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“A…a baby.” 

“A baby.” 

“A baby?” 

“Yes.” 

“Merlin…” 

Harry watched Hermione push her hand through the crown of her curly hair—a habit she’d picked up from him—as she leaned against the table in the small tent. He tried not to fiddle too much, not to make it so obvious that the thought of being forced to procreate to fulfill the godforsaken prophecy—to finally defeat Voldemort—was terrifying. He hadn’t even had sex yet, thought he might just die a virgin, and now he was expected to be a father ? 

To a child he didn’t know whether or not he’d live to meet? 

If the prophecy held true, then having this child would nearly guarantee their victory. But the Fates had been fickle so far… 

He tried to take slow, even breaths lest he be completely transparent about the panic bubbling up inside him as he waited for his best friend of seven years to come to the same conclusion he had. 

And then she did. Realizing there was only one option, her eyes locked on his and she tilted her head sympathetically. “Oh, Harry…we can’t.” 

The knife he’d speared his own guts with twisted deeper. He knew they’d be hurting other people if they did this, but how many more would die if they didn’t? 

“I don’t know what to do, Hermione. There’s only us here, and unless a child is born, the prophecy won’t be fulfilled. We’ll never get rid of You-Know-Who unless we have a blood conduit for the protective magic my mother passed on to me. Something ‘pure as a unicorn, rare as a thestral, a child born of unadulterated love, conceived under the light of the autumn moon, who shall contain his mother’s strength and his father’s bravery until the last light of terror fades from evil’s eyes.’” 

She stood unmoving as the words sank in. They’d nearly died trying to retrieve the last bit of the prophecy, having to scour Europe for the maid who had been cleaning that day at the Hog’s Head and convince her to turn over the memory. She’d been in hiding for the better part of twenty years, and they’d nearly been caught by Snatchers breaking into the Danish Minister’s office to use his pensieve. 

Hermione knew exactly what was at stake, and exactly what had been said. The fact that she hadn’t suggested the obvious solution yet herself had Harry’s stomach in knots. She’d done so much for him over the years. But a child was a lot to ask. Or was sex the line she wouldn’t cross? 

Finally she said, “I never liked Divination.” 

Harry couldn’t help but laugh despite the current predicament. “I know.” 

She chewed her lip. After several long moments, she looked down, arms wrapped across her chest as she rocked back on her heels, staring at the dirt floor. She squeaked out in a whisper just one word. “Ron.” 

“I know,” Harry said more solemnly, the sick feeling of guilt twisting his own stomach. “I don’t know what will happen between you two if we do this, or what will happen with Ginny and I, if we even survive that long. But I know you’re the only one I would ask.” He licked his lips, nervous at the thought of anything scarring their friendship; she meant too much to him to lose her too. “If you don’t want to, we won’t. I’ll never bring it up again. You mean too much to me, Hermione, so just say the word.” 

She grimaced. “There really doesn’t seem to be another way.” 

Harry looked around, searching for an answer in the air of the old, musty tent. “No, there must be. You’re brilliant; we’ll find another way. I just wanted to talk about it, to—to be honest. About what we’d learned from the prophecy and what I was thinking.” He paused, vulnerability threatening to cut him at the knees if he didn’t spit it all out before he lost his nerve. “You’re my best friend, Hermione. If it was going to be anyone, I’d want it to be you.” 

Her large, honey-golden eyes met his and she bounced on her heels as if she were trying to drive her nervous energy out of her body and into the ground. Most nights, they felt safe inside the tent, with the wards Hermione placed around it insulating them and turning the fabric and poles into a Faraday cage where they could safely avoid any offensive strikes. But now it felt suffocating, like the pressure of portkey travel sucking them up and spitting them out, or the danger of Apparition, unsure if they would land at the same place, whole or splinched. 

Hermione bit her lip as she thought. Harry noticed she was sucking off all the gloss she’d just applied and found himself wondering if it tasted like the candy scent he always caught when she put it on. He shook his head, surprised by the direction of his thoughts. He’d never considered what her lips might taste like before…but the mere suggestion of sex and more was doing something to his head. 

