Chapter 20:
"Hermione…"
"Little witch, it's time to wake up…"
"Love, please don't die on me…"
"Granger… Granger…"
Waking up to a chorus of all these noises was very disconcerting to say the least. And yet, when Hermione finally regained her consciousness fully, she realized that she wasn't in the middle of a mob as her addled mind had led her to believe but was safely cocooned by a rather large furry blanket.
A wolf… she shockingly noted when she finally managed to turn her head towards the dull thrumming behind her.
My wolf… her heart warmly supplied when memories slowly filtered back to her.
She remembered the russet wolf jumping out of nowhere between her and the werewolf. At the back of her mind she also remembered registering another wolf and Edward jumping on the back of that werewolf. She remembered the crazy look in the eyes of the russet wolf as he made a mad grab for her before sprinting away from the scene of the violent fight. The last thing she remembered was seeing a pale hand… Draco… pointing a wand in the general direction of the werewolf.
"What…" Hermione coughed, then shuffled to find her wand before she heard a soft augmenti hit the sides of a hastily conjured glass and then she was presented the cool drink of water. Accepting it greedily, Hermione chugged down the entirety of its content before vanishing the glass and taking a careful look around her.
"What happened?" she tried asking again.
"You proved your stupidity all over again is what happened!" Draco sneered at her angrily before huffing away in his anger, his fists clenched tightly by his sides as he tried to reign in his worry that was shooting up his anger levels.
"All is alright now," Harry answered after the blond left them behind while placing a comforting hand on Hermione's shoulder. "We came in a little late, but helped Draco to subdue Lavender. She is now under a protected perimeter and should be fine through the remainder of the night. A few of the reservation wolves are waiting back with her and Edward and Ron are manning the borders."
"Edward?" Hermione asked in shock. "Do you think it's a wise choice?"
Harry shook his head, "Don't ask. I'm heading back there. It was only supposed to be Ron and me but he insisted on waiting back. Just in case we all sleep, he says," Harry shrugged his shoulders to emphasize his thoughts on the vampires reasons for staying out. "Anyways, you've had an eventful couple of hours so I want you to head back to our tent and catch some sleep. Jacob will accompany you to make sure you get there safely."
"Oh, there's no need to bother him," Hermione shook her head, turning her head to look back at Jacob.
"There's no bother," Harry smiled. "In fact he quite insists on it," Harry continued, giving his best friend a smile that let her know she had some explaining to do later.
"How do you know?" Hermione asked more in her attempt to change the topic. "Your legillimancy works on his wolf form too?"
"No clue about that, but I know because he was sitting right here before you came around. He only phased when you were regaining consciousness."
"Oh.." Hermione tried to hide her hurt from the two boys around her. She wasn't sure why but she did feel bad about Jacob phasing before she came around rather than staying in his human form to talk to her.
"Hermione.." Harry brought her out of her melancholy thoughts with a firm hand on her shoulder. "He phases naked so he had to shift back."
If there was ever a way for a truck-sized wolf to look sheepish, Jake was doing it just then. "Oh.." Hermione repeated herself again before blushing and looking away.
"Right then. Time I leave, I guess," Harry said, standing up. "Be careful you two." And with a quick peck on Hermione's head, he was gone.
The large wolf waited patiently for Hermione to gather her bearings before she stood up and walked. Two minutes walking in silence beside the wolf though, she huffed and twisted and in her place stood a brownish fox.
At least we can talk now..
Woah! What?
Draco told me about your mind link. About how you can converse through it. And apparently it only needs phased animals of the dog family to join in. We checked it the other day.
Wait! Backtrack.. You're a fox?
Well, a vixen actually.
All the other wolves who had gotten a good look at the brown fox that was Hermione growled in agreement to her statement, making Jacob roar in irritation.
What was that?
Just my packmates being cheeky. Ignore them. I do!
Easier said than done mate, came a growling voice that sounded quite like Paul's. Hermione actually halted in her tracks to look around and check if he was close-by.
They aren't here. The link works over distances as well, Jacob informed.
Oh Hermione agreed in understanding and looked up at the large wolf walking beside her.
For a second their eyes met and all was lost to Hermione. He definitely has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen. I don't know why Gin and Leah don't concur.
The wolf's expressions turned funny and his smug voice broke into her thoughts, "Uh.. Hermione.. the link works all ways for all those who have phased. Everything you say and think, everyone phased hears."
It took her a second to work out the implications of Jacob's new information, but the second she did, she phased back. "May be I'm better off like this, you know. Easy access to my wand and all…" she trailed off, blushing yet again and making it a point to look anywhere except in the direction of the wolf.
Her phasing back though, had her missing the raucous laughter that her last thought elicited in the minds of all the phased wolves.
"Thoughtless dogs," Jacob roared on his link before following his little witch again.
…
Hermione woke up to her buzzing wand and quietly tiptoed out of her room in the tent. She wasn't sure who was in and who wasn't but she knew for sure the other occupants had all turned in late as she herself had gotten in well past mid-night and had yet been the first one in the tent.
