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Hermione was sitting up in her bed. She had that day’s issue of The Daily Prophet draped across her legs. She had abandoned reading it after getting to the bottom of the front page and having no idea what she had read. She kept glancing nervously at the door, as if she was hoping someone would come in.
Hugo was examining the large amount of potion bottles on the table beside the bed. Every so often he would pick one up to examine it closer, shrug to himself and put it back in its place. “They certainly have you on a lot of potions Mom,”
Hermione slowly turned to look at her son. Although she was on a few different pain potions, it still hurt when she moved too fast. She smiled up at him and laughed, “Well, apparently this is pretty serious,”
He laughed as well, “But look at all of this. I mean my goodness,”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Hermione mumbled to herself. Ginny, who had come over to place a new vase of flowers on the other bedside table, gave a short chuckle and went back to organizing get well cards on the other side of the room. Hugo noticed her pick her leg up behind her and absently rub her ankle. He rolled his eyes and shook his head; sometimes he really didn’t understand his mother and his aunt.
“I can walk by myself you know!” Hugo heard the all too familiar voice from the hallway.
“Oh by all means, continue to drag yourself at a glacial pace then,” another, more amused voice drifted into the room.
Rose appeared at the doorway, clutching her ribs with one hand, while the other hung, quite useless, at her side. Her face and arms were covered in scratches and bruises and she was taking short, shallow breaths. Parcell stood next to her looking resigned and amused.
“Holy hell Rose!” Hugo cried at the sight of her, “What happened?”
“Long story,” Rose answered almost breathlessly. She looked across the room and met her mother’s eyes. Hermione had straightened herself up as much as she could in her bed and was staring back as Rose. The two of them stayed in that position in silence for what seemed like forever. It was Hermione that spoke first.
“Rose Ginevra Weasley,” Rose winced at the sound of her middle name coming out of her mother’s mouth, “do you have any idea how frightened we have been? That was dangerous, and ill-conceived and you could have gotten yourself, not to mention you cousins, killed,” Normally, at this point, Rose would have started to fight back. She would have started to yell and defend her actions, not matter how stupid they were. Hugo and Ginny were both looking at her expectantly, ready for the row, but it never came. Rose stood there in uncharacteristic silence, nodding and staring at the bright white floor. “That had to have been the stupidest, most dangerous, most reckless,” Hermione looked at her daughter more intently, even though Rose wasn’t looking at her, “bravest, noblest, most Weasley-like thing you have ever done,” Rose looked up at Hermione, who was smiling. Ginny started to smile as well, poor Hugo just looked shocked and confused.
“But…” he stammered, looking from his mother to his sister. Ginny rushed over and grabbed his arm.
“Let’s give them a minute, why don’t we Hugo,” she pulled him to the door where Parcell ushered them out and closed the door as he left.
There was silence again as Hermione and Rose were left alone. After a minute, Rose started to drag herself toward the bed, “You look better,” she told her mother.
Hermione smiled as she looked at her daughter, “You look terrible,” she laughed and stopped abruptly as pain shot through her chest again. She inched over to make room for Rose to sit on the bed. After quite the ordeal, that included a few involuntary yelps of pain from the both of them and concluded in Rose using the chair hoist herself up, she was sitting on the edge of Hermione’s bed.
“You didn’t even let them fix your broken ribs,” Hermione was shaking her head, “That only takes a minute,”
“They though you were going to be mad at them, that you were going to think they didn’t treat me,” Rose smiled.
“They don’t know you as well as I do,” Hermione replied knowingly, “So what was so important that you couldn’t spare two minutes for them to fix some broken bones?”
Rose spent a minute examining the cuts on the back of her hand before she replied, “I’m sorry,”
Hermione looked confused, “You’re sorry for what?”
“For everything!” Rose burst out, “I’m sorry I yell at you all the time, I’m sorry I always start arguments, I’m sorry I never listened, I’m sorry for saying I hated you, I’m sorry I left…” she had said this all in one breath and would have kept going if Hermione hadn’t put up her hand to stop her.
