Millicent Reflects
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Slightly pre-slash-y thoughts. Millicent's POV. Hermione/Millicent. Partner piece to Hermione Notices. Sort of a prequel to The Strangest Conversation.
It's been a year since Millicent hit anyone. No one but Millicent appears to have noticed yet. Millicent's got a calendar, with all her special counts on it. It's been a year since she last hit someone, eleven and a half months since her last sly cigarette with Crabbe and Goyle behind the greenhouses, eleven since she stopped listening to a word of Malfoy's bullshit, and ten since she started watching Granger.
Granger, the Mudblood. Her parents would be so ashamed, if they gave a damn. Granger's got eyes like a cup of coffee, hair like a powder puff covered in cocoa, usually pulled into a bun these days. She shouldn't be pretty- Muggles shouldn't be, but Millicent, who has met many, admits that they often are. Granger is. Granger's got eyes that dart everywhere, picking up, scrutinising and filing away everything they see. Except Millicent, or so she thinks. Nobody notices Millicent. She doesn't care.
Granger might be a Mudblood, but you if you stand close you don't smell mud, or dirt, or anything unpleasant, come to think of it. She smells far better than any Slytherin- but Slytherins smell of dry ice, and sour smoke, and old dust. The girls smell of cheap perfume and cigarettes. Some of them smell of dried blood.
Granger smells like apples, and old books, and honey, and baking bread, and all the other smells one associates with 'home'. And of sandalwood, and a faint tinge of metal that smells like guitar strings. The smell ties in with the callouses on her fingers, similar to the ones on Millicent's own, and the look of rapt attention on her face when the Weird Sisters played at the Yule Ball.
All these little facts and details that Millicent notices appear to go unnoticed by anyone else. Potter and Weasley certainly haven't. But, as Millicent reflects, they wouldn't, would they?
END