wl_mods (wl_mods) wrote in wizard_love, @ 2009-02-27 03:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | *fic, hermione, percy |
Special delivery for fireworkfiasco
Title: The Right Choice.
Author/Artist: midnight_birth
Recipient's IJ/LJ name: fireworkfiasco
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Percy/Hermione (backdrop of Ron/Hermione).
Medium/Word Count: Pigment liner, edited in Photoshop/4,100
Warnings (if any): Partial nudity, scenes of explicit sexual nature, infidelity, angst.
Summary: When the one you love is out of reach and the one you don’t is the one you should, is there a choice that can ultimately be the right one?
AN: For art, start at left upper corner going down, then up to the right upper corner and down. The art isn’t an illustration of the story, it’s a continuation of it.
The art is a result of anime/hentai classes, wonderful teachers, and lots of anime examples and samples which I used as guidance. The first frame especially depicts a variation of a rather popular pose the technique of which I was taught there from an example, thus I cannot really take credit for most of the pose itself. The third frame was inspired by a pose, too.
~*~
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Ron murmured in her ear self-consciously, slowing his pace.
Hermione was jarred rather suddenly out of her reverie about the report she had to hand in the next day and wasn’t completely content with. Ron looked almost terrified at the thought that she was not. She smiled up at him. It was the same smile she had given him before he really kissed her for the first time after the war to signify the beginning of an actual relationship, the same smile she had given him when his eyes carried a question before they had first made love, and the same smile she had given him when he was stumbling over his proposal. It was a smile that immediately made him relax and go back to lovemaking.
She was reminded to arch her back, dig in her nails, moan. She got louder as he got faster and more desperate. She knew he loved her to come with him, or soon after, and figured that since she was only pretending anyway, she could alleviate her guilt a little by making him happy.
She couldn’t remember now when she started doing this, which meant it had been too long. She never thought herself an overly sexual person. She enjoyed sex with Ron well enough, but she never thought something like sex could mean so much when it was gone. The sex wasn’t gone, of course, but her will was. Unconsciously, she picked up more shifts at work and started going to bed late. She didn’t sleep the night when she realized, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, that sex had become a burden. She didn’t initiate it anymore, and dreaded the time when Ron would. When he did she swallowed the feeling of dread and pulled up the feeling of duty, trying to convince herself that she should want it. It was unfair for her to not want her husband. She knew, of course, that it was even more unfair to not want him and lie about it, but she saw no other way. How could she possibly bring it up? She knew it would break his heart, and she would not do that to her husband, her best friend, and the father of her two children.
Hermione had always been very logical. She approached it with a cool head. Passion went away eventually. They had been together for fifteen years, they had two beautiful children, and they shared intimacy and trust. That’s how it was supposed to be, right? Except the feeling that nothing was as it was supposed to be grew only stronger with each passing week, then month, and then year. She looked at Harry and Ginny, George and Angelina, even Bill and Fleur, and couldn’t help feeling that while the passion of their youth had gone out of their relationships, too, something had remained that Hermione lost.
Love, her rational mind kept suggesting, but Hermione was terrified to think of the possibility. In the perfect, happily-ever-after post-Voldemort world, she had gotten her happy ending, something that she was too afraid to even hope for ever since the Chamber of Secrets and the attacks on “Mudbloods”. Could, after all they’ve been through, something so simple and unreasonable like falling out of love ruin her life when so many other things – much stronger things – have tried and failed?
No. She wouldn’t allow it. She couldn’t allow it. She would break the hearts of many people if she did, her children included, and, she reasoned, it was probably a typical kind of thing to happen, sort of like getting cold feet on your wedding day. She remembered she went through that, wanting to run out of the reception, but she remembered also telling herself that she loved Ron, she wanted to marry him, and it was just the overwhelming emotions that were playing with her head.
She allowed herself to laugh at her situation, even. She was thirty-five years old, she had two children of seven and five, and an amazing job. Where would a divorce leave her? What would she say to Ron, Harry, or Mrs and Mr Weasley? He hasn’t been able to bring me to an orgasm for years now, because I am not attracted to him anymore, she imagined telling the woman that had become her mother, too. I don’t think I love him anymore, she imagined telling his sister. You can have them every second weekend, she imagined telling Ron, his distraught and pale face vivid in her mind. Daddy can’t live with us anymore, honey, because...
No. She wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t analyze it or wonder about it. A divorce had already shaken the Weasleys in the past year, but it wouldn’t be the same for her and Ron as it was for Percy and Audrey. Percy seemed impartial to his family’s disapproval and pain, to the whispers of his colleagues, or the articles in the Prophet that threatened his career. He told his family stonily that it hadn’t worked out, that both he and Audrey thought it was the best way, that he was happy with his life and for everyone to kindly bugger off. They had come to expect that of Percy, of course. She wished she could be as brave about her own feelings as he was about his.
