The place had already been packed when they arrived not half an hour earlier, but it didn't stop more and more people – those freshly released from Azkaban and their friends, old and new – coming to The Leaky Cauldron to enjoy a night of good food, drinks, music and laughter.
"Let's get a room before they're all gone," suggested Tamora, leaning closer to Scabior's ear with a smile. She felt happy they bumped into each other again. She probably would have come here anyway, but since it was him and his papers that gave her the idea and consequently helped her to get her wand back, it felt right for him to be the man she celebrated with tonight.
She also enjoyed the way her words and her breath on his skin made him swallow hard before he complimented her on the brilliant idea with a fiendish grin, and loved how hungrily he returned her kiss, with his back against the door and pulling her close by the waist once they got up to their room.
It was a promising start; she loved men who loved to kiss, who were good at it, and most importantly, who didn't stop the moment they finally got her undressed and on the bed. And he never left her lips, not even when he parted her thighs and kneeled between them, so she had to turn her head with a moan to stop him.
"Just a second," she whispered, running a hand up his arm with a reassuring smile, then reaching behind her neck to feel for the clasp on the fine silver chain around it.
"Is that...?" he asked pulling slightly back, as she managed to take it off and opened the pendant to reveal a small vial, filled with a thick, but perfectly clear potion.
"It is." She nodded then, on a whim, she put a hand on his chest and nudged him to turn on his back. "Every witch's best friend," she smiled, turning with him and straddling his thighs.
Scabior seemed surprised, even impressed by the fact that instead of carrying it in her bag or in a pocket, she had it so close at hand, around her neck, but he didn't comment on it, just watched her putting a few drops of the protective potion in her palm, corking the vial again and throwing it away on the bed.
"I can already feel I'll get on very well with 'em too," he said with a grin, lifting himself on his elbows and taking a deep breath as she reached for his cock and started coating it with the potion.
"Yeah, I can tell," she laughed, working her own magic on him while they had to wait for the potion to take effect, then leaning closer and kissing him again as she let him enter her.
He didn't just lie back and let her have her way with him any longer, but sat up, pulling her close and keeping her close with one hand on the small of her back and the other roaming up and down her side, squeezing and caressing as she started moving her hips slowly, teasingly at first, then with more passion.
She loved it. The way he touched her, the way he kissed her, and of course the way he filled her every time she lowered herself onto him.
She loved it even when he put his hands on her thighs and tried to stop her, but lost his control anyway and came with a groan that sounded almost like a laugh, putting his forehead against her chest with a sigh afterwards, then looking up at her again with an apologetic smile.
"It's all right." She wiped some hair back from his face. "Just don't think I'm finished with you," she whispered with a grin. The night was long, and she had plenty of potion left, so nothing could stop them from celebrating the return of her wand and his release from Azkaban.
"Give me just a moment then," he laughed, lowering himself on his back and pulling her along, so she raised herself slightly on her knees and followed until their faces were level, before putting her chest back against his and looking down at him.
He had beautiful eyes, and they were so clear she couldn't help wondering how much time he had spent in Azkaban. Probably not that much. He didn't look like he had lost a lot of weight in the recent past, and while he had dark circles under his eyes and his face was a bit pale too, he didn't look sick either.
She guessed two or three weeks at most, but no matter how hard she tried to remember his papers, the only dates she could think of were the ones on her own.
"I 'ope you're not scared," whispered Scabior, running his hands up her side idly when he caught her looking at the tattoo on his neck.
"No." She shook her head, tracing his collarbone with a finger. Her life had been filled with the likes of him, even before her own trip to Azkaban. Family, friends, lovers – she had seen enough people with numbers and runes etched to their skin not to be shocked by few drops of magical ink.
"Good. 'Cause you've got nothing to be scared of." He nodded, cupping her arse and pulling her closer, until she lowered her head and kissed him again.
It started as a sweet, lingering kiss, but ultimately it made Tamora want him back inside her so much that soon she wandered from his lips towards his neck, then down his chest.
He buried his fingers in her hair when she neared his stomach, but it couldn't keep her from looking back up at him when she reached his abdomen and took his shaft in hand. His eyes begged her to do it and, when he finally felt her tongue, his mouth fell slightly open with delight. Tamora liked it so much that she licked her lips with a grin and made sure it stayed that way for some time.
"Should I stop?" asked Tamora, pulling away, but staying wickedly close when she felt like she couldn't get him any harder.
All she got for an answer was a shaky sigh and a somewhat pained laugh, because obviously at that moment he would have given her everything he had and then some to go on, but he was also getting very close to the point of no return, so she raised herself on her knees again and reached for the potion.
She coated him with great care, but when she was finished and moved closer to straddle him again, he pressed his lips together and swallowed hard, then took her by the waist and put her on her back.
"My turn," he whispered, pushing her wrists into the pillow with one hand, wiping her hair out of her face before lowering his head and kissing her long and hard as he entered her again, and Tamora moaned into the kiss and pulled her knees higher invitingly.
It felt so divine that when his lips moved from hers and he started kissing her jaw, she almost hesitated to stop him, and only tried to nudge him away when he reached her neck.
"Sorry, love," he chuckled, when he finally noticed her discomfort, giving her one last bite before lifting his head and feeling his own jaw. "Sorry," he crooned again, caressing her shoulder and neck soothingly. He probably thought she didn't like his stubble, but then it caught his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, rubbing his thumb against the side of her neck, smudging the paint further away.
