PART TWO
o-o
It was just after seven in the morning when Minerva woke. Blinking into the sunlight shining through the window she readjusted her glasses and tried to take in her surroundings. Surprised, she noted that she was still sitting at her desk in her office. Had she fallen asleep over her paperwork again? And then she remembered. Hermione. The detentions. The tears. How very foolish of me to believe you care a little more about me than you let on. What had she done to make Hermione think she didn´t care about her? What did care mean, really?
After Hermione had left, Minerva had been completely flustered and spent the rest of the night pondering over what exactly had happened. She felt useless for not having been able to comfort her pupil in despair. Thinking back, it almost seemed like she herself had made it worse. The poor girl had been so dispirited, it had broken her old heart into a thousand pieces. Surely there must have been something that she wasn´t telling her. Hermione had never reacted to detention like this, and over her years in Potter´s company there had been quite enough occasions in which Minerva had ordered much harder punishment. But seemingly, Hermione didn´t trust her enough to talk about what was upsetting her.
Playing through the conversation in her mind again, Minerva´s thoughts wandered back to the last thing the other witch had said. It was true that Minerva had always tried to be discreet about her affection for the young woman, even going through war together didn´t mean she could have her favourites. That would simply be unfair to the other students, even if said student was the best in her year, excelled in Transfiguration and had a deep affection for reading, just like Minerva. Although, if she was being completely honest, that hadn´t really worked out.
Whenever they coincidentally met in the hallways, Minerva wanted to know what Hermione thought about the latest theories displayed in Transfiguration Today, in the great hall their gazes often met during meal time and whenever Hermione gave her a little smile across the room, Minerva couldn´t help herself, her heart warmed and she smiled back. Minerva often wondered what these stolen moments meant to Hermione. What they meant to herself. It had been a long time ago since a student, or any person for that matter, had managed to intrigue her to the point of utter affection and –she daren't even think it- butterflies in her stomach.
No use thinking of that now, she hates my guts anyway, mused Minerva. She should behave responsibly, she wouldn´t continue to ruin the fragile friendship she had built with her student over the past year or two.
Taking a piece of parchment from the stack next to her unfinished financial declarations, she quickly drafted a letter to Hermione:
Dear Miss Granger,
I am to inform you that you will serve your first of two detentions the following Saturday at 4 pm.
Yours sincerely,
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall
Minerva only hoped that until then, she and Hermione could set aside what had happened the last time the brown haired witch had been in her office, otherwise it would become a very awkward three hours.
o-o
On Saturday afternoon, Minerva was as close to being ready for facing Hermione in private as she had been the previous week. She had indeed limited the possibility of running into the young woman to a minimum. Despite telling herself that it was just another detention she was giving, she couldn´t shake the feeling of being anxious of how Hermione would react.
At precisely 4 pm, there was a knock on the door leading to her office. Rearranging her hair only to change it back to what it had been before, she quickly readjusted herself in her chair before calling "Come in, please."
Hermione entered the office, an expressionless look on her face. She had changed from her school uniform to a more comfortable pair of dark red corduroy pants and a marine blue sweater. "Good afternoon, Headmistress"
"Ah, Miss Granger" Minerva acted as if she had just finished doing her paperwork. "I´m so glad to see you are well. Now, for today I really need your help with organizing all the loose sheets of paper and unmarked files that have accumulated over the past years. Would you be so kind to follow me into the archives?"
She went to open a door just behind the desk Hermione had not been aware existed before, stepping into the doorway and thereby allowing for Hermione to enter the room behind it first. As the young witch passed the Headmistress, she could detect the faint scent of rosemary and, bizarrely, fluid glue. She wondered what Hermione had been up to this morning. A cough brought her back to reality as she followed Hermione into the poorly lit and quite dusty room, who had begun looking through the papers right in front of her.
"I do apologize, it´s quite a mess in here" she said apologetically, waving her hands at all the shelves full of binders, files and parchment rolls, most of which were widely piled up except for a small section to their left.
"I had started organizing these a while ago but simply never had the time to do it all by myself. That´s where you come in handy, my dear. Everything on finances, student records or similar topics older than 10 years belongs into the bin. Loose papers that you can´t find the files to you can stack on a pile here, we´ll go through them together. It would be lovely if you could find a way to put all the other folders into a system, so that records are actually accessible. Now, I don´t expect you to finish all this in only three hours but I´m sure you´ll exceed my expectations, as always."
At that she gave the younger witch a small smile, which Hermione didn´t return although she visibly relaxed a bit.
"If you need anything… I´ll be in my office." And at that she went back through the door. That hadn´t been too bad, had it? , Minerva thought to herself while sitting down at her desk gain. Maybe they could even go back to their former friendship, she couldn´t help thinking.
An hour and a half later, Minerva had joined Hermione in the archives, having given up on her letters that were supposed to go out today. Coming back she had not been surprised in the least when discovering that Hermione had made up a smart system of filing the parchments and had already worked herself through two big shelves.
They had worked in silence for a long time after Hermione had finished explaining the newly founded structure. In an attempt to break the ice a little, Minerva had asked about the new Transfiguration professor, Jasper Staghart.
