Chapter 8: The Jealousy of Hermione

"Today's the day," Pepper announced to Harry, Ron, and Hermione at breakfast on Friday. Her first week at Hogwarts was over and tomorrow was the day she was to meet with three of her teachers; Sunday she'd meet with three more and her free periods next week were filled with meeting the rest.

"What day?" Ron asked, brandishing a piece of toast at Pepper.

"Don't tell me you're actually going to do that, Pep," Hermione said.

"Yep," said Pepper. "I'm tired of watching, it's time he gets a taste of his own medicine."

"What are you doing?" Harry asked.

"She's making a peace offering with Malfoy," Hermione answered.

"Not exactly a peace offering," Pepper corrected, "I'm just going to go up to him and ask him what his problem is, see how it goes from there. I mean, he really has no logical reason to dislike anyone he does, so I want to see why he's so hateful."

"Cause he's Malfoy," Ron told her. "He doesn't really need a reason other than his father has power and he was raised to hate everything that isn't...well...him."

"Too bad," Pepper said. She watched as Malfoy got up from the Slytherin table, (followed by Crabbe and Goyle with Pansy Parkinson attached to him), and exited the Great Hall. Pepper followed a little farther behind him. Once she got out of the Great Hall, she figured she was all right to confront him. "Hey Malfoy," she called.

He stopped and turned around to face her. "What?" he scowled. "Come to ask me on a date, Halliwell?"

"You wish," Pepper said. "No, I was just wondering what your problem is."

"I don't have a problem, though you're going to have one in a minute if you don't back off." She saw Crabbe and Goyle crack their muscles threateningly.

"Sure...anyway, you do have a problem. I'd like to know why you hate everyone who's not Pureblood."

"She's just saying that to get you, Draco," Pansy Parkinson said. It almost made Pepper nauseous how she put on a syrupy voice when talking to him. "Mudblood scum," she added to Pepper, syrup gone.

"Although it's none of your business," Pepper said, "I'm Pureblood, not Muggle born. But, I wasn't talking to you, Parkinson, I was talking to Malfoy. So, Malfoy, it was just a topic of interest to me why you have to be a rude bastard."

"Bitch," Malfoy muttered before turning on his heel and walking away.

"Fine! Be a coward then!" Pepper called after him, though she couldn't think of why he was a coward.

"That worked, didn't it?" said a familiar voice from behind her. Pepper whirled around to see Ron, Harry, Hermione and Ginny standing there.

"Well at least he learned I'm a Pureblood," Pepper said, shrugging.

"And that matters because...?" Ron asked.

"He won't have his arm growth calling me a Muggle born any more," Pepper replied.

"Come on, we've got to get to Transfiguration," Hermione told them, rushing up the marble staircase in the entrance hall.

That night Harry took his Firebolt and his broom maintenance kit down to the common room to fix it up. Hermione was lounging in a chair finishing up a report due next week and Pepper and Ron were sitting in front of the fire, Ron teaching Pepper how to play Wizard's Chess. Pepper jumped every time a chess piece smashed into another. Ron kept switching between laughing and getting frustrated with her.

"She's not going to beat you anyway, Ron," Harry said, pulling out polishing supplies, "You're too good at chess."

"Well she could at least stop JUMPING!" Ron exclaimed as Pepper flinched again when his queen knocked out one of her pawns.

"Sorry," Pepper apologised, "it just surprises me every time. Ooh, Harry, that's your broom?" Pepper asked, looking up from the game and seeing Harry's broom.

"Yea," Harry answered. "It's a Firebolt. Second best broom on the market."

"Cool," Pepper breathed, abandoning the chess game and going over to stroke Harry's broomstick on the floor in awe.

"Hey!" said Ron indignantly. "What about the game?"

"Does Quidditch start soon?" she asked, ignoring Ron.

"I think training starts in three weeks or so," said Harry.

"Can I come to a practice? I'm interested to see how Quidditch works. I want to learn to fly, too."

"I can take you on my broom, after training starts," Harry said. "Not alone, in case you're really bad and you crash and it breaks."

"Sounds good," Pepper said happily. She turned back to her opponent. "Now I'll finish the game Ron."

Saturday was a day that Pepper had been dreading and it came all too quickly. She woke up early and had to make her way through the castle alone, as her friends were still asleep. She found the entrance hall and exited the castle, heading towards Greenhouse 1 where she was to meet with Professor Sprout. She spent most of her morning there, the professor deciding she was well caught up but giving Pepper lots of work to do. Dragging her already heavy bag back into the castle she searched around for the Ancient Runes room.

Pepper found she was mostly caught up in that subject, too, though she got work to do. By then it was time for lunch so she made her way down to the Great Hall with her bag, which was bursting with work. She only got lost once, which she considered a win.

"Where have you been?" Harry asked as she sat down next to him heavily.

"Meeting with professors," Pepper answered, piling her plate with food. "I've got lots more work to do now. They think I'm mostly on track, though. Said I learn really fast. Gave me work to practice on, just in case. I was wondering if perhaps you'd give me a hand Hermione..."

