towards the sun. We both have wings held with wax and I feel the push, the warm splash and then we descend together. I am buried in the ground and she is safely in my arms. I am not sure that we haven’t died, but we have done so together. Nothing else matters.

We eventually rouse from sleep again and I reheat the bath perfectly for us to share. Now I smell like vanilla and a smile is wrapped around my heart.

For once, I feel the joys of life in full.

In the kitchen over the breakfast I make for her, she points to my chest with her fork after taking a bite from it. I eye the fork and then her with a twitchy smile growing on my face, and the blood flowing to my cock at the prospect of violence. I suck at my teeth before gesturing to her fork with my chin.

“My wife can stab me a little bit. I don’t mind.”

She was about to say something. I think I flustered her as she closed her mouth and blushed.

“Is that your proposal?”

I take a healthy drink of my black coffee, dab at my mouth politely, and scooch my chair closer to her. I reach for her hand to bring her weapon of choice towards my heart, moving my unbuttoned shirt out of the way. I ghost my fingers over her knuckles and up her arm before placing my hand on my thigh with ultimate calmness.

I shrug minutely, her eyes locked on mine.

“I know you have a mean throwing arm. Apply that same pressure with this fork right in that spot and you can tell me if that is a ‘Yes’ or a firm ‘No’. I would respect any answer. You know this can be healed without problem.”

My girl looks at me for a long while. I search her face for any indication while my heart howls for her to do it and to say yes. It’s already decided this is a good idea and you should always follow your heart. Right?

She moves the fork away from my skin and places it on her empty plate.

This could still be a Yes. 

My eyes flick from the fork to her face and I swallow down the bird of worry rising in my throat as she responds lightly.

“I wasn’t trying to threaten you. I was pointing at your tattoos. I wanted to know about them.”

It is not a No.

I take off my shirt, hanging it on the back of my chair. I like the look of that, but I haven’t time to dwell on it.

I cover my nipples with my index fingers to make her laugh after perhaps being a flag as big and red as China.

“Firstly, my girl, if you point sharp objects at me I am always going to assume you are flirting with me or asking to fight me.”

She pushes a renegade curl out of her face and nibbles at the inside of her bottom lip while she considers me.

“Odd sense of flirtation. No judgment by the way. Why not both?”

I lean towards her, nudging her knees open with my hand while I slowly kiss and nuzzle her face. I know she isn’t wearing any panties as per my request, allowing me ease of access. My hand slides down into the waistband of her little white shorts from the photograph she sent me.

Flimsy cotton damp with the evidence of our morning together. My fingers press against her clit, and trail the silky path right into her warmth. She gasps and hugs my fingers.

I murmur above her ear, low and loving.

“You allow me inside you and trust me with your body. I was merely extending that same offer. It will always be a standing one.”

I feel a pool of moisture drip from her at my words, and I pull back to look her in the eyes. I want to see if she is willing to fall apart for me.

Her lip is pinned between her teeth as she begins to make her little sounds just for me.

I uncurl my fingers to thrust in her rapidly just enough to pull those sweet sounds from her unhindered. 

“That’s it.”

Another strangled whimper and she clenches as I pick up the pace, my strokes becoming shorter and more focused.

“Let it go, Hermione.”

I don’t lose my pacing as I move behind her chair to place my free hand on her throat.

Her lovely vocalizations vibrate through her skin into mine, it is the only vow of eternal love I need from her right now.

“Oh, my queen, are you going to flood the kitchen for me?”

“Yes..yes yes yess !”

She does just that, shouting up at me with a delicious moan that brings me down to kiss her lips while I pat her sopping wet cunt for doing such good work.

I retake my seat, sucking my fingers of every bit of her essence while she looks on with some happy exhaustion and sits in a small puddle of her making.

“Forgive me, Króshka, I got a bit sidetracked there. You asked about my tattoos. I will tell you. My grandmother painted them and always had them hanging above our front door. I would look up at them with awe as a small boy and ask her to tell me about them. From what she used to tell me, they are Alkonost and Sirin, two women with the bodies of birds who guard fortune by day and night, respectively, and have powerful voices of unimaginable beauty. You may not have one without the other. Like joy and grief.”

I ran my fingers over the left-side of my chest.

Bare breasts on her feathered body, long, wavy light-coloured hair and a kokoshnik with rays like the sun.

“Her domain is the day. In her talons, a beautiful flower much like the bastard peony I have been trying to grow.”

I sacrifice my skin for that thrice damned flower and it still grows feebly. The insolence.

“This is the Alkonost , the bird of paradise whose song was so beautiful it would make you forget your every ache and pain. It is said that wars have ended because of her voice. We are not a very happy-go-lucky sort of people, so she may not look like all things rejoicing and full of laughter, but she is.”

I run my fingers the same way over the one on the right side. The little witch I adore more than anything has settled herself and moved closer to look at every line. Much detail can be lost when you are being ravaged by a hungry demon like me.

Long, wavy dark hair, instead of breasts, she is skeletal and in her talons an incredibly sharp dagger. 

This is how my queen will look with a femur bone handled-knife in her capable hands.

“A similar kokoshnik to her sister, but this one speaks of her domain - the night. I was told the Sirin’s voice was a harbinger of death and that evil things will experience sorrow and pain at the sound of it. Men would forget everything on Earth and follow her, yet they were never able to catch her because she moved as fast as human happiness, which is a difficult thing to grab onto. She may look sinister, but do not be fooled. My grandmother would say that her story along with many others was written and corrupted by men too cowardly to take responsibility for their actions.”

Hermione was quiet as she traced them with her fingers. I felt like the bear once more and she was bravely observing my fur and claws. 

I looked down at her face, I studied her freckles, her long eyelashes, the curve of her nose. I watched as her renegade curl fell into her face again and moved it aside gently with my fingers. I worshiped at the shrine of her ensuing smile and offered her my own.

We elongated the coverage of her wards to the peak of her roof on all sides, though the shared wall with her muggle neighbor was a little tricky - it was no problem. We walked through the charm that allowed Hermione to know when someone was messing with the wards and the charm to be able to tell who exactly was coming through. It pulled from the aspects of Thief’s Downfall in the case anyone tried to welcome themselves in as someone else. I taught her the blood warding I learned back home before being stuck in the shit here in Britain. My little queen was reluctant to add this at first, but I encouraged her to ask the questions necessary for learning. 

My umnitsa loves to learn and since we are so well-connected, she was not against it once she plotted her borders and sensed the effects.

Adding them to her doors and windows was another exercise with stubbornness, but I explained the need for layers.

“ Króshka, you must layer up for winter, yes? The people who mean you harm have the coldest of hearts, my darling. So, layer up. No more questions!”

She had more questions. Of course she had more questions.

After the fifth nonsense fucking question, I threw my hands in the air and then rested my fists on my hips.

“I am like that guy on the television that used to rob houses and now teaches people how to lock their fucking windows to keep intruders out. I am yours, Hermione. I want you to be safe when I am not here. What would happen if Weasley came by when you weren’t home? If Thorfinn wasn’t being a hulk in front of your house?”

She crossed her arms and sat in her chair.

“My Domovoy might do something, I don’t know.”

I finish dabbing blood onto the window frame and turn to her with disbelieving eyes. I was amused, but I had a small part to play.

“Your fucking what ?”

She gestures to her stepladder and then gently lifts an alder leaf from the arrangement on her table.

“My Domovoy. Luna says I have one.”

I blink.

I want to scream a little bit. Just a bit.

A small scream into a jar with a lid because she has a certified weapon in her very kitchen and she is putting some of her eggs in a fantastical basket.

Moya Króshka! I’m your fucking Domovoy! Unless you live with me..I cannot ask for that. Oh, but what if I set fire to your house and then you are forced to live with me? No. No. No, Antonin. That is far from ideal. Or is it? No. She would be mad about her books burning.

“Domovoy are shy and mostly blamed for stuff around the house. Why did you point to the stepladder?”

She sighs.

“I needed one but never got around to it and one day recently, it was delivered with no name as to who sent it. Luna suggested it was the house spirit. I can be logical, don’t look at me like that.”

I laugh.
That little Seer is a bad influence. Okay, I contributed to this mess, too. How do we make sense of this, Antonin? Think!

My hand rakes through my hair and now I have blood on my fucking forehead. I cannot help the sigh.

“Well, the Domovoy can be a part of the inner layer alright? Like a private guard. You still need more than that. Layers, Hermione! LAYERS! Think of the cold!”

She hums as she accepts the idea relatively well for being a stubborn little lady and I was able to finish up my work within an hour or two.

I lean over her as she researches from a thick stack of well-worn manuals and place a small bowl of fruit and a glass of water beside her. I also placed her little otter figurine from upstairs next to her to show her I was serious business about respecting her.

I kiss her neck. I suck a little on her deliciously scented skin to wake her from her trance of notation - she does so with a lovely little hum.

“I am going out to run some errands, Hermione.”

I do not want to leave you. 

She looks up at me and in my heart I imagine she is saying, ‘Oh! I assumed you would just stay forever.’ I see it in her eyes. I am not mistaken. Instead she invites her gentleman monster to return.

“Will you be back tonight?”

I smile on the inside and the outside. It is an echochamber of smiles and maybe looks maniacal as it is now ten thousand smiles instead of just the one.

“What time?”

She taps her chin in thought, an inky fingerprint marring her precious skin.

“Come for dinner. 7pm?”

I rub my thumb across her chin, cleaning it surreptitiously while I cradle her face. I kiss her deeply..once..twice. I nibble just barely on her bottom lip with a growl in my throat. I touch her nose with mine and nod my head.

“I will be here, Króshka. I have left my phone number under your pillow upstairs. Call me if you need anything .”

She gives me a cheeky grin.

“Anything, Antonin?”

I shrug and turn for the door, but I cannot stop looking back at her. I cannot stop loving how she looks back at me.

“I can be a clown for birthday parties, a gardener, a cook, Lady Hermione’s lover…”

I hear her laugh carrying me out through her front door.

I do not wish to part from her though she is safer, for now. I must take out the rubbish.

Chapter Text

The little black mobile buzzes on the table while I stare at the mutant rubbish bin in the middle of my garden with narrowed eyes. I give the sound a little bit of side eye - I am busy trying to figure out what to do with the Weasel. Actually, you know, maybe a bit of light reading will help me in the decision process.

I pick up the phone and sit on the stairs leading to my garden, the wind tousles the hair on the lid of the can and I click on the message button.

A few from Molly in all uppercase about various family get togethers, pictures of her and Ms. Brown, some of Potter’s children, a few of the older messages are her tearing him down for shitting the bed with his relationship with Hermione.

Pah!  

His sister only discusses quidditch with him when she isn’t ragging on him about ‘Lav-Lav’. I assume that is Ms. Brown. I don’t really give a fuck. It is not interesting in the slightest.  

A very short correspondence with a girl named Marietta, mostly photos.

I narrow my eyes as that name tickles something in the back of my mind. I move on when I am unable to grasp specifics.

There’s a text from a girl named Milicent that consists of only a photo of her perched on her bed. He never spent time talking with her for some reason or another. 

A woman named “!mistake!” has messaged him one hundred times in just a day?

Oh..here we go.
I click it open and it is a torrent of one-sided conversation. Once in a blue moon, the shitfuck of a man-child messages her back telling her to stop. 

I see a recent photo of her cradling her stomach. I try to magnify her face, squinting to jar my memory.

Have I seen her before? Does she look like anyone I might have seen?

A few minutes go by and I truly cannot say I recognize her at all. I keep scrolling through the messages. This one is very angry. 

I click away from this and open a new one. The name throws me off, but I am quick to figure out who this is - the one he spoke to in the loo.

I shake my head knowing he has fallen through on his plans with her due to stalking my witch. Tsk tsk tsk. 

I close it out to look through his photos. Way way WAY too many pale, poorly lit ‘dick pics’ as Thorfinn told me about once. There are photos of so many women, including my umnitsa . 

Why did he save them? Why save the photos of the angry girl whose baby he doesn’t want to acknowledge? Does he own up to any of them?

I delete the pictures of Hermione from his phone.

“Not a very good clown, you - ”

I look up to chastise the trash further when I spot my familiar pecking at the lid. The rather large albatross furrows his brow further as his beak maliciously snaps at the red hair. I stand up and walk hurriedly to cease the righteous attack.

“Orlov! You are doing the correct thing, but also stop it. Pozhaluysta , stop this.”

I shoo my friend off the lid and with a messy flutter of wings, he flies off and over to the porch railing.

I check for blood on the lid and find none and then open the lid without thinking. After startling myself, I began to laugh. I laugh so hard my stomach fucking hurt.

“ Cyka blyat ! Fuck my whole life! I was RIGHT!”

Wide blue eyes blink at me freeing tears down a fleshy inner lining. I wince. I have seen a great deal of horrific things but after so many years of relative peace and good behavior, I cannot help my reaction.

I peer further inside, a few misaligned teeth on the edge closest to me. The body of the bin is maybe the worst part. A full view of all the idiot’s inner workings - a beating heart, organs and general viscera. I look back up into his eyes - he definitely looks cognizant. 

I laugh again. 

I laugh with all my heart and soul. I’m almost surprised at the end of it that I hadn’t made myself sick laughing so hard.

“You’re so bad at everything! How? How did you manage to be so fucking terrible at everything you do? I bet I could tip you over and all of your organs would come out!”

I shake my head again - I am in utter disbelief and a little bit grossed out to be honest. I take one more look and chuckle darkly as I close the lid slowly enough so that maybe he sees the inside of himself.

The fact that he is blinking away in the dark, facing his own innards is a fantastic bit of kismet. I do not think for one second that he has ever done any self-evaluation or that this will really change a thing.

My phone buzzes in my back pocket, and I gather my wits long enough to see who is ringing me. Oh, it is my witch!

“Orlov you are in charge. No pecking from anyone. Ok?”

My large friend makes clicking and purring sounds. I know he disagrees with my request, but ‘the dude abides’. 

“Hermione? Has something happened?”

There is a pause and then a slightly annoyed sigh.

“Antonin, why was there a knife under my pillow?”

I gesture to the air around me.  

This should be obvious, no?

“Why shouldn’t there be, Króshka ?”

A longer pause.

“This makes me uncomfortable.”

Oh. Fuck.

My eyes shift their gaze around my home. I think I might be waiting for her to find the conclusion.

“Ok. I understand. I wanted you to have something more muggle to protect you in the happenstance you cannot reach your wand. Another layer for your protections. A last resort? I can remove it if you really won’t allow this.”

I shrug to the empty room. It made sense to me when I left it for her. Until she asks me to stay, I cannot always be next to her. I have work…she has work. I must respect her need for space, right?

“Do you think the Domovoy can wield a knife?”

“Yes.”

I answered her without a second-thought. There is no pause, for I most certainly can wield a knife - especially for her.

I silently smack my forehead when I realize I am feeding fantasy. Fuck fuck fuck. 

“Oh good! Ok, well I will just put it..”

“Between your mattresses, Króshka. ”

She pauses, then elongates her words as she follows my advice.

“ Betweeeen my mattresses..Of course. I think perhaps you have some things you need to explain to me later?”

“Anything, my Queen. Did you have need of my services before 7?”

