| Later on
Saturday I
can never go to classes again. I can never go
anywhere again. I can never leave this
four-poster bed with the curtains sealed shut, ever, ever again.
You won't believe what she did to
me. I can't believe what she did
to me. I can't believe my Mum let
her do this to me.
Well, she's going to pay. Mum's totally paying for this, and mean BIG. As soon as I got to the common room (after
I'd Summoned my hooded cloak from my room so I could sneak back into the castle
without being seen – luckily most people are in Hogsmeade so no one saw me), I
marched straight over to the fire and threw in some head-in-the-fireplace dust and when
Mum showed I said, You are paying for this. Big-time.
Who says I have a fear of
confrontation?
She totally tried to get out of it,
going, What do you mean? Hermione, I
think you look beautiful. I like your hair. It's so straight.
Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because her mother met Nick and me in the
lobby of the Ritz as soon as we'd turned the car over to the valet, and just pointed
at the door. Just pointed at the door again
and said, On y va, which in English means, Let's go.
Let's go where? I
asked, all innocently (this was this morning, remember, back when I was still innocent).
Chez Paolo, Grandmamma
said. Chez Paolo means Paul's house. So I thought we were going to meet one of her
friends, maybe for brunch or something, and I thought, huh, cool, field trip. Maybe these goddess lessons won't be so bad.
But when we got there, Chez Paolo
didn't turn out to be a house. It was
this building in this really posh part of London that looked like a hospital. I thought maybe Grandmamma was going to get some
plastic surgery, or something, done, which really annoyed me, because, I mean, why drag me
along?
Boy, was I ever wrong! Paolo isn't a doctor. I doubt he's even been to University. Paolo is a stylist! Worse, he styles people! I'm serious.
He takes unfashionable, frumpy people like me and makes them stylish –
for a living. And Grandmamma got him
to do that to me! Me!! Like it's bad enough that no one want to
invite me to the Halloween Ball – which, I might add, is in one week today – she
has to tell some guy names Paolo that?
What kind of a name is Paolo, anyway?
I mean, this is England, for Merlin's sake! YOUR
NAME IS PAUL!!!
That's what I wanted to scream at
him. But of course, I couldn't. I mean, it wasn't Paolo's fault my
grandmother dragged me there. And as he
pointed out to me, he only made time for me in his incredibly busy schedule because
Grandmamma told him it was this big emergency.
Queen Mab, how embarrassing. I'm a fashion emergency.
Anyway, I was plenty peeved at
Grandmamma, but I couldn't start yelling at her right there in front of Paolo. She totally knew it too. She just sat there on this velvet couch sipping
something so alcoholic that I could smell it from the other side of the room even with all
the hair spray fumes, reading Witch Weekly.
Meanwhile, two witches who were
dressed like Rita – bloody – Skeeter pushed me into this big pouffy chair and
Paolo was picking up chunks of my hair and making this face and going, all sadly, I
have never seen this much hair in my entire life.
And for the next two hours I had my
hair slathered in Sleakeasy Permanent and now my hair's not bushy anymore.
Did I mention that I'm no longer
a dishwater blonde? No. Well, I'm just plain blonde, now.
And Paolo didn't stop there. Oh no. I
now have fingernails. I am not kidding. For the first time in my life, I have fingernails. They're completely fake, but I have them. And it looks like I'll have them for awhile:
I already tried to one off and it HURT. What
kind of Dark Magic Adhesive Charm did that manicurist use, anyway?
You might be wondering why – if I
didn't want to have all my hair turned into silk and dyed yellow, and fake
fingernails stuck on over my real, stumpy fingernails – I let them do all that.
I'm sort of wondering myself. I mean, I know I have a fear of confrontation. So it wasn't like I was going to throw down
my glass of pumpkin juice and say, OK, stop making a fuss of me, right now! I mean, Grandmamma would have Avada Kedavra-ed
me on the spot.
And it is sort of hard when all these
beautiful, fashionable people are telling you how good you'd look in this and
how much that would bring out your cheekbones, to remember that you're a
feminist and a magical creatures' rights activist and proof that women with
intelligence are capable of doing anything. I
mean, I didn't want to hurt their feelings, or cause a scene, or anything like that.
