Perfection

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

~Marcus Aelius Aurelius

Perfection

Chapter 3: Ugly Girls

Hermione delayed getting out of bed until she heard both of her parents leave for work, then stumbled into the kitchen and downed a cup of coffee while scanning the street in front of the house.

It surprised her, the thought that it was no longer her house in her mind. It had lost the feeling of home that some houses have, that feeling of welcome. Maybe it was because she knew what went on under the surface, but it felt cold and unforgiving. Like the words that were still echoing in her mind, despite being drowned out by music.

She saw a note on the table, scrawled in her mother's hand, obviously hastily written.

Your father's sister and her family are in town for a few days. We're eating dinner with them tomorrow night, I just talked to them on the phone. After work, I'll take you shopping for suitable clothes.

There are dishes in the sink that need to be washed.

Hermione crumpled up the piece of paper and sighed. She hated her father's relatives; she had never met two people more obsessed with money. And their son, Arthur, was terrifying. He was a representation of exactly what she did not want to be--a giant. Last time she had seen him, he looked like a miniature replica of a walrus, and he had only been thirteen years old at the time. She shuddered to think of him at fifteen.

Not to mention that he was a snob. She didn't know too many muggle boys, but she had a strong suspicion that most of them didn't wear ties for relaxation and recite the periodic table of the elements off for fun. The fact that Arthur snorted while laughing didn't help his case much either, she mused silently.

With a sigh, she turned to the sink and began running the water, adding soap and watching as it bubbled up around the counter. Putting on the rubber gloves that her mother kept handy, she wrinkled her nose at the leftover food that floated up off of the dishes, nearly jumping out of her skin when the phone rang. It was the last thing she had expected.

"Hello?"

"Hermione?"

"Speaking. Sarah?"

"Yeah."

"Hey!"

Hermione forced herself to sound cheerful at the sound of her former best friend's voice. Truth was, except for a few times during holidays, she hadn't seen her much over the last few years.

"Your mom told me the other day that you were coming back for Christmas this year, and I thought, since I hardly ever see you, that I should call and see if you wanted to go do something."

"Sure," Hermione replied, trying desperately to sound enthused. "Like what?"

"Well, in a few days, we're going downtown to see a movie and do some last-minute Christmas shopping, so if you want to come..."

"Who's 'we?'" Hermione asked.

"Umm... not too sure yet, but definitely Allison, Julie, and maybe Sandra... You remember her, right?"

"Yeah, sort of..."

She remembered Sandra a bit too well, to tell the truth. The most recent memory was the year before she went to Hogwarts, when Sandra had stolen her math notebook and thrown it in the toilet. Not particularly flattering.

"So, are you coming?"

She hesitated, not sure that she wanted to be a charity case, but one glance around the stifling house made her quickly decide that she didn't care.

"Of course!"

*

Severus wandered into the hotel restaurant and followed a waitress to a vacant table. He skimmed over the menu, wondering if any of this food was remotely edible. If he could keep it down, it was more than all the house-elves of Hogwarts could do.

Finally, he settled on a bagel, deciding that it wouldn't be wasting that much money.

This was turning out to be some vacation.

*

Ginny flopped back on her bed, heaving a sigh. Hogwarts was virtually empty now--a feeling that she usually enjoyed--but she was still too busy wallowing to care much.

Idiot, she told herself, repeating the word several times mentally. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Whether she was referring to herself or Dean, she didn't know and nor did she particularly care. She preferred to think it was Dean because it slightly alleviated the agony, but...

Not Dean, a voice insisted. You. You fucked up, girl.

She tried to shrug the thought away. It didn't really matter whose fault it was, the point was that it had happened. It was over. Not like it hadn't happened before. No difference from the last time.

Except this time you care...

"Shut up!" she snapped, her words ringing out awkwardly into the silence.

Great, now you're talking to yourself. Fucked up and insane.

"Not insane," she whispered, pulling her pillow to her chest and hugging it. "Just sad."

*

"Try on this one."

Agrippa was holding up a black halter-top dress that wouldn't have been out of place at a club. Hermione raised an eyebrow, wondering if her mother was trying to push her into a career that involved walking the streets late at night. You had to be perfect to wear something that sexy and get away with it.

Reluctantly, she accepted it and went back into the change room of the store, slipping out of the scarlet brothel-gown she was already in. She put it back on the hanger, glad she had convinced her mother that that one wasn't such a great idea. She hated red, hated the way it drew attention to her. She preferred not to be scrutinized. Not to mention that it made her look like an eight-year-old prostitute.

