Stairs.1

Disclaimer:

I own nothing, is all J.K Rowling. Cheers to her!.

Thanks to Telosphilos, Lady Clover, Elwen Rhiannon, Susan, Sleepsong and Dried Plums for beta service and useful comments.

The Hogwarts stairs and corridors were deserted. It was the first period of a chilly Monday. It seemed like the frost had silenced whatever attempt at mischief a student could have made, so the castle's corridors were quiet, except for the occasionally rumor of a teacher's lecture.

Or it would have been, but for the sound of shuffling footsteps. An odd figure, the one of a lonely young woman, a broken one, was there. She had the bearing of an old woman, fragile and weak, as if every step came with a great effort. The silence of the corridor went right to her soul.

Hermione went down through the corridor. She knew that professor Flitwick meant no harm, in fact he had been kind in asking her to go and rest in her quarters. What he didn't know was that there was no possible rest for her. The taste of humiliation and failure was in her mouth. She was sick of this ever lasting winter.

She has been dead tired for weeks, months if I come to think of it. At first she thought of it as a coming flu, which never arrived, but there it was: the sore muscles, the fatigue, the need to sleep, and the permanent migraine. She dealt well with it. Her grades did drop a little bit, but nothing so dramatic as to make her professors notice. She had to work harder these days to be at her usual standards, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. Well, not until today.

She has failed. Publicly failed.

And with an Obliteration Charm, of all things. Dam it!.

She has done it correctly since her third year It was an easy charm for her. Something had gone wrong, it is as if her magic had weakened. The little professor sent her to sleep through the day, assuming she was just a little stressed and dismissed any other concern. Her guts clenched,

What if she was loosing her magic?, what if..?

Hermione inhaled deeply, as to summon some calm. Her hands clutched the banister. Hopefully this time the bloody steps would not move that much. She was in no mood for their shenanigans today.

Just three hundreds and forty steps and you are there. She encouraged herself.

Looking up to the impossibly long stairs. She sighed.

They weren't that long a month ago . . . a small voice whispered inside of her head. "Shut up." She muttered.

A week ago she counted each and every step that lead to Gryffindor Tower in an attempt to make her march easier. Her joints hurt, especially her knee. It was as if a needle was crushed inside it.

For gods sake Hermione, when did you turn up into this whiny old woman?

The pain eased at times, to her immense relief, but it returned full force whenever she needed to use the stairway.

Two hundred and eighty six more steps.

There exists a relationship between body and mind; perhaps there is also a correlation between the body and one's magical abilities .

She has taken some measures, such as taking all the things she needed from her room early in the morning, so there was no need to return to the tower. She also started heading to classes a few minutes earlier than the rest of her fellows; so she could go slowly and stop if it hurts too much where no one notice. Sure Ron and Harry, had teased her a bit. The attribute these new habit to her academic anxiety, "the know-it-all that need to be in time for class" . She was glad no one had notice.

Just two hundred and twenty more.

After the events at the end of her fifth year at the MOM, she has started feeling different.

Not that much, mind you.

She gained a little weight, and started those insomnia nights.

It wasn't that bad during the summer hols, but once the school started, things got harder.

A hundred and seventy-two left.

She went to bed dreadfully tired only to wake up a few hours later. She started secretly brewing sleeping draught, but it did little good. She would fall asleep, true, but she would wake up unrested. So she started taking some pepper-up. At first, it was only one every single morning. Now she takes it daily. And its no good.

And it does no good . . . Admit it . . . It's ridiculous how tired I am all the time

If she was honest with herself, she would have to admit something was wrong. She has never been lazy; it was another quality that she would not allow in herself, but now . . . well . . . if it weren't for the pepper up potion, she really didn't know how she could manage her days

A hundred and two, Granger.

She has never being more tired in her entire life, not even in her third year, when the time turner helped her with the double schedule.

Hermione Jane Granger, stop whining and grow a spine!

She corrected her posture, and continued climbing, her breath came in an unsteady rhythm. Her knuckles were whitening while she held her body erect. She just wanted something to numb the pain.

Just eighty more steps and then the corridor.

She made a steady hissing sound through her teeth, as she tried to lengthen her inhalation as much as possible.

Sixty two more.

Slowly exhaling all the air, she faced the last part of her task.

1 For now, I will not disclose what happened to Hermione. It is based in a RL disease. A young boy, a LJ friend of mine, described his experience with this words "I no longer go to school, or talk to anyone from my school. My mom and my sisters are the only people that understand at all. My grandma understands some, but basically she thinks all is pretty mild, since her's is. My aunts and uncles all think I fake it for attention and to manipulate my family into to doing things for me. My father thinks that his wife has the worst thing in the world. She doesn't have any sort of illness, just a mildly bad back. He compares me to her all the time. I haven't spoken to my father is about a month. I haven't seen him in 3 months. Oh yeah, I'm 16 years old."

2 Hermione cast this charm to hide any traces of the trio trip to Hagrid's hut, in POA. (Harry Potter Lexicon)