Work Text:
Hermione Granger was a witch who knew her own mind. The clarity and purpose which moved her through the world propelled her through her eighth year at Hogwarts, and into the highly competitive Transfiguration programme at Le Fay University in Somerset.
Knowing her own mind in Hermione's case, involved a long list of things she disliked, and an even longer list of things she deeply disliked.
For example, Hermione was not a dog person. Dogs that sat in the corner were fine. In her experience, very few dogs were content to sit in corners. Their owners weakly laughing and explaining away the jumping and the licking irritated her too. Hermione was not a fan of burgers (deeply overrated), television, quidditch, and liked neither wine nor beer.
Hermione detested people asking about Voldemort, Horcruxes, or the war. She despised gawping, fawning and—ugh—strangers hugging her. Her classmates quickly learned not to enquire after Harry. Special treatment based upon her Order of Merlin First Class irked her most of all. Hermione had earned her place at Le Fay fair and square. Seven outstanding NEWTs ensured that.
Unfortunately the list of things that Hermione was absolutely sure she liked wasn't very long at all: Gin. Reading—even though academic reading was sometimes very dry, books and articles and knowledge still filled her cup. Her ageing, cantankerous familiar Crookshanks, of course, as well as cats in general. Their irreverence was honest, their affections mercurial and mostly self-serving. Baths. Lifting weights in a local muggle gym where absolutely no one knew her.
And that… was about that.
The thing that had driven her mad over the last three years, was exactly which list she would place one Theodore Clement Nott on.
Theo and Daphne Greengrass were the only Slytherins who returned for an eighth year at Hogwarts. Both had suffered through the horror-filled seventh year that she had not. For her part, her horrors were of a different variety, and were practically common knowledge. While she kept her head down, and nodded at everyone who assured her she was ‘safe’, Daphne and Theo stuck together—eventually becoming friendly with Michael Corner, Mandy Brocklehurst and the other returning Ravenclaws.
Hermione spent too much time studying. Theo spent a lot of time partying. McGonagall drew the line about this more faintly than she might've in the past. It was an abstract line, more of a squiggle… for the new Headmistress was busy with her own recovery, and making allowances for the few students who chose to return. Somehow, despite growing a foot taller, getting off with nearly everyone who would have him, and seeming to have a near constant drink in his hand, Theo bested Hermione in two Transfiguration tests and she had it on good authority that he equalled her in the NEWTs.
“How?!” she had demanded after the first test. Speaking to him directly for the first time in her memory.
Theo looked her up and down, raised his dark brows, and had the audacity to wink at her.
Three days later, he invited her to a party. She sent him the largest, angriest owl she could find especially to decline.
While Harry and Ron took the audacious step to start Auror training despite being (to use a loaded expression) barely legal, Hermione had always wanted to attend university, and Le Fay was just what she was looking for. She considered law, and healing… people told her she could do ‘anything she set her mind to’ (ridiculous) but Transfiguration called to her. The complexity, the theory… and a secret desire to become an Animagus.
Under vaulted ceilings, she walked into the magnificent lecture hall at Le Fay for her first class on her first day (TFIG102 - Introduction to Transfiguration Theory). The scent of wood and chalk wrapped around her, overlaid by something intangible that might have been independence. The road had been long and fucked up, but everything was right in the world. Taking her seat, she pulled out her notebook, and a ballpoint pen (she also despised the inefficiency of inking quills), and awaited the arrival of Professor Keene.
In front of her, a boy with wavy hair had his long fingers laced behind the back of his head. The professor arrived, and Hermione found that she couldn't see the board where Keene had enchanted the chalk to start writing.
“Excuse me—” she began.
The boy turned, and looked her up and down with a feline grin.
“Well hello there,” he said in a low, the-lecture-has-started voice. “Fancy seeing you here.”
And so it began.
Theo never seemed to study, or revise. Or to put in any effort at all beyond funnelling beer, and winking at freshers.
When his mid-semester research essay got one percent more than hers and he topped the class again, Hermione had had enough.
She found him at the Quidditch match between Le Fay and magical Oxford, and plonked herself down between her and the boy next to him, despite the fact that there was no room.
“How?” she demanded.
