Hermione had an awful sleep. For hours she'd heard shrill cries coming from Susan Bone's room, which shocked her. Not because Susan Bones was shrieking in mad sexual ecstacy – she'd come to expect that the day she'd read Albus declaring that he loved Susan "they way a marsupial loves cheese" (although the question of whether or not marsupials did love cheese preyed on Hermione's mind a great deal.) She'd ( just always assumed that they would carry out their trysts in an environment of relative privacy – perhaps Dumbeldore's quarters. But then, it was far from her to attribute any logic to the minds of lovers. She did think for a moment that Susan might be having a fling with another student. The thought flickered across her mind that it might have been Draco. He seemed to have been stumbling around, possibly drunk, wearing a funny looking hat and mumbling something about seduction the previous night.
She didn't think about it for long, though. She was well aware that it was nearly time for Ginny to arrive with her daily inquisition on what Professor Snape was like in bed. Sometimes, Hermione wished Ginny didn't have to show that she was a freethinking, liberated woman who heartily enjoyed the works and living habits of the Marquis de Sade in such a bizarre way.
She dressed and settled down to some Arithmancy homework. When she finished it and realized that Ginny still hadn't swung by to declare that she, personally, was in favor of all romantic relationships regardless of the ages of the participants, Hermione became a trifle worried. When she'd perused much of her Transfiguration reading and had still yet to hear from Ginny, she became downright concerned.
She went down to Ginny's room, and noted that the pages from the Kama Sutra which typically adorned her door had been replaced with pictures that appeared to show Saturn devouring his children. "Well," thought Hermione, "at least Ginny is being unusually tasteful about her teenage angst." Then she noted that Ginny had taped a note to her door which declared that her tears were blood, and no one understood her, and Hermione realized she thought too soon.
She entered to find Ginny sitting on the floor wearing what appeared to be black plastic. Black, tightly wrapped plastic, which would presumably be seductive if someone had a black plastic fetish. She was attempting to smoke a cigarette, and continually coughed. She hadn't gotten the inhaling bit down yet, so the smoke came out of her nostrils in two long streaks. She looked like a creature out of the universal ideal of Hell. Hermione sighed. She hated it when her peers tried to be rebellious.
"Ginny, what on earth is the matter? You look like a melodramatic schoolgirl who scribbles semi-literate verse in a paperback journal!"
"Not like a hooligan?"
"Pardon?"
"I think the typical shocked response to my new attire is supposed to run something to the effect of 'you look like a hooligan!' The term 'hoyden' would also be appropriate. Then I could respond by staring at you with disdain for your beastly, bourgeois, Babbitty outlook on life. Because I'm deeper than thou, and dressing like a hooligan reflects that."
Hermione leaned over and pinched the material on Ginny's pants. "Are these plastic?" she asked.
"I don't know. Is that Muggle? I bought them from a Muggle store."
"Which one."
"Hot topic. Hot Topic is the koolest. I said that with a 'k,' incidentally."
"What?"
"Koolest. I'm too kool for 'c.'"
"Oh my God. That's insane. They sound exactly the same, and there's nothing inherently cuter about the letter 'k.'"
"I say it because Hot Topic is also too kool for 'c,' despite featuring the letter in their name. But they might be doing that ironically."
"But they don't even have Hot Topics in England!"
"Fine, I found the pants in the dumpster behind Harrods. I just lie, and tell people they're from Hot Topic, because that sounds rebellious in a way that 'they must have overstocked them at Harrods' doesn't."
"Is there a reason for all this?"
"I found a note in Mary Sue's room saying that I was "teh hawt seductress of darkness."
"Is that to say that you actually seduce the dark? The dark itself? I can seduce the dark into being by turning off the lights, myself. Does that mean I'm a hot seductress of darkness, too?"
"No. There can only be one hot seductress of darkness." Ginny began to laugh maniacally. Debauchery was in her eyes!
