Hermione ran forward and lunged at Draco, catching him off guard. Draco rolled over on his side and came up growling. He circled Hermione, stalked her aggressively and ran at her, dropping to a slide at the last second to kick out her feet. Hermione fell backwards, landing on the packed dirt with an 'Oof'. Showing no hesitation, Draco jumped on top of Hermione. With her pinned to the ground, he opened his jaws and bared his teeth to her.
A winded Hermione could only lay there panting. Her whole body hurt. This was not what she thought he meant when he suggested giving her a work out. Now, with more than a dozen of these training sessions under her belt and the only marks on her body were from injuries sustained when she wasn't quick enough to block a spell or a blow, Hermione was beginning to agree with Cora's assessment; Draco was acting like a fool.
"I've heard a great deal about your intelligence, I'd like to see some evidence of it."
Hermione could not help but bristle at her words. Cora looked out for Ginny and her, but the mediwitch had a knack for annoying her with the way she phrased things sometimes. Instead of asking her what she meant, Hermione silently waited for Cora to explain herself. A tactic she had picked up from Draco.
"Any sensible witch would be panicking over the prospect of someone like Fenrir courting her. Either you aren't as clever as people credit you to be, or you don't object to mating with Fenrir."
Hermione took this information like a Stupefy to the head. Despite Fenrir's attempts to make them appear natural, it was obvious his recent encounters with her were staged. However, she had attributed his sudden interest in her to have something to do with her being an Order member, not a personal interest in her.
"It's not just Fenrir," Cora continued, "most males in the pack want to mate with you because they think you've got some kind of magical womb that makes it possible for you to mate with werewolves."
"I thought your kind believed only true mates are blessed with children."
"Well, lycanthropy may boost our immunity but it does not make us immune to stupidity. Especially since we have an alpha who spouts such nonsense," she said with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. "It doesn't matter what the rest of us believe, what matters is that Fenrir believes that the Dark Lord performed some kind of miracle which makes it possible for you to breed with werewolves. He's also convinced quite a few members of the pack of this, promising each of them a turn with you—once he's done of course."
Hermione felt the blood drain from her face as she imagined what this meant for her.
"I've bought you some time by playing on Fenrir's insecurities. I suggested he'll lose face before the pack should he fail to get you pregnant, so he should do all he can to have the odds in his favour. He's not going to bother you this full moon as I've started him on a three-month course of fertility and virility potions—'to ensure success and avoid any potential embarrassment' was how I worded it. But bear in mind, patience is not the alpha's strong suit. I cannot predict when he may decide to ignore my advice and proceed with his plan to mate with you."
Motherhood had made her complacent, realised Hermione. She had allowed herself to get caught up in being a real mother to Wilbur and Martin, forgetting her decision to leave them behind and escape. She would have to fast-track her plans to make up for lost time.
"What do you think your options are? How do you think you can be in a position that best serves your goals?"
Once again, Hermione silently waited for Cora to elaborate.
"Realise it or not, we all expect you to try and escape, we've been on the lookout for it. You can be certain you're never making it out of here on your own."
Hermione began to panic, but did her best to portray a calm facade. Up until then, she thought she had played the role of a compliant prisoner quite convincingly. From the way she was allowed to move around the castle, freely as she pleased, she was under the impression they had stopped monitoring her. If what Cora said were true, then getting away would be that much more difficult.
"From all the people here, there's just one person who would be willing to help you escape. But, do you know he could help you in other ways too?"
"How?" asked Hermione, her curiosity piqued to the point she could no longer maintain the pretence of indifference.
"If you are mated with Draco—as in complete the mate bond—none of the weres would be interested in you, Fenrir included."
"What would that mean for us?"
"Nothing different than what it is already. Whether you see it or not, there already exists a bond between the two of you—and I'm not referring to Martin and Wilbur."
"And how do we complete this bond?"
"Mark and claim each other during mating ...though it would need to take place during the full moon for the bond to be sealed."
"Mark? ...in what way?"
"In our wolf form, each of us has a unique bite mark that can help identify us. A wolf will bite their mate to mark them."
"And this would be enough to keep the others away?"
