27.

Hermione:

Can I kiss you again?

Many more times?

Or better yet, forever?

She was currently in her Charms class, with Ron to her left. The word "Silencio" was repeated by various students, including their friends. She had already managed to perform the spell correctly so she was making a couple of notes on a scroll, on advice that Professor Flitwick gave in a general way (even if she had worked it out well, it was always better to have notes in case she needed them in the future).

"Harry," said Ron.

"What?" The aforementioned asked.

"Damn, I was sure the spell worked."

"You'll never get it if you keep making such tense movements Ron," Hermione advised him.

The boy ignored her, raising his arms to stretch, and nearly hitting Harry with his wand in the process.

"Arel you giving up?" Hermione questioned.

"Class is almost over," he justified himself, pointing to a clock on the teacher's desk.

Ron was right, so both she and Harry began to sort their things, and they were the three of the first to leave the room as Flitwick let them go.

"And what do we do now?" Harry asked his two friends.

Hermione was about to say that they had several pending assignments, but Ron surely realized ther intentions and warned her:

"No more studying."

"At some point we should do our homework," she tried, but the two boys ignored her.

"I need spring to come, I want to lie on the grass and pretend we don't have to take the OWLs," Harry said.

"It's annoying! To make matters worse, the type of job offers that we can apply to later will depend on the result we obtain... There is too much time left for that. Why should we worry now?"

"That's why doing our homework would be a good idea, keeping up with the syllabus will help make it easier to study when…"

"We're not going to spend the day studying Hermione," the two boys cut her off at the same time.

"Fine!" She gave up with an indignant tone. "What do you want to do?"

"I have several sweets," said Harry, "left over from celebrating with the team for the victory of the last Quidditch match."

"And that we ate until we nearly burst!" Ron said, incredulous.

"I can go get them from the bedrooms... And maybe a game of chess?"

Hermione managed a smile when she saw Ron's enthusiasm for the plan.

"Prepare to lose Potter," he joked, "long before I was King of the Quidditch pitch, I was crowned the best chess player."

. . .

The three best friends were on a red sofa by the window in the Gryffindor Common Room. In front of them, in addition to the game board, several sweets were scattered: chocolate frogs, Dragees of all flavors, both acidic and normal popsicles...

"Knight, c3," Harry ordered.

"E5, Queen," Ron continued, then popped a bean to his mouth with a triumphant expression.

The piece moved as directed and destroyed Harry's (in Hermione's opinion in a rather violent way). Although Ron's sneer turned into an exaggerated face of disgust in the blink of an eye.

"It can't be... That's the third time I get the sardine flavor!" he complained.

Harry began to laugh, and Hermione reached for one of the lollys on the table, before looking back at the game intently. She never liked it, but found it fun to be a spectator of the games. Although whenever she did, she thought that Ron was very smart and that it was a waste that he did not try harder in class. He obviously had potential!

"Pawn... E3," Harry said after thinking for a long time.

Hermione unwrapped the lollipop without taking her eyes off the board and raised it to her mouth. It was cherry, and she felt herself heat up. She had kissed Pansy so many times on her way out to Hogsmeade, she could have done an essay on her mouth worthy of an Extraordinary. Which surprised her, if she had to be honest with herself, since with Viktor she never had so much initiative... Maybe because she was smaller and they only kissed three times? Or maybe it was because she wanted to know more about Pansy, more about her reactions. She was curious.

Still, in fact. She didn't feel like it had been enough, and she was starting to get impatient about it... Why couldn't all the people in the castle just disappear, even for five minutes? Maybe she was grateful at first, because that made it easier at the time to avoid Ginny, but now that she had nothing to hide from her, she became desperate. She wanted to be alone... With Pansy. But there was always someone around! When they shared classes, they were obviously surrounded by all their classmates. If they left the Great Hall, she was with her friends and Pansy with Rachel and Sophie. It was also snowing very hard these last days so going out to some solitary place in the Hogwarts courtyard was impossible.

"Bishop, h3," Ron decided, and his piece slid across the board and hit the opposing king, "checkmate."

Harry gave a frustrated snort, sinking back onto the couch.

"I am invincible!" With a wave of his wand he arranged and arranged the pieces on the board. "Again?"

