Hey guys, thanks for the reviews!! It's really made me get off my lazy ass
and get these chapters out faster. I really appreciate all the feedback.
Anyway, here's the next chapter.
Oh, and the trip went well, but I'm sure no one cares about that. I just wanted to clear up one of the questions I got in a review. I was asked if Hermiones appearance is better. The answer is Yes, Hermione looks better, but it's not that she really looked bad in the first place. She was always pretty, she would just hide it. She was really only plain looking because she was worried about doing what she wanted to her appearance. In gaining confidence, her inner and outer beauty are seen a lot more. That's all.
Sorry if someone doesn't get that, but that is the way I want to portray my Hermione. I don't want her to be some bleach blonde bimbo, because that's rather out of character, don't you think? I know this Hermione is out of character somewhat, but I think they all have to be in fanon. Ooookay, I'm really done with this really long authors note. On to the chapter.
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The train jerked slightly as it came to a stop, seeming to heave a huge sigh of relief. The jerk wasn't enough to throw anyone off their step or anything, but it was enough to brutally throw Hermione out of her daze.
Shortly after that complete sod Malfoy had left her in peace, she had begun to stare out the window. At first she saw clearly defined shapes, that of land and trees, but soon everything outside had blurred to just a mixture of shapes.
She watched this without really seeing as she was in somewhat of a trance- like state. She was thinking of anything and everything. She was thinking of nothing. Grinning to herself, she thought that it was like the meditation her mother was thoroughly convinced was a waste of time.
She shook her head and rubbed her eyes lazily with the backs of her hands. She was slightly confused for a moment, but soon she realized why the train must have come to a stop. She picked up her robe and bag while rushing out the door.
She hurried through the deserted train with its empty compartments and jumped the steps off the train. She paused only a brief second to throw her robe on, not bothering to flatten or straighten it to work out the creases. Then she mixed herself among the confusion of scared 1st years and the other years talking and walking at a leisurely pace.
Some were walking at a pace too leisurely, and Hermione knew they must have been grasping the moments of freedom they had.
She watched blankly as Mrs. McGonagall, her favorite teacher, walked by with what could only be the 5th and 6th year prefects. She could see the badges shining brightly even in night sky.
She could imagine the tremendous shock she had given her teacher when McGonagall found out Hermione had declined the offer to be a prefect this year.
Not that she had been a very good prefect last year. She was almost always too nervous to give out any serious ass kicking.
She studied the new 5th year prefects, only recognizing one Ginny Weasley. One of the faces was vaguely familiar but she couldn't but a name to it. Not really caring much, Hermione looked at the 6th year prefects; seeing that all of them were the same one's as last year, minus her obviously.
There was Terry for Ravenclaw, Hannah for Hufflepuff, and Blaise for Slytherin. (Hermione thought this odd since Blaise broken every rule the school had at least twice. But she was a Slytherin, after all, and they didn't seem to get any better then that.) Dean seemed to have taken Hermione's place this year.
The big shocker for Snape, and the huge relief for all normal teachers was Draco Malfoy refusing the offer of prefect for the second year in a row. He had the second highest grades in the school, but he was hardly prefect material.
Apparently, he didn't think so either.
He probably just liked breaking the rules too much.
And Hermione doubted he had any sense of responsibility.
Draco Malfoy, your everyday typical bad boy.
The thought made her want to roll her eyes.
Hermione had never wanted to be a Prefect. Last year, she had done it to avoid all the nosy questions of her classmates. She had done it because she was The Hermione Granger, and she had to be a Prefect.
But not this year.
She would go from being An Ignored Fake Something to An Ignored Nothing, and this she considered a very large leap forward.
----------------------------
Hermione took an empty seat at the Gryffindor table, the only one surrounded by nothing but other empty chairs. She would have liked it to stay that way. She really, really would have liked that. Unfortunately Harry and Ron decided to sit across the table from her. Which really was understandable, it was the last cluster of empty seats available.
She was aware of this.
However, she let out a string of obscenities for a good two minutes straight and cursed her luck twice over.
It ended up that she was sitting directly across from Ron, and soon she cringed as she realized why they needed more seats. Lavender sat across from Harry and smiled at him with her porcelain doll, heavily made up face. Parvati went across the table and sat next to Ron. She automatically attached herself to his arm as if she were a leech.
Hermione glared in disgust as Ron grinned at Parvati.
Dumbledore stood up to announce the beginning of the sorting, but Hermione couldn't tear her eyes away from the horror movie in front of her. She couldn't take it anymore, being ignored would be okay, but not being ignored and audience to this disturbing display.
