A Bright Cold Day In April by Amanuensis

Despoiling Harry

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The characters and the situations within these fanfiction stories are not my property. They are the property of J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, and others, and are used without permission; challenge to copyright is not intended and should not be construed. No profit is being made from the use of these characters and situations; these written-down imaginings are only presented in an internet forum for the interest of and consumption by the like-minded individuals who enjoy them and recognize them as unauthorized fanfiction only, and are not in any way meant to be confused with the originals NOR presented as authorized materials of these owners.

A Bright Cold Day in April
by Amanuensis

Pairing: Hermione/Ginny
Category: Drama/Angst, Kink
Summary: It's a bad time to be in love.
A/N: Warnings: Unbalanced relationship (potential D/s vs. potential abuse), non-con, girlbits.
Author's Notes: Written for the 2006 Merry Smutmas fic exchange for ginny___weasley --among your requests, you said, " I like darkfic. Non-con, D/s, BDSM, being forced on display, sex as torture or punishment, forced sex to avoid something bad happening to someone the victim cares about, victim fighting aggressor and only making matters worse for themselves, corsets, dirty talk, anything that isn't listed in my squicks. Twisted morality...In Ginny/Hermione, I like dominant Ginny, and evil!Ginny is a plus...Other kinks include spanking, enslavement, sexual humilation, gags, and tickling." I hope what's here works for you! Also, how much do I adore that your request included: "I don't really like consensual. It just sits wrong with me. So please none of that,"? I grinned like a mad fool.

Hermione remembers the precise moment she fell in love with Ginny Weasley.

Ginny Weasley's wrist, at first. And of course she'd have called it a crush, if nothing had ever come of it.

She'd been sixteen, and Ginny even younger than that. She'd been a bit dizzy, still, over the attention Viktor had been paying her, even in letters, and this was back in the days when Ron could infuriate her with every other word, and she knew why even if he remained as uselessly brainless as every other fifteen-year-old-boy.

Including Harry, because he'd been moping about the way Cho had reacted on their date, eyes growing bigger and bigger with incredulity but nothing like understanding as Hermione tried to help him see what Cho had been getting at, at the moment Ginny Weasley came in and sat at the table across from her. Ginny'd been filthy from Quidditch practice and still in her gear, and though she'd looked as unhappy as either Ron or Harry that night, she didn't act as though she needed any of the coddling or ego-boosting the two boys always seemed to. She'd pulled off one of her arm guards and reached for the tray of rolls two places over in a careless sprawl.

Just that. Just the sight of Ginny's wrist, emerging a little further from her red jumper sleeve as she stretched for the roll. That little bone at the side that stayed fixed as her fingers spread to grab her prize, the gold-red dusting of hairs along her arm in the light.

The rest of the evening? A blur. But, oh, she remembers that moment.

She dates it back to then, even though she thought she'd fairly well squelched the feelings, shrugged them aside as schoolgirl infatuation. Ginny on the other hand isn't quite so specific as to a moment. Ginny tells Hermione she'd always looked up to her. "And I always thought you were beautiful," she says. "Your eyebrows. Promise me you'll never thin them, won't you?" And Hermione tries to keep from self-consciously touching her eyebrows, and starts to stammer through a promise, whereupon Ginny takes her face in her hands, and kisses both those eyebrows, and then, slowly, her mouth, and at that moment Hermione'd promise her anything.

That's a lot of the way things are between them: Hermione ready to do anything Ginny asks. It's not that it scares her, but that she thinks it should.

Maybe she fell for Ginny first but it doesn't matter. It would have remained just that silly schoolgirl crush if Ginny hadn't said what she had.

That hideous day, more than a year later, when they put Dumbledore into his tomb. It had been as if there'd been Dementors all 'round them; she'd felt as if she could never be happy again. And the prospect of Harry's life and of hers, and Ron's, all reduced to a joyless crusade that was very like to get them killed.

And on the moving Hogwarts Express, when Hermione was making her way back to the other compartments because, to hell with the prefect's car, she needed to see if Harry was all right, there was Ginny coming up the corridor to her. "I've had it," said Ginny.

Hermione was thinking that that was a good candidate for understatement of the day, but said, "What?"

"I've had it with blokes." Half her mouth pulled up into a not-smile. "He's breaking up with me because I'm a distraction."

