A big thank you to all of you that took the time to leave a review - you are heaven sent and good for the muse! And thanx for all the alerts the story has been added to! Here is last weeks chapter (sorry it took so long, but I've managed to get back my focus now, yay), and I should hopefully be posting this weeks chapter in a few hours - if my lovely dog will stop demanding attention long enough for me to finish it.
Hope you enjoy - and thank you for reading!
Chapter Fifty-Three
Warning - some light swearing ahead (and some head bashing)
Hermione was sat on the sofa hugging her knees to her chest as she fought to keep the tears she felt pricking behind her eyes at bay. She felt drained. And battered. She and Stella had encountered the Minister of Magic Kinglsey Shacklebolt the second they had opened the main doors of the castle, poised as he was to enter in search of the young witch in front of him. Hagrid had been close behind Shacklebolt and his greeting had established that the half-giant had been the one to inform the Minister of Hermione's presence at Hogwarts. Madame Pomfrey, Headmistress McGonagall and Professor Flitwick had all arrived a moment later, and Hermione and Stella found themselves caught in effect between the wizards and the older witches. Hermione was fairly certain that both the Minister and the Headmistress had put considerable effort into not querying Hermione about the two women's means of travel to the School while each of them spoke to her.
Hermione tried steering Stella towards the Whomping Willow in order to return to New York while the Minister and Headmistress followed them the latter still trying to convince her young protégé to remain in England where her friends were nearby and could help her with her recuperation. Meanwhile the Minister had offered her a different position within the Ministry than before, one where she would be helping to re-write magical law to make it fairer for all magical beings. Hermione had paused mid-step as she heard this, and Kingsley had gone so far as to suggest she could work from home, which would allow her to remain in New York while helping to make the changes she believed the magical world needed. But Hermione had quickly remembered herself and her situation and the pause in her step had only brief.
Kingsley had, of course, once again tried to get her to agree to attend the Ball at the end of December, and ensure that she brought Harry with her. That last part had resulted on Hermione turning on the Minister and telling him in no uncertain terms that she would not in any way manipulate Harry into doing anything for him or anyone else, an act that had the normally unwavering man stuttering in shock. McGonagall had then tried to argue that they weren't trying to manipulate either Harry or her but wouldn't it be better for both if they were around friends, people that understood with the two had been through.
That, had been the absolute wrongthing to say.
Hermione had exploded at them then damning them for the claim that they could understand. She'd yelled as she asked what they'd done when they were seventeen, how many older or more experienced wizards or witches had been hunting them with the intent of killing them, how many times had they cheated death and worse, how many had they killed the year they came of age. She asked them what was the worst thing that had happened to any of them by the time they were seventeen, what had been their greatest fears, and whether they'd ever had to think whether or not they could trust the person beside them. Understand what she and Harry had been through? How would they do that?
The unfortunate recipients of her outburst went from looking shocked to varying degrees of guilt at the painful truth of her words. Yes, each of those present had fought Voldemort and his Death Eaters during two wars, but the teens had faced them just as many times over the last four years and had been considerably younger, less experienced, and far less prepared - and that had been the fault of the adults around them. The Order had known why Harry was a target as Dumbledore had told them vaguely about the prophecy, and had since then expected him to be their saviour, yet had refused to give him or his friends the knowledge and training that they needed to survive. Because Dumbledore knew Harry had to die. Hermione was able to see the moment that realisation had dawned on both Shacklebolt and McGonagall, each showing dismay at the length Albus Dumbeldore had gone to and losing a little of their previous respect for the man as that thought was processed.
No-one stopped Hermione as she and Stella continued on to the Willow and descended into the tree. As they emerged into the Shack Hermione felt herself close to tears once more as she fumed with anger and tried her best to settle her emotions before reactivating the portkey. The second the two women returned to New York Mia sought the Bond within her soul, latching onto it and wrapping herself in the reassurance that came from feeling Danny. Stella had recognised that her friend wanted to be alone and had left shortly after they returned, after gaining a promise from Mia to call her if needed.
