DISCLAIMER:
This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended
To Quinn, my first beta reader, a very reliable girl who helped me a lot. Unluckily, I lost every contact with her.
To Paleologus, who gently spotted and corrected the odd idiomatic expressions.
My intention was to put a thank to all my wanna-be-beta-readers, as well: if I'd ever write a book I'd write it about my adventures in beta-land...
Maybe I've simply bad luck, but I met a lot of kind girls all suffering of the same desease: "I-want-to-do-more-things-than-I-can-handle-and-if-I-don't-succeed-what-the-hell-do-you-want-from-me?".
This strange sensitive pack, generally offers to beta for you enthousiastically: they love to beta! They love your fic! They 'd love to help you improve it.
After you send them the first chapter, they generally disappear in the twirl of their hectic lives...
Do they wish to make you know they have no time anymore because they decided to go trekking to Nepal, or to found a new religion, or simply have a lot of homework? Oh no... who are you, anyway? A person waiting for them? Oh no, only a living entity a bit lower than House Elves.
Do they tell you that you fic stinks? It is the best reason to give up betaing, and, frankly, it could be of invaluable help, especially if you are translating it from your language into another you barely know... Are they too gentle? Who knows?
Anyway, you have to chase after them, and they'll answer you "what do you want from me? I am busy! But I loooove to beta. As soon as possible I'll start again to beta your stuff...".
Again? But if they never started...
However, after a couple of months, you delete their address.
Unluckily they do not delete yours. I remember a funny girl: I never got a betaed line back from her, but she used my address for chain e-mails!!!
For this reason: thanks to the wanna-be-betas as well, for the startled fun they gave me.
Thanks, indeed, to all the reviewers: I am glad someone liked this story, and took the time to make me know!
PERSONAL NOTE:
This is the Cinderella chapter of the fic: readers didn't like it.
I did my best to write it again.
CHAPTER SUMMARY:
A girl starts bickering with herself.
Chapter 3 - Second Week - Saturday
(Good girl)
"Haste," William answered.
Umberto Eco - The Name of the Rose, Fifth Day, Nones
For a while she looked angrily at the old book. The dust was everywhere, on the desk, on the floor... but mostly all over her.
'For the future: if you choose to slam a book on a desk, don't choose a book no one dared to read during the last century.'
She could catch a glimpse of her face reflected in the window, and she suddenly saw a blurry picture of herself: a mix of horror, angst, spite and ... well, guilt.
She burst out giggling.
'I have to be honest: tragedy doesn't suit me. If I understand correctly: me, with my messy hair, my ink spots everywhere and this ancient dust on the tip of my nose, me, Hermione Granger, I had an... indecent proposition.' She chuckled 'and from the Amazing Bouncing Ferret... Oh well, just a few days ago, only a week, I was complaining about something missing in my life... I probably didn't write the right words to Santa and he made a mess.'
Crookshanks, silent as a ghost, appeared near her and jumped on the desk.
The cat purred gently and then stared at her, idly narrowing his eyes.
"Now, my dear cat I'd like to have your full attention" she started slowly stroking his fur.
"Yes," she added, lowering her voice, "Otherwise someone would think I'd gone mad... poor Hermione, speaking to herself, all alone in the Library..."
She sat down. She didn't care about Malfoy, well... about Draco, no, about Malfoy. 'I've always called him that, and I have no intention of changing my habits, just because he saw me crying'. This was for sure.
If you want to be able to care about someone, you should know him first. And this sixth year version of Malfoy, she frankly didn't know at all. He had gone through some improvements. Maybe. But the first version was no prize. Nor second. Nor the third... and the... 'Ok, very well... I can count.'
He had been the pampered kid. And this was putting it kindly: a nasty kid, whose wishes his family was proud to fulfil. His true wishes, and a lot of other kinds of cravings. And even the wishes he didn't know he could have.
She could bet on it with a gang of goblins and win.
Yes, he still was Draco Malfoy: The Amazing Bouncing Ferret.
