Remembering

Title: Remembering

Author: greymalkin

Summary: Sometimes memories we thought we’d lost come back to us when we least expect it. A warm night and a quiet house leads Hermione to remember.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created by J.K. Rowling. In other words, not mine. If I was skipping, I would be going, “Not-not mine, not-not mine.” You get the idea.

Author notes: Just a sad little drabble that popped into my head while reading The Second Child by Deborah Garrison. Her words inspired a little bit of poetry from the prosiest of prose.

~~*~~

It is late. I am standing at the kitchen counter after dinner. I look out the window at the dark and suddenly, I think of you. My memory is traitorous. Sometimes I feel I have forgotten too much of you –

The feel of your arms as you held me.

What we whispered to each other on cold winter mornings.

The sound of your voice when you said you loved me.

Now and then, like now when the house is quiet and I am alone, they come without warning. Small things, odd details that no one but I could treasure. Tonight this: you laughing into my mouth as you were trying to kiss me.

I do not cry. My heart has become weary with crying. But still the ache comes and still I miss you. I think I will spend the rest of my days missing you. I am too young to be a widow, our son too young to lose his father.

Every so often, he reminds me too much of you – from his perpetually windswept locks, albeit brown instead of black, to his emerald eyes clouding with worry when he senses me sad – that it pains me to watch him. Other times, I cling to him as my only proof that it wasn’t just a dream and you were once here with me. That, once upon a time, you loved me.

He is calling me now from the other room, wanting to show off the prefect badge that came for him today. I compose myself and tuck my memories of you away in lavender. Life will go on. The sun will rise and set. The grass will grow. And I will have other nights for remembering.