Her Bound Heart Chapter 1. (Patreon)
Content
Content Warnings: CMNF, Exhibitionism, Semi-Public.
“You can go in now,” said the austere woman who occupied the desk guarding the private office without looking up from her scheduling diary. She didn’t bother to acknowledge the whispered questions of the recently exited blonde, simply glancing at the tiny brunette tapping her left foot against the polished marble flooring and waving her towards the door.
Hermione sucked in a breath and nodded, wondering if she looked as nervous as she felt. She was the last applicant of the day, which felt like both a blessing and a curse. She had an opportunity to leave an indelible mark on the man that would decide her future, and yet, she would also be judged against those that came before her.
She simply hoped she would not be found wanting.
She needed this. Studying to become a lawyer was expensive, especially if she wanted the training required to argue in front of Wizengamot. Waiting tables and tending bars simply wasn’t cutting it, and the long hours were taking a toll on her studies.
It was a fool’s hope. The women who had preceded her had all carried with them the air of self-assurance that gave those around them the impression that they knew exactly what they were doing.
Her?
She was a virgin who had applied after slamming back a bottle of tequila with her best friend. She wasn’t exactly sugar-baby material.
“Miss? Do you plan to go in? Or shall I tell Lord Potter he has no more interviews for the day?” the woman asked, peering at her from the top of her horn-rimmed glasses. She wasn’t unkind. Only crisp and professional, like she had done this a thousand times before. That particular notion filled Hermione with dread. “If you do plan to go in, I suggest you get a move on. If there’s one thing I know about my boss, it’s that he absolutely despises tardiness. Best not to stumble right out of the gate, yes?”
Hermione nodded, picked up her purse, and got to her feet.
Ginny’s sugar daddy picked her over the tall leggy blondes, she reminded herself. It meant she had a chance, even if it was a small sliver and nothing truly substantial.
She walked to the door and knocked smartly on the polished wood. She waited until she heard the quiet ‘Enter’ before grasping the doorknob and turning it to push the door open, trying not to take leave of her senses at the sight that greeted her.
His office seemed less like a traditional working space and more like a library. The entire floor was covered with a thick rug and a merry fire roared in the large, ornate fireplace that dominated one of the walls, banishing the slight chill of the waiting room outside.
The thing that drew her attention immediately was the rack after rack of bookshelves arranged on the wall opposite the fireplace. A cursory examination of the titles revealed that he had an extensive collection.
“Do you like reading-” The man lounging in the comfortable chair behind the enormous desk that dominated the center of the room paused, studying the name on the file in front of him. “Do you like reading, Miss Granger?” he repeated his question, studying her with the most exquisite pair of eyes she had ever seen. She remembered them, vaguely, from their time in school, but seeing the sparkling emerald orbs up close was breathtaking. They sparkled with hidden mirth, yet held a shadow in them that hinted at danger. This was a complicated man, with complicated tastes. “That collection once belonged to my mother. She was an avid reader.”
Hermione nodded, suddenly finding herself to be utterly incapable of speech.
“You do not mention that anywhere in the very extensive biography you thought fit to send over with your application.” He flipped open the file in front of him, carelessly sheafing through parchment after parchment that bore her handwriting. It was only then that her eyes moved to the other files carelessly discarded into the bin by his desk, each of which was considerably thinner than the one in front of the man.
“I did not think it was relevant,” Hermione replied quietly. She moved to the chair he had gestured at, silently pulled it away from the desk, and sat down on it, trying her best not to squirm under his intense gaze.
“You were asked to list your hobbies, were you not?” Harry asked, studying her answer to one of the questions in the questionnaire.
“A hobby is something you do in your free time, sir,” Hermione said, her cheeks darkening at having to defend her choice. It seemed silly in hindsight, but she had decided that if he was going to ask her to turn her life inside out for scrutiny, she was going to answer the questions in the most legalistic way possible. “I find myself reading books far too much, sometimes to the detriment of my other obligations. I fear it qualifies less as a hobby and more as an obsession and you did not ask us about those,” she said cheekily. “Sir,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
Harry’s chuckle elicited a sigh of relief. He found her spirit amusing, not annoying, as had often unfortunately been the case.
