Dramione One Shots

21. (un)seasonably numb

content warning: suicide mentioned in the story, but neither of the characters are suicidal.

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Early September, unseasonably cold, a hostile wind beat Hermione's face as she stood over the edge of the Astronomy Tower. Fingers white-knuckled around the handrails, back flush against the castle, her life hanging precariously in the balance.

She wasn't going to jump. She wanted to make that much clear. Her death would turn the tower into some haunted thing if it wasn't already before, a place where Great Gryffindors came to die, and she preferred a subtle parting, one without a thousand eyes and tactless headlines.

A swift gust of wind thrust her hair into her eyes and mouth, tangled and sour, a pungent medley of dorm-room-shampoo, ash, and the Scottish countryside. Shoulders throbbing, she swung herself back through the railing. The stone platform greeted the backs of her thighs in a long scrape. Spots of light danced beneath her closed eyelids. A high-pitched whistle rang in her ears. And for one fleeting moment, her lips stretched into a wide, exultant smile.

🌬🌬🌬

Next time Hermione sprawled across the tower floor, arms over ribs, gasping for breath, riding out the high of her adrenaline rush, footsteps emerged from below. She rolled over, scratching the heels of her hands against the cracked stone, peering through the opening of the staircase. A flash of pale hair rounded the spiral and disappeared from sight.

Hermione flipped to her back again, relieved. She didn't have an explanation for why she frequented this awful place, nor could she bother to fabricate one.

She clutched her throat. It hurt to swallow. Her ears were burning. Her cheeks felt like plastic in the bleak cold, scorching beneath hot, lazy tears.

🌬🌬🌬

Bad things happened on the best days, those innocuous ones, bright blue with sunshine, exuding a false sense of safety. Tranquil, that's how she felt that morning. Magic sizzled in the still air. If she licked her fingertip and held it out in the sky, she would feel the particles clinging to her like magnets. Like calling to like. Hermione turned around, certain she was no longer alone.

It happened all at once.

A staggering force lurched into her spine, knocking her fingers loose. Her stomach somersaulted to her throat, the ground came crashing, its prickly wings parted to catch her.

In the longest second of her life, Hermione wondered if anybody would care if she died.

And then suddenly, she was moving in reverse.

Hermione's body bounded towards the tower, as if tethered to an invisible thread, catapulting her onto the top floor. Her brain rattled in her head. Her heartbeat slammed against her eardrums. Three ghostly heads appeared over the cyclone ceiling, shouting out cotton-wool words.

Feather-light and drunk on adrenaline, Hermione clutched her ribs and laughed herself stupid.

🌬🌬🌬

SMACK!

She blinked several times. Three faces became one set of grey eyes circled wide, one set of pale brows lifted high, a pair of thin lips hanging ajar. "What the hell are you doing?" His voice penetrated the blur.

Dazed, she cupped her palm over the burn. "You slapped me."

He scanned her in a panic. "You've lost your mind! What else was I meant to do?"