Hermione wrinkled her nose as she watched Tom practice the contraceptive spells over and over again. He was muttering to himself and consulting the handout from the infirmary and had been driving her insane with this nonsense all afternoon. On what must have been the 394th iteration of the spell she finally said, "Could you stop it? Why are you being so obsessive about this anyway?"
Tom turned to look at her and, pouting, said, "I don't want to get pregnant, Hermione. A man needs to take responsibility for his own birth control."
She blinked a few times. "You don't want to get pregnant?" she said at last. "Do you understand how human reproduction works?"
"I'm not human, I'm a Veela," he muttered sullenly. "Things are different."
"Still," she said.
"Did you even read Our Bodies, Our Veelas?" he demanded.
Hermione narrowed her eyes. She had not, she had to admit, opened the Veela sexuality book Tom kept leaving out. The cover was pink and the title was written in an annoyingly flowery script and there was a drawing of an absurdly wholesome – and weirdly desexualized – Veela on the cover who smiled out in a way that bared a few too many teeth. His wings looked more like something you'd find on a child's colorful drawing of a Pegasus and a bit less like the black temptations to sin that Tom periodically grew.
"Oh, you – " Tom huffed. "Would you read it?"
With a sigh Hermione pulled the book off the desk and opened it to the chapter listing.
Your Identity as a Veela
Relating to your Mate
Veela Sexuality
Sexual Health and Reproductive Choices
Male Veela Pregnancy
She stopped reading. Male the what now? She looked up at Tom.
"See," he said.
"Weird," she said. "You keep practicing that charm because no."
"Exactly," he said.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione pulled the paper off the book she'd ordered with such glee that Tom glanced up from his Big Book of World Domination. "What's that?" he asked, reaching his arms overhead to stretch for a moment. Setting up a detailed project plan to take over the Ministry could give a man a sore neck. "Don't suppose I could get you to rub my shoulders," he said.
Hermione snorted and waved her new book at him. "BDSM for Dummies," he read. "What's that?"
"Just an idea I had," she said.
"Tell me," he said.
"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped. "I need to read this and make an outline and take notes in three different colors as well as add post-it notes to particularly interesting pages."
"Post-it notes?"
"Merlin, sometimes coming back into the past is like I left all of civilization behind. Yes, Tom, Post-it notes. Don't bother your pretty little head about it."
He made a harrumphing noise.
"And where are my strawberries," she said. "How can I make a project plan of my own about the kinky sex we'll be having without fruit to hand?"
Tom let his head fall to the desk with a thump.
. . . . . . . . . .
"So," Tom said, frowning at Hermione, "Grindelwald."
"Yes?" she said, sucking on a chocolate covered strawberry.
He tried not to be distracted by her mouth and tongue around the ripe fruit. "I should kill him."
"Only if you want the Elder Wand," she said, dropping the stem into the bin and taking another berry from the basket Tom had offered her.
He leaned back and watched her, ripping a piece of paper into smaller and smaller bits. "I rather do," he said, tearing and tearing and tearing.
She licked the chocolate off her fingers and dropped another strawberry stem into the trash. "Any timeline on that?"
"I was thinking next weekend," he said. "Pop over via illegal portkey, kill him in his sleep, come back."
"Simple, but I like it," she said, taking another strawberry. "Try not to die. I've gotten used to you and I'd miss this fruit."
Tom ripped the paper in his hands a little more viciously.
"Why are you doing that, anyway?" she asked.
"I don't know," he admitted. "It's just soothing. And don't worry, I can't die. Horcruxes, remember?"
"Oh, yeah," she said. "You're an evil Dark wizard. It's easy to forget."
"Bitch," he muttered.
She shrugged. "Bring me Grindelwald's head on a platter and maybe I'll start taking you seriously."
"You really want his head?" Tom made a face.
"It's just an expression," she said with a sigh. "The wand'll be plenty of proof you offed the man."
. . . . . . . . . .
Hermione walked into Tom's room and stopped short. He was glowering and posturing at himself in the mirror.
