Chapter Text
Her therapist –
yes, she gets a therapist, one who operates in the Muggle World because Hermione Granger is nothing but a sensible girl-woman, who believes in privacy over the cruelty that she has had no choice but to experience since she was eleven and with two male friends.
But her therapist prompts the exercise first.
“If you could change one thing about yourself,” she says, over a coffee that’s no gone cold, “what would it be and why?”
“Just like that?” Hermione frowns. Admittedly, it isn’t difficult to lie and say things like she’s a war veteran and her service to the Queen was off the books because who is really going to believe a tale about a homicidal sociopath coming back from the dead to kill his archnemesis, who was a baby the first time. She reaches for her own coffee, black no cream. She takes a sip and swallows, her nose wrinkling. “No,” she answers, “follow-up – just the why?”
“Just like that,” her therapist repeats.
There’s a number of things she would change. She would change the year on the run. She would have trusted her instincts. She would have never dated Ron, taken the kiss but insisted on things like boundaries and needing to be better friends before trusting a relationship. She would have let Neville Longbottom kiss her at the Victory Ball because he was fit, he thought she was fit, and there were no strings attached. She wouldn’t have gone to see her parents or face that fact that them not knowing her and unable to know her again was easier than being rejected up front, a cruel thought even today.
“I think I’d like to be braver,” she says lightly. The cuff of her sleeve starts to drag up her forearm. Most of her scars remain hidden, at least cosmetically, but her body is still there, still alive, and the scars just as such. The fabric of her blouse reminds her of Bellatrix Lestrange’s crisp, taunt knifework. Hermione would have killed her too.
“How so?”
Hermione shrugs. “I think, well, in the long run – I’d like to be more vocal about my needs upfront. Does that count?”
“It could,” her therapist reasons. “Do you want it to?”
Her eyes narrow. “Are you doing that on purpose?”
“Of course.” The other woman laughs. Hermione watches as she dumps another packet of sugar into her coffee. She tries not to make a face. “I think,” her therapist continues, “that unpacking your suspicion about everything I do might be best for another session. But I’d like to focus on your need to be braver. Or, well, the reason why you think you need to be braver.”
“I don’t know,” she answers immediately. She pushes her coffee forward, over it. “I think I find myself at a crossroad. I don’t particularly care about my government job, but I feel the need to work. I suppose it’s all about this constant need to prove myself, you know? Like I earned my seat at the table but I also can continue to be there.”
“Does it fulfill you?”
Hermione shrugs. A Ministry job doesn’t. She’s bored. The copious amounts of paperwork hit a level of mundanity that she thought would satisfy her post-War need to slow down. She doesn’t want to chase down leftovers like Harry and Ron do as Aurors, even though she’s been reminded several times that she could very well switch over to the department or spend some time in the legal faction. She’s not stupid either; the rumors of her potential step-in, should Kingsley decide to not seek another term, whenever that is, are rampant. She has no idea how the rumor started and finds it incredibly distasteful at best.
“Hermione?”
“I don’t think so,” she says slowly. “I think, frankly, I’m terribly bored.”
“What would you do?” The softness in the other woman’s face makes her uneasy. If only you knew, she’d like to say. The familiar anxiety begins to knot in her stomach. “I don’t mean to press,” her therapist continuous, “but it does seem directly linked to what you’ve been trying to say with wanting to be braver.”
Hermione’s mouth twitches.
“Maybe, I’ll start by quitting my job.”
-
Her resignation letter is handed to her department head by eleven that morning.
It’s all pomp and circumstances. She does charm it so that when Director Prickle decides to pick the envelope up, it opens and dictates her note to her. Prickle has never liked Hermione, but they share a begrudging respect for each other. She supposes it’s because she could read Hermione’s lackluster hunger for her position, but Prickle is known to be intensely objective, almost to the point of self-isolating and Hermione just doesn’t want to take a step into that direction for a Ministry job.
She still finds her way to the Auror department, waves to a few people that she knows, ignores all the whispering, and plants herself in front of Harry Potter’s desk. He isn’t in. Not yet, at least. His late day is another indication of where his headspace is in a post-broken engagement world. Where she and Ron acknowledged their different spaces, Harry and Ginny were swept into a bizarre, front-facing, tabloid adoring account of their relationship. No one close to them is surprised by the breakup. They both wanted different things. Ginny has always said that she did not want to be her mother and family, although important to her, was something she’d like to have in several years, just not now. Ron told her he wasn’t going to pick a side, but they both know that Weasleys have loyalty to their family first and others, particularly outsiders, later and Ginny, by nature, demanded that even wordlessly.
