I Was Walking With a Ghost

The obligatory A/N: I plan on at least three good chapters on this one, perhaps more depending on feedback. Of course, the characters belong to J.K. but the plot is mine. And that's all you'll hear on that. Oh, and my title is taken from the song by Tegan and Sarah, so that's not mine either, but no, this isn't a songfic.

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Ron!"

"Hermione, no!"

A shrill, piercing scream rang through the entire house as Hermione shot upright, well, as upright as a nine-month pregnancy would allow. More accurately, she lurched forward into a position where she was shakily resting on her forearms and elbows, her chest heaving with fear as a cold sweat sent a tingling sensation up her spine and neck. Her characteristically wild chestnut hair now dangled in limp, damp curls at the side of her shadowed face, and her eyes seemed to be the only objects reflecting the faint strands of moonlight streaming in through the closed window.

It took a moment, and her raspy throat, to realize that it had been her own scream that had awakened her. She fell back on her pillow, gazing up at the blank, darkened ceiling as she regained her breath, her mind completely blank. She gazed down in front of her. In the hot summer night, she had kicked off the orange and crimson striped sheets, exposing her pale legs and large stomach, which her white tank top and black cotton shorts could no longer hope to cover. She placed her hand gingerly on her abdomen and ran her fingers lightly up and down it as she brought herself back to respiratory equilibrium.

Looking down at her stomach, she came to the same horrific conclusion she had been coming to night after hopeless night for the past seven months. She rolled her head to the left and, not surprisingly, found the second pillow uninhabited and the sheets barely tussled, apart from what she had already done herself. Only a single silent tear rolled down her cheek; she had cried so much that she was pumped dry. All those nights she had hoped with all of her being that it was nothing more than a dream, and yet her wishes were never realized.

Hermione wiped away the wetness from her eyes and inhaled, her breath catching in her throat as she felt her face grow hot from trying to hold back her tears. With a substantial effort, she rolled on to her left side, still stroking her abdomen lightly, and stared straight ahead at the wall directly next to the bed. It felt wrong, but that was the only view she had been able to see for months, no longer blocked by the solid mass, usually clad in orange striped pyjamas, or a simple white shirt and boxers, or, occasionally, nothing but the sheets.

Hermione reached out with her right hand and ran her fingers down the empty side of the bed, retracting quickly as though she had been bitten by a spider that was hiding among the covers. She longed so desperately to be able to feel some warmth, some life there, but she knew it would never be inhabited by any such form again. She stared at the vacant pillow, her mind full of fading memories. Memories of that face, ones that she had taken for granted and now sorely regretted not burning into her mind permanently. His deep blue eyes staring softly, lovingly into hers, the smile on his freckled face as he pulled away from kissing her goodnight, the way his moppish red hair framed his long face as he slept, usually facing her, but at times on his back. She preferred him sleeping on his side, mainly because he had a tendency to snore otherwise, but she still loved seeing his profile edged in starlight, leaving a long-nosed shadow on the opposite wall.

Forcing herself to banish such thoughts from her mind, though it was no simple task and involved quite a bit of squeezing her eyes shut and taking deep, cleansing breaths, she finally turned away from the sight and moved onto her back again before the discomfort on her spine caused her to sit up again. The added thirty or forty pounds that had locked themselves on to her stomach, hips, and thighs because of the baby she had inside only worsened her physical and emotional state, especially since she was unable to enjoy the rewards of being in a fragile condition and being waited on like royalty. She was alone, in every sense of the word, and she had nobody to rely on to run to the store at 2 AM for pickles and brownies, or to give her a back rub when every muscle in her body tensed up.

Right now, all Hermione would have liked was a glass of water, since her throat currently felt as though she had been living in the desert and was surviving on a diet of cactus needles. Of course, she knew that there was nobody in the kitchen at this hour, well not anymore, so she slowly climbed out of the side of her…formerly their…bed and stood up, straightening her shirt and stretching it as far over her belly as she could before it simply rolled back up to its original position. She felt the wood underneath her feet give way slightly, something she had been accustomed to for the past eight or so weeks, and crept through the house, the one that was supposed to be for a large family, as quietly as she could, her subconscious unable to recognize that she need not be silent anymore, that there was nobody left to wake up.

As she entered the darkened kitchen, which was only illuminated by the pallid yellow street lamp outside that gave it an almost sick looking atmosphere, she flicked on the light switch, squinting as her eyes became accustomed to the sudden brightness. Making her way to the sink, her hand placed instinctively on her stomach, she focused blankly on the small weeping willow that stood in the front yard, visible through the window. The wispy branches fluttered lazily in the inconsistent breezes, some of the small white flowers, detaching and drifting on the crosswinds, leaving the branches emptier than they already appeared.

Her mind lost in the complexities of what a simple tree blowing in a simple wind could bring to her overburdened mind, Hermione grabbed a glass from the wooden cabinet next to the sink and filled it with tap water. She looked away for a moment, just to take a sip. As the water slid down to her stomach, she felt a light punch just below her navel. She pressed back against her baby as it kicked, roused from slumber by the combination of sound, motion, and distress of its poor mother. Hermione leaned against the counter, placing her glass in the sink as she pushed both hands against her stomach. Instead of a motherly smile and perhaps a light blush, the only expression that overtook Hermione was one of pain and sadness. She felt a sharp twinge in her stomach, one not caused directly by the child, but instead by the thoughts it invoked. With every slight movement, she felt as though a poison tipped knife were being forced deeper into her chest, the toxin being her own mind.

She knew that she would at least have a piece of him forever with this baby, but that seemed only to hurt her more, especially considering that he never even learned his wife's exciting little secret before he was gone. What would she say when asked what happened to Daddy? How would she deal with raising a child alone, knowing that half the reason it was even in this world was gone? She stared up into the starlit sky, remembering what her own father had told her. If only she believed in wishing upon a star, she would wish against all human possibility that her child would have a father, the one it was meant to have, that would tell it stories, give it hope, make believe. It's all she wanted, and all she knew she could never have.

Before she could cry anymore, Hermione downed the rest of her water as if it were a shot of tequila, drowning her sadness, and looked one last time out the window. For some reason, the white flower petals on the weeping willow had an almost orange cast over them, as if she were looking out the window through a reflection of somebody with red hair. She quickly dismissed it for her own faulty reasoning and walked back through the empty hallways to her bed, her eyes unable to look up from the ground at the bed as she situated herself back on the mattress, pulling the covers up to her chest. "I love you…" She whispered up to the blank, shadowed ceiling, her voice cracking slightly as she sniffed back tears and rolled onto her right side, away from the pillow.

If only she hadn't decided to turn onto her side at that precise moment, if only the mattress hadn't creaked beneath her and if only she hadn't rustled the sheets, she may have heard, as though carried on the wind, a light breath whispering "I love you too, Hermione…" back at her.