Chapter Text
Prologue
The Healer standing at the end of the bed is a new one. Tonks is on so many potions that her grip on reality is admittedly loose, but she knows that this lady is new. There’s not a ton of them that will even work up here on the Bite Ward. Not with the number of werewolves currently lying about half dead.
Tonks was not actually bitten by anything, unless you think of a Bombarda Maxima as something sentient and mouthy. It’s a St. Mungo’s rule, “for containment purposes.” They know she’s married to a werewolf, so any and all ailments are treated here. There’s a special stamp on the front of her chart and everything.
Whatever.
This lady, though, is going through it. Fighting for her life, so to speak. She has Tonks’ chart in her hand, and is growing more gray about the face each time she flips a page.
Tonks has never, to her knowledge, seen this woman before in her life.
The Healer realizes that Tonks is awake, and gently hooks the chart back to end of her bed. She is giving Tonks the oddest look.
“How are you feeling, Mrs. Lupin?”
Tonks clears her throat. “Oh, just grand,” she says in the gravelly voice of someone currently sleeping twenty hours a day.
“I’m Healer McDonald. I just came on for the next 24 hours.”
The name rings in Tonks’ head like a bell. McDonald. McDonald. She feels like she should know.
“You’re new,” Tonks replies, not bothering to try and sit up. Her spine is a mess of new forming scar tissue and Skele-grow from T6 down. A massive curse blast above that. She can barely even feel her hands at the moment, let alone use them.
The woman nods. “I came with the mutual aide group from MACUSA.”
“You’re British.”
Healer McDonald moves around the bed, nervous almost, cautious. Which is odd. Every other person in this hospital has treated her like a specimen with no care to how many people look on while bits of her are examined naked. She taps her wand gently to Tonks’ stomach and pulls up a diagnostic.
The two women look at it together. It’s a horror show. If she wasn’t a metamorphmagus she’d be dead.
“Yes, it’s why I was asked to come. No passport issues at the international port key office.”
“And you were willing to work the Bite Ward?”
Healer McDonald clears the diagnostic. “You’ve not been bitten by anything.” She looks down at Tonks, hesitates. “Could I ask you a personal question?”
Tonks snorts, “That’s all anybody ever does here.”
“Are you married to Remus Lupin?”
The question floors her, no doubt. She tries not to think of Remus. Lying here, pinned to this bed, delirious from pain and potions… Remus might simply be at home with Teddy. If she doesn’t let reality come too clear, he might simply have gone for a cup of tea.
This question brings reality directly to the surface. Tonks can tell from the Healer’s tone that she knows Remus. Knew him.
“I was,” she finally replies. “He-“ her voice catches. “He didn’t make it.”
Healer McDonald looks down briefly, then back up at Tonks. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says quickly. “I-,” but then her voice catches, too. She looks down again, visibly trying to regain composure.
“I thought you must be his wife, when I saw the name and the stamp,” she finally continues. “I went to school with him.”
Mary McDonald.
“You’re Mary!”
Mary laughs. Tonks can see the sweet friendliness that Remus always described. “Indeed.”
Mary’s smile fades. “Did the two of you meet in the Order?”
Tonks remembers now that Mary McDonald had belonged to the first Order. And that she was the friend who refused to rejoin when Remus and Sirius reached out.
“We did,” Tonks says pleasantly. If memory serves this woman is muggleborn, with a Muggle husband and three young children in the States somewhere. Tonks does not have to wonder why she didn’t answer the call, nor does she judge her for it.
Anyway, she’s here now.
“So you knew Sirius, too?” Mary says carefully.
Tonks gives a small, raspy laugh. “Oh yes. And seeing as I am at least as bisexual as the two of them were, there weren’t a lot of secrets between us.”
Mary smirks, “I’ve been stood at the end of your bed for the better part of thirty minutes just stunned that Remus had a wife.”
“It was after. After Sirius… well. Anyway. I came after Sirius.”
