Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. They are by J. K. Rowling. I am not for profit.
Hermione looked at the vial. It was not the first time she had taken it and it would not be the last. The Felix Felicis was addictive, because it could grant you everything you wanted, make you successful or, as Snape said so many years ago, bottled fame and fortune. She knew it well, she had made her first potion at eleven years old, when she started school. Then she was nervous about being away from her home, in a completely different culture than hers, but eager to excel. Who wouldn't want it? Everyone wanted luck in their lives, the power to do anything, to get everything. Be rich enough not to work in life.
It had started innocently, She was only looking for a little help, some luck in her life. The truth did not understand how the teachers had not realized that she, being Muggle-born, knew how to perform spells better than magical children, how she always touched perfection in her qualifications, the adventures she had gone through with Harry and Ron where they always ended up alive and barely unharmed should have given them some clue.
Better for her if she was never caught.
Hermione had achieved everything anyone would dream of having and being. Now, she was rich and did not work and would be so throughout her life, because she did not need it, instead of, she had decided to dedicate herself to writing and her books were a success in the muggle world. She sometimes visited the wizarding world, but she tried to stay away from her old friends. She couldn't let them now discover everything she had done.
Sometimes when She needed some extra income, She would go to Vegas, drink some of the potion, and start gambling. It never failed. The casino owners did not understand their machines, they went crazy when Hermione walked around them, some thought they were broken, but to her satisfaction or luck, they had never been able to prove that she was cheating.
She was not like Lockhart, she had not stolen anyone's work, although she had not really achieved anything by herself, she had always had the help of Felix Felicis. Thinking about it, she did not know why the other witches or wizards have not used it in their life to achieve that job they so badly needed or to have what they most want. Having that power at your fingertips and not using it is stupid.
At first she also thought that it was better to work honestly, deserve your achievements. But in her sixth grade, Slughorn had given Harry his highest grade, only because Harry had had the help of a book that contradicted everything the manuals said and Hermione, who had done her best to respect the directions and work with diligence, She hadn't even gotten a look. If she had ever had regrets for having used the potion so frequently, now she no longer had them. She never understood why Harry had received so much attention, when another student would have been expelled for much less. An example of this was Newt Scamander or Hagrid. That is why, from the first year, Hermione had never trusted Dumbledore, because he had never provided Harry with the information necessary for him to defend himself, nor had he taught him to do so, always guiding and supporting him to get into trouble, as if he wish him to die, as if he were leading him to the slaughterhouse.
That was another reason not to stop drinking the potion. Because right away, Hermione understood that all the freedoms she had was because she was the best friend of the Chosen One. Staying by his side gave her an advantageous position and she had never wasted an opportunity. Sometimes Harry and Ron could be dense. She was not her mother and she shouldn't do the things she did for them! Everyone had pigeonholed her into that role. If anyone really knew her true motives, they would be horrified because the Gryffindor that she was or that they believed she had been, had never existed. She had always preferred cunning, something that sadly considered Slytherin, when the reality was that bravery without cunning was useless except to end up in the graveyard. She sometimes really envied the Slytherins because they were expected to use everything in their power to succeed. If they drank Felix Felicis it wouldn't be surprising.
Why make more effort than necessary? The potion gave her all with less effort on her part.
She was not addicted, she knew exactly when she should take it and when she could do it herself, but it was always easier to take it. She was always careful that neither the Slytherins nor Snape caught or suspected her. She would have been humiliating and very difficult to explain, not to mention all the harassment and gossip she would have at Hogwarts. No. It was better to keep it a secret. Because one Slytherin could recognize another. There was a time when she would have been offended at being called a serpent, yet that was exactly what she was.
The war had changed her or maybe it had just revealed something that was already there, freeing her, making her more lioness than she ever thought possible. Behind her were the remains of her childhood, where she wanted a utopian world and she tried harder to achieve her goals. Anyone could claim that she was no longer her or her shadow and they would probably be right, if they had really met her. The problem was, they never did. Why should she be the only one who respected any act of morality? Hermione knew that she was not perfect, but this was not a defect that she wanted to correct, because she was very proud to have morally separated from all those moralists who, seeing a golden opportunity, had decided to waste it.
Hermione had realized too late that she could never be someone of weight in the magical world, people like her did not have a chance to be someone of influence and power there, a world unable to see beyond its racism, would never let it someone of her lineage would go far on her own, a world always aware of the connections she surrounded herself with, not so different from the muggle world. She had always known it, only that at that time she still dreamed had not minded her face against the whole world to achieve her purposes. Now she was a weary hero, preferring cunning and good sense to defeat the opponent, perhaps even using dialogue and bargaining, something unimaginable in her younger self.
She had modified her strategy and had become much tougher and stronger. It is natural, life strengthens you, teaching you lessons that it wants you to learn and by its strength and its own will, life will test you over and over again. And although there are very good moments, there is also disappointment, pain, losses (especially from friends).
Hermione was lucky, she knew it. Her potion helped her bend the bad times at will, because if life does, why shouldn't she take charge of her life instead of letting fate bend her? Was she not the owner of her own destiny? And, if necessary, she would take the potion to make good times twice as good.
That potion was the best and most useful thing she had learned in school and she was the first to admit that in school you never learn anything. Until the end of her life, Hermione Granger would continue to use the Felix Felicis, in order to live the life that she really wanted. No one could take that away from her if no one found out about her.