Random author's note: It has come to my attention that the fact my sister is a doctor would mean different things in the US than where I am. Here? The best universities are state universities, partially government-subsidised. All that means is that you have to pass the highly-competitive university entrance exams, but after that, you're good and it doesn't break the bank (as long as you don't drop out). It also meant that even my sister doesn't know anyone in her faculty (medicine) who had student loans, not even partial, and neither do I nor any of our siblings.
In other words, being a doctor isn't that extraordinary or extremely expensive here (as long as you can pass the state uni entrance exam, the medical programs at private universities are pretty expensive). Yes, I'm currently living in a developing country (middle income country, based on the GDP per capita). The best universities here still regularly gets into those international university ranking lists too, so the standards aren't that different.
So, um, my condolences for anyone in the US?
'-
28 Compromises
Daedalus Bones almost crashes into Tom Riddle. Tom is trying to undo this mess. Hermione in her dorms with friends. Tom Riddle drops in at Ravenclaw Tower. Hermione misses what the whole fuss is about.
'-
Daedalus Bones caught himself before crashing to the person rounding the corner at almost the same time he did.
"Sorry!" The blond did a double take just to assure that it was who he thought it was. "Oh, hullo, Riddle. Fancy seeing you 'ere. I don't think I've seen you around often—the tower isn't exactly close to the dungeons, is it?"
"Well, you happen to find me walking here today."
The Slytherin's smile was oddly non-humorous.
"The only thing in this direction are some empty classrooms and the Ravenclaw Tower," Daedalus shrewdly noted.
It wasn't as if he knew much about his fellow prefect; yet compared to the others who'd just been sworn in at their fifth year, Riddle already had a reputation. He was already helpful to the teachers before he became a prefect that many people from other houses had some idea of who he was already.
"You look like you're in trouble," Daedalus said point-blank when he didn't get any reaction. He thought Riddle sent him a chilling glare for one moment before it turned out to be just an annoyed look. Even that gave him pause. He couldn't remember the other prefect with anything less than an amiable smile. More than he looks, that one.
"Why, whatever gave you that idea?" Riddle asked, this time actually smiling.
Right. Forget that I ever wondered why he hadn't smiled before—apparently, he's creepy when he's pissed off. He surmised that Hogwarts was lucky they haven't seen an aggravated Tom Riddle before. Well, if I'm truly set on risking my neck, I might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb. He went for frank honesty.
"Because Curie stepped into the common room an hour ago looking like her familiar just died. Lakshmi told me; you know how you can always trust any news she brought." The blond said.
"When the truth can bring mayhem, why bother with lies?" Was Riddle's dry reply.
He laughed. Apparently, the polite Tom Riddle had been holding back his sharp tongue all this time.
"Yes, that's our Lakshmi for sure. Considering that she's also looking to 'have some words' with you, I don't really recommend that you go up to our tower right now."
"Why not?"
"Did you bring any gifts?" He asked back.
The seventh-year watched the other wizard's brow creasing. It wasn't quite befuddlement, but he was sure Riddle found his question alien. He held back his sigh. He got this.
"Look, if you mess up with the Missus, the first step in fixing that is to bring gifts."
"What do you mean by 'mess up'?" Riddle's gaze was piercing.
Merlin, he knew the fifth-year had a charismatic presence, but to feel vaguely intimidated by someone two years younger felt ridiculous, even if he couldn't stop the instinctive feeling of wariness.
Daedalus did sigh then. He scratched the back of his head and slouched a little, ensuring that his posture read more as harmless even as he kept a careful eye at the other prefect. He didn't need Riddle to see him as a threat. That would just be so bothersome to his easy and comfortable life at Hogwarts.
"Are you telling me that you didn't put that sad expression on Curie's face? Because if you didn't, well, pardon my mistake. You can go straight up to find her, then, and distract her from whatever it is actually made her feel bad." The blond gambled.
Judging by the way the other prefect seemed to be thinking things through, he thought he'd gotten it right. This was no stranger to him. Daedalus had given advice on courting to an entire spectrum of Ravenclaw years. All just because he was a laid-back person who'd gone out with witches, and that he did not care about faulting people and more about fixing problems. You'd be surprised at the degree of disasters people had confessed to him before they ask for his help.
"A gift." Riddle stated.
