Disclaimer: No, I don't own anything patented by Ms. Rowlings. I wish. I also wish she would D/Hr ship. Heck, even Tom Felton does.
Author's Notes: No, I haven't abandoned the other fics. Let's put it simply: I've moved over 3000 miles to a new country, I had to look for a new job and I had to bury someone that was very close to me. That's called life happening. I should have more time to write in the next few weeks.
This particular drabble is inspired by Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" (Acoustic version). I couldn't get it out of my head. And I wanted to write some D/Hr that didn't make my head explode from all the plot I had created. Song lyrics are in italics.
Post HBP.
Perfection is rather blind...
He told himself he wouldn't think about it. He wouldn't think about what had happened. Or rather, had not happened.
He was too young to have done the things he had done. Too young to carry the weight he did on his shoulder. Too young to really know what he had been doing. Too young to question if what he was doing was right.
He thought he had been right. But then again, everyone does, don't they? Everyone thinks that they're right and most of the time they can go through their life without having that comfortable illusion shattered.
But he's not the rest. He can't have the comfort of illusions.
It wears her out. It wear her out.
She wished that things had turned out differently. Not to say that what she had fought for hadn't mattered, because it had. But sometimes it just sounded so hollow and empty and pathetically like an excuse in the face of all the devastation in the aftermath.
Death is always hardest on the living.
She wished that she didn't have to remember. But she made herself remember. Everyday. All day. Every time she walked into work at the hospital. Originally, it had only been a temporary position given the extreme circumstances.
But she just couldn't walk out. The war was over but in every room in the hospital, it was far from over.
She couldn't just leave, even when she wants to forget so badly.
She lives with a broken man...
Who just crumbles and burns.
She walks into his room. At the beginning, she did so with wand in hand and suspicious looks at everything they did. The doctors had declared him to be completely harmless but she knew better.
Time had changed that. He didn't recognize anyone. Or anything really. Or at least he didn't give any indication of it.
In fact, it had taken about four months since he actually spoked to her.
It scared her to death. This faint ghostly whisper.
"Granger..."
She swore she almost jumped out of her skin. She looked at him with cautious and fearful eyes.
"I think I knew a girl named Granger once," he added as an afterthought. Then he smiled at her.
Those were the only words he spoke to her that day. But his gray eyes seemed full of light.
She wouldn't have known what to say to him anyway.
It wears him out. It wears him out.
He lived through a constant effort of will. Sometimes, he didn't know what was happening around him. He didn't know if it was worth it. To try to concentrate and be in just one place.
To reassure him that he was in fact in a hospital bed at the moment.
It was easier when she was here.
There was something very comforting about her presence. He didn't know why. He had the odd tingly feeling whenever she was around. He felt like she should remember who she was. That she had been important to him.
But he couldn't remember. The memory of her seemed to flit at the corners of his brain. The more like he tried to grasp at it, the more it seemed to elude him.
She looks like the real thing.
She tastes like the real thing.
He liked looking at her. Sometimes, they talked. Sometimes they were both silent. But he liked looking at her. She was rather pretty.
But there was sadness in her eyes. He didn't know why. He wanted to ask why but he couldn't just come out and ask her that specifically. The few times he hedged around the subject, her eyes would go cold and she would become brutally efficient.
She would also leave him early.
So he gave up.
It wasn't like he would remember what she said the next time he saw her. Maybe she had told him and that's why she would get angry. He honestly couldn't remember.
He liked to feel her cool hand on his forehead, as she touched his face to see if he was flushed. Her hands were soft but her fingertips were little spots of roughness. It made for a strange and interesting contrast.
If only I could be who you wanted.
He once asked her if they had meant anything to each other or if they were just random strangers. She had to choke back a bitter laugh. Her smile probably seemed a little crooked and plastic to him.
She could tell that he liked her. Genuinely liked her. Not perhaps that romantic like or the pretend-we're-both-happy-and-friends like. More like he felt comfortable enough in his own skin around her.
Maybe if things had been different.
Maybe if he wasn't stuck in a hospital.
Maybe if she wasn't stuck in a hospital.
Maybe if her closest friends hadn't died.
Maybe if he didn't have anything to do with it.
Maybe if he wasn't so broken.
Maybe if she wasn't.
If I could be who you wanted all the time...
He wished that he could remember. For her sake. Maybe then, then they could have a beginning.
Or maybe what they both needed was an ending.
He didn't know. He wish he did.
Author's Notes: Read. Review. I'll consider song suggestions. However, not all songs suggested will be used. So no hissy fits if yours aren't selected.