Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling is our queen, undisputedly. I'm just a petty thief who enjoys tinkering around in another's world.
Rating: M/NC-17. This chapter earns its rating. Shhhh. Just go along with me and pretend it's permissible on this site. I'm hardly the only one. If you are underage or acts of a sexual nature between two consenting adult women is illegal where you live… just don't tell me. Or move somewhere else.
Warnings: Sex. Violence. Quite possibly some of both together; I mean, we are talking about Bellatrix Lestrange, here.
Pairing(s): Hermione/Bellatrix, Hermione/Andromeda, Hermione/Narcissa.
Two days before Andromeda was scheduled to return, one of the things Hermione had been predicting with dread finally came to pass.
Lucius cornered her alone.
It was rather astonishing that it had taken him this long, all things considered, but Hermione supposed it had more to do with being unwilling to venture into "servant places" like the kitchen than anything else.
It was nearly midday and still bitingly cold in the manor's more open chambers, so Hermione hadn't stepped one foot from the kitchen since making breakfast that morning, choosing instead to fill the smaller room with all the heat and warmth she could possibly eke out of the roaring fire and the giant pot she hung over it for soup. She wistfully planned on having enough leftovers that she could have hot soup every day all winter, even if no one else wanted the homely dish.
The Malfoy patriarch entered the room already in fine form, pushing the door open with far more force than necessary and muttering to himself, "Filthy elves can't keep one thrice-damned office warm!"
He paused in the doorway when he realized he was not alone. Like a cold-blooded reptile—a lizard, perhaps—he had been drawn to the warmth but appeared unappreciative of the lesser creature already occupying the sole patch of heat he had found.
If not for the soup, Hermione would have been willing to give up the kitchen for a few hours, but she couldn't very well leave it unattended.
"Isn't it a bit early for lunch?" Lucius snapped when it became apparent that she wasn't scurrying away as she usually did when she spotted him in the halls.
Watching the soup as she stirred so as to avoid either having to look directly at him or look down in a demonstration of deference she didn't feel he deserved, Hermione replied matter-of-factly, "Just thought I could do my part to warm up the place, sir; I wasn't expecting I'd be in anyone's way."
She was nervous—he had approached and was standing just that unnecessary bit too close for comfort—but she tried not to show it, waving her wand to regulate the heat of the fire before returning to a slow, methodical stirring.
Lucius made a noncommittal noise in acknowledgment of her words and Hermione expected he would either leave or, at the very least, sit at the table with the letters he was carrying. Instead, he set the pile down on the nearest countertop and just… stood there, an intrusive figure just close enough to bother but not too close that an accidental bump could push him away.
Feeling cornered and irritable, Hermione cautiously stepped towards him, gesturing behind him as she said, "Pardon me; I need to get to the salt."
Not only did Lucius not move, he seemed to entirely ignore her words. "Perhaps you can be of some assistance to me, girl," he mused, folding his hands over the top of one of his many gilded walking sticks in a motion of almost theatrical contemplation. The silver snake's head seemed to stare at her malevolently with its chilling emerald eyes.
She tried not to let her irritation show. "Yes?" she asked, making an attempt to sound neutrally interested.
"My wife hasn't been around much in the past few weeks and I've noticed… I almost never catch so much as a glimpse of you when I'm trying to find her." There was a pointed pause. "You wouldn't happen to know where she secrets herself off to, hmm?"
Hermione could feel the blood abandoning her face and hoped the heat of the room was enough to disguise how pale she had become. "No, sir, I try not to be in anyone's way," she said, terrified of accidentally revealing some part of Narcissa's secret. She was immensely relieved at the degree of calm she had managed to summon and mentally prayed that her classic servant's response would satisfy him.
Unfortunately, it did.
A dark grin flickered up over his thin lips and a cold gleam lit his eyes. "Well then," he mused. "Isn't that fortunate. If you haven't been spending time with my wife… that means she won't be looking for you if I… borrow you… for a few hours."
