My hours are slumberless.
Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless...
No one really understood why she wore black. Such a young, fresh thing, chattered the residents of Hawthorne Drive, and to their knowledge she had never had a beau. Her parents worried over her, however, because they knew who she had loved.
For the hundredth time, Hermione Granger relived that night...
Not where the black coach of sorrow has taken you.
It had been in June, when the summer breeze was waifting slowly over the rosegarden into Hermione's room. She remembered that, at that time, she had no worries as she streched out on her bed and said to herself, "This is perfection." She had dozed for a moment, and then -
"Hermione?" Her mother climbed the stairs to her room, face worried and voice on the edge of breaking. A piece of parchment was in her hand, scarred from hasty owl post. "Hermione?"
"Yes, Mum?" She sat upright, and smiled.
"Hermione, I-I've got some bad news... from your headmaster at school, Dumbledore... Harry went up against the Dark Lord..."
Would they be angry if I thought of joining you?
Gloomy Sunday.
Barely three days later, she was standing at his open grave in mourning black, touching her eyes lightly with a hankerchief to keep the tears momentarily away. Teachers raved from the podium about Harry's selfless sacrifice to kill Voldemort, of his true Griffindor courage and personality. She never really listened to them, letting the tears flow instead... Oh, Harry!
With shadows I spend it all.
My heart and I have decided to end it all.
And here she was, now. Watching the wilting, dying rosegarden, so much like her. It was a year later, and the fighting between herself and Ron had intesified until they truly hated one another. Poor Ron. He didn't understand that Harry's death must have been her fault, and he kept trying to tell her it wasn't. She knew it was. Unexplainable, but fact. I should have been there... I should have helped him, I should have been a better friend. I should have saved him. I should have... I should have... I... The failure...
Let them not weep - let them know that I'm glad to go...
Oh, it would be so easy, to do what she wanted to. It was a fatal little potion, nice and quick. She would go with one last bout of dramatics, leaned back in her chair, dressed beautifully in full mourning black, a few white calla lilies falling from her fingers that were mingled with white baby's breath...
I wake
And I find you asleep in the deep of my heart...
And then -
She snapped awake, still there at the window, not up with flowers clutched to her chest and potion pouring down her throat. She was still alive, and... and... she had been dreaming. She was in jeans and a t-shirt, not a black suit, and - Maybe, just maybe, oh please let it all be a nightmare!
Flying down the stairs... Oh, a nightmare, a nightmare... Racing through the living room... A nightmare! Let it be... To the kitchen... Please, oh please... To the phone - a hurriedly punched number - she held the phone to her ear:
One ring... two... a click, as it was picked up. A slightly weary sounding voice. "Hello?"
"Harry - Harry!" It was first a whisper, then a shout, then Hermione fell against the wall sobbing with joy.
"Herm? Herm, are you all right?"
"I'm -" she choked back a sob - "I'm fine, I just had this really terrible nightmare... You were in it, and it started in summer when I was in my room, and..."
