QLFC - Round 2
Cannons, Keeper
Location: Magical Menagerie
(title from Daydream by BETS)
Crookshanks is moody. He wanders around, crying at anyone and anything. He won't stop even when Hermione is right there, picking him up or scratching him behind the ears or giving him fancy canned food. She's read just about every article there is online about feline irritability, and they all tell her to get another cat for him to be friends with. It could be that there's an ex-Death Eater disguised as a small rodent hiding in their flat, but she's checked a dozen times, and loneliness is a lot more likely anyway.
So, Hermione goes to Magical Menagerie to get another cat. It seems wrong somehow to go to a muggle pet store— no cat from Pet Planet could ever be Crookshanks's equal. She tried to bring crookshanks with her, but he wouldn't get into the carrying cage, and she got a few scratches for her troubles. And then on her way off of the tube, it started to rain, and she didn't have her umbrella, and she was still in Muggle London and couldn't very well cast a charm to protect herself.
Finally, she arrives at Magical Menagerie, wet and annoyed. Behind the counter is none other than Pansy Parkinson. If Hermione had ever imagined this scenario—which she definitely, definitely hasn't—Pansy would have been filing her nails, maybe listening to muggle pop music from a tinny radio. Pansy is, in fact, doing neither; she's busy sorting coins in the cash register, and has the decency to look embarrassed when she looks up to see Hermione.
They stare at each other for an uncomfortably long time before Pansy coughs and says, "Can I help you?"
"Yes," Hermione says stiffly, walking up to the register. She stands right up against the counter, wanting to be in Pansy's space. She stands a little straighter, too, and lets her hair drip onto the counter. Hermione's not sure why it matters to her that Pansy find her attractive, but it does.
"I'd like a cat."
Pansy smirks, clearly over her initial embarrassment and back to being a bitch, but holds back any crazy cat lady comments. Maybe it's the intimidation.
She comes out from behind the counter to show Hermione around the store. "The cats in here are straight from the breeder, all pure-blooded."
Pansy cringes after realising what she's said, but Hermione could be imagining it. Pansy goes on talking, something about color or temperament, but Hermione tunes her out, scanning the rows of too-perfect cats. Not one of them has a squashed-in face, like Crookshanks, or a missing tail, or even an irregular pattern. She just can't imagine bringing one of them home.
"Don't you have any rescues?" Hermione asks, cutting off Pansy in the middle of something about tail length.
Pansy sighs and shows her to a back room. "This is where we keep the strays," she says, as if the concept of stray animals is somehow Hermione's fault, and closes the door behind them.
Immediately, Hermione is drawn to a black cat in the corner. It's fat for a stray cat-fat for any cat, really-and its eyes are a piercing green. It stands up to stretch and yawn, and Hermione sees that it's missing a back leg. Pansy picks up the cage at her request, and tries at the door.
"It won't open," Pansy says, frowning. She puts down the cage and tries with both hands, but the knob refuses to turn.
Hermione hasn't figured out the punchline, but this must be some sort of practical joke. "Let me try." She does, but the knob won't budge. "Alohomora," she murmurs, pressing her wand to the door. Still, nothing.
"It's no use," Pansy says, at least having the decency to look guilty. "It's one of those rooms that can only be opened by a specific person. My boss left the door open when she left this morning…"
"And didn't think to give you access?"
"I just started working here Monday!"
Hermione runs through her options, trying to stay calm. "There's no floo, no way to get an owl to anyone, we can't Disapparate…" she mutters under her breath.
She stares at Pansy and sighs. This is exactly the kind of day she's having. Nothing is going right for her, but here she is, locked in a room with an old arch-nemesis and nowhere to go. Hermione clenches and unclenches her fists, turns to Pansy, and lets out her anger.
"What the hell are you doing working here, anyway?"
"Job offers aren't exactly raining down on me."
"How could I forget; you tried to send my best friend to his death," Hermione says drily.
Pansy takes a step forward. "You don't understand what it was like. I had—"
"No choice?" Hermione smiles, daring Pansy to make an excuse, taking her own step forward.
Things progress into a shouting match. With every barb, Pansy is closer, closer, too close, much too close. Hermione loses her train of thought, and watches Pansy do the same. She watches the other girl let out her next sentence as a breath of cool air instead of sharp words. She feels it, even; the breath ghosts over Hermione's lips. One of them has to stand down; one of them has to step back.
Or one of them has to lean in. Hermione has read this moment in books dozens of times. The intense eye contact, the slightly parted lips, the energy crackling between them. She read it and never believed it could really exist, but here it is. Here they are.
It is Pansy who closes the gap; Hermione is still, always, unsure if she's read the situation wrong and afraid to make the first move, to be a predatory lesbian. Pansy kisses like a predator, Hermione thinks, but she is certainly not going to act like prey.
Hermione hates Pansy Parkinson, probably always will, but kisses her hard, losing herself in the feeling like she hasn't in a long time. It's refreshing to do this with no game plan, to not know what's coming after and to not care, focused only on the now.
Bells jingle, and Hermione and Pansy spring apart like magnets. If Pansy's straight, short bob looks disheveled, Hermione's hair must be an absolute mess. She tries to smooth it down, as Pansy pounds on the door, trying to see if her boss is here.
Pansy's boss, a woman who looks like she could have been in the same year at Hogwarts as Dumbledore, either doesn't notice the girls' debauched state, or doesn't care. Hermione leaves Magical Menagerie without making eye contact with Pansy, and without the black cat. It would only remind her of this aberrant afternoon, and Hermione would be happy if she never saw Pansy Parkinson again.
Risking another encounter with Pansy is not worth any cat, no matter how special. Crookshanks is just going to have to cope with a cat from Pet Planet.