Oh. That had to have been what she and Harry had been talking about, there after the funeral. "He said that?" Hermione asked, wishing she could refuse to believe it of Harry.

"Not just like that." Ginny leaned against the side of the nearest compartment to steady herself. "He's says he's afraid of what might happen if You-Know-Who tried to...you know."

She did. She felt a little relief that at least Harry hadn't been completely tactless.

"He says he's got to do things alone now." Ginny snorted humorlessly. "I've just been...someone for him to kiss, to keep on his arm and be his girl. I'm never going to measure up beyond that. You think I'd have known that."

"Oh, Ginny." It was inadequate, foolish. "I'm sorry." Because she couldn't deny it, could she? Harry hadn't put up more than token resistance when she and Ron had insisted they were with him 'til the end.

She wondered if Ginny had given more than token resistance back.

"But I did know it," Ginny said, not looking at her. "I did. I just didn't care, because for a little while it was enough. Not anymore." She straightened. "Not for him and definitely not for me. I've had it with boys. Giving up on them altogether." Her smile was bright even if it didn't reach her eyes. "What do you say, Hermione, you with me?"

It came back. All of it. She couldn't blame Ginny's wrists this time; Ginny had her arms folded tight and she couldn't even see them. Had it been anyone else, she'd have said, "There're still good ones out there," or, "You're right, they're all idiots," or perhaps even laughed and added, "Sounds good to me."

What she said was quiet, and there was a bit of a choke in her voice: "Don't say that unless you mean it."

Ginny had heard it. Perhaps she'd heard the choke. Perhaps she'd seen the way Hermione couldn't even smile.

She unfolded her arms, reached out and took one of Hermione's hands in her own lovely fingers. Held it.

"I'm sorry," she said, her eyes on Hermione's. "I didn't know I shouldn't tease."

Too many negatives. Hermione was trying to form an answer, when Ginny went on: "I never would have. Not with you.--Tease, I mean. God, I hope you know that's what I meant. That I wouldn't tease you. Not that I wouldn't--"

And because both of them could sense the breakdown of words--both of them, yes, that was why it was easier talking to another girl--Ginny stopped talking. Her eyes on Hermione's, she reached up with one hand and set it on the side of Hermione's face.

No, she hadn't felt this. Not since that day and Ginny's wrist. Viktor's attentions had been... sweet, warming; Ron's mix of protectiveness and jealousy had always left an ache in the center of her chest that she'd thought she could name. None of those were this liquid rush, this feeling that shot from her legs all the way to her breasts. From a touch. From another girl.

If Ginny hadn't kissed her then, she didn't know if she could have done it herself--kissed Ginny Weasley, there in the corridor of the moving train, knowing anyone might see them any moment. But Ginny had been the one who'd kissed her, did that and more: kissed her on the mouth, took the hand that had been holding hers and instead set it on her waist. Closed her eyes when she kissed.

And Hermione had been the one to tangle her fingers into Ginny's hair, finding she could dare, after all.

When the kiss broke, Ginny's hand was on the door of the nearest train compartment. It was empty--so many students had left Hogwarts already--and Ginny had pushed it open, pulling Hermione in by both hand and waist. Hermione didn't have to say wait, didn't have to ask what she intended. Ginny pushed her into the seat, sat next to her, took Hermione's face in both of her hands.

"This is okay?" she breathed.

Hermione heard what was in it: Ginny was asking permission and was not going to ask again once she said yes. And she said yes, feeling as if something were pulling her in, something that seized her control and ripped it away in one glorious thrill.

Hermione doesn't remember all the details after that--all the kissing and the touching and just how far they went that first day. She remembers that she wanted more, and still more, and she's never going to forget the moment Ginny's mouth was on her neck and she murmured, "God, your heart..." and didn't continue the sentence, and didn't need to, because they could both feel how fast Hermione's pulse was racing, had been from moment Ginny had taken her hand.

Hermione does remember that she said, some time later, "I didn't think anything could make this day better."

And Ginny said only, "Me neither," and smiled the first genuine smile Hermione'd seen all day, and it was even a little wicked.

