Work Text:
August 2008
Hermione dumped her luggage in front of the quarters that Minerva had promised her. They were next door to Andromeda's—Professor Black's, the woman she was meant to take over the post of Defence professor from in a year's time—and shared a small kitchen with her, but both were supposed to have separate entrances for privacy. Hermione's entrance was being stubborn, however, and no matter what spell she cast, the stone wasn't dissolving into a functional door. As it was supposed to. She huffed and lifted her foot, kicking at it with the sole of her boot.
And then cursed at herself for her stupidity when the sharp pain bloomed.
Andromeda found her poking the tip of her wand at the slab of stone wall meant to be a door a few minutes later, muttering spells over and over again as if she was simply pronouncing them wrong. Even though she never pronounced a spell wrong.
"Here, let me try," Andromeda said in lieu of greeting, the sound of her approaching footsteps the only reason Hermione hadn't startled. Stepping back with a huff and crossing her arms over her chest, Hermione looked on as Andromeda likewise failed to transform the stone wall back into a door to Hermione's quarters. Andromeda tried several more times before pressing her palm against the stone, head bowed with tendrils of hair falling out of the bun she wore.
When Andromeda turned around, leaning back against the stone, she exhaled heavily and lifted a hand to the bun, loosening it until the hair came out of the style entirely. Hermione couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Andromeda with her hair down, and it nearly reached the middle of her back. It fell somewhere between the colours of the other Black sisters' hair; a warm brown, falling in soft waves. An idle thought of how lovely it must feel passed through Hermione's mind.
"Well, that's rubbish. I'll have a chat with Minerva later about this obstinate castle."
Hermione blinked. "So, er, until then…?"
Pushing off the slab of stone, Andromeda came over and rested both her hands on Hermione's shoulders. "Until then, of course, you'll come in via my entrance." She squeezed, then patted Hermione's shoulders and brought one arm around to her upper back, nudging her towards the functioning doorway several feet away. "I can appreciate the value of private entrances, but it's no bother. It isn't as though I'm stowing away a clandestine affair partner in my quarters."
Something was lacking about Andromeda's laughter at her own words, as if her heart wasn't in the joke. Hermione forced herself to chuckle a little in polite response, but she knew when to stop. It was a touchy subject, at least according to Harry, and word had spread round to the Weasleys and Hermione and almost everyone they knew. The pain of losing Ted had never fully left Andromeda; nothing about their initial relationship had gone easy, but they'd been soulmates, so Andromeda had taken on the wrath of her blood family and never looked back.
And then they'd had nearly thirty years together. A daughter they'd adored. A life they'd built together and cherished more than anything, from the stories Harry had gleaned in bits and pieces when Andromeda was up for sharing with him.
Hermione knew how the story ended; all of British wizarding society did, because nothing captured the public's attention like tragedy did.
Yet Andromeda had never leaned into it, ignoring calls for interviews and invitations to grief support groups. She raised Teddy alongside Harry until the boy was nearly five years old. At that point, Andromeda had received and eventually accepted an offer to teach at Hogwarts as the new Defence professor. Hermione recalled learning that Minerva had somehow managed to talk Andromeda into taking the position, noting her extensive personal experience, or rather better put: an upbringing so entwined with Dark magic, yet never losing herself to it like Bellatrix or embracing it in the way Narcissa had.
While Teddy could have come along, it was unheard of for a child under the age of eleven to live full-time at Hogwarts; Hermione remembered how Harry had stepped in, offering to take care of the boy like his own son during the week, and Andromeda would come back to her grandson on the weekends and some evenings.
At the time, Hermione had been trotting around the globe, staying in countries including Thailand, Argentina, New Zealand, and Canada for months at a time, sometimes closer to a year, all in pursuit of knowledge that she could never have learned at Hogwarts or even in other, smaller British academic enclaves. Which she had, of course, spent time in as well. Ron had found it all positively mad, but she could tell he had enjoyed the letters from her time abroad as much as the rest had.
