She was everywhere. Draco Malfoy could turn past any corner he wanted, but she was always there. The mane of brown hair. The shrill, high, bossy, yet somehow endearing voice. The messy clothes she somehow managed to look attractive in. The slim physique always credited to the years on the run. The way she would treat him like a stranger. The way she appeared in different outfits in different scenarios, some that were mere seconds apart. With men she dated before, or were her best friends. Draco ran into an alley in the middle of Hogsmeade, heart pounding in horror and fear – but there. A few feet in front of him. A woman with brown hair intensely snogging with a man with violent ginger hair. Careful not to be noticed, Draco slunk back onto the main street and walked into Honeydukes.
He had just realized: it was snowing.
But she was there again; a brunette that looked far too much like Hermione Granger to be anyone else, choosing peppermints that Hermione Granger had an abnormal obsession with. This time, she was alone, in a huge cloak that seemed twice her size. Like the cloak belonged to her boyfriend. Draco Malfoy stifled his own yell and ran out of the shop, back into the windy, freezing cold of Christmastime Hogsmeade. He turned his head. There she was again – a brunette with her hair tied up, walking beside a man with messy black hair and, Draco would guess, glasses and a scar on his forehead.
He spun around, attempting to find a way out of this endless loop of torment. Breaking into a sprint that attracted the eyes of many passersby, Malfoy fled for the carriages that would lead him back to Hogwarts, and hopefully ridding himself of the numerous Granger lookalikes.
Too late. He looked at the carriage taking off before him, and his heart sunk into his stomach. A petite brunette woman holding hands and lying on the shoulder of a burly man. Bulgarian, Draco would bet. And the best Seeker of his age. "Just stop," he whispered to himself, praying silently to every deity he knew existed. "Please. I shouldn't have let her go but… please… please stop torturing me."
It was snowing.
And she kept appearing. In class, in his dorms, in the hallway, during meals, in the library, during detention with McGonagall. Everywhere he looked, Draco Malfoy could only see Hermione Granger. He thought it was a joke at first. When it didn't stop after a day, he was annoyed. When it didn't stop for a week, he was extremely mad. When it didn't stop for a fortnight, he was nervous. When it didn't stop for a month, the ever-so-proud Malfoy was freaked out.
When it didn't stop for a whole term… Malfoy was traumatized and on the verge of insanity. "Why?" he would persist. "Why would anyone…" He cried in bed sometimes, when the image of Granger popped into his dreams. She just wouldn't leave him alone.
"Good morning…"
Draco woke up to a strangely familiar voice. He blinked away his drowsiness and yelled in shock when he saw a cluster of brown hair beside him, and its owner's bright eyes curiously observing his own.
"Granger!" he reached out to touch her, but she wasn't there anymore. It was almost like he lost her to the clutches of the Weasel again. His heart broke once more. But his eyes flew open.
Draco sighed. He had been dreaming. Thank goodness. Though not exactly a nightmare, this dream had been haunting him for years. He still couldn't get over the unsettling feeling in his stomach after he woke up.
"Good morning…" real-life Hermione cooed in an eerily similar way as dream-Hermione. Draco gulped and he felt sweat condense on his palms. His hair stood up on end. His breathing became quick and shallow.
"Hello, Hermione," Draco forced out his words and tried summoning a smile for his wife. He was quite sure he had failed – miserably. "Breakfast?"
The woman nodded, smiling. But it felt fake to him – like the Artificial Intelligence things Hermione had once told him about. Mechanical. Emotionless.
Draco stood up and proceeded to the dining room, hoping that his misgivings would soon fly away into the billowing snowstorm outside the manor. He failed to remember that he was told – quite expressly – by the elves that it would be a sunny day. Draco chose to wallow in his ocean of despair. Were the dreams not enough? Had they come to haunt his real life as well?
"Breakfast," Hermione set the plates down with a loud clattering noise, very uncharacteristic for her. But when Draco turned to face the brunette, he noticed something rather peculiar about the portraits and painting that usually framed the Malfoy ancestors. Their hair had turned brown. Their eyes changed color. Their face became softer – until Draco was staring into a hall of Hermione's faces.
Behind his back, Hermione raised her wand, and aimed it at her beloved husband's back, a small, humorless smile adorning her face. A green light shot out of the enchanted piece of wood. "Good morning," she uttered as she watched Draco's body crumple at her feet.
It was snowing outside.