Hermione had imagined love was the meeting of two hearts and two minds, with physical closeness something that naturally grew from those deeper bonds. She'd never expected that she'd plummet into a relationship that began with a raw obsessive inner voice that begged Kiss me, and then Touch me, that too, there, and there, and oh God, yes, there. Yes, of course, she tells herself, she cares about Ginny as a person; Ginny is fun, she is clever and confident and makes Hermione feel all of these things herself, but above all she is the skin and hair and smell and body that is Ginny, which seems to make the rest of the world go blurry when Hermione's anywhere near her, whenever she looks back at Hermione, whenever she gives Hermione one of those looks or whispers one of those shameless demands of hers.

Harry understands, when he learns Hermione and Ginny are a couple. He's not happy--as if he could be happy, these days--but it's as if he can bear losing Ginny to her better than he could have to anyone else. She also suspects he gets a little ego-soothing from the idea that he's ruined Ginny for other boys, which is more than a little silly, but if it comforts him, fine.

Ron thinks he understands but he doesn't. Ron, she can tell, thinks it's some girl-bonding thing, an extension of friendship that comes easier to girls than it ever could to boys. A sort of stopgap while Hermione waits to rediscover her feelings for him. He wouldn't get it even if she spelled it out for him, and it would be hurtful, so she's not going to do that any time soon. And neither is Ginny.

They haven't quite told their parents, though it should be obvious if they'd only see. If they had told them plainly, perhaps Mrs. Weasley wouldn't be so quick to have "the girls" room together as they always have, though, so for the moment they let it stand, play at discretion.

Play is the right word for it, because Ginny doesn't seem to care much about discretion, is barely keeping to the lines of it. Hermione thinks she's looking forward to being caught by the adults, having it out in the open. Maybe even shocking them.

They could shock them. A lot.

They can't just retreat to their bedroom at every hour of the day; it would look odd. So they find excuses: a trip to the broomshed outside, something to fetch from the pantry. Sometimes they're nothing approaching discreet; Hermione goes into the bathroom, and Ginny follows her in a minute later. Ginny doesn't wait but pushes Hermione against the wall, has her blouse untucked from her skirt in one motion as she kisses Hermione's open mouth. Her fingers tangle in the fabric under Hermione's skirt: "Get them down," she whispers, hand hooked in the elastic of her knickers. "Get everything off. Do it."

"Someone might..." Hermione whispers back. It's a protest she knows she'll lose.

"Everything," Ginny says, fierce, already dragging Hermione's knickers down to her knees. She stops there and backs away one step, arms folded, mouth set in the way that makes Hermione weak to see it. Hermione begins to obey, pushing her knickers down the rest of the way, unbuttoning her blouse and shrugging out of it--careful not to let the arms turn inside out so that she can get back into it hastily. She's wetting her lips with her tongue as she unhooks her bra and slides out of that, and she lets her fingers linger at the waistband of her skirt because she wants to hear Ginny say it.

"I want you naked. All the way," Ginny threatens, and Hermione hastens to get the skirt off, even pushing her shoes and stockings off because Ginny will demand those as well if she tries to hold out.

When she's completely naked, vulnerable as she can be, especially as Ginny hasn't taken off even one piece of clothing, that's when Ginny leans in, murmuring, "So gorgeous," and cups Hermione's breasts in her hands, head bending to them, mouth going over one nipple with a moan. Hermione echoes it. Ginny mouths her, then teases her with a few licks, then begins to suck in earnest until Hermione catches her own groan deep in her throat, trying to keep quiet, and has to put her hands on Ginny's shoulders to push her away. Ginny transfers her attentions to Hermione's other breast, keeps at it until the ache reaches Hermione's groin and she has to squirm away from Ginny's mouth and hands both, gasping.

That's when Ginny pulls her own shirt over her head--Hermione notes that she never cares if it gets turned inside out--seizes Hermione by the hips, and seats her on the edge of the bath, going to her knees in front of her. "Open," she says, and Hermione whimpers as she does, spreading her knees for Ginny. "Wider," Ginny demands, and Hermione's even wetter than she was a second ago, as Ginny gives her thighs a shove, and even a light smack. "God, you smell so good--you're wet for me, aren't you?" she says. Hermione knows she says it to arouse her further, even as Ginny's fingers are dipping into her cleft. "Of course you are. So wet." She brings her fingers back to her mouth and licks them, her eyes on Hermione's as she does. "Mmm."

