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“Did you know, some stories say my people are cursed?” Fleur poured Hermione a cup of tea and looked for a place to set it down on their crowded breakfast table. Hermione hurried to fold up four days worth of wizarding and muggle newspapers and made space for the teacup beside her plate.
“We need a bigger table,” Hermione said. “And yes, I’ve read the folklore.” She plucked a vase of delicate blossoms from the center of the table and placed it on the floor beside her chair. Fleur put a plate of toast in the free space and smiled at her lover.
“All of it, I expect, in multiple languages. Did you conduct any original research on Veelas, as well?”
Hermione blushed. “I wouldn’t call it that,” she teased back. She smeared jam on a piece of toast and handed it to Fleur. “Are you worried about going home this year? You seem preoccupied lately.”
“No, I-” Fleur paused to consider her words. “There’s been talk of some of the elders attending the solstice celebrations this year. Some sort of extra ritual that only happens when the stars align or the birds flock in a specific pattern or the omens are correct and proper. Spooky nonsense.” She flicked her hand towards the window and the cloudy sky visible through the glass.
“But it’s bothering you,” Hermione prompted.
“I haven’t seen a Veela elder since I was a child. I had nightmares for weeks afterwards.”
“Was she too pretty?”
Fleur frowned. “She was too beautiful. Ethereal. Unreal. I’d never seen anything like it. She wasn’t like a person, at all.” Fleur picked up the bread knife and looked at its serrated edge. “And I’m not trying to be offensive, about wizards and their bullshit about who gets to be considered a person or not,” she hastened to add. “I’m just... trying to describe the experience of it. Of standing in her presence. The feeling of having her look at me - look into me. It was...” Fleur gestured with the knife. “Like being dissected, you know?”
Hermione took a sip of tea. “I’ll go with you, if you want.”
Fleur shook her head. “I couldn’t ask that of you. Not this year. And really, Professor Granger, skipping out on the school year early to attend a series of garden parties in la belle France? The scandal of it.” She smiled at Hermione, dazzlingly beautiful, and Hermione felt her heart flutter in her chest.
“I mean it. I’ll go.”
“I’ll manage. Your students need you.” Fleur glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “And I need to leave now or I’ll miss that portkey.” She stood and stepped around the table to drop a kiss on Hermione’s lips.
“Take some toast with you,” Hermione pushed back her chair and stepped into Fleur’s waiting arms. She felt Fleur’s soft lips press against her throat, sighing as Fleur kissed a trail up to her jaw.
“We have toast in France,” Fleur laughed, and squeezed Hermione tight. “I’ll see you in a month. Look after yourself, my love.”
*
Hermione taught Charms and Arithmancy to classes full of children traumatized by the war, and Alchemy to seventh years only a few years younger than her. She marked papers and exams, consoled the struggling, and encouraged the studious. At the end of June, she tidied her office, reaffirmed her intention to work at the Ministry of Magic the moment Hogwarts no longer needed her, and headed home to London.
The flat she shared with Fleur was enchanted to clean itself, and so there wasn’t any dust on the furniture, no cobwebs in the windows. It still felt unlived in without Fleur there, despite the cheerful colors and bright rooms. Hermione wandered from room to room, opening windows to let in air. She unpacked her luggage and reminded herself that Fleur would be home tomorrow, that Fleur had sent notes via owl almost every day. And if those notes had gotten briefer and briefer, the handwriting slowly changing from ornate flourishes to a cramped scrawl, well. They were both under a lot of stress. Hermione had taken on Flitwick’s classes so he could have a year of leave, and Fleur had had to deal with her family and any complicated and unnecessary drama they chose to inflict on her. And all that was on top of... everything else. The war haunted them both.
Hermione poured herself a glass of wine and went to bed with a book about the history of runic charms in eastern Estonia.
Hours later, she awoke in her bed, shivering. The flat was dark and cold, and she reached for her wand and cast a few lights around the room with a soft lumos. A shadow moved in the darkness beyond the window, and Hermione climbed out of bed and went to it. She pressed her palm against the glass, looking out into the murky gloom, thinking the fog must’ve rolled in overnight. The glass was damp with condensation and chill to the touch. There wasn’t any light from the street below, from traffic or nearby flats, and Hermione had just decided that the muggles had lost power when the shadow moved again. Lean, and sinuous, its movement akin to something swimming in a current.
