Chapter Text
Hermione couldn’t stop thinking about work.
This wasn’t new, of course—she was Hermione Granger, the overachiever, the workaholic. Everyone knew this about her. Everyone knew everything about her, really. Her accomplishments. Her relationships. Her sufferings.
This, though—this particular obsession was different. It was a specific moment at work that stuck in her mind, like a loose tooth she couldn’t stop touching. It wasn’t an intellectual puzzle, nor was it an obscure, archives-related mystery.
It was small talk. It had happened in the coffee room, one of the most truly forgettable places in the office, and yet it circled her waking thoughts like a gadfly.
“Hey, how’s it going?” her department colleague had asked her, while he filled up his coffee mug, and she stirred in her milk.
“Not bad,” she’d said, as always, and he’d laughed.
“You always say that,” he’d replied. “When’s the last time you had a good day, Granger?”
She’d laughed it off, sipped her coffee, walked back to her desk, returned to her work. And the question had haunted her mind for the rest of the day. While she tidied her papers, while she wrote her archives information requests, while she browsed the archives herself—it was faster, sometimes, to go in-person and browse, plus of course she adored it—while she organized her outline for the new legal briefing. While she travelled home, disoriented and vaguely distressed. While she ate dinner. While she lay in bed with Ron.
When’s the last time you had a good day, Granger ?
Made absurd with repetition, and in her just-after-sex-with-her-husband brain, her mind turned it into— When’s the last time you had a good lay, Granger? and she didn’t quite repress her snort-laugh. Ron noticed.
“What’s that?” he asked, naked beside her, turning to face her and idly winding some of her curly hair around his fingers.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Remembered something funny from the office today.”
“Ah sure,” Ron said, smiling easily. “Always a barrel of laughs in the Magical Law Department, isn’t it.”
She met his eyes. He had such a nice smile: so warm, and the way it lit up his eyes never failed to soften her heart. She lay a hand on his cheek, and he kissed her.
The thing was, he was never a bad lay. He was perfectly serviceable, really. Her orgasms were consistent and predictable. He never considered the job done before she’d had one. He had no qualms about going down on her. How many women wished they could be so lucky? He was warm and strong, attentive to her needs. Very safe.
That didn’t feel like enough, anymore, which meant something was probably wrong with her.
“I’m thinking of finding a therapist,” she said, easily. Ron was always easy to talk to, about anything. His answers always seemed to come easily. Really, it was like he barely thought about things at all.
“All right,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Just… feeling a little stuck in my head.”
He snorted. “More than usual?” he teased. “Yep, time for a medical intervention.”
“Hey,” she said, but teasingly, lightly, and smacked him on the shoulder. He laughed, and pulled her over onto him, and buried his face in her neck. It was so familiar, so casually intimate and affectionate, and she hated the way he did it all so easily. She hated that she could just say, I’m thinking of finding a therapist, and he acted as if the world hadn’t just split open underneath the two of them, the way she felt like she herself was splitting open. She was losing her mind, really, thinking over and over, How long has it been since I had a good day, actually?
“Let me know if you need any help with it,” he said, finally.
“Of course,” she said, and didn’t need to say anymore. Ron knew, of course, she didn’t need help, not with this, not with anything, and he’d never raise it again unless she did first.
Three weeks passed with no progress. Or, rather: no useful progress, which felt the same as no progress at all. The first snowfall of the year (not enough to stick aground and make the city look like a holiday postcard, but still, it had been lovely) had come and gone, and Hermione was still without a therapist.
She had set out a few simple guidelines for her search for a good match: someone who wasn’t starstruck by her; someone who had been practicing for at least five years (arbitrary, yes, but she wanted to be able to look at track records in some fashion); and finally, someone willing to follow her lead and not delve into unsavory specifics of the war. The first and third conditions were proving incredibly challenging.
She nearly groaned aloud when Harry and Ginny asked how she was doing, after work in the little tea shop by the Ministry offices. Ginny furrowed her eyebrows in concern.
“Hermione,” she said. “Talk to us.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said. “Nothing interesting, I assure you.”
“Anything complex enough to frustrate you is interesting by default,” she rebutted. “Does it have to do with your research project?”
Hermione sighed. The research project had also hit a bit of a snag, and she’d been too preoccupied by the search for a functional therapist to pay it the attention it needed. “No,” she said. “I just…” She stuck her neck out the doorway: nobody was hovering. It was just her and Harry and Ginny, and she did truly love them. “Well, I suppose I’ll just say it,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find a therapist.”
