For dreamsofdramione (Bugggghead).
Happy birthday, dreamsofdramione! I hope this brings a smile (or tears? since it's an angsty mess) to your face, although the best gift already happened about a week before.
Beta/alpha and general idea credit belong to disenchantedglow, and aesthetic credit goes to the talented cnova! Thank you guys for all your help!
All the italics have disappeared, so please insert them freely wherever you will.
but what of what
we call nature's picture
surpassing things we call
since memory
we call nature's picture
surpassing things we've known before
constant change figures
experience
passing on its effect
-Lyn Hejinian
It felt now like it had a year ago, when the walls of the Ministry seemed to press down on her, and the ceiling above seemed hung with Muggle strobe lights rather than softly flickering candlelight.
Like drowning without water.
There were soft urgent whispers all around her as Hermione numbly stumbled down the hall from the lift towards the Department of Magical Law Enforcement on Level 2. Snippets of overheard conversation drifted towards her, as discombobulated as her own head felt.
"...can't imagine how he must feel…"
"So tragic," another voice murmured.
"—must be a curse on the family…"
Nobody spared Hermione a glance as she pushed through the double doors of the Auror Headquarters and made her way past the crowd to stand in front of the large back office. James Potter. Directly underneath that was the word Chief.
She knocked once, cheek close enough to the dark wood panel to see the grain in the pattern. Then again, still feeling as though she were wandering around inside a haze. Nobody was answering. She stood for a moment, stiff with indecision until she saw through the blinds of the office. Completely dark inside. No one was in there. Of course not. He'd be inundated with well-wishers and commiserating visitors otherwise, knee-deep in sympathy and pity.
She'd been in his shoes a year ago.
Only this time, nobody spared Hermione but a cursory glance as she retraced her steps back to her level. In the main hall to her cubicle, she was brought to a halt with a hand on her left arm. By instinct, Hermione looked down; her engagement ring caught the light and flashed with red fire.
She should have taken it off a long time ago.
"Hermione?"
Cressida Cheeseman, the head of the Office of Misinformation and Hermione's direct supervisor, gazed at her with concern.
"Hermione, we've all just heard the news. I'm so sorry. Are you alright?"
Something was tapping on the ice that had formed all around Hermione, and she wrapped her arms around herself to still the shudders. If she didn't hold herself tightly, something would crack and a geyser would spew forth. Nobody needed to see that happen, least of all herself.
When she didn't immediately respond, Cressida looked even more uneasy. "Hermione, take the rest of the day off. It's only two more hours, and…"
Her supervisor drifted off, an action quite unlike her usual rapid-fire mode of speech. A brief burst of hysteria rippled through Hermione; she must look truly dreadful for Cressida to look the way she did, as though at any point Hermione would slide down in a dead faint.
Hermione felt hot all over except for her fingers, which were ice-cold. She closed them tight into a fist and turned her hand away so the ruby glint of her ring no longer faced her. "I'm alright, really," she began to say before she was cut off by Cressida.
"I insist." Cressida had reverted back to her brisk, businesslike tone again, though the worry in her eyes belied her hardness. "Go home. Talk to your parents—friends. Talk to Chief Potter. I reckon he needs it, especially now." She gave Hermione a bracing smile, the supervisor having delivered a command and a pep talk. The conversation was over, her job done.
Hermione wasn't sure why she'd even attempted to gainsay Cressida in the first place. Perhaps she thought the normality of office work would make everything seem like a dream. The steady scritch-scratch of quills against rough parchment and the soft swish-swash of notes and files being shuffled in their places were hypnotic and calming; something she thought she needed right now.
The Atrium was quiet in comparison to the hubbub of Level 2. No one was around when she made her way into an empty Floo, tossed in the powder, fumbled her way in, and called out, "Potter's Hall."
Potter's Hall was the country residence passed down the line by ancient laws of primogeniture. Harry's grandfather had himself been the surviving son who'd had no notion he would become the heir to the property. Evidence of his entrepreneurial spirit was still present on the estate from its thriving lands and meticulous upkeep. New money, the older Purebloods whispered, but money regardless.
