WARNING: This chapter can, maybe, be a bit strong regarding matters of bullying and its effects. It's for plot purposes and character introduction.

thanks :)

Sitting at the Slytherin table was strategic. I couldn't just sit with the other first years, because I wasn't like them. I had to be extremely careful to not sit to close to the front and not too in the middle. Usually, I arrived late so I could distinctly see where the majority of Slytherins were sat. Upon closer examination, and having eaten at the same table for a while now, Slytherins liked sitting either at the very front of the room, or the middle, but didn't like to sit at the far back. I have a theory as to why:

Seeing how incredibly competitive Slytherin was, specially if they had to win over Gryffindor, metaphorically speaking, Slytherins always sat at the front of everything, be it a class or the Great Hall, because they needed to accentuate that sense of being the best of the best; of being superior. They just couldn't sit at the back because that would mean they weren't at the top. And, believe me, not being at the top was worse than death to a Slytherin because if they do not have their pride, they really have nothing.

But I wasn't a true Slytherin, per say. Or maybe I was, but I didn't care to mingle with people that I knew were going to throw insults my way regardless of what I did. It didn't matter that I had only called Malfoy a coward once and retracted to my own secluded space away from any human interaction. No, because I was still breathing the same air that they were breathing inside of the common room, hence contaminating it, and that was-of course-no one's fault but mine. Hell, they didn't even blame it on the Sorting Hat and Hogwarts as an institution-or more like, they didn't really place all the blame on them-but the fault was all mine for even existing.

Malfoy had made, obviously, some pretty nasty comments about Dumbledore being a useless, waste of space for actually accepting mudbloods. But that didn't matter, because mudbloods still came here and it was our fault that we were treated like trash. Because, as Malfoy so nicely placed it, we were lower than trash.

I didn't believe a word that came out of that idiot's mouth. To believe anything that he said would mean that he was right, and of course he wasn't. However, that didn't mean that the constant pestering and nasty names, which I heard every day, weren't starting to get to me. It wasn't something that I was ready to admit to anyone, not even to Ginny and of course not my sister. I was beginning to think that Hermione was right when she said that it had nothing to do with being strong. Although, probably I wasn't as strong as I thought I was or even as tough as I acted. I was 11, and my maturity level was way down. A 17-year-old version of me would probably know what to do about the whole situation, but, again, I was only 11. I didn't know half of the things that older people knew, but I was pretending to know them by acting like it didn't do a thing to my emotional state. When, actually, it was slowly deteriorating me.

As hard as it was for me to admit this, there had been times where I had to skip lunch, run to my room, lock myself in the bathroom, turn on the water and cried until I felt at least a tiny bit better. What a waste of water, you'd say. It was, actually. But I couldn't risk someone catching me; because it could be used against me and that was the last thing I wanted.

The weeks went on and on, and the only thing that I had accomplished was losing weight. It wasn't planned or anything, but as the taunting progressed so did my lack of appetite.

Ginny was the first to notice. I knew this because she had tried to give me food when she noticed I skipped lunch and dinner. I had breakfast purely for survival reasons, because I didn't want to die. But my stomach soon didn't require having neither lunch nor dinner.

I can see why it would set off a big, alarming, red bottom to Ginny, which is why I did something that I eventually came to regret: I learned to use my metamorphmagus abilities to make me look as if all that weight I had lost had suddenly returned. Stupidest decision of my life thus far, but it worked wonders. Ginny stopped worrying about me, and my sister never noticed.

So far, everything was seemingly working my way. I hadn't made any friends in Slytherin, but my absenteeism at dinner and lunch lower the encounters Slytherin idiots and I had, so my sister rarely saw or heard anything. Again, it worked wonders.

As for my mental state and emotional development, it wasn't working wonders.

One day, as I was yet again skipping lunch by going to the lake instead, the tough appearance that I had managed to pull off in front of the entire Slytherin house; broke spontaneously. Just like losing weight, I hadn't planned for it to happen. It just did. My metamorphmagus illusion broke too, and only then did I notice just how freakishly thin my arms were. They weren't I'm-about-to-die thin-because I ate a lot at breakfast, is not like I didn't eat anything-but they had lost a significant amount of mass, enough to be noticed by people that I usually hung with. Hopefully not noticeable enough for any of my daily bullies to take note of, though.

As the realisation of just how much power Malfoy and their monkeys had over me, my crying intensified. I was suddenly terrified of what was to become of me. It was terribly depressing to see the state in which I found myself to be in, and immensely frightening too. The shock of seeing such how deeply it was affecting me rocked me harder than I ever though possible, and without caring anymore if anyone saw me, be it my sister or my bullies, I entirely allowed myself to grieve.

