For the record, Lost Founder followers, I am still working on that. My big problem is that I need to have Hogwarts completely mapped out before I start really writing the rest of the series if I wish to avoid JKR's mistakes *cough* inconsistencies *cough*, which I'm OCD enough to really want to avoid. That is quite time consuming, but I am working on it. Meanwhile, a certain Gryffindor posted a prompt about an old song by the Police, and as much as I was like "nope, don't do the thing!" - the plot bunnies attacked and there is no way in hell this is going to be a one shot. I'm just taking it one chapter at a time, but I hope all enjoy some fresh HG/MM. Special thanks to my Beta (CherriiMarina) who regularly saves me and you from a mass of spelling errors and other grammar related issues. Also, from my tenancy to think faster than I can type and leave out words entirely.

Brown eyes shifted restlessly under closed eyelids, lost in a dream. In the Hogwarts Professor's mind, it was nineteen seventy-two, rather than nineteen ninety-eight, and her heart was about to be well and truly broken. A seventeen year old Narcissa Black strode purposefully into the kitchen of a small cottage in Hogsmeade, surprising the brunette owner. "Cissa, aren't you supposed to be in Potions class right now?" she asked, with a small, mischievous grin.

Narcissa wasn't amused, nor did she look interested in snogging her mediwitch friend turned romantic interest, which was very much the norm. "Sod class," the young woman snapped. "My parents have promised me to that arrogant prat, Lucius Malfoy! Hermione, I wish we had the time to keep dancing around each other but I know I'm not alone in how I feel - I'm in love with you just as much as you're in love with me, and if you were ever going to do something about that, now would be the bloody time!"

Hermione Granger frowned, repressing the urge to apparate directly to the manor home Narcissa's parents lived in and give them a piece of her mind. Narcissa wasn't wrong; Hermione was in love with the recently of age girl, though in her integrity's defence, while they did spend time together socially as often as they could manage, they had never before right now discussed what was obviously building between them, much less acted on that feeling. "Cissa… it's probably best that you…" she began forcing a rejection out, the words feeling like acid on her tongue.

Tears began cascading down the blonde's cheeks. "Gods, please don't tell me to marry him. I love you! I want you!"

"What we want and what is right are not always the same thing," Hermione said softly. "Though I will not insult you by saying I do not feel much the same as yourself, at the end of the day it's too great a risk. Your parents could kill you for being with me. I'm much older. I'm a woman. For the love of Merlin, dearest, I am muggleborn!"

"They didn't kill Andromeda for running off with Ted Tonks!" Narcissa countered.

"Ted Tonks was male, and age appropriate."

"But…"

"And more to the important point, your sister and her husband are being protected by secret keeper and the Fidelus," Hermione kept on. "Cissa, please, it breaks my heart to turn you down but it would destroy me if something happened to you! Irony of ironies, you're safer if you marry a damn Death Eater!"

Narcissa let out a ragged breath, and wiped her tears on the sleeve of her school robes. "One condition, and I will do what you ask."

Hermione braced herself for whatever her favorite Slytherin was about to demand, knowing full well how utterly unable she'd be to deny this request. She'd do anything to keep Cissa safe. Anything at all. "Name it."

"Become a teacher up at the school," the blonde stated crisply. "This isn't just about me. If I marry Malfoy, I'll have to… have a child for him. My child will be raised by a Death Eater, and that is not the life I want for my future son or daughter. I need you there, at Hogwarts, to look after them, and guide them right… to teach them what you taught me; that my opinion matters. Even if I cannot always have what I wish for, I still know that my opinion matters."

Hermione thought about the rigorous hours she was keeping at St. Mungo's, in addition to the work she did for the newly formed Order of the Phoenix. Albus wanted an Order member here in Hogsmeade, and she was one of the few in the Order who could duel worth a damn and stood a chance of protecting the students should there be an attack. She'd been assigned here two years prior, which was how she'd met Narcissa in the first place. Hermione did not think it would take much to convince Albus to let her take up a post at Hogwarts, as soon as one became available. "Alright," the thirty-seven year old witch agreed. "I can do that."

Narcissa nodded. "I guess this is goodbye then. If this is all about staying safe… Malfoy has eyes in the school and I don't want him to see you as a threat. If you're certain this is the right thing to do, then I cannot keep seeing you."

"Then it's goodbye," Hermione choked out.

