Fait à la Perfection

13

"So you were on a date?"

"It's not a date," Hermione told Alan as she prepared the last of the food, "we just...talked"

"It was a date, that's good."

"I didn't go on a date with him."

"Hermione, when was the last time you went on a date?"

She stuttered.

Three years, six months and eleven days...

But whose counting?

And besides, she's busy. The best chef in London at one of the most prestigious restaurants known. She didn't have time to date.

"Stop rationalizing it," he said, "what is the real reason you haven't gone on a date?"

Because she didn't want to get hurt.

You fall in love and you get hurt.

There's no other way around it.

She put herself out there. She would get hurt one way or another.

End of story.

Nothing was made to perfection. Only good. Only her work could achieve perfection and even then she had to put in the work and—

She glared at Alan who was smirking.

"No," she said.

"Why not, Hermione?"

"Because even if I was open to it, we would never work, we have never liked each other. We have always fought each other, our lives are too different and didn't now I don't knlu have to worry about myself but I also have three children that are relying on me. I'm still struggling with them, I am not going to allow myself to get distracted by something that at the end of the day wouldn't even make it off the table. No. No. No."

She was spiralling

She knew she shouldn't have opened up to Malfoy. Opening up to him meant putting herself in a vulnerable position. She was being stupid by even talking about this.

Immediately grabbing her baking tools. She began setting them out when Alan stopped her. She began to fight him and hyperventilating.

"N-N-No!" Hermione stuttered, "I-I-I-I need—Alan please!"

"Why Hermione? Why do you hide behind this?"

"Let me—I need—"

Her mother always taught her. If something was getting out of her control. To take the bad thing and then turn it into something delicious. Something that you can give away.

"I need—"

Hermione was having bad outbursts. She was getting in trouble at school and had actually broken a girls nose after a comment she made about her dad.

Hermione was on the verge of getting expelled and getting sent to juvenile detention for aggravated assault.

"Hermione enough!" Her mother yelled. This was the twelfth fine she has been suspended in a span of three years, and rumours had it that she was going to get kicked out the next time she assaulted somebody.

"No!"

"Hermione Jean Granger! Get down here this instant!"

Hermione stormed out of her room and glared at her mother.

"What?!" She sneered.

"Get in the kitchen."

"No!"