I would leave this rubbish man in the sun to bake to death if you need me right now. 

Her laugh is soft in my ear followed by a hum in thought as she plays with me. Surely she knows what her humming does to me.

The need to feel it vibrating through her skin into my hands or my lips or… Fuck. Please say yes.

“Later, Antonin.”

I hear the full smile in her voice and groan loudly when I hear the beep. 

Gods, she hung up on me, the cheeky witch.

I turn around, waving my hands frantically for Orlov to please kindly fuck off from the bin-man.

“You’ve done a good job! Yes yes! I will bring you some herring tomorrow.”

I wheel the rubbish bin into my house, moving the couch, the rug, opening the trap door and then proceed to wheel him down each step roughly.

I pull him towards the center of the safe house and assess the monster in my safehouse with tired eyes. I am shagged out - this is a good tired..I need a short kip. I cannot sleep with this in my house, even with heavy wards, it creeps me out. The pain will do him some good. It’s only been several hours. I’m sure he’s fine.

I turn immediately around and walk away from the hideously transfigured fuck, up the stairs to cover the scene with living room furniture and act like it is not haunting my fucking house.

After tossing and turning I eventually called Thorfinn.

He arrives with a crack in my garden and the tiny Seer.

I gesture to her - my expression full of What The Fuck ? Thorfinn just looks at her lovingly as she pulls a fucking fish from her purse, throwing it to Orlov who had been startled by the sound of apparition. 

“The fucking circus came to town today, I guess. His name is Orlov. Sometimes he bites.”

She doesn’t even look at me.

“I know.”

I blink at her and drag my tired fucking eyes to Thorfinn. 

“I got a situation in the safe- basement . I needed your eyes and only your eyes on it but um, I guess maybe we should bring her in, too. Fucking hell.”

Thorfinn pulls his cigarette from his mouth, a stream of smoke billows from his nose and is carried far the fuck away by the sea air.

He rakes the fingers of his free hand through his hair, swiping it aside with a thoughtful nod.

“Your peony still looks fucked.”

My eyebrows raise. Super helpful, little brother.

“Yes. I am aware.”

He gestures to his little lady with his chin who was knee deep in a conversation with his rebellious fucking familiar who only responded with rapid clicking noises and a shrill whistling sound.

“She’d probably know what to do.”

My brother loves her and she helped Hermione. Why not just ask for her help? What could it hurt?

“Ok, Little brother.”

I watch her bob with Orlov, making clicking sounds with her tongue for a few seconds. I don’t want to interrupt whatever the hell is going on here.

After a while she looks at me.

“He really loves his time with you, but he hates that weird furry rubbish bin you brought.”

“Yeah. I do, too. Can you talk to my peony and find out what is wrong with it? I am going to take Thorfinn inside to get some advice real quick.”

“Sure!”

Without pointing the plant out, she skips over to it with Orlov in tow.

Thorfinn looks at her like she hung the moon, vanishing his cigarette as he takes a step towards my house. I follow him, hands in pockets when I pull my hand out and find red hair in my fingers. 

Oh yes. When Thorfinn and I were discussing the merits of being homeward bound, I grabbed his hair. I will just put this away for fuckery later.

I wrap the hair around my fingers into a circle, dropping it quickly into an empty jar on my window sill.

I move everything off the trap door and invite Thorfinn down.

“So, this one was watching Hermione’s house this morning.”

My brother took one look and began laughing immediately and then stopped almost as quickly to walk closer to it.

“Gods be damned! It looks like a fucking mimic!”

I squint at him.

“A what?”

He doesn’t even look at me, too busy poking the rubbish bin nightmare like it might bite him.

“It’s a monster in D&D - usually a treasure chest that shows itself as a monster you have to fight when you go to open it.”

“I dare you to open it, Thorfinn.”

He shakes his head.

“No fucking way, Dolly.”

“I double dare you.”

He gasps at me.

“Dolly! Don’t you fucking dare -”

“Oh, but I do! I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU!! Open the fucking rubbish bin.”

I love him. He looks so horrified that I would dare him to do such a thing. I don’t blame him but it’s too much fun.

He coughs once, cracks his neck and then opens up the lid.

When Weasley blinks at him, he loses his fucking shit and drops the lid closed, moving faster than I’d seen him move in ages to hide behind me to point at the bin.

“DOLLY! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?”

I move forward, pointing at the wheels.

“Ronald Wheelsley ! Eh? Get it?”

The oaf is too dumb and scared. Big fucking baby.

I sigh loudly with disappointment, and open the lid.

The eyes blink at us both and Thorfinn covers his eyes.

“FUCK! That is just..”

He dry heaves a bit and I laugh.

“Look, I have had him in my fucking house for a couple hours now. I cannot sleep with him here, so I thought maybe you should know what happened and help me make a decision.”

A calm voice coming down the stairs announces itself, wisely .

“I put a charm around your peony to filter the air. The salt in here was making it despondent. Also, you should send him home to Lavender. We can disrupt his memories of what happened. I’ll just tell her that I found him under my brugmansia and he’s not had a great few hours, what with the nightmares and believing he’ll pour out if he’s tipped over.”

She waves her hand to and fro as she talks as if this is the most normal thing to ever happen.

I looked to her and then to Thorfinn who was still covering his eyes, and then directed my focus on The Bin whose eyes were blinking at the Seer.

She comes right towards the bin and shakes her head with large amounts of disappointment. 

“He was never that strongly skilled with Transfiguration.”

The Seer steps on her tiptoes to peer into the bin and that’s when she laughed again in my presence.

Ugh, I don’t know what is worse. Her weird laughter - TOTALLY not a portent of death, right?   Or this nightmare ginger bin.

She laughs so hard she is crying and I can't help but smile at her.

“I laughed so hard when I first looked, that I almost made myself sick. Come on Thorfinn, you gotta look.”

He takes a few steps behind his little witch who was still laughing and peeks over her head, he recoils in disgust immediately.

“OH!!! Fuck dude, that is so foul!”

He takes another look.

“Gods, that is fucking heinous. Please close that. Wait. Can he see his own..?”

He gestures to his stomach with a frown.

I nod wickedly.

Now he is laughing with us as I slowly close the lid.

I let them get their chuckles all out before I circle back to the original question, producing his mobile device, tilting it back and forth in a little dance.

“So, how should we handle this?”

Chapter Text

He started screaming as soon as the little Seer cast her finite , dispelling the transfiguration-gone-wrong and the silencio I put on him. We were awash with his screams as he laid on the ground reverting back to the same ol shitfuck waste of space we all knew and hated. His bones made sickening crunches and popping sounds while his skin bubbled and rippled as it reformed over his bones. It was a delightful bit of agony that the Seer and I stared at blankly - her face was infinitely more pleasantly blank while mine was verging on grim enjoyment. 

I nodded my head in the middle of the screaming, nudging her in a friendly way.

“Lovely day for it, yeah?”

The Seer turns and nods at me, her eyes squinting in smileyness like a cat does when it is content. I am not at all convinced that she isn’t some small demon herself really. The screaming continues to meld into the background as I look over at Thorfinn. He is scritching his beard with hard eyes on the little man who shouldn’t even be alive right now. When I turn my gaze back to our hapless subject, I hear his voice through the din.

“I’m glad you two are getting along.”

I lift my shoulders in a casual shrug just when Weasley’s screaming takes on a garbled choke - his esophagus beginning to realign itself from the sounds of it, his hands curled in like claws from the effort.

“I don’t think friendship bracelets are next, but..I could be persuaded.”

I turn to him, catching him looking at me with his twinkling blue eyes. The one strange thing that led to our liberation was Rabastan’s fucking arts and crafts class.

A small, pale hand lifts up next to us, her dazed voice cutting through the now sniffling sobs as the screaming finally comes to an end. Not the end I was hoping for, but I digress..

“I wouldn’t say no to making those with you. I always liked Rabbit’s creativity.”

I remember the gleam in the younger Lestrange’s eyes when he would come up from the dungeons. His painting improved greatly in that period of time. The memory makes me feel generous. I wonder how he is doing?

I gesture to her with a tilted head and clasped hands over my heart.

“ Malen'kiy Providets! You bring the threads, I am sure I have the technique in my head somewhere. We should send Rabastan a little care package.”

The creepy little girl beams at me and Thorfinn ruins the moment, pointing in the direction of the unwelcome guest who has somehow found his legs.

“Runner.”

I roll my eyes at the sight of our company trying to run towards the stairs.

“Really, Thorfinn? You’re not going to stop him yourself? Are you just here to watch us do the work?”

I wave my hand to jinx the Fuck’s legs out from under him, his head hits the fourth stair.

“Oops!”

I hear the tiniest sigh from the ghostling girl who is now my new best friend.

What a turn of events!

We walk over to the shitfuck, turning him over and I offer my assessment.

“It’s not a big gash, he will survive.”

She waves me away with her little hand.

I am in the way, I guess? I back up as she pulls vials and herbs from the treacherous depths of her purse and I wonder briefly if my umnitsa extended her strange little bag as well? Probably. I cannot help but be glad the girls have each other.

 I settle into a flat-footed squat a few feet away to watch from a safe distance. The scuff of boots next to me as I watch her heal him and then begin the process of fucking with his memories. 

“These little witches and their mind fucking, huh Dolly?”

I look at him knowing the cafe is a blurry thing in his mind that sometimes gives him headaches if he tries to remember it too hard. He knows what happened because I told him, but he does not have his own thoughts about it. I comb my mustache with my fingers while I think about him.

“ I pray for the day where all women move from terrified to terrifying. - I read that on a poster in London a few weeks ago. I sometimes imagine what would happen if the Order had put the women in charge?”

My fellow giant sits on the ground with a heavy sigh. 

“Dumbledore was far too focused on having control of everyone and everything else that he forgot to discipline himself, from what I’ve heard. The women would’ve wrecked us, though.”

He counts off the names of the infamous women with his fingers. 

“Princess and Luna - Those two alone would have ended most of the inner circle. Add fuckin’ McGonagall, Molly Weasley, the littlest one - his sister.”

Yes, she’s super great except for having zero fucks for Hermione.
Thorfinn snaps his fingers rapidly trying to remember her name when his little witch pipes up.

“Ginny.”

He points at her in his excited way as he continues.
“That’s the one! Fuuuck! A perfect team! All-fucking-star! We’d be dead because they’d have no problems throwing something harder than expelliarmus or stunning jinxes.”

I feel my left eye twitch a bit when his words bring back the overeager duel between Hermione and I. He claps me on the back.

“Did you tell her?”

I look down at my fingers, finding them a little more interesting with how much they’d been inside her.

“Yeah. We had ‘The Talk’..well..”

I tilt my head back and forth, looking at him now.

“One of many to be had. She is incredible, Thorfinn. You know this - being her friend all this time, knowing her pains and joys without telling me, you shit.”

He blinks at me as if I am not in understanding of something obvious when the little Seer speaks up from hovering over the almost-should-be-isn’t-but-will-be corpse of Ronald Weasley.

“You weren’t ready for it, Antonin.”

My nose twitches at her perfect inflection. She is not Hermione, it feels weird for me to hear it from her mouth, but that is my name. I have half a mind to ask everyone but her to not speak my given name. She is the one who makes it sound like a benediction, singing it on high from the tree tops of paradise like a bird of doom..or joy. I’ll circle back to this later, I need answers first from these two.

“What do you mean, not ready?”

She turns briefly, her eyes seem paler somehow. She looks entirely too much like some kind of wraith. I am less inclined towards bestie and more inclined towards never allowing these monsters into my home.  

Nightmares for days. There’s a passing thought in my head that I might be interrupting her feasting.

“You needed to be brave enough to confront your idealization of her. You needed to break to grow.”

I suck my teeth when she returns to her focused work.

Thorfinn was so insistent about reading the paper to me. The Seer let me watch her. Absolutely blind-sided by the..double date…wait a minute.

I stand up abruptly, pointing at them, “You fuckers have been together awhile! This is not new at all! You all orchestrated this madness?”

Thorfinn shrugs and nods simultaneously then points at the little demon.

Said little demon slowly talks through the mind melting.

“If you’d known about him at his worst, you would have killed him mindlessly and ended up back in prison. That would be a waste, Antonin. Now at least, you have a chance to enact your plans with a more settled spirit. You can’t say it isn’t a bit quieter in your head now, can you?”

I blink at her.

This makes sense, sure. I do not enjoy the idea of being moved about by anyone - except for my own little witch. The menaces seem to care for me - us - what the fuck, man?

“Things will work out. You have friends now!”

She speaks cheerfully, her wand flourishing over the redhead. 

In her next move, she lets his head fall back over her outstretched leg while she returns all her previous herbals and potion vials to her bag, returning from its depths with a tiny, glass vial half-filled with a yellowish substance.

“Bubble-head charms for you both. This Brugmansia pollen is straight out of my garden and is too potent for the likes of you two.”

I cast the charm without too much thought and helped Thorfinn do the same.

“Fuck it.”

I cast a protego as well to be sure.

She twists the cap off, dipping the thin rod attached to the cap into the pollen before bringing it up to the Fuck’s nostrils. She carefully taps the faint amount of dust to fall directly into his intake of unconscious breath.

I see with ultimate clarity that she has no need for the charm on herself and the realization is like figuring out some key to life and how it all works. I get it. I imagine her mother must’ve mixed the pollen in with breast milk and fed it to her weekly.

“You’re not far off, Antonin.”

I squint my eyes and point at her.

“Hey! What did I fucking say about reading my thoughts?!”

She twists the cap back on the vial of vile bloom dust and gives me a sass look. A SASS LOOK.  

“Your head is loud. The only time it was quiet was when he was screaming.”

“Well! I don’t know! Ignore it! Little demon.. ”

I turn to Thorfinn who just wiggles one of his overly large fingers at us both and mouths the words, “ Besties.. ”, at me.

There are so many acts of violence I would like to commit but the demonette was right. I am too steady. Peace has wormed its way in.

She gets up, the little nightmare that looks like an angel, letting the Fuck’s head flop onto the floor carelessly. She is a wonder.

“Alright, I feel the anti-apparition wards here, Finn can you bring him up to the garden?”

I dispel my protego, keeping the bubble head charm, ensuring Thorfinn keeps his as well and the three of us jump into action.

On the way out into the garden, I took a quick look at the time.

I have plenty of time.

We find ourselves somewhere in the front yard of Ms. Brown’s house. Right after my brother sets the Fuck, I rather like this new name for him , on the ground, we disillusion ourselves to let the little mastermind work it all out.
She rings the doorbell, and turns to look at the simple flowers in the garden box hanging on the porch railing.

Ms. Brown takes a minute, because pregnant, obviously and opens the door with interest in finding Luna Lovegood there.

“Luna? What brings you here?”

The tiny demonette is the very picture of ‘Who-me? Couldn’t be!’ as she talks about the flowers first and foremost instead of the Fuck on the ground. Ms. Brown notices said Fuck eventually with a shriek and the girl who might be a redcap in disguise rushes to her side to help her sit on the stair.

“Oh, you mustn’t fret, Lavender, it isn’t good for your little girl. He apparated into my garden at some point last night by mistake - I do live rather close to the Burrow, it’s an easy mistake - anyway, he took a nap under my brugmansia...”

