Hermione and Narcissa met every other day on the following week, and most of their dates ended in Narcissa's bed. For some reason, they never went to Hermione's place. Narcissa was out of town for the weekend though, which was why Hermione took advantage of her free time to floo to Hogsmeade and visit Neville, as she had promised to.
Her friend welcomed her into his office after a much-needed tour of the castle. To Hermione's great surprise, Hogwarts had not changed much. Every part that had been destroyed during the Battle of Hogwarts had been rebuilt to the same. The only visible difference was the presence of multiple plaques and portraits commemorating those who had passed during the war. She struggled walking past the long golden panel that covered an entire wall of the main hall and detailed all Hogwarts students who had fought on the 2nd of May 1998 and had not lived to tell the tale.
When Hermione walked out of Neville's office, after a three-hour chat, she practically fell into a mass of students. It seemed like they had been waiting for her, considering they were all handing her books or parchments so sign. Though she was a little embarrassed, she signed a couple autographs. It was only as she was making her way through the crowd that she noticed the young boy with an annoyed expression on his face who was sitting on a bench nearby. It was Joy.
"Oh, hello there. Is everything alright? You missed our latest ..." she greeted him.
But Joy suddenly jumped up and walked past her without a word. Hermione considered going after him for a moment, but she then settled for writing him a letter when she came home.
By the time Hermione arrived at the clinic, on the following week, she was late for her Floo-meeting with Joy, who had not answered her owl. She was so rushed that she nearly knocked over Anselma, whom she had not seen standing in the hallway with Luna.
"Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were back!" Hermione apologized before beaming at her mentor. She was truly happy to see her.
"Well, I could not miss my appointment with our newest patient. That is actually what I was discussing with Miss Lovegood" Anselma cleared up.
Luna nodded knowingly, but neither of them seemed in a hurry to fill Hermione in.
"Our newest patient?" Hermione asked, though she knew she was already late for her meeting.
"Yeah, that would be me." a male's voice came from behind them.
The three witches turned around to face the raven-haired man who had just walked out of the elevator. It was Harry. How could Hermione have forgotten that she had recommended he saw Anselma? She smiled at her friend, kissed him on the cheek, and finally locked herself in her office for her meeting with Joy.
Hermione's lateness did not matter though, for Joy was nowhere to be found when she reached Neville's office. Neville himself had not been able to find him. Nevertheless, Hermione took advantage of the situation to discuss Bethany's work with Neville. She was able to convince him to propose Hogwarts reopened their Muggle Studies classes with a Muggleborn as a teacher. Minerva would certainly not be against it.
When she came out of her office, Hermione fell nose to nose with Ginny, who was holding a huge bouquet of the oddest flowers Hermione had ever seen. They looked like golden plums that had been poked onto a very leafy stem.
"Hello there, Doctor Granger" the redhead greeter her "is Luna around?"
"She is" Hermione nodded while offering to take Ginny's coat. "She should be in our breakroom."
Ginny thanked her and strolled off to their breakroom while Hermione filled in some paperwork at the counter. A couple minutes later, she was so deep in her files that she had forgotten about Ginny already, and she simply let Harry walk past her to retrieve his robes. It was only when two voices shrieked that she realized what she had done.
She ran to the breakroom fast enough to see Ginny jump off Luna's lap, sending dozens of weird flowers flying across the room. Harry just stood there, dumbstruck, his robes awkwardly hanging off his outstretched arm.
"You ... You and Luna ..." he muttered after a moment; his gut very dry. Sure, he could not reproach Ginny anything when he himself was shagging wizards. But it did feel strange to see two of his exes snogging.
"I wanted to tell you ..." Ginny said, her distress slowly settling.
"So that's what Ron was talking about, that other time, in the bar"
"Yes."
Hermione watched as Ginny's eyes watered, helpless. Ginny had loved Harry so deeply. How many hours had they spent talking about him? How many years had she been pining after him? Of course, she had not wanted him to find out this way.
"Harry, I'm sorry..."
"Don't be" Harry said, while scratching the back of his head "I just want you to be happy." He smiled awkwardly and turned on his heels to leave the room. Ginny looked distraught. Hermione slowly walked away, and she was glad to find Anselma in the hall. Soon, they were deep in conversation.
Her mentor had a lot to catch up with. Luna had already given her most files about their shared patients, but their Ministry research work was still to be talked about. The longer they talked, the closer Anselma came to a very unsettling conclusion:
"I should leave the clinic to you and Mrs Lovegood; she has proven herself worthy, even though her methods are unusual. Your practical work is better than mine; I lack your empathy. If we work this way, I can be at the Ministry all week, you can be at the clinic four out of five days, and our research will advance much faster" she explained.
"But what about your patients?"
"Mrs Lovegood can take care of most of them."
"What about the others? What about Harry? I don't think it would be right for her to be his therapist ..."
"Mister Potter has renounced to therapy. We both believe that it is not suited for the type of struggle he is encountering. As for the other patients, I have already made a list of those who, in my opinion, would be in better hands with a more experienced professional." Anselma went on, while handing Hermione a piece of parchment.
