Disclaimer: This fanfiction is based upon the works of J. K. Rowling, including all characters and places named, and no profit is being made.
A Dream, Upon Waking
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?
"Ode to a Nightingale" John Keats 1819
Some nights Hermione dreams of flying. Not flight on a broomstick or Buckbeak; true flying with only the air and the sun and the clouds. When she has these dreams, she can speak to the birds and the wind sings her lullabies as it carries her along its currents. When Hermione flies in her dreams, she looks down at the ground far, far below her and forgets to be afraid.
On nights after her flying dreams, Hermione looks over at Ron and Harry sleeping on the floor of some dirty shack or in a tent or in a field and smiles and thinks that maybe they can really do this. That maybe they are not too young and rash as everyone seems to think that they are. She leans over and shakes Ron awake before moving on to Harry, her mind already filled with plans and information and hopes and dreams.
Some nights Luna dreams of singing. Her logical Ravenclaw side advises her that she should not be able to remember, but her dreaming self knows the truth. Even though she can never recall the words when she wakes, the hauntingly familiar tune follows her through her dream world where a slightly hazy woman with rough edges and a face made up of old yearbook and wedding photos holds her close and rocks her, singing children's songs filled with strange and marvelous creatures.
Upon waking from this dream, Luna can often be found under a tree by the lake or ensconced in one of the squishy blue chairs in the common room with a particularly dreamy expression on her face and her wand tucked behind her ear, book open and forgotten on her lap, humming softly under her breath a tune long forgotten.
Ginny dreams of nothing and silence and dark places filled with the muffled sounds of far-away voices and a steady deep thump like the sound of a drum. Ginny remembers the sound and the oneness and the knowledge that she is the single most important being in one person's life, closer to their heart than any other.
On mornings after this dream, Ginny turns off her alarm clock and burrows down in her warm duvet trying to recapture, if only for a moment, the peace of a mother's womb.
Fleur dreams of sunlight filtering through clean windows and the fluting sounds of her mother tongue. She dreams of sisters and mothers and love and familiarity and the closeness and surety of knowing another's thoughts as well as her own.
Upon waking, she reaches up and traces the puckered skin of Bills scars with her pale, flawless fingers and imagines the future, when she will have her own clean windows and sunlight and speech and laughter.
Narcissa dreams the remembrance of voices. Andromeda's hearty laughter as a chocolate frog tries to make a quick getaway. Bella's quiet speech as she brushes her hair in the day of her wedding, dark eyes shining with the hope of happiness. The shouts, childlike and innocent, of her son, when outside with Niffy on a warm spring day. In these dreams, Narcissa is not peering surreptitiously through her lace edged curtain hoping for a glance of pale hair among the roses. In this dream they are all together, and Andy and Draco are playing a clapping game on the grass while she and Bella sip their tea and reminisce.
Narcissa wakes in the dead of night and rolls over in the large, empty bed with its beautiful silk sheets and feather pillows and wonders how it came to this as her arms stretch wide to touch nothing but moonlight and air.
Minerva does not dream now. Dreams are the luxury of the young. Morpheus will not deign to visit her now, leaving her for his darker brother Phobetor. She knows that this is not what he would have wanted for her, knows how fond he was of dreaming. She promises his spectre that if she somehow lives through what is coming, she will set aside a few days and do nothing but sleep. It is simply too difficult to dream with the memory of flames in front of her eyes.