Just A Taste?

Prompt: (via ) Regarding your prompt requests, I will boldly request something way out there, because I LOVE your talent at making rare pairs work/come alive. How about a never-before-seen rare pair of Hermione Granger and Florean Fortescue; very squicky post-Hogwarts — she likes to indulge in the occasional special delivery to her office, and he likes her flavour? (via )
for anon

A/N: So, if you've read the prompt, you will realise, this was not my fault. I tried my best. Enjoy… or not, as the case may be :)

Hermione sat in her uncomfortable, cold wrought-iron seat and tried to relax. It should have been easy, the sun was shining, Diagon Alley was a haze of summer tranquillity, and she was with two of her dearest friends. It was a recipe for a perfect afternoon if ever she'd had one, and yet her mind was being violently assaulted with… with… pastels!

They were everywhere. An upmarket ladies' skirt, another ones' fingernail polish, the shopping bag of a little boy and all of the textbooks a group of teenagers were using while settled around a table a few hundred feet away.

Hermione was going mad. Utterly and unsalvagably mad. It had been getting worse for weeks, and at this point, she didn't know what she could do to stop the descent. It was getting so bad she was beginning to question if the colours were even there or whether she was only seeing them as part of some fanciful hallucination from her increasingly lurid imagination.

It wasn't to be borne. She couldn't carry on like this.

Hermione blinked behind her sunglasses and then pushed them onto her head, so they held back her hair.

"What's your…" she began hesitantly. "What's your upper age limit?"

Fleur and Tonks abruptly stopped the conversation they were having and turned to look at her quizzically.

Hermione wondered if this was worth the inevitable humiliation, but then, she thought about the sleepless nights she'd been having. She needed some advice, and she certainly couldn't ask Harry or Ron, they would expire immediately, and Ginny would enjoy it all too much to be useful. She wasn't sure Luna operated under any kind of societal norms; as such, she wouldn't understand Hermione's hesitation. So, the two witches in front of her were Hermione's only hope.

"With men, I mean," she clarified with a shrug as she nervously ripped apart a used up sugar packet. "How old do you think you would go to? If you weren't married, that is."

Fleur pursed her lips as if in serious thought. "I've never wondered before, have you?" she asked Tonks with interest. The other witch shook her head.

"It's hard to answer something like that without context," Tonks replied. "Remus is older than me, and maybe he is older than I would have hypothetically dated before, but then I met him, and despite his protests, age didn't matter for me."

Fleur nodded and stirred her coffee. "Same with Bill, though he's not that much older. There are a couple of wizards at work, both of whom are quite a bit older, that are very attractive but I've never thought much of it as… well, I have my Bill."

Hermione's head whirled as a man in a strawberry coloured sweater walked past. Did they even make clothes in that shade? She had never seen anyone in the wizarding world wear anything like it before. Hermione rubbed her temples and sighed. She was going to have to admit herself to St Mungos at this rate.

"So, Hermione, who have you met?"

"Is he much older than you?" Tonks asked, and although she was intrigued Hermione could detect a hint of protective worry.

Hermione held her cup to her chest as a defensive barrier and decided it was best to get it all out.

"Well, you remember months ago, when the Ministry opened up those booths in the canteen?"

"Yes," Tonks replied with a laugh. "I don't think Remus has stopped talking about it. Do you know he ate ice cream every day for a week?"

Hermione winced. This was going to take some telling.

The senior bods at Ministry had decided that people weren't social enough. Some report had been run on internal networking, and the results showed that the number of key relationships throughout the building was dropping off. No department could afford to be siloed, and collaboration was critical to success and the upkeep of the new cultural values they were trying to instil. A period of brainstorming began the result of which were several new programmes being rolled out to all levels.

They started by putting on events in the evening, wine tastings and language classes and all other sorts of other nonsense designed to get people out of their offices and talking to each other. As much as Hermione found the entire plan irksome, she couldn't deny there was something to be said for it. Kingsley felt that new networks needed to be established and that people needed to be more visible for them to avoid falling back into the world of back door deals and cronyism that had underpinned the Ministry of the past.

