A/N: What a day! Liverpool lost the footy, our kid suddenly decided he needed to discuss the origins of the universe and all its beings with me at the same time my friend messaged to ask me to help her write a cover letter. Good times.
Lib McGranger, however, did her thang and now, unless I mucked it up somewhere, we have a lovely shiny chapter for you all. Bonza!
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Her heart was beating in her throat as she ran down the corridors of Malfoy Manor. She could hear Bellatrix cackling every time she turned a corner and it sent a bolt of fear through her heart. Just as she found the exit - a bright light at the end of the hallway - she felt someone grab her and she turned, kicking and screaming for them to let go.
"I have you now, Mudblood," Bellatrix hissed, her curved wand sliding down her cheek like a caress.
"NO!"
"HERMIONE!"
She bolted upright, scrambling to get Bellatrix off her but she couldn't get out of her grip. She fought tooth and nail as she tried desperately to get her to let go and then -
The lights came on.
"Hermione! My love, it's alright," Minerva said gently, her hands wide to show she was unarmed. "It's alright. You're safe."
Hermione blinked, her breath coming in gasps as she looked around. They were in Minerva's bedroom, at her home in Scotland. Bellatrix LeStrange was dead. The hands that had caught her were the bedsheets. She stared at her own hands; they were shaking so badly, she couldn't even comprehend how to use them to untuck the sheets that had gotten tangled around her legs.
"Easy, love. Easy."
Minerva's voice echoed in her brain. She watched, completely detached as Minerva's hand gently reached over and covered her own. The touch broke the nightmare and she blinked up at Minerva, who seemed to be prepared for anything.
"I -"
"It's alright," Minerva muttered, untucking the sheets. "It's alright."
She felt awful. Not only had she had a nightmare on the first day that they had slept in the same bed, but she was also covered in sweat and her hair would definitely be a mess and -
"Love?" Hermione looked up at Minerva's voice. "You're safe. It's alright."
"I ruined -"
"No," Minerva soothed. "No, nothing is wrong. Nothing is ruined."
"Did I hurt you?"
"No," Minerva said, smoothing Hermione's damp hair off her face. "No, everything is fine." Hermione took a deep breath and shivered as the cool air hit her skin. "Come on," Minerva whispered. "Let's get you changed and then, if you wish, you can tell me. Otherwise, if you need some space, we can move you next door -"
"NO!"
The noise was oppressive in the quiet bedroom, but Minerva didn't flinch.
"Whatever you need, love."
"You," Hermione nodded, almost absently. "Just you."
"I'm here."
Hermione nodded and Minerva helped her from the bed. She hissed when her feet touched the floor but Minerva had other plans. She bent a little and Hermione felt the world lurch as she was lifted into Minerva's arms. She was safely delivered onto the bathmat and Minerva kissed her forehead before disappearing back into the bedroom. She found another pair of pyjamas and Hermione changed in the bathroom with the door cracked, while Minerva waited outside. Her hands were still shaking and her hair was an absolute mess. She tied it up with a hair tie that she found by the sink. She chuckled when she realised it was just like her own bathroom at her parent's, and at the Weasleys. There always seemed to be a hair tie in the bathroom. She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror, trying to remind herself that Bellatrix was dead.
"Okay?" Minerva asked as Hermione stepped through the door into the bedroom.
"I don't know," she muttered, pulling down her sleeve. "I -"
"We do not have to speak of it tonight."
"Did your brother tell you what happened?" she whispered. "Before Shell Cottage?"
Minerva frowned and her eyes went wide as she looked up at Hermione.
"He said that you had a run-in, with the Snatchers. And that you were hurt. I knew that you were -"
"Tortured." Hermione's voice broke and Minerva's arms were around her before she could blink.
"Come back to bed, it's alright," Minerva muttered. "Let's get settled."
Hermione noted that Minerva had changed the sheets and she sank into them. She could not relax though. The prospect of telling Minerva was more than she'd bargained for.