So Hermione was sat on the sofa waiting for Danny and Mac to return and the inevitable argument about her day that would follow.
What she didn't realise was that Stella had decided to have her talk with the two men before they went home.
xxxx
Stella decided to make her way directly to the Lab after leaving Hermione, determined to talk to Danny Messer and Mac Taylor before they got home and likely tore into the fragile woman for suddenly disappearing on them. Especially as that had been their fault to begin with. As soon as she was out of the building she was immediately on her mobile dialling the familiar number.
{"Stell? What happened? I'm on my way now."} Danny rushed on as soon as he'd answered the phone.
"STOP." Stella quickly commended into the phone. "You are going to do no such thing Danny Messer. You and Mac are going to wait where you are for me and the three of us are going to talk. Scratch that. I'm going to talk, you two are going to listen. Carefully."
That said, Stella hung up and instantly dialled Mac, giving him the same message. Then, she called Don, just for good measure, and told him to prevent either man from contacting Mia until the three of them had spoken.
xxxx
"I would never have believed you two were capable of being such unmitigated bastards. But you managed to prove me wrong."
Stella barely waited until she had closed the door of Mac's office, shutting the three of them into seclusion from the rest of the Lab, before laying into the unsuspecting men and had the pleasure of seeing the normally self-composed Mac Taylor drop his jaw as he and Danny both looked at her in shock. Good. Maybe they will be quiet long enough to listen to her. The Lab might not be the best place for this conversation, but at least here they wouldn't be overheard - especially as Stella had asked Flack to discretely place a privacy charm on the room.
"You really messed up Mac. Hermione didn't lie to you about Krum, she was trying not to hurt you. She is fond of him yes, but she's not attracted to him. Hermione was upset at having to say goodbye to an ideal that everyone shares."
"Ideal? What makes duck-boy so ideal?" Danny blurted out angrily, only to regret his words at the glare he was given.
"Everyone wants someone to love them. And he seems to love her, has done for years, or at the very least has wanted a relationship with her. No spells involved, no sense of duty, no dares. He's genuinely attracted to her and wants to be with her. And she has to give that up! Even if she doesn't feel the same way as him, that's still a hard thing to do." When both men opened their mouths to say something Stella continued without giving them a chance. "And you are under a spell Danny, how else do you explain being able to tell that we'd left the City? And you Mac, if her life weren't at stake, if she and Danny were able to reject this Contract without killing her, would you have agreed to this relationship?" The man in question had the decency to look away at that - his initial reaction had been a need to keep Mia away from Danny.
"You both want to save her, and that may be an honourable basis for a relationship, but it's not the ideal one. She's a young woman just entering adulthood faced with her first relationship, and it's one that she didn't get to chose for herself. Has either of you even considered that this is her first romance? You need to make her feel the way Krum made her feel - that she is wanted, desired. But you're going to have to find a way to do that without pushing her. Do you realise she's afraid of you both? That you have her tied up in knots? Someway, somehow, you two have managed to stop the pain of her wounds and the dream. But she doesn't know how, or why and that scares her.
"She only knows that she's becoming dependant on your touch and the joy of being pain-free, even though she spends every day anticipating the moment the pain returns because your touch doesn't protect her anymore - and she's afraid that it will flood back as quickly as you managed to block it. I can tell you this, a strong willed, independent minded woman like Mia does not like being dependant on anything. At the same time, she is absolutely terrified of loosing you. That one or both of you will suddenly decide that you can't spend the rest of your lives having the same dream at night or looking at her scars - which, apparently, being magical will never fade!"
