Rating:
PG
House:
Astronomy Tower
Characters:
Fred Weasley Ginny Weasley George Weasley Ron Weasley
Genres:
Romance Humor
Era:
Multiple Eras
Stats:
Published: 01/02/2003
Updated: 01/02/2003
Words: 1,233
Chapters: 1
Hits: 2,302

Wherein Hermione S. Granger Considers the Colour Red

Ursula

Story Summary:
The only thing worse than cherishing a secret fondness for a boy who would never look twice at you and whom you would probably smack in the nose for presumption if he did, Hermione thought, was feeling this way about two people and not being able to tell them apart. But she wasn't thinking about that sort of thing; she had a riddle to solve.

Posted:
01/02/2003
Hits:
2,302
Author's Note:
For A.M., Christmas, 2002. The riddle is borrowed from Craig Williamson's translation with quiet gratitude.

Wherein Hermione S. Granger Considers the Colour Red

The only thing worse than cherishing a secret fondness for a boy who would never look twice at you and whom you would probably smack in the nose for presumption if he did, Hermione thought, was feeling this way about two people and not being able to tell them apart. No, there was something even worse; there was Ginny. Hermione liked Ginny. Really she did. It was wonderful sometimes to have a friend who was not incurably male, who could look at the newest broom (were they up to Procella 2100 yet?) without losing the ability to speak a coherent sentence for four days. But still-- but every so often Ginny started in on The Conversation, the one that began with Ginny declaring, "I hate my hair! Red is just so awful." Then of course Hermione had to assure Ginny that she loved red hair, it was better than any other colour, why, what wouldn't she give to be a redhead instead of being stuck with this dreadful mousy brown? And all the while Ginny would smile softly and think one of two things:

  1. I'm glad my hair is prettier than yours, I'm sure Harry will notice eventually, or
  2. You like Ron, don't you?

Then Ginny would tell Hermione how wonderful she was and what a good friend and how she wished they could always be sisters, while Hermione nodded and smiled and ignored the hints. The Conversation had been an acceptable price to pay for not discussing Quidditch back when Hermione had been blissfully indifferent to the boy issue; but now all the discussion of freckles and flaming red hair made her wince. Or, rather, it made her blissfully warm inside for about two seconds, until Ginny noticed and said something sweet about Ron and being real sisters. Damn it, he wasn't Ron.

Or they weren't. Why couldn't she tell them apart?

Enough of this. Hermione had no time to waste on boys who would as soon turn her hair into snakes as look at her. She had work to do. Hermione flipped through her notebook and found the description of the potion she was analyzing. It was Canisfidelis, a tracking potion. Hermione thought she might be able to modify it so that when Harry's scar hurt he'd have some idea where the Lord of Darkness was performing a dastardly deed, not just that he was performing one-- Voldemort plotted evil so very frequently that the scar was becoming useless as a practical warning system. Unfortunately even unmodified Canisfidelis was a highly advanced potion, and the more complicated a spell was, the more confusing the directions. Writing a word down gave it power, and so instructions for important potions grew increasingly tangled until they transformed into actual riddles. Hermione was trying to solve one now:

    Give your hand to a warrior strangely born
    From two dumb creatures, drawn gleaming
    Into the world, bright and useful to men.
    He is tended, kept, covered by women--
    Strong and savage, he serves well,
    A gentle slave to firm masters
    Who mind his measure and feed him fairly
    With a careful hand. To these he brings
    Warm blessings; to those who let him run
    Wild he brings a grim reward.

Whoever wrote this riddle was a sexist bastard, thought Hermione. To say nothing of attitudes based on antique power differentials, etc., etc. She bet he was mean to his house-elves. Of course, you couldn't expect anything better from a fifteen-hundred-year-old recipe; she should be grateful that somebody had translated it into modern English between now and then.

Anyway. What was a warrior creature tended by women? A unicorn? They were certainly gleaming, but Hermione wasn't sure that they were useful to men. Unless you counted the uses of cut-off unicorn horn, and then surely she wouldn't be giving her hand to it. Besides, after studying unicorns in class Hermione had felt very odd about using unicorn horn as a potion ingredient. It was rather outdated, really; there were plenty of perfectly good modern supplements, most of them imported from the United States (California). And unicorns had such nice dark eyes. Hermione had never particularly cared for brown eyes, partly because her own were brown and partly because they tended to seem doglike, but lately she was beginning to change her mind. Maybe it was something to do with the eyelashes. Gold eyelashes, in particular.

Gold eyelashes had absolutely nothing to do with potion ingredients. Hermione made a mental note to give herself a strong talking-to as soon as she solved the riddle. If she continued like this her marks would begin to suffer.

About the warrior beast, then. Dragons, perhaps? They were strong and savage, certainly, but Hermione didn't think they brought anyone blessings. Maybe wyverns instead? They might be small enough for women to cover them, and maybe you could train one to pull a cart or something. The warm and gleaming didn't seem quite right, though.

The trouble with having parents who were dentists, Hermione realized, was that you couldn't actually think about the word 'gleaming' for any length of time without beginning to consider gleaming smiles. And she kept remembering a particular pair. Nice teeth, yes, but it was really just the grins themselves . . . Harry was so gloomy so much of the time, she didn't blame him, really, but it could be hard to put up with. And Ron, well, Ron never had a minor problem. Everything was always either completely irrelevant or a matter of life and death; Hermione shuddered to think what would happen if he didn't make it onto the Gryffindor team in the next year or so. Whereas certain other people, you could stick them with white beards past their ankles and they'd spring up, smiling broadly, and ask you if you wanted to give them a Galleon for a photo with Father Christmas.

Hermione was a mature and sensible adult who would never fall hopelessly in love with anyone, she told herself, far less people who responded to unsolicited advances with a campaign of terror. She didn't actually want her pens turning into worms during exams. She was going to solve her riddle and stop worrying.

So, what was another magical creature? A phoenix? It was gleaming, bright, warm . . . But phoenixes were born from one creature, not two. And they weren't dumb, even in the quiet sense.

Hermione sighed. The glowing phoenix only made her think of one thing: hair. What would it be like to run her hand through that hair? It was too short to tangle, so it would be soft, but her hand would burn as she touched it, as if the hair were a lighted match . . .

This was horrible. She was beginning to sound worse than Ginny, and work less efficiently. Though Hermione had a sneaking feeling this was all related somehow. Wizards never encountered real coincidences, and all this dreaming of red hair . . . Warmth had something to do with her riddle. She was sure of it. What was hot and bright but dangerous when allowed to run wild?

Oh, of course, thought Hermione. Fire. The riddle was telling her to stick her hand in the fire. Well, that had to be safer than telling Fred and George she liked them. For now, anyway.