On the couch outside laid Jacob. In his signature cut-offs, that she presumed he'd gone away later to don, he laid stiffly sprawled over the couch, his large frame looking decidedly uncomfortable on the comparatively smaller make-shift bed. If only she'd thought about it last night! Quietly and quickly Hermione transfigured the couch into an appropriately large-enough bed and took a few moments to study the sleeping boy.
He looked more like a man in prime, she decided, all toned and virile, and yet his strikingly boyish features, including his innocence, remained well intact. Hermione smiled at the soft snore that followed her thought and unable to resist the impulse, he bent down, pushed his short hair away from his forehead and bestowed him with a small kiss. Despite his sleep, her imprinter smiled, making Hermione do the same. She stayed and looked her fill of him for a few more stolen minutes, feeling an inexplicable warmth filling her on the inside.
With a new kind of peace resonating in her, she noiselessly padding out of the tent and breathed in deeply before glancing up at the sky. The dark inky blues looked as if they were just waiting for a touch of red to beckon a new day. She smiled as a new energy unfurled inside her and with a skip in her step, she walked to the periphery of their warded land and then with a crack, she disappeared.
Taking care to pop in well away from the werewolf's hearing range, Hermione walked towards the warded area. Seeing Harry and Ron folded on each other, both leaning on a rather large tree trunk, she couldn't help but smile. As unthankful as their situation was in Forks, given the New Vampire war they were soon to fight, the small sleepy town definitely had served them all well. Some of them had found love, some friends, and some promises of wonderful things to come and all in all, Hermione knew they'd been the happiest right there in all of their travels.
Conjuring a blanket and covering her best friends with it, Hermione walked ahead, towards the sleeping wolf and sighed. She truly hoped that her one-time roommate would find peace with her new existence.
"Fortunate are those that can sleep well after a tiring day. I envy them that," a silky voice spoke close to her ear, making her jump. And yet, it was the firm hold the intruder had on her shoulder, and her mouth that kept her from over-reacting.
"You scared me!" Hermione furiously whispered at the vampire, his cheeky smile stealing some of the peace she had started her day with.
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same," she countered.
"Very well," Edward nodded. "I knew they'd all sleep so I decided to stay guard. A move that seems to be right, I can see," he said, pointedly looking at the sleeping guards.
"They would've woken up had an emergency struck," Hermione started but seeing her companion frown, she added, "But I'm glad you decided to stay put. Never hurts to be vigilant," with an indulgent smile.
Edward returned the compliment with a smile and nod of his head. "You're here too early. I'd have thought you'd sleep more after last night's drama."
"She'll need me soon," Hermione replied, her chin pointing towards Lavender's sleeping wolf. "Once the sun's up, she'll phase back and being tired, in a strange land and at her most vulnerable, I thought she'd like to see a friendly face."
"So you two are friends?" Edward asked. After the previous night, he wouldn't have guessed that at all, but maybe this particular type of werewolf lost touch with their humanity on full-moon nights he hypothesised.
"In a manner of speaking," Hermione smiled as if on a particularly funny joke that only she was in on.
Edward frowned, but before he could ask more, the sleeping werewolf grunted as if in pain and slowly, as the inky skies inflamed, the werewolf's bones crushed and crunched in sickeningly loud noises, the fur coat disappeared inch by inch from its body and at an unhurried pace left a girl in their wake.
The noises seemed to have woken up Harry too, as he came to join them and just as Hermione stepped closer to the girl lying in the forest floor, he threw a few spells at them and like a thick mist, Edward's sight fogged over.
"What did you do?" Edward snarled at the boy beside him. had he somehow ruptured his eyesight?
"They phase naked, man. I just gave some well-deserved privacy," Harry frowned in reply.
Understanding, Edward nodded and a few minutes later, Hermione walked out of the mist with a girl covered in a thick coat leaning heavily on her.
"We'll have to levitate her back. She's too weak to apparate," Hermione whispered softly.
"No need. I can carry her," Edward offered and quickly picked up the broken girl in his arms before either of his companions could object. He'd seen something new last night, and he needed to know just what it was and he just knew all his answers laid in that magical tent. And one way or another, he was going to find his way in it that day.
"You go ahead with Edward, I'll get Ron and see you guys at the tent," Harry spoke next and they all made their own ways towards the tent.
"You two are kind-of friends," Edward prompted, when they'd found a pace comfortable enough for both, him and Hermione, making her smile.
"We were roommates for six years," Hermione shrugged. "Studied in the same year, shared the same house and dorm. She was the popular girl, me the geek. I read my way through the school's library while she found hers through the school's boys. She was the epitome of a girly-girl while I have most often been one of the guys," Hermione shrugged. "We never really had anything in common, really, expect…"
"Except?" Edward asked, now intrigued.
Hermione smiled, a bit of nostalgia in her tone. "Except our love for the same guy."
"Oh, the doom!" Edward exclaimed, unable to form any thought apart from that. "Then what happened?"
Hermione's smile faltered. "Then the war happened, Edward, and we all learned that there are things much greater than a school crush. Things worth finding even at the cost of losing ourselves. Things worth protecting even if it cost our lives in the process. Things worth fighting for even when it meant sacrificing that which you held most dear. Things worth dying for and those worth killing for…"