Chapter Text
“Oh my god! Oh my god oh my god oh my god.” Lavender barrels toward the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall at lunchtime, shoving Hermione to one side and Parvati to the other to squeeze in the middle of them. “You’re never going to believe this.”
A schoolbag nearly takes out her head and as an elbow digs into her side, Hermione rolls her eyes and shifts in her seat to give her pseudo-friend more room on the bench.
Though Hermione uses the term ‘friend’ relatively loosely, she’s grown to understand Lavender and accepts all the things she has to offer that Hermione struggles with.
Clothes. Makeup. Talking to boys she hasn’t spent time in a tent with whilst running for her life.
Normal girl things.
Once they realised fighting over Ronald Weasley was completely asinine, it made returning to Hogwarts for eighth year much more enjoyable considering she and Lavender are roommates. It also helped that Ron chose not to return to finish out the final school year, instead opting to join the Auror Department with Harry.
They survived a war, for Merlin’s sake. Fighting over the ex-boyfriend that toyed with both of them was meaningless. They both want to move on.
While Hermione has her eye on one wizard in particular, Lavender has her eyes on…anyone. Everyone.
Waving around a sheet of parchment like a maniac—dangerously close to Hermione’s face, mind you—Lavender smiles broadly, basking in the attention from all of her friends as she keeps them on her toes. Her blue eyes spark with a mischief reminiscent of the Weasley twins. Hermione’s heart pangs in that all-too-familiar way at the thought.
Leaning away slightly—so as to not get a papercut on her cheek—Hermione tries to peer at the sheet to see what Lavender is so smug about. Before she can even ask, Ginny beats her to the punch.
“What are you on about?” the ginger asks, snatching the parchment right out of Lavender’s hand.
The blonde grins wickedly. “You’ve all heard of Nerve, right?”
“Nerve?” Hermione asks as she leans over the table, still trying to look at the page Ginny is now holding.
“Well, no, of course you haven’t heard about it.” Lavender covers up her comment with a nasally laugh. “It’s this, like, truth or dare type game but without the truth.”
“So just…dare.” Hermione deadpans. She sits back down in her seat, her disinterest evident as she picks apart a scone.
Lavender nods, her blonde curls bouncing. “Yeah and people pay you to complete the dares.”
Hermione’s brows furrow. “Where did you hear about this?”
“Well, my friend at Durmstrang played last semester, so I heard all about it. But then I was walking through Knockturn Alley—”
“Why were you walking through there?” Hermione interjects.
“—and I saw the sign up info on the ground, like, someone must’ve dropped it or something.” She holds her hand out and Ginny passes her the sheet back. “You can learn a lot in Knockturn. I also saw the club Evanesco is having an amateur night tonight, Mi,” she says to Hermione with a snort. “You should sign up.”
“To play Nerve!?”
“No, for amateur night,” Lavender laughs. She taps her chin, thinking out loud. “Which is more likely, Hermione playing Nerve or becoming an amateur stripper?”
“She could strip as a dare,” Parvati supplies unhelpfully with a laugh of her own, making Lavender cackle.
Pulling them back to the conversation, Ginny motions back to the sheet of parchment. “What’s a Watcher and a Player?”
“I was getting there,” Lavender retorts. “To sign up for Nerve, all we have to do is sign our name under the Player column and it gets magically linked to the creators on the other end.” Lavender taps the sheet, duplicating it. “I’ve already made a bunch of copies and passed them out as I was running here.”
“But…how does this even work?” Hermione can’t help but ask. “How do you get your dares? How do you get paid? Is there a line they won’t cross? How are you supposed to prove that you completed your dare? When—”
“Her-mi-o-ne,” the blonde enunciates, cutting her off with a roll of her blue eyes over one shoulder. “No one expects you to sign up. No need for the third degree.”
“I’m just looking out for you,” she mutters quietly.
She can’t help that her brain never shuts off and she’s always thinking three steps ahead. Instead of judging her for always being prepared, they could take a page from her book and think things through a little more before jumping in with both feet.
She’s tired of being judged, always being considered a killjoy. She can’t just turn off her brain and go with the flow, even when she wants to, even when she wishes she could.
“We get a magical dare card.” Lavender states like it’s obvious. “Every dare has a galleon value, so each time you successfully complete a dare, you’re promised that money.” Lavender grins, her mouth stretching toward the scar along her cheek left by Greyback in the final battle. “But there is a catch. If you break any of their rules, any money you’ve won gets taken away.”
Hermione bites her lip, but the questions burst out of her anyway. “What rules? And that still doesn’t answer how they will even know you completed your dare.”
