Chapter Text
The news of Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley breaking up has been in the press every day for a week. Everyone’s been talking about it. The little old receptionist at work, the sisters that run the bakery I frequent, even Thorfinn has been eating up all the tidbits of info and regurgitating them to me fully aware of my goddamn triggers.
The blond oaf was banished from my vicinity days ago and hadn’t stopped sending me little notes of apologies, even a well-mannered howler when I stopped answering the phone altogether, stopped going out save for muggle locations, and took the rest of the week off from work. I made sure to see my mind-healer so a written excuse would be sent for the time off.
I did not want to go back to Azkaban.
It had been three years of freedom and I largely avoided news about the Granger girl’s life save for an article about research here, some side note about her friendship with Potter there. I can handle that.
But this..this circus has riled me up and sent me into an agitated state. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I’d start drinking again if it weren’t for that compulsion charm Thorfinn helped me with to keep me from drowning myself in alcohol. The little girl that bravely silenced me and thwarted the full wrath of my spell is a grown woman now.
Everyone could see she was a genius, yet no one seemed to make her feel like she was anything other than a book with legs. She was a gorgeous woman now. A natural beauty. Not plain , or shabby, or whatever nonsense shit they said about her. The research she did on the cruciatus curse’s effects on the magical human body led to the finding of a series of medicinal elixirs that combated the lingering tremors, spasms, and convulsions many people were experiencing post-war. This was before she had even taken her N.E.W.T.S!
Hermione Granger was everything .
At my worst, I absorbed every detail I could about her. Got some of the junior wardens to spill about what it was like to go to school with her. The obsession grew and a frantic monster crawled the earth with my skin and bones over it.
I managed to tame my nonsensical fixation on her - its not like I wanted to fuck her, or kill her or both. Anymore . I just wanted to know more..more..more.
With the break up came news that the Weasley boy was fucking around.
I shrugged at that. Who didn’t see that coming? He was the one who left them in the woods, the pressure too much for him. Of course her brilliance was too bright for him. Stupid boy. The photo of him and his new, incredibly pregnant girlfriend was…well, I do not care for it. Folding their photo out of the way to look at the countless images of her.
The little corkboard Thorfinn gave me to help me organize my life right out of the clink was now littered with photos of this curly-haired witch and her sad brown eyes. There was one in which she was being hounded so much by the photographer, she scowled and began hitting him with her purse.
I pinned that one in the middle.
Rage is more potent than sadness. It's a better look on her.
I waited a week to calm down, alas every little movement by her or that red-headed shitfuck was tracked and paraded out into the public view. The writers of The Prophet were undoubtedly the very best at what they do, yeah?
Yeah, right.
The paper was sent to me religiously every morning and the coins traveling from my hand to the pouch at the owl’s ankle - were a terribly unhinged tithing on my part. I should have stopped them coming immediately. It was too late now, my fixation had grown to a bit of a boiling point.
I looked at my makeshift shrine to her and the one where I could clearly see her freckles and sad, brown eyes going downcast just before she hid her face with some hideous brown pocketbook. I wanted to see her. No, needed to see her. I needed to see how she was really doing. What was she really up to in spite of all this emotional upheaval? The papers weren’t saying anything about her research. Nothing about the marvelous workings of her brain and her compassionate heart.
She was a lovely woman, maybe too good for any man much less me - 3 years of clean living with very little to show for all of my freedom and ‘good citizenship’.
I rake my fingers through my hair while my leg bounces with anxiety borne of self-restraint. I’ve been holding myself in place since Monday. Adhering to the routine I made for myself when I got out.
I practically feel myself internally ticking off on my fingers each thing I do to survive the fucking day.
- Wake up with the dawn
- Exercise to get the blood moving.
- Shower with the possibility of a quick romance with myself.
- Read the paper with a good breakfast.
- Work from 9-5 because Dolly Parton.
“They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it.”
- Lunch break by the river.
- Straight home for dinner during the week, dinner with Little Brother on the weekends.
- Read before bed most nights.
