Mad Snorkacks and Englishmen

A/N: Well, well. So, I guess that worked for you guys, huh? Okay, good to know I've got a resilient bunch here. Or maybe just degenerates, lol. But even if it didn't, the fact that some of you continue to be intrigued enough by the story to follow it really inspires me and makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.



So, I admit that sometimes when I run with an idea, the space that I usually allot for it is never enough. I think that I can wrap up something in one chapter and it invariably turns into three. I had meant for a lot more to happen here in this installment, but ultimately I want it all to make sense for you, dear readers, so I thought I found a good cut-off point before the next big scene takes place, which is one that I have been working up to and waiting to write for a while. I feel like there's a bit of soap drama going on right now with all the hand-wringing over infidelity and betrayal and such amidst all the characters and I'm sort of eager to get back to Harry and Luna, but I also want to bring in the real-life threats that they all have to face in their predicaments.



To me, once we found out in DH that Harry's scar was a Horcrux, I was always curious why the pernicious effects of the locket didn't have a more dangerous grip on Harry. Considering some of the darkness he has been going through lately, I think there is the opportunity for some major mindfucking.



Also, I have to say that dragging along Phinneas' portrait in Hermione's tiny handbag just so he could be the plot device for Snape to find them in the Forest of Dean was incredibly lame. He will not be appearing in this version.



I found this awesome artwork yesterday by a woman named Camilla d'Errico who I am convinced must be a huge HP fan, number one, but also a Harry/Luna shipper. Check out my new icon http://www.camilladerrico.com/paintings/show/Birds%20and%20the%20Bees/page:5. I have an even better one for the next chapter. And I am leaving Joe Cocker territory behind and dipping into the PJ Harvey catalogue, so if you are not familiar with this genius, I urge you to look up some of her videos on youtube.



Oh, and shoutouts: Sneakyfox and PotterEntourage thanks for such a glowing review, I'm so glad you guys felt that way about it! Pete thank you so much for your wonderful words. Glad that you are still enthused 26 chapters later! tommy, you got more of your wish coming up, dude. NAH, thanks for your continued support even when I write something that is not your usual flavor. Hope it all comes together in the end for you, and ninjamonkey should I be inferring heavy sarcasm? I hope that you like the upcoming chapter.



Alright, on with it......















Chapter 27: Rid Of Me









Tie yourself to me

No one else

No, youre not rid of me

Hmm youre not rid of me



Night and day I breathe

Ah hah ay

Hey, youre not rid of me

Yeah, youre not rid of me



I beg you, my darling

Dont leave me, I’m hurting



Lick my legs I’m on fire

Lick my legs of desire



Ill tie your legs

Keep you against my chest

Oh, youre not rid of me

Yeah, youre not rid of me

Ill make you lick my injuries

Im gonna twist your head off, see



Till you say dont you wish you never never met her?



------PJ Harvey, Rid of Me





It was a quiet few days that had followed that turbulent evening. Hermione kept out of Harry’s way as best as she was able being stuck in a modest sized tent in early winter, but she was constantly watching him in a slant-eyed gaze, or peeking at him as she had before from the side of her book when she thought his attention was directed elsewhere. He would be civil to her when they sat down to eat, yet kept his conversation limited to asking if she’d uncovered any clues in her Tales of the Beedle Bard or would she pass some salt. She’d felt lucky to receive even that bit of brevity from him. While not exactly sullen, he’d been as grim as the weather outside, the days overcast as the sun seemed to have disappeared behind the thick portentous clouds. She had been simultaneously aggrieved and abashed as she waited for him to finally say something about their aborted copulation, her anxiety making her impatient but loath to be the first to speak of it.





Through this whole ordeal, Hermione had been hard pressed to identify any one pronounced emotion during her struggle to come to terms with what had happened; it seemed there was a new one to deal with every hour. Could she even explain to herself why she’d done it, why she’d attempted to trick Harry into sleeping with her? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been deliciously satiated with the time they did spend in bed together; on the contrary, she had marveled at the way Harry had managed to turn her into a tawdry, shameless slut every time he put his mouth to her bits. Of all the things she would have assumed of her introverted friend, being a sexual dynamo was not up on the list. Granted, she’d had no previous contenders with which to judge him against, but felt intuitively that she was plenty adept at determining skill and Harry certainly possessed it. The things he had done to her had elicited responses so primal that they had shocked the hell out of the witch.





Yet, the normally sensible girl was also terribly aware that a lot of it hadn’t been about Harry at all. When he had spread her legs, half-asleep and apparently thinking of someone else with his hardness so ready to enter her wet core, she had thought it all of a sudden like a shout in her brain: I’ll show him. Hermione hadn’t bothered to kid herself on which ‘him’ she had really been shouting about. Even so, it was a subject that she had avoided in her never-ending stream of self-analysis as she carried on with the other third of their trio. This was a bruise that she did not want to prod; best instead to numb herself with powerful digressions while she and Harry traversed the countryside in their fugitive state hoping every day that their luck would hold in keeping them from being apprehended. Yes, there was plenty the girl did not want to meditate on and her hedonistic activity during the late night hours had blocked out the fear as much as it invited confusion in the morning. After a while, she had come to convince herself that having it off with Harry was acceptable if she viewed it as a way to cope, just like he had said himself. They were in extreme circumstances; surely she couldn’t be faulted for wanting some intimacy to keep her sane.





