Content Warning: non-consensual touching of a minor (Harriet), removal of underwear (that's as far as it goes, folks), slight disassociation and being paralysed by fear

Her heart beat in her chest like a little drum, the thud-thud growing that much louder to her ears, and Harriet was surprised it didn't beat its way out of her chest. A thin layer of sweat was coating her hands, the knowledge that if she failed to somehow get out of that situation she would face some form of harm making her hands shake with nerves. It was like that time in the forest, when her last emergency quest had appeared in front of her.

Silently, she wondered when the next one would appear. It wasn't like she was facing the possibility of death that time around, after all. She wondered if there would ever be a time when the thought of an emergency quest didn't scare her in the slightest.

She hadn't prepared enough, part of her acknowledged silently. It wasn't like the forest – when she could just run away and hide. She couldn't run away from the headmaster when he could use his authority to expel her or otherwise have her dragged back to his office every time she set foot on school grounds.

"No need to look so scared, Harriet," Mr Strange said, smiling still in that way which had shudders rolling down her spine and revulsion roiling in her stomach. "We're just here to talk today about the trouble you've been causing recently."

"Uh, trouble?" she parroted, utterly caught off guard by the odd turn of topic which had come up. She couldn't remember causing any trouble as of late, and Miss Chenhelm hadn't used her disappointed voice or stare on her for quite a while. But maybe that had been to let her guard down while she had worried about invisible enemies and growing plants? Harriet didn't know. All she knew was that her stomach was twitching and her nerves felt as though they were eating her alive.

"Well, what trouble do you think you've caused?" he asked, still smiling in that way Harriet didn't like. "Come," he said, seating himself down on one of the two armchairs which were positioned in front of his desk and far too close to the other. "Sit down, Harriet," he murmured, eyes darkening with something Harriet didn't quite understand. It wasn't anger – that Harriet knew too well – and it wasn't like her aunt's scorn. It was something closer to the way a lion eyed an antelope like on the nature documentaries that sometimes played in the background while she was cleaning the house.

"Uh," she mumbled, wanting to stay as far out of grabbing range as humanly possible. Nothing good had ever happened when Uncle Vernon grabbed her. Nothing better would happen if Mr Strange got a hold of her. They were both her enemies.

"Harriet." His eyes hardened. "Sit down," he commanded. "I won't ask again," he stated, and Harriet felt herself automatically moving to sit down beside him, feeling sick to her core, body feeling as though it were moving on its own at the tone he used. There was something about it which made her feel cowed – made her feel small and meaningless. "Miss Chenhelm tells me you've been behaving rather disruptive in class as of late."

"But I haven't—"

"You must understand that if this continues, there'll be a mark placed on your records – and that can affect what sort of secondary school you go to. I understand your uncle went to Smeltings Academy – a prestigious school, that," Mr Strange said. "Surely you wouldn't want to go there, known for being a troublemaker. You're a smart girl, Harriet."

Harriet swallowed, throat suddenly feeling incredibly dry as she sat there on the comfy seat which really wasn't comfy in the slightest. Somewhere, in the recesses of her mind, she knew exactly what he was saying and what he was leading her to. "What do you want?" she asked, heart jackrabbiting in her chest as he smiled almost cruelly.

"I do like smart girls," he murmured, leaning forwards then, and Harriet only stiffened as he placed a hand on her bare thigh. The contact made her tense, wholly unused to people touching her – except to drag her around, and she had the distinct impression that Ian Strange was not about to drag her about by her inner thigh.

Her hands moved, scrabbling to grab at his own hand as his fingers moved, creeping up her leg like a spider from her cupboard. "What are you doing?" she asked, panic finally prominent in her voice, as she stared at the hand she didn't want touching her. Yet she had the distinct impression that he wouldn't stop even if she asked nicely. His expression told her he was getting everything he wanted – which was eerily similar to the glee her aunt exuded when she failed at something she was set up to.

"You've been a troublesome student, Harriet," he said, fingers still moving, ignorant to her attempts to bat his hand away. "I won't make a note of it though, and I'll be sure to let Miss Chenhelm know what a good girl you were… You want to be a good girl, don't you?" he crooned. "So I'm sure you can do me a little favour…"

Harriet shook her head, tears building in her eyes as his hand kept moving upwards, fingers far larger than her own rolling back the edges of the summer dress her aunt had picked from a charity bin. She opened her mouth, uncertain of exactly what she was about to do or say.

