Author's Note: Greetings, FFN. As you can see from my nom de plume, I am stepping from the shadows to try my hand. I expect I will be expanding on this short bit I have written but felt it best to have a go with what follows before I lose my nerve. [Edit: I have found my two reviews thus far encouraging; as of 11:00 CST (GMT -5), this is now double what it was at first publishing.]
"...and then the dried up old dyke took ten points from Slytherin. She could have had ten more more all I care; you should have seen the look on the Mudblood's face!"
"Very well, Mr. Malfoy. I shall be glad to take ten more points from Slytherin, given your apathy. I do hope you shan't be put out if I take a further twenty for repeating your vile slurs."
Professor Minerva McGonagall stepped out from behind a stone pillar bordering the courtyard where she had been listening to the very end of Malfoy's rant. She mentally rolled her eyes at his foolishness at not at least retreating to the safety of his common room prior to engaging in such talk; however, since the beginning of the term, he and the other Slytherins had grown more vocal – reckless, really – in their bigoted speech against muggle-borns, making no attempts to maintain any semblance of civility. Their confidence in Voldemort's return and planned rise to power was taking its toll on the tone of discourse at Hogwarts.
Malfoy spun round; he had been regaling anyone who would listen with the tale of how he, as he perceived it, had taken the mickey out of Hermione Granger during Transfiguration. Quite the crowd had gathered. He had not expected any professors to be nearby, however, and being caught out by the very professor he had been so colourfully insulting embarrassed him. Draco Malfoy did not take kindly to being embarrassed and as such, the last vestiges of his common sense went on holiday as he lost his temper.
"Why you foul old eavesdropping spinster; my father will hear about this you dried up old dy..."
Malfoy suddenly flew backward approximately ten meters through two hedges and a crowd of third year Ravenclaws – who possessed reflexes worthy of the Holyhead Harpies' starting lineup – before intersecting with a stone wall at high velocity. He slid to the ground, unconscious. The entire population of the courtyard turned, stunned, to Professor McGonagall who was in turn staring in disbelief at the source of the entirely silent and wandless hex.
Hermione Granger looked rather stunned herself for a moment, staring at the carnage she had just wrought upon the shrubbery. After only a brief hesitation, however, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and looked up to meet the professor's gaze. McGonagall, for her part, was torn between outrage at the attack on a student and mild awe at the – dare she think it – damned fine piece of magic she had just witnessed from the young woman. They regarded each other for a long moment, the professor speechless, Hermione steeling herself for a potential expulsion.
"Miss Granger, just what did you think you were doing?"
Hermione took a deep breath. "Professor, it was incidental. However, I take full responsibility. Do you wish me to report to the Headmaster's office or to yours?"
A tiny flame of Gryffindor pride licked its way up from McGonagall's chest, but she maintained her visage of steel. "The Headmaster's office if you please, Miss Granger. I will join you after I attend to your...victim."
Hermione looked back at her with a level gaze. "I offer my sincere apologies for the inconvenience to you, Professor." She pivoted a half turn and made to leave, but paused. Turning back, Hermione met the professor's gaze once more with a look that burned into the woman's very soul and spoke.
"I have no regrets." She tossed the end of her scarf over her shoulder with a flash of Gryffindor gold, and then she was gone.
Professor McGonagall was dumbstruck at her student's act of chivalry. She felt a faint blush creeping up her chest to her face which she mentally forced back down, turning to the unconscious problem at hand.
"Levicorpus." She pointed her wand at Malfoy's sprawling form and escorted him to the hospital wing.
Hermione Granger walked resolutely to what she was certain was her impending doom. She knew that since the magic was incidental she would not be held legally responsible for assaulting Draco, but she also knew that she could not and would not apologise for rendering him unconscious. Thus, while she expected she would be spared a term in Azkaban, she also expected that she would be on her way back to her parents' house before the afternoon was out. Her one regret was that she would not be present to assist Harry and Ron with whatever it was that Harry was doing with Professor Dumbledore.
She was brought out of her musings by the realisation that she had reached the gargoyle protecting the door of the Headmaster's office. She had made most of the journey unconsciously. She shivered a bit before drawing herself to her full height and addressed the gargoyle.
"I have been sent by Professor McGonagall to see the Headmaster." The gargoyle paused before granting her entry. Hermione did her best to stop her hands shaking as the staircase wound its way upward. It always felt like a short ride, but today it seemed interminable. She feared she would begin to cry. She raised a fist to knock on the door, but it opened in front of her.
