sekkritaus | Hogwarts / Wizarding World AU

[ But they'd been mostly playing it a little casual with one another for the better part of their adult lives and then some. Over the past ten years or so, Andy had gotten better at looking like she didn't care and didn't think about it, but at the same time, she must have cared about it a bit — enough to follow him since they were first years. Somehow, she managed to be always within arm's reach while also keeping arm's length, which had bred an ambiguous intimacy she'd come to strictly define as friendship, even when other people seemed less sure.

Whatever it is between them, she's still here. Now. As ever. A constant, if nothing else. ]

Well, what the fuck are we waiting for then. [ She's already starting to shrug off her heavy, dusty robes as she follows him down the hall. No point in being overly concerned with modesty when it's just to the two of them — it's nothing he hasn't seen before. ] I'll pluck the last few feathers if you help me wash my hair.

[ That's another thing she hasn't had in months: A haircut. And all that long, dark stuff is even more untamed now than it was the last time he saw her. ]

[ Poe just was never that smart, when it came to Andy. She'd been at his side for so long that it didn't occur to him that it might be strange. Of course they were together. That's just how they worked. Whatever his feelings were - and they were definitely platonic, okay, and maybe a little sexual but definitely not romantic - they just didn't matter in the face of reality. The reality was that they were a unit and they'd always be a unit.

There wasn't even any jealousy, when she was seeing or sleeping with someone else. Why would there be? She'd still be by his side anyway. And he'd be by hers.

Nothing and no one was going to change that.

All that aside, though, he couldn't help but linger behind as she shed her robes and kept walking. Sometimes you just had to appreciate art, okay? He shed his own clothes soon after, still tugging out feathers as he walked, with just as little care to his modesty as she had to hers. ]

Deal. [ Easy enough. He loved washing her hair anyway. Especially when it was as wild as it was now, cascading down her spine in angry waves, the length almost enough to brush her--

Fuck, she was too hot, sometimes. He checked himself before his body started getting any funny ideas. Or he tried to, anyway. ]

You're okay though, right? I mean seriously. They wouldn't tell me a damn thing about where you were.

I'm fine. [ She's always fine though, isn't she? Unfazed by their line of work, at least on the surface. She's come back looking worse than this, bloody and tired, but never really offering more than two words about what she's come back from. Maybe she really is that fucking tough. Or maybe she'd just rather not worry him. ] Couple scrapes and bruises. That's all.

[ Finally, at the end of the hall: The bathroom. And there, right in the middle, just as Poe predicted — an old tub with claw feet. Charming. Andy sighs, using her wand to bring some low lights to life in the room before leaving it on the counter. As she leans to turn the water on, she glances over her shoulder for him — as if some small part of her needs the reassurance, after all this time apart. ]

They wouldn't tell me where you were either. Probably figured I'd try to come find you.

[ He's only a few steps behind her, waving his own wand to add a few lights to join hers - the colour just a little more orange, because he couldn't help himself. He looked fit - he'd obviously been busy - and there were plenty of bruises - but otherwise he looked no worse for wear. Well. Other than the shoulder feathers. ]

Why, you gonna tell me that they were wrong? [ He asked, his voice a fond tease. ]

Merlin knows I wanted to come find you. Think I'm gonna demand no solo missions for a little while.

[ He stepped up next to her, but rather than reach out for her as a large part of him wanted to do, he leaned over the bath and tapped his wand against it instead, a thin silvery liquid slipping into the water, causing it to foam and bubble as it filled. ]

Might've been better that you didn't. [ Dryly: ] I'm never sure if you're a help or a fucking distraction.

[ But whatever she says aloud, there is some real comfort it being together again. So many of the routines in her life have been built around having him there — and the hardest part of the past few months wasn't the lack of hot water or a soft place to sleep, but missing that anchor. On her own, she's always had this tendency to become a little unstuck. Restless. Reckless. A bit lost. ]

Besides, there's no guarantee they'll assign us together anyway. [ She tests the water briefly with her hand before climbing in. Fuck, but the warm water is nice. ] Head of the office already thinks we're nearly more trouble than we're worth.

[ But they are worth at lot. Especially for young aurors, the list of accomplishments is long — even if the methods may have been questionable now and then. ]

Hey, I can be both. [ He pointed out helpfully.

He watched her climb in, a weird pang in his chest that he couldn't place, and immediately decided to ignore. Not important. He was just glad to see her. ]

Honestly, I could care less what he thinks. He's a beurocrat, head to toe. He's just here as a stepping stone to being a minister. He completely disregarded my last three reports, kept marking them as "no corroborating evidence". Which, yeah, is a little hard to get when he keeps sending me on solo missions and not sending anyone to check back up.