But he was also the seductive boy Parvati used to sneak around with, late at night. And not just Parvati, maybe. Surely. 'Ok, surely, but then? The number of sweethearts he has all over the school doesn't really matter.'
"Crookshanks, my very dear friend, this way, having a ... date ... with him, would be just indulging a simple physical emotion"
"No, dear, this would be 'doing the blockhead simpering baby', don't you agree?"
"And what would be wrong with that? For once in my life, what would be wrong? What?"
"The very first thing I could think of? I am a good girl."
"Very well, I am a good girl, I cannot choose not to believe myself, but... Who stated good girls can't kiss?"
Crookshanks lazily moved his tail.
"Well, my sweet cat, we come to the heart of the matter, and I can see you agree with me. We said 'kiss', but, are we sure it would be only 'kissing'? With Malfoy?"
Hermione sighed. "Yes. Only kissing.
And it would be "maybe-kissing", not "kissing-for-sure".
The boundary is up to me. And I am not a conceited, absurd girl." Her voice had raised to an high pitched note, and Crookshanks looked at her quizzically.
"Oh, yes, I know what you are thinking of... You wonder what I want to prove? That I can get an A also in this ... class? Why not?"
"But a truthfully good 'good girl' should wait for the great love of her life. And meanwhile... be shy."
"Oh yes, the true love.... Like Harry and Ron? With no doubt they are in Hogsmeade now, waiting for their great loves, the loves of their lives. I can imagine them clearly in my head. They're alone. No worthless girl around, of course.
And they are just in the middle of High Street, standing... and waiting. Waiting for the true love. So shy... I saw their shyness before... shy never ending kisses in front of everybody! Ouff! No stupid lies, thank you."
"Harry and Ron mean nothing: a girl is... different."
"Oh yes, I was sure we would come around to this. A boy is 'good', if he is sensitive, sensible and honest, but what about his sexual life? It doesn't matter, of course. And a girl? A good girl is mainly a girl who doesn't snog with boys. Oh yes, she can be mean to her friends, she can be silly, she can be vain... she can be whatever, provided she doesn't identify herself as a possible sexual subject! "
"Oh no! Hush my darling! This is not a three-rolls-parchment essay on gender. This is life."
Crookshanks purred gently.
"I'm right. This is my life. Mine. I should spend it using my brain at best. Understanding difficult reasoning, but being clueless about my emotions. And this would be... normal?"
"Yes, it would be."
"No, thank you. I don't get it. One thing is the wish to try something... forbidden, but... harmless. And one very different thing is the wish to grow up faster and faster, and then, when I would like to go back, discover that I can't go back anymore."
"Well, forbidden feelings are dangerously near points of no return."
"But the whole deal should not be this "point of no return", everyone appears so obsessed about, the real matter should be to never, never ever, change yourself, in order to please someone else.
I might choose to be or do many things, but the core of this... tragedy is that I got no intention to being... cherished paying such an unfair price. I won't pretend I like the things someone else dies for, so that he could look at me differently. I don't want to lessen myself so that this hypothetical 'he' might feel ... big.
I don't want to become a stupid... groupie (but where the hell did Malfoy ever pick up that word?). And, speaking of Mr I'm-so-sexy-Malfoy, with him I would like to do nothing more than spending a couple of Saturday afternoons together."
She started nuzzling Crookshanks' ear, and he slowly relaxed.
"So," she continued thoughtfully, "I'm like an animal? I am like Malfoy?
Sometimes being desired but not loved is more than a woman can deserve in a whole lifetime?"
"Oddly bitter?"
"Well, let's face it. The most marvellous thing would be having both: the love, and the wish.
But, it's a fairy dream, a sweet illusion. During the last Ball, I was looking at all those elegant dates, and I suddenly realised they were mostly accidental couples.
That night, I would have been pleased if a boy had invited me to dance. And it was not because I felt the compelling wish to speak about SPEW..."
"And would I still be the good girl?"
"I am what I am. And what I can be.
