Chapter Text
There is a club in the middle of muggle London, warded much like Grimmauld Place. Muggles can’t see it, would only get turned around if they tried to see beyond a ripple in the air.
Nox is exclusive. Tailored for Alphas and Omegas. Betas need not apply.
Mostly invitation only, not that Hermione’s ever received one. Who would send uptight Hermione Granger an invitation to a kink club?
Working in the Ministry has its perks. Quite possibly the only good thing to come of her relationship with Ron was learning about Nox. It had been mentioned in a case before he left the aurors.
Then she’d asked for something tame—at least it was to her— and they broke up. Maybe it was her mistake to think Ron would understand that she needed to try new things.
Needed to cut her teeth on her fantasies to know if she really wanted them.
Nox is private, with its forms and waivers. It’s safe, with charms and safe words, and the fact that her wand would never be far from her.
Out in the world, Alphas held the power, and Nox had been created to give Omegas a taste of that power.
She’s worked hard to hide her designation with curated perfumes, and suppressants.
There is no safer playground for Hermione Granger—secret Omega.
There are forms upon forms to sign. In the privacy of her home, Hermione presses the tip of her wand to the parchment. This weekend, she’ll go to the club.
Nox encourages for the first visit to be for observation. Or it’s to see if applicants are sure of what they’re choosing to step into.
She doesn’t do anything by half. Hermione’s never been more sure of something. She knows exactly what she wants.
A less known fact—to outsiders, anyway—is that there’s a built-in pairing service within the membership contract. Technically, there are two.
One uses a drop of her magic, to measure compatibility on a biological level.
The other is the entire reason she’d risked public embarrassment—not that she was embarrassed of her wants—and she’d sealed it an hour before.
The questionnaire details all the things she likes, doesn’t, and is curious about. At the very end, there’s an open space to voice desires that don’t fit in neat small boxes.
Hermione nearly rips a hangnail while thinking about what she’d written. Her handwriting had been neat, looping, and utterly recognizable to anyone who’s ever seen a memo from her.
I want someone who understands that I want to pretend that I don’t want it. I want someone who presses me down and tells me how pretty I am when I take it.
I like it when it hurts.
It’s the most honest she’s ever been.
Despite the promise that nothing in Nox leaves its doors, Hermione summons a glamour. She feels it run along her spine, and coiling through the ends of her hair.
The woman to her side knows exactly who Hermione is, and understands.
When she’s matched though, she’ll need to give up her anonymity. It's difficult to imagine trusting a stranger with that power. Still, she’s wearing a piece of permanent jewelry that’s keyed to whoever her best match is. They may not be here tonight. Secretly, she hopes they are.
She views the room with the space between her thighs only growing slicker. She’d been sure to down a suppressant before arriving, but the air is thick with enticing smells, and even more alluring sounds.
There is a witch on her knees, lips parted. A wizard standing over her, hand gripping the base of his cock while she runs her tongue over the tip.
Hermione feels as though she exists inside a vacuum, unable to hear anything, hardly able to watch the scene play out in front of her. Across the club, there are different scenes in motion. She walks through the corridors, scanning the rooms via windows and feels her cunt clench around nothing.
In one, there’s a woman strapped to a St. Andrew’s cross. In another, a man is on his knees before his partner, and her heel is pressed to his chest as he carefully undoes the dainty straps before running his palms up her calves.
She sees two men tangled together in a bed, and squeezes her thighs tight. At first glance, it might look like an embrace, but they’re rutting against one another, cocks sliding against the other while—
Hermione had been too preoccupied to notice their faces. Her inhale of breath is sharp, and then it feels as though she’s hardly breathing at all. She’d know them anywhere, but she didn’t expect to see anyone she recognized.
How silly. Of course this is her luck.
To the world, most designations are public. Due to the war—due to the starvation she’d been put through—she’d presented much later, and in the privacy of her own home. Her closest friends knew, and she trusted them.
But she knew this: Theo Nott was an omega, and Harry Potter was an alpha. Hermione backed away from the glass as Harry gripped Theo’s jaw, pressing butterfly soft kisses against his mouth. It should have been too much to see.
