House: Slytherin
Year: Prefect
Category: Standard
Prompt: Tomorrow may be a day away, but today feels like an eternity.
Word Count: 991
Do you know that moment when your day feels like it never ends? When you can't take it anymore and all you want is for tomorrow to come? Whether it be due to excitement or anxiety. Hermione could count on one of her hands the number of times she felt like that.
The first one being the day before she got onto the Hogwarts Express for the first time. She could still remember the excitement that had coursed through her veins, the day wouldn't move fast enough, time seemed to drag on, the sun never seemed to move from the sky. It was as if a spell of eternity had been placed on the specific time she wanted to move faster, or at least that's what she assumed being only 11 and with the bare minimum of magical knowledge.
She could laugh at herself now as she looks back on that moment, a moment in time that she believed was an act of her accidental magic.
The second time Hermione had felt an eternity was the first detention she ever received. She could still recall it, being caught by Filch with Harry and heading into the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid and her fellow peers. She had dreaded the day's end. She wished for an eternity in that moment. She grew to regret that decision though because time seemed to do exactly as she wanted and she found herself working herself up, wondering what detention would hold for her and her friends Harry and Neville.
That was years ago but today as she sat on her bed in her bedroom listening to her radio blare a song that she could faintly register, Hermione stared at the homework she had finished early as usual. All of it was done from Defence Against the Dark Arts to Care of Magical Creatures, she had no excuses now.
"Hermione. Tea's ready, darling."
Startled out of her thought Hermione called back to her mother. "Coming, Mum!"
Today was a day she wished would never end, because she knew once tomorrow comes everything would change.
Sitting down at the table with her parents, Hermione engaged with them animatedly drinking up everything she could, memorizing everything she could from their physical appearances, to the little quirks her parents had that she could always overlook; as it was their dynamic, what made her family hers.
She listened intently to the low tune her mother hummed under her breath, the way her dad grumbled about her mother's terrible voice as he drummed his fingers along with her mother's song. It was their song, UB40's I Got You Babe.
Grinning at her dad Hermione began to sing as loudly and as terribly as she could.
"I got you - mph!" Glaring at her father who had placed his hand over her mouth, her father grinned.
"Please dear, your mother has tortured me all these years. I don't need you to do so as well."
Smacking her dad's arm playfully Hermione did as she was told.
The light-hearted moment came to a quick end when she realized that time had slipped away from her. The sun was setting beyond the horizon and the stars were twinkling in the sky. It was a beautiful sight and one she could not find within herself to appreciate.
She knew that once her head hit that pillow tomorrow would come all too quickly. She prayed for the eternity she previously felt to flow into time again for just a moment. To let whatever time she had left for today last just a bit longer, but alas the eternity she wished for never came and soon her head was hitting her grey covered pillow and her mind shut down into a restless sleep.
In what felt like a blink, the morning she dreaded awoke her and Hermione felt dark amusement rise within her. Handling a time-turner in her third year had given her new found respect for time. She had thought in some misplaced delusional part of her mind that actually believed in non-sentient creatures, that the Mistress of time had actually held some sort affection for her, if her luck with a time turner was anything to go by. But, as she gazed out her window at the rising sun Hermione felt a bitter smile crossed her face.
Time was no one's friend. It played with you. When you wished for time to pass by quickly it would slow down so much that you feel like it stops, and when all you want is for time to stop to preserve a precious moment if you blink it'll be gone.
That is time. Such a cruel, cruel thing. Perhaps it is because time is not a sentient being, that it cannot fathom empathy. It cannot sympathize with the creatures that beg for more time. Perhaps it cannot understand just how precious it is to some.
Or maybe it was just as people say; that it truly is a cruel Mistress that took pleasure in stealing away time as time is Time, her own. Time could give and take as it pleased. Perhaps it truly didn't care, and she was beginning to believe that with every breath she took this morning.
Time seemed to move all too quickly one breath a glance at the clock, five minutes had passed. Another breath, fifteen minutes had gone by, and another.
Time was moving too quickly with a strangled cry muffled into her pillow, Hermione worked up the nerve to get up. Grabbing her wand from her drawer Hermione padded across the room and down the hallway toward her parent's bedroom.
It was silent. Her parents were still fast asleep. As she cracked the door open and gazed at her parents and for just a second time slowed allowing her once more to drink in her parents as the peacefully slept.
With a heavy hand, Hermione lifted her wand and whispered.
"Obliviate…"