Hermione wholeheartedly agreed, and she supported Kingsley in this as she had with everything else. She just wished she didn't have to take part.

The latest step in the growing efforts had been to set up a section of the Ministry canteen to allow different vendors to sell food. As with the evening events, it was another multi-layered strategy. The committee that the Minister's Office had put together reasoned that Ministry employees were more likely to stay longer and possibly even eat in the canteen if they were tempted with nice food. The canteen food was legendarily awful, and yet nothing they had tried so far seemed to improve it. The booth idea was to create a kind of indoor market that, as well as getting people out of their offices, would also send much-needed revenue in the direction of businesses that were still trying to recover from losses incurred during the war.

Kingsley had admitted over dinner at the Burrow that they also hoped that such changes would have a PR advantage. They wanted the Ministry as a whole to be seen as a more open and approachable entity than it had in the dark days of 'Magic is Might'.

In the beginning, it had all be fine. Hermione, despite herself, had been charmed by the old fashioned brightly coloured wagons stationed on the far side of the canteen. She had made a point of visiting at least once a week to pick up something, even if it had only been sweets to take home for her friends.

Florean Fortescue's ice cream cart had been the last to become fully operational. The charm work required to keep the dessert suitably cool in such a clammy environment was unexpectedly intricate, and when it opened, it was the subject of much delight and chatter. Hermione had taken to getting her weekly treat from there and occasionally, even going as far to eat it in the canteen, much to Kingsley's surprised delight.

The cart was operated by Florean's son, Sebastian, a serene man in his early forties that reminded Hermione of a neighbour she'd had as a child. He wore a striped pink and white apron, a broad-brimmed white hat and most importantly a kind grin that always had Hermione changing her mind from one scoop to two.

After a few weeks of extraordinary success, the ice cream stand needed more help. Several of the young men and women Hermione had seen in the shop came in to cover a shift from time to time. Then, one day, Hermione noticed that Florean himself had started to come in for the odd few hours to see how things were going.

Hermione had never thought much of Florean Fortescue before. In her mind, he had been filed away as the man that owned the ice cream parlour from her childhood and not much else. She found she was surprised by how much she had taken for granted in seeing him again.

He was tall. No longer tall in that strange way adults looked to adolescents but way above average height. He had kind eyes, or so she thought, but there was a glimmer there too, something that she recognised from looking in the mirror or at her friends. Mr Fortescue had not had an easy war, that much was certain.

Covertly, Hermione had done what she could to find out about what might have happened to him, all the while firmly not asking herself why she cared. It had been Bill that told her in the end. He had interjected when Hermione had been trying to ask questions of Ron and Harry subtly. Florean had been kidnapped during the war, held by Death Eaters until the final battle when an Auror team had been able to assist in his escape. His shop had been all but destroyed, and it had taken him some time to rebuild.

Harry supplied a memory of Florean, from when he had stayed at the Leaky Cauldron for a couple of weeks. He had given Harry free ice cream and helped him with his History of Magic homework. The quiet, kind, humble man Harry spoke of was a person Hermione didn't think quite matched up with the Florean she had interacted with recently.

Florean was quiet still, but now he seemed more closed off. He did smile though that was hardly indicative of being happy; after all, he was selling his wares to the public. But Hermione had noticed that the expression never quite meet his eyes.

After some time of only dropping in intermittently, Hermione learnt from office gossip that Florean was now most likely to be seen on the stall on a Friday and that it was supposed to be his day off, he only came in to give his son a break and help out with the lunchtime rush.

Because Friday's were also the day she typically stopped for ice cream, Hermione found that she often met Florean on the stand more than she had Sebastian. Because it was his day off, he was never in uniform, and to Hermione, he looked very different out of it. Maybe she would never have noticed if it had been in his shop but being out of that setting, she was all the more aware of his casual clothes.

