A/N Soooo I'm not too sure about this one - felt like I wasn't quite getting across what I wanted to, in some places - but I was really tired and I know that if I don't post it before I nap, then I never will. Fie on all homework, that preventeth me from having infinite rewriting time. Anyway, sorry if there are typos and stuff because I posted it kind of quicker than usual, and let me know if it sucks, ok? Feedback like that is very valuable.
3. Research, Project
Neither Harry nor Ron had attempted to sit with Hermione during meals that whole week; they looked as though they had resolved to avoid her indefinitely rather than give up and apologize. Which was just as well as far as she was concerned; if it was their free choice to look like a pair of asses for as long as possible, she would respect that. And it wasn't as though she needed them to keep her social life afloat; today, for example, she sat with Neville and had a quite stimulating conversation about his ideas for an independent project with Professor Sprout that term.
Sixth Years who had achieved more than nine O.W.L.'s were encouraged to take private lessons with a professor of their choice, given that the professor approved of their intended plan of study and agreed to have them on. Hermione was sure that Professor Sprout would be thrilled to have Neville as an independent-study student, and expressed as much to him, causing him to simultaneously beam at her and drop his fork.
"You really think so? Wow, thanks, Hermione, that means a lot…"
Hermione rolled her eyes but reassured him that yes, she really had meant it, and hoped that one day he would learn a bit more self-confidence.
Hermione had considered applying for private lessons herself, but in the end she had decided to continue on with too many of her classes to really allow time for it, and besides, she would never have been able to decide which professor to approach. The lessons were really intended for those who already knew their field of specialty and wanted to get an early start on more advanced work, and Hermione was far from sure about her career path after Hogwarts.
It did peeve her though, when she thought about it – the missed opportunity for learning. If she could have applied for a time-turner again, she would have, but as it was, she just had to keep convincing herself that a rigorous course of general study really was the best choice at this point.
And while she was at admitting things to herself, it did peeve her that Harry and Ron still weren't talking to her. She hadn't meant to estrange her best friends by deciding to go out with the Slytherin girl, and it often seemed like a cruel tradeoff to make. If she hadn't been so sure that she was in the right and they were completely wrong, she might have even considered going back on her decision. She was glad that this would all be over soon, and eventually forgotten, and then hopefully they would come around.
Thoughts of the date were only welcome when they involved it being done and over with. Any other thoughts left her feeling woefully unprepared – Hermione didn't think that anything she had done with Viktor counted as a formal date, and since then, no one had ever bothered to ask her on one. More than that, she knew next to nothing about Pansy herself – if, in all fairness, hostile encounters were to be discounted (Hermione knew that little real information could be gleaned about herself from fights with the Slytherins) – and she felt that she should avoid making it a blind date for herself if she could help it. Anything she could learn beforehand would be to her benefit.
With this in mind, she vowed to head for the library as soon as she had some free time. The sooner she got started, the better.
-) U C (-
"…And she wants me to wear sky blue dress robes – sky blue! And you should see the way they're cut; I told her there was no way she was making me wear that…" Millicent turned over on her bed and picked at a corner of sheet. It might look like she was in a foul mood, but Pansy knew that she actually loved these late-night sessions of "girl talk," as she called it.
"Mmm-hmm," Pansy agreed absently, reaching over and snagging Millicent's unguarded bottle of nail polish. She might as well have something to do with her hands as she listened.
She checked the color – a dark, mossy green, predictably. Millicent had a thing against pale colors, and also against bright ones. She also objected to clothing which made her look "lumpy," (though Pansy could have told her that it didn't depend much on the clothing), which helped to explain her particularly vehement dislike for her sister's choice in bridesmaids' robes.
Pansy uncapped the small bottle and began to paint her toenails as Millicent continued; the color complemented Pansy's complexion rather well, she thought. Maybe she would manage to accidentally forget to return it.
"And then my mum and dad backed her up! They said that I have to go along with whatever she chooses, because it's her wedding and she's the oldest. I hate my parents sometimes!"
"Oh, god, I know. I hate my parents too." Pansy lied effortlessly, and Millicent didn't question what she had expected to hear.
In fact, Pansy didn't hate her parents, nor love them – she wasted as little care over them as they for her. They could die in the first battle of the war, and she wouldn't lose any sleep. She had never heard them express an equivalent sentiment for her, but actions spoke louder than words. And hadn't they joined the Dark Lord's ranks as Death Eaters just last spring? Pansy didn't need a clearer sign of their utter disregard for her, their only child.
