Growing up, I didn't have many friends. Once glance at my weak, introverted aura sent other kids running far from me. Nobody even gossiped about me when I was younger. I was the lab rat. People could test their 'empathic sympathetic' social skills on the ghost in the corner, to strengthen their charm. Nobody really cared. They stopped pretending though, instead of approaching me in hopes to break me out of my shell, like it was a game.

Hermione Granger took a different route. I gaped in shock when she calmly sat next to me, the usual library book tucked under her arm and a small smile, especially because I capped her for the bossy vocal type. We never talked, really, but over time she wasn't shy about sitting next to me. It was a routine. There were no cautious glances as she sat down, testing the waters, but instead a straight face and a different book every day at recess.

She turned eleven before me, and when she did I wasn't invite to her birthday party. Inside I felt disappointed but then I realized nobody was coming over. Because nobody liked the chauvinistic know it all with the dentist parents, especially not when she was sitting with the lab rat.

Still, I brought her a cupcake the next day, and a book for a present. Hermione gave me a guilty smile. Whatever unspoken bond between us was resolved.

Then she stopped coming to the spot behind the slides. I could still saw her in class, and when our moms crossed paths at the grocery mart, but she always stayed in class during recess, buried in her books that she kept hidden from sight under her desk. People began whispering, and I happened to be in the bathroom when a group of girls were currently gossiping about her.

"Missy says it's a book on satanic rituals." Peggy Downtrend whispered in her huffy and heavy breath of hers. Felicity Hopkins, a petite girl with a competing airy voice, shook her head and her ponytails whipped around.

"No, I heard it was the Kurma Satra." She gave a high-pitched giggle, and I almost barfed. Felicity hadn't even been saying it right, and I already marked her down as a loser in my mental cabinets, something my psychiatrist insists is OCD.

"I bet it's a guide-book on how to be mysterious." I chimed from the sink as I washed my hands and they gave me startled looks, shocked that I was talking. I didn't bother to dry my hands, instead flicking the water on them as I walked past and out of the bathroom.

Hermione was sitting next to me again. Maybe she trusted me. Maybe her social banishment phase was over. Maybe she heard about me sticking up for her. Or maybe, if she really was keeping a secret, she silently trusted me. She showed me a book one day and I read it. I read more of the books she gave me. They were about wizards, witches, spells, magical plants, creatures, lords… I didn't question her. I read them as if they were textbooks and wrote down notes for her, compiling them in a folder.

Next year she isn't at school. But I know she brought my folder with her, as I made sure to stick it in her mailbox before school started. I don't know why, but I felt like she needed them. She came back in the summer, after my school ended, and she always looked as if she were about to let me in on her school year adventure. Hesitation always got the best of her.

She had brought more books, though. Again I went over them and we both wrote notes together. I was fascinated by the world described in them. A tiny, but steadily growing, part of me believed that maybe Hermione was part of this world that was portrayed. But a guilty part of me wondered if I was even supposed to know about it all. It was simply too big of an idea for a commoner like me.

Hermione disappeared again the next school year, and she didn't bother to see me during the summer. I didn't see her the summer after that, either. I knocked on the Granger's door three times in those two lonely years. I found a coping mechanism for the deep pain in my chest. I read. I read that one book that she left me behind in my mail box one day. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

The only evidence I had that Hermione once sat beside me behind the slides during recess.

Another year. I watch the world before me with cold eyes and a small frown. I have no entity, no timeline. The most interesting thing about me was Hermione, and I missed her. The Fantastic Beasts book began to gather dust, and when I noticed it I nearly hyperventilated. I was becoming pathetic each passing summer day. Boy, I thought one day, being a witch must make you really busy.

You can imagine my shock when she sat across me one day as I was drinking coffee. We were both fifteen. Too young for the thick tension between us. I cracked, and almost cried when I realized Hermione didn't even know my name.

"Robyn Pearly." I said behind my coffee cup and she smiled at me and invited me to her house. When I arrived, her parents greeted me with such a sweet sincere attitude that I actually smiled at them. Hermione took me up to her room, and we read more. We read about potions and astrology. She told me about one of her greasy professors at her wizarding school that she apparently went to, and I smiled politely the entire time. I believed every word she said, and had good reasons to.

I kissed her. It was only a small kiss, to the corner of her mouth, and to say that she was shocked is an understatement. She became nervous, sweaty, and began trembling.

I have a boyfriend

We've knowneachother since Hogwartsstarted

We'rehavingrelationshiptroubles but I know that we're goingtogetbacktogether

I'msorryRobynI'mnotsurehowtorespondcanyoutellmehow I'msupposedtoreact.

Her words began blending together and she began a blob of colors through my thick tears. I couldn't hear the excuses, couldn't see the moving picture of her and two boys as she pointed at one with a red blob; ginger hair, I presume. I just quickly gathered my bag and left. I didn't see her the rest of the year.

I missed her again. I barely ever spoke to her, I barely knew anything about her, I barely held back my feelings in that small kiss. I was extremely infatuated. Then one day, as if by magic, I walked to our spot behind the slides. The slides had rust, and the playground was deserted, except for the other figure approaching. Hermione sat next to me and for a moment we were complete. My missing puzzle piece was there. My connection to life itself.

"Robyn?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

I looked over at her and smiled, faltering when I saw her eyes full of tears. She was holding a wand pointed at me, one that I had seen in her bedroom before, and she was sobbing. I felt like holding her. She shouldn't be crying. A nagging feeling inside of me told me she should be smiling because we were holding hands and ever so slightly leaning against each other.

"Obliviate."