Bikinis are Evil
Hermione
Hermione wakes up. At least, she thinks she does. Everything is just as dark as when her eyes were shut. She can’t even make out the silhouette of her hands. The events of last night flood back: the battle with Harley Quinn; the vending machine crushing her and Arya, the anguish on Peter’s face when he realises he can’t lift it, her last glimpse of Leia’s skirt as she slips through the doors.
She shuts and opens her eyes again, in case by some miracle she’s still tucked up in bed in Gryffindor Tower, and all the moody camping and arguing with her friends and tumbling down through all those layers of storyworlds was some strange fever dream, or perhaps a really elaborate prank of Fred and George’s (involving a hell of a lot of Polyjuice, maybe?).
No such luck. Hermione really is stuck in complete darkness. Her ankle still throbs. She reaches for her wand, but her pockets is empty. Maybe it fell out. She fumbles around in the darkness, patting down the cold floor. The back of her neck tingles, as if someone is breathing over her. She waves around her head, but the only terrifying monster lurking there is her hair (seriously, why is there never time on these world-saving quests to have a nice long shower?).
Her fingers strike something warm. ‘Ouch!’ Metal rattles, and Hermione is yanked forward. She feels around in front of her. Leather leggings… a furry cape… soft brown hair… ‘Could you stop touching me, please?’ Arya’s voice cuts through the darkness. Metal clinks against the hard ground. Hermione’s fingers brush a chilled handcuff around Arya’s wrist. She follows a chain, link by link, until it divides into two. One part is fixed to the floor, and the other connects to a second handcuff around her own arm. Hermione groans. Only someone as psychopathic as Harley Quinn would think it fun to chain her to Arya.
Could her situation be any worse? Everyone she loves doesn’t exist. Her own world and countless others are in danger. But Hermione is separated from the rest of the quest, imprisoned without her wand, and, worst of all, chained to Arya Stark.
She moans with frustration and lies back on the floor. Metal links rattle, and Arya is yanked towards her. The chain must be so short that neither of them can move much without pulling against the other. Hermione bats Arya away. ‘I hope you realise that this is all your fault.’
Arya scoffs. ‘How is any of this my fault?’
‘If you hadn’t left got out from behind the bookcase in the first place, Darth Vader would never have found us. Harley Quinn would never have captured us. We could have found portals back to our own worlds and never had anything to do with any of this.’ Hermione pictures Harry circling their tent, shouting her name across the moor. Merlin’s beard, life really must have become terrible if she’s feeling nostalgic for that wretched tent and an overly hormonal Harry.
‘For the last time,’ Arya grits her teeth, ‘I was going to murder them quietly. The noise was made by your magical stick. It’s not my fault, or your fault, it’s both our faults. I already told you all this, but since none of you naïve little summer children seem intelligent enough to listen to it, let me tell you again: seven people will never defeat the Villain in the Dark together. Harley Quinn didn’t hear you, or me, they heard you and me. That monster dinosaur was drawn in by such a large group. If you hadn’t got your ankle broken, we could have found Steven Spielberg and the Library by now. Just one person could have slipped out the pyramid unnoticed, and we wouldn’t have been attacked by all those stormtroopers, and’ – she takes another deep breath – ‘we wouldn’t have got stuck under that bloody vending machine, or kidnapped by that lunatic, and I would be stuck here chained to you.’
Deadpool’s words come back to her – that the heroes will be betrayed, and one of them will die. Could Arya actually be speaking sense (for once)? Would the heroes be their own undoing? ‘No,’ Hermione decides, although she can’t tell if she’s talking more to Arya or to herself. ‘We all need each other, whether we like it or not. Harry wouldn’t have lasted five minutes if Ron and I hadn’t been there to…’
Arya groans. ‘Stop it! Ever since we met, all you ever talk about is your precious Harry and Ron. Her voice softens, although Hermione doesn’t believe for a second that Arya’s anger has softened with it. She pictures a serpent bowing its head before it strikes. ‘Tell me about them.’ Hermione edges backwards, but the chain is pulled taut, and she’s drawn back towards Arya. ‘I mean it. We’ve got nothing else to do, do we? So, tell me about Harry Rotter and Ron Weasel-bee.’ Hermione hears scuffling. Arya is sitting down comfortably. Her legs are leaning against Hermione’s.