He almost didn’t mind, but he would run Voldemort through with the sword of Gryffindor itself before he’d let him ruin Harry’s friendship with Hermione, prophecy or not. 

“All right.” 

Stunned enough that a finite may have helped him find his words, he asked, “Really?” 

“Yes.” She spoke slowly. “But Harry, you should know, I have done this before. Not the baby part, obviously, but, well…” 

A blush spread across her cheeks. He was surprised, had assumed that she and Ron had some kind of understanding after last year—he knew nothing had happened yet, because Ron would not have been able to refrain from telling him. And he wouldn’t have left—but it didn’t matter. “Oh! That’s fine. Of course it is. You’ve basically helped me learn everything else I know over the last seven years. Why not this too?” The goofy grin on his face seemed to ease the tension. She laughed, but he was sweating. 

Friend or not, losing your virginity seemed daunting. Prophecy or not, being required to do so under such specific circumstances could make a bloke feel a bit of performance anxiety. Romantic love or platonic, fathering a child with someone seemed far beyond what should be asked of an eighteen-year-old boy in the course of a war. Especially a war he wasn’t sure he would survive. 

“Okay, then we’ll do it.” She smiled sadly, and Harry felt a shiver of guilt run through him. He hoped Ron would forgive them, if they ever saw him again. 

The reality of the situation came crashing down and he looked at her in fear. “It’s a baby, Hermione,” he whispered. “A baby. That we have to make. Together. Is this—are we mad?” 

She laughed, the last bits of tension dissolving. Walking over to him, she pulled him into a hug. “Harry, I have been with you every step of the way. We’ll figure this out too.” 

* * * 

They had to wait for the full moon, which was three days away. The atmosphere was awkward in the tent, exaggerated politeness coloring every interaction. Harry didn’t know what to say about any of it, so he generally said nothing. Even his usual frustrated rants were tampered by the anxiety of his upcoming date with destiny. 

Over dinner, he surreptitiously stared at Hermione through his eyelashes. She seemed so calm. Why was he nervous? He wasn’t even the one that would have to carry the child. 

“Is everything all right, Harry?” she asked him as she cleaned the dishes off the table and charmed them to wash themselves in the sink. 

“Hm? Yes. Fine.” He focused intensely on the dirt under his nails, disgusted by them in the context of the evening, and blushed with shame as he quietly Scourgio ’d them. “I was just thinking, ya know, it’s the full moon tonight. The…baby…has to be made under the full moon. So should we just, uh, do it?” he finished lamely, wanting to melt into the earth with the ferocity of his embarrassment at propositioning his friend for sex. 

She giggled. “That’s not how it works, Harry. Even between friends, I think we need a little more than that.” 

He felt his cheeks grow hot and looked anywhere else. “Okay,” he said to the front corner of the tent where the pole met the ceiling. “Right, so…” 

She appeared in front of him, forcing his gaze to find her. She was looking down at him with love. Understanding. She held out her hand. 

“Come with me.” 

Harry couldn’t have denied her if he’d wanted to; in that moment, her confidence and quiet sensuality held him in a trance. Placing his hand in hers, he followed her to the bigger of the two beds—her bed. 

She led him to the edge and sat. 

He swallowed. “I thought…we had to do it under the moonlight?” 

Looking up at the roof, she muttered a quick spell, and a window appeared in the tent, light shining down on them through the glass. 

Harry looked at her, moonbeams crossing her face and illuminating the different highlights in her hair. The tiny bursts of lights that dotted the sky were reflected in the freckles on the bridge of her nose. 

She was beautiful in the starlight. 

“How do we…start?” 

She kicked off her shoes; he mirrored her, pulling one leg up on the bed so he could face her more directly. 

Hermione knelt up next to him, her eyes glistening in the reflective light with some quality of magic he couldn’t understand yet. 

