Disclaimer: I do not own any Harry Potter characters and the Harry Potter world. They all belong to JK Rowling.

Chapter Twenty-five

"The Very First Scar"

"The weather's really good today. I can just stay here and stare at the sky if I can make time stop," Ginny smiled, sighing in the beauty of the place. It was contagious. Hermione had to look up as well.

But looking up made her think more, and thinking more just hurts more. So she had to look down again.

Their feet looked like porcelain reflections under the clear waters of the lake as she stared at them. They glittered and shined with the sunbeams, almost as if the little rays were alive, gliding along their dipped legs; the water extending into their knees as they swayed.

It was the weekend and Ginny had finally succeeded on persuading Hermione to stop worrying about her studies and to go out to take some fresh air and sun with her along the Hogwarts Lake.

Hermione had always been used to study and to be a perfectionist when it would come to her schoolwork. She had been trained to be just that through the years, granted, she had learned it the hard way. But it wasn't just the reason why she wanted to stay inside their common room the whole weekend. She just didn't want to see any sight of a "Slytherin" in the moment.

The following day after that momentous night, Draco was seen with another girl. It was said that he and Pansy broke up, something about him leaving her alone to patrol, or the other way around. The stories were all distorted, but Hermione was just thankful that her name wasn't tangled with them. No one would really bother to attach her name with the issue, anyway. Everyone knew that Draco Malfoy considered her as a non-existent being, and having her as the reason of his break-up with his infamous girlfriend was just plain absurd, if not right down stupid.

Because she was just the mudblood…

Padma Patil wouldn't leave her that day as well. She had kept on apologising about her absence. It turned out that someone had thrown a prank on her by placing some sleeping draught on her pumpkin juice. They still didn't know who the culprit was. Hermione had an idea of course, but she wouldn't dare open something up especially that she was trying her hardest to avoid the very person who did it.

Theodore Nott was starting to be near creepy now. He would follow her everywhere, even if he wasn't that noticeable in some ways. He would just be there somewhere every time she would look behind. Whenever she would go to the library, he would stand at the corner and read something as well. He would give her sinister, spine-chilling looks that made the hairs on her nape stand, almost as if he was reminding her of the "deadline" of the decision she was forced to think about. Her answer would be no of course. Who did he think he was? But she just couldn't force herself to talk to him about it knowing that he just really scared the hell out of her. She couldn't do anything but just hide and avoid him in every possible way she could get, hoping that he would just get the message or would get tired of following her and would finally just go away.

Even before, his stares had always scared her. But all she had to do was to hold on closer to Draco and everything would be alright. She was untouchable when she was with him before. Now he had abandoned her into a desert filled with foragers and he didn't care one bit.

Draco returned to his mysterious attitude of disappearing somewhere. He looked surly and was always brooding all the time. Hermione wondered how his new girlfriend, Hestia Carrow, could even take his boorish nature. Hestia was just always serene and calm, and despite of being sorted into Slytherin, she seemed not to bother on blabbering about certain blood status and whatnot.

She was just there, and he was just there. They were like each others' garland. Just for a show, as others would say.

Yet, Hermione could tell that Draco seemed to like it better that way. He seemed to like Hestia more than Pansy, even. But that would be understandable, in Hermione's opinion.

She had heard it from a grapevine that Draco was trying to deliver a message to Astoria Greengrass, trying to pry his fiancée away so she would give her title up; as if it would matter, anyway. The poor girl could never really choose anyone for herself. It was a duty she could never break.

Others say that Draco Malfoy was just really lonely.

It was even as if he just wanted someone to be there for him.

He would go out of their common room late at night even if it wasn't his schedule to patrol the hallways. He seemed to have a secret but Hermione just couldn't put her finger on it.

Was it something to do with his training, months ago? Sometimes, whenever Hermione would lay awake at night and think about him, she couldn't help but compare the person before and after those training. He had changed drastically and it wasn't just because of their wrecked relationship. She knew it was more than that.

Sometimes, she wished she could just make it all okay, like before. No matter how rude he could get to the people around him, he would always come running into her seeing that she was the only one who understood him.

