A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome back to another fic :) The secondary theme for this round is to try to incorporate a holiday or celebration into your story. To be honest, this one was originally written for the drabble of this competition. And then I realized there was no way I could cut 1500 words from this without losing the whole thing. So thankfully, I was able to tweak a few things to turn this into my standard, and boy howdy am I super pleased with this :3 If enough people like this, I might be persuaded to turn this into a two shot to show you guys what happens after Hermione gets away, but for now, this is a stand-alone one shot.
This one is for Round 7 of The Houses Competition, where I'm in Slytherin House and writing for Transfiguration. This competition, we have to write a drabble (500-1000 words) as well as a standard/theme (1000-3000 words). This fic is the Standard/Theme of the two. I've chosen the prompt (Quote) "A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting."- The Third Doctor, Doctor Who.
This is also written for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments) Assignment 11. I've chosen task #3 (Escapology: Write about someone trying to escape someone, or something) for the class Contemporary Circus Performance: Variety Acts.
Thank you kindly to Hope, Aya, Dhrish, and Ash Juillet for betaing this.
Word Count: 2562
Disclaimers/Warnings:
Summary: Hermione wakes up as the victim in a kidnapping and a participant in a very familiar fairy tale.
"La Belle et la Bête"
Adrenaline filled Hermione's veins as she snapped awake, the mad cackle of a dark witch long dead fading from her ears. She clutched at the cursed scar on her arm left behind from years ago and rubbed it unconsciously. As her eyes took in her unknown surroundings, she didn't allow herself to relax as she tried to remember what had happened to land her here.
Last night, around midnight, Hermione had just left Seamus' new pub, the Spitting Dog, where all the war heroes had gathered to celebrate Christmas Eve. She had done all the usual things expected of a Christmas celebration: toasted to her future hopes and dreams, ate too much food, reminisced with friends, and stumbled out of the pub at an ungodly hour.
She remembered making it to her front garden gate, noticing something rustling in her bushes, and her drawing her wand in reaction. And then, nothing.
Coming out of her memories, Hermione cautiously took in the room. She practically melted into the bed, admiring how soft it was, but the bedspread smelled musty and old. She went for her wand in her wrist holster to find both the holster and her wand gone. A slight panic set in, as she rolled out of bed, landing on her feet in a crouched position. Scanning the room again, Hermione didn't notice anything too out of the ordinary, so she stood up.
She had to get out of here.
She strode over to the door, to try the door handle, already knowing it wouldn't work but holding hope just in case. Locked. Turning to survey the room once more, she sagged against the door, her mind working furiously to try to come up with a solution. "Don't know where my wand is, so the Muggle way it is…" she murmured aloud.
There was a window by the bed, with stained glass and a handle and hinges that looked like it would swing inward. Depending on how high up she was, she could use the bedsheets to make herself a makeshift rope. Crossing the room quickly to take a look, she gulped heavily when she saw she was more than twenty stories up, in what must be a tower. "I'm going to need a lot more bedsheets," she decided.
A Christmas tree stood in the corner, decorated to the nines with bulbs filled with colors and fairies that twinkled in place. The furniture, including the massive four-poster bed she had slept in, looked antiquated almost as if it had been here for hundreds of years, perhaps passed down in an ancient family. The dust in the crevices of the mouldings confirmed the possible timeline. A double-doored wardrobe with a mirror and drawers in the middle stood in the corner, and it was then that Hermione realized then she was only in a thin nightgown that covered her from the top of her throat to her ankles. Anger warmed her.
"Someone changed me while I was unconscious!" she growled through gritted teeth.
"Sorry, m'dear, that would have been me!" came a voice from near the wardrobe, and Hermione jumped, her eyes not finding anyone in that corner of the room. And then, one of the drawers opened up, the voice issuing from within the wardrobe. "Come a little closer if you can. My eyesight isn't what it used to be. The master had me dress you while you were unconscious, so I couldn't get a good look at your size then. Let me get a good look at you."
Humoring the enchanted piece of furniture, Hermione stepped forward. "What are you?" she asked as she lifted her arms out to her sides as directed. The wardrobe hummed as a magical tape measure floated around her.