"I've locked the door," his words made her choke on her unspoken words. "Besides, I can easily shut you up if you decide to scream." His smile was something which would haunt her nightmares. "Even if you try and say anything – who exactly do you think is going to believe you, of all people, over me?"

She knew the answer to that: no one.

Evidently he knew that as well, and Harriet could only sit there, tears streaming silently down her face as those fingers brushed against her knickers and wet lips met her cheek in a kiss that made her want to vomit. "You're a good girl, Harriet," he purred, and Harriet could only wonder why she wasn't moving – wasn't running away like she had from her enemy in the forest. There was no point – the school was the headmaster's territory.

But it didn't mean she wanted that – she didn't want grubby fingers pawing at her through her knickers, and she didn't want them pulled down and away, as was starting to happen. Her hands shook, limp by her side, terror coursing through her as she tried to move and tried to think.

"Lady…" a familiar, single, raspy voice met her ears, and it was like a balm to her soul as she caught sight of the familiar old oak in the open window. "Druid…"

Her eyes widened, hope surging.

"Use… me…" the tree croaked, and Harriet's lips were moving before she realised it.

"Nature Magic," she murmured as quietly as elvenly possible.

Ian Strange looked at her then, eyes feeling like they were burning her skin when he looked at her with those dark eyes. "What did you say?" he asked, fingers still touching her and roving over exposed skin.

Branches creaked ever so quietly, slowly – painfully slowly – growing into the room towards her all of a sudden. Not fast enough. It wasn't fast enough, and Harriet could only try to struggle, not that her body was listening to her. Rather she felt oddly far away from her body as she sat there, praying her tree would make it in time, even as her pants hung around her ankles for a few moments before dropping to the wooden floor with barely a rustle of fabric.

[ALERT! Nature Magic (Novice) has levelled up to Lvl.26!]

It wasn't fast enough, and it wasn't like she could magically increase her level in—Harriet blinked, mind racing as she realised that yes, actually, she could. "Overboost, Nature Magic," she muttered, watching as an alert popped up, even as hands took a hold of her legs. It still wasn't fast enough. The trees needed to move faster and there was only one theory which would allow for that to happen.

Harriet wondered if she could stack the effect of Overboost, before throwing caution to the wind and just doing it.

"Overboost, Nature Magic," she mumbled in quick succession, the words whispered and frantic, desperate to reach the trees before those hands could resume their wandering between her thighs. "Overboost, Nature Magic."

[ALERT! Due to the effects of 'Overboost' you have temporarily achieved: Nature Magic (Apprentice) Lvl.1!]

She caught sight of her reflection in the plaque on the desk declaring the name of her enemy as her eyes glowed white and the growth of the new tree branch multiplied in speed. Thin branches came between them first, a yelp of surprise cutting off as branches thickened and grew, pressing Ian Strange back into his chair which skidded backwards on the floor as the thick tree branch both collided with him and trapped him there.

[ALERT! Overboost (Novice) has levelled up to Lvl.2!]

A shaky breath escaped her, even as she heard his struggles behind her, pinned to the wall by a tree branch, of all things to be trapped by. It wasn't normal for a tree to seemingly come alive and practically attack someone, after all. Harriet didn't think she'd been quite normal for most her life. Fingers – her own that time – picked her knickers up off the floor, and she hauled them back on, wiping at her teary eyes as she weighed up her routes of escape before hurrying onto the extended branch inside the room and running out underneath the boughs of the old oak, sobbing her thanks all the while.

It was nice to be able to move and think once more, without that haze of terror which had seized her in its grasp far too recently. Quietly, she made her way down the tree trunk, handy hand and footholds appearing for her as she made her way down the very tall tree.

[EMERGENCY QUEST COMPLETE!]

[EMERGENCY BONUS QUEST FAILED!]

She exhaled, legs shaking still as she landed on the soft ground with barely a sound. She had succeeded in escaping, somehow. Shivers overcame her, the phantom sensation of his fingers tracing the skin of her inner thighs making her wrap her arms around herself. Harriet hadn't liked it one bit, and she didn't understand why she hadn't done anything. She hadn't wanted him touching her, and she should have been screaming and fighting. Although perhaps not screaming. Nobody tended to care about hearing her screaming. Nobody had ever come to help her before when she screamed. But fighting back – that she should have been able to do.