The Parkinsons were a family that went back, far back, like someone's eccentric but hugely wealthy great aunt. No one quite knew what to think of her, and they avoid bringing her up in conversation if they could, but they all knew she had managed to manipulate each of them into a position to her convenience, without quite knowing how. The Parkinsons liked to exert their power in the behind-of-things, when no one was quite looking. It was so much more dignified. And effective, if getting your way was more important than putting on a show. They had been around before the Malfoys, or Blacks, or Gaunts, and would continue on for centuries afterwards – if Pansy's parents hadn't seen fit to step in and muck everything up.
The Parkinsons were steady. Where other families swung in the balance or dwindled out, the Parkinsons only grew, and where other families were debtors, Parkinsons were creditors. When you've been around for hundreds of years and have full vaults the size of houses in Gringotts and every other Wizarding bank, things tend to go your way. And if some relative somewhere far back in the line married someone of questionable blood status, or for questionable motives – well, it was simple to smooth these things over after the fact. The oldest families knew they were the rulers of Wizarding Britain, and the Parkinsons were one of the greatest of these.
Were. The word tasted sour in Pansy's mouth. She had been brought up to take pride in her family name, brought up that way by the very two people who were now in the process of betraying it. Pansy had heard all the stories from them, again and again – a Parkinson never allied with Dark or Light; she trod a path in the gray area between them where true power dwelt, and independence. And the Parkinsons had been so quietly gray-powerful for so long, by treading exactly this path. A Parkinson didn't need a Lord to champion her cause; she was the cause. As far as Pansy was concerned, her parents had ceased to be Parkinsons the moment that they swore allegiance to the Dark Lord.
He would use them up and spit them out, feeding them on empty promises the whole time. They would not win, if he won, and if he lost, they would spend the rest of their days in Azkaban or worse. The right thing to do would be never to get involved at all, to stay safe and forgotten, work behind the scenes and not in the battlefield. Pansy wondered sometimes what he had told her parents to make them forget all this. Promises? Threats? In any case, it didn't matter; he would fail and pass away as all Lords did in the end. What mattered was the mistake that had been made.
And Pansy didn't hate them for it; for it is impossible to hate something which is entirely beneath one's notice. For in that moment, she had realized that she would do whatever it took to restore her family's name, to restore the Parkinson line to its rightful place in the wizarding world. And for all that her parents couldn't help her with this, they could hardly do any more to hurt her. She had been raised to do maintenance, but the best groundskeeper must pull up and rebuild a garden if her predecessors plant weeds in it.
Pansy reached beneath her pillow and rolled her list-covered parchment fondly between her fingers. It contained all her plans for her future, such as they were at this point. Yes, she would achieve her goals by any means necessary – no person, thing, or principle was more important to her, and she would not hesitate to use any of those that fell at her disposal if they proved useful for her plans. And right now, a certain Gryffindor was appearing very useful to her plans, indeed.
The Slytherin in her purred. Gryffindor-using was such a higher calling than Gryffindor-baiting. Stupid and loud though they were, in the right hands, they could be good for so much more than mere amusement. Although, if Pansy could have a bit of fun without expense to her greater project, she wasn't one to turn it down. Out of all the Gryffindors, Granger seemed so easy to toy with. Pansy might even be a little disappointed if she didn't enjoy herself.
"Why are you smiling?" Millicent's words cut into her thoughts.
She stuck out her tongue and turned back to her toes. "As if I'd tell you." Her tone was sarcastic, but not humorless. Let Millicent assume she was thinking about her latest tryst with Malfoy, or something equally inconsequential.
That was the other great thing about being a Parkinson – as long as you were doing your part for the family line, it didn't matter how you portrayed yourself. Who was going to remember how so-and-so Parkinson behaved so long as the line continued on, grand and unbroken, for five hundred years after her death? No one, that's who. Hell, it was almost expected. Pansy could be whoever she wanted to be, as long as it allowed Miss Parkinson to do what she needed to do.
For now, though, humoring Millicent was growing tiresome, so Pansy cast an instant-drying charm on her toenails and flopped down on the bed, facing the toward the wall.
