Chapter Text
Hermione Granger was done.
She had been done for quite a while, actually.
After Voldemort was defeated, she had naively hoped that the wizarding world would suddenly make the right choices. She hadn’t anticipated that the entire time she had been fighting, she was simply being used.
Her being the brightest witch of an age was apparently too useful a tool to make her an outcast in the middle of a war, but once the fighting was done, she suddenly no longer had a place.
She was coerced, manipulated, and forgotten.
Hermione trudged up the final few steps into her flat, slamming her shoulder into the front door in order to unstick it from the warped frame. It finally let loose, causing her to stumble inside the stale interior. The sparse furnishings were worn, and no adornments could be found within the studio space.
No photos. No awards. Nothing.
Both Harry and Ron were granted Orders of Merlin for their part in the fight. Hermione wasn’t, due to some old law dredged up by the remaining Wizengamot, claiming ineligibility based on blood status. The ministry apologized, and Hermione tried to be understanding.
With Hogwarts needing to be rebuilt, there was no opportunity for Hermione to return and complete her education. When Hermione approached the ministry about the possibility of taking her NEWTS independently, she had been told that she hadn’t completed the necessary school years required, so it wasn’t possible. Hermione tried to be understanding.
Having only OWLS, her job possibilities were limited, regardless of being a member of the Golden Trio.
Despite their own lack of education, Harry and Ron were both accepted into the Auror program- a position that Hermione was denied. Kingsley didn’t give a solid reason, only a vague reference to possible residual crucio tremors that could hinder Hermione’s performance. Hermione knew this to be a load of shite, as she had far surpassed Harry and Ron in dueling skill at this point in life, tremors or no. But again, Hermione tried to be understanding.
Apparently, being the only mudblood of the trio, and a female at that, meant that the press and public opinion tended to be rather harsh towards her, while simultaneously praising Harry and Ron.
The unspoken truth was that despite fighting on the front lines of the war, blood purity still mattered, and Hermione was on the wrong side of the line.
Ron and Hermione had initially dated in the aftermath of the second wizarding war, but it quickly became apparent that they did not work romantically. Ron wanted her to be more like his mom, and Hermione may have been many things, but a second Molly Weasley she was not. Despite her attempts to fit into the mold, she couldn’t make it work.
Hermione had told Ron that their relationship was over, but that she hoped that they could remain friends. Ron’s response was to stage a very public marriage proposal to try and force her hand, which she hastily denied.
The public backlash to her refusal was astronomical. The Weasleys closed ranks, Molly feeding the press exaggerated stories of Hermione’s sins. Harry, who had married Ginny, chose to keep quiet and slowly pull away from her as well.
It hurt, but Hermione also didn’t want Harry to lose his newfound family.
She tried to forget that Harry had once claimed she was his sister. Apparently, even in that, she came in last.
Today, Hermione had once again been fired. She was done being understanding. Now she was simply angry.
She had worked many different jobs, doing menial labor at most shops around Diagon until she was inevitably let go for one reason or another. She often mused that this is how Remus Lupin must have felt, lonely and misunderstood, unable to provide for himself.
Hermione often dreamed about what the world would look like if she actually had a voice.
With her abundant free time between jobs, Hermione spent her time practicing a wide variety of magic. She had smuggled the majority of Grimmauld’s library in her extended bag the last time she had been allowed to enter the dark townhouse. She had read most of the books, even the dark ones. At this point in her life, Hermione cared very little about Light magic vs Dark magic.
Magic was magic. One could harm someone with light magic just as easily as one could with so-called dark magic. She had quickly come to realize that dark magic was mostly just magic censored by the government. There was nothing inherently dark about it. It was just forbidden by those currently in power.
So Hermione practiced. She learned blood magic, rituals, and potent curses. She was quite good at it, too. She spent her time pushing the bounds of her magic, exhausting her core in order to build it up. 10 years after the end of the second wizarding war, and she was magically stronger than ever.
If only she felt so confident in the other areas of her life.
