Chapter Twelve

His lips on her breasts…

Her tongue along his shaft…

His fingers bruising her hips and thighs…

Her nails welting his chest and back…

Their skin slick with sweat and arousal…

Breathless moans and clapping flesh…

Murmured words of remembered love turning to sworn promises of forever that culminate in shouted names as if they were the other's private deity…

His arms around her and his lips in her hair; her head on his chest and her legs between his as his slowing heart lulls her to sleep, the sound a forgotten lullaby of peace and ardent passion…

It had been a perfect storm. A storm that had cleansed them of everything they had been, making way for a second beginning of everything they could finally become…

Waking up before the winter sun had begun to stir and pierce the open drapes of the sea facing home of their dreams, Hermione traced her fingers over her well loved lips, a soft smile gracing her face. She could still feel every place Marcus had kissed, caressed, and worshiped the night before, his touch having revealed a map to her pleasure only he could read. Turning her head so that her forehead rested against the bare chest that made up her pillow, she pressed several butterfly kisses along his sternum, her smile growing as her mind started to wake up and register that her dream of a thousand nights had finally come true. He was still here, sound asleep beneath her, his arms wrapped around her body, having held her to him all night.

The past was broken. They were free. A new road stretched out before them, offering them the chance at a life they had been denied. A hundred or more things of the past still existed between them, waiting to be unpacked, but this time they would be the masters of their own fate. No longer slaves to the internal forces working against them and well on their way to removing the shackles of the external forces seeking to rip them from each other. She and Marcus could finally make the dreams of ten years ago and the new ones they had whispered of the night prior come true.

Sliding her arms down his sides, Hermione pressed her palms into the mattress as she slowly lengthened her limbs and stretched back until her bum reached her heels, her spine dipping and curving as her vertebra worked out the fatigue of her activities. Looking at Marcus's chest and seeing the long, angry, red lines left by her nails as she continued to work her sore muscles, her smile widened. Littering the un-welted parts of his chest and neck were a collection of love bites worthy of patterning a leopard's coat. Then there was his poor face from where her fingers had first sought purchase upon the maelstrom of her emotions. Faint crescent shaped bruises reached from the top of his cheekbone out to his ear.

Rolling her body back over his like the snake of his former house, she brushed her lips along the markings and down his neck, before giving his heart an open mouthed kiss. With another soft press of affection along the bite mark on his shoulder, she slipped out from under his now limp hold to scoot off the bed, her core heavily protesting her movements after its marathon of use and too few hours of recovery. Trying to fix the fitted sheet she had fisted and ripped free from the bottom corner of the mattress while he had relentlessly pounded into her from behind, she stood up and pulled the haphazardly arranged flat sheet over his lower body.

Every part of her had been enthusiastically loved by him throughout the night and as she tiptoed her way to his closet and what she hoped was the loo beyond it — unsure if he still slept like the dead as she once had, one of the many things she relished relearning about him — she felt herself paying for it. Twice in his study; an oral interlude in his living room; once in her heels, bent over the counters of his custom designed kitchen to accommodate his height; him on his knees and still impossibly tall as he hooked his leg over her shoulder and licked her pussy clean before filling it again against the wall of his bedroom, which led to them falling into his bed where they continued fucking and loving each other until they surpassed exhaustion, her having surrendered to sleep atop him while his cock was still inside her. They had ten long years to atone for and she was sure that even with all they had done, they had only begun to chip away at everything they wanted to wring out of the other.

Finishing with the other, less erotic and passionate, needs of her body, Hermione studied herself in the mirror as she washed her hands. The riot of curls she had tamed and styled into sleek waves for the gala they never made it to, were a knotted, bushy mess. Her own neck and chest looked as if it had gone to war with Marcus's mouth and had faced a delicious slaughtering as love bites of various sizes and color traversed past her bruised breasts, down her stomach to disappear between her thighs. Her mound and the lips of her pussy were still puffy and swollen, the skin hypersensitive as she traced her palm over herself. Spreading her legs some, she could see the soft burning at the tops of her inner thighs and where it carried over in between her labia from where she had wantonly and relentlessly humped his shadowing face as he devoured her. And turning around to examine her back, her satisfied smile grew as she took in the fading red lines from where the pads of his fingers had dug in and dragged along her as she rode him and additional smattering of soft bruises along the globes of her bum and the sides of her hips from where he had sought purchase while mounted over her, driving himself home until they were both roaring out animalistic finishes.

