A/n: Libby, you're my hero!
CHAPTER SIX
"Minerva. Minerva." A small voice whispered. "Minerva, where are you?" Fear crept into the voice, female and soft, familiar and yet special.
Minerva moved, feeling the cold ground of old wooden floorboards under her fingertips and body. She coughed, the dust and dirt having made her nose tickle. Immediately, her head began to throb excruciatingly and there was a high pitched noise in her ears.
"Ahh" she breathed, trying to sit up and opening her eyes just a fraction, the bright light around her making it impossible to take in her surroundings. A light touch on her shoulder made her spin around. When her eyes had adjusted, she could make out a woman, brown curls towering on her head and flowing down all the way to her back. Minerva blinked again. Worried chocolate orbs stared at her, a soothing hand still on her shoulder. Her mind supplied the information she was looking for: Hermione, Granger.
"Are you okay, Minerva? You must´ve hit your head…" Confused as to what was happening, Minerva´s eyes travelled away from the young woman. What she saw didn't really make much more sense, though: They were in a medium sized room, quite dusty and very empty. The only furniture remaining were two small sofas, covered with sheets that probably had been white some years ago but were now of a yellowy colour, a sooty fireplace and a commode just to her right, presumably the source of her unbearable headache. A door slightly to their left.
For a moment she had to close her eyes, the headache pulsing in intensive waves through all of her skull.
Nevertheless she reopened them and came to her feet, while sheepishly taking Hermione's helping hand.
"I´m quite alright, thank you Hermione. Are you injured?" she said when the pain had ebbed away to a bearable pinching in the back of her scalp. Hermione shook her head.
They were silent for another moment, both automatically double-checking if they were in any immediate danger.
In their silence, the only thing they could hear was the wind, blowing through the cracks in the big window that faced into the green landscape of a deserted part of the Scotland highlands, or at least that was what it looked like to Minerva. Of course she couldn´t be completely sure, but growing up in a landscape like this, she knew the sight of one well enough to recognize it anywhere. She dearly hoped she was right. Just the thought of being home, even just the general region, gave her reassurance and helped her calm her rising inner panic.
Letting her eyes travel through the room again, she noticed another door on the left side of the room that was closed. The layer of dust everywhere let her conclude that it must have been a long time since someone had been here, otherwise there would be footsteps or signs of movement on the floor, just like where Hermione had landed.
"Looks deserted." Hermione said after a beat or two, starting to walk across the room where an old door, swinging loosely in its hinges, stood slightly ajar. When she arrived at the doorstep, she turned around, apparently relaxed about their more than unfortunate and completely involuntary voyage.
Minerva wrapped her clothes tighter around her body and followed Hermione´s footsteps, unconsciously stepping in the trail the younger women's boots had left behind, not one stride misplaced.
Hermione turned her head away from the image of the other witch and experimentally pushed the door wider open, a squeaky sound ringing through the house. Behind lay an empty hall. Fading light was falling through a small window over the entrance door, painting rectangles on the dark floorboards. Two more doors were on each side of the long room, both were closed and did not look very inviting.
Hermione was the first to cross the threshold, though they simultaneously started to walk. The wood creaked with every one of their steps. The house must be well over a hundred years old and out of use for at least fifty. It must also not be very big if it was only stretching from the room they'd been in before to this front door.
Hermione pressed down the handle in a very slow motion, her reddened fingertips curling around the metal like a snake, one finger at a time. Minerva sucked in her breath, hoping against all odds that someone might have been careless enough to leave the front door unlocked, her mind itching to get out of this unfamiliar and encircling place. But nothing happened. Hermione whispered a quiet Alohomora. The door stayed shut. Hermione pressed the handle down for a second and a third time but the wood simply wouldn't budge.
With a resigned sigh, she turned around, her eyes closed she leaned against the door, her back caressing the rough surface of ancient wood.
"I suppose we´ll have to apparate from within, then," she said. "I have no idea what this place is but I'd rather get out of here before the sun goes down."
Expectantly, she looked at Minerva, who was standing a few meters behind her, the already reddening light caressing her left cheek and hair. But of course Minerva didn't move. There was no wand to pull. Just thinking about it made the fear creep back into Minerva´s conscience. Never before had she found herself without a wand to defend herself, or even others, too. Never once had she been forced to think about how to get home without apparating. She felt nude, although all her clothes were still in perfect order. She felt very, very vulnerable.
