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Hazel nervously scratched at the words imprinted on the back of her left hand as she tucked herself into the corner of the empty compartment. They had suddenly appeared when she first touched the wand that was now in the pocket of her grossly oversized trousers from her cousin Dudley. Mr Ollivander, the lovely yet undoubtedly strange old wandmaker, expressed no surprise at their appearance, yet refused to elaborate. Hagrid was no help either; he seemed just as befuddled as she was at the words.
Adoration. Courage. Devotion.
They were nice words. Comforting. When she wasn’t studying her new books, Hazel could be found admiring the back of her hand, twisting it this way and that in the light of the flickering lamp in Dudley’s second bedroom. Though, despite that, Hazel hated that she didn’t know what they were or what they meant and none of her books had an answer either. As comforting as the words themselves felt, their presence simply made her nervous, especially when no one else she saw had anything of the sort on their hands as she boarded the train.
Huffing the untamed, long red hair that had fallen over her face away from her eyes, Hazel just about caught sight of someone opening the compartment door. Hurriedly hiding her marked hand in her chewed long sleeve, she sat up straight like Uncle Vernon barked at her to do when eating at the dinner table. If she learned anything from her horrid uncle, it was that a good first impression was everything.
A girl about her age, already dressed neatly in her school robes, stood in the compartment doorway with a gloved right hand holding onto a trunk beside her. Everything about the girl seemed tidy and proper, other than her hair. It looked very similar to Hazel’s - long and unkempt - though it was thick and light brown instead of Hazel’s slightly finer red.
“Have you seen a toad?” the girl asked, and the last thing Hazel expected to hear. “A boy named Neville’s lost one.”
“I haven’t, sorry,” Hazel replied shyly. “If I see one, I’ll let you know, um... What’s your name?“
Hermione stepped into the compartment proper, set down her trunk on the floor, and sat across from Hazel, her chocolate brown eyes staring into Hazel’s green.
“Hermione Granger.”
She stuck out her gloved hand and Hazel awkwardly shook it with her right, thankful to not have to show the writing on her other hand just yet.
”Did you know that you’re the second person to ask my name, other than Neville? That’s very kind of you. What’s yours?”
“Hazel Potter,” Hazel replied.
Hermione’s eyes went wide, an increasingly irritating sight that Hazel knew she’d never get used to.
“Are you really?” she gasped. “Well, I’ve read all about you, of course - and your parents. I’m so sorry about what happened to them, that must have been awful, though I suppose you don’t really remember them, but that doesn’t discount how awful what happened to them was. It’s really such a pleasure to meet you, by the way. You’re in almost all the books about twentieth century magical history and you’re already a bit of a hero of mine - and Headmaster Dumbledore, of course, he’s just brilliant, and a Gryffindor. I think I’d like to be sorted there, wouldn’t you? Ravenclaw also sounds good, but I think I’d make more friends in Gryffindor, or maybe Hufflepuff, they wouldn’t be too bad either. Slytherin is the only one I don’t think I want to join, they seem quite mean according to Hogwarts: A History , though I must consider that the book could be biased; the author was a Gryffindor after all, and there’s this big rivalry between the two houses that stretches back over a thousand years...”
Hazel didn’t know what to do with this barrage of information, so she resorted to tucking herself back into the corner.
“...And that’s why the author - Bathilda Bagshot, who I’d really like to meet someday - might be biased in her comments about Slytherin. Anyways, what house do you want to be in?”
Hazel stared wide-eyed herself back at Hermione, still trying to process what she had said. It was as though Hermione said all that in one breath; Hazel felt out of breath just listening to her. She couldn’t help but admire it, frankly.
“Um… I’ve not really thought about it much but anyone but Slytherin, I think…” Hermione’s gloved hand caught Hazel’s eye again. “Can I ask why you’re wearing a glove?”
“Oh! Uh, it’s just a thing I wear,” Hermione said, looking flustered and surprisingly lost for words. “It’s really nothing, I think, I have this… nevermind. I should go look for Neville’s toad.”
Hermione abruptly stood up and picked up her trunk, but Hazel called out her name just before she left.
“You can leave your trunk here if you like. I won’t be going anywhere.”
Hermione smiled, and heaved her trunk up to the storage compartments above the seats with a surprising amount of strength.
“Thank you, Hazel.”
“You have writing on your hand too!” Hermione shrieked before slapping her ungloved hand over her mouth.
Hazel, who had been in the dormitory alone - or so she thought, as she never exposed her hand when others were around - rummaging through her trunk trying to find the Charms essay she needed for the next class, almost jumped out of her skin.