Letting out a girlish and delighted giggle at the ravished and claimed state Marcus had left her in, she dried off her hands and crept back out to the bedroom. He was still sound asleep, having not even moved in her absence when she returned and looking at the clock and realizing she herself had only collected three hours of sleep, she decided to leave him be. Though it was tempting to crawl back into bed with him and sink beneath the sheets his cock was starting to tent and wake him up with her mouth. Scrunching up her face as she forced herself to let him rest for later, she went over to his dresser to dig around for a shirt to wear while she explored — snooped about if she was being uncharitably honest about herself — his home.

Silently pulling on the brass handles of each drawer and peeking inside until she found her prize of a t-shirt that would come down to her knees as if she were a child and not a full grown witch, she dressed herself in the clean cotton. Pulling the collar up to her nose, she breathed in the scent of his laundry soap allowing it to mingle with their combined smell that she wore on her body. Still smiling like a lovesick loon — her cheeks beginning to hurt from how foreign such a long worn expression was on her face — she examined the clutter on his dresser top.

While the shelves of his study had most obviously been styled by a decorator, his bedroom was mostly free of another's influence. Yes, the furniture all complimented each other without matching and yes, he had beautifully spun sheets and a luxurious duvet covering his bed as well as a cleverly disguised television mounted on the wall opposite his bed, but aside from the pieces that filled the room's space, the touches that made it a home were all him. Spread out in a showcase of his own making, were various knickknacks she surmised he had collected during his time on mainland Europe. Littered around those and taking up every available spot they could, were an eclectic array of picture frames filled with both magical and muggle photos.

Picking up the first one, she nearly dropped it in surprise as she found her smiling parents waving, herself tucked under Marcus's arm on the living room floor of her childhood home, a massive pile of torn apart Christmas paper scattered across the floor. Setting it down, she quickly picked up another. The second held a still shot of him and her mum laughing in the kitchen. Between them was an empty disposable pan with a massive hole in it – their Easter ham having been too heavy for the flimsy tin and having fallen straight through to the kitchen floor as he had been helping her get it out of the oven without magic. Muggle life having become something he had adapted to and thrived in surprisingly well after his first visit home to her family.

Exchanging it for another, she found her younger self startling before beaming as the photograph looped through him popping up behind her and circling his arms around her to snap a picture of her as he kissed her cheek. Beside that one, was one of her asleep in the library with her head in his lap; there was one of her giving him an exasperated look before blushing and smiling, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear as she looked away to his notes to continue quizzing him; one that Viktor had taken after dragging her away from the Yule Ball to dance with the wizard she had actually wanted to go with; and further down she found the one of the two of them on the outskirts of Hogsmeade with Lavender and Viktor, her two friends pretending to gag as Marcus lifted her up and kissed her. Romantic and mundane, funny and nostalgic, candid and posed. Dozens of photographs that spanned the six and half months of their relationship, told the story of how he had fallen in love with her during the course of what he had initially thought would be a dreaded repeated year of his life. And in the center, atop an antique, silver box with a repeating pattern of the knots that made up her ring and the matching frame, was a photo of her tucked between his massive thighs. With his bare chest pressed against her back as his chin rested on her shoulder and his toned forearm wrapped around to shield her exposed breasts from view, they gently smiled at each other, their eyes lit from within by the afterglow of having just physically expressed their love to each other for the first time.

Carefully removing the frame from its perch on the box, she ghosted her fingers over the old glass, watching his eighteen year old self look down at her as if she had hung every star in the sky just for him. Looking at him as he embraced her, his hold loving and protective as he remained mindful of her shyness and modesty even in a snapshot that would only ever be viewed by the two of them, she wondered how she could have ever thought the worst of him. How she could have ever questioned his sincerity. Things had looked horrible that morning and had felt even worse to her overly tender heart in light of having surrendered her virginity to him the night before and silently answering the question he was too nervous to ask outright in the affirmative — if she was ready to begin the future they spoke of right then by agreeing to marry him once she finished school. But she had been in love with and loved by Marcus Flint: the softest, most romantic wizard she had ever had the honor of knowing, not just then but now. He wouldn't have left her without serious and just cause. All she had to do was look in his eyes to know it. And yet she had so easily broken under the weight of her own insecurities and later the insidious words that had slithered into her mind.

