HP:Rise

The library was Hermione's sanctuary, a place of order and answers. But for the past month, it had become a place of frustrating, silent questions. She sat at a secluded table, a sheet of parchment in front of her, not for homework, but for her own, secret project.

It was a timeline.

On one side, she had meticulously detailed Harry's academic and personal habits from the previous year. His essay grades (mostly Exceeds Expectations, with the Outstandings in DADA), his Quidditch schedule, his known detentions, even notes on his handwriting, which had been a slightly messy, hurried scrawl. On the other side was this year. The change was stark, illogical. His grades were now uniformly Outstanding. His spellwork, as she had witnessed firsthand, was far beyond everyone in their year. His handwriting was now a cleaner, more controlled script. And his entire demeanor had shifted.

She had noted it all down in her neat, precise script: Began a rigorous physical training routine. Posture has improved. Increased focus and discipline. Emotional responses are more controlled and less impulsive.

She had tried to find a logical explanation. Had he found a book? She'd cross-referenced every text he'd ever checked out of the library. Nothing. Was a professor giving him private tutoring? She had subtly asked Flitwick and McGonagall, both of whom praised his newfound dedication but gave no indication of special treatment beyond the dueling lesson. She had even considered the possibility of a magical artifact, spending a week poring over texts about objects that could enhance intelligence or power, but found only dark, dangerous items that didn't fit the changes she was seeing.

She was a logician. She believed in cause and effect. But here, the effect was a monumental, personality-altering leap in power and discipline, and the cause was… nothing. A complete blank. It was like trying to solve an equation where a variable was missing, and the absence of that variable made the entire problem unsolvable.

Her worry had started as a small, quiet hum, but it had grown into a constant, gnawing anxiety. This wasn't just Harry getting better at magic. This was Harry becoming someone else, and he was doing it alone.

She decided on a direct approach.

She found him in the common room a few days later, sitting by the fire, reading one of the unmarked books he now favored. She sat down across from him, her heart thumping with a nervous rhythm.

"Harry," she began, her voice steadier than she felt. "It's not just your spellwork. You've changed. You're different this year. Is everything alright?"

He looked up from his book, his eyes calm and clear. There was no flicker of surprise, no defensiveness. He simply considered her question for a moment before closing the book.

"I'm just taking my studies more seriously, Hermione," he said, his voice even and reasonable. "After everything that's happened—the Chamber, Sirius, Voldemort—I can't afford not to. I have to be ready."

The answer was a perfect, logical wall. It was so sensible that she couldn't argue with it. But it was a deflection, a carefully constructed piece of misdirection that told her nothing while sounding like it explained everything. He was treating her not as a friend to confide in, but as a problem to be managed.

"Of course," she said, the words feeling like ash in her mouth. "That makes sense."

The conversation was over. The wall remained. Later that evening, Ron found her staring into the fire, her books forgotten. He didn't ask what was wrong—he'd seen her talk to Harry. Instead, he just sat down in the armchair next to hers, pulling out his own Transfiguration homework. He didn't say a word, but the quiet, steady presence was a comfort, a silent acknowledgment that she wasn't the only one who felt the growing distance.

From that day on, the pressure she put on herself became immense. The end-of-year exams were approaching, and the need to maintain her top spot—a core part of her identity—now felt like a desperate battle. She saw Harry's effortless excellence in every class, and it pushed her to study harder, to stay up later, to be better.

On top of that was her secret, fruitless investigation. She felt a crushing responsibility to figure out what was happening with Harry, to protect him from whatever secret he was keeping. To fit it all in, she began to rely on the Time-Turner for more than just her classes. An extra hour after dinner for Arithmancy revision. The days began to blur, each one a 26-hour marathon of classes, homework, and secret research.

Her world began to shrink, the vibrant colors of Hogwarts fading to the grey of parchment and the dull brown of book bindings. The extra hours were a debt her body was paying with interest. A constant, bone-deep weariness settled in. One day, a first-year asked her for the password to the common room, and for a terrifying, blank moment, she couldn't remember it. Her mind, stretched across too many timelines, was a chaotic jumble of Arithmancy charts and theories about Harry's transformation. She finally stammered it out, but the incident left her shaken.

Ron noticed. He started leaving pumpkin pasties or sandwiches beside her books in the common room, knowing she'd likely forgotten to eat. She'd find them hours later, cold, but the gesture left a warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with magic.

At dinner in the Great Hall, the food tasted like cardboard. She'd push peas around her plate, her gaze fixed on Harry at the other end of the table. He looked so calm, so strong, his posture perfect, occasionally sharing a quiet word with Neville. He seemed to exist in a bubble of serene focus, a world away from the frantic, buzzing anxiety that now consumed her. Every ounce of his newfound strength seemed to highlight her own growing exhaustion.

It came to a head late one night, a week before exams. The library was silent save for the frantic scratching of her quill and the frantic thrumming of her own pulse. She was surrounded by towering stacks of books, living in an hour she had stolen from the night, trying to decipher a complex Arithmancy equation while her mind simultaneously raced with theories about Harry.

The numbers on the page began to blur at the edges. The familiar scent of old parchment seemed thick and suffocating, clogging her throat. A dull, persistent throb started behind her eyes, a tiny hammer tapping against her skull with every beat of her heart. She blinked hard, trying to force the world back into focus. The words swam, refusing to stay still. Just one more chapter, she told herself, her hand trembling as she reached for another heavy tome. I just need to figure this out…

The sounds of the library began to warp, the gentle rustle of a turning page sounding like a roar, the distant hoot of an owl like a scream. The candlelight seemed to flare, then shrink to a pinprick, the shadows in the alcove stretching and twisting like living things. A wave of dizziness washed over her, and she gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. Her own breathing sounded loud and ragged in her ears.

Her last conscious thoughts were not a single, clear question, but a chaotic, collapsing jumble of everything that was breaking her.

The timeline… the variable is missing… exams, have to be ready… another hour, just one more turn… need to be better… Harry, why won't you just…

And then, everything went black.