Author's Note: Well, you know the disclaimer by now, don't you? I hate repeating myself xGGx So here's chapter 6… thanks for reading so far and thank you PandylBas for reviewing xloves reviewsx well after the last (bloody) chapter I decided on creating some action and the first signs of Hermione's… let's called it… insanity… hope you like it! Enjoy!

Chapter 6: The forest

Sitting in front of Fred on the broom heading back to the Burrow (her trunk flying after them held by an invisible string attached to the broom's end), Hermione felt really weird. She didn't know why, well, she imagined the reason, but she didn't know what to think about it. What was happening to her? Why did she feel all depressed and awkward? What was the deal with these razor blades? Why was she acting so strange? It didn't feel like she was herself anymore…

Her hands tightened around the handle of the broom, her face caressed by the wind, her hair fluttering against Fred's chest. She sighed, finally enjoying broom riding a bit. She even dared to look around, feeling quite save between Fred's arms that kept her from falling off by tightly clutching the broom's handle in front of her. They hadn't said a word to each other after they had left Hermione's parents' house. She first had felt kind of brave escaping her parents by flying off through her bedroom window. Yet this feeling wouldn't last long when the memory she had had in her room came back.

She could feel her arm aching. Her head was still rumbling like the Hogwarts Express. She didn't know what to think. She wanted to cry yet she felt the urge to scream and punch something. Someone. She didn't know why, she didn't know anything. She just felt strange as if she woke up from a most disturbing dream – yet knowing that this wasn't a dream at all.

Or was it?

She sighed again, closing her eyes to relax and calm down. She felt Fred shifting behind her, ignoring the odd sensation inside her belly. What was it with her blushing all the time she met his gaze? She felt so stupid again. She had to stop blushing. Oh and she had to stop feeling stupid about nothing and everything and she had to ease a bit. No, not a bit. Very much. 'Calm down, girl', she told herself. 'You've known him since when? Right, since you've known Ron and Harry… more than four years to be certain… so what's the deal? Stop –'

"Hermione", his voice interrupted her inner fight with… herself.

She almost jumped, jerking her eyes open.

"Hm?", she asked, looking around puzzled. They were still flying across fields. No Burrow in sight. "What?"

"Erm", he began, shifting behind her again. She wanted to turn her head to look at him, but before she could do so, he took one hand of his from the broom and grabbed her left arm. "Look."

She stared down at it, only noticing in a great wave of shock and nausea that her arm was bleeding – through her sweater. She pulled up the sleeve in total panic, seeing that the wounds on her skin started bleeding again. What the –

"I'd better pull down", Fred muttered, directing the broom to land in front of a nearby forest. He got off the broom, still holding it with one hand when Hermione got off as well. She climbed down like in trance, in fact shocked about what happened to her. Whatever it was.

He watched her falling to her knees, holding her left arm with her right hand. He let go of the broom and kneeled down next to her. He wanted to ask her if she was all right – what she apparently wasn't. So he saved his words.

"How – but what – and why… and –", he heard her mutter.

Concern furrowed his forehead. She seemed to be totally confused. She stared down at her arm, fresh blood dripping from the wounds that were supposed to be dried. What happened that they started bleeding again? He looked up to focus on where they were; realizing that the sun was about to set and they were at the edge of a very dark forest. He looked around to see a very wide field on the other side. Great. Perfect place to be right now. He rolled his eyes and turned back to Hermione who seemed to have gotten to her feet when he was discovering their surroundings.

He stood as well, looking for her. Frowning, he realized that he couldn't see her.

"Erm, Hermione?", he asked, spinning around, searching the slightest trace of bushy hair. The only things he could see were the field, the forest with its large, dark and somehow spooky trees and the broom that was lying along with her trunk at his feet. But where was Hermione?

He looked around once more, thinking that he might have overlooked her.

"Hermione?", he yelled into the nearby forest.

Rolling his eyes, he picked up the broom and enchanted the trunk to hover after him, following like a dog without legs. He then made his way past some rather dead looking trees. It was summer, goddamnit. Why were these trees without leaves? Shrugging, he kept going deeper into the forest, soon realizing how the last bits of sun disappeared as he stepped past more and more odd-looking trees. Odd. Even odder than the fact that Hermione seemed to have disappeared into thin air…

High above the red head a shadow stroke through the treetops.