"What are you waiting for?" Hermione´s voice cracked a little. "Minerva?" Fear. Reflected in the young woman´s voice. Her face must give her all the information she needed.
"You do have your wand… don't you?" Hermione´s voice was almost begging her now. Begging her to say they were going to be alright. That she had a solution. That she had a wand.
"Hermione, there was no time." Minerva willed her voice to be calm, reassuring, although inside she felt nothing of the sort. But now was not the time to be remorseful.
"No time?" Hermione´s breaths were shaky, her eyes were wide and she had put her hands on her thighs for extra support, her back now curled like a cat, rising with every deep breath she sucked in and out of her lungs rapidly. "Oh no, this can't be happening…"
Minerva knew that Hermione was not addressing her directly but she couldn't just stand there and watch so, her own panic temporarily forgotten, she focused on Hermione entirely, the only goal in her mind easing the tension Hermione was living through.
"We will figure something out," she wanted to say but out came only a whisper, fragile like the hand she was reaching with to rub Hermione´s back in a soothing fashion, like she had done the first day at the camp, an eternity and a half ago.
But to her astonishment, Hermione slapped her hand back as soon as she had made just the slightest contact.
"No! Don't touch me! Why didn't you grab it? Why… didn't you… grab it!" Hermione had trouble focusing now, the agony washing over her over and over again, each collision worse than the one before.
Minerva´s hands unconsciously reached out again.
"I said, don´t touch me!" Hermione screamed louder this time and Minerva stumbled back, helplessness visible on her features. It was only on rare occasions that Minerva McGonagall didn´t know what to do. She had never learned to be overwhelmed by a situation. But as much as she wanted to ensure Hermione that they'd soon be back in Hogwarts, she just couldn't lie. She felt that a false sense of security was oftentimes worse than having none at all because at least then you were prepared for what you were facing, however ugly that might be. And Hermione would accept nothing but the truth, Minerva was sure of it.
"It's all your fault. Why didn't you just stay behind? You could have come to get me easily. Why did you come? Why?" she nearly screamed, looking at Minerva in a wild stare.
"Hermione, I…"
"We have to get home, have to…" Hermione trailed off in the middle of the sentence, her arms now flobbing in the air, trying to keep her balance. Using the wall as support, she started moving and pushed past Minerva who daren´t move a muscle. "Have to… get out." Hermione uttered between breaths and frantically opened the nearest door in the search for some kind of exit, storming out of the hall and leaving a shocked Minerva behind.
"There was no time." The older witch said quietly, immobilized by the thought that Hermione was right, there had been time, if she'd thought. She could have come after Hermione or even grabbed her own wand as soon as she realized what was going on, maybe there might have even been enough time to stop the portkey from transporting any of them at all. She could have stopped this.
Why hadn't she?
Because the truth was, she had thought Hermione in danger, and run. It was as simple as that. There had been no room for any other thought, the compulsion to save Hermione overruled any logical thinking. But Hermione wouldn't have been content with an answer like that.
Stumbling after the young woman, she followed through the door to the left, entering a room that was even more vacant than the one they had regained consciousness in. A dining table that was missing two legs was the only furnishing left, Hermione nowhere to be found. There was another door at the back of the room though, revealing sounds coming through its opened door.
In a matter of seconds, Minerva had crossed the room and found herself in what used to be a kitchen. Tiled floor, sink, old timey fridge that had lost its colour and had been overgrown by some green plant, another table, smaller this time but with chairs and three big cupboards, lining the back of the wall.
Hermione had already pulled out three drawers with cutlery, scissors, cloth and metal boxes in different sizes and was currently tampering with a fourth drawer. Going through the things, the young witch was mumbling to herself in hasty sentences, completely oblivious to Minerva´s presence.
When she didn't find the thing she was apparently searching for, she slammed the first cupboard shut and moved on to the next.
"Hermione, what are you-" But Minerva was cut off by a sound of relief coming from Hermione, who was clutching something in her hands. It took Minerva a couple of seconds to be able to see what it was. It was a key.
Before Minerva could have said even one word, Hermione was moving again.
She only realized the framed glass in the wall was not a window as she had initially thought, but a door, perfectly integrated into its surrounding and therefore hidden to the casual glance, when Hermione struck the key into it, turning the knob to the right.