“And you’ve had a baby recently.” Tonks can hear the Healer Voice creeping back into the conversation.
“Teddy,” she says softly.
Mary gives her a very Molly Weasley frown. “I can see that you are barely postpartum in your diagnostic, even aside from your chart. With the amount of magic you put out to survive the initial injury to your spine you’re lucky you didn’t just spontaneously bleed to death.”
“So I’ve heard.” Tonks desperately wants to continue talking to this woman, who knew her husband and who speaks to her like a human being. But she can feel the edges of reality starting to blur again.
Mary is holding a potion to her lips. Like every other foul concoction in this damned building it makes her cough and gag. Mary’s hand is familiar on her head, and smooths her hair away from her eyes. “It’s ok. You sleep, dearie.”
~
Tonks comes to again to the rough noises of someone’s painful bandage change. She hears the bed hit the wall once, as though someone has thrown themselves back against it, and then the most unfortunate gurgling. A soft curse from the Healer. Still Mary McDonald.
“I’m so sorry Severus, I know this is impossible. I’m going to have to immobilize you.”
Ah, yes. Severus, unlike her, had actually been bitten by something. Voldemort’s snake, if the nurses are to be believed. It is the audience to his bandage changes that makes her most grateful to only have a simple crushed spine to deal with.
He’d been handcuffed to the bed, wrist and ankle, the first 24 hours. After an interview with Kingsley where they’d brought Severus around to write out answers to various questions she couldn’t follow, the order had been given to unleash him.
She suspected something foul to do with Albus Dumbledore. If Kingsley had lifted Severus’ arrest then they all probably owed him a massive apology.
Tonks can still hear Severus’ rough, wet breathing.
“There now,” Mary is saying in a tone Tonks knows he must hate. “Stop glaring at me like that, this is my job.”
There is a pause.
“Yes, well this hospital is full of ghosts for more people than just you, Severus.”
Another pause, Tonks realizes he must be writing.
“I am certainly not going to allow you to die. You’re worried about- what? That people know you weren’t a wretched bastard your whole life?”
Of course. If Mary had gone to school with Remus, she had also been the same year as Severus.
“Lily would be glad to know that you got to have a life, Severus. Stop wallowing. I think you’ve atoned by anyone’s standard.”
If the conversation were not so heart wrenching she would probably laugh. She has never, in her life, heard someone speak that way to Severus Snape.
The world fades to black again.
~
When she comes to next, Harry Potter is sitting next to her bed.
This is odd for many reasons.
Reason 1: Harry Potter is about the most in demand person in the country right now.
Reason 2: Her husband loved Harry very much. She, however, has had exactly one solo conversation with him in her life.
Reason 3: In spite of this, Harry Potter is her son’s godfather. Remus is not here to mediate their relationship.
“Hi, Tonks.”
That loosens something in her chest. She’s already tired of being called Mrs. Lupin.
“Wotcher, Harry.”
He leans forward, “What are they saying? About how you’re doing?”
Right to the point. God love him.
“Oh, nothing too wonderful. I’ll be able to use my hands and my arms but everything below that is toast.”
He flinches. “That’s really awful. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. They’re working on a chair for me. Could be worse.”
Of course, it could be a great deal better. But she’s not about to whinge about how sad she is to be alive to Harry bloody Potter.
“I checked on your Mum and Teddy. I hadn’t realized how serious things were.”
Ah, now it made sense. “And how was Mum?”
Harry looked around uncomfortably, in that way of his. “Well, quite upset at you, I suppose.”
Tonks gave an inelegant snort. “Yes, she’s made that quite clear. Don’t worry, Harry, it’s not news to me.”
Mary picks that moment to slip behind her privacy screens. She drops whatever she’s holding with a soft curse.
Harry is immediately on his feet to help her. Mary accepts what must have been a shatter proof potion bottle from him.
“You must get so tired of people looking at you as though they’ve seen a ghost.”
