SLF: I realize this is weird for me since I'm not a Hermione/Ron fan usually but this was inspired by a fight I had with a close guy friend of mine recently. It's still not resolved but this was a nice way to work out some frustration for me and I quite like this little piece so I hope you do too.
All of the italics are quoted from the fourth book and are solely owned by J.K.R.
"We don't want to end up with a pair of trolls."
She threw open the dormitory door and slammed it shut behind her. She ran to Lavender's vanity and looked at herself. For once she could find no fault to her appearance. Her hair looked beautiful in a sleek twist on her head. Her dress robes silhouetted her small frame and her makeup was flawless. But her eyes were red and that was all that mattered.
"So basically, you're going to take the best-looking girl who'll have you, even if she's completely horrible?"
She wanted to throw something at her appearance. What good did looking pretty do? What good did hours of Sleekeazy's do her? What good did looking forward to this one night for weeks do for her? None. None at all.
"Neville's right- you are a girl."
"Oh, well spotted."
Her eyes bursting, she ripped a bobby pin out of her hair. She winced as a piece of her calmed, brown hair came with it. She paused as she looked down. This wasn't her hair. Her hair was bushy and ugly and mousy. This was sleek and pretty and chocolate. This wasn't her. None of this was. It was all a façade.
"Just because it's taken you three years to notice…doesn't mean no one else has spotted I'm a girl!"
She spent an hour ripping the rest of the bobby pins out. She had used so many. She had wanted to look perfect tonight. To show them that Hermione Granger, the biggest bookworm in Hogwarts, was indeed a girl. That Hermione Granger could be pretty. But she was wrong. She couldn't be pretty.
"I already told you! I'm going with someone else!"
"She's lying."
"She's not."
Only after all of the bobby pins were scattered on the floor around her did she stop. Her hair was still sleek and pretty but at least it was no longer in an elaborate knot. It gave her a sick sense of bitter accomplishment when she noticed some strands had defied the potion and were bushy. Apparently she couldn't deny who she was. No matter how much she wanted to.
"You're not telling me someone asked that to the ball? Not the long-molared Mudblood!"
She looked at her teeth. Her tiny, shrunken teeth. She didn't relish the thought of telling her parents. Why wasn't she happy with who she was? Why couldn't she just 'love herself' and 'believe in herself'? Oh, right. Because that was all bullocks. No one really loved themselves, except maybe Malfoy. Everyone wanted to be someone different. Everyone wanted to change something about themselves.
"He said he'd been coming up to the library every day to try and talk to me, but he hadn't been able to pluck up the courage!"
Why was it so off that a guy would like her? Why did everyone act so surprised? At first, at the ball, when everyone had been staring, it was nice. She felt…like a pauper that had been chosen by a prince. And she wasn't in love with the prince, not like in the fairytales, but it was still…nice. But now she felt the ridiculousness of it all.
"He's just trying to get closer to Harry- get inside information on him- or get near enough to jinx him-"
Was it really so difficult for Ron to accept that Viktor asked her because he thought she was pretty? Because he thought she was interesting? Because, heaven forbid, he might fancy her? Hermione thrust her hands down on the vanity and analyzed her face. Was she really that ugly? That mousy? That worthless?
"Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't you?"
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
This was the last time Hermione Granger would allow anyone to make a fool out of her again. She wasn't a pretty girl. She wasn't a girl men fell in love with. She was smart. She was sensible. And Goddamnit, she had bushy hair.
"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!"