Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Note: Inspiration for this came from Jodi Picoult's Second Glance, I am a major fan of hers so if you notice similarties in plot or in writing style, please don't sue. I'm heavily influenced by her.
de·sid·er·ate
adj.
: To desire
2003
Summer
"This is getting stranger and stranger," Ron said uncomfortably. "This morning I woke up and my pillow was stuffed full of leaves. There were leaves in my mouth and all over the floor. I went to get the broom and when I came back, the leaves were gone."
"You sure you weren't dreaming?" Ginny said sympathetically.
"It snowed today, Gin," Harry nudged his wife. "You weren't dreaming, were you?"
Ginny shook her head and sipped her coffee. "There has to be something wrong, everyone is having strange things happening to them-" She sputtered, choking. Harry sat up, alarmed and curled his arm around his coughing and very pregnant wife.
Ginny's blue eyes were wide as she turned her cup of coffee upside down. There was loud ringing clatter as coins started to fall onto the table.
Hermione scooped them up, her heart hammering in her chest. She turned them round and round, they were normal knuts- the kind you see everyday- there were nothing special about these knuts; just that they were all minted in 1979.
--
Hermione dreamed of Draco again.
She hated him for trying to prove her wrong- that he couldn't die. She hated that he made her a wife and a widow in the same year. She hated that she had to play the good person and go save someone else when he was hurt.
She woke up, the room heavy with the smell of smoke and blood. She lurched across the bedroom into the bathroom to throw up.
She could still see the merry-go-round bursting into flames, shooting sparks into the air and she could hear herself screaming, her arms wrapped around the stranger's body as her husband exploded with the ride.
She could have saved him first.
She could have said no when he told her she should save someone else first, when he insisted he would be fine, that he couldn't die.
She hated that God had chosen that time to prove them wrong.
It had been a month now and she still couldn't get used to life without him.
She walked to the window and saw that her neighbour was screaming into the phone, his face red in outrage. She turned her gaze slightly to the left and realised why he was yelling into his phone so agitatedly- his pool, once filled with crystal clear water was now filled to the edges with frogs.
She clasped the curtains shut, gasping in shock. She ran to the fireplace to floo Ginny, so she could have her friend tell her that she was dreaming.
In front of the fireplace was curled a very fat cat, a cat she hadn't seen in four years, since it died.
She screamed as Crookshanks purred up at her, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
--
"There's nothing wrong with him at all, he's perfectly fine- a normal, healthy cat, Mrs Malfoy, no need to worry," the vet beamed at Hermione.
Tentatively, Hermione scooped her cat up. "Thanks," she murmured. "I just wanted to check."
"It's a good habit," the perky vet continued. "Animals, like us, should get check ups at least once a year, you know, just to make sure everything is running and normal."
"Thank you very much," Hermione said, her eyes glassy and out of focus.
"Mrs Malfoy, are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm alright," she said quietly and walked out of the clinic onto the crowded street, where the sun sweltered over head.
"Why did you come back, Crooks?" she whispered.
The cat mewled.
"How did you come back?" she asked, moving into her car.
She very much fancied the Muggle way of life- of course magic and spells came in handy, but cars always were the biggest link to her life before she knew she was a witch.
There was that terrible car accident, of course, but she had always loved driving. She set Crookshanks down in the passenger seat and backed the car out of the parking lot.
The drive back home was calm, peaceful, even, after all the shock from the last few days.
Things were getting weird, she thought. The snow was a freak of nature, and people were finding things that weren't supposed to be there- Ron's leaves, her rose petals, and Crookshanks. She stole a glance at the cat- just to be sure it was there.
"This is really scaring me," she said aloud and Crookshanks purred his agreement.
"I've missed you," she told the cat. "I'm happy you came back, especially now that Draco's gone-" She froze.
It couldn't be, she told herself. Draco couldn't possibly be making all this happen. It was impossible. He was gone now, he was dead, there was no way he could raise Crookshanks from the dead, or make petals appear from nowhere.
She pulled into the driveway of her house, opened the door and let Crookshanks down.
There was a clatter behind her and she whirled around. Six glowing copper coloured knuts lay on the floor behind her. She ran down the porch, and looked around. There was no one there.
She picked the knuts up, her heart clenching in fear.
They were all minted in 1979.
She choked up, pulling a drawer open and dropping all the coins inside, diving towards the fireplace, pulling Crookshanks closer to her, wondering if it was just her, or did the entire room seem to turn colder?
--
The sea level rose with startling speed. Hermione couldn't run fast enough, the water lapped at her heels and she screamed, right before the water crashed down upon her, shoving her onto the wet sand.
Water roared in her ears, whistling and whispering.
Her hands clawed at the sand which fell away under her hands.
She opened her mouth to breath and water rushed into her lungs.
Her ankles felt like they were being held down. She struggled to swim up, up to the surface.
