I love you to the bones

Disclaimer: All belongs to JK Rowling except unfamiliar characters.

Warning/Notes: This is about an eating disorder, so may act as a trigger. If you don't like what the fic is about, or how I've written it, don't read. They are out of character. Thank you for all your great reviews…They mean so much. The couples at the moment are Blaise/Lexi, Dean/Ginny, Ron/Lav, Seamus/Parv, Harry/Mione, Draco/Pansy, but some aren't together yet, and I'm not saying we're going to focus in on them all. To fans of regrets, I will update soon, I'm just kind of, taking a mini-break. And Amy, I said I was going to base a new fic around a few aspects of the story, for one the girly gang, not do fics adjoining to this… Well I don't think I am. Never know how it'll turn out. Anyway, let's get on with the show!

Chapter Seven

The group listened as Dumbledore talked of relationships between the houses, the year, the conquers, the old fears, the happiness of the riddance of Voldemort. Hermione listened to his words, watched him smile, twinkle and show-off. Stupid old fool she thought. Soon the food appeared on the plates. She looked at the chicken imagining it was riddled with arsenic; she looked at the pumpkin juice visualizing that it was spiked, she looked at the chicken, pork, and god knows what else imagined it had needles inside. Everything was there to harm her. She got some dry salad, she picked out the tomatoes and declined Blaise's offer to some dressing, also Pansy's offer to mayonnaise, Parvati's offer of salt, Ron's offer of Pepper, Lavender's offer of salsa, Dean's offer of honey-mustard dressing, after all that someone else was about to shove something else fattening and disgusting her way,

"I'm fine!!" She said loudly making a few heads turn, "I don't need any dressings, sauces, coverings, seasonings or relishes of any sort. Dry salad is fine. Thanks." She put a cocky smile to the end and looked at her plate pushing the salad about a bit.

"But you've only had one mouthful!" Ginyn exclaimed,

"Who are you to examine my eating habits?" She questioned hotly, Ginny looked hurt and Seamus wrapped a comforting arm around her.

"We're just worried" Seamus said, "You can't just eat salad."

"It's negative calorie food you'll put no weight on?!" Pansy said,

"Oh… You think I don't know. Look I'm fine. I just fancy salad."

"Fine…" A few people said, everyone else just ate giving her a weird look. She felt singled out, and all alone. Tears started to form in her eyes, she felt that heavy feeling that signified she was about to burst into tears. She felt her eyes welling up and looked down, letting her bob cover her face. Everyone soon returned talking about the stunt they pulled off. Harry squeezed Hermione's knee softly, to show some support. She looked up, her eyes were shining with moisture, and he opened his arms for a hug. She fell into them easily, and she rested inside them. They stayed like that for a minute. Then pudding appeared and everyone busied themselves with food. Hermione sat with an empty pudding bowl watching the treacle tart, buns, cakes, and other delicacies be eaten. She sighed heavily, and Harry turned around,

"Been a long day eh?" He asked, among the rest of the gang's chatters,

"Yeah… Awfully long. I just want to go to bed and sleep." Her shoulders sunk even lower as she spoke, and her eyes seemed dull.

"You look kind of ill and peaky. And awfully thin, are you sure you don't want something more to eat?"

"No."

Soon the feast was over, Harry and Hermione had lagged behind to speak to Dumbledore.

"We want to thank you Professor." Hermione said,

"For this opportunity" Harry added, "We love our badges."

"God don't sound too much like me Harry!" Hermione said laughingly, and Dumbledore and Harry both chuckled heartily,

"I'll show you two your dormitory then." He said and quickly stride towards presumably the dormitory, they followed dutifully. "Did you enjoy your holiday together then?" Dumbledore asked as they moved,

"Yeah," Hermione said,

"Yeah. It was so much fun!" Harry said with a gleeful smile on his face, "We did loads of cool stuff."

"Nothing illegal I hope." Dumbledore said, and turned around and gave Hermione and Harry another of his twinkling, mischievous looks,

"Course not." Hermione said, trying to sound disapproving and doing a good job.

Dumbledore smiled,

"The password is?" He asked the portrait of a girl with a wreath of white daisy's in her hair,

"Daisy-child." She murmured in a soothing voice,

"Not breaking with tradition yet then?" He asked the portrait,

As they entered the room, they felt awed. As always, it was extravagant like the rest of the castle. A small shelf of books was in one of the corners, plush black leather sofa's, and other homely attributes were around. In the middle of the far back wall was a stairway leading up into darkness, or so it seemed.

"I'll leave you two to explore." Dumbledore said, and with a quick, light bow of his head he exited.

Hermione ehaded upstairs and saw a door directly opposite as she entered. She looked down the hallways and saw two more doors, and to the other side another two. She opened the one in front of her and inside was a gleaming white and gold bathroom, the bath was a sunken pool in the middle of the room. A shower stall was curved in the corner. There was full length mirrors all along the left hand side wall except for one door, on the rest of the wall was gleaming white tiles except for on the right wall where there was also a door leading out. She went into the right hand side door, and saw she had entered Harry's room. She saw his trunk, and an extravagant red silk bedspread, with a mahogany four poster. She then went back through the bathroom, and saw Harry,

"Wow. It's a bit grand eh?" He said,

"Yes. Extremely. That's your room back there" She nodded back with her head. "I think this is mine and the other two are spares I reckon."

She entered through the other door, into what was now her room. It had a crushed red satin bed sheet. With goldish yellow pillows and grand mahogany drawers, wardrobes and a dresser. She looked at the full length mirror with mahogany stand and frame and sighed at the vanity of the world. At the vanity of herself.

