Me and You?

-New Beginings-

I can do it.
Those four words are what she said to herself every time she woke up, reminding herself that she may be broken, unloved and abandoned but she was the brightest witch of her ages and she knew she could do it if she really tried.
Hermione Jean Granger. That name, don't deny you don't know it, she's the brightest witch in the wizard world, a third of the golden trio, she helped to defeat the dark lord. But now she's alone.
After the war Hermione let Harry and Ron go back to the burrow but firmly object to joining them, she was determined to go find 'normal', much to Ron's disappointment.

"Mione talk to me" Ron demanded as Hermione turned to walk away,  eyes welling up. She stopped dead in her tracks.
"How dear you" she whispered fiercely,
"M..mione you kno.. Know how I feel.." Ron stuttered, struggling to find the right words. Hermione closed her eyes stopping the tears from spilling and sighed sadly,
"You don't think I know that I'm being difficult?" She again whispered as she turned around, keeping her eyes firmly shut,
"I loved you! And I can't even have time on my own without your eyes wondering!" She spat before opening her eyes seeing a blur of ginger hair before her eyes focused on his blue orbs, the same blue orbs she fell in love with in sixth year, the same eyes she looked into when she told him she loved him, the same eyes she saw roaming another woman's body in the three broom sticks. She felt sick just looking at him. Ron stood there just inches away from some blond after realising he'd been caught as his hand slid down this woman's waist.
"Hermione I didn't even cheat!" Ron said gaining the smallest amount of confidence. Hermione laughed, not a kind of laugh you'd hear Hermione laugh at a joke, no this was a wicked laugh, one that sent chills up your spine, the same laugh every girl posses', the laugh that if ever leaves a woman's lips you run, run a mile, leave the freaking country because let's face it lads, there's no mercy from that laugh, it's a laugh that makes a woman give up. This is the first time Hermione had ever used her laugh, she even surprised herself.
"'I didn't even cheat' bullshit Ronald!!! Bull shit. Don't tell me you wouldn't fucked her if I hadn't just walked in! You were all over her!" Hermione spat, Ron stood dumbfounded, the girl he loved was right in front of him and he'd gone and done it, pushed her right over the edge. All the shit she put up with off him and she STILL loved him.
"I think you know why I have to walk away.." Hermione began, a single tear rolled down her perfect cheeks defining her cheekbones, Ron lowered his head in shame,
"Help me understand what's going on in your head Mione" Ron begged as she walked away with her head help high, she again stopped and said,
"I wish I understood myself but I can't and you have to understand that's not my fault and you're not helping me find myself" she whispered surprised at her response,
"You're not lost?" Ron challenged, Hermione for the first time smiled,
"That's why I have to go, I've lost myself and no ones even noticed, I'm not me anymore and you and I both know I have to walk away"
And that she did. She walked away and was determined not to loose her class and only sobbed her heart out when she got home to muggle London, to an empty house full of the memories of the lost girl.
That's the memory Hermione replayed the days society continued to break her.
Hermione had walking alone at night and took the back streets on the way home when they did what they did. A group of hooded figures dragged her by her hair to a back ally where they pinned her up against the wall,
"I'm sorry" Hermione repeated over and over again as they all closed in on her, she was tiny and frightened, each one had their way with her. It's not that she was saving herself for anyone special but rape was by far not the way she wanted to do it. One after the other, it went on for what seemed like forever, six times in total Hermione was abused by six different boys, low lives, and with each one she felt the pain, the pulled at her hair, hit her face and got kicked every time she moaned in pain. They left her for dead and that's when she thought of Ron, she understood that she wasn't being easy but it wasn't her fault and being cold, alone and feeling disgusted she had lost faith on humanity and this was the turning point for her, this is what Hermione left out with her meeting with Ron, she could have told him, but she didn't, she was worthless and dirty after what they did to her and she couldn't bare to tell Ron about the turning point in her life.

She can still remember the pain they put her through, how exposed she felt when they stripped her to nothing and used her body for pleasure.
I can do it.
She said this every day after the abuse happened, except it didn't end there. Due to the first time Hermione began to loose weight, she became nothing more then skin and bone, she took days, weeks to reply to Harry and Ron's letters, she withdrew herself completely. She became a victim and was often found a state late at night after yet another round of being pinned up against walls and being in uncomfortable human contact, had Hermione been sober or at least drinking with the right crowds this would never have happened but she wasn't sober, hardly ever sober anymore.

After waking on the twenty ninth of August on a street she knew all too well as she often got dragged her and used for pleasure she walked home feeling disgusted, vile and lifeless.
"Please don't" she cried as she was pinned up against the wall with yet a face she did not know inches way from her face,
"Please!" She screamed before yet again feeling much pain in her lower body she struggled, but the more she moved the more it hurt.
She shivered at the memories of last night as she unlocked her front door.
She took herself off into the living room, sitting on the sofa, put her head in both hands and sobbed, what she did a lot nower days. She was still drunk off last nights vodka and god knows what, before Hermione could even focus she took her drunk state off to the kitchen and made herself s cup of coffee to try and stop the pounding in her head. As she sat down on the sofa with her drink She saw her new owl awaiting her presence in its open cage, with four letters on the floor.
Once Hermione pulled herself together she grabbed all the letters half heartedly knowing that the annual letters off Ron, Harry and Ginny asking about her, awaiting her lies of replies. She took the last envelope with a print that could not be mistaken for any other then Hogwarts School Of Witch Craft and Wizardry. She slowly turned the envelope to see the one and only Hogwarts crest. She sighed lightly and took her long, perfectly waved hair in both hands and tied it in a messy bun before proceeding to read a letter informing her of her position to continue education in the new eighth year for those who missed their seventh.
"Okay then" Hermione said aloud to herself in a long breath,
"This is me finding myself" she said again in another long, slightly quivered.