To Minerva´s surprise, it opened. Icy wind filled the kitchen and blew right past her, making her robes flutter as she closed her eyes, covering them with her hand. She shivered for a second but then she remembered Hermione and her eyes sprang open, searching for the young woman. She was already outside and quite far away.
Hurrying after her, Minerva ran down the two steps, her shoes touching lush grass, her eyes adjusting to the sudden light.
The world was red. A most spectacular sunset bathed the realm around her in its finest colours. She could see it wouldn't take long for the sun to completely disappear behind the top of the hill, lying directly in front of her. Right now, though, it looked like it was melting the stone.
Minerva didn´t stop to watch the spectacle, however. Her feet never slowed down, her eyes not fixed on the sky but on the running figure of Hermione, who had already reached the shadow the hill was throwing. With big steps, she tried catching up to the brown haired witch but she was just too slow. Every step was heavier and heavier going up. It didn't take more than a minute and she was out of breath.
To her relief, Hermione slowed down as well and she was only meters away when the young woman reached the top.
"Hermione!" Minerva called. "Wait!" And the figure halted, her shoulders slumped, her breathing so heavy Minerva could hear it from far away.
And just when Minerva had caught up to her, Hermione's legs suddenly gave in, the young girl toppled back and would Minerva have been any slower, she wouldn't have reached her in time. But Minerva's arms closed around the fragile torso, her own knees buckling under the added weight and slowly, she led them to slide to the ground.
"Minerva" Hermione whimpered quietly and it was only now that the older witch realized that she was crying. Silent tears were running down her cheeks, one after the other, soft streams of gold catching the setting sun; beautiful, despite the obvious pain.
"We have to get out," she whispered tiredly. "We have to save them. We have to save them. Please save them, Minerva."
"Shh, it's alright." Minerva gently wiped away the tears. With the utmost care, she stroked Hermione´s cheek and hair in comfort. "The war is over. Everyone is safe. You are safe. No one is going to hurt you...I have you."
Hermione´s lips moved as if she tried to say something but stayed quiet, calming down under Minerva´s soothing care.
They stayed in their position for almost half an hour, Minerva kneeling back on the grass with Hermione lying across her lap. One hand clutched Minerva's robes, the other one clamped in Minerva´s own, not letting go even after her breathing had gone back to normal and her eyes had become calmer.
Minerva had not moved an inch. The older witch was leaning into her former student, holding her, protecting her. Keeping her promise of not letting go.
When the silence was stretching longer and longer and the sun was almost completely gone, Minerva stroked Hermione's hair one last time, bringing her other hand down to where Hermione was still clutching hers, warming the younger witch with both palms on each side of the hand.
"Better?" she said, a reassuring look in her eyes.
"Hmm Hm" Hermione nodded ever so slightly. Slowly, she untangled her hand from Minerva´s as she stood up, the older witch letting go too.
Standing up, Minerva could sense the feeling coming back to both of her legs which had fallen asleep under the weight of the other´s body. Resigned, she noticed her headache coming back too.
"What are we going to do?" Hermione voiced both their worries.
"First, I suggest that we get back into the house. It might not be cosy, but it's still warm from the afternoon's sun and it's getting cold out here." Shivering again, she wrapped her arms around herself, her body rapidly becoming icy without Hermione´s additional body heat.
"We won't get far in the darkness anyway." When she said this, Hermione turned to her, her pose mirroring Minerva´s. "On foot." The black haired witch added. "There must be a path somewhere on here that we can follow, the next village mustn't be very far."
Of course she was just speculating on how far it actually was and she could see doubt in Hermione's eyes as well, but she felt they could both use some boost of confidence.
"We will find something to eat, see that we survive the night and then start our journey in the morning."
The "we don't have a choice anyway" stayed unvoiced.
''
Finding food turned out to be harder than they had thought. In fact, there was not really much in the house in general.
Looking through the rooms, they found that the house was not connected to the floo network, did not contain any other form of transportation like brooms or magical carpets (one never knew) and of course, no other wands they could have used.
They tried summoning theirs for a while, but nothing worked, they soon realised they must be too far away from the castle that even an experienced witch like Minerva could wandlessly overcome such a great distance.
Afterwards, they checked for telephones, an idea that Hermione thought of but that proved fruitless, there was no electricity in the entire house, much less technology.