Harry does look rather tired of it, in the look he gives Mary. “It’s ok. Did you know my parents?”
Mary is Much More Emotional than she’s been. “I did. I belonged to the Order the first time.”
“And they went to school together,” Tonks adds, sensing that Mary is trying not to lose the plot in totality.
Harry is a bit more interested now. Mary continues, “I actually- well. I suppose there’s no way you would have known unless Sirius or Remus- did you know you were born at home?”
Harry is now more interested in this conversation than Tonks has ever seen him be in anything. “No.”
“I was the Healer who delivered you. Your Mum and I- we were friends. She joked the whole way through about the meaning of friendship.” Mary smiles sadly at the memory, looking at Harry once again.
Just as she opens her mouth to speak, Harry says, “I know I have her eyes.”
Mary is still smiling, but her eyes have gone sad. “Of course. I was just going to say… they would be so proud of you, Harry. But I suppose you hear a lot of that too.”
Harry gives her a crooked grin. Tonks can see that he’s trying not to cry. “It’s always nice to hear,” he finally says, softly.
~
Once the constant stream of Skele grow is done and she is up in a wheelchair that cradles her body just so to stop her from toppling over, they are eager to get her out.
Mary has been consistently belligerent to the other Healers about Tonks’ presence on the Bite Ward.
“How about I let her bite me and then we study it?” she’d said to the Head of St. Mungo’s when he’d come to check on Severus.
She can use her hands and her arms which is great. The wheelchair sits her in such a way that it might seem that it’s only her legs that don’t move. But she has almost no control at all from the ribs down.
Some feeling remains, mostly pain. Tonks is meant to feel happy about it. She’s mostly grateful to be continent even if it’s only with the help of magic.
A Muggle woman, Tia, who occupies the bed opposite Severus tells her that Muggles get along quite well in wheelchairs. They lead Normal Lives.
More normal than Tia can hope for anyway, as one of the Actual Werewolves on the ward. Tonks hears them talking about confining her to long term care. Only Mary speaks directly to Tia.
She misses Remus.
Without the potions and the concussion and the shock, she feels his absence more acutely. She knows that he is dead. She cannot forget it. She wonders what they did with his body. It’s been weeks. Months. Surely a funeral was held.
With her Mother not speaking to her, and Harry nowhere to be found, there is no way for her to find out.
She wonders if Teddy even remembers that he ever had parents. She knows she should miss him more than she does. Mary says it is normal for someone who’s just had a baby on top of a big loss and trauma. She’s added some potion to help with it.
One day, Tonks is sitting up next to Severus’ bed playing a silent game of chess when Professor McGonagall comes in.
Tonks sees the warm, tight embrace with Mary, who scarcely leaves the ward. Mary pulls away and points at her and Severus.
Minerva stands at the end of the bed for a moment, surveying them silently. Never one for Albus’ pomp and circumstance she says, “I find myself in need of a few teachers.”
Chapter Text
It had all come neatly together, in the end.
Of course, to come back together something also has to have fallen apart. And Hermione Granger’s life had. Fallen apart. Rather gloriously.
Ron surveys her sadly from the archway of their kitchen as she gathers her things before the floo in their living room.
The kitchen. The living room. Not their’s.
She had left him the house and almost everything in it, in the end. The car. Most of the money. The books, of course, were her’s.
“Ready to go?” he asks, fixing a brave face on even if it is a bit wistful.
She gives him a soft smile in return. “I suppose.”
After screaming at each other for almost fifteen years, she supposes it is fitting that they end with this soft, affectionate sadness.
Hermione holds Ron’s gaze for several long moments. She has loved him for more of her life than she hasn’t. When he crosses the room to gently envelope her into his arms, she relaxes into him with the ease and intimacy that comes from not remembering what it was like not to know someone.
When she finally pulls away both of their faces are wet. Ron’s thumbs sweeps her cheeks gently. With one final look, he leans down and gently kisses her forehead. He leaves the room without a word.
