Archive of Our Own

“Tomorrow morning I want on my desk 45 inches of parchment about the different receipts for the Living Death Draught. I expect a work worth of the exam you are taking in five months from now. ”. 

Students flew out of class, scrambling to get out the fastest they could. Professor Black was more pissed than usual, and she took it out on her seventh year student. 

Hermione stood back. Brave or stupid, it depends on who you are asking to. She eyed her professor. Lately she had found herself drawn onto her new potions teacher. 

She had been the only one that came back to finish her studies. Ron thought she was kidding when she told him. For those who missed the seventh year due to the war, the Ministry had come up with NEWT’s exams specifically adapted for their needs, but they paled in comparison of the real ones.

Hermione could not stand to take the easier path, so she ha gone to McGonagall shortly before Semptember, and ahad sked her if it was possible to attend her last year, as usual. Minerva had accepted, and had granted her a private room in the Gryffindor Tower, and free permit to leave the castle whenever she wanted. She had realized that Hermione couldn’t be considered an usual student. 

Hermione was grateful for the Headmistress kindness. She had dreaded the moment when she would have waken up screaming and trembling after a nightmare, in a dormitory full of younger girls who she didn’t know, except for Ginny. She was allowed to a privileged condition,  also as a thanking for her worki during the summer to restore the castle, but she took it upon herself to work harder that the usual student. 

She had asked Minerva to be her mentor for the Transfiguration Mastery. She had accepted it, but stated that they would started after Hermione got her NEWT’s, and that they must be top score. From that moment on the only days Hermione granted herself a rest from studying were the weekends, where she would meet her friends in Muggle London or Hogsmade, where Ginny could come along. 

She and Harry had found each other again, and they were almost diabetical together. Hermione and Ron though it best not to continue their relationship, as they were too incompatible for a long lasting close vicinancy, and they preferred to remain friends, best friends. He then fell in love with a collegue of his, an American Auror, and they went on a date a couple of times. 

They were happy, eventually. 

But she felt alone. She could not shake her solitude. She had been on a few dates with wizards, mostly Ginny’s fellow Quidditch players, but even if they were handsome, cultured and well behaved, she could not bring herself to go on a second date with them. Some of them took it badly, and she asked Ginny to stop. She felt she was giving false hopes, so she focused back on her studies. 

Then came professor Black. Narcissa Black. Her divorce with Lucius Malfoy had been on the Prophet’s front pages for weeks, months even. She signed the papers the week after Lucius was sentenced to a life in Azkaban. Skeeter speculated she was just behind his money, but she ronounced to all her Malfoy properties, keeping just her Black patrimony, which wasn’t poor either.  

She and Draco had been judged guilty on some extend but thanks to the testimony of Harry they had avoided prison, and they were required to be socially useful. Draco became a Ministry employee, for free for two years but he had the possibility to keep his job after that period, while Narcissa joined the Hogwarts staff in January, after the Christmas break, to teach advanced potions to sixth and seventh years. Snape hadn’t been pleased but he was still recovering from his injuries, so he greeted Narcissa as the friend she was to him. 

It had turned out that Narcissa had got her Potion Mastery during her son’s permanence at Hogwarts. Lucius had been too busy at the Ministry to notice that her wife spent her time in her laboratory and she had manage to become a Potions Mistress shortly before Voldemort’s return. She had kept it hidden even to Voldemort, so she had been left alone, deemed worthless to become a Death Eater, much with her sister’s disdain. 

She had relevealed it just when the Wizegamot had asked her how she wanted to be useful to society, and she shared her wish to teach at Hogwarts. There had been a few scandalized yelps among the judges, as if they could allow a convicted criminal to teach children! 

She hadn’t lowered herself to beg, but Minerva had seen in her the genuine desire to pass her knowledge, and she had hired her on the spot. She had remembered the little girl she had once been in school, arrogant and self-titled yes, but always the first to answer a question, to hand over her longer than necessary essays, to ask for extra work after class.

That was how Narcissa Malfoy, now Black, had become Hermione’s obsession. 

At first she had cried for days after the new professor introduction. She could not forget how the same eyes that were glaring the class to demande silence, months before had been watching her with indifference while her sister was torturing her on her floor. In her drawing room. In her house. Under her eyes. Doing nothing but watching. 

She had missed the first classes. She had been summoned by Minerva to make sure she was okay. She had simply said that she wasn’t feeling well and the salubrious air of the dungeons made her sick. Minerva hadn’t believed her but conceided her some rest. 

It had passed a week before Hermione, pushed by Ginny, had gathered the courage to attend a lesson. 

Narcissa had noticed her, she had opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but then she had seemed to rethink it and had started her lesson like nothing happened. 

The next class, Hermione had found a scribbled piece of parchment on her desk. In a elegant calligraphy there was written the topics she had missed, the pages in which she could find them, some advises she had given during the lesson and a note, with a tinier writing like it was shily added after the rest, saying “please, meet me at my office tomorrow evening, ten o'clock. I shall explain everything. NB”. 

Hermione had pocketed the note, but had not been able to forget it.  

Hermione had arrived at that door twenty minutes before the time she was supposed to. She had been growing restless all day, she had even forgot about her History of Magic class, and Ginny had been sent to look for her by the new teacher. 

She was staring at the wood like she could burn it to the ground. A turmoil of emotions swirled in her. She refused to let the fear to show in her face. She had no reason to be afraid, right? She was at Hogwarts, she was meeting a professor, she had done it a lot of times before. Except this time she wasn’t there to ask a question, and she wasn’t a first year girl with bushy hair and no friends crying at Minerva’s door anymore. She was there as a woman, not as a student. She was a war survivor, meeting her perpetrator’s sister, alone. 

Most of all, she felt confused. She didn’t even think that Narcissa remembered her. She surely must have remembered Harry Potter, but she had been only a Mudblood brought in her house to be tortured, to steal information from her, and then eventually killed. Merlin knows how many times she had seen the same script unfolding before her eyes. Merlin know how many young girls she had seen under her sister, screaming their lungs out, the light leaving their eyes. 

But she remembered her. She had looked almost sorry, the first time she attended her class. Like she had known why her student was missing, and she had known who that student was. Hermione was confused. 

She also could not avoid feeling hopeful. In all those months she had prayed for a closure, but with Bellatrix being dead she could not ask for one. She could not do as she knew many did, meeting the person who had hurt them, seeing them in prison, locked away and unable to do any harm anymore. 

She knew Bellatrix was dead, she had seen her corpse, trashed away in a empty classroom along with her master’s. She had seen the Killing curse passing under her raised arm, her smile freezing, her last laugh fleeting in the air. She had witnnessed all of that, but that witch still haunted her dreams, her crackling still tormented her ears when a chair creaked too loudly. She caught a sight of her everywhere around her. 

The first time she accompanied Harry to Andromeda’s to meet his godson, she almost fainted on the carpet. It took several minutes before she could make out the gentler features of Andromeda that distinguished her from her older sister. 

She still sometimes felt her heart miss a beat, when she just caught a glimpse of Andromeda passing. She felt grateful that Narcissa had taken from her Rosier mother, and resembled so little her sister. 

