A/N: Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone is holding up okay. Nothing much else for me to say today, other than thank you for everyone's continued support of this story through follows/favs and especially reviews. Don't be afraid to leave your thoughts in my inbox, I love to hear from you. Without further ado, here is the next chapter. Enjoy, and let me know what you think :) - Note xxx
The following day, Cruz was keeping a particularly close eye on Hermione, making her feel more twitchy and paranoid than usual.
She tried to follow her routine as much as possible, wondering if she would ever receive a response from Draco and whether the lack of response meant that Severus had decided to give up on their relationship. That particular thought was accompanied by a painful twinge in her scar, which had been feeling a lot worse today. Typical, she thought. Of course as soon as I tell someone it's not that bad it gets significantly worse.
Luna and Ginny immediately noticed that something was up, when the three of them sat down in Hermione's rooms to do their homework that evening. When they checked in on how she was doing, Hermione instinctively clammed up, still not used to sharing things with her friends again. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she could trust them and so she relayed to the two witches what had happened with Cruz last night and how she had spoken to Professor McGonagall.
"Hermione!", admonished Ginny. "I know you weren't doing great, but you should've told us things were getting really bad again!"
Hermione swallowed and looked at her hands. She was anxiously twisting them in her lap. "I didn't want to worry you anymore than I already do. Plus, I… I'm so afraid that Cruz will use anything I say against me. It feels like she's always listening, always watching and the smallest slip on my part will cost me everything. I'm scared that some evening I won't be able to eat my dinner and she'll decide I'm doing it to disobey her and then she'll have the perfect excuse to lock me up somewhere—"
She was cut off as Ginny wrapped her in a tight hug. Burying her face in her friends shoulder she bit her lip to try and stop her tears from flowing. She hated to be weak like this, hated that her friends had to pick her up time and time again and that she could not bring herself to improve, could not manage to heal herself, could not be the powerful witch they saw in her.
"I'm sorry.", she whispered. Ginny pulled back from her, and Luna appeared with a large mug of tea that she pressed into Hermione's hands.
"It's chamomile.", she said. Hermione swallowed hard and wrapped her hands around the steaming mug.
"You have nothing to apologise for.", the youngest Weasley said fiercely. "Hermione, this whole mess is absolutely awful and you have every right to feel terrible about it."
Hermione nodded and sipped her tea. The warmth was comforting. "I just… I've been doing so badly for so long, I keep waiting for one of you to turn around and ask why I haven't gotten better already."
"Healing isn't a race, remember?", Luna said, smiling encouragingly. "We all have to deal with the aftermath of the war in our own way and give ourselves the time to find out who we are. You were starting to get better before all of this happened, and once Cruz is gone you will continue to get better again."
The blonde witch reached out and squeezed Hermione's arm. In response, she took in a shuddering breath, sipping some more tea and remembering that Luna had told her something similar before. A lone tear ran down her cheek. "Thank you. Both of you.", she tried to smile. "I really needed to hear that."
"We've got your back, Hermione.", Ginny reminded her. "All you need to do is allow us to keep helping you and we will get you through this."
They sat in silence for a while and Hermione curled up on the couch, immensely grateful that she had allowed her friends back into her life.
"I know you guessed about Severus, Luna, but how come neither of you has asked me about him?", she questioned after a moment, realising her friends' mysterious silence on the topic after the truth about their relationship had been revealed at the Ministry.
The two girls glanced at each other. Ginny responded first, a crooked smile on her face. "Well, for starters it seemed like you already had plenty on your plate with the whole guardian thing without us giving you a hard time about that."
Hermione snorted. "That sounds like it's not everything?"
Ginny shrugged, looking uncharacteristically awkward. "I have to admit that I find it strange, but I also saw how you looked at each other when we were leaving to go back to Hogwarts. You clearly care about him. A lot. Plus, you never judged me for who I was dating."
"You aren't upset anymore that I'm not getting back together with Ron?" She clamped a hand over her mouth. "Oh Merlin, Ginny, I never even told you I broke up with him properly!"
The redhead sighed. "Harry mentioned it to me, but yeah it would have been nice to hear about it from you. Look, I know I was pushy about you two getting back together, because I thought you and him would be great and you had a thing for him for so long, but well…" She glanced at Luna and smiled ruefully. "Luna pointed out to me, that just because I think you two are great together, that doesn't mean that I know what's really going on with your relationship. And then he said all of those horrible things about you at the hearing and it reminded me that my brother can be an absolute idiot sometimes."
