Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine… unfortunately.
Chapter 1

Hermione stood in front of the mirror, staring at herself. She was no longer the strikingly beautiful witch she had once been, she no longer had flowing brownish golden hair. She no longer had bright copper colored eyes, filled with a thirst to learn. She had become an empty shell. He had cut her hair very short, she was loosing weight rapidly, she had bags under her eyes due to lack of sleep, she was pale and skinny, and she looked a mess. Where she had emotions and feelings, there was now a dark void of emptiness.

Hermione had had the worst summer of all time. Voldemort had risen again in the last year and he had come after her parents. Worst of all is the fact that he succeeded. He had tortured and killed her parents right before her eyes and she wasn't able to do anything about it. She lost the most important thing in her life and she no longer cared about anything. She didn't care about school, her grades, how many O.W.L.s she received, or whether or not she would ever amount to anything in her life. She didn't care if she was no longer the best student in her grade. She lost interest in anything that would have concerned her before, and she was steadily getting worse.

Ever since her parents were killed, Hermione was living in a muggle orphanage. She had no family left and no one that cared for her. She wasn't even sure if Harry and Ron would remain her friends during school because of her depressed state.

As she looked into the mirror, her sad reflection stared back. She knew she looked different; she knew her reflection was in a sickly state and she should get help soon, but her knowing this didn't motivate her any more. She was consumed by what happened and it slowly ate away at her sanity.

Going back to her bed and sitting down, Hermione looked around the room she was in. There were beds upon beds of sleeping children from the age of 5 to the age of 17. There were about 30 children in that one room sleeping all at once and Hermione was the only one awake. She was dressed in rages, trying to save the rest of her money for when she left school. She had to sacrifice. It wasn't going to be easy, but it must be done.

It was the last day of the holidays and she would be starting school soon, but she wasn't the same Hermione, the little miss know it all; she was instead hollow soul. She was dreading going back. She didn't want to see her friends, afraid of how they were going to treat her now. Would they pity her, because pity was the last thing she wanted. Would they shun her, when she needed them the most, when they were all she had left?

The night eventually blended into morning, and it was time to start getting ready for her first day back at school, her first day back with her friends, and her first day back into the world she was most comfortable in and most used to.

Hermione got up and dressed. He decided to wear something that was normal to her, instead of the rags she had on all summer. The rags were appropriate because of how much she was forced to clean in the orphanage, but she didn't want anyone to see her in the rags on the way back to school, especially Malfoy. She didn't want to give him more reasons to tease her any more than he already did.

She soon went downstairs into the mess hall of the orphanage and ate a tiny breakfast so there would enough to go around for all of the orphans. She wasn't very hungry though, so this didn't bother her much. Her mind these days were far from how much she got to eat.

Hermione would have to take the bus to the train station, so she decided to leave extra early to get there on time. She gathered all of her belongings in her truck along with her wand and spell books, although they were locked in there all summer because of how she was obligated to keep her wizardry a secret. Walking out the door, she never looked back. As far as she was concerned, she didn't ever want to come back there. She would turn 18 soon, and she would be forced to live on her own. This thought scared her, but it was much better than being forced to live in an orphanage where you can only get food once a day and you can only take a shower twice a week. Where disease and illness spread throughout the building like a wildfire and nothing can prevent it.

Hermione arrived at King's Cross Train Station early, trying to avoid all other her old friends. She soon searched for an empty compartment and found one at the back of the train. Shutting the down, she plopped down on the seat and began to cry. She was finally alone for the first time in nearly a month and being alone brought back the memories of her parent's death. Why had she let it happen? She just stood there, rooted to the spot, while a death eater yelled 'Avada Kedavra'. She hadn't done anything. She just froze. Guilt weighed heavily on her heart and the tears never stopped pouring down. She was looking out he window, but her mind wasn't taking in anything that she was seeing. She had a glazed over look in her eyes and her subconscious was far away. She was only pulled back into reality when she heard the compartment door slide open and heard some familiar voices. Quickly drying her eyes, she looked up to see who had just walked in, although she had a good idea who it was.

"Hi Hermione!" Harry said brightly. "You cut your hair, it… err… looks… nice."

She didn't say anything. Instead, she gave a feeble smile and turned back to the window.

Noticing her depressed state, Harry attempted to find out what was wrong, but it came up useless. Hermione didn't answer and continued staring out the window, tears, once again, streaming down her somber face.

"Hermione, do you want to talk? What's wrong? Please just talk to us." Ron asked, hoping that he would at least get some form of reply. When he got none, he turned to Harry and shrugged. They continued talking, while taking quick glances over at Hermione to see if her demeanor had changed at all.

Hermione, trying to keep it all inside her, could no longer hold the pain she felt. She just exploded as if she was a balloon constantly fed more and more air until it popped.

"YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED TO ME THIS SUMMER?" She yelled, surprised they didn't know.

Harry and Ron jumped a foot in the air at the sudden sound of Hermione's voice. "No, we have no idea. What happened? You can tell us about it."

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE BEEN IN THE DARK ABOUT EVERYTHING, WHILE I'VE BEEN CRYING MYSELF TO SLEEP ALMOST EVERY NIGHT."

As soon as she said this, they suddenly realized how much she had changed. She was no longer the slim, pretty girl that she was last year. They had noticed how skinny she looked, how pale she was, and the amount of bags under here eyes. "Hermione, are you ok?" Ron said, starting to get concerned for his friend.

With this question, she got up and stormed out of the train compartment in search of another one where she could wallow in her own problems for a while. She quickly found an empty compartment and let her sadness engulf her. She wanted to be like her own self, she really did. But she would never be the same.

At the beginning of the summer Hermione had found out that she was now the Head Girl, but that thought was far from her mind now. In fact she had forgotten all about it when her parents were killed. As she sat in the compartment thinking about her miseries, she slowly fell into a restless sleep.

"Step aside you little mudblood while we kill your parents. I always thought this world would be such a better place if we eliminated all of the muggles!"

"No!" Hermione screamed, but she was almost inaudible. There was a large, fleshy hand clamped across her mouth almost stifling her to death. She had to take large gasping breaths every few seconds to be able to breath. Her capturer clearly didn't want her to die, but he thought it would be fun to make her watch her parent dies.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Hermione woke up in a cold sweat with hands on her shoulders. They had been gently shaking her awake. She looked up into the face of her best friend, Harry with Ron beside him. "Hermione you were screaming. We came looking for you after you left and we found you right after you had started to scream." He looked extremely worried and Ron looked pale.

Hermione simply nodded.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine." She said shoving them off. "I just want to be alone."

"Ok, but we'll be at Hogwarts soon, you might want to change into your robes." They left after, leaving Hermione alone as she wished.

The train soon pulled into the Hogwarts station and Hermione got off, hoping to avoid Harry and Ron if possible. She quickly climbed into an empty carriage as she waited for it to begin its journey to the school. Once in the Great Hall, she sat on the opposite end of the table by herself. Loneliness was the only thing she knew at the moment. Even with being in an overcrowded crowded orphanage, she had experienced some of the loneliest times in her entire life.

A/N: Hey, this is my second story, but I think its going pretty well so far. I have a couple of chapters written but I'm not too sure where, generally, I'm going to take this story. So feel free to give me good hints… but eventually it will be Hermione/ Draco