Hermione hated the smell of disinfectant; the stench was sometime so overpowering that it made her feel sick. Since she was in the hospital though, she'd have to deal with the unique smell for a while until she got what she came here for. She went up to the receptionist desk and waited for the receptionist to hand her the papers.

"You again?" The receptionist asked in exasperation, "You've been coming here to see her for the past few weeks, don't you have anything better to do?"

"Well visiting hours are still open, aren't they?" Hermione ignored the receptionist's loaded question and grabbed the clipboard, "That means I can still visit, despite of your personal feelings."

The receptionist sighed as Hermione rapidly filled out the forms that were attached to the clipboard.

"Do you have-"

"My ID?" Hermione asked as she fished around in her pocket and showed the receptionist her student ID, "It's right here, and here are the papers."

The receptionist groaned as Hermione pushed the papers in front of her. As Hermione turned to head to her friend's room she overheard the receptionist talking softly,

"I don't know why you'd even bother at this rate..."

Hermione's shoulders stiffened as she quickly made her way down the hospital corridor. She took the first right at the intersection of a hallway, and then a left right after that. Eventually she came across the room she was looking for, Room 256. She hesitated for a brief moment but steeled herself and went into the room. The smell of disinfectant and something musty wafted through the air, causing her to slightly wrinkle her nose. Balloons and get-well cards laid on a table close to the bed, roses were placed in a vase on the table as well, and streamers lined the celling. The television was still on, it was apparently switched to a channel about a chef screeching profanities at owners of other restaurants, she grabbed the remote and turned off the TV.

The sounds of beeping and whirring machinery pierced through the silence of the room, and a young girl laid in the bed, her eyes shut. A large tube traveled from her mouth to a machine that was lying by the side of the bed, an IV was hooked up to her arm, and tubes ran from her nose to another machine. The heartbeat monitors steadily beeped as Hermione took a seat in a chair next to the girl's bed. The girl's name was Luna Lovegood, and she was a good friend of Hermione's. In fact back when the two of them had started at Hogwarts they'd hang out together out of necessity.

Hermione was the stubborn know-it all, the girl who never knew when to stop talking. When she was younger she'd constantly question her teachers for more information about anything she could think of, she'd also try to push the people in her class to study more often. Especially Ron, who back then seemed to only care about sports and food, though now she knew he was actually a lot more than that. The others in her class didn't like her, and they made sure to let her know that every time they found her to be annoying.

"Can you believe her?!" Ron shouted loudly to Harry as they left their English class. "'It's not Mis-CHEE-vee-us, it's MIS-chuh-vus,'"

"What a know-it all, no wonder she has no friends."

Hermione pushed past Ron, glaring at him for a few moments before rushing off to the bathroom.

"I think she heard you." She heard Harry say before she could hear Ron say what she knew he would,

"So what?"

Eventually she had stopped asking questions all together and had tried to draw as little attention to herself. She hadn't made nay friends, and at times she felt like she should leave Hogwarts and go somewhere different, but then Luna had shown up.

It was during lunch when Hermione had resigned herself to eating alone again. At most of the other tables she had seen friends sitting together and laughing, no one had bothered trying to sit with her. One boy had almost done it, but he was cowed by the rest of his friends to sit with them instead. She sighed, well it wasn't like it bothered her anymore, she was used to it by now.

"Hello."

Hermione blinked in surprise and saw a young girl with blonde hair talking to her.

"Is anyone else sitting here?" the girl asked.

"A-ah, no." Hermione stuttered.

"So is it okay if I sit here?"

"U-um, yes you can sit here."

"Great!" The blond girl plopped her tray down on the table and sat next to Hermione. The cafeteria had fallen completely fallen silent as they watched the girl extend a hand out to Hermione.

"My name is Luna, what's yours?"