Hermione takes a moment to collect herself. With a tap of her wand her trunk disappears. Before she can doubt herself, again, she grabs a handful of floo powder.
“Hogwarts,” she whispers, stepping into the hearth and disappearing into a flash of green flame.
~
The first staff meeting of the year was in the top ten most surreal moments of her life.
True to form she had arrived early. Who knew what the etiquette was. Minerva and Filius were waiting in the staff room, reviewing the agenda.
Minerva had advised her to help herself to the tea cart and find a seat.
And here’s the thing, objectively she knew, SHE KNEW, that Severus Snape had married a Muggle werewolf and that Minerva had brought her on to teach Muggle Studies. She had heard from more than one person that said woman was unbelievably pleasant for someone who loved the famously surly Potions Master. To know it and to experience it were very different things.
They had come in together, Snape holding the door open, his wife breezing through with a, “thank you, dear.”
Hermione had mostly hoped to sit quietly until a brief acknowledgement by Minerva, and then to do more sitting quietly.
Then she met Tia Snape.
“Oh, but this must be our new Head of Gryffindor!”
Hermione rose to greet the woman and was quickly swept up into a warm embrace. “Oh, er, hello then,” she mumbled, caught off guard.
Tia stood back, “I’m Tia Snape, Muggle Studies.” Hermione sat and Tia took the seat immediately next to her. “Of course, Severus has told me so much about you, I could hardly wait to meet you in person!”
Hermione stared blankly at Tia for a moment. “Of course,” she said, trying to find a way to politely say that she was positive that Severus Snape hated her so what could he have possibly had to say?
It was another few moments before the man in question joined them. Tia smiled warmly at her husband, accepting a cup of tea from him as he sat in her other side.
“Professor Granger,” Snape said in acknowledgement.
“Professor Snape,” she replied.
“Would you stop!” Tia laughed. “With the wizarding bullshit formality. My God.”
Hermione’s mouthful of hot tea almost shot entirely out of her nose. Snape just gave his wife a bemused look before raising an eyebrow at Hermione.
“Severus, please,” he said. “I insist.” Hermione noticed then, the difference to his voice. Just above a whisper, with a slight rasp that had never been there before.
“Well, Hermione then.” She laughed as he continued to look at her with incredulity. Hermione turned to Tia, “He never used to call students by their first names.”
Tia rolled her eyes, “Oh, he still doesn’t. None of them do.”
Hermione finally placed the accent. Welsh. She hadn’t heard a Welsh accent since Remus. Tia’s is much more pronounced than his was, but then she probably hadn’t spent her adolescence at a Scottish boarding school with friends who all had RP accents.
As the room filled she continued on in a friendly banter with Tia Snape, who was indeed as friendly and likeable as she had ever heard. More so, even, for the effect she had on Severus, who sat with a more relaxed posture than Hermione had ever seen him hold with a hand gently resting on his wife’s knee.
They were joined by Neville, current Herbology teacher and former Head of Gryffindor, who dropped a large bag of parchment at her feet with an exaggerated, “Good luck!” before falling into a seat with exaggerated relief.
“Honestly, Longbottom,” Severus scoffed.
“I don’t know how you’ve done it all these years, Severus. You’ll see, Hermione. Head is a nightmare. Especially because they’re all like you and Harry and Ron in our house. I haven’t had a straight night of sleep during term since I took the bloody job.”
Tia’s eyes lit up, “Ooooh! You were a trouble maker?”
Minerva stands, “To detail Hermione’s school day’s trouble would necessitate a totally separate meeting, Tia. Trouble doesn’t even begin to cover it.” Minerva’s eyes glanced over Hermione with a smile ghosting at her lips. “Now, as we can assume that Nymphadora won’t be here for another ten minutes we can get started-“
“I’m here!” the door banged open as Tonks pushed through, her five year old son trailing behind her.
