Notes: Song lyrics from Marianas Trench: "Skin and Bones."
I lock the door, turn all the water on
And bury that sound, so no one hears anything anymore
Mirror, lie to me, tell me you can see
Maybe you won't be able to recognise me now
I know you can feel all the things you steal
And you're taking it, and you're taking it
Hermione stared at her reflection through tear-blurred eyes, feeling the sour taste of vomit come back up in her mouth until she had to turn away and sick up again. Her throat burned by the time she was done, but she felt better. Purer.
It had all been Ron's fault, she thought angrily as she scrubbed her face with thin swatches of toilet paper, hoping to hide the chafed bits at the corners of her mouth. She popped a breath mint in her mouth and swished it around noisily. It didn't matter. No one ever ventured near this girl's lavatory at this time of night.
He'd pestered her constantly throughout dinner. Whining at her to eat more, just eat more, Mione why won't you bloody eat more, you're like a bloody skeleton, he'd mocked her until she'd wished that she had the nerve to punch him like she had Malfoy in third year. But how could she push away one of her only friends? She'd merely sat there, stone-faced and silent, until his insistent nagging had finally pushed her into eating a bowl of soup and three pieces of toast. Her stomach had stretched, feeling uncomfortably full, until she couldn't take it anymore. Harry and Ron had barely noticed her go, the prats. Too busy sitting there, laughing it up, stuffing their faces with food.
Hermione grimaced and swung her bookbag up over her shoulder, cursing the momentary weakness that spread through her body. Worthless. Wasn't that always what she was? Her parents certainly thought so. Her grades were slipping and she knew she'd be in for it when summer rolled around, but she couldn't bring herself to care anymore. Didn't they always say that looks went further than grades? They should be happy she was trying to slim down. She'd always been a bit pudgy. Round. Bushy-haired and chubby-cheeked.
Not this year. She refused to be the same old plump Hermione. She needed to lose weight. She needed to have control. Control over one fucking thing in her life.
NEWTs were coming up. She studied herself half-blind but she still convinced herself it wasn't enough. They'd laugh at her. Wouldn't even let her sit them. Stupid, stupid Granger. Stupid mudblood. Fat mudblood.
Of all the taunts Malfoy had ever flung at her, that one had stung the worst. She'd hexed him into a tree, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. She still heard his words, nasty, spiteful, manipulative, slithering around in her head. Hey, porker! What have the Muggles been feeding you?
The tears had stung her eyes like acid.
"It doesn't matter, remember?" she mumbled to herself as she went up to her dorm once again to study. Madam Pince had thrown her out the day before, admonishing her to get some fresh air and to lay off the books. Pince! Of all people! It felt like the worst sort of betrayal. Didn't she understand? Hermione's whole future lay before her, and all she was doing was mucking it up. She'd gone and fucked herself over, and she hadn't even graduated yet!
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, she chanted in her head as she passed by a small cluster of Slytherins, Malfoy smirking at her from the middle.
"Hey Mudblood, now you look like a skeleton, haven't you ever heard of eating?" he taunted, spurred on by his friends, and Hermione had had enough. She whirled on him, her wand uplifted, the light of battle in bloodshot eyes. Unheeded, her bookbag thumped to the floor.
"You know, Malfoy, you of all people should know that lying ill becomes you," she snarled. His eyes widened in surprise and what looked a bit like horrified recognition before her spell hit him and he crumpled to the floor.
Ah, Stupefy, she thought as the Slytherins scattered and she tucked her wand back up her sleeve, hefting up her bookbag once more. An old favourite, but a good one.
It wasn't until the next day that she realised Malfoy's new plan to torment her. Eating disorder pamphlets kept showing up everywhere. Stuffed in her bookbag, slipped under her door (how he managed that, she hadn't the faintest). A hotline scrawled across a scrap of parchment. Did the wizarding world even have hotlines? she wondered as she set the piece of paper alight and watched it burn down to fluffy grey ashes.
She felt Malfoy watching her always, those frosty grey eyes fixed on her, but she refused to look up or give him the satisfaction. Didn't want to see the gloating in his eyes. The contempt. As if she had an eating disorder. The thought was laughable. She just wanted to look better, that was all. Throwing up the other day couldn't have been avoided. She felt too ill to do anything else. It was Ron's fault, anyway.
He just wanted to get to her.
