#adult hermione granger

[labyrinthprops]

As usual in my symbiotic relationship with UnderscoreIsCool, they have asked me to illustrate Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Teddy for their AU time travel fix it fanfiction.

The story is on AO3, with the name Harry Potter And Oh Shit We Fucked Up. Do go check them out if you’re interested. It’s looking to be a pretty good fic so far.

[jomiddlemarch]

The shapes a bright container can contain!

I. Since she’d come to Hogwarts, a favor to the retiring Headmistress, some non-contractual agreement about offering tutorials to a handful of gifted seventh years as if she were an Oxford don and finishing a long-postponed renovation to the Astronomy Tower the official explanation for her return a good fifteen plus years after the Final Battle, Draco found Hermione Granger was everywhere, all the time. And never there when he turned around. When he might have offered something beyond his initial formal greeting, some rejoinder when she corrected him he needn’t call her Domina Nimue Granger, that Professor would do well enough and she wouldn’t be taking or granting House points. 

She was reliable and efficient, her initial projects moving along briskly, the additional ones she developed becoming less notable as they accrued. The general consensus was that Professor Granger was capable of managing everything and was unlikely to refuse any request, unless it was to do with brooms or Quidditch. She was even-tempered and patient, always the consummate professional but subdued, which the students found unremarkable. Draco, who’d been on the other end of her right hook when they were thirteen, who’d watched her over a thousand meals in the Great Hall, smiling, laughing, squawking when someone tried to grab her quill, who’d seen her tortured, who’d witnessed her duel, was concerned. 

He became more concerned after chatting briefly with Neville, who couldn’t get her to have a drink at the pub or to linger over the coffee she preferred with her breakfast. That’s our Hermione, Neville had said with a degree of wistful affection that made Draco sure the our was both aspirational and hopeless.

He didn’t say anything though. Not to Neville and certainly not to Hermione. He asked his son what he thought and Scorpius shrugged.

“She might not be someone who cares very much how she looks to other people, Dad.”

That was him put in his place. He still watched her. And worried.

More to come...

[slytherinknowitall]

To Bed A Death Eater

Chapter 5: Devotion [Part II]

(Click here for chapter 4!)

(Click here to start from the beginning!)

Disclaimer: I don’t own the “Harry Potter” book series. The story of “Harry Potter” is the property of J. K. Rowling, it is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

It felt like an eternity had passed before Hermione’s senses finally came back to her. Her head was still swirling from her violent climax by the time she managed, albeit with great difficulty, to prop herself up on her elbows and look down, the edges of her vision a bit blurry yet.

And that was when she saw him: Professor Snape, sprawled half-naked between her bare legs with his head resting on her thigh, panting heavily, his lips and chin glistening vaguely with her own arousal in the feeble light.

Hermione did not exactly know why, but this sight caused her next breath to catch in her throat. He just looked so damn alluring at this moment, unlike anything she had ever seen before. Like Eden’s forbidden fruit. Straightaway, the warm, flushing feeling in her lower belly returned, and she could not help but clumsily sit back up and launch herself at him. She pulled him into a hungry, heated kiss, tasting herself on his lips.

At some point, her hair tie had to have gotten lost, because now her wild mane of curls was cascading down her back and over her breasts, nearly engulfing the two of them as they worshipped each other again with their tongues. Hermione was still so high off of her orgasm that any shyness was all at once forgotten, and the only thing she desired right then and there was to reciprocate, to make him feel just as good as he had made her feel. And so one of her hands slipped between them and somewhat ineptly palmed the hard bulge in his trousers, prompting Snape to groan into her mouth. Spurred on by his reaction, she rubbed him more brashly through his clothes, and he jerked against her touch.

Breaking their kiss, he pulled back until only their foreheads were touching.

“What are you doing to me, witch?” he rasped in a gravelly voice, and Hermione was not able to suppress the wicked grin that spread across her face. She would have been lying if she had said that his response to her did not make her feel as good as almighty. She had the sudden urge to find out just how much she could affect him.

Inspirited by her Gryffindor nerve, she thus inclined her head and kissed his neck as her fingers made quick work of his belt buckle and the buttons of his slacks, partly exposing the front of his underpants. She cupped his clothed groin once more and revelled in the hissing noise that escaped him.

She continued to touch and kiss him, taking delight in his unusual vocalness; and in her boldness, she soon pulled back and made an attempt at yanking down his trousers. It was a feeble endeavour, however, as his seated position made it impossible for her to pull them past his hips, and she was immediately taken aback by this slight hiccup. It felt like the wind had been taken out of her sails, causing her ephemeral confidence to shatter like glass. What was she supposed to do now? She briefly considered whether she should ask him to get up on his knees, but the mere thought of making such a request made her feel even more embarrassed. She cudgelled her brain in desperation, but her consternation was unwarranted, as Snape seemed to have read her mind already. A quick flick of his wrist was all that was needed to vanish his remaining clothing, leaving him completely in the nude.

Hermione gasped when she abruptly found herself confronted with his nakedness. A path of trimmed hair, whose dark tone clashed with his pale skin, led from his navel down to the junction of his thighs where his already weeping erection stood pointedly. Slightly reddish in colour, it looked so incredibly stiff and – for want of a better term – angry.

The Muggle-born’s heart was pounding so fast and loud that she was certain he must be able to hear it. This was the first time that she was seeing a phallus in the flesh, and even though she could only compare it to some rather insipid medical illustrations she had seen in books, she still knew that Snape was definitely well-endowed. His penis looked so long and notably thick that she had trouble imagining how it was supposed to fit even just halfway inside her.

But despite her flabbergasted state, her innate know-it-all nature quickly took over. Before she could curb her curiosity, she had already leaned forward in order to examine him more closely. His straining manhood was all flushed, with veins and ridges and silky-smooth skin, a glossy, milky-hued droplet spilling at the tip. Unwittingly, she reached out and allowed one tentative finger to brush across the head, watching in fascination as the organ twitched in response to her touch.

However, even though his sex seemed to react with eagerness to this minute caress, Snape did not. Without warning, he jolted backwards, practically recoiling from her, and Hermione froze, with her hand still in the air.

“I –” His tone was barely recognisable, sounding all breathless and scratchy, and Hermione thought that even the blindfold could not fully mask the conspicuous wild look of his eyes, his neatly feathered eyebrows raised so high that they almost disappeared in his hairline. For a long moment, neither one of them dared to move.

“I’m sorry,” she then said, careful to keep her voice calm and quiet for fear that he would otherwise again react as though Peeves had just dropped a barrage of Dungbombs on him. “I shouldn’t have touched you without your permission. I’ll just –”

Scarcely had she begun to back away that his hands suddenly shot towards her and encircled her forearms with surprising precision.

“No, please!” His hoarse voice was a mere thread of sound. “Forgive me!”

He lurched forward and pressed one frantic kiss after another onto the insides of her wrists.

“It’s just –, you cannot imagine how –” He swallowed hard, and she watched his Adam’s apple jump in his throat. “Having you … touch me like that … with your scent filling this room so potently and your taste on my lips still …”

His entire body shuddered almost convulsively.

“The curse … it nearly overtook me just then. But I promise –, I swear that I’m in control now!”

Hermione was taken aback by the discernible difference in his speech. These unrestrained, overwrought words – they sounded nothing like Severus Snape, Hogwarts professor and potions extraordinaire. She could not quite put a finger on why this odd change in behaviour bothered her so much, but something about the way the tips of his hair were all of a sudden crackling with sparks of unbridled magic unnerved her.

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I understand. I won’t do that again.”

“No!”

For an instant, the grip he had on her tightened, squeezing her flesh painfully, before he loosened it again.

“No, you … you can touch me,” he added somewhat more calmly, though still with a pressing imperativeness to his voice. “If you want.”

A wave of unease welled up from her belly. There it was again – that sickening suspicion that the dark magic striving to corrupt his mind was perhaps much closer to the surface than she would have liked to admit. Unlike before, she did not think that he was trying to scarper anymore. No, rather something within him now seemed to be all too keen on staying; and she somehow got the impression that this shift did not bode well for her.

Regardless, they had already come this far – there was simply no way that she could abort their mission this close to the finish line. And so she told him, “Show me how.”

He released one of her hands and pulled the other towards him, wrapping their intertwined fingers around him. He urged her fist down towards the base before more quickly drawing it back up in a sort of twisting motion. Repeating this action a mere handful of times – she had always been a quick study, after all – he ultimately allowed his hand to fall away so that she could continue the movement on her own.

Yet again, she was glad for his temporary blindness, since she could only imagine his reaction to the expression she surely had to be sporting at the present. She was – for want of a better term – utterly mesmerised by the feeling of his rigid member in her hand. It felt hot, oh so very hot, and somehow both improbably stiff and velvety-soft at the same time. With each pump of her hand, it seemed to grow even harder, swelling within her closed fist. The way his bollocks appeared to have a mind of their own, ascending upwards and nearly disappearing at various times, had her spellbound.

Most importantly, however, Hermione was bewitched by the actual act of touching him like this – of being able to affirm that under all those layers of black cloth, he was just as fragile as the rest of them.

He felt so … human.

“Grasp it a bit more firmly,” Snape whispered, and a low rasping sound was torn from him when she followed his instructions. He appeared to fold in on himself, his head dropping to her shoulder, his unsteady breaths tickling her skin. He bucked against her hand and at once, her fingers became slick with precum.

A shock wave of heat pulsed through her blood. Witnessing him in such a state – it made her feel powerful beyond measure. Because she was doing that. She was the one turning him on like this. She was the one causing him to groan like this, and immediately she craved to draw more of those delicious sounds from him. Increasing the pressure on his cock, she began to speed up her pumps. Up, twist, down. Up, twist, down. She let herself get lost in the rhythm.

“Enough!” Snape suddenly barked as his fingers forcefully seized her waist, and Hermione let go off him as though touching him was scorching her skin.

For a heartbeat or two, they remained in this queer position, both of them unnaturally still. Then he pulled back a little and raised his chin towards her.

“I apologise. I did not intend for that to come out sounding quite this brusque.”

Hermione thought that she could detect a slight flush on his cheeks.

“It’s just –, I … I got …” He ducked his head. “Too … close.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“I suppose that means …”

“Yes.”

“It’s … time.”

“Yes.”

Hermione felt a trickle of sweat run down the side of her face.