Hermione felt her stomach threatening to rebel at the sickening look she suddenly became aware of in Lucius's eyes. She had wondered if she had imagined a few earlier moments of taunting flirtation since that first day, but now she faced it once again, finding herself dreading the fact that she was now significantly healthier and more well-filled-out than she had been upon her malnourished arrival. The look wasn't one of desire, no, not desire; desire would be reserved for someone Lucius saw as a person. This was not desire, this was greed. He was standing too close and she was frozen with indecision. If I hex him, even if it's just a simple spell, I could lose everything. No witnesses. It's his word against mine as to any grievance, and even if Narcissa is angry with him, I doubt a servant is worth destroying their entire marriage over. She desperately wished Andromeda were still here. Andromeda would believe her.
"I—the soup—I need to—"
"—I'm not in the mood for soup," he interrupted her, cutting off her feeble attempt to extricate herself from the conversation with his voice as surely as he cut off her attempt at a physical escape with another step forward. His tone was a clear attempt at being suggestive, seductive, but it felt to Hermione like something oily and disgusting crawling down her spine.
Hermione flinched back a pace when he reached towards her, earning a temporary reprieve that lasted exactly as long as it took him to take one more step. She was rapidly running out of ground and her wand still trembled with indecision at the end of a limp wrist.
"What my wife doesn't know won't hurt either of us."
The level of revulsion she felt in that moment had never been matched. Poor Narcissa. No wonder she's so… Any number of words could have finished that thought: cold, distant, on edge, angry at him all the time… but the one which immediately came to mind was tired.
It was a bad habit of hers, this sharpening of her thoughts during moments of crisis. It wasn't even mildly useful, because her thoughts always narrowed in on the wrong thing, focusing in with clarity on some puzzle she was musing over to allow her to escape from whatever negativity was going on around her. It worked, back then, when she was a child, when she could listen to her dad chase another man out of the kitchens drunk on their cheapest wine and all she had to do was hide out of the way and think of something else so she couldn't hear the cursing or listen to something being broken. She could pretend her mum's crying didn't eat away at her inside if she just listened to her own thoughts instead of those tears. Here, though… now she couldn't turn it off. She wanted to bury herself in thoughts about Narcissa or Andromeda or cooking and ignore the looming danger right in front of her and, unfortunately, she was quite good at it. In this particular moment, it was not a useful self-defense; it was a vulnerability.
When he reached out for her again, her step back was more of a startled jerk and she staggered, letting out a yelp and nearly dropping her wand.
"Shush!" Lucius hissed angrily, glancing worriedly towards the door, pressing in even closer as though his presence could muffle the sound. Instead, his walking stick slipped on a slick patch of the kitchen floor and knocked solidly into Hermione's ankle, causing her to stumble back against the solid surface behind her.
She heard the hissing before she felt the heat and had only a heartbeat to feel the heat before she felt the pain.
Hermione screamed, jerking away from the cauldron of soup she had been unwittingly backing towards all along, unable to stop the sounds of pain that seemed to be driven directly from her scalded back and up out of her throat. Lucius mistook her cries for an attempt to get him in trouble and he reached out to slam a hand over her lips, pressing her back again as he yelled, "Be quiet, dammit! I didn't even touch you!"
The hand over her mouth would have been a mere distraction but the arm pressing down on her shoulders forced Hermione too close to the open fire once again. Even though she managed to arch away without touching the searing metal, the heat rising up and sliding along her already scalded spine was too much to take. She bit down solidly on Lucius's hand in pain and fury. Unable to form even a semblance of coherent thought, she stabbed him in the gut with her wand, a half-formed intention of a spell somewhere in the back of her mind. Sparks seared through his robes and sprayed out around his stomach and he jerked back with a curse, leaving Hermione to crumple to the floor in a sobbing heap.
Finally, Lucius caught sight of the burnt tatters of the back of her robe and realized what he had accidentally done.
