Chapter Text
Everyone always looked at Coraline first.
It wasn’t jealousy, not exactly. It was observation, patterned and proven. People looked at Cora the way they looked at sunlight after a long rain, it didn’t matter if Hermione had answered more questions, earned the higher marks, spoken first. Cora was the one they remembered.
She had their mother’s golden hair and their father’s open smile, her voice always hit the right pitch, pleasing to the ears. She was charming, magnetic, and lovely. Cora was the kind of girl who was noticed before she entered a room and missed long after she left it.
Hermione had frizzy curls, ink stained fingers, and a habit of speaking too quickly when nervous, which was often. She was sharp, cunning, and clever. She corrected people and didn’t understand why they resented her for it. She didn’t sparkle like her twin sister, she flickered, and no one wanted to chase a flicker.
Even as children, there were always two of them, but only ever one name called first.
At home, it was Coraline who made their mother laugh in the kitchen while Hermione read at the table, unseen and unheard. At school, it was Cora who was chosen to be the class monitor, while Hermione was told her “attitude needed adjusting.”
When the first signs of magic began, floating pencils, shattering mirrors, Cora’s accidents were called charming. Hermione’s were called disturbing. When the Hogwarts letters arrived, two identical envelopes with two identical crests, their mother had cried over Cora’s. Hermione had to pick hers up off the floor, that should have been the warning.