There was a gap, and even for a kid as obsessed with pop culture as I was it was one that existed between me and most of the things I was reading and watching.

I'd dress up in Hogwarts uniforms for Halloween but avoid going overtly as Hermione because I knew I could never get my hair like Emma Watson's. I could never get it white-girl bushy — and don't even get me started on white-girl movie-sleek-pretending-to-be-frizzy. My hair was a whole different kind of frizzy. I loved her so much, but it took me a long time to accept that I could never be her.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Hermione is introduced with a description of her bushy brown hair and her large teeth. There's nothing there to indicate she didn't look just like me, yet I always pictured a white face under that bushy head. I always pictured her not-me.