Florean often wore long sleeve t-shirts that were more closely fitted than were usually preferred by men of his age. Hermione couldn't help but notice that his arms were surprising built. She supposed all of the carryings of boxes she had seen him and Sebastian do would have that effect. For a wizard, he dressed with an appealing lack of frippery, and Hermione found she liked that most of all. He opted for simple, well-cut clothes, with not a brocade waistcoat or filigree in sight.

Still, despite her growing number of passing observations, Hermione felt she didn't take much notice of Florean until she began to suspect that something in their interactions had changed. She couldn't put her finger on it. At first, she had attributed it to getting to know the man slightly better by nature of a weekly interaction. But then, she began to believe there was more to it than that.

-/-/-/-

"I shouldn't be having this," Hermione admitted with a smile as she glanced towards Florean and collected her small tub of ice cream with a take away spoon pressed into the lid. Something about it always reminded her of the theatre, and it never failed to brighten her mood.

"Why ever not?" He replied, and she bit her lip. Hermione loved his voice. Florean was well educated, that much was evident and his deep rumbling baritone whispered that he was originally from the north of England. His accent was cultured and smooth and just listening to him seemed to pressure and then alleviate the knots in her back.

"It's my second this week," she replied and then muttered conspiratorially, wrapping one of her hands over the side of her mouth. "Don't tell anyone."

His hands gripped the scoop he was holding until his fingertips turned white, and Hermione thought she imagined it, but it looked as if his eyes darkened.

"Nothing wrong with a bit of what you fancy," he replied in a low voice, and Hermione felt her cheeks heat as she walked away.

-/-/-/-

Hermione arrived at the canteen later than usual and joined the back of the line feeling a little frazzled. The day was humid, the cooling charm in her office was broken, and she hadn't had a moment's rest since she had entered the building that morning. She wasn't wearing an outer robe, the air in the Ministry was far too hot for anything but the gauzy sleeveless blouse she had on, but she didn't like it.

Generally speaking, Hermione preferred to be more covered up. As one of the youngest Deputy Department Heads, she sometimes felt like she had to 'dress up' to play the part, for people to take her seriously. No matter, surely they would be able to see her bare arms and not take that as a sign she wasn't capable of doing her job?

"Hello," Florean greeted warmly when she finally got to the front. "I thought I might have missed you today."

Hermione smiled at his easy acknowledgement of noticing her comings and goings, but it made something in her stomach clench.

"Meetings," she explained with a shrug. It was not precisely accurate. There were a myriad of things that had made her day run late, meetings being just the tip of the iceberg. However, in her experience, people didn't want to know details when they made polite enquiries.

Hermione rose onto her toes and almost pressed her face against the glass partition so she could get a better look.

Florean chuckled, and it made the air around her so thick Hermione could feel it pressing against the delicate skin on her throat.

"Mint chocolate chip?" he asked, and Hermione nodded.

"Yes," she replied, tilting her head to look at him properly. He was hiding a smile if she was any judge. His eyes had that telltale crinkle around them, one she had only started to see recently. "How did you know?"

She hadn't even known what she wanted until he had suggested it.

"Years of experience."

Was Hermione going mad, or had there been a deliberate emphasis on the word experience? She shook her head and reached up to take her bowl. He hadn't even needed to ask how much she wanted, and there were two scoops as usual. Their fingers connected for the briefest moment and his hands were surprisingly warm. Her eyes flicked up, and he regarded her seriously. Hermione felt compelled to say something, but then someone coughed behind her, and she realised she was holding up the line. She stuttered out her thanks and then headed off before someone got grumpy. It was Friday after all, and everyone would be on a hair-trigger until five o'clock came and brought the weekend with it.

She thought about the look in his eyes, intent and yet far away, for the rest of the day.

-/-/-/-

Hermione had come down to the canteen very early that Friday morning. It wasn't unusual for her to be at the Ministry at that time, but typically, she would have gone straight to her office. Unfortunately for her, that morning her french press had broken no doubt from her continual heavy-handedness. She was in desperate need of some coffee before she attempted to work through her memos, and definitely before she tried to interact with any of her colleagues.

