For: The Houses Competition

Category: Short

Prompt(s): [Object] scarf, [Weather] Windy

Word Count: 1,241

Beta: Aya

Who has two thumbs and is a Hufflepuff?

I'm a Hufflepuff.

AU and slightly OOC Hermione I guess? We don't see much from her perspective and we know she crushes hard.

—

I have a dream

A song to sing

To help me cope

With anything

If you see the wonder

Of a fairy tale

You can see the future

Even if you fail

Sitting on the docks of the Great Lake, Hermione let her bare feet lightly skim the water as she sang the song that had been stuck in her head for three days.

With the Firebolt and Scabbers… it sent her right back down the school food chain. So low that not even losers would befriend her. No loser solidarity for her. It hurt that an overly expensive broom and an obscenely old rat were more important than her.

The March wind blew in everything except the promise of spring. It made it rather difficult for Hermione to read the book she brought so, instead, she decided to sing. She let her notes get carried away to where no one could hear them.

Or… so she had hoped.

The wind shifted directions, creating whirlwinds of leaves back on the shore. Some skittered onto the dock and, to her surprise, a scarf flew towards her as if it were a streamer.

She snatched it out of the air before it could fall into the water. It was a Hufflepuff scarf and it seemed to be made of a cotton yarn rather than the heavy wool the standard scarves were made of. Perfect for early spring.

The owner nowhere to be found, Hermione wrapped it around her neck for safekeeping, deciding she could return it later, and swung her feet once more, continuing her song.

I have a dream

A fantasy

To help me through

Reality

The dock creaked with a new weight. Hermione trailed off with embarrassment and kept her gaze on the slate colored water. The footsteps came closer. They were heavy.

"You don't have to stop singing."

It was a boy.

"It's lovely," he said. "I heard it from the castle and decided to— oh, I see you found my scarf. It blew away when I came out to investigate."

Hermione tightened her grip on her hands which had grown numb from the chill.

The dock shifted a bit more and two white legs with the pants rolled up to the knee, joined her brown ones in drifting over the water.

Finally, she allowed herself to look at the owner. He was familiar. It wasn't a large school so she had definitely seen him before, but more than once or twice. He had golden brown hair and grey eyes that matched the sky.

"Hi," he said with a sunny smile. "What brings you out here by yourself?"

"My dad told me I needed to get more sunlight," she said drily.

This made him laugh and for some reason she liked the sound and wanted to hear it again.

"Yeah, there's plenty of that to go around," the boy chuckled, looking up at the clouds.

Silence.

Hermione tried to think of a way to get him to laugh again but drew a blank.

"I'm Cedric by the way," he said unperturbed by her awkwardness.

She said something smart like, "Uhh…"

He was really cute. The kind of boy Parvati and Lavender giggled over. Hermione tried to remain more dignified, mostly because she felt like she should be the sort of girl who didn't think about boys.

"Hermione!" she said loudly and faltered. "Uh… my name. That's… that's my name."

If it were a bigger school and she wasn't so distinctive looking, she would've tried to pretend she wasn't who she was. A spark of recognition lit her mind.

"You're the Hufflepuff Seeker, right? You caught the snitch back in November."

He shrugged and nodded. "I still think it wasn't fair."

"You caught it," Hermione reasoned.

"Yes but after Harry Potter fell off his broom," Cedric countered. "That's not a fair game. How do I know if I'm really that good or not if the other person gets taken out by Dementors?"

Hermione hadn't thought of fairness like that. Her thoughts were interrupted by a blast of wind that flipped her curls in her face. She tossed her head trying to angle it out of the way.

"Ugh! I hate my hair!" she growled, not particularly speaking to Cedric.

"Why not?" he asked.

"It's too big and curly, it's always in the way, and it's ugly."

"And who told you it was ugly?" Cedric asked furrowing his brow.

"Everyone since primary school," she said. "Not everyone says it outright but… still…"

People always thought she should have straighter hair.

"Well, I like it," he said decisively. "It's got character."

"It's a pain," she muttered and ducked her head with shyness.

"Beauty is pain," he insisted. "Anyone who says different is selling something."

Nobody except her parents ever said they liked her hair before, much less inadvertently refer to it as beautiful. As she fidgeted, trying to process these words, she realized she still had his scarf around her neck. Feeling her ears go warm, she ripped it off, ignoring the fabric burn, and practically shoved it in his face.

"I suppose this is yours!" Jiminy Crickets why did she have no volume control?

A blust of wind claimed the scarf before he could. Using her famously cat-like "reflexes", Hermione scrambled for it, the tips of her fingers barely brushed the fabric, and then she belly-flopped into the black waters of the lake. It took some awkward thrashing to get her face above the water and, even then, she was blinded and partially suffocated by her hair. She spun around trying to find a dock when two hands hauled her from the water.

"Are you alright?" Cedric asked, lifting up her hair so he could see her face.

Hermione spluttered a little and wiped the water from her eyes.

"Fine."

Ugh, this was embarrassing. Hugely embarrassing. MASSIVELY embarrassing. This made the list for the top three Most Embarrassing Moments of her life. The first was getting expelled from primary school… but that was a story for another day.

Teenage life was already so confusing and awkward, the last thing she needed was to faceplant the Great Lake in front of a really cute boy. His face was so full of genuine concern she felt her ears burn and her stomach fill with butterflies. She mentally slapped herself and decided to focus on a different matter than spontaneous crushes. It probably wouldn't last the minute.

"I lost the scarf…" she muttered, wringing her hair out.

"Eh, I have another one," he said and noted the shudder that ran through her.

To her surprise, he shed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. The heat immediately penetrated the cold of the water.

"Come on," he said, extending both hands. "Let's get you inside. Can't have you catching a cold now, can we?"

Hermione shook her head and drew his jacket tighter around her as he steered her towards the castle.

"Perhaps we can hang out here again," he said. "Though preferably without a dip in the lake."

"Why?" she asked. "I'm not exactly the most popular person in school."

"I've decided I like you and I want to get to know you better," he said, the corner of his mouth quirking into a grin. "I'm hoping you'll take a chance on me. If you're free, of course"

Hermione said something smart like, "uhh."

Mamma Mia this boy was going to drive her crazy.