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Well, God, here we go. When I talked myself into starting this journal, I didn't see what the harm was. "So you're watching a fandom again," I thought, "so what? No harm in lurking."
And here I am, having written my first fanfic in, christ, six years? Seven? I'm not proud of this relapse, because I reckon it's just the first drop of a deluge. But I guess I'm slightly more eligible than some to write for these characters as I actually wore a uniform to school for, um, far too many years. Really, that means I'm obligated. ...yes.
Anyway, here we go. Let's see if I can remember how to do this.
Title: Tights.
Pairings: Oblivious R/Hr, H/G (I didn't plan on the latter, but there you go).
Rating: PG, for fluff rated Pretty Goony.
Summary: It's morning in Hogwarts, and an exam is looming. But Ron, Harry, and Ginny have far more interesting things to discuss than Potions---to Hermione's chagrin.
Technicalities: Just a touch over 1600 words, filled with people belonging to J.K. Rowling.
Somewhere in the regulations of Hogwarts, one could find that one rule had gone unbroken for decades: The closer the exam, the quieter the breakfast. Honestly, Hermione preferred the morning quiet. By no means did she enjoy the funereal gloom, the hangdog looks... But cocoa, toast, and silent study were the perfect start to a day by any account.
A good amount of pleasure had been wrenched from the experience since the exam in question was a particularly heinous Potions midterm. But one did what one could.
She glanced across the table to her friends. Harry seemed to have given up on studying long ago, and instead was caught toying with his oatmeal, one hand poking at it fitfully with a spoon, the other cradling his head. And as for Ron---
Ron was staring at her curiously.
She felt a flush begin to sneak up her neck, and did her best to will it away. "Ron? Can I help you?"
He looked at her thoughtfully. "So, is it a SPEW protest thingummy?"
Hermione sighed. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Your tights." He nodded to the table, to her legs tucked neatly underneath.
She couldn't help but boggle at him for a moment. "And I still have no idea what you're talking about."
Ron brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Tights. You've been wearing tights for weeks now. Normally, you wear those, you know, those socky things."
A fight hadn't even started yet, and she found herself getting angry at him. He didn't have to be so deliberately mysterious, did he? "I wasn't aware that you paid such close attention to my footwear."
The tips of his ears turn pink. "I don't! I'm not--- I mean---" He swallowed nervously, and in the corner of her vision, Hermione saw a grin settle onto Harry's face. "It's just, you know---" Ron's eyebrows suddenly gave a quirk, and his whole face seemed to relax. "Uniforms and all. There's only so much chance for... individuality, right? I mean, you can't do much to dress different other than socks or stockings. It sort of jumps out at a bloke." He settled back into his seat. "Normally, 'Mione, you wear those blue, stripey wool socks, but lately you've been wearing these tights---"
"So, Ron," interrupted Harry, his grin razor sharp, "you just sort of generally notice how girls dress unique from each other?"
"Of course. It's kind of hard to miss. Like Luna and her thingies." Ron gave a vague wave and took a confident pull of his juice. "Can't miss it."
"What's Ginny wearing?"
Ron's glass froze in its arc back to the table. "What?"
Harry made eye contact at Hermione and winked. She rolled her eyes in response, gave up on the conversation, and went back to her book. "If you're paying so much attention to all the girls' accessories all the time---what's Ginny wearing this morning?"
Ron began to blink a little too rapidly. "I haven't, uh. I haven't seen her this morning, so I don't---"
"So what do I usually wear, then?" Ginny appeared at his shoulder, leaning over him cheerily. "Hermione wears blue socks, yeah, with stripes? What's my unique fashion touch?"
The blush had spread to his cheeks now, his freckles fading into the greater sea of red. "That's besides the point. The point is that Hermione has been wearing stockings for yonks now, when normally it's socks, and it's gotta be a SPEW protest, right? She's not wearing socks until they all can wear socks, right?"
"House elves can't wear tights?" Harry pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"Oh, thanks, Harry." Ginny groaned around her morning donut. "I really did not need to imagine Dobby in tights while I'm eating."
"Honestly!" Hermione could only take so much of this. "There's an exam today! Potions, remember? Don't you think this time would be better spent studying? At the very least, you could be having a good breakfast. Or shall I explain to Snape that we're not totally prepared because we spent breakfast discussing---discussing hypothetical elf hose?"
At the professor's name, both Harry and Ron returned to their pre-exam solemnity.
But Ginny simply narrowed her eyes at her friend. "That's not why she's been wearing tights, Ron. Not on account of elves."
"Ginny." Hermione let a note of warning in her voice.
"She's been wearing tights---"
"Ginny!" The warning was gone, leaving desperation in its stead.
"---because she's woolly enough without any socks."