However, her torment did not end with Bellatrix. Sometimes, and it had got omore ften since Narcissa’s arrival, she would spot a pair of piercing blue eyes glaring down at her, while her arm was burning like shit and that horrid word was being carved into her flesh. In the dream, she would often lock stares with her, feeling like she was imploring for the pain to stop, but she would be responded with nothing but cold indifference. She cried harder. 

That was why she hadn’t being able to bring herself to attend potions for a week. That was why she eat her breakfast extremely early, when no one but Minerva and Snape was there, and went to dinner on the last second. She more that once asked Ginny to fetch her a toast at lunch not to starve just before the next class. 

She learnt from her friend that Narcissa mostly didn’t show up to dinner nor to lunch, but she could not take the risk to meet her. The first time she did, at the welcoming banquet from the Christmas break, when Narcissa was surprisingly introduced, she had not slept for two nights, her nightmares more vivid than before. They got calmer after, but she didn’t want to spark them again. 

She felt childish, avoiding the problem like that, but she could not bring herself to face her. Until she practically pleaded her to come to her office. That was it. 

Hermione had changed her mind at least thirty times between that day and the day before. Should she go? Should she send an owl saying she didn’t want to deal with her ever in her life again? The second option sounded appealing, but she needed her NEWT’s and just for the sake of them she ought not to not anger the blonde witch. 

At ten o’clock, the door opened on itself. Black was sitting behind her desk, a stack of parchment in front of her. She had a pair of thin glasses perched on her nose, circling the black rings under her eyes. She must have put a spell on those during her class, but right then they stood out on her pale skin. 

She looked across the room, her tired eyes faltered a bit upon seeing Hermione rooted at the doorway. She dropped the piece of parchment she was holding, taking a deep breath as if she was trying to recompose herself. 

“Miss Granger. Please, sit”, she said eventually. 

Hermione lingered on the hallway a few seconds, before taking hesitant steps towards the professor, who seemed to not being able to tear her eyes off her. 

Hermione cautiously lowered herself on the airmchair before the desk, but kept her glaze anywhere but on the blonde witch. She clasped her hands on her lap and crossed her ankles. She tried to take deep breaths but she felt the first tears pricking her eyelashes. She wouldn’t cry in front of her. 

Narcissa studied the girl before her, her closed posture, her lucid eyes, the stubbord unwillingness to meet her eyes, and sighed. That was her fault. 

“I am sorry”, she whispered. “I am sorry”. She felt the urge to hug Hermione, to make sure that she would be soaked up by her words, she wanted to promise to do everything in her power to make ammend, to do everything in her power to be worth forgiving. But she could not, she hadn’t got the right. 

She fixed a blonde strand that escaped her loose updo and noticed that her hand was trembling. Hermione said nothing, she still had her stare attached on something at the right of Narcissa’s face. Then, so subtly that if Narcissa wasn’t looking at her she would have missed it, she shook her head. 

Narcissa’s heart dropped. “I know my words will never be enough, I know that my sister ruined you, I know I did too. I am not asking you to forgive me, I am not seeking your approval, I am not trying to shake my responsabilities off my shoulders, but please, please, listen to my story”. A tear escaped her blonde eyelashes, while Hermione stoically held them in. 

Narcissa leant forward, her hand clasp like a prayer. “Please, Hermione, look at me”. Like her name had woken her up, Hermione shifted her brown eyes on her. Narcissa was crying. 

“I am listening”. 

Professor Black dried her cheeks with the back of her hand, seeing a bit of smudged mascara blacked her skin. Her mother must have been tossing inside her grave. 

“I was born the 9th of November 1955. The third child, the third daughter of a man with no male heirs. I was born the odd one, the frail one. I looked like my mother, the woman who could not produce any son, the woman who had gotten barren after delivering me. A partum complications, they had to medically remove her ovaries or else she’d die giving birth to another child. I was the doom of my father, and both his greatest fortune. 

I was the youngest, the most delicate sister, the calmest, the easiest to deal with. My older sisters, Bellatrix in particular, were difficult to tame. I remember they used to play muggle cops and robbers when my parents weren’t at home. Bellatrix was usually the cop, and Andromeda was very skilled at running away. I found it ironically gut clenching, later on. 

Bellatrix was very protective of me, she took upon herself every misbehaving I did, which didn’t happen often but could have by accident. Our father used to pick on her specifically, knowing she was the toughest one, that could take it longer. 

He would bring her down in the basement, and leave her there. He would call the domestic Elf, Rune was her name, to bring her lunch and dinner, to clean her and to check if she was injured. My father never laid a hand on us, not even a slap, but he found that being left alone, usually for a couple of days, was the most effective punishment.

It was effective. Me and my sisters had grown an almost osmotic attachment to each other, we rarely spent out time sparse from one another, except for those punishments”. 

Narcissa inspired a long breath, checking how Hermione was. Her eyes had dried up and she looked interested. Right then, though, came the bad part. 

“Eventually, both my sisters received their Hogwarts letters. They were one year apart, while I had to wait four more years to receive mine, as I was born in November. I was alone with my parents, when they were at home, or with Rune if they weren’t. Anyway, they must have waited for my sisters to be gone before starting my training. I call it training, because it felt like one. 

I was seven years old and they taught me how to stand properly, eat properly, doing anything in my life properly. Now, my sisters had gone through that too, but my mother saw herself in me, in the blonde one, and did everything she could to teach me how to be her, specifically. It was not just how to behave like a member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, she brought it to another level. 

She taught me how to be a perfect wife before I even knew what that meant. She showed me how to please my husband with a clever talk even if I didn’t have a single clue about what was I talking about. She imparted me with lesson on how to look perfectly in every occasion, how to smile, how to wink, how and when I had to look sensual and how and when I had to reign my emotions and look like a statue. Still and mute like one”. 

Hermione inclined her head a bit, sensing where that was going, and tried to intervene. She was not there to listen to this priviled witch lament about her privileged upbringing and privileged issues. Narcissa stopped her with a pleading look. 

“I am getting to the point, please. Just a bit of patience. 

When I was ten, my mother showed me how to please a man, in bed. She laid me on my bed and conjured a maniquin, which she enchanted to move like a man during sex. I wanted to cry, but I was told that that wasn’t ladylike so I remained there, barely breathing while that thing moved between my things and my mother explained how with the man’s seed and my ovaries a baby could be born. 

Luckly she did not deemed it necessary to teach me other positions, that one was sufficiently practical for a child to be concieved. Boring, if you ask me”. Narcissa tried to joke, but Hermione stared blankly at her. 

“During my third year, they introduced to me Lucius. He was a fifth year Slytherin, one year older than me, from a well positioned family and good looking. I was told to love him, I forced it until, eventually, I loved him”. Narcissa sighed, looking at her empty ring finger. 

“During my life, I had been taught one thing, the most important among all the other. I was a pureblood. I will be a pureblood wife. I will bore a pureblood child. I was superior to everyone who wasn’t like me. Technically, you could say that I was superior to Bella, given she had no children. That was what it was taught to me, carved into my brain until I forgot it came from outside, and I believed it was just how the world worked. 