Hermione didn’t see Tonks enough, the wheelchair always threw her off even though she’d had it since Teddy was a baby.
“Go see what Professor McGonagall has on the cart for us, love,” Tonks said quietly to the blue haired boy before rolling her chair next to Neville.
“I was barely late, Minerva, stop giving me that look.”
Everyone in the room chuckled in such a way that made it clear how common a problem it was.
Hermione’s eyes followed Teddy as he loaded a plate with biscuits. She saw him more than Tonks, he was with Harry and Ginny at least once a week. As always she was struck with how much he looked like Remus.
Then he knocked into the corner of the table, and sent his plate of treats scattering across the room. He looked up with a wobbling lip.
To Hermione’s astonishment it had been Severus who swooped up, vanishing the biscuits on the floor. “Enough, now. There’s plenty more on the cart. I’ll help,” he’d said, in the strange quiet voice that sounded almost like Professor Snape, but not.
And he had. He held the plate while the little boy solemnly loaded it with even more biscuits and then walked quietly back over to his chair, where Teddy had climbed on to Severus’ lap, leaned against his chest, and happily began eating his way through the plate.
Hermione did her best not to stare, but honestly.
Tonks had noticed her struggle eventually. “Things change,” she said with a laugh. “Teddy and Tia are the Severus whisperers.”
“I’ll say,” Hermione had whispered back.
There had been a lot then about timetables. Names Hermione didn’t recognize were given as Prefects and House Captains, Head Boy and Head Girl. She wrote them all down. The Head Boy was a Gryffindor.
“A good lad, you’ll like him,” Neville said.
Apparently half the Gryffindor House Quidditch team had graduated. They needed a Keeper, a Beater and two Chasers. The remaining Beater was Captain. The Seeker may not play again due to studying with Madame Pomphrey for Healer entrance exams.
“Minerva, I hate Quidditch.”
“Not anymore, you don’t,” she had replied solemnly.
Neville appeared to be about to suffer an apoplexy, he was laughing so hard.
After she lays down in bed she realizes that all she has thought about all day were students and Quidditch and timetables and lesson plans. No dwelling on Ron’s devastated understanding. No panic to shut her down.
She feels peace wash over her.
Chapter Text
The first week of term passes in an absolute blur. In spite of fighting in an actual war for a lot of her life, being a Hogwarts Professor is the most all consuming thing she has ever done.
First of all, the previous Transfiguration Professor had the third year doing Switching Spells. The lesson plans had all needed redone, and she had started her teaching career by lecturing all seven years that they should expect the standard in the class to increase dramatically.
As a result she was very popular.
Second, Neville was correct about Gryffindor House being absolutely feral.
She has taken more House points from Gryffindor than she’s taken from all the other houses combined. She has had all the fourth years in detention every night since the start of term.
Third, Quidditch. The Captain, Marlene Selwyn, has a panic attack in her office on the third day of term after she learns that the previous year’s Seeker is indeed quitting the team in favor of her Healer’s studies.
Marlene hopes to play professionally and being the Captain of a losing team is apparently Not A Good Look.
“Talk me through this problem like I am an idiot, Ms. Selwyn,” Hermione had said. She means for Marlene to assume this is a tactic and not because Hermione still knows nothing about Quidditch. Marlene, bless her, takes the bait.
“Our team currently has two players returning. All the other teams have played together for at least two years,” the girl had said after a moment. “We don’t have a reserve Seeker. I’m going to have to train one from scratch. There is almost no overlap between Beater and Seeker. So we have to hope that someone’s been taught at home. The Chaser we have left was the lowest scorer last year. I’m not even sure I’ll put him back in the team.”
Hermione’s head had ached as she continued to try to follow the set of circumstances. She had taken notes so the girl would feel like the problem was taken seriously.
Marlene had talked herself down with very little contribution from Hermione, thankfully, as Hermione still could not exactly understand why a few extra practices wouldn’t solve the problem. She’d penned a letter to Ginny about it.
