Chapter Ten
It was the first weekend of November, and Minerva's weekend off besides. Since meeting with Hermione Black at the Three Broomsticks, nearly every spare minute she'd had at her disposal had been spent in the Hogwarts Library. First, she'd looked into Kinship bonds, and was very quick to admit that Hermione was likely on the mark regarding one existing between herself and Roland Wood. Aside from the general sense of feeling like brother and sister, despite being of no relation, signs of a natural Kinship bond included an overwhelming drive to keep the other safe, sometimes with even precognitive abilities when the other part of the pair was in danger, a disgust at the notion of a sexual relationship, and a sense of connection with members of one another's extended families. All of the above could be applied to Minerva and Roland easily, although she'd not had a chance to visit with him since beginning her research, and felt like it was a discussion not suited for Owls or Floo calls.
After researching Kinship bonds, Minerva had delved into trying to sort out what had happened between her and Hermione's magic when they'd cast the drying spells. Honestly, it hadn't been that difficult to find. The word grounded, had struck a chord in her memory and led her directly to a book about obscure magical branches, and before long she was referencing about twelve different books on harmonic magic. Most of the books she'd found only had short sections briefly detailing the phenomenon, but they all basically said the same thing. Harmonic magic was incredibly rare, and when a harmonic pair was found, the two involved could perform great feats of magic between them, as in essence, they were able to combine the force of their magic in an amplified way, getting a result with just two that would take a dozen Witches and Wizards who were not harmonic. One book warned that if a person began practicing harmonic magic with another and that connection was established, it would not become a relationship easy to walk away from, as your magical core comes to crave its harmonic equal if it is not regularly engaged.
That of course left Minerva with a grand question. The potential for this harmonic magic intrigued her deeply, and for as proud of being a Gryffindor as she was, she had enough of her Slytherin grandfather in her to understand she had an ambitious streak a kilometer wide. There was a certain amount of this that was a draw to the sheer power, although mostly she was just an innately curious person, very appropriate to her Animagus form. However, to approach Hermione Black about pursuing a study of harmonic magic, presuming she even agreed, would likely be a choice to irrevocably tie her to the other Witch, potentially for the rest of their lives. Was Minerva prepared to do that with a woman who was nearly a stranger? Interestingly, when Minerva finally made her choice, it was not her own judgment she ultimately decided to trust. She'd known Genia Flitwick since she was eleven years old, and trusted her implicitly. Genia had named Hermione as Godmother to her newborn son. So, by extension of Genia's trust in Hermione, Minerva felt confident in her own choice to do the very same.
She let Albus - Merlin, it was still strange to call him that - know that she was stepping out of the castle for at least a few hours, and she apparated to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, knowing full well it was the seat of House Black and where Sirius and Hermione Black resided. Orion had grown up here, she mused, thinking of the aunt he was so fond of, who had raised him and his sister after their mother's death, during Orion's birth. Their father, Arcturus, had never remarried, and from what Minerva understood, both Orion's father and aunt resided at Grimmauld place with Sirius and Hermione. Knowing all of this, it didn't surprise Minerva much when Lycoris Black answered the door after she knocked.
The older Witch looked amused to see her. "Looking for Orion?" she asked in greeting.
Minerva's mouth opened and shut, heart beating wildly at the accusation, wondering what Lycoris knew. "I… why would I be looking for him? I came to call on Hermione," she replied, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
Lycoris waved her in the door. "Now, now, Minerva, let's not play. I'm not interested in telling anyone about what you and Orion get up to. Honestly, I'm pleased for you both. Merlin knows he's miserable with Walburga and could use some happiness in his life. I just never imagined you'd be bold enough to show up looking for him at a Black property."
"I'm genuinely here to see Hermione," Minerva said, crossing her arms. "As for Orion and I… does he know that you know?"
"Not presently, but by all means let him know," her lover's aunt shrugged. "As I said, I'm not interested in causing problems for you. I understand the position you're both in, although you could both stand to be more discreet. I'll speak to Orion about a safehouse you two can meet at. Your affair won't stay hidden long if you keep meeting at the Ram's Bluff. Knockturn Alley? Honestly, both of you should know better than to trust anyone down there couldn't be paid off to talk."
"It's not as though either of us have much experience in behaving in such an underhanded way," the Scottish woman grumbled.