But I would have felt honoured if a boy had just done only ten steps across the Great Hall, to put his hand on my shoulder, and danced with me, because he had spotted me as myself. Not simply as a girl.
I was lying at the mirror of the window, in the Library.
Yes, I would like to be spotted as a girl, with the grown up body and so on.
But, actually I'd like more. Or something different. Not only a girl. I would have liked to be spotted as Hermione Granger. Not as the bookworm who can give you the right answers for an Arithmancy quiz, but as Hermione, the gentle girl who can chat about other topics.
I have warmth inside myself.
And intelligence.
Why couldn't I be a girl someone could like? And, I said 'like', not 'fancy'. I wasn't looking for... an A plus.
And now, frankly, a part of me is... flattered, yes flattered, why not? That there is a boy who would do the more than one hundred steps of that stupid Astronomy Tower."
Hermione kissed one of the cat's ear.
"And, to be utterly fair, now I feel like a stupid bitch. I look like most other selfish girls I use to despise, probably. Because I am positively surprised that this boy is not the lumpish nerd everyone would like to pair me with. Attracted by yummy body, not by the brain…"
"Very well Hermione. Are you waiting for applause? Don't be silly! That boy is not doing all those steps for you, but for his own fantasies. And you are not part of it... You are nothing."
"I am aware. And the difference between a good girl and a bad girl is not in the number of kisses she shares. The real difference is that if you really want to try a different taste in your life, you don't have to close your eyes and see the true love where there's no love at all in order to remain still 'the good girl'. You don't need to compel yourself to call any slight emotion your true love.
And you don't have to bargain your true love, if you happen to feel it, in order to get... physical satisfaction. A good girl is first of all good to herself."
"Physical satisfaction? Are you playing with poetry, darling?"
"Oh my God! This is just a stupid date! A boy and a girl together. Why do we have to treat it like it's a national emergency? I have no intention of doing anything special, just what I'd do at Hogsmeade!"
"The Astronomy Tower is not 'The Three Broomsticks'. In Hogsmeade you are safe, with crowds of students everywhere... in the Astronomy Tower you are alone. You and Malfoy."
"Balls! Worrying about that is farfetched. It is a simple date. And we... I... treat it as if I had to choose, at once, between Scarlet Woman or Perfect Hen."
She grinned. But the matter was already settled in her head. Of course, she was not going to the Astronomy Tower. Hermione had her life rules, and no intention to break them. She was a rational girl. A rational good girl.
It was just that a part of her was too bossy about these rules. And the other half was too stubborn to be ruled, even by herself.
So? All this foolish fuss and then? No Saturday date, as usual.
She sighed. This year she looked ready for St. Mungo's.
Scarlet Woman or Perfect Hen? She could not help but smile.
They weren't appealing possibilities. But there was also the third choice. She could be a strict, unmarried maid, a working woman. A woman able to achieve interesting goals in her professional field, without the burden of lovers, husbands, or children. A woman like... Professor McGonagall.
Well, you can't teach in a witchcraft and wizardry school, be the Head of a House, the HeadMistress, help the Headmaster, discuss Ministry problems, study and fight for the sake of the world, if you have to take care of a whole family and de-gnome your garden, like Molly Weasley, for instance. You have to sacrifice something.
She stood up. Crookshanks observed her questioningly.
Hermione moved slowly to the picture of her teacher. Yes, there was a picture of McGonagall, a much younger McGonagall, on a library wall. She had met it by chance, and then she looked it up right away in "Hogwarts: A History".
Of course, she had found was she was looking for.
Minerva McGonagall had been the youngest Animagus of her times. She'd achieved it during her second year at Hogwarts, in a time where students had more freedom, and could make dangerous experiments.
Minerva McGonagall, the goddess of intellectual activities. And a fighter, as well.
'Minerva's name is as beautiful as mine. Mythological. Unusual. Old fashioned.'
