Defying Gravity

Three: Painting Flowers

Part Two

When I wake up, the dream isn't done,

I wanna see your face and know I've made it home.

When nothing is true, what more can I do?

I am still painting flowers for you.

All Time Low, 'Painting Flowers'

Falling.

She was falling.

She remembered that it felt like floating down with nauseating speed, and with nothing but a spinning vortex of darkness to keep her company. What the seemingly endless void she found herself in only felt as if it was closing in her tighter and tighter, the minutes she counted by grew longer until she lost track of it, making it hard for her to breathe. Though the air, if it even was possible, was free and light; but there was no air. She could feel that cold and moist blanket around her, and she almost thought it could have been her second skin. I'm cold, she thought. Why was it so cold? She wanted to scream in hopes that someone would hear her, but when she opened her mouth, there was nothing but eternal silence that greeted her back, and a disturbing heaviness in her lungs and burning in her throat; while she pondered numbly why she's aware of it all when she's supposed to be unconscious.

Was she dead? If so, does death felt like being suspended somewhere Death only knows or did it feel somehow that your entire body was made of ice? Does being dead felt quiet? Peaceful? Free? Or did it feel empty as the listening shadows, wild as the non-existent air beneath her?

It should not be like this, she thought. But what should not be like this?

Then: 'Hermione...'

The voice that called out to her seemed to have come from miles away, some place that's probably unreachable by any means, and it was muffled by something greater than the empty distance between them. She waited amidst the growing pain in her chest, trapped between the clutches of the darkness around her, for the voice to come again. Hoping, listening...

What felt like seconds turned to minutes, until the minutes stretched enough to feel like longer than an hour that she has to strain her ears for the smallest of sound, if her current state did not play tricks on her; then when she did, it surprised her that the voice was clearer, closer, and almost tangible. It was a woman's: angelic, magnetic, and it almost tasted like honey. "Hermione," the voice drifted to her like music, a soft lulling sound that made her want to fall asleep and keep her eyes open at the same time. It was probably a sin, to want to stay here if it meant that she's to hear that voice limitless, and to punch a hole somewhere if it would give her the light she needed; a light that she hoped wasn't just a runaway train at the end of a tunnel.

"Who are you?" she wanted to ask, but even without her voice, she heard her thoughts rang throughout her lonely companion. There was an eerily pregnant pause, and for a moment she felt the coldness creeping up her spine. Forty-two seconds have passed before the voice spoke again; she knew because she counted.

"I am you."

Confusion swept through her, but before she can process everything, she felt her eyes snap open, jolting her from then enchantment she was disheartened to find out that she missed. She took the time to let her sight adjust to what was in front of her if the bleariness of her eyes and her inability to keep her gain a focus to what greeted her helped. Surrounding her were ribbons of color: blue, green, purple, orange – all dancing in the air against the starlit skies. As she stood transfixed by their graceful swaying, she noted that they're simply not colors and that there certainly wasn't just one voice, contrary to the one she heard before, coming from them. There were too many to recognize, and probably more than she could count with her ears, and they were all singing. The brunette wondered if that's even possible because she was certain that one could not be singing while screaming at the same time, and screaming the voices were. She stood up, entranced once again that her feet began to move across the ground without her even knowing it. Lips slightly parted, and gaze glassy if not dazed, she reached out a hand, her fingers tracing their outline and she felt almost close to actually touching them.

Countless and more names and faces rang through her ears ad flashed before her eyes – all which made no sense to her let alone brought some sort of familiarity if it's what she's searching for. She could see a memory, a lot she could not remember she has ever lived, then another would play followed by random others. It felt like a dream, yet it felt too real to be a dream, and they're beckoning for her to come closer.

Before she could take another step, an ear-splitting noise reverberated through the slumbering scenery, and she found herself on her knees, palms pressed against her ears and eyes shut as if it would stop the sound from being carried out next to never where. Only when she felt a scorching pain on her chest and a warm river of liquid ran down the valley between her breasts did she realize that she was screaming.

The last thing she remembered was a ghostly figure awash in golden light that floated to her vision before she was pulled back into darkness, and when she was, she greeted it like an old friend.

"Welcome home, my Paladin."

James has never felt so horrified before. Watching his sister lose her momentum and tumble off the hill would have been funny if it was only another episode of her clumsiness; only it was not. Watching his sister lose her momentum, tumble off the hill, and hit her head on the ground before drowning on the cold lake put the definition of horrified into shame. Hermione did not know how to swim, and even if she did, that hit on her head wouldn't have helped her, and in his moment of panic, he had forgotten that he could swim.

Instead, he scrambled off to get his parents, racing across the wide lawn to their house. "Mom! Dad!" His voice was desperate and his face streaked with tears as he called out for them. His glasses has fallen askew on the bridge of his nose, making his vision even more blurry through his own tears. "Mom! Dad!"

Hurried footsteps could be heard on the stairs leading down to the front hall from the upper floor, and it made his heart beat faster against his chest. "James!" His mother's voice, full of panic and worry, answered him. "What's wrong?"

His tongue was twisted as he tried to find the right words to say, but he wondered if, at this moment, those were what they needed. Or maybe, it wasn't what he was looking for, but maybe a better way to break such accident to them even if he knew there really was not. "Hermione- lake-"

Somehow, those were enough to make his father break into a frantic run towards that place. While the Potter matriarch gave him no room to explain what happened as she raced after her husband, the skirt of her dress gathered in her hands, perhaps to avoid tripping on her own feet, as she did so.

Realizing he had been left behind, he quickly took off just as fast as he arrived, not even taking a moment to catch his breath first.

When he reached them, their father has finally successfully pulled out his twin from the water, her skin and lips blue from the cold and lack of air in her lungs, and he felt the tears coming back in his eyes. "Mione?" he whispered brokenly. Seeing his twin half-dead was a sight, not even in his most horrible nightmare, he never wished to witness.

She awoke next to a song. A haunting and beautiful requiem that reminded her she wasn't even meant to be wherever she was now. She was almost certain she was dreaming, but even dreams did not felt real enough that it was almost as if she was watching a memory - just like the first one she had been. Unlike before, however, she felt warm – like she was basking under the sunlight or a kind of fire that doesn't burn her.

And unlike before she was certain where she was. The small, castle-like building on top of the hill was a place she called home for years.

"It's certainly a beautiful view from here, isn't it?" The voice she recognized from her dream before spoke from behind, and as if it was a normal conversation, she found herself answering:

"The sky looks the best from the tower." She knew because she's been up there more than she could count on her fingers.

She received silence as a response.

"I don't know who you are," she finally said, turning on her heels to look at the intruder, if she was anything like one. Instead, she came face to face with the most beautiful woman she met. The figure was enveloped with a golden light so bright Hermione knew she should've been blinded by it. She has long blonde hair that fell down on her ankles in luscious waves, impossibly silvery blue eyes and a figure every woman would kill to have. Of instead a tiara, a silver ornate circlet adored her head, twisting along her golden locks and making it seem like a halo. Behind her, fanning out like wings were clocks of all sizes, all golden and ticking away, and surrounding her feet were equally golden strands of sand, while beneath them was a magical diagram, with other small ones about it. For a moment, she could not find her voice, completely entranced by the beauty in front of her.

The woman smiled at her. It was warm and sweet as it was almost tangible, and she wondered if she could capture it and put it inside a jar.

"I am Historia, the Goddess of Time and Space," she introduced herself, her voice flowing out like a honey from her lips, and she swore she could almost taste it.

"I've been waiting for you for years, Hermione."