"Well, if you're going to keep it up, let me give you a hand, yes?" Lycoris offered.
Minerva begrudgingly nodded her head in acceptance, resolving to speak to Orion about it when next she saw him. In the meantime, she really had come here on other business. "May I see Hermione now? Is she in?"
Lycoris pointed down a hall. "Back that way and to the right. Mum's on the back porch, I believe."
"You call her Mum?" she asked, a bit amused. "She's mine and Orion's age, for Merlin's sake."
"True. However, she's Father's wife, and therefore my step-mother," Lycoris replied. "Further, she may look your age, Minerva, but physical age aside, she's very much your elder. She deserves the respect of me and my brothers, and we have chosen to give it to her in this manner."
Hermione Black was getting more and more interesting by the bloody hour, Minerva mused. With a final nod to her lover's aunt, she made her way down the hall and easily found the porch the older Witch had mentioned. The woman in question was standing on the edge of the wooden porch, just staring out at the back yard absently. "Hermione?" Minerva greeted softly.
Her shoulders stiffened at Minerva's voice, and at first she didn't turn around. "You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?" Hermione asked with a sigh. "You just had to go delving into harmonic magic. I don't suppose I could tell you this will lead nowhere but trouble and that would be enough to convince you to let it go, would it?" Finally, Hermione turned to look at her, gaze fierce.
Of course, Gryffindor that she was, Minerva took that expression as a challenge. "Hardly," she said with a small grin. "The more I read, the more interested I grow. The potential for raw power with harmonic magic is incredible. How are you not curious to explore it?"
Hermione pursed her lips. "Simply put, I'm wise enough to be afraid, and I wish you would be, too."
Minerva frowned. Agatha Filch had said almost the same thing, when they'd crossed paths in the Library one evening last week. She'd said only a fool would not have a healthy fear of harmonic magic and its potential. "All power has the potential for both good and ill," she reasoned. "When we last met you hinted enough about your allegiance to the Light, much as I hinted the same. If we are both of the same thought in this regard, then I fail to see how exploring a potential for expanding our mutual knowledge and understanding of magic could possibly lead anywhere but a positive place."
The other Witch nodded for her to take a seat on a nearby bench, and joined her there. "Your lack of understanding of the potential dangers in front of you is what concerns me, Minerva. I was already well aware of harmonic magic before you crossed my path. I knew we were harmonic the day we met, as unlike you, I know what to look for. Why do you think I've kept you at such a distance? It certainly isn't because I don't think well of you, or wouldn't enjoy spending time with you. It is the simple matter of I knew it would come to this, and I didn't believe you were ready. For that matter, I'm not honestly sure I'm ready to explore harmonic magic again… this isn't the first I've come across it."
She sighed. "If you are already so familiar with it, then could you not be our guide? Could you not head off problems at the pass? If I gave you my vow that I'd adhere to whatever rules you lay down… Hermione, I just want to learn. Curiosity, unfortunately, is something of an ingrained part of me."
The tenderness in Hermione's expression took Minerva by surprise. In some ways, it reminded her of the affection of a mother, and she suddenly understood what Lycoris had meant about Hermione being older, even if they were the same age. In other ways, there was a deeper intimacy to the expression that made Minerva almost want to shiver for the sensuality of it, although she dismissed the latter thought out of hand. That part of her life was dead and buried, and she didn't like to think about it. Besides, she was involved with Orion, and Hermione was a married woman. Even if, in some ridiculous situation, an attraction built between them, nothing could come of it, nor did she want it to.
"You're certain I cannot dissuade you?" the other Witch finally asked her.
Minerva shook her head firmly. "If you don't agree to teach me now, I'll just wait until you are willing, Hermione. I'm set on exploring this. It's just a matter of when."
Hermione let out a soft groan, looking to the sky. "Merlin save me," she whispered. Then, she looked back at Minerva. "Fine. Monthly lessons. You follow my rules. If I tell you that we need to stop exploring a certain avenue, you obey with no questions asked. I will either come to Hogwarts or we'll need to meet at another magically powerful site that has wardstones to contain any backlash of our messing about. Agreed?"
"I'll need to clear it with the Headmaster, but Hogwarts should be fine," Minerva said with a nod. "Yes to the rest of it, as well."
"One more thing," the other woman said, that fierce look on her face again.
