Chapter Text
Hermione Granger had exactly two major regrets in her life. Sure, as she grew to her ripe old age of thirty-five there were many small regrets such as wishing she didn't eat so much pizza the night before, or ‘maybe I shouldn’t have slept with that one guy’, but her deepest regrets? The ones that she held onto with her last breath? There were only two of those.
The first being that she wished she hadn’t touched that book, ignored that page, and accidently activated a curse. An unknown, very old, very powerful, incurable curse, to be precise.
The wizarding world knew very little about the curse due partially from the resentence to cast the curse onto unsuspecting witches and wizards that the book had.
The book that held the curse had numerous warnings, little hints littered all over the pages. Those warnings had deterred very many wizards and witches from reading further and the ones that it hadn’t... well, she supposed they were dead before they realised what was happening.
As Hermione had read she could feel the magic pin pricking itself on her fingers, tiny little shocks trying to get her to drop the page and deter her from reading further- attempting to protect her from her undoing. The book was supposedly written about the secrets of the veil and promised insight into entering the veil and returning. Hermione was enchanted by the idea of bringing back people who had been lost to herself and her friends throughout the years and during the war.
The title of the book was “Leabhar a ‘cumail mallachd” which was scottish and loosely translated to say “this book brings death”. Hermione hadn't known scottish and although common sense told her that you should never open something you don’t understand, her curiosity and stubbornness got the better of her.
Once she began to read she was enchanted by the words, by the wealth of knowledge. As soon as she had flipped the middle page however, she began to notice that the bottom of her thumb was turning dark. Mistaking it for dust on the pages of the old book she continued on. A few more pages in and she felt burning, like something was branding her. However whatever it was was not burning her skin, no, it was burning her magic. Finally, she had dropped the book- but it was too late.
The curse had already marked her and the knowledge she gained while reading was lost. Her memories of the book left her as soon as her hands left the heavy novel, but the feeling of the brand had not. Attributing the eerie feeling she had on her soul to the darkness around her, she left the library and went home. Ronald still hadn’t arrived and although it was her turn to cook dinner she had the urge to lay down.
That was the start of her downfall, as she eloquently put it when she had to describe the scene to her friends, to the doctors.
On top of having a continuous feeling of lethargy, her hair became duller, the tips of her fingers darker. Places where her magic leaked from her body were starting to dissolve or age faster than the rest of her. The spells that relied on large amounts of magic to hold for long periods of time such as the wards around their home or the sticking charms that held up their wedding photos started to weaken. Hermione could still remember how frustrated Ron became once the doctors realised nothing could be done.
After a few months it wasn’t just the frame’s that held their happiest memories that were shattered.
Ron had started pulling away from her and the pain of her dying in front of him and began frequenting local bars to drink the heaviness away. Sooner than later was when he met a half-blood named Hannah.
Honestly? She felt like she deserved it.
If only she had heeded the warnings the book gave.
If only she had gone home when she was supposed to instead of staying in the library.
If only she trusted her gut.
If only she hadn’t walked away years ago…
She would have never married Ron, he wouldn’t be going through this pain.
The road of self-pity she was walking down led her to her next regret.
...Theo