By then, maybe she could at least help him in whatever yoke he was carrying on his back. But she knew it was just wishful thinking. Never in a million years would Draco Malfoy turn for her comfort, ever again.

It was something that she really needed to accept.

He hated her. He basically thought she didn't exist anymore. But why couldn't she just accept that? What the hell was she waiting for anyway? Sometimes, she wondered if she really had lost it, or she was just too stupid to comprehend the fact that it was really over now.

"I'm glad you came here with me, Hermione," Ginny smiled genuinely at her, moving her bare feet in the clear waters. The action created little ripples, making the shaft flicker like diamonds on their distorted reflections.

It reminded Hermione of the boy on her summer.

"Sometimes, I think you're being too hard with yourself, you know. When you come to look at it all over again, I really think you shouldn't," Ginny added gently as she looked back at her. "It's not you."

Hermione was still too lost with her own little world and was taken aback with what Ginny said. She didn't know what to respond so she just stared at the younger girl with curiosity.

"Do you know that you've done so much to me and to the other people than what you've given yourself any credit for? The very first time I saw you, you were this unreachable girl surrounded by everyone, admired by everyone. I really didn't think we'd be friends after that confrontation with you and your brother. But you never hesitated to be friends with me, still; even if you already got yourself the crowd that you should be into. I admire you so much, Hermione, you know… how you carry yourself, how you seem to be unaware of the magnet you have, pulling every person around you," Ginny beamed at her before looking up at the clear sky once again, an act that Hermione couldn't do at the moment.

"I was so, so in love with Harry Potter before…" Ginny suddenly confessed, sighing and shaking her head while smiling at the memory. "Like I could do anything just to have one smile from him, but I just couldn't have his attention, you know. But then you came, and you made me realise something. You're so beautiful and smart and just so perfect, and you got guys being crazy over you without really doing anything. Did you even know how much you broke Ron's heart when you refused his invitation with Harry for a lunch that one time at Hogsmeade?" Ginny laughed softly at her.

Hermione frowned and had to think about what Ginny was talking about. It took seconds for her to finally remember that time. She was at Hogsmeade and she was so excited to finally purchase the book she wanted so much when she met Harry and Ron at the streets just a couple of blocks away from the bookstore she was intending to enter. They invited her to go with them for lunch. Hermione didn't want to let them down but she had already promised Adrian that she was going to spend her lunch with him. She really thought it was just a random invitation, that those two were just being polite seeing that they had bumped each other at the streets. She really didn't know the gravity of it.

She wasn't looking enough.

If only she did, then she would've avoided meeting those Durmstrang students on that bookshop who had tried to harass her. And Draco wouldn't have to save her...

Maybe then, when that incident didn't happen, she couldn't have had fallen for him even deeper than she already had.

Then, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt this much.

"You made me understand that loving yourself first could be the key so someone could love you back," Ginny continued. "So then, I worked hard in making myself better. I tried to venture out on other people. I loved myself, I tried to focus on myself, tried to look beautiful not for anyone but for me. You were this rare, pretty girl they couldn't have and so I tried to be like you. I tried to gain more confidence for myself. I realised then that the time I stopped chasing Harry, was the time he started on noticing me. It's all because of you, Hermione. You're an inspiration to me, you know. You're my role model."

Hermione had her lips slightly opened as she listened to the younger girl.

Ginny had so much faith in her.

She was suddenly ashamed of almost giving up, when this girl right here, believed in her so much.

When she was younger, when something started to hurt, she would cry. But crying meant lesser in those times, you would cry just because you're hurt, but that was the end of it. Eventually, you'd run again, hurt yourself again, and then cry again. But no matter how many times you'd fall, you'd still stand up anyway because you know that the pain was temporary. It was a provisional cycle.

Scars are just scars. When you close your eyes, you'll never see it. When you look somewhere, you'll never see it. But when you always try to look at it being etched in your once blemish-free skin, you'll just remember that painful moment it was created, like a phantom pain that was never really there anymore.

Was she making a phantasm of her pain? Or was she trying to stop her wounds from healing because she could never let go of the moment before the cut ever happened?

