It's the most sobering thought in the world. The thought that the people you hold dearest in your life will take away something that means so much to you without once asking you how you felt. The thought that they truly believed they knew what was best for you. The thought that now you will never again experience the intense pang of infatuation that came with seeing that mischievous smirk reserved solely for you.
Whether I ever really loved Hermione I will never be able to find out. How she truly saw me will forever remain a mystery. Bellatrix, my ever so devout aunt, always thought she knew best. Truthfully, if anyone had ever paid attention it would have been obvious that I thrived with Granger around. She brought me to a higher level of consciousness that I didn't know I could have. She completely derailed what I thought to be fact and made me look at the world in all its Technicolor glory. Nothing in her world was monochrome and she was desperate to make me see all the vibrant hues that life has to offer.
Who am I kidding? That's not what they wanted anyways! My entire family and the Dark Lord himself never wanted for me to think; never wanted me to question. I was so eager to please them and satisfy their every whim. All too eager to go along with what I had been fed my entire life. Not once did I question the validity to any of it. I was so easily enthralled by a sense of power and fooled by half assed declarations of adoration.
Just know that all is well Hermione. I refuse to let your death be in vain. I will pave my own path from here on. It will be a path that we started together even though I'll have to finish it alone. I will strive to somehow make amends for the time I spent being a dog. I will no longer follow my master blindly loyal and never inquiring. I will become a stray and find the truth in the world and learn by my own means what is and what is not. I will prove that I am not just a thorough bred trophy dog, but that I can be that of a mutt on the streets defending my own and standing alone.
I may never know if I experienced the beginnings of first love with that unruly haired mudblood, Hermione, but who she was to me will always be far more than that. She not only infiltrated my heart, but opened my mind and forced me to seek the truth. I will be eternally grateful and indebted to that girl, a most brave and respectable Gryffindor.