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Hermione was not well.
Frankly, she felt like shit.
Well, shit had a purpose and she didn't really feel like she had one.
Twenty four years today and she was alone in her tiny flat in muggle London. Just her and her second bottle of wine. And it wasn’t even the good kind, just a cheap one she found in the convenience store.
She had friends of course, but she told them what she always tells them every year since she came back from Sydney three years ago without her parents, "I think I'm staying home tonight…. No, it's okay…. Really, I'm fine, I just need some time to myself. Let's go out for lunch tomorrow."
So right now, it was just her and her two bottles of wine tonight.
Alone in her tiny flat in muggle London.
She was always alone though.
Everyone kept having the same idea of coupling up before twenty five. Guess she didn't get the memo.
Just this past year, she went to three weddings.
Three.
In August last year was Harry and Ginny’s wedding. To that one she went with Pansy and Luna and they danced all night long. It was the first big event after the war and it made sense to have fun. So she didn't really think about it.
Then, in December came Pansy and Theo's winter wedding. Where she was a bridesmaid and Pansy was an actual bridezilla, so she did her thing and by the end of the night she was so exhausted that she only wanted her bed. So she didn't really think about it either.
But in May, at Neville and Luna's wedding, held in a large field of flowers, she felt so lonely. In a room surrounded by friends she felt so alone.
That feeling didn't leave her.
And today she managed to feel worse.
Maybe it was her fault. Maybe she didn't try enough? But then again there was that fucking saying that's practically drilled into her head by now.
It will come when you least expect it.
Logically, she shouldn't be trying. So she did that right.
She didn't find herself particularly attractive either, she never needed to be. She was the brains of the Golden Trio. But now she felt like she should at least have an idea of what it was like to be wanted.
Desired.
And the brains seemed to have been left at Hogwarts because although everyone thought she would be the next big thing in the Ministry of Magic, she only worked in a cubicle at the Ministry of Magic.
Not quite the same.
She felt like a failure. And when someone asks how she's doing, she couldn't even bring herself to say this out loud. That she wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit. She didn't want to be that kind of burden. And honestly she was a bit too proud to admit that she failed at this game called life.
So she cries. But only when she was alone.
Only in her tiny flat in muggle London.
She felt broken. Because something ought to be wrong with her.
What has she done with her life during these years?
What a waste.
-0-
What Hermione doesn't know is that next month Ron Weasley is proposing to Lavender Brown and by November she will get an invitation by owl to their wedding. She will almost say no, but Ron is her friend and she will feel the need to be there for him.
So six months later when she's on her third flute of champagne, Draco Malfoy will finally gain courage to go talk to her.
Two weeks later, he will ask her on a date. Dinner in muggle London.
Three months after that, he will ask her to be his girlfriend during their sixth date, after dessert.
And two years after that, he will be asking a much more serious question.
The next wedding she attends, she's going to be a little late, but, nonetheless everyone will be waiting for her, a vision in white.
And a year later, when she tells Draco she's pregnant, with tears of joy in her eyes, she'll never feel alone again.