"Take me to bed Finn." She said quietly and opened her eyes to see his face. He looked disbelieving again and she smiled at him. The moment stretched before he smiled back and she leaned down to kiss his cheek. He stilled and then picked her up by her thighs and headed for her room.
"I'll just go change." He said when they stood at the foot of her bed.
"I'm sure there are some things in the closet." She said and laughed at his raised brows.
"Siggy is ready. Has been making sure I see him change things. Maybe you don't go into my closet everyday but I do and there are things in there that aren't mine." She held the eye contact while she spoke. Not bothered by the fact that he was holding her up or self conscious. If this was what he wanted and what she wanted then she would push some. Not push him but offer at least.
"Yeah?" His tone was soft and she leaned down slowly to gently kiss his lips. It felt amazing and freeing, just wanting to do it and then really doing it.
"Let's go get changed." She suggested and he held her gaze for a second then slowly lowered her until her toes touched the floor and she could see his eyes trace her body.
They walked into her closet and he looked around. Maybe he hadn't before, the mirror had taken up his attention the other time they were in here together. Feeling his eyes on her as he watched her walk to a wall of cabinets and pull a double set open.
No elf would think this a suitable amount of clothes but there was some of everything and a bag hanging on a hook inside the door. She looked at it and then back to him. Maybe if they went away she could do it, somehow get him to wear jeans and a well fitted long sleeve. Just the thought of how he would look in perfectly fitting clothes like that was moan inducing.
Both of them changed and she felt the flush on her cheeks, knew it wasn't embarrassment but anticipation. When they climbed onto her bed, she turned to him and then stretched out on top of him. Head head over his heart and she felt his arms wrap around her and hold her there, gently but firmly.
"We talk, about ourselves even but not us." She said quietly and and his arms tightened for a second before he spoke.
"I have asked for so much, taken so much from you. I don't feel like I made you do it though. I did know you would. Not me, this. Soren though." He said quietly, she could hear the emotion in his voice and tried to think about it from his point of view.
"I don't see it that way. You offered, offered to let me love your son. To have him be mine too. When I asked Siggy if there was anything else I could do, any way they couldn't take him. I didn't know what he would say. I was scared too, of what paper he would hand me. When it was the blood adoption I knew I would do it. I could do it without tying you to me. You, not Soren." She said and felt him shift underneath her cheek.
"I didn't know what you had asked for. I left everything little cub. More than once since I got home I've wished you asked for it. Signed it and were mine already." He said and she heard the truth in his words.
"Did you leave those papers too?" She asked him and felt so many things in the second of silence.
"I left everything Hermione." He said and she burrowed her face into his chest and thought about that. Finn had left betrothal papers in addition to the custody and adoption ones.
"Even after Sadie? After you had no choices." She said and he huffed.
"Don't compare yourself to her. It's not the same. You were always what I wanted. I probably wouldn't have pushed you, but for Soren. Just knowing you were with him, even if it wasn't here. Before I went to sleep in there I would think about your soft voice wishing him sweet dreams and how you would smile at him. Love him. The love he would have and how secure he must be. I knew how it felt to have you care about me. Knew he would have that. That you would love him hard and fiercely, and as gently. Coming out to find you had blood adopted him was like a gift." He spoke in a low tone but he didn't sound upset.
"It wasn't like I was taking him? You had left it. I knew that. It wasn't an emergency though. No one was at the gates to take him from me." She asked and tried to ignore all her rushing feelings. This was one of the questions that she hadn't dared ask yet.
"No." His answer was firm and she nodded into his warm shirt. Before she could think of what to say he was speaking again.
"I knew it was messed up, wanting you then. Wanting to tell you about him. I hadn't seen you outside of the war in years but I wanted to. Wanted to tell you. Knew you would think of him, of me even. Wonder about him and how he was. You had spoken of so many things. It wasn't until I was home and spent hours replaying our time together that I realised how much you did say. About things like genetics and the parts of your childhood you were grateful for. Some of the way you grew up. I wanted that for him. I want it for me too." He squeezed her tight to him and she closed her eyes. Her emotions were all over the place and she just tried to hear him, be with him.
"I hated her. Hated everything for a while, except the coin. When you read the message, after that dirty cafe, it was so relieving. I didn't know if you hated me or what but you had picked it up, had read it and it felt like I had something to fight for. For him and for you. A reason to keep going. Soren's life would have been shit if he won but I would think of your face, how you looked when you thought about Potter. Even how you looked in that cafe. If that happened though, when you won, then he would be the son of the enemy and alone. After though, in the cell, it was different. That's when I started thinking about it less selfishly. About you, a hero and instead of whatever amazing things you would have done you were raising my son. You could have done anything. Draco listed what you had given up. Or some of it. Apprenticeship offers and book deals. Marriage offers and opportunities to change the world." He said and she could hear his conflicting emotions.
