Chapter 8: Kreacher Comforts Part 8
The scent of old paper and dust couldn’t mask the lingering musk of sweat and sex clinging to Hermione’s skin. She shifted her weight, the dull ache deep in her pelvis a constant, insistent reminder of Kreacher – of the shattered bed, the breathless aftermath, Ron’s awful, listening silence. The worn velvet spine of Magical Maladies of the Medieval Mind dug into her back as she leaned against a towering bookshelf deep within the library’s shadowed heart. Moonlight, weak and filtered through grimy skylights, did little to dispel the gloom; the single candle on a nearby lectern cast flickering, grotesque shadows that danced across the spines of forgotten tomes.
Kreacher stood rigidly before her, wringing his gnarled hands, his bulbous eyes wide with residual terror. "Mistress must not linger here," he rasped, his voice barely more than a dry leaf skittering across stone. "Master Wheezy... he knows. Kreacher is bad elf. Kreacher will be punished." He flinched, as if expecting a blow from the oppressive quiet itself. The memory of Ron’s frozen horror outside the splintered bedroom door was a fresh wound.
"He hasn't done anything, Kreacher," Hermione murmured, her voice surprisingly steady despite the tremor in her hands. She traced the faded gold lettering on the book behind her. "He hasn't spoken, hasn't confronted... anything." The not-knowing was its own torture, a constant hum beneath her skin. "Besides," she added, a reckless edge creeping into her tone, "it’s not his house to punish you in."
Kreacher blinked, this logic clearly warring with generations of ingrained servitude to the Black family’s allies. His gaze darted nervously to the library entrance, lost in the labyrinth of shelves. "The Mistress speaks sense," he conceded hesitantly, though his knuckles remained bone-white. "But Kreacher... Kreacher feels the eyes." He shuddered.
Hermione pushed off the bookshelf, closing the distance between them. The air felt thick, charged. She reached out, her fingers brushing the rough, papery skin of his shoulder. He flinched again, but didn’t pull away. The contact sent a jolt through her, a dangerous mixture of pity, defiance, and that undeniable, burgeoning heat that obliterated reason. The soreness between her legs pulsed, a wicked echo of the pleasure that had drowned out everything else.
"Then focus on me," she whispered, her voice dropping low, intimate in the vast, dusty silence. "Only me." Her hand slid down his thin, hunched back, feeling the knobs of his spine. His breathing hitched. "Show me you’re not afraid. Here. Now."
His bulbous eyes fixed on hers, filled with a confusion that bordered on agony. Obedience warred with terror, ancient loyalty with this terrifying new compulsion emanating from the witch before him. He trembled violently. "Mistress... Kreacher... cannot..."
"You can," Hermione insisted, her voice hardening slightly. She stepped back, leaning once more against the unforgiving shelves. She met his gaze squarely, her own a turbulent mix of challenge and desperate need. The war outside, the Order’s plans, the guilt of inaction – it all shrank to a distant hum beneath the roaring silence of the library and the frantic beating of her own heart. "Unless," she added, a dangerous softness entering her tone, "you truly don't want to?"
The implied failure, the suggestion that he couldn't serve her immediate, unspoken demand, pierced him deeper than fear. Kreacher straightened as much as his crooked spine allowed. A low, gravelly sound vibrated in his chest. "Kreacher serves the Mistress," he rasped, the words heavy with resignation and a spark of something else – a fearful determination.
He shuffled forward, his movements hesitant yet purposeful. The dim light caught the veins snaking across the obscene weight swinging heavily between his legs, ludicrous against his skeletal frame. Hermione’s breath caught as he knelt before her, his bony fingers fumbling at the waistband of her worn skirt. The rough fabric scraped against her skin as he pushed it down her hips, letting it pool around her ankles. The cool library air kissed her exposed thighs, making her shiver.
Kreacher didn’t pause. Driven by her command and the overwhelming biological imperative that seemed to override even his terror, he grasped her hips with surprising strength. His touch was cold, dry. He positioned himself, his bulbous eyes fixed somewhere below her navel, his breathing shallow and rapid. The sheer, intimidating size of him pressed against her, a familiar, impossible presence.
With a grunt that was part effort, part distress, he thrust upwards.
The sudden, brutal invasion stole Hermione’s breath. She gasped, her head snapping back against the unforgiving spines of Ancient Runes: A Critical Analysis and The Taxonomy of Toadstool Toxins. The shelf rattled precariously. The ache flared into a sharp, overwhelming stretch, familiar yet shockingly intense. He filled her completely, impossibly, a hot, heavy pressure that drove thoughts from her mind. Her fingers scrabbled against the books behind her, seeking purchase.