Although, if Hermione were being totally honest with herself, she understood that it was more than just comfort she craved. It was knowledge, too, that oh, so sparked her desire in the guise of Harry’s cock. As the midnight trysts had progressed Hermione had realized her body was telling her it wanted more, wanted to feel the walls of her sex press against new flesh. Every time Harry gave her another mind-blowing orgasm, she could feel that tunnel inside her loom larger demanding to be filled, her heartbeat seemingly situated in her core as it ached. For all that she’d read in her books about sexual experiences, she hadn’t expected that sensation but felt that she was finally passing over the last test of adulthood. Her feminism had felt so strong while she rode Harry’s face, so empowered, that she didn’t want to go backwards, didn’t want to relinquish her role as a woman of carnal understanding but to march ahead and to know everything. She wanted the full show; to see the final act to completion and be given the answers everybody else had already discovered. Hermione did not relish neophyte status in anything; the student always eager to barrel on to the end of her learning to arrive at a place where she had mastered the subject ahead of the pack. Sex was no different for her, she found.





So, how could she explain all that to Harry? What could she do now to repair the rift it had caused? Having him talking to her so candidly lately had been a secret pleasure that she cherished and she refused to give that up. Hermione had always felt like Harry’s second friend, in that order of importance, knowing that no matter how they interacted she could never really supplant the tight-knit relationship he shared with Ron; and that had been okay, really, she’d made peace with that a while ago. They were boys; they just naturally stuck together and had more of the same interests. But she had also known that she provided Harry with a friendship that was unique in his life, that she had been some of his earliest support and that he would always hold her in a certain special regard. And she loved that he thought she was special. Every time Harry would praise her for her intellect and cleverness her heart would swell, but it hadn’t ever been about sexual attraction with him. Until now. Now she was acutely aware of the fact that being shagged by her best friend would likely be an extremely delectable event. In the last week, she had actually found herself envious of Luna.





Hermione sighed as she got up to stretch her legs. None of these thoughts amounted to much if she couldn’t even get him to have a decent conversation with her. It was going to be another night inside, she noted, as she walked over to unzip the flaps so she could poke her head out and determine how bad the snow would fall tonight. They were on a small island in a loch off Scotland’s coast and it was mad to think that any other sign of life would bother to be out here. She could hear the water ripple into whitecaps with the wind gusting over it, hearing deep plops in various points around them. The blackness felt total and suffocating as the sky folded into the lake even as white drops broke the surface and silently covered the land their camp sat on. When she brought her head back in and zipped up their canvas shelter, her hair was already covered in wet flakes. She looked back at Harry, already under the covers in his bunk reading more of A History of Magic with one arm behind his head as the book rested on is chest, a scene she found amusing in spite of the tense mood.





“Harry, should I make us some tea?” she asked brightly, thinking that it would be another frigid night in more ways than one if she didn’t do something to break his silent brooding.





“If you like,” he answered noncommittally, his eyes never leaving the pages of his textbook. Bugger all, she thought, give me a bone, Harry, but was determined to draw him out.





She pulled out the tea kettle they had and filled it with some water then tapped it with her wand to boil it. She quickly poured it over the teabags in their cups and left both steeping for a few minutes while she headed over to her stack of books at the foot of her cot. The bookworm grabbed the paperback on top and walked over to Harry, tossing it onto his abdomen to see him startle then peer over his tome to look at what she’d given him. The sex book she’d borrowed had been intriguing, to say the least, and she’d ripped through it in a very short time while her brain attempted to process the information days after. Hermione couldn’t deny that she’d been shocked at some of the practices described, but imagining Harry and Luna doing them had been the real headtrip. From what she had learned about him in their messing around, she could now completely see Harry as a Master to the airy girl. Before it had seemed such a crazy notion, even while she had been spying on the two of them, but since then he had shown her just how forcefully persuasive he could be, hadn’t he? It had seemed a very natural part of him, too, as much as it annoyed her when he would suddenly make demands or goad her into doing something she thought of as demeaning.





“That was, um, very informative, Harry. Thanks for letting me read it. I think I have a better idea of the appeal for you, if in an abstract way. I guess the profile certainly fits,” she chatted nervously as she went to finish preparing their tea.





When she turned to bring his cup to him, Harry was staring at her fixedly as she moved closer, eyes boring into her but that thin line of a mouth never changing. It gave her flutters in her stomach to feel that intense gaze of his. She was becoming less sure of what to expect from her friend from one minute to the next these days.





“What do you mean by that?” he snapped as she went to sit on her own cot. Hermione got nervous again as she stuttered.





“N-n-nothing, Harry. I-I just, you know, think of you as-as a dominant personality. I didn’t mean it in-in a bad way, I promise.” Every time he was confrontational with her, it would unnerve her, but she should have been used to it by now. Harry’s temper was frightening, though she would often feel more frightened for Harry than for herself. His irrational side had the potential to get him killed.





The wild teen looked slightly mollified as he let some of the tenseness out of his shoulders. The dark circles under his eyes were cause for worry and she wondered if he had been sleeping at all while they had been sticking to their own beds. Hermione took a sip of her tea as she contemplated asking him her next question.





“Um, can I ask you something personal?” she spoke hesitantly thinking that he would probably refuse her.





“Yeah, what?” he responded dully while looking at her with suspicion.





“Have you and Luna done a lot of the things in the book that they categorize as ‘play’?” Her cheeks burned as she resolutely went on before he would scoff at her. “I mean, er, R-Ron told me how you tied her up so intricately that time he found you both in the woods, and I, um, saw obviously that you both like it when you whip her. When you shared with me the way you dressed her up in the bridle, I can see how that kind of image would be a turn-on for you feeling the way you do about sex. Do you ever wonder if you can go too far, though? How do you know when it’s no longer a good thing for you both anymore?” She really was eager to hear his answer.





Harry exhaled deeply as he shifted a bit and let his book slide down to close by his side. He puffed up the pillows propped behind his head and seemed to grow more comfortable as he settled into them and considered her questions.