Despite the recent influx in the family coffers, however, the manor was cold and dark when Hermione stepped out from the Floo. All was still and silent, and the furniture loomed like ghostly spectres in the dim light cast through cracks in the curtains. Her heart thudded in her chest. If ever there was a sign that Lily Potter was truly gone, it was this gloomy, mourning state of Potter's Hall; yet another life taken too early.
It hadn't looked like this a month ago when she'd attended luncheon with James and Lily Potter, her almost parents-in-law. Though the atmosphere had been stiff and the smiles awkward, they'd all tried their best—Lily had directed most of the conversation, James had tried to conceal that he was drinking rather heavily for midday, and Hermione…
Hermione had tried not to look at the other seat at the table, made the focal point by its very emptiness.
Lily had enlivened the place after the death of Harry's paternal grandparents, and her decorating had brought a mishmash of Muggle items that made the place look eclectic and lively. Owls flew around, krups leaped about the place, and evidence of their various interests and hobbies were scattered liberally around. Despite the three of them rattling about the large manor, it'd been filled with life. The Potters had a wide range of acquaintances, all of whom were always dropping by at odd times and staying for tea or lunch or drinks.
But nothing had been the same after Harry was gone.
"If only we had stayed in Godric's Hollow," Lily said with a sigh over the meal, pushing the salad around on her plate. "This place is far too large for the two of us."
James' lips tightened, though he didn't say a word. He simply lifted his glass to his lips and took a long sip that emptied the contents.
On Hermione's other side, Lily exhaled sharply and with deep displeasure before turning to Hermione with a determined smile. "Hermione, you sure you wouldn't want to move in here? We wouldn't even charge you rent." The joke couldn't quite hide the hopefulness in her voice. "I'm not around much."
"Not at all, in fact." James' eyes were cold as he stared at Lily's profile before deliberately dropping away.
Hermione couldn't help but remember when she'd been in school. Then, the Potters had seemed like the perfect couple, always smiling and holding hands. She recalled especially that summer after third year when she'd run into Lily Potter in Flourish & Botts.
She'd recognised Harry Potter's mother, of course, and had frozen midstep at the sight of the beautiful older woman, who had the athletic figure of someone who regularly flew on brooms.
Lily smiled warmly at her, her eyes alighting on Hermione's hair before drifting down to the books in her basket, taking quick inventory of the contents. "Hermione Granger, right? I've heard about you from Harry and Cormac."
At the mention of two boys that Hermione would rather did not exist at all , she stiffened.
"Oh, please don't misunderstand," Harry's mother said hastily, green eyes going wide. She put out a hand as though to stop Hermione from backing away and running off. "I can read between the lines as well as any girl, and I wanted to apologise if Harry's been making your life hell."
It wasn't often Hermione encountered an older woman who'd use curse words in front of fifteen year olds. It made her shoulders relax at once. "You know," Lily went on with a conspiratorial smile. "My husband was a right git to me all throughout school. I don't know if that's supposed to make you feel better or worse, actually." Then at the sight of someone from behind her, Lily paused, her smile growing. "There's the git now."
Someone who looked the mirror image of Harry Potter, except taller and older, came striding up to them, slinging an arm over Lily's shoulders.
"Look who it is." Lily was looking at who was clearly Harry's father, speaking with a strange emphasis that made Hermione feel as though there were an inside joke running in the Potter household that involved her. "It's Hermione Granger."
That introduction made Harry's father's eyebrows jump up on his forehead. He pushed his glasses up the same patrician nose as his son's and ran a hand through his hair, which was perhaps supposed to make it tamer but instead made the sides stick out even crazier than before. "Wh— oh. Hermione Granger. So this is the girl that Harry's been yapping about, eh? Give him hell, then." When Lily elbowed him in the side in a move so obvious that anyone standing around would see, he shrugged and looked to his wife. "Well, you didn't make it easy for me, and I had an even more obvious fixation with you."
Hermione's cheeks flamed, and she gripped the handle of her basket even tighter than before. "He's not—Harry doesn't—"
"I agree." Lily patted her on the shoulder in a manner that made her seem more like an older sister than the mother of her classmate. "Give him hell."
Hermione had watched as the Potters had turned around to leave, with Harry's father clearly having said something that made his wife giggle and shove him playfully. Fifteen years into their marriage, and they'd still been madly in love.