Harry and Ron stared at each other blankly until realization crept in. Slowly, Harry turned his face to hers, but Ron merely erupted into riotous laughter.
"Honestly," she huffed angrily, "if I choose not to shave my legs, it's my business."
Harry's oatmeal was long forgotten at this point. He pushed it aside as he subtly scooted forward, as if a great hairy leg were about to peek out from under her side of the table. "It just seems so unlike you."
Ron was gone, far gone, the initial clap of laughter now turning into mute, body-wracking heaves of mirth. Hermione's whole face felt like it had been dunked into scalding water.
"For your information, it's part of... of a motivational system."
"Wait until you hear this," said Ginny to Harry around her brother's shaking form. "It's absolutely bonkers."
"It is not bonkers. It's something my mother did when she was in college." Hermione felt herself calming at the memory of her mother's face as she shared her secret stratagem with her daughter. "Whenever an exam she was nervous about was announced for a month or so down the line, she would stop shaving her legs---"
Harry turned to Ron in shock, but his friend was only just winding down his hysterics. Instead he leaned forward and addressed Ginny. "Did Hermione just admit she was nervous about an exam?"
"Gasp," said Ginny, eyebrows raised in mock horror.
But Hermione was too lost in her own thoughts to pay them any heed now. "She would wait, and wait, and then, the day of the test, when all the anxiety and doubt of the day piled up on her until she couldn't bear it any longer---she would go take the hottest bath possible and, at last, shave her legs.
"And after all that time, the sensation was so---so very real. It's like you've shed a layer of skin, and the fresh one is so keenly aware. Suddenly every bit of breeze, every slightest touch... It's like you're feeling for the first time. The shaving itself seems to take ages---you have to do it the Muggle way, with lather and a razor, or it doesn't count; the ritual's important somehow---but it's so worth it, for that newness." Her voice grew soft as she anticipated the moment. "The fabric of your clothes, of the sheets in your bed---just your fingertips rubbing your shin---it feels so absolutely, profoundly lovely. As if you've never felt a touch before. And all throughout the feared exam, you have that newness there to comfort you, to keep you cool and content, come what may."
As Hermione broke out of her own thoughts, she realized she had a rapt audience before her. Harry looked puzzled; Ginny, amused; and Ron...
Ron had his eyes fixed on something just above her head to the right, and seemed to be trembling slightly.
Harry and Ginny turned to one another, saw Ron, and burst into laughter.
Hermione felt all tranquility drain from her in an instant. If they were set to make fun of her ritual, fine. But she would not sit here and listen to them laugh, or watch as Ron seemed to nearly break from the struggle of holding the laughter in.
"Fine!" she snapped, clutching her book to her chest. She could not bring herself to look at Ron. "Laugh all you want. I'm going to take a bath, and then this exam---and I shall have a far more pleasant time of it than either of you." She stood, coming into Ron's eye line. He twitched as she did, and she answered a withering stare. "I hope that I answered your question to your satisfaction, Ronald."
And off she stormed.
Harry knew that she was hurt, but he could not bring himself to chase after her. He couldn't even get himself to stop laughing. Ron was just too pathetic. All the color had drained from his face, save vibrant deposits aglow at the tips of his ear and nose. He trembled so that Ron was fairly vibrating, like a hummingbird in flight. And the toast that he had picked up as Hermione began her explanation had been crushed to dust in his grip.
Ginny wiped a tear from her eye, and then patted her brother's arm. "Really, Ron, you shouldn't ask questions you're not ready for the answer to."
Ron's lips moved faintly.
"What was that, Ron?" Harry leaned forward. "I can't hear you over the sound of Hermione shaving."
Ginny leaned close to her brother's other ear. "Her legs getting oh so smooth with every passing---"
Ron shot out of his chair with a "Bloody HELL" and was gone.
Harry and Ginny laughed and laughed, tears slipping down faces that hurt from smiling.
When at last they finished, they collapsed over the table, exhausted.
"All right, Mr. Potter," said Ginny, rising from the table at last with a muffled giggle. "I believe you have an exam to fail. I'll talk to you later."
Harry watched her walk away, his cheek resting on the sticky surface of the breakfast table.
"House socks."
Ginny stopped, turning to glance at him over her shoulder. "What was that?"
"You like to wear Gryffindor house socks, with little lions along the top." He smiled at her gently. "You must have a million pairs, because you wear them near every day."
She held his gaze for a moment, and he couldn't help but notice that blushing was far more becoming on her than on her brother. "My gran made them for me." And she was gone.
He lay there for a good while, enjoying the rumble of distant, significantly less noisy conversations up and down the dining hall. At last Harry sighed, his breath sending up a little puff of powdered sugar. Gingerly, mindful of the laughter's dull ache in his belly and Ginny's warm pressure in his chest, he lifted himself from his breakfast and set off to class, determined to fail spectacularly.
