AN1: Review please.

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine.

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What can I do to make them notice me?

The changes were gradual, you couldn't tell at first. She just started by cutting down what she ate. Little by little, and soon she got down to half an egg at breakfast, a slice of toast at lunch and a salad for dinner. Yet they still didn't notice her traveling down the road to anorexia. Hermione wanted someone to stop her. Someone who cared enough to notice that she wasn't okay, that she wasn't doing fine.

She let her homework and grades start to fall by the wayside; she didn't raise her hand to answer questions anymore. Ron and Harry finally noticed this, to some extent when she got an 'A' on one of her essays and not an 'O'. They asked her once: "Are you okay, Hermione?"

Every time they asked, she would just reply with a façade of serenity. "Yes, I'm fine." When in reality she wasn't. How could they not tell something was wrong with her? How could they not tell she was hurting? Maybe, she thought, I was too convincing in saying 'I'm fine.' Hermione knew that saying you were "fine" didn't really say anything. It was just a way to pacify those who asked about you and to tell them what they wanted to hear. She thought that her friends knew that too...

Still determined to get someone to notice and determined to get someone to care, Hermione kept going with her dangerous plan; her dangerous outcry for help. One morning, she showed up at breakfast with a large band-aid wrapped clumsily around her left wrist.

"Hermione, what happened?" Harry asked.

"Oh, I just, um, I uh, tripped."

"Okay, well you should be more careful."

Hermione nodded and looked down at her nearly empty plate in sadness. Why couldn't they see it?

"Hey Hermione?" Harry interrupted her morose staring contest with her plate. "Aren't you going to eat anything?"

"I already did." Harry looked appeased and he went back to his breakfast, not knowing that she was lying. She hadn't eaten anything; she hadn't even made an effort to put food on her plate. Why bother? It's not like they would notice anyway.

The cycle continued for weeks, except it was without Harry (or Ron) asking her if she ate. They just assumed she did. All the while, Hermione was in agony. Her friends didn't notice anything. How could they not see that she was falling apart? How could nobody notice?

She didn't know that Draco Malfoy noticed, and that he was becoming very concerned.

Hermione was walking back up to the heads dorm after patrols that night and she suddenly felt very lightheaded. She stopped for a moment and leaned against the wall. After a couple of seconds, she continued to make her way up to her room. Within thirty seconds, the feeling of lightheaded-ness came back and this time, she collapsed, right in front of the portrait hole for the dorm.

Draco, who was sitting on one of the cushy chairs in front of the fireplace, heard a light thump from outside. Fearing the worst and hoping for the best, he ventured outside and saw not the best, but the worst. He rushed towards the fallen Gryffindor and almost screamed at the sight of her.

Her normally rosy and healthy cheeks were ghostly pale and hollow. When he rolled up the left sleeve of her robe to check for a pulse, Draco saw the bandage. Tentatively he unrolled it and gasped. All along her left wrist were a multitude of harsh slash marks. What had happened to her? And how had her friends not noticed? Draco was flabbergasted and disgusted at those whom she considered her friends.

Hermione was in awful condition and Draco was going to do something about it; he was going to take her to Madam Pomfrey. Gently he bent down and lifted Hermione into his arms. She weighed almost nothing: at the heaviest he guessed she was eighty-five pounds. Her body was so thin and fragile. Slowly he walked to the hospital wing and called for Madam Pomfrey. She took one glance at Hermione and ordered Draco to set her on a bed.

Carefully, as if handling glass, Draco laid Hermione's emaciated figure on the nearest bed and drew the curtains around it. He sat at a chair beside her bed and waited for her to regain consciousness. Madam Pomfrey bustled around, tapping Hermione lightly with her wand and hooking her up to some muggle-looking contraption with tubes on it.

"Will she be alright?"

Madame Pomfrey sighed gravely. "I do not know. She is very ill and malnourished; she may not make it through the night." Draco felt a twinge of compassion for his dorm mate and wished there was something he could do to help her. Hoping that if she woke up that she would take comfort in it, Draco took her bony hand in his. At the contact, Hermione opened her eyes. And even that simple act seemed to take so much out of her. She felt pressure on her hand and saw that Draco had taken hers and was holding it. A small, weak little smile graced her sunken face.

"Someone cares." She took a shuddering breath and murmured again as her eyes closed in what would inevitably be her final slumber. "Someone truly cares."

As her breathing came to a stop and her hand turned cold, Draco felt a stray tear slide down his cheek. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

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AN2: Review. I want at least four before the next chapter. Please?

lovelove, Amanda