Where Is My Mind

I've been working on an original fiction for a long time now, and as I was going through it and proofreading, I had actually forgotten about a chapter that I'd written a long time ago, about my main character watching kids puddle jump. And this, well, it just kind of wrote itself, like most of my other stories have done. Except I had almost s tarted writing it in second person, and I decided to just keep it in Hermione's POV.

The title and lyrics in this are from"Where Is My Mind?" by the Pixies. Either you enjoy the Pixies and know this song, or you've seen Fight Club and heard this song play at the end. Or both. Or neither, but if you haven't heard it, I beyond recommend it. And while I was writing this, my playlist that is on random decided that this song was to be listened to. And it worked for me, completely.

Let me know what you think, I love reviews very much. Thank you for reading this.

[With your feet on the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it, and you'll ask yourself...

Where is my mind?]

She watches him a lot. She watches his eyes glance around the room.

She watches his eyes stare out the common room window, and she sees what he's looking at, the rain.

She watches it for a few minutes, trying to get inside his head. Trying to see what he's seeing.

But all it is, is rain. Just rain.

Sometimes she knows what goes on inside Harry, but when he's staring at the rain with vague interest, she's confused.

So she looks back at his face, taking in his eyes, that were constantly getting darker and darker. Older and older.

And suddenly he glances at her, catching her stare, and for a moment they just gaze.

He looks like he's going to cry.

Like his eyes want to match the rain, like looking outside substituted letting it all go.

And when he stands and says "I'll be back later," she's very confused.

"'Where are you going?" she asks, but he only glances out the window again, before turning around and walking.

"I'll be back later," he repeats, as he leaves the common room.

---

She cries a lot now.

When he left the common room, that dark and haunting look on his face, she felt her eyes well up.

She usually had all the answers, if they were written in a book. But when it came to Harry, she had no idea what to do.

She was too worried to have coherent thought sometimes, ever since Harry started looking more and more haunted as news about Voldemort and his supporters appeared.

Ever since Sirius' death, he rarely spoke. He rarely smiled.

Now, more than ever, he acted as if he were dead himself.

Wiping away her tears, she decided to follow Harry.

Not to check up on him, but just to make sure... make sure he wasn't doing anything rash. Anything stupid.

Even if she found him, she had no idea what she would say.

---

She wandered out the portrait hole, and down the stairs. If I were Harry, where would I go, she thought.

She remembered how he was staring outside.

She let out a sigh, and wandered out into the grounds.

It had stopped raining, but the ground was very wet. She walked past puddles and mud, but she couldn't get around the squishing noises that her shoes created on the soggy grass.

And then she heard splashing.

Harry? she thought, and turned to her left to wander towards the noise.

More splashing.

She looked down the small hill, and her jaw dropped in surprise.

She watched Harry take a running leap into a huge puddle of water, splashing himself all over.

She kept staring at him, not understanding why he was doing this.

But she saw, even though he was a little far away, that a grin suddenly broke on his face. She couldn't stop staring.

He walked backwards a bit, and then ran and jumped with both feet in the puddle again. The spray of water went all around him, and mud was caked on his clothes.

She looked down at the ground, and saw his shoes lying there.

"Harry?" She called.

He jumped in surprise, and looked up at her, the grin faded.

He didn't say anything.

"Harry, what are you doing?"

There was a long pause where he didn't break the stare.

"Something I've never done before," He called back, jumping once again, the grin back on his face.

She looked at his feet as he backed out of the puddle.

"You didn't take off your socks?" she asked, very surprised. "Harry, you're all muddy and wet!"

"I know," he said, pausing.

But that grin.

She hadn't seen him smile like that in a long time.

Puddle jumping.

Something he had never done before.

He'd never been a kid before.

"Hermione?" he called up to her. She looked at him. "Come and play."

She couldn't stop the smile that appeared on her face, as she slowly walked down towards him.

And just as she was about to change her mind, he jumped in the puddle harder than ever, spraying her clean clothes with mud. "Sorry," he said, not sorry at all.

In any other circumstance, with any other person, s he would have been angry.

Instead, she kicked off her shoes and jumped hard in the puddle with Harry, and started laughing as she realised how dirty she was now.

Now she understood.

"Thank you," she said, forgetting about everything else around her.

"What are you doing?" he asked, as she grabbed his arm.

"Something I've never done before," she echoed his earlier words, and she leaned in and gave him a very quick, chaste, muddy kiss on the lips.

Instead of letting the air grow awkward, he let out a small laugh and grabbed her hand.

---

She watches him a lot. She watches his eyes glance around them, and she hears him say, "Race you to the next one."

And instead of trying to get into his head, she's already there.

Because she's not ready to grow up and face the world just yet either.

[Where is my mind,
Where is my mind...

Way out, in the water, see it swimming.]