A Four Saturdays Detention

And to all the reviewers: I am glad someone liked this story, also if it is not exactly as you expected it.

Chapter 3 - Second Saturday

Let's Give A Glance Into A Future... Do You Like It?(Good boy, Good Girl)

For a while she looked angrily at the old book. The dust was everywhere, on the desk, on the floor... but mostly all over her.

'For the future: if you choose to slam a book on a desk, don't choose a book no one dared to read during the last century.'

She could catch a spark of her face in a window reflex, and she suddenly saw a blurry picture of herself: a mix of horror, angst, spite and ... well, guilt.

She burst out giggling.

'I have to be honest: tragedy doesn't suit me. If I understand correctly: me, with my messy hair, my ink spots everywhere and this ancient dust on the tip of my nose, me, Hermione Granger, I had an... indecent proposal.' She chuckled 'and from the Amazing Bouncing Ferret... Oh well, just a few days ago, merely a week, I was complaining about something missing in my life... I probably didn't write the right words to Santa and he made a mess.'

Crookshanks, silent as a ghost, appeared near her and jumped on the desk.

The cat purred gently and then stared at her, idly narrowing his eyes.

"Now, my cat I'd like you to pay me your whole attention" she started slowly stroking his fur.

"Yes," she added, lowering her voice, "Otherwise someone would think I went mad... poor Hermione, speaking to herself, all alone in the library..."

She sat down. She didn't care of Malfoy, well... of Draco, no, of Malfoy. 'I've always called him that, and I have no intention of changing my habits, just because he saw me crying'. This was sure.

If you want to be able to care about someone you should know him, first. And this sixth year version of Malfoy, she frankly didn't know at all. He went through some improvements. Maybe. But she neither prized the first release. Or second. Or the third... and the... 'Ok, very well... I can count.'

He had been the pampered kid. And this was a merciful way to state the whole matter. A nasty kid, whose wishes his family was proud to fulfil. His true wishes, and a lot of other kinds of cravings. And even the wishes he didn't know he could have.

She could bet on it with a gang of goblins and win. Yes, he still was Draco Malfoy: The Amazing Bouncing Ferret. But he was also the seductive boy Parvati used to sneak around with, late at night. And not just Parvati, maybe. Surely. 'Ok, surely, but then? The number of sweethearts he has all over the school doesn't really matter.'

"Crookshanks, my very dear friend, this way, having a ... date ... with him, would be just trying a simple physical emotion"

"No, honey, this would be 'doing the blockhead simpering baby', don't you agree?"

"And what would be wrong about this? For once in my life, what would be wrong? What?"

"The very first thing I could think of? I am a good girl."

"Very well, I am a good girl, I cannot choose not to believe to myself, but... Who stated good girls can't kiss?"

Crookshanks moved lazily his tail.

"Well, my cat, we hit the point. And I can see you agree with me. We said 'kiss'. But are we sure it would be only 'kissing'? With Malfoy?"

Hermione sighed. "Yes. Only kissing. And it would be "maybe-kissing", not "kissing-for-sure". The boundary is up to me. And I am not a conceited, absurd girl." Her voice had raised to an high pitched note, and Crookshanks looked at her quizzically.

"Oh, yes, I know what you are thinking of... You wonder what I want to prove? That I can get an A also in this ... class? Why not?"

"But a truthfully good 'good girl' should wait for the big love of her life. And meanwhile... be shy."

"Oh yes, the true love.... Like Harry and Ron? With no doubt they are in Hogsmeade, now, waiting for their big, big loves. I can imagine them clearly in my head. They're alone. No worthless girl around, of course.

And they are just in the middle of High Street, standing... and waiting. Waiting for the true big love. So shy... I saw their shyness before... shy never ending kisses in front of everybody! Ouff! No stupid lies, thank you."

"Harry and Ron mean nothing: a girl is... different."

"Oh yes, I was sure we would have hit this point. A boy is 'good', if he is sensitive, sensible and honest, but what about his sexual life? It doesn't matter, of course. And a girl? A good girl is mainly a girl who doesn't snog with boys. Oh yes, she can be mean to her friends, she can be silly, she can be vain... she can be whatever, provided she doesn't identify herself as a possible sexual subject! "

"Oh no! Hush my darling! This is not a three-rolls-parchment essay on gender. This is life."

Crookshanks purred gently.

