The Dedicated Girl
Hermione awoke with a start. Sweat was dripping from her body. She had the dream again. She felt she was doing better; at least she did not wake up screaming this time. She pulled herself out of bed and walked over to a small basin and jug of water. She grabbed a small cloth and then poured some water into the basin. A quick flick of her wand and the water was warm. She looked up in the mirror and saw a stranger staring back at her. She stripped all the way down and roughly scraped the towel and warm water over her entire body. She scrubbed so hard that it turned her skin raw in places. She threw the towel down and flicked her wand again to clean everything up the way she had found it. It was time to begin her new schedule.
She would go first thing in the morning to physical education, then go and visit Hagrid. Immediately after she would eat a quick lunch and then head over to divination class. After that it was back to Professor Algier's class and then wrap it all up with a final visit to Firenze to get her after hours forest survival studies. Weekends she would visit Hagrid first thing and then spend the rest of the day in more physical training, with a quick stop to the library to check spell and history books to keep sharp on those things that would most benefit her. Five weeks were going to come and go all too quickly. In the end, she had no choice but to be ready.
If she had stopped even for a moment to check her overall psychological health, she would have realized that her mental stability was getting steadily worse. However, pushing herself so hard gave her little time to worry about that. She checked herself one last time in the mirror. Not out of any vanity, but to ensure that she looked presentable enough to the general public, so that they did not worry any more than they already were. Keeping everyone out of her hair now was imperative. No one could be allowed to get in the way of her preparations.
Luna had walked in and noticed Hermione getting ready. She walked right up to her and grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in. Hermione was so surprised that she did nothing but wait to see what was going to happen. Luna looked her right in the eyes and without saying a word kissed her softly on the lips and lingered there. Hermione knew she should be fighting back, but for some reason, she just did not care enough to do anything about it.
Luna pulled back and whispered, "You are losing your mind Hermione. Come out of yourself and open your eyes."
'Open your eyes?' she thought, that was what Draco had told her yesterday.
"When someone does something you don't want them to do, you have to push back. Do you understand?" Luna asked her.
"I don't have enough in me to waste on fighting. I have to save whatever I can for when it's time." Hermione responded.
"It's already time," Luna insisted, "It's already now. You just can't see it. You've become blind."
"Blind to what?"
"To yourself you silly girl! Blind to what you are slowly becoming; a complete lunatic. You can barely even function in the real world anymore. Soon enough and you will lose the tools you need to even do that."
Hermione felt hurt by her words. "Why are you doing this to me Luna? Please just leave me alone."
"Alone? Why would I do that? Don't you understand? I've come for you Hermione."
She was becoming confused. Nothing Luna was saying even made sense to her. She tried to turn away and leave, but Luna would not let go. Her grip was too tight. Luna pressed herself against Hermione. Luna's hands were digging into her back and it was beginning to hurt. She felt them break through the skin and touch the back of her ribcage. Luna was killing her. Luna started to kiss her again and began sucking the oxygen from her lungs. Hermione started to hit and kick as best she could, but she felt trapped.
The pain was becoming unbearable. Luna had her hands all the way into her organs now and she was suffocating to death from her kiss. She tried to scream, but could not.
She felt a gentle touch on her cheek. Then she opened her eyes and saw Ginny standing over her bed.
"Hermione? You told me to wake you up if you slept in too late. Are you alright? You looked like you were having a nightmare."
"I'm… I'm alright. Thanks for getting me up. I can't be late. I have to be in class soon."
Hermione pulled herself out of bed and walked across the room to the basin and jug of water. She looked in the mirror and saw herself staring back.
--- ---
The day had gone extremely well. She had pushed herself a little too hard in physical education, but she took the time to prepare a potion to help ease the pain in her legs and back. She was able to actually pay attention in Firenze's divination class and noticed that he went out of his way to bring up his life back in the forest a number of times. Always illustrating some important fact about life there. Hermione was extremely grateful. Each thing she learned in class, made more time for other things in their after hours class. She thanked him for that, but he smiled slightly and feigned ignorance about what he had been doing.
Once again she had missed dinner. It was starting to become a habit to eat alone in the kitchens with Dobby nearby, shaking his head sadly at her. Tonight was pot roast and candied carrots. Hermione took a few bites and looked a bit embarrassed.
"What's wrong?" one of the house-elves asked her.
"I don't like it when the meat isn't cooked all the way. This still has pink in it."