The door banged open and Narcissa whirled into the room. "Hermione! What's happened? I heard you scre—Lucius?" She caught sight of her husband leaning against the table holding his side and staring at Hermione with a look of pure horror. "Hermione!" Narcissa gasped, finally seeing the younger woman sprawled on the floor. "Oh Merlin, Lucius, what have you done?"
Through the cloud of pain she dwelled in, Hermione could hear Lucius stammering, "I didn't mean—I wasn't going to—I didn't mean to half kill her, dammit!"
Narcissa rushed over to the fallen witch. "Oh bloody… oh, no, no," she muttered, tugging the ruined back of Hermione's robes further apart with trembling hands and gasping when she saw the full extent of the damage.
Hermione tried not to move. She tried not to breathe.
"Can you heal yourself?"
"W-what?" she gasped out, the word scarcely leaving her lips before it was chased away by a whimper of pain.
"Can you draw off me? Did she teach you? Andromeda, did she teach you to heal, yet?" Narcissa's voice was shrill with panic.
After how much pain talking had been, Hermione tried to shake her head this time instead. The motion of her neck tugged viciously at whatever mess had been made of her back and she cried out, trying to stay still.
"Dammit," Narcissa cursed. "Oh, hell. This is going to hurt."
Not giving Hermione time to think or even consider what that might mean, Narcissa reached out and grabbed hold of Hermione's arm, quickly pulling her side-along as she Disapparated. The instant of travel was so disorienting that it seemed to steal the pain for a moment, but the landing was so jarring that she finally, blissfully, passed out.
/
The first time she came to, she was lying on her stomach and staring at a pair of black shoes. She could feel fingertips on her back, just on either side of a now-dull pain. Even as she felt her eyes closing again, she could feel the what little pain still lingered begin to disappear, and her last thoughts were to wonder where the warmth was she had gotten so used to in Andromeda's healing touch.
/
The face she saw upon waking was not what she expected. Bellatrix loomed over her, completely upside-down from Hermione's vantage point, glowering at her with that expression of almost uncertain disdain she so often wore in her presence.
"Bella-Bellatrix? What, where—"
"—Oh thank heavens." Suddenly, dizzyingly, Bellatrix's face was shoved aside to be replaced by that of the youngest sister. "You're awake," Narcissa said.
"Where?" Hermione tried again, throat painfully dry. Narcissa understood enough hand her a glass of water and offer an answer.
"You're upstairs. I'm sorry to do that to you, but Merlin knows I've never been a healer. I never learned. Luckily enough, Bella can."
By this point, Hermione was feeling a bit more herself. Cautiously, she started to sit up, feeling her back protest with only the anger of stiff muscles, not of burned flesh. She glanced past Narcissa to where Bellatrix still stood, facing away from them like a child pretending she didn't care what was being said. "Bellatrix healed me?" Hermione asked cautiously.
Narcissa shrugged. "It only took a handful of threats and my wand at her throat, but yes."
Hermione stared into those pale, not-as-cold-as-she'd-once-thought eyes, remembering the fear in them when she'd found her in the kitchen. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you so, so much."
Narcissa helped her to stand when she seemed unsteady on her feet, lending her an arm. She tried to steer Hermione towards the stairs, but Hermione shook her head, stepping aside and holding out her hand in a silent stay motion. Cautiously, she approached the other sister. "Thank you. I know you couldn't care less but… I'm grateful all the same."
Bellatrix didn't face her, but her shoulders rose and fell in a dismissive shrug. Still, it wasn't an insult, and it was more acknowledgement than Hermione had expected, so there was a small smile on her lips as she followed Narcissa downstairs.
They paused together outside of Hermione's chambers, standing still for a moment, neither woman sure how much of what had just happened should be spoken of aloud. Finally, it was Narcissa who broke the silence. "He'll pay for that," she said, voice soft but chilling in its strength.
