Nineteen

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

AN: I'll be increasing the rating now. I'm not saying that it's impending in this chapter, but the sexual themes may become more graphic from here on out. Consider yourself forewarned.

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The maddening sensation tickling at Hermione's nose woke her from a drowsy sleep. Reluctantly opening her eyes, she found herself staring up into a blurry auburn curtain that left her with a peculiar sense of déjà vu.

"Get up!" Ginny cried, and Hermione winced. She'd been up rather too late the previous night, voraciously consuming Unicorns and the Ancients. In point of fact, she'd been up rather too far into that morning, a habit in which she only indulged when she was desperately...and foolishly...unable to put down a book.

Ginny, however, wasn't giving her the option of waking gracefully and with minimal pain. She was practically bouncing in place, hair now flying wildly. Through the foggy haze of her fatigue, Hermione managed to process the fact that the other girl was wearing the same clothing in which she'd left the evening before.

Finally, she managed to drag herself into a sitting position with great effort. Squinting, she demanded, "What's so important that you had to wake me up at..." She glanced at the parted curtains on her window. "Merlin, Ginny! What is it, five?" Her brain struggled to determine how few hours of sleep she'd had. One and a half? Two?

"Nearly six," Ginny continued bouncing relentlessly, leaving Hermione with a sour taste in her mouth and a burgeoning urge to throttle her. Hermione couldn't tell if she was running on large amounts of sugar or pure adrenaline, but her energy was amazing to witness. "C'mon! We're going to Hogsmeade!"

Hermione was now fully alert. "Excuse me? It's not an authorized Hogsmeade weekend. And who the hell will be open at seven in the morning?"

"Yeah, but come on, no one here is going to know. They'll assume I'm out flying and you're tucked away in some twelfth-floor corner studying for Transfiguration on a Saturday...like you often do, I might point out."

Hermione felt her eyes narrowing and resisted the childish urge to stick out her tongue at her friend. What, precisely, was wrong with utilizing one's Saturdays to study? Saturday mornings were the quietest of all around Hogwarts.

"And anyway," Ginny continued in an indifferent tone, "what can they really do to stop us? We're both of age."

"I don't know, Gin. Professor McGonagall's going to get pretty upset..." Hermione was in the process of shaking her head when Ginny released an aggrieved, shrill whine.

"Hermione, come on! McGonagall doesn't even have to know. I'm begging you." Impulsively, she reached over and took Hermione's hands in her own, eyes shining. The slightly rough fabric of her gloves scratched against Hermione's fingertips.

Hermione, for her part, had never seen Ginny so worked up, so blissfully exuberant, and hypotheses began to circulate, half-formed, in her mind. "All right," she said grudgingly. "You're sure you can't just tell me now, whatever it is? You still haven't said what store you expect will even be open at this hour."

"I could ruin the surprise now," Ginny admitted with a wild grin, "but I'd rather tell you and show you in Hogsmeade. I've already made all the necessary arrangements; let's just leave it at that."

Hermione abandoned her previous thoughts, now stumped. Had Ginny smuggled something taboo as far as Hogsmeade? Something from Harry, perhaps?

She skipped showering but dragged a brush through the gnarled forest of her hair. From her Muggle handbag she dredged up a small pack of face wipes and ran one lightly over her skin before carefully applying some moisturizer to protect herself against the bitter winter wind. Pulling on a pair of warm, casual jeans and a soft long-sleeved tee shirt, she glanced out the window. One look at the swirling snow outdoors made her reach for a warmer second layer, followed by her cloak, scarf, and other outdoor necessities. Ginny hopped from one foot to another, impatient to be on their way.

Finally, after a suspenseful and agonizing trek through the castle during which both girls kept their mouths shut and their footfalls as muted as possible, they emerged from Hogwarts. Ginny's cheeks quickly grew ruddy from wind and anticipation. When they'd traversed a safe distance, she let out a delighted cry and twirled around, skipping forward joyfully.

"Are you on drugs?" Hermione demanded sulkily, her head pounding with the loud noise and lack of sleep.

"Harry proposed!"

Hermione realized suddenly that Ginny had, despite removing her outer layers, left her gloves on during the time they'd spent in their room. She now pulled off her glove and held the ring up for Hermione's eager inspection. Hermione grasped Ginny's finger gently, admiring the beautiful stone.

"A garnet?" she questioned aloud.

Ginny shrugged. "Diamond engagement rings are so... conventional. Harry and I aren't really conventional, you know?"

