Snippets

Chapter Twelve

"You're doing what?!" Harry yelps incredulously, looking at Hermione as if she has approximately as many heads as Fluffy had back in first year. His eyes are as wide as saucers as he looks at her over the rim of his glasses.

"Yeah, wasn't it you who spent an afternoon yelling at us the day that you found out that Malfoy was a Healer?" Ron wonders, clearly taking Harry's side in this conversation.

Hermione rolls her eyes, slumping back in the chair in Harry's dining room which she is currently occupying.

"It's not like I'm saying that I like him," Hermione states, waving her arms as if it somehow bolsters her statement. "Draco is just helping me. He has a library and shelves of books from his Healing studies."

Hermione realizes her mistake the moment that both Harry and Ron's eyes look as if they're about to roll right out of their sockets.

"Oh, so he's Draco, now?" Ron scoffs, raising an eyebrow at Hermione.

Hermione exhales heavily, rubbing at her forehead to relieve some of the sudden pressure there before she responds.

"He asked me to call him that. He said that no one calls him 'Malfoy' anymore."

Ron stares pointedly at Hermione, but doesn't respond to her statement– it's Harry who speaks next.

"But… why? I don't understand how he even got involved to begin with?" Harry questions, leaning forward onto the dining table toward Hermione.

Hermione sighs. She's gone back and forth on whether to tell Harry and Ron about Draco's prominent feature in her visions. Ginny was understanding enough, but that doesn't guarantee the same for Harry or Ron.

Whether she believes the validity of her visions– or whether she believes that they're actually coming to pass– or not, she has struggled with the idea of telling her two best friends that one of her most recent visions involved a rather rigorous game of tonsil hockey between her and their former bully. She would like to believe that neither of them would hold against her something which isn't in her control, but at the end of the day, she doesn't actually know for sure.

"I– It's– Well, it's c-complicated," Hermione stutters, averting her eyes from either of her friends'.

Hermione feels Harry's hand rest over her forearm, which jars her attention back up to him.

"Wait, what's going on, 'Mi? What aren't you telling us?" Harry asks, his voice softer than it had been a moment ago.

Hermione's eyes begin to burn, quickly pricking with tears which she tries her hardest to fight. She loses the battle when a tear slips down her cheek, which she quickly brushes away, but it's too late– Harry absolutely notices it.

Harry stands from his chair across from Hermione and quickly rounds the table, coming to sit beside her. Ron is seated at one of the heads of the table, but he leans toward Hermione, clearly focusing his attention on her just as Harry is.

"I– It's– W-where's Ginny?" Hermione's voice is weak and wet when she speaks, but she thinks that if Ginny, who already knows the story, were here that she might feel more confident.

Harry's eyebrows scrunch together as if in confusion for a moment.

"She's up in the nursery with Lily. Do you want me to get her?" Harry sounds as if he isn't sure what relevance his wife has to this conversation, but the tone in his voice tells Hermione that he'll do whatever will make her more comfortable in this moment.

By the time Harry calls Ginny down, and the aforementioned redheaded woman passes her daughter off to her uncle, Hermione's tears have begun to slow.

Hermione supposes that Harry must've explained his version of the situation to Ginny while he walked her down from the nursery because as soon as she sits down she turns to Hermione and says, "Just tell them, 'Mione. Tell them everything."

Hermione takes a deep breath and looks between the faces of each of her friends before she does exactly that.

Hermione spends the following hour explaining to Harry and Ron the details of her visions as well as finally telling them that one of her visions has appeared to come to fruition.

A long silence succeeds Hermione's explanation. She picks at her cuticles as she waits for someone else to speak as she figures that she has just done enough talking for quite a while.

"So, you're telling us that you had a vision that you were married to Malfoy– and that these visions are actually happening?" Harry parrots, his voice strangely level for the heaviness of the conversation.

Hermione shrugs her shoulders, realizing that Harry's question was probably rhetorical and doesn't require a response.

"So, that's why you're working with him? What about Healer Greengrass? I thought you liked her," Harry continues, slouching in his chair with his arms resting on the dining table.

"I do, but Malfoy works in her department. He's the same kind of Healer with the same education and he was the one in the vision, not her. I don't know, blame Ginny– it was her idea."

Ginny laughs from beside Hermione, a bright, cheery, genuine laugh.

"I was half-asleep! I didn't think that you'd actually do it," she shrieks between peals of laughter, elbowing Hermione playfully.

"Well, I did," Hermione chuckles, shaking her head at her friend. "His library is massive, and he told me that the Manor has even more books that might be helpful, which he offered to bring to his personal library for me to look at. I don't know why he's helping me, but he is, and I'm grateful."

For the first time since Hermione's explanation, Ron, who is still cradling his niece in his arms, speaks next.

"I'm still trying to process the fact that you met up with Malfoy twice and went over to his– alone– and didn't tell us," he states and there's a harshness in his voice. It's not an angry harshness, though. Hermione thinks that he sounds more worried than anything. "Something could've happened to you and we wouldn't have known."

Hermione sighs. She knows that Ron means well, but this is exactly one of the reasons why she is glad that they are no longer together. He has never really believed in her, or trusted that she could handle herself. Hermione knows that Ron knows that she is capable and intelligent– he repeatedly used both of those traits to his own advantage for seven years– but he has always treated her as if she needed protection, or worse yet, supervision.

