Betört

Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Harry Potter; I do not earn money from this story.

A/N: A huge thank you to dynonugget, who beta-ed this story as a surprise for me *hugs*...all remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.

Betört

Hermione stared at the pretty turquoise sandals on her feet. Strappy, the heel not too high to be comfortable for longer walks. Sandals that she could easily see herself choosing in a shop.

When Blaise had told her that Malfoy and the principle healer wanted her to go home over the weekend to try to trigger her memory in a familiar environment, she could not help but blurt out:

"Go? With you?"

Blaise had looked hurt but had covered it quickly. Hermione's face had burned upon her rudeness.

In the end she had agreed to spend the weekend with that strange man that was her husband.

Walking to the dressing table, she looked at her dark jeans and the turquoise top. She looked nice. Rested. At home in her own body.

Only that she had to remind herself constantly that the woman in the mirror was indeed herself.

The door to her room was ever so slightly ajar, and she could hear hushed voices coming from the hall on the other side of it.

Carefully she crept closer, only to hear the last sentences of a conversation between Malfoy and Blaise.

"But I am supposed to... You know the situation, Draco!"

Blaise rubbed his face with both hands, obviously distraught.

"It has been taken care of!"

Blaise's eyes were sharp looking at his friend.

"Nobody knows that better than I, I will never forget that examination! It does not change the facts, though."

Draco Malfoy placed a reassuring hand on the other man's shoulder.

"There is no other choice. We cannot keep her under these potions forever. We cannot keep you under these potions forever. You will be alright. She will be alright." He gestured towards the door with his chin. "Now go get your wife and take her home."

Hermione scrambled to retreat to the dressing table, busying herself by applying some perfume. What had she just witnessed?

***

Her ... home was a beautiful cottage in the countryside, woods enveloping it from three sides, but the front side open to generous meadows and fields in the distance.

Blaise had Apparated with her to the outer wards, standing behind her, his hands lightly on her upper arms; he had kissed the top of her head.

"Welcome home."

A little later Hermione looked outside the lounge window, leaning against the burgundy curtains. The carpet was burgundy as well, while the walls were a warm tone of tarnished gold.

She wondered whether it had been her to choose the colour scheme or whether they had hired a decorator. Sure, she was loyal to Gryffindor house, but the lengths to which some students went even after they had long graduated had always struck her as being a bit extreme. She had always envisioned her home to be more, well, neutral.

Nevertheless it was a cosy house. There were framed pictures of Blaise and her on the mantle over the fire place, one of their wedding and one of Harry, Ron and her from 5th year, both boys kissing her cheeks.

A picture of her with her parents, standing on platform 9 ¾ looking oblivious to the fact that they were being photographed, stood to the side.

When she had asked about her parents, Blaise had looked very sad.

"I am so sorry, Hermione. There was an automobile accident..."

He had trailed off, and before she could stop herself, she had blurted out:

"In Australia?"

Blaise had looked momentarily confused.

"Yes. Yes, in Australia."

And that had been that. Blaise refused to speak too much about their personal history, hoping it would come back on its own, rather than believing that she remembered simply by being told over and over again.

She had trailed through the house, wandering from one room through the next, burgundy and gold being the prevalent colours. She had frowned upon the kitchen. She had always wanted a blue and white country kitchen, with copper cake moulds on the walls.

When she asked Blaise about the way the house was decorated, he had shrugged and stated that she had decided that burgundy and gold was a good colour scheme and maintaining it throughout the house would give them the opportunity to change furniture and accessories from one room to the next without having to redecorate. There were only two rooms that made an exception to that rule.

One was his study, where green and silver dominated. More house colours, but here it did not seem so out of place; many Slytherins maintained their house loyalty proudly all their lives.

The other room was next to the master bedroom, and Blaise stood next to her when he opened the door. Sunny yellow greeted her cheerfully. Blaise's hand touched hers tentatively.

"We are... we were trying for a baby."