Kreacher whimpered, a high-pitched sound of effort and anxiety, but didn’t stop. He pulled back, the drag agonizingly slow, then slammed forward again. The impact jarred her teeth and shook the towering bookcase. Dust cascaded from the upper shelves like grey snow. He set a rhythm – rough, unpracticed, driven by frantic energy rather than finesse. Each powerful thrust drove her back against the shelves with a solid thump, punctuated by the wet slap of skin and Kreacher’s ragged gasps.
"Oh God," Hermione choked out, the words dissolving into a moan as he buried himself deep again. The friction ignited sparks along her nerve endings, a counterpoint to the demanding stretch. The shame was a dull throb at the edge of her consciousness, easily drowned by the sheer physical onslaught. "Faster, Kreacher," she gasped, pushing her hips back to meet his next desperate drive. "Harder."
He obeyed, his bony hips pistoning with terrified urgency. Sweat beaded on his wrinkled brow. The bookshelf groaned in earnest now, a deep, protesting creak with every powerful impact. Hermione cried out, her fingers clawing at the leather-bound volumes, lost in the brutal rhythm. The world narrowed to the slap of skin, the scent of dust and sex, the jarring thud against the shelves, and the overwhelming, consuming fullness. Her climax coiled tight, inevitable, fed by the sheer wrongness and the relentless, powerful friction.
"Mistress," Kreacher gasped suddenly, his rhythm faltering. His bulbous eyes were wide with a different kind of panic now. "Mistress is being... too loud! The bookshelf... Kreacher hears..."
"Let them hear!" Hermione snarled, the defiance roaring back, a wildfire in her veins. She tightened around him, pulling him impossibly deeper, arching against the books. "Let the whole rotten house hear! Just… don’t… stop!"
Her command, raw and final, shattered his hesitation. With a strangled cry that was part terror, part surrender, Kreacher drove into her with renewed, frantic force. His bony frame shook with the effort. The bookshelf shuddered violently. A cascade of leather-bound volumes slid from an upper shelf, thudding heavily onto the threadbare carpet a few feet away. Dust plumed thickly.
Hermione barely registered it. Kreacher’s rhythm became erratic, desperate. His breath hitched in sharp, ragged bursts. A high-pitched whine built in his throat. "Mistress... Kreacher... Kreacher is..." He couldn't finish, overwhelmed.
"Now!" Hermione gasped, teetering on the edge herself. "Kreacher, now!"
A guttural sound, almost a sob, tore from him. His wiry body locked rigid against hers, pinning her to the shuddering bookshelf. His claws dug into her hips painfully. Inside her, he pulsed violently, a scalding rush that triggered her own convulsive release. She cried out, a raw sound muffled only slightly by the surrounding books, her body clamping down around him as wave after wave of intense, shattering pleasure obliterated everything – the war, Ron’s silence, the precarious shelves, the falling books. There was only the shocking flood of heat and the terrifying creature delivering it.
She slumped against the shelf, boneless, gasping, Kreacher’s trembling weight still pressed against her. Dust settled on her sweat-slicked skin and in her hair. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the faint, ominous creak of the overloaded bookcase. Kreacher whimpered, nuzzling his face against her thigh, a gesture that might have been fearful or seeking comfort.
Before Hermione could even find the breath to speak, Kreacher suddenly gasped, recoiling as if burned. His head snapped up, his bulbous eyes wide with renewed terror, fixed on the library entrance lost in the shadows. "Master!" he choked out, pure panic lacing the single word.
He scrambled back, pulling himself free with a wet sound that made Hermione gasp. Before she could react, grab her skirt, or even process his warning, he vanished with a sharp crack of Apparition, leaving her alone, half-dressed, leaning against the groaning bookshelf, surrounded by fallen books and the thick, cloying silence he'd fled from. And the distinct, chilling feeling that unseen eyes had been watching.
The distinct, chilling feeling of unseen eyes pressed down harder than the collapsing bookshelf. Hermione froze, naked from the waist down, skirt pooled around her ankles, sweat cooling on her skin. Heavy silence swallowed Kreacher’s vanished crack.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Crunching on fallen books near the library entrance. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped snidget. She fumbled desperately for her knickers, yanking them up, fingers clumsy and cold. The worn velvet skirt followed, snagging on her trembling thighs.
“Hermione?” Ron’s voice cut through the dusty gloom, flat. Lifeless. It wasn’t a question seeking an answer she could give. He emerged from the labyrinth of shelves, face pale in the flickering candlelight, illuminated like a specter. His eyes, red-rimmed and hard, swept the scene: her dishevelment, the scattered books, the dust motes dancing in chaos. Lingering musk hung thick in the air.
He didn’t look at her face. His gaze fixed on the spot against the bookcase where she’d been pinned, where Kreacher had been moments before. His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping violently. “Right,” he said, the single syllable heavy with a disgust that curdled the air. He turned stiffly, shoulders rigid, and walked back the way he came, footsteps echoing with finality. He didn’t slam the door. The soft click was worse.
