Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.

– Hermione Granger (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince)

Hermione Granger spent most of her time helping the Wizarding World rebuild after she had found her parents in Australia and brought them home. And once Hogwarts reopened its doors and services, it was no surprise to anyone that she continued her studies and received top marks. After the completion of her 7th year she had taken a spot with the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulations and Control of Magical Creatures.

Things felt normal to Hermione, which was a breath of fresh air, but also bittersweet. She had grown so accustomed to having adventures and fighting for her life, that at first she had thought it peaceful not to worry anymore. There had been days during the war that she had sworn to herself that once it was over she would never want to do anything dangerous again. But she found that, even though she was safe behind a desk, some days were found to be just as exhausting and stressful. The only difference was that many days were also boring.

She spoke to Harry several times a day, Ginny she spoke to at least once a day, and Ron; well, things with Ron were complicated. During the last three years they weren't sure what they were exactly to each other. They would go out and share kisses yet they had recently decided that they needed time to grow, and since the fall of Voldemort it seemed as though they had an abundance of it.

Once after a stressful day in the office, and another fight with Ron, Hermione found herself walking around muggle London. She walked through parks, crossed streets, saw families, and couples. She thought about her work, and her love life, or lack thereof. She was just about ready to find a spot to apparate to her small apartment, which she had started renting at the beginning of the year, and mope there, when she noticed a small bookshop at the corner of the street.

The shop had a large window with a silhouette of a Willow tree and a person sitting against the base of it with their head tilted down reading a book. Above the tree were the words The Weeping Willow, under the tree where many knotted roots making up the word Bookshop. The door had a round window with a few designs etched into the glass, while the wooden frame of door itself had vines and leaves carved into it.

For a bibliophile such as Hermione she could not pass up the opportunity to enter a bookstore. It was a cozy shop with a variety of books both new and old, and Hermione spent an hour or so looking through a few sections. She purchased one book before she left, and promised herself that she would return another day, a promise she would keep.

A/N: I know a very short beginning. I struggled with how much I had wanted to post that this what I ended up deciding on.

Reasoning: This story was supposed to be a oneshot, focusing on the quote at the top. With that being said I had exactly what I wanted to happen in my head. Yet as I started to type the story out, all these other scenes started to weave their way in. Just like a certain character, whom I will go into more detail on in the next chapter which I will post sometime tomorrow.

Anyways getting back on track here, the summary was the first scene that I had in my mind which inspired this story. I was finally able to write that out a few days ago and I was going to everyone who would listen in my household how after adding so much that I finally got to that part.

I went off track again, once again going back to this being a failed oneshot. I was going to just post one slightly long story, no chapters, and so the passing had short parts, such as this, with breaks to show that a new scene was taking place. Well some scenes turned out longer than I expected, while others are maybe half this size. So I decided to make it a chapter base story, however some parts will be separated with a break that way you won't have to deal with a very small chapter.

I wanted to point out was the name of the story, it took a while when I had originally started this story, a little over a year ago, to come up with the name. Now let me tell you to the people that say we just throw stuff together and call it a story have no idea how much research some of us put into it, I had to look up meanings of things and really investigate, in the end The Willow tree was used and there you have it.

Lastly The bit about the boy leaning against the tree and it being a silhouette was inspired by my older brother. When we were very young to the point that I don't remember this happening, we would stay with my grand parents in their little house out in the country, and they had wall paper in their living room. Well my brother got in trouble for ripping at it and cutting it with scissors. It wasn't till I was about six or seven and he was nine or ten, my mother said:

"Remember when you cut Nana's wall paper?" In which my brother replied

"Oh, you mean my sleeping knight?" My mother's mouth dropped before she asked what he meant. "Yeah, he's sleeping against a tree see."

He had been five so I was a baby and had always thought that the wall paper was old and it had just happened to age looking kinda like a person. My brother went to the wall and started to point it out the head, chest armor, legs, and boot of the knight. The tree was the line where the wall paper was lined up against it's self, and there had been a few torn spots already, which reminded my brother of a "knight's boot" so he just helped make the knight more noticeable. After he explained the oddly shaped knight everyone was able to envision it, and my mother felt a little upset with herself for punishing him years back for tearing at the wall paper, just because. He also said that the knight was not complete but he had gotten in trouble before he could finish it. No he never got to finish it my mother wouldn't let him cut the wall paper, even though it doesn't matter anymore since they have since torn down that little eggshell blue house that was out in the country and added more vegetation. Not that I can complain we can never have enough oranges, or grapes in California ^.^ Anyway I hope you enjoyed my little childhood story.

This concludes this part, enjoy your readings and I will post more soon.