Both she and Harry's rooms were in an L-shape, so the doors to the exit of their rooms were at the end of the top floor corridor. She exited at the end of the corridor and entered another room through the other door. She saw plain white sheets on a simple bed; the room had a white shag pile carpet, and white walls. It was quite modern with glass bedside tables and stainless steel lamps on them. It looked a bit too clean but it was still nice. She noticed it had a little door, and entered to see a white bathroom with silver taps. It had a shower, toilet and basin in it. She then exited and went into the other spare bedroom that was exactly the same but on Harry's side. Presumably these were for when/if they had friends over.

Hermione entered her room and went over to her trunk.

"Routify" She said and flicked her wand, all her clothes exited the trunks and flew into drawers and onto hanger. The wardrobe door shut loudly once all was in place. She went over to the dresser and went through one of the draws. She got out some big black baggy pyjama bottoms and a black tank top from the draw underneath the first one. She threw them on speedily and got the pile of clothes she had worn that day and dropped them into the washing basket by one of her cupboards. She checked her cupboards for her books, quills, etc. and found them all. She then got her toothbrush out of her trunk and some toothpaste. She walked into the bathroom and started to clean her teeth. She finished and opened the mirror above the sink, like the Gryffindor girl's dormitory one and put her toothbrush in the white cup in there. She then got out "Melinda's magical mouthwash" and opened the lid. She poured some of the sea blue liquid into the lid and gargled it in her mouth she spat it out and turned the tap on to wash away the remnants. She put the bottle back in and was just about to shut the mirror when she felt some warm arms around her waist. She shut the mirror and saw her ugly reflection with Harry's beautiful one behind.

"Hey." She said, and saw him smile. She turned round and hugged him. He had some dark green and white tartan baggy pyjama bottoms on that looked at least a size or two too big, and no top. He was exposing his muscular bronze chest and she pulled away and looked at it. It was gorgeous, and it matched so well with his beautiful green eyes, and handsome facial features, she sighed against him, why would a guy like him be interested in a fat, ugly girl like her? He wouldn't. She pulled away.

"Thanks" She said quietly,

"For what?" He said,

"Not asking too many questions." She said gently. She gave his hand a squeeze and exited.

"It's fine. Goodnight." He said gently, "But you can' go on like you do. Eating hardly anything and snapping at people constantly."

"I'm sorry. G'night Harry." She said, and they exited opposite each other into their bedrooms.

…………………………

Hermione lay down in her bed. It was her second month at Hogwarts. Her seventh week, and one day. It was Sunday today. She was now making herself sick at least once a week, just so people could see she was eating, she'd fainted another ten times. Her tenth time was today, Harry said if she fainted one more time again, he'd physically pick her up and take her to Madam Pomfrey. All of the group were now in relationships besides Hermione and Harry. Not that Hermione and Harry didn't feel a connection. Hermione just couldn't get too close to anyone. Because ana came above everything. She sat back up and ignited a candle. She stood in front of the mirror and lifted off her tank top, she removed every item of clothing and stared at herself. She now looked emaciated. It wasn't just cling film skin, it was skin hanging off her. Her eyes looked sunken. She was surprised she was still alive. Her bones looked so thin, so brittle. She was like a twisted doll, about to break. It had started out wanting to be like a Barbie doll. But she soon found out it was impossible to be Barbie, her measurement were so small, and perfect that it was impossible to be them without dying. But if she had to die, she had to die. At least she could be perfect in death.

Her arms looked so stick-like that she was afraid to touch them as they might snap. Just a fly landing on them could cause a fracture, or so it seemed. It was twisted, her view of herself was so tainted. She thought she was obese! Or did she? She didn't really think that. She just conned herself to believe that, but she didn't. She just kept lying to herself praying that eventually she'd believe it. She could see she was the thinnest girl in the school by far. Yet she wasn't the happiest, she wasn't the prettiest, she wasn't the most content. In fact she was probably the ugliest, most depressed and most uncomfortable. She was sick of lying, but she couldn't stop. She couldn't eat. She walked around the hallways like a ghost, haunting the place. She wasn't herself anymore. And the change certainly wasn't for the better. But how can you stop yourself when you've already pushed yourself down life's long helter skelter?

You can't, sure you can grasp the sides; try to stop yourself hitting the rock bottom. But it's almost impossible to climb back up, and it's so much easier to just let yourself slide down. Of course Hermione had had days where she'd sat down at the table, picked out some chicken, some chips, some peas, some rice, some curry, something normal and said to herself in her head: Right Hermione, this is it. You are going to change if not for yourself, for everyone around you, your parents, your friends, for Harry. And she had sat down and eaten. But then the weight in her stomach. The bloated-ness. She couldn't take it. She'd moved an inch of her climb back up, yet it was harder than slipping a mile down and down the slide. And she'd given up.

And she couldn't climb back up now.

Her hope had gone.

……………………..

Yay! Some depressed-ness for you all! I'm sorry I skipped a bit… but it would've been boring writing. Next chapter is going to be fab! (Hopefully). People are oing to find out. Now Hermione at the moment is seriously… Sickeningly think. Like practically just bones, ok? I tried to describe that I think I did a pretty good job but I just wanted to clarify. K? Hope you liked it, leave me a review, and tell me how I can improve and which bits you like most so I can improve my general writing and your reading pleasure :)

Much love especially to my reviewers :)

-P.C