Hey, peoples of the world. So, I origianlly intended this fan-fiction to be a one-shot. As in, it was done. But then, this story came to mind while I was reading the most beautiful book in the world, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I'm serious, it's better than anything I've ever read (including Harry Potter :D). I love the way the author writes, and I love the way he talks about colours. His language is so meaningful and lovely, it's poetic. With that writing style in mind, I wrote this. It is kind of drabblish, and of course it's not nearly as good as both The Book Thief or Harry Potter, but I think it's okay. Of course, it's not my point of view that matters, it's yours. Have fun!
If I Had Known
Night was quiet, but it was not peace. It was stillness, but it was not lack of movement. It was dark, but the stars smouldered the velvet sky above the Burrow.
Hermione, sleeping on a spare mattress on the floor of Ginny's room, shook violently. Dreams were disturbing. They bring half-hoped, half-banished wishes and half-justified, half-irrational fears into the light. And when you've been forced to look them in the eye, the dreams make the wishes shrivel and die, and the fears expand inside your chest.
The fears break your ribcage. They suffocate your lungs. They strangle your heart.
Until you wake up, you have no control.
Instead of pictures, colours washed through Hermione's dreams. She could smell them. She could taste them, the flavour seeping through and burning her mouth. Wholesome greens and shining gold and passionate red. Understanding browns and innocent silvers and strong yellow. A whole spectrum. And then more.
Knowing greys, violent purples, quivering blues, playful oranges. She was aching from the pain of it all.
How many times did she have to say good-bye?
A black that really turned out to be deep navy blue. A friendly yellowish green. A utterly stupid pink. Just like that, they were gone.
The colours were flashing by faster now, and in the midst of them she could just makes out faces. Rich blood red. A murky, ugly brown. Pale, cold blue. And something so intense it made her want to scream - not a colour, but just a lack of one - not black, not white - it was nothing -
She snapped into the real world so fast it left her winded.
Gasping for breath, Hermione sat up. The sheet was wet with sweat, and it stuck to her body like a label. She ripped it off. She had no use for labels.
The moonlight was drifting through the window, shining on Ginny. She had offered to take the spare mattress, but Hermione refuse. As she watched, Ginny tossed in her sleep, no where near as turbulently as Hermione had, but she tossed nonetheless. She wondered what dreams would be there, and wondered if they had started to hurt yet.
Fred's funeral was tomorrow (or today, depending on what time it was). The thought made her cringe. A funeral would make everything seem final, resolute; like the words The end or and they all lived happily ever after. This was an end of something, but it was not remotely happy.
She was only at the Burrow for the funeral. She missed her parents desperately (she was starting to fear forgetting their voices), but she couldn't just leave. Missing the funeral would be inhuman. Besides, she knew that they needed her, however selfish it sounded. Leaving would hurt them. It would kill Ron.
The darkness swooped through the room. Hermione needed light.
The colours still swirling through the air, she grabbed her wand off the floor, and murmured "Lumos". It quietly ignited into a blue glow. She stood up and shuffled carefully into the hallway, and into the bathroom. There was no light switch (the Weasleys were sweetly oblivious about electricity), but there was a candle in the shape of a broomstick by the mirror. She touched her wand to the strange metallic wick, and the glow passed from her wand to the candle.
She stared at the mirror, not seeing anything the colours. Pale, frightened peach flesh. Dead grass brown for hair. Baby blue sweatshirt.
As she thought this, she wondered why it was called baby blue. Babies weren't blue.
It was probably their eyes.
Her eyes were the exact brown of candlelight merging with darkness.
As she looked without seeing, it hit her with such force it was like a brick had slammed into her gut.
The colours from her dreams.
Were not colours.
They were souls.
Harry. Neville. Luna. Ginny. Ron. Herself.
And then.
Tonks. Colin. Sirius. Lavender. Cedric. Remus. Fred.
The weight of them all was crippling.
She watched her face for some sign of grief, for a hint of longing sadness. She told herself the clear water (another misconception: water is not blue. It is colourless, and reflects whatever is in the air) would coming dripping down her face any second.
But it didn't.
The guilt, which was next in line, took its place.
How can you live with yourself? How can you not have the decency to cry? Where's your humanity?
The answer, if anywhere, was not in that bathroom.
Their faces, bathed in colour, floated into the air, their mouths opening wordlessly. No sound comes from the dead. A thousand different words came to her, in a thousand different languages.
Voice.
Hands
Eyes.
It didn't matter. She found herself incapable of piecing the words together. What could she have said?