"Impossible, my brain will melt."

Winning seemed to fill Ron with energy and the desire to continue sweeping, but to his misfortune, Harry happened to feel the opposite effect when he lost: frustration and fatigue.

"Hey Ron!" A voice called him.

Dean Thomas was on the opposite side of the Common Room, also pointing to a chessboard.

"One game and I'll be back," Ron assured them, rising from his seat.

Hermione giggled because she knew that one game may well turn into two or more.

"He won't be back," Harry said with a half smile, grabbing a bean and popping it into his mouth. "Blueberry."

There weren't many people in the Common Room, probably because of Fred and George. That pair was putting on a show with their new creations in a room in the castle where teachers didn't usually hang out. Hermione had refused to go to that place since early in the morning, because she preferred not to know what things they were up to, which would surely make Molly Weasley faint (and for that reason, Ron also preferred to avoid it, because if he revealed details about that to their mother, the twins would chop him into thousands of pieces and feed him to the garden gnomes).

She dug her tooth into the lollipop, managing to fracture it. It was something she used to do almost without thinking, because biting into the candy was the most fun part of eating it in her opinion. Her parents hated that habit of hers, but they could seldom scold her for it, since between being at Hogwarts most of the year and avoiding eating it in front of them, they had no chance to do so... Besides, no one would break their teeth on something so small! She always ensured it was thin and harmless enough.

"You should have seen him in Hogsmeade," Harry spoke up. "After the girls spoke to him, he spent the rest of the day making that same smug face."

Hermione focused on Ron, noting that goofy grin on his face and the way his shoulders were pulled back, making him appear larger. A laugh escaped her and she tried to cover it with her hand. In the end, she hadn't set foot in The Three Broomsticks on her last outing to Hogsmeade, although of course she learned of Ron's popularity, as the boy repeated too many times the story of how a group of girls had approached the table to speak to him. And she even saw herself in the corridors, some impressed and inconspicuous looks directed at Ron.

"I'm almost sorry I missed it," she admitted.

"Almost? Did you have that much fun with Parkinson?"

Hermione gulped conspicuously, unintentionally.

"Why are you nervous?" He laughed.

"Harry," Hermione whispered, thinking to herself "it's now or never", "there's something I want to tell you."

That seemed to throw him off a bit, but he nodded seriously, turning his body to better face Hermione.

"Actually, I wanted to quite a while ago, even before Hogsmeade... But I couldn't find the time." She stopped, rubbing her forearm with one hand. "Although I also want to tell Ron... I don't know if I want to talk about this with both of you together or separately…"

"Spit it out Hermione," Harry urged her, amused.

"It was a date."

Harry raised both eyebrows, straightening a little.

"I don't really know... Was it a date?"

"Do I have to answer?" He teased.

Hermione giggled.

"Why did you say you dated Parkinson then?" Harry asked, confused.

"Because I did."

Harry gasped, processing the information.

"I thought you liked boys."

"I like them," she stated. "But also the girls," she added with less conviction, almost sounding like a question.

"I understand," Harry murmured. "Congratulations?"

"Why congratulate me?"

Harry shrugged, letting out a laugh.

"I don't know what to say. So I congratulate you on your new love life I guess."

"Does it bother you?"

"What?" He was alarmed. "No not at all. I would never be mad at you for something like that Hermione. Parkinson is not my favorite person, clearly, but if you like her…"

"Don't you think it's weird?"

"Well, I don't know of any other Gryffindor who likes a Slytherin..."

"Not that," she stopped him, rolling her eyes, "I mean that she's a girl."

"Eh no."

Hermione sighed, a little angry.

"Do you want me to be bothered?" Harry scoffed, not understanding her reaction.

"Maybe," she admitted, "I feel crazy."

"What are you worried about?" He said in a soft tone, trying to reassure her.

"What do you think about it? Usually."

Harry cocked his head, thinking, and listening to his friend's rambling aloud:

"I'm afraid of my parents' reaction. And the rest of my family. Everyone here talks like there isn't a problem, but there is. It's not normal."