"Let me do you," Hermione begs. She wants to. When Ginny looks at her like that, her need to tongue Ginny until she wails overwhelms her own longing to be brought off.

"Soon. My turn first." Ginny presses her face between Hermione's legs and laps her, from the base of her cunt--Ginny uses that word and so can she, then--all the way up to her clit (that, too) so that she gives a stuttering little cry and nearly loses her seating, nearly closes her legs. Ginny steadies her, hands on her thighs. "Wider," she says again, between licks. "For me, darling. Wider." And Hermione does, spreading herself open as she grips the edge of the bath with her hands, wanting to do it for her, for her lovely Ginny, who knows what to say to make her ever more aroused, to command her and direct her and make her, yes, God, yes.

Even as she licks her, Ginny teases her further by unhooking and discarding her bra, sliding out of her own knickers. Hermione can see the flash of red pubic hair as she does and she can actually feel her mouth water, wanting to get at it. Ginny's tongue holds her transfixed, though, rubbing over her clit even as her hands cup Hermione's buttocks, pulling her ever more deeply against her mouth, licking and then sucking just as she did with Hermione's nipples. Hermione pushes back against her, fingers gripping until they're nearly numb on the edge of the bath, loosening one hand at last to slide it through Ginny's gorgeous hair, holding her there as Ginny takes the cue to suck harder, faster, until Hermione's soft, "Ah, ah, ah," breaks from her throat and she does bring her thighs together after all, curling herself around Ginny's head as the waves break over her in crashing delicious tremors. "Ohhhhh," she breathes into Ginny's hair.

Ginny's head comes up after a moment, nudges Hermione's head up so that she can kiss her on the mouth, Hermione lapping her own taste from Ginny's mouth eagerly. She pulls Hermione forward, Hermione rubbing at her own buttocks with one hand as the numb spot the bath's edge made there gets some feeling back.

"No, you don't. That's mine too," says Ginny, with a playful bit of laughter in her ear, pushing Hermione's hand away and rubbing at her there herself. "Do you want a spanking? Is that it?"

Hermione 's throat goes dry again. "Someone might hear," she says again, knowing exactly what Ginny will say.

"Then you'll have to be very quiet and not cry out, won't you?" She continues to rub Hermione's buttocks, as if in preparation, as Hermione whimpers against her shoulder. She thinks she could come again just from the anticipation, knowing discovery is a very real danger if Ginny decides to. "Tonight, " Ginny decides. "In our room. I'll give you a good spanking, and it'll be longer because you tried to talk me out of it now. And you will be quiet, won't you? And I'll watch your face as you cry and try not to make any noise. Yes, I will," she says, fierce again, as she ceases stroking Hermione and instead grips her around the waist, gasping herself as she hugs her close, burying her face between Hermione's breasts.

Hermione waits a moment, then gently pushes Ginny back--gently is all it takes now. She sinks to the floor with Ginny, has Ginny lie on her back, knees bent so that she can sit between them--the bathroom is only so large, and this has them stretched into all the space between the bath and the door.

Flipping up Ginny's skirt, she bends her head and buries her face against the pubic thatch, rubbing her cheeks and nose against that silky pelt, breathing her in. Only when she's had enough--for the moment, at least; she'll never get enough of that--does she attack Ginny's cunt with her own tongue, lapping at her in long hungry licks, feeling Ginny squirm, looking up to see her pressing her own palm against her mouth to quiet her groans, eyes shut as her hips rise over and over into Hermione's mouth. Hermione spreads the lips of her cunt open with her hands, feels Ginny stiffen, hears her stifle a squeal. Faster she licks, back and forth between sucking and licking until Ginny's legs straighten, curl again, one heel hitting the bathroom floor hard as she exhales in a rush, and Hermione hangs on, licking to get every drop of her, every taste of that slickness that she can as Ginny pants, bonelessly riding out the aftereffects of her own orgasm.

They're quick as they dress, yet they kiss and touch over and over as they do so, Hermione bending to plant a quick kiss on Ginny's nipple and Ginny on Hermione's navel (which makes her giggle). They latch onto each other's mouths when they're finally dressed and ready to leave the bathroom, allow a few soft moans to resonate between them, then at last part and check each other for buttons out of place and the like. The flushes on their faces they don't bother to do anything about, not even with magic.

