Chapter 10: Misconceptions
Sex. A kiss. First times.
In the early morning hours, while the sounds of steady, rhythmic breathing was heard from the woman in her arms, Hermione woke long before she should have. It was the warmth, a shifting movement beside her although the Headmistress had remained quite asleep, that woke her up while it was still quite dark outside beyond her bedroom window. She wasn't used to sharing a bed, simply put. She wasn't accustomed to feeling the heat from another, she wasn't used to having something move in the middle of the night beside her, however, she knew, eventually, she would grow used to it in the future. So, with this time awake, she folded over the events of the previous day and found herself instinctively tightening her hold around the woman that she spooned.
There was never a right time.
Liquor fueled and impassioned, the minute they arrived back at her home, Minerva made those first moves. She kissed. Hermione had kissed back. From there, Hermione took the initiative and initiated love making… Because she wanted to. As it would have appeared, her lover wasn't entirely against such exploration either. Somehow, the women managed to make it to bed from the wide set of stairs to the upper floor, making pit stops along the way. While Minerva had been taken practically in the entrance of the author's home, they hardly made it halfway down the hall upstairs before Hermione found herself, once more, backed up against the wall with the Headmistress on her knees, her fingertips raking through loosened ebony hair as the Headmistress - her Headmistress - dove between her legs with the same unbridled desire reflected in the depths of her green eyes. It was frenzied, it was explosive, and it was exactly what Hermione had hoped it to be even despite it's suddenness.
After waiting so long for that moment, they chose not to wait any longer. A moment like that, in the minds of the young and less world weary, would have probably been waited for under the guise of making it a singularly special occasion. But, to the brunette woman who pressed a reverent kiss to the back of the witch's shoulder as she slept, remembering every sound of pleasure, every heated touch, in her mind, those passionate moments were incredibly special. They were evidence that their physical chemistry was real, for not a moment was awkward and strange, not questionable in any way, and the ice was now broken to pave the way for more exploration, a heightened intimacy, and a furthering of their relationship… Whatever that relationship entailed.
Lifting her head just slightly to gaze past the slumbering woman in her hold, Hermione's eyes glanced at the small alarm clock on the bedside table. It was approaching five in the morning. They'd only managed to fall asleep three hours ago. She decided to lay her head down, hold the woman a bit more tightly, and try again to sleep. It was Sunday. They did actually have to try and be productive at one point. And maybe figure out what sort of schedule and time they would have together in the future.
In an unknown bedroom, in a bed that didn't feel like her own, Minerva's eyes flitted open. Her hand was covering one that didn't belong to her, tightly against her breast. Her head pounded with a well deserved hang over from the liquor she had imbibed the previous night and, although she was known to hold her liquor, she had managed to reach that point where this quality teetered precariously close to being non-existent. Memories flooded back to the small pub they had left the charity gala for, the trays of shots Hermione had purchased, the rounds of drinks they had had, and the woman… That beautiful woman at the piano. That beautiful woman being the one whose arms were holding tightly to her slender frame as rays of morning sun filtered in through sheer, white curtains. She shifted slightly in that hold, still holding to Hermione's hand, however, ever so rolling back. Lips began to dance across the nape of her neck, making her all too aware that the witch behind her was awake. Minerva hummed softly.
"Good morning, my dearest." The Headmistress heard the woman sleepily greet against the space just beneath her ear. To awaken to hear that voice made the ebony haired woman almost forget that it felt like someone had been whacking her in the forehead with a heavy book all night.
"Good morning… How do you feel?" Groggily, the Headmistress asked as she shifted, properly now, knowing that her lover was awake. Hermione loosened her hold as the woman rolled in her arms to lay on her back, green eyes seeking out her own.
"Like a sack of shite." Those lips smirked. Minerva eyed them briefly. She couldn't help but to raise a brow and offer up a slight curling of her own lips.
"You too, hmm?"
