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The little bell attached to the door rang, and shuffling of robes ensued.
Lavender rose from the floor in a haste, her forehead missing the counter’s edge by only a hair’s width. Crumbles sprinkled her clothes and kissed the side of her lips, and she dusted them away hastily, careful not to step on the cup that still sat on the floor.
“Welcome to Flourish and Blotts,” she chimed her usual greeting, while attempting to put some order in her hair, and not paying attention to the entrance on behalf of this task. “Where we fill with books even your pots.”
The young woman blushed slightly, but not so much at the silly slogan of the shop. Tuesday afternoons were usually so slow and empty that she had taken the habits of having tea and scones, crouched-sitting below the worktop that held the till, while reading one of the newest arrivals. No need to say it, her employer was not informed of those particular unconventional breaks, and she doubted that he would like that little tradition of hers.
But Lavender sighted with relief when her stare didn’t meet Mr. Blott’s large shoulders in the front shop. In fact, it didn’t meet any shoulders at all.
“I could use a hand,” panted a squeaky voice, which sent Lavender’s memory gears to work. But she couldn’t see whose voice it was, because its owner was hidden behind a tower of books. A tower that was dangerously trembling in the unsteady arms that held it up, wrists trapped in the handles of some plastic bags.
Gasping faintly, Lavender rounded the counter and half-ran to the voice in need of a rescue, stretching her hands forward to share the burden and lessen the risk of a disaster. But the joint effort was unsuccessful, and Lavender couldn’t avoid the volumes toppling to the floor.
“Oh, Godric,” she exclaimed, kneeling down to gather some of the volumes. Meanwhile, the high-pitched voice kept apologizing under her breath, and a corner of Lavender’s memory prickled again.
It was boring, that little sense of deja-vu. She wished it would let her alone, because she very much intended in going back to her hiding and finish the last chapters of The Vampire’s Sunset in peace. The sunset rays were already peeking through the front windows, which meant it was probably past six, and almost time to close the shop.
As her hands flew around to grab the paperbacks and hardcovers, her fingers brushed slightly against a skin a bit darker than hers that was intent in picking up the same stack of pages.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, raising her eyes to the face across of hers in reflex, and her jaw almost fell to the floor.
This chocolate gaze, she knew it very well, with its dark splinters and golden sparkles. She also knew the shadows under the gaze, the sleepless nights and late afternoon coffees that they meant. She knew the months-untouched eyebrows that topped the whole, and the curtains of frizzy hair that sometimes hid it all from the world.
And she hadn’t seen them in ages.
The owner of the soft shrill voice and chocolate eyes looked back at her with an expression that Lavender thought might be a reflection of hers.
“La- Lavender? Lavender Brown?”
The witch stumbled on the words, and it reminded Lavender of her eleven-years-old self. Their eleven-years-old selves.
Hermione? lingered on her lips, but she bit it back, a bit ashamed. Of course it was Hermione. She hadn’t changed since the last time she’d seen her. Or at least she had, but not as much as to not be recognizable.
Lavender instinctively dropped the book she was holding, and brought her hand to the side of her face. To that spot that nobody liked to acknowledge, that nobody really understood.
“Um- yeah, it’s me,” she finally let out.
An uncomfortable muteness made its stingy nest between the two women. It was one of those awkward moments when you don’t know if to bring up the fact that you’ve slept in the same dorm for six years of your childhood, and fought the same battle for your life and freedom, or if to let slip your teenager years away and remind yourself that you’d never been best of friends.
Lavender would have gladly left without a word more, had she not had a job to do here.
“How- How may I help you?” she asked once the books had all been picked up and piled on the counter.
Hermione was looking at the shelves around, seemingly looking for something—but that was what people came in shops for, wasn’t it—so she only gave a half-minded answer, “I want to exchange them, please.”
She pulled several till receipts from her purse, still glancing around—and Lavender wondered if she wasn’t purposefully avoiding looking at her. She raised her hand to her right cheek again.
And then, the information reached her brain.
“You want to exchange all these ?”
Her appalled tone finally drew Hermione’s attention to her, and the witch with chocolate eyes smiled sheepishly.
“It’s- um- It was my birthday a couple of days ago and- and all of my friends obviously gifted me books-” She whipped the air with her hands with no particular aim to accompany her words, the way she had always done, if Lavender’s memory was right. “But I’ve already read those at Hogwarts, so-”
Her cheeks flushed a pretty blush color, and Lavender lowered her eyes. She occupied herself by mentally counting the volumes sitting patiently on the worktop, and found eighteen. And out of the blue, she burst out laughing.
From the other side of the counter, Hermione looked at her with a mortified expression, so Lavender made her best to tune down the very unexpected wave of giggles.
“I’m sorry,” she breathed, furiously wiping the corners of her eyes. “I- It’s just that I’d never thought somebody could beat my record.”
Diagon Alley was getting darker behind the windows, and the shop smelled like it always did at this time on Tuesday afternoons: like scones crumbs, cold tea, and old books.
Hermione scrunched her eyebrows together, “You’ve returned eighteen books too?”
Lavender shook her head, dangling her caramel curls left and right. “No, just eleven actually. Apparently, my friends and parents had all had the same idea of a novel that I would like. Crazy, isn’t it? When I came here to exchange them, Mr. Blotts took them all back gladly—they had emptied his stock, you see—and after a bit of chat, he offered me the post, because he needed an assistant and- Oh.” Lavender bit her lip. “Sorry. I’ve always been quite the chatter, and I can be very annoying with stuff that nobody cares about.”
