Summary: Sometimes, there is no going back. Post-war, non-epilogue compliant.


with endless possibility (and all that's left is devastation)

When the war is won, the wounded tended, the dead buried, Hermione sits in the library, and thinks.

She peeled back the layers of her parents' minds and plucked out the person they called daughter, dropped the memories into her mouth and ate them. And that, that is so terribly terrifying.

She drugged Crabbe and Goyle, trapped Skeeter in a jar, marred Marietta's face, left Umbridge to the centaurs, and she fought a war (she has dealt so much violence in forests and streets and castles). She has done so much harm with her wand.

The September she turns eleven, Hermione Granger is going to be a scientist. She's going to work in a lab and discover the secrets of the Universe and change the world.

The September she turns twelve, Hermione Granger is a witch. She's going to school in an ancient castle and she's learned that there is more to the Universe than any scientist will ever know and she belongs to a new world.

She wonders what would have become of that girl who was going to be a scientist if no Ministry of Magic representative had ever showed up on the front stoop the June between the Septembers she turned eleven and twelve.

When the war is won, the wounded tended, the dead buried, Hermione stands up from her table in the library, and leaves Bellatrix Lestrange's wand next to a pile of books. She walks down the long hallways, past the scorch marks and crumbling stone, walks out the splintered doors, and does not look back.