29.

Hermione:

What is perfection?

In front of the bathrooms, there was a large bathtub, with many gilt faucets surrounding it. It was similar to a swimming pool, sunk into the ground. Hermione had arrived first thing in the morning, before all of her roommates had even woken up. Although the prefect's bathroom was quite exclusive, if she went at certain times, she would get no company at all. Most of the teens enjoyed their sleeping hours a lot, even more than their privacy. Of course, Hermione was not like most.

She turned on one of the gold taps, which, like all of them, was encrusted with a glittering jewel, but a scarlet red color that set it apart from the rest. Hermione counted to five, before the hot water filled the bathtub in front of her to the brim (without magic this would be impossible). She undressed quickly, feeling her skin crawl from the morning chill. Spring started a couple of weeks ago, but there were still traces of winter that refused to go away. When she got into the water, she looked for one of the bath salts. She chose the purple ones. Ginny used to say that bath salts had healing properties, and maybe it was true, but Hermione preferred to use them because of the smell, which in the case of the ones she had selected was lavender. Her mother often uses this scent for the family's clothes, as "it is relaxing." Here, in the tranquility of the bathroom, she had to agree with her, she felt her whole body give way and she forgot any external drama thanks to the smell.

In general things were going pretty well. Pansy's problem a few days ago seemed to be appeased, she was back to acting as usual. Hermione even found out that Ginny had given a student who dared to speak ill about Aurora Parkinson what for. Who would have guessed that Pansy would have Ginny as a bodyguard? Hermione didn't tell her, she considered that her best friend would comment on it, if she felt like it.

Also, the Easter holidays were approaching. A well deserved week of vacation, spent with the Weasleys and Harry at The Burrow.

She got out of the water once she finished washing and wrapped herself in a towel. She went to the end of the bathroom, where she had left her clean change of clothes. When she dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was still a mess (after drying it was very tangled). She glanced at her tie, tied well, but... Pansy does it better. She sighed, resigned. She had no idea how she did it, but Pansy had the perfect hair and clothes, always; and Hermione did not. She combed her hair, fighting to untangle it. Every morning was a battle. When she was ready, as perfect as she knew she could be, she still felt strange. Because Pansy would look better.

What did she see in her? Pansy was beautiful, she even found out recently that her mother was a model! Of course. The rich gathered among beautiful and talented people. Hermione was just Hermione, a normal girl, from a normal muggle neighborhood, with parents from normal jobs... Normal looking. Ginny used to say she was beautiful and stunning (ever since she taught her that last word, the girl loved saying it because she found it funny). But it wasn't true, it was exaggerated. She had no fine symmetrical features, no attractive demeanor, even if it weren't for a prank in one of her early years at Hogwarts, she would still have rabbit-worthy teeth. Hermione was not beautiful or cool, she was just a normal girl. How could Pansy prefer her?

She came out of the bathroom once she cleaned up all the mess, she still had a little time left before breakfast and she intended to use it to study for her OWLs.

. . .

"Good morning," a familiar voice whispered in Hermione's ear.

Pansy sat next to her, crossing her legs. Hermione resisted the urge to rub her ear, the breath against her skin nearly making her jump off the chair from the ticklish sensation.

They were in the library, today they had no more classes for the rest of the day. The place was pretty crowded, which was the case every year around this time. Mrs. Pince was constantly moving around the place ordering forgotten books and scolding the noisy students.

"It's actually after twelve, it would be good afternoon," Hermione corrected her.

"I won't be polite to you again," she complained, stretching in the seat.

"Did you come to study for the OWLs?"

"No," she said, and looked slowly at all the books and scrolls scattered on the table. "Although I'm sure just watching you study I'll get an excellent grade."

"You should study," she advised. "Only two months to go."

"I'm studying," she defended herself, "I just don't feel like it today."

"Do you have a routine? I do. From seven to eight I usually choose a heavy topic, in the morning I retain the information better. After breakfast, until class time, I continue with the same thing. Although sometimes I also read while eating, something light, of course. After class, I usually study for two hours. It is the amount of time that the experts recommend, since, if you demand more time, you lower your performance. I rest for an hour and study for another two. So until dinner, after that I take care of my homework for the day's subjects."

Pansy had a face of utter horror, she was speechless.

"What?" Hermione was annoyed.

"That intensity of study... Shouldn't it be for the last few weeks? I... I've been doing a couple of summaries. I finished with History yesterday. Tomorrow I will start with Transfiguration or Potions."

"Just the summaries?" She screeched.

Now, the one who looked at the other as if she were a ghost, was Hermione.

"There's no point memorizing so far in advance. I'd forget," Pansy excused herself.

"And you're not going to study today? Or well," she said, "do more summaries. You will be behind."