And finally, after curfew Hogwarts basically turns into a brothel. Gryffindor leads the charge, naturally. Neville’s warning holds true, and Hermione is pulled from bed every single night.
“We were never like this,” she complains one morning at breakfast.
“I hope you’re just being funny,” Severus quips back.
“Yes, well at least we kept our clothes on.”
Tonks laughs at that, “Speak for yourself.”
Hermione just wants to go to sleep Friday night, her brain truly fried, when there is a knock on her door.
She groans. Honestly. This is ridiculous.
Tonks’ Patronus waits in the hallway. “My office, love. It’s a good one.”
For fuck’s sake. If Tonks was involved then one of the students almost certainly have weed on them. The older Hufflepuff’s sell it. They have, apparently, for years. The amount of things a blind eye is turned to is truly astonishing.
She changes into simple Muggle clothes, rather than her teaching robes. She could recall that seeing teachers in a casual state had always made her uncomfortable and if she’s to be out of bed then no one is going to be comfortable.
Tonks is at her desk looking relatively amused. Sat on a bench at the side of the room are Marlene Selwyn and a girl Hermione recognizes as a sixth year Prefect.
“Welcome to the party, Professor Granger!” Tonks is evil. The girls look like they want to crawl in a hole and die and Tonks is positively cackling.
Hermione smiles at Tonks and then looks over at the girls. She knows she has earned a reputation as being Very Strict within the week. The girls shrink from her glance.
“Does anyone want to explain to me why I’m out of bed after hours for the fifth straight night in a row?” She goes for an Openly Irritated Professor McGonagall impression.
It seems to have great effect. “I’m sorry, Professor Granger,” Marlene finally manages. The girl is leaning so that her shaggy, shoulder length brown hair is covering her face. It does little to conceal the fact that her face is half covered in a brilliant blush.
Hermione looks from Marlene to the other one, who she thinks is called Leandra. Leandra’s blonde hair is cropped boy short. She has a line of ear piercings up her right ear.
Hermione looks back at Marlene, compact, muscular, alternative haircut, and something clicks into place.
Her gaze wanders back to Tonks, who is practically bouncing in her chair. She rolls around her desk. “I came across Marlene and Leandra here about thirty minutes ago. Isn’t that right girls?”
“Yes, Professor Lupin,” they chime.
After a moment, Hermione continues, “Is anyone going to fill me in?” Although she has an idea.
The girls share a helpless look, before both turning to Tonks with pleading expressions.
“It was a rather compromising scene, in a broom cupboard,” Tonks finally says. “I’m thinking 20 points, what do you say, Professor Granger?”
“And a detention each. Separate,” Hermione replies in the same conversational tone.
“Oooohhhh! We’ll make Filch do it, he loves a bit of help.”
“Excellent idea, Professor Lupin. I do concur.”
The girls are now looking cautiously optimistic. “You’re not going to write our parents, are you?” Marlene finally ventures. The other girl, Leandra, is plainly terrified of Hermione.
“And have to listen to a Howler over my breakfast? I think we can all spare ourselves that ordeal,” Tonks says, still obviously enjoying herself but now with a gentler tone.
Marlene and Leandra look over to Hermione, who considers them for a moment.
All told, she thinks them both quite brave. God knows she could have spared herself a lot of issues if she’d figured herself out at 16 as well as these girls have.
She crosses her arms, “I truly don’t care what gender of person you care to put yourself in compromising positions with.” She raises an eyebrow, “As long as I don’t have to be dragged out of bed over it. Am I clear?”
The girls positively fall over themselves with their relief and their gratitude and their assurances that it won’t happen again.
“That’s enough, we still gave you detention, after all,” Tonks says cheerfully after a minute.
“To bed,” Hermione dismisses them. “Your own beds, that is.”
Both girls blush fabulously and then, there’s no other word for it, flee the office.
Tonks is laughing before the door even closes.
“They probably heard you,” Hermione says, siting on the now unoccupied bench.
