To Dare; Dare, Dared, Dared
Hi guys ! This story can be read as a one-shot or as a sequel to Heamistress and Cat and Mouse. I hope you'll enjoy it !
Please review! Learning is a never ending process ...
The school year's first snowfall had finally started spreading all over the castle as soon as the sun had risen that morning. And while the last sunbeams vanished on the horizon, the park, the greenhouses and the rooftops of every tower were covered by a white and padded coat. The windows and stained glass were opaque because of the mist; a charm was keeping the cold outside Hogwarts' walls.
The stone corridors were filled by fragrances of cinnamon, honey and chocolate, and decorated with holly, golden tinsels and floating candles. December and its multiple enjoyments had just entered Hogwarts. The atmosphere was sweet and soft, the spirits light-hearted and the moods at their brightest. Yet, hunched up on this downy armchair, her arms folded around her trembling knees, Hermione Granger was neither light-hearted nor cheerful. Her entire body was filled by an unsolvable chill and tears were emerging from the corner of her eyes.
Backing onto one of the large windows of her office that overlooked the Quidditch pitch from the far, Minerva McGonagall slowly turned away from the devastated expression she could read on the younger woman's face, even though it was mostly hidden beneath her arms.
"Hermione … Please say something!"
The young witch briefly sniffed and lifted her chin a little. Down in the park, within ear reach, first years were disputing their first snowball fight at Hogwarts. Hermione couldn't remember picking up a snowball, not even once. She had quickly felt apart, even though for a long time, she had thought that Hogwarts would mark the end of her solitude. But it didn't. Therefore she had quickly found shelter in her studies, because when facing books, there was neither age distinction nor discrimination of any kind. When facing knowledge, she had never been "too young".
"What do you expect me to say, Minerva?" she asked, addressing a hard look to the woman in her forties that refuse to face her.
"I don't know … Maybe that I am in the wrong?"
Hermione suppressed a bitter hoot.
"You wouldn't believe it yourself, Min. You have always been the only one to outsmart me and you perfectly know it."
"You won't even try to persuade me?"
"I don't know. The problem with reasonable and well-thought speeches is that they get to me, and thus with no return. I am quite forced to start believing you might be right there. Maybe we are just hurting in vain. Maybe knowing that we will never live together, that we will never hold hands in public, that after I leave Hogwarts we will see each other less and less, that we will never be "normal", as you call it, is too much. For someone as secretive and solitary as you are, I probably put too much on your plate by expecting that you could assume being gay and in a relationship with a younger woman who used to be your student."
A painful scowl twisted Minerva's mouth. It wasn't hard to guess that she suffered at least as much as Hermione did. But the young witch was tired of being brave for the two of them. She was tired of being a secret in the back of a closet, a hand you would only hold in the dark and a mouth you would only kiss quietly.
"Then I guess that it is today, this day on which everything ends?" Minerva asked in a bland voice.
Hermione remained silent. The silence that grew between them was ice cold, but still warmer than the fist that clenched on Hermione's heart. Every breath she took was painful and laborious. Regardless of the effort she produced, she couldn't imagine a single day without Minerva. Over only a few months, the woman had settled in every interstice of her life, every crack of her mind. Her absence could only leave a gaping gulf that would soon swallow her whole.
" 'seems so," Hermione muttered.
"Then you definitely are the wiser one."
As she went to bed that evening, Hermione tried to convince herself that time would necessarily soothe her pain. Harry and Ron would probably take advantage of their Christmas holidays to come and see her. Them, they had been accepted in their Auror training without having to retake their seventh year. In all honesty, she would probably have been able to start her legal carrier at the ministry as well; her name was legend and her sagacity had long been proven. Yet she had decided for herself to come back to Hogwarts. It was true that, as she told the boys, she preferred not to take part in their acquaintances' trials, but she mostly chose to come back in order to help Minerva in this new post war era at Hogwarts.
But presently, she was quite close to regretting her choice. Time did not heal. Time only stretched wounds to let every solitude-logged second enter and sully the injury that would never mend in a mere scar. She wished she had never known love, at least not love of a human being. The sole love of words, knowledge and justice would have done.
