**The Boy On the Swings**

Bella Gillies

Chapter 1: A Day At The Park

"C'mon Mummy, it's time to go!" Hermione called over her shoulder as she rushed out the door, only pausing to grab her coat off the hook on the wall.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Her Mother replied, warily trudging down the hall after her daughter.

"Well come faster!" Hermione complained, hopping on one foot as she attempted to quickly slip on her shoe.

Her mother watched for a few seconds with amusement before going to help.

"No Mum! I can do it myself." Hermione said angrily. She attempted to push her mother away but instead ended up falling flat on her bottom. Her Mother laughed, earning a death glare from Hermione.

"C'mon 'Mione, let me help you" Jean Granger insisted sitting in front of her daughter, shoe in hand. Hermione merely crossed her arms and legs and looked away pointedly. Jean, shaking her head at her daughter's stubbornness, tried unsuccessfully to prise one of Hermione's legs towards her so she could fit her shoe.

"I thought you wanted to go to the park?" Jean baited. Hermione slowly turned her head to look at her mother.

"Can we go to the library after?" she asked hopefully

"Oh fine", her Mother sighed, "But you'd better think about which books you want to get because if we get there and then have to wait an hour while you decide I won't be happy."

"Pinkie promise?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

Jean nodded "Pinkie promise."

"Then shake!" Hermione demanded uncrossing her arms and extending one outwards. Jean smiled and took her daughters tiny hand in hers.

"Now may I please help you put on your shoe?"

"Fine." Hermione huffed. Jean slipped the pair of little yellow flats onto her daughter's foot,

"Let's go." She said and pulled Hermione to her feet

XXX

The walk to the park wasn't a very long one. It was only a couple of blocks from their house. Hermione had walked it many times before. It was a family tradition. Every Sunday one of her parents would take her.

Hermione loved it. It was probably her favourite time of the week, especially when her parents took her to the library afterwards. Ever since she had learnt to read she had always loved the way she could immerse herself in a book and forget about everything around her.

They reached the park and as per usual her mother sat with all the other watchful parents. Hermione rushed to the swings. They were her favourite piece of equipment. It was the closest thing she had ever got to flying. The thrill of the big graceful rise and then the quick fall invigorated her. She imagined she were a bird, soaring through the sky, as light and free as air.

She hoped they weren't all taken. A lot of other kids liked the swings as well; there was usually a big queue.

However today all the swings were completely empty, all except one.

He struck quite an odd and impressive figure, sitting there lightly rocking back and forth, against the grey overcast sky. Hermione could understand why the other children were giving him and the rest of the swing set a wide berth. She herself had a sudden desire to go and play elsewhere, but stubborn as she was, she had an unsurpassable urge to talk to him.

She edged forward curiously. With each step she took the nagging thoughts telling her to turn and run got louder and harder to ignore. She kept on pushing on though, and by the time she was a couple of metres away from the boy she could see him quite clearly.

Up close he did not seem as intimidating or threatening as he had far away. He was slight and pale, about her age, and had the prettiest hair she had ever seen. It was a sleek platinum blonde, with bangs that flopped over his eyes. It almost looked as though he had styled it that way, to hide his soul from view.

All in all, apart from the strange, black, dress-type one piece he was wearing, he looked like a normal kid. The most beautiful kid she had ever seen, but a kid nonetheless.

However when she looked past his beauty she realised he was quite a depressing sight. He was slumped over on the swing, his eyes downcast and his pale, pink lips set in a hard straight line.

Yet even in this defeated position he still had a certain regal feel about him. It was like he thought, actually more like he knew, he was better than everyone else. She began to feel unsettled around him. A bit of the fear she had felt when she'd first seen him returned. The nagging voice began to resurface.

She shook her head trying to clear her mind. She did not want to just turn and run, she wanted to actually talk to this boy, find out why he looked so sad. But the voice was getting louder, weighing her to the spot.

She took a deep breath, preparing herself, and took a step forward and then another. With every step she took the voice got louder and her feet got heavier.

Then when she took her fourth step her whole body went rigid. The voice was screeching in her ear. She was literally glued to the ground. She could not go back and she could not go forward. It was like the boy had a force field around him or something.

Of course that possibility just made her more curious to find out who the boy was. Plus she really wanted to swing, and being an only child, she was accustomed to getting what she wanted.

So she gathered all her willpower, focused all her concentration on her goal and managed to lift her foot off the ground.

