Chapter Fifteen

A picture is worth a thousand words and the morning following Draco's birthday, Hermione and Marcus had three pictures splayed across the front pages and covers of every periodical in Wizarding Britain. The first and most eye-catching was the magical loop of his left hook as he punched the reporter from Insatiable . The second and third shots were of her whispering in his ear with his hand dangerously low on her hip and of them disapparating from the high street with her hand tucked securely within his. And the pièce de résistance of the so-called news story, was the quote of the words he had yelled, slithering between all three.

In light of the transpired events, Narcissa had issued an edict demanding they keep their heads down and their mouths shut while she and Pansy dug for a bigger story. Accompanying her general order, was their banishment back to Falmouth where they were to remain as they rode out the media storm they had created. She had made it abundantly clear that under no circumstances were they to be seen together anywhere outside of the Falcons' training compound until the Players' Awards at the end of the month, thus fully ensconcing them back into the bubble of bliss that Hermione had so enjoyed. This time with the added benefit of her getting to spend the night with Marcus. Something they had already engaged in twice more.

Unlike the other two times they had spent the night together, this morning she had woken up alone - or rather with only Darya in the bed, commandeering all available space. Stretching out her sleep stiffened limbs, she felt her back pop in several places, forcing a satisfied grunt out of her. Patting the empty space that Marcus had occupied, she called his giant baby up to her and began petting and scratching at her thick fur, cooing about their morning plans while she eased into her day by taking in the serenity of his bedroom.

The wall that his custom sized upholstered bed was centered on was covered in white shiplap. Hanging above the headboard was a series of muggle style photos; each a different scene of either turquoise oceans or black or pink sand beaches that she guessed came from his time in New Zealand. In place of a standard light fixture or ceiling fan was a small chandelier made of sea glass, its colors repeating in the lamp bases on each nightstand and in the accents of his otherwise pristine white bed. The two colors along with the varying shades of driftwood grey and sugar sand beige, repeated throughout his entire home, creating a tranquil escape.

Enhancing the feeling of being on an endless beach vacation, was the wall devoted to the ocean view. Viktor's master suite showcased the same premium scene, but where his was on the upper level and looked over the ocean, Marcus's was on the ground floor and opened up to the beach. He had beautiful, paneless French doors that connected his room to a covered corner of his deck. Suspended on one side was a netted hammock with pillows and a blanket and on the other creating an L-shaped seating area, was a bench-like couch with a salt-distressed wooden coffee table between the two.

Grunting as Darya partially collapsed onto her at the mention of going for a run, Hermione giggled, "Okay sweet girl, I get it; you don't have to pin me down. No running for you today." Scratching under her collar, she compromised, "How about you let me up so I can loo. Then I'll check what your daddy left you for breakfast while you go make potty and get you set up to eat. While you indulge in the no doubt delicious meal he made you, I'll go for a run, alone, don't worry, and then throw your quaffle into the ocean for a bit before heading over to the facility tocatch up on some paperwork. Sound like a deal?"

Taking her sudden freedom as agreement, she got up and started to go through her pre-run absolutions. Padding back into the bedroom, she opened one of the drawers Marcus had cleared out for her in his dressed the first night she had spent in his home and pulled out a pair of shorts. As she stepped into them, she looked at his sweet all black Newfoundland stretched out in the center of his bed, already enjoying her additional rest day. Scrunching up her face as she struggled with not lazing about as well - an indulgence she was beginning to allow herself to partake in without as much guilt more regularly - she glanced outside to find the perfect excuse. The sky was overcast and the ocean grey from the sandy bottom getting spun up into the restless waves, confirming a coming storm. Needing no further proof that it was a perfect morning to cast aside responsibilities, she removed the shorts and pulled Marcus's old Taniwhas jersey back down her thighs before heading to the kitchen.

Once settled with their breakfasts - Darya getting a bowl full of her freshly ground raw diet and her an overly large mug of tea and a plate piled with fruit and a leftover pastry from Espressini - Hermione curled up in one of the armchairs with the latest installment of the futuristic and erotic, muggle detective series she had started reading during her fifth year. The rest of the morning passed with her only getting up to either move to the couch or back to the armchair and to give in to Darya's begging eyes for treats as she had been prone to doing with Crookshanks before the war. She was so engrossed in the gripping tale of murder that when the clock above the mantle chimed out the noon hour, she had startled herself and spilt her tea. It was only then while siphoning the wet mess from the pages of her book that she noticed the passage of time and with it the fact that Marcus had yet to return. He had left her a note that morning reminding her of his meeting in London for the gala he was hosting in the fall to benefit Including Isolde, but she had thought by now he would have been home. With nothing else to do other than ponder his delay, she went into his room and through his closet into the en-suite to bathe and get ready for their afternoon session.

