Warming the Dungeons
I had a hard time deciding if I would write again for this story. You see, I hadn't planned to, but some reviewers seemed to envisage it rather hopefully, so I began to really wonder. ^_^ But still, I wanted to write a story of compassion. And it may turn into a deeper shade of emotion, but. rather friendship than love, I suppose, and a story about friendship seems more difficult to frame than a basic love story, doesn't it? I mean, when am I supposed to stop? They won't get married; neither can I drive them to the bed and then consider that it's finished. I don't think there's a definite end to friendship, and turning points are not sharply delimited, because there are no physical levels to climb, so. It's not that easy to organise when I don't know to where I'm heading. I finally decided to go on with vignettes more than real chapters, with more or less time between them, and I'll try to make sense of it. But everything isn't already definite in my brain, so I'm still opened to idea and suggestions. Get the better of it until I have a clear project about the story, because then I won't be that much convincible any more and it will cost a lot of arguing to make me change something! For example, I'm still trying to decide if everything will be seen from Hermione's focalisation. I rather think not, but I may change my mind.
Enough rambling, to the point.
2. "Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore" (Virgile, Eneide)
Twelve days later, in the hospital wing.
In the large, white room, everything was quiet. The 3rd Year Hufflepuff girl who had been wailing earlier had now calmed enough to sleep, thanks to Madam Pomfrey's ministrations. The nurse had run out of pain easing potions and the next set of it was still cooling in her office. It had to rest for some hours, in order to become efficient. Harry was discreetly reading, in another bed. He was just there as an extra-measure of safety, since his scar had had all those strange reactions in the troubled period which had followed the battle. Not that there was any place to waste, given the circumstances, but the medical domain had been so enlarged anyway, that one bed more or less didn't really disturb. At the end of the room, near the window, 17 beds away from Harry, some of them containing friends, was Severus Snape. He wasn't awake. Unfortunately, though, it was the 11th day he spent out of consciousness. He was the most puzzling case in the hospital, the only one still in a life threatening state. But then, he had been one of the most exposed fighters. Perhaps his unknown ailment had something to do with his Dark Mark. Hermione was vaguely thinking, leaning against the cool surface of the window, absent-mindedly letting her eyes wander over the country.
She heard Poppy Pomfrey's professional steps behind her. "If he doesn't wake up, I'll have to go back to my cauldron," the nurse said to the silent room.
Hermione turned on her heel, smiling tiredly, to see the shocked look plastered on Harry's face. She exchanged an amused glance with the nurse.
"She's only joking, Harry." She finally explained. "It's her way of reminding me that I have to go and brew her some useful stuff." Then she addressed the mediwitch: "So, what do you need?"
"Well, I think it could be safer to ask me what I don't need, dear. But if you'd be kind enough to concoct some sleep potion, I think it's the most urgent, with all those nightmares they have."
"Can't blame them," Harry interrupted "but it's good to know that nothing more crucial than that is missing for now, isn't it?"
A heavy silence planned for an instant. Hermione didn't want to think to those who had left their lives out there, around Hogwarts. Those who weren't even here, to be rescued. Especially not to one of them. "You're right, boy." She heard. "Of course. Also I'd have preferred to save more of them." the voice drove higher and its owner turned away to inspect her shelves. After a while, she stopped trembling and sighed. And then said "So young pupils out there, fighting. That was madness."
Hermione walked to her chair, next to Harry's bed. "Yes, but we won." She answered.
A clock sang some silly tune somewhere, and Hermione asked for the time.
"Four o'clock." Harry answered.
"Oh. I'd better be going if you want your potion ready for tonight, then."
The nurse nodded and Hermione stood up again. She glanced a last time toward Severus Snape's form, on his bed, and Harry smiled at her.
"Don't worry, Hermione, if he or Ginny opens an eye and say Hello, we'll be here to answer. And we'll come straight to you, anyway."
Ginny was one of the few who had received a long-sleep inducing potion, so that she would rest and her body would have the time to regain some strength.
"Yeah, I know you would. Though Ginny still has 15 hours to sleep, hasn't she?"
Harry gave a look at the chronometer on Ginny's bed, facing him. "Well, 15 hours and 23 minutes, that's what it says."
