Author's Note: I got back into this one, so yeah. This has taken me a ridiculous amount of time because I keep stopping to look up lyrics of songs on my ipod, read fanfiction and stroke my hair, which has been destroyed by bleach but is now blonde, blonde, blonde, and ridiculously soft :) I hope that what I write in this and the stories I tell are realistic, I thought that it logically followed, on both counts. I also wanted to show that Draco wasn't a fluffy bunny, he's just trying to be a better always, review as they make me happy and to give me much-needed ideas.
A not-so-vague disclaimer: I own nothing, all belongs to JK Rowling and if you want to sue me then I'll dazzle you with my newly blonde hair :D
They went to their bedrooms alone and each got into bed, Hermione pulling a hoodie on and putting up the hood before wrapping herself under the covers and Draco sitting up with the covers only covering his lap and legs, his head resting against the wall while he chewed on his fingernails, unable to sleep. He muttered a charm that enabled him to hear what was happening in Hermione's bedroom. He heard nothing for a while, just the shifting sound of her tossing and turning in bed, and then he heard rustling and the unmistakeable crinkling sound of pills being popped out of a blister pack. He heard her gulp down a drink and then shift in bed, probably lying down again. He heard nothing but her uneven breathing after that. Weren't people supposed to breathe evenly in their sleep? Was she awake and aware that he was listening to him, so trying not to move around? His thoughts swirled around his head until he fell asleep.
When Hermione woke up she had a headache. When she looked around the room seemed to swim around her and she had to steady herself to take out the packet of caffeine tablets she kept in a drawer next to her bed. She swallowed four with water and lit a cigarette as she waited for them to have an effect. She tried to focus on the inhaling and exhaling of smoke, on the swirling smoke around her and the glowing tip of the cigarette; trying to forget about what had happened the night before, what she had told him and how vulnerable she had made herself. When her cigarette was finished she got out of bed, a little unsteady on her feet, and changed into her running clothes, pulling a green hoodie over her head and plugging her headphones into her ears before she left. That morning she seemed to be possessed as she ran, feeling herself almost flying as she tripped over the uneven ground around the castle. She ran so fast that she felt like she might spin out being itself, that she might punch a hole in the air. Every step, every breath that she took spurred her on, telling her to run faster and faster until she went back into the castle, raced to the head's rooms and collapsed on the couch in their common room. She sat there for a while until Draco emerged from his room, dressed in his uniform with his hair in his eyes, still damp from the shower. He looked surprised to be there but poured her a cup of coffee from the pot that the elves made for them each morning and charmed it so that it wouldn't burn her tongue. She took it from him and took a gulp, trying to summon the energy to get up.
"Classes start in ten minutes." He said by way of greeting. She shot up at that, ignoring her already aching limbs and gulped the coffee down before passing it to him and bolting to the bathroom. She took what may have been the quickest shower of her life and barely towelled herself dry before shoving on her clothes, not bothering to do up all of the buttons of her shirt. She smeared concealer on her face and lined her eyes thickly, her hand shaking. She didn't have time to do anything else. Just grabbed her bag and wand and running out of the door, where Draco was waiting for her.
It was ridiculous really. How easily she could make herself look beautiful. Even with her hair matted and unwashed, pushed out of her face. Even when she had had to drug herself to go to sleep at night and had cried the night before. He wondered what she looked like when she tried, when she used the arsenal of beauty products and 'enhancing' clothing that all of the other girls seemed to rely on. They walked to class together and she seemed to be lost in thought, her lips almost pursed and her usually smooth forehead slightly knitted. He itched to talk about the night before, he had hoped to discuss it that morning but, instead of finding her ready for class and strangely awake, he had found her slumped on the couch in a daze, with sports clothes on. It seemed that she had been exercising that morning and had lost all energy. He had thought about talking to her about it but decided against it, giving her a cup of coffee instead. As they walked through the school he tried to keep a neutral expression, trying not to be his old self- the thing that his father had created, had made twisted, something that everyone feared, and someone that everyone knew had nothing to lose. It was strange, everyone in his year knew that he had rejected his father, had refused to work for Voldemort, but it seemed like everyone still saw him as a Slytherin, as the head of the Slytherins. Everyone except the Slytherins, who looked at him with thinly veiled contempt, all staying away from him, seeing him as a traitor. A blood- traitor, that's what his father called him. Blaise had stood by him, but was more interested in chasing girls and playing Quiddich. Draco smiled at that thought, nothing seemed to faze Blaise. They reached their class (DADA) without any conversations, or walking into walls, which seemed a possibility as they were both deep in thought. When they walked through the door of the classroom every student seemed to stare at them. For a moment he wondered if they knew what they had done the night before, how he felt about Hermione, but shook that off. He glowered at them; they lived together, for Merlin's sake! Of course they'd walk around at the same time. Hermione touched his arm and smiled before sitting at the free desk next to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. He looked around, deciding where to sit.
"Aren't you going to sit down?" Hermione asked, smiling. He stared at her and then her friends, who were obviously trying their best to be tolerant towards him. He took a deep breath before he sat down, greeting the Gryfindoors curtly, trying his hardest not to be sarcastic or insulting. This was hard, given that Ron kept shooting him suspicious looks.
