Happy 1st Birthday
"Hermione, open your presents!"
"You need to go help her out. Your mum just had to wrap it so no one would ever actually be able to open it."
Hermione Granger was always self-motivated. Even at the age of one, she had her mind set on opening her extravagantly wrapped porcelain doll by herself – and she did.
"I think she's got it."
Sixteen years later, that same girl – with the same prominent, observant brown eyes but significantly more hair – sat alone in that same house, watching home videos of seemingly every milestone.
There was a tap recital. Before she and her parents realized that was hopeless.
There was Hermione's reading of Snow White (which she quickly tossed aside in favor of a book on the Holocaust) by herself.
There was her first day of Muggle school, her spelling bee triumph, her first trip to Hogsmeade, the first goodbyes at King's Cross, the summer trips abroad…
Hermione wanted to stay there. She could stay there forever, hearing her mother say her name and her father laughing along boisterously. She wanted to sit on her living room floor and watch herself and her parents decorate their Christmas tree. She wanted to see two people who knew their daughter, and see their faces light up at the sight of the tiniest accomplishment or smile.
But she couldn't stay there. 'There' was a place that couldn't exist to her anymore. It didn't exist to her parents anymore. She didn't exist to her parents anymore. Though her cheeks were stained with lingering tears and her eyes were empty, there was a task at hand. There was an end in sight.
Maybe – if she was lucky – she'd be able to come home.
"Hermione, look at Daddy!"
Hermione finally raised her wand and, resigned to her future, muttered under her breath. On the screen, the waving little girl in her winter pajamas began to disappear.
She saw what she had to do and did it.