Twenty-Three

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

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Weak light filtering through the curtains over her window roused Hermione from a fitful sleep. Finding her face pressed uncomfortably into her pillow, she rolled slowly onto her back and rubbed at her cheeks to restore circulation. Her mouth was dry and tight, her eyes strained, and her mind still groggy.

Two weeks had passed since Ginny had blurted out her deepest secret. The truth of her feelings for Snape had been simultaneously shameful and cherished. The uncontrollable desire to see him and hear his voice had been her raison d'être after returning miserably to complete her final year, growing into an obsession which she freely admitted verged on the unhealthy. Yet she stood by what she'd declared to him in the frigid Hogsmeade night: no matter how inappropriate he and society might deem it, she refused to punish herself any further for her feelings. She hadn't chosen to love him any more than she'd chosen to spend the past three years of her academic existence skulking around hallway corners with a racing heart, desiring the sight of him but fearing that the slightest contact might betray her. It wasn't the sort of existence anyone, regardless how lovelorn, would have chosen.

Of that, Hermione was certain.

It surprised her to find that Ginny's absence from their room had produced the more acute ache immediately following the incident in the Three Broomsticks. Hermione had no idea when the other girl had entered the room for the final time to retrieve her things...perhaps she'd requested that a house-elf perform that chore...but Hermione had seen her for only the briefest moments over the past couple of weeks. Her absence from Potions had so alarmed Hermione that she'd spoken to the Headmistress, who had merely stated that Ginny had agreed to accept a lower grade in all of her classes in exchange for a couple weeks' respite from full-time school duties. Though she knew that most instructors would make allowances for students who'd recently suffered through emotional difficulties, she was amazed that Snape, undeniably the strictest at the school, would bend his attendance rules in the slightest.

Without Ginny nearby to lend a sympathetic smile and bolstering squeeze of the hand, Potions had become a refined form of torture. The subtleties of the dance that was playing out between Hermione and her professor were exhausting. She couldn't look him in the eye...not even for a moment...without tears being compelled to form; he steadfastly refused to look in her direction at all, gritting his teeth audibly when he passed her work station. She'd subsisted only on the sound of his voice while fighting the longing to look at him, any part of him, to see how he fared.

Hermione was positive now that he wasn't going to contact her with regards to the final modified potion. When a week had passed without a request from him that she brew it and perform the incantations in his presence, she'd paid a visit to Professor Flitwick, fully expecting that without the buffer of a dozen other students in the room he would chastise her for being part of Ginny's inappropriate display. Instead, she'd found him receptive to her suggestions and sincerely sympathetic towards her. Having obtained the affirmation from Professor Vector that her calculations were sound and brewed the potion entirely on her own in one of the dungeon laboratories Snape rarely frequented, she sought out Professor Flitwick. The Charms instructor had donated nearly three hours of his time to ensure that she cast the incantations correctly. The vial now sat on her desk, held in a faint, glowing light that indicated an advanced form of stasis, waiting for the right words to unleash its efficacy.

She'd intended, upon returning to her room with it clutched in her sweaty palm, to proffer it to Snape somehow. She doubted that she would be able to get anywhere near his private rooms...he'd probably altered his wards so that her mere proximity would send out an alert...but she'd considered asking someone to act as courier. Even Professor Vector, she suspected, would be willing to do so if she were to ask.

The decision was a difficult one. Hermione had relapsed into a ferociously antisocial lifestyle, remaining in her room or wandering the castle grounds when she wasn't occupied with classes. She didn't fear the others' reactions any longer, which she knew to be progress; she'd decided months ago that the opinions of her peers and the other professors should not sway her in her decision to think and feel in whatever way came naturally to her. But the thought of running into Snape, of succumbing to the literally physically debilitating pain that gripped her abdomen when she imagined him genuinely hating her, kept her sequestered in her room, safe from prying eyes.

A soft but insistent tapping at her window made her sit up stiffly and groan. Noticing Ron's owl dancing impatiently in the cold, she threw aside the bed covers and padded to the window, her toes curling instinctively away from the cold stone floor and thin rugs overlying it. Dancing herself by the time she reached the window, Hermione thrust it open only long enough to accept the parcel and hand the owl a small bit of a biscuit, the remnant of her midnight snack. Regret flooded through her as she lifted the food, realizing in just how many ways she'd regressed since Snape had rejected her following her difficult pronouncement.

The owl took flight, and Hermione shut the window and retreated to her bed. Shivering, rubbing her hands together to generate heat, she picked up her wand from her bedside table and cast a warming charm over her body. Burrowing beneath the covers further insulated her. When her shivering had ceased, she broke the seal on the parchment Ron had sent her and read it warily, already suspecting its contents would be well-intentioned but unwelcome all the same.