"Oh, I'm Leticia Brown. I was a seamstress before I was cursed to be...this," the wardrobe replied. Hermione frowned in thought.
"Who cursed you?" she asked. Leticia the Wardrobe merely shrugged, her doors opening up and the clothing hooks inside shifting up and down in the movement.
"I don't remember any more. It's been so long." Leticia grew wistfully quiet for a moment before pulling herself together. "Anyway, let's get you dressed. The master will want to see you soon."
A banging on the door interrupted them, and the wardrobe seemed to perk up.
"Oh, that must be him now!" Leticia said before calling out loudly, "I am dressing her now. ¡Un momento, por favor!"
It was perhaps ten minutes later that Hermione was then thrust out of the room, dressed in a period-piece dress from the late 1800s. A candlestick was set on the floor in front of her door. Thinking it was left for her, she bent down to pick it up when it came to life much like the wardrobe had. Hermione reared back in surprise.
"This way, Madam," the candlestick intoned. The candlestick began to jump away, and Hermione had no choice but to follow him. She kept a firm eye on her surroundings. If she didn't have to go out the window, that would be preferable. The path to the dining room, where she had been summoned, was easy to remember, and Hermione stored that bit of information away for later.
She was led to a chair at one end of the long dining table, the chair at the other end of the table covered in a pile of furs. Hermione looked around the room curiously, noting the opulently dressed Christmas tree in each corner and the evergreen garland draped over the mantle of the large fireplace on one side. Movement at the corner of her eye brought her attention back to the pile of furs in the other chair, only to realize to her horror that there was a furry something sitting in that chair. She saw horns, fangs and fur, and her horror only mounted as she looked into the familiar eyes of the creature to find them trained on her.
"Greyback," she whispered in fear. The beast looked like Greyback but much more deformed, as if someone took his werewolf form and added extra muscle and fur on, as if he had turned almost into a bison or wildebeest. "I watched you die!"
He chuckled lowly as he stretched out, his form nearly too big for the chair he sat in. He stood and slowly stalked towards her.
"I wish I had," he replied, stopping a chair or two before reaching her. "A family curse was laid upon me by that Lupin witch. Her death sealed the curse unto me. I'm now forced into this form—a weakened form. I only regain myself on the nights of the full moon. The longtime cure for this, however, is to find someone to love me for me." Hermione felt the bottom of her stomach drop in dread when he said, "You were always a lovely girl whenever I watched you in school. Always caring about others, even to the detriment of yourself."
"When were you able to watch me in school?" Hermione cried out in alarm. Greyback merely grinned back at her.
"So I've selected you to be my cure. You will love me, and then I will be free," he continued, ignoring her question. Hermione laughed humorlessly.
"This feels like something out of a fairy tale...almost like La Belle et la Bête," she murmured. Greyback merely grinned wider at her.
"Well-read, are ye?" he growled at her. Hermione had to swallow her scream as he pounced at her, his arms bracing himself on her armrest, invading her personal space.
"I refuse to take part in this scheme," Hermione insisted, turning her face away in fright.
"You will succumb. Whether by force or by your own means, you will help me lift this curse!" he vowed before growling at her forcefully once more. She let out a small shriek as he grabbed her arms, wrenching her up from her chair. "Let's get you back into your room and let you think on things for a few days. Maybe starving you might be the best way to weaken your resolve!"
Greyback dragged her back to her room, her feet scraping painfully against the stone floors. Throwing her to the floor, he leered at her prone form.
"I will make you love me even if it's the last thing you do!" he declared before spinning on his heel and leaving, slamming the door behind him. The click of the lock was loud in the silence of her room, and Hermione let out the sob she had been holding back.
His actions to her only firmed up her resolve to get away. She had to leave. She would have to gather up Aurors and perhaps even Harry and Ron to bring them back to take care of Greyback once and for all. Maybe even come back when it was a full moon, if what he said was true and he was forced to be human once more.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Hermione stood and ran a shaking hand through her hair. Without a wand, she was powerless against Greyback. Her only hope would be to outrun him and get lucky. Going to the window, Hermione opened it to find that the window itself was small, perhaps barely large enough to squeeze herself through. There seemed to be a wrought-iron grating on the outside of the window that was bolted into the stone walls. She reached an arm out and tested it.
