Chapter Text
“Hermione, there’s nothing to be done about this. If I could be there, you know I would be." Ron's projection in the fire flickered.
After Ron and Hermione had both presented individually a few months after the final few trials following the war, their pairing had seemed inevitable. Ron’s height and build along with his pureblooded status had made him destined to become an alpha from the start.
Being muggle-born, Hermione didn’t have the same family history to base a prediction of her designation, so she never really paid any of it much mind. Statistically speaking, Hermione knew she was more likely to be a beta anyway, and hopefully not subjected to the seemingly never-ending list of strange phenomena that came with being an omega.
Until one morning, when she stepped through the floo at Grimmauld Place to visit Harry and Ron after they'd been away for a few months for Auror training.
Ron swiftly pinned her to the floor before she could blink and, well.
That had been the end of wondering about her designation.
In the beginning, it was good. Much of the awkwardness could be chalked up to regular growing pains in any relationship, what with Ron being away for work so often. There were still Death Eaters evading capture across Europe. Hermione had continued to be promoted within the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, taking on more cases and creating more push for overarching legislative change.
When they did get to see each other, it was to refill an emotional gas canister. Fitting in enough physical contact and sex to go for weeks or months without any physical contact.
More so lately, Hermione was running on fumes.
After a few years of extended trips abroad hunting fugitives, Ron had returned home and talked about wanting to retire from the force. Although a bit relieved, Hermione questioned him anyways, asking what he wanted to do instead. While Ron and Harry were off training to be Aurors, she completed her seventh year at Hogwarts and taken interest in Magical law. Ron had only ever been an Auror.
Ron shrugged. “I can’t just keep following Harry around. I want a chance to do something for myself for the first time.”
The omission rang clear to her. For himself. Not for them.
That chance came in the form of professional Quidditch.
In Bulgaria.
Hermione had been shocked. Angry, and heartbroken.
“Bulgaria? But weren’t you talking to the Chudley Cannons coach just last week?”
“Which is a dream come true, I know!” Ron returned home after submitting his resignation at the Ministry and was constantly meeting with Quidditch recruiters that Ginny had set him up with. “But I would’ve been on the second or third string there, and the team in Bulgaria is giving me the chance as starting keeper. I’m already set back a few years, I need as much playing time as I can get.”
Harry and Ginny spent weeks trying to convince him it was a bad idea. Molly practically brought down her own house with her yelling. George even offered Ron a well-paid position at the joke shop, saying he actually needed the help.
Ron left for Bulgaria anyway.
And now, two years later, Hermione found herself trying to persuade her own mate over the floo to come home for her heat.
Once they sorted out Ron coming home and fucking her properly, she would curse him into the next millennium.
“Is this something that a backup keeper can play for, at least just that weekend?”
Ron looked affronted. “Hermione, this is the champion’s league! We can’t just throw in a second string for this competition!”
“And this is my heat, Ronald! Do you realise how painful it’ll be if you’re not around to help me? They give omega’s Draught of Living Death at St. Mungo’s if they don’t have anyone to take care of them!”
“Then by all means, take it!”
Hermione let out a frustrated shriek. “Aguamenti!”
The floo hissed and sputtered, and Ron was no more.
He didn’t bother to try calling again.
The only constant in Hermione’s life seemed to be work, and with work came Draco Malfoy.
The case work had been fulfilling and frustrating at the same time. For the first few years, she was assigned as a caseworker to lower classification magical creature misuse and abuse, citing pet shops and private owners alike. After a few cases went wrong, she even worked with the Wizengamot to rewrite the laws pertaining to the endangerment of creatures and muggles alike.
After a while, Hermione moved up the ranks, from sorting out Veela mate pairings (a more complicated version of mated pairs, seeing as those pairings are set in stone by a much younger age) to keeping tabs on the alpha werewolf population in Europe.
In the past three years, she’d been tracking down the illegal trade and abuse of various category four and five magical creatures. Due to the long history of precedent and evidence needed for investigations of this level, department caseworkers typically worked alongside a solicitor from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
The last person she expected to walk through her office door that day was Draco Malfoy. It felt as though his assignment had been a sort of tight-lipped, snickering punishment by those working above him. What had been shocking was that they hadn’t assigned him to work with the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts department. Perhaps they wanted Hermione to personally make him suffer.
There was no need for her to be cruel. Malfoy seemed to take his assignment in stride, opting to remain mostly silent, his expression quite dumbstruck after seeing her for the first time in years.
The knowledge Malfoy brought of case law was both vast and precise. His comments were succinct and clearly laid out, as if it were a waste of time to comment on anything more than strictly necessary. More often than not, he would bring in books from his personal collection as sources for obscure, medieval precedent.
Hermione had to bite her tongue frequently to stop herself from asking to see his home library.
She wanted to say all these developments were shocking, but they weren’t. All throughout Hogwarts, Malfoy was second in their class. He had always been an intelligent wizard, he had only been a prejudiced prick as well.
No, if forced to choose, the most shocking development about Malfoy was that he looked rather—fit.
Gone was the gauntness that the war had imposed on him. Hermione hadn’t seen him up close since the day he and his parents had been spared in the trials, only to be subjected to house arrest. It seemed Malfoy had used that time to study and try to make something better of himself.
It was clear that between the time she'd last seen him, Malfoy had presented as an alpha. There was some magic about being mated that completely neutralized his scent, but his shoulders had broadened tremendously, and his white blonde hair, if coiffed to a certain height, would brush against the office door frame when he entered the room. Sometimes, she wondered if doorways magically moved to accommodate his size. The sunken cheeks and pointy complexion Hermione had known him for growing up had sharpened into something particularly striking, filling out and softening when necessary. Standard quills purchased as a set at the shop looked comedic in his grip.
Time had been good to Draco Malfoy.
Not that Hermione had much time at all to think about the ways in which Draco Malfoy had changed over the years. Hermione merely appreciated the fact that he had changed at all.
They worked together in a tentative silent peace for months, communicating by way of passing scrolls to each other following a flick of the wand.
