Chapter Text
Hermione Granger had always believed that if something was worth doing, it was worth doing properly.
Which was why the end of her relationship with Ron Weasley felt so unsettling—there had been no explosion; no final, decisive blow that broke them.
They were sitting at the small kitchen table in their flat, the one with the uneven leg that Ron had sworn he’d fix for three years but never had. There was a half-empty bottle of wine between them and a plate of pizza that had gone cold.
“I think,” Ron said slowly, staring at the table rather than at her, “that we’re making each other miserable.”
Hermione had opened her mouth to argue like she always did—she couldn’t help it; he was usually so wrong—but this time she stopped, the words trapped somewhere behind her ribs. This time, he was right.
“I don’t think we’re doing it on purpose,” he continued. “But we are miserable. Aren't we?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
They sat with that for a moment. No shouting. No tears.
Hermione waited for the familiar spark of indignation to flare in her chest—the one that usually propelled her into a lecture on effort, compromise and emotional labour.
It didn’t come.
What came instead was exhaustion. Dull, aching, humiliating exhaustion.
She thought of the dozen half-finished conversations stacked between them like unopened mail. Of how often she’d work late just because it was easier than going home and facing the endless silence that cloaked their flat, preferring to crawl into bed next to him as he snored, and pretend she was still sleeping until she heard him leave in the mornings.
She’d read somewhere that the only time a relationship is truly over is when the couple stopped communicating. She hadn’t really thought much of it at the time, but the words seemed poignant to her now.
Perhaps it had been the universe, trying to warn her that this would happen.
Perhaps she hadn’t cared enough to listen.
“I don’t want to be miserable anymore,” Ron said, finally.
“Neither do I,” Hermione agreed.
And so, they had simply ended things quietly, stuttering out like a fire starved of oxygen, until there was nothing left but an empty bottle of wine, a cold pizza and the uncomfortable realisation that neither of them had wanted to salvage their life together. Neither of them had even tried.
Hermione hadn’t expected Ron’s things to still feel like Ron.
She’d assumed that once he had left to stay at the Burrow, the flat would rearrange itself around his absence. That over the week he’d been gone the space would somehow become more neutral. Manageable.
It hadn’t.
She stood in the doorway of the bedroom; arms folded tightly across her chest and stared.
Ron’s jumper lay slung over the back of the chair. One sock—just one—sat abandoned beside the bed; its twin permanently lost to the same mysterious dimension that swallowed all the others. His battered Chuddley Cannons poster still clung to the wall, curling slightly at the corners.
An unexpected wave of nausea washed over Hermione.
This was ridiculous. They had agreed to separate like adults. There had been lists. Discussions. A schedule. Ron would come by at the weekend to collect the rest of his things. Sensible. Civilised.
And yet.
She stepped into the room and picked up the sock, holding it between her thumb and forefinger as if it might bite her.
“How,” she murmured to the empty flat, “can a wizard leave behind so much... stuff?”
She dropped it into the box she’d labelled Ron in neat, precise handwriting. It was already half full.
A strange pressure built behind her eyes.
Hermione moved methodically, gathering books, jumpers, and stray bits of Quidditch paraphernalia. Each item sparked a memory she hadn’t consented to revisiting—Ron sprawled on the sofa, Ron complaining about her filing system, Ron laughing so hard he snorted when she’d tried to bake without magic.
There had been joy here, once. Real joy.
That, she thought bitterly, was the problem.
She sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed her palms to her eyes.
They hadn’t broken up because they didn’t care. They’d broken up because caring hadn’t been enough to bridge the widening gap between who they were and who they were becoming.
Hermione lowered her hands and stared at the Chudley Cannons poster again.
She could take it down. She probably should.
Instead, she lay back on the bed with her eyes closed, the silence pressing in around her.
This was what no one warned you about—the chapters after the ending, the absence of sound after a song. The complete and utter lack of purpose. No crisis to respond to. No villain to blame.
Just herself.
She sat up abruptly.
She couldn’t stay here. Not like this.
If she stayed—in the flat, in the comfortable pull of what had been—she would calcify. Shrink. Accept stagnation in place of stability.
She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, smudged mascara, frizzy curls exploding out of a half-hearted bun and three day old pyjamas. She looked exactly how she smelled. What a disgrace.
