AN: Written for the Halloween Challenge on the GCTC forum. Chapters will grow longer as Hermione/Tom grow older. Hermione is 11, Tom is 13. Actual story picks up around Chapter 5. Chapters 1-4 are more like important bits that will come into play later in the story that you'll need to know.
"Hello, I'm Hermione." The young girl dressed up like the tooth fairy shot the older boy a toothy smile, her sticky hand reached for his own clean one in order to shake it, it was the polite thing to do after all when you meet someone new. The boy, though, jerked his hand away and continued to stare at the sidewalk with narrows eyes, completely ignoring her.
Undeterred Hermione sat down next to him, glitter falling from her extremely bushy brown hair as she did. Since introducing herself didn't work she decided to try a different tactic and placed her bag of candy in between them, "What's your name?" When he didn't answer she nudged the bag even closer to him, "Would you like some candy?"
"I don't want any candy." His whole demeanor was shouting for her to go away and just leave him be, his dark eyes were half closed in anger and his body was turned slightly away from her, giving her a view of his face half hidden by his black hair. At least she thought it was black, it was dark out so it may have been brown.
"Why not?"
"I just don't."
"But it's really good." She picked the bag back up and began digging through it before pulling out a tootsie pop one of her favorites, and offered it to him, "This one is really good, it has a chocolate candy in the middle and the outside is actually a lolipop."
Instead of grabbing it and trying it out, like she had hoped her would once faced with the tempting treat, he instead knocked it out of her hand letting it hit the hard sidewalk that they were sitting on. When she went to pick it up she sighed in disappointment, it was broken now. There was no sense in eating a broken lolipop and might as well throw it away.
"Why did you do that?"
"I told you I didn't want it." A cold edge was laced in the words.
"I suppose that's for the best." She said suddenly, "My parents are dentists, they told me candy rots your teeth and causes cavities." She paused, there was an unspoken but hanging in the air between them as she looked at him expectantly, her slightly large front teeth biting into her bottom lip. Even when he wasn't looking at her he could feel her brown eyes boring into the side of his head, finally with a sigh he turned.
"What?"
"Did you know chocolate can make you happy? I read about it in a book. Theres some sort of chemical inside it that makes your body feel happy, so maybe you should eat some of my chocolate and then you wouldn't be so sad." The statement was made with all the bluntness of a child that adults can't quite comprehend even though they themselves were like that at one point.
"I'm not sad." Now he was glaring at her instead of the sidewalk, and Hermione felt a sudden timidness take over, how could someone have so much coldness in his expression? How did he manage it? She felt a spark of pity in her heart, warm people made people warm, and he had none of that warmth inside him.
"Lonely then." Hermione declared, her tone refusing any rebuttals.
"I'm not lonely either. To be lonely you have to be rejected and want someone to want you. I don't need anyone." He stood up angry and stormed off, but not after kicking Hermione's bag of candy over. Bemused and angry herself now Hermione watched him walk off. What an unpleasant character.