“Perhaps we should. It would be an easy way to weed out those who are only in this for the money. I was asked for unlimited access to the family coffers today which has never happened before, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” Harry murmured, carelessly flipping through her file.
“Is that not the point of this arrangement? Why should a desire for money be disqualifying?” she challenged, then immediately kicked herself in the shin for her stupidity. Ginny had told her to be demure and inviting. Her questions only made her sound like a pain in the ass.
It was somewhat surprising that he hadn’t thrown her out of his office already.
When she finally dared to look up at his face, she found him looking back at her with an amused smile.
“Perhaps I should have been clearer with my words. I wish to weed out those who are only in it for the money and think they can ‘tolerate’ the rest. If you do not enjoy the other aspects of this arrangement, we will fizzle out in a week. Considering the trouble I go to in finding a partner, I’d like them to last a little longer than that.”
Hermione nodded silently. The contract she had signed had been for a year. A year of stability was a mind-boggling prospect. She didn’t even know what she’d do with the freedom of not having to worry about her next meal.
“So.” Harry flipped her file shut, picked it up, and tossed it into the bin with one expert throw. She moved to stand, expecting the interview to be over, only to be waved back into her chair. “Tell me why you want to be my sugar baby.”
Wow. The man does not beat around the bush.
It wasn’t particularly surprising. James Potter had single-handedly raised the most famous child in the Wizarding World while creating the biggest business enterprise on the island to secure their family legacy. He hadn’t done it by being shy. His son seemed to be cut from the same cloth.
“I… The question was asked in the application I was provided, sir. The answer should be in the file,” Hermione answered hesitantly. Is this a trick question?
“The file secured your entry into this office, Miss Granger. It is now worthless. I wish to hear directly from you. Is that not the point of an interview? I ask questions, you answer them.”
Hermione nodded. He was no slouch when it came to wit, either.
Considering who his mother was…
It was a universal truth that Lily Potter had been a remarkable woman. To hold off the Dark Lord on her own, to have to choose between her life and her son’s… she wondered if she could be as strong as his mother had been.
“Just because you’re the last applicant, Miss Granger, do not think you are not on the clock. It is perhaps the simplest question I could ask you. Why do you want this?” he asked again.
Why did she want this?
She truly had no answer. Not a coherent one, at least. It wasn’t the money. Or, well, it wasn’t only the money. She could earn enough by doing what Ginny had done before she found her sugar daddy. Moonlighting as an escort would fetch her enough money to tend to her needs until she graduated, and was felt far less demanding than the proposition in front of her.
“I… don’t know,” Hermione answered honestly. “Everything I wrote down is true. The feeling of rejection, the loss of my home, the craving for acceptance and praise… I guess I feel I will get everything I need through this arrangement. I suppose a part of me just wants someone to accept me for who I am. If I go the easy route and jump from bed to bed every weekend, I’ll get the money but I won’t get that. As an escort, I am successful if I become that particular client’s fantasy. As your sugar baby… well, I’ll only get that gig if you like me for who I am, right? It’s much more difficult to fake a persona for a year than it is a single night.”
Harry steepled his fingers, resting his chin on them. “Well put.”
Hermione had no idea why she found the quiet praise so satisfying.
“Why me?”
The question threw her for a loop once more. It wasn’t one of the many asked in the application.
“There are many reasons,” Hermione deflected, not eager to reveal the depth of her attraction for the man.
“Such as?”
“You are easy on the eyes,” Hermione murmured, trying to figure out the tamest way to let the man know she found him unbearably hot. “Uh, I know you probably never noticed me, but we were in school together-”
“I know who you are, Hermione Granger. The brightest witch of our generation. A muggleborn, at that. I bet Voldemort is turning in his metaphorical grave.” The words were uttered with not unexpected venom. “I still haven’t forgiven you for taking first place from me in our Charms OWLs. At the last minute too,” Harry murmured, his voice subsiding to its normal, slightly amused timber.