“It’s New Years Eve for heaven’s sake!” she huffed to herself, getting up and wandering over to the closet, flicking through her dresses until she found one she thought was suitable.
Susan Bones was hosting a party at a new bar she’d opened above one of the apothecaries in Diagon Alley. Ron had suggested they go, before the split, but she’d declined. Any event that involved their entire class from Hogwarts always attracted unwanted attention.
But tonight, Hermione just couldn’t stay in the empty flat. She needed to do something.
After a much-needed shower, the reapplication of her makeup, and several charms and potions intended to tame her hair into something vaguely passable after a week of neglect, she was ready. Throwing a few things into a little black bag she made her way to the door, turning back to take one last look at the bedroom she had shared with Ron since they were eighteen years old.
This was it. This was the moment she let go of her life as it had been. A sudden urge to retreat back into her bed flashed through her. Hermione took a couple of steps back into the room, her fingers tracing the edge of the Chudley Cannons poster.
She could call Ron. Ask him to come back. He might—if she begged, if she promised they could work on things. Maybe they could find a way to be happy together.
But no, she couldn’t. Not really. She reached for the poster, removing it from the wall and rolling it up neatly.
She placed it in the box and taped it shut.
Diagon Alley was already alive when Hermione arrived.
It glittered in that particular way it always did on nights that mattered—enchanted lights looping lazily overhead, countdown charms drifting through shop windows, music spilling out into the street in overlapping waves. Laughter echoed between the crooked buildings, loud and self-assured, as if everyone had been issued a script she’d somehow missed.
Hermione’s pace slowed.
She immediately regretted coming.
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag as she took in her reflection in a shop window—she’d gone for a chic up-do, a French twist, but her hair was already falling loose, flyaway curls floating around her face. Her dress, which had seemed like a sensible choice at home, now appeared drab against the lights of the alley, entirely forgettable. Her heels had already begun to ache and the red lipstick she’d chosen was dry and would soon begin to flake.
She wondered, fleetingly, if she’d ever feel comfortable in her own skin. If, even at twenty-nine, she still struggled to dress herself for a simple party with friends.
She glanced down at her left hand.
No ring.
Ron had proposed the year they’d both turned twenty, and she’d worn the pear shaped yellow diamond for almost ten years, no wedding plans ever eventuating between them.
Leaving it on the bathroom counter at the flat had been intentional. Her choice, to leave it all behind. But her fingers curled reflexively, as if it might appear back on her finger anyway.
She carried on, taking quick steps and squaring her shoulders in what she hoped was a believable impersonation of the confidence she wished she had. The Hyacinth glowed ahead of her—neon pink lights flooding the surrounding area with an eerie glow. Crowds of people lined the edge of the balcony, the bar was packed. She spotted familiar faces immediately, George, Harry and Luna leaning against the railing and laughing at something—probably a joke George had made or one of Harry’s ridiculous work stories. They looked happy.
As she got closer her gaze swept across the ground floor of the building, searching for the entrance so she wouldn’t have to linger in the street. Then she saw them.
The press.
A small cluster of reporters with levitating cameras and Quick-Quotes Quills scrawling notes on long rolls of parchment.
After the war, the flashbulbs and reporters screaming questions at her had never really stopped.
She’d tried to escape it once—absconded from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures altogether and enrolled at Muggle University, Oxford, of course. It had been a quiet act of rebellion against the role of the Golden Girl. A title that had been assigned to her against her will, as if surviving trauma qualified her for sainthood.
It hadn’t worked.
Even then, the Ministry had dragged her back whenever it suited them. Onto stages meant for heroes and chosen ones. Not for people who still had nightmares about Snatchers. Not for people who sometimes struggled to lift their own wands without their hands shaking.
The press tours. The interviews. The galas. Hundreds of posed photographs that ended up in magazines beside captions like The Golden Girl: Hot or Not?
Eleven years later, it still hadn’t ended.
Hermione stopped short.
They hadn’t seen her yet. She could still turn back.
Then—
“Hermione!”
George Weasley’s voice rang out cheerfully from the balcony.
Her stomach dropped.
He waved enthusiastically. Harry peered down into the alleyway and joined in.
“Come on! You’re late!” the pair called down to her.
Heads turned.
Then cameras appeared.
Flashbulbs erupted, the light so bright it was blinding.
“Hermione Granger!”
“Over here!”
“Miss Granger—just a moment!”
