AN: I honestly was not planning on continuing this story, since I felt like it could work as a stand along and truthfully I had no idea where to go next, but a few reviews got me thinking about where I would take this story if I were to continue it, and then I had enough of a picture in my head that it begged to be written. I still only have half of an idea on what this story is going to look like, or how long, but at the very least here is another snippet of this burgeoning relationship.
Hermione's eyes opened the next morning very slowly, her brain lethargically disbelieving the sheer effort that such a minuscule motion required, and instantly the light searing her retinas made her regret having expended the energy in the first place. However, a few slow blinks later and her eyes had adjusted somewhat, though the light was making her squint and her head throb, and she was forced to be somewhat glad of the light streaming in through the windows because it enabled her to see her surroundings. Surroundings that didn't really make much sense to her at the moment.
Perhaps the thing that was so confusing to her was that she knew instantaneously that she was in her dorm room at the top of Gryffindor Tower. The room was too familiar to her to make her unable to identify it, but even if she hadn't known where she was the brilliantly scarlet hangings on the four-poster beds and the school trunks scattered around the room clearly marked her as being in the Gryffindor dormitories. That, and she highly doubted that the boy's dorms had so many random articles of clothing, stray heels, and abandoned copies of Witch Weekly scattered around their floor. No, it wasn't location that had confused her, but rather the angle from which she was viewing it, since she knew that this was not the view that she was accustomed to seeing from her bed. With a groan that echoed painfully in her own ears, she forced herself upright so that she could have a better look around.
The first thing that she noticed was that she was now facing the wall, and not the middle of the room as she could have expected, meaning that she had spent the entire night sleeping upside down. A furious blush started to make it's way across her cheeks as she turned herself around to survey the room. From her vantage point on Parvati's bed (for it was Parvati's bed that she found herself lying on, and not her own) she was able to see the chaos that was the girl's dorms, though it was even more chaotic than usual, and looked almost as if a herd of hippogriffs had rampaged through it at some point last night. Across the room Parvati was sprawled ungracefully, shirtless, on Lavender's bed, snoring loudly while the girl to whom the bed actually belonged was face down on the floor in the center of the room. Hermione was briefly panicked at the sight, wondering if her roommate was alright, but it was with relief, and some amusement, that she noticed that Lavender was twitching in her sleep every so often. Now that she thought about it, the entire situation was pretty amusing, even if she had no idea how it had come to be.
What had happened last night? It felt as if her head was going to split open, her eyes had yet to adjust to the sunlight enough to allow her to stop squinting against the glare, and her mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton not moments before, and that was only the mysterious part about how she felt, never mind the mystery of how she had ended up falling, upside down, into Parvati's bed last night. Last night—unbidden, a memory of Harry, a bra on his head and an arm slung in drunken camaraderie around Seamus' shoulders as they sang some sort of song that she was sure was terribly off-key, flashed through her mind. The memory made her groan as the feeling that she should be terribly embarrassed for her friends crept over her. She wasn't even going to begin wondering how Harry had ended up with a bra on his head, nor who it belonged to.
The movement that it took for her to stand and cross the room (moving carefully around Lavender) to her trunk left her feeling weak and shaky, and undeniably queasy. She was still in her uniform from the night before, but a glance in the mirror that hung on the back of the door showed her that it was rumpled from having been slept in and that she would have to change into a different set of clothes identical to the ones she was already wearing in order to be presentable for the train ride home. Bending over to pull a fresh set of robes from her trunk heralded the return of the queasiness, and Hermione reluctantly found herself re-ordering her morning to include a trip to the Hospital Wing. Perhaps an anti-nausea potion—another memory came to her mind unbidden, this time of sitting on an unfamiliar couch in an unfamiliar sitting room, with Minerva McGonagall's hairpins clenched tightly in one hand as the aforementioned woman kindly pushed a cup of tea into the other.
The first memory, the one of Harry, had brought more questions than it had answered, but the second one prompted the return of many other memories, so that by the time she had even thought about forming the questions in her mind she knew exactly how she had ended up in that meeting with the Headmistress and how it had come to an end. A self-satisfied smirk started to creep over her features to war with the faintest blush as she remembered the knowing look that Ron had given her when she had returned to the common room, slightly disheveled, quite some time after she had left it. She had been too happy to be able to stay embarrassed by his teasing though, and they had shared many a silent toast last night for her good fortune, as well as many for having graduated and many for no reason at all. With a sigh, she realized that the answers to her questions about the brief flash of memory with Harry and the mysterious bra, and the odd sleeping arrangement in the 7th year girl's dorms, weren't important (though she was still interested in them), since the answers would, no doubt, boil down to drunken debauchery at it's finest.
