Song Suggestion: Jaymes Young – "Dark Star"

The Fires of Beltane

Hermione

They landed in a little glen. Trees loomed in a circle likes soldiers standing guard. A line of black obsidian sat against the tree line, a protection against black magic and nefarious intruders. She felt the hum of blood magic from here. A tangy smell that hovered in the air even after all these years.

The moon hung low, and the sky was a blanket of stars, the air so crisp and clear, she was able to pinpoint all the constellations if she wanted. So vast and numerous it never failed to make her feel small and insignificant against the mystery.

"Where are we?"

"It belongs to my family." He set his broom to the side. "My great great great grandfather created it. There was a minor rebellion during the time, and he wanted a safe place for his son to escape in case Hogwarts fell."

Dark purple flowers bloomed in the glen. Hermione immediately recognized them.

"Queen of the Night." Hermione stroked the delicate petals near her foot. "And violets."

"Yes, they are both useful in moonlight rituals. My grandfather planted them. I'm not sure why. Maybe for a Beltane ritual like this. He never told me."

Hermione watched as Draco produced logs from under his cloak, unshrinking them. Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"The rites works better if you start a fire without magic," he explained. "Don't ask me why."

Watching Draco Malfoy attempt to light a muggle fire was disturbing and funny at the same time. She gave a small snort of laughter, and even under the moonlight, she saw a ruddy color bloom on his cheeks.

"I've actually never done this before," he admitted.

She knelt beside him, taking her purse out, and after rummaging around extracted some matches.

"This will make it faster." She stuck the edge of one against the box, and the end erupted in a single flame.

"So you've done this before?" He asked.

"Hardly. I only carry a box for emergencies."

"I thought muggles knew everything primitive."

"We're past that. We now have torches and electricity. And if we really need light, we have matches and lighter fluid."

She placed the flame under the branches. A spark caught and crackled against the underbrush. She encouraged it until it leaped to the logs. Soon enough, it roared.

Twinkling lights in the distant trees caught her attention.

Draco followed her eyesight.

"It's the fairies. They're most active tonight. The air is thick with magic from all the Beltane rituals celebrated elsewhere. Don't you feel it?"

She did. A constant low hum and a thrumming like a gentle trickle of water. As if she could dip a cup and drink it.

Draco reached in his pack and pulled out a vial of crushed onyx and salt, making a circle on the ground with it.

"Now undress."

"What?" Hermione asked, taken aback.

"You heard me." The smirk he gave could be labeled nefarious. "There's a reason these are adult only."

Oh, he was enjoying this.

"You're lying."

"Yes and no," he shrugged. "The ones my parents host don't, but the ancient wizards pranced naked. I find I like that idea more."

They'd seen enough of each other's bodies to memorize the dips and curves of muscle and bones. To taste every scar with their tongues. Still, as she removed each article of clothing under the light of the swollen moon, she felt her cheeks heat with a blush under his inspection. His gaze sliced across her skin as the cotton slipped into a pool on the ground.

Since the stone ages, humanity walked with clothes to protect them from the elements, so it felt unnatural to be so exposed outside. Vulnerable and raw, as if shedding civilization.

Draco called the muggles primitive. But standing here nude, with raw magic rushing in the air, thick and unstable, as she watched her lover divest himself of clothes until he was as exposed as her, she had never felt more ancient. As if all of history resided in their veins, the entirety of energy in the universe pulsing like a heartbeat in a river of magic close to her fingertips.

Draco stepped into the circle. In his left hand, he held a mortar and pestle that he had retrieved from his book bag. Inside was a paste already ground into the right consistency.

She followed him inside the circle, and the magic tightened around them.

"I'll need your blood."

Hermione hesitated. She wished to participate in Beltane, but she thought most of the rituals were smoke and mirrors. A way for witches and wizards to participate in a tradition that used to bind them.

Blood magic was serious. Even in play.