Hermione has to physically stop herself from scoffing. As if she couldn't handle Draco Malfoy if he were to get out of line. Furthermore, she does genuinely– despite feeling slightly sick about this revelation– believe that Draco is not a threat to her. He seems authentically interested in helping her research, and thus far, has been nothing but civil to her.

It's not like they're friends. They hardly even spoke when they were researching. Either of them might have pointed something out to the other if they had come across something interesting in their reading, but otherwise, it was just that– research. Hermione isn't entirely sure what threat that Ron thinks such an activity might pose, but in any case, it annoys her that he thinks that she can't take care of herself.

"I think I can handle Draco on my own, Ron– thanks," Hermione rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest defensively.

In response, Ron sneers, his hand– the one not holding Lily– balls into a fist atop the dining table.

"Yeah, and that's what I'm afraid of."

Hermione's next vision takes place in her office. In this vision, vision-Hermione walks into her office on level four of the Ministry, unwinding her scarf from around her neck and draping it over the back of her desk chair. Vision-Hermione pauses as she steps up to her desk, noticing for the first time a vase of flowers, shimmering under a stasis charm, sitting in the middle of her desk.

They're daffodils– beautiful, but uncommonly used in bouquets, at least as far as real-Hermione knows. The particular bouquet sitting atop vision-Hermione's desk is really, quite lovely– perfectly preserved and bright yellow.

Vision-Hermione brushes the tips of her fingers over the petals of the flowers, smiling as she searches the bouquet for a note or an indication of who might've sent them. Real-Hermione watches as vision-Hermione's features deflate when she seems unable to find one.

When real-Hermione comes to from this vision, she can't help but feel slightly relieved. At least this vision hadn't included any shockingly blonde men, miscellaneous former Slytherins or mystery children. In the grand scheme of her visions, Hermione thinks that this one was perhaps rather innocuous.

Hermione also knows, however, that she had also felt that way regarding the vision she had had of the mittens, and of course, she knows now that that vision was anything but innocuous.

Hermione digs into her beaded bag, her arm disappearing up to the elbow due to her undetectable extension charm, and pulls out her journal. She quickly scrawls out the details of her vision, dating and timing it just as Healer Greengrass instructed her to do.

Healer Greengrass has been adamant that Hermione continue to document her visions. Thus far, neither of them have been able to deduce any potential triggers or common denominators from vision to vision, but they have been looking. The visions happen at different times of the day, during different activities, and the content of each vision is different– they're unpredictable in the worst way possible.

Hermione tries to think of the limited knowledge she has of flowers, unable to remember anything apart from the fact that daffodils bloom in early-Spring. That would mean that, if the flowers bloomed naturally and not in a greenhouse, that they would've been harvested between February and March.

Hermione jots that information down beneath her entry about the vision, unsure if it'll be of any help, but at least they might have a timeline to reference. Maybe.

Hermione scrubs her hands down her face as she tosses her journal onto the coffee table in her sitting room. She drops down heavily onto her sofa and tucks her knees up against her chest, resting her chin against them.

Hermione knows that telling Harry and Ron about her visions and about Draco had been the right thing to do, but yet, in this moment, she doesn't think she has ever felt more alone. She knows that her friends are on her side, and– for whatever his reason– she knows that Draco is, too. She knows that Healer Greengrass and her staff are doing everything that they can for her, too, but even still, this whole experience has been so isolating for Hermione.

Every day, the visions pull Hermione deeper and deeper into her own head. She spends the time that she's not watching an alternate version of herself over-analyzing the visions which she has already seen. She spends hours rethinking the visions, scrutinizing every detail that she can remember. She spends at least one hour every week with Healer Greengrass poking and prodding at her memories– real and imagined.

Throughout her treatment with Healer Greengrass, Hermione has hoped for an answer– an actual diagnosis that doesn't include the word 'idiopathic'. She would love to be able to put a name to a face, as it were. But now? Now, she would even settle for a day of peace– or several.

Hermione thinks that she could probably even forget this whole ugly mess if the visions would just stop. Actually, that's probably not true. She would probably still spend hours researching, but at least she wouldn't be bombarded with additional visions to dissect in the process.

Hermione leans back against the back of her sofa, shaking her head as if that could somehow clear it. Mentally, she runs through her schedule for the next few days– research with Draco tomorrow after his shift at Mungo's, babysitting Priya for Ron and Padma, and then an appointment with Healer Greengrass on Friday.

Hermione knows that the only thing she can do right now is to take everything one day at a time– Rome wasn't built in a day, and all of that. She trusts Healer Greengrass and knows that they will find a cause or cure for these visions– it just might take time.

Hermione lays her head on the top of the back of the sofa and closes her eyes. She knows that there isn't anything that she can do tonight, so instead, she rests her head and thinks of daffodils.

Hi, friends! Happy Tuesday! (:

Hint: If there's flowers mentioned in this fic, it's important. It happens a few times, so pay attention. :P

I hope you've all enjoyed this chapter! Thank you, as always, for spending a bit of your time here with me this week. Your support means the world to me. (:

See you all again next week. (: