True Confessions of a H.A.G.

Chapter Four: Operation Helen Granger

7 September 1996

Dear Diary,

The Slytherins aren't that bad anymore. I think I've gotten used to them, at least partway. I mean, their comments aren't as bad as before... unless if I'm not hearing the worse insults. Hermione's still trying to get me to go to Dumbledore and ask to be re-Sorted, especially after I told her I wanted to be in Slytherin, but I refuse to. That'd be giving up, and I told her that. She tried to get me to sit at their table too, but I didn't want to sit with the Gryffindors. They weren't the nicest people either. I mean, most of them are always talking about me when they think I can't hear them.

Maybe the Ravenclaws are the nicest to me. The Hufflepuffs rally with the Gryffindors, since the Gryffindors always save them from the Slytherins. But the Ravenclaws are quite neutral. Cho Chang got over the fact that I'm Hermione's sister, I think, and she's helped me find my way to a few classrooms.

So that's what I'm going to write to Mum and Dad about. They asked me who my friends are, because Hermione told them I was being bullied by my housemates (she probably told them to tell me to switch Houses too, the stupid old beaver-cow mix!). I'm going to tell them that my friend is Cho. I mean, Hermione can't deny it, since Cho is being friendly, and Cho won't say that I'm not her friend or anything like that.

Hermione's gotten over the shock of me dyeing my hair. She says a few of her dorm mates specialize in botched-up hairdos. Maybe they can help me. I'm going over to Gryffindor tower, but only so Parvati and Lavender can take a look at my hair.

Yours,

Helen

"Oh, Lavender!" Parvati called, lifting a book on Hair Charms and leafing through it. "Lavender! Stop mooning over Seamus and help me with Helen!" She scowled at the curtained bed and turned to Helen. "Sorry about that. Lavender's boyfriend, Seamus, just broke up with her again." She lowered her voice. "I'll bet they're back together by next week, though."

Helen grinned. Now this was something she could talk about. "How many times have they broke up?" she whispered.

Parvati rolled her eyes as Lavender moaned in despair. "Fourteen times over the past two years," she replied.

"Oh, Parvati," Lavender sobbed, "he dumped me, not the other way around! Oh, this is horrible... I've actually been dumped!" She began to weep. "God, Parvati, I need to get over him, but I c-can't..." She hiccuped. "It's his e-eyes! A-and his hair! And those bloody lips of his..." She sniffed loudly.

"No, Lavender," Parvati said calmly, "Seamus is the ugliest man you've ever seen. You wouldn't go near him voluntarily with a ten-foot pole, all right?"

Lavender sniffled again. "You're right, Parvati," she said, sighing.

"Repeat after me, Lavender. I hate Seamus Finnigan."

"I hate Seamus Finnigan."

"Good. Now come out here and help me with Helen's hair, won't you?"

Lavender wailed. "But I'm hideous!" The curtains of her bed swished to the side as she opened them. "Look at me! My face is horrible!" She whimpered. "Where's my make-up kit?" she said weakly, sifting through the mess on her bedside table.

"Poor dear," Parvati said supportively, moving over to hug Lavender.

Lavender continued to sniffle as she applied layers of make-up on her face. "Pass me my mascara, won't you, Helen?" she said in her weak voice.

Helen picked out the mascara from another make-up kit and passed it to Lavender. "Have you found a way to fix my hair? You know, change the color back and make it grow longer?"

Lavender sniffed one last time and said, sounding quite normal again, "We've tried the charms in Witch Weekly... you know, Hair Dyeing Charms, but we can't get them to work. So our best bet is Sleekeazy's Hair Dye Potion."

"What color was your hair?" Parvati asked, moving over to a box of hair potions.

"Um... brown, like Hermione's," Helen said.

Parvati sighed. "Nope, sorry, we don't have Chestnutty Brown in here," she said. "I never thought to buy it, and neither did Lavender. Erm... we've got Midnight Black, Sunlight Blonde, Platinum Blonde, which I don't think you want to use, seeing as you've got hair that color already, and Cherry Red, from when Lavender tried to be a redhead."

"Ha, ha," Lavender said dryly. "I was a redhead."

"She was trying to impress Seamus... you know, the whole thing with Ireland and red," Parvati said smugly.

"Shut up," Lavender said. "You went Jet Black for the Yule Ball to match Harry, and it turned out that your dress robes clashed horribly!" She cackled madly.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that Harry would wear green and not red?" Parvati said. "I mean, he's on the Gryffindor team. Aren't they more about House loyalty than us?"