The awareness of maintaining sanity was enough to make me lose my fucking shit. Like a dog on a tether in the yard just running in circles.
My feet carried me out into the garden, and I shoved my fists in my pockets, gritting my teeth. Word on the street was that she had moved to a new flat somewhere in muggle London leaving the old one to that shitfuck Weasley.
It was only a matter of time before the location was leaked - so many angry old men and widows of angry old men. No one dared to touch her. Sure, she was practically covered in as many death threats as bees covered the little purple blooms on my monstrously untamed rosemary bush. Yet, she seemed untouchable to everyone… except her own.
My fists scrunched up tighter in my pockets.
I walked back into my house and then had to go back outside.
“Too fucking small for me. Outside! Outside .”
I breathed in deeply, held onto it until my blood pulsed, then released the air in a long whoosh through my lips. A gust of wind blew my hair into my eyes and across my face.
“ Fuck . Fuck it. Fuck.”
Three quick strides, the slamming open of my little white picket fence and I waited for it to close properly before I spun in place and popped out of existence. Away from the salted air and blowing winds towards the all encompassing smells of the city.
I left the alley and walked through the din of people returning home from work. Through the quiet clanking of dinner in that flat, and that one, and the rising laugh of a group of people sharing a roast in the flat down the way, the scent of it heavy in the air.
It was the trace of my magic that guided my feet to her, to her sunshine yellow door with the cat-shaped welcome mat. My hand splayed out in the air in front of me, feeling the weave of her magic with the tinge of my own running lightly yet hotly in the background. My magic was electric, alive, decisive and hers felt like trying to punch through sand. It was sluggish with sadness. When I pushed, my hand sunk in, the energy enveloped my hand and it wasn’t about to let me out so easily. I nodded to myself as I tested it for any weaknesses, finding the hedge that bordered her building to be a huge oversight. I cannot help but mutter to myself.
“She was distraught and in a hurry. Tsk tsk . Still. This is no good, umnitsa .”
I sussed out my magic from the weave with determination and pulled . A quick finite and there was a hole big enough in the wards for me to climb through the hedge and onto her property without feeling like a direwolf in a tarpit. I turned to the hedge, pushing her magic into it to bolster her wards, adding mine only where things were weakest. I bobbed my head, gave it a shrug - I felt proud of my work and looked up at the side windows as I made my way to the back door. I wasn’t worried about anyone seeing me.
This late in the day, everyone is showering or making dinner or just coming home.
I waited through the sounds of late day birdsong in the dying remnants of sunshine and listened for any movements in the house.
Nothing.
I turned the handle to her back door and slid in quietly past a stack of boxes marked ‘Cookbooks 1-4’.
I study the stack of boxes in the kitchen with all the muggle appliances piled up, the selection of books in her living room, I water her geranium in the living room as it looks beat up and rather poorly.
She’s not home. I walked upstairs, noting the ones that squeaked and wandered into her bathroom. I smell her lotion, I lift the cap from her perfume and close my eyes to imagine her lifting her hair to put it up - a waft of vanilla floating over towards me as I watch her. I look under the sink and find everything neat and tidy. An orderly drawer of feminine hygiene products, a drawer of chaos filled with curl gel, butter, hair serums, handmade potions no doubt used to tame her lion’s mane.
I look at the hair in her brush and debate satisfying some other curiosities using polyjuice… I shake my head and talk myself down.
“No no..madness dwells there, my friend.”
I turned on her shower to check her water pressure, finding it lacking, so I threw a couple of charms to boost it without costing her in utilities. I debated a hot water charm, but those can be finicky sometimes and I did not wish to chance being a party to 2nd or 3rd degree burns. I threw a drying spell at her tub and headed for her bedroom.
The bedroom is bright with the last light of day, creamy with sheer, lacy curtains and a bohemian style rug. The bed is on a short four poster frame with very little underneath in case I need a quick place to hide. I opened her nightstand, careful to not knock over the vase of orange tulips, finding something wrapped in a shirt of some kind. I picked it up - curiosity getting the best of me and noted the heft with furrowed brow.
