Chapter 1 - Hate

Hermione Granger has never felt sorry for anyone. Hatred —yes, contempt — oh, this is for almost all of her "friends" and those who are in the same faculty with her, but by and large she didn't care about the rest. The Blood traitors, the director, the Order of the Phoenix — all these people caused an unbearable desire, curling their lips, to burn everything clean with Hellfire and not to dirty their lungs by breathing the same air with such scum as them.

Why such hatred for people she has known for a little more than 7 years? Everything, unfortunately, is disgustingly simple: anyone in her place would hate the magicians who planned her life literally "from" and "to". The knowledge that her parents were brought together intentionally by the venerable light ones only made life easier for the girl when she erased their memory. She had known about her mission as the "sworn friend of the Hero" since childhood. The world of magic did not dare to leave everything to chance, and therefore a babysitter was assigned to her. A kind-hearted nanny from childhood taught her everything that is needed in the magical world, acting skills and instilled loyalty to the bright side.

That's just the last two points rarely can get along together, destroying each other, like monkshood and tears of grindilow in a potion, until there is one left. And so it happened in her case: Hermione did not want to do good and bring justice to this world from the word "in general", but she learned to mask it extremely well. She had been hiding all her life so that now, before it was too late, she could escape, cutting off all the strings for which she was being controlled like a puppet.

Thanks, of course, to everyone who brought her up and taught her, but she more than repaid everyone's bills, having fulfilled the mission assigned to her with the highest score: she remained a faithful friend of the Chosen One until the very end. Insensitive? Definitely. This is the whole point of selfishness: to do whatever is convenient for you regardless of others. It would be better if she became that vixen, but she would no longer be someone's doll. At least that's what she thought as she ascended to the last act in this part of the play: The Battle for Hogwarts.

Everything was already planned out: The hero would not survive the meeting in the forest, and then (without tragic music) his cold corpse would be brought out for everyone to see. The intensity of passions, and ... the culmination: everyone who can appear on the stage (who will remain alive) and together resist evil, finally overthrowing it. Then a standing ovation, a victory anthem and so on-so on… And after a short intermission, the next part of the plan begins. It was during this delay that Granger was going to sneak away, under the guise, so to speak.

That's just not everything went as it should. This is Potter, after all: everything that could have gone wrong, naturally went wrong. The girl didn't even have to play sincere surprise when the Hero, suddenly revived, finished off the Dark Lord himself, letting the long-term plans of the light ones to Mordred. However, the light ones gathered somehow too quickly for her taste, surrounding the Boy who survived twice. It was pure improvisation and nothing more. "An interesting phenomenon... and someone else will be able to survive twice after a direct hit by Avada?", the girl thought briefly, standing side by side with her nanny. However, Lily Potter paid absolutely no attention to this, intently tracking any movements of her blood son.

Sighing, the girl mentally carried out some corrections in her escape plan, not listening to how negotiations were conducted with an Unaccounted factor. Coolly, resolutely, as always. "You want to live and you won't turn around like that," the sorceress thought gloomily, snatching her wand more comfortably and finally shifting her gaze to the Chosen One. She stopped believing in the good in people a long time ago, stopped sympathizing with them, but…

But now, the bookish heart, the heart that did not flinch even when it had to erase the memory of its loved ones, when it killed, when it deceived and betrayed, somehow strangely strangely pinched. She was looking at the timid boy, the Hero of Magical Britain, the Golden Boy, looking around at the people around him in a lost way. And Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the late headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Magic and Wizardry, good-naturedly grinning, poured out the whole truth-uterus on the stunned teenager.

— ...So, you, my boy, have only two options. Either shut up and move into the shadow of the magical world, or go after your eternal enemy," Dumbledore said softly, like the entire staff of the Order of the Phoenix, without taking his wand off the Hero, who stood alone above the ashes of a newly killed enemy.

"Are you... are you alive?" Harry whispered hoarsely. — B-but how? — here he turned his gaze to where the mocking snort came from, seeing the living Sirius Black, Lillian and James Potter standing haughtily at a distance, and turned pale. —And y-you?" Siri…

It seems that he had just begun to guess that he simply could not be SO "lucky" on adventures. Hermione, snorting softly, exchanged glances with Professor Dumbledore and went about her business, folding her wand into her sleeve. She was not at all interested in watching how her friend, as it were, would be tastefully slowly drowned in the truth of reality. Well, in general, it's his own fault! You shouldn't have been so gullible! No, she herself, unlike the same Weasleys, did not have any negative feelings for the Hero. Granger was even amused by the paid (forced) observation of him all these years and the help to the best of her abilities, but the childish stupidity in matters of trust irritated her terribly. He was for the girl something like an entertaining yard puppy who accidentally wandered into her garden - trusting, naive, stupid, sometimes annoying, proud, fair, brave... that's why he was funny. Such a one can only be petted and kicked out: otherwise it will take root.

But no matter how Hermione convinced herself of her innocence, there was a clear feeling in her soul that she had not just hit a defenseless child, but had abused him in the most cruel way. So mean... so low that it made me sick.

She needed at least somewhere to be alone with herself and sort out everything that had piled up, as well as wait out the unpleasant cramps in her stomach. And there was one such place at Hogwarts, untouched, fortunately, by the showdowns between magicians. Hermione went to the Rescue Room…