Hermione couldn't think of a way in which their relationship wasn't conventional. Their school lives, their friendships, and their extracurricular activities had always been highly unusual, but from the very beginning Harry and Ginny's had been a whirlwind romance straight out of the Marriage and Family Culture section of their History of Magic textbooks. It lacked for nothing: the worrisome speed of its progress; the passionate fights; the illicit trysts in the hallways and on the school grounds; and, above all, Molly Weasley's dictatorial insistence that sex and cohabitation wait until marriage lest Ginny garner an unflattering reputation.

"So you asked for a different kind of stone?" she asked, puzzled. She knew from her infrequent letters to Harry that Ginny had become increasingly voluble on the subject of marriage...though Ginny no doubt envisioned herself as simply planting the seed of the idea in his mind...but she was shocked to hear that he'd proposed. The idea that he would court potential disfavor by offering her anything other than a traditional diamond engagement ring, a custom Ginny knew he'd grown up recognizing as the ultimate display of devotion, startled her even more deeply.

"No." Ginny didn't appear to appreciate the subtly unappreciative undertones of Hermione's questioning; her pretty lips, their artificial stain having long since disappeared, turned in a small frown. "Why does it matter to you what kind of stone it is, anyway? It's my engagement ring."

"It doesn't!" Hermione said, backtracking hastily. "I was just curious. It's beautiful. So how did he propose?"

Ginny's good humor returned instantaneously. "He took me to dinner, and then we went for a walk, and we ended up back by the lake, right over there." She pulled her glove back on and pointed to a bare, spindly tree farther along the deserted shore. "We sat under there for a while and talked, and when I told him I'd better get back, he said he didn't want me to leave without this." And she waved her hand triumphantly.

"He wanted a longer engagement...he said a year, can you imagine?...but I really want to have things ready to go by July. We'll spend August away for our honeymoon...what do you think of Spain? I've always wanted to go...and then I'll be back in time to start training in September."

Hermione wisely remained silent. She'd obviously been wrong about Harry's hesitation to commit to Ginny so completely, so she didn't want to toss any potentially unwelcome reservations into her friend's eager arrangement of ideas. "Spain is lovely," she assured Ginny in a heartfelt tone. "I've been with my parents."

"I thought so. I asked Harry, but he didn't seem to care. Of course, boys never do show much interest in that kind of thing, do they? He'll only care about the lingerie." Her eyes grew saucer-wide, and she grabbed Hermione's hands again, shaking them happily. "Oh, I can't wait for you to see the lingerie."

Hermione choked on her reply.

"I've got the most beautiful red satin picked out. Maybe a little obvious, but he'll love the gesture."

She continued chatting happily, and Hermione was left to wonder whether her newly emerging suspicions were correct. She was proved accurate when Ginny led her through an eerily empty Hogsmeade to Gladrags, where, to Hermione's utter astonishment, Lavender Brown had unlocked the front door and was beckoning to them with a waving hand.

"Don't be mad," Ginny whispered cajolingly. "You're going to be my maid of honor or whatever the Muggles call it. I promise. But she just got some great new job working for them, and I knew if I owled her she'd be able to open the store..."

"I'm not upset," Hermione told her...genuinely, she was pleased to find. Perhaps it was the natural effect of having spent so many hours consumed with admiring Snape, but the passing months had mitigated the ache of Ron's betrayal, leaving little more than a distasteful memory. Ginny opened her mouth to reply, but they'd drawn too close to Gladrags and Lavender's perch on the front stoop, so she shut it again.

"Come in!" Lavender called. "Hi, Hermione! I was hoping Ginny would bring you. The more girls' opinions we can get, the better!"

Hermione graced Lavender with what she thought was a sincere smile and followed Ginny into the store. She'd rarely been to Gladrags and had never cared for its ambience, affectedly feminine and rather too overdone. She sucked in a last greedy breath of unpolluted oxygen before she was surrounded by the cloying scent of essential oils and perfume. It wasn't the sickening miasma of some Muggle body sprays, but it wasn't Chanel, either.

"So, come in and have a look!" Lavender encouraged Ginny brightly. "I've brought some things from London, too. Did Ginny tell you I just got hired?" she called for Hermione's benefit as she wrapped an arm rather too familiarly around Ginny's shoulders and guided her toward the back of the store. "It's brilliant. I'm the top assistant to the manager in London, and I get discounts in all branches! Plus, if I do really well, I could be a shoo-in for the manager here!

"Paris is my ultimate goal, of course," she said confidently with a slightly condescending tone that suggested she had trouble imagining Hermione could approach or appreciate her view of Paris as a fashionable Mecca. "But this would be okay as a sort of middle step. So," she said to Ginny, who was staring in wonderment at one of the gowns, "what do you think?"