“Listen to me,” she said gently. “No matter what, you are always going to be my best friend. I love you, Harry James Potter. Forever.” She took his face between her hands and leaned in, the corner of her mouth pulling up in a smile just meant for him. “So don’t think too much. Just be here with me.” 

Before he could think or worry, her lips brushed his and the first thought his brain latched onto was that her gloss wasn’t sticky after all. But it did smell familiar, tugging at an old memory he couldn’t place, and he realized it was treacle tart. 

He wanted to taste it. 

His hands found his way into her hair, cradling her head as they both knelt up on the bed, kissing deeply. Surprised by the intensity of his need, he tried to maintain some semblance of composure, whilst his tongue danced around the seam of her lips. His eyes flew open when he felt her gasp as she parted them, granting him entrance. The girl in front of him was stunning and how had he never noticed before how soft her hair was? How had he never felt compelled to wrap her curls around his fingers? To learn that the freckles on her nose almost looked like constellations. 

He hadn’t known, and now, he would never not know again. 

He also hadn’t known his entire being would tense in excitement as she wrapped her tongue delicately, skillfully around his. 

Her hands moved to the front of her shirt and quickly started undoing the buttons. Harry broke the kiss momentarily to look down, suddenly panicked again; he didn’t know what to do, didn’t know the right steps. It should be so simple, but it felt insurmountable. Before he could overthink it, she guided his chin back up and kissed him again, her fingers deftly finishing the row of buttons before pushing off her long-sleeve that kept her warm at night. Before her hands moved to his shirt and she reached under the loose cotton at his waist to feel his skin. 

He groaned in her mouth. He’d never felt soft fingertips running up the length of his spine like that, and he had a single moment to panic that if she kept overwhelming his senses—in the best way—he would never make it to the part of the evening that the prophecy required them to fulfill. 

Taking the lead, he took her face between his hands and started kissing the length of her jaw, a soft sigh falling from her lips into his ear, encouraging him to continue, She tilted her head and her hands pulled her tank top over her head and sat before him, a tiny, simple red bra covering her chest. 

Something ignited, but instead of setting the tent ablaze, uncontrolled and dangerous like Fiendfyre, it was one of Hermione’s signature blue flames, smoldering gently and focused inside him. It wasn’t passion and heat the way he’d read about, expected. It was a desperate need for connection—frantic, energetic, elemental. Two people who were still too far apart and needed some way to close the gap. 

His mouth moved over hers, his heart beating faster as the one girl he never imagined kissing moved her hand to the back of his head, her other to his hand, and guided him over her as she lay down. Harry’s body followed on top of hers, instinct kicking in as he did everything he could not to break the kiss and lose her sweetness. Balancing on his forearm, his other hand trailed over her chest, between the cups of her bra, down to her stomach, hooking his finger into the band of her leggings. 

She was breathing heavier, and as he pulled back to watch her face, something felt different. The way she was looking at him, the pink tinge on her cheeks beneath the periwinkle light that drifted in through the glass, she wasn’t just his loyal friend of seven years. She was the woman he wanted to give this part of himself to. 

“Hermione…” he whispered as his lips brushed hers. 

The soft moan that emanated from her throat as his hand splayed out across her stomach was barely loud enough to be heard but the ripple it caused through his body had him pushing his chest against hers, wanting more contact. Her hands were frenzied as she pulled off his shirt and unhooked her bra, tossing it to the side and pulling him down onto her skin so there was nothing between them. 

Their breaths loud enough for the other to hear, coming fast enough to need to slow down lest they faint, they both paused, watching each other. As long as he lived, this would be a singular experience for Harry, the moment that his friend became something vastly more, ineffably and permanently woven into the fabric of his perception of himself, the world, his place in it. He wanted to be closer and closer and make her feel…something. Something he didn’t even know how to articulate, hadn’t yet created a sense memory for, couldn’t begin to explain. 

