Bathroom

Ron Weasley. 11, going on to Git-ingham. No matter how much she put up her hand, no matter how many times she came top in class, no matter how many points she won for Gryffindor, he never gave her a second glance. Boys. She suddenly found herself feeling as exasperated at them as the girls in the books she had read.

She had tried to make him listen. Harry. She didn't want him hurt, and especially not by Draco Malfoy. From what she could tell, he was a bullying wimp, who didn't have any authority of his own and so had to use his father's name and the bulk of his bodyguards to make an impact.

Hermione knew by now that Harry and Ron were best friends. They were always together, making jokes and getting lost. Hermione had been watching Ron, trying to know all she could and more of his personality, matching his to those of the characters in those books she'd read. By doing this, Hermione learnt that she could almost always successfully predict how he would react to things being done and said. She was, for once, happy with herself. She had only known him a month and a bit, and she had him all worked out already!

Now, to put the plan into action.

Hermione had read about boys liking girls when they are not, in fact, the sissy, helpless damsel-in-distresses in old-fashioned television. Truth be told, she'd never understood it, but was more than determined to. And that almost made it alright, in her just-turned-twelve year old mind.

It was the Friday lunchtime of their sixth week at Hogwarts. Hermione had finished her lunch and was now outside in the Hogwarts grounds, and wanted to see first hand the glitter root that Professor Sprout was telling the class about. She was sure that Professor Sprout said it was here...

Hermione felt a shove and clattered to the cold ground, her bag falling on top of her. "Urgh!" A disgusted cry flew from the mouth of a Slytherin on the order of Draco Malfoy. "Granger!"

Hermione hurriedly stood up, clutching at her bag. She faced Draco Malfoy defiantly. "Yes?" All the Slytherins in the vicinity gathered by, wanting to see the son of the great Lucius Malfoy put the Muggle-born in her rightful place. Malfoy looked round at them all before retaliating.

"Get out of my way, you big fat Mudblood."

Malfoy's classmates laughed heartily at this, but the older Slytherins shook their heads as they walked away, obviously expecting more. Hermione didn't know what a Mudblood was, but by the way Crabbe and Goyle were laughing and glaring at her, she was sure it wasn't a compliment. Malfoy looked around again at his classmates, and smiled triumphantly.

"I'm so scared," Hermione said witheringly, and before Malfoy could say anything else she stalked off, making a mental note to find the glitter root tomorrow.

It was two months before Hermione realised that her efforts to make acquaintance with Harry Potter had changed. She hardly thought about him now. There was only one boy on her mind these days: Ron Weasley. Still. A. Git.

In Charms, the first lesson of Halloween, Hermione was paired up with Ron. She had to act angry about it; Ron and Harry both thought that they were disliked by her. That was fine, it was all in her plan.

"You're saying it wrong," Hermione snapped at Ron after his feeble attempts of making their feather fly. She needn't pretend this time, she was genuinely annoyed at his obvious lack of listening and observational skills. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long."

Ron acted exactly how she expected him to. She had difficulty trying not to sigh loudly and frustratedly. So she showed him how to do it, she levitated their feather a couple of feet. She got the praise from Professor Flitwick. She got the admiring and or jealous looks from her classmates. She stole a look at Ron for a reaction but she had just turned her head in his direction when Ron stood up, quite red, and moved his chair from their table to the side of Harry's and Seamus'. Hermione looked back down to her desk, feeling strange. He wasn't supposed to act like that. He wasn't.

She didn't get it. She had put so much thought into this, but on this side of her magnificent plan, she saw just how weak and childish it had been. She wanted to hit herself.

But why was it bothering her so much that he was not acting as expected? She didn't care about how anyone else was towards her, not the girls, not Harry Potter, and certainly not Ron Weasley. Hermione closed her eyes, and was greeted by the sudden image of Ron's hand shyly creeping towards her own under the table, and holding it. She snapped her eyes back open again. What? Where did that come from? She dropped her wand to the table and only moved when her and Ron's feather landed back on her nose, almost making her sneeze.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her," Hermione heard Ron tell Harry on their way out. "She's a nightmare, honestly."

Hermione stopped pushing her way to the front of the crowd and consequently got shoved by Dean Thomas, who had been complaining loudly for twenty minutes of his need for the bathroom.

He thinks I'm a nightmare?

After getting poked in the back by someone, Hermione regained her senses and was startled to find that her eyes were wet. What?! Oh God, no. Not here, in front of everyone. Hermione fought her way through the throng of first-years, hitting Harry's side hard as she went by.

As soon as there was enough room, Hermione ran to the nearest toilet. She threw down her bag as soon as she got inside, and looked for an empty cubicle, which she locked herself inside.

Hermione couldn't ever remember crying this much. And she didn't even know why! Now that was annoying. It wouldn't have caused nearly as much pain on her if someone else had called her a nightmare, so why was she here, snivelling like a child, because of Ron? Why did Ron give her that horrible turning feeling in her stomach, why was it Ron that made her feel this way?

