A/N – Yay arabellagrace thank you so much! So glad you like that plot line. Hope I do it justice in this chaper. So here it is chapter 10 - enjoy! Review! Ps I might be updating a little less, as we're back to school this week…
We travel to Dumbledore's house, which is in the small village of Little Whinging in Surrey. We take yet another train, only stopping to send an owl to my parents, explaining we won't be home till late. I feel calmer than I would have expected to, although I can't unclench my hands from the fists they have balled themselves into. My breath is a little gasping as well. Oh well…this is my own doing I think.
We arrive at Dumbledore's house, to be honest I expected something a little more…extraordinary.
His house was just the same as all the houses on the street, a square hedge, with the same rectangle of green grass, maybe a little less tidy than the houses around it but still, it was perfectly and completely and most boringly ordinary. The house itself was a detached, two story, brown brick similar to my own house. Again I had hoped for the insides to be made up of pots and pans cleaning themselves or a talking mirror maybe or moving paintings and pictures. As we walked inside, I was disappointed yet again, it was decorated with a mossy green carpet, with beige walls and slightly darker brown couches and armchairs. It was the sort of furniture you see in a hotel room or a pre-decorated flat. I looked at Dumbledore, my eyebrows raised in disbelief…surely this man, the first wizard I have ever met and by far the most unusual person I have ever met couldn't live in this boring suburban setting.
"Would you like something to eat or drink Ms. Granger? I shake my head, my insides are churning with nerves, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to keep anything down. My throat has also started constricting itself again.
"Very well, shall we go down to the basement then?"
He waved his wand and a flap opened just in front of the couch where I had positioned myself. He waved his wand again and a sliver of liquid metal flew through the air and twisted itself into a metal staircase. "After you Ms. Granger."
With my mouth hanging open in astonishment for the a hundredth time today, I stagger down the staircase, into the basement. I thought the basement was underground, but it must be enchanted because the large windows let us see the exact view we had from the living room. It was all very strange indeed. The basement had rich red carpeting that was impossibly soft beneath my feet. Purple lamps hovered in mid air giving the room a strange purple glow. It was lavishly decorated with the finest furniture, there was even a highly polished suit of armor which greeted me with a low bow. A green fire burned in the grate, the flames rising high in the golden fireplace. Strange objects and instruments decorated the hearth. It looked like a mad mans doing, strangely shaped glass bottles and jars, twisted into golden clamps. i saw pendulums swinging, balls rolling down specially engineered ramps and most curious of all, tiny mouse running in a treadmill. I particularly enjoyed the bright red and orange bird, the most beautiful bird I have ever seen, that flew around me. I fell for this room just I had fallen for Flourish and Blotts.
When I had looked around, Dumbledore ushered me to a corner of the room, where a stone bowl of silvery stuff was. It shimmered and swirled around the basin, it was utterly mesmerizing, I couldn't stop staring at it. I was transfixed. "This is Pensieve, Hermione, it will allow us to view your memories and that way, I can find out what happened, without us going through the sticky business of you telling me. Now before we begin, I must ask you again, are you completely sure, this is what you want?"
I had thought about it on the long train journey, it was exactly what I wanted… I wanted to see him again, if only for a few minutes, I only hoped I could look away, when the time came.
"Yes" I tried to say calmly though it came out stiff and shaky. I cleared my throat. "Yes, I'm sure" I said louder, willing him to believe me. He gave me that long piercing look again and nodded. "Right, I'm going to extract the memory from your head." When he saw me take a step back in fear, he chuckled. "I can assure you it will be completely painless." As he began, muttering something under his breath, I clamped my eyes shut, then, realizing I didn't want to be going into the unknown I opened them again. Dumbledore had a look of intense concentration on his face, and was pulling a silvery thread of something from the side of my forehead with his wand. The thread looked to be alive, shaking and vibrating, you could almost see the power radiating off it.
He added it to the silver bowl and stirred it with the wand.
"When you are ready" he said, and gestured to the bowl of gaseous liquid. I bent my head down to get a closer look, but I couldn't see anything. Then the liquid cleared and I could make out what looked like a tiny television screen. I couldn't see the picture clearly so I leaned even further forward, then a strand of my bushy hair fell into the bowl and I was being sucked into the bowl of Pensieve.
I was falling, falling into the bowl, which was impossible, it had only been a tiny bowl in the room, but no, I was tumbling through the air. I landed with an oomph in the grass. Grass? This was getting stranger.
