For a moment, she felt nothing, and then a strange, warm tingle passed over her body. It started in the roots of her hair, then slowly worked its way down over her face, her chest and arms, her hips and legs, all the way to her feet, leaving an odd feeling, as if her skin was too tight, that took a moment to disperse. Hermione took a couple of deep breaths, then opened her eyes and looked in the mirror.
She looked exactly the same as she had a moment ago.
Hermione frowned, puzzled. Maybe she hadn't done it right? She went back into the common room and picked up the book again to look...no, the words were right, and there didn't appear to be any instructions beyond the ones she'd paid attention to. There was just that warning: this spell should only be attempted by an extremely powerful witch and should never under any circumstances be spoken by a wizard. As the spell is difficult to reverse, the caster should be sure she is prepared to live with the consequences. Perhaps she just wasn't powerful enough... or maybe she was somehow 'unprepared', as it said...
Or maybe spells like that just weren't meant for people like Hermione. She sighed and shut the book... she should have known it was too good to be true. Things like that happened to the glamorous people of the world... the Perditas and Paulinas, the models and movie stars and princesses. It didn't happen to dentists' daughters named Hermione. She dumped the book on her bed, put her robe back on, and went back downstairs. She might as well get something out of all this by being early for History of Magic.
It was during History of Magic that Hermione ended up apologizing to Ron and Harry. She knew that if she had to look at them again, she wouldn't be able to hold out long... and sure enough; they walked into the classroom with kicked puppy expressions on their faces, and any lingering resolve not to forgive them melted like strawberry ice cream. They kept their eyes on their toes as they shuffled over and sat down on either side of her.
"Uh... Hermione?" asked Ron. "Did we do something wrong?"
The answer was 'yes', but Hermione couldn't bring herself to say so. "No," she lied. "I'm sorry. I'm just a little... a little stressed, I guess. You know, this being NEWT year and all." She managed to make herself smile at them.
"NEWTs?" Ron said. "Geeze, Hermione, NEWTs aren't until June. We've only been back one day!" He sounded relieved, though. Nerdy little Hermione, doing what nerdy little Hermione always did. His unquestioning and uninterested acceptance made her feel more like dirt than all the insults in the world.
Thirty seconds later (Ron and Harry had never gotten out of their disgusting habit of arriving only seconds before class began), Professor Binns floated in through the blackboard and the lesson began. Hermione participated like she usually did, putting up her hand when he asked questions and answering when he called on her, but she did so while feeling oddly detached and robotic. She wasn't really here, wasn't really participating... she was just doing what everybody expected her to do. Going through the motions of being Hermione Granger.
"Who was the last ruler of England to keep a court wizard?" Professor Binns asked the class. "Yes, Hermione?"
"Elizabeth the First," she replied, hearing her own voice sounding like it was coming from far away. "Her successor, James the First, believed that witches and wizards were agents of the devil and banished them from court."
"Very good," said Professor Binns. "Five points to Gryffindor! I'll make it ten if you can tell me which two wizard families lost political prominence because of this."
"The Spencers and the Blacks," replied Hermione.
"Excellent!" Professor Binns nodded.
Hermione sat back in her seat, somehow not feeling at all pleased with herself, and noticed as she did that Harry and Ron were using a note-passing charm; words in Ron's roudish hand were appearing in Harry's notebook:
'Female troubles', they said. Give her a couple of days.
She looked away quickly. Well... at least they knew that she was a girl.
The rest of the day wasn't any better. It wasn't really any worse... but while nothing happened to bring Hermione any further down, nothing happened to bring her back up again, either. Ron and Harry, of course, took her quite literally when she told them she was fine, but not everybody was as blind as they were.
"Are you okay, Hermione?" Lavender Brown asked as the girls got ready for bed.
"I'm fine," said Hermione.
Lavender looked at her suspiciously. "No, you're not," she said. "You've been sulking all day long. You barely ate anything at dinner and you've hardly spoken to Harry and Ron. What's wrong? Maybe we can help."