She popped a raspberry in her mouth and watched him expand his wings and then make a weird hissing noise at himself when his reflection did the same thing. Finally she said, snickering, "Having fun, Bird Boy?"
He spun around and turned bright red.
"Sometimes the instincts are really strong," he muttered.
"Uh huh," she said. "Put those wings away and go get me more fruit just in case you die this weekend on your Grindelwald adventure. I'm almost out."
. . . . . . . . . .
It was meeting time again. Tom, Abraxas, and Thoros sat around the table in the Slytherin common room, having driven the rest of the students away with a few well placed snarls, and they were working on the plan to go and get the Philosopher's Stone. Planning was going reasonably well; no one ever expects three schoolboys to show up and rain down death and destruction so they were fairly sure they would have surprise on their side. Thoros had convinced the kitchen elves to send up a snack tray and they'd all been helping themselves to the little starters as they refined their plan.
At one point, however, Tom realized Abraxas was staring at him.
"What?" he asked.
Abraxas looked at the small pile of bacon wrapped asparagus on the floor. "Am I to assume you don't care for those?" he asked.
"Huh?" Tom said.
"You've been pushing them off the plate and to the floor." Abraxas frowned. "Is this one of your bird things? Or is it a raised in an orphanage thing? Because most of us just don't take the things we don't like."
"Oh, sod off," Tom muttered.
. . . . . . . . . .
"So," Tom leaned back against the headboard and put on what he hoped was a seductive smile. He'd stripped off his neat uniform shirt and knew the way the undershirt clung to him torso was a sight most women, including his mate, found physically appealing. "Before I head off to go kill the rival Dark Lord on the continent, setting myself up to be the uncontested source for all magical evil, I don't suppose we could have sex for luck."
"Luck?" Hermione put down her bowl of cherries and made a face. "I'm not sure 'luck' is a word I'd apply to our sex life. Don't you think it would be safer for me to just blow you or something? That never seems to go wrong."
"I don't want to sound ungrateful," Tom said, "because your skill with your mouth is really impressive, but I'm getting a tad frustrated we haven't managed to have vaginal intercourse yet. I mean, we've tried –"
"Sporadically."
" – for months and it's just one interruption after another." He smiled as sweetly as he could. "I'm sure this will be the time it will all work out."
"You're sure of that, huh?" Hermione said, spitting out a pit and dropping it into her bowl.
"We'll make sure the window's shut to keep your cat out," Tom said. "No fire. We'll ward the room so no one can get in. I'll do the contraceptive charm multiple times just to be sure. What could –"
"Don't say it!" Hermione yelped.
Tom stopped talking and considered the bad luck that had dogged them and admitted to himself that saying, "What could possibly go wrong" might be just asking for something else really weird to happen.
"Just… do the charm, bird boy," Hermione said, "And I'll do mine. No babies."
It was, Tom thought, almost funny how awkward it was to kiss her when he could feel her emotions. The way they were both braced against any catastrophe, however, made, the entire encounter unusually tense. She wasn't thinking about fluffy bunnies or unicorns, which was a relief, but she wasn't thinking about violence either. The main tenor of her thoughts was nervous anticipation of disaster and that was about as sexy as a final exam.
Maybe less.
Tom pulled away from her and frowned. "This isn't working," he muttered.
"I know," Hermione slouched against the headboard. "And the sex thing had the potential to be the only really good thing about this whole Veela disaster."
"Fruit," he reminded her, bringing a slightly wry smile to her face.
"Oh yes," she said. "Traveling back in time, being separated from everyone I ever cared about, and being magically bound to a budding Dark Lord really is totally offset by fruit."
"And you get to rule the world?" he added in a hopeful tone of voice. The waves of depression roiling off of her made any hope of sex wilt. He sighed and pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't pull you back here, if it's any consolation, and I wasn't thrilled either."
She sighed and leaned her head against his chest. "I do like you," she admitted. "Love you, even. I shouldn't, of course. You're evil and a tad absurd but I don't think I can help it."