“We’ve done a fair amount, I suppose. It’s not like I’m checking each item off as we go along and the places we meet in haven’t always been conducive to going full hog, but I get a lot of really concrete pictures in my head of what I want to see and just go for it. The book has been helpful in letting me determine how to do something safely but I don’t really go to it for ideas. I’ve got plenty of my own.” He sounded so dark on that last sentence that a chill ran up Hermione’s back.





“I think we’re going to do more piercings. And I want to do a lot more with the rope bondage. That’s probably my biggest kink. It’s what I like to see more than any of the other stuff,” he confided but ignoring her latter questions.





“Really? Why do you think that is? I can sort of understand why the person being tied up might like to feel that, but what is the draw for you? After what You-Know-Who did to you in the graveyard, I’d have thought you’d want to avoid rope.” She thought back to what he had said at the first part and opened her eyes wide. “And what do you mean more piercings? You’ve already done her breasts, where else would they go?” Although, after her reading she had a pretty good idea where he was referring to and the thought horrified her.





Then she saw the little spark of mischief in his eyes as his lip gave the smallest tug up one end. He rolled over to his side and looked her full in the face, his arms and legs coiled as though ready to pounce on her as he elaborated for her in a husky voice.





“Well, a woman has these very nice fleshy bits down below that would look quite fetching with a bit of jewelry, don’t you think, ‘Mione?” He watched her carefully as that hint of a grin crept up into a leer. She squirmed at the picture, but then felt a low thudding in her center in some kind of anticipation to hear Harry speaking about a woman’s bits.





“Why do you have to know the why behind everything, anyway? What does it matter why I like to see Luna tied up, I just do, right?”





But the girl challenged him in his acceptance of it. “It’s important to figure these things out, Harry, so we can understand if they’re healthy for us or not. Maybe this is part of something in you that is a reaction to what you’ve been put through, but knowing the full reason makes sure you don’t take it to a bad place. Don’t you ever worry that you’re going to push her into something that upsets her?”





Harry gave her a curious look at that. “Who are we talking about here again? Are you sure it’s me and Luna you want to know about?” he asked her directly.





The rattled witch blushed as she thought about their activities lately. She knew that he grew irritated with the way she would resist him, but then when she had asked for intercourse and been flatly denied, she’d felt like she’d turned the tables on Harry. It had been a strange thing to be locked in this power game with her best mate these last three weeks. Maybe she was trying to hold him accountable for all of it in some way by pinning it on his proclivities. She realized she was being unfair, however, considering it was her that had been so forward to begin with and her that was so adamant to continue.





“Well, I think it’s obvious, Harry, that we don’t particularly connect in that way. I’m not the type of woman who lets someone control her and I never will be.” Hermione understood at least that much about herself.





“Are you absolutely positive about that, luv? You might surprise yourself if you ever got over some of your hang-ups,” he remarked cockily.





“I beg your pardon? MY hang-ups? Merlin, Harry, you really take the biscuit sometimes. Do you even listen to yourself? I think I’ve been quite loose and accommodating within reason around you. I mean, my God, Harry, I sound like a bloody slag once you get your tongue inside me. I’ve done a LOT of things with you that I NEVER thought I would, so give me a break, already,” she finished hotly, feeling quite falsely accused.





The raven haired teen only looked back at her with a sad kind of pity and shook his head, but moved to lie on his back again with his hand rested on his forehead and he stared at the top of their tent as if he could burn a hole through it with his glare. Hermione suddenly felt chastened by his silence and the lack of an argument. This wasn’t what she was going for; she wanted them back on friendly terms again. The girl tried to find a road that she could meet on with her companion, knowing instinctively that they were redefining their relationship after its new phase of sexual familiarity. It was so odd to think that this boy beside her that she had grown up with and always thought of as an almost sibling was now extremely intimate with parts of her anatomy that she hadn’t even seen. Conversely, getting used to the feel of Harry’s cock in her mouth had irrefutably changed the way she perceived him. She didn’t feel so motherly to him anymore.





The exhausted girl got up and went to drag her nightgown out from inside her ridiculous purse. She hated sleeping in her clothes, even with the extra cold; it always made her feel so stiff and grimy in the morning. The little blue flames she had charmed under glass helped to keep the tent warm, and it felt good to be able to have a whole night ahead of her to sleep without worrying about getting up for guard duty. She began to undress in front of Harry like she’d been doing this last week, no longer up to playing their little game where they pretended nothing happened in the night. Hermione was down to just her underwear and she turned with her hands on her hips, casting her eyes about the tent shrewdly as if she were looking for something. She made sure that Harry had a very good view of her large breasts, knowing how he was quite appreciative of them. The rest of her had gotten a bit skinny, but it had seemed to accentuate her curves, a trend that had secretly and perversely thrilled the girl even when her hunger had been at its worst. Even she was not immune to wanting a flat belly and a pleasing figure, she acknowledged.





“What are you looking for?” Harry asked sounding rather disinterested but trying to be helpful.





“Oh, just wondering what I did with my hairbrush,” she answered distractedly as she swept her gaze around once more with her hip locked to one side in a sexy stance.





“Try looking on the table where you left it.”





She glanced over at the table where they ate and headed to it in her panties, knowing full well it had been there all along. As she reached out to lift it, her hand gave a clumsy push and it fell to the floor.





“Oh, bugger,” she cried as she bent straight down from the waist to pick it up giving Harry an ample bum shot. God, she felt so randy and she was hardly much of a seductress. Surely he would see right through her silly attempts.





When she walked back over to her cot to put on her gown, she felt a sudden tug at her waistband and then Harry was pulling her to him; the girl landing on top of him in an ungainly flop. She looked at him with a shy smile but he only stared blankly as he studied her. Hermione shifted, nonetheless, and sat her arse on his groin and pointed her knees to him. Maybe he was a bit horny, too, she hoped.