There was a moment where Hermione considered any number of possible responses. She could demand severance pay and get away from all this, but she couldn't help wonder what it said about her life that she still considered this madhouse a better choice than her previous existence. She could try to use what Lucius had attempted in her favor, but Hermione didn't think she had a manipulative bone in her body. She could break down again, could recall the pain and the helpless feelings that had overwhelmed her more than even the physical agony, but something in Bellatrix's cool, sure, emotionless healing had created an almost tangible barrier between that moment in the kitchen and the place she stood now. In the end, knowing she didn't want to leave, didn't want to lash out at Narcissa in misguided retribution, and didn't want to cry anymore, she finally said, "I trust you."
The brief flash of astonishment and relief that passed over Narcissa's face made Hermione certain she had chosen those three words wisely.
/
The next morning, Hermione woke completely free of pain but filled with the dissatisfaction of questions she wanted answers to. Unfortunately, she knew of only one place she could find them: with Bellatrix.
She almost talked herself out of it, knowing her curiosity was perhaps her greatest weakness, but leaving her musings untended was sure to drive her to distraction.
She convinced Rommie to let her deliver the eldest sister's breakfast in person. The poor elf made a halfhearted attempt to dissuade her, but the relief on her tiny face was palpable. Already, neither of the two elves would venture past the top stair, but even sliding the tray across the landing to where Bellatrix could retrieve it was apparently more than Rommie was comfortable with.
Hermione cautiously made her way up. She wasn't completely brainless; she held her wand out in front of her with a protection spell ready just behind her lips.
Bellatrix was waiting for her just at the top of the stairs, sitting on the floor against the wall, grinning at her with that feral smile she so often favored. She didn't appear even mildly surprised at the change in breakfast-bearer, and when she saw Hermione's wand, she laughed. "You can put that away, pet," she cooed. "I'm not in the mood to play."
It wasn't the most reassuring of statements, but Hermione… believed her. To a point. Keeping the wand firmly in her grasp, she edged sideways from the top stair and slowly lowered herself to the floor, sitting opposite the dark witch, mirroring her. Once seated, she pulled her feet in, knees up, and wedged her wand between her legs, still trained on the figure across the small sliver of hallway.
For a moment, they sat in silence, Hermione feeling rather strange just staring at her across the floor's width of space that separated them as the other witch ate her French toast. Finally, Hermione decided to chance it. She had a question, and though Bellatrix had always been less-than-forthcoming when she'd tried to engage her during the other witch's ventures to the kitchen, she had a feeling that Bellatrix was in a rare good mood and perhaps not a bit bored, now that she'd gotten used to having her run of the place. With Andromeda away, this might be her only chance to ask.
"You… you healed me."
It wasn't a question, so though Bellatrix stopped eating, she made no verbal reply, merely cocking her head.
"Why, why didn't it…" Hermione trailed off, unsure how to ask what she wanted to know. Why didn't it feel… nice? Why wasn't there any warmth? Why wasn't it comforting? Why wasn't it… addictive, the way it is when your sister heals me?
When it became apparent that Hermione wasn't going to finish her question, a strange gleam entered Bellatrix's eyes. "You're thinking about Andy, aren't you?"
Too quickly for Hermione to even think, why haven't I learned my lesson, yet? Bellatrix had her wand out from wherever she had hidden it in her mess of dark robes. Some wordless spell froze Hermione in place just as it had before, but this time, Bellatrix murmured, "Shhh, pet, don't scream."
She walked towards Hermione very slowly, palms out. Hermione knew, in the back corner of her mind, that the instant she panicked and called out for help, even if only with her thoughts, Narcissa could race upstairs and find her. She knew intellectually that it would be okay, but the memories from the last time she had been paralyzed in Bellatrix's domain had even her mind petrified in a strange bubble of almost preternaturally calm fear, trapped in a cycle of don't hurt me, don't hurt me, please and what on earth are you planning?
Yet the look on Bellatrix's face this time was… different. It wasn't the pure, unadulterated hatred and rage that had filled her as she tried to kill her before. This was a look of… purpose, of concentration. Very slowly, deliberately, she raised her wand and pressed just the tip to the top of Hermione's cheek. "It'll only hurt for a moment," she said softly, voice lilting, childlike, and Hermione could swear she felt her mind shudder.