They didn’t use violence, I wasn’t forced to think like that, I accepted it because it was easier, because I knew that if I acted like that, if I believed that, I would remain Narcissa Black, then Narcissa Malfoy. When Draco was born, I did the same to him. I spoiled him, I made sure he knew he could look down to anybody because he was not only a Malfoy, but a Black too. I put it upon myself how my son behaved with you Hermione, it was my fault. I tried to protect him like that, pushing him to become a the type of man I have always known, to become like my father, or his father. 

I didn’t realized at that time what I was doing to him, how bad as a mother I was being”. Narcissa took off her glasses, and rubbed her fingers on her eyes, ruining her make up beyond remedy. 

“And then came the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Lucius had joined the Death Eaters during his sixth-year, a few months after I first met him. I was proud of him, my sister had already been marked, and Lucius was only waiting to finish school to receive it himself. He asked me to come along. I refused. 

Sometimes I told myself that I stayed out of it because I knew it was wrong. That it was a lie. I refused out of fear. 

Becoming a Death Eater meant throwing away everything I had been taught. I supported them, I funded them, but I could not become one myself because deep dowm I deemed myself unworthy. I wasn’t powerful like Bellatrix, nor I had the connections like Lucius. I stood behind my husband, as my mother wanted, and I never complained about how he came back from a mission covered in blood. I did even close an eye even when I suspected he had visited a brothel after that. I took it upon myself, as I was struggling to get pregnant. 

We tried, initially like my mother showed me and, eventually, more different ways — her cheek reddened a bit —, but a child wouldn’t come. I started fear that I had a curse upon me. As I had made my mother barren, I had been doomed myself. Of course, I was just overthinking it. 

When I was giving birth to Draco, I thought I was going to die myself. There was a lot of blood, like, too much. Draco was footling baby, and it hurt like shit. They say you forget the pain after the baby is born, maybe it’s true for other women but I remember everything. They had to cut me open to tear him off, and even they thought I wouldn’t survive. 

Luckly, the only child I was able to bore was a boy. Lucius was satisfied and I wouldn’t have to try another time. We made sure that our only baby would be greatly loved. But I don’t want to talk about Draco now.

After becoming a father, Lucius changed. He had always been protective towards me, but after Draco he locked us inside the Manor. He said he feared for our life, I say he feared for his lineage. 

When he came back for the first time rom Azkaban, as he had been senteced of two years after the first Voldemort downfall, he promised me that he wouldn’t come back to him, even if he returned. I was relieved. Draco was three and he needed his father. 

I loved Lucius, I really did. He was the person I loved the most until Draco, then he was the second. I had to give goodbye to Andromeda many years before, and I had locked up every memories I had of her until I barely remembered her. Bellatrix, I did not recognize anymore. 

I did not recognized the person she had become. We had not been brought up among violence. As I said, our father verbally and emotionally abused us, but he never laid a hand on us. Hence, I couldn’t understand her violence, where it came from. Now I know, it was deep rooted in her, since the first moment in which she took my defence. She had always been fiercely protective of us, even to the point that she would physically stand between us and our father. 

We all were protective of one other, but she was the one that resorted to her body to do so. Andromeda, my sweet Andromeda, had always been the kindest, the empath one. When she flew, she cried not because she was getting sent away, but because she was leaving me behind. I had not talked to her ever since. 

As i was saying, I loved Lucius, but I could not understand him anymore. He was lost, Azkaban changed him beyond repair. He deserved it, but sometimes I wonder if everything would have been different if he hadn’t been sent to Azkaban, or if that horrid prison had been kinder to him.

We started sleeping in different rooms, he woke so many times during night that it made my rest impossible. I knew he never stopped visiting brothels, but a part of me was relieved. 

After birthing Draco I found myself no longer enough for him, no longer attractive. I was ashamed of myself. All my life I had been told that I was beautiful, graceful, charming. I felt like something had been ripped off me. That was when I started my potion Mastery. 

I had to found something else to be useful, something to surprise Lucius with. See, you don’t seek your wife in bed anymore, but she is still resourceful, still worth. 

I feel my heart heavy saying so. I know that it must sound ridicoulus, a pathetic wife trying to win her disloyal husband back. Starting something not for her culture’s sake, but for a man. For a man that forgot her the moment he had a child. For a man. I shiver just saying that. But again, he was my all life. I had always lived in a selected circle of people, my sisters, then my husband. My sisters were gone, my husband was all that remained to me. I wish I realized it sooner, how fucked up my life was at that time, but I did not, not for a while. 

When Voldemort came back, a few months after I got my Mastery, I hadn’t said anything to Lucius yet. After he joined him again, breaking his promise, I decided I would never reveal anything. I knew that I had become worthy of a mark, I was stronger than Lucius, magically speaking, I was a Potion Mistress, I had woven a web of connections not only with pureblood wifes, but with other Potion Masters and Mistresses all around the world. 

While he was busy regaining his position at the Ministry of Magic, corrupting it from inside, I had gone to dinner with the most influential European witches and wizards. Country leaders, professors, researches, high standing politicals, world wide known magical entrepreneurs. He didn’t know anything, he didn’t notice anything. I thrived in his ignorance. I changed. I grew.

I knew that I was worthy of a mark, and I refused it.”. 

Hermione stared at her, almost admiring her for the first time ever since she entered the office.

“Do you ever wish to meet Andromeda again?”. She whispered shyly. 

Narcissa froze, did she? Of course she did. With every fiber of her being. But did she deserve that? She considered it was something that Andromeda had to decide. She nodded.

Hermione smiled. Hermione smiled at her. Hermione smiled at her. 

“Do you know her?”, Narcissa asked softly. Hermione smile got broader. 

“Harry is Tonks’ son’s godfather. Teddy’s, your grandnephew. We care deeply for Andy, Harry and I go for a visit every other Sunday”, she explained. “I think.. I think she’d want to meet you too”, she murmured. Narcissa was weeping, she didn’t care anymore if she was being weak with her student. Hermione was far from being her student. She had yet to know what she was to her.

Narcissa’s thin lips curved in a hesitant smile: “I would love to meet her, but please, let me finish my story. Then it will up to you to decide what to do with it. But I need to let it out now”. 

Hermione turned serious again, and Narcissa kept recounting. 

“I hid all my abilities to Lucius first, then to the Dark Lord. Eventually, I had to lie to my sister too. She escaped from Azkaban, as you surely remebered, and went to seek refuge in my house. We had guested her long before Voldemort demanded our hospitality. If I thought that Lucius had changed, nothing prepared me to what Bellatrix had become. As I said, I didn’t understand her violence before, right then I had to wrap my head around her newfound insanity. 

During my foreign networking, I met several magical psychiatrists. Before then, I ignored even their existence. As Bellatrix healed from her physical wounds after the escape, I sent owls to my new acquaintances. There was one of them that studied the lost lasting effect of a prolonged closeness with Dementors. He stated that most likely Bella’s magical core had been defiled by their magic, so different from ours. 

