Isn't, Aren't, Won't
By Nyx
*
Baby, lay your head on my lap one more time
Tell me you belong to me
Baby, say that it's all gonna be all right
I believe that it isn't
*
The common room is dark and dingy this Christmas Eve, not sparkling and cheery with holiday happiness as it usually is. I sit back in my chair, staring at the embers that once made a fire and not quite believing that this has come to pass. My father... but I can't think about my father. It's too painful. Even my memories are tarnished, this night.
I knew, when I signed up to stay at Hogwarts for the winter holidays, that I was signing a death-order. The Dark Lord would attack, and he would attack at Christmas. We all knew this fact; the professors were simply too tired of running to shut down the school. Stay, they said, and help us fight. Risk your life if you wish, but none will fault you if you leave on the Hogwarts Express. Hogsmeade Station, December tenth, same as always.
Except it wasn't. There was no holly and pine bedecking the Express, and Hogsmeade was deserted.
She enters the room as I ruminate on the differences this Christmas, and sits cross-legged on the floor. She's beautiful; she always was, in my mind if in nobody else's. I wouldn't wish her slightly pudgy face into sharp, sleek lines for anything, and though she's short she's perfect that way. I get out of my chair and sit next to her, shuddering at the frozen touch of the stone. Reaching out to brush a lock of hair out of my eyes, her fingers graze my forehead - they're cold too. She tells me I'm burning up. I joke. See what she does to me?
But tonight is not a night for joking, no matter how much joking and teasing can help me cope. Her fingers entangle in my hair and she lays my head down on her knees as though I were a little boy. I know that she only stayed at Hogwarts because of me, and I can't help feeling grateful. I didn't have anywhere else to go, really. Tell me we're going to be okay, she implores me, and I can't. I just... can't. Because we aren't.
She cradles me as she would a baby, her tears mixing with mine, and we fall asleep like that. If the Dark Lord finds us, I don't know it.
*finis*
Note: I was actually thinking of Draco and Pansy Parkinson while I wrote this. Did I fool you guys into thinking Hermione/Harry? The idea is that *gasp* Voldemort returns to power, but Draco's father returns to him too. Draco's mother didn't like the idea in the first place and starts doping herself up on Valium or the wizard equivalent (or kills herself, or becomes an alcoholic, or something that makes home a non-home), and as about a zillion people have pointed out, I don't think that Draco is inherently evil. So he stays at Hogwarts when everyone else is gone, and Pansy stays with him... wouldn't it be interesting if the same scene was occuring in the Gryffindor common room? Of course, you can decide if the people were Harry and Hermione, Draco/Pansy, or maybe Ron/Hermione... I could explain away any of a million pairings.
Disclaimer: Everything but the plot and the quote belongs to J.K. Rowling. The quote belongs to Fiona Apple, from her song "On the Bound" from the "When The Pawn..." CD.
