Chapter 3
Rose … running … laughing … her chubby hands curled into determined little fists … freckled arms flailing wildly against a clear blue sky as she nearly tumbles, still laughing, down a rolling, grassy slope … curly auburn-red locks drifting in a warm breeze. Her laugh, like the tinkling of sleigh bells, ringing out as she reaches, falling, into a pair of waiting arms … her father's arms…
Ron sat up in bed with a jolt. Just a heartbeat behind him, Hermione awakened, pulling herself upright from her pillow, taking a moment to register just where she was.
"Rose," Ron said, turning to look down at Hermione. "Did you," he continued, his voice still hoarse from sleep, though he wasn't sure how to put his thought into words.
"I was dreaming about her just now," Hermione replied, rubbing her eyes.
"Yeah, she was running to me. We were playing, the three of us, and—"
"Wait, you were dreaming that, too?"
"Dreaming what?"
"Dreaming about playing with Rose," Hermione said, as she slowly pulled herself up to look more closely at Ron's moonlit face.
"Yeah," he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. Even in the dim light, she could see a smile come to the corners of his lips, and she couldn't help smiling back, though her astonishment threatened to overrule every other emotion at that moment.
"We were on a great big lawn somewhere, the three of us," Hermione said softly. "I had taken her by the hands swinging her round and round in circles — she always loved doing that, though we'd both get terribly dizzy — and then I set her down …"
"… and she was laughing so hard," Ron said, a look of warm amazement in his eyes. "I called her and she came running to me, though she looked—" he let out a short laugh tinged with tears—"she looked nearly drunk, she was so dizzy."
"But she kept running," Hermione said, sitting up straighter. She was more sure now than she had been before, more awake, but her memory was clear. "She ran into your arms, and you laid back on the grass and lifted her above you," Hermione said, her voice choked with tears, "and she put out her arms and pretended she was flying."
Ron was silent for a moment. "You saw it, too?"
She nodded. "All of it."
"You mean, we were having the same dream at the same time?"
She wiped a tear from her eye. "Mmm hmm."
"Blimey," Ron breathed.
They sat like that for a few moments, silently staring at one another and privately reliving the dream.
Then Ron took Hermione's hand in his. "What was it, then? I've never experienced anything like that before."
Hermione shrugged. "If I still had my magical books, I could look it up to double-check, but I think we just experienced Eodem Tempore Somnium. It's a type of involuntary magic. A simultaneous dream."
"Merlin bless me," Ron breathed. "Do you … do you think it means anything?"
Hermione stroked his hand lovingly in both of hers, noting the planes of it, the interplay of light and shadow against his skin the semi-darkness. "I think we may have been given a glimpse of where she is now," Hermione said with a sniffle. "Maybe it was meant to make us feel better. She's happy."
This thought struck Ron forcibly, and he felt a flash of familiar warmth as he put the pieces together in his heart, his mind catching up just a moment later. "She sent that message to us," he said with conviction.
Hermione looked up at him, searching his face.
"Rose. She was always a powerful little thing — magic like I've never seen before," Ron continued. "She sent us that Somnium Tempore thing, whatever it was, for a reason. She wants us to know she's OK. She wants us to know…" His words trailed off as he lost the power to speak over the burning lump in his throat.
"She wants us to know she loves us," Hermione supplied.
And that opened the floodgates for both of them. Ron wrapped his arms around Hermione and pressed her against the mattress, tears flowing freely down his face as he held her, pinned snugly beneath him. Hermione, sobbing too, stroked his back with her arms and kissed his cheek, his neck, his shoulders as he cried into the pillow next to her ear. Soon he was able to speak again, just barely, and pulled himself up enough to press kisses against her cheeks, her temple, her forehead, her nose, and finally her lips. "Gods, I love you so much, Hermione," he murmured between kisses. "So much. Let's not wait too long," he said. "Promise me."
She knew what he meant, and she felt the same. "It won't be long, darling," she answered tearfully. "I want her back, too. More than I can say."
oooOOOooo
A/N — This was a shortie for me — just about 900 words! I hope you enjoyed it.
I'm trying to keep the story moving for fear of boring you. I admit that I'm hyper-sensitive to that possibility since a reviewer wrote this about one of my other stories, "What's Changed—And What Hasn't":
"I'm enjoying the story so far, but I will admit that I've skimmed over some lines to get to the good stuff. Sometimes there is just too much internal dialog for My taste."
This comment bummed me out, but then it also made me laugh because, as some of you may recall, I bridled at a review of my story "All In" in which a reader complained that my writing bordered on pornographic.
So … I'm guilty of writing too much smut … and not writing enough smut. Que?
Anyway, I suppose what I really ought to do is keep writing stuff that suits *me,* and hope that it suits you, too. If it does, please leave me a review and let me know how I'm doing. Are you entertained? Bored? Scandalized? Do weigh in, won't you?
Cheers,
Holly.