She shakes her head and tuts as if finding a little boy with a scraped knee and not an absolute shitfuck mutant in my basement with a melted brain and a nose full of what-the-fuck .

“He’s calmer now..”

We all collectively look at him laying face down in the grass.

He is calm alright. Concussed into quietude, more like.

“The nightmares might have another go. The pollen creates quite a disturbance. If you’d like, I can secure him in one of your guestrooms?”

Ms. Brown nods mutely as the little Seer levitates him calmly.

The two ladies chatter as they go inside, Thorfinn breaks our silence with admiration for his witch.
“Dolly, isn’t she amazing?”

I nod, he cannot see me, yet I still make the motion of agreement. I’m not about to break the silence.

The little witch comes out alone, closing the door behind her, then skipping down the stairs. Without a word she walks down the street for a time while we follow curiously and dutifully.

We reach a disused alleyway where a visible Thorfinn scoops her up in his arms and plants hundreds of kisses on her face and lips. She smiles as she squeezes his face with her hands.

I dispel my invisibility while clearing my throat simultaneously and looking anywhere but where they were.

“I must pick up some things for Hermione, is there anything I need to know before you two desecrate this place?”

I hear a thoughtful sound from both of them between kisses.

I just want to get ready for my Króshka…

“He won’t remember you two, but he’ll remember me in my garden. I suggest you place his wand and phone in the guest room downstairs either later tonight or some time tomorrow.”

I raise my brow. 

Easy enough.

“Ok. Consider it done, little demon. Little Brother, have fun. Pretend I do not exist for the rest of the day.”

I twist myself back home to make certain all things are tidy. No signs of shenanigans other than a rather sad looking albatross who was hoping I was back with his new friend.

“Orlov, I bring only disappointments for you my friend. We can, of course, discuss this some other time.”

The bird follows me into the basement where we give it the all clear before closing it back up neatly after refreshing the air from the evils. He follows me around as I make an incredibly apologetic late order of vatrushkis for Hermione and then sits on my bed as I wash away the calamities of the day. I comb my hair back and brush my teeth in the little mirror above the sink. I give myself a gleaming smile afterwards, my golden tooth glinting in the bright sunlight coming through the window beside me. 

I run my tongue over it, the act supplying my brain with the urge to walk a few feet towards the loose tile on the baseboard. I bend down to knock it from its place to pull out the green and red tea tin. Inside are a few important papers from days gone by, a photo of Mama in the garden, a photo of my Dedushka dancing in the muddy village with the women smiling and singing behind him. I can hear this one in my heart so clearly, the harmonics as varied as the designs on their aprons yet all matching perfectly together in their lows and highs. I place them back inside carefully, and pull out the simple black papered ring box. I haven’t looked at it in a long time, my heart too sore with loss and my mind resting on loose gravel.

I take a deep breath and open it. 

The sparkle has not died down on the blue and white stones pressed into the starbursts, and the gold somehow looks warmer than it ever did, even when it was in my Dedushka’s mouth all those years brightening up his infectious smiles, making all the women swoon and my Babushka angry as a result.

I listen to the voices that sound like them, and envision my grandmother grabbing my face to kiss my cheeks and pat my hands when she isn’t dragging me by my lapels to shout at me for not visiting enough or for not being married. My grandfather watches on with a grin for a time before stepping silently out to splinter wood. I used to love being outside with him while he told me his version of all the news I’d just heard from her. It was quiet even when he would laugh in his mischievous way. We could hear the women talking, laughing, crying in cycles through the open windows and we would express our reactions silently to one another like school boys. He felt more like a brother to me most times - never a great disciplinarian.
I feel the need to wait more than I hear it. I kiss the ring lightly and close it all back up, hiding it away for another day.

Standing in the full length mirror to dress, I size myself up proudly. I look sharp and lean and relatively loose considering the acts of the day.

I am ready to be covered in the scent of her, with her hair, and her lips mapping the length and breadth of me. I am ready to show her further examples of why I should be chosen by her forever - however long that might be.

Chapter Text

The sisters at the bakery only gave me cheeky, knowing looks when I arrived to pick up my beloved pastries. They never asked who they were for and refused my money just three times before they took it, settling for kissing my cheeks and patting them like I was a man on fire because I gave them double the price.

I spun away from their alley and ended up in the one a block down from my króshka’s. And what to my wondering eyes appears, but a miniature auror with apparently no fear. I give him a Citizen Antonin smile, lifting the soft pink-coloured box of pastries up as I tilt my head in curious greeting.

I make my moves to walk on by to the tune of Dionne Warwick singing the advice so sweetly in my head only to have my forearm grabbed by The Man Who Would Not Fuck Right Off.

I look down at my forearm, my smile slipping sharply at his audacity, my eyes dragging back up to his determined face.

This is cute. I would love nothing more than to grab his hand and bite one of his fingers off for old time’s sake, but my vatrushkis would be dropped and alleys are always filled with those gross little puddles of unnameable liquid. Keep calm. Maybe just punch him in his scar? No. No. I mustn’t.

“Am I being detained, Potter?”

His eyes narrow on me and his hand releases my arm as if his hands were burning. I nod. Perhaps the sisters did not pat out all the flames after all?

I’m only a little bit disappointed that I will not get the chance to take something from him.

“No, but I have questions regarding your whereabouts last night.”

I smirk.

“I do believe you know exactly where I was. I am not one to indulge in the perversions of others though, so if you’ll excuse me.”

I step around him only for him to open his godsforsaken mouth to my back.

“I will make sure she knows all about you, Dolohov.”

I would love for those to be the last words he ever utters. I cannot stop, I must see her and explain how to fight with knives and die in her small hands repeatedly. Maybe I can persuade her to carve her name across my stomach? Carve her initials over my heart..directly onto my heart? 

My feet carry me away from him, he does not matter in the slightest as I follow the trail of our entwined magic, the throb of our blood wards beating in sync with my heart. I feel like my chest splits open as I walk through her front gate, revealing the intent of my heart to her, spilling my guts over her welcome cat and the bottom of her door.

I am embarrassingly hard. My body is too eager. Too presumptuous.
I knock on her door gently - I know exactly her height and watch for the door to unlock so I may look directly into her eyes right from the get go. I am not disappointed to find her softly smiling in her way at me, her eyes never leaving mine while she steps aside to allow me in.

I want to graze my teeth across the top of her shoulder just from the first sight of her. I take a few steps in, taking off my shoes by the door - moving to stand in the middle of her living room. I stand still and nervously ask her where she would like me to put my humble offering down. I am acting disingenuously. All I want is to fall on my knees and taste her thighs.

I watched her close the door, my mouth watering at the peek of her back that the dark-peach coloured dress offered me, the cloth-covered curve of her ass, the backs of her legs, all the saints above - her bare feet. 

“You can set it on the table beside the sofa for now. I won’t soon forget them.”

I place the box down while she watches me, I cannot help the words that flow from my mouth.

“I might forget to eat at all to be honest.”

She toes the edge of the area rug that I am almost certain does not hide a trapdoor, and gives me a shy smile that hides a bit of wickedness in it. Perhaps I’m not the only one hiding their desires. 

“Thank fuck for warming charms then.”

I hardly remember walking over to her to touch her arms with sure hands, then her hips as I kissed her forehead gently, so gently. My lips touch her lips as if she were a relic brought out for special occasions. My kisses reminded me of the people in my village leaning tearfully towards the glass to kiss at some saintly bones paraded down the street. My hands pull her towards me, as her small yet strong hands drag me deeper into our kiss and soon my bastard cock petitions for blessings against her body which found itself pressed so tightly to mine.
I kiss her chin, the soft skin of her throat as she whimpers for me. 

If that is not a song from the angels themselves..

I kiss down her shoulder, smiling into her skin as I kiss the murmurations of freckles. A single lyric is pulled from my mind.

“My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder..”

She throws her head back with a moan and a laugh mixed together to torture me.

“ Circe , and now you’re quoting Jeff Buckley into my skin? Where the fuck did you even come from, Antonin Dolohov?”

My hands slid down her ass as I thrust against her in answer. 

“I will never allow anyone else to ever say my name again. Only you. You’re my Circe… Fuck .. How can I stay sane around you?”

I slide under her skirt to hold her perfect, warm bottom while she turns me into an absolute pig. There are no panties. Nothing in the way of her. I paw at her cheeks desperately and bite her neck on the good side of too hard.

One of her sweet moans followed by a murmur into my shoulder - something that sounded like, “Oops. I knew I forgot something.”

“ Króshka, is this for me, my girl?”

A slow nod and a whispered, “ Yes. ”

I slide the tips of my fingers through the silk of her.

You see, we are being rewarded for our restraint from earlier. 

Yes, yes, we did not kill Potter. Shut the fuck up.

“This dress, and your purposeful forgetfulness. Were you expecting me to ruin your couch right here? Should I drag you to your knees and devour you like some mindless beast?”
Her eyes open at my words and the movement of my fingers, hands clutching at the fabric over my chest - if she dug her nails in and pulled out my heart, I would use the last of my breath to beg her to eat it. I see she is not at all opposed to any of my ideas - said or unsaid.

“Both of us can’t be on our knees.”

A chuckle escapes me as my daring fingers circle her clit from the front while the others hold on to her magnificent ass firmly - I might leave bruises.

“I think you might find yourself bewildered by a man such as me. You are lucky I am a perfect gentleman. My lady, would you care to go first?”

At the sound of her surprised gasp, I pull my fingers from her clit to touch her parted lips. I administer her own sacrament tenderly to her bottom lip.

Her mouth opens for me and I slide my fingers onto her waiting tongue just as two of the fingers from my other hand slide between her equally wet silky lips from behind.

“I have barely stepped into your home and look at you. Is this how you want to be for me?”

Her wetness drips around my fingers from both of her holes at my words. I am lost to her now. All propriety is gone as I rub my hardness against her thigh and thrust my fingers into her sopping cunt.

The fingers in her mouth are muffling her wonderful sounds though and I cannot have that, I need them to live. 

I pull my fingers out of her mouth to hold her jaw, pulling her mouth to mine to fill it with my tongue and all of my unspoken prayers as my fingers see-saw at demonspeed within her. I swallow her sobbing moans as they vibrate through my tongue and teeth. My mind feels like it is collapsing as I drink her desire.

Is this what Potter wanted to know? His mind could never comprehend the miracles of her flesh with mine. He will never know. 

We break the kiss as she moans through her first orgasm of the evening. I leave my fingers, still and patient inside her. Once the pulsing ceases, I pull them out and guide her to the couch.

“My girl, get on your knees right here for me.”

“Yes , Antonin..”

She is such a good listener.

The sight of her on her knees brings back the memory of her on her kitchen counter. 

What good have I done to be given the chance at such an experience? 

Her pleading voice over her shoulder, the light flush on her face from the exertion - I drop to my knees behind her as she grabs the back of her couch for dear life. Placing light kisses to the backs of her thighs, a bite soothed by a suckling kiss here. 

There. 

Higher up towards the burgeoning bruise from my hands. I spread her cheeks and admired the glistening sight, the clinginess of her damp curls, the shy pucker of her body.

“Beautiful..”

I raise my mouth to her shyness. My tongue laps at her, warming her to the idea of my reverence. I trace my worship over it crosswise and tuck my prayers within her tightness when she relaxes for me. 

Her safety in my arms.

Her successes are many.

Her brilliance and kindness will fill the hearts and minds of our children.

I’ve never asked her if she wants them. Will she? Will her body accept my efforts? 

May her every enemy falter in their steps and give her dominion over them.

May their losses water her growing prosperities!

Let me be worthy of her. May she allow me to love her. May my blade and my wits be sharp enough to stand behind her as she rises above the ruin of the world.

I welcome her tension at the gentle exploration of my mouth, continuing my prayers and confessions -slipping them into her body until she allows the tip of my tongue to press deeper within her.

I groan when she makes her little noises for me. I am standing at the garden gate looking longingly at the Eden it offers. 

One day, my little witch. One day you will allow me to plant my seeds here.

She willingly presents herself to me with a dip in her pretty little back and I run my hands over the front of her thighs and up her dress to tickle her soft belly as I lower my mouth to suck the wetness from her lips. I love making her laugh and sigh equally.

Another group of prayers traced out feverishly across the face of her cunt as it drips down my chin. I wave my hand over my jeans to release myself from imprisonment. I haven’t decided if I’ll touch myself or if I’m just giving it room while I devour her. 

The taste of her…I am without words! There is a sweetness but the slight tang of copper and salt is forefront on my tongue. The vanilla of her skin mingles with the taste and while I breathe her in deeply, my mouth makes every effort to pull every delicious drop onto my tastebuds.

Voracious.

That is how I feel as I kneel on her floor and kiss the gods with my open mouth.

The most pious villagers would never dare this.

If they were given the chance to tongue the sightless eyes of the skull of Saint Seraphim, would they? I might.

I twist three fingers into her while my tongue walks the smooth bridge between heaven and Eden - I am rewarded by her continued sounds of pleasure. In answer, I begin the hurried thrusting of them onto the spot that will assuredly bring us both damnation and benediction. I chanced the addition of my thumb slowly opening her puckered entrance after placing several suckling kisses over the spot. She looks at me over her shoulder with furrowed brows and her sanctified bottom lip between her teeth. I still the movement of my thumb, but not my fingers.

“Shall I keep going?”

She nods back rapidly, and I resume my holy efforts to bring a growing peak of pleasure to wash over my Joy of Joys.

I know exactly what is to come. I haven’t had any time to warn people to build an ark. I’m almost sorry for them. 

“Oh God! Oh fuck! Please please.. please! Antonin! YES!!!!”

She shouts down a navy blue blanket on the back of her couch encouraging me to thrust harder and to push my thumb in deeper - no more, no less - and the rains begin down my hapless forearm. 

“That’s it! Odysseus was a fool to plug his ears.”

Gods above, my cock bobs achingly  for her. I pull my greedy fingers from the heat of her messy folds and slurp and suck her juices off my arm and fingers. I touch my heart with a damp finger. 

This is where she lives in me.

“My heart, you are magnificent.”

I push my thumb further, stretching her as I find my feet, the four remaining fingers of my hand splay out on her lower back as I pull her tight hole open. My cock bounces off the inside of her thigh as I lean forward to bite her soft skin and kiss the bones of her spine. The hand that caused the flood wetly trails up the rungs of her ribcage to hold her breast. The zip of magic from the scar I gave her causes us to moan and curse together.

I slide my thumb all the way out to loosely grab her hip.

She wiggles her ass with a mewl of protest.

“Put it back Antonin..”

I groan as I do what my queen requests while adding a pinch to her nipple.

Her sound is rapturous enough to make me slide my thumb all the way out again and return it back into the depths of her. 

“Hermione… Hermione … ”

I savor the illicit constriction around my digit as I slowly pull back out of her. I am patient with my retreat.

Gods above, I need to know if anyone has ever dared this with her. 

No. It might make me too hungry for it. Too reckless. I’ll push too far too soon. You are a gentleman, Antonin. 

I stand up straight, stroking my beautiful cock against her incredible wetness before guiding the tip to barely kiss her restricted entrance. I smile when I hear her gasp- I won’t push any further, I just want to tease her with the feeling and the idea of it.

