So, a few of my stories (at least, the ones I like the best) are one shots that explore the Harry Potter universe. Mostly, explore the Harry Potter universe through English proverbs, like 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' and 'for want of a nail...' I decided it would be interesting to pick more proverbs, and see how characters living their lives by them would potentially change things. Each chapter will be a different proverb, and possibly be unrelated to any others and might be AU.
Disclaim: I do not own Harry Potter, nor English proverbs. If I owned Harry Potter, I'd have more money than I do, and if I owned the English proverbs, I'm pretty sure I'd be confused by this thing called the 'internet'.
I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but whatever.
A Little Bit of Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing - Hermione, magic, the world, and time travel
Hermione Granger absolutely loved to learn. She was good at it, with a mind for recalling facts and a drive to know the truth. Hermione thrived in an environment where she needed to discover, to puzzle things out.
But that's where the danger lay. Hermione had always loved to learn, and teachers loved her for it. So she had grown up knowing that she was smart. That she knew more than others her own age. That the teachers treated her special for knowing the truth of the world. And so Hermione believed that she was special because she was smart, and that accommodations would be made so that she could continue to be smart and learn when other students goofed off or struggled.
And she was right. Her third year at Hogwarts, she was given a time turner. A magical artifact designed to allow one to move backwards through time. She was given this powerful artifact because she deserved it to learn more. There were rules that she was given, but Hermione listened and internalized them. Basically they were for the lesser beings, those who were not as special as her. Hermione would never discuss out loud her disdain for idiots, for those who would not learn as she did, but it was there, in the back of her mind. Hardened by years of having no friends, buoyed by the belief that others weren't ready for her, that she was too good for them because that's what her parents said, and her teachers. And as far as Hermione knew, they spoke truth.
So Hermione listened to the rules, matching them to the rules in all the fictional books she read on time travel, knowing that idiots who didn't follow the rules always caused the problems.
But she was no idiot. No, she was Hermione. She was the 'smartest witch her age', she was 'a brilliant student'. She knew more than everyone else. She would make no mistakes like those in books and movies. There was just one thing Hermione didn't know, had never learned.
She never learned that she was merely human. In her arrogance at knowing school subjects, of reading books above her level, she began to look down on the idiot protagonist. Doesn't the protagonist know that that decision will cause a massive mistake? The protagonist can blame no one but himself for his failure. Hermione, in her infinite wisdom, knew she would never be that idiot protagonist.
No, if she was going along with stories, making her life parallel a book, her best friend Harry Potter was the protagonist. He had an enemy, had faced him twice. He was the rich orphan with a poor family life, abandoned, with great expectations from an entire world on his shoulders. Ron was the sidekick, the goofy one. He gave the protagonist the love he needed, came from humble beginnings. She was the wise one, the one with all the knowledge. She came up with the plans, made sure everyone was okay. Sometimes, she even thought of herself as the mentor, exasperated with how stupid her friends could be while still dealing out sage advise. As the mentor and wise one, she had all the knowledge needed.
Which is what lead to now. Hermione had decided, in her infinite wisdom and role as wise mentor, that she should help the protagonist. Clearly, the protagonist could not know about time travel, as that would automatically lead to problems. So Harry couldn't know of her time-turner, but she could use it to help him. That wasn't abuse of a priceless magical artifact. She was special, she was learning, she would still be learning. So Hermione had researched time-turners, had asked her parents for money for books, or to order the books she was too young to order. After all, she was at school, and her parents did not know the world she was in. She could just tell them she couldn't get the books, not why.
And at last Hermione had a plan. A perfect plan, that couldn't go wrong. After all, she was her. She was smart, she was never wrong. Everyone told her that, people were angry because of that. She knew she may have lacked social skills, but she made up for that by being smart. And Hermione decided that she was going to help Harry. She was going to give him a better life, a reward for being her friend. This would allow him to be less likely to hunger for love, perhaps become friends with her before Ron, and thus changing the focus of their group from fun and sports to academics. This Harry would be more respectful of adults, and less likely to charge into situations he was woefully under prepared for, forcing her to do so much unnecessary work instead of focusing on class work. In the end, everyone would benefit.
And so Hermione, knowing that Harry's aunt took him in but never made him feel welcome, went back in time for a brief moment. A brief moment, on November 2nd, when Petunia first saw Harry. She cast a spell, certain that in the craziness of the defeat of Voldemort, it would go unnoticed. After all, it's not like it was a showy spell she used, or even illegal, and the Ministry had more important things to deal with.
Hermione influenced Petunia to accept Harry, to love him. Hermione smiled as Petunia looked at Harry, a tender smile morphing out of her previous horrified look. Now, Petunia would treat Harry right, and he wouldn't cling to the first person he met as a friend. And so she faded from Privet drive, excited to see what her new world was like.
Except something was wrong. She was floating, hovering. She was watching students of Hogwarts and they were ignoring her. And she was stuck. Not stuck, but there was definitely a place in the castle that she didn't use to feel attached to that she felt attached to. The bathroom where Harry and Ron defeated the troll to save her. And when ever she tried to speak, no words came out of her mouth. She didn't understand, this wasn't suppose to happen! She was Hermione Granger! She hadn't changed the history of the world. She hadn't stopped Voldemort from existing because that would obviously lead to devastating consequences. She had let the Potters die. She hadn't done anything wrong!
