July 2019
When I was seventeen, I did something no daughter ever wants to do.
Something I still carry with me.
It was evening, and I was sitting alone on the garden swing, watching the sky deepen above the lawn. A faint breeze stirred the freesias beside me—Mum had planted them ages ago, and they always came back, year after year. Inside the house, my parents were going about their usual routines—completely unaware of what I'd already done. Of what I'd already lost.
At the time, I'd told myself I was being brave. That there wasn't any other choice, not really. But as the last of the sunlight vanished and the shadows stretched longer across the grass, that certainty began to slip away. Was I right? Was there another way—one I hadn't seen or hadn't wanted to see? I wanted to feel proud, to tell myself I'd done the right thing. Well done, Hermione, I tried to say. But the words didn't sound quite right anymore. Not in my own head.
There was no neat explanation. Nothing tidy or simple. Just a rush of thoughts, tangled and persistent, going round and round as night settled over everything.
It happened during one of the hardest times of my life. We were on the brink of war, and the lines between right and wrong weren't always as clear as they used to be. I made a decision Harry and Ron wouldn't have understood then. Not fully. They'd have been shocked—maybe even furious. But I believed it was the only way. Even though it broke my heart. Even though it meant tearing away the people who loved me most.
And I still believe it was necessary. I do. Even now. The pain was real—but it was worth it. I had to protect them.
Looking back, I know I paid a price. It felt like ripping something vital out of myself—something I might never get back. I don't dwell on it every day anymore, but when I do, the ache is still there. Quiet. Heavy.
I'm forty now. The same age my parents were that summer. And yet the memory hasn't dulled. Not really. I remember every detail—the sound of the wind, the clink of cutlery through the kitchen window, the look on my mother's face the last time she saw me and didn't know who I was. It's all still there. And so are the feelings—sadness, yes. Guilt. But also something warmer. A kind of pride. For a long time I wished I could untangle them. Separate the sorrow from the strength.
But I've learnt—if you pull at one thread, you risk unravelling the whole thing.
So I keep them together, the joy and the grief. They belong to each other. That year shaped me. It changed everything.
And sometimes, when the world is quiet again and the sun begins to slip below the trees, I let myself go back to that night. I think of my parents—how much I love them—and how everything changed with a single choice.
And in those moments, it feels like I'm seventeen again. My hair wild and unmanageable, my hands trembling just slightly, my heart thudding with something between fear and determination. I become that girl again—clever, stubborn, terrified.
That's when it all comes rushing back.
What I did.
And what happened next.