Chapter Text
Through a rapid and heated exchange of words over a Floo call that Hermione was barred from, Harry coordinated the details of the duel.
Ginny didn’t even have the decency to lend Hermione a set of extendable ears for eavesdropping behind the locked door of his study. Instead of futilely attempting sleep, Hermione lingered close by and paced up and down the hall, dismissing Ginny’s attempts to coax her to sit or wait in another room.
Would they insist that she be separated from Draco for days on end? She’d only been away from her nest, home, and alpha for a single night, and yet her patience already teetered on a sharp edge.
Only when Ginny abruptly slipped a sleepy James into her arms did Hermione finally slow her anxious pacing. “The entire thing is so barbaric," said Ginny. "I don’t know what Ron is thinking, pulling a stunt like this, not after all he’s done.”
“It’s what he does best,” Hermione muttered. James stirred himself awake, grasping hands roughly tangling in Hermione’s curls, making Ginny grimace. “Leaves when I beg him to stay, only to show up and save the day when it’s most convenient for him.”
“Other than Aunt Muriel, I don’t think anyone alive in our family’s been involved in an alpha duel. Only really staunch purebloods participate, and I doubt Ron and Harry even know what the expectations are normally. Even if I had had one, it’s not as if I would’ve had many suitors. No one in their right mind would’ve challenged Harry of all people.” Ginny looked over Hermione with palpable concern. “I wish we’d had the chance to do something for you when you presented. Even something as archaic as a duel.”
She shifted uneasily under Ginny's gaze, James's head now tucked securely into her shoulder. “I wouldn’t have wanted that.”
“You should’ve at least had the choice.”
“A choice? Harry didn’t ask me what I wanted before approving this fight. Regardless, Ron wants the spectacle more than he wants me. He’s eager to make a fool out of me despite being the one who made me this way.” Hermione took a deep breath, savouring the weight of the baby; a quiet peace.
Ginny looked as though she wanted to question her further, but she was interrupted by the squeak of the study door opening.
“The duel is taking place tonight,” said Harry, more to Ginny than her.
The pit of anxiety in her stomach grew deeper. “Tonight?”
“We all thought it best to settle this quickly.” Harry pointedly avoided Hermione’s sharp stare. “Everyone is on their way. We have to leave, now.”
Hermione nodded as her heart sank. A duel that night was sooner than she’d expected. “Let me go put James down.”
Ginny followed her up the stairs and down the hall, leaning against the frame of her bedroom as Hermione softly placed James in his cot. “I can’t go with you,” she said quietly. “There would be no one to watch James. He can’t—he shouldn’t watch them kill each other.”
“Kill each other?” Hermione frowned. "Who said anything about killing each other?"
From what she remembered, no alpha had died in a duel since the sixteenth century. Sorely beaten, bruised egos, absolutely—but never killed.
“This is a special case, isn’t it? It won’t be like those duels we had in school. Ron and Malfoy—they both consider you their mate. How can Ron truly have you if Malfoy still lives? Especially after Malfoy stole you the first time?”
“He didn’t steal me,” Hermione cut in. “I’m fully capable of making my own choices now.”
Ginny’s questions cut to the reality of the stakes in play, the consequences far beyond humiliation and revenge, and nearly made her sick.
“Are you?” Ginny asked skeptically, pausing to search Hermione’s face for a reaction. Seeing something in Hermione’s expression, Ginny continued on. “Harry won’t let them get that far. I just need to stay with James.”
Hermione made sure not to linger too long; even with her light, mated scent, standing close to their nest might irritate Harry later on. Seeing James nestled in his crib made her heart ache with longing. Not knowing when she would see him next, Hermione brushed his unruly dark hair off his forehead for a parting kiss.
Ginny pulled her into a hug as Hermione tried to quickly slip away. “Good luck,” she whispered, running her hand down Hermione’s arm soothingly.
“All right,” Harry called from the bottom of the stairs. He shrugged on his Auror robes, the sight of which did nothing to quell her growing anxiety. “Let’s get this over with, yeah?”
Barely forty-eight hours after Ron’s unplanned return from Bulgaria, Hermione found herself apparating to the countryside at Harry’s side. Not exactly the reunion she’d imagined the night she begged for Ron to help her through her heat.
In another world where duels of this kind hadn’t been forced underground or practically outlawed, they might have been held at the Ministry for a more impartial judgment. Instead, the area was nothing more than an unfamiliar open field, illuminated by the full moon high above them.
Hermione nervously smoothed her shirt, wrinkled from the apparition. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere between Wiltshire and the Burrow,” replied Harry, stowing his wand back into the holster strapped to his arm. “We thought it best to stay between their territory, somewhere neutral.”
Draco’s eyes were already fixed on her by the time she’d turned around to study the area. With no family, no friends, no supporters of his own at his side, he was completely alone.
On the opposite end of the field, an audience was quickly gathering. How a crowd this large could’ve assembled on a moment's notice, Hermione would never know. While she recognised some as vaguely familiar coworkers, there were others she’d never seen before. The way they gathered by Ron’s side made it obvious they were throwing their support behind him. Congregated close to him was a sea of red hair, whose heights and statures Hermione was intimately familiar with. The Weasley family was in attendance.
The sight of them made the pit in her stomach grow even larger. Hermione couldn’t stand the thought of facing them here, not like this.
Among them, with his back to Draco, was Ron. She knew what he looked like from any angle. There was a cavern in her heart that had taken his shape, meticulously carved out over their years at school, that had remained empty until very recently.
Their arrival prompted Ron to separate from his growing crowd of admirers and head towards the centre of the field, trailed closely by George, setting off Draco’s own approach. Harry urged Hermione to stand behind him.
Ron sniffed the air as he stared at her, his lip curling at the reminder of her mated scent. Draco’s jaw clenched slightly as his eyes fixed on the proximity of Harry’s hands to Hermione’s body, shielding her from her mate.
“Shall we go over the rules once again? Ensure we’re all on the same page?” asked Harry as the two alphas stopped a good distance away. George stood between them, though he instantly conjured a quick shield between the two. “Not looking for anyone to claim ignorance later on.”
“No Unforgivables,” Draco said as Ron opened his mouth, immediately curling his lip over his teeth in disdain at the slight.
“Difficult for a Death Eater, I’m sure.”
