Breath Mints / Battle Scars

Chapter 1: I

August 1st, 1998

Dear Diary,

That's fucking stupid, actually. Whoever said it had to start that way? You aren't dear to me. I don't know you. I don't want you. I'm - I'm doing this because they said I have to. For healing purposes. To be perfectly honest, I hate you, Diary. Just as I hate all things like you. Things that are frivolous and unnecessary, like you. You're fucking useless. Ugly. Stupid fucking book. You don't even have lines. What fucking useless sort of fucking journal doesn't have lines? Oh, because "lines will interfere with the authenticity of it." Bloody fucking hell. Fucking load of bollocks. What about a Quick Quotes Quill? No, of fucking course not! Why make anything simple for me? And now look! Now they've got me talking to you like you actually exist - like you're a fucking human being. Turning me into a fucking head case. Perfect! Here you go, you fucking knob-ends. Just for you! Some perfectly natural, unscripted, stream-of-fucking-consciousness writing. That's what you wanted, right? Here it is. Oh, you're going to fucking regret it. I'll make sure of it. You're going to want to burn this stupid, fucking, ugly, purple, fucking book until it's fucking black. I don't need this.

Fuck you.

Draco Malfoy

September 1st, 1998

She picks at a thread on the knee of her jeans - stares as it snags, starts to take other threads with it. The hole widens. Gapes. Harry and Ron have changed already, and idly she wonders how much stronger that makes them than her. She can't put on those robes. Not yet. Even as the train barrels through the last of the tunnels before Hogsmeade, leaving ten minutes - maybe - before they reach the station. Even as Ron says, "'Mione," quietly, sort of pleadingly, as if he thinks he needs to remind her. She can't. She can't.

Her arm itches. More than it usually does. And Harry looks strange in his Gryffindor tie. Looks...wrong. Misplaced in the clothes of a child that he is not.

The trolley witch makes her jump - makes her spine shoot up straight so quickly she almost hits her head on the back of the compartment.

The witch yanks the Honeydukes Express to a halt in front of the sliding glass door. "Anything from the trolley, dears?" Her face is plump and pink and smiling, as always. "Last sweets to tide you over before the feast?"

"Oh, I'm stuffed."

"No, no, thank you."

Harry and Ron both answer politely, but by the time Hermione even manages to form words in her head, the witch is gone. And she looks back from the door to find both boys staring at her.

"Hermione," says Harry gently. Too gently. "It'll...it'll be all right. It'll get better."

This should be a great comfort, coming from him. He went through the worst of it. Still - somehow, it isn't. She nods, though, swallowing what feels like a stone in her throat. "I'll - erm, well - I'll go get changed, I suppose." And she gets to her feet, pretending she doesn't feel the blood rush to her head, ignoring the dizziness.

She wishes she was as strong as Harry. Wishes she knew how to cope.

Wishes she could breathe.

It would probably be better, in some sick, morbid sort of way, if it didn't look so much like it used to. If the stones hadn't been repaired just so, if the bridge hadn't been rebuilt to look so precisely like it once had.

Maybe if they'd left some of the bloodstains on the ground in the courtyard.

It's that part of her brain. The strange, new cluster of emotions she doesn't quite understand yet. They make her think dark things, every now and again, with a bizarre, lighthearted sort of vibrance. It's gallows humor, she thinks. A coping mechanism.