It appeared, however, that it was just not going to be her day. There was no one behind any of the counters. Though she would consider herself an immeasurably practical person, the industrial coffee machine at the back of the room was far beyond her understanding. It looked as if it would have been more at home on a military vessel than an office canteen. There were more buttons and dials than Hermione could comprehend and she didn't want to start touching random ones in case she accidentally released an endless amount of steam or shot boiling water everywhere.

She had been debating turning around and hot-footing it to the Alley before her eight-thirty when a warm voice interrupted her mental calculations.

"Can I help, Hermione?"

She turned around quickly and was eye level with his chest. With him standing so close she had to crane her neck up to see Florean Fortescue's face. He was looking at her with an open expression, betraying a hint of amusement and then he raised an eyebrow.

"Yes," she stumbled out, before pointing to the coffee machine that had probably started life on the Bismarck. "Do you know how to operate that?"

"Of course," he replied easily and then brushed past her, getting closer than she had anticipated he would, with a lingering touch that made goosebumps erupt all over her arms.

Florean rolled up his sleeves and hit a few buttons and before long Hermione sagged into the familiar, endlessly comforting sound of percolating caffeine.

She thought about asking him a question, something about the war or his life outside of the few hours a week when she saw him but somehow that didn't seem right. Hermione didn't want to intrude. She knew how painful talking about the past could be, and yet she couldn't deny how intrigued she was by him.

Who had he been before? Who was he now? Why did she care?

In no time at all, Florean was back and handing her a no-doubt perfectly made coffee in a takeaway cup. Hermione jangled around in her pocket to grab the correct change and then left it in a neat pile on the counter.

"Thank you," she replied earnestly. She wanted to be light and breezy and wish him well with his day, but she couldn't shake the intensity she was feeling. Maybe because it was so quiet? Or because it was just the two of them? Whatever it was, it was making her movements feel jerky and stiff.

"You're welcome, Hermione," he replied.

He'd repeated her name, that was twice in under ten minutes, and she was sure he'd never used it before. Hermione would have remembered her name been rasped out like a caress; it wasn't as if she had so many erotic encounters that one would have just slipped her memory.

Just before she was going to make an exit he leant forward, so close he was almost touching her and then reached down to push a lid onto her cup, his fingers biting into the plastic until it clicked and sealed.

"Have a lovely day," he murmured, and Hermione wasn't sure if it was a farewell or a command.

Hermione garbled something virtual unintelligible in response before scampering out of the canteen. She felt his eyes on her until she disappeared from his view.

Hermione gulped down a sip of her drink once she had finished laying out her 'evidence' before them and looked at her friends despairingly.

Of the two of them, Tonks managed to rehinge her jaw first and then she promptly called over a waiter, gesturing at their leftover teacups and asking him to bring over the wine menu. Hermione began to calm by degrees when there was no laughter, or worse, hostility.

"You know," Tonks began, thankfully once the waiter had disappeared from earshot. "I wouldn't have guessed Florean Fortescue in a million years."

Hermione shrugged, it wasn't exactly a surprise, she couldn't remember anyone saying they fancied him when they were growing up, not even as a guilty crush. She had certainly never thought of him in that way, she hadn't thought of him at all, but there was something that captivated her now.

"He sounds surprisingly… hot," Tonks added and eyed Hermione curiously.

"Well, he is obviously interested," Fleur declared as if the matter was wholly resolved. "But why the hesitation? Why doesn't he just ask you for a drink?"

"Maybe he's worried about the age gap?" Tonks theorised, and Hermione held back her own comment. It wasn't an angle she hadn't considered, though, in fairness, there were few things she hadn't thought of given how many times she had reviewed all of this in her mind.

"How old is he?" Fleur asked, and Hermione swallowed.

"Ah… sixty, sixty-five, something like that."

She was aware it was a significant number, bigger than she had ever considered. She remembered her mother being asked once if she had an upper age limit, Jean Granger had responded how she always did to questions along those lines, 'How old is Harrison Ford?' Which was good for a chuckle. However, Hermione thought the realities of considering any kind of relationship with someone so much older were more complicated than that.

