by Black-Diamonds
 
 

Chapter 3
1stepforward / II.steps-back
 

The rest of Saturday and Sunday went by like a hazy fog. Between alcohol, cigarettes, and the
occasional re-runs of old movies of channel 4, Hermione found herself lost in continual chains of
thought. She mentally pictured scenes from her life, flying past her mind’s eye like pieces of film.

“Practically a god-damn soap opera.” She muttered bitterly Sunday afternoon, shivering in the
apartment. Rubbing her bare arms, she kicked the heater, which was doing anything but giving
warmth to the room. While phoning the land lady, Hermione took a look at her reflection in the
mirror by the door. Her brown hair hung limply by her face, and her grey shorts and t-shirt
reflected the sobriety of the day. Waiting for someone to fix the heating, she wished for the first
time really, since...then...that she could have someone to talk to.

~

Monday morning brought a thousand litres of rain. It sloshed down the streets, spraying the
sidewalk from beneath rushing cars. People huddled like ants, beneath brightly coloured umbrellas -
the only sign of colour that day. Hermione shivered in the cold as she walked from her car to the
door of the library. Just inside the door, she took of her plastic rain hat, and attempted to wring
out her wet hair that hung in dripping tendrils around her pale face. She’d phoned up on Sunday
and explained to Jenny that she would be able to take her shifts, seeing as she felt better and all.

The heat inside the building warmed her instantly. But as she took off her coat and hung it up,
Hermione realised there was a warmth that could never be replaced, and that it was the glow she
felt surround her when she was in Draco’s arms.

~

“And the prince and princess lived happily ever after. The end.” Hermione closed the thick
colourful book in her hands, before looking down at the circle of a dozen or so children that
say around her.

“Well, go on then, I’ll see you all next week.” She said, waving her hand and smiling at them.
They giggled and dashed off to rejoin their parents. Story time over, Hermione stood up and
stretched her arms. The happenings of Saturday were still very much present in her mind, but
like everything else that rocked her precarious, barely-there existence, she tried to put it to
the side and take one step at a time.

~

Time seemed to drift by even more lazily that day, as if the clocks had all slowed down. After
lunch and another cigarette, Hermione went back in and started reshelving books for her
afternoon shift. As she reached up to a high shelf to place back a battered copy of Aldous
Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ in its place, a glimmer of golden silver caught her eye. Her eyes
snapped back to the corner, her heart pounding with a desperation. However, the man turned
around, and Hermione caught a glimpse of his face. He had green eyes, like Harry’s, not those
orbs of lustrous moon light. Hermione bit down on her bottom lip hard, trying not to cry, but
fighting a losing battle.

Thedeaddon’tcomebacktolife...it was a sort of mantra she chanted inside her head, trying to
remind herself not to cling on to illusions.

//Stop it// she mentally scolded, //You can’t just do this every time you see a head of silvery
blonde hair catch the light. You can’t just keep stabbing yourself with fantasies. He’s dead,
okay? Dead.//

//And what?// Another quiet voice asked at the back of her mind. //Do you actually think that
one day, he’ll just waltz into your apartment, sweep you into his arms, and you’ll live happily
ever after?//

And so she ignored every stranger’s head-from-the-back, every tall man in dark clothes.

But every flicker of a shadow on a fence at night sent an unexplained shiver up her spine,
every ringing of the phone made her heart beat with passionate hope. Empty hopes and
dreams of things that could be.

~

That evening, as she hurried out the library, Hermione felt eyes watching her from beyond
the rim of where the shadows met the light from the glowing street lamp. She dismissed it as
another daydream of the heart, another hallucination. But the eyes followed her from the
library to the apartment block to her room. She found herself laughing for being so paranoid
as she warmed up a bowl of noodles in the microwave, but found the apartment to suddenly
be eerily silent when she stopped laughing at the ping of the microwave.

For some reason, as much as she wanted to deny her past, Hermione had always kept her
wand with her. Now, as she sensed that she wasn’t quite alone in the apartment, she reached
for it from her bag and gripped it tightly.

“Who’s there?” It was meant to be a boldly spoken question, but instead it came out a
frightened squeak. She shook her head and mentally scolded herself. The little mental voice
in her head was back.

//Some big brave Gryffindor you are!//...it taunted...//Poor scared little Hermione Granger!//

“That’s Hermione Granger-Malfoy to you buddy.” She muttered to herself, half-paranoid.
Feeling somewhat more self-assured, she straightened up her back.

“I said who’s there?” She loudly called out to the emptiness of the apartment. No reply came.
After several agonising minutes of standing stiffly waiting for some supernatural event to happen,
Hermione gave up. Tucking her wand into the pocket of her big art-smock-like garment, she
quickly threw the bowl of noodles into the bin and opted for a nuked mug of instant hot
chocolate.

//Just like Dumbledore used to make...// she remembered wistfully, curling up in a beanbag.
As the warm chocolate slid down her throat, Hermione gently let her eyelids close. Finishing
the mug off, she placed it on the table nearby. I really should get to bed, Hermione thought.
........
“Hermione?”

“What?” The usual automatic retort whenever her name was called, though these occasions
were rare and far-between these days.

“Hermione...I...”

“You left me! How could you? I needed you! And You. Left. Me!” Though afterwards, she
wouldn’t properly remember why, Hermione felt angry. She felt the need to smash all the damn
windows in the apartment and rip up every damn book in the damn library. She couldn’t even
really see the face of the person she was yelling and screaming at. All she could feel and
experience was the anger flood through her like a tidal wave. Her faith in love had been broken
in a single moment, like a plate smashing on a tiled floor.

Feeling a slow burning pain, Hermione let out a small cry, and looked down to find the dragon
on her finger glowing like a rod of iron left to heat up in a fire. With a sudden urgency, Hermione
reached out a hand towards the person in the pale silver robes.

“Don’t you bloody well think of leaving again!”

But like time and time before, the soft folds of material slipped from between her fingers.

Hermione suddenly felt like she’d been throw down a black hole. She hurtled headlong towards
some unknown dimension, screaming inwardly.

She awoke with a thump, wincing in pain as her hip hit the floor hard, and her head banged
against the night stand next to the bed. Another dream that had rocked her out of her slumber.
She’d been having these strange dreams since Draco’s death, and nothing could be done to
prevent them. The drugs didn’t help either...the little white prescription pills on the bedside
table. They just made it worse.

As she rubbed her sleep-filled eyes, Hermione heard a soft but audible pop from the front room.

Before she could get up to find out the source of the familiar sound, Hermione heard footsteps
coming towards her room.
 
 
 

a/n:
once again, thanks for the reviews :)
ps. as 2 what happens...you'll just have to wait + c. :)
 

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Chapter 4