“What is it, Harry? What do you want me to do?” she offered in her throaty whisper her nipples painfully hard under his watch. But he said nothing and his expression remained stoic. She was starting to feel incredibly self-conscious when she suddenly felt his hand back at her knickers, pulling them downwards until he ran into her thigh. The girl quickly followed his lead and lifted herself up to shimmy the underwear down her legs and over her feet to drop off the side of their makeshift bed. When she straddled him again and felt her cunt so wet and exposed, she thought she might be willing to make some allowances this time.





“I can try to take you down my throat again, Harry, if you’d like.”





He kept his eyes so fixed on her that she continued to grow uneasy, not understanding what he wanted from her. She haltingly leaned down and unbuttoned his shirt, spreading it open and happy to see he wore nothing underneath. Well, except for that fucking locket taunting her in the dancing blue firelight from its spot on his tanned chest. The witch felt a little more daring with her recent experience and ran her hands over Harry’s torso as she moaned lightly for him; he had such a nice hard body under that skin. Her fingers flew to his nipples and rubbed and pinched to see if she could bring out some of that reckless passion she knew was inside her friend.





“No, I want to see you play with your tits instead,” he suddenly spoke as he pushed her hands to her chest.





Hermione tried valiantly not to feel insecure again as she brushed her fingers over her breasts and arched her back for him. This kind of stimulation wasn’t something that she often felt the need to do, so it all seemed a bit silly to her, but she did her best to perform for him anyway if for no other reason than to see if she could glean some kind of bloody reaction from his inscrutable expression. She honestly had no idea what he was thinking right now. She let her tongue slip out of her mouth seductively as she pinched her nipples for him and moaned wantonly. Oh my God, you look like an idiot came the no-nonsense voice in her head. The girl pushed it away and tried to focus on what she was feeling instead, getting into the way he was staring at her so intensely now as she ground her fanny into his jeans. Aha, she could feel something moving under there, and her mouth turned wicked with the achievement. Then Harry’s hand was on hers again and he was moving it to the damp point in the center of her straddling thighs. She stopped what she was doing abruptly and stared back at him with some trepidation.





“Show me how you fuck yourself, ‘Mione. I want to see your fingers moving inside your cunt without anything in the way this time.” His voice was silky and deep as he made his request and the girl gulped even as she felt her petals grow wetter. She willed herself not to get timid again in the face of his authority.





“Um, can I work up to that? I might need to get myself a little more aroused before I can do that.” She tried to show him she was willing to compromise. His face turned haughty for a moment and then he nodded his chin to her as if giving permission for her to proceed.





Hermione closed her eyes and listened outside to the water surrounding them as she bid her body to relax. It was just Harry, he’d seen right up into her insides, this was hardly shocking to him, she insisted. Her fingers went slow as the first two rubbed lightly over her clitoris, then moving down occasionally to bring up more dew. She was incredibly wet by now but still brought her fingers to her mouth to soak them with spit and then slid them back in place, her knee lifting up as she placed her foot flat to the bed and she leaned back into the pose. The young curly-haired witch lifted her bum a bit so that Harry could see everything, her fingers working to separate her folds, cataloguing each name in her head from the diagrams she’d studied as she did so. Every time she would sneak a look at him through heavy lids he was simply glaring at her, silently judging, she felt. It started to anger her and she took it out on her body, getting more forceful once she put her wet digits into that slit and sliding them back and forth. Her moans got louder as she kept her mouth open while wishing that he’d touch her. Not a moment after she thought it, however, she felt his hands on the insides of her thighs and then he was adjusting her again like he always did, this time pushing up her legs so that her knees were straight up and her feet were on top of his hips. She could feel his grip move to wrap around her ankles and hold her open like that while he growled at her to go deeper.





This had the effect of zooming Hermione’s desire into a full-blown assault on her senses and she couldn’t stop her cries as he urged her on, her hand working swiftly to bring her to that climax she desperately sought. But it wasn’t going to be enough, was it? She already felt huge inside and Harry’s prick was so close. The young woman flashed her eyes and let her ardor sweep over the boy underneath her as she dropped in a crouch and put her mouth to his. Harry let her control the kiss completely, opening his lips when she pushed with her tongue but giving back only minimally what she poured into him, all while never letting go of her ankles. Feeling totally wild by now yet thinking that Harry was allowing her to have her way with him; she went to unbutton his pants and then headed for his zipper waiting every second for the teen to stop her. But he didn’t. He didn’t do much at all, just lay there and never took his gaze off of her with that maddening face. Hermione wanted to slap him; he didn’t have the right to judge her, but instead she was pushing down his pants and seeking another way to best him. Her fingers now free from her twat, she was sliding back her bum so she could bend down to take him in her mouth; noting with some satisfaction that he was stiff already, so he couldn’t possibly pretend that he didn’t want this no matter what he duped himself into believing. She was the realist here in this scenario, she told herself, as she sucked on the head of his prick.





They had both stopped talking now and she simply let her movements go on autopilot. Harry’s cock was pointing straight up, hard and inviting, and she felt like it was now or never. Whatever Harry was playing at tonight, she wasn’t likely to get another chance at him being this docile. Without even asking him anything, she took hold of her wand on the floor and put the tip up to her belly. She visualized the egg inside of her and murmured the contraceptive spell she had taught herself two years ago, encasing any fertile ovum and blocking it from wriggling sperm. She breathed slowly as she went into relaxation mode and thought of how the books had told her the pain from losing her hymen would be practically insignificant if there was no resistance from tension. This would be a good angle, too, she predicted. Holding tight to Harry’s cock, her eyes still closed and all but forgetting about the boy attached, she positioned herself over him, still expecting at any moment that a hand would reach out to stop her.





