The wind blew through the sheer blue curtains in the dark, twisting the folds into the shape of dementors in the moonlit room. The drapes were drawn on the massive four-poster bed, heavy and deep purple to match the wallpapered room; all except for one side. The furthest away from the window was pulled and fastened against the stark birch of the bed frame, and an elderly, embroidered chair faced it proudly. Sleeping soundly in the bed lay Audrey Longbottom, her frail body tucked under a pile of gently frayed patchwork quilts with the exception of her face. Long gray hair spilled over the lavender pillowcases, and her lips were pinched into a frown, her breath wheezing in her chest as she shivered in the slight breeze. Neville pulled the topmost quilt tighter around her shoulders and settled back into the ancient armchair. He checked the gleaming gold clock hanging from the wall nearest the door and heaved a deep sigh. Neville crossed the room to the chest of drawers and removed the cap from the bottle sitting atop it. He spilled a measured bit into the measuring cup and scuffled towards his grandmother.
"Grandmother- time for you medicine. Grandmother- wake up."
The old woman stirred beneath the covers and rolled onto her back. Her jaw moved slightly agape and Neville tipped the dulled red liquid into her mouth. Before he could pull the cup away, she was already back asleep. A sigh echoed through the dark room as Neville placed the cap on the bed table and slumped back into the chair.
It had been a tough month since he returned home. When the common, garden-variety pneumonia had hit his grandmother not 2 days into vacation, Neville hadn't been too worried. As anyone who knew Mrs. Longbottom could tell you, she was the toughest of old birds. But at the ripe age of 178, the pneumonia seemed to proliferate uncontested by normal potion treatment. Even succumbing to muggle treatment, nothing seemed to deter the bacteria from continually clouding her lungs. Day after day for the last two weeks they had stayed, Neville and his grandmother, in a hospital in Liverpool; his grandmother hooked up to chest tubes and a respirator.
It was, strangely, Mad Eye Moody that had broached the subject of perhaps letting her pass on to the next great adventure. Neville had always felt uncomfortable around the man, his wandering magic eye and scar-encrusted face making the hairs on his neck stand up. But he had been the only person to discuss the thought he had been having since the healer had suggested they try muggle medicine to clear her chest, and he had made an effect on him.
"There comes a time in every person's life, Neville, when the world holds nothing of interest and you can trust the people you care for to live their lives without your influence. When you come to that time, the end becomes something of curiosity, not fear. Your grandmother may have reached that point."
He hadn't known why Moody had come to visit his grandmother- as far as he knew, Moody didn't venture often into the muggle world, and he had never seen him at his grandmother's parties. But as he spoke those words in the gruff, gravelly voice, Neville knew they were true. So he had his grandmother discharged with a prescription for pain medication he never filled, and took her home to die. He found 3 bottles of the dull, red painkilling potion resting on their kitchen table with a note from Dumbledore simply saying, "You made the right decision."
So he stayed by her bedside, not trusting the house elves to administer the medication every 6 hours. He wish he could view it with a sense of detachment, but like the gum wrappers he kept from his visits with his mother over the many years, he couldn't completely separate the empty shell of his grandmother with the potential of what she could be. Neville slid himself down in the chair, unwilling to change his grandmother's favorite chair into a bed, and tried to sleep.
Ron folded over the covers carefully and slid beneath the coolness that the orange cotton provided. He watched the Cannon's line snore peacefully, their little brooms hovering side to side like a metronome. The light dimmed to dark as he felt sleep slowly creeping up on him.
Flashes of blue sky cut with green grass were so vivid, he could nearly smell the peace it brought. He didn't feel he was there, physically. It was more of a sense of watching it go by- like seeing a moving version of history as a ghost. So he watched the crystal blue-green waves smash into the rocks of the cove, breaking like fragments of jewels on the mossy stone with a sort of confused curiosity.
Sheaves of wheat moved in the bright sun on a plain, a house of sticks built on a small hillside overlooking the expanse. The house was hewn from deep red logs, rough and homey. The view slid forward to a barn, the tools handmade but sleek in their lines and blades. Bales of hay feed animals that he can't name- couldn't name even with an advanced Care Of Magical Creatures textbook at his disposal. Shimmering scales on a horse with curled horns and mane that didn't so much as blow in the wind as float, like the air was as thick as water.
An unbelievable tall woman, skin alabaster blue with silver running up her arms all the way to her elbows. Gossamer shift rode high on her thin legs, her feet barefoot. Digits numbering 24 total, each encircled in small bands of silver. Rope, hand woven and spaced with smooth light wooden spheres, looped around a gap in her back like a handle. She stood proud, cerulean and navy hair down to her hips swaying and snapping in the wind. She looked ahead and up, her hand clenched around a staff inlaid with an ivy pattern and swooping, unidentifiable script. The ground trembled beneath her and exploded.
Ron jolted awake, his chest heaving as he fought to inflate his lungs. He felt a shiver run down his spine. He recognized this dream- not for its content, but for its feel. The texture of a memory- stop and go as the mind already knows what interesting bits it should fast forward to.
He'd been having them all summer.
The worst of them had vanished with the ointment Madam Pomfrey had given him after the M.O.M. incident. But the ointment had long since lost his effectiveness, and without a dreamless potion before bed, he'd be sure to have the memories that evening. He couldn't tell if they were his; some sort of proof of reincarnation, or is the brain that attacked him had passed them on to him, like osmosis of information. A concentration gradient aided by the tentacles that had refused to let him go.
He gets over it, every time. The panic in his chest as he jolts away, the worry over faces he can't recognize yet somehow does, the reminder of the scars that now loop his arms like some shiny pink ribbon of new skin. He finds a way to fall back asleep, every night. And when he wakes up in the morning with names on his lips that his tongue can't wrap around and faces behind his eyes that are strange but somehow feel like home, he takes his tea with an extra scoop of sugar and loses himself in the day.