Chapter Text
Hermione was supposed to take her Ativan only when she needed it.
She was supposed to take it only when she couldn’t fall asleep at night because her mind raced at the speed of light, spiraling thoughts and flickering images forcing her to relive the worst moments in her life.
She was supposed to be careful because Dr. Pomfrey had sternly warned her that not only could she become reliant on the pills, but also addicted.
But she just couldn’t…help herself.
She just couldn’t help herself because while they never seemed to work at night, they seemed to work one hundred and ten percent of the time during the day.
She just couldn’t help herself because god damn it, she was worried about what happened at Borgin & Burkes. She had replayed the moment over and over in her head, running every angle, wondering what in the world had happened.
She just couldn’t help herself because waiting in doctor’s offices made her anxious and when she was anxious her heart raced and when her heart raced it meant that the nurse would have to take her blood pressure three times in a row because the results just didn’t seem right for someone her age and when that happened the nurse would look over pitifully and ask if she was nervous and when that happened all Hermione wanted to do was run out of the room, down the hall, and to the bathroom so she could puke her guts out because that was all so…so…
Embarrassing.
Mortifying.
Hermione popped the white pill into her mouth, letting it dissolve under her tongue, her brain nearly instantly soothed by the powdery taste sinking into her saliva.
It worked far better this way. Swallowing a pill was too slow – it had to travel down her esophagus then make its way through her digestive tract and liver.
But letting it dissolve? The effects took hold within minutes, the Ativan absorbed by the blood vessels under her tongue, the promise of serenity almost as tantalizing as the sensation of it.
Hermione glanced around the waiting room, bouncing her knee, up and down, up and down.
She knew it was a bad habit, one that she was sure annoyed the people around her, one she was keen on putting an end to, but she…
She just couldn’t help herself.
It also didn’t help that there was no one was around her to force herself to be self-conscious about it. No one else was sitting on one of the many cushioned seats that lined the room. The magazines piled on the small table in front of her were years old, the edges of the pages frayed and worn. It was also eerily quiet – no receptionist greeted her with a smile before handing her a patient intake form.
No, instead, Hermione had walked into Magical Me Clinic and had been greeted with a shiny tablet with a check-in screen that asked her to review the information she had already provided when she made her online appointment, followed by a survey that asked her to rate her experience from 1-5.
Yet another reason to choose a major that will provide some sort of job security, Hermione thought to herself as she pulled out her cell phone to distract herself from the silence.
But how could she possibly know what that would be? The world was changing faster than she could keep track of. Five years ago, getting a Computer Science degree almost guaranteed you a six-figure salary and the best health insurance on the market. Nowadays, you were lucky if you got an interview for an internship, and it was probably because your aunt was part of upper management.
Why hire and pay a software engineer when a software program could write hundreds of lines of code in a fraction of the time?
Hermione could try to think about what her future would look like as she waited for her appointment, optimize what career path would guarantee her stability and some shred of happiness.
Or she could try to find a new profile picture.
Hermione tapped on her photos and began to scroll through.
Her current one was feeling a bit old, stale even. Hermione had thought it would be hilarious to mimic the profile pictures of men who loved to follow the Alpha accounts – she had taken a selfie in a car with her hair pulled back, pitch-black sunglasses covering her eyes, and a facial expression that some men would call resting bitch face on a woman but solemn and serious on a man.
Hermione tapped on a picture of her in rose-gold aviators, smiling and holding out a cup of iced matcha latte to the side.
What if…
What if she photoshopped the picture so she was holding a fish?
Hermione giggled as she hearted the photo to keep track of it for later. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Most of her face was covered by the sunglasses and it’s not like anyone would actually be able to discover who she truly was. Her personal feed was private, her first name – a dead giveaway – unmentioned, and she had nothing in her profile description besides a book emoji.
She supposed there was a small chance that someone at Hogwarts University watched and commented on Alpha videos would recognize her, but even if she was discovered, what in the world did she have to be ashamed over? What in the world could they hold over her?
It was them who should and would be shamed for watching such hateful, regressive content.
Hermione exited out of her photos and automatically tapped on the upper left corner. She didn’t even know she had instinctively opened her social media app until her feed flashed across her screen. She clicked on her notifications and –
Huh.
One new message request.
But before she could click on who in the world outside of her friends had messaged her, a bright voice cut through.
“Hermione? Hermione Granger?”
Hermione quickly stood up, locked her phone, and slipped it back into the back pocket of her jeans. “Yes?”
A nurse in blue scrubs stood underneath the doorway, holding a clipboard as she smiled at her. “Dr. Lockhart is ready for you.”