Once again, however, there was no protest, and then she could feel him, feel the head breach her slit and sit right inside of her waiting channel. She groaned loudly as she slowly let the gravity pull her down, until Harry’s cock was filling her and that bit of resistance was but a sharp sting before it was over. When she felt her weight rest on him and knew that he was completely inside of her down to the base, her head fell back and she let out a partial victory cry. The girl sat like that for a few minutes and just got accustomed to the feel, the pulse of it rocking her deeply like sonar under water while Harry was quiet and still beneath her. Soon she began moving and it felt….amazing, simply amazing. Her body had been waiting for this and now she felt rewarded, like she’d sat for her NEWTs and knew every single answer, a perfect score within her reach.





“Oh, God, oh my God, Harry, touch my breasts, please,” she begged wanting to feel every blessed sensation she possibly could while her eyes were shut in ecstasy.





There was a shuffling under her and then a nipple was grabbed tightly between two hard fingers and pulled. She screamed, but it felt exciting and she wanted him to do it again. Then he was pinching them both at the same time and tugging hard, making her breasts stretch outwards toward him in some kind of stress test. Her bouncing motions on his steady anchor increased in their speed and she leaned on her hands a bit as they held tight to Harry’s thighs behind her. Her mouth stayed open as she sucked in more air, the moans no longer sounding like they were even coming from her. Then Harry did something that brought her out of her trance. Putting his hand down to her cunt, he pinched her nub between his fingers while she shouted in surprise. As soon as she looked down at him, he was wrapping a hand behind her neck and bending her head to look down, to see his cock going in and out of her in such a vulgar picture. She gasped at the sight.





“Is this what you really wanted, Hermione?” her friend asked, but his voice was dead of all emotion.





The girl started to feel ashamed and slowed down her pogoing, but then something was changing again and Harry was turning her, rotating her to her back and bringing his hands up under her knees. He pressed down on her thighs and then he was on top of her; moving like a devil as he fucked her just the way she’d known he would. The suddenly wild boy hooked her leg over his naked shoulder, his shirt having been cast off, and went so deep she sucked in all of her breath for a moment and got lightheaded. Now it was starting to feel like he was tearing her open as he moved even harder and faster than she could have imagined, the thudding reaching a crescendo like a ticking time bomb inside of her. She was only dimly aware of the flimsy cot underneath them rattling as if it were ready to break, but as Harry pushed up her other leg so that he was penetrating her depths with thrusts so rapid they blurred her senses, she simply succumbed to it and felt her orgasm break her, felt it gather up and crash down on her in a mighty wave as she keened like a mad woman.





Her mouth still open and croaking, she lay there and let the aftershocks continue to blast through as Harry reached his own climax. When all of a sudden she felt her body hit with the cold as he pulled away from her, she turned and watched in shock as he pulled out of her cunt and proceeded to come in great spurts raining down on her stomach and tits. Her body was shaking violently as he dropped down and held himself over her; exhaling in heavy pants while he tried to slow his breathing. He looked down at her then, his eyes like green fire as they flashed behind his specs and a grimace twisted into his features. The contempt dripped from his voice as he spoke raggedly.





“Was it all you had hoped for?” he jeered. Hermione felt her face burn as she pushed at his chest, pushed him to get off of her. How dare he! How dare he talk to her this way, her mind raged.