On the day before her exams, Hermione was so sleep and food deprived that she could only stand on her two feet thanks to the potions she had brewed for herself. There had been that one time, a few weeks after their talk were Hermione had had Minerva a last time. Fingered on her own professoral desk. But after that, their relationship hadn't moved a notch.
Hermione didn't know exactly how her «relationship » with Narcissa had started about December. They had just seen each other more and more, become closer and thinfs had eloped ... But she wasn't Minerva. At the thought of this year's ending, leaving Narcissa did not devastate her as much as leaving Minerva. Not even cllsely. She had started her affair with Narcissa because she was stunning, clever and they got along very well, but mostly because Minerva was madly jalouse of their closeness.
But the most important fact was still there; at the end of this week's exams, Hermione would leave Hogwarts with her diploma. She would leave Hogwarts and would probably never see Minerva again, this woman who taught her to feel human, sensitive and womanly again.
As he welcomed her in the small room that would host her exams over the following week, even Filch kept any comment about her state to himself. Of course, she didn't fail any question; the past year had taught her to keep her mind alert at all times, that being even through the deepest grief. It wasn't until her last test, in Defence against the Dark Arts, that she encountered failure. Even after her third try, she couldn't manage materialising the faintest hint of a Patronus charm.
"Is everything alright Hermione?" Narcissa had finally asked. She had taken care of DADA classes for lack of replacement after professor Snape's loss.
"I'm alright, thank you. It is only … since the war, you know …" there hadn't been any need to pursue; indeed, she knew.
Usually, results and diplomas were handed out after a huge festive ceremony held by the headmaster in charge. Yet, since Hermione was the only graduate that year, it had been agreed that a simple handshake in the headmistress' office would do.
Alone in front of the directorial office's door, Hermione's depths racked violently. By a lucky coincidence, she hadn't seen Minerva since they last « spoke » - not to say fucked. Though, as she came to think about it, she now highly doubted it was the result of any coincidence. She started over thrice before she was certain to be able to enter the room with a neutral expression that wouldn't raise any suspicions.
Minerva's pointy hat had trouble hiding the abnormal shadows under eyes and the redness of her eyelids that betrayed recent tears. It was there, writing on every wall, tangible through the thin air: this handshake, this look, this half-hearted smile : all of them were final.
"Miss Granger, it has been a great honour to count you as one of my students at Hogwarts. I wouldn't doubt a second you will become one of the greatest witches of our time," Minerva ceremoniously announced while handing out her parchment covered only in Os – Narcissa had kindly "forgotten" to talk about the Patronus incident.
"Thank you, Headmistress."
Minerva sketched a faint smile that was probably supposed to seem natural, but which's effort seemed to hurt every inch of her face. Yet Hermione turned on her heels without crossing the woman's eyes a second time. What for?
At the moment her hand was about to close on the doorknob, the voice of the woman she still loved rose behind her.
"Hermione?"
Not « Miss Granger », but truly « Hermione ». She hesitated for a second, shelving her movement, but without turning around.
"There isn't any clause that prohibits a relationship between a teacher and a former student."
"Is this supposed to be a question? » Hermione asked while throwing her a look over her shoulder.
"No, it is a fact."
Hermione finally decided to face the woman, crossing her arms over her chest.
"That isn't any news to me, Minerva. The problem – to you, that is – had always rather come under personal ethics rather than common laws."
Minerva partially opened her thin lips and tugged on a strand of dark hair that had fallen out of her bun. She was struggling to find proper words.
"Are you still planning to become a judge? You … You once spoke about taking over the Defence against the Dark Arts post. You even suggested calling Mister Potter from time to time in order to illustrate your teachings …"
Hermione frowned behind wild locks, tensing every muscle in order to hide her uneasiness.
"And what is that supposed to be? Another pleasant idea to torture me? Anyway, I don't see why Narcissa would leave her post"
"I … Gods, no ! It is rather foolish of me but … For a second there I thought that, maybe, if you were a professor, I …"
"It wouldn't change a thing, Minerva. I'd still be the same age, and the same goes for you. You would still be my superior and I'd still be your former student."
