Toadstool Town
As September faded into October, Hermione felt the need for a bit of exploration and she sought that within the forest. She passed from one tree through another tree and stood in the forest. She walked around for a few hours, happily enjoying her surroundings, she felt so merry within this place that at one point she actually found herself skipping.
She came across a row of trees that had walls of leaves between them, Hermione poked the leaves, they seemed strong, they had been woven together. She tried walking through them but couldn't, they were still too strong, she then looked up at the tree and assessed the shape, it had lots of branches leading up it and therefore seemed climbable. She jumped onto the roots and then she rest her foot in a hole in the bark, she grabbed a branch and lifted her other leg to a lower branch. She climbed up the tree, higher and higher until she sat on the leaves at the top. Hermione tried to peer over the side to see what was on the other side of the woven leaf wall, she moved her foot but it slipped and she tumbled down, she felt her ankle get wrapped by something and dangled from the tree, upside-down, a vine had caught itself around her ankle, stopping her from hitting the forest floor.
She was greeted by a bunch of small civilians, they were waist height and fluffy all over, they wore pinstriped dungarees and were all pointing bows and arrows at her, the arrows pulled back in the bows ready to fire at her,
"Who you be?" asked one of them in an adorable voice,
"I am Hermione, I come in peace, I swear, no weapons." se declared, she tried to surrender but she was just dangling her arms downwards,
"Her-my-nee." they all said in unison, awestruck,
"Yes, please don't hurt me, just let me down and I'll be on my way." she said, they lowered their bows and arrows except for one who fired, the arrow cut through the vine and Hermione fell the last couple of feet to the floor. She stood up, "Thank you." she said,
"You welcome." said the creature that did it,
"What you be, you be a creature of pretty forest?" asked one of them,
"No, no, I'm a human, I come from somewhere else." said Hermione,
"Somewhere else, sound like fascinating land, you tell us all about it." it said,
"You come to our village?" one asked,
"Um, okay." said Hermione, they all cheered.
Hermione followed the odd, tiny-bear thingies through the forest, when they reached their destination Hermione was the one who was awestruck. There were a lot of houses but not regular houses, they were made of giant, oversized toadstools, they were spotty on the top, they had added stonework, chimneys, doors, windows and dormers. Hermione looked up and saw that the village continued in the trees with tree houses and stairs and platforms in the trees with more of these things,
"This is a very impressive place." said Hermione,
"Thanks, very, very much, we work hard for what we got." said one of them,
"If you don't mind me asking, who are you?" asked Hermione,
"We are the basimites, this is our village." one said,
"Its beautiful." said Hermione,
"Thanks." he said, "My name Bellus." he said,
"Well that's a very nice name." said Hermione,
"But our village, it fails." said Bellus,
"And why is that?" asked Hermione,
"Food, running out." he said,
"But this forest is filled with fruit trees." said Hermione,
"We, no, no, we no eat human food, we only eat beatusberries." he said,
"And where are they?" asked Hermione,
"At top of mountain." said Bellus, he gestured to his left and Hermione could not believe that she didn't realise that the village was based at the top of a mountain, she had to look down when talking to these people, she had seen it in the distance in the forest before but had never been this close to it.
"Can you not just climb it?" asked Hermione,
"No, no, no, that's where montemites live." he said,
"Who are the montemites?" asked Hermione,
"They another tribe of us, we at war with them." said Bellus,
"Why?" asked Hermione,
"Me no know." he said,
"If you don't know then why are you fighting?" asked Hermione,
"Because, we at war." he said,
"Yes, I got that bit, but…never mind." said Hermione, "Can't you make peace?" asked Hermione,
"No, we no make no peace." said Bellus.
"Okay." said Hermione.
She was ushered off by other basimites, she was taken into a toadstool house, she had to crouch slightly but sat in one of their chairs as the others crowded around the tree stump table.
"Tell us of the mysterious land of Somewhere Else." asked a basimite,
"Well, there are lots of people moving around all the time and metal boxes zooming about with people in them, and the birds, well, they're metal as well, metal birds with people in them flying in the sky and we have this magical object of overhead lighting." said Hermione,
"Ooh." they said in unison,
"Yes, pretty amazing." said Hermione.
Soon, the basimites had vacated apart from one, Hermione assumed that this was the chief judging that he was more decorated than the others,
"So," said Hermione, "Tell me about the montemites?" she asked,
"They hog food, none for us." he said,
"Why don't you make peace?" said Hermione,
"We want to, they stubborn, no share the beatusberries." he said,
"What if I try?" said Hermione,
"Be my guest." said the chief,
"Maybe I will." said Hermione, "Maybe I will."
Hermione stood at the foot of the mountain; she began to walk up it as the basimites cheered for her and chanted repeatedly,
"Peacemaker, peacemaker, peacemaker…" Hermione felt happy at this, the mountain began to become more vertical than horizontal and Hermione started to climb, she had no space to spin on the spot so she continued to climb, grabbing ledges and branches until finally she found a large ledge that she could stand on, she moved horizontally to get to it and she stood, she looked at the top of the mountain, pictured it, spun on the spot and dissapparated.
She appeared at the mountain top which was slightly snowy; the houses here were small log cabins, the montemites walked out with swords and different coloured dungarees (theirs were blues as the basimites' were red),
"Who you be?" one asked,
"Not this again." she said, "I'm Hermione, yes, Her-My-Nee, very amazing, I'm human and I'm from somewhere else which is very fascinating and I'm here to make peace between you and the basimites." said Hermione,
"No, no, no, WE want make peace but they no want to." said one of them,
"That's not true." said Hermione, "They want peace and some beatusberries."
"We no share beatusberries with them." said one,
"I request to speak with the chief." said Hermione, a more decorated montemites stepped out,
"Why you want to speak with me?" asked the chief,
"Because you both want peace." said Hermione,
"No, only us." said the chief,
"That's not true, just talk with there chief and see." she said, the montemites all huddled together and talked, the chief stepped out of the huddle and it disbanded,
"I talk with chief." he said,
"Thank you." said Hermione, she took his hand and dissapparated.
The two of them appeared at the foot of the mountain in the basimite village,
"You two, chief boys, talk." Hermione instructed, the two chiefs talked as instructed,
"Hello, Summo." said the basimite chief,
"Hello, Pedem." said the montemites chief,
"Please we have peace and beatusberries?' asked Pedem,
"We want peace, you do not." said Summo,
"We too want peace, we used to be friends." said Pedem,
"They be good past times." Summo agreed,
"Yes they be," said Pedem, they chatted for a while and started to go into native language but eventually began crying and hugging each other,
"We can build ski lift." cried Summo,
"We can make peace." said Pedem.
Hermione walked away from the village feeling good about herself, she had mended a war and found peace between two tribes. She left as the ski lift began construction so that the beatusberries could be shared. She put her foot at the roots of the tree, grabbed a branch and hauled herself up to sit on it, she maneuvered herself to stand up and grab and branch with her hands, she twisted around and climbed up the tree until she reached the leaves at the top and this time she actually climbed down and landed safely on the forest ground, still felling good.
Hermione walked on through the forest, she pulled her compass fro her beaded bag and followed the arrow to the tree. She eventually found the tree and walked through it. She put the compass back into her beaded bag and was back in the other forest that contained St, Mungo's college. She walked on through that forest,
"Well done." she said to herself, she was becoming quite attached to that forest, it had become a special place to her, close to her heart, she thought that there was no harm in indulging within this exotic and amazingly magical place and planned upon doing it many times more in the foreseeable future.