This was happening, she thought, this was really happening. Professor Snape was going to fuck her.

Right. Now.

A chill rushed across her skin, sharp and cold. The time between that ill-starred order meeting and the present moment abruptly seemed to have gone by far too quickly. How had they already reached this point? Hadn’t he knocked on her door only a few minutes ago? For an agonising instant, she was consumed by dread – and then her eyes fell on Snape.

He was a truly miserable sight. The Slytherin was hunched over, cowering almost, his hands balled into shaking fists at his sides. It was then that the reality of their situation hit her like a ton of bricks. For the most part, her nervousness came down to the typical jitters one could expect to get when faced with the prospect of losing one’s virginity. It was clear, however, that his worries were not of the same nature. Indeed, he looked absolutely horror-stricken in anticipation of what was to occur; and Hermione was promptly disgusted with herself for her self-centredness. To think that she would permit herself to wallow in her own qualms, when his state of mind had to be much worse – no, it simply would not do. After all, she was supposed to help him!

Putting aside her own concerns, she thus scooted over to the middle of the bed, took one of his hands into hers and gently but firmly pulled him towards her. Snape was compelled to follow her as she leaned backwards until her back met the mattress. Their bodies collided without much grace and came to lie in a huddle of limbs.

Snape instantly tried to remove himself from her, of course, but Hermione stilled him with one hand on his shoulder and the other cupping his face. Stroking his cheek with her thumb, she gave him an encouraging smile he could not see.

“Please don’t try to run again,” she entreated. “We’ve almost done it now. Just hold out a bit longer, okay?”

The only response she got was a delayed, curt nod, and she had to hold back a groan of irritation.

Easy, Hermione. Remember, this is even harder for him than it is for you.

“Ready when you are then,” she therefore told him, a weird cheerfulness in her voice that sounded fake even to her own ears.

Snape, too, appeared puzzled if his rigid posture was anything to go by, but Hermione decided to play ignorant. What followed was a long, awkward pause which only ended once the wizard finally sighed in capitulation. With slow, reluctant movements, he shifted his weight to one side and took himself in his hand. As he guided his member towards her centre, he pressed his forehead against hers.

“You know that you can tell me to stop at any point, right?” He hesitated. “Well, at least until …”

He trailed off, and though she saw his words for what they were – another stalling attempt – she could hear the earnest trepidation in them as well. She could only imagine how uncomfortable the thought of being wholly out of control had to be to someone like him.

“I know.” Hermione reached between them, curling her fingers around his trembling ones and lining him up with her entrance. “Keep going.”

Nervously, Snape moistened his dry lips. His pelvis pushed forwards, and Hermione squinched her eyes shut. His cock was definitely much bigger than his fingers had been, and the unexpected roughness of his initial thrust did not help. A croaky whine filled her ears, and this time she was very nearly certain that it had come from him.

Fortunately, he seemed to regain his composure following that first shove of his hips and waited for her muscles to unclench before he pressed on, gradually sinking into her as far as her body would allow him. To her astonishment, it did not hurt. There was a momentary, slight pinch as he filled her and then … nothing. Frankly, this unforeseen circumstance left her genuinely confounded.

Even though all signs may point to the contrary, at the end of the day, Hermione Granger was but a young woman who had only relatively recently had her sexual awakening. As such, she had in fact read the occasional dirty article or semi-helpful advice column in certain teen magazines that had somehow found their way from Ginny’s extensive collection into her hands and had even secretly listened in on the gossipy testimonials shared between her giggly dormmates over the years. All that had led her to believe that a girl’s first time was supposed to be far from pleasant, outright painful even. Yet all she was experiencing right now was a strange feeling of vaguely uncomfortable fullness.

She briefly wondered whether or not that had anything to do with the pain relief potion Snape had given her earlier; however, she was pulled from her thoughts in the twinkling of an eye. In her confusion, she had experimentally canted her hips in order to decipher this alien sensation, and her heart jolted when one of his hands suddenly thwarted her rather harshly.

“D-don’t!”

Hermione’s lips parted in silent surprise. Never before had she heard the ever-steady, ever-contained wizard stutter like this. In fact, she could not remember ever hearing him stutter at all. The apparent distress in his voice disconcerted her – and at the same time, it excited her, too. To evoke such an uncharacteristic reaction from such an incredibly self-possessed man like Severus Snape with nothing more than a slight movement of her body was downright exhilarating. Without conscious volition her pelvic muscles contracted.

“Hermione!”

“Sorry! That –, that wasn’t intentional, I swear.”

Throwing his head back, Snape visibly clenched his teeth.

“It’s … fine,” he managed to spit out, evidently with great effort. “Just give me a moment.”

Making every endeavour to lay cooperatively still, she observed his face. The tendons in his jaw were locked in acute restraint, looking more akin to steel hawsers than anything else, and there was a deep line running vertically between his brows, reminiscent of the one which had oftentimes manifested itself in the classroom, whenever he had had to do his utmost not to unleash his fury on one of the – as he so affectionately liked to call them – dunderheads who had just recklessly caused an explosion in their cauldron. The only noise in the room was the sound of small bursts of air being forced out of his flaring nostrils in rapid succession.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the tension in his features eased, and his expression gentled. Snape removed his hand from her waist and following another short moment of indecision began to move. His hips rolled forward, rocking against her in shallow thrusts, very slowly at first and little by little becoming a bit more daring.

As he stiffly slipped in and out of her, Hermione gnawed at the inside of her lip. Again, his movements did not hurt, but they did not feel good either. It must be his girth, she thought, or maybe her own build was simply too small or maybe both of those facts were equally true. Either way, she was sure that they had to be physically incompatible somehow, because right now the only thing she could focus on was that disagreeable stretch she felt.

She was not quite sure why this was disappointing to her. After all, she had not gone into this whole curse-breaking-spy-shagging-fiasco with any romanticised notions in her head. However, she would be lying if she had said that the ease with which he had gotten her off earlier had not caused a bit of hope to swell within her. She was still thankful for the absence of the expected pain, of course, but some frustration nevertheless reared its ugly head. In an attempt to squash it, she tried to distract herself.

She was under no illusion that she would most likely never again see the man who was currently hovering above her like this – without his armour of billowing robes and countless buttons, without his sneering remarks and that perpetual scowl of his. She would never again see him this unguarded. This exposed. Therefore, she was determined to make the most of it by running her fingers across any body part she could reach: his arms, his pectoral muscles, his neck. As she traced the dip of his spine, he let out a soft grunt which made the corners of her mouth curl upwards a bit. Even if the previous pleasures he had given her were now missing, she could at least take solace in this – in seeing this powerful man react to her touch. React to her. Suitably mollified, she allowed her hands to continue to roam across his broad chest. Subconsciously, the muscles in her body began to relax, and so she was somewhat dumbfounded when his thrusts were suddenly bearable. No, they were more than bearable – they actually felt kind of nice. She was unaware of the fact that when her legs had settled more comfortably on either side of him, she had inadvertently opened herself up to him more which greatly helped allay that awful stretching sensation.

All the while, Snape had been holding his body taut in an effort to keep his weight off her, bracing himself against the mattress on either side of her head. The muscles of his lean arms were straining, noticeably flexing beneath his pale skin, and when thinking back to this moment later she would use this fact as an excuse for her following actions; though truth be told, she merely acted on a sudden impulse that demanded him closer.

Her legs wrapped around his waist at the same time that she reached out and linked her arms behind his back. She pulled him towards her with all her strength, and his reaction to this unanticipated change in position was immediate. An almost pitiful-sounding moan escaped him, and his head dropped to her left shoulder. One of his arms stretched upwards, his fingers becoming entangled in her curls, whilst his other arm slid under her neck and cradled her close. Simultaneously, his hips surged forwards, impaling her in one sharp stroke, and for a moment, Hermione struggled for air.

“Fuck,” Snape groaned without even seeming to realise that he had spoken. His grip on her tightened as he rammed his cock into her again. And again. And again.

Hermione screwed up her eyes. She knew that it was the curse causing him to act in such a manner – to be reduced to expletives, to sink his teeth into the crook of her neck in an effort to stifle his gasps and whimpers, to cling to her like she was his salvation. Still, she shifted her lower body just so and met his movements with her own. With each thrust, his hips snapped against hers and his pelvis met her swollen clit in a truly glorious manner, drawing breathy moans from her. No longer did his rhythmic invasion of her body feel foreign, no, it was starting to feel good. Really good.

So that’s what all the fuss is about, she thought just before Snape stupefied her mind with a searing kiss. His lips were needy, the pace of his pounding relentless. She let one of her hands trail the path between his shoulder blates and felt him shudder.

“Ah,” he suddenly panted into her mouth, ceasing his vigorous strokes. His chest was heaving with excited breaths as he pushed himself up on his elbows. “I –, I’m about to –, to … Are you ready?”

In spite of his urgent words, Hermione could hear the evident uncertainty in his voice. Instead of answering him, she cradled his chiselled face in her hands. She pressed a soft kiss onto the tip of his nose before she reached around and slowly unravelled the tight knot that had kept the ominous blindfold in place from the moment the curse had struck him until now. The piece of cloth fell from his eyes, and she found herself confronted with his bluish-tinged eyelids.

“Open your eyes,” she told him, even as her heart stumbled over its own rhythm. “Look at me.”

But he did not. Indeed, he tried to turn his face to the side. Her hands refused to let him move so much as an inch though.

“Hey. It’s all right. Really.” She stroked her thumb across his cheekbone. “I know that it’s … that it’s frightening. But I’m here; we’re here. It’s almost over. Let’s unburden you.”

In that exact moment, she did not feel any fear. She could not be certain as to what was about to happen, of course; she did not know how devastating and destructive the curse would truly prove to be. But even so, she thought that right now she was maybe the calmest she had ever been. Because for once, her mind was not in a state of organised chaos. For once, she was not stuck in that suffocating spiral of overthinking and strategizing and obsessive planning, always anticipating contingencies, always worrying, always anxiously awaiting the next tragedy. Perhaps the reason for it was that there was simply no point. There was no need to look for alternatives, whatever the outcome, because the circumstances did not permit it. There was only one way out, and all they could do now was to let it happen. This inevitableness – it was almost a relief.

She kissed him again, on the mouth this time. Gentle and sweet. It was not a kiss of passion but rather one of reassurance. A kind of promise.

“Trust me,” she whispered, and after a heartbeat, his lashes finally swept up.