"Miss Granger. A pleasure indeed. Please, do come in and seat yourself while we await Professor McGonagall."
Hermione nodded once, unsurprised that the Headmaster knew she was coming. She was sure everyone in the castle knew about it, whether via painting, ghost, or student. She sat stiffly in the chair while the Headmaster seated himself behind his desk, smiling his enigmatic smile.
"Come now, my dear Miss Granger. It is not as bad as all that."
"I must say, Headmaster – with all due respect – I beg to differ."
"Indeed?"
"Indeed, sir."
"And why is that, Miss Granger?"
"Because, Headmaster," she rubbed her hands together nervously, her first physical manifestation of discomfort thus far, "I shall not be apologising to Draco. I did not mean to do what I did, but I do not regret it in the least."
The twinkle in Dumbledore's eye dimmed only mildly. "Please, Miss Granger, do expand."
"Well, Headmaster, he was saying awful things about Professor McGonagall. Really quite vile things, indeed, and he has been going on all year about how he is going to curse her first when he gets the chance...and I just could not abide him saying those things to her. As I said, I did not mean to do it, but if he had gone on a half-second longer, I have to confess, Headmaster, I would have hexed him myself."
"Admirable indeed, Miss Granger, but you well know, of course, that Professor McGonagall can take care of herself."
"I do, of course, Headmaster, but..." she trailed off.
"Indeed?"
"Well, she takes care of us all of the time. She takes care of me, Headmaster, all of the time, and has for years – when people say vile things about me – and it just seems that someone perhaps should return her the favour. And so I did." She nodded once, her resolve returning. She sat up a little straighter, the muscles of her upper body flexing unconsciously.
From the doorway to the Headmaster's office, Minerva McGonagall heard everything after Dumbledore requested that Hermione expand on her earliest statement. A tear welled in her eye; she was really quite touched. She coughed and entered the office, the portraits on the wall following her movement.
Hermione set her jaw and stared at the Headmaster's desk, preparing to hear the tirade of disappointment she suspected would come from the professor. McGonagall, for her part, exchanged a look with Dumbledore before looking down at her resolute student. Looking back at Dumbledore, she smiled briefly, taking two steps toward Hermione who was feeling quite wretched but hiding it under Gryffindor bravado, staring at the movement of a metal instrument on the desk, unblinking. Stopping to Hermione's right, the professor inclined her head slightly, placed two fingers on her student's left jaw just behind her chin, and gently lifted the young woman's head up and to the right so that her eyes met Hermione's. She spoke softly.
"One hundred points from Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for unrepentantly assaulting another student." Hermione said nothing.
McGonagall leaned down a bit, closing the distance between the two of them to half a meter. Her next words were laced with a tenderness Dumbledore had not heard since she had sung an infant Harry Potter to sleep after his Christening and which Hermione Granger had never heard.
"My eternal gratitude to you, Hermione, for your chivalry. I will see you for your lesson this evening, I hope." The professor dropped a soft kiss onto the top of Hermione's head, patted her shoulder, and left the room.
Hermione was stunned. Her professor's reaction was the precise opposite of what she had expected. She blinked at Dumbledore and then turned back toward the door, then gazed up at the portraits, bewildered. Dumbledore chuckled.
"Eighty points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger, for showing true Gryffindor spirit and courage in the face of certain doom as well as unstinting loyalty to your professor and your ideals." He winked at her. "And twenty more for achieving wandless and wordless spellcasting so early in your career, for," he waved her protest away, "I expect you will find upon further reflection that you absolutely meant to send Mr Malfoy into that wall, unconscious though it may have been. No incidental magic would have been so powerful. I will have to ask you, however, to cease practicing your wandless and wordless hexes on students, if you please."
Hermione eyed the Headmaster appraisingly. "Of course, Headmaster." She frowned. "You mean I shan't be expelled?"
"Indeed not."
"But will Mr Malfoy raise a great fuss when he hears of this?"
"Quite."
"Headmaster?"
"Leave the Messieurs Malfoy to me, Miss Granger. I believe it is nearly time for dinner. Please give my regards to Mr Potter and Mr Weasley as well as young Miss Weasley."
Hermione stood, still slightly taken aback. "I shall, Headmaster. Thank you." She turned and left the office in a daze. She was not to meet her doom this day after all.
Hermione entered the Great Hall a few minutes after dinner had officially started, hoping to keep a low profile. What she received instead was a standing ovation from the Gryffindor table and claps of acknowledgement from the tables Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. From the Slytherin table, to her surprise, she received nothing but silence and murmurs of anger. No jeers, no catcalls. She did her best to keep her eyes front and found Harry and Ron, sitting with her back to the wall so as to see the rest of the hall. It would not do at this point to be hit in the back with a hex.