An hour later though as she sat at her desk attempting to distract herself from checking the clock every two minutes, she began to give voice to the question of where he was. It was unlike him to be late for anything but especially their training sessions. Like her, he was punctual to a fault. He often showed up more than ten minutes early to any meeting he had and defined late as being on time. Forcing herself to compartmentalize her anxious nature - another one of her lingering gifts from the war - she focused her nervous energy on studying the medical write ups on the draft candidates, dutifully refusing to allow the small voice in her head to make comparisons between Marcus's uncharacteristic tardiness and what eventually became Ron's all too common absence.

It was seventeen minutes after their scheduled appointment with zero information retained, when the sound of trainers squeaking on the tile as they scuffed the floor grated her ears.

Sliding into her office, Marcus panted, "Fuck Hermione, I'm sorry I'm late."

"It's okay things-"

"I got tied up trying to secure a venue for the gala in October after the Clifton House broke their contract because apparently punching that reporter last week has turned me into a liability. Trying to fix that, I called on the places we had passed over. All four turned me down; even after I offered to pay them double their standard rental fee. So I still don't have a venue and that issue made me late for my appointment at Saint Mungo's, which in turn has-"

Jumping up from her desk, she hurried over and began removing his shirt. Tearing it over his head, she threw it on the floor and began massaging the muscles along his ribs and waist checking for irritation.

"What's wrong? Why didn't you come straight to me? I may be your girlfriend, but as long as you're playing for Falmouth, I'm your primary healer, Marcus. All your medical needs and concerns are supposed to pass through me," she scolded. Forcing his body to bend and stretch before summoning her wand to run diagnostics, she asked, "Does this hurt? What about this?"

Halting the runic trace of her wand at her wrist, he promised, "My side is fine. I wasn't there because of my injury."

"Then why were you there? What's wrong? It's my job to stay abreast of all ailments and potential issues of the players on the team," she fired off, leading him to one of her chairs. Gingerly pushing him to take a seat, she resumed trying to cast exploratory charms.

"Nothing is the matter, Hermione. I just didn't think coming to you was appropriate."

"When it comes to your health, I'm your healer first and girlfriend second. Nothing is inappropriate." Summoning his file from the cabinet, she picked up her quill and once more asked, "What's wrong? What did they treat you for?"

Pulling her into his lap, he cupped the back of her head and kissed her until her affronted grip on her his file loosened. Exchanging her hold on the organized parchment for interlocking her hands at the nap of his neck, she returned his kiss with unhurried enthusiasm.

Drifting off center and along her jaw, he hummed, "Better? More relaxed? Less ruffled?"

Nuzzling the tip of her nose along the bridge of his, she quietly confessed, "I was worried. You're never late. And when I worry I often get led astray to obsessive and irrational thought."

"I'm sorry, e taku ipo . I got here as quickly as I could. Had I thought an owl would beat me, I would have sent you a note. I'm perfectly fine, merely late due to my own obsessive personality. You know I live for these sessions with you. For a time I thought it would be the only way I would feel your hands on me."

Giving him a playful shove against his better shoulder, Hermione smiled, "You're an incurable flirt, do you know that?"

"Only with you," he said with another kiss to her lips.

Sighing as she reluctantly got up from his lap, she tapped his medical file and said, "I really do need to know why you went to Saint Mungo's, Marcus. I'm not asking as your girlfriend who would ordinarily have no right to know. I'm asking as your healer whose job it is to look after your wellbeing and determine if there's any possible liabilities with allowing you on the pitch."

Pulling out an envelope with the hospital's privacy seal still intact from his pocket, he handed it over to her and explained, "Normally I would have gone to the team's healer with such a quarry but given our personal relationship I really didn't know if it was appropriate at least not this early on. I was going to save this for later because I didn't want you to think I was assuming or expecting any sort of rapid progression in our relationship by doing this. I just wanted to have this ready for you if the time came and since I had that planning session this morning in London, I figured today was as good as any to have it done."

"What are you talking about?" She mumbled as she slashed her letter opener through the wax.

Freeing the hospital's results parchment, she glossed over the standard information such as his date of birth, height, and weight, all of which she already had memorized and annotated in her own records. Moving further down she found the diagnostic charms they had cast over him and the tests they had administered to his drawn blood sample, along with row after row of negative results. He had gone and had an exhaustive sexual health inquiry done. All manner of infections and diseases ranging from those that could only pass between people who possessed magic to the ones that ordinarily only passed between muggles had been checked for.

