The light was low in Harry's bedroom, but it was enough for Hermione to see all the details of his body beneath hers. The curve of his neck, the way the muscles of his arms flexed as he helped her move up and down on him. Her mouth was open as she tried desperately to suck in more air but she couldn't catch her breath as she chased that pleasurable feeling. Her muscled trembled as she tried to move harder against him, tried to move faster.
Hermione was twisting tighter and tighter as the sensations rushed through her, each time the thick blunt head of his cock moved deep inside her, stretching her and she thought she was going to burst. "Please, please, please."
Harry made a rumbling sound, almost like a growl, but deeper and it vibrated through her whole body setting her nerve endings on fire. His hands were tight in her hair, holding her, not letting her look away from his mesmerizing green eyes.
Harry was telling her something, his lips were moving, but Hermione couldn't hear it over the buzzing in her head. The noises were too loud, her panting, the sharp slap of her body down on his, the wet sound as she raised herself off his cock and then slammed herself back down, over and over. She couldn't stop. She needed–
"Harry." She gasped staring at him and seeing a reflection of herself in his eyes. Wanton and wild. A bead of sweat dripped between her bouncing breasts, her nipples hard and so close to his parted lips. Hermione didn't even recognize herself. Unable to help herself she clutched at him, her nails digging into his shoulders.
Panic weaved into her pleasure. It was too much, he was too much. This wasn't her. She wasn't hot sex and orgasms. She was books and loneliness—
His hands tightened in her hair, pulling her back from panic, so that she focused on him again, seeing something in the depths of his eyes. What was that? He had such secretive green eyes…
Harry pulled her closer, their lips touching, "Stay with me, Hermione."
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Hermione woke up as she rolled out of bed and smacked face-first into the floor. "Oh, shit." She muttered with a small groan clutching her nose as she turned on her back.
Her body still tingled from the dream and she thought if she slipped her hand between her legs she'd probably orgasm with barely a touch.
"Bloody hell." She muttered to herself slightly nasally as she clutched her throbbing nose. There was a chittering from above her that sounded remarkably like laughing. She turned onto her side still on the floor and saw Archimedes hopping back and forth on a small part of the window sill behind her bed while Crookshanks took up most of it looking at Hermione like she was some invader into his kingdom.
"No treats for either of you!" Hermione jumped up and stalked to the bathroom, bending over the sink to inspect her nose. It wasn't even red, how could it hurt that much? There was nothing to fix!
"Argh." She huffed, walking back out and taking note of the time. She still had seventeen hours before she could conceivably show up for work. If only it wasn't her first day and she already knew where everything was she could just go to work right now.
A snarky yowl came from behind her. Crookshanks was reading her mind again.
"Fine, I'll go to the bookstore!"
Archimedes started chittering again while Crookshanks didn't even deign to look at her anymore and started cleaning himself.
"I don't know why I take advice from you, that's how I ended up running like a loon down without my shoes after only a day here!"
Hermione stomped toward her closet pulling off her nightshirt and running through her clothes for something to wear. As she moved the hangers aside her fingernails caught her attention. Her nails were plain and serviceable - they weren't terrible. But they weren't pretty like some of the other witches she had worked with before.
Hermione stopped and yelled back to her peanut gallery," I'm going to go get my nails done! See I can think of other things to do than working and books!"
She had always been efficient and was ready to go find a nail salon in five minutes flat, with her purse over her shoulder but she paused at her door. What would be the chances of running into him?
Maybe she should try going to a muggle nail shop. Hermione bit her lip thinking. Muggle nails wouldn't last nearly as long as one's done by a beauty charm shop and she would hate to waste time on something so trivial again so quickly.
Better not to risk it, she decided, sticking her hand into her purse to grasp her wand and muttering a few disillusionment charms before leaving her flat. Hermione didn't breathe an easy breath until she ducked into Charming Tips and Toes like she was an escapee from Azkaban. Even in the magical area of London, she had this strange unreasonable expectation of running into Harry at any moment.
But that was impossible, right?