“Hermione!” she gasped, clutching her chest. “I thought you went down to the library.”
Hermione had been going down to the library at every opportunity to try and research Nicolas Flamel, to no success.
“I was going to but I forgot my… oh, nevermind! Hazel! You’ve got writing on your hand!”
Finally registering what had gotten Hermione so excited, Hazel quickly hid her hand behind her back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, don’t lie to me, you just hid it behind your back. Look.” Hermione took her glove off, the first time Hazel had seen her without it in the three months that they had known each other now. She thrust her hand into Hazel’s line of sight.
Friendship. Bravery. Love.
“I got these on my hand when I first touched my wand, but no one else seemed to have them and Professor McGonagall said nothing, but she looked like she knew something but acted as though she didn’t when I asked. I like them a lot, but I’m quite embarrassed by them since I thought no one else had them, but you do! Let’s see yours.”
Hazel nervously put her left hand in front of Hermione, exposing her words to her. Hermione delicately grabbed her hand, causing a tingle to run through Hazel’s body.
“Those are lovely,” Hermione whispered. “Do you have any idea as to what they are?”
Hazel shook her head.
“I’ve tried looking,” Herminoe continued, “but I’ve found nothing in the library about them, and Madam Pomfrey had no clue either. I wonder if it’s something to do with us.”
Confused, Hazel asked, “what do you mean?”
“Like, maybe these mean something to us. Not us together, necessarily, but we each are connected to… something to do with these words. Magic works in mysterious ways. This could be its way of telling us something.”
Hazel just nodded in agreement, not really understanding what Hermione was talking about.
“Come on, we should go to the library and see if we can find anything about this. Two heads are better than one after all.”
“But what about Flamel?”
“We can research him at the same time. Who knows, maybe they’re connected?”
Hermione grabbed Hazel by the hand before she could respond, and all Hazel could think about was the incredibly pleasant tingle that went through her body again. As they rushed out of the Gryffindor common room, Hazel held Hermione’s hand even tighter. Hermione looked at her and beamed a buck-toothed smile.
Hazel thought she looked very pretty.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Hazel walked towards the library. Viktor Krum walked by her with a shy smile on his face, one that looked quite unnatural given his usual grumpy demeanor. All around her she could hear talk about the upcoming Yule Ball; her own name came up a lot whenever she walked past a group of boys.
The library itself was quiet - not many people went there over the holidays, other than a few Ravenclaws and the girl Hazel was looking for.
She was sitting in their usual corner, a mountain of books surrounding her about magical eggs and the Triwizard Tournament itself giving the illusion of a princess safely hidden away in her castle. Hazel nervously stepped up to her, so different to her usual comfort when around Hermione, and cleared her throat.
Hermione’s head snapped towards her.
“Hermione, I was wondering if--”
“Hazel! Oh, you won’t believe what just happened!” Hermione exclaimed, “Viktor Krum just asked me to the Ball!”
Oh.
With those words, Hazel’s heart completely sank. She suddenly felt so hollow and, for the first time since she saw her parents in the Mirror of Erised, on the verge of tears. At first, the Yule Ball really didn’t appeal to her, but when she thought about going with Hermione, Hazel wanted nothing more. It was an opportunity to test the waters, to see where Hermione’s heart laid. They’d never really talked about boys together, and Hazel wondered if that was because Hermione, like her, was interested in girls. Interested in her.
But now, she was going with Krum. A boy. Decidedly not Hazel. If a heart could shatter into a million unfixable pieces, her’s did.
All this time, Hazel considered that the words on her hand belonged, truly, to Hermione, and that Hermione’s words belonged to Hazel. It was poetic and giddying, and it felt so right . But no. They were just words, and nothing more.
“Hazel? Are you okay?”
Hermione’s concerned voice brought Hazel out of her thoughts. Plastering on a smile, Hazel replied, “of course. I thought we could get some research done on the egg.”
Hermione smiled back, seemingly convinced of Hazel’s sincerity.
“Brilliant, I knew you’d get around to it sooner rather than later.”
She tidied up the chair next to her that had a stack of books on it and invited Hazel to sit down.
“So,” she said, “who do you want to go to the Ball with?”
You. Only you.
“I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest,” Hazel replied.
Seeing Hermione dancing with Krum, looking so beautiful, so carefree, so happy, was too much. Hazel’s heart stopped whenever she looked at her, both out of awe at how undeniably stunning she looked, and out of pure grief that she wasn’t with her.