Bellatrix was right; the thin cut she made with her wand only stung. It was an almost surgical motion, and the control Hermione could sense behind it was oddly… comforting. "See? I can still hurt you, as long as my intentions are—" she giggled chillingly "—pure." With that, she pressed her finger just below the cut she had made, and it instantly healed.
Just as before, Bellatrix's healing was faster than Andromeda's and entirely perfunctory, leaving Hermione nearly nauseous with the whiplash of there again, gone again pain.
Staring up at Bellatrix in confusion and fear, she found her tongue no longer frozen. This time, she managed to ask, haltingly "Why doesn't it… feel like… anything?"
Bellatrix laughed, and a muttered word brought the slice to prominence on her face once more, bringing a whimper of pain from the younger witch.
"That's not what you want to know, is it?" Bellatrix hissed gleefully. "You want to know why it didn't feel like this."
Her fingers were back, this time pressing directly to the center of the thin wound on Hermione's face, drawing a pained gasp from the girl before the feeling was suddenly replaced by a stunning, mind-numbing heat.
It felt incredible, though still nothing like the healing warmth of Andromeda's magic. This was a flame, an inferno, burning, searing through her not with comfort or a light, heady joy, but with desire. This heat was dark, heady, and so blatantly sexual that Hermione could hear herself panting as though from very far away, eyes rolling back, feeling her body strain against the spell holding her in place as she tried, not to get away, but to get closer to the source of all that passion. She could feel her thighs trembling, strength deserting her completely as every nerve ending between the cut on her cheek and her suddenly-straining clit was seared by Bellatrix's power. She was out of her mind with need.
She never wanted it to end.
In an instant, the older witch drew back her hand with a wild laugh, leaving Hermione trembling and gasping and incredibly, impossibly, agonizingly turned on.
"Because, pet, we can make it feel however we want," Bellatrix said, staring down at the still-frozen girl leaning against the wall with that signature Black look of haughty disdain. "And my sister knows just how to make you crave her."
With that, Hermione found herself freed, crumpling in a heap on the floor as Bellatrix strode from the stairwell in a whirlwind of swirling fabric.
She didn't move for quite some time; her legs wouldn't hold her up. Bellatrix's words echoed in her mind. "My sister knows just how to make you crave her." She could still feel the lingering aftereffects of Bellatrix's power, the purely sexual heat she had forced into her blood through the small scrape on her face, and she couldn't help but feel differently about Andromeda's soothing touch. Bellatrix must have thought Andromeda was doing that to her, seducing her with her healing. In a way, Hermione supposed, Bellatrix was right. But Andromeda had manipulated her much more subtly than Bellatrix's blatant demonstration. Andromeda must have realized just how much Hermione craved that comfort, that safety, and just as Bellatrix had said, it was the perfect touch to make Hermione never want to leave.
Hermione wasn't sure if she should be irritated or not. She wasn't sure she could be.
/
After that… enlightening encounter, Hermione was ready to do just about anything to take her mind off of the rush of sexual heat that kept returning to the center of her awareness as a now-dulled throb between her legs. Just the way Andromeda's soothing magic had kept her calm for hours afterwards, so too did Bellatrix's hedonistic taunt continue to linger, simmering just below the surface of her skin as a dark arousal that she was helpless to push away.
She wasn't ready to brave the kitchens after what had happened there yesterday, and Hermione hadn't seen Narcissa since she had marched Lucius at wandpoint into a side room with a heavy wooden door that morning and sealed them inside. She stayed in her chambers for a while, writing to her mother, but something about the events of the day and the day prior were simply not conductive to keeping a casual tone in a letter to her mum.
Just as she was about to give up and head for the library alone, the door burst open and Hermione found herself swept up in a whirl of arms and robes and it wasn't until her back was against the wall and she was being kissed within an inch of her life that she realized Andromeda was home.