“Rose,” she looked at her daughter with a sort of caring intensity, “You can apologize for arguing and shouting, I should probably apologize for that too, but do not, under any circumstances apologize for leaving,”
Rose looked at her in confusion, “But you didn’t want me to go,”
“Of course I didn’t want you to go,” Hermione replied, “What mother wants her daughter to move half way around the world? But it shouldn’t matter what I think, honestly I never thought it did to you. You should never have to apologize for wanting to be your own person Rose. Maybe I should have realized that,” she stared intently at her hands now fidgeting with the bed sheets. “You went off and did things that I could never have done, that none of us have ever done. Don’t apologize for that. If anything, apologize for coming back when you were so close to finishing,”
“Are you kidding me?” Rose gazed at her in disbelief, “I thought you were dead. The one acceptable daughterly thing I do…” she trailed off.
“I guess I’m glad you came back,” she smiled wryly. She made to move stopped short again, “Let’s just say under normal circumstances, for instance if I could move properly, I would give you a hug right now,”
“Alright,” Rose began to laugh but halted in pain as well, “Maybe it’s better for both of us that way,” she added in a strained voice. Hermione did mange to take Rose’s hand in her own.
After a moment of simply enjoying the fact that they weren’t arguing, Rose decided to breech the next subject on her list of questions for her mother. “Mom?” Hermione looked at her expectantly, “Have you ever been to Malfoy Manor?” she was kind of groping in the dark as to how to approach this subject.
Hermione seemed taken aback by the question, but recovered quickly. She thought about her answer for a moment. To most, it would seem as if she were trying to recall a time when she had in fact been to Malfoy Manor. Rose, however, had a suspicion that she was deliberating whether or not to tell her the truth. When she finally answered, it was slow and thoughtful, “Yes,”
That seemed to be all she was willing to share at the moment, so Rose continued, “Have you ever seen” she decided to avoid the idea of riding for the moment, “a dragon? Like in real life?” Hermione seemed to find this question a little more amusing than the one about Malfoy Manor, a small, barely discernable smile graced her face. She still, however, took her time in answering.
“Yes,” her natural instincts wanted to question why Rose was all of a sudden so curious, but Rose had fought the urge to fight back earlier and she would suppress hers now. She remained silent and allowed Rose to continue.
“You were tortured there, weren’t you? At Malfoy Manor?” Hermione couldn’t hide the shock from her face. How had she found out? “And the dragon, you rode one, while it was flying.”
Hermione’s urge to question had suddenly vanished; she didn’t even really know what to say. “But…how…” was all she managed to stutter out.
“I’ve been having these dreams, but they don’t seem like dreams when I’m having them. They seem so real, like they really happened. At first I just thought they were weird dreams because…” she paused, she hadn’t gotten to the accusations about the war yet, “because of a book I was reading. Then I started to think I wasn’t me in the dreams, you know? Like they weren’t my dreams. I think they were yours,”
“I don’t understand what you mean?” Hermione was looking at her strangely, desperately trying to understand.
Rose though for a moment, how could she explain it? “It’s like I wasn’t me in the dreams, I was you. Like in one I noticed my hair was brown,” she hadn’t realized how feeble that sounded until she said it out loud, “But, like I said before, they weren’t like dreams…arrgghh…” Rose grunted in frustration, she couldn’t explain it. While listening to Rose ramble, Hermione could only think of one thing. There was only one person who had explained certain dreams to her like this. She vividly remembered the reason for those dreams and was instantly frightened. “They were more like…” Rose had tried another attempt to explain herself, “more like…more like…memories,”
“What were they,” Hermione was having flashes of a younger version of herself, “exactly,”
Rose recounted all the strange dreams she had had since she had gotten home. Hermione listened intently and half wished she had something to take notes on. It didn’t take long, however, for Hermione to see where all the dreams were going. She knew how they ended, she knew which ones were going to come next. When Rose ended, she stared at her mother expectantly.
Hermione thought for a moment, “You know, when you’re in a coma, you dream,” she took a deep breath, “but I’ve never really had those weird dreams that don’t make any sense. I dream about things that have happened. So, that’s what happened, I remembered things. I remembered the time we rode on the dragon. I remembered the moments before I was petrified. I remembered our last argument. I remembered the time,” she took the deepest breath she could manage, “I was tortured at Malfoy Manor. Come to think of it, I remembered probably the worst moments of my life,” She glanced poignantly across the bed at her daughter.