Hermione sighed. In a bit more than 15 hours, someone would have to tell Ginny about her brother. That was not a task she envied, well, admitting that it wouldn't be hers. She had already volunteered to stay at Snape's side when he'd care to come back to the world. Assuming that he would. Definitely.
She went out of the white room, into the stone corridors of the castle. Each meter of it, each carved niche into the wall, each suit of armour reminded her of something. None of her memories had to be precise, there was just that vague intensity in the air, letting her know that would she have cared to search, she would have find a certain amount of her life bound to those places. Non-events of perfectly unimportant days. those of classes and homework and nothing else, especially the numerous nothings else, and as she moved along the hallways she knew so well, she felt the comfortable certainty that she could have remembered a little of those everyday dramas at each step. The result of more than 6 years in the school. It brought her a most needed safety in the middle of the storm, and she welcomed it willingly, taking a deep breath. How she loved the castle. The community of its inhabitants. Even then, she was just happy to be with them. Professor McGonagall walking rapidly to the Headmaster's Office was enough to tell her she wasn't alone, and they were fighting together. That's where they found their toughness. How she would miss it.
And suddenly, the still two seconds before silently creeping thought hit her in the face. And returned her stomach. She would miss it, more than metaphorically. It wasn't a way of saying. More than six years was nearly seven, and everything would disappear. Her surrounding would be reduced to nothing. The castle wouldn't be hers any more, her friends would still be there, but. Who were her friends now: Harry. and? She didn't even know for sure; what a mess her life was. And, most importantly, how about that microcosm of people she knew without knowing them? Those to whom she spoke, without confiding. The world to which she belonged, in which she had learned to live. She didn't want it to become. what? Tears were prickling in her slowly blurring eyes. To dissolve. Dissolve among the vast community of the world and never gather again. Oh. Well. She breathed again, and began to walk on, wondering when she had stopped. She was being stupid, after all, or rather having very muggle-born ideas. She was a witch, and consequently belonged to the wizarding world. Wizarding England, the one where everybody knew each other, or nearly. Yes. She would find her cosmos back, only a bit grown up into the whole wizarding community. That was not an annihilation, she thought reasonably, just a mutation. Nice, clean, bearable mutation, and she would find her own marks back. She thanked any God there could have been for the wizarding world not being as vast and frightening as the multitude of muggles. It was nearly like a new school year, after all. Life had never gone without any changes. She was ready to face those changes, the real world, to leave school. It was frightening, but not nearly as horrifying as her previous fear had been. Beside, it was Hogwarts she was speaking - no, thinking about. Not any school. It would always be there for her, would she need it. Professor McGonagall would never banish her from her office because she had graduated. And Dumbledore. It was so good to know that everybody in England, or nearly, had been at Hogwarts and thus, would understand her. Sort of, anyway, added a bitter voice she immediately proscribed. She felt like she wouldn't have been able to survive that particular event only to leave school. Absence of the castle was too much, added to the painfully void where Ron.
Ouch.
Apparently she was at her destination, but the laboratory wouldn't open alone. Which was quite reasonable, considering the substances and material stored in it. So she snapped back to reality and spoke the password for the countless time that week. Why again had she been appointed store-filler of Mme Pomfrey?. Oh, yes that sorrow coming back deeper and deeper each time she was left alone and unoccupied, the need to help, do something, anything.
And for Ron, it was too late. God. No, no, no, not going to think of it. She sighed. Then admonished herself for it, and took what should have been a steady breath to prove herself that she felt all right. Which, of course, wasn't the case. Who would tell Ginn- No, no. The potion. Yes.
She drifted to intellectual concentrated mode, in an attempted to ignore the physical ache inside her chest. Take that away, she was a living fire, destruction. but apparently that particular phenomena wouldn't be kind enough to at least strike her and leave, it had to keep her alive and hurt, and hurt again.
What was she mulling over, again?
Work. And peace of mind, at least simulated.
That evening, at the end of the Dinner, in a much less populated than usual Great Hall.
Hermione was carefully playing with the potatoes she had pretended to eat for about half an hour, in the lack of conversation of a tired evening, at the Gryffindor table. For the second time, Harry had been allowed to eat there, and was sitting in front of her. From what she saw of his plate and the glimpse she caught of his fork every other second, he had renounced to the potatoes, and was merely swinging his fork above his cake. Back and forth, back and forth, back.
