Author's Notes: Written for The Last Poison Apple for The Guilty Pleasure Fic Exchange, with the requests Hermione/Pansy and "Follow your inner moonlight, don't hide from the madness" by Allen Ginsberg. I hope you like it…!
Also for Rain Sky's "Idiosyncrasies" challenge on xoxLewrahxox's Bellatrix Lestrange: The Dark Lord's Most Faithful Forum.
The theme is idiosyncrasies! …One or both characters consider the little quirks of the other they drives him/her crazy, as well as the character in question's response to other people's reactions to said idiosyncrasy.
)O(
Hermione had been sitting in the library and studying for the past two hours.
Pansy had made her way towards Hermione's table and hovered behind her for a long time, standing and waiting for her to finish her studying at first and eventually giving up and sitting down at one of the other tables, quietly fuming that Hermione was taking so bloody long to be done. She, Pansy, had entered the library just as the sun was going down and the moon was already visible in the sky – wide and pale and full – when Pansy finally got tired of waiting.
"Hello!" she said loudly, grabbing the back of Hermione's chair and jerking it backwards, not enough to topple her, but just enough to frighten her. Hermione's hand jerked and she knocked over a bottle of ink, which she just barely managed to catch before it spilled all over her papers.
"What?" Hermione snapped, righting the bottle of ink and glaring at Pansy. Her cheeks were bright red. "Did you want something?"
"Yeah, I fancied talking to you–"
"Oh, don't make me laugh," Hermione said irritably. She turned away from Pansy, opening a large book and staring into it. "You never want to talk to me, unless by talk you mean torment."
"I don't torment you," Pansy said, pretending to be indignant while she tried to hide her smirk.
"Of course you don't," Hermione said, rolling her eyes and not looking up from the book. Pansy waited a few moments longer, fully expecting Hermione's curiosity to overtake her and for her to ask what Pansy wanted. When she didn't, Pansy let out an impatient huff.
"Dear God, but you're boring," Pansy snapped. She grabbed the edge of Hermione's book and slammed it down shut over over Hermione's hand, making her yelp in pain as her fingers were crushed between the heavy covers. "You do do things other than study, don't you? You do know that there are things in life to do apart from studying."
"That hurt," Hermione said sharply, dragging the book away from Pansy and flexing her fingers, clearly inspecting herself for damage. There was a flush rising in her cheeks. "I study so that I can pass, which is more than you do…"
"You don't need to study to pass a class," Pansy said dismissively. She hoisted herself up onto the table, shoving Hermione's papers aside to give herself space to sit.
"Don't do that!"
"Don't do what? Mess up your notes?" Pansy adopted a pout, sticking out her lower lip and wrinkling up her nose so that it looked even more squished than it usually did. "Can't you study without them in the right place?"
"No," Hermione told her. Her cheeks were positively crimson now. "No, I can't, and I'll thank you to leave me alone. I don't like being interrupted while I'm working, especially not by you."
"Come on, it's the middle of the night…" Pansy gestured at the window, where the moon was just beginning to show over the lake. "Shouldn't you be going to bed, Granger? You wouldn't want to be out too late and break the rules… because God knows, Hermione Granger can't stand to break a rule, even if it's a stupid one…"
"Go away, Pansy!"
"No." Pansy plucked Hermione's quill out of her hand and nibbled on the end, smirking at her. A muscle in the corner of Hermione's mouth twitched – the same one that Pansy had noticed twitching any time she saw a student chewing on a quill.
"Do you have to do that? That's disgusting." Hermione snatched the quill back, holding it out of Pansy's reach.
"You need to have some fun sometimes, you know, Granger. It won't kill you."
"Fun has killed people before," Hermione muttered darkly.
"Yeah, people who are stupid about it. But I know you're not stupid, Granger…" Pansy lowered her voice to a soft, almost sensual purr, which didn't at all match her usual harsh, rough voice. "I'm pretty bloody sure that you could have some fun if you set your mind to it."
"Don't tell me what I can do."
Pansy rolled her eyes, then pointed at the window. "All right, Granger. You see that? That's the full moon."
"I know that!"
"I know that you know that! Bloody Hell, I don't think you're that stupid. You aren't letting me finish. That, the full moon out there – you know that practically every culture ever has always thought that the full moon causes madness–"
"Not every–"
"That's we get the word "lunatic", you know – and "lunacy". From lunar."
"I know that!"
"So," Pansy said, sounding quite confident now and much less impatient than she had just a moment before, "you ought to know what the proper thing to do in the moonlight is…" She leaned forward, placing one foot on either side of Hermione's chair to brace herself. "Just go a little mad…"
"I don't approve of going mad," Hermione muttered. She wasn't looking at Pansy.
"I don't mean that you ought to go out and torture and kill people, you idiot! I don't mean mad like that! I just mean- Goddamnit, Granger, look at me!" Pansy grabbed her by her school tie, jerking it out from beneath the collar of her sweater and using it like a leash to drag her head around and up so that Hermione couldn't look away from Pansy without being strangled.
"Get off me," Hermione spat, looking positively furious. She reached out for her wand, which was lying on the table, and Pansy pulled harder on the tie until Hermione sputtered for air.
"You should just… relax, for once," Pansy purred. Then she slid down off the table so she was straddling Hermione. Her knees were on either side of Hermione's hips and she gripped the edges of the chair so that Hermione's arms were all but immobilized.
Then she kissed her.
Hermione let out a small yelp, but Pansy managed to silence her by pushing her tongue between her lips. There was a moment in which Hermione struggled and Pansy thanked God that she was so much stronger, but then she relaxed slightly, her lips parted, and her tongue darted out to move against Pansy's.
Pansy held the kiss for a long time, little shocks of delight running through her body with every movement of Hermione's mouth and body against hers, then, eventually, she pulled back and smirked.
"There now," she said, tapping Hermione's cheek, which was flushed bright red. "That wasn't too bad, now was it?"
"Get off me, Pansy," Hermione told her.
)O(
Fin