Hugging the picture to her chest as she quietly apologized to their stolen past and the man she had wrongfully doubted and abandoned at the first sign of turbulence, she ran her fingers over the top of the box debating on opening it. Looking over her shoulder and seeing him still enviably deep in sleep — his full, pink lips softly parted — she gingerly picked up the small trove of treasures and exited his bedroom.

Making her way back his study and claiming one of the leather armchairs for herself, she pulled a blanket over her lap and arranged the frame on the side table as she traced the hinges. Wanting, needing, to know what else he had kept of their past and preserved in the box that was a mate to her ring, she turned it around and twisted the hooking lock in a clockwise motion until she could pull the lid back.

Unsurprised by it being magically expanded just as hers was, she first leafed through all the photos — most of which were copies of the ones she herself had coveted over the last decade — that had either not rated high enough to be displayed or that simply didn't have a private enough home as the others did. Beyond that and organized by date of issue, was every Prophet, Witch Weekly, and Feature Scandals, article that had made her its star, both favorable and not, going all the way to Romilda's interview with them not even two weeks ago. Sneaking out of the methodically organized memories were a collection of her old hair ties that she never seemed to be able to keep track of yet he had no problem finding. Laughing as she found one whose elastic was still taut, she used it to gather her matted her up into a sloppy bun that would only make the mess worse later.

Taking out the photos and articles, she placed them on the same table as the picture frame. Beneath the first layer she found just shy of a dozen small jewelry pouches as well as a cream colored ring box. Hesitating at touching the luxurious velvet, she examined the contents of the pouches first. Inside each one was a collection of four to six charms for her bracelet, ranging from things like the Eiffel Tower and a stack of tiny books to enamel covered fives in both the Ibizan Hounds' team colors and the Magpies' as well as one with the National team's uniform colors from 2002 and in a bag by themselves was a miniature ring, two small homes with the dates, June 30th, 1995 and May 23rd, 1998, engraved on their backs, and angel wings. Twisting her bracelet around until she reached one of her few remaining bare spots, she did as he had been doing over the last several weeks and pushed for what she wanted, magically soldering the wings into their new home along with his Magpies' jersey number.

Shaking the bracelet back down her wrist, she readied herself for what she would find within the ring box. Removing it from the safety of the large box, her hands trembled as she pried it open. Snapping it closed as her eyes first glanced at what was inside, she took several deep breaths and tried again. Going much slower in order to not shock herself again with her confirmed suspicion, she delicately opened it back up and closed her eyes against their sudden need to tear up.

The ring that was nestled within the slit of the velvet pillow was breathtaking. Between the prongs of a thin, gold band, was a rather large, emerald cut piece of vibrant London Blue Topaz, the center gemstone flanked with a trio of marquise cut diamonds or possibly white sapphires. It was a perfect rendition of what she had secretly imagined when she would daydream of marrying him and seeing it in her hands, she knew exactly who had revealed her fanciful thoughts to him — Lavender's initially fierce defense of him that summer before turning into a fiery hatred that rivaled her own making even more sense.

Not trusting herself to resist hurdling them beyond what they were ready for by slipping it on her finger, she closed the box and went to replace it within the lining of the silver one. However as she began putting everything back as she had found it, she pushed on a hidden release for a false bottom. Quickly removing everything again, she lifted the satin wrapped secret and absently set it aside on the arm of the chair.

Beneath his other secret mementos and almost missed by her curious mind, were scores of postmarked letters addressed to her. Thumbing through them and scanning their daily stamps of the date by the owl mail service, she found every single one of them to be unopened and angrily announcing, RETURN TO SENDER. Snatching the one at the front, she didn't care about how she would have to explain having invaded his privacy as she ripped the wax seal open and yanked the letter free.

1 July 1995

My sweet angel,

I know I've only just left and you've yet to have time to respond to my first letter, but I already feel bereft at the loss of your presence, your words, your beautiful and chaotic mind, and of your body.

Your perfume and the scent of you loving me still clings to my skin, making me already desperate for when I can come home and love you thoroughly and properly show you how much I miss you by whisking you away to get married so that I may never be separated from you again.