“Ah, that explains it,” Ginny said. “Finding a well-matched listener is a hell of a job.”
Hermione nearly hugged her over their rickety table. “Isn’t it just the worst process?” she said. “You do all this research to make sure, and you do your introductory call, and—“
“And checking in on their practical approaches!” Ginny added.
“Feels like I could nearly open my own practice with everything I’ve learned—“
“And then you pick up the phone,” Harry said, “and hear their voice on the end of the line, and they’re young enough to be just writing their O.W.L.s—“
“One of them asked for my autograph when I left his office,” Hermione confessed.
“ No,” they gasped. “Wildly unprofessional,” Harry added.
“I don’t know what to do,” Hermione said. “I thought the hardest part would be admitting I want to try.”
“Oh, Hermione,” Ginny said, reaching across the table and gripping Hermione’s hand hard in her own. “It is so hard. Good job, you.”
“What did you end up doing?” Hermione asked. “Did you ever manage to find someone?”
Ginny sighed. “No,” she said. “I took a break from looking. One of these days I’ll pick it back up, but for now…” She smiled at Harry. He looked at her like she was the sun in his sky. “Well, I’m doing just fine.”
They made small talk for a little while longer, before Hermione excused herself. The research project really did need her attention, and she hadn’t been making any headway up in her office. The piece of Wizarding law she was trying to pick apart was nightmarishly complex and circuitous: to cover all her bases, she was working to track down each and every anecdote, case-in-point, and exemplary exhibit mentioned in the text. Given its connection to pureblood history, it often led her down unsavory roads in the literature, and her current garden path had several mentions of one particular artifact.
“Enjoy the archives,” Harry said, smiling guilelessly over his tea.
“It’ll be good to work on something else for a while,” Ginny said, “even if it’s just as frustrating.”
Hermione laughed. “Yes, I agree,” she said. “Thanks for listening, you two. Enjoy the rest of your tea.”
Ginny clasped her hand one last time before Hermione managed to hurry herself out the door. She had excellent friends, and it felt good to have them to commiserate with, but she couldn’t help feeling restless around them. Harry was Ron’s best friend, and Ginny was his sister, for goodness’ sake. They’d known each other since they were small, and had been through so much together. It should have felt nice, shouldn’t it? And it did. It had. It felt nice and safe.
Nice, and safe, and easy.
So what if it was also… small?
She sighed to herself. She would lose herself in the archives, would wander the rows browsing titles, waiting for that little spark of recognition, that wonderful click of an idea coming together, the inspiration when she found herself on an unexpected, promising path.
She would do the work, and she would be great at it, and she would feel better. Like always.
In the archives, she took her time, slowly moving down the little alleyways formed by the moving bookshelves. She paused to touch a book spine here and there, running her fingers over the titles, embossed or faded or embroidered right in. She loved how it felt against her skin, loved imagining other fingertips running over the same spaces, wondering other thoughts, investigating other puzzles.
She was lost in just such a daydream when someone bumped into her. The shock of there being another soul this deep in the archives completely overwrote her annoyance.
“Goodness, excuse me, hello,” she said, too stunned to register the person in front of her.
“Granger,” the stranger said, and then he wasn’t a stranger at all. “How… cordial of you.”
“Oh, fuck off, Malfoy,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “You thought perhaps it was a different tall, blond, staggeringly handsome man.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please do get out of my way.”
“Actually, I rather need to be here.” He lifted his arms, displaying a stack of books to rival her own. “Research to be done, you see, and you’re standing right where I believe my next resource might be.”
Ignoring him, she looked over his stack of books. There, right around the middle, was a slim fabric-bound book with a stamped title: Magical Vessels: Urns, Jars, and Other Such Containers of Various Goodes.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I… Could I just…”
She reached for it, and he swung out of her grasp. “Absolutely not,” he said. “These are mine.”
“Oh but I—Malfoy, that’s just exactly what I’ve been—“
He’d taken advantage of her reaching, and had slipped into the space where she’d just been standing. He ignored her sputterings and focused on the books on the shelf.
“You absolute twat, give me that book, I need it for my work.”
“Ah, and I suppose I must put the needs of your all-important work aside, regardless of their hindering effect on my own?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her, infuriatingly. “O Queen Granger, forgive my imposition on your Immensely Valuable and Surely Superior Work.”
