Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I would not do sports and injure myself and then have to sit out for the rest of the afternoon. Quite frankly, it sucks. So here I am. Not owning Harry Potter.

Rating: T

Summary: AU. We all know what Hermione saw when she faced the Boggart in the exam for third-year DADA. But…what if she lied? Dark, child abuse.

Alternate Summary: AU. "I'm going to bed, before either one of you comes up with another clever idea to get us killed. Or worse, expelled!" There was always a reason for Hermione's words. What did she mean when she said that? It's always been her secret.

Warnings: Abuse, language

Mya's Mistake

Hermione took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. She had a very bad feeling about this. A very, very, very bad feeling. She was acutely aware of Professor Lupin, standing just outside. She couldn't screw this up, or she'd fail Defense Against the Dark Arts, or something like that.

She broke out into a cold sweat. Her clammy hand slipped on the handle of her wand. A door appeared in the wall, an unassuming dark wood door. She watched the door closely as it began to swing open. It was just a boggart. She could handle it. She'd faced a troll, for goodness's sake!

A big, long-fingered hand curled around the door. The bottom dropped out of her stomach. Oh, please no…not…

The door opened, torturously slow. Hermione swallowed uncomfortably. The door kept the figure's face in shadow, but she had a pretty good idea of what—or who—it was.

When the first foot stepped down onto the cold stone floor of the room, she dropped her wand. She knew those shoes. And she'd never expected to see them at Hogwarts. The long, slender piece of wood clattered against the stone as the rest of the figure came into view.

Hermione was breathing in short pants now, her heart beating at a hundred miles an hour.

Her father had come to Hogwarts.

He looked exactly as he always did. His thick leather belt, holding up his black trousers. She always noticed the belt first. The bottle of alcohol clenched tightly in his right hand. The alcohol was always second. His navy-blue tie loosened, the top button of his white collared shirt undone, his hair perfectly parted and groomed. She looked away from his face, back to the floor. She knew that infuriated smirk almost better than she knew her own name.

"Hermione Rose," he began coolly, the way he always did. She hated how his voice slid over her name. And she was never Hermione, always "Hermione Rose". "Hermione Rose, your mother and I are very disappointed in you. We allow you to attend that freak school of yours purely out of the goodness of hearts, and how do you repay our kindness?" He tutted at her. "You misbehave and get yourself expelled." His voice was only slightly slurred—he wasn't too drunk yet, but she knew that could change. She braced herself. "And your mother and I are called to your damn school, leaving your little brother in the care of some girl who charges far too much for her services, only to find that you've failed all your classes as well. Now, is that any way to thank us for all we've done for you?"

Hermione studied the ground. "No, sir," she said quietly. "I apologize, sir."

"What happens to ungrateful freak girls?" he asked, his voice deceptively calm. She suppressed a shiver. She knew that tone. More importantly, she knew what followed that tone.

"'m punished," she whispered, eyes still fixed on the stone floor.

A hand connected with her cheek, throwing her off-balance. She managed to catch herself before she fell down. "Speak up, girl!"

"I'm to be punished, sir, for forgetting my place, and what I owe to you for everything you've done for me," she recited from memory, only barely louder.

"Damn right," he spat. She could hear the belt sliding from the belt loops, and she bit her lip, trying to suppress a shiver. He saw it anyway.

"Are you scared, Hermione Rose?" he demanded.

"N-no. Sir. No, sir," she lied. He slapped her again, harder this time. She willed her legs to stay strong, but she fell to her knees anyway.

"Don't lie to your father. Are you scared, Hermione Rose?" he repeated, his temper rising.

She swallowed. "Yes, sir," she said honestly.

He snorted, disgusted. "Some daughter I have. A cowardly freak." Hermione vaguely remembered something, something about Hogwarts, and exams. She ignored it. This was more important right now, if she didn't want to die.

Something cool and thin pressed against her hand. She looked over and saw her wand on the ground. She gaped at it for a minute, before she turned back to her father. Everything came rushing back. Boggarts.

She struggled to her feet, almost not feeling her father's third slap. She pointed her wand straight at the apparition and enunciated clearly, "Riddikulus!"

Her limbs felt weak and floaty, as if she'd just exercised too much. But she focused on the whirling mist in front of her, expecting it to make something funny so she wouldn't fail.

But the mist stopped whirling, and there sat five-year-old Thom Granger, arms around little Alex, exactly as she had last seen them except for a few differences. His head was propped on his knees, pulled up to his chest, and he was crying, tears wetting the knees of his trousers. "This is all your fault, Mya. If it wasn't for you, Daddy wouldn't hate us. Why'd I have to be a freak like you?" He sniffled. "If I wasn't a freak, maybe Daddy and Mummy would love me like they used to. It's all your fault, Mya, and I hate you!" She finally noticed the purple-and-black bruise on his cheek, and her split lip. "I don't want to talk to you ever again, Mya!" She tried not to realize that she was crying.

"Riddikulus!" she said again.

The gray mist swirled for a few minutes before a woman with dark hair appeared. Hermione tried to stop the gasp from coming out of her mouth. It was Kate Bassett, and she had a look of fury on her face. "I practically take you in, let you use my piano, teach you how to play, and what do you do for me? Nothing! You bring your destructive little brother in here, and I find that you've broken the vase that was passed down to me from my great-grandmother! I trusted you, Hermione, and you broke that trust!" Her face twisted with anger. "Get out. I never want to see you in my house again!"

Hermione raised her wand again, tears flowing freely down her face. "Riddikulus!" She dreaded what the boggart would find next.

Harry stood in front of her. "I remember you!" he exclaimed. Hermione stared, confused. "You were that hopeless little tagalong girl who always used to climb that thing at the park, back when we were just kids. You always tried to get everyone to leave you alone. Well, guess what, Hermione. You can have all the solitude you'd like. Ron and I are through with little nerdy hangers-on. Go play with your books, and leave Ron and me to do the real work." He smirked. "I'd say it's been nice, but, well, it hasn't."

She brushed away the tears on her face and said "Riddikulus!" one last time. The body of her little sister Alexandra, beaten, broken, was lying on the ground in front of her, her father standing over it with a frightening smile on his face. She screamed and ran out of the trunk.

Professor Lupin, Harry, and Ron were waiting for her just outside the trunk. "Hermione!" the professor exclaimed. "What's the matter?"

For a moment she thought she'd tell them. She'd tell them everything, everything that had happened to her, everything that would as soon as she went home. Everything she was afraid of.

But she was too afraid to tell them anything. Better that they think she was still the Hermione they knew and not anything more.

"P-P-Professor McGonagall!" she lied. "She said I'd failed everything!" (1)

Let them think all that mattered to her was schoolwork. It was no more than they already thought, by the exasperated but unsurprised look on Ron's face.

She let them take forever to "calm her down". At least this way no one would discover her secret.

Maybe someday she'd tell them.

BREAK

A/N: Well, this came from somewhere. My brain. Presumably. Reminds me a little of "Deepest Fear Revealed", a boggart-abuse story featuring Harry that I am reading. This may carry over into another section of one-shot, involving a teenaged Hermione and a boggart in Grimmauld Place. Depends on how much of it I get written and (to a lesser extent) the response to this shot.

Other than that, hope you enjoyed my nice little evil dark mood.

It was inspired by my view of Hermione in relation to the PS movie quote featured above. I always wondered about her reasons for saying it.

Thanks for reading,

LysPotter

(1) What is contained in the quotes is directly from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling.

That is all.