Hermione collapsed onto her rickety bed, letting out an exhausted sigh. Pushing her magical limits was exhausting, but life was worse. A steady, unending drain on her will to fight.
A persistent tapping suddenly broke through her existential dread, and Hermione dragged herself over to the window, the raven depositing a solitary letter before flying off.
Hermione recognized Luna’s handwriting, grateful for the one friend who had stuck with her. Luna was often away, traveling the world with her fiancé, Rolf Scamander. But somehow, Luna always knew when Hermione was struggling. She always sent something encouraging at the right moments.
Breaking the seal, Hermione read through Luna’s latest adventure, skipping over the detailed recounting of a Nundu mating ritual, until her eyes snagged on the bottom paragraph.
We were told a proverb by the tribe we have been staying with, and I thought you might find it enlightening:
*Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
Perhaps, my dear friend, it is time for you to rewrite the story.
Hermione lowered the letter, the proverb settling in her mind. She thought back on her life, reflecting on the injustice that had been prevalent throughout her entire existence.
Her parents had never known what to do with her. Her accidental magic was strong, causing the resulting fallout from her episodes to bring her family many embarrassments during her childhood. The plethora of doctors and psychologists who examined her could never find anything tangibly wrong, so her parents simply pulled away from her emotionally, shoving her in a constant rotation of nannies and private tutors.
She had excelled in everything she was taught, trying to make her parents proud. She couldn’t stop her magic, though, so it was never enough. She had heard her parents, once, lamenting the fact that they couldn’t have a normal child. Her mother had even said that they never wanted another in fear of a sibling turning out like her, too. She was already too much to handle.
She remembered them being so relieved at the chance for her to finally be sent away to a boarding school. The fact that she was magical was entirely irrelevant, as long as they no longer had to deal with her problems for most of the year.
It was actually a strange sort of relief to be able to obliviate them and send them away, in the end. She honestly knew that they were happier without her in their life.
Her years at Hogwarts were supposed to be her answer, but instead, they just presented further problems.
The slurs and insults that followed her in the hallways, the shunning from her friends when she didn’t agree with them, the years of danger. She always shrugged it off, pretended that it wasn’t completely debilitating to her spirit. Pretended that she was ok taking a back seat to everyone else in the wizarding world, despite the entire preservation of that very same world being entirely owed to her.
It was she who had figured out the Sorcerer's Stone and gotten Harry through it. It was she who discovered the basilisk. It was she who rescued Sirius, she who trained and prepared, and stuck with Harry through the Triwizard Tournament. She formed the DA, handled Umbridge, and took the fall for the Department of Mysteries. She helped Harry learn Occlumency. She was the one who prepared for their year on the run, providing everything that they needed. She never left Harry, keeping him alive through everything. She was tortured, hunted, and reviled, yet still managed to locate all the Horcruxes. She was responsible for the demise of Voldemort.
And yet here she was, at the end of it all, cast out of the story. She had been used and forgotten by the same society she had spent her life saving. She understood exactly what Luna meant. She, the once fierce lioness, had been conquered by the hunters. She had let them write the story.
Hermione refused to succumb to false modesty. She knew without a doubt that she was the strongest witch to be found in wizarding Britain. She was capable of many frightening things. She had simply allowed herself to be conquered.
She had spent so many years afraid of rejection, ingrained in her from her earliest years, that all of her careful choices to avoid it had led her to that very thing she feared most.
Perhaps Luna was right. It was time for a rewrite.
Hermione was done.
As things stood now, she didn’t have the necessary clout or allies to make any sort of difference. Any noise she made would be immediately shut down and countered. She would remain the shamed mudblood in her present circumstances.
She needed new circumstances. New allies. A fresh start.
She needed powerful people at her side. Those who were unafraid of getting their hands messy. Someone who tended to think outside the box.
She needed someone who could help her facilitate great change.
She needed Tom Riddle.
Malfoy Manor loomed large and gloomy, its shadow long and cold across the expansive grounds. Hermione smiled mockingly at the face of Draco Malfoy as he opened the ridiculously large door. He looked almost as bad as she did.