I lifted my head and recognized the scene almost immediately, it was me, me and Rowan walking home from school. It was a perfectly ordinary day. Except I knew what was gong to happen, any minute now actually… But wait…Rowan?! I almost exclaimed out loud, I ran toward him, almost falling in my haste to get to him. My mouth went dry. It was him, my brother…alive! I tried to hug him, but my arms went through him. "Rowan, Rowan!" I half laughed, half gasped. "Rowan…" he and Other Me continued chatting, as if I wasn't there at all, walking away from me, as I crumpled on the pavement. I was sobbing already. Deep gulping sobs, he couldn't hear me he couldn't see me. What was the point of this?
Then realizing this is probably the last time I'll be able to see him alive again…ever, I take a deep breath and pull myself together. I needed to hear what I said to him…before…before…My brain has blocked this memory out. I take another breath and run to catch up with Rowan and Other Me. I looked different then, my hair shinier and my eyes, they aren't red and blotchy ringed with purple. I look happy.
"I can't believe Mr. Bates gave you a higher grade on your paper Hermione, it was so twee, all that crap about sunsets and birdsong." says Rowan. My heart stops at the sound of the voice I thought I'd never hear again.
"Ha! You're just jealous Row-row" and Other Me pokes her tongue at him.
"Don't call me that!" he growls but Other Me just laughs.
What is Other Me teasing him for? I feel like shaking Other Me. She needs a good kick up the arse. She doesn't know, I remember, she doesn't know what happens next…
"Let's go to the shop Hermione, I want an ice cream."
"No Rowan, you know Mum and Dad…it's a Tuesday, no sweet stuff remember?"
"C'mon let's just go, live dangerously Mione…"
"Don't call me that Row-Row." We growl almost simultaneously.
"Mione, Mione, Mione, such a chicken she won't even buy an ice-cream" his cat-call comes sharp and clear through the spring air.
I remember how angry I felt, and how I saw red, my uncontrollable temper just flared… Now the teasing just seems perfectly friendly. I know Other Me didn't see it the same way though.
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" I cried louder now.
"Mione, Mione, Mione, teachers pet, she looooooves Mr. Bates." He knew just where to hurt me. I was a teachers pet, too eager to please, doing all my homework, writing extra long essays and answers. But I did NOT love Mr. Bates, our dinosaur of a teacher, a wrinkly man, who made funny whistling noises when he spoke and wore hideous slacks up to his armpits.
"Shut-up Rowan!" I exclaimed, but he wouldn't. He just kept teasing me, teasing me, dancing round the street corner waving his bag above his head.
"Mione, Mione, Mione, Mione, Mione, Mione." It was all I could hear…a rushing torrent of noise had filled the air and all I could hear was the teases and cat calls.
I couldn't stand it any longer. I shoved him, hard, squarely in the chest. He fell backward a perfect look of surprise on his face, waving his arms, in an almost comic fashion. It would have been hilarious, a funny story to tell our cousins… but he fell back onto the road, just as the white van, the kind, you see everyday, just driving around, going about its business came speeding around the corner. Time slowed down to a crawl, but the van didn't.
Too fast, I thought and I knew Other Me was thinking that too.
That van is going too fast.
It came around the sharp corner
The one
Our parents
Had warned us to be careful on, time and time again.
Don't run they said. Stay together they said.
the driver
he tried to swerve
but Rowan was caught
beneath the tyre
the tyre that had the Michelin man on it
And with sickening noises
crunches
squelches
and the squeal of the brakes
the
long
drawn-out
scream comes
it lasts
so
so
long.
A
s
c
r
e
a
m
that lasts forever,
that shatters the still spring air
the scream that broke me.
The scream I have heard
every
single
night
since.
With that scream Rowan, is left
Pale
So, so pale.
And
It's
All
My
Fault.
The feeling of doubt, dread, disbelief and pure and utter gut-wrenching guilt comes flooding back to me. Other Me was sick, physically sick all down my school uniform. It's a horror movie a long, drawn out horror movie, except that I know what happens. I know that the neighbors rush out. I know the van driver begins to cry. I know that one woman faints, in shock that this has happened outside her house. I know that the husband calls the ambulance. I know that the ambulance takes forever and a day to come, but really it's only 8 minutes. I know that Rowan is put in the recovery position. I know the paramedics faces turn grim when they see him. I know that Rowan becomes a beeping mess of tubes and machines. I know that the paramedic squeezes my hand as we rush to the hospital.
And I know what happens three days later.