A/N: So, I was struck by a thought, and this was the result. It's kept intentionally vague. A very short, one-shot, regarding an early morning nightmare.


The Improbable and the Predictable

by: teabiscuit


One Shot

She woke abruptly and with an instant headache. Beside her, her partner stirred beneath his coverlet, moving only enough so that his mouth had space to voice its concerns. “Bad dreams again?”

“Sort of. It began normally enough: I’m in the kitchen making breakfast, you head out for work, I feed the children. Next I’m in mid-London, dropping the kids off at their primary school and heading toward the market. I’m busy, busy, busy- no time for study, no time for reading, no time for anything but housewifery. It’s all very mundane.”

“When does the bad enter?” asked the muffled voice of her bedmate. She patted his head fondly, allowing herself to lie back down. “It’s coming,” she reassured.

“And then the dream cuts to another day, filled with all the same- and this pattern is repeated ad nauseam. Until, finally, my dream self arrives to her first evening, and that’s where I meet my husband.”

“Please don’t tell me that I'm your bad part.”

“No. . . you are not the bad part, but in the dream you are- well, my dream self's husband is. Suddenly, my ability to reason returns to me mid-dream, and I learn my children’s names for the first time. Only instead of sensible solid ones, my dream self has named them both- first and middle names- after every deceased person I could lay my grimy hands on. That’s when I start to recognize that my dream self has barely touched a literary text since Hogwarts, and that the entire house is overwhelmed with Quidditch regalia.”

“I can commiserate with that feeling, pet. Quidditch inspires the same horror for me.”

“No, darling, I rather like Quidditch. I’m not handy with a broom, but it is fun to watch- so no, it’s not the Quidditch that makes it a nightmare. I mean honestly, my psyche’s not that dulled- your average fifteen-year-old could think of three ways to break that imagery down into phalluses and castration crises.”

Her husband’s body moved fractionally- enough so that one hand could escape and claim one of her own. She continued her description, enjoying the warmth of his chest on her palm. “Next scene in my dream brings in Harry, who has even more children than I do in my dream, and they too are all named after every dead relative he and Ginny had on-”

“Now I see the nightmare’s true form: Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. Was your friend still sporting his tortured soul persona? I bet Ginny bloated out to the size of small whale.”

Her glare was lost in the darkness; her poke was not. “Wrong again. I thought Ginny and Harry were great together- but it was puppy love, and they both moved past that. Ginny was always far too ambitious to settle down and pop out children. Loony Luna, on the other hand, seems to prefer waddling about preggers and preening over hand stitched quilts.” Her head tilted in the darkness, her lips closed in consideration. “You know, she’s probably the reason why their children aren’t all named after every grave from the Wars. I can tolerate inheriting a name from a too-soon-to-have-left-us friend or family member- but only as a middle name. The first name needs to have some semblance of a well balanced mind.”

“It’s nearly four in the morning, pet; try to hold your tangents to a minimum.”

That rated another poke. “Fine, fine, fine. . . the dream changes scenes from there. Suddenly, I’m at King’s Cross Station, Harry’s brood, and our two darlings are all running about. Cameos start popping in of everyone from the old crowd- even the ones we decided that having shared a mutual cause in war was not merit enough to engage with in conversation- yes, the dull-witted ones- even those ones start jogging by, dropping little clichéd bits of memoriam like largess along the platform.”

“This was quite an epic journey for a dream. Remind me to give you some draught tonight so we can save these conversations for daylight hours.”

She continued on, as if never interrupted. “And that’s when I finally notice the figure standing next to me on the platform: It is my husband, but not.”

“Oh, don’t tell me. Not this rubbish again. It’s like something contrived out of a two-penny romance. I loathe the predictable- especially when the only predictability about it is that vague notion of history.”

“I feel a bit badly, honestly, that the dream really terrifies me the way that it does. He was my best friend all through school- and he’s decent, solid sort of man now.”

“Darling, anyone who ever thought that your mind and personality would lend themselves to sacrificing your studies and ambitions to the call of baby-maker would also have to be of the sort of mind to think that you would ever marry a man who once dated the vapidly minded sort of girl that was- and still is- Lavender Brown.”

“Do you understand then why I woke up so anxious? I can’t help but feel that there’s some great power out there that believes that I should become a poster child for ‘Opposites Attract.’” She pulled her hand free only to re-adjust her position on the bed. “I should hope I’m more sensible than that- even when living through my dream self.”

“It could have been worse than Ron Weasley- you could have married an ex-professor.”

She heard the grin in his low murmur. “Very true. Good thing then that I didn’t marry my ex-professor. It is delicious living in sin, isn’t it?”

His reply made her laugh softly, sleep once again pulling at her thoughts.

“Well, it has certainly promised us a most peculiar kind of nightmare.”