After a while, Hermione mistakenly spread herself so thin on multiple cases that there was hardly anything left of herself to give. When others had tried to come in and distract her with questions, or more work, Malfoy had been the only one who put a stop to it.
“Absolutely not,” Malfoy spat loudly as Michael Corner attempted to enter straight into her open office door. His voice had deepened considerably since his whinging days at Hogwarts. Michael hadn’t even made it through the door before Malfoy intercepted him, pushing him back into the corridor, wand in hand. Malfoy grabbed the folder from Michael’s hands. “Is this from Davies as well? If you need this much assistance completing your assigned cases, I might have a word with Shacklebolt about a few potential budget savings.”
The glower Michael gave Malfoy made the exchange look like a grumpy pygmy puff facing off a manticore, seeing as Michael was a generous twenty centimeters shorter than Malfoy on a good day. “You’re not her keeper, Malfoy.”
“Certainly not, but this isn’t even the transportation department. Now, I might see the need for the occasional Granger-consult, but since this is the sixth time in the past two months you’ve come around with your idiotic questions, I think you’ve exhausted all your potential favor. Might I suggest a library book? Perhaps there might be an entire department dedicated to muggle artefacts?”
The impressive glare that Malfoy was wearing was something probably taught to him by pure-blood governess.
Hermione watched the exchange from the safety of her desk, wand in hand in case she needed to cast a shield charm to separate them.
Not that Hermione disagreed with Malfoy, surprisingly. Her irritated huff every time Michael or Roger left the room after their questions had probably grown too distracting for Malfoy to handle. Trying to explain to two allegedly clever wizards about how trains or aeroplanes worked without magic for the fifth time quickly grew tiresome.
Malfoy pushed the thick folder back into Michael’s chest. “Don’t let me see you on this floor again unless you’d like to volunteer as a test subject for some experimental charms I’ve been working on.”
After Michael quickly retreated off their floor, Malfoy turned back into her office, breathing heavily through his teeth.
Hermione chose to simply ignore him, scratching away with her quill for a few minutes until she was sure he'd calmed down. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out her favorite tin of muggle-brand biscuits before floating them over to him.
“Care for a biscuit, Malfoy?”
He eyed the tin warily but plucked one out nonetheless. As he chewed, Hermione looked up from her paperwork curiously, brow raised. “What kind of charms are you working on?”
Malfoy had given her a rather cheeky smile.
They had gotten along well enough ever since.
It shouldn’t have surprised Hermione that Malfoy picked up on her changing mood. Ever since her fight with Ron, she had been arriving earlier and staying later at the Ministry. The feeling of being in their home, all alone, depressed her more and more with the dates of her heat looming closer. With each passing day, it became clear she would have to make an appointment at St. Mungo’s.
Each day when Malfoy entered her office, well, their office—the fact that they had essentially been sharing the space had never been acknowledged between them—the more suspicious he grew. Hermione was steadfast in ignoring the queer looks he'd been giving her.
Until one day, when she adjusted the collar of her robes, Malfoy appeared suddenly at her eye level.
Hermione flinched hard and squeaked, “What in Godric’s name are you doing?”
Malfoy narrowed his grey eyes at her, seemingly studying her for her odd behavior. They had never been this close face-to-face. Hermione’s breath caught in her chest.
“Are you ill, Granger?” With a show of great care, Malfoy raised his hands slowly to cradle her face, but firmly tilted it to the side, exposing the muscle that wore her mating mark. “What’s happening to you?”
Hermione began to tremble and prayed that he couldn’t tell.
This was the first time they'd ever even touched since working together, and Malfoy was holding her like water in his hands.
It'd been so long since she had been touched by another person so intimately. She hadn’t been held close in months, maybe over a year. Short hugs with Harry, Ginny, and baby James hardly counted. When had her last heat been? She hadn’t realised the yearning for contact had been there until the need had shriveled up inside of her.
And Malfoy restored it with a few moments of gentle touching.
It was practically salacious that an unmated alpha touch a mated omega in this way, that they be this close to one another without kickstarting an alpha duel of some kind.
Of course, Ron wasn’t happy when Hermione informed him she was working closely with Malfoy. Ron may be absent and aloof, but he surely would’ve challenged Malfoy over this.
Frankly, Hermione couldn’t bring herself to care at all about what Ron thought about it at this very moment.
“Your mark looks—off.” Malfoy ran his finger along the scar placed along her left trapezius muscle, completely ignorant to her turmoil. “It practically looks grey. Should I take you to St. Mungo’s?”
Bite me, Hermione clenched her jaw shut desperately to keep her internal monologue from spilling out. What on Earth had gotten into her? Bite me, please, I’ll be so good—
“Granger?” For a moment, Malfoy's eyes looked red.
Fighting off her slow descent into madness, Hermione answered him even as her voice shook. “I’m not ill. My—” Suddenly mortified to admit it in his careful hold, Hermione gulped. “My heat is due in a few weeks.”
Hermione lifted her gaze to watch his reaction. There certainly had to be the smell of her slick circling the air around them. Malfoy looked as though he’d swallowed a lemon.
“Oh.”
Hermione momentarily wished she could throw herself into the Sun as Malfoy quickly ripped his hands off her. Malfoy took a painfully large step back, away from her and towards the door. He seemed to suddenly gain great interest in the ceiling pattern. No, no, please come back—
“Right—well. I imagine you’ll soon feel much better.”
With a quick flick of his wand, Malfoy’s items collected in a swift fashion and he was shrugging on his cloak by the door. When Malfoy turned his gaze back at her, and in that small instance, the way his eyes bore into her own, she might’ve thought he was trying to read her mind.
Malfoy tipped his head. “Have a good evening, Granger.”
With the great ease of everyone in her life recently, Malfoy left her all alone before dusk.
When she returned home later that night, in the safety of her own nest, she wondered to herself.
Would an alpha like Draco Malfoy be the same as Ron? Ron was all warmth, from his complexion to his voice and tone, but his actions and constant absence left her frigid and alone.