Narcissa nodded, and turned to leave. Her hand was on the handle before she paused. "Oh, fuck it," she swore, turning around and bolting into Hermione's arms, lips crashing together in a decidedly passionate first and last kiss. Nothing was said as the kiss ended, and with one final smile at each other - a silent promise to remember this one moment - the younger woman turned and walked away.

As the door closed, Hermione sank to the ground in front of her kitchen sink and sobbed violently, eventually passing out on the floor where she woke as the sun came up the next morning. She picked herself up, took a quick shower, and then sent an Owl to Albus with a request to be put on the staff at Hogwarts, citing truthfully that she was exhausted trying to live in Scotland and work in London, and how she'd be better able to protect students if they already knew that she could be trusted. The following September, months after Narcissa Black graduated and mere weeks after she married Lucius Malfoy, Hermione Granger took up the Defence Against the Dark Arts post at Hogwarts, swearing on her parents' graves that if she did nothing else right in her life, she'd keep her promise to Narcissa.

In the present, the now tenured Professor Granger woke with a start to the sound of her godson poking around in the kitchen, cursing up a storm over how one of his good friends, Draco Malfoy, had gotten him good and sloshed the night before and how he was never going to forgive the young Slytherin for the hangover he was now suffering. Hermione rose, and quickly dressed before heading out of her bedroom to see what her godson and ward, Harry Potter, was going on about.

"You know, yelling at the kitchen will neither improve your hangover, nor help you find the coffee," she commented.

"Well I wouldn't have any problems at all if you'd just let me use magic here. I'm of age!" Harry griped at her long standing rule of no magic in their quarters. While decidedly planted in the Wizarding community, Hermione liked to keep her personal quarters, her home, very much Muggle out of a sense of respect for her long deceased parents. Gods, she was older now than they'd been when they died! She'd be sixty-three in a few weeks!

"You'll get over it," she rolled her eyes. "I'm terribly sorry your life is so horrible."

"It's not horrible, Aunt Hermione, but would a House Elf be too much to ask for? My grandparents had four!"

Harry had not always been with her. Until their deaths nearly three years ago, Harry had been raised by Aaron and Maia Potter - his father's parents. Albus had wanted to send Harry to live with his mother's sister after the elder Potters had been killed in an attack, but Hermione had not stood for that. She knew what sort of muggles Vernon and Petunia Dursley were - the worst sort imaginable. "Just be grateful I don't treat you like a House Elf, Harry," his godmother chided. "Now tell me, what did you and Mister Malfoy get up to last evening?"

As Harry rambled on about the antics he and Narcissa's son had gotten up to the night before in muggle London, Hermione pushed aside her thoughts of her recent dream, and thought about how she'd become friends with Aaron and Maia. They'd been older than her, by a little bit - closer to Albus' age than her own, but that hadn't stood in the way. The couple had been pinned down in a duel at their home during the early days of the first war with Voldemort, and had both been injured. She hadn't even supposed to have been there that afternoon, but their son, James, who was mere weeks from turning seventeen, had been put into detention one too many times for her liking, and she'd asked Albus if she could go speak with the Potters about their boy to try and gain some insight on his increasingly erratic behavior.

It wasn't a mission as an Order member, but rather one of a concerned Professor, but in the end her timely arrival had probably saved their lives. Five against two were hardly good odds. Five against three wasn't much better unless the extra person happened to be a Defence Against the Dark Arts expert who used to be a mediwitch, which she was. Maia had invited her to dinner some weeks later, and the three of them formed a bond quickly, remaining dear friends until their deaths. After they'd taken in Harry - Sirius Black having surrendered his rights as godfather while coping with the grief of losing two of his three best friends in one day - they'd named her godmother at once, and she and Harry had adjusted easily, having been a part of each other's lives for as long as he'd lived with his grandparents.

Hermione blinked at a half heard thing Harry had said. "What about Narcissa?" she asked, mind promptly back on her dream, and a life she might have had with the still beautiful witch. Her romantic feelings for the now Mrs. Malfoy had faded over the years to a dull ache of heavy might-have-beens, but the two had avoided one another completely since that afternoon in Hogsmeade. True, they saw each other at functions now and then, but the only thing exchanged at such times was a small smile just like the ones on their faces that day at the cottage. I still remember, it said.

"Draco left some books he needs here last night when he dropped my drunk arse off," Harry said again. "He had to work today, but he sent a patronus saying his mum would be by to pick them up for him. I was asking if I need to be here to hand them off, or if I can go meet Ron, Neville, and Minerva down at the Quidditch pitch."