Their eyes immediately locked, and for just a split second, Hermione saw the Potions Master as she had never seen him before. His gaze was full of so much vulnerability and uncertainty, tenderness and bewilderment. This bizarre jumble of emotions filled her heart and made her want to bitterly weep at the same time.

But then, his demeanour abruptly changed. To the witch, it almost appeared as though his eyes suddenly glazed over, their pitch-black colour somehow getting even darker. His brows knitted together as if enraged and his lips drew back to reveal his uneven, gritted teeth, which morphed his face into something akin to a grotesque grimace.

With a guttural snarl that sounded less like a human and more like a savage beast, Snape arched his back and drew back only to then promptly slam back into her with unprecedented force, sheathing himself to the hilt in her warmth. Hermione gasped and gripped the sheets as he plunged into her again and again, hard and fast. His pace quickened with each thrust, and she squeezed her eyes shut. It took her all but biting her tongue to keep from making a troubled sound, worried about overly upsetting Snape or whatever was left of him, hidden deep inside that creature-like madman who was so roughly fucking her right now.

It was not painful, necessarily – she was far too wet for that – but his forcefulness felt simply overwhelming. It was way too much. She did not try to mask her expression of discomfort; in truth, she even purposefully screwed up her face in an exaggerated manner. After all, should Voldemort truly demand access to his servant’s mind tomorrow night, it was crucial that her supposed distress look somewhat convincing. In the same vein, however, she did make sure to keep her arms tightly wrapped around her torso, covering up as much as she possibly could.

Meanwhile, Snape continued to pound into her with abandon. Accompanied by feral grunts, his furious thrusts were becoming more urgent and erratic by the second. Hermione watched him through the lashes of her squinted eyes. It was all but frightening how different he looked to his usually so composed self, staring at her with those wild, lust-crazed eyes, the veins of his neck protruding to an alarming extent. This was no longer the same Severus Snape she had known thus far – no longer the same snarky professor whose magical prowess she had always admired whilst sitting inside that dark, stuffy dungeon classroom; no longer the same brave man who had sacrificed it all in the fight against the dark side; no longer the ardent lover who had so easily made her become undone and crumble like sand in his arms. No, at this moment, he was truly nothing more than a vessel for that dreadful curse which was holding him prisoner inside his own body.

A desperate moan left Snape’s lips. His breathing was starting to get laboured, and he was little short of frothing at the mouth when he all of a sudden in his rage took hold of her hips, burying his nails in her flesh. Hermione unwillingly yelped in pain as he pulled her towards him in such a frenzy that he lifted her lower body off the bed. This shift in position created a new angle, and even though his movements were still far too harsh and brutal for her sexually verdant self, he was now suddenly hitting that spot within her again which sent a surge of excitement through her abdomen. Hermione whimpered as she felt her inner walls flutter around his length, tightening and throbbing with need. With each powerful stroke, a newly familiar feeling was gradually beginning to build inside her core. Stars danced behind her lids every time he ploughed into her, and against all odds, she yet again found herself climbing and climbing and climbing and –

A throaty roar resonated off the bedroom walls as Snape at last soared into oblivion and spilled himself inside her with one final deep thrust. For an instance, it was like time had stopped, and all Hermione could sense in her foggy state was the peculiar way he was pulsing within her – and then he collapsed on top of her, pinning her underneath his form, his face buried in the crook of her neck. They lay like that for what felt like hours.

“I-is it over?” Hermione ultimately managed to choke out with great difficulty once she had caught her breath, her voice sounding terribly shaky. “The curse … is it broken?”

At her words, the wizard tensed up, and for a mere second, Hermione was seized with panic. In the heat of the moment, she had completely forgotten about their earlier conversation, and so now her wand was lying amidst a messy pile of clothes on the floor, entirely out of reach. She felt her stomach contract into a tight ball as her eyes darted around the room almost feverishly, looking for an escape. After all, she knew that she was no match to him, neither physically nor magically – especially not whilst he was lost to curse-induced delirium.

But then, at last, Snape visibly relaxed.

“No, I … I think … I think it’s over,” he panted between short gasps, and Hermione breathed an audible sigh of relief.

They had actually done it. They had broken the curse. It was over.

The following moments were spent in silence. The unlikely pair remained in their unwonted position, him atop her, their bodies still joined in the most intimate manner. Snape was surprisingly heavy, his weight pressing her into the mattress to the point that she nearly felt smothered, but she somehow could not bring herself to care. For some reason, it simply felt right to have him pressed so tightly against her, to experience those slight tingles every time he exhaled against her skin. Hermione did not think that she had ever felt this content before in her whole life. She would have bottled up and preserved this very moment for all of eternity if she could have.

When he finally stirred and consequently propped himself up on his forearms, she immediately mourned the loss of his touch. Though she still had to wince a bit from soreness as he pulled out of her.

All the while, Snape hung his head low, his long hair masking most of his face – which Hermione did not like, not one bit. Just like she did not like the fact that he was suddenly so quiet again. Whilst she was normally well-accustomed to his long bouts of silence, she could not overlook how vocal and attentive he had been just minutes earlier. Slowly but surely, she was growing concerned. After all, the Potions Master was rather infamous for his frequent violent mood swings. Therefore, she could not stop herself from worrying about what his current state of mind was or even what would happen next, now that they had done what they had needed to do. Would they now simply go back to their previous ways? Were they now again merely ex-professor and ex-student, distant acquaintances at best? Would she never again be allowed to see this side of him, the caring and softer him? Would they never again speak about what had transpired between them today? Though she certainly did not have any romantic feelings for him, the idea still hurt.

Her ongoing whirlwind of thoughts was only interrupted when Snape pushed himself off of her and rolled over. However, just before he came to a rest beside her, Hermione could have sworn that she felt his lips ghost across her left shoulder for merely a wisp of a second.

That was how they found themselves laying side by side on her much too narrow bed, their sweaty, naked bodies practically clinging to each other wherever they happened to touch. The only noise in the air was the sound of their laboured breathing. Something wet and sticky was slowly starting to pool between her legs, staining the sheets beneath her, but Hermione barely noticed. She was still so dazed that she could hardly even think straight. Even now, it felt like every inch of her body was on fire, aglow with the carnal intoxication which continued to flow through her every vein. She was faintly aware of a pounding ache gradually radiating from where he had been grabbing onto her earlier during his manic rampage; there was no doubt in her mind that she would wake up tomorrow morning with finger-shaped bruises adorning her hips.

All of a sudden, the man beside her seized her by the wrist, taking her by surprise.

“Thank you.”

It had scarcely been more than a whisper, but Hermione had heard the words – and the sincerity in them – nonetheless. By the time she turned her head to look at him, however, Snape had already let go of her again. He was staring straight up at the ceiling with a blank expression, his gaze fixated on nothing in particular. Whilst his face was impassive, his posture appeared curiously casual. Resting on his back, he had one bent arm stretched out above his head and the other draped across his abdomen. This pose, paired with his alabaster skin, his aquiline nose and the strands of charred-black hair sticking to his forehead which was beaded with sweat, made him look straight out of a classic painting, and she had to resist the urge to reach out and touch him.

“You’re welcome … Severus.”

[siriuslyobsessedwithfiction]

R.I.P Jo March, you would've loved Hermione Granger.

R.I.P Laurie Lawrence, you would've loved Cardan Greenbriar.

R.I.P Jason Grace, you would've loved Matthias Helvar.

R.I.P Kaz Brekker, you would've loved Artemis Fowl.

R.I.P Amy March, you would've loved Feyre Archeron.

R.I.P Aleksander Morozova, you would've loved Tom Riddle.

R.I.P Dorian Gray, you would've loved Henry Winter.

R.I.P Daemon Targaryen, you would've loved Rin.

[slitheringghost]

A narrative thread I find interesting is Family As Teachers and how characters influence and mirror each others’ abilities in familial dynamics - particularly in sibling/"twin" dynamics - which is fitting in a society where children’s magical education seems entirely controlled by their families until age 11 when they start Hogwarts and intermittently afterward. This theme is reflected in Ollivander’s words in DH while discussing the mystery of the twin cores and general wandlore with Harry:

"The best results [...] always come where there is the strongest affinity between wizard and wand. These connections are complex. An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the wand learning from the wizard, the wizard from the wand"

You even have the three Peverell brothers inventing the three Hallows together to conquer death

Fred and George - as the actual siblings/twins, the most in tune - drop out and invent Weasley's Wheezes together, shared sense of humor via a literal Joke Shop. They find the Marauders' Map ("This little beauty’s taught us more than all the teachers in this school"). This twin duo sometimes turns into a trio - see post about Hermione’s contributions to their inventions in my meta Hermione As Teacher and Connections to Lily (who eventually joins the Weasley family, so like a sister to them); and additionally the twins’ best friend Lee Jordan helping them:

Fred and George Weasley with their friend Lee Jordan, all three of whom were carrying large paper bags crammed with Zonko’s merchandise Fred and George appeared finally to have perfected one type of Skiving Snackbox, which they were taking turns to demonstrate to a cheering and whooping crowd […] Lee Jordan, who was assisting the demonstration, was lazily vanishing the vomit at regular intervals with the same Vanishing Spell Snape kept using on Harry’s potions. (OoTP)

George then mentions utilizing Vanishing into their fireworks: (“Oh, I hope she tries Vanishing them next…They multiply by ten every time you try”). Snape’s skill at Vanishing ties to dynamic with Mcgonagall as she’s shown teaching 5th years Vanishing Spells in OoTP, and later in the book LV’s emphasized as weaker in Conjuration with his conjured shield, unsurprising given Dumbledore was his Transfiguration teacher.

THE MARAUDERS - James and Sirius collaborate on the Marauders' Map (with Remus; shared sense of humor built into it via insulting Snape), two-way mirrors called "twin" mirrors in DH; James's wand is "excellent for Transfiguration", he's a confirmed prodigy and Sirius is equal to him - both Animagi, McGonagall's favorites ("Both very bright, of course—exceptionally bright"), Sirius goes "I don’t need to look at that rubbish, I know it all" re: Transfiguration textbook; looking to create a new identity from his family's Dark magic, Sirius's interest in Transfiguration likely stemmed from James. Equal in DADA (finish the OWL early, "I’ll be surprised if I don’t get Outstanding on it at least" "Me too"), hex people together.

