Rapid, pounding footsteps. Harsh, labored breathing. The feeling of knives slicing her lungs. An image of a tousle-haired, haggard man swam into Hermione's consciousness. "Draco," she breathed, and her hand, a slim, white hand, automatically flung out to protect him. Block him from what? Hermione never remembered until too late. Then: a wand, tipped with silver and held by a deathly paled hand. Flashes of light, iridescent yet deadly. That one jinx: "Petrificus Totalus!" and Draco Malfoy plunged, over the silver railings, to his death into the sea.
"Come back-!" That stood out from the rest of her memory, a scream that continued on and on and on until Hermione could no longer take it –
"NOO!" Eyes that popped open every night. Hermione blinked. Where was she? She took in her clenched fists, ivory against the dark blanket. The collar of her shirt, limp with sweat, sticking uncomfortably to her neck. Why was she awake? Snippets of the dream came back to her, bit by bit. Her thoughts wandered to Malfoy, like it always did.
The sad thing was, he was not killed by a Killing Curse, the green one. He was body-bound at the exact moment when balance would fail him, so he would topple over into the inky foam. A man that could not swim drowned, of course. And the witch that murdered Malfoy? She was crafty, shrewd like no other. She did not want a murder charge upon herself. No, she would claim no homicide, only jinxes for self-defense.
Hermione knew, not because from her own recollections. She did not remember trials of any sort. Not any funerals, either. She knew because of the documents Harry brought to her, acquired by his white name. They, with Ron, pored over the few parchments under the name of Draco Malfoy. She remembered the nights when she cried herself to sleep in her friends' arms, heartbroken over some forgotten fact. But the next day, the knowledge evaded her again. She knew that her brain did not want her to remember. Yet she wanted to know. Harry and Ron understood. They brought the documents, and each time, Hermione saw its dog-eared pages. And she recalled everything. Each time, her hands, white and trembling, remembered the touch of the coarse paper, but she would forget the next day.
Many times, by the window, Hermione Granger asked herself, who was the murderess? The woman without a face. Hermione could not pinpoint any exact details of the woman, not the color of her eyes, not the curve of her nose, but she felt like she knew the witch. In the past, Hermione and the woman knew each other. But she could never be sure. Who killed Draco Malfoy?
Sometimes, her flawed memory, her used-up, poor brain would try to help. When she walked down the bustling streets, a person walking by would grab her attention. Her breathing would hitch. Heart pounding, fists clenching. Then she knew, justknew somehow, that the person was a reminder of the murderess. She tried to bring their image into her memory, but nothing stuck. By the time she got home, the person's face had dissolved into nothingness.
Hermione, unwavering in her decision to uncover the woman's identity, sketched down whatever remained in her memory. Sometimes, it was the hair. Sometimes, it was the eyes. Sometimes, no matter how hard she tried, the image completely disappeared from her memory, like a wand dropped into the sea. It was like preserving seawater with a colander, and Hermione lived with the knowledge that her memory would forever be marred with gaping holes.
Her notebooks were covered with drawings: one buzz-cut head; another, long, luscious waves cascading down a back. Countless eyes of different colors. It was almost impossible to determine the features of the woman, because of the variety her brain picked out for her. Yet one astonishing detail stayed without fail, and it wasn't until about half a year after she started her quest did she notice the slim, white hands.
It was a May day. The sun glowed with the promise of a sunny summer, and the birds sang. It was the day when Hermione had one of the attacks at a friend's house. Hermione attended a beach party. She was admiring The Bathers by Picasso with a drink in her hand. She was riveted by the sensuous curves of the bathers, the sun-kissed skins of the women. Her gaze fell on the woman in the middle, the one that stood out against the brownish skin tones of her companions. She did not know it, but her eyes had unconsciously avoided looking at that particular woman, whose pale, flawless limbs were exposed to the sun's rays. Then Hermione's breathing hitched. Heart pounding, fist clenching. Liquid sloshing in the glass... Feet slapping against the floor.
Wait a minute. That was the children playing tag on the front porch. Hermione exhaled, feeling the stickiness of the Virgin Mary in her hand. She worried about her grip of reality.
Suddenly, a hand landed on her forearm, a white, slim hand. It was cold, cold as death, cold as the wand tipped with silver. Hermione stared down, transfixed, horrified. She noticed the hue of the foreign hand matched the hue of her own, deathly pale arms. Had she been noticing that for a while, but her stubborn brain, bent on protecting her, chose to disregard the similarity?
"'Ermione?" She lifted her eyes, wide like a deer caught in the headlights. Her fright must have been obvious, and the wife of her friend, whose hand was on her arm, was immediately all over her, comforting, reassuring.
Many times like this, she was astonished by the similarities of the murderess and herself.
After the first time reviewing the documents, Ron made her carve out words on a smooth rock. I, Hermione Jean Granger, did not kill Draco Malfoy. He made her put the rock by her bedside drawers, so she would not lose her sanity.
"I know you," Ron had murmured, "I know you would not rest until you've found that bitch." He looked away then, since his voice had cracked and his eyes were dewy. "But she was a whole lot like you. How will you convince yourself that you didn't kill Malfoy?"
"How do you know I didn't?" She was scared.
Ron and Harry gripped her arms fast. "Never think like that. The document right here says that. We say that. All the people that know you say that."
Harry also made her write sometime on a piece of paper, a paper that she faintly remembered writing, then hurriedly ripped apart and watched as it disintegrated into ashes.
Times like this, she did not want to believe in the reality. Her guilt ate at her. Survivor's guilt, they call it. She knew better. It was guilt because Hermione did not finish off the woman. Draco would do it, if their roles were reversed.
That night, she relived the last moments of Draco Malfoy's life, but this time, it was more of an emotional quality. The security she felt, the feeling of another human being's hand pressed against her ribcage. How scattered she felt, as her bare feet slapped the steel floor, in the middle of a chase. Her pale, white hand gripping her trust-worthy wand, the wand she trusted to protect Draco Malfoy. Yet all of it had to end, she knew, as she dodged yet another flash of light. She could feel the fear radiating off the man running by her. The knowledge that he would soon be dead spurred the Hermione in the dream, but the woman was too quick. "Petrificus Totalus!" A scream that went on and on and on and on…
It was always like that. The scream that woke her up after every nightmare – it was her own. But scream as she might, nothing would come back to her, only the ghost of a hand on her heart, a hand that was long gone.
Inspired on Memorial Weekend. Did you pick up any hints?
Memento (2000) starring Guy Pearce
The Bathers by Picasso