The Gloriana Set

Translations

It was still dark when Hermione woke the next morning. She felt for her wand and pointed it at the watch she'd attached to the bedpost with a sticking charm. 6 a.m. Excellent. Thirty minutes to record her thoughts and plan her day. It was important to keep a disciplined mind. She pulled out a muggle notebook and held the lit wand over the cover's black letters spelling out "LOOP" for Life Organization Optimization Plan.

How quiet it was, only the faintest sighing of trees outside, the rattle of casements. She breathed slowly, five seconds in, count five seconds out. I am an unruffled pond. A relaxation technique. Hermione blinked. Why did she need a relaxation technique? She'd just woken up, for Merlin's sake. She looked at the watch again: 6:10. What happened to that 10 minutes? Now she was behind.

She cracked open her LOOP journal, writing the date and time. Alright, now. Five things to look forward to today. 1) A Hogwarts breakfast, with sausage and fried tomatoes. 2) Advanced Ancient Runes, a new 30-minute seminar taught by McGonagall before first period each morning. An excellent way to start the day. 3) Lunch? No, not lunch, she'd already written breakfast. A walk around the lake. Yes, she would walk around the lake. 4) A visit to Hagrid with Ron. Or maybe without Ron. But Hagrid would expect Ron, too. Well, he'd just have to deal with it. It wasn't her job to make Ron do things anymore.

Hermione gnawed on her muggle pen cap. What would it be like, to be with someone she didn't feel responsible for? Who sometimes felt responsible for her? She could hardly imagine it. She turned her attention back to the journal, trying to think of a fifth thing to look forward to. She couldn't just leave it blank. Ah, yes. 5) The library's Forbidden Section. She had a list of dark topics she wanted to research: blood potions, mind labyrinths, screaming rain. ...

It was a pretty sparse list, bleak even. Breakfast, class, a walk, a visit, the library. She sighed, wishing she could just take her NEWTs now and be done with it. Well, she had to do more than study for NEWTs. She couldn't just drift along this year muttering about screaming rain. Just because she didn't want to be Hogwart's Official Bossy Know-It-All anymore didn't mean she wanted be the Creepy Shadow That Sighed All the Damn Time. She needed to find a way to make this year count.

Energized, Hermione pulled herself out of bed and prepared for the day. Her hair took some extra time to get right, but she wanted to make the effort. Fleur had found some magical potion that smoothed her dark curls into soft ringlets if she applied it evenly enough. A swipe of lipstick. A quick pressing charm to her uniform shirt. Appearances were important. She'd had enough of sloppiness, running around disheveled, too busy studying to eat properly. She was finished with that. Nobody was going to take her seriously if she didn't take herself seriously. She used to believe if she just worked harder than anyone else, was more stubborn than anyone else, people would recognize her merit. She knew better now; a string of Outstandings wouldn't make her blood any less muddy to some people. Fuck them. She was finished driving herself for others' approval. That wasn't how she'd get what she wanted. Not that she knew what she wanted – she had no idea, really. Well, she'd figure it out eventually. She envied Ron and Ginny, actually. Weasleys always knew exactly what they wanted, where they belonged. There was no ambivalence. Even Harry knew what he wanted—to be an Auror, to capture the evil and protect the weak, and perhaps then justify the fact that he had lived. As if defeating Voldemort wasn't enough.

Even after all her primping it was only 7:30, and Hermione knew from experience that Lavender and Ginny, her two roommates, would shoot out of bed at 8 a.m. in a panic, dashing from bathroom to trunk. She fed Crookshanks, then drifted to the window overlooking the Quidditch pitch, its broad green lawn shining with dew, the sun peeking over the mountains beyond. She put her elbows on the sill, holding her chin in her hands, watching the trees sway ...