Work Text:
Am I brave enough,
Am I strong enough,
To follow the desire,
That burns from within?
I Am The Fire - Halestorm
Darkness drowned out their presence, the only evidence of it were the sharp pants of breath as they trudged towards the massive stone pillars. Stonehenge was only safe for true magical folk at night, and on this particular night when magic charged the air with maddening, kinetic energy, the ethereal pull to its epicenter would frighten away all but the bravest witches.
Hermione Granger was a brave witch, though the years following the war were littered with insecurities about her heritage among Purebloods who surrounded her. Nevertheless, Harry was at her side through all of it, unwilling to allow her a moment of hesitation regarding her blood status. He’d tell her: ‘I’m a half-blood and I defeated Voldemort. Blood means nothing.’ He reminded her so often, that she began to believe it. Now, she wanted to make sure everyone else believed it too. It took two years of preparing and planning for the Summer Solstice. She’d researched Stonehenge until she could recite most of the texts from memory.
And finally, she arrived. With Harry in tow, carrying a rucksack filled with supplies, they slipped between two gigantic stones with no one the wiser to their presence. The conditions were perfect; a clear, moonless night sky, a gentle breeze fluttering around them as they lay candles around the site. Hermione cast privacy spells as Harry emptied her rucksack onto the springy earth beneath their feet.
The witching hour approached and so, it seemed, had Harry’s curiosity.
“What’d you need Devil’s Snare for?”
Turning toward his bewildered voice, finding his hand at the back of his skull and raking the hair there as he eyed the thatch of vines while they curled around one another, Hermione allowed a minute smile to lift her lips.
“The binding ritual requires absolute trust,” she said as she unsheathed her wand from its holster at her hip. “And consent, of course. You will consent, won’t you, Harry?”
His hands moved down to his hips where his jeans were slung low, the cotton fabric of his simple black shirt lifting to reveal a sliver of skin. “You’ve not been clear on what I’m consenting to. We’re just doing some magic here, yeah? Binding spells aren’t…dark.”
“No.” Chewing her lip, Hermione fingered the buttons on her dark cloak as she considered Harry and his curious stare. “It’s not dark, I promise, but…”
“But?”
“Oh, honestly Harry, can’t you put two and two together without me having to spell it out?” Her cloak pooled at her feet and her cheeks pooled with heat as Harry’s eyes dipped from her eyes lower and lower. She watched his throat constrict and clenched her hand around her wand, nails digging into her palm.
“Right,” he choked out, turning his gaze from her body and taking a sudden interest in their surroundings. She could practically hear his thoughts whirring about in his head. “So, you’ve been naked under your cloak this entire time.”
“I thought it might be easier.” Stepping forward, Hermione approached him with confidence that she didn’t feel deep in her bones. Her steps were shaky even as her chin lifted higher. “Less awkward,” she said, placing her hands flat against his chest. “You’re consenting to bind our souls together, for the advancement of the Magical Race, by way of ritual sex magic. Do you consent?”
Harry’s bright green eyes snapped to hers, seeming to glow in the still blackness of night. “ Ritual sex magic ? Hermione, what—”
Curling her fingers against his shirt, Hermione sighed. “It’s a ritual. Magic happens. We have sex. That’s all, no big deal.”
“No big—Hermione, sex between us is a really big deal. We’ve never even kissed before!” His hands moved over top of hers and held them tight. “Is this really what you want? We can find a way around it, surely.”
“The connections made between people when they engage in sexual relations is—” The tip of her wand flashed twice, drawing her attention away; the witching hour approached.
“‘Engage in sexual relations.’” His deadpan voice croaked from his throat. “Hermione, I’m sorry, but sex shouldn’t be just following a guideline from a book to further an agenda. No, you mean too much for me to allow it.”
“You misunderstand me.” Fingers clenching beneath his, Hermione stepped further into his space. “The ritual magic isn’t sealed by sex. Sex is a result of the magic itself.” Her eyelashes dusted against her cheekbones as she steeled herself, blinking slowly. “It takes the sexual attraction that’s already between the two parties and…well, we won’t really be able to help ourselves. Which is why it’s incredibly important to me that you consent before we start.”