“The fuck is this?” I speak to the empty room, maybe to the item itself.
Upon unwrapping it on the bed I find a girthy, flesh-toned dildo crafted with startling realism and I hope to all that is fucking holy that its not some transfigured recreation of the Weasel’s cock.
I wrap it all back up and place it back in the drawer, closing it up without judgment, though my mind rattles with deviant delight. I squint my eye in reflex and suck at my teeth.
Walking towards her closet since the door is already ajar, I find a meticulously tidy array of clothes and shoes. A long drawer is open filled with lacy underthings in every sort of neutral colouring. The drawer below it is the same except in various red hues.
Gods, she is particular.
From what I’ve heard of the oaf who broke her heart, I wonder how they ever became a love match?
I shake my head as I replace the door to its original positioning and stand facing the bedroom in thought.
I move to the foot of the bed, crossing my arms. It smells sleepy and soft here. Some part of me wants to take all of my clothes off, and crawl into her sheets and fuck the dent in her pillow. Maybe cum between pillow and case and leave it like that for her head to rest on? I wonder if she’d be more likely to dream of me then?
Fuck. Now I’m hard.
I tilt my head up to the ceiling and stare at the rosette in the middle of it.
I laughed then, remembering something I read regarding roses on ceilings in rooms where secrets were shared. That one certainly carried a great deal of secrets including my presence in her home.
I adjust my cock in my jeans - considering once again maybe just fucking something in her house without her knowledge. I raise my hand to my forehead and smack it a few times.
“Shut up, you imp. I will not do these things.”
Just then - the tell-tale sound of a key in a lock and I drop to the ground beside her bed to slide underneath. I hear the quick stomp of her feet, the creaking of the stairs, and then the soft padding as she walks on her bedroom carpet.
I blink at the wooden slats under her mattress as I listen to her mutter to herself. She sounds frustrated and I wonder if she ran into her idiot ex while she was out? Shouldn’t her friends- that Potter - be saving her from that?
A blouse hits the floor, followed by some pants and then she’s out the door towards her bathroom. The water goes on and I can hear some humming from the other room. It sounds familiar enough that I slide out from under the bed, and creep up closer to the closed door.
The humming continues and then suddenly she’s belting out lyrics between splashes of water.
“Come on and tell me what you told my friends if you think you're brave enough
And I'll show you what a real woman is since you think you're hot stuff
You'll bite off more than you can chew if you get too cute or witty
You better move your feet if you don't wanna eat a meal that's called Fist City!”
I can’t help but nod and smile to myself.
I think about the dim prisoner in the cell next to mine early on during the trials. He was only there for a month maybe. The story he told me about this girl and her right hook in the face of that pompous Malfoy boy. Too bad she didn’t get a chance to punch Lucius in the fucking face, too.
She’ll be alright.
I push off from the wall and decide to give her space. I head down the stairs and turn towards the kitchen when something catches my eye.
Sitting on the couch is the small, ethereal girl who was there during the battle in the Department of Mysteries and also locked up for some time in the Malfoy dungeons. She turns slowly to look at me curiously.
She half smiles as her eyes trail down my body. The move makes me uneasy, and I look to the back door as I consider doing a runner. She moves to rest her arm on the back of the couch and blinks once her head rests on her hand. I remember the looks on some of my brother’s faces, confusion and introspection were the effect this one had on anyone who spent too much time with her.
There were women in the village back home that had this effect, and I’d just prefer not to have that distraction right now. I raise my hand and point my finger upwards, but it doesn’t stop her airy voice.
“She doesn’t really like shoes in her house.”
I blink. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that .
I lift my foot as if that would help the situation I found myself in and I hear the water shut off upstairs.
“I’ll be right there, Luna!”
Her voice shakes me and the fairy girl smiles before speaking quietly to him, divulging secrets.
“She should be home just before midnight. She calls it ‘Pumpkin Time’.”
I nod, scratching my beard lightly and my body turns away from this strangeness involuntarily. My hand finds the back door and I close it quietly behind me, slinking through the wards like a ghost with my mind full of questions.