"Well, I think we drank Ottery dry last night, and then decided to burn a lot of calories with little more than a small dinner… So, yes - me too." Hermione replied with a dry humor, punctuated with a tender kiss pressed to the woman's brow. When the woman rested back again, she noted, now quite aware, that neither woman wore a singular stitch. A flush crept upon her cheeks, not wholly unnoticed, but unaddressed by the author. "Do you remember anything?"
A very simple question with a very simple answer - either yes, or no -, and with it carried a detectable note of uncertainty. She wondered, now seeing how the Headmistress had reacted to their nudity, if the woman was wholly present the night before. It felt like she had been. But at the sight of her skin, the sight of her breast being uncovered by blankets after she'd maneuvered onto her back to address her appropriately, she appeared to blush and eye her with some unreadable look.
"I just realized that we did manage to get rather brazen…" Minerva admitted after a short moment, feeling a thumb gently rub against the flat of her stomach as the hand that pressed lightly there flexed its fingers against her skin. Hermione tilted her head ever so, drawing up to rest on an elbow beside the woman as she sighed.
"Well… You, as I recall, started it and I finished it," Hermione's voice remained composed, although Minerva could tell rather quickly that the woman was leaning towards overthinking by way of the crease that was forming between her brows. "You should probably tell me now if you have any regrets."
Emerald eyes searched those of chocolate brown and they gazed at one another.
"Do you regret how we ended up in bed together, Hermione? How fast things took a turn?"
"Absolutely not," Was the immediate reply given with a resolute tone of sincerity. "To know immediately that we are, or… Appear to be sexually compatible is a good thing… Imagine if we had waited only to find that we weren't? That'd be heartbreaking."
A recognition lit the depths of Minerva's eyes as she watched the woman speak. That was, actually, a pretty astute observation to make under the circumstances. From what she could remember, in perhaps not the greatest detail that she would have liked, they had had phenomenal physical chemistry… And knowing that was actually a bit of weight taken off shoulders when she had previously spent some time in the three weeks prior wondering if she was going to have to teach this woman how to proceed in the bedroom. From her recollection… Such concerns were greatly misplaced. A slow, slightly cheeky smile spread across the Headmistress's lips.
"An apt determination of events on your part, Miss. Granger…" Minerva was rewarded with a slightly narrowed gaze.
"I'm not calling you Headmistress in bed." The brunette stated plainly as she raked her nails over the woman's stomach, her body inching closer to the side of the bed so she could sit up. She heard a deep chuckle behind her and heard a shifting of blankets.
"Probably best not to, I'd hate to feel the urge to grade your performances…" Despite herself, hearing this, Hermione felt her lips curling into a smirk. She gave a shake of the head at the ridiculousness at the thought and reached for the bedside table on her side of the bed, opening it, to grab a couple small phials of pain relief potion, something to begin clearing their respective hangover's. Rising to stand, she tossed one to land on the bed beside her lover and uncorked the one she kept for herself, tipping it back against her lips to feel an nearly instantaneous effect.
"What's this…" Minerva asked, taking it in hand and lifting the labelless concoction.
"For the headache."
"Ahh… Perfect."
Starting out their morning with a shower, nothing more than to allow the water to cascade over their bodies to wash away the alcohol from the night before, the women chose to do so together. They shared kisses, touches, washed each other's backs and gave small massages, but they didn't venture into the realm of more than that, being as, despite the desire to deepen certain moments, both women were absolutely exhausted still.
Stepping out of the scalding warmth of water, they dried themselves and Hermione drew Minerva into her walk-in closet to find comfortable clothes to lounge in as they considered the course of their Sunday. Even though Minerva knew she had a mountain of work left on her desk, she wasn't in a rush to tend to it. The author, also, knew that she had writing to tend to and mail to check, but it didn't seem as pressing as it had yesterday. In the event that she had woken up alone, she would have worked. Being as she didn't, she chose to spend as much of it with the ebony haired witch, whatever amount the woman would give her, and the rest could be caught up with later.