Harry’s lips tugged down, eyes shrewd as they flickered over her face. “And what’s the Devil’s Snare for?”
Wetting her bottom lip with a sweet of her tongue, Hermione pretended not to hear his question. “Is that a yes?”
The knot in his throat jumped, but then his face split into a lopsided smile. “Have you seen you naked? I’d be a bloody fool to say no.”
“Brilliant.” She lit from the inside, feeling the sparks of magic tingle and dance along her spine. Dropping her hands from his chest, she circled her wand above her head and brought it down with a flourish. A dozen candles blazed around the circle created by the stones. “Take off your clothes and lay in the center of the circle.”
He stared at her for a long moment and then slowly grabbed his shirt by its hem, ripping it over his head in one, swift movement. Allowing her eyes to travel the length of exposed skin from sharp clavicle to the fuzzy trail leading from his belly button to beneath his jeans, Hermione’s breath hitched. His body was edges and shadows, corded muscles in places she never would have suspected; must have been all that Auror training. When she finally met his gaze again, heat clawed up her chest to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the candles blazing brightly around them.
Once nude, Harry lowered himself to the ground. If he found it uncomfortable being bare in front of Hermione, she couldn’t tell. Steadying herself with a deep breath, Hermione swiped the wriggling Devil’s Snare from the ground and approached Harry on wobbly legs.
“Don’t panic,” she whispered, kneeling beside him with the vines outstretched towards his wrists. “Lie back and put your wrists together over your head.”
Without hesitation, he did as she instructed maintaining intense eye contact with every move he made. Hermione placed the Devil’s Snare on top of his wrists and watched as the vines wound themselves over Harry’s wrists and then plunged into earth as if to anchor him in place.
“Are you alright?” Hermione asked gently, finally bringing her eyes to his. Harry gave her a tight nod and tugged at his binds. “I’m going to start the ritual now. It’s your last chance to back out.”
“Do it,” he urged her, voice husky and eyes darkening.
Setting the sage, the phallic-shaped crystals, and blessing herself with the earth was easy and took only moments. She spun around the circle, giving thanks to each of the wards, and brought a long, white tapered candle towards Harry whose eyes followed her around the circle. When she brought the melting candle to Harry’s chest and dripped hot wax from sternum to the apex of his hips, she spoke the words she’d memorized ages ago.
We call on the old gods and the new,
And today we sacrifice our innocence,
Leave behind our ignorance,
And cast faith in your energy,
Bring forth our ancient magicks,
Bind us in spirit,
Amplify our power,
So none shall doubt our intentions.
We call on the old gods and the new,
Hear us: bring forth our ancient magicks
So mote it be.
Fire exploded from the candles around them, filling the space with impossible heat and ensuring there was no amount of darkness that could hide the pair of them from one another. More than that, a delicious burn started at Hermione’s toes and flared up and up until she felt it at her throat. In all of her reading, she’d assumed there’d be no presence of mind as she approached Harry with consuming lust swirling around her mind, but that wasn’t the case at all. She looked down at him as he lay there entirely laid out for her and bound in place, and she was present enough to acknowledge how bloody sexy he looked as he stared up at her with the same desire set in his eyes.
“I’m on fire,” Harry said, a moan tumbling from between his lips.
As her eyes swept his body, she paused on the hardening erection between his thighs and sucked in a sharp breath through her nose. “I think I’ve wanted this longer than I knew,” she whispered, dropping back to her knees at his side. Reaching her fingers out, she dragged her dull nails along the ladder of his ribs and down over the valley of his hips. He bucked towards her hand and a feral sort of smile overtook her face. “So have you, I reckon.”
He struggled against the Devil’s Snare, which prompted it to snake further down his arms, anchoring his shoulders to the ground. She wondered briefly if she should remind him how the vines worked, but as her hand wrapped around his large cock, Hermione decided against it. Her movements were no longer her own as she pumped him twice and revelled in the deep groan that wrenched itself from his lungs.
