Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me; they belong to none other than JK Rowling.
Worst By Far
It was an absolutely freezing morning in the placid-feeling forest, but it was unsurprising, considering the season had turned to winter not long ago. Despite that, there was no snow; there hadn't truly been snow in the far south of England for the past few years. The air, however, maintained a frozen feeling that numbed the palms and cheeks of a black-haired young man as he awakened, inside of a plain tent hidden from view via various spells and enchantments. He sat upwards slowly, rubbing his eyes and reaching out for his glasses settled beside him.
It had been his absolute worst nightmare by far, he had reasoned. Granted, he had had many awful nightmares throughout his life, half of which proved to be visions and glimpses of actual happenings from the perspective of the darkest wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, but… this was the worst. He wasn't looking into his mind, he was almost certain of that, and he supposed, in that sense, he was thankful for it.
Crawling to his feet, he found himself stumbling outside of the tent a short way, while remaining inside the protective barriers set by Hermione. He caught a glimpse of her and Ron settled on the grass, wrapped in thick coats and eating – or trying to eat – a few of the measly mushrooms they had gathered.
Smiling weakly, he headed towards them, settled down himself and reluctantly grabbed a mushroom, "Morning."
"Morning," the two had mumbled rather quietly. Hermione slowly bit into one of the mushrooms, wincing slightly, and proceeded to chew, all while Ron looked on, revolted. Harry shot a look down towards the mushrooms in front of him, suddenly feeling a bit queasy. He reluctantly bit into one of them, as not to feel like he was offending Hermione – it was, after all, the only food she could provide for them for the time being.
"What's wrong?"
Hermione was looking at him with clear concern in her eyes. Her brown eyes pierced his green ones, containing the evident knowledge or guess that he had received glimpses of Voldemort's activities again. This was, perhaps, the only time that her guess proved wrong.
Harry allowed himself to try for a careless shrug, "Nothing."
"Harry…"
"Seriously," he said, swallowing the foul-tasting mushroom, "it's nothing."
"Mate, you look all pale," Ron piped up; he now had a similar look of concern on his face, almost matching Hermione's. It wasn't simply a case of him trying to agree with her to try and get back into her good books – it was genuine.
Harry shrugged again, "I'm fine."
Hermione seemed to have decided that wasn't good enough and was clearly trying to pursue the subject, "Did you see into Vol-"
"YOU-KNOW-WHO!"
"Oh, alright, You-Know-Who's mind?"
Harry shot her a look which suggested she should drop it, but she seemed to stare him out with no intention of giving up the subject. Harry ran a hand through his messy black hair, "No. Not this time."
"Then what's the matter?"
"Nothing," Harry said with a firm tone of finality in his voice, "Just a nightmare, that's all."
"Are you sure-" she began again, but was cut off abruptly with Harry glancing at her seriously, once again containing a tone of finality in his voice, "Yes. It wasn't anything serious."
Hermione opened her mouth almost as if to ask something else, but seemed to catch a glance from Ron suggesting she should drop it, thus her gaze dropped downwards towards the pathetically small and unpleasant mushrooms, and she picked another one up to eat. Harry found himself immensely relieved.
The last image he had wanted to paint into the minds of his friends was that of Voldemort and Snape baking cookies whilst singing at the top of their voices about how brilliant they were at it.
A/N
Another crack drabble written, and since I've always wanted to try my hand at a Harry Potter fic, I decided to write this. This was actually based on a wacky dream I had one night about Snape baking cookies whilst singing about his brilliance at it. Well, he IS the potions master, after all…
I have the weirdest dreams.