Draco Malfoy was all sharp edges, cold stares, and icy replies that left people scrambling to get away from him. Yet sometimes when he looked at her, it was like he was studying something new and interesting. Something complex. She wanted desperately to ask him if he saw anything fascinating in her.
Reminding herself constantly that she already had an alpha was of no use. A quiet part of her, buried deep inside, alone, and desperate, felt that the way Malfoy looked at her made her want to bare her neck completely for his teeth.
There were more important things in life than worrying about the state of her ovaries, Hermione was sure of it. Even if her biology wanted to disagree.
Most of the time, Ginny visiting her for lunch would be a welcome respite from her work day. They repeated their seventh year of Hogwarts together before Ginny went off to play for the Hollyhead Harpies after school. After a few years, even eventually becoming team captain, Harry and Ginny welcomed their baby James into the world. Their mating was just as inevitable as Ron and Hermione’s.
Ron and Hermione were ecstatic for them both. When Ron returned to Bulgaria only a few weeks after James was born, the last time she'd seen him, Hermione spent more and more time at the Potter’s home.
The way Harry would look at Ginny holding James in her arms opened a chasm in her chest.
With the news Ron would not be returning for her heat, she wanted to cancel their lunch to avoid the confrontation entirely, as Ginny held a seer’s sense for avoidance.
Hermione hoped lunch in the public Ministry cafe would deter Ginny from bringing up the subject entirely.
Hermione should’ve known better, frankly.
After a few minutes of talking about the new developments James was making and his new toy broom, Ginny veered right into the topic Hermione had been desperate to avoid.
“Bet you’re feeling excited, I know your time of the year is coming up.” Ginny wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Ron should be glad to get a break from the season, he’s playing in practically every game without stopping.”
“A bit strange you want to talk about this at all. Ron is your brother, you know.” Hermione poked at her salad greens, anxiety pooling in her gut. “Since that tournament is coming up, he said he wouldn’t be available, actually.”
Ginny roughly ripped off a piece of baguette with her teeth as she narrowed her eyes. “Whad’ya mean, Ron’s not available?”
Aiming for nonchalance, Hermione shrugged. “There are programs at St. Mungo’s to assist with people doing it alone.”
“Those omega’s don’t have mates! You do! ” Ginny banged her fist on the tabletop so hard their silverware clattered. A few wizards and witches glanced over their way.
“Ron mentioned they can’t reschedule games because of such things. Something about it being the champion’s league.”
Ginny leaned over, looking dumbfounded for a moment before she hissed, “Hermione, quidditch teams do give players time off for a partner's heat cycle. Teams put in the time they need off in advance to help schedule big matches, and even then there are extenuating circumstances for big games. It’s normal.”
Her heart fell straight into her stomach.
“That’s not—that can’t be true. I’ve always been on a schedule. I sent Ron these dates ages ago, well before the season even started.”
The look Ginny returned said everything Hermione needed to know. She tried not to see the pity expressed plainly there either. “I’m so sorry, Hermione.”
The lunch she was eating suddenly settled into ash in her mouth. Hermione choked down her last bite and pushed her plate away from her. Unsure of what to say or do, she decided instead to count the marble tiles on the cafeteria floor.
When Ginny reached out to grip her hand, Hermione didn’t pull away.
Rather than returning to her empty home for more crying, she forced herself back to her office.
Malfoy pinned her with a hard stare as she sat down at her desk. “Granger. I thought you were getting lunch with the Weasley girl. Why are you upset?”
Determined not to have Malfoy see her cry, Hermione opened her planner and hoped for an escape later in the afternoon.
“The cafeteria food isn’t very good, is it?” Hermione said vaguely, not looking up as she internally cursed her clear schedule. She quickly flicked forward a few weeks forward in her planner, the circled dates of her heat taunting her.
Malfoy raised a brow at her skeptically, his fingers tightened around the Daily Prophet so roughly she could hear the pages crinkle. “I wouldn’t know, I don’t eat the rubbish they serve there.”
“Have you made any progress on finding more about the MacBoon clan family tree? I do wonder if they had bothered to compare the number of Quintaped’s during the first incident to family members who should’ve been alive in the first place. Maybe investigators missed something...”
Failing to find the solution to all her problems in medical textbooks, Hermione threw herself into her work. It was practically impossible to focus on the looming circled dates in her planner if she crammed as much research as possible into her waking hours.
She would return home and pass out, determined not to linger by the floo hoping for a call that would never come, and would wake up before the sun rose to repeat the process all over again.
It was well into Friday evening as Hermione flipped through a book from the sixteenth century on Nundu migration across East Africa. There had to be something that described their settlement in Madagascar—
Something suddenly dropped from above her head onto her book.
She shrieked, flying back in her chair. Quickly spinning around, Malfoy stood beside her, amused at her outburst.
“Have you lost your mind? I was reading that!” Hermione lifted her wand to banish the bag, but not before Malfoy reached out to grab her wrist to stop her.
“It’s food, you lunatic. It’s already dark out, which you would’ve known if you’d stepped away from your desk since I left.”
The brown bag seemed absolutely bursting at the seams, she wondered if he had charmed it to keep it from falling apart. Hermione carefully ripped open the top and grabbed what from the lid looked to be labeled as some sort of stew, with a large torn piece of bread alongside it.
Malfoy leaned over her and began pulling out a seemingly endless supply of fresh food. The roast from the Leaky Cauldron. Chicken tikka masala and garlic naan from the Indian place across the street. An entire side of piping hot chips. A separate container of mixed fruits, finishing off with a tin of her favorite muggle-brand biscuits. It was as though Malfoy stopped at multiple places.
"You—you brought me supper?"
Malfoy eyed her warily. "Don't look so stricken. Do you think I haven't noticed you've been starving yourself for days? You were at your desk when I arrived this morning and haven't moved since."
He opened the box of fruit and plucked out a single grape with his sinfully long fingers. Still seated in her desk chair, Malfoy loomed over her entirely so she couldn't look anywhere else. Sometimes it was easier to forget how large he really was.
"Now eat."
That command shouldn’t have affected her as much as it did.