“Nice boots,” he said, pulling his eyes away from the Quidditch to look her up and down.
She had new boots on that she'd picked up for a fiver at the local Oxfam. 1970s, soft brown suede with a block heel, but that was besides the point.
“How do you do it?” she repeated, raising her voice so she could be heard over the crowd cheering.
“Blessed by the Gods, probably. But you'll have to be more specific.”
“The essay.”
“Which essay?”
“The essay,” she was still loud even though the crowd had hushed.
Theo grinned, and she noted a dimple in his cheek with academic interest. “Maybe Hermione, I'm just more talented than you, hmm?”
He went back to looking at the game.
*
Weeks later, she found him in the library. She waited for the beautiful boy he'd been flirting with to clear off and resumed his vacated seat at the round table. Light streamed through a stained glass window, washing them in lilac and gold.
“Study with me,” she demanded, without preamble.
Theo had evidently not been studying. There was an etchy pencil sketch of his companion on the parchment in front of him. It was rather good. Hm.
“Ew, no. Wait. Why?”
“Because no one said a rivalry couldn't be played out in close proximity for the purposes of using our competitive natures to better one another, and thus become more competent practitioners overall.”
Theo looked into her eyes for longer than a person should look into someone else's eyes. “I didn't know we were rivals.”
“We are,” she asserted.
“And what does being your rival involve?”
Barely sleeping in the hopes of beating you. Watching you in class.
“Nothing much. Like I said, we should study together.”
“Fine, but not here. I’m not studying with you without a drink in my hand. My flat.”
That, she hadn't bargained for, but she found herself saying: “Alright.”
*
Theo's flat was a deconsecrated church. It was all white inside and filled with an eclectic mixture of expensive furniture. Downstairs, where there once had been pews, there was now sofas. Upstairs, a large bed was on a mezzanine where a choir once raised the rafters with their voices.
Theo had kept the ornately carved pulpit, as well the stained glass windows, and saints were carved into walls, holding lanterns in their holy hands.
“Wow,” was all Hermione could say, with a hint of mocking—she would not admit she liked it.
A clatter drew her attention, and she only had seconds to quickly cast a shield charm as an enormous black and white blur launched itself in her direction.
“Horatio, no!” Theo cried.
Of course, Theo had a dog. He was the very epitome of a dog person. Only, this wasn't a dog… the gargantuan creature bouncing against her shield was surely more equine than canine. His paws were like thunder on the floorboards.
“Horatio, that is very rude. On your bed.”
Horatio’s ‘bed’ turned out to be the pulpit. He trotted up the stairs, and sat up tall, watching with pointed ears and sad eyes.
Theo levitated a glass of wine towards Hermione, which she did not take. As time went on, she bothered less and less with doing things just to be polite.
“I don't like wine,” she said.
They sat down at his ash wood dining table. Theo ended up drinking both glasses of wine, barely looking at the chapter they were supposed to be summarising. He drew a series of small doodles of Horatio, and when Hermione tutted at him, he added a cartoon of a tiny woman with big hair, big shoes and angry eyebrows.
“Another nice pair of boots,” he told her, as she clomped back from the bathroom. She had been side-eyeing his green clawfoot tub—her small, shared flat tragically had only a shower. The boots in question were her father's far too big old Dr. Martens from his pre-dentistry punk years.
“They look like they were made for walking.”
“...And that's just what they'll do,” Hermione said in a sing-song voice, sitting down and reviewing her last highlight—a passage about inter-species transfiguration.
“What?”
“The song?” Oh. Theo was the purest of pureblood wizards. Somehow, amongst easy grins and mocking winks, she’d forgotten that he was not like her. “Forget it.”
*
Studying with Theo became habitual over a year, and ritualistic over two years. He learned she liked gin, and resolved to like it too, sourcing rare and expensive bottles from around the wizarding world. For her birthday (the date of which she never told him but he somehow knew anyway), he gave her a Dutch gin that enabled the drinker to sing beautifully and after several mixed with italian tonic water and blood orange, he finally convinced her to sing her rendition of ‘that boots song’.