"It was his favourite."
She looked up to the cake in Harry's plate. Indeed, chocolate and a bit of pumpkin.
"Right," she said, feeling stupidly laconic.
No matter how much she tried, she found nothing to add. Small talk had never been her strength, but that silence, unbreakable as it was, made her feel guilty. Surely they had to speak. What was to say, though, except suffering ruminations? A sentence she had one day read, or heard, or maybe thought - it didn't matter - came back to her, about friends being the ones by whom admitting weakness could never be perceived as complaining. It gave her a tiny amount of resolution, and she choose to use it before it left, being conscious it wouldn't last long.
"Harry, I think we should speak. Of it. We need to say. I mean, to express what-" Her voice died in her throat.
After a silence, he answered. "Yes."
Foresightedly, her energy left her and she drifted back to loneliness. He probably didn't come across anything to put together in words either, she thought. She gave an impatient wave, sending her potatoes back to the kitchen. Unfortunately, what had to happen happened, and the same dessert popped up defiantly, in front of her. She tried to take it philosophically, reasonably, analytically. There was no way the House Elves could have known. They couldn't stop serving her that cake she hated. Yes, she hated it, had always disliked it, and was now moreover touched by sickening memories at its sight. It was still the same one, the one she always gave to Ron, because he was so fond of it. No. Thinking that way was a bad thing. She didn't know what was good, but that wasn't.
"Hermione?" Harry's concerned voice asked kindly.
She stared back at him. Apparently she had given an odd paralysed look to her portion for the last minute.
"I kn-" she vaguely registered in the background, while glancing back to her food. But it was still there. "Oh, no!" she interrupted whatever Harry had wanted to say. And she stood up and left for the door, feeling a bit sick.
Walking without paying attention, she stormed out of there. Or so she thought. She should have engulfed in a high corridor, run away from the offending victuals, through the portrait of the fat Lady, up the stairs, curled up in her - . but instead, she hit something - someone? Never mind.
She nearly lost her balance and was caught by a stable grip. A grip from a little bit above her. Not much. McGonagall. Right, she had bumped onto the woman. And she had to be very upset to think of her professor in those terms, some part of her mind registered ironically.
"Miss Granger?"
Oh, yes, she had to produce some articulated sound. Preferably now. Right now.
"Yes, professor... Err..." What next? "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention." Thank God for civil reflexes.
She wanted to step away, but the hand hadn't released her. Oh, what had she forgotten? She finally resolved to look up. and met worried eyes. Right, then, it was compassionate professors she had forgotten.
"You do seem to me too much upset to be let wandering alone through the castle, Miss Granger."
Silence.
"Anything I could do?" the comforting woman added after a short while.
"No, thanks." Hermione threw a meaningful glance in Harry's direction.
"Well, I believe Mr. Potter will survive the evening without you." Apparently se had caught that one. "And would you object to a cup of tea, if I happened to suggest one?"
"Well, I-" No, Hermione did nothing. No plausible excuse.
"There's a Headmaster here, having spoken enough with your friend and knowing him enough to help, you know. And believe me," at that McGonagall searched her eyes "from experience, I can tell you Dumbledore is not one to let him alone." She took an innocent breath. "I believe there's rumours about woman-talks helping to sort thoughts out. Perhaps it is the ideal moment to make your own opinion about it."
Hermione stayed still, slowly levelling her gaze up to her Professor's face. What had she thought about McGonagall's office being a heaven, earlier that day? Perhaps it was indeed time to verify the axiom.
"Let's try it," she heard, again, and the woman let go of her arm.
And she followed her in the direction of the Gryffindor Tower. Why not, after all? She felt oddly relieved, while experiencing at the same time that sense of foreboding that told her she could be about to do a mistake. Wasn't that a bit contradictory, she thought, at loss in front of the confusing signs her mind threw her.
She arrived all to soon to her destination, and nearly hit her Head of House again because she was so lost in her thoughts. It wouldn't do to promote that as a habit. The older woman muttered a password and stepped back to let Hermione enter.
"After you, dear."
Hermione walked in, and finally shook her head. She had to come back to reality. She heard the door close behind her, and McGonagall's pace behind her. She stepped toward the chairs, but. wait a minute. That wasn't McGonagall's office. No. And now she thought of it, the door hadn't been one she knew. Where on earth. Oh. That looked suspiciously like her Head of House's sitting room.
