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"I look like me!" Pansy caught herself squealing and coughed. She pulled herself up to her full height and flicked a hand. "I suppose I look all right. Is this an appropriate outfit for a Mud- for me?"
Granger's expression said she had caught the slip, but she nodded curtly. "You look fine."
The shop assistant, whose name tag declared that she was called Rosie, grinned at Hermione. "Proper diva here, I see."
Pansy flounced with all the drama she could muster back into the dressing room, where she admired her reflection in the mirror. The palette was much more her style than any Granger had made available during the course.
Clothes shopping was even more fun in the Muggle world than in the wizarding one, until it came time to pay. Pansy was overjoyed by the sheer number of styles and cuts that one could get in silver and emerald green, together or separate. This was thrilling until Pansy got to the checkout counter and discovered that she did not have enough money to pay. For the first week, until her week's pay came in, she got a weekly allowance in lieu of wages. In theory, this was wonderful. Allowances were something Pureblood women got all the time. Wages were for poor people. But this allowance was a mere pittance, apparently. She had to put back all but five blouses and two skirts. To her credit, Granger tried not to smirk at Pansy's irritation and embarrassment, though she did not succeed in hiding her amusement.
It was lunch time when they left the high street shop where Pansy had been selecting her clothes. "All right, Granger, where are we going for lunch?"
"Minus one point."
"For what? Breathing?"
"You start work tomorrow. I guarantee any co-worker will find it strange if you, my dear school friend, are calling me by my last name."
Pansy huffed. "Where are we going for lunch, Her-mee-oh-ninny?"
Granger's eyes widened. "Do you really not know how to pronounce my first name?"
Pansy raised an eyebrow. "Should I?"
Granger continued, "I mean, I suppose you've never actually used it, but you must have *heard* it..." She trailed off. "You're mocking me."
"You seemed to like it when Krum called you that." Pansy shrugged. "I assumed it was your preferred form of address." She was pleased at how pink Granger turned.
"Yes, well. It's not. I don't suppose I have to mention you lost attitude points there. Um, lunch..."
Pansy's stomach was growling and she was not by nature a patient woman, so she headed for the nearest cafe and hoped Granger would follow. Granger did.
Muggle cafes turned out to be a lot like wizarding cafes and even Pansy, totally unused to the Muggle world, couldn't make herself study the decor for the whole of lunch. When she tired of examining the black and white photographs of what she recognised as bicycles from a slideshow in week two of her Muggle Studies course, she subtly studied Granger. Granger didn't know she was being studied. Pansy had a few specialised skills peculiar to hose whose every move in society carries political import, and one of them was disguising intense observation in casual glances. Anyone around her, including Granger, would have thought she was still looking around the cafe, but she was actually cataloguing Granger's facial expressions and movements. It had not escaped Pansy that coming back to the Muggle world for so long was likely to be emotional for her teacher. She wanted to see how Granger dealt with it.
Granger's eyes flicked from one place to another, never settling anywhere for long. She twisted her hands together, crumpled her napkin, twirled her fork idly, picked up her espresso cup and set it down. She seemed on edge. Neither she nor Pansy said anything for the duration of the meal.
When they had left and were walking down the street, Granger said, "So what did you notice about that?"
"The decoration was quaint. It wasn't a chain. It was less expensive than the price sheet you showed us for London restaurants. Most of the customers were middle-aged." Pansy stopped. She was proud of remembering what chain restaurants were, and of her close recollection of the price sheets. Most people thought upper-class wizards and witches weren't aware of prices, but you didn't get or stay rich if you didn't at least notice how much you were paying.
Granger seemed reluctantly impressed. Pansy knew she should stop while she was ahead, but the idea of reciting what she'd learned to impress Granger like she was a snot-nosed child begging for approval from some hack teacher galled her. She added, "Why didn't you want to be there?"
"What makes you think that?"
Pansy sniffed. "Please. You couldn't have been more nervous if your eye had started twitching."
"I wasn't nervous."
Pansy sniffed again.
Granger did not reply, which Pansy was far from minding. A childhood mostly devoid of friends had left her used to the quiet, even with people she liked, and silence was a proper blessing when her only potential conversational partner was Granger. In lieu of talking, she studied the scenery as they walked to the bus stop.