Even Hermione had to admit that she found the cultural implications of what lay before her to be rather fascinating...and heartening. The offerings Lavender had placed on display varied from true Wizarding robes to purely Muggle gowns, strapless and halter, lace and tulle, exquisitely embroidered, to interesting hybrids of the two. Ginny was currently preoccupied with staring at one such creation, a strapless gown of satin overlaid by flowing material and cap sleeves with an open robe-style neckline that would undoubtedly show a generous amount of cleavage.

"Try it on!" Lavender coaxed, nudging Hermione. Confused, assuming it was her cue to be a true girl friend and chime in, Hermione echoed Lavender's suggestion, though less adamantly.

"All right." Ginny's eyes and cheeks were bright with pleasure.

Despite her misgivings about how quickly everything was happening, Hermione was thrilled to see her friend...her best friend, really, a girl with whom she'd shared such personal and privileged details...so obviously elated.

As there were no other patrons in the store during such an early hour, Ginny simply stripped down to her underthings before the two of them. Lavender immediately moved forward and began to assist her in donning the unwieldy yards of fabric, extravagantly complimenting Ginny's small, lithe figure and the way the soft cream of the gown highlighted the color of her hair. Hermione found herself nursing the suspicion that Lavender worked on commission.

"I love it!" Ginny announced, turning before the set of full-length mirrors to regard her form from all possible angles. A line of what appeared to be beads, sewn into a vine motif, trailed down her back to the floor, and she brushed a finger across them with a reverence akin to that Snape had demonstrated for the books Hermione had seen him touch. "Lavender, can you put it on hold or something? I've got to talk with Mum and Dad, but I'm sure Mum'll want to buy it as soon as possible. She'll die if I tell her about it and then someone else walks off with it. And she'll need to pick out her own, as well."

"Of course." There was an unidentifiable greed in Lavender's eyes, and she was clutching at one hand with the other. "And the other members of the wedding party? Is there anything you want to look at for them...?"

"Well, sure, you're going to be Ron's date, right?" Lavender relaxed and gave a self-satisfied nod. "So we'll make you a whatchamacallit. Help me out here, Hermione. The Muggle tradition with the other girls..."

"Bridesmaids," Hermione supplied, thinking of the last wedding of which she'd been a part. Her older cousin had married and generously bestowed upon her the position of flower girl, one she'd deeply coveted. She'd been seven years old at the time.

"Yes, that's it." Ginny was trying to extricate herself from the robe-gown. "A bridesmaid. I want it to be part Muggle because of Harry," she said to Lavender by way of explanation. "And Hermione will be the maid of honor. That's the right term, isn't it?"

"Yes," Hermione said quietly, wishing she could edge away from the other girls. She sensed that Ginny would want her to begin perusing gowns instantly, and she wasn't prepared to disrobe before Lavender. She'd progressed a long way in the healing process, but that particular part of the wound was still too raw to toy with.

"So you can look around and see what you want. And don't worry about the cost...Mum and Dad have been saving up since I was little!" Once again nearly naked, she placed her hands on her little hips and turned in an unhurried circle, taking in the various other items that were on display all around her. Hermione had, thanks in large part to Ginny's active coaching, succeeded in losing some weight over the past couple of months, but she still found herself hotly envying Ginny's effortless, unself-conscious love of her own body. "Lavender, where's that red two-piece set, the satin one? I saw it in here a couple of weeks ago. I really need it."

It struck Hermione as an odd pronouncement. She'd thought Ginny had planned to save that particular surprise for the honeymoon, but the urgency in her face suggested she had a desperate need to have it in her possession quite soon. "I know that one," Lavender assured her, nodding vigorously. She disappeared into the next room and returned with the lingerie in question, causing Ginny to clap her hands excitedly. "We've got lots more where that came from, so don't hesitate to have a look 'round. Hermione, you want to see anything while you're here? I've got lots of burgundy," she offered, "just as pretty as Ginny's, there, but it's darker. It would go great with your hair."

Hermione felt herself flushing. "I beg your pardon?"

Lavender laughed. "You're too shy! C'mon, I'll show you."

Hermione bit back a gasp as Lavender grasped her hand and fairly dragged her into the next room, which turned out to be replete with underwear. No, Hermione corrected, underwear was too indelicate a term for the nearly incorporeal garments before her. Every possible shade and shape were accounted for, a spectrum that ranged from luxe, feminine pastels to deep jewel tones that seemed to promise dark things, all in fabrics that begged to be worshiped and caressed.