She started forward anyway, chin lifted, expression carefully neutral.
“Where’s Ron?” someone called.
She covered her face with her hand, trying to see through the flashes.
That was a mistake.
Another voice cut through the din, an excited edge to it. “No engagement ring tonight, Hermione?”
Oh, fuck.
Her breath hitched.
She kept walking.
“Is the engagement off?”
“Have the Golden Couple split?”
“I won’t comment on my private life,” she said, as sternly as she could manage as the reporters closed in around her, blocking the entrance entirely.
She had spent years smiling through this. Ron beside her, hand warm and solid at her back. They’d learned the choreography—stand here, tilt your head, laugh on cue. They’d made their Ministry-mandated appearances every few months and endured the cameras together, always a united front, only to go home afterward and fall asleep back-to-back, murmuring distracted goodnights into the dark.
As far as the public had known, they’d been solid. Reliable. Unbreakable.
“Miss Granger—so good to see you,” drawled a familiar voice.
Hermione frowned, searching through the crowd to find her. She need not have bothered though, as with an alarming look of satisfaction Rita Skeeter stepped forward, Quick-Quotes Quill already twitching.
“I hear,” Rita said sweetly, “from a very interesting source that Ronald Weasley was overheard confiding in Harry Potter, over drinks at the Leaky Cauldron. Apparently he was quite distraught that the two of you had already split. And he’s been living at the Burrow since before Christmas.”
The world seemed to narrow.
Flash.
Flash.
Questions overlapped.
“So it’s true?”
“Care to confirm, Hermione?”
“Did he cheat on you Hermione?”
“Did you cheat on him?”
Something inside her went very still.
From behind, a hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her back, out of the reach of the reporters. Someone appeared in front of her and she felt herself being shuffled into the dark, cavernous mouth of the Hyacinth.
“Are you alright Hermione?” Harry asked, his face crumpled with concern, his hand still holding her just above her elbow.
“Blimey, didn’t realise they’d go crazy like that or I wouldn’t have called out to you,” George added. “Had to threaten to hex them to get them to move out the way.”
Hermione attempted to gather herself, glancing between the two men. She was afraid to speak, aware she was teetering on the edge of a full-blown panic attack.
“Hermione?” Harry asked, letting go of her arm as his eyes searched her face. “Are you okay?”
“I hope you enjoy the party,” she blurted, tears betraying her to run down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry but I’ve got to go.”
“But—“
She didn’t wait. She stepped back and turned, disapparating in an instant.
She went to her parents’ house because she didn’t know where else to go.
Her mother cried when she opened the door.
Not a dignified tear or two—no. This was a full-bodied, clutching-her-cardigan, gasping-for-air sort of cry. The kind usually reserved for funerals, terminal diagnoses, or particularly upsetting episodes of Antiques Roadshow.
It felt excessive, given that it was just a breakup. It wasn’t as if someone had died.
Well. Not technically—but Hermione’s future family, her carefully envisioned someday, and every assumption Pam Granger had ever made about grandchildren named after flowers certainly had.
“Oh, Hermione,” Pam wailed, ushering her inside and into a chair she had already padded with an extra cushion, “I knew it. I knew something like this would happen. I said to your father—didn’t I say it?—you can’t let things drift, you have to secure men before they get any big ideas.”
Hermione accepted the mug of tea pressed into her hands without comment. She was too tired to ask what, exactly, constituted “big ideas.”
“When we were your age,” Pam continued, sitting opposite her and dabbing furiously at her eyes, “your father and I already had our second mortgage and were actively trying for you. Actively, Hermione. We had charts.”
Hermione did not take the bait.
“I don’t want you to think I’m disappointed,” Pam said quickly, reaching across the table to pat Hermione’s hand in a way that suggested the opposite. “I just thought by now you’d be… settled.”
“Settled?” Hermione repeated faintly.
“You know what I mean,” Pam sniffed. “Married. Stable. Properly arranged. I mean, you survived a war. I thought that would fast-track things. I was quite worried at first that perhaps he wasn’t quite right for you—but then I read an article about trauma bonding and I thought, that’s it. They’ll never split. They’ll have a beautiful wedding and give us four grandchildren with red hair and wouldn’t that be lovely?”
There it was.
