May - Much Ado About Nothing
"Silence is the perfectest herald of joy"
She'd tired of his sharp and shiny furniture, and complained of his apartment's "lack of warmth." Andrew told her he purchased the townhouse furnished and insisted it simply suited his needs for sleep, work and the occasional business dinner party. The lack of a comfy chair, however, was what finally drove her to at last consent to him coming over to her place, a privilege she'd guarded like a lioness at the gate for four long months.
It was becoming a lovely habit, his coming over to her place. Even His royal highness, lord Crookshanks seemed to agree, thought Andrew, rubbing the abnormally large cat's ears. His purr was like a loud motor humming. Earlier in the week, Hermione admitted to enjoying the sight of the two of them snuggling on the couch together. Crooks was notorious for hating her previous men.
Good cat!
Usually a heavy sleeper, on this night, Andrew found himself waking to an unfamiliar energy in the air. The hour was far too early for his liking. Though Crookshanks greedily hogged the pillow at his head, Andrew frowned at the empty space beside him. He'd been waiting for Hermione's return by calmly stroking the demanding feline form above him. When she didn't appear, he at last decided to roll off the mattress, needing to relieve himself. Slipping into his hastily discarded trousers left him bare chested as he took a necessary trip to the adjoining bathroom. As he washed in her fragrant washroom, he decided to track her down, the plan was to distract her from her work. So, off he went in search for her.
He'd been delighted to discover the promise of her first few kisses were as true as his had been. Both had been cautious about starting a more intimate relationship, but as coffee shop chats made way for dinner and strolls in the park. It was inevitable that the two would at last give in to the passion that had initially sparked between them. He'd been pleasantly shocked to find Hermione a wanton in bed, surpassing all his other experiences. The mere thought of their most recent romp brought him prompt arousal and Andrew soon discovered he wanted Hermione back under the covers — now. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Andrew wandered into the hall of her two-bedroom apartment.
"Hermione?" He whispered into the darkness of the corridor. At the far end, there was a sliver of faint light under the closed door and the muffled sound of her... singing?... no... chanting?... in a strange language. He would have guessed it to be Latin had he not dabbled in the study of it at university. But the sound of it wasn't quite as it should have been, too melodic, yet not...not really.
Curious, he went to the slightly ajar door and pushed it open another crack. Her back was to him, her hair wildly thrown around her shoulders. She held in the air what looked like a wooden conductor's baton. Her humming and baton waving had him remembering the bibbity-bobbity-boo scene from his niece's favorite princess movie.
"Just a wave of her stick to finish her trick," he recalled the fairy godmother telling the bedraggled princess-to-be. The memory of the silly song and the sight of Hermione in a stance so similar to that of the rotund fairy had him smiling. But then, to his utter astonishment, he witnessed a bright sparkling light, more fleet than that of an American Independence Day sparkler, shoot from Hermione's wooden stick to gather up an orb-like object from her desk and whisk it around her, to land gently on a shelf above her desk.
It would have been a fantastic special effect, had this been a made for the movies scene, but it wasn't and Andrew gasped incredulously, bringing his hands up to rub at his eyes.
At his sound, Hermione whipped around to discover Andrew in the doorway, looking like a charming little boy with mussed hair at Christmas, waking to discover Santa at the hearth. She immediately thought to Obliviate, but instead, decided on the less invasive Confundo charm as she swished her wand at Andrew.
As the cloud of confusion misted his gaze, Hermione grimly pressed her lips together. She'd known better than to work from home while a Muggle was in her house, but the case had been puzzling her and she couldn't sleep, despite the haze of post-orgasmic languor. She'd talked herself into using magic in the dead of night because she knew that Andrew had been in the throes of a deep sleep when she'd slipped from his embrace.
She looked at the lingering questions in his gaze. Obviously, she had been too careless with her magic tonight.
It's time, she thought as she heard Andrew's perplexed voice say, "Hermione? Why am I out of bed? Was I dreaming? Am I dreaming?"
