Hermione looked up; she was standing in the middle of the lobby of the hotel.

She went over to the newspaper stand and checked the date. She had gotten it right, next she looked at the clock on the wall, checking the time.

"Excellent, I got the time just right." It was 10:00 pm.

She walked quickly out the door, and down the street.

When she arrived at Harry's hospital room, avoiding the muggle nurses with a simple disillusionment charm, she opened the door softly.

She expected to see him lying there, about to cut himself, or already cut himself. Her mind had conjured up these horrific nightmares on the walk down to the hospital.

But no, he was sleeping peacefully,

Spread out over the bed, he even had a small smile on his face.

Hermione saw this and hesitated, could this be the same person on whom they would walk in on with his wrists slit?

Nevertheless she walked up and hesitantly sat down next to him. She must have made a noise when she sat down because his eyes were opening blearily.

"Hey Harry," Hermione said softly.

"What are you doing here?" he said, sitting up quickly, a sharpness in his voice that Hermione flinched at.

"I, I wanted to make sure that you were alright Harry."

"Well I'm fine, now get out. I don't to speak to you."

"But Harry…"

"Fuck off Hermione."

She stared at him in shock. Harry had never sworn, not even when he was fighting Voldemort. "What?" she said dumbly.

"You heard me. Fuck off. Get out of my room; I don't want you near me. You're pathetic."

Hermione's temper started rising, she had only wanted to apologise.

"I only wanted apologise. You don't need to be cruel, what about our friendship?"

"What friendship Hermione? You call yourself the smartest person in our year? You never even once figured out why we were friends with you? Well let me tell you. We used you; we pretended we were your friends so we could copy off you. We never liked you at all. It was all a lie."

"It's not true, Harry, say it's not true" she pleaded.

"Why should I say that it's not true? You know, I think I just figured out why you were so clingy. You never had any real friends did you? I bet no one ever liked you."

Hermione started to sob as she remembered a day from long ago, while she was in primary school.

Flashback

"Hey bookworm," a voice yelled from behind her.

Hermione hunched her shoulders further down, wishing that they would just leave her alone.

"Oi bookworm I was talking to you, don't ignore me." the voice yelled harshly in her ear. She then felt herself being pulled roughly around.

Tears started as one of the boys who were standing there pulled all her books out from her arms and scattered them along the ground.

"Aw look, baby bookworm is crying," one of the other boys jeered.

Hermione wrapped her arms around herself and willed herself to stop crying. Why won't they leave me alone?

A crowd of kids, started gathering, laughing at the pathetic figure huddled in the middle of the circle.

A couple of students smirked and drew attention to a group of people who were making their way down the steps.

Hermione looked up at what was happening. Hope shined on her face as she recognised her friends.

As they walked up one of the spectators started clapping slowly. More and more people started clapping as well as the group drew closer. Confusion and wariness started to show on her face as she looked around at the people clapping.

When the group arrived to where people had made a ring around Hermione, they made a bow. By now everyone in the year was there, watching, laughing and talking among themselves.

A walkway parted for the group as they walked towards Hermione and the boys. When they arrived at the middle everyone was silent, watching the scene with pleasure.

Hermione know had a solid pit of worry and fear in her stomach, her books spread around her, all forgotten.

She tried to get up, but was stopped by a sudden pressure on her back. "You stay on the ground where you belong, filth." Her eyes burned as every one laughed at her.

She twisted her head to see was there and was shocked to find that it was Dylan Knutter, one of her 'supposed friends'.

She looked back again to where the main group of her 'friends' were standing with the boys.

"Well done," the leader of the group of boys, Mathew was saying. "We didn't expect you would last the whole year."

One of her 'friends', Ellie nodded, smiling, "yeah, well we won the bet so it's time to pay up."

"We know, we know," Mathew said, "how much was it, $100 for each of you?"

"Yep, though we were curious as to where you found enough money to pay us. I mean you can't earn the money, how did you avoid questions?"

"We got it off my parents, 'cause their divorced and they kept trying to out bid each other."

At this point Hermione gathered enough courage to ask timidly, "what's going on?"

There was a moment of silence before everyone registered who said it. She flinched as they all started laughing.

"you want to know what's going on? Fine. We didn't like you. We never have. Mathew and me had a bet that we couldn't be your friend for a year. Jeez that year was the longest ever, I mean it was such a pain pretending that we actually liked you. You're pathetic, a worthless piece of shit. No one likes you, ever liked, and no one ever will." Ellie finished her speech.

To add insult to the injury she walked over and spat on Hermione's face.

The class walked away leaving Hermione there with spit and tears dripping off her face.

They were right. No one would ever like her.

End flashback

Flashback

Hermione sat there in the girls' room. It was the night after Harry and Ron had become her friends, and she was writing in her diary.

Dear diary,

Friends! I might have friends! There are these two guys, Harry potter and Ron Weasley. They saved me from a troll, and they let me sit with them. Maybe they will be my friends? I hope so, I'm lonely. All I want is a real friend.

She shut her book and got ready for bed. For the first time in years she went to sleep smiling and happy.

However there was always that doubt and those insecurities that it was like last time.

In second year she was nervous, waiting for a crowd to gather and then for Harry and Ron to tell her that they were only pretending.

As the years went by she relaxed and started to trust them.

But those fears stayed, buried, waiting to resurface…

End flashback

A/n sorry about the wait.