My Little World, by Hermione Granger

It seems to me that my life has been unfairly constricted to tight little boundaries, within which I am allowed to live freely and outside of which I apparently cannot exist at all. Maybe they don't have books there or something, I'm not sure, but honestly, you'd think I'd at least be allowed to explore there on the weekends!

My whole future has been planned out and agreed upon in advance, save for a few select details. Oh, sure, I have a choice of who I'm going to marry/be with eventually, so long as it's Draco, Harry, Ron, Snape (ummm...), Ginny, or occasionally Pansy (usually if it's Pansy, though, it has to be creepy and mildly psychotic). It doesn't matter if the only boy I've shown any real interest in is Viktor Krum, that Draco Malfoy hates my guts, that Professor Snape and I being in a relationship is just... well, weird, or that I haven't given even the slightest hint, in four books of canon, of being homosexual in any way. It doesn't matter how many cute, interesting, or intelligent boys there are at Hogwarts (or out of it - there are other schools out there, not to mention all those apparently nameless Muggles I knew growing up); my options are already set in stone.

And it doesn't stop there, not by a long shot. Do you know how many people have decided I'm going to be Head Girl? I'll tell you - everyone! Sometimes Harry's Head Boy, or more rarely, Ron - a few times people have gone exotic, and made it be Justin, or even Draco! But is there any thought that maybe Lavender, Parvati, Sally-Anne (THAT poor girl is sweet and intelligent - why does everyone insist on ignoring her?), Padma, Millicent, Pansy, Susan, Hannah, or any of the dozen or so other girls in our year (funny, no one ever talks about them, either) might be better-qualified? Or that I might have other interests (choosing which boy to go out with, and studying for the NEWTs, AND fighting a war to the end with Voldemort, is going to take a lot of time out of the next three years)? Or that, perhaps, my constant meddling in other people's affairs, coupled with the occasional bout of rule-breaking with my cohorts, might disqualify me?

That's another thing - why is it that I'm always either the innocent in my participation in Harry and Ron's antics, or the plotting and devilish co-conspirator with Draco or Snape (again, umm, ew)? If I'm supposed to marry one of the two boys (and judging by the way the fire marshal is looking at those two ships over there, I'm given to believing that almost everyone believes I will), you'd think I'd be able to engage in some serious planning and premeditation with them on somewhat smaller matters (like saving the world), too.

Another problem I have - why must my relationship with my parents be somehow dysfunctional? Why does everyone think I'm going to abandon them the second I graduate from Hogwarts, never to see them again? I love my parents, and they've never given any of you (or me, for that matter) a reason to think that they can't cope with various aspects of life in the wizarding world. I send them letters all the time, and they send me Christmas presents, and if I do marry Ron or Harry, they'll be at the wedding - duh. So enough with the creepy "my parents really couldn't accept me this way so now I'm all alone in the world - please make me feel better, Professor Snape" (ummm, again, EW) stuff.

Last... romance isn't going to change my world-view. It hasn't already; I think I've proven to all of you that I'm pretty well grounded. Yes, I do think that I'm more than just the stay-at-the-common-room-waiting-up-for-you girlfriend, but I'm also more than the willing-co-conspirator-who's-neglecting-her-NEWT-studies. If I was going to get involved with someone, sexually or not, at Hogwarts, do you honestly think I'd just up and forget to do my homework? Apparently you do, because quite a lot of you have decided that my entire seventh year is going to be strictly devoted to snogging!

I'm sorry to be harsh, really I am. I just feel like sometimes, I have about as much freedom as a house-elf (I'm still working on their situation, by the way - don't think that snogging's going to make me forget them, too). I want to have the chance to live in a world where I married a nice Ravenclaw boy, or a chance where I died heroically in the last battle against Voldemort, or a chance to make a really noble sacrifice (like my Transfiguration grade) for the good of mankind. I think I'm a pretty interesting person, and I wish some of you would think so, too!

By the way - me and Snape? Ummm... eww... he's a teacher... yeah...