[ He carefully slid into the bath behind her, sliding a leg on either side of hers and shimmying up closer. Not enough that he was touching her back, but enough that if she leaned back, he would be. He let out a frustrated breath as he reached out and carefully started gathering her hair. ]

Sorry. They keep telling me to stay in my own lane and I keep saying I would if they stopped ignoring what was right damn in front of them.

[ It would be easy to close that space between them, small as it is. She could just lean back and let herself have more than just the comfort of the warm water. He's right there. But she leans forward instead, as if to make room for him — or to make it easier to collect all that wild hair, which seems to fill up more of the tub than either of their bodies do. ]

Like they give a damn what either of us has to say. We're not being sent on dangerous solo missions because they value our opinions. [ There's a faint thread of bitterness — but she can't really complain, can she? She chose this. Knowingly. Because staying at his side had mattered more than living a safe and easy life. ] We just have to stay alive to spite them. At least until one of us ends up taking their place.

[ Him, probably. Not her. He always cared more than she did. ]

Well they should. We're the ones on the ground. I'm not making stuff up just to blow smoke up my own ass.

[ He was very careful with her hair, combing his fingers through it slowly and methodically as he gathered it, before reaching for his wand. A flick of his wrist later and a stream of water arced up from the bath and onto the back of her hair in a gentle, constant stream. He could feel the weight immediately increasing, but it also became a little easier to start easing out the tangles with his fingers. ]

They should have given Leia the job. She's way more experienced than any of them, and she can do the political speak too. But no, we ignore threats right under our noses, and punish a woman for daring to be related to a guy decades dead.

[ Andy smelled so good, and he could feel the space between them like a physical ache, but he didn't move to relieve it. ]

[ In that moment, the gentle tug of his fingers combing through her hair feels like all she's ever wanted — that, and the familiar sound of his voice just behind her, the feeling in it, that passion he speaks with that she so rarely finds the energy for. Truthfully, she doesn't give much of a damn what happens to the Ministry. She could just as well find a shack in the woods to live in and be more or less content with it. But he cares, so she cares because he does.

She glances over her shoulder at him, considering that handsome face for a moment before she responds with mild dryness: ]

I know. You're right. But do you really want to spend this whole reunion preaching to the choir?

[ The banter was already halfway formed on his tongue - No, you're right, I'd rather make the choir sing - but it was way, way too intimate a moment to remind them both of that particular aspect of their friendship. That was way too close to feelings. And if Poe had learned one thing, it was that the quickest way to get Andy to go cold on him was to imply those might be involved. And at the moment, he was too relieved to see and be with her to be able to pretend to just need a way to get off.

It was fine. Her friendship meant more to him than any romantic feelings ever would. So instead he gave her a rueful, slightly apologetic smile. ]

No, sorry. I just get so damn riled up about the whole thing. [ The closest thing he would do to feelings, right now, was lean in and press the quickest, purest peck of a kiss to her shoulder as an apology. ]

I'd rather spend a few days with you and maybe a bottle of giggle water and not think about any of that.

[ That brief, chaste kiss to her shoulder still draws all her attention to the place where his mouth so fleetingly presses against her skin. She’s been ignoring all the bruises and cuts, all the places that are sore and achy - but she can’t ignore that. It makes her want... ]

I could think of worse ways to spend a few days.

[ There’s a tangible pause. Then, finally, she lifts her hands to brush his away, just so she can turn around in the water to face him. She does nothing but watch him for another beat - then, as if some internal decision’s been made, she reaches out to cradle his face in her hands, holding him still so she can lean in to kiss him.

It doesn’t matter. They’ve been kissing since their school days. She’s memorized the way his lips feel by now. And if being apart from him so long makes the moment a little more poignant, well - that’s only natural, isn’t it? ]

[ She turns, and he draws in a breath, his eyes locked on her face. She's gorgeous, he's always known this, but there's something particularly sharp in the way she's looking at him now, hair half tamed in a dark, wild frame down her face, the wet locks sticking to the skin of her throat and her chest, curling past a few dark bruises on her shoulders.

So when she finally reached out to touch his face, when she finally leaned in to kiss him, it was like all the tension in him was suddenly released. His heart thumped, skipping a beat, the way it always did when someone kissed their best friend in a bath tub when she looked like she'd come through hell just to see him.

He let out a soft, relieved sound against her lips as he returned the kiss, eyes sliding shut as his mouth parted against hers, slowly but deliberately deepening the kiss.