“Oh fuck,” he grit out, hips jerking fully off the ground. “Fuck, Hermione—fuck me. Now. ”
But even as she tried to get into a position to do as Harry asked, a thought flickered through her mind—not a thought in her own voice, but something otherworldly. The power they sought relied on their mutual pleasure to strengthen their bond. As much as Hermione wanted to sheath herself on Harry, they had to wait until the witching hour began. Only then would the magic bind them together unbreakably.
“It’s not time yet,” she told him quietly, removing her hand from his erection. “Relax and enjoy the magic, Harry.”
Hermione kicked one leg over Harry’s chest, facing his massive erection. She lowered her mouth over him and swirled her tongue around his tip earning a desperate noise from behind her. It drove her forward, swallowing as much of him as she could and moaning around his length as wet heat flooded to her thighs.
“Scoot back,” Harry ordered her as though he was clenching his molars together. “Spread your knees wider.”
She moved without thinking about it; oral sex wasn’t her favorite—it embarrassed her normally, but that seemed to be wiped from her mind as she lowered herself down to his mouth. His thick tongue ran up the length of her slit and Hermione whited out for a moment. He devoured her like a man possessed and as Hermione ground down on his face as if breathing didn’t matter to him, she engulfed his erection deep in her throat and sucked him hard.
Her movements weren’t her own as she took him faster, eliciting delicious sounds that vibrated against her core.
“Going to come,” he hissed, hips jerking up so fiercely she swallowed around inches of him. “I’m going to—”
The noise Harry made was pure bliss. Hermione’s hips moved erratically over his face as she sought her own pleasure as if it were life itself. Her muffled, wet cries ripped from the back of her throat as she removed her mouth from Harry and focused solely on her climax.
“Want to touch you,” he breathed against her clit. She could feel him wrestling against the Devil’s Snare and growling “fuck” as she felt it slither along her calf and around his chest. Harry stopped struggling, and nipped at her sodden folds. “Fuck my face—come for me now.”
In perfect tandem, she ground against his mouth and he lapped at her folds until she was a sobbing mess of unintelligible words, begging for release that never came.
Something urged her to move and so she did, carefully extracting herself from Harry. Her knees were covered in dirt and grass stains, and his arms down to his chest were bound in vines.
“You came,” she whimpered, breath ragged. “You’re still hard.”
“Fuck. Me.” The words tore from him, a command she so desperately wanted to follow. “Please, Hermione, fuck me—now.”
As she hiked her leg over his hips, the fire around them flared and shifted closer. Her forehead broke out in sweat, and the second she began to worry they’d be engulfed in flames, her mind exploded with heady desire; the witching hour had arrived.
Her sole focus was on her hand positioning Harry at her entrance, on sheathing herself on him in one, swift movement that stole a feral cry from her throat.
“Yes. Faster,” he grunted, head falling back hard against the earth. The Devil’s Snare slithered across his neck pinning him in place. His voice was hoarse and each word punctuated by another thrust. “Harder. Harder. Fuck—me—harder.”
With her hands curled into the vines over his chest, Hermione lifted her arse nearly off him completely and then dropped it down hard. Crying out, she repeated the motion again, and again, desperate for the friction that sent pleasure skittering through her body. The Devil’s Snare bound her wrists to Harry’s chest, but she didn’t care. As long as they didn’t stop. Not even the enclosing fire pulled her attention away, not even as it licked at her heels. She had just enough attention to realize it wasn’t burning them.
The desperate noises hitching each breath Harry took drove her wild. Her body moved of its own accord, slamming onto him, faster and harder than anything she’d ever experienced before; like a primal energy had taken over and whited out her thoughts, leaving only the search for her orgasm and no care for how bruised her body would be the next day.
As her climax overcame her, Hermione lost herself. Her muscles clenched as Harry bottomed out inside of her. “Oh, Merlin, oh Gods; oh fu—”
Brilliant orange and red flames overtook them completely, sending the Devil’s Snare slinking off into the ground. With his hands free, Harry grabbed Hermione around her waist and planted her beneath him in a skillful move that she didn’t believe he’d be able to do without the influence of magic. He railed into her, his hands gripping her hips so hard she could feel each digit digging into bone and relished in the sensation, begging him for more.
