Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The cellar at #12, Grimmauld Place, was off limits for the first few years Hermione had been spending time at the old townhouse. Now, five years after the war ended, and after nearly two years of living in the old house, she never really gave much thought to the heavy, rounded door that sat on the far end of the kitchen. 

Never, until tonight, that is. 

She isn’t sure what drew her down here, nor does she have the slightest idea why she stands, running her fingers over the marks etched into the door. A knick here, a gouge there, a million stories told through the passage of time, a physical map of many great and terrible things, and it was all rather poignant, she’s sure, but at present, she can’t focus on overthinking tiny details like she normally would, because she needs to get inside. 

She’s supposed to get inside; there’s no rhyme or reason to the thought, no explanation for why her skin feels too tight and her breath feels too shallow, why her feet dragged her out of her bed and down three flights of stairs, but her wand is up, her focus singular. 

It takes a solid ten minutes to dismantle the wards, but she does so diligently, peeling back the layers one by one until she hears the lock click open. 

The stairwell is dark; the stairs themselves ancient and rickety, and she tucks her wand back into the pocket of her robe, hand shoving her sweat-soaked curls out of her face as she reaches the bottom only to be faced with another door. 

This one is different; the wards inverted, as if to keep something inside rather than keep someone out, which should have been a warning, but she focuses instead on the cold stone beneath her feet as she puzzles out the solution, another lock clicking like the ticking of a clock, counting down to whatever hell she’s just doomed herself to. 

It’s then, when she pulls open the second door, that the heat rises, as if a furnace has been left on high, and she shrugs off her robe, letting it fall to the floor as her eyes narrow in an effort to adjust to the dim light of the singular candle sconce on the wall. 

There’s a cage on the far end of the small room, a large, imposing thing.

 She remembers when it was brought in—remembers, only then, exactly why she’s not supposed to come down here. It had been the one rule, the one she’d vowed over and over when she’d moved into Grimmauld after Harry gifted the home to Remus, when she’d accepted the job as Teddy’s nanny after Remus returned to his old post at Hogwarts and began living this strange, patchwork life with her widowed former professor and his young son. 

But tonight, there’s no beast in the cage. 

With a quick glance to the left, where a small clerestory window near the ceiling provides a faint glimpse outside, she remembers tonight is a full moon, though it’s something different, something Luna droned on about at brunch, talking of thinning veils and bleeding auras and irrevocable changes, the sort of drabble that Hermione tuned out without trying.

There should be a beast in the cage. 

It’s what the cage is for, after all, what Bill and Remus and Harry and Charlie had explained when she’d watched them haul the different pieces of the Muggle contraption down the stairs one night after she first moved in nearly two years ago, while she was making dinner in the kitchen above with Teddy on her hip. 

The cage was to keep him in, to keep everyone safe from the beast within him, but tonight, it’s only him. 

“Remus?” She feels her brows dip low, drawing together, can feel them forming into a deep V above the bridge of her nose as she closes the door behind her. 

His head snaps up, tilting to the side, and it is him—shirtless, covered in tattoos she didn’t even know he had, a cigarette pressed to his lips, but he’s different as well. It’s in the eyes—burning amber, his pupils like slits, a glowing thing she’d only ever seen in little flashes before he’d fled whatever room he’d been in and came back later, sage green and back to normal. 

“Remus?” she repeats, and he smiles, the corners of his lips curving upward as his lower lip pouts, all teeth, a feral thing that pulls a gasp from her mouth.

“Remus isn’t here right now,” he says, but the voice isn’t the one she’s come to know; it isn’t the familiar baritone that fills her head at night when she’s alone in her bed. 

There’s a guttural quality to the sound, a distorted sort of wobbliness to the words, as if every syllable is rolled across a growl before it tumbles from his lips, and her eyes widen, once-furrowed brows shooting up to her hairline. 

“Moony,” she surmises, but that isn’t right, because the wolf shouldn’t be speaking through the man’s mouth. But then the fog she hadn’t realised had begun to fall lifts, just barely, just enough that Luna’s earlier words finally make a bit of sense. 