You keep torturing yourself like that, you will find yourself on the wrong side of her limitations, you fool.

Yes, but just a taste.

No. 

Pointing myself downwards to slide over the inordinate amount of moisture - it has been entirely too long since I have felt anything like this - I drag some upwards to rub against her pinched flesh with another teasing press. Her body kisses mine and the sounds that pour from me must scare her a bit. I growled.

“ Antonin.. ”

She whimpers my name - a half moan, half trembling sound. 

No no, we cannot have that.

“Shh..I won’t go there, yet, my love. Not like this. I will plant myself within this beautiful cunt instead, yes?”

I release my cock to rub her hips with my hands to reassure her and she gifts my heart relief with an easily readable look of hunger despite my gently prodding insistence.

“Come here, my girl.”

She reluctantly pushes away from the couch to stand on her knees and I pull her back to my chest, hugging her closely.

“I went too far and I apologize.” 

Her hands touch my arms that cross around her torso, her hair tickles my face as she nods once more.

“I’m alright, just not entirely ready for that to happen here..on my couch.”

 I laugh a little and place a kiss on her temple in silent gratitude that everything was alright. 

“That is understandable. Do you still want me to fuck you?”

She wiggles against my cock, my minxy goddess.

“Yes… please fuck me. Here..”

She gestures to the couch.

“There..”

We look at the fancy Bohemian looking rug in the middle of her living room to which I raise an eyebrow and the beast in my heart silently howls in appreciation.

“Tell me. You would like me to fuck your…”

I drag out the last word impishly. I want to hear her say a little bit of filth. Just a bit.

She clears her throat and bravely looks up to my face.

“My..pussy?”

I reach down to touch her damp curls and slide my fingers through her slippery folds.

“Pussies are scared and weak. This is not a pussy is it?”

She shakes her head emphatically.

“No. Then what is it, Hermione? What powerful entrance into your glorious body would you like me to fuck?”

My beautiful little witch pauses to give it some thought..or so it seemed.

“My mouth!”

Her laughter follows her cheeky exclamation and I turn her face towards me.Not hard or fast enough to accidentally break her neck. I learned my lesson long ago.

I just want her to see the shake of my head and my smirk turning into a very serious expression. I am serious business.

“Hermione.”

The intense need to drag her to the floor at my feet wells up to a dangerous level within me. I am not certain she would appreciate her silliness to be handled in such a way. I sigh internally and only just stop myself from following through.

 I cannot stop the damp-fingered hand that grabs the back of her hair, entangling in her soft curls causing her to gasp sharply and wince.

I kiss the freckles under her right eye and am tickled slightly by the batting of her eyelashes on my cheek.

“I was under the impression that moya umnitsa enjoyed teaching moments…”

I kiss the tip of her nose and I know my cock is dripping for her at this point.

“Wouldn’t you enjoy learning about the power you possess to bring a man like me to his knees? You have made me wish for my own destruction by your hands time and time again. Please…”

I rest my forehead on hers, my grip on her hair lessening. I cradle her skull in my hand instead - it is a relic afterall.

She bites her bottom lip and inhales deeply as she moves her face to whisper close enough to my ear - her breath ghosts over my ear lobe.

“My..”

She nuzzles my cheek.

“Cunt..”

A small kiss to my jaw.

“Is that what you want me to say to you?”

I nod. My gods! I nod helplessly. The words won’t leave my mouth.

Yes! Please yes..

“Do you want to fuck my cunt , Antonin?”

YES! There she is! My goddess..my queen. 

“More than anything.”

My mouth descends on hers with a clash of teeth and another growl, I think my lip might be bleeding. Her little tongue flicks at it and she nibbles on it with further concentration.

I’m in love with her. This is every dream revealed!

Now your pretty fangs grow!

My blood is in her mouth and I’m in love with the sight of it.

“Harder.”

I whisper hoarsely. It is a wonder I am even able to form the fucking words as simple as they are.

Her kiss deepens, her teeth scraping my tongue and then she sucks and nibbles on my bottom lip, my jaw, fucking hell - I feel her teeth on my throat and her nails digging into my upper arms.

I fall to the couch beside her and pull her onto my lap. We are a messy tangle of limbs as she fights to kiss me and straddle my hips.

I squeeze her heavenly ass as a way to cast a frantic divesto to fling our clothes so far away from both of us. Possibly to the flat nextdoor. I don’t really care. I need her skin on mine.

The fact she lets me anywhere near her is a blessing. I envision laying her on the fancy rug while she spreads herself for me to gaze at her.

Would she hate it or love it if I looked at that juicy little cunt as if it hung the moon?

I would love to see how long it takes me before I seek refuge inside her. Maybe I will let my cock drip onto her beautiful clit until she begs for more of me. 

Is that water torture? 

Another time, you idiot, another time.

My heated cock points towards heaven ambitiously. The tip kisses her clit as my hand grabs her uppermost thigh where it almost joins her hip. To feel the very meat of her in my grasp makes my eyes roll back into my head. The firmness makes me run my tongue across my upper molars - I swallow thickly, and take a deep breath before I continue. 

I must tamp down that particular aspect of my monster.

We are hungry for it.

No, I am a gentleman.

A gentleman.

Just a little bite. Leave the mark of your teeth and never let her heal them.

NO.

What would she taste like if you made her bleed a little?

No. I am a gentleman. Sweeter sensations are upon us.

My brain holds the chant as I notch my cock against her entrance and wait for her descent.

I watch her tease herself with my body with a gentle rocking of her hips. 

The warmth encloses me slow and steady as she lowers her body onto mine. The light from the window behind her creates a holy aura in the frizz of her wild mane. I am utterly entranced.

Someone should build a grotto here and tell the world about my visions. Tell them that her love is clean and charmingly all encompassing. 

I have been fully engulfed by her glorious cunt and I feel the edges of my vision blur, the light becoming more scattered - golden raiments like daggers stabbing through my overwhelmed brain. 

Mine…

The voice of the Thing with Claws howls in my chest, possessive and snarling.

This unsteady heart of mine with its erratic beating as she rolls her hips to grind her clit on me. Dark curls to dark curls. 

My senses take a moment to wake and I thrust up into her, slowly beginning to carve through her body with my own again. I feel her nails digging into my belly just under my ribs, the sound of her breathy sighs above me, the offbeat melody of murmuring moans.

My eyes are wide open but they no longer see sense.

The vision of her becomes less holy. 

Her claw like talons dig through me, rivulets of blood trail down the sides of my torso onto her couch. Pain makes the muscles in my abdomen tighten and I am no longer sure if the sounds I am making sound like pleasure or pain. The strands of our magic feel sharp, infernal, and serrated as they push and pull between our chests which are now so close together. She bares her teeth and I blink. 

A foolish mistake to blink while under a terrifying creature that has you in her claws.

Her chin drips with my blood as she tries to bite through me to get to my heart right over the space where I’d touched my heart with her holy waters.

“ Króshka, you are amazing - fuck, I don’t know how much longer I will last. I love every single thing you do to me. Even just looking at me..” She leans back with one hand grasping my bollocks experimentally at first - then pulling them slightly as she grinds on me.

“Oh gods , devour me…”

The Thing With Claws in my chest peeks through the hole she has made. It moves my heart aside to take her frightfully taloned hand and she laughs as it tries to pull her in, taking my balls with her.

That wonderful laugh with her head tilted to the sky and my life dripping from her fangs as she bounces on my cock and yanks at our future mercilessly and mercifully.

Wouldn’t my blood look lovelier in the grass? I wonder what the sun would feel like on my entrails? A kingdom for a suckle of my life’s essence from the tip of her breast while she roars at the light of the sun.

She releases me to hover over me.

Her body cages me in as she grabs the couch on either side of my head.

“Antonin…”

O, Monstrous Lady, please take a bite of my liver. I have kept it healthy enough that it might nourish you.

“My love, my love, please kiss me.”

I utter the words into the inswell of her breast, my vision clearing as I blink it away with heavy breaths. I am so close to dying.

Hermione smiles as she kisses me and I wrap her in my arms to thrust myself into her. I grunt and groan into her mouth, shuddering to completion inside her. 

“All for you..always. All of me..”

The last of my prayers are said into her open mouth as we share gentle kisses, our lips lightly touching, our tongues flicking out in quick glances over my bruised lip.

Moments later, we hold each other with only the sounds of our breathing. I think maybe she sleeps a little bit with me inside of her. That is the most intimate a person can be with another besides sitting in water together. It is certainly the most intimate I have been with another in a lifetime.

My eyes soften on the golden triangle of light crawling across the ceiling as I watch the sunlight disappear behind the lacy curtains in her front window. I think about the many years I lived while lost to the rest of the world.

I’d heard stories from my Dedushka about the famine in his time. There were warnings I had to adhere to - ‘Do not wander alone at night.’, ‘Do not buy from that butcher.’

This was only the beginning of my being a monster. I had to learn who they were, and how they thought in order to survive against them.

Become one to know one.

Britain’s pureblood society garden parties were what truly solidified The Thing With Claws. That is another story for another time.

The first year I was in prison, I had the same dream every night. 

My grandfather with his golden smile sitting straight backed on the stump in the yard, his well-used axe sitting across his lap. He raises a glass of vodka when I sit down.

“Antushka, when you meet a survivor, think first of all the things they had to do to survive.”

Then he would tilt his head back as he drank to his infinite wisdom.

I would wake up to the crashing waves, the whispering walls, my neighbors in hell crying, screaming, laughing, confessing their many sins to everyone and no one.

The first time one of them approached me in the showers, I remembered his words and the old stories. I would not allow this. I fought back and I was quickly able to gain the upper hand in the tussle with my teeth around the top of his ear. I spat it out towards his face, but I am not too sporty, it sadly bumped his chest and fell to the floor at his feet. 

In that particular instance, it was a warning that I was able to walk away from.

Word did not spread fast enough.

A week later, someone else tried the same thing. I bit the apple of his cheek close enough to his eye that I could feel his skin go taut as he tried to close his eyes. I was shouting obscenities in my mother tongue while chewing on his flesh - his blood spraying oafishly from my lips and between my teeth as I spoke. Somehow, I walked away from that, as well.

Months went by and the dream was still happening. The whispers were steady and constant - intrusive advice at best, distracting at worst. 

Another interrupted shower and this man pressed himself against me. 

I fought harder, he was incredibly strong. I screamed and roared as I fought off his hands, and tried to push away from the tiles while also pulling away from his insistence. He tried to cover my mouth and that, my friends, was a fatal mistake.

I let his finger fall into my open mouth and I bit down with everything I had. He let go screaming and shouting as blood arced over our heads. My eyes were wild as I chewed and pulled the bones away, throwing them to the scummy floor at my feet. There was space between the wall and me. There was space between myself and this pitiful shitbag.

The whispering miasma around me grew to a roar with each chew.

Why don’t you stop his screaming? Maybe you should tear at his throat and drown him with his blood?

His blood…his blood..his blood.

Drown him…

I swallowed.

Then I pounced and tore at his throat with my teeth until a warden knocked me out, broke my ribs and dragged me back to my cell to sit bloodied and fierce for two weeks with a bubble of silence around me and dementors for company. 

My grandfather dreams stopped with the extremely haunted solitude.

I thought about the old tea tin hidden away in the wall of my bathroom. Dedushka’s gold caps and some loose stones my мама had in case we ever needed to trade for food would one day adorn the finger of someone who would know me and love me.

The dementors loved to gnaw and slurp on those hopes I was foolish to have. 

Who would love someone like me?

Word spread faster after that. 

It wasn’t about trying to fuck me anymore. People just wanted to see how far I would go. Fifteen years of this - at some point, I just started to attack people at random with slivers of sharpened brick. My nails grew out from neglect. 

Something craved. 

Something hungered. I would be the most terrifying there. 

No one would touch me.

Then I was liberated and the fresh air allowed me to have my hopes again in spite of my reputation.

Foolish beast put back in Azkaban.

They remembered me.

Not a single person stepped out of line.

Thorfinn nurtured my humanity and loved me in his way.

Can you imagine they put the gods be damned cannibal in an art class and it worked? 

I shake my head at the absurdity of my life until the thought hits me. It is so jarring from my joys just a moment ago that I hold her a little closer to me until she murmurs sweetly in her sleep.

Maybe this is what Potter was talking about? 

Chapter Text

“Antonin, why have I never seen your wand?”

Ah.

Well.

Fuck.

I am casual, the questions about my incarceration and liberation will come. Dr. Kemp said this would happen. I can make this fun. I raise my eyebrow and smirk.

“Haven’t you seen it enough?”

She swats at me laughingly.

“Antonin!”

I turn away from her little hands as they pat my upper arm in mock frustration.

Touch me any way you like, my love.

I raise my hands to beg for a truce and she stops with the most beautiful smile of amusement on her face..

“I do not have one, Króshka. ”

She tilts her head, pondering my statement while her precious, incredibly human-like fingers tear apart her vatrushka .

“Really?”

“When I was let out for good behavior to become Good Citizen Antonin Dolohov, they said, ‘Oh, by the way, you do not get a wand.’”

She scoffs, her nose scrunches up with adorable anger.

“I cannot believe they would let you out into a world filled with people who were really not pleased with your freedom with no way to defend yourself.”

I give her a blank stare and sigh internally.

“Please do not insult me, Króshka. I am not some capable grapefruit, hence why I got into so much trouble to begin with. I managed blood wards, my love, have you forgotten? ”

I can see her wheels spinning as I slide my hand under her dress to touch the skin of her soft belly. I would very much like to chew on it a little bit.

My knees bend of their own volition to kneel between her legs, running my scruffy face up her inner thighs between kisses.

I am a dangerous man and something in me doesn’t want her to forget, she speaks as if she’s heard my innerworkings.

“Yeah, I guess it has been fairly easy for me to forget. What was their reasoning? Would you want to..maybe..teach me some wandless magic?”

I pause mid bite of her luscious stomach and look at her.

“Surely, you can do some already?”

She looks down at me while dancing her head back and forth.

“Yeaahh. I can . I could certainly broaden my abilities though. What would you suggest, O’ Mr. Casual-No-Big-Deal-I-Can-Do-Wandless-Blood-Wards?”

I run through a list of things that might be useful to her with no wand while nibbling a particularly enchanting beauty mark on her belly.
I scoff in jest, trying desperately to not think about her question for their reasoning - maybe we can avoid it?

“I did not know I was Irish.”

She lifts my chin to give me another beautiful unamused look that of course makes me grin like a mischievous fool. She drops my head back to her stomach and I search out the choicest spots to graze with my teeth. 

Wandless versions of stunning spells, avadas, reductos, bombardas run through my head unhelpfully. I think these are not good starting points for my króshka. I dip my tongue into her navel, making her breath hitch. I am satisfied for now.

I settle for, “How well can you summon things?”

That led us to about thirty minutes or so of her hand being outstretched as she willed her worldly items into her grasp.

She grabbed books from the air quite easily, a wooden spoon from the kitchen - a fearsome item in the right hands indeed and one I have run from too many times in my life to count, then she summoned clothes from her closet- a sleep shirt covered in orange cats, a handmade scarf that looked familiar to me but I did not give myself too much time to dwell on it.

“This isn’t really a challenge for me. I had to summon a great deal of things from my bag during the war.”

