Authors Note (A/N): 11th of August, 2014 - I apologize for the confusion and wait that has persisted this fic today, I have revamped it and am currently bringing the improved version over from AO3 (Archive of Our Own) for your enjoyment! The process will take some time, but I've made 8 chapters so far! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Gaelic name of our main protagonist, it is pronounce MAY-vee like the month of May, then the letter V. More will be made, I promise, and we'll be seeing plenty of excitement along the way.
Allons-y!
Everyone was in a state of quiet pensiveness.
Bill lay surrounded by his family and fiancée, all of them quiet and satisfied of most of their present anxieties after Fleur's adamant declaration of her continuing love for the maimed man.
Lupin was thinking hard and long about the possibilities of pursuing a life with such a young woman as Tonks, with no little amount of trepidation despite the validation of his feelings by his friends, while Tonks gave him the space she knew he needed to think things through. She would wait for him. She had for this long.
Harry sat with Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, Lupin, and McGonagall in the chairs provided by Madam Pomfrey, who was now bustling about in her office.
Albus Dumbledore had just been murdered by Severus Snape. A man they had all trusted. A man who had truly lived up to their expectations of him. Silence in the room was punctured by the shuffling of a single pair of feet outside the door.
The door to the Hospital Wing was opened, and a young woman entered the threshold, eyes trained on the acting Headmistress.
She carefully and silently made her way towards the older woman, and as she stopped Harry noticed her entrance.
Her elbow-length black hair framed a pretty feminine face, and she wore the usual colors of summer, a white dress with flowers all over it the same light blue color as the knitted cardigan she was worrying between her fingers.
"Um, ma'am?" she whispered meekly. McGonagall looked up and started catching the attention of the rest of the people present.
"What are you doing here?" There was a forlorn undertone to her voice.
"I- I know I shouldn't presume to ask you anything after what's happened, but they've just come. C-come to kill me. I was getting a few things for dinner at the market when they went to my house and killed my cat, burned half the neighborhood to the ground as a warning. I don't expect you to help, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask, I'll repay what kindness you give me tenfold, I'll sit on the steps if I have to, I just can't go back. Please," she implored quietly, looking for all the world like she'd rather the earth swallowed her whole on the spot.
"No, I won't turn you out." The woman's shoulders visibly relaxed. "I can't with a good conscience make a nineteen year old face the whole of Voldemort's network trying to start over from scratch now can I?"
McGonagall took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "We shan't deal with the little things just yet, I haven't the energy. You may use an owl from the Owlery to turn in your notice where you work, they'll get you if you go back."
"Thank you," the witch replied, and automatically bowed.
"Ms. Granger, if you could please escort our guest to the Owlery and supply her with parchment, ink, and a quill?"
"Yes, Professor," Hermione studiously replied, standing.
Both teenagers walked out the large doors, and as soon as the doors snapped shut, McGonagall was met with many looks of confusion.
Sliding her square spectacles back into place, she sighed.
"Professor, who was she?" Harry asked confusedly.
"Severus Snape's niece."
Walking down the spacious halls and up the many flights of stairs, Hermione felt somewhat awkward leading a complete stranger to Gryffindor Tower, but decided it would be for the best to at least attempt conversation.
"What's your name?" Hermione asked politely.
"Maeve. Yours?" she asked, seeming somewhat relieved that Hermione had broken the ice for her.
"Hermione. Nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you too," Maeve's voice seemed to float right into Hermione's ear. "Do you attend here?"
"I do, yes. Didn't you?"
"No, I'm a part of the magical home schooled minority."
"Oh really? I didn't realize any Magical folk did that. What was it like?"
"A bit strange considering my parents were both strictly in love with their own subjects. My Dad was avid about Herbology, which suited my mum just fine because she was a Professional Potion's expert with St. Mungo's. They made time for other subjects like Charms and Transfiguration and the like, but it was mostly plants and potions for me. What's it like, to be a student here?"
It made Hermione a little worried, the way she was talking about her parent's in the past tense. "Oh it's wonderful! I've just finished my sixth year, and I couldn't be happier. We learn all the usual stuff like you said, and we live inside the school, I need to pop by my dormitory to get your things, but really it is all quite amazing."
"Are you Muggle Born?"
Hermione stopped dead. "I am. How could you tell?"
Maeve turned in surprise. "It's nothing, you just seem a lot more excited than most people who come from magic families. Of course, I'd be pretty excited myself if I got to live in a big castle and be mentored by some of the finest teachers around. It's not that my parents were awful, you know, but it'd have been nice."
Hermione still seemed tense.
"Really, I didn't mean anything by it. I probably shouldn't have asked, the way things have been lately, you must be on edge. I am too, I've friends who are Muggleborn and they've had to go into hiding."
They continued walking for a few floors. "So, what's your favorite subject, then?"
"Arithmancy, definitely," Hermione replied, "I've always had a head for the logic of it, and the number charts are my favorite part of homework."
"But I bet you don't like Divination?" Maeve asked, smiling slightly.
"No," Hermione replied, perplexed.
"That's how it is among lots of people, it's either one or the other, guess work or solid numbers. I know of a few who enjoy both, but they're like that with a lot of other things as well."
"What was your favorite subject?"
"Potions, definitely. I took my mums old job when I finished my N.E.W.T.S. a few months ago, and its loads of fun. Do you like to read?"