Their magic is more instictive, it comes from the inside and it’s not filtered by reason. Bellatrix had always tended to be more hotheaded than me and Andromeda, much more inclined to sparks of involuntary magic. I guessed the dementors had aggravated her situation. 

With her magical core corrupted like that, her reasoning fumed. She had moments of cleareance, rarer and rarer to the point they never showed up again. Her frequent usage of dark magic did not help, it strenghened the corruption in her core.  

Bellatrix’s magic became much more like a dementor’s one, it was like she could suck out of you all you strenght just by being close to her. She thrived in it, it made her stronger, but it just got her crazier and crazier until she was eventually lost. 

I mourned my sister while she was still alive.” Narcissa took her face between her hands.

“Then came the battle of the Ministry, and my family’s wreckage began. Lucius was sent to prison, Voldemort made his appearance to the world and sought a stay in my house; my husband was not there to refuse, if he would have, so I had to yield. 

To punish that failure of my husband, the Dark Lord ordered my son, my only child, to carry out an impossible mission, to kill Albus Dumbledore. He was meant to fail, and to die. There wasn’t even the remote possibility that he would succed, but he didn’t realize it. He thought he had been chosen for his skill, for his loyalty, to honour his father. I hadn’t got the gut to tell him the truth. 

Severus helped me, I will always be grateful to him for that. She kept my son alive and killed the man I knew he cared about. He didn’t fooled me, I saw that he did. Bella, perhaps in a moment of lucidity, made him vow, but I trusted him completely. I later learnt of their plan and it made more sense, but it did not change my sentiment.

I owe my life to Severus, so I thank you immensely for saving him during the war.

Last year was the worst one of my life. Voldemort had decided to stabilize in the Manor, Snatchers brought all kind of prisoners into my house. Some speculated that I renounced the property of the Manor because I did not want the divorce to get worse than it was. This is partly true, but I could not bring myself to enter in that house again. Not after what happened to you.”

Hermione held her breath, tears streaming down her cheeks. Both witches were crying. Narcissa held out her hand, hoping that Hermione would accept it. She did. 

“My dearest Hermione, if I could go back in time to stop my sister, to tear you off her knife, I would. I would because now I see that I had a way out. Now I see that there was I way in which I could escape that circle of violence, hatred, pain. Now I would, but last year I was thinking I was lost. 

I had barely avoided my son’s death, my husband had come back from Azkaban just to be humiliated by the Dark Lord in front of all the most imprtant Death Eaters. Every morning, when I woke up, I felt closer to be killed that I was the day before. 

It did not pass two days without me, or Draco, being Cruciated. I had been tortured more times than I can remember by my own sister, the same that would jump between me and my father’s fury when I misbehavied. The same sister that cuddled me to sleep when I was scared of the dark. She tortured me, again and again. 

I knew she wasn’t herself, that my sister had died years ago, but it hurt me way more than the Cruciatus Curse did. And Voldemort knew that, he wanted us to withdraw, to become that desperate to try to escape so he had an excuse to kill us all. I was so scared that I burned down my laboratory, scared that he would find it and force myself to brew for him. 

My Potion Mastery had grown dear to me, from being just a way to impress that asshole of Lucius, it became my pride, my source for keeping up. If I managed to become a Mistress with a few hours of practice a day, I could do anything I wanted. I was powerful enough, but I was still stuck in that Manor. 

My son was at Hogwarts, with Severus. But if I tried to flee, the Dark Lord would have had him killed, and then he would have haunted me down, and forced me to look at the corpse of my only child, dead at my fault.

I started to fear more my son’s death than mine’s. I had lived enough, I had sinned enough. He was only a boy.” Hermione gripped Narcissa’s hand more tightly.

“The Snatchers brought you at my house in April. 

I had to watch you being tortured by my lost sister, I had listened to your screams and I had to protect myself. I knew that if I did not isolate myself from you, I would have done something. 

Draco had told me about you. The Muggleborn that exceeded in all fields, he felt threatened by you. I had reminded him of the purity of his blood, of his superiority, I hated to see my son demotivated. I hated you. I had pictured you like my son described you. Know-it-all, self-assured, proud, petulant, arrogant. You were the Mudblood that beated my son, that charmed the professors enough for them to grant the highest scores, that succeded with your stolen magic. 

Now I know I was a fool, a brainwashed, self-titled, stupid fool. And I cannot forgive myself for this, never. 

It had been a process that started with my Mastery. Many of the people I met were Halfblood, many Muggleborn. There was a cospicous part of Pureblood, like me, that didn’t look down at others. I began wondering if I was the odd one, the obsolete one, the bad one. 

With Voldemort’s return, I could not keep the frequent corrispondence and I ended up forgetting about those feelings, until you showed up at my door. 

I looked at you and did not recognize the image I had of you. I saw through all your lies, but I said nothing. I could not do nothing, I believed. I was so scared to lose my son, to lose myself. I saw all the tales I was told flying back at me, each of them tearing off a part of me. It was like I was looking at the scene like a third person. I had to, or else I would have shoved my sister off you, grabbed you and disappeared somewhere else. I would have condamded my son. 

Every night after that, I saw your eyes seeking for my help and I had to push those memories deeep inside my head, where they could not escape. Eventually, they became so painful they physically hurt. 

A night, a few days before the Battle of Hogwarts, I let them out. I revived every moment of it, and much more. I recalled every moment with the many Muggleborns I met during my visits in France, Germany, Italy. 

I cried for hours, alone in my room at the Manor. It was the first time that I cried since when I was a child. I cried until I could not do stay awake anymore. The next day, I remembered everything and I made a promise. I promised that I would do everything in my power not to let Voldemort win, to save my son, to save you. 

You, Hermione, you are my biggest regret. You, Hermione, are my savior. You, your courage to stand against my sister, to lie in her face, to recover and come back again, you saved me without knowing it. You gave me my life back. Thank you, Hermione, and I am sorry. I am so sorry that it took me so long to realize. I am sorry for everything I did and more for everything I didn’t. Thank you, my dearest.”. 

That night, Hermione recalled, there had been no more words. They had cried together until they fell asleep, in their seats, their heads dropped on her desk. They had woken up like this, eyes still red from crying. 

They both knew that Narcissa had not said everything, that something still haunted her, but they both felt lighter than they had been in years. Ever, for Narcissa’s part. They had left the office in silence. 

Narcissa had disappeared behind the door on the back, most likely in her private quartiers. Hermione had walked alone in the deserted hallways at four in the morning. If someone had found her, it would have seemed she had got up early, not that she had spent her night slouched on her professor’s desk. She hoped that Harry wasn’t looking at the Marauder’s Map that night, or only Merlin would know what he must have thought. 

In her room, she had showered herself, hot water dripping down her face washing off the remains of her tears. She had sensed that closure she had hoped for. 

Narcissa had showed her she had changed, that she regretted what she had done. While she was listening to Narcissa talking about her sisters, the truth hit her. Belltrix was dead. She didn’t know why it took Narcissa saying that in her face for her to finally believe that, maybe it had been the final tone in which Narcissa described the change in her sister. 

Under the shower, Hermione had made a promise. She would take Narcissa to Andy, she deserved the closure she had given her. 

