Song Inspiration for this Chapter:
Eat Your Young - Hozier

The next couple of weeks went by relatively smoothly. Since there were only a few seventh- and eighth-year students left unmatched, the amount of inadvertent eye-full that one could expect while walking around the castle had decreased to almost nothing. It seemed to Hermione that the last two uncoupled couples were either trying to get to know one another better – like Harry and Tracey – or were fighting their feelings out of sheer obstinance – like Sheridan Pucey, seventh year Slytherin, and Natalie Summers.

There was nothing to be done on the 'Revenge on the Ministry' front for the time being, so she and her other housemates focused on their schoolwork. The dynamics in their Common Room had certainly shifted, as most the occupants could be found literally on top of their partners. It wasn't uncommon to find most every single wizard with his witch in his lap.

While it was certainly strange, and a drastic change from how things had been up until that point, Hermione found she much preferred it to the stiff distance and fright that had permeated the air just weeks earlier.

The first Friday of October found them all relaxing around the Common Room. Some of the students were playing games of wizard's chess or exploding snap, while others sat around reading or talking. Everyone seemed comfortable, relaxed. Of course, there was such a thing as too relaxed.

Hermione watched as Tracey walked past the chair that Harry sat in. The witch casually, unthinkingly, brushed her hand through Harry's dark hair. Hermione swore she could hear the witch's heart speed up in the sudden silence that enveloped the room and all of its occupants. Everyone knew exactly what happened, at the exact moment it happened.

Harry and Tracey had been so careful. They'd spent all of their free time getting to know one another – getting comfortable with one another – but never, not once, had they touched. The innocent brush her hand against Harry's scalp had changed everything.

Hermione saw Harry's pupils dilate behind the frames of his glasses, could see the muscle ticking in his jaw. She heard the moan that slipped from between Tracey's lips and leaned into Draco's side in an instinctual move to avoid the other witch's surge of hormones, as though frightened it would trigger her own heat again. Before she could do more than that, though, Harry was on his feet.

Everyone in the room watched as he walked around the chair to where Tracey stood, panting softly. Then he grabbed her hand and hauled her straight down the hall and into the room that, until that moment, he'd been sharing with Sheridan, who had been fighting his own obvious draw toward seventh year Hufflepuff Natalie.

"Well, shit," Sheridan said with a sigh. He rose to his feet before heading over to where Natalie sat. "Fucking Potter," he said, before leaning down and hauling Natalie into his arms and dragging her down the hall to the room that Natalie and Tracey had been sharing, Natalie's breathy sighs lingering in behind them.

"It's about damned time," Blaise said suddenly, breaking the tension in the room and causing several of the girls to giggle and Ginny to whack him in the head with a pillow.

Harry couldn't think straight, could hardly breathe. The minute he'd felt Tracey's hand touch him, he'd scented the change in her body. Her hormones had called to him, begging for something that only he could give her.

He'd wanted to take things slow – well, as slow as was possible in their situation – but he'd run out of time that quickly.

Now…he would be certain that she was ready for him, but he wasn't sure how slow he could make himself go.

"I don't think I can… I mean… I just…" Harry couldn't find the words to tell her everything he wanted to know: that he wanted this to be good for her, didn't want to hurt her, wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her, but that he couldn't go slow.

She stopped him with a finger pressed to his lips.

"I'm ready for you, Harry. I've been ready for you for a month now."

Her words shattered something within him, and he took her mouth ravenously. She tasted of coconut and honeysuckle, and he wanted to drink up every bit of her sweet flavor. Their first kiss was so much different than the few others he's shared – first with Cho Chang in fifth year, then with Ginny in sixth year – but he savored the difference. This wasn't Ginny or Cho, after all.

This was Tracey. And she was his.

His mouth didn't break away from hers even as his fingers pulled her green and silver tie from around her neck and began to deftly undo the buttons of her shirt. He tugged the fabric from her skirt and sighed when his hands met her smooth, supple skin.

He slid his hands up and down her torso before moving up further. He tugged the cups of her bra down until her breasts sprang free of their confinement. He cupped them in his palms and groaned at the way they overfilled his hands. Finally breaking away from her mouth, he gulped in a deep breath before dropping his head to her chest. When he took one pebbled nipple into his mouth and sucked, she threw her head back and moaned. He felt her fingernails scratching gently at his scalp and felt a shiver rush through him at the sensation.

His hands moved downward while his mouth continued to suckle at her nipples, and he undid the fastening of her skirt before pushing it down her legs. Sliding his hands around to her arse, he pulled her up and she instinctively jumped into his arms and wrapped her legs tightly around his lean waist.

Harry lay her down on his cream-colored sheets, loving the sight of her dark auburn hair spread out across the pale fabric. His mouth continued to nibble and taste her tender flesh, making her moan loudly in pleasure. He unbuttoned his shirt, ripped the offending garment from his body, then pushed his trousers and briefs to the floor, kicking them out of the way carelessly.

He knew that he wasn't going to last long: he'd wanted her too badly for too long now. However, he was determined that this be just as good for her as it was for him. He teased at her entrance with his fingers before sliding two of the digits inside her body. The moan that came from her mouth at his intrusion was carnal and sexy as hell; he wanted to make her do it again…and again.

So, he did.

He used his fingers to drive her to the brink over and over again. Only when she was sobbing for him to give her relief did he crawl up onto the bed with her. He gently grabbed ahold of her chin, making her meet his eyes. When her eyes finally locked with his, he slid deep into her body. Twin groans came from them both as he filled her to capacity. When he began to move within her, he watched her eyes roll back into her head at the pleasure.

He lowered his mouth to hers and took it in a bruising kiss that matched the ferocity of the thrusts he used to move in and out of her hot, wet body. Already primed, it didn't take long for her to shatter beneath him. The feeling of her tight body clenching him so firmly drove him closer to the edge. But along with his impending orgasm, Harry could feel something else rising to the surface.

That something rose up inside of him, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by the compulsion to taste her…to bite her.

Feeling the flutters of her body around his cock, he gave in to the impulse. He buried his nose in the spot between her shoulder and her ear then pulled his head up to drag his teeth across the sensitive flesh of her neck. Then, he opened his mouth wider and, without a thought, clamped his teeth down on the swollen spot just beneath her ear. The coppery taste of her blood rushed over his tongue, marrying itself with the taste of honeysuckle and coconut that still lingered from her kiss.

At the sensation of his teeth piercing her flesh, Tracey screamed, and he felt another orgasm rush through her body. This one was so much more powerful than the last, and the feeling of her pleasure dragged forth his own.

Sometime later, when they were both able to breathe properly again, Harry looked over at Tracey to see her touching the spot he had bitten with an odd expression on her face. It seemed like a mixture of pleasure and…fear…

Suddenly, Harry realized what he had done.

"I'm sorry, Tracey," he said. "I don't know what came over me, why I was so rough. I've never done… well…that before."

"I know what it was Harry," his witch said softly, looking at him appraisingly.

Harry didn't like the uncertainty in her eyes, but knew he had to know. The thought of hurting this witch was suddenly unbearable, almost like he would die if he caused her any pain.

"This," she said, motioning to the skin that was already bruising around the edges, "is my mating gland, Harry."

Harry looked at her blankly. What in the name of the Founders was a mating gland.

At his look of obvious confusion, she sighed.

"When you bit me there…you mated us. For life."