Again, thank you readers and reviewers! I do apologize for not updating this in ages! Anyway, here we continue now.
Hermione looked up through the sparse breaks amongst the tree tops, before turning slowly around on the spot as what little sky shone through grew inexplicably darker all of a sudden; her sight trailing downward, she realized she was now amongst the Thorn trees again. Had she somehow teleported? No such thing – so of course not. No – such – thing.
Hearing a howl that wasn't too far away from her, she then hiked up the tail end of her skirt and took off at a full-blown run, travelling so impeccably fast that she seemed immune to tripping over roots and snarls and the like. However, regardless how much she ran forward, she seemed to remain in the midst of nothing but those accursed Thorn trees, and the howl itself was occurring now in high frequency, growing closer and closer each time its sound was made clear.
"Oh, God. . ." she said beneath her breath, before widening her eyes as she physically saw said breath hover before herself in the form of a mist; it was as if she was suddenly outside in the absolute dead of winter itself.
Glancing downward, she found that snow was now covering the forest ground. Perking her ears, she felt her heart skip a beat as there was a sound of crunching footsteps then heard, coming from somewhere behind her. She could tell from the way the steps sounded that they didn't belong to any human being she'd ever heard walk upon snow before. They were too quick – too oddly paced.
Closing her eyes, she then slowly turned around to face the direction she'd just had her back turned towards. She heard a growl – more footsteps – a second growl – closer, slower-paced footsteps . . .
Sitting bolt upright in her bed, Hermione swiftly swung her legs to the side of it and slid down, adrenaline pulsating through her veins not only from the dream she'd been having, but from the sight the noise of the chaos that was unfolding inside her own home.
"What's happened?" she exclaimed breathlessly, looking over to Lavender, who – after being looked after for another day and night at the apothecary's house – was now looking and feeling much better; she also happened to have been standing beside Hermione's bed, rather than lying in the spare one.
"I don't know!" the buxom blond cried back, even though tears seemed to be threatening to surface in her eyes. "I got out of the bed and moved over here when she was brought in. I don't know what happened to her!"
"You don't know what happened to whom?" Hermione asked, before snapping her head over in the direction of the spare bed, only to find that a group of many people was huddled around it, concealing its patient from view.
Hermione's mind still felt rushed, panicked and out of sorts from her dream, and so without much preamble she herself rushed over to join the huddle of people. "What's going on?" she asked, though her question went unheard, mostly due to the fact that many of the people present were making much noise, all trying to speak over – as well as to – one another; she was kept out from actually viewing the bed as well, for there were simply too many people around it.
Taking a step back as her own father then managed it somehow and moved in amongst said people with a tray full of varying treatments and instruments upon it in his hands, Hermione then widened her eyes as she came to realize that an astonishing number of the people around the bed were redheaded - in fact, all of them were, save for her own father.
"Ron?" she whispered, her eyes darting all about, before she caught the sight of the profile of his face as he stood slightly to the side. "Ron! What's happened?"
Hearing her outcry, the tall and freckle-faced young man took a reluctant step back from the bed, before turning and approaching his friend in such a way that it brought a chill to her spine, one that ran down the length of it, before surging back upwards again, and repeating until she began to feel sick. "Why . . . are you crying?" she asked him simply, a lump forming in her throat.
"Ginny," he replied, before throwing his arms around Hermione, enclosing her in more of a crush than an actual hug. "She – we think – was attacked like Lavender was, but, but it's bad – it's much worse, and, and I don't know what's going to happen."
By this point, Lavender had – though more cautiously than Hermione had done – also stepped nearer to the bed and the mass of people. Watching the distraught image of Ron cling to Hermione in such a way caused the hairs on the back of her neck to prick, standing up. She'd never actually seen a single one of the Weasley men cry before, despite injury after injury on the Queddych pitch. Not one tear, and yet now, a deluge from one of them.
Stepping beyond the two of them, Lavender slowly pushed her way into the crowd, before gasping loudly as she lay sight upon the body on the bed that she herself had been staying in the past couple of days.
The side of Ginevra Weasley's face seemed to be almost spliced – that was the first and foremost thing that caught Lavender's attention. More gruesome than anything she'd certainly ever seen (including the time Charlie Weasley had broken a leg, complete with bone breaking right through the skin itself) it made her face pale even more so than it's constantly anemic-looking state that came as of late with her own wolf attack in the woods.