"It wouldn't hurt if you also fell pregnant from the mating."
"So why has Draco never suggested this?"
Draco both desired her and cared about her welfare, so why would he hesitate? He could've completed the bond during any one of those times they were together during her pregnancy.
"Because the pup is a fool. He thinks the only two choices before you are to escape from Bleidd or to bond with him."
"But you think I can do both?"
Cora shook her head. "Come the full moon these men will try to breed you and when their seed won't take, their wolves will tear you apart. You are human after all. Beyond your reproductive abilities, their wolves will simply see you as prey. I doubt you'll survive mating with any of the other werewolves to even attempt an escape."
"By Salazar! We're going to have to build your endurance. Barely fifteen minutes in and you're already wiped out," Draco was saying while he lifted his weight off her by moving back to sit on his haunches. "
Hermione blinked in astonishment at the man before her. In what world did he imagine her standing a chance against a bunch of highly motivated werewolves? Without her wand, how fast she moved or how much longer than her opponents she managed to stay on her feet would not matter. Draco was clearly deluded, so it was time to take matters into her hands.
Ever since her milk had come in, her otherwise modest-sized breasts had become a prominent feature on her chest. Hermione raised her upper body so she could lean back on her elbows. She stuck her chest out and flashed him what she hoped was a come-hither smile.
"Come on," he scolded, swiftly getting to his feet and pulling her up, "you should always get back on your feet as quickly as you can. Because you are smaller than your opponent, you have a better chance fighting on your feet than wrestling on the ground."
Hermione looked in wide-eyed disbelief as Draco raised his hands and motioned for her to keep her guard up. Merlin, how could he be this dense and not realise what she was trying to do, given that she had already expressed her desire to be with him. Even if Draco knew about Cora having bought them some time, his strategy of trying to arm her with just some defence training was extremely idiotic.
Seeing Draco prepare to launch at her for yet another painful round of throwing her around, Hermione cried out in frustration, stretching both hands out in front of her.
Draco was blasted back.
"What in Hades!" he cursed, sitting up. "Did you manage to cast wandlessly?"
"Felt more like accidental magic to me," Hermione mumbled quietly. Stunned by what just happened, she stood still, as if petrified, staring at her hands still outstretched before her.
Draco got up off the ground and dusted the seat of his pants. "It wasn't strong. Just caught me off guard," he explained, walking back to her. "Do you think you could do it again?"
"I don't know," she mumbled. She had not had an outburst like this since she began attending Hogwarts.
Until the moment she first held her wand, Hermione had not known that the tingling sensation she sometimes felt in the tips of her fingers was her magic trying to get out. Possessing an even-temper, an acute sense of fairness, and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Hermione had been the very model of a well-behaved child. However, the few times she did throw a tantrum, they were spectacular. Objects around her would end up smashed to bits and she would have no memory of having done so later. Hermione realised those outbursts were her raw magic being unleashed.
"Well, if you can perform wandless magic, you may have no need for this after all," said Draco, smirk plastered on his face.
Still in a daze, it took Hermione a few seconds to recognise the object he was waving before her face.
"Professor Dumbledore's wand!" she gasped.
...
Draco winced at the pained sound Hermione made. Of course, she remembered the original owner of the wand, even if it briefly slipped his mind.
Sometime after graduating from Hogwarts, Draco's own hawthorn wand was destroyed in a skirmish with the Centaurs. By then the wandmakers had taken a stand against the Dark Lord, as such new wands were hard to come by. Draco, however, had no need for a new one since he still possessed his late headmaster's wand... his one reward for his actions in the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, even if he did fail in his task to kill the great Dumbledore. In the years that followed, tricky though it was, and demanding a level of magic beyond his capabilities, Draco grew accustomed enough to the fifteen-inch wand he came to think of it as his own.
"I'm here with you and you're this caring, amazing guy ... It's so easy to forget that you are also that guy," whispered Hermione. She covered her mouth with her hands while her eyes, overflowing with tears, remained glued to the wand. "You're Draco, a man I have children with, but you're also Draco Malfoy, the boy who started the war."
Confronted by Hermione's accusation, Draco discovered that the old coward within him was still alive. Unable to look her in the eye, he said nothing, just slipped the wand back into his robes and left.