A lunar eclipse—the blood moon eclipse, to be exact. Hermione recalls having read a passage—somewhere, in some book, at some point in timeg—about this, about the way lunar events can affect the Lycanthrope, tales of the wolf’s mind taking over the man’s body, the two caught in some sort of in-between place during the shift, and it makes sense, and she shouldn’t be here, but she takes another step closer all the same. 

“So wise,” he croons, his hands wrapping around the bars, cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers. Her eyes dart down to the burning bit of paper, the scent of tobacco thick in the air, and he holds it up, pressing it to his lips as her feet move again. 

“Always liked these things,” he says, as conversational as one could be with that strange rumble in his voice. “The boy can be smart sometimes.” 

“Teddy?” she asks, and he shakes his head. 

“Not the pup. Good pup, though. Smart,” he concedes with a jerky nod before he clarifies, “Moony’s boy. The professor.” 

“Does Remus know you think of him as your boy?” she asks, a hint of humour to the question, because there is humour to be found in a werewolf feeling paternalistic of his host, she thinks.

“The boy knows all of Moony’s thoughts,” he replies, taking another drag before he lets the cigarette fall to the floor, not bothering to stamp it out. 

She supposes that’s a good thing; his feet are bare like his chest, his legs nearly the same, and her eyes drag down, throat swelling as she realises he’s completely bare, save for a pair of loose boxers, slung low on his hips, highlighting toned abs and the deep V cut of adonis belt muscles she never knew he hid under all his proper little cardigans.

“The boy knows all of Moony’s thoughts,” he repeats, a hint of glee to his voice as he adds, “and Moony knows all of yours, Mine.”

“Hermione,” she corrects, smiling for some reason, eyes still moving over his body because she can’t decide where to look. The constellation inked on his chest, the scars embedded in his skin, the hair on his chest, the sizable bulge beneath his worn, plaid boxer shorts, those damn burning eyes, it's like her own eyes can’t stop moving, always on a swivel, hypervigilant as she tries to soak it all in

“Mine,” he rasps insistently, drumming his fingers against the metal bars. “Look at Moony, pet.” 

The words fall like a command she can’t resist, tugging at some sort of tether in her chest, and her head snaps up, her clit throbbing for reasons unbeknownst to her as he growls low, a sound of approval, as if she’s pleased him. 

“Good girl,” he praises, and she’s all liquid, then, flooding her knickers, cheeks warming as she watches him sniff the air. 

“So good,” he growls, then repeats, “The boy knows all of Moony’s thoughts, but he doesn’t like to listen.”

“Has he been ignoring you?” she asks, sympathetic, because truthfully, it is rather sad, the fact that he’s trapped in Remus’s mind, communicating with him to some degree, only to be ignored. 

“For years. Moony understood at first, but now…” He sniffs the air again, his throat bobbing as he swallows as if he wishes to drink down whatever scent he’s caught, and she squeezes her thighs together, lips pressed into a thin line. 

“All grown up now,” he croons. “Moony waited so long. But the boy still won’t fucking take.” 

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she mumbles, wrapping her arms around her chest, holding herself tightly in the hope that she might be able to fight the urge to sink to her knees, an urge she can’t explain, but it persists nonetheless. “Waited for what?”

“For you, Mine,” he says, sounding a bit put out, as if the answer is obvious, as if it’s something he shouldn’t even have to say aloud. “Needed to wait. Just a pup when we found you. Moony knew you were ours, but didn’t need to take. But then… not a pup anymore. So clever. Caring for the boy’s pup, here in our den. Ready for us now, but the boy still won’t take.”

She notices, already, that he has a habit of repeating himself. She isn’t sure why the fact sticks out above the others in her mind, why it’s the thing she chooses to focus on, though she is quite clever—clever enough to clock the avoidance as soon as she feels it. 

“Take me?” she asks, voice whisper-soft as she fights the urge to deny the truth she already feels, but he hears her, because of course he does. 

“Hmm,” he hums. “Been time for so long, pet, but the boy still won’t claim you. A shame. Could have had a whole house full of pups by now.” 

“Pups,” she echoes, throat dry, hands fisting in the hem of her nightgown as her thighs clench again. “You want Remus to make… pups. With me.”

“It was only supposed to be you!” he yells the words, thick and feral, and she gasps, jumping back a step. Remus—Moony—sighs, running a hand through his hair. “It was only supposed to be you,” he repeats, softer this time, anguished, as if the thought pains him. 