"Well, I'd call it a peace offering. Show that you're coming in good faith, you know? Of course, it works better if you know what she likes."
"And then everything will magically be better?" That ironic edge to his voice had cropped up again.
The older blond let out a bark of laughter. "Morgana and Circe, no. When is life ever that easy? It just means you can start talking from a neutral point, instead of continuing to get caught in whatever last emotional state you're both in before."
Riddle was entirely unreadable once more. Daedalus knew when to bow out when he reached the limits of his expertise.
"So, good luck. I'm just going to go to library, do some essays and maybe catch a nap."
"You nap in the library?" The Slytherin was mildly amused.
"I'd sleep for too long and would miss supper if I sleep on the bed now. I'd have taken one of the couches of the common room if it wasn't for all the drama." He shuddered.
"What sort of drama was it?"
"Well, Curie was doing her homework in the common room to make it easier for the younger years to ask her about their homework. Hornby passes by with her posse and thinks it's a good opportunity to throw some shots at her. You know, the usual."
Tom Riddle's smile was amiable once more, the height of good manners. He would've been surprised at the change if he hadn't suspected there was more to the Slytherin after he agreed to come to the Society meeting.
"Well, thank you for the advice. I suppose I better come up with something first then."
"You're welcome. Again, best of luck to you."
'-
Phyllida Spore was just tidying up in the last of the greenhouses. She'd sent her sixth and seventh year teaching assistants off for the day; who among the Hogwarts teachers actually wish to grade all the first, second and third year essays? It was mind-numbingly repetitive after the first year. What she hadn't expected was to see Tom Riddle knocking on the door.
Her eyebrows rose towards her hairline.
Phyllida knew the Slytherin wizard was highly intelligent. She'd heard her peers discuss him with excitement often enough at the teacher's lounge. She simply didn't think she'd encounter him, considering that he'd decided not to focus on her class and specialisation at all. It was one of the classes where his schedule apparently diverged from Hermione Curie, as she'd heard through the teacher's lounge grapevine.
Then again, Hermione's schedule was insane, even according to the teachers. There were bets on how long she'd be able to keep it up, and bets on which classes she'd drop first.
"Good afternoon, Professor Spore."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Riddle."
He was carrying a box at hand and looked unusually restrained as he entered.
"What brings you to my corner of Hogwarts?"
Tom let out a soft sigh, his expression apologetic. "I might have made a mistake, Professor, and thus in need of your help. You see…"
As she invited him to sit down, she saw the summer pudding he'd somehow procured from the kitchens. Considering that the dessert usually took some time to make, she'd to admire his dedication. So, she sat and listened.
'-
Hermione refused to say a word to Lakshmi no matter how much the dark-haired witch cajoled and persuaded her. She merely said that she and Tom was going to 'talk about it' and that was it. She did gain some degree of amusement in frustrating her insanely curious dormmate. Eugenie, she could see, was highly sympathetic even if she was at loss about what to do. The blonde had picked up the British habit of preparing tea whenever someone was upset and had just made a fresh pot. Hermione couldn't regret the chamomile tea she was drinking since it was rather relaxing.
The lemon meringues and lemon Nagasaki cheesecakes were nice too. She'd graciously thanked the house elf Pinny who'd brought it for them, with a promise to chat further later.
"Was it very bad?" Eugenie finally asked with earnest blue eyes.
"What was very bad?"
"Your argument with Riddle. You've been sighing more than usual."
Hermione huffed, half in wry laughter and the other in acceptance. "We didn't have an argument. It was more of a…a misunderstanding? No, not really that either. I understand where he is quite well, and I told him exactly where I stood in case he'd missed it before to make things clearer. It's a…disagreement, I suppose. We don't see eye-to-eye on certain elementary things."
It covered the gist of the issue while still being vague. Eugenie didn't seem to be troubled by the lack of details at all. The brunette was also aware of Lakshmi circling somewhere in the back, at least until Eugenie huffed.
"Oh, for goodness' sakes, Lakshmi. If you're not going to go out at all, you might as well take a seat at the table."
The dark-haired witch did exactly that.
"Was it about the possible names for your firstborn children?" Lakshmi asked.
Eugenie choked on her tea and had to cough and try to clear her airway. Hermione drank without any trouble and raised an eyebrow at her friend.
"Now that is what I call a trivial difference." Hermione said.