"Don't. It's not like that, I might have done things. I have done lots of things, only I've been a mother while I did it. It taught me about this culture too. That's how I decided to think about it. Like you were from another country. I respect it more and can see that it isn't bad or dangerous to celebrate old magics, to respect your family and magic itself. Muggle things aren't necessarily better and how I grew up wasn't better either. Having muggle parents was hard, having magical parents didn't make my peers lives easier though. I had more freedom than nearly anyone I knew and it was because they had no magical hold over me. I want that for Soren, for you too. To know that your son loves you and more than that, respects you." She stopped talking, knowing that anymore would be disjointed rambling.
"You spend a fair bit of time there." Finn said and she nodded. Knowing he meant the muggle world, she thought about how to explain it.
"Yes, as he grows it will be less I think. I don't trust many people and can't relax in wizarding public, or couldn't. Going to get Socks was comfortable though, I didn't palm my wand or carry him. It was quite a while before I went out to the Alley alone with him. Harry would come with me and then Andromeda and I would go with the boys. The plans we had and the precautions, I missed you. The world wouldn't have let me have you then though." She admitted all of this, things she had spent so many hours thinking about.
"We all have issues little cub." He said and she nodded again, that was almost comically true.
"You did so well, better than I had hoped. You are so happy together, so together. He loves you and he trusts you, not just to follow through but emotionally. Maybe he is only three but he is so smart. He knows that you are everything he needs to be happy. That you represent it." He added that last on when she opened her mouth to protest that Soren needed him too.
"I want that too. Can't believe so much. It's been well over a month and when I wake up and you are soft against me it's nearly unbelievable. Please take what you want from me. Let me give it to you. Nott is prick and Malfoy is a tosser but they are both right. I've taken so much from you. I'm not sorry, selfish though." She tried to absorb that as he spoke. Let herself take it in and believe him, not make excuses or brush it off.
"I've taken from you too." She said and then shifted so she could put her chin on her hands and look up at his face. There was an exasperated grin there and she wrinkled her nose in reply. Then his face smoothed and sobered.
"Can we go away together? With Soren. More than a weekend. Maybe a week even. Pretend." Hermione watched him while he spoke and thought he sounded wistful. His bright blue eyes held hers and they were soft, his thumb was gently rubbing circles on her hip and she felt strung tight and boneless.
"Yes. I want to try, to know. I'm scared but if we can't Finn, then I have to know. I walked out that door at the end of fifth year but didn't walk away from you. I wanted too but you were there. I remembered how it felt to want you, really want you. Not be able to rationalize it away or control it even." He grinned at that, not a wide one but it didn't surprise her.
"One night three quarters of the way through sixth, Theo was kissing me and I was trying, trying to feel something. Even angry or just the physical things. I had to try so hard and lie to myself while kissing you or just being with you. That it was just kissing and all the feelings were just sexual or something. Then I made myself think of her, of you and her. I kissed him back then, felt something but it wasn't desire or whatever. I tried to let you go." She said and he wasn't smiling now. He looked resigned and angry but not at her and his body wasn't tense.
"I was never hers, never wanted her. Wished her away harder and harder. She was everything everyone said I should want and nothing like you. Maks tried to convince me that it would just hurt me, that being with you wouldn't make her any easier and he was right. It was worse than it would have been. I want you now. Don't want you to go away and be all your genius and determination could be. I want you to be happy and have your adventures, just with me. I won't try and stop you from doing things but I won't let you walk out the door either." Watching Finn speak so openly and let her see his feelings, it was so emotional and she wasn't surprised when she felt the first tear fall.
"I'm always crying." She said quietly and his thumb came up to wipe her cheek.
"I should hate it, I should, I don't though. You feel so much. It made me jealous in school but it doesn't now. I want it Hermione." This was closer to the Finn from school. The one who had taught her that it was okay to be a bit selfish, to want things for herself and reach for them.
"It's cold for the beach." She said and then sniffled as small a one as she could.
"A cabin maybe?" He suggested and she shifted so she was against his side.
"That sounds good. I'll figure it out." She decided and huffed a low laugh.
"Of course you will. That sounds so good." She felt him sigh and closed her eyes.
"Do you have a cabin?" Thorfinn asked Maks as they threaded through the afternoon crowds in the Alley. It wasn't raining and so people were out.
"A lodge. You've got the one on the moors." Maks answered and looked over at him.