Minerva raised an eyebrow. "Alright."
"Avoiding Albus is going to be more or less impossible for me from here on out, I suppose," Hermione grumbled. "However if humanly possible, try not to advertise to him in advance when I will be in and out of the castle. I'd like to at least try to keep our interactions as minimal as possible…"
The Scottish Witch frowned. "During our last conversation, you seemed familiar enough with Professor Dumbledore that I inferred that you two were on friendly terms."
Hermione snorted. "Albus has never met me, Minerva. Hard to be on friendly or unfriendly terms with someone you haven't met, I suppose, however I know enough of his reputation to speculate we'd not get on well. I'm also friendly with his brother, not that Albus realizes that. Trust me when I say that on the surface, the Deputy Head of Hogwarts and I might seem like natural friends and allies, but if you get to know either of us to any depth, you'll realize that at best case, we'll irritate the shite out of one another."
Minerva couldn't help but feel amused. "How do you figure?"
"Unstoppable force meeting immovable object sort of thing," she shrugged. "We're both chessmasters in our own rights, Minerva. Whereas I don't mind playing with others, Albus tends to get upset when he is told he has to share. To say the least, he has control issues, and I have very little tolerance for such things."
Objectively, Minerva could see what Hermione was saying about Albus' character. Everyone had their good points and everyone had their bad points, and it wasn't like this was the first time she'd noticed that Albus liked to be the man in charge of all the plans, five years in advance of every bloody thing. That Hermione considered herself a chessmaster in her own right concerned her a bit, if she was being honest, and for a split second she thought to back out of this plan of hers to irrevocably tie herself to Hermione through the harmonic magic bond. However, she was a Gryffindor, and the flicker of fear passed in favor of the desperate need to understand.
She wanted to understand harmonic magic. She wanted to understand the mind of a chessmaster. She wanted to understand what future Albus Dumbledore seemed to have in store for her, and thought perhaps this was a means to discover his long term plans for her life. She wanted to understand base magic in the way her grandfather had once talked about when describing the nature of Golems. She wanted to understand if curiosity truly would kill the proverbial cat.
Mostly, she found that she wanted to understand Hermione Black.
Cedrella Floo'd to Grimmauld place, leaving her bemused husband behind with Peter and Arthur. At present, she was deeply annoyed with him. Granted, it did take two to tango, but that wasn't the bloody point. This hadn't been in their plans. While finances weren't nearly the issue they had been a year ago, Cedrella still didn't care for having her plans upset, and armed with questions about the future of her family, she stormed into the family townhouse in search of Aunt Hermione. Besides the fact that the time traveling Witch would have answers to her questions, Cedrella had come to look at the younger woman as an honest to Merlin member of the family, and valued her wisdom. She well and truly had become her Aunt, far more than Hesper Black ever had been.
"Aunt Hermione?" she called, cleaning off the soot with a flick of her wand. "Are you here?"
"In the sitting room, Cedrella!" the other Witch called.
The ginger made her way into the next room over, smiling at the sight of the familiar brunette. "Out of curiosity," she asked without bothering to beat around the bush, "how many children did I have where you come from?"
Hermione grinned. "You're pregnant?"
Cedrella sat down, huffing in annoyance. "We weren't trying. I was on the bloody potion, for Merlin's sake. I know it's only ninety-eight percent effective, but seriously! What are the odds?"
"Two percent, evidently," Hermione smirked. "Congratulations. Rest easy though, to my knowledge, you only had three. If things go as they did before, this one will be another son. Arthur didn't talk about his past very often, but when he rarely did, I only heard him mention two brothers."
"You didn't know all three of my boys?" she asked, frowning. "I know you said that the Blacks were mostly decimated where you come from, but my boys aren't Blacks."
She sighed. "I only knew Arthur. It was my understanding that both his brothers died in the late seventies or early eighties. Not this time, Cedrella. If I can manage it, your children will all live long and happy lives."
Cedrella was quiet for a moment, feeling torn between grief for a timeline where two of her sons were dead, and hope and trust that Hermione would ensure that didn't happen this time. "Who's Ginny? I overheard you and Uncle Sirius speaking a while back, and you mentioned someone called Ginny who I reminded you of. I presume she's a relative."
Hermione smiled. "She's Arthur's daughter. Rather, she will be, presuming Arthur marries the same woman this time around, which I think is fairly likely."
