Beauty Is Pain

A/N: This is sort of...fluff. But some deepness and larger words. It's a contrast to the previous chapters, it's my new writing style. Woot.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing HP fanfiction because I would know what happened next anyway.

Pairings: Draco/Hermione, Blaise/Ginny

Summary: Hermione injures herself with beauty products. Malfoy says something stupid...again. Deeposity abounds and the group departs for Hogsmeade alone after being left behind. Hermione has a trick up her sleeve.

"Hey, Draco, want to borrow my exfoliating cream next?" Hermione called out with a grin. She was pulling on her clothes for the trip to Hogsmeade. It was only October and already quite cold. There had even been a few fleeting snow flurries, unusual this early in the fall. The students going on the Hogsmeade trip had been talking of nothing for the past week in hushed, excited tones during classes and mealtimes.

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH, M- GRANGER!" Draco yelled from his room. Hermione felt her face fall slightly as she mentally prepared herself to hear the word "Mudblood", but her spirits rose slightly as he averted his insult. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she mused for a moment about the interactions they shared and the new civility that only seemed appropriate.

Recalling for a brief moment their ghastly fight in the carriage, she felt her heart rate escalate slightly as she experienced a brief moment of the terror she had felt that night. Hermione tipped backwards into the warm bedcovers, finding a focus point on the ceiling of her bedroom as she delved into the recess of her mind she had shoved the fight into.

As she looked back, she thought perhaps the uneasy and foreign way in which they now regarded each other was a result of pouring every ounce of hatred for each other out in those moments. She remembered every feeling of pain, hatred, inferiority, and awe he had ever induced in her by insulting her, shoving by her in the hallway, even looking at her across the tables at breakfast. It had gotten to the point where Hermione had considered throttling him. Over the summer, her lack of anything exciting prompted deep analyzation of every aspect of her relationships with the students at Hogwarts.

The first name that had popped into her head was Draco Malfoy. She had dislike for other students, of course, as was expected. Lavendar Brown struck a particular nerve with her, as did Zacharias Smith, and even Luna Lovegood, whose talent for blurting out whatever came to mind annoyed Hermione in how uncomfortable Luna could make someone without even noticing.

"Well, Granger's got a spine this year."

That was true to a point. Inferiority was one thing Hermione was sick of feeling. As 5 years of hatred had filled her to the brim, she had felt some dormant instinct come alive in her. Every snide comment that had sparked a small sadness in her as she stoically ignored the commenter had soured into anger, unearthing a bit of her teenage female instinct of catty defense.

"You know, it really amazes me. After being in the same school with you for 5 years, enduring classes with you, seeing you out of school, and putting up with you seemingly everywhere I go, you haven't changed from the snotty little kid in the bookstore, who thought he was better than anyone else because his mommy and daddy told him so. You know what the truth is? You're a coward. You can't fight with anything but nasty names and- well, I shouldn't say magic, because you can only seem to use that properly in a fight when your opponent's back is turned!"

A small smile formed on her mouth as pride rippled through her.

The few weeks she had spent at The Burrow came to mind. She had been sitting in the kitchen at six o'clock in the morning, watching the sun slowly brighten the sky, when a realization had come to her. Making peace. What better way to end the rivalry? At first, she had wondered if she was insane, thinking Malfoy would never speak to her without peppering the conversation with the array of insults he had probably practiced all summer.

As she had sat in the carriage with him, the hatred she had analyzed over the summer had welled up once more, spilling over in a frenzy to be recognized and shoved into his face.

How long have I been here? Hermione sat up and felt a small panic rise in her at the thought of not looking acceptable for the Hogsmeade outing. She nearly laughed at herself as she realized how unlike her it was to be concerned about how she looked. Over the summer, not only had she awakened a fierce, catty side of her she never knew existed, but she had also realized that she was a teenage girl. With a tinge of disgust she had realized that even she felt a small need to be accepted by others, a sense of needing to impress upon people that she was not a pile of robes with hair.

A small feeling of jealousy had arisen as she watched other Hogwarts girls have boyfriends, and often she had pretended to re-read a book in the girls' dormitory while she was really listening in enviously on the chatter of the others about who snogged badly and what lipgloss smeared the least. She even felt slightly disconnected from Ginny in her inexperience.

I haven't thought about things this clearly for a while. I never have much time to think about things in my own life...I should plan to have a good think-over of everything I can think of as often as possible. Hermione smiled to herself.

Getting serious again, she turned to her closet. All her clothes were so practical. She decided she would be spontaneous and buy something in Hogsmeade that wasn't so...her. She pulled out a pair of long black pants and yanked them on. Sifting through her closet, she pulled out a white button-up shirt, gray vest and Gryffindor tie; the top bit of the school uniform.