Unless... oh no. Hermione shook her head frantically, as if that would help. She couldn't have 'fallen' for Ron. Girls her age don't do that sort of thing, it's unhealthy. It really is. But this was how the girls said they felt in those books, wasn't it? But... but she just couldn't have fallen for him. Not now. That wasn't how it turned out in the books, this wasn't what she expected, she was only twelve! And, heavens, not him. Ron...

He doesn't like me though. Assuming that she liked him, of course. Which she didn't. Of course.

Didn't she?

She slid down the door of the cubicle she was leaning on until she was sitting on the floor. No... she thought, pulling her knees towards her and resting her forehead on them.

Ron's voice floated back to her, as if he was there, and she almost stood up to tell him to get out of girl's bathroom. "No one can stand her," he'd said. "No one can stand her."

Hermione's stomach felt bad...

She pictured Ron's irate face after she had levitated the feather... and she suddenly lunged forward, retching. She was on all fours, coughing and spluttering, not knowing exactly what had just happened. Before she could quite gather herself, Hermione heard a voice.

"Hermione? Are you in here?" It was Parvati Patil, one of her classmates. Hermione started to stand up shakily. "Me and Lavender have been looking for you, Herm... oh that's your bag! Hermione, I know you're here!"

"What, Parvati?" Hermione was surprised at her voice, it was unfamiliar, all gruff and scratchy and shaky.

Parvati sighed. "Thank heavens I found you! Professor Flitwick was calling you back after the lesson, you must've heard his squeaky little voice, he wanted to speak to you about -"

"Will you just go?"

A pause. "Hermione... are you crying?" Hermione couldn't tell whether she had heard concern in her voice, or just plain interest. "Are you okay, Hermione? What happened? Did you have a fight with someone?" Nope. No concern.

Hermione raised her voice and tried to steady it as much as she could. "I said go away! Leave me alone, it's none of your business what I'm doing here."

"But Professor Flitwick -"

"Tell him I'm busy," Hermione said, turning to face the toilet again. "I'm sure he'll understand."

Another pause. Parvati apparently couldn't believe that Hermione was shrugging off a teacher. "Okay then. See you at lunch, Hermione."

And she heard a door open and then shut.

Hermione let out a sigh. As soon as Parvati left the bathroom Hermione's thoughts went straight back to Ron. Ron.

Ron, Ron, Ron.

She bent forward a bit, so she could see the toilet water pulsing slightly in the bowl. She caught a look of her own face in the reflection, which was kind of distorted by the tiny waves the water was making. She saw her own trembling lips, skinny and shapeless, barely hiding her horrible rodent teeth from view. She guessed there would be an unattractive blotchy look to her light tan skin. She saw her eyes, still wet with tears, that she knew to be the dullest brown possible. She blinked out a lock of that terribly bushy, uneven mousey hair. It was Halloween and she didn't even need a mask. She heard a sneer...

"... big fat Mudblood."

Hermione retched again, louder, and immediately coughed until her eyes were streaming. She hastily wiped her face with her robes, and tried to retch again, but resulted only in making a horrid scratchy noise deep in her throat. She was embarrassed. She was embarrassed and no one was even there. Slowly, Hermione raised her hand and extended her first finger. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she shoved it into her mouth, until her horribly oversized teeth scratched at the back of her hand. She tried to push the contents of her stomach upwards, still to no avail. Seemingly without control over herself, Hermione stretched out her second finger and, too, thrust it into the back of her mouth. Her nails scratched her throat, and she pulled her hand out of her mouth, her whole face wet with either tears or saliva.

You're pathetic, she told herself. You couldn't make one friend, and now you can't even throw up. She focused again on her reflection in the toilet bowl. She blinked.

"Disgusting!" She screamed, and once more she pushed in her mouth her first two fingers, not caring that she scratched her throat with her nails again, and almost immediately she felt something rise up in her throat, coating her fingers and falling into the toilet bowl with a plop and creating a splash so that some toilet water splashed up from the impact and hit Hermione's face.

Stunned at what had just happened, Hermione straightened her back so she was standing straight again, and just looked at her own vomit, a thick orange, some floating on the water while most of it had sunk to the bottom. She didn't know how long she stayed there, staring, only that she gave a start as the bathroom door banged open and someone got into one of the other cubicles.

Hermione hurriedly flushed the toilet and unlocked the door, but only got out of the cubicle when she heard the sound of the other girl urinating. She almost ran to the sinks, and scrubbed her hands with hot water until they were red and raw. She grabbed her bag and looked at the time on a watch which was in one of the pockets, next to her wand. 1:30. The afternoon lessons had already begun, but Hermione had no intention of going. This time she picked up her bag and took it with her into the cubicle she had just vacated, and slowly locked the door. There was no going back.

A/N: Okay, a bit graphic... I don't think I'll be writing anymore of this, because I honestly don't know what else I could do. Thanks for reading.