Disclaimer: The usual. The characters don't belong to me, but you already knew that. I hope you enjoy this! It sounds better if you hear ME read it, but you'd have to follow me on tumblr for that :)
Hermione had heard the talk for the entirety of the summer before school started. What it did, what it meant, what it was, and what it felt like.
Her mother forgot to mention the part, however, about it feeling like someone beat your torso with a meat hammer.
She sat up in bed, holding her middle, her face contorting with discomfort. She suppresses a sound of pain, not unlike a dying, wounded animal, and glances around her dorm. The other girls are asleep. Thank God. They would be of no help anyway: They are bitches. Hermione tells herself they only call her ugly and bossy because they lack sufficient self-esteem and security in themselves, but really, they are all just wicked jealous she is on a first name basis with Harry and Ron. This superiority makes her smile.
Interrupting her smile like a crying baby interrupts a game of Halo is the surging pain in her abdomen. She pulls back the comforter to crawl out of bed and nearly screams.
There is blood! Blood everywhere! On the sheets and the duvet and if that spot right there is any indication, probably the mattress. Hermione, horrified, but not unintelligent, does a quick 409 spell or two and the blood is gone. Mostly.
She curses herself for putting off laundry day, ties a jacket around her waist, and hopes for the best.
She reaches the student infirmary to find Madame Pomfrey is already awake and nursing her first bottle of cough syrup. It is cherry flavored, and the consistency of the medicine as it oozes down the nurse's gullet is enough to make Hermione ill. She loses her midnight, her two, and her three a.m. snacks all over her shoes. Great, she thinks. Another mess for the house elves.
"What can I do ya for?" the nurse asks, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She smells like sickness and cigars.
"I believe I've started my period. I require assistance," she says.
But what she really says is "Give me a fucking hysterectomy, that's what you can do!"
Madame Pomfrey releases herself from Hermione's talons and disappears under her desk. The only sound in the room is the clinking of Sherry bottles and the smacking of Hermione's angry lips. She emerges from underneath the desk with a box. She hands it to Hermione and says, "These are tampons. Use them wisely."
Hermione inspects the box of mystical gadgets. She starts to ask Madame Pomfrey how to work these, for there are no instructions on the box like with a box of Macaroni and Cheese, but Madame Pomfrey has found half a pack of cigarettes and is currently unavailable for comment.
She takes the box and leaves the infirmary, puzzled. She thinks maybe she could ask a fellow student, an older girl, for some much needed guidance, but then she remembers that everyone hates her.
"This will be a destination of truth," she says. "A path I must walk alone."
Maturity settles itself atop her atrocious head like a fuzzy toboggan: as if it knew, all along, that that was it's true home.
The inside of the box is just as confusing as the outside of the box. She locates the instructions and, after a few "Oh, that has to be a typo"s, she realizes what she must do. Her heart is heavy.
She uses the wretched tampons, making a vow to sue or hex or possibly dismember whoever came up with the slogan "Have a Happy Period".
"A happy period," she says to herself, "Would be one that does not come at all."
The burden of burgeoning womanhood is heavy and unattractive, and Hermione, not for the first time, just wishes she had whatever it is that boys have. Surely they don't bleed profusely, she thinks. And they don't have to shave their legs. Being a boy is probably pretty cool.
Hermione decides she should alert her parents to this exciting news. Back in her dorm, she grabs a pen and paper and hastily writes:
I thought I would let you know I became a woman today. The Gates of Opportunity have opened up for me, Mama and Papa! I can feel myself already wiser, gentler, and more attractive. Life is beautiful.
Say hello to my fish.
Love,
Your Hermione
Hermione knows that when the summer holidays come, she will pay for her treacherous lies, so she makes a mental note to be less ugly, for it will surely give her away.
She folds the letter and stuffs it inside her robes and takes to the stairs like a well-oiled gymnast. She hurries to the boys' dormitories, reveling in the sweet, sweet satisfaction of double standards, and slowly opens the door to Harry and Ron's room. She expect to find the boys hustling and bustling-it is 8am, after all-but they are all asleep, like hobos in boxes. She tiptoes to Harry's bedside and watches him for a moment. He is caught in a dream, a peaceful dream, whispering melodically. She would feel bad about waking him from this subconscious nirvana, but she is a woman now, and women have no time for the feelings of men. She shakes him like a drunken baby.
"What the fuck!" he growls. "What the fuck do you want?"
"I need to borrow Hedwig," she says.
"Why? It is eight in the god damn morning, you horrible beast. Go away. I was eating dream candy, dream candy for miles and miles, and you never got sick or fat from it, and it was all mine until you came along."
Hermione, angered by this lack of submission, grabs Harry by the collar of his nightshirt. "Let's get a few things straight," she snarls. "One: I am a woman, and that means I am never wrong. Two: Let me borrow your fucking bird."
Harry looks at her and steels his eyes.
"Fine. Fine! Take the bird! But I swear to God, Hermione, if I can't dream of that glorious candy country again, I will make your parents with their parents had never met, so as to not by chance create such a fuck awful person as yourself!"
He rolls back over and is dead to the world once again. She is not offended by his hurtful remarks. She has gotten what she wanted, and this victory pushes all of the bad feelings away. She ties the letter to the owl's leg and releases her into the wild. As repayment, she uses a swift shit-destroying spell and cleans the bird's cage for her dear friend, Harry. She looks upon the sleeping boys, pride and a sort of motherly love swelling inside her chest cavity, and she whispers: "You will be rewarded in Heaven."
As she makes her way to the library for a little daily reading, she wonders if perhaps they sell Gryffindor bras in Hogsmeade.