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Dark spirals of vapor are coming out of her cauldron and she curses, muttering under her breath and quickly extinguishing the blue flames beneath it before vanishing the whole potion with a scowl. She doesn’t even bother to look at it, painfully aware of the fact that it is not salvageable. It is still far too early for vapors, and when they come they should be a soft purple, not dark as coal.
Pansy crosses her arms, glares at her potion book and huffs, plonking down on her seat without concern for decorum. She’s alone in the room, what need is there for decorum?
“You poured the newt eyes too early,” a soft voice says behind her, and she jumps in fright, heart galloping in her chest like a mad hippogriff. “You should have waited two more minutes, then stir counter-clockwise seven times.”
“Granger,” Pansy spits when she turns and recognizes her. “What are you doing here?”
Granger shrugs with one shoulder and reaches out with an ink-splattered finger toward Pansy’s book, pointing out the third paragraph. “It says so right here.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Pansy says, sharply. She still looks at the page and—yes, there it is. How had she missed it?
Pursing her lips, Granger looks away. Pansy frowns. Granger is acting out of character. She should have rolled her eyes and vomited more knowledge at her or maybe make a vaguely sarcastic quip with the sharp tongue many believe Granger doesn't have. At least, that’s what Pansy has come to expect after seven years of sharing classes with the girl.
“Granger?” she prompts impatiently after almost a minute has passed without any kind of answer. She’s not concerned. She’s not.
Granger takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and sharply turns to face Pansy again, fists tightly clenched. There’s such a fierce look in her eyes that Pansy is a little taken aback, and that’s why Granger's next words come as such a surprise.
“Do you maybewanttogotoHogsmeadethisweekend?” Granger asks in a single breath, so fast that Pansy has trouble understanding all the words. She looks terribly nervous as she adds, as if in afterthought, “With me?”
Pansy’s heart stops beating and her brain refuses to work for a second or ten. Then Granger fidgets, looking a little hurt and dejected and sad and says, “Never mind, then—”
Pansy panics.
“Yes!” she blurts hastily and way too loud. She cringes before clearing her throat, trying to regain at least a bit of her usual cool. The blush on her cheeks is difficult to fight back, but she manages. She thinks. “Yes,” she says again, properly this time. “I’d love to.”
Granger’s eyes are big and hopeful and so brown, and Pansy can’t quite meet them if she wants to keep the blush away.
“It’s a date, then,” Granger—Hermione says, with a smile so bright that is almost blinding and way too much for Pansy’s poor lesbian heart.
The blush wins.
“Yes, it’s a date.”