“Merlin, Hermione,” Lavender huffs. “It’s like a secret society. There are people who were already included in the planning. Students amongst us. They’ll be watching, capturing everything as proof. It goes through the Wizarding Web and everything will be uploaded and via tiny little cameras.”
After the war, the wizarding world has focused on rebuilding and catching up with the rest of the world in terms of technology. Things like electricity and the internet that Hermione was already accustomed to from living at home, and she’s grateful the wizarding world is finally catching up.
Still, instead of focusing their efforts on uploading archive documents to make learning and research easier, apparently people instead had enough time to set up an entire secret game with passcodes and galleon transfers.
Priorities. Hermione grumbles to herself before telling her friends, “That feels invasive.”
“Well you don’t need to play!” the blonde finally snaps.
Hermione shrinks, feeling small. She meets Ginny’s gaze across the table, and the redhead rolls her eyes, trying to help Hermione brush off Lavender’s outburst.
Fluffing her hair, Lavender takes a deep breath before continuing. “You don’t need to play, but you can watch. That’s the other side of it.” She taps her nail against the other column on the sign up sheet. “The Watchers are who donate money for your dares. It’s, like, an auction and the highest bidder for that round gets to choose your next dare.” She winks at them. “And I expect you all to watch me win. And donate, of course.”
“Hello, everybody. Lavender, I think you dropped this.” Luna dances over to the table, a serene smile on her lips. Her long, pale hair is braided over her shoulder with flowers weaved through the plaits. She holds out what looks like another sign up sheet.
“Luna, have you heard of Nerve?” Lavender asks with a wicked grin. “It’s a game of dare. The rules are, you can’t tell any of the professors about it. If you attempt but fail to complete one of the dares, you don’t get the money, and you can’t, like, request a new dare. Whatever they give you, you have to do. You can quit, but it has to be done in the time between one dare ending and before you receive your next dare or else you lose all the money.” Lavender has the small group of girls on the edge of their seat while Hermione is only half listening.
She knows that if she gave Lavender her full attention, she’d only come up with more questions.
Yet, she can’t help but mutter, “This all sounds needlessly complicated.”
“It’s just supposed to be fun, Hermione.” Lavender looks around the table at their small group of friends before refocusing on Hermione. “This would actually probably be good for you if there was any chance in hell I could convince you to sign up…”
When Hermione doesn’t say anything, Lavender continues with a sigh. “I won’t even bother. You’re a Watcher, Hermione. And that’s okay.” She shrugs. Turning on the bench, she addresses Ginny, Parvati, and Luna while holding up the sign up sheets. “How about any of you? Join me?”
With a swirl of a quill, Lavender signs her name on the bottom and Hermione watches the ink fade as it seeps into the parchment to the person on the other side.
Before Hermione can make a retort, the doors to the Great Hall open and Blaise Zabini swaggers inside. Embarrassingly, Hermione’s head turns, trailing after him, watching his every move as he struts over to the Slytherin table.
“Why don’t you just go talk to him,” Lavender suggests after watching Hermione practically drool over the fit Slytherin. “You’ve fancied him all year. Now’s your chance, before the year’s over.”
Hermione shakes her head, curls brushing against her cheeks. “I can’t.” Especially not now. “He’s with all his friends.”
Lavender crosses her arms over her ample chest, but it’s the pitying look on her face that Hermione can’t stomach. “You’ll never know if you don’t ask. Who cares if he doesn’t like you! Then you can stop wondering and get busy finding a guy who will worship you.”
Hermione snorts. Yeah. Because that’s likely.
“Fine. I dare you to go talk to him.”
“I’m not the one signing up for Nerve, Lav.”
Standing, Lavender braces her hands on the Gryffindor table, her hair falling down in a curtain as she leans in to talk to Hermione. “Then I’ll talk to him for you.”
“Lavender, no!” Hermione reaches for her roommate, but the blonde is too quick, twirling just out of reach before Hermione can get a hand on her.
Shit. Lurching off the bench, Hermione rushes to her friend who’s already at the Ravenclaw table. She catches up to her housemate by the time they’re passing the Hufflepuffs and by then, people are already starting to turn and watch them.
Desperately, Hermione grips onto Lavender’s arm, trying to tug her away, to pull her away from the stares boring into her from the snake pit. Uncaring, Lavender continues to saunter over to the table and Hermione loosens her grip. She can’t follow her over there, doesn’t need to witness her embarrassment up close and personal.
She hovers by the Hufflepuff table, simultaneously feeling nauseous about watching this and yet unable to look away.
Hermione has a clear view of Blaise sitting beside Draco Malfoy of all people. The Slytherin prince is eyeing Lavender curiously, but doesn't linger. Instead, those silver eyes dart to Hermione with interest. That damned brow arches and his lips twitch.