Draco continued on, ignoring Ron’s pointed jab. “There will be no secondaries, and no help from outsiders.”
Ron nodded sharply. “No physical contact. Only spells.”
They all agreed as Hermione stood behind Harry and observed.
“I'll go set the wards,” said Harry, leaving the men and Hermione in his wake. George stood his ground while Hermione returned to her mate, not sparing Ron a single glance. Draco’s eyes lit up as she looked up at him.
“Draco, you don’t have to do this.” The desire to touch him was overwhelming, but she was unsure what consequences it might provoke. Being physically caught between two brawling alphas wasn’t a risk she was willing to take. "We can still leave.”
“And then what?” Draco snapped, his hackles immediately rising. The silver of his eyes rippled. “Let Weasley attack me whenever he feels like it? Let him believe he can take you from me? No. We'll settle this for good.”
George quickly straightened, dropping the shield charm between the two alphas before gently laying a hand on Hermione’s shoulder to usher her away. Draco’s lip twitched at George’s touch, but he quickly straightened his expression back into neutrality. He seemed to be growing more territorial by the minute. “Come on,” George said quietly, “We need to get out of the way for Harry.”
While Draco watched her leave, Ron stared her down, his wand gripped tightly in his hand. All she could hope for now was that maybe one of Draco’s many experimental charms involved turning Ron into an ant to step on.
It was hard to tell what fuelled her anger more—the reaction due to her new bond or her understandable hurt at Ron for leaving.
George guided her towards the edge of the crowd while she repeatedly looked over her shoulder at Draco. The audience grew with each passing minute. It seemed as though Ron had invited everyone he knew to watch and asked each of them to bring along a friend. Hermione quickly shooed George away after requesting he keep the rest of the crowd as far from her as possible.
When Oliver Wood emerged from the crowd and approached her however, she was happy for some familiar company. “Hello Hermione. May I join you?”
“Of course.”
Oliver stood beside her as Harry worked to cast wards around the field to shield onlookers from stray spells. “Have you been to one of these before?”
Hermione shook her head. “Never. Do you know if there are always this many alphas present?”
“Not from what I’ve heard.”
They lingered in comfortable silence for a few minutes, taking in the quiet sounds of humming wards together before Oliver spoke again. “Jacob’s hoping Ron will win, you know? I assume the rest of them hope the same as well.”
Hermione followed his gaze towards the other side of the field. Suddenly, the collective concern among them was unmistakable. Oliver continued on, hushed this time. “They don’t like the idea of another alpha coming in and taking their omega away. It sets a bad precedent.”
“It doesn’t just happen. Omegas aren’t suddenly going to be taken away from their alphas.”
Oliver grew silent. Then he asked quietly, with a hint of disappointment she almost didn’t catch, “Why not?”
Although she had never met Jacob Travers, Hermione recognised him from the countless times he lingered on their department floor, hovering over Oliver’s desk. Oliver’s whispered question coupled with the way Travers threw his head back in laughter with the other alphas despite the impending violence brought to mind Edna’s passing confession in her office. The hair on the back of Hermione’s neck rose.
“Oliver,” Hermione said slowly, reaching to place her hand on his arm. He remained frozen beside her, but she could feel him trembling when she touched him. “Do you need help?”
There were many things that Hermione hated about their designation. Their instinctual prey response to freeze, appear small, frightened, or rattled. The way every alpha left them alone, but secretly worried about losing them to another.
Oliver shifted on his feet before he spoke again. “Consider me curious.”
“From what I’ve read, if an omega feels neglected, extremely neglected, their magic can try separating them from their bond.” Her teeth dug into her bottom lip, desperate to explain the whirlwind she found herself in. “It’s not by choice necessarily, more so an evolutionary development than anything else. When our alphas aren’t around to help with our heats, but equally refuse to sever the bond, our magic seeks other—alternatives. When Ron was absent for my last heat, I experienced a breakthrough heat in my office after Draco offered me some supper, and well—" Hermione let out a steadying breath, “—that was that.”
Oliver looked at her with careful consideration, studying her closely. He rivalled Ginny with his scrutiny of her: the only two people to pay such close attention.
Was Oliver robbed of the same choices as Hermione?
Hermione and Oliver remained next to each other in strained silence, periodically glancing over to the group of alphas conversing with one another. Periodically, one would look their way, Jacob Travers the most frequent. Oliver did not once look back in his direction.
“When Ron left, I missed him. I wanted so badly to have a family of my own, like Harry and Ginny,” Hermione started when the silence grew unbearable. Oliver blinked rapidly as she continued. “And I was lonely.” So very lonely. Down to her bones, into her soul, until it took shape in such an obvious physical form that Draco took notice of the gap of their cold distance. “But I never felt my soul calling out to Ron, nothing close to the way it does with Draco. When you’re away from Jacob, do you still feel him?”
“Jacob doesn’t leave me alone much,” Oliver replied after a moment of careful consideration. “But when he’s gone,”—a soft smile crossed his face—“I’m completely alone.”
He seemed relieved at the thought—at a reprieve from his alpha.
The last ward fell into place and glimmered in harmony with the rest before Harry stepped away.
Harry tried to give her an encouraging smile, but it was so faint, it did nothing to soothe her.
“Good luck, Hermione,” said Oliver.
Across the field, she could feel the weight of Draco’s gaze return as he fixated on her. She felt it on her skin, against her mind, like the beginnings of a blistering headache.
“Thank you, Oliver.”
The two alphas refused to bow to one another, deviating from what Hermione remembered of duelling rules in school.
The reality of what would happen was quickly dawning on her. Ron—just off of years of Quidditch training and a retired Auror—against Draco—who signed missives on the regulation of magical creatures professionally.
Hermione suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
Draco’s understandable aggression and possessiveness were clouding his judgment.
Thanks to the multitude of protective charms and wards, Hermione couldn’t smell either alpha.
Despite feeling instantaneously off balance, she didn’t bother to prod or reach out across their bond—he would surely need his full concentration if he stood a chance at winning.
“I’ve been looking forward to this since year one, remember, Malfoy?” Ron shouted, loud enough to carry over the hum of the protective enchantments. “Nice of you to actually show up this time.”
“I have some new charms I’ve been looking to practise.” Draco appeared unfazed by Ron’s needling taunts. “How thoughtful of you to volunteer.”
