A/N
This chapter has been edited so for those who have already read this chapter once, please read it again and tell me what you think in a review. All of you who haven't read this before, hope you enjoy it and please tell me what you think!
Disclaimer (I'm only going to write this once because I'm too lazy)
I don't own the Harry Potter characters, the places or the objects. I have only come up with the plot.
Chapter 1
Hermione looked over her paper one final time, checking all the dates and names in her history book. The professor had told them to write a three feet long essay one week ago, it was now the night before they had to hand it in and she had finally finished.
Hermione signed her name at the bottom and put the paper and her book in her bag before heading up to the girls' dormitory.
She slipped inside, trying not to make a sound, and collapsed on her bed with a sigh of relief. Her back was killing her after sitting hunched over that damn paper for hours.
She turned her head slightly and looked at her alarm clock, the red glowing numbers showed 04:52. She had to be up and ready for class in about four hours. A horrifying idea for any normal person, but for Hermione four hours of sleep, and often less, had become routine.
When she had gotten the letter from Dumbledore, telling her that she had made Head girl, she had been ecstatic. All her hard work over the past six years was finally paying off! She had of course known that her workload would increase, she just hadn't realized exactly how much.
Hermione got up and changed into her nightie before going to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
She studied her reflection whilst her hand worked on its own. Her complexion had really paled these last weeks, and black circles had appeared beneath her eyes after lack of sleep. She was really looking horrible, almost sickly.
Hermione smiled but her eyes' dull expression revealed that she wasn't as happy as she tried to fool herself to believe.
She sighed and went back to bed. She turned her alarm away so that the red numbers wouldn't disturb her precious hours of rest.
She laid there in the dark trying to fall asleep but, as always, as soon as her head had touched the pillow her mind was instantly clear and alert. So with nothing to do, her mind started to drift, thinking of the things that put her in this state of insomnia.
Hermione had always been a worker, and had always had much to do. The few times she actually was free she always offered to help someone else. She didn't like when she had nothing to do, she didn't like the feeling of being useless. But even Hermione Granger could get enough and become overworked.
All the stress of being Head girl, top of her class, trying to be a good and supportive friend to the boy-who-could-possibly-die-soon, and at the same time regularly being the subject of articles in almost every wizard paper had finally gotten to her. And the fact that she was everybody's "go to girl" only made matters worse. She didn't have a problem with people asking for her help, which was, after all, her job as Head girl, and she liked feeling needed; but at the moment being needed was not what she needed. She knew that if she failed to reach her professors' expectations they'd think something was wrong, because when have Hermione Granger ever had a problem with school? They would probably want to ease her workload and maybe…force her to give up her badge. And she really didn't want that.
No, she just had to come up with a way to fix this - a way that didn't result in losing her Head girl position.
Hermione sighed and closed her eyes; she didn't want to think about that right now. She just wanted to sleep.
The next morning, after only hours of rest, Hermione forced her eyes open when her alarm went off. She got up, though both body and mind strongly protested, and began getting ready for school.
She noticed that Lavender and Parvati had already left, and thinking how odd it was that they had woken up before her she turned her alarm clock towards her and was shocked to see that it was already half past eight. Someone must have reset her alarm clock. With only a half-hour until class started Hermione didn't have time to find the one responsible, so she hurried to get ready and then ran down to the Great Hall.
She stopped just outside the doors to catch her breath so she wouldn't look completely ridiculous when she entered and then went inside. The Hall was almost empty, with only about ten minutes until class started most of the students had already left, but she saw her two best friends sitting at the far end of the Gryffindor table. They had, like always, taken their time to eat.
She went over to them and sat down next to Ron. She snatched away the piece of toast on his plate, seeing that it would take her too much time to make one her own.
"Hey! I was going to eat that!" he cried in protest.
"Sorry," she said and smiled apologetic. "I'm in a hurry."
She poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice and began eating as fast as she could, glancing at her watch every few seconds.
"Is something wrong, Hermione?" Harry asked when he noticed that she ate in an unnatural speed.
"I'm late. My stupid alarm didn't go off; someone must have tampered with it."
"Or you forgot to set it – again."
"I think I would remember if I didn't set my alarm, Harry. Have you forgotten who you're talking to?"
"It's just that… You haven't been yourself lately."
Hermione shrugged. "I've just had a lot to do. I'm fine."
"Maybe you should, you know, slow it down a bit. You look awful."
"Well thank you," she said sarcastically.
Harry winced. Made he shouldn't have said the awful part. "I didn't mean it like that, I'm just concerned."
Hermione looked at him. She was not in the mood for this. She had tried putting on a happy face, but they couldn't just leave her alone, could they? "I said I was fine, back off."
"Hermione—"
"If I said I was fine, then I'm fine! God! Why can't you just leave me alone for one fricking minute!?!"
She stood, grabbed an apple to eat on her way to class, and left the Great Hall in a huff.
Ron, who had been too busy reading an article in Which Broomstick? to pay attention looked up when he felt Hermione's robes brush against him when she stood up. "Where's she going?"
Harry sighed and stood. "We should get going or else we'll be late."
Hermione ran through the corridors, trying to make it to class in time, but she knew that it didn't matter; she was so getting a detention.
Her first class this morning was Advanced Potions, Harry would normally be joining her, but had been excused this morning, not by Snape of course, so he could practice with the team for the Gryffindor-Slytherin game on Saturday.
Hermione came to a stop when her path was suddenly blocked by no other then the torment of her life – Draco Malfoy.
"That apple in your mouth makes you look like a pig, Granger."
