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If Hermione Granger007 Archivesthe Quarter Life Crisissounds like fan fiction, that's because it is. The new web series, which follows an adult Hermione who takes quite a different route than her literary counterpart, does what Harry Potterfans have been doing since the turn of the century: Imagining J.K. Rowling's world through their own eyes.

2015 was a rough personal year for the series' creator Eliyannah Amirah Yisrael, and she recalls breaking down early in 2016 while volunteering at the Sundance Film Festival. She found herself reevaluating her goals and choices -- and turning to her favorite fanfic, "Friend Number Three" for support.

One night, as she asked herself what makes her happy, the answer was right there: "Hermione Granger fan fiction is fun for me," Yisrael tells Mashable. "And I haven’t found a single fan fiction that features a Hermione who looks like me. I came up with the entire idea that night on the bus."

SEE ALSO: These were the most popular Harry Potter fan fiction topics for 2016

One day in 2004 (the book series' timeline for when Hermione would be 25), the smartest witch of her age realizes that she doesn't want to marry Ron Weasley and work for the British Ministry of Magic -- at least not yet. She begins to question everything about her life and impulsively Apparates to Los Angeles to figure things out.

Originally, the series was going to be set in the present day, but 2016's Potterrenaissance changed that for Yisrael.

"I can say that I think of being magical the same way I think of being black in that I always think about it and I never think about it."

"I realized that I was doing to Hermione what troubled me so much about the book," she tells Mashable via email. "I was writing it with my own idea for how her story ends instead of taking that journey with her. Once I decided to let the story lead me, to go into the writing with more questions than answers, then it seemed obvious that it had to start in the timeline that J.K. Rowling had already given us and see where the roads diverged from that point."

The first major divergence in Episode 1? Hermione's friendship with Parvati Patil, her fellow Gryffindor and roommate of six years. When she read the books, Yisrael was drawn to Parvati as one of the only prominent and explicitly non-white characters.

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"One of the first times we see Parvati, she’s in Draco & Pansy’s face to defend Neville. I dug that," Yisrael says. "She’s this strong, outspoken, opinionated girl from day one. You don’t like divination? Parvati doesn’t care, put some respeck on her favorite teacher’s name. You’re too good to be 'girly?' Parvati doesn’t care. Too good to not notice how hot the new teacher is? Not Parvati’s problem. Harry and Ron played me and my sister last year at the big dance? Okay…and? We’re still joining Dumbledore’s Army cause their loss and we forgot already. How could I not love that girl?"

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"I can say that I think of being magical the same way I think of being black in that I always think about it and I never think about it," Yisrael adds. "Our characters are magical and, with the exception of Draco, Parvati and Tae Joon, they have Muggle family members -- so their whole life is living as a minority in the world around them so they’ve always spent life code switching and bringing different parts of their existence to the other half of their lives."

Outsiders and stories from the edge of Harry Potterare crucial to HGQLC, as is the relationship between magical people and Muggles.

"One of the greatest casualties of the wizarding world seems to be non-wizarding relationships," Yisrael observes; Hermione spends increasingly less time with her Muggle parents as the books progress. "I thought it would be interesting to look at Hermione’s relationship with her family, to see how her magical life interrupted those relationships and to explore the repercussions of that interruption."

In HGQLC, Hermione reconnects with a Muggle cousin of her own age, LaQuita (Tamara French).

Since she's not magical, LaQuita didn't attend the potentially problematic wizard school across the pond: Ilvermorny. The American wizard school, as explained by J.K. Rowling on Pottermore, received criticism from some fans over how it treats the history of Native peoples and colonization. HGQLCfeatures Ilvermorny alumni as main characters.

"I think our Ilvermorny students have a relationship with the school similar to the one black students have with Harvard or Native people with the US, which is to say that their relationship with the school is complicated," Yisrael says. "And I think that’s the best way to deal with it creatively...HGQLC’s job isn’t to argue whether or not it should exist but rather, how do students of color, especially Native American families interact with the school."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"One thing we talk about a lot in our writer’s room is finding the balance between where [Hermione's] freedom and agency take her organically and where we want her to go," Yisrael explains. "For this reason, a lot of the show is Hermione purposely deciding to not have a plan and committing herself to figuring out what path lies in her heart."

"That’s where the freedom and agency take her, literally on a road of self-discovery," Yisrael adds. "Her freedom includes making mistakes, deciding which relationships she wants in her life, deciding what she wants her contribution to be to the world and, quite simply, having fun."

Hermione Granger and the Quarter Life Crisisis now streaming on YouTube.

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