Time in a bottle

Forward motion

'So I guess I should explain the water...'

An almost imperceptible nod was her answer

'I wasn't having a laugh at you, honestly... I tried everything to rouse you.  It was a last ditch effort.  You were convulsing, mumbling nonsense and at one point you stopped breathing.'

A shutter was all the response she received.

After several long minutes of silence she responded

'It was all I could think to return you to the land of the living.'

Hermione blinked long and hard.  She took stock of where she was and how she got here.

She had woken up in the arms of an angel after...

Sleep had come surprisingly easily in Narcissa's arms.  Dreams of cascading green highland hills and the bluest skies she had ever seen.  She had laid on her back with her head on the blonde's stomach looking to the horizon.  This must be what awaited her in the afterlife.  A peace like she had never known before.

  Safe.

They had eventually woken up and silently gotten ready for the day, Hermione mindlessly had left soon after breakfast presumably to the library for the remainder of the day and had not emerged until the evening meal. 

  Narcissa knew that Hermione had been dawdling since dinner, and had tried to evade sleep once more.  She took pity on the girl she had been falling for and lead her outside through a hidden corridor in the dungeon that opened up to her most favorite spot at Hogwarts.  After a walk around the large lake to give them the privacy she knew the brunette needed, they sat down staring at the giant squid underneath the surface lazily floating his tentacles in an almost waving manner.

The moon was full in the sky above the pair.  A comfortable silence held between them after last night's happening, staring off in their own thoughts for a long while until Hermione finally broke the stillness of the night.

'There are things I can't tell you'

'I know'

'There are things that I will know, that I can't explain to you.'

'I know'

'I haven't been 100% truthful, it's not that I don't want to, believe me I want to...'

'I know'

Tears were flowing down the brunette's face as she spoke again.

Narcissa cupped the beauty's face before her leaning in for a sweet kiss, so close she could almost taste her lips when she felt the brunette pull back slightly.

'There will be consequences, if we..if I...the greater good...I shouldn't...'

'Me too, I don't care'

At those words blonde surged forward kissing the somber brunette solidly, but softly.  Breaking the kiss Narcissa kept her eyes closed but pressed her forehead to Hermione's

Narcissa then whispered lightly

'I know you, and I know you haven't been truthful, but have had no malicious intent.  I trust you beautiful.'

'How?'

'Hermione I may not know you, but I know you, the real you.  The one you hide from everyone else, that sweet little girl hurting from whatever it is that injured you.  I don't know how I know, I just feel it here.'  She said as she placed her small pale hand on top of where she knew Hermione's heart to be.