Ron’s very eloquent reply radiated his anger. “Fuck you, Malfoy.”
Draco didn’t bother responding. His eyes locked on Hermione’s as she stood separately from the rest of the group of onlookers with only Oliver for support.
“The agreement is standard,” Harry called out across the field, his wand pressed against his throat, amplifying his voice. “Unforgivable curses and physical contact are forbidden. The winner is the last one standing.”
Hermione worried away at her thumbnail, refusing to sit or blink, lest she miss their first movement.
A set of sparks shot out of Harry’s wand, signalling the start of the fight.
The field immediately exploded with a flurry of spells.
Draco didn’t even need to use legilimency to know what Ron would cast. Ron was bellowing out his spells for everyone to hear. Bombarda, Incarcerous, Locomotor Mortis—Ron shouted them all.
Every spell Draco cast was made with incredible precision, his feet constantly in motion as if he were dancing. In contrast, Ron kept his feet planted, opting for quantity over quality in his attempt to overwhelm Draco, keeping his own defences strong.
A reformed dark wizard versus a retired Auror. Hermione still wasn’t sure who would win. If Harry hadn’t done such a meticulous job with the wards, she might’ve attempted a confundus charm to ensure Draco’s victory.
Different coloured spells collided and rebounded off one another, some hitting the wards and neutralising instantly with a hiss. Others ricocheted and narrowly missed their original castor.
It could have been a few moments, a few minutes, or an entire hour, when a disturbing shade of dark green hit the wards. Through the chaos, it was impossible to tell who was the first to cast it.
The crowd roared with delight. Her stomach nearly turned over.
“Unforgivables aren’t allowed,” Hermione hissed. Not a single person in the crowd was running to break it up either—not Harry, nor any one of the Weasleys.
The anger she felt on both sides of the bond, her own and Draco’s, steadily turned to panic. It was a small thing, the beginning creep of fear. Ron finally began to move from his position as Draco slowly moved backwards.
Draco was losing.
It was ever so slight, but one mistake could be the end of either one in an instant. The familiar memory of Ron’s Auror practices came barrelling forward—a summer at the Burrow where he and Harry took turns casting shield charms followed by a massive blaze of fire. Hermione watched as Draco stumbled ever so slightly as he blocked the incoming wall of flames.
As dread flooded through their bond, Hermione did her best to dampen her own rising terror.
“How else was this ever going to end?” Oliver’s voice cut through her panicking thoughts, echoing what Ginny had said only hours ago. “Ron can’t reclaim you unless you go into heat, or your mate dies.”
There was no world in which she would allow Ron to claim her again. There was no conceivable way she could go back to what her life had been before Draco.
Back to the long, lonely nights, with no mate by her side, no family.
If she ran to Harry and begged, would he put an end to this madness? The thought of Draco dying for her mistakes, her choices—an outcome she hadn’t genuinely entertained—made her panic as well.
But her panic wouldn’t do either of them any good. It would make him desperate—more prone to drastic and risky tactics.
Her mind quickly ran through options. Having never attempted to do so previously, she closed her eyes in concentration, and for the first time pushed her mind against their bond herself.
She’d never been skilled at legilimency, which was why she’d never bothered to initiate communication through their bond. Draco was a natural at it. But she found once she tried, it was just as easy as opening and shutting a door—one he’d left unlocked for her, and only her.
“Spiders,” she shouted to him across their bond. “He’s terrified of spiders!”
She opened her eyes and saw Draco glance over at her in shock, before his entire body shifted. His lip curled as he shouted, “Arachnidsortia!”
Hundreds of small spiders emerged from both the tip of his wand and the ground, the night sky shining on their backs as they scurried towards their intended victim.
The hoards began to crawl up his legs as Ron looked down in horror and let out a blood-curdling scream. As he started to banish them all, Draco seized the opportunity to blast away his strong shield, leaving him defenceless.
Draco quickly closed in on him, storming across the field until they were only a few metres apart, readily blocking each spell sent his way.
With the same desperation of an animal backed into a corner, Ron threw himself into a physical attack.
The crowd that gathered exploded in excitement as the two men toppled over, Ron quickly gaining the upper hand, delivering blow after blow to Draco's body.
Hermione leapt forward and screamed over the noise of the mob. “They agreed on no contact! That’s grounds for disqualification!”
Oliver called out behind her, his voice tinged with distress. “Disqualification won’t matter if Ron kills him first.”
No one had died during an alpha duel in centuries, but Ron appeared eager to make history. His pale hands grew redder with each strike.
The one healer made no attempt to enter the wards to separate them. Even as the audience rippled with reaction along the sidelines, Harry stood there, frozen.
Draco was still conscious when she finally screamed to him, “He hurt his right leg last season!”
Her mate snarled before Draco used his own wand to stab Ron’s leg. Ron howled in pain, leaving Draco with enough opportunity to throw him off and onto his back.
Then Draco was ripping Ron apart. He delivered a fierce kick to his chest before kneeling down and striking Ron in the face, over and over again—but Ron didn’t seem to be moving after the first punch.
“No!” Whether she screamed it aloud or across their bond, it didn’t matter.
With the bright moon overhead, she could see the blood on the ground, slowly covering Draco’s hands, his shirt. From how little Ron was fighting back, the victor was clear. There was no need to go further. Draco had already won.
But he wasn’t stopping.
“Stop!” Hermione shouted over the hum of the wards crackling in front of her. Draco visibly snarled, looking more and more like a wild animal with each passing second. She could feel his vicious rage and fury, poisoning any semblance of reason. She screamed it in her mind in hopes of reaching him. “They’ll label you as a murderer; they’ll crucify you!”
His reply was swift, their thoughts crashing together so violently that it was difficult to parse one from another. “It’s my right, you’re mine. He’ll take you from me—”
“Draco, don’t!” Hermione screamed before throwing herself just along the edge of the wards. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear Molly sobbing. “He won’t, I’m yours, alpha. Okay? I’m yours! Alpha, stop!"
His fist hesitated in the air above Ron, who’d long grown limp underneath Draco in the grass.
Draco released Ron from his grip and rose to his feet. His entire body visibly trembled from the effort to pull himself from a final killing blow. He'd denied his instinct to kill the very person who tried to take her from him, the one who’d been the cause of so much of her pain and suffering.