Hermione had guessed at Florean's age based on the information to hand. She hadn't looked it up, even though she would have had access to those sort of files at the Ministry. She wasn't sure if it was morality that was keeping her from doing it, or, perhaps, plausible deniability.

"So like…."

"Forty years older than me," Hermione concluded without preamble, and Tonk's eyes widened briefly before she went back to looking contemplative.

"Are you… interested?" Fleur asked, and Hermione fidgeted in her seat.

"I know nothing about him, the more I interact with him, the less sure I feel I know. But-"

"You're attracted to him?" she pressed, and Hermione didn't see the point in denying it. She could still feel the lingering thrill of having been stood so close to him in the canteen. It had been the weirdest sensation, safety and a lingering sense of anticipation.

"Yes," she affirmed and then instinctively she hid her face in her hands. What was she thinking? He was an almost elderly ice cream man!

"Stranger things have happened," Fleur said at last in that unaffected French way she had that always made Hermione feel dreadfully uncouth in comparison.

"What would the boys say?" she asked in a furious whisper and Tonks shrugged.

"Why do you need to tell them?"

That brought Hermione up short. She supposed if she had intended to date Florean, as some part of long term relationship, then she would have to tell them eventually, but somehow she didn't think that was on the table, at least not yet.

"What… what now?" she asked, rather hopelessly and Fleur leaned forward to hold her hand.

"Nothing you're not comfortable with. Show your interest and then go with it for a while. Let him make his move."

"But what if….?"

"Hermione," Tonks said, looking at her softly. "No one is asking you to marry the guy, maybe just have you know… a bit of fun?"

Fleur waggled her eyebrows, and despite the pit in her stomach, Hermione laughed.

A bit of fun, she could do that, probably.

The following Friday Hermione was on leave, but by the Friday after that, she had reached a resolve. She had decided that she would throw caution to the wind, and show her hand, as it were. Fleur had teased that she was very proud of Hermione for considering taking a lover, Hermione hadn't known how to respond to that. What she did know, was that if she had somehow read this wrong she was going to have to leave the Ministry, and possibly the country until enough time had passed that everyone would have forgotten about it. Tonks had quipped that it least with Florean being so much older he would likely pass away before he could tell to many people, Hermione had tried to see the funny side.

The canteen was blessedly quiet when Hermione finally entered, and there were only two people in line for ice-cream. Thankfully, no one joined behind her while she was waiting. When it was her turn, she leant against the wagon slightly, ostensibly pursuing the options but really she was hopeful that the cold air that puffed out from the tray would help cool the flush she could already feel chasing its way across her cheeks.

"Erm… I was wondering?" she began hesitantly, and Florean smiled at her.

"Neopolitan?"

Hermione tried to smile in reply, but her anxiety was making it difficult. "Yes," she said simply. Neopolitan sounded lovely, and if this all went very wrong in a few moments, it might be her last chance to have some for a while.

Florean scooped the ice cream into a pot, and Hermione handed over her coins. Their weekly transaction, as it usually was, was over, but instead of walking away, she stood to the side, in the gap between wagons.

Florean watched her as she took a bite. Her nerves made her clumsy, and she missed her mouth. Hermione could feel a claggy patch of melted cream smudged at the side of her lips. Before she could react, or even curse herself for her awkwardness, Florean stepped back from behind the counter.

Wholly unexpectedly, he reached for her face. Hermione was as frozen as the dessert in her bowl as his thumb jutted under her chin to hold her still as he swiped two sure fingers against the side of her lips, gathering the ice cream she had left there in one deft motion.

"You missed a bit," he said gruffly and then, just as Hermione was getting her breath back from the shock of feeling his skin on hers, Florean pulled back his fingers, smeared pink and green, and pushed them inside his own mouth, shutting his eyes as he licked them clean.

Hermione's hand shot out to grip the side of the wagon to steady herself as she kept a biting grip on the bowl in her other hand.

"Nice?" Hermione said eventually, her voice a breathy whimper.

