Disclaimer: I own nothing!
A.N. I hope you guys like this. This chapter is kind of like a prologue told in Hermione's POV, so…if you want it to continue, please review! Okay? Okay. Here we go…
My life wasn't as perfect as everyone thinks it was. People saw me as the perfect child, when, deep inside, I was the exact opposite.
I was afraid of people telling me that I was no good, so I scolded myself into being the best.
Nobody saw who I really was, not even my best friends. I was afraid that, if it got out, people would treat me differently; like I was a glass bowl. But either way, I was afraid that people might discover that, who I was, shouldn't…be accepted.
Now that I think back on it, I was afraid of a lot of things. But, what I was mostly afraid of was failure.
I didn't want people to think of me as stupid, because I wasn't. So, I became like a child prodigy, hiding behind all of my books and brains and homework. It was like my security blanket.
When I was young, I didn't need that blanket. My friends and family provided it for me. But, when I got my Hogwarts letter, it sort of…disappeared into the darkness. I searched and searched, but could never truly find the happiness I once felt before that fateful day in June.
As a child, I was seen as one of the boys. Always playing sports and videogames with them. To the girls, I was a way to get to the boys, and to the boys, I was just another one of them. I was content with that.
But, after my sixth year at Hogwarts, I came back changed. I no longer looked at the boys as my best friends or the girls as people I despised. I saw them as everyone else sees them. The boys as reasons to get up in the morning and the girls as my new best friends.
I had completely changed.
The people who had once accepted me, no longer did. And, as a result, I hid. I hid behind the one person I knew would hide me: Ron. I knew that, as long as I was with him, I would be protected, even if he didn't know what he was protecting me from.
But, one day, everything changed again. I didn't see Ron as anything anymore. He was just something of my past; something that I had to change.
So, I left Ron and the rest of the wizarding world behind.
I was falling. Falling into an abyss, turning into the people I despised; people who ran from what they believed in. And, even if I did want to win the war beside Harry and Ron, I knew that it not only wouldn't, but couldn't happen.
I had lost my security blanket. It was gone forever. And, so, I felt no guilt in leaving them to fight. I didn't trust them any longer, and I knew that they didn't trust me.
That's the way life went.
But, after my disappearance, something strange happened. And I'm still not quite sure what it was to this day. But an unexpected person showed up on my doorstep, someone from my past life as a witch, and I, surprisingly, invited him in with open arms.
I'm not sure why I did it. It might have been because I needed someone around me, or because I thought I should give him a second chance. Or, maybe, it was because he came to me. He was in such desperate need for help, that I was the one person that he trusted.
I liked the feeling.
I took him in, and we soon shared a loving friendship. That friendship turned to a peculiar liking and I no longer saw him the way that I did before.
It was happening again. It was happening again, and I needed out.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was running again. Not knowing that he'd come after me.
He saved me from myself, and he didn't even realize it.
He helped me get past the fact that I was something that I didn't want to be.
I forgave him. For everything he had ever done to me, and it was a risky gamble, but it paid off.
Nobody knew what was killing me inside, but he did somehow. He knew, and he helped.
And the only thing I can do is thank him.
So, thank you, Draco Malfoy. Thank you. For everything.
A.N. SO? What did you think? Were you kinda confused? Don't worry, it happens. If you want me to make this a prologue and go into the story in better detail, review. And, if you want to know what Hermione that was so disgusting about herself, you better review, because the only way it'll make sense is if I make this a hardcore story.