"Think, Parvati," Lavender said, smirking. "His eyes are what color?"

Parvati glared at her. "I was fourteen," she grumbled. "So... what color?" she asked, turning to Helen. "I suggest black or red. Blonde doesn't suit you at all, no offense. Take it as advice."

"I'd say red," Lavender said. "I mean, if Ron and Hermione get married, their kids will have red hair, right? And one of them's bound to look like Hermione. So she should be able to get used to it, yeah?" She sighed. "Kids... how romantic..."

Parvati snorted. "Anyway," she said, dodging Lavender's comment, "I think we should lengthen your hair first. That way, we won't have to dye it again if it grows out brown."

"Don't use the charm in last month's Teen Witch Weekly," Lavender said. "I heard a fourth year girl tried it, and it made her hair catch on fire."

"I wasn't planning to," Parvati said, scowling. "You know, we could use that..."

"No," Lavender said. Parvati pouted. "Use that potion we used last time..."

"But we're out of it!"

"Then borrow from the fifth years. I'll bet one of them has to have it."

Parvati latched herself to Helen's arm and began to pull her to the fifth year dormitories, Lavender in tow. "Hi, everyone!" she said cheerfully as she barged into the room, beaming. The fifth years froze, turning as one to face the newcomers.

"Parvati, what are you doing in here?" Ginny said, looking puzzled.

"Anyone have any Hair-Lengthening Potion?" Parvati asked.

"I do... Are you trying to fix Helen's hair?" Ginny said, tossing Parvati a bottle. Parvati immediately poured some of the potion onto the top of Helen's head. Helen half-expected it to run off the side of her head, but the potion was absorbed by her hair, which immediately started growing.

"Oh, no," Parvati gasped.

"What?" Helen said anxiously. "Don't tell me my hair is ruined!"

"No, it's worse!" Parvati screeched in horror. "Your hair from before is still all clumped together," she added. Helen gasped in horror. Then she frowned. Did Ginny just roll her eyes? "Emergency!" Parvati called. "Lavender, bring the Hair-Softening stuff!" She scowled. "Hurry, Lavender, this is an absolute emergency! It's bigger than that time we tried to stretch out your eyelashes... hurry!"

"I'm here!" Lavender said breathlessly, handing a bottle of Hair-Softening Potion and brandishing her own like a sword. "Ready? Parvati, we can do this! Battle positions, Parv! Three, two, one... SQUIRT!"

Helen felt the potion coming in from both directions, and she could literally feel her hair starting to rise like bread in an oven. Panting, Parvati said, "That was close." Lavender nodded. "She could have been seen. That would have been a nightmare."

"We'll have to do something about the frizziness," Lavender said.

Parvati nodded in agreement as she herded Helen out of the fifth year dormitory and back into the sixth year dormitory. "Now... red, right?" Without waiting for an answer, she began pushing Helen to the showers. "Right, then," she said, selecting a basin from a shelf and sticking it into a sink. She filled it with water, then added the dye. "This might work differently from what you're used to, I don't know," she said in a business-like tone. "Head into the basin now."

Helen stuck her hair into the sink, staring at the red water underneath her face. Parvati immediately began spreading the dye. When she was done, she prodded Helen, who turned over and found herself staring at the ceiling as she dyed the rest of her hair red.

"Right," Lavender said, holding up a towel. "Raise your head slowly; you don't want to get that top all stained." She carefully placed the towel between Helen's hair and her shirt. "Hurry, Parvati!" she barked like an army commander. "We're running out of time; the towel's going to soak through!"

Parvati immediately emptied out the basin and filled it with normal water. Lavender rushed Helen back to the sink, pushed her head back into it, and began to wash the excess dye out. "We've got to get it all out," Parvati explained in her business-like voice. "Otherwise it'll run onto your clothes when your hair is wet."

The two Gryffindors were finally satisfied after six washings. They shooed her back into the sixth year dormitory and began to attack her hair with dry towels, explaining that they didn't like Hair-Drying Charms.

"Did you ask Anthony out?" Lavender inquired as they waited for the last of the water in Helen's hair to dry.

"Not yet," Parvati admitted. "I haven't seen him today."

"You should ask him soon," Lavender pressed. "Or Mandy Brocklehurst will get him. You know how she's had her eye on him for years... Padma told me in third year she was almost stalking him."