"Oh yes, it's my favorite. I'm glad they have a huge Library here, or I don't know what I'd do. I love to read about all sorts of things, all about this world, history and important people, how the government works, the other schools all around the world," Hermione's eyes spoke of her intense bibliophilia.
They continued like this, all the way up into Gryffindor tower and to the Owlery. After Maeve's letter had been sent off, they started back down to the Hospital Wing.
Maeve and Hermione were discussing Hermione's future job prospects in detail, when Hermione twisted her ankle badly in the stairs.
"OW!" she yelped in pain, lading hard on the ground. Maeve knelt down next to her, worried expression on and wand out.
"I'm sorry, I'm not usually this clumsy," Hermione grumbled, looking at the bruising on her ankle. Maeve cast a numbing spell on the afflicted area and immediately hoisted Hermione onto her back.
"What are you doing?"
"Well you can't walk," she replied as though commenting on the weather.
"His niece? You let Hermione go off with Snape's Niece?" Harry spouted in anger.
"That's quite enough, Mr. Potter. A relative of his she may be, but she is no more to blame for this travesty than any one of us," McGonagall told him sharply.
"Can she be trusted?" Lupin inquired.
"Yes, I believe so, although some amount of caution should be taken, I don't expect she'll do anything too rash."
They heard voices coming down the hall outside.
"… and would you believe he called me a Mudblood? Any time he saw me! Out in Public!"
"And it was just normal for him to use such foul language?"
"Apparently so."
"What an arrogant little prick."
"That's what I said."
Maeve walked in giving Hermione a piggy back ride, while one of Hermione's feet stuck out at an odd angle.
Harry immediately jumped up in a rage, wand drawn. "What did you do to her?!"
"Mr. Potter!"
"Honestly, Harry, it was my fault. It's only a sprain," Hermione scolded him.
Maeve hardly looked at him while she carried the younger teen to a bed.
"I'll get a salve, that'll bruise here in a moment," Maeve told her, drawing her own wand.
"What are you going to do?!" Harry spluttered.
"It's serious, we'll have to amputate," she told him sardonically, eyeing him surreptitiously on her way to the medicine cabinet. With hardly a twitch of her wand the cabinet came open and she carefully grabbed a fat container from the middle shelf.
Bill was more awake now, and looking confused. "Who are you?" he asked quietly.
"Maeve. And yourself?"
"Bill. Are you an angel?"
"Sure am. Better be careful about saying those kinds of things around your fiancée over there, because you're not dead yet."
With the almost identical glares of Professor McGonagall and Hermione, Harry sat back down, still looking anxious. Maeve walked back over to Hermione, pocketing her wand, and kneeled in front of her with the jar of salve open and floating beside her.
"May I?" she asked hesitantly.
Hermione nodded, and then winced.
"What's your pain level between 0 and 10?"
"Five."
Harry was now on the edge of his seat, ready to jump to Hermione's aid.
Maeve spread the salve lightly over her ankle, careful not to press down on the afflicted area too harshly.
"All done," she murmured after a moment.
Hermione grinned, moving her foot gingerly. "Thank you," she said happily.
The two of them adjourned to where Hermione had been sitting, and easily fit their feminine frames into the seat. The awkward silence was weighing down on her as she tucked her feet together, the hem of her dress revealing bruises on her knees.
"Maeve, how have you been?" asked Lupin somewhat conversationally, in a thankful attempt to alleviate the thickness of the air.
"Alright, bloody war and all considered. Ten cases of unknown diseases or curse related cases, lots of guessing. If you need an estimate, we had a near fatality Wednesday that I got saddled with because of my coworker's ingenious ideas about women being better caretakers than men, and that was the high point of my month. Even Friday's movie was a load of tosh. How about you?"
"Eh, about the same. Recruiting other werewolves to join, or at least making them aware of the true intentions of Voldemort. It's not quite as easy as I'd hoped but it's got to be done. I assume your job's going well?"
"It was, yeah. I guess Johnson will have to take over. He'll be devastated, he hate's having to look after interns."
Mr. Weasley interjected, "You're a Mediwitch?"
Maeve was surprised, as she hadn't expected the ginger man to say much. "No, but I have the training for it. I work as a coordinator for the Potions Department of the Hospital, though. Work with Healers, gather data on symptoms, make stuff to cure people."
"How'd you get in?" asked Mrs. Weasley interestedly.
"Oh, my mum was the head of the department before she passed and homeschooled me. I learned almost everything I know from her."
"And your uncle, too, I bet?" Harry bit out.
Maeve stared into his green eyes unblinkingly. "Yeah, actually. Mostly on theory, though. Why?"
"Harry! That's quite enough!" Lupin chastised.
"No no, I do want to know why. What's your problem?"
"You just saunter in here-" he began, his face twisting up in disdain, but then stopped at the expression of near pity on her face.
Harry scowled at her. "What?"
Lupin was about to try and intercede yet again, but Maeve held up a hand to silence him without losing eye contact with Harry.
"Stop. Please. Just stop and think for a moment. I'm not him. You don't know me any better than I know you. What real, solid reason do you have to be angry with me?"
"Because you're just like him! I can tell, you act like-"
"Oh really, you must have more talent in your little finger than everyone in this room, because a good ten minutes isn't enough to give you that. Do I terrorize children in a classroom to get a power trip because I've been blackmailed into being a teacher? Do I ruthlessly murder people who trust me? Do I enjoy bloody peanut butter?"
Harry stared at her.
"No, you don't know. You're pulling things out of thin air in your inability to control your obviously violent temper to have somebody to blame."