Hermione Granger was a hitman - hitwoman - a contract killer. She was good with a weapon, quick on her feet, invisible when she had to be. She knew how to blend into a crowd, a skill she had carefully crafted. It had been difficult for her from the beginning - having hair twice the size of your head isn't ideal for being discreet - but she learned because she had to.
Life hadn't come easy for her. Her parents had gone off the deep end long after Hermione had learned to depend on them. Both her father and mother gave into the drug addiction, seemingly forgetting they had a daughter at all in their clouded trance. She saw no choice but to leave when their negligence overwhelmed her life. She retreated into the lifestyle of a child without familial ties, joining Hogwarts, an association of kids left to fight for themselves. She learned nearly everything she knew regarding survival. The children at Hogwarts were damaged goods, but they held great power. They bore the pain of desperation for a family, for stability. They learned to value their security primarily and everything else secondarily.
She befriended Harry, a boy that fled from an abusive home life, almost immediately. He was oblivious, at times, to reality, and Hermione took it upon herself to help him build his emotional armor after carefully constructing her own. Harry was naive, as she had been in the beginning, but he learned to keep fighting, to keep persevering, with her help. She wasn't a particularly easy friend to have. She was difficult to predict, smart and engaged at all times. She was quick on her feet, vanishing without a trace whenever danger arose.
Lacking in funds, Hermione and Harry often had to resort to small criminal acts and were thus on constant alert for police. Minimal, non-violent crimes sufficed for many years, pickpocketing being their main source of income, and they managed. They lived day-to-day for almost a decade, attempting public school at age 10 but realizing that they lost too many hours in the day to make money. They started regular jobs at age 14, and it was enough to last for a while. They tried dating at age 15, when the hormones got the best of them, but that ended quickly. They just weren't fit for one another romantically, and their friendship was too valuable to risk.
Their lives were moving, improving, steadying out by age 16. They had 3 jobs each, but they had a decent attempt at an apartment and food on the table every day. They had running water, though it was rarely hot, but that they had room to spare for small luxuries, like cacti to add some kind of life to her otherwise dull room, was a blessing.
Things were looking up; their hard work was finally paying off - that is, until Harry started coughing up blood.