The Sweetest Downfall

What the Silence Took

From corner to corner in the Wizardying World, Hermione Jean Granger was the witch of all witches. Her story was told countless of times to inspire younger generations to be what she was. She was the example of a magical being the leaders of the Wizardying World wanted to produce in order to shape their world: compassionate, intelligent beyond belief, determined, hardworking, and fearless. They spread word of her story as more than just Harry Potter's friend; she was a soldier, a heroine, and a brave Gryffindor. All over the Wizardying World she was a legend.

But no one knew Hermione Jean Granger like Hermione Jean Granger did. They put her up on a pedestal, but she was nowhere near to the top. They praised her brain, but she was useless in regards to everything that didn't come out from a book. They celebrated her bravery, but she was nothing more than a coward. They thought her unwavering, but she was now crawling through the sharp shambles of her life.

She used to tell Ginny that she didn't date because she didn't have the time for it, but Hermione had come to the realization that she was just incapable of romance. She didn't understand it. She feared it.

Love was easy. Love was something she felt profusely since the moment she was born. She loved Mother Nature: the sand between her toes when she was at the beach, summer days, spring nights, the first fall of snow, and the assortment of colors in a flower garden. She loved her parents: her mother's blue, blue eyes, her father's brown ones, the smile on her mother's face, her dad's words of wisdom, her mum's light, her dad's humor, and the protection she felt in their home. Hermione loved her friends: Ginny's fierceness and sweetness, Harry's loyalty and brotherly affection, Ron's endearing clueless-ness and heart, Luna's bizarreness and bluntness, Neville's tenderness, and Theo's humor and strength. She loved life: the people, the cities, the stories, the knowledge, change, and time.

No one loved as fiercely as Hermione loved. She gave get heart to so many things and so many people. Love was easy for her, but romance was an entirely different matter.

Romantic love was not for someone like her.

Romance required the heart and mind to come together in order to survive. The heart and mind needed to be partners, but neither ever weighed equally the same. There was no balance. Though the heart and mind needed one another, one was always going to lose in the grand scheme of romance. It was a power struggle. If the heart was ahead of the game, one lost their mind. If the mind was winning, the heart would never feel to its potential. Together, whether ahead or behind, they were disaster. It took someone incredibly brave to offer both to someone, and Hermione was just not that brave.

She lost her head and her heart when she tried to understand love. Hermione broke her own heart and disappointed her wisdom when she let herself fall for Draco Malfoy. Since then, nothing made sense. Everything turned upside down, crashed, turned right up, crashed again, and then turned upside down once more. There was just no sense in her loving Malfoy, but she did. She did love him when it was clear that she couldn't. It wasn't just because her love was unrequited, but it had to do with the fact that she just didn't know how.

She loved him so that she lost all sense. She loved him with all her might that she couldn't contain it. She loved him with so much passion and fire that the flames were constantly setting her insides ablaze. She loved him so intensely that it drove her mad.

She was scared of how far she fell, that was the truth. All the time that she kept her affair with Malfoy ongoing she was only digging the hole she purposely and blindly jumped into. She had him every day and every night that she could imagine growing old beside him. So many times she'd been wrapped up in his arms that she already called them home. Countless of times he slipped into her that she thought they were perfectly made puzzle pieces. And many were the nights that they laid in her bed in comfortable silence that she believed they could love one another like the moon loved the stars.