Chapter Text
It was as if something snapped into place for Hermione Jean Granger. Months of being left in limbo would do that to a person. The sheer, agonizing weight of wondering if she was enough for anyone—especially for a man like Harry—had finally broken her.
She wondered if he had ever truly loved or cared about her at all, or if he even realized that what he was doing to her was inherently wrong. Standing before her now, his arms were wrapped tightly around Pansy Parkinson—one of the very girls who had vowed to make Hermione’s life a living hell throughout her Hogwarts years. The sight shattered the last remaining fragment of light inside her.
The months she and Harry had spent intertwined with one another, up until just a few days ago, were completely eviscerated. What made it worse was the fact that he couldn't even look her in the eye as he ripped her heart out as though it were nothing. The smug smirk on Pansy’s face would leave an everlasting mark on her, haunting her until the darkness finally swallowed her whole.
And then there was Ron, his arms wrapped around Daphne Greengrass, and Ginny, her hand resting on her wand as if ready to go to war for them. Two people Hermione had once considered family.
The last of her found family had fractured beyond repair. To make matters worse, Draco Malfoy stood by their side, looking down at her with cold disdain.
Hermione felt utterly alone as everyone in the room stared, watching the spectacle. The silence was palpable. Tears began to trace slowly down her cheeks, a display of vulnerability that only seemed to anger Ginny and Ron further.
"Hermione, you lost your way," Ginny snapped, her voice harsh. "We tried to reach out to you, but you just kept pushing everyone away."
Hermione flinched at the venom coming from her former friend. The tears kept flowing, and still, Harry refused to meet her gaze. When the younger Weasley didn't get the broken reaction she expected, she shifted tactics. Softening her voice, Ginny moved her hand away from her wand. "Look, Hermione, I'm sorry you had to find out this way. It’s not ideal, I know, but—"
A sharp, cruel laugh cut through the room. The raw pain in Hermione's voice could not be silenced. Not anymore. The laughter caught everyone off guard. Finally, Harry looked her way, a twisted expression of agony on his face, as if he were the one hurting.
"But? Yeah, I can see how sorry you all are... that I kept pushing you aside like nothing." The venom in Hermione's voice was razor-sharp. "No, let me remind you, Ginny—I sent countless letters, all met with short replies or none at all. And with you... I tried, Ginny. I really did try because you were here, but it was you who pushed me away as if I meant nothing."
Pansy rolled her eyes, tightening her possessive grip on Harry. She was claiming him, and he was letting her.
That was the exact moment Hermione unleashed the bottled-up hurt she had carried for months. "I don't know what I did to offend or hurt you all, but I know I have done nothing to garner this much hatred. Unless my simply living and breathing is the reason you—the people I considered family—are doing this. If so, wow." Wetting her lips, she pressed on, her tone laced with vengeance. "You should have just left me to die in that bathroom with the troll all those years ago. That would have been the end of all this."
Harry and Ron both flinched, utterly caught off guard. Hermione hadn't been this vocal since the book dilemma two years ago, and before that, the Nimbus 2000 incident. But back then, Hermione had only spoken up about their reckless actions. She had never stood up for herself. She had never voiced her own needs, her wants, or the things eating away at her. She had always been the mediator, the emotional punching bag they took their frustrations out on.
They thought they could do it again. They never in a million years expected Hermione to snap. But this was a Hermione who had no one left on her side. Her oldest shields were the ones attacking her now. She had nothing left to lose, and like hell was she going to let them get away with it.
"It would have been simpler, right?" she challenged, her voice ringing clear. "If you both had just gone on your merry way and left me in that bathroom, we wouldn't be here. You would have found a way to defeat Voldemort in our first year, surely. I mean, you didn't need me at all. You or Ron could have solved Snape's potion riddle, or maybe Pansy would have taken my place instead. After all, she’s a pureblood, and I’m just a mudblood."
Hearing Voldemort’s name spoken so casually made several people flinch, but it was the slur she leveled against herself that made the room's blood run cold—especially Harry's and Ron's.
"Don't use that wo—" they both started in unison, but Hermione cut them off without a second thought, paying them no mind.
"It would have been better if I were dead," she continued ruthlessly. "Then Ginny would be dead too, wouldn't she? Since her life was being drained by a teenage Voldemort, and I was the one who figured out the monster in the pipes was a basilisk. Without that information, who would have ever known about the Chamber?"
Ginny’s eyes widened as the surrounding students began to murmur, their piercing gazes shifting to her.
No one dared interrupt as Hermione pressed on. "Sure, I was—well, am—a pain in the arse. Especially with how I handled the Scabbers situation. I am truly sorry, Ron, but lucky for you, I got Crookshanks. Because if I hadn't, you would have still been sleeping in bed with a thirty-something murderer pretending to be your pet rat."
Ron gulped, his face turning a violent shade of purple and red as Daphne held onto his arm.
"The same man who helped murder your best friend's parents, and helped kidnap your best friend the following year to resurrect Voldemort," Hermione added, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. Without skipping a beat, she pressed her advantage. "The same person who murdered Cedric Diggory, might I add."