"I want to enjoy the beginning of April. I love winter, but I will not deny that spring has its charm."

Hermione looked down, acknowledging that Pansy was already less covered than usual. She herself too, of course, although the mornings were still cold, when the Sun rose in all its splendor, the castle took on heat. Like Hermione, she only wore the lightest gray sweater in the uniform, and the shirt. Even with the table covering her, she came to notice the skirt that now exposed her pale legs. Pansy hadn't been slow to adjust to spring.

"How do you make your tie look so good?" Hermione asked.

"What?" She laughed. "I don't do anything in particular."

"Seriously? Isn't there a different spell than usual...?"

"I tie it by hand."

Her mouth opened. Pansy had to be kidding. Who gets such a perfect, magazine knot every morning by hand?

"That impresses you?" Her brow rose inquisitively and a sly smile crept into her mouth.

"It's just... It doesn't look so good on me," she lamented, looking back at her scrolls.

Movement caught her eye, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Pansy had crossed her arms on the table to use as a pillow. She found the green gaze fixed on her.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked.

"Study."

"You're not going to get excellent grades watching me study."

"I can try," she murmured, closing her eyes.

"Now you're not even looking at me!" She complained with a chuckle.

"You Gryffindors need so much attention," she mumbled, burying her face deeper into her own arms.

Hermione shook her head, accepting that Pansy was about to take a nap in the middle of the library. Her attitude was very reprehensible, but she couldn't get too angry with her. She took up her pen to continue studying. As she searched for a page from a book, she looked back at Pansy. A smile almost escaped her. She wanted to ask her why she was staying here, uncomfortable at a table, if she could sleep in her bedroom, but she didn't want to wake her.

She read: "These plants are very effective for inflammation of the brain, and hence they are commonly used in the manufacture of confusing and befuddlement draughts, or wherever the magician intends to produce hot-headedness and recklessness...", and she wrote it down. summarized way on parchment. She went through her class notes for the basic ingredients: sneezewort, scurvy grass, and lovage, and again, she jotted everything down. Before reading about the next potion, she put a hand to her neck, massaging to relax. She loved reading, but would love it more if her neck didn't go numb from spending so much time hunched over the table. Inadvertently, she looked back at Pansy. A lock of hair had fallen gracefully down her cheek, and without much thought, she moved her hand to tuck it behind Pansy's ear. She froze when she realized what she did and turned red. Knowing that the Slytherin used to put her hair behind her ear, almost with the insistence of a tic, she repeated the act... But it wasn't Hermione who had to do that, it wasn't her who had the tic! It was Pansy! When she looked up higher, she could see two Gryffindor girls, and to make it worse, two classmates from her same year, who were staring at her and whispering. She stared at her books, wanting to ignore how her stomach clenched in embarrassment.

It was still fairly new for people to be aware of them, and it was very uncomfortable for them to converse at their expense. For the rest, it was too interesting to see a lioness and a snake sharing space and enjoying it. Even when they were just friends they earned curious looks, but now that something else was known, the students enjoyed the gossip. It didn't bother her too much, because it was normal for people to talk about her, because her best friend was Harry Potter, the savior of the wizarding world, she always had more of an audience than she would like. And she even considered that she had a natural talent to attract attention even without wanting it: facing a troll, going to the dance with a famous Quidditch player and ending up in the gossip section of the newspaper... Of course she was also going to fall in love with a pureblood Slytherin girl who was the new talk of the wizarding world right now. Hermione almost rolled her eyes at the thought of her own tendencies. But all that was one thing, and another, to be caught being affectionate in public. That would take some getting used to, no doubt.

Reading and writing were a great way to lower the temperature of her face, so she kept studying. Even after she had advanced ten pages of her potions book, she felt that they were piercing her with their eyes, so she tried to see out of the corner of her eye if their audience would still be there. Incredibly, they weren't. She reviewed the rest of the panorama and no one was watching her from other tables. She started to read again, assuming she was feeling haunted by nothing. Another ten pages later, she let out a frustrated sigh. Without much thought, she looked at Pansy, and was surprised to collide with her wide eyes.

"You're awake," she whispered in amazement.

"I never fell asleep. I tried, but..." Pansy said, leaving the sentence in the air.

Hermione nodded, though she was still quite shocked, and looked at her scrolls. The other girl didn't usually have trouble sleeping in seats, she did it in various classes. Why couldn't she sleep in the library? She raised her hand to grasp the quill, but it was frozen in midair, because of a revelation: Pansy wasn't asleep and she had arranged her hair.

"You weren't sleeping," she stammered in panic.

"No," she confirmed. "Your attentions distracted me."

