Work Text:
A Marriage of Inconvenience
Theodore Nott observed his wife from the door to her study, ignoring the pang of longing that usually accompanied being in her presence. As she huffed and tugged at a stray curl, he came to the conclusion that she must be reading yet another letter criticising the Wyndingham Fine Arts Wizarding Education Trust, a task which always put her in a sour mood. Shaking his head, he crossed the threshold.
"Another one?" he asked mildly.
Looking up, Hermione sighed. "You'd think we were proposing that Hogwarts students should drop all of their more academic disciplines to pursue careers in Bohemian frippery," she told him, disdain evident in her tone.
"Let me guess. The letter is from Rosa Heingist, and it's the second she's written this month."
"Close. Warra Beauchamp, and this letter is six in nearly as many weeks," Hermione replied. "I don't know what to make of these busybodies."
Theo shrugged. "They didn't like Alva, you know. My guess is that criticising her foundation takes the place of the arguments they had with her when she was still alive."
"What an empty pastime." Hermione shook her head and tossed the letter in the waste basket.
"It keeps them going, I suppose," Theo said before he took a deep breath and plunged into the reason he'd come looking for her in the first place.
"Have you given any thought to when you'd like to go on that holiday my parents gave us for our anniversary?" he asked.
Hermione looked up and sighed. "Do we have to? There's so much work to do for the foundation before school starts, you know."
"It was a gift. Of course we are going to go. It's simply a question of when," Theo stated. "Besides, it will stop your parents, and mine, asking us why we didn't take a honeymoon."
"Well, I can't argue that point. I must admit I am tired of the honeymoon discussion," she said, rolling her eyes.
"And it's easier than explaining the marriage of convenience thing."
"Which I'm no longer able to explain to myself." Hermione laughed. "Why did we let Alva talk us into it?"
Theo walked across the plush carpet and sat in a chair near her desk. "She played on our weaknesses, your desire to change the world, and mine for notoriety. And she sealed it with a Wizard's Oath on her deathbed."
"It didn't hurt that her proposal was 'all or nothing'. Marry, and head up the foundation, or dissolve the foundation and liquidate the estate's assets, and have the Ministry take it all because she had no heirs," Hermione summed up. "We're such pushovers."
"Speak for yourself," Theo retorted. "I saw an opportunity, and I took it. If you put aside the fact that we're married only in name, this marriage is solidly built. We both work long hours, so we don't resent each other for spending too much time in the office; we are both ambitious; and we work well together.
"Besides, who else would let me steal chocolate from the candy dish on her desk, or put up with my nefarious artist's ways?" he asked as he reached towards her chocolate truffles.
Hermione laughed and pulled the bowl of chocolates out of his reach. "Hardly nefarious," she said. "You're a bit moody and forget to put your paints and props away sometimes, but those traits don't make you nefarious."
"Very well then. I'm not nefarious, and you're coming on this postponed honeymoon with me. Settled. When would you like to go?"
Hermione huffed. "I had rather thought I distracted you from that malarkey. Fine." She flipped through her day planner. "I can rearrange meetings, I suppose. We can leave Friday, be there for ten days, get back in time to finalize the fine arts curriculum with the Hogwarts Board of Governors, and lay our parents' minds at ease. Where are we going again?"
Theo glanced at the parchment in his hand. "With a few hours notice, we can be booked into a honeymoon suite in Barbados, Cape Hope, the Swiss Alps, Tuscany, Banff, or Siberia."
"Interesting selection," she noted. "Let's go to Tuscany. While we're there we can do some research as well, and counter the Rosa Heingists and Warra Beauchamps of the world. Italy has had fine arts fully integrated in their school curricula for young witches and wizards for centuries, you know."
Theo nodded, and after further discussion of the available amenities they would like, and travel details, he left her study to make arrangements with the hotel. After he closed the door behind him, Hermione groaned and rested her head on the desk. Spending ten days with her husband was going to be a trial. Normally, she avoided him.
It wasn't that Theodore Nott was repulsive. No, Hermione found him all too attractive, and that was the problem. A marriage that is meant to be "in name only" wouldn't last long once sex was added to the mix, unfortunately. Cursing Alva Wyndingham, she reached for a clean parchment and started making a list of things she needed to do in preparation for her honeymoon.