"You are right. Yet I … I just cannot … I cannot, not even for a second, imagine letting you leave this place and never come back. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't imagine a single day away from you, Hermione."
And those few words, those few words that had once more travelled straight from Hermione's heart to Minerva's mouth, sufficed to convince the young witch.
In a few steps, she had covered the distance between them and cupped the woman's face to leave a desperate kiss on her lips.
"Neither can I, Min" she murmured, their foreheads leaning against each other and their eyes shut.
"If … If I promise to work on it, to assume it little by little, would you stay?"
A light smile appeared on Hermione's lips and suddenly all the weight and the grief that had piled up over the past months magically vanished. Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it a wise old man once said.
By way of an answer, Hermione swept her lover's hat off her head and kissed her tenderly, slipping a hand through her - for once - not so tightly knotted bun. She felt Minerva smiling in their kiss and the last hint of distress that was still caught in her throat finally came undone. In a rapid and expert movement, Hermione grabbed Minerva's thighs to seat her on the desk behind them. The woman let out a surprised sigh but didn't protest any further however.
The young witch took it as a lead and deepened their kisses more and more, her hands working on Minerva's hair while their tongues met. Slowly, the suffering hearts were finding back to their rapid, intense and ecstatic paces which used to enliven them when they came closer. The breaths were short and heavy and the pupils widely dilated by the time they let go of each other. One glance, one second, and they knew. They knew that regardless of the dangers and hardships, from now on they could overcome everything, together.
Soon, Minerva's hands closed on Hermione's collar to bring her closer once more in a hastily and nearly violent gesture pushed by the strength of her need. Their lips found back to each other, but were quickly broken apart once more as Hermione's mouth left for a sweet trail along her jaw and down her neck to die on a barely apparent collarbone.
"Hermione … Minerva sighed, we can't … not here … someone could …"
Her thoughts had grown more disjointed than ever. Hermione rose malicious eyes to her lover, drew her wand from her pocked, pointed it towards the door and murmured a perfectly handled colloportus. Minerva did not even try hiding the smile that spread on her pink lips and sent sparkles in her clear eyes. Next year would necessarily be marked by the verb "dare", so why shouldn't she start her training as soon as possible?
It was her last coherent thought, for her lover's hands were already untying the complex stringing closing her robes from the back, while covering each new inch of skin with hot kisses. Unable to take any more of this treatment, Minerva suddenly grabbed the young woman by her rear, wedging Hermione's hips between her spread legs. Scarcely staggered, Hermione did not keep from her ministrations, only adding some movement to her hips that sent deep waves of pleasure through her lover's spine.
By the time Minerva's robes were only resting on her shoulders in a dressing down fashion, the older witch took upon herself to unlock the few buttons that were still closing Hermione's blouse, slowly discovering the white lace bra underneath. Her cheeks reddened despite her best efforts and she feebly sighed:
"Oh Hermione, please, next time, don't wear a student's uniform …"
Hermione beamed even wider and took profit of the woman's momentary distraction to lay flat back on the desk. She waited until she had left a first kiss on Minerva's inner knee to answer. Some memories of another encounter with another wotch and the same uniform had just clouded her mind.
"What was that?"
A single, sharp, breath intake answered her while her lips travelled higher along the exposed leg. Minerva's knees kept shutting together on behalf of a shyness automatism and Hermione was forced to grasp her thighs to keep them open.
A second sharp breath intake greeted her by the time her mouth reached the extreme end of her thigh. There, the scent was so intoxicating that Hermione couldn't hear Minerva's moans and supplications above her any longer. Last time was so far away that her lover's scent only became familiar again after a few inhalations, the memory slowly resurfacing.
She left a last kiss against Minerva's inner thigh, and finally, with a wandless spell, she cast away the last piece of fabric keeping them from each other.
That day, Minerva's moans came so hard that when Hermione came back as a professor following year, the rumour of their relationship had already travelled through the entire castle.