"Ah, that's what you mean," Harry joined in. "I don't think I was aware of that in the early years at Hogwarts, that for wizards it was fine. The Dursleys from time to time commented that an actor in a movie had the face or attitudes of" he hesitated, looking at Hermione,"well, you know. But I never gave it much thought. I always understood it as one more insult. Even Dudley once told me that I was surely as abnormal as they were, that I was surely gay, or things that were even nastier…"

"I've never heard my parents say something like that," she sighed before continuing, "but I've been thinking about this a lot, trying to remember something. I don't know if it's my invention or it happened, but I think that once on television they were talking about this issue, and my mother changed the channel. Maybe it doesn't seem right to them? It's not that bad, but…"

"But your parents aren't here, are they?" He tried to cheer her up, seeing that Hermione didn't finish the sentence.

"I don't like to feel like I'm doing something I shouldn't."

"You're not," Harry soothed her, and seeing the fear in Hermione's eyes, he confessed something to her, "Did you know Oliver Wood is gay?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes he told me. It happened one day at a Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, because one player, I don't even remember which one, I yelled "faggot" at for preventing me from catching the snitch. I didn't think, I mean... It was just an insult to me! People I knew used it like that," he admitted sheepishly, looking at the ground quite disgruntled. "Oliver, as you can imagine, did not like it at all. After the game he took me aside and told me that although Muggles thought that was wrong, it was not here. Or not usually. And he was talking to me about the subject for hours."

"Not usually?" Hermione repeated in confusion.

"He said it was fine, but I was always wondering why he knew the meaning of the insult. He was quite defensive."

Hermione frowned, thinking. It was an interesting prospect. Being with people of the same sex was accepted here, but that was not synonymous with everything being perfect. There were many wizards who lived together with or who, like her, were Muggle-borne. Could that be the source?

"Wizards like to pretend their society is perfect," Hermione mused aloud. "We are not slavers they say! But then they have the house elves. And not only that. Their prisons are a method of punishment, not like that of Muggle society, which are aimed at the reintegration of the person into society, something I'd say is much more logical. We are not in medieval times anymore. Do we even have human rights? Because the way they treated Sirius isn't even close to respecting something like that... Ah, but they're not homophobic, wonderful!"

"I guess you're right."

"Don't you see, Harry? How many famous wizards who are gay, or whatever, do you know? How many books did you read about it? They pretend they don't care, that it's okay. But it is not!"

"It's not?" He said, surprised.

"That is to say, it is not well seen. Not that it's bad in itself. It is as if it were legal, but it doesn't impose itself on society. It's as normalized as Muggle-borns. They allow us to study and consider us magicians, but more than one sees us as... Mudblood."

Harry nodded, now following her better.

"Hermione," he called, waiting for the other to focus on him, "doesn't thinking about this make you feel worse?"

"It makes me feel like I'm not being that paranoid, actually. When I discussed this with Ginny she told me that everything would be fine and that everything would be perfect. Pansy doesn't seem to have any concerns about it either. And I do feel defensive. Why shouldn't I worry according to the whole damn school?"

"But it's okay that you are. You don't want to be criticized."

After a few seconds of silence, Hermione's eyes clouded over, and she lowered her head. She tried to contain it, but those words struck a chord, an insecurity... She was drowning in worry, right? Harry noticed, and walked over to her. When he touched her back, he did not have time to ask her what was wrong, his friend hugged him and let out a sob.

"No, I don't want to," she stammered, barely understood between her strangled voice and the muffling caused by her friend's clothes on her face, "people always do. That I'm an insufferable know-it-all, that I'm overbearing, that I shouldn't be with you two, that I'm not a real witch... Now should I add something else to the list?"

"And you always knew how to cope with all that," Harry calmed her, "you always show that you're better than them. You are awesome."

"Hermione?" A third voice appeared. "What's going on?"

Ron was standing in front of them, with a worried face, not sure what to do.

"I like Pansy," she explained awkwardly, wiping her tears away with her arm.

"I know. How terrible! I'd cry about that too," he teased.

"You're a stupid Ronald Weasley," she growled, moving to give him a spot on the couch.

As soon as he sat down, he put her arm around Hermione's shoulders and she leaned toward him, comforted.

"Hey, that's right," Harry recalled, "you said Hermione liked Parkinson."

