Knots

She watched, breath disjointed, as Hermione ran her fingers though her dark hair, gently tugging on the knots. Ginny longed to reach across and do it for her, but held back feeling it would be somehow inappropriate. She'd always loved Hermione's curls; her own thin hair fell limp to the side of her face in ugly rat-tails. Hermione had laughed when she'd said that.

'You wouldn't want my hair, Ginny,' she'd said their eyes connecting in the mirror. 'I can't do a thing with it, and no matter how much I try, it still ends up in a frizzy mess.' Their gazes had locked and Ginny could have stayed there forever only...

'Your hair's great whatever you do with it,' she replied quietly, wrenching her eyes away from the soft brown ones in the reflection. Hermione must have sensed there was something wrong, because she'd asked if Ginny was okay, placing delicate fingers on her shoulder and sending a shiver down the Ginny's spine and she had had to say that she was fine, just a little tired, and that she might go and lie down in her own dormitory for a while.

As she exited though, she'd felt Hermione watching her, right up until she turned the corner and she realised that she should have known better than to think that she could fool the brightest witch at Hogwarts.

***

Hermione was laughing, as she sat further down the Gryffindor table. Face screwed up in a way that somehow made her look prettier than ever. She had such a lovely rich laugh, Ginny contemplated; very different from most girls their age, whose continuous high-pitched giggles could really grate after a while. Hermione's chest shook; her head girl's badge bobbing up and down and Ginny watched it, sub-consciously unaware where her gaze had fallen.

'Mooning over Harry again, are we Ginny?' Seamus joked, elbowing her lightly in the side and breaking her trance; he'd incorrectly followed her line of sight. Ginny grinned embarrassedly at him, thankful at the misinterpretation. When she risked a look at Hermione again however, she found that the girl was watching her, sat in silent contemplation of her own, while Ron and Harry's laughter continued to ring out around the hall, unaware of the abrupt change in their friend.

***

Hermione continued to pursue her quest for tidy hair now, as she sat on a small blue stall, in front of a strangely silent mirror. Ginny felt somewhat out of place in the neat, orderly bedroom and tried her best not to crease the otherwise immaculately made quilted bed. Hermione was talking about how her much her mother was looking forward to meeting Ginny this summer, and Ginny blushed slightly at that in nervous anticipation, turning away on the pretence of examining the head girl's room. One wall was completely covered by a bookcase and though she couldn't tell from where she was sitting, Ginny new that the books were probably arranged in alphabetical order.

The only thing in the room that wasn't neat was a large pine desk. Scrolls of parchment, quills and large musky books littered it, in what Ginny could imagine as an explosion of Hermione's own thoughts, utterly confusing to anyone but Hermione herself. It was ironic, that Ginny's own battered desk at home was the only thing she kept tidy, her schoolbooks neatly aligned and her scrolls kept rolled up tight and placed at right angles to them. Ginny liked to exercise her sense of control there. She didn't seem to be able to control anything else.

'Ginny?' Hermione's voice broke through her thoughts and caused her breath to hitch. 'Could I -would you mind-that is, can I do your hair?' It was a strange, oddly girly request for Hermione and in that moment she seemed vulnerable to Ginny; perhaps because she'd allowed the part of her nature to show, that was usually hidden behind books and grades. And Ginny nodded and began to get up, but was pushed gently back down again as Hermione scrambled to kneel behind her on the bed, hairbrush in hand.

She sat in silent breathlessness, as the fingers of Hermione's left hand ran delicate patterns over her scalp. Her right hand clutched the brush, pulling it slowly through the fine, red hair, tugging lightly at the knots, an exercise that seemed pointless to Ginny, who could feel her stomach tightening with every stroke. Hermione's breath was warm on her neck and it felt good, like the first hot day of the year. It reminded her of when she was seven and she'd lain outside basking in the sun-- how the next day her neck had been raw and painful and her mum had had to use a healing charm on it.

Fingers began to run slowly and tantalisingly up Ginny's scalp now, in what felt so much like a caress it was painful, in a way no healing charm could make better. A small, barely audible sob was released and it mightn't have been noticed, but it was.

Hermione placed a firm hand on Ginny's own freckled cheek, turning her head so that their noses were only inches apart and Ginny had to work against everything within her not to look into those eyes; knowing that if she did, she might do something that would lose her the best friend she'd ever had.

'Why won't you look at me Ginny?' Hermione murmured her voice full of hurt, breaking the pale girl's resolve. So, against her better judgement, she turned; and eyes connected, in such a way that hearts jolted and minds were forgotten. She made up her mind to move, to do the thing that she had both longed for and dreaded, since she'd been old enough to understand her own desires. But before she could, something happened that would change everything.

Hermione kissed her.