“The boy thought he could run from the bond; thought he could deny you were ours. But Moony was patient. So. Very. Patient.” He slides his hands back up the bars of his cage, leaning in closer until his face presses against the metal, his chest heaving as he draws in another deep, greedy breath. 

“Your cunt is soaked, for us, little Mate,” he murmurs, and the filth of his statement flays her open, but it’s that word, that fucking word that makes her sway on her feet. 

“I’m your—”

“Mate,” he confirms. “Mine is ours. And so ripe for her Moony. Need you closer, sweet girl. Come to Moony, little pet,” he purrs, sliding his fingers between the bars, crooking them in a come-hither motion that pulls at her like she’s a puppet on a string, drags her closer and closer until she stands but a metre away from him.

“Remus won’t want me down, here, I shouldn’t have—” she begins to argue, if only because she knows she should, because it's the proper thing to do, but Moony clicks his tongue, shaking his head. 

“Remus doesn’t get to decide any more,” he says, rough and commanding. “The boy had all the time in the world, and he didn’t act. But here you are… took down all those protections, came to your Moony. Such a good girl for us.”

“Good?” she hums, eyes drifting closed before she forces them back open. She doesn’t know what she’s doing; she shouldn’t be down here, should never have opened that door, or the one after it, because she wasn’t supposed to, so she certainly wasn’t good. 

But he says the words anyway, “Good girl,” again as he stares down at the juncture of her thighs,  and it feels right; a necessity of sorts, because she wants to be good for him. 

Hermione Granger is a clever witch; it's a fact most indisputable. Even now, as willowy as she feels, wavering where she stands before him, the pieces are easy enough to put together, and there’s no doubt in her mind, but she feels the need to say it anyway; to speak aloud the reason for the maelstrom of emotion she’s felt tied to the man before her for longer than she should even admit, to beg for clarification. 

“Moony,” she begins, taking another step. “Are you saying I’m your—er, Remus’s mate?” 

“So very clever,” he purrs, an excited smile on his face. “Ours, little Mate. Mine. And you came to your Moony. So good for me. Need to reward you.” 

He tilts his head, chin to chest, tongue dragging over his too-sharp canine. “You’d like that, hmm? Need your Moony to show you how very, very good you are?”

“Yes,” she whispers, a divide she won’t be able to uncross, fingers gripping the fabric in her hands so tightly that they begin to go numb. 

“Take it off,” he urges. “Show Moony what belongs to him.”

And so she does. 

The decision is simple enough; she’s soaked, aching and trembling, and he smells like the forest and like Remus, all books and chocolate, a dash of firewhisky weaving through the essence of him, heavy on his breath from the drink he’d been sipping on before she’d trudged up the stairs to call it an early night. 

The fabric slips over her head, falling to the floor, and then she’s bare, save for her knickers—a pair too ordinary, a simple navy blue cotton, wholly unlike what she would have worn if she knew he’d be seeing them, though she can’t imagine he cares much at all. 

And true to her prediction, he merely jerks his chin, eyes darting up to meet hers. “Everything off.”

Her thumbs slide into the waistband, knickers tossed aside in a flash, and he growls—deep, resonating, the very floor beneath her feet vibrating with the force of it. 

Hermione has, too many times to count, found herself staring into the mirror, pinching bits of post-war fat, running her hands over too-full skin, trying to will her body back into the wispy state of starvation it had lived in during the war. She knows, in the same way all women do, that the body of her youth was never meant to sustain her into adulthood, but the urge to stay the same in a world full of rail-thin women who managed the task still exists. 

As such, she’s never liked the way she looked; never shed her clothing and stood before a man with even a shred of confidence, but the way he looks at her now makes her feel like the sexiest woman alive, so she lets him look, her fingers skating over her hips and brushing her hair off her shoulders as he takes his fill. 

“So perfect,” he murmurs. “Wide hips. Soft stomach. So good for breeding, little Mate.”

“Thank you,” she replies—feeling foolish, because a compliment to one’s breedability is an odd thing to thank someone for, but she can hardly help the fact that nothing makes sense right now. 

