Hermione sighed, looking down at the offending pair of high heeled shoes. She never would have thought that she… would be wearing high heels. However, with the Yule Ball… She knew that the majority of her fellow female pupils would be wearing them, too… even the younger ones having gotten invited by fourth years and older. The last Hermione wanted was to be the exception confirming the unwritten rule.
She was a girl as well after all… even though she never had worn a pair of high heels for longer than a few minutes while in a store, and… that had been just once as well, with the very same pair of dark pink heels before her. Even as a child she had not been interested in parading in the high heels of her mother, not even if she knew others had liked nothing better but to 'borrow' high heels of theirs – and if possible the highest.
Hermione had liked it far better to borrow her mother's books and hair pins than those high heels or make-up or dresses – the hair pins being purely for needed purposes, though. Since childhood, Hermione had found it annoying to have that bushy hair in her face. She would make sure to do something about that for the occasion of the Yule Ball as well. However, first she needed to consider those shoes…
While in France with her mother and father, her mother had insisted on dragging her into a shoe store, where she had further insisted on buying her daughter a pair of high heels, saying Hermione was becoming a big girl – already bordering on the age of fifteen after all – which was the very same age when her own mother had bought her her first high heels.
Jean had already begged her mother every time when they had been together in a shoe store and when she had seen a pair of high heels in her size and style. Sadly enough, her daughter Hermione had never quite shared that love…
She cast her gaze aside on the open box on the bed beside her, revealing a beautiful pink dress. Hermione had seen it in a store near where she lived one day in summer when going to the market with her mother, and had gazed at the shopping window in awe… but she had had no use for such expensive chic dress, and thus she had not thought about it anymore. However, the very first day of school – since the mentioning of the Triwizard Tournament, and the Yule Ball – Hermione Granger had already found herself dying to Owl her mother, basically begging her to go and see if the dress was available still in her size. The Yule Ball would be the right opportunity to wear it.
Hermione was truly very grateful for all the effort her mom had done to get it for her. The dress and the shoes had arrived together that morning. Her mother had waited to send them together until having gotten her hands on the dress in her daughter's size, saying that the first store in their neighborhood had sold the last in her size just the day before, and therefore her mother had requested if maybe the dress was available still at another store of theirs in that particular size. Their filial in Ireland had had the last, and so Mrs. Granger had requested for it to be shipped to the one close by their home. She apologized for not sending anything anything sooner, having worried Hermione up to the point that she'd Owled another letter to ask if all was okay.
Hermione was so glad that she actually had the dress of her dreams, and the thought that the shoes would fit perfectly with it even though both articles came from even other countries, would maybe make all the effort Hermione would have to do just to be able to dance on those damn shoes on the Yule Ball itself bearable… and actually worth it in the end.
Hermione had temporarily charmed her shoes so the heels wouldn't sound as she walked. She would really need to learn walking on high heels if she didn't want to do something stupid on the Yule Ball. Sighing, she slid her feet in the high heels and immediately felt the leather tight around her feet regardless of the thick woolen socks she wore. It would look ridiculous, but her mother had suggested wearing them a few days with socks and then a few without to get used to them and make them stretch a little and adjust to her feet. Her long school robes would hide her feet from view either way. She would just have to be careful if she sat.
She got to her feet slowly and nearly fell upon the bed again at the unsteady, unusual feeling of being a few inches taller and her heels being raised. Merely going down the stairs would be a challenge already. She groaned.
A soft sigh escaped Hermione Granger's lips as she finally sat again. She tried not to think about the pain in her feet, but it was hard when every inch of them throbbed like hell and whatnot. Her feet had been sore every evening the week before when she took off the shoes after having walked all day on them, but since Hermione wore them without socks since that week, they were certainly more than sore: they were… bruised, lacerated and seriously swollen. There were painful sores all over and some of them were bloody, others infected.
She was quite glad that she was usually ready for basically all situations and had found a tin of Muggle salve for her current situation in the depths of her night table – she had already gathered quite a lot of stuff in there in four years. She wasn't sure if it actually helped, though… but just to make sure, she nonetheless kept on using it. She could certainly wear other shoes, but… then the whole point would be gone. She had to be able to walk in those shoes in the end anyway.
So grateful that she finally sat, Hermione barely noticed her school robes having slid up just a little to reveal her bloodied and injured feet for a moment until she resettled when the lesson began. Luckily none of the other pupils had noticed and thus asked awkward questions later. However, Professor McGonagall's all observing nature had not failed to notice as she brusquely walked into the room between the hurdle of pupils to the end of the classroom and filed it away to ask her young charge about after, before lunch, given that Transfiguration was the fourth year Gryffindors' last lesson of the morning.
