The first time, it was in the middle of the afternoon. They'd been talking about a paper she was putting together for a publication, her third as an apprentice though it would be her fifth total—he'd submitted several of her fifth year essays (under false names since he could hardly be seen to help a Muggle-born's career prospects) and two of them had made it to print (in the junior, up-and-coming sections, but print nonetheless).
He'd complimented her. She'd thanked him. She'd gone to kiss him on the cheek (which she'd done dozens of times by then, pretending it was an entirely platonic gesture), and he'd moved ever so slightly, not realizing she was aiming to kiss him, and instead her kiss had landed on his mouth. They should've laughed and moved away and gone on with the day. They'd laughed, they'd shifted away, and then he'd grabbed her to him and they'd snogged the living daylights out of one another.
Even after that, they could've carried on pretending. They could've talked about it, put it behind them, and pretended it had never happened. That had been the plan, after all. They'd pretend they didn't know they were soul mates, pretend that evening in the Grimmauld Place library had never happened, pretend the summer hadn't happened.
Instead, they'd carried on through the day as if nothing had happened.
The next day, mid-morning, he'd reached around her to add the last ingredient to her cauldron while she stirred. It was an act they'd performed hundreds of times. That time, she'd barely finished the potion. Her hands had been shaking, her focus all but shot—he'd stayed behind her, pressed into the line of her body, hands tracing warmth against her sides, palming her breasts.
They never talked about what they were doing. Not once. It was as if talking about it would make it real, and if it was real they would have to acknowledge that they were breaking the rules.
They talked about everything else. They talked about the research and what they were reading, friends and family, her cat-kneazle. A week of touches, of her mouth around his cock in front of the fire, of his kissing her tenderly each morning before they went to the Great Hall for breakfast, and they never mentioned it.
On the weekend, she crouched before him, licking her lips, reaching for his belt, and his hands stopped her.
"Don't tell me no," she said.
He didn't say anything. Instead, he drew her into his lap and kissed her, then picked her up and carried her to his bed. She'd slept there every night since except for three occasions when she'd been angry with him, and then he'd followed her to her bed and refused to be thrown out.
It carried on like that throughout her apprenticeship. After that last school year at Hogwarts, he'd retired and they'd moved to the flat above the Cauldron and Kettle. Nothing more was said about it. No questions, no acknowledging it. He taught her, he assessed her during the day, submitted all the proper forms to the Guild. She brewed and learned and excelled as she always did. But after supper, they shared the sofa while they read, then they shared the bed.
And then she'd missed a period