The only thing she knows, the one great, incontrovertible truth bouncing around in her thickening mind, is that this is for him; she is for him, and the time for logic and reason and worry and guilt and regret and uncertainty and all the things she’ll most assuredly feel after, will come after. 

Tonight, she is here, naked in the cellar, staring into the eyes of the beast that lives beneath her employer’s skin, and she feels alive in a way she can’t explain, and the only thing that matters is that he likes the way she looks. 

“Come here,” Moony urges, and so she does, stepping closer and closer until her body is pressed to the other side of the cage. He trails his fingertips over her collarbone, trying to touch her, though the bars are too close together and he can barely manage the action. 

“Such a pretty thing,” he rasps. “All for Moony, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she breaths, shifting on her feet, trying and failing to get closer to him, a gasp drawing her body tight when she feels the cold of the cage between her legs. The slick slide of her cunt against the metal bar sends sparkwaves of pleasure shooting up her spine, and Hermione trembles, fists clenching around the bar beneath his hand as Moony lowers his head, drawing in a deep, growling breath. 

“Smells so fucking sweet,” he groans, amber eyes burning a hole through her skin as drool slips down his chin. “Need to taste. Let me…” 

Before she can react, he’s on his knees, tongue dragging up her thigh through the small gap in the wall of his cage, and she shifts, arching her back, her grip on the bars a veritable lifeline as she presses her cunt to the empty space, one foot raising to brace against the long bar on the bottom of the makeshift cell.

Moony leans in with a snarl, his face pressing against the bars as he drags his tongue over her aching centre, but it’s not nearly enough. She can hear the bars creaking beneath the force of his movements as he lets out a frustrated growl, flicking his tongue over the very tip of her clit. She tries to get closer, tries to shove herself harder against the unforgiving metal, but her stomach hurts, and his breath is so hot against her flesh, and nothing is enough. 

“Open the fucking cage, Mate,” he growls, somehow sounding even more feral as he shoots to his feet. Hermione gives a shaky nod, fear clawing at the inside of her chest, squeezing the air out of her lungs, but the sensation dwindles, need winning out over logic. 

With shaky hands, on shakier legs, a shaky breath stuck in her throat because the entire world around her seems hellbent on fucking shaking, she scurries back to where she’d abandoned her robe and digs out her wand, whipping back around to cast an unlocking charm on the old, rusted padlock. 

The lock meant to keep him inside; meant to, specifically, keep him from her, and the thought skates across her mind that Remus won’t be pleased at all when he awakes in the morning, but the lock has been opened, and the damage is done. 

Moony purrs a deep, syrupy, “Good girl,” and she melts, feet fusing to the floor a metre in front of the cage as she watches him reach out with Remus’s hands and pull the metal door open, stepping out on Remus’s legs and stalking toward her in a preternatural way that is nothing like the timid professor she knows. 

Knows and loves because that’s the sickest part of all of this. 

At some point along the way, she’d fallen in love with the man, and the bloody bastard had known she was meant for him and still never said a fucking word. Her anger surges at the thought, and it's sick, and it’s wrong like all of this has been and will be, but the only thought she can conjure is that this is hers. 

If she’s his mate, then he belongs to her, too, in all forms, so honestly, he doesn’t even have the right to be mad that his denying them both has led to this. 

Moony moves closer, walking a slow circle around her like the prey that she is, and his hand glides up her spine, nails lightly dragging against her skin before he grips the back of her neck, too tight and not hard enough, and a helpless whine spills out of her lips as he forces her down to her knees. 

“Taste,” he growls, settling down behind her, one hand wrapping around her waist, but she bucks against his hold, shaking her head. 

“I want to taste you too,” she protests, curls obscuring her vision as she looks at him over her shoulder. “I can… I can be on top, so I can have you in my mouth, and we can—” 

He moves—or, rather, moves her before the thought has finished, dropping down to his back and forcing her thighs farther apart. His head is between her legs, now, the heat of his body beneath her like a furnace against her chilled skin, and his hand darts up to grab her by the hair, forcing her forward as his tongue drags over her slick, need-soaked cunt. 