“Not being able to touch you,” he hissed as he hammered into her, tongue licking sweat off her throat, “drove me mad. Come for me, Hermione. I’m not going to last.”
Snaking a hand between them, he pressed the pads of three fingers against her clit and she shattered around him. Hermione’s body twitched and words poured from her lips, though she couldn’t make sense of anything she was saying. Harry thrust one final time and held her firmly in place at the junction of his hips, muttering words of praise and desire against her throat.
“So good.” He loosened his hold on her and lifted his head. “Fucking hell, that was amazing, Hermione, you’re amazing.”
As her body settled back against the hard ground, the flames that had towered over them and encapsulated them in glowing, orange light, disappeared. Light still burned her eyes and the night was blacker still than when they’d entered the circle. Her limbs were limp as Harry slipped from inside her and rolled onto the ground next to her.
Several minutes passed in absolute silence as the gravity of their actions settled in around Hermione. She wasn’t sure where to go from here, or how to look Harry in the eyes after everything they’d just done.
It was Harry who broke the silence. “Do you feel different?” he asked, bringing a hand up to wipe the damp curls from her forehead. “I thought I’d feel…I don’t know, different somehow.”
With a light, exhausted laugh, Hermione pushed herself to sitting. “You won’t feel different, not right away. The magic is channeled in through the crystals. If we tried to take all that in at once, we’d end up like Morgana—burnt to a crisp and mad.”
“We could have been burned to a crisp and driven mad?” Harry sat up quickly, scrambling to his feet and offering a hand to Hermione. “You failed to mention that piece of information.”
“I had it entirely under control.” Gesturing vaguely to the white, phallic-shaped crystals around them, she shrugged. “Besides, you had quite enough to be getting on with seeing me naked for the first time, being bound by Devil’s Snare, and putting that mouth of yours to good use.”
Harry laughed, his nerves on display whether he liked it or not. His hand captured hers and brought her fingers to his lips. “You’ve got quite the mouth, too. Do you even have a gag reflex?”
“I suppose we both found the answer to that question tonight,” she said, and for some reason Harry placing gentle kisses along her knuckles evoked more embarrassment than anything else she’d done that night; her cheeks pooled with heat. “We’ll need to repeat this six more times before the next new moon—one for each crystal—all during the witching hour, for the soul bond to complete.”
A notch formed between his eyebrows. “Six times?”
“Seven is a very powerful number, Harry. It won’t need to be here—just with the crystals present,” she assured him, twining their fingers together at their sides. “We’ll slowly draw the power out of them and through our bond, and then…” She glanced around as the sun began to rise in the east. “That’s that. Our magic can't be contested by even the oldest, purest lines.”
“No more sex after that?” He tugged her close; their hips collided.
She answered him seriously. “Not if you don’t want to. This was never about the sex for me; it was about us, and ensuring the world never turns into what it was before.”
“I want to!” he said eagerly, wrapping his free hand around the side of her neck, tangling his fingers in the damp hairs there. “Merlin, Hermione, I’ve wanted to for ages.”
Positively beaming at him in response, Hermione stood on the very tips of her toes and pressed a short, sweet kiss to his mouth. “Well then, why wait until the next witching hour? Care to escort me home?”
Hermione swiped her wand off the ground and made quick work of clothing them both in the things they’d worn into the circle. The herbs, crystals, and candles all floated back into her rucksack. The last thing to pack away was the Devil’s Snare, begrudgingly tugged from the ground and coiled before Hermione stuffed it back into the bag.
“That’s it? We came all the way to Stonehenge, have wicked, magical sex, and then go back to your flat and have sex again? Just like that?”
“Unless you’d like to give the Devil’s Snare another go while we’re here?” Hermione smirked as his face paled. “I thought not. How about just regular, gentle love making when we get back to mine?”
Planting a kiss to her temple, Harry smiled. “I like the sound of that.”