Hermione left those words hanging in the air. The ensuing silence was suffocating.
"Then again, you never truly treated me as a proper friend anyway. Not during the broom incident—which, mind you, was from Sirius, but we didn't know that at the time. I got blamed and ostracized just because I didn't want to see my friend get his neck broken by a cursed broom. After all, it wasn't like Harry hadn't had a jinxed broom before in his life, right?”
"First year, when I set Snape’s cloak on fire because I thought he was cursing Harry’s broom, when he was actually trying to save him from Voldemort on the back of Quirrell's head. Or the second year, when a rogue Bludger went after Harry because a house-elf thought it was better for him to go home with a broken arm... back to his loving family," she spat sarcastically. Harry flinched violently.
Ignoring the looks of shock from the crowd, Hermione turned her gaze to Ron. "You were never my friend, Ron. You were an asshole to me the moment Viktor Krum showed a shred of interest in me. Not once did you try to defend me when I was targeted by Rita Skeeter's articles, or when I received hate mail filled with Bubotuber pus that blistered my hands. The same goes for you, Harry. And in fact, it was Pansy Parkinson—your lovely girlfriend—who was laughing and leading the bullying back then. I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who sent the letters in the first place."
The accusation carried a heavy weight, prompting Pansy to draw her wand and point it directly at Hermione's chest.
In a flash, Neville, Luna, Dean, and a few other former D.A. members stepped forward, forming a protective barrier around Hermione. Their wands were drawn and aimed squarely at the Slytherin girl. In response, Ron, Ginny, and the rest of the Slytherins drew theirs, creating a tense standoff.
"I don't take kindly to false accusations, Granger," Pansy sneered. Hermione could tell the girl had desperately wanted to use a different word.
Hermione locked eyes with Harry for a split second. Harry was the first to break contact, lowering his wand. "I think that's enough for today," he murmured, his voice hollow.
Hermione inhaled sharply. "Not just today, Potter. For forever."
The use of his surname sounded entirely unnatural on her lips, making Harry flinch.
"I am only going to say this one last time," Hermione said, her voice echoing in the tense quiet. "I regret saying I would go with you into that forest on the day of the final battle. I regret Godric’s Hollow. I regret Grimmauld Place. I regret obliviating my parents, obliviating Dolohov and Rowle, Bill and Fleur’s wedding, the Ministry both times, pushing for the D.A., teaching you Accio, and everything in between. And even if all of it had to happen, I wish you would have just left me in the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange. After all, you were the reason we ended up at Malfoy Manor that day. I regret becoming your friend, Harry James Potter. I regret us."
With those devastating final words, Hermione pushed her way through the stunned crowd, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in her wake.
The truth hung in the room, irreversible. Hermione exited the Eighth Year common room, leaving behind the last party of the year—and her old life. She couldn't stay here anymore, and she knew no one was going to stop her. No one was going to hold her. No one wanted her.
What stung the most was that Harry had just stood there, holding onto Pansy, throwing away everything they had built. She still vividly remembered the night they had shared just a few days ago, when he held her tight against his body. He had been her entire world, and now he was gone. There was nothing left for them... save for the new life quietly forming inside her.
Hermione ran through the castle, fleeing up and down the shifting staircases until she burst through the heavy oak doors. She sprinted across the grounds to the boundary line where Hogwarts met Hogsmeade and disapparated to the only place left that felt like a sanctuary.
It was pouring rain when she arrived, leaving her instantly drenched. She knocked frantically on the door until it swung open to reveal Andromeda Tonks.
"Hermione? What on earth are you doing here at this hour?" the older witch asked, immediately ushering the shivering girl inside. Andromeda wrapped a warm towel around her shoulders and cast a series of warming charms.
Hermione was in a state of absolute shock, her face streaked with rain and tears, her mind entirely numb. It took a long time for the dam to break, but eventually, the words spilled out. The flood of tears started anew as she buried her face in her hands, her final confession echoing through the quiet house.
"What's worse... What's worse is that I still love him. I still love Harry... and I'm pregnant with his baby. And we weren't ever a real couple. It was just sex... At least for him it was."
Andromeda’s shoulders sagged as she felt the immense weight of the young witch's grief. Without a word, she pulled Hermione into a tight, fierce embrace. Eventually, exhausted to the bone, Hermione’s body gave out, and she drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When Hermione woke hours later, she and Andromeda sat down to hatch a plan for her permanent departure from Great Britain. Hermione had no true family left here. The people who had stood up for her in the common room were loyal, but they didn't truly know her.
Before she left, Hermione wrote a few letters. One to Luna, one to Neville, one to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, one to Kingsley, and one to McGonagall. Finally, she wrote a joint letter to Ron and Harry.
For the boys, the letter contained only a single sentence.... ’Have a good life, for I was never needed in yours.’
The rest of her letters were detailed and gentle, reassuring her remaining allies that they were never the problem, reaffirming her love for them, and promising that they would see each other again one day. But for now, she asked them to live without her, to be happy, and to understand that she was finally choosing to live for herself.