AN: If you want to avoid descriptions / triggery material , skip the italics!
"Where did you hex him?" Kingsley questioned.
She answered clearly as she met his eyes for the first time.
"Intimately"
cont.
Severus couldn't hide the grim satisfaction he felt at Hermione's statement.
The bastard deserved to be castrated and more, and he will be when I get my hands on him.
Kingsley was of a similar mind , and Severus could see the auror, although looking vaguely green , was also quiet accepting of her solution.
"And just to confirm it was after you hexed him, that you apparated to Mungos ?"
"Yes , that's correct"
Severus met the minister's eye at his subterfuge.
They both knew from Hermione's earlier pause that something happened , between her hexing Ronald and apparating to Mungos.
So instead of asking her what she did after hexing the boy , which would've made the veritaserum force her to answer exactly what she did... he instead asked if she apparated to Mungos after hexing him...which she did , just not straight away. It wasn't a lie , so the veritaserum allowed it.
"That concludes the witness statement of Miss Hermione Weasley nee Granger , which will now be corroborated by Severus Snape , legillimens."
With a flourish Kingsley signed the parchment and pressed his ring to it , then it popped away to the Ministry.
"Severus, Hermione. When you are ready"
She ducked her head into Rose's hair, placing a kiss on the crown of the girl's head as she took a few shaky breaths.
"Let's get it over with" She whispered to him , as she steeled herself and met his eyes.
He leaned forward , and under the guise of tucking some hair behind her ear he gently whispered. "Don't occlude."
She tensed for a second , but then dropped her shoulders and a gave a small barely perceptible nod.
Taking a deep breath , he focused his eyes on hers and dove into her memories.
She was so thankful for the new girl Anna finishing off for her and letting her get out early for once in a while , Hermione loved her job with the Magical Creature department...or she had done, once upon a time.
All she wanted was to fight for the rights of magical creatures, for them to be acknowledged as beings and not creatures, to educate the general populace.
What she was not prepared for , was the politics.
The greasing of palms to grease wheels, the tit for tat favours and the constant and daily grind of interhouse rivalries between the departments.
Even though the war was over , there was still the overwhelming amount of bias she received simply because of who she was.
Not her blood status , nothing as banal as that.
Because she was a woman. Because she was a gryffindor. because she had no family name , no uncle in management or cousin in finances.
All unforgivable things in the old boys club that was the ministry. she watched and grit her teeth as she was passed over for promotions as other members of the team who did half the work in twice the time , went on to bigger and better things.
Her status as a war hero was the only thing that kept her above being a glorified secretary. Oh she was applauded for her work , and her progress when it happened.
With half the credit going to someone who'd done none of the work of course.
But the truth was ? She was stagnating. She was stuck in one spot with a roof above her head that seemed impenetrable , and if the upper management politics were anywhere near as bad as the ones in her little basement ? She wasn't sure she wanted to break through it anyway.
It was a daily grind. It was soul crushing work , and it was breaking her, but she refused to give in.
Not after she'd been so adamant to go back to work, this had been her decision and she would stick it through.
She would not give in, not after Ronald had been so supportive and given up his job to be a stay at home father to Rose , only picking up the odd shift at WWW, so that she could have the career that she had so emphatically wanted.
She apparated home with a pop , and took her shoes off at the door. Despite Anna finishing off for her , she was exhausted and couldn't wait to collapse into bed with Ronald and a good book. Maybe she'd be able to get a few pages read before she fell asleep.
Walking to the stairs she shucked her coat onto the back of the chair as she made her way up the staircase. 'I'm so glad I fixed that creaky floorboard this morning. Every time Ronald goes to check on Rose it was waking me up'
She magicked herself into her pyjamas when she noticed Rose's bathroom light was still on , and she smiled to herself. 'I hope she's still awake , I would love to read her bedtime story for once instead of Ronald'
She walked into the bathroom, noticing the wet towel still on the floor and with a smile she quickly put the room to rights.
'The least I can do is save Ronald another job'
There was the soft voice of her husband floating in from Rose's bedroom , along with the girl's sniffles and whimpers.
'I hope she didn't have another bad dream, she's been having so many lately since I went back to work, my poor baby, we'd be going so well with her potty training too...'