"You don't want to marry straight out of Hogwarts and he does? To his credit, that's actually what's normal these days." She guessed again, her grin sly. "Would you rather live together in sin, then?"
The blonde Ravenclaw's cheeks were suffused with colour now as she stared wide-eyed at Hermione.
"You… Is he actually courting you? Do you have an arrangement? Isn't this a little too soon, Hermione?"
The brunette sighed. "Lakshmi's exaggerating as usual, Eugenie. Don't mind her."
Surprisingly, the blonde actually glared at the other Ravenclaw. "You can't do that! It's risky for Hermione's reputation!"
Lakshmi blew a raspberry. "Oh relax. Notice that I'm doing this in our dorm? Where no one else can enter and listen? If we can't speculate here, where can we let our imaginations loose, otherwise? Sheesh, take all the fun out of life, will you?"
Eugenie was observing the two of them with some confusion before finally settling on Hermione.
"So, what is he to you?"
"A good friend," Hermione blandly answered, ignoring the outright cackling on Lakshmi's part and the disbelieving look on Eugenie's. "Alright, he's a bit more than that, but I don't let my imaginations get carried away like Lakshmi's. It is what it is and whatever will happen after this, will happen. I'm not going to speculate endlessly when I can just live my life. I do have more important things to do."
"Well, that wouldn't go down well with Riddle's admirers," the blonde mused.
"You know, I've heard about that once or twice, but I don't think I've seen any. Are there really any, or is this just one of those things that get exaggerated at Hogwarts?" Hermione asked. Her friends stared at her in disbelief. Lakshmi even opened her mouth once before closing it again as she failed to find any adequate words.
The brunette huffed. "What? I'm being serious!"
"Did you not notice the glares sent your way during dinner times at the hall?" Eugenie asked, askance.
"She didn't," Lakshmi answered with a grin. "She really didn't."
"It was enough to make me feel uncomfortable and I'm only sitting next to you!" The blonde complained.
Lakshmi extended one finely painted hand and patted Hermione's. "I'm sure you don't care the slightest about them, darling. Which is nice, because I'll pass that message on to them. It would be entertaining to see them spit more bile because of it and choke in their own anger."
The brunette was still trying to wrap her head around her friends' explanation.
"There are admirers? Really? Whyever for? He's…he's Tom Riddle. He's very intelligent and charming, yes, but he's also annoyingly two-faced and so calculating that he's never out of his political mode!" Hermione said.
Eugenie seemed confused at her description while Lakshmi indulged herself and laughed again.
"Oh, Hermione. I love you. Don't ever change, darling."
'-
It was an apple-cheeked Hattie-Perks that dared to walked straight up and knocked on the doors of their dorm. Lakshmi opened it and stared at the first-year Ravenclaw with incomprehension.
"Why is there a squirt in front of our door?"
"I'm not a squirt!" She insisted.
"You're not even a third-year. You're absolutely a squirt." Lakshmi said easily, patting the top of her head and ignoring the indignant huff that accompanied it. Hermione had slid next to her dormmate to check on who their guest was.
"Oh, Hattie! Hello, what brings you here?"
"I have a message," Hattie said, very serious.
"Oh, you do?" Lakshmi said with visible amusement. Hattie glanced at her once before focusing on Hermione again.
"Tom Riddle is at the bottom of the tower looking for you." The first-year's unbraided hair fell down her back in waves. Hermione thought it must be impractical to keep neat for a girl her age.
"Alright," she said, still staring at little witch's hair. "Why don't you tie your hair back. It might get caught in something."
She shook her head with determination. "Nu-uh. One of my dormmates taught me a hair-brushing spell. It's not as good as the real thing, but it's not bad if you just want to make it look nice. So, what should I say to him?"
Hermione sighed. Well, she was going to go down in twenty minutes or so for supper, anyway. Why not go down now? "I'll be down in five or ten minutes."
The first-year scrambled down the stairs once more. Lakshmi eyed Hermione curiously.
"How did you even get to know an ickle firstie?"
"Some of her year mates were bullying her. I scared them off." Hermione answered. Her friend nodded sagely with complete understanding.
"Ah, that explains the hero worship, then."
The brunette frowned. "What hero worship?"
"Well, if you don't see it, I'm probably just imagining things," Lakshmi said flippantly, giving her best doe-eyed look that made people focus only on her beauty and nothing else. "Don't mind my rampant speculation, really."
