I'm falling into memories of you,and things we used to do
Follow me there
A beautiful somewhere
A place that I can share with you
So many nights, legs tangled tight
Wrap me up in a dream with you
Close up these eyes, try not to cry
All that I've got to pull me through is memories of you
(one year, six months-yellowcard)
Memories of you
"Run!"
"I'm not leaving you"
"For Merlin's sake Hermione, for once please do as I ask"
"Don't leave me" she sobbed angrily, her voice cracking with emotion. "I need you, I can't… I can't go on.." she hiccupped, her words drowning in the noise around them.
His weak smile unwillingly turned into a grimace, "I'll ok, just go, I'll be…right after you,"
---
Hermione shot up breathlessly, her chest heaving as she tried to gulp air into her protesting lungs. Her small frame was shaking violently in dry sobs, for a second; silence was heavy on the witch, but then she started to cry. Tears poured down her pale face gracelessly, making ugly red tracks of dampness. Her hair was plastered to her neck and face in dark damp curls and sweat was running hotly down her back.
Moaning she let her face fall heavily into her palms.
"How could you" she whispered flatly "How could you leave me, Ron"
That night was still so painfully vivid in her mind, every detail emblazed in blood and pain in her dreams, nightmares as she was forced to relive it again and again. Would there ever be peace from the demons?
It felt wrong.
Wrong that she longed to let go of the past, to move on. She wanted to finish it, finish the war, stop those meaningless deaths. She wanted to help. Not grieve.
Ever since she could remember, she had occupied herself by helping people, when the war first started she had stretched herself so thin she barely felt the grieve of the death of loved ones.
Then she'd become a teacher, while Ron had gone fighting with Harry.
Then….
Hermione shuddered unexpectedly. She crawled her way out the suddenly horribly large empty bed. Brushing the tears off her face she let herself into the common room.
With so little students coming to Hogwarts, Harry had decided to put them all in one house. Even then they barely filled the old Gryffindor dormitories. After that massacre nearly a year ago, there were so many empty beds. Somehow the death eaters had found a way into Hogwarts, they had chosen there victims carefully, muggle born and half wizarding children. Jamie hadn't been touched, it was a horrible but intelligent move on Voldermort's part- people demanded in there grief to know why Harry's son had been so easily protected but there own were now dead.
Shaking herself out the past, Hermione closed the door to her room, resting her forehead against the cool frame wearily.
"Professor?"
Hermione frowned as she turned, what was someone doing up at this hour?
"Who…oh"
Lilith Malfoy stared at her from her position near the fire, her wide eyed surprise easily disappeared beneath a mask of indifference that she had perfected long before she ever came to Hogwarts. She was folded up in a red backed chair staring silently at Hermione as the older witch examined her. The girl didn't curl as such, she noted, she was too bony for that, but jack-knifed herself closer together, she seemed fragile and small in the soft light of night.
"Have you been crying?"
From anyone else it would have sounded concerned, but somehow the child managed to twist it in a question full of irritation and scorn.
"No" Hermione answered smartly, her arms coming to wrap around herself, as she hid her face slightly.
The silver blonde shrugged, "If you say so" she sneered.
Hermione turned in annoyance towards Lilith, not bothering anymore to hid her streaked, tear riddled face. She was grown up, a teacher, a highly respected member of society, so why did this single girl manage to make her feel like a clumsy bushy haired teenager again. "And what, may I inquire, are you doing up?"
Lilith face twisted angrily, looking up from the book that she had rested against her knees lazily. Her sharp nose went up pompously, mouth curling in loathing "You may inquire all you wish, Professor" she added the last mockingly, as if she knew Hermione's thoughts. "but I would sooner under go a month of the Cruciatus Curse, that confine you…"
Mudblood
The unspoken word was heavy in the air around them. Lilith frowned, snapping her book open and looking away, the disquieted expression still residing on her face.
"That can be arranged" muttered Hermione darkly.
She knew Lilith wasn't Draco, but that was all she could see, all she could hear, Lilith was Draco malfoy to her. In fact she was certain Lilith was what Malfoy would have been, had he been female. She was too thin, her legs and arms like sticks beneath her clothes, she was small shoulder and finely boned. Something Hermione had never been.
The younger woman was extremely pale, skin so fair it was almost translucent, she looked like she would burn in the middle of winter. She was sharp featured, her nose too thin to be considered cute, her face too pointy to ever be soft, even her eyes were a little too grey and cold. Not beautiful, no one would ever call her that.
Stunning, maybe, in a utterly and uniquely Malfoy way.
The girl resumed her earlier position, book balanced on her knees. Her virgin-snow white hair fell in a fine curtain between them, cutting herself off from the older woman.
"I think, maybe you should return to your dormitory"
"With Jasmine doing impression of a roaring train and Astarte trying to drown me in the piles of pink fluffy clothing… No, but thanks"
"I'll telling you to go, Malfoy"
Lilith slammed her book shut loudly.