And I kept telling myself, She's
only doing this because she loves you. My
grandmother, I mean. I know she probably
wasn't doing it for that reason – I don't think Grandmamma loves me any
more than I love her – but I told myself that anyway.
I told myself that after we left
Paolo's, and went to Bond Street, where Grandmamma bought me clothes that cost as
much as my entire booklist for seven years at Hogwarts.
I told myself that when she took me to Diagon Ally and brought me a broomstick that
I will never be able to ride. A Nimbus 3000.
I'm not even kidding. No one on any of the house Quidditch teams
owns a Nimbus 3000. Not even Harry or
Draco Malfoy. What on Earth am I
supposed to do with one? Maybe I can lend it
to Ron.
I did tell Grandmamma that I
would never ever need a Nimbus 3000 but she just waved at me. Like, Go on, go on.
You tell such amusing stories.
Well, I for one will not stand for it. There isn't a sqaure centimetre of me that
hasn't been pinched, cut, filed, painted, blow dried or moisturised. I even have fingernails.
But I am not happy. I am not one bit happy. Grandmamma is happy. Grandmamma is head-over-heels happy about
how I look. Because I don't look a thing
like Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger never
had fingernails. Hermione Granger does not
have straight hair. Hermione Granger never
had blonde highlights. Hermione Granger
never wore make-up or Prada shoes or Gucci skirts. I
don't even know who I am anymore. It
certainly isn't Hermione Granger.
She's turning me into someone
else.
So I stood in front of my
mother's head in the fireplace, looking like a veela with my new hair, for
crying out loud, and I let her have it.
First she makes me wear
lipstick. Then she tells me the lipstick
makes me look like a hooker. Then she gives
me sitting lessons. Then she has all my hair
dyed a different colour and makes someone glue tiny surfboards to my nails, buys me a
broomstick that cost as much as half the books in the Hogwarts library and clothes that
make me look a like a veela.
Well, Mum, I'm sorry, but
I'm not a veela, and I never will be, no matter how much Granadmama dresses me up
like one. I'm not going to prance around
like I own the world, complaining about everything because I'm too good for it and
making boys lose their brains when they see me. That's
Fleur Delacour. That's not me!
my Mum said, in
her Now-Lets-Be-Reasonable voice. Nobody is asking you to be a veela.
Grandmamma is!
Your grandmother is just trying
to prepare you, Hermione.
Prepare me for what? I can't go to school looking like this, you
know, I yelled.
My Mum looked kind of confused. Why not?
Oh JK Rowling. Why me?
I said, as
patiently as I could, I don't want anyone at school finding out that I'm a
Goddess of Mount Olympus!
Mum shook her head. Hermione, honey, they're going to find
out sometime.
I don't see how. See, I have it all worked out: I'll only be a goddess in Greece, and since
the chances of anybody I know from school going to Mount Olympus are, like, none, no one
here will ever find out, so I'm totally safe from being branded a freak.
My Mum sighed when I told her all
this. And you wouldn't believe what she
said next.
How much?
I was shocked. So was my Dad.
I heard him say
from their side of the fireplace, but my Mum kept looking at me.
I'm serious, Phillip,
she said. I can see the compromise is
getting us nowhere. The only solution in
matters like these is cold, hard cash. So how
much do I have to pay you, Hermione, to let your mother turn you into a goddess?
I stood there and gaped at her.
Consider it a job, my Mum
said, this learning how to be a goddess business. I
will pay your salary. Now, how much do you
want?
I started yelling about personal
integrity and how I refused to sell my soul to the company store, that kind of thing.
My mum sighed again and went,
Hermione, I will donate one hundred Galleons a day, in your name, to – what is
it? Oh yes – Spew, so you can save all the house elves you want, if you will
make my mother happy by letting her turn you into a goddess.
Well.
That's an entirely different
matter. It would be one thing if she were
paying me to have my hair colour magically altered.
But paying one hundred Galleons a day to S.P.E.W.? That's 36,500 Galleons per year! I could pay the salaries of all the house elves
myself!
This is a million times better than
nagging people to buy badges that they never wear!
By the way, Mum, it's
S–P–E–W. |