She hesitated a moment, then looked Hermione straight in the eyes. "What I'm trying to say is that I just want you to be happy - and Ron as well obviously, and if that means you guys won't date anymore then that's fine. If it's Snape that makes you happy, well then so long as he treats you right that's none of my business. But Hermione, you are one of my best friends and you not telling me about you and Ron or anything really for so long… You really hurt me. I get it, I'm not perfect and I don't know when to back off sometimes, but after everything I don't know what I did that you stopped trusting me."
Tears welled again in Hermione's eyes and she reached out to her friend. "Ginny…", she swallowed looking for words. How was it possible that despite feeling this way the youngest Weasley had not hesitated to be there for her when she really needed her?
"I'm so sorry. I didn't just push you away, Gin, I pushed everyone away. I wanted to be normal, book-loving, problem-solving Hermione for all of you. I thought if I just forced myself to appear happy and okay, some day I would wake up and it would be true… And then things with Ron started to go badly, I was getting less and less sleep and your mum was being weird about things and suddenly I realised that I had spent so long not talking to anyone that by the time I even considered telling someone about how I was feeling, everyone had already moved on. It seems so silly now, but I just felt like you wouldn't understand. Merlin, I really am an idiot."
She laughed bitterly. "Severus was the first person I felt save to open up to again. I think I just really needed someone who wasn't so involved with all of us to listen and to give me a space where I could be me and not who I thought I needed to be for all of you. I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone and I am so grateful that you are here for me now."
Ginny pulled her in for another hug, tears of relief in her eyes at her friend's honesty. "I'm sorry for ever making you feel like you couldn't be yourself, Hermione. And I'm sorry if I or anyone else has ever made you feel like you can only be a part of our family if you are dating Ron."
Luna had wandered over to the window to give the two some space, but now Hermione beckoned her over to join their hug. They sat like that for a long time.
When they finally pulled apart a bit, Hermione leant against Luna's shoulder and massaged her twinging scar. "Well, I guess the one good thing to come out of this whole mess is that we finally got that conversation out of the way." She smiled ruefully at Ginny, who chuckled a little.
"There will be more than one good thing.", Luna suggested. "No matter how terrible an experience is, it is nevertheless a valuable experience. My father and I have spent many years searching for mystical creatures most people refuse to believe exist, and while often we have not had much luck in finding them, those failures were still valuable experiences. Same goes for everything you went through fighting Voldemort alongside Harry. We all lost so much, but without it we wouldn't be who we are today."
"One day, they are going to call you Luna the Wise.", Ginny said, grinning. "They just don't know it yet." The three of them shared a quiet laugh and slowly they went back to their homework.
Hermione would occasionally sneak a look at her two friends, to watch as Ginny broke a quill in her frustration over an essay, much like Ron used to and to observe as Luna stared at nothing in particular, her eyes glazed over, contemplating one thing or another. She was incredibly thankful for these two witches and yet there was that ache, that emptiness where Severus was missing. She felt lost without him, she knew she shouldn't need him this much, but she missed him terribly. He had become her rock as she tried to navigate and finally deal with all her bottled up trauma (it was becoming easier to admit to herself that that's what she was dealing with) and Cruz had taken that away from her. But she was Hermione Granger and she would be damned if she let her get away with it.
oxoxoxoxo
The next day, Hermione was looking through the corrections on her transfiguration homework, when she noticed an odd shimmer to the parchment. She did not dare investigate further until she was back in her room. A couple of quick spells revealed an additional piece of parchment and a letter. The extra parchment was a note from McGonagall.
"I apologise for not getting this to you sooner, but I needed to make sure it would not be found. Expect my summons on Tuesday next."
Hermione smiled in delight. A summons to see the Headmistress would either mean more information or the long awaited visit from Harry. Maybe even both.
With shaking hands she unfolded the letter, afraid to get her hopes up. At the sight of familiar spiky handwriting she nearly burst into tears of relief.
"Hermione,
I appreciate the reassurance on matters of guilt, but they are not necessary. I promised that you could count on me - always. Please know that I have no intention of breaking this promise, despite my delayed response. I am committed to you, to us, and expect to see you in plenty of time before the Ministry Ball. I will contact you as soon as possible, when I have information on our scars. Don't owl me again in the meantime, it is not worth the risk.
Be safe.
S"
She sighed deeply and pressed the parchment to her chest, relaxing just a little bit for the first time in days. It had been difficult to remain optimistic when she had not received a response to her relayed message for weeks, fretting that it might have been intercepted or worse, that Severus had decided their relationship was not worth getting suspended over. Clearly her fears had been unwarranted however.