Once in the next dress, she glanced down, making sure it wasn't too low cut before stepping out. The filmy fabric flowed down over her and seemed to surround her in a cloud as she looked in the mirror. The appraising eyebrow shot up again as she spun doubtfully for her mother. It bunched oddly around the middle, making her look more petite than usual and--

"We're taking this one," Agrippa said, and Hermione let out a sigh of relief. She hated dressing rooms. The lights seemed to buzz and flicker, making her feel like she was about to have a seizure.

"Oh, and Mum," Hermione said, ducking back behind the curtain and stripping, "I'm going downtown with Sarah in a few days."

"Who, dear?"

"Sarah... You remember her, don't you?"

"That girl who was always getting you into trouble?"

"No, Mum," Hermione replied trying not to sound exasperated. "That was Sandra. Sarah was my best friend before I went away for school."

Agrippa didn't reply, so Hermione thought it would be safe to push a little further.

"I need to do some last-minute shopping anyway," she tried, exiting the dressing room and handing her mother the dress.

"Of course, darling."

I'm not your darling, Hermione wanted to scream. Do you even know who I am?

*

She lay on her bed, staring numbly at the ceiling, trying to ignore the fact that it was two o'clock in the morning and the loneliness that seemed to press in on her. It all felt too much.

It was silent in the house now, but it hadn't been minutes before. She tried to forget without success. Tried to forget the slamming of the front door that still echoed in her ears, the crying in the bedroom down the hall. Tried to forget the tense meal hours before that started everything. But most of all, she tried to forget when they were happy. Tried to forget what seems to have been a lifetime ago.

It all seemed so hopeless, there didn't seem to be any way to go back to what they once were. She wrapped her arms around her thin body and felt more useless and blemished than before.

*

He awoke in the darkness, eyes wild, blankets wrapped around him, imprisoning him. Memories, suppressed during the day, hunt him by night, haunt him. Images burned in his mind, and his stomach protested.

He made it to the toilet and rested on the edge of the bathtub beside it, sitting in the hotel washroom for a long time after, head buried in his hands.

*

Why had she bought the dress? True, it had looked good the first time she had put it on, but the longer she looked in the mirror, the more she hated herself in it. It flaunted every flaw, made her look huge. And there were only twenty minutes until they left, so there was nothing she could do about it.

Down the hall, she could hear her parents arguing about something through their bedroom door. Checking her eyeliner to make sure it hadn't smudged, she wished they could just go. Her hands trembled as she reapplied the lip gloss that she had already licked off in her anxiety.

Shut up! she screamed at them mentally.

"Are you coming?" Her father's tense voice floated to her ears.

Hermione hurried out of her room and down the stairs, nearly colliding with her mother.

"Take that shit off your face!" he snapped.

She rolled her eyes and pushed past him, pulling on her coat.

"You look like a fucking whore. Take it off now!"

"Don't talk to her like that!"

Hermione jerked to look at her mother. It was the first time in a while that anyone had defended her.

"Oh, now you're going to tell me how to raise my daughter?"

"There's more evidence proving that she's mine," Agrippa snarled, making Hermione want to sink into the floor rather than sit this out.

"I can tell."

Agrippa slammed her hand against his face as hard as she could, saw him flinch and enjoyed a brief moment of satisfaction before he laughed it off.

"Let's go," he ordered, apparently forgetting about his daughter's eyeliner.

*

The mood at dinner was tense to say the least. From the time they had arrived at the hotel until now, Hermione's parents hadn't said a word to each other, not even, "Pass the salt."

Agrippa was having a conversation with Hermione's aunt, Josephine, who apparently had some sort of nervous twitch that surfaced every time her husband spoke, while Steve glowered, and her uncle barked orders at Arthur as he shoveled food down his throat.

"Sit up straight; you'll never impress anyone like that!"

He ignored his father, stuffing half a steak into his mouth rather than answering.

Hermione pushed around a piece of pasta on her plate, trying not to feel nauseous, but with that pig sitting across from her, it was damn near impossible. She didn't want to be like that, ever. The very idea made her skin crawl and her stomach churn. Why had she eaten the salad?

"Excuse me," she said politely, standing up. "I'll be back in a minute."

Once out of the restaurant and in the lobby, she stalked to the toilets and locked herself in a stall, forcing herself to vomit repeatedly until the revulsion left.

When she came out, she looked at herself in the mirror, just to be sure.

*

He walked briskly down the corridor, rounding a corner, and crashed into someone headlong. She stumbled to the floor, and Severus could see why. Her heels were at least six inches high, and she didn't look particularly strong.