“Hermione?”
Harry’s voice is thick and sleepy. She drops her head back, glancing behind her at his figure at the door. These days, he’s growing some sort of beard. She thinks she likes it.
“Hiya,” she says. Her mouth twitches. “Wanted to see if you were hungry?”
“I just got in.” He pulls out his pocket watch. It’s a Remus keepsake for Teddy, but is one of the odds and ends that he seems unable to let go of. “Had an early meeting. You all right?”
“Brilliant,” she says. She watches as he comes to his desk, leaning in the space in front of her. His legs brush against hers. She studies him curiously. “Do you know?”
He frowns. “Know what?”
“Can you take an early day?”
“Know what, Hermione,” he repeats, searching her gaze. His frown deepens. He does not ask what did you do but it starts to color in the air between them. “I’m a terrible mind reader, remember?”
She snorts. “All good.” She leans onto her knees. “I quit my job though. Wanted to see if you’d keep me company for the day. Or half day, I suppose. I could go home and take a nap. Or finally go and adopt a kneazle. I’ve been saying that one forever.”
His mouth drops open. “Wait. What?”
“I quit my job,” she says. “I don’t really have much of a plan. Thankfully, I’m fairly obsessive when it comes to budgeting so I’ve got, well, I’d say a year, maybe two, if I didn’t want to do anything. I suppose my boredom would be my worst enemy, but I think that’s next week’s problem. Right now though, I’m hungry and wanted some company.”
“You quit your job,” Harry says slowly, his eyes wide. “And Prickle was okay with it?”
“I’m sure she will be. She’s not particularly fond of me and if anything, she might respect me coming out and saying that it’s not something I want to do so… I’m not going to do it. Besides, I don’t need her position to not work here. I’d rather do it cordially.”
“You really quit your job.”
“Looks like it,” she says dryly.
He stares at her. His expression is unreadable. She’s rusty, she thinks. Then again, outside of their post-War commitments, they really haven’t spent a lot of time with each other. It’s all about combating schedules, his own personal commitments, and of course, admittedly, she knows she’s pulled away a little bit. There’s a lot of noise in her head and frankly, between Ron and Harry and their own sagas, it becomes a lot.
“Give me a minute,” he says, sighing. He moves away from the desk, disappearing outside his office. She can hear him bark a few orders, listening to the scramble of those wizards and witches that form his small team. There are talks of him leading the department soon and she knows that he’s taking it seriously, maybe too seriously.
When he returns, Harry steps in front of her again. He offers his hand.
“Let’s have an early lunch then,” he says.
Hermione feels herself beam.
-
Midway into lunch, Hermione decides on two things:
The first, the most obvious, is that she’s missed him and missed him in a way that feelings funny and confusing. Of course, there is a lot to unpack between the two of them. They’ve never talked about their time alone in the woods or the nearly devasting moments that they had together in Godric’s Hollow, time that she’s only starting to learn to forgive herself for. When the War ended, it was decided that it ended for them too, despite struggling to find their footing in any corners of the Wizarding World.
The second, she thinks, is a little more complicated. Harry, the one that sits in front of her, is wound so tightly that she thinks he might snap. They’ve decided to share tea and a pastry which, she’d like to bring up, is not lunch but finds herself digging her heels in because he’s not present in this moment and she’s a little worried.
“Do you not like chocolate?”
Harry blinks. “What?”
Hermione pushes the plate forward. The chocolate croissant is already starting to flatten after the barista warmed it. She picked chocolate because Harry likes chocolate and because it goes well with the peppermint tea that she decided on.
“Chocolate,” she repeats. She forces herself to break of a piece, taking a bite. Her nose wrinkles a little. The chocolate has nearly solidified again. “Do you not like it?”
“Well,” he says dryly, “watching you eat it has really sold me on it, you know?”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“You asked me to.”
Her eyes narrow and she lifts her tea up. “Cheers to me feeling like a bother.”