“Please, all the kids know I find their bullshite hilarious. I still take points, of course. But it always gives me a chuckle.”
Hermione let out a breath and crosses her legs, “I think they mostly just think I’m a bitch.”
Tonks chuckles, “Ah, they’ll figure you out. You always have to start out a hard ass or they’ll roll right over you. And your Quidditch Captain there likes you.”
Hermione raises an eyebrow, “I just took 20 points and stuck her with a Filch detention.”
Tonks shrugs, “You also didn’t bat an eye when she got busted for a spot of lesbianism in a broom cupboard after hours.”
“A spot of lesbianism is literally the least of my worries.”
“Yes, I heard, the whole fourth year in a month’s detention on the first day?”
“Tonks, they almost killed a house elf with that flood.”
Tonks’ smile is teasing, “Well I did get the sense that they rather lost control…”
~
“Professor Granger, I wondered if I could have a word?”
Hermione takes a moment to finish clearing her black board.
“Ms. Selwyn,” she says pleasantly, turning around. “What can I do for you?”
“Er-“ Marlene looks over her shoulder briefly, as the last of her classmates filtered out. “I wanted to um- to thank you. For the other night. For being so cool.”
“I was hardly ‘cool’, Ms. Selwyn. If memory serves I took rather a few house points off of you and your companion and then foisted you off on Mr. Filch.”
“No, I mean about, well- about the- about-“
Hermione held a hand up, and Marlene’s stuttering abruptly stopped. “I know why you are thanking me. It is entirely unnecessary.”
“It is though,” Marlene pushes. “Not many Professors would have been so kind.”
Hermione raises an eyebrow, “Professor Lupin seemed positively cheerful.”
Marlene snorts, “Right, but everyone knows Professor Lupin is-“
Hermione tries not to smile, “Is… what?”
Marlene blushes. “Never mind.”
“You will find,” Hermione finally says. “That the world is a much bigger place than Hogwarts.” She meets Marlene’s eyes.
“Best get going. Professor Snape will be expecting you.”
Marlene nods, “Of course. Thank you again, Professor.”
Marlene has just reached the door when Hermione calls out, “Selwyn?”
Marlene turns around.
“My door is always open.”
She smiles. “Thanks.”
Marlene’s words echo in her mind while she waits for her next class. “ Everyone knows Professor Lupin is-“
Some variation on queer was no doubt the assumption. Tonks had a look. But then, she’d had the look even when she had a husband so who knew?
Hermione could feel herself start to spiral which Would Not Do when she was expecting Ravenclaw and Slytherin second years in ten minutes.
Having a closeted Quidditch Captain coming to her for advice was about the most ridiculous set of circumstances she could have hoped to befall her.
“ My door is always open, Selwyn, but just know I’m a filthy hypocrite. I know you’ve read about my divorce because hahahaha who hasn’t? What you don’t know is my ex husband is the only person who knows I’m gay. Isn’t that funny?”
She was going to have to tell someone. Maybe Harry. Not Ginny. The Weasleys were weird about sexual orientation.
Well, Ron hadn’t been. He had even said he wasn’t terribly surprised. But then, they’d been married for five years. Even he wasn’t that oblivious.
Her heart squeezed when she thought of the possibility of Molly and Arthur finding out. What they’d think. Charlie was barely speaking to his Mother.
So, Charlie would be fine, too. Glad to not be the only Gay Elephant In the Room as she’d sometimes heard him joke. To Bill, who was close to Charlie. So, really, he’d probably be fine too. And George sold novelty sex products by catalogue now so she hardly expected him to have an issue. Who the hell cared about Percy.
But Ginny… hard to say. She played on an all woman Quidditich team so she certainly knew how to play nice, but she often complained that people made assumptions about her sexual orientation because of it.
It was entirely possible that really only Molly was weird about sexual orientation, on reflection. But that was still hard to think about.
She’d talk to Harry.