Checking the front door in the entrance hall again, Minerva noticed a staircase that neither witch had taken note of before. It looked unsturdy, a couple of boards had already broken and were rotting away, though the left side looked stable enough, even for a human. Still, better to be safe than sorry. The wood should carry her feline form easily.
Concentrating, she tried to summon the fur, her second skin, almost as familiar as her own. But the cat wouldn't come. Her human skull was throbbing worse than ever before.
Ah, I see. Even my most reliable gift has chosen to leave me now.
She was so angry with herself she could scream. All she wanted was to finally leave this cursed place.
She tried to morph again but when her head protested profoundly, she gave up, scared to get trapped between forms, which wasn't impossible if she lost her concentration..
She turned around to Hermione who stood behind her, her eyes very worried. She couldn´t let her down. Never. So human form it was. She only hoped that she would be light enough.
When she put a testing foot onto the first step, the wood creaked under the weight but stayed whole. Slowly, Minerva shifted her whole weight onto it and when nothing happened, resumed to repeat the same procedure with the next one.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Minerva?" Hermione asked from behind her back, her voice uneasy. The first step might have borne the raven haired witch but the higher she climbed, the more dangerous breaking through one became.
"Yes, I´m sure. What if there are brooms up there? Or another one of these damned boxes." While talking she had arrived on the sixth step, her eyes fixed on the stairs.
"I really don't think…" Hermione tailed off, dooming it pointless to object now when the headmistress had already made it up half of the stairs and seemed to have no intention of stopping.
"Yes well… we won´t know if we don´t try." With another step climbed, she peeked over the top of the stairs, making out the shapes of three rooms, all missing their doors. The first was a bathroom though the sink and toilet were basically non-existent. The bathtub was missing most of it´s left side. The bedrooms were completely empty. So no beds either in the entire house. The day was getting better and better.
"It's getting quite dark, Minerva…" holding her breath, Hermione watched her former professor worriedly, now completely surrounded with dark shadows. The older witch turned around, sighing.
"You are probably right. From what I can make out, upstairs is even more rotted than downstairs and equally empty of useful supplies." She placed a foot on the step further down, then the other one, gaining confidence with every inch lost in height.
"Maybe there are some candles in this godforsaken place, if-"
Crack!
Suddenly Minerva´s left foot disappeared in the staircase and she was too astonished to try and shift her weight in time, she was losing balance, her arms desperately searching for something to hold on to, finding nothing but cold air and with a light scream, she disappeared.
"Minerva!" Hermione immediately plunged forward, ripping the small door on the side of the staircase open, her eyes searching frantically for the older woman.
Finally, her eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness and she could see Minerva, lying on the floor and holding her head, her face distorted with pain.
"Ouch." She said in a teary voice, and Hermione noticed real tears accumulating in her eyes.
Slowly, the raven haired witch let her hand fall down from her head and stared at it disbelievingly.
The surface of her hand was covered in some slick dark liquid.
"Oh my god, you´re bleeding!" Hermione gasped. When she saw that Minerva was trying to get on her feet, she rushed to her side to help stabilize Minerva in a standing position and the older witch leaned on her immediately.
"What are you doing? Shouldn't you be sitting down for a moment? Do you have any other injuries?"
"I`m fine. I just have to get a bandage for my head."
"Are you sure, I could get one from the kitchen while you stay here and rest for a bit…"
"I hurt my head, not my legs, thank you. I´ll be alright walking."
"Uh, okay." Hermione said, still a little shaken by the accident. "We just have to make sure that the wound stops bleeding." Her short training with Madam Pomfrey had been useful after all, she thought she knew exactly what had to be done. First, the wound had to be cleaned and bandaged with clean and preferably sterilised cloth. Vaguely, she remembered seeing some in the kitchen.
"Come on, we´re almost there." Hermione manoeuvred both through the door.
"That something like this always has to happen on the most bothersome occasions…" Minerva mumbled, having trouble with keeping her legs in order and her body upright, the world was spinning a little and even Hermione's face just centimetres away, who was currently concentrating to get her on one of the chairs near the kitchen table, was a little fuzzy.
"Twice" she added dryly, powerlessly sinking into the backrest, her hand back on the wound. "Merlin, I´m too old for this," she muttered to herself.
"Keep your hand on that wound. It's going to help to slow the bleeding." Hermione turned her back to the injured woman. For a couple of seconds she inspected the cupboards, lined up on the wall. With sure steps, she made her steps over to the second and pulled out two candles. A couple of seconds later, she had found matches.
