It was a beautifully crisp Autumn day that waned into a starry evening. The constellations sparkled overhead, dotted with the warm orange of lit candles. That she was there in the Great Hall should have filled Hermione with a sense of joy, wonder, the smooth burn of homecoming; instead it was a cruel heated vice around her heart.
She was at a lengthened head table, her chair shorter, lesser than Antonin's beside her to indicate her lesser status. The man had his left hand on her knee, possessive even when it had been made clear to all that she belonged to him. After all, whenever he was unneeded during her scant work days he was there with her, glaring at every boy who dared speak to the little librarian.
But still, Halloween at Hogwarts was a sight to behold; the Dark Lord had not changed too much of the festivities, though he had done away with Houses and Sorting. Only Ravenclaw and Slytherin dormitories were open, which was more than enough for the reduced student population. Half-bloods were housed in Ravenclaw Tower and purebloods in Slytherin's dungeons. The students all wore black and silver ties, though previously sorted Slytherins wore a snake pin to proclaim their superiority over others. There were six Prefects to assist in ordering the students, four pureblood and two half-blood, and both headboy and headgirl were pure bloods.
Hermione felt like a thorn, a shard of glass, a pebble in a stream as the only muggleborn amidst the pedigreed wizards and witches surrounding. While none dared insult her with Antonin so near, the moments she was with only Draco to guard her were laden with thinly veiled insults from sneering lips. Only a bold, kind few treated her as a person, all of them students who had known her or known of her before. The first years seemed mostly confused.
"No wine, love." Antonin's palm covered her goblet as she raised the decanter to pour herself a glass of robust red. "I would not wish you to imbibe when we will be performing ritual magic later this evening."
Electric curiosity spasmed through her chest. "Ritual? What ritual?"
"Samhain, my dear." He smiled, thumb stroking her thigh through the silk of her black robes. "It is a celebration of the time the veil is thinnest, and we may invoke the spirits of those who have passed."
"And you plan to do so? To what end?"
"I wish to invoke my mother, father, ancestors… there is great power in invoking one's lineage on this day. Perhaps we may even call to some of your own."
Her amber eyes, nearly glowing from the warm light abounding, narrowed at his evasion. Hermione did not trust Antonin with what power he had, and she was certain the power of the ritual would be wielded by him and him alone.
He poured pumpkin juice into her goblet and stroked her cheek. "Do not get too full; we have an eventful evening ahead of us."
Hermione nodded as her stomach twisted, wheeling too much to consider the bountiful feast laid out. She nibbled at a tart, but could not bring herself to eat much more. Too soon Dolohov was taking her hand leading her home.
He did not take her inside however. Instead they took the familiar route to the graveyard where the center had been readied for a ceremony. There were unlit candles scattered around it and stones with Celtic symbols in a circle.
Hermione's hand attempted flight from the man's, but Antonin's grip tightened. She knew a sex ritual when she saw one even if she'd never taken part before.
"Come, lubimaya . We shouldn't dawdle." He drew her to the center despite her reluctant feet, divesting them both with a flick of his wand. Hermione watched with envy; that wand was unkind, bristling. She'd managed to touch it only once and knew it would never bend to her wishes. Another flick and a circle drew between the stones surrounding them, glowing faintly before the light seeped into the earth. Antonins wand was set aside and he took her hands in his.
"Tonight, as the veil thins and Samhain's bonfires are lit, we call upon those who gave us birth and those who begat them and on and on to the start of our lineage. Tonight we ask that they lend us their power, their spirits, their strength to our own magical cores. May we glow with their radiance and may we succeed in our endeavors." His fingers twined with hers. "So may it be." One brow lifted and she repeated the last words of his entreaty.
A hush fell over the graveyard, as though the insects, the animals, the winds themselves held their collective breaths. And then dry wicking sounded as the candles flickered to life. The keen heat of their hearts sparked in their fingers and flooded out from there.
"Lie down, love."
The ground beneath her was warm and the air buzzed drunkenly in the circle. Energy ran across her skin like ants wherever the air touched and heat emanated from beneath her. It was heady and terrifying.
