Dealbreaker

“The third nipple wasn’t a dealbreaker, but it wasn’t the perk he seemed to think it was,” said Daphne.

“Was it?” asked Pansy. “Perky?”

“No, it was flat. And small. In fact, it may have been a mole.”

“Would you go out with him again?”

“If I was desperate…”

Hermione had been invited to another girl’s night, although so far they had spent most of the evening talking about boys. Daphne had been on an unfortunate blind date with a boy called Patrick who had been less than truthful about his height.

Millicent was taking up the sofa while Daphne lay on the beanbag, applying a green face mask that promised to leave her skin glowing. So far it looked as if she had had an odd accident with an avocado. Hermione and Pansy were on the rug, each trying to avoid brushing the other’s hand when they reached for the snacks.

“What about you, Granger?” said Millicent. “Have you been on any dates recently?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “No, no. No, no, no.”

“Is that a no, then?” said Daphne.

“Leave her alone,” said Pansy. She was trying to paint her toenails black, but the foam toe separators made her feet itch. Millicent ignored her.

“Hey, what do you think of Ed Cummings? You know, the guy at the bank who converts your Galleons into Muggle money.”

Hermione’s expression turned very controlled suddenly.

“Is he a friend of yours?” she asked carefully.

“Nope.”

“Oh, well, in that case, I don’t mind telling you I find him to be an insufferable, rancid slimeball. He leers at me every time I come into Gringotts.”

“Pansy called him a twat the other day. ‘Cause he tried to pinch her bum.”

“Millie!”

Hermione beamed.

“It’s about time somebody put him in his place! What did he say to that?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Pansy admitted. “I’d hexed his lips to his arse.”

They all laughed.

“You’re not still going out with Draco Malfoy, are you?” asked Hermione.

Daphne and Millicent shared a look and fell about, hooting.

“We… we didn’t really go out,” Pansy answered over the din, shifting uncomfortably.

“Really? Didn’t he use to put his head in your lap?”

“I remember that,” Millicent said gleefully. “That was embarrassing.”

“Not as embarrassing as what you did to Greg in Greenhouse Three!” Pansy shot back.

Millicent sat up sharply, fists clenched.

“We don’t. Talk. About Greenhouse Three,” she gritted out.

“I need more wine,” muttered Daphne, rolling her eyes and heading to the kitchen. She returned with a bottle of red and didn’t share it. Pansy turned back to Hermione and tried to explain.

“I only went out with him because I didn’t want everyone to think I didn’t want to go out with him.”

“Oh. So you… did go out with him? But you didn’t want to?”

“I—”

“She’s trying to say she’s a muffdiver,” Millicent interrupted rudely.

Hermione’s eyes went wide. She glanced at Pansy worriedly.

“What?”

Pansy shook. She couldn’t speak; she felt too vulnerable, too embarrassed. She tipped the entire bowl of popcorn over Millicent’s head and stormed off.

Hermione found her a few minutes later, sitting on the floor with her back against the oven, eating garlic bread and trying not to cry.

“Are you alright?” she asked, crouching down beside her. “I told her not to call you names.”

“Hrm,’ said Pansy. The paint on her toenails had smudged and now her breath stank. And Millie had told, even though Pansy had begged her years ago to agree that it wasn’t her business to go around telling people.

They sat together in silence, until eventually Hermione broke it.

“Um, what exactly is a muffdiver?”

She doesn’t even know! Pansy thought hysterically. She could lie, she could save herself. But it would be cowardly, and Hermione would find out eventually.

“A lesbian.”

“Oh,” said Hermione, looking uncomfortable. “Was she joking?”

“No,” Pansy said awkwardly.

Hermione’s face contorted as if she was trying to work out a complicated arithmancy problem.

“You think it’s weird,” Pansy concluded.

“Yes… I mean, no! It’s not weird. It’s a weird coincidence. Because, um… I’m that. I’m a— a lesbian,” she said. 

It was true, and it had always been true, but that didn’t make it any easier to say it out loud. She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked at Pansy shyly, trying not to bite her lip.

Pansy couldn’t believe it. Millie really did have gaydar.

“It’s why me and Ron didn’t go through with the wedding,” Hermione went on. “Part of the reason, anyway. But I haven’t told people, I don’t— well. Maybe you understand. People say there’s nothing wrong with it, but then they can’t help acting like there is. So you and Draco really weren’t a thing, back in school?”

Pansy cringed. “He thought we were, until he tried to kiss me. I backed away so quickly I cut my head open on a bookcase.”

Hermione nodded sympathetically. “Viktor Krum asked to kiss me once. I pretended not to understand his accent. I still feel bad about it.”

Pansy laughed, an enormous weight lifted off her chest.

“Don’t tell Daphne, she’ll murder you in a fit of jealousy. Circe, are you really like me? I was beginning to think I was the only lesbian on earth!”

“I thought I needed permission,” Hermione said, as if she might be talking to herself more than to Pansy. “Like, to be a lesbian I needed to have been visited by the spirit of Sappho and knighted, or something.”

“Given an ID card?”

“Something like that! But I’m attracted to women,” she said firmly. “And not to men. And that’s all there is to it.”

Pansy offered her a piece of garlic bread.

“Welcome to the muffdiving club, Granger.”

*

“I told you so,” said Millie later that night, perched on the end of Pansy’s bed, still picking bits of popcorn out of her clothes.

“Your medal is in the post,” Pansy said drily.

“Don’t be off with me, I did you a favour. Now you can do whatever it is lesbians do with each other. Hold hands and make daisy chains, or whatever. Talk about cats.”

“I don’t want to talk about cats, I want to eat. Her. OUT!” Pansy wailed, thumping her pillow emphatically.

She wanted to go down on Hermione for so long she needed Gillyweed. She wanted to see her flushed and gasping, wild hair strewn across the pillows, crying out as Pansy made her come.

“Do that, then. You’ve already perved on her in the fitting room, haven’t you?”

Her heart sank. It was a constant source of worry that although her friends accepted her, they didn’t seem to truly understand.

“Millie, you’re mixing lesbians up with men again. I wasn’t ogling her, I was trying to find her the right dress.”

“Sounds like you want to get her out of her dress.”

“Do you know where I would like you to fuck, right now? Off, that’s where.”

“Fine, fine. But don’t say I never do anything for you.”

Pansy kicked her legs until she left. Millicent had been working on her thighs recently, so Pansy ended up hurting her foot more than anything.