God, he had missed her. ]

[ Something she can’t say out loud: That it was the thought of him that kept her going - knowing she had to come home to him, and staying sharp and strong because of it. She’s built a hardened reputation among the aurors, to the point of jokes about invincibility and immortality - because of how she always returns unfazed from whatever hell she’s been sent off to. But it’s always the same motivation, the same thing that makes her determined to make it back at any cost - him. Her best friend. Her partner.

The bottom of the tub is hard against her knees as she shifts in the water to straddle his lap, but she barely notices it. The only thing that matters then is to be close - as close as possible, as if to make up for months apart. No more playing casual now. Her mouth is hot and hungry against his, taking that kiss as if it belongs to her. ]

[ It does belong to her. It's always belonged to her, ever since the first fumbling attempts. Sure, he's lost count of the number of people he's kissed since - some of which she's also kissed - but in the end they always belonged to her.

His hands slid into the water to take her hips, pulling her up further onto his laps. The warm water was delaying his body's reaction, but not by a whole lot - she could no doubt feel him stirring under her as she pressed against him, as he met that kiss with an answering hunger that soon bordered on desperate.

He wanted to tell her how badly he missed her, how badly he wanted her, but he didn't trust himself not to ruin it. So he answered, he reacted, but he left the driving force solely up to her.

She could take anything she wanted from him.

She always could. ]

[ The same unspoken sentiments had been swelling in her chest since the moment she laid eyes on him — no, since the moment she'd even heard he was back. And she knows that's foolish — recklessly sentimental even, because there's always the chance that someday she's going to drag her tired aching body back from a mission and he won't be there waiting with his stupid shiteating grin and his "Hey, Andy", casual as you please. That's just how it is in this line of work. People die. Reputation aside, she isn't infallible either.

It's a keen awareness of that fact that gives a hard edge to her kiss as she takes his mouth for her own, her hands sliding back into his hair, tugging at the roots and breaking up the tangled curls as her fingers look for purchase. She grinds down into his lap, rubbing her body against his under the water as she kisses him to the point of breathlessness — leaving her words rough and ragged when she finally whispers into that minute space between their mouths: ]

I hated it. [ Lowly: ] I hated not knowing where you were. If you were alive or dead.

[ He braces his feet against the porcelain, knees breaking the water as he shifted under her. If it was what he pretended it to me - just sex, just a release, his hands would have gone to her ass, holding her firmly against him as he grinded against her.

But instead he wrapped an arm around her back, fingers spreading over her spine, as the other came up to cup the side of her face, fingertips sliding into her hair. He still raises his hips though, still meets every push against him with a hitching breath. It wasn't long until he was rock hard, pressed a little awkwardly under her, but he didn't go to move it. Feeling her move against him was amazing in itself. ]

Me too. [ Here, he could admit that. She could see through his bravado anyway, there was no one else to show off to. ] I kept sending missives to check if you'd come back yet and get nothing -- If anything happened to you--

[ Something about what he says — the vulnerable honesty — makes her stop, just for a second. Just so she can look him in the face and answer him in a way that leaves no room for doubt or argument. ]

Listen to me. [ It's a rough whisper. ] I will always come back.

[ There's an intensity to her eyes in that moment — something dark and determined. A promise. Once she'll be forced to break one day, because she's bound to her own mortality as much as anyone else, but until then — she'll do whatever she has to. Break whatever rules need to broken. Take whatever lives need to be taken. She's never been noble, she's never even really been good, but she is devoted. Stubborn. Every skill she's honed — hours on hours of dueling, secretly learning dark magic, becoming an Animagus — all to make sure that little to nothing can stand between her and coming home.

Because he is home to her. And she's loved him since before she was even old enough to really know what love was. ]

[ Her intensity is electrifying - to the point that Poe forgets how she's sitting in his lap, forgets any half formed thoughts of a casual fling here in the bath. For a moment all that just completely bled away - all he could feel was the pound of her pulse in her throat, and all he could see was the deadly promise in her eyes.

It wasn't a promise anyone could make. Especially in their line of work.

But he believed her.

A softer smile broke his lips, and he brushed his thumb across her cheek. ]

... Yeah. Don't know what I was thinking. There isn't a force on earth that could stop you from going anywhere you wanted.

[ Whatever tragedy the future holds, she made it back this time — and so did he. That counts for something, doesn't it. One more win. One mission at a time. It's doubtful either of them will ever be old and grey, but hell, she'll take as much time as she can get. If that means she has to fight and claw her way through months away chasing dark witches and wizards, then so be it. She'll do it to earn moments like this. Even if she comes home covered in dirt and blood and bruises. She'll take it.