Hermione,

Ron & Lavender

Hermione leaned back against the headboard of her bed, reflecting that at least there were some small mercies in life. Less than a year before, she'd been unable to imagine seeing Ron's and Lavender's names together in any context which wouldn't make her see red. Now it was oddly comforting to think of seeing them together, playful and loving, promising acceptance of her, even if socializing wasn't the most tempting of prospects.

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Lavender put the final picture in place, and Hermione glanced over her shoulder to obtain a better view. The fireplace in their apartment wasn't especially impressive, but the mantel was crafted of beautiful dark wood, and the gold picture frames Lavender had placed along it served to enhance its natural sheen. In the photo, she had her arms wrapped around Ron, and both were smiling and waving as their hair blew in the wind. It had obviously been taken at a Quidditch match, though Hermione was at a loss to determine where. Judging by the glowing expression on Ron's face, his team had won by a landslide.

"Thanks again for helping me out," Lavender said enthusiastically, flashing Hermione a bright smile. Her habitually well-coiffed hair was slightly haphazard in its braids, and her clothes were smeared with dust, but she looked busy and happy.

Hermione nodded. "No problem. It was kind of you to think to include me."

"You may want to wait until Ron serves us dinner before you thank me," she murmured with a grin. Hermione chuckled and nodded in agreement. "Really, though, I thought it would do you some good to get out of the castle. I realize you and I aren't the best of friends, but I kind of figured that after what happened you and Ginny wouldn't be on speaking terms."

Hermione gritted her teeth, staring resolutely at the wall above Lavender's head. "No," she admitted, unable to prevent a certain iciness from entering her tone. "We're not."

"I'm sorry," Lavender said hastily. "I didn't want to bring it up in order to upset you. It's just... Merlin, Hermione, I feel like Ginny and I inadvertently conspired to make this past year as miserable for you as it could possibly be. I wanted to make it up to you."

Hermione allowed herself a moment to regard Lavender, really examine her, with no restraint. It was difficult to get past the image the other girl projected most of the time, and Hermione suspected it would always be hard to tolerate the fashionable, almost snobbish quality she affected in others' company. But she knew that Lavender didn't intend it to hurt her, and so she had to move past it if Lavender's overtures of friendship were going to be allowed to blossom into more than a mere casual acquaintance.

"Well," Hermione said softly, "you did buy me lingerie. I guess I'm squared away with you, anyhow."

Lavender smiled. "I'm sure Ginny would buy you a thousand pieces of clothing if that's what it took. She was over here last night, crying her eyes out. I was surprised, actually: she and I aren't exactly good friends."

Hermione didn't care to speak on Ginny's behalf in a manner that would sound as though she was spreading gossip, so she allowed Lavender to continue. "I know she doesn't like me; I've just been hoping that she'll see how much I love Ron and we can move past it. A lot of her hatred seemed be for your sake, of course, but I figured that if you could forgive me..." Here she halted, her eyes growing wide. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be presumptuous. I suppose you'll never really forgive me, but I thought that if you could move past it..."

"Yes, it's in the past," Hermione agreed neutrally. She reached out to adjust one of the picture frames and then wiped her hands nervously against her skirt to smooth out a nonexistent wrinkle. "But it took me a long time to reach this point, and I anticipate it will be similar with Ginny. I realize she didn't deliberately and maliciously hurt me, but what she did was... inexcusable."

Lavender flopped down into one of the comfortable armchairs and began the arduous process of untangling and redoing the plaits in her hair. "But what I did was also inexcusable. I think you're naturally a much more forgiving person than you give yourself credit for."

Hermione was grateful for Lavender's large, attentive eyes and unthreatening posture. There was nothing overtly judgmental in the methodical way she watched Hermione while combing her fingers through her hair; the eye contact between them was purely casual. Deciding to test the waters and determine just how comfortable a friendship with Lavender could be, she nodded and confessed aloud, "I really do want to forgive her, but she wouldn't have had the knowledge to announce what she did if I hadn't been terribly unprofessional in my dealings with Professor Snape this past year. I should never... Even if I'd broken down and admitted to her that I was...am...attracted to him, I should never have told her everything else, and he inferred from what she said that I'd told Ginny everything."

"Everything?" Lavender asked, surprised. "I mean, you told us a few things when he was making progress, but I didn't think it was unprofessional of you."

"I told Ginny a great deal more. I told her information that... Well, perhaps her mum knew from talking to Madam Pomfrey, but it wasn't my place to reveal it. I betrayed him, far more than she's betrayed me, and on some level I know that in order to forgive her for what she said I would have to forgive myself for getting entangled in this in the first place."

"And you can't," Lavender surmised gently.