She re-read his message several times, wondering about the itch in her, and apparently his scar and what it might mean. If there was some form of magical connection forming between them, at least she would be able to narrow down her research a little, so long as she was careful about charming the books so that Cruz would not be able to tell what she was reading. At least, that way she could contribute actively. It bothered her to continuously ask her friends to do things for her, because she could not risk being seen doing them. The hearing had shown clearly that Cruz had eyes and ears everywhere. Speaking off. A quick wave of her wand incinerated the parchment, until only ash remained, which she vanished with a practiced flick. It caused her almost physical pain to destroy the missive, but the consequences of it being found were not worth the risk of keeping it.
oxoxoxoxo
Hermione was running towards a door. The room she was in was on fire, items tumbling down around her. A chair came crashing down one of the piles of lost and hidden items and hit her squarely in the back. She fell face first, the wind knocked out of her. Around her, the fire roared loudly, flames whooshing as everything slowly began to crumble into ash around her, making it hard to breathe. Her arm caught fire and she desperately tried to pat it out, while she attempted to pull herself back to her feet, to no avail. Everything was hot and burning, smoke stung in her eyes and with a sudden gasp she sat up in bed.
Coughing, although there was no smoke there, she pushed her sweat soaked curls out of her face and let herself fall back onto the pillows with a groan. Her arm was throbbing, the skin around her scar felt hot and inflamed. A glance at her alarm clock confirmed that she had barely gotten three hours of sleep. It was the end of October so the sun would not rise for several hours, but there was no point staying in bed any longer. I
nstead she dragged herself out from under the covers, pulled on an old jumper and a pair of leggings and sat down to tie her runners. As she left the castle she felt jumpy and uncomfortable as though she was being watched, but that was pretty much normal these days. Hoping her run combined with the icy morning air would purge the dream from her mind, she made her way past Hagrid's hut and along the lake.
Hagrid himself would not get up for another hour. Some mornings, when she managed to stay in bed a little longer she would see him out for his first round of the grounds. She realised she had not been to see him in a long time and vowed to owl and ask to meet for tea at the next opportunity. As she made her way back up to her rooms for a well deserved shower about forty minutes later, there was the barest hint of a smile on her face. Today was Monday. That meant tomorrow she would get to speak with the headmistress and maybe even Harry. Either way, it would mean one more step forward in her fight against Cruz.
oxoxoxoxo
Hermione began to put more effort into her appearance. If she could not use glamours anymore, there were plenty of muggle ways of appearing more put together than she felt.
During her daily checkup with Cruz on Monday, Hermione had been informed that she had an appointment with Madame Pomfrey on Thursday after class. Cruz wanted an actual evaluation of how her physical health was improving (or deteriorating). Hermione remained calm and somewhat icy, which was how she usually approached these meetings, but her magic was beginning to flare and she was worried what Pomfrey would say to Cruz, because Hermione was fairly certain that she wasn't doing much better than when she had last seen the matron a few weeks ago.
She had learned to wandlessly vanish food and drink, mostly to stop Cruz trying to force her into drinking tea during her meetings. It was also an easy way to make it appear as though she had finished her meal and get her guardian off her back in that regard. Cruz seemed set on selecting particularly heavy meals for her, which given her current appetite were nearly impossible for her to finish. After discovering her glamours, Cruz seemed suspicious of her, clearly suspecting her of continuing to hide things, even though she attempted to appear pleased when Hermione continued to "finish" her meals as instructed.
When she was finally able to leave her guardian's office, she headed to the library, trying to calm her magic as well as her frustration on the way there. Luna raised a curious eyebrow at her, as she plopped into the chair across from her at their usual table. Ginny had Quidditch training on Mondays, so it was just the two of them.
"I wonder what Cruz would do if I just refused to do any of the things she asked me to do.", the curly haired witch muttered darkly, after casting muffliato to ensure they weren't overheard.
"Hm. People can sometimes go to unexpected extremes when pushed like that, so you should be cautious of the risks you take so long as you don't know her ulterior motives.", Luna advised, almost absentmindedly. She pulled out a sugar quill and chewed on it thoughtfully, while Hermione relayed the details of the meeting to her.
"It's getting harder to hide how fed up I am with her, especially now that she discovered that I was using glamours. Plus, I think she knows I'm not eating as much as I should be, but I just can't manage a full meal at the moment. Being forced to eat doesn't make it any easier. Some days I just want to ask her what it is she really wants.", she finished, running a hand through her hair which crackled with residual magic.
