Set in Hermione's sixth year at Hogwarts.

She's an artist

a painter actually;

see that 'smile' on her face?

Well it's her most famous piece.

Hermione stared at the mirror.

She couldn't believe how ridiculous she was being, imagine everyone's reactions if they knew that Hermione Granger stood in the girls lavatory, in the middle of the night, alone, staring at a reflection of herself.

But she couldn't stop staring, her own brown eyes staring back at her.

Brown was such a boring color, why couldn't she have sparkling green eyes like Harry's? Or Luna's striking blue eyes?

And her teeth! Sure, they were smaller now that Madam Pomfrey had shrunk them but she still had a huge overbite. Her over bite was the reason she never smiled with her teeth showing, her over bite was too horrendous to look at.

And she didn't dare to get braces, that would have made her even more hideous then she already was.

But the big problem was her hair.

That bushy mane of mud brown curls.

She looked ridiculous.

For the Yule Ball, she had spent hours styling it and trying to make it look half way decent.

She had never liked the dress she wore for the Yule Ball, one of her Mum's old dresses. Hermione's dress didn't nearly look as stylish or expensive as Cho Chang's dress.

And Hermione had even skipped a few meals, desperately attempting to make herself look slimmer. Hermione was never sure why she put that much effort into her appearance that day, but now the answer was dawning upon her.

Ron.

It was for Ron, to impress him, to make him finally see that she was a girl. But despite all the effort she had put, Ron didn't even comment on how she looked!

Had she really looked that bad? Harry told her she looked gorgeous, but of course he was just being nice.

And now, Ron was dating Lavender Brown, the most beautiful girl in their year.

They were snogging all over the castle, it was disgusting.

To be honest, Hermione had never even been kissed in her entire life.

Viktor had never kissed her; Hermione assumed she was just his pity date.

Hermione Granger, 16 years old and still never been kissed.

But who would want to kiss ugly old Hermione?

Why would Ron ever want to go out with her?

Lavender was much prettier. Hermione never told Ron and Harry, but the girls in her dorm hated her.

They were always making fun of her, sneering that no one would ever want to date her and she was just a filthy mudblood. Hermione tried not caring how she looked, avoiding her reflection when she could, but with Lavender Brown's nasty insults, she found herself caring more and more about her appearance.

Was it so much to ask that she wanted a female friend?

Ginny was nice to her, but Ginny had better things to had a bunch of friends and was extremely wouldn't like Ginny, she was beautiful, athletic, funny, kind, Ginny was perfect.

And it wasn't like Hermione had a great personality for her horrible looks. Nobody likes a bossy know-it-all.

And she wasn't that clever, she got only an E on DADA last year and Harry was beating her in Potions! And staring back at the mirror, Hermione realized that she wasn't beautiful.

She wasn't smart.

And with Harry being too busy bugging Slughorn, and Ron snogging Lavender, she didn't have any friends either.

She was pathetic, just pathetic.

And no matter how hard she tried, she would never truly be beautiful.

And behind all the confident exterior Hermione knew she was the complete opposite. Just standing in front of a mirror, gazing at her reflection, Hermione had never felt so weak.

Hermione fell to her knees on the hard stone floor and sobbed. And she knew that Harry saw her red nose and puffy eyes he would ask what was wrong. Hermione was an expert at this, she would paint a smile on her face, and tell him she was perfectly fine.

Because that's what Hermione Granger did best. And that she needed to be strong, like everyone excepted her to.

Because she was an artist.