Simply because she asked him to.
By some miracle, as Draco turned away from his bloodied opponent, Ron began to stir, turning over and crawling away with visible effort. Hermione let out a sigh of relief.
The humming of the wards around them fell and Hermione instantly sprinted towards the centre with her wand, ready to heal Draco. On the opposite end, she could make out a healer in green robes quickly making their way over to Ron, who was still struggling on the ground. The noise faded into the background as all her thoughts converged on ensuring Draco was unharmed.
The air swirling around them smelled heavily of dark magic.
The breeze was bone-chilling, and the silence grew. Small pops of apparition broke through the stiff silence—the crowd began to scatter with the realisation that their champion had lost.
The grass was soaked with blood from their struggle. Judging by both of their states, it was hard to tell who had borne the brunt of it. As she ran to him, Draco slowly wiped his arm across his mouth, dark red—almost black in the shadow of the moonlight—blood pouring from his nose and staining his formerly crisp, white shirt. His knuckles were coated in blood as well.
He was trembling.
Hermione tentatively reached out to touch him. “Draco?”
As his gaze finally locked onto her, an ancient pulse inside her flared to life.
His eyes were not just rimmed with red as she had seen once before. The grey and red swirled together into something that swallowed him whole. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and his hands, covered in Ron’s blood, stained the fabric over his heart as his fingers tugged restlessly at his shirt.
Hermione took a tentative step back, the dry grass crunching under her foot. Ever so slowly, his lips began to pull back against his teeth and she nearly whipped her head to the side to bare her neck. Her body shook, and her voice grew hesitant. “A–alpha?”
Draco didn’t respond. His head turned ever so slightly, watching her for any minute movement.
They remained locked in a trance; her breath caught in her throat as she stood pinned under his gaze.
It was instinctual, like the split-second pause as a twig snaps beneath a prey’s foot.
Yes, a faint thought cooed in the back of her mind, finally, before Hermione smothered the voice down.
Draco lunged for her.
Her fingers wrapped around her wand, and Hermione disapparated just as his hands reached to grab her, leaving everyone and everything she knew behind.
As her feet touched familiar ground, she slammed down walls around her mind, ensuring she had obscured her location from external perception. When he regained some clarity, Draco would certainly look for her here in their Chelsea home first.
There was no place safer for them. There was nowhere else to go; they couldn’t have stayed in that field, surrounded by alphas and onlookers he would perceive as threats. But Draco wouldn’t understand that, not in the state he was in, and staying in their house might not be safe for her either.
Would he hurt her? Not intentionally, she was sure. But so soon after a battle that had so quickly gone awry, nothing felt certain.
She needed to wear him down.
With a racing heart, Hermione reached for the door connecting their home to the manor.
A sudden and harsh jerk on the other side of her mind sent her tripping over her own feet, falling flat against the door. Her vision blurred.
“My little omega,” Draco purred. The tone of his voice was calm, almost mockingly so, compared to the brutality of his mental invasion. Hermione shut her eyes and scrambled blindly for the knob, swinging it open.
Falling through the doorway, she staggered into the Malfoy library before throwing the door closed and locking it behind her. He would surely check their home thoroughly, but running through the Malfoy grounds would give her more time.
Draco continued to ram against the mental barrier she’d hastily constructed to keep him out of her mind, but she’d just as soon open a door to a Nundu.
“Where are you going, hm?” Draco laughed, sending a shudder down her spine. A reminder to keep moving. “Where could you possibly go that I couldn’t find you?”
Hermione moved swiftly down the aisles, following the windows to the exit. There had never been a reason for her to explore past the library, not when her only memory beyond those doors held so much hurt and despair. With a sharp wave of her wand, the doorway flew open. The flourishing garden she’d seen only in passing through the glass panes opened to her, beckoning her forward with charmed flower bushes and sprawling trees. A siren song on its own. The only guiding light was the full and bright moon hanging high in the sky. If there had been more time, she would’ve stopped to smell the roses. Perhaps next time.
Bolting between the bushes, the flowers and trees, she took off towards the tree line in the far distance. The years of abandonment after Narcissa’s passing left the garden neglected, but nowhere near death. The grounds were sprawling with tall, new growth that had vines and roots strangling the stone path.
The hair on her arms prickled before a loud crack rang out across the grounds. Somewhere far closer than she expected. Hermione froze, but not before a branch snapped beneath her feet.
There was no telling where he was, if he was close enough to see her. Hermione held her breath, a futile attempt to not draw attention to herself, to not make a sound. Blood rushed in her ears. She didn’t dare turn around.
“You can’t hide from me here, love,” he called out. He tried for soothing, but she could feel his rage radiating through their bond.
The taut string between their souls beckoned her to return to him. The unmistakable feeling of being watched was quickly followed by a merciless press against her mind.
The years he’d spent carefully placing traps for her to fall into made him a hunter. She wasn’t sure there was any more of the meticulously patient Draco left. The alpha today was a darker shadow, one that had been threatened, fought, and won.
Back then, Hermione had no idea what she was getting herself into, but now—
Now she knew.
A passing breeze washed over her, a reminder of the cool night ahead of them—the clothes she wore weren’t thick enough to ensure comfort.
With her next inhale, the smell of old books, parchment, antique wood, and grass caught in a fiery blaze overwhelmed her. Hermione nearly let out a sharp whine and slapped her hand in front of her mouth to cover any errant sound.
There was no need to wonder what it meant.
Draco was in rut.
Then she saw him. Draco didn’t order her any closer. He didn’t even take a step further.
It was an instinct stronger than any imperio she’d ever felt. Her feet slipped against the ground, hopelessly pushing for traction against the dirt, as she rushed to flee. To put as much distance between them as she could.
A snarl radiated down to her bones.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Pure instinct and adrenaline won over reason. Pushing one foot in front of the other, she darted across the grounds. Gnarly branches scraped at her arms, her legs, catching and tearing her clothing.
If she could get past the tree line, the escape routes would widen. No longer a mouse chased through a maze.
Hermione could sense it now, the lick of danger at her heels.
Draco was gaining on her.
