Hello! I thought that I should explore the darker side of life. This will become a HG/SS fic, but I am going to make it a lot more angsty first. Please review even if to give me pointers on how to write it, this is my first real angst fic and encouragement and ideas are welcome. Thank- you!

Disclaimer: ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO J.K. ROWLING AND ANY PLACES AND WHATEVER! THIS SCREWED UP PLOT IS MINE THOUGH.

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It was one hell of a summer that Hermione would not forget. It all started the day that she came home from Hogwarts. Her parents had picked her up from the train, but the picture had seemed off somehow. Her mother and father's smile seemed forced and tired and they would avoid talking to each other if it could be helped. They would also make sure that they were on either side of Hermione, she found this weird but Hermione just brushed it off as being stressed. She was looking forward to a nice, relaxing summer just hanging out with her family and reading, but little did she know, that fate had other opinions.

The first week, Hermione had noticed a change in her parents. Their eyes would reflect frostiness when looking at each other and their tone would become frosty in their responses. It was the second week that they had been trying to get Hermione on 'their sides' with bribing and being nice and allowing her to do anything she wanted. But what bugged her the most was the phrase most commonly used all the time with both "… bet your mum/dad isn't as good as me!" She just wished that they would stop trying to win her over like a prize; it was confusing the hell out of her. She wished she could ask one of them, but she felt like she would be making it worse and that they would get over it. It was two weeks after that, the full fledged arguments started. They would scream about the tiniest thing from what was for dinner to what Hermione could do with her future. No- one had bothered to ask her what she felt like doing. Her father wanted her to get married to a nice boy that could pay both for her but also for him, while her mum wanted her to go to a Muggle university. It was during this fight that Hermione told them that she would be taking a teaching job at Hogwarts under an apprenticeship in the magical world.

It was then that the attentions of the fights were on her. Her mother had a glare that could freeze fire any time that she looked at her daughter. Hermione could feel the disapproval and disgust coming off in waves towards her anytime her mother caught sight of her. Her father was actually the one to say what was mentally coming from her mother. He called her an "Ugly Freak" and she tried to be better to them both, by doing more chores and taking more responsibility. She couldn't understand where the coldness came from. These weren't the parents that she left behind last summer. These were empty shells with cruel souls in them.

It was just one month into the summer that her parents got a separation. Her mother went straight out and landed a guy just two days after it was settled and the guy was seedy. He would leer at her when her mother was out of the room and sometimes even tried to cop a feel of her from time to time. Sometimes her mum caught him doing this, but instead of putting him out and making the creep stop, she became jealous and started to hate Hermione. On the other hand when she went to visit her father, he would always have a bottle of alcohol nearby and it would be empty by the end of most nights. He had started with just yelling and blaming Hermione for his failure of a life. It was Hermione's fault that his wife left him; it was Hermione's fault that she was a 'freak' and he would say that he was "no daughter of his!" He then progressed to hitting her across the head, simple slaps with force, if she didn't do something the right way. It scared Hermione, because when she told him that he shouldn't hit her, he then proceeded to punch her. The bruises he left were always where she could cover it up. He would lock her in his room at night with a padlock so that she couldn't run away, and sometimes he would bring home prostitutes and she could not keep out the sounds her father and the prostitute made and she would be forced to listen to it all without any route to escape.

Silently at night she let her tears fall as she went to sleep. It was the only weakness that she would allow herself. At the start of this ordeal happening, she had vowed that she would be strong and nothing they did would break her. She wasn't so sure anymore. It kept getting worse, her mum's boyfriend actually running his hand up her leg; her mother calling her a whore and seeing her father's eyes had something resembling glee in them when he hit her enough to make her bleed.

It was the end of summer and tomorrow she would be going back to Hogwarts. She couldn't tell anyone about her summer, the shame was too overwhelming. She would have to pretend that everything was alright and that she was the happy bookworm with no troubles other than passing her N.E.W.T.S. And that was what hurt the most, knowing that she was completely alone with no one to help her. They would never see past the façade to the broken soul that lay beneath. Realising that she was alone, only made her feel cold and numb and she just couldn't stand it.

It was the night before she boarding the Hogwarts Express for her Seventh Year that she first found a razor blade and held it to her wrist making thin neat lines.

It was only in pain, as the blood ran down in tears to her elbow, that she felt truly calm.