Hermione leaned closer to the window and called her lights to her. Outside the window, barely visible in the darkness, tall fronds of a kelp-like plant gleamed and swayed in the light. I’m underwater, Hermione thought, incredulous. I’m at the bottom of a lake. She took a deep breath and steeled her nerves. This is a dream. The eel, sliding through the water, winding its way through the fronds, came to the window as if attracted to the light. It looked at Hermione, and opened its mouth, jaws gaping wide, its teeth bone-white and razor sharp. Its throat was a dark void, expanding to fill the window. It will swallow the whole flat, Hermione thought desperately, lifting her wand for a counter-spell even as the walls crashed in around her, flooding the room with icy water.
She bolted awake in her bed a moment later, sheets twisted around her legs. The first red streak of dawn tinted the clouds visible through her window. Her heart thudded in her chest.
*
Fleur returned later that day, three hours later than expected, her face pale and exhausted. She stepped out of the fireplace and stood looking around their flat as though something was wrong with it. She’d brought gifts for Hermione, books and bottles of wine and a bunch of fresh flowers, elder and hawthorn and apple blossoms. Hermione found a vase for the bouquet, and glasses for the wine, and managed not to comment on Fleur’s behaviour.
“How were the celebrations?” she asked, instead.
“Terrible,” Fleur answered. Her mouth quirked in a strange smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “Did all your students pass their exams?”
“They did.” Hermione took a sip of wine. “I catch the stragglers early on and assign them tutors.”
“You make them succeed, or else,” Fleur suggested.
“They succeed on their own.”
“Guided to their victories by their brilliant professor, I’m certain,” Fleur laughed, and this time her smile was broad and genuine.
“I missed you too, you flatterer.” Hermione set aside her wine and leaned in for a kiss. “Let’s go to bed.”
*
The touch on her thighs was light, barely noticeable, and melded into Hermione’s dreams seamlessly. She felt her legs nudged apart, and then a soft breath of air on her exposed belly. A warm mouth pressed gentle kisses below her navel, then slid lower. A tongue flicked out to taste her clit, just a teasing jolt before sliding into her folds, pushing inwards. Hermione murmured in her sleep, moving slightly, her body responding to the attention. She felt her nipples stiffen, desire taking her closer to waking. The hot tongue returned to her clit with lazy, exploratory drags, and what felt like a finger pushed into her.
Hermione groaned, stirring drowsily, waking up more as another finger slid inside her. And then jolted awake in the darkness when Fleur added a third.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, more sharply than she’d intended. Her body still thrummed with unsatisfied arousal. She called up a light for herself and flinched at its brightness.
Fleur sat up, pulled her fingers from Hermione’s quim, and licked them clean. “What do you mean?” For a moment, her eyes reflected the light, uncanny and feral, but then it was gone.
Hermione pulled a sheet over herself. “Did you strip me in my sleep?”
“You weren’t wearing much.”
“That’s...” Hermione trailed off, finding herself at a loss for words. That’s unlike you, she wanted to say. Or, this is something I’d like you to discuss with me first. “I’d rather you wake me up, so I don’t miss out,” she managed, finally.
Fleur tilted her head to the side and looked at Hermione as though she was seeing her for the first time. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” she said. She moistened her lips with the tip of the tongue, and Hermione thought she was tasting her again. Savouring her.
“You didn’t.”
Fleur placed her hand on Hermione’s chest, over her heart. “Your heart feels like a little bird, fluttering.”
“I was startled, that’s all.”
Fleur hummed in response. “If you say so.” She handed Hermione her shirt, then curled up around her, pulling the blankets up over them both.
Hermione released her lumos spell, shrouding the room in darkness. She stared out the window for a long time, unable to relax. Beside her, Fleur slept like the dead.
*
Hermione didn’t want to believe that her lover had changed, but she was certain that something had happened to Fleur. Fleur was ...different. She seemed distracted, and brittle. She extended her holiday from working at Gringotts and instead wandered around the flat, staring out the windows, looking at the muggles walking on the street below like a cat watching mice. She sang to herself, under her breath, soft little songs in a language Hermione didn’t recognize and that Fleur couldn’t or wouldn’t identify.
“Did something happen... while you were away?” Hermione asked her, hating how tentative she sounded. She set aside her curriculum revisions and poured them both cups of tea. Fleur accepted the cup but didn’t join Hermione at the kitchen table.