Having administered it herself countless times while in residency, she knew the process usually lasted between two and three hours of continuous casting, poking, and prodding, along with a more invasive exam of the genitals and anus. It was an appointment that she had asked Ron to make whether at the hospital or with his own team's healer countless times before their first break up. Back when she had been entertaining the idea of eventually sleeping with him. And every time she had asked, he had laughed it off or raged about her unfounded paranoia. It often left her questioning if there was any validity to the idea that asking was a sign of distrust though rationally she knew it was just a good health practice.

Looking up at Marcus's searching eyes, she clarified, "You went and had a sexual health examine? The whole thing? Without being asked?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, he started to ramble, "I know it probably seems presumptuous but I thought it would be good to have on hand. I know we haven't really talked about it beyond the day you mentioned having never told Weasley you lost your virginity to Krum, but I assumed, or maybe hoped, we'd eventually get to the point where talking about this would be necessary.

"I mean I'm fine, happy not fine, with how things are moving between us and prefer the pace we're at. And it's not like I've been with loads of witches - that's just never been my thing - but there's been a few over the last seven or so years since I lost my virginity so I figured it was worth something to check up on for you, us.

"Fuck, please stop me before I make a bigger arse of myself."

Coming back to straddle his lap, Hermione brushed her fingers over his shoulders and down his arms. Reaching the end of his tattoo on his right arm, she traced the designs and brought his left arm to wrap around her hip. With her fingers trailing back up to his shoulder and down to his pectoral, she caressed her thumb over his flat nipple and watched it react to her touch.

Gripping the back of the chair, she rolled her hips along his and whispered, "Thank you," bringing her forehead to rest just above his as she watched the space between them where she was working to arouse him just as he had done to her with his thoughtful actions.

"You're not mad?" Marcus stuttered as he gripped her hip and started to guide her slow movements.

Kissing a path from his temple along the outer part of his cheek towards his jaw as she headed for his neck and the fading love bite she had left behind on Draco's birthday, Hermione quietly moaned, "No… I find myself incredibly turned on by your considerate foresight."

"Do you now?" He asked, gently tugging on one of her plaited bunches, to draw her face up to his.

"Mmhmm," she hummed, licking at the seam of his lips.

With another tug on her hair, Marcus solemnly said, "I don't want there to ever be a doubt in your mind about my intentions towards you. I'm serious about us and where I see this going, Hermione. I love you."

Stopping the teasing roll of her hips, she wrapped her legs around his back and her arms under his. Gently pulling her face free, she tucked herself into the crook of his neck and hugged him, her muffled voice murmuring, "I love you too. It's actually a little scary how much I love you and how quickly it's happened."

"Why does it scare you?"

Rubbing her face along his shoulder, Hermione wrestled with the right words. There were a lot of things about falling in love with him that scared her. Everything from the concern of how messy a workplace romance could be - especially given her position over him as his healer and the fact that it had always annoyed Ron to no end how easily she could compartmentalize her personal feelings - to the residual feeling of being inadequate that had arisen from being an outsider in the Wizarding World. The biggest of all though was the very real and crippling fear that she was somehow unlovable or rather easily replaced.

She recognized that her parents having a new daughter was a situation of her own making having Obliviated them herself. It even spoke volumes about how thorough she had been in her casting. She had successfully wiped nearly eighteen years from their lives, reverting them back to their desires for growing their family. It was a point of order that she should have taken great pride in. Still, after growing up with countless tales of how powerful a mother's love is, she couldn't help but feel that if she had been enough for her parents that somewhere deep within them, there would have been a lingering feeling of something vital missing within them. And maybe there had been and that was why they had decided to have a baby. Either way, it didn't help to soothe the pain or keep the darker thoughts at bay when they seeped in during her more emotionally stressing periods.

Then there had been her relationship with Ron. That was a cage of Cornish Pixies she wished to keep firmly locked and covered. But as it was with her parents, the years they had known each other and the various stages their relationship had gone through had left her with hefty emotional encumberments. They were things she didn't want to bring into her new relationship with Marcus, things she would prefer to never unpack. They were there though and given time, they would become a hindrance in their happiness. And if she were being truthful with herself, they were already popping up to deliver minor obstacles and challenges for her to deal with.

Knowing the reasons behind her timidness in loving him would be easier to explain if she could keep her hands busy and with a session to get through, she seized the opportunity. Softly pressing her lips to his collarbone, she untangled herself from around him and laced her fingers with his to pull him up from the chair.