So she did something no one had ever done before.
This was becoming the norm for her.
She got up from the table and went to sit on the floor, out of hearing range and seeing range to the love-fest. This caused even Harry and Ron to stare at her with shock for a long moment, along with most of the other occupants of the Great Hall.
Except perhaps the new 1st years, because they had no idea this was that odd of an occurrence.
The teachers stared dumbfounded at her for a moment, but could do nothing about it, there was nothing in the rulebook stating this wasn't allowed.
Hermione knew this because during her year as a prefect, she had read and memorized the whole rulebook. That was never really helpful to her, but she did tend to run out of homework quickly. Actually, Fred and George had memorized the whole thing in their first year, but this was just so they could find some loophole to get them out of trouble.
Or maybe they were counting how many they broke?
She sat on the cold, hard tile floor that hurt her bum horribly with a slight smile on her face, happy to get away from Harry, Ron, and the clown- faced bimbo twins.
Hermione could place as much distance between herself and her former best friends as she wanted, but she could never stop her mind from wandering to them.
Which is what her rebellious brain did quite often.
She was constantly plagued with happy memories of their best friendship. Although she was angry enough with them to never talk to them again or perhaps even hex their mouths off (which was sounding like a good idea), she was only human and it still hurt.
Not that she would ever admit that.
The memories were mocking her. She knew they were. They were chuckling in her face. Harry and Ron were bastards, but it was almost impossible to even think this about them when all she saw were their Cheshire cat grins on Christmas days.
She was very tired of caring about them, but they were her first best friends. They had no doubt always used her in some way, but at one point they had generally cared for her. What had happened?
Hermione was growing incessantly angry with herself as well as Harry and Ron. What the hell? Why couldn't she just forget about them and move on?
As they obviously have forgotten her.
-------------------------
Hermione was dragging herself up the revolving staircase (that thankfully wasn't revolving now) towards her Common Room. She had gotten held up behind most everyone to have a friendly chat with Malfoy.
Haha. Friendly, indeed.
He had said something like, "Say, mudblood, do refrain from dirtying up a floor I have to walk on by sitting on it, alright?"
Hermione yawned before she replied, "Come on, Malfoy, do we have to do this now? As much as I enjoy our lovely little talks I'm rather tired right now, and I would like to go to bed."
He looked at her for a moment and asked her something full of malice, but with a little touch of curiosity. This was an odd occurrence, he was never curious about anything that had to do with her.
"Why did you dirty up the floor anyway, Granger? Trying to make a point? Because I'd think you're actually helping our cause, Mudbloods having to sit on the floor and all. You know."
She regarded him for a moment with A Look, then, "Because I was more comfortable there then at the Gryffindor table. That's all. Not really trying to make a point, but if I was, it would probably be more about people who are prejudiced enough to make a big deal of someone sitting on the floor."
She had just smirked and left him there.
Hermione had now come upon her common room and wonderful thoughts of a warm bed filled her head. This was before she realized she had no idea what the password was.
Well, damn.
Hermione sighed heavily and stared at the portrait.
"Stupid fucking Gryffindors?" She said hopefully.
"Actually, it's 'Butterbear is good. But yours was a good guess." A voice behind Hermione told her. It was a voice she recognized easily. That didn't stop her from wishing it wasn't him.
She turned to face Harry, who had snuck up on her for the second time in one day. This really had to stop.
"Hey, 'Mione." He said sheepishly. He looked rather embarrassed to be talking to her.
She narrowed her eyes at him, "Don't call me that, Harry."
He stared at her, kind of surprised, "I thought you liked that name?"
"I don't anymore."
"Has EVERYTHING changed with you, Hermione? It seems like you're a completely different person." He sounded like he was on that first step to giving into the irritation bubbling and rising in his stomach.
"Wake up Harry, you didn't know me in the first place." She said this without much conviction; she was tired of blaming, tired of being so angry. She was just stating a fact now.
She turned her back on him and walked through the portrait. She felt the familiar tingle in the back of her eyes, the stinging feeling. She would not cry.
Harry did not deserve that.
She hurried up to her dorm and shut the door, wanted to slam it with all her might. Maybe even opening it and slamming it again. Almost everyone was asleep already though, so she didn't.
She busied herself with punching the oversized pillow she had instead.
She must have punched it for 10 minutes straight before she was finally calm enough to stop and wait for her ragged breath to stop.
'I wish I could get out of here.'
--------------------
And so ends the first day back! Haha sorry I made you all wait so long. FF.N was down for a while and then this chapter got erased on accident a few times. Anyway, I know not much is really happening yet, but I'm working on it. Gotta build up and stuff, I don't want to just jump into everything. I hate stories like that. Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews!