A week later her emotional meeting in the blonde’s office, they still hadn’t talked. Narcissa turned back at her usual self, proud and authoritative. Hermione was happy for her, she knew how much difficult had been for her to open herself like that, to a student in particular. 

That morning, Narcissa seemed more testy than ever. She had assigned 45 inches of parchment on a topic she had barely said a thing at lesson, just because a third-year Ravenclaw’s potion had exploded in the class before. 

She had written the instructions on the blackboard and demanded a small vial of Living Death Draught on her desk at the end of the two hours. She then asked for absolute silence. 

Hermione had watched her professor, discretely. She was seated still behind her desk, flinching at the minimum noise, her eyes covered by her palms. She recognized a mingraine when she saw one. 

Instead of working on her Draught, she had browsed through her manual in search of an anti-migraine potion. It was far easier than the Living Death Draught, but she had considered that the witch wouldn’t have minded. It wasn’t like she had never brewed potions harder than that. 

She had gone gathering her ingredients and got to work. 

Now she was standing before Narcissa, while she was collecting the vials that her classmates dropped before fleeing from the class. Just by looking at them, she knew that perhaps one or two could be considered a Living Death Draught, there others were just dirty water. 

“Professor”, she handed her potion to Narcissa, who took it without a second glance. “No no, it’s for you”. She said. 

Narcissa lifted her head and cast a curious look at the glass she was holding. A tender smile curved lips. “Thank you”, she whispered, and downed the medicine without even testing it before. Hermione beamed. 

Narcissa blinked twince, her vision getting back to normal after not being able to see anything for hours. Last night she had definitely got herself carried away with the Firewhisky. As if it hadn’t been enough, she had run out of hangover potions. Hermione saved her, again. 

She tried to get up, but Hermione halted her. “Please wait”, she said. “I would like to learn Legilimancy”. 

Narcissa flinched. A week passed without speaking, and she appeared asking for extra lessons. Hermione was truly a curious thing. 

“And why are you telling me this?”, she feigned ignorance. She had never mentioned her ability with her students. She found herself wondering how Hermione knew that. 

“During your… well, last week I saw that you used a lot of periphrasis not to mention that you were, in fact, a Legilimens, but I noticed. Like when I said that you locked up your memories of your sisters, you meant that you occluded them right? Then you lied to Voldemort’s face, so I guess you are at least a very skilled Occlumens, so I came to you”, she shrugged her shoulder, like she had not just read through her imperscrutable professor. 

Narcissa was surprised to say the least. It was true. It wasn’t like she was ashamed of being a natural Legilimens, but she tried to avoid revealing it as to not make uncomfortable the other person, but Hermione noticed. Astounishing. 

“Why? It’s one of the hardest magics to learn as an adult”. She could give up that easily. 

“My nightmares. They might go away if I manage to keep them out of my head”. 

Narcissa’s eyes saddened abruptly; she had opened up, yes, but that didn’t mean she had washed away her guilt. She knew that she was still a main character of her nightmares. 

“No one had ever educated me on that, I was born a Legilimens. So I don’t know if can teach you, but we can at least give it a chance. You can come to my office this evening. I’ll inform Severus, he is a far better Occlumens than me and he studied hard to become one. He will be more suitable to give advices”.

Hermione did not showed her disappointment for having Snape included; she had found herself hoping for an alone time with her professor. She realized she had started growing a weird affection towards the blonde after that night the week before, but she forced herself not to think too deep into it. She nodded and went to follow Ginny at lunch. 

She just hoped that Snape’s teaching style developed since Harry’d fifth-year. 

That evening, she stood tall in her Potion professor private quartiers, she said that the armchairs there were far more comfortable, her former potion professor before her, his wand poited at her forehead. She was aware of Narcissa wearly streched out in her leather couch in front her fireplace, reminding her to focus just on her mind. 

Hermione found it hard knowing where she was and who she was with. She kind of thanked Snape for being there. He brought her on earth. 

She saw the man murmuring something, and a slight sensation growing in her head. They had been there for three hours, and Hermione was progressing quickly. Narcissa started suspecting she was a natural Occlumens. Her legilimency skills, however, were still miserable. 

She conjured in her head a library, rotating on itself disorienting the mind invasor. She had hidden the memory of the first lesson with Snape in an anonimous tome inside that gigantic library. He had failed to find it, after her fourth attempt. Narcissa, though, strolled right towards that memory every time she tried. She was really a menace. 

Snape attempted everything in his power. He evoked a book inside her mind, to trick her to think at the hidden tome, but she outsmarted him, and got him on the wrong direction. After a few minutes, he lowered his wand, defeated. He nodded praisingly. 

“I don’t have anything else to teach you here. You can defend youself from external attacks. Now you just have to find you way of doing it”. 

Hermione collapsed on an armchair. He kept saying her this, she had yet to find her personal defence. What did that mean? She had conjured a library, what was even more truer her than a library? 

Snape claimed that if she wanted to repel Narcissa’s attacks, she needed to find her true self before. She didn’t know what that meant. But after finding herself, he said that she’d be able to lock away her nightmares during her sleep. Right now, she had erged a conscious defence, while both Narcissa’s Legilimancy and her dream managed to permeate inside her hand in an uncoscious level. 

She decided to sink herself in books the next day. 

“I wouldn’t do that”, a voice spoke from the fire. Narcissa eyed her amused. 

“You are reading my thoughts”. Hermione scolded her. 

The blonde witch tutted. “You are screaming my dear. I barely had to reach to you to listen them”. Snape chuckled in his drink. “Anyway, I wouldn’t submerge my self in books to find this solution. They are the reason you haven’t yet found your true defence. Too much reason, far too little feeling”. Narcissa explained, stretching on the arm rest. 

Hermione’s eyes followed the curve of her neck, and saw it trembling with a barely contained laugh. She shook her thought away. 

Hermione fixed her eyes on the fire, thinking. She had freshly discovered that she had an Occlumency natural power, but, according to Severus, she had buried it away, and resorted only on her reason. This natural skill still lay somewhere in her mind, but it was completely up to her to bring it to light. 

A glass of Firewhisky came floating to her. She grabbed it and caught a glimpse of Narcissa flicking her hand. She cast a smile towards the blonde and started sipping her drink. She immediately felt her limps relaxing onto the leather seat. The crackling of the fire culled her mind.

She was feeling well until the second her dropped on the armchair. The tireness assaulted her, after she had suppressed it down while Severus attempted to break in her mind. A light headache emerged in her temples, and she scared it off with a sip on her drink. 

She noticed that Narcissa had dozen off on her couch when she spotted Severus levitating a blanket at her direction, magically fixing around her body. A spark of jealousy bit the pit of her stomach. She wondered for the first time what linked the two Slytherins. Severus had seemed overlyprotective of her friend the few times she had seen them together before then. 

He had grounded a group of Gryffindor when he had found them sayinig vicious things about the woman, a few days after her installment. It had preventedd further incidents to occur, as the news that the scariest professor had taken defences on the second most scariest professor. No one had dared say a thing from that moment.

