A/N - Eeek this was my entry for the facebook group beyond the nook fanfiction's forbidden fruits fest and IT WON best secret lovers! From the prompt, Orator Hermione Granger-Weasley, social justice advocate, has always been at odds with conservative Orator Tom Riddle. However, for the past several years they have had an affair and kept it from their spouses under the guise of their busy work schedule. Tom and Hermione thought they were being careful when she and Ron began trying to have their child-but now that her son is a toddler it's clear to her that Ron is not his father.
"I hate him," Hermione hissed to no-one in particular as she stomped into her office. The brief she'd just been given by her boss was discarded onto her perpetually cluttered desk.
Cho chuckled from behind her and Hermione glared at the woman she'd been friends with since university until she stopped. With a sigh, Hermione collapsed into her chair and began fiddling with the hem of her skirt.
"It's not funny" she muttered petulantly.
Cho nodded but didn't say anything, rounding the desk to pull her friend into a hug. "I don't know why you're surprised," she said. "He's been talking about implementing this law for the past five years."
Hermione scowled. She knew that was true, but still. She didn't think they'd ever get to a point where his idea would be viable. "You need to leave, Cho," Hermione said reluctantly. "Your flights in a few hours. Just ignore me."
Cho pulled back with a smile and a shake of her head..
"You'll call me if you need anything?" she offered.
"Yes, yes," Hermione mumbled, waving her friend off and slumping back into her chair only to immediately jump back out of it when she spotted a figure standing in her doorway. "YOU!" she exclaimed loudly, pointing her finger.
Cho whirled round and laughed before making a hasty exit. "Bye," she called over her shoulder to Hermione, "Good luck Riddle" she murmured sarcastically before she slipped out of the office and closed the door behind her.
Hermione glared across the room at her guest , her scowl only worsening as he made his way across the office. He ignored her pouting and knelt at her feet, reaching one hand up to gently cup her jaw; Hermione automatically leaned into his touch.
"I'm so mad at you," she murmured quietly, not bothering to open her eyes to see his obvious amusement.
"I know," Tom said, spreading his hands on her knees and parting them as he began to run them up her stocking-clad thighs, "but you love me anyway."
Hermione snorted but didn't stop him when his hands reached her knickers. She instinctively lifted her bum from the chair and let him pull them from her legs before he let one hand slip under her knee, his mouth placing gentle kisses against it as he slipped two fingers between her already wet folds, spreading her desire across her labia before lazily dipping them into her and pumping them, his thumb gently pressuring her clit.
"Let's go to dinner tonight," he murmured, still keeping the steady pace of his fingers thrusting in and out of her cunt. Hermione opened her eyes to see him watching his ministrations, his eyes dark with desire. She reached out to cup his jaw like he'd done for her and stroked her thumb along his jaw affectionately when he leaned into her.
"I can't. It's my in-laws anniversary. There's a big party to be had and there's no way I can skip out on it - not this time."
The man between her legs nodded and placed a chaste kiss on the palm of her hand before he smirked and curled his fingers to nudge that spongy spot he knew would have her sobbing his name in seconds.
"Fuck you" she gasped, grasping his hair when he maneuvered his head between her legs and his tongue joined in, licking and sucking her clit. His eyes flicked in her direction to see her head thrown back against her chair, her mouth parted and her eyes scrunched together in an effort not to come.
Tom chuckled, and Hermione swore she got even wetter at the sound. "Oh I plan to sweetheart."
"Mummy!"
Hermione grinned at the sight of her three year old running down the hallway towards her. "Hello munchkin," she murmured into his hair as she scooped him into her arms. "How was your day? Have you been good for daddy?"
"Yessss," he drawled, smiling up at her. Hermione chuckled and put him back down, slipping her coat off as her husband, Ron came into view.
"Hey."
"Hi."
"You're late."