He leaned over and offered his hand to help her up while she tried to avoid looking at him.

"I'm so sorry," she gasped. "I didn't see..."

Her voice trailed off as she realized who she was talking to and he recognized her just as suddenly. Both of them stiffened visibly, and Severus tried to forget his initial reaction of thinking she was attractive.

Hermione recovered first. "Good evening, professor," she said formally, her voice as yielding as starched linen.

"Good evening," he replied, just as formally.

"I didn't mean to run into you. Again."

She smiled self-deprecatingly and he wondered briefly if there was some sort of magnet pulling them together, but that lead to thoughts about animal magnetism and...

It's not as if you haven't seen a pretty girl before, he reminded himself, squashing the thought before it could run away. You're practically drooling...

"Sir, is something wrong?"

Very wrong. She's your student.

"Don't trouble yourself with matters that have nothing to do with you, silly girl."

She raised her eyebrows, looking as though there was something that she wanted to say, but held whatever it was back. As she stalked away on spindly legs, he noticed that her hands had balled into fists.

*

As soon as she thought it couldn't get much worse, he had to show up. No one managed to annoy her more than Severus Snape... Except, well, occasionally Ron but that was beside the point. As she slid back into her seat, she found that nothing had changed in the few minutes since she had been gone, except that Arthur was on his third plate of steak and potatoes, and her mother was hissing instructions at her father as his face became more and more flushed with anger by the second.

Hermione ignored the plate of food in front of her and stared blankly out the window, each minute stretching into an hour, praying that her parents would finish eating before committing homicide. She had a feeling that the restaurant owners wouldn't enjoy cleaning the blood out of the carpet.

*

"Draco, darling, I have a surprise for you!" Narcissa greeted him as he dumped his suitcase in the hall. He had a feeling he wouldn't like his mother's surprise. In fact, he had a feeling that it would make him wish that he had decided to stay in Diagon Alley one more night.

"Hello, Mother," he greeted her, kissing her cheek. "What is it?"

Before she could answer, another figure appeared behind her. He was tall, blond, and Draco blinked, praying that the image was just his overactive imagination.

"Father?" he swallowed.

"Your time has come. Tonight you join me at the side of our Lord."

There were so many things rushing through Draco's mind, so many things he wanted to say. Why aren't you in prison like you should be? and, Not yet, were at the top of the list.

"Come, we must prepare."

Oh, shit.

*

She looked out the car window at the city, so beautiful in the night, with the colored lights and slight haze blanketing it. So beautiful it hurt, making that longing in her surface and a lump form in her throat.

It was silent inside the confines of the vehicle and the air was so heavy she could almost see it, only making matters worse.

*

She dreamed. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew enough to be terrified of whatever it was that was chasing her through her dream world. It was familiar, almost, this sense of being hunted, this sense of being another's prey and some part of her mind that wasn't focused on running away told her that she was sick of it.

With a snarl, she whirled around, bracing herself for the attack, but it never came. Instead, the grey fog that was surrounding her parted and before her she saw an all-too recognizable face. To her horror, it was smiling.

"Ginny," the face whispered coaxingly.

She shrieked, dragging the scream out until it pulled her from the last tendrils of sleep.

*

When they arrived home, Hermione went straight up to her room and yanked the dress off, glad to finally be rid of the itchy fabric and the dirty, stained feeling left over from dinner. Pulling on the oldest, most comfortable clothes that she owned, she sagged into the bed, fighting the tears that threatened to spill over.

Hugging her thin body, she curled up into a tiny ball of misery, alone and so tired of everything.

*

A sharp pain in his forearm awakened him from the first uninterrupted sleep he had experienced in a long time. It lasted only a brief period and Severus wondered if he had imagined it. Within moments, however, it had returned, and he quickly transfigured his clothing into black robes and apparated from the hotel, forcing himself into that numb state of mind where it was only in reflection that he would feel the full weight of what had happened.

*

Hermione had been awake for hours when the phone rang. She answered, surprised to hear Sarah on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Hermione?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Are you still coming today?"

She had to think for a moment before remembering. "Er... yeah, of course I am."

"Great, we'll pick you up in half an hour."

*

When Severus was back in his hotel room, he collapsed on his bed for a moment, and closed his eyes, trying to forget, to block the thoughts that rolled through his mind. Without much success.

Groaning, he dashed to the toilet and retched several times, willing the images of the previous night to leave him. He had given her all of the mercy he could without raising suspicion--a quick death. And even that had been risky. But even before he had given her that, the things that had been done to her were unspeakable, sickening.

