They weren't... in fact, even when soaking wet, her hair looked amazing. She cast a drying charm on it and then tried several different ways of putting it up; all were lovely, but in the end, she decided to simply let the curls hang around her face.
It was still difficult to believe that the beautiful girl in the mirror was Hermione Granger. She found herself worrying that her newfound beauty was just some kind of illusion that only existed in the mirror, while to everybody else she looked the same as she always had. How could she find out? It wasn't as if she could just go up and ask somebody, 'excuse me, am I gorgeous?'
She got her answer, however, when the first of the other girls came in to use the showers. Dusky Parvati Patil was at the front of the line, and nodded sleepily at Hermione as she walked by.
"Morning, Herm..." she said, and then did a double-take the likes of which Hermione had never before seen outside of a cartoon. "Hermione?" she asked.
"Morning, Parvati," Hermione replied, carefully casual but unable to repress a grin. Behind Parvati, Lavender Brown had also come to a dead stop and was staring with her mouth open. Hermione's heart soared - Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown were two of the most beautiful girls at Hogwarts. If they were impressed...
"Wow," said Parvati. "Hermione, you look fabulous!" She frowned momentarily as she studied Hermione, trying to figure out what had changed. Evidently she couldn't put her finger on what it was, though, because apparently the best she could think of was, "new conditioning potion?"
Hermione twined a curl around one finger. "Is it that obvious?" she asked.
"Well, yeah," said Lavender. "It looks amazing! You'll have to hook us up with some of that!"
"Sorry," said Hermione, "it's a secret recipe."
"Oh, I see." Parvati smiled. "Well, in that case, can I ask just one question?"
"What's that?"
"Who's the guy?"
"The guy?" Hermione echoed. "What makes you think there's a guy?"
"Um, you, dolled up like that?" Lavender grinned. "Come on, Hermione, the last time you took any trouble with your hair was when you wanted to look nice for Viktor Krum at the Yule Ball, and that was in fourth year! So who is it this time?"
Hermione smiled wistfully. "I don't know yet..." she said. "But hopefully I'll find out."
"Ahhh," said Parvati, nodding. "Well, keep looking like that, and it'll be every boy at Hogwarts! Just don't go stealing Seamus Finnegan from me, and it'll all be fine."
"Deal," Hermione promised.
Hermione was on top of the world as she got dressed. The sudden burst of confidence was almost unreal... what was it that was so empowering about knowing you looked good? Hermione had always known she was smart, always known she was talented, and just that morning she'd decided it really didn't matter if she was pretty or not... and yet none of that had made her feel as ready for anything as she felt now.
Before leaving the girls' dormitory, she paused one more time to admire her reflection in the standing mirror. The Hogwarts school uniform was near-legendary for its ability to make any girl look frumpy, but apparently the spell had left her ready even for that, because she still looked terrific. The very proper and modest uniform, combined with her new looks, made her look at once fresh and innocent and a little naughty - like a Catholic schoolgirl who had decided to find out what it was the nuns were always warning her about. She blew her reflection a kiss and then sauntered down the stairs to the common room.
The boys in Gryffindor tended to get up later for the girls, but made up for it by not spending as long getting ready - boys, after all, didn't need to worry about things like their hair and makeup. So Harry, Ron, Dean, Seamus, and Neville were already in the common room, discussing their divination homework over a quick game of wizard memory - which was much like the normal kind, except that the cards crawled around on the carpet and you had to be quick to catch the one you wanted before it wandered off.
Hermione pretended to pay no attention to them as she descended the stairs, but it was hard to keep a smile off her face. She managed it until three steps from the bottom, which was when Dean Thomas looked up at her, and his mouth fell open into a round O of shock. "Holy cow!" he exclaimed. "Hermione, you look great!"
She couldn't keep from grinning like a fool any longer. "Thanks," she replied.
Dean's exclamation made the other boys look up, and they all reacted similarly. Seamus just stared, Ron turned as white as a sheet and opened and closed his mouth like a fish, and Neville's ears turned brilliant red, followed closely by the rest of his face. Harry's eyes grew nearly as round as his glasses. "Hermione?" he asked. "What happened to you?"
"New conditioning potion," she replied casually, tossing her silky locks - being able to think of them as 'silky locks' made it even more difficult not to smile - over her shoulder. "How's it look?"