"I thought he might have told you about what they did."
"I felt as much that you were Crucioed," Minerva whispered. "I was with Poppy. I had a," she hesitated. "Run-in, shall we say, with one of the Carrow twins. She was treating me and," she shivered. "It dropped me to my knees." She snorted. "Poppy thought I was being melodramatic. Told me to woman up, as it were, until she realised. I think I might have said your name."
"I heard you," Hermione remembered. "In my head."
"After realising, Poppy suggested I meditate, as one must do when they are searching for the Animagus. I heard your screams in my head and followed them. It was," Minerva pressed kisses all over Hermione's forehead. "Awful."
"I'm -"
"Don't you dare apologise for something you did not do."
The harsh tone shocked Hermione a little and she looked up at Minerva. Their eyes met and Hermione saw the pain in them. She tried to imagine what it would be like, had Minerva gone through the things she had, and she had to hear it and feel it and be able to do nothing about it.
"I am sorry that you could feel and hear me," Hermione said quietly. "I don't know what I would have done had they done it to you."
"More than I, most likely."
"No," Hermione soothed her. "No, what you did saved our lives." Minerva hummed but didn't comment. Hermione let it sit for a moment before she had another thought. "Have you tried to talk to me, in your head, since then, I mean?" Hermione asked quietly.
"Have you?"
"Yeah," Hermione chuckled. "Nothing."
"Me as well," Minerva laughed. "I suppose," she considered it for a moment. "Similarly with accidental magic as a child, our magic is tied to our existence, so when that is in jeopardy it is perhaps not outside the realm of possibility that it would react as such."
"I guess we'll find out the next one of us is in fear for their life?"
"Don't you dare," Minerva dead-panned. Hermione let some of the tension go and snuggled into Minerva's body as the silence lengthened. Minerva sighed into Hermione's hair and her grip got tighter.
"Tell me? If you can? If you want to?"
"Harry accidentally said," she stopped. "I'm not afraid of the name but I do not want to say it here," she explained and Minerva kissed her nose.
"I understand."
"He said the taboo word and the Snatchers found us immediately. I managed to disguise Harry temporarily but Ron is pretty recognisable and I had apparently been on the front page of the Daily that morning."
Minerva made a noise but didn't interrupt. Hermione told her the tale of the Malfoys and Fenrir Greyback and Bellatrix and by the time her voice went hoarse, Minerva had tears rolling down her face.
"If I could have -"
"You did," Hermione whispered, wiping the tears and shifting so she was laying eye-to-eye. "You did, Minerva. I heard you, in my head. And you sent Dobby to save us. And then your brother. I -" She kissed Minerva softly. She tasted of tears and sadness. "You saved us. That was it for us. We had no way out."
Minerva sobbed and drew Hermione into her arms again. Hermione held her tightly as she let Minerva cry. After a few minutes, Minerva stopped and started frantically wiping her eyes.
"I'm crying and it was you that -"
"Hush," Hermione said, borrowing Minerva's words. "You felt what I felt. You were there, just as I was. I would cry had you gone through the same."
Minerva nodded but didn't speak as she traced Hermione's face. Hermione knew, though, that they weren't done.
"I," she frowned. "Will didn't tell you?"
"He did not," Minerva smiled sadly. "He said that when you were ready, you would show me."
"I shocked him, when I first saw it," Hermione explained. "He was so concerned for me, for what it might do to my mental health. And I laughed when I saw it. He was utterly perplexed."
"What did she do?"
"She -" Hermione pulled down her shirt collar and showed the thin scar across her neck. "Didn't mean to do that. Dobby threw her backwards as she had a knife to my throat."
"It has a green handle," Minerva's lip curled.
"Yeah," Hermione sighed. "But that wasn't what she did first."
"Hermione," Minerva said cautiously.
"Don't overreact. I put no weight to it at all. It doesn't mean anything to me," Hermione whispered. "Except as a badge of honour for what I've achieved."