Choosing loungewear, deciding to adorn themselves with comfier clothes, Hermione assisted her lover with tailoring some items like plaid pajama pants - something Hermione hoarded in abundance for the comfort of them - and tank tops. Once dressed, the women moved their party down into the kitchen to start making coffee and a spot of food for breakfast. Minerva knew they still needed to talk, to work out kinks of their new situation, but didn't quite know how to start that conversation. She was used to being the initiator, the authority during an affair, however, this was not an affair. And she was not the singular authority. As Hermione had proven, she possessed the power to take control of situations, to be the one who guided her by the hand, rather than being led. At least, that was Minerva's assumption.
Little did she know that, in those moments, Hermione hardly recognized the fact that her actions could be interpreted in such ways. With sex? Certainly. She enjoyed having some element of power over her lover. It was what she thought it was, her singular experience with a woman had been giving pleasure… Last night came as a great shock when the ebony haired witch willingly chose to reciprocate. By that time, admittedly, Hermione allowed her to only because Minerva had practically begged to be allowed between her legs. If she hadn't, Hermione would have gladly continued making love to the woman without ever being touched intimately herself.
Having yet to experience in life what a truly reciprocated love was, the author didn't, in fact, realize that the relationships about which she often wrote did mirror the reality. It wasn't one sided or placed upon the shoulders of one to express those most primal of urges, the urge for affection, the want of a listening ear. In this way, she was actually quite inexperienced. With Ron, she had simply been a hole to stick it in… With the woman who asked her back to her hotel room those years ago, she had been the one to offer a blissful five hours of continues sex, but the woman had never made to touch her. The woman simply wanted to be fucked by her. She had no intention of returning it. That was that.
With Minerva highly unaware of all of this, and the brunette not really aware that it was something needing to be addressed purely due to ignorance of such matters, they carried on as they were. Oblivious. Hermione made coffee while her lover dipped into the refrigerator for anything that could be determined as a breakfast item. Eggs… Jam… a bit of leftover ham and some cheese. It wasn't the most nutritionally efficient breakfast, but it was certainly suited to cure a hangover further.
They floated around one another in the space, cooking away, chatting idly about whatever struck their fancy. It was topical and light. Hermione stood by and watched her lover scramble eggs with a bit of cheddar and onions as she toasted some bread, buttered it, and stacked it on the cutting board to cut into halves. Again, they fell into domesticity and it was relaxed. Once all was finished, Minerva was handed two plates and she dished them out portions of fried ham and eggs, while Hermione cut up some fruit and brought to the island counter their communal plate of toast and bowl of sliced oranges. The brunette poured their coffee, keeping it black, and placed down their steaming beverages. The ebony haired witch took her seat on the opposite side of the counter, wondering if the brunette would take the place beside her. As usual, Hermione did not, but rather chose to stand opposite her lover.
"Do you always stand when you eat?" Minerva asked with an air of curiosity, forking a small pile of egg onto the corner of a piece of toast. She eyed the woman who did much the same as she took that bite of egg and toasted bread.
"More often than not, why?" Hermione replied while chewing her own bite, reaching for her coffee to wash it down with as she met the woman's gaze.
"It's not something I remember observing of you…" The Headmistress admitted after a few moments. Hermione gave a small snort, humor lighting in the depths of her eyes.
"What do you remember from observing me eat, love?" She asked, continuing to take forkfuls of egg and ham to dress her piece of toast with, sincerely curious if there was anything, any little habit, that her lover could recall. Humming thoughtfully, the older witch seemed to honestly take it into consideration.
"I remember… That you have a rather oddball habit of needing to take a little bit of everything from your plate for one mouthful… That you'd try to… Put a little bit of everything on your fork…" Mused the Scottish witch, vague memory of watching Hermione do this over many dinners, many years prior, entering into mind. Hearing this, Hermione snickered to herself quietly as she continued eating her breakfast.
"I still do that," She told the woman, warranting a bit of a raised brow, to which she could only adorn herself with a smile. "Anything else?"
Hardly a beat passed between them.