And here I am, having written my first fanfic in, christ, six years? Seven? I'm not proud of this relapse, because I reckon it's just the first drop of a deluge. But I guess I'm slightly more eligible than some to write for these characters as I actually wore a uniform to school for, um, far too many years. Really, that means I'm obligated. ...yes.
Anyway, here we go. Let's see if I can remember how to do this.
Title: Tights.
Pairings: Oblivious R/Hr, H/G (I didn't plan on the latter, but there you go).
Rating: PG, for fluff rated Pretty Goony.
Summary: It's morning in Hogwarts, and an exam is looming. But Ron, Harry, and Ginny have far more interesting things to discuss than Potions---to Hermione's chagrin.
Technicalities: Just a touch over 1600 words, filled with people belonging to J.K. Rowling.
Somewhere in the regulations of Hogwarts, one could find that one rule had gone unbroken for decades: The closer the exam, the quieter the breakfast. Honestly, Hermione preferred the morning quiet. By no means did she enjoy the funereal gloom, the hangdog looks... But cocoa, toast, and silent study were the perfect start to a day by any account.
A good amount of pleasure had been wrenched from the experience since the exam in question was a particularly heinous Potions midterm. But one did what one could.
She glanced across the table to her friends. Harry seemed to have given up on studying long ago, and instead was caught toying with his oatmeal, one hand poking at it fitfully with a spoon, the other cradling his head. And as for Ron---
Ron was staring at her curiously.
She felt a flush begin to sneak up her neck, and did her best to will it away. "Ron? Can I help you?"
He looked at her thoughtfully. "So, is it a SPEW protest thingummy?"
Hermione sighed. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Your tights." He nodded to the table, to her legs tucked neatly underneath.
She couldn't help but boggle at him for a moment. "And I still have no idea what you're talking about."
Ron brushed his bangs out of his eyes. "Tights. You've been wearing tights for weeks now. Normally, you wear those, you know, those socky things."
A fight hadn't even started yet, and she found herself getting angry at him. He didn't have to be so deliberately mysterious, did he? "I wasn't aware that you paid such close attention to my footwear."
The tips of his ears turn pink. "I don't! I'm not--- I mean---" He swallowed nervously, and in the corner of her vision, Hermione saw a grin settle onto Harry's face. "It's just, you know---" Ron's eyebrows suddenly gave a quirk, and his whole face seemed to relax. "Uniforms and all. There's only so much chance for... individuality, right? I mean, you can't do much to dress different other than socks or stockings. It sort of jumps out at a bloke." He settled back into his seat. "Normally, 'Mione, you wear those blue, stripey wool socks, but lately you've been wearing these tights---"
"So, Ron," interrupted Harry, his grin razor sharp, "you just sort of generally notice how girls dress unique from each other?"
"Of course. It's kind of hard to miss. Like Luna and her thingies." Ron gave a vague wave and took a confident pull of his juice. "Can't miss it."
"What's Ginny wearing?"
Ron's glass froze in its arc back to the table. "What?"
Harry made eye contact at Hermione and winked. She rolled her eyes in response, gave up on the conversation, and went back to her book. "If you're paying so much attention to all the girls' accessories all the time---what's Ginny wearing this morning?"
Ron began to blink a little too rapidly. "I haven't, uh. I haven't seen her this morning, so I don't---"
"So what do I usually wear, then?" Ginny appeared at his shoulder, leaning over him cheerily. "Hermione wears blue socks, yeah, with stripes? What's my unique fashion touch?"
The blush had spread to his cheeks now, his freckles fading into the greater sea of red. "That's besides the point. The point is that Hermione has been wearing stockings for yonks now, when normally it's socks, and it's gotta be a SPEW protest, right? She's not wearing socks until they all can wear socks, right?"
"House elves can't wear tights?" Harry pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"Oh, thanks, Harry." Ginny groaned around her morning donut. "I really did not need to imagine Dobby in tights while I'm eating."
"Honestly!" Hermione could only take so much of this. "There's an exam today! Potions, remember? Don't you think this time would be better spent studying? At the very least, you could be having a good breakfast. Or shall I explain to Snape that we're not totally prepared because we spent breakfast discussing---discussing hypothetical elf hose?"
At the professor's name, both Harry and Ron returned to their pre-exam solemnity.
But Ginny simply narrowed her eyes at her friend. "That's not why she's been wearing tights, Ron. Not on account of elves."
"Ginny." Hermione let a note of warning in her voice.
"She's been wearing tights---"
"Ginny!" The warning was gone, leaving desperation in its stead.
"---because she's woolly enough without any socks."
Harry and Ron stared at each other blankly until realization crept in. Slowly, Harry turned his face to hers, but Ron merely erupted into riotous laughter.