Anselma had written down a dozen of names, next to which she had scribbled a couple of words that roughly described what the patient was struggling with. Apparently, she had ranked them from lightest to heaviest war-induced trauma. Mrs Patil was the second one on the list. Hermione could not help sighing – she would have preferred to leave this one to Luna. But then she reached the bottom of the list, and her heart skipped a beat.
N. Black (form. Malfoy): personality disorder (?), many missing memories (tempered?),
traces of abuse, self-destructive, tendency to manipulation ...
The list went on until it reached the bottom of the page, but Anselma's handwriting was getting so rushed that Hermione could not quite decipher it. Her entire body suddenly turned cold, as though it was shutting down. It could not be. Anselma had to be wrong.
"I was a little rushed, but you will have my complete files in time" Anselma added as she noticed Hermione advanced state of distress.
"I ..." Hermione breathed out, but she felt too numb to go on right away. "I can't do this, Anselma"
"Of course, you can. If any witch can manage it, it is Hermione Granger" her mentor reassured her, gently patting her arm.
And then she was gone. And Hermione was still standing there, as though carved in stone, her eyes glued to the mysterious words that followed Narcissa's name. The sensible thing to do was to tell Anselma that Narcissa and her were too close for her to be her therapist, and that Luna should take over. Hermione knew that. Yet, she could not help wondering about the specifics she would find in Narcissa's file. She deserved to know, didn't she? After all, she had kissed the woman and slept with her numerous times already. She had to know.
Hermione bailed on her two next dates with Narcissa. She had not seen anyone over that week. Every time she tried to speak to someone, she could feel her guts wrench and her throat tightening. Even her patients seemed to notice that she was not very keen on commenting their rambling. Joy, who had finally showed up to one of their meetings, even stopped mid-sentence to ask her if she was alright. He had explained that he had been avoiding her because he had discovered how well-known she was. In a way, it had felt like a betrayal to him, because he had thought her to be his secret, when everyone actually knew who she was and what she did for a living.
And then it was Friday afternoon, the clock was ticking, and her appointment with Narcissa was nearing. Part of her still hoped that the blonde would not show up. After all, Anselma must have told her who her new therapist was. Or maybe she knew, but she did not consider it to be an issue. Best case scenario, she considered Hermione to be enough of a professional to keep her private life and career apart.
It was time at last. Hermione breathed in, walked up to her office door, and drew the last of her strength to open it. Narcissa sat there, in the waiting room, her legs crossed, holding an elegant flask between her lean fingers. When she heard Hermione's steps, she looked up, closed the flask, dropped it in her purse, and walked up to Hermione.
"Doctor Granger" she greeted her while holding out her hand. Her eyes looked a bit glassy.
Hermione seized it apprehensively. "Miss Black" she answered in the same curt tone.
She led Narcissa into the office and closed the door behind them. She had just turned around, that the blonde was pushing her against the closed panel. She captured her lips and a hand travelled up her body, under her v-neck pullover, beneath her bra, to grab her breast.
"You missed a couple appointments, doctor" Narcissa breathed against her neck, her thumb toying with Hermione's growingly erect nipple.
The brunette could not push her legs together fast enough before Narcissa's knee was between her thighs, rubbing against her core. She wanted to fight it, but her body was so responsive to that woman. She felt the heat rushing through her body, the blood pumping in her cunt, the moist dampening her knickers. For a moment, Hermione thought that Narcissa could probably make her do anything.
The next moment, she smelled the heavy scent of alcohol in the blonde's breath, and she found the strength to push Narcissa off her. "You're drunk" she stated neutrally, trying to ignore that one of Narcissa's hands was still in her bra, and the other one on her arse.
"Fetch me a potion. You will see that I will still be very intent on taking you against that door. Or over your desk. Or on your patient's sofa. Or all of the above." the blonde's argued, while pinching Hermione's nipple and leaning in to nip at her neck.
The brunette tried to make up her mind, but it was challenging to stay level-headed when the sexiest witch on Earth was kissing your neck and groping you in all the best places. And saying such things to your face. She did always keep some Sober-Up potions in her office in case a patient came in while intoxicated. But even if she gave it to Narcissa, it would still not feel right. Not when Narcissa had gotten herself drunk in the middle of the afternoon, not after she had read all those things about her in her file.
But then Narcissa was unzipping her skirt and dropping to her knees while the fabric fell to the floor, and Hermione could feel her lips travelling up her thighs, closer to her very obvious arousal.
"Wait" she managed to breath out.
With a flick of her wrist, she had the potion flying out of her cabinet and into her hand. The blonde looked up to her, rolled her eyes, and grabbed the vial. She took it all down in one gulp before she roughly cast the bottle aside got back to business.
"Wait" Hermione said once more, pressing her thighs together. "Do you still want this?"
"Obviously" Narcissa drawled, and then her fingers were around Hermione knickers, pulling them down her legs. Next thing she knew, Hermione was gripping the doorknob for dire life while Narcissa's tongue was between her nether lips.
Soooo ... I've been crazy busy lately, but I'll try to be more present on this story over the next weeks.
Hope you're still there with me and are having a nice summer.