Hermione found her reactions unsettling, to say the least. She was suitably horrified to be experiencing such a revelation in Lavender's presence, but there was no denying that while she'd never much cared what she wore on a day-to-day basis, the idea of stepping into such sensual pieces purely for a man's pleasure was intoxicating.

On a rational level, she supposed, it was impossible not to acknowledge that she would never have the courage to be seen in such a thing. She'd not yet mustered the courage to be seen naked by anyone of the male persuasion, and she couldn't really imagine pouring her hardly fragile form into such obviously fragile restraints; but she couldn't keep from wandering forward as if possessed and reaching out a hand to touch one particular set, a shimmering forest green with the most stunning, tiny pearls she'd ever seen, smoky gray and seductive, overlying the cups.

Behind her, Lavender trilled a laugh. "Trying to impress a Slytherin?" she teased.

Hermione tensed. She hadn't even connected the dominant color of the bra and panties to Slytherin House or any members therein; she'd been too overtaken by the resemblance of the fabric to the tapestry separating Snape's laboratory from his private quarters, that particularly sensuous material that evoked images of limbs tangling in a rumpled bed and never failed to make her weak in the knees.

"Nice choice," Lavender said, all seriousness. She moved forward slowly, and her features seemed to display some repentance, as though she'd realized that her teasing had only increased Hermione's discomfort. "Padded balconette in silk damask. Are you into lingerie?"

Hermione shook her head. "I just liked the material," she mumbled, backing away. She'd had a moment's absurd fantasy, but she hadn't the courage to wear the ensemble or the money to buy it.

"Every girl should be into lingerie," Lavender insisted. "Do you want to try it on?"

What Hermione wanted was for the two of them to stop putting up a pretense and admit openly that she couldn't pull off sexy clothing. Lavender continued, however, saying, "We've got the changing rooms back there, and the return policy is very generous. If you don't like it..."

"I can't afford it," Hermione said stiffly. Avoiding Lavender's gaze, she looked instead toward the room from which they'd come, where Ginny was likely prancing around in her own choice, loving what she saw in the mirror. "But thank you for showing me."

"Then let me get it for you."

Lavender's voice was so quiet and earnest that Hermione had to lean toward her for the words to be audible. "Pardon? I can't let you..."

"Please." Hermione had never seen Lavender so lacking in composure; her words were fevered and her eyes were large and anguished. "Hermione, I haven't been alone with you since... since what happened last summer. I know we've never been the best of friends, but I really do feel horrible about what happened. You have to know, Ron told me that the two of you were on the brink of breaking up anyway. And I know that doesn't excuse what I did, but..."

"Don't worry about it," Hermione said gruffly. "It's in the past. I don't..."

"You must hate me," Lavender whimpered, low enough to keep their conversation private from Ginny. "Please, let me do this for you. You'll be graduating soon, and I'm sure you've got other boys lined up who would appreciate it. Or I could fix you up! I know you didn't want me to do it at Christmas, but I would love..."

Hermione barked a laugh. "There are no others, Lavender, but that's not your fault. It's my own fault."

Lavender drew back, scanning Hermione thoughtfully. "You're much prettier than you think you are," she replied. "And I want to do this for you. New lingerie is a great way to boost your confidence. You might be surprised how quickly boys will notice even if they don't see it themselves."

Hermione remained skeptical, but she could feel herself softening. She had difficulty respecting Lavender after what had passed between her and Ron while he'd technically been her boyfriend, but somehow it didn't shock her that Ron would have wheedled her out of her clothes by downplaying the already tenuous connection still between them.

Finally, she gave in to the temptation. She doubted she and Lavender would ever be close, but she didn't want to blow off the possibility of a tentative acquaintance. What had happened with Lavender had exhausted her for reasons far more complex than the simple loss of Ron and what little comfort she'd drawn from that relationship. It had forced her to see other females as rivals, as potential impediments, opening up a grotesque world of competition and a hierarchy to which she would have much preferred to remain blind.

"All right," she conceded. "If you insist. But I don't want you to do it if it's really expensive..."

Lavender waved off her concern. "It's free. Fifteen free items during my first thirty days of employment. It's a miracle I haven't already picked them out, I know!" She laughed, and Hermione found herself relaxing enough to laugh with her. "I'll just bag it up for you and you can take it back to Hogwarts today."

She disappeared with the garments just as Ginny skipped into the room, fully dressed once again and carrying her own designated purchase. "Ready to go?" she asked cheerfully, and Hermione nodded.