Hermione Granger, a talented healer of the St. Mungo's Dark Curse Ward, rubbed her sore eyes, stretched, sighed, and dug back into the sparkling charts, convoluted graphs and lists of potion ingredients whose potential value were close to zero. In the east, chilly wrapping itself in ragged clouds, the sun was rising, ready, if anything, to dive into the nearest cloud and sleep there until evening.
Hermione followed it with an envious glance and returned to her calculations, passionately dreaming of a cup of coffee and gingerbread. Box of gingerbread, it seemed, stayed hidden in her table since last weekend, when her next date did not go according to plan and at the end of the evening she simply ran away from her unfortunate boyfriend. And then she ate ice cream, washed it down with a cup of cocoa and complained to Crookshanks about her cruel fate.
Five years have passed since the war. Hermione received the title of Master of Arithmancy at the French Sorbonne, a faculty for gifted wizards and sorceresses, where she went immediately after graduating from Hogwarts. As it turned out, not only she was seduced by France with its more progressive views on magic and life. Racking her head over the connection between Arithmancy and Potion Making, Hermione somehow wandered into the city archives, the Forbidden Section for Magicians, and came across Draco there.
The Great Battle and its consequences somehow immediately wiped off the difference between the status of blood, which suddenly became of little interest to the heroes who had lost their relatives and friends, past feuds and stupid prejudices. Draco, by a strange mockery of fate, acquired the gift of Divination and after graduating from Hogwarts left for the same Sorbonne to study the Predictions from the famous prophet throughout France - Monsieur Julien, rumored to be a descendant of Nostradamus himself. Sybill Trelawney was overjoyed.
In reality, Draco fled from himself: Lucius was released from Azkaban and with every passing day he grew more and more depressed, wandering like a shadow in the garden planted around the family estate, he was frightening Narcissa with incoherent cries about the dementors and atrocities of Voldemort, and keep calling for Snape. Few people were interested in the affairs of the acquitted Death Eaters, so Draco, tormented by ministerial campaigners, clawed the permission to cross the borders for his parents and took them with him to France, where he intended to finish his studies. Time passed, the magical healers threw up their hands, the Muggle psychiatrists, of course, would immediately have put Lucius in the ward for the violently insane, if he tried to tell them about charms, wands and dark curses, so, another way was needed.
Once again getting completely confused with her calculations, Hermione hurried to one place that always gave her peace of mind - to the library, in which, by chance, the archive was found, and stumbled there upon Draco. Over the last year at Hogwarts, they managed to establish some resemblance of truce - yesterday's children who had gone through the war and torture had nothing argue about anymore, and sometimes Hermione often sat up with boys and girls from other faculties, in whose eyes she read the same despair that she saw in the mirror every morning. She knew that Draco was eager to help his parents, which is why he was now studying for the stupid title of Master of Divination: there were many specialists at the Sorbonne, including professors of the Dark Arts, and this greatly facilitated the task. And Divination, well, maybe their future will one day not be as hopeless as it seemed now. It was nice to predict what tomorrow holds from time to time.
They exchanged a few words, remembered the past year, gossiped about the latest rumors and, without further ado, turned their conversation to the professors who once caused their current wandering around the world: Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape became the link that united irreconcilable enemies from two faculties: the loss of Heads of the Houses made the children friends, having done what no one had been able to do for two hundred years.
In the midst of the battle, ignoring the Lord's whims to appear on demand, Severus Snape instead gathered the children from the second and first years and took them with him, intending to hide them in the Dungeons. There the Death Eaters overtook him. They did not have time to understand who was on whose side, they thirsted for the blood of Voldemort's most faithful spy, who too often took a tidbit from under their noses.
Green and orange flashes were hovering over the heads of the frightened little ones, the Dungeons were full of screams and obscene language, it seemed that one of the Death Eaters used Fyendfire, Severus was pressed against the wall, with terrified children behind his back, until at a critical moment Minerva appeared at the stairs, leading a horde of Hufflepuffs for the same goal as Professor Snape. The Gryffindor lioness decided to find out the true loyalties of the most hated Headmaster of Hogwarts later and rushed to his rescue instead. In the end, they both protected the children, not dividing them into Gryffindor and Slytherin, into noble and Mudbloods... Many hours and eighteen killed Death Eaters later, the snotty and dirty kids led Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger and Lavander Brown to the rubble and told them that the professors were hiding there somewhere and needed their help.
