AN: Weird one, this chapter. First it was too short, now I feel it's gotten slightly too long. I guess it has a life of its own.

Thanks to everyone who took the time and reviewed on the last chapter. Sadly, I am too tired to list all of you right now, but believe me when I say they were so much appreciated. It's your feedback that makes me want to write faster.


Narcissa found it exceedingly hard to fall asleep that night. She'd briefly considered to go and talk things through with Minerva after the young woman had stormed off, but had quickly abandoned that thought. She wasn't really one to share her feelings; maybe it was a character flaw she'd been born with, or maybe a byproduct of the way she'd been raised. Or maybe it was a combination of both.
Feelings weren't her strong suit and despite regarding her son, she rarely ever gave into them and showed them openly.
Feelings hadn't really been required throughout most of her life either. They'd been uncalled for during her childhood, a thing to be ashamed of, and she'd never developed any for Lucius, not for a lack of trying on her part though...
Now she lay in her bed and her mind just wouldn't quiet, much like the howling wind and the waves that were crashing against the cliffs outside.
She tossed and turned, finding every position uncomfortable, her silk pyjamas first too tight, then too loose, her covers too warm only to freeze when she tossed them away.
However, eventually, when the first light of the new morning was already near, she finally fell into a light and troubled slumber.
Only to be awoken by Sibby two hours later. A new day at work awaited her. And while she actually liked what she got to do, she would've preferred to stay in bed that particular morning. For once, she would've loved to take the graveyard shift.


In London, a three-year-old was standing in front of her parents' bed – which only contained her mummy; strangely, she'd found her daddy snoring on the couch in their living room – demanding that someone finally get up to make breakfast and play with her.
Realizing that her mother was not going to get up anytime soon and knowing that her father was bad at making breakfast, little Rosie decided that this whole breakfast business couldn't be so hard and made her way into the kitchen.
She pushed a stool against the counter and climbed on top of it, stretching her arms and trying to reach the cereal bowls her mummy kept in the cupboard over the sink.
And just how it had to come, the child slipped, tumbled from the kitchen counter and hit her head on the stool.
A screach, first of shock, then of pain, left her little throat and finally woke her father.
Drowsily taking in the situation at hand – the gash on Rose's forehead and the tipped over stool – Ronald Weasley, still a little inebriated from the several bottles of beer he'd tried to drown his frustration in the evening before, raised a wand at his crying daughter and cast a quick 'Episkey'. However, because of his state, the word came out a little differently...
"I-Ipishkey!"


Narcissa was already nursing a minor headache by half past 8. She was standing in the hallway, half-heartedly listening to Healer Ling's plans for the evening, well-aware that the other witch was hoping for her to invite herself to come along, and waiting for the nurses to finish clearing the breakfast trays from the patient rooms.
She was just thinking about going to briefly check up on their resident Muggle couple in 23, when the sight of a panicked brunette who burst out of the elevator and had a red-haired child in her arms gave her pause.

Hermione Granger.
Rose. Something was obviously wrong with her favorite little girl.

Before any of the other healers could even think about approaching the frightened mother, Narcissa shouted "I'll take this one!" and hastened towards Hermione Granger.
"Mrs. Granger, what happened?" she asked, placing a hand on the younger witch's elbow and leading her into the closest available examination room.
"She-She's unconscious and won't wake up," the brunette explained through tears, holding onto her child for dear life.
Narcissa gently coaxed her to let go off Rose and as soon as the girl's back touched the examination table, she raised her wand and was running a series of diagnostic spells.
"She tried to make herself breakfast while everyone else was still asleep... She uh, she fell from the kitchen counter and hit her head on the stool she'd used to get up there… Ron was sleeping in the living room so he got to her first. But-but since he was hung-over, he mispronounced the spell… I came in a moment too late... It sounded somewhat like 'Ipishkey'… God, why won't she wake up?"
"Will you shut up for a moment? I'm trying to concentrate here," Narcissa impatiently snapped at the young woman, immediately feeling guilty and apologizing after the words had left her mouth. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Granger... that was uncalled for." She briefly touched the woman's shoulder. "I'm sure Rose will be perfectly fine. But I really need some quiet right now, okay? Can you do that for me?"
The brunette nodded, nervously biting her lower lip as she watched the healer mumble spell after spell.

Her thoughts shortly went to Ronald whom she'd left at home in their quiet and empty apartment; he'd been in a state of shock after watching their daughter's eyes fall closed and her body go limp. And after Hermione's well-deserved rant, he'd retreated further into himself. It had been almost scary to watch him walk back to the couch and turn on the tv as though nothing had happened.
Hermione hadn't had any time or nerve to deal with Ron though. She'd quickly picked up her unresponsive child and had apparated to St. Mungo's from the doorstep of their apartment building without caring who might be around to see her disappear into thin air. She'd arrived at the Spell Damage ward in record time.