Remus - Dark Creatures interest from his father (Lyall was "a world-renowned authority on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions" such as "poltergeists, Boggarts and other strange creatures") shown in Remus with Peeves and the Boggart lesson. A possible hint of Remus and Tonks friendship affecting her interests - Tonks helping with a "murderous old ghoul lurking in a toilet" in 12GP.

THE BLACK FAMILY - the Blacks are all brilliant. Sirius and Bellatrix are mirrored in battle implying Bella taught him and/or they dueled together - a connection transferred to Sirius mirroring James and Remus in combat ("Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets" in the prequel; "Then, with one movement, they lowered their wands" in PoA). Same weapons: Knives - Sirius slashes the Fat Lady and tries to stab rat!Peter, gifts a penknife that opens any lock to Harry; Bellatrix tortures Hermione and murders Dobby with a knife (potentially they keep them handy for blood magic - "rusty daggers" in 12GP nearby the crystal bottle of blood).

Bellatrix, Narcissa, and Regulus can all occlude LV and Bella trains Draco. Sirius knows a lot about Dark Arts and Harry's curse scar from the horcrux, Regulus identifies LV's horcrux, Bella is LV's Dark Arts student and given a horcrux.

Sirius and Orion - Orion warded Grimmauld Place, adding "every security measure known to Wizardkind", made it "Unplottable, so Muggles could never come and call"; Sirius maybe used his family's magic on the Map (a tool in part to make Hogwarts safe from teen DEs, and I HC Sirius worked on it most, as Hogwarts was also a home and escape from 12GP to him), role as Secret Keeper, offers GP as safehouse to the Order, undoes its enchantments to let halfblood Harry inherit. Sirius and Walburga both use the Permanent Sticking Charm - Walburga to terrorize and scream bigotry, Sirius to flaunt his differing politics with Muggle stuff.

I HC Bellatrix invented some Dark artifacts in 12GP - the "unpleasant-looking silver instrument, like a many-legged pair of tweezers, which scuttled up Harry’s arm like a spider when he picked it up and attempted to puncture his skin" which Sirius smashes with Nature’s Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy (fits Harry and Sirius's interaction with Bella later in OoTP) and the "musical box that emitted a faintly sinister, tinkling tune when wound”, making them all "curiously weak and sleepy" until Ginny shuts the lid - placed right next to Merope's locket (esp. as Sirius’s words after this passage parallel Bellatrix in DH). Raised as the heir, Bellatrix likely had similar training and skill in wards as Sirius.

Bellatrix and Voldemort - paralleled in combat ("Bellatrix was still fighting too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her master she dueled three at once"), both Legilimens. Her speech about the Dark Arts and learning "spells of such power" while teaching him the Unforgivable curses - she's likely as skilled as LV in inventing curses.

Dumbledore and Grindelwald - "just as precociously brilliant", "even after they’d spent all day in discussion — both such brilliant young boys, they got on like a cauldron on fire", "at last, my brother had an equal to talk to, someone just as bright and talented as he was". Twin imagery with Grindelwald as hilariously described like Fawkes.

Next-door neighbors, knew each other only for a few months, yet Grindelwald’s ideas "caught and inflamed him", Dumbledore’s "ideas helped Grindelwald rise to power". Collaborate on the fascism and Deathly Hallows quest, but not Dark Arts (vs. Snape and Lily share the Dark Arts experimentation but not the fascism). Both on the same level in dueling, can conceal themselves without a Cloak.

Bathilda Bagshot - Dumbledore's Mother Figure/teacher, "impressed by his paper on trans-species transformation in Transfiguration Today" which Dumbledore's shown reading, so she presumably mentored him in Transfiguration, clearly a favorite field (While Dumbledore had few close friends, McGonagall's maybe the closest equivalent to a female friend; echoes Snape with Eileen and Lily).

Elphias Doge - met at 11 on their first day at Hogwarts, "Our mutual attraction was undoubtedly due to the fact that we both felt ourselves to be outsiders". They "intended to take the then-traditional tour of the world together, visiting and observing foreign wizards, before pursuing our separate careers".

While the pair are said to not be intellectually on par, Dumbledore's interests clearly influenced Doge, also implied in Doge writing “his friends benefited from his example, not to mention his help and encouragement, with which he was always generous. He confessed to me in later life that he knew even then that his greatest pleasure lay in teaching.”

Doge on his travels mentions "experiments of Egyptian alchemists" and "escapes from chimaeras in Greece" (fire-breathing lion, goat, serpent hybrid) - echoing Dumbledore as a "Gold Medal-Winner for Ground-Breaking Contribution to the International Alchemical Conference in Cairo" and interest in certain magical creatures and associations with fire (Fawkes, dragon's blood uses, "trans-species transformation" research, bewitches a branch of Gubraithian "everlasting" fire which is Charms related, the Deluminator as a cigarette lighter).

Nicolas Flamel - Dumbledore's Chocolate Card notes his "work on alchemy with his partner Flamel" inventor of the Philosophers' Stone (colored “blood-red”) who taught teen Dumbledore; Dumbledore later enchants the Stone and links it to the Mirror of Erised (only one who wanted to find but not use it could get it, or they’d be shown making gold or drinking Elixir of Life). Albus also means "white", after an alchemy principle.

Marchbanks who examined him in Transfiguration and Charms N.E.W.T.s says he "did things with a wand I’d never seen before", won the "Exceptional Spell-Casting award"; published papers in Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions journals - linked more with wand magic fields.

Snape and Voldemort - From his words in HBP (disdain at Mundungus for not being a real Inferius), Snape likely learned necromancy with LV and enchanted Inferi during the First War (fitting to his vampire vibes).

Potions - LV uses "old piece of Dark Magic" rebirth potion; creates the Rudimentary Body Potion of snake venom, unicorn blood, spells of his own invention. Snape's Potions speech in PS - "the power of liquids that creep through human veins" (reference to potions with human blood?).

LV invents the Drink of Despair, Snape modifies the Elixir to Induce Euphoria (and assigns a dementor essay). Snape’s knowledge of poisons (logic puzzle, undetectable poisons essay, etc) and the bezoar trick as antidote, Tom poisons Hepzibah with a "lethal and little known" poison that passes for sugar to frame a house-elf who can’t carry a wand. Riddle petrifies students with the basilisk, Snape brews Mandrake Restorative Draught for basilisk victims (mandrakes heal transfigured or cursed victims, "an essential part of most antidotes").

LV curses the Gaunt ring, Snape heals that curse (golden potion and countercurse, collaborating with Dumbledore). LV turns the locket into a horcrux, Snape heals Katie Bell from the cursed necklace. LV curses the DADA job and the curse on his name, Snape invents Sectumsempra. LV the most accomplished Legilimens; Snape the most skilled Occlumens (and a skilled Legilimens). LV adds a concealed entrance on the Locket Cave/symbolic Gaunt shack, Snape renovates Spinner's End with two hidden doors (both in locations related to their Muggle childhoods).

Snape and Lily - to a large extent it makes sense that their magical abilities and interests align even more closely than any other duo save the Weasley twins, because they played the role of "family training" for each other for 2+ years. Both outsiders and ambitious with magic as their way out, Lily's joy at magic and Snape views it as an escape from home, closest to siblings living in the same town. Snape's keen on sharing everything (esp. if raised with an idea of how training works in magical families), Lily on knowing everything (and seems to be following Snape's lead on the magical world in a lot of ways).

Eileen clearly taught Snape a lot about wizarding society and I assume some magic, has all her school textbooks and likely some Prince family books/knowledge, with Dark Arts and Potions specialties, which Snape passed onto Lily. But Eileen either wasn't as gifted or intellectual as her son (we only know she's Captain of Gobstones) and/or just too neglectful for the connection to go far.

Snape tells Lily "you’d better be in Slytherin" in the scene he tells James "if you’d rather be brawny than brainy" re: Gryffindor vs. Slytherin, so he thinks Lily falls under "brainy".

Magical power - unsupported flight, Snape's a Legilimens and there's circumstantial evidence of Lily as one in the early memories.

As with J/S, Lily's wand predicts her mutual interest with her best friend/like-a-sibling (of course their main field as Potions which doesn't require much wandwork) - "Swishy, nice wand for charm work", the Prince invents Charms. They "swish and flick" in Charms (levitating feathers), associated with flight. If taking extracanon, willow's an uncommon wand wood with healing power, enables advanced nonverbal magic (Snape heals Dark magic/etc, invents nonverbal spells).

James and Sirius are wary of Lily's wand means she's a skilled duelist and has gotten into fights; Snape invents hexes. Given the theme of duel between brothers, dueling's traditional in magical families, so Snape and Lily likely practice dueled together too with similar methods (Legilimency in combat); though in application, unlike the Marauders at Hogwarts, they'd be fighting on opposite sides.

Slughorn describing the Prince's work as exactly like Lily's at every turn indicates it as collaborative as the above examples of duo inventions - "You’ve got nerve, boy", "That’s the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs", "Unorthodox, but what a stroke of inspiration", "I really don’t know where you get these brain waves", "intuitive", "instinctive" "a natural" - aka she's creative, inventive, unafraid to take risks with and push the boundaries of magic.

The Prince's disdainful "just shove a bezoar down their throats"; Slughorn laughs at the bezoar, says it's exactly like Lily, gives house points "for sheer cheek" - implies Snape and Lily shared sense of humor often consisted of making fun of how purebloods view magic and incorporating their Muggle background into their methods (matches "as there is little foolish wand-waving here, you will hardly believe this is magic"). Snape's interest in poisons led to the bezoar trick which is Dark Arts related, so Lily knowing the same also implies her Dark Arts interest (of course Potions masters, Aurors, Healers, etc all study poisons, but I assume going deeper into it leads to more effective healing, as with Dark curses and cursebreaking skill on the Gaunt ring/etc).

Like Fred and George, Snape and Lily experiment and invent together constantly over summers - Petunia says Lily "came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats" (Potions, Transfiguration) and the Dursleys don't know Harry can't do magic over summers in CoS, an easy lie for Lily to keep up when doing magic often at Snape's house.

Snape evidently came prepared to impress Slytherins - per Sirius, he was always fascinated by Dark Arts, famous for it, knew more curses when he arrived than half the 7th years (likely showing off his knowledge vs. immediately cursing others). Snape's very aware of Muggleborn prejudice (hesitates before saying it makes no difference), yet was set on Lily being in Slytherin for 2.5 years pre-Hogwarts and groans when she's Sorted elsewhere, so sharing his Dark Arts interest with her fits that, expecting she'd need to "get in with the purebloods" along with him, which means making sure she knows as much as he does (see this post).