Hermione didn't call Theo her friend. She had other friends, from Hogwarts and from uni. He certainly had a surfeit of other friends. Hermione once arrived at their weekly study session to find none other than Draco Malfoy sprawled on Theo's couch. Draco stared, and by the time Theo sauntered back in from walking (more accurately being walked by) Horatio, pink cheeked from the cold wind, Hermione was so uncomfortable that she pushed past him to leave.
Theo threw parties. He invited her. She didn't go.
They entered their third year. They started studying advanced human transfiguration. Theo wouldn’t stop talking about transfiguring himself into a dragon. Hermione arrived at the church one night to find Horatio sitting next to another Great Dane, white with black spots.
His tail wagged madly and he bounded up to Hermione.
She raised her wand in warning.
“Any closer and I'll fix you. You got Horatio castrated, it's only fair.”
Theo whimpered, sat and suddenly the wizard stood in front of her. Dimple, tawny eyes and all. He needed a shave, but it suited him.
Around the table later:
“Do you have a patronus?” she asked. Her pen kept scratching away without the need for her hands.
He looked up, surprised. She very rarely asked him personal questions.
“I'm not telling you.”
“What?” Theo overshared about nearly everything.
“I'll tell you what mine is,” she offered.
“Pfft, it's an otter. Everyone knows that. There are books about that. You have no secrets.”
Hermione hated this answer. “I have secrets,” she huffed.
“Well then.” He leaned in a little closer and she tensed. “Maybe if you share a really good one with me I’ll tell you about my patronus.”
“Or I could summon a dementor.”
*
Hermione didn't drop it. Theo told her it wasn't a dog, nor a cat, nor a tortoise (“Honestly, is that a real guess?”)
She wrote the word on a piece of paper and floated it across to him in class. (AppTFIG318 – Large Scale Complex Transfiguration). She couldn't remember when they started sitting together. It just happened.
Hamster?
An origami fish swam through the air towards her and unfolded when she caught it. Perfect, oddly tiny handwriting spelled out the word:
No.
Beneath that: if you keep passing me notes, people are going to assume we're shagging (:
Hermione frowned and sent a folded penguin waddling back.
I don't think I’m your type.
A green paper t-rex appeared on her shoulder, just as class ended.
All he’d written was ????
Theo left to get to his next class – he was taking a minor in architecture. Hermione ran to catch up.
“I know you're gay,” she said, falling into step with him. He looked rather good in his olive green jacket.
“Am I?!” he looked aghast.
She immediately doubted what she thought she knew. “Are you?”
“Get with the times, Boots—I would never be so limited. Must run, see you tomorrow.”
Of a certainty, Hermione had seen Theo flirt with and date… men. Had there been women? Maybe if she ever went to one of his parties or whatever else he'd invited her to… she’d know. Her mind was reordering itself and it was making her dizzy. Had she created her own distance from him with assumptions?
No, if Theo included women in his rota of beautiful conquests it was none of her concern. He was her study partner. She should worry about her own barren love life that consisted of (not including the anticlimax that was her and Ron) one lacklustre two month long relationship, and an awful one night stand. Lucas had seemed like a lovely chap, and was very enthusiastic, and Hermione understood nerves and drink could make it challenging to… rise to the occasion… but when Lucas suggested he simply ‘thumb it in’, Hermione had quickly and coldly asked him to leave.
*
Hermione had accompanied her flatmates Hebe and Úna to see a lively folk band play at the local pub. She promptly lost her flatmates, and found Theo, who was, if not cabbaged, then definitely another type of brassica’d.
“Boots!” he hugged her tight, and his cologne—often smelled, never savoured—wrapped around her too. He wore a colourful shirt no one else could possibly pull off, and looked arresting in it. He looked her up and down. “Wait… you're not even wearing boots! I can see your feet. Merlin, I feel like I should be averting my eyes.”
Hermione didn't know why she suddenly felt so self-conscious about her toes, complete with baby pink painted nails. “It's summer Theo. Anyway, you're pissed. Who’re you here with?”
Theo staggered a bit, and Hermione poured him a glass of water at the bar. He finished it, then chased it with two more. She watched the movement of his throat.
“I best be off before I disgrace myself and tell you where all the bodies are buried.”
