It might surprise you, but Hermione Granger is very popular. With her short, trendy, straight brown hair, and a wonderful tan, even in the winter, even in England. Most of the people she meets peg her for a cute but dumb type, because of her beautiful but vacant looking eyes. In reality Hermione Granger is anything but stupid, but nobody she knows understands that about her. All they care about is that she is nice, easy to manipulate (or so they think), and pretty enough to get attention where they might not have if they weren't with her.

In the rare moments of honesty with themselves, her "friends" admit silently that they are just using her, that they don't know too much about her, but they quickly wash away any guilt with shallow reassurances that their really isn't anything more to learn about her. What you see is what you get with Hermione Granger, right? She is the whole package of cliché popularity after all, pretty, dumb and seemingly nice.

Her friends feel secure with that notion every time they see her staring into space, a small smile on her lips, completely oblivious to the things around her. But her friends are wrong, which isn't surprising at all because her friends are idiots. Hermione is very much aware of the world around her, the small smile not being one of idiotic contentment but of quiet mockery. Her face vacant not because of empty thoughts, but because of so many, and all of them focused on things far away or way ahead of the people around her.

Not only are her friends wrong about her intelligence, they are wrong about her beauty. She thinks that she looks plain, with the same hair, makeup, and clothing as the people around her. If the people she knew now looked at pictures of her as a child, the would be shocked. They would say that she was an ugly duckling when she was a kid and now she has blossomed into a swan, but when Hermione looks at old pictures, usually with a bitter or wistful smile, she wishes she hadn't changed. Her hair was a large, long, frizzy mass of brown curls, perhaps it could be considered horrible looking, but it was unique. Her skin pale as moonlight, but healthy, unlike the complete unnaturalness of her skin now.

The biggest difference by far was the smile. Her front teeth were large and buck-tooth, but her smile was wide and genuine. Her smiles always being the ones that happened with out her consent, by the mirth simply taking the corners of her mouth and spreading them across her face. Now her smile is perfect with straight white teeth. Her smile always wide, but somehow looking more like barred teeth than a sign of happiness.

But the thing her friends are most wrong about is her being popular. Hermione Granger has no friends. Even after she went through so much effort to become socially acceptable. At first, after her family moved, when she had started at a completely new school, with her new look, when she was making friends by the bucketful, she felt victorious. But after the novelty of companionship wore off, she realized she was in quite a predicament.

The realization came to her halfway through lunch one day. She was sitting there with her friends, laughing, laughing, laughing, until her face hurt. She was thinking about how wonderful it is to just laugh and laugh, and tried to recall what was so funny. She couldn't remember. It came to her that they just started to laugh, perhaps because they felt it was time to sound happy, but there was nothing funny said, no wit used. It struck her then how fake all the laughter was. Then she realized it wasn't just the laughter that was fake, but everything else was too.

She stopped laughing, and spent the rest of the day pondering over what she should do now that she knew that everything was a sham. She kept wondering, and kept not laughing, and kept on with her serious face, until her friends started to avoid her a little. Hermione realized that her friends were distancing themselves from her and with that she had a sudden feeling of panic, and another realization.

Something else that might surprise you about Hermione Granger is that she is addicted to a drug. Sometimes she wishes it were crack rather than the drug which she injects, inhales, and sniffs everyday. That drug is popularity. While her existence now is a mere shadow of what it should be, it was better than being alone. Because while she recognizes that she is living an empty shell of a life, she simply can't let go of the companionship, can't let go of the euphoria of being known in her school by everybody, can't let go of the power. At the end of everyday she feels drained and disgusted with herself, but she still wakes up every morning an hour and a half before school, and makes herself into the person people want her to be.

Overall, Hermione isn't a happy camper.

Her parents notice of course, and worry. Hermione at home is the one they know and love, but the Hermione they see wandering off to school every morning is not at all the same. They can't understand why their wonderful, brilliant, beautiful daughter goes off to school everyday looking plain and vacant. Her mother sits her down every once and a while and talks to her about how she doesn't need to be popular, she just needs to have a few good friends to feel complete socially, that pretending to be someone else isn't healthy, and it doesn't really make any friends.

