A/N: This first chapter (and sort of the second chapter) is there to pretty much just explain a bunch of stuff that will be referenced back to later in the story. It becomes more romantic and readable in chapter 3. A lot of it will be one shots that are loosely connected and some chapters will follow directly on each other.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe.

Hermione's life hasn't exactly been easy. Her parents divorced when she was two. Her mother married another man and moved to D.C., forcing three year old Hermione and her father to come along.

Her mother wasn't the most loving person. Hermione was born prematurely and her mother suffered from terrible post-partum depression, and has been struggling to bond with Hermione ever since. Her stepfather was a very cold person and never truly welcomed Hermione into his family. Her father was a gentle and kind man, and Hermione was his whole world.

When she was four, Hermione and her mother got into a terrible car accident. Her mother had a few cuts and bruises, but Hermione had several cracked ribs, internal bruising, and a torn spleen. The doctors said Hermione was very lucky. She has a rare condition called Situs Inversus, which means that her organs are positioned in a mirror image from the normal positions, and the debris shredded her spleen and not her liver. Hermione recovered, but from that day she would get terrible stomach cramps and nausea for no reason at all. She had to get used to it, because doctors could find no explanation for this and her mother and stepfather stopped believing her after a while and told her to stop lying.

On her tenth birthday, Hermione received a letter from Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry. She received the letter one year earlier than normal, because she was a very talented witch and Dumbledore(the headmaster) has chosen to let her join early, but she did not know this yet.

Her third year at Hogwarts, her stepfather started beating her mother. He always had a problem with drinking, but it had never been this bad before. Hermione couldn't say anything, because she knew her mother would deny it.

Fifth year at Hogwarts had been the worst. During the summer, Hermione got terrible cramps that would not go away, so her father took her to see a healer. Turns out Hermione was sexually abused when she was a child. The healer said that she had been raped repeatedly between the ages of 3 and 6, and that she doubted any muggle doctor would have picked it up. Hermione went to therapy, but she couldn't remember who did it, although everyone suspects it was her stepfather.

After being caught in the hallway with Harry by Professor Umbridge, she was questioned on whether she was part of Dumbledore's Army or not. Professor Umbridge didn't believe Hermione, but had no proof against her. Eventually Umbridge tortured Hermione using the water-cure method, a method where the victim is forced to drink water until their stomachs can take no more and they puke it all up, or the torturer hits them until they start puking. Then they are forced to drink water again. This process is repeated until the torturer is satisfied with the answer. Two hours of this method and Hermione still denied any involvement with Dumbledore's Army, and Umbridge started to believe her.

Professor McGonagall was furious when she found out how Hermione had been interrogated, but there was no one she could tell that could do anything about it. Professor McGonagall was in a bad mood for a week. What kind of teacher, what kind of Head of House, could not defend her students from medieval torture?