He’s already laughing at her.
Shrinking into herself, Hermoine refocuses on the nightmare about to play out in front of her. Across from Blaise is Theo Nott who sits beside Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson. The girls look back over their shoulders and whisper to each other, laughing behind their manicured hands.
While post-war trauma healed them all in surprising ways, not everyone moved on from the house rivalries. Or general bitchiness.
Hermione cringes. All of the Slytherins are going to get a front row seat to her mortification. Briefly, she wonders if she can obliviate herself or at worst, avada herself.
She can’t hear Lavender from this distance, but the blonde leans between Theo and Daphne, palms on the table to talk to Blaise. Hermione’s heart stops when Lav pulls back and points her finger directly at Hermione.
Oh, Merlin. Now everyone really is looking at her.
Lavender waves her hand to beckon Hermione to join them, but she can’t. She shakes her head as her cheeks flame, eyes still unable to pull away from Blaise. His mouth stretches into a broad grin as Lavender talks to him and Hermione’s breath catches.
The boy she’s lusted over all year leans to one side and meets her gaze. For a moment, Hermione doesn’t breathe. She’s not sure if her heart even continues to beat in her chest as Blaise Zabini drags his brown eyes over her.
Then her heart shatters, embarrassment flooding through her as the object of her desire shakes his head. She can’t read lips all that well, but she understands the shape they take when the word ‘sorry’ spills from his lips.
It’s another crucio to the heart when his eyes drag over Lavender appreciatively, lingering on her chest. He reaches a hand up to toy with her hair, blonde tresses tangling over the dark skin of his hand, and Hermione can’t watch anymore.
Her eyes catch on a pair of steely greys, her humiliation rampant and knowing he’s laughing at her. That they’re all laughing at her.
She backs away, nearly tripping as she bumps into Susan Bones, causing her books to spill onto the floor. Apologising profusely, she continues to back away, not even bothering to lean down and help Susan pick up the things Hermione caused her to drop.
Without another look or word, she dashes out of the Great Hall. She doesn’t even bother grabbing her bag, knowing Ginny or one of the other girls will bring it to her. Instead, she runs all the way to her room, throwing herself in her bed, and locking the curtains around her.
***
“Forget him, Hermione,” Ginny calls from outside Hermione’s bed.
“You’re too good for him. He’s nothing but a dumb jock.” Lavender’s voice soothes. Hermione flinches at the pity in her tone.
A laugh of incredulity bubbles from Hermione’s lips. If he were just a dumb jock it would be different. She’s used to dumb jocks: see ex number one (Viktor) and number two (Ron).
But Blaise is different. He’s quick, sharp. Yes, he’s a jock; she’s admired him during quidditch practises, flying around shirtless, broad chest shiny with sweat. But more than that, he’s been kind to her in classes, even when they had to partner up. He didn’t use her for her brain; he’s brilliant all on his own. He was easy to talk to, until she became besotted with him, anyway.
And now she doesn’t even want to think about being in the same room as him. She’s mortified.
Yanking open her curtains, she stares at her three friends standing outside, looking sheepish. “Why don’t you date him? He seemed pretty interested, just like every other boy in our year.” She looks at the blonde pointedly.
It’s a low blow, she knows that. It’s not Lavender’s fault what happened with Ron in sixth year. But it’s a bruise that Blaise unknowingly pressed. It’s left Hermione feeling raw. Will no one want her? Do they all want the loud, fun blonde with the big boobs?
Who is she kidding? Of course they do. They’re teenage boys.
“Well, what you missed after you ran out of the Great Hall was me slapping his hand away and calling him a pig. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Her anger dissipates. “Thanks,” Hermione whispers.
She wants to know but she’s too scared to ask about the rest of the Slytherins and how they reacted to Hermione’s embarrassment. Is she going to have to endure them making fun of her for the rest of the year?
She can’t get those silver eyes out of her mind, the way he looked at her as if watching her reaction. As if wanting to see her embarrassment unfold in real time.
Before she has a chance to ask, there’s a knock on their dormitory window.
A brown owl holds a package in his talon. Lavender rushes over to the window to let the owl inside. She grabs the package from its claw and steals one of Hermione’s owl treats as payment.
Seemingly moving past, or already forgetting entirely about Hermione’s crisis, Lavender wiggles her brows and tears open the package. “It’s gametime, girls.”
Dumping the contents on her own bed, Lavender inspects the content of the bag. Two pieces of parchment, what looks like a large compact, and…a snitch?