“I’m going to miss you three,” Ron murmured in her ear, bringing her close into his chest.
“You really must go?” she asked. She hated herself for pretending she wasn’t looking forward to him being away for a whole week.
“I must. Harry doesn’t trust anyone else with this assignment.” There was a note of pride in Ron’s voice. “And I’m sorry you’re going to have to entertain Percy without me. Don’t hesitate to punch him in the face if he starts being a git.”
“Quite alright,” she answered with a small chuckle. “Percy and I always got along. The children love him well enough, though I did once hear Rose calling him the “boring uncle”.” It was Ron’s turn to laugh appreciatively. “Besides, he’s only going to be around for a couple of weeks, you’ll be back in one, and knowing him he won’t spend much time at home, anyway.”
Ron nodded into her hair.
“I love you, Hermione, you know that?”
“I do, Ron.”
~*~
Hermione knew that what she had to do was apologize curtly, turn around and leave. Except it seemed to her that hours passed and she stood rooted to the spot, staring, gaping. What was the matter with her? Why couldn’t she will her legs to move? She was standing in the bathroom, the clean towel pressed tightly to her chest, and doing about the most inappropriate thing in the world – staring at her husband’s brother, stark naked, as if he was something to eat, and not being able to move.
And why didn’t Percy lock the door? Why was he staring back at her, not urging her to get out or attempting to cover himself? He looked calm but questioning. He glanced at the towel she was clutching in her hands.
“Is that for me?”
“Yes... You said you needed one. I wasn’t even thinking when I opened the door.” She finally tore her eyes away and fixed them on a spot on the floor. “I’m used to just walking in when Ron –”
She felt herself blush furiously. A little too late, her mind noted dryly. Sometimes she had a feeling that Minerva McGonagall had shrunk down and moved into her head. That, or she was herself growing up to become her own version of Minerva, and her mind was a little ahead of her.
Percy stood waiting for a little longer and then stepped out of the shower, gently pulled the towel out of her hands and swathed his hips in it. She could feel the heat radiating from his body now and allowed herself to look up. Had she ever looked at him at all before? Did he always have such a well-built frame and slightly unruly hair? When she thought about Percy, she pictured a tall, thin boy with neatly parted hair, slightly dorky glasses, and a very stiff stance. She hadn’t ever stopped to think about Percy for long enough to realize that she pictured the boy, but that boy had turned into a man many years ago.
He was taller than her and as well built as Ron now. His glasses were small squares and tinted to hide his eyes and made him look mature but not dorky anymore, his stance could be called dignified rather than pompous, and his hair didn’t fall neatly around his face, though she couldn’t call it unruly, either. Had he always been attractive? Had she gone insane?
“I’m sorry. I’m really out of it lately,” she murmured and practically ran out of the bathroom and up the stairs to her room, locking the door behind her and sinking onto the bed.
He probably thought her crazy now, but that wasn’t what scared her. She was scared because her mind had disobeyed her and went into a territory she could never set foot in.
“You’re just frustrated,” she murmured to herself.
That had to be it. She was sexually frustrated, for one, and it wasn’t the first time her mind wondered when she saw an attractive man. Sometimes, she wondered what made the man attractive as opposed to Ron, and sometimes she just wondered whether she was cheating on Ron by imagining him naked, bringing her to a much needed orgasm. But what happened inside her mind wasn’t cheating, was it? She was a good wife because she cared more about her husband and their children than she cared about herself. He was happy. She didn’t intend to leave him, thus the fact that she found herself wishing they were just friends again didn’t need to ever be made known to him.
She got off the bed, shook her head and frowned. It wasn’t the first time her mind had wondered, but it was the first time that her mind had wondered out of the privacy of her subconscious and affected her actions. She had to keep that under control. Yet, she couldn’t help but wonder, since when had Percy become a threat to her desires?
~*~
“I am a good person!” Percy’s loud voice carried through the house and she glowered at him. Hugo was sleeping. He did not need to hear this. “But it’s been four years, Hermione! I’m a good person, but I’m not a blind person, and how much control do you think I have? What are you doing to me? Why are you doing this to yourself?”
She hadn’t expected the conversation to turn in this direction from the calm small-talk they were engaging in only a couple of minutes ago. Then again, she wasn’t expecting for Percy to grab the front of her robes, pull her forward and crash their lips together. She hadn’t expected that instead of slapping him and pushing him away she was kissing him back, practically ripping off his jumper and straddling him before he could as much as get his arms fully around her.
She was now standing at the other side of the living room, feeling like a trapped injured animal. He had initiated it and she hadn’t stopped it. If anything, she almost took it much farther than he may have intended to. Neither of them could claim to be good people.
