"Harry, what do you think you're doing here?" I yelled, surprised that Harry had found a way to by-pass the sliding stairs.
"I said I would find a way up here," Harry said calmly, dropping his broomstick on the floor as he walked into the room.
"You can't be in here!" I screamed at him, wanting nothing more than for my former friend to leave me to my misery.
"I'm not leaving until I talk with you." Harry stood his ground against my onslaught of screams. Ginny was currently watching from the doorway, but she and Lavender took a clue from Harry's tone and exited the room quickly.
"I'm not talking to you. Goodbye." I tried to push him out the door with Ginny and Lavender, but I couldn't make him budge. After a few seconds, my lungs ached as I tried to take in more oxygen, and I felt extremely weak.
"Hermione, something is wrong with you, and I want to help you," Harry said gently, leading me to my bed to sit down. A strange sadness was displayed on his face. He looked like he was in pain, and was trying to hold back the tears I could see glistening in his eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" I asked, not admitting to anything before Harry said something directly. Part of me hoped that Harry was concerned about me spending too much money, or something like that associated with why I was currently broke.
"Why are you hurting yourself like this? Why are you so concerned with being thin?" Harry clarified.
My eyes widened in surprise and I could barely contain the humorless laughter that threatened to escape because of my friend's blindness. "Harry, look at me! I'm huge! All I want is to feel thin and pretty," I explained, tears welling up in my eyes.
Harry looked flustered and unable to come up with a response. "Don't even think about telling me I'm `perfect the way I am' or any other such crap, because I know people are just saying things like that to make me feel better. I know the truth; I'm an enormous teenage girl who will never achieve anything because I'll be judged by my weight."
Expecting to get some sort of argument from Harry, I was surprised when I caught him deep in thought. "Hermione, if I can prove to you that you're not fat, will you stop with your crazy dieting and exercise?"
Knowing that Harry couldn't change the truth, I agreed. "You can try."
Harry muttered a spell I had heard many time before, and a bright red 36 kg flashed in front of my face. "Harry, weighing charms are so inaccurate. I've been trying them on myself all term and they always grossly underestimate, just like this one," I explained away the low number.
Harry thought for a moment. I saw him staring at some spot on the wall behind me. I turned around and saw myself and Harry reflected in Parvati's full-length mirror. "Come here," Harry urged, and pulled my in front of my daily enemy.
"What?" I asked, irritated that Harry had chosen this spot to try to prove to me I wasn't fat.
"Just look in the mirror and tell me what you see," Harry said, coming to stand behind me.
"I see what I see every morning; a fat witch in stretched out robes. The only difference is you're behind me," I complied reluctantly to Harry's request. I saw Harry's reflection pull another thoughtful face.
"Oh yeah," Harry murmured, his eyes widening in remembrance and insight. He pulled out his wand and conjured a large piece of parchment. "I saw this on one of those makeover shows my aunt watches," he explained.
He pulled a quill off of my desk and handed it to me. "I want you to draw a life-size outline of yourself."
I looked at Harry incredulously. "You want me to what?"
"Draw a life-size outline. Like those chalk outlines in all those movies," Harry reiterated.
"You mean the outline of murder victims? That makes me so much more comfortable," I stated. Harry just gave me a look and pointed to the paper.
I sighed and began to draw. A normal sized head on top of a fat neck, with thick shoulders extending to flabby arms. I returned to the torso and created the fat stomach that was the bane of my existence, followed by fat thighs that only slightly slimmed down to my feet. Though my drawing skills definitely leave something to be desired, I thought it was a pretty accurate picture.
"There," I said angrily, still not knowing why I was doing this.
"Lay down," Harry said, pointing once again at the paper. This time I actually did laugh in Harry's face.
"Why?" I asked, not believing that Harry knew at all what he was doing.
"Just do it," Harry ordered, his voice sterner than I had heard in a while. I complied, still confused why he was doing this. Slowly, Harry sketched the outline of my body on the piece of paper. I sighed, knowing this would only prove that I had been generous about how thin I really was.
"Okay, you can get up," Harry said after completing the final line around my feet. I stood up and stared at the paper in surprise. Harry had stepped away the instant he had finished, so I knew he couldn't have messed with it.
"That can't be right," I whispered, completely unable to believe that Harry had sketched me accurately. But I had been able to feel the quill against my arms and legs as he had traced me.
"Hermione, if anything, I drew you too fat," Harry murmured in reply. Tears began to well up in my eyes as I took in the image before me. The dark picture I had angrily drawn was enormous compared to the outline that Harry had done. I couldn't comprehend the pencil thin arms and only slightly larger legs on the paper as my own.
"What did you do to it?" I asked Harry, my anger reaching a breaking point. But something deep inside me said that Harry's drawing was completely accurate.
Harry insisted that he had done nothing, but I ignored his explanation and just allowed myself to fall forward into his arms. "What have I done to myself?" I questioned myself more than Harry. As he held me close, for the first time I realized just how thin I had become.
Harry pulled away from the embrace to take my hands in his. "This is not all your fault. I should have confronted you about this earlier, when I first suspected what you were doing," he told me softly. I couldn't look him in the eye as he talked about all the things he could have, and should have done. Instead, I focused my gaze on my wrists; they looked as if Harry could break them in two with little effort.
"Hermione, don't worry, I'll help you," Harry murmured.
I smile up at my friend, and felt something in my stomach begin to flutter. It wasn't hunger pains; I was all too used to those. It was something different, something special. As the fluttering continued and worked itself up into my chest, Harry began to lean down and his eyes closed slowly. With an equal amount of care and time, I closed my eyes and went up on tiptoes.
As our lips met, I knew the careful line between friendship and something more had been crossed and could not be salvaged, but I didn't care. I enjoyed the soft moisture of Harry's lips on mine, and just held on to the moment as long as I could.
"Hermione, are you alright? Harry was…OH MY -" Parvati exclaimed from the doorway. Harry and I broke apart in haste.
"Would you like to join me for dinner?" Harry asked, effectively ignoring Parvati's interruption.
"Sure," I replied, and followed Harry down to the Great Hall.
A/N: For those not familiar with metric, Hermione's weight was 80 lbs.
-->