“The usual tedium and posturing. Garden parties, galas for debutantes, whatever political drama my family has involved itself in now. I think they’d all die of boredom if they didn’t invent little power struggles and petty conflicts to amuse themselves. And this was all before we even left for Versailles.”
“And the Veela elders? Were they as terrifying as you remembered?”
“I’d forgotten so much about them, their presence. They asked about you, and I told them you were brilliant.” Her eyes met Hermione’s, only for a moment, and she beamed at her just as briefly before adding, “I thought they would cut out my heart.” Fleur shivered, staring into her teacup. She set it down, untouched, and left the room without another word.
*
Hermione was drowning, pulled down to the depths of the lake, ice cold water filling her mouth, her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, struggling frantically. Plant tendrils wound around her legs, preventing her from kicking, from swimming back to the surface. The plants became vines, thick and thorned, sliding under her clothing, around her limbs, scratching her flesh. Little puffs of blood further clouded the murky water. She struggled, flailing, and the vines explored her further, encircling her waist, her thighs. They pushed inside of her, her mouth, her quim, and her body responded, a horrifying and nonsensical arousal unfolding within her. She could feel the vines move inside of her, twisting and curling, and her body clenched involuntarily. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe, could only see the tiniest amount of light filtering down from the surface. Above her, silhouetted against the surface, an eel swam past, its body wriggling in the current. The vines spasmed inside her, and Hermione came despite her terror, choking and desperate.
She awoke in her bed, panting and gasping, unable to move her limbs for what seemed like a full minute. And then suddenly she could again, and tried to claw the vines from her throat until awareness returned. She was soaked in sweat, her chest heaving, unable to hear anything but her heartbeat.
Fleur sat beside her, poised and relaxed, watching her struggle to free herself from their bedding.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Hermione gasped.
Fleur frowned at her, puzzled, a tiny line between her perfect brows. “Just a dream, my love,” she said, unconcerned. Her hand slipped between Hermione’s thighs, pushing her panties aside, touching her vulva. “Perhaps a good one?”
Hermione flinched away. “No, it wasn’t.”
*
The weather turned stormy, and Hermione lit lamps throughout the flat to drive off the gloom. Rain beat against the windows and roof. Hermione renewed her charms against leaks and seepages, which she felt was her duty as a tenant on the top floor. The wind picked up, ripped leaves from the summer’s greenery and plastered them on any available surface. The weather kept the muggles inside, and eventually, the wizards as well.
One by one, Hermione’s friends cancelled dinner dates and walks in the park. Ginny mailed a letter with an ancient and bedraggled owl that must’ve had a near death experience on its flight over, because it refused to leave for an entire day. Luna sent her regrets about their planned excursion to the new antiquities exhibit at the museum by making a flagrant misuse of the Floo Network. Harry and Draco rescheduled dinner twice and eventually decided to leave it until the weather turned. Hermione resisted the urge to remind them all that they could apparate, or enchant their clothing against the rain, and instead decided that the weather was just making everyone weary.
Fleur received letters from France, and didn’t open them. She watched the skies, and watched Hermione, and sang to herself quiet little songs that made Hermione ache. She didn’t seem to want to leave the flat, but insisted on opening the windows to hear the thunder better.
Hermione was certain that Fleur wouldn’t hurt her, but Fleur was not herself. She didn’t tell Fleur about her nightmares, about the lake and the vines and the eel. She didn’t say anything when the dreams changed to involve Fleur, cold and beautiful and merciless, dragging Hermione up out of the depths to fuck her hard in the shallows, or pinning her to the lakebed and having her there. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Fleur, just that screaming herself awake and finding Fleur watching her was disconcerting enough to bleed over into her daytime life. Just that the Fleur of Hermione’s nightmares was so frightening that sometimes Hermione would look at her lover across the breakfast table and a shiver would run down her spine. It was stupid, and ridiculous, and Hermione decided she’d make appointments with a healer for them both, once the weather changed.
*
The window was wide open, rain splattering onto the floor, Hermione’s papers fluttering around the room like wounded birds. Hermione rushed to close the window, fighting the windstorm outside, even as she spoke the spells to gather her documents and dry them out. The window resisted her, and she was soaked and bruised by the time she’d gathered her thoughts enough to magic the window closed. I’m losing my mind, she thought. Why didn’t I do that first? She dried the floor with a wave of her wand, checked that she’d found all of her papers, and put them back into order.
