This one-shot is about Hermione. It may be OOC, it doesn't follow canon, and probably doesn't make any sense, yet I hope you'll nevertheless enjoy your reading!
I apologize for the mistakes, English isn't my native language.
(I don't think the end is sad, it's just an Halloween one-shot)
Elie
Hermione's walk
Hermione started to walk faster as the sound came closer. Why did she have to be in the middle of a forest during this night? Why did she have to choose Halloween to lose herself in the dark woods? Well, it'd be as scary even if it wasn't Halloween, yet this simple fact was enough to frighten her more.
She couldn't stop shivering. She couldn't stop looking back. She couldn't stop scolding herself. She should have waited the next day, besides she wouldn't even have used that damned mushroom – if she'd found it – tonight! It could have waited for one more night without any problem.
This muggle forest surprisingly seemed scarier than the magic ones she'd walked through in the past. She was ashamed to feel such a fear when she'd accompanied Harry through so many things. She should, as the third person of the Golden Trio, be brave enough to face that simple walk, at night, alone... She clenched her fists.
Nobody knew where she was. Harry and Ron were at the Burrow, her parents on holidays at Hawaii – making the most of a second honeymoon – as for her muggle friends... She didn't have any.
She couldn't hope to see somebody coming to help her. She had to walk, to get out of here by herself, and quickly before she died of a heart attack.
She hated the noise, even more now that she didn't now from where it was coming. She quickened her pace.
She'd faced trolls, giant snakes, crazy witches, wicked wizards... how could she be afraid of a squirrel – she'd keep thinking the noises were made by nice little squirrels – in a forest where magic didn't have its place? She was certainly safer there than she'd been during her years at Hogwarts.
Hogwarts... she'd give anything to be back there right now. At least there wouldn't be damned squirrels making her jump, and shiver, and look back between the walls of the school.
Merlin, she should have accompanied the boys to the Burrow. She could have tried this potion later. She could have waited for them to go on this stupid walk. She'd remember it for next time. If she succeeded in getting out of there of course.
"You're a witch, a witch!" she said aloud.
A scared witch.
She'd faced a lot of things, but her friends were always there to support her. Now she was alone.
Did she need to add that she had forgotten her wand at home?
"You take it everywhere, at any time, even in the bathroom it's right next to you, but when you really need it you simply forget it, you silly!"
She didn't care how stupid she might be looking for talking to herself was helping her. At least, when she was berating herself, she wasn't thinking about whatever mysterious creatures were observing her from behind the bushes.
"I should have brought Crookshanks. Well, no, it'd have been useless, he'd have run straight back home, that lazy cat!"
She smiled. Crookshanks always scratched whoever dared call him that. She squealed. Something had just brushed her leg! She'd rather suffer from Crookshanks's scratches than stay there one more second. She wanted to get out of that damned forest!
She stamped like a child. She hadn't remarked she'd stopped walking in the middle of nowhere – she wasn't even on the path any more, lost in her thoughts she'd drifted away from it.
"Great. Alone and now totally lost. You've done your best Granger. You-"
That noise couldn't have been made by a squirrel. A wild boar? A bear?
"A bear?" She could have slapped herself. There was no bear in those woods, it was simply impossible. "It's-"
She screamed. Something had just walked – run? jumped? crawled? - behind her, something big enough to make the whole thorny bush move.
Instinctively she tightened her fist around... well, around nothing for her wand wasn't where it should be.
"Calm down Granger, you've met a troll, you've ridden a dragon, you've even faced Voldemort! What could be worse than that?"
She jerked to her left, she swore something had just brushed her arm. "All right, perhaps this is worse." Her voice was shaking, as were her hands, and her whole body in fact.
She was shaking, wishing to be anywhere but there, with anyone – even with the damned ferret!
Hermione jerked further to her left. How could she feel something but see nothing? It was getting on her nerves badly.
"Merlin, somebody, Merlin..." her voice was becoming weaker and weaker, her words eaten by her sobs. "Merlin... someone... please..."
The thing brushed her forehead. She screamed and felt, unconscious, on the dirty floor.
That damned mushroom, even without being poisonous, had led her to the end, her end.
The End