He’s shed the boxers at some point in his perusal of her, and his cock bobs in front of her face, a puzzlingly large, ominous-looking thing, but the head is flushed red where it peeks out from beneath his foreskin, angry and leaking, and saliva pools in her mouth as she wraps her hand around the too-thick shaft and laves her tongue over his skin, collecting the drop of pre-cum with a moan. 

Remus—Moony, she corrects herself—growls again, always fucking growling, growling the entire time as he licks and sucks at her cunt, lapping at her heated flesh with no real rhyme or reason, no practised technique. 

He just devours her, like she’s leaking the nectar of the gods onto his tongue, like any place he can touch her is more than enough, and it works, gods does it work, because she’s trembling before she even remembers to wrap her lips around the head of his cock.

She takes him to the back of her throat, hard and fast, his nails digging into her thighs when she gags, and then he focuses, sucking her clit between his lips and pulsing his tongue over the sensitive nub as he thrusts a finger—maybe two, she can’t be sure, but his hands are so big and her cunt feels stuffed full, and his cock is throbbing in her mouth. 

The world is on fire, and her skin burns, and everything is too tight, too bloody stiff. 

But then she explodes, a euphoric scream tearing free from her throat, muffled by the thick of him as she continues to bob her head, fucking her mouth deeper onto his cock as he licks her through her orgasm. 

She’s a mess, and she’s damned, has already sunk right down into hell because there was no coming back from this the second she stepped into this damn cellar. Some part of her mind wonders about consent, about Remus’s inability to give it at present, but morality has no place here, in the hairsbreadth of space between them as Moony continues to feast on her cunt, too-sharp teeth dragging over her labia. 

She screams again, or she hadn’t ever stopped, and then she tastes him, thick and sticky, all salt and musk as he fills her mouth with so much cum that she can’t swallow fast enough. It spills down her chin, coats her cheeks, gathers in a little pool at the base of his cock, and she releases him with a wet pop, dragging her tongue through the nest of curls surrounding his length as she tries to lap up every drop, licking him over and over until she feels another sharp tug on her hair. 

She sits up. Let's him guide her off his face. Let's him turn her, his rough tongue dragging over her neck, along the line of her jaw and over her lips, licking her clean until he’s kissing her, all teeth and heat, his chest pressed to hers, arm banded around her back to hold her up as if he knows she’s melting. 

And melt, she does, her body fluid in his arms, legs shaking as her knees press against the ancient stone floor, jaw trembling as she tangles her tongue with his. 

There’s something in the air; something thick and heady, tugging at her brain and turning everything liquid and pliant, and he breaks the kiss, a sickeningly satisfied grin on his face. 

“Pheromones,” he rasps, that distorted, half-growl that's all wolf, his eyes still burning, two endless pools of liquid copper, like the gooey glass she’d seen in the little shop on the boardwalk her fifteenth summer, when she’d stood next to her father and watched an older man make blown-glass figurines he’d sold at too high a price. 

She’s not sure why the memory surfaces now, nor is she sure what the hell he means. The concept of pheromones makes sense; she’s read about hormonal magic and mating rituals and the like, but the word doesn’t register in the way she’s sure it would if not for the gooey-glass brain situation, so she simply nods, her lashes fluttering as she tries to keep her body upright. 

“Good girl,” he praises, and then again, and again, “good girl, good girl, good mate,” over and over, as if he’d recorded the words and now plays them on a loop as he gently helps her gain her bearings, her knees digging into the stone as his hands roam her body. 

He squeezes her soft stomach, splays his hands over her hips, poking and prodding all over as if he's inspecting the goods. He slaps her left breast, causing her to gasp, then repeats the action on the right, and she whimpers as he growls his approval.

“Good tits. Perfect for Moony’s pups,” Moony murmurs, voice low as if he's talking to himself, before he pats her on the head—an affectionate, condescending sort of action that causes her brow to furrow.

He stands, then, taking the heat with him as he stalks over to a pile of boxes, waving his hand to knock a few to the ground before he opens a trunk—using Remus’s magic, which she didn’t know was possible, but given that most of the literature on werewolves was misinformed at best and derogatory at worst, it makes sense that she wouldn’t know.

He’s back before she can register what he’s gathered in his arms, dropping to his knees, murmuring under his breath as he tucks blankets around her, adjusting the fabrics until they form a circle surrounding her kneeling body, and she looks up to find him watching her expectantly. 