There had been no evidence of that love the last time she'd dined with them. Perhaps it'd just been a fight that broke out shortly before her visit, rendering it the most awkward luncheon she'd ever experienced. Except that it'd been the same a month ago, and the same before that. Perhaps it'd been in evidence even when she'd been engaged to Harry, but her own blissful rose-tinted clouds had obscured her from the truth.
Perhaps only bitterness could remove the blinders.
The front hall was dark, and Hermione lit her wand as she stepped out of the fireplace. All was silent and still around her. Despite the unseasonal warmth of the day, all the windows were closed and shuttered, and not a fire was going. Outside, it'd been bright with April sunshine, but in here it was chilly and tomblike, everything already in a state of mourning.
Hermione tilted her head to the side and listened. Had she perhaps miscalculated? Maybe James Potter wasn't at home. After news like today, surely he'd be with... people.
She heard a loud thump somewhere in the house, and then the unmistakable sound of a muffled curse. She inhaled sharply and moved to her right. James' study.
"James?" she called. Her voice echoed throughout the house. "It's—it's Hermione."
At the doorway of the study, a tall figure lurched into view, limned in yellow light from the room behind him. The edge of his glasses glinted in the candlelight, and Hermione wet her lips. Nobody could mistake Harry for his father in broad daylight, but here in the darkness, they looked almost like the same person. The same height, the same broad shoulders, the same narrow waist. She was suddenly wracked with a surge of longing so strong she almost gasped with the force of it rippling through her body.
Harry.
Harry.
Harry, why did you do it?
"'Mione?" James' voice was uncertain, his hands braced on the doorframe around him. She could see him gazing out in the darkness and finding the pinprick of light from her wand. "Wh-what are you doin' here?"
There was a strong hint of boskiness about him that increased as she stepped into the light spilling from the study—the slightly slower, looser way about him, and how his eyes stayed fixed on her for much longer than usual.
She wrung her hands under his frowning regard. "I heard the news about Lily. I had to come." She rushed into speech. "I'm so sorry, James. I...couldn't they save her?"
"Well," James said finally. He gave a short stuttered laugh, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. It sat there slightly askew, giving him a completely different demeanour than the brisk, professional chief he appeared at work. "I'm certain they tried with the pieces they found."
It wasn't funny, not at all, but Aurors were like that—they had to make jokes about the horrors they saw. She'd heard numerous such quips from Harry.
Again that startling resemblance that made her ache from the gaping hole within.
Get a grip on yourself.
Hermione shook herself firmly. "Where's—where's everyone?" She gulped. "Where's Sirius?"
James ran a hand through his hair, gesturing with his other hand. There was a glass in it that she hadn't noticed before. "You know Sirius. He comes and goes as he pleases."
Hermione's head swung from side to side in dismay. "You shouldn't be alone."
She immediately wished she could retract her words. Perhaps it was the closed atmosphere of the house making her feel as though she were sleepwalking through a haze of yellowish smoke, but she couldn't take her eyes off Harry's father. Harry's father, she reminded herself. He looked so much like his son Hermione almost felt she were seeing a ghost. In the candlelight, the flickering light danced off his frame and glanced off the lines that marked James Potter a generation older.
She'd never seen James Potter so disheveled before, with his shirt half-undone. The sight of his partially exposed chest seemed immensely intimate, something that only a person who knew him thoroughly would ever have opportunity to see.
It made her realise how long it'd been since she last saw any man like this, half-undressed and loose-limbed, and her stomach clenched hard. Her insides had never felt so empty and yet so full of yearning at the same time.
He looked so much like Harry.
Without the ever-ready smiles, James Potter looked just like Harry as he had been, focused and intense, involved in his investigations and coming home to fall into her worried arms. What if I never catch who's behind this? Harry had asked her, pulling his tie over his head and looking exhausted.
I'll help you. We'll stay up and go over your notes. You know if there's one thing I'm good at doing, it's—
Reading between the lines, yes. He'd laughed finally, the disquiet melting off his face as he leaned down for a kiss and shrugged off his cloak at the same time. His clothes hanging off one hand, he'd curved a palm around her face and deepened the kiss, his tongue glancing off hers. Well now, I think I've another idea for helping me with my case…
His hips canted forward, and she inhaled at the hardness digging into her middle, insistently nudging her and requesting her attention. Harry, you haven't even eaten, have you? she asked, pulling away.
