@audaciiae ; cont from this.
From her seat, Hermione listened, quiet and poised as her eyes followed his pacing.
She watched him attentively, as if picking bits of information that he offered whether in vocal or silent language and bringing the pieces together, trying to figure him out, bit by bit. The tension on his brow contrasted the ease on Hermione’s face. The words were not particularly clear in the beginning - they felt hesitant, betraying a possible struggle to find the right thing to say, but in the end she understood that as him simply saying ‘I don’t know how to love’.
The only thing she could do then was to dismiss his concerns with a gentle smile and a soft shake of her head.
“You’ve married a woman of Sparta”, she told him, with graceful serenity. “I don’t need to be coddled, husband, nor protected. We are made to marry warriors.”
With that, she stood, approaching him. “Besides”, Hermione added, reaching her hand to his forearm, “you are the man my father chose for me, and there is no one whose judgment I value over my father’s.”