The woman was examining her carefully when Hermione stared back at her, with a quite questioning face.
"Have a seat," she said, leading her to the two armchairs next to the empty fireplace.
Hermione sat in the strange, comfortable armchair that reminded her strongly of Dumbledore's taste, not outing her considerations, and imagined what that place would look like during winter, with a high warm fire in the hearth. And felt a cup appear in her hand. That was the second time, she thought. Perhaps it was part of the exams they took to become teachers. While she mused on that hypothesis, McGonagall asked gently: "Tea?" "Chocolate, please," Hermione answered, and she felt he cup warm up. Next moment, she could smell chocolate, definitely good chocolate, and marvelled at that ability to conjure anything she asked. Perhaps the House Elves permanently had a bit of everything they could want, in the kitchen?
"So, dear," her thoughts were interrupted. "anything you would like to tell me?"
Hermione shook her head warily. "Too much, professor."
She crossed her legs. Then uncrossed them. And crossed them back, the other way around.
"Miss Granger."
It was spoken calmly, and Hermione ventured a look. Minerva McGonagall was patiently stirring her tea, while scrutinizing intently Hermione.
"Professor?"
"Miss Granger," she repeated, expectantly.
"We all lost somebody in that battle, didn't we?"
There was a silence.
"More or less. It is not less unfair that way, is it?"
"No, it is not." Hermione replied, sighing.
They stayed in silence for a while.
"Miss Granger?" Hermione finally heard, and came back from her reverie.
"Yes?"
"I happened to be the last one to. err. speak to Severus Snape, before."
Hermione watched her intently.
"And he was in quite a bad posture already."
Professor McGonagall responded by the same thorough observation of her interlocutor's features.
"Yes?" Hermione encouraged her.
"And he told me, to tell you, if he died, that he thanked you."
"Oh," Hermione said, numbly. Whatever she had awaited, it was not that. "Did he?"
"He did," the woman answered pointlessly, studying her piercingly.
After a moment, Hermione shifted in her chair. There was a definite interrogation hanging in the air. "I went to see him, the evening before the. the battle."
McGonagall nodded.
"To speak to him." Hermione hesitated. "We. I felt like we had to tell him that. Well, to demonstrate him our support."
"It seems you succeeded, then," McGonagall confirmed for her. "I had been wondering what it was, that could have make him sound. grateful."
Hermione's eyes widened.
"Indeed," her professor added, "grateful is not a word I'm used to linking with Professor Snape, either."
They exchanged exhausted smiles.
"Did Ginny Weasley wake up already?" McGonagall questioned again, after a quiet time.
"No. She will, tomorrow."
"Oh" the woman acknowledged. "And who will-"
"I don't know. We couldn't decide it."
"Her mother will be there, I suppose." It was more a statement than an enquiry.
"Of course" Hermione assured her, "but we don't want to let her have to tell that, you know."
"Yes, naturally." McGonagall took a breath. "You know I'm here, if you need me, don't you?"
Hermione nodded. Of course she did.
"I should go, professor. But. I'll remember that."
"Good," McGonagall said in a shuddering voice. And the cups disappeared.
Hermione stood up. "Professor?" she whispered, "That horrible cake we had. It was Ro. his favourite."
McGonagall gave her a cheerless smile. "I'm afraid," she murmured, "that I don't know Mr. Weasley's culinary tastes well enough to avoid that sort of things," she responded. "Although. It explains a great deal about the distress you and Mr. Potter displayed at dinner."
She waved her hand and the door opened. Hermione gave her a pleading look. Pleading for nothing, come to think of it. Her professor walked her to the door, and gave her a brief hug. That, in itself, was enough to show that they lived extraordinary times.
"I'll be in the infirmary tomorrow, if you tell me at what time Miss Weasley-"
"About half past seven."
"I'll be there. Maybe I can help. One could say I have a certain experience with announcing- well. bad news caused by darks wizards."
"Thanks" Hermione just articulated. And watched her gratefully enough for her professor to see it through the foggiest cloud that could have blurred any eyes in the world.
And she turned, and walked away, aware of the thoughtful eyes following her.
None of the inhabitants of the castle had sleep too well without potions those nights. That one would be no exception.