Her dress was holding her back.
She looked down and realised she was in her wedding dress. The veil danced in front of her. She pulled it off and tugged at her dress desperately.
That dress was so heavy, she thought. She ripped it off her body, her heart exploding in relief, as she swam upwards.
The dress floated next to her, rising up the surface rapidly and she realised it wasn't the dress holding her back- it was her. She was holding herself back.
She looked down frantically at her feet and they were in tangles.
She tugged at them, kicking and fighting. They were remained in stubborn knots. She looked up and she saw a hand pull her dress out of the water.
Don't! I'm here, she pleaded.
Her entire body was slick with sweat when she awoke, gasping for breath.
Her hands groped in the dark under her pillow, reaching for the stuffed pig otter Draco had gotten her in the year before for comfort, but it wasn't there. In its place was something cold and hard. She threw her covers off, her breath catching. She turned on the light and lifted her pillow away.
In her stuffed pig's place were six knuts, minted in 1979.
She wrapped her covers around her and felt a sob catch at the back of her throat for no reason as the temperature in her bedroom dropped by degrees.
She raced down the stairs, her sweat cold against her skin, nearly tripping over the heavy sheets she had taken with her. She pulled open the drawer where she had left the six knuts she had found earlier in the day after returning from the vet's.
The drawer was empty.
There was a clunk behind her and she found two knuts lying nearly on the floor.
"Draco?" she whispered.
In answer, the other four coins rained onto her outstretched hands.
--
"I think I'm going crazy," Hermione told Ginny. "I see loose change everywhere! I lost my stuffed pig in the middle of the night and my cat comes back to life."
Ginny shifted in her seat. "Hermione, I haven't told Harry but last night," she whispered.
Hermione leaned closer to her best friend.
"Last night I got up to go to bathroom and the entire room smelt like apples. I really got scared because well, there are no apples around. I looked around and then I see that the entire bathtub is filled with apples, red shiny apples. I touched them and they were real. I didn't wake Harry but I took one of those apples with me and this morning, in the apple's place I found this," she opened her clenched fist.
She dropped the small shining object into Hermione's hands and watched Hermione's reaction.
Hermione held the object up and she felt her head spin.
It was Draco's wedding ring- the one that no one could find in the rubble after the explosion. She knew it was his, because etched inside the ring were the words DM & HG.
"Great Merciful Merlin," Hermione whispered.
"I went to check the bathroom after that and there was nothing left in the tub," Ginny said softly. "I don't know what's happening, but I'm sure something is. And I think it has something to do with Draco," she finished.
"He's dead, Ginny," Hermione whispered. "Unless he wasn't lying when he said he couldn't die."
Her hands closed around the ring tightly, the way you held onto a promise, a last spark of hope, with the strength of someone who would never let go.
She promised herself that she wouldn't spend the rest of her life searching for something she would never find and here she was, willing to wager all she had to find another trace of her husband.
--
The merry-go-round went round and round.
Their hands are linked as the wooden horses bobbed up and down.
She giggles like a little girl as she leans towards him, her horse moving up as his ducked down. Her lips graze the corner of his lips before the horses move again.
He laughs, and bents down to try and catch her mouth with his.
There's a clunk and a whirr- then the merry-go-round stops. Beneath her feet, Hermione feels something rattling.
Draco looks around in alarm and Hermione reacts, jumping off the ride just as there's a resounding boom.
She covers her head and turns around. The entire ride is on fire, emitting black billows of smoke into the air.
The whole place is in an uproar and she climbs back on the smoking ride, heaving her husband up.
"Draco!"
He opens his eyes and smiles. "I'm alright, darling, go help someone else first," he urged. "There're people who're hurt more."
Her gaze lands on the deep cut on his head, dribbling blood down the side of his face; and the strange angle his right leg is positioned in.
"I can't die, Hermione, not even if I tried, love," he says, managing a weak smile.
She swallows. "I'll be back in a second," she promises.
She darts between the horses, now still and wooden, and reaches for the unconscious little girl with blonde braids. She scoops the girl up and gets off the ride to lie to girl on the ground.
She bends to check for pulse.
There's an explosion.
She turns around to see the entire ride going up in a storm of flames, shooting fire sparks into the air, and she screams his name, so loud the letters are engraved in her throat and in the air.
Her arms are still around the girl and she screams, over and over again.
Draco. Draco.
She can't feel the tears streaming down her face as she watches the effort made to put out the raging fire.
Water douses the stubborn flames and the girl in her arms startles to consciousness.
She stands and runs back into her mother's arms, leaving Hermione kneeling in the dirt, her heart breaking over and over again.
When the fire goes out, and leaves in its wake a pile of ashes, she can't find him anymore.
There's nothing left but cruel dark ash.
She stands and her sorrow spirals up to the sky in gray swirls of smoke.
A/N: How was it? Please review! (:
-lissie
