Disclaimer: JK Rowling just announced that she'd give me rights to Harry Potter! No, actually, that's not true...if that were, I'd be much richer than I am right now :P Eeep...sorry.

Warning: Contains anorexic and bulimic behavior from Hermione and self-harming thoughts from Draco, may be triggering, please proceed with caution. On the opposite end of the spectrum, this chapter also contains slightly nsfw content, not a super smutty sex scene or anything, but a little inappropriate nevertheless...you'll see.

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Draco's POV

I watched as Granger apparated back into her living room.

I waited for her to explode in rage, yell at me, slap me, blame me, throw me out, even.

That was what the old Granger I knew from Hogwarts would have done.

Maybe she would break down crying.

I don't know why that thought made me a little guilty.

I really shouldn't be guilty over some know-it-all, ugly Mud--Muggleborn...Mudblood. I mean...Mudblood-turned-Halfblood.

Whatever, she's still Mudblood by birth.

And I'm...Halfblood...But still a Malfoy, and Malfoys are always Pureblood, no matter what.

I felt a little comforted by that thought.

I stood there in the hallway while she stood in the living room.

She didn't do any of the things I had expected her to do.

I don't think she even saw or registered my presence.

She was staring straight at me but at the same time her eyes were frighteningly empty. Void of emotion, of thought, of light. Just completely, absolutely vacant.

It scared me.

And then she brushed past me and rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and throwing a barricade of locking and privacy charms against the door.

I felt each and every one of them reverberate through me, slamming brutally over and over into my skull. I remembered what Head Healer Crax had said about our linked magic. It physically hurt, so much that I just managed to slip in a little wandless spell of my own under the cover of her magic.

Now the door appeared transparent from my side, but not on hers. Kind of like a two-way mirror. I am such a genius.

Malfoys aren't scared of anything.

I'm just...looking for blackmail evidence.

Of course I didn't care about the Mud...Mudblood. Why would I worry about a worthless, ugly little thing like her?

Blackmail evidence...

But I could not help remembering how her cold little hand had rested gently on my shoulder, and how her sandwiches were so ridiculously, ridiculously delicious. And how frail she seemed.

How had her stupid friends fallen for my trick? For Merlin's sake they were supposed to be the people who defeated the Dark Lo--Voldemort! Were they really so useless without Herm--the Mudblood?

I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. A foreign emotion roiled, rearing its ugly head and threatening to overwhelm me.

Alas, I could deny it no longer. It was guilt.

To what new lows could I fall?

I suddenly despaired.

But the next thing I saw in the bathroom terminated that emotion completely.

I felt sick again.

Sick...and even more guilty.

When Granger took off her shirt and shorts, leaving her in her bra and knickers, I gasped.

What had she done to herself?

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Hermione's POV

I did the only thing I could think of doing at the moment.

I purged, even though I had eaten nothing to throw up.

Surprise, surprise, the hospital food they had forced me to eat before came up.

I retched until my throat felt raw and my stomach ached with the now familiar and comforting emptiness.

I stood up and flushed the toilet, leaning on it a little as I got over my dizzy spell from moving too quickly and throwing so many privacy charms at the door.

I had to be more careful to conserve my energy from now on.

But Malfoy couldn't know what I was doing.

I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink. I looked every bit the pathetic, ugly, worthless person Bellatrix had said I was. I was so hideous. So unbelievably ugly.

I felt ill.

I took off my shirt and shorts, leaving my undergarments on.

I almost broke into tears right there and then. How could it be possible for a person to look so pathetically disgusting?

I traced my shaking hands over my bony shoulders, my protruding collarbones, ribs and hipbones. I rubbed my fingers over them obsessively, again and again, to reassure myself that they were still there, not hidden under layers and layers of fat and flab. 

And then came the hardest part. I forced myself to look down at my huge stomach and thighs. I pinched them, hard, whimpering a little when I felt skin and flab under my fingers. 

I stared at myself in the mirror, turning to the side and back. I was huge. Horrifyingly hideous. I was suddenly gripped with the terrible need to be skinny, weightless. So skinny that I would disappear when I turned to the side; so weightless that I could drift away on winds, far, far away from everyone and everything.

I stepped onto the electronic balance and gasped. I had gained back one lbs from my stay at the hospital.

No. No, no no, no, no, no, no.

How could I have let this happen to me?

