Hermione Granger was a lot of things.

Smart; everyone said so, even Pansy Parkinson who didn't have a kind word for anyone. Pragmatic – ruthlessly so, when her parents had caught the sickness, she'd started preparing for their deaths immediately, it certainly wasn't – it wasn't personal. But we all have to survive somehow, more than that, we all have to live with ourselves – and this, well, this was how she was choosing to live with herself. Bossy; and that, that had been a compliment. But for everything she was, well, she wasn't – she wasn't a dreamer –

Not like her parents. They were optimistic, hopeful, and once they'd started the slow devastating descent to the afterlife, well, they'd gotten rather poetic. So, if Hermione regretted anything, well it was that she wasn't more like her parents. She would rather have liked to have the sunny disposition all the other girls seemed to be blessed with, and more than that, she would've liked to keep a part of her parents with her after they'd died.

And they were going to die, halfway there already, after all people that caught the blue death didn't get better – and everyone knew that. Besides, no self-respecting doctor would waste precious resources on a dead man.

Pansy Parkinson's mother had been the first of their small town to catch the sickness; she was wealthy and had money to spare in a way that nobody else in Dunwich could and even then – even then she couldn't be saved. So, Hermione knew, unfailingly, that there was no hope for her parents –

Which was yes, tragic, Hermione already felt their loss in a way that left her breathless – but she couldn't dwell on it. Dwelling left room for error, and well if Hermione ever wanted to do something, or become someone important, well she very well couldn't make any errors. And Hermione very rarely made errors. She got top marks at the dingy little public school a few blocks from her house – which, well, in the grand scheme of things it didn't really amount to much, but it was something.

It was a start; her goal was to go to university and maybe study math's or science. Obviously, women didn't work. At least not the women of high society, which was fine, Hermione wouldn't have fit in anyways. Nor was she likely to inherit any kind of fortune. If she wanted any chance at a future, well, let's just say Hermione would need to make her own luck – she'd always been ambitious.

Hermione was aware – painfully, annoyingly aware – of how hard it was to have certain ambitions when you were of the inferior sex.

Just yesterday Pansy had sauntered up to her in that useless extravagant dress with the gold trim and the delicate embroidery; she wore it when she wanted to blatantly remind people how much more she had – and she was a sight to behold then, a cruel, wicked little thing with her mean broken eyes, and that sad twisted half-smirk. Dead mom or not, Pansy had told Hermione exactly what she'd thought of her and her ambitions –

"She thinks she's better because she's always reading," Pansy had sneered to the group of girls that had been following her around since the moment they'd learned to walk, "Fear not, ladies. There isn't a man alive who would marry Hermione, never mind how many books she reads."

"Good thing I don't plan on getting married," Hermione had shot back. It had been rash, yes, but true all the same. And even at twelve the other girls gasped; it was a blasphemous thing indeed to make such severe declarations. The thought of marriage often weighed heavily on Hermione's mind, her mother had been young and beautiful once. She'd came from a wealthy family and gave it all up for a penniless cobbler and well, what exactly had that gotten her?

A death sentence, that's what it had gotten her, an insatiable hunger – a broken winding starvation, then, withered brittle fingers that shouldn't have been that old and that useless yet –

No, Hermione didn't ever want to get married.

After the initial shock wore off Pansy had drawn her slanted shoulders up to her ears and twisted her head away in disgust, "You're stupid, Hermione." It wasn't a particularly inspiring insult, but it stung all the same. Hadn't everyone always told her that she was smart? Not half as pretty as she should be, not nearly interesting enough, but clever, she was clever.

Hermione had scoffed and rolled her eyes at the giggling girls. Yet, when she spoke her voice wavered desperately, and it wasn't very intimidating, or very brave, or very intelligent –

"I-I'm not stupid."

"You are," Pansy insisted with a fierce vicious heat that had steeled its way into Hermione's chest, burning, and wrecking, and ruining – because that's what happens to pathetic soon-to-be-orphans that forget their place, "and one day, you're going to fall so ridiculously in love with someone. He'll take one look at that bushy hair and those buck teeth and run for the hills of course. But you will know then that you aren't any better than the rest of us. You aren't any less human."

Hermione had been shocked then, well and truly, Pansy was pretty in an exotic foreign sort of way – what with the caramel skin and the closely cropped black hair – and she had money up to her ears, but other than that she didn't have any discernible personality traits. Nor would anyone go as far as to call her intelligent, yet she spoke now with a conviction that startled Hermione.

"You're a girl, I mean, barely," Pansy had given her one last withering look then, "but you're still a girl, and so you are stupid."

The thing that shook Hermione the most was that she wasn't – she wasn't insulting her, well, she was, but not in that moment. It was a statement; a reminder.

She'd marched on and her minions followed her while doing a very terrible job indeed of stifling their laughter, and Hermione had stood there. Just for a moment. She didn't have time for anything more, but she let herself feel desperately sorry for Pansy. The girl would be cruel forever, then.

It was a Thursday when her parents finally died. Thursday September 3rd, 1869.

She wanted to write it down, with ink, in the dirt, in the walls, with blood even – she wanted to forever remember this day, this ugly, devastating day.

She knew her parents were going to die; she knew it was inevitable, like how the sun would always rise even if you didn't want it, even if you begged it not to, even if you clasped your hands and you got on your knees and you cried for it – for one more moment. It was not a merciful god; it was a great big ruinous thing.

Inevitable, yes, but an awful tricky thing it had been indeed.

1871

Minerva McGonagall was coming to Dunwich. Specifically, the orphanage of Dunwich; which meant the rumors were true. She was in search of an heir.

Minerva McGonagall had been Hermione's biggest inspiration for as long as she could remember. A fearsome woman who made her own luck, indeed. She was born into a moderately well-off family but instead of marrying a nobleman and settling down like her sister had, she went to medical school and grew her fortunes exponentially. Which thus set forth a revolutionary standard and subsequently challenged gender rules that had been in place for centuries; truly, she was Hermione's hero.

So, if she put in a little more effort today – taming her unruly curls into a modest twist, washing the cuffs of her sleeves in salt water – well, who could rightfully blame her?

Hermione wasn't a dreamer; she didn't believe in fate or destiny. She believed in science, and she believed in logic, and practicalities, and numbers. And if nothing more came of Minerva's visit, well, Hermione at least had a dozen questions for the older woman.