Monsters in the Eye of Monsters
Summary: In a universe where the magical world is exposed to the Muggles, wizards and witches are suppressed and hunted. There, in her small, brown cottage in the woods, Muggle Hermione Granger meets Wizard Ron Weasley, and an adventure is born.
A/N: Here's an update for you guys! A long wait, but I hope it was worth it. The cookie is dedicated to thatwitch64, who posted the amazing number thirty review!
Chapter Ten
Their dinner was lousy, even with Ron's extraordinary skill to produce illegible food. It didn't hold the usual colourful smell or the exotic flavours he always managed to tint it with. It tasted boring and didn't look any more appetizing with its grey and pale brown colour. Even Ron seemed to lack his colour as he sent her an askew smile that only seemed to deepen the paleness in his skin. His freckles stood out like blood drops on snow.
She didn't even know what she was eating.
Harry sent her a meaningful expression from where he sat on his and Ron's shared sleeping bag. Both sat stiffly and nobody dared to start a conversation. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a butter knife.
Harry's face twisted into a disgusted grimace. Predictably, he opened his mouth to comment the food, but Hermione quickly collected her wits and the words tumbled out of her mouth in an uncontrollable manner.
"What are your favourite colours?" the question made her cringe. How utterly pathetic is it possible to become? There was a reason that she didn't like being spontaneous, but she somehow knew that Harry's comment would lead to an argument, hence the thick tension that hung in the air.
Ron's eyes flickered in her direction, an astonished look etched onto his face, "Colours?"
"Colours," she repeated, inwardly kicking herself for asking the stupid question in the first place.
Surprisingly, Harry followed her lead and answered momentously, "Red," he laughed, "Gryffindor pride, of course,"
"Gryffindor? Who's that?" Hermione asked confusedly. She recognized the term from a previous conversation, but she couldn't quite place it.
While he had remained still as a statue before, Harry was now crouched over his knees laughing. His laughter, that suddenly made the food more colourful in taste, rung in the tent.
"She–" Harry began and choked through a series of chuckles, "–she doesn't have a clue what Gryffindor is!" A second, both Harry's and Ron's gazes met and they both went completely silent before both of them let out a string of giggles and gasped after air unbelievingly, all while Hermione sat still and watched in amazement as they slowly returned to their stoic states once again.
"What do you even learn in your 'History Classes'?" Ron snorted sarcastically. His cheeks were evidently tinted with the colour of crimson blood.
Hermione felt the dread rise in her chest. They had no idea how the Magicals were portrayed in her books. She didn't want to tell them how they were seen as malicious, blood-thirsty devils in a human's skin. Scratch that, they weren't even seen as humans.
Especially, she didn't want to tell them that she had believed that they were those killercreatures. They were the two who had set those perspectives in a new light. But deep down she knew that there was still a trace of doubt. A trace of her old beliefs that the wand-wielding Magicals had to be monsters.
"Ermm…" there was an awkward pause.
Lucky for her, Harry broke the silence and once again saved her from her self-inflicted embarrassment, "You said you could hunt?"
The dark feeling of dread that had consumed her mind immediately lifted and a warm smile sprang to her lips. "I can!" she exclaimed, perhaps a bit too excited, "Do you want me to teach you?"
To her right, Ron shuddered visibly, "As long as we're far away from those…those bloody Muggles!"
Harry looked at the distasteful food on his plate, "Maybe you'll be nice enough to teach us now? The food–" Ron sent him a glare that could pulverize stone. "It was very…extraordinary," he finished lamely, watching Ron's face soften.
His lips drew into an askew grin and a dimple appeared in his cheek. Hermione couldn't remember it being there from before. She was suddenly caught by the sudden urge to pinch his cheeks. Ron looked cute sitting there, a half-empty plate in his lap and an expression that screamed 'please take me with you'. Overall, he looked slightly like an eager puppy that waited outside the door to get outside.
"Come on, then," she waved them closer and exited the tent. The thin material fluttered as they lined up outside it. The darkness had barely touched the sky. The clouds were painted a flaming orange, strangely reminding her of Ron's locks.
Harry scratched his head awkwardly, "How exactly are we going to hunt? We don't have a gun or any other weapons we can use. In addition, I don't think using our wands would be a good idea, considering we're going to eat the enchanted thing,"
This time, it was Ron who wore the confused look. The sky set his red hair ablaze in the auburn light, "What's a gun?"
