Author's Note: Written for...

Hogwarts Assignment #8. Lesson: History of Magic. Task: Write about someone who's being discriminated because they're different.

Library Lovers. 1984. Prompts: dystopia!AU, freedom, grey

Appreciating the Females Event. Prompt: Hermione Granger

A World in Grey

876 words

Hermione's world was grey.

Her uniform. Her home. The streets. The tall buildings that covered every inch of the city. The sky. Everything was dark, cold, and lifeless.

Often she would look out of her window and long to see trees or the ocean - something colorful and alive, but you simply couldn't find those kinds of things in Academia-210, nor any of the other academic cities. She heard things were even worse in the government and factory districts, but she couldn't imagine how.

Hermione knew she shouldn't complain. After all, she had chosen to stay in Academia-210 to continue her education, to become an educator herself. This was where she would spend the rest of her life. She just couldn't accept that nature wouldn't be a part of it anymore. Back in Garment-94, where she'd grown up, plants were cultivated for the fruit and petals to be used in dyes.

It was just a shame nothing grew in the cities. All of the land on which they'd been built had been badly damaged in the Magic War nearly three hundred years past. The war had succeeded in exterminating witchcraft but destroyed land and resources, to the point that it was necessary to devote entire towns to things like farming or fishing.

Hermione tried to remind herself of the good about living in the cities. There was an order, a purpose to everyone's movements, and yet it wasn't stifling. Amongst the schools, libraries, and museums, she felt a sense of freedom to do as she pleased and be whatever she wanted. She never thought that freedom would turn her into a criminal.

She had been driving back to her building after a long and stressful day of tests. She couldn't say how the accident happened - whether she ran a red light or the other driver had been drinking - all she saw were the headlights speeding toward her, but she never felt the crash.

The wreck was right in front of her. The front of her car was crumpled so badly she was amazed she'd survived, and yet she couldn't have. But there she was, standing on the sidewalk without a scratch on her, without having even opened the car door.

All Hermione wanted to do was go home and sleep, but of course the police were called and she had to stay and explain that she had apparently blacked out in the chaos. She thought the whole thing was rather straightforward but found herself being taken to the police station without an explanation. It was several hours before she learned why she had been brought in.

A middle-aged woman in a pink suit came to collect Hermione from her cell and bring her to an interrogation room, and for a few moments she had been relieved - surely she would be able to get this all straightened out and she could be in bed within the hour.

"You are Hermione Jean Granger?" the woman asked in a voice as cold as the metal chair she'd handcuffed Hermione to.

"Yes."

"You're studying at the University of General Knowledge. Looking to become an educator, correct?"

"Yes."

The woman closed the file she had been reading from and neatly folded her hands, smiling at Hermione in a way that sent shivers down her spine.

"Perhaps you can tell me, Ms. Granger, how you came to survive the serious car wreck on Twenty-Third Street this evening."

Hermione stared at her in confusion. She had thought she was being arrested for causing the accident, not surviving it.

"I … I'm not sure."

"Really? That seems rather unlikely."

"It's the truth. I must have blacked out. I remember driving and seeing the other car coming at me, and the next moment I was on the sidewalk. I suppose I dove out just in time."

"But you don't know for certain."

"No."

"Isn't it more likely that you used witchcraft to remove yourself from the vehicle?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Isn't it true that you've bewitched a number of instructors in the city in order to earn your place at the University? You only want to become an educator so that you'll have easier access to young minds to corrupt with your madness."

"No, please, I'm not a witch! Witchcraft was abolished centuries ago," Hermione reasoned, though even as she said it she remembered toys floating around her childhood bedroom, a vision she'd always taken to be a dream.

The pink lady continued. "You and I both know that witches still live, hidden and looking to strike at any time; willing to do anything to destroy us muggles."

"No!"

The woman opened the file again and read. "Perhaps I'll visit with doctors Robert and Josie Granger, of Garment-94." Her eyes met Hermione's. "Do you think they'll agree with you? Or will I find more witches hiding there?"

Hermione shook her head, tears pricking her eyes. "My parents aren't witches. I'm not a witch. Please understand-"

"That's all I need, I think."

The woman collected her file and stood just as another officer entered.

"What should we do with her?" he asked the pink lady.

She smiled smugly at him. "There's only one way to get rid of a witch: light her on fire."