Hermione agrees with every word her moms says, and thinks tomorrow she will leave her hair curly, not wear make up, and wear her uniform to regulations, rather than like a sleaze the next day. She wakes up the next morning certain that she will do it this time, but she looks at her hair, and her proper looking uniforms, and can suddenly hear her friends scornful remarks, or worse, their backhanded complements and distant body language. She can imagine them ignoring her, or coercing her into looking how she used to. She feels panicked then quickly does what she can to look how she does everyday. As she goes out the front door, her mom waves her off, always with a disappointed frown, and a question in her eyes. Hermione's only answer every time is the desperate look in her eyes, reminisce of the junkies who wander the streets of the city.

Today was one of those days.

" Have a nice day honey." Her mother says, not with any real conviction.

Hermione smiles at her, perfect white teeth all in a perfectly straight row, waves, and closes the door behind her, heading up the street to the bus stop.

There her friends are, a few of them that is, straight hair, some long, some brown, some blond, but somehow all looking the same.

"God, how does Hermione even get into higher grades? I swear, there is nothing going on in her head!" They all laugh, like something was funny, when one of the girls notices Hermione coming up the street. The other girls notice her looking and all turn, big smiles popping up on their faces, wide, tight, not even close to reaching their eyes.

" Hermione, your hair is a little wavy, it looks nice!" The girl who commented, Nikki, grabs her hand and pulls her into the circle.

Hermione smiles and says in a absent sort of voice, "Thank you, I thought I would try something different." She turns her head away from Nikki and shows her teeth to the other people in the circle. But Hermione just didn't have enough time to straighten her hair fully, lasting a little longer this morning than others before collapsing back into habit. Hermione knew her friends didn't like it, she heard some of them snickering, and out of the corner of her eye could see their mocking glances. Hermione felt her chest tighten and to get some relief she went further into her head, thinking about the book she was reading on the history of France. She nodded and laughed at a few points and no one noticed that she wasn't really there.

"Hermione, the bus is here." One of the girls nudged her before walking onto the bus. Hermione sighed and followed.

School was miserable, but in that way that makes her want more. On occasion Hermione wondered if she was a bit of a masochist, enjoying the misery. She would hear some scathing comment from a friend, then give a scathing comment to some people she meets in a hallway, feeling a sick sort of satisfaction with their devastated expressions, then go pretend to fail a test that she actually will get an A on. She would then spend some time waiting for the bus, which is always late, hanging out with her friends, noticing the way some of the boys looked at her, like she was a piece of cake and it was their birthday, and feeling both disrespected and flattered.

No mattered how the day varies from that, she can't help but feel so very relieved when she gets off the bus and separates from her friends. Except today they didn't separate from her.

"Hermione, why don't you go to a party with us? It is Friday night after all." They all looked at her, almost daring her to refuse. Hermione sighed knowing that it wasn't one of the parties that she could wiggle her way out of.

" Sure, where and when?"

"8 o'clock, number four Privet Drive. The host is some big boxing champion, whose is kind of ugly, but he has a lot of cute friends. Here, I'll give you the directions." Nikki supplied.

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"Hermione, are you sure you want to do this?" Martha asks, face full of doubt and concern.

Hermione is dying to say no, that she would rather shave all of her hair off, but doesn't. Instead she turns to her mother and says, "Is this skirt too short?"

Her mother, noticing it for the first time, looks a bit horrified. "Y-Yes!" She gasps out.

"Perfect." Hermione mutters to herself, while picking out a regular looking tank top, "I don't have to wear a belly top then."

"Your not going out like that! You look like a street walker!" Martha, getting over the shock, puts her foot down. "No way, you would look much cuter in…in this!" Her mother pulls something randomly out of her closet, gasping in horror when it turns out to be a camisole nightgown. "NO! That's not what I meant." Martha says in a hurry, looking desperately at Hermione.

"You know what Mom, I think you're right, that would look cuter." Hermione said smirking.

"No, no, just go, and be careful, this is chaperoned, right?" Her mom asks as she hangs the nightgown back in the closet.

"Of course." Hermione replies, though she doesn't actually know but highly doubts that it is.

"I want you back by 12:30, ok? No later or I'm going to tell your father that you have that…those pajamas." Martha says looking despairingly back into Hermione's closet.

"Don't worry mom, I'll even try to be home sooner than then." Hermione turns to grab her jacket.

"Don't you need a lift?" Martha asks, frowning a little in confusion, following Hermione down the stairs to the front door.

"No, its close enough for me to just walk to it." Before Martha could object to that, Hermione had already open the door and started walking down the path. But once she was far enough away for Martha not to chase after her, she yelled back into the open doorway, where the silhouette of her mother still stood. "Though I guess this really does make me a street walker, doesn't it?" ,before running off.