I get up and move my chair to the middle of the kitchen then sit in it.

“Ok, umnitsa, summon this chair with me in it. Maybe being able to summon larger things could prove helpful with the creative mind?”

I cross my legs casually and finish off my forgotten pastry as she manages to make the chair shudder. Then she moved it a few inches closer to her yet not close enough. I was impressed but knew she could do better, so I tapped the center of my chest.

“Concentrate here. Close your eyes and feel, Hermione. Dig deep and focus on the energy locked in right here in the middle of your chest. Tell me what you sense.”

She sits up straight and taps around her scar lightly and literally with the tip of her middle finger. Her finger taps closer till she is touching the mark itself. I feel the ripples from her through me and watch her become satisfied with the knowledge of herself. 

“Thick, sinking..it feels… if it were tangible, it would hold onto things firmly or slow them down maybe? There’s this electrical storm behind or around my own energy. Like the beach during a thunderstorm?”

Hermione opens her eyes - they easily fall on mine, the act taking my breath away.

“Is that your energy? Or the residual from the curse?”

I scratch through my scruff in thought - a decent pause in figuring out how to give her an answer.

“I cannot remember what my magic was like before . Too many years spent on a rock in the middle of a tempestuous sea. This is what it became - a reflection of that environment in a way. Stormy. Unpredictable.”

She seems to take that in stride. Not a problem my umnitsa must solve, but one that she might think of later. When she speaks, it sounds as if she is looking backwards in time. She sounds thoughtful, a bit sad as she runs her fingers over her scar.

“A Lichtenberg line from where I was struck by your lightning, but did not die.”

I tilt my head a little.

“I am unfamiliar with this term.”

Her eyes brighten as she sits up in her chair.  I have triggered a teaching moment.

“When the electrical current from a lightning strike surges through a person, it can sometimes cause the capillaries to burst in a lightning formation. Usually they do not last very long, but magic was involved so…”

She does this cute little wiggle and her hands move back and forth to fill in the obvious bits. I chew on this new information and make a note to look it up later. I would very much like to see more.

There is a bit of silence between us - each in our own heads.

Hermione still appears to be looking backward in time. Tsk. Not too good to dwell there. An intake of her breath and I look up as she shares her thoughts.

“It has been awhile since I last connected to my magical core. I think I glimpsed it in my first year after trying a meditation I read about in the library. I wanted to know every detail about being a witch and no one had really discussed their personal connection to their magic before or well, ever , now that I think of it.”

She gestures with her hand as if pulling a leash on a stubborn dog and my chair scoots roughly towards her. My face is surely a clear expression of delight and my brain won’t cease the thoughts of what more she’d be able to do. I manage a quick bit of praise for my super króshka - I can tell there is more she needs to speak about. It is not easy being muggle born, I am aware there is too much to prove too early on.

“Excellent! I knew you could do this. Ok, again.”

I get up and move the chair just a bit further away. I watch her eyes light up at my words for just a moment before concentration sets in.

“The only one who really showed a deep connection with their magic was Professor Snape.Our Defense Against The Dark Arts Classes were so disjointed since it was a cursed position. Everyone talked up Dumbledore’s strength, but he was full of shit - using us all, young and old alike to make him look powerful. I observed my peers through all of the jibes about my physical appearance, and the pointed comments about how I stole my magic. Stole it from whom exactly? And why were they acting so high and mighty while their magic was lacking and unimpressive? I felt defeated most of the time when I should have had greater camaraderie with other children who wanted to explore what they were capable of. Imagine if we were able to collaborate instead of focusing on house rivalry? My Hogwarts experience was no different than the muggle world really.”

I run my tongue over my golden tooth as I listen. I can relate almost too much. Dumbledore hid behind the quick-thinking of children and the Dark Lord was no different. Recruiting teenagers. Misguided children, all of us.

Hermione’s hand grasps the imaginary strap and yanks my chair and me -the surprised rider - directly to the point between her legs. 

I run my hands up her thighs and grab her small hands in mine giving them a little squeeze of celebration and commiseration.

“May I ask you what you mean by not fitting into the muggle world?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Oh gods, where to even begin with that? I’ll give you my origin story, I guess.”

She looks to the floor off to the side of us while she nibbles on the inside of her lip then closes her eyes with a big exhalation.

“My grandmother was a beautiful brown-skinned woman with a head of wild curls from a small village in Puerto Rico. My mother is the same. You see where I am coming from with this? My mum met my dad here after she grew a successful dental office on her own. He was a patient of hers and she took pity on his terribly British teeth.”

She smiles softly in the direction of her bookshelf, getting up to grab a couple of framed photographs I had seen many times as her Domovoy without any context.

I take them in hand when she offers them to me and it is uncanny how much she looks like her mother and her grandmother, now that I know who this striking woman in the black and white photograph is.

“We were well enough off to live in a great neighborhood - middle class in Hampstead Heath - I imagine you were one of the ones who saw their house.”

I nod without thinking - I was there when it was discovered empty. What a mystery to hear about all three of them being there one night and then the next it is devoid of any people or personal belongings. I realize suddenly I am on shaky ground when I look up from the pictures to see her watery eyes. I carefully hold them to my heart while I give her my full attention.

She takes a deep breath, clearing herself of some of her sudden sadness.

“This meant I was able to go to the most prestigious schools with wonderful educational programs - the whole bit. The other children did not look like me at all. I stood out. The girls seated behind me would throw little balls of paper into my hair, pull at my curls, call me ‘dirty’ and make fun of my teeth. The boys would make fun of how I smelled because all of my clothes smelled like my mother’s cooking. They all thought they were better than me but I worked harder than they did in every subject, they were all stuck on my appearance while I was stuck on my education - I always scored well, but the teachers paid me no mind mostly. 

Eventually I learned that my classmates could afford to pay their way through all of it and that their futures were already a sure thing. I had just given up on trying when Professor McGonagall knocked on our door and pulled the rug out from under all of our feet.”

I look at the photos of her family one final time before handing her the frames, as if giving her their photos at this point might remind her that she had love with her through all of it and that she still does. I watch her get up to place the frame back on her shelf with a thoughtful heaviness to her steps. She turns to look at me - my króshka with her unshed tears and heartache. Has no one else tried to make amends for their part in making her feel so unwelcome? For continuing to do so after so much sacrifice?

“Of course, I was accused of stealing their fancy and useless fruit-shaped erasers or their expensively cute pen cases, the answers to tests, the damn chair I sat in - you name it. Ridiculous to think of how important all that shit was then. I was later accused of stealing magic. How could I belong anywhere without taking that spot from some unnameable, faceless and apparently more valuable person? And my grandmother’s beautiful blood that created my mother and traveled all those miles to create me was referred to as muddy?”

I stand up and take her hand, placing it on my heart with a hope that she would feel more secure and stable with me and above that - heard. I do not understand this thing about fruit-shaped erasers, I did not have such things when I was a child. I think I get it though. There are things some can afford when others cannot and then the importance begins when the rest are filled with want. Useless, but important enough for her to hold it all this time.

“Hermione.”

She blinks away a few tears from her shining, honeyed earth eyes.

“They lost themselves to the game. Us versus Them. They thought themselves wolves and were mistaken, myself included. You have every right to stand wherever you like, to take up space, to breathe the same air, and make your magic. You can twist a stone between these lovely little fingers and turn it into a thousand fruit-shaped erasers or birds to peck out their fucking eyes because how dare they see anything less than an absolute goddess with a brilliant mind and a compassionate heart?”

I lift her hand and kiss her palm, my eyes never leaving her surprised face.

Eventually she smiles, her hand cupping my face which I nuzzle into, hungry for her touch.

“You’re every bit the wolf, Antonin, and a little bit mental sometimes.”

I smile and laugh, turning my face to place my laughter in her palm. Three slow kisses follow suit. 

“I don’t mind being seen, Króshka. I have been through the worst of my attempts at fitting in. It broke me many times.”

She kisses my forehead three times in response to mine.

Three bursts of white light behind my eyes that simmer in the darkness. I can do nothing but contentedly sigh. A long moment goes by and the comfortable silence is a new thing for me to enjoy. It is something we had together before, but now it is a conscious act and it glimmers like a jewel twice as much.

An impulsive idea takes over and my mouth runs away with me - I am a little afraid that I have shattered the jewel.

“I know it is getting late, but I would like to show you something. Would you come take the night air with me?”

Her warm hand runs up from my heart to my shoulder, her other holds onto my hand as if we are in a dance. We sway together to the tune of a passing car and a barking dog. One turn and another - I pull her tight to my body, my hand grips her waist on the third and our bare feet touch down on cool grass, the blustering breeze up the cliffside ruffles her hair and she laughs when she tries to cover her now exposed bottom by pulling down her skirt that was tossed up abruptly.

“Antonin!”

My hands are raised innocently.

“ Króshka! I am not incharge of the winds!”

I move to slide my hands down her lovely ass to helpfully hold her skirt down and maybe press myself half-hard at the fact that she stands in my garden against the haven of her belly.

“I can help you, for sure. Just let me press..this...down. I guess we’ll have to walk around like this.”

She laughs loudly in my ear and it rings all through me, pulling a chuckle from me as well when I attempt to walk her around like that.

“Antonin! Stop it! Where are we? I don’t want anyone to see!”

I release her immediately and take a few steps back. 

Let her lovely eyes see her surroundings. 

The shadows of my well-loved rose bushes, a small apple tree, a modest gathering of edible bits - the raspberry bushes all grown wild, strawberries, dill, onions, potatoes, and the gigantic rosemary bush with its blue flowers semi-lit by the moon dancing in the sea breeze. 

I imagined my garden stretching their tops to be seen by her, a queen as she was visiting my little garden.

She takes her time seeing all that she can in such poor lighting, and steps up to the edge of the garden gate, the same one I’d slammed open to walk through to end my misery or exacerbate it by finding her so many weeks, or months ago. I watch the wind blow her hair this way and that almost violently as she realizes I have no neighbors to speak of. I push my hands into my pockets to hide my nerves about whether or not I should have brought her here. Hoping against hope that all things go well and she might warm my bed tonight.

The wind lifts her skirt high to reveal her ass to me in fluttering peeks. Of course I stare with insatiable hunger. I take one step towards her with the idea of making her scream out to the little boats on the water when she turns her head to smirk at me.

Does she have the same idea?

Does she think I am causing the wind to reveal her gorgeous body to me? I am not, but if the wind thinks the sight of her might improve the view, who am I to disagree?

Maybe she will ask me to crush the grass beneath my knees while I drink from the well-spring of her heavenly body?

She turns all the way around to lean back on the stonework, obviously reading my expression. My little witch is most alluring under the cover of moonlight surrounded by the things I have grown with my hands. I am drawn ever closer - the wind seeing fit to raise her skirt again, this time revealing her dark curls at the apex of her thighs. My hand absently leaves my pocket to adjust and tease myself to the greatly improved view of my garden. I am certain a form in some muggle office will show that the value of my property has gone up sharply.

“ Circe , look at you.”

She runs her fingers between her legs, her eyes never leaving me and shakes her head, correcting me.

“Hermione.”

I am so near to her now, near enough to be able to hear the wet sounds her fingers make as she slides over the leavings of our previous union. I undo my jeans to pull myself free - my cock is no stranger to the current surroundings or her delicious body. My hand slides over my shaft slowly and she leans back enough to move her leg to allow me access to her. 

“Yes, Hermione. .”

The tip of my cock is coated with her wetness after a few determined swipes through her lips. I press into her gradually, taking my time to welcome her to my home.

Each inch of me disappears into her body which holds me as if I might be the holy relic this time. 

I lean forward to kiss the top of her cheek, my arm curves around her back to give her support while my other hand holds her leg open for me around my waist.

All of my love goes into tenderly treasuring the gift the winds have given me. When I feel her getting close, with her little hands gripping in a fluctuating rhythm on my shoulders - softly, harder, soft again, tightly with her nails digging in- I know I need to - ease my pace, plunge deeper, stretch her, bite her throat and tell her she’s mine as she begins her pleasured climb. Punctuate each word with a hard thrust then pick up the pace without end until I feel the splash of her against my heavy balls. Deafen yourself with her screams. 

I tighten her legs around me and lift her from the wall, turning just a few feet around me to where the softest grass grows. I set her down on it and wrench her dress over her head. I need access to all of her, I need every inch of me to touch her - an offering to those who heard my cries for her. My clothes end up in the bushes with a quick, mindless spell.

Hermione writhes under me as her heated skin touches the chill of the earth beneath her. I hold her legs open as I allow myself the comfort of suckling on her left peak with my cock buried deeply inside her. I close my eyes - taking the time to taste her and be held by her in every way. 

My mouth works her breast absently, imagining with closed eyes the flooding of milk that might nourish our overpowered babies. Her thumb brushes the side of my face causing me to hum around the extra tender bud trapped between my lips. I feel her clench around me, moving her hips in an attempt to get more of me. 

I’m quite happy where I am, thank you, Miss.  

Then she tries to pry my head off her sweet nipple. I do not budge, in fact, I suck harder. 

My little witch whines and wiggles, crying out to the night air around us.

“Antonin.. please ..”

I release her nipple eventually - I am sure it is reddened, swollen. A sweetly bruised fruit for her clothes to rub against when I am not with her.

I pull my cock almost completely out of her, enjoying the relief I see on her face as she readies herself to finally be fucked by me.

I give several shallow thrusts against the spot that breaks her open, slowly dragging myself against her walls. 

My gods, she clings so tightly to me that I wonder if she has mapped out my every vein and ridge.

I stretch her open, pushing in deeply and deeper still.

I cannot help but sigh her name to the moon, my head tilted back, the head of my cock kissing her heart.

I lean down to kiss her, wanting her to taste her name from my lips as I whisper it into her open mouth. 

Devilishly, I navigate downwards towards her untouched breast. I kiss the soft skin of her throat, placing open mouthed kisses while I thrust steadily into her. 

The vanilla mixed pleasantly with the roses in the air and the scent of our previous union on her couch being pushed out onto the grass with each slow plunge of my cock in her. 

I drag my lips over her nipple, a flick of my warm tongue to the sound of her humming sighs and the breaking of waves. My mouth latches on, swirling gently as my hips still against hers which move feverishly.

I begin the rhythmic sucking of her tender bud - fairly certain that I am able to fit her entire breast in my greedy mouth.

Her legs hinge open and closed as my mouth works her breast in an attempt to drag nutrition from it in a delightfully painful way. She claws at my scalp trying to pry my head from her while her cunt flutters around my bastard cock. I decided to add teeth.

We can be little animals tussling in the night.

I bite and pull gently with my front teeth as she grabs my hair, panting and moaning to no one and everything.

The night has eyes and sees us all. It watches our feral tenderness as we mate in the grass.

I release her breast to push her knees to her shoulders. I cannot hold out any longer and we are both so close, so ready to howl as one.

I look down as I fuck into her and feel myself step frightfully close to the edge of climax at the sight of myself disappearing into the darkness of her body, listening to the slapping, wet sounds of her sopping cunt. 

The litany of her screams as her body is rocked harshly by the force of me driving myself into her till I shakily and loudly release my seed into her. At some point, I liberate her poor thighs from my grasp and lean down to kiss her lips around her heavy breaths.