“How are you getting home?” She lowered her voice—muggle pub: “If you say apparating I'll splinch you myself and save you the hassle.”
He chuckled. “Don't worry your lovely curly head, I'll walk.”
She was appalled. “It’s miles! It's Saturday! There are hoodlums!” Hoodlums? Hermione had somehow become her Grandpa David. Perhaps she had had a little bit too much to drink, too. “I only live around the corner,” her mouth suggested while her brain was elsewhere. “You can sleep on the couch until you can apparate.”
Theo frowned, then winked, then grinned. “I’d be delighted.”
The walk would have been ten minutes in straight lines, but took eighteen minutes due to all the weaving. They encountered no hoodlums.
Theo perched happily on the couch and pulled a knitted blanket that clashed horribly with his shirt over himself. Crookshanks had apparently decided the dog smell on him was forgivable, and he climbed up (using rather a lot of claw) into Theo's lap.
Theo had visited before, but only twice. Her flat was small, and contained two other people, whereas he had a whole church to himself. Much better for studying.
And for keeping Theo all to yourself.
Well. That was an interesting thought. Time to pivot away so you can forget that ever entered your mind.
“What's your patronus?” Hermione made an attempt. He was relaxed, unprepared…
…Lovely.
“Wicked witch, trying to catch me off guard. Tell me a secret, and if it's good, I'll think about revealing my soul to you.”
Hermione didn't have many secrets. Sometimes she feared she was boring—that she had peaked at 17.
It wasn’t a cute, sexy secret that came out.
“I feel lonely, and sad. Most of the time.”
Theo blinked and his eyebrows drew together in concern. He patted the couch next to him. She went to him without thinking, and he spread the blanket over her. It wasn’t cold, but she wanted to share the looped and purled wool with him.
“Me too,” he confessed. “Even when I'm surrounded by people. Mum, dad, my brother… all fucking gone.”
Hermione had never heard Theo sound anything less than tickled. She wanted to reach out to him and when she found she couldn't take the leap, she stroked Crookshanks instead, letting him be the purring conductor for her touch.
“Can we be proper friends?” Theo said. “Then we can be lonely… but together.”
Hermione murmured sleepily, “I'd like that.”
Too early she woke, and found herself dribbling all over Theo's shoulder.
*
Theo found out about Glastonbury (considering the location of Le Fay it was incredible that it had taken this long).
He begged Hermione to take him. He offered her a castle as payment (he had a spare).
Finally. Leverage.
She had no need for a castle. Her condition for taking him: revealing his patronus. Of course.
He agreed.
In floral wellington boots, a parka and short denim shorts Hermione let her hair down and danced with Theo. His hair was messy and his shirt buttons were barely done up.
Fatboy Slim were about to start their set and Hermione let Theo place a pill in her mouth (after covertly checking with her wand that they were exactly what they were supposed to be. In the portaloos. Twice). Hermione was mesmerised by Theo’s pink tongue as he did the same, and the colours started to run. They became one with the crowd and the mud and the music and each other—Theo’s skin was very soft.
He chuckled his lovely musical chuckle.
“Did I say that thing about your skin out loud?” she mused.
“I love muggles. I love this,” he cried, arms raised in a v. “I love you! And I love your boots!”
Maybe this would have been earth shattering, if Theo didn't immediately profess his love to a security guard soon after.
Back in the tent no one was sleeping. They were both chewing Droobles and filling the tent with blue bubbles and giggles.
“Theo.” Hermione propped herself up on her elbow. “Show me.”
He looked confused for a second, and then he sighed and waved his wand. He knew it was time.
“Expecto Patronum.”
It was a fortunate thing it was five am and they were at a music festival where the average patron was off their tits on drugs or alcohol, or an ill-advised combination of both. A tent that glowed silver attracted absolutely no attention or suspicion. The Statute of Secrecy remained mostly unbesmirched.
Inside, Hermione was looking at a duck.
A duck.
She'd made a pact with herself that she would not laugh at the animal manifesting from the deepest parts of Theo, but she broke that pact immediately and shrieked with a peal of laughter which dissolved into breathless giggles, and concluded with fat tears pouring down her cheeks.
“A duck!”
“A duck.”
“Why does it look like it's wearing a toupée?”
