Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter - or Your Name, or at least I wished to. That privilege goes to the queen herself, J.K. Rowling and Makoto Shinkai, respectively. Enjoy!
"Dreams of Another Life"
by DarthPotter08
Chapter II: The Comet
(第2章:彗星)
"'Sis! You are so late!"
I hurry up down the stairs as I open the sliding door leading to my breakfast.
"I'm here!"
I grumble in annoyance at my sister, Ophelia, who just blew a raspberry in return.
Sigh.
"I'll fix breakfast tomorrow!" I say by way of apology.
Stupid kid. Always thinking she's handling life better than her older sister. And she hasn't even lost any of her baby teeth yet! Sigh. As the elders say, I can't show weakness by apologizing! I open up the rice cooker and scooped a generous amount of white worms (what my neighbours' kids called it). Hold on, is that too much? Oh, well.
"Thanks for the food! Itadakimasu! (いただきます)"
You see, I am a child with Japanese ancestry. Our family adheres to Japanese customs well, even if my sister and I don't have slanted eyes and cute-face characteristics that are commonly found in people in Japan. My mother is half-Japanese while my father is full-on English. Both of them are muggles. They brought little old me, a first-generation witch or in some places in Britain, a muggle-born.
In addition, my grandma, Ichika, also supervises the old Shinto shrine in our community and me, along with Ophelia, are shrine maidens - much to my annoyance. I'm sorry, it's just that I don't believe much in all those mumbo jumbo about the various kami and akuma, though I do respect them.
I was interrupted by my thoughts as I saw the time at the grandfather clock. I hummed in delight as I ate my food, not knowing that my sister and gran were looking at me weirdly.
With eyes trained somewhere on my temple, my grandma blurted, "So you're normal today, are you?"
"Huh?"
What?
...
...?
The wise and spiritual lady is watching me steadily as I kept on chewing.
"Ha! She sure was something else yesterday!" Ophelia smirks at me. "Screaming all of a sudden like that. She absolutely lost the plot!"
Wait. I don't remember... screaming? Gran inspects me suspiciously with her calculating gaze, and Yotsuha grins evilly (mocking me, for sure).
"Huh? Wait, what? What do you mean? What?!"
This is creepy. It's creepy. They're creepy.
Seriously, what's wrong with them? They are the ones not normal, not me!
But my inner ranting was interrupted by...
Ding-dong-ding-dooong.
Suddenly, the speaker over our door comes alive, deafeningly loud.
The morning announcements.
"Good morning, everyone."
I knew who that voice is, it was Luna's big sister, who works at the Information Center near the town hall. This place, Ilmmingham, a wee little town with a population of about ten hundred, most people either know each other or at least know someone in common.
"Here are the morning announcements from Ilmmingham Town Hall."
The flow of the slow stream of words from the speaker is clipped into phrases.
"Here are... the morning announcements... from Ilmmingham... Town... Hall."
There are numerous speakers outside, all over town, so the broadcast echoes off the mountains and echoes and overlaps with itself as if it's being sung in rounds.
Twice a day, morning and evening, this radio broadcast plays throughout the town. Every house has an installed receiver to faithfully relay the daily announcements about local events: the schedule for the sports meet, how to contact whoever's in charge of shovelling the snow, yesterday's births, and the obituary.
"Concerning the Ilmmingham mayoral election, which will take place on the fifteenth of next month, the town election management committee has-"
Click. Sizzle. And another click.
I poured myself a cuppa before putting my eyes on the screen.
The speaker falls silent, and the announcement abruptly ended. Gran can't reach it, so she's pulled the plug connecting to the line. She's past eighty and wearing her usual (traditional) Japanese kimono, but even so, the gesture conveys her anger that no words can tell.
I sighed, grabbed the remote and turned on the telly without missing a beat.
Picking up where Luna's sister left off, the smiling BBC news lady starts speaking in a monotone yet slightly cheerful voice.
"We're now just a month away from a visit by a comet that appears only once every twelve hundred years. For a few days, Comet Tiamat is expected to be visible to the naked eye. With the celestial show of the century just around the corner, the BAA and various research institutes worldwide are scrambling in preparation to study it."
There's a line of text on the screen - Comet Tiamat to pass by next month: Visible to the naked eye - and I watch, mesmerized as a blurry picture of a sparkling, beautiful comet. Our conversation has lost its drive, and the only noise comes from the three of us finishing our meal and the BBC broadcast. Our soft clinks and mutterings sounded a bit guilty, like whispered chatter during class.
The TV then shows the comet's trajectory, showing the line - Position of Comet Tiamat -.
Out of nowhere, 'Lia says something tactless and brash, "...Just makeup with him already, wouldya?"
"It's an adult problem," I snap.
Well, it's the truth - it is an adult problem. Stupid election!
I nearly choked on my food as I and little 'Lia hurry to put on our school uniforms, and we head out the door after saying bye to gran in unison.
"We're going now!"
Wonder what this day holds for me?
As I pan my chocolate brown eyes to my surroundings, I smiled. This could be a good or a disastrous day.
After all, the summer copper pheasants were crowing up a storm.
Traversing down the narrow paved path that runs along the hillside and down several stone-walled stairways, we emerge from the shadow of the mountain into direct sunlight - and, I see the beauty that is Ilmmingham Town. Home.
Below us is a round lake, Itomori Lake. Its calm surface reflects the morning sun, glittering and glaring madly as though nobody's watching. The deep-green and blue mountains from their positions under white fluffy clouds in a sunny blue sky, and a little girl with twin pigtails and a red backpack happily skips along. It's like a painting, really. Then there's me beside her, the dazzling, bookish school girl. The complete opposite. In my head, I try adding a grand string score or a piano piece to the scene as ambient/background music.
After Ophelia and I part ways in front of the elementary school, a voice
calls out from behind me. It's Dean, saying 'hi' to me.
"Hi, Hermioneee!"
I immediately yell to greet him back, that is until I noticed something.
It was Dean. But with Luna. On a bike. Clutching his waist and scowling at him.
"Hello!"
I blushed madly, but I sought out to tease them anyway.
"Bloody hurry up and get off," Dean grumbles.
"I'm fine right here. Don't be stingy!" Luna retorts.
"C'mon, you're heavy. Sod off!"
"And you're a git!"
This early in the morning, and they're already teasing each other like a married couple.
Honestly, in my eyes, they've married already.
"Y'all get along so well!"
"We do not!"
I chuckled.
Sounds like this day was going to be good after all.
Hermione, possibly for the first time in her life, had no idea that she was wrong. Very wrong.
Author's Notes: Rinse, repeat.