A breathless laugh that brushed her on her clavicle as he dipped his head. Was that an offer?
Harry! she gasped on an answering laugh as he reached for her again. Oh, Harry…
"I'd rather be alone." James' caustic words cut into her thoughts. He pushed off the doorframe and turned back into the room. When Hermione hesitated outside, he half-turned his face, so that all she could see was the light glinting off his glass lens. "Coming in?"
"But—"
"Not you, Hermione." She could see his face better now. His eyes creased easily into laugh lines, the signature expression of a man who'd always led a charmed life until now. Even when he had nothing to laugh about. "I don't have to keep up a front with you." There was a world of meaning in his words.
Hermione swallowed and followed when he motioned her in. Her stomach felt extraordinarily heavy, but her heart—her heart had picked up the pace, and anticipation and curiosity bubbled up within her.
"Since you already knew it wasn't going well between us." James grimaced, throwing himself into an armchair next to the glowing fireplace. "Apologies for not leaping to fix you a drink. As you can see, I've started without you." He raised his glass and toasted her. "But I s'pose that's what magic's for, eh?" With a lazy gesture of his wand, the drink cart slid to him. "What's your poison tonight? Vodka cranberry as usual?"
He was moving without his usual quick energy, his every movement languid and unhurried. She'd never paid much attention to James Potter before, or at least not in this way, but today of all inappropriate days, every action of his was making her mouth go dry. Maybe it was that in the darkness, all cats were grey. He looked so much like Harry, and she couldn't help stare at the sight of a disheveled man, an aroused man, a man who could make her loins clench with remembered heat.
Hermione closed her eyes momentarily and shook her head.
She was confusing him with Harry, and that was simply unforgivable.
It was only that, what do you do when you had no closure? When sometimes you woke up alone with a sleepy smile, only to turn to the side to reach for a man who no longer existed? When his last words to you had been full of determination and passion and life? There'd been no talk of death or goodbyes. See you in a few days, love you, miss you.
Lies.
She needed closure on so many different levels it was still eating her up inside more than a year later.
Hermione moved forward and sat down in the armchair adjacent to James' seat. "Firewhiskey tonight, I think," she said. "I need to catch up."
An eyebrow raised, another slight smile that was more pained than amused, a practised flick of his wand, and a tumbler of golden liquid floated over to her with a stabilising charm attached to keep the drink from spilling.
"Cheers." She gripped the cool glass in her hand and half-heartedly held it up. What would they drink to? Hermione being a fool? They'd need a vat, not this paltry three fingers of alcohol.
James clearly had thoughts about that.
"To being free." The note of irony was heavy in his voice. He finished off the contents of his glass and exhaled deeply. A hand lifted, and two fingers swiped the side of his lips as he grinned at her, a white smile that emphasised his square chin and strong jaw liberally covered with stubble.
Harry had been like that too. Five o'clock shadow by midday. Until he'd simply given up shaving in his last year in the Auror office.
She still remembered the rasp of it on the insides of her thighs. Giggling and trying to pull away as he rubbed his face against her sensitive skin. A beard was so much better than stubble, she'd said. I'll show you how much better, he growled against her.
She was flushing from more than the heat in this room. Somehow the faces were fusing in her memory. Had the person in her life been Harry or James? Why did they look so much alike?
The Firewhiskey burned its way down her throat. She winced, but a glow began to emanate from her insides, spreading outwards from her stomach. "You know, this isn't that bad."
James laughed, his head tilted back and supported by the high back of his armchair. "Y'see? Everyone else thinks I've started mourning. 'S why I'm apparently not even in today. But the truth is that I'm just bloody tired of pretending." His wand dangled in his left hand, and she could see a white line where his wedding band used to be.
She knew exactly what he was talking about. Perhaps it was time she also moved on. She wagged her glass at him. "Another."
Another flash of teeth, another flick of his wand, this time loosely clasped between his third and fourth fingers as his arm lay on the armrest, palm-up. Her glass was topped up without a single spill.
"Now that's just showing off," she said, lifting the glass up to her lips.