Pulling it on, she looked in the mirror as she straightened her tie. This is so... ME. Hermione thought frustratedly. Well, of course it's "you", they're your clothes. Who are you? Your conscience. Don't you have anything that isn't so... you? See, you're doing it too. Blast. I should be worried that I'm talking to a voice in my head, shouldn't I? I'm harmless. Mostly. You're right. This is boring.

Her mother had nearly fainted in delight when, sometime in June, Hermione had asked to be taken shopping for new things. They had spent nearly 4 hours in shops, her mother sharing her opinion and slipping clothes she chose into her daughter's armfuls, gently arguing her points as to why it looked nice or not. Hermione had come home, exhausted, with a hefty load of new things.

As of yet, Hermione had been avoiding the new clothes, some mornings pulling them on and then changing her mind at the last minute, wondering if venturing out of the Head Dorm with something other than her easily overlookable ensembles would bring any new comments, good or bad, from her classmates.

Hermione tugged off the tie, vest and shirt and threw them in a pile next to her bed. She dug through her clothes. Her mother was thrilled to share with her all the new fashions flickering through the pages of the fashion section in the daily Muggle paper, and even more thrilled as she convinced her daughter to buy them.

While her mother was somewhat detached from Hermione's life as she lived at Hogwarts during the school year, she had one bond with her; shopping. As Mrs. Granger was a dentist and rarely had time at home, Summer and Christmas terms were heavenly. Mrs. Granger was an experienced shopper and delighted in involving herself in Hermione's life in any way, shopping being the easiest to accomplish with the short time they spent together and their variety of different interests. While Hermione was not very interested in fashion trends, she relented at the delight it gave her mother to experience the joys of having a girl to share shopping with.

She picked up a black sweater from the floor of her closet. The off-kilter neckline (that somewhat intimidated her) had slipped off the hanger. She also took out a blue three-quarter sleeve shirt and quietly scrutinzed them.

Hermione plucked the black sweater from the bed and pulled it on. Walking to the floor-length mirror positioned in one corner of her bedroom, she noticed how pale she looked in comparison to all the black she was wearing. Shedding the sweater, she reasoned that she should have all body parts covered due to the volatile weather. Glancing out the window, she saw that the sun was peeking out from behind clouds, casting a few hopeful rays on the land below, but she could see a layer of dark clouds lurking in the distance.

Pulling on the dark blue shirt, Hermione rifled through her closet until she found a gray sweater with a deep V-neck and two large fake-wood buttons near the top and pulled it on, leaving it unbuttoned. The deep blue showed through the crochet gray and the open neckline, meshing nicely with the sweater. Taking off her black corduroys, she pulled on a pair of dark denim jeans that the Muggle girls she knew wore constantly that were absurdly long on her and were ratty at the bottom from walking on the hems. She slipped her feet into her trainers and admired the effect.

Okay, you look gorgeous, now hurry up with the other part or you'll not have enough time. Okay, okay, I'm getting to it. Simple is good. Simple...

Her dark, bushy hair had calmed slightly, to her slight relief. It no longer gave her the appearance of wearing poodle fur with a perm. The frizzing had relented slightly and she had grown her fringe out to sweep out of her eyes. It helped that it no longer obstructed her reading (A/N: haha). It was still as tangled and stubborn as ever, though. The women in her family had all endured the same hair, though as they grew older it softened into looser curls. Hers wasn't working fast enough.

Several relatives had chosen alternatives such as short cuts, curling irons, and a colorful array of hair products that had all been recommended to Hermione at every family gathering.

"Alright...time for the cavalry." she said out loud. She took a plastic bag from her desk and went into the bathroom. She carefully emptied the contents onto the marble counter and surveyed them. She picked up the ceramic hair straightener and looked at it warily before plugging it in. Waiting for it to heat up, Hermione stared into the mirror and picked up a strand of her bushy hair. It had already started to become the relaxed, even pretty, curls the women in her family had.

Picking up the straightener, she lifted a piece of hair and took a deep breath.

---

Draco nearly had a coronary as he heard a blood-curdling scream from the bathroom. Instinctively, he yanked open the door to see Hermione fanning her hair and whimpering.

"What are you doing in here?" Draco asked incredulously, putting only his head through the door as he was still in his pajamas. "Not that I, you know, CARE, but why were you screaming?" (A/N: -sporfle-)

"I was just trying to straighten my hair, and I put the straightener up by my roots like it said on the instructions and it burned the bloody hell out of my poor scalp!" she cried. Draco raised an eyebrow.