Apologising to Neville, who had been an outstanding friend to Hazel tonight, she moved to make her way out of the Great Hall. She thought Hermione had caught a glimpse of her and her teary eyes and, for the first time, Hazel wished she’d stay away.
Hermione deserved to enjoy herself tonight, not deal with her emotional, selfish, immature best-friend.
Eventually having fought her way out of the crowd, Hazel rushed aimlessly through the empty corridors, the echo of her heels clacking on the stone providing the only distraction from her aching heart.
Some time later, she found herself at an abandoned classroom somewhere near Transfiguration. Sitting on a dusty desk, not bothering to clean it, Hazel kicked off her heels and gripped her emerald green dress tightly, trying to fight back the barrage of tears that had threatened to release ever since that crushing day in the library.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, her sobs sounding choked as she refused to let her tears get the better of her. She was better than this, but right now she was a pathetic mess, deserving of nothing and no one. The classroom door creaked open.
“Hazel?”
The concern in the voice felt so recognisable. Looking up, Hermione stood in the doorway, a gloved hand holding onto the Marauder’s Map. Hazel’s heart stopped yet again.
“What’s wrong? I saw you run out of the Ball and went to look for you.”
If it was at all possible, Hazel felt even worse. Now she had disrupted Hermione’s night, taken her away from a place where she looked so happy.
“It’s nothing, I’m just being stupid,” Hazel said nasally, trying to keep her voice steady.
“It’s not nothing and you’re never stupid, Hazel.” Hermione sat to her left and Hazal resisted the urge to grasp her hand as they so often did. “You’ve been distant ever since the Yule Ball was announced, did something happen? Is this about Sirius?”
Hazel shook her head, but said nothing more.
“Please talk to me. It breaks my heart to see you like this.”
Hermione wrapped an arm around Hazel’s shoulder and she thought she might combust from the surge of love Hazel felt towards Hermione.
“I… I just…” Hazel huffed in frustration, unable to find the words. She was finally going to confess how she felt, and she’d never been more nervous. “Do you promise to stay my friend after what I say?”
“Of course. What is it? Why do you think I wouldn’t want to be your friend?”
“I… I wanted to ask you to the Ball. Not as a friend, but- but more. Y’know, that day in the library when you said you were going with Krum? I was going to ask you then but Krum asked first and- and I got scared. I thought that you wouldn’t ever want to be with me, that you liked boys, and not girls. I thought I read you so poorly and felt so stupid for thinking I’d have a chance with you. I love you, Hermione. More than anything or anyone, and it hurts so much to see you with Krum. You looked so beautiful today, like you do everyday, and knowing I couldn’t have you… it broke me.”
Hermione took her arm away from her shoulders, and Hazel finally cracked. Tears rolled down her face as choked sobs filled the empty classroom.
“I’m so sorry. I-I’ve ruined everything. I’ve ruined your night, I’ve ruined our friendship. Y-you hate me and I’m so sorry. I’m so--”
“Hazel.”
She looked up to see Hermione standing in front of her, an unreadable expression upon her face.
“Can you show me your words?”
Hazel put out her left hand and took off her glove covering it. Hermione’s delicate fingers stroked the words so faintly, and the tingling feeling that always occurred when they held hands came again.
“I think I know what these words mean,” she said. “I think they’re about us. The both of us. Together. I think your words belong to me and my words belong to you. I think you’re my everything, Hazel Potter, and… and I think I’d like to kiss you.”
Before Hazel could realise what was going on, Hermione leaned towards Hazel and attached her lips to hers. Hermione poked her tongue against Hazel’s teeth and she automatically opened her mouth to let Hermione in. Their tongues touched and Hazel felt a sudden outpouring of adoration, of courage, of devotion from Hermione. Her heart soared, like it was fixed by a reparo and levitated out of its sunken depths. Hermione was kissing her, and it was so much more than anything Hazel could’ve fantasised about.
When Hermione slipped a hand to Hazel’s lower back, an electric shock crashed Hazel back to reality and she gasped for breath, disconnecting from Hermione’s lips.
She looked utterly pleased with herself. Smug, and teasing.
“Did you like that?” Hermione asked, holding Hazel tight at the waist.
Hazel nodded, her hair flying around her.
“Would you like me to kiss you again?”
“Yes,” Hazel said breathlessly, “but what about--”
“You were right, you know. I don’t really like boys, but I do like girls, especially this one girl, a lot . Viktor’s lovely, and I think we’ll be good friends. But that’s all. Now, enough talking, we’re in an empty classroom and we’ve got hours until the Ball ends. I think we should spend that time with our faces very close to each other.”
“I think that’s a brilliant idea.”