Hermione snorts. ‘I know you know their names.’ Arya must be trying to humiliate her somehow. If there’s one thing she learned from years of secondary school, it’s that if someone is acting surprisingly nice, it’ll be because they’re not truly being nice. But then, what else is there to but talk to Arya Stark? Death Eaters would keep their victims locked up for months at a time. Hermione could be stuck here until she rots away into dust. She might as well see what the trap is like. ‘We became best friends when we were eleven,’ Hermione begins.
‘And?’
Hermione thinks back to when the three of them ran amuck through Hogwarts, their shiny school shoes pitter-pattering along ancient stone corridors. When Ron was only five feet tall, and Harry was pretty much the same height he is now, and Hermione’s hair resembled a tumbleweed from a cowboy film, and the worst of their problems seemed to be who would win the next Quidditch match or what they’d get in their Charms test. It all seems so very far away now. ‘Well, they became best friends when they were eleven. They hated me at first,’ Hermione admits.
‘For being an insufferably obnoxious clingy rule-abiding know-it-all?’ Arya guesses.
‘It’s Wingardium LeviOHsa, not LeviosA,’ Hermione protests, ‘why shouldn’t I correct Ron when he’s saying it all wrong? I was only trying to help. And being expelled really did seem worse than being killed. I belonged at Hogwarts.’ Tears prick Hermione’s eyes. She flicks them away, praying that Arya won’t notice. ‘I really, really wanted to belong at Hogwarts.’
‘And?’ Arya’s questions are stabbing her like a sectumsempra curse. Does Arya just not compute what this conversation is doing to her? Does she even know how emotions work?
‘And then I saved their lives a few times, and they let me be their friend. They don’t mind that I’m an insufferably obnoxious clingy rule-abiding know-it-all.’
Arya’s hand brushes against Hermione’s. It tingles. ‘And?’
Hermione is silent. What else is there to say? She could talk about how Harry and Ron became her anchor in the strangeness of the Wizarding World. She could talk about how the three of them helped each other with so many things that they no longer feel complete on their own. How she struggles to picture her life without them because then she’d just be floating through a meaningless void. But she doubts Arya would understand any of that. Arya doesn’t strike her as the kind of girl to go to birthday parties or drink butterbeer with friends. She probably spends her weekends skulking around in shadows and scowling at passers-by.
Arya asks, ‘so is that what you will end up doing?’
Hermione frowns. ‘What do you mean.’
‘We are all characters in stories, yes? Someone has already written out your ending. And you are the clever, brave, loyal, beautiful heroine. Am I right in assuming that after years of following the heroes around everywhere, after years of rejecting their advances, after years of everyone speculating which one of them will win Hermione Heroine Granger, you will fall into the hero’s arms right in time for the grand finale. You will marry him and have lots of babies with silly, unoriginal names, and he will live happily ever after and you will never question if you would have lived more happily ever after doing something else. Will that be your ending, Hermione Granger?’
Hermione would be lying if she said she’d never wondered about this. In first year, her sort-of-friend Parvati asked her which of Harry and Ron was her boyfriend, and the whispers never hushed, right up until Bill and Fleur’s wedding a few months ago, when some drunken Weasley uncle had tottered across the dancefloor to her and asked which of his boys she was getting hitched to once they’d left school.
‘Or, what about Peter?’ Arya says.
Hermione doesn’t understand. ‘What about Peter?’
Arya’s voice is tinged with anger. ‘Well, he is the hero of the quest. The main character, if you will. One of Deadpool’s prophecies was that two of the seven heroes would be making out by the end. By the Many-Faced god, it certainly won’t be me and him.’
Hermione doesn’t know how to reply to Arya without annoying her further. She gets the feeling that anything she says will be interrogated and twisted and thrown back at her. Why is Arya like this? How can she despise two people she’s never met? Then Hermione realises: she has met them. ‘Who was your Ron and Harry?’ Hermione asks.
