Author's Notes:
Plunny behind this fic loosely based on the Netflix series Curon. Specifically loosely based on what I thought was happening in the first few episodes before what's really going on starts being revealed, so if you've watched it, don't expect too much overlap, but you will easily see the bits of backstory/lore/scenery that were taken from the series.
Warnings: This fic will have moments of humor and levity (because that's just my style), but it is a dark story that will contain adult and horror themes. These themes may include: episodes of PTSD/trauma-recovery, violence, self-harm, smut, mentions (but not displays, graphic or otherwise) of infanticide/child harm, miscarriages, psychological terror, manipulation. More to be added if/when necessary on affected chapters. Proceed at your own risk.
WE'RE JUMPING RIGHT INTO THE SMUT HERE IN THE FIRST CHAPTER. I DO NOT WRITE PRUDISH HERMIONE. She was a strong, curious person, unafraid to take charge in the books, why should anyone think she'd be different when it comes to sex?
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, or Curon, nor any affiliated characters/circumstances/scenarios, and make no profit, in any form, from this work.
ONE
Hermione barely held back her scream at his final thrust. Hard and deep, he clung to her as he stilled, his breath gusting against her skin in sharp exhalations while he nipped feverishly at her throat, her chin, her shoulders. She couldn't move yet, her body clenching sweetly around him as he spent himself.
The thoughts started beating at her brain the second her orgasm began to ebb.
She didn't even know him. That hadn't frightened her when she found him standing in her room in the dark of night. The scent of him that could only be described as wild—woodsy and rich, yet strangely crisp and briny, possibly on account of the water dripping from his bare body, giving her an image of swimming in a lake, perhaps—should've unsettled her. Should've struck her as feral, somehow. And yet, she'd found it inviting.
That he'd stood nude in her room hadn't fazed her, which was another troubling thing in hindsight.
There'd been no internal voice shouting at her to stop as she'd peeled back the covers of her bed, revealing herself to him—welcoming him. No sudden spike of fear as those golden eyes and that skin splashed silver from the moonlight spilling through the window beside him moved toward her, proving himself not a figment of her imagination. She didn't think herself capable of imagining the way the faint wash of pale illumination danced across the lines of his muscles, anyway.
His touch set her pulse hammering beneath her skin as he tore her nightclothes from her. It seemed impossible that his lips were deliciously soft as they brushed over her, given how solid, how hard his body was against her comparatively delicate form. His fingers, gentle in their ministrations yet rough to the touch seemed to stroke everywhere, leaving no bit of her unattended.
And then it happened.
Somehow, her legs were around his hips and she was bracing for him. His rough-but-gentle hands gripped her thighs, holding her still as he rammed his pelvis, filling her entirely in a single quick movement. God, it hurt . . . but mingled with the pain was also a shivery warmth that made her want it again.
Tremors wracked her, dizzying and decadent, each time he withdrew. Moans she tried to quiet escaped her throat at the pain-laced sweetness of every entry.
She came hard. Shamefully hard, she would think later—or, well, now—given the circumstances, her eyes squeezed shut and her hands clamped over her mouth to keep from crying out.
When her limbs loosened and she relaxed completely beneath him, he at last withdrew entirely. Those golden eyes held hers as he eased himself up onto his elbows over her.
How could she have done this? How could she have let this man touch her like this? Yet, she had. Eagerly.
He seemed strangely familiar, but she couldn't understand why.
Swallowing hard, she asked in a soft voice, "If I had asked you to go when I first saw you standing there, would you have obeyed?"
He nodded. Just once, the movement decisive, certain.
That . . . that helped, actually. If he'd not responded, or magically found his voice and said something toxically male and asinine to insinuate that there was no way she'd have told him to go, that would've made her feel wronged. Taken advantage of despite her willingness at the time. She disregarded a momentary, decidedly archaic concern that she'd so thoughtlessly 'given away' her first time, seeing as she had been willing. There was a certainty in her that had any of the boys she'd dated touched her like he had, rather than clumsy gropes under her robes while snogging, hoping she wouldn't bat their hands away, maybe she'd have lost her virginity sooner.
"Why did I do this?" She didn't expect him to have answers—she also had no idea why she wasn't asking more pressing questions. Like who the bloody hell was he, and how did he get in here? Maybe whether or not entering young ladies' bedrooms in the middle of the night to shag them senseless—provided they didn't panic and throw him out on his arse—was a common habit of his?
He didn't respond, but those golden eyes appeared sad for a flickering heartbeat. Lifting a hand, he traced her lips with the tip of one finger.
She held his gaze, feeling strangely as though he was trying tell her something with that look, alone. His other hand slid down her body, over her abdomen, along her belly, and she let it. Her breath caught in her throat as his fingers slid between her thighs.
Did he perhaps understand that the act—pleasurable as it had been—had hurt her? She had a sense that he did, that he was trying to make up for the unintended pain as he stroked her, slow and gentle.
A tingling sensation washed over her, warm and sweet, and she found herself reaching toward him. She cupped his bearded jaw with both hands. He didn't kiss her, instead nipping at her lips.
