A/N: hello again m'peeps! FFN says I have 18 followers on this story, which doesn't seem like a lot at first, but think: 18 people in a room would be pretty crowded, especially as an introvert. It's cool that eighteen different people with lives and stories and experiences are enjoying what I've come up with. Anyway, I hope I don't disappoint y'all too much! Some bad news: I didn't get much writing done on the trip, it was really packed. Good news, I have some long car rides ahead, and something about them just makes for good writing. Could be the 15 hours of isolated boredom, idk. I've decided to do a blanket disclaimer of non-ownership cause saying it over and over again seems very tedious: I would like everyone to know that I do not own Harry Potter. I've also decided that I will stick to hermiones POV. Better safe than sorry, as they say. Here we go!

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The isolated torches flickered on the walls of the castle and illuminated the portraits as Hermione rushed past them. Her feet pounded the cold floor as she raced through the corridors, much like her attempts to beat her own disoriented thoughts into submission.

She locked on to a whisper of rationality in the recesses of her mind as it told her to breathe. Making a conscious effort, she took deep, shaking breaths, though not reducing the speed of her flight. Hermione ignored the metallic taste in her mouth and the burning in her lungs and pushed herself faster. Anything to forget, to not have to see or feel, however briefly. Shutting her senses down, she let the rhythmic pounding of her feet be all that she knew.

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Some time later —a few minutes, or hours, Hermione didn't know— she was started back to reality by a strange revelation: she didn't know where she was or how she had gotten there. She, Harry, and Ron had explored the castle quite thoroughly in the six years they were there, quite often in the restricted hours, so it wasn't just the relative darkness that was disorienting her.

Hermione frowned and held the stitch in her side as she tried to catch her breath. Recovering slightly, the witch took in her surroundings. She was standing in a circular, stone room with a diameter of roughly twice her arm span. It was solid rock all around her, and she couldn't see a door. Though she couldn't see any lights, the room seemed to glow with a soft ethereal light from small pinpricks in the rounded walls. Hermione narrowed her eyes and stepped closer to the walls, focusing on one of the points from which light seemed to be emitting. Upon closer inspection, Hermione recognized the glow to be coming from identical minuscule runes, carved into the walls at intervals.

Hermione almost smiled at the familiar sensation of frustration and curiosity that rose within her at not knowing something. Despite her NEWT-level Ancient Runes class, and a nagging feeling that she recognized something about it, Hermione couldn't come up with a translation for it. Huffing, she committed the figure to memory and straightened to study the room at large.

She paced the circumference of the room, trailing her fingers on the wall to her right. At no point did she feel any break in the irregular stone pattern, signaling an exit. She didn't even remember how she had gotten in, just the frustration and anger and profound sadness she had felt before she had locked herself down. Whirling around, her eyes searched the walls fruitlessly for something she had missed, a clue she had passed over, and she caught a flash of something above her. Hermione jerked her head up and jumped back into the wall as she saw that someone else was there.

Hermione took a breath to steady her racing heartbeat as she recognized the fair skin, hazel eyes, and big, frizzy hair.

She looked at herself, and couldn't help noticing how much thinner she was than before the last year. Her hair lay tangled and damaged down her back. She was also much paler, and her eyes seemed to lack that keen shine they'd always held.

Hermione shut her eyes tight and tried to fight down the sense of loss she felt. The feeling that she didn't recognize herself anymore. This wasn't her. Hermione, she was the brightest witch of her age, the clever girl always at the top of every class, the one with all the answers, the smartest of her friends. She was the girl with the hair as uncontrollable as her thirst for knowledge, a hand well-practiced in shooting up to answer anything asked of her, feet that had worn the path to the library more often than to her own bed.

And maybe that was why she was so tired. Maybe it was knowing too much that had gotten her lost in her own head. The transition from childhood, school-girl book facts to hard, practical, wartime experience in just a few months was too much to take for a girl barely eighteen.

Eyes still shut, and drained of what little stamina she had left, Hermione slid down the wall, buried her head in her arms, and gave in to her exhaustion.

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Hermione awoke to the uncomfortable sensation of a strong light in her eyes and a crick in her neck. She shifted her head and brought her hand up to shield her eyes, groaning slightly.

"Granger."

Alarm raced through Hermione and she shot to her feet, staggering a little. She whipped out her wand, pointing it blindly in front of her. She recognized that voice.

"Honestly, Granger, you're going to put someone's eye out. Lower your wand."

Hermione squinted past the light coming from Malfoy's wand and steadied her grip on her own wand.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she spat, the tone of her voice, still scratchy with sleep, making it clear that it was not a cordial request.

"What do I want? I was just talking a nice walk, enjoying the quiet of the castle, when I was so rudely interrupted by you, mumbling annoyingly in your sleep." Malfoy paused and cocked his head. "Not that I care, Granger, but why are you here, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the corridor?"

Hermione's brain snapped to the present, and her memories from last night came rushing back. She whirled around. The corridor looked the same as always, similar to the rest of the castle, with no hint of the strange chamber from last night. How did she get out? Hermione frowned deeply.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Hello, Earth to Granger. I asked what you're doing here."

Hermione looked back to him with utter confusion on her face.

"I— I don't know."