“Wait,” Rose cried, putting the pieces together, “You think we had the same dreams at the same time? How does that even happen?”
“Well I’ve only heard about something like that happening in one other case,” she looked nervous, but seemed to quickly abandon the thought, “but I’m rather certain that’s not what happened to us,”
Rose was getting excited, “How do you know? Where have you heard of it before?”
Hermione hesitated. She knew she wouldn’t be able to explain everything to Rose, but she had a feeling that she was going to have to. Their conversation had taken quite the turn. Minutes ago, she was happy and content with their slightly mended relationship. Now, she was back to being nervous and unsure, afraid of what she could and couldn’t say. She needed to talk to Ron and Harry.
“Rosie,” she pleaded, “There are a lot of things that I can’t really talk about right now, and I know that for you to fully understand all the things you saw, I’m going to have to explain them. I need to talk to your father and Uncle Harry,”
Rose’s face dropped, her urge to yell that she had managed to tame was raring its head again. “It’s because of that spell, isn’t it?”
Hermione was yet again stunned by the amount of information Rose seemed to know. “Now, how do you know about that one?”
“Uncle George,” Rose replied simply.
Hermione couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Of course, Uncle George,” she sighed, “Yes, that’s why. I need to talk to your father and your uncle,” she looked at Rose’s disappointed face, “We’ll tell you the whole story,”
“Really?” Rose wasn’t expecting this.
“You deserve that much,” Hermione flashed a large smile at Rose, which she returned.
Just then, Healer Parcell slowly opened the door. “May I come in?”
“Of course”
He stepped further into the room, “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but if you don’t want more permanent damage Rose, you’re going to have to let someone fix you,”
She made to protest, but Hermione cut her off, “She’s coming right now,” Rose didn’t retort, and she even slowed Parcell to help her off the bed. “Oh Healer Parcell, you wouldn’t mind doing me a favor would you?”
He smiled his bright white smile at her, “It would be my pleasure,”
“My sister-in-law was in here before, you don’t think you could find her for me do you?”
“I believe she went to the tea room with your son. She’s the red haired one right?”
“Come to think of if, any red headed person would probably be fine,” she laid her head back on her pillows as Rose and Parcell carefully left the room.
Hugo was examining the large amount of potion bottles on the table beside the bed. Every so often he would pick one up to examine it closer, shrug to himself and put it back in its place. “They certainly have you on a lot of potions Mom,”
Hermione slowly turned to look at her son. Although she was on a few different pain potions, it still hurt when she moved too fast. She smiled up at him and laughed, “Well, apparently this is pretty serious,”
He laughed as well, “But look at all of this. I mean my goodness,”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Hermione mumbled to herself. Ginny, who had come over to place a new vase of flowers on the other bedside table, gave a short chuckle and went back to organizing get well cards on the other side of the room. Hugo noticed her pick her leg up behind her and absently rub her ankle. He rolled his eyes and shook his head; sometimes he really didn’t understand his mother and his aunt.
“I can walk by myself you know!” Hugo heard the all too familiar voice from the hallway.
“Oh by all means, continue to drag yourself at a glacial pace then,” another, more amused voice drifted into the room.
Rose appeared at the doorway, clutching her ribs with one hand, while the other hung, quite useless, at her side. Her face and arms were covered in scratches and bruises and she was taking short, shallow breaths. Parcell stood next to her looking resigned and amused.
“Holy hell Rose!” Hugo cried at the sight of her, “What happened?”
“Long story,” Rose answered almost breathlessly. She looked across the room and met her mother’s eyes. Hermione had straightened herself up as much as she could in her bed and was staring back as Rose. The two of them stayed in that position in silence for what seemed like forever. It was Hermione that spoke first.
“Rose Ginevra Weasley,” Rose winced at the sound of her middle name coming out of her mother’s mouth, “do you have any idea how frightened we have been? That was dangerous, and ill-conceived and you could have gotten yourself, not to mention you cousins, killed,” Normally, at this point, Rose would have started to fight back. She would have started to yell and defend her actions, not matter how stupid they were. Hugo and Ginny were both looking at her expectantly, ready for the row, but it never came. Rose stood there in uncharacteristic silence, nodding and staring at the bright white floor. “That had to have been the stupidest, most dangerous, most reckless,” Hermione looked at her daughter more intently, even though Rose wasn’t looking at her, “bravest, noblest, most Weasley-like thing you have ever done,” Rose looked up at Hermione, who was smiling. Ginny started to smile as well, poor Hugo just looked shocked and confused.