In the back of her mind, a small voice begged her to stop running. To let herself be caught. To bare her belly, her neck, or flip over onto her knees and give herself to him. After all, Draco won the challenge for her. Had she not stopped him, Ron would be dead. Did that not make him the perfect mate?
The louder call said otherwise. Was it not better to make him chase her, the warm voice purred, to catch her and prove to her over and over again that he would never leave?
He’d caught her once before. Surely he could do it again.
Turning the corner around the garden, an expansive hawthorn blocked the thick forest behind the Manor. She was so close to escaping the open air and exposure of the overgrown lawn. The tree line ahead of her blurred as her vision grew hazy.
But instead of reaching the tree cover, she hit the ground with a shout, a sharp knee jabbing her back, pinning her down.
“Caught you,” Draco rumbled in delight. Disorientated from the tackle, Hermione could hardly make out his form. The barely disguised rage, alongside the triumph—either from finally catching his mate or defeating his challenger—soured his scent and smothered her. Yet pride surged across their bond.
Hermione gulped, fingers twitching in the dirt, unsure of his reaction if she dared to move. “Draco—”
He let out a hiss of displeasure above her. His hands at the nape of her neck tightened painfully, making her backpedal in her address of him. “Alpha,” Hermione whispered, desperately clawing at his fingers along the sides of her neck, trying to catch her breath. “Hurts.”
“Did you think you would get far from me here?” Draco asked tightly, not letting up for a single moment. His fingers roughly wrapped themselves around the strands of her hair, gripping firmly at the sweat-soaked curls that clung to her neck, before turning her head to the side. Fully exposing the raised mark he’d left on her gland. He let out a low growl. “All of this is my territory. I could find you here with my eyes closed.”
Finally, her vision slowly came into focus.
From what little she could see out of the corner of her eye with her cheek pressed against the ground, she noticed he hadn’t even taken the time to scourgify himself. There was blood across his face, on the knuckles of his hands, even his shirt. His breath was laboured from the chase, his pupils blown wide, still rimmed in blood red. His entire body shook as he panted above her.
Up close, she could taste the acrid burn of his pheromones on her tongue, pumping into the air around her, practically suffocating her.
It was all the comforting scents she associated with him—the books, the grass, the old wood—corrupted by ash.
Draco didn’t seem to notice her distress, or perhaps he simply didn’t care. If he could grow claws, he would have already pressed them into her skin and dragged her further beneath him. Her heart raced and she began to tremble violently.
It was the textbook definition of a rut.
While Ron had been overcome by the onset of her heat, he had never fallen into a rut himself. The most information she’d been able to find about the experience were personal accounts stored away in the Malfoy library. Most ruts followed a successful courting duel, as was pureblood tradition. Hermione read extensively through every recorded account weeks ago.
But like most magical things, the reality of it was more intense than she could’ve imagined. In this state, Draco would surely kill anyone who came between them.
Unrestrained, unbridled. But he couldn’t help it. His own instinct to chase her was too powerful to deny.
The running, the chasing—they only seemed to have made him angrier.
Under his grip and the crushing weight of his body, Hermione wondered if it would’ve been better to wait for him at home.
“Alpha,” Hermione choked. “Please—”
His scent spiked suddenly at her words, and he pressed her body further into the ground. Even during her heat, he hadn’t smelled like this. Every part of the monster he kept carefully restrained was unleashed.
Her instincts were torn between trying to flee from an enraged alpha and submitting before him completely.
She began to pant as Draco ran his nose roughly across her exposed neck, brushing closely against her sensitive mating gland. It was then she felt it—slick pooling between her legs.
“You smell so good,” Draco purred. Her undeniable and traitorous arousal grew as he tore at her thin clothing, shredding the layers between them. “Desperate for me, aren’t you?”
Draco growled, his hands roaming over her back, before returning to the back of her neck and holding her still.
“See what you’ve made me do?” Her bare knees scraped against the dirt as Draco’s grip on her neck tightened. A whimper ripped from her throat. “Just to prove myself to you?”
Hermione trembled beneath him, pushing her hips back against him to feel his hardening length.
“Be still,” he snarled against her ear.
The simple command made her body go slack. The cold night made the slick clinging to her thighs all the more apparent—even Hermione could smell herself through the haze.
The hand holding her down turned to cradle her throat, pulling her body against his chest.
When she was in heat, Draco had taken the time to prepare her, even though she’d made herself ready and willing. This time, her only warning was the sound of an unbuckling belt.
If they had been wrapped in their nest at home, perhaps Draco would’ve treated her differently. Softer. Slower. Hermione realised now that he planned to take her here, on her knees—mounting her out in the open.
With his hand against her throat, Hermione let out a squeak, helpless to do anything but endure. To take and take and take until he finally bottomed out.
He forced his entire length inside with one long thrust.
The sudden intrusion made her tear up, blurring her vision. Everything else heightened: his overwhelming scent, the devastating fullness of his swelling cock, and the weight of him against her back. Combined, all of it smothered her unrest.
Draco buried his face into her hair before beginning a brutal pace.
“And now, after everything I’ve done to have you, everything I gave for you, they still want to take you from me?” With every word ripped from his mouth, he moved faster against her. “I earned you. You’re mine.”
The insistent press of his cock against her womb ignited something archaic inside her.
When she canted her hips against him, desperate to feel more of him, his fingers dug into her neck, holding her in place.
Still, her body reacted to him. Whatever it was, it wasn’t her heat. It was too soon, too close to her last heat. It might’ve been a response, something evolutionary, to ease the ache. It became easier to accept his smothering warmth around her, inside her, as she tightened around him. While one hand held her against him, the other parted her legs wider as he drove into her.
“Yours,” Hermione gasped, shifting her hips to meet his thrusts. “Yours, alpha.”
Even as tears began to fall down her face, Draco never slowed down. “Shhh, don’t cry,” he whispered with faux concern. Betraying his words, he brought her face closer to taste her tears.
The base of his cock was growing rapidly. He was going to knot her here, on the ground, with his bloody hands on her neck and thighs.
“Alpha—”
Teeth.
His teeth buried themselves in her mating gland, and she involuntarily clenched around him.
He bit into her as if he were forcing her into submission, a predator with his teeth sunk into the soft neck of a fresh meal. The pain of it nearly made her scream.
But her body welcomed the pain as an unexpected orgasm barrelled through her, and she reached desperately for his wrist around her neck as she lost herself.