"It always rather grossed me out how you could drink a glass of milk and immediately pour another liquid… Pumpkin juice… Water… Iced tea, into it and drink it without rinsing it." Hermione's eyes widened upon hearing this, the soft smile playing on her lips widening to a crooked smirk.
"Well, aren't we precious… It all ends up in the same bloody place."
"You asked, I told you." Minerva's eyes glinted with amusement at the vaguely incredulous look she had received.
"Such disrespect, in my own home, too… For shame, Headmistress." The brunette laughed, giving her head a small shake. She reached for a slice of orange to cleanse her palet with.
"I will continue to judge you in silence then," Minerva chuckled, also reaching for a piece of fruit, suddenly realizing that it was there and offered. "Did I have any habits that you remember?" She gave the floor to her lover who dropped the clean orange peel onto the edge of her respective plate, eyeing the other woman who reached for another piece of toast to finish her eggs with.
"Well, now that you mention it… Every single item of food on your plate cannot touch, it needs to be neat, tidy, or else you will fiddle with it until it resembles something along the lines of order…" Hermione replied, waiting for the inevitable bite back of the woman across from her, the woman whose brows were inching up her forehead.
"There's nothing wrong with preferring an organized plate of food…"
"Minerva… There is organized and then there is obsessive compulsion - You are compulsive with it… Remember, I've watched you return a plate of food to a kitchen before for being sloppy." Stated the author with an air of humor, warranting a narrowed gaze.
"You eat with your eyes first, you know…" Such a statement caused the brunette's eyes to drag themselves from those of green and down to the woman's lips, the corner of her own curling further.
"Believe me, I'm well aware." A subtle flirtatious tone laced syllables spoken, the voice dropping ever so slightly in octaves. It gave the ebony haired witch pause for a moment… Then Minerva parted her lips to speak before drawing her upward.
"Are you flirting with me, Miss. Granger?" She asked, eyeing the woman on the other side of the counter over the rim of her mug.
"If you can suffer through doing what you did to me last night with that mouth, you can suffer through my flirtations the morning after, Headmistress." Minerva nearly choked on her beverage and had to clear her throat for a moment after. Unaccustomed, she remained, to the author who spoke most in a most forward fashion.
"Believe me, I suffered very little." There was a roughness to her voice. Hermione hummed softly and turned, taking her now empty plate to the sink.
"Well, that's good to know." She seemed to chuckle. Although that sound of amusement rose in the back of her throat, as soon as her back was turned to the woman seated there in her kitchen, her brows pinched a little. A feeling rose and she forced it down, discarding it as meaningless.
"Something is amiss…" The brunette heard behind her as she turned on the tap and began to wash the remnants of finished breakfast from her plate.
"Nothing is amiss, Minerva." Hermione replied as she scrubbed.
"I'm a cat animagus… Cats can sense when something isn't quite as it should be." Although the younger witch could not see her, Minerva had her eyes trained on the back of the author's head. Something swam in that head, something… But she couldn't put her finger on it.
"Perhaps, you might be projecting something, love?" The woman said as she grabbed for a drying towel and half turned toward her lover, a mild look etched upon tanned features. It was this which made emerald eyes narrow.
"I vaguely remember you saying no secrets between us… I take such requests to heart, I won't stand for lies by omission, either." The Headmistress took her own emptied plate in hand and slipped from the stool she sat on, bringing it to the sink, herself, to wash. A mixture of a look clouded her lover's features and she wondered what exactly was currently happening behind brown eyes to make the woman feel… Apprehension. The cat that she was felt the fear not displayed upon that tanned face. Hermione clearly didn't realize her discontent was stifling, rather she stood, wiping the water from her clean plate, and eyed the Headmistress.
That feeling… The questions… The wondering. It felt foreign and unwanted. She was a thirty seven year old woman, turning thirty eight, she should have all the answers by now. In the light of day, the events of the night before caught up to her and she found herself considering them with great interest and a bit of concern. There was an anxiety attached. Minerva's reciprocation, in moments, made her wonder if the woman had done such things to her body out of obligation, because she had leaped first at the opportunity to grant this Scottish witch the sex she seemed to want, need. Hermione hadn't asked for anything more than that… She didn't want to make Minerva regret her choice. The word… Regret, it toyed with her.
