The nights left her alone in an endless chasm of darkness. The darkness found solid shapes through the nightmares, the worries, and the sadness. It pulled at her skin, threatening to tear her apart. Sleep flinted around her, never coming to rest over her.
So, alone, Hermione Granger fought off the demons of past, present, and future. So many came. So many took more of Hermione every time. Alone, nothing seemed like enough to ward them off. Alone, Hermione gasped for air too often than not.
OoooOoooO
Summers existed for enjoyment, but Hermione found none in the summer before her 5th year. By the time Harry arrived at Grimmauld's Place, Hermione suffered from extreme insomnia. For her, insomnia only occurred under extreme duress. Hermione attributed this to her mind's unwillingness to rest with more to do. Insomnia befell her when her grandfather lay on his deathbed and several times in the past four years of schooling. Watching Harry try to figure out how to pass the challenges in the Triwizard Tournament lead to a particularly terrible bout that lasted months. Now, insomnia appeared to have found a resting place with Hermione, as her mind went into overdrive in response to Lord Voldemort's return.
The witch attempted to use the time alone to her benefit, rather than a loss. If she laid down and found sleep running away from her, Hermione jumped right back out of bed and found something productive to do. Lately, that meant learning defense spells or spells Hermione might find useful if anything happened.
Ginny figured out right away that Hermione suffered from insomnia, since they shared a room together. Even though Hermione never woke the girl, the close living quarters made the discovery inevitable. When Ginny rose concerns, Hermione assured her that the lack of sleep failed to affect her health. After several heated arguments, Ginny dropped the matter, because, as Hermione pointed out, Hermione never so much as yawned due to not sleeping.
The first night after Harry finally joined the group at Grimmauld's Place, Hermione achieved her first full night of sleep in weeks. The respite declined as the court date grew closer though, and Hermione worried that enough people in the Ministry of Magic disliked Harry to make expulsion plausible.
The announcement that Harry escaped expulsion sent a wave of relief over Hermione, and she once again found sleep's comfort. She slept well for the rest of the summer, lightened by the idea both her best friends remained nearby.
OoooOOoooO
On the very first night back at Hogwarts, Hermione rolled out of bed shortly after laying down. The Sorting Hat's message, Hagrid's absence, and Umbridge's speech ran through Hermione's head like marching soldiers. All together they screamed, "Voldemort returned, and everyone refuses to accept it!" Even Harry and Ron failed to appreciate the truth behind the Sorting Hat's message. No doubt Hagrid's mission went wrong and stopped him from returning on time. Then, on top of everything else, the Ministry of Magic involving itself with Hogwarts when the Minister refused to believe that Voldemort lived again only reeked of danger and vile events to come.
Hermione sat on the edge of her bed soaking in the darkness for a couple minutes before deciding what to do. She threw on one of her school robes, tiptoed down the stairs and out the porthole. She glided through the halls skillfully, avoiding the hallways commonly frequented by late night visitors. It took longer, but Hermione, early on, perfected the after-hours trip to the library.
It started in her first year, before she even befriended Ron and Harry. Then, she used to be very scared about her trips, but sleep constantly alluded her over her worries about not making any friend. She still disapproved of breaking rules, but Hermione hardly saw this as the reason for the rule. The rule existed for those who made more trouble by staying out late. Hermione kept to herself and studied.
Harry and Ron, of course, knew nothing of Hermione's tendency to skip out to the library when she suffered from insomnia. They failed to ever notice she even lived with insomnia. The young ladies she roomed with knew but thought nothing of it after Hermione told them she went downstairs to read at night to prevent waking any of them. No one ever realized the truth behind her midnight studies.
That first night of her fifth year, Hermione stayed in the library for some hours, Hermione lacked any timepiece to tell her how long. Just long enough for her to start feeling sleep tug on her. She began the trek through the hallways back to the dormitory, a little careless from exhaustion and comfort of a regular path.
As she snuck around a corner, Hermione ran directly into another person. She just barely avoided a scream escaping from her lips. Instead, she stumbled backwards, falling over, hard, too busy covering her mouth to catch herself. When she looked up, Hermione saw the equally shocked expression of one Draco Malfoy, whose face quickly changed to a sneer as he saw who lay on the floor before him. After curfew. Alone.
"And here I thought that Mudblood know-it-alls only wandered around after hours in groups of threes. It's much safer for them that way." Malfoy sneered, quietly, fully aware of the danger of himself getting caught.
"Malfoy, out of the two of us, professors are a lot more likely to believe me if we get caught. In fact, maybe I should get one of them right now," Hermione warned, standing quickly up. She brushed off the imaginary dirt that Malfoy left on her. Malfoy laughed at her threat, a smirk covering his face.
