"Sometimes the wrong choices bring you to the right places."

Six months earlier, somewhere in England, Hermione, Ron and Harry had been invited to Fleur's and Bill's wedding.

It was a huge ceremony and the Weasleys had done their best to make the wedding as magical and beautiful as possible with the circumstances that were going on at the moment. It wasn't easy for witches and wizards to be themselves. Whenever magic was performed or even only spoken of, the humans raised the alarm. Witch-hunters were hunting the sorcerers down and they became cleverer every day.
Hermione remembered the days at school in history class, when they were talking about the witch-hunt in the middle ages. Back then the church only hunted women down, who were only in the slightest way different. Men weren't accused of witchcraft, even though wizards existed just like witches, even back then. At school in the muggle-world they taught the people, that sorcery and magic were only myths and that they should never make the same mistake the church had made back in the middle ages. Sadly humans were too scared of anything more powerful, than they were, so as soon as they found out that witchcraft wasn't a myth, they started to hunt sorcerers down again. It wasn't uncommon Hermione had been hiding or running away from humans who tried to catch her. She tried not to use spells on muggles, but sometimes she had no choice but to defend herself with magic. It didn't matter anymore anyways, because she had given herself and her skills away a long time before people started to hate magic. In the neighborhood, everybody knew about the magic she possessed, so she couldn't live at her own house like a normal person anymore.

At the wedding there were a lot of wizards and witches, who kept watch during the ceremony. They would send a light ball into the tent, where the people were celebrating as soon as they saw humans crossing the border of the magical bubble they had created to hide the party.

Hermione looked out for her friends. Harry and Ron had been her best friends ever since she had met them ten years ago. Ron was standing in a corner with beer in his hand, gazing at some French girls dancing to the music. Hermione had to laugh at that picture; Ron would never stop drooling over Fleur's friends.

Harry was on the other side of the tent, talking to some people. When he saw her looking at him he nodded at her and started to walk over to her.

"Nice party isn't it?" He said when he arrived at her side.

"Yes, the Weasleys really did a great job." She answered.

Hermione watched how Fleur and Bill were dancing in the middle of the dance floor. She smiled. They looked so happy and in love, that it made Hermione feel a bit envious. Finding someone she'd want to spend a lifetime with was unimaginable for her, she feared she would never find a man she could love like that.

"Having fun?" Harry asked Ron with a smirk, when he joined them.

"Absolutely!" Ron smiled. "Did you know that "amor" means love in French?"

"Ron it's amour!" Hermione corrected him.
"Whatever." He took a sip of his beer. "I think I am in amour with one of the girls over there."

The witch rolled her eyes at her friend. Just when she wanted to tease him with the word he had just learned, people started to scream.
Hermione looked over to where the screams came from. There it was: the light ball everyone was afraid of that night. People started to run across the tent, trying to reach family-members, friends or the exit.
"Witch-hunters!" someone screamed.

Hermione saw Fleur and Bill kissing each other tenderly.
"I love you." Fleur whispered.
Somehow this picture seemed familiar, like she had seen it in a dream a long time ago.

Fire and spells started to fly across the room and people were panicking and running past her. Someone stamped on her toes and another person pushed her aside.

"Hermione!" Ron came walking over to her.
"Ron!"
"I'm right here." He had reached her side and took her hand. She had to apparate out of there, to a place more safe. Where was Harry? They couldn't leave without him.
"HARRY! COME ON!" Ron yelled at his best friend. Harry started to sprint towards them and just before he reached Hermione's hand, she saw an image of her father yelling at her. "GO!" her dad screamed, standing in the middle of flames. "GO!" she knew it wasn't really happening at that moment but it sure looked real.
Harry touched her hand and no second later they were flying through the air into a tunnel of light.
She had thought of the streets of London, where there were more people and they would not be seen, as soon as they made it there she would make sure she'd call her parents to ask them if they were alright.

There it was, the end of the tunnel, they would fall out of the sky now any second.

"Au!" Ron yelled next to her when he landed on the floor. Hermione landed next to him in the sand. Sand? She didn't know any place in London, where there was sand. The witch opened her eyes and gasped. This was definitely not London! They were stranded on a beach; she felt how the water of the ocean soaked her pants. Ron was still holding on to her, he couldn't believe his eyes either. Hadn't it been night when they had escaped the wedding? Why was it day now all of the sudden? Did they apparate to the USA or something? But she had never been to the USA. Wasn't it impossible to apparate to a place you had never been? Hermione couldn't explain what just had happened. Maybe this was a place, where she had been when she was younger.

