Where they've been
It's been a week since that morning, and things have been good. Meals have been eaten, and food has been digested. Hermione tries not to think so negatively and the dreams have subsided. Hannah tells Hermione that she loves Neville, and Hermione is glad that some good has come out of everything. She is also proud of Hannah for 'graduating' from regular sessions with her healer. She's happy for everybody until Ginny tells her that Harry and her are talking about what they're doing next year, and Hermione realizes that Ron and her don't even have a 'this year'. 67 mooing cows are on her bed along with five boxes of puking pastels. She wishes the group of fifth years would leave her alone. On the outside it looks like the relapse is over. Everyone, including herself, is convince that Hermione is back on track. Or, as Ron says late one night to Harry "crisis averted".
It's been two weeks like this, two weeks of playing the game their way. Ron is elated, and Hermione's fairly certain he might just throw a party out of joy. Harry hugs her a lot, and Ginny starts letting her in on the drama of various on goings. She goes up a dress size, but decides not to care. And she tells Pomfrey that she doesn't want to know her weight when it's offered to her. The third and fifth years are still mocking her, but for a couple of days she didn't see them at all. She is particularly elated when she gets a new healer. Everything seems perfect. They go to Hogsmeade twice and it's wonderful. Hermione even lets Ron buy her candy, and she eats it in front of him. The situation is mildly amusing when he won't leave her alone for hours later, and can't contain himself when she keeps it down. She's not even annoyed at the grin on his face that lasts all day.
It's been three weeks like this, three great weeks. Draco smiles at Hermione once after a meal and says "I'm glad you're getting better". So, Ron get jealous and starts walking very close to her. They almost hold hands. Things get even better when she starts getting O's again. People still worry a little bit, but they all seem appeased. Ron and her hook up the one night after a conversation. She gets permission to run again. Everything's almost back to normal. She can feel things getting better. The weight on her heart is off, despite the added weight to her body. She knows she's gaining weight, and she starts wearing clothes from before last summer.
It's been 1 month like this, and, everything falls apart.
It's a Monday morning, there's a slight chill outside, but it's lovely weather. Hermione thinks about how much she wants to go out after class. She can almost feel the gentle breeze swaying her out the door, beckoning her to start the day. She throws on some robes and heads to the dining hall with Ginny. That's when it started: the glazed looks, the hushed whispers, and the outright gawking. It doesn't take her long to figure out what has occurred. The faces and behavior of her peers are enough to derive suspicion, but, just in case, she appears unaffected, a big Daily Prophet ends up right in her face. It takes a moment for her eyes to process it, The Article. Her private life, her pain, and all of her secrets are open to the world. Nothing is hidden, not even where she kept the puking pastilles last semester. It was an expose on Hermione Granger and her most recent affliction and turmoil summed up in a gossip-laden twist.
She doesn't know why this would occur. At first, she doesn't believe it. Why would people care? How could her life be frontpage material? She's just a girl, and, yes, she knew there was some fame associated with helping Harry Potter, but there were far more important things in the world.
Ginny puts a hand on Hermione's shoulder and peers over. Hermione's not sure where her eyes land. Maybe its on the picture of her puking over a toilet, or, perhaps, it's on the quoted conversation she had with Pansy in the room of requirement. All Hermione knows is that this is disgusting, that she's been betrayed and that Rita Skeeter had gone to far. It makes her sick to realize that this whole time, a reporter was maliciously watching her suffering for a great story to manipulate.
Ginny tries to stop her from reading it, but Hermione is frozen, her hands gripping it with all her fury, only moving to turn the page. She discovers that is 3 pages long. She is certain that she will cry.
Hermione wishes she didn't read it. She also wishes that she could take a big quill to cross out the lies and exaggerations throughout the paper. No, she still has no triangle with Harry, and, no, the inexistent undying love she supposedly has for him is not being suppressed by a jealous ex lover while the burgeoning of her sexual fantasies drove her to insanity. She wishes that she could simply be amused, but instead she is furious. In the end, though, what Hermione wishes, most of all, is that some of the unbridled truths in this article weren't so accurate; some of the real story is dramatic enough with no tampering necessary. All she can think is how lovely it would be if this were all a manipulation of Rita Skeeter's revenge and none of it ever happened at all. Unfortunately it did, and now the whole world knows about it along with some quirky fabrications.
