simple

6.

Yasmin's shopping trip was boring Hera. Hogsmeade was really only interesting from far away now- it's especially boring when you're a seventh year and have visited about a billion other times. After a good couple days of rain, the village seemed soggy from top to bottom, and not very pleasant to the nose. The rain had brought about a layer of slippery mud over the tiles. The tang of that mouldy mud mixed itself naturally with the various smokes emerging from the chimneys. It was truly an experience. Even though she was wearing wellies, Hera did not enjoy the squelching sounds coming from beneath her. It was bloody disgusting.

"Yasmine, sweetie?"

To whom it may concern, Hera exclusively used 'sweetie' when she was being passive aggressive or condescending towards a person or otherwise creature. Perhaps the habit had been adopted from her mother subconsciously, even though her mother never meant for the meaning to be ironic.

"Yes?" Yasmine answered with rosy cheeks. She, of course, was oblivious to the awful mud conditions, and seemed to be enjoying herself. "Did you want some of my hot cocoa?"

"No, thank you, Yas.I was just starting to feel a tad tired, that's all. I think I may call it a day, if you don't mind." Hera would have gone home even if Yasmine minded. She was only trying to appear polite- as one should.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I've tired you out! It's no problem, really... I just wanted to go and return this sweater. But you can certainly go ahead, Hera," she said hurriedly, looking way too guilty. " I don't mind!" she added.

"I'll see you later, then," Hera said with a small wave barely indicating a gesture.
"Byeeee!" Yasmine called after her.

She decided to walk back to the school. A few years ago, her snooty teenage self would never have fathomed wearing wellies and black jean overalls while walking on a muddy road. For some reason being alone in the squelchy mud was less annoying, and now she barely noticed. Maybe she had just wanted to be alone. Her thoughts drowned out her previous annoyance and she found herself taking in a deep breath of cold October air. The fir trees looked especially emerald green, and there was a crispness to every little element of nature as if someone had wiped her vision clean. Hera realised she had not been this present in a long, long time. She was used to either feeling everything or nothing at all.

Now, she felt at peace.

In the back of her mind, she wondered how long this feeling was going to last.

Her mind wandered to Malfoy's proposal. All Hallow's Eve. It was not completely out of her range of understanding why such a celebration would be had. Celebrating the dead was as important as celebrating the living. But dressing up? Why would anyone want to be someone other than themselves? As for the Malfoy part...

She considered the way she would be perceived walking into the hall alongside him. He was from a renowned family of Slytherins, and greatly respected by the members of Slytherin, still. Still, he was weaker than she was.

Did he stand by his ignorant father's beliefs? Would he be as malleable as Yasmine and many others in her presence? She could not stop herself from wanting to know more about him. She could not help being intrigued, and the questions kept pouring out of her mind before she could stop them. Her moment of peace ended abruptly with a decision:
she was going to go.

----

Draco gasped for air.

Another nightmare. This time it was Dumbledore,digging his fingers into his neck as if grasping for life. The bony, cold feeling lingered on his skin.
Dumbledore's thinned face haunted his vision.

This was an undead Dumbledore; his face decomposing and his cheekbones showing through his white, ghastly skin.

He felt abused by this dream and swallowed by his past. He often had nightmares where he would be tormented by Dumbledore.

Draco knew Dumbledore could never have held anything against him. Deep down, he knew Dumbledore felt sorry for him all along. He was often haunted by people who had never wronged him, like his mother. In one of them, his mother would rip his hair out of his head and throw him in their dungeon, laughing. It was a very violent dream, and he often was at a loss for words in it, unable to do anything but feel pain.

Her eyes glared at him with no emotion, resembling his father's, and would have had no mercy even if he screamed and fought back. When he woke up he felt a heavy guilt in his heart, making him unable to move. His lungs would loose their footing, and he would breathe difficultly whenever he remembered, until he could forget the dream, days or months later.

Under these circumstances, it was difficult for him to discern right from wrong. His nightmares intertwined the good and the bad, the pure and the evil, until he no longer knew if anyone was on the right side anymore. A wrong side had never even been a thought to him in his childhood.

Amidst his fogged up system, a clear image stood painted in his mind forever: Hera kneeling in the Hospital Wing. And he truly didn't know why. Why it was her, that day, that changed everything.

There were right and wrong, muddy and intertwined, and there was her, a clear mirage in a dry, barren desert. He could go to sleep only imagining himself existing in the same places as she did.

Not physically.

He wanted to be where her mind was, live inside her truth that she had created for herself.

Slowly but surely, he fell asleep imagining what Hera's smile looked like.