"No," Hermione shook her head. "You can't. But thanks." She gave Lavender a watery smile. "I think I'm going to go to bed early tonight," she added.
"All right," said Lavender. "But if there's anything we can do, let us know, okay?"
"Okay," Hermione promised.
The next morning, Hermione's alarm clock went off promptly at six thirty, like it always did. Technically, the students didn't have to be up until seven - that left them plenty of time to get washed up and dressed before breakfast at eight, and then classes began at eight thirty. Hermione, however, liked to be up early - it gave her time to get her notes in order, and also meant she got the bathroom all to herself, without fifty other Gryffindor girls of various ages slipping on the soap and crowding around the mirror to put their makeup on.
The peace and quiet also gave her time to think, and today of all days she sorely needed to. The miserable feelings that had dogged her all yesterday had passed... or at least, abated somewhat. No, she wasn't pretty, and yes, her friends only realized she was female when she had PMS, but weren't there more important things for her to think about? She was in school - she was here to learn, to become the important research witch she'd dreamed of being ever since she'd gotten her Hogwarts letter seven years ago. Things like boys and relationships could wait until she was grown up and graduated, and had time for such things. Right now, she should just study hard and try not to get too annoyed with Ron and Harry for being Ron and Harry. No silly beauty spell was going to solve all her problems for her.
With that settled to her satisfaction, she stepped into the bathroom and began unbuttoning her pajamas. The candles, which were charmed to light themselves whenever anybody entered, sputtered to life - Hermione glanced up at them, then returned her attention to her buttons.
A moment later, she stopped short and looked up again. The candles were in a bracket just above the mirror, and when she'd looked at them, she'd momentarily caught sight of her reflection. Now she stood perfectly still for a moment, unable to do anything but gape like a fish at the sight of herself. Then she screamed.
Actually, she sort of half-screamed... she got halfway through the panicked cry when some still coldly dispassionate part of herself reminded her that it was six thirty AM, and she quickly clapped both hands over her mouth. She stood there frozen and silent for a few seconds, terrified that all of Hogwarts was about to come running to see who was being murdered, but the moments dragged by, punctuated only by the kettledrum pounding of her heart, and nobody showed up. Once she was absolutely certain that nobody was coming, and once her shocked brain had thawed enough to allow her to move, she locked the door with shaking hands and then turned to take another look at her reflection.
It was difficult to put a finger on what was different. The only obvious change was in her hair; it was still brown and curly, but it was a darker, richer brown than the mousy shade she'd sported before, and there was gleaming gold in the highlights. Instead of being uncontrollable friz, the strands had smoothed out into sleek, silky curls. She twined a lock around one finger and pulled on it; when she let go, it sprang back into place, shining in the candlelight as it bounced. Nobody's hair should have looked that good when they'd just gotten out of bed, but Hermione had a hard time imagining how hers could have possibly looked better.
Her eyes had changed, too. Like her hair, they were darker than the neutral grayish shade she remembered, and had bits of gold in them that hadn't been there before. Were they also a bit bigger than she remembered, or was that her imagination? She couldn't decide, but certainly her lashes were thicker and darker, and her eyebrows had taken on a more elegant arch.
Her skin might've been a bit fairer, and all the remnants of old freckles and scars from where she'd picked at pimples had melted away. Her teeth were whiter, and her lips fuller and pinker. But beyond that, nothing much actually seemed different about the shape of her face and features. Whatever had changed, it didn't seem to be something she could put a name to. Everything was just a little more symmetrical, a little more smooth - as if her face had been the rough sketch for a piece of art that had now been completed.
It wasn't just her face, either. The same thing had happened to her hands and her figure. But despite the differences, it was still very definitely her; nobody could have mistaken the girl in the mirror for anybody except Hermione.
"That's me," Hermione said out loud to the mirror, trying to convince herself. Her voice had changed too, in the same indescribable fasion; it was her voice, but somehow without there being any quantifiable difference, it was infinitely prettier. "That's me," she said again. "Hermione Granger."
And then she laughed - she wasn't dreaming. She, Hermione Jane Cecily Granger, was beautiful.