"I'm right. This is my life. Mine. I should spend it using my brain at best. Understanding difficult reasoning, but being clueless about my emotion. And this would be... normal?"

"Yes, it would be."

"No, thank you. I don't get it. One thing is the wish of trying something... forbidden, but... harmless. And one very different thing is the wish to grow up faster and faster, and then, when I would like to go back, discover that I can't go back anymore."

"Well, forbidden feelings are dangerously near points of no return."

"But the whole deal should not be this "point of no return", everyone appears so obsessed about, the real matter should be to never, never ever, change yourself, in order to please someone else.

I might choose to be or do many things, but the core of this... tragedy is that I got no intention to be... cherished paying such an unfair price. I won't pretend I like the things someone else dies for, so that he could look at me differently. I don't want to lessen myself so that this hypothetical 'he' might feel ... big.

I don't want to become a stupid... groupie (but where the hell did Malfoy ever pick up that word?). And, speaking about Mr I'm-so-sexy-Malfoy, with him I would like to do nothing more than spending a couple of Saturday afternoons together."

She started nuzzling the ears of Crookshanks, and he slowly relaxed.

"So," she continued thoughtfully, "I'm like an animal? I am like Malfoy?

Sometimes being wished but not loved is more than a woman can deserve in a whole lifetime?"

"Oddly bitter?"

"Well, let's face it. The most marvellous thing would be having both: the love, and the wish.

But, it's a fairy dream, a sweet illusion. During the last Ball, I was looking at all those elegant dates, and I suddenly realised they were mostly accidental couples.

That night, I would have been pleased if a boy had invited me to dance. And it was not because I felt the compelling wish to speak about SPEW..."

"And would I still be the good girl?"

"I am what I am. And what I can be.

But I would have felt honoured if a boy had just done only ten steps across the Great Hall, to put his hand on my shoulder, and danced with me, because he had spotted me as myself. Not simply as a girl. I was lying at the mirror of the window, in the library. Yes, I would like to be spotted as a girl, with the grown up body and so on. But, actually I'd like more. Or something different. Not only a girl. I would have liked to be spotted as Hermione Granger. Not as the bookworm who can give you the right answers for an Arithmancy quiz, but as Hermione, the gentle girl who can chat about other topics. I have warmth inside myself. And intelligence. Why couldn't I be a girl someone could like? And, I said 'like', not 'fancy'. I wasn't looking for... an A plus.

And now, frankly, a part of me is... flattered, yes flattered, why not? That there is a boy who would do the more than one hundred steps of that stupid Astronomy Tower."

Hermione kissed an ear of the cat.

"And, to be utterly fair, now I feel like a stupid bitch. I look like most other selfish girls I use to despise, probably. Because I am positively surprised that this boy is not the lumpish nerd everyone would like to pair me with."

"Very well Hermione. You are waiting for applause? Don't be silly! That boy is not doing all those steps for you, but for his own fantasies. And you are not part of it... You are nothing."

"I am aware. And the difference between a good girl and a bad girl is not in the number of kisses she shares. The real difference is that if you really want to try a different taste in your life, you don't have to close your eyes and see love where there's no love in order to remain still 'the good girl'. You don't need to compel yourself to call any slight emotion 'love'. And you don't have to bargain your true love, if you might feel it, in order to get... a physical soothe. A good girl is firstly good to herself."

"Physical soothe? You are playing with poetry, honey?"

"Oh my God! This is just a stupid date! A boy and a girl together. Why do we have to treat it like it's a national emergency? I have no intention to do anything special, just what I'd do at Hogsmeade!"

"The Tower is not 'The Three Broomsticks'. In Hogsmeade you are safe, with crowds of students everywhere... in the Astronomy Tower you are alone. You and Malfoy."

"Bum! This worry is truly farfetched. It is simple date. And we... I... treat it as I had to choose, at once, between Scarlet Woman or Perfect Hen."

She grinned. But the matter was already settled in her head. Of course, she was not going to the Astronomy Tower. Hermione had her life rules, and no intention to break them. She was a rational girl. A rational good girl.

It was just that a part of her was too bossy about these rules. And the other half was too stubborn to be ruled, even by herself.

So? All this foolish fuss and then? No Saturday date, as usual.

She sighed. This year she looked ready for St. Mungo's.

Scarlet Woman or Perfect Hen? She could not help a smile.