The tears sprung to her eyes as her chest felt heavy and her throat got hollow. She couldn’t believe her friend was being so cruel and she felt dazed by it. But the boy only huffed at her and then got up from their cot pushing down his jeans and stepping out of them. He put his feet into the boots that he’d Transfigured from his trainers, not even bothering to lace them up and not even deigning to throw on a cover as he walked out of their tent into the snow starkers. Hermione sat up as the tears finally fell and wondered when it was that the two of them had gone completely mad.





~~~~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~~~





The next morning had been an incredibly awkward affair. Hermione was feeling tender and bruised as she got out of her bed, noticing that they’d accumulated snow inside corners of the tent. She looked around for Harry fearfully not seeing him in his own cot and her orbs grew wide as she caught him sleeping in the only dry corner while sitting up, looking like he was still nude under the blanket with the boots on his feet. Even from here she could see his body shivering and she boggled as to how he’d been able to lose consciousness like that. He was going to make himself sick, she imagined, or give himself hypothermia doing barmy things like heading into the snow naked. What was going on in that mind of his? Where had that disturbing streak of malice come from?





She put her hand to her quim and pressed as the aches inside of her became more present. There was still a bit of throbbing, like a bleating cry that reverberated through her body and left her feeling like she’d barely slept. The girl had had bothersome dreams that she didn’t want to reflect on, only bury further into her subconscious. Getting up quietly, she moved to get dressed in her clothes from yesterday, not up to sorting through the inventory in her handbag, and then went to see what they had left in the way of breakfast foods. She’d doubled up all of their rations as soon as she’d thought of it, and they wouldn’t need to worry about nutrition for a while, but she had noticed that whatever food had been spelled into more quantity was not quite as tasty as the original meal; a certain kind of desiccation of flavor taking effect. She rummaged around looking for the first batch that the house-elves had concocted and came across a few buttery croissants and a tub of diced fruit. Perfect; add some hot coffee and she would feel ready to deal with Harry and their ‘situation’.





When she tiptoed over to the shivering teen and softly put a hand to his head to stir him awake, he jolted with a bellowing cry. Hermione jumped in reaction to him and then they were both shouting. She dropped to her knees to calm him as she grabbed hold of his arms.





“Harry! It’s alright! Wake up, already.” He quieted immediately at the sound of her voice and then looked blearily around, his glasses looking fogged and wet on the insides. She gently took them off his face and brought them down to her jumper so she could wipe them clean, and when she looked up to the boy absently as she rubbed, his expression appeared hopelessly troubled and his lips almost blue. The curly haired girl handed him his specs and once he took hold of them she pulled his blanket corners tight in front of him and clucked.





“Are you mad?” Her voice was soft and pleading, though. “You’re going to catch your death out there if you don’t take care of yourself. Let’s get you into something warm straight away.”





She went to pull him up and he jerked his arm out of her grasp looking at her like she was an enemy. Hermione put up her hands defenselessly, startled again by his reaction, as she attempted to soothe him with shushing noises like she would a wounded animal until he finally relented and humbly followed her to his cot with his teeth chattering. Hermione pushed him to sit without talking and cast a warming charm on him while she gathered his pants then went to get him some clean long sleeved tees and jumpers. She needed to get the heat into his body quickly and despite what she’d felt earlier her mothering kicked in and she set about tending to Harry like Mrs. Weasley would. It kept her mind from going to what happened last night and she needed a focus to get her back to a semblance of normality. Once she had him dressed, all with Harry pliant like a child, she took his hand to bring him to the bench with the breakfast laid out. Putting a cup of steaming coffee in his hand while she fussed with his hair, she gulped back her dread of how things were already changing between them and looked ahead to what they could accomplish today instead. Thinking about the craziness would not help; she had to start acting rational again. This had all gotten well out of hand; she despaired, as she put the back of her hand to Harry’s forehead checking for fever. They needed to start moving forward with a plan.





“’Mione,” Harry croaked after a few minutes of her trying to run a brush through his locks. He closed his hand around her wrist to stop her movements and then pushed her over to the other side of the table while he poured her some coffee, as well. The girl sat down feeling jittery as she waited to hear what Harry would have to say to her now. She had a need to fill up the silence with mindless chatter, but for once decided it would be better to stay silent. Hermione kept her eyes to her hands while she waited for him to rail into her, wondering again just how strong their friendship would have to be to weather through this. There was bile in her throat and she pushed away her fruit all of a sudden as tears were back burning her eyes.





“I’ve been thinking….,” he started off in a mumble but then his voice getting stronger as he continued, “I want to go to Godric’s Hollow. It’s not just about seeing my parents’ house,” he said hurriedly beating her to the punch, “but I think the sword might be there.”





Hermione looked up sharply at him in her shock. She had certainly not expected that, but she was so thankful that they had something else to talk about.





“What makes you think that, Harry? Did you see something?” she asked, thinking that he might be still receiving visions from Voldemort.





“Um, well, not really. I mean, I had a weird dream about it, but that was only after what I’d read in the book. Godric’s Hollow is named for Godric Gryffindor, after all. I think that Dumbledore sent the real sword there to wait for me to find it, and I think I know who he entrusted it to while I figured it out.” He spoke confidently now as he explained his reasoning to her.





“Well? Who is it, then?” Hermione was dead curious now, and more than a bit surprised that Harry had connected Godric Gryffindor to his birthplace. She had totally forgotten that, but it definitely made sense that Dumbledore would have noted the significance.





“Bathilda Bagshot. She lives there.” He suddenly shot up and went back to his bed to grab her copy of A History of Magic then brought it back to the table. “The author herself. Ginny’s great-Aunt Muriel said that Rita had interviewed Bathildha at her home there. She was a friend of Dumbledore’s family and I think he would have left the sword with her, if he was going to leave it with anyone. I feel pretty sure about this, Hermione, and I think it’s worth investigating.”





Hermione felt a bit floored that she hadn’t figured this out on her own, but she was so grateful for the chance at some action that her mind instinctively went into plotting mode as she found herself getting excited about the trip. They would have to be exceedingly careful, but if what Harry said was true, they could finally get rid of their one horrible Horcrux and maybe even find a clue to the next one.





“I think this is a good hunch, Harry. We’ll have to practice Apparating under the Invisibility cloak together, though; we can’t be seen there. It’s more than likely that You-Know-Who has figured that out already and will have the place watched waiting for you to show up. Hmmm, maybe we should go Polyjuiced, instead? I think that might be a better idea, actually. I foresee about a week before we can pull this off, Harry, we’ll need to work on getting some hairs from the locals and making sure we can move in and out of there with no problems under the cloak.”