"Uh-uh." He stopped her with a wave and finished pouring his own. "What's this one to? Ah, I know. To being cheated on. We're a couple of fools."
Hermione froze. Her eyes flashed up to his sympathetic, knowing gaze.
"You knew, right?" James paused in the middle of drinking, his voice soft and rumbling in his chest. "I...In these past few months, I started to think that you suspected."
She swallowed through the lump in her throat and lowered the glass in her hand to her lap. Balancing it on top of her legs to prevent it from spilling. Her hands were too shaky all of a sudden. She couldn't be trusted now with a Lumos, much less a complicated, fancy spell like he'd just tried to show off with his left hand.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I thought—Christ, I'm sorry." James set down his own drink and pushed to his feet. In another second, he was squatting next to her in the chair, a lightly clenched fist resting on top of her knee. "Hermione, look at me."
Probably in case she spilled this very expensive Firewhiskey, she thought hysterically. She couldn't look at him. Couldn't look at anyone right this second.
Until she did and met his gaze. Warm, brown, compassionate eyes. Honest eyes.
No, James didn't look like Harry at all. James hadn't cheated on his almost-spouse.
Her fingers were so tight around the glass, she thought it would shatter. She hoped it would shatter in her hands, shards of glass imbedded into her hands just to show Harry…
Except he wasn't even there anymore.
How do you get revenge on a man who was dead? Scream and yell and cry over his grave?
She'd done that already, for all the flipping use it'd been.
"I'm sorry," James said again, his voice pitched even lower. His hand moved higher on her thigh, fingers glancing off the side of the glass, which was shaking as she was. "Don't—oh fuck, don't cry."
"I'm not crying." She sputtered out the words and gave lie to them. "I'm not. He—tell me the truth, James. You've avoided telling me for so long, but as they're both gone now—How long was it going on?"
James couldn't have been comfortable like he was, squatting down next to her feet, one large hand holding the glass by covering up the top and his other hand caging her into the armchair by gripping the armrest on her other side, but he didn't move. He stayed perfectly balanced, a furrow between his brows, his glasses sliding down his nose as he thought, clearly trying to parse through an edited version to tell her.
He didn't speak immediately, looking down as he lifted the glass from her lap and set it down on the floor next to the chair. "Six months," he said finally, after she thought he'd never tell her. "How did you find out?"
"They had to tell me." Her lips felt cracked and cold around the words. "He'd contracted Fungular Flu, and they wanted to know if I had it too. Apparently—apparently it's transmitted sexually."
"Ah." His throat bobbed with the single word, and his chest rose and fell as he inhaled. Her knees were warm from his presence, which was good, since she felt as though she were cold from the inside out. "It—wouldn't have lasted, I'm sure. Between them, I mean."
She laughed, the sound coming out harsh and jagged. "Are you? Sure, I mean? Because…" She almost couldn't get out the words. "He gave her jewelry. Harry's not—he wasn't a jewelry person. It clearly meant something."
She gazed down at her hand, scant inches from James' knuckles. When had he taken his wedding ring off? He'd done it fast enough. Probably hurled it into the fireplace. How had he been able to when she'd kept the engagement ring on, long after Harry's death, long after she'd found out about his perfidy?
James didn't speak, and that in itself was a kind of tell. She laughed again, the sound infused with bitterness. "He was going to break it off with me when he came back, wasn't he? I know he was."
"Hermione…" A heavy sigh. His hand, minus that wedding band, came to cover hers, shielding that red, red stone from view. As though it could cover up the utmost betrayal his son had wrought on her.
"No, you know what? Fuck 'em." She shook off his hand. "Fuck him. " She leaned down and started to pick up the glass where he'd put it.
James was much too close, and her head came down and bumped his shoulder as she fumbled for the glass. "Look, could you get out of the way?"
"You were too good for him." His other hand gripped her knee in a bracing, paternal way, as though trying to infuse her with strength and confidence—of all which had been completely shot to pieces by someone she'd trusted with all of her heart. "You know that, right? He was my son, and fuck, I miss him so much, but he shouldn't have…" He sighed. "'I'm sorry' sounds so inadequate, but they're all I have."
