House: Slytherin
Category: Drabble.
Prompts: "No, no… keep going… I want to see where this ends up," [Speech]
Word count: 500 (Excluding Author's Note, but including entire Entry and Title)
Warning: This is an AU (Alternate Universe) piece. I would like to point out that Hermione is using magic in this piece and that is exists in this world, too.
Characters: Hermione Granger; Draco Malfoy.
Summary: For Hermione Granger, the Opal Spirit of the circus she works for, wonder will never be enough, and when a stranger happens to walks in and accidentally watches her practice, she realizes that wonder has always been there to pick her up when she's fallen.
Author's Note: If anyone has watched The Greatest Showman, y'all will know what inspired this drabble. It is by no means a crossover, but a rare adaptation of it. I loved the movie so much that I went out and bought the soundtrack the other day (which is rare because I never buy soundtracks for movies). :) If you'd be so kind to review, please do. Send me a PM and we can fangirl over HP and TGS 3 Totally okay with either!
As always, enjoy
-Carolare Scarletus
.~.
Never Enough
.~.
As she stood in the middle of the circular stadium, bathed in nothing but a purplish light, Hermione Granger could hear the distant cries of day long lost. She had been at the top of her career; she'd been known as the Opal Spirit, the only one in her art (and, perhaps the entire world) who could captivate an audience with her colorful spectacle. If it hadn't been for her governor, she wouldn't have had the chance to get out of her corner. Never in her life did she believe she held the talent to drawn in admirers as she had done in the past. Now, she didn't believe she'd be able to do it one last time until she summoned a glowing strand of silk and tried.
Hermione threw herself into the air, twirled, and did a somersault before spinning around the thick silk, coming to rest in the middle of the open area. She looked down, breathing heavily. With one look around the empty tent, she found her place- this is where her home was, soaring in the sky. To hell to the people who hated her and to hell to the accident who almost prevented her from coming back. This is where she was meant to be.
Jutting her chest out, she let the ribbon guide her down. It had wrapped itself around her torso, and now she was free falling downward. Anyone who'd watched her performances now would shriek; she hadn't shared this with anyone, and she knew it would've terrified them if they had. She spun uncontrollably until her feet brushed against solid ground once more, where she extended her left leg out and leaned into it, allowing her right leg to point in the opposite direction.
When she looked up, she gasped.
A strange man had been watching her.
"Forgive me. I don't know what came over me," Hermione said, scrambling to collect herself. It was foolish to think that anyone would still be enthralled by her talent, much less receptive to its mystic appeal. But, one look in her admirer's eyes said differently. It spoke of awe and wonder.
"No, no… keep going… I want to see where this ends up," he said, stepping away to take a look at the bigger picture. "I'm the one who should be apologizing. I didn't mean to intrude."
Hermione presented him with a gentle smile. Then, completely against her better judgement, she looked at the pinstriped-clothed man and said," This isn't a private affair. I don't perform for free, you know."
"I'll pay anything," he conjured up his wallet, and when he was about to pull a few bills from it, Hermione stopped him. Her hand dwarfed his larger one.
She looked up. "Not with money."
"Then, with what?"
Hermione thought for a moment. She looked into his stormy grey eyes, breathing the first word that came to mind.
"Your wonder," she told him because, in her mind, it would never be enough.
~Fin~