"I'm going to sleep now," she informed the wall. She was sure that Millicent was shooting her a hurt look thinly disguised as a glare behind her back, but all she did was spell her bed curtains shut and put her wand beneath her pillow. Millicent didn't need for Pansy to notice these looks; she would go on wanting to be Pansy's friend no matter what Pansy did.
-) U C (-
The light was golden and slanting through the tall windows of the library when Ginny showed up and plopped into a seat next to Hermione at the table where she had her books spread out.
"Hey you! What're you up to?" Ginny looked like she had spent most of the day outside; Hermione felt a flash of regret that she had spent the whole day indoors on what might have been the last warm Saturday of the season.
"Oh, hi, Ginny," Hermione said, smiling. She was truly glad to see the younger Weasley; their schedules had kept them apart for most of the week so far. "I'm just doing some research on, you know…"
Ginny peered under one of the open books and read off the title in tones of high incredulity. "'A Concise History of the Most Noble and Pure-Blooded Families of Britain?' What is that for?"
Hermione blushed and mumbled something. Luckily, Ginny had gotten distracted by the massive tome in front of her.
"Hey, I wonder if we're in here…" She began paging through the volume, in blatant disregard for the place that Hermione had had it open to.
Having come across the section already, Hermione was able to supply the answer. "Yeah, there is a section on the Weasleys in there, but it says that the family has done 'little of note' in more than one hundred years. And this was published in…uh…1803," she said, a bit apologetically.
Ginny laughed and gave up looking through the book. "Well, that probably means that no one I know is in there, anyway." She looked up at Hermione. "So what are you really doing with all these?" She gestured to the other books on the table, which were all Pureblood histories and registries.
Hermione blushed again. "Well, you know that Pansy Parkinson asked me out on a date for next Hogsmeade?"
"Oh, so that's what it is?" Ginny's eyes lit up. "The whole school knows that there's something big going on between Gryffindors and Slytherins, but everyone is saying something different. So how did that happen, anyway? And why didn't you tell me right away?" Ginny grinned and gave Hermione's shoulder a gentle shove.
"Wait – you're not mad at me?"
Ginny's face grew puzzled. "No, why?"
With a great sense of relief, Hermione told the whole story, ending with Ron and Harry's objections and resultant estrangement from her.
"Aw, Hermione!" Ginny's response was muffled because she had flung herself of her chair and wrapped the other girl in a hug, burying her face in her shoulder.
Hermione hugged her back, gratefully. "You're really not mad at me, then?" she asked when they pulled apart. "I mean, I know the boys are just being stupid, but I thought it might be a little too optimistic to expect anyone else to agree…"
"Well, I can't say I would have done the same exact thing as you, in that situation, but I can see why you did it. And I agree with you that we shouldn't give up on the idea of inter-house unity so easily, until we've at least tried it."
Hermione beamed.
"And as for her being a girl…well, Ron's just being an idiot again. I think it's brilliant."
Hermione crooked an eyebrow.
"I've never known anyone who did that! Well, not personally. Promise to tell me everything that happens, ok? This is just so exciting…Oh, and it will be so good for your social life, too, Hermione. You definitely don't get out enough." Ginny added this last in a motherly tone, as though to prove that she wasn't supporting Hermione's dating experiment solely out of self-interested curiosity.
Hermione chose to ignore that part. "I guess I just didn't expect this reaction…I thought if you didn't agree with Harry and Ron, then you'd probably assume that this means I'm gay, and be hurt that I'd let you find out like this, instead of telling you earlier."
Hermione was rewarded with a blank stare. "What do you mean, gay?"
"I didn't think it could be just a Muggle thing…a gay person is someone who's interested in their own sex, you know, instead of the opposite sex like straight people. And usually you wouldn't even go out with someone of the same sex if you weren't gay, I mean, what's the point?"
Ginny frowned slightly as she processed this. "It must be just a Muggle thing; you're right. In the wizarding world, people might take a lover of the same sex as them, sometimes, but it's not like that makes them a different kind of person or anything. And even if they do, they're usually not so open about it. So…you're…not gay?" Ginny hazarded.
"No, I'm not. I'm definitely not going out with Pansy for romantic reasons, nor with any other girl for that matter…"
Ginny wrinkled her nose. "So you mean there really are girls who only ever want to get involved with other girls? And never guys?"
"Well, yeah, of course. And I bet they exist in the Wizarding world too, only you lot keep them too repressed to ever dare talk about it!"