"I'm sorry too, James." The glass came up, spilling over her hand and wrist, but she managed to lick her arm before the liquid reached her sleeve. She gazed down at him and froze when she caught his eyes fixed on her mouth. "I'm sorry that… Anyway, I didn't come over to talk about him— I was here to ask you about…about Lily."
Hermione dragged in a breath and even managed a small smile as she sought to separate her own problems from what had happened earlier this week. What had been all over the news when she'd gone in to work.
His lips pulled outward at the corners. If she didn't know better, she would have mistaken that for a smile, so easily did his dimples indent his cheeks. "There's nothing to say. Lily had…she'd moved on long before her untimely end in his potions lab. Christ, I hope he's miserable, that oily fuck. He got what he wanted, in the end." A bitter laugh. His hand hadn't moved from her knee.
The room felt extremely warm and close.
"I'm sorry your marriage was falling apart," she said, her voice sounding husky and thick.
His eyes didn't lift from her lips. "All this time, ever since I was in school, I'd been fixated on one woman." His lashes lifted, and he met her gaze. He was heavy-lidded, probably more than a bit drunk, and there was a slightly predatory glint in his eyes that should have alarmed her.
It didn't. Her thighs clenched, and she eyed his hand, a large, wide hand with long, sensitive fingers. It flexed on top of her thigh, squeezed. She swallowed, a pool of heat spreading from her core. Her breasts rose to peaks, and she squeezed her thighs together.
Trapping his hand.
His kneading movements froze, and he tore his eyes away from her face. "Sorry," he said. "Fuck—I...I forgot myself."
He tried to remove his hand, but Hermione's fingers clapped over his knuckles. "It's fine." She looked up.
He was staring back at her, his tongue flashing out to lick his lips. "It was a mistake." His hand slid up, his thumb now resting in the notch where her thigh joined her hip.
"I forgive you," she said, her own fingers tracing the veins on the back of his hand. "And I agree—I need to get out there and do the same."
Forget myself.
His thumb continued to rub the line of her pelvis, her hand over his as though to stop him or guide him. She stared at his hand, at the veins that flexed as he moved.
Then his finger slid down and skimmed over the fabric over her mound, and Hermione let out a whimper. His eyes glinted behind his glasses. "God, you're so fucking sexy. Why did he do it? I could never understand it." His hand squeezed her thigh so hard that it was going to leave bruises tomorrow. Her legs sagged apart, an open invitation for him to touch her right where it'd been aching for much too long. "I shouldn't...I really shouldn't…" he started to say.
Only to break off when she gripped him by his shirtfront and pulled him down.
He was totally caught off balance and would have fallen on her if not for his reflexes. He caught himself on the back of the armchair and the side, bracing himself over her, sending a whiff of Firewhiskey, mint juleps, and the leather of the Auror uniform washing over her. Hermione's eyes drifted closed on the last, familiar scent. She hadn't smelled that in so long.
"Don't go," she said. Her hand flattened on his chest as he stood above her as still as a statue, then slid upwards and touched the bare skin of his neck. Heat. Warmth. Alive. Here.
He started to lean down at the touch of her fingers. His breath glanced over her cheek as he spoke at a whisper. "You sure?"
"I'm sure." Her hand entangled in the hair at the back of his head and pulled him down, down, down.
Hot breath grazed her lips before he kissed her. It was soft and gentle, and Hermione's eyes flashed open. "Not like that." She shook her head. "Like you want this. Like you want me."
He gave a short laugh. "Do you know how long it's been since I've been with a woman?" he asked. "Trust me, I've been eyeing you much longer than I should have." His fingers danced along the side of her neck, making her shiver and shake as she'd only been doing in her fantasies recently. "It's been—completely inappropriate of me..."
Her eyelids began to lower, cutting everything from sight; her other hand came up to loop around his neck. He gently removed the glass from her hand. A moment later, she heard a crash as he dropped it off the back of the armchair. A hand cupped her jaw, tilting up her head to high she almost surged off the chair. His thumb brushed her bottom lip as they kissed even as his other hand pulled down the collar of her shirt.
She heard the pop of threads breaking, and then a warm palm cupped her aching breast. She moaned and bit down on his thumb to release the tension building up in her.