Hermione hadn't said anything to anyone other than Ronald , but she had been slightly worried about Rose's development. She'd started bedwetting again when Hermione started working , which was strange as the girl was otherwise totally potty trained. She'd also become very quiet and withdrawn , Ronald had waved it off , 'She's a sensitive girl , quiet, there's nothing wrong with that 'mione , and she's just getting used to the change'.
To top it off, she was a 'late talker'. She'd begun to babble quite young as a toddler and seemed to have a very good understanding of a large array of words, she'd had some very interesting 'conversations' babbling away to Severus rather emphatically about something which had caused him to chuckle at her vehemence, but then nod along to the 'conversation' in all seriousness when the girl had pouted at him and threatened crocodile tears with a trembling lip/
Sighing Hermione allowed herself a minute to mourn her friendship with Severus. She knew she was at fault for their friendship falling apart , and she missed him terribly. Rose had aswell, babbling on about him and attempting to say his name...even drawing pictures of very tall people with ridiculously long black hair and rather prominent nose, which had made Ron very angry. But her and Ron had such heated arguments sometimes, and more than once the time she spent with Severus, especially with Rose , was the cause of them. If they were to attempt to salvage their marriage, at the very least until Rose was in school...it was easier for them not to argue.
All Rose's progress had seemingly taken a step back with the upheaval when Hermione went back to work when she was just over 2 and now at almost 4 she'd yet to utter a single word to anyone, though clearly understood when she was being spoken to.
She was also very hands off, she didn't like being touched by anyone else in the family and though she had always been a shy child, she'd become clingy and antisocial, especially when Hermione was home. Ronald had pointed out that she probably missed Hermione , and that she should spend all her free time at home with her daughter, and perhaps he was right. So she did.
Though she daren't tell Ronald, Hermione had added a lot of things up in her head and she was considering taking Rose for some muggle development tests.
She's a very intelligent girl that can read and write above her level , and has a great understanding of words... yet is nonverbal. She hates deviation from routine to the point of it causing meltdowns and shies away from physical contact with people and she's especially nervous around strangers, has poor social skills and makes no effort to interact with other people...could my baby be autistic ?
Hermione would love her daughter no matter what , but she knew that such a 'muggle illness' would be highly misunderstood in the very backwards and misinformed wizarding world.
Sighing to herself she forced herself out of her self imposed melancholy and put a smile on her face , as she went to look forward to spending a bit of time with her daughter.
She stepped into the doorway , leaning on the frame as she smiled indulgently at the pair on the bed, Ronald sat talking to a crying Rose on his lap , he was cupping her face with his hand.
Ronald must be ready for bed, as he was bare chested and just in his sleep pyjamas , and Rose was in her Pyjama shirt but had yet to put her bottoms on.
'Perhaps she had a meltdown over what pyjamas she wanted to wear.' She thought.
Ronald was rubbing her leg trying to sooth her tears , and the girl was holding onto him.
Ronald's hand that had been cupping her cheek , and obscuring Hermione's view , suddenly dropped to Rose's hand that was...
That was..
Her stomach fell to her feet , as suddenly she became aware of every muscle in her body as they tightened one by one until she was a coiled spring.
Rose's hand was on his... And his hand was not rubbing her leg at all it was...
Her vision tunneled , until all she could see was his hands and her daughters tear stained face.
With a roar worthy of her house mascot , she pounced .
The next thing she knew , she was at the other side of the room grasping her daughter as Ronald was cupping his face that was bleeding profusely.
She didn't feel the pain of her broken hand as she quickly magicked her daughter's bottoms on.
When blue eyes met hers, she was vaguely aware of him saying something, pleading with her perhaps.
But all she could focus on was his waist , where his bottoms were still pushed just below his hips. From where Rose had been...where he'd been...
The girl in her arms whimpered and a burning anger unlike any she'd ever felt before rushed through her , and she was firing a hex at him.
She turned away as the warm blood hit her and her husband screamed. She didn't even stop to look at the damage she'd caused.
Instead she turned and fled with her daughter, her brain stuck on one focus 'somewhere safe'
Flew down the stairs two at a time 'somewhere safe'
Ran through the hall and to the living room 'somewhere safe'
Reached the living room and threw the powder into the floo.
'somewhere safe'
"Severus Snape's House, Spinner's End"