He hummed. "My apologies, I… I felt the most overwhelming urge to have a taste. I fear my control may be slipping today."

Hermione shivered and took a single step towards him. There wasn't anyone around, but she didn't want to be overheard. "Do you ever… want to indulge… more?"

She bit her lip and tried her best to meet his eyes. Hermione wasn't a natural flirt, and though she imagined her words could be taken as coy she was using them more like a life raft, so she could try and pretend she had more innocent intentions should things all go wrong.

"In certain circumstances," he said, staring down at her intently. "I find that it is all I can think about."

"That must be... "

"It's agony," he replied with a dark purr that Hermione felt all the way down to her shoes. There was no way even she could get together enough doubt to deny that he was interested now. The way he looked at her alone was enough to make the air feel warmer. She was going to do it. She was going to tell him she was… whatever it was she was… but then, two witches Hermione recognised from the accounts department appeared, tittering about some new system and cooing over the new ice cream flavours.

"I…" he began, looking between her no doubt bright red face and his customers but then they started asking questions, and he walked away.

She took a moment to breathe and pull herself together, then, on shaky legs, Hermione made it back up to her office where she closed the door and collapsed against it. Her heart was beating out of her chest, and she felt hot all over. There was nothing else for it. She would never get through the day without doing something drastic, something wholly unheard of for her.

In short order, she silenced the room, put her ice cream up on a high unit and shoved her hand under her skirt and into her knickers. She brought herself to the edge time and time again until eventually, she let herself go, climaxing just as she imagined Florean's fingers disappearing into his mouth.

Hermione was waiting outside the ice cream shop, staring through the blackened window from the quiet of Diagon Alley. It was one of those places that looked wrong at night. Without the brightness of the inside illuminating out of the windows and the jarring neon signs, the shopfront actually looked a little… sinister. Maybe that was just her mind playing tricks on her? Perhaps she had been dreaming of pastels so long everything else seemed wrong.

A dog barked from somewhere down the lane, and Hermione jumped and then collected herself.

What on earth was she doing there?

Two days after their interrupted conversation, she got an owl. It was from Florean, though he had never signed it. He said that if she wanted to continue their chat, she could meet him on Friday evening.

Hermione had never been so indecisive in her life, and yet, no matter how many times she tried to box it all up in her mind and forget about it, she faltered. She'd avoided the canteen that day, not sure whether or not she wanted to see him again, and yet, there she was.

Hermione approached the door and pressed a hand against it. It was open like he said it would be. She walked across the dimly lit storefront staring at everything. It reminded her of a dentists office while it was like this. Bright white and sterile with stainless steel hanging from the walls.

Hermione opened the back door and walked into what appeared to be a small sitting room. Florean was there. Despite knowing she was moving into the home behind the shop, Hermione hadn't been prepared to see him so soon. Her fingers lingered on the door handle as she closed it behind herself and then she put her arms behind her back, one hand resting into the crook of her elbow on the other arm. She knew it exposed how unsure she was, but she couldn't help it.

Florean was sat in a comfortable, traditional style armchair with a book across his lap. He didn't look wholly surprised to see her, but then, he must have known someone was on the premises from his wards.

"I wasn't sure you were coming," he said, and for the first time since this crazy interaction began, she thought he sounded exposed. Somehow that brief flicker of vulnerability made her feel better.

"Neither was I," she admitted honestly.

"You weren't in the canteen at lunchtime. I took that to be your answer."

Hermione nodded, distracted by how much nicer it was in there than the shop. It was… cosy she thought and inviting.

"I wasn't sure what I wanted."

"You do now?" he pressed, and Hermione took a step further into the room. She felt more at ease now. She was regaining her equilibrium. Something about him being sat down made him seem less intimidating than he had before.

Hermione hummed. "Do you proposition all of your customers?"

He relaxed further into the chair and rubbed his chin. "Was that what I did?"

Hermione placed a hand on her hip; it was a stance all that knew her would have recognised. "You know what you were doing."

"Do you proposition everyone you buy ice cream from?" he countered with a smirk.

Hermione bit her lip. "I buy only ice cream from you."