"Fuck," he said, rising up over her to brace himself with one hand next to her head. His other hand reached down to adjust himself, and she followed his motions with dazed eyes, her hand lifting up somnolently to trace the hard ridge of his erection tenting his trousers.
She surprised a strangled sound from him, and he fell on his elbow next to her head against the back of the chair. He was breathing heavily, his warm hand covering hers to remove it. "Not yet—let's…let's save that."
When she made a mew of protest, his hand tightened briefly over hers. "On the other hand, why not?" A pained chuckle, and he was guiding her hand to the placket where she unbuttoned his trousers, brushing against his hardness as he knelt completely still against her, pressing her into the back of the armchair.
His cock sprang free, glorious and unencumbered, thick and ridged with veins in a way she'd missed, and she gripped him at the base of the hot shaft. Faintly she heard him make a guttural sound deep in his throat, but she was blind and deaf to everything but this, something for which she'd been aching for far too long—one last kiss, one last embrace, one last goodbye.
Closure.
That was what this was. That was all.
She stroked him slowly, relishing the way his breath came and went, pulling his foreskin along the length and marveling at the differences from Harry. Uncircumcised, then, like most Pureblood wizards, and she leaned forward to taste the dark red plum head, licking her tongue right over the seeping slit, dimly aware of his hand curling into her hair, fisting her curls.
She sucked his head into her mouth, relishing the salty precum and the smooth, satiny texture she'd almost forgotten, so long had it been. He was smoothing the hair from her forehead, her temples, pulling her bushy name into a ponytail in one hand so he could see her open her mouth to its fullest. To swallow his cock down her throat as she'd used to do for his son.
His hand reached down her torn blouse to play with her breast, to pull down her bra and pluck almost absently at her nipple so that it sent tingles all the way down her to her core. Her thighs sagged further apart, and she pulled at her own shirt, shrugging it down her shoulders, reaching back to release the clasp to her bra without releasing him from her mouth.
"Bloody hell," he said, panting. His hips retracted; he pulled back, almost reluctantly going by the way his fingers lingered at her jaw. "My turn."
She'd thought he'd be fast and desperate, going by how ragged his voice got after all she did was touch him. She wanted it fast and desperate so that she wouldn't have time to think, to reflect, to regret.
He rose from the armchair, removing his knee from between her thighs, pulling her up by her hands, clasping their fingers together as though this were supposed to mean something.
She almost cried, because once something this intimate had meant something to her.
She didn't, though.
No more tears for the undeserved.
Just steadfastly closed her eyes as he kissed her, harder, thoroughly, like a desperate man drinking from a well. Holding her upright by the fingers as he kissed her so hard that she was leaning backwards. A thigh between her legs as his hands left hers to roam across her back, pulling her blouse from her waistband, and then it was hard, warm fingers across her heated flesh—hands so masculine and large and different from hers and yet not so different from that other pair she'd known so intimately.
They stroked her from hip to shoulder blade, and then pulled at the waistband of her trousers, sinking in to cup and squeeze and bite into her arse in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.
It was going to happen.
She'd wanted it to happen, planned for it. Wasn't that why she was here? Wasn't that why she hadn't left when she'd seen how disheveled and drunk he was? All alone and looking so much like Harry?
And yet not entirely like Harry. James was still wearing his holster, and it was on the wrong side. She pulled at it, and he obligingly tugged it off without breaking off contact with her mouth. His shirt was open, and she could see a mat of hair on his chest and scars—but the scars were all wrong—there were more of them and Hermione didn't know their stories. He was thicker than Harry, more broadly built, and when he held her to him to ride his thigh, she was aware of other things, of sweat and Firewhiskey, of the hardness digging into her leg.
His hand had found the fastening to her trousers and was stroking her between her legs, and all those other thoughts were vanishing, dimming, growing fainter and weaker with every touch of his experienced fingers. They had found her nubbin and were circling surely and sending her into a frenzy. She was sucking on his tongue, huffing in time to that slow, wet sound of his fingers against her lower lips, and then he found her entrance and was sinking into her, one long finger. She gasped, gripped his hair and pulled so hard he winced against her mouth. Then two, then three, and she was riding hard on his fingers, rubbing herself against his digits as that other hardness pulsed against her leg.
