Story - Gilded Silver
Genre - A Wide Range
Preface.A/N - This is a five one-shot piece that I've been working on as an 'encore' for you all, my precious 'Rainbow' fans. That said, let it be noted here that only two of them are Rainbow-compliant, and not all of them are about happy endings. Each one is modeled after a song - for every snapshot, a music accompaniment. I'd been needing some sort of challenge so take this as both an ode to the DracoXHermione coupling and as work in need of criticism - every little bit of feedback counts. I'll be loading them one at a time, and they are in no particular order, though I'll bunch the happy ones at the end. Message/review if you want a full background of the pieces. Still...I hope you all do enjoy.

.this is my winter song to you.

.ingrid michaelson & sara bareilles.

Insomnia was quickly becoming more intimate with her than any sleep sickness had any right to be. It was the fourth night this month, and without anything on hand to send her deep into the land of slumber, Hermione was left awake and alert and very very quiet as she crossed her bedroom to take a seat at the window. She didn't have to look at the clock on her bedside table to know that it was already drawing close to two o'clock. Knowing the time didn't make any difference - if knowledge of time could have lulled her to bed, she would have settled back under the sheets and drawn the comforter over her head. Indeed, she paid the clock no mind.

Instead, she moved slowly across the room. No one would have ever pegged her as the kind who wore actual night-gowns but she enjoyed the freedom of a dress, the way the folds whispered around her knees and shins, and how very warm wool could be during winter. A gift from her Mum, just in time for the December cold, and a thoughtful one that she could not have done without. Daddy had even joked that it could double as a half-twenty-fourth birthday present in the letter he'd written. Hermione had read the letter, caressing the folds and the corners until they were dogeared, but hadn't found a way to send her love back yet. The letter was folded neatly on the bedside table, next to the clock, underneath two letters from Ginny and Luna, and four a piece from both Harry and Ron...all of them were as dog-eared as the one from her parents...none from the pile had been answered.

Hermione dropped down into the love-seat rather heavily. The weight was coming slowly now, but it was coming nonetheless. The weight turned her sluggish when she wasn't paying attention and the weight made her tired. She now had to deliberate her movements, map out of her motions, and ration energy. The doctor had assured her that some women felt the effects of pregnancy more keenly than others. She had simply marveled that a new life could so drain its source, and wondered whether she would have enough energy for the both of them in the coming five months. She supposed that it was a good thing that this place was a small apartment, rather than a house, because everything she needed was close enough. Only a bit of food from the kitchen, only a few supplies from the pantry. Sometimes, she summoned enough will-power to completely finish a load of laundry. More often than not, she was only a few steps away from the bathroom. The apartment was more than enough for her.

She flicked the dark green throw hard - once, twice - and watched it settle over legs and billow around her waist. It was one of the few things she still had from him, and sometimes if she pressed her nose against it, she could imagine his arms around her. She doubted very much that the trick would work right now, however much she needed it to. So she tilted her head against the glass of the windowpane and stared outside. The bedroom faced the empty lots that stood behind the apartment complex, and it afforded her the perfect view of unadulterated snow. It was fascinating, truly, how snow came this time of year and simply dusted everything away. The moonlight played havoc with one's vision at night, brightening the snow until the canvas of the world was nothing but a brilliant white. Just the other night, Hermione had summoned enough energy to make it outside and sit in the whiteness.

The whiteness was calm. The whiteness was blank. The whiteness erased everything.

She'd forgotten her shoes (she could surely imagine him scolding her, for such an action was not very Hermione Granger-like) and couldn't stand the cold for longer than five minutes. Still...the numbness had been a welcome change. She had dipped her hands into soft white flakes almost an inch deep and watched them melt in her too warm hands. When a handful had melted, she'd decided that the cold might be the end of her feet. Minutes later, the tingling that signaled a return of feeling overwhelmed her in the kitchen. To take her mind off of it, she'd slept.

Sleep was beneficial, sleep was helpful, and most of all, it was a welcome break from consciousness.

Tonight, the snow of the lots was smooth and untrammeled. The boys two doors down clearly hadn't been out there to play yet today. The two lone trees beyond were as skinny and bare as they had been all winter, and for some reason, didn't carry as much snow as they should. Hermione thought they looked wrong, somehow, but she could never summon enough interest to articulate just what about them was incorrect. It was just as well since she only had enough interest to pour into single thing at a time (which, unfortunately, sometimes included herself). Cold seeped in from the miniscule gap that marked where the windowpane left off and the windowsill began. She didn't mind the cold now that she was so used to it, and now she was absorbed by the insubstantial clouds her breath made against the temperature.

Insomnia and fatigue were working together to slow Hermione down considerably. Now, the smartest witch of her age could spend hours in her bed, angled toward the window with her incredible mind drifting to and fro. The doctor didn't think that was healthy...Hermione couldn't find it within herself to care too much about it. She joked that her little boy was taking enough energy as it was - could she be blamed for her this newly formed habit? The doctor had then countered with a detailed lecture on the effects of grief on a new mother, one which she had heard many times from him, and Hermione had tuned him out.

She didn't want to listen to him speak.

Her nose, pressed up against the glass, was cold. Her feet were a little chilled as well. Perhaps a small warming charm was in order- Or, well, it would be if she could summon her wand to herself. The thought itself made her tired, and she lost the battle before it began. She was content to huddle underneath the old green throw that reminded her of him, and watch her breath take form in front of her. She was fine with remaining in the window seat for as long as she were awake this time. No doubt she would soon surpass 'tired' and head down the road to 'unbearable fatigue' but Hermione would return to bed later. She might even answer one of those letters full of love, full of sympathy, full of condolences...later. What she wanted now was the cold seeping into the room, the numbness that could cure the loud silence of a new apartment, and perhaps the feeling of snow melting in her hands.

All the rest could wait.

Fin.