Danny was rendered speechless by what his friend was saying. He'd thought that he'd been able to feel whatever Mia felt, but he'd never sensed anything like what Stella was telling them which meant that Hermione knew of a way to hide her fears from him or - and this thought was worse - that he had simply ignored or disregarded them in his own happiness. Mac was just as stunned by the knowledge that Hermione had been able to keep her feelings hidden from them so successfully. In particular, her fear that they would suddenly turn round and tell her they didn't want to be with her in the end. Logically Mac knew that he had only recently acknowledged how deep his own feelings for her ran, but in his heart he had hoped that she had somehow been able to feel how much he cared about her, how important she had become to him. Both men's thoughts were brought back to Stella as she continued with her reprimand.
"Lingerie, Danny? You damn idiot! She's not ready for that, and neither are the two of you I suspect. Did you not listen to Harry when he told you what she looked like? He told me about the dreams, how you have to watch as she gets hurt every night. How can you watch something like that and not realise what she looks like? Come on Danny, Mac, we've each dealt with enough trauma victims to know how to cope with them. And Mia is a trauma victim. She may not act the part of a victim, but she most definitely has been traumatised. Or have neither of you noticed the state of her self-esteem? I can't even say that her scars are awful because most of her wounds aren't healed enough to be scars."
Mac was further taken aback by that last part. Her wounds hadn't healed yet? Mac vaguely remembered Harry saying something similar the night Mia had been attacked but he hadn't really been paying attention at the time, he was more focused on the woman still in the bathroom at the time.
"But I don't care about the scars, she's beautiful." Danny protested, his voice managing to break through Mac's thoughts.
"It has nothing to do with you Danny." Stella snapped at him. "What you think doesn't matter. What matters is what Hermione thinks about herself."
"She thinks she's ugly." Mac's voice was quiet but still managed to silence the other two with his tone - it had been a statement of fact, not a question, as Mac remembered previous conversations with Mia, in particular her words from their second night were brought back to him as she declared 'I may not be the prettiest around'. Danny's head spun to Mac as he looked at his lover in shock, not able to believe his words.
"She has reason to." Stella said more softly, before remembering why she was so mad at the two men in front of her. "You can't just tell her she's pretty and expect her to believe it. You have to make her feel beautiful before you can ask her to even think of wearing the kind of things you wanted me to get for her Danny." There was a slight pause as she tried to calm herself a little.
"Hermione said the memory of that day replays every night, and Harry told me that laying with her forces you to watch. How could you spent the last few weeks watching her get hurt and not consider the effects of the damage done to her? Though I get it, I do. The moment you talk to Mia it's easy to forget just how young she is, her intelligence and he maturity are difficult to ignore, but it doesn't matter how young or old a person is - surviving such a trauma is going to leave psychological damage. You're cops, we deal with this every day! How could you have forgotten the fundamentals of dealing with trauma victims?
"Have either have you thought about the fact that, if you go through with this marriage, the three of you will have to endure her memory for the rest of your lives? With no change? No reprieve? Because I can tell you now, Mia doesn't think she can - and she doesn't want to. She's still counting on being dead in April. Can either of you give a reason, one that she would believe, to keep living right now? And I mean one that doesn't depend on her sense of responsibility to others."
Both Mac and Danny's eyes had grown comically wide when Stella had said that Hermione still expected to die, and she would have laughed if the entire situation hadn't been so serious. Just as Hermione had thought, the two men seemed to have taken it for granted that she would accept their offer of the relationship gladly, and had forgotten that it was in fact her choice. But as the young woman had said in the beginning, she wasn't going to allow them to do this if she wasn't sure of how they felt and how they would be able to cope with the relationship in the long term.
"The dream hasn't changed for her at all?" Mac asked in disbelief.
"Not that she admitted to, when the Matron asked Mia said that nothing had changed with her wounds or the dream. Why, should it have changed?" Stella was suspicious, particularly when the two men shared an odd look. There was something they weren't telling her, or Mia.
The silence stretched on as Mac and Danny each looked troubled within their thoughts, until finally Stella had had enough.
"What is going on?" She demanded.