Hermione sighed, and slipped her heels off before she began to ascend the stairs, "I got held up in Parliament. I just need a quick shower and then we can go." Ron didn't say anything as he followed her up the stairs and into the bathroom. Hermione shrugged her dress off, grateful that Tom had reluctantly passed her knickers back to her before he'd left her office not even an hour ago. She could still feel his come on the insides of her thighs as she rolled her stockings off and stepped into the shower.
"How was Callum today?" She asked her husband over the water. Ron looked up and shrugged.
"Fine. He was a little shit this morning when you left but," he shrugged again and went back to looking at his phone. Hermione frowned at him.
"Don't you think you should be downstairs watching him right now?"
Ron scowled, but put his phone away and trudged out of the bathroom. Hermione heard him mumbling under his breath about "getting five minutes peace" and "devil child" but didn't say anything. They were about to leave and spend the evening with his parents and family. She didn't want to argue.
She showered quickly, reluctantly scrubbing her afternoon with Tom from her body. When she dragged herself from the shower and the memory of her boyfriend bending her over her desk, it was to find Callum sitting on her bed colouring and waiting for her.
"Where's your father?" she asked, irritated that Ron had let him out of his sight again. Callum shrugged, looking up at her with those big green eyes of his. Hermione kissed him on the forehead, ruffling his dark hair affectionately before she got dressed.
"Hey" Harry murmured, lifting his glass in greeting and joining Hermione at the edge of the room.
She smiled warmly at her best friend and turned back to keep an eye on Callum; he was currently harassing Victoire to play with him but the five year old continued to simply pout at him. Hermione hid a smile behind her glass of wine and shared a glance with Harry who was also watching the scene with amusement.
"How are you?" he asked gently, nudging her shoulder after a few minutes.
Hermione sighed and leaned into him."Tired."
She didn't have to say anything else. He knew how she felt, how restless and unhappy she was in her marriage. Knew how stubborn and proud she was. Knew she wouldn't leave without a good reason - they'd already had that conversation.
"Mummy," Callum interrupted from across the room. "Mummy I have to potty." He rushed towards them, ignoring the shots of "Don't run!" that his grandmother was calling after him and barrelling straight into Hermione's shins. Harry grinned down at his godson.
"I can take him if you want?"
Hermione smiled but shook her head. "It's fine. Hold my drink though?" Harry nodded and took the glass from her fingers as she bent forward to lift Callum into her arms and smiled after her as she walked from the room, Callum clutched on her hip as she spoke quietly to him.
"Are you nearly done sweetie?" Hermione asked even as she fixed her mascara and applied another coat of lipstick in the mirror.
She smoothed her hands down her jeans and turned to watch her son as he exited the stall and stood on his tiptoes in an attempt to reach the soap. Hermione chuckled and lifted him up, setting him down beside the sink so he could easily reach the water without hurting himself. She watched him with a fond smile on her face and ran her hand through his hair affectionately as he concentrated on the task at hand, his eyebrows furrowing together and his lips pursing. She'd seen that determined look on her face in baby pictures of her own, and when he smiled up at her she felt her heart clench with the love she had for him.
"Good job buddy," she murmured, helping him down and moving him in the direction of the hand-dryers, the noise of which was so loud neither one of them heard the door to the bathroom open.
"Hermione," a woman said when the dryer switched off and Hermione turned, expecting Ginny, or Angelina - even Molly - but instead found herself facing Bellatrix Lestrange. Her face fell and she stood slowly, holding onto Callum's hand tightly - he had an awful habit of running up to strangers and introducing himself to them and Hermione had no desire for the women in front of her to ever become acquainted with her son.
"Bellatrix," she said evenly, lifting her son into her arms and ignoring his pout. "How are you?"
The woman sighed and continued to fix her black curls and impeccable make-up in the mirror.
"Oh you know the usual. Political dinners here. Shopping there. Keeping the husband happy in between it all," she sneered, making no move to disguise how her eyes roved the length of Hermione and the comfortable pair of jeans and dark green jumper she'd thrown on earlier.