It was in these letter exchanges while abroad that she'd witnessed her friends' journeys in finding their soulmates. In various manners they'd written about those initially hazy dreams where they saw snatches of their soulmate's barest features in their peripheral vision and heard a muffled voice that ever so gradually, over months typically, grew increasingly distinct, until the two crossed paths in the dream. Hermione still remembered how gobsmacked Ron had come across in his letter about finally running into Draco Malfoy.
She'd wondered at one point if she was delaying her own, entirely unsure if one needed to live within a certain distance of their soulmate to share such dreams. There was next to no research on it, but once Hermione started to hear hints of what she swore was some variation of the English accent in her dreams when she still lived in the Quebec city of Sherbrooke, she had an inkling that perhaps distance didn't matter. While curiosity had struck her, she'd still had plenty of time left before she'd cared to make a more permanent return to the United Kingdom. The dreams still visited her periodically, and she'd pull parchment from her nightstand every morning she awoke from one, scribbling down what she could recall.
By the time she'd returned home, Hermione found that—while the letters had informed her so that she wasn't completely blindsided by the developments in her friends' lives—nothing could make up for seeing it all in-person. Ron's arm snugly around Draco's shoulder, Harry and Theo wrapped up in each other to the point where she could hardly tell where one ended and the other began—she was positively overjoyed for them. And she couldn't be all that bothered that she wasn't also wrapped up with someone, because she'd always told herself that she didn't have the time to dedicate herself to a partner while she synthesised her research findings into something she could submit to the European Journal of the Dark Arts. The time for a soulmate would come later.
Five years later, though—two past the submission and approval of her now published research—Hermione still had the dreams, and she'd hit a bloody wall. Headaches were now her consistent companion when she awoke from them, and she knew that hadn't happened to any of her friends. Ron would have complained about it ad nauseam. Ginny, too, for that matter.
These days, she'd managed to pinpoint a general pattern as to when she would have the dreams and always had a potion at her bedside to take upon waking. She made a note of her own personal potions alcove in the quarters Andromeda showed her around now, content to listen to the other woman for as long as she wished to talk. She hadn't at all realised how lovely Andromeda sounded, her accent somewhat posh yet exceedingly warm, only scarcely similar to Hermione's memory of Mrs. Malfoy's accent and nothing like Bellatrix Lestrange's.
"You'll see I'm a bit…" Andromeda laughed a little, running a hand over the nape of her neck. "Well, my Nymphadora called it anal, about the tidiness of the kitchen. I hope you don't mind, Hermione."
Something about the way Andromeda said her name—
But she couldn't think too much on it. She needed to pay attention to the contents of what Andromeda was saying, not her lovely voice or the uncanny resemblance from somewhere else she couldn't quite place.
December 2008
Her private entrance still hadn't budged one bit, even with Minerva calling in the aid of an Unspeakable who had owed her a favour. Hermione had tried convincing her to not call in a sodding favour over something so trivial, but Minerva wouldn't hear a word of it.
"I still have plenty of favours waiting to call in, my dear," the Headmistress had assured her.
Later that evening after the Unspeakable had left with no answers beyond "it's the bloody castle, I swear," Andromeda had once again invited Hermione over to her quarters after they finished dinner in their shared kitchen. It had turned into a habit of theirs over the term so far. First, to simply discuss how the Defence lessons had gone that day and revisiting the lesson plan for the next day—or week, if it was a Friday. At some point, however, they'd begun to fall into what were sometimes heated discussions over a wide arrangement of topics, from the place of traditional pureblood customs to the values of a hypothetical blended primary education for magical children prior to entering Hogwarts.
Tonight, though, it was about when it was truly appropriate to teach certain lessons in Defence, which had resulted in something of a stalemate that Andromeda had put a cork in by bringing out a bottle of fine Elvish wine that she'd bought in Lyon.
"A purchase from the inheritance Narcissa returned to me," Andromeda explained, her voice tightening when she spoke her younger sister's name.