Harry is like a brother, but she can’t look away. Neither can the crowd around her, it seems. She’s willing to bet they always drew a crowd.
She swallows, mouth dry and her cunt pathetically wet.
Someone steps up beside her. A man with excellent taste in cologne. Familiar, too… His arm brushes hers by mistake, and he clears his throat. The bracelet around her wrist begins to burn.
For whatever reason—call it fear, call it anxiety—Hermione doesn’t glance up. Her gut churns and she’s sure if she looks, she’ll be confronted with the face of another person she knows. Perhaps there were other clubs? Maybe she could travel by Floo to another that wasn’t so close to home. There was always the choice of portkey, she supposed.
“Is this your first time?” And just like that, her fantasy shrivels.
Hermione knows exactly who’s standing beside her, and it’s a small miracle that he has no idea. The glamour had been the best move after all.
“Yes,” she manages, staring straight ahead, her spine going rigid.
At her side, he sags. “You know me?”
Yes.
“Of you,” Hermione says instead.
In front of them, Theo’s mouth opens in a moan, but she can’t focus.
“Does that mean you won’t look at me?”
Against her screaming instincts, Hermione tilts her head up, and meets gray eyes.
Draco Malfoy has a sharp jawline and a nose that he finally grew into. He stopped slicking his hair back after the war, and he’s grown broader since coming into his own designation. Tonight, he’s ditched his dress robes and opted for dress pants, and a crisp white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He looks like a wet dream, and her possible downfall.
She wants to do a lot more than just look at him.
“Ouch,” she mutters, and lifts her wrist. There’s a red line wrapped around it, and reality settles back in.
Permanent jewelry is the club’s way of dealing out matches. Someone near her has their own piece of metal that’s burning them the closer they get to her.
Or, she thinks, it might be the man standing in front of her.
She offers her wrist to him, arching a brow. “You?” Hermione asks.
“Me,” he confirms. “I’ll ask to have the match dissolved.” Malfoy shrugs. “It won’t be the last time. Enjoy your night.”
Guilt settles in her stomach when he turns away from her. He’s sought her out, and she’s shot him down so thoroughly that his shoulders are slumped.
Before she could think it through, Hermione grabs his hand. “It’s really not you. It’s me.”
He glances over his shoulder, a sad smile curving his mouth. “You don’t have to let me down easily. I understand—”
“No,” Hermione grinds out. “You don’t. I’m—” A couple beside them is about to fuck, and Hermione has to focus if she’s going to manage this conversation. “I’m wearing a glamour.”
His mouth drops open. “Glamours aren’t possible here.”
“Maybe not for you, but I’m perfectly capable.” Hermione smiles. “You know me, and I don’t think you’d like what’s beneath the glamour is all. I don’t want to waste your time, and I don’t want…”
Malfoy tips her head up by her chin, fingers gentle as he does. “You don’t want to be rejected, is that it?”
Embarrassed, she nods.
This is someone who bullied her relentlessly, someone who watched the worst moment of her life. They are two sides of one coin in ways: his dark mark to her scar. It’s not so simple as rejection. That, she could survive if it were a stranger. But if it were him?
Hermione’s not so sure about that.
Malfoy’s hand drops to her hip, and he slides a finger through her belt loop and draws her closer. “I don’t think that’s going to be the case, pretty girl.”
“You don’t even know what I look like.”
He smirked. “I have a good idea who you are, really.”
How can he? Then again, he used to be almost as clever as her. Maybe he does know.
Does that make this easier or harder?
He leans down. His mouth brushes her ear and she shivers. “If I get this right, you give me a chance. It doesn’t need to be sex; it can be a conversation to see if this is worth exploring.”
Slowly, so slowly, Hermione nods. She’s sure he can’t know, anyway and she’ll still have the power.
“Your letter said you like it when it hurts. Is that true?” Malfoy nips her earlobe. “Answer, pretty girl.”
Hermione sucks in a breath, and whispers, “Yes.”
“Good.” He murmurs. “I know exactly how to make it hurt, Granger.”