She put her books down on the shelf, then rubbed her temples. “Malfoy,” she said, “I am having a particularly frustrating day.”
He was staring at the books in her stack.
“Yes, I know, a lot of books. Spare me your teasing, please, I really—“
“Give me that one,” he said, nodding to the pile.
Hermione stared at him.
“That one there in the middle,” he said. "J am Jars: More Than Their Contents."
“No,” she said. “I need it.”
“The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has you writing a treatise on the lawful applications of canning, do they?”
She scoffed. “I’ll have you know—“ she began, then stopped. He was looking down at her, eyes focused intensely on her face, with a gravity that bordered on severity. She felt examined. And nothing about it seemed easy. It snagged her, pulled her away from her annoyance entirely.
She sighed, and waved that entire train of thought away.
“It’s just not fair,” she muttered. “The one time I might actually appreciate someone being starstruck around me.”
Malfoy made a sound that might have been misconstrued as a laugh. “Granger, if you need to find people who aren’t starstruck by you,” he said, and the word ‘starstruck’ sounded like a filthy curse in his mouth, “you’ll need to venture out among the Muggles.”
The Muggles.
It landed in Hermione’s mind like a brilliant star: a new idea, the seed of a new pathway.
Muggles had therapists.
She looked up at Malfoy, who had a bemused, thoughtful expression on his face. “Look,” she said, “you’ve just given me a wonderful idea, so I’m feeling grateful. Let’s make a deal.”
His expression sharpened immediately. “All right, Granger,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
She pointed at his books, then at her own. “We both need these books. I, for one, will likely need these books for a fortnight. We could meet here on the weekend and access the books in each others’ care.”
Malfoy’s lip quirked into a half-sneer. “And if I have plans this weekend?”
“Do you have plans this weekend, Malfoy?” she asked. “Making some jam, are you?” She cast her eyes out the window. “Not much fruit in season these days. Pickling garlic, perhaps?”
Malfoy sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine,” he said. “Saturday. Noon.”
“The archives open at eight,” Granger countered. “I would appreciate as much time as possible.”
“I will not be appropriately attired at eight,” Malfoy spat. “Eight in the morning is an ungodly hour.” He met her gaze and held it. She tried to pour all her pent-up rage and steel into her own gaze, and after a moment, he looked up at the ceiling. “I will agree to nine o’clock,” he said, “if you promise to bring me coffee. Two milks, no sugar.”
“Deal!” Hermione said, perhaps too quickly. “Excellent. Thank you, Malfoy.” She stopped, then, hearing those words come from her mouth. They sounded horribly wrong. She imagined Ron’s face, his expression if he heard her saying Thank you, Malfoy. Perhaps that would break through his perpetual ease.
Malfoy himself seemed not to have noticed. He was already walking away.
The next day, Hermione sent her colleagues a quick note to explain that she’d be out in the field all day, and made her way to the non-magical part of the city.
It felt great to be in jeans again. She kept a portion of her wardrobe set aside for Muggle-style clothing: nothing extravagant, just a few options, relatively in-style. She enjoyed the anonymity of non-magical London, the buzz and bustle of it. Even in the libraries, places of relative calm and quiet in every realm, the sheer quantity and diversity of humanity never failed to amaze her. People reading, playing, talking; alone or in groups, friends or family or some unidentifiable mix; deeply focused, or clearly relaxed. She breathed it all in, allowing herself a few moments to simply absorb the atmosphere of the place, then headed for one of the computer terminals.
It turned out that non-magical London had a wealth of therapists. Hermione found herself scrolling through page after page, checking out photos of offices, watching short videos where therapists explained their practices, their unique approaches. She narrowed it down to a top ten, then three, then finally settled on one to contact first: a woman who went by Evaine, who had been practicing for eight years, and whose self-described approach was “healing with a trauma-informed and sensitive approach, to support the foundation of the life you want to live”.
The practitioner had an online scheduler for introductory calls—audio or video; Hermione chose audio so she could take it from the magical part of London without needing to change again—and she was able to book a slot for Saturday morning, eight thirty.