Settled didn’t mean happy. Settled meant finished. Completed. Properly boxed and labelled, with a husband and a respectable number of children slotted neatly into place. She couldn’t exactly blame her mother; Hermione had always assumed she and Ron would get there eventually—after the war, after the rebuilding, after everything else. She hadn’t realised eventually had an expiration date.
“I just wasn’t expecting this,” Pam went on, voice wobbling again. “I thought you and Ron were it. He proposed years ago. But I suppose that means very little when the two of you could never lock down a date for the wedding. A decade is more than enough time to decide if you want to spend your life with someone. Now look at what he’s gone and done, leaving you all on your own! And you’re almost thirty!”
Hermione watched her mother cry and found herself distantly surprised that it wasn’t her doing the same. After all, she was the one who had just become the hopelessly abandoned spinster.
“You never know,” Pam said suddenly, brightening with alarming speed. “Give him a few more days on his own. Sometimes men don’t realise what they have until it’s gone. He’ll be back, dear. Crawling. They always crawl.”
Hermione stared at her tea, untouched, steam curling ominously toward the rim.
“I don’t want him to come back,” she said quietly.
Pam blinked.
“Oh,” she said.
Her father, who had remained resolutely silent throughout, set down his mug and added, mildly, “What a shame. I quite liked Ronald.”
Somehow, this was even worse.
Later that night, Hermione lay awake in her childhood bedroom and tried not to think.
This was easier said than done.
The room hadn’t changed much since she was seventeen. Her parents had repainted it a soft, inoffensive cream sometime after she left for Hogwarts in her first year. A mature colour, for a mature witch, her mum had said, beaming with pride. And even after the years they’d spent in Australia, the house sitting abandoned while her parents forgot who they were and an entire war was fought and won, her bedroom remained stubbornly familiar.
The same narrow bed. The same pine dresser with its drawer that stuck if you didn’t pull it just right. The same window overlooking the back garden, where frost silvered the grass and the old apple tree creaked and bowed in the wind.
She stared at the ceiling and catalogued the cracks.
There were three she remembered clearly—one shaped like a lightning bolt, one like a crooked finger, and one she’d once decided resembled the outline of Australia. She’d lain there years ago, the night before she had altered her parents’ memories; her eyes glued to them like talismans. Proof that her life had happened, that Hermione Jean Granger and her parents had existed here, within the walls of number 8 Heathgate, Hampstead Garden, London. Proof that they had been happy once, before everything had gone wrong.
She sighed and turned onto her side.
The quilt smelled faintly of lavender and washing powder. Clean. Domestic. Safe. It made her want to burrow deep down underneath and never come out.
Down the hall, she could hear the low murmur of her parents’ voices through the bedroom door. They were trying—and failing—to be quiet. Her mother’s voice rose and fell, anxious and tremulous, while her father murmured reassurances Hermione had heard him use on patients when a filling went wrong, or a root canal took longer than expected.
It’ll be fine. We’ll sort it out.
She closed her eyes.
Sorted it out implied a problem. Something broken. Something that needed to be fixed.
Hermione had spent her entire life being the solution to other people’s problems.
She sat up abruptly and swung her legs over the side of the bed, feet pressing into the cold carpet. Her gaze drifted to the bookshelf opposite her—the one her parents had never quite known what to do with. School textbooks still lined one shelf; spines cracked and annotated within an inch of their lives. Her old copy of Hogwarts: A History sat among them, magically repaired after being torn apart during the war but still bearing faint scorch marks if you knew where to look for them.
Above the shelves hung framed certificates.
She hadn’t noticed them earlier.
Her OWL results. NEWTs. A Muggle equivalent certificate from Oxford, painstakingly framed and mounted beside the others. Her parents had arranged them carefully, proud and hopeful, as if waiting for the moment Hermione would come home and see them and remember who she was supposed to be.
The Brightest Witch of Her Age.
Hermione clenched her jaw.
What use was brilliance if it didn’t translate to happiness?
She crossed the room, picking up the Oxford certificate and angling it toward the dim light spilling into her room from the hallway. Bachelor of Dental Surgery, it read, crisp and official. Seven years of her life condensed into neat serif font and a degree she barely remembered earning.
She thought of her classmates—Harry, now a senior Auror with a family—albeit a separated one—but still, his public reputation had morphed, he was now one of the Wizarding World’s most eligible bachelors. He was described by most people as a dashing, successful, rich, doting father. Ginny, radiant and self–assured, balancing her quidditch career and motherhood with enviable ease. Neville Longbottom, brilliant and globe-trotting, leading the research on magical plants and discovering cures for all kinds of strange and horrible diseases.