Hermione half ran to the head's quarters at the end of her final class. When she reached the portrait hole she breathlessly said the password and made her way into the room. She went into the bathroom and removed her clothes and jewellery, even the tiny gold hoops in her ears. She then stepped on the scale, closed her eyes and counted to five. When she looked down her throat seemed to constrict. 96. How had she put on two pounds in the last day? She knew that it was irrational, knew that weight fluctuated and she was supposed to weigh herself at the same time each day but those truths did nothing to calm her. Shaking, she put on her underwear and carried her school uniform into her bedroom, so focused on what she had to do she didn't stop to close the door. She pulled a pair of jeans and a t-shirt on and sat down on her bed. She reached for the framed picture of her, Harry and Ron that was on her bedside table. Picking up her wand she said the passwords that would unlock it. She then unscrewed the side of the frame, wedging her fingernails under the tiny gap to open it. From inside she bought out a razor blade. She then sat up on the bed, resting against the pillows as she cradled her left wrist in her hand, removing the bracelets and smoothing the pinched flesh. Breathing deeply she bought the razor to her wrist and cut vertically, less than a centimetre away from where her real scar lay, hidden. She watched as the blood bubbled up and flowed down and calmly wiped it away. She cut the same spot again and again, wiping more and more blood away each time. After a while she became dizzy and was no longer able to feel any pain, having to make the cut longer to feel anything other than the sensation of metal on her tendons, veins and bones, a sensation that sent shivers down her spine and filled her with unease, like the opposite of a scratching pain. When she was finished she healed the cut up and scourgified her wrist and jeans, on which blood had fallen. She strengthened the glamour on her skin and put her bracelets back on. She was completely calm when she put away the razorblade and smoothed her clothes. She pulled on a hoodie and put her wand in her jeans pocket. Leaving the room she went into the common room, where Draco was seated, flicking through a book.
Draco knew that Hermione had cut herself. He could tell by how pale her face was and how she gingerly moved her left arm, as if she was afraid that it would bleed. He could also see it in her eyes, she was oddly calm but they were shining with adrenaline. She sat next to him and lit a cigarette, he followed suit before he spoke.
"What happened?" He asked, trying to keep his voice even. She looked up at him innocently and frowned.
"What do you mean?" His fists clenched, did she really think that she could play dumb with him?
"Why did you hurt yourself today?" She kept frowning and took a drag of her cigarette as if she was choosing her words carefully.
"I had to." She said after a few minutes. When he didn't speak she continued. "I needed to… hurt myself. To see it."
"To see what?" He asked, she was silent for a while before she bit her lip and spoke.
"That I was changing. That I could change. That I could control it, that I could do it. I needed to do something to my body to prove that it was my body. That I was in control of it, that I had power over it."
"What happened? Why did you need to do that?"
"I gained two pounds." She laughed at herself, as if fully aware of how ridiculous she sounded. "I gained two stupid pounds and I hated myself. Two fucking pounds made me insane." Her cigarette was finished and Draco lit her another one. He moved closer to her and looked into her eyes.
"What made you like this? Who made you like this?"
She laughed "No one. Nothing. I've always been like this."
"Tell me about it." He asked.
"You know how witches and wizards can't control their powers as children? Because they haven't been trained, because, in the case of muggle-borns, they don't know what their powers mean, what's happening to them? Well, when I was little the other children saw that I was weird, they called me a witch, which to them is a bad thing, is an insult. Because when I was little if I was really happy or annoyed or sad things around me would break. Windows would smash, pipes would burst, and computers would crash. Any time I had a strong emotion something would break. And the other children would notice that, that if they picked on me, if they teased me things would break. So I didn't have any friends. The teachers just told my parents that I had been bullied and I moved to another school, where I tried not to feel, tried to stop myself. I was only eight and all I was focused on was staying in control. And I realised something, if I was physically hurt, if I was angry and fell of my bike or something, nothing would break. So whenever I was sad, whenever I felt like I was going to burst I would hurt myself. Stupid things like banging my arms on things, stubbing my toes. I did this right up until I started Hogwarts and then stopped, because it didn't seem to be happening, now that I new magic. But then I had to go home for the summer and I wasn't able to do magic, and it all returned. So I hurt myself to stop it, but it was like everything I did wasn't enough, that I needed to do more and more to get calm again. And I enjoyed it. I liked making myself bleed; I liked reeling as I burned. I liked having hidden scars."
"And you've been doing it ever since?" Draco asked, speaking for the first time in a while. She nodded and seemed to be thinking about leaving. Draco grabbed her hand and held it, looking straight at her. "What about eating? I need you to tell me."
Hermione was silent for a few moments, it seemed that talking about her eating habits was much harder for her.
"You're expected to eat so much here, you get a home-made meal three times a day. But we don't have PE, the only sport is Quiddich. I went home after my first year and I was getting fat. And I didn't want to be fat so I did the whole healthy eating thing and cycled a lot. But when we started back at Hogwarts I didn't have a bike. And there was too much food around me for me to be able to stick to a diet. So I just skipped breakfast and lunch. So I'd only eat at dinner. And I tried to do sit-ups in my room. And I lost weight. But after a while it stopped working, and I had to diet again. So I cut stuff out. Like I wouldn't have certain foods, or I would only have even numbers of things. Later I decided to make the rule that in a day I would only be allowed four things, except water. I was allowed four servings of anything I wanted, but that was it for the day. And it just went on and on like that, through the years. I eat enough to live. Or I get enough nutrients to survive." She said this in a matter-of-fact tone that made Draco angry.