SSHG

As expected, Hermione passed her NEWTS with flying colors. Her scores were unrivaled in all of Hogwarts history. Not that I thought for a moment that it would be any different. The joy lighting her face when she found out will be forever etched into my memory. She looked exquisite, wrapped up in the rapture of her success. Her eyes sparkled, there was a healthy color to her cheeks, and her smile made it seem as if everything was right in the world.

The next week she began working as my assistant. If I had any fears that our odd intimacy would create discord in our working together, I was wrong. Hermione was everything I could ever hope for in an assistant. It seemed as if she could anticipate my needs before even I was aware of them. She was methodical, meticulously organized, driven and ridiculously pleasant. Over the next few months things began running more smoothly than they had in years. Paperwork that had been severely neglected under Dumbledore and myself was finished and filed away. Events that I'd been putting off organizing were planned out and executed flawlessly. She drew up the schedules for nightly rounds, lunch supervision and general detention duty. Not only were the schedules complete, and for the first time, back ups lined up in case of emergency or illness, but Miss Granger had also somehow learned which staff members worked the best together. Schedules were arranged so that those who rubbed each other the wrong way were never on the same shift, and those that interacted productively were almost always placed together.

After a time, I couldn't remember what I'd done before she came along. And I began to fear the time when she would move on to something else. I told myself at first that it was simply because I didn't want to go back to trying to handle it all on my own again. But the truth was that I'd become attached to her.

We shared tea together in the morning while going over my schedule for the day. I began to look forward to seeing her smile first thing in the morning. When we worked through lunch, she would always arrange to have food delivered for us, a thoughtful gesture that led to me filling out properly for the first time in years. Before she left for her quarters every night she would ask me if there was anything more she could do. Most nights I would simply shake my head no and bid her goodnight.

A few nights I invited her to have a drink with me in my study. We spoke of things that mattered and didn't matter. Things we cared about and didn't. If we were in a light mood, we talked about what new sweets they were selling in Hogsmead or what new Weasley Wizard Weezey the students would be trying to sneak in that semester. If we were in more serious moods we spoke of the delicate nature of human souls or the subjective nature of judgment.

I learned her thoughts on things great and small. Even though we didn't always agree, I never found her thoughts to be ridiculous or her points to be merit-less. She forced me to see, in that gentle, insistent way of hers, other sides to arguments. I saw things in a whole new light. For the first time I had someone I could debate heatedly with and still respect when finished. Her bright mind sharpened my own.

Sometimes, we would speak of things that had happened to us in our sordid past. Those nights, we would have an extra drink and take comfort in the companionship of someone who understood and hence had the unique ability to commiserate honestly. There was no judgment, no accusation. We accepted the darkest parts of each other without question.

One night a few months after she'd started working for me, Hermione had a few more drinks than usual as she told me of her first attempts at sexual experimentation. I didn't want to hear anything that had the words Weasley and Sex in the same sentence, but I was actually grateful that what she'd gone through hadn't killed her desire to know about sexuality. She told me about her determination to know if sex could be pleasurable. About Weasley's fumbling attempts to please her. About how her failure to relax made her feel as if the option was forever closed to her.

I was relieved that she'd never actually slept with the Weasley twit, but it broke my heart that she'd thought she would never be able to experience sex as it was intended. Just because some inept teenager hadn't been able to create a safe, comfortable environment for her and lacked the skill to show her the joys of sex didn't mean that it wasn't possible for her. When I told her as much, she simply laughed and said that Ronald wouldn't appreciate being slandered about his sexual prowess. I said that I didn't give a fuck what he thought about my views on his inadequacy. But I admitted inside that it would have been nearly impossible for him to succeed in that situation.

Without prior knowledge of what had been done to her, he couldn't prepare for the necessity of comforting her. He couldn't know that he would need to seduce her slowly, entice her body to mindless pleasure before he could proceed. And a boy of his age simply wouldn't have the skill to relax her adequately to allow her to climax. But I didn't tell her that. The thought that she might decide to see if he'd honed his sexual skills made me angrier than I cared to admit.

"So you really think that someday I'll be able to have sex? And enjoy it?"

"Of course. It is simply a matter of finding an appropriate partner."

"And where do you suggest I find a sexually skilled man who will be sensitive to my insecurities and fears, who I can trust fully not to hurt me, and who has the ability to teach me?" She blinked at me innocently. My brow furrowed for a moment, and then I glared at her.

"I am going to pretend that I did not understand what you were just implying, Miss Granger. Such a thought would be improper and quite scandalous. Not to mention that I'm certain a wizard of your own age would surely be preferable for such an experiment."

"What if I don't want a wizard my own age? What if I want one who's older...more experienced." She grinned cheekily at me. I wanted to groan out loud. Why, oh why did she have to do this to me? It was hard enough to see her every day, work with her side by side and keep my thoughts neutral about her. I hadn't been lying when I'd said that she was just the type of witch I found irresistible. And as she blossomed before me, I couldn't help but want to pluck her. Hide her away in the secret garden of my heart for only me to see and appreciate. Only me to inhale her sweet scent and view her beauty.

"Then that is certainly your choice," I managed to say. "But of course, I would be an inappropriate choice for such a venture."

"Why?"

"I believe we have discussed this before, Hermione. You still look to me for comfort and safety because of the fantasy you concocted while coping with your situation. What you think you may feel for me is nothing more than phantom emotions wrapped around a fictionalized version of me. Even if I wasn't your boss, even if I wasn't a man who had the blood of many on my hands, even if we were both in positions to pursue what we want with no repercussions, I am not the man for you. Find another."

I wanted to do the noble thing. I wanted to do right by her. She'd been so horribly wronged in the past that she deserved for someone to act with honor towards her.

So I told her to find another.

And lived to regret those words.

Be careful what you wish for.