Oh, and the trip went well, but I'm sure no one cares about that. I just wanted to clear up one of the questions I got in a review. I was asked if Hermiones appearance is better. The answer is Yes, Hermione looks better, but it's not that she really looked bad in the first place. She was always pretty, she would just hide it. She was really only plain looking because she was worried about doing what she wanted to her appearance. In gaining confidence, her inner and outer beauty are seen a lot more. That's all.
Sorry if someone doesn't get that, but that is the way I want to portray my Hermione. I don't want her to be some bleach blonde bimbo, because that's rather out of character, don't you think? I know this Hermione is out of character somewhat, but I think they all have to be in fanon. Ooookay, I'm really done with this really long authors note. On to the chapter.
----------------
The train jerked slightly as it came to a stop, seeming to heave a huge sigh of relief. The jerk wasn't enough to throw anyone off their step or anything, but it was enough to brutally throw Hermione out of her daze.
Shortly after that complete sod Malfoy had left her in peace, she had begun to stare out the window. At first she saw clearly defined shapes, that of land and trees, but soon everything outside had blurred to just a mixture of shapes.
She watched this without really seeing as she was in somewhat of a trance- like state. She was thinking of anything and everything. She was thinking of nothing. Grinning to herself, she thought that it was like the meditation her mother was thoroughly convinced was a waste of time.
She shook her head and rubbed her eyes lazily with the backs of her hands. She was slightly confused for a moment, but soon she realized why the train must have come to a stop. She picked up her robe and bag while rushing out the door.
She hurried through the deserted train with its empty compartments and jumped the steps off the train. She paused only a brief second to throw her robe on, not bothering to flatten or straighten it to work out the creases. Then she mixed herself among the confusion of scared 1st years and the other years talking and walking at a leisurely pace.
Some were walking at a pace too leisurely, and Hermione knew they must have been grasping the moments of freedom they had.
She watched blankly as Mrs. McGonagall, her favorite teacher, walked by with what could only be the 5th and 6th year prefects. She could see the badges shining brightly even in night sky.
She could imagine the tremendous shock she had given her teacher when McGonagall found out Hermione had declined the offer to be a prefect this year.
Not that she had been a very good prefect last year. She was almost always too nervous to give out any serious ass kicking.
She studied the new 5th year prefects, only recognizing one Ginny Weasley. One of the faces was vaguely familiar but she couldn't but a name to it. Not really caring much, Hermione looked at the 6th year prefects; seeing that all of them were the same one's as last year, minus her obviously.
There was Terry for Ravenclaw, Hannah for Hufflepuff, and Blaise for Slytherin. (Hermione thought this odd since Blaise broken every rule the school had at least twice. But she was a Slytherin, after all, and they didn't seem to get any better then that.) Dean seemed to have taken Hermione's place this year.
The big shocker for Snape, and the huge relief for all normal teachers was Draco Malfoy refusing the offer of prefect for the second year in a row. He had the second highest grades in the school, but he was hardly prefect material.
Apparently, he didn't think so either.
He probably just liked breaking the rules too much.
And Hermione doubted he had any sense of responsibility.
Draco Malfoy, your everyday typical bad boy.
The thought made her want to roll her eyes.
Hermione had never wanted to be a Prefect. Last year, she had done it to avoid all the nosy questions of her classmates. She had done it because she was The Hermione Granger, and she had to be a Prefect.
But not this year.
She would go from being An Ignored Fake Something to An Ignored Nothing, and this she considered a very large leap forward.
----------------------------
Hermione took an empty seat at the Gryffindor table, the only one surrounded by nothing but other empty chairs. She would have liked it to stay that way. She really, really would have liked that. Unfortunately Harry and Ron decided to sit across the table from her. Which really was understandable, it was the last cluster of empty seats available.
She was aware of this.
However, she let out a string of obscenities for a good two minutes straight and cursed her luck twice over.
It ended up that she was sitting directly across from Ron, and soon she cringed as she realized why they needed more seats. Lavender sat across from Harry and smiled at him with her porcelain doll, heavily made up face. Parvati went across the table and sat next to Ron. She automatically attached herself to his arm as if she were a leech.
Hermione glared in disgust as Ron grinned at Parvati.
Dumbledore stood up to announce the beginning of the sorting, but Hermione couldn't tear her eyes away from the horror movie in front of her. She couldn't take it anymore, being ignored would be okay, but not being ignored and audience to this disturbing display.
So she did something no one had ever done before.
This was becoming the norm for her.