It wasn't just the sight of the split-open skin along the side of her face that was so disturbing, it was also the fact that, when looked upon at just the right angle, one could tell that the injury led straight down the bone, which appeared startling white amidst the bloodied, gruesome mess of skin otherwise. The other side of her face looked to be intact, but her both of her arms had blood on them – one seemed to be only splattered by it, though the other was actively bleeding – and the less described about the state of her torso and downward, the better. It was a terrible sight, and yet Lavender continued to stare at it wide-eyed, the corners of her mouth twitching downward as she seemed caught in a permanent state of almost-crying.
"Why is she here? Why are all these people here?"
Breaking apart from their embrace, Hermione and Ron looked over to find that at some point amidst the chaos Apprentice Snape had entered into the cabin, as well, with Percy Weasley stepping in after him.
"The apprentice has a point now – how can they help Ginny if you're all in here?" the third eldest Weasley son stated, causing his mother to turn around and fix him with a glare.
"If you think I'm about to leave my daughter be . . . she can't even speak or wake up, Percy!"
"Mother, I'm not trying to upset you, I'm just being logical!" Percy cried back, an emotionally torn look on his face as he stepped forward and linked arms with both Fred and George from behind. "If nothing else, you two are coming with me. I didn't leave to fetch Apprentice Snape just to have the situation be that he can't even approach our sister."
"Why should we leave her side?" the twins asked in unison, both looking fit to murder Percy right then and there for having the nerve to physically try and remove them from the scene.
"Again, people should leave so that there is sufficient room for the apothecaries to do their job and heal our only sister! Now stop being bull-headed and let's go."
"Percy . . . has a point," Arthur – the Weasley patriarch then said, speaking calmly despite the tears evident on his own, weary face. "Besides, someone has to go and let the Elder Council become aware of this new attack, while someone else still has to pen letters to be sent to Bill in the Beauté glorifié Providence, and Charlie too, in Romania."
"Yes, Father," George said. "Of course. I'll go and let the Elder Council know what's happened to Ginny."
"I'll write Bill," Fred added, and then finally Percy said, "And I'll pen the urgent letter to Charlie."
"Thank you all," Arthur said, before swallowing hard as he returned full attention to his daughter lying there, seemingly unconscious, bleeding – perhaps – to death, if the work of the apothecaries didn't prove to be quick enough; able to feel the way his wife trembled so, lost in her own horror, he reached over and took hold of her hand, squeezing it tightly.
Watching as three of the Weasley's then left, Hermione herself approached Lavender, before taking hold of her hand and gently tugging at it; though it wasn't much, it was enough to get the girl to pull away from the table. Once she had, she turned to Hermione and said to her, "Don't look at Ginny. You'll never be able to un-see it or remember her as normal self if you do . . ."
Closing her eyes, Hermione wished very much that she was still only caught up in a state of nightmare. Feeling Lavender squeeze her hand before the sounds of the blond breaking down into earnest tears at last were heard, the bushy-haired teenager squeezed her eyes further shut, as tight as she could to indeed keep herself from laying sight upon one of her dearest friends in such a state of life or death.
Standing to her other side, she could hear Ron's labored and panicked breathing, though he no longer sounded like he was crying. It might have been pompous for her to do so, she did consider, but Hermione – eyes still closed – ultimately found herself speaking up, saying to Ron: "M-Maybe you should and get Harry. Why isn't he here anyway? He lives with you all . . ."
"Harry's the one that found Ginny in the woods," Ron said quietly. "He brought her here, came to wake us all up . . . we came here, and then he was nowhere to be found. I mean, I could go and try to find him, but my one and only, baby sister is-"
"No," Hermione said, interrupting him. "I'm sorry – so sorry." Letting go of Lavender's hand, she opened her eyes at last, but turned to face Ron as she did so. "I'll go look for Harry myself."
Letting her leave without further ado, Ron and Lavender remained side by side, looking on with Molly and Arthur as both Robere and Snape worked fervently together to try and stop the bleeding – to try and save the life of the girl on the bed before them.