They leave the bathroom separately, knowing that if even one person's waiting outside such caution won't matter at all. Even if it were only Harry or Ron, they'd still have to deal with the look on that one's face, imagine what he'd be imagining.

Some things just have to be risked.

The days spent in research at 12 Grimmauld Place provide even more opportunity. One volunteers a run to the attic to search for an old newspaper or to clear out another trunk to look for clues; soon the other mentions the first's absence, says she'll go up and help.

Hermione likes being this brazen on the grounds of the old Black family residence. Mudbloods and blood-traitors, defiling every corner with their unnatural cavorting. Mrs. Black would have had a stroke. Sirius, she likes to think, would have cackled and told them to have at it, and to be sure they didn't miss any rooms.

The attic yields, if not comfortable surfaces, more than a little entertainment in its trunks and discarded furniture drawers. Ginny finds an oddly-shaped device she swears had to have been used for punishing house-elves, and what that likely says about house-elf reproduction is enough to set them both into fits of giggles, awful as it is. Among the collections of old clothing they find a ladies' corset, and Ginny laces Hermione into it, pulling the frayed yellowing laces so tight that they break. It's probably just as well; Hermione remembers the story of Snow White, and thinks they're taking a bit of a chance with anything, even an item of clothing, that they find in this cursed old house.

And at least the attic is roomy. Here they can take a bit of time to lie entwined, fondling and biting at each other to make each other moan. Hermione likes to push her face between Ginny's breasts and go back and forth between them with her mouth; Ginny likes to put Hermione on her hands and knees and probe into her cunt with one finger. Hermione's never had anything up there besides that careful finger, and Ginny's agreed not to go beyond that for now if she doesn't want. Ginny herself says, cheekily, she's never had anyone inside her, but says it's quite nice all the same, whenever Hermione cares to find out.

Ginny is younger than she and yet Ginny dares so much. It's Ginny who tells Hermione not to wear knickers under her skirt when they go down for dinner, makes sure they're sitting next to each other, so that Ginny can reach beneath the table every so often (there isn't even a tablecloth) and get her hand beneath Hermione's skirt, finger her lightly until Hermione's thighs are trembling and the back of her skirt growing wet. The one time Hermione does this to Ginny, Ginny closes her thighs and captures Hermione's hand between them, so that she can't pull away without obvious effort, and has to keep on stroking Ginny until she lets her go. She returns her damp hand to the tabletop, tries to keep eating dinner, wishing she had the nerve to lick her fingers. Ginny would. Ginny has, as if it's nothing more than butter on her thumb, no one the wiser.

Nights, in the bedroom they share, Ginny holds nothing back at all, and Hermione can't resist her and doesn't try. They tease each other a little every night, going to bed in their own separate beds, waiting until the lights in the hallway go down and the sounds of night activity in the house quiet. Then it's only a question of which one will throw off her bedclothes and slither out of her nightdress first.

Ginny says they spend enough time hiding, so a half-strength Lumos does away with any modesty the darkness could offer. Modesty seems an affront to Ginny, who makes Hermione sit up as she plays with her, so that she can look into Hermione's cunt or at her face as she chooses. Modesty is not even in their same universe when Ginny puts Hermione over her lap and gives her the promised spanking, Hermione biting back her squeals as her arse grows hotter and hotter, until she is forced to squirm away, rubbing her buttocks as Ginny laughs quietly, telling her--happily--how sluttish she looks doing that. And there's no modesty and there isn't even any caution, when Ginny ties Hermione's hands above her head with her discarded nightgown, straddles her on the bed and slides the reverse end of her wand inside her own cunt, and works Hermione's clit with the tip of it with each shift of her hips. Hermione would gasp and tell Ginny that's too risky a game to play with a wand, but she's too busy coming in bright painful shudders.

There was, it turns out, one wise lesson in Harry's graceless parting from Ginny: it's a bad time to be in love. Being in love messes with priorities. It's not that Hermione is heedless--they don't fall into a trap, go rushing into some half-thought plan, or anything that could have been avoided; they're kidnapped, taken at the same time Harry is taken. But she's in love, and she forgets to think.