But Hermione was slightly grinning.
“Please, keep going! It’s actually very refreshing to hear about something else than just laws to pass, formalities to fulfill, and forms to write, sign and send.” She dropped her head slightly backward, and raised her eyes to the ceiling. Lavender chuckled. “Plus, you’ve got a much more agreeable voice to listen to than the drowsing and buzzing ones of the Ministry’s Magisters.”
Maybe Hermione wasn’t giving her words much weight, and maybe it wasn’t really high praised to be compared to eldest, monotonous wizards and witches, but Lavender felt the compliment, and it made her cheeks burn a little.
“Thank you,” she murmured, before processing to the opening of the record book. “So, um- What titles do you want to take instead of these ones?”
They went through the list of available books for a little over fifteen minutes, only breathing back and forth the names of the volumes and some details related to them, with no more small talk. Lavender remarked that Hermione seemed prone to only buy only informative enciclopedias or eight-hundred pages of How To and Laws, so she recommended her a couple of novels—“To get your brain some active rest,”—and was glad that the other woman listened to her advice and lined Fairies Can Cry next to the other hardbacks she was taking.
She felt the curiosity to know what had happened to Hermione since the last time they’d shortly met, in the Room of Requirements, that night when Lavender had reached out to cover the side of her face for the first time. She wondered if all the stories about snatchers, manors, dragons, and goblins were true, but knowing the Golden Trio, they probably were. She wondered if Hermione reached out to cover parts of her skin too, sometimes, when people would stare at her too intently.
They had never been best of friends during school, granted, but Lavender had always had some sort of deep respect for Hermione, a regard laced with a point of jealousy, and maybe something else.
“Do you have everything?” she asked, shaking that last thought to a far corner of her mind, where it belonged.
“I think so,” Hermione answered, cramming as much books as she could in the plastic bags, and then making a stack out of the remaining ones.
Now this question burned the tip of Lavender’s tongue too much not to ask, “Why don’t you miniaturize them?” And looking back to the lazy Sunday afternoons in the common room, the busy Thursday pre-exams class sessions, Lavender realized that Hermione had never. “Why have you never miniaturized them?”
“Some things,” Hermione said, “Are better when they’re hard to do. More challenging, and you enjoy the result a little longer,” and with a chuckle, she added, “I also think it’s the Muggle side of me that likes the weight of books.”
The streetlamps outside were lighting Diagon Alley like little stars flying too close to the Earth, and Lavender’s cup of tea had most probably flipped over as she had walked left and right to choose the right books for Hermione some moments before.
“Are you going to go back to your place alone?” Lavender asked. “Because you could use some help. Maybe you could call Ron and tell him to come and carry some of those. I bet it’d be hard to apparate carrying eighteen books.”
Hermione furrowed her brow and tilted her head, and Lavender hoped she hadn’t said anything wrong, but a bright smile bloomed on the lips that belonged to the chocolate eyes.
“Oh, Ron!” Hermione exclaimed, as if she had forgotten who he was. “Well, he could come, I suppose, or Harry too, but they’re busy with their respective girlfriends, so…”
She let the sentence drop, but not her grin, and it helped Lavender to not feel too embarrassed about voicing her assumption. She had heard rumors about this too, so maybe the goblins and manors and dragons ones were not real either.
“You and Ron-”
“It hasn’t worked out,” Hermione said with an ease that Lavender had never seen somebody adopt while talking about their ex. “We lasted like a couple of months before realizing that we couldn't go anywhere if not as best friends. So I’ve been single for some time.” Her eyes widened when she realized that she had said that last fact. After clearing her throat, she added, “Um- not that this may be relevant, sorry.”
But Lavender didn’t mind the extra information. She had never minded extra information, because it was good background for gossip—but she doubted that she’d use that bit of conversation for gossip.
They heard a door squeak on its hinges and voices biding each other goodnight, and Lavender knew that Madam Malkins was closing her shop, and Mr. Fortescue was smoking a pipe in front of his already locked ice cream parlor. She stared at Hermione, and Hermione raised a hand to her neck, bringing the other woman’s attention to a patch of skin that was clearer than the rest, that looked like a rip of milk chocolate on the witch's cinnamon pigment. Lavender realized that, after all, the goblins and dragons and snatchers must have been real.
“Don’t worry,” she smiled, failing at holding back a blushed grin. “Maybe I could help you, if you want. I don’t think anybody will stumble in with some more books to exchange or buy, at this time.”
Hermione seemed grateful, and her arm dropped by her side.
“Will you talk a little more about novels and how you got hired by Mr. Blotts, if you come? I was thinking about having some pasta for dinner, but I could make something more elaborate if I have something to clear my mind of decrees and rules.”
She said it all without stopping to gasp for air—her skin turning a deep, flushed shade—and Lavender was glad she hadn’t, because it would have let her the time to reflect a little too much about it and maybe say no. But she ran a hand through her sun bleached curls, and the idea seemed quite good.
She could ask Hermione about her life after the Room of Requirements over a plate of more-elaborate-than-pasta dinner, and maybe she’d open up about her scar to somebody new, somebody who would understand better because she had gone through scars too.
“Sounds nice,” she grinned, and took half of the books in her hands.