Moving Night

How many times had they sat here, lost in a world of books, and scrolls, and paper after paper after paper? Hermione Granger bit the tip of her quill absently, watching the candles flicker. The Wizarding world was an oddly anachronistic place, she thought as she waited for her companion to finish with the scroll she read. Despite their amazing, profound magical abilities, they seemed incapable of grasping the basic wisdom, when research was concerned, of a really good gooseneck lamp.

"How is it going?" she murmured.

Minerva McGonagall smiled tiredly from the next chair. Her face was creased with exhaustion, but her blue eyes still twinkled from their deeply hooded orbs. "About as well as can be suspected," she said. "I wonder when the others are returning?"

Hermione stretched stiffly, a yawn spreading her features. "I dunno. Ginny said it could be a few hours." She looked slightly away, sighing. "It's been bad, I hear. Things..."

"Will turn out for the best," McGonagall insisted. She was being strong, Hermione knew, both for Hermione's sake and her own.

Since the War had begun....

Since the Order had been destroyed....

Since so many of their friends had died....

It was hard now, to find places where Hogwarts alumni were not looked upon with suspicion, and they had been traveling town to town, living as they could, until they could meet up with the others. Hogwarts was a symbol, now, of failed rebellion. The Death Eaters had made very public examples of those graduates they caught, former staff and faculty, horrible images that scarred and damaged the mind and soul.

Minerva and Hermione were among the last still free. Still fighting in the shadows. Searching for the proper spells, or combination of spells, to end the Reign of Terror Lord Voldemort had brought down upon those wizards who would not join his ranks.

Harry was gone. Ron was gone. Dumbledore, Snape, so many of their friends, teachers, role models...gone.

She stood, taking the scroll that Minerva pulled from the stack and laying it back down on the table. "Enough for tonight," she whispered, placing two strong hands on her former teacher's shoulders. "Enough, Min."

Hermione felt the older woman draw a deep breath. She massaged the shoulders, kissing the softly graying hair Minerva still wore in that bun of hers, and was rewarded with a grateful murmer from McGonagall.

"You are too good to me, Hermione." She turned, taking the young woman's hands in her own, pulling her in for a gentle kiss. Their lips lingered for a moment, then Minerva wrapped her in a tight embrace. "You are too good to me."

"Nonsense," Hermione whispered in her ears. "You know I'm only in it for the sex."McGonagall laughed, only a shadow of her former laugh, but better still than no laugh at all. Hermione kissed her again, then pulled her to her feet. "C'mon, I'm tired. Let's go to bed."

"We have work to do."

"The work will be there tomorrow, Minerva." She was worried about her. She worked too hard, slept too little, and their bed had become the venue for far too many of Minerva's troubled dreams.

"It always is," was the sad reply.

"Ginny and Dudley are going to be here in the morning. You need to rest." She kissed her again, slowly this time, part tired admonition, part seduction. "Come to bed."

"You go," Minerva said absently, looking down at her with a sad expression on her aging face.

Hermione was surprised, with her glasses down the bridge of her nose like that, how much Minerva reminded her of Dumbledore. She'd become the grandmother of the New Order, the only surviving member of the Grindlewald Resistance, and one of the few original Order members still alive and not in prison. She was still lovely, in that seemingly ageless way wizards had, but there was a gravity there she'd not remembered from her student days. "No. I insist. Come to bed. I'll read some of the Faulkner before we sleep."

McGonagall sighed, realizing Hermione was not going to give in. "Not the Faulkner. How about some Gilderoy Lockhart for a nostalgic chuckle?"

Hermione laughed in spite of herself, patting Minerva on her backside. "Awful old witch."

"Lolita," Minerva countered with a kiss to the tip of Hermione's nose. She blew out the candles, taking Hermione's hand as they headed for the dingy bedroom of their rented flat. Tomorrow they would be moving again.

Tonight, they would rest.