"Are you alright?" Ginny says, "Don't freak out. Everyone will forget about this by tomorrow."
Hermione chokes out a measly "No" as a response to all that Ginny has said.
She needs to go hide out in her dorm, as she looks around and feels what she can only describe as everything. So, she sprints away, and finds herself running right into Professor Capri.
"I'm sorry!" she says, unconvincingly. Her legs continuing towards the fat Lady. She says the password and treks through the Gryffindor common room to the dormitory. Her body falls on her bed and she lets out a wail, glad that nobody is around. She assumes Ginny won't come to get her, and she doesn't care if she misses class. So she decides that today she is going to stay in bed and cry. It's a legitimate response she argues in her head.
She relapses with a visit to the kitchen and two fingers down her throat, and of course it had to be in moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Ron asks if she wants dinner, but besides that she gets no visitors, no companionship, that is until Ginny returns to her room, tiptoeing in. Perhaps she was convinced Hermione was sleeping but the sniffles and wails did everything to rule out that theory. "Do you want to talk?"
"No," Hermione says. I want to disappear, but she can't say that and she won't not after incidents.. "I want to forget."
The next day she pretends she's fine, letting off a perfect little smile to everyone who asks if she's fine and that really means everyone. Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Slytherins all looked at her with a pitying frown, an amused smirk, or a friendly face, but they were all the same. No matter what. They all saw her as some dumb tragedy. "She used to be the smartest girl in the year," they'd say, "She used to be Harry's girl."
That's why she doesn't go to the dining hall, and maybe she thinks she can get away with it for a day but even this is risky, knowing that this sort of behavior will have her on the radar if it occurs again tomorrow.
She's underestimated even that with Ron pulling in a feast to her dormitory. "How'd you manage that?" she forces herself to laugh.
"Pull," he says for both contexts, "I'm a persuasive person."
She nods her head, and he starts stuffing his own face. "Wid dong yo iit somsin?"
She can hardly make out the words with his mouth so stuffed, and her heart does a loop, her stomach flips around, and her mind performs acrobatics with her psyche. Something has been triggered and she just can't bear to it. She gives him a pretentious little smile. "I've lost my appetite."
He cocks his eyebrows, and hooks his mouth into a frown. The statement isn't dubious just unsettling. "Eat something, please."
She wants to she does, but her body is suddenly repulsed.
They argue forever about what qualifies as a relapse or not, and Hermione finally breaks. "I get that I should eat, Ron. But I have inexplicable triggers, one of them is seeing peoples partially digested food."
That shuts up Ron for a moment, guilt ridden across his face. "Sorry," he blushes, "I didn't mean to 'Mione."
"It's fine. I'm just repulsed enough by food sometimes."
"And with the added stress…" Ron says. She nods her head, glad he understands, but he doesn't really because then he still ushers her to eat. "You still have to eat, ya know. I'll just be more patient with you."
"Ron," She looks at him, pleading eyes, but she knows its no use. Ron has it in his head so it must come to being.
So she eats, bite-by-bite. It comes into her stomach. Then she looks at Ron, sad puppy-like eyes begging him to not push desert, and he gets the message. No dessert for now.
"Not so bad was it?" He asks, big dorky grin letting off that obnoxious comment. Ron tried to be sensitive. He had the knowledge of what not to say, but sometimes the practice was more difficult than the theory. She understands his plight but still shoots him a death glare so that he never mutters that phrase in conjunction with her eating a meal ever again. It works, better than expected; she can see the regret sweeping across his face. "I shouldn't have said that."
"No," She says, "You shouldn't have."
He shrugs his shoulders and they just sit and talk for a while. Ron bent on enthusiasm and normalcy, Hermione acting uncharacteristically distant, her mask falling off, her mind thousands of miles elsewhere.
Then he said it, potentially the worse thing he could say at all. So brutally honest and heartfelt that is scarred Hermione in a way that even the third and fifth years couldn't achieve with their ruthless taunts. Maybe it was that it was from Ron, maybe that it was true, maybe that it was meant for encouragement. Maybe whatever. It didn't mater because Ron said the words that would send Hermione five steps back on the road of recovery, if that was even the road she was driving on any way. "Don't let the Daily Prophet break you again. I don't know how many times I can fix you."