She recalled what Narcissa said to her about Snape. She told her that she trusted him, even without the Unbreakable Vow. She trusted him on her son’s life. And hers to. She even said that she owed him her own life. 

A Prophet’s article at the time of Draco’s sentence reported that Snape was the blonde’s godfather. She had initially thought that he had been Lucius’ choice, but she had to reconsider. Perhaps Narcissa and Severus had been friends since school, but was sure that they were a few years apart. When did they become so close to each other?

“I see your thought swirling miss Granger, and they are driving me insane”. Hermione turned towards the deep voice that had calmly spoken. The dark eyes of her professor showed no tireness at all, and had she not seen his blood staining his white shirt in the Shrieking Shack, she would have started believing the rumors that deemed him a vampire. 

“I was just ruminating, sir”. She lied. Bad choice. Snape was famous to read through lies, and she was too tired to lift her defences. 

He smirked. “So curious about you teachers’ private life, aren’t we?”. 

Hermione felt her ears redden, and she averted her eyes. “I didn’t want to pry…”. She murmured. 

Snape simply glared at her. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but stopped mid sound. A flebile ah escaped his troath, before he attempted to mask it with a cough. Hermione heard that, but pretended to miss it. 

They fell silent, the light snoring of Narcissa and the fire slowly dying the only sounds in the room. The alcohol started getting in her head, as she dozed off in her armchair, her legs drawn toward her chest and the head propped on the armrest. She fell asleep again at her professor’s place. 

She was soundly gone when Snape collected her forgotten glass and sent a second blacket upon her, before silently exiting the room. She didn’t hear him thanking her for saving his life. 

“Has someone ever told you you talk in your sleep?”. They were seated at the small table Narcissa had in her kitchinette. The professor had summoned an Hogwarts domestic elf and asked her to bring them some food for breakfast. Hermione felt wrecked. Her neck hurt like shit and her back cracked every movement she made. She had grafefully accepted the blonde’s proposal for a quick meal in her rooms. 

It was still pretty early in the morning, and she should make sure to sneak back in her bedroom before the Gryffindor tower woke up, but her stomach was rumbling as soon as she had been waken up by Narcissa’s clattering of cups while she was made tea. She scolded her will power that apparently decided not to show up while Narcissa was around. 

They had been munching in silence, until Narcissa had spoken.

Hermione flushed. “Have I? No one has ever complained”. 

Narcissa smiled. “I just have a light sleep, don’t worry. Well, it could have been the Firewhisky of course”. She looked at her far to knowingly than Hermione wished.

“What… what was I saying?”, she feared that question. She knew exactly what she was dreaming that night. She remembered it far too vivid to be safe around a natural Legilimens such as Narcissa. 

The blonde chuckled: “Nothing comprehensible, just some words. I was sure I heard my name between those sound, were you having a nightmare?”, she questioned. 

“Yes! Yes, terrible nightmare. Scared the shit out of me. Got to go, thank you for the breakfast”. Hermione stood abruptly, cleaned her mouth with a napkin and downed her tea. She proudly held her tears back when it burnt down her esophagus. 

Narcissa eyed her, again, far too amused than Hermione wished. With a flick of her hand she put out the fire in Hermione’s throat and stood up herself. She thought it best to see her student out, adding in a low voice: “Do not think to be done with your lesson. I expect you tomorrow evening at the same time. Do your meditation exercises. Have a good day”. And she shut the door behind Hermione. 

For a person that had been crying her ass out just a week before she had definitely recovered, Hermione thought. 

She absolutely needed to find her true self-defence before the next evening. She shrudded, what if the blonde saw exactly what her nightmare was. She would be so appalled that she would cut off every contacts between them. One thing was begging for her forgiveness, another was seeing herself kissing her student’s thighs. That was too much.

Hermione was so ashamed of herself that she tried to physically remove that memory off her head. She went as far as to scrath her cheeks, to pinch her eyebrows and to violently scrub her body in the shower. It did not help. 

Now she was scarlet red and looked like she had been fighting a cat with her face. Thanking Circe, it was still pretty early and she had plenty of time to heal her scratches. 

The memory was still very vivid in her mind, though. Too vivid. 

She said to herself that she could ignore it. She would come back that evening in her bedroom, she would meditate like Snape told her, and she would find that damned true self defence. Or else she would just drop out of school and diseapper somewhere in the continental Europe. She would open a small artsy library in Venice and she would live her life like she never had never known magic. She didn’t deem it to dramatic, anything was better than to let Narcissa see her dream. Anything. 

It was not the fact that Narcissa was a woman that bothered her. She had come to realize that she preferred witches long before, during her arranged dates with Ginny’s friends. That was the tacit reason why she asked for them to stop. 

One Saturday night, in November, she had decided to pretend to be sick to cancel her hang out with her friends, and she had gone to a queer London pub she had discovered thanks to a leaflet she had found during the summer. 

The place had been anonymous from the outside, you had to know it was there to notice it. It was its kind of magic, Hermione believed. Inside, there had been a long bar where three young women had been preparing drinks at lightspeed. She had ordered a Martini, and had eyes around. 

There had been mostly women, dancing with each other and laughing, and singing to the music. It had filled Hermione’s heart to see people of her age having so much fun, feeling that that kind of thoughtfulless had been ripped off her at a younger age. 

She had been approched by a blonde girl, slighly older than her, and they had got into a conversation. Hermione had given her a wrong name, and sooner than she had imagined she had been brought into the blonde’s apartment, and she had left it only in the morning. 

That had been Hermione’s first time. She had regretted it at first, feeling she had jumped the gun a bit. When she thought about those moments though, knowing that no one was there to judge her, to recognize her, to demand her to be something she wasn’t, she only felt the freedom, the heavy upon her shoulder being lifted. She retourned to that place a couple of times, cautious not to let herself become too dependent on it. 

She had told no one. 

So, the fact that Narcissa was a witch did not even surprised her. It was the fact that Narcissa was that Narcissa that kept her awake at night, metaphorically speaking. Not to mention the fact that she was her professor. Every way she put that, it felt wrong. Her professor, 24 years senior than her. She was doomed. Twenty years and the first person she felt not only physically attracted to, but also mentally connected with, was her perpetrator’s sister, the same woman that had hauted her nightmares for months. 

One long talk, one apology, and she wanted her in her bed. She felt ridiculous, to say the least. 

She shook her head and casted a tempus, a quarter to eight. She was late. She rushed out of her room towards the first class, clashing with a few students on her way. She had lost herself in thought, and didn’t realized that two hours had passed since she had fleed her teacher’s apartment. Thanking Circe, no potion lesson that day. In her state, she would have screamed her dream directly in Narcissa’s mind. Then she would have buried herself, alive. 

She lowered herself next to Ginny in the Transfiguration class. The redhead casted a curious glance at her while she was trying to catch her breath. 

“Overslept?”, she asked. Hermione nodded. “I went to your room last night, you forgot your notebook in the library when you ran away”, she slided her notebook that she had, in fact, left behind when she realized she would have arrived late to Narcissa’s lesson. “I knocked, but no one answered. I was worried, so I spelled the door open. Your room was empty”. 