Her cheeks were suddenly hot. Idiot Pansy was saying that with all bad intentions, she could bet on it! She looked at her with as much hatred as she could, and the other in response sank into her arms beginning to tremble, letting out choked laughter. Hermione straightened in her seat, trying to muster her dignity, but as Pansy's laughter didn't stop she nudged her in the ribs.

"You'll have Pince run you out of the library," she hissed.

She stifled her laughter more in response, but the spasms were more obvious now. Hermione rolled her eyes. Little by little the anger was gaining ground, drowning the shame.

"It's not that funny Pansy."

"Your face," she said with a laugh.

"Is my face funny?"

A fuzzy "aha" between laughter was the only thing Hermione got. She looked back at her homework, deciding she shouldn't pay attention when she got like this. She wrote "Potion of erump..." on her parchment, without finishing the word with the last three letters that made it up. One hand was the culprit. Pansy stopped laughing and had moved silently towards her wrist, resting part of her hand on it, and using her fingers to caress the back of Hermione's hand. She stared at the action, and then met Pansy's eyes. She had a calm smile on her face and Hermione almost melted in her own seat. She loved it... She was an idiot... But she loved her too much.

"Your face is pretty," she whispered, looking away from Hermione's eyes and staring at the caress of her hands instead. Besides being funny.

"You're just saying it so I don't get mad," she dodged the compliment.

"At one point you wrinkled your nose. It was adorable."

"Pansy," she muttered, embarrassed.

A tingling sensation crept into her stomach, as she realized that Pansy had been watching her study. It felt special to gain so much of her attention. It was a nice kind of awkwardness, because she was the one looking at her and not someone else.

"Have you finished your two hours of study?" Pansy asked.

"Actually, yes," she lied. Fifteen minutes to go, but it was more or less the same.

Pansy rose from the table with a beaming smile and with a nod that pointed to the door, ordered her to follow her. Hermione quickly gathered her things, and Pansy sighed when she saw that she had so much on her hands that she could barely see her face behind the books. She grabbed, despite Hermione's refusal, several of her things to lighten her load.

"Will you accompany me to my common room to drop all this off?" Hermione asked.

"Obviously. I'm not dragging your belongings all over the castle."

. . .

They went out to the patio, finally taking advantage of the amount of Sun that there was. Hermione was leaning against a tree, using one of the roots as a seat. Pansy was lying on the grass, holding a small blade that she cut from a bush as they walked, which she slowly cut into small pieces.

"Today my mother sent me a letter," she stated, drawing Hermione's attention.

"That's great! What did she say?"

"Not much. That she was fine and she missed me. That she wanted me to come home for Easter."

"I'm so glad," she said, feeling real happiness at Pansy's words. "It's good that you wrote to her."

The Slytherin shrugged, dismissing the fact, and then straightened up, sitting up and tossing the remains of the plant to the ground.

"We won't see each other for a week," Hermione recalled.

"Do you miss me already?"

She huffed, at the sarcastic tone Pansy used.

"It was an observation."

"I'll write to you, so you don't forget my great eloquence."

"I'll see if I have the time to answer you," she retorted, trying to prod the other's ego.

The smile that she put on at her words showed that she achieved the opposite effect. Her mind was a mystery to Hermione, only she could be this happy about fighting as a joke. Pansy, not the least bit bothered by the silence, looked away from Hermione's face to admire the rest of her. Her smile widened.

"Your tie is tied very well," she pointed out.

Hermione fidgeted. Pansy had luckily looked at her tie for a couple seconds.

"Of course not."

She got up off the ground and walked the little space that separated her from Hermione, knelt in front of her and looked at the red and gold fabric around her neck.

"Well, seen up close, it could certainly improve."

She rolled her eyes, not understanding Pansy's game, and when she felt the other's hands on her shirt lapels she froze, too confused. Was she going to...?

"May l?"

"What?" Hermione murmured, distracted.

"Scared?" She scoffed, hitting just where a Gryffindor would hurt.

"Just do it," she growled, not knowing what the hell she accepted.

Pansy's hands lifted the shirt lapel then, and she tugged on the tie to untangle the knot. It was certainly not what was expected. Unless...? No, impossible. She wasn't going to do that, especially not here. Right? Still, ignoring her rationality, Hermione swallowed, which Pansy noticed, and laughed at.

She tried to ignore the disappointment at the outcome of the action, a completely didactic one:

"You have to line up first," she explained, as if Hermione were a total novice with the tie. Then she placed the widest part of the fabric in front of the narrower. "And you roll up here," she continued, pulling one end behind the other before crossing it back across the front. "You feed this part through." She moved the strip of fabric to the back of the knot, tucking it through the loop she had formed. "Finally, it is a matter of adjusting."