Lighting the first one on the table and taking the second one with her to have a look at the cloth she had found earlier, she heard Minerva shift in her seat.
"What are you doing?"
"Finding something to dress your wound." In the attempt to find hopefully cleaner compensation for the poor excuses of white sheets she found in a drawer, she bent down to go through the drawers at the bottom.
"Have you done this before?"
Hermione turned around again, her fingers still holding the cloth she had been inspecting. "Yes," she said, turning her attention back to the sheets again. "Madam Pomfrey taught me how… this might work," she said, holding up a sheet that looked nearly clean.
"We´ll have to trim it of course, but it should serve well enough as a bandage."
Under the light of two candles, she ripped the sheet multiple times so that there were six stripes left, discarding the ones with dirt on them and checking that they had a good length. She left the rest of the sheet to use as a towel.
"I´ll have to undo your bun, I can't bandage the wound with it in the way."
After Hermione wettened the leftover piece of cloth, glad that at least the water coming out of the faucet seemed completely clean, she went back to the table, lightning another candle. When she noticed that Minerva still hadn't moved, she stopped in her movement, raising an eyebrow.
"What? It hurts," she said justifiably but very un-Minerva like.
"Here, let me do it." Caringly, Hermione cleaned Minerva´s scarlet hand with one side of the towel, then placed it in Minerva´s right hand and went on to put a candle holder in her left.
"I promise to be gentle."
Minerva sighed and moved to get a little bit more comfortable in her sitting position, bracing herself for the pain to come. But Hermione´s touch was impossibly gentle. Her hands worked lightly around the bruise, never touching it once, even when she was slowly pulling the hairpins out of the bun.
When she was only holding the hair up with her hands, all pins positioned on the table, Minerva visibly tensed. Hermione imagined that the shifting of weight from her head into Hermione´s hands didn't do any good to keep the wound from hurting. It was just left to the place where the bun had held black hair tied together and it was only logical that any movement of hair would inevitably result in it brushing the sensitive skin underneath.
Minerva sucked her breath in but kept still all while Hermione slowly lowered her hand, letting the hair fall over Minerva's right shoulder.
The young witch was surprised how long it actually was. She´d always thought the bun hid a little over shoulder length hair, but really Hermione hadn't suspected it would fall down over her shoulder blades, covering all of her upper back, if she would ever wear it down.
They didn't speak for a very long time, Hermione busy cleaning the wound, Minerva focusing on keeping sounds of discontent slipping over her lips every time Hermione touched the pulsing flesh with the cold towel, cleaning it extensively.
Hermione was the first one to speak up, voicing the thoughts that had been forming in her mind for a couple of minutes now.
"You clearly recognized the box when I mentioned it earlier… it was Dumbledore's, wasn't it?"
"Yes, it must have had great emotional value to him because he looked at it very often or carried it with him in the first years that we knew each other, though I never pressed him to tell me why it was so important. Years later, that was during the first war against Voldemort and we were talking about possible safe houses for Harry's parents, he told me that it was a portkey to a safe house. He said it had been empty since his teenage years and that he had been there a couple of months before to see if it could be made liveable again. The Potters wanted for Harry to be around other children though, so we decided against it. "
Hermione wrapped the bandage around Minerva's head, suddenly seeing this house in a very different light. She imagined Dumbledore running through once polished and furnished halls, laughing and giggling as a little child. And then there were Harry's parents. How much would have been different if they had had picked this house instead?
"I forgot about it, after they died. In the time after Albus' funeral… I didn't have the strength to go through his belongings so I asked Severus to do it. I don't think he knew what it was. And then you found it." Even though Hermione was still folding the bandage, the older witch turned around to take a look at Hermione and the younger witch stopped.
"Thank you."
Hermione wasn't sure what it was for but it seemed like Minerva didn't really know either.
When she was done with her work, the young witch stepped around the chair, placing the cloth in Minerva´s hand again as she did so, to take a look at her creation. It looked secure, clean and a little cute, too.
Satisfied but exhausted, she sat down in front of the older woman, studying her component's face.
"I must look hideous," Minerva mumbled, turning her face away.
Hermione, who had zoned out for a bit, blinked in confusion.
"No, no it´s not that. There is a scratch on your cheek."