Snape at nine thinks Lily's the odd one for being fascinated by dementors:

"Tell me about the dementors again." "What d’you want to know about them for?" "If I use magic outside school —" "They wouldn’t give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban." (DH)

Cue Snape's monologue about the Dark Arts years later:

“The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing, and eternal [...]" Harry stared at Snape. It was surely one thing to respect the Dark Arts as a dangerous enemy, another to speak of them, as Snape was doing, with a loving caress in his voice? “Your defenses must therefore be as flexible and inventive as the arts you seek to undo. These pictures [...] give a fair representation of what happens to those who suffer, for instance, the Cruciatus Curse” — he waved a hand toward a witch who was clearly shrieking in agony — “feel the Dementor’s Kiss” — a wizard lying huddled and blank-eyed, slumped against a wall — “or provoke the aggression of the Inferius” — a bloody mass upon the ground. (HBP)

They absolutely mutually encouraged each other's interests in forbidden and Dark magic. Snape and Lily learn magic together, their magic individually and together parallels LV's the most, and they directly undo LV's own magic, Snape's instances even utilizing Potions.

Dumbledore expects Snape to immediately know Lily's work vanquished LV ("You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Lily’s son"), implying he knows Snape and Lily learned similar magic together and expects Snape to ~recognize Lily's style~. Converse to how he speaks to McGonagall the same (?) day:

"After all he’s done... all the people he’s killed... he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?" "We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know." (PS)

Lily and Sirius - Sirius is also knowledgeable about curses - knows the countercurse for the biting snuffbox (Wartcap Powder) and examines his hand "with interest"; suggests the Conjunctivitis Curse "as a dragon’s eyes are its weakest point" which Krum who was taught Dark Arts; often the one consulted regarding Harry's curse scar, recognizes Priori Incantatem, Harry writing to Sirius when he wants someone like a parent "who had experience with Dark Magic".

Sirius breaks Black family tradition in undoing wards/protections on 12GP (maybe manipulating a form of blood magic?) to let his halfblood not blood-related godson inherit and block DE Bellatrix out; and Lily creates blood wards that'd traditionally protect a pureblood family house to protect her Muggle family and eventually protects Harry. Mirroring Snape and Lily weaving their Muggle background in their magic, Sirius enchants Muggle objects like the motorbike (and creates an alternate method of flight).

When Harry says "You never heard her, did you? My mum... trying to stop Voldemort killing me... and you did that... you did it" Sirius goes quiet, which may hint at specific knowledge that Lily vanquished LV (also a possible reason for Sirius rereading Lily’s letter in OoTP, when the Order’s trying to figure out what’s up with the prophecy and the Harry-Voldemort connection).

Harry and Ron - "In the end, he chose the same new subjects as Ron, feeling that if he was lousy at them, at least he’d have someone friendly to help him", write up absurd stories for Divination and make fun of Trelawney together. Harry and Hermione elaborated here.

Parvati and Lavender - Divination, both close with Trelawney (vs. Padma in a different house than her twin)

Moody and Tonks (who was "close to Mad-Eye" "his favorite and his protégée at the Ministry"), Bellatrix and Barty (if you accept he was her apprentice), Snape and Draco (“Draco’s favorite teacher”), Xenophilius and Luna - her family training consisting of... conspiracy theories, Luna first shown reading The Quibbler (Most likely Pandora Lovegood was a conspiracy theorist like her husband - "intellectual equals" - and died due to something like believing an explosive Erumpent horn was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack horn)

[hotchoccieformoony]

it was actually so so mean of everyone to always be telling Harry that he didn’t have to do it on his own and that he should just ask for help and rolling their eyes and calling him a martyr. Like BOY LOST HIS WHOLE FAMILY. then he gets a godfather. LOSES HIM TOO. He is literally abandoned every year for seven years over the summer to an abusive house.

Like no shit he thinks he has to do it on his own!! Most of the time he does!!! adults have a spec of compassion for a child in extreme pain challenge!!

not to mention… in some ways the narrative proves Harry RIGHT. the prophecy singles him out. ultimately he does have to go and face Voldemort alone. He was right to have a martyr complex bc he LITERALLY HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO END UP A MARTYR

give the boy a break is all I’m saying

[aesthetic-solar-space]

The Stars Aligned - a dramione fanfic.

This one I would give four stars ✨ to, especially after having some time to think on it. I really enjoyed the relationships both romantic and friendship wise all throughout this story. I’m not quite sure I would put this in my reread pile without a nudge but I will admit I truly enjoyed my time reading it.

[iobsessoverfictionalmen]

Remus Lupin Drabble

Warnings: mentions of arranged marriage, canon-typical attitudes, and a hint of Dark Hermione.

“How do we tell her?”

“Tell me what, Hermione?”

The almost fifth year spun around.  She took one look at you and the words came spilling out, “Rita Skeeter has published an article calling for a Marriage Law and for you to be married to a wealthy pure blood because you are a demigod.”

Instead of being upset like Hermione thought you’d be, you grinned.

“Why aren’t you more worried about this?”  Hermione demanded.

“Who is my father?”

“Zeus.”  Harry answered instantly.

“Who’s Zeus married to?”

“Hera.  Not only does that make Hera your stepmother, she’s also your auntie.”  Ron responded.

The smile remained on your face, “Exactly.  Hera is the Goddess of Marriage.  While she doesn’t like her husband’s offspring, she is kinder to Zeus’ demigod daughters.  She won’t let this marriage law pass.”

Hermione exhaled in relief.

Later when she saw you sitting in Remus’ lap contentedly, she hoped Hera came through for you.  If not, Hermione vowed she would take on Rita herself; you and Remus deserved as much love and time together as possible.

[rewritingcanon]

hermione is everything and ron’s just ken

[cyberblink]

I haven't for whatever reason thought to post about this yet so here is my 130k epic Harry Potter with adults re-write aka The Order of the Phoenix and their Increasingly Desperate Fight Against The Unmentionable Man aka Sirius Black and the Crushing Weight of Being A Proper Adult.

I'm properly proud of it. It's up to chapter 63(?) now, which is ridiculous and I have around 20k words left to publish, most of it proper drama. I'm not 100% sure what I'm meant to do with my life now that I've finished it either, but that's something for future me to cope with as I'm currently just happy it's done.

[serien-grl-22]

Harry Potter is more Slytherin than Albus Potter.

Thank you for your attention.

[jomiddlemarch]

to be two chaoses 

The nightmares began after Rose was born. 

Resumed was the more accurate term, as Hermione had nearly become dependent on Dreamless Sleep within a few weeks of Harry’s victory over Voldemort, when the multiple years’ worth of trauma, especially the torture she’d experienced at Malfoy Manor, had come bearing down on her like the Hogwarts Express on steroids, an expression Harry would pretend not to understand and Justin would shrug at in commiseration. Her parents, sequestered in Mugglish obscurity in Melbourne, would not have been any help if she’d been able to get to them and restore their memories, something she repeated to herself as a mantra, since she couldn’t get to them and it turned out she couldn’t restore their memories, orphaned in a way no one around her grasped. There was a nightmare about that, but it wasn’t in the top tier, such that she almost welcomed its arrival; it was the only way she saw her parents when they knew who she was to any degree. Though it ended in devastation, it always started with her mum smiling at her.

*

If Ron hadn’t been able to help her, they never would have stayed together. She knew that in some deep, indefinite part of herself, just as she knew not to tell him. There had been lust, initially fierce and apparently unslakable, and the affection of their schoolyears together, the shared jokes, the homely memories of jacket potatoes and Madam Longbottom’s horrific flower-pot hats secured with jeweled pins that were nearly as deadly as a wand, the scent of the first snow, and so many recollections in candlelight, but none of it would have been enough if he hadn’t taken her into his arms and held her the first night she woke breathless from a scream she’d swallowed, the arm Bellatrix had cut burning terribly, the scar from Dolohov as heavy as the weights they’d used to press witches with in Salem. He’d said her name completely, not dropping a syllable, Hermione, and then I’ve got you and nothing else, letting his heartbeat and his breath be the only sounds she could hear. He’d grown into his frame that last year on the run when she’d starved in the woods, losing her period and handfuls of her brittle curls, and he’d somehow known how loosely to hold her so that she was able to nestle against him. The fragrance of the herbs his mother used in her laundry spells was faint but present, familiar. There was nothing sexual about his embrace then, but there was an intimacy greater than any fucking in the way he reacted, the inviolable memory of the agonized way he’d cried out when he’d heard her being brutalized that lived between them, as potent as the delight he took in her ecstasy.

She’d wondered that first night if it was a fluke, his ability to comfort her, and had told herself not to expect anything the next time but she’d been glad to be wrong. She put aside the sedative potions in their battered flasks and let herself fall asleep with a book in her hands, her hair still damp from the bath she’d taken, able to rely on his presence in the dark, the slight gleam of bronze in the moonlight that was his hair, the nearly grey blue of his eyes. They didn’t speak of it during the day, other than the infrequent mornings he greeted her with all right then instead of a nuzzled kiss to her temple or collarbone. The nightmares began as an onslaught and they waned slowly, slow enough Ron didn’t even ask when she might consider having children, though Hermione recognized the Weasley impulse to obscure their losses with babies, Fleur glowingly enceinte within a few weeks of Victoire’s birth, Ginny’s hand lingering over the small matinee sweaters her mother knit by the dozen. Percy’s return to the fold was eased by his hand at the small of his bride Penelope’s back, her radiance reflected in Molly’s face when they announced they expected a set of twins by the solstice. Ron gave Hermione what she needed to sleep and he gave her time to let the past become the past, her bloody, broken youth a shore increasingly distant. He couldn’t give her everything, but what he did was enough she’d been willing to let herself conceive the future he wanted so badly. He’d wept when she told him, burying his face in her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her instead of laying one large hand on her belly. It was his hands on either side of her spine that reassured her she’d been right.