Horrified, Hermione suddenly found herself wanting to capture the grape and the tips of his fingers into her mouth and taste him.
She quickly reached up and snatched it out of his grasp instead. The slow-growing smirk he gave her certainly didn’t help dry up the slick that had suddenly developed in her knickers.
Her hunger clearly made her delusional.
“Haven’t you got better things to do than watch me scarf this all down?” She popped the grape into her mouth and something in Malfoy’s stature shuddered.
“Absolutely not.” Malfoy made his way to his own desk, tossing his evening cloak across the back of his chair before sitting and throwing his legs onto his desk. His hands crossed in his lap and he threw on a cocky smile. “In fact, I’ve cleared my entire schedule for this.”
When it was clear he wasn’t in any rush to leave again, Hermione bit her lip, glancing down at the mountain of food he brought her.
There was no point in fighting it.
The roast at the Leaky was her favorite, after all.
“Well, thank you, Malfoy.” She reached for the soup and bread first, pulling them close to herself. It smelt absolutely divine. “I don’t know what I was thinking, not eating all day.”
They relaxed in comfortable mutual silence while Hermione ate as much of the food as humanly possible. Malfoy didn’t seem to mind her famished state. He seemed rather intrigued by it.
Hermione was normally ravenous for weeks leading up to her cycle, but she was trying her best to ignore all her symptoms, including her cravings. Heats took an incredible amount of energy out of her.
She wasn’t nesting in her bed at home. There was hardly anything to add to the pile that made her feel safe, at home, at peace. Ron sometimes sent his used jerseys to her in the post, but when the last one arrived a few days ago, she decided to set it on fire in her anger.
Although the Ministry offices tended to run incredibly cold during the summer, Hermione was beginning to grow unbearably warm. She desperately began trying to shrug off her pullover, not caring that she was wearing only a tank top underneath.
Perhaps the cooling charms wear off by nightfall.
Finishing off the Indian takeaway with the last scrap of garlic naan, Hermione took in a deep, content sigh. For a moment, something bizarre itched her nose. She sat up and frowned before vanishing the takeaway boxes, but the peculiar smell remained.
Deep and heady. Something that sparked a sense of danger in her flight or fight drive.
Hermione froze at her desk.
There was no other explanation.
There had never been anything about him she could smell before. It always seemed like he avoided cologne and fragranced laundry entirely. Something about being mated had warded off all alpha scents as something barely there, or mildly irritating, like all perfumes or colognes had been for her growing up.
The blank nature of his designation was something she appreciated. Someone in control of their destiny, just like she strived to be.
Malfoy suddenly smelt like antique wood. Fresh parchment pulled from the shelves at Scrivenshaft's, freshly mown grass, and the vanilla tint of old books. Was she hallucinating? She cursed internally that she vanished the food in her rush, perhaps there was something inside of it—
At the same time she was agonizing over his perfect scent, Malfoy had already crossed the room towards her.
“Granger.” Malfoy’s hands were on top of her shoulders, pressing her into the back of her chair. The press of his fingers into her body stoked the fire. “Granger, are you alright?”
He pressed the back of his hand to her neck, then moved to her forehead. The heat of his touch, the warmth radiating off his body, was lethal.
“You’re burning up.” His face looked cross. “I think you’ve started your cycle early. I can… smell you. Is Weasley back in town?”
Hermione violently shook her head. That was simply not possible. Her cycle was on a schedule that hadn’t deviated since her presentation years ago.
Hermione blurted out. “Ron’s not coming.”
For a moment Malfoy seemed frozen in place before snapping his gaze back to her, his grey eyes flickering from her neck to her expression.
She didn’t think his scowl could worsen any more than its current state. Rage radiated off of him, as though he had been tasked with capturing an entire flock of Cornish Pixies without a wand.
Malfoy was angrier than Hermione had ever seen him in the past two years, and only just recently, Malfoy had explicitly threatened to show Felix Rosier the inside of his own arse for a particularly exhausting and idiotic mix-up of required documentation for three of their cases.
“I thought Weasley was your mate?”
Hermione nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“Then what do you mean he’s not coming?” Malfoy snarled.
Seeing him this enraged shouldn’t have made her as aroused as it clearly did. Warmth pooled in her stomach.
“I’m… sorry?” squeaked Hermione, not sure how to calm him down otherwise.
“You’re sorry?” Malfoy hissed, leaning closer into her space. “Your alpha abandons you on the eve of your heat, and you’re the one apologizing?”
You’ve displeased your alpha.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Hermione apologized desperately, reaching out to clutch at Malfoy, hoping he wouldn’t leave her.
The food must have been poisoned.
Years ago, she felt the heat of fiendfyre lick at her heels, and she felt it again now under her skin, taunting her. This was a breakthrough heat, weeks ahead of schedule.
There hadn’t even been enough days to stop being furious with Ron about missing her heat to figure out how to go through a heat alone without going completely mad. She didn’t know what that meant to experience a breakthrough heat, if it meant anything at all.
There was a part of her that wanted to drag Malfoy on top of her to see how he would fit against her, see if he could fill every empty crevice in her as easily as breathing, fill her cunt, her heart–
Malfoy’s hands tightened on her shoulders. His scent sharpened into something that an instinct inside her warned of danger. The smell of him made her greedy, as if she had walked a thousand miles in the desert, and he was a cool glass of water. A reprieve and prize all in one.
If she couldn't taste him, couldn't have him, Hermione would surely die.
“You have to bring me to St. Mungo’s, they have a program there for omega’s going through a heat alone.” Malfoy smelled so delicious she wanted to roll around in him. Saliva began to pool in her lower molars. “I need to be sedated soon, I’m starting to feel hazy, please—”
Malfoy interrupted her raving. “Are you sure they could even take you?”
Her hackles rose. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, it works for unmated omega’s because they have different biological drivers. You are mated, after all. It can't possibly be the same for you.” Malfoy sighed, as if he hadn’t just pulled the metaphorical rug from under her feet. “What if you wake up, and your heat begins all over again until you find an alpha that satisfies you?”
Terror and despair surged inside her as she struggled to answer Malfoy. How could she be so stupid as to not have some sort of backup plan?