Minerva, who still held the wet cloth in her hand, moved to clean the scratch but Hermione stopped her hand just before it could touch the skin. "Let me." Gently, she wiped some dirt off Minerva´s forehead as well, eyes fixed on her task.
Minerva watched her. Hermione leaned closer, her breath dancing on Minerva´s face. The older witch suddenly became very self-conscious, with her hair down, the stupid bandage on her head, Hermione so near, she must be able to see everything, every freckle, every wrinkle.
But the younger witch didn't seem to mind at all. She leaned back again, the task done, she placed the cloth on the table. When she saw Minerva looking at her, she smiled softly.
They sat in silence looking out the window until it had grown pitch-black in the little kitchen, both lost in their own thoughts.
After a while, Hermione became aware of how deep Minerva was breathing, the sound filling the air around her. When looking up, she realized Minerva had been so exhausted she had fallen asleep, still upright in the chair although not as straight as in her classroom, her head, abiding to the laws of gravity, rested on her chest, her arms crossed, her eyes closed. She looked so peaceful, Hermione didn't want to disturb her rest and vowed to wake her up in a while as Minerva would surely want. But until then she would let her escape this filthy place and dream herself back to Hogwarts or wherever it was that she was the happiest.
Smiling, Hermione brushed back a strand of loose black hair that had fallen over the older witches face and was fluttering with every deep breath. Deep affection coursed through her when her fingers lightly brushed soft skin. Already, so much of who she was was also tied to Minerva.
A year ago, she hadn't even considered Minerva as a woman agitated enough to have dreams of her own, and now, knowing the woman so much more deeply, she realised how impossible that would have been. After having lived a life like Minerva's… there must be no one who dreamed more than her.
''
For the next thirty minutes, Hermione searched for things that could be useful to them while they were in this unfortunate situation. After a thorough search, all while being as quiet as possible, she had come up with two metal torches that looked a bit rusty but were still intact, pullovers of various sizes, along with socks, boots and a good pocket knife that she tucked away safely in her pocket.
There were also two thin blankets they could use for the night and in a stroke of luck, she found a couple of jars with herbs, of which most smelled very outdated but deciding that one of the jars still smelled nice enough, she boiled water with a gas cooker and set two steaming pots on the table.
First she tried the mixture, deciding that although it wasn´t the best tea she'd ever had, it had a welcome warming effect.
Glancing over, she saw that Minerva was still asleep, her breathing ever so deep, her hands loosely folded in her lap.
"Minerva." Hermione whispered and she didn't have to repeat the words, the headmistress was already moving, her eyes opening in silent confusion, her breathing normal again. She must be a very light sleeper.
"How long did I sleep," she said, trying to ease the pain out of her neck muscles.
"I couldn't say exactly. Under an hour."
"God, my neck hurts." Minerva sat up, rubbing the pained area. "And yet, the headache is a lot better, miraculously. You have magical hands, Hermione."
Chuckling, the younger witch pushed the cup over the surface of the kitchen table into Minerva´s hands. "Here, have some tea."
"Ahh, exactly what I needed, thank you." Taking a sip, she shot Hermione a grateful look, combing her hair back so that it rested behind her ears. The loose hair made her look even younger. Hermione couldn't help but notice the effortlessness of her beauty. She envied that, similar to everything else, it came naturally to the older witch.
"You know, before I erm… nodded off, I was trying to remember what Albus might have told me about this house. I think he said there was a smaller town a couple of kilometres away. That's where we'll head tomorrow."
Hermione nodded, sipping on her tea as well.
"Have you found a map, by any chance?" Minerva wanted to know.
"No, unfortunately. I suppose Professor Dumbledore didn't need a map around here to find his way."
"Yes, you are probably correct. Would have been nice, though. Would have made things a lot easier on us."
Hermione nodded again, yawning.
"Well, I think it's time for us to make our way to bed now. Or in our case, sofas." Minerva said, the displeasure openly visible on her face when she stood up. "We have a long day ahead of us."
Wordlessly, they arranged everything useful for their journey the following day, locked the doors just in case, blew out all candles except for two, retreated to the living room with the blankets and pullovers Hermione had found, changed out of their outer cloths, each in one corner of the dark room, the moon shielded by heavy clouds on the nightly sky.