"We thought the dream might have changed for her - it has for us. The memory plays out but we've been able to stop the spells from hurting her the last couple of nights." Danny told her, disheartened at the news that nothing had changed for woman he loved.
Stella gave them a few more minutes for her previous words to truly sink in before she continued.
"Have either of you tried telling her this, or given her any other reason for living? Do you realise exactly how much she has given up to be with you while you two decide whether or not to marry her. She was offered not one but two jobs this morning. You should have see the way her entire being lit up when she was offered the teaching post at her school, and how quickly that excitement disappeared when she realised she was stuck in New York with you two. Oh, but if you think teaching is an impressive offer, the Minister - the guy we met on Friday - wanted her to help rewrite their laws! How many eighteen year olds do you know entrusted with that kind of responsibility? But again, she had to turn it down because she's not in England anymore."
"What else happened?" Danny asked quietly, earning a raised eyebrow from Stella. "Ever since you two got back it's like she's using the Bond as a blanket and wrapping it around herself. It feels like she's trying to hide within the Bond, so something else happened. What was it?"
"They don't approve of you." Stella answered bluntly. "As they see it, Hermione has had to leave her friends and those who care about her, leave her country, leave everyone who could understand what she's been through because she's being made to live in a foreign land. And they really don't like that you don't have magic. They would without doubt prefer it if you were a wizard, they don't think you stand a chance of understanding her - or her world - the way a wizard could. In short, they don't think you're good enough for her. Tell me they are wrong.
"In the few short weeks you've known her, she's managed to change you both - Mac's happier and more relaxed than I've seen him in years and Danny has a new calmness to him and a confidence in himself. Other than her pain, what have you done for her? How have you affected her life for the better, to balance all that she's had to give up?"
Mac was silent as he tried to think of an answer for Stella, but his mind was more focused on what Danny had said about how Mia was enveloping herself in Danny's feelings and finding reassurance in him. He knew she was doing it because she wanted - needed - to be held and apparently Danny was able to do that from any distance. Mac felt the same jealousy rise that he'd felt a few days ago in the Plaza that he had then tried to ignore, and again he found himself envying both of them really for the connection they shared, wondering if he would ever be able to feel a connection like that with either of them. To take his mind off his own emotions Mac instead asked a question that had suddenly occurred to him.
"Why did Mia show you her wounds?"
"Because I kept pushing her to try on different types of lingerie, and didn't listen when she said no. In the end she felt the only way to stop me was to show me why they weren't suitable for her. And that is your fault Danny. You know how persistent I can be, and you put her in that position - put both of us in that position - and you owe her an apology. I'm certain watching me throw up at the sight of her really didn't help build her confidence in how either of you will react. If she ever allows you to see her that is."
xxxx
The journey home was a silent one for Mac and Danny as each were lost within their own thoughts - and guilt. Or at least Mac was, Danny was concentrating on the Bond. From what Stella had said it hadn't been a particularly upsetting trip back to the school, but it had been stressful for her and Danny was keenly aware of the waves of anxiety and sadness that emanated from her and tried his best to project some calm and comfort through the Bond that she had wrapped herself within. When he felt her grab on to the emotions he was sending to her it was as tangible as if she had grabbed his arm.
Stella's talk had been like a verbal slap around the head and had left Danny with a lot to think about. Each time he'd concentrated on the Bond before it had been to reassure himself of her continued presence and he couldn't remember feeling any specific emotion from her at the time through his concentration on feeling her and he worried that Stella was right, and that he'd missed glaringly obvious clues that, though trying to adjust, she was still unhappy.
Mac was watching his lover closely. He knew from the expressions on the man's face that Danny was concentrating on the Bond, analysing what he felt from Hermione and sending his own emotions towards her, and Mac couldn't stop the jealousy from building again. The feeling of being of excluded from something so important - something that was almost integral to their very beings - was acute, and Mac tried desperately not to allow the jealousy to turn to anger at being kept out of something so intimate.