But of course, life couldn't just let me be. It couldn't just allow me to have one moment of public weakness without actually being spotted. Worse than being just spotted by some passengers, I was unluckily spotted by none other than Pansy Parkinson; the most loyal bitch that Malfoy's got in his group of sickly obsessed followers. She was annoying, clingy, stupid, and a bitch. A really big, nasty bitch. Need I say more? I don't think so.

"Oh, look what we have were. What's the matter mudblood? Filtch had you confused with the rubbish, again?" She laughed wickedly at her own, rather lame, joke. I would have commented on her lack of wit and unoriginal insults, but I didn't.

At that moment, it didn't really matter how depressed I was feeling, because the moment she opened her mouth to mock me I felt nothing. Nothing. It takes a hell lot of taunting and emotional instability and a whole load of other cruel tortures to manage to make a person go numb. But I wasn't angry, to some extent I was starting to believe Malfoy's words. I was starting to believe that I wasn't as worthy as they were because of who my parents were. I was rubbish.

"What? Not gonna say anything now?"

And I really didn't say anything. I wasn't even looking at her.

"My, such lack of respect to your superiors, mudblood." Said a voice from behind Pansy. But I didn't look up with that either. That voice was nailed to my brain. I could recognise it anywhere.

"You know, my father says you should just leave. Would make everyone's life better. Even yours, I suspect." He laughed cruelly, and added, "not that your life could get any better, though."

Laughs filled my ears, and I felt as though I was sort of in a trance. Somewhere deep inside me, there was a voice that wanted to scream at them, to speak up. But my body didn't hold the sufficient strength to do so, so I just remained glued to the ground, crying as silently as I could muster; although I wasn't doing much of a good job.

"You're pathetic, Granger." Malfoy said with disgust.

"You're pathetic, Draco." Said another voice that I couldn't recognise. That was voice did not belong to someone who usually insulted me.

I looked up hoping to see my sister accompanied by her two best friends, but I didn't find them. I wiped my tears away with the dirty sleeve of my uniform and there I found Matthew Fitzgerald, a menacing look encrypted on his eyes. I, personally, would have been more afraid of Matthew than Malfoy right that moment.

"Mind your own business, Fitzgerald!"

"You don't tell me what to do, Malfoy." He took furiously fast steps towards Malfoy, standing perfectly still in front of him, close enough that their noses were almost touching. "You leave her alone. Now." Each syllable was pronounced slowly, dangerously.

Matthew was like a snake, and if Malfoy was not smart enough to back away, the snake was going to bite.

"What's it to you?"

"Don't play me."

Malfoy and Matthew stared at each other for a long minute. The look in both their eyes was so intense that I could see the hate leaking out as if it was fog. But eventually, Malfoy broke the staring contest, and with a last look of disgust directed to me, and a hissing "you'll regret this" to Matthew, he left.

"You okay?" Matthew asked me as he offered me his hand to help me up.

"Yeah, just…marvellous." I replied, attempting to stand on my own. But I failed miserably, my legs were not responding. Great.

"Come on, I'm just helping you up not asking you to marry me."

"Who said anything about marriage?"

"For Merlin's sake, just let people help you!" He let out an exasperated sigh, and without my permission, he placed his hands on me and deliberately forced me up.

"Well, thank you, but I don't need your help and I never gave you permission to touch me." I rested my body on the tree, waiting for some strength to come back so I could walk away from this embarrassing situation. I was trying to sound angry, but my voice was still thick from sobbing so I bet I resembled a fluffy bunny trying to attack a menacing wolf.

"You're thinner."

"Well, what an observation! Thank you, I worked hard for this body."

"It wasn't a compliment. It's the kind of thin related to malnourishment."

"Ugh, why don't you just go and leave me be, Fitzgerald. I'm sure you have more interesting stuff to do than helping a mudblood, don't you!" I felt the tears sting my eyes again, and I mentally slapped myself for being such a cry-baby. I hated Malfoy more than words could express.

"I don't think your blood is mud. You're human, and for that fact alone you deserve respect. Pureblood or not." He silently waited for my response, but nothing came from my mouth but more sobbing. "I'll see you at the dinner, Corinne."

With that, he departed. I was left alone, leaning on a tree, sobbing like a 2-year-old. I soon lost sense of time, and fell asleep right at the foot of the tree I was originally leaning against. I didn't know how much time it took for people to notice that I wasn't in class. Probably not much since I was Hermione Granger's sister, and if I didn't make enough appearances during the day, Hermione was capable of building a searching squad to look for my dead body (because in her mind I risked being murdered inside Slytherin, but of course I didn't. These people were bullies, but certainly not killers.)