A/N: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the other characters!!! Sorry this chapter is so short. I wrote it out on paper and it seemed a lot longer… hrmph. Anyways, I hope you enjoy. It's independent of my other stories and not near as cheesy as you might think it would be.
"A beauty pageant, Hermione. Come on, don't you think it will be fun? Everyone's entering, and I don't really want to do it alone. Please? For me?" Ginny begged Hermione as the pair sat at breakfast on a Sunday morning in October. "I don't know, Ginny. It's not really my desire to be in a beauty contest," Hermione sighed, stirring her porridge. "Oh come on, didn't you dream about being Miss Witch or what ever it is that the muggles have?" Ginny continued, knowing that Young Hermione had been like every other little girl despite her brains. "Okay, I give up. Put my name down," Hermione said, exasperated. "We'll have so much fun!" Ginny said, clapping her hands and jumping up from the table.
"Are you mad? You? In a beauty pageant?" Ron guffawed at lunch when Hermione had mentioned the pageant. She fought off tears as she said, "I'm just doing it for Ginny because she asked me to. Besides, I'm sure I won't make it past the first round anyway." Ron laughed, bits of sausage flying from his mouth and on to the table. "You've got that right," he said through his food. Hermione blushed angrily, turning in her seat so she wouldn't have to look at Ron. Harry looked from Hermione to Ron but refrained from commenting. Ginny was busy talking to Lavender, who was sitting across from Harry.
After hearing Ron's initial reaction, Hermione gave him the cold shoulder throughout the rest of the day and on into Monday. Ron didn't notice, of course, as he was too busy talking about the upcoming Quidditch match with Hufflepuff. "You okay, Hermione?" Ginny said from her spot on the couch in the Gryffindor common room. She was attempting to work on her homework while Harry sat with his are around her shoulders, reading a chapter in his transfiguration textbook. "I'm fine," Hermione said, not looking up from her arithmancy homework, "I'm just a bit tired."
To be quite honest, Hermione had been looking forward to the pageant before she had heard Ron's reaction to her decision to enter the contest. She wasn't sure why it bothered her so badly, but it did. 'If he thinks that, then everyone else is going to think that too,' she mused, pretending to be making calculations in her homework. Wistfully, she imagined herself in beautiful, sparkling robes, wearing a diamond tiara and waving to the crowded Great Hall. 'Why couldn't it be me?' she asked herself, setting down her quill and smiling. It was time to get out those magazines that her mum was always sending.
Late that night, with her bed curtains drawn around her, Hermione flipped through the pages of "Vogue," an American muggle fashion magazine that her mum had sent. "Have a flatter tummy in two weeks," the article said. Hermione tore out the page with the exercises and stuck it to the wall behind her bed with some spellotape. She also stuck up a picture of a hair do that she liked and several pages of make up tips. Even though she was quite talented at charms, Hermione preferred to do her make up the muggle way. Around 2 am, Hermione finally went to bed, only after doing her ab exercises, mind you.
At breakfast the next morning, Professor McGonagall passed out rolls of parchment to many girls at each of the house tables. "Pageant rules!" Ginny squeaked excitedly. Hermione unrolled the parchment, glancing over the rules quickly. She had finished up all of her homework for the week already, so she could allow herself some time in the library, researching the past Hogwarts pageants. She already knew that the winner at Hogwarts would go to the Miss Witch competition in Paris, but that was all she knew. So, in typical Hermione fashion, she would head to the library after classes had ended for the day.
To be continued…