Black, white, and shades of grey. Everything was black and white. Everyone knew that, you only saw color once you met your soul mate. Based on a prompt from Tumblr.
"Have you seen a toad? A boy named Neville has lost one." Hermione asked for what seemed like the millionth time in the past few minutes. She was nearing the opposite end of the train and looked about glumly. She hated all of the grey around here, she so badly wanted to see in color.
She heard the operator say that they would be arriving soon and slowly made her way back to her compartment and sat with a bunch of grey children like her. She asked if any of them saw color, they all answered no.
She thought about what her parents had always told her about colors, and her.
"Hermione, my dear Hermione, you are so beautiful." Her mother had nearly cried as they prepared for a school play, she was a princess.
"All I see is a grey blob. And there is grey over there, another grey over here. All I see is grey." She pouted sadly.
"Hermione, you will see color someday, I know you will, and your soul mate will think your beautiful." Her mother spoke sternly.
"How can something so grey be pretty?" she asked stubbornly as she cast her eyes down.
"You are not grey Hermione, you only see it. Your eyes are a pretty amber, your hair is auburn, pretty pink skin. You are full of colors."
"I don't even know what those colors are mom." She stressed.
"You will someday dear, you will."
Hermione stood up and started off the train with the other students, looking in awe at the large man who was leading them towards the boats.
All the first years were crowded around and kept bumping into each other and somewhere among the masses of students, it happened.
She had tripped on her way to the boats after someone bumped into her and she had fallen. It took a moment before she looked up and gasped as she no longer saw grey, except for what was supposed to be.
She smiled with glee as she looked around at all the colors assaulting her eyes. Before she stood and looked through the crowd, trying to find her soul mate, to no avail. She climbed into one of the boats and continued to look around in awe.
She would find him later, hopefully they were in the same house.
The Battle of Hogwarts
Curses, jinxes, and charms kept whizzing past her, and she threw them back, though hit her mark. She had to find him, she had to know who he was, he was her soul mate and she didn't even know who he was. She followed where the color seemed to be coming from, she ran as fast as she could into the forbidden forest.
She could hear pained groans and a hard snarling voice.
"You disgraced us, and to think you nearly stayed with them." The voice spit out. Hermione peaked out from behind her tree, she saw the straggly platinum blonde hair against the black robe, she saw a smaller version of the man whose back was turned to her on the ground and propped up against one of the old trees with his father's wand to his throat.
"My soul mate was there." Draco gasped out as he stared fearfully up at his father.
"Malfoy's don't have soul mates." Lucius scoffed.
"She radiated color father!" Draco yelled before wincing again and covering his left forearm with his right hand. It was only then that Hermione saw that it looked as if his arm had been gouged out, the place where the dark mark had been was gone. Except for thick dark red-purple blood.
"Who is your soul mate?" his father asked threating.
"If I say you'll kill her." Draco choaked out before Lucius dragged him up by his platinum hair.
"You're right, I will. Seems the fates are always against the Malfoy's, they try to put us with mudbloods. And always the one we have the greatest rivalry with. Miss Granger is the one isn't she." He stated menacingly.
Hermione's eyes widened before her mind immediately started working on the points that would logically point to Malfoy being her soul mate.
Second year, when he first called her a mudblood, the verbal sparring between the group and as long as he was within a few feet of her, the colors brightened.
Third year when she punched him, at the physical contact the colors seemed to spark to life.
Fourth year, Draco was sitting at the Gryffindor table for some reason or another with his lackey's and doing homework. The colors seemed to brighten and she flicked her eyes up to see him watching her, she felt Ron shift up beside her and he ducked his head back to his papers
At the yule ball, she had felt eyes on her from the corner of the room the Slytherin's had taken up.
He stayed away fifth and sixth year, especially after the bathroom incident with Harry and with his father in Azkaban.
This year neither of them had been in school, the only contact she had had was at the manor, throughout the ordeal of Bellatrix torturing her, when she had caught sight of him, he seemed to want to throw up.
"No father, it isn't Granger." Draco choaked the lie out.
"No use trying to protect her. She's as good as dead either way. And so are you Draco." Lucius growled as he lifted his wand.
"Expelliarmus!" Hermione cried and caught Lucius' wand when it went flying back to her.
"Miss Granger. How long have you been spying?" he snarled as he turned, though held his son in between himself and her. Draco looked at her with worried eyes.
She held her wand, pointed towards the two men, her hand was trembling slightly.
"Long enough I see. You won't hurt Draco." Lucius sneered. "You Gryffindor's were always so weak, you have to save everyone, stupid should be your motto, not courage." He spat.
"You're wrong." Hermione stated. "You're a bitter old man because you don't know what it is to see color, to be on the side that everyone is rooting for, you don't know what it is to have people you love being torn away from you, you are probably the most pathetic human being I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. Do you have anything to protect besides yourself?" she cried.
"I have nothing to protect!" Lucius yelled, in his anger, he didn't notice he had loosened his grip on his son, who immediately tore himself away and dived towards Hermione as she put the man in a full body bind.
She knelt down to Draco's side and started healing his arm, noticing the color was returning.
"I lied to him."
"I know Draco."
He looked up at her in shock, she gave him a kind smile and pushed his hair back and out of his eyes.
Ten years later
Hermione was humming as she stood in front of the kitchen counter cutting up vegetables for dinner, she winced and hurried to the sink when she accidently cut her finger, she ran it under the water and closed her eyes before sighing softly, only for her to go into shock when she opened her eyes.
She looked at the liquid coming out of her finger, it was supposed to be red, not grey. Her hand was grey, she looked around. What happened to the color? She hurried through the house frantically, trying to find a single spot of color.
Tears blurred her grey, grey, grey vision as she could find nothing. What happened?
She got an answer not long later. Harry popped into the house. His eyes were grey, his skin was grey, everything was grey and she didn't understand why. Nor did she understand why Harry had tears running down his cheeks.
"Harry what's going on?" she asked desperately as she stood straight and hurried to him.
"I'm sorry Hermione, so sorry. I couldn't get there in time, I couldn't stop it." He rambled to her as he clutched her against him.
"Harry Potter you tell me what's going on!" she nearly screamed as she pushed herself away from him.
"He's gone."
She blinked at him.
"I'm so sorry Hermione, I couldn't save him. Draco was ahead of me, he took the blast." His voice was broken, though it was nothing compared to the sound of her heart shattering into millions of pieces.
She heard the most broken wail off in the distance, she placed a hand against her lips and figured out the broken sound came from her.
Harry caught her as she sunk to the floor, and tried to hold Hermione together.
"Mommy? Uncle Harry? What's wrong?" she looked over at her daughter, and all she saw was grey.
"Is it the baby? Is he ok?" Rose rushed forward and placed a gentle hand over her mother's swollen belly. Hermione reached forward and grabbed her daughter, bawling as she tried to explain to the little girl that her daddy wasn't coming home.