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A boy was throwing up in a potted plant three feet to the left of her, the splashing sound was mixing with his gasping and the thumping of the music around her. It was giving her a headache. She was sitting on a couch, wishing desperately that she wasn't there.

The party was definitely not chaperoned. Beer cans littered everything, people were smoking pot, among other things, in practically every corner of the house, and people were making out on the floor, most of them Hermione's friends. A few people were upstairs in the bedrooms, having sex, probably unprotected, one of them being Nikki. Hermione wondered if tomorrow she would ask Hermione for money to get the day-after pill. Such fun things to think about while sitting on a couch, listening to a person finishing his throwing up.

"Oh great, the throw-up-boy is leering at me now." Hermione whispered to herself, quickly getting up and moving through the mass of people, until she got to the kitchen.

Evidentially the kitchen turned into the pass-out-room, because it was littered with unconscious bodies. At this, the whole thing became more serious. It's scary, seeing a room full of bodies. Hermione quickly went around checking pulses, making sure they were just passed out rather than dying from alcohol poisoning. When she knew that they were all ok, she shoved one off of a chair, and sat down, head in her palms, being happy that at least it was quieter in there.

All Hermione was aware off was the stench of alcohol, vomit, urine, and her own thoughts, which were asking why she wasn't just leaving now. Admittedly, it was only 12:00, but she didn't think that anyone would notice if she left. But, someone still might, and she couldn't have that happen again after leaving the last party at 10:30, in which her friends mocked her for a very stressful month.

Then she became aware of the back door opening.

"God, this smells awful. Piss drunk indeed."

Hermione lifted her head our of her hands, blinking a few time to stop them from sticking together, and turned her torso to the back door.

"Oh look, one of them is awake." A boy with the messiest black hair she had ever seen and the most striking green eyes smirked at her. Her mouth hung open for a moment and he started stepping over bodies, making his way to the table, stopped at one body, and looks down at him closely.

"Oh hey, it's Polkiss." Then he backtracked a little and stepped on his fingers for a moment before continuing on.

"Did you wake up amongst this? I'd imagine that would have been rather frightening." He smiles at her kindly, taking a set across the table from her.

"N-no, I, err… I haven't… I'm not drunk or anything." Hermione blushed, then got a grip. For the love of God girl, pull yourself together, so he's cute, it's not like you haven't been around cute boys before. She thought, mentally backhanding herself.

"Oh… then why are you in here?" he asks, head slightly tilted to the side.

"It's quieter, and less disgusting, if you can imagine." Hermione mentally patted herself on the back for being coherent this time.

"Hmm, I think I'll stay in here then. But I will open some windows." He got up and shifted through some bodies, kicking a few of them as he passed. He bent over the counter, stretching a little to reach the window. Hermione notices that he seemed to be a little on the short side, still a good deal taller than Hermione, who is petite, but definitely shorter than then the majority of the boys she knows.

"How old are you?" Hermione asked suddenly, and blushed, realizing that it was a bit of a random question.

"17, turned just three months ago." He said making his way back to her. "How about you?" He sat down.

"17, I turned just a few weeks ago." Hermione looks down at her hands, like she is fascinated with her pink nail polish.

"I'm Harry, by the way, Harry Potter. You haven't seen Dudley around have you?" He suddenly looked around, like he expected this Dudley to come crawling out from below one of the bodies.

"Um, Dudley?" Hermione asked, looking up at him, slightly embarrassed, guessing that she should probably already know who this is.

Harry laughed a little, then opened his mouth to respond. He was stopped by a girl named Elizabeth.

"God Hermione, you're so stupid! This is Dudley's house, you twit, shouldn't you know whose house your going to before you go there?" She laughs and a very large boy enters behind her, then slings his big gorilla arm around her.

"Yeah, who the fuck are ya? What the fuck ya doin' in my house?" He slurred, pointing at her with a fist holding a bottle of vodka. He squinted at her closer and then shrug, "Whatever, she's pretty, so who gives a fuck?" Elizabeth glared at Hermione, then pouted a little.

"But she is soooo stupid, I mean she would even annoy you." She laughed a little, then stopped, realizing that she just insulted him also, but true to form, he doesn't notice.

"You know how I know that she isn't smart?" Dudley said, swaggering further into the room and tripping on one of the unconscious, they both grunted at the same time, then Dudley straightened a little, and slurred "I know cuz she is talking to this loser. Who the fuck said you could be here, Potter?"