"Nothing." She tried to raise her shoulder to hide it, and pulled him closer with her legs too, urging him to move inside her again, but her distraction failed.
"You're not a Squib. You've been to Azkaban." He nodded slowly, searching her face as he let go of her hands and brought his fingers down on her arm until he reached the other, truly unmarked side of her neck. "Naughty girl," he whispered with a smile.
He wasn't the first man to see her tattoo, but he was the first to smile like that when discovering it, and it gave her a strange, not entirely unpleasant throb in her chest.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said, bringing her arms down in front of her chest, but then she put her hands on his shoulder instead. "Just fuck me, will you?" she added, running her fingers up his neck.
"Your wish is my command, love," he said, giving her a feral grin before claiming her mouth once again and, when he started moving his hips again, it soon washed away her worries about her no longer secret secrets.
This time he stayed away from her tattoo, but kissed her everywhere else he could reach, leaving behind a burning, tingling trail from the other side of her neck, through her shoulder and down to her breasts, and making her want more.
"Harder." She ran her hand down her back until she could reach his arse and grab it.
He complied with a laugh and more kisses, before he stopped for a moment and pulled away, shifting atop her so that he could gain more leverage, and when he started moving again, harder, as she wished, Tamora had to push her head back into the pillow with a series of delighted moans.
"Look at me, love," he whispered huskily, holding her by the thighs, lifting them higher and spreading them further. "That's it." He smiled when she met his eyes, and brought one of his hands to his lips, licking the pad of his thumb, and even though she knew what was coming, Tamora had to close her eyes once more when he reached between them and touched her.
But this time he didn't have to ask her, she looked back at him after a few moments, because it all looked too fine to miss. Her eyes lingered on his body for a while, but when she noticed that as he watched her, his lips opened on their own accord, his tongue running over them every now and then in a hungry, wolfish way, she couldn't turn them away again, not even when she came with a cry and a delighted laugh, or when he followed her closely.
She kept on watching him as he slowed his hips and pulled away, as he leaned closer and gave her a short, boyish kiss on the lips before rolling off of her, and even as he stretched beside her on the bed, rubbed his face and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. He looked as worn and happy as she felt.
"You want some water?" he asked, turning to her just when she thought he would doze off.
"Yes, it would be nice." She smiled, licking her lips, then watched him get out of bed and walking away towards the bathroom. For a moment she considered whistling after him, but she wasn't especially good at whistling - not even when her mouth wasn't this dry.
Soon he was out of sight anyway, closing the bathroom door behind himself, so Tamora got up too, to get her wand from her jacket and hide it between the mattress and the bed frame, because now that she had it back she would have hated to sleep with it lying around, out of her reach.
And who knew, maybe she would need it later.
Lying back on the bed, she scratched her neck idly, thinking about what she should do about the fiasco with her tattoo. He wouldn't have been the first man whose brain she tampered with, leaving memories of a sweet night, but without her face behind, and it would have been nice to do it with her own wand, instead of theirs this time, but before she could have given that any more thoughts, Scabior returned from the bathroom, with her glass of water in hand.
"Thanks." She reached for it with a smile, and brought it to her lips as he walked to his jacket.
"Mind if I smoke?" he asked, putting down his wand, money and the few more things he took from his pocket on the bedside, and Tamora wondered if his purse was charmed against thieves, or he just knew he looked like someone you wouldn't want to steal from.
"Not if I can get one too." She shrugged, leaning closer when he offered her the whole pack and moved to light the one she took for her. "Does it hurt?" she asked as he sat beside her, resting his left hand on his thigh. It looked like some curse had gone through it, maybe even years ago, but leaving quite a scar behind.
"It gets a little numb and achy when it's cold outside." Scabior shook his head. "But if I keep it warm, it's fine." He flexed his fingers.
"You look like you lead quite an adventurous life." She smiled, taking a long drag from her cigarette.
Apart from the one on his hand, he had many more scars, some almost invisible, like the small white dots peppered all over his right forearm, probably from a faulty wand or a backfiring hex, and others quite distinctive, like what looked to be a scratch from an unusually large cat above his left knee, or the just recently healed knife wound on his left side.
"Oh, the tales I could tell!" he laughed, but he didn't tell her any of them, so they smoked in comfortable silence for a while, lost in their own thoughts, and when they finished, it was time for Tamora to disappear into the bathroom.
And when she returned, he reached for her and pulled her closer again.
They were both getting tired, but she loved every lazy kiss and lingering caress, and when Scabior turned her on her stomach, kneeling behind her, she arched her back for him readily, briefly wondering if he would be the kind of man who loves painting a lover's arse pink with slaps of his hand between thrusts of his hips.
He wasn't, or at least, not that night.
He took her slowly, with his chest against her back, and his hands holding on to her arms, alternating between kisses and bites on the back of her neck and shoulder, and when he came only moments after her, he pressed his forehead against her hair and stayed that way for so long, that when he finally tried to leave her, she followed without a second thought, cuddling up to him and burying her nose in the crook of his neck with a content sigh.
She didn't want to fall asleep like that, or at least she wanted to wake up in time to deal with her traces and leave, but she was too tired to stay awake, and the Ministry knocked on the door too early in the morning to give her a chance to disappear.
Thank you for reading, and please, tell me what you think.
Want to learn more about the characters? Try "She'll Be All Right"! :)