Right, she assured herself as she turned and saw that most of the people in the nail salon were staring at her. She froze for a second before throwing back her shoulders and hurrying over to the counter.
A young teenage witch with black hair sticking straight up in spikes popped her gum loudly before tapping with an obscenely long fingernail that looked like a dagger on the counter in a pattern. Magic sparked and the wood turned black before images of nail designs started scrolling past. "Just pick what you want, prices next to each style."
Hermione tried to pay attention to the nail designs scrolling past but kept surreptitiously checking out the teenagers' nails. How did she eat with those fingernails?
Maybe she levitated the food into her mouth. She would have to have a really steady aim.
"I think you'd like this one." A sweet voice said to her left and Hermione looked over to see a short blonde witch with clear blue eyes. The witch gave her a slow smile, her eyes wandering above Hermione's head briefly before meeting her eyes again. "My name is Luna Malfoy."
"Hermione Granger."
"Nice to meet you, Hermione Granger." Luna's hand rose and she waved it above Hermione's head a bit. "I have some spray that could help you if you want."
Hermione petted her bushy curls self-consciously, she still struggled to keep them from being the bushy mess they had been through her primary years but now she was much better with hair charms. "Um, no thank you."
"Oh, not for your hair. I love your curls by the way." Luna nodded. "I meant for the nargles, they can make it hard to make the right choices sometimes."
Hermione glanced at the girl on the other side of the counter but she wasn't paying attention to them and was using her wand to flip through a copy of Witches Weekly. If she tried to turn a page with those nails she'd probably poke holes in the pages.
"What are nargles?" Hermione racked her mind. She had a passion for creature rights so she tended to be at least somewhat familiar with most magical animals.
"Oh, they're little pests that like to drive people crazy and hang about mistletoe." Luna nodded authoritatively. "You have quite the infestation."
"Oh." That was a good response to nonsense, right?
Luna smiled at her. "It's okay, things will work out I promise, even with the nargles driving you a bit loony." Luna turned back to the enchanted counter and tapped her selection again. "These colors would suit you best I think."
The pattern was a complicated mandala of twisting reds and golds. "I like it," Hermione admitted.
"Of course you do." Luna nodded.
"Luna." A quiet voice interjected and they turned to see a tall blonde grey-eyed wizard stride toward them.
Luna smiled happily stepping forward. "Draco."
The wizard kept his arms at his sides but Luna curled her hand around his elbow before turning back to Hermione. "This is my husband, Draco Malfoy. Draco this is Hermione Granger. We're going to be friends."
Draco nodded as if this was a normal pronouncement that his wife might make. "Nice to meet you, Miss Granger."
"Oh, please, call me Hermione."
A slight smirk pulled at his mouth. "Granger, then."
Luna giggled as if that was the most amusing response she'd ever heard, distracting Draco who turned to watch her laugh. His hand came up to cup the back of her neck and leaned forward to whisper something into her ear and Luna's giggles cut off.
Draco turned back to her. "I guess we'll be seeing you soon, Granger, since we're going to be friends. We'll take our leave now though."
There were red slashes across Luna's cheeks as she waved goodbye before being pulled out by her husband.
"I bet they're going to go have really dirty, hot sex." The teen behind the counter was finally paying attention leaning and looking after the departing couple with a starry-eyed expression.
Hermione looked between the teen witch at the counter to the departing couple. "Goodbye, Rhaenyra and Daemon." She muttered to herself.
But Luna Malfoy had been right about one thing. These were definitely her colors. Hermione tapped the counter. "I'd like these ones please."
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After breakfast with her brother, Zinnia took out her mobile to text her mother:
Zinnia: mum
Zinnia: muuuuum
Zinnia: muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum
❤️❤️❤️Mummy❤️❤️❤️: whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat
Zinnia: harry is sad some muggle left him
❤️❤️❤️Mummy❤️❤️❤️: left him?