"How can you even begin to speculate on something like that?" Cedrella wanted to know. "Arthur's five! He has no concept of romance at his age!"
A knowing smile formed on Hermione's lips. "And yet, even at such a tender age there's a little girl who is the center of his world, and he is the center of hers. Their love may grow, mature, and evolve into romance in due time, but the love is already present, clear as day."
It was obvious once Hermione pointed it out. "Molly?"
The other Witch nodded. "They had seven children together, although without the support of the Blacks things were always financially tight for them. After going to Hogwarts, I spent at least some of my summers at the Burrow, as I was close friends with the four youngest, Ginny among them. This go around, if gold isn't an issue, I won't be terribly shocked if Arthur and Molly have a few more children than they did in Alpha."
"Alpha?" Cedrella asked, raising an eyebrow.
"What I call my original timeline," Hermione shrugged. "It's hard to call it my timeline anymore, because this feels just as much mine as that ever did. This is home to me, now, and will be for the rest of my life. When Sirius and I first arrived we found ourselves discussing people who were present in our lives both here and there, and it became very confusing, having to ask which person we were referring to. We began prefacing a person as Alpha if we were talking about someone from our original timeline. For example, I might say that Alpha Filius was Head of Ravenclaw House and my Charms Professor at Hogwarts. On the other hand, if I just say Filius, I refer to my infant Godson."
The older Witch snorted in amusement. "You ended up with your former Charms Professor as your Godson? How are you handling that?"
"It gets easier and easier as time passes," came the soft reply. "Life goes on, and we all have relationships we need to let go of and leave in the past. My past is just more complicated than most. As for Filius, I think there will be moments of greater and lesser difficulty as time goes on. I achieved my Charms Mastery under him, so if my Godson grows up to pursue the same field, it is possible he'll choose to gain his Mastery under me. The paradoxical nature of that is baffling to consider. As it stands, I'm already facing the possibility of becoming a mentor for numerous people who were mentors to me in my youth. Going back in time five decades fundamentally alters the dynamic of my future relationships with many of the people who meant the most to me."
"Anyone in particular you're worried about?" Cedrella asked, seeing clearly that the subject bothered Hermione a great deal.
"Minerva McGonagall," Hermione admitted with a sigh. "She and I… Merlin, how do I explain? Alpha Minerva was Deputy Head of Hogwarts, and my Transfiguration Professor. I gained my Transfiguration Mastery under her. After the war, we developed a friendship. We'd always been a bit closer than the average Professor and student, and I didn't understand why until years later, and it's biting me in the arse now. Our magical cores are harmonic. Alpha Minerva, I suspect, knew this but we didn't openly speak about it. Our relationship never had the chance to evolve to the point where we were actively exploring our harmonic together, before I was tossed back in time. However, the Minerva here is young and naive and anxious to learn all there is to know about the phenomenon, with no comprehension of the Pandora's Box she's opening by pursuing it."
Cedrella sighed. Septimus' parents had harmonic cores, so she knew full well what Pandora's Box Hermione was referring to. "She doesn't understand that exploring it will inevitably lead to a sexual attraction between you two."
Her Aunt raised an eyebrow. "The odd pockets of knowledge you have should stop surprising me at some point. Yes, however, that's exactly what I worry about. There are many relationships I had, and will have, that I anticipate being complicated in some manner or another, but the dynamic with Minerva has the potential to be beyond complicated, especially considering how Sirius feels about her."
"Don't tell me that Uncle Sirius fancies her!" Cedrella said, not seeing it at all.
"Hardly," Hermione snorted. "Walburga was a shite mother to him. Minerva was his Head of House just as she was mine, and I don't think he ever stopped seeing her as a surrogate parent."
"Which essentially means that as you struggle with your relationship with Minerva, Uncle Sirius is likely the last person you'd want to confide in," the ginger concluded, "for multiple reasons."
"I'm well practiced in the art of self control, Cedrella," Hermione said firmly. "Nothing is going to happen between Minerva and me. I'll not cross that line."
Cedrella wasn't as sure as Hermione seemed to be, but that was neither here nor there. She didn't know Minerva McGonagall, but imagined at some point their paths would cross, and she was looking forward to sizing up the young Transfiguration Professor. Hermione might have adequate self control, but as Cedrella had rather recently been reminded, it did take two to tango. She was not certain that Minerva's self control was as well practiced as Hermione's. By all accounts, she was still very innocent, and the innocent seldom held back from acting on impulse.