The professors were redirected to St. Mungo, Flitwick and Pomona Sprout took over the management of the school, and Lavander Brown, the main fashionista of Hogwarts and the universally recognized Gryffindor fool, became determined to learn Healing. Later, she secretly confessed to Hermione and Draco that she often saw nightmares of bloodied Professors and a bunch of frightened children around them.
Five years passed, Lavender, Draco and Hermione have long received their titles of Masters, Hogwarts was rebuilt, educational reforms were muddled through, making it possible to stop sorting children into faculties as zealously as before, but neither Minerva nor Severus left the hospital. The depleted magic reserve, Hellfire and the cheerful mixture of dark curses did their job to them, the magical coma was replaced by weakness, weakness was replaced by depression, and depression was followed by indifference. Minerva, at least, continued to fight, not for her own sake, but, at least for the sake of the children, still waiting for the return of their beloved Head, Snape unlike her completely withdrew into himself, and stopped reacting to anything.
"I got an owl from Lavender, she invites us to London, says that she is frightened to do her new project alone,'' Draco began awkwardly, after Hermione once again complained about the never-ending mess in the Wizarding World and told Draco that her parents decided to stay in Australia, they were quite happy and were telling her to stop doing nonsense and come to them for chasing kangaroos and drinking cocktails.
"I can't believe Lavender is serious about her mind," Hermione shook her head.
"Unlike us," Draco snorted. "While she is there preparing to save the world, you and I are wasting time and energy on a degree that no one needs, so what this Arithmancy has given you, Granger?"
"I want to investigate the connection between Arithmancy and Potions, but what are you doing with your Divination, Draco?"
"I can tell you how your date with that pimply guy who has been staring at you for forty minutes will end."
"Thank you, I will refrain. But truthfully, Draco?"
"Truthfully, I want to help my father, and you, Granger, who are you kidding? If you hammered something into your head, then even the apocalypse will not stop you."
"Professor McGonagall gave me a lot, she was able to turn a boring girl with bushy mane hair into what I am now."
"Not that you become any less boring," Draco smiled radiantly and received a hit on the back of the head with a book from Hermione. "I understand what you mean, I feel so bad without my godfather, he would definitely be amused by my Divination. And the father is constantly looking for him. It's hard to watch."
"We must go home, Malfoy. Both of us."
The next month, Madame Pomfrey looked in surprise at the timidly smiling trio of newly-made friends, whispered about something with a portrait of Dylis Derwent, ran to Madame Sprout and a couple of weeks later Miriam Sprout, Pomona's niece, the leading healer of St. Mungo's, took the guys for the Healer's Apprenticeship.
Two years later, the friends received their second Master's degree. Draco worked with mental disorders, Lavender took over obstetrics and care for children, and Hermione, of course, chose dark curses and their consequences.
And now she was trying in vain to figure out how to increase the dose of belladonna in the Calming Draught and not kill the patient in the process, and Draco whined right above her ear, intending to pull the stubborn know-it-all out for a lunch.
"Granger, Lavender will kill us now, if we don't try her signature lasagna, so get your chic front off the stool and let's get out of here."
"Wait for a bit."
"You said that half an hour ago, nothing will change, I am telling you this as a fortune-teller."
"February is coming, I need to improve the Calming Draught on time, you know."
Draco knew. In winter, many patients experienced exacerbation of their ailments, but Professor Snape reacted particularly sharply to the coldest month of winter. Draco suspected that February was associated with many key moments in Snape's life, one way or another connected with his time of serving to Voldemort, the subconscious in this way tried to save the disturbed psyche from old traumas. And Granger worked day and night to keep her patients from unnecessary shock.
Draco knew firsthand that no one could stand between a Gryffindor swot and her stubbornness, and for some time now Severus Snape became Hermione's personal project.