Stepping out into the cold night air in nothing but her dressing gown – indeed, not even shoes were on her feet – Hermione folded her arms across her bosom to try to ward off the climatic chill as she aimlessly began to wander about the village. Some people were out of their houses, whispering amongst themselves in small clusters. On occasion, someone would cry out to the apothecary's daughter, to ask what was going on inside her home, but she simply pretended not to hear them when and if people did this. She wasn't trying to be rude, but it was horrifying, what the Weasley's were going through, and it wasn't anyone else's business anyway to know about it.
Eventually she walked past the house that belonged to Lavender's family, and when the girl's mother stuck her head out of through a window and called her name, Hermione made a small exception, and went over to her.
"Is my Lavender quite alright? We finally just got to visit her earlier today, you know, and now all this commotion—"
"She's fine, honest, ma'am," the brown-eyed girl said. "She's standing even – perfectly fine out of bed, I'd say."
"So do you suppose she can come home tomorrow?"
"That's really up to my father, but I would guess that yes, she probably will be coming home tomorrow." As the girl said this, she felt a strange lurch from somewhere around her belly button; she bid adieu to the woman in the window, before stepping away, and she'd wandered several houses beyond Lavender's home before it came to her to realize what had caused the lurch of pain in her stomach.
Feeling a shiver unrelated to the wind go through her body, Hermione quickly rushed off to the side of the main village path, before becoming sick by some bushes. Tears beginning to stream down her face, she couldn't help but keep thinking the same thing over and over again: Would Ginny ever be going back home after this night?
Back in the apothecary's house, Snape and Robere were still fast and hard at work to fix up the patient when the door to the cabin was burst open violently, causing all present to glance toward it, if even just for a fraction of a second, to see who'd done such a thing. Much to the surprise of all, it was the brothers' Dumbledore, Aberforth marching into the cabin first with Albus following closely after him.
"You there," the younger of the brothers said, stepping up to Lavender. "Who had asked you to go into the woods the other night?"
"What? I - Ginny is -"
"Answer me!" Aberforth demanded, before Albus appeared at his side.
"Missus Brown," he said, in a kinder, but just as urgent tone of voice. "We absolutely must know who or what and why you came to be in the woods after nightfall the other evening. We cannot, as it seems, yet ask this of the Weasley girl, so you're the only link to how we might stop any more attacks from occuring right now."
Looking over to George as he also finally entered back into the cabin, Molly and Arthur gave him puzzled, concerned looks; the apothecary and his apprentice had since wordlessly returned to their work attending to Ginny.
"They demanded to know why Ginny was in the woods at all," George said, looking just as puzzled as he looked back to both his parents. "I said I didn't know – they said they wanted to see Lavender – how is Ginny anyway? Is she doing any better now?"
Outstretching a hand toward her son, Molly Weasley soon drew him into her arms for a hug, though neither she nor her husband had an actual answer to give him regarding his sister's state of being.
"Now hold on," Ron said, stepping in front of the much shaken looking Lavender, as they both stood a few feet away from the bed now. "She's not quite over her own attack, you know."
"Don't disrespect us, boy," Aberforth snarled, letting his glasses slide down all the way to the tip of his nose. "Now kindly let us hear her answer, unless you want others to reach the same fate - being led into the woods only to be attacked in the dead of night."
Glaring back at the elder, Ron eventually obeyed regardless of his initial reactions, and stepped aside, though he placed a hand at Lavender's shoulder, to try and comfort her throughout the interrogation that was to come.
"Again, all we need to know is the following:" Albus said. "Where were you when you first got the notion to go into the woods the other night? If someone else persuaded you, who was it? Lastly, do you remember at all what the wolf that attacked you look like?"
"I … It was the night before my attack. I was in my home, lying awake in my bed after my parents had gone to sleep. I'd had a headache, you see, and anyway, I wasn't yet asleep, and I happened to hear someone's voice drift into the house, coming from outside the window over my bed."
"Alright," Aberforth said, nodding his head slowly. "Who'd the voice belong to?"
"I never knew – that was the strange thing, really. They wouldn't say who they were, but they did know to call me by my name, and also, their voice was weird. It sounded almost as if they were trying to hide their real voice, whoever they were – though I can tell you, it sounded scratchier, like a male's voice. Well anyway, they asked me to go outside."
"And did you?" Albus asked.
"No," Lavender said, shaking her head. "I was at first suspicious, naturally, but once they kept insisting they knew me – and how they did so was they told me what I looked like down to the last letter – you have wavy blond hair, your skin is fare, your nose is a little long, but your face is no less pretty for it."
