Chapter Text
To say Hermione is exhausted is an understatement. Her head is pounding, her body is barely responding to commands to move, and blinking is a monumental task. Every time her eyes slide shut and a feeling of blessed relief overcomes her as the darkness envelops her mind, the temptation to give in to sleep is overwhelming, but she can’t. Can’t stop, can’t sleep. So she forces her eyelids up again, feeling almost as if she’s lifting warehouse loading bay doors rather than a few grams of skin and muscle.
She has no idea what time it is, if she’s managed to accidentally catch any sleep, or even really what she’s reading at this point, but nothing in the text has grabbed her so it must not be relevant to her needs.
She pushes the book away from her and drags another into it’s place, thankful to her past self for collating a large selection for herself to choose from save getting up to browse the shelves again after every finished book. Even the simple action of sliding textbooks around is enough to make her limbs feel like lead; she doesn’t want to even consider what standing up would do to her at this point.
Mentally preparing herself for another span of concentration of unknown length, Hermione rubs her eyes. The world goes black, the world goes blue, then the world goes blinding white as she opens them again. She feels dizzy and the dizziness makes her nauseous. She reaches for a glass of water before she remembers she doesn’t have one. When did she last have something to drink? Something to eat?
Her eyes flick up, searching the walls for a clock. There isn’t one in easy view, but the sun pouring in through the windows implies it’s morning, and probably nearly breakfast time. If she starts packing up now, she can go grab something for a bit of an energy boost, then maybe come back for a bit before lessons start to get through another book. Maybe she can convince the boys to come with her. It’s for Harry’s benefit that she’s doing this after all.
She’s too tired to feel anything much at the moment, but the annoyance with the pair of them simmers inside her all the same. They’re both being so childish, not talking to each other at a time like this. Harry’s been mysteriously entered in a death-competition and all Ron can think about is his jealousy over all the attention Harry’s getting. And Harry, the boy who’s actually going to have to be risking his life, can’t even be bothered to help her research ways to keep him alive. It would be far easier if they knew what he’d be up against, but Hermione knows that’s too much to hope for. Better to be prepared for any number of scenarios than cross their fingers and pray Harry miraculously already knew enough spells and had enough skills to come out of the first task in one piece.
Mind made up and driven by a combination of spite, anger, and sleep-deprivation that she rarely lets herself give in to, Hermione starts the laborious process of packing away all her materials. She makes a pile out of the books that were no use to her and lugs them over to the nearest returns trolley, which excitedly dashes off to the main desk when it’s fully loaded, and then she carefully gathers her notes and tucks them gently into her bag. Next, she piles up the rest of the books that she hasn’t gotten around to flicking through yet and leaves a note on top of them informing Madam Pince that she’ll be back at lunchtime so can she please not tidy them away. It’s only taken four years, but the Hogwarts librarian finally seems to have noticed that Hermione isn’t a complete hooligan out to damage her books, so is slowly letting her get away with small things like this.
She isn’t quite so fond of her as to let her spend a night in the library after hours, however, so Hermione has been forced to adopt a charade wherein she makes a show of tidying everything up and leaving the library before closing time, then pulling the invisibility cloak Harry has been so generously lending her snugly around herself and waltzing right back in. It’s a little bit silly, but it means she can study for as long as she likes without being interrupted.
Sometimes, Hermione will don the cloak again to leave the library, just in case Madam Pince sees her and calls her out for staying overnight, but when she’s overtired she often forgets. As such, she folds up the invisibility cloak and shoves it in with her books and notes before walking, well, more like staggering really at this point, out the door.
So focused is she, though, on putting one leaden foot in front of the other, that she doesn’t see the other person rounding the corner in front of her.
They collide, but no one falls. Hands reach out and grab Hermione by the shoulder, though whether they’re trying to steady herself or the grabber she doesn’t know.
“Bloody hell, Granger. Watch where you’re going.”
Oh. It’s Parkinson.
“Sorry,” she finds herself saying reflexively. Normally she’d make a point not to apologise to the other girl for anything short of stepping on her cat’s tail, but this morning she’s running on autopilot as much as possible, and autopilot comes fully equipped with manners.
Parkinson takes a step back from her and gives her a once-over. Hermione should push past her and carry on to breakfast, only the collision seems to have knocked the focus out of her for the moment.
“Anyone ever tell you you look like shit?” Parkinson asks.
“Only you, at every available opportunity,” Hermione sighs back.
Parkinson blinks. “Well, this time I mean it.”
“So you don’t mean it all the other times?” Now that’s a novel concept.
Parkinson pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales heavily.
“How long have you been here Granger? All night?” She smiles nastily. “Your housemates finally get sick of sleeping in the same room as you and banish you down here?”
“I’m trying to research spells that might be useful to Harry in the first task,” she finds herself saying. Why on earth she’s telling Parkinson of all people this she has no idea, but it’s not exactly difficult to work out. Every time Harry has to face trouble of any kind, Hermione can be found in the library, doing the research to back him up.
Parkinson blinks in surprise again. Apparently Hermione’s lack of rising to the bait and fighting back or bursting into tears is putting her off-kilter, which is probably why she forgets herself and fails to turn that into some kind of insult.
“But you don’t even know what the first task is yet.”
“No, but if I do as much research as I can now, then he’ll be better prepared than if I didn’t do any.”
Parkinson scoffs. “Where’s he then?” she asks. “Have you got him tucked away in that bag of yours or is he still creeping around the stacks somewhere?”
“He’s probably at breakfast.”
“And you’re here trying to save his life all on your own.”
“Pretty much.”
“Bloody hell, Granger.”
Parkinson looks her over again, takes in her no-doubt thoroughly dishevelled appearance, her rumpled uniform, her hair standing up in all directions from hours of nervously running her hands through it, the bone-deep exhaustion evident in her eyes. Something softens a touch in the Slytherin’s face.
“Go get some sleep.”
And then, not waiting for a reply, Parkinson is gone, sweeping past her into the library proper. Idly, Hermione wonders what it is the other girl needs from the library at such an early hour. She rarely sees Parkinson do any school work, so it can hardly be anything academic that she wants. What, then, could she be after?
Quite suddenly, Hermione realises she’s been stood in the middle of an aisle, lost in thought, for a good few minutes. She mentally shakes herself, then heads on toward the doors. She has a breakfast to go to and she won’t let her first mildly-civil conversation with Pansy Parkinson of all people distract her.
At breakfast, Harry and Ron are being as infuriating as ever and she feels horribly caught in the middle of it all. She discreetly passes Harry his cloak back under the table and tries to fill him in on everything she’s learned, but he’s distracted and not listening to her, too busy gazing mournfully down the table at where Ron is sitting with Dean and Seamus. Sometimes, she wonders why she loves them both as much as she does.
The whole ordeal puts the encounter with Parkinson out of her mind and she thinks no more of it.