Motivation ⌁ Tom Riddle ✔

20

Alison forced me to sit in front of her mirror on that very Saturday afternoon. I fidgeted a lot as I stared at my own reflection, dull blue eyes staring back at me. I hadn't looked at my own reflection for a while and the girl I was looking at definitely didn't look like the me I knew. If I didn't smile and let myself look blank, I looked miserable. If I smiled, I looked a little too overconfident. It wasn't a win-win situation.

After combing through my hair more than six hundred times, Alison prodded her fingers into my scalp and ran her fingers through my hair, doing some sort of style to it. She wouldn't answer me whenever I asked what style she was doing. She just focused on the back of my head, her tongue over her top lip and her eyebrows furrowed. I eventually gave up and just let her get to it.

Then, she spun the chair I was sitting in around, and dug through a bag that was contained in her trunk. She pulled out what looked like a silver briefcase, clicked it open, and layers of make up was inside. My eyes widened at the amount packed inside.

I coughed over and over again as Alison sprayed something in my hair. Liquid eye-liner was the first thing to be applied on my top eyelid, mascara was applied to my eyelashes, and red lipstick was smeared on my lips. I didn't get a chance to protest.

"This hair-do is burning my scalp," I whined, trying my very best not to claw at my head. I winced loudly and bounced in my seat.

"You'll get used to it," Alison snapped, painting my nails black so that they matched my shoes. "You have to look ten times better than Nora. We don't need her starting anything again."

"That's right, we don't. But if I go down there like this - with my hair like this-"

Alison eventually listened to my complaints and let my hair hang loose over my shoulders. I breathed in relief, the thudding on my scalp dying out. When Alison was finished with my appearance, she eventually let me slip into the dress she got me, as well as my old, black slip-ons. Then, when I looked in the mirror, my voice died in my throat and I felt stiff. I didn't even look like me. I had to look behind me to make sure that I wasn't looking at a different person, and I gasped happily. Alison smirked at my reaction and dusted her hands off.

"My job here is done," she sang, plopping herself into the chair so she could stare at herself.

I insisted on getting Alison ready since she had gotten me ready, and she let me. Not even ten minutes into helping Alison did I have to sit there and watch her do it herself. The only thing I managed to help with was smearing mascara on the bridge of her nose. Once I had poked her eye with it she demanded that I sit and wait for her to finish getting ready. And I did sit there, but I wasn't keeping still.

Alison wore her fluffy, pink dress with white heels and white gloves. And with her tiara on top of it all, she looked exactly like a princess. We stared at each other for a few seconds before finally deciding that we looked OK, and we went down into the common room where we waited for Chris.