*

The pregnancy was ordinary enough. Her only real dilemma was how to satisfy her cravings for Branston Pickle and Hobnobs without offending Ron’s mother or drawing too much attention from his father, whose fascination with the miscellany of Muggle life hadn’t declined with the end of the war. Ron, displaying the thoughtful observation she’d first found impossibly attractive while watching him play Wizard chess, maintained a calm affection towards her in company, a quiet tenderness when they were alone that made her worry sometimes he was trying to be someone he wasn’t just to please her. And then there were the times she found him gazing out a rain-streaked window at the Burrow. She knew he was thinking of Fred, of Tonks and Remus, of the scars on Bill’s face, the brother Ron most resembled, and she knew he’d been forged by grief as much as by victory. Hermione ate, she slept, she complained of heartburn and was told she must be carrying a ginger with curls as wild as her own. She read what passed for child-rearing books in the Wizarding world, nearly decapitated Harry chucking the third book across the sitting room in an only-partially hormonally mediated rage and bought every glossy paperback on the display at Foyles, which gave her some idea of what she might expect if she’d been a Muggle and included the concept of a birth-plan. Plans, as ever, held an irresistible appeal and were nearly as tranquilizing as Professor Binns.

*

When she mentioned that bit about the birth-plan to Ron while they were visiting his parents, George hanging about as usual, Percy working on some document at what passed for a desk over in a corner Hermione couldn’t remember previously existing, her mother-in-law just managed to keep from saying “Nonsense.” Hermione could clearly see that was what Molly had wanted to say and that she decided against it at the last minute after taking in at the book gripped tightly in Hermione’s hand and then Ron’s blue glare. Arthur kept fiddling with an immersion blender the way a Muggle child would handle a Rubik’s cube.

“A birth-plan is a very good idea, dear, but you’ll need to follow a witch’s plan and I do think, with the number of other witches you’ll require, you’ll be more comfortable at home or here at the Burrow,” Molly announced. Hermione glanced around and saw everyone present agreed with her mother-in-law.

“I’ll need to—or else what?” Hermione asked, curiosity outweighing her annoyance at Molly’s declaration.

“It’ll be too dangerous, for you and the baby,” Molly said. “Wild magic’s always an issue during delivery. For a witch as powerful as you and the baby likely to be the same—”

“It might be a boy,” Hermione said.

“Yes, I suppose it might,” Molly replied, her tone now entirely humoring-the-pregnant-daughter-in-law. She was convinced Hermione was carrying a girl, though Hermione and Ron had declined to find out when offered the chance at St. Mungo’s. “I meant the baby is likely to be magically gifted, considering her, that is, their parents. You’ll need at least four witches and seven would be safer. Obviously, Ginny and I will be there but you must decide who else you’d like.”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said. She’d never imagined childbirth to be organized like a tea-party. “I hadn’t thought to have anyone with me except Ron. And a midwife.”

Would she have wanted her mother with her, if she’d had the choice? She didn’t let herself wonder.

“If you don’t mind, dear, I’d suggest Augusta Longbottom,” Molly said briskly, making it clear that the if you don’t mindwas merely pro forma. 

“Neville’s gran?” Hermione said.

“She’s a very powerful witch and she’s quite fond of you,” Molly said. “She’s got better control than Minerva, though I’ll never admit that I’ve said that, and she’s no little experience with a laboring mother.”

“I’ll have Luna,” Hermione said. Ron gave her a quizzical look but knew enough not to say anything else, though she could see the effort if took for him to keep from mouthing nargles? at her. “That’s four, that’s enough.”

“Seven would be less dangerous—"

Who else would she ask? Part of her longed to throw up her hands and tell Molly to stuff it, she’d rely on the NHS to see her through, she still had her card, but then the baby kicked, sharpish, as if to scold her for being an absolute ninny, and Ron was still holding his tongue when she knew it cost him to be quiet. He worried about them both, she could tell he’d be a good father, and Molly was only trying to make sure they both came through it, privy to knowledge Hermione couldn’t easily learn from any book.

“I’ll have Luna, but I’ll ask Andomeda, in case Luna isn’t able to come,” Hermione said. “There’s no trouble with five if they both show up, is there?”

“No. There might be a wobble, but nothing Augusta and I couldn’t manage between us and Andromeda’s a light hand,” Molly said.

“A light hand with pastry?” Ron asked. 

“That too,” Arthur put in. “I believe your mother meant in channeling a magical surfeit, but she does make a very satisfying treacle tart. Not a patch on your mother’s, but close. Quite close.”

*

Molly was right.

Seven would have been safer, but Hermione and Rose bloody well squeaked through, as Ginny put it, earning herself a sharp glance and then an approving nod from Augusta Longbottom. The toucan-adorned hat had come off as Hermione entered transition and Madam Longbottom had had to exert herself to contain the burst of near Fiendfyre Hermione had unleashed. Luna had commented, with clear admiration in her usual dreamy tone, that Hermione was very equitable when it came to her elemental wild magic, as they’d had to contend with not only flames but a gale, a wave that overwhelmed Molly’s hastily conjured hip-waders, and a trembling underfoot that had made Arthur pop his head in and ask whether he ought to firecall St. Mungo’s or the Department of Mysteries. The gnomes had all cleared out and there was an ominous odor of brimstone seeping through the latched windows.

It was terrifying. What she was capable of and how proud they all were of her for it. She nearly burnt down the Burrow and Molly was as red-faced as she’d been battling Bellatrix Lestrange at Hogwarts by the time the baby was crowning, but she had a smile Hermione had never seen directed at herself before, a deep satisfaction that only grew more pronounced when Rose was delivered and discovered to be a little ginger witch, complete with a birthmark shaped like a phoenix’s tail-feather at the nape of her neck. Every peach on the trees Neville had painstakingly espaliered on the south wall withered in an instant and Augusta Longbottom only remarked, “Well done, you.” Luna had almost suffocated before she’d thrown up a Protego and her eyes were bright as she patted Hermione on the shoulder and Ginny had let out a long whistle, as if Hermione had captained the Harpies to a world championship when the Burrow had rung with the sound of the good china shattering.

A new marker appeared on Molly’s clock, the hand for Hermione pointing to “A Mortal Danger” instead of “in.” 

Ron grasped Hermione’s dismay, but he was more concerned with her health and Rose’s. Once reassured, he kissed her softly and then asked to hold his daughter. Something about seeing his big hands cradling the swaddled baby and the tears in his eyes when he looked back at her made Hermione think everything would be all right.

That was probably the hormones and the residual magic kickback.

*

She chalked it up to sleep deprivation, since she was nursing and Rose was a little colicky and Molly said, no, believe it or not, dear, there wasn’t a spell that was safe to use to help settle a colicky little witch. Hermione knew this meant there was some Dark magic that would do the trick, but she’d probably be sacrificing her pinky finger or years of her life or Rose’s, so she gritted her teeth and reminded herself she’d get to sleep again. At some point. Likely before Rose went to Hogwarts.

The first dreams to return were from her earliest days of Hogwarts. The troll, the bathroom, the terror of being alone in her curtained bed and hearing Parvati and Lavender chattering away, but now there was an overlay of Rose’s crying to mix with the tears Hermione had swallowed back or sobbed out silently. In the manner of dreams, the smallest details were vivid—the nap of the velvet bed curtains, the shimmer Moaning Myrtle made in the mirror above the sinks—and yet Hermione woke with only a sense of dread, no memory of the lengthy half-imagined conversations she’d had with Harry or Ron.

Those were the easiest dreams to deal with.

Days turned into months. Rose grew, her silky ginger hair showing a decided curl, her eyes the same warm brown as Ginny’s. She babbled and scooted, crawled and stood and ran, and only Hermione hoped it would be a little while longer before her magic manifested. Hermione’s dreams grew darker, more terrifying. There were a thousand Horcruxes. Harry didn’t survive the final battle. Ron turned away and didn’t come back.

Snape bled to death in her hands.

Fenrir Greyback took her in the flight of the Harrys.

Azkaban. Gringotts. The Room of Requirement.

Bellatrix, laughing, singing, coaxing. Cruciatus until Hermione woke with tears in her hair, afraid it was her brain leaking out. Ron calling out for her under the chandelier, Dobby whisking her away, the knife in Harry’s back.

Everything impossible that had never happened.

Everything possible that had.

They became less gruesome, more disturbing. She thought she might be losing her mind. She worried about having another child and leaving Ron with two children to raise alone, being locked up in the Janus Thickey ward. Not knowing she was locked up, trying to play the out-of-tune piano because she had once wanted to play Liszt’s “La Campanella” at Carnegie Hall. She couldn’t decide which would be worse.

She spent as much time doing Arithmancy as she could and walked away when the conversation turning to curse-breaking or the old days. Hugo was conceived, carried, and delivered with far less fanfare and commotion than Rose and he was a solemn-eyed baby who needed a lot of rocking in the night. She dozed but didn’t sleep deeply enough to dream. It was a respite.

She grew used to it. She perfected her glamour for the shadows beneath her eyes. She learned to manage her hair after a jaunt to a Muggle stylist in London who scolded her for using a brush and sent her off with a bag of oils and conditioners and advice on a silk head-wrap for sleeping in. She worked her way up in the Ministry and Rose levitated herself to their roof along with the seemingly immortal Crookshanks. Hugo made the apple trees bloom at Yule. She lived. She dreamed. She considered the alternatives she’d dreamed and tried to be satisfied with silence.

Rose began to resemble Hermione’s mother.

Hugo hummed off-key under his breath like her father.

Rose turned eleven, got her letter, found Hermione’s old copy of Hogwarts: A History and packed it first along with a set of Extendable Ears from her Uncle George.

They went to the station platform.

Hermione saw Draco Malfoy for the first time in over a decade. His wife fussed with their son, the strap of his satchel. Ron reminded Rose that the Hogwarts pumpkin pasties wouldn’t be as good as Nan’s but she wasn’t to let the house-elves know or that would be all she had to eat for a week.

Draco looked back at her.

He knew.

*

He sent the letter to her office at the Ministry and not their home, the thoughtful tact therein encompassed being the primary reason she responded. 

Yes, she would meet him at the coffee-shop he’d specified. The time was agreeable. No, she did not need directions in Muggle London. 

She didn’t tell Ron about the letter or her answer. There needn’t be anything to tell. She knew how much omission was required for their marriage. She loved him. There was no betrayal.

She wore Muggle trousers and a cashmere jersey that hadn’t come from Molly’s needles beneath robes she Transfigured into a Burberry knock-off trench. It was a kind of armor, like the wand holster strapped to her forearm, the leather charmed to feel like silk and be stronger than dragonhide. She left early, to get there first. She wouldn’t be taken by surprise again.