Yet she hadn't, and she didn't understand why.

[ALERT! You have levelled up!]

[ALERT! Nature Magic (Novice) has levelled up to Lvl.28!]

Tears of frustration and embarrassment welled up in her eyes, and, furious, Harriet rubbed at them with her hand, missing the longer sleeves of her winter uniform which would have done a better job of soaking up her tears. Part of her baulked as her feet took her back in the direction of her classroom, part of her whispering that if he broke free he might come and try to find her again.

Yet he didn't.

In fact, nobody bothered her for the rest of the day, and she went home that fateful Friday without a single mark to prove what had happened. But there were more marks than just any physical ones. Harriet felt them long after night had fallen.

Her heart was racing like a freight train when she sat up sharply in bed, hands clammy and cold from the nightmare she'd had. Fingers twitched, grasping at her knees, legs pressed together as she reminded herself that Ian Strange wasn't there, and he wasn't touching her anymore. Her stomach twisted, and desperately, she sought something to occupy herself with.

"Profile. Stats," she murmured – interacting with her game-like interface being the only thing she could really do without causing a stir in the dead of night.

Harriet Lily Potter – Lvl.9 – Age: 7

Race: Elf Sponsor:?

Class: Arcane Archer Subclasses: Druid, ?

Title(s): The Last Druid (Other Titles Available)

HP: 100/100 MP: 150/150

Exhaustion: 59/500

She looked at her exhaustion then, sighing when she saw just how higher than usual it was. It was tough to get it below twenty those days, when she all too often woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming about Ian Strange – someone she was beginning to loathe with such passion. Yet not enough to allow the trees to enact their plan to eliminate him as someone who had harmed their precious druid.

VIT: 10, STR: 6, DEX: 12, INT: 15, WIS: 16, CHA: 30

Unallotted Stat Points: 15

Squinting with tired eyes, she peered at the fifteen unallotted stat points she had thanks to that nightmare of a headmaster. She had gone up a level – something which hadn't happened in a while, and had earned herself ten more unallotted stat points. Five from the level-up and five from the emergency quest. Harriet thought that if she saw another emergency quest anytime soon it would be months too soon. Was it too much to ask for her enemies to stop bothering her? Though her enemies had decreased by one, strangely enough.

Headmaster Ian Strange was no longer her enemy.

Ian Strange: Rep +10. Unnerved.

Harriet wondered what it meant for him to be unnerved of her. She was a slip of a girl who he'd been all too eager to touch so very recently. Though, she mused, he had probably worked out exactly who had caused that tree's sudden wild growth. Dimly, Harriet wondered how they'd get rid of that branch.

The answer to that came the next Monday she went in to school for one of the last two weeks of school. Dudley's birthday had come and gone in the blink of an eye, and next was her own birthday, a little ways into the summer break. Not that the Dursleys would celebrate it, she thought to herself almost bitterly. It was funny, just how jaded and bitter she was becoming after that assault, but her bitterness fled the instant she walked through the school gates, observation switched on, and saw the tree stump.

Harriet blinked, stopping dead still in the middle of the walkway as she saw the white letters above what used to be a tall, proud oak tree who'd spoken to her in a craggily, old voice.

Old Oak Tree Stump (Dying)

"Huh?" she mumbled, staring at the remnants of the tree who had saved her from the scary headmaster. The tree, she realised belatedly, who might as well have sacrificed its life for her – because there was no mistaking the events which had gotten it cut down.

Voices of the Trees was active, the eerie silence where there had once been words making her fingers twitch and curl into little fists.

Yet the label above the stump said dying – not dead, and there was a world of difference between that. She walked over to the tree stump, for once uncaring that many people would be able to see her. "Nature Magic," she murmured, feeling that skill switch on with her words, but—

[Your Level of Nature Magic is too low to revive target: OLD OAK TREE]

Harriet gritted her teeth, staring at her hands and scowling viciously then. The tree which had helped her escape from her enemy and escape sexual assault was dying, and there wasn't anything she could do. Her eyes narrowed into little jade chips, anger at those who had cut down her friend and saviour and the headmaster who had undoubtedly made that happen overriding that quaking fear she felt towards one Ian Strange.

There wasn't anything she could do right then – because her level of Nature Magic was too low.

All that meant was that she was going to have to improve it until she could.