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Hermione Granger was having a truly terrible day.
It was a cold Saturday in early November and everything that could have possibly gone wrong so far did go wrong. She had overslept, was late for meeting with Luna to go to the Farmer’s Market, had forgotten half the things she wanted to get at the market, thus had to go shopping again which offset her schedule completely and finally she was late getting ready for her date.
All this she could still have gotten over. But her date turned out to be the biggest bore she could possibly imagine. She had never been on a date that had been worse than this.
Paul, an admittedly handsome wizard from Oxford, had not only been talking about himself nonstop, but also criticised Hermione every chance he got.
“Are you sure you should have worn those shoes?”
“Don’t you think your jacket doesn’t really match your outfit?”
“If I were you, I’d do something else with those curls.”
He was not blatantly insulting but it was clear that he did not care for her opinions and was not pleased with her for not dressing up to the nines.
Which would have been absolutely ridiculous, they were at an autumn fair! Of course, she would rather wear comfortable shoes while wandering around outdoors all day, what had Paul expected? High heels for the maize maze?
After more than an hour of Paul talking about himself and rudely pointing out everything about Hermione that he did not like and how she could improve it, he went to go to the restroom and Hermione waited for him to return. And waited. And waited.
When she finally spotted the man again, he was flirting with a young raven-haired woman over at a different booth.
For a second Hermione just watched them. Then she shrugged.
At least she didn’t have to get out of that date anymore. She wasn’t sure whether her day had now taken a turn for the worse or a turn for the better by her date basically running off.
She made her way over to the maize maze, determined to walk through it and at least enjoy herself for a bit.
Before she entered, she got a postcard that she was supposed to stamp at six different stations in the maze. Hermione smiled at the girl working there and made her way into the maze. After her fourth year it took the witch years to voluntarily step a foot back into mazes. She had not even competed in the tournament herself and yet she was terrified since then. After she took her NEWTs, the year after the Battle of Hogwarts, she had first tried it again. Back then Harry and Ron had joined her and they had a blast.
The leaves of the mowed down maze felt soft beneath Hermione’s shoes when she walked around several corners, trying to find the first stop to stamp her postcard.
She did not find the stop, instead she bumped into a man.
“Sorry!” They both exclaimed at the same time, the man’s hands going up to her arms to steady her.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t run…” she trailed off when she realised who stood in front of her.
Cormac McLaggen. She had not seen him since the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts when they both ended up in the Hospital Wing.
“Hello Hermione.” He threw her a boyish grin.
“Cormac,” Hermione was a bit lost on how to start a conversation with him.
“Where is your date?” He lifted an eyebrow in question.
“Flirting with another woman,” she deadpanned.
“Ouch,” he winced “and I just thought you ran away from him. You know, as is your habit at a date.”
Hermione put on a fake offended look.
“Only if my date doesn’t talk about anything but himself for an entire evening,” her eyebrows raised in challenge.
Cormac huffs out a laugh and nervously looks away. “Fair enough.”
At some point he had dropped his hands from her arms. “Also looking for the stamps for your card?” He gestured towards the postcard that she was clutching onto.
“Yes! I just entered though, so I haven’t found a single one yet. What are you doing here, by the way? Are you the one fleeing from a date?”
“Nope, just me having a good afternoon by myself for once. I live close by and really wanted to do the maze before it closes in a couple of weeks, so here I am,” he explained. “And I’ll admit, when I saw you, I thought I should stick around for a bit, maybe get a chance to chat the prettiest witch around up. Once again.” His grin widened.
“Cormac…” Hermione was not convinced this was a good idea.
They had one date at Slughorn’s party that ended with Hermione running off and Cormac vomiting on Snape’s shoes and spending a lot of time in detention afterwards. After that they had not spoken for months. If Cormac hadn’t checked up on Hermione when she arrived at Hogwarts with Harry and Ron before the battle, it would have been even longer since they last spoke. That had been years ago though at this point.
“It can’t be worse than last time, can it? So, let me escort you to the stamp-stops, my lady!” Cormac exclaimed gestured at the paths in front of them and Hermione found herself agreeing. It could definitely not be worse than the date that she just left behind… could it?
And it turned out it wasn’t.
Cormac had come a long way from the arrogant boy he used to be. He was earnest, both interesting to listen to and interested to hear about her and her life, and actually quite fun to be around.
When he was in the middle of telling her about his favourite book, she studied him more closely. He was quite a lot taller than her, but then again, he had always been. His blond hair was cut a bit shorter than it used to be, it was just long enough that you could make out the hint of a curl at the end. His face was the same as she remembered, but his expression was completely different than she was used to. He seemed a lot more relaxed and open.
“Are you listening?” Cormac had turned to see Hermione staring at him.
“Uh, yes?”
He laughed. “Sure. But good news, our first stamp!”
And true to his words, straight ahead of them was the first stamp station. They both put the stamps on their postcard and realised they had five more to go.
“Is it weird that I’m feeling competitive about this? Like, small children are discovering all the stops, then so should we, right?” Hermione asked.
“Yeah, let’s not be outdone by kindergarteners, I don’t think my ego could take it,” Cormac agreed and Hermione snorted.
This time he offered her his arm and Hermione held onto him.
At the end it took them embarrassingly long to find the last of the stops, but if asked they would both blame it on being so concentrated on each other that they probably had walked past all the stops without realising it.
When they finally got out of the maize maze, Cormac looked at her quite seriously.
“So, what’s the verdict?”
“Verdict?” Hermione asked, unsure what he meant.
“If I asked for a proper date… what would you say? Or did I put you off already?”
Hermione was quiet for a second.
“I think I’d like that.”
“And if I asked for a kiss? To hold me over until the date?”
They had stepped closer to each other without really realising it and Cormac was looking intently at Hermione.
“I think I’d like that, too.” She smiled at him.
Cormac’s lips met hers and she realised that her day had actually turned out quite lovely after all.