"Mrs. Granger, can you hear me?"
Hermione blinked as she noticed the pale hand that was waving through the air in front of her face.
Blushing, she shook her head. "Sorry…"
"It's quite all right. I know one or two things about being concerned about a child.." Narcissa gave the worried witch a small smile. "I can't find anything wrong with Rose besides the gash and bump on her forehead but I've spread a healing paste on her injury that will take care of both while you were lost in thought. I believe your husband's unsuccessful spell might've hit her with a little more force than her body could handle in its shocked state, which is why she fell unconscious. I can speed up her waking process with a spell, but I'd rather have her wake up on her own. It is your decision though."
"I uh… Rose will be okay?"
"That's what I just said, yes. The bump will recede by the hour, so it is likely Rose won't even know it was there in the first place by the time she regains consciousness," Narcissa smiled. "Children often have more luck than a goblin with a pot of gold," she winked. "It's something my grandfather used to say and I'd like to think he was right. – Would you like me to wake her?"
"No," Hermione shook her head, finally being able to breathe again, knowing her baby girl would be just fine. She brushed away a few tears with the back of her hand. "Let her wake up on her own. If you say it's better for her, then I trust your judgement."
Narcissa nodded. "Very well. I'll be back in a few, I just have to check on another patient quickly."
Seeing that the blonde was on her way to the door, something inside of Hermione snapped and she rushed into the surprised woman's arms, embracing her tightly and clutching the rough fabric of her lime green healer's robes in her hands.
It took a few moments, but eventually Hermione found strong arms wrapping around her in kind.
"Thank you," the Muggleborn whispered, both of them knowing that her words weren't only for what she'd done for Rose just now, but even more so for what Narcissa had done for Hermione a little over seven years ago.
"Thank you," the Pureblood echoed the words, knowing she was forgiven for everything she'd done or not done, at least by this one outstanding woman. It was more than anything she'd ever hoped for.
"I uh, I really have to go and see if Mr. Edwards is doing all right," Narcissa eventually awkwardly extracted herself from the hug, pointing at the door. "I will see you afterwards. Rose definitely won't wake within the next ten or so minutes if you want to go and get yourself a cup of coffee or anything else. There's a charm on the bed, she won't fall off."
"I… thank you, I might actually do that. It's been a long morning so far."
"I'm sure it has. Mrs. Granger," the healer excused herself and left the room.


When the healer returned to the room fifteen minutes later, the bump on Rose's forehead had almost all but disappeared yet the little girl was still sleeping soundly.
Hermione had used the past quarter hour to think and was now a woman on a mission. Before the awkward silence could even settle in, she addressed the older witch with a shy smile:
"We uhm, we didn't get to have dinner yesterday... And I realize that is sort of my fault, so I was wondering if you were up to go to the Three Broomsticks tomorrow evening? Dinner's on me. I'd really like to talk to you about... well…" she trailed off as she spotted the questioning look on the blonde's face.
"Mrs. Granger, I don't think-"
"Please," Hermione interrupted the Pureblood before she could finish her sentence. "Don't say no. Please? I promise I'll even stay around for the meal this time." The smile on her lips became more full and confident as she saw the mouth of the other woman twitch upward.
"All right, Mrs. Granger, Sunday it is."
"Yes! – I mean, thank you," the brunette felt her cheeks flush. "And uh, there's actually one other thing I'd like to discuss..."
The healer raised a brow at her, a silent request to go on.
"Could we drop the formalities? I mean, my child already calls you 'Cissa' and I feel strange being addressed as Mrs. Granger. That was my mother, not me." A sadness darkened her features.
"I suppose I can agree to that," the blonde held out her hand. "Narcissa."
Hermione took the hand into her own and shook it, holding onto the pale fingers for a second too long. "Hermione."

"Mummy?"
Both women whirled around to the bed to find a confused but awake Rose looking back at them.
The little girl grinned happily as her honey brown eyes fell from her mother onto Narcissa, not caring why or how she'd come to be at the hospital in the first place.
"Cissa!" She climbed off the examination table to run to her friend, hugging her legs. "Mummy, why didn't you tell me we were visiting my friend? I could've changed out of my pyjamas if I'd known!"
Hermione and Narcissa laughed as the stress of the last 24 hours ebbed away, all thanks to a cheeky three-year-old.


