A/N And here's the next part, rather more angsty than the first, but that's how it goes. The R rating is definitely deserved now, but it's not (and never will be) an NC-17 called R. If you want that, may I suggest adultfanfiction, or lordandladysnape.  Thanks to Lucyferina, for being my first reviewer!  I hope it stays interesting…

She stood at the top of the tower.  It was cold, and she was alone.  The wind lashed out at her, causing the scanty clothes on her far-too-thin body to whip around her, chafing skin already raw, chapping lips already bleeding, and causing tears to spring to eyes that were far too familiar with the sensation.  She contemplated the landscape, barely noticing the wind or the chill.  It looked so calm, so soothing, and so completely alien to anything she had felt so far.

Coming to Hogwarts had been a blessing, an escape from her life.  Away from the mother who stared at her only child with empty eyes, blank devoid of all emotion, all human tenderness beaten out of her.  Away from her father, the man responsible for her cowed mother, the man responsible for her own depressing childhood.  A drunken haze in his eyes, and a permanent angry scowl on his face.  As if the physical trauma had not been enough – the repeated beatings, frequent sporadic slaps and scratches, his sadistic enjoyment he found in watching her scream – he added emotional abuse to his already lengthy forays into the physical.  If she did not return home for the holidays, he would kill her mother. 

Hermione did not love the woman – if anything, there was a guilt for not loving her, and a detached sort of pity.  But she could not have the murder on her own head, could not face the blood on her own hands if her father made true his promise to kill her mother.  And so she returned with each holiday, outwardly smiling, outwardly carefree.  And at school, buried herself in the mask she put on - bossy, intelligent, and self-assured. 

She had friends; two of them, who saw her as an encyclopaedia on legs, an easy, low-maintenance source of homework help.  She clung to the relationship, the only contact she had with friendship and love that everybody else seemed to take for granted. 

The wind struck more fiercely, howling now, pushing her closer to the edge of the tower with its might.  She gazed out longingly.  If only she were to climb the step.  Three feet, and then she could allow the wind to push her wherever it pleased, and sink into oblivion.  Painless.  That thought was so enticing.  To be eternally free of pain, physical and emotional, to melt into the dark void of nothingness, would be ecstasy. 

Then she felt the all too familiar icy fingers curl around her neck, drawing her back from the edge of the promising fall, fingers that could not be mistaken for the wind, tightening their grip, scratching and bruising the already tender skin beneath them. 

"It looks tempting, doesn't it?" His cold voice asked.  "So very tempting.  You won't make that jump, slut.  Not while I have use for you yet," and he laughed, a cold, mirthless laugh that reminded her so much of her father.  And the pain that always went with her father's presence returned, and ripping of her clothes – the one abuse her father had not indulged in - taken out on her now.  She wanted to scream, felt the sound rising up in her throat, and then the sharp slap on her face that told her she had not done well enough in hiding the desire to defend herself.

"You know the penalty, bitch.  This is my payment, for keeping your mother out of the hands of my father."  It was always the same threat – the life of her mother, the woman she did not love, did not even know, but could not afford to let go, could not deal with the guilt of knowing she had murdered her own mother… the woman who had once shown her kindness.  The pictures proved that, if her own memory could not.  Her real mother was long dead, killed by her father, leaving only a shell with dark eyes remaining.  She could not have that blood on her hands. 

"You know your place, Granger," he snarled, slapping her again and smirking at her wince.  "I have but to say the word to my father, and your parents will both be dead."  And she winced as Draco Malfoy laughed.