This is a gift for nearlyconscious for their birthday. Their prompt was Hermione/Padma, crushing over common interests.
I haven't written in this fandom since I was seventeen, and I'm not a big shipper, but it was a lot of fun to write. I hope you like it!
Happy Birthday! :)
"I thought you would be there."
Padma looks up from her homework. Hermione drops into the chair next to her, her book bag making a thud as it hits the floor. She's wearing jeans and a comfortable sweater rather than robes, and she looks vaguely tired, like she just spent the whole day studying. It's probably the case, Padma reflect. Mid-terms are just around the corner, and trying to complete two completely different degrees must be exhausting.
It came as a surprise to almost no-one when Hermione, once her NEWTs over, couldn't choose between the high level Muggle university course she was offered and magical studies. The Wizarding university, to which Padma now also belongs, is small and less structured than its Muggle counterparts, so it's fairly easy for Hermione to follow all her courses without needing a Time Turner, but it's still at least twice the workload.
"Where else would I be?" Padma shrugs. It's nine-thirty, and all the other students have already left the building for the night, but Padma likes nothing more than having the library for herself.
"I don't know," Hermione smirks. "Clubbing?"
"Yeah, that sounds like me," Padma groans.
Over the years of being the two most bookish students of their year at Hogwarts, they've become casual friends, although Hermione always had too much of an exclusive relationship with Harry and Ron to be close to anyone else. Padma, after her twin sister started to become interested in very little else than boys, make-up and Divination, spent most of her time in the Library, usually on her own. Oh, she was never friendless and she still has frequent contact with all the Ravenclaws and most of the Hufflepuffs of her year and the year above, but she hasn't had a best friend since Parvati stopped filling the role. She loves her sister, but they're not confidants anymore.
But since the day she and Hermione first put foot in the university building four months ago and recognized that they didn't know anyone but each other, they've gotten closer. They usually study together in the evening, for one thing. Hermione doesn't have a boyfriend to go home to since she and Ron split up on the first day of term−something about different plans for the future−and Padma has no particular wish to step back into the drama that is her parent's house too quickly, most nights.
"Can I join you?"
"In what, my very energetic clubbing? Sure," Padma smiles.
"Thanks. Midterms are coming way to fast. All this studying is going to kill me."
"You love it. Admit it."
Hermione blinks Padma with a very endearing look of naked surprise. The banter is coming almost naturally, but it's something they've never done before.
"Not at two in the morning on a Sunday," Hermione answers. "Otherwise...okay. I do. It's just so interesting!"
"Our courses or the Muggles ones?"
"Both! The history of the Wizarding World is fascinating, but it's incredible how much social theory we're just missing out on. The Muggles have studied it all! Race, gender, oppression, intersection, it's all right there and we just ignore it."
Padma shrugs. "Does it make them better?"
"Yes! No! Uh−" Hermione blushes. Padma laughs. She loves to see Hermione flustered.
"Yes or no?" she pushes.
"It's complicated!" Hermione exclaims, apparently out of words. "Some things are better, like, you know, slavery is outlawed in the Muggle world."
"We don't keep slaves," Padma frowns, her thoughts going straight to her ancestors enslaved by the East India Company. She's learned that history early on, the one she's never going to be taught about in college. The English wizards and Muggles working side by side to colonize India and abuse its inhabitants.
"What about the Elves?"
"They're not slaves!"
"Aren't they?"
Padma comes up with a vague memory of Hermione's fifth year crusade to free the House Elves. It seemed like madness, at the time.
"They don't get paid," Hermione continues. "They punish themselves for things so mundane as being late or failing a task!"
Padma tilts her head. "Okay, you're right, they don't get paid. But where did you read that Elves punish themselves?"
"I saw them do it! The Malfoys'−" Hermione stops herself. "Never mind."
"My parents' Elves are treated like they're part of the family," Padma says. "They would never accept any money, but they have a day off a week, and they seem happy with their situation."
"I guess I haven't seen many elves, and maybe they didn't have good masters. The Hogwarts Elves seem happy too. But still, masters. Coming from a Muggle background, it's...very odd. Outdated, I guess."
"I never thought of them as slaves," Padma says.
"That's what I mean when I say we need to bridge the gap between the Muggles and our world. They have so much to teach us, if only we were willing to listen. And we could bring them a lot, even without going into magic."
She launches into a tirade of all that the magical community could do for Muggles, which seems to include, in no distinguishable order, better garbage disposal, gay marriage rights, library index cards and a non-capitalist economy. Padma is lost in the references to Muggle law and technology within the first minute, but she nods in all the right places, admiring Hermione's enthusiasm. This girl could change the world, she thinks.
It's funny, because it could be argued that she already has. But looking at her, it seems obvious that Hermione's prime was not the year she spent on the run under a tent with her two best friends, or the spells she threw at Death Eaters during the battle of Hogwarts. Her prime will be in many years, when she accomplishes all she strives for and cuts the ribbon in front of a brand new school for Muggle and Magical studies. Padma can see it in her mind's eye, a strangely attractive older Hermione with a pair of scissors in hand, a wide smile on her face, waving at her.
Why is she imagining herself looking back and laughing in pride, two steps behind among the school's new teachers?
"Do you have books that need to stay here?" she asks suddenly, taking advantage of Hermione needing to breathe between two rapid-fire sentences.
Hermione opens her mouth, frowns, and closes it again. She looks down at the pile of books peeking out of her bag. "No, they're already checked out," she says. "I did that before coming to find you."