Zinnia: YES
Zinnia: SHE LEFT HIM
❤️❤️❤️Mummy❤️❤️❤️: TELL ME EVERYTHING
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"What are you typing so energetically into your mobile?" James Potter leaned over his wife's shoulder to read her text messages.
"Some woman left Harry, and he's upset about it," Lily murmured still texting her daughter.
"He's … upset about it?" James drew out like the fantastical occurrence it was. James half thought his son was going to remain a bachelor forever. He'd even tried to hint to Harry that if he liked wizards that was perfectly lovely. Both their kids could marry into the Weasley clan, why not?
Harry however had been extremely annoyed at the suggestion he might want to date Ron Weasley in that manner and insisted there was nothing romantic between the two of them. James however had heard the same protestations from his best mates Sirius and Remus for years, and look how long it took them to extract their heads from their arseholes?
So James had tried to set up nice dates for his son and Ron. However, his son had pulled him aside to describe in graphic terms why he was firmly into shagging witches. James shuddered a the memory. He had stopped trying to set his son up after that. His daughter had followed a more normal pattern of setting her sights on her wizard and not wavering, which James wholeheartedly approved of– that was the Potter way after all.
"Don't even think of trying to help him, James Potter, "His wife said in a threatening voice not even looking at him and James jumped.
"What! I wasn't thinking anything. I was thinking of important. Serious. Uh Wizengamot matters."
Lily laughed finally putting down her phone and going to wrap her arms around her husband.
"You're such a bad liar!"
"Hmph."
She leaned up kissing him on the jaw. "It works for you though."
"Yeah?"
"Yes." she slid her hands up his chest to cradle the back of his neck. "Because when you threaten those crusty old bigots stuck in the last century they know you're absolutely serious."
"Uh-huh." James leaned forward to kiss the curve of his wife's neck. "So if I perhaps did have a plan to maybe bribe some security guards for footage of this mysterious muggle, you wouldn't be interested?"
"James!"
"Well?"
"Well…" Her hands slid down again, grasping the lapels of his robe and pulling him in the direction of their bedroom. "Come persuade me, love."
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James Potter pulled out his mobile to text his best mates:
Prongs: mayday mayday
Padfoot: what
Moony: O.O
Prongs: we have various plots to enact
Moony: has lily approved these plots?
Prongs: oh come on
Prongs: sirius what about you
Padfoot: I need to live
Prongs: cowards
Prongs: but yeah she did
Prongs: so get your cowardly arses over here
Prongs: and bring teddy
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Time decided to pass excruciatingly slowly as Hermione at one point literally was counting along with the seconds until she could conceivably show up at work. She had already shown her new nails to both Archimedes and Crookshanks several times much to Crookshank's annoyance, although Archimedes seemed excited each time.
Hermione had dressed nicely for her first day with a thin black pencil skirt and a white button-up shirt with a blazer. Her heels made clacking sounds as she got passed security and entered the main lobby of the Ministry building. Privately she thought the security was a little shoddy as she gained entry.
"Who are you?" A high nasally pitched feminine voice asked crabbily.
Hermione turned and rapidly approaching to her right was a short round woman with a strangely hunched back and a toweringly tall pile of grey hair. "Hello, my name is Hermione Granger and it's my-"
"Oh, the new witch." The woman cut off snidely. "Did you fill out all your employment forms?"
"Oh well-"
The woman snapped her fingers and a foot and half tall stack of paperwork appeared floating before Hermione. "I require these no later than ten, in triplicate with yellow, puce, and tangerine copies as required by Ministry employment regulation 8.023."
"Uh–"
"Well grab them before they fall, girl. What are you waiting for?" The woman snapped. "Hogwarts has gone seriously downhill in education since my day."
"Well I'm actually from France–"
"That explains it." The woman sniffed as if she smelled something bad. "My office at the end of the hall. Hagatha Hargreaves. I'll be waiting."
With that Hagatha flounced away, walking in sort of a bobbing hobble as Hermione stared after her with her mouth open.
"Oh, dear," Hermione looked to see an out-of-breath pretty brunette rushing toward her. "You're not going to quit are you?"