She’d just finished reorganizing her annotations to A History of Magical Creatures and the Law when she heard the song. She knew it was Fleur immediately, even if the tune was strange. Fleur was strange, lately. The song was haunting and mournful, with a dark undertone of lust and pining that sank into Hermione’s heart. Her irritation with Fleur for leaving the window open like a wild thing faded away, and she followed the song.
Fleur was in their sprawling, clawed-foot bathtub, her pale hair flowing around her. She opened her eyes as Hermione approached, dark blue and lacking both pupil and sclera. Hermione startled, taking a step back, but then Fleur blinked and her eyes were normal once more. She repeated the refrain of her song until Hermione was at her side, then smiled up at her lover.
“Join me.” It was less of an offer and more of an expectation. Fleur watched her, and Hermione felt a spark of fear. And then felt guilty, for feeling it. She loved Fleur, she thought. She wanted Fleur. They’d been together since the war. They belonged together. Hermione stripped quickly, unbuttoning her blouse and tossing it aside, shedding her skirt, and panties, and bra. Fleur watched her.
“What’s wrong, my love?” Fleur asked, when Hermione froze in place and couldn’t take one more step towards her. She held out her hand, her fingers long and bone-white, her manicured nails looking oddly sharp. Hermione forced herself to take it. She let Fleur pull her closer, and stepped into the tub. Fleur didn’t release her, and Hermione ended up kneeling over Fleur, one hand on the side of the tub for balance.
Fleur put her thigh between Hermione’s legs and urged her closer.
“The water’s cold, Fleur,” Hermione said. The song Fleur had been singing echoed in her mind.
“It isn’t,” Fleur insisted. She reached out to cup Hermione’s breasts, dragging her nails over her nipples, squeezing just a little too hard. “But you know how to warm yourself up, don’t you?” She lifted her leg slightly, encouraging Hermione to grind down onto it.
“I feel strange.” Hermione felt ridiculous, afraid to look into Fleur’s eyes. She closed her own and felt Fleur reach between her legs. Fleur pressed her thumb down hard onto Hermione’s clit, and when Hermione sat up to avoid the touch, she reached under her and thrust two fingers deep into Hermione’s quim. Hermione shrieked, wondering just what had gotten into Fleur, and opened her eyes.
Fleur’s eyes were the deep, dead blue again. Hermione stared into them, and found she couldn’t move. She was frozen, on her knees above Fleur, one hand clutching the side of the tub, the other still in the act of reaching for her lover. Fleur smirked at her, the way the Fleur of Hermione’s dreams did, cold and pitiless.
“Let’s open you up a bit, my love,” Fleur said, and added a third finger. She thrust her fingers in roughly, and Hermione’s body yielded to her intrusion. Fleur wrapped an arm around Hermione’s waist and dragged her closer, pressed her face between Hermione’s breasts and mouthed her nipples. All the while, she fucked Hermione with her fingers, shoving in hard.
Hermione couldn’t move. She could barely breathe. Fleur bit at her nipples, and she couldn’t flinch away.
“I have so much to give you, my love. I want to be sure you can take all of it.”
The friction made Hermione slick, her body responding with arousal even as she tried to scream and pull away, demand that Fleur explain herself, explain what was wrong. Fleur hooked her fingernails into Hermione without warning and dragged them down her insides. The pain was sharp, and jarring, and suddenly Hermione could move again. She flailed, shoving herself away from Fleur, water splashing from the tub and onto the floor. She stumbled out of the tub, needing some space, trying to figure out what had just happened. Fleur hadn’t... Fleur wouldn’t...
Hermione staggered across the room, chest heaving. Fleur watched her go, head tilted to the side, as though it was Hermione who was acting crazed.
“Fleur, I... Fleur, what?”
“Somnus,” said Fleur, and Hermione couldn’t resist it.
*
Hermione woke to find herself stretched out on her belly on the bed. She felt like she was floating, adrift on a raft in the middle of a lake with a monster at the bottom. Her limbs felt heavy and languid, as though she was still dreaming. She felt Fleur lean over her, nuzzling her neck, and with that came memories, and fear. She forced herself not to react, kept her eyes closed, kept her breathing even. She worried that Fleur might realize the sleep spell had worn off. She wondered where her wand was, and what she would do, if she found it.