I had a hard time deciding if I would write again for this story. You see, I hadn't planned to, but some reviewers seemed to envisage it rather hopefully, so I began to really wonder. ^_^ But still, I wanted to write a story of compassion. And it may turn into a deeper shade of emotion, but. rather friendship than love, I suppose, and a story about friendship seems more difficult to frame than a basic love story, doesn't it? I mean, when am I supposed to stop? They won't get married; neither can I drive them to the bed and then consider that it's finished. I don't think there's a definite end to friendship, and turning points are not sharply delimited, because there are no physical levels to climb, so. It's not that easy to organise when I don't know to where I'm heading. I finally decided to go on with vignettes more than real chapters, with more or less time between them, and I'll try to make sense of it. But everything isn't already definite in my brain, so I'm still opened to idea and suggestions. Get the better of it until I have a clear project about the story, because then I won't be that much convincible any more and it will cost a lot of arguing to make me change something! For example, I'm still trying to decide if everything will be seen from Hermione's focalisation. I rather think not, but I may change my mind.
Enough rambling, to the point.
2. "Tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore" (Virgile, Eneide)
Twelve days later, in the hospital wing.
In the large, white room, everything was quiet. The 3rd Year Hufflepuff girl who had been wailing earlier had now calmed enough to sleep, thanks to Madam Pomfrey's ministrations. The nurse had run out of pain easing potions and the next set of it was still cooling in her office. It had to rest for some hours, in order to become efficient. Harry was discreetly reading, in another bed. He was just there as an extra-measure of safety, since his scar had had all those strange reactions in the troubled period which had followed the battle. Not that there was any place to waste, given the circumstances, but the medical domain had been so enlarged anyway, that one bed more or less didn't really disturb. At the end of the room, near the window, 17 beds away from Harry, some of them containing friends, was Severus Snape. He wasn't awake. Unfortunately, though, it was the 11th day he spent out of consciousness. He was the most puzzling case in the hospital, the only one still in a life threatening state. But then, he had been one of the most exposed fighters. Perhaps his unknown ailment had something to do with his Dark Mark. Hermione was vaguely thinking, leaning against the cool surface of the window, absent-mindedly letting her eyes wander over the country.
She heard Poppy Pomfrey's professional steps behind her. "If he doesn't wake up, I'll have to go back to my cauldron," the nurse said to the silent room.
Hermione turned on her heel, smiling tiredly, to see the shocked look plastered on Harry's face. She exchanged an amused glance with the nurse.
"She's only joking, Harry." She finally explained. "It's her way of reminding me that I have to go and brew her some useful stuff." Then she addressed the mediwitch: "So, what do you need?"
"Well, I think it could be safer to ask me what I don't need, dear. But if you'd be kind enough to concoct some sleep potion, I think it's the most urgent, with all those nightmares they have."
"Can't blame them," Harry interrupted "but it's good to know that nothing more crucial than that is missing for now, isn't it?"
A heavy silence planned for an instant. Hermione didn't want to think to those who had left their lives out there, around Hogwarts. Those who weren't even here, to be rescued. Especially not to one of them. "You're right, boy." She heard. "Of course. Also I'd have preferred to save more of them." the voice drove higher and its owner turned away to inspect her shelves. After a while, she stopped trembling and sighed. And then said "So young pupils out there, fighting. That was madness."
Hermione walked to her chair, next to Harry's bed. "Yes, but we won." She answered.
A clock sang some silly tune somewhere, and Hermione asked for the time.
"Four o'clock." Harry answered.
"Oh. I'd better be going if you want your potion ready for tonight, then."
The nurse nodded and Hermione stood up again. She glanced a last time toward Severus Snape's form, on his bed, and Harry smiled at her.
"Don't worry, Hermione, if he or Ginny opens an eye and say Hello, we'll be here to answer. And we'll come straight to you, anyway."
Ginny was one of the few who had received a long-sleep inducing potion, so that she would rest and her body would have the time to regain some strength.
"Yeah, I know you would. Though Ginny still has 15 hours to sleep, hasn't she?"
Harry gave a look at the chronometer on Ginny's bed, facing him. "Well, 15 hours and 23 minutes, that's what it says."
