Signum Vitalis (a dramione story)

In which there are potion problems

Hermione tried to smile back, but she felt it stretch brokenly across her face, tears slipping over her lips into her mouth. They sat beside each other, the woman's arm wrapped around Hermione's back, until a bell called them back for a final prayer.

She woke to her curtains on fire and her wand gone. Lavender and Parvati were screaming and when Hermione moved to the door she saw it was on fire as well. She went to the window only to see she was hundreds of stories up. When she turned back around the Gryffindor tower had become a stairwell. Muggles were running past her but when she started to follow someone caught her by her hair. It was Malfoy. Fire still burned the door and Voldemort's face emerged from the flames, seemingly unscathed and alive. She tried to scream but nothing came and as she struggled it was now Bellatrix that held her down. Bellatrix laughed and threw a curse in her face.

Hermione dropped to the ground, blood pouring from her arm. She watched it run down the empty staircase into a pool of blood that surrounded Luna. Hermione tried to get up to go to her, but her muscles didn't work. She cried in frustration. Ron bent over Luna's lifeless form and then looked up angrily and yelled that she had let Luna die. She tried to tell him he was wrong but she still couldn't speak. Suddenly, there was a rumble that shook the stairwell, and the floor dropped beneath her.

She woke up as her body jerked in anticipation of falling. She was covered in a cold sweat, her blankets twisted around her feet but mostly shoved onto the floor. Her breath was still heavy and she was too alert and scared to lie back down. She shuddered at the empty room, wishing she had roommates like she did back in Hogwarts. She flicked on a light, but didn't feel brave enough to leave her bed yet. Groping around on her bed stand, Hermione found a book she had left from a few nights before. It seemed like her sleeping draught had worn off, but it was too late to take another dose so she resolved to read until she felt tired again.

The next time she looked at the clock it was almost five in the morning. She still didn't feel tired enough to fall back asleep. Sighing, she pulled out the vial of sleeping draught she kept by her bed. She figured that taking a draught this late was justified since she needed at least a few hours of sleep to function at school. Taking a dose that allowed her fifteen minutes to prep for school in the morning, she lay back down and waited for the potion to take effect. After ten minutes Hermione got up frustratedly and rummaged around in her potions box. Finding a vial of dreamless sleep, she tapped out a drop onto her finger and licked it. The effects were almost instantaneous. With great effort, she drunkenly placed the vial on the floor before collapsing onto the bedding spread on the floor.

...

Hermione's incessant alarm blurred in and out of her consciousness. Her body felt like it was full of lead, weighing her down to the floor. As well her head was aching, the effort to pull herself into wakefulness was physical pain to her mind. She searched blindly for her alarm but it wasn't within reach. Hermione slipped back into unconsciousness.

"Hermione, your alarm has been going off for the past five minutes," Luna called from the doorway. "Why are you on the floor? Is it more comfortable?"

Hermione merely groaned as she rolled into a sitting position and peaked through the slit of her eye at Luna.

"You look terrible." Luna commented.

"Urg-" Hermione said thickly.

"Something is wrong with you, Hermione? Are you staying home today?"

"No! School is important!" Hermione used that bit of adrenaline to locate her wand on the bedside table. She accio-ed a pepper-up potion and some clothes. After knocking back the potion, an annoying buzzing started up in her head but now she now felt up to only bothered with changing her trousers and slipped the robe over her pyjama top.