Azael's Chains

Worth

Wooden edges cut against her cheek and chest and hips, jarring contrast with the silken heat at her throat.

"Ah, Antonin," Hermione tried once more, "I have shelving to do." His hands tightened on hips that had softened at his table, filled out for the first time in her nineteen years.

His hardness ground against her backside as Antonin's lips popped from laving sun-touched flesh. "You have hours yet for that, katyonok. Let me enjoy you." He plied her with the sharp hint of teeth, setting shivers over her.

"A student could enter at any moment."

"Let them." His hips rolled against her and she bit her lip. "How about I fuck you against the books, hm? We can go to the Restricted Section, keep the young ones safe from my deviant ways." Antonin's hands roamed over her abdomen, one cupping her sex through her dress, sickeningly delicious. "We can find a book on sex magic and try out a few things, hm?"

Hermione shook her head uselessly, though it hardly moved, trapped as she was.

"Your body disagrees, kitten. So wet for me." Thick fingers skimmed her lower lips and her face flushed just as that part of her had. His fingers slipped into her one at a time, twisting until her back tried to bow.

"As delightful as your molestation of Miss Granger might be, perhaps you could refrain from putting on a show in the library." The echoing click of the cane underscored Lucius Malfoy's disdain. She could hear the sneer, the curl of his upper lip, the roll of his icy eyes.

Dolohov became a wall behind her. "Lucius, hello." Her dress dropped in a wave over her legs and he extricated himself, grimacing at the slick sound of him sucking his fingers clean. "I thought we were to meet at eight?"

"Yes, well, Severus is at the front desk. He wants a word with you."

"Then why is he not here with you?" He released her from the cage of his arms and Hermione stretched her aching neck, timid fingers checking for splinters on her cheek.

"Perhaps he was smart enough to know you'd be manhandling the girl." His expression was as bored as his voice. "Is there ever a moment she isn't guiding you by your cock, Dolohov?"

"Speaking of, Malfoy, how is your wife?"

Hermione's glance darted between the sharp cruelty of Antonin's eyes to Lucius Malfoy's thundering features. She did not understand the slight, but it must have been grave to set the man alight as he was.

It pleased Antonin and he bent to kiss her forehead before striding down the aisle, the wind of his passing fluttering Malfoy's immaculate robes. Lucius maintained his position, the flare of his nostrils his only reaction to their proximity.

And then a hush blanketed them as their eyes met. Hermione counted one, two, three beats of her heart as the man raised a brow. Four, five, six. This was the moment, thrumming in her bones. "I want an alliance."

"What was that?"

She licked her lips, pulse in her throat tuning her voice to a fine tremble. "I want to negotiate an alliance with you."

His gaze, edged with blue like a line between sea and sky, narrowed. "What do you have to offer, Miss Granger?"

Hermione subdued the urge to run moist palms against her thighs and straightened her head. "Vold-- the Dark Lord, you think I could gain his favor?" After a curt nod, she continued, "I know Draco is currently not favored; I could stand by him as a friend, an ally, to bolster him in the Dark Lord's eyes."

Lucius' own eyes rolled disdainfully. "Is that all? I will be using my good name, my gold, my connections for a mudblood, and you offer friendship to my son? Hardly fair, is it?"

Wet tongue flitted across dry lips. "I could teach him as well. I'm clever and--"

"You will ally with the Malfoy line as a whole." His sharp tone cut through her brittle offering and Hermione swallowed the remainder down like pumpkin juice gone bad. "And you will make it an oath on your magic."

"That's--"

"In return I will swear to provide you my personal protection." That was unexpected, and Hermione didn't quite have the words to respond. The corner of his cruel mouth lifted. "I will provide you protection as though you are a Malfoy yourself."

She frowned, fists clenching and releasing before wiping them at last. "You'll make it an oath on your magic? Truly?"

"I would."

"Alright. But you go first."

His chuckle spread coldly through the space between them as he raised his wand from the confines of his cane. "I swear on my magic I will protect Hermione Granger as though she carried Malfoy blood within her veins."

The weight of the oath settled over them, a bare tightening of the flesh. "I don't have a wand..." she murmured.

"Raise your wand hand. Magic is all intention, so pour your intention into the oath." He spoke slowly, but without malice.

Hermione nodded and lifted her hand, palm to him. "I swear on my magic I will act as an ally to the Malfoy line." Shade gasped as magic flooded from her hand and back out over her like a wave. It was like a nerve that had been asleep for so long she'd forget about it, or a muscle so disused she didn't remember how to flex it. She stared at her palm in a daze and laughed. "I can feel my magic. I can feel it. I felt it." She laughed again, staring at an unruffled Lucius Malfoy. "It's been so long." An echo of water drops falling against a stony floor rippled in her mind. Before that it had been-- She shook her head free of helplessness echoing through her memories.

"Magic does not disappear for want of a wand, Miss Granger. Remember that." She nodded as he turned to face the main walkway of the library. "I will see you soon."

"Thank you, Mister Malfoy." Those were words she never thought she'd utter; Malfoy paused, a slight stiffening of the shoulders, then walked away toward the other men.

Hermione was left to her books and wondering what in the bloody hell had happened.

Lucius Malfoy had said he would protect her like she was a Malfoy herself. He was fiercely protective, as Draco had displayed across the years. The barest hint of a threat was enough to have the man come in wand sparking. With his resources protection extended beyond the strength of his magic; he had clout, political and societal.

And what had she given in exchange? The word of her vow stated it as allyship for the line as a whole. What would he ask of her in the future, in the spirit of that alliance?

Her hand was still warm and she drew it to her chest, feeling the steady thrum of her heart through the cavern of her chest, echoing with pulses of that power she'd felt before.

Hermione wasn't stupid; she knew about wandless magic, had read about it, but it was a difficult skill. Her attempts had mostly failed, like the time she was strung up in Malfoy Manor. Perhaps she was overthinking it, had tried too hard. When M. Malfoy had told her how to swear without a wand he had done so matter-of-factly that she couldn't doubt he knew it would work.

"Magic does not disappear for want of a wand."

She tore her sticky gaze from her palm and directed it toward the books awaiting her sorting.

Start simple. You've already performed wandless magic, so simple spells should work for you. What was one of the first spells you mastered?

A huff of laughter escaped at a certain memory of her being her swotty twelve-year-old self. Hermione gestured at the top book, straightening her spine and falling into her usual casting stance. When she spoke, her voice was precise, practiced. "Wingardium leviosa."

The book tottered uncertainly before rising with the motion of her wrist. Her forefinger gently guided it forward, forward until it fit neatly in the space between finger and thumb. Her shoulders rolled and she released a breath that had hovered in her lungs. She'd done it. The thrill that she'd lost long ago, the one that accompanied her first ever success, when she'd brewed her first potion, when she balanced the Arithmantic equation and the conclusion stared boldly in her face, revealed in all its glory, that warmth suffused her from teeth to toes.

Wand or no, Hermione Granger was a witch.