They hadn't spoken any more regarding Andromeda's familial roots that evening, but when Hermione violently awoke early the next morning, thrashing about in Andromeda's arms before shoving past her, sick all over the hardwood flooring beside the bed, she was left with images of Bellatrix cackling as she slumped back into Andromeda's arms, hardly noticing when Andromeda cleaned up the floor with a spell, then cast another to clean Hermione's mouth and summoned a potion to settle the stomach. She was far too preoccupied by how she couldn't even remember the last time she'd had a night terror with Bellatrix starring.
That was, until the headache crashed into her.
"My head, bloody—Bellatrix," Hermione said, words slurring together as she sat up after Andromeda gave her the potion for her stomach, looking around for the potion she always prepared when she knew or rather could reasonably guess she was going to dream about whoever her blasted soulmate was. But she couldn't spot it where she always placed it, and it hit her: she'd not expected to have the dream tonight. It had become mostly predictable, but now—
"Fuck," she hissed, the pain shifting, now positively throbbing in her skull, and she pushed away from Andromeda to clutch helplessly at the sides of her head. She didn't remember anything else until the edge of a phial was placed at her lip, and without thinking because she simply couldn't, Hermione opened her mouth and allowed Andromeda to give her whatever the hell she had. It couldn't be anything terrible. Andromeda was born a Black, but she wasn't her sisters.
In the span of a few seconds, the throbbing sensation faded, and Hermione exhaled, rubbing at her eyes. When she opened them again, she found Andromeda's face closer than it'd ever been, and the witch was brushing Hermione's fringe off her forehead, pressing her palm to the skin.
"I was… already awake," Andromeda said, voice soft, concern etched into her features. "And then I heard you screaming." She paused, then winced. "Please tell me you didn't forget to place some sort of ward so I wouldn't hear. This doesn't happen every night, does it?"
"I—" Hermione turned her head, coughed and cleared her throat. "I didn't. This… it's not happened before. I, er—usually it's only the headaches. From those soulmate dreams that don't go bloody anywhere for me but into a wall now. But this time…"
Andromeda frowned, wrinkling her nose.
"I've not heard of anyone hitting a wall with those. Mine and…" she trailed off, and Hermione wanted so desperately to ask. To learn and to know, but the pain on Andromeda's face was glaring and palpable. Eventually, Andromeda finished with a dismissive hand gesture. "Well, it's simply unheard of. Have you thought of—"
"I have," Hermione said, dipping her head and pushing her fingers through her curls. "No explanation for it or the pain, unlike when someone doesn't sever a soulmate bond once their partner passes…"
Hermione's next words caught in her throat at the weak, pitiful sound that came out of Andromeda's mouth. Before she could say another word, the other woman was up and gone from her quarters, and when Hermione attempted to get through the kitchen door that led to Andromeda's quarters, it was locked. She stared at it, dumbfounded.
The next morning, Andromeda—a witch who preferred to sleep in as long as possible—was already gone from her quarters by the time Hermione came through them to exit. Something that had never happened during the few months they'd been working together at Hogwarts.
February 2009
"It'd be lovely if the castle could just bloody well talk to us instead of pulling this shite."
Andromeda hummed, sat on the sofa as she was, with her elbows leaning against her thighs and chin resting in her hands. Hermione caught her eyes when Andromeda glanced up at her, the fire crackling a few feet away from them. They were presently stuck in a situation that was rather ludicrous: neither could access Hermione's quarters, nor could either of them exit Andromeda's quarters except to access the shared kitchen. A small reassurance that the castle at least didn't want them to starve.
"This is…" Andromeda sighed, taking a moment to stretch, distracting Hermione as she did so. "It's all bollocks, truly. The castle… It did something similar, with– with Ted and I."
Hermione's eyes snapped up to meet Andromeda's rueful gaze. "Do me a favour and sit with me, will you, Hermione? And you can shut that gaping jaw of yours, I…" But she didn't finish, though Hermione shut her mouth so quickly her jaw clicked, and she massaged one side of it as she took a seat next to Andromeda.