“Harry,” she breathed. She took his hands, one still resting along the top of her soft black pants, and gently pressed them downwards, showing him what she wanted. 

He swallowed. He was not going to be scared. He was not . He was also not going to finish in his pants before he’d even gotten a chance to taste her. He wanted to do so much more to her first. Couldn’t believe that he thought they could just get this over with. Not when the entire experience was meant to be borne of love. 

Moving slowly down her body, he dragged her pants over her hips, thighs, off her feet. He kissed his way back up, moving from the outside of one thigh in towards her center and then repeating it on the other side, not yet placing his lips on the small black piece of cloth that separated her from him. 

She gasped every time he got close. Wanting her eyes on him, he hovered right above her knickers, his warm breath caressing her without any of the stimulation that she must have been wanting. For after a few moments, she tilted her head up to look down at him, eyes wild with need, panting. 

And he kissed her right there. 

She threw her head back, mewling as her hips started to rock of their own volition. Emboldened by her response, he grasped the edges of her knickers and slid them down. 

Gods , she was perfect. It hit him all over again that he was getting to see something he never thought he would, and he couldn’t believe he would have gone his whole life without hearing her whisper his name as she begged him to kiss her there again. 

“Please, please.” She was more immersed in desire than he’d expected, but then again so was he. He could see her slickness coating her skin where her folds parted in arousal. Without thinking, he dipped his head and licked from her slit all the way to the top of the bundle of nerves that made her gasp and thread her fingers through his black hair. He knew nothing except that his sole purpose in that moment was to make her feel good, to have her come on his tongue, to learn what she liked and give her everything she deserved. 

Her fingers laced through his where his hands lay on the bed next to her and Harry thought he had never known you could feel so close to someone this way, especially someone you’d known almost half your life. They’d already shared so much, but now they would forever have this. 

And, if things went well, a child. 

He gulped, trying not to let this change his pace as her pants got closer together, but the reminder that they were making a child sent a frisson of anxiety coursing through his nervous system. How would they do this? How would they protect a baby, raise a child, be…parents? 

Would—would this be the only time he’d ever taste her like this? After? If she were with Ron, and he were with Ginny, and they were both leading the lives they had expected to lead, then even if they shared a child, they wouldn’t be doing this. 

Was that even what he wanted anymore? One drink from her, one time hearing her whisper his name under the moonlight, and he was lost to the thought of anything outside of this moment, this space they inhabited together. 

“Harry, I’m—” 

She arched up and he slipped one hand under the small of her back to support her as he licked and sucked her dripping sex. She was so close her words became a single-note whine with need, but she couldn’t seem to let go. 

“Tell me what you need,” he said quickly, replacing his mouth as soon as he had removed it. 

Her back lowered to the bed, she met his eyes and her mouth was round and open with desire. Please, I’ll give you anything , he thought. 

“I need something…inside,” she whispered. 

Harry’s cock pressed painfully against the front of his jeans and he groaned against her body where his mouth was still connected to her, the vibration making her hips move instinctively against him. 

“ Please ,” she begged. 

He slipped one finger inside her, amazed by the wet heat and the ridges and the unequivocally arousing thought that now he knew what his friend felt like from the inside. 

Her moan spurred him on as he started slowly stroking in and out, fucking her with his finger the way he wanted to with his cock, feeling her walls flutter as her soft, wet cunt desperately sought something to grasp. Pulling out, he pushed back inside with two fingers and she gasped, grabbing at his hair almost painfully, though he couldn’t find it in himself to care when he had her writhing in the palm of his hand. 

“Harry, Harry, Harry ,” she panted as her walls closed around his finger. 

And then the dam broke. 

She was coming for him, fuck , she was coming for him , and he needed it, needed her. More. Now . 

All thoughts of taking his time and savoring this one chance flew out of his mind as he knelt and unbuttoned his jeans, frantically pushing them off and crawling back up the bed to kiss her. 