Florean smiled at that. It deepened the lines around his eyes and mouth. It should have been a reminder of how much older he was, but instead, Hermione found the softening of his features strangely comforting. Laughter lines, she had heard them called, a sign of a life well-lived. She hoped she had some of those herself when she was old enough. It was better than the inevitable puckering of her brow she knew she would never avoid. She frowned far too much.

"Do you want a drink?" he offered cordially and gestured to a drinks cabinet on the other side of the room. Hermione suddenly had the urge to laugh, but she managed to suppress it.

"No, thank you," she answered primly, and he nodded once in acknowledgement.

Hermione thought it was best to keep a clear head. It was hard enough to keep herself together without adding alcohol into the mix. She had never been in a situation like this before. Where she had agreed to meet up with a man knowing she was going to have sex. It had never been expressly stated, but his flirting had been of a particular kind, and he'd never followed it up with an invitation to somewhere conventional or public. He'd asked her to come to his home, and she wasn't naive enough to not appreciate what that meant.

No date, no build-up, no nothing.

"What do you want Hermione?" he asked in a deep rumble of a voice. He had put his drink down on the table next to him and was watching her openly. He seemed almost unnatural still, a predator waiting to strike or, more likely, a man not daring to take a breath, not until he knew that this was definitely going where he wanted it to.

Hermione bit her lip. She was afraid to say what she wanted, to spell it out in specific, unflinching terms. It reminded her of that story she had read about a girl who had gone to get her vagina pierced but when asked, was too shy to say she would like it done for pleasure - even though she'd already been stripped from the waist down, sat up on a table. It was a good reminder - the horse had already bolted, no use shutting the stable door now.

Hermione wetted her lips and shifted her weight onto her other foot, channelling some of her anxiety by fidgetting on the spot.

"You mentioned," she replied, psyching herself up, "wanting a taste?"

Florean sucked in a deep breath the sounded thunderous in the small room, and his hands tightened on the arms of the chair.

"You're sure?" he asked in a biting tone. Hermione nodded.

"Please say it," he insisted, and Hermione took another step forward, noticing the bulge in his trousers that his open posture did nothing to hide.

"I would like you to… indulge."

There was a heartbeat of silence, then two and then Florean got up from the chair and took two steps. It was enough for him to cover all of the distance between them and ghost his large hands over her shoulders and arms.

"Will you please take your clothes off?" It was a politely worded command if she had heard one, and it was exactly what she needed. His surety was enough to stop her from derailing into a panic.

Hermione stilled but then shimmied a step back so she could start by sliding her skirt off. She was a Gryffindor for heaven sake. She could do this!

What she managed would probably not have been considered erotic by anyone's standards, she was largely unpractised in what you might call seduction, and her movements were too considered to be spontaneous. Yet, Florean didn't appear to have any complaints. He stood by her like an ever-watchful century, never saying anything however his hands fisted by his sides and his brow pinched as if in deep concentration.

He stopped her progress when she was clad only in her knickers, and as soon as she paused, some of her anxiety returned. Nothing brought about self-doubt as swiftly as the realisation that you were standing in the back of an ice cream shop with your boobs out.

Florean leant down and kissed her without raising his hands. His approach was softer than she had expected and right on the lips. He didn't try to deepen the kiss, and after only a moment, he pulled away. Then, before she could come back down to earth, he placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her towards the chair he had been sat in when she arrived.

Florean placed his hands on her shoulders and then glided them down the curves of her body until he pushed his fingers under the fabric still on her hips. Once her knickers were stretched over his knuckles on either side, he slowly fell to his knees, dragging the black lace with him before helping her take it off her feet.

"Sit in the chair," he said softly, and Hermione hastened to comply. Once her bum hit the seat, he scooted her forward, closer and closer until her bum was right on the edge of the cushion.

"Thank you," he said with an intensity that made Hermione's insides tingly, then he moved his hands down her body again, this time coming to a stop on her knees. Never looking away from her face, he pushed his fingers into the inside of her knees and then gently but firmly separated her legs, pulling her wide.

