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She smiles. “That’s right, dear.” She pulls out a handkerchief, and begins cleaning her hand slowly. “You know, you were completely right. Aurelia is weak. She does lack conviction. Despite her academic performance being the top of her class, she does take moderately more time than you likely would.” She tosses the bloody handkerchief to the ground. “The difference is, she knows her place.”
Her face still stings, stings horribly, but she can’t do anything about it.
“Do you know why we never commented on your new appearance, dear? Your father and I, we’re not idiots, you know. Of course we would notice our daughter’s face miraculously changing overnight.”
The silence hangs for a bit too long. Hermione realizes she was supposed to answer. “N-no.”
Her mother grabs her face and brings her closer, looking her directly in her eyes. “Because, dear,” she smiles, “it was the best thing to ever happen to us.”
Her eyes water. Hermione holds back a whimper. Her mother’s nails were digging into her cut.
Her mother lets her go. She falls back into her chair. “Ah, how refreshing. I should’ve said this ages ago!” The woman leans forward, caressing Hermione’s cheek gently. “Do you know how embarrassing it was, having your abominable face in every portrait? How mortifying, to have you there at every family gathering?” Her mother grimaces. “When you gave me that birthday card, years ago, smiling with those misaligned eyes and malformed teeth, I nearly wanted to vomit.” She sits back. “You were a disgrace. I could hardly believe I had given birth to you.”
The blood from her face drips onto her house dress. Looked like it would have to be changed.
“I’ll admit, I had some respect for how you managed to make your appearance bearable to look at. How you did it, I really don’t care about at all.” Though she smiles, her mother’s gaze is cold. “I never want you to forget that in my eyes, you’ll always be the same misshapen atrocity you’ve been since your birth. For you to even fathom the idea of being capable of standing on the same level as your sister, well, that simply indicates to me we haven’t been educating you well enough.”
