Asphodel and Wormwood

Monsieur Krum

She had strategically selected her seat in the Great Hall for dinner that evening. Evangaline had teased that Hermione must have stolen some of Fleur's Veela charm for the evening, her hair charmed to hold its chestnut curls in effortless ringlets and confidence projecting from her like waves. Hermione looked down the long table they were seated at and noticed the contrast between the shade of blue belonging to their uniforms compared to that of the Ravenclaws they joined for meals, not responding to the compliment from her classmate beyond a bow of her head in acceptance.

"Are you finally ready to help us show these deprived men the allure of Beauxbaton ladies?" Evangaline's airy voice asked across the table. Hermione's only reply was the smirk that adorned her normally passive face. That was, after all, her intention, and there was no reason to hide it from the girls surrounding her.

Another classmate, a dark-haired beauty named Lauren, giggled like a 3rd-year and covered her face with a dainty hand, "Poor boys, they won't know what hit them."

Carefully unfolding a cream-colored napkin before laying it onto her lap, smoothing away the wrinkles with a steady hand, Hermione looked up with a feigned innocent expression, "Whatever do you mean? I'm just trying to maintain our image as proper Beauxbaton students."

Heads of ebony, scarlet, and honey looked at her with expressions that screamed that they didn't believe the easy lie she was telling and that they wanted details. The small feast that lay before them was irrelevant when potential plotting was afoot, especially the kind that involved garnering the attention of unsuspecting young men. Fleur raised a single eyebrow, resting her chin onto her fisted hand, daring Hermione to tell them more. She looked like the statue of a Grecian goddess, like Aphrodite had been reincarnated into the slim body of a young French woman.

She was likely curious as to why the brunette was entertaining the idea of interacting with anyone outside of her already established social circle. Relationships, to Hermione at least, were transactional. Sure, people tried to wrap their interactions up with pretty bows, but at the end of the day, unless a person had something to offer you, there was no reason to associate with them. It was a near sociopathic belief that she hadn't always held, but following the backing of the Flamels she'd learned the hard way that if she wasn't careful, people would give in to their innately selfish tendencies.

Take until there was nothing left. Take without offering anything in return.

Take time, take resources, take advantage of her.

Take. Take. Take.

That was why she'd done everything in her ability to fade into anonymity over the past three years following the destruction of the Sorcerer's Stone. It was honestly remarkable how quickly people forgot who she was attached to once Monsieur and Madame Flamel had exited the world; most likely because the sycophants that she'd met during her relationship with the couple had only referred to her as Flamel's apprentice, never asking her name. They'd refused to give her any sense of separation from the couple who'd given her so much.

This trend was the reason why one of the alchemist's final wishes was for Madame Maxime and Albus Dumbledore to help Hermione expand her educational pursuits based on her own merits and not his. At the time she'd questioned the necessity of including the Hogwarts Headmaster; now she abhorred it, given that his loose lips were the likely culprit behind Zabini's discovery.

As if the Slytherin knew where her trail of thoughts had wandered, she felt Blaise's eyes on her without having to turn and face him. Her long fingers tightened around the edge of the dining hall table as a current of irritation with a sliver of fear erupted in her chest. She'd weighed the likelihood of him exposing her secret to the masses for the public slight she was about to instigate, even performing arithmancy calculations earlier that evening, and had concluded she had more to gain than lose.