Draco was sitting at a table off to the side when she arrived. He’d left her the place backed up to the wall, leaving himself the vulnerable party, the nape of his neck bare, his kidneys neatly framed by the slats of the chair. When she got close enough, she saw his eclipse-bright hair had begun to turn grey. The cufflinks at his wrists were malachite, neatly secured.

There was a tea-service set between them. The steam smelled of bergamot and smoke, an Earl Grey made with lapsang souchong. Her favorite but not a secret, something it would not be difficult or intrusive to discover, something that showed attention, discretion, and care. Slytherin, as always. He rose when she approached, waited to sit until she’d settled herself. His old-fashioned manners were exercised without any awkwardness, the politeness he would have shown to any witch. 

“Thank you for agreeing to meet, Madam Granger,” he began, using the title she had decided on after completing her Arithmancy mastery via correspondence under Professor Ergodic. When Bill had pointed out the more traditional address was Domina Nimue Granger, Ron had nodded and stopped making his incipient fuss.

“Do we need to be so formal?” Hermione asked. “We’ve known each other since we were eleven.”

“Whatever you prefer, Hermione,” Draco said, his voice giving a slight upward inflection to her name. She couldn’t recall him ever using it before, only Granger said with a sneer, but the boy who’d smirked seemed long gone from the solemn, careful man sitting before her. “You are the one doing me the favor—”

“Am I? What exactly do you mean?”

“You read my letter. You responded. You showed up,” he said. “You didn’t need to do any of it.”

“I read the letter you sent after the trial,” she replied. 

It had been delivered by a splendid eagle owl she did not recognize, the parchment hand-written in a perfect copperplate hand. The opening section had been rendered in ancient Etruscan, indicating the gravity of the statement, a Pureblood ritual she’d had to ask Ron, Molly and finally Neville’s gran to explain to understand the significance thereof: there was no greater level of ceremony invoked, the abasement of the writer compleat. If it had been a final examination paper for a mastery, it could not have been more exquisitely and thoughtfully written. It was a letter than required no reply and sought none, a detailed acknowledgement of Draco’s transgressions against her. Still, it went across her inarguably upper middle-class background to fail to send some kind of response, so she’d managed to find some monogrammed stationery her Aunt Judith had given her for a birthday gift and had penned a quick note in her crabbed hand to say Draco’s apology was duly noted and accepted. She had balked at wishing him well in his future endeavors, but to be fair, she had been eighteen, effectively orphaned, unable to sleep more than three hours in a night, and had been known to hold a grudge.

“Yes, I know. I didn’t mean that letter however,” Draco said. “I meant the one I sent last week. After the train station.”

“You didn’t say what you wanted to talk about,” Hermione replied.

“I thought you would be more likely to show up if I didn’t,” he said. “Your curiosity remains renowned—”

“Are you insulting me?” Hermione asked, without any of the heat of her girlhood. 

“Not at all, though I should be able to express myself more skillfully than this, if you’re wondering,” he said. There was a wryness in his tone that was new to her. “I wrote because of the dreams—”

“What dreams?” she interrupted.

“I have them too,” he said gently. 

“I don’t know what you mean, why you think we have anything in common, it’s mad—”

“They are a torment,” he said. Like four notes, the Tristan chord creating the opening between them, leaving her struck by the misery in his voice, the utter candor.

“I—they don’t—” She could not finish the sentence, could not think of what to say next. Draco picked up the teapot and poured them each a cup, stirring a lump of sugar into his own, never once hitting the china with the spoon’s lip.

“You’re not going mad,” he said.

“I know that,” she snapped.

“Then you’re ahead of me, as per usual. I’ve wondered, worried, for years. When Scorpius was born, I thought, maybe I’d be locked up in a straitjacket somewhere by the time his magic emerged. If it did, if he wasn’t a Squib,” Draco said.

“You were worried your heir would be a Squib?” Hermione said.

“I was worried the son of two Purebloods with known genetic disorders and curse-damage would be a Squib. I was worried I wouldn’t be there to defend him from the rest of the family,” Draco said. “You wouldn’t have had the same worries. Hybrid vigor, brightest witch, and the Weasley-Prewett line—”

“They thought we might both die in childbirth from my wild magic,” Hermione said. Draco cocked his head to one side and nodded. “We should have had seven witches present.”

“I did hear something about it,” Draco said. “My mother was quite impressed, though she did say they should have let the Burrow and all its tat burn to the ground and start over with the Ministry money.”

“What?”

“There’s money set aside for those situations, a fund. It’s because it only occurs when there is a surfeit of power. It’s in the Ministry’s interests to make sure a family with such a witch remains properly housed,” Draco explained.

“Oh. I thought maybe I’d die when she was born,” Hermione said.

“And then the dreams would be over,” Draco finished.

“Yes,” Hermione said. She took a sip of the tea, the universal panacea, unsurprised when once again it did nothing for her. It was properly steeped, she’d give him that, since he hadn’t been able to use magic in the Muggle café.

“It was Bellatrix,” he said. “You and I, I believe we’re the last sane survivors of her spells. That’s why we have the dreams, why they don’t attenuate.”

“Dark magic then,” Hermione said.

“Not exactly,” Draco said. “There was something wild about her even before she turned to Dark magic and you know the Blacks are given to madness, throw off restraint like a stallion bucking the bridle.”

“Is that all, then? I suppose it’s helpful, to have some idea why, though it’s not much of a relief,” Hermione said. She refrained from pointing out he was also of the Black line.

“Master Mamu at Uagadou has a theory we’ve been corresponding about,” Draco said. “Oneironautika, whether a charmed potion could function as an inducer, what a traveler could reliably affect within the dream structure, it catalysis is the only viable intervention. But Neville—”

“Neville knows? He’s been writing to Mamu?” Hermione exclaimed.

“They prefer to Floo. Such a mess, all that ash, but I suppose it’s nothing to the greenhouses and Bubotuber pus,” Draco said. “Neville’s been quite helpful, even though it’s not his area of interest. But his parents, well. He and his grandmother have years of observation to draw on.”

“Does Neville know about me?”

“Only if you’ve told him. He may have put two and two together, he’s quite brilliant for someone who was such a duffer,” Draco said with such fondness Hermione could not be roused to irritation. “I can’t imagine he’d ever speak of it to anyone, even if he suspects. Though if your glamour starts to fail, exquisite work, that, I shouldn’t be surprised if he sends along his alternative to Dreamless. He uses heather honey in it, it’s a revelation, but it’s not as much dream-lessening as muting.”

“You want my help,” Hermione said, having figured it out. It was what anyone ever wanted from her. “With Master Mamu, Neville, you want me to work the Arithmancy, perhaps to interpolate the runes—”

“No,” Draco said. “Rather, if you wish, you are most welcome, a witch of your caliber could only be a tremendous asset, but that’s not why I wrote you. That’s not what I wanted.”

“What do you want? Pardon me if my directness offends your Slytherin sensibilities,” Hermione said, tired, the tea in her cup cold, the broken night beckoning.

“I want to help you,” Draco said. “To make you feel better.”

“No one can do that,” Hermione said. Ron did what he could, steady now as he hadn’t been in their youth, astute enough not to speak of it.

“I can,” Draco said.

*

“You can,” Hermione repeated. “You can do something no one else can and beyond being able to, you additionally want to. There’s no life-debt between us, Draco, even if I believed you, there’s no reason for you—”

“I didn’t protect you when I could, Hermione,” he said. Had his eyes been lighter when he was a boy or had they always been this stormy shade, grey clouds over a grey sea?

“She would’ve killed us both,” Hermione said. 

For a moment, she was lying on her back looking up at the chandelier, the bare outline of a girl around nothing but pain. She couldn’t not have told anyone her name if she’d been asked. Ron had been screaming but his voice had been distant, as distant as the future and the past, while Draco’s eyes on her had been a tether. They’d been bound in that second, in hopeless, blameless recognition and agony, and there had been some tiny, inviolate spark of herself that loved him then in a way she could never love anyone else. “You do mean when Bellatrix cursed me, don’t you?”

“I didn’t protect you then. Not before. Not after,” Draco said.

“Well, we were enemies,” Hermione said. She waved over a waitress, asked for a fresh pot of tea and a plate of lemon biscuits while Draco stared down at his hands. They were well-made, beautifully shaped, the hands of a sculptor or a pianist. Neither was the career a wizard would undertake, certainly not an aristocrat like the heir to the Houses of Black and Malfoy. 

“No, we were schoolmates. Rivals. We were children and then teenagers,” Draco said. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, bowing his head. “I liked you—”

“You liked me?” Hermione snorted. “Is this revisionist history? Are you going to tell me you wanted to take me to the Yule Ball and buy me sweets at Hogsmeade weekends? Were you terribly fond of Harry and did you think Ron was a good chap whose family was just a bit down on their luck?”

“I liked you, Hermione,” Draco repeated, his voice low. “I wasn’t supposed to, wasn’t allowed to, but I did. I do.”

“You’re married. I’m married,” Hermione said. “Handfasted. Your family isn’t the only one to follow the Old Ways.”

(She would have married Ron at the Ministry, but Molly wouldn’t hear of it. Hermione’s own parents wouldn’t hear of it at all, so she’d acquiesced to the whole thing, the ring in the garden, the saffron yellow veil, the woad, the unsalted cakes she and Ron had had to bake in a solar oven without any magic. The only part she’d liked had been laughing together as they looked at the ugly lumps of dough, the gleam in Ron’s eyes as he’d told her they’d only have to choke down one bite each.) 

“I know. I’m not trying to interfere. Weasley’s a good man and I would never dishonor Astoria,” Draco said. “But he can’t do this for you. You know that. He’s done what he can and you’re still suffering.”

“You’d be my Healer then? Without any certification, Healing mastery, apprenticeship?”

“Your friend. A fellow-traveler,” Draco said. “Whatever you’d allow.”

“My friend,” Hermione said. 

“You are the same person who pledged her friendship for life to Potter and Weasley after being brought together in a bathroom by a troll,” Draco said. “It shouldn’t be that great a stretch for you.”

“Perhaps I’ve changed,” she replied.

“Perhaps,” Draco agreed, then hazarded a very small smile. “I don’t think so though. Not in this regard.”