"If you mean do some of it for you then, no, I will not," Hermione replied briskly.

"Nice try, Pepper, but we ask all the time. Hermione's not one for cheating," Ron told Pepper.

"It's not cheating, it's...okay, it's cheating," Pepper admitted. "But I already have a lot of work to do and – "

"And, you'll have to learn to get it all done," said Hermione.

"Fine," Pepper sighed. "I have two weeks to get my extra work done, anyway. Clearly my entire teenage years as an only child being mostly homeschooled has prepared me for this exact moment."

"Have you been to see Snape yet?" Harry asked. Pepper shook her head. "He'll probably give you a week to hand stuff in, knowing him."

Harry was right: Snape did indeed only give her one week to do the work, and he'd given her much more work than anyone else had. She also found that Professor Snape quite enjoyed pairing her and Malfoy together in class. He did it in nearly every lesson. She always thought of a smart-aleck comment, sometimes a flirtatious one, but Malfoy always came back with something or made her look bad in front of Snape. Ever since she'd mentioned his attitude he'd been especially nasty to her. As hard as she tried, she just couldn't beat him, though she'd caught him off his guard a few times.

Over the next month, Pepper excelled in her classes, competing against even Hermione, who was supposedly the smartest witch in the school. Used to focusing and being alone, a place where Pepper's only responsibility was to learn, (not cooking, running errands, or fighting demons), she found that she thrived.

The Golden Trio and their new tagalong were in the library after an Arithmancy lesson in which Pepper answered nearly all of the questions and was clearly the star. Pepper was on cloud nine from her performance, but Hermione was seething quietly.

"Hermione, are you okay?" Ron looked across the table at her, concerned. (Pepper reckoned he spent more time looking at Hermione than he did at his homework.)

"Fine," she replied in a grumble. "Just get back to work."

"But I don't understand it," Ron wined.

"Ask Pepper for help, then, she understands it the best," Hermione replied, her voice soaked in spite.

Pepper was taken aback. Her head snapped up. "Excuse me?" she said, her voice high pitched. "I'm sorry if I'm making you jealous, Hermione, but I'm working very hard to do my best in class."

"I'm not jealous," Hermione answered huffily. "I just..."

"She's wondering how you've gotten so ahead, when it took her six years of staying on top of things to be this good," Ron finished for Hermione.

"Ron," Hermione said, offended. "I just-well, I guess I am jealous," Hermione finally admitted. "I'll see you all later." Abruptly, she swept her things into her bag and left.

"Good job, Pepper," Ron scowled, gathered his own things, and followed Hermione.

Pepper sighed, putting her face in her hands. She hadn't meant to make Hermione upset. She supposed she could just tone it down a little in classes...not raise her hand so much and get herself noticed...She really wanted to keep her friends. She'd always been smart, but she hadn't always had friends.

The next day in Transfiguration when Professor McGonagall asked questions had come to expect Pepper to answer, Pepper didn't even raise her hand. She just stared down at her book, trying to look puzzled and pretending not to know the answer. Hermione's hand, however, shot up as usual.

Throughout the whole class and for the rest of the day Pepper didn't answer a single question. Hermione didn't say anything to Pepper until dinner, when she was too curious to hold it in any longer. "Pepper?" she said cautiously.

Pepper thought that Hermione, Ron and Harry had been avoiding her all day because they'd been pissed at her but the tone Hermione spoke in was careful. She looked up at Hermione across the table. "Yes?" she asked emotionlessly.

"Why haven't you been answering questions in class today," Hermione said.

"I didn't know the answers," Pepper answered, looking down at her food; she wasn't very good at lying.

"Pepper, I know you knew the answers. It may take me a while to get over you being as smart, maybe even smarter than me, but I will eventually. I'm still your friend...but...my jealousy is getting in the way. I'll admit, it's making me mad, too. So even though I may be mad at you, keep being you and I'll tell you when I'm ready to accept I'm not the best anymore..." Hermione's words trailed off.

Ron, however, kept glaring at Pepper between bites, like he'd been doing all day. Harry didn't seem to know what to do. Pepper knew he felt loyal to his old friends, and he was on their side, (of course he was, Pepper thought), but he kept looking at her helplessly, as if he wanted to say something.

Briefly, Pepper wondered if this was the end of her friendship with Harry, Ron and Hermione, even though they'd only been friends for six weeks. She didn't dwell on the thought long, though; she didn't want to think about it. It was too painful to even fathom. She decided to skip the rest of dinner to go do homework and then write a letter to her aunts.

A week hadn't cured Hermione's jealousy. Pepper felt lonelier and lonelier as the days wore on. With each passing day her mind drifted more often to the bedroom drawer at home where she kept her razor blade. She supposed that if she told the three of them she was thinking about doing, they'd be back to being her friends in a minute. But that would just be emotional blackmail. Actually, Pepper thought, I don't know if they'd do that...were they really close as friends? Would they rush to her when they realized she was hurting herself? When they found out she was depressed?...Pepper physically shook her head to erase the thought away.