Everything she was capable of planning in advance, she did. Trips to Australia to see her parents were planned two years in advance to secure the proper portkey. She was six months ahead of schedule on their mortgage. Her own stupidity and anger at Ron blinded her from exploring all her other options, if they even existed at this point—
“—you'd like, I could help you."
The simple suggestion shattered the delicate balance in her mind. Hermione slowly looked back up at Malfoy with glassy eyes.
“You’d help me?”
Malfoy nodded, giving her a small, kind smile. One she might put on to comfort James when he fell off his toy broom. His hand on her shoulder snaked up to her mating gland, not flinching, as if this kind of contact was completely normal. Completely healthy.
He pressed the tips of his fingers hard into her mating gland.
“Would you like me to show you?” Malfoy whispered slowly.
Malfoy looked at her like he wanted to devour her. For once, it was enough just to be wanted. The feeling enveloped her mind entirely.
“Please.”
The purr that rumbled through his chest soothed the anxiety that built up inside her soul. Malfoy looked like a man possessed. As if holding her close, smelling her, touching her, had opened a carefully guarded Pandora’s box inside himself.
“Good girl.”
Good, the words were a balm on her heart, good, she was good—
With a swift wave of his arm, Malfoy cleared her desk and pulled her by the hips onto the table.
Malfoy leaned down and crashed his lips into hers. She pushed herself harder into his chest, feeling the hard planes of his muscles that she knew were hidden underneath the layers of ridiculously well-tailored robes.
The taste of him was sweeter than she imagined, as she let him lick into her mouth. The grip of his hands on her hips tightened before one of his hands left to trail down her leg. It then hooked underneath her knee, pulling her closer and pressed himself into her burning core.
Hermione gasped into his mouth. She could feel his canine bite into her lower lip, his tongue running along her mouth again. His rogue hand began to slowly venture up her skirt.
Hermione ripped away to give a ragged gasp, giving Malfoy the chance to bury his face into her neck. Her hands flew up to his collar to hold herself steady. Malfoy’s thumb brushed at the edge of her soaked knickers, before pushing them roughly to the side.
“You’re so wet,” he rumbled appreciatively, brushing the pad of his fingers lightly against her entrance. Her hips bucked into his touch reflexively.
“Malfoy, please—” His other hand reached up underneath her top, touching the bare skin of her stomach and running along the bottom band of her bra. She moaned brazenly.
“So responsive,” Malfoy muttered. His eyes focused on his fingers burying into her knickers. “Haven’t even done anything yet.”
Malfoy’s fingers pushed underneath the cup of her bra, teasing against the skin. Her mind grew steadily hazier and hazier.
For the first time, it would be so easy to have this. This alpha was here, and he was warm, and he thought she smelled good, thought she was good. Her awareness was slipping away with each passing second.
When he lifted his eyes to meet hers, the whites of his eyes were completely consumed in red. Hermione gasped. Sometimes it was so easy to forget how intimidating alpha’s could become. Ron almost never became this wild, apart from their first time together.
The itch of the cotton on her skin was painful. It needed to come off, it was hurting her, suffocating her, just as Malfoy pulled her top above her breasts, ripping her bra at the front clasp.
He gently pushed her back onto the top of the desk. Nipping down from her lip, down to her chest, where her nipples were pebbling from the cool air of the room. He grabbed at one with one hand before taking the other into his mouth, sucking and licking. Hermione panted openly as fire flowed through her blood.
Malfoy made quick work of her chest, nipping once again until he reached her stomach. He pressed his forehead against her, pausing there as if calculating something rapidly.
Hermione was leaking wildly onto her own desk, desperate to feel any part of him against her entrance again. She twitched continuously, eager to feel friction on her clit in any way possible.
“I’m not having this on the bloody filthy Ministry floor,” said Malfoy, splaying his hands behind her bare thighs. “We’ll have to get to the floo.”
He ran his nose lightly across her cheek, pulled her top back down over her chest, and whispered in her ear, “Are you going to be a good girl and come with me?”
Hermione nodded desperately and clung to his crisp shirt for dear life.
“Yes, alpha.”
Malfoy groaned lowly into her neck, pressing himself closer to her desperate and leaking core. “Fuck. I knew you could be like this. Fucking perfect.”
With a wave of his free hand, Malfoy summoned his cloak and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, the hem coming down to her ankles.
“Come with me, darling.”
Malfoy scooped her up bridal style and made his way swiftly to the floo on their department floor, not before sealing her office shut. Before grabbing the powder, he peered down at her cradled in his arms.
“Now. My place, or yours?”
She had her nest at home, but then he would be able to smell the tears and the stale remnants of another alpha’s scent.
Maybe—maybe he wouldn’t want her after that.
“Yours,” She declared.
Hermione had been to his home before, just once. Malfoy mentioned taking home some of their important files for some weekend catch-up following his bereavement absence due to his father’s sudden passing.
“Don’t worry, you can pick them up from my home if it’s urgent.”
The address of his home floated on a piece of parchment onto her desk. When Hermione questioned him as to why he wasn’t living at the Manor, he stared at her blankly, his expression shuttering immediately. As if he’d quickly hidden behind a veil.
“I’d think that’s a rather obvious question for someone who is thought to be the brightest Witch of her age,” Malfoy remarked coldly. He'd taken his files and left early that day.
Apparating to the absurdly posh area of Chelsea, she remembered knocking on the door of a bright white brick home, feeling irritated when Malfoy answered the door shirtless, slowly, as if just roused from a deep sleep.
“Your house is beautiful, Malfoy,” Hermione remarked, taking the stack of folders from his hands and pushing them into her beaded bag. In the distance, she could make out walls filled endlessly with books of different sizes and colours, magically reorganizing themselves.
He smiled condescendingly. “Purchased the best Muggle home, just for you, Granger.”
She was quickly drawn out of her recollection as Malfoy pulled her into his home for the first time from the Floo.
The scent of books, musk, and home hit her like a runaway train. From the doorway months ago, it hadn’t smelt this way. It was as strong as amortentia beneath her nose.