Hermione blushed. It felt strange, to know he had his attention on her when their current meeting was the first time they were having an actual conversation. She didn’t count the stilted exchanges the few times she had been paired up with him in Potions as proper conversation. She doubted he even remembered them, not when he had the unpleasantness of their Potions professor to deal with. “I suppose I will pay the price soon enough,” she said with a quiet chuckle, biting her lip nervously when she realized how her words could be construed.
“I don’t punish my submissives for being smarter than me, Miss Granger. That’s the provenance of insecure men. Anyways, continue,” he said with a negligent wave of his hand. He leaned in his back in his chair, keeping his intense gaze leveled on her.
“Right. Yes. All my life, I’ve been searching for someone who will understand me. I’m sure a mind healer would call it unhealed trauma from my past and suggest a better coping mechanism than ending up face down, ass up on my partner’s lap, but I can’t afford a mind healer so…” she chuckled at her own joke. “I… like the idea of such a relationship. I’ve fought so hard my entire life to get where I am… the idea of someone taking care of me for a change sounds enticing.”
She continued when Harry stayed silent, worried she was botching the interview with her unfiltered rambling. “I apologize for the incoherence, sir. I’m not the best at answering questions I haven’t had time to prepare for.”
“Your answer makes sense,” Harry said quietly. The look on his face had changed to one of silent contemplation. “You are a virgin, yes?”
Hermione bristled. That particular state of affairs had been through no fault of her own. It wasn’t her fault her ex-boyfriend’s attitude about sexuality had been firmly stuck in the Victorian era.
“Is that a problem? I did not realize it made me any less of a woman than any of the others you have interviewed today,” she said coldly.
“It is a problem in the sense that I am afraid you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. You cannot consent to things you do not understand, and I have neither the time to educate you nor the inclination to violate someone’s consent, Miss Granger.”
“Just because I lack practical knowledge does not mean I am a blushing damsel who thinks babies deliver storks, sir. If you think I have no clue what you wish from me, you are sorely mistaken,” Hermione said coolly.
Harry chuckled. “You are feisty, Miss Granger.”
Hermione did not respond. She had no clue if it was a point in her favor or something that impeded her chances.
“What do you think I want from you?”
“You wish me to be your submissive. You wish for total control as my sugar daddy, master, and dominant,” Hermione replied confidently. She knew exactly what she was getting into.
The amount of fear her plunge into this new world caused her?
That, she kept to herself.
“And you know that you will be expected to follow my every command so long as they do not infringe on your limits. The limits you stated in your application.”
“Yes, sir.” She had no idea where he was going with his line of questioning, but the expression on his face and his earlier doubts that she was ready for such a relationship gave her the distinct impression that she was about to be tested.
Her nails dug into her bare thigh, the girl confident he could hear her heart hammering in her chest.
“Do you have any other limits than those listed in your application?”
“No, sir. I took my time to consider everything I would find unpleasant or impossible to do, and was sure to list them without fail.”
“Very well then, Miss Granger.” Harry pulled a large red file towards him, clearing space on her side of the desk. “You will stand, undress, fold, and place your clothes on the desk and kneel next to my chair. If you last the full hour, I will know I have saved myself the trouble of having to interview any more candidates.”
Hermione stood up on instinct, her hand moving to the clasp of her robe before sanity took over. Her eyes flickered once to the unlocked door behind them, then to the large window overlooking Diagon Alley. They were in the tallest building in that part of the street and there was little risk of anyone chancing upon her naked body unless they were flying on a broomstick. Which, while improbable, was not completely out of the realm of possibility. Then there was the door to his office, unlocked and readily accessible.
None of his instructions, nor the threat of being caught had been in her list of limits. Yet, it was sheer insanity, and anyone else might have left. Ginny would surely have left.
