Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 6: Deadly Sins and Heavenly Virtues
Theme: The Seven Deadly Sins
Position: Seeker for the Holyhead Harpies
Prompt: Write about a light character practicing the sin of pride/vanity.
Word Count (Pages): 1,026
With a deep breath, Hermione Granger stepped up to the mirror and opened her eyes.
Her lips parted in a gasp as she took it all in: the delicate eye shadow, the red mouth, the sleek, smooth hair.
"Is that me?" She touched her cheek. The girl in the mirror followed suit.
"Do you like it?" asked Lavender Brown. "You look a bit . . . horrified."
Hermione, eyes still glued to the mirror, shook her head. "Not horrified. Enchanted."
Lavender squealed and clapped her hands. "I can't believe you're going to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum."
Hermione nodded, never moving her eyes from the mirror. Her cheeks, normally slightly puffy, looked lifted and sculpted. Her forehead was smooth and unmarred by the spots she knew lurked somewhere beneath the makeup caked across her skin. Her eyelashes were long and heavy, and she felt like a princess, she felt like a queen. . . .
A knock on the bathroom door made Hermione glance away from her reflection. "Well?" asked Parvati Patil's voice. "How does she look?"
"Come see." Lavender leaned over to open the door. Parvati was twisting her hands together and bouncing on her toes.
"Turn around, turn around!" Parvati put both hands on Hermione's shoulders, but Hermione shook her off. She couldn't bring herself to turn away from the mirror.
"Never mind, Parvati, just look at her in the reflection," said Lavender. "I think the makeup came out quite well."
Parvati leaned over Hermione's shoulder to get a better look. "The false eyelashes look amazing," she said with a nod of approval. "And her hair—Viktor Krum isn't going to recognize you."
Hermione smiled at the sound of his name. "He did say he likes my curls, though," she said, reaching a hand up to stroke the smooth sweep of hair that waved gently over her shoulder.
Lavender slapped her hand away. "Don't touch it!"
"And don't cry tonight, either," Parvati said. "You'll get mascara all over your face and ruin Lavender's masterpiece."
"It's not as if I'm a piece of artwork," Hermione said, but something in her chest swelled with something she had never felt before—something like confidence, or pride.
Lavender patted a hair back into place. "Of course you are." She fished around in her bag for a tissue. "Blot," she said, holding the tissue up to Hermione's lips. Hermione pressed a lipstick kiss to the tissue.
"It's funny, isn't it," Hermione said as she met her own eyes in the mirror once more, "that you know more about Muggle makeup than a Muggleborn?"
Parvati and Lavender both laughed. "We go to the makeup counters every month in Hogsmeade," Lavender said. "All our makeup is magic."
"It is?"
Parvati nodded. "Temporary sticking charm on the foundation. It'll stay on your face all night."
"And a lengthening spell on the false eyelashes." Lavender tapped her makeup purse with a long fingernail.
Hermione leaned into the mirror and swept a forefinger across her eyelashes. "I can see why people do this every day," she said. "I look . . . I don't look like me."
Lavender smiled as she packed away her makeup. "Thank Merlin," she said as she pulled at the zipper on her bulging purse. "Because no offense, Hermione, but you've got what most girls call inner beauty."
Hermione felt herself blush, but the girl in the mirror retained her complexion; the sticking foundation was apparently good at hiding red skin.
"Lav!" Parvati slapped Lavender's shoulder. "Don't be mean."
"I'm not." Lavender shrugs. "I just mean . . . some of us are pretty, and some of us are smart. And it's really no question which type of girl Hermione is."
The girl in the mirror bit her lip.
"Don't do that," Parvati said. "You'll get lipstick on your teeth. Blot, again."
Hermione took the tissue and kissed it gently.
"I've got to run," said Parvati. "Padma wants me to help her get ready—she's going with Ron Weasley, did you hear?"
Lavender threw back her head and laughed. "Ron Weasley? Padma's that desperate?"
"More like Ron's that desperate," Hermione said with a smirk.
Parvati and Lavender glared.
"Oh, nothing against your sister," Hermione said quickly. "I just meant—you know Ron, he doesn't often talk to girls he doesn't know, so him asking your sister is a big step out of his comfort zone."
Parvati pursed her lips. "Your eyeliner's a bit smudged, Hermione," she said as she turned on her heel to leave the bathroom. "Might want to fix that, or Viktor will think you're a raccoon."
Hermione turned back toward the mirror and leaned over, widening her eyes so she could find the flaw on her face. "Lavender, can you—"
But Lavender was gone, too, and Hermione was alone in the bathroom.
Slowly, she raised one hand to her cheek again. Her skin looked smooth and dewey. Her eyes looked fathoms deep. Her lips were red and plump and kissable, which was a word she'd never used to describe herself before, and for a moment she felt humiliation flood her as she thought of the way Lavender had said inner beauty.
Hermione set her jaw. The girl in the mirror did the same. It didn't matter what Lavender said. It didn't matter what any of them said, not even Viktor. She was Hermione Granger, and she was beautiful—on the inside and on the outside, this time.
With a deep breath, she walked out of the bathroom.
When she came down the stairs in the Great Hall, and she reveled in the gasps from the people on the dance floor. Her chest swelled with pride when she saw that Ron, Harry, and Lavender's date (a Durmstrang student Hermione had never met) had taken their eyes off the girls in their arms to look at the masterpiece descending the steps.
"You are a vision," said Viktor when Hermione reached him.
Hermione smiled. "It's just the makeup," she said.
Viktor shook his head. "It's the girl underneath the makeup."
A new kind of pride filled Hermione—a pride that felt like butterflies in her stomach and roses on her cheeks—and she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him.