Hermione sighed. In a bit more than 15 hours, someone would have to tell Ginny about her brother. That was not a task she envied, well, admitting that it wouldn't be hers. She had already volunteered to stay at Snape's side when he'd care to come back to the world. Assuming that he would. Definitely.
She went out of the white room, into the stone corridors of the castle. Each meter of it, each carved niche into the wall, each suit of armour reminded her of something. None of her memories had to be precise, there was just that vague intensity in the air, letting her know that would she have cared to search, she would have find a certain amount of her life bound to those places. Non-events of perfectly unimportant days. those of classes and homework and nothing else, especially the numerous nothings else, and as she moved along the hallways she knew so well, she felt the comfortable certainty that she could have remembered a little of those everyday dramas at each step. The result of more than 6 years in the school. It brought her a most needed safety in the middle of the storm, and she welcomed it willingly, taking a deep breath. How she loved the castle. The community of its inhabitants. Even then, she was just happy to be with them. Professor McGonagall walking rapidly to the Headmaster's Office was enough to tell her she wasn't alone, and they were fighting together. That's where they found their toughness. How she would miss it.
And suddenly, the still two seconds before silently creeping thought hit her in the face. And returned her stomach. She would miss it, more than metaphorically. It wasn't a way of saying. More than six years was nearly seven, and everything would disappear. Her surrounding would be reduced to nothing. The castle wouldn't be hers any more, her friends would still be there, but. Who were her friends now: Harry. and? She didn't even know for sure; what a mess her life was. And, most importantly, how about that microcosm of people she knew without knowing them? Those to whom she spoke, without confiding. The world to which she belonged, in which she had learned to live. She didn't want it to become. what? Tears were prickling in her slowly blurring eyes. To dissolve. Dissolve among the vast community of the world and never gather again. Oh. Well. She breathed again, and began to walk on, wondering when she had stopped. She was being stupid, after all, or rather having very muggle-born ideas. She was a witch, and consequently belonged to the wizarding world. Wizarding England, the one where everybody knew each other, or nearly. Yes. She would find her cosmos back, only a bit grown up into the whole wizarding community. That was not an annihilation, she thought reasonably, just a mutation. Nice, clean, bearable mutation, and she would find her own marks back. She thanked any God there could have been for the wizarding world not being as vast and frightening as the multitude of muggles. It was nearly like a new school year, after all. Life had never gone without any changes. She was ready to face those changes, the real world, to leave school. It was frightening, but not nearly as horrifying as her previous fear had been. Beside, it was Hogwarts she was speaking - no, thinking about. Not any school. It would always be there for her, would she need it. Professor McGonagall would never banish her from her office because she had graduated. And Dumbledore. It was so good to know that everybody in England, or nearly, had been at Hogwarts and thus, would understand her. Sort of, anyway, added a bitter voice she immediately proscribed. She felt like she wouldn't have been able to survive that particular event only to leave school. Absence of the castle was too much, added to the painfully void where Ron.
Ouch.
Apparently she was at her destination, but the laboratory wouldn't open alone. Which was quite reasonable, considering the substances and material stored in it. So she snapped back to reality and spoke the password for the countless time that week. Why again had she been appointed store-filler of Mme Pomfrey?. Oh, yes that sorrow coming back deeper and deeper each time she was left alone and unoccupied, the need to help, do something, anything.
And for Ron, it was too late. God. No, no, no, not going to think of it. She sighed. Then admonished herself for it, and took what should have been a steady breath to prove herself that she felt all right. Which, of course, wasn't the case. Who would tell Ginn- No, no. The potion. Yes.
She drifted to intellectual concentrated mode, in an attempted to ignore the physical ache inside her chest. Take that away, she was a living fire, destruction. but apparently that particular phenomena wouldn't be kind enough to at least strike her and leave, it had to keep her alive and hurt, and hurt again.
What was she mulling over, again?
Work. And peace of mind, at least simulated.
That evening, at the end of the Dinner, in a much less populated than usual Great Hall.
Hermione was carefully playing with the potatoes she had pretended to eat for about half an hour, in the lack of conversation of a tired evening, at the Gryffindor table. For the second time, Harry had been allowed to eat there, and was sitting in front of her. From what she saw of his plate and the glimpse she caught of his fork every other second, he had renounced to the potatoes, and was merely swinging his fork above his cake. Back and forth, back and forth, back.
"It was his favourite."