He folded his arms. “It's a crested duck.”
“So if you achieved animagus status… you'd… probably… be…” She once again lost the ability to speak.
When she finally calmed down—which involved alternating between minutes of stunned silence and minutes of gasping for breath—they lay next to each other in the dawn light.
Without a word, Theo pulled Hermione to his chest. She snuggled into his warmth.
“What did you think about?” she asked after a while.
He knew what she meant. “A new one actually. Dancing with you.”
*
Hermione was visiting her parents on Theo's birthday. To make up for her absence, she transfigured an owl into a special kind of duck, and had it deliver him a lemon cake she baked with her mum, some boutique dog treats for Horatio that she'd transfigured into likenesses of his spotty face, plus a card featuring a waterfowl in a party hat that said:
Have a quacking birthday
On the inside she wrote.
Theo,
You're the ducking best.
xo Boots
*
Final exams were upon them.
Hermione was panicked. Starved. Caffeinated. And double panicked.
Theo was actually studying. Which meant he was panicked. Theo panicking made Hermione panic even more.
The final exam involved dense written theory. Some tricky transfiguration, yes. For example, students were expected to build a two-storey, three bedroom house using only the items found in an unspecified natural environment. The real kicker was the time limits. What should take up to an hour or more in some cases, was expected to be done in twenty seconds.
Even on three cumulative hours of sleep over three days, Hermione felt she'd aced the theory exam and she told Theo so.
“You're going to be so mad when I beat you.” He tapped her on the nose.
On the top of a snowy mountain, Hermione built a beautiful stone house that looked like it had always been there. It took her 18.9 seconds.
And it was done.
Three years. Done.
There were parties. Many of them. But Hermione eschewed all invitations. She only wanted to be with one person.
There was a large box sitting on her bed when she arrived home from the gym, after her last exam. The lid slipped off with a gentle tug.
Boots. Shining, black dragonhide, with a very high heel and a neatly pointed toe.
No note was needed to tell her who they were from.
She practically ran to her shower to rinse off the gym sweat. Only squeaky clean feet would be allowed in those boots.
Once she was clean and dry, she slid the boots on and they melted onto her like butter. Multiple charms got to work stabilising her, cushioning her feet, and fitting exactly to the curve of her calf. The boots sat just on her knee and they were beautiful.
Hermione threw on a little black skirt and a loose blue jumper, and apparated directly to Theo’s.
She knocked urgently, and though they hadn't discussed it, he was obviously waiting for her.
Horatio's deep bark sounded, and the door opened. Theo usually admitted her with a swish of his wand, but today he filled the doorway, wearing a white t-shirt with a zany graphic and the words ‘Pinball Wizard’ written across his chest.
Which begged the question: “Do you know what pinball is?”
He was looking her up and down. His eyes stayed down, and he grinned.
“Nice legs, Boots.”
Horatio tried to push past Theo, to get to Hermione. They were on patting terms now.
“Horatio—bed!” scolded Theo.
“Are you going to invite me in?” Hermione asked as her heart beat a little drum in her breast tha-thump-tha-thump-tha-thump…
“That depends,” Theo replied. “Is it one of those days?”
“What?”
“Are those boots going to walk all over me?”
“You do know that song is about infidelity.”
“We’re still in the doorway, would you like to continue this discussion on these terms or will you play along?”
Hermione made a zipping motion across her lips.
Theo had made two gin and tonics, he added a dash of rosewater and garnished them with black pepper.
“Expecting someone?”
Theo rolled his eyes. “Yes, my good friend. She's supposed to be very bright but unfortunately she's actually quite dense. Luckily for her she's as cute as a button and her arse is phenomenal.”
Hermione's heart seemed to drop through the floorboards.
“You seem surprised about my opinion of your arse,” said Theo, taking a seat on a brown velvet sofa. “Which means I have been doing a terrible job flirting with you, please accept my apologies.”
“..Y-you're forgiven.”
Play along.
“Thank you for my boots,” she murmured, picking up her drink.
“A consolation prize, for when I get top marks in the year again.”
He won first year. She won second. They were even.
“Yes, looking at these boots will be a good consolation for you… perhaps you'd like a closer look right now?”