They were indeed people in this lifetime that a person could never meet. The world was too wide to have that kind of acquaintances. When you look around and see the persons around you, sometimes, you would wonder: what if you were born with a different life, or perhaps in a different lifetime and you never had the chance on meeting them?

But regardless of anything, despite of everything that had happened, she still could never see herself not meeting Draco.

He was her childhood. He was her life.

Until now, even when she would look at him from afar, sometimes she could still see that sweet, innocent smile of her little Draco; waiting for her while she would run down those stairs so they could go out and play once again.

It seemed so far away, it seemed like from a different life, even.

In this life, he would still smile, but never for her. He would walk around and hold somebody's hand, but never hers. He would kiss the girl… but the girl was never her any longer.

Maybe that was why it would hurt too much, because she wasn't allowing anything to mend; because she wasn't letting him go. Because every time she would see another girl beside him, she couldn't help to think that the place right there, was her spot before.

"Ginny? Do you ever wonder what it would feel like when it's always summer? Or when the weather's always sunny? Why couldn't it stay like that forever?" Hermione asked, stroking the slightly soggy grass with her palms.

"I don't know," Ginny shrugged. "I guess, maybe, it'll suddenly be boring if it's summer forever."

"Maybe," Hermione smiled softly. "People are strange. They can never be contented of something. One moment, they would love you too much, like they could die without you. Then another moment, they wanted you dead, instead."

"That's a scary notion," Ginny frowned at her, which made Hermione chuckle quietly. Maybe she was really losing it.

"But you know, once you love someone, you can't just forget about it that fast, except if you didn't really love that person at the first place and you only thought you did," Ginny said.

"Maybe he didn't really love me, then. Maybe he just thought he did," Hermione whispered. It surprised her that the revelation didn't even bring a single tear to fall from her eyes. Or maybe it was just because all of her tears had already been drained out.

The sky was beautiful as Hermione suddenly laid her back on the grass to finally stare at the heavens above. It was like an empire of sapphire hues, highlighted by some of the fair clouds floating magnificently on its vast, unspoken citadel.

Time, it fades away.

Each person had a story to tell. But it was no use living in forgotten times. You could never have them anymore, like being in the moment of the very first stolen kiss, being inside the barriers of your very first waterfall, being in the time of your first sunrise. Even the first dew drop in the morning needed to fade away when the sun asks it to.

It was in times like these that she would see his face, again.

But now, she was ready to look up and forget about the shadow of that face.

She just needed to accept it.

For the first time in her life, Hermione Granger had finally allowed her very first scar to heal.

Hermione was such in a good mood today. Her talk with Ginny helped a lot.

It was like being finally out of the prison she was trying to lock herself into.

It was finally time to focus on that opened window instead of the closed, rusty door.

Yes, she was no longer the Hermione Pucey everyone had looked up to. Some of the friends she had cherished so much before had turned their backs on her. Even the mother she had loved so much was blaming her for ruining their family.

But she never really lost her friends; she just lost those who were pretending to be one.

She never really lost a mother. She just gained her real one, the one who loved her dearly just as she should be loved.

She no longer lived in an enormous manor, with grand staircases and refined, grandiose chandeliers. But now, she was living in a home.

She no longer had the best robes, the most expensive garments and the best wardrobe, but at least she didn't need to hold her breath and hide her discomfort while wearing those painful corsets anymore.

Yes, she had to save a bit now if she wanted to buy those really expensive books that Draco had spoiled her with. But at least she could buy and read them with greater value now, knowing that this time, they came from her own pocket.

Her life wasn't really taken away from her, the real one was just given back and she needed to let go of the fake replica of it.

Now, she could open her eyes and look in the mirror to see that same girl, tied together with a smile, still heartbroken but almost there… almost there to finally stitch that deep wound.

It would form the very first scar. But scars are not only made to indicate that you were once hurt. They're also there to remind you that every wound actually closes and heals.

Now she understood better.

She had lost so much, but had actually gained even more.

The sun was beautiful, but she had to also appreciate the life that the rain brings.

Today, she was just in a better disposition that she had even hummed a little. It was a bit strange. But she supposed it was a good start.