They were out at a party, at a beautiful new bar. Laughing, dancing. Together.
And Hermione?
Hermione was bringing in the New Year in her childhood bedroom, newly single, with her mother quietly Googling fertility statistics in the next room; she knew this because she could hear her whispering to her father about it.
A laugh escaped her—short, bitter.
She set the frame down more sharply than necessary and returned to the bed, pulling her knees to her chest. The clock on her bedside table glowed a traitorous 12:14 a.m.
She’d even missed her lonely little countdown.
Typical.
As she shifted to rearrange the pillows a jumper that had been folded neatly and left on her bedside table caught her eye. It was Ron’s.
She’d brought it without thinking, shoved into her overnight bag alongside sensible knickers and an emergency toothbrush. She hadn’t realised it until she’d unpacked, and by then it had felt too pathetic to send it back.
Hermione reached for it now, fingers brushing the worn wool. It smelled faintly of soap, and Ron—something warm and familiar and unbearably ordinary.
She pressed it to her face and inhaled.
For the first time since the breakup, she felt the hot sting of tears pricking at the back of her eyes.
They hadn’t been unhappy all the time. That was the worst part. Before the silence, there had been Sundays spent cooking together, laughter over nothing, quiet evenings where existing side by side had felt like enough. But somewhere along the way, enough had stopped being what either of them needed.
She pulled the jumper over her head, letting the fabric fall around her, whatever comfort she had hoped for didn’t come. Instead, she began to recount their last conversation and the way Ron had looked across the table at her—not angry, not accusatory, just exhausted.
I don’t want to be miserable anymore.
Neither did she.
Hermione scrubbed her eyes, annoyed to find tears had fallen down her face without her even noticing. Crying felt indulgent and unproductive. There would be time for that later, perhaps—once she’d figured out what, exactly, she was supposed to do next.
The future loomed, vast, and unstructured.
No war to fight. No cause to champion. No degree to work towards. No clear path laid out in front of her.
Just endless possibilities.
And the possibilities she discovered were terrifying.
She lay back and stared at the ceiling again, her heart thudding unevenly. Thirty was approaching with all the subtlety of a freight train. She could feel it—the quiet expectation that she ought to have arrived somewhere by now, that her life should resemble a fully executed contract, rather than a collection of dog-eared drafts and a mangled list of departures.
Hermione exhaled slowly.
A thought stirred, unwelcome and persistent.
Something has to change.
She didn’t know what yet—only that remaining the same still felt worse than the risk of moving on. Even recklessly.
She frowned into the darkness.
The idea felt traitorous, as if acknowledging dissatisfaction with her life meant admitting failure.
Hermione Granger did not fail. She adapted. She survived.
But surviving, she was beginning to realise, was not the same as living.
It was with the resolution to begin her life anew clutched tight against her soul that Hermione finally, mercifully, drifted off to sleep.
Hermione woke to the unmistakable sound of claws scrabbling against glass.
She groaned, rolling onto her side and pulling the quilt over her head.
The sound persisted—a sharp tap, tap, tap, followed by an indignant huff that suggested the perpetrator had very little patience left.
Hermione froze.
She knew that sound.
Her eyes flew open as she sat upright, heart lurching into an unpleasant pounding. Sunlight filtered weakly through the curtains, illuminating the familiar outlines of her childhood bedroom—and, perched on the windowsill, an unmistakably large, stern-looking tawny owl.
“Oh,” Hermione breathed.
The owl stared at her, unblinking, as if personally offended by the delay.
She scrambled out of bed and crossed the room, fumbling with the latch. The window swung open, letting in a blast of cold January air along with the owl, which swept inside and landed heavily on her dresser. A thick cream envelope hung from its leg, sealed in red wax.
Hermione didn’t need to open it to know who it was from.
Her stomach twisted.
“Right,” she murmured, more to herself than the owl. It pecked at her anyway.
She untied the letter with shaking fingers. The handwriting was precise and unmistakable.
Miss Granger,
I trust this letter finds you well.
Hermione snorted softly. Bold of Minerva McGonagall to assume such a thing.
She perched on the edge of the bed and continued to read.