Hermione froze on the spot. “I was, err, on patrol duty. Headgirl patrol”, she visibly lied. 

Ginny frowned. “You dropped your patrol duty in October, saying you had too much to study”. Shit, she forgot. Sighing, she half lied: “I had an extra curricular lesson, with Bla- McGonagall, about my Mastery”. Well, she would begin those soon, no harm do to pretend they  already started. 

The redhead’s frown deepened, but professor Aldridge cleared his throat in that moment, and whatever Ginny wanted to ask got lost in the lesson. Hermione opened her manual, scolding herself for not having an excuse prepared. She didn’t imagined that Ginny would notice. 

Turning to listen to Aldridge teaching, she annoted in her mind to ask Minerva for those extracurricular lessons. She hoped that she would allow her to teach the youngest years the next year. Aldridge was already ruining enough students. 

She wondered how the rest of the seventh year would be sufficiently prepared for NEWT’s if that was the teacher they had been granted. She understood that Minerva had had little to no time to look for her substitute, but she hadn’t seen that incompetence in a professor since Lockhart himself. She didn’t consider Umbridge worthy of the title, anyway. 

She had been assigned to read a chapter, and she got to do what she had been told. 

That evening, after a calming shower, she put on her comfort pijama, asked an elf to bring her a cup of tea, and positioned herself on the bed, her legs crossed. She took a deep breath and transported herself inside her mind. 

Whatever she had built the night before, it had shattered the moment she stopped thinking about it. Books, shelves, wooden tables floated weightlessly, aggravating the chaos. The inner Hermione closed her eyes, and thought clearly for them to diseappear. When she opened her eyes, she was met with void. Pure void. 

Then, a light dawned in a remote point of her mind. She thought to get there and she was transported there. Hermione gasped, all her memories stretched ahead of her, they created a cone in which she could walk through. She immersed herself into it, feeling like she was driving in a muggle tunnel. 

As soon as she thought of that, a memory flew at her, showing her and her parents in a car, in a tunnel, going to the beachside. She had tried to undo her memory spell on them, but too much time had passed and they had already started a new family in Australia. 

Before she could realize it, Hermione found herself surronded by images of her parents. She casted them away, she had a purpose there. 

She tried to recall the first time she discovered she was a witch. She reflected that if she didn’t knew that she had powers, her mind would still be uncorrupted. How could she see inside her memory self though? She had to find a moment in the past in which she had looked inside her own mind. Preferrably before her eleventh birthday. 

She was pondering when she sensed a push at her stomach and a strong nausea pervaded her. She left her mind and found herself on the ground, at the bed’s feet. She must have fallen down. 

Her little mind adventure helped her to understand a starting point, but seemed like it would take more time that she actually had before facing again the blonde witch. She pondered her other options, how much would cost her a portkey to Venice?, but they all seemed ridicous right then. She wasn’t a quitter. She faced her problems, as she had to again that time. 

Sleep took her and, sadly, this time nightmares caught her unprepared. 

“Close your eyes, free your mind”. The following evening arrived much more sooner than Hermione wished. She was standing, a blindfold on her eyes, in the middle of Narcissa’s office. That time, maybe considering that they were alone, she had preferred to stay there. 

Hermione focused on the voice of her professor and tried to envision her mind blank. Not an easy task, given that Narcissa had decided to stand so close to her that she could feel her breath on her neck. She readied herself for the catastrophe. 

Suddenly, the blinfold was removed and Narcissa entered her mind without nothing but a light press as a hint. Hermione knew that the blonde could go unnoticed if she wanted to, but she appreciated the kindness. 

Panicking, memory of the last nightmare were casted before the intruder, who shook them away gently. 

“Don’t be scared, Miss Granger, I won’t snope around. Don’t try to distract me, repel me away”. Hermione was trying, but unfortunately Narcissa’s magic was kind of comforting inside her head so not only she was fighting her intruder’s magic and skill, but her own mind too. 

Memories wandered freely, no restriction whatsoever. Hermione tried to summon her library, but Narcissa had it disappeared with a flick of her hand, smirking. 

“What are you trying to hide, Miss Granger? What are you so desperate to keep away from me? I can feel it, you are forcing yourself not think of it too hard, it’s draining you”. 

Hermione was in fact feeling like she was running a marathon, she could not keep up much longer. Her mind was acting as a completely different being from her, it had welcomed Narcissa as a part of its own. Hermione wondered if it was what distinguished a natural Legilimens such as her from a taught one, like Snape. He had been pushed away, Narcissa seemed to be completely at awe. 

At last, Hermione’s willpower gave up. Glimpes of her dream started to litter around Narcissa, who broke the contact as soon as she realised that that was what Hermione didn’t want her to see. Hermione was mortified. They had been glimpes yes, but they left no space for imagination. Naked thighs, blonde hair, breathless sighs. Hermione was preparing herself to flee from the country. 

Narcissa, though, acted like nothing happened. She went as far as to chuckle mirthtly. “Now I see. You could have told me Miss Granger, I wouldn’t have judged you”. Hermione looked at her blankly, what could you be possibly talking about? 

“I… I fail to see what’s so funny about this”, couldn’t she just be angry, ashamed, disgusted, whatever, and be done with her? Was she messing with her?

Narcissa turned serious: “No, no, I wasn’t mocking you. It’s just, well, I find it kind of humourous that you are so adamant about me not seeing that you like witches. I guess that I wasn’t enough clear in my story. I loved Lucius, someway, but… I didn’t exactly enjoy sleeping with him”. She shrugged.

Hermione felt her blood getting back to her usual temperature. Not only Narcissa hadn’t recognized herself. Better, she had just come out to her. Of all people. She felt like she would faint. 

The blonde witch called a domestic elf to ask her to bring some tea and two cups, and left Hermione to catch her breath. Narcissa hummed peacefully as she dropped behind her desk and moved some parchment to make some space for when the elf came back. 

They chose not to talk about the last incident during the tea time, and Hermione left her professor’s office feeling drastically lighter than she prospected. 

What she hadn’t noticed though, was the broad knowing smile on Narcissa’s face when she shut the door behind herself. 

The following months passed away at lightspeed. Hermione, now less worried about inadvertently showing her fantasies to her professor, quickly had progressed during her Occlumancy lesson. Narcissa often would tried to catch her by surprise with an uncalled intrusion, and Hermione had become more skilled at recognizing her and pushing her away. 

Their lessons eventually stopped, but they would still often met in the blonde’s office for a tea and a talk. Sometimes Severus showed up too. 

Hermione had wished that her crush would just go away with time. Oh, was she wrong. 

On the contrary, everytime she saw the woman, she felt it grow and grow, until she wasn’t so sure to call it a simple crush anymore. 

She had tried to scrath the ich with some more visits to the Londor bar, in vain. She had found herself searching for girls, or better women, that resembled her potion professor, until she had got tired of it and had decided to stop going. 

Luckly, the new, and real this time, extracurricular lesson with Minerva had began. She had promised her that if she’d scored the maximum at her NEWT’s, and Minerva knew her chickens enough not to doubt it, she would teach her how to become an Animagus. That promise had pushed Hermione to work even harder than before, and had left her with fewer time to think about the blonde in the dungeons. 