The silence between them continued until the apartment, and when the two men entered they quickly found Hermione sitting, knees to her chest, on one of the sofas. Danny suddenly felt sadness and a touch of fear and trepidation from her as she watched the two men draw closer. He knew instantly that she expected them to begin yelling at her for going to England without them - not realising that her reason for this had been Mac's resolute declaration to Kingsley that she wouldn't be doing so. Without saying a word he simply walked to the sofa and, taking a seat beside her, pulled her into an embrace, using his physical contact combined with the comfort he sent through the Bond to reassure her and help put her at ease smiling to himself as he felt her relax.
Mac stood at the entrance to lounge area feeling like an intruder upon an intimate moment as the two embraced and touched, only drawing back enough to look each other in the eye, communicating through what they saw reflected there, and how they felt, rather than words. Trying desperately not to allow his jealousy to turn to hatred he was about to turn away from the sight when Hermione's eyes moved from Danny's to seek out Mac. Her unspoken question of why he stood so far away, and the hurt she felt at that, was easily seen within those chocolate orbs and he felt all his jealousy melt away in the face of that look. As he stood there the look in her eyes changed subtly, begging him closer, and he moved to join the two on the sofa. As soon as Mac sat down Hermione turned round and embraced him with as much force and need as she had embraced Danny, the younger man's hand now moving up and down her back in a soothing motion to maintain contact with her.
Mac concentrated all his senses on the embrace. He listened to her even breathing as he inhaled the scent of her vanilla skin mixing with the coconut shampoo she used for her hair, his eyes studying her face as her lips curved into a small smile his own lips curving up as well. Most of all he concentrated on the way she leant into him, melting into his embrace as he tightened his hold on her - perhaps in an effort to prove that he could provide as much comfort to her as Danny could. They stayed like that for several long minutes, until finally Danny broke the silence both men had been in since leaving the Lab.
"I'm sorry about yesterday." He apologised quietly into her ear.
Without removing herself from Mac's arms Hermione turned her head to look at him, a touch of sadness remaining in her eyes.
"I'm sorry I can't be what you'd like me to be." She told them both softly, her tone revealing how much she meant those words, and made both men feel as if a knife had sliced through their hearts.
"You are exactly what I want." Danny said earnestly.
"But you would have liked to see me in those kinds of clothes." Hermione muttered.
"Well, I'd like to see you in no clothes, but failing that I want to see you in anything you are comfortable wearing." Danny admitted with a grin.
Hermione felt herself blush at his first words. She knew he was joking, trying to put her at ease, but part of her would have liked to believe him. She suddenly gasped as Mac gave in to the needs of his fifth sense and bent his head to taste the skin of her neck just in front of him, placing a series of light kisses along her neck until she turned her head back to face him and he captured her lips in a teasing, sensual kiss. Hermione couldn't help the small moan she gave at the soft touch of his lips and she leant closer to increase the contact.
Mac took his time, enjoying the taste of her lips as he brought one hand up to gently stoke her cheek while he continued the teasing kisses, he wanted to see if she would take the chance to deepen the kiss. He was therefore thrilled when Mia not only licked his lips in entreaty but sought out his own tongue when his lips opened for her. Breaths mingled as Mia sighed delightedly into Mac's mouth as he gave a moan himself, the lustful groan from Danny seeming to spur them on.
Only when the need for air became too much did Mac pull his lips away from hers and kissed along her jaw and throat as Mia took great gulps of air. Danny allowed her three before seizing her lips with his own in a kiss that was pure need. Somehow, through the haze of endorphins Danny managed to remember Stella's words from earlier and reluctantly pulled away. While extremely pleasurable, a kiss wasn't going to put an end to Mia's doubts. Hermione found herself enveloped in a cloud of desire and struggled to drag her eyes open once more to find where her partners' lips had gone.
"I have everything I could ever want, right in front of me." Mac said lowly as his two hands cupped the faces of his two lovers, his eyes shining with honesty and love.
xxxx
