Growing up
Chapter 1: Joe
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Hermione Granger. Quite an ordinary girl except for some facts, for an example, she's a witch, and not just any witch but the smartest witch in her year at Hogwarts, her school.
Another special thing is her hidden secret.
She never wanted to grow up and she doesn't want to. She never wanted to be a girl and she doesn't want to participate in girls evil mind games, games of love, gossip and betrayal.
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Hermione Granger and this is her story...
"She's so ugly, with that absolutely dreadful hair and only because she had her teeth shrunk she believe she's beautiful"
"I know! And because she's friends with Harry and Ron she think she's some kind of hero or something"
"Doesn't she know that everyone think she's ugly and boring? The guys despise her and the girls don't want to befriend her because she has her nose in a book all the time"
"I've even heard Ron and Harry speak of her as boring, discussing if they should really be her friend anymore"
They both giggled and said goodnight to each other without knowing there was a little girl lying with closed drapes in her bead facing the other direction staring numbly at the drape trying not to cry.
The girl was Hermione, the very subject of their evil accusing. But you couldn't blame them right? For they are only girls, corrupted by society.
Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, they are the leaders of her silent tormenters.
Oh, girls are really clever. They plan in silence making their victim hurt only when others aren't looking using weapons such as looks, talks behind backs and words that stung like the sharpest of knives. And if you are lucky to be their friend you could participate in these simple and terrible funs.
But Hermione never wanted to, neither participate nor be the victim. In secret she wanted to be a boy in the aspect of not being tormented for not wanting to act like a girl and to be able to climb trees, to play sports, to get dirty without her mother staring at her with widened eyes telling tales of groundings and other punishments.
Even if she was fourteen she still wished she was nine, happily sword-fighting with her friends in her hometown.
Flashback
"Eric, you stinking evil poor excuse of a pirate, I'll push my sword through you're inner garments so deep you could stare at them with horror knowing your non-existing heart would never beat again"
"Well Joe, that took an awful lot of time for you to think up but I'll still kill you like the dirt-bag you really are"
The two kids fought furiously on top of the playhouse roof, one hero, the other an evil pirate. One with short blonde hair with a bandana over one of his eyes and with jeans and a ripped and dirty t-shirt telling the world he's the most evil pirate there ever was.
The other one with long bushy brown hair tied up with a piece of rope and with a mud tattoo on her forehead saying 'H' for hero and her flowery pants torn at the knees meaning she had suffered some defeat but still was fighting to defeat her plague, the evil pirate Eric.
They fought for several minutes with their swords made of wood swishing through the air with skill that would surprise any grownups, but fortunately no grownups were watching. Though there was a crowd of four boys watching, having forgot their own fights to watch the battle playing in front of them.
"Give up you filthy bastard" Joe said with force.
They were standing against each other with their swords crossed and looks of determination on both faces.
"Never"
Then the pirate Eric tried to hit Joe with his foot, but Joe was faster with the sword aiming for his left arm. The strike succeeded and Eric crumbled in pain and defeat.
The crowd below cheered and climbed up on the little roof to congratulate the winning hero while the defeated pirate was sitting down sulking.
"Not fair Hermione" He said taking of his bandana and blinking his eyes.
"My name is not Hermione, my name is Joe and it was fair too" she said and stood above him with her head held high and the respect and jealousy shining in the other boys eyes.
"Next time I'm going to play the hero..." Eric said his face shining up at the thought, even though he had played hero countless times.
"I'll still kill you" Then she smirked and lunged on him tickling with all her force and all the boys joined in screaming and fighting and Eric forgot all about his defeat like kids at nine years old do mostly"
The tickling fight soon turned into a fistfight moving away form the playhouse roof and onto the grass below but all of them were still laughing their heads off hitting each other with pretended forcefulness.
Their happiness was soon turned when three girls approached them giggling and pointing, mostly at Hermione and her roped hair and torn pants.