She had even managed to make a meeting between the two estranged sisters possible, with Harry’s help. It had turned out that Andromeda seriously missed her sister, and had been looking forward to meeting her since the end of the war. Narcissa had been so grateful to her that she had even hugged Hermione. That time, she really did faint. 

Then the NEWT’s had arrived and Hermione had scored the highest in every single one of them. She had set a new record having successfully taken nine NEWT’s out of the twelve possible, without counting Alchemy. 

She had granted herself little to no rest, as she immediately began the process to become an Animagus. She had dreaded the moment in which she’d discovered that her animal was an otter, like her Patronus, but when she opened her eyes she had been way taller. A linx. 

As she had hoped, Minerva trusted her enough to take over the classes from first to fifth year. With the promise that as soon as she got her Mastery she would kick Alderidge right on where the sun doesn’t shine. 

Hermione had everything she had hoped for. Except of one thing, well, someone. 

Narcissa had still a year before her sentence ended, but she seemed firm on staying even after that time. She genuinely loved teaching and after having overcome her initial strictness, students had started enjoying her lessons. It had been decided along with Severus that he would retrieve all his classes the following year, while Narcissa intended to open the Alchemy course again. 

Hermione found her balance around her, or so she told herself. She had started teaching her first classes, while still met with Minerva twice a week to monitor her Mastery project, so they had yet to find the time to drink something in Narcissa’s office, which was drastically bigger than Hermione’s. 

The few time they saw each other, though, Hermione was welcomed with a tender smile from the blonde. She was more physical than before, not that Hermione minded, which eventually made the younger witch’s mind going crazy. She would put a hand around Hermione’s waist to gently move her, or she would lean for a cheeck kiss that, strangely, always felt a little to close to her mouth than socially acceptable. 

Again, not that Hermione complained. It left her a little lightheaded though, at least the first time. And the second. All of them. 

One evening she was coming back from her last class shortly before lunch, when she spotted a flebile light shining on her desk. After getting closer, she discovered that someone, and she had a hunch on who might have been, had left a note and had enchanted it. 

The piece of parchment read: “Fancy a drink in my office? I’ll be waiting for you at ten pm. Yours, NB”. Yours. Hermione kept rereading that specific word. Had she gone crazy? Allucinations maybe. How long had it been since she had last eaten? Not enough for allucinations for sure. 

She secured her note in a inner pocket of her robe, close to her heart. 

They had been sitting in silence for a while now. Narcissa had offered her a glass of aged elfic wine that had been “the last good gift from Lucius”. Hermione couldn’t consider herself a wine expert but even she could say that that was an excellent bottle. Good job Lucius. 

After that remark, they just sipped her drinks quietly, her eyes fixed on the fire. Well, mostly. Hermione felt Narcissa glaze shifting onto her a few times, but when she tried to catch her, found her staring at the fire place. 

Once Hermione had grown tired of that atmosphere, she tried a small talk. 

“Severus must have been relieved to having his classes back next year”. 

Narcissa didn’t divert her glaze. “He was, I think. Not that he was that expressive anyway”. 

“I still haven’t asked him why he didn’t press for the DADA teaching spot”. Hermione hadn’t intended to ask. She just wanted the witch to keep talking. 

“Nostalgia, I guess”, Narcissa’s response came muffled by her glass. “Talking about you, Minerva told me your Animagus form is a linx. That’s curious”.

“Why?”. 

The blonde eventually stared directly at Hermione. “I recently found out my Patronus is a linx too”. 

Hermione gulped. “Yes, curious indeed”. 

Narcissa turned onto the fire, again escaping the brown eyes. She flicked her hand and the bottle moved floating towards Hermione’s glass, tilting to fill it. She accepted it. 

They had sit in silence many times before, but that time they both felt that something was underneath, and that silence became slightly uncomfortable. 

“I saw you in the Prophet”. Hermione grimaced, knowing which article she was referring to. During the latest gala at the Ministry, at which she had been invited as a war hero, she had brought with her a witch she had met in that London bar. 

They had slept together a few times before Hermione broke with her, as soon as she realized that she had irremediably fallen in love with Narcissa. She had told Diane right away, but they had already decided to show up together at the Ministry event. Seeing as they weren’t exactly a couple, they remained friends, and Hermione kept her promise. 

Skeeter had dedicated an entire page for her, supposed, coming out. It had been on everyone’s tongue for a few days, until another scandal came up and the attention shifted. Still, Narcissa saw that. 

“She is a friend”. She didn’t know why she felt like she had to explain herself to her. 

“A friends with benefits, it seemed”. 

Hermione flushed: “She was. Not that you should care anyway”. 

“Was? Is she dead?”. Hermione’s glass shattered in her hand. She hadn’t come to be mocked. She was an adult for Circe’s sake. What was wrong with her?

“I broke off with her. She isn’t the one”. 

Narcissa turned towards her and vanished the mess the had made with her wine. Hermione had already healed the cuts in her hand. 

“Wasn’t she?”. Narcissa said, her sharp tongue gone. Her eyes had became glossy in the warm light of the fire. She looked more ethereal than ever. Hermione was not able to hold it anymore, she launched herself at the blonde, clashing her lips together. 

A surprise yelp escaped Narcissa throat, before she responded to kiss. She cupped Hermione’s thighs and pulled her in her lap. Hermione used the new found advantage in height to push her tongue in Narcissa’s mouth, moaning throatly. 

Hermione felt like she was finally breathing. She kissed the blonde’s lips like they were water in the desert, air in the space. She kissed her like it was her last time on earth. Her heart beated fast, too fast to be normal. A warm pulse descended from her head to much lower, settling down to her stomach, then between her legs. From her position, she lowered herself onto the blonde lap, and they both sighed. 

After what seemed like hours, Narcissa broke the kiss. Her eyes, once the piercing blue eyes that haunted Hermione’s nightmares, were now pitch black. Her breath was ragged and her lips looked plumper that ever. Hermione felt a twitch on her heart. She loved her. She really did. 

“You are the best thing ever happened to me, Hermione”. Narcissa whispered on Hermione’s lips, gripping her back like she might go away. 

“Take me to bed”. 

Narcissa didn’t need to hear that twice. With a flebile crack they dropped on the blonde’s four poster bed, Hermione still on top of her. 

They divested slowly, mouths following the clothes as they were removed. Eventually, Narcissa managed to get in control. She lavished Hermione’s face, then she descended on her neck, her breasts. She stopped at her hipbones, kissing each of them before teasing Hermione with kisses on her inner thighs. 

When she finally dove her mouth higher, she casted the memory of that Occlumancy lesson directly into Hermione’s mind. 

She moaned louder.  

“You knew”. The two naked bodies, pleasurably exhausted, had found each other in a tight embrace. With the head on top of Narcissa chest, Hermione hear the witch chuckle. 

“I knew”. She understood why. She didn’t need to ask. 

Narcissa’s hand reached her curls on her head and started caressing her. 

“Hermione, I think I love you”. 

Hermione smiled. “I think I do too”. 

She finally had everything she had wished for. Someone included.