But her curiosity won out, and besides, this wasn't her first time dabbling in it. She brought her wand out and made a cutting spell to her palm, just enough that a bead of crimson rose to the surface. A hiss of pain hid behind her lips. She twisted her hand and squeezed over the mortar and watched as Draco did the same. He didn't even flinch with the cut, eyes haunted as he dripped blood over hers.

Then he mixed it together, until the paste turned dark, almost purple like the flowers surrounding them.

"Now what?"

"Runes." He dipped his finger in the paste and touched the soft skin of her stomach. The cold paste made her muscles clench as his finger dipped and circled.

Hermione looked down when he was done, eyes tracing the rune he left, already knowing it. Afterall, it was one of the only Runes she got wrong on the O.W.L.S.

"Ehwaz," She whispered.

Partnership.

"What's the purpose?"

"The Runes are meant to be a well-wish for the future. A call for a blessing from the universe. Sometimes it works. Most of the time it doesn't. You write what you desire the most."

Hermione dipped her finger in the paste and reached out, painting a symbol on his milky skin, like a stripe of night against the moon.

"Courage," she whispered. His eyes widened, hand shivering while it lay idle next to his thigh.

He cupped her cheek with his free hand, bringing her into a kiss. Their lips locked as he traced a symbol on her arm.

"Success," he said against her lips.

Happiness. She traced back on his upper thigh.

Protection

Perseverance.

Power

Trust

"Desire." A finger ghosted over her hip leaving a trail of ice behind. They became tangled together as they traced. Their bodies sunk down, expertly wrapping around each other, until they curled into each other. He reached down, opening her legs, positioning his cock before pushing inside. They both groaned with the feeling. His hands gripped the sides of her hips as he thrust in and out.

The forest burst with noise as the night went on, the energy increasing around them as they fucked. There was nothing loving in the act, primitive as the ritual. The veins of magic ran in the ground as she sunk her fingertips into the dirt, while he leaned down and took a nipple in his mouth, tugging gently with his teeth. The magic jumped like an acrobat across her skin, as they painted on each other while moving their bodies together, until nearly every inch of visible skin was filled with loops and whirls, until they shattered together, letting their foreheads rest together while they painted in ecstasy.

"Now is the fun part," Draco whispered into her damp skin when they regained their bearing, sweat trickling down the side of his face. Hermione crawled off his lap, cum dripping down her legs, as he reached into the bookbag just outside the circle, pulling out a black cup. He tugged off the top and took a swig. Whatever liquid was inside left a silver mustache just above his lip, which he finished off with a flick of his tongue. "Your turn."

Hermione was too far in to hesitate now. After taking a swig, she resisted spewing it across the purple flowers but managed to gulp it down.

"Ugh," she moved her mouth to rid herself of the taste. "You could have warned me."

"Warnings only take the fun out of everything." He grabbed the cup and took another swallow and then tilted it so she could take another, which she did, despite wanting to spit it out. "It's only Ogden's finest."

"That explains the taste." she grimaced. "But there was a bitter note I'm not sure is alcohol."

"A sliver of unicorn hair"

"That explains the color."

"And a pinch of powdered mandrake root."

"Draco!" She gave a shove to his shoulders. "Mandrake root causes hallucinations. Enough of it could kill a person."

He only grinned, placing the cup to the side, dipping his finger in the paste again, and wrapping his hands on her waist and tugging her forward, so they rested chest to chest. Her nipples pebbled with the wind, sensitive while brushing against his chest.

"It's not going to kill you. Dried mandrake roots are important to this ritual." His hands trailed up to the middle of the back, the only place without a dried rune and began tracing. It felt like ice cubes sliding along her nerves, raising the hairs in its wake. "It's meant to open your mind to things you aren't seeing. Things you're missing with conscious thought."

"What rot," Hermione said. "It's simply contains hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids that—" A burning started in her chest. Not unpleasant, but not comfortable either. "Woah," Hermione whispered. The substance worked much faster than normal, likely from binding with the unicorn hair. The coolness of Draco's fingers tracing along her back kept her grounded. He never veered from the loops, going over and over the symbol.

"What are you writing?"

"This one is a secret." His face turned serious, all traces of humor gone.

A wish from the universe.