Hermione gaped and dropped the apple, which she had been forced to carry between her teeth because of the load of books she carried with her, and it fell to the ground.
"Hm… Guess it wasn't the apple then." He smirked at her and then continued his way down the corridor.
Hermione was about to shout something nasty to him, but a glance at her watch reminded her that she didn't have time for stupid insults. Instead she began running again and soon she stood outside the potions classroom trying to find that supposed Gryffindor courage to go inside, she had never been late to Snape's class before.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. She looked inside and was surprised to see that Snape was nowhere in sight. She sighed of relief and made her way to the front of the classroom trying to find a place to sit. She saw that the seat next to Terry Boot was free so she hurried over and sat down.
"That was close, I didn't think I would make it in time," Hermione said and began placing her things on the table. Her good mood didn't last long though. Just as she was about to pull out her potions book from her bag someone tapped her on the shoulder. She shrieked and dropped her book of surprise. She turned around and saw her potions professor standing right behind her.
"Professor—"
"How nice of you to finally join us, Miss Ganger," he said coolly. "Thirty points from Gryffindor!"
He brushed past her and made his way to the front of the class, whilst Hermione crouched down and picked up her book. She sat up and quickly began taking notes of Snape's lecture about how to use billywigs correctly in a levitation potion.
Hermione made her way to the Great Hall for lunch, still playing the memory of that horrible moment in her head.
"Thirty points from Gryffindor!"
Thirty points!?! That was just unreasonable! She had only been a few minutes late and she was sure that if there had been a Slytherin who was late Snape wouldn't have even mentioned it. That stupid, unfair, excuse of a—
Feeling someone tap her on the shoulder, she froze. Was he a mind-reader or something? Fully expecting to see Snape staring back at her she slowly turned around but was pleasantly surprised when she saw that it only was Harry and Ron.
She let out a breath of relief. "Hi guys! How was practice?"
Ron, obviously excited, punched the air in front of him. "We're going to kick some Slytherin arse!"
Hermione smiled, too tired to reprimand him for saying arse and glanced over at Harry who had kept quiet.
"Harry? What's wrong?"
"I just thought it would be best to keep quiet incase you'd feel like I was prying."
She sighed. She had been feeling really guilty for her blow up earlier. She shouldn't have yelled at him like that. "I'm sorry Harry, I was just…tired."
Harry smiled and put an arm around her shoulders. He still wasn't happy over the way she had acted but if she said that she just was tired that must be the truth.
The trio soon reached the Great Hall and tried to find seats so they all could sit together, but it didn't seem to be any at the crowded Gryffindor table so the friends had to give up.
"I'll just go sit by Ginny," Hermione said and motioned to a free seat next to her friend's younger sister.
"Are you sure?" Harry asked concerned. "We could just tell a first year to—"
"No," Hermione interrupted him. "We are not going to scare some poor first year to give up his seat. I'll sit with Ginny."
She walked over to Ginny and sat down. "Hi Ginny, how are you?"
Ginny turned to her and let out a gasp. "Hermione, you look awful! Are you sick or something?"
Hermione frowned. "I'm fine. Just didn't get enough sleep last night."
"No Hermione, you look much worse than someone who just didn't sleep well, are you sure you're alright?"
"You're just like Harry!" Hermione snapped. "Why can't you two just mind your own business!?!" She got up and left a shocked Ginny staring after her.
When Hermione made it to the dormitories she was feeling a bit ashamed of herself. Ginny had just been concerned over a friend's well-being, why had she snapped like that? She groaned and sat down on her bed. This day was not going her way. In fact, the whole year was not going her way.
She groaned and flipped down on her bed. She laid there with her arms over her eyes thinking about a way to apologize to her. The best way was really just to go down there and get it over with. She looked at her watch and saw that she had an hour until her next class started. Better go do it now.
Hermione left the dormitory and went down the stairs just to be stopped by Ron. Apparently this fight hadn't gone unnoticed by him.
"What the hell is your problem!?!"
Hermione tried to tell him that she was just on her way to apologize but he didn't listen.
"She was just concerned for you! Who yells at someone for asking them how they are feeling!?!"
He was about to go on but Hermione interrupted him. She couldn't take it no more. "I'm not myself right now! I'm tired! Why can't you just get off my back!?!"
"Don't expect me to feel sorry for you just because you got PMS!"
Even though he was wined up, Ron still had some sense in him. He knew that he had made a huge mistake by saying that. Hermione had always been a bit touchy when it came to those kinds of things.
"PMS? PMS!?! You did not just say that!"
Ron opened his mouth to say something but quickly closed it again, that sense of his had advised him not to say anything else – even if it would be a compliment Hermione would surely ignore it and hex him for even uttering a single syllable.
Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, but they snapped open when she heard the portrait opening and she saw Harry stepping inside.
"Ron, I really don't think you should—what's going on?" He took in the scene in front of him. Ron was staring at the floor quietly whilst Hermione looked ready to kill him. "What did you do, Ron?"
"I…I…"
"He said I had PMS!" Hermione screeched.
Harry sighed. "Ron…"
"I know! It was really stupid! I'm sorry Hermione, I shouldn't have said that."
"That's right, you shouldn't! I'm not having a good day and you have to say something so stupid and sexist! Now, I was on my way to apologize to Ginny before you stopped me, so if you wouldn't mind…" She gave him a look that could kill and he quickly stepped aside.
She brushed past him and exited the common room. When the portrait closed behind her both Harry and Ron let out a breath of relief.
"You're really stupid, did you know that?"
Ron nodded. "I know."