"Should be strong enough to hold my body weight," she murmured before withdrawing her arm. She then took that time to survey the grounds. There seemed to be a hedge maze that filled up a good chunk of the grounds between her window and what she assumed was the gate lining the property. Hermione watched as a squirrel ran through the entrance of the hedge maze, causing the hedges to start shifting. When the squirrel reached what was now a dead end, it kept going and the hedges shifted back just in time, as if the changing foliage were merely an illusion. She began to memorize the configuration to ensure her flight was quick and seamless.
"A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting," she murmured, remembering a quote from a show her father had watched when she was younger as she kept her eyes on the squirrel, who continued its sprint to a tree on the opposite side of the property. While she normally would agree with the quote, she knew right now she needed the straightest and fastest path to get free. Her life might actually depend on it.
Afterwards, she stripped the sheets from the bed. With the first tear, Leticia the Wardrobe let out a gasp, reminding Hermione the enchanted woman was still in the room. "Nothing personal. But I have to get out of here. I'll come back with help, if I can, to kill Greyback and free you all," the Gryffindor stated, pulling a dress from the wardrobe. "I can't let you know how I leave, though. For all our sake." She threw the dress over the wardrobe to cover it but not before Hermione heard a teary thank you in response.
Hermione went back to ripping up bed sheets and blankets, and she even had to pull off the curtains from the four-poster bed in order to tie up a long enough rope. Swiftly, knowing that she was on limited time, Hermione tied up one end of her makeshift rope to the metal grating outside the window, triple-checking that it was secure. The rest of the rope was tossed outside, and Hermione was pleased to note that the end pooled on the ground. With one last look around the room to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything, Hermione shimmied out the window and clutched to her makeshift rope. Thankful for the long sleeves on the dress, she reached back into the room to close the window after herself.
Her descent to the ground was slow; however, when she was a few meters off the ground, she heard the window above open up and voices filter out. In a panic, she let go and tumbled the rest of the way to the ground. Landing on her feet, Hermione took off towards the hedge maze, just to pause behind the first hedge and wait a moment to catch her breath. When no sounds of pursuit followed after her, she took off running, navigating the hedge maze and trusting her memory more than what she saw. The first dead end she hit, she continued running and passed through it much like the platform at King's Cross.
All too soon, she saw the perimeter fence and headed for it just as a loud roar came from the castle behind her. Hermione refused to look behind herself and instead searched for the crumbled part of the wall she had spotted earlier. Once off the property, she took off, adrenaline the only thing keeping her on her feet. A light snow fell, bringing with it a slight chill. Taking a momentary pause to catch her breath, Hermione looked around her to decide which direction to go. She headed south, hoping to either find a town or find the coast and follow it to a port. That would be her ticket home.
She had managed to survive a whole year on the run in the wild with the boys. With only herself to worry about and no wand, she would be fine. It would be challenging, but she would be okay.
Hermione ran for what felt like another half hour before she had to take another break. Leaning against the tree to catch her breath, she didn't notice the wolves surrounding her until it was nearly too late. One lunged for her and she stumbled back with a shriek, using an arm to knock it away. It thankfully didn't latch onto her and instead landed a few feet away. Looking at the pack, it looked like a mother wolf had chosen her to teach her adolescent cubs how to hunt. Hermione would have been fascinated had it not been her as their prey.
Risking a glance to find something around herself she could use for protection, Hermione spotted a thick stick lying partially concealed by a nearby bush. She lunged for it just as one of the adolescent wolves leaped forward, its teeth snapping on air. Grabbing the branch and pulling, Hermione couldn't suppress her gasp of shock as the branch emitted a shower of sparks as she lifted it up. Taking a moment to look at it more closely, she spotted the runes carved into the top of the stick.
"A staff!" she gasped in wonderment. A growl in front of her snapped her out of her momentary lapse in attention, and she looked up to find the mother wolf snarling at her.
In the distance, she spotted the beast Greyback sprinting for them.
"Sorry, but I have somewhere else to be," Hermione said to the wolves. She raised the staff and pictured the exact location she wanted to be.
Destination, Determination, and Deliberation.
Just as Greyback entered the clearing with a snarl that nearly matched the mother wolf's, Hermione spun on her heel and Disapparated.