"Wait a moment," said Hermione, "you've got some debauchery in your eye." She leaned over and wiped Ginny's eye with her handkerchief.
"It looks just like a stray eyelash," noted Ginny.
"Maybe to the untrained, poorly read eye," retorted Hermione, "there are those among us though, who can easily recognize debauchery. We can recognize it, and then quickly flick it out. You can usually spot it when the maniacal laughter starts up."
"You're just having issues with the fact that I'm growing up," remarked Ginny, "that I'm the sexy one and not you."
"I was the sexy one?"
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed that numerous men who skulk behind you constantly and want to bury their oversized noses in that bushy nest you call hair."
"Umm, no. Possibly because they don't exist."
"Not now that I'm around, in any event! You'll notice that I've become a sumptuous postmodern rose of desire, with curves in all the right places!"
Hermione gnawed at her lip at the phrase "curves in all the right places." She wondered if many people had curves in all the wrong places. She imagined the matter was probably fairly subjective.
"Ginny," she said gently, "you're wearing a padded bra."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are. I can see the stuffing coming out of it. You have to accept the fact that you're not a naturally curvaceous woman."
"But I'm skinny!"
"That doesn't entail a curve. Unless your belly was concave, which would be reminiscent of people in a state of extreme starvation. Which would be deeply disturbing, and would probably cause men to stare at you as you walked by, but it's not arousing."
Ginny sighed, "but if I'm not the hawt seductress of darkness, then who is?"
"No one."
"What about Voldemort?"
"Given the recent findings in the press about him, I'm not sure he qualifies either. And I don't think he ever qualified as a seductress, genetically."
"But he's still Voldemort. Or Willard. I'm not really sure anymore – the whole media circus is kind of baffling. You know, what really troubles me is if he's calling himself Willard, does that mean that it would be inappropriate to say the name Willard aloud?"
"I suppose it depends on the company. If you were with a group of highly unstable aurors whose entire families had just been slaughtered by Voldemort, it would be bad."
"Maybe Bellatrix is the hot seductress of darkness! Maybe I could model myself off of Bellatrix – wouldn't that make me just too dark for words?"
"I'm pretty sure Bellatrix would never wear anything that even approximates what you're wearing. If you want to be like her, you should probably try for a subtly dark approach. Treading lightly and keeping rapiers in your heels."
"How would you know what Bellatrix is like?"
"I wouldn't. I'm just guessing. I also seem to recall that she was in Witches Wear Daily before she started being a seductress of darkness."
"Witches Wear Daily is for the bourgeois pigs who suckle off the same illiterate trough!"
"I'm not sure that a trough can be illiterate. That didn't make any sense. Or sound particularly literate. It was really quite disgusting."
"But don't you see? Doesn't my transformation make perfect sense? After years of being a neglected aspect of my family I'm rebelling against my cruel, oppressive parents."
"How can you be both neglected and oppressed? Sorry, I'm a little confused. Just a little."
"Shut up, Babbitt." Ginny began to pout.
"I've always thought your family seemed very loving and supportive. If anyone has anything to be angsty about it's Harry, and he seems to keep it in check."
"But he's the going to save the planet from Voldemort – he doesn't have that kind of time on his hands. My only function is to run about with various boys. And I heard Padma Patil call me a slut."
"What?"
"I was shocked, too. I thought I was keeping my hedonistic nature under wraps."
"But you've only had one boyfriend."
"Well, there was Neville, too. At the Yule Ball. Don't sell me short."
"But that doesn't… oh. Maybe it's because of the Kama Sutra posters hanging on the door. That could be it."
"She's not entirely wrong, you know. I've been around the block."
"No, you haven't."
"Have too."
"No. No, I know for a fact that you haven't."
"Well, I've been in the vicinity of the block. I've been within walking distance."
"Right."
"One day I shall go around the block, and then you'll see that I was a repressed temptress all along! But at the moment, you're only adding to my existential crises of self doubt. I mean, even Mary Sue was more interested in you."