Permanent bruises sat under his eyes, a couple of days' worth of stubble was scattered along his jaw, and the scent of stale firewhisky surrounded him. He looked exactly how she usually felt.
“Granger? What are you doing here?”
“I need access to your library.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What makes you think I’ll agree to that?”
Hermione shrugged, “I’ll call in my life debt if that is what it will take.”
Draco studied her face, noting the fatigue and anger hidden there. Without another word, he stepped back in order to open the door wider, allowing Hermione to step inside.
“Thank you. I didn’t actually think you’d let me.”
Draco led her through the sterile halls, staying silent for most of the walk.
“Yes, well, I don’t see the harm in letting you. Consider it payment for allowing you to be tortured in my drawing room.”
“Fair enough,” she said distractedly as the double doors to the library were opened wide.
“Wow,” she breathed. Shelf after shelf, floor to ceiling, was filled with tomes of ancient magic and history.
“I have an appointment. I’ll be back soon enough. Do try to stay out of trouble.”
Hermione barely registered his words, too busy taking in the grand room. Finding the nearest table, she unloaded her bag onto the work surface, spreading out her notes. She needed to research time travel, inheritance laws, and the history of 1960s Wizarding Britain.
She put a summoning charm on the library catalogue and sat down to begin perusing the dozens of tomes that floated to her table in response.
Draco found her there hours later, quills charmed to copy information flying across parchments, her eyes rapidly speeding across pages. He tentatively walked closer, eyes snagging on a few words hastily scrawled, snippets of temporal displacement and right of conquest.
“What exactly are you getting yourself into, Granger?”
Draco had thought that the sudden question would have startled her, considering how absorbed she seemed to be in her work, but Hermione made no reaction.
“The more accurate question would be what exactly I am attempting to get us out of,” she responded, her tone cool and tempered.
Draco came even closer, reading her notes more thoroughly.
“You’re attempting to go back?” The surprise in his voice was evident. Who in the world would want to live through the war again? Gryffindors truly were insane.
Hermione stilled, lowering her book to turn in Draco’s direction. She cocked her head to the side, regarding Malfoy seriously.
“Are you happy?”
Draco started, “What kind of question is that?”
“An honest one. Are you happy with the way our world turned out, after everything?”
Draco didn’t need to think about it long. Of course, he wasn’t happy. His parents were in Azkaban, his name was mud, and he couldn’t show his face anywhere without being reviled and spat upon. His friends had abandoned him. He was nothing more than a drunk with a lot of useless money.
“No,” he answered quietly.
“Me either,” she countered honestly.
Draco hadn’t thought much about the Golden Girl in the years since the war, despite her name usually smeared throughout the papers. But he was certain that she probably had not had an easy go of it. Muggleborns were never going to be accepted in their world. Just because the pureblood faction was louder about it didn’t mean that the rest of society thought any differently.
It was a shame, actually, that no one had warned Granger that the Order of the Phoenix had nothing to do with real equality. They had just wanted to maintain the status quo. Voldemort might have been a monster, but at least he was trying to shake things up a bit.
The world was never great under the leadership of Albus Dumbledore. It was just whitewashed with platitudes of facades of tolerance. If Hermione had known better, he wondered how her choices might have differed.
“If you succeeded with this plan, what would you do?” Draco watched determination fill Granger’s eyes at the question.
“I would recruit the Dark Lord and change everything.”
Draco stared at her incredulously for a moment before letting out a hysterical laugh.
“Are you crazy? Do I need to take you to the Janus Thickey Ward?”
She rolled her eyes, “No, I am being perfectly serious.”
“What makes you think that you could ever convince him to help you?”
“When have I ever failed when I put my mind to something?” She countered quickly.
She had a point. He couldn’t actually think of a moment in which she had failed to accomplish whatever she had wanted to growing up. He let out a heavy sigh before pulling out a chair next to her, slumping in the seat. He had no idea how this entire crazy scheme would work out, but in all honesty, he truly didn’t care. The outcome couldn’t be worse than the life they were both already living.
“How can I help?”