Harry’s shoulders drop. “Sorry,” he says. He rubs his face. “It’s been a week,” he admits. “And then the Prophet went in on Gin’s new relationship.”
“Well,” she says slowly. “It was going to happen.”
He snorts. “Thanks, Hermione.”
“Do you still love her,” she nearly blurts, or at least, it feels that way. The words are like an old friend. Here she goes, taking care of everyone else but herself.
“No,” he says easily, surprising her. “I don’t. I mean, not in the way I was supposed to – it’s complicated, I guess. I think we both had needs that were not for each other, if that makes sense, and it’s just a reminder that I’ve got a lot to work out.”
That’s life, she doesn’t say. She feels herself soften though. “I wish I could say something other than I’m sorry,” she murmurs. Her mouth tilts a little. “But my therapist told me that I need to work on not apologize for other people’s losses.”
Harry chuckles. “Good on you, I guess.” He leans in, his thumb running over her lip. Her eyes widen briefly. She watches as chocolate transfers from her mouth to his thumb and then Harry takes his thumb into his mouth, sucking the chocolate off. “It’s a bit mediocre,” he says.
She swallows. “You picked this place.”
“You can pick the next one,” he teases.
She rolls her eyes. Her face feels warm. She wraps her hand around her tea to distract herself. It feels as if his thumb has imprinted itself onto her lip.
“Maybe a real meal then?”
He searches her gaze. “Sure,” he says. “For the next one.”
“Are you sure you can do a next one,” she says, teasing too. She doesn’t mean to, of course. Part of her feels a little selfish, maybe bratty, in calling him out. She’ll never directly say you came here with me because sometimes, there are things where it’s Harry and she falters like she’s forever trapped at sixteen. “I could pop in at Hogwarts, see if Minerva or even Neville is free. I think I owe him some sort of lunch anyway.”
His chair scuffs forward. He leans over, taking her hand by the wrist. It doesn’t startle her, but it surprises her as his fingers tap along her pulse point. She licks her lips and his eyes wander to her mouth, following her gesture curiously.
“Nah,” he says carefully. “I don’t share well with others anyway.”
-
What happens next is something that she’ll bring up in therapy. Of course, Harry has to be sensible when presenting the idea. All she wanted do was make a simple curry. I have to cook whatever is in my refrigerator, she had said.
Still, he hovers next to her. He’s hesitant, of course. “I have a proposal for you,” he says. “Granted, we’ll work around your self-imposed sabbatical if you agree to it.”
“Thanks,” she says dryly. “You made that sound both insulting and admiring.”
“It’s true.” He reaches over, still her hand. She’s been chopping carrots for what feels like the better part of their arrival at her flat. Curry seemed like a solid idea anyhow. Harry takes the knife and places it in the sink. “Hear me out though.” He swallows. “Please?”
Hermione studies him. There’s an edge to how he stands. Again, she marvels at how tightly winded he is, as if anything could make him snap and unravel at that very moment. She wonders if she’s just missed it, if they really haven’t spent that much time together. It’s different now, of course, given that they aren’t in close quarters. She just hates that she feels a little out of practice around him.
“Okay,” she murmurs.
“Sex,” he says quickly, maybe unapologetically. “Let’s have it.”
Hermione chokes. “What?”
“You and me.” He leans over her, framing her face with his hands. She immediately flushes. She’s wide-eyed, of course. Her brain feels like it’s short-circuiting. “I probably could have asked you in a better way,” he says too. “But I – I don’t know. I think you and I would be really great together, if you wanted to.”
“Sex,” she says. Repeats, even. Her tongue glides over her lip. His eyes follow. She feels herself ready to preen. Her face feels a little flushed. “I –” They’re adults. When you’re younger, with two male best friends, of course, you cannot help but think of them in that way, fantasizing about what it would be like. There’s a glimmer of youthful intimacy too, of hoping that sex and intimacy can lead into a space where you could be fulfilled with feelings. “You want to sleep with me?”
“Yes,” he says easily. “Very much.”
“And you just decided –”
“It’s always been there,” he tells her. “Behind everything. For instance, in the tent, you and I – of course, I thought about it, about you, about your legs and your mouth. I was growing into it, you know? And I could get into the song and dance about you being one of my best mates, about not wanting to ruin anything, but frankly, speaking frankly, I feel like you’d understand my needs, I suppose, or at least, meet me halfway in trying to understand them.”