By some sad twist of fate, Madame Pince has recently passed away. I will spare you the details, but a rather unfortunate accident occurred involving some loose shelving, a particularly troublesome edition of the Monster Book of Monsters and Mr Filch’s new cat. We are all deeply saddened by these events. As you well know, Madame Pince was a pillar at Hogwarts and presided over the library for the past fifty-two years.
As such, we are now in a position where we are without a librarian, and school is recommencing within the coming days. A thought had occurred to me, that perhaps it was time to begin utilisng the library for more than simple research. I have recently visited Beauxbatons Academy of Magic where they have begun sanctioned study programs, research education, and post-graduation preparation programs all run out of their library by their head librarian.
I would like to request that you, as one of my brightest, most promising students, and a young witch who I know loved the library as if it were her second home, come and work at Hogwarts, at least until the end of the school year, and assist me to implement these new programs for the benefit of all of Hogwarts students, present and future. After all, we simply cannot be outdone by the French!
I realise that you must have many offers for various causes, some far more glamorous than this, but I know that education was once close to your heart, and it is my greatest hope that it still is.
With only the warmest regards,
Headmistress Minerva McGonagall
She lowered the parchment slowly, staring at the opposite wall without seeing it.
Hogwarts.
Curriculum reform. Temporary—but potentially renewable. An invitation, not an expectation.
An escape.
The owl nipped at her fingers expectantly.
“I know,” she said, “just give me a moment to think!”
The owl hooted at her; its feathers puffed in irritation.
She turned away and began weighing her options.
Stay with her parents, keep working at their dental clinic, try to get through what was now an incredibly public breakup and then just continue on with life as it was.
Memories of the night before were still fresh in her mind.
She could still see the flashbulbs when she closed her eyes—bright and invasive, searing themselves into her vision. She could still hear the overlapping questions, shouted with gleeful urgency.
Where’s Ron?
No ring tonight?
Have the Golden Couple split?
She pressed the heel of her palm into her eye socket, as though she could physically push the images away.
She’d thought she was prepared for it. She’d spent over a decade being scrutinised, dissected, consumed by public curiosity. She’d become quite good at navigating it all—smiling without too much teeth, answering questions without saying anything of substance at all, angling her body to prevent any bad angles and pregnancy speculation.
But she hadn’t anticipated how different it would feel to face them alone.
No familiar weight of Ron’s hand at her back. No shared glances, no silent agreement about when to leave, no post-event muttering on the way home about whose turn it was to endure the Prophet’s nonsense next.
Just her.
Just the truth, dragged out into the open and dressed up for entertainment.
Hermione exhaled shakily and stared at the far wall, her thoughts drifting—unhelpfully—back to her left hand. Bare. Exposed. As though the absence of the ring had been louder than any declaration she could have made.
It was absurd, really. A decade of inertia distilled into one missing piece of jewellery.
They’d never set a date. Never sent out invitations. Never even agreed on what sort of wedding they might have wanted. The ring had existed in a kind of limbo—neither promise nor lie, just something everyone expected her to keep wearing.
And she had. Until now.
She wondered, not for the first time, when exactly her private life had become public property. When her choices—her hesitations, her doubts—had stopped being hers at all.
Their breakup was going to be front page news; she could practically see the headlines. ‘The Golden Girl: Heartbroken and Hopeless at Twenty-Nine!’.
There would be journalists hiding in the hedges and pictures of her leaving the clinic after a twelve-hour day criticising her skin, her hair, and the bags under her eyes. On the rare occasion she ventured into Diagon Alley to meet Harry and the rest of their friends for a drink there would be whispers, elbows nudging into ribs and pathetic pitying looks.
She shuddered at the thought. She simply would not survive it.
On the other hand, Hogwarts had always been a kind of refuge for Hermione. Even with a homicidal maniac hunting her best friend most years, the castle had been a kind of sanctuary, separate from the outside world.
Hogwarts didn’t have reporters camped outside its gates.
Hogwarts didn’t ask her to smile for the cameras.
Hogwarts didn’t care whether she wore a ring.
The prospect of being protected behind the walls of her old school was a great comfort to Hermione. She could disappear, fade out of the public eye completely with a plausible excuse and a list of obligations so long the Ministry couldn’t possibly pull her away for galas and tours and ribbon cutting ceremonies.
Fumbling for an old biro that had been left in the top drawer of her nightstand, she scrawled a response on the back of the envelope. Just one word.