She was trying to finish her schoolwork at the moment so she could go out with Harry, Ron and Ginny tomorrow. Harry promised to treat them at Hogsmeade. Ginny also wanted to go to the hair salon with Hermione afterwards. Hermione thought she really needed it. Although her curls had always been beautiful because of Nanny Demelza's constant efforts through the years, Hermione wanted to have a good haircut, knowing that her hair was already too long that it was by now reaching the small curve on her back just above her bottom. Draco had always wanted it to stay that long and she never had the chance to decide anything knowing that Lady Petrova controlled even the length of her hair and was always a bootlicker when it came to the Malfoys.

Hermione was already in the middle of her potion essay, which had incredibly reached over three parchments now when someone had suddenly sat next to her. The person's shadow made her frown a bit for that interrupted moment.

When she looked up however, she was suddenly taken aback that she was face to face with none other than Theodore Nott.

His face was just inches away from her now that she had almost hurt her neck by instantly backing away. But this act just seemed to amuse him more.

"W-Why are you here?" Hermione stuttered, looking at him with wide eyes as if she had just seen a ghost.

"Relax, love. I just came to ask you if you've thought about my proposal," he told her cockily, stealthily easing his way to get closer to her. He could bring forth this really daunting aura and it was scaring her. But the more she would look scared, the more he seemed to enjoy it.

Hermione hated it when he would just act as if everything was amusing him. She suddenly felt like an entertainer here. And so she had to say the next words, just to catch him off guard. "Actually, I did," she finally said.

"Oh? And what is it then, Princess?"

"Don't even call me that ever again," Hermione pursed her lips, stopping herself from completely crumpling the homework she had worked so hard with, repeating in her mind like a mantra that she was going out with Harry, Ron and Ginny tomorrow so she just couldn't mess it up.

"Why? Because it was Draco's pet name for you?" He taunted.

"It was nice talking to you," Hermione held her head high as she stood up while hastily gathering all the parchments on the table. He wanted to slap him for causing her that much pain when he said his name. He just knew how to goad her, didn't he?

"Whoa, hey, baby. You're a bit feisty today, huh? Alright, then. I won't call you Princess anymore if that's what you want. So… you were saying?" He sneered at her. Hermione wanted to hex the hell out of him just to wipe off that maddening smirk. But she had a better idea.

"If you want me to be your girlfriend, I think then that you'll have to work for it," she suddenly said, her voice sounding braver than the usual. It was fitting; she was a Gryffindor after all.

Theo stared at her for a few seconds as if she was barking mad before laughing as if she had just told him the funniest joke. "Excuse me? Why would I do that?"

Hermione expected this of course. "Exactly. Why would you?" She smiled before snatching the last of her things whileturning to walk away.

Hermione was so sure she had just won their private little battle; that was however, until he caught up with her and stood in front of her to impede her way. Hermione couldn't help but stare curiously at him. He was staring back, only it was more intense. His brows were furrowed as if he was trying to figure her out but he just couldn't. She didn't want to think about the implications of those stares but he seemed a bit… enthralled, somehow. She wasn't sure.

"Um… Is still there something you want to clear up with?" Hermione had to ask or she was sure he'd just stare at her forever. And she honestly didn't need that.

"You are difficult," he frowned at her as if she was an abstract art to behold. He seemed to really believe she would consider his offer and not just walk away. Well, his pride had clearly damaged even his sanity.

"Glad you know. I complicate things. And you'll just be wasting your time, so it's best for you to leave," Hermione nodded, now looking directly at him, daring him to oppose the fact she had just stated. She wasn't playing games here, and she certainly didn't need anyone to play it for her.

"I think… I'd like to complicate things a bit," he suddenly said quietly, which made her look up at him in scrutiny. Was he serious?

"W-Why?" She asked. She really couldn't think of a valid reason why someone like Theodore Nott, a pompous, rich, arrogant pureblood would ever waste his time for a mudblood like her. Draco never did, and he was supposed to be in love with her.

"Are you really that bored?" She couldn't help but add that question. She couldn't think of any convincing reason, really.

