Memories of You

“Password, please” Asked the Fat Lady.

“You’re looking beautiful tonight” Hermione acknowledged while admiring the new dress the guardian of the Gryffindor common room had decided to wear. Miniscule Lions walked freely on her shoulders. Her hair had been tied up in a neat bun adorned with sumptuous golden and ruby bows.

“Thank you, a couple of other paintings have agreed to contribute to my look in order to show their support for our house for tomorrow. I never do anything when even the Still Life painting by the Hufflepuff common room has more fruits on match day, can you believe that?

Hermione frowned, concentrating, “I’m seeing 5, 6, 7 lions. I didn’t even know there were that many lion paintings in this castle!” She said jokingly after having pointed out the little creatures that danced all over the painting.

“You forgot the one sleeping on top of her bun” Harry pointed out.

“And the one that just came out of her sleeve. Merlin, you’ve emptied out the whole castle haven't you?” added Ron

“Oh no, silly, the one on the fifth floor by the transfiguration class was much too large. I decided to only take the ones represented on landscapes. Even this one was almost too big.” She said looking down on the Lion sitting on her lap, easily as big as a golden retriever.” With those words, The lady opened the door.

“We didn’t even say the password, she really must be in a good mood.” whispered Ron, seemingly scared that the painting would hear them and command them to exit the room and say the secret words to her.

Hermione and Harry had spent the entire evening reassuring them of his quidditch capabilities, but the energy he still showed at this time of the night proved that they hadn’t done much. Hermione knew him by heart, and if Ron wasn’t dead asleep by eleven, then he wasn’t going to sleep at all. He had even shed a tear, and declared that if they lost against Slytherin, he’d quit the team and offer the spot to McLaggen himself.

“Goodnight boys!” Hermione tried to not sound too excited while she walked towards her room. Her favourite moment of the day had finally arrived.

“Wait Hermione!” Harry tried to call out for her. She pretended not to hear. She had spent the whole day looking at the Sixth year girls, trying to spy on their conversations to see if she recognised the voice she had grown to love so much. She had ruled out the Slytherin girls, as they were all pathetically desperate to befriend Pansy Parkinson, the richest and (objectively) most attractive of them all. But most importantly, now that Hermione had started paying attention to girls, she had noticed just how beautiful they could be. She had always said that she didn’t get along with them, and that boys were easier to understand and befriend. But a little voice in her head told her that perhaps she had just always been a little too nervous to look them in the eyes and feel her stomach flutter.

She grabbed her mirror and slid under her covers. Perhaps her anonymous correspondent was also in her bed, or in the common room. Her voice was low, sometimes a bit raspy. She talked in a slow, calculated manner, nothing like Hermione’s uncontrollable stream of words that seemed to have no beginning and no end.

“I heard you grab the mirror, so I’m going to go for it and ask you right away before we get into the ‘Hey how was your day’ part of our conversation.” The mirror said. Hermione’s heart skipped a beat. What was she going to say? She heard as the mystery girl took a deep breath before saying. “As we both know, tomorrow’s the match. And seeing the fact that you’re not a diehard fan of quidditch, I was wondering if you wanted to meet up then, to make up for yesterday’s failure.”
Hermione could tell from the tone of her voice that the girl was smiling. She hated to crush that.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go support my friends. One of them is really anxious for tomorrow’s match, and he’s a player.”

“Which one is it? The heartless rude one that constantly makes dirty jokes, or the passive one that never takes your side?” Pansy couldn’t help but make fun on them.

“Stop it! It’s not like that…”

“So? Which one is it?”

“... The heartless rude one that constantly makes dirty jokes. Whatever.” Hermione pouted

“Well then don’t go! He’ll be even more upset. Hasn’t he been awful to you for the past couple of weeks? Why should you go support him when he hasn’t been deserving of it?”

Hermione almost gave in, but ultimately brushed the thought away. “No, I really can’t stoop as low as he does. It’s not that I don’t want to see you, because I do, but I have to be there. Plus I do like quidditch, I was just fed up with it and didn’t want to hear about it anymore.” Hermione felt apologetic.

Pansy was disappointed. But on the bright side, the girl had said that she did want to meet up with her. Did she mean it, or had she just said it with no ulterior thought? At this point, any word the girl would say that could insinuate that she could like her as more than a friend was over-thought by Pansy for days on end.

She had even done the unthinkable, and gave her spot away for tomorrow’s match to Theodore Nott. Primary because she hadn’t been able to train properly due to how much of her time was spent fixing the cabinet, but also because she had truly hoped that the girl would accept to meet up with her instead.

“That’s a shame, I had planned to tell you something important tomorrow.” Pansy frowned. Having feelings for someone was not something she was used to, and she hadn’t quite learned yet how to properly handle it.

“Say it now then, silly.” Hermione’s voice had softened.

