Author's note: I am still working on strategy- I just have no idea where to go with it.. I've had this one in my head for a while, and I'll try to update as much as I can- School is out for summer now, so I should be able to. I hope you enjoy. I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters or places involved in this story... I just like them :)

xoxo- TtBYH

Beautiful

Hermoine Granger was always known for being Gryffindor's golden girl.

Harry Potter's best friend.

The famous bookworm.

The brightest witch of her age.

She acted like she was supposed to-she had a reputation to uphold. She studied the hardest, got the best marks in Hogwarts, and acted flawlessly… in public.

What nobody knew was that the pressure of that reputation was slowly tearing her apart.

Hermione was currently curled up in a secluded corner in the library staring blankly at the weathered pages of an ancient runes text. It was times like these that made her stomach turn. Harry was at another meeting with Dumbledore and Ron was probably snogging the living hell out of Lavender in the common room again.

A wave of hopelessness washed over her as she glared at a small ink stain on the corner of the book. How could she be studying ancient runes of all things when the entire wizarding world was on the verge of destruction with the threat of Voldemort lurking in the air like a thick fog?

She sometimes wished she wasn't a witch at all. She would be going to a muggle school with blissful ignorance. Muggle friends. Muggle books. Muggle classes. She would be sitting on the plush sofa in the corner of her living room watching muggle television, or maybe reading a muggle book with her muggle parents.

She would also be naïve and unaware of the true world around her.

Hermione never let these thoughts go too far. She was so lucky to be a witch, after all. Even with the promise of war close in the horizon, she would rather live in an honest hell than a fallacious heaven.

She glanced down at the sleeves that covered her scarred forearms.

It started a few weeks after the battle in the Department of Mysteries. She had been alone in the kitchen of her childhood home. Her parents were working and she had felt a sudden urge, and within seconds she had grabbed a knife off a rack and lightly traced the edge across her arm.

The thin line quickly filled with scarlet that dripped down her arm. She felt no pain. For the first time in weeks, she had felt a wave of calm, followed by a delicious surge of adrenaline.

Nothing had been the same since. What had started as a rash decision voyaged rapidly into a glorious addiction.

Hermione shivered and self-consciously pulled her sleeves down further, as she picked up her books and started toward the library exit. She was walking hurriedly to the door when a small book fell off the top of the large pile in her arm. She carefully bent over to pick it up and, embarrassed, continued her walk to the exit with her head down… only to run straight into a hard something.

Hermione glanced up to see that something to be none other than a stormy-eyed and blonde-as-ever Draco Malfoy. He stared at her for a total of five awkward seconds before he hastily removed his hands that Hermione hadn't even noticed from her waist, and grumbled what she thought was an apology before sauntering past her.

She stood in the middle of the aisle in shock. Did they really just come in contact with each other without exchanging their customary filthy mudbloods and stupid ferrets ?

Hermione shook herself and took a long route to the Gryffindor common room. Luckily when she arrived there was no sign of the heap of tangled limbs that was usually Ron and Lavender.

She didn't understand what he could possibly want with someone like Lavender. The girl was absolutely insane, and though they fought like brother and sister, Hermione had always thought she and Ron would end up together. She thought wrong.

Hermione gently climbed the stairs to the girls' dormitory, pleased to find it empty. She neatly placed her pile of books on top of her trunk and lay down on her bed. When she closed her eyes, she found Malfoy's staring intensely back at her again in the library.

She quickly opened them again. It was unnerving to think about Draco Malfoy without hundreds of insults springing to her head immediately.

Harry thought he was a Death Eater. A Death Eater, for Christ's sake. The boy was merely sixteen as the rest of them. Why would Voldemort ever want someone so young in his circle?

He wouldn't. That was the only logical answer, and Hermione Granger was a very logical young woman. But, she couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't seen him strutting about the castle like he usually did. Every time she had seen him so far that year, he was for the most part, alone. When she would occasionally glance in his direction in the great hall, he was always separated from the rest of Slytherin house. He sure had a lot of muscle for being so thin.

NOT that Hermione was specifically watching Draco. She just noticed things. Like how amazingly vivid his stormy grey eyes looked as he held her earlier.

But nothing would ever come of it, of course, because even though he hadn't reminded her today, she would always be nothing but a lowly mudblood to him. And he would always be a smelly ferret to her.

That was one of the things that irritated Hermione the most about the wizarding world. Even though she was widely known for being the smartest young witch in all of Hogwarts, she was still looked down upon because of her muggle heritage.