Hermione raised an eyebrow, "Don't….Owww!"
Lilith flinched away from her, "What?"
Hermione was bent over nearly double, her arms wrapped around her stomach. She turned wet eyes up to the girl. "my baby just kicked"
Lilith stared at her, "I didn't know you were pregnant" she mused.
"Not that the big lump should give it away, or anything"
"I just thought you were fat" Lilith beamed nastily.
Hermione bristled, but breathed out her anger, she rarely showed her temper and she wasn't about to let a smart-arse of a 16 year old see her lose it. But she wasn't above lecturing.
"May I?" Lilith's blank face, turned defiant at her hesitation, "whatever.."
"No.. sure"
She had better be getting big Karma points for this, Hermione thought bitterly, those thought dimmed at the utterly radiant smile that spread over the girl's face, Malfoy had never done that.
In that second of understanding, she saw why Jamie put up with the bratty blonde.
Lilith looked blankly at her hands as if expecting them to do something, Hermione held back on the laugh that wanted to escape, at Lilith's sour expression and directed the girl's hands on to her belly.
"do you want children?" she asked gently, trying to escape the uncomfortable silence that covered them.
"What? And lose my figure?" she snorted incredulously, looking critically at Hermione.
Hermione wasn't sure if she meant it in a humour way or not.
"Don't think I'd be a very good mother anyway" she added flatly, "But thanks anyway, professor"
She got up a natural grace that would have made any teenage girl green with envy.
"good night" Hermione murmured, her thoughts already half in the spells she had been working on.
"Pardon?" a bemused smile appeared sneering on Lilith's face, as her head tilted patronizingly. "I'm not going to bed. Don't know what gave you that expression"
She stretched lazily giving Hermione a leering wink, before saturating off, leaving the woman glaring hotly at her back.
It was strange that love could hurt so much more than pain, hate.
Voldermort yawned in amusement at the thought. He found himself amused a lot these days, maybe he actually was a little bit mad. Not that it mattered, not really.
He peered over at the cowering men.
Death Eaters, the older ones; grey haired and wrinkled, so stuck in there ways they had stopped acting and were just the drones they had pretended to be for so long. He didn't like that, strange. Voldermort had always liked the thought of every one obeying him, in fact it still sounded very appealing. But there was a little something off with it… something wasn't right about them, they were empty. What was the point in lording over people who were ok with it. He laughed out loud, smiling at the blank faces that watched him expectantly.
He rarely thought about his old followers, they were his anyway: body and soul, and consequently they were boring.
He yawned again, waving them away with a long thin white hand. They shifted and shuffled away, becoming shadows in a room of darkness. Anyway he had his kids now, he had to think about his children, his protégées, those handpicked few whom he almost loved. But not quite, he couldn't quite love anything. He was too tainted, to ever be able to love anything.
But they were his favourites, beautiful, pure bloodied children, sired by his hollow Death Eaters. He waited for them, thinking of the youth whom would joining them soon.
Narcisse.
Even his name tasted sweet on his tongue. He was different that one, not like the smart mouthed Draco. Draco, the first of whom he'd taken an interest in. Shame it hadn't worked, but that boy had been broken before he'd come to Voldermort. But his son, intelligent and stunning, he wondered if he had that ice blonde hair so favoured in the Malfoy line underneath all that black dye.
His kids filed in randomly, watching him, there eyes dancing with life. He almost loved them, yet again in that moment. He wanted his children to love him because he could never feel it, he didn't understand the concept through, it was just a word that he obsessed about, ever since that annoying little boy… Harry Potter.
"Sir?"
Oh, she was a card that one. He watched the elegant teenager as she tensely broke him out of his thoughts.
Impatient and frivolous and therefore imperfect, but she was bold. He laughed again, swinging down to spin her around, she was wide eyed as she went flying from her feet. She was frail and breakable in his inhumanly large arms, he couldn't help thinking about how easily it would be to snap those delicate bones, squeeze the air right out of those weak lungs. He was fascinated by death, abhorred the idea in every form but loved to watch as those flames of life dimmed. He held tightly for a moment, before setting her down. She sighed in relief, arms wrapping around herself. She was a china doll, dressed in velvet and pearls. She was beautiful, but imperfect, he would love to watch her die.
One day soon, he would.
But not yet. She had yet to play her part.
There were others of course, waiting. But his lovely collection of dolls was not yet complete he wanted a few more, and his most prized child would be James Potter. The son of Harry Potter.
He laughed again manically, smiling broadly at his favourite creations and his little bold girl with her pearls and vanity whom he would one day kill.
There we go, chapter four.
Lyrics at the top consequence of me listen to songs while trying to think of a name for this chapter, and I just loved the song- not really anything to do with the fic, but I could see just Hermione crying over it...
plz review and nurture my ego