I rubbed my hands over my bony body over and over again, purposefully disregarding my disgustingly engorged belly and thighs. Rubbed obsessively until my skin was red and raw. Rubbed, and let it calm me down. Now was not the time to cry or break down. I had to be strong. Like everyone expected me to be.

And I was strong. Stronger even than the primal human instinct to eat.

I smiled grimly.

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Draco's POV

I stared into the room, my eyes wide and my throat closing up.

She looked...skeletal. There was no other word for it. 

She was so emaciated that all her ribs were jutting sharply from under her skin. Her chest was non-existent, and her ass was...not an ass at all. Just sharp, jutting bones that looked like they hurt. And how had I not noticed how droopy and thin her once vibrant, thick locks of brown hair were now?

She leaned down to pinch at the skin on her stomach and thighs, her face focused and desperate. I didn't understand what she was doing, and when I did I didn't know what to think. She thought she was...fat?

But she was Hermione Granger! The bookworm who didn't care about her looks! Who only dressed up for balls! 

I recalled what she had looked like at the Yule ball at Hogwarts. She had been beautiful then, and Pansy had bitterly yelled at me that if I was going to stare at another girl all night, I might as well not have asked her to come as my date. She had flounced over to Blaise's side, and stayed there for the rest of the ball. I couldn't have cared less.

But she had been beautiful, so alluring I could not keep my eyes off her.

Of course I didn't like her or anything, after all I was a Malfoy, Slytherin and Pureblood, and she was a Mudblood and a Gryffindor. Nothing would propel me to voluntarily talk to her. Malfoys just know how to appreciate beauty when it's right in front of their eyes, you know?

So how could she have let this happen?

The Hermione Granger we all knew from before was a sensible, strong, smart woman. What had happened to that version of her?

I looked down at the faint, fading scar on my wrist.

The war, of course.

It was always the war.

I watched, transfixed, as she rubbed her skin until it was red and raw, seeming to find strength and solace in the action.

But it looked painful.

Her entire person screamed painful.

I wondered how no one had noticed this before now.

Eventually she redressed, and moved to unlock the bathroom door and undo her charms. I took the opportunity to dismantle my little two-way mirror as well, and quickly ran out into the living room, taking care to recline casually on an armchair.

"Malfoy!" She yelled suddenly.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, falling out of the chair and crashing onto the ground, taking a porcelain vase on the table nearby with me.

I seem to be falling out of chairs a lot lately.

The vase shattered into a million tiny pieces, some of them sticking into my palms and knees, shredding and tearing my skin.  Blood oozed out of the many cuts the sharp porcelain had made.

I winced. "Rats." I muttered, just before Granger stepped into the living room.

She looked at me in shock.

I watched as that shock quickly turned into anger.

She stomped up to me and slapped me hard with her icy, small hand.

It hurt.

I stared up at her with dull, unblinking eyes.

I wasn't too sure what to think, or how to react.

"You bastard!" She yelled. "I have enough problems without you popping up and then trying to kill yourself when my back is turned! What the hell is wrong with you, Malfoy!"

She thought I had purposefully broken the vase to try and harm myself?

I felt numb. That actually sounded like a great idea right now.

I reached down to grab a piece of the shiny, broken porcelain, placing  it slowly against a vein on my arm, pressing until my skin opened and bled and hurt, but in a really good way.

I think I can understand why she likes hurting so much. I do, too.

Hurting is solace. Solace from another kind of hurting.

Body over mind.

Granger had stopped yelling and screaming, and was instead staring at me with wide eyes.

What, honey, scared of a little blood?

I chuckled a little.

All of a sudden her wand was on me, the vase was whole again and my cuts were all healed.

I stayed on the floor, and she sunk down on it as well.

I looked up and saw that she was crying.

"Don't cry." I said. "I'm not worth it."

I felt wetness on my cheeks too.

Somehow we ended up embracing. Two crying adults hugging on the floor like toddlers. Me with my torn and bloody trousers, and her in her baggy clothes too big for her too skinny body.

Two fragile, broken leaves drifting away on the winds. Far, far away, where nothing matters so much anymore.

A/N: Well...yeah. They've both hit rock bottom, and surely there's no way to go but up...right?

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter...which was longer than usual :) Remember to vote if you liked it and comment why you liked or hated this chapter or what you think is gonna happen next. Draco and Hermione sure have a lot of unhealthy ways to deal with the past, eh?