"Miss. Granger… You're staring." The Headmistress's soft voice drew Hermione from her reverie and she realized she was still drying the plate that was, by now, bone dry. Clearing her throat softly, the woman put it away in the cupboard and reached for Minerva's own wet, but clean, plate. The ebony haired witch turned and leaned against the counter, her arms lifting to casually cross over her chest. "Hermione… What's wrong?"
"Why did you have sex with me in the hallway last night?" Hermione questioned with a curiousness, her gaze questioningly falling upon emerald eyes that peered back at her with zero expression for a moment. Registering the question, the Headmistress shifted her weight a bit from foot to foot and took in a breath, expelling a sigh that moment afterward.
"I… Wanted to, it felt right to… I needed to…"
"You felt obligated to," Hermione continued, her brows lifting in further question, only to receive a look of puzzlement. "It's not required of you to, if you do feel an obligation…"
"It wasn't obligation, Hermione… I wanted to, for you and for me, do you think I would fall to my knees under any obligation to anyone? Hardly… Why on earth would you think that?" Bristling, the Headmistress didn't quite grasp where such an assumption could have come from, how it could have been made. It was almost laughable if it didn't make her feel so damn uncomfortable.
"It's just never happened to me before… Thirty seven years old and I've never had anyone fall to their knees or otherwise for me… In retrospect, I thought, perhaps, you thought maybe you needed to because I had…" Anxiety prickled beneath the skin as the author averted her gaze to her drying of the plate before stacking it with its others in the cupboard. She hung the drying town on the stove and turned back toward her place at the counter, lifting her mug of warm coffee to her lips and watching the Headmistress, briefly.
"You've had sex before…" Minerva's brows knitted as she made the statement, a question of her own hung about it as she watched the woman across from her lean against her own edge of countertop, and the place she usually stood. Hermione met her gaze and there was a strangely quiet little moment.
"I slept with a woman, yes… That doesn't mean that the woman slept with me." All the little pieces started to align. They constructed an odd sort of image that Minerva, at first, thought… No, couldn't possibly be right. With a persistent gaze, the author, however, only solidified the fact that what she was saying alluded to a circumstance, in which she had fucked a woman who hadn't reciprocated. It only bore more questions.
"Let me see if I understand this properly," Minerva ventured, a hand lifting to comb back through her long, loose, ebony locks in thought. "You… Your few experiences with sex… Concluded in you being the primary giver, so to speak, and the people who you have had these relations with didn't return the offered…" She let her words hang, her voice trailing off, watching as the author uncomfortably chewed on the inner corner of her mouth.
"Essentially." She almost seemed to wait for Minerva's disappointment. She could almost feel it coming on like a small wave.
"So, what happened last night in the hallway hadn't happened to you before…"
"Of course, not."
"And this makes you ask me if I felt obligated to make love to you."
"Exactly."
"You do realize that it is just a bit ridiculous to imagine being in a relationship with someone who expects you to be the only source of affection, do you? The only source of sex? It sounds like slavery rather than a partnership…" Minerva felt that little bit of Scottish temper bubble below the surface. She wasn't upset by her lover, not angry with Hermione, but the thought that seemed to be prevalent in the author's mind was Minerva had some sort of expectations that were not true.
Brown eyes hardened fractionally. Green eyes watched the woman draw herself inward, a bit of guard rising between them.
"What might seem ridiculous to you doesn't sound ridiculous to me, I've never been in a situation like this… All I know is, is that the person that I love more than anything in the world is standing in front of me offering me the chance to entertain such a relationship… One false move and I could find myself back at square one." It was fresh. It was new. The Headmistress had every opportunity to choose whether she was worth it or not. Nothing was set in stone, nothing was certain, in Hermione's mind, it felt like a trial run because it was all she knew. And as the Headmistress peered back into her eyes, she saw a simmering look there. That look brought a flush to the angular, pale cheeks of the women. Her arms over her chest seemed to tighten.