“Well it’s nothing big. It’s just that over the past few weeks I’ve been… I’ve been” Pansy started. She felt ridiculous. Her heart was about to beat out of her chest, in a similar way as when she had seen Voldemort for the first time. Was she scared? This couldn’t be. She knew that the girl appreciated her, but perhaps not as much as Pansy did. After all, she had never even asked her if she was straight. For all she knew, her feelings had a chance of never being returned. “I’ve been considering attempting again what you suggested to me for the chest.” She finished, changing subjects abruptly.

“Please let me know if it works, I’m curious too!” Hermione asked. She was confused. The girl had started her sentence as if she was about to say that she liked her, but had finished in a completely neutral, meaningless way. Hermione had waited for her to finish her sentence with anxiety. Could it be that she had believed in a true friendship, when the other girl had viewed her as more than that this entire time?

One thing was sure, she still loved Ron, regardless of how hurtful he had been lately. She had liked him for as long as she could remember, and she would not allow whatever feelings she was growing for a simple voice coming from a mirror she had found a month ago to impact that in any way.

“I know this is off topic, but I don’t know that I can meet you. You know how I feel about ‘the heartless rude one’, and to be honest with you, I don’t want to lead you on and make you believe that anything could happen between us. It wouldn’t be fair towards you.” Speaking through the mirror felt like speaking with a mask on. Hermione could sound more sure than she actually was, and the girl would never get to see how much her face said the opposite of her words. She just needed this to stop.

The anxiety she had felt waiting for a love confession from a girl she had never even met was simply not normal. She refused to be that girl, stuck in between two love interests, unable to choose and toying with both their feelings. No. This little game needed to come to an end.

The girl’s answer felt like a bucket of cold water thrown over Pansy’s head. She closed her eyes, trying to fight the tears that had naturally built up in the corner of her eyes. At least her honour was safe. She had said nothing, and could still pretend that the girl had misinterpreted her words.

Whatever. She can think whatever she wants. I’m the stupid one for having fallen in love with a voice.

But her pride took over. “Don’t worry about me” She scoffed. “I understood a long time ago that your type is whiny boys that obsess over every girl they walk by. I wasn’t expecting you to fall into my arms” she boasted.

“You’re really harsh. He’s not obsessed with girls, just a bit too much at times. He’s not a playboy or anything!” Replied Hermione, surprisingly hurt by what she had just heard. At least she hadn’t been completely rejected by the girl with a ‘you and me? Who are you kidding?’ but it still stung.

“Hey! Some of us are trying to sleep! Who are you even talking to anyway?” Lavender whisper-yelled at her from her own bed.

“Sorry! I’m just practising my charms for Monday's class. I’ll be quieter I promise.” Hermione apologised.

“I’ll tell you an even better one, you could practise them in your mind! Sleep well Hermione.” Lavender fell back asleep in a matter of seconds.

Hermione had been scared that her secret had gone uncovered, but apparently, the idea that she’d be talking to herself, practising charms for a class that was due to happen in several days hadn’t shocked Lavender in any way. She laughed.

“Someone just asked me to shut up, and you wanna know the funny bit?”

“Did they find out about the mirror?”

“No, but I said I was practising my classes at this time of the night, and she believed me! She must really think I’m crazy to think that I would do such thing”

“Well, you are a little bit of a know it all,” Pansy teased her.

“So I’ve been told yeah. I don’t know if I should be embarrassed or laugh at how stupid this was. It’s Friday night!”

“Just to be clear for tomorrow, you really don’t want to meet? What about after the match?”

“Well if we win, we’ll be celebrating so I won’t be able to. If we lose, I’ll have to be there for him. But who knows, perhaps we’ll be celebrating together tomorrow without knowing!”

“Or perhaps we’ll be crying together because your stupid boyfriend will have failed us on the pitch! Anyway, I’m going to sleep and I’ll talk to you tomorrow after the match, we’ll see which one of us is right! Goodnight mirror girl.” Pansy put the mirror away in her nightstand.

Her heart hurt. She couldn’t help but imagine that stupid guy, triumphant, horny as ever, and her mirror girl, both carried away by the party. He’d realise what he had been missing out on all these years, would grab her by the waist and kiss her in front of everyone in the room. Pansy could hardly contain her frustration. Still having no idea in which house her friend was, both colours alternated themselves in her anxiety thoughts. Regardless, she still felt the same thing imagining the voice of the one she had fallen far whispering in somebody else’s ear what she wanted to hear desperately.

Pansy knew her voice by heart. She knew all of her accents and intonations, she often thought about the little laugh she let out when she was amused by one of her stupid jokes. A big laugh, confident yet gentle. She dreamed of the mouth that pronounced all those words and desperately wanted to kiss it. Not like those disgusting fourth years that shoved their tongue down each other’s throats. No, she wanted to hold her gently, let her head rest against her shoulder and listen to her talk for hours, while they stared at the frozen highlands together. Pansy drifted into slumber, caught in the embrace of conflicting sensations, the comforting warmth of envisioning the girl's smile and the melodic echo of her voice, while grappling with the disquieting image of her in the arms of another.