When by late evening the next day Draco did not turn up for their daily training session, Hermione asked the omega keeping guard outside to get him for her. To his credit, he did show up, and from the guarded look he wore and the stiff way he held himself, he was expecting to be put through the wringer.
Hermione had spent the previous evening and night thinking over everything that had taken place in the last ten or so years of her life since she first discovered about the magical world, trying to assign some kind of context to everything. She also spent a good amount of time trying to imagine what those ten years would have been like from Draco's perspective. At the end of her musings, she realised there were questions she wanted him to answer, but they did not change how she felt about him today.
Hermione smiled at Draco as she ran her hands up his chest, feeling the hard muscle under his robes. Unlike the other werewolves at Bleidd, Draco still clung to some of his old ways and wore robes, which, though well worn, had the refined quality one would expect of any person with the last name Malfoy.
"You're overdressed," she observed simply. "I'd like to feel your bare skin."
Draco stared at her, befuddled. Clearly, he had not expected things to take this direction. He grabbed her elbows and kept her at arm's length from himself, sniffed at her and instantly pulled back, probably shocked by how aroused she smelled.
"Did someone new deliver your food today?"
She shook her head, knowing why he asked. Zoey alone was tasked with delivering all of Hermione's meals to ensure she wasn't slipped something without her knowledge. It was a little ironic that he should worry about her, given the titbit she had learnt from Fenrir this morning.
"Our healer says a witch can't get pregnant while she's still nursing, but I say it's nonsense is what it is."
Hermione cursed herself for forgetting to shut her door. She wished she could cover herself or turn away from Fenrir's leer but Martin was not done feeding yet. Fenrir strutted over to her bed and sat down beside her, clueless as always of how uncomfortable he made her feel. He picked up Wilbur, who began crying from being rudely woken from his nap.
"Oi, noisy buggers, aren't they?" observed Fenrir, looking genuinely surprised that something so little could have so hearty a cry. "Haven't heard a li'l one cry like this 'cept for the times I would eat them."
Hermione was horror-struck by this reminder of his true nature from Fenrir himself, yet from the casual manner in which it was said and his subsequent attempts to calm Wilbur by rocking him, Greyback seemed oblivious to the impact his statement made.
"You're a good mother, you know. I've heard a lot about how clever you are and you've given us no bother so far, which means you're smart enough, far as I'm concerned. You can definitely do better than the Malfoy pup though. I know he keeps coming around to see you, and till now, you probably thought you had no choice. I mean, it's easier when you just go along with these things, right? But you don't need to anymore. You've got options, far better options, if you know what I mean. You don't have to put up with Malfoy anymore."
Despite Fenrir's attempt to come off as sympathetic Hermione's unease grew with every statement he uttered.
"I'm tied up for a bit—important pack business. Won't be around to mate during the next two full moons either. But don't you worry," Fenrir reassured her with a smile, "I've ordered cook to give Malfoy contraceptives with his food so, you know, he can't get you in trouble even if he tries."
It may have been due to his status as an alpha or simply the way he was, but Fenrir appeared to believe that the things he said would win favour with Hermione when all they did was make her question his sanity and his humanity. Unsettling though his visit had been, Fenrir helped make a couple of things clear: She wasn't willing to be with just about anyone as a means of survival, and she needed to take a more direct approach with Draco as she was running out of time.
"Since you've forgotten all about it I want to remind you about my answer. Yes—my answer is yes. I want to be with you, Draco."
"You say yes now, but do you understand what it means? I'm just a beta. I have nothing to my name—not even my name. If we bond, it's not a temporary thing. You won't ever be able to get away from me. Even if you escape, even if the war ends and your side emerges victorious, you'll still be bound to me," he warned.
She ignored his words, opting instead to work on the row of buttons that ran down the front of his robes.
"Did you know," she began as soon as she'd exposed some of the skin at his throat.
"—that—" she pressed a soft kiss to his throat.
"—Fenrir's been putting—" another button opened and another soft kiss, lower this time.
"—contraceptives—" she continued to expose his pale skin, kissing every bit exposed.
"—in your food?"