"You think my affection is so fleeting…" Minerva asked, sincerely, though not without a slight edge.
"You're trying me on." The brunette lifted her mug of coffee to her lips as she murmured the words that made the ebony haired witch push off the counter opposite from her and close the distance. Minerva took the mug Hermione had just sipped from and placed it down on the counter behind her. The look about her eyes was captivating. They shined with frustration and confusion, affection, but most importantly a severity that the brunette didn't expect to find. Hermione felt hands on the sides of her neck and thumbs against either side of her jaw, the pads of them running, soothingly, against the edges of her face. The look the author wore was that of pondering and, from what the Headmistress had further detected, a bit of concern.
"I'm not trying you on, you aren't a piece of clothing or something I can return to get my money back," Minerva practically growled, her voice deepening as she forced the woman to maintain the gaze held by her eyes. "You can't make me do a singular thing that I don't want to do, if I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be here… If I hadn't wanted to make love to you last night, I wouldn't have… This is real life, not a story, and it's not an unfulfilling one night affair with a woman who clearly didn't deserve what you gave her… But you, my dear, need to stop with all this silliness about trying to bend yourself into whatever it is you think I want…"
"You didn't say 'Yes, Miss. Granger, I would like to be in this relationship with you', Minerva… You said 'Do not make me regret choosing this'..." Hermione cut her off and felt the thumbs against her jaw still.
The women looked at one another. Minerva felt her heart drop upon realizing the impact of her words and acceptance of Hermione's offer to try. As it would be, the author was a woman who was deeply, and most viscerally, impacted by words. Words were often all she had had in the years. She was a writer. Words were not often forgotten.
"I… Did say that." Minerva stated, her eyes searching those of brown and seeing within them a look of hurt that tried so mightily to be masked. She'd seen that look in her office many weeks ago when she had said I do not love you… When she had tried to hurt the woman as deeply as she had been hurting. When she had tried to gain the upper hand that Hermione always seemed to regain quickly. Before she could further explain, before she could apologize, the author continued.
"I'm not invincible, or unbreakable, or… Listen, I keep words, I pay attention closely to how things are said, you should be forewarned of that… Because I will take words and run with them like it's my job… And by asking me not to make you regret any of this, you have implied that it is a potential which I need to prove is not, prove a worthiness to you… All over again… Which I am absolutely, one hundred percent going to rise to that challenge because you deserve the commitment. " Saying it outloud almost made it hurt more. Finally, Hermione let herself feel what she had tried so desperately to avoid the night before when this ebony haired woman accepted her. It wasn't an acceptance of joy, it wasn't an acceptance spoken with a tenderness, it was a thinly veiled threat of If you fuck this up… There was a shoe waiting to drop somewhere and that was terrifying. Everything in Hermione's body wanted to fight it, fight that urge, like she had learned to do in therapy sessions. But that was not easily done in the face of this particular woman. She caved in. She put on a face. She told herself everything was going to be fine because she'd make it fine. But now they were standing in her kitchen after what could have been a marvelous breakfast and day, Minerva pestering her into opening up the box of goodies her mind offered, and now they were in the thick of it.
Day one of entering into some sort of courtship and Hermione was already fucking it up.
Tanned hands reached and took those paler, slender ones beneath them. Hermione turned her head and pressed her lips to both palms of the woman who had held her, then removed them. She needed a breath. Just a moment. She needed to regain herself, take everything, pack the feelings away into tiny little boxes so that she could function without making the Headmistress feel worse. Everything… Everything was fine.
