starlit_desires | FIC: Healing 1/1, FR13, Angel/Hermione (Reply)

Title: Healing

Pairing: Angel/Hermione Granger

Rating: FR13

Disclaimer: The Buffyverse belongs to Joss Whedon and company, while Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling.

Notes: Written for tth100 for prompt #43 (castle). Set post-NFA and post-War.

            After his apocalyptic battle in LA, Angel had left and returned back to Europe. At first, he had gone to Ireland but there were too many painful memories of how he had been a failure and of how he had thrown his life away. So he had left and he had followed the path of his past but once again the bitter memories of a wasted life full of sin and destruction haunted him. Reminding him of how lonely he was. He finally settled in Scotland, a place that was both familiar to him but devoid of any memories. Scotland was where he met her. The woman that was destined to change his life and to help him to find his way again.
            He was able to tell that she was a witch and that she was a powerful one, the magic rolled off of her in waves. Just like the pain did. Something drew the two of them together; it could have been the fact that they were both survivors or it could have been just mutual physical attraction. Angel didn’t know and he really didn’t care. Hermione made him feel the way he had felt when he first started helping those in need in LA. He didn’t want to save her, nor did he feel the need to do so. If Hermione needed to be saved, he knew that she was more than capable of saving herself without his help. And in many ways, she ended up saving him in an ancient, draughty castle in the north of Scotland.
            Hermione managed to do the one thing that neither Buffy nor Cordelia had been able to do: she taught him how to love without losing his soul. And by learning that, he was able to find his path again. He had wanted to take her with him, but she had given him a self-deprecating laugh and told him that she had her own battles to fight. So he had let her go with promises to return to their castle. However once he returned to LA to clean up the mess there, he forgot all of his promises until they were too late.

**END**

I am thinking of taking this one further. I am not quite sure yet, I'll have to think about and see if it works with any of the other prompts.