She kept getting those glances from Harry, and Ron seemed to get angrier each class when Pepper was still answering questions. Hermione just avoided Pepper, and hadn't said anything to her since the day she explained her feelings.

So Pepper started to branch out. She found herself sitting next to Neville Longbottom in classes. He appreciated the help she could give him when he needed it, and they found they could chait amiably about magic and Hogwarts. At mealtimes, she tended to sit next to Ron's sister Ginny. Ginny was a fifth year and was fine with Pepper sliding into the seat beside her and making small talk with the other fifth years about classes.

Walking alone to Potions alone a couple days later, Pepper saw Ron approach her, breaking away from Harry and Hermione. He walked in front of her, cutting her off and making her stop. She looked him in the face, puzzled until she saw his face and ears were almost the shade of his hair, and he looked pretty angry.

"Do you do that on purpose, just to embarrass Hermione?" His voice wasn't loud, but he was seething. She wasn't sure what he was talking about. "You answer all those questions, when she could answer them just as well. You don't even give her a chance!" Pepper recoiled at the volume of his voice, but he continued. "Trying to be the Professors' favorite, are you? Well you've succeeded! Are you happy now!" His voice grew with each word and Harry and Hermione finally reached the two of them – Pepper not saying a word, and Ron saying too many of them.

"Ron!" Hermione gasped. "It's not your problem!"

"Since you won't say anything, I will!" Ron shouted back at her. "She needs to be told this, don't you want to make her feel bad! After what she's DONE to you! You've been laughed at!" Hermione ducked her head.

That caught Pepper's attention. She didn't know Hermione was being laughed at.

"I-I'm sorry, Hermione," Pepper stuttered, appalled. "I didn't know you were being made fun of."

"It doesn't..." Hermione began, but never finished. Pepper guessed she was going to say "It doesn't matter," but it would be a lie. "It's not a fault of yours, Pepper, don't worry about it at all."

"It does matter, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do this," Pepper said, and walked off, tears pricking at her eyes, head down.

She didn't go to Potions; she wasn't sure she could deal with Malfoy's snide comments right now. She went up to Gryffindor Tower, past the common room and up to her dorm room. Not surprisingly, no one was anywhere around – they'd all be in Potions – so Pepper flopped down on her bed. She was beginning to wish she'd brought the contents of her desk drawer with her...but she'd been trying to be strong. She rolled over, sighing. Hermione's Astronomy book was lying open on her bed, unfinished homework sprawled over the duvet. And then Pepper's eyes landed upon something else - the compass Hermione used for measuring the distance between constellations. It was sitting there calling to her.

She sat up, pointing her hand at the compass and curling her fingers. The compass flew towards her. She caught it and, holding the pencil between her fingers, twirled it around. "Don't do it, Pepper," she told herself forcefully. But the glint of the metal was beckoning to her with the promise of release. Of transforming her mental pain into something physical, something tangible. It was easy for her to start the mental spiral of despair, as she had been doing the last week: her thoughts would start on friendlessness and devolve into missing her parents and their untimely deaths.

She slid the curtains on her four-poster closed. Pepper's hand touched the cold metal tool to her exposed white flesh, pausing for a minute before she slid it along her forearm, testing how much force she needed to break the skin. When she finally started to bleed, tears pricked to her eyes from the pain, shocking her out of what she was doing. "Damnit," she swore in a hiss at herself. "You said you weren't going to do this anymore, Pepper." But she had to admit, the pain of her friends yelling at her, hating her just for who she was, was temporarily gone. Now what hurt was the sting of her arm.

"Pepper?" It was a familiar voice. Harry's. "Pepper, where were you in Potions?" She heard footsteps on the stone stairs leading to the girls' dorms.

She pulled her robe back into place. She threw the compass on Hermione's bed and exited the dorm. Pepper ran into Harry halfway through the hall, knocking both of them to the floor.

"Ow," Pepper moaned, moving her arm up to the back of her head before realizing her robe sleeve was coming up dangerously close to her indiscretion.

Harry pulled her up by her injured arm, causing her to recoil in pain. "What's wrong?" Harry asked. "Aren't you coming to lunch?"

Pepper felt a tear escape from her eye from the shooting pain in her arm. She lifted her hand to wipe her face when Harry noticed the blood on her arm. He knitted his eyebrows in confusion and got on his knees to be closer to Pepper.

"Is your arm alright?" he asked.

"Me and my arm are just fine," Pepper answered, getting to her feet and storming down the stairs and going to lunch. She sat at the end of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, focusing on ladling soup into a bowl. Harry slid into the seat next to her.

"Pepper, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Yes?" She grabbed a piece of bread instead of looking at Harry.

"I'm sorry I've been a git," he said. "I know I should've been talking to you more this last week. It's just...it's hard to see Hermione hurt and Ron was insisting that she would be less hurt if I laid off of hanging with you for a while. But Ron's an arse and I should've have listened to him. I'm sorry."

"Thanks," was all she said in response. They ate the rest of their meal in silence.