A/N:
House: Ravenclaw
Year: Year 3 stand in
Category: Short
Prompt: It was days like this where she really questioned her life choices.
W/c: 848
It was days like this where she really questioned her life choices.
Hanging off a cliff, grabbing hold of something that was protruding from the soil. A root of some sort, stable enough to hold her weight for now. It was scabbing her hands, the skin peeling away onto the bark, sore, red, blistering. What the hell am I doing?
Do something adventurous, they said, Hermione thought bitterly to herself, desperate. The waves crashed on the rocks below her, threatening her life. It was, in fact, an extremely questionable choice to actually jump off the cliff. Except, she didn't jump. She had stood there on the very top, glaring at the sea as if it had wronged her somehow. And a particularly ferocious gust of wind had toppled her over the edge.
Her hands touching bird poo, and the smell thick in the air, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Salt, blood, dirt. In that moment, she hated everything to do with adventure, and freedom, and the beach. She hated the beach. What kind of life choice brought her to this point? The point where she's literally hanging to life by a thread? Was she really so depraved of interesting activity that it had led her to this?
Do something interesting, they said. Be brave. You're a Gryffindor, they said. And that was part of the issue. Hermione Granger had been thrown into life as a Gryffindor, expected to be brave, and courageous, and chivalrous, even though she was more certain that she belonged in Ravenclaw. She was not as adventurous as her friends, though during their Hogwarts years she had acquired a penchant for rule breaking those last couple of years.
That was different from jumping off a bloody cliff, though. Jumping off a cliff was absolute madness. Why had she done it?
Him. That was why. He said she couldn't do it, and so she tried, just to wipe that stupid grin of Draco Malfoy's stupid face. He dared her to and at first she refused, she wasn't stupid.
"All you ever seem to do, Granger, is be in this stupid library. Do something interesting, be adventurous. You're a Gryffindor, after all." Hermione rolled her eyes, but when he started questioning why she was sorted into Gryffindor, she felt she had something to prove, and now Hermione wondered why her pride had shrouded her insight and why she hadn't listened to her brain, which had never let her down before.
To be fair, she was up for doing it, right up to the point she started falling.
Herself, Harry, Ron, Draco, and a couple of others all apparated one day to the Scottish coastline, after a suggestion to go tombstoning. Hermione could think of nothing worse, but as they say, pride comes before the fall. Quite literally.
Hermione forced herself to breathe as she walked towards the edge one step at a time. Meanwhile, from behind her Ron and Harry were shouting encouragement.
"You're the best witch I know, you've got this!" And then, as she hesitated on the edge for the moment, looking out to sea.
"Typical, I knew she would chicken out."
Rage filled her. And she felt herself turning to face him, right before the gust of wind blew her over the edge.
She screamed as she grabbed hold onto the root, just below the top of the cliff, the rest of her body, dangling uselessly below her.
Malfoy leered over the edge at her.
"Go on then, Granger, all the way down, into the water there. Careful of those rocks, though."
"Hermione, are you okay?!" she heard Ron shout, from behind Malfoy, quickly followed by, "Let us go, Crabbe, or so help me god."
"Please, Draco, let me up."
"Okay, chicken. Boys, let them go and help the worlds worst Gryffindor back over the edge."
Again, the anger in her system replaced the fear and Hermione looked down to the water, crashing against the cliff about thirty feet below. She looked back and locked eyes with Malfoy before just simply letting go, kicking off the cliff as she did so.
Hermione had just enough time to see surprise and actual concern morph into Malfoys features as he rushed to grab for her; she fell too fast, though, and her body became a blur against the stone cliff face as she plummeted into the water below.
Knowing if she didn't her bones would probably break, she tried keeping as straight as possible, not being able to help the scream that escaped her.
She felt no pain as she landed, only the icey Scottish water chill her to the core. She was quick to surface and took in a big lungful of air, before treading water and smiling up to the gawking students thirty feet up.
"Maybe there's more Gryffindor in you than I thought after all, Granger," Hermione heard Malfoy yell, and she could swear, although the low sun cast the figures upon the top of the cliff into silhouettes, there was almost a hint of a smile in his voice.