"I've come to understand that Gryffindors like yourself would rather a person get straight to the point," Andromeda said, pulling her legs up underneath her and wrapping her arms around herself. Hermione angled her body towards her, wanting to reach out but keeping herself from it. Andromeda took in a shaky breath, turned her head towards Hermione with a contrite half-smile, and said, "I… may be the reason you are hitting a wall with those dreams of yours."
Hermione opened her mouth, an odd sort of choked noise escaping her, before she slammed her jaw shut and turned away from Andromeda, balling her hands into fists. This wasn't—
She jerked her head around. "How?"
"I asked Harry never to tell anyone," Andromeda said, head bowed and voice barely above a whisper. When she lifted her head again, her eyes shone in the firelight, and the tight smile she shared was like a knife stuck in Hermione's gut. "You're a smart one, Hermione, surely you wondered about that night when you mentioned someone…" Andromeda wrung her hands. "Someone not severing their soulmate bond when… when their partner passes away."
Trimmed fingernails digging into her palms, Hermione swore and got up from the sofa. "I did wonder, yes," she said, "but I try to not pry these days." She swore again and turned to face Andromeda, hands splayed out at her sides. "Are you telling me that you never severed your bond with Ted, and… and that you think we're supposed to be soulmates? And this is why I hit those walls in the dreams and wake up with the horrible headaches?"
"I… had never heard of someone having a second soulmate," Andromeda whispered, staring up at Hermione with widened, glassy eyes. "But that night I was already awake with a painful headache of my own. I don't have dreams like you do, exactly, though that night I'd had one of my sisters. But that's why… why I had something already prepared for you to take. It was from my own stores."
Hermione growled and kicked the side of her boot against the heel of one of Andromeda's own. "Get up. Please."
Once Andromeda stood, Hermione fiercely tugged the woman into her arms. "You fucking arsehole of a witch," Hermione said, but there was no anger in it, not truly. Frustration, yes. Disbelief and wondering if what Andromeda had said held any merit to it, but she, they'd, never know if Andromeda wouldn't sever her bond with Ted. Typically it was done within the first six months of one's soulmate passing. Hermione had read of the pain associated with holding onto it, and she couldn't even imagine what sort of pain ten years had resulted in.
She heard the sobs first, then felt Andromeda's body shaking against her. Holding her even tighter, Hermione rested her chin on Andromeda's shoulder and rubbed circles into the woman's back. She wondered how long Andromeda had been holding it all in; regardless, the sound of her breaking tore at Hermione, and she wished she could do more than hold her, but—
"Thank you," Andromeda said, voice hoarse and thick with emotion. When Andromeda leaned back, her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and her lips curled into a small apologetic smile as she added, "Don't be cross with Harry, please. I had him swear—not with anything magically binding, none of that rot, so you know. Just… with his words. He still nags me—"
"As he should!" Hermione exclaimed, shaking the other woman a little. Her hands then instinctively rubbed at Andromeda's arms in some sort of apology. "Do you really think Ted would want you to hold on like this? I've read how painful it is for those who do, and I've never read of someone keeping the bond alive as long as you have."
Andromeda worried her lip, looked about ready to shed more tears, and Hermione couldn't help it—she reached up a bit, cupping the woman's cheek with her hand. Sod the blasted wall in the dreams that made it so she had yet to clearly see her soulmate, this was right.
She remembered the first time she'd listened, truly listened, to Andromeda's voice, the day she'd moved into the castle. How it had captivated her more than any other, and it hit her—how it had reminded her of something, but she hadn't then been able to place where or what exactly… It must have been the dreams. And the snatches of soft brown hair she'd managed to see—
"I don't– I don't want to l-lose him forever," Andromeda cried out the confession, crumpling against her. Hermione guided them to the ground, unable to hold the weight of another fully-grown woman without utilising spells she didn't care to cast right now. "The f-fucking pain, it-it keeps him here with me," she said, her words fractured and gasping, and Hermione's chest constricted as she held Andromeda close.
She wondered when the last time was that someone had truly held this woman. Something more than a quick hug in greeting or parting.