~*~*~
A week later, Hermione was standing alone in the sitting room of their honeymoon suite, staring blankly as the sun went down. The view was breathtaking, but she took no pleasure in it. After only three days, she wanted nothing more than to go home, and never hear the word 'honeymoon' ever again.
She wasn't sure what it was, but sharing a room for the first time in their marriage, and being together so much, seemed to bring out the worst in them. He'd been moodier than usual, but hadn't pulled out his painting supplies, so she had no idea what his problem was. As for her, she'd felt on edge and impatient, which led to a shorter temper than usual.
Sighing, she replayed the afternoon in her head. The fight hadn't been over anything important; it mustn't have been, since she couldn't remember what it was they had fought about. Thinking back on it, Hermione recalled that the air crackled with tension, like it would before a lightning strike. They'd been standing toe to toe, and it was all she could do to focus on the fight, rather than the frustrated fire in his eyes and the way he held himself taut.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she continued staring at nothing.
It was dark when Theo left the bar to walk back to the hotel. Even after a long walk, a couple drinks, and a lot of thought, he still couldn't figure out how their argument in the afternoon had escalated so quickly. Hell, he couldn't even remember why he'd been so angry. All he remembered was the way her cheeks flushed and the way her deep, angry breaths drew his attention to her figure.
And that, he thought, is the root of the problem.
Being platonically married was ridiculous to begin with, but being platonically married to a woman to whom he was deeply attracted was hell.
And yet, everything had been fine between them until the fake honeymoon. Shaking his head miserably, he entered the lobby of the hotel and walked across the marble floor to the lifts. Glancing at his watch, he wondered if Hermione would still be awake, or if he'd be able to avoid her for the night. Stepping into an available elevator and pressing the button for his floor, he came to the conclusion that avoidance had been what kept him from snapping during their year of marriage - avoidance and the Wizard's Oath that he had sworn to Alva. His oath to the eccentric widow who'd encouraged his career as an artist was going to be the death of him.
When the lift finally reached his floor, he exited the car and made his way down the hall to the entrance to the honeymoon suite. Quietly unlocking the door, Theo slipped in, being careful not to wake Hermione. After closing and locking the door behind him, he made his way in the dark towards the couch in the sitting room, feeling his way along the still slightly unfamiliar walls and furniture.
Having found the couch, he sat on the abnormally lumpy cushion, only to jump right back up and pull out his wand.
"Lumos!"
Inwardly cursing his rotten luck, Theo sighed and flicked his wand at the fireplace and candelabra on the mantle.
"I'm so sorry," he apologized. "I was trying to avoid waking you."
"And I was trying to avoid being avoided," Hermione said with a wry quirk of her lips. "I didn't expect it to work so well."
"Are you all right?"
"I'll survive," she assured him. Sitting on the couch, she looked up at him then turned to stare into the fire.
Curious, Theo sat and waited for her to speak her mind. Trying not to notice the way the firelight played off the highlights in her hair, or the way she nibbled her plump lower lip, Theo glanced around the sitting room. The flickering of the candles that reflected in the mirror above the mantle drew his eye for a moment.
"I did a lot of thinking while you were out, Theo," Hermione said, "about us and our marriage. Do you realize that we never had a disagreement until we came on this trip? Not one. And it's not because we're so agreeable either, or at least, I know I'm not. It's because we're good at avoiding each other. We keep separate bedrooms; we rarely dine together unless it's for a work meeting; we see each other infrequently at best, and it's left us completely unprepared for being in such close proximity all the time."
Theo nodded at each point. He couldn't dispute what she was saying, not when he'd come to the same conclusion himself, although he was surprised to hear her admit to avoiding him, too. It just didn't seem like her way.
"The way I see it," Hermione continued, while fidgeting with the tie of her short night robe, "is that we have two options here. We can either continue with avoiding each other as much as possible, which has the potential to lead to more situations like this, or we can stop the avoidance altogether, which is rocky, but mostly uncharted, territory for us."
Theo considered the choices carefully. Their carefully crafted status quo was easy - easy and hellish. Change could be a good thing for them. Perhaps.
"I guess it depends on why you've been avoiding me," Theo said hesitantly, "and why I've been avoiding you."
"I have a theory about that," she replied, dropping her robe's belt and turning to face him. "You see, it's not that we don't get along, because normally we get along very well. And that's the problem."