Another wave of nausea shook him, and he leaned his head over the toilet a second time, resting his chin on the cool porcelain when he had finished. Silently, he called on the gods that his mother worshipped, although until now he had had no need of them.

No, he thought. If I'm going to depend on them, I should do it even when I'm content. Assuming that it ever happened...

Shaking his head to clear it, he decided to take a walk. A nice long walk to banish the images...

*

Forty-five minutes later, a car paused in front of Hermione's house, and she stood up from where she had been sitting on the front stoop. The door opened, and she slid in next to someone she vaguely recognized. Sarah was in the front seat next to her mother, who, she was assured, wasn't coming with them.

The girl she was sitting next to was Sandra, she learned. She, like Sarah, was tall and blonde, but Hermione was fairly sure that her hair was dyed. They sized each other up for a moment, and although she flinched inwardly, none of it showed. Sandra studied her, taking in the heavy eye make-up, the too-thin figure, and the hair falling in her face to hide it, and the slight surprise on her face at the way she had changed quickly turned into a sneer.

The third girl in the car was Jean Blythe, who had just moved to London that year from Cornwall. She was smaller and paler than the other two, with wispy brown hair and too-large blue eyes, but her smile, despite its shyness, was the only one that seemed genuine.

"Weren't there other people coming too?" Hermione asked, remembering something dimly about Julie and Allison.

"Family stuff came up."

"Oh."

There was an uncomfortable lull in the conversation as they stopped at a traffic light and Sarah's mother broke it by swearing at someone who ran a red light.

"Sorry," she apologized. "It's just that son of a bitch who--"

"Mum," Sara reminded her dryly.

Hermione hid a grin--all of the cursing she knew of the non-magical kind had come to her by way of Sarah's mother before the age of six.

"Sorry."

There was some hesitant giggling from the back as the car moved forward again.

The rest of the ride was silent other than the exclamations of Sarah's mother at the other drivers and apologies that followed. When they reached the street they had planned to shop on, the four girls piled out of the car with the instructions to be back at five.

"So, now where?" Sarah asked once they were free.

*

Three hours later found them walking down the street, Sandra and Sarah giggling so hard that they could barely stand, with Jean and Hermione looking slightly annoyed. Hermione was wondering why she had come along at all. She could be at home doing... What? Wallowing in self-pity?

Anyway, she had finished all of her last minute shopping, including small gifts for her aunt, uncle, and Arthur.

Still, she continued to dwell on the feeling that they thought she was strange, especially Sandra. Throughout the morning, she had snubbed Hermione several times, subtly sliding barbs into the conversation that were only meant to be understood by the two of them. Hermione hadn't expected any more or less. She spent so much of her time at Hogwarts, buried in books that she didn't know about what happened in the muggle world at all any more. And as they day dragged on, she increasingly found that she didn't particularly care.

She knew the two blondes that she was with, even if they had barely spoken for the last several years. They were the living, breathing form of the criticisms that were heaped on her and being around them filled her with a frightening urge to smash and hit and... She quelled the violent thoughts, forcing herself to focus on Jean rather than Sarah or Sandra.

Jean was a bit of an outsider too, Hermione noticed. Maybe because she was new or shy, or perhaps both. She didn't seem to like Sandra much more than Hermione did, which resulted in many shared eyebrow raises, although neither of them said anything out loud.

"Let's get something to eat," Sarah suggested after about two hours and twenty stores. "I'm starving."

"Sounds good," Sandra agreed, and they started off without waiting for Jean or Hermione.

Hermione felt sick. She wasn't hungry at all, and after watching Arthur eat last night, she doubted she would be for a while to come. But she followed the other three into the coffee shop and ordered an obligatory sandwich and cup of black coffee.

"How can you drink that stuff straight?" Sandra asked as she sat down.

Hermione shrugged. "I like it." Which wasn't totally true. She didn't like the taste, but she liked the way the caffeine buzzed through her, giving her energy without having to eat.

They moved on to another conversation about something that had happened at school--apparently, they all went to a public school still. Hermione only half-listened as she watched the people walk by outside, all concerned with themselves, their own problems.

She wondered vaguely who they were, what their lives were like, if they had any family. But when someone familiar stalked in the door, bringing with him a blast of icy air, her heart nearly stopped.

"Excuse me," she said to the others, standing and leaving her barely touched food on the plate. As she made her way to the washroom, she was aware of his hard gaze following her, studying her movements.

And as she doubled over in the stall, forcing the contents of her stomach out, she wondered what he had seen, how many ugly things, when he looked at her today and last night.