Shivering, Hermione pulled one of the woollen pullovers over her head, her back turned to face Minerva. She couldn't see the other witch but she could hear her rustling with her clothes. When she was done, she folded her jeans, still dirty from when she had been lying on the ground earlier, and sat down and waited until Minerva was finished.
When she turned around upon the older witches signal, both women stared at each other. Minerva had braided her hair so that it was draped over her shoulder. She had left her spectacles in the office and not much else reminded Hermione of the person she had once known as her professor. Under a green pullover which coincidentally accented the colour of her eyes beautifully, she was wearing thinner white under robes; a linen shirt and pants that reached down to her ankles.
Hermione in turn was wearing only the much too big pullover, a shirt underneath and socks. Even in winter she slept in attire similar to this, her legs never getting cold. Now though, she wished she had a pair of pants that weren't completely covered in dirt.
"I'm afraid I don't have any good bedtime stories…" Minerva said to overcome the silence.
When Hermione smiled half-heartedly, they resumed their silence and started to pull the sheets of the two sofas, which were just big enough to serve as a bed for the night. Hermione took the smaller one, leaving the slightly wider and longer one to Minerva.
When both had settled under their blankets and first Hermione, then Minerva had blown out their candles, they stared into the blackness, thinking of everything that had happened on this tumultuous day.
"Goodnight." Minerva said, lying on her back, her arms crossed on her chest.
"Goodnight, Minerva." Hermione whispered.
Both lay awake until late in the night.
''
Hermione woke hours later, cold. Terribly cold. Shivering, she pulled her legs closer to her torso, folding her icy feet.
How long had she been asleep? Hard to tell, without getting a look at the moon, it mustn't have been more than a few hours though because she was still tired and everything around her was pitch black.
Breathing in and out, she noticed small clouds forming in front of her mouth. Damn those cold Scottish summers.
A sound made her freeze and unconsciously hold her breath. Had Minerva moved?
For another couple of seconds she lay completely still, listening. When the older witch turned twice in a span of maybe even less than a minute Hermione was guessing that the other woman must be awake as well. Then she heard her shiver and she was sure.
Her eyes wide open, the air too cold to go back to sleep, Hermione pondered for another ten minutes or so before deciding that she would very likely not be able to go to sleep again and she wanted nothing more than to resume her resting, dreamless night before the sun rose again.
"Minerva, are you awake?"
"Yes," came back the answer, although seemingly through gritted teeth.
"This is ridiculous," Hermione replied in exasperation, already making to stand up. "Scoot over, we'll have to share if we don't want to freeze to death.
A moment later, the raven haired witch squealed when her blanket was lifted and an ice cold leg slid under the covers with her. Flabbergasted, she shot up in an upright position.
"What on earth…!" Minerva spun around and was face to face with Hermione who was currently draping her own blanket over Minerva's and was seemingly intending to crawl in with her, though her face remained in the dark.
"Move over, or I´ll fall off the sofa." Hermione replied calmly and Minerva followed the order automatically, though she was still very confused how she should feel about this.
"Hermione, what is the meaning of this? I told you I don't tell bedtime stories and I don't recall inviting you to share a bed with me, either…"
Hermione, who had meanwhile completely crawled under the now double layered blanket, positioned herself comfortably on Minerva´s side, her eyes already half closed.
"It's much warmer like this," she said sleepily, as if that explained everything.
Minerva opened and closed her mouth, wanting to say something but having no idea what. She desperately wanted to tell Hermione to go back to her own couch but the younger witch was right, it was much warmer this way and she wasn't proud enough to sacrifice losing a foot or two from frostbite.
Hermione would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't been so tired. "Go back to sleep, Minerva. I'm much too tired to argue." And with a content sigh, the younger witch slowly drifted off.
Slowly, Minerva lowered herself into a lying position again, discontent battling against the feeling of comfortability.
But why let them both suffer alone in the cold, when there was such an easy solution. Pointless, really.
Minerva sighed and turned on her side. She quirked a disapproving eyebrow when Hermione´s curls tickled on her nose and face. But it was still warmer. Deciding to let all property rest until the sunshine of a new day could warm her up, she settled comfortably and closed her eyes, a look of contentment flashing over her face in the privacy of the darkness.
There was a small smile tugging on the corner of her mouth when the esteemed headmistress drifted off to sleep, snuggled up against this crazy young woman that she cared for more deeply than she could ever admit in the light of day.
A/n: Please review ! :)