Deep Bruises of War (Finnished)

XIII Soft spots

She'd known already that he was a tough and unbearable man who kept for her a special place in his dark, snarky heart.

Nevertheless, his today's behaviour shocked Hermione deeply. It all appeared to the witch, as if he agreed to spend with her a part of his evening only to have yet another opportunity to show full enormity of hatred he kept for her.

Did she have to be so naïve, even after the horrors of the war?

The war has robbed her of her youth, the time for experiments, for a chance to find out who she really wanted to be.

It wasn't right. She had no opportunity for reflection about herself, her future, and the desires she might have had.

Had she not?

Or maybe she has always been broken: only an empty shell of a true person, a mockery of humanity?

Hermione sat straight on her sofa, her spine painfully straight, her muscles tensed. She wandered off with her thoughts, diving deeply into her mind, trying to remember every time he had been mean to her in her school days.

Of course, he was.

But never like that. Never with this hard-to-define force which pushed him into yelling at her, deriding her and, from time to time, reducing her to tears.

And at the same time, he seemed strangely understanding and caring.

That felt not only weird and confusing to her, but most of all terrifying.

Who was this man? Or maybe: who had he became? What were his real feelings and expectations and what was only the cynical facade? Why her? Why, on earth must it have been her?

Hermione never heard the repeated knocking to her quarters and when Minerva McGonagall eventually opened the door and gave the room a careful and hesitant look, the headmistress saw the young witch sitting and staring at the wall with flat eyes.

Before she properly considered what she was doing, the old woman exclaimed:

"Dear Merlin, what's wrong with you child?"

Hermione winced and rapidly breathed in.

"Headmistress?" She stood up.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, of course, why would you ask, professor?"

The short pause Hermione made before she answered, was reflected by a worried and all-knowing expression on Minerva's face.

Hermione muttered a swear word. Here she was: with two stubborn personas sniffing around her in the search of Merlin-knows-what. One of them was her superior: a stern but emotional woman. The other was her unfortunate colleague, lurking around in the shadows, his motives never clear to anyone except him.

It was a disaster.

To her, to him, but most of all...

"So are you coming, or not?"

She looked at Minerva unconsciously and blinked. Coming where? And what for?

She struggled to come up with an answer assertive enough, to make the old woman back off.

"I'd rather stay here, Headmistress, if it is not a trouble..."

"Not at all... I've just... just..."

"Poor, naive Minerva," she thought. Probably, in McGonagall's mind, all that Hermione needed was some kind of gentle push, a hint of sunshine, a smile, and a caring hand.

A professor of Potions, for instance.

Fuck it.

She would stay in her quarters, no matter what, until she finally find some rest.