"You're going out again?"
Hermione looked at her husband who was once more sat in front of the tv, the remote control in his right and a bag of crisps in his left hand.
"Yes. I am. I'm meeting a …friend for dinner. I'd appreciate it if you could stay sober, I don't exactly care for a repeat of Saturday morning."
"That's unfair and you know it, Hermione," Ron glowered at her, the crisps crumbling under his firm hold. "You won't even tell me where you're going to or who with! What if I had already made plans with Harry or Seamus tonight? You can't just expect me to look after our daughter whenever you have a spur of the moment to go out!"
"'Our daughter', yes, Ronald. Ours, not mine alone," Hermione replied through clenched teeth, her mood sinking by the second. She wasn't even feeling a whole lot like going out anymore. And that was probably what made her mad the most. She'd looked forward to this evening with a complex and interesting woman she was hoping to learn more about and maybe even call 'friend' one day. "I take care of Rose almost 24/7. I do not think I am asking too much here... Good night," she added the last part sarcastically and left their apartment, fuming with anger and disappointed at how little the man she'd married seemed to understand her.


"Ms. Bl– Narcissa," Hermione forced her lips into a strained half-smile when the blonde witch stood from their table to welcome her, even going as far as pulling out her chair for her.
"Hermione," the older witch's smile came easily and it immediately made Hermione feel guilty.
She'd been the one to propose going out for dinner and now she was probably in the process of ruining it for both of them due to her unpleasant mood. 'All thanks to Ron', she inwardly grumbled to herself.
"Bad day?" Narcissa asked and Hermione sighed.
If the other woman could already tell by looking at her for a short moment... well. She really had to up her game. It couldn't be so hard to be happy-go-lucky and have fun, right?
"You can say that again," she admitted, rubbing at the back of her aching neck.
"Bad days end – just like any other day."
"Another wisdom of your grandfather?"
The blonde shook her head. "No, this one's just common logic. Look, we can postpo-"
"No! No, please..." Hermione shook her head at the suggestion. Now that she was sitting opposite of the Pureblood, leaving was the furthest thing on her mind. Her presence had a strange calming effect on her and Hermione wanted to bask in that feeling as long as possible, even if it was a bit selfish. "Let's enjoy our evening together and make the best of it now that we're already here. Have you ordered yet?"
"No, I was waiting for you."


"So, tell me about your grandfather," Hermione prompted the other witch once they'd eaten dinner and had moved into one of the more comfortable booths of the inn. Her mood had considerably risen during the time she'd spent in Narcissa's company and she found their conversation to be flowing easily. "If you want to, I mean. He was the one who taught you that spell, wasn't he? And the owner of the pensieve? You've talked about him more than once in the short time I've known you, which makes me curious. Were you two close?"
"'Close' isn't a word I'd use to describe our relationship. I was close with Andromeda, closer even with Bella." The blonde took a long sip of her wine. "Grandfather Pollux wasn't a nice man by anyone's standards but he was decent to me and never cruel. He… he was as much a defender of blood purity as most of my family. Which, of course, was a bad thing all on its own. But he never wanted to solve this "conflict" with blood and violence. He condemned what the Dark Lord did during the First Wizarding War."
"Voldemort."
"Excuse me?"
"You were calling him 'the Dark Lord'," Hermione explained, seeing as the older woman didn't get what she was trying to say. "It is a term only his followers use… It is romanticizing his true nature."
"I apologize. I didn't mean to cause you any discomfort. It is the name I have been using for over twenty years; it is hard to let go of old habits. I never really held him in high regard... He corrupted my sister and took her from me. And later on, once Draco was born, I constantly feared what he could do to him should I make a single wrong move."
"You do not share your family's beliefs and ideals?"
"Oh no, but I did," Narcissa shook her head. "I grew up thinking I was better than everyone else because of who my parents were. I realize how idiotic that sounds now. But it's how I was raised. 'You're a member of the noble house of Black, Narcissa. Always remember that. Toujours Pur.' My mother told that to me nearly every night before bed when I was Rose's age. It was the only goodnight story I ever got."
"So what made you change? I know you do not stand by these ideals any longer. – Right?" Hermione met the blonde's intense gaze as she asked the question. The blonde's motivations and past had truly woken an interest in her. It felt almost as though she was back at Hogwarts, a young Muggleborn, eager to learn everything she could about the new and wondrous world she'd been thrust into. Except that that world was Narcissa now.