"Lakshmi, come on…"
"You did say that I often let my imaginations run away, didn't you? I'm sure this is just one of that."
Hermione huffed and was soundly ignored.
The dark-haired Ravenclaw only whistled with a disgusting amount of cheer and went off to commandeer the bathroom. She thus monopolised it (for what Hermione now knew) for the next quarter of an hour.
'-
When Hermione walked down to the common room from her dorm, she had not expected to see Tom casually sitting on one of the armchairs, chatting with some other Ravenclaws. She recognised one of them as the wizard in her Advanced Transfigurations class. She remembered the sixth-year witch as one of the Ravenclaw prefects in the Society meeting. The other two witches were definitely out of their depth—their eyes glazed over the more fervent the discussion turned.
As she approached, she could hear their arguments. They were discussing permanent transfiguration.
"No one has really addressed why we can transfigure wood into coal or soil, and yet turning a lump of clay into a twig is beyond most of us," the sixth-year witch said.
"Well, that's obvious, isn't it?" This was her Transfigurations classmate that she recognised. His name starts with S which she couldn't recall right now. "Magic has its limitations and one of them is creating life. A twig always has to come from a living tree. You can't just…make it all up with soil."
"And yet the fact that we can turn the twig into soil means that there's already a relationship between them. Why can't we try the change the other way around?" She asked.
"Destruction is always easier than creation, Julia" Tom answered. "We can burn almost anything, but can we easily unburn them as easily as we've burned them?"
She could see realisation lighting up more than one face, even the two other witches who'd been speechless so far.
"It's all thermodynamics. Entropy in a system always increases," Hermione added.
They turned around as she spoke. She didn't miss the way Tom's smile was a touch more real now when he saw her.
"Entropy… I've heard that somewhere. Something about degree of disorder and chaos," Julia muttered. "Come on, Adil, help me with this."
"Yes, Shafiq, do tell us about it," Tom cajoled.
Ah, Shafiq! So that was his name! Hermione thought. Shafiq obliged. "Well, Julia, it's mentioned at the very end of our double Advanced Transfigurations class. Something about the state of the universe, how order is always unravelling into disorder, simply because there are more ways for something to be messy than there are ways for it to be neat and ordered."
"And that's the Second Law of Thermodynamics." Hermione said.
"Hermione, how nice of you to join us," Tom greeted.
"Hello everyone," Hermione gave a general greeting.
Now that Eugenie and Lakshmi had pointed out the presence of Tom's admirers to her, she could see how the expressions of the two tag-along witches to the group soured as she arrived. Not that it made any difference because she still didn't consider it something important enough to care about. She remembered who the sixth-year prefect was at that moment—Julia Goldstein, lover of books and discussions.
"Curie," Julia Goldstein nodded to her. "Please, please tell me that you're going to join the Advanced Transfigurations study group one of these days."
It was Adil Shafiq who answered first with outright disbelief. "With her double set of classes and extracurricular activities? I wouldn't count on it."
His expression was mirrored by Tom's more polite scepticism.
"Maybe," Hermione hedged. "Or, you can just catch me when I'm doing homework in the common room. Like this afternoon."
"Dammit, I passed the common room when I was going out this afternoon! I missed you?" Julia was disappointed with herself. Hermione could only shrug helplessly at her fellow brunette—where Hermione's hair was curly, Julia's was enviably straight as a pin. Like most witches in this era, it fell far below her shoulders.
"As exciting as our conversation had been Ladies, Gentleman, I'll have to take my leave now." Tom said.
Shafiq's expression was knowing even as he bowed out. "Certainly. Riddle, Curie."
Julia's smile also had the bemusement of a co-conspirator as she ignored outright Hermione's imploring glares to stay. "Yes, we'll just leave you two alone. I'll see you later Tom, it was nice to talk to you Curie."
Oh well. We'd have to talk sooner or later, anyway.
When the goodbyes were exchanged, they left. Tom had stood up and walked to one of the farther corners of the common room; it was an armchair that faced a bookshelf. She followed out of principle because Tom's hangers-on were still milling about aimlessly. He gestured for her to take the armchair and she did, while he seated himself on its accompanying ottoman instead. To her surprise, he carried two boxes. One was a flattened square, while the other was a box that was on the small end of medium.
"What are these?"