"I told you," he boasted, then looked back at his friend. "So... why is she crying?"

"In short, she's afraid of what people think about her being with a woman." Before Ron's look of surprise, he clarified, "Her parents aren't wizards... Homophobia…"

"Actually in my case it would be biphobia," Hermione murmured, a little calmer.

The boys snorted at the correction.

"What would happen if they reject you?" Ron asked, trying to understand.

"What would not happen? Maybe they would try to get me to leave Pansy, or they might not want to see me anymore, or they might try to make me see reason, not want me to go back to the house... Someone might try to hit me. Insult me. What if they forbid me to go back to school? I do not want that."

"Then leave Parkinson," Ron resolved.

"What? I'm not going to leave her."

"Why not?"

"Because…"

Hermione fixed her eyes on the table and fidgeted. She came close to saying "Because I love her" out loud.

Not only did she find Pansy attractive, funny, smart... She was that and more. She was in love with her. She wanted to go out with her many more times, she wanted to give her something nice, kiss her... She wanted to kiss her many more times. She wanted her. She cared for her in these last six months of her life, and she wanted her to stay that way, for a long time to come.

"When you get stubborn about something, people end up shutting their mouths and agreeing with you. So it doesn't matter, right? If your parents don't like Parkinson, you're sure to turn the tables," said Ron.

"That's a good way to look at it," Harry weighed in. "You're right. If people don't like it, they will have no choice but to accept it. No one can beat Hermione at something like that."

She couldn't help but compare Harry's words to Ginny, only her more polite ones. Hermione's somewhat broken laugh startled them.

"I love you so much."

They both looked at each other puzzled, they were not following the emotional rhythm of their friend at all.

She felt a little calmer, to her surprise. Sometimes the relaxed way of looking at things boys had was like a bucket of cold water that managed to make their train of thought stop. The blind trust they had in her was charming, making her heart feel warm. With them by her side like this, she felt like she was breathing again. She was still feeling insecure, sure, but maybe she had focused too much on the problem and not on how to solve it. How could she have ignored something like that? They were right in their words... She fights. Just as she faced her fears to help Harry against Voldemort, she could face anything for Pansy. Because, like them, she loved her, and when the time came, she would face adversity. Thinking about it like that was enormously comforting.

"Are we going to the Great Hall?" Ron asked, after a while, when Hermione no longer looked like Moaning Myrtle, "I approached you because it was lunchtime…"

"Didn't you fill up on the sweets? You ate more than Harry and I put together," she scolded him.

"Sweets don't fill me up."

Surely Ron's simplicity would never fail to impress her... She almost envied him.

. . .

As they made their way down the last flight to the Great Hall, she saw Pansy in the distance, accompanied by Sophie. Her first thought was that she looked beautiful. And the irrational side of her brain was dying to just run towards her, hug her, or even kiss her, just as she had been wanting to for hours, or well, days... Besides! She felt sensitive. Merlin, she had cried, and she had been going through an internal process of acceptance, of course she wanted to kiss her.

Hermione's eyes examined her. She was in uniform, just like her. Pansy's tie was well placed, with a precision few students had; the knot was impeccable, it was always like that. How did she do it? It didn't work out so well for her even if she used a spell. Her straight shoulder length black hair was well combed, without a hair out of place, it seemed almost unreal. Her skirt was shorter than the rest, though not much, but it was at least shorter than Hermione's. Her legs were still well covered with pantyhose (it was quite cold after all). When she looked up, wanting to again see the relaxed expression she had while Sophie spoke, those green eyes were fixed on her, sparkling and accusing, as well as a conceited smile dedicated entirely to her person.

She used the last few steps of the distance between them to try to swallow the shame she felt.

"Hermione," she greeted her with malicious slowness, and then faster and more disinterestedly, "Potter, and Weasley."

"Parkinson," both boys mimicked, trying to sound tough (possibly out of some pride nonsense).

"I'm going in," Sophie said, stepping through the Great Hall door, since she had little interest in the Gryffindors.

Pansy, glancing at the three in front of her, hesitated on what to do.

"So are we, we're not staying at the entrance," Harry said.

With both boys leading the way, Pansy and Hermione followed, but the Slytherin stopped right in the doorway, resting her hand there.

