That night, Hermione tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
She was forced to begin thinking about a question she had never considered before.
That was... what did she want to do in the future?
Hermione remembered that when she had been little, before becoming a witch, she had had many dreams too. But after receiving Hogwarts's acceptance letter, those dreams seemed to have been cast aside, leaving her mind filled with nothing but the thought of "becoming a witch."
But after talking with Airi, Hermione suddenly realized that becoming a witch was not the endpoint, but the beginning. More than that—was being a witch truly what she wanted to do?
Hermione did not dare discuss this topic with anyone else. Though she was only an eleven-year-old girl, she knew that discussing something like "What use are witches?" with a group of people determined to become witches would not lead to a good outcome. So she tactfully asked the others what they wanted to do when they grew up.
But the answers she received disappointed Hermione greatly.
It was not that these children had no dreams, but their dreams seemed entirely confined to the Wizarding World. As if they had been cursed, they were immersed in it and unable to pull themselves free. This made Hermione increasingly uneasy. Deep down, she even somewhat regretted coming to Hogwarts in the first place. After hearing Airi's words and thinking carefully about it, there did not seem to be many benefits to becoming a witch. And the Wizarding World strictly prohibited witches from using magic in front of ordinary people, so what use could the things she was learning possibly have? Could she not even help her own parents?
Although Hermione understood the dangers that exposing magic to the public could bring, she still