The warm pulsing inside her extended her climax on, and on, and on.
Draco placed the entirety of his weight on top of her, his hips grinding into hers with urgency, ensuring his knot was locked tight. Her body adjusted around his ballooned knot, allowing him to settle into her for however long it took.
His scent, overwhelming and all-encompassing, weighed her down like a heavy blanket. Every breath she took sunk her deeper into her instincts, the fullness of him inside her, filling her without respite. During her heat, his attention had been a remedy to her pain, her constant emptiness, reaching down to her very soul.
Draco nosed at her abused gland once again before sucking against the bare expanse of her skin.
Once his knot subsided, his mind would surely clear a bit. He’d take her back to their home, back to the safety of their nest, where she would be able to take care of him.
He’d taken such good care of her during her heat, it was up to her now to carry him through his own.
But when Hermione squirmed under his body to free herself as she felt his knot go down, he snarled and pushed her harshly down into the ground once again.
The air was still full of pheromones, and his anger had not subsided one bit.
Maybe they would leave after the second round then.
The cold ground dug into the palms of her hands as he took her again for the second time, and then a third, again, and again, until the stars grew faint in the sky.
There was nothing Hermione could do except let Draco take what he needed from her.
In the short moments they weren’t locked together, she would reach out to kiss him more, but his mouth was preoccupied with marking every part of her with his teeth.
She would’ve bitten him back if he hadn’t kept her pinned down, his hands splayed across her back, keeping her on her knees.
Possessive bastard.
It shouldn’t have felt this good, but it did. It felt perfect.
When he finally flipped her onto her back, he loomed over her, caging her body beneath him. His entire frame blocked out the fading stars. Hermione stared up into his eyes where his pupils were blown wide with a fine ring of red, his gaze raking over her form below him.
Slick pooled around her cunt, making her arousal impossible to ignore as Draco’s hands pushed her legs wider to make room for himself. Her feeble attempts to escape were well forgotten now.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” He teased her entrance before spreading her wider, staring down at the mess they’d made. The barest brush of his knot against her clit made her hips buck upwards. His smile was made all the more predatory by his sharp canines, his fingers catching the remnants of their earlier climaxes. “My perfect mate.”
It was the first time so far he’d been slow. He took time to watch her body open up for him, to drink in the expressions across her face as his cock disappeared inside her.
Draco was far more coherent than the first time he’d taken her against the ground.
As time went on, his sentences became shorter. What had started as angry monologues devolved into exclamations of how perfect she was, how perfect she felt around him. How he’d soon show everyone in Wizarding Britain that she would always be his.
There was nowhere else Draco wanted to be than caught inside her, filling her, listening to the noises he drew from her.
A broad hand covered her stomach, pressing down on the raised swell of her abdomen. Hermione whined, clenching hard around his cock as he tightly ground his hips into hers, forcing his knot inside her.
As her mouth hung wide open, Draco’s fingers hooked themselves between her teeth, pushing their mixed release onto her tongue and across her lips.
Then he finally, finally kissed her. It was another way he consumed her, dipping his tongue into her mouth. Something like a purr rumbled on and on inside his chest when he pulled away. “So sweet.”
The tight clutch of her nails against his shoulder nearly drew blood, but he didn’t seem to care.
Hermione let her head rest on the ground as he continued to come. There was something close to determination travelling across their connection. She could almost feel the words on her tongue.
Are you going to give your alpha a baby?
Deep inside her chest a warmth grew, taking hold of her fluttering heart.
It felt like he had endless energy. Hermione knew it had been a bit of a handful for him to keep up with her heat, but he’d managed it fairly well.
But it was more than she could’ve ever predicted. Their combined scent was a constant reminder of his unbridled state—keeping her plaint beneath him at all times, right where she wanted to be.
To enjoy it all without the guilt of reality looming in the back of her mind.
Nests were more of an omega comfort than anything else. Whenever Hermione felt scared, lonely, or sad, the call of her nest was inescapable. The scent of herself mixed with her alpha would soothe her, bring down her heart rate, calm her endless anxiety.
Draco wouldn’t have the same desire for a nest during a rut. An alpha needed an omega, their mate, more than anything else. More than a bed, rest, or even food.
It was a welcome change to be this wanted.
No one else would ever see him in this way. His rut was all for her to enjoy.
Still, she was thankful when Draco grew tired from his hackles rising at the slightest sound.
Their return to her meticulous nest made her melt into the sheets, splaying herself on her back for him to admire.
Draco’s eyes slowly raked over her before he pounced, caging her body between him and her nest.
His hands tangled into her hair, holding her in place before nipping sharply at her jaw. His mouth moved across her neck and chest, swiping his tongue slowly against her neglected and tightening nipples. His teeth quickly followed to mark underneath her breast, working his way downward at a torturously slow pace.
She parted her legs willingly and readily for him, but as slick leaked out of her, Draco pointedly ignored it, instead choosing to turn his attention to the inside of her thighs.
“Perfect,” Draco whispered, so quietly she could hardly hear it. What started as slow laps became small nips along her raised and sensitive glands.
There wasn’t a single part of her that he hadn’t tried to mark with his mouth. The cold exposure of her neglected clit coupled with the sudden overstimulation nearly made her sob.
Draco blanketed her body with his own, radiating heat and need.
You never have to be alone again, her omega reminded her, finally released from the tight restraints of her mind. Alpha will take care of us.
Most times, he worked into her slowly, but now a sudden thrust made her head spin. He still felt impossibly large, even after all this time.
“Fuck.” Hermione shuddered against him, steadying herself with her hands against his thighs as he rocked into her. His breath ghosted over her ear. “You feel so good. This perfect cunt of mine, all mine—”
A baby, a baby for your alpha, her instincts begged, interrupting his audible stream of consciousness. The delicious feeling of his knot caught against her inner walls. Please, please please…
The pleading went on and on, never seeming to end. Draco’s attention suddenly caught on her mouth, and she wondered if she’d been begging for it aloud.
All the noises she made, whether they were protest or pleasure, were quickly swallowed down as Draco pressed his mouth against hers.
And with that, he spoke less and less.
What was left for either of them to say?
Ruts, though much shorter in time than omega heats, were no less physically draining.