And Hogwarts sighed as another ghost joined her fellows, another being who had decided that she was exempt from rules. Hermione, for all her knowledge, was just a child. She was merely human. She had decided her friends were the way the were because they were, just like she was smart because that is how she was born. She hadn't realized that the flashes of other personalities in her friends were possible people they could have been under different circumstances, just like she never admitted that she cloaked herself in the belief she was right because otherwise where did she go wrong getting friends?
And Hermione spent the rest of time, angry and confused, watching the wizarding world change, while not understanding what had happened. She didn't understand why Harry wore the badge of a snake. Why Ron hung out with Dean and Seamus. She didn't understand how Malfoy and Harry had become so close, or even why Neville had joined them, despite being a Gryffindor.
She had only had a little knowledge of why the world was the way it was, and thought that gave her the answers to everything. She didn't know why time-turners were dangerous, why people didn't go back. She had over looked the possibilities of things going wrong because nothing she did ever went wrong. She was smart, she was special, she was the wise mentor. She had learned the mechanics, fairly simple. She had asked Harry questions of his life. She had mapped out what the best thing to do was.
If only she had known that the reason she could only do what she knew she had done with a time-turner was because of the price Time demanded. For any change made to the timeline, Time demanded the death of the traveler. It didn't matter the reasons, or how carefully planned, Time was a harsh mistress, and demanded payment for change.
And so Time watched as Harry grew up, loved by the Dursleys, taught to advance his social rank, allowed to use his mind. Harry grew up knowing that the Dursleys were better than others, and despite the fact he wasn't born one, he was chosen by them, and needed to keep up the name. A school for magic? A new world? Harry wouldn't disappoint them. He would not discuss magic with them as it made them uncomfortable (well, at least the parents. Dudley and he had long since discovered the benefits) but the culture...
Harry knew and aspired to be one of those of higher rank, and he knew how to do it. He met Draco as he shopped on his own, discovered the wizarding culture that existed. He bought books to learn, genealogies he memorized. And he parted with Draco as friendly. And on the train, he turned his nose up at the clearly poor boy who wanted to join him, saying the seat was taken by a friend. And when a small brown hair boy came asking about a toad, well, Harry recognized him as Neville Longbottom. And saw the opportunity to make a friend with someone who would become politically powerful. His grandmother was already powerful, and that would go to Neville when he came of age. And he offered the seat to Neville, told him to just let the toad be and see if it came back. After all, the two commiserated, toads were so outdated. And if that was the best present his uncle could give him, then clearly the uncle wasn't worth much. Harry was quick to reassure his nervous friend that he would be friends no matter what house they were sorted into.
And when Harry's housemates tried to insult Neville, Harry quietly asked them how stupid they were, for Neville would be politically powerful and remember those who made his life unbearable. And when the Gryffindors, minus a young Hermione, teased him, he would join his friend Harry.
And Hermione was left alone. Because Ron and Dean and Seamus were friends because they were all boys who loved sports, and Parvati and Lavender could not stand her. And so Hermione was the same, and the same thing happened, except after Ron insulted her, Harry silenced her because 'it's so unseemly to cry so loud' and no one rescued her from the troll. And no one mourned. The teachers asked about why Ms. Granger was in the bathroom, and the girls and boys of Gryffindor stood together. They didn't know, she was often alone. Maybe she was, as the girls said delicately, dealing with hormones. No one mentioned Ron's insult. None mentioned Harry's spell because he was a decent bloke, and everyone liked him over Hermione anyways. And since Hermione died under a silencing spell, she couldn't speak to say the truth even though she came back as a ghost. And she was easy to ignore, because she was quiet, and everyone forgot about the young Gryffindor murdered by a troll. And in what would have been her third year, nobody noticed that she was agitated. They ignored her following Harry and Ron. They lived with ghosts all year round, a silent one nobody liked was ignored.
And Hermione watched as Voldemort came back. Second year, no one saved Ginny, and Voldemort-as-Tom-Riddle was given life. And Hermione watched as Harry told Voldemort-as-Tom-Riddle he didn't care about him, would not fight him, was not his enemy. She watched as Voldemort-the-spirit regained life as Peter Pettigrew escaped the wizarding world to avoid Voldemort-as-Tom-Riddle only to be stuck serving Voldemort-the-Spirit. And she watched as the two Voldemorts started to fight each other, for Voldemort-as-Tom-Riddle was disgusted by Voldemort-the-spirit, and Voldemort-the-spirit could not handle a better looking, also powerful Voldemort.
In the end, the Voldemorts killed each other, for Time did not like one soul in two bodies for long.
And Hermione watched as Harry, Neville and Draco became powerful politicians, and changed the focus of the wizarding world from blood, to money. After all, as Harry said in his introductory speech as Minister for Magic, why care about blood, when money makes the world move?
And Time watched Hermione, laughing silently, as Hermione discovered that she didn't know everything. Hermione watched as the wizarding world changed, and stayed the same. She watched as the world forgot her. And Time, being fickle and enjoying the pain Hermione had, allowed her to see the future she could have had. A future with more friends, a family, a successful career. Instead, she was nothing.
Hermione thought she knew enough to make her important, but she only knew a little that made her useful.