Crashing Into the Heart
Prologue: "What's it all to you?"
Hermione Granger wiped a tear from under her eye. Not just because when she got off the Hogwarts Express she wouldn't see her parent's smiling faces, not just because she wasn't going back to Hogwarts. She wouldn't be going back to London. Period. She could have a better life in America, and she knew it. Away from all the fighting in the magical world. Away from the pain and fright. Away from her world. Maybe she didn't belong in the magical world. Poor bushy haired good girl just couldn't handle it. Her two best friends, now worst enemies. One didn't even go to graduation. Ron Weasley was kicked out of Hogwarts three weeks before graduation for pulling a knife out on Harry Potter. And she'd never see either of them again.
Not that she wanted to see them. She wanted to get as far away as humanly possible from them. Ron was probably a bum now, working down at The Leaky Cauldron. Harry would be offered the job of Minister of Magic. Alexander Spinnet would gladly step down for the Godly Harry Potter. 'Harry Potter saved our world! Of course I'll give up my job for him! Anything for him!'. Maybe she was just jealous of Harry. Or maybe of being called 'The Girl Who Follows Harry Potter Around'. Maybe she just couldn't handle everything they did to her.
Hermione was a workhorse, and she knew it. She was proud of it, but the main reason Harry and Ron had befriended her all these years was because she'd do the work, they'd copy. They never cared to ask her how her other classes went, how if she enjoyed herself over the summer. It was always, 'Hermi, can I have your homework? Thanks.'
Maybe it was all the fighting she couldn't handle. Maybe it was Harry, who was the real bad guy, not Voldemort. Hermione knew Ron was being controlled by Voldemort their last year. At Ron's trial they knew he was being controlled. He was weak, always wanting to be noticed in his family. Ron never tried to better himself at what he was good at, just tried to be like the sainted Harry Potter and his brothers. Ron would have never killed Cho Chang if he was acting on his own will, and deep down, Harry knew it. But she didn't care anymore who or what started it, or why she never wanted to see them again.
She had no home to go to, and only the money she had inherited once her parents died. And it wasn't an awful lot, either. About ten thousand… enough to live on… for a while. Hermione called a taxi to take her to the airport. She never said good-by to Harry. She never said good-by to Ron. And she never said good-by to her world.