She looked up to the cake in Harry's plate. Indeed, chocolate and a bit of pumpkin.
"Right," she said, feeling stupidly laconic.
No matter how much she tried, she found nothing to add. Small talk had never been her strength, but that silence, unbreakable as it was, made her feel guilty. Surely they had to speak. What was to say, though, except suffering ruminations? A sentence she had one day read, or heard, or maybe thought - it didn't matter - came back to her, about friends being the ones by whom admitting weakness could never be perceived as complaining. It gave her a tiny amount of resolution, and she choose to use it before it left, being conscious it wouldn't last long.
"Harry, I think we should speak. Of it. We need to say. I mean, to express what-" Her voice died in her throat.
After a silence, he answered. "Yes."
Foresightedly, her energy left her and she drifted back to loneliness. He probably didn't come across anything to put together in words either, she thought. She gave an impatient wave, sending her potatoes back to the kitchen. Unfortunately, what had to happen happened, and the same dessert popped up defiantly, in front of her. She tried to take it philosophically, reasonably, analytically. There was no way the House Elves could have known. They couldn't stop serving her that cake she hated. Yes, she hated it, had always disliked it, and was now moreover touched by sickening memories at its sight. It was still the same one, the one she always gave to Ron, because he was so fond of it. No. Thinking that way was a bad thing. She didn't know what was good, but that wasn't.
"Hermione?" Harry's concerned voice asked kindly.
She stared back at him. Apparently she had given an odd paralysed look to her portion for the last minute.
"I kn-" she vaguely registered in the background, while glancing back to her food. But it was still there. "Oh, no!" she interrupted whatever Harry had wanted to say. And she stood up and left for the door, feeling a bit sick.
Walking without paying attention, she stormed out of there. Or so she thought. She should have engulfed in a high corridor, run away from the offending victuals, through the portrait of the fat Lady, up the stairs, curled up in her - . but instead, she hit something - someone? Never mind.
She nearly lost her balance and was caught by a stable grip. A grip from a little bit above her. Not much. McGonagall. Right, she had bumped onto the woman. And she had to be very upset to think of her professor in those terms, some part of her mind registered ironically.
"Miss Granger?"
Oh, yes, she had to produce some articulated sound. Preferably now. Right now.
"Yes, professor... Err..." What next? "Sorry. I wasn't paying attention." Thank God for civil reflexes.
She wanted to step away, but the hand hadn't released her. Oh, what had she forgotten? She finally resolved to look up. and met worried eyes. Right, then, it was compassionate professors she had forgotten.
"You do seem to me too much upset to be let wandering alone through the castle, Miss Granger."
Silence.
"Anything I could do?" the comforting woman added after a short while.
"No, thanks." Hermione threw a meaningful glance in Harry's direction.
"Well, I believe Mr. Potter will survive the evening without you." Apparently se had caught that one. "And would you object to a cup of tea, if I happened to suggest one?"
"Well, I-" No, Hermione did nothing. No plausible excuse.
"There's a Headmaster here, having spoken enough with your friend and knowing him enough to help, you know. And believe me," at that McGonagall searched her eyes "from experience, I can tell you Dumbledore is not one to let him alone." She took an innocent breath. "I believe there's rumours about woman-talks helping to sort thoughts out. Perhaps it is the ideal moment to make your own opinion about it."
Hermione stayed still, slowly levelling her gaze up to her Professor's face. What had she thought about McGonagall's office being a heaven, earlier that day? Perhaps it was indeed time to verify the axiom.
"Let's try it," she heard, again, and the woman let go of her arm.
And she followed her in the direction of the Gryffindor Tower. Why not, after all? She felt oddly relieved, while experiencing at the same time that sense of foreboding that told her she could be about to do a mistake. Wasn't that a bit contradictory, she thought, at loss in front of the confusing signs her mind threw her.
She arrived all to soon to her destination, and nearly hit her Head of House again because she was so lost in her thoughts. It wouldn't do to promote that as a habit. The older woman muttered a password and stepped back to let Hermione enter.
"After you, dear."
Hermione walked in, and finally shook her head. She had to come back to reality. She heard the door close behind her, and McGonagall's pace behind her. She stepped toward the chairs, but. wait a minute. That wasn't McGonagall's office. No. And now she thought of it, the door hadn't been one she knew. Where on earth. Oh. That looked suspiciously like her Head of House's sitting room.
