Hermione sighs as she walks through the familiar lanes.
She feels a pang of longing every time she walks past a bookstore, Muggle and Magical alike.
She loves her job, a large part of what she loves about it being that it keeps her busy. In the months immediately following the war, it was a blessing to not have the time to be able to think about darker times. Besides, it made her feel like she was a part of something, for her own sake, and not just as a side character in someone else's story. She didn't want to be insignificant anymore. And for that, she told herself it was worth foregoing some of her loved things.
But now that she is healing, she sometimes misses having the luxury of curling up with a book on rainy afternoons.
She often refuses the childlike voice that tells her to pop into the bookstore and buy herself a little present, telling it that she would never have the time to read anything she purchased, but something makes her give in today. She walks into Flourish and Blotts on an impulse.
She revels in the home-like, aromatic atmosphere of the shop. The books and stationery line the shelves she knows so well, and she cannot resist walking over to the nearest.
Her eyes skim over the titles. She knows she has already read most of them, but she cannot help but browse through. . She runs her hands over the spines until one catches her eye.
Palimpsest, it says. She turns it around. It says precious little on the back. Aftermaths and rewrites.
She looks at it, surprised, and confused. She rechecks the shelf. "FICTION", the label says, boldly.
"This is a peculiar theme to write about," she says to herself. "It seems to be more philosophy than fiction."
But something makes her unable to put the book back down. She is inexplicably drawn to it.
Her fingers twitch to turn the pages, even as she waits for the clerk to return her change at the counter. As soon as she is out of the shop, she flips open the cover, unable to stand it anymore.
She quickly makes her way through the pages as she walks through the crowds of Diagon Alley, getting further and further drawn into the world painted by the book as she does so.
If someone were to ask her what it was about, even she, Hermione Granger, would have stumbled for a moment.
It seems simple enough as a story. Similar to her own, even. The tale of some people rebuilding after a disaster, though the book never does speak of what disaster it is. It focuses instead on one man. Someone desperate to rewrite his story, his part in the world, and someone who succeeds in doing so.
She finds the tale twisting further with every paragraph. The man finds himself erasing and reliving his life multiple times, and yet every time, he never finds himself to be enough, and so he begins again.
A small voice at the back of her mind bugs her. Would she too, have been that unsatisfied, had she gotten the chance to rewrite her story? She shakes it off and continues to read eagerly, not realising she has stopped in her tracks and is just leaning against a wall, instead of walking towards her home.
She finds the man continues to wish for a more significant part in the scheme of things. Until he is the one with the ability to build and destroy the entire world in which he lives. And yet, he does not feel enough.
Hermione frowns and looks up from the book to the world around her. Diagon Alley is busy, as always. A little girl, content in sucking her candy, passes her by. Her mother smiles at Hermione, who recognises her as one of the Hufflepuffs in the year below hers. She smiles back at the people walking in and out of shops; they look happy and carefree. It makes her feel happy too.
Her mind wanders back to the book. Maybe she could have done more, in the war. Maybe she could have been more than just part of a Trio. She could have been someone for her own sake. But would that have made anything better? Would it have made that much of a difference to these people, if it had been her leading the Light Side, instead of Harry?
The answer comes echoing back in her own mind: No.
And yet, she has been working towards that same goal. To be significant. No, to be significant enough for her own self, forgetting that she had been, this whole time. She has been foregoing so much she loves. Her reading, her research, her friends. Her happiness, for the sake of this one thing. Significance. And yet, all for what? Something she now knows rests between unachievable and already achieved. Only she can be the judge of which of the two it is. Which begs the question: Does it even matter?
Admitting that she has had the answer all along, will mean admitting she has wasted a part of her life, the very thing she swore not to do. And her pride is the only thing that stops her from saying that to herself. Perhaps the book is wrong. Perhaps the man would have been happy, at some point.
Involuntarily, her hands move to her pendant. A Time Turner. Not very unlike the contraption, the man in the story had used to his advantage. She fiddles with it for a few moments, contemplating her choices of the past, and the power of this tiny object, perhaps with a few added charms, to undo some of them.
The little metal object seems to burn against her skin. Burn, with temptation and possibility. She tears the trinket off her neck, not caring about the bruises she causes on her own throat, and stuffs it determinedly in her coat pocket, before disappearing into the crowds of Wizarding Britain.