Estimation

Time Signature

Even though she had a brilliant memory, Hermione Granger was not really sure when she began to hate the concept of estimation. She had always looked down on it since she was young, but…

She supposed it had really started when she had discovered Ron Weasley's horrid talent for Potions. When the textbook said to "chop finely," the ingredient needed to be chopped finely, not into random chunks or whatever it was. Potions needed to be precise. Accurate. Not estimations.

Ron often said that his lack of talent came from the fact that he hated the teacher, but truthfully Hermione thought it was more due to him not putting an ounce of energy or care into it. She had no doubt that he would improve somewhat, preventing her from having to step in to stop the cauldron from exploding, if he just took the time to read the book and followed the directions step-by-step.

Especially now that they were in higher classes, they were handling dangerous potions now – Veritaserum, Amorentia, Draught of Living Death…

If one thing went wrong, with those things everything would go wrong.

Estimation could possibly not be afforded – Potions or otherwise.

She had hated Ron Weasley for estimating when they were younger. And, she supposed, a part of her still did.

So she honestly had no idea how she had ended up falling in love with that idiot, but the fact was that she had.

And love was such a fickle thing – she could never truly tell if he liked her back or not. She had no choice but to estimate for all of those unknown factors. She couldn't find the precise measurements, the exact answers and equations that proved love.

She hated estimation, but the circumstances were such that she had no choice but to do so.

Sometimes she wished she could go back a few years, when things were so much easier, when she knew the answer to every single problem in life (or so she thought) and she never had to estimate.

End

For the Acrostic Title Competition Ch.3, letter "e," for "estimate."