It's me! Except I'm not back with a new The Missing Link chapter. This is another request from Nadinne (I don't know why I keep doing this for you) who in turn has made the sketch for this fic's poster.
So I have prose class (it's my last college term!), and my professor was going on about how change in points-of-view don't always have to be explained. I'm applying that lesson here, so good luck everyone.
And most importantly please enjoy.
Seven
Her.
There was once a time when he was hers, and she, his. She who lit up his days. She who had made him feel loved. She who was his remaining reason for living.
Was.
He wasn't always like this: pensive, and lonely. He smiled. There was a time that he smiled everyday, from the moment he woke up with her in his arms, up to the moment she held her close to his body. Time was forgotten, everything else background noise. The time they had sometimes felt like years, sometimes like fleeting moments.
But life was unfair. He took her away from him too soon.
She walks the streets of London, unseen by the human eye. She wanders and wanders, and hopes one day to run into him.
Him.
There was once a time they couldn't stand each other. He who judged her ancestry. He who had made her feel bad about herself. He who nearly pushed her to her limits.
She wandered and wandered. Finally she found him, but barely so. He was no more than a hollow of a man. She couldn't believe what she saw. In that moment time stood still, and she hoped he would see her.
But he couldn't.
He walked straight through her, and time continued to pass.
She fell on her knees with absent tears. Tears she couldn't shed because she didn't exist anymore.
She ran after him, running into people who shivered at the sudden cold. She followed him home, and at home she stayed.
She saw how he's changed, how his hands seemed limp and lifeless, how each move seemed robotic. Like he was moving because he had to, not because he wanted to.
She watched him attempt to cook meals, which worried her and at the same time made her snigger. He was never good in the kitchen. She sighed when he managed to make something remotely edible without setting anything on fire.
You forgot the pepper, she wanted to whisper. Too much salt! Your heat's too low. How long has that been in the fridge? All these words were lost into nothingness as soon as she opened her mouth.
She sat on the front porch and watched him tend the flowers, the Muggle way, just like she taught him. It was the only thing he managed to do with the little passion he had left. He caressed the leaves, pulled out weeds with gusto.
That's it, she remembered her saying the first time he managed to plant a flower correctly without managed. She'd kissed him then. Oh how she missed kissing him.
She watched him even as he took a bath, remembering the times they spent together submerged in water, talking about the mediocre things in life, fighting like children over who created the most bubbles.
He was mostly in his head these days. It felt like his body was on autopilot. He eats when he's hungry, he makes himself busy when he's bored. There are only two instances which make him crawl out from the dark pit of his thoughts: tending the garden and taking a bath.
He remembers every single profound (and meaningless) conversation they had in this tub. The water used to be filled with life. Now it was cold, dull, and gray. He didn't take warm baths anymore. Warmth reminds him of her touch. He must either feel cold or heat, lest he remember her again.
He cups water in his hands and pours it over his head. He does it again and again, pouring over his face, and then his head, then his face again. He needs to wake, he thinks. But what was the point of being awake if he wasn't with her?
She steps in the cold bath and he doesn't notice the change in temperature, nor the minuscule ripples that form. She watches him mildly torture himself with the ice water. He was blaming himself, no doubt. Blaming him for her early demise.
He thinks of her when he is in the water. He thinks over and over what he did wrong. He replays the scene over and over in his head, as each icy droplet trickles down his flesh. He interrogates himself, Why couldn't you protect her? Why didn't you save her?
She cries her absent tears once again as she watched her lover in silent agony. But no, it wasn't his fault. None of it was. Not the battle, not the spell, not her stubbornness. She chose what happened to her.
What she couldn't choose was the consequence it would have. What she neglected was the effect her choice would have on him.
She continues to watch him day by day, daring to come as close to him as possible, literally ghosting her hands over his as they mold the soil. She sits on the front porch, watching him do everything as she taught him, his wand forgotten in the bedside drawer.
He crawls out of the hole, bit by tiny bit, motivated by his heart pumping for no reason, by the coldness that wraps around him every night. He's convinced that it's her. And she's trying to tell him something.
He's frustrated, because she's there, and yet she wasn't anywhere. It was the world's worst paradox, created especially for him. He wasn't alone, but yes of course he was. He felt her, and yet he feels nothing. He hears her in the gust of the wind, and he couldn't make out any words.
One day he wakes up, and he's out of his hole. His face is set, his expression defeated. It was nothing she'd ever seen in the days they were together, and in the days she's followed him.
He took his keys, this time of his own accord. She walks behind him, and sits in the front seat, watching him start the engine, and drive out of the garage. For a moment he thinks hears her giggle, but he shook his head and drove on.
This was a place he didn't like to visit. He'd shut himself away from this world. It was too depressing, he'd decided. It reminded him of her.
This was a place she never thought he would go to. She knew he would never go here. It wasn't in his character.
And yet, here they were, walking side by side, unbeknownst to him. Wisps of his hair were dancing in the wind, the wind which was her breath.
She took his hand, and this time he thinks he feels it, clutching tighter. In his other hand was a picnic basket, and flowers from her garden.
They walk, holding on to each other. One with confidence, the other with hope.
They walk past the hall of engraved stones, of dark marble, and of weeping angels. Until they reach a small marker— a plaque of marble planted on the ground.
She winces. Seeing it was unreal, because she remembers none of it. This was the place she came from, but as soon as she realized where she was, she walked on and never looked back.
Hermione Jean Granger
September 19, 1988 – February 19, 1997
Heroine of the Wizarding World, loved by all
He sits down, surprised by the warmth of fresh tears falling down his face. He opens the basket and takes out two glasses, and a bottle of her favorite white wine, the one they had drunk together on the night they promised themselves to each other.
He thinks of the seven years he had wasted. To think he hated her for something as fickle as blood. Oh how horrid that day was, when their blood spilled at the same time, and he saw that hers was no different from his.
She thinks of the seven months they had: their short amount of forever. To think it all began with an accident. An accident from which they never looked back.
He vaguely remembers what he'd done seven weeks after they buried her. He remembers breaking everything he got his hands on. Until he laid his hands on a framed picture of them. It was a Muggle thing: replaceable, and one hundred percent breakable. And yet, he instead broke down in tears.
She recalls the last seven days. It has been that long since she found him. As he pours the wine in the two glasses, she smiles. She feels her heart swell. She feels herself fading.
Not yet.
This was the myth she believed. If you die unexpectedly, you had a period of time to fix whatever mess you left in the world. After that, you fade.
This was the moment she fixes him.
"I miss you," he whispers, tracing his fingers over the letters of her name.
I miss you too, she tries to say. But she is lost after she opens her mouth.
The wind whispers her love to him one last time.