Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.
Chapter 2: A Perfect Stranger
It was that time of the year when the weather was hot and wet. That meant that it was the first day of school at Hogwarts.
Hermione Granger, our heroine, peered out at the sky through her bedroom window. She had spent half an hour doing her hair. She had washed it, blown it and gelled it for a "wet" look. She realized, however, that the weather outside would soon wash it and blow it all over again, to say nothing about giving it an even wetter look than she had intended.
Hermione had mixed feelings about this. The bad news was that anyone who looked at her would realize that she looked a mess. The good news was that Hermione was the sort of girl no one ever looked at in the first place.
It wasn't that Hermione was ugly. She was what I would call an Ice Cream Girl: sweet but cold. She was simply shy and quiet. In groups, Hermione tended to be the sort of girl to fade into the background, unlike her best friend Lavender Brown.
Frankly, Lavender was stunning. She had large, brown eyes, a cute nose and full red lips. Her figure would have made an hourglass grimace, shrivel up and turn green with envy…making it look more or less like a Seven-Up bottle.
Furthermore, Lavender had an impeccable dress sense. She seemed to know what to wear and how to wear it to bring out the best of her assets. In fact, the Hogwarts blouses she wears under her school robes were so tight that the boys in school could hardly breathe.
Once, Hermione had asked Lavender about the secret of looking good and being popular.
Lavender had leaned over and pressed a slim book into Hermione's hand.
"I got it from my muggle cousin in America." "This," whispered Lavender, "This is my secret."
That book was the book which Hermione now withdrew from her school bag. A badly-printed paperback with a ridiculously plain cover, it was called The Teenage Textbook and was subtitled "How to Survive Your Teenhood".
Hermione turned to the lesson about clothes. It was entitled "Mox without Sox". This was what she read:
Lesson 14 : Mox without Sox
Teenagers like dressing well. They have a lot of fun with clothes, (actually, teenagers also have a lot of fun without clothes).
Basically, there are three sorts of dressing : informal dressing, dressing for dates, and salad dressing.
Informal garments (i.e. what you wear to movies, pop concerts, the beach etc), are the number One most important clothes you should have in your wardrobe. This is because you are most often seen in them.
Your jeans must be your most important piece of informal wear. Good jeans follow the three T's principle, namely:
Tight – Only children and middle-aged dirty old men wear loose-fitting jeans. The true teenager wears jeans which sharply reveal the hips, thighs, bottom etc. Remember: if it ain't tight, it ain't right.
Tough – Tough jeans are good jeans. This is highly sensible because of the highly energetic life teenagers lead (including rough activities like watching movies, lounging at fast-food restaurants and playing hide and seek).
Tapered - Finally, jeans must be tapered, or at least straight. Nobody except for salesmen and Australian tourists wear bell-bottoms.
The perfect top to complement jeans is T-shirts. Generally, your T-shirt can come in any color, as long as it's white. Sleeves should be about an inch (okay, 3.1 cm) above the elbow and collars should be round and covering the collarbone.
Finally, footwear. For guys, leather tennis shoes are suitable for anything except playing tennis. Boating shoes (e.g. Topsiders) are also acceptable – unless you decide to go boating, in which case you should wear tennis shoes. Girls may wear flat-soled leather shoes (no high heels, on informal occasions, please), or moccasins. Of course, the rule to follow is "Mox without Sox", i.e. wear moccasins without socks.
Good clothing for parties include the…
Hermione closed The Teenage Textbook. She had found it totally unhelpful, as usual. In the distance, a black station wagon was waiting for her.
"Beep!" The car honked. "Hermione! Come on, you are going to be late for school!" Mrs Granger shouted, beckoning Hermione to hasten.
Once they reached platform 9 ¾, Hermione hugged her mother goodbye and kissed her on the cheek, then she, with her belongings, casually leaned over the stone wall and into the other end.
Seeing the scarlet train with smoke billowing at its top, Hermione felt more at ease and began to search for Lavender. Fighting the elbows and knees that stabbed viciously at her, Hermione boarded the train and was immediately swept down the aisle by a wild wave of students.
One of them, boisterous and big-bosomed, collided into Hermione, knocking the schoolgirl's bag down. A moment later all her papers, quills and books were scattered over the wet bus floor. Her writing pad, her spare hair bands and a photograph of Lavender and herself taken at school in the fifth year…
"Oh no!" cried an extremely fustrated Hermione. She tried desperately to retrieve her stationery. The train gave a sudden jerk and her quills rolled merrily into the darkest corners of the vehicle, where curious little insects clambered onto them and gingerly nibbled their tips. Hermione was close to tears.
A smooth, low voice whispered in her ear.
"Let me help." You guessed it. Someone tall, dark and handsome. With the athletic grace of an Olympic gymnast, lunging and plunging, he retrieved the flying papers and rolling quills. Taking a moment to arrange them neatly into Hermione's bag, he handed it back to her so coolly.
"Here." He said.
Hermione was not listening. She caught herself gazing at this perfect stranger, his striking emerald eyes, his solid, broad shoulders, and his tight compact bottom (which Hermione had noticed as soon as he bent over to rescue one of her fleeing quills).
"Isn't this yours?" he said.
Hermione realized that she was staring. Quickly, she grabbed her bag and mumbled, "Um…th-thanks."
Among the things he retrieve was her picture with Lavender. Hermione noticed that he had taken a brief but interested glance at it. For a moment, she assumed that it was Lavender he was looking at. But when she followed his gaze, she saw that he was staring at her.
She thanked him again, then immediately tore after for one of the few empty compartments left, leaving the stranger in the aisle.
Somehow, she could feel that his eyes followed her movements, but when she turned around, he was already gone.
A/N: I know it's supposed to be a Draco/Hermione fan fiction; i'm saving the best for later. So if you want me to continue, review please!