She was still naked from the bath, the room a bit damp and cold, and Fleur’s hands like ice as they explored every inch of her. You know me, Hermione wanted to say. But then Fleur’s hands slid under her, and squeezed her breasts hard, and it was all she could do to stay still, and quiet. She wondered if she could get up and stop Fleur, if she could fight her lover, if she could win.
Fleur kissed her way up Hermione’s inner thighs, pushed her face between them, slid her hot tongue into Hermione’s sore quim. Hermione kept herself from jolting forward through sheer force of will. Fleur licked her all over, delving into her, tonguing her clit. Hermione was wet before, but now she felt slick coating her vulva. Fleur pulled away, and Hermione heard her groan. The sound was almost pained, and Hermione almost opened her eyes, concerned for her lover, even if... even if something was wrong with Fleur.
Fleur groaned again, and then there was a sound like a hand stroking wet flesh. “I know you’re awake, my love. I know you’ll like this, how we’ll be joined together.” Something cold and hard touched Hermione’s thigh, dragged slowly over her ass. It was slick, and ridged, and heavy, and pushed with bruising strength against her vulva.
Hermione struggled... or she tried. She opened her eyes but couldn’t turn her head to look at Fleur, couldn’t move her limbs. She opened her mouth to chant a spell but her tongue wouldn’t cooperate, the sounds coming out as a gasping moan instead of words. She was helpless, and suddenly filled with a real fear. Fleur, she tried to say. Fleur, what’s wrong? Fleur, what are you doing?
The pressure increased against her vulva, and Fleur made a frustrated sound. Hermione thought that maybe Fleur had bought a large strap-on without considering what would actually fit in Hermione’s body, and then charmed it cold with a frost spell, but then she felt it twitch against her thigh. She felt Fleur push her legs further apart, felt her kneel over her. The angle of the pressure changed, and Hermione moaned as she was slowly penetrated. Fleur pushed it into her, inch by inch, and Hermione’s body split open around it. She whimpered into the pillow, unable to move away, unable to get it out of her. Fleur put more weight onto her, her hands sliding down Hermione’s back in a strange caress. She pushed deeper into Hermione, and Hermione could only take it. Her quim clenched around it, stretched and sore, completely filled already and still there was more pressing into her, rigid and unyielding.
“I told the elders all about you,” Fleur said. “How brilliant you are, how beautiful. They wanted to know how well you fought, how fast you learned. How I wanted to keep you, forever. I’m going to keep you, forever.”
Fleur leaned forward, licking along Hermione’s spine, and then started to fuck her.
Hermione screamed with every thrust. She couldn’t do anything else, could only suffer the intrustion. Fleur fucked her with slow strokes, sinking deeper every time Hermione thought her body couldn’t take any more. The rhythmic drag of it made her shiver and clench, and she came with a groan, completely overwhelmed. Tears filled her eyes.
“Feels good, my love?” Fleur asked. “Let’s send you there again.” She pulled almost all the way out, then shoved back in hard. She rocked her hips, gripping Hermione’s waist, slamming into her.
No, Hermione tried to say. Stop. She lost track of time, fucked into the bed, barely able to breathe. Fleur filled her up, humming a soft song, whispering into Hermione’s ear. She reached under Hermione and found her clit, rubbing at her until Hermione bucked and cried out.
Hermione came again, her body clenching hard, and Fleur hissed her approval. Hermione closed her eyes and sobbed.
*
“Did you know, some stories say my people are cursed? I always thought it was spooky nonsense, perpetuated by wizards, of course.” Fleur set a cup of tea in front of Hermione, her beautiful hands tipped with vicious claws. Hermione shivered in her chair, aching and sore, and made no move to take the tea.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you, my love?”
Hermione shook her head, saying nothing. Fleur spread jam on a slice of toast and held it out, waiting for Hermione to take it. When Hermione didn’t, she set the toast on Hermione’s plate.
“You are, though. I can hear your heartbeat.”
Hermione shook her head again. A single tear ran down her cheek and dripped onto the table. Fleur watched her for a moment, then continued.
“Still, I wonder if there’s any truth in the folklore, however twisted. I haven’t felt like myself, lately.”
“Haven’t you?” Hermione asked. She couldn’t keep herself from trembling. Rain spattered against the window behind her.
“No,” Fleur agreed. “I almost think that we should speak with the Veela elders.”
“Do you?” Hermione whispered.
“Yes. And if nothing else, they’ll be able to confirm it.”
“Confirm what?” Under the table, Hermione’s hands tensed into fists.
“That you’re mine.”