A/N: Just some rambling from Hermione's POV. Set in forth year and later in sixth. Reviews and con crit are fantastic. You know, just saying.
It's strange to think that, no matter what world I'm in, I'm never normal. Even when I was young, in the Muggle World, there was something...off about me. As if it wasn't enough that my hair took up half a classroom and my teeth protruded hideously, I just seemed to have the air of an oddity. I was…special. In the sense of being unusually intelligent, yes, but there was always something else about me that no one could place. Some offbeat abnormality.
I still remember with perfect clarity the day I received my Hogwarts letter. It was one of those summer days where the holiday had dragged on so long, I couldn't place the month, much less the specific day. My room was muggy and stiflingly hot; the smoggy heat seemed to seep through some unseen cracks in the wall, leeching me of all energy.
I was lying on my bed, thinking of nothing concrete or particular when an insistent tapping shook me from my reverie. Confused, I waited a few moments before crossing to my window and drawing back the thin blue curtains. To my surprise, a barn owl was perched on my window sill, tapping its talons against the glass. It cocked its head to the side and, wondering if I was suffering some heat-induced madness, I opened the window and invited it onto my desk. It offered me a letter and, with trembling hands, I took it, and the owl flew from my room.
'Owl mail?' I had thought incredulously. I wondered if I was dreaming. I saw the letter addressed not only to me, but to my specific location- my bedroom. I tore through the waxy red seal and, as I read the looping cursive scrawl of the letter from some place called Hogwarts, dared to believe that it was not a joke.
And as I roamed through the bustling cobblestone paths of Diagon Alley, taking in the plethora of sights and smells I had never before experienced, I felt a strange feeling blossoming in my chest, something that made me want to cry with joy. I felt like I was on the brink of discovering a world so much bigger than myself, where I was normal and accepted.
Well, I was sort of right.
I've always been one to be grateful for small mercies. I'd rather be in the Wizarding World, where my strange abilities to light candles with my mind and change the colours of other people's hair were not only accepted but cultivated. This was a small mercy.
And then my safe haven seemed to be infected with a shot of poison.
"Mudblood." The word had been uttered at me so many times I no longer bothered keeping count. But it was almost always said in the cold voice of the blonde boy with the aristocratic face and the stormy grey eyes, devoid of all emotion but inexplicable contempt.
Mudblood. How could someone be so cruel to me about something I couldn't even control? I had no say in my blood status.
I used to be teased for things I couldn't help, like my awful hair, or things I never wanted to change, like my unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Sure, it hurt at first, but in the grand scheme of things, it was all trivial.
But now, it was all worse. I felt like I walked the corridors with my inadequacy branded across my forehead.
"Soon."
The word rolls off Ron's tongue, enveloped in confidence despite its potentially life-threatening implications. Harry nods. "Soon," he repeats.
We stand together, the trio of us, shoulder to shoulder with the sun blazing down on us. Summer is almost upon us, and now we must say our final goodbyes. For me, this means parting ways with the one place that felt the most like home to me.
Despite having just come from a funeral, I feel uplifted, elated. With Fawkes's mournful musical soliloquy drifting through the air, I remind myself of Bill and Fleur's upcoming wedding. How odd it is, knowing that soon, Harry, Ron, and I will blindly take on the rest of Dumbledore's mission, yet all I can think of is how, no matter what blessings and curses the coming months or years hold in store for us, there will always be another day of happiness somewhere along the horizon. A wedding. A small mercy.