"When we finish eating, do you want to go to the library?" To Hermione's raised eyebrow, she explained, "I need help with my Transfiguration homework."

"If you took proper notes..."

Pansy rolled her eyes.

"I'll help you," she conceded.

"Good! Well, see you in the library," she said, starting to turn to go to the Slytherin table.

But she didn't want her to leave, not so fast...

"Pansy."

She stopped at the call, inquiring with her eyes. Hermione couldn't get the words out, she just felt her heart begin to speed up. Impatience was seeping into the other, so she raised an eyebrow, urging her to speak. She was... so cute. Pansy's sharper expressions used to scare her in the past, but not anymore, now they were something she enjoyed... challenging her, competing against her in this childish way. She liked it when she was outraged, just like now. Against all odds, she grabbed her arm and pulled her up, giving her a quick kiss on the lips. Pansy reddened to her ears the second, she'd never gotten that reaction from her. Her eyes were wide open; Hermione didn't see her urge coming either, but her patience and rampant emotions seemed to have hit the limit right now. If she wanted to kiss her, why didn't she? She was a Gryffindor, after all.

"Why?" Pansy managed to stammer.

"I wanted to do it as soon as I saw you in the hall," she then put on a pained smile, "should I not have?"

She shook her head quickly, still out of place, though not at all annoying. A laugh escaped Hermione, and she started to walk over to her own table. It was like a victory, both knowing that she was doing what she wanted without fear, and that behind her Pansy would still be flabbergasted (and it felt good, from time to time, to get her mask of control and certainty off).

She crossed the dining room, surprised that no one really seemed to be looking at her weirdly. Didn't they care? Really? Could she get this same kind of reaction in Muggle places?

When she sat down, Ginny Weasley was looking at her with a mocking smile. "Well, someone does care," she lamented. Would anyone at the Slytherin table have noticed that too? What would Pansy do? "Merlin, what about the teachers?" asked a horrified voice in her mind, and she looked out of the corner of her eye at the place where the adults sat. They weren't all there, as it was lunch, but she prayed to all the gods, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, to have been distracted. She may have been over-impulsive.

"So… I see things are going well," Ginny said with ironic sweetness.

"I always knew you liked her," Ron said, "since we got back from Christmas break."

Hermione could feel the redhead's gaze fixed on her, as if they were millions of silent "I told you so." He seemed to pride himself on his insight.

"Did you know Hermione's Hogsmeade outing was a date with Parkinson's?" Harry revealed.

Ron grimaced at that.

"What?! Did you go on a date and you didn't tell me?"

Hermione preferred to ignore her friend and his dramatic complaint, but that only made her worse:

"You better have learned all her teeth by now, or I'll be deeply disappointed in you," Ginny teased her. And she achieved her goal, as her face reddened and the boys laughed. "And you Harry? When are you going to use your tongue on Cho for more than just licking her shoes?"

The mocked boy became deeply angry, glaring at her. Ron, on the other hand, laughed louder still.

"I wouldn't laugh too much, little brother," Fred Weasley said, sitting down with all of them.

"After all, you didn't trade drool with your beloved Viktor either," the other twin finished.

"Can you stop now?" Ron growled.

George, ignoring him, grabbed Hermione's shoulder. The girl flinched at that, assuming the worst.

"You did well, Parkinson is a better choice than Ronnie."

"I'm right here," the named complained.

"Aren't you going to tell us the dirty details Hermione?" George went on, ignoring him.

"I have no doubt that the tongue of a Slytherin snake must be a one-way trip. And in case you doubted it, I'm not just talking about kisses," Fred commented, sticking his tongue out as much as possible.

Hermione put her hands to her face, dead with shame. Why didn't she just wait instead of giving in to her desire to kiss Pansy? What was she thinking! Or well, why wasn't she thinking?! Stupid emotions!

"By the way," Ginny called out, "you should start to be more aware and remember that Parkinson's lives wearing lipstick."

And immediately a napkin fell on Hermione's hand, her friend had thrown it at her. "By Circe, what did I get myself into" she thought, being surrounded by mocking laughter and feeling herself the real meal for lunch.

Hermione was the victim of so many jokes that she even stopped hearing them at one point...