Hermione got to the archives on Saturday morning, two coffees in hand, a simple charm on Malfoy’s to keep it from cooling too much before he arrived. It was a perfect plan: she would get set up in her preferred spot, the corner with tall windows and wide, old desks. There would be enough space for her and Malfoy to work without needing to pay any mind to each other’s presence. This early, there wouldn’t be anyone around to overhear her while she was on the phone with Dr. Evaine. She would do her brief introductory therapist call, and if it went well, great; if it went poorly, well, she had two more names on her shortlist, and enough time to rally after the disappointment.
Eight-thirty arrived, and her phone rang right on cue.
“Hello, Hermione!”
Evaine’s phone-voice was warm, happy without seeming inappropriately joyful, and lower-pitched than Hermione had expected. “Hi, Evaine,” Hermione answered, trying to match her, self-conscious.
“I’m glad you booked this time with me,” Evaine continued. “Your accompanying message was very thorough. I appreciated all your questions, and I hope you feel it’s a fit for both of us to continue after we talk them all through.”
Hermione had written nearly eight hundred words in the webpage’s text box. Her main questions—anonymity, practice length, trauma-vagueness—and a few additional ones, based on snippets of text on Dr. Evaine’s webpage. Nuances between practices, preferred approaches, etc.
It took ten minutes for Evaine to check off all her boxes. No: she had never heard of Hermione, nor any of the Grangers. Yes, she had been practicing for eight years, plus an additional two years that she left off her professional bio, since it had happened overseas and wasn’t counted in the same way. Yes, she held a Master’s degree from King’s College in Health Psychology, and a Doctorate from City University London in Counselling Psychology. Between ‘Acceptance and Commitment Therapy’ and ‘Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’ approaches, she confessed she personally preferred the Acceptance side of things, but what mattered most was Hermione’s own preferences and responses. She completely understood Hermione’s desire to keep the specifics of her traumatic circumstances to herself: they would treat this as an important boundary in their shared practice, and if ever the conversation approached that boundary, Evaine would be explicit and intentional about how to continue.
“Everyone’s approach to their experiences is unique,” Evaine said. “My focus is on helping you heal, and you need to feel safety in your space with me in order to do that.”
“Safety,” Hermione repeated, thinking of Ron. “It feels like a prison, sometimes.”
“I suppose it can,” Evaine said, “especially when it’s safety given to you by someone else. But I hope we can find a way for you to create safety for yourself, in a way that feels good.”
And suddenly, unexpectedly, Hermione was crying on the phone.
Through her sobs, they agreed to an initial session. Next week, on Tuesday, at 4:30pm. Late enough that Hermione wouldn’t need to bother with taking time off, or even explaining anything to her colleagues. If anyone asked, she’d say she was heading to the library.
She waited until her breathing had come back to some semblance of normalcy, then looked at the clock: 8:54. Good. More than enough time to put herself back together. Malfoy would probably be late, anyways. She idly cast a warding charm over her stack of books and went the washroom to wipe down her face, give her glasses a once-over (did tears really need to leave such stubborn tracks on the lenses? It was cruel, honestly) and re-tie her hair.
She came out feeling much improved, and was arrested by the sight of Malfoy, hovering over the desk with a focused look on his face.
“You’re not late,” she accused, glaring. He scowled, still studying the desk.
“Good morning to you too, Granger,” he said. “Nice little warding spell you’ve got over here. Did you invent this one? I’ve never…” He’d looked at her, and trailed off. His scowl had turned into a sort of frown.
“Shove it, Malfoy,” she said, preemptively.
“It’s just, you look as though you’ve had a crying jag in the ladies’,” he said.
“The crying happened out here,” she shot back. “I just finished fixing myself up so you wouldn’t notice.”
“Ah,” he said. “In that case, you look absolutely radiant. I’m knocked off my feet. I never thought I’d be jealous of Ron ‘Golden Retriever’ Weasley, and yet.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Just give me the book.”
He set it down on the desk, beside her existing stack, and Hermione realized he’d completely dismantled her ward. She sighed.
“Yes,” she said, taking her seat and handing him the coffee. “I invented it.”
“It’s rather brilliant,” he said, and they said absolutely nothing more to each other for the next four hours.
It was strange. Not quite comfortable, certainly not easy. Focus radiated off Malfoy, and Hermione found it somehow freeing, to see someone else as absorbed in the literature as she was. Her self-consciousness faded quickly, and before long, she did completely forget he was there.
They made plans to meet again, the following Saturday, and separated their books from each others’. Malfoy left first. Hermione sat a while longer, staring out the tall window at the streets below, wondering how on earth she would describe this experience to Ron in a way he would understand.