Heartbroken Hermione

Heartbroken Hermione

When Bell got up that morning, he noticed that the Little Wizards were unusually restless.

However, Bell had always been slow to notice and unconcerned about things unrelated to himself, so he continued doing his own thing as usual. It was not until he entered the Great Hall that evening, ready for dinner, that he learned what he had missed.

"What!? You're saying today was the Halloween Eve feast!?" Bell asked in surprise.

"Yeah. Didn't you know Halloween is tomorrow?"

Bell's roommate, Terry Boot, looked at him curiously. How could someone not know about such an important occasion? Was he even British?

What the hell would I know?

Bell had been Chinese in his previous life. How could he possibly know when all these messy Western holidays fell?

What? You were asking how he could still not remember after living for more than ten years in this life? What a joke. He had lived for over thirty years in his previous life and still had not known when Seimei, the Double Ninth Festival, and the like were.

So this was commonly known as a terminal illness. No cure. Give up. Goodbye.

Bell swept his gaze across the Gryffindor table and, sure enough, did not find Hermione.

He went over and found several Little Witches who looked rather young. After asking where Hermione was, he was told that she had been in the Girls' Bathroom on the second floor earlier. As for whether she was still there, they did not know.

Having gotten the answer he wanted, Bell decisively left the Great Hall.

Second floor, Girls' Bathroom

Hermione was alone in the innermost stall. She had been there by herself all afternoon. She had cried for so long that her eyes were swollen, and now she was thirsty, hungry, and cold.

Everyone hated her. Not only did they speak badly of her behind her back, but now that she had been here alone for so long, not even her fellow Gryffindors—nor even her roommates—had truly cared about her.

She felt like such a failure. Perhaps she would spend her whole life alone.

Once she thought of that, she no longer wanted to go out. Then she thought about how everyone was happily enjoying a lavish dinner in the Great Hall, and she felt even thirstier, hungrier, and colder. Then she wanted to cry again.

Ever since she was little, Hermione had always played the role of the child other parents talked about. Both she and her Mom and Dad were proud of that, but because of it, she had never had any friends. Still, every morning after getting up, she would look at herself in the mirror and tell herself not to care about those things.

There was no doubt that she was right. Studying hard, following the rules, helping teachers—every one of those was the right thing to do. And what was right should not be condemned! So although she had always been lonely, Hermione had never considered changing herself. She believed that one day, she would meet someone like-minded. They would become close friends and work hard together to become even more outstanding!

When Hermione received her Hogwarts Acceptance Letter during this year's Summer Vacation, she had been incredibly excited.

There had indeed been several strange incidents around her when she was young, but neither she nor her parents had paid them much attention at the time. She had never imagined that magic actually existed! And that she was a witch!

She had been filled with anticipation for the world of magic. On one hand, she was curious about its mysterious magic. On the other, she felt that the day she had always been waiting for was about to arrive! Wizards had to be exceptional people. If she was with them, they would surely have plenty in common, and she would definitely make lots of friends.

On the train to Hogwarts, Hermione met a Little Wizard named Bell Menethil. He came from a Wizard family and was, like her, a new Hogwarts student that year. Although when she first saw him, Hermione had nearly thought he was a sixth- or seventh-year student.

Bell's spellcasting ability had greatly shocked the newly arrived Hermione. Though she had expected something of the sort, seeing a Little Wizard her own age who came from the Magical World cast magic for the first time had still startled her.

At that moment, Hermione felt heartfelt joy and longing. But in the next instant, unease flooded her heart. Bell's excellence far exceeded her imagination. Thinking that all her classmates might be at that level, Hermione, who had always been admired by her peers, began worrying for the first time that her classmates might find her too stupid. If that happened, would she not still be unable to make friends?

Later, after Bell's persuasion and Neville's personal example, Hermione learned that not every Little Wizard was at Bell's level. But she did not believe Bell when he said that she was very talented. How could someone who had only encountered magic for two months be better than Little Wizards who had been exposed to magic since childhood? Would that not mean their intelligence was inferior even to chimpanzees? So Hermione thought Bell had merely been comforting her.

Yet reality was always so absurd. What Bell said had actually been true! She really was better than Little Wizards born into the Magical World!

Little Wizards were no different from Muggle children. They spent all day fooling around, hated classes, hated homework, broke School Rules, and did not like studying.

Yet Hermione was not happy because she was better than everyone else. Quite the opposite—she still had not made any friends!

And what was most unfair was that she had clearly been helping her classmates out of kindness: helping them follow School Rules, helping them grasp the key points of Curses, and helping Gryffindor earn more House Points. She had worked so hard to help them, yet not only had she received not a single word of thanks, everyone had come to hate her instead!

People mockingly called her "Miss Know-It-All."

She hated that nickname. She hated people laughing at her and speaking badly of her behind her back. She hated Harry Potter, who had such enormous fame yet spent every day doing nothing but playing with Ron; she hated Ron, who was stupid enough already and then had the misfortune of being overheard by her while speaking badly of her behind her back; she hated her roommates, who were obviously jealous of her yet strutted around as if they were so impressive.

And out of everyone, the person she hated most was... herself, the girl who could not make friends.

She clearly knew she should not hold her head high when she spoke. She clearly knew everyone disliked discussing what they learned in class. She was clearly a girl, yet she knew absolutely nothing about makeup or dressing herself up. She clearly knew that if she just let others copy her homework, she would be able to make friends. She knew all of it, so why could she not do it?

She had read many books—far more than her classmates in the same year, at least. So she knew a great deal that others did not. She had always believed that only by mastering more knowledge could one become outstanding and find solutions when difficulties arose.

But why, no matter how hard she tried to recall the books she had read and the knowledge she had learned, could she not find even the slightest useful thing that could help her resolve her current predicament? Could it be that she had been wrong all along? Was studying hard actually wrong? Was following School Rules actually wrong? Was liking to read not allowed?

Hermione could not understand. She desperately wished someone would come and tell her the answer!