"A badge -"
Minerva frowned at her as Hermione rolled up her sleeve. As she shifted and offered her wrist to Minerva, Hermione watched closely as a bevvy of emotions crossed her face. It settled on anger.
"This is not an insult to me," Hermione said before Minerva could start. "This is a label that holds no meaning to me. She thought it would mark me inferior. And yet," she said gently, kissing Minerva's chin, where she could reach. "Look at all I have done. As a mudblood."
"Don't call yourself that," Minerva almost snapped.
"Why," Hermione said gently. "Who proclaimed that I should be ashamed of that?"
Minerva opened her mouth to argue and then closed it again as she saw Hermione's reasoning.
"If we perpetuate the blood-purity nonsense, it will perpetuate," Minerva nodded sadly. "Even so," she whispered. "May I?"
She asked so softly that Hermione used that hand to pull Minerva into a kiss.
"Whenever you wish."
Minerva pulled that hand close to her lips and pressed a kiss to Hermione's palm. It wasn't one to excite or to evoke a reaction, it was a kiss of sorrow and of love. Minerva smoothed her thumb over the ribbon that remained tied on the wrist and Hermione nodded. She pressed kiss after kiss down Hermione's arm, over the raised scar until she had kissed every letter that had been etched into her skin.
"I love you," Minerva muttered as she pulled away. "So much that it terrifies me."
"As you said," Hermione soothed her quietly. "I am here."
Minerva took another look at Hermione's arm and ran her finger over the letters. She paused, but Hermione just smiled in encouragement.
"I am sorry that you bore the brunt, all your life, of people who thought you inferior because of your blood."
"I am sorry that others will too unless we change it," Hermione nodded grimly.
They lay together, taking solace in one another for a time before Minerva rolled onto her back and pulled Hermione with her. Their legs intertwined like they had been sleeping beside each other forever and Hermione sighed against Minerva's chest.
"If it's any consolation," she said suddenly, noticing something she had missed. "I felt the same way, when this happened." She didn't touch, not wanting to evoke those memories, but she did pull the neck of Minerva's shirt down a touch. The scars shone brightly even in the low light. Minerva made a noise of understanding. "And when you damaged your rather nice arse," Hermione deadpanned as she ran her hand over Minerva's ribs and squeezed that arse cheekily.
Minerva snorted and covered her mouth and then laughed when Hermione did as well. They laughed until they cried and Hermione tucked herself back under Minerva's chin still giggling.
"Och, that was a terrible injury," Minerva shook her head. "I am so sorry for being pig-headed, and for making you deal with it. I should have gone to Poppy."
"I was alternating between melting into a puddle and self-combusting, only to find out you'd nearly amputated yourself. That put the kibosh on everything."
"I am sorry," Minerva chuckled. "I couldn't really turn properly and -" She had the good graces to look a little ashamed. "You were right, the nerves were damaged. I couldn't feel much so I hadn't realised. You did a fantastic job though," she added with a smile. "Poppy said it healed perfectly."
"You're welcome," Hermione blushed.
"Also," Minerva said, imperiously. "In fairness, I didn't know how you felt then?"
"Pathetic excuse." Hermione shook her head. "You like to think you're so tough. A superwoman."
"A what?"
Hermione shook her head and kissed Minerva soundly.
"A Muggle super-being. With powers of invincibility and the like."
"You have to remember I am old," Minerva said, straight-faced, but with a twinkle in her eye. "I'm not up on the lingo."
"You're hopeless," Hermione said affectionately. "I might even get used to it one day," Hermione quipped. Minerva snorted again and kissed Hermione's hair before letting her head fall back onto the pillow with a contented sigh. "Sleep," Hermione whispered, reaching up and tracing the frown marring Minerva's face. "I'll be here."
"I love you, Hermione," Minerva muttered, unable to resist the thrall.
Hermione tangled their legs together and closed her eyes. Even as she slept, Minerva held tight around and Hermione realised that this really was where she was home.
Right there, in Minerva's arms.