Hermione bit the inside of her cheek and remembered how Tom had told her only a few hours ago how much he loved her , not the woman standing before her with her tight black dress and her perfect make up. Her. She smiled.
"It's a hard life I'm sure," she said, moving past Bellatrix and opening the door to the restaurant "Have a nice evening Bella."
"Who was that mummy?" Callum asked quietly as they made their way back to the party. Hermione smiled down at her son but shook her head.
"No- one important sweetie." She was so distracted by their conversation that she didn't see the person who'd stopped dead in front of her.
"I'm so sorry," she began, looking up to see Tom staring at her. No, not at her. At Callum.
She flushed. He'd never met her son before. They never talked about him when they were alone, both of them preferring to pretend that the outside world didn't exist. She opened her mouth to say something, anything really, when Callum stuck his tiny arm out and proffered his hand to her boyfriend.
"Hello. I'm Callum Richard Granger- Weasley. Who are you? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Hermione's eyes widened in surprise at his words and she glanced at Tom just in time to see his lips curl into a smirk.
"Well," he drawled, slipping a hand out of his pocket and taking Callum's small hand in his own large one. "I'm Tom. I work with your mum."
Callum looked to Hermione and she nodded, unable to speak as she watched the two men she loved interact, a forlorn sense of wanting and despair quickly devouring her good mood. Callum looked back to the new man and grinned at him, startling a laugh from Tom. Hermione closed her eyes and savoured the sound, opening them just in time to see Ron exit the room at the back of the restaurant, no doubt wondering where she'd run off too. Her face fell instantly. That was her husband, not the one standing in front of her chatting with her son like he was his own. Like he was theirs.
"We should get back," she pondered avoiding Tom's eye. "Say goodbye Callum."
"Goodbye Callum," both of them answered as they grinned at her.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at Tom. "Very funny," she grumbled as he stepped aside and let her pass. She didn't look back to see him watching her walk away with an indecipherable glint in his eye.
Tom wasn't sure what he was going to say to her. He had the picture that he'd spent half the previous night digging about in the basement for, tucked safely into his inside blazer pocket but he wasn't sure about whether or not he wanted to give it to her in person or if he wanted to simply leave it waiting for her on her desk to discover alone. He spent so long dallying about the decision though that it was taken for him when Hermione breezed into her office and stopped dead at the sight of him.
"Hi," she whispered. Tom nodded at her and stood from her chair.
"I have something for you," he said, taking the photo from his pocket and placing it face-down into her hands. "I," he began, shaking himself and sliding his hands up her arms till they rested on her shoulders. "I love you. And whatever you decide I will support you one-hundred-percent."
"Tom," she warned, reaching for him as he took a step back from her.
"I'll see you later," he pledged before leaving her to it.
He was a coward for leaving her there to discover the truth by herself but he couldn't stomach whatever her reaction would be. He remembered their promises to each other only too well.
"He wants to have a baby. Ron wants me to have a baby, his baby."
She felt him stiffen above her, not that she expected anything less. Having an affair was one thing. But continuing to have an affair when she would be pregnant with her husband's child, and her boyfriend had zero intention of leaving his incredibly wealthy wife with her innumerable political connections, well that was a road Hermione had no intention of travelling down.
"I love you."
She nodded, her head already burrowed firmly into his chest, "I love you too."
"I don't want you to have his baby."
"I know."
"I don't want you to sleep with him at all."
"I know."
"The fact that he already gets to spend his life with you is more than he deserves..."
She didn't agree with that sentiment, she did love her husband after all, it wasn't his fault she just didn't love him like she used to, that she wasn't in love with him anymore.
"I can't put my life on hold anymore Tom," she admitted quietly.
She didn't want to have this conversation. She didn't want to give him up, but he had no intention of leaving Bellatrix. He wanted to be Prime Minister one day and his marriage to her was an excellent point in his favor. Hermione knew and understood that - didn't make it hurt any less.
"I don't want you to leave me," he whispered into her hair.
Hermione felt the tears escape her eyes and lifted her head to look at him.
"I know."