She got up from the table and went to sit on the floor, out of hearing range and seeing range to the love-fest. This caused even Harry and Ron to stare at her with shock for a long moment, along with most of the other occupants of the Great Hall.
Except perhaps the new 1st years, because they had no idea this was that odd of an occurrence.
The teachers stared dumbfounded at her for a moment, but could do nothing about it, there was nothing in the rulebook stating this wasn't allowed.
Hermione knew this because during her year as a prefect, she had read and memorized the whole rulebook. That was never really helpful to her, but she did tend to run out of homework quickly. Actually, Fred and George had memorized the whole thing in their first year, but this was just so they could find some loophole to get them out of trouble.
Or maybe they were counting how many they broke?
She sat on the cold, hard tile floor that hurt her bum horribly with a slight smile on her face, happy to get away from Harry, Ron, and the clown- faced bimbo twins.
Hermione could place as much distance between herself and her former best friends as she wanted, but she could never stop her mind from wandering to them.
Which is what her rebellious brain did quite often.
She was constantly plagued with happy memories of their best friendship. Although she was angry enough with them to never talk to them again or perhaps even hex their mouths off (which was sounding like a good idea), she was only human and it still hurt.
Not that she would ever admit that.
The memories were mocking her. She knew they were. They were chuckling in her face. Harry and Ron were bastards, but it was almost impossible to even think this about them when all she saw were their Cheshire cat grins on Christmas days.
She was very tired of caring about them, but they were her first best friends. They had no doubt always used her in some way, but at one point they had generally cared for her. What had happened?
Hermione was growing incessantly angry with herself as well as Harry and Ron. What the hell? Why couldn't she just forget about them and move on?
As they obviously have forgotten her.
-------------------------
Hermione was dragging herself up the revolving staircase (that thankfully wasn't revolving now) towards her Common Room. She had gotten held up behind most everyone to have a friendly chat with Malfoy.
Haha. Friendly, indeed.
He had said something like, "Say, mudblood, do refrain from dirtying up a floor I have to walk on by sitting on it, alright?"
Hermione yawned before she replied, "Come on, Malfoy, do we have to do this now? As much as I enjoy our lovely little talks I'm rather tired right now, and I would like to go to bed."
He looked at her for a moment and asked her something full of malice, but with a little touch of curiosity. This was an odd occurrence, he was never curious about anything that had to do with her.
"Why did you dirty up the floor anyway, Granger? Trying to make a point? Because I'd think you're actually helping our cause, Mudbloods having to sit on the floor and all. You know."
She regarded him for a moment with A Look, then, "Because I was more comfortable there then at the Gryffindor table. That's all. Not really trying to make a point, but if I was, it would probably be more about people who are prejudiced enough to make a big deal of someone sitting on the floor."
She had just smirked and left him there.
Hermione had now come upon her common room and wonderful thoughts of a warm bed filled her head. This was before she realized she had no idea what the password was.
Well, damn.
Hermione sighed heavily and stared at the portrait.
"Stupid fucking Gryffindors?" She said hopefully.
"Actually, it's 'Butterbear is good. But yours was a good guess." A voice behind Hermione told her. It was a voice she recognized easily. That didn't stop her from wishing it wasn't him.
She turned to face Harry, who had snuck up on her for the second time in one day. This really had to stop.
"Hey, 'Mione." He said sheepishly. He looked rather embarrassed to be talking to her.
She narrowed her eyes at him, "Don't call me that, Harry."
He stared at her, kind of surprised, "I thought you liked that name?"
"I don't anymore."
"Has EVERYTHING changed with you, Hermione? It seems like you're a completely different person." He sounded like he was on that first step to giving into the irritation bubbling and rising in his stomach.
"Wake up Harry, you didn't know me in the first place." She said this without much conviction; she was tired of blaming, tired of being so angry. She was just stating a fact now.
She turned her back on him and walked through the portrait. She felt the familiar tingle in the back of her eyes, the stinging feeling. She would not cry.
Harry did not deserve that.
She hurried up to her dorm and shut the door, wanted to slam it with all her might. Maybe even opening it and slamming it again. Almost everyone was asleep already though, so she didn't.
She busied herself with punching the oversized pillow she had instead.
She must have punched it for 10 minutes straight before she was finally calm enough to stop and wait for her ragged breath to stop.
'I wish I could get out of here.'
--------------------
And so ends the first day back! Haha sorry I made you all wait so long. FF.N was down for a while and then this chapter got erased on accident a few times. Anyway, I know not much is really happening yet, but I'm working on it. Gotta build up and stuff, I don't want to just jump into everything. I hate stories like that. Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews!