Chapter Text
No one is born with black eyes.
Hermione's parents have told the story of her birth so many times that she knows even her muddy, boring brown orbs ("Don't be silly, dear, they're lovely!") first shone vibrant indigo blue.
For a day or two.
Children arrive in peals of gurgling laughter, all soft warmth and sweet smell. Hermione loves to baby-sit, so she knows this. And she doesn't understand.
What could turn one of these screaming, crying, shining bundles of innocence into this man thundering into the classroom? What injustices sanded down childhood curves into hollows and angles?
When did it start?
Was it as those eyes learned to focus? Did that heavy brow fall to shield the expectant gaze from a dark reality? Or later, perhaps soft brown became brittle black as he watched his mother's blood dry on the rough-hewn floor. Does when matter?
She has, after all, learned to ask the right questions. Even in this class, with this man, as she raises her hand to patiently await the cold sting of his tongue, she longs to move closer, to climb inside this shell and clear away the cobwebs and the sorrow. 'Till there's none. Because that is what she does, she fixes.
But she has learned from Winky that not everything yearns to be free. He has perfected his role as a surgeon, gracefully skewering students and removing arrogance with deft, economic motions. And if at times it seems that his bloodless operations are designed to disable everything but the armor shielding his heart, well, he never claimed to do no harm.
The class is leaving, a whirl of skirts and bags and books, but her feet are planted at her station and although her heart is pounding, her mind is clear. She knows the important question.
The robes billow importantly as he glides to her, his mouth open in a tirade that arrests at look on her face. She places her sweaty palms on the cool counter-top as she meets that fathomless gaze. "Why?" she asks softly, and the brow smooths as he absorbs the question.
"Because there was nothing else left," he murmurs, his velvet voice enveloping her in warmth, a hint of the man he could have been. Before she can reply, he is gone, and she packs her things slowly, wondering what good magic is, after all.