Professor McGonagall was at the head table as expected; what Hermione had not expected was how Professors Sprout and Sinistra as well as Madam Hooch were leaning over and around McGonagall and casting the occasional look her way. Once she thought she saw Hooch wink at her before she turned her attention back to her dinner. Ron and Harry, thankfully, were discussing an upcoming quidditch match. She expected she would give them a rundown of her view of events later, but they had grown up to the point where they realised she would rather discuss things in private rather than in public.
The only person who said anything to her at all was Ginny Weasley, who sidled up to her from down the table and sat straddling the bench. Hermione smiled her hello, assuming Ginny was coming to speak to Harry about the match, when Ginny hugged her and whispered in her ear.
"YOU are my bloody hero. If I fancied girls at all I would be doing my very best to get in your robes right now."
Hermione snickered and muttered her thanks. Ginny swung her other leg over the bench and gave Harry a resounding kiss on the cheek, much to Ron's dismay. Hermione continued to eat quietly, surreptitiously observing her tablemates as well as the population of the near end of the head table which had grown to include Professors Vector and Burbage. The latter cast her a friendly look after a few minutes while Vector solemnly nodded at her once. Even the normally reserved Sinistra sent a small smile her way. Finally, Professor McGonagall looked up and held eye contact with her for what felt like years. Eventually, Hermione blinked, blushed, and looked away, quickly finishing her mug of pumpkin juice before making her excuses to Harry, Ron, and Ginny.
She eased her way along the wall of the Great Hall and out into the corridor. Here, the enormous hour glasses denoting house points stood. Gryffindor was presently nearly tied with Ravenclaw for first. She wondered if anyone had been standing nearby as the glass was drained of a hundred points' worth of rubies and subsequently refilled. She snickered to herself as she opened the main doors of the castle and sat on the outside steps. It was pleasant to be in such a mindset that house points did not seem to be fully ludicrous. Ever since Cedric Diggory had come out of the maze a corpse, Hermione's joy at being in school – at being alive – had been severely diminished. This year, even with Voldemort and his followers gaining power, things had felt more under control. She was glad. Being a prefect with Umbridge around had been stressful, particularly since the whole of the year had been spent specifically disobeying school rules in order to keep a step ahead.
Hermione stretched as she watched the light begin to fade from the school grounds. It was only just now spring, and while the weather had been fantastic the days were still not very long. After a few minutes, she stood up and did a few squats, feeling her muscles stretch as she did so. One thing she had always felt was missing from Hogwarts was field hockey. She had adored playing it at her muggle school, but no one here had any idea how to play and would have found it dead slow and boring compared to quidditch at any rate. Hermione, for her part, found quidditch terrifying; brooms were bad enough, but throwing a ball around while on a broom was far too much. She liked watching it well enough, but she did miss the energy outlet of a team sport.
She made her way back into the castle and toward Professor McGonagall's office, wondering what her lesson would be like today. She felt a little awkward having seen the gentle side of her venerable professor. She felt even more awkward realising that the professor was, of all things, grateful to her for her earlier actions. She did admit feeling a warm glow for having done the right thing – and for having done it for someone for whom she cared – but Dumbledore was right; McGonagall could have hexed Draco into the next geologic age had she chosen to do so, not that she ever would. The professor was the sort who would stand with stone impassiveness while someone questioned everything from her parentage to her Patronus and then, after the offender had at long last exhausted him or herself, she might deign to offer a cutting rejoinder. Only if she was truly angry, though.
It was that knowledge that made Hermione feel as silly as she did, but the other side of it was that she herself knew what it was to stand and allow people to say all manner of vile things to oneself; for her it had always, from the time she was young, been about her hair, bookishness, and teeth. Once at Hogwarts the slurs about her blood were added to that. She had solved the hair and tooth problems in fourth year and was now left her blood and books. She found the vast majority of discussions regarding either irrelevant, but it was still fantastic when Ginny or Harry would get in someone's face and tell them to put it where the sun failed to shine.
That was why she had done it, or at least been angry enough to manifest the explosive magic which had sent Draco across the yard. Sometimes it did not matter if one could take care of oneself; it was nice to know that someone else cared enough to defend one's honour. Coming to her transfiguration professor's door, she smiled. She was glad – if still slightly embarrassed – that Professor McGonagall had taken her inadvertent gesture for what it was meant to be: one of love and caring.