Hermione knows better than this. She's always known better, been better, than this. It's wrong and her strong sense of morality would never have let her do anything like this before.
But. She's tired. She's been fighting a war since she was eleven years old, and at eighteen she thinks she deserves a break. She's begging for a break. Just some time to herself, where she doesn't have to plan the next move, doesn't have to be the smart one. Doesn't have to fold herself neatly into the box she's made herself.
Just a few days to be someone else. To be Hermione Granger, who is wicked smart and goes to that fancy boarding school, the one that no one can ever remember the name of. Such a sweet young girl, it must be hard on her not seeing her parents for most of the year. It didn't work.
She didn't want to - couldn't - be Hermione Granger, part of the Golden Trio, the brightest witch of her age, but she couldn't go back to being Hermione Granger, daughter of that dentist couple, so smart, definitely going somewhere.
The wizarding world wouldn't let her breathe in peace for even a minute, going so far as to stalk her every move and shout questions at her anytime she was seen in public. She was a hero and it should have been everything she wanted, but she just wanted it all to stop.
The muggle world was only a little better. When she needed a break from the wizarding world, she'd hide away in the neighbourhood she grew up in. Even there she couldn't escape the questions, but this time there were fewer reporters. The police had asked her about her parents - where did she think they went? Why would they have left so suddenly? Why has she not contacted the police about it, and for that matter, why could the police not contact her?
She had to pretend just as much there as she did in the wizarding world. There was nowhere she could just sit and be peaceful. Have a moment to gather her thoughts and make her next plan but she didn't want that anymore.
Being the person with the plan, with the knowledge and the confidence that everything will turn out fine because she had to be the strong one wasn't what she wanted. She'd never wanted that but she made friends with the wrong kids after they stumbled into a room guarded by a three-headed dog when she was eleven.
It wasn't fair that she'd had to deal with all that. She wasn't bound by some prophecy like Harry was, she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She loves Harry, will always love Harry, he's practically her brother. She hates him too. She will always hate him because he dragged her into this war when they were just kids and it's not fair to blame him.
Because he was just a kid too. He didn't have all the information, only Dumbledore did. And him, Hermione despises. A deep hatred that could cast the vilest of hexes, could fuel the Unforgivables. Harry didn't have a choice and if he did, he didn't know it. Dumbledore knew everything and sacrificed everyone and anyone he deemed necessary for his convoluted plan to work out in the end. Screw all the suffering that was caused, all the lives lost. Dumbledore has a plan.
He only needs to sacrifice an abused orphan to do it. Take away a generation's childhoods to make them all soldiers in a war they know very little and are nowhere near qualified to fight.
But he's a Light wizard so that makes everything okay.
No. It does not. None of that was okay and Hermione gets so angry sometimes that she just wants to scream. Wants to start a riot in the middle of Diagon Alley, smash all the windows and blow the whole street up.
No one understands. Harry and Ron think that she's struggling with the war, that they just need to give her some time and she'll be straight back to the old Hermione. Mrs Weasley clucks and tells her that she needs a nice young man to set her straight. They think she should go back to school and get her NEWTs and find a husband to settle down and have kids with and she'll be magically fixed.
Of course, she's struggling with the war. She was tortured. Her skin was carved into by a madwoman, leaving a scar that will never stop hurting, that will never heal. She has to live with that every day for the rest of her life. She killed people, held their lives in her hands. And not just their lives, their memories. Her parents are gone and they can never come back. How can she live with that?
It was her job to come up with the plans so they could stop the war, and she didn't do it fast enough. How can she possibly be okay after that?
Other people had it rough, the war wasn't easy on anyone. But they all seem to be bouncing back and she's stuck screaming herself awake every night.
She's stuck and she can't move on and forget or learn to get better because this whole thing is wrong and it's like she's the only one who can see it.
Because after so much bloodshed, nothing has changed. The muggleborn registry is repealed but the attitudes don't change. The purebloods are still the elite and muggleborns are still the lowest scum of the earth. How can she get better when it's all still the same except now no one is being murdered over it?
The whole thing has been a losing battle. A fight for a ceasefire that might last their lifetimes but will happen again next time there's someone charismatic enough, charming enough, with the right bloodline to set it all off again. Pointless.
An endless battle with innumerable wars and they have won the war but lost the battle. Because there's always going to be prejudice in the world. No matter how much anyone strives and hopes and dreams that they will be the one to make everyone see sense, that people are just people - not better than, not worse - it's not going to happen.
Not peacefully.
So Hermione knows that she's making the wrong choice. That this isn't what she should do, but what else is left for her to do?
She's already made the decision, and everyone knows she's a stubborn as a mule. She's going to become Minister of Magic and she is going to force the changes, and God help anyone who disagrees.
Every last detail is planned out. She had a lot of free time when she was on the run and Harry and Ron never paid her enough attention, never thought to read her notes. It's not going to be a peaceful and democratic takeover. It wouldn't work. She might be a hero but she still would never get voted into office.
She's going to take what she wants because she's been busy and found all the people who feel like she does and has promised them that she can make it all better. She can change everything and fix and make it right, the way it should be.