“I am married to your brother!” Hermione said, though the anger was seeping out of her. What right did she have to be angry at him? “Our children are friends! Our children are cousins.”
“Hermione, how many years have you lived with Ron without loving him?” he asked her seriously, taking a step closer. She wanted him to put his jumper back on, but he remained half undressed. She had a feeling he knew exactly what it was doing to her.
“I love Ron,” she said, knowing that she wasn’t even fooling herself anymore.
“No, you don’t. You love me.”
Hermione blanched. It had indeed been four years since the time that she walked in on Percy in the shower and with that single action turned her life inside out. Four years of awkward family dinners Percy suddenly became a part of, lunches accidentally eaten taken together in the Ministry by the fountain, and a friendship that developed not out of need to have a friend, but out of inability to have anything more.
They both knew from the very beginning, it seemed. It was like an unspoken code between them that if circumstances were different, thing would be drastically different, too. Theirs reminded her of a cheesy tragic story. It was like walking with someone you cared about separated by a thin glass. He was there but she couldn’t touch him. To break the glass would mean to shatter both their lives and cut themselves.
But did she love him? Don’t, her mind warned her sternly. Don’t ask. Don’t go there. Knowing something for certain makes an assumption a reality. You don’t want that..
“I have a family. I love them. I will not leave them. You may have been able to leave yours, but I cannot.”
“So are we going to continue doing this, then?” Percy’s voice sounded hoarse, angry. “We both love Ron. So I will continue being a good brother, and you a good wife. Our consciences will be clean because we will know we have this temptation but we won’t give in. But will they really? Is this any fairer to him? Will he be not equally upset if he finds out you don’t love him but me even if we don’t sleep together? If we’re excusing ourselves by thinking that what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, then does it matter how much there is to know when it’s equally horrible?”
She couldn’t deny the fact that he was right. She was cheating on Ron already. She thought she was cheating on him when she realized that she didn’t want him anymore and eventually that she didn’t love him, but when her stomach started twisting in knots every time she saw Percy, she knew she had begun cheating on Ron for real. Not wanting him was one thing, but wanting someone else instead of him was a whole other.
Percy was very close now. Their bodies were almost touching, though he stopped and she knew he wouldn’t come closer unless she asked him to. It had always been like that with them. They didn’t meet in the middle. Percy came most of the way and asked her to only take one step, but the final step.
She wished she could shut off her mind and be rational. She wished she didn’t concentrate on the fact that it was the first time in years that she was close enough to a man whom she actually wanted and, yes, perhaps loved. She felt that if she took a step forward, she would be crossing the line of no return, because if she cheated once, it wouldn’t matter how many times she would cheat after that. But if she turned around and walked away she would be forfeiting everything they had built up. If she rejected him now, she knew somewhere deep inside her that it would be over between them. They wouldn’t be able to talk like they did or spend time with each other. If Percy left she’d be left with nothing.
“Hugo’s home,” she murmured. “We can’t do this here.”
“Do you mean –”
“I do.”
She didn’t see where his wand came from, but in a split second the door was shut and locked, and the blinds were closing in each window, leaving them in semi-darkness. She heard his wand fall to the floor and found herself almost off the floor as he swept her into his arms and lifted her a little to make their lips meet hungrily. The kiss was fast and desperate. She had imagined what it would feel like to kiss him almost from the time she had walked in on him naked in her shower, and it was everything she wanted it to be and more. It made her feel. It made her want.
Sometimes, in bed beside Ron, she imagined making love to Percy, but this was not the time for making love. They waited too long and it seemed everything was spilling forth now. She wanted to feel him inside her and be as close to him as she could. His hands were on her breasts in a second, squeezing through the thin shirt she was wearing and making her gasp quietly. She knew he felt the same. Without a moment’s hesitation she undid his trousers and pulled them down along with his pants, trailing kisses and bites down his chest and stomach. She paused as she freed his erection and looked up at him. He was pressed against the wall, his glasses slightly askew, breathing raggedly, and his fingers were in her hair.
She sank to her knees and put her hand around his cock, stroking it down and slowly up, running her thumb lightly against the tip. He shuddered and moaned. She had forgotten what this felt like. With Ron, she felt happy that she could still make him, at least, feel good, but making Percy’s hands tighten in her hair and his whole body tense as she took his cock into her mouth and flicked her tongue across the tip made her feel good in a whole different kind of way. She could feel his pleasure spreading through her as he gasped and moaned, feeling it in her most intimate parts. Her body felt like it was waking up from a very long hibernation.
