BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Chapter Two
The ride to Southampton was a
very boring one, yet Hermione could not help but be amazed at how different things
were. She was so used to modern muggle London that she had never really given a
thought to how things might have been back then. She barely listened to Cal,
who seemed to want to talk of nothing but the Titanic. He droned on and on
while she looked out at the window and watched everyone go about their daily
business.
The car finally screeched to a
stop at the Southampton docks. There were crowds of people boarding, waiting to
board, or saying good-bye. Hermione looked up at the ship, which was partly
blocked from view, with amazement. It was bigger than she had ever imagined it
would be. She still could not grasp the concept that she was about to board the
Titanic, and it was not some fake replica that she had visited before. It was
the actual thing! A servant took her hand and helped her out of the car. She
looked awestruck as Cal and Ruth got out of the car. She knew what she had to
say. She had almost memorized the whole movie.
"I don’t see what all the
fuss is about. It doesn’t look any bigger than the Mauretania," she said
in a very snobbish manner.
"Rose, you can be blasé
about some things, but not about Titanic. It’s over a hundred feet longer than
the Mauretania, and far more luxurious." Cal turned to Ruth. "Your
daughter is far too difficult to impress, Ruth," he joked. Ruth chuckled
in a sickeningly ladylike manner. A man came up and told Cal that they had to
drop off the luggage somewhere else. Being the rich aristocrat that he was, Cal
paid him to move the luggage, like Hermione knew he would.
Hermione could now see why Rose
had thought it was a slave ship. She could almost hear older Rose’s voice in
her head. "It was the ship of dreams to everyone else, but to me it was a
slave ship, taking me back to America in chains. Outwardly, I was everything a
well-brought-up girl should be, but inside, I was screaming."
They walked past a pub, where
things were getting a little rowdy. As it was the maiden voyage of a ship,
people had come to see her off and wish everyone good luck, even if they didn’t
know anyone who was sailing on it. Beside the window, there was a group of
people playing poker. A flash of platinum blond hair met her eyes. It looked
vaguely familiar.
Suddenly, she realized why the
stranger looked so familiar. He was no stranger at all! He was none other than
the devious ferret, Draco Malfoy. She almost stopped and stared open-mouthed,
but she figured that would not be appropriate for a time like this. What was he
doing here? Had he come back with her when she accidentally went back in time,
and if so, why? He looked up and she could’ve sworn he saw her face. Quickly,
she tilted her fashionably large hat the other way, so it was blocking her
face.
When she thought it was safe to
look again, she peeked from the corner of her eye. Malfoy was almost out of
view, as they had almost reached the boarding ramp. His face had an extremely
confused expression on it, a how-did-I-get-here? sort of expression. Then,
suddenly, his face lit up, as if he had just won the lottery.
Little did she know how close to
the truth that was.
They started boarding the ship,
not even needing to glance at the lice inspectors. Hermione almost snorted, but
she stopped herself in time. How arrogant could people be? Cal, who was
escorting her, turned to her and spoke.
"For God’s sake, Rose. We’re
boarding the grandest ship in history, and you act as if you’re going to your
execution!" said Cal. For that, she didn’t have an answer. She was solemn,
knowing it would be many people’s execution, including Jack’s. She felt a stab of
annoyance that she had to remember her least favorite scene at a time like
this.
Hermione was worried about how
things were going to go. If that really was Draco, then how come he had come
back, too? There was something going on. Hermione knew it. She just didn’t know
what it was. How had this happened? Was it all because she had wished on a
star? She remembered one of the deleted scenes she had watched.
*****
"Come Josephine, in my
flying machine, and it’s up she goes, up she goes. Something about the bird and
the bees, in the air she goes. Where? There she goes! Up, up, a little bit
higher. Oh my! The moon is on fire…" They trailed off as they came to the
first class deck. Rose took off the jacket that Jack had given her.
"Here we are," she
murmured.
"All right," he
whispered, taking the jacket.
"You know, I want to go
back," Rose said, smiling. She looked up and noticed the endless beauty of
the stars. "Look. It’s beautiful," she stated.
“Yeah." He lowered his
voice to a whisper.
"So vast and endless. They’re
so small!" She hesitated before speaking again. "My crowd--they think
they’re giants, but they’re not even dust in God’s eye."
He grinned wickedly. "You
know, there’s been a mistake. You’re not one of them. You got mailed to the
wrong address."
She laughed. "I did,
didn’t I?" She looked up at the sky again. "Look! A shooting
star!" She pointed up towards a fragment of light traveling across the
sky.
"Wow. That was a long
one. You know what my Pops used to tell me? ’Every time you saw one, it was a
soul going to heaven.’"
"I like that." She
looked at him. "So, are we supposed to wish on it?" she asked
playfully.
He looked down at her.
"Why? What would you wish for?"
She hesitated, and then spoke.
"Something I can’t have." She patted him on the shoulder and started
walking to the first class staterooms. "Good night, Jack!" she
called. He watched her walk sadly, knowing that what they had was impossible.
They could never be together.
*****
A shooting star! That had to be
it! She had seen a shooting star before she had gone to sleep that night. Who
had been dying? Was it somehow connected to why she had gone back in time?
Little did she know how soon she
would find out.