"What is that?" he said, pointing to the object of cruelty in her hand.

"It's a straightener. You know...straightens your hair." Hermione waved her hands around a little for emphasis.

"Muggle?"

"Muggle."

"Should've known. Bloody Muggle beauty stuff. Pansy's obsessed with it, she's got ads saved from magazines she nicked that she hides in my room. Her parents would have a fit. What YOU'RE doing with it, though, I don't know." he said, grimacing at the Muggle products.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked, anger touching her voice.

"If you're trying to make yourself prettier to impress The Weas- uhh, Ronald, " Draco said through gritted teeth, "it's not working." Hermione's face fell slightly as horrified tears welled up in her eyes against her will. She turned quickly to pretend they weren't there. Draco internally smacked himself again as he realized how cruel it had sounded. As his mind frantically tried to process the fact that he was angry with himself for hurting someone's feelings, and Hermione Granger's at that, he tried to come up with an explanation to stop her from looking at him that way.

A feeling of guilt rose in his chest. He hadn't felt that for years. He hadn't felt many things in a long time. He simply hadn't allowed himself. As a small child, the domineering presence of his father, Lucius Malfoy's way of making everything go the way he wanted it to, had lifted him to hero status in young Draco's eyes. It was only until he was 10, when he was educated about the actualities of his father's profession, dealings, and comrades that frequently visited. Draco was given the choice to join or not, and he felt overwhelmed and betrayed at the same time. His father was not a hero.

Draco was often punished for small wrongdoings, spilling the juice or leaving wet towels on the floor, with beatings and swift rage from his father, but Draco pushed his fear and hatred away, and accepted that his father must be doing it for a reason. He must deserve it.

When he had said no, the rage had come full force, leaving Draco with a few broken ribs and a nasty scar on his left hip. The feelings he had quelled for so long had come tumbling out in the dangerous silence after his father had told him that he did not have a choice. He had screamed, thrown things, and even went so far as to throw a punch at his father, which was, of course, blocked and viciously returned.

The relief that had flooded him afterwards as he healed and rested in bed for days on end had been overwhelming. Afterwards, he took the care to repress as much emotion as he could around his father, and in return, there were less chances for him to anger his father. Every year, the question to join the Dark Lord came again, and every year Draco said no, and somehow he managed to do so without invoking violence in Lucius Malfoy. It seemed as the Dark Lord gained power, Lucius lost his will to take out his frustrations on his son.

Only recently had Draco begun to endure the new kind of torture his father had discovered; sexual abuse. Verbal abuse and physical abuse were becoming scarce as Lucius toyed with the sexual aspect of torture. It gave him a power that screaming and hitting could not. Draco was ashamed, confused, and felt a hatred for himself awakening in the pit of his stomach when his father cornered him in his bedroom or winked at him across the breakfast table, daring him to tell Narcissa, who was seen more and more often clutching a glass of brandy that always refilled as quickly it was emptied. It was a secret he did not wish to disclose to anyone.

As he had carefully repressed emotions such as guilt, sadness, and pity over the years at Hogwarts, he had earned a high status, governing his peers as king, an example, cool, stoic and quick to take revenge. The small stream of guilt now threading it's way through his mind was a shock. His vulnerability wasn't expected and he heard himself try to form an explanation.

"I didn't mean that, I mean he's had his eye on that twittery one, Lavendar Brown, the looks he gives her in class are sickening, I just meant that the wizarding and witching world should leave Muggle chemicals alone, we've got magic, and, and, uh, I-" Draco fumbled. Hermione glowered at him in the reflection in the mirror.

"Don't you have some first years to torture before the Hogsmeade outing?" she asked tiredly, turning back to the mirror. Draco sighed and closed the door. Hermione huffed and unplugged the straightener. Time for Plan B. If it wouldn't straighten, she would have to help it along on it's journey to becoming the more tame curls her mother had. She pulled out a can of mousse and read the instructions before taking a deep breath once more, pointing, and spraying.

---

Draco pulled on a pair of black pants, a dark green sweater and his trainers. Simple is good. Dashing. I'm bored. Too bad. Do something interesting. I am not going to entertain my conscience, which should not be so different then I am, no? It's odd. I'll just ignore you. Oh, thanks. You are welcome. Sarcasm. Right back at you. ...Touche. Taking out a bottle of gel from his bedside table drawer that promised a "Natural Look", he squirted out a small amount on his hands, rubbed them together and ran them through his hair. He wiped the excess on the bath towel thrown on the floor, shook his head to loosen the strands and admired it in the mirror. Ehh, natural enough.