“But…” he stammered, looking from his mother to his sister. Ginny rushed over and grabbed his arm.
“Let’s give them a minute, why don’t we Hugo,” she pulled him to the door where Parcell ushered them out and closed the door as he left.
There was silence again as Hermione and Rose were left alone. After a minute, Rose started to drag herself toward the bed, “You look better,” she told her mother.
Hermione smiled as she looked at her daughter, “You look terrible,” she laughed and stopped abruptly as pain shot through her chest again. She inched over to make room for Rose to sit on the bed. After quite the ordeal, that included a few involuntary yelps of pain from the both of them and concluded in Rose using the chair hoist herself up, she was sitting on the edge of Hermione’s bed.
“You didn’t even let them fix your broken ribs,” Hermione was shaking her head, “That only takes a minute,”
“They though you were going to be mad at them, that you were going to think they didn’t treat me,” Rose smiled.
“They don’t know you as well as I do,” Hermione replied knowingly, “So what was so important that you couldn’t spare two minutes for them to fix some broken bones?”
Rose spent a minute examining the cuts on the back of her hand before she replied, “I’m sorry,”
Hermione looked confused, “You’re sorry for what?”
“For everything!” Rose burst out, “I’m sorry I yell at you all the time, I’m sorry I always start arguments, I’m sorry I never listened, I’m sorry for saying I hated you, I’m sorry I left…” she had said this all in one breath and would have kept going if Hermione hadn’t put up her hand to stop her.
“Rose,” she looked at her daughter with a sort of caring intensity, “You can apologize for arguing and shouting, I should probably apologize for that too, but do not, under any circumstances apologize for leaving,”
Rose looked at her in confusion, “But you didn’t want me to go,”
“Of course I didn’t want you to go,” Hermione replied, “What mother wants her daughter to move half way around the world? But it shouldn’t matter what I think, honestly I never thought it did to you. You should never have to apologize for wanting to be your own person Rose. Maybe I should have realized that,” she stared intently at her hands now fidgeting with the bed sheets. “You went off and did things that I could never have done, that none of us have ever done. Don’t apologize for that. If anything, apologize for coming back when you were so close to finishing,”
“Are you kidding me?” Rose gazed at her in disbelief, “I thought you were dead. The one acceptable daughterly thing I do…” she trailed off.
“I guess I’m glad you came back,” she smiled wryly. She made to move stopped short again, “Let’s just say under normal circumstances, for instance if I could move properly, I would give you a hug right now,”
“Alright,” Rose began to laugh but halted in pain as well, “Maybe it’s better for both of us that way,” she added in a strained voice. Hermione did mange to take Rose’s hand in her own.
After a moment of simply enjoying the fact that they weren’t arguing, Rose decided to breech the next subject on her list of questions for her mother. “Mom?” Hermione looked at her expectantly, “Have you ever been to Malfoy Manor?” she was kind of groping in the dark as to how to approach this subject.
Hermione seemed taken aback by the question, but recovered quickly. She thought about her answer for a moment. To most, it would seem as if she were trying to recall a time when she had in fact been to Malfoy Manor. Rose, however, had a suspicion that she was deliberating whether or not to tell her the truth. When she finally answered, it was slow and thoughtful, “Yes,”
That seemed to be all she was willing to share at the moment, so Rose continued, “Have you ever seen” she decided to avoid the idea of riding for the moment, “a dragon? Like in real life?” Hermione seemed to find this question a little more amusing than the one about Malfoy Manor, a small, barely discernable smile graced her face. She still, however, took her time in answering.
“Yes,” her natural instincts wanted to question why Rose was all of a sudden so curious, but Rose had fought the urge to fight back earlier and she would suppress hers now. She remained silent and allowed Rose to continue.
“You were tortured there, weren’t you? At Malfoy Manor?” Hermione couldn’t hide the shock from her face. How had she found out? “And the dragon, you rode one, while it was flying.”
