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July Flash Fiction Prompt: She liked to fit people into the world like puzzle pieces
Hermione Granger was very aware of where she…fit.
She was a third of the poorly named Golden Trio. A muggleborn witch with more power and magical knowledge than a fistful of purebloods —and with the record-smashing NEWTs to prove it. She was a newly installed cog in the Beings and Beasts division. And as a Beta, she could look forward to a calm life with her date for the night, one Ronald Weasley. Also a placidly happy Beta.
Her gaze flittered over the sea of brightly dressed wizards and witches crowding the Atrium, the scent of wine and food and spiced-perfumes particularly thick and heady that night. But then it was the first anniversary of the end of the war against Voldemort. People wanted to celebrate. And if that meant a ream of yellowed silk that made her eyes water and a cocktail of perfumes and potions that burned her nostrils, Hermione wouldn't begrudge them a night of over indulgence.
She rolled her neck, rubbing at the dull ache of tight muscles.
"You all right, Mione?"
She stared up at a frowning Ron and fought the urge to pinch her nose closed. What had he bathed in? Had the twins swapped his cologne for something that cut pain over her sinuses?
"Fine, just…" She waved her hand and willed away a wince. Best not to say that he stank of rotting fish guts and vinegar. "A long day already."
His smile was bright in the golden light of too many candles. Something sharp. A prick of panic chased down her spine and the quick need to shrink back from him burned through her flesh.
He leant in and…and… What…?
"You smell delicious, Hermione."
She frowned. His blue eyes were blown black. "Ron, did you just sniff me?"
His smile was wicked and the sight of it stabbed a swift pain into her chest. Wrong. It was wrong for him to look at her that way…
"'Course. Why shouldn't I enjoy my lovely little Omega?"
Her brain hurtled to hard stop and she almost rocked on her heels. She wasn't… She wasn't like Harry. She wasn't caught in a thrall of heat and need, eager for his Alpha's knot. And Harry, he was already swelling with the Malfoy and Potter heir.
No, she was Beta. Staid and even. "I'm not…"
Ron rolled his eyes. "Too stuck in your books to notice." The condescension in his voice, and that fucking eye roll…she pulled her arm free of his and wrapped it around her waist. His gaze narrowed and the stink of him, that cuttingly sharp edge of vinegar and fish guts deepened.
He was…
An angry Alpha.
Fuck. Fuck.
How…how had she not noticed that Ron was Alpha like practically all of his family bar Percy, Bill and their dad?
"You're late to your heat, the war, the stress, the curses. It's put people back." Ron snorted and looked over the crowd, sure and straight and confident. "Me, you. Harry, he exploded at Yule. But there he his now, wrapped around Malfoy like Devil's Snare. I mean Malfoy." A look of disgust tightened his features before he looked back to her. "Sometimes fate fucks you over. But not us. I get you. Brightest witch with a brilliant future making me look good. When I breed you, get my knot in your sweet cunt—"
Hermione was gone.
Her stupidly expensive heels scattered over the tiled floor, her scarlet gown hiked above her knees and her bare feet eating up the ground. Out and away. Away from that stinking Alpha.
Wrong. He was wrong. Her thoughts spiralled, the riot of scents bursting over her brain, her skin on fire, and a hunger, wild and desperate, burning in her belly. One thread of a scent, the merest wisp of herbs and skin smashed her through the crowds of staring wizards and witches. A flash of light rocked her sideways and she stumbled. A hand grabbed her. Two. But she cried out and wrenched herself free.
Her Alpha. She needed to find her Alpha.
Gods, was this the…insanity that had driven Harry through the same corridors at Yule?
Everything had been set. Her life. Her future.
And now…nothing was right.
But her Alpha, her Alpha would—
"Mione!"
Ron's roar cut across her flesh and she whimpered. Not him. Never him.
Corridor after corridor flashed past in a blur of shining green tiles, her ragged breaths and the slap of her bare feet. And behind her, a heavier tread, the solid and relentless boots of a much taller Alpha, too eager to take her.
No…
The ache in her neck pulsed and a growl rolled through the air. Her heat. She was falling into her heat, there, in the shadowed corridors of the Ministry. The horror of it. With no nest, so perfect a place to prove to her Alpha that she was worthy, and the first of her slick dampening her hot thighs.
Panic burned under her rising need.
Alpha…
Hermione smashed into a solid wall and cried out as heavy hands wrapped around her bare arms. Her skin burned, the ache of her need sudden and thick in her flesh. The scent. The one she'd been chasing. There. All around her. She breathed it in, breathed him in. Hers. Her Alpha.
She mewled and some distant part of her brain screamed she should be mortified, but she wasn't. Her Alpha was there, with her, holding her…and strong arms wove around her, pressing her to a wall of muscle and the most perfect scent of herbs and skin and leather.
"Get your fucking hands off my Omega, Snape!"
Severus Snape.
Her Alpha was Severus Snape.