Loving the attention, Lavender clears her throat and reads them the parchment. “Once you turn on the device, it's on for good. Use it to record your dares. They will be automatically uploaded in real time to the wizarding web.”
Damn. Hermione wonders if a muggleborn was able to figure out that level of technology for this game. Which further makes her wonder who created this game and why?
“Is that really what they mean? Once you turn it on, you can’t turn it off.” Hermione’s eyes go wide. “They’ll see everything.”
“Yeah, that’s the point,” Lavender winks. “The more they see of you, the more dares you’ll get, and the more money you’ll get.”
“How…” She can feel Lavender’s irritation filling the room. “How do the videos get uploaded in real time?” She’s not critiquing the game this time, at least. She’s simply curious about how it works.
Still, the blonde sighs. “I don’t know, Hermione. It’s magic.”
Hermione doesn’t argue further, doesn’t bother to tell her friend that when she’s doing something private that she should be careful about where her device is located. Lav won’t listen to her anyway, that much is clear.
Lavender picks up the snitch and when she does, Hermione sees the lens of the camera. Its wings pop out and she realises that is how the device will follow her friend around and record everything.
“I wonder if this… oh.” Lavender opens what Hermione thought was a compact but she can see the side of Lavender’s head from where the snitch is pointing at her.
It looks like something the neighbor boys used to play games on when Hermione was a kid. Opening up the plastic square, the top half has a screen and the bottom half has a series of buttons.
Again, she wonders if, whoever created Nerve, is a muggle or half-blood, adapting muggle technology into the magical world.
“To keep an eye on the competition,” Lavender reads.
Pressing one of the buttons, the camera angle disappears and gets replaced with a list of names.
“These must be the people who are playing.” She scrolls through, listing them off one by one. “Lavender Brown,” she says with a curtsey. “Seamus Finnegan, Luna Lovegood, Ernie Macmillan, Theodore Nott—”
“Wait, Luna signed up!?” Hermione asks.
“Apparently. Oh! Susan Bones just joined. This must be updated in real time too.”
The second piece of parchment is in its own envelope with script on the front reading Lavender’s name.
“I think this is my first dare.” No nerves coat her tongue, instead raw excitement seeps into the room as Lavender rips open the envelope. “Stand on the Gryffindor table tonight at dinner and announce your love for Dean Thomas.”
The other three girls squeal and laugh. “But Dean’s with Seamus now.” The words burst from Hermione’s lips before she can even think about stopping them.
Lavender rolls her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a dare.” She sighs. “You don’t need to understand, but this is fun for me…and for people like Blaise.”
Her mouth falls open at the obvious implication. “So, this is my fault? Because I’d rather read a book than embarrass myself? But that doesn’t matter, does it? You already did it for me.” Her chest grows warm, the flush spreading up and over her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Mi. I am. But you’re too good for him, and now you know he’s a prick.” Lav reaches her hand out to take Hermione’s, but she pulls away, drawing her hands into the sleeves of her jumper. With a sigh, Lavender shakes her head. “Alright. I’ll see you in potions. And Hermione, I hope you come to dinner. I could use your support.”
With that, Lavender and Parvati leave. Hermione lies back on her bed and Ginny joins her, laying down beside her.
“Screw her,” Ginny whispers. “Not everyone needs to play the game.”
Hermione sits up and looks over at her friend. “You don’t think I could do it? You don’t think I could hop up on a table and confess my love for, I don’t know, Crabbe or Goyle or someone?”
Ginny sits up, shrugging. “It doesn’t matter, ‘Mione. It’s not you. And your real friends like you for who you are, not the act you portray to the world.” The redhead bumps her shoulder into Hermione’s.
“And who am I, Gin? Someone safe, boring? I overthink, I overplan. I’m indecisive because I’m too busy searching for every possible outcome and weighing every choice.”
“No, you’re smart and meticulous.”
“But I’m not fun. I don’t take risks in my personal life.”
Forgetting the fact that she’s a war heroine because apparently she’s the only one who remembers anyway.
Hermione lets out a harsh, emotionless laugh. “And yet it’ll never be enough, will it?” she mumbles to herself. Hopping off her bed, she moves toward Lavender’s bed and grabs the discarded bookbag sitting on the floor.
“You’ve taken enough risks. Safe doesn’t mean boring. Just because you’re not Lavender—” She stops mid-sentence. “Hermione, what are you doing?”
Not answering, she continues to rifle through Lavender’s things until she finds the piece of parchment she’s looking for. At the top of the sheet, in all capital letters, it says NERVE. In faded ink below, she can see Lavender’s name, etched into the parchment, swallowed up and raised like a fresh tattoo.
Beneath it, in hasty scrawl, Hermione adds her name.