Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath. ~Eckhart Tolle
"You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into." ― Ben Goldacre
"The female mind is certainly a devious one, my lord." Vetinari looked at his secretary in surprise. "Well, of course it is. It has to deal with the male one."
— Terry Pratchett
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Hermione thrummed with anger, bristling as she stonily took in her apparent friends.
"The greasy git came to the Burrow. Just when we found out about the marriage law."
Ron's face was violently red, and Hermione knew he was remembering his failed proposal but the fact that Dennis had signalled his distrust, and Neville's clumsy advice about how she could have come to him about the plant because she could trust him now made perfect sense.
"I trust Severus Snape." She coldly stated. "He's one of the greatest potion's master in a century. He's helped me significantly already, and I don't recall any of you having a say in my life. Yes, he's helping me research Caligula, Neville, and yes Dennis I asked him to dinner when he found me in Paris. I wanted to know what the Malfoy's were up to. Yes Ronald, he interrupted your proposal, but you can hardly blame him for that, he came to the Burrow because of research I'd published. He recovered my research that I thought you had burnt. He came to Paris to return it to me, he told me more about Caligula, he helped me find out what the Malfoy's are up to, he found an order safe house in Paris where I could stay, and he brought me here, so I could meet with Minerva."
Ron exploded. "We're all helping you too! What do you think we're doing here!"
"Frankly Ron I have no idea, I thought Kingsley would send George to fetch Percy!" Hermione fired back, and Kingsley seemed almost summoned by his name.
"George couldn't leave the shop. Ron wanted to help. Hermione, no one here is disparaging Severus, I think we are all merely surprised-"
"'Greasy Git' seemed pretty disparaging to me." Hermione glared at Ron,
"Hermione," Neville's voice was pleading, "it's just- He was always good at fooling people. How do you know he's not up to something with the Malfoys? Why would he be helping you?" Neville's face was earnest. She took a deep breath as he voiced the same doubts she'd heard already, but before she could answer, Ron jumped back in.
"Hermione, you've got to admit, the timing was weird. Him showing up exactly when we found out about the Marriage law?" Ron was battling hard to keep his voice from a shout, and the effort infused it with bitterness instead.
"You've always been determined to hate him! I had been mailing him for weeks, Ronald. That just happened to be the day my article was released."
"Well forgive me for not knowing your secrets!" His volume rose, "You kept them well enough! You'd been in contact with him for weeks? Barely any time to talk to me, but him you were writing too?"
"Oh for merlin's sake, Ron, the research was about the healing properties of Dittany, and I got the idea from his old textbook. He ignored my letters, all of them, and showed up at the Burrow because he finally read the article and immediately thought I had stolen his work! He didn't even know about the Marriage law!"
"So this is revenge then!" Ron sounded so stupidly triumphant that Hermione put aside the fact they had an audience awkwardly witnessing every word and threw every last bit of pain she had felt since Severus had left her in the Headmistresses' office.
"You're an idiot. He didn't need revenge, but he could have easily taken my research on Memory restoration and published it himself. How the hell is offering me an apprenticeship revenge!"
"He what?" Neville seemed shocked, and Dennis, who had henceforth been staring resolutely at the carpet, raised his head at this.
"He- that's what he came to Paris to do. To offer me an apprenticeship."
Kingsley felt the need to interject, hands raised in a pacifying manner "She refused him."
Hermione looked at the older wizard furiously, and her head whipped back to Ronald who now had a sickened look on his face.
"An apprenticeship could have been more revenge than anything. Bonded to him for two years, he gets the power to sign off on your future, make all sorts of demands, Hermione, plenty of witches who have apprenticed under Male masters have…" he trailed off, his face reddening again, this time without rage.
"Oh don't be ridiculous Ronald. He wouldn't do anything like that." Hermione knew her friends distrusted him, but really. Hermione felt her own cheeks reddening as she recalled his heated stare at the Enchantress Salon, and the arches of his neck that she'd admired as he relaxed on the sofa, drunk, beside her in the late hours of last night. "In any case, you don't get a say anymore Ronald."
"You're still my friend! Fuck, Hermione, I came here to support you. I've been meeting up with Lucy, I brought her notes with updates from St Mungos, and I've seen your face flashing from the paper all morning hooking up with this one" He gestured to Dennis, who blanched completely with a look of panic, returning his gaze to the carpet.
Hermione flinched. Ron looked at her, and back at the white face of Dennis once more.
"It's a farce, I know it is. I'm not stupid-" Ron spat, but then looked at Dennis once more. "Relax mate, I know it's fake."
Dennis didn't look back at Ron, and when he finally raised his head, it was to look guiltily at Hermione. She felt her face flush, and painfully realised the spectacle Rita Skeeter would one day get to see.
"Dennis, why don't you go with Kingsley. He'll talk you through the amendment, and prepare you for the governors meeting."
Her voice was calm as she issued the command, and Kingsley stood at once, visibly relieved to leave the conversation. Dennis quickly followed him, rising from the couch until-
"No, wait." Ron looked at her, and his face fell.