And some part of her curled tight in satisfaction that so powerful a wizard was hers.
His nose brushed her neck, skimming over the fierce ache that flowered under the slide of skin against skin. "Sweet Hermione. You're mine, aren't you?"
"Yes…yes, my Alpha."
The heated tip of his tongue teased over the swell of her pulsing Omega mark and her legs ran to water. She ached for his teeth, for his bite to break the skin and make her his—
A surge of magic arched around her, a protecting shield and a blast of dark and wicked magic was simply a warm breeze that flowed over her. The power of her mate —silent and wandless— protecting her, protecting them from the curses of an unwanted interloper…
Soft, male laughter sank deep into her belly. "The swirl of your thoughts even now, my sweet girl. "
Hermione willed her gaze up and dark, shining eyes fixed on her. "How did I not now?" The swift kick of pain closed her throat. She could've lost this wizard exactly a year before, dragged on to live nothing more than a half life without him. Her eyes stung.
"Sh-h, my lovely girl." His velvet voice wove around her and he eased an arm free to brush a thumb across her cheek. Her breath caught and the barest of smiles touched his lips. "I suppressed my status for years. It was…more expedient for others to see me as Beta."
Another waft of cursed warm air floated over her. And another.
Severus' mouth thinned and his gaze narrowed on the wizard behind her. "He is becoming…tiresome."
"He stinks like fish guts and vinegar."
Another smile twitched at his mouth and the…bliss of drawing that from such a taciturn man squeezed around her heart. Severus tugged at the knot of his cravat, a thread of magic easing it free and slipping through the constricting buttons. Exposing the pale column of his throat. "And me, my Omega?"
Hermione's mouth dried. Her pulse thudded hard, a wild drum in her flesh. Gods, he was giving her permission to scent him…
She clutched at the heavy wool of his frock coat and stretched up on her toes, pressing herself against the lean length of him. A trickle of a growl flushed fresh heat through her flesh and the sudden dampness between her thighs thickened that delicious rumble. She mashed her face into his neck before she rubbed herself all over him like a mad cat in heat…and whimpered.
"Hints of apple blossom and oak." She drew more of him in, filling her lungs with the wonderful scent of Severus Snape. "Eucalyptus and…and vellum, leather and that captivating aroma of old books… Perfect. Just…everything."
His mouth found the dizzying place where her shoulder met her throat, the draw of his teeth wiped away all other thought than him marking her, of him breaking the skin and making her his. In every way.
"Not here and not with him watching." The whisper scorched her damp skin and she almost whined at being denied, but he was right, her Alpha. A shadowy corridor was not the place for their claiming. He stilled. "And more are coming."
Severus straightened, impossibly tall and strong and just honest-to-Merlin…lovely. His mouth twitched again, no doubt picking her wild thoughts from the air. "Should I take you from his place, Miss Granger?"
"Yes, yes please, as soon as you like. Now would be excellent."
His smile widened and the shine of dark eyes mixed the warmth of affection with the heavy dose of lust roiling through her flesh.
"And what should I do with you when I…have you?"
Gods, he was teasing her, but there was no assumption, not like old fish-guts who was still ineffectually stabbing magic at Severus' shield. They were together, mated. But she knew, deep in her magic, that he would not use her, not lord it over her as her Alpha.
Her chin jerked up and a gleam of pleasure flitted across his face. "You would…you would taste every inch of me, Severus Snape. Then you would…fuck me." She stumbled over the word as her only experience was a few lacklustre kisses from her stinky former boyfriend. "Knot me." She took a calming breath as the need for him seared her flesh and the dampness of her, of her cunt leaked down her thighs. The ache in her belly was almost at the edge of pain. The next words escaped on barely a breath of air. "Breed me, Alpha…"
"Yes…"
It was another of his delicious growls and a hard heartbeat later, he swept his magic around her and they vanished, the blast's of Ron's magic splintering tiles and cracking lamps in their wake.
Hermione Snape knew exactly were she fit.
It was lying naked and exhausted in her mate, her husband's rather wonderful bed, the sweat cooling on her body, her skin stirred by the late spring breeze from the open windows and the ebbing away of her seven day heat.
"You have exhausted me, madam." Beside her in a sprawl of long limbs an equally naked Severus Snape ran his oh-so-clever fingers over the shine of his cock, the last swell of his knot easing under his touch. "Me and him."
Hermione huffed a laugh and snuggled into his sweat-damp chest, sighing as he drew her too him. Her heart squeezed as he dropped a kiss onto the bush that was her hair. The bite, his bite at the juncture of her shoulder and throat throbbed, a pleasant remember of the wild pleasure that had them locked and warded in his North Yorkshire cottage for a solid week.
"I'm sure you'll recover." She pressed her chin into the firm muscle of his chest and smirked up at him. "I intend to become…accustomed to such pleasure."
Severus snorted. "Wicked girl."
"Your wicked girl?"
He matched her smirk. "Obviously…"