Disclaimer: I still haven't managed to beg JKR to sell me her copyright so everything HP-related still belongs to her and I'm still only playing in her world for fun.
Author's Note: A sort of disjointed and rambling fic where I halfway attempt to write Hermione's POV during two very interesting H/Hr moments in OotP. Partly inspired by Paracelsus' "Half an Hour" which is brilliant and much better than my take on the scene.
Thanks to Anne for help with the title and for the encouragement about posting it.
What Best Friends Did
She always told herself it didn't matter. She told herself she didn't care. She told herself beauty was only skin-deep and wasn't really important anyway. She told herself all that.
And she meant it too. She really did.
But somehow, scars from those memories remained… No matter how much she insisted to herself that she didn't care… she still remembered those times and part of her, deep down inside her, a part she refused to acknowledge, did still care…
She remembered seeing her cousin Alice for the first time. Beautiful, sweet, little Alice… Remembered standing next to Alice looking into a mirror as they were both dressed up and ready to go to a Christmas party and for the first time in her life being conscious of what she was and what Alice was. She, with her untamable brown hair that would stay bushy no matter how her mum tried to straighten it and the brown eyes, looked so plain and dark beside Alice who was blonde, with the lovely golden hair one usually only associates with fairy tale princesses, and the blue eyes, so bright and so blue no one could help but be captivated by them, the darling straight nose and the perfect skin. And she suddenly realized that she could never remember being called "pretty". She looked at herself standing next to Alice and thought, with all the certainty of her 9 year old mind, that she wasn't at all pretty. She was plain, looked positively ugly standing next to Alice.
But that was fine. She accepted that fact with all the philosophy she could muster. She might not be pretty but she knew her parents loved her and her grandparents praised her and petted her. She didn't mind not being pretty.
She didn't…
Until the day about a year later when she accidentally overheard her Aunt Helen talking. She hadn't meant to hear it, had only been passing by the kitchen on her way outside when she'd heard her name and started paying attention automatically.
Aunt Helen had been talking to one of her neighbors who had come to visit, a Mrs. Linder.
She didn't hear what Mrs. Linder said but could guess at what it had been because her aunt's response was, "Oh, but at least Hermione is very smart! Why, she has read all the books in her school's library and is quite the favorite with her teacher."
"Well, isn't that nice," Mrs. Linder responded but with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
She heard no more. She turned around and ran back into the deserted sitting room, sitting down in one corner of the couch and thinking.
Her aunt had been praising her, she knew that, but she also understood, instinctively, that the praise had been spoken as something to compensate for what she didn't have. At least Hermione is very smart… Implying that she should be smart since she had no beauty and very little talent of any sort.
Her cleverness was all she had.
She wasn't pretty; she wasn't cute or funny; she wasn't popular. She was only the bookworm, the smart one who always knew the answers. And that was all she had.
So she studied all the more, read all the more, thinking, hoping that if she just read and studied enough, people would still like her…
She didn't have to be pretty, she told herself. She was smart and that was more important than being pretty…
And then Viktor happened.
She had never thought of boys in that way, considered it silly of Lavender and Parvati to be constantly giggling over this or that boy.
She didn't care, didn't think of boys in that way; they were just boys. Just like Ron and Harry were just boys and just her best friends. It didn't matter. And if she occasionally had moments of looking at Harry and thinking that he looked cute or that she liked his smile, she dismissed them quickly. Harry was just Harry and her best friend. He didn't see her that way; she rather doubted he thought of her as a girl at all; she was just Hermione to him.
And then Viktor Krum, Quidditch star, approached her when she was studying. She looked up to find him staring down at her, an odd expression on his face. His fan club was, for once, not in the library.
"Hello," she said cautiously. She'd never talked to him before but he was standing next to her chair now so she had no choice.
"Hello, ah, Hermy-own."
She didn't bother to correct him at the time and only smiled somewhat tentatively.
"Vill yu come to the Ball vith me, Hermy-own?" Viktor asked, looking and sounding very uncomfortable.
