Author's Notes:

This was my 2016 Dramione-Duet Fic Exchange piece. The fest is long over and so I can post this here for you at last. It's multi-chaptered, so I'll put a new chapter up every few days until finished.

Prompt used for the piece: Draco-Hermione - main couple. Word limit max: 8,000 words. Forced marriage, special assignments, forced to work together, other housemates influencing opinions or giving crappy advice, dub-con, curse, any era. Squicks (no-no content): non-con, extreme violence, main character death, scat, watersports, blood play, OOC-ness

Thank you so much to my wonderful beta, WronkiiiFaint - your help was invaluable, and I am greatly appreciative! You are awesome x 1,000,000 galleons!

Thank you so much, Ningloreth for once more Modding this fest for us - always love it, and you do an amazing job with it! We're lucky to have you in this fandom!

To my recipient, Looneylunafan: I hope this Duet was fun for you, and I'm pleased to have been given the chance to meet your challenge. When I saw the prompt, it immediately tickled my fancy, but I put a twist on it. I hope you like my take on it! :)

Original version 1.0 - 24 August, 2016

Revision 2.0 - 1 January, 2017

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and Warner Bros. All fics posted at this community were written entirely for fun, not for profit, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Main Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy

Secondary Characters: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley

Timeline: War (alternate universe)

Rating: MA

Warnings: Consensual sexual situations (explicit), misunderstandings and angst, references to war slavery and non-con and dub-con and murder (discussed–not shown)

Summary: She flies from him. He chases.

Other Notes: 'In Aeternum Fidelis' = "Eternally Faithful" in Latin.

FLYING (alternatively, 'IN AETERNUM FIDELIS')

By: RZZMG

.~.

Hermione Granger took one look at Draco and promptly resigned the Order of the Phoenix.

"There is no way I'm working with him on your project, Harry. I quit," she pronounced and walked back up the stairs and out of the kitchen without a backward glance, stomping as she went and slamming the door behind her so hard it rattled the curio cabinets throughout the house.

Draco sighed.

He wasn't sure why he'd been hoping for a warmer greeting. Granger had warned him long ago that being obligated to a cause or a course of action should be her decision, not required by other people or circumstance…

"I don't want to be forced, Draco. I want a choice in the matter. I've had my fill of being enslaved by magic."

Perhaps twisting her hands to get her to agree to this project by pulling out the big lure—actually hurting Voldemort—hadn't been one of his greatest ideas, but a desperate, neglected libido called for desperate measures.

And hell, was he critically in need of her! Eight fucking months of no actual fucking was enough to drive a man mad!

"She hates me," he said, resigned to living with blue bollocks for the rest of his life.

"She doesn't hate you," Weasley stated with confidence, parking his expanding arse down in a creaking chair at the kitchen table and putting his wand up now that the danger had passed. "She just wants to geld you."

Draco glared at the man. "Do us a favour and stuff something down your gob. I'm trying to think."

Bloody hell, why was the witch was so obstinate? Why couldn't she, just once, not be so hard-headed and unforgiving? He'd saved her life and he'd given her more orgasms than was bloody natural—five years' worth in only a single year! At least! She'd turned him into a sex addict as a result. Didn't that count for anything with the woman?

Potter cleared his throat and tossed Draco a lopsided grin. "Still, that went better than I'd expected," he stated, clearly encouraged by having dodged actual carnage this time. "Truthfully, I thought she'd Avada us all on the spot and be done with it."

"'Mione can be downright mean when she puts her mind to it," Weasley agreed, and Draco noticed the man spoke soft enough for his voice not to carry his rather rude, but true assessment. "Personally, I think she's scarier than Ginny."

"Hey!" Harry protested, in defence of his wife.

"Wha'? I'm just sayin'," the Weasel King replied somewhat defensively. "'Sides, it's true—you know it is! Gin can be as vicious as an Ashwinder when she wants to be, but 'Mione…she's got dragon fire in that mouth of hers."

Sneering at them both, Draco gathered his coat from the back of the chair where he'd earlier laid it, and slung it over his arm in preparation to leave. "Well, I'll just leave you two ladies to your Sunday bickering," he sullenly said, feeling deflated by Granger's flat refusal to even look at him for longer than two seconds before fleeing the room.

Potter cut him off before he could budge an inch, however, restraining him with a hand at his elbow. "It was a good first step," he offered.

Draco was in no mood to be placated. "Potter, has anyone told you that your chirpy optimism and perpetually annoying cheerfulness is going to get you killed one day…most likely, by me."

Good natured to the end, Potter smiled at him in response to the threat. "Harm a hair on my head and you lose your way in with her," his ally said with great assurance as he adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "She might even skin you alive for the attempt."

"Personally, I'd love to see her kick your arse, Malfoy," the second half of the Dunderheaded Duo stated, leaning back dangerously in the small chair and putting his oversized, booted feet up on the table. "She's a right hellion, our Hermione…and she has a mean right hook."

Draco absently rubbed the left side of his jaw. "Don't I fucking know it," he remarked, recalling how she'd left him eight months ago. With a sigh, he waved the ginger off. "Just…talk to her. Get her to see sense. If I'm right, we could change the whole direction of the war with this plan."

Potter and Weasley traded one of those irritating, smug looks that reminded Draco that they understood better than anyone alive how Granger's temper flared, and they thought his desperation to get on her good side was 'cute'.

Fucking arseholes.

It was Scarhead who gave in first. "She's going to hex me with boils," he stated, looking back up the stairs at the direction their witch had left, "but I agree it's too good an idea not to try, even if it does require facing her wrath." He made a face that indicated he wasn't looking forward to that challenge.

Draco refused to say 'thank you' to the help. Instead, he simply nodded to both men and turned away, heading for the kitchen's back door. It led out into Grimmauld Place's small terrace containing Hermione's miniature herb garden, and was a safe place for him to Disapparate away safely.

Reaching for the aged, brass doorknob, the emerald and platinum signet ring on Draco's left hand caught his attention and he paused to stare at it. It needed a good polishing, as it was beginning to look a bit worn from neglect.

"Do you think she‒?" he began to ask, but pulled back at the last minute, unwilling to put all his hopes out there, especially for Potter and Weasley to see. It was too humiliating to appear so weak before them.

They answered him anyway, having worked with him long enough by now to know what he was asking.

"Yes, she does and she will," Potter replied in that calm, eerily perceptive way of his, answering both of Draco's unspoken questions. "Give it time. This project will be good for rebuilding the trust between you two."

Weasley's response was much more cynical; he snorted. "First chance you get, get on your knees and beg for her forgiveness. Rip out your heart and throw it at her feet, while you're at it. You don't offer her everything up front she'll keep you at arm's length forever." He glanced up the stairs, too. "She can be cruel when making a man pay for his sins."

Draco snorted.

Who did the King Weasel think he was talking to? If anyone knew how Hermione liked taking chunks out of a person's hide, it was him.

After all, they had been married…until eight months ago.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Author's Notes:

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