"Peace offerings. I was reminded that if I was about to declaim mea culpa, it would reflect my realisation of my fault if I were to take the first steps to amending that before further talks take place."
She couldn't see if he was regretful, but she did notice that his hands were now clasped together once more. It was an oddly static gesture for him. It was alright, though—why would she even expect regret out of him if she didn't think he even understood why? She opened the more box-like box and smiled at the small cake inside it. She supposed she could have it for tea at her dorm tomorrow.
"Orange, rose and mint cake? Why, Tom, you shouldn't have!" She was pleased when she said this. It was one of the desserts she'd requested from the kitchen for her picnic.
"You did say you liked orange."
"I did."
"It might also interest you to know that Chakravarty was actually the one who passed the recipe to the house elfs." He said. "I asked them about the details around the recipe. They mentioned about how the combination of spices and ingredients reminded them of some recipes for Afghan sweets that they have."
What made her smile wider was the realisation that Tom Riddle actually stopped and chatted with house elfs just to find out interesting factoids he could tell her about the cake. Not that she thought Tom realised what her smile was about. At any rate, it was an interesting thing to note about her dormmate and also something to ask Lakshmi about at their next tea. She closed the box again (undoubtedly with some minor preservation charms laid into it) and opened the one that was more of a flattened square.
This time, she gasped.
It was a crown of flowers. The camellias were a mix of the common magenta and vermillion red, and they were fragrant. Intertwined between them were bursts of smaller flowers. Their primary petal (petals?) were a coin-sized head in bright orange, their shapes reminding her of orchids though not precisely so.
"Camellias and…?"
"Kennedias," Tom answered.
She raised her eyebrows. "I'm not receiving flowers without knowing what they mean now, and I haven't had time to read about them."
"I know." He said, handing her a pocket book on flowers. "This is from the Malfoy family library. Keep it for as long as you wish."
She had to chuckle at the remark, but she took the book all the same.
"Check the Kennedia first."
She saw that the sunburst of orange flowers was indeed more visually dominant than the camellias, which meant it was the main flower in the arrangement. Hermione couldn't help but laugh when she found it. It said, intellectual beauty. The brunette raised an eyebrow at him.
"Smooth, Tom. Very smooth."
He bowed from his seat. "I do my best."
Considering that the second bloom would support the first, the more common camellias would then mean perfection, while she was sure the red one was unpretending excellence instead of a flame in his heart. There was no way he was that sentimental. They were woven together with the help of a silver ribbon.
"Why, if you flatter a girl so much, Tom Riddle, she's liable to grow a big head." She said, though still very much flattered at the effort. He made the garland with the same technique she'd shown him, ensuring that there was actually two circle of living plants there.
"I've figured that you won't, Hermione," he replied. "You see, you already have a large character flaw that narcissism has no space to take root anymore."
"Really?" She asked, curiously.
"Yes. You have a hero complex." He answered.
"I don't…" she began. He arched an eyebrow at her in challenge and she found she couldn't exactly deny him.
"Oh, alright. I might have a little bit of it, Tom. A little." Hermione insisted.
"As you say, Hermione."
"You do know that it's only polite to not disagree with a lady, don't you?" She archly asked.
"Where did you hear me disagreeing?" Tom's words were dry and Hermione chuckled at that.
"I'm going to put the cake in my dorm. But you do know that I'm going to wear this to supper, don't you?" She asked him, lifting the box with the crown of flowers.
"It's yours, to do as you wish." He answered. Tom paused for a moment before he asked again. "Have you decided to stay, Hermione?"
He was completely calm and also absolutely serious. The intensity in his eyes made her breath caught in her throat, but she can dismiss it easily as a purely physical reaction even when deep inside she knew it wasn't true.
"We're going to have to talk about your methods, Tom." Hermione finally said.
"As I've said before, I'm not limited in my methods. That would mean predictability and I do so hate to be too predictable to my enemies," he replied.
"So, you won't mind?" She asked, her voice soft.
"I won't mind what?"
"To make compromises."
She could see him taking a long, careful breath, his gaze straying away to the rest of the room for a moment before he returned. Tension flickered in and then vanishing again from the line of his jaws.
"When did I give you the impression that I won't compromise?" Tom asked.
