Vienna
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Credit for the title comes from "Vienna" by Billy Joel.
AN: So this is my first story, I hope you guys like it. Reviews are always welcomed, especially critiques, I love to know what would make my writing better. I'm also currently looking for a Beta, so the offer is out to anyone who would like to help. So without further adieu…
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
-Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
Prologue
Though we may not recognize it, or whether or not we would like to admit it, love surrounds us, and we thrive off it. We need it.
Be it Mothers, fathers, sisters, or brothers, husbands, wives, sons or daughters.
When we allow it to, it consumes us, as our hearts start to beat erratically against our chest, our breathing becomes labored, and our bodies fill with an overpowering warmth, that we radiate, causing flowers to bloom, birds to sing, and the air to buzz with an intangible electricity, exciting yet shocking.
But if we aren't careful, this electricity has the power to burn us, striking like lightning that jaggedly rips through the sky, falling through the heavens and hitting at random the poor, unsuspecting fool stupid enough stand exposed in an open felid during a storm.
These are the people who spend their nights buried deep within the spine of a well worn romance novel, sopping up the clichéd plots and desperately seeking for their prince charming to ride into the sunset with.
These are the people who get slammed in the gut by love, knocked on their asses while they convince themselves that all the Wickham's are really the Darcy's of the world, and all the Darcy's are just Wickham's because they've fallen before. And they never seem to feel themselves falling, until they've hit rock bottom and there's no return.
They lose hope as the stories that they so desperately cling to become nothing more than a tragic end and the magic that they held forever fades away.
Because there really is no such thing has happily ever after,
And because stories must end…
And because love will always inevitably end in heartbreak.
Hermione Granger
Chapter 1
I could hear the ocean as the waves crashed down onto the shore and lapped at my feet. It caressed the sand as it retreated back out to sea, pulling along with it the tiny shards of broken shells that littered the shore.
The smell of the salt tickled my nose and the crisp morning air stung my arms and face. I wrapped my arms around my body, and lifted my head up to the rising sun's gentle morning rays.
Feeling a presence behind me, I turned my back to the sun, seeing a man bathed in white light. The glow he emitted seemed to pulsate, and he extended one pale arm and hand toward me. I could not see his face, for the light was obscuring it, however, I felt myself being pulled to him.
No louder than a whisper he let slip one heavenly word from his lips. "Hermione," he breathed.
"Hermione… Hermione…"
.:XXX:.
"Mummy"
"Mummy"
"Mummy?"
"MUMMY WAKE UP"
That one seemed to do it. I jumped, startled, and immediately shot up from my bed. My hand instinctively reached out for my wand as I scanned my room for any danger. I could feel the bed shaking beside me; a child-like shaped body under the covers was racked with laughter. Parts of her curly platinum blond hair stuck out from underneath.
"Emma Rose, what in Merlin's name are you doing?"
Her icy blue eyes peeked out from her place under the covers, and even though she had stopped laughing, they still held hints of amusement in them. She wouldn't answer me, instead she clamped her lips shut and dove right back under.
"Emma, if you don't come back out now, I'm going to have to tickle it out of you," I warned her.
Faster then a bullet, she shot out and ran back into her own room. Begrudgingly, I stalked out of my bed stopping in front of the mirror on the back of my door. I examined my face, searching for a hint of something that could make me stand out, make me special.
Instead a pair of plain hazel eyes stared back at me beneath a mess of frizzy brown hair. I looked at my body, eyes roaming over my slim frame. I had some curves, sure, but I was nothing to look at.
That was when I remembered what day it was. I slapped myself in the forehead. Emma's first day at school, how could I have been so stupid.
Emma was standing with her back toward me, one hand on her little hip as she examined the contents of her closet. I just sat and watched her for a minute, her brows were scrunched together in contemplation, her lips pursed as if she was trying to find the answer to life's questions. She was the most important thing in my life, the glue that held me apart and propelled my forward to give her the best life I could. She was my angle, and though a surprise, the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I walked into her room and placed a kiss on her soft curls. "Do you need help," I asked her. She shook her head no, and pulled out a tiny green outfit. With her tiny hands, she shooed my out of her room. I laughed at her antics, and stared on some pancakes.
She came down a few minutes later, and climbed up to the table. She was acting differently, though, and I could tell that something was bothering her.
Soothingly I stroked her hair, placing a hand on her forehead to make sure she wasn't sick. "Emma baby, what's wrong," I was starting to worry, she wouldn't eat, only pushed her food around the plate.
"I'm scared," her soprano voice rang out. She was rarely afraid of anything, and hardly let it show when she was.
"What are you scared of honey?"
Barley more than a whisper, "What if they don't like me, what if they think I'm weird" and she bowed her head so I couldn't see her face.
I placed a finger under her chin to make her look me in the eye, "Emma Rose Granger, you are no different then any other person, do you understand. Anybody who says otherwise is a prat. Do you understand me?"
"Yes mummy."
"Good, now put your coat on and grab your bag, you don't want to be late for your first day." A smile immediately replaced her frown, and she skipped to the fireplace ready to start her first day of school.
There was a pang of guilt in my chest as I took a picture of her, she was beaming up at the camera and I was reminded once again of how much she resembled her father. A father that, she would most likely never know.
AN: Sorry it's so short, next chapter will be longer if you like it, I promise.