After that the two were nearly inseparable, and Hermione had finally started to enjoy her time at Hogwarts. Eventually, she managed to become friends with Harry and Ron after an... embarrassing incident all three of them had decided to never mention again. Then last year things began to change, Luna had suddenly become more and more withdrawn. Luna began to skip school, she rarely showed up for classes, and whenever she had tried to visit her, Luna's father would tell her that she was out for the day. Then one day, Luna was brought up during a meeting the vice principal had called.

"Student's it has come to my attention that one of you has attempted to shame one of your professors," the vice principal began, "Perhaps the student found it funny at the time, but I assure you this is no laughing matter."

The auditorium remained silent as the vice principal handed the microphone of to their professors,

"Students I will not mince words, one of you little punks has ruined my life," the professor said, "And for what? A misunderstanding- though I suppose this generation is more sensitive than most."

"And another thing-"

"Yes well," the vice principal grabbed the microphone from the professor, "I do not find it funny either-that's why I have decided to expel Luna Lovegood."

"Effective immediately, anything that belonged to her that she left here will be destroyed-and you are forbidden from talking to her."

"If I find out that a student has broken this rule," the vice principal said, "You will join her in expulsion-am I clear?!"

"Yes, sir." echoed the students, clearly confused and uncomfortable.

After that things had settled down for a while, and life had somewhat returned to normal. One rainy night, Hermione had heard a knock at her door,

"Hello?" Hermione asked as she opened the door. Luna was standing outside in the rain, soaking wet.

"Luna, why are you-nevermind, just come inside, you're soaking wet!" Hermione said.

Luna shook her head and handed something to Hermione in a gift box, "No I just came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Hermione echoed in confusion, "Why would you come all this way just to say goodbye, are you moving somewhere?"

"In a way, I guess you could say that I'm moving..." Luna murmured to herself, "But I'm not particularly religious."

"What?"

"...Nothing just...will you hold onto what I gave you?"

"Um, sure but-" Hermione started to say, before Luna wrapped her arms around her in a hug before sprinting away into the darkness.

"Hey wait, Luna!"

She should have noticed it then, when Luna had shown up to her home in the dead of night. Hermione prided herself in her knowledge, but at the end of the day, when it really mattered, she had nothing to show for it.

"Holy shit, what's she doing up there?" Hermione had heard one of her classmates say when she was in her homeroom class.

"Language, Mr. Thomas." their homeroom teacher, Dolores Umbridge, chided him as he stared out the window. "Honestly, when will you children learn..."

"Oh...oh crap I think she's going to jump!" Thomas interrupted Umbridge, panic clear in his voice. The class crowded the windows in attempt to see what was going on, ignoring Umbridge's calls for them to sit back down.

"Hey wait isn't that...Lovegood?!" one of her classmates shouted. Hermione's heart skipped a beat and she struggled to push her way in front of the crowed. As she did so she could hear the students panicking even more,

"Oh my god... she just jumped!"

Hermione managed to worm her way to the front of her class as she saw Luna hit the ground.

"Ah..." her breaths became shallow as she took a step back and collapsed on the ground in a daze. She could hear her classmates screaming;

"Oh my god there's so much blood..."

"Holy shit...Holy shit!"

"S-someone call an ambulance! Call 119!"

"What the hell..."

"Ah...Ah...AHGGGGHHH!"

In all the panic and confusion, someone called an ambulance that took Luna away. The next day, Professor Quirrell was fired from Hogwarts, and had his rights to teach revoked. Hermione wished that she could turn back time, she wished she could go back to that night and try to do or say anything that could've stopped Luna from what she did after the night she had shown up her house. The doctors had said it was a miracle that she had survived a fall from that height, but the chances of her waking up were rather slim. They had put her on life support, and Luna had been in the hospital for the past two years.

"Hey, want to hear about what happened while you were gone?" Hermione asked the still sleeping Luna. It was a bit of a routine she had kept up once she was allowed to visit Luna, she would sit and tell her about the things that had happened while she was in her coma, partly for Luna and partly for herself as well. She told her about what had happened this morning with the vice president, about how she had gotten into a fight with Draco, and then...

Huh she was feeling really tired for some reason...

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to sleep for a few minutes...