As she said that, she pulled with more force than was necessary, forcing Hermione to move forward. It was a vile move, to kiss her. Now it was clear to her, she wanted to take her by surprise. She also had a slight suspicion that it was a little revenge for the Great Hall, the smug smile that she felt spreading on the other's mouth was proof, she deliberately wanted to upset her.

As she was sitting on the grass and Hermione on a root, Pansy had to lift her face, and force her with her tie to take a hunched position. Not that Hermione was complaining, as she enjoyed the feeling of their joined lips too much. But it didn't last long before Pansy dropped her clothes and with an innocent smile, spoke to her:

"Now you try it."

Hermione cocked her head, lost.

"The tie," she reminded her.

"Are you serious?" She complained.

Pansy crossed her arms, making it clear that she wasn't going to back down. Hermione sighed and did as directed, untying her own tie. She tied the knot again, trying to repeat it the same, although when she did it, she realized that she had not paid much attention to the explanation.

"Wow," Pansy said, shaking her head, "what a bad student you turned out."

"They say there are no bad students, only bad teachers."

They both laughed then, too amused with the situation.

"I just wanted an excuse to kiss you," she confessed.

"I'm not complaining," Hermione admitted.

"Why are you obsessed with my tie knot, anyway?" Pansy whispered. "Since you mentioned it, it caught my attention."

"It's a triviality. It's just that... You are always very well groomed and it surprises me that there's such a big difference with the same uniform. You are like my opposite."

"I understand... And what about it?"

"I don't know... Doesn't it bother you? Is it just... okay to be with someone like me? I'm not half as pretty as you. You dress better, your hair is... I can't even tie a tie well."

Pansy was silent, looking at Hermione with some annoyance.

"Forget it," she murmured. "Sometimes I think nonsense."

"You're quite an idiot," Pansy said seriously.

Hermione didn't expect that. Maybe it was stupid insecurity, but she didn't have to be so harsh.

"You are a complete idiot, actually."

"Pansy," she complained, wanting to stop her.

"I like perfect things, you know."

Her statement dislodged Hermione, so she only gasped before the other continued speaking:

"And you're a mop with legs."

Her cheeks reddened, beginning to flush with anger, and she tried to pull herself up from the root in reaction. But Pansy avoided it, grabbing her arm and pulling her, causing her to stagger and sit ungraciously on the grass. Pansy's eyes were intense and challenging.

"And I'm a horrible person." At Hermione's disbelief, she rolled her eyes. "I am, don't deny it. I said more disgusting things than I can count for sure. I am brute, resentful and insecure. I swear you are the most beautiful one here." Hermione tried to speak again, wanting to deny her words, but Pansy seemed to sense her thoughts. "Yes, I know, my face is fine, and much better with makeup. And that? It is a mask. I mean... are looks that important? Sometimes I think I just try to order and make everything look perfect, because that way it gives the illusion of being. But I have so much crap under the rug…"

"You do the opposite," she added, after a while thinking, with a shy smile that managed to sneak in and relax her gestures. "You are a mess. And I think it is one of the most beautiful things I have seen in my life. By Circe, Hermione!" She sighed incredulously. "So what if your hair is messy? Your curls have personality. Your personality is... so intense. I adore your eyebrows, I bet you don't do anything to fix them, most girls would kill to have them like that. Or your nose? It's pretty and small, today in the library I really thought it was adorable." She looked at her sideways, suddenly showing nervousness for saying so much, clasping her hands, playing with her ring.

Hermione felt her heart beat fast, and her mind was racing trying to find a word, but it was blank. Did she really mean everything she said?

"Is physicality that important?" Pansy whispered. "What does it matter if there are other girls with light eyes, with blonde hair, perfect skin, tall and thin as models...? I like you. The way you are is perfect to me."

There was no way to answer all of that, so she lunged without thinking and wrapped her arms around Pansy, burying her face into her neck.

"And I can always make you comb your hair," she commented. "At last year's dance, if you push yourself and feel like it, you showed that you are capable of being even more beautiful."

"Stop it," Hermione said in a cracking voice mixed with laughter.

She had been over-excited, she was moved. But could they blame her? She felt a hand in her hair, playing with one of the many unruly locks she possessed.

"Pansy," she whispered very softly, but by the closeness she knew she heard her. "You are perfect for me too."

Hermione felt how the other's body trembled slightly, and then she felt more weight against her hair, the other was resting her cheek against her head. She realized then that she wasn't the only one with insecurities. Pansy didn't like her own personality and was also afraid she didn't deserve Hermione. They were both a disaster in their own way, and in a way, that was fine. For now, they could stay like this, enjoy the silence... At least a little while longer, before going back to studying for the OWLs.