Yes.
She crossed the room and retrieved an owl treat from the small tin she still kept out of habit, pressing it into the bird’s beak. The owl accepted it with dignity, waiting patiently for her to tie the envelope to its leg before launching itself back out the open window without so much as a goodbye.
Hermione stood there for a long moment; the letter clutched in her hands.
So, this is it.
She glanced at the clock. 8:03 a.m.
Downstairs, she could hear the radio murmuring and the clink of crockery. Breakfast smells—toast; coffee—drifted up the stairwell.
Normal life, continuing regardless.
She folded the letter carefully and tucked it under one of her old books before changing into a jumper and jeans—armour, as always. When she caught her reflection in the mirror, she paused. Turning her head this way and that.
She looked awake and felt refreshed.
She was alive.
For the first time in a long time.
The kitchen was warm and bright when she entered, sunlight spilling across the table. Pam stood at the stove, spatula in hand, while her father sat with his newspaper folded neatly in front of him.
“Happy New Year’s love,” Pam said, turning too quickly. “Did you sleep alright?”
Hermione hesitated. “I was woken up early.”
Her father glanced up. “Everything okay?”
Hermione placed the folded letter on the table.
“I got an offer.”
Pam stilled. “An offer?”
“Hogwarts,” Hermione said.
There it was again—that place hanging between them. Unlike when she was eleven, there was no Minerva McGonagall sitting at the table, sipping tea and assuring them that everything would be fine and that the magical world would take care of their daughter. In hindsight, perhaps that was for the best, considering how spectacularly not fine things had turned out.
Pam’s expression flickered—something between pride, concern, and the dawning realisation that this was not what she’d been picturing. “Oh.”
“It’s a temporary position,” Hermione added quickly, “but I’ll be involved in planning and implementing curriculum changes, so my work there could be of great benefit to the school and its students.”
Her father smiled. “You’re perfect for that, Hermione. Congratulations.”
Pam began buttering the toast with unnecessary force. “Well. That’s… something, isn’t it.”
Hermione watched her carefully.
Something. Not everything.
They sat down, Pam setting a plate in front of Hermione piled with enough food to sustain a rugby team.
“You’re all skin and bones,” Pam said briskly. “Honestly, Harold, look at her. You’d think we didn’t feed her.”
“I eat,” Hermione said faintly.
“Not properly. Good home-cooked food. None of that magically-zapped rubbish—kills all the nutrients!” Pam declared, handing Hermione the salt and pepper.
Hermione stared at the plate. “I ate rather late last night.”
Pam waved this away. “That doesn’t count. Those were breakup calories. They don’t stick.”
Her father coughed into his mug, eyes fixed resolutely on the crossword.
“So,” Pam said eventually, adopting the careful tone of someone stepping into traffic. “I was just thinking…”
Hermione braced herself.
“This offer from Hogwarts is all very well and good,” Pam continued, “but it might be… prudent to have a more realistic plan.”
“A plan,” Hermione echoed faintly.
“Yes,” Pam said brightly. “Something to look forward to. Goals. Structure. A timeline.”
Hermione resisted the urge to point out that she had once planned her life within an inch of its existence and it had still combusted.
Her father cleared his throat. “Your mum just means—”
“I know what Mum means,” Hermione said gently.
Pam reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “You’ve done so much, darling. We’re incredibly proud of you. It’s just…” She faltered. “Well.”
Here it comes.
“You’ve been through so much upheaval,” Pam said. “It’s only natural to want something stable now. Someone.”
Hermione clenched her fork hard enough to surprise herself.
“I don’t need a relationship to be stable, Mum.”
“Of course not!” Pam said quickly. “I didn’t mean that. I just think companionship is important. And you’re not getting any younger—”
“Mum.”
Pam winced. “Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just—I know a lovely young man I could introduce you to, he’s my friend’s son. He’s a surgeon and—”
“No mum!” Hermione exclaimed, frustration breaking through the calm demeanour she usually adopted when dealing with Pam and all of her unwanted life advice.
“It’s just—”
“I said, no!” Hermione dropped her fork onto the plate. Sparks flew, smoke curling from the edge. She hadn’t done that since she was eleven.
Silence fell again.
Hermione stared at her hands, noticing the faint ink smudge on her thumb from her hurried reply to the letter. Guilt curled in her chest. She couldn’t entirely blame her mother for worrying that Hogwarts wasn’t a solution so much as a pause button.