“ Króshka.. I wish you could see how the moon shimmers over the sheen of sweat on your body and the proud way your breasts stand up to me and my malicious mouth.”

She huffs a laugh and rises up to look me in the eye. She is a proud and sturdy woman and I meet her gaze head on.

I watch her as she licks upwards on my sternum, a quick swipe to taste test me before she destroys me no doubt. And then I feel her mouth on my own breast. I keep my hands behind me, though I would love to feel the workings of her jaw as she now bites my much smaller nipple with dangerous strength. 

“There is no worry in your eye that I might go too far?”

I swallow and shake my head in a quick movement.

“No. Never. Remember, Umnitsa , my wife can stab me a little bit, I would not mind.”

She considers me for a second with slightly narrowed eyes. She runs her impossibly small hand over my bollocks and I wonder if she can see the gooseflesh that erupts all over me.

“What does that word mean? You have said it a few times before.”

Her forefinger runs along the seam of me, a lifeline for the generations ahead. I love her concentration as she touches me. I don’t think anyone has taken such care to touch me or consider me so carefully before.

“I am calling you a ‘clever girl’.”

She tuts several times and pats me gently to each tsk from her lips.

“A man said that to a dinosaur in a movie once and she ate his face.”

My lips part in fucking surprise. She doesn’t notice as she traces a finger up over my pelvis, swirling over my hip bone to spider crawl up my ribs.

Eventually she looks up when I refuse to flinch and have remained perfectly quiet.

I pull her towards me suddenly to kiss my fill of her smart fucking mouth. 

I kiss the breath right out of the both of us and we smile at one another in the moonlight for a time until I stand and offer my hand to her. Her hand never ceases to calm me and enliven me all at once and when it is in mine again, I hold firm to it as if she might float away from me in the currents that surround those who are living.

I turn us towards the house. There is a warm shower and a warm bed in there I would like her to see.

“I shouldn’t make light of such things, umnitsa , but they do say that a kiss is the beginning of cannibalism.”

She leans on me. I am grateful that she would love more of herself touching me even now.

“Who says these things?”

I turn the knob and push open the door, then pick her up bridal style to guide her into my home. I shrug as I kick the door closed behind me.

“I don’t know, love. Cannibals, perhaps?”

Chapter Text

I know I went to sleep with a little warm body full of my own but I am waking up to an empty bed. Could it all have been a dream? 

I pick up the smell of vanilla on my arms and on my pillows and my body wakes up now missing hers around it.

I exhale deeply and close my eyes. Maybe she is in the bathroom?
I will close my eyes and enfold her as soon as she comes back to me. Yes, it is settled, I will just close my eyes for now and wait.

A minute passes.

Two.

Sleep does not come for me and I will not be cumming either. That is when I hear laughter from the living room. I pull myself from the sleepy smells and the teasing press of my body against the sheets towards waking up enough to put my comfy pajama bottoms on and walking towards the sound of her laughter.
Be honest with yourself, Antonin. The sound of her laughter would drag you through the fires of Hell and back. Yes. Yes.

I am not sure what I thought I might find but my Króshka in one of my shirts sitting on my couch with Orlov taking up all the room to open and close his wings, and bob his head, shaking it cheekily as he pecked the air in his way of talking to her was not what I had in mind. I watched her hold his head, her thumbs brushing the serious eyebrows on my silly fucking familiar and plant kisses on him while he purred.

“Yes, you are a handsome boy. Yes you are!”

I walk into the room with a shake of my head.

“This bird charms witches better than I do!”

Her warmth washes over me as she looks up with a surprised smile. It turns quickly into a put-upon pout.

“I do not wish to know about your other witches, Antonin. It cheapens what me and…this lovely albatross has.”

I roll my eyes and lean down carefully, to avoid the beaking, and kiss her forehead.

“His name is Orlov and there has only been Luna.”

At her confused furrow, I add what is already known.

“I called Thorfinn over and he brought her without asking because boundaries do not exist to my little brother.”

She nods. See? It is well-known.

My darling proceeds to sing-song my familiar’s name to him much to his delight as his noises grow more obnoxious and loving towards her. I knew she was a perfect fit for my life. All I hear are kissy sounds and beaky beak snapping as I walk into the kitchen area to make coffee for us. Her perfect laughter is the soundtrack to the machine filling the carafe for us. 

Strawberries from the garden - after pulling our clothes from the bushes,  with perfectly strong black coffee, and my Króshka sitting across from me at the table in the filtered morning sun. She studies the khokhloma style painting on the middle of my table with her finger tips. Red strawberries with gold seeds, green leaves and dainty white flowers on a black background. My Mama always had this kind of decoration in her kitchen, all hand-painted by her. I decide then and there to share that fact with her. I’m not sure that I have ever spoken about my family with anyone, not even my little brother who moonlights as a boulder. I clear my throat after a foolishly big gulp of hot coffee and tap the table with my middle finger. I am proud of my painting and my inspiration.

“My Mama painted something similar in her kitchens everywhere we went. Always strawberries, they were her favorite.”

Hermione looks up, looks to the berry in her hand and takes a thoughtful bite. I watch her chew on it slowly. She presses the tips of her fingers to her lips as she swallows before speaking.

“You moved around a great deal then? I heard kitchens, plural.”

I bob my head and lean back in my seat. I really have not said these things out loud. I feel somewhat shy about it after all.

“Yes. We had to. Being what we are in the USSR was not without harsh discrimination.”

I watch her study me, it makes me so nervous that I fidget with my cup a little bit.

“We, um, we lived rather nomadically to avoid snitches and war until we were forced to live in homes by the government. It was a small village - a mixed community, and we had restrictions regarding every detail of how we went about our lives. From the times of famine, my grandfather would tell us not to go out alone at night, while my grandmother strong-armed us away from certain butchers. As we got older, we were not allowed to have little muggle girlfriends in the village or even in nearby villages. We hadn’t seen firsthand what could happen, only hearing stories from the elders - it did not stop my brother from…”

I sigh heavily and her little hand holds mine across the table, her heart clearly written all over her face. I squeeze her hand.

“Would you like to see my photographs?”

She nods with exuberance and I stand up, releasing her hand as I do so.

“One second..one second.”

I rush into my bathroom to retrieve the tin, replacing the tile to keep my hidden place - well, hidden , obviously.

I set the red and green canister on the table, opening it slowly, then pulled out the photograph of my dedushka smiling and dancing with the village ladies.

I point out the magical folk, the women in black and white, their dancing stilled by muggle photography.

“I wish you could see the colours in their skirts, the gold in their smiles, and hear the harmony of their voices. We would dance in the mud, sing in it, and eventually be buried in it. Matka Ziemia - the moist mother earth.”

I blink away my sadness while she studies the photo, and then I pass her the one of my Mama in her garden with our cow beside her. I see the dark coat on her, and remember that it was a deep, wine red.

“My Mama, Zorya. You cannot see all of her strawberries, but they are there. The seeds that mine grow from are related to hers from her garden. Also inside her front right pocket, my grandmother embroidered a strawberry as a joke to trick her.”

I laugh a little bit and love the way my little witch anticipates my silly story.

“Mama would fill her pockets with the little berries and feed the cheekiest of village children with them to bribe them from being terrors in our garden. She didn’t know what was sewn there one day and thought she had one more for herself! It became a thing she would do with them. They would empty her pockets and crowd around her to see the eternal strawberry.”

I smile softly. 

“My mother loved my brother and me, but she had experienced a great deal of loss growing up during the famine and all of those impish children running about reminded her of her lost siblings and childhood friends. So much loss for her poor Mama heart.”

I pick out the photograph of my brother standing with his bride in the falling snow with two villages around them celebrating. I see my mother with a wary look hidden in her smile and me with my arm around his shoulder trying to keep the celebratory mood alive. Symon looked handsome with his fur coat on and Yulia looked shy with her garland of fabric flowers.

“My brother Symon and his wife, Yulia.”

I point to myself, young and less wild-eyed.

“I was in the middle of my teenage years and he had just turned 20. He loved her so much and she was already with child here. She was good. Not like us - she kept it all hush hush. But…”

I suck my teeth.

My króshka reaches for my hand again.

“Antonin, you don’t have to dredge it up.”

I shake my head and squeeze her fingers, then drag them to my lips to kiss them.

“I have not ever spoken of this. Not fucking once. I would like to try?”

She looks out of the window as if a bright idea has formed.

“Would you feel better saying this outside? I know nature is your nurture..”

I bob my head and she walks with me out into the sunshine, our toes in the grass, the wind on our faces.

Then I begin to tell her the story of Symon and Yulia.

“My niece, born to them in the dead of summer, was a sweet little bird. She grew so healthy and strong - the potions my grandmother made for Yulia to drink to strengthen her milk was maybe too good . People noticed her baby’s glowing health and round cheeks while their own babies suffered from various illnesses. We tried to hide her wellness with glamours. Then when Valentyna was around three, she started showing signs of magic. Yulia tried to explain it away, Symon laughed it off to the non magical folk in our village with all their damn questions. They came for us at night…with fire.”

I barely notice Hermione covering her mouth with a gasp. I can see only the sickening glow of everything I loved in ruin. The sight of the orange light in the blackness of night from the borders of the forest with my babushka crying into a handkerchief.

“Someone was shooting through the windows. Mama was first to die. Then Valentyna - shot through the arms of her mother who then fell down dead with a bullet in her heart. There was so much smoke and fire..broken glass. Symon refused to leave his family. My grandparents and I pulled and pulled and he wouldn’t move. He was shot next and after the front room collapsed, the crowd pulled back from the house and my Dedushka covered my grandmother and I with a kind of disillusionment charm while dragging us out towards the forest in the back. No one saw us, no one looked for us, covered in ash and blood. Crying in the birch and brush.”

The wind blustered and blew away at us as we stood together in the garden. She stood in front of me with her curls blowing this way and that, but never touching me. I am not sure I would not have welcomed it, but her presence was all I needed. She held my heart in hers and that was as comforting as her daring to hold me through this. I still carried it with me. When we had to burn muggle homes in village raids as Death Eaters, little bits of me burned away with them. 

“We walked and walked until we found a village far enough away and small enough that no one outside the elderly villagers knew of us. It was so remote that the roads in winter were impassable and packs of wolves circled our lands. You see, Króshka, these were hard times, but we were able to make our comforts wandlessly. Was it the most impressive magic? Nyet . That was learned in merry old fucking England after my Babushka slapped my cheeks for the last time and told me to find love.”

I walk over to my beloved roses and cup one of the pink ones to my nose to ground myself. I sever it from the bush and tuck it into Hermione’s wild curls. 

Our babies would have astonishing hair. 

I look at her with warm cheeks as she smiles at me.

“Admittedly, I fucked that up pretty badly and I think it took me far longer than my babushka would have liked, but I think I have improved my efforts, yes?”

Her small fingers gracefully touch the flower behind her ear and then she reaches out for my hand. I kiss her palm and bring it to my heart. 

“Do you think they would have liked me?”

I tilt my head having never considered it, but I do try to imagine it.

“I think your first step inside our humble house would have them turning you this way and that to measure you against your will for a wedding dress. I did not have a great deal of prospects - no one I ever felt serious enough about. My dedushka would welcome you into the quiet of our spot in the yard where we splintered wood and listened to the women sing and argue and laugh. It wouldn’t last long before Mama or Yulia would be sent out to fetch you.”

My mouth upturns at the thought. It would be worth it to hear them try and say her name after a bottle of vodka. I hear my babushka and the aunties in the village raising their mismatched glasses in the air.

Goodbye brains! We dance away from you tonight!

I find myself half a day later standing invisibly in the yard of Ms. Brown.

I shove my pockets in my hands to keep myself from trying to help her as I see her kneeling in her front yard looking under bushes frantically. She cries and mutters to herself, “Where is it? Where could it be?”

This is my fault for not leaving the damn mobile sooner. I am so ashamed of myself for this. 

I move away quickly into the house where the Fuck is tearing apart the house looking for it. I set it in the open on the side table of the guest room he’d been placed in. When he finds it, he is practically frothing at the mouth with misplaced rage, and storms out into the front yard where the possible-mother-of-his-child kneels in the dirt getting scratched by bushes. 

He grabs her hair and I surge forward, only stopping myself to think. THINK you fucking fool.

“Did you think it was funny to put this in plain view and make me look for it?!”
She winces from the grip he has on her hair and the loudness of his voice in her ear.

“What? No!”

“You did, didn’t you? Always trying to make a fool of me. Tricking me into fatherhood when it couldn’t have been mine. You hid this from me, confounded me to make me look like a fucking idiot while I floo called everyone to look for it. You ditzy bint, get in the fucking house! I should have sorted you out earlier.”

She stumbles, covering her baby belly with her arms, but I throw a quick charm to help her keep her footing so she doesn't fall on the steps leading to the house. 

Pregnant ladies and devil stairs. I shake my fucking head.

The Fuck lets go of her hair when he realizes he’s in full view of the neighborhood and looks around for a time to see if anyone is outside. I take advantage of the opportunity to jinx his shoe into slipping so he smashes his forehead on the stair. 

Oopsy Daisy, Shitfuck. Should have kept you as a rubbish bin and filled you with my filth.

Ms. Brown shakes with nerves as she watches him bleed and groan on the stairs. It almost looks like she wishes to do nothing, but she shakes her head and blinks away that idea to levitate him through the floo to St. Mungos after vanishing his blood from the stairs.

I exhale loudly after they’ve left and find my way back to Hermione’s. She is working on some research and I am not to be there, but seeing her would calm me. I sneak in with my bare feet and take my place in the corner to watch her take notes and shuffle papers for hours before placing a glass of water, and a bowl of fruit beside her. 

Hours of peace wash over me until I move to stretch my back and there is a knock on the door.

Chapter Text

A tall, slender, red-headed woman with a small child in tow stands on Hermione’s welcome cat. My króshka appears to sigh full-bodily and frown as she lets them in, then watches uneasily as they step around the piles of parchment, muggle notebook paper, the empty fruit bowl and glass to sit on her equally crowded couch.

“How about we move into the kitchen where my work isn’t anywhere near the feet that still have shoes on? Hmmm? That might be fun! Let’s go do that!”

I might have shot a small cleaning spell on their shoes and the carpet they’ve walked on before clenching my hands into fists and shoving them into my pockets as I watch her corral these two uninvited guests away from her quite obvious working area into her kitchen to ply the little boy with juice and a leftover vatrushka cut into small bites. 

Do you not know her research habits after all these years?  

The redheaded woman must be Ginny Weasley..erm..Potter. I shrug unseen. 

It is weird that he would have married someone that looked so much like his mother.

The woman eyes the alder leaves and roses on the table then turns towards my króshka.

“My brother was admitted to St. Mungo’s with a head injury today.”

Hermione leans her back against her sink with her eyebrow raised. It does not escape my notice that she does not sit at the table with them and instead makes space like this. She clenches her jaw in an uncharacteristic way before responding.

“If it’s not George, Charlie, or Bill I could hardly care less, Ginny.” 

The woman straightens her posture, keeping her eyes on Hermione as she pushes the point.
“Lavender brought him in. She had marks on her arms..from his.. hands .”

