The Dreamer's Curse

The Parting

“Stop worrying about me,” said he, taking my hand in his, “you look much worse, trust me.”

“Well, I haven’t exactly seen the light of day in recent memory.” 

“The light of day indeed,” Draco sighed and followed my gaze.

“We must not linger,” I bit my lip and stared at the shoreline that spread far out the window. “We have work to do.”

“We can’t leave just yet. You’re hardly healed.”

“Nonsense, what more healing do I need?”

It was foolish of me to even attempt to stand, but I did, and I just as suddenly fell back onto the plush bed. Fleur came rushing in with a tray in one hand and her wand in another. After a few sharp words to Draco, who backed far away from the Veela in terror, she turned to me. 

“Jane,” she gushed. “I zought you voud—ah! Never mind. You are awake now, and zafe ‘ere. Zat eez all zat matters.”

“I’m not dead yet, Fleur,” I said with a twinkle of the eye. 

Hers glittered similarly.

“Don’t zay zat, Jane, you are very alive still.”

“Barely,” Draco winked at me from the corner. 

“Danny vill be brought ‘ere tonight,” Fleur said, ignoring Draco’s comment. “Lupin eez bringing ‘im.”

I felt my energy rise, and my chest soar with happiness mixed with a fresh measure of guilt. “Danny’s coming?”

“Yez, ‘e eez,” she said, spooning runny soup into my mouth. “And ‘e eez growing so fast.”

My head was spinning with delight and horror. I was unprepared to respond to this. I was unprepared for the day when Danny would ask for Alice again—the day I’d actually have to give him an answer, that is. Of course he knew that I wasn’t his mother. All children know those kinds of things. But I was—am—unprepared for a grown-up Danny. 

Nevertheless, I was eager to have Danny in my arms again—although I underestimated his current size. I wanted to feel him against my hip, though my bone now jutted out beneath my flesh would have caused him discomfort.

Lupin arrived shortly after dinner, with Danny nowhere beside him. I sat up in bed, searching for my nephew.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to delay the reunion,” the werewolf said with a smile. “The little tike can’t Apparate, after all.”

My soul (yes, my soul, not my heart) sank just a little bit, and I drew the blankets closer around me. 

“When can I see him?” I asked.

“Concentrate on getting better first,” Lupin said, placing a hand on my shoulder. 

The road to recovery was long and arduous. It was also infinitely dull. Luna was always outside, the Trio were always huddled together, Mr Ollivander was ever in the next room or in the garden, and poor Fleur was always always preparing for the next meal. 

I was cloistered in a room overlooking the shoreline, cursed to watch the waves lap against the sand and long for it to cool my feet, but doomed to stay indoors as a recovering patient should. And as much as Draco was a massive comfort, the unrest I felt knowing that Danny was far away undid whatever security Draco’s presence brought. 

“He’s fine,” Draco had insisted after a visit to Lupin’s.

I smiled, but I did not know whether I should have been happier if Danny had been restless to see me too. It was as if I was fighting for a place in Danny’s life—not as his mother, for no one on earth could possibly take Alice’s place, but as… As what exactly? I suppose that was what I wanted to find out.