Her hands grabbed at his back as his tongue slipped into her mouth, his hand palming her breast, softly kneading it; he mentally made a note to taste her there later as well. She pulled him down against her, crushing him to her as he kicked off his boxers. One small hand slipped down between them and as she grabbed his cock he broke off from the kiss, a strangled sound coming from his throat as he tried not to come immediately. But oh her hand felt good. 

“Hermione, I’m not gonna last if you do that.” 

She kissed the side of his jaw, up…up…up…until her tongue lapped at the spot right below his ear. In the softest, most seductive tones Harry had ever heard, she said, “Then you should get inside me fast, don’t you think?” 

“Fuck—” 

She rubbed the head of his cock along her slit and he was reciting every potions ingredient he could remember not to spill himself on the outside of her. He could hardly hold himself up, his arms were shaking so bad with anticipation. 

She must have sensed it because thankfully she whispered, “Roll over.” 

He held her tight as he flipped them on the bed. If he thought having her naked underneath him was too much to bear, he was completely unprepared for the sight of Hermione Granger straddling him naked under the moonlight, sliding her wet cunt along the sensitive underside of his cock, rocking her hips so her clit would catch on his head. 

“Hermione, please .” 

She leaned forward, kissing him briefly, and held herself over his body. Reaching between them, she lined him up with her waiting center, and Harry watched as she slowly started to sink onto him. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh no . 

“Fuck, I—” He threw his head back, holding her hips so he wouldn’t accidentally thrust all the way into her at once as the force of his orgasm ripped through him. He was barely inside her, but the grip around his cock had been too much. 

He wanted to fade into the wall, be swallowed up by the bed, careened out the window—he didn’t care. At that moment, he wanted to be anywhere else other than lying embarrassed underneath the most gorgeous girl he’d been privileged enough to see, who’d just witnessed him come before he even got his cock inside her. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. 

She giggled, and it drew his eyes to her face. “It’s all right, Harry.” 

“I’m so sorry,” it started tumbling out of him at once, “I—I don’t, uh…” He closed his eyes, wondering how hard it would be to Obliviate himself rather than live with the horrifying embarrassment forever, but the gentle touch of her hand on his cheek brought him back to the present. 

“It’s all right.” Her smile was so gentle and genuine that he finally exhaled, leaning into her palm, and felt a little better. “Look.” She glanced down between them and he followed her gaze. 

He was still hard. She’d had her hand around the base of his cock and had been gently rubbing him and he was still hard. Of course he was, he was eighteen and this was his prime, right? 

“If you still want me,” she said with a cheeky shrug of the shoulder, but there was a hint of a question in her eyes. 

He looked up at her, the blue and purple hues from the overhead window casting pools of shadow around her, the moonlight illuminating her like diamonds. 

“I think I want you too much,” he admitted. 

She sucked in a breath and he was worried he’d said the wrong thing, ruined it all, that she would back out, abandon him, call him something awful. That suddenly finding her unapologetically attractive and needing her would make her feel used. But she smiled. 

“Well then.” She stroked his cock and raised herself over it, slowly, gloriously, finally taking him in one inch at a time. 

Nothing could have prepared him for this. Not his imagination, not having his fingers inside of her, not even his tightest grip on his own cock. The feeling of her walls sheathed around him was unknowable until it wasn’t. 

It was heaven. It was foreign. It was divine. It was too much. It would never be enough. 

She leaned her palms against his chest as she slowly dragged herself up and down his cock. He would have thought she was doing it just to torture him if it wasn’t for the look in her eye, the way her mouth was just a little bit open, eyelashes fluttering as she took him all the way in again. 

He grabbed her hips and started guiding her movements as well, overwhelmed by how many places he wanted to touch her at once. 

She caught his eye and smiled. 

“So bloody perfect.” His voice was thick with desire and he wanted…more. 

He pulled her down to him and rolled them over; a giggle escaped her mouth but he was kissing her so soon after it blended into the moan she made as he drove his cock deep, deep into her. 