She doesn't know where Harry is, or Ron. She doesn't know if they're alive. If Voldemort's learned of the prophecy, Harry isn't simply around here in another of these cells. He's already a corpse. Which means Voldemort will have no use for any of them, then.

That's the thought that makes her careless. She and Ginny have been put in one cell together, and she's so grateful--Ginny's so grateful--to know that the other's alive and unharmed for the moment, both of them cling together, whisper their fears into each other's hair, kiss each other's tear-wet faces when the strain overwhelms them.

She's forgotten that one doesn't give the enemy more insight into one's weaknesses.

It's the Lestrange woman who comes to take advantage of their mistake. Hermione finds Bellatrix more frightening than Voldemort himself, with her mad laughter, her baby talk. Voldemort wields Unforgivables because they're efficient; Bellatrix because they're fun.

"The Dark Lord's little girlfriend," Bellatrix mocks at Ginny, lips peeled back from her teeth as if she wants to eat her. "Such a fall from grace, to be putting your mouth on Mudblood filth."

"Your Dark Lord's blood's got the same filth running through it, if you'd missed that." They've no other weapon but words. "What part of him are you putting your mouth on?"

Laughter from the woman, not rage. "Oh, you want to entertain me, do you, pretty Mudblood. Let's see what we can do with that."

They're forced out of the cell at wandpoint and into a larger room; during this, another woman comes to join Bellatrix. She calls her Bella and Hermione recognizes Draco Malfoy's mother.

"Stay, Cissy," wheedles Bellatrix. "We're just getting started."

Narcissa doesn't appear happy, but stays, lingering by the side of the door with more the attitude of a sentinel than an observer.

The room. If the Death Eaters have the Cruciatus at their disposal to break their victims, what need have they of a room like this? There are tables and there are chains and surfaces with horrible-looking spikes, but she sees nothing loose she could pick up as a weapon.

"Go on, little one." Bellatrix's wand is pointed at Ginny. "Let me see you kiss her again."

She can see Ginny's hands ball into fists as if aching for her own wand. Ginny holds her ground.

The sleeve falls back from Bellatrix's bony elbow as her arm whips about. "Imperio." It's an awful white glow that blots out Ginny's face in the moment it catches her, Ginny's arms and hair flying back even as she's rooted to the spot. Hermione's mouth forms the word No but she can't even tell if she says it aloud. And she falls back, knowing the same thing's about to be done to her, and she's got nowhere to hide.

Bellatrix's wand and arm are a straight line aimed at her. "No, pretty Mudblood," she sniggers. "Just her."

"Ginny, don't--" she starts to say.

"She's not going to listen to you," snarls Bellatrix. "Don't try to be clever. I said--"from the way her voice rises it can't be mistaken that she's talking to Ginny--"to kiss her again."

Ginny takes a step towards her, and the hideous thing--what Hermione will remember later--is that her eyes aren't blank, aren't hollow staring things. They're Ginny's eyes. They're not eager or lecherous, no, but they're pliant and soft and Ginny's brain is still behind them. Hermione will remember how that was one of the most terrible moments of all.

Ginny takes Hermione in her arms and kisses her, kisses her on the mouth and opens her mouth with her tongue, enveloping her lips with her own with an audible wet sound that under other circumstances has always made Hermione sigh to hear it. Now it stiffens her spine like nails on a chalkboard.

Bellatrix almost screams with delight. "Oh, they are the little pair of sluts, aren't they? This will be lovely, Cissy, won't it. Girl," she says as if it were Ginny's name, "put her on that table and put those chains on her wrists. And you," she says as if Hermione too were under the Imperius--"let her. Or the next curse will be a different Unforgivable, and I won't care which one of you it hits."

Ginny takes Hermione's hands in hers and pulls her, as if she were leading her to a seat next to hers in the Great Hall. Hermione can't even dig in her heels on the stone floor, can't break away from Ginny, can't hit her, can't even bear to look at her trusting eyes. She looks instead towards Narcissa Malfoy. You have a son my age, she wants to beg.

"Oh, Bella," sighs Narcissa, and it's not the voice of a mother but that of a put-out younger sister. "Just be careful, all right?"

And then the table is under Hermione's back, and icy iron is clamping around her wrists, and it's much much too late.