Harry swallowed. "Good," he managed.
"Yeah," said Ron weakly. "Really good."
"Thanks," Hermione said again, and then pretended to think about something before adding, "it's an awful lot of work to brew, though. I don't know if I really want to go to the trouble... do you think it was worth it?"
"Oh, yes," Dean nodded eagerly.
"Absolutely," said Seamus.
"It looks good," said Harry.
"Really good," agreed Ron.
Neville muttered something nobody could hear, got up, and ran up to the boys' dormitory in a hurry.
There were also boys from the other year in the room, and most of them then took their own turn to compliment Hermione on her knew look. She thanked them as modestly as possible, basking in the attention. So this was what she'd been missing! This was what life was like for Parvati and Lavender, and for Pansy Parkinson in Slytherin, Sarah Woodville and Asuka Ito in Hufflepuff and Hecate Langston in Ravenclaw - the girls who were beautiful and knew it. Hermione had always told herself she didn't envy them. Who had she thought she was kidding? Not herself, certainly.
"Well, I'd better get downstairs," said Hermione cheerfully. "I want to look over my notes before we eat. See you at breakfast, Ron, Harry!" She walked past the astounded boys and swung the portrait hole open.
"Morning, Hermione," the fat lady said. "Don't you look nice today."
"Thank you," Hermione replied.
As the door creaked shut, she heard one of the boys say, "conditioning potion, my butt. That was some kind of makeover spell. My sister uses them, only she screws them up and turns her hair green half the time."
Several of the boys sniggered. Poor girl, Hermione thought.
The ever-changing hallways and staircases of Hogwarts meant that it could sometimes take half an hour to do something as simple as get from the dormitory down to the great hall, but today everything was right where Hermione expected it to be. Everything was going her way today! Hermione felt so up she actually began whistling... and then she walked around a corner and found herself face-to-face with Professor McGonagall.
The transfiguration teacher's eyes opened wide, then narrowed again as she looked at Hermione closely. "Good morning, Miss Granger," she said.
"Good morning." Hermione ducked her head, suddenly ashamed. It was one thing to watch friends who bloody well deserved it react to this... but a teacher was quite another matter.
"The Book of Coriakin?" asked Professor McGonagall.
Hermione looked up sharply. "Er - yes," she said, surprised. But then, McGonagall was an expert on transfiguration. If any of the Hogwarts teachers were likely to be familiar with that spell, McGonagall was at the top of the list. Hermione began to feel a bit frightened; the thought hadn't occured to her until now, but what if the contents of The Book of Coriakin were on the list of charms and hexes Hogwarts students weren't allowed to use without supervision? She could end up in detention, or even get expelled...
But Professor McGonagall didn't look about to expel anybody. She only sighed and shook her head. "I thought as much."
"Um," said Hermione. The professor was obviously waiting for her to say something, but she couldn't think of anything appropriate. "It... worked quite well, don't you think?" she tried.
McGonagall nodded. "Yes, it's a highly effective spell - most of the Coriakin ones are noted for that... and for being extremely difficult to undo. Just let me know when you get tired of it," she added in a resigned tone, and walked past Hermione to the staircase.
Hermione watched her go, puzzled. First 'be ready for the consequences', and now 'let me know when you get tired of it'. Goodness, you'd have thought this was a spell had a poisonous bite the way everybody kept telling her to handle with care. What kind of person just 'got tired' of being gorgeous?
She continued on to the great hall. Not many people were there yet and the food hadn't appeared, but the silver and gold dishes were already set out on the tables just waiting to be filled. Hermione sat down and pulled her textbooks out of her bag, then glanced in a plate at her reflection. What she saw once again made her smile. Looking like this was going to take some getting used to, but she thought she could handle it.
She was going to have to buy some new clothes. Nobody so pretty ought to spend their weekends bumming around in hoodies and pajama pants.
Then the corner of Hermione's eye caught a flicker of movement - somebody was looking over her shoulder... somebody with a pale, high-cheekboned face set with intense silver-blue eyes. She looked up sharply, right into the smirking face of Draco Malfoy.
"What do you want, Malfoy?" she demanded.
He just grinned. "Well, well, well," he drawled. "Whatdo we have here?"