"I think so, Andrew," she replied soothingly, moving to take him by the hand back to her room. "Was it a good dream?"
"I don't know," he continued, bewildered. "You were holding a baton and singing. Conductors don't sing, you know that, right?"
"Yes, Andrew, I know. It sounds like an amusing dream," she observed, easing him back to her room, kicking herself for not locking her home office door.
"It made me smile to watch you," he admitted smiling into her hair as she helped him ease him back into bed.
"Is that right?" she asked, secretly delighted by the news. "Would it please you to discover me holding a stick in my hands and singing?"
She watched the fog clear from his eyes at her words. He teasingly pulled her into bed with him, his voice suddenly sultry, "it would only please me most if the stick belonged to me and I was the one making you sing."
Even as her appreciative chuckle praised his seductive wit, she wondered still if he would be able to the stand the test of her truth once she revealed her magical essence.
A day later...
Hermione lay her head on Andrew's broad shoulder. They rested on a checked lawn blanket having finished a picnic in the private green courtyard shared by members of Hermione's gated community. They were half-hidden under the branches of an old weeping willow. She smiled happily at the quiet beauty of the spring afternoon.
Hermione never believed in the shared blissful happiness between two people as described in her favored romance novels. Her previously failed relationships had her relegating such feeling to pure fantasy, but her five-month-long courtship with Andrew had proven her wrong on nearly all counts.
She'd never felt this contented with anyone else before. Despite her vast imagination, she could never have envisioned how easy love could be with the right person. Even when she had dated Ron, her very best friend, it had always been a struggle to remain true to herself. The only problem was that she couldn't fully welcome Andrew into her home.
As they neared nearly six months together, the effort to hide her magical self from him was becoming a huge burden. And today she meant to do something about it. She'd put off the admission of being a witch because she didn't ever want him to have a reason to leave. He was so much more than she could have ever hoped for.
It was more than that blazing kiss, and every single one after, that had Hermione determined to keep him. With Andrew, she discovered quickly that she could simply be. She could talk about anything and everything. And for her, this was certainly saying something.With him, who graduated top of his class from his fancy American Ivy League university, Hermione got the witty repartee she'd missed from her break-up with Draco without the nasty side effects.
Admittedly, after they'd gotten over the first few chaste dates, it had been about satisfying a very insistent itch in every way humanly possible. And my, he was quite brilliant in the sack! She'd desperately wished she could also show him what it was like to make love to a bonafide witch, but she instinctively knew such things were better saved for later. Despite his brilliance at making love, she'd soon discovered that it was the way he was outside of the bedroom that kept her coming back for more.
Andrew was funny and witty and... well... nice and... sweet.
And if there was anything that kept Hermione indescribably happy, it was the sweetness of him.
Of course, nice and sweet might be a bit boring for a lot of women, but having dallied with the wizarding world's most infamous bad boy, Hermione was done with the heartache and risks that sort of infatuation entailed. She was through with putting the needs of others, particularly those of selfish men, before her own. She felt she deserved, perhaps even earned, some sweetness and nice in her life... it was even more soul satisfying to discover her just rewards in this fabulously virile package named, Andrew.
"Can I ask you something?" she whispered into the air.
"Sure, go ahead," he invited, nuzzling her ear.
"Why don't you ever ask about my schooling and that sort of thing?"
"I'm afraid to, I suppose. You are far more intellectual than any other woman I've known. I would hate to discover that my intelligence fails to meet your high standards." In fact, Andrew had never met anyone quite like her.
"But, you graduated with honors from Harvard Law!"
"Yes, and on scholarship, mind you. Mom barely had a dime to her name. And, after all that, I didn't become an attorney... I decided to go into business, for myself."
"And you finished with honors from Harvard Business School. So you've said," she pressed her nose against his neck, inhaling the unique masculine scent of him that was just right. He smiled at her touch. "What is it about you and your need to be a closet plebian, Andrew? You must admit that the shoes and watch you wore on the first day we met were incongruous to your reality. Discovering you knew and were working with Draco... Well, I half expected you to be a wi-w-wealthy git like him, too."
