Chapter 4: The Invitation
The guilt from the kitchen table clung to Harry for days like a bad spell. He’d thrown himself into work, into Ginny, into anything that might scrub the memory of jasmine from his mind. It was a feeble defense. Every time Ginny laughed a certain way, or called Fleur “Phlegm” with that casual, cutting derision, he saw a flash of blue fire in Fleur’s eyes. He felt the ghost of her nails on his back.
The report on his desk was a blur of meaningless text. The hum of the Auror office—muttered incantations, the scratching of self-correcting quills, the faint echo of footsteps on marble—faded into a dull buzz. He was adrift.
Then the inter-departmental owl dropped it. A small, square envelope of heavy cream parchment, sealed with plain green wax. No markings. It landed with a soft thup beside his inkwell. His name was written in a slanted, elegant script he didn’t recognize.
He broke the seal. There was no letter. Just a single, glossy photograph.
It moved.
It was Fleur. She was outdoors, by a private swimming pool he vaguely recognized from some society pages. Sunlight dappled the water, reflecting onto her skin. She was naked, lying on a striped lounger, a bottle of suntan oil in her hand. She poured a slow, gleaming stream of it onto her sternum. The photograph captured every detail: the shimmer of the liquid as it traced the valley between her breasts, the slow, deliberate circle of her palm as she spread it over her skin. Her eyes were half-lidded, looking directly at the viewer—directly at him. Her free hand trailed down her flat stomach, through the silver-blonde hair at the junction of her thighs, and lingered. Her fingers moved in a slow, circular caress.
Harry’s breath stopped. His blood roared in his ears, loud enough to drown out the entire Ministry.
Her lips moved. She was mouthing words. He stared, paralyzed, as she repeated the phrase. He could read the shapes they made. I know you’re thinking of me while fucking her.
A wave of heat, so intense it was almost nauseating, swept through him. His cock hardened instantly, painfully, straining against his trousers. The photograph wasn’t static. It was a loop. She poured the oil, she touched herself, she mouthed the terrible, perfect words. Over and over.
The scent bloomed from the parchment then, not the memory of it, but the real, potent thing: jasmine, sun-warmed skin, coconut oil, and the unmistakable, musky tang of her arousal. It filled his cubicle, a private, intoxicating cloud.
He fumbled for his wand under the desk, a desperate, clumsy motion. “Incendio,” he choked out, pointing the tip at the photograph on his desk.
The image didn’t burn. It melted. The edges curled inward, the vibrant colors dissolving into a brief, brilliant flame that emitted no heat, only a final, overwhelming burst of her scent. Then it was gone, leaving a tiny, perfectly clean circle of ash on the polished mahogany.
He was left sitting there, achingly erect, the smell of her enveloping him, her words echoing in his skull. He was monumentally hard, a thick, urgent line of pressure that made shifting in his seat a torment. He leaned back, trying to will it away, to think of case files, of anything else. It was useless. His mind replayed the loop: the oil, her touch, her lips.
“Potter. My office. Now.”
The voice, cool and composed, sliced through his agony. He looked up.
Fleur Delacour stood at the entrance to his cubicle. She was the picture of professional decorum in fitted navy robes, her hair coiled in an impeccable chignon. Her expression was one of mild, bureaucratic inquiry. But her eyes—her eyes held the same blue fire from the training room. They swept over him, and he knew, with a devastating certainty, that she saw everything. The ash on his desk. The strain of his erection against his fly. The panic in his throat.
He stood up too quickly, having to angle his body to hide his condition. “Delacour,” he managed, his voice rough.
She turned without another word, expecting him to follow. He did, like a man summoned to his own execution. The walk to her private office, a small glass-walled room overlooking the main Auror bullpen, felt endless. Every step was a friction. He was painfully aware of Robards glancing up from a report, of Williamson whispering to another Auror. Did they smell it? Could they see the need radiating from him?
She opened the door, held it for him. As he passed, her hand, seemingly accidental, brushed against the back of his arm. A spark, white-hot, shot through him.
The door clicked shut behind them. She cast a swift, silent privacy charm. The sounds of the office vanished, replaced by a thick, humming silence.
Her professional demeanor evaporated. She leaned back against her desk, crossing her arms. The cool appraisal was gone, replaced by a predatory gleam. “You burned my gift,” she stated. Her voice was low, a purr.
“It was…” he began, but words failed.
“Dangerous?” she supplied, one perfect eyebrow arching. “Indecent? You liked it.” It wasn’t a question.
He said nothing. His body was his answer.
She pushed off the desk and closed the distance between them in two steps. She was so close he could see the faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, could feel the heat coming off her. The jasmine scent was overpowering now, mixed with something darker, more primal. Her Allure wasn’t a gentle pull now; it was a riptide, dragging him under.
“You think of my pussy when you are inside your pretty little wife,” she whispered, her French accent thickening around the crude English word. “You imagine it is me. You fuck her harder, hoping to find me there.” Her hand came up, and a single finger traced the line of his jaw. “Do not lie to me, Harry. I can smell her on you. And I can smell me on you, buried underneath. It calls to me.”