She continued to ramble on with her thoughts as she formulated a good plan of action with Harry interjecting every few minutes. It was almost amiable between them once they had finalized what they thought would work best. Harry seemed to have some more color in his face now as the movement and the hot drink had warmed him through. As their voices tapered off once they’d set up a schedule, that twitchy feeling was back and it drove her to want to confront Harry on their sexual encounters if only so she could apologize and then never speak of it again. It had become painfully clear that Harry was feeling used by her and he was only going to feel more resentful the longer she pursued it. She didn’t want to hurt him, she wanted her friend back. That pervasive feeling of shame swarmed through her again as she ruefully thought that this had not been what she’d ever envisioned for her first time. Rather than blame Harry, however, her fury was directed to the Horcrux, as she convinced herself that it was doing worse things to them than they’d really understood.





She looked at his chest now and suddenly realized he was still wearing it. Her hand shot out across the table as she cried out. “Harry! For goodness sake, you’ve been wearing that locket since yesterday afternoon! Give it to me, already.”





He watched her suspiciously before slowly reaching up to remove the chain from around his neck and handing it over to her. It was hot and pulsing in her hand again, and she swore she saw it jerk a bit back in Harry’s direction as it emitted a slight green haze around it. Her eyes grew big to see the change, but then it was gone and she wondered if she had only imagined it. She slipped it over her head distastefully but glad to have it away from Harry. Then she was furrowing her brow as she thought about her next words carefully.





“Um, I-uh, about last night…” she started tentatively, but Harry flashed a warning look that unsettled her and she paused as she tried to gather her courage again.





“Is nothing we need to talk about, okay?” Harry finished for her gruffly. He stared into his coffee cup and she could feel the tension coming off of him in waves but couldn’t let it deter her. She was a Gryffindor, she reminded herself as she took in another deep breath.





“I think we do. I think I need to— ”, but Harry cut her off again.





“Leave it off, Hermione,” he rumbled ominously. He stood up suddenly and went to start pulling together his rucksack for the day. He grabbed hold of the travel map they’d nicked from a recent shoplifting under the cloak and muttered to her that they should get a move on and then get the bloody hell off their little island before they were snowed under.





Hermione felt that they had a lot they needed to say to each other, but took the easy way out and let Harry dictate their tone. He had gone back to his brooding silence except for when he wanted to discuss their next entry point. Looking at the names on the map situated around the area of West Country where they believed Godric’s Hollow was located, they devised a strategy for scouting out the surrounding area before leading up to their eventual destination. It was mostly rural and there were plenty of spaces on the moors that they could hide as they surveyed the perimeter, leaving a fair amount of distance between them and the wizarding village in the hopes that if any Death Eaters were in the vicinity they’d be able to spot them from afar.





They had Apparated under the cloak to a lush area filled with vegetation and enough giant, old trees to block their camp, but soon after they’d set up the tent Harry had left to reconnoiter the area while Hermione cast the protection spells. There wasn’t as much snow in this part of the landscape but the temperature was still dropping to freezing by the time the dark-haired wizard had come back. They quickly got inside and checked the map again for a neighboring village to go Muggle hair hunting. Every time Harry took her hand to Apparate again, the anguished girl would feel another shiver of guilt running through her. She wanted to cleanse this horrible feeling so badly, but she didn’t know how to approach Harry anymore; didn’t know what she could possibly say to fix this.





Yet it was during their dinner that Harry finally circuitously broached the topic. They had been tensely quiet as they’d delicately slurped at some more soup when out of the blue Hermione heard her friend speak firmly into the ringing silence.





“I’m going to summon Luna with the Galleon tonight,” he had said simply, although there was a charge in the undertone that suggested he was waiting for her to dispute it and was ready for a fight.





She looked at him blankly as her mind ran in rapid circles trying to decide how she was supposed to feel about this. What could she say to him, really?





“Where could you possibly meet her? Have you gone barmy? It’s freezing out there. You—you’re not going to bring her to the tent, are you?” she asked with a sinking knot in the pit of her stomach.





“I found an abandoned shack a few clicks from here. Probably a summer cabin, it looked kept up. Actually, I thought about moving our camp there, but it’ll be more difficult to enchant it from onlookers; best to keep to what we’ve been doing.”





The young witch couldn’t help feeling some disappointment in the news. Of course Harry would want to see Luna, he was miserable. He was in love with her, after all, and what he’d done with Hermione had only been a diversion for him. Her rational mind knew this unquestionably yet it still hurt her to feel dismissed like that. Like what they’d done hadn’t been satisfactory enough for him and he needed to look elsewhere for his fulfillment. His rejection made her feel prickly as she challenged him once again.





“I thought you were worried about Snape following her. Aren’t you pushing it a bit by continually exposing her to our whereabouts? Why don’t you just put a big sign on the girl’s forehead that reads, Harry Potter’s Sex Slave. I’m sure the Death Eater faction would love to pick her apart.” It was cruel, she knew, but the words came unbidden and her face burned to hear them come out of her mouth.





Harry’s response was quick and terrifying. The soup bowl flew across the tent as he backhanded it furiously, his other hand reaching out to smash a cup into one of the rigging poles. Hermione recoiled from the wild boy in her fear as her eyes darted around for her wand. Perhaps Harry had finally lost his mind.





“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” he roared at her as she quailed in her seat. She had no idea how to deal with whoever this person was in front of her, but she let her anger course through her if only to push through this nightmare.





“I don’t want ANYTHING from you! I’m just trying to warn you to keep your knob from making all your decisions, which you mightn’t have noticed haven’t been particularly sound lately! It’s my life at stake, too, in case you’ve forgotten!” she shouted back at him righteously.





“Right, so once again, everything is MY fault! Is that what you’re trying to tell me, ‘Mione?” he seethed, his glare so fiercely accusatory that Hermione shied back just a bit before she could gather her rage around her again.





“I’m not saying that, Harry! I just want you to THINK for bloody ONCE in your life before you do something! It’s not that difficult, truly! Not exactly like you’ve been dying for a shag, is it now?” There; it was out, they could finally discuss it, even if it was screaming at each other.





He moved so fast she didn’t even have a chance to blink before he was upon her, his hand at her throat and his foot scraping underneath hers so that her body twisted and fell backward. He stopped her a few millimeters shy of smashing into the table top, but then he was leaning down into her face and he looked possessed as his grip squeezed; Hermione instinctively grabbing at his wrists in her panic. She had never felt so terrified in her life and that was saying something considering how often she was in danger.





