Hermione Granger wasn't sleeping well. Hogwarts was so exciting! She couldn't help feeling like an annoying tourist who questioned anything and desperately wanted to take in everything. She had written to her parents, explaining that she was in Gryffindor and talking about all the fun she was having. After sending the message off with one of the school owls, Hermione had traipsed back to bed, but sleep evaded her.
She quickly realized that her tossing and turning was keeping her roommates awake, because one of them, Lavender, hissed, "Hey, can't you keep it down?"
"Sorry," Hermione whispered back.
"My mother gave me a sleep potion, if you'd like to have a little it's sitting beside my bed," Lavender offered groggily. "A mouthful will give you a full night's sleep."
"Thank you so much," Hermione said, tiptoeing lightly past Parvati's bed and gulping down a bit of liquid from the bottle on Lavender's bedside table. She just made it back to her own bed before collapsing.
Snowflakes everywhere. Whistling, whirling past her cheeks. Blonde hair whipping around her.
A black leather glove holding tightly to her hand. The glove belonged to a tall blonde woman.
Pain in her wrist. Pain as she was knocked down onto pavement.
The face of the boy in her Potions class, pressed against the glass of a train…
Hermione dreamed in flashes. When she awoke in the morning, she shivered, although it was quite warm in the dormitories. Why had that dream been so real? Why could she remember it so clearly?
Hermione shook her head to clear her mind and quickly pulled on her uniform and robes. She made her way down to the Great Hall for breakfast, hoping to get her mind off the eerie dream. She sat down at the Gryffindor table, a few yards away from the redhead she'd met on the train, and poured herself a glass of apple juice.
She let her eyes wander. The sky was a periwinkle color in the morning mist, unblemished by clouds. Most of the teachers were seated at the long table in the front of the hall, some surveying the students, others chatting or reading the Daily Prophet. Hermione's gaze drifted toward the Slytherin table.
There sat the boy in her Potions class. Draco, wasn't it? Hermione shivered again as she scrutinized his face. She felt like she knew him, but she hadn't even known she was a witch for two months whereas he had obviously been a wizard his whole life. She couldn't have possibly known him.
His eyes suddenly raised to meet hers.
A pair of blonde twins playing in a sandbox.
"Mama, mama, Drakie threw sand at me!"
Tears and laughter melding into a moist, hot mess.
A silken handkerchief wiped across wet cheeks, a calming "There, there."
Hermione started and shook her head, breaking the half-second gaze she had shared with the Slytherin boy. He, too, looked away immediately, pretending not to have noticed her.
What was going on?