Jasmine's POV
"Good morning."
Jasmine ducked her head after the soft, quiet greeting, and kept brushing her hair. She wore her hair in unplaited pigtails every day.
"Morning," Hermione said hastily. "Erm, Jasmine? About last night-"
"Don't worry about it," Jasmine said quietly. She turned to face her. "We all have our bad days. You have many friends over in the boy's dorm, and I rather think that Lavender and Parvati are biased."
Hermione blinked at this extraordinary statement. Jasmine smiled gently and turned away. She didn't really feel angry at Hermione. Possibly, she felt that by having another person like her around that she wasn't good enough.
After a while, Hermione timidly spoke.
"Uh… do you want to go down to breakfast now?"
"Yes," Jasmine said softly, and she followed her out of the dormitory. She decided that breakfast would be a good time to act about extra-curricular activities.
~~~(O.O)~~~
Hermione's POV
Over the next few days, Hermione tried very hard. She tried hard to befriend Jasmine, but just could not bring herself to like her. In truth, she was jealous.
Once Jasmine had found out that there was no Hogwarts dance club, she started a petition so one could be arranged. To Hermione's immense surprise, it was popular and many girls signed it. It was presented to Professor Dumbledore, and the club was started. It was run by a young female teacher who Hermione had never heard of, and an unused classroom was turned into an old-fashioned dance room.
Every Tuesday lunchtime, most girls in Third Year and above joined this club. Hermione, not being terribly active or good at dancing, didn't join but spent a lot of time spying on them through a small window. Many just went for the fun of it, but Jasmine Lloyd was good at dancing. She looked like a ballet dancer, and spent hours pirouetting and twirling around the room. Girls stood, mesmerised by her dancing. Hermione was mesmerised too. She was elegant, beautiful, and fascinating to watch.
A few weeks after the club was formed, Hermione signed up to join.
"Hermione, dancing?" Ron sniggered. "Hermione can't dance!" He and Harry grinned at each other. This was too much for Hermione, who was permanently on the verge of breaking point. She stormed off up to bed early and lay sulking by herself.
Jasmine, however, looked cheerful when Hermione announced her decision.
"I joined Ancient Art too! It's very good, you study it and get to draw your own stuff!" Jasmine showed her a sketch she had nearly finished. It was depressingly good.
"What day is it on?" Hermione asked.
"Thursday lunchtimes."
So Hermione signed up for Ancient Art too, and hoped that she turned out to have a talent in art and dance.
~~~(O.O)~~~
Sadly, Hermione turned out to be not so good at either activity.
Dance was a disaster. Hermione turned up, very out of place, in her uniform. Everyone else was wearing appropriate dance attire.
"Not to worry!" the teacher said brightly, when an embarrassed Hermione approached. "We have spare clothes!" She handed her canary yellow leggings and a moth-eaten black shirt. Hermione changed shyly in the corner, then went up to Jasmine confidently.
"You can do whatever dance you want," Jasmine told her, as if she owned the club. "I do ballet." She smiled widely, showing pearly white teeth, then leapt into a complicated and graceful sequence, finishing with a bow.
"Could you show me a simpler dance?" Hermione asked. So Jasmine taught her a long but relatively easy dance, involving an impressive pirouette at the end.
"You try now!" Jasmine said brightly, taking a step back. Everyone had watched Jasmine and applauded her enthusiastically, so Hermione had all eyes on her. Taking a deep breath, Hermione began the dance sequence.
She was nowhere near as graceful or nimble as the other girl. A few times she wobbled and nearly fell over. And then she heard snigger, from Pansy Parkinson and her friends. Hermione couldn't bear it.
"Urm, I think I need more practise on that one," Hermione said in a falsely bright, couldn't care less tone. "But I have urgent homework I need to do, so I must go." Collecting her clothes and changing quickly, she fled the room with tears in her eyes. The last thing she saw was Jasmine, waving her arms and stepping forwards delicately, with everyone watching in awe.
Ancient Art wasn't much better. It seemed that the schools best artists had joined this club, judging by their works.
"I'm copying this right now," Jasmine said, showing Hermione a complex and detailed portrait of a beautiful woman. "Do you want to use it too?"
Hermione nodded, determined to be good at this. She wrote a few pages about it in her new book, then took some parchment and a special art pencil, and began sketching.
Having the very talented Jasmine Lloyd drawing next to her didn't help. Hermione kept comparing constantly throughout the session. Also, there was the major problem of Hermione not being able to draw whatsoever.
By the end, the parchment had three holes in it from rubbing so hard, and Jasmine was finished, excitedly showing everyone her piece.
"It's lovely, Jasmine," Hermione snapped, abandoning her pencil and book. "Really good."
And she stormed out of the classroom, cursing artwork and ballet dancing.