He broke the kiss to rest his face next to her ear as he pistoned in and out of her tight pussy. “Gods, Hermione, you feel incredible.” 

She moaned, dragging her nails lightly down his back as she panted in rhythm with his thrusts beneath him. 

“You’re so fucking tight,” he breathed into her ear and was rewarded with her cunt squeezing him even tighter. He almost lost it. He leaned up, still fucking her as he took one of her tits into his mouth, sucking on her hard little nipple. 

“Oh god, Harry, Merlin , I—” 

She was coming around him. Fuck , she was coming for him, on his cock, and he knew he was going to fill her but he wasn’t ready. He kneeled up and grabbed her hips, raising her up as he fucked her through her climax. She was beautiful, sweat lightly covering her body, twinkling in the light. 

He never expected his best friend to feel this good. 

He kept up his pace as she came back down, eyes glazed with satisfaction. He wanted to make her feel that again and again. He slowed his thrusts, reaching down between them to rub gently. 

She hissed. “Sensitive.”

He used less pressure, feeling her clit move back and forth under her hood, careful not to touch it directly when the line between pleasure and pain was so narrow, every sensation amplified. 

Her eyes met his and he knew his must have looked wild. Every thought in his brain was make her feel good, fill her up, 

my seed, my cock, 

coming in her perfect cunt, 

fuck . 

But that’s the thing about them being best friends, he realized. She knew exactly what he was thinking. 

“I want you too, Harry,” she whispered. She put her hand over his on her clit and guided him, her walls squeezing him again as they hit the right pace together. 

Oh, he wanted her but he wanted more than just that. He needed to come inside her, wanted to see how beautiful she would look taking his seed. He wanted to fill her up so many times it would drip down her thighs for days, so anyone and everyone would know she had no need for another cock—his was enough. 

He’d always resented being “chosen,” but he needed her to choose him. 

“Wanna do this again and again,” he whispered, tilting his hips forward so he pressed a little deeper into her and she made a soft, perfect noise as she continued to rub her clit. His hands went to her chest, squeezing her breasts as he caught her nipples between his fingers. “Want to fill you up, right here.” 

He placed one large hand across her stomach as he fucked her slowly. 

“Want my baby right here.” 

Leaned with slight pressure so he could feel where they joined beneath her muscles. 

“Fuck, Harry, I want it, I want it, please, please.” She threw her head back, coming again, and it took him by surprise. 

“Oh, fuck, Hermione.” He nearly fell on top of her in his haste to quicken his pace and fill her up. 

And then his vision went white. He erupted inside of her, half-screaming with the force of it. His eyes met hers and he watched her feel him coat her from the inside. 

He leaned in and kissed her, slowly, gently, cupping her face with his hand. When he pulled back, her eyes looked panicked. 

“What’s wrong?” 

She was silent, though her mouth moved as if she were trying to say something. 

“Hermione, what is it?” 

“I…I liked that. A lot.” 

“Me too.” 

“What now?” 

He slid out of her and laid next to her. Their fingers intertwined as they looked at each other. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “According to the prophecy, it should work. And then…” 

“There’ll be a baby.” 

“Yes.” 

“A baby.” 

“A baby.” 

“Wow.” 

“I know.” 

“You know, Harry…” She looked up at him innocently. “I’ve heard that pregnancy does strange things to a witch’s hormones.” 

He sucked in a breath. “Yeah?” 

“Yes.” She trailed her finger up his ribs. “Something about it all makes her more…needy,” she grabbed his hand and brought it lower, to the spot right between her legs that was dripping with his cum, “…here.” 

He groaned, slipping one finger inside and relishing the feel of their combined fluids. “I think I’m okay with that.” 

“Yeah?” She looked hopeful. Unsure. 

“Yeah.” He wrapped his arm around her body and pulled her closer, kissing her again. “It’ll give us loads of time for you to teach me.” 

She tilted her head. “Teach you what?” 

He smiled. “Everything you like.” 

And they started that very night.