The lesson went over fairly normal otherwise with Hermione as usual excelling in turning her hedgehog in a pincushion while the rest of the Gryffindors failed, as well as the Slytherins, of who Draco Malfoy nagged nearly the entire lesson through, saying that that spell was of little relevance for the rest of his life. He, however, had done so quietly after one piercing gaze of the professor, though.
"Miss Granger, a word?" Professor McGonagall called over the noise of her pupils gathering their stuff and heading down to the Great Hall for food. Hermione eyed the professor curiously but nodded nonetheless. She calmly took her bag and sucked her quivering lower lip under her teeth as she walked over to the desk on the other end of the room, doing her best to suppress the urge to cry in pure agony with pain. Her feet really were killing her. This had been going on for about four days then. She had already had two sores an hour after she had slid into the shoes without socks.
She stood by the desk waiting as her professor carefully watched the door, whipping her wand to close it once the last pupil had gone through, finally turning to her nervous pupil. "Miss Granger, may I wonder aloud and inquire after the reason why you're walking about in high heels in the middle of the week?" Her tone was not accusatory – or at least Professor McGonagall tried not to make it sound that way.
Hermione blushed crimson at the professor's inquiry and began to stutter, "I know I don't usually wear anything like this, but I eh… I wanted to learn how to walk with high heels for the Yule Ball… I would like to be a girly girl that night, look like a…" She gasped at the word 'princess' just in time before it escaped her lips.
Minerva's eyebrow quirked. "I assure you you do look like a girl, Miss Granger. You don't have to self-mutilate to look like one. High heels don't actually make your look, although I do value your effort to help keep Hogwarts' reputation high, unlike what I expect from some of your fellow pupils… on the other end I would have assumed you to be thoughtful enough not to continue wearing those heels if they make your feet look like that."
Hermione redirected her gaze down. She didn't know what she had expected to come forth from that conversation, but certainly not that. She didn't really know just how to feel. Embarrassed for not being able to walk about in high heels when the older woman and many others had no issues with it at all or indeed stupid for not having worn something more comfortable but having gone through wearing those shoes… even though what they did to her feet… making her feel on the verge of tears 24/7 just because of the pain.
"Have you been treating those feet?" Professor McGonagall inquired and watched her charge nod. She rose from her chair behind the large wooden desk and crossed it to join Hermione, leaning against the desk itself. "Would you mind showing me?" she asked.
With a deep intake of air, Hermione obeyed, gathering some of her robes in her fist and slowly lifting them. Even though she was still wearing those shoes, you could see bloody lacerations at the edges visibly. A wave of Professor McGonagall's wand suddenly banished her shoes to the desk, and the elder woman intuitively reached for her charge as she wavered on her legs by the loss of three inches under her heels.
"Now let me see them," Professor McGonagall whispered in a tone unlike her own. As Hermione again lifted her robes, Professor McGonagall could see a number of Muggle band-aids across her feet assumedly hiding the most hideous and serious open sores. She involuntarily released a gasp. Some of the bruises seemed at least a few days old, and she suspected that maybe this had been going on for a few days already if not weeks. Why had she not noticed anything sooner?
Minerva quietly waved her wand at the shoes seated on her desk, a slight cushioning charm spreading over its insides. Hermione failed to notice this until later. "I just wanted to look beautiful…" she whispered, suddenly sounding very childish and embarrassed with her Head of House then.
Professor McGonagall nodded quietly. "I know. Now I'd suggest you don't try them on anymore until your feet are healed again… Do you believe you can walk, because I'm taking you to the infirmary to let Madam Pomfrey have a look at your injuries whether you like it or not?" she asked. "They look serious enough."
Upon arrival at the infirmary, of course Madam Pomfrey chastised her for not having come sooner with those injuries, concerning the load of infections and whatnot. What the hell had she been assuming to just continue wearing any shoes at all with those…? Professor McGonagall had squeezed her hand momentarily before disappearing… assuring her that she would keep the young girl's secret and not publicly announce the true reason, no matter how foolish.
Stormy green with small shimmers rarely seen connected with hazel, and Hermione smiled lightly, momentarily wiggling one of her feet before setting it down again so as to say that she had discovered the charm, and that it had actually worked. The rhythm of the music and their dance partners lead them away from each other again, and Hermione wondered if she herself used it, too. She had not failed to notice the heels of considerable height on the elder woman's feet… not quite the kind of thing one would imagine seeing her with either.