Hermione gasped and went inside the happy room. Teddy bears tumbled in clumsy somersaults over the embroidered edge of the tiny duvet and the matching curtains. White-washed furniture and white and yellow checked linen made it look so carefree and suitable for a child that she wanted to cry. Cry for that woman, who desperately wanted a baby.

She looked at Blaise with wide eyes.

"How long have we been trying?"

"A little over six months. We wanted to be settled before we start a family."

All she could do was nod in acceptance. Visiting this house was like playing dress up with her mother's clothes when she was a little girl. It did not fit her.

***

Slipping into the silky nightgown that she had found in one of her drawers, Hermione looked anxiously towards the large bed.

"Would you like me to sleep in one of the guest rooms?"

Turning around slowly, she made a decision. This was her life now, irrevocably. She had to get used to it and look to the future, not the past.

"No," she said, her voice not quite obeying her will. Clearing her throat she spoke again. "No, that won't be necessary. I will not deprive you of your own room."

He looked at her for a moment before he turned to the bed and slid under the covers. Only when she had lifted the duvet at the other side of the bed and had climbed in, he extinguished the lights with a wave of his hand.

Darkness descended upon the room like a thick blanket. It seemed to block out any outside sound that would have been expected in the countryside. Yet, there were no crickets, no owls hooting, no rustling of small nocturnal animals in the undergrowth of the near forest.

Suddenly afraid, she lay very still and forced herself to take shallow, slow breaths, but the urge to breathe in deeply and fill her lungs was becoming overwhelmingly intense.

Finally she could no longer hold out and drew a shuddering breath.

The mattress moved as Blaise rolled to the side and propped his upper body up on his elbow. A shadowy figure looming above her, he touched her cheek with his fingertips.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes. Fine," she hurried to reassure him.

Very slowly, the shadow leaned down towards her and she could feel his lips brush lightly over her cheekbone, not far from the corner of her eye.

"I missed you so much," he said, before trailing a line of butterfly-light kisses down the side of her face, following the line of her jaw and finally finding her lips.

After he had pressed his mouth softly to hers several times, she realised that he waited for her to respond, to give him permission to continue.

This is it, she thought, and opened her mouth.

The toothpaste that he had used just minutes before going to bed had a fresh, minty flavour.

She had shared a frightening kiss with Victor, during which she found out that while she might have been mature beyond her years intellectually, he had been too ... grown up ... for her in another sense. Then there were the few times Ron and she had tried to give each other comfort when they thought that Harry was not looking or already sleeping. They had been urgent, wet, experimental kisses.

This was different. Blaise clearly knew what he was doing and sufficiently distracted her with gentle strokes of his tongue while he slid her nightgown up to her hips, slipped his hand underneath and started caressing her belly, slowly gliding upwards towards her breasts.

He spoke against her lips, and it did not even occur to her not to comply.

"Lift your arms."

The satin nightgown slid over her head easily, and when he hooked his fingers under the waistband of her knickers, she had not to be told to lift her hips.

When his fingers stole between her legs and touched her for the first time, she flinched. Chiding herself in her mind, she opened her thighs just a little bit further and bent her legs at the knee, remembering how she was at the most relaxed when pleasuring herself.

Blaise kept kissing her while his fingers drew rhythmic circles around her swelling clit.

How strange, she thought. They must have done this countless times, but after all those years, he had never found out,...or maybe she had never told him?...that she liked a simple back and forth movement much better than circles.

She wondered whether she should reciprocate and how she would manage that feat, so she simply placed her hands, flat against his bare chest and concentrated on that one long finger that was now slipping inside of her effortlessly.

After a while he sat back, a dark figure in a dark room, kneeling between her knees.

Fingers splayed wide over her abdomen, he reached for his wand on his bedside cabinet and pointed it directly above the dark tuft of curls.

"Just until you are fully recovered."

The contraceptive spell left a slight tingling in its wake that was followed by a small kiss next to her belly button.

"So beautiful."

He leaned over her, taking one of her hard nipples into his mouth, suckling gently.