Andrew, too bothered by the first impression he'd inadvertently given her that day in the cafe, didn't notice her stutter and quick-witted save.
"Expensive indulgences," he insisted again. "I needed to look the part to convince your ex I was worthy of his time. All of my wealth is in W., Hermione, most of which is shared with Draco now. I'm a virtual pauper. This is all well and good, I don't like associating with the uber-wealthy, it's a throwback to my youth, I suppose. Draco can function socially in those waters. It is good for me to learn to do these things from someone so skilled, though. My parents aren't blue-bloods, Hermione. I barely knew my father before he passed. He worked hard to support Mom and me, but he died before I could... ," Andrew grew silent, fighting an emotion Hermione hoped he'd one day trust her with witnessing. "I hope my more meager background doesn't bother you."
He smiled at how quickly she shook her head no, a knowing twinkle glittered in her eye and he wanted desperately to be let in on her secret. "Enough about me," he insisted, "What did you want me to ask about, again? Your schooling and your family, was it?"
"I can't believe we haven't spoken about them this whole time. What on earth do we entertain ourselves with when we've seen each other these past five months?"
"We talk about literature, mostly, and the arts. You often stop yourself mid-sentence when you talk about the friends I am to meet tonight as if they've got some sort of disease I might catch." He sends her a quizzing look which she pointedly ignores, drawing her hand across him to languorously outline the the valleys and planes of his well-formed torso.
"...And you ask about my work," he continues distractedly, "I come by your flat to fix your wretched digital network. We kiss a lot," he paused a moment in his litany.
She smiled, pressing her face against his, drawing his mouth to hers to snog him within an inch of his life. He turned away abruptly. "You're a really good kisser, by the way. Diverting... which is possibly why I know so little about you... like, how you do seem pleased with your work. Though, I still don't know where that is. You like cats... Big, mean, hairy cats, who I'm glad like me as well. Hmmm..."
Hermione noticed how Andrew turned suddenly quiet, seeming to realize all at once how little he knew of her history and work life despite having dated her for nearly half a year.
"Both of my parents are... ah... were dentists," she began timidly. "They relocated to Australia when I was 17 and decided to stay."
"So, dentists? Well, as their one and only, you must have been able to attend any school in the world that accepted you."
"Well, there are no Wizarding universities, so I chose to attend Cambridge." She felt him stiffen beside her. The lazy circles he was tracing against her side ceased for a moment as he played with the unusual word in his head.
"Pardon?"
"I went to Cambridge," she replied, purposely obtuse, stealthily casting a wandless Muffliato.
"No, the first bit. What did you say, 'whizzardly'?" He'd propped himself up on an elbow now, gazing into her face.
"No, I said, 'Wizarding,' Andrew."
"Wizarding? Like magic and Merlin?" He lay back down again, shaking his head beside hers, their thick dark hair tangling together. "Abracadabra?"
"Yes, exactly,"Hermione said propping herself up to look down at him, laying a hand on his steadily beating heart. "Promise not to laugh. I'm going to tell you something quite serious."
"I'll try not to, but I'm not making any promises." He slung an arm over his face. His ears remained alert, but Andrew didn't want to see the graveness in her gaze. This seemed serious.
"I'm a witch."
She held her breath as she watched him take in the information with a scholarly inquisitiveness.
"What do you mean you're a witch?"
And then Hermione heaved a sigh before launching into telling the story she promised herself she would reveal just as soon as she realized exactly how much she wanted Andrew to remain a part of her life.
"When I was ten, an owl tapped on my parents' window. It carried a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry... Shopping for school items was amazing in Daigon Alley... And then on the Hogwarts Express, that's the magical train that took us to school, I met my best mates, Ron and Harry...Harry is well, he's famous really...there was a troll my first year...then the vile Voldemort...Seven years... Malfoy was a prat through most of it— still is, really."