Soon all boys noticed them and slowly stopped the fighting.
"What do you want" The smallest one called Mike told them and crossed his arms.
"We'd like a word with miss Granger" one of them said and giggled
"What you can say to Hermione you can tell us too" said another boy, a brown haired boy called Roy, also crossing his arms.
Hermione herself just rubbed her dirty hands off on her legs staring at the girls angrily, the former playful fight forgotten.
The boys didn't know, but when they were not around the girls talked behind her back, pulling her hair making her miserable in every way an innocent nine-year old could be.
Her teachers knew that she was a fighter and blamed her for every single bruise on the other girls, for the boys seldom hit girls, even at that age.
She hated them so much and she just wanted to escape into the dream world she and her friends created.
She didn't know what they could want, but she knew she would want to cry afterwards. Even if she never did she beat her pillow and fell asleep yearning for the tears that would never come and for the happiness she only had when she played games with the boys, for the sight of girls brought so many painful memories to her and she deeply regretted she was one.
Girls had always teased her and she didn't know why.
And now when she was staring numbly at the girls who would make her want to cry it dawned on her. She knew the boys would forget her when growing, she knew the girls would always torment her.
She never wanted to grow up.
She wanted to stay in this time. Playing every day with her friends, plotting against the girls and being called Joe instead of Hermione.
Then she did a thing surprising all of them.
She hugged the nearest boy, being Eric and then she ran straight against the girls spitting the nearest one in the face showing her on top of the others so they fell down in the dirt, but then something strange happened. The girls' hair all grew darker and darker turning gooey and disgusting. They were full of tar and the girls were screaming and the boys were staring at her in wonder
Then she ran away as fast as she could, first looking back at the girls smirking but with a look of surprise in her eyes and then she looked at the boys mouthing a silent goodbye.
She decided this was the best way to say goodbye, for she had heard her parents talk about moving, and she had the feeling it would happen today, and if it didn't, well, then she had hell to pay at school the day after tomorrow.
Hermione were right. Her parents had begun packing and her mother dragged her over to a corner telling her the dreadful news about their hasty moving she already knew about.
She knew she would never have as good friends as the ones she had here, and for once she shed a tear, knowing she was right.
And she was, because in her new school the girls didn't like her, but when she got turned down by the girls she got the surprise that the boys didn't want to know of her either.
That's when she started studying.
She studied and read until her eyes bled and her head was falling due to tiredness. Inside she still had the dream of never having to grow up and she cherished her name Joe, knowing that no one would ever use it on her again.
Then one day she got the Hogwarts letter and she went away, happily, leaving two different groups of tormenters behind only to receive many more.
Even though she was set with the idea of not getting any friends she got chocked with the way everyone despised her and her studious and hidden childishness.
During the days she studied and got teased by her classmates, but during evenings she went out fighting exciting battles against trees and bushes, flying high in the sky in her dreams and running, swimming, climbing trees and doing life-threatening things became her everyday.
After an eternity of loneliness and funny imaginary battles she made friends, the circumstances involving heavy teasing, toilet escaping and a gigantic troll.
Harry and Ron became almost as good friends as the ones she had when she was nine, but she didn't want to show them her other side, her hidden, secret side. Why she didn't really know, but it didn't really seem right, and with Voldemort threatening them all she needed to be her studious self.
And it saved them; more times than any one of them knew.
End flashback
She was still lying in her bead listening to the soft breathing of her dorm mates hating every second of her life.
No one allowed her to be a kid, she had tried, but that time Harry and Ron just stared at her as if crazy, and the gossiping got worse, so she wouldn't make the same mistake again.
And now Harry and Ron probably wouldn't even stare at her as if crazy, they wouldn't stare at her at all, hiding from her making her life even more miserable.
She knew she was being silly and that there was people in the world having more serious issues than not being able to act yourself, but she just wished with all her heart that she could fly away from it all forgetting all about this world.
Back then she didn't know how right she would prove to be...