Theo smirked. "No. It's just because, I think that you're worth it," he told her before abruptly taking her hand, causing her to be shocked that even her extinct had totally forgotten to move her hand away. When he kissed her knuckles gently, she couldn't help but open her mouth a little, too surprised to keep it close at the moment. "If you want me to work hard for it, then expect me to do so." He winked at her before walking away, leaving Hermione speechless with a tingly hand and a jumbled state of mind.

Hermione was still in a state of bewilderment as she walked alone along the hallway, urging her feet to move her to the safety of their common room and pleading her mind to stop running an extra mile due to too much thinking about Nott's motives, whatever it really was.

She was about to bound on one of the stairs when she suddenly heard something along one of the hidden cupboards of the floor. She had always been a curious girl and she just needed to check if everything was okay. She was a prefect, after all, so it was in her nature to make sure that everything was in proper order.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" She called, but the occupants seemed to not hear her. She bit her lower lip and squeezed her hands together when she realised that the sounds were actually moans of pleasure.

She hesitated for a while as she stopped a good meters away from the source. This kind of thing was not her forte and she didn't want to walk in on something quite private. But she also knew she had a duty to keep.

"Okay, you can do this," she breathed before taking her wand out and pointing it to the cupboard's doorknob.

What she saw next, however, had almost made her lost consciousness.

The two lovers were intertwined with each other; they were almost half naked, with only their opened jumpers hanging on their shoulders covering the remaining parts of their nakedness. The girl still had her skirt on but her underpants had obviously been discarded as her legs were tangled into her lover's torso. The front of the guy's trousers was opened as he pounded in and out of her against the wall.

Hermione was too horrified that she couldn't even move a muscle to save herself. It wasn't just because it was her first time to witness such a thing. It wasn't just because she had just walked in the actual act itself. It was because the guy thrusting his hard length into the screaming girl next to him was Draco Malfoy.

"What the fuck!"

Hermione looked up and saw Draco's eyes glaring murder into her. It was still hooded with lust as he still didn't stop his current act, ramming harder into Hestia Carrow's eager entrance. The girl was too caught up with ecstasy as she reveled on Draco's ministrations, not knowing or rather not caring that another person was actually there as well. Perhaps, in some perverted, warped way, it had turned her on even more as she screamed his name over and over again.

"Get the fucking hell out of here, Granger! Dammit!"

Hermione had almost tripped as she struggled to get out and run as fast as she could from there.

Her heart was pounding too fast and too deep, it hurt. Her lungs struggled to suck in the moving air around her as she tried so hard to make her legs survive and go further. She hadn't even noticed the amount of water coming out from her blurry eyes.

Everything just hurt too much that she couldn't even breathe anymore. Finally, she had collapsed into a secluded wall, her legs felt like jelly as they were battered by imaginary trinkets, torturing her bit by bit as if she was a pincushion.

She couldn't do anything but just wail her heart out. She had never cried so hard like this before, almost like she was once again a newborn being hastily pulled out from her mother's safe sanctuary and finally being thrown into the cruel, pitiless world.

She had to clutch on her heart and scrunch her legs further into the wall, almost as if begging it to swallow her whole so she didn't have to face and stay in this vindictive life.

She was crying hysterically, she wasn't sure if she could ever even know how to stop anymore.

She just wanted to cry because it stung. It stung so much she was sure she could die of pain.

She was just so ready. She was struggling a bit but she was so ready to finally stitch the wounds that he had left, only to find it being freshly opened again, brutally.

Now she didn't even know how deep it went, or if it could still close and heal.

Right now, she just wanted to cry; cry for her loss, cry for her pitiable situation, just cry because everything had been too unjust.

She was just so wrong.

She lay on the cold floor, still on a crouching position, trying to nurse the wounds that would never heal again. Because it was the first scar, just being reopened by the very person she had first loved and hated.

Song for this chapter: "Tied Together with a Smile" by Taylor Swift

A/N: Argh! I'm so sorry! I promise to make it all better soon. Love it? Hate it? Just tell me. I'm just going to my cupboard to hide again. Teehee.

And thank you guys for the reviews! God bless!

Kisses,

Sue