Alex used the passageway to get to the Hufflepuff dorms. She paused, before reaching the end before taking a seat on the floor. She still needed to finish enchanting the picture. Illuminating the sconce on the wall, she pulled out the frozen duplicate photos she'd made from one of the pictures in the album her brother gave her. Each duplicate photo captured a frame of the moving picture she owned. She poured the developing solution over the page. The potion stretched over the photos, like a glossy sheen of plastic, and settled. Then they began to merge until she was left with a single moving photograph of herself. She carefully put it away in her bag, and stood to go back to her dorm.
"What happened to just getting a potion from Professor Snape?" Hermione confronted, her hands on her hips.
"How'd you get inside?"
"Megan let me in." She said. "And a good thing too."
"Sorry, I was talking to him for a bit too."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Hermione didn't look convinced. "Okay fine, I will be okay."
"Come on, bedtime. The train leaves at noon and knowing you, you'll probably want to spend an hour at least with Kichiro."
"Yeah."
"Sleep. You're not leaving without spending some healthy quality time with us tomorrow." Hermione stated. "I'm not even going to get to be with you on the train."
"Sorry. Promise I'll wake up early and we can hang out."
"Not too early! You need ten hours of sleep." Alex looked disbelievingly at Hermione. "Okay, fine. Eight." Alex raised a brow. "Six?"
"I love that how naive you are after knowing me for over a year." Alex smiled, almost patronizingly. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Bed! And I put up a warning spell around your bed with the help of Maxine, so when you get out of bed, I wake up. I'm also moving all of your things out of reach so if you wake up, just go back to sleep. You won't have anything else to do."
"Sure." Alex smiled, humoring her friend. One night in bed. She could handle that. Maybe she'd end up sleeping through the night. All she had to do was take dreamless sleep potions.
It was a nice idea though utterly unrealistic, Alex realized as she lay awake in bed. She hadn't gotten any more than five and a half hours. A new record, sure, but still not enough for Hermione. And she had nothing to keep her mind busy. Trying everything to get back to sleep, she eventually gave up and stared at the ceiling. The dorm was utterly silent. Alex drummed her fingers on the side of the bed. Tap, tap, taptaptap, tap. Tap, tap, taptaptap, tap. And repeat. It was too silent. Nothing to keep her distracted. No books, no journals, no mindless conversation. She was alone. Alone. Alone. Alex bolted out of bed, a slight burning making its way up her throat.
"Alex?" Hermione wondered sleepily.
"Bathroom." She rasped, rushing out to the toilets and emptying out bile. A few seconds later, Hermione was behind her, moving her hair out of the way. She gagged a few times before she was sure she was finished, and flushed the toilet. She moved to the sink, as Hermione put a hand on her forehead.
"You might have a fever." She said, grabbing a hand towel. She wet it with cold water, and dabbed at Alex's face.
"I'm fine." Alex snatched the towel. "Go back to sleep. I'm fine."
"Let me help. What's wrong? Headache? Tummy ache? I know you don't want to see Madam Pomfrey. So talk to me."
"Didnt mean to wake you. Go back to bed." Alex grumbled.
