Hey everyone. This is for both The Return of the Chocolate Frog Cards and Fortnightly Challenge Threads Snape Appreciation. For the Return of the Chocolate Frog Cards I wrote for (Silver) Mary Lou Barebone. The task was to write about the Salem Witch trials. I wrote for Shelf 3 9. Pepperup Potion - write about having a bad day. I hope you all enjoy Hermione's Witch Trial Adventures.
A pang of pain went up my leg as walked towards the nearest village. I had no clue of where I was or how I gotten here. And it didn't help that it was pitch black out here. Hadn't this town heard of streetlights?
I hadn't meant to come back in time. I really hadn't. I had been visiting Salem in the Americas when I had thought it would be a good idea to help my paper on the Salem Witch Trials to travel in time. So I had pulled out my time turner and turned it the right amount of times. I didn't know then that I would end up falling into a ravine and twisting my ankle which I had now been walking on for almost two hours. Out of nowhere I heard rustling in the bushes up ahead.
"Who goes there?" came a voice from the bushes.
I didn't know now that revealing myself now would be one of the worst things I could have ever done. Had known then what I know now I would never have walked over to where the voice had come from.
"My name is Hermione Granger," I told the person hiding in the voice. A young girl about my age if I was seeing right. I didn't think that she would cause me any trouble. "Why are you hiding in the bushes outside this window?"
The girl looked anywhere but at me. "I'm Mary Warren," she told me. "I'm helping my friend with a problem she is having." I saw her take in my appearance with fear in her eyes.
"I could help your friend too," I suggested trying to seem less frightening. "What's wrong?"
"Why are you dressed like that?"
Just when I was about to answer a voice from the front of house had called out to Mary. She looked worriedly at me and then ran off. I hope to God that she didn't tell whoever was calling about me. From how she reacted to my clothing anyone would be afraid of me.
I guess I would just have to find someplace to spend the night without talking to someone. It was kind of hard though because all the houses I went past seemed to be owned by someone or other. I finally ended up finding a cave and trying to catch some sleep in there. Maybe when I woke up I would try to find some clothes that would fit in with this time period.
"I think I saw her go in here," came the voice of the girl I had met last night hiding in the bushes. Marry Warren. "She has to be witch doesn't she. Look at what she is wearing."
I felt a pair of rough hands grip me under the armpits hauling me up from the ground of my cave dwelling. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to light spilling from the torches surrounding me.
"You are coming with us young lady," came the voice of the man who was most likely the town magistrate. "Don't fight us and you won't get hurt."
I looked from him to other men with him then over to Mary Warren who had the good grace look guilty about leading these men here. I was handed over to a man who put chains around my wrists and ankles. Once the metal of the chains touched my right ankle I cried out in pain.
"Perhaps you can let this go without chains on her feet," suggested one of the men kindly.
"And if she should try to escape?" another voice came from the din. "What then?"
The man who spoke up for me took over my care as he led me to a cart in which several women and some men were already waiting. I watched as the other occupants of the cart tried get as far away from as possible. Maybe I should have tried to get some clothes to fit in last night before I went to sleep. One of the women grew a little bolder and walked over to me.
"Are you a real witch?" she asked eyeing me suspiciously.
I don't think I could have lied even if I tried. It would have been easy to lie if I traveled back to the seventies or eighties but I couldn't do that in the 1600s. I nodded miserably as I watched her face.
"It will be hanging if you don't try to escape as soon as we arrive at the jail," she told me. "You do know that?"
It was then that I noticed the woman's voice was the same as the one I had heard the night before. The woman that Mary Warren had been spying on her friend that didn't seem to want to name.
"Mary Warren was spying on you last night," I told her.
She didn't seem shocked to hear about this. She seemed more hurt than shocked and I guess I could understand. Maybe this was Mary Warren's mother. But why would someone betray their own mother?
The cart jolted to a stop causing me to step down hard on my twisted ankle. A scream of pain left my mouth before I could reign it in. The pain that been pounding up and down my right leg was now a constant sting.
"Get up, girl," the magistrate hissed as he yanked me to my feet and shoved me towards the run down little hut that I assumed was a prison. He shoved me against the wall cuffing my hands in front of me and my ankles to the wall. The woman who had told me to try to escape was put next to me.
"Are you able to get out of your cuffs?" she asked.
I felt something in my pocket. The time turner. I could get out of this situation if I could reach my pocket and the time turner within. Maybe I should have just did the report with what I had after all.
I nodded at the woman. "Who are you?" I asked her. "Why are concerned about me getting out of here?"
"My name is Elizabeth Proctor," she told me. "I fear you were just collateral damage in Abigail Williams' taking me out of the picture so that she can be with my husband. If you can get out of this it would make me feel so much better. I would know that an innocent woman was going to be killed because of me."
I nodded. "It's nice to meet you Elizabeth," I told her, the both of us bursting into laughter at this.
"Maybe not under the best of circumstances. But you are right. It is nice to meet you..."
"Hermione. Hermione Granger."
Just then some men came and dragged Elizabeth off. Now was my chance. I reached into my pocket feeling my fingers close around the time turner as the men came back. They grabbed me after unshackling me from the wall. I was lead into the court room to a bunch of loud gasps and pointing. I knew what they were all accurately thinking. I was a witch.
"Girl," came the voice of the head judge sitting in front of me, "is this woman, Elizabeth Proctor, a witch?"
"No," I said a horrified look on my face. "She isn't. Why do you ask?"
"These girls claim that both yourself and Elizabeth Proctor have been tormenting them. Are any of those accusations true?"
"No."
"Liar," came the voice of the girl sitting next to Mary. "This girl and Elizabeth Proctor's specters stabbed me with a sewing needle last night. I saw them as plain as I am now. Why would I lie?"
While they were grilling Elizabeth and I, I was busy turning my time turner forward until I hit the right amount to go back to my own time, about how we were tormenting the girls. Before the time turner got me out of there a man came and spoke up for Elizabeth he must have been her husband. Hopefully whatever he and his friends said made those people see sense.
Lading again in the ravine I heard a snap. Letting a scream of pain landed hard on my backside. As my parents raced to my side to make sure that I was alright I caught sight of a familiar last name on a monument not far away. It commemorated the people who died in the Salem Witch Trials. The last name was Proctor. But the Proctor that died hadn't been Elizabeth it had been her husband. She'd lived and that was what counted.
I hope you all enjoyed Hermione's Witch Trial Adventures.