"Honestly," she huffed angrily, "if I choose not to shave my legs, it's my business."
Harry's oatmeal was long forgotten at this point. He pushed it aside as he subtly scooted forward, as if a great hairy leg were about to peek out from under her side of the table. "It just seems so unlike you."
Ron was gone, far gone, the initial clap of laughter now turning into mute, body-wracking heaves of mirth. Hermione's whole face felt like it had been dunked into scalding water.
"For your information, it's part of... of a motivational system."
"Wait until you hear this," said Ginny to Harry around her brother's shaking form. "It's absolutely bonkers."
"It is not bonkers. It's something my mother did when she was in college." Hermione felt herself calming at the memory of her mother's face as she shared her secret stratagem with her daughter. "Whenever an exam she was nervous about was announced for a month or so down the line, she would stop shaving her legs---"
Harry turned to Ron in shock, but his friend was only just winding down his hysterics. Instead he leaned forward and addressed Ginny. "Did Hermione just admit she was nervous about an exam?"
"Gasp," said Ginny, eyebrows raised in mock horror.
But Hermione was too lost in her own thoughts to pay them any heed now. "She would wait, and wait, and then, the day of the test, when all the anxiety and doubt of the day piled up on her until she couldn't bear it any longer---she would go take the hottest bath possible and, at last, shave her legs.
"And after all that time, the sensation was so---so very real. It's like you've shed a layer of skin, and the fresh one is so keenly aware. Suddenly every bit of breeze, every slightest touch... It's like you're feeling for the first time. The shaving itself seems to take ages---you have to do it the Muggle way, with lather and a razor, or it doesn't count; the ritual's important somehow---but it's so worth it, for that newness." Her voice grew soft as she anticipated the moment. "The fabric of your clothes, of the sheets in your bed---just your fingertips rubbing your shin---it feels so absolutely, profoundly lovely. As if you've never felt a touch before. And all throughout the feared exam, you have that newness there to comfort you, to keep you cool and content, come what may."
As Hermione broke out of her own thoughts, she realized she had a rapt audience before her. Harry looked puzzled; Ginny, amused; and Ron...
Ron had his eyes fixed on something just above her head to the right, and seemed to be trembling slightly.
Harry and Ginny turned to one another, saw Ron, and burst into laughter.
Hermione felt all tranquility drain from her in an instant. If they were set to make fun of her ritual, fine. But she would not sit here and listen to them laugh, or watch as Ron seemed to nearly break from the struggle of holding the laughter in.
"Fine!" she snapped, clutching her book to her chest. She could not bring herself to look at Ron. "Laugh all you want. I'm going to take a bath, and then this exam---and I shall have a far more pleasant time of it than either of you." She stood, coming into Ron's eye line. He twitched as she did, and she answered a withering stare. "I hope that I answered your question to your satisfaction, Ronald."
And off she stormed.
Harry knew that she was hurt, but he could not bring himself to chase after her. He couldn't even get himself to stop laughing. Ron was just too pathetic. All the color had drained from his face, save vibrant deposits aglow at the tips of his ear and nose. He trembled so that Ron was fairly vibrating, like a hummingbird in flight. And the toast that he had picked up as Hermione began her explanation had been crushed to dust in his grip.
Ginny wiped a tear from her eye, and then patted her brother's arm. "Really, Ron, you shouldn't ask questions you're not ready for the answer to."
Ron's lips moved faintly.
"What was that, Ron?" Harry leaned forward. "I can't hear you over the sound of Hermione shaving."
Ginny leaned close to her brother's other ear. "Her legs getting oh so smooth with every passing---"
Ron shot out of his chair with a "Bloody HELL" and was gone.
Harry and Ginny laughed and laughed, tears slipping down faces that hurt from smiling.
When at last they finished, they collapsed over the table, exhausted.
"All right, Mr. Potter," said Ginny, rising from the table at last with a muffled giggle. "I believe you have an exam to fail. I'll talk to you later."
Harry watched her walk away, his cheek resting on the sticky surface of the breakfast table.
"House socks."
Ginny stopped, turning to glance at him over her shoulder. "What was that?"
"You like to wear Gryffindor house socks, with little lions along the top." He smiled at her gently. "You must have a million pairs, because you wear them near every day."
She held his gaze for a moment, and he couldn't help but notice that blushing was far more becoming on her than on her brother. "My gran made them for me." And she was gone.
He lay there for a good while, enjoying the rumble of distant, significantly less noisy conversations up and down the dining hall. At last Harry sighed, his breath sending up a little puff of powdered sugar. Gingerly, mindful of the laughter's dull ache in his belly and Ginny's warm pressure in his chest, he lifted himself from his breakfast and set off to class, determined to fail spectacularly.