The fire that had been cooling to embers just beneath her skin since her encounter with the darker side of healing suddenly sparked back to life, roaring up inside her and demanding she yield to Andromeda's possessive hands that clutched her close and the warm, deadly lips which threatened to consume her alive.
"You—you're home early," she gasped out when she was finally granted control of her own tongue.
There was something raw about Andromeda in that moment. She was dressed in Muggle clothing: a clinging crimson sweater and a pair of jeans that were far more attractive than Hermione could have ever imagined. Her hair was loose and brushing across the skin of Hermione's neck and shoulders in a thousand tiny silken kisses, but her eyes were sharp and just a bit wild.
"Oh, Merlin, I missed you," the older witch breathed, staring into Hermione's eyes with an intensity that stole what little breath she had left. In the space of a single heartbeat, Andromeda's mouth was at her neck, pressing kisses along the column of her throat until she reached the soft skin just behind Hermione's ear, nuzzling there for a moment before she whispered, "I want you."
There was a part of Hermione that tried to take an emotional step back, to look rationally at why she was feeling so desperate for Andromeda's touch, to fight against the lingering traces of Bellatrix's magic still heating the very blood in her veins, but it was a small part of her. Very small. Far too small to make a difference when warring with the parts of her that had been falling for Andromeda for weeks, wanting nothing more than to finally know what it would be like to let the other woman have her. Paired with her already heightened arousal, her common sense stood no chance.
"Y-yes," she whispered, voice breaking as teeth nipped at the side of her throat, a playfully possessive motion that quickly turned into warm lips and tongue to soothe the mild ache.
"Yes?" Andromeda asked, sounding as though she hadn't expected Hermione to be nearly so eager.
"Yes," Hermione gasped out in response.
"Yes?" Andromeda prompted one final time, almost growling out the request for affirmation.
Instead of repeating herself, Hermione pulled Andromeda directly into another kiss, gaining the upper hand for just long enough to tug at the other woman's bottom lip with her teeth. Drawing back and trying not to look as desperate as she felt, Hermione's vision seemed to narrow until all she could see was Andromeda's face, full lips lightly parted, eyes dark, gaze heavy.
Hermione could feel herself leaning into every point of contact between them, melting against the fingers on her waist, legs struggling to hold her up on suddenly weak knees. Andromeda traced her thumb along the edge of Hermione's jaw as the younger witch's gaze traveled once more over the odd beauty of the Muggle attire; the long legs sleekly encased in dark-washed denim seemed to call to her like a snow-fresh mountain pool on a hot summer day.
It was torment to resist the urge to touch her for even a moment, so Hermione gave in, allowing Andromeda to pull her in closer just so she could set her hands on those taunting hips. Hermione could feel power in the way Andromeda moved, always controlled, tightly coiled, and having all that energy at her fingertips, focused directly on her, was a heady thing.
A single quick motion had her backed up against her bed, Andromeda's mouth on her neck once again. She arched her spine, gasping.
"Off," Andromeda muttered, tugging futilely at the middle of Hermione's robes. When the clothing ignored her spoken command, Hermione saw the flick of a wand in her peripheral vision before feeling goose bumps break out across her suddenly bare skin. "Better," Andromeda rasped, eyes searing along her body, only barely covered in her functional undergarments.
"You too—you too, please," Hermione whispered, feeling exposed and vulnerable and not minding in the slightest, but wanting desperately to be granted more access to that pale, provocative skin.
Acquiescing, Andromeda took half a step back and tugged her sweater over her head. "If there's one thing Muggle clothes were made for, it's taking them off before sex," she muttered wryly. "Robes just get in the way."
Watching the slow reveal as Andromeda unzipped the denim and slid her legs free, Hermione was rather inclined to agree.
When Andromeda stood before her, though, naked aside from two slashes of dark silk providing an illusion of propriety, Hermione felt her throat catch with desire... but also with a rush of nerves. No longer entirely in the moment and at the direct mercy of Andromeda's fingers and lips, the fact that she had never done this before caught up to her in a flash of almost debilitating panic. "Can, can we… take this slowly?" she cautiously asked.