"Go Dennis, I'll be with you shortly." Hermione quietly spoke, before turning to Luna and Neville. "Luna, I don't suppose you and Neville want to take a walk-"
"You're fucking kidding me. Him, Hermione? You're not interested in him, I saw the photo." Neville and Luna rose and left quietly, still able to hear every word as Ron's volume rose once more. The embarrassment washed over Hermione as he continued. "You look like you're just, just humouring him, just tolerating it, and I know the look because that's the same way you've looked for me this last year. So why the fuck can't he look me in the eye?"
"I slept with him." Hermione's voice was quiet, and the contrast to Ron's yelling was so sharp, that a ringing silence fell at her words. Ron's face was blank. His eyes were the only thing that moved, and even then the slow blink was dreadful in its power to turn his gaze cold.
"We were broken up, what, less than a week? And you don't even like him, why- oh, of course." Ron's voice was brittle, but the waiver was quickly filled with poison.
"You used him. Like McLaggin.'' He let out a snort, pulling a roll of parchment from his pocket and throwing it on the ground before her. "Like you used me, getting me to play Lucy's date to the press while getting information out of St Mungos for you. I suppose you needed him to look convincing. That's low Hermione," he chuckled darkly, "That's low."
Hermione stood before him, not reacting, and not willing to draw this out further than it needed to go. He would leave soon. He would insult her, then storm off. They'd done this once a month for the last year, and she could handle one more time. At least this time, his accusations were mired in at least an inch of truth.
Surely enough, he lurched forward, making as though to storm past, before stopping, well within her personal space.
"Maybe you should take Snape up on his offer. It'd serve you right, and at least you'd have practice, if the greasy git did press his advantage. You'd be willing, if it gets you what you want."
Hermione's hands shook and the blood pumped in her veins as if he'd slapped her.
"Maybe I will" Fury had drained her voice until her reply was little more than a waspish whisper, and she had no way off knowing if Ron had heard at all, as he stormed out of the library.
Hermione stood, feet planted and hands curled into fists. She wasn't sure how long she stood like that, slowly counting her breaths, before Luna stood beside her once more, and quietly placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Was Ronald rude again?" Her voice, while as lilting and dreamlike as usual, could have been commenting on the weather. Hermione looked at her, and saw that she was holding out the small beaded bag with her other hand. Hermione grasped it, and for the first time since entering the library, she didn't feel the damning urge to cry. She felt weightless, and knew that she could walk into the boardroom with the Hogwarts Governors without feeling a thing.
"He might have been right this time." She replied quietly.
"I doubt that. Snape doesn't seem the type to, what did he say, 'press his advantage'." Luna repeated Ron verbatim, not bothering to hide that the entire library had probably heard his remarks. "When the Headmaster kidnapped me, and took me to Malfoy Manor, he could have pressed his advantage then I suppose."
Hermione looked at Luna, mouth agape. Her tone hadn't changed at all, even as she discussed some of the absolute atrocities she'd suffered during the war.
"He barely acknowledged I existed. Carrow would definitely have made me suffer, as soon as he was alone with me, but Snape took me to the Manor himself. Straight to Narcissa, and told her I was a pureblood and not to be tortured, or interferred with, as a ward of her house." Luna looked at her with a steady gaze. "It's an old Pureblood tradition. Wards were underage witches or wizards who were sometimes given into the care of another family. It didn't stop them starving me, locking me in the dungeons, and the odd beating. But it meant I was as safe as I had any reasonable hope to be."
Hermione numbly realised that Luna was still patting her reassuringly on the back, as though anything she had been through today could compare.
"You didn't say anything. When they were telling me not to trust Snape." Hermione wondered aloud, staring at Luna.
"Oh, I don't think it would have made much of a difference. Neville has never forgiven him for taking me in the first place, though I doubt it was his idea. Ron and Dennis didn't look likely to be convinced either. Besides, I didn't think they would actually change your mind either." Luna turned back to the sofa she'd sat at earlier and retrieved the glossy Quibble Magazine, handing it to Hermione.
It was the photo Luna had taken of her after she'd received Malfoy's invitation and Snape's textbook and journal. They were visible in the frame, clasped in her lap as Hermione's photographic counterpart glared furiously at the camera, the lights of the metro flashing behind her, made into a magical glimmer that faded and bounced of the revealed skin of her neck, her hair lopped fiercely short and the transfigured robe Luna had made for her held securely around her tense frame. The image of her was shocking, and the only movement her figure made, as the picture ran through a loop of the shifting carriage, was to glance down, and grip the books in her hand like a lifeline, before glaring into the lens, and by extension anyone who picked up the Quibbler.
She'd been going for a look that said 'mad', and had achieved it. She looked livid.
"You didn't trust Snape then. So whatever has happened since must have been good, to make you so sure."
Hermione looked at the blonde witch, and not for the first time, marvelled at how much she was able to see.
"Come. You can get changed." Luna said, picking the rolled up parchment from the floor and leading Hermione to the empty librarians' office, "There's a few new outfits I put together, and one will be perfect to both meet the Governors and seek out the French Ministry."
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A/N: I only write this when I'm depressed. This scene could just as well not have been here, and I could have moved further on with the plot, but Hermione needed firing up, and writing arguments is cathartic. Leave a review, if you're still here reading.