Leading him into the training room, she positioned him in front of one of the large round mirrors and instructed, "Start your warm up stretches, I'm going to ready the equipment."

Swinging his left leg out in front of him before kicking it back, Marcus replied, "Hermione, if you don't want to talk about it-"

"I don't like that I'm bringing an entire baggage claim's worth of emotional hang ups into our relationship."

With his knee raised to his chest, he rotated his hip outward and back several times, assuring her, "Everyone has negative conditionings from previous entanglements that they drag along with them into new relationships. It's a part of life. It's how we manage them that determines if we carry it around like a twenty-three kilogram ball and chain or if we carry it around like a snitch in our pocket."

"Yes, but most people aren't also grappling with post traumatic stress brought on by the things they had to do and experience during a war. I'm… better, yeah that seems like the word," she decided, snapping one of the exercise mats before laying it out on the painted concrete floor. "I'm better now than I was three years ago but that's not to say it's gone away."

"I imagine something like that would never really go away, only lessen as you learn to cope."

Levitating the weight discs onto one of the machines while he moved on to a series of lunges, Hermione continued, "I've always been rather high strung and prone to anxious fits, I think it's just how I was wired. After the war, those things became exacerbated and I now have a tendency to lean into my obsessive compulsive urges to soothe my random bouts of anxiety whereas before I readily worked against them.

"Anyways, that nervous, anxiety-ridden, fatalist mindset - of which I'm pretty sure was additionally warped by wearing the horcrux for as many hours and days as I did - bleeds over into all aspects of my life, particularly my relationships. I don't like to say, or even think, that Ron somehow conditioned my behavior but when I start measuring the two of you, it's hard to ignore the truth.

"I mean I've known him since I was twelve. We were friends, or at least I thought we were, before he was ever my boyfriend. And he cheated on me, habitually; said the cruelest things to me; regularly tried to belittle me. It was awful. And now there are times when I hear this little voice whispering in the back of my mind making me wonder if any of the things he said to me might be true; if I somehow deserved the way he treated me.

"That's why I find loving you to be a little scary. If someone I've known for ten years and who I valued having in my life can treat me so callously, why would someone who's only just beginning to know me love me?"

Seeing that he was bouncing on the balls of his feet while she spoke, she pointed over to the treadmill and charmed the belt to begin rotating. "I'm just going to set you up for a light jog so your muscles can begin to activate for your strength training."

"Sounds good," he said, coming up to cup her face instead of passing by her to hop on.

With his hands covering most of her face and his thumbs propping up her chin so she was forced to crane her head back to look up at him, Marcus bent down and pressed his lips firmly to hers. They had shared all sorts of kisses ranging from hesitant pecks that ended too soon to breath stealing, passion filled ones that left her feeling as if his name had been seared onto her very soul. This one was different though. It wasn't hungry or bashful but rather filled with sworn promise and bruising benediction.

Pulling away from her and kissing her forehead, then the crown of her head as he hugged her, he praised, "There are so many things about you that I love. Your kind, compassionate, forgiving without being weak, stronger than probably anyone I know, wickedly intelligent, ambitious, and beautiful beyond acceptable reason. Weasley is a fucking arsehole and more stupid than I've ever been to have taken you for granted. It won't change overnight, but I want to and plan to make it my priority to unravel every thought he's planted in your head and silence that voice for good."

Giving her another quick kiss before releasing her, he hopped onto the treadmill and began to jog, leaving her to reorder her mind while she finished setting up the gym. With each piece of equipment she pulled out, she tucked away more of the baggage she had unzipped until all that was left was a question she hadn't given much thought to since her run in with his friends. They had mentioned a witch having toyed with his affections in the past and had accused her of doing the same. Then once she had begun to recall what they had said, her mind jumped to the quizzical look he had given her the night of Draco's birthday when she had agreed with Theo about removing all traces of their relationship before leaving the restaurant. And from there she reheard his comment about everyone bringing negative conditionings into new relationships.

Turning around, she spoke with a directness that had always grated Ron but often endeared her to Draco and Theo, "What happened with the witch that Adrian said, 'destroyed,' you?"

"What?" He chuckled as he canceled the charm on the treadmill and got off to move over to the mat she had laid out.

Sitting down at his feet as he stretched, she folded her elbows over his knees and clarified, "Before they bought me the shoes, Ades, Cass, Graham, and I had a little talk about where things were going between you and I." Seeing he was about to interrupt, Hermione sped up and spoke just a bit louder to cut him off. "Nothing to worry about, we just all needed to get on the same page in regards to you and we're there now.