"What?" she blurted out without thinking about it.
"Vill yu come to the Ball vith me?" Viktor repeated, trying to smile but managing only a twitch of his lips.
Viktor Krum, the Quidditch star, the famous Krum, Karkaroff's favorite, one of Harry's rivals in the Tri-wizard Tournament, was asking her to the Ball. Viktor Krum!
He wanted her, Hermione Granger, bookworm and know-it-all, to come to the Ball with him. Her, not one of his swooning fan girls but her.
And she couldn't help but feel flattered, the part of her that still cared about not being pretty, the part of her that wanted to be thought of as a girl…
"Ok. Yes, I'll go with you," she finally said.
Now Viktor really did smile. It was amazing how a smile changed his expression, she thought. He looked so much more approachable, so much nicer, when he was smiling.
Of course, his smile wasn't as nice as Harry's but then no one's smile was-she cut her thoughts off abruptly. She wasn't going to think of Harry like that.
He was only her best friend after all and he certainly didn't think of her as anything other than one of his best friends.
Krum saw her as a girl-and he liked her as a girl, she realized gradually…
The one moment she remembered most clearly about the Yule Ball, though, had nothing to do with Krum. She remembered Harry's expression when he saw her standing next to Viktor-or that is, his expression when he realized it was her. The way his jaw had dropped open for a moment before he'd shut it hastily on her saying hi to him and to Parvati. Parvati didn't bother to hide her own stunned amazement, mixed in with some jealousy, but she didn't care overly much about Parvati. It was the look on Harry's face she remembered, the expression in his eyes she treasured… She'd always been able to read his expressions before and at that moment she knew he thought she was pretty. For the first time, she saw admiration in his eyes, and seeing it warmed her heart. Even if he never thought she looked pretty again, even if she wasn't naturally pretty and needed to use up an obscene amount of Sleakeasy's to tame her hair to this extent-right then, that night, Harry thought she was pretty… And that was enough…
She didn't need to be pretty every day, didn't need to feel pretty every day; she was Hermione, clever, book-worm Hermione and that was better than being pretty…
~*~*~
She didn't mind that she wasn't pretty; she really didn't…
And if she kept telling herself that, she could forget the small pang of- of- not quite hurt but more a flicker of- something- she couldn't help but feel on seeing how Cho Chang's prettiness affected Harry… the way he stole looks at Cho, the way he got flustered around her and the little things he did around her…
It was only Harry, only her best friend… But part of her couldn't help but wonder if anyone would ever look at her the same way Harry looked at Cho, the sort of bemused admiration, the shy liking that meant so much to her because she knew that Harry had so much else to be thinking about… But he could still stare at Cho like that…
She tried not to care, tried not to frown when she noticed Cho lingering as they left the Room of Requirement, tried not to care that Harry was also deliberately lingering glancing at Cho…
She tried not to think about it.
It was only Harry, her best friend; it didn't matter to her what he was saying or doing with Cho…
It didn't matter…
She repeated that over and over to herself as she went back to finish the letter to Viktor she'd started earlier. Viktor, who'd been the first one to see her as a girl, to like her as a girl… Who'd been the first one to recognize something in her feelings for Harry that weren't quite friendship and had finally told her so…
It didn't matter…
Harry didn't answer Ron's question of why he was late getting back to the Common Room; he looked bemused, numb, and a sudden suspicion of what had happened grew in her mind. She sternly quelled the sudden feeling as if she'd eaten something that disagreed with her, blocking all other thoughts from her mind.
She was Harry's best friend. And that was all she needed to be right now.
"Are you all right, Harry?" she asked.
Again, Harry didn't answer, only gave a little shrug as if to say, he didn't know how he was.
She ignored Ron's obvious curiosity and continued on.
She was Harry's best friend…
"Is it Cho? Did she corner you after the meeting?"
She winced slightly at the coolness of the question but at least it masked all her other feelings, her own confusion.
