Hermione Granger is not self-destructive. She does not do useless, stupid things that will shorten her lifespan by ten years. But she also doesn't participate in illegal activities and look at her now. She fidgets with the hourglass pressing against her throat.
Hermione takes in a breath of cigarette and smoke. She holds it in her lungs. It feels like hellfire trying to erupt from her chest, but she keep it in until her body forces her to breathe. She wills herself not to cough. To hell with lung cancer.
"God, I'm stupid," she says, taking in her situation for the fortieth time. Hermione knows she's overthinking all of this. She understands that the time turner is dangerous and that she shouldn't use it. She should just destroy it, maybe hand it to the Ministry. Not keep it hanging on her neck, reminding Hermione of its presence constantly.
Then her stomach lurches, Bella appears, and Hermione is lying on the concrete roof of a bar in Australia in the city where her parents live and don't remember her.
Bella always haunts Hermione's dreams. She cackles with blackened nails and smiles with too little teeth before flicking her wand with utter nonchalance. She just watches as Hermione screams until her voice sings the suffering into the air before falling limp.
It's a stabbing medley of both physical and emotional pain, Hermione thinks in a moment of clarity. Bella needed to go to the bathroom for a moment and couldn't be bothered with Hermione. She comes back in an instant, giving another smile, another cackle.
Hermione wakes up in a cold sweat on that roof in Adelaide with a throbbing in her chest. She's sweating, and Hermione feels disgusting. She needs to go back to England, back to home. But then again, home is a house with empty white walls and erased memories.
Her cigarette is still lit. She takes another puff. When the smoke enters her lungs, it feels like nothing except real, true serenity.
Hermione runs through her pack within the night. She wants another, but she knows it won't stave off Bella for long. Bella always finds a way.
Hermione pulls on her necklace chain, the sand in the hourglass shifting back and forth.
She visits Sirius's gravestone alone for the first time. It's honorary; no body is buried under that soil, but he needs some sort of remembrance. He's next to Tonks and Lupin. Hermione lays fresh flowers on the little patch of grass in front of the marker as Bella screams curses in her mind.
She needed another reason, one with more righteous intentions, and Hermione thinks she's found one.
Hermione only needs a couple of years. Nine, to be exact. Nine years, three months, and 21 days. Right when fifth year starts. Bella is daring her to do it. It won't work, she's warning.
If nothing else, Hermione thinks, desperately trying to justify this, I will save Sirius.
Hermione looks out at the castle, no Bella in her head, and sees a home. When she enters her dorm, she takes the time turner off, crushing it with her foot. It disappears into the sky.
"I can't believe this book. Can you, Hermione?" Lavender says, skimming through the book Professor Umbridge made them all get.
"It's very stupid," she responds, savoring in the silence of her mind.
Hermione isn't self destructive, and she knows this will shorten her lifespan by ten years, but she still takes in a full breath of cigarette smoke. It tickles the back of her throat, proliferates her lungs, and she blows it out into the night sky.
She drops the cigarette on the balcony floor and snuffs it out. She lets the stub fly to the ground before going back into the dormitory. Dumbledore will never know, Hermione thinks. Not that it matters.