Theo's eyes lit, but he checked in, mouthing ‘really’?
She nodded and mouthed it back. ‘Really’.
Theo spread his legs wider apart, and patted the couch between his thighs. She raised her leg and placed it carefully where he’d directed, not touching him for now.
But knowing—deeply knowing—she wanted to.
He looked her up and down, but his eyes caught on the tops of her thighs… on what was under her short skirt.
“Hermione…” His voice was lower, but still teasing. “Where is your underwear?”
“What?”
Hermione touched her hip and felt for a waistband. Nothing. Surely not. She felt again. Oh sweet Merlin… she couldn't believe she'd been so focused and determined to get to Theo's that she'd forgotten her knickers.
She made to pull her leg down but Theo's hands wrapped around her ankle.
“If I'm being honest, I was hoping to take them off anyway. That was very thoughtful of you.”
Hermione was blushing, but she hid it behind taking a sip of gin.
A drip of condensation fell and hit her boot. They both looked, and somehow knew what would happen next.
Theo took hold of the back of her thighs.
“Do you want a word?” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” she whispered back.
“Something to stop everything, if you want.” His fingers were making circles on her skin.
“And if you want to stop it too?”
“Can't see that happening—but yes, for me too. You pick a word.”
She paused, and grinned, knowing Theo would take this in good humour.
“...Quack.”
Theo briefly closed his eyes in faux-indignation, but when they opened again they were intense like firelit whiskey.
“Quack it is.”
He pressed a kiss to her knee. His fingers spread across the soft flesh of her bottom, and he bent his head to kiss the droplet of water off her boot. For the briefest, filthiest of seconds, his tongue darted out to trail along the dragonhide.
A thrill unlike anything she'd felt before zapped through Hermione's nervous system. It felt like raw power—like when she’d first held her wand. Theo carefully guided Hermione's boot back to the floor, and stood up from the couch. Their drinks were placed safely on the table. With a question in his eyes he tugged at the hem of her jumper, she nodded and he pulled it off.
He found himself face to face with her bare breasts, nipples tightened by exposure to air and… him.
“No bra either. Seems amazing you managed to put on any clothes at all.”
“I only wanted to wear the boots.”
“Just so you know for future, this is a clothing optional, boots mandatory church.”
“You're in socks.”
“...A deeply sexist church, too.”
Theo found the zip on the back of her skirt and it dropped to the ground. He ran a teasing finger over the strip of curling hair that she kept on her mound, and she shivered everywhere.
They drank each other in. For her, three years of subconsciously trying not to look made looking a feast. He was beautiful, with intense light brown eyes under dark brows, fringed by outrageous eyelashes. A dimple showed up in his left cheek to punctuate when he was at his most thoughtful or mocking. He was fine, and lithe, rather than bulky, but he was tall and lined with lean muscle.
She knew this, because she'd started to remove his clothes.
“I should have probably said this three years ago, probably several times at Hogwarts too, and every day since—but I'd really like to kiss you,” he declared.
“Better late than never.”
His arms were around her waist and her arms were around his neck, and their lips met in a kiss that was like sinking into a warm bath. Hermione relaxed into Theo, pressing herself into him as he gently sucked her lip and teased the tip of his tongue against hers. His hands flared up her ribs and kneaded her breasts, a small moan of encouragement had him pinching her, rolling precious pebbles over in his fingertips. Though she was desperate, mad for him, she felt languid in his arms—he was unhurried; she did not rush. It was like discovering kissing for the first time all over again. How could her lips and tongue be filled with so many nerve endings that connected to everywhere? Raindrops of sensation slid down the windowpane of her body.
As Hermione's arousal grew, so too did the epiphany that she'd wanted Theo for quite some time now. How had she hidden this from herself? She felt him hard against her hip and turned their kiss rough, communicating her need. He spun her around.
“Lie down,” he ordered.
“Not here,” she said, and pointed to his mezzanine bed. “Up there. I've never been up there in all this time. I always wanted to.”
He kissed her neck. “If dreams count you basically live there.”
Her heart split wide open.
Theo grabbed his wand off the table. “Deeply lazy but… I’m apparating us.”