Two days, that was what all the books said. Two days from start to finish, on average. Nothing about this experience seemed average to her, but nothing about them ever was. Hermione lost track of time fairly quickly. She couldn’t keep count of the hours as time slipped between her fingers between rounds.
A rut meant to solidify their bond.
A rut for one single purpose—to claim her in every remaining and conceivable way.
Would he realise what it meant for them?
In an ideal world, a rut was meant to coincide nicely with that of an omega heat. While omega heats tended to last longer, ruts were particularly brutal. If there was no heat, the heavy pheromones pumping from the rutting alpha would try their best to coax the omega to ease and loosen.
It was endless. He never stopped.
Her body steadily melted around him, moulding itself for Draco’s use. He’d settled into all her empty crevices long before this, taking advantage of her loneliness to claim her. Now she couldn’t help but crave him.
He took her against the floor. Against the wall. He took her on her side, held her close against his chest with his teeth firmly clamped against her throat, exerting his dominance.
There wasn’t much time to reflect on how simple and right it felt to willingly be caught in between someone’s teeth, to be wanted after being so lonely.
And she had been so fucking lonely.
Hermione would tilt her head, let him suckle away at her mating gland, and soak in the pleasure of his overwhelming attention.
All she could manage was a few quick cleaning charms as his knot deflated.
Never once did she feel him soften, no matter how many times he knotted her, only subsiding just enough for him to move freely inside her.
The hot press of his hands against the bite marks he’d left on the glands of her inner thigh stung horribly when he pressed her legs apart, making space for him to lay between.
He licked and bit wherever he could reach, sometimes working his release into the glands on her thighs, her neck, her wrists. Hermione didn’t have the presence of mind to feel embarrassed by it. The sensation of his fingers working into her skin, the numbing effect of his scent, was a welcome relief from his other forms of attention.
Every kiss he gave her was biting. Even in the haze of his own need, he wanted to feel her clamp around him. He claimed every climax of hers for himself, tearing them from her when she thought she had nothing left to give.
There were fewer words to exchange now. The rumbling in his chest was a constant reminder of his pleasure.
Intense and overwhelming and perfect.
As time went on, he eventually began to slow down. When Draco let her touch him in return, he became softer. There were no words left to speak when he was broken down to his simplest instincts.
To touch, to mark, to breed.
When her lips would press against the bite mark she’d left on his own mating gland, the silver imprint of her teeth on his skin, he would shudder against her body.
A simple reminder that he was hers, too.
“No more,” Hermione groaned as Draco shifted closer. She’d finally managed some sleep while he was distracted by meticulously working his release into her glands once again.
“Shhh.” Now Draco nosed at her jaw, lapping slowly against her pulsing jugular. “One more. Just one more, and you can sleep.”
He sounded apologetic, but the softness of his voice was betrayed by the rough thrust of him pushing inside her. Hermione could only whine as he rocked into her, his knot only having barely subsided since he was last inside her an hour ago. Or minutes ago? She couldn’t remember.
Draco hoisted her up against his chest by her throat, before burying his face in the crook of her neck. His other hand slid down her chest possessively until he stopped between her legs. Hermione shook her head frantically against his grasp, his familiar touch against her sensitive nerves overwhelming, painful even. She squirmed against him.
“I can’t,” she whispered, her free hands desperately pushing his arm away from where they were joined. “Don’t,” she hissed as he bit down on the meat of her shoulder, nowhere near her glands. A punishment for her refusal. “worry about me. Please, alpha—”
Hermione doesn’t know if she can, if there’s anything left for her to give him. It would be far easier for him to take what he needed without concerning himself with her enjoyment. But Draco ignored her pleas, just as he’d done the entirety of his rut, and found every last bit of her to take. His possessive touch persisted regardless of her attempts at resistance. Her hands gripped at his arms as he continued to move inside of her, rubbing her clit until the pain slowly seared into pleasure, a brutal edge that careened her towards another shuddering release.
The sharp bite of his teeth snapped into her shoulder once again, while his knot growing inside of her made her go limp.
And Hermione drifted.
When she came to again, it was the afternoon sun she saw through the curtains, signalling a day half passed. Every muscle screamed for relief. Her back was pressed against Draco’s chest, their legs tangled together in the last position he’d taken her in, sometime in the middle of the night.
Though she could not remember the details at that moment, the soreness of her body was proof of it.
Smacking her mouth open and shut, she blinked away the remnants of her nearly comatose sleep. When she stirred in his arms, Draco grumbled, but there was no possessive growl or further movement. It appeared he had finally tired himself out. Hermione slowly detangled herself from his grasp, ignoring her entire body protesting against the movement.
Draco’s heightened scent, having filled the room during his rut, was beginning to subside, but her instincts still squirmed in delight.
Hermione was shakier on her feet than she’d expected, wobbling towards the door like a newborn doe. The soreness between her legs brought forth the memory of his knot catching inside of her, and she remembered the bliss of being caught beneath him.
She tip-toed toward the bathroom to confirm the extent of the damage over the last few days. A rat's nest of hair, no doubt. Draco liked to twist his fingers into her hair when holding her in place. It would take quite a bit of time to untangle it all.
The accumulation of their joint activity clung to her skin. The sweat of exertion and their combined release covered her. She couldn’t even remember where her wand had ended up. A bath would be absolutely necessary.
But as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, it was clear that it was Hermione’s skin that told the whole story. If Draco was concerned she would emerge from this anything but his, he need not worry.
Draco had made his mark all over her body. She studied the inside of her thighs, the expanse of her stomach, her hips, her shoulders, across her jawline. It would take many patient days to heal them all without some sort of bruise removal paste, and only if he didn’t continue to mark her in the aftermath of it all.
Her fingers brushed across her mating gland. On more than one occasion, Draco had clamped his teeth on it while he took her from behind. Pressing against it, pain burst across her shoulder—a sensation she found far more pleasurable than she should.
All in all, a bit excessive, but not unwelcome. Perhaps she should’ve waited for his rut to coincide with her heat.
She sensed Draco awaken before she heard him call out for her; an understandable mix of trepidation and confusion radiated through her. “Hermione?”
Hermione left her sorry reflection behind and quickly returned to their room.
His earlier ferocity was a distant memory, the shadow across his gaze lightening like the sun breaking over the horizon. When his eyes landed on her through the doorway, she felt his sudden horror.