I wish I could have explained myself in person but I'm sure after reading you'll understand why I had to leave as abruptly as I did. Just know, I've taken you with me even as I've gone away and you were and are the love of my life.

Forever in love with you,

Marcus

Hurriedly folding the letter back up and stuffing it in its envelope, Hermione grabbed another, savagely tearing it apart as she sought more of his lost words.

16 July 1995

Two weeks of empty skies and today I finally received an owl, my slowly dying heart thumping back to life as I intercepted it on my way home from training camp. It didn't carry your words for me though… instead it held out the first of my letters for you, unopened…

Why, Hermione? Why won't you read my words and write back to me? I know how it must have looked when you woke up. You probably even think me a coward in light of your ravishing and reckless bravery. But surely not so much as to just wash your hands of me, of us.

What of the future we planned? Have you moved on so easily while I sit here in the beautiful hell of Ibiza, waiting out my sentence? I know it'll be hard but please, angel… please fucking give us a chance to succeed before you write us off as failing. I love you too much to not try and make this work. You're everything to me. I see my entire future in your eyes and I know, I KNOW, you see yours in mine. Please don't give up on us…

Only ever yours,

Marcus

Scrubbing the tears from her eyes as she continued to torture herself with reading the breaking of his heart, she grabbed another letter, this time further back and without a postmark. And as she had with the others, she aggressively tore into it wishing she had just picked up a damn quill or pen and written to him so as to spare him from the same miserable, soul killing, pain she went through.

1 November 1995

My angel,

Hermione,

Sweet Baby,

Hermione,

My angel,

Are you even still mine or have you let me go and moved on completely now that you're back in school? Maybe Weasley has finally managed to turn your head… or Potter… he is the bloody Chosen One after all, isn't he? I mean I know the Prophet, is calling him a liar but look what Skeeter said about you and Vik and we both know you lack the equipment he prefers in a lover.

Anyway, my sweet baby, my angel, my love — that's what you are to me you know, even now. My love, my breath, my life…

I've done something truly stupid. It goes against every promise and vow I ever made to you and I hate myself for it. But for a time, I forgot. I forgot the pain. I forgot the heartache. I forgot my hatred and my anger. And I forgot how irrevocably and pathetically in love with you I am.

I don't know if you'll ever be able to forgive me for what I've done. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, you know. I just wanted to feel something other than ruin and despair over your words… over that fucking picture that has me drinking myself into a blackout each time I see it in my mind.

It falling from the pages of your parchment is an unwelcome guest in my memories, leaving me to drink more often than not so I can forget.

Honestly Hermione, you were clear enough with your words… I didn't need to see that to know you no longer love me. Maybe never did…

I want to be mad at you. I want to hate you. I want to fuck my way across Ibiza, Spain, and Europe without remorse — that's what I did by the way. I fucked someone who wasn't you for the first time tonight and when it was over, I puked in the alley of her building because I was so racked with guilt from having cheated on you.

How fucking ridiculous is that? You tell me you don't love me and to, stop being such a pathetic, prickless sap, and yet I can't fuck someone new without feeling like I'm cheating on you. Maybe I am a pathetic, prickless sap…

I guess we could call tonight progress though. Despite what the tabloids like to "report" and what the pictures may look like, I haven't been able to actually kiss someone new, let alone get my fucking cock to work once seeing them naked to fuck them until tonight. I think it's because she looked a little like you.

Though I probably only think that because I'm plastered.

Admittedly, I couldn't come in whatever the fuck her name was as I did you that night. That'll only ever be something I share with you, the witch I wanted… want… yeah it's still a want… the witch I want to be my wife and the mother of my children.

But I did it. I had sex with someone else. I'm moving on as you told me to and it fucking sucks…

So here's to chasing the feeling — however fleeting and disgusting it makes me feel afterwards — of not being alone anymore,

Marcus

On a warpath as she dug through the letters all addressed to her for the one she supposedly sent to him, Hermione found it stuffed in the very back. Where the others were pristine, the envelope of this one was worn and the parchment inside heavily creased from being repeatedly opened and refolded, crinkly textured spots that made the ink splotch from where tears had fallen to swim with the words. Shaking with her rage over the idea that someone had not only been intercepting his letters to her — leaving her to cry herself to sleep every night for months while he fell into depressive anguish — but going further in their assurance that she and Marcus remained separated by pretending to be her, she opened it up, tearing a section as her anger manifested and bubbled over into unchecked wrath upon a magical photo of her and Draco having sex falling out.