From the look on his face, he did not.
"He's afraid you'll get me pregnant again, before he has a chance to."
He was growling again, she noticed. One of these days, she was really going to have to figure this whole seduction business out.
"You're worried about Fenrir. Is that why you're okay with this?" Draco asked, gesturing between them.
He was smart to ask that, she had asked herself the same many times.
"We already have Wilbur and Martin. Even if they're raised by the pack, we are already linked together by our sons... but that's not the only reason I want to be with you, Draco. And right now," she paused to slide the straps of her shift down her shoulders and shimmy out of it all together, "I'd like to be with you without the haze of the potion or my belly heavy and uncomfortable."
"Witch!" he groaned, falling to his knees and sticking his nose into the apex of her thighs. Draco inhaled her scent and rubbed his face in her arousal. He wasted no time as he used his broad tongue to lap up her juices. She was so sweet and even if he could not get her pregnant today, he could still enjoy her willing flesh.
She held on to him by his hair, yanking on it to pull him closer. He responded by encouraging her to ride his face. He would proudly walk out of here, the envy of every other wolf when they smelled him covered in her scent. His witch was moaning and writhing against his face drowning him in her juices even as he greedily lapped it away. She had not been this wet even with the potion; it made his wolf howl in pride within him. He had chosen her, and she had chosen him right back.
Draco used his tongue to penetrate her passage. His nose bumping against her clit, he speared his tongue in and out of her pussy, the way his cock was dying to do. She was going to come apart any moment now and he wanted to feel her climax on his prick. Continuing to fuck her with his tongue, he slipped off his robes. Before Hermione could register what was happening, he was standing and had one of her legs hooked around his hip. Taking his cock in one hand, Draco slowly thrust into her.
The sensation of being suddenly full of his hard cock made Hermione come with a long hiss. When her climax ended, Draco wrapped both her legs around his waist and walked her to the bed on the other side of the room, his dick still sheathed within her. With her legs kept wrapped around him, he placed her on the edge of the bed and began to drill his cock in and out of her. The position allowed him to drive into her, leaving her no option but to take him in to the hilt. Hermione could swear she felt his cock nudge against her cervix; he was so deep inside her.
He plucked at her sensitive nipples causing them to harden into points and leak droplets of milk. He stared slack-jawed at her milk, a reminder she had borne his children and was fertile enough to give him more, and snapped his hips forward more furiously. He seemed eager to release his seed in her, even though the contraceptive would prevent it from taking hold.
Draco pushed his arms beneath her shoulder blades and raised her so she was pressed against his chest. He nuzzled her neck and licked along the pulse point at her neck. He suckled it, gently at first and then with greater pressure, moaning as he did so.
"Draco, Draco, Draco," Hermione chanted in his ear. Her entire self tingled as their magic reached out to each other, eager to complete their bond. She nuzzled and licked his neck in the way he had hers. Feeling him shudder, she took it further by nipping at it.
"Yours," Draco grunted over and over as she continued to tease the sensitive spot.
From what Cora had told her, he would have to bite her in his wolf form to be marked as his, but she was curious to see how he would react if she bit him in a similar manner.
"Mine," she announced and bit down hard.
Draco howled in ecstasy as her teeth broke through skin and sank into his flesh. He forced himself all the way in just in time to shoot his release into her. Regretting that it wasn't possible to knot with her in his human form, Draco desperately ground himself against her to stimulate her clit with the base of his penis. He did not have to keep it up for long before her inner walls were clenching his dick, squeezing it of every drop of come.
He lay on her heavily in the aftermath, waiting for their breathing to even out. He sensed in her the same feeling of contentment he was experiencing. They hadn't completed the mate bonds—they would need the full moon for that—but their magic had caressed each other and acknowledged the other as their mate.
Eventually, noticing she was struggling to breathe beneath his weight, he moved them to a more comfortable position on the bed, arranging her on his chest once he stretched out. A few minutes later Draco nearly purred in self-satisfaction when Hermione drifted off to sleep utterly sated in his arms.