Arya’s silence tells Hermione everything she needs to know. For a moment, Hermione panics that she’s pushed Arya too far and she’ll never speak to her again and will communicate entirely through grunts and scowls, but then Arya says, ‘his name is Gendry. We escaped King’s Landing together when I was eleven and found the same people were trying to kill us. We were friends,’ she admits, ‘and our fathers were the best of friends. They were probably watching us from beyond the grave, egging us on. When I reached eighteen, Gendry asked me to be his wife.’
‘And?’ Hermione is burning to know the ending. Not that she’d let Arya know.
Arya sounds as if she’s smirking. ‘I hopped on a ship and sailed to the end of the world. Well, I tried to. I thought I saw the silhouette of a city on the horizon, with pointed buildings soaring up to the sky, but when I stepped on the shore I fell through the portal. You already know the rest.’
‘So you rejected his marriage proposal? You actually told him no?’
Arya sighs. Her breath clings to Hermione’s forehead. ‘I did not think I would need to explain myself to you, of all people. Gendry told half of Westeros that I refused him. The court was in uproar. My sister and brother didn’t understand either. Are you sure you this is what you want, my sister said, you seem to be the perfect match. He was so good at killing ice zombies, and you like killing ice zombies too!’ She pauses. The metal chains rattle. ‘I did rather like his castle. That wasn’t the issue.’ Then she giggles. ‘He was only handsome from certain angles, Hermione. He was extremely average at fighting. And he has less personality than a plank of wood. And he was just so’ - she searches for the right word – ‘nice.’
‘Nice,’ Hermione scorns, ‘nice? You dumped him because he was too nice? You, Arya Stark, are not a nice person.’
‘I’m not,’ Arya agrees proudly, ‘and I don’t think you’re a nice person, either.’
Hermione opens her mouth to protest, but then memories flood her mind, of how she paralysed an eleven-year-old Neville so he wouldn’t snitch on her friends. Of how she accidentally made Lavender Brown cry after her rabbit died. The rush of joy she felt as she slapped Draco Malfoy. Even now, years later, she doesn’t feel a shred of remorse for getting Harry’s Firebolt broom confiscated when it might’ve been jinxed. Or for blackmailing Rita Skeeter into writing a flattering article about Harry. Or for using the Confundus charm on Cormac McLaggen after he insulted Ron and Ginny. Or for creating a jinx that scarred SNEAK across Marietta Egcomb’s face. She’d once conjured a flock of birds to attack Ron when she couldn’t muster the patience to have a conversation with him about their feelings. She’d festered in jealousy for almost a whole school year when Harry had used the Half-Blood Prince’s book to outshine her at Potions, and she hadn’t been able to conceal her delight when Harry nearly killed Malfoy and got rid of it. And even though she spent years lying awake at night dreading the day when she’d have to hurt people in battles, when that moment finally came and a Death Eater was aiming his wand at her, Hermione didn’t panic or feel guilty. She enjoyed winning.
No feeling, no sugary happiness, or satisfaction at helping someone, or even the rush of fancying someone could ever compare with the pure deliciousness of I told you I was good at this. And now you know I’m right.
‘I’m not a nice person,’ Hermione decides, ‘you know, this one time when I was thirteen, I…’
Arya sighs with exasperation. ‘No, that’s not what I meant. I was asking if…’ Hermione holds her breath, but then Arya’s voice trails off. She’s changed her mind. Because instead of asking whatever it is she’s scared to ask, she declares, ‘Harry and Ron sound like arseholes.’
And something in Hermione bursts. She’s sick of this. She’s sick of thinking that maybe Arya isn’t so awful, and then she does something like that and yanks her back down to earth and reminds her that no, the only think Hermione will ever do with her is loathe her. She’s sick of Harry nearly killing Voldemort, then being told they’ve actually got to kill him seven times. She’s sick of coming close to finding Horcruxes, then discovering it’s all made-up and pre-determined anyway. She’s sick of crawling up mountains and tumbling back down them before she glimpses the summit.
She’s sick of that husky tone of Arya’s voice, the woodsmoke scent of her hair, the weight of her legs on hers. She’s sick sick sick sick sick.