Hermione shook her head miserably. Lavender opened her mouth with the intention of replying, but Ron chose that moment to stride briskly into the living room. He had a slight jaunt in his step and a pile of Galleons in his large left palm.

"I'm headed out to get some supper," he announced. "What do you ladies want?"

"You told me you would cook! Go back in the kitchen and whip something up, or there'll be hell to pay," Lavender goaded him.

"You probably wouldn't be willing to eat my cooking anyway," Ron retorted, "and I know Hermione wouldn't. Right, Hermione?"

Grinning, Hermione crossed one leg over the other and said teasingly, "I can't say I'd have that much faith in you, no. I've seen you in your mum's kitchen, and there's not much to inspire faith."

"See?" he cried, gesticulating in Hermione's direction as Lavender continued to admonish him. "No wonder I have such low self-esteem. How can I be expected to perform well under these negative conditions?"

"Oh, shut up," Lavender grumbled, rising to her feet and stretching luxuriously. Her hair, now redone, swung from side to side in the manner of a pendulum as she walked over to him, grabbed the money from his palm, and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him in one fluid, practiced movement. "If you're not going to cook, then make yourself useful and deal with the clothes lying around in the bedroom. Hermione and I will go for a walk and pick up some supper."

"Are you sure?" But Ron was already halfway to the bedroom, obviously eager to be freed of the chore. "I wouldn't have known what to get anyway..."

"I know that all too well," Lavender assured him with a teasing but affectionate smile. "We'll take care of it and be back in an hour or so."

Hermione rose to her feet, pleased to find that she was relieved at the prospect of getting outside. She'd spent countless hours over the last couple of weeks studying and reading, and even she had been bound to hit her limit after a while. An interlude in which to stretch her legs and go outside sounded wonderfully rejuvenating. It was heartening to think that she was beginning to find herself craving exercise when denied it.

The girls donned their warm cloaks and pulled on knit gloves. Hermione's sported her Gryffindor colors, while Lavender's were a rich combination of purple and dark brown which Hermione recalled seeing advertised in Madam Malkin's when she and Ginny had ventured there to look at wedding gowns. It seemed ages ago that Ginny and Harry's engagement had been seemingly mutually desired and on solid ground. But therein lay the unpleasant truth that Hermione's subconscious had suspected all along: it had never been on solid ground in the first place.

After trooping down the stairs, the girls set off at a brisk pace through the streets of Diagon Alley, a light, misty spring rain accompanying them. Lavender chattered excitedly about this and that: her job, the new boutiques she'd seen popping up in the neighborhood, and a dark green dress she desperately wanted Hermione to try on. "I know you're more the academic type," she said to Hermione, insecurity entering her voice, "and that you probably think of me as being terribly vain and superficial, but shopping really can be fun, even for you."

Hermione didn't bother to deny the accusation. There had been and likely would continue to be occurrences when she couldn't help but view Lavender in precisely that light. Still, honestly compelled her to speak up. "I do enjoy it sometimes. It's just that I was a little embarrassed to be looking at lingerie in front of other people."

"I could tell." Lavender grinned wickedly. "Girls like you need lingerie so you'll act as sexy as you deserve to. You really do sell yourself short when you...Oh, look!" she cried, pointing her finger and jumping exuberantly.

Hermione, startled by the sudden shift in conversation, jumped slightly as well. Before them stood a small brick shop specializing in Divination materials. Its current specials, as advertised in its front window, included fully half the book stocks on clearance and a new brand of Hungarian crystal balls previously sold exclusively to registered Seers.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione, but I've got to see these crystal balls," Lavender said, gripping Hermione's hand in her own small, warm one. "But I promise I'll try not to spend too much of our supper money on one."

Hermione privately doubted that a month's worth of supper money would be sufficient to purchase such an exorbitant and foolish artifact, but she put up no verbal protest. Instead, she allowed Lavender to drag her into the shop, which smelled, predictably, of strong tea and incense. The shopkeeper, who was, thankfully, not at all reminiscent of Sibyl Trelawney, greeted them with a friendly little smile as she reshelved books.

Lavender happily traipsed off in the direction of the crystal ball display, leaving Hermione feeling aimless. Estimating that she had at least ten minutes to spare while Lavender drooled over expensive equipment, she fixated on the books, walking at a leisurely pace down the first two aisles of bookshelves. They were crowded with musty tomes, and bins standing in the center of the aisles blocked her path, filled nearly to overflowing with those books the shopkeeper most desperately wanted to be rid of.

