Glamour Girls

Eloise Midgen looked nervously into the mirror and poked at a spot on her nose. Madam Pomfrey had told her not to pick at her acne, but she couldn't help it, even though she knew she'd turn an inoffensive spot that would otherwise be gone in three days into a raging monster that would last a week.

The problem with Hufflepuff was that everyone was so nice. "You're a lovely person, no-one notices the spots," Hannah Abbott would tell her, all the while twiddling a strand of that long golden hair that got everyone's attention.

Then there was Susan Bones. "They'll be gone by the time you leave Hogwarts," she'd comforted. Clever, witty, Susan Bones, whose personality seemed to rivet boys to the spot.

Eloise didn't hear the door to the toilets open. "I hate being spotty Midgen," she wailed.

The voice behind her made her jump. "Try being 'Brick' Bulstrode, then," Millicent Bulstrode remarked.

"Brick?"

Millicent walked over and joined her by the mirror. She surveyed her lumpen figure, made even more solid by her black uniform robes. "As in 'Brick Shithouse'. That's what Pansy reckons I'm built like. She thinks its funny. So did everyone else when she thought of it five years ago, but the novelty's worn off. The name's stuck, though."

They stood staring into the glass for a few seconds that felt like an age, looking at all the things everyone else saw when they looked at them.

"Have you ever tried magicking it away?" Eloise ventured. "Your waist, I mean? So it's slimmer."

"No - and don't you dare try, I'll probably end up with my shoulders on my hips and no abdomen."

Eloise winced. As if it wasn't bad enough being spotty, no one could let her forget her magical accident when she'd tried to cure herself. "I should've just tried removing myself," she said.

Millicent softened. She didn't usually feel as though she had something in common with anyone, so to find she had the same problems as a Hufflepuff was a real surprise. Hufflepuffs didn't really have problems, she'd always thought, unless it was agonising over being merely someone's friend instead of their best friend, or trying to pick the perfect birthday gift for someone. Sometimes Millicent wished she were smaller, not so people would be kind to her but so she'd be less noticeable. "Ah, don't talk rot. Do you think the world can get by on Pansy Parkinsons? It'd be a very pretty place, but everyone would be up to his or her ears in jobs that needed doing. Come here."

Millicent grabbed Eloise and took out a hairbrush. "People are always going to see your nose, but if you style you hair more like this people won't notice a lot of the other spots." With a few deft brushes she restyled Eloise's hair. She then pulled a sparkly green hairclip from her pocket and pinned Eloise's fringe so it hid her forehead in a cute fashion. Eloise gasped. She was still Eloise Midgen, but a much better-looking one. The new hairstyle made her look elfin, and covered up one of the worst patches of her acne.

"That's brilliant! Can... can I keep the hairclip until I get some of my own?"

"Sure, but don't let Pansy see you with it, it's hers. I'm forever helping her with her hair. When you're not in class, pin it further towards the middle so one side of your face is partly covered - it looks kind of flirty when you look at boys though your hair, Pansy reckons. It'd cover some more of your spots, too." Millicent felt awkward. If only Pansy could hear me, she thought ruefully. She'd laugh for weeks about this: 'Brick' Bulstrode passing on style advice.

Eloise studied Millicent. She was big, but big could be attractive. The problem was, she tried to cover herself up and made herself look blockier than she needed to. She probably didn't get much help with her clothes from the skinny Slytherin in-crowd. Her housemates were unlikely to know anything about making large figures look good. "You know, if you undo the top buttons of your robes so there's more of a 'v' to the neck, it'll help draw people's eyes to your centre instead of to either side." She adjusted Millicent's robes. "Don't wear your scarf so high, either - if you don't wrap it round your neck, just drape it either side, you can leave long tails, and they'll pull people's eyes up and down your figure."

Millicent was sceptical until she saw the result. "Hey, that does actually look better. I'm still blocky underneath it all, though."

"Yeah, and I'm still spotty. We're not going to lose those things. Work with it. When you can get away with it, flash a bit of cleavage."

"Clea-"

"Cleavage is good," Eloise said firmly. "It guarantees that half the population won't actually notice things like your hips or my spots or even Hermione Granger's frizzy hair."

"Pansy says it's vulgar," Millicent remarked. "But that's probably because she hasn't got much to show off. I've got loads."

"Use it." Eloise was amused by the way Millicent pulled at her shoulders, clearly re-arranging her bra underneath her robes to give herself a bit more 'oomph'.

"Get a load of those, Blaise Zabini," Millicent laughed, and blushed. "Um, don't tell anyone I said that."

"Don't worry - anyway, he's gorgeous, no-one would be surprised that you fancy him. I... I like Zacharias Smith." Eloise bit her bottom lip. "He can be a bit mean sometimes, though. That's why I'm here. His jokes got a bit much." Zacharias only ever meant to be funny, she knew, but he never quite realised when it was time to stop, and unlike Susan Eloise was too slow to come up with a clever put-down that would make him shut up.

Millicent shyly pulled some items of makeup from her handbag, and slicked on some peach-coloured lipstick. Eloise tentatively picked up the mascara and darkened her lashes. As Millicent moved on to eye shadow, Eloise painted her own lips a sweet rose colour. When they'd both finished adding colour to their faces, they looked at one another.

"You look amazing," they said in unison, and both smiled.

"We'd better take it all off before we go to class," Eloise said, with regret. Millicent brought out a tub of Skin-Scourgify wipes. Reluctantly, they rubbed away the selves no one else could see.

"If you're ever up here again," Millicent said, "I can show you some more hairdos. If you want me to, of course."

Eloise knew how it felt to offer something important while trying to make it sound meaningless, just so it wouldn't hurt as much when the offer was turned down. "That would be cool. I've got a lip gloss that would really suit you," she ventured. "Next time, eh?"

Eloise didn't think either of them would talk to each other much outside the toilets. However, as she walked to her next class, she felt good. Her prettiness wasn't on a face-wipe in the bin in the toilets; that was just surface paint. Real attractiveness, like Millicent had showed when she smiled and was friendly, came from the heart. Eloise could be as guilty of seeing the surface as anyone - she was so caught up with her own skin, she blamed Hannah for being pretty, when Hannah's kindness and common sense were what really made her popular. Eloise decided she could learn a lot from Hannah and Susan.

"Hi Hannah," she said shyly, slipping in behind her housemate.

"W-wow!" Ernie Macmillan said. Everyone looked round at him, and he was staring at Eloise. "When did you change your hair?"

"It looks good," Susan said.

"It looks great," Ernie announced. Even Zacharias looked taken aback.

Eloise smiled happily. She knew she'd never be as pretty as Hannah, but with Millicent as her partner-in-beauty-crime, she could seem every bit as good-looking. And that was real glamour.