"Magical bonds," he said.
"Yeah," she said. "And the wings are pretty beautiful."
He tightened his grip on her. A sad mate was just about the worst thing in the world. "I'd do anything to cheer you up," he whispered into her hair. "Have Abraxas sing? Fetch you fruit? Kill people who annoy you? Name it and it's yours."
That, at least, made her giggle. "You have the funniest ideas of good pick-me-ups," she said. "I mean, I'd pay money to avoid Abraxas' singing."
He nuzzled her at that. "Maybe we forget about sex and all the disasters that come with it?" he suggested. "Just… kissing?"
"I could do that," she said, turning her face up to his.
Tom settled to the task of exploring his mate's lips. Soft and tasting of cherries and chocolate and, he thought, maybe a bit of coffee. He worked his way around her mouth with a gentleness that was unusual for the pair of them and, when she began to relax against him he turned his attention to her neck, licking and nibbling as they both slid down until they were snuggled together, his mouth at her neck, her fingers twisting his shirt around and around. "I do love you," he said softly. "Probably just because you're mine –"
"You are so bad at sweet nothings," she said but, he thought, she sounded – and felt – more amused than upset.
"But you are mine and always will be so I'm not sure that matters," he continued. He tugged at her shirt. "May I?"
She nodded and he began unbuttoning the blouse, kissing her skin as each additional inch was revealed. She arched her back up so he could unfasten her bra and then shrugged out of both the shirt and undergarment. He lay his cheek down against her stomach and just reveled in the feel of her for a moment.
"You too," she said, her fingers at the hem of his t-shirt. He could feel himself almost coo at that and he pushed himself up so she could pull his shirt over his head. She tossed it to the side and ran a hand over him. "You really are so beautiful," she said. "Just… sculpted."
He pressed his mouth to the under curve of one breast and murmured, "You're pretty beautiful yourself, love. I can't believe the perfection of you." He took one nipple into his mouth and began to lightly suck on it as she gasped and pressed herself against him. The depression she'd felt earlier had fled in the face of his distraction and he felt a certain male smugness she picked up.
"You think so highly of yourself," she muttered.
He slid one hand down along her stomach, his mouth still on her nipple, his tongue flicking back and forth across the sensitive flesh, and responded just by letting his fingers creep below her waistband and into her knickers. The way she squirmed against his questing hand suggested she thought well of him also. His smugness increased.
"Brat," she muttered.
He picked his head up. "I could stop?" he suggested.
"Don't you dare," she said. He laughed as she began flicking mental images of herself knifing him.
"Tease," he whispered, turning his attention to her other nipple even as his fingers continued to slide back and forth across her.
She rewarded him with an avalanche of increasingly violent images and he could feel himself begin to ache with the need to, for the love of all the founders, actually be inside her. Just once. Nothing had happened. The door was locked. It would be fine, right?
He looked up at her and she bit her lip and nodded and he frantically undid his trousers and kicked them aside while she wriggled out of the rest of her clothes. She slid beneath the covers of his bed – their bed – and he pulled himself under them as well. She licked her lips and looked at him and he began to kiss lower and lower down her body, licking at her torso, then the line where her hip curved inwards, and finally he'd inched his way down to lap at her.
She purred and keened and gasped and, when he considered it a good job, he began to drag himself back up the bed.
She suddenly shrieked and began to flail and scream and he pulled away from her to find out what was wrong when her kicking foot connected with his testicles eliciting a sensation he would describe as one that "ruined the mood."
He doubled over in horrified pain as she continued to scream and yanked the blanket off the bead. "Something slimy," she shrieked. "In the bed. Wet and cold and – "
A large frog looked up at her. Tom lolled over onto his side, clutching at himself as her screams died off.
"Why is there a frog in our bed?" she demanded.
He was not in any condition to answer her though, he admitted, that was an excellent question. He blamed Snowflake.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
A/N – More of this very serious love story for your consideration.