Another groan escaped her lips as she realized that she must be hungover. It wasn't something she had much experience with in other people, and she had no experience with it on herself, but given how last night had seemed to be going as far as her memories could follow it seemed likely that a hangover was the cause of the pounding headache and nausea that she was experiencing. Luckily, she had more than enough time to detour to the Hospital Wing on her way to breakfast, since she had done the large majority of her packing the night before. If she had to guess, Lavender and Pavarti weren't going to make it to breakfast at all; the pair always waited until the last minute to pack (as evidenced by their room's ability to look as if a cyclone had swept through it the night before) and relied heavily on their proficiency in packing charms in order to support this habit. However, she doubted that their proficiency was going to save them as much as they were accustomed to. She was so fascinated by the logistics of such an effort however, that she found herself getting ready nearly mechanically, and before she knew it she was fully dressed and ready to head down to breakfast and truly terrified to see what the Common Room looked like.
It was just as bad as she had feared, and so much worse. Horrified, Hermione stopped dead on the last step, looking out across what had become of the usually pristine common room. There were sleeping bodies curled up in every single one of the comfortable armchairs that dotted the room, and even more slumbering students passed out on the floor or on the tops of tables. A Gryffindor tie hung from one of the wall sconces holding a magical torch in place across the room from her, and discarded shirts and jumpers were in piles on the floor, mostly out of the general walking routes. The bra that Harry had been wearing on his head was lying half in, half out, of the punch bowl, which sat miraculously in the same place that it had been last night, with a small amount of punch still swimming in the bottom. Discarded cups littered the floor, making it nearly impossible to even see the floor under the clothes, Gryffindors, and plastic cups. Instincts gained from all of the troublemaking with Ron and Harry told her that it would not do for her to be caught in the common room at all, and that it was better for her to be very, very far away from the entire scene when/if a professor were to discover it. If a professor hadn't already discovered it.
Gingerly, she stepped through the mess towards the door, attempting to avoid the sleeping forms of her fellow Gryffindors as well as the plastic cups that she knew would crunch loudly if stepped on, wondering the entire time how it was possible that the three seventh year girls had even made it up to their dorms the night before. It was clear from the sheer number of people still in the common room that they were the exception, not the rule, and she considered it miraculous that they had made it upstairs and into bed, never mind that only two of them actually made it to a bed before passing out. As she passed the punch bowl the smell of alcohol reached her nose, bringing with it a wave of queasiness, and it was all she could do to get out of the room as quickly as possible before she puked. Amazingly, the instant the portrait hole closed shut behind her the feeling subsided, and she ignored the Fat Lady's polite greeting in favor of taking a deep breath of fresh air before resuming her efforts to be as far away from the common room as possible before a professor showed up.
She hadn't made it all that far when she ran headlong into someone rounding a corner on her way to the hospital wing, the impact sending a sharp stab of pain through her head as she fought to keep her balance with a coordination that she didn't happen to possess that morning. Luckily, she didn't need it; firm, but gentle, hands quickly shot out to steady her so that she didn't fall, but the pain in her head had scattered her wits and disoriented her
"Hermione," a Scottish-accented voice said from right in front of her, allowing Hermione to know exactly who she had just run into.
"Headmistress," she breathed, the pain in her head and faint feelings of nausea causing her to act out of habit alone, and she had spent many years having it drilled into her head that you called your professors by their titles, never mind that the night before she and Minerva had far surpassed the average teacher-student relationship. Dimly, as she tried to re-orient herself, she realized that she and Minerva were only a few inches apart, and that one of the older woman's hands was on her hip. The Headmistress seemed to realize it as well, because she suddenly took a step back, her absence so sudden that Hermione felt a palpable ache at the sudden loss.
"Hermione, I do believe we had this conversation last night," Minerva said kindly, green eyes peering into hers with some concern.
"My apologies, Minerva," she responded, an involuntary smile crossing her lips as she savored the sound of the professor's name on her tongue. "Force of habit," she explained with a somewhat tighter smile, knowing that it wasn't entirely habit that had caused the slip-up, but also the hangover she was experiencing.