Hermione rose to her feet and moved to stand in front of Theo. He looked up, waiting for her to keep speaking. Instead she reached for her belt and gave it a tug, untying the bow. The fabric covering her separated, revealing creamy skin and a dusky red silk bra and matching panties. She rolled her shoulders, shrugging the robe off, and let it fall to the floor.
Leaning over him, she reached for the top button of his shirt, her eyes never leaving his. "The solution is to take a chance, and reach out for something that we thought was denied to us. Before we made that absurd vow, you were going to ask me out, weren't you?"
Theo shivered at the brush of her fingers at his collar. "Yes."
"Do you remember the vow? 'You two shall marry, even if it's a marriage in name only,' does not preclude us forming a more intimate relationship, you know," she said, finally opening the top button and waited for him to process what she was telling him.
"You want this, too?" he asked, reaching up and grasping her wrists, stilling her hands. "You aren't just trying to make the best of an impossible situation?"
"I would never have made the vow if I hadn't wanted you to some degree. I only went along with the platonic marriage because I wasn't fully certain that we wouldn't be struck dead from breaking the vow."
"And now?"
Hermione smiled. "Now, even though I'm certain it won't kill us, I can't quite bring myself to care. It's worth the risk."
Nodding, Theo released her wrists, letting his hands trail up her arms to pull her down to straddle him on the couch. Running his hands over her shoulders and down her back, he explored her curves while she went back to work on his buttons, revealing smooth skin and taut muscles. When she finished her task, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, dragging the fabric down his arms and off his body.
Reaching for her again, he hugged her close, nuzzling the crook of her neck, trailing kisses up and down the delicate column of flesh. Her scent was heady and intoxicating, not quite citrus and not quite floral. Hermione's low moan drew his lips up along her jaw to hover by hers for a moment before she surged into him, consuming him in a fiery kiss, and grinding her hips down onto his arousal.
Hands roamed, exploring bared and silk-clad flesh alike. Pulling away from Theo to catch her breath, Hermione slipped off his lap to kneel between his legs. With a small smile, she reached out and unbuckled his belt before working on the button and fly for his trousers. Tugging his belt loops, she persuaded him to stand, and she started to pull down his trousers and boxers while he toed out of his shoes and kicked them to the side, followed by the rest of his clothes.
Taking a long look at him, her gaze travelling up and down his body, Hermione licked her lips and reached out, stroking his thighs with her hands. Leaning in close, she trailed a finger up the length of his erect cock, following it with the tip of her tongue. Theo threaded his fingers in her hair, grounding himself against the onslaught of pleasure he felt as her lips parted around the end of his shaft and she eased him into her mouth.
His head fell back and his hips jerked forward slightly, eager and wanting. With an appreciative moan, Hermione took him in a little deeper, teasing him with her tongue before drawing back. She delighted in his response, which spurred her own arousal. His fingers tightened in her hair as she slid her lips over him again and again. On the next upstroke, he tugged gently, pulling her away from his cock and to her feet. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned down and claimed her lips with his own. As he deepened the kiss, she reached around behind her back to unfasten her bra and take it off, dropping it carelessly, before she reached down to push her knickers past her hips, allowing them to fall to the floor.
Breaking the kiss, Theo let his hands drift over her breasts, tweaking her nipples and making her gasp. He leaned down to tease a dusky nipple with his lips and tongue.
"Now, Theo. I need you now," Hermione moaned, arching her back, pressing hard against him before pushing him away. Kneeling, she grabbed his hand to pull him down to lie on the carpet. Straddling his hips, she sank onto his cock, setting a rhythm that soon had them both panting and gasping.
She could feel the tension coiling within her, ready to snap, when Theo sat up and rolled her beneath him. As he stole her breath with another scorching kiss, she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, and tried to pull him in deeper, desperately seeking release. Lifting one of her legs over his shoulder, he changed the angle, and with slow, deep strokes, they came, shuddering and trembling in each other's arms.
Hermione stroked Theo's back, content to cradle him in her arms. Thoughts still foggy from climax, she wondered what this turning point would bring their future. Hopefully, by removing the inconvenience of denying their attraction, the awkward first year of their marriage of convenience would fade to a surreal and amusing memory in their history together. Sighing, she closed her eyes, pressed her lips to his flushed skin and allowed sleep to pull her under.