"Where are we going?" He asked and Thorfinn laughed. Maks has come out of the floo as he was leaving and had just asked where and followed him here.
"Weasleys." He said and Maks didn't stop moving or look at him.
"I don't want a mansion in the forest but an actual cabin." He returned to the topic and Maks shrugged, or his minimal version.
"Why would we have one of those?" He said dryly and Thorfinn chuckled. It was true.
They reached the loud store front and he opened the door. It was startling. Even more so than before the war. Loud and he could only imagine what Soren thought of it.
"Is Weasley here?" He asked the young witch behind the counter.
"Which one?" She said with a look that called him an idiot.
"George." He said and Maks shifted slightly beside him. He wasn't sure if it was because he had asked for the red head by name or because the witch was looking at them as if they were a two man show.
"Yes. Hermione is great you know. Found me my place and helped me get my NEWTs." The witch didn't look that confidant but lifted her chin and Thorfinn could only grin at the small woman and her needling him about his witch.
"She tutor you too?" He asked and watched as the witch dropped her chin and met his eyes then smiled a small but genuine smile, or so he thought.
"No, she did provide books and find me one though." She said and then looked to Maks again. Looked him over and he knew this time Maks shifted it was because the witch looked like she wanted to climb him. It was funny and he grinned. Then he decided to end his friend's torment and asked for George. She flicked a red switch on the wall and gestured toward the back of the tall store. He nodded his thanks and headed that way.
"Rowle. Aven." Weasley said as he came out of a yellow door and Thprfinn looked him over.
"The other one." He said and watched the man freeze and then grin.
"RightO, I wanted a turn though. Fred." The Weasley said and the still grinning redhead held out his hand.
"I know. We've met. Went to school together." Thorfinn answered and laughed at the faux embarrassment.
"Too true, George is in the back. He assured me that's what you were here for. Walk through the shelf of all those instruction manuals. Only Hermione ever reads them." The man winked and headed toward voices getting louder at the front.
"I expected you but not this soon." George said as he reached the instruction manuals and walked through them. The nearly identical twin grinned and gestured around him.
"Welcome. Please don't think about the fact that it was her that brought this whole room to fruition, while you are here but I thought you might appreciate knowing." The grin was downright devious now and Thorfinn could only raise a brow and wait for an explanation.
"We had some ideas and she comes by with dinner every so often, not recently." Weasley added with a look and he chuckled at the man's clear wish that it would happen.
"I'll mention it to her." He offered magnanimously and George nodded as if this were unlikely. Maks chuckled beside him and looked around. You couldn't really tell the kind of things these were and he thought that smart and very Hermione, less these loud and flamboyant twins.
"So we asked her if she thought we would have to open a new shop or should just run mail order and she said that if we were finished then she would take us and show is how the muggles did it." The wizard's smile was fond now and Thorfinn could only grin at the man who clearly loved his witch.
"I'll leave you to it gentleman." With that he disappeared through the clear opening that showed the shop on the other side.
"What exactly are we here for?" Maks asked him and the look on his face was interested.
"Edible underwear. I want red and some kind of delicious massage oil." He answered while scanning the room, trying to get his bearings in the sea of sexual products around him.
"You already need inspiration?" Maks' tone said he didn't buy it and Thorfinn could only chuckle. Wearables, that sounded promising.
"No, it's what she mentioned so I figured the best way to turn the tables was to provide it." He said and Maks scoffed.
"Hermione told you she wanted you to eat underwear off of her?" Disbelief was all he heard and he read the message that appeared above the hook he had just taken a boxed red thong off of. His witch liked them, he had noticed. Enter your vault number and sign the paper when Gringotts mails the authorization to charge from this store, if it was his first purchase. Smart. These two had always been smart, if terrors. Slytherins were never safe from then. Excellent beaters and he had always wished he a partner like they did.
"No, Weasley invited me when we got Sor's kitten. Hermione silenced him but when I asked it was what she answered. My witch is a minx." He said and Maks caught his eye, speculation evident.
"Alright then Thor, maybe you need it. I've been waiting for that glassy eyed look to appear. I bet him before summer." Thorfinn knew Maks meant Dolohov and shoved him. Betting on him, the fucker.
"Is there a chocolate one?" He asked Maks as they scanned the bottles of massage oil.
"Yeah here. White, milk, dark, and then various fruit and nut additions." Maks rattled off and Thorfinn rolled his eyes. Then the champagne one caught his eye and he made a decision. Both picked up and pocketed, he was ready to go and this time pressed the button under yes when asked if he was finished. Step into the lit circle and you have thirty seconds to apparate if that is your preferred method of exit. He grinned at the wall and then Maks who looked impressed.