‘Get away from me,’ Hermione hisses. Arya doesn’t move, so Hermione screeches, ‘get away,’ and kicks her shin. ‘Don’t try and delve through my mind. Don’t even speak to me, Arya Stark. Even if we’re stuck here until the earth explodes or we rot away into dust, don’t utter another word. You’re so desperate to find out why I love Harry and Ron, so let me spell it out for you: they would never ask me things like this. Unlike you. I hate that you think you can get some kind of epiphany from me if you poke me in the right places. I hate that you talk to me like I’m stupid. I hate that you don’t care how I feel, or how anyone feels, or about anything at all. And I hate that you don’t even try to understand why I do care about those things.’ Hermione doesn’t remember when she started crying, but her face is hot with tears. ‘I hate you.’
‘I know,’ Arya replies.
That’s it. That’s all she has to say to I hate you.
Hermione can’t push down her anger anymore. She kicks her leg again. Arya cries out, and Hermione smiles that she managed to hurt her. But then her face explodes with pain. Numbness is spreading across her face. Her nose streaming. Arya has hit her, and Arya is clearly very experienced at hitting people. Hermione lashes out, hoping to scratch her face or something. Arya slides out the way, and grunts like a tennis player. Hermione braces herself, expecting to be punched again. Something scuffles. Hermione feels nothing. Why didn’t Arya hit her again? It sounds as if she hit someone.
Hyena-like laughter echoes around the room. A pink light flickers, illuminating the walls in strobe flashes. Hermione blinks. The sudden brightness is making her eyes water. She glimpses stone walls crudely spray-painted with all kinds of wholesome things, like rainbows and grenades and unicorns and heavy weaponry. The floor is cluttered with plastic boxes, each one stuffed with clothes. The light switches on properly, and the whole room is washes with pink. Harley Quinn is leaning over them, her golden ‘J’ collar just inches above Hermione’s shoulder. She rubs a red mark on her cheek. ‘that was sooooo painful. Yummy.’
Hermione remembers how the back of her neck tingled earlier, like someone was breathing over her. ‘Have you been there the whole time?’
‘Of course,’ Harley giggles, ‘I wanted front row seats for the show, didn’t I? Ooh, I knew it would be fun to chain you two together. So much baggage! So much beef! Like a maccies in an airport!’
Arya is rubbing her leg. Her eyes stay fixed on Hermione in a remind-me-to-kill-you-later kind of death stare.
Harley sighs, blowing into Hermione’s face. Her breath is sour from vodka. ‘You’ve been soooo disappointing. Bad, bad girls. You weren’t bad enough. Mummy and Daddy will have to punish you, for sure. When we find the Library, I’ll think of something real inventive. I will write it and it will be thus. You can be enemy warriors destined to kill each other. Or morally opposed college roommates. Or spies, on a mission to Europe, where you gotta pretend to be married and there’s only one…’.
Harley’s white fingers are curled around Hermione’s wand. She lunges towards it, but Harley lifts it out of reach. ‘Naughty, naughty! You want it back? Well I guess it’s pretty multifunctional. She rolls it around her palm, studying how the strands of vinewood entwine the handle. She shakes it vigorously, but nothing happens. ‘You know, I was hoping that now wizards have shown up in all these other storyworlds and brought all your jibberish-shouting wand-waving sparky-sparkle stuff with you, and basically added a new set of magic rules to whatever world you’re in, then people in that world might follow those rules and be able to do magic too now. Kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? Well, maybe not to you suckers. You haven’t studied the Library like we have.’ She reaches behind her and picks up Arya’s leather bag. Arya flinches. Harley prises open the clasp, peers inside, and shreiks. ‘Ew! That’s how you do the shapeshifting. Frickin faces? I thought you just had, like, hallucinogenic lipstick or something!’ She flings it away. Hermione notices Arya inch towards it. The chain snakes across the floor behind her.