Her father folded his newspaper with exaggerated care. “Whatever you decide, love, we just want you to be happy.”
“I know,” Hermione said.
It didn’t make the guilt any lighter.
“Will you be home for tea tonight?” her mother asked, as if nothing had happened.
“No,” Hermione replied. “Harry’s having a party—celebrating the new year and introducing everyone to his new boyfriend.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” Pam tittered. “At least you’ll be out there. Socialising. Around lots of people. Your own kind, so to speak.”
Both Hermione and her father stared at her.
Pam paled. “Oh no—no, not magic. I meant—young people! Youthful! Social!”
“Right,” Hermione said tightly, pushing back her chair. “Thank you for breakfast. May I be excused? I need to go into town and find a dress.”
Pam nodded, already collecting the plates. “Go to Stanford Street—they’re the only shops open on New Year’s Day. Sale’s on, I think.”
Hermione watched her mother move around the kitchen, the guilt settling heavier in her chest.
Perhaps Pam Granger was right—Hermione did need a plan.
But she would make it on her own terms.
Hermione bought the diary that afternoon, along with her dress for the party. It had been propped up against the counter in a small Muggle store, a garish red sign pinned to the front that screamed: FIFTY PERCENT OFF! It was beige, unassuming, and aggressively sensible. It was perfect.
She ripped it from the bag as soon as she’d gotten back to her bedroom, tossing her dress over the back of a chair and sitting at her desk like she had when she was a teenager.
She fished a chewed on old pen from one of the drawers and tested it on one of the back pages. It still worked.
If anyone asked, she would tell them she’d bought the diary for organisation. For noting down appointments and deadlines, for jotting down research notes and important information.
She’d say she got it as a gift, something her parents had given her.
Silly old things, she’d laugh. Always trying to meddle in my affairs, still I thought I might as well give it a go…
These would all be lies.
But still, it was better than the truth.
She’d bought the diary largely out of spite.
If her parents were going to treat her life like a catastrophic environmental disaster, she might as well start documenting the evidence.
She put the pen to the paper with a decisive press of her hand, scribbling down whatever came to mind. For a moment the only sound in the room was the scratching of her feverish writing, reminding her of afternoons spent in the Gryffindor common room writing essays and doing research.
She stared at the last one for a long moment, then underlined it twice.
Hermione was not the type of witch who believed in New Year’s resolutions. She didn’t believe that making a grand declaration at a specific time of year would somehow make it more likely that you would keep the promises you made to yourself.
She had seen it every year—people convincing themselves that the turning of a calendar page had mystical properties. As if time itself was impressed by declarations scribbled down after too much wine and not enough sleep. Hermione had always preferred systems that worked regardless of sentiment. Study schedules. Revision timetables. Contingency plans.
New Year’s resolutions had always struck her as theatrical rather than practical. She'd always found that people only ever make the kind of vows they know they will never keep. No drinking, no smoking, eating healthy, losing weight, saving money, staying away from… oh wait—now, she was guilty of that one too wasn’t she?
She glanced back at the list, lips pressing into a thin line.
Perhaps this wasn’t about believing the resolutions would magically transform her life. Perhaps it was simply proof that she was still capable of wanting something different. Of imagining a version of herself that wasn’t defined by endless patience, one-sided compromise and quiet disappointment.
A version of herself that was just… free.
Wanting, she realised, felt dangerously close to hope, and she did not trust hope. Just like people making New Year’s resolutions, it also had a tendency to make promises it could not keep.
Still, she left the page open, reassuring herself that her list, her resolutions were entirely different.
Hermione knew herself, she had always been very sensible. She was a planner, an organiser. A goal-oriented person.
And that’s what this was, nothing more than a list of very rough goals for her new life as a single witch living and working as a librarian at her old school.
No promises. No hoping.
Just some basic planning for the year ahead
Also, she supposed, being locked away in a castle shelving books was a fantastic way to stay away from any sort of troublesome men. She would take her time to heal and forget all about Ronald Weasley and their disappointing life together.
She would use the time to decide on the next steps for her career, and her personal life.
She had the chance to start over in front of her, and she was going to take it.
Hermione closed the diary and pressed her palm flat against the cover.
She did not feel better.
But she felt... determined.
Which was dangerous. Historically speaking.