"Hermione! Are you alright?" Harry had just got up from where he was lying. He seemed to be the only one not noticing something strange was going on. He walked over to them to make sure everyone was unharmed.

Hermione and Ron looked up to the sky, when they saw a phoenix flying by. A phoenix? There were no phoenixes in England that was for sure.

"Where are we?" Ron spoke for Hermione, when he asked that question. He followed the phoenix with his eyes, while he waited for an answer no one could give him, because none of them knew where they really were.

Harry saw that Hermione and Ron were looking at the sky, so he followed their gaze. "A phoenix?" he asked. "What is a phoenix doing out here?"
Hermione sighed. She would have loved to explain them what was going on, sadly for the first time in her life she didn't have a clue herself.

"Come on let's explore the area, maybe we find something we know." She said, because she didn't know what else to do. The boys consented and they started walking.

When they made it to a top of a hill, they were all three panting and sweating, but at that moment they were occupied with something else: the trio could see the whole area around them. There was no sight of a city, not even a village. All they saw were trees, a lake and more mountains. It was a beautiful place, no doubt, but it couldn't be England or anywhere on earth for that being. Slowly an idea started to sink in. What if they weren't on earth anymore? What if this place really was a place she knew from her childhood? The place did seem really familiar to her.
Hermione started to bite on her lip. She didn't want to believe her own thoughts. This could not have happened, they could not have apparated here, and there must've been another explanation, she hoped there was.

The trio walked for some more hours, but all they found were more trees, more mountains and more beautiful landscapes. No matter where they were going, there was nobody to ask directions, there wasn't even a sign with multiple arrows or "Rome" on it.

"My cellphone isn't working." Ron said annoyed. He was jumping around holding his phone in the air.
"Would you stop doing that?" Harry said irritated when Ron was poking him by accident when he was searching for reception.
They had made several breaks, during their walk, because somehow the air was thinner here and that was exhausting.

"I do not even have one bar of reception!"

Harry wanted to see that for himself, he took out his phone of his pocket as well just to discover that it had the same problem. He looked over to Ron, who was dialing a number.
"What are you doing?" He asked.

"I'm going to make an emergency call, to tell them we are lost and we want to get rescued."

Hermione knew what would happen, he wouldn't be able to call anyone from out here. "Ron there is no use, they will not – "

"Shhhh." The redhead interrupted her. "I can't hear any – AU!" he held his phone away from his ear with a painful face.

"What happened? Harry asked.
"That stupid beeping tone, when you dial a number that doesn't exist. I hate it!"

Harry was confused. How could an emergency number be a wrong number? That didn't make any sense.

Hermoine was still fighting against the possibility, that they were not in the same world anymore, even though that possibility would indeed explain why they couldn't make any calls. She just refused to believe her own thoughts.

"At least now nobody can find us." Ron said ironically.
"Great." Harry sighed. "You've really outdone yourself this time Hermione."

The witch got up from where she was sitting. She didn't want to talk about this problem, especially not when the guys started to make stupid jokes. They were not taking this seriously like they should.
"I know." She said. She knew she had to tell Harry and Ron the truth eventually, but not yet, she wanted to hold on to normality a little bit longer.
"I came here once with mom and dad, years ago." She said. "It's just how I remember it; the trees the river everything." It was not the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie either.
"Come on, let's continue walking, before it get's dark." She started to climb down the rocks, where they had just been sitting, with Harry and Ron following her closely. The view from the mountain was incredible and the three of them lingered on a while longer to look down at the beautiful landscape in front of them. It took their breaths away.

"How come I've never seen this before?" Harry asked with his mouth wide open. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Hermione now knew for sure that they had stranded at the place she feared so much. She had been planning on never going back to this world and now she had returned nonetheless. This was a huge mistake and she didn't like this at all.
She inhaled deep. "We are not in the same world anymore Harry." In fear she looked over to the guys to see how they would take it.
The wizards looked bewildered at Hermione. What did she mean with "not in the same world"? Did she mean the wizarding world? That was no problem, they all knew magical places, the muggles didn't know of.

Hermione looked at her best friends and closed her eyes while she answered the questions in Harry's and Ron's head: "We are in Middle-Earth."

Middle-Earth? How the hell did they get there? And what is Hermione not telling? MUhahahaha!

Please review if you like it :D And please review if you do not like it (because then I can learn from mistakes ^^) Thank you for reading :D !