Harley is crawling towards the clothes (as you do). She rips the lid off a box and tears through it, tossing outfit after outfit aside – a black leather suit with bat ears, a ripped nurse’s uniform with a green wig, a headdress with curved gold horns. A snail-trail of glitter and feathers forms on the floor. One costume lands on top of Hermione’s feet. Her heartbeat falters. It’s a Hogwarts uniform, with a hooded robe and a Gryffindor scarf and everything. ‘How did you get this?’ she demands.
‘Oh, don’t worry, darling’ – Harley chucks a plastic hammer at the wall – ‘my boss didn’t think it was worth mounting a full-frontal attack on Hogwarts to get clothes, sadly. This bling ain’t genuine. I just sent some stormtroopers to ComicCon. The lil nerds all went mad! Took photos with them and everything. Thought they just had really good costumes. Until the stormtroopers whipped out blasters and were like your outfits or your lives! Then they r-e-a-l-l-y went mad. I’ve got all my best outfits, like, ten times over. Anyways, you’d better start getting dolled up for the party. Gotta prime those pores, ladies.’
‘Party?’ Arya echoes, as if it were a word from an alien language.
‘Yes! Party!’ Harley giggles with excitement. ‘That was the deal I made with Darth Vader, remember? I capture the two of you for him, and I get to host a party to murder you at, remember? Oh, it’s going to be a real blast. Fizzy drinks, pin the dagger in the hero, different crisps, burning different people to a crisp, go kart races, karaoke, live executions… anyways, you two are my VIP guests.’
Hermione stutters, ‘VIP guests?’ She tries to catch Arya’s eye, in the hope that she’s just as confused, but Arya deliberately avoids her gaze.
Harley shrugs. ‘VIP guests, prisoners… tom-ay-to, tom-ar-to… whatever. Anyways, you two better be on your best behaviour during your executions.’ She squeals, and claps her hands together. ‘If it’s fun enough, then Mr J might drop by!’ She pauses, no doubt waiting for Hermione and Arya to react. Neither of them have anything to say. ‘You know, the Joker? The Man who Laughs? Crime Lord of Gotham? Founder of the Injustice League? The Clown Prince of Crime? The Harlequin of Hate? After a year of rejecting my unrequited love, he finally threw me into a vat of acid to bleach my skin and hair like his, and confessed his feelings?’ Harley sighs, ‘ah, he is so romantic.’
Romantic isn’t exactly the adjective that Hermione has in mind. Psychopathic serial killer, maybe? In dire need of therapy and imprisonment, perhaps? The steaming vat of chemicals sounds like the least toxic aspect of their relationship.
‘Let me make sense of this,’ Arya says, ‘you’re going to all this effort, with all the fizzy drinks, and the murdering…’
‘And the karaoke,’ Harley adds, ‘don’t forget the karaoke.’
‘…and the karaoke, so that the Joker might drop by? You’re going to all this trouble, because of might?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Harley giggles, ‘so romantic.’ She digs out another of those ratty green wigs, and hugs it like a teddy bear.
And Hermione understands Harley Quinn. Her desperation to be there when the Villain in the Dark finds the Library. Her golden ‘J’ choker necklace. Her general psychotic murder-them-with-glitter insanity. ‘That’s what you meant, when you told Darth Vader you needed to use the Library to change something. You want to rewrite whatever stories you’re both in, so that he loves you as much as you love him,’ Hermione guesses. Harley’s smile slips away. And for a moment, just a moment, Hermione no longer fears Harley Quinn. She even feels sorry for her. She glances at Arya, whose face is warped with disgust.
Then Harley’s face distorts back into that clown-like grin. She grovels through the mountain of clothes. ‘Anyways, Mr J said he’d only consider coming if you both wore these. They were made for your new friend Leia, but you can probably squeeze in them instead.’ She produces two metal bikinis, wrought with gold spirals. Red silk trains ripple from the bottoms down to the floor.
Any sympathy Hermione felt dissolves. ‘You’re not seriously going to make us wear that?’ The metal would hurt. And there’s not much coverage around the-’
Harley looks almost guilty. Sorry, even. ‘Puddin’ ordered it. Says he’ll love it. I’d wear it for him any day.’ She throws the costumes at Hermione and Arya. Neither of them try to catch the outfits, and the metal clatters onto the floor.