Title: Fall to Pieces
Author: f34r me
Genre: Angst
Rating: R
Reason for rating: Language, possible references to drug use, semi-graphic cutting
Main Characters: Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy
Summary: "I was so perfect." Hermione Granger has some real issues, and yet nobody knows. She puts on a face for the world, but when alone, hurts herself. What will happen when Draco Malfoy finds her out? Will he be able to save her, or will he give her the push she needed to send her over the edge?
Chaper One
I was so perfect.
Everyone said so. Such a pretty girl, so smart, so polite, always smiling and happy; such a nice girl. Not one of the girls you'd connect with shattered mirrors and blood leaking out onto the floor to swirl over the tiles in beautiful, crimson arcs. Not one you might suppose was secretly collecting pills, not one who went around secretly screaming, broken inside. Oh, no...
I felt myself grow dizzy and almost slipping and falling, I had to clutch the basin to steady myself.
Strange. I haven't even used the knife yet.
Perhaps it was the mere thought that caused my body to react, going through the motions, the symptoms that had become oh so familiar to me. Perhaps it was trying to dissuade me; to give me a taste of the pain in sight, the oblivion- but if it was, it was going the wrong way about it.
I want the pain.
I need the pain, the faintness, the oblivion- for a while. Oblivion, before you wake up retching and shivering on the floor in a pool of blood, the knife just in front of you, the cuts on your arms you don't even remember...
People would probably wonder how I knew so much about cutting; I had a friend who did it. A year back, when I first found out I was so shocked, so scared. That was back when I was still able to hide the darkness in mind; when, some days, I forgot about it completely...
I was so sorry for Pansy. No one liked her, not even the people from her own house. So I befriended her. She had always excluded an aura of darkness and danger around her, but me, being the foolish innocent I am- or rather, was- never thought it was anything more than that. She excited me, broke the monotony of my life.
I never thought I'd become like her.
It's Sunday... school tomorrow; back to keeping up the act, trying to act funny, interesting, trying to keep up the good marks my parents were used to; trying to struggle through homework when all I wanted was to scream in pain and agony as blades sliced my flesh...
I can't go on like this. This double life, it's wearing me out.
But no.
I can go on hiding it, this sickness. It might pass.
It might. I can try to stop it.
I stared at the knife in front of me.
Stop cutting? I'd rather die.
I laughed at my cleverness. "Stop cutting? I'd rather die." What a clever turn of words, what irony "Stop cutting? I'd rather die." The words repeated themselves to me, soothing me. I should put it on all of my books. That would be amusing. Cynical, too.
Of course, no one would think I had said it. They wouldn't.
I am perfect.
No one guesses. Nor should they.
I'll just have to keep on hiding it.
Besides, my parents would kill me.
Coming back from my thought-world, I picked up the knife. Nothing special, I knew. I'd filched it from the kitchen when my parents weren't at home; when my mum noticed it missing I acted all confused and said I didn't know. She believed me. She always did. Then I brought it here.
I'm a good actress.
The silver pressed lightly across the surface of my left forearm, then ran down to the wrist, blood oozing, trickling.
For me, the pain is like a drug. I shudder and shake before closing my eyes in bliss. Petrified the spell will break, I make another one. And another.
Blood on the floor, now, dripping on the white tiles.
Dammit, I'll have to wipe them. I share a bathroom with Malfoy, he can't see this...
I hate cleaning.
Blood in the basin, oozing down the plughole. I watch it disappear and laugh ironically; so apt, so metaphorical, as beautiful and as perfect as me.
Will I disappear into a drain too someday?
A knock on the door brings me out of my bloody stupor. "Granger?" a voice asks. His voice. I panick. "Granger? If you don't open this door, I will." Another knock. Shit.
"Just a minute!" I call. Can't... know... I pull down my sleeve and hope the blood doesn't seep through. If it does... I'm screwed. I grab one of the crimson towels from under my sink and scrub viciously at the pool of blood on the floor. Another knock I run to the door, open it. "Hello," I say cooly.
"What the bloody hell are you doing in here, Granger?"
"All yours," I say, flashing him a smile. He looks at me oddly and closes the door. I walk jauntily for about two steps when a horribly true thought enters my mind...
I left my knife on the counter.