“Is that what you’re really concerned about? Do you want me to fuck you again instead, Hermione, is that it?” he breathed out in a seductive menace.





The girl attempted to get out of his strangling hold as she tried to kick at him, but noted that he’d pinned her down completely. She was fast moving into hysteria now and she screamed at him to try and get through to her friend beneath this monster.





“No! It was wrong of me, Harry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry I said that and I’m sorry I pushed you into sex! I don’t want us to be like this anymore, please!”





Then the tears were streaming and she felt Harry suddenly draw back and loosen his hand, letting her fall to the table in her wretchedness. She felt beaten and bloodied, even though Harry had barely touched her. When she tried to sit up, her blood felt frozen in her arteries and her limbs moved stiffly. Harry looked somewhat horrified at his actions as he stood further away from her in the center of the tent. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again, and the sound of the wind sweeping up outside shook the tent as Hermione felt their friendship ripping in half from the onslaught.





“Did it ever occur to you that I just need to talk to her?”





It felt like a slap in the face to the distraught girl. She was being selfish. She knew it and he knew it. This farce had to end. She glanced up at him through her wet, bleary eyes and sniffled as she timidly whispered what she’d feared.





“Are you going to tell her?” The shaken witch wanted to add, about us?, but felt it unnecessary as the words stuck in her throat; Harry understood what she was asking.





“Yes,” he said flatly as he stared at her, his face smoothing out as the darkness receded in his sharpened features, his cheekbones like cut glass.





The guilt tore through her again as she wished one more time that they’d never started this. She had wanted so much to feel closer to Harry, but this was a perversion of their trust now and she had to begin focusing on repairing the damage before it was too late.





“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. Harry watched her blankly for a few more silent minutes before sighing and staring off at the zippered entrance. Hermione felt that little bit of bravery work through her warming up her bloodstream and when she opened her mouth again her voice was clear and penitent. “I honestly have no excuse for what happened, and all I can say in my defense is that my emotions have been on a rollercoaster lately, but that still didn’t give me the right to…to do what I did.” The tears started to flow freely again as she turned her gaze upward and tried to think of what she could say to make this better. “I’ve just been so…lost, and like, I can’t rely on anything anymore. I know that’s not fair to you, Harry, and it’s not your fault that Dumbledore kept so much from you. But it’s been hard being so separated from everything and knowing that they’re looking for me. It just felt good to…feel good for a while, you know? I’ve been a terrible friend, I know I have.”





She looked down at her lap and let the tears drop to her skin, cursing herself and wishing she’d never kissed Harry that night. It had all gone tit’s up and she had no one to blame but herself. It stayed quiet between them for several minutes before Harry finally spoke again.





“Hermione, it’s not like you raped me or something, for Merlin’s sake. Don’t think that I couldn’t stop this at any time. It was my fault; I let it persist. If anyone should be at blame here it’s me.” He sounded harsh and the girl faced him again as she finally saw some remorse bloom in his beleaguered visage. Then his long lashes slowly fanned up as his chilling green gaze was on her again. “But I know that I’m not really who you want.”





Neither of them wanted to say that name again, it hurt too much, but she understood that Harry taking on all the culpability for this mess was not a good idea, either. He seemed too brittle, too bleak in the last few weeks, and she worried that her friend had plummeted into a depression. She pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket, something that she had been using quite a bit lately, and noticed her hands were still shaking. She wiped her face before responding, feeling shameful but like a resolution was within reach. Harry’s explosion of violence had shown her that their days as children having tantrums were long behind; they were young adults caught up in a whirlwind of evil and dark magic so dense that the consequences could literally shatter them.





“Will you let me talk to Luna, too? I’d like to see another fr-friend if I could. It might help.” As she bent over her lap and held one arm tight to her stomach, she played with the chain around her neck for something to distract her nerves. She felt it tug in her grasp once more, as if a magnet had been set between her and the boy.





“I don’t know; it depends on how long I can have with her. I need to find out what Snape has been up to, there’s something going on there that I can’t figure out. What—what are you doing?” he asked as Hermione abruptly pulled the necklace from around her head and went to hang it on the hook that normally carried their lamp.





“I think we need to stop wearing the locket for while, Harry. It’s not doing either of us any good.” That was quite an understatement, she thought dryly.





“Hermione, we can’t lose that. We shouldn’t have it out of sight for a second with all we went through to get it,” he protested, but the recuperating witch insisted that she would keep it safe; she just didn’t want it touching their skin.





And she couldn’t get the horrible, dawning suspicion out of her system that somehow the Horcrux wanted Harry.







~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





Much later that night, Harry was curt with her as he took his wand and headed out into the darkness to find his meeting point. While they had ceased shouting at each other, the remaining evening had gone by in a thick wadding of unspoken sentiment as Hermione stuck her nose back in a book while Harry tended to some bit of business in the corner away from her sight. He pulled his backpack up over his shoulders after throwing on another jumper. He was looking a little gaunt in the face lately, she’d noticed, even though they’d been able to eat regularly in the last month and she wondered how much of that was self-induced.





After he was gone and she was outside the tent on watch, Hermione contemplated for the briefest second following him covertly and playing voyeur again. The young witch tried to justify the idea with her worry over Harry’s disturbing mood swing lately under what she now saw as the strengthening influence of the Horcrux. How would he act with Luna? Putting her hand gingerly to her throat, she shivered as she recalled how petrified she’d felt in the face of Harry’s sudden brutality. But then her guilt washed over her a moment later as she thought about how Luna would feel to discover that Hermione had been borrowing her boyfriend’s (her Master’s, you mean) cock for some cheap thrills. She stared up at the twinkling stars in the crispness of winter and sighed heavily as the thoughts overwhelmed her once more. The girl wanted to scrub her brain out and start anew. She could use some tea, she decided.





Hustling back in under the canvas flap, she quickly went to grab the kettle sitting on its perch and fill it using an Aguamenti. Hermione bent down to rummage through their foodie assortment and pull out the teabag stash. Blimey, if only Dobby had sent them some proper tea leaves and a basket and she could have it the proper way, but she wasn’t about to complain. Once the kettle whistled to announce its boil, the girl turned to prepare her cup in one smooth motion when she noticed it suddenly. The hook on the post where she’d hung their burden to give them some respite from its nefarious charms was empty.





The locket was gone.













Love seeing new reviewers. You guys are a great, supportive bunch. Although, Coco?---I miss you, dude!