Hermione couldn't look at him while she was so exposed, and so she focused on the top of his head instead. From this angle, she could see that his greying hair was receding a little on top. One of the benefits of his height she supposed was that not many people could see…

Her thoughts derailed as he pushed his face into her centre. Instinctively, Hermione gripped the arms of the chair, a mirror of his pose earlier as she tried to recover.

There was a pause, silence, almost longer than she could bear. Hermione was desperate to move her legs, part of her wanting to clamp them shut the other telling her to hold them out further.

Florean looked up at her just once and then pushed his head back down again. Hermione didn't just see stars; it wasn't pinpricks of light behind her eyes, but full-blown fireworks. This wasn't her first experience with this kind of act, but it was worlds away from any time it had been done before. In her experience, boys had always done so with a subtle reluctance that had eventually equated to a lacklustre performance.

Florean licked and sucked and attacked her clit as if she were giving out prizes at the end. As if this wasn't the precursor to something else, but something that would be enough on its own.

In no time, Hermione felt flush. It built from her temples and the tips of her fingers until it seemed to zip wire all over her body, stealing her breath as it set her veins on fire. She arched off the chair, clenched her toes and threw her head back to try to and absorb the sensation.

It wasn't enough.

When she tried to move again, Florean's arm jerked from its place holding her leg to lay against her middle, pinning her in place as effectively as an iron bar. The fabric of his shirt felt odd against her bare lap, and it brought home to her what they must have looked like. Her sitting naked, perched in his chair and probably destroying the leather, while he was before her, boxing her in while fully dressed.

Before Hermione could articulate that she needed more, Florean's fingers connected with her flesh, and after a frantic dance of begging and relief, Hermione came with an almost pained whimper.

When she was back to being fully aware of herself, she pulled her legs back together, and towards her tummy. She was so spent she felt like jelly, she was in the right place she supposed, and the thought made her giggle. Florean lifted an eyebrow in response to her outburst, but he didn't ask her to explain.

"I have wanted to do that for months," he admitted, panting as he laid his cheek against her inner thigh.

"That was…"

"Perfect," he interjected passionately. "It was fucking perfect."

Their eyes met, and Hermione felt more naked than she had before, the reality of the situation was seeping into her mind, and she didn't know what to do now. There hadn't been any declaration of feelings or even romantic intentions. They had barely even kissed. The quiet ticked on and Hermione stood on deer-like legs.

"I should… I should go," she said, sounding more decisive than she felt, but before she could get anywhere, Florean reached forward and grabbed her wrist.

Hermione turned on her heel to look at him, her standing naked and flushed and him on his knees, a supplicant at her feet.

"Hermione," he said, and then he reached up to settle the tufts of his hair she must have disturbed when his head was between her legs. She stared down at him, and he faltered before getting to his feet and looming over her once more.

His shadow fell over her like a robe, and she forgot she was naked and a bit of a mess, all that mattered was his gaze.

"When I saw you, for the first time in the Ministry," he shut his eyes and shook his head. "It was like, for those few moments you were there, nothing else mattered. I couldn't remember anything that had happened before. I couldn't remember any pain. I wanted… I wanted you, more than I have ever wanted anything before."

Hermione smiled and reached up to pet his cheek, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. "Was it everything you imagined it would be?"

Florean smiled ruefully and caught one of her hands in his. "The trouble with indulgences, Hermione is that you are very rarely satisfied with a small amount. When it's so much better than you could have ever anticipated, you inevitably want more."

Hermione considered him standing before her, rumbled and raw. She wanted to say that she wasn't sure that this thing, whatever it was, was for her. She wasn't a causal sex person, and yet, that had been amazing, and she couldn't deny she wanted to know more of him, more of his body, more of his mind.

Where was the harm?

"I have one condition," she chirped, trying to interject some much-needed levity in the room.

"What's that?"

"Can I have some raspberry ripple? After, I mean?"

Hermione bit her lip as he smiled, and his eyes darkened. "Hermione, you can have whatever you want."