He was trembling. With anger, with shame, with pure, undiluted want. “This is insane.”
“Is it?” Her finger trailed down his throat, over the pulse hammering there. “You are in my office. You are hard for me. And your wife is at her Quidditch practice, is she not? Sweating with her team. Not thinking of you.” Her other hand came up, and she placed her palm flat against the bulge in his trousers. She pressed down, not gently. A shock of pleasure-pain made his knees buckle. “But I am thinking of you. I am always thinking of you now.”
He grabbed her wrist, not to push her away, but to feel the delicate bones under his grip. “Stop.”
She smiled, a baring of teeth. “Make me.”
It was all the permission he needed. The last thread of his control snapped. He spun her around, pushing her face-first against the cool glass wall of her office. Outside, he could see the blurred shapes of his colleagues moving about their day, oblivious. The vulnerability of it, the public risk, sent a new, thrilling bolt of adrenaline through him.
He yanked her robes up, shoved her knickers down. They were silk, and they tore in his hand. The sound was obscenely loud in the quiet room. She gasped, her palms flat against the glass.
He didn’t prepare her. He didn’t need to. She was already wet, soaking. He freed himself from his trousers, the cool air a shock against his heated skin. He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head of his cock pressing against her. He heard her breath hitch.
“Tell me,” he growled into her ear, his body covering hers.
“Fuck me,” she breathed, pushing back against him. “Fuck me like you mean it. Like you wish she was me.”
He drove into her in one brutal, deep stroke. She cried out, a sharp, guttural sound that was swallowed by the privacy charm. She was incredibly tight, hot, and slick, a perfect, clenching vice. He didn’t pause, didn’t gentle his rhythm. He fucked her against the glass with a punishing pace, each thrust slamming her body forward. The wall vibrated faintly with the impact.
Her head dropped forward, her forehead resting against the glass, fogging it with her breath. “Yes,” she hissed, “just like that, you fucking bastard. Harder.”
He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into the flesh, and pistoned into her. The desk shook. A quill pot rattled. It was raw, animalistic. There was no tenderness, only a furious, grinding collision. He watched himself moving in and out of her, saw the way her body yielded to his, the slick, obscene evidence of their joining.
“You want this,” she panted, twisting to look at him over her shoulder. Her chignon was coming undone, strands of silver-blonde hair sticking to her damp neck. “You want to ruin your perfect life for this. For my dirty, half-breed pussy.”
Her words were a spur. He fucked her harder, deeper, wanting to silence her, to consume her. The pleasure coiled, tight and dangerous, at the base of his spine. He was losing himself in the rhythm, in the feel of her, in the forbidden, public nature of it.
She reached between her own legs, her fingers working in frantic circles. Her moans became higher, tighter. “I’m going to come,” she warned, her voice a shattered thing. “I’m going to come all over your cock while you think of her.”
The final knot in his gut broke. With a ragged shout he muffled against her shoulder, he came, pouring into her in deep, pulsing waves. The intensity ripped a groan from him, a sound of utter surrender. As his own climax seized him, he felt her inner muscles clamp down around him in a violent, fluttering rhythm, her own release triggering a second, weaker wave from him. She shuddered, her body taut against his, a silent scream etched into the lines of her neck.
They stayed like that for long moments, joined, breathing in ragged unison, leaning against the vibrating glass. The world outside continued, ignorant.
Slowly, he pulled out. The air felt cold on his exposed skin. He turned away, fumbling to right his clothes, his hands unsteady. He couldn’t look at her.
He heard the rustle of fabric as she did the same. When he finally chanced a glance, she was straightening her robes, her back to him. She picked up her torn knickers from the floor, regarded them for a moment, and then tucked them calmly into a pocket. She turned. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen, but her expression was one of eerie calm. The fire in her eyes had banked to embers.
“The Liaison meeting,” she said, her voice only slightly husky. “It is in ten minutes. Do not be late.”
She waved her wand, dismissing the privacy charm. The ordinary sounds of the office flooded back in.
He walked out without another word. His legs felt like water. The scent of jasmine and sex clung to him, a brand he could not wash off. He made it to the men’s lavatory, splashed cold water on his face, and stared at his reflection in the mirror. The man looking back was a stranger, hollow-eyed and guilty.
When he returned to his desk, a new memo was waiting, floating in the air above his chair. It was from the Interdepartmental Liaison office, a routine notice about agenda items.
At the bottom, in the same slanted, elegant script, was a single added line.
The petal on your desk. Keep it. Or don’t. I will know.
He looked down. Where the photograph’s ashes had been, a single, perfect, crimson rose petal now lay. It had not been there before.
He swept it into his hand. It was soft, velvety. It held the faintest echo of her scent. He stared at it, trapped between horror and a dark, aching fascination.
He put it in his pocket.