Hermione strained her hearing to make out what Andromeda said next. About her daughter, lost to her, the intrinsic bond between mother and child severed without notice, while at least she had a choice when it came to her bond with Ted. About how, with the war having just ended, no one had prodded her about the bond left behind or questioned her about its removal. About how only Harry had known a thing about it, and even that knowledge had only found its way to him because he'd accidentally come across her potions store that held far too many for a typical woman her age and poked at her until she'd confessed.
"Would Ted want you to associate keeping him with you as something that brings you pain, though?" Hermione asked as she leaned back against the base of the sofa, Andromeda resting against her. This was the closest they had ever been, and a part of her thought that if the castle could laugh, it would. Right in their faces. Conniving ancient building.
"I…" Andromeda turned so that her cheek lay against Hermione's upper chest. A few minutes passed as Andromeda's breathing evened out. "I… had never thought of it that way." She pushed away, face a blotchy mess as she met Hermione's eyes. "You– I– will you give me the weekend to consider all of this?"
Hermione chuckled. "I think you may be best off asking for the castle's permission, Andromeda—"
"Call me Andy, love," Andromeda said, pushing away a little more and observing Hermione as if she was drinking the sight of her in.
Hermione did just about manage to hold back from wriggling at the intensity of Andromeda's gaze.
March 2009
The bond was gone. It was gone, because Hermione found her, found Andromeda, in her dreams that night as she slept on the transfigured bed in the other woman's living quarters. While the castle had allowed them both to leave Andromeda's rooms after the woman began to finally open up to her that evening in February, it had not yet allowed Hermione to return to her own quarters. And Andromeda, Andy in private, had insisted that she treat the witch's rooms as her own until everything was sorted.
Hermione had not been there in the bedroom when the bond was removed—something Andy had also insisted upon, then alleviated Hermione's fears of what could happen if it was removed alone by reassuring her that she'd have Minerva there when it happened. Though... she had to admit that she hadn't envied Andromeda at all when she heard Minerva's accent come out in full after overhearing Andy tell the Headmistress exactly why she had requested her presence in her personal quarters.
But now. Now Hermione found her in the dream, found Andromeda sitting underneath a willow tree—not the Whomping Willow, thankfully—and gently knocked the toe of her trainers to the other woman's boot. When Andy lifted her head, tears silently falling while a small yet genuine smile pulled at her lips, Hermione extended her hand. She wasn't left waiting as Andromeda almost immediately took it and Hermione helped her up.
"Let's hope we don't wake with any headaches after this," Andromeda said, pulling Hermione close. She felt Andy press her face into her curls, heard the deep inhalation, and wrapped her arms around the other woman.
Hermione exhaled a soft laugh. "Right, and that the castle will allow me to enter my quarters again."
Andromeda pulled back a little and eyed her curiously. "You do know you're welcome to stay in my quarters if you'd like?"
Hermione raised her eyebrows and grinned. "Oh, are you propositioning me, Andromeda?"
When Andy smacked her arm playfully, Hermione could only shrug. She probably deserved that one.
And as Andromeda rolled her eyes and moved her hands down to hold Hermione's, she sobered at the woman's warm touch. "I…" Hermione hesitated, licked her lips, then figured it was better to ask than not. "Are you okay, after… you know, severing the bond you had with Ted?"
Andromeda squeezed her hands, then leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to Hermione's cheek. When she pulled away, she shook her head. "No, but I will be. Minerva told me of a few others she has met like me, and… it will take time. But you are a variable she has only heard of one or two times before. A bloody second soulmate. Almost unheard of."
As Andromeda spoke, the dreamscape began to grow hazy, and by the time she finished with 'almost unheard of', everything distorted, like a fog descending upon them, and the next thing Hermione knew, she was blinking awake on the transfigured bed in Andy's quarters.
She waited a few precious seconds, waited to see if the headache would come as it normally did.
When thirty seconds had passed, she covered her mouth with her hand as tears tracked down over her cheeks, and she didn't even attempt to suppress the relieved cries that overwhelmed her.
And then, Andromeda was there. In the flesh, bridging the gap between them until none remained. Until they were truly wrapped up in each other, and nothing—not even the dreams—could compare.