AN:
A little Marcus/Hermione fic gifted to LostintheNightRain for their Love Fest 2022 prompt, Secretly Married.
Love in a Time of War
The sun was just beginning to be pulled up from the loch and crest the horizon as Hermione disturbed the highland peace with her crack of apparition. At the bottom of the hill she had arrived on, smoke gently curled up into the brisk morning air. Storming down the worn, dirt path in the direction of the normally inviting heat, the smell of a long burning campfire clung to her though she had gone nose blind to the scent hours ago. Marching down the hill and seeing the small stone cottage with its Sacramento green painted door, did nothing to soothe her ire. Grasping the gold door handle, she wrenched it open with the confidence of righteous indignation and stomped into her small haven from the war. Seeing him casually spread on their couch shirtless and in the grey joggers that normally had her melting into him, her anger flared brighter as she slammed the door behind her with enough force to rattle the door frame.
"You trapped me in a circle of fiendfyre !" She screeched in accusation, gesturing to the soot that clung to her clothes.
"Good morning to you too, little otter," Marcus smirked, putting down the paper he had been lazily reading. "How was your night?"
"How was my night? How was my night ? You know bloody well how my night was, you arrogant son of a bitch!"
Chuckling as he stood up, he admonished, "Now why do you have to go and bring my poor departed mother into this?"
"Your poor mother is right. I pity her for the years she spent raising such a heathen! She probably couldn't wait to drop your arse off at Hogwarts!"
"So nasty this morning," he quipped, trying to wrap his arms around her and kiss her in welcome.
Giving his hard, much larger body a shove with all her might, Hermione slammed her boot down on his unprotected foot and stepped around him as he doubled over in pain and laughter. Stalking into their modest kitchen, she guarded her anger against the sight of the breakfast spread he had prepared for her with her current favorite food front and center, and dropped into one of the ash colored dining chairs.
Unzipping her boots and throwing them at him, he easily caught one and batted the other away, his quidditch honed reflexes still sharp as ever making her snarl, "It took them four hours to free me, Marcus. Four fucking hours!" Ripping her sweater over her head, she wadded it up and threw it at him as well, happy to see it connect with his face. "I was in there so long that my bubble head charm failed and I got smoke inhalation. Smoke inhalation, Marcus! Do you know how dangerous that is for me?"
His own anger finally broke free and flashed as he snapped back, "Well if you had stayed home last night like I had asked you, begged you, I wouldn't have needed to."
Holding out one of her arms and lifting the tank she wore to expose her pink flushed skin to him with a raised eyebrow, she said, "So this was your solution? Trap your disobedient little wife in the middle of a raging inferno of magic."
Coming to stand before her, he pulled the legs of his joggers up and squatted down, running his large hands up her filthy jean covered thighs. Pressing a kiss first to her exposed ribs whose color was a bit dark from where his magic lashed at her to keep her in the center of the ring and then to her just barely protruding stomach, he murmured, "Better than one of those fuckers taking you prisoner again. Or have you forgotten how we met, Hermione? It's not just you anymore, little otter. It would break me to lose you as it is and now you're carrying our little kit. I wouldn't survive losing both of you."
At his words, her anger rapidly deflated and melted away. Spreading her legs out so his broad body could fit closer to her, she ran her fingers through the slightly longer strands on the top of his head while he rested his cheek in her lap. Slowly caressing her hand along his back, she dragged her touch up his shoulder and down his left arm. Tightening her hold on him as he tried to prevent her from touching the most hated part of his body, she exposed the hideous marr on his skin. Bringing the inky smudge of his Dark Mark to her lips, she brushed a series of feather light kisses over the tattoo that six years later his magic was still rebelling against and trying to expel from his system.
Tugging on the chain she wore around her neck, she freed his silver wedding band and slipped it back onto his finger. Kissing his palm as she brought it up to cup her cheek, she murmured, "I love you, Marcus."
"I don't know how," he quietly responded. Removing his own long hanging necklace, he slipped the infinity band that had been cut out from his ring free and placed it back home on her finger. "I don't know how or why you love me, but I'm honestly too selfish to care or question it."
Flicking her wand at the food on the table to keep it preserved, Hermione stood up from her chair and laced her fingers through his hand. Pulling him to his feet, she guided him out of the kitchen and up the stairs of their small cottage to the slightly larger of the two bedrooms. Collecting his wand from him, she placed both within reach on his night table and turned to face him as she lifted her tank over her head. Unhooking her bra, she let the straps slide down her arms and drop to the floor, freeing her weighted breasts from their uncomfortable confines. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she kept her gaze trained on his hazel eyes and their reverent, thirsty look as he took in her changing body. Scooting to the center of their large bed, she crooked a finger at him in invitation and began undoing her jeans. She didn't even have the zipper pulled all the way down before his large frame was crowding over her and guiding her to lay back amongst the pillows.