Crumpling the image in her hand before throwing it into the fireplace feeling near homicidal over what Marcus had to suffer through, her eyes scanned over the letter, hardly taking its words in. It was her handwriting on the page, of that there was no doubt. It even possessed her favored syntax and what was most obviously her calligraphy enhanced signature at the bottom, but she hadn't written it. Even without knowing she had never sent anything to Marcus, let alone the cruel words and taunting photograph that he had received, she was certain it was forged, for it was too neat, too clean and free of ink splotches and smudges — something he too would have recognized if its contents hadn't so thoroughly brutalized his heart and soul, destroying and breaking the man she loved.

Though it was second nature to her now so that her work always looked tidy and professional, when she had been in school, writing love notes to Marcus instead of paying attention to her lectures, she never took the time to clean up her parchment. He loved the way she pressed a little too hard on the quill when she was particularly excited over something. The way ink would drip from the nub as she pondered her words to him mid-sentence. And most especially, he loved seeing the drag of her left hand over the wet ink and how it smeared her fresh words and left behind the imprint of her sensitive palm — one of his favorite places to kiss for the way it always made her body shiver. At the time, her messy writing had been second nature to her and if she had in fact written the lies she held during her fifth year, it certainly wouldn't be as clean as it was.

Silently summoning her wand to her hand as her hair began to spark with unchecked, emotion-fueled magic from where it had been left forgotten on the floor the night prior, she began casting every charm she knew to remove whatever spells had been placed on the forgery. Setting it on the table as the letters began to shimmer and shift revealing its secrets, she threw the blanket off of herself and stalked over to the mess that had become of Marcus's desk when he had cleared it to lay her out on it. Squatting down, she further destroyed the room as she searched out the evidence of his being blackmailed until she found several handwritten letters. Casting the same charms, she brought them back over to the letter he had received ten years ago for comparison.

Sure enough, it was a match and penetrating the red fog of her mind was the realization that she knew the handwriting before her as well as her own.

Not wanting to believe it and hoping it was another layer of deception, she continued casting. When it yielded no new results for her to examine, Hermione grabbed her coat and stuffed everything into her pockets as she hurried out of Marcus's home.

Going to the exact spot he had Apparated them to, she turned on her heel and left Montrose behind with a thunderous clap, landing in Edinburgh with a flourish as she raced barefoot down the sidewalk to her office. Disengaging their locks and words, she didn't bother going further than Lavender's desk. Throwing about letters and files from her friend's inbox, she searched for the sample she knew they had plenty of.

Not finding anything amongst their recent mail, she wrenched open one of the filing cabinets and worked her fingers over the dozens of tabs until she found Marcus's coded file. Yanking it out and not bothering to close the drawer, she tossed each useless sheet aside until she found the letter they had received just a few weeks ago. Spreading all the evidence out and examining it, she couldn't deny the truth any longer. Each one was a match and it made her simultaneously incensed, disappointed, distraught, and worried.

Leaving her mess behind with a sloppily scribbled note for Lavender and Blaise bluntly explaining the mess and her revelation, she locked up their offices with herself still inside. Taking an impressive helping of Floo Powder, she threw into the hearth, calling out for a flat she had been to countless times. Both as his friend and as a casual lover.

Landing in a roar of emerald flames, Hermione palmed her wand with a white knuckled grip and stomped through the penthouse she now wondered if Marcus's blackmail had paid for. Throwing open the doors to the master suite, she immediately went on the offensive as she startled the blond awake and attacked him with a rapid fire secession of spells meant to painfully incapacitate him. Coming around the bed as he blindly fumbled about — her hexes meant to mimic a muggle flash bang — she grabbed him by his sleep mused hair and snarled, "Give me one fucking reason as to why I shouldn't kill you for what you've done to him, Adrian," slamming his head down to meet her knee as she drove it up to break his nose.

AN:

Sections of Marcus's letters feature lyrics from the song, Love of My Life by Harry Styles.