A/N: Yay! I updated another story! Congratulate me! Jk. Anyway, I haven't been able to update anything recently, but yesterday I started to update an LWD story called Faster, and I figured I might as well try my hardest to update this one as well. So this chapter is kind of short, but I planned it that way. The next chapter is kind of short as well, but it should be out right after this one so you get two at once and the length doesn't matter as much. Anyway...Enjoy! Read & Review! Thanks -Mac
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Chapter Four
I Might Like This
I'm starting to enjoy my little changes. I'm not invisible anymore. I relish in the little extra attention I get. Harry insists I was always seen. But I have to disagree. I was predictable. I was only Hermione the bookworm--always studying, always reading, always in the library. People don't pay attention to something they've seen before, a million times over. But this new Hermione I've created grabs your attention. I do the same old things in a new way--with a new air about me--and people look. I know it's a little superficial (and completely unlike me) but I like it when people look.
I love feeling confident and strong all the time. I used to walk around feeling small and miniscule, because Ron made me feel such a way all the time. Now I can hold my head up high. I don't feel ashamed about who I am, because I don't have anyone telling me I should feel that way. I'm proud of who I am for once in my life. I figure it was less a change in fashion and more a change in attitude.
Harry, again, insists that I was already pretty strong and brave to begin with. He says I was already one of the strongest, bravest people he knew. It's all well and good that he believed that. He's my best friend--his opinion is bias. So maybe I was confident and brave. Ron overshadowed me in our relationship. He made me feel insignificant. He made my strenght seem fleeting. I can't just say that I'm strong, courageous and confident. I can't believe it because my best friend assures it's so. I have to feel it in every fiber of my being. Like I do now.
The only way I can explain it is, I let go of my insecurities. I let them drift away, forgotten, and I let confidence and strength take their place. I used to feel so belittled by all the things Ron found wrong with me. Every fight, every insult chipped away at my self-esteem. I felt incapable of building it back up. So I sat back and watched it dwindle away as Ron attacked every aspect of my existence. But after a few small changes and a burst of confidence, I feel completely restored. And it shows. I love that it shows.
I don't know if I could call it happy. I don't know if I fell happy, just yet. I do know that I feel something. I know I like whatever that something is. I know that something is better than what I was feeling before. I don't know when or how, but I know that I feel like I could be happy--truly happy--sometime in the future. I deserve a chance at happiness. And I know it's coming for me. Eventually it will get here and I'll be ready for it.
This whole experience will be good for me. I've finally broken all the chains that held me back and I refuse to be brought down, ridiculed, by someone who was supposed to care about me. I won't let it happen again. Never again. I refuse to ever feel that way again.
Ron still thinks I'm going to come trotting back to him, my tail between my legs. Defeated. He thinks he still has that much control over me. He never believed in me. But I have changed...and I'm never going back to him--to that. My only regret is I may have lost one of my best friends in the process. When we were friends everything was fine--sure we fought but not the way we did when we were dating. I want that back, but I don't think it's ever going to happen. While I like the new me, I'm going to miss the old Ron because I don't think we'll ever get him back.
A/N2: So, I haven't been getting emails for alerts and stuff, so I figure everyone else hasn't either...If you're on my alerts list for this story or me as an author (and you're not getting them)...and you'd like to get them personally from me in the meantime (cause I'm probably going to be getting a bunch done soon) just email me at the address that's on the site (you know the little highlighted word email). It should give you my personal email address and if you send me yours I'll personally send you an email update sort of thing...Anyway...Review!! You know I'd love you for it..Thanks again! -Mac