Hermione let out a muffled shriek when she realized that she wasn't with Fred anymore. She couldn't remember splitting up from him after they landed and she –

She stared down at her left arm, almost ripping off the sleeve. There were the strains, yet they weren't bleeding anymore. What – How long could she have been possibly away from Fred? She could remember how he had shown her these bleeding wounds of hers and she could remember how he had directed the broom to land at the edge of this dark forest. But she couldn't remember actually stepping into the forest. There was a large black hole where they should have been the memory of it.

She frowned, looking around a bit bewildered. She scanned her surroundings. There were large dead trees whose twigs seemed to grab her. She backed up, stumbling right into a large bush whose thorns cut into her skin and clothes. She lost her grip and fell right into it, cutting herself even worse. Before landing on the forest's ground with her bottom, she took hold of a very large and thick twig, pulling herself up again.

Sighing slightly, she pushed off the thorns that were caught in her clothes and hair. She then realized that the twig that she had used to pull herself out of the bush had disappeared – or at least vanished from her sight. She looked around again, soon sensing something striking around her feet. She slowly looked down, only to let out a high-pitched scream.

Fred stopped walking. He had been wandering through the dark forest since forever and Hermione was still nowhere to be found. He had heard weird things around, breaking twigs, rustling leaves (where there obviously weren't any leaves around), strange animals whining – and the last thing he remembered hearing was a high-pitched scream.

"Hermione!", he called through the dim darkness.

But there was no response. He illuminated his wand, carrying the broom and along with it Hermione's trunk with him. He looked around, trying to recall the direction where the scream had come from. But before he could take another step, something flew past him. He turned around but there was nothing but darkness and dead trees. 'Maybe a bird or a bat', he told himself, not wanting to think about other possibilities.

He cleared his throat and kept on walking.

When suddenly another scream swept through the forest…

Hermione thought she totally lost it now. She couldn't but scream. Her mind went blank again. There were faces staring at her, hands and claws touching her, coming from everywhere, voices whispered disturbing things into her ears. She felt herself back up against one of the dead trees. As soon as she hit the tree with her back, it seemed to back up as well. She tried to turn around but suddenly there were twigs grabbing her, holding her tightly. She let out a scream again when the twigs turned into angry whizzing snakes that were sliding around her body.

She struggled to free herself but it wouldn't help. The snakes hissed, causing her to freeze. She didn't dare to breathe. Suddenly something flew past her, like a bird, but she couldn't tell what it was. As soon as it was gone, the snakes turned into twigs again and Hermione fell to the ground. Panting hard, she didn't dare to move. There were still whispered voices in her ears and some indefinable noises crept through her head. Her heart was racing against her chest and the blood within her veins seemed to burn. She also could feel her arm aching again.

Her breath was forming little white clouds in front of her face. She hadn't realized how cold it suddenly was. She sat up on the ground, rubbing her arms. She slowly looked around, yet seeing only darkness and the outlines of the dead trees. What kind of a forest was that? Deciding to better stand up before she might turn to ice when sitting on the ground without moving or before these twigs turned into snakes again, she did so and took some steps to the left, spinning around now and then and taking some steps to the right.

Before she knew it, she ran back and forth in panic, not knowing where to go.

Fred hurried through the forest, broom and trunk behind him, his illuminated wand in front of him. He had followed the scream before telling himself it could have been only an echo, which wasn't helping him at all. So he just ran into the direction he thought it had come from. The trees seemed to stand closer here; it took him some time to walk past them with all the baggage he carried. After he had managed to walk through he found himself standing on a small clearing.

Sighing at the sight of yet another amount of dead trees ahead, he dropped the broom along with the trunk, looking around. There was nothing but darkness. He raised his gaze to look at the treetops only to find that there were no treetops at all, at least he couldn't see them. He didn't know if the sun had already set - for he couldn't see any small bit of the evening sky. Shaking his head in resignation, he sat down on Hermione's trunk.

Where could she possibly be? Why did she at all run into the forest? What was happening here? Before his head seemed to burst under the weight of these questions, he heard the breaking of twigs in the distance. He stood up and walked to the edge of the clearing, focussing on the darkness. Was there something moving back there? He threw one last look at the broom and the trunk and decided to leave them where they peacefully lay on the ground. He then stepped out of the clearing between the dead trees, walking towards the apparently moving shadow.