Hermione sagged against the groaning shelves, breath escaping in a ragged sob she choked back. Shame burned, acrid in her throat. But beneath it, low and insistent, an ember of defiance glowed. He hadn’t confronted her. Hadn’t cursed Kreacher. Had simply… walked away. Dismissed her.
The silence was suffocating. The dust tasted like ash. She pushed away from the shelf, legs unsteady. She needed to leave this tomb of books and betrayal. Stumbling towards the door, her foot kicked a heavy, leather-bound volume – Curses of Consanguinity and Control. The irony twisted her lips into a bitter line.
She stepped into the dim hallway, the oppressive weight of the Black ancestral home pressing in. The air felt colder, hostile. Movement flickered at the far end, near the stairs leading down to the kitchen. Not Ron. Smaller. Hunched.
Kreacher. He pressed himself flat against the peeling wallpaper, trying to vanish into the shadows. His bulbous eyes, wide with abject terror, fixed on her. He trembled violently, wringing his gnarled hands. “Mistress,” he croaked, a broken whisper. “Master Wheezy… Kreacher saw… Kreacher is bad elf. Kreacher is filth.”
Hermione stopped. Looked at the wretched creature cowering against the wall. The shame warred with the raw, defiant need still humming in her veins, the ache between her legs a persistent echo. She saw the terror of punishment, the ingrained self-loathing. And she saw the impossible thing that had connected them, the terrifying power she held over him. The power he, in his grotesque way, had over her.
“Stop saying that, Kreacher,” she said, her voice low but firm, cutting through his panicked whispers. She took a step towards him. He flinched, shrinking further. “You’re not filth.”
He stared, uncomprehending. Tears welled in his huge eyes, gleaming in the gloom. “But Master Wheezy… he knows… Kreacher heard the bed break… Kreacher heard the books fall…” His voice trembled. “He will tell the Order. Kreacher will be banished. Or… or worse.”
“He won’t tell,” Hermione said, the certainty surprising even her. Ron’s disgust, his wounded pride – he’d bury this deep, a secret too ugly to share. She took another step closer. The hallway was narrow, claustrophobic. She could smell the fear on him, sour and sharp. “He’s ashamed. He won’t speak of it. To anyone.”
Kreacher blinked, a tear tracking through the grime on his wrinkled cheek. Hope warred with profound disbelief on his distorted features. “He… won’t tell?” The concept seemed alien, dangerous. “But… Mistress… why?”
Hermione didn’t have a clean answer. Shame? Embarrassment? The sheer unbelievable horror of it? She closed the final distance, stopping an arm's length from him. Her gaze dropped, involuntarily, drawn to the loose, filthy pillowcase he wore. The massive, obscene bulge straining against the thin fabric was unmistakable, even now, even in his terror. Her mouth went dry.
“Because it’s ours,” she breathed, the words escaping before she could stop them. A dangerous, possessive claim in the suffocating silence. She met his terrified eyes. “This… this thing between us. It’s ours, Kreacher. Not his. Not the Order’s. Ours.” The defiance flared, hot and reckless. It drowned out the shame, the fear, the crushing weight of the war. This was real. This was now. This was hers to command.
She reached out. Not to comfort. To claim. Her fingers brushed the rough, stained fabric covering the impossible weight between his legs. He gasped, a sharp, strangled sound, flinching back hard against the wall. But she followed, her hand pressing flat against the shocking heat and heaviness beneath the cloth. She felt the thick ridge, the veined outline, the sheer, impossible presence of him, already firming again despite the terror. A low thrum of answering heat ignited low in her own belly.
“Mistress?” His whisper was pure, trembling confusion. Fear warred with the undeniable biological response to her touch, to her proximity, to the raw command in her presence. His thin chest hitched.
“You serve me, Kreacher,” she stated, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. Her fingers curled, applying subtle pressure through the fabric. He whimpered. “Don’t you?”
“Y-yes, Mistress,” he choked out, his eyes wide, terrified pools. “Kreacher lives to serve the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black… and… and the Mistress.”
“Then serve me,” Hermione commanded, steel in her tone. She leaned in, close enough to smell the stale tea and dust on his breath, close enough to see the frantic pulse in his thin neck. Her other hand came up, resting against the cold plaster wall beside his head, caging him in. “Here. Now. Show me you belong to me.”
The implication slammed into him. His entire body locked rigid. Panic flared bright in his eyes. “Here? But Mistress… the hallway… someone will come! Kreacher cannot… Kreacher is filthy…”
“I decide where,” she cut him off, her voice sharp. “I decide when. I decide what’s filthy.” Her hand pressed harder against his groin, feeling the hot, thick length pulse against her palm, growing impossibly harder beneath the fabric. The fizzing magic she’d felt before prickled along her skin where she touched him. “Show me your obedience, Kreacher. Your service.”