"Mandy Brocklehurst doesn't stand a chance," Parvati said. "I heard Anthony likes dark-haired girls, and she's blonde."

"Yeah, but rumor has it he's starting to fancy her back," Lavender said in a hushed voice.

"No!" Parvati gasped scandalously. "That means Pansy Parkinson was lying when she told me he only fancied dark-haired girls?"

Lavender snorted. "Are you kidding me? Parkinson lies all the time. You can only trust her if she says something really bad, like the time when she told me Justin Finch-Fletchley is bi. Otherwise, no. I think it's because she's been around Malfoy so much."

Helen blinked. Pansy didn't seem the type to spread gossip, but then again, she had only been around her for a total of three hours. "You have to admit, though, they were Hogwarts' Most Likely to Last Couple for the last three years. I thought they would go out until after Hogwarts, and then we'd be seeing Pansy Malfoy around a lot," Parvati said.

"Yes, but then she caught him snogging Queenie Greengrass," Lavender said, giggling. "I suppose you can't expect a Malfoy to not have any affairs, even when he's not married." She and Parvati sniggered.

"You know who I was really surprised about?" Parvati said. "Harry and Cho Chang." Helen perked up. This was a subject she was interested in. "I mean, I always thought he'd get together with Ginny Weasley, but then she went out with Michael Corner and Harry went out with Cho. And then you would have thought Harry would be in that relationship for a while, since he's the way he is, but I heard they had a grand total of one date and a few meetings in the corridors."

"And then Cho ran off with Michael Corner," Lavender finished. "But we're still waiting for Harry to notice Ginny..."

"There's Ron," Parvati reminded her. Helen felt as if the other two had forgotten about her, so she cleared her throat. Parvati and Lavender jumped and turned. "Oh, Merlin, we're sorry," Parvati said, covering her mouth, her eyes wide. "Lavender, get the Sleekeazy."

Lavender dug through her trunk before placing a bottle on Parvati's bed. Parvati pushed Helen onto the bed in front of her, squeezed an amount the size of a tennis ball onto her palm (Helen's eyes widened at the sight), and began spreading it through her hair.

"Comb," Parvati said tersely. Lavender handed her a comb, which Parvati used to attack Helen's hair. "Take that!" Helen heard Parvati mutter under her breath as knot upon knot came loose. "Ha!" she added as a particularly tangled spot was untangled. "There we are!"

Lavender held up a mirror, and Helen looked at herself. Her hair was a dark red color, straight and frizz-free from the Sleekeazy. "Wow," Helen gasped, admiring her reflection.

"Nice, isn't it?" Parvati said proudly.

"It'd be nicer if you let us do your hair and put just a bit of make-up on you. Just a little, since you're only eleven," Lavender added. Helen nodded enthusiastically. "See? She's not like Hermione!" Lavender said, beaming.

I'm not like Hermione! Helen thought, grinning. I'm not the only one here who doesn't think I'm a mini-Hermione! Lavender and Parvati brought out a large bag and began experimenting, allowing them to begin chatting again.

"Eloise Midgen's acne improved loads over the summer," Parvati said, spreading light powder over Helen's face.

"I know," Lavender said, twirling Helen's hair. "I heard Andy Matthews is thinking about asking her out." She snorted. "I heard a rumor that Dumbledore was the cutest boy in his year back when he was in school."

"That must have been a long time ago," Parvati said lightly.

"But then again, I heard Sirius Black went out with three-quarters of the female population at Hogwarts while he was here," Lavender said in a hushed voice.

"I heard he died," Parvati said in an equally quiet voice. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Mum was telling Dad that they're thinking of issuing a posthumous pardon. For killing all those Muggles and Peter Pettigrew. Why would they do that?"

"I don't know," Lavender said, sounding perplexed. "But I heard Harry's his godson!"

"Who'd you hear that from?" Parvati said, alarmed.

"Pansy Parkinson," Lavender said guiltily. She and Parvati relaxed. "But she did say Malfoy told her last year."

"Yeah, well, Malfoy's not always right either," Parvati said, frowning.

"Well." Lavender looked uncomfortable. Then she grinned and turned to Helen. "Hey, Helen, I think there's someone in Gryffindor who fancies you already." Parvati snorted derisively. "No, really!" she said. She shook her head. "Parvati doesn't believe me, but I think there's a boy in first year with an enormous crush on you."

"When she had that hair?" Parvati said dubiously. "No offense," she added.

"Yeah," Lavender said, apparently enjoying the news.