"Andy did," Narcissa began, slightly fidgeting in her seat. Her only remaining sister was a difficult topic for her. Uncomfortable even.
"Andromeda?"
"Yes," the older witch nodded. "I was barely fifteen when she packed her things and left. Andy was almost eighteen then. Therese Parkinson had caught her kissing Ted Tonks and found that there was nothing better to do than to let everyone know what she'd seen... I was deeply hurt back then that my sister had abandoned me and our family for a mere boy, that she left without finishing the school term, without even saying goodbye to me. Looking back, it was the only thing she could've done, there really was no other option. If she'd waited to face the wrath of our father..." Narcissa shuddered and nervously ran a finger along the rim of her glass. "At first I was so angry and hurt that she'd left me, that I couldn't see the bigger picture. Once I witnessed how father burned her face from Aunt Walburga's tapestry and how he made me and Bella swear never to speak her name again, I started to think. I wondered what was so bad about falling in love that you had to hide it from the whole world. I wondered what allegedly made Ted so different from us, so inferior. And I couldn't for the life of me figure it out. I began to question everything I'd been taught by the time I turned sixteen. Minerva was actually a great factor to changing me into the person I am today. But…" she smiled weakly. "I think that is a story for another day. Tell me what made you so upset."

Hermione blushed as she suddenly found herself at the center of the conversation. She wasn't sure if she should talk to the other woman about her problems with Ron, but she found that she wanted to.

There wasn't really anyone she could turn to whenever trouble appeared on the horizon of their marriage. Before they'd said 'I do', her and Ron had set a few ground rules. And one of them was that neither of them could go to Harry or Ginny if they ever had problems in their relationship.

And while that was definitely a good thing, it left Hermione with no-one to talk to about such things. If her parents were still around, she could talk to her mum but... no, she shouldn't think about her parents right now. That would only lead to heartache.

"I'm going back to work this Monday," Hermione said, feeling the excitement behind her statement and knowing that it was the right decision.
"Let me guess, your husband doesn't agree?"
"How did you know?"
The blonde smirked. "I was married once, too. You might know him. Tall, long blond hair, an arrogant bastard, really."
Hermione grinned. "Oh, I think I know someone who fits that description..."
"I wanted to work and do something with my life once Draco was two and finally out of the woods," Narcissa admitted. "I knew that it was unseemly for a woman of my station to work but one day I still gathered all of my courage and approached Lucius about it. Do you know what he did?"
Hermione shook her head, intrigued about the woman who'd been in a similar situation as she was now.
"He laughed. He laughed at me, called me a foolish girl, then told me that I should go and check if Draco's diapers needed changing. And that was the end of that," the Pureblood sighed, the regrets still weighing heavily on her mind and soul. "I accepted it and never again tried to break out of my role. It needed a war for me to be brave enough to divorce him, a step I should've taken years earlier, but i was afraid of the social fallout. I've missed out on so much, Hermione," she took the younger woman's hand atop of the table and squeezed it. "Don't repeat my mistakes. You are the only one you are answerable to. No-one else. A valuable lesson I wish I'd learned earlier."

Hermione's eyes fell onto the pale hand atop of her own. Their joined hands created a strangely beautiful sight and it took a moment until she could bring herself to tear her eyes away from it.
When she met Narcissa's blue eyes again, the woman raised a fine brow at her but she didn't retrieve her hand.

"I won't. I'm definitely going back to work. It was never up for discussion. I'm just disappointed that he won't even try to understand my standpoint. He's been mad at me all week. It feels as though I am married to a child... And then add Rose's little accident... It's exhausting."
"Your Mr. Weasley holds astoundingly tight onto old Pureblood values while he condemns them at the same time, if someone from the wrong side believes in them."
"That's actually quite the accurate description of Ron," Hermione had to agree with the blonde's assessment. "He's always been this way. Turning things around the way they suit him... I sometimes don't know why-" a startled sound escaped the young woman and she quickly withdrew her hand from Narcissa's, bringing it to her protruding belly.

The healer was worried for a moment until Hermione looked up, her brown eyes dancing with happiness.
"Here," before Narcissa could react, her hand had been guided to rest on the Gryffindor's lower belly. "Do you feel that?"
Narcissa tensed at first, but eventually she relaxed and let her fingers splay out over the smooth fabric of the brunette's dark shirt. A flutter, then another, this time even stronger.
"A kick," she smiled at Hermione, reveling in the unborn child's movements.
They stayed like this for quite some time and after only a short while, the young woman's own hand wandered lower, coming to rest half on her belly and half on Narcissa's hand.
And Narcissa felt a sudden bout of warmth rush through her entire being, wondering what on earth that strange sensation was and what was happening to her.


AN: And there it is. The next nail for the Hermione/Ron coffin.

What do you think about this chapter and especially CissaMione's conversations at the hospital and the Three Broomsticks? Let me know!