Disclaimer: The characters are not mine and no money is being made.
A/N: I'm not really sure where I was going with this little piece. I originally sat down to work on Descending Darkness when this little idea popped into my head. It doesn't feel complete and I'm not even sure it makes sense, but I think that somehow makes it work. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but I hope you enjoy! And yes, I was listening to the Stones when I wrote this. All feedback is welcome.
The affair was a mistake.
It hadn't begun as a lust-filled misadventure, brought on by a need to find excitement and escape the mundane. The affair had not been born from the failings of a relationship.
No, the affair was their way of mourning. Together, rutting against each other in the throes of ecstasy, they were able to find a relief for what they had lost - what had been stolen from them!
For in the end, they wanted nothing more than an escape. Time after time they had proven to the world their strength, their determination, their perseverance. Had no one noticed their shared sorrow?
It was wrong.
It was wrong for her to long for him in the middle of the night, wishing he was lying with his arms wrapped around her middle.
It was wrong for him to picture the snoring woman he held in his arms, his beautiful, faithful wife, to be her.
They were wrong. He was not her husband, nor was she his wife, yet they craved each other. Perhaps this made it right?
The affair hadn't started as a lust-filled misadventure, but time had redefined the time spent with one another into a passionate relationship.
Was it love?
No! She would never fully recover from her husband's murder, even as his voice echoed in her head and urged her to press on, to live.
Was she following his advice to move on by allowing him to trail his tongue across her bare shoulder? Was she honoring her husband's memory when he nipped at her left nipple, gently tugging with his teeth? When he slipped a finger, two fingers, three fingers inside of her and pumped rhythmically until she cried out his name?
Did he love her?
No! He was devoted to his wife and children. His family, however, could not give him the release he so desperately sought. His family still believed he was a hero.
Would they consider him a hero if they knew he was kissing this woman? Would countless witches and wizards continue to praise him if they knew that at this very moment, he was riding a woman older than his mother?
No. There was not likely to be a witch or wizard among them who'd approve of their actions, but they didn't right give a damn at the moment. Not when he was pushing in and out of her so fast that the bedsprings were groaning, the sound of metal grinding metal meeting with the slap thud slap thud of the headboard against the wall and the thwap thwap thwap of their skin. Neither noticed when the still-frame muggle picture that she kept of her deceased husband fell from the bedside table and the glass cracked.
She moaned with her eyes half closed as she came. Harry pumped into her a few more times before the tight clenching of her around his member became too much and he shot inside of her. He pulled out of her and fixed himself into a sitting position facing away from her toward the wall. He'd gotten carried away again. He always arrived in her home with the best intentions of going slow, holding her, but his frustration with the situation always got the better of him. She didn't seem to mind.
A few minutes passed in silence before she quietly stated, "You should get home."
She always said this and had truly meant it in the beginning. She couldn't have him sleeping here, not in the bed that she had shared with Ted for so many years. However, as the years passed, she meant it less and less with each encounter. Even now, as her mouth betrayed her with false care, her head shouted 'Stay! This is your home!'
"Ginny might be worried," she added in what he assumed was an afterthought and not an attempt to shoo him away before she broke down and begged him not to leave.
He stood from the bed and began searching for his discarded clothing. Finally, as he was slipping on his boxers, he turned to look at her.
"Andromeda," he said in a professional monotone, "we've agreed this can't continue. We have to stop."
She didn't bother finding her own clothes and redressing. Teddy was at Hogwarts and there was no one besides Harry that would be stopping to visit. Slipping beneath the covers, she wrapped her arm under her pillow so that it supported her head and pulled her knees to her chest.
He had found the cracked picture of Ted while she had been busy rearranging herself and silently used his wand to repair it. Delicately, he placed it back onto the table edge where it had stood and slipped his wand into his pocket without her noticing.
Harry made show of patting the right pocket of his robe to check that he had his wand before bending to kiss her forehead. She tilted her head so that their lips met. He responded to the kiss as she pulled him back down onto the bed and wrapped an arm around his neck. Suddenly, he broke away from her with a frown.
"I've got to go," Harry whispered.
There was a small moment that she believed she'd seen him falter, knew that he had changed his mind, but her mind must have been playing tricks. The next moment he was nodding his head in farewell, wishing her well until the next time, and apparating with a pop!
The pop of apparation announced the arrival of Harry in his home. He knew the children would be sleeping and wondered if Ginny had --
Pop!
Ah, there it was. He'd purposefully arrived loud enough for Dean to hear and take his leave. The facade of his faithful wife shattered for another night.
After using his wand to clean himself up, he walked into the bedroom to see his wife reading. He didn't bother asking what it was, both because he didn't care and he knew she'd grabbed the book from the nightstand. She'd been "reading" the same book for the past three years.
She looked up with a fake smile plastered on her angelic face and asked, "Were things hectic at the office?"
He shrugged off his robe and spewed on about filing a report on a wizard that had been found using an Unforgivable Curse on his children, which he managed all while brushing his teeth. Ginny gasped and looked appalled in all the right places. It didn't matter that he was lying through his teeth.
She had already put the book back in its position on the nightstand and turned out the lights when he climbed in bed beside her and kissed her cheek. Only a few minutes had passed before she began softly snoring as he held her against him. He shut his eyes and pictured he was holding Andromeda.
He sighed, startling his wife and making her snore loudly before drifting back into her light pattern. As much as he wished it, he would never hold Andromeda in his arms. She had made it quite clear that their affair would never turn into a relationship beyond the one they shared as friends - that happened to fuck. He didn't want this realization to be true, prayed it wasn't, because he had fallen fast and hard for the grandmother of his godson, but she could never know the truth.
She was insatiable, always trying to keep him around even after telling him to leave, and the thought made him smile sadly. It was enough that he got to spend time with her even if he couldn't show it. It was enough that he could hold her for the few minutes he was was inside her, touching her, feeling her alive, even if it wasn't the snuggling he craved.
He fell asleep as he painfully pushed thoughts of her aside, knowing that she would never feel the same in return.
A tear slithered down Andromeda's left cheek. She closed her eyes and wished for him to return. She'd been lying to herself for years, denying her feelings for this man who was younger than her own daughter had been, denying that her feelings were no longer counseling or lust. Time had proven that she could love after Ted's death, but Andromeda Tonks would never admit to loving Harry Potter.
After all, what good was it to admit her feelings for a man that was only seeking her out for sexual pleasure? She knew Harry had long ago stopped pretending she was some miraculous cure to his heartache. No, she was nothing more than an escape from the stresses of his everyday life.
Recalling an old muggle song that Ted had played her a few times she sadly whispered, "Heart of stone."
He'd never know that she loved him, because she couldn't bear chasing him away from her life. She'd never know that he felt the same way.
That's why the affair, they reasoned, had been a mistake.