Pulling her jeans and knickers from her body, Marcus opened her knees and slotted himself into the cradle he made. Kissing first her hip and then the small swell of the little surprise and miracle they had been gifted, he made a wet trail up her body before latching his mouth around her nipple. Keening as he sucked and nipped at her breast, Hermione arched into his touch and pressed the pads of her fingers into his defined back while holding his head to her, whispering into the dawn how much she loved him.
Their love story wasn't a conventional fairy tale - at least not any of the ones that had been washed through time to become suitable for children's ears. The Battle of Hogwarts - that had been the culmination of the year long horcrux hunt she had been on with Harry and Ron - had ended with neither side truly winning five years ago. Harry had gone into the woods to meet his fate and had been brought back to them by a devastated Hagrid. The gentle half giant had tried to safeguard her friend's body as Voldemort had gone to throw him at their feet like trash and had lost his life as a result.
They had jeered at their loss and prematurely celebrated their supposed victory, unaware of how enraged Harry's death would make them all. While they hadn't won, neither had Voldemort and his followers, her side refusing to lay down and die in surrender. Instead, they had fought until retreat was possible and what remained of the Order and those fighting at the sides and their backs had gone to ground with those they were able to save.
A little less than four years ago she met Marcus or more accurately met him again having remembered him from their overlapping time at Hogwarts. In a guerrilla style attack meant to distract Voldemort's forces while a second more covert group broke into the Ministry to erase more muggleborns from the birth registers, she had been taken by surprise and knocked unconscious. When she had come to, she was laying in a heap on the damp floor of a small, windowless cell, with a hulking, masked Death Eater looming over her though he was squatting down beside her crumpled body. Reacting on instinct, she had begun trying to fight him off, thinking the worst was about to happen to her. It wasn't until she threw her head back into his face - crushing the bones of his nose beneath his mask - that he had realized he still wore it and that she had realized, he had been sponging what was exposed of her filthy skin clean and healing whatever abrasions were visible.
Marcus had been the one tasked with guarding her. Whether it had been Stockholm or Lima Syndrome, or a combination of the two, they had slowly built an odd sort of friendship which once established, swiftly fell into loving each other. He had dutifully done his job but instead of making sure she didn't somehow escape, he had made his job protecting her and keeping her safe. After the first time she had been taken for interrogation when he had been called elsewhere and tossed back into her cell, a soiled, shivering mess, he had manipulated his way into taking over her questioning so she never fell under another's wand again. As thanks, she fed him small pieces of seemingly useful information that bolstered his standing within Voldemort's ranks without actually risking the lives of her fellow resistance fighters. And when others caught a wandering eye in hopes of taking from her what wasn't theirs to have, he had stepped in and loudly proclaimed that he had already done so despite having never touched her more than was necessary to heal her. He made sure that it was known across his fellow Death Eaters and the Snatchers who came and went at will, that until he was done with her she was his. That anyone who so much as looked at her in a way he didn't like would face his wrath. He had made it his mission to keep her body safe from all manner of assault. In turn, she had made it hers to his mind safe from the life he had been forced into back when she had been living in the Forest of Dean.
Then six months, three weeks, and five days after her capture, Kingsley and the Order had raided the compound she was at and she had been liberated. The state she was in had not been what they had expected to find but after so many losses or barely scraped by wins, no one questioned her healthy, cared for condition, not wanting to look the gift horse in the mouth. It was another seven, long weeks before she saw Marcus again and when she did, she was certain that what she had felt for him down in the dark was true and not something born of circumstance. Once again she had disappeared from battle but that time it had been with him and of her own free will. They had slipped away to the little cottage they now called their home. It was there, spread out over his robes that covered the cracked floors, that she had endlessly given herself to him, only leaving when she knew her absence had drawn on for far too long.
For months they continued their relationship like that. Only reaching out to one another when they both happened to be in the chaos of battle. And each time they returned to the little run down cottage she had noted improvements to its structure and that it had slowly begun to fill with an eclectic array of furniture. Eventually Marcus had taken to living there fulltime and had made her the secret keeper of their cozy little love nest. It was after it had been removed from anyone's sight but their own that she had left the hidden, underground hideout of one the Order's factions in favor of living with him. Safe within the cottages walls, she woke in his arms every morning and went to sleep naked and sated, protected by his large body every night. And a week after her first night getting to stay with him till the morning light, they had gone and gotten married at the muggle church whose history was steeped with war and fued torn lovers seeking its sanctuary for elopement.
