a/n: I don't know what this is, it was my birthday today (or at least it was two hours ago, midnight fics) and I was just thinking about how both Ron and Harry had something exciting happen on their seventeenth birthdays but Hermione's basically got ignored (at least in canon). So here you go!
Turning seventeen was a big deal in the wizarding world. You could do magic outside of Hogwarts and you were considered an adult. For most wizards, it meant that they were nearing their final year at Hogwarts.
However, Hermione turned seventeen at the beginning of her sixth year. Her birthday was September nineteenth. She still had two full years left at Hogwarts. She didn't know how to apparate yet. She wasn't a fully fledged wizard, not really. But she was allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts, not that she would be out of Hogwarts before Christmas.
All the same, she was ready to be an adult. She was tired of being called the brightest witch of her age. It made her feel like a teacher's pet, like a child, like someone who wasn't special unless compared only to the other children. And while she would never reject validation from authority, and in actuality it filled her with joy, she wanted a different kind of validation. She wanted to be seen as a peer. And this, her seventeenth birthday, was the first step.
She was an adult. She could speak to other adults and hopefully, finally, have them listen to her ideas rather than brushing her off. She could fight for rights for muggleborns and house elves. She could do it. She could be strong.
She tried not to frown when, by the end of the day, it seemed like nothing had changed. In the eyes of everyone at Hogwarts, she was just a student. No one even seemed to realize that she was seventeen. They ignored that she was an adult, and she hated every moment of it. She thought that things would change, but maybe this was just how it was meant to be. Even Harry and Ron hadn't done more than mutter a "happy birthday" in the morning at breakfast.
It was so unfair. She knew that this was what she had signed up for, befriending two of the most oblivious boys at Hogwarts, but it shouldn't be too much to ask for them to give her a present or congratulate her on being an adult or something.
Just as she decided that she might as well spend the rest of her birthday reading in her dorm room rather than the common room, Harry cleared his throat. She looked up and noticed that Ron had disappeared. She assumed he had gone to bed and sighed quietly.
"What, Harry?" she asked.
"Can you help me with something?" he asked, slightly sheepishly.
"Of course, Harry. What do you need?" she asked, already preparing herself to give him a potions lecture or teach him how to transfigure something.
"Actually it's er- outside of the common room," Harry said.
"It's almost curfew, though," she reminded him.
"We'll be back in time," Harry promised. "No one will catch us out there, don't worry."
Hermione raised a suspicious eyebrow, already quite used to the antics of her two best friends, but she gathered her things and put them away all the same. She pretended not to notice that he had only really promised that they wouldn't be caught. Harry grinned and stood, pulling her out through the portrait hole.
"Where are we going, Harry?" Hermione asked as he walked quickly through the halls. "And where is Ron?"
"That's not important," Harry told her, glancing down at a piece of parchment in his hand.
"Harry! Is that the Marauder's Map? Who are we hiding from?" she asked worriedly. "This isn't another one of your quests to find Malfoy, is it?"
"No, it isn't. He's in his dormitory, so we couldn't get to him. We don't know the password anymore," Harry said with a slight smile. Hermione's mind jumped back to second year, when she had missed her opportunity to visit the other common room.
"Then where are we going? Why won't you tell me where Ron is?" she asked exasperatedly, just as Harry finally stopped in front of a familiar door.
"You'll see," he said with a smile.
"We aren't doing the DA anymore. We don't need to. Say what you will about him, but Professor Snape is an excellent DADA teacher. So why did you bring me here?" she asked, glaring at him.
"Just be quiet for one second, Hermione," he said with a smile, swinging open the door to the Room of Requirement.
"Happy birthday!" a chorus of voices called from inside. Hermione felt her face break into a smile as she recognized Ron standing in front of a crowd of her friends and fellow past DA members.
"Harry? How did you-" she started, her mouth dropping open in shock.
"No, no, this was all Ron," Harry told her with a grin.
"Why did you think I wanted to borrow your fake galleon?" Ron asked, smiling at her. "How else would we have gotten everyone here?"
Hermione grinned and hugged him tightly. "Thanks, Ron."
"Please, don't mention it, 'Mione," he said, and she saw a blush creep up his neck. "Your seventeenth birthday is important, and we had to do something."
"Well, I love it," she said, releasing the hug.
"I'm glad," he said with a smile.
Harry rolled his eyes and spoke to the whole room. "We'd better get this party started before Filch finds out and tries to get us all expelled again, yeah?" There were some good-natured groans and eye rolls before people began talking and laughing again, walking over to a set of tables that Hermione suddenly realized were laden with food. She couldn't bring herself to be mad about the house elf labor that surely went into it, although that could have been because she had just noticed the giant birthday cake.
She looked out at the room with a grin, glad to know that her two best friends hadn't forgotten about her. As she looked at their smiling faces, she couldn't help but pull both of them into another hug. They truly were the best friends she could have asked for, and she wouldn't trade them for anything.