Chapter 4
There are very few things that Hermione Granger isn’t good at.
Flying is one of them.
It’s hard to fly when you’re always so focused on keeping your feet firmly on the ground.
Casting a Patronus is another one.
It’s hard to find hope when your anxiety gets in the way all the time.
And, despite a summer frantically researching and watching videos on YouTube - which Ron still is utterly baffled by, despite Hermione and Harry’s best efforts to explain - she can’t quite get the knack for doing her own hair.
Her mother helps, and her father, too. They’re dentists - their fingers are skilled and since the day Hermione told them that they had a daughter, and she wanted to grow her hair out, they’d made it their mission to learn how to twist her hair out and crochet it and any and every style she’d always wanted to have.
But her fingers are skilled with a wand and the pages of a book. She still fumbles with her own hair
A few weeks after school starts again, Ginny sits on the edge of her bed and stares at her.
“You’re going to need to take your twists out soon,” she says, calm and casual and making sure Hermione doesn’t think she’s telling her she looks bad. She doesn’t.
But when Hermione mentioned (for half an entire parchment) in one of their weekly summer letters that she was frantically trying to learn what to do with her hair now that it was finally as long as she wanted it to be for the first time in her life... well, Ginny had spent the entire summer doing research, too.
So, she tapped on the floor in front of her, motioning for Hermione to sit between her legs. “We can do it now, if you’d like. I asked Fred and George to send me some jojoba oil and other stuff I figured you might need.”
She dug into a bag she’d hapharzardly shoved into her trunk - which was haphazardly shoved under her bed - and used her wand to arrange everything out, spray bottles included, on the floor in front of her.
Hermione did not cry. She did not cry. She did not cry.
(She cried. She had felt loved, so loved, when she came out last year and Harry had done nothing but hug her and Ron had congratulated her and Hagrid had whisked her up in his arms and told her that Hermione was a beautiful name, and Luna had woven her a crown of flowers. And now, this? She definitely cried.)
But an hour and a half later, she wasn’t the only one.
Ginny had gotten the twists out of Hermione’s hair, learned the marvels of a wide-toothed comb, and done a decent enough job oiling her scalp and roots. But when it came to trying to retwist them - because Hermione wanted to keep the style, but they’d started to come loose - she was utterly failing.
Ginny had done all the research she could, but her, her mother’s, and Bill’s hair were all too thin to properly practice on (she’d tried).
And, just like Hermione, Ginny was pretty used to getting things right on the first try.
That was when McGonagall came to the rescue.
“Professor, how did you -?” Ginny started to ask when McGonagall appeared at the foot of the dormitory stairs, asking Ginny and Hermione to bring their supplies down to the common room.
“The castle walls themselves could feel your frustration, Ms. Weasley, and heavens knows that Ms. Granger doesn’t need the added stress.”
But her smile was obvious.
“You... know how to help Ginny with my hair, Professor?” Hermione asked as she and Ginny levitated their supplies down to the common room, mostly deserted at this hour.
McGonagall, in her nightgown and cap, nodded efficiently and conjured up a pillow for Hermione to sit on on the floor in front of her.
“I can transform myself into a cat and back in the blink of an eye, Ms. Granger. Black hair care may be an art, but I like to think I am a worthy artist.”
Hermione’s eyes sparkled. She knew Professor McGonagall used everyone’s last names, Mr. this and Ms. that and Mx. the other. But she always felt the added weight of eye contact, of beautiful significance, whenever her teacher called her Ms. Granger.
She settled quietly in front of her.
“Come closer, Ms. Weasley, so I can teach you. I can’t swoop down to the tower every time Ms. Granger’s hair needs touching up.”
It still took a couple of hours - “you can speed it up with magic, of course, but you’ll be able to guide the spells best when you can also create the desired style with your own fingers” - but by the time two in the morning rolled around, Hermione’s hair was all twisted out, even tighter than her and her mother had been able to do.
A few twists were loose and a bit bumpy in the back - Ginny was, indeed, still learning - but her effort made Hermione’s heart flutter.
She allowed herself to wonder, only briefly, if Ginny might be into girls.
“Thank you, Professor,” she said softly, touching her curls gingerly in the mirror McGonagall had conjured for her.
“My pleasure, Ms. Granger. Now both of you, go on to bed.” Her eyes locked onto Ginny. “I appreciate your friendship to Ms. Granger, Ms. Weasley, and I’m awarding ten points to Gryffindor for your efforts. However. Those points will be taken away should I find that your Transfiguration essay tomorrow is less than what I know you’re capable of producing.”
“That’s due tomorrow?”
Hermione laughed, and even Professor McGonagall let the ghost of a smile cross her lips.
“Come on, Ginny,” Hermione sighed, her entire body buzzing with contentment, with gender euphoria, not a single cell in her body tired. She settled back into the armchair Professor McGonagall had just vacated, “let’s get your essay done.”
When Harry came downstairs a few hours later, hoping to sneak off to the Quidditch pitch to get some flying in before breakfast, Hermione was fast asleep in Ginny’s lap. Both of them were curled up by the dying fire, parchment all around them.
He smiled and bent gently to adjust Hermione’s head scarf, which had come all askew in sleep.
He wondered, still smiling as he tiptoed past two of his best friends, if they knew they were falling in love.