Antonin lowered to kneel between her legs, propping her feet against the ground and her knees bent. His fingers caressed lovingly over her stomach and he gazed at her adoringly before turning heavenward and blinking up at the sky between the trees. "Midnight comes. And with it so will we." With that Antonin lowered his mouth and devoured her core until she was writing beneath him, her juices strewn across his face. "Tlachtga, daughter, mother, goddess of old. May your light be lit and your blessings upon us. Take her as your vessel as I spill my seed inside her. Macha of the Morrigna, triple goddess of these lands, fill us with your fire as we pass this evening into the wheel of day. So may it be."
And then he was upon her.
Whether from the ritual or the starlight and fire surrounding, he seemed to glow above her. The lines of his pale flesh were blurred as his cock slid into her well-prepared folds and sank within her. It was hot as the forges of Hephaestus and quenched her own sudden heat with its own, searing a line from core to nipples until her back bowed with unbidden pleasure.
He was thrusting painfully deep and hard within her, but her body unspooled around him so it felt like the most wondrous unbecoming. Her toes curled and her thighs clenched him to her. Her nails rent his flesh until blood welled.
"Yes," he hissed as she scored him again. "Little goddess, draw forth my sacrifice." He smeared her hand against the blood on his chest and slammed her palm to the earth. "Fuck, my sweet girl. My perfect girl." He bent over her, her glaringly golden thighs over his shoulders and spewed filthy nothings into her ear, incomprehensible to her though she knew the gist of them from the veracity of his lust.
They fueled the tightening of her core, the twisting of her pleasure until she was crying out her orgasm around him. It blinded her in starlight and moonlight, in lightning and fire, in his glow and her own. It pulsed through her hot as embers, cresting until she was weeping beneath him. And still he pumped into her, drawing every ounce of pleasure from her body until it drained her of herself, hollowing out Hermione so she felt like she was drifting over them, her body only a shell. A vessel to fill.
And fill it he did. Antonin threw back his head and held her hips to his own as he cried out his release. Departed from her body though she was, Hermione could feel him spending in her, the light and warmth and buzzing energy around them funneling through him and into her as well.
Blinded, she drifted. On fire, she screamed. Lightning coursed her veins until her skin hummed with it. And then Antonin collapsed beside her, his cock slipping free and his essence dripping into the fertile earth.
As she came back to herself, drifting like a feather through the thermals above until she landed so gently and softly she was hardly aware, Hermione realized he was laughing. It was a rich, deep sound at odds with everything she knew of the man. But that didn't surprise her nearly as much as the realization that she was laughing too.
She had never felt so alive in her life; it was as though she was life, the primordial essence of nature, of womanhood that birthed the race of men itself. She felt a kinship with her mother, Monica Wilkins, Helen Granger; she could feel the dancing string of genes she'd inherited from her grandmothers, Layla Smith and Sophie Granger. Their mothers were alive in her as well. And all the way back, so that the tiniest seed of life that had sparked the universe at the dawn of time sang in her as well.
Hermione turned one cheek to the thrumming ground and took in the man beside her. Where she was warm, he now was cool to the touch. Where she hummed with life, he echoed with the depth of the deepest chasms of death. But there was still a power there, as life bred death and death begat life. He stroked her cheek upon noticing her attention.
"My goddess, my beloved." Antonin drew her down to him and kissed her lips, their dark and light entwining more intimately than bodies ever could. "As the Green Man dies, so shall He be born again from the seed He has planted."
Hermione laid her head on his chest, basking in the strangeness of their coupling. With a hand, Antonin conjured a blanket to cover them, though Hermione felt her warmth may never run dry. Still alight with the power of the ritual, she dozed against him.
In the background her mind churned and frothed, wondering what this ritual would create. And whether she could use the power now flowing in her veins.
A/N The ritual here is completely fabricated, a Dolohov-family exclusive thing. I have researched mythos of different areas quite a bit, but wanted to dig deeper than Arthurian legend for this. Anyway, some more will be mentioned next chapter.