It was mid November now, and Hermione was standing at the gates of Hogwarts, en route to her first meeting with Minerva since their agreement to begin working together to explore the harmonic magic between them. It felt odd to come back to Hogwarts now. The last she'd been at this castle, it had been in Beta, and things had looked very different. The castle had been more or less the same, although the path between Hogsmeade and the main gate had been different, many of the outbuildings Hermione knew from Alpha had been missing or altered, and there had been a number of outbuildings that were outright new. As Hermione entered the gate of Hogwarts now, she smiled a little at Hagrid's hut, and allowed her eyes to drift to the place she knew the Whomping Willow would be planted after Albus decided to admit Remus Lupin to Hogwarts, presuming she and Sirius couldn't find a way to prevent him from contracting Lycanthropy in the first place.
Short of the lack of Whomping Willow, Hogwarts looked very like she had known when she attended. There were some things that had been updated in the decades between now and then, but most looked comfortably familiar, and as she stretched out her magic, Hermione took comfort in the steady thrum of the wards that weren't under near constant attack from Death Eaters.
"Who goes there?" a man called, voice sharp and demanding.
Hermione's gaze followed the voice, finding a bald man in a high quality suit, his slight accent giving away a French origin, as if his no nonsense approach hadn't been clue enough. A proper Brit would have been a bit more well mannered in his greeting. "Hello," she said, approaching him. "I'm Hermione Black."
He crossed his arms across his chest and eyed her critically. "Headmaster said to expect you, but as you're here to give McGonagall some fancy lessons on magical theory, I honestly expected you to be a bit older. I'm Keating, by the by."
"Charms Professor and Head of Ravenclaw, correct?" she inquired, placing the name in her memory. She couldn't remember offhand if it had been Minerva or Agatha who had brought Chelsey Keating up, but one way or another, his name and area of expertise was familiar to her.
"That's right," he said. "I gather McGonagall has been her usual chatterbox self."
"Minerva is not my only contact within these walls, Professor Keating," she said, offering him a sly smile. "My youth that you kindly pointed out does not mean that I am innocent, inexperienced, or otherwise don't understand the value of information in the long game."
He snorted. "Gryffindors."
"Home educated, actually," Hermione said, offering the practiced lie with ease. "That said, you'd be among the few who do guess Gryffindor when the subject comes up."
Keating nodded for her to follow him as they both continued walking toward the main courtyard. "A Slytherin wouldn't have volunteered as much information as you just did without a fight. A Ravenclaw would have hounded me for more information off the bat."
She laughed. "And why not Hufflepuff?"
"I've known you for five minutes, ma'am," the Charms Professor said, "and I've already got it figured you're not nice enough to be a bloody Hufflepuff. Basic logical deduction."
"Well, for what it's worth, my husband agrees with you," she said, amused at his reasoning.
The pair continued chatting for a few more minutes, mostly about Charms, until they reached the main courtyard and he excused himself, offering directions to the Transfiguration corridor in parting, which Hermione patiently listened to as if she didn't already know Hogwarts like the back of her hand. To his credit, he did give the quickest route, although she did have a detour she wanted to make first.
Pulling out her wand, Hermione cast her Patronus, intent on sending Minerva a message to meet her in the Hospital Wing, from where they'd go find an empty classroom to work. She had to let out a gasp of surprise at the metaphorical punch in the gut when she realized that sometime between the last time she'd cast her Patronus, back in Beta, and now, the form had changed. It was no longer an Otter to complement her Fisher Cat Animagus. Now, the misty animal which stood before her was a dog she'd recognize anywhere, even if she hadn't been able to accurately identify the breed the first time she'd seen it.