The town was small and seemed to have only one or two of everything. Pansy saw a sign that said "Fairbank's Dental Practise" and asked, "What's a dentist?"
Granger said, "Dentists are special Muggle doctors for teeth."
That did sound faintly familiar, though Pansy had not found the class time spent on Muggle medical treatments engrossing and so had spent most of it exchanging looks of boredom with Draco. It didn't sound any more interesting the second time round. "Why do they need special doctors for that?"
Granger sighed. "You know, I can tell whether you paid attention when we talked about things. It's not like how Mediwizards can just paint your gums with the right potion and send you on your way. Muggles need to have their teeth checked a lot, and sometimes they need to have holes drilled or filled."
Pansy shuddered at the idea. "That sounds like a horrible job. Who would sign up for that?"
"It may not be glamorous, but it's important." Granger's tone was cool.
Pansy couldn't be bothered to figure out what imaginary offense had upset Granger now, so she just kept looking up and down the street. Seeing a sign for a public library, she veered left. She had never been in a public library before; her parents and their friends all had good private ones and she only knew of one wizarding library open to the general public.
It was a low building in grey stone. Inside it was all white plaster and sickly yellow carpet. Single-person desks with computers - Pansy had never seen so much Mudblood technology in one place - were arranged in a row. All were empty except for one where an old man was peering shortsightedly at a screen. Behind them, metal shelves filled with books stretched off towards the back wall.
Pansy turned around. She had a sarcastic comment on her lips and was ready to say it just loudly enough to mortify Granger, but Granger wasn't behind her. Put out and the failure of her plan, Pansy headed back outside, where she saw Granger standing on the pavement looking down the street. With her arms folded, her hair braided, and her dark blue blouse, she looked severe and sad. The June sunshine didn't seem to quite touch her.
When she realised how maudlin she was being, Pansy shook herself and went to join Granger. "That place is like Azkaban, but with twenty per cent extra despair."
Granger said, "I can't imagine it compares well to the Parkinson library. The boys over at Confiscations tell me you had a very impressive collection. Apparently they'd never seen such a nice one. They seem awfully excited about selling it off."
"You'd love that, I'm sure. You couldn't afford the least of our tomes honestly, but if they auction them off, you can get them cheap. You'd love that, wouldn't you? You could line your walls with our books and pretend they were somehow more civilised than any other trophy of war. Well, I wouldn't hold your breath, Professor. Until I've had a chance to win my pardon, they can't sell them and you can't buy them. I am going to pass this course, and then I am going to petition the courts to get them back. And then you can go back to counting Knuts - pence, whatever - to buy books you'll never use in your nice, safe Ministry job."
Pansy stomped off down the street towards the bus stop. Her mind was buzzing with anger. Pureblood libraries were as much status symbols as their clothes and the public rooms of their houses. Half of Pansy's early memories were of her slumped in armchairs in various private libraries with her slipper-clad feet up on carved footstools. She could call to mind the way her parents' voices sounded in libraries when they were talking business almost more easily than she could recall how they sounded when they talked to her. She was proud that she had never had to buy a textbook for school, because if it was worth having, her parents' library had a copy already. And her parents didn't even like to read.
While they waited for the bus, Pansy's rage burned high and she had no problem righteously ignoring Granger. How dare she exult in Pansy's humiliation? How was that for professionalism? Pansy would show her exactly what it meant to try to rob a Parkinson.
It was only once she and Granger had boarded the bus and were standing pressed together that the fire went away and left Pansy cold. She was by no means sure she'd pass her Muggle immersion course this time or the next, especially not if she kept fighting with Granger. If she couldn't pass, she probably wouldn't have to serve any time in Azkaban, but she would be stripped of all her property irrevocably.
Suddenly, Pansy wanted to cry. It was only her second day in the Muggle world and already she wanted to give up. She had no idea how she was going to handle being around Granger, or trying to work with Mudbloods, and how everything around her was a constant painful reminder of how the world she was a part of didn't exist any more.
They got back to the house. Granger opened it with her key. Pansy went straight into the guest room, shut the door, and cried the afternoon away.
Granger knocked once at six o'clock and Pansy opened the door. Granger handed her a bowl of chicken soup and said, "Twelve points." Pansy shut the door in her face.