As she was using the last of her mental capacity to assess her increasingly desperate nature, Malfoy’s expression was evolving into something pointed and ravenous. Her gaze flickered back up to him and allowed his possession swallow her whole.
There was another tug and they spun in place until they materialized into a bedroom.
Malfoy held her close in his arms before letting her feet touch the ground. The crown of her head would barely reach the top button on his shirt.
The enclosed space, surely where Malfoy spent his time sleeping, probably fucking other women, other omega’s, made it hard to escape the alpha pheromones that filled the entire room.
Her curls clung to her face from the sweat of her fever as she trembled viscously.
“So hot, I need—” Hermione’s mouth had dried up completely. “Need a shower, something cold, please—”
Malfoy’s chest rumbled. “I’ll take care of you.”
He made quick work of stripping whatever clothing was left on her. The bare skin helped the fever feel less severe, perhaps after a shower she’d feel alright, but his hot hands pushed her onto the bed instead.
The smell coming off his sheets was potent. Clean, bright white sheets, in a bed made so neatly. She wanted to rumble up in them and bite them.
She grabbed her clothing from the floor and began messing up the sheets and blankets and pillows into her own neat little pile.
Make them his and her’s only.
It had to be just right.
Once she was satisfied, Hermione turned back to see Malfoy studying her, mouth slightly parted. The magic in the room made the cells in her body vibrate when they locked eyes.
“Do you like it?” Hermione asked in a small voice, reaching out to touch her alpha.
“It’s perfect.”
Her alpha let her pull him into her nest, where they kissed again. She whimpered into his mouth as his fingers began to explore her entire body. She laid completely bare under him as he remained fully dressed.
It was unlike any past heat she’d ever had. It felt meaningless to compare the two.
Heats before were a blur of pain-filled fever dreams, broken apart by easy orgasms, and quelled by a knot.
To think Hermione had regarded Malfoy as a cold and frigid, tamed monster. When he touched her, it was a corrupting inferno.
Malfoy spent an eternity exploring her. His hands were always followed quickly by his mouth, running from her fingers to her back, from her ankles to her stomach, her breasts to her inner thighs. Each moment he could, he sucked and bit down on her skin to draw a mark, all while neglecting her leaking core. The smell of her arousal was volatile.
“I thought the smell was all in my fucking head.” Malfoy reached down with a finger and ran it against her entrance to her clit so lightly she could only whine loudly. “I thought there was no possible reason I would be smelling you. You were mated. Claimed. Taken from me before I could even know it for myself.”
The heats she knew were about quick releases, fast fucking, and passing out. Malfoy seemed content with drawing the entire thing out as long as possible.
“Alpha, please—”
He would come back up just as quickly to hush her with his mouth. Feverishly, she responded, kissing and licking into his mouth just as desperately as he was.
“You’re doing so good,” said Malfoy after he pulled away. His large hands pushed her wrists back into the bed after they wound themselves in his hair. “Let your alpha do the work, hm? I’ve waited so long to have you. I want to savor you.”
The individual words were practically meaningless apart from ‘good’. Feverishly, she would agree to anything he said.
He could have her any way he wanted, he just had to keep touching her.
Malfoy quickly returned his attention back to her body. He sat back on his heels, lifting her leg over his lap before swiftly pushing two fingers into her cunt.
Hermione choked in a breath, gripping the bed sheets below her.
The glands on her inner thighs throbbed as Malfoy stroked inside her with his fingers. When she masturbated at home with toys she'd acquired at the muggle shops, they weren’t nearly as thick as his fingers, or as deft at stroking inside her with come-hither motions.
“Need you, alpha, please—”
“You’re too tight like this, love.” He added another finger into her, even when the original stretch still stung. “Come for me like this, it’ll help you relax.”
The burn under her skin grew blinding, all made worse when Malfoy pressed his other hand on her pelvis.
She wanted to sob. She needed an alpha to fuck her, his fingers weren’t enough. “Alpha, it hurts.”
He ripped the orgasm from her body anyway.
Hermione thrashed violently, slick pouring onto the palm of his hand, his lap, and trickled down her thighs.
As the tremors calmed down, Malfoy stroked his open palms against the exposed glands on her coated thighs, red and raised, keeping her legs open for him to fit between.
The pain had hardly dissipated for a moment before the fire under her skin rippled.
“Alpha, hurts—” she cried, gripping his knees, and she could feel the way she'd soaked through his dark trousers. They’d probably need to be burnt.
When Malfoy pulled back suddenly, she sobbed. Her head hurt and throbbed, her cunt pulsed and was left empty in his absence.
Didn’t he want her? Was she not good enough? Sweet enough?
The bed dipped again, and Malfoy quickly returned between her legs. The bare skin of him burned against her deliciously. Hermione opened her eyes and realised Malfoy removed the rest of his clothing, tossing them on the rim of her nest.
If Hermione was more lucid, she would have cursed him for how perfect he looked. The sweat on his own skin made his muscles glisten. As Malfoy moved over her body, his cock brushed against her inner thigh. She was meant to take a cock this big, it would fit her so nicely, give her a baby, her instincts sung.
“Do you feel that?” His strong legs pressed her open completely, his bare cock throbbing against her leaking core. “All of this, for you, my perfect girl.”
Her body ached for this, entrance convulsing as he rocked into her slowly. The warmth that radiated off of him made it seem like he was in heat too.
Malfoy held her chin gently and stared deeply into her eyes as the head of his cock finally caught inside her. Even with how wet she was, the pressure of the stretch was shocking. She hadn’t taken something so big in ages, not since—
“You’re taking me so well," Malfoy rumbled, breaking her thought process, his eyes slowly darkening to blood red. He caged her face in with his arms, touching their foreheads together. The pheromones pumping into the room made a thick haze, the smell of alpha, his own arousal, his power. A promise of satisfaction.
Your alpha is pleased, her instincts purred.
