Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: The idea is from worldpeace's Back To Life challenge/bunny. The character isn't named in this chapter, but that will be dealt with in the next one.
The last time she had seen a flash of light, it had been green, and she had only glimpsed it before falling into what she referred to as The Void. All she knew about that incident was that she had died, and now she had been alone for an unusual length of time. This was NOT how she had pictured the afterlife at all.
She was startled when a white light flashed before her eyes, but she wasn't worried. She decided that it could only mean something good was happening, since she was already dead and alone and there wasn't much else that COULD happen to her. But she never expected it to end up the way it did, never expected anything that was going to happen to her.
Next thing she knew, she was on a hill, looking down on a village that seemed vaguely familiar. Her first thought was that it was a dream and her second was that she was now a ghost, but both of those were dashed when it started to rain. And oh, how it rained! It was not a rainstorm so much as what is properly referred to as a torrential downpour, which equals a thunderstorm and heavy rain mixed together in a way that makes one feel sorry for any person stuck outside in one.
At this moment, she realized that she was, in fact, human again. "Yes!" she screamed, realizing that she had just had a minor miracle happen to her. Rain had never seemed like such a beautiful thing in her mind before, and the thought of getting to do at least most of the things she'd never managed to do made her happier than anything else could.
Meanwhile, in a small house in the village, three young women were having tea and trying to make sense of everything. "Odd how it's raining like this in June," one of them said. She had crimson hair and was the hostess of this little gathering of friends.
"It just means that something's about to happen," the second woman said. She resembled nothing quite so much as a willow tree, with haunting eyes and pale hair. Out of all of them, she was the least reasonable one under normal circumstances.
"No it doesn't, Luna," the third one snapped. "It just means anyone with a garden isn't going to have much of one after this." This woman had mouse-brown hair and was, to balance out her friend, TOO reasonable at times, especially in this case.
"Blast!" the one called Luna exclaimed. "There goes my rosebush!" She was unusually attached to a rosebush that she had planted in a box on the fire escape of her flat, but neither of the others dared question her about it.
"Your rosebush will be fine," the first woman said in an attempt to console her friend. "Your flat's on the fourth floor of a ten-floor building, which means the rain will have to go through six other fire escapes before it gets to yours. Hermione, could you fetch some more tea?"
The third woman disappeared for a second and then came back with another pot of tea. "It almost makes sense that, since we're stuck in a storm, we're at your house, Ginny," she said as she handed her friends the tea.
A sharp knock at the door startled them. Little did they know how much things were about to change for them as well.