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Hatred wasn’t the emotion twisting in Hermione’s chest whenever Pansy Parkinson walked by, always on someone else’s arm.
“Revulsion,” she told herself, but she knew it wasn’t true.
“What?” asked Ron. Hermione shook her head.
“Nothing.”
Hermione was in the library almost every day, sitting with her back to a shelf in one of the various secluded corners. And almost every day, Pansy Parkinson was meandering around the nearby shelves, making the most adorable thoughtful noises Hermione had ever heard.
“I didn’t know you read,” said Hermione one day, because she wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing.
“Granger,” said the other girl, red lips ever so slightly open in surprise, as if they weren’t the only two people to ever use this part of the library. “Fancy seeing you here, and without Potter and Weasley.”
“I could ask the same of you, you’re here without Malfoy and Zabini!” Hermione shot back.
“I am not attached by the hip to my boyfriend,” Pansy said. The superiority with which she said it suited her. Pansy Parkinson belonged on a throne.
“Some boyfriend you’ve got,” Hermione said. “Draco never takes you out on proper dates.”
Pansy’s red lips parted briefly. “I haven’t got a boyfriend,” she said, and Hermione thought that was the best thing she’d ever heard. “Really, me, with a boy?”
Her laugh wasn’t angelic by a long shot. Pansy was the forbidden fruit, the pomegranate from the underworld. And she was beautiful for it.
“Granger, I’m gay.”
And with that, Pansy was gone.
Hermione found herself shopping for a dress for the Yule Ball a few weeks later. Professors McGonagall and Sinestra had decided it was for the best to take the older girls down to Twilfit and Tattings on their own to find outfits for the ball.
Pansy was there, too, her hips swaying in a black sheath style dress. It had a plunging neckline, with lacing over her visible cleavage, a farce of concealment. Glimmering green gems speckled the bodice, before separating into a mermaid style gauzy outer skirt that went to her feet, flowing behind her when she moved, translucent and flowing, accentuating her long, slender legs.
She was captivating.
Hermione tried on a frilly purple dress, holding up her hair to see how it might work.
“That dress does not suit you,” said Pansy critically, eyeing Hermione. “The color is all wrong. A green would look better with your hair color, and the style - it’s appalling! Try something with a bit more… coherency. Something that will accentuate your figure, not hide it. Like this!”
Suddenly Pansy was thrusting an armful of flowing fabric at Hermione, and they were closer than they’d ever been.
“Thanks,” Hermione said, and accepted the new dress.
“Hermi-one-ninny,” said Viktor, “as Champion for Durmstrang, I’ve got to take a girl with me, and I’ve got a fiancee back home. I don’t vant to give anyone the wrong impression, and ve’re friends… you’re lesbian…”
Hermione looked at her black school shoes. “I would, Viktor, really, but I’m rather hoping to - um.”
She wasn’t sure, really, what she wanted. But she did know it had to do with the dress she’d bought on Pansy’s recommendation and the black-haired Slytherin herself.
Viktor nodded with a knowing smile. “Good luck, Hermi-one-ninny.”
“Maybe you could take Fleur? Fleur Delacour? That’s not against the rules, is it?” she suggested.
“Vonderful idea! Thank you!”
“Say Hermione, you’re a girl,” said Ron. “Go to the ball with me?”
Hermione shook her head. “As a matter of fact, someone’s already asked me.”
Pansy hadn’t, but Ron didn’t need to know that.
“You clean up well,” said Pansy as Hermione swept into the Great Hall.
“Thank you!” Hermione could feel a blush tinting her cheeks red.
Pansy was wearing the black and green dress she had been trying on, and had her hair meticulously brushed and fastened with a glimmering emerald hairclip. The green accents of her outfit were the same shade as Hermione’s own dress, the one she’d bought at the suggestion of Pansy. Hermione’s skirt flared at the hips, and she wore a sparkling black necklace. Her curly hair fell in loose spirals down her back.
“You’d look better on my arm,” Pansy said.
Hermione blinked at her.
“Did I stutter?” Pansy asked, taking Hermione’s hand in her own. “Dance with me. You. Me. Girlfriends. Together. Relationship. Dance now.”
“You - you really mean…” Hermione trailed off.
Pansy’s only response was to tow Hermione onto the dance floor.