Hermione realised that this was the first time she saw Tom even the slightest bit upset. He'd always had a fine control over himself and his reactions that she'd never seen him unsettled before. It left her feeling more than a little adrift, her thoughts suddenly rising in a cacophony of confusion. There were a hundred and one little conclusions that suddenly crossed her mind for his various actions and behaviour. She pushed it all away for now before they overwhelmed her under their tidal wave.
"Your people. You've always overridden them so easily…" she started.
"I don't seriously consider the wishes of the puppets, Hermione. They're not you." He answered. "Your arguments always have some sort of merit instead of mere emotional wailing like theirs."
"Would you seriously consider my thoughts and opinions? Respect my position no matter how different it would be from yours? Respect me?"
"I certainly would—and you know that I've always respected you."
"Then yes, I'll stay and change the future from beside you." She answered.
"Then we're agreed."
Before she realised it, he'd moved forward to place a kiss on her lips. It was slightly longer than a moment, but not long enough for her to notice that her hand was holding the side of his face. He drew back just when she'd leaned forward.
"Would you like to go down to dinner right now?" He asked.
"After I place the boxes at my dorm? Yes, sure."
'-
Of course, it was impossible for Hermione to drop the boxes at her dorm without catching the attention of her dormmates.
"Ooh, what's that?" Lakshmi asked, just fresh out of the bathroom.
"Tom brought me a cake—we can have it for tea tomorrow. By the way, Lakshmi, I've just found out it was your cake recipe, so I'd probably want to hear your story about it." Hermione said.
The dark-haired witch took it in a stride.
"Ah. It must be Grandmother's. I think I remembered telling the house elfs about it when I felt homesick, sometime in second year or so. Yes, you can ask away about it."
Hermione settled the box of cake and took the box of flowers. She carefully took it out and went off to find the nearest mirror.
"Wait, wait, wait! Now, what is that, Hermione?" Lakshmi asked, with all the righteousness of a police inspector carrying out a raid. One Eugenie Delacour, just as curious, stood right next to her.
"It's obviously a crown of flowers." Hermione deadpanned.
Eugenie rubbed the bridge of her nose in frustration as Lakshmi shook her head.
"Not that. I mean, you went down empty-handed, presumably to meet Tom as our local squirt had informed you earlier and now you have a flower crown. I'm not the only one seeing the conclusion here."
"He gave it to you, didn't he?" Eugenie asked.
The brunette stared at her friends. "What if he did? He was trying to apologise. It made complete sense if he gave me some appeasement gifts."
"B-b-but—" Eugenie began.
"Appeasement? That might start at appeasement, but that very well doesn't end there." Lakshmi expressed her opinion loudly and clearly.
Various aggravated sounds as well as random flapping of hands ensued among Hermione's dormmates, not that she really paid attention to the specifics of their frustration (what they were even frustrated about, she had no idea). When the bathroom door opened again, Lucretia walked out into this odd tableau. She stared at them with uncertainty for a few seconds.
"You have a flower garland," Lucretia noted.
A beat passed. "Why yes, I do," Hermione confirmed. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wear it."
"Why are you wearing a flower garland?" The Black witch asked with bafflement.
"Because I wanted to?" Hermione replied back. The brunette was already drifting off to find a mirror so she could securely place it on her head. Probably with the aid of some sticking charms.
"Tom Riddle gave her that and she's going to wear it to supper!" Eugenie finally managed to let out a series of sounds that made some sort of sense. Lucretia's attention turned to her.
"Really? That's lovely. Is he courting her?"
"That's what we've been trying to ask!" Eugenie wailed, her pretty nose scrunched up. Lakshmi extended her arm in sympathy and pulled the blonde to her side before patting her back.
"He's a good friend!" Hermione called back.
The three other witches exchanged meaningful glances with each other. Eugenie's was as much confused as she was exasperated, Lakshmi's was outright disbelieving while Lucretia was not quite sure how to approach all this…madness? Weirdness? The unspoken conclusion seemed to be one they all heartily agreed, though.
"If I have just two very good friends like that who were competing with each other, I'd be an engaged witch right now," Lakshmi gave her expert opinion.
"I have good male friends. None of them has ever given me a crown of flowers." Lucretia said diplomatically as the three of them were slowly making their way towards Hermione.
"Maybe you need to show them how to make it. I did give Tom a demonstration. It was during our picnic, Eugenie, right after you left."
Several more wordless glances were exchanged between the three of them.