Fuck, she thought, slowly undoing the clasp of her robe. There had never been a test she had failed, and she wasn’t about to start now. She was determined to see it through, if only to prove him wrong.
She slipped out of her robe and placed the neatly folded garment on the desk, leaving her in a fitted white blouse and a simple black pencil skirt. Despite the open file in front of him, his eyes were fixed on her, taking in every action and studying every expression.
She found the intensity of his attention to be bloody satisfying.
Trembling fingers slowly popped open the buttons of her blouse, her eyes drooping to the floor in an effort to avoid having to look at him. She pulled the blouse free from her body, clumsily folding it and dropping it on top of the cloak. Her skirt was soon to follow, leaving her in a simple white bra and cotton panties.
These, she kept on, her chest heaving with every breath as she tried to come to grips with the insanity of what she was prepared to go through.
“Do you feel ashamed, Miss Granger?”
Her cheeks burned. He was receptive. “Slightly,” she mumbled.
“It turns you on.”
It wasn’t a question. It is a simple statement. The confidence in his voice caused her blush to darken.
“Yes,” she admitted shyly, knowing there was no denying it. Not when he could seemingly read her body better than she could.
“Can you ask your secretary not to disturb us for the next hour?”
“I will not,” Harry replied, yet unseen by her, pressed a button set under his desk that was installed for exactly that purpose. “It is a leap of faith, Miss Granger. One of many that you will have to take as my submissive. More so than others, given your lack of experience.”
Hermione nodded. She took a deep breath, silently weighing her options. She could put her clothes back on and leave, putting the interview behind her. Her only other option…
She reached back to the clasp of her bra, unhooked it, and pulled it away from her body, silently dropping it on top of the ever-growing pile of clothes. Her panties were next, leaving her completely bare for the eyes of her potential dominant. She kicked off her heels, pushing them under his desk before she moved to stand squarely in front of him, awaiting further instructions.
He studied her with an expression she had not seen throughout their interview. It was one of quiet hunger, of unbridled lust. He wanted to ravish the tiny creature in front of him, and he wasn’t afraid to show it.
His eyes studied her long brown hair, messily secured in a ponytail and tumbling down to the middle of her back before moving to her blood-red lips, then taking in inch after inch of sun-kissed skin before they settled on her pert breasts. Barely a handful, and no match for what had been on display that day.
“I’ve always been petite. I think puberty went for a vacation after my fourth year and never came back,” she mumbled, her cheeks a dark red. He didn’t say a word, simply opting to study her gorgeous form. Her rosy peaks pebbled, her creamy breasts swaying slightly with every quivering breath.
“Shaved?”
Hermione glanced down at her bare mound, then nodded sheepishly. “I prefer it this way. If you want to alter my body, I am not opposed to it. I would just like to discuss any potential changes with you first.” She wasn’t entirely opposed to changing if that was indeed his preference.
“I prefer it this way too,” Harry said quietly, before gesturing to the empty space between a cupboard and his chair on his right side.
Hermione walked over on unsteady feet, well aware that his gaze was following her every movement. The entire thing was a test, and she was determined to ace it. She sank to her knees next to him, her back straight.
She locked her arms behind her back, causing her breasts to pop out for her new master.
“What’re you feeling?” Harry asked, gently pulling her hair free from its ponytail. He pushed his fingers through the luscious brown locks and she leaned instinctively into his touch.
“I feel… exhilarated. I… can’t explain it. But I have a suspicion I’ll be chasing this feeling for the rest of my life,” she whispered, closing her eyes and letting him rest her head on his lap.
Home. She felt like she had found a home.
Notes:
Since Together We're Harmony is finishing (6ish chapters left, including the Epilogue) and should be wrapped up in the 2nd week of January, and since Harmony is one of my favorite ships (Yes, Haphne is too, don't kill me lol), I decided to write this when I was in bed sick and had the idea for it. It's a Sugar Baby to True Love AU. The story is a complete AU, so do not expect any Canon Events in it!