"Come here," says Bellatrix to Ginny when she's done. Ginny goes to her, and Bellatrix is smiling as she combs Ginny's hair back from her face with her fingers, pats her cheek. Then she turns her around bodily with her hands on Ginny's shoulders, so that both of them--all the women in the room--are looking at Hermione. Her mouth is near Ginny's ear but she speaks loudly enough for everyone to hear. "I want you to have your little girlfriend," she enunciates. "Do everything to her that you've always wanted. Everything."

Ginny is walking back to her, and Hermione thinking But we already do that, but Ginny's eyes still look like that and the terror in her chest won't leave her.

She finds out why. She finds out why she's wrong.

Ginny's on her, kissing her, her hands opening--tearing at--Hermione's shirt, and Hermione begins to understand why she's wrong when the kissing turns into biting, and the biting continues all the way down to Hermione's exposed breasts. Bites that hang on and bite deeper and don't let up. That latch onto the very tip of her nipples and worry at them harder and harder and harder until Hermione screams, until she's in tears and wailing Ginny's name and Bellatrix is imitating the sound of her pleas between her obscene laughter.

Hermione understands why when Ginny tears off the remainder of Hermione's clothing and strips out of her own too, climbs back onto the table with her and pushes Hermione's knees up to her chest, exposing her cunt to Ginny and everyone else in the room. When Ginny curls all four fingers of her right hand together and shoves them inside her, Hermione's cries dissolving into whimpers as Ginny settles between her legs, kissing and biting at her mouth as she continues to rape Hermione's cunt with her fingers, hard thrusts into her cunt that try to push past the knuckles, drive her whole fist inside.

And she's deep into understanding how wrong she's been when Ginny pulls her blood-smeared hand away at last, crawls up Hermione's body and doesn't even wait for her gasping to stop before she plants her cunt over Hermione's open mouth and shifts her weight to rest entirely on her tear-streaked face, Hermione's nose crushed into her pubic mound and unable to draw even the littlest bit of air. Hermione thrashes, her throat bulges and she grunts the most appalling sounds against Ginny's cunt until at last Ginny shifts her weight again--but only long enough for Hermione to suck in a margin of breath; Ginny's pushing her weight harder and harder against Hermione's face and Hermione recognizes that her tongue is about the only part of her that can still move against her weight, and she frantically licks at Ginny and is rewarded once more by a moment where she can breathe. Only that moment. She licks and licks as fast, as well, as she can, Ginny's generosity for her efforts keeping her just this edge of blacking out. If she could keep from fighting for air--if she could will herself to refuse, she would black out, and maybe they'd stop. Or maybe they wouldn't notice until it was too late. Hermione keeps licking.

She feels fingers on her own clit; Ginny is reaching behind her, and is playing with Hermione's cunt now, does it until she--Ginny--comes, grinding hard against Hermione's jaws and sighing as sweetly as she always does, as if it were just the two of them in their bedroom. She still can't tell the difference in Ginny's eyes, either, as Ginny slides down to curl against her side, cup her left hand over Hermione's still-panting mouth and nose and flatten against them, smothering her once again, and increase the pace of her fingers upon Hermione's clit. Ginny proves terrifyingly adept at bringing Hermione to the brink of unconsciousness and orgasm both, only granting her breath when her vision is halfway gone to black, until there is no thinking, until her cunt no longer cares where they are or who's watching and finds itself pushing into those fingers, knowing what it needs.

Ginny, it turns out, has wanted a lot. Such as climbing back on to Hermione's face and forcing her to tongue her arsehole this time. Or turning Hermione over onto her belly and spanking her arse with about four times the force she usually does, not letting up until Hermione is blubbering and snot is running down her face and her arse is ablaze with pain, so that when Ginny digs her fingers into Hermione's buttocks to separate them, that itself elicits more howls, not just Hermione's realization that Ginny's about to ream out her arse in much the same way she did her cunt. Which she does.

She's also, it seems, wanted to ignore Hermione's protests every time Hermione has pleaded, "Ah, don't, please, that tickles," instead of obligingly laying off, and turns Hermione back over and attacks her belly and armpits with her nails until Hermione's tortured screeches of laughter are hoarse and insane as anything that could ever have come from Bellatrix Lestrange's throat and she's on the verge of blacking out again.