At a torturous speed, he continued to push his length into her at a pace that was meant to drive her mad. When he finally bottomed out with a thrust, he left them both panting. Hermione felt impossibly full of him, could feel the raised edges of his knot at her entrance, the head of his cock rubbing deep inside her. It stung and soothed the fire in her tummy.
“So good,” her alpha muttered before licking a languid stroke along her mating gland. Shifting slightly, the tip of him pressed into her womb, delighting her.
He seemed content to soak inside her, mostly unmoving except for an occasional grind of his hips, just barely stroking her clit with his lower body. For a few moments, it could’ve been enough, to just lay there and take it all, but now—
It wasn’t enough. He promised to help her, but he had to move. She wanted to hiss and bite at him for teasing her.
“Malfoy—”
Sharp teeth suddenly clamped down on her neck, hard enough to warn, but not break the skin. All the fight in her vanished instantly, yielding to her alpha completely.
Malfoy broke away, kissing her neck all over in an apology. “Draco, or alpha, sweetheart.”
Alpha, alpha, alpha, her mind chanted. It rang in her brain on and on and on, it rang in all the empty caverns of her heart.
Holding her down firmly with his own body, he completely enveloped her all senses. Draco’s hands were soothing on her skin, the weight of him felt heavy and secure. Maybe if she wanted it enough, he could melt into her.
“Don’t leave,” she begged, clenching around him. "Draco, don't leave."
“Never,” he agreed. Draco kissed her obsessively, drinking in all the noises that she made as he drove into her.
Laying completely under his hold, Hermione could do nothing but take everything he gave her. The burning was melting into pleasure, the hurt was mixing into all the ecstasy. The way he looked down at her, the way he touched all the places inside her. Her cunt melted around him, it was what she was meant for, all this time.
His fingers dug into her hips, pushing her tightly against him, as he thrust harder and harder into her. "Going to knot you, sweet thing."
Knot. That's what she needed this whole time. This alpha's knot.
Hermione wildly nodded her head, tears leaking from her eyes. "Please, please please—"
Sharpness clamped on her shoulder as his knot began to swell inside of her. Draco ground himself into her, where his knot grew at her entrance.
The feeling of him pressing against her womb as he came hard, body twitching over her, was enough to send her over the edge for the second time.
It wasn't a pathetic thing Hermione pulled out of herself some nights. Draco poured into all her empty crevices, of her body, of her heart and soul, like concrete meant to settle there for eternity. She screamed and seized, his knot keeping her impaled on his cock.
An eternity could've passed and she wouldn't have noticed. Wouldn't have cared.
After his knot subsided enough to pull out, Draco gently tugged her into a close embrace, her back against his chest. He scooped up his release with his two fingers and pushed it back into her cunt.
"Gotta keep it inside," Draco muttered, nuzzling and kissing her neck. Once he was satisfied, he kissed her mouth for a few moments before flipping her on her stomach, arranging her exactly the way he liked, before diving into her again.
It went on for days. After a few minutes of rest for a quick bite to eat or a sip of water, just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, Draco would roll over and sink himself into her relentlessly. Quick cleaning charms washed the fever sweat off their skin, sometimes when they had a few minutes, they would climb into the bath together, where he would end up taking her against the wall. Sometimes he would let her climb on top of him and take what she wanted.
It was endless.
Hermione lost herself in the haze of it all. To capture the attention of such a strong alpha was a privilege. Draco never took his eyes off her for a moment, calculating the source of every moan and gasp she gave him until she was screaming or crying for him. He savored all of it. He never seemed to tire from fucking her, knotting her.
The pain subsided days ago into a constant need, but even that need was waning. The sex became indulgent as opposed to desperate. Her body felt sore, but as an omega remained soft and always willing. Hermione could smell it in the air that her heat was growing less urgent.
Draco seemed to feel it too. After he fed her some treats from the kitchen, they appeared back in his bedroom. He pushed into her once again, eager to feel her writhe against him and come apart under him.
The heat taking over her body made her mostly non-verbal, sparing a few short pleas and cries. Draco seemed to go on for ages about how good she was, how good she smelt, how well she took him.
“Never made sense, but I could smell you. Drove me spare. It’s taken me over a year, but I know what it is now. I smelt you. A new ink pot, the fresh morning air from the family garden in the Spring. Just when I had figured it out, I would smell him,” Draco growled, letting his teeth drag along her neck. Hermione shuddered violently against him, thrusting back into him to keep his cock moving inside her. “He took you before I did, fair and square. I couldn’t have had this even if I had known how good it was, you wouldn’t have wanted me.”
Then he pulled out, driving himself forward inside roughly, sending her mind spinning. He flashed a patronizing smile down at her as he pinned down her wrists to the bed.
“That’s not the case anymore, now, is it?”
She stared up at him doe-eyed. “Draco, alpha—”
“What do you need, my omega?”
Her mind was still holding on, for something, only she wasn’t sure what it was. There was a moment he looked into her eyes and smiled, finding the answer in there somewhere.
“I know what you need, perfect girl. I’ll take care of you.”
Kissing down from her temple to her lips, nuzzling her neck, Draco settled there, thrusting into her hard. It was ecstasy. He drove into her wildly, chasing his own release with her body clinging to him desperately. As the pressure grew at her entrance, his knot growing rapidly, Draco ground his hips sharply into hers, waiting for it to pop inside of her. His hand snuck down to rub against her clit.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Hermione chanted. The knot would soothe her. The twitch of his cock inside her, his release in her womb, it would put out the fire finally, it would be enough. Anything he had left to give her, she could take it.
A wave of blinding pleasure took her under when he locked inside of her. The magic at her fingertips frizzled.
Draco nuzzled at her neck once more as he came inside her, biting down roughly on her mating gland, tearing open the skin. It's nothing delicate or soothing or slightly apologetic. He ripped at the muscle with his sharp teeth like a wild animal. Hermione let out an inhuman noise, bucking wildly underneath him.
The moment Draco tore away from her neck, his mouth and canines covered in her blood, the coldness of him vanished. Reaching up to touch his face, his white hair messy and unstyled, brushing against his ears, he looked reverent.