While he was still attending to her breast, she felt him settle between her spread legs and stilled.

This is not your first time, this is not your first time, she chanted over and over in her head. She could feel him, knew exactly what it was, that was hard and large and putting pressure on very, very delicate skin.

It felt awkward not to do anything with her hands and she fidgeted around until he firmly took first one wrist and placed it over her head, then the other.

"Relax," he breathed into her ear and latched onto the other nipple, leaving the one he had ministered to, wet and a bit cold in the air of the bedroom.

Sucking harder, he distracted her and she nearly missed the uncomfortable pressure when he sank into her slowly.

He stayed very still, waiting for her to protest. Hermione stared up to the dark ceiling.

He was her husband.

It was alright.

It had to be alright.

They had been trying for a baby.

She was a big girl now.

Just when she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck, close her eyes and urge him on to move, to show her, because she didn't remember, he did it.

He licked her from the tip of her breast to her clavicle.

Hermione froze.

She wanted to fight, push Blaise off her and hide in the folds of the duvet.

She hated her skin being licked.

After the Yule Ball, Victor had pushed her against the wall near the Astronomy Tower. He had cradled the back of her head with his hand and kissed her. At first the kiss had been exciting. She was being kissed!

Then his hand had started bunching up her gown and his legs had pressed against hers, pushing them apart, and then she had felt something else against her stomach, pushing insistently.

He had licked her then. Had drawn his tongue over her throat, up the side of her face to her ear.

"You will be mine," he had growled into her ear and she realised how tall he was, how strong and how far away they were from the other students and the teachers.

She had pushed her hands against him with all her might but it had been to no avail.

The icy voice of professor Snape had finally torn Victor from her. Snape had sent them to their common rooms, separately, and had deducted house points for 'inappropriate behaviour'.

Hermione had fled in the direction of Gryffindor Tower as fast as her feet would carry her with dignity, thankful that Slytherin house, where the students from Durmstrang were staying, was at the opposite end of the castle. When she had her back turned to Victor passing professor Snape, she had smiled at him brilliantly and mouthed a silent 'Thank you, professor'.

His eyebrows had shot up in surprise but otherwise he did not show a reaction to her admission that she had been in need of help, nor did he ever mention it again.

When the hunt for Horcruxes had become a desperate, meaningless struggle, changing their position without any sense of direction and nowhere to turn to for advice, Ron had tried to lick her ear once.

She had fought like a wildcat, kicking, scratching, pushing a shocked Ron from her bunk.

Why, why did Blaise not know? Or had she overcome her revulsion with time?

She whimpered and Blaise took it as a signal to slowly begin moving. Unable to stir in the slightest, locked into her fears, Hermione stared up to the shadow that was Blaise. He moved over a spot inside of her that sent sparks through her lower body.

It was not ... horrible.

Very self-conscious, she realised that she had yet to move. She had overheard numerous discussions at Hogwarts and in the Muggle world about girls that just lay there. The metaphors had not been pretty.

Lumber.

Sack of potatoes.

Was she like that? Or had she simply forgotten? There was no instinctive response indicating that her body had done this before, and for the first time, Hermione was deeply afraid that her memory was lost forever, that the magical energy she had been subjected to had stripped her of a huge part of her life and that she might not be able to find her way back into it. Her analytical mind was spinning. A person's character was heavily influenced by experiences. What if she could not fall in love with her husband all over again? What if their life together stayed an awkward, forced cohabitation? What if they just could not get used to each other?

Blaise suddenly moved to sit back on his knees, miraculously never losing contact with her. One of his hands held her hip steady, the other came to the apex of her thighs. He was stroking her in the most delicious way, this time not wasting precious moments on silly circles.

Her legs had a life of their own, locking around his hips, pulling him deeper, her hands clawing at his wrist, urging him on unashamedly. Rocking into him, grinding against his hips, his hand, anything that she could reach, she arched her back and waves of pleasure cursed through her, washing away any coherent thought or worry about the future.

***

A/N:

Betört is German for bewitched or infatuated.