Hi Everyone I know it has been ages and updates to all my other works are on their way out and will be uploaded later this week! This is a genre that is very different for me to be writing but I hope that I will do the genre and style some justice. This first chapter is acting as a quick recap of the third year as a lot of the book relies on her use of the time-turner but I didn't want to have to spend the first few chapters writing that out in detail. If anyone would like those chapters I may write and release them as a bit of a prequel later. Please enjoy!-Dayin
A life half lived is no life at all. This was a fact she had come to know all too well, she was always the outsider, always just a bit too strange for her peers and family alike. But if Hermione knew anything it was how to change herself just enough that she could fit in. Until that itself was no longer enough.
She had always been a kind and helpful girl, thirsty for knowledge and approval, especially from authority figures. She had also always been what her mother described as a protective mother hen which often came off as bossy to those around her. Truthfully while she did want to care for others she did not have any desire to boss them around, she could never quite understand why following the rules of those in charge was not as important to everyone else. Her lack of social cues and her peer's believing her to be a know-it-all and teacher's pet made sure she was never very popular.
At first when her magic had been revealed she thought her prayers had been answered, finally there was a world where she would fit in and there were others like her. But even in this new world, she was still somehow wrong, in a way that went far beyond her blood status and the blatant bigotry of her "pureblood" peers who always did their best to try and make her feel small.
The first few months had been the hardest when she had run in head first believing foolishly this was a place she would be accepted just the way she was. Soon however she knew it was time to begin chipping away at herself again just enough to fit into an acceptable mold.
Still, she persevered and gained Harry and Ron as her tentative friends. Her role as their friend was an easier one for her to maintain, making sure she was there and helpful when they needed homework done or Harry needed his latest life-threatening puzzle solved. It went right along with her desire to please people. Sure they would leave her out and shun her when they believed she had overstepped her helpful role, but just earlier this year when she had reported the firebolt and defended Crookshanks from Ron's anger she had been harshly reminded what it cost to overstep their expectations of her. As she had come to expect she had never received an apology even after saving the life of Harry's godfather and putting her life in extreme danger once more.
In between nearly being slaughtered by a werewolf twice and Harry and Ron acting as if nothing had ever happened and they were all just friends again after they had treated her so coldly something snapped inside of her. The part of her that was willing to twist and change itself to fit in just because it wanted a friend and a leader, no longer cared about pleasing Harry and Ron. It wasn't her goal to stop being friends with them, it was more that after this summer they would have to decide to be friends with the real her or not be friends with her at all, and she was done using her gifts only to suit them and make their lives easier while hiding them for the rest of the time.
At least part of her new mindset was thanks to her time turner which had been her small escape in which she finally got to experience being herself. She had definitely used it more than the professors had originally intended but those quiet hours to herself without the pressure of fitting in were blissful.
Each time she had used it to gain a valuable extra few hours the small part of her true self that remained began shining through more and more. The little voice inside of her telling her what to do was getting louder. Interestingly her need for approval and listening to authority remained. However, a new need began to develop alongside it; a need for comfort and safety.
It had started small with her enjoying softer clothing, and collecting more pillows and blankets for her bed, she had been a lot colder lately and her clothes had begun feeling too rough on her skin. Luckily the house elves in the kitchen had been more and happy to help her get more pillows and blankets and had even applied charms to her school clothes that made them feel much softer. At first, she had felt bad asking the house elves for help and then she had truly gotten to talk to them. Heidi the house elf in particular, had indulged her litany of questions and helped her to begin to understand the symbiotic relationship between elves and wizard kind and that not all elf relationships were like those between Dobby and the Malfoys. She still was not sure of the idea and hated the thought of any of her new elf friends being harmed, but she was willing to listen and learn from their thoughts on the subject.
Her relationship with the elves also came with another major benefit, they had shown her to an amazing room in which she could happily study and relax to her heart's content. They called it the room of requirement and she had very quickly worked out schedules and a means for herself to make full use of it without meeting the other versions of herself that were going about their own days with the time turner. The room she asked for had an entrance with multiple screened and numbered doors along with a sign-in schedule. The doors led to individually cornered-off rooms that were not visible to any of the other spaces within the room of requirement. This schedule made it possible for multiple Hermiones to use different areas of the room without seeing each other and damaging their various timelines.
She did wonder if her sudden need for warmth and the way most fabrics were too rough for her skin was due to her overuse of the time-turner but no time travel records included symptoms like those. And most other books that included those symptoms seemed to be in the restricted section for some reason. She couldn't ask for permission to view them as she didn't want to draw Headmaster Dumbledore or Professor Magonigals attention and risk them taking the time-turner away early.
Along with this need for safety, her view of the actions of others became clearer. Harry and Ron had not been acting in her best interest and she certainly had not been making safe decisions around them. The more they belittled her and made her feel like she had to hide the less the little voice wanted to be around them, it had completely stopped trying to pressure her into listening to their whims and now instead revolted against even the slightest suggestion of theirs. As the voice got angrier she knew she had to stop changing herself to suit them.
Though knowing she had to return her time turner at the end of her third year. She had tried to ask for permission to continue using it in her fourth year but was quickly denied by both Professor Magonagal and Headmaster Dumbledore as they said using it too close to her fully maturing could be damaging whatever they had meant by that. Hermione had to wonder after all the years of changing herself and chipping away, how much would be truly left of her original self when she returned to her regular life if her one true escape was going to be taken. She was determined she would not lose herself again whether or not she had the time turner.
And so she began to develop her plan to secure her own future no matter who her friends were or where she fit in. Firstly she was done hiding her intelligence and she wanted to be able to achieve her full potential in school, secondly, she was done hiding who she was from people, in order for someone to be her friend they would need to accept her as she was.
The first part of her plan was easy, she wanted to reach her full potential and that meant learning at her own pace and not at the rate that suited everyone else. Especially if that helped her get away from the bigots at school faster. This was made possible by the time-turner as she used some of her additional time to study ahead into her fourth and fifth years. Having begged her parents to let her write her OWLs this summer after the firebolt incident at Christmas when she realised her friends may not truly be her friends. They had agreed on the condition she also writes her muggle GCSEs around the same time, to which she readily agreed, her naturally studious nature making an explanation of the time turner unnecessary.
The moment she had closed the last 5th year book she had to complete it before being ready she had sent the permission form to her parents to sign. Immediately upon getting it back she then scheduled her exams with the ministry for the middle of the summer, with no one at Hogwarts needing to be the wiser at least for now.
The second part of her plan had been more difficult to implement, while she was determined to not hide who she was from her peers any longer she still felt the need to people please along with feeling awkward. However, she was able to blame most of her behaviour shift on the upcoming exams and the stress of the whole Sirus Black incident on school grounds. Most of her strange behaviour had gone unnoticed but she had noticed the older students had been a lot kinder to her as of late, possibly feeling bad for all she had been through.
Harry and Ron for the most part had spent the exams whining and kept their focus far away from her, which for the moment she preferred as it gave her time to come to a full decision on how she would be behaving going forward.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed that story set-up, the next chapter will be out tomorrow and will have a lot more active story, please let me know what you think!-Dayout