Draco gave some thought to the things he learnt that day from the curly haired witch gently snoring on top of him. Even though she said she wanted him and was choosing him, it was not much of a choice for her; he was just the lesser of two evils. He was not foolish enough to think that getting her pregnant against her will would have endeared him to her any more than his actions towards her throughout their school years and during the current war would have.
Yet, he felt hopeful.
His witch possessed a kind and generous spirit. She did not abandon anything or anyone she decided to dedicate herself to, which is why Draco was certain that despite their unconventional beginnings, if Hermione completed the mate bond with him, she would do her best to make things work between them.
Naturally, it all depended on how the war progressed and concluded. The kind of person she was, Hermione would always want to resist the Dark Lord's regime and as a Muggleborn, she would always be considered a lesser being in a world ruled by Lord Voldemort. Of course, as a werewolf the same applied to him now. His family was wizarding aristocracy and loyal to the Dark Lord, but Draco was considered no better than a mongrel crup trained to carry out their orders.
In the time following his turning, Draco experienced firsthand the prejudices by his side towards anyone they did not consider pure. Low-ranking Death Eaters, who once did not dare to look upon the Malfoy heir, felt emboldened now to mock him and order him around. For his part, Draco realised that as a creature, he was no less of a wizard now than he was before. If anything, lycanthropy gave him physical strength, he previously lacked despite his tall frame, as well as magical prowess that let him cast nearly all the basic spells wandlessly. In light of his recent experiences, he could not imagine how much worse it must have been for someone as brilliant as Hermione to hear anyone tell her she was worthless because of her Muggle heritage; no wonder she had always seemed so determined to prove herself all the time.
Draco doubted things would ever be the same for him again. His parents had pretty much severed ties with him and when they did occasionally see him, they looked at him with such disappointment for turning into a werewolf, as if he had been given a choice. The Dark Lord in his infinite wisdom had decided the best punishment for a wizard who was unable to kill was to turn him into a murderous beast with bloodlust. But of course, that had turned out to be yet another lie he was raised to believe was true.
Upon his turning, Draco quickly discovered that while werewolves did succumb to their animal instincts during the full moon, those instincts usually fell into one of three categories—feed, fuck, and fight. As pack creatures, they preferred the company of their kind during their transformation, so the fighting was usually between wolves of the pack trying to establish a pecking order by displaying their strength. Wolves that went on murderous rampages were usually lone wolves, raging due to their inability to be part of a pack, or like Greyback, with an inclination towards sadism that had nothing to do with their lupine natures.
In the new world order, prejudice had become the basis of law. All creatures and beings not considered pure were subjugated and forced to serve their Pureblood masters. As bad as he felt at the plight of others, the true horror of their collective actions did not dawn upon him until he saw Voldemort's vision come to fruition. He had fantasised about a world where Purebloods ruled over all when he allowed himself to be branded with that hideous Dark Mark. But sheltered and indoctrinated as he was in Pureblood beliefs, Draco could not have anticipated the atrocities the Death Eaters would commit in their quest for purification. Long before Hermione's arrival, even before being turned into a werewolf, Draco had decided he did not fit in the cruel society the Dark Lord was creating. It was why despite his fall from grace Draco found happiness at Bleidd as it offered a respite from the ugly world outside. But with Hermione as his mate there would be no hiding away from the ugliness. What else was he to do then?
The Dark Lord was as good as immortal since he could bring himself back even if he was killed. The Death Eaters had wealth, power and political influence, unlike the Light side. On the plus side, a majority of British wizarding society was either neutral or like him unhappy with the changes made to their society. In terms of actual numbers, the Death Eaters and Black Cloaks were still in the minority. Based on his conversations with Cora as well as the things he picked up from the talks of the visiting Death Eaters, the Dark Lord's experiments into building himself some kind of hybrid part wizard-part creature soldiers had yielded zero results so far.
Draco absentmindedly rubbed circles on Hermione's back, enjoying the feel of her bare skin under his fingers. He smiled at the sound of her softly sighing in her sleep. How nice it would be, to live in a world where he and Hermione could always be together like this and raise their pups with the pack, without fearing for their safety. He had seen enough violence and death in the years following the return of the Dark Lord to last several lifetimes, but as much as he longed for peace, Draco knew he had not earned it yet.