So it seems all I'm writing is for challenges recently. But that's okay, because it gets my creative juices flowing again. I've written more in the past two weeks than this whole year, so I guess that's a good thing. Anyway, this was written for the Fear Challenge! I relate a lot to this, so I hope everything is conveyed correctly. Harry Potter is not mine! Please review and enjoy the fic!
Average
Every question she gets right, every test she gets a good grade on, every time she's ever said something smart because it just leapt into her brain, Hermione hates herself. She knows she doesn't deserve it, the grades, the respect, any of it. She was just… born lucky. No one seems to understand that. If she wasn't born with the genetics to make her intellectually gifted, to make her brain absorb information like a sponge, then she'd be nothing. She's not good at sports. She's not good at talking to people or making friends. She's not good at games or art or cooking. She's not good at anything besides what her brain can provide for her. She's not doing anything. She was just lucky.
It's hard to explain to other people what life is like inside her head. Hermione's always had the sense that she sees life differently from other people, experiences social interaction on a different level than most. She's always felt slightly disconnected from the world around her, just slightly out of step. She tries to mask it. She giggles with Ginny about boys and teases Ron for eating so much and tries to get Harry's hair to stay flat. She thinks she's doing a good job. But in the grand scheme, what does it matter? She loves these people, yes, but she also knows they'll eventually fade away. Why should she bother paying attention to the trivialities of the world around her when in a day, a month, a year, it won't matter anymore? None of it is important. Hermione is constantly striving to meet her next goal, and she doesn't understand why everyone else finds it so important to be soaked up in such vapid nonsense!
Because that's the thing. Hermione isn't right. She has her brain, but that's all. And without her brain, without her gifts, with her genetic luck, she is nothing. Nothing. Without her brain, she'd have nothing left of her life.
It's ridiculous, of course, to think that she'd ever just become stupid. And yet… Hermione knows that if she isn't smart, if she doesn't have her brain, she'll be nothing. It's not just her failure that will bother her. She'll lose her entire identity. Everything that she is, everything that has made her who she is – gone. Just like that. And Hermione doesn't know if she could bear it. She'd rather die than lose everything that makes her, her. And, for Hermione, her brain is all that makes her, her.
When her father develops Alzheimer's disease, Hermione cries, not just for him, but for herself. Because if she is genetically predisposed to Alzheimer's, then she will, eventually, loose everything. Wizarding medicine doesn't treat Muggle diseases. And if Hermione were to ever get Alzheimer's, to have her mind slowly deteriorate around her until she loses every ounce of herself…
The pure, blinding fear is overwhelming. She's never been so scared in her life, not when Bellatrix was torturing her, not when she fought Death Eaters time and time again. Because she knew back then that if she was going to die, she was going to die as herself. But to die without her mind… for Hermione, it is a fate beyond all horrible fates.
Her brain is special. Her brain is gifted. Her brain is the one thing that gives her life purpose, that gives her personality meaning. Her brain functions on a level above almost every other brain, and should she ever loose that, should she ever become average, Hermione would have nothing left. She has no fallbacks, no other talents or abilities. She is her brain, and her brain is her.
No one else really understands. They live in awe of her intellect, of her sheer massive brainpower. They don't understand what it's like to rely so heavily on one aspect of oneself that if it were lost, one's entire self would be lost.
Above all else, Hermione fears losing her intelligence. Because if she loses that, she is nothing. She was born lucky, and if that luck were taken away, there'd simply be nothing left.