"Good," Padma says. "'Cause I want to get out of here."
Hermione deflates. "Alright," she says. "The Library's about to close anyway. I...I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
Padma stares at her for a second, agape at the misunderstanding. "No, I mean we should get out of here together," she says. "To...somewhere else."
She hasn't thought this through. She can't invite Hermione home, not with her parents there and her younger siblings−Parvati is probably spending the night at Lavender's again. She curses that family tradition forbids her from getting her own place. It's not that her parents lack the money, but a young woman living on her own is just not done.
"Clubbing?" Hermione offers with a smile, looking relieved.
Padma snorts. "Clubbing sounds right," she says.
"I do have an apartment," Hermione hesitates. "If you wanted to−"
"Are you inviting me to your place?"
Hermione bites her lip. "Sure. It's not big, but it's quiet."
"Sounds good. Let's go."
Padma is very curious about Hermione's apartment. She follows her friend outside the library to the Apparition point, where Hermione offers her arm.
"I can give you coordinates if you prefer," she says, "but I'm pretty good at Side-Along."
Padma smiles. Since nearly all adult wizards and witches have their own license, Side-Along Apparition is considered quite intimate, unless you do it with children. She could be reading this wrong, because Hermione isn't very easy to read on the best day, but she's now fairly sure the hints she's been dropping have been received loud and clear.
Hermione's grin when Padma takes her arm is like a confirmation. The trip is nearly instantaneous, from London to Oxford, and smoother than most Side-Along Padma has been on as a child.
They land into the entrance corridor of a one-room apartment. It's warm and cozy in a bookworm kind of way, one wall lined with a giant bookshelf and another with a large desk. The sofa bed is swarming with pillows and comforters, looking more like a nest than a bed. It looks exactly like Hermione, and Padma is impressed that she's managed to create that feeling in just four months.
"It's nice," she says. "I like what you've done with it. I could live here."
Hermione blushes again. "It's comfortable," she says.
She kicks off her shoes and drops onto the nest-bed, so Padma imitates her. She stays far enough to give Hermione some personal space, hoping secretly that that space will shrink as they get comfortable. It doesn't have to be tonight, she promises herself. But then, sitting on her friend's bed at ten in the evening on a weekday, the opportunity seems perfect.
"How is it going on the Muggle side?" she asks. "We're close to campus, right?"
"Yes. The university is very old, older than ours. It's weird to have to hide when I'm doing magic, but it's been fine so far."
"And the studies?"
"I'm missing a lot of Muggle references and stuff that Muggles learn in school. I'm doing my best to catch up but...for once I'm not at the top of my class."
"What? Hermione, a mediocre student?" Padma asks in mock-shock.
"Most of the students here were the best of their year in high school too. That or they come from old money."
"So you've finally met your match."
Hermione laughs. "Something like that. So, why choose History and Anthropology? I can't imagine that's what your parents wanted for you."
"No. They wanted me to become a doctor, or at least some kind of well-paid job with a high social standing. But Parvati threw them off even further by going into an Apprenticeship with a seer, so I got off easily. The way they figure it, I'll marry straight out of university and stop working to raise kids. They don't see what kind of worthy job I could do with those subjects."
"My parents don't really understand magic at all," Hermione says, "so they were relieved when I chose to pursue a Muggle degree as well. Relieved enough that they didn't care what subject it was in."
"But why did you choose it?"
"Hey, I asked you first!"
"Okay. So, Binns was horrible, but I like learning about history. I'd bring library books to his classes and read them under the table."
"Me too!" Hermione exclaims. "But who didn't?"
"Anyone who wasn't in Ravenclaw beside you?" Padma jokes.
"Um, I guess I wasn't really aware of other people," Hermione admits sheepishly. "I'm a real dork, aren't I?"
"A very adorable one," Padma says without thinking. She didn't mean to say it out loud, but Hermione blushes in the most delicious way.
"Anyway," Padma continues, "I think...I've always been in between two cultures. I was born here, but my parents never even learned English. They just use translation spells whenever they need to, but mostly they only have Indian friends. Home is like...like we were in India, but in downtown London. You look out the windows, London. You look inside, Mumbai. I had an Indian tutor and an Indian maid and I played with Indian kids. Sometimes it feels like I'm not English at all."
"So you wanted to learn more about English history?"
"That, and I'm fascinated by how different cultures see the world in a whole other way. We're all human, and yet−"
"I know! I felt like such an outsider when I first came to Hogwarts. Wizards have this whole culture and traditions that no one ever tells us about! We have to figure it out on our own, and honestly I'm surprised there aren't more Muggleborn students who drop out. It's so confusing!"
"Do you still feel like an outsider now?"
"No. Not much, anyway. I still miss things, but I've grown with magic in my life for years now, and I've read everything I can on Wizarding culture. Now I want to branch out."
"Into Muggle culture?"
"Yes, because it's what I was born to and that's where I feel out of place now. But also other magical cultures. You know, different countries, people, species even…
"Maybe we could go together to Mumbai some day. I could show you some things."
Hermione smiles. "Maybe we could," she says slowly, biting her lip nervously.
Padma can't take any more hesitation. She bends closer and kisses her. It's sweet, though awkward and uncertain.
"That okay?" she asks, pulling away slightly to look at Hermione's reaction.
"Yeah, it's okay," Hermione nods. "Very okay."
"Should we do it again?"
Hermione doesn't answer and just pulls her closer.
4