"So- er- what did she want?" Ron asked in a voice that was so disgustingly not casual she couldn't help but roll her eyes slightly. At least he wasn't sniggering anymore.
"She- She- er-" Harry stammered, clearing his throat a little.
And she took pity on his obvious confusion. She was his best friend; this was what best friends did…
"Did you kiss?" she asked in the same cool voice, ignoring Ron's rather explosive reaction.
She was watching Harry, who finally nodded, once.
He only nodded.
And she wondered if she really was going to be sick. Who would have thought that just seeing Harry nod could do this to her? She could see it all in her mind, Cho, standing close to Harry, Harry bending his head…
No! She wouldn't react like this! She was only Harry's best friend; she had no business feeling like this. No business thinking like this.
She was his best friend.
She glared down at Ron who was acting in typical Ron fashion, rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically.
Ron finally sat up and asked what she couldn't. "Well? How was it?"
"Wet," Harry finally said, a little flatly.
Her quill jerked, leaving a jagged line on the parchment and she clutched it tighter in her hand. She would not think about it…
"Because she was crying," Harry finished flatly.
She let out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding and continued to write although she couldn't have said exactly what she was writing. It was something to do, something else to look at besides Harry…
"Oh. Are you that bad at kissing?" Ron asked, his hilarity finally fading.
"Dunno. Maybe I am," Harry said uncertainly, gloom beginning to creep into his voice.
She reacted instinctively to the hint of despondence she could hear in his voice- as she always did, rushing to alleviate his fear. "Of course you're not," she said automatically.
"How do you know?" Ron asked sharply and his voice broke through her own preoccupation and she realized just what she'd said.
Of course she didn't think Harry would be a bad kisser-but no one should know she'd even thought about it. He was her best friend!
"Because Cho spends half her time crying these days," she said finally, thankful that it was the truth. "She does it at mealtimes, in the loos, all over the place."
"You'd think a bit of kissing would cheer her up," Ron grinned, his amusement apparently restored.
Idiot.
"Ron," she said coolly, "you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet."
"What's that supposed to mean? What sort of person cries while someone's kissing them?" Ron exclaimed, his tone a mixture of indignation and defensiveness.
"Yeah, who does?" Harry interrupted at this point, a hint of desperation in his tone.
Hermione sighed again, putting down her quill.
This, she could do. She could reassure Harry and help him with Cho. It was what best friends did.
It was what best friends did. And she was Harry's best friend. And that was all she would be…
It wouldn't matter to her that Harry didn't think she was pretty like he thought Cho was; it wouldn't matter to her if Harry and Cho really did start dating.
It simply wouldn't matter…
And so she managed to smile and ask brightly after Harry and Cho's first date, "Oh, I forgot to ask you, what happened on your date with Cho? How come you were back so early?"
Harry didn't look at her as he snuck a glance at Cho sitting at the Ravenclaw table and pulled the rhubarb crumble closer to him to help himself to seconds. "Er… well, it was… a complete fiasco, now you mention it," he said, trying to sound casual about it.
But she could hear the confusion in his voice, mingled with some annoyance and incredulity, as he explained what had happened and how Cho had behaved. "I mean, what was all that about? What was going on?"
She glanced over at Cho- wondering if Cho had any idea about who Harry was- and sighed. Poor, dear, clueless Harry.
"Oh, Harry… Well, I'm sorry, but you were a bit tactless."
"Me, tactless?" Harry burst out angrily. "One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was telling me that Roger Davies asked her out and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid teashop-how was I supposed to feel about that?"
She stifled another sigh. Of course Cho should have known Harry better than to think he would do something like go behind her back with another girl- let alone, her, whom Harry saw only as his best friend anyway. But then Cho didn't know Harry… And Harry had been rather tactless in his characteristic fashion.
But she would help Harry understand Cho, to make him feel better. It was what best friends did.
"Well, you see, you shouldn't have told her that you wanted to meet me halfway through your date," she explained, her voice unconsciously assuming her usual rather didactic tone.