I'm sorry? (It wasn't like she killed them).
I miss you? (That was obvious, or their faces wouldn't be glued to her eyelids).
Come back? (As if they could).
The stupidity of it all made her sick. She was standing in a bathroom, trying to find the words to talk to people who could no longer hear.
"You're insane," she whispered, in an attempt at reverse psychology. The whisper sounded like desperation. The attempt failed.
If she could only go back in time… if only she had known back then…
If she had known Tonks and Remus would leave their child parentless.
If she had known Fred would die in a way that was not remotely funny.
If she had known Sirius would leave Harry waiting, if she had known Cedric would be killed for fairness. If she had known Lavender would die the way she nearly had. If she had known Colin's Gryffindor spirit would kill him.
If she had known… what would she do? Could she have saved them? Was it a misstep from her that left those people shattered? Was it her fault?
Of course not, the logical voice that had guided her for so long said. Don't be stupid.
But Hermione was tired of logic.
Just because she wasn't mentally inept didn't mean she was unfeeling.
Someone outside snored. Her thoughts returned to the world she was in at the moment (a third misconception: there is no such thing as the "real" world. They are all real). The colours of the moment slurred and mixed with the colours of her dreams. It gave her a headache. Ridiculously, she shook her head, trying to dislodge them. All that happened was that the red of her dreams - the lovely, passionate colour - flew into the air.
Red.
Ron.
She needed to talk to him.
The logic inside of her resisted. It's night time (a fourth misconception: the middle of the night is never the middle of anything, but rather the end of the night, or the beginning of the morning). You are half asleep, and he's fully asleep, and he probably doesn't want to be woken up by something as silly as colours -
I don't care. It was the truth, and she climbed the stairs to Ron's room.
When she arrived, the door was ajar. She stepped in. Like in Ginny's room, there was a spare mattress. Unlike in Ginny's room, the owner of the room seemed to have won the battle against anti-hospitality. Ron was sprawled on the mattress, sheets thrown everywhere. Everything about him was still, except his lips, which were moving, and she knew he was talking in his sleep. Harry, in comparison, was tossing around just like Ginny, his mouth closed as if it was glued shut.
The question of what they dreamed of came to mind again. If it was a nightmare, or something beautiful, or a shocking relevation.
Ron's hair was fiery. She thought about everything he didn't know.
I saw your face in a colour. The thought was directed at Ron, as if he could hear her. The logic was too defeated to argue.
It was so God-damn beautiful.
She crouched down by his head.
Wake up.
She willed the words to come. It was so hard to talk above a whisper when everything is quiet.
"Wake up." It was all air. She tried again.
"Wake up, Ron." Breathy, softer than silence.
Wake up, Ron. Wake up, for me. Please wake up.
She touched his shoulder. "Wake up." It was clear. Not silence, but quiet.
His eyelids fluttered. He was waking up.
It was dark, but the colours were there.
Okay, will someone please tell me what they think this is all about, because I honeslty have no idea what the bloody hell (tee hee - I'm not British!) I was thinking last night at ten o'clock while the rest of my family watched Lord of the Rings (yuck). I think it's sort of a shell-shocked Hermione whose kind of suffering from survivor's guilt. Or something along those lines.
Also: I do not claim credit for the line "How many times did she have to say good-bye?" That was from The Book Thief and I couldn't resist. For all of you who haven't read it, I strongly reccomend it. To put it on a Harry Potter level, the relationship between Liesel (the at first illiterate main character) and her next-door neighbor Rudy (the Jesse Owens obsessed boy who is not so secretly in love with her) is semi-similiar to Ron and Hermione's relationship. Another quote from the book: "She loved and hated her best friend, Rudy Steiner, which was perfectly normal." Ha ha. Seriously, read it!
Oh, and I also have a CONTEST for you all: You know all the colours from Hermione's dream? Anyone who can tell me who each of the colours refer to gets a prize! For details about that prize (yes, it exists, but it's not like something you'll get in the UPS truck), see my profile. You need to know, however, that (1) Hermione herself has a colour, (2) the order in which she mentions the people from her dream is not in chronological order, (3) she doesn't mention all of them, and (4) the colour that is not a colour, but a lack of one, is included. Sorry to make that so confusing!
I just have one more note: Please, please review! If you think this story is suckish, how am I ever going to improve if you don't tell me? Tell me what you liked, and what you didn't. Don't just add it to your favourites and be done with it. :D Kay, that's all, I swear!
~ Cierra, whose braces are broken thanks to somebody (you know who you are)