A.N.=rated M cause I'm paranoid
Reviews and requests are most welcome (hint, hint) and any songs you think might be good, 'cause that's how I write.
They'd just come back from summer break, and were sitting around the tables in the great hall watching the first years be sorted into their houses, when, upon looking tiredly around the hall (he hadn't slept in weeks), in an attempt to keep himself awake, his eyes landed on Hermione Granger. She sat slouching, something she rarely did, and looked as bad as he felt. Her hair was messy, her arms were covered in scratches, she had odd socks on, and those eyes? He'd never seen her like this. Their usual spark and electricity was gone, replaced by a sad, bloodshot, haunted look. She'd been different on the train too, he realised. Gone was the happy, cheery disposition he was so fond of (not that he'd ever tell her or her friends that), gone was that goofy smile and carefree laugh that brightened up his day. Instead, her arms crossed over her chest, she had hurried on to the train with not so much as a backward glance. Quite frankly, it scared him. No matter how bad he treated her, no matter how many names he called her, he was, honestly, madly in love with her. But to see her so broken and fragile, as if balanced precariously atop a ledge? He had never wanted so bad to run to her. To hold her in his arms while she cried, brushing her hair back and telling her all would be fine while she told him what was wrong. He had never in his life needed to comfort someone so, but now, faced with, what seemed to be, a depressed Hermione? Imagining her whole once again was all he could do not to run to her right then and there. Harry and Ron, her two best friends, would hate him more if they knew how he felt for her. And what would his father think? A Malfoy and a mudblood like Granger? It would never work between them. Right?
She hurried on to the train with her arms crossed over her chest. Oh man she couldn't wait to get to Hogwarts. It was all she could think about, how nice it would be to have a long hot shower and wash the dirt out of her hair. It would be amazing to eat at a table in the great hall instead of shoplifting food or eating at a different shelter every week. She missed the Grangers. Her new foster family was in no way a place she'd want to be. The bruises on her arms must be a testament to that surely. Two weeks with them and she'd run away. Mr and Mrs smith were just downright horrible people. As she sat down in the compartment with Harry, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville she almost cried with relief. Four weeks living on the streets had not been kind to her. Considerably skinnier, having not eaten properly in weeks, her arms once again wound themselves around her now too thin frame. She had forgotten what it felt like to be around her friends, how effortless it was to laugh. If only that feeling could last forever.
The train screeched to a halt in front of Hogwarts, and she stepped off slowly on to the platform.The thestrals sniffed her eagerly, but she waved them off with a quick pat on the nose. She had been able to see them since she was a first year, as she saw her mother murdered when she was four. Harry had nothing to complain about, she thought. In the wizard world murder was neat, clean, painless, almost merciful. He had not witnessed the gruesome ways muggles thought up to kill each other, none of them had. She climbed into the carriage almost robotically, still deep in thought. What had happened to her father, no one knew. He was a ghost, flitting through the background of baby photos with a fake smile plastered onto his face, but one that never materialised. Heard but not seen, seen but not heard. He had never been there, not even at her mum's funeral. When she had first been placed into foster care, family to family, dealers to drunks, she had kept up hope, a candle forever burning inside her heart. Now, it appeared, that candle had burned out. "Hermione?"
Luna inquired, watching her face carefully. Snapping out of her reverie, she she looked up to see a worried look in her friend's eyes. Feeling guilty, she answered. "Sorry Luna, just thinking" she said with a forced smile. "Well, come on, we're here" Luna replied, a sudden tenderness in her voice that wasn't there before. "Oh"she stated simply. Climbing out of the carriage she looked down at her shoes. She was wearing odd socks! And they couldn't have been more odd. Her left sock was bright pink and reached to the middle of her calf, the other a lime green crew cut with black heels and toes. "Well done Hermione" she thought, "Now they'll definitely know something's up".
Taking her place at the table she felt eyes on her back. Well that wasn't too unreasonable, she looked hell, but this was different. Malfoy. Malfoy was looking at her? Her heart beat faster in her chest. She had always had a crush on him, not that she could could tell Harry and Ron that. Ginny knew of course, and obviously Mrs Granger had known. "There I go again" she thought bitterly. Once again her thoughts turned away from the world around her and back to her former foster carer. Mrs Granger had been diagnosed with schitzophrenia, and, in the minds of child services, been rendered incapable of taking care of Hermione. Which is how she had landed with the smiths. Abusive drunks, both of them. All she wanted was Mrs Granger, or perhaps Molly Weasley. She was just thinking about how to ask Mrs Weasley if she could stay the holidays, when the feast, as it does every year, appeared on the table, driving all other thoughts from her mind besides her rumbling stomach, totally unaware that Malfoy was still watching her.