"But, but, but-you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her alone, how was I supposed to do that without telling her?" Harry stuttered, looking irritated.
"You should have told her differently. You should have said it was really annoying but I'd made you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks, and you really didn't want to go, you'd much rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and would she please, please come along with you and hopefully you'd be able to get away more quickly," she explained. She was a good friend and this was what best friends did… She thought of Cho again and added, "And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am, too."
"But I don't think you're ugly," Harry said.
She laughed in spite of herself at his bemusement, sternly suppressing the flutter of pleasure at his words. She would not think of him like that! "Harry, you're worse than Ron," she said, trying to make light of it, but then acknowledged with a half-sigh, "well, no, you're not" as Ron stumped into the Hall, mud-splattered and looking supremely dissatisfied with his life in general. "Look-you upset Cho when you said you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous. It was her way of trying to find out how much you liked her."
"Is that what she was doing? Well, wouldn't it have been easier if she'd just asked me whether I liked her better than you?" Harry's tone was one of disgruntlement with the illogic in Cho's thinking.
She quashed the nagging flicker of hurt she felt at his bluntness. She was his best friend; she knew Harry didn't fancy her like he fancied Cho.
"Girls don't often ask questions like that," she answered simply.
"Well, they should! Then I could've just told her I fancy her, and she wouldn't have had to get herself all worked up again about Cedric dying!" Harry insisted, sounding irritated.
"I'm not saying what she did was sensible," she said calmly, ignoring the ridiculous pang of hurt she felt on actually hearing Harry say that he fancied Cho. "I'm just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time." Because she was Harry's best friend and that's what friends did…
She didn't allow herself to think about Harry's words until later when she was back in her room.
Then she remembered, heard again him saying, "But I don't think you're ugly."
Something about his tone, his expression, had warmed her heart. It wasn't so much his words, although it was the first time anyone not related to her had said she wasn't ugly, but more the blank confusion in his voice and his eyes. The look which said, I don't understand why you'd think I thought you were ugly. I don't think you're ugly; you're not ugly…
He didn't think she was ugly because to him she wasn't. And somehow just knowing that, even as she knew he didn't like her as he liked Cho, healed the small scar on her heart she still had from that moment years ago of thinking she was ugly standing next to Alice.
Harry didn't think she was ugly.
And just for now, that was enough…
~*~*~
He was staring at her as if he'd never seen her before, his forehead slightly creased into a frown of confusion. "Why do you say that?" he finally asked.
She managed a shaky smile. "It's okay, Harry. Really, it is. I know I'm not pretty and it doesn't matter. You don't need to say I am just to make me feel better."
He was still frowning. "I wasn't- I mean, I didn't say it just to make you feel better. You're beautiful; how can you not see it?"
Keeping up her smile was beginning to require an immense amount of effort and oh, she wished he could just forget it, wished he could just forget her automatic denial of his compliment. She knew she wasn't pretty and she really didn't care. She knew Harry cared about her, loved her anyway, so for the first time in her life possibly, she could tell herself she didn't care and be completely sincere about it. But he was making it harder to do that… She didn't want to have to explain to him…
His hands came up to cup her cheeks, forcing her gaze to meet his eyes, completely serious and utterly sincere. He spoke softly, forcefully. "You're beautiful. You are. I don't know why you don't see it but you need to know it. It's not about having the most perfect figure or face or anything. It's about you, all of you, the way your eyes shine, the way your lips curve when you smile, the way you carry yourself. It's just you."
She could see herself reflected in his eyes and somehow, she did look pretty, but more importantly, she could hear it in the certainty in his voice which wasn't particularly tender despite his words, was almost more didactic than loving. And she knew he meant every word and allowed herself to believe him.
He kissed her then, kissed her gently and lovingly, his thumbs brushing her cheeks in a caress with as much care as if she were some exquisite and extremely delicate piece of porcelain-and for the first time in her life, at that moment, she felt beautiful.
The End…