"Did he ask to for permission to call upon you, Hermione?" Lucretia's voice was serious when she asked this.
"He did. I said yes." Hermione replied, missing her blonde friend's facepalm.
"That's the first thing you should have told us!" Eugenie complained, her face slightly red. "It would completely explain why he's giving you a crown of flowers!"
Well, Hermione didn't really consider her maybe/not-really/not-quite a relationship was anyone else's business but her own. It's not as if she was really certain that she knew what she was doing (other than making sure Tom wasn't going to blow up the world).
Lakshmi was laughing hysterically before she covered her face, trying to get herself to calm down. It didn't work easily, she was still trying to hold back giggles.
"Well, I'm not completely blind on pureblood courting rituals," Hermione answered, her crown of flowers settled firmly over her brow. She was determined to have a good time during supper, and the small-mindedness of current era Hogwarts wasn't going to stop her.
"To call on someone is your equivalent of…casual dating. Or well, not-so-casual dating, I suppose. But I get it. It's not that important in the grand scheme of things, as in, I can have more than one gentleman caller, right? It's different from actually proceeding to courting, which is a state that does have a muggle analogue so I do understand what that means. As you can see, we're not courting."
She shrugged. "Keeping that in mind, I don't see what the big deal is."
"Technically…" Lakshmi said between gasps of breath. "She's not wrong."
Eugenie was taking deep breaths because she seemed to be close to ranting. Again. She must have silently counted to five before she started speaking again.
"Since many Beauxbatons-going or Hogwarts-going witches are not going to hold debutante balls during their school year, the acceptance of an official call at school is a big thing. This means… this means that you're officially accepting gentleman callers and anything more serious than that."
"Ah. Alright, then." Hermione said.
Lakshmi was still failing in her fight against giggles. Eugenie and Lucretia were exchanging glances that to any discerning observer clearly meant 'are you going to tell her this, or shall I?'
Unexpectedly, Lakshmi beat them to it. "It means, you've begun open season!"
"Lakshmi…" Eugenie rubbed her face with a tired murmur.
"Accepting a gesture as noticeable as a crown of flowers implies you're accepting people approaching you for courtship now, Hermione." Lucretia clarified.
It took Hermione several seconds to get what she meant. So, in the absence of a debutante ball, receiving a blatant gift could be taken as… a sign that she was now openly considering anyone who might be interested in her hand in marriage? And this is something important because…oh, right. Because witches mainly go to school to meet wizards and get married, right? Hermione thought with a mental snort.
Whenever I think I've forgotten when I'm stuck in, something else reminds me.
The brunette snorted and shook her head. "Well, I don't think it would come to anything. I'm not as beautiful as any of you and I certainly didn't come from a famous or old wizarding family."
"I disagree with your opinion of your attractiveness. On the other hand, does not mean you have no prospects at all, or that there are no wizards who wouldn't be an opportunist if they think you can bring glory for their family name. You're going to have to be more careful from now on, Hermione," Lucretia corrected.
She seemed completely serious that Hermione could not wave her concern away easily. It was rather flattering that an experienced pureblood witch like Lucretia was taking Hermione's prospects seriously.
"You can say that again when someone actually tries to formally court me. Which I still think is something that's going to happen when pigs fly." The brunette insisted. "I'm going to go down to dinner right now. Does anyone want to come as well?"
"Is Tom still waiting at the common room?" Chakravarty asked with interest.
"Yes, why?"
"Oh, good. He can escort us ladies, then. Come on, Eugenie, Lucretia. Don't you want to come to the Great Hall with us too? It would be…fun."
Lucretia sighed but it was clear that she found this to be amusing as she smiled and agreed. Eugenie loudly huffed and resigned herself to getting stuck near what would probably be another spectacle. Hermione, on the other hand, didn't really get what the whole fuss was about.
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End Notes:
Additional Notes:
Julia Goldstein (OC): Sixth-year Ravenclaw prefect. Her name, 'Julia' is the female form of the Roman family name 'Julius', as in, Julius Caesar. I thought it would be fitting to follow the naming theme of Roman generals if she was going to be the aunt or grand-aunt to present-day canon Anthony Goldstein. More of a bookworm and general lover of knowledge, her personality is one that is well-suited to the academia. As such, she doesn't exactly enjoy what she sees as the more tedious aspects of prefect work.
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