"Anyways they made a comment about an ex-girlfriend of yours. They specifically said, 'that cunt fucking destroyed him.' Who were they talking about? What happened?"

Doing a full sit up instead of the toe reaches he had been crunching through, Marcus gave her a quick kiss and said, "They're referring to a witch I dated during my final year at Hogwarts and again while I was in New Zealand."

"The brunette in the photo the Prophet printed?"

"I'm not sure, I never looked beyond the picture of us but I assume so."

Patting the mat, she commanded, "Come on, keep going."

"Easy for you to say. You're not working out your obliques and carrying on a conversation at the same time," he complained though he easily complied.

"You remember what I looked like in school and what people said about me. Witches weren't exactly doodling my name in their notebooks, nor were they eager to snog in a broom cupboard with someone rumored to be part troll.

"The written portion of my OWLs was abysmal but my practicals were decent enough that a few professors made exceptions for me in their NEWT level classes. Because of the odd disconnect between the two parts of my exam, Professor Flitwick offered one of his students extra credit in exchange for tutoring me. I guess you can say I've always been attracted to intelligent witches and especially have a thing for those who are forced into my proximity because it didn't take long at all for me to become arse over teakettle for her."

Getting up to move him over to one of the residence machines, Hermione adjusted his stance and monitored the first several repetitions he did before levitating some of the weight off.

Kissing his shoulder as she stepped back to watch his form from behind, she commented, "Much better. We'll add the extra weight back in another week or so."

"Whatever you think, doc. Where was I?"

"Arse over teakettle."

"Right. Well I was but it wasn't like it changed anything, she had a boyfriend."

Unable to help herself, she started to laugh, "Wow, you really do have a type."

"So it would seem," he unapologetically agreed, his crooked smile reflecting back at her from the mirror. "Eventually they broke up and of all the impossibilities she began to return my interest. It was like a dream come true for me. She was so beautiful and had a line of wizards waiting for her but she chose me. Busted nose, fucked up teeth, vastly inferior intellect, and all.

"For several months I lived out my teenage fantasies of snogging in the stacks of the library, unpracticed fumblings in broom cupboards, and eventually losing my virginity. It was great and I was so blinded by thinking I was in love that I didn't care about the fact that she wanted absolutely no one to know about us. And then the end of the school year was upon us and my mother was making plans to send me halfway around the world. I wanted nothing more than to take the witch I loved and thought I would marry with me.

"So I asked her and she laughed in my face. Told me I was a delusional fool to think she would ever seriously be interested in someone who was, 'incapable of even achieving a basic reading comprehension.' Turns out she wasn't all that interested in anything with me beyond learning how to please a wizard. I assume she picked me despite being a virgin because of the all around lack of attention I had from witches during my Hogwarts tenure.

"Then because getting burned wasn't enough for me to learn the lesson, during my last year with the Hauraki Taniwhas, I got back together with her shortly after our paths crossed down there. At least that time I caught on to her manipulations much faster and recognized her for what she was before I lost too much more of myself to her. A well disguised Broom Chaser."

When Marcus was done talking, he released the weights making them clatter together. Coming up behind him, Hermione wrapped her arms under his and kissed his shoulder blade, resting her cheek against his bare, sweat slicked skin.

"I'm sorry she was awful to you. You don't deserve that. No one deserves that, but you especially."

Pulling her hand up to his lips, he kissed her knuckles and shrugged, "It is what it is. It happened, I learned from it - took longer than it should have but I did - and I'm better for it. It is however why on occasion I may seek reassurance that your reasons for not wanting people to know about us has to do with the invasion of privacy. Not because you're ashamed of me and don't want the world to know that the, 'Brightest Witch of Our Age,' is in love with a troll who only just recently developed the ability to read at a proper level."

"No, taku toa . I love everything about you and am so incredibly proud of you for all the work you've put into not only learning how to work with your dyslexia, but also how dedicated you are with helping others who may have it and not even realize it. I could never be ashamed of you."

Turning around, Marcus picked her up, her legs wrapping around his waist as he walked her back into the mirror and brushed aside the straps of her top as he kissed her neck and shoulders, murmuring, "I love you."

Hermione moaned, "I love you too," her head falling back onto the glass as his fingers hesitantly crept under her shirt and began caressing her ribs along the band of her sports bra, promising herself that the highly unprofessional, amorous activities they were engaging in when they were supposed to be working would not become a regular occurrence.

AN:

The novel mentioned is Betrayal in Death, book 12 of the in Death Series by J.D. Robb.