And on and on she went, measuring his responses by how his breath hitched or blew out, and how he continued or halted the lazy caresses he bestowed on her. As she spoke, his hand skimmed very close but never touched the wand holster she'd placed on her thigh that morning. All in all, he seemed relatively unfazed by her unbelievable admission.
Or perhaps he was simply shocked.
"Do you want me to cast a charm? I can prove to you that I'm not simply telling tales," she asked, her hand moving to her leg. He caught her fingers up in his as though trying to make sure she was real.
"I thought that would get you into trouble? Performing magic in front of a Muggle like me?" His brow furrowed as the curious word formed on his lips.
She smiled, pleased by his response. Andrew listened to her. He was quick and she adored that about him.
"It's OK, Andrew. There have been cross-over relationships before."
"There's no need to show me, Hermione. I believe you." His dark eyes gazed trustingly into hers and he cast her a lingering smile.
"Tell me that's not your equivalent of 'My girlfriend believes in fairies. She's completely nutters. But she's hot, so, I just keep her around for kicks,' is it?" she asked worriedly.
"You're not that hot," he joked, nudging her with his shoulder, but placing a loving kiss on the top of her curl tousled head to take the heat out of his teasing.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, swatting at his broad chest.
"I love you more for your mind," he replied cheekily. "But you actually do happen to be pretty hot and the overall package..." he waggled his eyebrows in appreciation, making her smile despite herself, "well, I've often thought that you are too good to be true. I think I'd be more worried if you hadn't told me there was something special about you."
"So would you like me to perform a charm just for proof?" She itched to pull out her wand to show off a bit of magic. It had been a long time since she'd practiced charms outside of her work with the magical law offices of McDougal & Brocklehurst.
"Let me absorb the news of your witchy-ness before you show me any hocus pocus, OK?" he requested. "Your history just seems like a really long fantasty fiction story for kids."
Hermione nodded with understanding, and threw her arms around him, silently thanking him for his unconditional acceptance of her. She looked up into the tree as she fell back into his embrace.
"Admittedly, you being a witch does explain some things," he added contemplatively.
"Explains what exactly?"
"From the moment we met, strange things happen when I'm with you," his gaze moved to her mouth. "It's as though all the puzzle pieces fall into place and I don't worry about things not turning out as they should."
"Oh, I've got nothing to do with that, Drew," she smiled up at him. "I think, what you're referring to is fate."
"What does fate say about me getting you into my bed tonight?" he whispered seductively.
"Hmmm. Well, Andrew, I can't say that Divination was my best subject. But, I'd wager that your chances are pretty good..."
"Oh, yeah?" He smiled and dipped his head to hers and captured her in a kiss that left her breathless. "Maybe I can tempt fate and increase my odds," his voice deepened with desire. His secret, sexy smile warmed her to the core. His mouth reached for hers again. Hermione responded hungrily, catching him off-guard. Her hands moved possessively over him and Andrew's body jolted awake with a sudden need to take her.
She felt his hands moving to take on the challenge of the pearly buttons of her short-sleeve poplin blouse. He began to wrestle with her top button, accidentally popping it off when a ball unexpectedly landed at their feet. Still entwined, Hermione realized the happy laughter of children at play moving toward their secluded cover of tree branches.
She grabbed onto Andrew, planted her lips on his, and without a second thought to the loss of their picnic essentials, she disapparated them both. The resulting thunderclap had the little boy, who'd just ducked under the bower into their secret hideaway to recover his plaything, dashing for cover.
When Andrew's head stopped spinning and his stomach at last settled, he realized he had fallen on something quite soft. He looked down to see Hermione's wayward curls spread out beneath her head. He stared at her, mouth agape, completely astounded. They were on a bed.
His bed.
Well, hot damn!
"Hermione, you really are a witch!" he choked.
"... That might be so, Andrew, but..." she bucked her hips up against his hardened length and a saucy smile twitched at her lips, "it would seem that you're the one with the wand."
She sent him an eyebrow wiggle and an brazen look of desire. At the sight of her willingly writhing beneath him, Andrew thanked his lucky stars for the magical woman in his arms.