Another ear-splitting shriek sounded from the bathroom. Draco resisted the urge to open the door and instead went into the common room, settling himself into a cushy armchair and staring absentmindedly into the fire.

A few moments later, the door to the bathroom opened slightly and a tentative voice called out, "Malfoy?"

"Yes, Granger?" he asked cautiously. He wasn't sure what feeling would come hurdling back to him next, and he was even more troubled by the fact that it was Hermione Granger who was slowly unearthing feelings he had tried so hard to bury. Smacking himself internally again, he reasoned with himself to stop feeling so much. It was annoying.

"Could you do me a favor?" Draco raised an eyebrow, wondering what she would ask of him.

"That depends."

---

"BLOODY HELL!"

"Will you keep it down, please?" Draco hissed. Ginny shot daggers at him as several students stared.

"You scared me. Do you always go skulking about library shelves, looking for girls to pounce on?" Ginny asked sarcastically. Draco smirked.

"I meant scare."

"Only when I've nothing better to do." Draco retorted. The corners of Ginny's mouth twitched.

What do you want?" Ginny asked exasperatedly.

"H- uh, Granger needs your help." Draco mumbled. Ginny's eyebrows shot up. He looked uncomfortable.

"She sent you? It must be bad. Come on, let's go." Ginny said, her tone echoing bossiness as she quickly left the library.

"Oh, wait a minute, would you mind if I stop here and grab something?" Ginny asked as they reached the Great Hall.

"So we're making snack detours, are we? Then I'm getting something too." Ginny shrugged and pulled him inside. He found himself standing uncomfortably next to her at the Gryffindor table as she wrapped a few pieces of toast and a large muffin into a napkin. A few Gryffindors shot him wary looks, which he returned with a sneer.

"Okay, let's go." Ginny said, gesturing to the full napkin. Draco's mouth watered at the thought of the thick, sweet muffin as he followed her from the Hall. Scurrying up the staircases, Draco panted slightly as he tried to keep her pace. Finally, they arrived at Leonard's portrait.

"Godric Gryffindor is my hero." Draco said sourly. Ginny supressed giggles as she clambered through the portrait hole after him and he turned to glare at her. Ginny set the napkin on an end table in the common room. Draco watched as Ginny knocked on the bathroom door, shrieking slightly when it opened, and bading Hermione to open it again as it was shut in her face. After a minute, it opened again.

"Can you help?" Hermione asked. Draco inched closer to the napkin and the muffin he wanted.

"I can try. Poor 'Mione." Ginny said sympathetically. "Oh, hold on, let me grab something first." she said. Hermione closed the door again and Ginny swiftly beat Draco to the napkin and took a piece of toast and the muffin before slipping into Hermione's room. Pouting, Draco took a piece of toast and bit into it, brushing the resulting crumbs from his sweater.

Ginny emerged from Hermione's bedroom with a small device in her hand; it was a camera. She hid it and the food behind her back as she entered the bathroom. Draco heard the sounds of pictures being taken and Hermione's horrified shrieks before Ginny ran out of the bathroom giggling madly, holding the camera.

She shoved it into Draco's hands and jumped down into the common room as Hermione ran out, stopping cold at the sight of Draco standing there. Her hair stood out from her head alarmingly in a tangled ball of brown. It looked like a mushroom cloud sprouting from her head. Hermione let out a squeak of anguish before retreating into the bathroom, followed by the sound of the lock turning in the door.

"I'll have that. Posterity. Would you like some copies?" Ginny asked, grinning. Draco nodded, supressing laughter as he handed her the camera. She slipped it into her schoolbag, which she had dropped on an armchair, before returning to the bathroom. It was nearly 10 minutes of pleading before Ginny remembered that the entire reason she was in Hogwarts was to learn magic and pulled out her wand, muttering "Alohomora" and slipping into the bathroom.

"It's not that bad!" Draco heard her say before the door closed.

---

"What did you do?" Ginny asked incredulously as she tried desperately to tug a comb through Hermione's hair.

"I tried to make it curly with this mousse stuff and so I sprayed some on my head and tried to spread it through my hair with my hands, but they got stuck because my hair was so tangled, and when I finally got them at an angle where I could pull them out, it was straight up, and the mousse set before I could fix it!" Hermione wailed.

"It'll be okay." Ginny said soothingly. Walking to the large bathtub, Ginny turned on the tap and let warm water fill it considerably before turning it off.

"You might want to put on something else. Something you would want to get wet." Ginny said. Hermione nodded and replaced the shirt and sweater with her terry cloth bathrobe. Following Ginny up the stairs to the bath, Hermione knelt down at the edge of the water and gave her friend an inquisitorial look. Before Hermione could say anything, Ginny dunked her in the water up to the neck of her bathrobe. Hermione came up spluttering.

