She had always felt ill at the sight of a blank page, but Hermione Granger faced it with a brave face and a dark glint in her eyes. It was in her studious manner to always start essays two weeks before they were due and complete them with enough time to look them over twice. There was never anything wrong with this plan, except for the limited amount of free time and the torment she suffered from Harry and Ron. It was only on Saturday that she allowed herself to relax, and even this was minimal. For though there were Hogsemade visits and chats with Hagrid, Hermione lived in her books.
She was unsure of when things began to change, or if it was really things that had changed and rather than her. If she had to think about what had made her stop fighting so hard for an Outstanding, she could only come up with one thing. The death of Sirius Black. Hermione considered, quite often in fact, that if she were any other person-muggle or witch-this would have been a stereotypical cliché in which she learned to seize the day and give up her obsession with perfection. She could not say this though, for she didn't think it was true. The reason that Sirius' death had changed her had more to do with the fact that she learned how to smile.
While she found these conjectures quite morbid and refused to mull them over for too long, she had effectively concocted a story for herself about her hatred of him and his treatment of his house elf Kreacher. While everyone knew her attitude towards Sirius' regard for his house elf, in private, Hermione was even more vocal about the abusive relationship that Sirius created.
"How could you throw him across the room like that!" she yelled once. "He doesn't understand what he's doing. He believes that what he is doing is right. If you
just-"
Sirius had glared at her. "Yes, Hermione. He believes that stealing from me is right. He calls you mudblood. This is obviously proper behavior."
"But if you just let him be free. If you showed him he could have a life, with wages, with happiness," Hermione pleaded.
Sirius had walked away and their final conversation was over.
When he died, she cried not because she had loved him, but because Kreacher could finally be free of the demands of servitude. No longer was there a House of Black to take care of, and his head would never reach the wall where his mother hung. It wasn't that Hermione was an evil person, for she did truly care about Harry's feelings and his loss. She had hugged him and rocked him, apologized and reassured him. Even still, her beliefs remained in place and one more house elf was liberated.
And so as she mourned a man with whom she shared differing opinions, she promised herself to let go of perfection and strive for a better, more rewarding path. She would continue her work with S.P.E.W for not only the welfare of her elfish friends, but for her own relaxation and the reassurance that there was purpose in her life.