"The law, unfortunately." Harry tilts back in his chair a little.

"Why don't you and…and…" Dudley struggled.

"Hermione." Elizabeth supplied.

"Yeah, Hermim…Hermico, that girl that Liz doesn't like, get out." Dudley said leaning forward in a way that Dudley must have thought was threatening.

"I don't think so Dudley, why don't you go finish off that vodka, go upstairs and have your mates defenestrate you?" Liz and Dudley looked confused , but Hermione laughed, enjoying the mental image of Dudley being thrown out a window.

"That's sick Potter, I'm not gay." Dudley yelled, thinking the word had something to do with sex.

"I doesn't have anything to do with being gay, Dudley, but I do think that it's funny that's where your mind goes." Harry said smiling at Hermione, who smiled back, the corners of her mouth being pulled across her face.

They stopped smiling when they noticed some of Dudley friends, all looking drugged out of their minds, stepping into the kitchen and starting to glare at Harry, and leer at Hermione.

Harry sighed, "We should probably go." Hermione nodded and they both stood up and, stepping over unconscious, and some waking bodies, they left the kitchen through the back door.

Hermione heard the door click behind her, but she didn't really notice because she was gulping down the fresh (or at least fresher) air, "I'm so glad to be out of that house." Hermione said tilting her head up.

"I've been wanting to say that for as long as I can remember." Harry said, standing next to her, taking in deep breaths as well. "But unfortunately I can't really just yet."

"Do you live there?" Hermione couldn't believe it, Harry and Dudley couldn't be brothers, they looked nothing alike.

They started to walk across the backyard, where the gate was, and as he was opening it, he said, "Yes, Dudley is my cousin; I live with my aunt and uncle. Where do you live? I'll walk you home."

Hermione wondered if it was very smart, letting a boy she met 10 minuets ago walk her home, and know where she lived, but she did know where he lived, so she guessed that him knowing where she lived wasn't all that big of a deal. Plus, she just didn't feel remotely in danger with him. "This way," she said, pointing left. They started to walk.

"How far is it?"

"Not far."

There was silence, very much of the awkward variety. Then, "So, how come you live with your aunt and uncle?" Hermione asked, trying to think of something to talk about. She could have hit herself for picking that, what a personal question. "I'm sorry, you don't have to…"

"No," Harry interrupted her, "it's ok. My parents died when I was one, in a car accident."

"I'm sorry, I really wasn't trying to bring up anything sad." Hermione gave in and hit her forehead with her fist.

"No worries, it was a very long time ago, after all." Harry said, giving her a forgiving smile.

"I take it you don't like your Aunt and Uncle very much." Hermione blurts out, then covers her mouth with her hand. "I'm sorry, I'm really not usually so nosey. Turn here." She said pointing down a side street. "It's really none of my concern." She looked up at him, an apologetic grimace on her face.

"It's fine, really. No, I don't like them very much, Dudley is a lot like his parents in a way, and you meet him."

"His parents are drunk all the time?" Hermione said, feeling a flash of concern for Harry.

Harry laughs, "No, though Vernon, my uncle, does drink fairly often. I meant that they're stupid and angry."

"That does sound unpleasant. Lets move on to something else then. Um…What's your favorite book?" Hermione asks with sudden enthusiasm. She blushes a little, knowing she showed some of her vast stores of inner-dork. Harry doesn't seem to notice or care though.

"I don't know, I like a lot of books, too many to just pick one. I think my favorite type is action, or horror."

"Ha, very manly picks, though I guess you don't seem like a person who reads romance novels." She says, laughing a little.

"How about you?"

"Oh I love history, so I like books that involve that somehow, whether it is a fictional or not. Turn here." She stops herself there, knowing that she could rant about books for hours.

"Oh, I bet you're a closet romance novel fan." He said smirking at her.

"I…I, that's, …your… I am not!" Hermione says finally, blushing terribly, and groans inwardly about having to step under a street light just then. Harry sees her and starts to laugh.

"I was only joking, but you really are." He stops laughing after awhile and looks down at her, "I think that's great though, everyone should have a little romance in their lives, fictional or not." They walk a little more in silence, the atmosphere suddenly tense.

"It's not that I read really bad melodramatic romance, it has to be well written." Hermione said, breaking the tension. "If it isn't well written, then I can't get into it and that is a large part of why I read all the time. I need it to be real enough to get away from the world around me, you know?"