A low, agonized groan escaped him. It wasn't refusal. It was surrender to the terrifying compulsion radiating from her, the primal drive overriding centuries of ingrained fear. His clawed hands came up, trembling violently, not to push her away, but to fumble at the drawstring of his makeshift garment. His bulbous eyes never left hers, filled with terror and a dawning, horrified acceptance.
The grimy pillowcase sagged. Hermione’s breath caught as the sheer, intimidating mass of him sprang free, veined and heavy, swaying obscenely between his spindly legs. The sight was still a shock, grotesque and compelling. He whimpered, exposed.
Before he could protest again, before reason could reclaim her, Hermione pushed. Just a shove against his bony shoulder, turning him to face the peeling wallpaper. He stumbled forward, catching himself against the wall with one gnarled hand. She crowded behind him, the rough fabric of her skirt brushing his thin thighs. The heat radiating from him was intense. The fizzing magic intensified where her body pressed close.
Her own need was a drumbeat now, drowning out Ron’s footsteps, the war, the crumbling house. She gathered her skirt, bunching the thick velvet around her waist. The cool air hit her skin, but she ignored it. Her free hand snaked around his narrow waist, fingers brushing the coarse hair on his stomach before closing around the impossible, scorching thickness of him. He gasped, a strangled sound, his body jerking.
She guided him, roughly. There was no finesse, only desperate urgency and raw command. The thick, blunt head pressed against her entrance, slick with her own arousal and the lingering evidence of their previous encounter. She shuddered at the impossible stretch just at the pressure.
"Now, Kreacher," she breathed harshly against the back of his leathery neck. She tightened her grip on him, pulling him back towards her even as she pushed her hips forward, impaling herself. "Serve me."
He cried out, a sharp, pained sound, as she forced herself down onto him. The invasion was brutal, shocking, driving the air from her lungs in a choked gasp. She took him deep, deeper than she thought possible, the sheer, burning fullness obliterating thought. The ancient wallpaper felt rough against her cheek as she pressed her face against it beside his, her body flush against his bony back.
He remained frozen for a split second, overwhelmed, pinned between her body and the wall. Then, a guttural groan tore from him – part anguish, part terrifying compulsion. His free hand flew back, clawing at her skirt, gripping her hip with bruising force. Not pushing away. Anchoring. Claiming. Driven by her command and the blinding sensory overload.
He pulled back, the drag excruciating. Hermione whimpered, fingers digging into his thin arm. Then he slammed back into her with a desperate, feral grunt, his bony hips slamming against her backside. The impact shook them both, rattling the wall sconce above them. Dust drifted down. He didn't hesitate. Terror and obedience merged into a frantic, powerful rhythm.
He thrust. Hard. Fast. Each powerful drive hammered her against the unyielding wall. Her fingers scrabbled against the peeling wallpaper, finding no purchase. His clawed hand on her hip held her firm, forcing her to take every punishing inch. The wet slap of skin, her gasps, his harsh, ragged grunts filled the narrow hallway. It was raw. Animal. A collision of need and despair.
"Harder," she gasped, the word muffled against the wallpaper. "Show me!" She pushed back against him, meeting each jarring thrust, the friction sparking fire along her nerves. The shame was a distant memory, scorched away by the sheer, visceral intensity. The hallway, the house, the war – it all shrunk to the pounding rhythm, the heat of him inside her, the rough wall scraping her cheek.
Kreacher obeyed. A low, savage sound ripped from his throat. His pace became frantic, piston-like. The ancient wall trembled with each impact. Plaster cracked near their heads. He drove into her with terrifying strength, each thrust deeper, harder, the force lifting her slightly onto her toes. Her cries grew louder, unchecked, mingling with his animalistic gasps and the sickening thud of bodies against plaster. The fizzing magic surged where their bodies joined, a tangible, electric crackle in the air.
He was close. She could feel it in the frantic jerk of his hips, the desperate edge in his grunts. The immense thickness inside her pulsed violently, a terrifying promise. "Mistress..." he choked, a broken plea lost in the violence of his motion.
"Inside," she commanded, her voice raw, scraping against her throat. She arched her back, forcing him impossibly deeper. "Give it! Now!"
His response was a strangled roar, pure anguish and terrified release. His body locked, rigid against hers, pinning her to the shuddering wall. His grip on her hip was bone-crushing. Then came the scalding flood, deep and seemingly endless, triggering her own convulsive climax. She screamed, the sound echoing off the hallway walls, muffled only by the wallpaper as wave after wave of brutal, shattering pleasure tore through her. She clawed at the wall, her vision whiting out as Kreacher emptied himself inside her with terrified, obedient force.