"Who is it, then?" Parvati said impatiently. Lavender leaned over and whispered in her ear. Parvati raised an eyebrow. "No! I don't think so. He's not mature enough to start liking girls that way..." Lavender shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Really," Parvati insisted.

"Who?" Helen asked curiously.

"Nothing," Parvati said, frowning at Lavender. "Lavender's just being a hopeless romantic, as usual. Not that there's no one out there who fancies you," she said quickly. "I think there'll be plenty of them staring today." She smiled.

"Done," Lavender said. She handed Helen the mirror again. Helen gasped. A pretty redheaded girl with her hair in a loose bun was staring back at her, looking absolutely mesmerized. "This should be proof enough to Hermione to let us do her hair," Lavender said smugly.

Parvati smiled indulgently. "Operation Helen Granger successful," she said.

"Go show your sister," Lavender insisted. "She needs to see our masterpiece. I'll bet she's down at the Quidditch pitch, watching Ron practice. I saw Ginny heading down there about an hour ago."

"Be sure not to muss your hair!" Parvati called as Helen headed out the door.

"Bye!" Helen called, beaming. Lavender and Parvati beamed back until Helen couldn't see them anymore. Then she bumped into someone coming from the boys' staircase. "Oh, sorry," she said, as the boy dropped his books all over the floor. She bent to help him pick them up, and found herself looking into the eyes of Mark Evans. "Hi," she said awkwardly.

Mark just looked at her blankly, as if wondering who she was. Then a spark of recognition crossed his eyes, and he said breathlessly, "Oh, hello." He stared. "You look different," he added.

"Yeah," Helen said happily. "Isn't it great?"

She must have imagined the puzzled frown that crossed Mark's face before he grinned. "I suppose," he said, shrugging. "You... er... look more like a girl now," he said, stuttering.

It must have been the shock of her new look, Helen decided, that made him stutter. "Thanks," she said.

"So..." Mark said, his eyes darting around. Helen suddenly realized she was still holding Mark's books, so she hurriedly handed them back. "Thanks," he said gratefully. "I was doing my homework when I realized I forgot my books back in my dormitory," he said sheepishly. "Anyway, what brings you here? I saw Hermione go out there with Ron Weasley a bit ago."

"Lavender and Parvati fixed my hair," Helen explained. "I was on my way out to the Quidditch Pitch to show Hermione."

"Oh." Mark blinked. "Why'd they need to fix your hair?"

Helen rolled her eyes. Boys. "It looked horrible," Helen said exasperatedly.

"It wasn't that bad."

Helen just shook her head. "Where are, erm, Josh Guilder and Chris McAlester, you know, your friends?"

Mark smiled slightly. "Euan Abercrombie - he's a second year - reckons he found the kitchens. They're with him, trying to find out if it's really the entrance. I didn't want to go, because then I'd have to stay up 'til one in the morning, rushing through my homework with them." He put his books down. "Do you, er, mind if I come with you? To the Quidditch Pitch, I mean? We have our first flying lesson next Saturday, you know, with your House, and I wanted to see some people fly before trying myself..." He trailed off.

Helen had the feeling he wasn't exactly telling the whole truth. Maybe he just wanted to see Quidditch. It certainly sounded like an exciting game to Helen; maybe Mark was just supposed to be the intellectual type, and he didn't want people to think he was interested in Quidditch. "No, I'd like it if you came."

Mark grinned. "All right."

"I just have to pick my diary up from my dormitory," Helen said, blushing. "I keep a diary, and I have a feeling I'll be there for a while."

Mark followed Helen down the many flights of stairs and into the dungeons. "Weird sort of place," he said, looking at the damp walls and faint smell of dew. "Kind of dark, isn't it?"

"You get used to it," Helen said breezily, though privately, she more than agreed with the Gryffindor. She gave the password (Sanguis) to the wall, which slid aside, revealing a door. Mark's eyes widened.

"This is like the movies," he said.

"Mmmhmm," Helen agreed. "Wait here. I don't think boys are allowed in the girls' dormitories." She hurried through the deserted common room (the older Slytherins seemed to be elsewhere; the younger ones were all outside) and into the first year girls' dormitory. Quickly, she grabbed her diary and a self-inking quill that her parents had bought her and hurried back out to Mark.

"Ready?" Mark said, looking at the diary curiously.

"Come on," Helen said in response.

"Excellent," Mark said, following her back out of the dungeons and into the sunshine.