' My parents granted me such a peculiar name, Hermione, instead of an every day Mary, Emily, or Elizabeth... And Minerva, she had to be a girl at Hogwarts. Just like me, and "like" me in more than one way.'
The proof of McGonagall's youth was in front of her eyes. The picture stated it clearly; Minerva had been a pretty girl. Well, let's face it, not a beautiful girl. Surely not one who deserves catcalls at the Sorting Hat Ceremony
Catcalls were for Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons Champion, or for Lavender Brown. She smiled remembering her first year...
And surely "beautiful" was for Parvati. Parvati, who, together with her sister Padma, was the most charming girl in her year.
Elegant black haired Parvati, who didn't need a drop of Sleekeazy's.
Interesting Parvati, with something cold and detached in every move she made.
Well, McGonagall wasn't Parvati, even their kinds of coldness were different.
But, surely, this girl who was waving to her, from somewhere placed many years ago, had been "pretty".
It was saddening to think of the way she was now. Strict. Unbending. Severe. Well, not to her, really. She could sense her closeness many times.
A spark of her future flickered through her brain. She could see herself... here, at Hogwarts. ('Of course, where else?') But at the other side of the desk.
A teacher.
Well if she wanted teacher-style hair, she would have had to cut it. She giggled. It wasn't that bushy anymore, but probably only because of its length, and weight. But having her hair worn in a bun...
Impossible. 'I'll cut it very short. It would be much more practical.' Her hair had been useless till now, so, no regrets.
This future would suit her a lot. After all the needed study, she could ask Dumbledore, the Headmaster, to let her stay at Hogwarts. Perhaps at the beginning she would be too inexperienced to have a class of her own. Maybe she could start sharing work and office with her favourite teacher. They could drink pumpkin juice together every Thursday, and on Saturdays they could go to Hogsmeade together.
Gillywater for McGonagall, and a Butterbeer for Granger. Or she could try Elderflower wine... No, no alcohol, she settled in her mind.
She could have her "usual seat" at "The Three Broomsticks Inn", just as she had it here, in the Library.
Maybe she could do a year at Beauxbatons, just to gain a different experience. Durmstrang was out of question, of course: a Muggleborn can't enrol that school. At least, not for now.
And she could make a lot of changes; first of all the House Elves.
'They are like the blue collars of muggle world. I'll study the muggle laws, and put a bit of pressure on the Ministry... We could organise them in shifts. Shifts, retirement, tax and wages.'
Everything from the Muggle British world she came from.
And then, every year, she would start her first lesson transfigurating matches into needles.
Matches into ... needles.
Matches ... into ... needles.
Matches ... into ... needles?
Suddenly the whole dream didn't look so appealing. A chill ran under her spine.
'I don't want to end it this way!' she thought wildly, lifting her chin defensively.
'I want to be able to remember something more. Besides all the dates of goblins revolts. Besides the ingredients of the most complicated potions, besides the twelve uses of dragon blood.
Something besides my beloved books, too.
I want something to balance the bitterness of all these Saturdays alone in the Library. I want to remember something special and forbidden at the Astronomy Tower.'
She savagely ran out of the Library (but not slamming the door...)
Crookshanks started dashing his tail nervously.
To be continued
Next Chapter: Of Landscapes, Potions, Squirrels, Elves and Training Shoes
(Sweet things are made of this, who am I to disagree?)
ANSWERS TO THE REVIEWS
This chapter, till now is the Cinderella of the whole story: only four people dared review it!
I have to thank JK, who appreciated it even if this pairing made her quiver, Ann Smith, and Majestic Witch.
I have to thank textualsphinx, as well, but I do not agree with her: this is not an "inner monologue" of Hermione thinking about her professional future. It is more about what you may happen to think when you are a teen and you have to cope with sex, boys, your expectations, the other people's opinion and so on. Of course when you are more than twenty everything becomes "normal" again.
About the fair share, yes, men do it, but if you choose a family (= children), unless you are a billionaire, the time for yourself and the options of your life drastically reduce.
But probably I did not write it well...