It's only after that that there's anything like a pause. Ginny is straddling her, has Hermione's breasts in two handfuls, twisting them, pinching at the nipples, and Hermione sees, for the first time, something resembling unhappiness on her face. Her brow is set in furrows, her lips parted as if she wants to speak. Hermione wonders if maybe, just maybe the curse is wearing off.

It isn't. Bellatrix comes to stand near them, runs a careful finger down the side of Ginny's face. "You want something to pierce her pretty little tits with, don't you, girl."

Ginny looks up at Bellatrix. Bella smiles wider and kisses her on the temple. "Be a good girl and next time I'll let you do just that." She turns the smile on Hermione. "Yes, pretty little Mudblood, there's going to be a next time. I'll think we'll have a few more of us in here to watch, too."

There isn't, as it turns out, a next time. They're rescued. Lupin's involved, and so is Tonks, and, someone tells her, it seems so is Snape, amazingly.

And so is Harry. Voldemort's still alive at the end of it and so is Bellatrix, as far as they all know, but she and Ginny are free and Harry and Ron are free and all of them are safe. It's enough.

She doesn't tell them what happened. Convinces them there's no need for her to go to St. Mungo's. Ginny can't tell them because Ginny won't stop crying, not from the time they're Apparated away to the time they're reunited with her parents, to the time when they're back at the Burrow, to the time when Hermione's parents are brought to the Burrow to be reunited with her, and through it all Hermione holds onto Ginny and doesn't tell her not to cry and doesn't say it will be all right and doesn't speak to her at all. Just holds her. Holds her and begs everyone else to stop asking them questions and is terrified when at last Mrs. Weasley pries Ginny out of her arms to hold her herself and feed her a calming draught and put her to bed in her room. She's terrified, because the relief she feels to be able to let go of Ginny is enough to make her start crying, because she's afraid that, having let her go, she's never ever going to want to touch her again.

Somehow her parents are convinced that she doesn't want to be taken home--she doesn't--and are settled into one of the Burrow's rooms themselves. She feels safe with them here. That's not the trouble. The trouble is that she wants to stay in the same room with them and nowhere else. Which is why she makes herself not do that, and goes to Ginny's room.

Ginny is still crying but when Hermione comes into her room and closes the door behind her, she sits up, sucks in a huge gulp of air as she tries to control herself and sobs, "Don't go. Please don't go. Please--" And she pushes back the covers on her bed but doesn't rise; she seems to fall out of the bed but it's deliberate, she's slid to the floor and is on her knees in front of Hermione. "You," she says, chest heaving, voice shaking, "can do all of that to me. Back. Anything. Anything," she wails, every long horrible syllable of the word. "I promise. I'll let you do anything." She's clutching at Hermione's legs now, and Hermione wants to jump back, push her off, cry out. She doesn't. "I love you. I love you. Please don't--please don't let them--"

And that's it, isn't it. She can't let them.

Except that they already have.

She kneels. "You didn't mean it," she says, and if her voice is wooden, if her touch on Ginny's shoulders is automatic instead of heartfelt, it's all she can manage. "I know it doesn't matter if you wanted to. You wouldn't ever have done it if she hadn't cursed you. I know." She kisses Ginny's forehead and it's one of the most difficult things she's ever done.

Ginny sobs harder, throws her arms around Hermione. "I love you. I love you. Please-- Please tell me it'll be all right."

"Yes. It will."

And it will. For Ginny. She'll make sure of it.

They never again speak of Hermione getting even by reciprocating all the things Ginny did to her. Both of them know why Ginny said it, and that if it would have set things right Ginny would have gladly endured it, and both of them wish it could actually have been that easy.

Ginny treats Hermione like glass, and Hermione lets her. The timidity is all wrong on Ginny, but she knows Ginny needs to, before she can start to forgive herself.

She needs Ginny to forgive herself. That means she has to stay with her. She can't abandon her just because things got...difficult.

And it isn't as if she can't pretend. Ginny's kisses are still sweet, her hands and tongue still as clever on Hermione's body. Her face and body just as lovely to be held, to be touched, to be watched when she comes. Pretending isn't hard.

Hermione remembers the precise moment when she knew she no longer loved Ginny Weasley.

But she'll never tell her that.

-fin

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