The house-elf apologized profusely and scurried into the back and brought some more, this time cooked until it was well done. Hermione thanked him and then ate the rest of her meal as quickly as possible. She needed to spend some time wandering the school tonight. Her nerves had gotten pretty frazzled from the long day. She still was not used to how much it took out of her physically. She needed to unwind in the dark hallways and perhaps check in on Myrtle, to see if she had any news.
She mumbled thank you again and got up and left. A number of the house-elves looked questioningly at Dobby, wanting to ask about her strange behavior. Dobby turned and looked at them with his shoulders shrugging.
"Hermione has lost her friend Harry. She is still needing time to grieve. Until then, everyone needs to be giving extra attention to her needs. If this is not happening, then Dobby will be bringing it up with Dumbledore."
The elves, sufficiently scared of the threat, nodded their heads vigorously and promised to do what Dobby asked them.
--- ---
Hermione found herself at the door to the Room of Requirement. She had not thought about it in a long time. She smiled for a moment and then realized she had allowed her guard to go down. She shook her head violently and dug her nails into her palm. When she felt sufficiently focused she looked around and noticed no one was there.
She spoke quietly, "Give me what I need the most."
With that she grabbed the door handle and opened it. The room looked like a cozy little office. She walked in and noticed a small couch and a leather chair set next to it. In the chair was a woman who was warmly smiling at Hermione. She motioned her over and pointed to the couch.
"Have a seat, or lie down, whatever you feel the most comfortable with."
She did and sat there quietly with her hands folded in her lap. The woman had a notebook and a very fancy looking quill.
"So, Ms. Granger, I'm so glad you could make your appointment this evening. Why don't I start with a quick introduction. My name is Healer Binns. You probably remember my husband the good professor of history here at the school. My area of expertise is in psychological well-being and mental illness, with a specialization in teenage studies."
"Why are you here?" Hermione asked suspiciously.
"Well, guessing from where we are, because I was what you needed most."
"I thought I had already met all the ghosts here at the school," Hermione told the woman.
"Well, technically I don't haunt the school. I haunt St. Mungos, but the magic here thought that I was best suited to help you and so I came."
Hermione was not sure whether to let this happen or get up and run out of the room. Then an idea hit her and she decided to run with it.
"I don't need your help working through my problems, but I do need your help."
"Go on," Healer Binns replied.
"At the end of the school term, which is only five weeks from now, I will be going out into the Forbidden Forest to find Harry Potter, who is still out there somewhere."
"I am well aware of Mr. Potter's current situation. He has been a large topic amongst the healers who deal with psychological cases. I am also aware of how dangerous and fool-hardy this decision that you've made is. He has killed three people already. What makes you think that you will be any different?"
Hermione started wringing her hands together, "I'm not sure I will be any different, but that's a risk I have to take. He's a murderer now and I have to take matters into my own hands. Will you help me?"
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll leave here and you'll never see me again. At least not alive anyways."
The woman thought for a long time and then replied, "Do you know what you will need to do to accomplish this?"
"I think so."
"Alright then Hermione. I'll consider your case. Let's start with me getting to know you better and we'll see what we can build up from there."
Hermione spent the next two hours with the Healer and planned to meet her again the same time next week. She believed that the woman might be able to help her mentally prepare, and Hermione was not about to turn anything down that might enable her to accomplish her goal.
--- ---
It was almost midnight and Hermione could barely keep her eyes open. She needed to get up to bed soon. She made one last stop in Myrtle's bathroom to see if she had found Harry. She walked in and shortly after Myrtle floated down to her.
"I haven't found him yet. I know he's out there, because I'm pretty sure that I heard him a couple of times. He's really difficult to locate. It's like he's some sort of animal or something. I feel like I am hunting him rather than just trying to find out where he is.
"Please keep trying," Hermione pleaded, "I can't tell you how important this is to me."
"I… I will keep looking. Let me warn you though, from what I can tell, I don't think it's safe to be around Harry. I might even say that he's kind of dangerous, but I will keep looking and let you know."
"Thank you Myrtle. Thank you so much."
With that, Hermione walked out of the bathroom and went up to get some sleep. As she was walking the corridors she ran across Mrs. Norris. When Hermione saw her, she had an inspiration. She took out her wand and transfigured herself into a large tabby cat. Mrs. Norris not fooled by the whole thing simply yawned and wandered off. However, Hermione just discovered that she had a whole new way of learning how to survive in the wild. She was going to spend time each night as a different creature and learn what she could from the experience. Tonight a cat, tomorrow who knows, she thought.
She was immensely pleased with her idea. She spent an extra hour as a cat using all the skills that a cat has at their command, and then exhausted she transfigured back and quickly fell into bed. She was asleep seconds after she closed her eyes.