Author's note: Ok so I'll admit it. I'm a really new Harry Potter fan and I've only read the first three books. I'm waiting to get the fourth one from the library cause I'm poor so if I got anything hugely wrong let me know.

Chapter one: She Hadn't Shared With Anyone

Hermione stood looking glumly into the floor length mirror that adorned the north wall of her bedroom for what she assumed to be the 400th time that day. Her wavy dishwater blond hair moved slightly as a breeze from the open window moved across her room.

"Haven't you got anythin' better to do than stand there and make faces?" the mirror scolded indignantly.

Hermione sighed. She knew that she was what most people considered pretty, but at twenty-two she couldn't feel any less attractive. She felt old, used up and out of shape. Even her magic was starting to suffer; there just wasn't any pleasure in it anymore.

"I might as well be a muggle," she mused softly as she stroked a sleeping Crookshanks.

The sleeping cat rolled over and one eye opened lazily, as if to ask if there was a reason his mistress was disturbing his afternoon nap.

Leaving the cat to get back to sleeping, Hermione flung herself down onto the recliner in the spare bedroom. After getting comfortable, she realized the remote control was lying across the room. Witches and wizards generally disapprove of keeping electronic muggle devices in their homes, but since Hermione had been living alone, she liked the company and familiarity of the childhood pastime.

She pulled out her wand from the pocket of her nightgown and addressed the remote, "Wingardium Leviosa!" and drew it towards her.

As with any magic she'd been doing lately these words brought back memories of Hogwarts.

&&&&&&&&

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill.

"You're saying it wrong," Hermione snapped. "It's Win-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled.

Hermione roled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.

&&&&&&&

How she wished things were as they had been back then, when she had had something to dedicate herself to. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek.

"No, not now," she thought miserably, "I wasn't going to cry today."

She got up from the couch and made herself busy doing some cleaning the old fashioned muggle way. After doing the dishes, dusting, sweeping and mopping she decided to get dressed and go out for awhile, thinking that doing something, anything, would help alleviate her depression. She knew people were worried about her and she never really was too good at being on either end of pity.

By the time she had cleaned herself and put on a pair of worn Diesel jeans, a large brown pullover sweater with two bright orange flowers knitted right below the left shoulder and her favorite Clark walking shoes (she had always been a sucker for muggle fashion, something Oliver had abhorred) it was nearly 6 o'clock.

"Better late than never," she thought to herself before stepping off her doorstep.

Mrs. Backwater, Hermione's nearest neighbor, who was out instructing her youngest grandson how to properly rid a garden of gnomes, was quite plainly surprised to see her young neighbor out and about.

"Hello dear!" Mrs. Backwater called cheerfully while flinging an especially fat gnome into the empty lot on the opposite side of her house.

"Good evening!" Hermione returned plastering a fake smile across her face.

Hermione spent most of her evening catching up with various neighbors who were out and about that evening. She was happy to find that most of them seemed to have missed her, but made no mention of her recent absence from contact with the outside world. Wizards tend to have more sense about these things than other people. Something Hermione discovered the following week when she attended a baby shower for her second cousin Hester.

"Well I always did think it was quite unnatural for a pretty girl like you to turn and marry one of those strange ones. I think it's quite good that you can be done with the whole lot of them now, even though it was unfortunate for what's his name," her aunt Ionia said as though she was commenting on the weather.

"I'm still a witch Auntie," Hermione reminded the woman.

"Oh, well..." her aunt looked uncomfortable at the mention of the word 'witch' and started commenting offhand about whatever darling thing had been unwrapped by the mother-to-be.

When the party was nearly over and she was helping her mother clean up the kitchen Hermione hoped the worst was finished. Hester came into the room with an armful of presents.

"You shouldn't be carrying all that Hester!" a friend of the family scolded, "And to think Hermione just a few months ago this party could have been for you," she added and bustled out of the room.

Both Hermione and Hester looked uncomfortably at anything except the other's face.

In a last ditch attempt to say something comforting the dull witted Hester spoke, "At least you still have your figure," motioning to her own gorged belly and letting out a forced chuckle.

Even her mother seemed at a loss when she tried to console her. Hermione didn't understand why it made any difference that she was a witch, she had suffered a great deal and wanted her friends and family to support her. She knew they meant well, but muggles never really could be completely comfortable with the idea of some people having more abilities than they did.

"I know it's hard. And I can't say that I've ever experienced anything like what you've been through, but you have to keep on going. It will get easier every day," her mother assured her.

But Hermione wasn't so sure that it would, because what bothered her the most about what had happened she hadn't shared with anyone.