And he did. His aim was superb, and they landed directly on the bed. He pulled her down and resumed kissing her and lazily exploring her body until his fingers wandered down to the smooth valley of skin beneath her navel.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she breathed.
Theo stroked her inner thighs higher and higher until he was including her swollen pussy lips in his circumnavigation of her arousal. His fingers were deft and meticulous as he found what she liked with patient clit circles and his middle and ring fingers crooking inside of her. He brought her closer, closer, closer and then lowered his head to taste her.
The noises she was making became desperate, incoherent. His soft wavy hair tickled her thighs, she wove her way through it. He barely noticed as the heels of her boots sunk into his shoulders and scratched his back. Theo had always had a sharp tongue, but she'd barely known the half of it. He laid it flat, sucked and swirled. She clenched around his fingers and yelled out, her body arching before unfurling like a fern.
“Fuck,” she said to the church ceiling.
Theo was stroking her stomach and blowing on her nipple. “Would you like to?” he asked.
“Yes please.”
Theo reached down to stroke himself firmly and ready himself for her. “Oh I like that. ‘Please’.”
And she found she liked watching him. So many things to add to the list of things she was sure she liked. With Theo, it was always growing.
“Are you—”
There was a sudden sound of someone or something bounding up the stairs and Hermione immediately sat up in alarm… but it was only Horatio arriving on the mezzanine to find out what was happening and whether or not it should include him (the answer, in his giant goofy dog opinion, was always yes).
“Horatio! For fuck's sake! Bed!”
With sad puppy eyes and a lowered tail, Horatio saw himself back down the stairs.
“He’d watch, if we let him.” Theo explained with a dark look that said Horatio had seen things. “Now, where were we?”
He looked at her like she was a picnic.
“Lie back,” she told him.
Theo did. He propped his head on the pillows with his hands tucked behind his neck, cocky like he was on the first day of TFIG102.
Hermione stood on the bed in her tall black boots and put a foot on either side of his hips. His gaze made her feel like some sort of Goddess and if she was then her divine purpose was to make him feel good. So good.
She lowered herself, down to where his erection sat against his stomach. One of her friends (almost certainly Ginny) had once described a Goldilocks penis—not too big, not too small, just right. Hermione had laughed and shrugged but now she got it. Theo was just right. Just right as he used his wand to lubricate them both further. Just right as he held her hips and she guided him into her. Just right as he buried himself deep and she rode him, grinding over his bones to feel what he was feeling too. Stretched just right.
He flipped her onto her back, and pulled her until her feet were against his chest. His cock was just right inside her, the pace just right, harder as he came closer. She dug her heels into his chest and he made delicious noises, hisses and deep breaths and moans.
“You feel so fucking good—so fucking wet—” he breathed. “Like you were made for me.”
By this point, she wasn't entirely sure she hadn't been made for him. Their bodies met with smacks and slaps and the mattress was damp beneath her. In her boots, her legs were quaking along with her cunt. There was was blood on Theo's chest but it was clear he didn't give a shit especially as he gritted out–
“Oh fuck… I’m gonna come.”
He did, warm and thick, and she did too. Hermione knew it was possible for two people to come at the same time, but she also knew that it was improbable and Hollywood (among other culprits) had created unreasonable expectations of simultaneous orgasms for everyone, everywhere, all the time. It certainly had never happened to her before.
And yet, it was more than just right, it was perfect… their gasping mouths found each other and they inhaled and exhaled what just happened until one grin cracked the other open.
Silence, eternity, until Theo said:
“Great job mate.”
And kissed her on the forehead. He rolled off her, and cleaned up with a few wiggles of his wand. They lay next to each other in the sage green sheets. He summoned and refreshed their drinks.
In the process of fiddling contentedly with his fingers and relocating her ability to conjugate verbs, she noticed that there was a small tattoo on his left forearm. How in the world had she missed that? Was it recent?
She touched it with her index finger, and traced a question mark over his skin. It was where a dark mark could have been.
He got her. He always did.
“My father wanted me marked. I ran away and gave myself this instead.”
It was a phoenix. Just lines, in his hand.
“I glamour it around you, usually,” he explained.
“Why?” Why would he hide that from her?