"She was? How so?"
"Well, she had a replica of you built in her closet."
"A replica?"
"Like a robot. Only it had the most beautiful shiny, straight hair. And its eyes changed colors. Sometimes it would say things like "Why do I have to be such a bookworm?" or "I'm tired of being good!" or "Let me seduce you with my verdant body!"
"But verdant means green, usually covered with green plants. It's a word typically used to describe things like the Irish countryside. Was my body green?"
"You're such a word fetishist. Anyway, the sentences sounded seductive, that's what really counts."
"Let me seduce you with my green plant sprouting body?"
"To each his own - some people get aroused by strange things."
"Wouldn't it be difficult if halfway through coitus my navel suddenly sprouted an elm tree? Because that's what verdant implies."
"Look, I didn't say I was aroused by it."
"I think the really disturbing thing is that she built a facsimile of me that said anything that ridiculous."
"Do you think…"
"What?"
"No, it's too ridiculous."
"What is?"
"Do you think that perhaps she was going to lock you in the closet and let that creature out in your stead?"
"Oh my God. Thank goodness, Pansy must have pushed her out the window just in time."
"There really should be some policy enacted to stop all six year beautiful female students from coming to Hogwarts. They don't bode well for any of us."
"And yet, you've allowed your personality to be altered by her nonsensical scribblings!"
"I know. It's silly. But if I'm "teh hawt" seductress of darkness, then I must be special. I don't get to be special enough. You get to be smart, and Harry gets to save the known world when he's not doped up on whatever painkillers you're giving him, and Ron gets to eat a great deal, but what do I get? I mean, if I'm not the seductress of darkness, what am I?"
"You can be the cute seductress of a light silver shade."
"Ginny the Grey?"
"You've been reading too many fantasy novels. They're so escapist. If you keep thinking that way, you'll need a serious wake up call to reality."
"Maybe. But I've been so lonely. Would you like to go into Hogsmeade this weekend? We could get some ice cream."
"I'd love to, but I can't."
"Why not? I'm disappointed. I want you to know that I can deal with this set-back though. I'm not going to angst about it and take to some wizarding equivalent of muggle heroin. That reminds me, you should really check on Harry, I heard he raided your room for Vicodin while you were out…"
"I'm going to a party."
"With whom? Is he in our year?"
"No one in particular, I was just invited to a party…"
"Is it Professor Snape? Sevvie-poo? Sevvie-kins?"
Hermione blushed
"It is! Oh, you should tell me everything. What's he like in bed, Hermione, what's he like in bed? I love a man who appreciates feathers coming out of a woman's bottom!"
"It's good to see that everything's back to normal," breathed Hermione, "or," she murmured, after departing Ginny's room, "as normal as these so-called peers of mine seem to get. No wonder I've turned to the Death Eaters."
She went into her room and noted that a red dress was lying on the bed. She thought it might be another reason that made it worthwhile to turn to the Death Eaters – whatever their faults, they really did have panache. She wondered if it was going to be absolutely horrible. But then, Bellatrix didn't strike her as the kind to make the same mistakes Ginny did. She leaned over and slipped into it.
As Hermione gazed in the mirror she gasped with delight. The dress had more pizazz than anything she'd ever owned. It was strapless, made out of a sturdy satin fabric, lightly corseted in early Victorian style. For the first time, she really did see her hair as Botticelli-esque, and she felt very young, and very beautiful. However, if someone were to examine the dress very carefully – and it must be noted that Hermione was not – they would have found stitched into the back of the dress, just over the faint bustle, in Bellatrix Lestrange's unmistakable style a poem which ran:
Voldemort is my Lord, or alternatively, King
He will let the politically disenfranchised figures in the wizarding world but not mudbloods in!
He can, and does, do anything
And his red eyes are extremely dash-ing
That's why I, personally, sing
Voldemort is my King.