Hermione turned her face into her pillow and let a few silent tears slip out. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon, but it was Sunday, and she was tired. She kicked her shoes off to the side of her bed, and fell into hauntingly dreamless sleep.

Hermione awoke to the sound of Lavender Brown violently singing a new Weird Sisters song about making love to a house elf. It was enough to make anyone gag. Hermione slowly sat up and cracked her eyes open into an instantaneous glare for the other girl.

All of her other dorm mates were quietly moving about their business, except for Pavarti Patil, who was lightly snoring in her sleep. Hermione, still in her clothing from the day before, made for a quick exit down the tower, through the common room, and into the nearest bathroom. She took a short shower and changed into her school uniform before returning to the dormitory to grab her books for the day and went down to the great hall for breakfast.

Hermione made for the Gryffindor table next to Harry and Ginny and, as she noticed when she sat down, Ron sitting across from them alone with an enormous plate of food. She couldn't help but smirk a bit when she noted the lack of Lavender's presence. She wondered what hap-

"Hullo, Hermione. Where were you at dinner last night? We missed you!" Harry interrupted her train of thought.

She felt bad for Harry. Not only was he going through so much already, but he was so obviously in love with Ginny- who was currently dating Dean- and he constantly had to watch Ron and Lavender practically eat each other alive. Not to mention how he had been doing his best to comfort Hermione the entire time.

"I was studying late at the library and I forgot about dinner. It's okay though, I wasn't all that hungry anyway," Hermione lied. She found it easier to lie to people when she told herself it was only to prevent others from getting hurt. She was already self-destructive; she didn't need to destroy anybody else.

"You've been skipping dinner a lot lately, 'Mione. Are you sure you're feeling alright?" Harry and his damned concern for everybody else.

"I'm fine, Harry. If I wasn't, you would be the first to know," Hermione lowered her voice, "how was your meeting with Dumbledore last night? Did you fi-"

"WON-WON!" A distinctively obnoxious voice interjected, "I've been looking for you just everywhere, have you been hiding from me?"

Hermione tried not to vomit as Lavender attacked Ron's lips with her own. Harry and Ginny pointedly looked away.

"Er," Ron replied, "No of course not. Why would I ever want to hide from you?"

Hermione could think of about thirty reasons why everyone should want to hide from Lavender. She grabbed a slice of toast off of the rack in front of her and made a point of buttering it vigorously. Honestly, did the two have any respect for the population around them? She thought, perhaps, that they purposely did these things in public simply to make everyone else feel uncomfortable- which they did. By now about half of the Gryffindor table was trying their best to look away from the offensive couple.

Hermione took a small bite of toast, grimaced, and gave up. She hadn't been hungry very much lately. A small bite of anything was enough to fill her up for hours. She gathered her books into her bag, and took a last (and hateful) glance in Ron and Lavender's direction. She stood up from the table, and said with an eye roll to Harry and Ginny,

"I'm heading off to potions- I'll see you both in a bit."

"Hermione, you haven't eaten anything!" Harry replied with a pointed look.

"No, I ate some toast," she replied, "see you in potions." Hermione quickly strode to the great hall's exit.

Slughorn's class wouldn't start for another hour, but she couldn't stand being around Ron and Lavender any longer. Ron, she realized, was clueless for the most part. It was Lavender who enjoyed more than a little public display at any hour. She shook her head and tried to clear it of such spine-chillingly ugly images.

Having nothing better to do with an hour of free time, she made her way to her haven. She entered the library with a curt nod to Madame Pince, who greeted her with a "Goodmorning, Hermione," and sat down at the table in her quiet corner. She closed her eyes and thought about Harry, and how confused her poor friend was. Honestly, his life could never go the right way. She imagined herself in his position, and the ideas rang in her mind like furious bell. She obliviously reached into her bag, and pulled out a small shimmering blade. She imagined herself without her parents- The knife draws closer – being treated like garbage by her only family- wrist turned upward – she learns her godfather is a Voldemort-worshipping serial killer- blade lightly pressed against skin – to find her godfather is actually innocent and develop her first decent familial relationship- harder – only to see said godfather murdered in front of your eyes and to be completely in love with someone who is already taken and to have an evil madman with thousands of supporters out to kill you and to have one of her best friends too in-love to see the light and to have her other best friend a know-it-all with the brains to compete Dumbledore, and really can't handle anything because she is too mentally fucked-up to take proper care of herself and secretly carves her depression into her arms because she has nowhere else to put it and life is fucking awful. Blade pierces skin li-

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Granger?" The soul-searing eyes of Draco Malfoy bored into hers as he clutched her wrist in one hand, and the small knife in the other.

"I-I was just…"