Why did if feel like she knew him?
He coaxed her until she came, his gaze never once leaving hers. She clamped her lips together, keeping in whatever noises threatened to escape. Huh, she was a noisy lover, who knew?
That blissful rippling faded and her body settled against the bed, the tension draining from her limbs in a wonderful rush. Catching her breath a little, her hips still rocking hopefully beneath his touch, she managed, "Who are you? At least tell me your name, won't you?"
Hermione awoke with a start. Her eyes wide, she didn't dare move, simply darting her gaze about her room in her grandparents' resplendent cottage. The sun was streaming through the gauzy curtains hanging over her windows, and there was no sign that anyone, let alone a wet, muscly, frustratingly silent man, had been in here with her.
She didn't want to look down, actually. Didn't want to examine herself. Yet . . . . How embarrassing. She was in her nightclothes and all tangled up in her bedsheets, as though she'd . . . yep, as though she'd been writhing about in her bed, all alone. She didn't need to move to feel that this blushingly realistic dream had left her knickers soaked.
Well, perhaps a dream explained why she'd behaved so illogically. God. Her body was throbbing with the memory, alone. Ginny was right. To hell with virginity, a nice, thorough shagging would probably do her a world of good.
"All right, Hermione, get your arse out of bed," she murmured, but didn't move just yet.
After a few minutes of arguing with herself, she finally trudged her way to the bathroom.
"You don't have to go," Harry said, even as he faithfully lugged her trunk up the station steps.
She'd much prefer to rely on her beaded bag, but if she was summering in a Muggle village, she needed to behave like a Muggle, and showing up on her grandparents' doorstep with no luggage would draw attention. So, letting them meet her at the station outside the quaint rural village of Maison des Loups was her only real option.
Smiling wistfully, she caught the other side of the trunk when he reached the top step, helping him bring it to a row of seats. "I don't have to, no, but . . . . I just need some time and some space away from everything that reminds me of the War. Just long enough that I can start sleeping through the night again."
Her parents were home, safe, rebuilding was due to start shortly, and the mourning for those lost had taken a grave toll. She knew she needed to get away. She simply wasn't sure about coming back. Her mum and dad had wanted to see her off, but she insisted that parting with Harry after so long was going to be an emotional thing and really, only Harry was accustomed to handling her outbursts.
Oh, she knew she would return—she'd always come back to her friends, to her parents—but it was nice fantasy to entertain sometimes.
"You could always come with me," she offered, grinning. "C'mon! You, me, sipping wine straight from the vineyard as we get picked on by the locals for being 'strange'? There's plenty of room."
"Is there? You keep calling their house a 'cottage'. In my experience, cottages aren't roomy."
She scowled at him. Curse him for remembering her precise wording. "I only use the word cottage because it's a country house, which—in France—would typically be called a chateau, but it's not quite big enough to be considered a chateau, nor was it ever home to a nobleman, and I'm not sure what else to call it. Blame the French, not me."
He chuckled. Typical Hermione with her off-handed, rambling explanations offered with such ease. "Well, that sounds appealing, but then I'd have to bring Gin, and then Ron would insist on tagging along."
"Oh, no, no, mm-mm." She crinkled the bridge of her nose and shook her head. The potential relationship between her and Ronald Weasley had gone downhill as fast it had started. She needed time and space away from him—and him from her, she imagined—as much as from the familiar sights and sounds of England. "No, you're right. Stay. It'll be just like summers when we first started Hogwarts. I'll write you every day!"
Green eyes narrowed skeptically behind wire-rimmed glasses.
She pouted, nodding. "Okay, not every day, but often! And Ginny, too! And probably Neville, and Luna—"
"And Ron?" he asked, eager to smooth things over so they could all get back to being friends, once more. Hopefully by the time she returned from France, Ron would've gotten a handle on his feelings and things would be like there were, again.
After a moment of shifting in place, she rolled her eyes. "Fine. And Ron. In a few weeks, once I've decided whether or not to forgive him."
"When is up to you," he said, holding up his hands. He knew Ron's behavior after the war, or perhaps more specifically after their first kiss, had been the problem. Deciding—or as she'd put it, dictating—that she could no longer be friends with Viktor hadn't gone over well. A simple matter of writing him a letter to tell him she was safe once things had settled down and suddenly Ron equaled Mount Vesuvius on a bad day.
Or at least that was the reference Harry assumed Hermione was making when she told the ginger-haired wizard she was not going to be Pompeii and he could keep his tantrums to himself, thanks very much!
"I just want you to be happy," he concluded, smiling warmly.
She nodded. "Wish everyone felt that way."
"He wants you to be happy, too." At least Harry had the good grace not to sound sour at one of his best friends disparaging the other. "He just . . . needs time to get over himself. I promise, everything will be okay again."
She supposed this had been a good decision, after all. She'd had a good night's sleep for the first time in as long as she could remember—smutty dream included, which had been a pleasant surprise. Her maternal grandparents had welcomed her with open arms, and the sweet, fresh air, scented heavily by the dense forest that ringed the village seemed just the thing to clear her head.