Her once uptight and prideful tone simmered down into a whisper on the last word of that confession.

I want to stand between her and this interaction and wrap my arms around her to remind her that she is safe. This is her house and she is strong enough to tell me when I need to leave and I do..mostly. Hermione’s mouth tightens, she shakes her head and turns her back to her while the woman continues relaying her absolutely unnecessary news. I walk closer to Hermione, close enough to see her eyes shut and hear the shaky breath she exhales to keep herself steady.

“The aurors considered her a suspect for his injuries and questioned her repeatedly until they were certain she had nothing to do with it. She says she was trying not to stumble face first onto the stair when he..”

“Ginny.”

Hermione’s voice cuts her off as a warning. A message loud and clear to stop talking immediately. She lifts her hand up to punctuate that simple demand. Then she turns around and looks at the small boy as calmly as possible. I am proud of her, but worry eats at my heart. 

“When James is finished with his snack, you both should go home. Go be with your family.”

There is a beat of silence as they both consider the boy who looks up and smiles at my witch then turns a page in his little book.

The painful exchange continues as the redhead opens her fucking mouth once more.

“I heard you’ve been seeing someone new.”

My króshka raises her hand again and shakes her head. I was worried for a moment that she would deny my existence. It is silly. I am ridiculous. I know what it means to love a man like me.

Her voice is quiet and shows every bit of tension in her demeanor as she tries to keep calm.

“No. We’re not doing this, Gin. You stopped being welcome to my personal life the years and years you failed to even listen to what I was trying to tell you in regards to it. The same sh- stuff you’re crying about right now….”

Hermione’s mouth folds in on itself. Gods, she is so upset. Can’t Mrs. Potter even see for herself what she is doing? Or is that entire family just so clueless?

The redhead sighs, her shoulders visibly slumping.

“Hermione…”

“You have tears for Lavender do you? Great. Go have them outside of the sanctity of my home.”

“Hermione, you don’t think it’s possible that I just couldn’t see my brother doing that to anyone, let alone you? You’ve always been so strong, why didn’t you fight back?”

My girl throws a silencing spell around the child who was ignoring all of them in favor of his snack and a small book about a witch with a large nose who cooks spaghetti in her cauldron. The little boy kicks his legs happily as he eats and wipes his fingers really well on his napkin before turning the pages. He seems like a good kid. I hope he stays that way.

I am lost to the imaginations of sitting at this table with a sweet little one of our own. I am not fussed with gender unless the gender is healthy and happy and safe. They would sit in my lap and I would steal bites of their snacks as payment for reading to them in two languages. Maybe also with voices? Yes, definitely with voices.

I feel the notice-me-not go around them and move the weave of it enough to be able to stand near them as she motions emphatically for Ginny Weasley to meet her in the living room.

“He didn’t want anyone to see what he was doing! Of course you couldn’t see it when he was being such a good boy for his mummy . Upstanding failed auror doing the absolute least at a joke shop and the least at home, and the least everywhere and in all things. The well-placed, hidden bruises and not so hidden towards the end there. The..”

She takes a breath.

“He -.. He was quite proficient at making me feel small and powerless. You don’t understand. You’ve been lucky. You don’t understand all the things he is capable of hiding right under your nose, Gin.”

I want to hold her. I want to pull her to my chest and curse the entirety of the Weasley clan for generations. How fucking dare they? Why should she fucking care about what happens to him? Is he really worth this much unease?

“Hermione, I’m so sorry..I’m sorry..”

The redhead places a hand on Hermione’s arm - the arm - and sees the scar. Hermione pulls away so fast and so hard I thought she might bump right into me, so I take a step back. I lift my hands to give support, like that night in the secret garden when she cried with my hand resting on her. I just want her to feel held, loved, understood, respected . 

Her hair crackles with magic - my storm entwines with her stinging sands and I cannot imagine that the woman who dared touch her against her will does not feel the surge of energy and the stinging sensations along her bare skin. I do.

It feels like she pulls my magic from me only a little. Siphoning it to feed her righteous anger.

“Don’t. Fucking. Touch. Me. I never want another redhead to touch me for the rest of my fucking life. Get out. Get the fuck out now .”

Ginny recoils, her hand clutching her chest with shock and unshed tears flooding her face. Her eyes seem to scan Hermione, reading all of the discomfort and anger with clarity. Seeing for herself the legacy her good for nothing brother left with this one time friend. I could see all of the thoughts floating through her eyes.

How did this happen? How did I let it?

Why did he do this? What did he do to her? How can I tell my husband and should I? Yes, I probably should.

I hope she looks harder at him.

She may not have the skills to catch the golden snitch of lies the Fuck has woven, but she sure has the fucking nerve. And persistence.

Hermione’s fury quiets down as she turns to wipe the tears from her face. The woman gathers her child and my króshka turns around with a smile plastered to her face despite the reddened eyes still damp with tears.

“It was nice seeing you, James.”

The little boy smiles, a book about a caterpillar in one arm and a sizable piece of vatrushki in his other hand.

“Thank you for the snack, Aunt Mi! I’m taking this book home.”

She rubs her hands on her arms nervously and nods her head.

“Alright. I hope you like it.”

The two uninvited guests make for the door and I can tell Hermione is on the verge of drowning. The Weasley woman turns one last time to look at her and then closes the door behind her.

Oh, my Króshka.. my heart breaks for her in every way as she falls on her knees and is washed away by the river of sadness. 

I should be with you. I am with you, but not in the way I like. I should be here holding you until you have cried yourself out, and then I would carry you up to your bath and pat the trails of your tears away with a nice warm cloth while your bath fills.

 I am here. 

I am here. I will stay beside you.

It was many hours before she was able to pick herself off the floor and go to bed. She never called anyone to come sit with her - not myself, not Luna, or Thorfinn. All I could do was watch her work through it and dream of new ways to make her life easier and theirs harder. I crawled out from under her bed once the sounds of sleep fell over the darkened room and placed a glass of water on her nightstand with a bit of jasmine beside it. I might have been standing watch over her for too long as I stared at the way the light from the street lamp hugged brokenly the curves of her hair and her body. 

She is not alone and although I am invisible, I want her to know she is cared for. My gods, I care so much.

I walked till I was tired, till my brain stopped flipping through the rolodex of bad ideas. I walked through the night and into the morning. Then I spun home and busied myself with setting up the cup and saucer that she used when she was here in front of the chair that she sat in. A little shrine to my love - that made me feel more at peace and less inclined to let The Thing With Claws wind me up. I was doing so well in shutting it out.

Yet it howled and knocked against my ribs for her. Always for her. My blood danced and sizzled as if I sat on hot coals. I readjusted myself after turning her cup a scant centimeter - the perfect placement for her arm to reach it. I was missing her and the feeling of power in her anger was still making my skin tingle pleasantly. 

Fucking hell. I need a shower.  

I shake my head and storm into the bathroom to pull my clothes off quickly and step under ice cold water.  Even with the stinging bite and the vague reminder of the cold showers in Azkaban and all that that held in my memories, I was heated for her. Nothing kept my hand from gripping myself feverishly. I called for her as I imagined her small hands tenderly placed over my heart, her teeth on me, the way she bares her throat when she tilts her head back and cums for me. A barrage of memories and sensations wraps around my mind and my bastard cock. The way she pulled and twisted at my bollocks when I showed her one of the many keys to the secret rooms in which I would love to be loved by her. All I wanted was to give her power over me, to beg her to let me worship her, to see my blood in her teeth and her claws in my guts.

Pain is a sensation and sensations are meant to be enjoyed.

I am supplied with scenes of a different sort then. Her bare bottom in my garden flashing me cheekily and me on my knees tasting her Eden in the warm sun while I stroke myself. A phantom of her flavor rests on my tongue and I fall to my knees in the tub with the icy water raining down.

The exact moment I imagined the possibly immense tightness of her asshole around my cock as we fuck boldly in my garden turned the chilled water warm between my fingers. The aftershocks of my self-pleasure made my mind dream up the clutch of her hands in the soil and the way my seed would spill from one hole to the next onto the freshly tilled land underneath us.

This would be a grand offering.

My mind is a bit more relaxed though my skin aches with longing and cold.

I step out, grabbing my towel to dry myself and watch the sun rise higher into the sky. The loose feeling doesn’t last and I become antsy.

Get it?  

It is like the stories my brother would tell me to scare me at night. 

Everyone goes to sleep so their skeletons can escape and dance in the middle of the village, Antushka. You must sleep now so we can go dance with all the pretty girls without worry.

Except now my skeleton wants to dance with a pretty girl under the sun. 

What day is it? 

Fuck. I need to get to work.

Monday was quiet with only a short visit to Hermione’s house to kiss her soundly. Of course she invited me in for a little bit of supper and I took up the washing of the dishes to make up for dropping in unannounced. She held my face before I left and kissed my cheeks, my eyelids, the tip of my nose which she honked gently and then asked me about Orlov.

I leaned in the doorway like a lovesick boy who never wanted to leave.

“Do you want me to retrieve my albatross for you?”

She brightened up considerably at that. 

I can be a charming clown for you, my króshka. We will laugh at the darkness so that it finds our light unbearable and leaves.

I bend down to nuzzle her nose with mine and threaten to put Orlov in her bed in the dead of night so close to her ear that she shivers. Her ensuing laugh floats me down the street.

Tuesday was too quiet and mostly spent confessing my sins to the naughty twigling that had started reminding me of Yaxley. Surely, this is a sign that I have lost myself. I tell the elder about Weasley and the terrible things he has been capable of. There was a look of surprise on the bowtruckle’s face that I did not know it was capable of doing and then I watched him turn to tell the rest of his family. They disappeared into the tree and came out with sharp wooden implements - ready for some fairy battle. I raised my hands and shook my head.

“No..no. This is not possible! You are only supposed to attack people who fuck with your tree and no one is fucking with your tree. Stay put, twiglings where I can ensure your safety.”

The Salad King crosses his arms over his chest and taps his leaf bedazzled foot in annoyance.

Wednesday was promised to my little brother and his pixie. A ghostly rabbit hopped down the path towards me and when I stooped down to get a good look at it, stood up on its hind legs to issue their message of arrival with her airy voice.

I stand there long after it has vanished, my fingers combing my mustache as I contemplate what my patronus would be if I was able to conjure one. I have to physically move towards the front gate to break myself of these thoughts and it is not until I see two smiling faces that I am pulled from my imaginings completely.

They are a good pair and I am happy they have one another, but I miss her .

We walk at an easy pace to the great Alder and I watch as the pixie stops a good bit of distance away with her eyes scanning the tree - canopy to root. Thorfinn, with his jar of woodlice held tightly in excitement realizes she’s stopped and also stops. He dutifully looks to her for direction while I walk past both of them. I tap on the tree softly then listen for the scurrying and scratching, and the squeaking beepy sounds.

“I have brought good visitors and they have little snacks for you and yours.”

The young ones look out curiously and shyly while the Salad King, yes, the name stuck- comes out to greet me. He looks over my shoulder and I make the introductions.

“This is my little brother, Thorfinn and this is Luna.”

Salad King of the Naughty Twiglings loudly squeaks in her direction. Both of my eyebrows jump upwards at her serene expression while she squeaks and beeps in relatively similar fashion. 

Thorfinn and I twist our heads from her to the green creature with rapt attention until she lays a hand on her lover’s arm.

“I spent a year with Mr. Scamander and learned how to speak their language.”

We both nod because that makes sense - anything could find sense with her, even the impossible.

“He says he will accept the woodlice, Finn, and he enjoys your friendship as well, Antonin.”

She pats his arm and nudges him over to the tree to open his jar for them to feast, but holds me in place.

Oh dear, what new horror has she gleaned from being in proximity to me now? I have been good.

“They are incredibly persistent with the idea that they must fight Ronald…”

I shake my head vigorously.

“No. No. Not possible. I am in charge of their safety and would not ever put them in harm’s way with him. I made the mistake of confiding in them.”

She shakes her head in response.

“You have done nothing wrong. I believe you understand the harsh way that nature nurtures. The wolf leads his pack to food and shelter with gnashing teeth. Winter gives temporary rest to the land, and permanent rest to those unready for it. We are in a time of peace and gathering right now under this glorious tree but in many corners of this forest, there are things in a state of dying and decay.”

She hasn’t blinked, only stared right through me as I visualize these things she mentions. I know the harshness of nature, of winter and weather and the sea. Everything teeming with life and death in a dance of give and take. I have dealt death, but never life. Ah, wait - that isn’t true. I do have my garden.  

She reaches for my hand and I tense greatly at her touch, my eyes darting to Thorfinn who watches the young ones chase the woodlice that have crawled away from his jar. I look back to the little seer who holds my hand. The back of it rests in her palm while the fingers of her other hand trace the lines of my palm.

“I cannot think of anything more horrendous than being trapped in one’s own body, can you?”

I try to pull my hand from hers, but she holds tightly to me with a strength I could never imagine someone like her possessing. Her eyes have taken on that faded appearance like when she was healing the Fuck and tampering with his memories. I do not enjoy this.

“The way he makes women feel trapped in their bodies, their homes, and their lives. One day he will be trapped in his own. It is inevitable.”

She lets my hand loose and smiles at me with clear blue eyes.

“It is peculiar how quiet the newspapers have been on him lately.”

 There is a skip in her step as she joins my little brother who is letting the young ones swing from his fingers while the elders look on. 

I agree. The printed press held very little news on anything related to him for days now. I wonder what it means while I flip through the rolodex of bad ideas this way and that way. And then I settle on a well-thumbed card, bent and dirtied with a smattering of blood marked Acquire Evidence .

Chapter Text

Ronald Weasley was a complete fucking nightmare.

Acquiring evidence against him had been super easy. He wasn’t exactly hiding his trail of deceit and ruin all that much. What was surprising was that the Holiest of Harry’s was completely ignoring what must’ve been right in front of his face as THIS was very much in need of intervention. It was like someone discovering they had cancer and turning their eye to it thinking some benevolent, merciful God might sort it out for them. Gods are not so.

Not to mention that he turned his blind eyes from her .

His supposed sister.

I am sometimes not so sure what is the bigger crime, so I stay determinedly angry at both of them. Dr. Kemp carefully pointed out that Potter, having had no loving family for his formative years, likely had no idea what that involved. Who, aside from Ron and Hermione, were really looking out for him when the world needed to see what he was capable of? When I went home after that session, and held my sweet witch tightly to me, I wondered about what kind of father he was to his children and then I wondered what I would be like for my own. 

It had taken a couple of months for Luna to approach all of the women we had found on his mobile - and even a few that were not. We decided that following the strange leads she might have pulled from the ether was best right from the start.  The three of us would meet at my house to go over any new findings- pulling letters, addresses, and photographs together to make files on his various relationships gone awry. It was a sordid and cautionary tale that made my giant little brother with his big heart and big anger put all of his calming techniques to work. We were both at our limits several times over.

I argued for killing him more times than I could count. I needed to. I needed to do this for Hermione’s peace. Thorfinn was the one who calmed me then.
“Outside, Dolly. Come on.”

I would follow him dutifully, even if my blood boiled and my teeth gnashed, I would follow him outdoors. Once the wind buffeted my hair about and cooled my fevered skin, or the cooler rains pelted my face, I settled enough to stay in place.

