Beautiful Death
She held up her wand and whispered the charm as quietly as her quavering breath could manage. Flora fidelestra. The Gryffindor girl's dormitory was totally silent in the pale moonlight reaching past the red velvet curtains at the farthest western window, calling her, reaching for her and her only, and Hermione could feel something in the air as she held her breath. Watching.
Watching the red curtains surrounding her familiar bed, the one that had been her haven for the past 4 years. Soon, they began to twist and turn into demented shapes, coiling and reaching and twisting and spinning, until they were vines with thick, heavy heliotrope-coloured Wysteria, drooping like ladies' rip curls, heavily perfuming the room against the thick smoke billowing up from the fireplace in the common room.
The bedspread had begun to change too, the white pillow she had rested her tired head upon for what seemed like an eternal life was blooming, blossoming. Peonies. She smiled softly, remembering her mother's garden, in all its summer splendor, heavy with life and aged with time, and she stood in awe to watch the transformation again.
Poppies seemed to divulge themselves across the sheets, brightly colouring it into wild spectrums of purples, blues, reds, pinks and greens. Rose petals began to rain lightly down from the canopy like huge teardrops for the dead. Dead. Hermione shivered.
Stepping over to Pavarti Pavil's full length mirror across the room, she gazed at herself in the reflecting silver. The white dress she had conjured appeared sublime, almost ghostly. It would be the last time she would look at herself, or anyone else for that matter, she thought ruefully. Then she remembered.
"Oh, Harry, you're so wonderful!" Ginny had cried as he put his arm around her and smiled into her eyes. Hermione had watched quietly, pretending not to see, pretending not to fall apart as they fed each other ice cream from silver spoons and the band on the radio had played a soft love song. For them.
It was all too much, she had decided, searching through the library the next day. Jealousy had slowly eaten her dignity away until she couldn't sleep at night and couldn't breathe when she saw Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley smile at each other over dinner. It was selfish. Terribly selfish, and she felt a pang of guilt that was soon replaced by something else. Then she remembered something her father had told her once. Her fingers touched her chin thoughtfully, almost pensively.
"There was once a famous actress who was failing, in her career and in her life. She was very beautiful, and wanted to be remembered for something more than just her wild place in society.
"So one day she decided to take an overdose of sleeping pills. She dressed herself in a beautiful, beautiful white dress and covered her bed with the loveliest flowers she could find.
"She laid down after finishing off the last pill and died. She died the most beautiful death anyone had ever seen, and that was what she was always remembered for. End life with style and gusto, Hermione. It may sound cruel, but we are all born to die."
She had snuck to Snape's office and stolen all the ingredients for an eternal sleeping potion, the one dream she would never wake up from. She would die on a Wednesday, she had thought pensively. Hermione had always wondered what it would be like to die, but she had never thought of herself seriously as mortal.
Then the questions began. Who would mourn her? Would Harry remember her? What would her future have been like? No, that was the wrong question. Harry was with Ginny and that was that. There was always Ron, good old Ron, a tiny voice inside her said, but the bigger voice replied that No, Harry belongs to Ginny and Ron doesn't care. The only way people will remember you with reverence is by beautiful death.
She opened her eyes again, letting the tears stream down her face. Harry. She would miss him, but there was always that chance that she would become a ghost and forever haunt him, reminding him of his own mortality and what little time he had left in that world, what she would call it then, with his dear, stupid Ginny. Or that she would forever protect him against evil.
Shaking her head, she studied herself in the white dress one last time, preserving the image of herself, that beautiful but forgotten girl with the thick brown hair and the only slightly oversized teeth, now pale and pallid and scared out of her wits.
Then a thought came to her, and she smiled.
"Considering what life is like now, maybe death isn't so bad after all." Her voice seemed out of place, almost shocking to the flora covered bed and all the silent furniture accompanying it in the room. She crept to the door and turned the lock with a single twist. Everyone was downstairs listening to Harry talk about the Quidditch match, no one would bother worrying about her until it was too late.
She smiled again. It was exciting, thrilling, and she knew it was so wrong. But for some reason exhilaration had bubbled up inside of her as she thought of an all- school funeral. It was egocentrical, but she was only thinking of herself as she held up the small clear glass stolen from the Great Hall.
It was an offense to steal dishware, but it wouldn't matter. Nothing mattered as long as she did this gracefully. The swirling cerulean blue water seemed to move of its own accord as she sat on the bed and swung her feet up. The last movement.
She laid back and whispered a spell to make her hair seem to sparkle with the moonlight. Raising the glass to her lips awkwardly, she drank the entire contents of the pilchered glass. It was sweet like Marzipan, she thought calmly as she felt it penetrate her throat.
Hermione closed her eyes. The moonlight seemed to fade from the room, and she could hear a distant rattling noise, like someone was trying to open a locked door. Had she locked the door? She couldn't remember. Suddenly she felt the slightest shaking, as though the bed were moving, was someone shaking her to wake her up? It was too late for that.