She whimpered and moaned against his neck as the first waves of ecstasy crashed over her and she continued to pump herself on his hand, but it wasn't enough, never enough for a woman who had been unloved for this long. She tore his shirt off him, scoring her fingernails over his hard chest and erect nipples. She found her new position on top of his weeping cock, lined him up against her hole and sank down on his length with a sigh that seemed to come from the very top of her toes. He was inside her, filling a gap that had been wanting for so long, and she rode him hard, her inner muscles pulling and contracting around him, lifting off and coming back down in a way that had him hiss out his breaths. Her knee was around his waist, and they were no longer kissing but staring at one another in this frenzied dance. He palmed her breast, gripped it hard as he lipped her nipple and looked up through his lashes at her.
His glasses were fogged, but this close up, there was no denying the faint ray of lines from the corner of his eyes, the sprinkle of grey at his temples, and his brown, brown eyes.
They were fucking as two people should never do, his cock was somewhere that Harry's father should never put it, and she had asked for this. Wanted it. Wanted his hands on her pussy to make her come, wanted his teeth on her breast, wanted to hear that grunt he made when he bottomed out inside her.
Harry.
Harry, look what you've made me do.
I hope you're watching this, you bastard.
James gave a shout as he came, his fingers digging into her hips and arse so hard she'd have marks for days. His cock twitched inside her, and his abs tightened against her as he came, spurting hot seed into her womb so that it ran down her thigh and she could smell the musk in the air.
They pulled apart, her skin rapidly cooling where they'd been touching. Her nipples were cold where he'd sucked on them, and her back was chilly with sweat. He pulled at his half-hard cock, wet and glistening with her juices, his trousers around his buttocks.
She blushed at her complete nudity, and turned her head, letting her hair mercifully covering her face as she searched the room for her clothes.
After a moment, she heard him pull up his trousers and the unmistakable sound of things flying around the room from his magic.
Not a moment too soon.
The whoosh of the Floo could be heard from here, especially when they were being so awkward and silent.
They stared at each other in dismay, and then both leaped to finish dressing. Hermione took out her wand and began erasing all signs of their lovemaking.
Soon there was nothing in the room that could have cast suspicion on what illicit activities had gone before, except for the throbbing tenderness between her legs that made her feel as though she could have gone ten more rounds and not been entirely satiated.
That and the smell of sex that pervaded the room.
She was opening the windows before the thought had completely sunk in, casting a siphoning spell that pulled all the air out of the room with a force that made her squint and brace herself against the vacuum.
"Oi, Prongs!" came the shout.
Sirius.
Hermione's eyes were as wide as James', but he made a motion for her to wait , to calm down. "In here. In the library. Hermione's got here before you though."
She winced; she'd wanted to leave before Sirius saw her, but too late now. James noticed her expression, and his face crinkled up into something that looked vaguely like an apology—he was new at this too.
There was nothing for it but to stick it out.
"I'll get rid of him," James said in a low voice to Hermione, soft and urgent. "Stay. Please."
She had planned to make her getaway and scrub this all from her mind. It was something that should never have happened, something that should never happen again, and it was so conveniently explained away as well—they'd both been drunk and grieving, even if her grief had been mostly in the form of that gut-wrenching kick of betrayal that had taken too long to be addressed.
If she stayed, it was taking them beyond excuses, something outside of morality and forgiveness, and yet who were they hurting by all this?
No one; they'd been the gullible idiots.
That rebelliousness that had seen her through until now was sitting up, raring to go. That little devil inside Hermione was irritated—but only at Sirius for interrupting them. That empty spot inside her wasn't yet satisfied and still wanted more of that thick cock that promised to do away with the past.
Footsteps sounded down the hall; James was still looking intently at her, a pulse ticking at his temple as he waited for her response, a light of vulnerability and resignation as his face began to fall. He clearly expected her to refuse.
"Well, you've all started drinking without me, and that's simply unforgivable," said the voice of Sirius Black behind Hermione.
Hermione caught James' eye and gave one single, short nod. I'll wait.
And she silently closed the doors on all her inhibitions and regrets. On the past that had been.
Just before James turned to address Sirius, she watched as his lips curved upward in tacit acceptance of her silent signal.