Hermione decides that quitting her terrible Ministry job is paling in comparison to several bombs he’s decided to lob at her. She stares at him. There’s no reason to not believe or not take him seriously. It’s the very crux of their relationship. Where Ron fulfills that need to be fun, the spirit of boys-will-be-boys, and everything in between, Hermione understands that her role is always that something serious, that the nature of him and her is intimate and full of secrets. She’s still surprised and flustered that he’s asking her this.
“Is this because you’re having a hard time,” she says quietly.
“Yes.” His thumbs travel over the arches of her cheeks. She forces herself to swallow. “I know I’m being bloody selfish in asking too. But I’m –” He taps the side of his head. “It’s a mess in here and I wish I could ask you in a way that made sense.”
“Well,” she says, her mouth twitching. “I’ll have a lot of free time it seems.”
Harry barks a laugh. “True.”
“So how do we do this then?” She surprises herself by asking. It’s not an outright yes, but she’s still consenting to the idea. She watches his eyes darken and a tuft of air escape his mouth in some sort of sigh. It feels like he’s holding more in. “You and me,” she adds.
“Do you have any hard lines?”
She shrugs. “I’m not really sure,” she says. His thumb moves to her lip. Without thinking, she leans in and bites it lightly. Harry lets his thumb linger though, watching. So she bites it again. “I mean,” she says, “we could find out, I suppose, but if I’m honest, I have really explored that yet. Or been with anyone who has met me in that way.”
Hermione doesn’t know what she expects him to say, but she does watch his face transform and his posture relax. He steps into her, his arm sliding around her waist, as if to test the waters by starting with something so inexplicably simple. She’d argue that his fingers against her mouth does something to her, that now she’s thinks about her mouth on his mouth, the sudden option of her mouth against the column of his throat, which, secretly, she’s always found to be pretty and delicious. She can’t say these things yet.
“First rule then,” he says, voice low. It does something to her. Her stomach knots and her face flushes almost immediately. “When it’s like this, it’s only ever me and you.”
There’s too much to unpack when he says that, when he says it like that too, his voice full of promises that she can barely wrap her head around. She knows she has control though, that her version of stop and go, whatever it needs to be, is something that he’d respect and that the fact that she can understand that at start means more than anything else. But still, she’s marveling at how he looks at her, how he surrounds her, and how quickly she’s really willing to see how this is going to go.
“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”
-
The transition to the bedroom is not immediate.
There is no direct announcement of things like safe words. There will be. Maybe. It still feels a lot like they’re unconsciously testing each other. She puts away the cut vegetables that she started on, while Harry busies himself with putting away unused pots and pans. It isn’t until she takes his hand and leads him to her bedroom that she realizes that they’re going to do this and she’s okay with doing this with him.
“I want you to sit,” he says. “First,” he adds. “On the edge of the bed.”
Harry stays standing at the frame of her door. His head tilts to the side. He doesn’t hide how he’s watching her. Hungrily, of course. Curiously too.
Hermione nods. “Sure,” she says easily, releasing his hand.
Normally, coming from the Ministry, she’d make a quick work of her skirt and blouse and shower, wanting to wash the day away. She’s been too distracted by Harry to really feel her usual distaste for her work clothes and when she sits, she’s acutely aware of how her skirt starts to drag up her thighs.
“You know,” he tells her, “you’re really pretty.”
Hermione flushes immediately. Her eyes widen slightly. She bites her lip and her fingers dig into her comforter. Her heart is even racing.
“Am I?” She’s breathless and kind of hates it.
“Yeah,” he says easily. His hands are in his pockets. He takes a step forward, then another. “I know you probably don’t believe me,” he says, nearly calling her out. Her teeth bite at her lip. “But I think you’re pretty enough to eat.”
Hermione nearly unravels right there.
Harry is fast though. His hands move away from his pockets. He sinks to his knees in front her. His hands drop on her legs and he pushes her thighs open, her skirt rising further up her legs. She’s wearing a garter to hold up her stockings, stockings that have some sort lace top. He leans in and immediately bites at her thigh.
“Harry,” she manages, ready to reach for him.
He gently bats her hands away. “No,” he tells her. “Hands on the bed, Hermione. You said you wanted me to have lunch with you, so I’m going to have lunch.”