"Oh, he is alright. I mean, he doesn´t give nearly enough tasks to do in the lesson, I´m usually finished twenty minutes before his estimated time. And sometimes he forgets to give us supporting material and asks either very tricky or laughably easy questions in his quizzes, you never know. But he´s nice enough, I suppose."
"That´s good to hear. I wasn't sure whether he would be able to explain everything so that really every student understands what they are supposed to be doing, in Transfiguration you have to be very careful with the spells, especially in advanced classes. It´s not exactly hard to find qualified people for the post as Transfiguration Professor in terms of knowledge but usually those people lack the quality of pedagogy. Which is essential to our profession, you see." Minerva shot Hermione a glance over the parchments she was currently scamming. The girl seemed at ease for the first time since she had entered her office.
"Well, of course his lessons aren´t nearly as good as yours used to be and discussing theories with him isn´t nearly as fun as doing so with you, he doesn´t even argue. He just says, `very interesting point of view, Miss Granger´."
Minerva chuckled over Hermione mimicking his Danish accent.
"I´m being serious, he is not in the slightest way interested in even multidisciplinary conversations. I am starting to think Professor Staghart doesn´t care about any opinion on his subject in general."
"Maybe he is just scared of being humiliated by you, a student of all people, in front of the whole class." Minerva mused, making Hermione blush.
"I highly doubt that, Professor." She answered in a mumble.
"No, I do think that is the case. Even I have admittedly struggled to win some of our many debates in the past, your intellect can be very challenging. In all my years as a teacher, I´ve never come across any witch or wizard brighter than you, my dear. You keep on dazzling me every time we get the chance to speak, I was so happy when you announced you would be coming back to Hogwarts, Hermione."
Minerva only realized what she had just said out loud, when she noticed Hermione had frozen in her tracks and was staring at her openly. Oh no.
"You mustn't let that get to your head, however. There are plenty of other talented students at this school." In an instant Minerva had switched back to her harshest Professor McGonagall voice.
Too harsh. First she saw deep sorrow in infinite brown eyes. Then anger.
"Thank you for reminding me! That´s just so typical of you. Do you have any other insults you want to shout at my face, if so now is the just the PERFECT moment to say something!" Her hands had clenched to fists. "I´m waiting!"
Minerva stood there, mouth open, but no word escaped her lips. She had been such a fool.
"Thought so." Hermione had turned and was walking angrily towards the door.
"Wait!" Minerva shrieked "Please, wait!" She tried grabbing Hermione's arm but the young woman was determined to leave. She yanked her arm out of Minerva's grip and sharp pain washed over her in a matter of seconds. Letting out a small whimper, she pulled her pulsing arm to her chest.
Minerva stood still as if struck by lightning, the torn sleeve in her hand. Then she quickly hurried over to Hermione.
"Oh god, I´m so sorry. Oh god." She tried looking at Hermione's arm but brown haired witch wouldn´t let her see the wound.
"Hermione, please let me see."
"No." said Hermione, a tear sliding down her cheek
"Hermione. Show. Me. Your. Arm." and with a defeated look on her face Hermione turned so that Minerva could see what was causing the girl so much pain. Mudblood.
"Merlin's Beard" Minerva breathed. "Hermione, where did you get that? Who did that to you? The Landa boy?"
And Hermione told her. Everything.
That evening she finally spoke of the event that had caused her more nightmares than she could count. Enough tears to fill a dozen bathtubs. A secret so well kept, she sometimes wondered whether it had all been the most horrid dream. But here she was and she remembered every detail, every word.
She told the story, from beginning to end and didn´t stop until everything had been said. She surprised herself by not crying. Having kept this secret for so long, she was just glad it was finally out. But what surprised her even more, was Minerva's reaction: she was crying full tears by the time Hermione had finished. Seeing her so shaken, Hermione couldn´t take it anymore.
They had moved to the sitting area in the office, Hermione was sitting on one of the armchairs and Minerva on the small sofa. Her last words were still hanging the air and she didn´t know what to do next. Never had she seen Minerva this distressed. The only thing she knew was that it had to end immediately, the incident had already caused too much pain. So she stood up, carefully moved towards the Headmistress who was trying her best the calm down and wrapped her arms around the fragile body of her beloved Professor.
She held her until the sobs quieted down, her hand gently caressing the smooth black hair.
"Promise me you´ll never keep something like this from me, ever again." Minerva's voice was hoarse when she finally spoke.
At that Hermione's eyes began to water again. "I won´t."
Pulling back from the embrace, Minerva sat up and brushed some tangled strands of hair out of her face. Then she did the same to Hermione´s.
"It´s rather late, my love. You should go to bed. Rest." Wrapping her arm around her student's waist, she pulled her to the door leading to the hallway.
"Goodnight." Minerva said. And then she slowly bent down and kissed Hermione on the cheek.
After pulling back, Hermione straightened herself a little and looked into the older woman´s eyes.
"Goodnight, Minerva." she said before closing the wooden door behind her.