"You could have warned me!" Hermione said angrily. Ginny grinned.

"But then it wouldn't have been much fun." she giggled. Hermione rolled her eyes and put her head back in the water, Ginny scrubbing at her hair to get the mousse out. As Hermione resurfaced, Ginny saw that her hair had wilted into it's normal position. Throwing a towel at Hermione, Ginny went to the counter and surveyed the Muggle products.

"This should be easy."

---

"Well, that Weasley girl does work wonders." Blaise said, eyebrows arched, hiding the developed photographs behind his back as Hermione and Ginny came out of the bathroom. Hermione's hair had settled back into it's normal angle, and Ginny had played with the Muggle products until Hermione's hair had finally softened a little. It was still bushy, but was slightly less so, to Hermione's delight. Ginny was equally happy now that she could blather on about girl stuff without boring Hermione. It was getting harder and harder for Harry to stay awake during their sometimes one-sided conversations.

"Oh, hello, Blaise." Ginny said nonchalantly. Hermione waved her greeting and Blaise nodded to them. Hermione sat in one of the armchairs and Ginny sat on the other end of the sofa from where Blaise was lounging and the three sat in an awkward silence.

"Where's D- Malfoy?" Hermione said, still cautious to throw "Draco" around in front of Blaise and Ginny, and anyone else for that matter.

"In his room. I'll tell him you've emerged." Blaise said with a small smirk, rising and knocking on Draco's door. It swung open and Draco strode into the common room.

"Well, can we finally be off, then?" he asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Nice job, Weasley." he added, nodding at Hermione's hair, and Ginny was surprised to hear him call her "Weasley" without malice lacing the name. A bit of distaste, perhaps, but it was not so sharp and biting this time. Ginny and Hermione followed them out of the portrait hole and down the corridor, after a goodbye and conspiratorial wink from Leonard.

"I hope we haven't missed them."

---

"Your hopes look to be in vain." Draco said as the four stood at the threshold of the courtyard, staring at the tangle of footprints left behind.

"Look, if we run, we may be able to catch up to them." Hermione said hopefully.

"I don't think so..." Ginny said.

"Wait... I have an idea. I know how to get there faster." Hermione trotted through the courtyard and to the left exit, the group following her as she crossed the bridge towards Hagrid's house. She turned and led them along the hillside away from Hagrid's hut and towards a large, undulating mass of green. Pulling out her wand, she remembered third year and hoped that she could remember the trick to passing the obstacle ahead to find a decrepit shack that was their ticket to Hogsmeade.

She was leading them to the Whomping Willow.

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I have a review already! I just posted last night.

blackXxXblossom: Great story so far, xoxo

Thanks! I'm having thoughts about it being...Not great. I've got a plot thread issue now... GRAARRR! Stupid plot thread.

thedustbunny: Yeah, you should stick to this writing style, the chapters are super long! Lol. Anyways, awesome chapter, update soon!

Thanks! I lurrrrrve super-long chapters. I hate stories where it's like, OOOH, ONE PARAGRAPH!!! I need massive amounts of chapter-ness at once. I love detail too. It's like... rad. Thanks for reviewing!

Esmerald tears: Hahaha, poor Hermione! I know how that feels! Anyway, I really liked this chapter. I like the change in both Draco and Hermione; and I hope that something happens between them soon! YAY!

Thank you!

xx.just. hahahaha... oh dear, poor hermione. Lovely chapter, can't wait for the next update! Ash xx

Thanks!

Won-Won is gwoss gwoss: Gwagle! I larv this story! Hahahahahahah! frigin hahaha hair hahashaha avacado hahahahha. this is so hilarious! i will send evil vampire bunnies after you if you do not continue this story!! and they only listen to me and cupcakes!! so ha! but anyway, actual substansial review time: I really like this plot. Most writers/authors/authoresses kind of push the timing along a bit, but it's nice to see for once that it can progress to civil aquaintences and stay that way for a bit. awesome cliffies by the way! maybe a bit more attention to the dialogue? Just gets a tad bare at times. Nice to see the characters..erm.. in character, and how you can easily bring balise and ginny into this. And, I love the concious conversations. Favorite bit so far: SHUT UP AND ANNOY SOMEONE ELSE. i can't. i'm your concious. DAMN. hahhahah! i larv it! Keep on writing and don't let anyone getcha down!!

WOW! Thanks for such a really long review! I haven't seen one of these in a while. Yeah, I know, my dialogue is a bit skimpy. I'm workin' on it. Thanks!!

Thanks so much to all my lovely and faithful reviewers!!

Charlotte