“Will it help you with your own dreams?” Hermione asked.

“That’s not relevant,” Draco said. “That’s not why—”

“It’s relevant to me,” she said firmly.

“Of course it is,” he said, under his breath, as if he could get away with it sitting across from her, the café much quieter as the late afternoon rush had ended. 

“Well?”

“I don’t know. Possibly,” he said. For the first time, he sounded put out, frustrated. It was the throughline to the boy he’d been and she found herself liking him for it.  “Before you ask, it’s very unlikely to make anything worse for me. This isn’t some grand Gryffindor gesture of sacrifice on my part.”

“I think we’re beyond House identification, Draco,” she said.

“Is that a yes?” he asked.

“It’s a tell me more about how you mean to proceed. What this dream-walking entails precisely,” she said. 

“Will you let me show you something?” Draco said. Hermione considered. They were in a public place and she had faced greater horrors than a prematurely greying Draco Malfoy in his Savile Row suit. She nodded. Draco pushed the teapot and their cups to one side, reached over and took Hermione’s right hand in his own. His palm was warm against hers, his grasp charged with the familiarity one had with their wand, the tenderness of a long-awaited reunion. Hermione looked at their hands and then up, to find Draco watching her.

When she didn’t pull her hand away, he reached out with his left and took her other hand. Something surged between them, electric and yet sustaining, soothing. Something that was not magic but was of it, an ardent affection that sought only to give, to cherish, some fundamental realignment. Later, she would puzzle over it, scribble equations, then manipulate them with her wand, with an incantation of runes. She would find a way to explain it to Ron so that he’d understand. When he did, she might. 

“Yes?” Draco asked. She could tell what he hoped for and that he would wait as long as she wanted. She could tell he would let their hands fall apart if she refused.

“Yes,” she said. He held her more tightly then and the brightness in his eyes was like moonlight, like the first time she had cast Lumos and banished darkness. Between them, it was as if a cup was filled, spilled over. She could not, however, resist poking.

“You must’ve worked some part of it out. I’ll want to review your notes.”

“Certainly,” he said. 

*

Master Mamu authored the definitive text on oneironautika, but Draco wrote the introduction and Hermione the acclaimed chapter on runic expansion.

Draco insisted Hermione be the editor of the journal. He provided the funding for the first five years. After that, as he’d predicted, no financial assistance was required.

Ron wasn’t remotely put out, though he did scold her a bit for worrying he might be. “You the one always telling Rose and Hugo love’s not a pie. Well, that means you can’t get too full or lose your appetite for it.” At the service for Astoria, Ron told her to go over to Draco and played a three-hour game of Wizard chess with Scorpius he worked hard to throw stealthily enough the boy didn’t notice. 

They weren’t one big happy family. But they could be happy and they could be a family.

When Kimah was born, there were seven witches present.

Draco collected a handful of knuts warm from Ron’s pocket when Scorpius announced she had red hair, Transfigured them into a bouquet of apricot tea roses, and gave them back to his son for his daughter-in-law.

Hermione, who had been up all night, slept.

And dreamed.

@artielu you are my main Dramione mutual so I hope you enjoy this atypical offering!

[tomtepixiedust]

Been lately on a Harry Potter fanfic binge, can't stop it only add to it, anyway

Hermione gets sorted into Slytherin, Draco into Hufflepuff

Chaos ensues when both are completely done with their (not for long) houses and as such join forces (with great effort and lots of mutual disdain) to get a resorting. (Of course for various reasons, Draco not fancying possible disownment - the faint memory of whispers about previous cases in his family giving him shudders - while Hermione got the memo immediately, mugglborn really not welcome, halfbloods already seeming to struggle, got it on the first day, hard not to see shit thrown into your face, got enough experience as a black person back in primary school). Anyway. Lots of bargaining, grumbling, school start and break downs (more on Draco's side, tis little drama queen and not writing letters - he ain't that crazy to break news to his parents cough father cough before resorting -, Hermione taking on a more seething cold rage befitting an scorned 11 year old)

Somehow this translates into near herculean effort put into academics making them the best of the best for the year (well half year, the resorting a work in progress) since veeeery long ("Ya sure they shouldn't have been sorted into ravenclaw" cue in dirty look from Draco). Also as last ditch attempt they try to poison the hat (charms don't work on hat) to get him manipulated enough for him to resort them into their proper houses (ravenclaw and slytherin) so later they can feign ignorance about how the hat must have made a mistake

Bonus: Draco murderous lil badger/duckling/snakeling on quidditch field with Cedric trying for head ruffles

Hermione working through her anger in being put in this shithole without options of transfer getting into very (passive) aggressive intellectual trade offs over boiling cauldron with Professor (mutters incompetent, can't get her resort out of racist snake pit) Snape

(surprisingly no bashing, everyone alive for more chaos, but fear not, Snape despairing and close to heart attack over Hermione's poison attempts on hat, Lily cackling over her besties karma "Hey, you were the one grumbling over the lack of promising students, see now you have one very bright Slytherin to teach")

[meri-oddities]

Chapters: 1/21 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Harry Potter/Bill Weasley (pre-relationship) Characters: Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Bill Weasley, Minerva McGonagall, Sirius Black, Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, Petunia Evans Dursley, Albus Dumbledore, Narcissa Black Malfoy, Dudley Dursley, Amelia Bones Additional Tags: Time Travel Fix-It, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Pre-Relationship, Bonding, Pureblood courtship, Good Dursley Family (Harry Potter), BAMF Minerva McGonagall, Evil Albus Dumbledore, Good Severus Snape, 2024 Quantum Bang, My Potter Head Canon, competent adults, 74k words, No Underage Sex Summary:

One night, right after the end of third year, Harry has a very vivid dream. Or at least, he thinks it's a dream. Whatever it is, it changes the trajectory of his life as well as the lives of several other people in his world. He finds out it's all about getting the correct information at the right time and then finding out who your friends are. Even more importantly, figuring out who your enemies are.

[oxydiane]

@abihastastybeans @impishtubist you ask and i deliver

‘Are you alright?’ The tall redheaded boy asked, worried while trying to wake up his friend.

Remus hadn’t seen somebody pass out because of a dementor since the war. Heart clenching at the thought of what the poor kid must have lived through, he goes for a bar of chocolate carefully stored in his suitcase.

He approaches the small crowd that had formed around the kid who passed out: two redheaded teenagers, that tall freckled boy and a girl, a blonde, stocky boy and a shorter girl with bushy hair; none of them could have been older than fourteen.

The words in his throat die out when takes a better look at the teenager laying unconscious; he had intended to shoo the friends away and let him have a look, but as soon as he is able to look over a red mane, his eyes zeros on the kid’s jet black hair.

He hadn’t seen such nightmarishly messy hair since the summer of 1981. He is frozen in place.

But nothing could have prepared him for the moment those eyes opened. Bright emerald green looks right up at the redhead boy crouched in front of the seat and everything around Remus goes static. He can hear the kids but cannot make out any of the words exchanged.

After what seems like hours, he speaks without meaning to.

‘Effie?’ The chatter that had formed in the compartment died down at once and Remus can see the way Effie visibly recoils, wrapping her arms around herself defensively.

He also becomes extremely aware of the glares all of her friends are giving him.

‘That’s not his name!’ The redheaded boy bellows, getting up suddenly and standing right in front of Effie, almost as if to shield her— him?

‘Uhm,’ Remus mutters, clear confusion on his face. ‘Are you not James and Lily Potter’s daughter?’ He bites his tongue, realising that any other person would have just asked for her name, her fame second to very few.

Thankfully, nobody seems to pick up on that, but something must be wrong because their glares harden and the redhead boy’s face shade starts matching his hair.

‘He’s not! You better get that through your head before I knock your teeth in!’

‘Ron!’ The bushy haired girl shrieks. ‘He’s a professor!’

‘Look if I bloody care,’ the boy— Ron replies.

‘Still!’ The girl reprimands him before turning to Remus. ‘But he’s right. Harry is nobody’s daughter.’

‘Uhm, Ron, Hermione…’ Effie— Harry? Speaks from behind Ron. ‘Thank you but I think I can… Handle this myself.’

The two kids, Ron and Hermione, nod before moving and their body language is ever so different even in that small act; while Hermione nods frantically before taking her seat next to Harry back, Ron moves slightly, still standing up, just enough for Remus to make eye contact with Harry.

‘So… Huh… I’m Harry Potter, actually.’ Harry Potter speaks uncomfortably. ‘I am Lily and James Potter’s kid— I’m their son.’

Remus stares at him for a while, short of words. He had expected a girl. He still remembers showing up at Godric’s Hollow whenever the gaps in between missions allowed it to see James and Lily’s baby girl— he still remembers holding her— him, in his arms.

‘Ah,’ Remus says at last. ‘I see.’

Everyone in the carriage looks uncomfortable as silence falls amongst them; he can see Hermione take Harry’s hand and both the redhead kids are giving him the nastiest glares he had ever seen. Even the blonde boy, who had such kind eyes and had made himself smaller before, looked at him in an angry, challenging way.

‘Dumbledore hadn’t mentioned this,’ he mutters, trying to reason, his brain frantically searching for a way to make it clear he didn’t have a problem with it and was just caught off guard. He suddenly remembers the bar of chocolate still in his hands and snaps it immediately. ‘Here, eat it, Harry. It’ll help.’

Harry reluctantly takes the chocolate, but doesn’t eat it.

‘That was a dementor.’ Remus says unprompted, still not wanting for silence to linger. ‘One of the ones from Azkaban, nasty creatures. Eat the chocolate, it will help. At least until you can get to the hospital wing… Eat it. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me…’

He awkwardly strolls past the students, desperately searching for a way to escape all the glares and disappearing into the corridor.

‘ — I’ll hex him!’ Is the last thing he hears before the voices become too muffled to make out.

[redabeline]

Hermione sat with one leg hooked over the other at the bar, watching as waiters glided from table to candlelit table. Despite it being a Tuesday in January, the restaurant was busy, the low buzz of conversation mercifully drowning out the sound of soft jazz that had come to grate on her nerves in the time that she’d been waiting. She sighed to herself, checking her phone again; she’d hoped tonight would be different. Her date was late. Normally this wouldn’t bother her, but it was starting to gnaw in her mind that he might not show at all - and really, she thought, there was no excuse for lateness.

Part I of the art for my SSHG fic, In Search of Interest He Found Love.