***IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE-PLEASE READ! I've been working on this story for a little while now, it is something I felt I needed to write. I want to warn you that this story will not be for the faint of heart, it will contain abuse and is completely AU. I will not go into graphic details; it is a story about two people, Harry and Hermione, who come from abusive homes and find solace in each other when they need it most. Yes the story line will include Romance also, just not right away. I'm going to post this chapter, and will gauge the response to see if I will continue it or not. I can only say this, in situations like this, we could all use a Harry in our life! Please review and let me know if you think I should keep posting or just delete this story. Thanks! ~MisCard~
I used to believe in fairy tales. When I was five I used to play dress up and pretend I was a princess while my stuffed
animals were my faithful subjects. I would have so much fun dressing in my Mum's beautiful formal dresses and shoes
that were about six sizes too big. That seems like such a long time ago.
Things started to change for me when I started first grade. I was having trouble learning how to read; I just couldn't understand the whole sounding out the word thing. My teacher had spoken to my parents at parent-teacher conferences about how she was concerned with my lack of progress. My Dad was a Professor of Literature at Oxford, and to him I was an embarrassment. He told my teacher he would tutor me himself after school and would have me reading in no time. That's when it all started.
The first lesson my Dad gave me, he placed a copy of "Moby Dick" on the table in front of me and told me to start reading. We were in the kitchen of our home, and he circled around the table as I stumbled over word after word. Every time he corrected me, he seemed to get angrier with me. When I stumbled over a word he had already corrected me on, he seemed to lose his temper completely. He grabbed me by my arms and yanked me out of the chair, holding me in front of him as he crouched down and yelled in my face. He kept saying what a stupid girl I was and how could any daughter of his not be able to read by now? I kept telling him I was sorry, but he just kept tightening his grip on my upper arms until it hurt so badly that I cried. The sight of my tears seemed to snap him out of his rage and he let me go, rubbing my arms where he had once had a hold on me. He told me we were done for the night and that I should go get ready for bed. I went to bed that night crying, mad at myself for disappointing my Daddy and making him so mad at me. I would soon find out that that night was only the beginning.
He continued tutoring me every night after dinner and his temper only continued to get worse. It got so that every time I misread a word, he would smack the side of my head or he would punch me in the upper arm so that the bruise wouldn't show. He kept telling me that I was slow and that an idiot like me could not be his daughter. I would go to bed and cry myself to sleep, mad at myself for making him so mad, only to have the same thing happen night after night.
Things got increasingly worse the older I got. If I failed a spelling test, he would make me write the words I missed one thousand times each, all the while berating me for my stupidity. I continued to be smacked upside the head, and then he started to pinch me wherever he felt wouldn't show, leaving bruises all over my body. I always sat like a good girl and took my punishment; I was convinced I was stupid and deserved it.
I never had any close friends; I was always afraid the other girls would find out how stupid I was and make fun of me. I would always sit by myself during lunch and read, hoping to do well enough that night to keep my father's anger at bay. If someone tried to talk to me, I always gave one word answers and was grateful when they finally left me alone. Yes, I got lonely sometimes, but it was better than having someone know how dumb I really was.
One day, I had taken a spelling test and had gotten a B+ on it, and I couldn't wait to get home to show my Dad. I knew he would be proud of me for the good grade I had gotten. I had run into my house after school, waving the test paper around, yelling "Daddy, Daddy, look how well I did on my test!" He walked up and snatched the paper out of my hand and looked at the giant red grade on the top and frowned.
"You're proud of this grade?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet. "This should have been an A! If you studied as much as you told me you had, then you should have aced this test!"
I couldn't believe he was mad at me for getting a B+. "But I-I thought you would be p-proud of m-me" I asked quietly, trying to stop the tears from forming in my eyes.
"Proud of...of this?!" he asked, sounding disgusted. "Proud of the fact that the daughter of a Professor, MY daughter, is too stupid to know how to spell 'congratulate'?" He stood there, almost seething with anger and did the only thing he hadn't done to me yet; he slapped me hard across the face. As I sat there cradling my stinging cheek in my hand and trying hard not to cry, he screamed at me "get out of my sight! I don't want to see you the rest of the night!"
I turned and ran as fast as I could, running up the stairs and into my room. I had passed my Mum on the stairs and she had doubled back and followed me. She walked through the door and closed it, looking at me with a look I knew all too well by now. "Are you ok Love?" she asked me quietly, afraid that my Dad would hear her. I shook my head yes, even though I really wasn't. "I told you not to make your father mad" she said, sounding desperate. "If you would only work a little harder in school..."
"It still wouldn't be good enough for him" I whispered, not really wanting my Mum in my room. She always made excuses for him; always said it was my fault he hit me. When she looked at me, I saw that her eyes were filled with sadness and disappointment. It was then, at the tender age of nine, that I realized what a weak woman my Mum was. I knew she would never try to protect me, that she was as scared of him as I was. It was then that I swore that I would study harder and ace every test and quiz I took. I wasn't going to give my Dad a reason to hit me anymore.
I started to study any time I had a free minute during the day. True to my word, I began acing every test and quiz I took, getting straight A's on my report cards. Even though he would pretend to act proud that I was doing better in school, I could see that he was disappointed that he didn't have a reason to hit me anymore. He started to give me chores to do every night, like dusting or doing the dishes. If it wasn't done fast enough, or if the house wasn't clean enough, he would use it as another excuse to hit me. It was getting so bad that I was beginning to wish I would die just so the abuse would finally stop.