“I like it,” she whispers, demure in her confusion, but it seems to be what he needed to hear. 

“Nest,” he explains, nodding as he surveys his creation, and it makes sense, then, clicks like a key turning in a lock. 

“You’ve built a lovely nest for us, Moony,” she reassures him, earning another twisted smile. “I… I’m very pleased.” 

“Good girl. Good mate. Need to claim you here. Make the pups, the boy won’t be able to—get down. Now,” he urges, grabbing her a bit too roughly by the shoulder, forcing her forward. 

She settles on her hands and elbows, chest tipped forward, back arched; the position is natural, some ancient instinct undoubtedly belonging to him, but alive in her magic all the same. She spreads her legs wider, tilting her arse up, because she feels it, knows that this is how he needs her.

“Perfect girl.” Moony still stands above her, staring down at her with flames in his eyes, body drawn tight, unnaturally still, and her brain is still melted glass, but she thinks she's supposed to do something—or perhaps, there's something she should say—but nobody gave her a rule book on this, and she just wants to hear him call her good again.

“Is this good?” she asks, then, “Am I good?”

“You're good,” he agrees with a jerky nod. “Good girl. Best girl. Presenting yourself for your Alpha to breed. Such a natural.”

“Alpha,” she repeats the word, thick like molasses as it rises from her throat, and her cunt grows impossibly wetter, all sticky down her thighs. “I'm good. I'll be good.”

“Fuck,” he groans, nodding again, always nodding in that stiff, jerky way. “Stupid boy. Waited too long. We could have had you all full of us by now.”

“I want that,” Hermione replies. “Make me full, Moony, please.”

“Good. Gonna… s’good,” he mumbles, distracted, movements jerky as he comes to kneel behind her. He’s moving now, cock sliding against her cunt, coating himself in her wetness, his shaky breath audible as it ghosts over her back, teeth dragging down the slope of her shoulder.

And then he’s up, hand pressing against the spot between her shoulder blades to hold her in place, the broad head of his cock catching on her entrance, insistently pushing forward. Her head is heavy, bones like leaden weights as he begins to take her.

“That fucking boy would have denied us this pretty little cunt for the rest of our lives. Moony has to take, little Mate. Once I’ve claimed you, he won’t be able to let you go. Need you to be good. Let Moony…” He snaps his hips, pulling a scream out of her mouth as he sinks inside of her, sinking home, burning his way through her insides, branding her so deep she swears she can feel the press of his cock searing her ribcage.

He moves a few times, long, languid strokes, before he pulls out. She whines out a mournful protest at the loss, but then he's moving her again, dropping to his arse in the centre of their little nest, pulling her onto his lap, teeth dragging against her collarbone in a sloppy, wet glide. 

“Inside,” he demands, rocking his hips to slide the underside of his cock against her already-too-sore cunt. She reaches between them, hand wrapping around the base of his shaft, pushing up on her knees and lining herself up, and then she's sinking, sinking, the stretch too much to bear in this position.

She shakes her head, whining, hips undulating as she takes him inch by inch, even as a flood of protests leaves her mouth. “I can't, Moony, you're too big, I'm too full.”

“Full,” he agrees, hands wrapping around her waist. He lifts her, then slams her down, hilting his too-big cock inside of her, filling every centimetre of space inside of her body, her breath stuttering as if he's fucked the air out of her very lungs. 

And now she's all wobbly again, gooey and glassy, and the air is too thick, and he is too thick, and, “Ohh, gods, it's too much.”

Too much. It's the truth, and it's a lie, and she needs less and more and everything, everything with him, with any version of him, so she threads her fingers together around the back of his neck, relaxing atop him as he lifts her and brings her back down. 

He moves her like a rag doll, like she's just a feather-light toy to bounce in his lap, and her legs kick out to the sides, toes curling as he dips his head to drag her nipple between his teeth.

“Full now,” he groans, all beast as he snaps his hips, drags her back down, fucks her and fills her like she was born to be wrapped around his cock.

