A/N: Hey all! Just as a fun little tidbit: I literally dreamed this whole story, then woke up and wrote it. If I had thought of it in the regular way, I probably would've made it longer and changed some stuff, but I thought it would be fun to post this story exactly as I dreamed it! Also, I wrote this story about nine or ten months ago, thus the quality of the writing probably isn't up to par with my current stuff.
Please enjoy.
Decisions
Chapter 1 - 15 Years
November 15th, 1998
I brought my hand up to knock on Hermione's door, but stopped as my nerves threatened to overcome me again.Come on,I thought,you're a man on a mission. I steeled my resolve and knocked on the door.
Hermione answered a few seconds later, and my breath caught in my throat just as it did every time I beheld her beauty. She beamed at me, and said, "Harry, what a pleasant surprise! Come in!"
I stepped inside, and Hermione ushered me into the sitting room and sat me on her sofa. "Do you want anything to drink? I have pumpkin juice."
Me nerves were so bad that my mouth had gone absolutely bone-dry, but I knew that if I put this off right now, I would keep finding more excuses to do so. "No. Can you…can you sit down for a minute?"
Hermione frowned but complied, then asked, "What's wrong?"
I cleared my throat and took a deep breath before saying, "I have something in need to tell you." When Hermione nodded with a worried expression on her face, I continued. "I'm in love with you."
I hadn't meant for it to come out like that-I had a whole speech planned-but there it was. Now all I could do was sit and wait with my heart hammering in my chest.
Hermione's eyes teared up, but she had a giant grin on her face. "Oh, Harry. I've wanted to hear that for so long. I love you, too."
I grinned back at her, then we slowly leaned toward each other and our lips met.
15 YEARS LATER-August 12th, 2014
I woke up sweating and shaking from my worst nightmare-the nightmare that I had had a couple times every week for the past 15 years. I had dreamed of that night, the night that I had told her I loved her.
We only had one week together-most of it spent in bed-before she vanished without a trace. I still didn't know if I had said or done something wrong, but the only thing she had left was a tear-stained note that said, 'Always remember that I love you.'
I had spent the last 15 years looking for her-I don't know why I couldn't give up, I just felt like I absolutely had to find her, so I could understand. The last time I had been anywhere in Britain was 7 years ago. I had no friends, I had never dated after Hermione, so I had no family, and I had no job. I just went from country to country, using Gringott's remote withdrawal system to fund my search. I had tried making the process of finding her simple in the beginning. I simply snuck into a muggle government building under my invisibility cloak, waited until everyone had left, and magically hacked every country in the world's security system for any trace of her. But there was nothing-not even her birth records. It was like she had never existed. My best guess was that she used magic to erase all traces of her life.
I was currently in Norway, wrapping things up. After today, I was completely finished searching all of Europe. I took my map out of my backpack and crossed out Norway. I pulled out my list of countries that I was going to search and eyed the next one: USA.
August 13th, 2014
I stepped out of the International Flooport in Boston, Massachusetts. I apparated to Salem's version of Diagon Alley, which a kind wizard in the Flooport pointed out to me on a map.
Salem was the magical capital of the states, so the place was absolutely packed. Shoppers were everywhere, many of them kids most likely preparing for the new school year. I walked down the alley, taking in the differences of this magical community, which was always fun to do. America's was certainly interesting-they had TV sets that played wizarding television shows from a magical television station.
What was the same was the familiar sign of Flourish & Blotts. They had branches all over the world, as did St. Mungo's. My eyes then fell on a neon sign for a magical party store, and I decided to take a peek inside. I opened the door, and someone bumped into me. She muttered a quick, "Sorry," without looking up.
I stopped in my tracks and my breath caught in my throat-that was the same voice that had haunted my dreams for the past 15 years. I turned my head to see the familiar riot of curls weaving its way through the crowd.
I quickly followed-I didn't want to lose her. A wide range of emotions bombarded me as I realized that I had actually found her, and it had only taken 5 minutes in America. Happiness, relief, anger hurt, disbelief. But most of all, I was thinking,finally. I found her.She exited the alley, and I prayed to the powers that be that she wouldn't apparate.
I was lucky-she didn't. I fished out my invisibility cloak as I followed her from a safe distance, then threw it on and placed a silencing charm around it.
I knew exactly what I wanted to say to her-I just didn't exactly know how I was going to approach her.
As we arrived at her house-she fished her keys out at a nice two-story place-I couldn't help but feel that this was all surreal.
I had enough time to slip into her house as she was setting the bags, and I looked around. It was so…Hermione. Mahogany furniture, nice leather sofas and armchairs, and quite a few bookshelves filled to bursting with books.
Hermione locked her door and turned around, and my stomach clenched both painfully and pleasurably. It had been 15 years, but she had barely changed. Her hair was longer than I remembered, and she was more beautiful. She still wore no make-up, but looked not a day older than twenty. The only disconcerting thing was her eyes. They were filled to the brim with intelligence, just as I remembered, but that spark of life had faded. The smile lines around her eyes weren't there anymore, too. She looked…defeated.
She took the bags to the backyard, which was quite big. I assumed that this was a magical community, because she had a Quidditch pitch, which confused me-Hermione had always hated Quidditch. She whipped out her wand and set up a bunch of stuff for a party, which intrigued me. Her birthday wasn't until September 19th, so I assumed that she was hosting for a friend.
I didn't want to ruin her party by screaming at her, so I decided to wait until later to confront her. In the meantime, I would just kick back and observe. When Hermione went inside, I quickly conjured a chair a safe distance from the party and disillusioned it. I sat down and draped the cloak both over myself and the chair, then sat down and waited.
I passed the time leading up to the party going over what I was going to say to her when I finally did confront her. Hermione brought a bunch of food out and set it on the tables, and I glanced at my watch, which read 12:45 PM.
I assumed that the party started at one, and my guess was confirmed when guests started showing up about 5 minutes later. There weren't that many adults-they were vastly outnumbered by teenagers, which made me assume that the party was for one of the teens, probably a friend's kid.
Some of the teenagers hopped on brooms and started a pickup game of Quidditch, and Hermione chatted with the adults. The time passed quickly as I tried to assess what was going on here. I finally found a common thread-all of the teenagers were around the same age, 14-16, which confirmed my suspicion that this was one of the teen's party.
After I figured had figured that out, I took to staring at Hermione for the rest of the party, which was pretty uneventful.
It was around 7 and getting dark when Hermione floated the cake out. The singing was what birthday singing usually entailed-an unintelligible, out of tune jumble of words.
I let out a yawn, and the crowd shouted, "HAPPY 15TH, JAMES!"
My eyes shot open and I eyed the crowd. I felt anger and disbelief building in me as my eyes fell on the smiling young man in the center of the crowd. He had messy, raven-colored hair and emerald eyes filled with intelligence.
Everything glass, including the rear windows of the house, exploded. People screamed, but quickly recovered. I was absolutely furious, but I was never one to cause a scene, so I stayed seated.
As Hermione and the rest of the adults magically repaired everything, my brain went into overload.I have a son. An almost grown-up son that I've never met. Hermione left because she knew she was pregnant…wait, that doesn't make sense. Why did she leave? I can't believe she did this. I have a son
I bottled my anger so I could release it on Hermione later. I sat there, simmering in fury, for the last couple hours of the party. Once everyone had left, James bade his…mother…goodnight, and Hermione started cleaning up.
I silently stood up. I walked up behind her, took off the invisibility cloak, and said evilly, "Hello, Hermione."