Luna nodded slowly. A pensieve expression on her face, she pulled out a second sugar quill and handed it to her. Hermione smiled and accepted it gratefully. Clearly, there were still some foods that didn't turn her stomach.
"Maybe you should ask her what she wants.", Luna suggested after a moment. Hermione frowned at her. "You can't be serious?"
"I am very serious. You said yourself, it is hard for us to gather any sort of insight on her, yet you see her every day. Why not ask her why she is doing this? It wouldn't be odd for you to do so, given that she is aware of your displeasure at the situation. You might be surprised by what she tells you."
Hermione stared at her. "You're right! And the worst she can do is refuse to answer, I suppose. If we're very lucky she might accidentally give something away. Thanks, Luna! I can't believe I didn't think of that myself."
The blonde witch smiled at her and shrugged. "Sometimes you just need a different perspective."
oxoxoxoxo
For Hermione, much of the next day was spent doing breathing exercises to avoid thinking about her upcoming summons by McGonagall. She wasn't sure when to expect said summons and was worried it would clash with her checkup with Cruz.
But surely McGonagall was aware of that and would be sure to work around it? It didn't help that on Tuesdays she was supposed to have a double DADA as well as a free period, so there were no classes to distract her. Instead she snuck off to the Room of Requirement and spent two and a half hours honing her aim and her reflexes. Afterwards she rushed off to take a quick shower and made it to lunch just in time. For a change she had actually worked up an appetite.
When she headed off to Herbology afterwards, she noticed that her arm was sore rather than itchy now. A quick glance showed her that the inflammation in her scar had not gone away since she woke up with it on Monday. She hissed softly as the fabric of her sleeve brushed against it, causing a rush of pain. Maybe she could get Madame Pomfrey to give her a balm for it without telling Cruz when she went for her checkup on Thursday. When she got to the greenhouse she noted that her classmates were eyeing her curiously and some were whispering quietly to each other. Had there been another article about her in the prophet?
By the time dinner came around she had yet to hear from McGonagall. Resigned to the fact that something had come up, she went for her checkup with Cruz instead. Her guardian seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood.
"It seems your appetite has increased somewhat.", she commented, after enquiring how much she had slept. Hermione shrugged. "It depends on the day. Sometimes I'm just not as hungry.", she tried not to sound too exasperated. This was the answer she gave Cruz pretty much every time her eating habits came up. Which was most days.
"Yes so you keep telling me. Still, I am hopeful that Madame Pomfrey will be able to confirm that you have at least improved somewhat, despite how much you were trying to hide how you were doing."
Hermione nearly snorted. She knew full well that she looked terrible. The only reason she was eating at all was her increased exercise and her frequent duelling practice in the Room of Requirement. "Why are you doing this, Professor?", she enquired, heeding Luna's advice.
"Well it's all good and well to see you are eating a little more, but really we need the opinion of a qualified healer to know for sure, why else would I be sending you for a checkup with Madam Pomfrey?", Cruz responded absentmindedly, while making a note in the book she used to keep records of their meetings.
"You misunderstand me, Professor. I am wondering why you wanted to be my guardian? Why you are so insistent that you can be the one to fix me."
Cruz frowned at that. "Well, I was the logical choice as your Head of House, of course and despite our animosity in class I do actually care about your well-being. If you are concerned that I don't know what I'm doing in terms of helping you overcome your PTSD, rest assured that I enquired with Miles Ledford and am following his recommendations."
Hermione found this very hard to believe. Maybe she would have been better off trying to slip Cruz some of the Veritaserum she had brewed. It was unfortunate that most of the time, the affected person would realise that they had been under the influence of the potion afterwards and she did not want to risk an obliviation.
"I just find it very strange that you would want to care for someone that clearly doesn't want your help."
Cruz gave her a tightlipped smile at that. "I'm sure you can agree that the Ministry hearing very clearly showed that you do not know what you want. Otherwise the CWWWV would not have had to assign you a guardian in the first place. Rest assured that I have your best interests at heart. I am sure you will thank me eventually. Now, unless you would like to question my integrity further, I believe we are finished here."
Hermione nodded slowly, pleasantly surprised that she was not being punished for daring to question Cruz by having to stay longer. Still, clearly her guardian had not forgotten to prepare for a question like this. She grabbed her bag and headed for the door. "Goodnight, Professor."