The desire in Andromeda's eyes was suddenly softened with a look of compassion; the smile which tugged up one side of her lips was the exact one whose kindness Hermione had fallen for so long ago on the floor of the Ministry lift. "Of course," she said, voice soft, stepping close and taking Hermione's face firmly between her palms. "Trust me?"
Hermione nodded helplessly, melting into another kiss. Andromeda had one hand wrapped around the side of her neck and Hermione could feel her own pulse fluttering wildly against it. The kiss started soft but quickly grew demanding, the intimate claim Andromeda seemed determined to stake on her lips was heady, dark, and sweet.
Hermione slipped both hands up along Andromeda's bare back, reveling in the shivers she could feel her touch creating. When she reached the clasp of the bra, she froze, unsure if she should take that particular initiative.
Andromeda distracted her by pushing her gently back onto the bed, shifting to straddle the younger witch. In a quick movement, she took that task out of Hermione's hands, reaching behind herself and shrugging out of the bra. Andromeda rocked slowly against Hermione's stomach, the wild look returning to her eyes. "I promised you slow," she groaned, "But I want you too much."
Seeing this beautiful witch undone with desire for her finally fragmented the last of Hermione's fears. "No," she said fiercely, tugging Andromeda's hands down to her chest and pressing them tightly against her. "Not too much. Never too much. Anything you want." At the look of pained, uncertain hesitation on Andromeda's face, Hermione added a final order. "Touch me."
It was the last command she needed to give that night.
Andromeda's fragile resolve broke and she quickly slipped her palms beneath the cloth still trying unsuccessfully to hide a pair of hardened nipples, to hide the evidence of Hermione's arousal. A muttered word banished both of the last garments she wore. Bending at the waist, Andromeda didn't pause to tease, immediately finding one painfully tight nipple with a swipe of her tongue before capturing it between her lips.
"Merlin," Hermione gasped, but the usual phrase of astonishment felt inadequate in that moment. When Andromeda let the nipple slip free from between her lips with a final tug of teeth, Hermione whimpered out, "Andy," instead, and she knew she would be saying it again and again if the dark gleam in the other woman's eyes was anything to go by.
"You like that," Andromeda murmured, sounding incredibly pleased. She captured both nipples between thumb and forefinger and squeezed, chuckling softly when Hermione jerked and bit her lip. "Mmm, you do like it, don't you?"
It was almost too much for Hermione in her current state. She had never felt her body this awake, this aware, this wired and on edge and desperate for any touch the other woman would deign to give her starving skin. "Please," she gasped out, unsure what she was asking for but trusting Andromeda to know. She could feel the first teasing of orgasm shimmering along the skin of her thighs and couldn't decide if she wanted to be finished now, to come fast and hard and desperate and now, or if she wanted Andromeda to force her not to give in to her pleasure yet, to be teased and dragged up as high as she could possibly get before she could crash down. She'd rarely come for herself, not finding any great satisfaction in what little experimentation she had tried, but she already knew that this was going to be different.
With a force of will, she convinced her nails to stop clutching Andromeda's shoulders so tightly. Instead, she fanned her fingers lower, just daring to graze the tips of Andromeda's nipples, eliciting a quiet whimper that did delicious things to both her arousal, and her confidence. When she slid lower to take the soft weight of each breast in her hands, Andromeda sagged against her, pressing her forehead to Hermione's shoulder.
"I need—I need to have you," Andromeda hissed. "Now. Now, before I'm too far gone." She slid farther down Hermione's body, tugging apart her thighs and settling on her knees between them. Gently drawing Hermione's hips closer, encircling her waist with her fingers, Andromeda pressed a kiss to her stomach.
"Oh!" Hermione could feel her thighs trembling and she grasped hold of one of the other woman's hands to anchor herself. She gripped harder as Andromeda kissed lower, brushing teasingly against the delicate skin that connected her thigh to her center. When the lightest breath blew teasingly across Hermione's hypersensitive flesh, she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.