They weren't appealing possibilities. But there was also the third choice. She could be a strict, unmarried maid, a working woman. A woman able to achieve interesting goals in her professional field, without the burden of lovers, husbands, or children. A woman like... Professor McGonagall.

Well, you can't teach in a witchcraft and wizardry school, be the Head of a House, the HeadMistress, help the Headmaster, discuss about Ministry problems, study and fight for the sake of the world, if you have to take care of a whole family and de-gnome your garden, like Molly Weasley, for instance. You have to sacrifice something.

She stood up. Crookshanks observed her questioningly.

Hermione moved slowly to the picture of her teacher. Yes, there was a picture of McGonagall, a much younger McGonagall, on a library wall. She had met it by chance. And then she checked it straight on 'Hogwarts: a History'. And of course, she had found was she was looking for.

Minerva McGonagall had been the youngest Animagus of her times. She'd achieved it during her second year at Hogwarts, in a time where students had more freedom, and could make dangerous experiments.

Minerva McGonagall, the goddess of intellectual activities. And a fighter, as well.

'Minerva's name is as beautiful as mine. Mythological. Unusual. Old fashioned.'

'My parents gifted me with such a peculiar Hermione, instead of an every day Mary, Emily, or Elizabeth... And Minerva, she had to be a girl at Hogwarts. Just like me, and "like" me in more than one way.'

The proof of McGonagall's youth was in front of her eyes. The picture stated it clearly; Minerva had been a pretty girl. Well, let's face it, not a beautiful girl. Surely not one who deserves catcalls at the Sorting Hat Ceremony. Catcalls were for Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons Champion, or for Lavender Brown. She smiled remembering her first year...

And surely "beautiful" was for Parvati. Parvati, who, together with her sister Padma, was the most charming girl in her year. Elegant black haired Parvati, who didn't need a drop of Sleekeazy's. Interesting Parvati, with something cold and detached in every move she made.

Well, McGonagall wasn't Parvati, even their kinds of coldness were different.

But, surely, this girl who was waving to her, from somewhere placed many years ago, had been "pretty".

It was saddening to think of the way she was now. Strict. Unbending. Severe. Well, not to her, really. She could sense her closeness many times.

A spark of her future flickered through her brain. She could see herself... here, at Hogwarts. ('Of course, where else?') But at the other side of the desk. A teacher.

Well if she wanted teacher-style hair, she would have had to cut it. She giggled. It wasn't anymore that bushy, but probably only because of its length, and weight. But having her hair worn in a bun...

Impossible. 'I'll cut it very short. It would be much more practical.' Her hair had been useless till now, so, no regret.

This future would suit her a lot. After graduation, she could ask Dumbledore, the Headmaster, to let her stay at Hogwarts. Perhaps at the beginning she would be too inexperienced to have a class of her own. Maybe she could start sharing work and office with her favourite teacher. They could drink pumpkin juice together every Thursday. And on Saturdays they could go to Hogsmeade together.

Gillywater for McGonagall, and a Butterbeer for Granger. Or she could try Elderflower wine... No, no alcohol, she settled in her mind.

She could have her "usual seat" at "The Three Broomsticks Inn", just as she had it here, in the library.

Maybe she could do a year at Beauxbatons, just to gain a different experience. Durmstrang was out of question, of course. A Muggleborn can't enroll that school. At least, by now.

But she could make a lot of changes. First of all the House Elves.

'They are like the blue collars of muggle world. I'll study the muggle laws, and pushing a bit on the Ministry... We could organize them in shifts. Shifts, retirement, tax and wages.'

Everything from the Muggle British world she came from.

And then, every year, she would have started her first lesson transfigurating matches into needles. Matches into ... needles. Matches ... into ... needles.

Matches ... into ... needles?

Suddenly the whole dream didn't look so appealing. A chill ran under her spine.

'I don't want to end it this way!' she thought wildly, lifting her chin defensively.

'I want to be able to remember something more. Besides all the dates of goblins revolts. Besides the ingredients of the most complicated potions, besides the twelve uses of dragon blood.

Something besides my beloved books, too.

I want something to balance the bitterness of all these Saturdays alone in the library. I want to remember something special and forbidden at the Astronomy Tower.'

She exited savagely the library (but not slamming the door...).

Crookshanks started dashing nervously his tail.

 

To be continued

Next Chapter: Of Landscapes, Potions, Squirrels, Elves and Training Shoes

(Sweet things are made of this, who am I to disagree?)