Sang Sacré

Chapter 8

TW/CW: very minor and brief mention of passive suicidal thoughts located in the last few paragraphs of the chapter.

Friday, June 2, 2000

The next few weeks were a blur.

Madame Rousseau had owled Hermione a few days after her appointment to update her on the progress of her dress, assuring her she would receive it a few weeks before Litha. In the meantime, she had been quite busy.

Mornings were spent with Tiberius and Theo yet again when they began insisting that her lessons were of the primary importance in this last stretch before the ritual. Otherwise, Hermione spent a lot of time hanging out with different friends. Hermione enjoyed how much she was able to see Daphne and Pansy after their Diagon Alley outing. Surprisingly, she and Pansy were getting along quite well.

Pansy Parkinson was a complex individual. She was the picture of beauty and embodiment of a perfect Pureblood witch: she was always poised, put together, and she could be so subtle that most of her feelings flew entirely under the radar. This was extremely intimidating to Hermione, who spent a lot of time second-guessing Pansy's comments until she realized that this vitriol no longer aimed at her.

Once she gave up being polite to Pansy and let her snark and sarcasm fall freely from her lips, Pansy really started opening up. It was strangely reassuring to have her and Daphne's approval on her outfits and Pansy even took to helping Hermione with her hair. When they experimented with different potions and charms, Pansy slowly started letting Hermione in, under the external shields she erected around herself, disguised as mauve lipstick and dark hairpins.

While most of their interactions were still surface level, Hermione was confident that they were making progress. She never invited Pansy and Daphne over, they just showed up for tea or owled her to go to newer shops in London. Unfortunately, this habit of showing up unannounced led to the girls traipsing into the middle of the drawing-room as Theo and Tiberius scrutinized the way Hermione walked while balancing an advanced Arithmancy textbook on her head.

To her chagrin, Daphne and Pansy had very excitedly jumped at the opportunity to help teach and looked a little offended that they had yet to be consulted in her education. The next day, they came dressed to the nines immediately following breakfast, circling Hermione like a hawk as they examined her.

Luckily, like with everything else in her life, she was a quick learner. As the days went on, it became more and more apparent that Hermione didn't need as much help as they might have previously expected. Her group of instructors tirelessly drilled new information into her head and tested her on previous topics of conversation, but she seldom answered incorrectly.

When she wasn't studying at the Manor or traipsing over London with the girls, she met up with Harry and Ron. Most times, they were too busy with training to do anything as "fun" as they wanted, but she made a point to visit them with snacks and coffees if they couldn't get away from the office for lunch.

Ron routinely barely passed her a glance until he had his fingers on whatever treat she procured for them. Despite how long they knew each other, she could not wrap her head around how strong his nose was when it came to food. She joked that he must be able to smell her coming as soon as she entered the lifts nine floors below after he asked, without even sparing her a glance over the mounds of paperwork on his desk, where she was hiding the vanilla bean scones she had yet to remove from her purse. He always shot her a lopsided grin and thanked her, mumbling about how she knew just what he needed to get through the day.

Harry on the other hand melted her heart with a warm smile and a twinkle in his green eyes that flicked over her every time she walked in the room. Harry looked at her like he expected one of these days she would waltz into the department broken and bloodied and gasping for air before crumpling to a heap at his feet.