Just because
Hermione walked quietly towards Dumbledore's office. She had no idea what he wanted to speak to her about. These past couple of hours had come as one big shock to her and she wanted nothing more than to be alone. She wanted to be sitting in the Great Hall eating delicious food with her two best friends. She wanted to see her parents there at her graduation instead of lost amongst the rows of graves in her hometown cemetery. Everytime she thought of the war, she thought of another person dying. Why did any of this have to happen? She hated Lord Voldemort for it and she hated him for taking away her only happiness.
Hermione reached the gargoyle that stood in front of the staircase leading to Dumbledore's office. "Pumpkin Pastries." She mumbled. The gargoyle suddenly came to life and stepped aside, letting Hermione pass. She stepped onto the first step and let it carry her towards his office. She stepped inside and sat down on the chair facing Dumbledore's desk. She looked around while she waited. Up on one of the shelves, higher than all the rest, hung pictures of former headmasters. Below the photographs lay trinkets and other mysterious-looking toys. Everything in his office was unique; there was not one thing she could match with another. She sat back and relax and closed her eyes just as the door began to creek open, making her blink.
"Ah, Hello Miss Granger. I am very sorry about what happened last night. I know Mr. Weasley was a great friend of yours." He said. At the sound of Ron's name her eyes began to water, she simply nodded as she was blinking back her tears.
"Miss Granger I understand how hard this must be for you right now, but I must ask you a favor. This is probably the worst time to be asking this of you at all but I feel that it must be done now or it will be too late." He said calmly. Hermione loved Professor Dumbledore. he was simply the greatest teacher she could have ever asked for, but she hated how he could always be so calm, when it seemed like the worst time to be. "Now I understand this might be hard for you to take right now because you are in distress. This war is coming to its end. Our final battle with Lord Voldemort is approaching at a deathly pace. Even though we have been holding off our enemies for many years now, I am afraid that it is only a short amount of time before Hogwarts itself is penetrated. I believe in our side more than anyone, but I am afraid Lord Voldemort's numbers are growing as we speak. Even if we do defeat him, there is no way that his army will quit coming. There are too many people that believe in what he is doing and I feel that they will not stop, with or without their leader." He took a quick breath, and glanced down. For the first time Hermione noticed that his age was finally starting to catch up with him and she could only give one reason for it, the war.
"Hermione I am afraid we will not win this war. I know this will be hard for you to hear but I feel you need to. I want you to go back. I want you to go back in time to 1944 and help get rid of Tom Riddle. We must stop this at the roots and I think you have the strongest opportunity to take part in this task." He said patiently.
Hermione staring at him with her mouth open. What was he saying? He wants her to leave everything behind to go and get rid of someone? Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. She had nothing here. Everyone that ever made her happy in her life was now gone. The only one eft was Harry and he was barely conscience. She still had him of course, but who was she kidding? Dumbledore was right. We were not going to win this war and the war would most certainly take Harry with it. Suddenly she became very angry.
"Why me? Am I that hopeless that I have to be sent away? Do you not believe in us at all? Why don't you send Harry away huh? It's not like he has anything here either!" She practically screamed. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she wanted to take them back. She wasn't being fair. What had Harry ever done? Of course Harry needed to stay, he was the one that everyone depended on. They needed him for the final battle. Of course she was good with a wand but Harry was equally great and had more experience with Lord Voldemort than she had.
Dumbledore was looking at her, not saying anything, as if he knew she was having a personal battle with herself. After a couple of minutes he realized she must have figured it out on her own.
"Hermione you really are the brightest witch I have ever met. You understand why we need him here don't you?" He asked. Hermione shooker her haed in a yes. "I want you to go because I know you can handle this. You are extremely intelligent and I wanted you in particular to go on this mission."
"What do you want me to do? Kill him. Sir, not to be rude, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life in Azkaban." She said with a bit of a laugh. Then her mind rushed back to Bellatrix. She had killed her, but luckily she had done it in self-defense. Just the thought that she had killed someone made her sick.
"No of course not. Miss Granger, you have heard much about Lord Voldemort I presume? What was the one thing he was lacking throughout his entire childhood?" He asked. She wracked her brain searching for the answer. She remembered back when she was younger. Harry, Ron and herself had been wandering throught the restricted section and a book had caught her eye. It was a book about Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It had said that he had never experienced love from another person.
"Sir, he was never loved?" She answered, hoping it was correct. "Exactly Miss Granger! He was lacking love! I figured that if he just had someone be there for him, even if it was just friendship, then he would turn away from the dark side and not commit all of these horrible deeds. Do you agree?"
"Yes Professor, but you want him to fall in love with me? Sir, I dont mean to be rude, but he killed my parents and Ron. I don't know if I can do that."
"Hermione you are very wise, but you are missing something. Just because someone has caused someone to suffer in the future does not mean that is how he was in the past. Just because he didn't have love, doesn't mean he wasn't deserving of it." He said patiently.
Hermione sat there staring at him, waiting for him to say nevermind, you don't have to do this, but he never did.