Hermione’s urge to question had suddenly vanished; she didn’t even really know what to say. “But…how…” was all she managed to stutter out.
“I’ve been having these dreams, but they don’t seem like dreams when I’m having them. They seem so real, like they really happened. At first I just thought they were weird dreams because…” she paused, she hadn’t gotten to the accusations about the war yet, “because of a book I was reading. Then I started to think I wasn’t me in the dreams, you know? Like they weren’t my dreams. I think they were yours,”
“I don’t understand what you mean?” Hermione was looking at her strangely, desperately trying to understand.
Rose though for a moment, how could she explain it? “It’s like I wasn’t me in the dreams, I was you. Like in one I noticed my hair was brown,” she hadn’t realized how feeble that sounded until she said it out loud, “But, like I said before, they weren’t like dreams…arrgghh…” Rose grunted in frustration, she couldn’t explain it. While listening to Rose ramble, Hermione could only think of one thing. There was only one person who had explained certain dreams to her like this. She vividly remembered the reason for those dreams and was instantly frightened. “They were more like…” Rose had tried another attempt to explain herself, “more like…more like…memories,”
“What were they,” Hermione was having flashes of a younger version of herself, “exactly,”
Rose recounted all the strange dreams she had had since she had gotten home. Hermione listened intently and half wished she had something to take notes on. It didn’t take long, however, for Hermione to see where all the dreams were going. She knew how they ended, she knew which ones were going to come next. When Rose ended, she stared at her mother expectantly.
Hermione thought for a moment, “You know, when you’re in a coma, you dream,” she took a deep breath, “but I’ve never really had those weird dreams that don’t make any sense. I dream about things that have happened. So, that’s what happened, I remembered things. I remembered the time we rode on the dragon. I remembered the moments before I was petrified. I remembered our last argument. I remembered the time,” she took the deepest breath she could manage, “I was tortured at Malfoy Manor. Come to think of it, I remembered probably the worst moments of my life,” She glanced poignantly across the bed at her daughter.
“Wait,” Rose cried, putting the pieces together, “You think we had the same dreams at the same time? How does that even happen?”
“Well I’ve only heard about something like that happening in one other case,” she looked nervous, but seemed to quickly abandon the thought, “but I’m rather certain that’s not what happened to us,”
Rose was getting excited, “How do you know? Where have you heard of it before?”
Hermione hesitated. She knew she wouldn’t be able to explain everything to Rose, but she had a feeling that she was going to have to. Their conversation had taken quite the turn. Minutes ago, she was happy and content with their slightly mended relationship. Now, she was back to being nervous and unsure, afraid of what she could and couldn’t say. She needed to talk to Ron and Harry.
“Rosie,” she pleaded, “There are a lot of things that I can’t really talk about right now, and I know that for you to fully understand all the things you saw, I’m going to have to explain them. I need to talk to your father and Uncle Harry,”
Rose’s face dropped, her urge to yell that she had managed to tame was raring its head again. “It’s because of that spell, isn’t it?”
Hermione was yet again stunned by the amount of information Rose seemed to know. “Now, how do you know about that one?”
“Uncle George,” Rose replied simply.
Hermione couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Of course, Uncle George,” she sighed, “Yes, that’s why. I need to talk to your father and your uncle,” she looked at Rose’s disappointed face, “We’ll tell you the whole story,”
“Really?” Rose wasn’t expecting this.
“You deserve that much,” Hermione flashed a large smile at Rose, which she returned.
Just then, Healer Parcell slowly opened the door. “May I come in?”
“Of course”
He stepped further into the room, “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but if you don’t want more permanent damage Rose, you’re going to have to let someone fix you,”
She made to protest, but Hermione cut her off, “She’s coming right now,” Rose didn’t retort, and she even slowed Parcell to help her off the bed. “Oh Healer Parcell, you wouldn’t mind doing me a favor would you?”
He smiled his bright white smile at her, “It would be my pleasure,”
“My sister-in-law was in here before, you don’t think you could find her for me do you?”
“I believe she went to the tea room with your son. She’s the red haired one right?”
“Come to think of if, any red headed person would probably be fine,” she laid her head back on her pillows as Rose and Parcell carefully left the room.