The woman was examining her carefully when Hermione stared back at her, with a quite questioning face.
"Have a seat," she said, leading her to the two armchairs next to the empty fireplace.
Hermione sat in the strange, comfortable armchair that reminded her strongly of Dumbledore's taste, not outing her considerations, and imagined what that place would look like during winter, with a high warm fire in the hearth. And felt a cup appear in her hand. That was the second time, she thought. Perhaps it was part of the exams they took to become teachers. While she mused on that hypothesis, McGonagall asked gently: "Tea?" "Chocolate, please," Hermione answered, and she felt he cup warm up. Next moment, she could smell chocolate, definitely good chocolate, and marvelled at that ability to conjure anything she asked. Perhaps the House Elves permanently had a bit of everything they could want, in the kitchen?
"So, dear," her thoughts were interrupted. "anything you would like to tell me?"
Hermione shook her head warily. "Too much, professor."
She crossed her legs. Then uncrossed them. And crossed them back, the other way around.
"Miss Granger."
It was spoken calmly, and Hermione ventured a look. Minerva McGonagall was patiently stirring her tea, while scrutinizing intently Hermione.
"Professor?"
"Miss Granger," she repeated, expectantly.
"We all lost somebody in that battle, didn't we?"
There was a silence.
"More or less. It is not less unfair that way, is it?"
"No, it is not." Hermione replied, sighing.
They stayed in silence for a while.
"Miss Granger?" Hermione finally heard, and came back from her reverie.
"Yes?"
"I happened to be the last one to. err. speak to Severus Snape, before."
Hermione watched her intently.
"And he was in quite a bad posture already."
Professor McGonagall responded by the same thorough observation of her interlocutor's features.
"Yes?" Hermione encouraged her.
"And he told me, to tell you, if he died, that he thanked you."
"Oh," Hermione said, numbly. Whatever she had awaited, it was not that. "Did he?"
"He did," the woman answered pointlessly, studying her piercingly.
After a moment, Hermione shifted in her chair. There was a definite interrogation hanging in the air. "I went to see him, the evening before the. the battle."
McGonagall nodded.
"To speak to him." Hermione hesitated. "We. I felt like we had to tell him that. Well, to demonstrate him our support."
"It seems you succeeded, then," McGonagall confirmed for her. "I had been wondering what it was, that could have make him sound. grateful."
Hermione's eyes widened.
"Indeed," her professor added, "grateful is not a word I'm used to linking with Professor Snape, either."
They exchanged exhausted smiles.
"Did Ginny Weasley wake up already?" McGonagall questioned again, after a quiet time.
"No. She will, tomorrow."
"Oh" the woman acknowledged. "And who will-"
"I don't know. We couldn't decide it."
"Her mother will be there, I suppose." It was more a statement than an enquiry.
"Of course" Hermione assured her, "but we don't want to let her have to tell that, you know."
"Yes, naturally." McGonagall took a breath. "You know I'm here, if you need me, don't you?"
Hermione nodded. Of course she did.
"I should go, professor. But. I'll remember that."
"Good," McGonagall said in a shuddering voice. And the cups disappeared.
Hermione stood up. "Professor?" she whispered, "That horrible cake we had. It was Ro. his favourite."
McGonagall gave her a cheerless smile. "I'm afraid," she murmured, "that I don't know Mr. Weasley's culinary tastes well enough to avoid that sort of things," she responded. "Although. It explains a great deal about the distress you and Mr. Potter displayed at dinner."
She waved her hand and the door opened. Hermione gave her a pleading look. Pleading for nothing, come to think of it. Her professor walked her to the door, and gave her a brief hug. That, in itself, was enough to show that they lived extraordinary times.
"I'll be in the infirmary tomorrow, if you tell me at what time Miss Weasley-"
"About half past seven."
"I'll be there. Maybe I can help. One could say I have a certain experience with announcing- well. bad news caused by darks wizards."
"Thanks" Hermione just articulated. And watched her gratefully enough for her professor to see it through the foggiest cloud that could have blurred any eyes in the world.
And she turned, and walked away, aware of the thoughtful eyes following her.
None of the inhabitants of the castle had sleep too well without potions those nights. That one would be no exception.