Everything Changes
Author's note: this story came to me after reading a story my friend had written, I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters. They are J.K.'s toys, and I just borrow them.
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Truth be told, this story started out as nothing. Not even an idea. In the beginning there wasn't a plot, characters, a setting or anything at all for that matter. But that all changed. Everything changed, the day she was born.
Hermione Jane Granger was born 6 lbs, 5 ounces. She had dark, chocolate brown eyes and unruly, brown, curly hair. She had, to say the least, a very unique childhood. She wasn't like other girls. She wasn't even like the other boys. Especially not the other boys. At age three, while other children were learning how to count their numbers up to ten, she was adding and subtracting. At age six, while other children were riding their bikes all around streets in the summer, she was in her room, reading all of her books, her parents books, and books from the library. At age 11, while other children were first entering senior school, she was busy shopping for her new school robes. For Hermione wasn't just an extremely smart child, like everyone else though she was. Hermione wasn't even just a normal little girl. She was a witch.
She hadn't believed the letter when it had first come. "There's no such thing as magic," she had told her parents. "It goes against all the physical laws." At least that was what she had thought, right up until the man with the twinkle in his eye had appeared out of nowhere on the front porch. He spoke to her parents, and she sat up at the top of the stairs, listening to the conversation. She couldn't believe it. A world of magic and the unknown, something she hadn't read about in any of her books. There were mysteries still to be solved, a whole new universe to be discovered. And it was all waiting, just for her.
She still couldn't believe it as she walked towards the solid wall between platforms nine and ten. It wasn't possible, she was going to crash. As she looked back at her parents' reassuring faces, she thought to herself that it would all be alright. She couldn't believe it when she made it out the other side, unscathed. She almost believed it when she saw the scarlet steam engine, and all the other children carrying the same trunk, each emblazoned with the Hogwarts crest.
Hermione lay on her bed in her dorm room, finishing some homework that wasn't due for a another week. She often did this, homework the day she got it, but it never bothered her what others thought of her. Not much, anyway.
She wasn't fat, but she thought she was. She wasn't ugly, but she thought she was. She wasn't stupid, and she knew it! Whenever she got the chance she would try and fit in with everyone else, but they wouldn't really let her. She was too smart, too pretty, too … perfect. Everyone knew this. They even teased her about it, calling her a know-it-all to her face, and a stuck-up snob behind her back.
They didn't know she wasn't just learning it all to be a show-off. She was learning for her dad, she learned what he never could. She wanted him to be proud of her and to love her. But what she never thought of is how he already did love her, not because she was brilliant (she was), not because she was beautiful (she was), and not because she was never afraid to go up to someone, and strike up a conversation (she was quite good at that). He loved her for being her. Even when she didn't try her hardest, even when she felt shy, he loved her.
He had dropped out of school. He had no choice. His family would have been on the streets if he didn't. His father, her grandfather, had an illness, and couldn't afford treatment. So they had paid. His grandmother had broken down when he died, and couldn't remember a thing. They had paid for the nursing home.
They thought she didn't realise, so they kept on whispering about her. Gossiping about her. They didn't know she knew. She knew everything they said to her, and everything they didn't. She could tell what was going through their minds by the guilty looks on their faces when she acknowledged them at breakfast the next morning. They didn't know there was a lot more to Hermione Jane Granger than they saw or knew.
They didn't know that she cried herself to sleep every night. They didn't know she planned new ways to fit in. They didn't know she was breaking more and more, every day. She spoke to Ginny about it, but all the younger girl could say was "Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in."
Harry and Ron where the ones that did it. No, more specifically, just Ron. Ron was her strength, her weakness, her passion, her coldness. Ron was the one she couldn't stand to be near too much, but hated being away from. Ron was the one who broke her heart.
He snogged that wretch Lavender. But not in private. No, it was too much to ask from Ron Weasley to do his snogging in private. He did it in the common room, then boasted about it afterwards so everyone would know. He boasted especially loud when Hermione was there. It made her cry, it made her angry. It got her started. And he knew it. She knew he did. She couldn't bear the thought of some other girl attached to his lips, or of his hands sliding up some other girl's back. Not if it wasn't her. She died a little inside every time she saw it.
She didn't understand though. What had she done wrong? She had just asked him to Slughorn's Christmas party. She was exceedingly happy for days, much more than she knew she should have been. She didn't show it, though. It was her little secret, between her and her heart. He had taken it all over again the moment he had said yes. She hadn't stopped thinking about him, not for ages. Then, one night, she walked into the common room, and there they were, flapping about like, in Ginny's words, "a great pair of eels". It was disgusting. It was enough to make her jealous, and to break her heart at the same time. She ran, and she cried.
Her heart had never fully mended, she didn't think. Not even when he was poisoned. She cried the most she ever had when she heard. She was the first into the hospital wing in the morning, and the last to leave at night. She heard him say her name more than once. She hoped he knew she was there. She kissed his forehead every time she left, when she thought he was sleeping. He never was though. He stayed awake, waiting for those kisses.
She was there when he woke up. She had screamed and hugged him and cried. She blabbered about how she was sorry for everything she had done wrong, and left, crying, running for Madame Pomfrey.
She dreamt of her wedding day. It was always the same, her in a beautiful white dress, her husband with his red hair flowing, his dress robes reaching his ankles. She dreamt of her wedding night, the passion, the kisses, the words of love exchanging, and the pounding in her heart would begin, and the tears would roll down her cheeks. She would cry, thinking of how many years they had wasted, and how much more time they could have spent together in happiness and not fighting.
Hermione lay on her bed in her dorm room, finishing some homework that wasn't due for a another week. She often did this, homework the day she got it, but it never bothered her what others thought of her. Only one person. And he was beside her, kissing her arms and her neck and her cheeks, tracing the faint lines of the scars from the battle on the night of Dumbledore's death.
She put down her quill and gently traced the scars on his arms from the Department of Mysteries, thinking that her life, life in itself, actually, was a mystery to even her.
Things happen. Life goes on. Memories stay the same. But everything changes.