It felt like she was walking through tar. Her muscles were screaming out in protest, wanting her to stop. Yet she kept on going and finally succeeded in taking a step. As soon as her foot hit the ground the voice stopped and her feet went back to their normal weight. She let out a sigh of relief and wiped off the sweat trickling down from her brow.

However she did not get to rest for long because no sooner had she got her emotions back in check was she flooded with despair. She felt scared and alone. Hopelessness spread through her.

Her bottom lip began to tremble and she felt a large lump arise in her throat. She looked up at the boy. He looked so lifeless and defeated. And that's when she realized where these new found feelings of anguish were coming from.

They were coming from him, the unassuming boy on the swings.

She didn't understand how or why she could suddenly sense his feelings, but she could. She frowned at her strange revelation.

No, surely it could not be true. Things like this simply didn't happen in the real world. They belonged in fantasy books about dragons and warlocks and witches. Yet she knew her intuition was correct.

And it scared her; it scared her more than anything. Yet it also made her all the more determined to find out about the boy.

XXX

She walked up to the swing next to the boy and collapsed upon it. She let out an exasperated huff, and then turned to face him.

He did not stir, completely ignoring her presence, continuing to sit in the same slumped, depressing position. Hermione frowned; she didn't like to be ignored. She cleared her throat,

"Hello" she said. No response.

"I said hello." Nothing.

"You know it's very rude to ignore someone"

The boy huffed, his breath blowing a portion of his silvery hair out of his eyes, and turned his swing ever so slightly to the left so that Hermione was looking at the back of his head.

"Boy, why are you crying?" Hermione asked, her brown eyes widened in concern. The boy whipped his head around to glare at her.

"I'm not crying" he sneered, but his voice was thick with tears.

"Yes you are. Just now when you huffed I saw a tear escaping your eye. And look, you can still see the little watery track it made." She said reaching out her hand to trace the trail. He jerked his head back so quickly Hermione was sure he must have gotten whiplash.

"Don't touch me!" He spat, "And I'm not crying!" However at the moment he gave a great sniff.

"Sure you not crying" said Hermione sarcastically "I really believe you". The boy gave her another glare but chose not to respond. "Well, anyway, I'm Hermione Granger. What's your name?" Again the boy didn't respond.

Hermione was growing annoyed now. Who did this boy think he was, ignoring her like that? He was just being rude and her mother always told her there was no excuse for rudeness.

"I asked you what your name was" She said through gritted teeth "So tell me!" The boy looked at her and smirked. Her anger was amusing him, which of course, only made her madder.

"Didn't your parents ever teach you it's rude to ignore people? They mustn't be very good parents then." She spat.

This sure wiped the smirk off his face. She must've hit a nerve because his eyes flashed dangerously and when he spoke it was in a low growl.

"My parents are good parents and they love me. My parents are ten times better than your stupid, smiling Muggle parents, even if mine are always yelling and fighting.", His voice broke at the end of the sentence and it took a little pause for him to regain composure, "You are just a stupid Muggle like your parents, you don't even deserve to sit next to me so you definitely don't deserve to know my name!" Then he turned his swing around so his back was facing her again.

Hermione wanted to ask what a Muggle was, but she could hear the boys muffled sniffling starting up, indicating he had succumbed to tears again. Suddenly she felt very bad for what had just happened. She had teased a boy to tears.

But she was being stupid. It was his own fault for being rude to her. All she had tried to do was start a conversation; he was the one who so blatantly ignored her.

And he had insulted both her and her family by calling them "stupid Muggles". Although she didn't quite understand the word Muggle, she understood the word stupid, and by the tone of his voice she would bet that 'Muggle' held about the same amount of weight as stupid did, possibly more.

Anyway, she was sure that she wasn't going to get another civilised word out of him today and the depressing air that he was omitting was starting to get to her. So she stood up and marched over to her mother without so much as a backwards glance at the boy on the swings.

True, today hadn't been her favorite day at the park, but at least her mum would be happy. She knew exactly which books she wanted to get from the library.

A.N So this is the first chapter of my second story. I plan on this being a multi-chaptered story.

I am a very very slow typer so I don't know when you can expect the next installment. This first chapter has been in the making for about a year. So yesh. Also I tend to get bored with a story and start writing a different one and not come back to the other for agesss. Hence why this chapter took so long.

Thanks to anyone who reviewed or favourited "Worth the Wait" I love yous :)) I will try update soon but I can't guarantee anything. Sorry.

Toodles, Bella ;)