"As if you'd willingly get yourself into trouble, 'oh, professor, I'm so sorry, I'm just a sniveling little Mudblood, please don't give me detention.'" Malfoy spoke in a high squeaky voice to mock her.
Just as Hermione opened her mouth to retort, Malfoy shoved a hand against her mouth. His other hand ran to his lips to quiet her as he cocked his head in one direction. Hermione's eyes widened as she heard it: soft footsteps coming their way.
"C'mon," He muttered before grabbing her arm- harder than necessary- and dragging her to a nearby classroom. It only took Hermione a moment to realize why he dragged her along. They both knew if Hermione got caught, she intended to point whoever caught her in Malfoy's direction.
Inside the classroom, Malfoy gripped her arm harder as he looked around. Hermione thought to at least close the door most of the way- all but a crack- before he hauled her into a dark corner. Darkness cloaked the whole room. A shadow blackened a cabinet and a corner, leaving no visible lines in the corner. Draco dipped into the corner, pulling her right against him, with his arms loosely around her. Both of them stood engulfed in the darkness of both room; the shadow hugged them tighter.
The pair cringed at the close proximity, even in their panic. However, the dark shadowed them completely only in that position, and neither wanted to risk capture just because of their mutual disgust. Their efforts appeared clearly beneficial as someone pushed open the door, walked in the room a step or two, glanced around slowly for a few minutes, and finally exited- none the wiser two teenagers stood obscured by a minor shadow.
Draco Malfoy's arms tightened against her at the sight of the individual. Her back rested flesh with his front. She felt his heart beat fast from fear of capture, just as her own raced. One of his arms wrapped around her stomach, the other across her chest, his hand resting on where her arm met her shoulder. Her hands gripped his arms in fear, wishing herself to disappear. They stood there for several extra minutes, in hopes to let the individual walk as far away as possible.
The- almost- romantic scene ended as quickly as it began, for as soon as Draco felt the threat departed, he pushed Hermione away from him. Hard. So hard in fact, she nearly stumbled straight over onto her face.
"Git." Hermione hissed as she caught her balance.
"It's going to take me forever to get Mudblood off of me," Malfoy spit with rage at her.
Hermione raised her hand to slap him, but Malfoy quickly caught her wrist and gripped it with purposeful menace. His free hand shot forward with his wand so it stuck into her throat.
"If you think you are ever going to get away with that again, Mudblood, you had better think twice because I will not hesitate to curse you back to whatever hole you crawled out of." Hermione tried to keep her face brave, but the look on Malfoy's face told of someone with no qualms murdering her for even thinking about striking him. They froze there, glaring holes into each other.
Hermione caught a glimpse of a shadow at the door, and she quickly pushed Malfoy and herself back into their safe corner. Luckily, he went along with it, wrapping arms around her as she pressed two hands up to grip his robes, flattening them both as much as possible against the wall and each other. Footsteps indicated movement away without stopping. They remained there another five minutes before Malfoy whispered into her ear.
"Do you think they're gone?"
Hermione released his robes where her hands clutched them at his sides, sighed, and gently pushed away from him, "Yes." Hermione blushed at how their bodies pressed together seconds ago. It felt much too intimate for Hermione, who only ever kissed one boy and certainly never went further with him than kissing.
As he once again straightened out his robes, Malfoy looked at her, still maintaining the signature Malfoy sneer but with a touch of- inquisitiveness Hermione guessed.
"You're awfully good at sneaking about... What are you doing out this late anyways, Granger?"
She thought about turning and leaving, ignoring the question entirely. But he addressed her with her actual name rather than Mudblood and Hermione still wanted to know what that expression meant. So she told him enough that she hoped prompted him to reveal something to her.
"I was doing research in the library. What are you doing out?" She whispered back to him as she began to inch towards the door. He followed, just as paranoid as Hermione after two different sets of footsteps. Both went out with the belief the first night back lacked the same level of patrols of other nights.
"Research of my own." Malfoy made an uglier sneer than usual to discourage more questions. Hermione wanted to punch him but held back the urge. Neither of them said a word from there. They snuck a look out the door, saw an empty hallway, looked once at each other with disdain, before vocally wishing to the other for a capture and expulsion, and finally heading their separate ways to their dormitories.
OoooOoooO
When Hermione and Draco passed each other in the hall the next day, no indication appeared of their late night run-in. In her mind, however, Hermione continued to wonder what led Malfoy out past curfew. She wanted to mention it to Harry and Ron, but a discussion of both the details of her insomnia and her late night trips required more patience than she currently owned. So Hermione wondered on her own.