“What—” Draco let out a shaky gasp, eyes widening at what she’d just seen in front of the mirror. “What did I do to you?”
Hermione raised a single brow. “Do you remember what happened?”
Draco gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He moved one hand across his bare chest, almost as if he was catching his breath. The mating mark she’d left on him not too long ago stood out sharply against his pale skin. An absent look remained on his face, but he nodded.
He reached for her. “Did I hurt you?”
If she answered truthfully, the answer would be yes. But all of her pain was surface level; the extent of his possessiveness was written plainly on her skin where he bit down, where he gripped her as he took her. She would be too sore to take him for days, not without going unbearably slow. But that was nothing compared to the pain of isolation for an omega.
So she shook her head. It was only a few moments before Hermione stood before him, running her own soothing hand across his shoulders. “You did so well,” Hermione whispered. “It’ll be alright.”
Draco’s hands lightly brushed her skin now, worlds different from the way he had been touching her the past few days. He pulled her closer, burying his face against her chest and stomach. The light friction of his unshaven face as he pressed against her set her skin aflame once again. Hermione played with the strands of his hair gently, feeling his breath drift steadily across her stomach.
It was soft—strangely intimate and different than the turbulent few days they’d just spent together.
His fingers found their way around the marks along her hips, the ones he’d dug into her as he pulled her against him and took her again and again. Suddenly he gripped her tighter, his light exploration of her battered body ending as he froze, separating only slightly from her to stare. Not up at her, but at his eye level, down at her lower stomach. Only then did Draco turn his gaze to hers in shock.
It was far too early for the charm’s accuracy. But there were old tales of mated alphas sensing the slight shift in their mates’ scents—only Draco would be able to tell if his rut was successful. And so it was.
Hermione let out a deep breath, and with it, all of the carefully placed barriers in her mind came tumbling down.
Hermione smiled, cradling his face in her hands. Whatever he might’ve expected to feel from her—wariness, excitement, perhaps relief or shock, she didn’t know. What was clear was he did not expect to feel her radiating triumph through their bond.
For once, Draco remained frozen, appearing stunned beneath her. The storm of emotions was hard to place at first, but they grew familiar quickly. Slowly, he strung words together; fragmented as if he’d never spoken before. “What did you do?”
Even in all his deception and collusion, he could never overcome the limitations of his own instincts.
Looking across their bond was like looking in a mirror. They were made for each other—two halves of the same whole.
“You asked for a baby. Don’t you remember? I know you’ve read all those accounts in the library. Short of a shared heat, there’s nothing more successful for conception than a rut with your alpha mate.” Hermione tilted her head slightly. “And what good is a rut if you’re not caught?”
The Manor wards would keep out any meddlers from disrupting the chase, while the old magic under a full moon would do more than any contraceptive potion could prevent for a mated pair during a rut.
His grip on her hips faltered, the tight expression on his face flickering between confusion and anger like television static. In his silence, her mouth twisted into a sarcastic, mocking little pout. “What, did you not have fun? Chasing me around? Claiming me?”
A noise of disbelief escaped him. “I sent Weasley to another country; I paid to keep him there. You couldn’t have known he would come back.”
“Not all of us need years to make a few plans.”
Draco stared up at her, dumbfounded. “Weasley challenged me for you and humiliated me in front of the Ministry.” His lips curled over his teeth into a snarl, suddenly remembering his fury. “You didn’t even let me kill him.”
Hermione tutted lightly. “You’re thinking too small, my alpha. Killing him would’ve made him a hero to every foolish alpha in Europe. You’ve done something even better; humiliated him in front of the crowd he invited himself. Now he has to live with knowing what he’s lost—all the better if you ruin his quidditch career along with it.” Splaying her hands across her lower stomach, a sudden rush of euphoria surged through her. “All you needed to do was win, and all I needed to do was have you chase me. Now we both got what we wanted.”
Ron—though he insisted he was the least successful Weasley child, hung up on his own eagerness to disprove it—had everything he’d ever need in the palm of his hand. A family who would support him, even when he was wrong, a career he’d chosen selfishly, and his infallible reputation of war hero. Hermione was simply another trophy on his shelf, something shiny to glance at and remember every once in a while. Ron would be able to move on quickly; he could pick any one of those Bulgarian omegas he’d spent all his treacherous time with.
His spared life would serve as a warning to other alphas of what was to come.
But Draco Malfoy had nothing beyond her. He’d rearranged his entire life for years for the small possibility of claiming her. Even all the galleons stored in Gringotts vaults would never be enough for an alpha, not without an omega to care for—not without her.
Most of all, he knew what it was like to be left all alone.
“I’ll be sending in my resignation to the Ministry. This experience has given me an even better idea—something that could help other omegas like me.” Oliver’s fleeting moment of peace came to mind. The snarling alphas standing on the sidelines of the duel, their patronising laughter nearly sending Oliver into distress. Gretta Guntzberg, locked in her alpha’s cellar for weeks until someone finally came to rescue her, only for her rescuer to take her for himself. “We can do so much together. Because I’m yours, and you’re mine and this—” Hermione reached down to grab his hands, gripping so tightly to her waist it would surely leave another bruise, and placed them across her abdomen. “This is ours.”
Even if he’d been furious, angry to the point of lashing out, Draco could never truly hurt her. The bond between them was different from the rest. He’d never know it though, not truly. He couldn’t—he didn’t know what it felt like to be mated before he’d had her.
Draco’s focus skimmed across her body, as if he could hardly believe what was in front of him. “You’re cold.” His thumbs began to rub soothing circles against her bare skin, over her stomach. “You need a bath.”
“Before we get to that, you must be starving,” said Hermione, leaning down to steal a chaste kiss before pulling him up from their nest. She hadn’t yet mastered the magical cooking appliances in the kitchen, but she would learn another day. “How does takeaway sound?”
Draco drank in her features slowly with wide eyes, tracing her face lightly with his hand, as if he could hardly believe what was in front of him. The unwavering care of his attention nearly made her purr.
Wherever Hermione went, Draco would follow to the end of the universe, and he would never, ever leave.
"Perfect," said Draco, gazing at her with adoration. He gave her a wide smile, one that highlighted all of his sharp teeth. "Absolutely perfect."