"Your skin is on fire," Andromeda marveled as she slid a palm up the inside of Hermione's thigh. "Have I done that to you?"
Hermione felt a weak laugh slip from between her lips, knowing from the cat-that-ate-the-canary grin on the older woman's face that she knew very well just what she had done to her.
"I love the way you feel," she continued, brushing just the backs of her fingers against Hermione's center. Hermione bit back what was sure to be an embarrassing noise but Andromeda wasn't having it. "Don't hold back." A single finger traced through the proof of Hermione's need. "I can feel how close you are and I've barely even touched you. It's driving me mad."
Hermione could feel muscles in her abdomen tense and twitch in ways she hadn't known them capable of. She heard an urgency in Andromeda's voice as that single finger continued to torture her with its faint presence. "Keep your eyes open."
Hermione caught her lower lip between her teeth as the first gentle stroke of Andromeda's finger over her clitoris threatened to send her eyelids crashing shut once more.
"Open," Andromeda hissed, and Hermione felt the force of the word all throughout her body. When she was sure Hermione was going to obey her, Andromeda dipped her head down once again. Her fingers slid lower, gently curling upwards and inside as the searing heat of her tongue slipped over Hermione's clit.
Hermione couldn't remember how to breathe, much less how to keep her eyes open with any degree of surety, but seeing Andromeda's head bowed between her legs, eyes looking up at her from beneath the signature heavy lids that marked a deeply seductive trait of the Black family, it was impossible to look away.
"Good girl," she whispered as she began moving her fingers with more purpose, pacing her, pushing her, teasing her closer and closer until Hermione knew nothing but this blinding edge of agonizing pleasure and then, with one sure, deep thrust, bringing her over.
When she could finally speak, she was cradled in Andromeda's arms, still shivering with the lingering effects of that skilled touch. She was exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally, but the draw of the heat she still saw shimmering just beneath the surface of the other witch's skin had Hermione determined to offer her some small piece of what she herself had just experienced.
When she slid a brave palm down Andromeda's body and beneath the scrap of silken underwear still clinging determinedly to her hips, the look of surprise on her face was priceless.
"Hermione, you don't have to—"
"—I want to," Hermione insisted, nervous and uncertain but knowing that she was not the sort to take pleasure and offer nothing in return. "I'll admit you've… got me feeling a bit ragged, but I need to feel you. I need to know you, to know that you…" In this heated moment, Hermione wasn't sure she was ready to give voice to her insecurities, but Andromeda seemed to sense them and wasn't at all reserved when she was certain it was what Hermione wanted.
She slid her own palm down over Hermione's, steering them down together and pressing two of Hermione's fingers inside of her along with one of her own. With a feral sort of lust, she began to move herself against their entwined hands, and Hermione could do nothing but watch in awe as the woman took her own pleasure from the both of them.
She didn't last long, but the intensity of the look on her face as she came was one of the most painfully beautiful things Hermione had ever seen. Hermione was afraid to so much as blink, afraid to shatter the connection she felt between their hands and between their eyes, but eventually Andromeda pulled back.
Tugging aside the covers, Andromeda steered them underneath, drawing Hermione close and whispering in her ear, "Sleep now, you beautiful creature. I'll be here when you wake."
A/N for the chapter: This chapter is dedicated to wonderful human being and incredible friend laxbabe3 to welcome her into adulthood. I wrote this just in time for her to legally read it. Happy 18th birthday!
If any of you dear followers want to earn a special place in my heart, you could tack on a happy birthday to her in your review… ;) I'll make sure she gets them!
Now, I know some of you will have gritted your teeth through the end of this as you clutched your purist Bellamione ideals close to your heart, but I promise things will be looking up for you soon enough. I was too attached to let Andromeda go without giving her a bit of happiness first.
Hopefully life will continue to allow me to update at a more reasonable pace, but if not, know I haven't abandoned you. This fandom is a beautiful place to dwell in, and I miss you terribly when I'm away.
Love always,
- Zarrene.