"And I'm sure that our collision was somewhat startling as well," Minerva predicted, a hint of concern still on her face. "Hermione, are you feeling well this morning? You look rather pale," she added, pure worry lacing the Scottish brogue.
"I am feeling a little under the weather this morning," Hermione allowed after a brief hesitation. She knew from their conversation last night that Minerva knew exactly what had gone on in the common room last night, and that the other woman was smart enough to see right through her carefully worded admission, but there was still some part of her that didn't want to be caught by the woman she was dating, if not by her Headmistress, while hungover. "If you hadn't steadied me I probably would have fallen right over," she continued. "Thank you."
Minerva's eyes never left her face, and with a sinking feeling Hermione knew that the jog was up, already. "It was my pleasure," the older woman said, instead of whatever chastisement Hermione had been expecting. "I find that the cat in me makes it rather difficult to knock me off my feet, and I often find myself recovering from a bump faster than the other person," she explained airly. "And it's amazing how much being nauseous can interfere with one's balance at the worst of times," she continued, somewhat pointedly, though her tone was still gentle. Hermione could just nod dumbly.
"I had suspected that I would find you 'a little under the weather' this morning," the older woman stated, reaching out for the younger woman's arm so that she could propel her gently down the hallway in the direction of the hospital wing. Hermione was too grateful to find that she hadn't been teased yet to resist, and at any rate it was where she had been going. "It's rather convenient that I ran into you, actually, since I was just heading to the Gryffindor common room to make sure that you were awake," Minerva confided. She couldn't miss the small shudder that ran through the younger woman at that statement.
"As sweet as that is," Hermione said with a soft smile in the other woman's direction, "I am glad that I managed to meet you before you made it all the way there." She didn't want to elaborate any farther, unsure what exactly she could say out in the open and what she couldn't. In Hogwarts, the walls had not only ears, but eyes and voices too.
Minerva's expression became pained. "That bad?" she queried. "Do I want to know?"
"Let's just say that if you had taken even a single glance through the portrait hole that you would have been forced to take points, or award detentions, or something," Hermione generalized. "I could barely believe my eyes when I walked down there this morning. How could one party cause so much damage?" she wondered idly, now wishing to some extent that her memories were more clear in regards to the finer details of last night.
"It is amazing isn't it?" Minerva commented as they rounded the corner and strode through the doors to the hospital wing. Considering the hour, Minerva had hoped that it would have been fairly empty and quiet, since most of the people who would be needing Poppy's help were still asleep, but it seemed as if there had been something pretty interesting that had happened at the Ravenclaw party last night, because half of the seventh years were in the room, clustered around a couple beds. Through the throng, Minerva thought that she could see Lisa Turpin, though she wasn't entirely sure if that was actually who she was seeing since the poor girl's head was roughly three times it's normal size, violently purple, and the rest of her body was covered in feathers.
"Merlin," Hermione breathed out at her side, as they both came to a shocked halt just inside the doors that were now swinging shut behind them. Poppy chose that moment to come bustling out of her office, levitating several beakers and looking very harried.
"Headmistress," she said curtly, the word falling from her mouth with a sharpness caused by obvious stress. "What's wrong with her?" she added as she caught sight of Hermione. Hermione opened her mouth to snap a reply at the mediwitch, since the question seemed rather rude to her, but Minerva's hand fell on her shoulder and instead she just closed her mouth, face still showing signs of her annoyance.
"Nothing that I can't handle myself, Poppy," Minerva said calmly. "We'll do our best to stay our of your way," she added, causing Pomfrey to give the pair one last look before turning to shoo the Ravenclaws out of her way with brisk efficiency. Once Poppy was otherwise occupied, Minerva turned to Hermione, giving her a slight push towards the end of the ward. "I see that the far bed is empty. Why don't you go and sit down and I will be back momentarily with a potion," she suggested. Hermione didn't protest and the two women went their separate ways, Minerva heading into Poppy's office to rummage for the hangover cure.
"Drink up," Minerva said when she had returned with the potion in hand, a flick of her wand causing the curtains to close around the pair of them as she leaned against the bed, her hip mere inches away from the younger woman's thigh. Hermione took it without commenting on the suddenly closed curtains, her free hand waving her wand in a motion that the Headmistress was able to recognize as a silencing charm.