For the second time in as many minutes, Hermione felt like she'd been kicked in the gut. Narcissa was coming here. For the first time in twenty-six years she'd see the first person to steal her heart, and in the same sentence Harry had mentioned the first person to come along in all that time who had the ability to take her heart with the same veracity that Narcissa had all those years ago.

Minerva McGonagall. Harry's best friend.

"Okay," she whispered.

"Okay, as in you'll deal with Draco's mum so I can go get knocked off my broom and die a horrible death?" Harry asked cheekily, knowing damn well how much his godmother hated flying on brooms.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Get out of here, young man. I'm sure I can handle giving Draco's books to his mother."

"But, well… I know I'm not quite as much of a know-it-all as you, but I've been friends with Draco for ages and you've come up with excuse after excuse never to cross paths with his parents. I kinda thought there was some history there you were trying to avoid."

The Defence Professor sighed. "I do have some history with Draco's parents. I will not be telling you about it in any sort of detail, but suffice it to say that I have kept clear of Narcissa at her request. If she is willingly coming to me, then I am more than willing to see her. No, there's no hatchet to bury. Just a bit of history to perhaps put to rest after all this time."

Harry wrinkled his nose. He knew damn well his godmother preferred the fairer sex, and he was smart enough to guess accurately what sort of history might be between her and Narcissa Malfoy. "You couldn't pay me enough to voice my guess on that subject to Draco. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me."

Hermione tousled a head of black hair and cast him a grateful smile. "Thank you Harry."

"Of course," he said, heading for the door.

"Oh, and Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"There is a vial of hangover potion in your coat pocket," she informed him, having put it there last night after he and Draco had stormed in, loudly. She'd not figured the two drunken boys would have remembered to lock the door, and she'd been right to double check.

Harry grinned, obviously thankful, and then he was out the door with his coat in his arms, hand already reaching into the pockets to find the balm for his aching head. Hermione chuckled softly as she made her way to the living room area to find the books Narcissa was coming to pick up, and then settled on the sofa in front of the fireplace to wait.

It wasn't a long wait. It seemed Narcissa was as anxious for this moment as she was, and no more than ten minutes later, there was a soft rap on the door. "Come in," Hermione said softly, meeting the eyes of the blonde woman at the door. "I'd say that it's been some time, but that would be an understatement. You look well, Cissa."

"Well enough," the other woman said with a soft chuckle. "Gods, it has been some time, as you put it. War has a price, and for me that price was the look of youth. You have hardly aged a day, however."

The light flirting was both soothing and hurtful. "Why now, Narcissa?" she asked. "After all these years, why seek me out now?" she asked bluntly.

"To thank you, for watching over Draco," the blonde replied easily. "And because with the war over and Lucius in Azkaban, I'm finally in a place where I can afford to be seen speaking to you. What I've missed the most about you all these years, Hermione, was the friendship we had. I'd like to see if we can find that again, in a world where we can be that much."

"But nothing more?" Hermione questioned. It wasn't that she was pining for more - friendship had been what she missed most of Narcissa as well - but she needed to know where she stood.

"No," the other woman replied sadly. "Even if I wanted more… where once you made a decision to protect me, I decide now to protect Draco. Even though he never took the Dark Mark, never followed his father's dark path, he still carries the Malfoy name and I must stand by him as he works to make that name an honorable one to have. The political fall out of a discovered affair between you and I would certainly undermine that goal."

"I agree," the older witch said, and she did.

"Besides," Narcissa said, taking a seat beside her former love interest, "according to Draco, young Miss McGonagall has her eye on you these days, and as one of the few alive who can claim to know your type, I can safely say that Minerva is certainly that. Even if she is a Gryffindor."

"Tried going for a Slytherin," Hermione quipped. "Didn't work out. Figured I'd try out someone from my own house. Even if I didn't mean to fall for a student. Again."

"Glutton for punishment?"

"Must be, to have been the first recruit to the Order of the Phoenix all those years ago," Hermione sighed. "But much like the decision I made regarding you, I cannot pursue this thing with Minerva. I was already too old for you. I'm much too old for her."

"You don't need to pursue her, Hermione," Narcissa said sadly. "She'll come after you, like a Niffler after gold. And unlike me, she won't let you say no."

"That's what I'm afraid of," the brunette admitted sadly, feeling her heart beginning to break all over again.

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