"We'll be careful," he promised, rolling them over till she was on her back and he was pressing into her, his cock filling her to the hilt. Hermione gasped at the suddenness but nodded her assent reaching her arms up to wrap around his neck, her back arching as he rolled his hips against her.
"Promise?" she rasped. Her fingernails dragged across his shoulders, not enough to mark him, but hard enough so he could feel it.
"I promise," he growled, leaning down to silence any further protests she might have had, smirking against her lips when she whined as he slipped a hand between them and pressed against her clit till she was coming apart in his arms and he was falling apart in hers.
Harry found her in the pub she'd texted him to pick her up from, drinking directly from what looked like the third bottle of chardonnay she'd indulged in. When he slipped into the booth opposite her and pried the bottle from her hand, he noticed how pale she was, how her mascara had ran and her cheeks were in the remnants of it and how she was staring at a picture as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Harry leaned over the table to see who it was and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"That's not Callum," he started, glancing up to see Hermione looking at the bottle in his hand. He passed it over and she took a swig.
"No," she said between gulps. "It's his father."
Harry's eyes widened in surprise. "No," he murmured quietly, realisation dawning on him, "Hermione tell me you didn't."
She laughed. Laughed until she was sobbing and Harry had rounded the table to draw her into his arms. "I just found out today."
Harry swallowed his own feelings and thought about his best friend for a minute. "And you're sure?" he ventured.
Hermione snorted. "Callum is no Weasley, Harry. No. I'm sure. Sure as I am that I love his father almost as much as I love him. Callum is Riddle's, is Tom's," she clarified.
"Does he know?"
"He's the one that informed me."
Harry nodded. "What are you going to do?"
Hermione looked up at him. She was shaking, Harry noticed. Her bottom lip trembled as she pulled it between her lips and her eyes were wide with fear of the unknown. Harry had known Hermione since primary school, since the day Blaise Zabini had tripped them both in the playground and they'd banged their heads together. He knew she wasn't happy with Ron. Wasn't happy with the way he lazed about on the back of his injured footballer salary and did nothing useful with his day while Callum was at nursery or one of their parents.
"I don't know," she croaked, bursting into tears again. Her sobs were only silenced by how tightly Harry was clutching her to his chest.
He'd packed his bags in the middle of the night, emptied half of their joint bank account, and slipped away in the car that he'd earned and purchased with his own money. He felt liberated for the first time in his life. He'd gotten out from under his father's thumb only to find himself under an entirely new one when he'd married Bellatrix. It had taken him a long time to realise that he didn't need her or her family and their money to achieve his dreams. He definitely didn't want to sacrifice the potential of having a family, a son with Hermione, if it was available to him.
He checked into a hotel not far from where he knew she lived and sent her a text. She hadn't gotten back to him after he'd left her office but he was trying his best to ignore the way his subconscious snarked at him, telling him that she wasn't about to break up her happy family to be with him.
"It'll be fine," he murmured to himself, opening one of the tiny bottles of whiskey available from the mini-bar and downing it in one. "It will all be fine. She'll come. They'll both come."
She stared at the door in front of her and debated about whether she really wanted this, if she really wanted to blow apart the peace she'd somehow managed to keep in her life despite all the lies and deceit that were lurking around the corner at any given moment.
"Where are we mummy?" Callum mumbled from her arms. Still half sleeping, and with a thumb stuck in his mouth, his eyes fluttered open momentarily to take in his surroundings. Hermione rocked him in her arms.
"Shhhh sweetie," she murmured, dropping the bag she'd been clutching in her other hand so she could knock on the door before her, never taking her eyes from his sleepy form and nuzzling her nose against his. She only looked up when the door opened.
"We're home" she whispered quietly, to Callum and to Tom, who was still gaping at the pair of them in the hallway of his hotel. Hermione raised an eyebrow at him and he rolled his eyes at her wordless admonishment before he leant forward and gave each of them a kiss on the forehead - first Callum, then his mother. Then, he picked up her bag and led them into the room.