Glacius

Chapter 4

"I was right! You and I are just about the same size," Pansy Parkinson exclaimed, watching Hermione's perfectly kept figure hug onto a tightly sewed dress of her own. A beautiful dress that complimented her in every angle possible. It shone a shade of off-white, decorated with pearls and lace all around it.

"It's beautiful Pansy, how could I ever—"

"You don't need to. My treat." She winked, dressing herself as she did so, putting on that dark rouge lipstick that she always wore around Hogwarts. It became one of her signature looks, breaking every dress code as she did so. Even today, when it was still frowned upon, she didn't care, she simply applied more.

Hermione exhaled through her nose, containing a slight breath of excitement as she did so. She truly had no idea why, of all people, Pansy Parkinson was helping her from complete and utter embarrassment, the Pansy that Hermione thought she knew would have loved to see that, yet the one she thought she knew was there, helping her.

"Pansy why are you helping me? From what I remember, you hated me."

"Hated, past tense," she smirks, continuing to dress herself, she was wearing a gorgeous black gown with a low cut, which was also probably forbidden. "I'm not quite the bitch I was in school. I've learned to see things for myself, believe things for myself. I suppose that's why I came to the conclusion I never really hated you. I just followed what other people said."

"Like who?" Hermione asked, her head already knowing the answer, but her mind wanting to explore it further.

"Who do you think?" She scoffed. "I suppose you thought you could read people well, didn't you?"

"I did, but it is getting more so proven wrong against me as of recently."

"Granger, wear this," she said, passing her the most beautiful— the only pair of gloves Hermione had ever seen. They were slightly opaque and matched her white outfit.

"What is the point of them?" she asked, putting them on, "Surely gloves aren't very practical when they are as thin and as see-through as these—"

"There isn't a point. They are merely an accessory."

"An accessory for what, exactly?"

Pansy smirked, something hidden within that smirk. "An accessory for a decoration."

Hermione understood all the hidden meanings in that small sentence. It hit her. That, much like Draco, Pansy was trapped in their world too.

In that world.

That secluded, unknowing world that she was locked out of, yet knew so much about.

She didn't know if she were ready to face it all— she wasn't a part of any of it. She knew she wouldn't understand what they would talk of, or how they would act, what they would eat. It was all miles away from the life she lived from below.

It was something she could only wonder of.
"Salzar, Granger! Some would even say you look beautiful," Pansy smiled, her best sarcastic efforts at applying a compliment, Hermione smiled, appreciating it, especially since it was from her.

"So do you."

"I know," she replied, with that newly found confidence she had, something she never had for herself once. She now had it in everything she did.

Pansy had departed from the room with a strut, leaving the door open, her shoulders held high as she walked with that swing in her hip that Hermione admired from afar. Following her behind on her own, Hermione walked into a wand fight, with nothing to defend her.