Stepping from the bathroom, changed into a fresh t-shirt and jeans—she kept her beaded bag tied securely to a belt loop, it held her wand as a precaution, and only as much as was believable to Muggle eyes, which in this case was her wallet and change purse—she stopped by her room to put her nightclothes and troubling knickers in her hamper and shove her feet into her trainers.
"Hermione?"
"Oh." Of course the elderly couple would already be awake—that was par for the course with older people, wasn't it? "Coming, Gran!"
As she hurried down the cottage's unnecessarily narrow staircase, she heard a rumbling sound. It was gone the moment she passed the window that opened unto the woods behind the house.
Reaching the kitchen, she dropped a kiss on her grandmother's salt-and-pepper head. The sweet, round woman stood beside the stove preparing breakfast.
"Good morning, mon ange! Are you hungry?"
"I am and it smells wonderful." She knew from the experience of offering to help with dinner last night that any suggestion that she assist would be soundly rebuffed by the very short, very determined Jean Marietta Mercier. Hermione asked as she pulled a chair out from the table to sit, "Do you have a dog?"
Gran turned to look at the young woman over her shoulder. "No. That's a strange . . . . Oh, I suspect you heard the wolf."
Hermione froze, her brows shooting upward. She knew this was the country, but still. "What wolf?"
Shaking her head, Gran returned her attention to cooking. "Oh, Henri caught him last night, trying to make a meal out of some of our chickens. He decided he's going to try to domesticate it. Train it to protect, instead."
"That's madness," Hermione said, trying to keep her tone respectful. Not easy when shrilly doubting the sanity of one's elder. "Grandfather shouldn't be doing that. He could get hurt, or he could hurt the wolf. It's barbaric and—"
Gran interrupted, singsong, "Try telling him that." Clearly, she'd already attempted this very same discussion with him.
"Well, I just suppose I will." Replacing the chair beneath the table, Hermione headed for the backdoor.
"Would you like some coffee?" Gran shouted after her.
"Yes, please. Thank you!" the witch called back as she ducked outside.
All she needed to do was follow the growling. Outside the walls of the house, it wasn't hard to hear at all. Around the back, down between the coups and the treeline of the forest, she found her grandfather.
And a beast prowling about in an immense chicken wire cage.
Hermione suddenly suspected this was not the first time the creature had victimized the livestock. Grandfather had evidently been planning for this if he had a cage this size at the ready.
Henri Baptiste Mercier looked crotchety upon first glance. Grizzled, the sort of man one would expect to be stern, always having a ready lecture on hand for anyone who even seemed like they might question his wisdom. But Hermione had known since she was a little girl that the heart beneath his rough exterior was as mushy as his visage was intimidating.
He turned at the sound of footsteps. "Not you, too," he said with a warm laugh, shaking his head.
She pulled up short, guessing she and her grandmother must share the same 'I've come to tell you why you're wrong' expression. Her shoulders slumped and she continued forward to stand beside him.
"It won't be the first time. I had a pet wolf as a boy," he informed his granddaughter proudly. "Jean worries too much. Besides, he's wounded, and misshapen. I'm his best chance for survival. Go tell your grandmother to stop fussing."
She balked, a laugh bursting out of her. "You go tell her to—"
"Hey, listen!"
Hermione froze, listening as instructed. She didn't hear anything. Her skin grew icy a moment. She didn't hear anything. The wolf had stopped growling.
Grandpa nodded toward the beast. "It seems to like you. Maybe you have a way with wild animals, yes?"
Shaking her head, she offered a weak smile. "Oh, no. Probably just a coincidence."
Against her will, she turned her head, finally looking at the wolf.
It sat on the other side of the wire, staring at her. She saw immediately what her grandfather meant by it being 'misshapen.' Though it mostly had the form of a wolf, the creature was long, wiry and . . . not an actual wolf at all.
But there was no way for a Muggle to know that.
The wounded limb tucked beneath its body—she suspected the purple dust she spied around the wound might be wolfsbane—she forced herself to acknowledge what she was seeing. There were probably wolfsbane coated traps surrounding some of the nearby wizarding villages. It probably barely escaped.
Wolfsbane kept a shift at bay if properly prepared and taken before the full moon rose. But getting a raw dose in their blood while shifted? She supposed it could result in this. Weakening the creature, making it unable to shift back. Raising the question of how long it had been stuck; the most recent full moon had been just over a week ago.
Hermione held in a sigh. She could imagine the first letter, already.
Dear Harry,
On my first night in France, my grandfather caught a werewolf who was likely running for its life. It can't change back because it's got wolfsbane poisoning, oh, and he wants to keep it like a guard dog. I suspect if I can't find a way to treat the wound soon, it'll become septic and then the creature'll die, anyway. See all the fun you're missing?
Yes, I could've just stayed in England if I wanted my loved ones to scare me.
No, trouble does not follow me, wipe that smug smirk off your face.