The burning went up her veins, into her brain. She shivered, digging her nails into Draco's shoulder, leaving half-moons.

"I feel like I'm falling." The ground under Hermione shifted, though she wasn't sure if it was real or sensation.

"I won't let you go."

The runes across his body began to glow. She looked at her arm in amazement to see that hers were glowing too, prickling with sensation as it grew brighter.

"Draco, is this normal?"

He looked at her, mouth wide, eyes glassy. The drug already affected him too.

"No." He moved to stand. "We should get out of—"

But whatever was happening was now in control. It pulled them under its spell, and they both could do nothing but grip each other as they collapsed together.

Hermione

The hallucinations began, so powerful Hermione couldn't sperate real from fake.

The vines grew over their bodies, twisting through her curls, as if attaching her to the soil. Purple flowers sprouted along the way, erupting into sparks. The moon dropped until it rolled on the Earth, turning until it rested next to the Hogwarts Lake glimmering in the dark.

Bane entered the circle, passing over the obsidian stone. His dark coat gleamed as he bent down and touched her forehead with the point of his arrow. And then the setting changed. She was no longer in the glen, and Draco was no longer beside her.

"Where's Draco?" She searched frantically. Several people stood in a circle around her, but they were silent and unmoving, watching her. A darkness blurred their faces, and none of them answered her question. She got the sense that they had been waiting for her for a long time.

The stars burst in the background, bleeding in glittery streaks as a sudden gust ripped her off her feet and flung her into the air. The wind whistled in her ear as she flew without a broom, unafraid of falling.

"It means forever," a familiar soft voice said. It comforted and saddened her at the same time, sounding like love. As if she should recognize it from some past life.

The tops of the forest skimmed her belly when she fell. She reached for the sky but came tumbling down. The impact into the ground didn't hurt her, the dirt bending like a trampoline to protect her from the blow.

A monster stalked toward her. The leaves trembled with the approaching footsteps until a shimmer of gold broke passed the sentinel trees, smashing them into splinters.

A dragon—the golden dragon from the grimoire—stood in front of her. It stood as big as a god. A growl rumbled in his belly, the fire igniting the scales of his body until he glowed.

"What are you?"

The dragon raised his head, regal like a king, unwilling to answer except with tendrils of smoke.

"What do you want from me?" Hermione stood up, looking the dragon in the eyes. She refused to show fear. Not here. Not now. She growled as ferociously as him, stamping her foot to shake the ground.

The old magic seeped into her fingers, the river of it drowning her under like a wave, igniting along her skin, entering her body with a surge.

The dragon walked forward until he was close enough to touch.

"It's time to claim what's yours." The beast finally spoke, voice like thunder. "You'll burn, but you'll rise and devour them whole. Do you accept?"

Hermione reached out and put her hand on his snout.

"I'm not afraid to burn."

The dragon opened his massive jaws and a torrent of fire spewed out, engulfing Hermione in its path.

Draco

Draco woke before Hermione. The roots of flowers had curled over him as he lay in a trance, and he ripped them as he sat up with a gasp, giving a spray of dirt into the air. The purple violets and tulips crumpled in his hands as he threw them aside.

At first, he couldn't find Hermione. The foliage covered her so thick he only found her by the runes still glowing along her skin and a small hill made by the flowers, as if the Earth itself was trying to suck her inside. He brushed it aside revealing her head right in the dead center of the circle.

Draco had no fucking clue what happened. Most of the rituals he saw the adults just got drunk and painted runes.

"Hermione," he said, trying to wake her up after cleaning off her body. A whimper exited her mouth when he cradled the back of her neck. Her eyes flicked back and forth behind closed lids rapidly. Her brain was trapped in the trip. "I'm sorry, Granger. It's never happened like this before. Please…wake up."

The universe didn't answer his plea. She stayed in her dreamlike state for thirty minutes, groaning and flinging her arms. It didn't make sense. He drank more of the potion than she did.

He almost gathered her up to get help when her eyes flew open.

"Draco," she said. "I'm burning."

And then she screamed.