"They called you pretty, did they?" Aberforth said, looking grim. "I suppose they arranged for you to meet them the following night, knowing well enough you wouldn't in fact meet them that night then, am I quite right?"
"You are quite right – how do you . . .?" Lavender began, looking quite confused.
"We have enough answers," Aberforth said to her, cutting her off.
"You wanted to know what the wolf looked like," Lavender pointed out. "Although, I don't remember anything extraordinary beyond the fact that he disappeared after Hermione and I began to walk away from it."
"Thank you, Missus Brown, you have been quite helpful – truly," Albus said.
It was then that the elders stepped over to the bed, speaking in hushed tones to find out what they could about Ginny's bleak-looking condition. Lavender, on the other hand, was left with Ron, who looked down at her, a puzzled expression that was quite similar to her own on his face as he kept his hand at her shoulder, squeezing her there now to try and help her feel less shaken up by all that was going on. He didn't know if it was working, but he did know that he'd have liked some way of comforting his own self; as it was, he certainly didn't, and considering everything, it was no wonder why not.
Back outside, in several, several cabins beyond that of the apothecary's, Hermione was knelt to the ground, not far from the bushes she'd grown sick near. Shivering all over, she kept her arms folded, her head bowed as the night winds about her howled and danced, flicking her hair to and fro, as if its brown, wavy locks were its own personal playthings.
"Hermione?"
Barely tilting her head upward upon hearing a familiar voice speak her name, the frozen-to-the-bone girl said, "Harry – I was looking for you when I felt really sick. I was just resting here for a few moments; I was planning to get up and get back to looking for you any moment now, really."
"Oh, you're like this on account of me?" he said, sounding ashamed of himself, before quickly helping his friend upward to a standing state, and then unfastening his own night coat and slipping her into it; she let him do so with much ease – indeed, she was as limber and willing as a ragdoll, to do whatever motion he wanted her to.
"How did you become sick?" he asked, sounding scared and worried both as he beckoned her to tilt back slightly, so that he could lift her up from the ground, to carry her back into the village bridal-style. "Hermione, I already found Ginny torn to pieces tonight. She's like my own sister – please don't tell me you might be lost, too. Why were you by the woods at all?"
Her arms clung around Harry's neck, Hermione said, "Nothing attacked me, and I'll honestly be fine, so please don't worry. Like I told you, I was looking for you – I felt sick to my stomach after I realized how bad off . . . well, just how bad off Ginny is."
"You mean they let you get a look at her like that?" Harry asked; Hermione shook her head, before nuzzling in closer against his chest for warmth.
"I was too much of a coward to look at her. At least – after Lavender warned me not to lay my eyes on Ginny, I was."
"Do you – do you think you're going to be alright?" Harry then asked, as he picked up his pace, quickly taking the path that would lead back to the home he and the Weasley's lived in.
"I do now that you've got me," she answered him in a quiet, sleepy voice.
"Stay awake. The cold's gotten to you something bad – I have to get you warmed up. There's a lot of commotion in your cabin, yes?"
Hermione nodded against Harry's chest in confirmation.
"Right," Harry said, before pushing open the Weasley's door with his foot, finding that no one was inside the cabin at all. "Look, I've taken you to my home instead. Are you alright with that?"
"Of course," Hermione said, and before she knew it, she felt herself being laid upon a big, soft bed; soon after that, blanket after blanket was being placed atop her, and she felt herself growing quite warm, next to nearly forgetting just how unforgiving the cold outside had been with no coat or shoes on.
Sitting at the side of the bed, Harry took hold of one of her hands in both of his, before rubbing it, massaging it back to warmth.
"Thank you for taking care of me, Harry," Hermione said to him. "I'm sure I'll be perfectly better soon. It just hit me after I had been walking out in the cold for a while, you know, how terrible everything has been – the nightmares, the wolf attacks, Ginny, our Ginny – she's one of our dearest friends, and she's poor Ron's sister, oh! And poor Molly and Arthur and, and the whole lot – I wish there was something I could do . . ."
Releasing Hermione's right hand and reaching over to begin rubbing her left one instead, Harry leant forward and kissed her on the forehead, before pulling away and saying, "You don't have to cry. Your father will make Ginny better."
Unable to stop her tears, however, the girl simply replied, "I hope so."