“Gonna keep you full. Make you take my knot. Breed this perfect little cunt so deep, little Mate. Perfect girl, taking all of Moony. Stupid boy should have fucked you years ago. Should have taken what belonged to us,” he rambles, all distorted and thick and then she's on her back, moved again as if he can't decide how to fuck her or, perhaps, he's as desperate to take her in any way he can as she is to be taken. 

And that's what this is. 

He's taking her; fucking her and filling her and making her his because Remus didn't want to, or was too afraid, or denied himself for the same reasons he always denied himself, but right now, that's a problem for who she'll be in the morning. 

Right now, she's only his, and there's only this, his thrusts growing more desperate, his hand snaking up her back to fist in her hair, her body being dragged up until her chest is flush with his, her back arched in a way that aches, but she doesn’t care.

“Don't stop, Moony,” she begs, planting her feet on the floor, rolling her hips every time he thrusts up into her exhausted cunt. “Please don't stop, you feel so good.”

“Good. Good, more,” he encourages, left hand jerking her head back, eyes boring into hers as he stares down at her. “Tell Moony, sweet Mate. More.”

“More. Okay, I…” Hermione pauses; she's never said anything as dirty as the things she's feeling now, doesn't know what's appropriate or what isn't, but given the fact that it's just her and the wolf, she swallows the anxiety, gives him what he wants because she's quite sure it's the only thing she's capable of.

“You feel so good inside of me. Gods, you're so—your cock is so thick. Feels like you're going to split me in half. I want you to… want you harder. Wanna feel you for days. I need you to… take, Moony. Please. It's yours.”

“Take.” It's barely a word; his mouth forms the syllable, but it comes out all growl, and again, again, he's moving her, rougher this time, hand still fisted in her hair, pushing her cheek against the floor. 

“Gotta breed. Have to. Can't let that fucking coward stop us any longer. Be good. Still,” he commands, snapping his hips, driving into her from behind. She arches her back as she screams, and his next growl is lower, all approval as his nails dig into her hip.

“Moony's Mate. All mine. Gonna pop this fat knot inside your tight little cunt. Breed you full.” He tugs her up, her back arching violently, head forced back to look up at him, then releases her hair to wrap his hand around her throat. 

She tenses, a spark of fear shooting down her spine, but he doesn't squeeze; he simply holds her there, gripping her neck, his other hand sliding from her hips to splay over her lower stomach as he drives into her harder, faster, each thrust pulling a little moan from her lips. 

“You can feel it, can't you? Moony's knot? All for you, little Mate. Only for Mate. The boy’s never even got to feel this.” He speaks rapid-fire, words all feral, drool spilling over her shoulder as he buries his nose against the hollow just beneath her ear, and she nods, nods again, bobbleheaded and floating higher and higher. 

“Will it… the knot, is that… always?” she stutters out, one hand gripping his thigh behind her, nails scrambling for purchase, tearing through his flesh, and she stills as she waits for him to scold her, but he practically purrs, chest rumbling against his back. 

“Always for you. Only for you. Sweet little Mate. Perfect little hole for Moony’s cock,” he praises, thick and filthy, and fire spreads across her stomach, fills her cunt as she feels his cock thickening inside of her. 

He’s stretching her open; she’s pushed to her limits, spread impossibly wide, and she’s irrevocably transformed, because she knows she’ll never be the same after this, knows the girl she was before is gone for good.

The morning will come, and Remus will run, will bury himself in guilt, and she’ll be the one who has to drag him back out. But tonight, she’s wrung out, her body moulding to the shape of his cock. Tonight, she’s the one trembling and unsure, and later, later, she’ll be strong, she’ll make this work, she’ll make Remus see the light. 

But right now, she only wants to be his. 

“Harder, Moony, please. It’s yours. You can take anything you want,” she vows, begs, keens as his fingers flex around her throat, gasps when the deepest growl she’s heard tonight fills the air around them. 

“Be sure, little witch,” Moony croons, a softer edge to his voice as he tilts her head back to meet his eyes. “Moony is a beast. Moony won’t be soft like the boy.”

“He’s not here,” she says, teeth gritting, anger dancing along the gaps in her ribcage, wrapping around her lungs because this should have been him, and he should have been here, and he should have told her. 

“He’s not here,” she repeats, firmer now, jaw clenching in defiance as she rocks her hips back, urging his now-still cock to move. “But I want him to wake up in the morning and know you were. T-to know you did what he wouldn’t. Take, Moony. Take.” 