Hermione ran blindly through the forest. Her breath burned inside her throat. Her feet hurt from hitting against stones and tree roots every other time. She breathed heavily, seemingly running since forever. She stopped panting, leaning against one of the trees. Before she could reach it, it seemed to have changed places. She lost her grip and fell forwards, head first into a bush. She quickly crawled out of it again, getting to her feet, turning around in shock and panic. She then continued running, actually forgetting which way she had come from.

It didn't matter. The noises inside her head just made her run, whatever way she chose, they encouraged her to run. She felt as if directed by invisible hands. While running, she turned to look sideways, before hitting something hard. She almost fell backwards, when two hands grabbed her.

She immediately started screaming again, feeling some kind of force grab her, holding her tightly, squeezing her. 'It will squeeze me to death!', she thought desperately. She kicked and struggled, not able to hear the thing talk to her.

"Hermione! Hermione, calm down, it's me, Fred!"

She continued struggling, kicking and hitting someone's chest with her fists. Someone? A thought erupted between the screams inside her head. The fog lightened and she slowed down her movements before she froze completely. She gasped before some cloud of unconsciousness caught her. Her eyes seemed to roll up her head, her heart missing a beat. She then sank into herself.

Fred tried to hold the kicking Hermione with all strength he could afford. She was hitting his chest with her fists, her face a terrified mask of panic, fear and desperation. She seemed to be fighting not him, but something that lurked above her. It was as if something made her kick him. He didn't know what and it didn't matter anyways, for she suddenly went motionless in his grip, almost falling to the ground if he hadn't held her. He stared down at her; her hands were still on his chest, her head rested on her shoulder in a most unusual angle, her eyes were open yet he could only see the white in it. He frowned, holding her closely to his chest.

Whatever happened to her in this forest, he didn't like it and he surely didn't like to discover what it was. He took one hand from her back and gently touched her cheek in order to wake her. She winced a bit but didn't move. Her head fell from one side to the other; her eyes were finally closed. He sighed in relief – for the sight of only the white of her eyes made him in this surroundings way too uneasy.

He watched her for a while. Her face was pale, almost white and mostly looking not quite healthy; her dark lashes standing in a total contrast to the rest of her skin. Her lips would have been full and pretty, yet there were small cuts on her cheeks and chin that gave her the look of a mistreated puppet. Her brown hair was not only bushy but kind of dishevelled, small twigs and thorns were caught in it.

He tried to pull them out of it when Hermione suddenly started to move in his grip. He watched her open her eyes that slowly looked around before sleepily stared into his. She winced in his grip as if shocked into whose eyes she was looking. She seemed to recover very quickly, though.

He threw her a weak smile. She tried to do the same before her eyes quickly looked away. He knew what might happen now. It was the same look on her face when she first ran from the Burrow. But now he wouldn't let it happen. Finding her in this forest was way more difficult than it was in the small one next to the Burrow. So he held her tighter and she – to his surprise – didn't fight against it but leant her head against his chest and even pulled her arms around him. He could feel her shake, if from cold or from fear, he couldn't tell. He just pulled one arm around her waist, putting the other one on her neck.

"Fred?", she asked after a while, whispering against his chest.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I kicked you…"

He couldn't but grin. "I said no more apologies, remember?"

She merely smiled, casting a short look at him before returning to lean her head against him.

He then recalled their surroundings, looking around with a mixed feeling.

"Erm, Hermione?", he asked.

"Hm?"

"Do you mind if we stop that for a while and leave this bloody forest?"

She looked up at him, nodded slightly shaking and began to unfold from the embrace. He felt that she as well had difficulties in doing so. He grinned to himself, making a mental note to not tell George about this at all. He then let go of her and took a small step back. She looked around before returning to look at him.

She looked so small standing in front of him. So lost and –

He quickly kicked that thought out of his brains. There was no need to play the hero now. He wanted to leave this forest behind as badly as she wanted. Though he didn't want to admit it. But he was at least as much afraid of the dark (above all of dark forests) as she was of heights. So he apparently would have been the perfect hero.

Rolling his eyes, he took her hand and led her back to where he imagined the clearing where he had left the broom and the trunk.

A/N: Please review! I'd like to know what you guys think… and I'd like to know what you like me to write next xGGx yeah, reader's choice now… I got many ideas myself but maybe you want to see something else? So, tell me and I might make your dreams come true… thanks again for reading!