The Other Woman
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It's her voice, Hermione thinks, that dark, breathy voice, sounding like Birmingham chimneys and grey drizzle on asphalt. The boy downstairs plays his wireless all day, and Pansy's voice seems to come out it now all the time, ever since the night Hermione and Draco visited the Club. Maybe it's that Pansy has grown up, maybe it's voice lessons, or maybe it's even some voice enhancement Charm Hermione doesn't know. Everything is possible with Slytherins, that much she learned, being married to one for more than fifteen years. But whatever it is, this voice – the voice of Pansy Parkinson at age forty-three – sounds nothing like the fearful, high-pitched voice that said to grab Harry and hand him over to Voldemort. It's hard to even remember those hateful words, with Pansy's new voice always in Hermione's ears these days.
It's her body, Hermione thinks, that curvy, full, feminine body. It embodies the word voluptuous and yet nothing about Pansy's body is voluptuary or even seductive. Hermione thinks of her in the Muggle gown, bare back and deeply cut to reveal skin the colour of eggshell and white sand. Not with one gesture or glance did Pansy come on to her. She and Draco had honed the air of pure-blood royalty during their Hogwarts years, and when they are together it shows. At the Club, after the show, with Pansy in shimmering blue and Draco in his bespoke suit, Hermione couldn't help thinking that they belonged together, more than she and Draco ever did.
She really should have seen it coming, Hermione thinks. Draco and Pansy will exchange perfunctory pecks on the cheek but Pansy has never been one of his conquests, not before he married Hermione, and not after (and there are conquests after, she is certain of it). It shows in the way they touch. It's familiar and it's easy but there are no sparks. When Pansy touched Hermione, accidentally for all Hermione can tell, an entire firework went off. They stepped out of the Club, Hermione first, then Pansy, and Draco last, ever the perfect gentleman. Hermione stopped to let a couple pass, and Pansy had been waving a friend good-bye. She crashed right into Hermione, and there it was - forceful, hot, a certain clumsiness that spoke of power underneath.
And maybe it's this, Hermione thinks, the way Pansy holds her down on the bed so powerfully. Hermione wants to be smothered by her heavy body, by those loose strands of hair with their scent of lily of the valley and dust. She wants to be immobilised by those blue silk ribbons Pansy brought out the first time they had sex. She cherishes it like nothing else - the tingling of expectation, the need for whatever Pansy is about to do with her.
Pansy's mouth will find her tits in the darkness, and she sucks eagerly at Hermione's nipples, just that side of painful, with the barest hint of teeth. There's spit and sweat and they're a sticky mess, both of them so hot, so wet. Pansy will shove her fingers into Hermione and fuck her hard like she needs it, fuck her good. Her lips will never once leave Hermione's tit, not when Hermione bucks up, not when she struggles against the ties, when she moans and pants, her breast heaving. But the silk is tight, unbreakable by anything but magic. And Hermione is tempted, she wants so much to tangle her fingers in Pansy's hair, to hold Pansy's head close to her tit, to not have her stop, to get more, more ... Her clit is throbbing, her pussy starts to clench minutes into the game, and Hermione feels herself come undone. That's when she needs the ties. Because now wild lust starts surging from deep within her gut, it makes her groan and writhe and push up to make Pansy fuck her deeper, harder. The ribbons steady her, they allow her to give herself over to what is set loose when Pansy fucks her like that. She'd never thought she'd let anyone see that part of her.
Certainly Draco has never seen her like that.
He wants from her what Pansy is giving Hermione now. It was he who brought the handcuffs to their bed and rough ropes for Hermione to tie him to the posts. For years she thought that she wanted it, too: to be on top, to be the one in control during sex. She loved to watch Draco's face when the cuffs snapped home, that look of fear and want and, eventually, submission. It had been arousing to see him like that.
At the door at the Club, Pansy touched her, a quick brush across her belly, to steady Hermione, to steady herself. Hermione would like to remember something less clichéd, something grand and momentous. But only her breath caught in her breast, there was a tinkling in her ears (bottles from the bar, she later thinks) and – cliché or not – the silver light from the streetlamp was shining right at her from outside. She knew then, with sudden clarity, what she's always known but never admitted to herself: Draco only needed for her to be on top in bed, so he could be on top all other times. He'd never really given himself to her. And just like that she understood that embarrassing niggling need of hers: to see Draco shamed in public, to note with hidden glee every stutter in his speeches, every speck of dust on his otherwise impeccable Minister robes. It was not fair to him but it had been a long time coming.
At the Club, Hermione let herself fall back against Pansy, just so, for the fraction of a second. But the other woman understood, a small tightening of her hold around Hermione's waist, and that was it. They've been seeing each other every weekend since.
Perhaps it's revenge, Hermione thinks, perhaps all that wild, messy fucking is just a way to get back at Draco.
Pansy is standing at the window now. She is wrapped in Hermione's green morning robes that have fallen open in front, revealing full breasts, her round belly and strong, short legs. For a moment, Hermione wonders whether Pansy will greet the morning with a song. But when she turns, Pansy looks tired, and when she speaks, her voice is hoarse from a night of sex.
"I should be going," she says, leaning her face against the window pane. "I have a gig tonight."
Hermione nods, lifts the blanket and Pansy shrugs the robes off and crawls back into bed with her. Languid morning sex, Hermione long decided, is the best.
Later that day when she's drafting a petition for Werewolf rights, Pansy's voice drifts in from the window. The boy downstairs is playing his wireless again. Hermione concentrates on how to convince the Wizengamot to grant full wizarding rights to creatures who are not like them, who are sometimes dangerous and sometimes out of control. She finds herself staring into the afternoon sun, humming softly with the song and falling in love with Pansy Parkinson.
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