"What?" Hermione asked faintly still not sure what the hell had just happened.
The woman grimaced, smoothing back her dark brown wavy locks that had fallen into place. "Sometimes people quit after meeting Hagatha. She's our records person. But I swear we're not all like that. Most of us are absolutely normal, I swear!"
Hermione could only nod as she clutched what had to be at least half a stone of paperwork. "My name's Hermione Granger."
"Yes! I know! I'm supposed to show you around today and help you get situated, again I'm so sorry. My name is Vivian Clark. Come on, I'll show you to your office, it's right next to mine."
They approached the lift and Vivian continued to chatter a mile a minute trying to make Hermione more comfortable. Honestly, she wasn't even upset. The woman had been so heinous it was actually quite astonishing. Hermione had never met someone so determinedly dislikable before Hagatha.
The elevator opened with a low ding and they stepped in along with two other witches.
"Hey, Viv." The witch on the left with slightly messy black hair greeted Hermione's coworker, her bright green eyes darted to Hermione curiously.
"Be nice, Zinny. She just met Hagatha for the first time."
Both witches immediately gave her commiserating looks and the witch called Zinnia continued, "You know one of my cousins by marriage makes Hagatha talismans to ward her off."
The witch who hadn't spoken yet elbowed her in the side. "Those don't work!" She turned to Hermione. "They are pretty though. My name is Tori Greengrass, and this rude witch who hasn't introduced herself is Zinnia Potter."
"Hagatha Talismans are more important than names." Zinnia's bright eyes drifted over the new hire, noting her nails. "Cute nails, those are my brother's favorite colors."
"Merlin, don't try to set her up with your brother. I just told her we were mostly normal." Vivian interjected before turning to Hermione. "Her brother is hot, but he's totally commitment shy."
Hermione's eyes were darting between the women as they spoke. "I'm not looking for —"
"Oh I'm not, no," Zinnia patted Hermione's shoulder. " – I think he actually met someone."
Tori and Vivian gasped. "No way!" They said in unison.
Hermione rolled her eyes as the three witches started avidly gossiping. At least workplace gossip was mostly the same everywhere. When she had graduated from Beauxbatons she had felt a sense of relief to be out of the teenage social scene where everyone was gossiping about what everybody else was wearing, dating, or saying. Unfortunately, she learned after starting her career in magical theory that one never got away from that.
Hermione emerged from the elevator first and the other witches came out together more slowly still gossiping, but she barely paid attention as she looked around the ministry building. It really was quite pretty on the inside.
There were expansion charms at work because the building wasn't nearly this large from the outside, but on the inside, it was like an enormous curved beehive. They were on the fifth floor but they could approach the railing and see all the way to the bottom floor they had first entered while it seemed like hundreds of floors stretched above them.
"... she was a muggle I think… "
Hermione approached the railing, holding tightly to her heavy stack of paperwork as she looked over the edge. Enchanted notes and messages flew speedily about, like birds in a large aviary, zipping to their intended recipients. As she watched the double door entrance opened and a group of wizards dressed in black robes with the Ministry insignia on their shoulders entered. She recognized the Auror uniform. They looked a little intimidating in a group like that.
"...red bra behind …Cinderella…."
Zinnia Potter's words caught her attention and Hermione was just about to turn around when she froze. One of the wizards in the Auror crowd looked familiar. He had messy windswept black hair and broad shoulders. A tall red-haired Auror said something and the dark-haired man threw his head back and laughed.
Her heart skipped a beat and she lost her grip on her stupidly large stack of paperwork, causing them to start floating down five stories, drawing the attention of practically everyone.
Including one green-eyed LIAR!
She met her lying date's green eyes from five stories above him, unable to look away. The smile slowly slipped off Harry's face as his eyes widened. He pointed at her, "Wait for me."
She couldn't hear the words but she read the message from the movement of his lips loud and clear.
And that was a no.
Not just a no, but a hell no.
Hermione turned around and faced her wide-eyed coworkers before grabbing Vivian's elbow. "I need to get to my office, right now!"