When Percy started meeting her with a slow pumping of his hips and getting louder she couldn’t help sliding her fingers in her own knickers and quickly finding the height of her pleasure. Her stifled moans mixed with his as she increased the pace, bringing herself closer to climax along with him. He looked down at her and groaned, realizing what she was doing, and then suddenly pushed her head away gently and yanked her to her feet, turning her around and slamming her against the wall.
“I can’t wait anymore,” he growled into her ear and bit it hard, making her moan.
His hands worked quickly as he got rid of her shirt and bra, throwing them carelessly away, and his unrelenting mouth descended on her nipples, sucking and biting. Ron had never been quite this rough with her, not even when she asked, but she wasn’t in the mood for gentle now. Percy wasn’t afraid to break her. He knew she wouldn’t even if he tried.
Lifting up her skirt and yanking it up and off he moved her knickers aside and entered her without much warning, making her scream out and then bite her lip, afraid of being too loud. He was easily lifting her, wrapping her legs around his waist as he set a fast pace.
“Hands above head,” he breathed out and she obliged. She whimpered when both his hands closed over hers, keeping them tightly against the wall, and he became faster, rougher, more desperate.
It had been a long time since Hermione had reached climax through penetration, and it hit her suddenly, without a preamble, and she felt she was on the verge of fainting as her head fell onto Percy’s shoulder and she almost sobbed with pleasure, Percy not slowing down. She rode out her orgasm, wanting to cling to him and feeling it more intensely because her hands were imprisoned against the wall, and his came soon after. He let go of her hands and clutched her to him, almost crushing her against his body, muttering obscenities intermitted with gasps.
She his orgasm subsided he walked them over to the sofa and sat down carefully, lifting her off him and wrapping her still trembling body in his arms. They sat in silence for a long time, holding on to each other tightly.
“How did this happen?” Hermione finally murmured. She could feel tears stinging her eyes.
He was silent for a long time. “I would have had you if I could back at Hogwarts,” he said slowly and her eyes widened in surprise. “But I was the annoying pompous git I still am, by the way, and you were in love with my brother.” She felt him shrug against her and shifted in his lap so he was half-cradling her, in order to see his face. “I figured it would pass, and if it did, then maybe I’d stand a chance. You were children. I didn’t suppose that it was possible to fall in love with someone when you were eleven and spend the rest of your life with them.”
“Maybe it’s not,” she whispered. She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.
“It’s rare,” he conceded. She didn’t know how he knew how to be calm. She knew him well enough to see that he acted much calmer than he was. She wondered if it had always been a farce. If he always had a hurricane going on just behind his imperturbable mask and nobody just bothered to look close enough to see it.
“Ron is going to be home soon, and Hugo should be up about now. I lock myself in here when I’m working sometimes and he never bothers me, but I should really start preparing dinner in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be gone by then.”
They fell into silence again. It wasn’t an awkward silence of the “morning after” feeling. They both knew that the other was weighing the seriousness of what they had just done, and the way they had just changed many lives irreversibly.
“One day, you’re going to have to make a choice, Hermione.”
She stiffened and looked at him in shock through tears that would not stop. “You’re going to ask me to choose? You can’t ask me that! I can’t abandon my family, and if I did, what would happen if I went from him to you? I can’t choose between –”
“Hermione.” His voice broke suddenly and he took a long breath to steady himself before continuing. “I’m not going to ask you to do anything. But you can’t do this forever. Even if you break it off with me,” his arms went tighter around her, “you won’t be able to live with yourself. Nor will I, but I cannot pressure you or choose for you. But... I think you deserve to be happy.”
Gently, he disentangled their bodies and got up, Accioing his clothes and starting to dress. She watched him as he pulled on his trousers and then, finally, his robes. Coming to the sofa he kneeled in front of her and took her hands in his.
“When you feel it’s time to make your choice, I’ll be here. Whatever it will be.”
“Can I see you tomorrow?”
“Same time.”
“Percy?” She leaned forward and ran her hands through his hair. “What’s the right choice?”
“For you?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know. There was a right choice for her and there was a right choice for her family, and they were completely different. Yet whatever she chose would bring heartache to her and everyone she loved. There was no right choices. She was surrounded with wrong ones and she had to somehow pick one that was a little less wrong than the rest.
Percy kissed her again and then Disapparated. She dressed slowly, casting a Cleaning Spell after Cleaning Spell on herself, not having enough strength to even go downstairs and take a shower yet. With the last flick of the wand, the blinds drew away from the windows and the room was bathed in light.
She glanced towards the clock and froze. Ron’s hand was on Work, Rose’s on School, and Hugo’s on Home. Hers wasn’t where she wanted to find it. She sank down to her knees and buried her head in her hands. She had to get up and start cooking dinner. She had to face her son and husband.
And oh, she was. She undoubtedly was, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
She glanced at the clock again, the arrow with her name on it suddenly becoming the meaning of everything in her life.
Lost.