It was a deerhound. Her Patronus had turned into Minerva bloody McGregor's Animagus form. "Shite," she breathed, trying to reconcile the change. She knew that the form of a Patronus could change if you fell in love, but she wasn't in love with Minerva. She cared about her deeply, yes, but it wasn't romantic love. Hermione resolved to talk to Melok about if he knew of any instances where harmonic pairs were impacted in this way just on principle. What she and Minerva McGregor had gone through together had been something profound, and there were days she regretted that they hadn't explored the clear chemistry between them. For as much as Hermione could look at the Minerva here and now and find her exceedingly attractive in the physical sense, she was still, in many ways, very young, and that was not a quality Hermione found particularly appealing. The age and experience of Beta Minerva, on top of the timeless beauty she simply was, had been nothing short of intoxicating, which was exactly why a part of her almost feared the Minerva here growing up the rest of the way. One day, she'd fully mature, and be ready to stand equal to Hermione in the same way Beta Minerva had. That day was going to be trouble.
Swallowing hard, Hermione voiced her message and sent the Patronus along, knowing that even if Minerva recognized the breed, she'd have no way to relate it to herself, as her Animagus form here was a Leopard of all things. She was a cat once more, which had pleased Sirius when she'd told him, but she certainly wasn't a mere tabby cat. Frowning, Hermione thought it was probably not a good idea to let her husband see her new Patronus if it could be helped. He knew what it typically implied, and until she had some measure of evidence to prove to him that she was not in love with Minerva, he was going to be his typical insecure self and assume the worst. She wasn't inclined to wound his ego like that.
En route to the Hospital Wing, Hermione was still so lost in her thoughts about her changed Patronus that she nearly ran headlong into a tall, bearded Wizard. It didn't take her more than a moment to recognize the man, blue eyes achingly familiar, and while she was internally groaning about how she hadn't really needed any more hurdles in her day, she put on a friendly face, not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with Hogwarts' other Transfiguration Professor. "Oh, Albus, forgive me," she apologized, backing off. "Clearly I was lost in thought."
"Do I know you?" he asked, looking at her curiously.
She offered a tight smile. "Hardly, but you couldn't be anyone else. I'm Hermione Black. I'm friends with Minerva. To say the least, her descriptions are accurate."
It might have been more believable, Hermione mused, to cite her association with Aberforth, but she wasn't quite ready to play that card, knowing it might lead to his awareness she was a Mage. For now, she was content to let Albus believe she recognised him merely by his protegé's descriptions.
"Just so," he said, looking amused. "I'd heard Sirius Black took a young, Muggleborn bride. You're even more lovely than the stories say."
"Flattery doesn't work on her, Albus," Minerva called from behind her, to Hermione's relief. "Trust me, I've tried. The closest you get is complimenting her intelligence. I think the way to her heart may be through books. I keep telling her I suspect Ravenclaw, had she attended Hogwarts."
Hermione smirked. "My husband says Gryffindor, however I have several friends who have insisted I'd have gone to Slytherin."
Minerva scoffed. "Perish the thought. Gryffindor I could buy."
"What brings you to Hogwarts, Madam Black?" Albus inquired, eyes twinkling.
She rolled her eyes and looked at Minerva. "Would you believe me if I said that this one asked for more homework?"
"Hermione has done extensive research on magical theory," Minerva said, reciting the cover story they'd agreed on. "She's kindly agreed to indulge my curiosity with a lesson now and then."
Opting to head off Albus' inevitable questions at the pass, Hermione launched into a vaguely believable story regarding how she'd acquired her own knowledge. Again, it was an established cover story, and one she'd given to Minerva as explanation for her knowledge on harmonic magic, among other things. "I was home educated, and my study was largely self guided," she said. "There was nobody to tell my parents what a thirteen or fourteen year old should and shouldn't study, so they just let me study whatever I pleased. Given how often we moved around, I didn't have much in the way of friends, so research and the betterment of my magical skill became the center of my life until I got caught up in the mess with Grindelwald. After that, my skills came in use as a means to survive. To say the least, I'm fairly well rounded."
"I knew there were child soldiers in the war," Albus said with a frown. "I'd never met one as young as yourself."
"I didn't choose to be a soldier," she remarked. "However, when you're fourteen or fifteen and somebody is trying to kill you, becoming a soldier is your only real recourse. I'd been involved in some minor engagements even before that, but by fifteen…" her eyes closed briefly as she remembered the night Sirius had fallen through the Veil, and the battle that had led up to it. "...I had my first battle scars by fifteen, and had lost my first comrade in arms. I never did feel like a child again after that. It's been fifteen years and it feels like fifty."
The irony in that last statement did not escape her, but neither of her companions had context to understand why it was a funny thing to say.