Ginny pretended to take offence at this, but then became more serious. "About Pansy and you - promise me that if you two ever have problems, or you just want to talk, you'll come to me. I'll always be there for you, honestly."
"I –" Hermione choked. "What makes you think this is going to be any kind of long-term thing? We're only going out on one date, for Merlin's sake!"
Ginny just sat back and smiled knowingly, and wouldn't say another word until Hermione had promised that yes, if she ever had anything at all to talk about, that she would come to Ginny with it.
"So, what is all this for, anyway?" Ginny asked of the books. Clearly, she had not been that easily distracted from her earlier question after all.
"I thought I'd just find some background information on her family's history. I really know nothing about any of the pureblooded families, and I just thought that it might be good to know some of the basics, going in…Just so I don't accidentally make a total fool of myself, you know…"
Ginny looked like she was biting back a giggle, but kindly held back whatever comment she had thought of to make her laugh. "So, did you learn anything interesting? I don't really know much about the Parkinsons, either."
"What do you know?" Hermione asked, out of curiosity.
"Only that they were suspected of supporting you-know-who last time, but managed to stay out of trouble for it," Ginny said, wrinkling her nose.
Hermione nodded. "Historically, they've actually seemed to avoid siding with either Dark or Light Lords; I've only found mention of three formal alliances with a Lord in the history of the family, and those were all during the middle ages…" she flipped through her notebook. "William Parkinson was actually among the founders of the Ministry of Magic in the eighteenth century, and members of the family have occasionally held various high positions in the Ministry since then…They actually seem to have stayed out of the Grindelwald war entirely; don't know how they managed that…that man spouted more pureblood supremacy rhetoric than the Fountain of Magical Brethren, and he seems to have swayed most every old family that wasn't formally allied with the Light…"
Ginny smiled and waited for her friend to wind down. "It looks like you'll do fine; I doubt she's going to spend the whole date quizzing you on her family."
Hermione stayed in the library for another hour after Ginny left, but didn't manage to find anything else significant, except for a passing mention in a stained and crumbling volume of a "gift most Darke which does pass down on the distaff side of this prestigious and pure Family," which she dismissed offhand. Every account she had read had been peppered with rumors of powerful ancient artifacts or unique magical gifts possessed by one family or another, probably started by the families themselves to boost their own perceived standing.
-) U C (-
The last few days until the fateful Hogsmeade weekend were full ones for Hermione, with classes and studying occupying most of her time. Although she had a number of classes with Pansy, they had never been able to exchange more than the quick "hi" or wave before their respective sets of friends swept them off in different directions.
These interactions always left Hermione a bit off balance. She had never been in a situation like this before; on one hand, the two girls hardly knew each other, but on the other hand, they had promised to see each other on a date, which made it seem ridiculous to ignore each other in the halls as they had always done. It was as though their plans for the weekend had suddenly injected an extra level of intimacy into their acquaintance.
Which acquaintance until this point had consisted mostly of mutual glares while their friends were fighting, the occasional obligatory insult after a particularly bad fight, and, outside of fights, had consisted of nothing at all.
By the time that the night before the fateful Hogsmeade trip arrived, Hermione felt like she had been kept hanging in suspense for months rather than just over two weeks, and she was a basket of nerves. She just wanted it over with. Ginny had tried alternately to distract and reassure her while they were sitting in the common room in the evening, but it had done more for Hermione's opinion of Ginny as a good friend than it had for her nerves.
Lying in bed that night, Hermione couldn't keep her mind off it. Endless questions, uncertainties, and worst-case scenarios kept running through her head, no matter how she tried to stop them. What will happen tomorrow is simply going to happen, no matter what you think about right now, she chastised her overactive brain, but it wasn't convinced. Rationally, she knew that all of the worst-case scenarios were ridiculous – the worst that could happen is that she would be subjected to an hour or two of Pansy's company – and that she had literally done the best she could to prepare herself. But rationality had little effect on irrational worries, and in the end she gave up trying to stop them.
She comforted herself with the knowledge that all this uncertainty would definitely come to an end tomorrow; it had to, unless Pansy rescheduled at the last minute – she quickly pulled her brain away from imagining that dreadful scenario. Until then, she would just have to be patient. It wasn't too long to wait. And with this, she rolled over in her bed and was blessedly claimed by sleep.
-) U C (-