"Yes, I do." Harry said, but with such conviction that Hermione looked up at him curiously. "I've talked about how much my aunt and uncle suck. I also happen to not have any friends, so half of my liking to read is from boredom and half just to get away. Is it the same for you?" He asked quietly, concern forming a slight frown on his face.

Hermione felt ridiculously shallow and ashamed all of a sudden. "No, my parents are wonderful, but my friends are jerks. I don't know why I'm friends with them, really. No matter how much I dislike them, I can't seem to make myself stop hanging out with them." Hermione scowled in frustration.

"Hmmm, so you have the being lonely in a crowd problem. I don't know why you would want to be friends with them either, if your friends are friends with Dudley, it says something bad about their character. You don't like Dudley, do you?", Harry asked, looking at her a little sternly.

"From the impression I got after meeting him for five minuets, I think I wouldn't like him at all." She said with a small smile.

"That's good, and it already makes you much smarter and prettier than your friends." He said with a small smile also.

Hermione blushes a little, thankfully with out walking under a street lamp this time. She looks closely at him, thinking.

"you and him really don't look anything alike, even for cousins." Hermione said mentally comparing Harry and Dudley.

"Yes, I know, I think my mum must have looked a lot different from my aunt, but I don't know really." he said frowning.

Hermione felt confused by this, how could he not know, but before she could ask they arrived at her house.

"This is my house." They stop outside her front gate. "Thank you for walking me home."

"No problem, hope to see you around then."

They smile at each other, then stand there for a few more seconds.

"Well, bye!" Hermione says, opening her gate and stepping through, she waves a little, a bright smile on her face. "I hope to see you again too."

"Bye" Harry says, waving a little also.

They stand there a little longer, say bye one more time, and head their separate ways, looking back at each other every so often, every once and awhile catching the other one doing so, at which point they blushed, and waved again. Eventually Hermione reached her front door, and Harry turned the corner. They both felt a little disappointed.

"Hermione, you're five minuets late!" Her mother said looking at her as she opened the door.

"Really? I left the party about with time to spare." Hermione was amazed, why did it take her so long to get home?

"Don't look so surprised, if you and that boy walked any slower, you'd be going backwards. Also, you spent about 5 minutes talking to him outside, and practically another 5 walking up the path, waving to him every three seconds." Her father, Charles, said.

Hermione blushed for the what felt like fiftieth time that night.

"I did not! I mean, we just were having a nice talk." Hermione blushed again and looked down, trying to hide her face.

"So, who is he?" Her mother asked, excited to see her daughter looking happy and more like herself after an outing rather than drained and vacant.

"His name is Harry, Harry Potter. He likes to read!" Hermione said, not being able to keep that little bit to herself. "He's so nice." Hermione added, thinking over there conversation.

"Is he cute?" Martha asked, guessing at the answer. Charles leaned forward a little, wanting to know the answer also.

"Oh, yes," Hermione said absently, her mind still on the walk home. "He has this messy black hair, and the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen. I think that he has a scar on his forehead, though, I just realized." She hadn't thought of it, always being distracted by his eyes before she could think on it too long, "It's not very noticeable though." She added.

"Oh great Martha, she has a crush, I thought we could have avoided this until university, but I guess our luck just ran out." Her dad said, mostly joking, and a little disappointed.

"I do not, I only talked to him for less than an hour after all. That's not enough time to get a crush on someone, really." Hermione said, logically.

"Are you going to see him again?" Martha asked with a questioning smile. Charles looked curious also.

"I…I don't think so, He doesn't go to my school, and it's not too likely that there will be a party we both attend again anytime soon." Hermione's face fell a little and her parents even looked a little disappointed, they haven't seen there daughter so much herself in a while.

"Well, I'm tired, good night." Hermione said, making her way up stairs.

"'Night Honey." Martha said.

"'Night Munchkin." Charles said.

Hermione, after brushing her teeth and changing into pajamas, laid down in bed, feeling a little disappointed. She really didn't have a reason to see him again after all, other than wanting to. She frowned and huffed and rolled over and it suddenly came to her. She forgot her jacket at his house, she would be able to go and get it tomorrow, hopefully he would be the one to answer the door, because the rest of the family sounded unpleasant, but it would be worth the risk. Smiling for what felt like the fiftieth time that night, Hermione fell asleep.