Harry shook his head, and replied, miraculously in tune with Hermione, "Never mind,"
"Do you have a pocket knife?" she asked. Before she could say 'werewolf', Ron handed her a glinting knife. It shimmered with silver as their hands touched. Sparks travelled all the way from where his fingertips had met her skin and up to her head, making her dizzy.
She wondered if a Muggle became too exposed by a Magical's magic, there'd be side effects. A thought tugged at her mind, pointing out that it only happened when she came close to Ron, but she brushed it away.
She was definitely not beginning to take a liking to Ron.
Once again, a voice presented itself in her mind, telling her she wasn't 'beginning to take a liking', but more 'developing the liking further'. As if it even exists, she snorted back.
Pulling a branch from a tree, she began cutting its roots that connected it to the trunk. The fresh smell of spring quivered in the air around her. Old memories resurfaced as she was suddenly pulled back into her own hut in the wood. The refreshing smell of pines and newly baked bread mixed with the distinct sense of spring made her feel more alive than ever.
Then, the illusion shattered and she was jerked back into reality, where she was stranded in a never-stay-too-long-in-one-place, pathetic camp she shared with two boys in a cramped tent.
The pocket knife dug into the bark of the tree. She figured out that she must have hacked at it rather maliciously, as both Ron and Harry looked at her with surprise written on their faces.
Hermione shrugged and went in for another deadly stab on the tree when Ron stepped forward and lightly laid his hand on her shoulder. Her tensed-up shoulders sagged and she let Ron continue her work.
He gently took a hold on the knife and forced it out of the tree it was embedded into. When it was free, he causally waved his wand and muttered an incantation. A purple and silver light was shot at the twig. A gasp escaped her as it crashed to the ground, a clean cut forcing it to let go of the trunk. He picked up the stick, whereas the clean-cut end still glowed a faint purple. Her hand locked in his as he offered her to take it.
The spark ran up her arm like a thousand ants. A bubble of joy engulfed her as an involuntary smile grew on her lips. His baby blue eyes stared at her like a puppy expecting a pet on the head. She let out a giggle as he – with his tall frame – walked into a branch neither of them had noticed before. He scratched the offending place and flashed her a smile, a warm pink burning in his cheeks.
How she wanted to pinch those cheeks!
He watched with innocent eyes as she whittled the stick until all was left was an ivory twig. Ron raised his eyebrows, "Why did you whittle it? It doesn't make sense. Bloody hell, no Muggles make sense,"
Harry only chuckled by the side-lines, suddenly guiding his own knife against a newfound branch.
A minute, a quarter, then an hour flew, and the ivory twig had been transformed into a wonderful bow. A white string bent the two ends together. The bow was completed. Ron beamed proudly, making all the worries in the world swirl together and evaporate.
"Now, we'll have to make the arrows. Harry, remember to only use the straight ones!" she advised. Harry – who had actually seen a bow before – had begun creating his own weapon, while she and Ron cooperated at a slower pace. She wouldn't have guessed how blind the wizarding world had been to Muggle inventions.
After searching every inch of the forest, the group of three had collected enough potential arrows to last a lifetime. They had each found the ideal place to sit and carve into the wooden bark of the sticks. The knives glinted in the faint sunlight, that was about to disappear below the horizon.
"Ouch!" the groan that followed made her glance up. Immediately, she wished she hadn't.
Ron had let his knife fall onto the green grass. The razor-sharp metal had splatted small drops of blood all over the green plant that covered the dirty ground like a carpet. Ron cradled his hand and winced when he peeked at it.
She could see a deep cut that stretched across two of his fingers. The blood bubbled up from his warm skin and began dripping onto the ground, creating a small puddle. He hissed as he allowed pressure onto the cut. It only resulted in smudging the blood all over his palms.
Hermione could spot the long, old scar in his palm as it gradually filled with the crimson substance.
Harry was on the spot before Hermione even thought of moving. She heard him stutter in Latin before the blood flow stopped and Ron let out a sigh. Apparently, the wound had closed up.
The blood still laid splattered across the grass. The knife was still pointing at the ground, seeping of crimson. The orange horizon had abruptly changed into a darker purple.
Beyond her understanding, everything seemed to evolve around Ron nowadays. And she especially didn't like the voice that tried to pry her into fancying him.
Of course Hermione Granger didn't fancy Ron Weasley. Her heart thumped. Maybe she wasn't so certain anymore.
A/N: Four pages for you! Can I ask you a question; do you think my paragraphs are too big and tiring to read? Just a thought that occurred in my mind. Please tell! Thank you!