“Well I didn't exactly get it for you, it was more of a middle finger to daddy and the reanimated corpse of Tom Riddle—” One that absolutely would have gotten him killed, a horrific thought—a world without Theo Nott. “But then it started feeling like it was a little bit about you, accidentally.” He let out a whoosh of breath. “I wish I could've fought with you, and Potter. But now you know.”
She kissed the tattoo, the indelible mark of an ally.
They lay and chatted. Slept as one. Woke to Horatio attempting to get into bed with them… at seventy kilograms stealth was impossible, and Theo finally drew a magical anti-dog line.
Hermione confessed that she'd always wanted to try his bath and he faux-scolded her for keeping all these secrets.
“We could have been fucking for years now, if you'd just said—” he put on his ‘girl voice’, “‘Oh Theo, you're so handsome. Please show me your big, lovely bed’ – I would have twigged right away.”
“You probably could’ve told me—” she lowered into Theo’s register. “‘I think you're fit’.”
“I did!” he protested.
“And that you'd like to take me to bed.”
“I did, at least twice!”
It was true. Hermione had mostly ignored him because he flirted with anything that moved and some things that didn't.
Almost shy, she asked if he'd like to do it again.
“Now?” his heavy lids and stirring cock said yes.
“In general.”
“Unequivocally, yes.”
Hermione grinned.
While the bath filled with water that smelled like sandalwood, Hermione got on her knees and licked Theo's re-energised cock from root to tip. She loved the sight of him, awed and vulnerable as she took him into her throat and gently scraped her nails along his most delicate parts. He pulled her hair hard as he came in a wave that rolled over her tongue, bitter and life-affirming. He pulled out and she licked stray drops from her lips.
He took off her boots, putting them carefully aside, and they both got in the steaming tub. Hermione sat embraced between Theo's legs. His arms framed her along the sides of the cast iron bath.
“I'm really glad I found you, Theo,” Hermione said, swishing the fragrant water with her toes.
“I found you, you mean.”
“No. I talked to you first,” she tilted her chin sideways to look at his face.
“No you didn't!” he insisted. “First day of eighth year, I said: ‘just try and beat me this year’. I'd thought about it all day, it got me through… everything else. Trust me on this.”
Through the dark, confusing fog that was her memory of her return to Hogwarts, Hermione remembered. Astounding. She blinked and kissed Theo's jaw.
“Let's call it even.”
*
Hermione was in Theo's bed when the owls arrived with their exam results. Theo wanted to read them together but she refused and locked herself in the bathroom, holding her breath as she sat on the closed toilet and took in her almost perfect marks.
Hermione scored one point above Theo in the theory exam. Theo scored one point above Hermione in the practical. They shared the top mark in the class, each others’ exact equal.
Both were invited into the honours programme, and both were glad to accept. Training to be an Animagus was part of the syllabus. Hermione started scream laughing all over again, Theo winked and said at least they would both be semi-aquatic—they could go swimming together.
Úna and Hebe moved on, and Hermione found herself without flatmates. Theo suggested that he and Horatio could consider taking on her and Crookshanks—on a trial basis.
The trial went well. Theo built upon his magical dog-line and canine and feline harmony was built Berlin Wall style, giving them half the house each. If Horatio could talk, he would have said a half share was not equitable considering he was roughly the size of ten Crookshankses. But Horatio could not talk and his arithmetic was poor to middling. Crookshanks was the alpha in the house, without question.
Theo also ensured Hermione had a room for her growing footwear collection which was being generously sponsored by the Nott estate, on an ongoing basis. The old confessional made a perfect shoe closet, Theo thought, enjoying the blasphemy of it all.
When they fucked, Hermione was rarely fully naked. Theo learned about muggle designers and started buying Prada. Her nickname took on a new naughtiness in public and she loved it.
On his next birthday, Hermione hung a velvet rope looped into a hand hold over their bed and put on her highest, longest boots yet.
“One of these days, Theo...” She had thoroughly kissed him after a laughter-filled dinner with their mish mash of friends. No one had seen the union of Pansy and Seamus coming but Theo still claimed credit.
Theo’s saucy grin said he’d guessed exactly what she had in store for him.
…These boots are gonna walk all over you…