DISCLAIMER: All characters and places mentioned in this story belong to J. K. Rowling, sadly I'm only creative enough to play with them.

NORMAL

Prelude I

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"The essence of normality is the refusal of reality."

Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death and Escape from Evil

Lying in bed that evening she stared at the ceiling contemplating how it was even possible for her to move on like nothing had happened at all.

Weeks ago she had stopped worrying herself about her lack of sleep – she couldn't keep her eyes closed at night for more than just a few minutes at a time, still she was fully rested in the mornings. It was strange and normally she'd have researched till she found the reason for her sleeping disorder, but nothing was normal anymore and this was really the least important of her problems at the moment.

She sighted, finally standing up. If she couldn't sleep at least she could read a book and do a little bit of extra-curricular studying as she had finished memorising the years pensum about a month ago. It was incredible how much you could achieve only by abandoning sleep for a few months.

Gathering the book of the evening ("Beginners guide of Occlumency – Useful tips how to close your mind to prying eyes") she made herself comfortable on her bed and immersed herself in the theories and suggestions of CélineDanton.

"Hermione?"

"Huh?" Hermione raised her eyes to stare at the sleepy face of Lavender Brown.

The dorm was flooded with auroral light, clearly it was just shortly after dawn and still much too early for one of her roommates to wake up.

"How can you already be up and studying? Breakfast won't start for another few hours... Is something wrong?" Lavender asked yawning loudly.

Hermione silently cursed herself for forgetting to draw the curtains around her bed. She forced a smile on her face and replied shrugging: "Don't worry, I just couldn't sleep and therefore thought of having a head-start." Well, that wasn't even a lie afterall.

Lavender just looked at her blankly for a few seconds, as if it was unfetchable how anyone could study instead of sleeping. However she refrained from saying anything else aloud and just shook her head mumbling something sounding very much like "always thought she was crazy" and laid back down, passing out before her head even hit the pillow.

Hermione sighted in relief after observing Lavender for a few minutes and then returned to her book. But she couldn't concentrate on it anymore, so instead she let her thoughts wander.

It was so strange to be back at Hogwarts for her final year after travelling around Britain for a whole year. So strange to be wandering through the same old halls she had seen destroyed only a few months earlier. So strange to board the Hogwarts train again only to deboard it in a still not fully reconstructed Hogsmeade station. So strange to celebrate the welcoming feast, without Dumbledores annual speech. So strange to see all the frightened first years fretting anxiously awaiting to be called and sorted, but knowing it hadn't been Hagrid to get them from the station to the school. So strange to eat meals again in the great hall with so many faces that ought to be there missing. And so strange to be sitting on a bed in a warm room after having spent most part of the last year sleeping on a uncomfortable cot in a freezing tent the middle of nowhere.

She sighted again, trying to comb her hair with her fingers, a habit of frustration she had picked up from Harry, only to get them immediately stuck in her still unmanageable mass of curls.

Maybe she should try to sleep too, she contemplated silently, and maybe, when she woke up everything would be easier for her too. Maybe then she would also be able to see that everything was again how it was supposed to be. Maybe, yeah maybe, than everything would be back to normal for her too, or she would at least be able to pretend it was.