Noting that most were Divination titles and not interesting in the slightest, Hermione had just begun to enter a state of ennui when her eyes caught on a title mentioning exotic plants, buried deeply in one of the bins. It peeked out from between the confines of the other books, tempting her but aggravatingly beyond access. Curiosity piqued, she shuffled the books around, cursing when several fell to the floor with resonant thuds. Scrambling to place them back in the bin before the shopkeeper appeared with her smile having transformed into a reproachful, Pince-like glower, she finally managed to extricate the title of interest and flip open the cover.

A minor explosion ensued, dust motes flying in all directions. Stifling a sneeze in the sleeve of her cloak, Hermione had to spend a moment tending to her itchy nose before returning her gaze to the title page. The book did indeed focus on exotic plants, but it wasn't exclusive to Divination. She paged through, instantly appreciating how the plant species were listed alongside their uses in many disciplines. Potions took up a large portion of the book, and so she flipped to that section interestedly. It wasn't until she reached the section on love potions and began glancing idly through the footnotes that she gasped and raised a hand reflexively to her mouth, feeling as though she would suddenly suffer from another coughing fit.

"What are you looking at?" Lavender sidled up to her, her hands empty. Hermione had barely a moment to register surprise that Lavender wasn't going to waste Galleons on a ridiculous crystal ball, for she began to cough again.

"I found..." Her shoulders shook as she dissolved into coughs. "I'm sorry. I'm just... surprised. I read something in a book months ago that I've been wondering about ever since."

"About what?"

"About unicorn blood." Hermione ran an ink-stained fingernail over the yellowed page before her, scratchily underlining the species of flower she'd thought never to discover. "About the virgins in ancient tribes who would collect unicorn blood as gifts for the men who wanted to court them and eventually become their husbands. In return for their gifts, men gave flowers."

"Really?" Lavender raised an eyebrow, a contemplative look on her face. "Seems a poor return for such a valuable gift to me."

"That's just it...it had to be very special flowers, sometimes nonnative and requiring dangerous journeys into other lands to obtain them, in order for the girl to consider them worthwhile. Those that were native species had to possess a certain mystique and were worshiped for their particular symbolism of femininity and blossoming womanhood, and in courtship they represented male desire of femininity. But I couldn't find any mention of the actual flower, and everything I read pointed to magical historians having given up trying to determine the specifics ages ago."

"And you've just found them?" Lavender had begun absently lifting and examining the books in the clearance bin. "The specific details, I mean?"

"Yes." Hermione stared at the book before her. "Apparently they're also ingredients in obscure love potions. Nowadays they're called lady's-slipper orchids, and they look like this." She pointed to the illustration, which, on the faded and crinkled paper, certainly could not have done the flower justice. It looked, in fact, rather nondescript, yet it didn't dull Hermione's thrill at having finally solved the mystery.

"I hope it's much more impressive in real life," Lavender joked. "Still, I suppose it's romantic, symbolizing femininity and all that. It certainly is a fitting name, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded and kept one finger buried in the book, marking the page depicting the lady's-slipper orchid as she reluctantly closed the front cover. She felt an unaccountable disappointment at the thought of being parted from the book. She supposed that some naïve part of her had invested too much thought and fantasizing into the symbolism underlying her procurement of unicorn blood for Snape, though she strongly doubted that he shared in her fascination with the ancient rituals that would, hundreds of years before, have bound them in the suspense and the flirtation of courtship.

"Why are you so fascinated by it, if you don't mind my asking?" Lavender had begun to follow Hermione, who was making her way purposefully to the front desk while rummaging around in her pockets.

"It's just a small fancy of mine," Hermione told her, laying the coins on the table. The shopkeeper nodded and thanked her politely, handing back her change, which Hermione pocketed quickly. Lavender had a small, enigmatic smile on her face as she followed her out of the shop and onto the windy street, but she waited several blocks before speaking up.

"That potion you made for Snape..." She was striving for nonchalance, but her true motive was almost ludicrously obvious. "Wasn't unicorn blood one of the ingredients? Or perhaps Ginny was misinformed..."

"Yes." Blushing, Hermione tucked the book closer to her chest. "It was the reason I started looking into rituals employing unicorns and unicorn blood in the first place." She would not...would not, she told herself vehemently...reveal to Lavender the depth of her absurd, saccharine fascination with the romance of men, women and courtship rituals. "But I think this book will be an excellent academic reference. In fact, the authors cite a lot of very interesting studies..."

"Hermione," Lavender said with a girlish giggle, throwing her head back, "you have a crush! Probably even more than a crush. You're crazy about the man. I get it. I may not understand it, but I'm not going to judge you for it." A mischievous look had entered her eyes, as though she could predict precisely what Hermione was imagining.

Hermione was silent, having been overcome by the thought of Snape's dark eyes and the way his hands could worship and caress her sensitive skin like the delicate petals of a flower.