Maybe that makes her stupidly sentimental — but nobody has to know that, and it's worth it, for this. To see him smile at her like that, warm with affection. ]

Sure. No force on Earth — except you, maybe, if you're feeling stubborn.

[ She leans to kiss that smile, a brief but familiar press of her lips as she shifts under the water, lifting her hips to make room for her to dip one hand down between her thighs. An audible exhale escapes her as she eases two fingers up inside herself. ]

That's the point though, isn't it.

[ He heard it, in her voice, even though he couldn't see through the bubbles in the water, he had a pretty good idea of what she was doing. He pulled her down for another kiss, his cock twitching to gently thump against her hand. Not intentionally, but how else could his body deal with this? ]

I'd never stop you. I'd be right there with you.

[ He ducked his head to kiss her throat, then her collarbone, his hand slipping down to trail down her skin, before carefully taking her breast in his hand and leaning in to press a kiss to the incredibly soft curve, squeezing gently. ]

[ He would be right there with her, wouldn't he? So long as it was in his power. He always has been — everything from detentions together until now, the aftermath of these missions where the stakes are so much higher than the childish antics of their shared youth. ]

That's because you're stupid and reckless. [ Fondness softens her wryness. ] Just like me.

[ He bows his head to kiss her skin and her free hand lifts to smooth his hair back from his forehead, giving her a better glimpse of his face as he leans to press his lips to her breast. She makes a breathless little sound when he squeezes, a quiet moan that barely escapes her as she works those two fingers deeper, spreading them apart to open herself up. ]

[ The sound is incredibly hot, and Poe has to pull back for just a second, just to catch the look on her face.

Fuck, she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And he's seen plenty. But nothing in the world makes his heart pound in his chest like she does. She doesn't need to tell him what she's doing - what she wants. The anticipation is already building in him urgently, as returns to mouthing at her breast, lavishing it with his lips and tongue, squeezing it firmly even as he drew the nipple in between his teeth. One had stayed firmly on her back, but the other slipped down between them, grasping his cock beneath her.

He ground softly as he sucked, giving himself a few strokes before lining himself up behind her hand, sliding his cock up the cleft of her ass while he tried to wait impatiently for her fingers to finish her work. He kept dragging the head down close enough to brush over her knuckles as she worked her fingers inside of her, a teasing promise. (Or maybe a wordless plea. ) ]

Incredibly reckless. I want to be so reckless with you, Andy. I want no one to be able to figure out how we survive each other--

[ It's so much, just to have this — to be reminded so vividly of what it's like to be with him this way, after weeks of separation. Everything comes back in a rush. Nobody's ever known her body the way that he does. He's her favorite vice, her oldest habit, the one she won't ever quit, even if it fucking kills her. She's missed his hands on her, his mouth on her, his cock inside her — fuck, even just the sound of his voice when he says those stupid sentimental things to her. And maybe that isn't how friendship goes — maybe that's something else entirely — but she can't be bothered to dwell on it.

A few more minutes of foreplay probably wouldn't have hurt, not after the dry spell of that damn mission, but fuck it, she's done waiting. The drag of his cock has all her muscles tense with anticipation. It might be a little tight, but it's good enough. She pulls her fingers free, feeling for his hand under the water, urging him to line himself up and get inside her already. ]

Come on. [ It's a low, rough murmur. ] I want you. I want you now.

You sure? [ But the tone is so obviously ribbing, so teasing and flippant, that he grins through it.

He doesn't even let her answer before the head of his cock finally finds its target. Holding his cock firmly, he pressed upward just to barely breach it- but then drags the head away to run up against her clit, the slickness of his arousal obvious even under the water as he rubs himself against her, never quite giving what she wants.

But it's too much to resist for two long, and finally with a soft groan he lines himself up and raises his hips to slowly but firmly push himself into her. Not too deep. Not yet. He usually preferred to make her come, first, especially after not seeing her this long - so he was determined to take his time.

At least for a few seconds. ]

I want you too, Andy... Nothing in the world feels as good as you do...

[ The frustrated little noise she makes when he teases her is predictable — she should've guessed that Poe fucking Dameron would play around when she's so on edge to be fucked by him that just the brush of his cock against her clit makes her tangibly twitch. It's a relief to feel him finally push inside — then a frustration again, when he stops. Fuck. She bites down on another sound as she shifts restlessly in his lap. ]

Bet you say that to all the pretty witches. [ But it's distracted mockery at best. All her attention is on those few inches he has inside her — how it holds her open, filling her without the satisfaction of depth or friction. How it makes her ache for something more. In a minute, she might just try and sit the rest of the way down onto his cock. ] Are you really going to hold the fuck out on me right now?

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