She might just lose it.
Her arousal is no joke. It’s cruel and immediate. She can feel herself clench, even as he bites at her thigh again. His hands feel large over her legs, larger than she realized – she’s always liked his hands, of course. There’s something to be said about the contrast, the coarseness of his skin against hers. She makes a soft sound.
“Good girl,” he tells her too, and she might want to die on the spot. “You listen so well already. It doesn’t surprise me though.”
The snap of her garter brings her to the surface. She watches, her eyes wild, as he peels of her stockings, one by one. His hands are warm or her bedroom is cold. She can’t decide. It might not matter anyway. His hands still slide up her legs, then around the waistband of her panties as he goes and bunches her skirt around her waist.
“I bet you have the prettiest cunt,” he says. “Is this how you dress it up?”
Her panties are lace. When he swallows, seeing them, she knows he likes them too.
“Harry,” she breathes. “Please.”
“Such a pretty girl. Good with her manners too,” he says lazily. He peels her panties off next, pocketing them. “A pretty girl with a pretty cunt. What a delicious lunch indeed.”
Later, she might not be able to look at him. Later, she’ll try and convince herself that this is a terrible idea because people do crazy things after quitting their job. This goes beyond showing up for your best friend too – but her best friend has not only discovered her praise kink but immediately capitalized on it.
“Do you want me to touch you?” he asks, leaning in. His mouth grazes her belly, just a small glimpse of skin. Her mind is reeling. “I’d love to be able to eat.”
“Harry,” she says again, and god, she thinks, he’s barely even touched her. She tries one more time to rationalize this: she’s quit her job and is riding that high. It’s been awhile. She’s not starved for touch, but apparently, here and now, she is.
“Be a good girl and use your words, Hermione.”
Yes, she thinks. Yep. Of course. She’s going to die.
“Please,” she manages shakily. “Please, please touch me,” she says, nearly begging.
He laughs huskily and the sound nearly takes her out too.
“That’s a girl,” he says.
He doesn’t dive right in. Instead, it feels like he’s peeling her apart – his mouth brushes a kiss against her thigh and then he uses his fingers, his long and deft fingers to spread her cunt for himself. She drops back a little or rather, stumbles onto holding herself up by her elbows, watching, fascinated and aroused, as his mouth slides over her cunt. When his tongue rolls against her clit, she whimpers loudly and her hand immediately twists into his hair. She’s gone, after his fingers slide inside of her, pushing in as his teeth even tease her nub.
“Oh god,” she moans. “Harry.”
Let it be said that she can no longer accuse him of not being attentive. He takes every reaction he pulls from her, only to push her into another – her hips arch, she’s panting, her skin is warm and she can feel her nipples begin to peak against her bra. He’s watching her too, only briefly drawing back. His mouth and face coated with her arousal as his fingers decide on the rhythm that he wants. She learns something else about him in that moment. He likes to watch her.
He likes to watch her so much that when he dives back in, feasting on her cunt, when her orgasm hits and she cries out, that he stays between her legs, his tongue running dipping inside her too as she collapses into the bed, shuddering. She barely has it together as he comes over her, leaning in and kissing her too.
This is their first kiss – his mouth slick with her arousal, his hand pulling her into him, a mess of tangled clothes and shaky limbs. She cannot begin to understand why it hit her that hard, but something in her has come to the surface. Harry kisses her selfishly though, stealing every sigh and leftover moan that remains. She feels her body fit into him, his hand traveling back down to her waist and returning her skirt to back over her thighs.
When he pulls back though, he searches her gaze. His expression remains unreadable. He’s relaxed though and she watches as the remainder of his tension seems to disappear as he shifts over her once more, stealing a smaller kiss.
“Dinner later,” he says. His mouth grazes her forehead. “I should be getting back.”
Hermione is sleepy. She doesn’t have the energy to fight him. “Sure,” she says. “I’d like that.”
Neither of them talks about how he takes her underwear with him, of course. She won’t realize until later, in the kitchen as she’s pulling out her curry ingredients because now she’s ravenous. This isn’t what her therapist meant by being a little braver. It might be funny to bring up, of course. Then again, have Muggle therapist? Just generalize things. At least, this is what she’s going to tell herself.
It doesn’t matter anyway. For the first time, in a long time, the smile on her face feels relaxed.