Disclaimer: Not mine, not hers, not (what's that?) ours. In any way. Ever.
Summary: She went there to feel happy. She went there to feel loved. Everyday she went there, and everyday she lied to herself.
One Step Closer
It hurt. Everything hurt. She lay there on the grass, looking up at the blue, blue sky. Her brown hair spread out around her face, her arms stretched wide. A slight breeze played with her clothes and made the grass sway. She watched as the clouds rolled by, the sun hidden behind their whiteness. Her brown eyes just stared upward, not moving. Brown eyes. She had always thought them plain. Brown was such a dull color after all. Like mud. Nothing at all special about mud.
People had told her that when she got passionate about things her eyes would catch fire. They would blaze just beneath the surface, waiting to lash out and burn. She never saw that. She saw boring, plain, ordinary eyes. Fitting. She was just a boring, plain, ordinary girl after all. Sure, she was smart, but nearly anyone with a brain could be smart. Just because she actually tried, unlike most people, was nothing important.
The cloud in her line of vision twisted. It contorted and changed, shaping itself into something new. It looked a bit like a bunny. She had always admired that about clouds. Their ability to change. Within seconds they could mold themselves into something entirely new, be something entirely different.
Change. It always seemed right out of her grasp. She could never change. She wasn't free like the clouds. No. She was bound to where she was because of her not-so-special intelligence. She was their encyclopedia, their Well of Knowledge, and she didn't resent them for it. She could never feel such an emotion towards them. She loved them more than words could say. They were her best friends. Her only friends.
A butterfly flew by. A bright yellow butterfly. Another creature of change. They didn't morph like clouds, but their evolution was slower, more graceful. They transformed from a normal little caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. Beauty was another thing she didn't posses. Years of changing and growing had not granted her this gift. She was not ugly by any means, she just…was. Plain. Normal. Undistinguishable.
She didn't really mind so much. She was never one for attention, especially the kind a lovely face brought. She was content with being passed over by the boys, overshadowed by gorgeous girls, known for her brains and friends, rather than her looks. Sure, she would have preferred to have been known for whom she was, but at least she wasn't some object to be had in the eyes of the opposite sex. She was just the one you asked for the answers to the really hard questions.
It was okay. She didn't need to be noticed or special or free. She was perfectly fine how she was. Unnoticeable. Ordinary. Caged. It was fine. That was how it had always been, and how it would always be. She was the dependable one, the trustworthy one, the one who had all the answers. She was only 17, but she always knew what to do, what was happening, and what needed to be done.
It was nothing really. Anyone could do what she did if they really wanted to. No one ever told her she was important, so obviously she wasn't. She was their friend, so they chose her to be their brain. It was simple. They were the special ones. Of course they were. Both of them. The one destined to save the wizarding world, and the one who would be there every step of the way with him. Fighting. Planning. Winning.
They were the heroes of the story, she was just the one who made she the facts were right. She was a background character, a helper. And she would continue to be, because she loved them. She would do it to make sure they stayed safe, stayed alive. Without them she would have no reason to be smart, to be involved. To be anything. Without them she would fade even farther from the public eye, because they were the only ones that ever noticed her.
They were the ones who asked for her help, her advice. They were the ones that patted her on the back when she discovered something no one else had bothered to look for. They were they ones that kept her trying. As plain as she might be, their fragments of attention were all she needed.
She could tell they took her for granted, that they thought she would always be there with the answer and never disappoint them. They just assumed that she would throw aside everything else for them because that's what she had always done. They assumed she had no life outside of them. She knew that they saw her as a permanent fixture of information that they would never have to be without, and she didn't mind. She didn't care that they thought she would always be there for them. Because she always would.
But, she knew that one day they would ask a question she couldn't answer. One day they would ask for more than she could give. One day, she would outlive her usefulness. She dreaded that day. They would look at her with eyes full of disappointment and betrayal. She would fail them and those beautiful eyes would hold a sadness that would crush her heart.
She could see them. Green and blue. Emerald and sapphire. Such pretty eyes. They were so different from her nondescript brown ones. Those two pairs of eyes could show every emotion their owners were feeling with a vibrancy that knocked her off her feet. She would mourn the day that those eyes told her she was no longer needed. She was just an extra, nothing special.
It hurt.
Everyday she wanted to cry. She wanted so badly to just be able to cry. But her ordinary eyes couldn't even manage that. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rip something apart. Destroy something. Break something. She was trapped in this expectation of perfection and she couldn't break free. She tried to tell herself it was okay, she was what they wanted her to be. She could never change, she would be cast aside, replaced. That was painful to think about. If she didn't produce the answers they wanted, when they wanted them, she knew she would lose her place and they would leave her.
Everyday she came here to tell herself she was happy, content, and everyday the feelings refused to go away. She really did love them, but she knew they didn't love her. She felt like an object, a book. She tried telling herself it was fine, but it wasn't. She wanted someone to tell her she was special, needed, appreciated, loved. Beautiful in a way that was more important than appearance. But she knew that that would never happen, and it killed her.
She lived a caged existence to protect the ones she loved. She sacrificed so much for the ones she needed. She stared at the sky for hours telling herself that they loved her, too. She spent the rest of the day knowing that their love for her died a long time ago, when they underwent their changes into butterflies. She was just the book, the well, the source of understanding. She knew that they had left her behind. She also knew that she would go back to them no matter how far ahead of her they were. Every day she would lie to herself and tell herself she was alright. And every day it hurt a little bit more.
Her eyes shifted from the endless blue expanse to the doors of her school. It was time for her to go back in; she needed to go to the library. As she picked herself up off the ground she told herself one more time, They love me. Then she trotted off towards the steps, a smile on her face, and plain eyes focused. She would go about her day, only to return tomorrow to the lakeside. She would live in reality only to return to day dreams and clouds the next morning.
Hermione Granger headed towards that book-filled room, which had long since become familiar to her, knowing that she was one step closer to being alone forever. One step closer to being forgotten.