"This isn't an anti-nausea potion," Hermione said quietly, turning her head to find that Minerva's proximity was even closer than she had originally realized and their lips were only a short distance apart. Unable to help herself, she closed the scant distance between them to capture the older witch's lips with her own. Minerva's lips pressed back into hers hungrily, the transfiguration mistress's hands entangling themselves in the bushy brown hair at the nape of Hermione's neck while the younger woman's hands instantly dropped both wand and potion on the bed before moving to encircle the other woman's waist. There was a moment of barely perceptible hesitation and then Minerva was deepening the kiss, her tongue gently begging Hermione for entrance, which was granted almost instantly.
When they finally broke apart, it was due to a lack of air. They were still close together, close enough for Minerva to tilt her face upwards the slightest bit and place a kiss on the tip of Hermione's nose. The small gesture caused Hermione's eyes to sparkle with amusement as the older woman gently, and slowly, untangled her hands from Hermione's hair.
"You don't have a touch of stomach flu," she pointed out, her voice sounding rather breathless and slightly husky as well, in response to the earlier question that the younger woman had already nearly forgotten. The momentary confusion allowed Minerva to pull away so that they were no longer quite so close together.
"No, I suppose I don't, do I?" Hermione said rhetorically. "Though this is the first time that I've ever heard of an illness having such wonderful consequences," she added, a sly smile quirking her lips. "Was this what you had in mind this morning when you decided to go in search of me, Professor McGonagall?" she added teasingly, watching the other woman flush slightly. So it had been what Minerva was thinking.
"Cheeky witch," the older woman grumbled. "And just what, pray tell, were your plans for the morning?" she asked, as if hoping that something would appear that she could tease the Gryffindor about in turn.
"In comparison, I'm afraid my plans were rather boring. I had only planned on coming here, for a potion, before heading off to breakfast in hopes of allowing my dorm mates enough time to sort themselves out before grabbing my things," she said, grinning as she remembered her confusion upon waking up.
"And how are Miss Brown and Miss Patil this morning?" Minerva wanted to know as she reached over Hermione to grab the potion, which Hermione had yet to make a move for, and uncorked it for the younger woman. Hermione made a face as it was handed to her once more, but she took it without complaint and without making too horrible of a face as it went down.
"Still asleep, no doubt, but I suspect that they will be rather confused once they wake up," Hermione said, placing the empty vial on the small table next to the bed and then drawing Minerva closer to her. "I woke up, upside down, on Parvati's bed," she began, once she caught the questioning look on the Headmistress' face, "and Parvati fell asleep, shirtless, on Lavender's bed, while poor Lav passed out face-down in the middle of the floor. It was quite perplexing to wake up that way, let me tell you," she concluded with a small chuckle.
"I can imagine," Minerva said, memories of her own drunken escapades running through her head. The morning after being blacked out was always the worst, and being Scottish she'd had her fair share of those mornings. "Have breakfast with me?" she asked moments later, as she found herself fighting the urge to lean into the other woman and bury her face in her shoulder. Hermione stiffened suddenly.
"In the Great Hall?" she asked timidly, the uncertainty lining her voice familiar to Minerva's ears after seven years of knowing the other woman.
"In my quarters," Minerva soothed, knowing that neither of them were ready to be entirely public with their relationship, whatever it was exactly, and that neither of them needed to cause a stir in front of (a heavily thinned out) portion of the entire school. "Just the two of us," she added with a smile. "Poppy will be looking for us soon, it will be summer in a few hours, and I'm not willing to let you go just yet," she admitted softly.
Swallowing around the sudden lump in her throat that appeared as she realized that she had no idea how things were going to work out now that she and Minerva were together, Hermione couldn't help but be touched by the words. A gentle fingertip under the other woman's jaw lifted Minerva's lips to hers for a soft, chaste kiss. "Breakfast sounds lovely," she said, allowing the older woman to help her off the bed and dispelling the charms that hid the truth, for now, from the rest of the world.
AN: After having written that piece, I think it's obvious that this story has the ability to continue. I am going to leave it marked as complete, since I am not entirely sure that I will be continuing onto a third chapter, or if I will just leave it to end here and put the rest to your imaginations. I think Hermione, and myself, are beginning to realize that her plan wasn't very well thought out in terms of working it into the plans that must already be in place for her future. Plus, I rather like the idea of having a story that I can update at will, but also consider to be a completed work. So, I am not planning a swift update, if I do at all, but here is another snippet nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed it :)