When I was ten years old, a savior in the form of a big, brown barn owl came swooping into my home. My Mum and I were the only ones home since it was summer break, so luckily my Dad wasn't there to be angry about a bird being in our house. I noticed the envelope it held in its beak, and when I took it, it gave a quick 'hoot' and flew away. I noticed my name on the front of the envelope and ripped it open, wondering who would be sending me something by owl. I read the note and couldn't believe my eyes, I was a Witch!! I held in my hands my chance to escape; I could be away from my parents for ten months, only coming home for Christmas break. I sat there trying not to cry at the hope that started to blossom inside of me. I still had to convince my Dad to let me go; I knew that it would be hard, but I also knew that going to...to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry might just save my life.
I begged and pleaded with him that night, swearing that I would be a perfect student and daughter he could be proud of. I told him how he would be able to tell his colleagues that his daughter had gotten into an exclusive boarding school that only accepted the best of the best, and he actually agreed to let me go. Trying not to show the happiness I was feeling, I turned to go upstairs to celebrate when he said "Hermione, I will be checking on your progress in this new school, and if you are not first in your class you will be punished when you return home next summer." The look in his eyes when he said this made a chill run through my body; it was a look that promised a pain so severe I would probably beg him to kill me instead.
"Yes Sir" I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling with the fear I felt. I knew better than to think he was lying; he had proven too many times that he always followed through on his threats. Going up to my room, I started to get excited about finally being able to escape my Father. Finding a calendar, I started counting how many days there were until I was to board the train to go to my new school, hopefully to start a new chapter in my lonely, pain filled life.
I used to wish that fairy tales were true, that there would be a hero to come and save me from the horror that was my
life. I don't remember when my life became so horrible; I think I was too young to remember the first time things
got bad. My earliest memory was when I was three and I had tried to play with one of Dudley's toys; he had run
crying to his Mum and Dad, who were my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, and said that I had tried to steal the toy from
him. My Uncle had used his belt on me and had then locked me in the cupboard under the stairs. Unfortunately, that was
only the beginning.
My parents had died when I was just a baby; my Aunt said they died in a car crash, but something about her story makes me think she's lying. I know better than to ask about it though, last time I asked a question about my parents my Uncle hit me in the head so hard that I saw stars behind my eyes. They hated that they had to raise me; they always looked at me like I was a piece of rubbish they wished they could throw away. When I was six, my Aunt made me set the table everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was made to take out the garbage, clean the house and even do dishes. One day I had broken one of the plates to my Aunt's good dish set, and my Uncle had spanked me with his belt so hard I couldn't sit down the rest of the day. I was extremely careful not to break anything else every time I did the dishes after that.
School for me was like a living hell; I was a very small, scrawny boy that all the bigger kids liked to pick on, especially Dudley. He made sure that I never had any friends; any time he saw one of the kids talking to me, he would bully them into staying away from me. There was one boy who had tried to be my friend and stood up to Dudley's bullying; Dudley and his gang had beaten him unconscious. He ended up transferring to another school after he was released from the hospital and no one ever tried to be friends with me again.
As I got older, my relatives continued to give me more chores to do around the house. I would go to school, come home (if you could call it that) to do my chores and then fall exhausted into my bed only to be woke up at six the next morning to start all over again. I think I would have been ok if my Aunt and Uncle had actually let me eat normal meals every day, but normally I got a piece of bread with butter on it and a glass of water twice a day; if I was lucky I would get a glass of milk on occasion.
One day, just before my tenth birthday, something had possessed me to talk back to my Uncle; it could have only been the devil himself. My Uncle had told me to clean Dudley's room for him, and I had said "no!" I had never seen my Uncles face turn such a dark shade of purple before. He glared at me, his eyes bulging out of his face as he said "did you just tell me no?!" I had looked him square in the eye, feeling as defiant as I ever had, and yelled "I said no!"
All I remember after that is my Uncle's fist crashing into my nose hard enough to break it. I lost count of how many times he punched and hit me, and then kicked me as I was lying on the floor. When he thought I was unconscious, he grabbed my feet and dragged me to the cupboard, tossing me inside and locking me in their for three days. I had never hurt so much in my life, not even when Dudley decided to use me as a punching bag all those times he had beaten me up. I just lay there, trying not to moan to loudly, lest I make my Uncle angry again. A part of me wished I would just die; at least that way I would be with my parents again. I healed rather quickly, almost as if by magic, and when my Uncle saw the I was pretty much healed when he let me out he put me right back to work again. From that day on, I never talked back to my Uncle again.
One day during the summer I turned eleven, a huge, dark brown barn owl came flying into the open window in the kitchen, causing my Aunt to scream in surprise. When I had peeked around the kitchen door to see what had happened, I saw that she had an envelope in her hands, and that it had my name on it. She opened it up and read it to herself, a strange look dawning on her face. She had walked over and handed it to my Uncle who was sitting at the table, and as he read it a small smile actually formed on his face. "Boy" he had yelled, not knowing I was standing there "boy, get down here now!" Waiting a few seconds, I walked slowly into the room and stood in front of him, wondering just what the letter had said.
"Boy, you are going to a boarding school instead of your old school this year" he said, sounding almost giddy. "You will be leaving August 31st and you won't be coming back here until June of the following year!" This could have been the best news I had ever heard. Ten months away from these horrible people? There must be a catch. "May I ask what school Sir?" I asked quietly.
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, whatever that is" he said, still smiling. "I really don't care what kind of school it is, I only know that we won't have to put up with your lazy, insolent behavior for almost a year!"
Nodding my head in understanding, I asked "may I be excused?" and when Uncle Vernon had said "Yes" I turned and almost ran to my room. I sat in my room the rest of the day, daydreaming about what my new school would be like and of all the friends I would make. I finally had a chance to be a normal kid for once and I could not wait to go. I counted the days on my calendar to see how long it would be until I could leave and I kept track, subtracting one day every morning when I woke up, that much closer to boarding the train to the start of my new life.