Never mind, I don't feel anything
It only hurt a bit and I still feel like shit
And I think you won't be able to recognize me now
It's easier to quit and it's harder to admit
And you're pushing me, you're fucking pushing me
Malfoy took to loitering around girls' lavatories when Hermione slipped into them, making it impossible to do anything but use the loo as quickly as possible and hurry out. Her stomach felt uncomfortably bloated and hurt nearly constantly. Bastard, she would think resentfully as she walked past him, resisting the urge to hex him into the middle of next week.
Finally, one day as Hermione walked out past Malfoy for the third time that afternoon, she'd had enough.
"Can't you leave me alone, Malfoy?" she hissed at him. "What the fuck did I ever do to you, that you won't just leave me alone?" Tears prickled her eyes and she averted them, not willing to watch him start in with the relentless mockery, the taunts and jibes that came so effortlessly from the Slytherin seventh year.
"You called me a liar," he replied slowly. She blinked at him in confusion. What?
"Look at yourself, Granger," he insisted, pushing her back into the restroom she'd just left and jabbing his finger insistently at the mirror. "Look."
Hermione hesitantly approached the silvery reflected surface, afraid he'd managed to silently jinx or curse her while she wasn't looking. But no. She looked like herself. A bit plain, her hair too wild around her face. Still a bit pudgy, especially in her face. Her shoulders drooped as she realised it was another cruel jibe somehow.
"Hermione, you're skin and bones," Malfoy said quietly beside her. "I know you can't see it. I couldn't see it, either. Not in fourth year, not in fifth year. Not even in sixth year when I ended up in St. Mungo's for the summer in the eating disorder recovery unit. You need help. Your stupid friends aren't giving it. No one else seems to give a shit. So you know what? I do."
Hermione felt like she'd been pole-axed. She swayed on her feet, feeling more than a little dizzy.
"Here," Malfoy guided her to sit against the wall. "You haven't eaten enough today. That's why you're dizzy. Have this," he offered her an apple from his pockets. She looked at it with open suspicion, and he sighed. "Cast a spell on it to make sure it's safe if you want," he suggested. "It's not much, but it's something."
After briefly checking it over, Hermione did indeed hesitantly begin to eat it.
"I just feel so stressed, you know?" she finally felt compelled to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them. "NEWTs coming up...Harry and Ron don't care, but I do. They're so important and they treat them like a bloody joke!" she ranted. "Like nothing matters because Harry defeated You Know Who and Ron helped. That doesn't matter in the real world! And my parents..." she fumbled to a stop, feeling the tips of her ears burn in embarrassment. Like Malfoy wanted to hear about her bloody family problems! But-
"Your parents?" Draco prompted gently. At some point, she'd started calling him Draco in her mind and she had no idea when. She took a deep breath and continued.
"My parents are ashamed of me," she confessed. "At first they were proud. But now...they can't really tell anyone about me. Because I'm a witch. There's only so much they can make up about me being away at a gifted school, you know? So now-now every time I go home, they just pester me about when I'm going to graduate, when I'm going to make them proud in their world, when I'm going to stop being such a bloody burden..." Her eyes filled, and she blinked rapidly, trying to clear them. Draco took one of her hands and held it between his. They felt oddly hot, or was it her hand that was so cold?
"Granger-Hermione, your parents are bloody idiots," he spoke frankly. "You drive me insane, but I mean, you are the smartest witch here. You're going places. If your parents want to be left behind, that's their choice, but it's a fucking stupid one."
"Thanks," Hermione murmured faintly, finishing her apple and tossing it into the bin. "I just...I can control this, you know? I can control my eating. Try to get thinner. Doing a terrible job of it, though," she laughed shortly.
"I'd hate to see you doing well then, because at this point, you weigh as much as a twelve-year-old," Draco said. "You're too thin, Hermione. You need help."
"But-I can't do that to my parents," she protested. "They'd think I was crazy. Or exaggerating. It can't be that bad."
"The skeleton in the Potions classroom looks healthier than you," Draco dead-panned. Unable to stop herself, Hermione burst into giggles, clutching at the boy next to her like a madwoman. He laughed with her, resting his head against the wall.
"Okay, so I may have exaggerated," he admitted. "But you know what I mean. Here. The St. Mungo's unit is really discreet. If they have to, they say it's for indeterminate spell damage or something. No one has to know if you don't want them to. But the sooner you go, the better. Winter break's coming up. Maybe you should go then."
"Will you come and visit?" Hermione asked shyly, unable to believe she was asking her once-hated rival to visit her in hospital.
"Always," Draco smirked. "Now, if we don't want to be late for class, we might want to get a move on. And for what it's worth? I'm sorry." He unfolded himself to his feet gracefully and extended a hand for Hermione.
She grasped it with shaky fingers and let him pull her into the first moment of recovery.