A good mate. Hermione pulled Draco back down, and sunk her own teeth into his neck, marking him in return. Blood filled her mouth instantly. Draco suspended above her trembling, she could still him twitch inside her, unable to stop himself from unloading more and more into her willing body.
The difference was instantaneous, the barriers built in her mind came tumbling down and created something new between them.
There was nothing left in the world except for the two of them.
The contrast made her feel vaguely confunded.
Draco shifted in the sheets, trying not to crush her with his weight while locked inside her as Hermione struggled to keep her eyes open, suddenly weak.
“Shh, you can sleep.” A hand brushed her hair away from her neck carefully. “It’ll be alright.”
Exhaustion quickly brought her under.
The sunlight pouring into the room finally stirred Hermione awake. It had been ages since she’d slept so peacefully.
Cushioned by incredibly soft blankets, surrounded by her and her alpha’s scent, made the omega in her want to stretch out like a satisfied cat on a warm ledge. All the pain she had felt for weeks before had disappeared into nothing, leaving her the most refreshed and relaxed she’d felt in ages. It was so revitalizing, it felt like she’d been reborn.
Distantly in the other room, she could hear the clattering of ceramics and the hissing of food cooking.
The last time Ron had made her breakfast on her muggle range, they had to banish the remains into the ether.
“Hermione? Are you awake?”
Her eyes ripped open. That voice wasn’t Ronald. Quickly lifting herself onto her forearms, she realised this wasn’t her bed either.
The horror finally hit her. Draco Malfoy came bolting back into the room, quickly seeing her abject terror written plainly on her face. He reached for her and lifted her fully upright on the bed.
“What’s wrong?” Draco demanded, scanning over her obsessively for any sign of injury.
The words caught in her throat before she forced them out.
“I’m going to have to tell Ron and his whole family, and I—” Hermione shook her head, her voice cracking. Even though Ron hadn’t been the best to her, his whole family made a concerted effort to invite her over for suppers and holidays. Harry and Ginny even named her the godmother of their firstborn child.
All the while, Hermione went and spread her legs for their worst enemy from school behind Ron’s back.
Draco’s eyes narrowed at her meltdown and grew cold.
“That mark you gave him has probably faded away into nothing by now. If he truly cared about you, he should be heading back to London to check that you’re still alive.” Draco’s grip on her tightened. He tilted his head slightly, as if curious. “Are you wondering how I could even bite you?”
Her blood froze, her hand quickly flying to her neck, where Draco had bitten her.
She hadn’t even considered it possible, before this, she would’ve said it was decidedly impossible. It hadn't ever come up in any of the books she read on the three designations. An alpha couldn’t possibly mate with an already claimed omega.
After her first heat, Hermione thought the matter was more than closed. Sealed and shut forever, to never change.
”How is that possible?” The tantalizing taste of copper flooded her mouth, etching something new into her mind. A bright and simultaneously invisible string that had never been there before, not between them, thrummed happily. “I bit you too. I’ve never heard of this happening.”
“Maybe not in the books you’re reading, love.” The bite in her neck throbbed but in a way that was delicious somehow, meant to be bitten all over. “In the fifteenth century, a researcher had left his omega in Britain while he went off and surveyed fwooper’s in Africa. After failing to realise the importance of using a silencing charm, he got lost in bird song for three years. Returned home to his witch mated to a new alpha, his research partner had swooped in and taken her for himself. The court had declared him dead, afterall.”
His eyes grew brighter.
“Gretta Guntzberg in the late-eighteenth century abused her omega so viciously that several of her neighbors had sent in a number of complaints about her behavior. Back then, there were laws meant to keep omega’s at home anyway, but Guntzberg took it a step further and had locked up her poor omega in the cellar for weeks. When an Auror had arrived at the home for an inspection and offered the wizard his coat, he had triggered a breakthrough heat and claimed the omega for himself instead. Gretta filed in the court against the auror for theft, but the court had agreed.” Draco reached up to brush a lock of hair away from her face. “You can’t keep a kneazle if you’re going to mistreat it.”
Hermione's hair bristled. “I am not a kneazle; I’m not meant to be kept in some sort of cage.”
“Never,” Draco agreed. “Kept close, yes. Cherished, always. These cases are so rare because alpha’s are hardwired to place their mates' happiness above all else. A mating bond breaks down over time if the omega feels neglected, and there is a different, compatible alpha around to take care of them instead. Hermione Granger being bound to someone like Weasley was a terrible waste in the first place.”
Her head pounded painfully, sorting away all the details until a clear picture grew.
While Hermione had been working with potentially dangerous magical creatures her entire career, she never paused to consider she might be working alongside one. The illusion she had grown to know of a quiet, reserved Draco shattered. The Malfoy’s had always been a cunning, underhanded, calculating family.
“What did you do?” Hermione whispered as ice weaved into her blood.
Draco smiled coldly, his expression was devoid of a single ounce of remorse.
“You’re the loudest thinker I’ve ever met. It’s not as if I imperio’d him to go to Bulgaria of all places. I just happened to open a door. Could you possibly blame me? I know how deeply lonely you’ve been. I know how much it hurts when you see little baby James. You don’t have to be alone ever again.”
His mouth slightly parted before making his way to brush the fresh new mark on her neck with his fingers. “If Weasley would rather bat away bludgers and quaffles in Bulgaria instead of taking care of his omega, I say we let him.”
Commission by @Ivmaruva
Draco leaned down and kissed her ravenously, and tangled his fingers tightly into her hair. Their foreheads touched as Draco pulled away. “You’re mine, and I’m yours. If Weasley thinks he can try to take you from me, he is sorely mistaken.”
When he kissed her again, Hermione’s treacherous heart roared.
Draco drank in her features slowly with wide eyes, tracing her face lightly with his other hand, as if he could hardly believe what was in front of him. The unwavering care of his attention filled the fissure in her chest.
It was written plainly within his soul. If she reached far enough, she could touch it.
Wherever she went, he would follow her to the end of the universe. Forever.
“Draco,” she hesitated. “Would you mind showing me your library?”
Draco smiled down at her with all his teeth.
“Our library, darling.”