Fervently pushing the waistband of his tented joggers down as his hands and mouth continued to work her body into a fevered pitch, Hermione tightened her thighs around him and motioned for him to roll them over. Rubbing herself over his hard length to coat him in her arousal as he finished removing his pants, she leaned over him and desperately kissed his lips, pouring every ounce of her love into him, begging him to always be selfish enough to never question why she had chosen him. All that mattered was that she loved him, that he loved her, and the small life that existed between the two of them that would carry on the proof of their love long after they were gone.
Sitting back as she became breathless, she grasped his thick and long member, pumping her small hand up and down, harending him further as she swiped her thumb over the beads of moisture that were leaking from him. Guiding him to her entrance she held his gaze while she slowly sank down on him, holding her hand over the heart she owned for balance.
Softly moaning as he filled and stretched her, she remained still basking in the feeling of that first intrusion. Desperate to begin moving though, she started to rock forward on him and lift her hips up before coming back down on him with a hard press.
"I love you, Marcus," she whispered. "I love your heart, your mind, your soul. I love your gentle nature, how protective you are of me and now our baby, and how easily you love me."
Crunching up, he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to his chest, while giving her a soul searing kiss in answer. "I love you too, Hermione," he panted, resting his forehead against hers as sweat began to mist their skin.
Rocking against his pelvis with the slow motion of lapping water as he held her close and took over the action of pumping himself in and out of her, any other words of affirmation escaped her. Instead, her vocabulary was replaced with rising moans and whimpers that were swallowed by his soft groans as they brought each other closer to release. Then all at once, the tightening and straining coil within her core sprung loose. She shattered around him, shouting his name before she bit into his shoulder and rode out the waves of her orgasm. His own release followed right after, jerkily painting her walls while she soothed at the small sore she left on him with her tongue.
Collapsing back against the heap of pillows, he held her close. Petting her battle and love matted hair, he remained inside of her for as long as his softening member would allow, kissing oaths of his love for her into her skin.
Tracing idle patterns along his side as her breathing came back down to normal, she looked out at the now bright sun and reflective loch. They would never know real peace if they remained in Britain. Their child, while loved beyond measure, would never know a normal existence. A time could - and most probably would - come when one of them never returned home to the other. She had fought for too many years, willingly sacrificing herself for the cause time and time again and Marcus had spent all the years since her escape, corrupting his morals so that he could rise higher and higher through Voldemort's ranks. His ambition had paid off though, as he now sat two seats down from the monster's right hand, effectively spying for her and the Order, risking his own life to help her dismantle the Death Eaters from the inside.
But he had been right earlier. It was no longer just her. It was no longer just them. In just four and a half months they would have a small life to care for and keep safe. A task they couldn't do if they stayed embroiled in the thick of war. She didn't see it as running scared or abandoning the Order. Rather she saw her thoughts as deciding that something else was more important than a war that cynically they both knew would never really end even if open combat finally ceased.
Her mind finally made up after weighing his urgent plea since she had first cast the spell that revealed her pregnancy, she said, "I think it's time."
Releasing a breath she was sure he had been holding all this time, he responded or rather confessed, "I've already begun relocating the majority of my vault to Gringotts's Sydeny branch; I can have them move the rest as soon as the London branch opens for the day. And since we located your parents in Newcastle at the end of last year, I purchased a small shop and the occompaning flats above it that are next door to their practice and home. I wanted to be sure you had somewhere to call home right away in case you ever said you wanted to leave this all behind and join them."
"Just when I thought I couldn't love you anymore, you go and make me fall deeper into you," she murmured, kissing his shoulder. "How long before you can get us a portkey?"
"Open the drawer."
Doing as he said, she lifted herself from his chest just enough to reach the knob so she could pull it open and look inside the night table. There amongst his usual belongings were five seemingly random pieces of junk that she knew was the key to their escape and subsequent freedom.
Checking the small clock, she counted just shy of three hours before Gringotts opened and said, "If you start packing while I shower, I can have the house packed and our things ready for travel in an hour and a half tops. We can transfer the rest of your galleons from Sydney when we get there and leave now."
Patting her bum, Marcus rolled her off of him and grabbed his wand, already shrinking the furniture in their bedroom. Pulling on his joggers, he said, "You can shower there, little otter. I've wanted you and our kit out of here for months. I'm not waiting a second longer than I have to." Kissing the tip of her nose, he added, "Besides, I kind of like how you smell like toasted marshmallows. Reminds me of my victory over you on the field last night."
AN:
A kit is one of the names given to baby otters
