A/N: Written for the Pairing Diversity Boot Camp Challenge with the prompt: glad rags. 1/50
When Hermione Granger looked at her reflection that afternoon, she didn't see herself. She didn't see the bushy-haired girl weighed down by schoolbooks that she had grown so accustomed to looking at in the mirror.
Her chestnut curls were smooth and elegant down her back with one lock of hair placed in front of her shoulder, so different from the bushy mess that she'd given up hope about taming a long while ago.
She stood straight and tall as if she were a marionette whose strings were being pulled, not at all like the hunched-over girl that she caught glimpses of who could barely be seen behind her towering pile of schoolbooks.
Her slightly fitted gown flowed elegantly down her body, so strangely alien from the black, red, and gold uniform that was so loose and unrefined.
When Hermione Granger looked in the mirror at that figure that had to be her and yet couldn't possibly be, she was seeing the girl she'd always longed to be.
She was pretty. She didn't like seeming vain, but it was true: the girl in the mirror was pretty – beautiful, even. She smiled. Now there were words that she never would have used to describe herself yesterday. The hair that she had tried so often to tame was now smooth, her posture that had never been improved by hunching over old, dusty textbooks in the library, was now elegant, and the dress, her best dress, the best clothes she'd ever owned – glad rags, her mum would call them – was perfect.
And she was popular. At least, popular enough that she had a date to the Yule Ball. It was true that he wasn't exactly the person that she was hoping would ask, but he was an internationally famous Quidditch player. That had to count for something, even if she couldn't care less about Quidditch.
She sighed, straightened out some nonexistent wrinkles in her dress to give her a few extra seconds, and then slowly walked out of the dormitory.
She did have fun, she couldn't deny that. Viktor was very pleasant company to spend the evening with. It was a bit strange to be turning heads wherever she went. She could almost hear the people thinking: That's Hermione?
She couldn't help herself, though – she found herself scanning the crowded Great Hall for Ron. She found herself wondering: Why couldn't he have asked me to the ball before Krum got the chance? She found herself wishing that she was dancing with him. Yes, Viktor was nice, and he liked her for who she normally was instead of the girl she was dressing up as tonight. But so did Ron – hadn't time proved that? Yes, he'd been absolutely rotten to her for the first two months that they'd been in school together, but things had changed – was it too much to hope for that they might change just a little bit more?
She did see Ron a few times, and he never looked particularly happy. He had gotten Padma Patil as a date to the ball (well, actually, Harry and Parvati had arranged that for him), but he was completely ignoring her. Not that long into the Ball, she had left him to sulk and went to go dance with a boy Hermione didn't recognize – probably from Beauxbatons.
But when the ball ended, everything came crashing down. She didn't remember anything that she said, and she knew that she'd regret some of it. All she remembered was the yelling and the arguing, being torn between fury and sobs, feeling guilty for yelling at one of her best friends but having so much anger that it didn't seem to matter.
And then it was all over, and she remembered crying. The night had been perfectly happy except for that argument, but that one thing had managed to tip the scale of her emotions so drastically that nothing else seemed to matter. She knew that she should go up to the Common Room, but there was something strangely calming and reassuring about the deserted hall in the aftermath of the dance.
She stood up shakily. Her chestnut curls had gotten a bit tangled, but still appeared fairly neat. She straightened up, adjusting from her usual slightly hunched posture to the elegant stance she had assumed that night. Her glad rags dress still flowed beautifully. Her beauty didn't really matter to her now; not now that there wasn't anyone to see her, not now that she felt so horrible inside.
She sighed, straightened a few wrinkles from her dress to give her a few extra seconds and slowly made her way back to the Common Room.