As the brunette shifted from beneath her hold and began to circle round to the other side of the counter, leaving the Headmistress to lean against the edge where Hermione usually stood, she thought back on that moment. Hermione, the woman who held her so captivated by the most… Sweet and sincere words, who offered up herself in such a way that Minerva could have only ever dreamed of, and her response… Don't make me regret it. That had been a horrible thing to say. The entire night, Hermione had been so… Thoughtful and considerate, confident, lovely. Meanwhile, beneath all of that, she was also trying to vy for her affection, work to make a love happen between them.
"I really shouldn't have said anything, I am very sorry that I had." A voice, growing stronger, entered into Minerva's mind as she stared into the depth of that mug of coffee on the counter. She lifted her gaze to see the author in a stance much like her own - two hands holding to the edge of the counter before her, just slightly bent at the waist, but her shoulders were slumped. That look about her face… That pinched look. That look of someone who was being harder on themselves than absolutely necessary… She'd seen it a thousand times before in all those many moments she misinterpreted.
"My darling… I should be apologizing for saying that to you when you presented your hopes to me, I…," She paused, watching the woman turn her back and lift a hand to wipe away whatever moisture was beginning to collect beneath her eyes, hiding from her the fact that tears had sprung there. Trying to hide a look of pain. The Headmistress shifted from her place and approached the back of the woman, her hands reaching to place themselves on the woman's back. "I never should have implied that. It was thoughtless and… It was cruel to you."
"Perhaps it's all just a bit too fast, I got ahead of myself and tried pulling you with me… You hardly know if my quirks are tolerable yet... "
"Those quirks are your feelings." Minerva furthered, her arms tucking around the woman's waist as she felt the author relax, minutely, in her hold. Standing there, she pressed a small kiss to the top of Hermione's shoulder, feeling her temper subside and make way for feelings of remorse. Here was this person, someone who she had loved, who she was beginning to fall in love with over again through the most tender of moments shared between, and she hardly knew how to speak to them in a way that aligned with her feelings. So much of how she had spoken to Hermione in the weeks that had passed, from the unkindness in her office to even that short and few words the previous day, made her seriously consider herself and their ramifications.
"It's all alright, everything is fine…" The brunette witch stated. "Now, moving on… Is there any work that you need to get done today?"
Minerva had tried to further the conversation. She had even attempted at an apology. Hermione brushed it off, she shut down, something which the Headmistress hadn't expected to occur. It made her wonder after who Hermione was beneath that mask of confidence. She watched the woman wipe away tears, draw herself up, and just move on as though nothing had happened. She told Minerva there was no need to apologize, it was silliness, like she had said, and then shook it off. It almost made Minerva's head spin how quickly Hermione seemed to have feelings of anguish or pain, and then how quickly she seemed to just… Let them go. As much as it confused her, it didn't deter her from wanting to spend time with the woman. It just meant that she still had much learning about her lover to do.
As she had learned, words often remained embedded in Hermione's mind. It made her choose her own quite carefully moving forward. In doing so, Minerva began to realize that she, sometimes, actually sounded quite unkind toward the woman. She had to stop herself from saying things that alluded to the potential end of their partnership, even if it was only by way of teasing.
Sunday bled into Monday, Hermione venturing with her to Hogwarts to spend the night, comfortably, in Minerva's bed when they decided they wanted to sleep… And actually just sleep together. The following day, while the Headmistress tended to class, the author sat at the desk in Minerva's rooms and wrote, working on her own book, as the Headmistress tended to her teaching obligations. What she didn't see, because Minerva was not there to witness it, was Hermione writing a short letter to Emelda, her therapist, who she chose to see in light of recent events. There was more to her mind than the Headmistress was aware of. She didn't mention her struggle, and she did absolutely struggle, but rather turned to inward self reflection. Feelings that had long remained dormant began to creep up in the most inconvenient of moments. Feelings of questioning herself, her place, and privilege. She didn't know how to process them. She convinced herself of not knowing from what they stemmed. Of course, she knew. The Headmistress would always be the sore spot. Even if they had aged, even if they had changed, Minerva used her tone and phrasing in such a way that jarred and heightened the woman. Hermione wanted to work through that… But the question remained to be: How?
TBC...