"Merlin," Minerva breathed. "At fifteen I was just worried about passing my OWLs."
"As it should be!" both Hermione and Albus said at the same time.
Minerva looked at the pair of them with amusement. "Glad to see the two of you getting on."
Hermione eyed Albus carefully, desperately not wanting to draw him into her life or give him motivation to interfere with her life in any way, but also knowing that the more eyes she had looking out for Voldemort's movements, the better. So, she offered a carefully structured comment that she knew would get him to understand Voldemort was on the move. "My husband and I escaped capture not because we got the better of the men guarding us, but rather because somebody else came and either killed them, or otherwise engaged their interest. It was not the Ministry and the Aurors, or they'd have rescued us. Instead, we were just left there in a warded cabin. If not for my understanding of magical theory and how it pertains to warding, we'd not have gotten out of there at all."
"Grindelwald is gone," Albus said seriously. "Are you suggesting there may be somebody consolidating his remaining forces?"
"Power vacuums tend to bring forth new leaders," she remarked. "I find it concerning that the Ministry has not taken more aggressive action in capturing the remaining Grindelwald supporters. Merlin knows they're still out there. Hell, I had at least one of them at my wedding."
Albus snorted. "Abraxas Malfoy could buy his way out of Hades. Buying his way out of Azkaban isn't much effort on his part. That said, he's too public a figure to be a new Dark Lord in the shadows, I think."
"I've heard whispers of a man called Riddle," Hermione admitted, hoping she wasn't putting herself too far out there. "That being said, I am here to visit with your colleague, so I must ask you to excuse us."
The older Transfiguration Professor nodded his head in acceptance, both of the information she'd offered and her clear dismissal. "Good day to you both, then."
After he'd walked off, Hermione waved for Minerva to follow her to the Hospital Wing. "Bloody hell, Hermione," Minerva said, voice low. "I think I understand what you mean about you and Albus. It was like the air was tingling back there, and not in a nice way. If you were both men I'd have suggested you get on with whipping them out!"
Hermione laughed, loudly, not in the least used to Minerva utilizing such crude imagery, but getting what she was saying. "It's like two Quidditch Captains. We might like many of the same things, but ultimately we both like to be in charge far too much to really get on. I do hope Albus doesn't get any ideas about us being friends. Feel free to dissuade him of the notion should he start to sound interested in such a thing. One day I think we'll be allies, but it would take extraordinary circumstances to make the two of us friends."
"Understood," the Scottish Witch said. "So why did you want to meet Healer Dagworth?"
"Your resident Potions Master has a bit of a reputation for being a self serving jerk," she said with a teasing lilt, "and I've got some free time at my disposal and am nearly at the completion of a Potions Mastery. Unless I'm understanding things wrong, it is up to the Hogwarts Healer where they acquire their Infirmary supplies, Potions included, so I thought I'd ask Healer Dagworth if she was inclined to save herself the monthly hassle of arguing with Horace or accepting subpar Potions from St. Mungo's, and accepting my services instead."
"I didn't know you were working on a Mastery!" Minerva said, smiling brightly. "Of all your areas of interest, what made you decide on Potions to get your Mastery in?"
Minerva, of course, couldn't know that Potions was only one of her numerous Masteries. Admitting to having one was acceptable, and Hermione had put a great deal of thought into which of her Masteries she was going to publicly admit to, but after some discussion with Aberforth, they'd agreed that their relationship was not likely to stay quiet for long, so close to Hogwarts, and so if their association was public knowledge, people might as well know she had earned her Mastery under him. "A bit of encouragement from Aberforth Dumbledore," she said, adding one more lie to the pile she'd already told. She used to hate lies, but the longer she was here in the past, the more she realized that they could be absolutely necessary, and that the hurts they inflicted in the short or long term were sometimes unavoidable and worth incurring if it meant that things happened at the proper time. Everyone lies, Hermione mused. She was not exempt from that generalization. "He learned I brewed Polyjuice when I was only thirteen without assistance or a supervising Master, and all but insisted I pursue the subject to the fullest extent."
The irony in that statement is while she was certainly capable of Potions Mastery, when compared to other subjects, Potions was an area she was least skilled.
Her friend snorted in amusement. "Albus will have something to say about that."
"Yes, well, let's not tell him, shall we?" Hermione pleaded.
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