Hermione's Awakening

I'm Hermione. My full name is Hermione Jane Granger, and I'm a British citizen born in England. The year is four hundred something AD, and I live with my parents in a town called "Caerleon" on the island called "Wales." My mother was born in Scotland while my father was born in Ireland. Both are magic users who married each other after learning their respective magical abilities during a trip to London.

I don't know how they met or how they fell in love, but I do know that when they returned to Wales, they were both pregnant with me. They told me that the reason why I don't have any siblings is because of magic running through my bloodline, which can only be passed on by my mother. She doesn't want more children because she doesn't want to risk having another daughter, but my father does. He wants us to have many kids, but he can't because he's infertile. They've been arguing about this for years now.

They tell me that magic is recessive and that it can only be passed down from one's mother side of the family, but I don't believe them. If magic was only passed down from one's mother side of the family, then how did my dad get it if his mother died before he was born? And what about his grandfather? And what about his great-grandfather? It also doesn't make sense to me that if magic runs through our bloodline, then why am I infertile like my father? Magic should be able to overcome that obstacle too!

Another thing I don't understand is why we're living here in Caerleon instead of London with my grandparents. Grandma Molly and Grandpa Arthur are both practicing witches and wizards who study at the university where they met each other thirty-five years ago. They told me once that they were best friends at first until they realized they had feelings for each other and started dating. After dating for eight months, they decided to elope together because back then it wasn't common for a man and woman who go out together to end up together as husband and wife.

I wish I could meet them, but people like me aren't allowed to leave Wales without our parents until we turn eighteen years old. My parents tell me that there are bad men wandering around the kingdom looking for us, so we need to stay away from them until then so we won't get kidnapped or harmed by them. That makes sense to me because even though I'm fifteen years old (I'll turn sixteen next month), I still look like a little kid. Thank goodness for magic!

My life here isn't bad - not really anyway - but there are moments when I just want to escape from this world and go somewhere where there aren't any rules keeping me from doing things of my own free will. It's been nine years since I turned eight years old, and all throughout that time period, every day has been exactly the same as the last day was: wake up from bed at sunrise; take a bath; eat breakfast; eat lunch; eat dinner; go back to bed at sunset; repeat. Every morning when I wake up, my mother would always ask me what kind of day I wanted today to be then pick one out of the three choices I gave her: fun, calm, or exciting - always one of those three choices because if she didn't pick one of those three options, she'd always get lectured by Father at night, telling her how disappointed he was in her choice of words which led to an argument between them all night long while I worriedly hid in my room, hoping that they wouldn't hurt each other anymore than they already had over the past several months, years, or even decades that their relationship has lasted.

* * *

"Hermione?" Mother knocked on my door gently before opening it slowly so as not to wake me up by surprise. "Hermione honey, you should wake up soon."

Slowly opening one eye open, I groaned before responding in a soft voice, "Mmmm... what time is it?"

Mother walked closer toward my bedside table along with Father following close behind her before answering, "It's six o'clock in the morning, dear."

Six o'clock?! It's supposed to be seven o'clock right now! That means...

Suddenly twisting around so fast that it made both Mother and Father jump back in alarm while simultaneously knocking over everything on top of my bedside table, including last night's dinner plate onto the floor with a loud crash sound echoing throughout our entire house, followed by clattering sound coming from under both Mother and Father's shoes as they tried desperately not to step on anything within reach of their feet, while looking everywhere around them for the source of the noise.

"Hermione!" Mother gasped, her expression full of surprise and concern. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Why?" My eyes shifted between Mother and Father