“Take,” he roars, his arm locking around her stomach, her knees lifting from the floor as he sits back on his heels. He fucks her harder, her head lulling back against his shoulder, free hand still locked around her throat, and he’s off the leash now, all beast and hers. 

“Perfect little fucking cunt. Moony’s good little bitch,” he praises—she’s sure it's praise, even if her body reacts to the word she’d usually perceive as an insult, spine snapping straight, nails digging harder into his thigh. 

She reminds herself this isn’t Remus; this is the beast, Canis Lupus, a dog in every sense of the word, so to him, his mate is likely exactly that—his bitch,  and he says it again, “Good little bitch for her Moony, loves this fat wolf cock, gonna let Moony breed, need to breed, be good, good, good girl, good bitch,” he rambles, on and on, spilling filth and flattery in equal measure, like he can’t stop talking. 

The thought crosses Hermione’s mind that he doesn’t get to use this voice often; that he spends most of his days locked inside the mind of a man who doesn’t want him, and gods, isn’t that the most relatable bit of all of this? The need to fight for your voice in a world that doesn’t want to hear it?

And so she gives him her voice. Screams his name, his name, “Moony, please, please, I’m so close, Moony. Moony, please don’t stop.” 

“Never,” he utters the promise, the word solidifying in her mind even as the gooey-glass feeling spreads down her body, coating her entire nervous system in sticky, wet heat as he fucks up into her cunt, each thrust more brutal than the last. 

“Come for Moony, Mate. Be good. Soak Moony’s cock, gonna knot you now, need… need you to let me in. Open up, sweet girl, so sweet, need it now,” he begs—he’s begging, this beast inside of her. His voice is tight, an octave too high, a bit of Remus’s familiar Welsh lilt coating his words as he croaks, “Hermione.”

She’s heard her name a million times from a thousand different voices, has read it in a Winter’s Tale, had the scent of it fill her nose in her grandmother’s rose garden, but her name like that, from his lips, sounding so much like both parts of him, becomes her undoing. 

“Oh, gods, it hurts,” she croaks, or, perhaps, thinks the words, wills them into existence as the tightening of her body around his swelling knot heightens the sensation, makes it real, because he’s knotting inside of her, and she’s tripping over her own restraint, careening head-first over the edge, body flailing in his hold as she crashes into a never-ending pool of hysteria. 

Moony growls again, his hand pressing against her stomach, movements stuttering to a halt as he comes, fills her, thick, sticky ropes of cum flooding her womb, every throb of his cock inside of her sending little aftershocks across her lower stomach, muscles spasming, legs all weak as he drags his tongue down the side of her neck. 

She tilts her head to the side. Pulls her shoulder down, exposing her neck in a silent plea. The act is natural, as if her body has no doubt what comes next, and it’s an acceptance he grabs with both hands–or, rather, with his jaw, teeth sinking into her flesh, searing, white-hot pain blurring the edges of her vision as she screams again. 

But then the pain ebbs, and the rightness flows in, every centimetre of her body set alight. 

He laps at her skin, chest vibrating against her back, and she swears, for a single, monumental moment, that she can see the bond between them, a thick band of gold wrapping around moonlight silver as her heart falls into sync with his errant rhythm, peace trickling out from the centre of her chest as the core of her magic gives a vibrant shake and then settles, locks into place, imbued with the feral vibration of his power. 

“Mine,” he rasps, over and over and over again, “mine, mine, mine, claimed, bred, good girl, good Mate.” He never stops talking, even as he guides her down to the floor, gently now, nose pressed to her throat, tongue still dragging over the claiming mark on her shoulder. 

It’s there, in his arms, on the floor of the cellar, his knot keeping them fused together in the centre of the nest he’s made, this feral half-wolf man curled around her body, that she finds peace. 

The calm before the storm, undoubtedly, because the sun will rise, and Remus will reclaim his mind, and she’ll have to fight for them both, but tonight, she finds herself content, right where she was always meant to be. 

Mine, he repeats, inside of her head in a way she can’t explain, and she hums, lips tugging into a sated smile, eyes drifting closed. 

“Yours, Moony.”