“What would I do without you, Dolly? If they sent you back to Azkaban, you’d never come out again. What would Princess do without you? And if that doesn’t get through to you, well, then think about what you would do without all of us, because we’re not going to fucking Azkaban to see you. Rabbit, maybe, because he’s a fucking ray of sunshine..”

I watch my brother side eye me, trying not to smirk as he talks his shit. It is enormous amounts of bullshit, because he would go see me in that fucking mountain of sorrow, but it would affect him so badly each time, that I would have to turn him away. Hermione, as well. I realize he’s started speaking again and I listen. It is important what he has to say.

“...new art projects, the latest about MacNair’s arsehole drawings. But definitely not you, you sad fuck.”

Ok, maybe not that important.

That does it. I cannot help but laugh.

“You are too rude to me, Thorfinn. I do not believe you love me at all. You would choose embarrassingly well-detailed arseholes over me? Is he drawing them from memory? Or do they belong to someone we know?”

“They’re all mine, Dolly. I’m his muse. Now you know the truth about me.”

He smiles so wide that I am compelled to grab his beard and give it a little tug which makes him make his horrendous goat noises at me.
That causes us to laugh again, louder than any storm inwards or outwards. Eventually we settle into breathing calmly, and pointing out things in my garden to talk about the details of every leaf or flower. Just before we decide it might be a good time to go back in and finish our meeting, he grabs me by the shoulder, stopping me gently in his way to look at me intently and logic The Thing With Claws to dormancy even further.

“He does deserve it, but what satisfaction would any of them really have if they didn’t find a way to take him down themselves? I think it might be time to bring Hermione in on this endeavor. I kinda can’t wait to see him stumble in the snow of his own making and get devoured by wolves.”

Hermione’s heartbeat steadies under my ear while her fingers comb through my hair. I am surrounded by the smell of her. Of us . It only furthers the calm I feel in my bones.

“I am glad you are combing it out for me, Króshka, you were merciless with my locks today.”

She hums and I can hear her lips pulling into a dazed smile. I trail a finger lightly down her scar, relishing in the clench of her nails on my scalp, her back bowing away from the bed under us. 

Our magic sings between us - more..more…more!

“Did I worship you well enough or do you think you have one more..mmm.. two more in you for me?”

I am so hopeful and hungry .

She sighs and relaxes her hold on me as she looks down into my eyes.

“You are greedy.”

Her eyes close again and I know I am being baited.

I shrug.
“I do not dispute the fact that I would keep you boneless and relaxed under me more often than not. You work so hard, Hermione. I love showing you how much I appreciate that focus and drive you have by devouring you. Nevertheless, if you need your rest, I will stop pressing the full length of my greed against you.”

Do I make moves to give her space? No, absolutely not. I move closer if anything. I cradle the breast closest to my face to nibble her sweet flesh while my hand traces gentle paths across her stomach. She makes the most delicious sound and I can’t help but groan around the top of her modest peak and grind myself against her hip bone.

“Hmmm…Antonin, I might have one more..”

I release her nipple after a strong pull that drags a needy little whine from her. 

Oh, my favorite sound! My name followed by the song of begging.

“Just one?”

She watches as I move between her legs, my hardness proudly standing between us like a third person.

I stroke the tops and sides of her thighs - the move never fails to make her spread her legs wide, begging me to touch her some place else. Her knees open, giving me a view of her cunt glistening with renewed wetness, her hair is messily matted down from our most recent interlude. I love seeing our future in her soft, dark curls.

Her eyes are unfocused as she watches me pull her lips apart and tease her with my now useful cock. It barely brushes against her and she tries to push me in with her naughty feet on my backside. I guide myself towards her entrance, keeping myself steady to thwart the push of her insistent little feet.

“ Króshka… did you want to cum around me?”

She nods dreamily. I think there’s a whispered yes in there somewhere but I can never be sure if it is her or me saying it.

“I think I can pull more than one from you that way. Is that what you want? Do you want me to try and wring you dry?”

Her hands clutch my wrists as she pulls me down to kiss her.

“Yes! Please, yes! Please ..”

How can I deny her when she finds her voice so prettily?

I don’t even need my hands to slide into her. She is so fucking wet and hot around me and I feel her fluttering already. She will give her pleasure to me soon if I hit that spot just right…

I am deafened in the most glorious way by her screams. A cool breeze dances across our heated skin from my open window and I groan as I push with persistence against her shattering point. Our love is carried on the wind through my home - our home, maybe, if she wants.

“So good, my love. That is one. One more now.”

Nails dig into my shoulders and I kiss her to swallow her precious sounds. Whether her call marks our death together or the ending of the world, I don’t care. I must hear it directly in my skull. I need it to reverberate down my throat. 

She tightens and loosens around me in a tug of war - stroking my cock in stereo with my movement. I might already be in Heaven and I am trying to pull… her.. upwards with me.

“That’s it. Again, Hermione. I want to flush out the seed that did not take. I want to fill you up again. Let it out for me, my love.”

Hermione is folded perfectly under me and there is a litany on my lips. I am able to break her apart endlessly and then when I am as sated and soaked as she, I will fill her full. 

“Hermione. Hermione ..You’re so beautiful dousing me with your sweet cream. You take me so well. Do you feel me stretching this little cunt open?”

She throws her head back and moans long and loud.

“Oh my gods! Antonin - fuck! Don’t fucking stop! Don’t stop! Give it all to me!”

Her cry starts off clenched and as tight as her and then she opens for me. When she floods us both, her words take a higher pitch. I try to memorize her wild curls buzzing with magic, the dark points of her breasts jostled by my need for her. They will grow round like her belly one day. I haven’t stopped fucking into her.
Will I ever?  

I pull her hand out of the tangle of sheets beside us and I kiss her fingers.

She opens her eyes just enough to hold my gaze as we move together slower, but steady.

“ Króshka, you are so open for me. Are you ready for me?”

Fuck, the sloppy splash between our bodies is so filthy and delicious. I will take this sound over the North Sea forever. I will do everything possible to stay by her side.

My eyelids flutter, she holds my hand tight, and my gaze even more so.

I vaguely notice her licking her lips, preparing to speak. My cock is on fire for her, I ache for her, always for her. As if that little obliviate she cast on me in the cafe worked in delay, I remember no one else in my life except her. She is all I need.

“Love, come for me.”

My hips stutter at her words and I arch my back as if that might help me to plant myself deeper inside. She hums and it sends sparks through every one of my nerve endings. My cock throbs in her, still aching. I pull out quickly to rub myself against her.

The last lazy spurts of my cum ending its journey across her clit and her dampened hair.

With heavy breaths, I sit on my heels between her legs - it was my bed where she called me love .

She called me LOVE!

My witch must see it on my face because she smiles, and moves to sit up. I push her back down speedily with a kiss and take pleasure in the messy wetness on my body as I rest between her legs. I push her knees to her shoulders with a kiss to each foot.

“ Króshka, you need to stay here with your legs up. You need to keep me inside, don’t let it spill out. I want everyone to know I am yours.”

She hums into my neck and bites me a little too hard. I don’t bother hiding the groan of pleasure or the way my cock flexes, half hard on her belly.
The love of your life should always show you she loves you by biting you. I don’t make the rules.

Her warm mouth sucks on my bitten skin to soothe it or drive me mad or both. Gods she is really putting effort into leaving her mark on me.

“Hermione, you naughty little monster, you are making me lose my mind! You keep marking me like that and I might fuck you like we don’t have a little bit of love between us.”

She speaks against my neck, her breath warming my blood, driving me to thrust against her.

“Is that so?”

My words come out in a whispering sigh.

“ Króshka.. You make me forget how to be human sometimes. ”

***

The little seed had quite a bit of news to share with us.  

The muggle woman, dubbed ‘!mistake!’in his mobile, gave birth to a fuzzily-redheaded little girl. Kylie sent photo after photo of little Molly Kate to The Fuck and he ignored them all. Mama bird was too focused on her sweet little one to even be angry about it anymore.

She was not the first of his to be ignored, or rejected. 

Surprisingly, he saved the photos in a secret folder on his mobile for whatever reason. Trophies? At any rate, we had not talked directly to Kylie as she was muggle and there were some lines we did not want to cross with that. Not yet.

We started a folder for Marietta Edgecomb who had no love for Hermione given the hex that happened at Hogwarts with the contract she signed for their little defense group. Once Ms. Edgecomb cleared her skin, she set out to steal the heart of Ronald Weasley and was surprised when he turned the tables on her and nearly ruined her. She wanted to reach out to Hermione now and clear all the air between them knowing a little bit of what happened to her because he bragged about having her locked away as a warning to Ms. Edgecomb to stay in line. The pixie spy let us know Ms. Edgecomb was more than happy to take him down knowing what an absolute curse of a man he was. Far worse, she said, than the spotty ‘SNEAK’ spelled across her brow for all those years.
There was a terrible footnote to all of this.

The Fuck also bragged to Ms. Edgecomb about a woman in a village near the Forest of Dean, not about the ensuing pregnancy. No, that was discovered by our little Seer who went looking for her. 

Folder number two - sigh -

Where did The Fuck go when he left his friends in that cold tent when things got too tough nearly a decade ago? A nearby village where some kind young woman took him in thinking he was kicked out of his home by his family and left to fend for himself. She saw his thinness, his exhaustion and sought to give another human being the chance to find their feet and come in out of the cold. To repay her kindness he got her drunk for Christmas, helped himself to her body, and disappeared in the morning. All of this while his friends were dealing with the horrorshow in Bathilda Bagshot’s house in Godric Hollow.

 He did go home to his family and returned to his friends some time after that using a bit of poetic speech about following ‘a little light that led to them’. It was a tracking charm on the tent itself. No one was the wiser opting for sweet words instead of questioning the whole fucking thing because they assumed Dumbledore’s odd little instrument, that really only made the lights disappear in an area so they could disapparate unseen, was responsible for such a thing.
Looking back at that time when I would watch her read as she took watch over their little camp, I knew something was fucking off about Ronald Fucking Weasley back then but that is a different story for another time.

We have a few photographs Luna copied from the woman’s home. There are no other flame-headed children in the entire village like that. Fortunately, her community did not treat her terribly, instead bringing her in close and giving her every bit of support needed even to this day. 

***

Our third folder was Ms. Brown, who only grew more ripe and lovely as the time for birthing her own little girl grew closer. The Fuck became more cruel and then more absent. The little Seer stopped by quite often to check on her and in doing so became an odd choice of confidante to the unfortunate witch. There was obviously a pattern with the Fuck. It happened with nearly every woman he targeted.

Miss Parvati Patil had a gossip column called, ‘The Tattler’. She was practically a sister to Ms. Brown and hated everything she had witnessed over the many, many years that The Fuck had been in her friend’s life. She was more than happy to bring him down. Luna brought her in to find out if there was any low buzz about his penchant for violence and to discreetly put word out there to avoid fucking around with war heroes. 

It was my turn to bring Hermione into this. To make her aware.

Thorfinn gave good reasons for the witches involved to get together. I saw no problem with the idea. Strength was often found in numbers.

“I found a great deal of help in support groups over the years. I can’t tell you the relief I have felt in sharing the things I saw or went through, or the feelings I’ve had since then with other people with similar experiences. I’m not alone. Man, it’s fucking brilliant. We share techniques and milestones, joys and sadness. It could help them, too!”

I rub my chin in thought. I had also been in groups, the ones that meet to watch the sunrise and huddle together with coffee. 

“We would need a mind healer on standby. It is imperative.”

An airy voice interjects from her spot by the window, watching the latest storm roll through from the sea, turning her eyes the same colour as the gathering clouds.

“A woman preferably. I might know someone.”

Thorfinn and I both nod quietly. She was right. I have certainly grown to trust her with that.

My temptress scrapes her teeth on my skin. My little daring one.
She doesn’t know the restraint I’ve been showing, or maybe she does and bats it away to tease me mercilessly. The whispers have been satiated, quiet, pushed far back where I can ignore them and be good for her.
I feel her suck a bruise just over my heart and I keep my hands clenched in my love dampened sheets. My eyes close in total surrender to the overwhelming sensation zipping through me as I let her make her claims on me. Her voice causes my eyes to open, blurry with love and lust in equal measures. 

“I don’t know where you go when you leave my arms to run your mysterious errands. Maybe I want you to take me everywhere, even if it’s just on your skin.”

There she goes again with the sun crowning her wild curls. A goddess made real, finding me amusing enough to drain me dry.

My love nuzzles where she bit me. A gentle press of her lips on my throat, I turn my head to kiss hers in return. 

Each touch of my lips is a blessing.

A prayer.

She does not need to know the terrible things I have witnessed right now. I want to pull back from this subject and linger under her beautiful body, warm and soft as it is between my legs. She deserves every good thing. I must take too long in responding as she fills in the quiet with an arched eyebrow.

“You did say that you wanted everyone to know that you’re mine, Antonin. I’m just signing on for that.”

She is so brave and so beautiful like this. Ruling me from every angle. I smile softly at the witch I love more than everything in the universe. Overcome by it. Floating.

“You make a deal with the devil, Hermione.”

She runs her fingers over the faded Dark Mark on my arm before nipping at that, too, with her glorious sharp teeth.

“I’m not saying we should get matching tattoos, love.”

The look of surprise and astonishment does not bother hiding on my face.

“I will ignore the jokes about my youthful shenanigans in favor of you continuing to mark me and maybe deciding on names for our children. Besides, you already own me, heart and soul.”

Her laughter is musical and I might be a little bit crazy in thinking her curls fluffed up softly at the sound of it.

“Youthful shenanigans?! You are a mad man!”

My cock twitches reflexively, I am definitely getting hard for her again. I give her a casual shrug and then a smirk. I love being seen by her, she is too smart about me and possibly too unafraid.

“This is well known. Some might say it is old news... yet you have love for me, huh? Do you love me being mad for you?”

Her plump bottom lip gets nibbled by her fearsome teeth and I wish she would bite me again. My blood swells at the thought.

Fuck, how am I so rampant for her? My body should be tired enough that my bed is mistaken for a grave and yet…

She nods slowly and smiles so sweetly, my magnificent love - I can hardly believe what comes out of her beautiful mouth next.

“According to your strange customs, wouldn’t biting be almost the same as stabbing?”

My witch leans over to feign like she is about to scrape her teeth over the head of my cock - I feel the edges of her teeth only just. She grabs my shaft to stroke me with her small hand, hot from the day’s languid loving moving our blood this way and that. My words come out breathier than intended.

“ Króshka… You don’t mean it? ”

She twists her closed hand around the head of my bastard cock, making me jerk my hips towards her.

I cannot even think.

Is she really proposing to me?
I whisper. I need to know, but her hands are too much.

“ Hermione. Do you want that?”

The little witch lifts her shoulder just as she twists her hand around the pinnacle of my pleasure once more.
I sigh with every fiber of my being as she melts me to nothing with her small hand.
“I might have some names picked out.”
Gods above and all the ancestors in the moist earth below us!  

The fucking sound that unleashes from me at her words as her hand slides down over my bollocks.
I swallow and groan even louder as she pulls and squeezes at me. Her hand, small as it is, holds our entire future. I belong nowhere else in the world.