"OOO, scary!" Peter's faint giggle sounded off from the back seat. Rupert, on the other hand, was snoring away.
" Mh-hmm, it's a little spooky," Ron commented, shifting uncomfortably towards Hermione as a spider busily crawled over his window.
"Oh, Ron, get over it," she pushed him away.
The jeep was buried deep in the heart of the forest, crickets were chirping carelessly into the night. The moon was shadowed by an eerie, neon greenish glow. The air was gathering with fog and the breezes seemed to get heavy and turned into wind. The enormous pine trees that seemed to circle them everywhere they turned, gently danced and swayed, making the nature's most beautiful whispers. They moved in such a way, which made them look alive…
But one by one, the lively looking pine trees disappeared as if the darkness had sucked them down through a hole. The road stretched, looking more and more like a prairie, the more it stretched, the more trees it ate up to take space, until it was completely empty. Nothing. Nada. Just outstretched flat land, with a pitch black sky above.
The moon was budged, and shoved out of the way with glaring midnight violet clouds that became tyrants of the sky.
Soon, the jeep was riding down an unfamiliar path. The road stretched until the eye could see, it was starting to look more and more like deserted, ancient land. The path stretched quickly and rapidly, until it occurred to them that they were riding down a stretching, endless prairie, with no grass or trees in sight.
"I don't remember this coming on the way to the camping grounds?" Hermione whiffed around. There was not a single pine tree in sight. What had happened to the forest preserve, the mountains that topped the trees in the further distance, the welcome sign that should have appeared minutes ago?
"Harry, are you sure we're going in the right direction?" Ron and Hermione can hear Ginny's muffled voice, and then Harry's worried, muffled response.
"What is it, Harry?" Hermione swung forward, wrapping her hands around the headrest of Harry's seat.
"I said, I didn't turn anywhere. We were just going straight, you all are pretending as if you weren't there! You saw, didn't you? The trees started to disappear, and now this strange land comes in my path." He responded to Ron's questioning look, and to Hermione's question.
"Do you think we should turn around and go back?" Ron was starting to consider Hermione's idea. They should've stayed home.
"Hermione, now don't start with those I-told-you glares!" Ron backed away slightly, as Hermione was glaring at him with the I-told-you-so- classical glare of hers.
"Hermione, it's no one's fault. Neither of us knew this would happen" Ginny was starting to buckle herself down with the seat belt, as though she had sat on a roller coaster and was getting prepared for it.
"Oh, yes, it's no one's fault. But who should listen to me anyways? I told you all we should have stayed home! For god's sake, we have two innocent children riding with us! But then again, who should care about my feelings anyways?" she snapped in a saccharine voice.
"Hermione" Ron shook his head warningly; he gave a –let's-not-get-into-this- look.
"No Ron, let me speak" she added bitterly.
"So you're going to take all this out on me now, huh?" Ginny turned into Hermione's direction, and made eye contact into her blazing eyes.
"I'm taking it out on all of you! Now what are we going to do?"
"Hermione, just because you had some silly feeling and it turned out to be right, does not mean you can attack all us by the "I told you so's". It's really getting on my nerves. We made a mistake of not listening to you, but there is no point of arguing, this is no time to argue. Now let's figure out how to get out of—this strange place. Forget about the camping, let's just go home,"
"Now you get the idea" Hermione snorted more to herself and hoped no one heard her, because she really didn't mean it. But unfortunately, Ron was controlling himself in great amounts the way she was yelling at his sister, as if it were her entire fault.
"HERMIONE! We get it, all right? Will you please zip your mouth?" Ron shouted in his most stern voice, he had never screamed that loud all his life, and he definitely didn't mean to, and the silence all around the jeep made it sound even louder. He was angry with her, angry with himself for not listening to her, and angry for yelling at her when she had been right all along. They should have listened to her; no one even paid any attention to her feelings, and angry that there was no point of turning back
Because there was no way to turn back, when he had turned around to see if the forest path will still be there, it was gone. There was just an endless surface of brown, dirt land. It was roomy, but still felt cramped, because there was nothing there.
In a blink of an eye, they had been transformed from a narrow road, where dancing pine trees that swayed and whispered crisply in the winds, from the shield of the bright moon shadowed by a mint green glow, into a deserted, never ending, moonless, stretching prairie with nothing in sight miles away.
Suddenly, tears started to stream down Hermione's eyes, she hiccupped softly once, when she couldn't control. Ron comfortingly put his hand on top of hers, but she slapped it away in aggression.
"And, YOU better zip your hand away from me!" She replied to his odd action heatedly, so heatedly, that it was breathing fire. Ron's face flushed with embarrassment, he suddenly felt like that immature child he was in his first year at Hogwarts. He turned away, frowning. As Harry watched him from the rear view mirror, and shrugged sympathetically.
"Mommy, are we there yet?" This time, it was Rupert's voice that cracked the silence, not to mention that his voice was cracking tremendously, since he had just woken from deep sleep. Next to him, Peter had started to snore. Hermione quickly wiped the tears from her eyes, and gestured for Rupert to come in the front, in the middle of her and Ron.
"Don't worry, we'll reach there soon enough" she glared at Ron, who had taken a peek at her, but then turned away quickly, like shy boys do when they have crushes on other girls. He stared out the window gloomily, fog started to gather over the window, the spider that had started to climb the window frosted with ice. It squirmed in discomfort, trapped, and then completely froze.
It was dead.
"Burr, it's getting cold in here" Ginny folded her arms over her chest, and Harry started to warm her hands with his own.
"Thank you, Harry" she extended her arm, noticing the ice quickly form on her own window, and Harry's warm hands turning cold.
"Oh my goodness, is it snowing? In summer?" Ginny squealed in fright.
Hermione gasped up, she had closed her eyes and was playing with Rupert's thin, soft hair, her head resting on the headrest of her seat.
"Why, why is it snowing?" Ron whined to Harry.
"Ron, I'm no Merlin. I'm just as worried as you are" Harry shot back. Ron shuddered in fright, his face very identical to the way it had been when he had first been introduced to Aragog, the giant spider, and a loyal friend of Hagrid's.
"Harry, let's just get out and see if we can find some help" Hermione suggested uneasily. Harry stopped the car, there was no hope and there was nothing other to do anyways.
The four of them trooped out of the car, and walked a little further.
"No! You stay there, Ginny. The twins are still in the car" Ron pointed his finger back to their car demandingly. Ginny hurried away and disappeared in the fog, as Harry, Ron and Hermione walked further.
"Oh, no, no, no, no.." Harry muttered, he grabbed at Hermione and Ron's arm and hurried back to the car. Hermione struggled, clutching her back with her free hand.
"Harry? What?" She asked breathlessly, and slammed her door shut.
"Didn't you see those? Those black cloaked figures?" Harry replied, still huffing for breath. He started the engine, but before he could drive further, a heavy thump came over the top.
"It's those cloaked figures" Harry quickly started to drive, and the cloaked figure fell off the car, but it didn't take it time to hurry after, and it traveled in immense speed.
"Are-are they dementors?" Ron asked frightfully.
"No. It's something else" The top continued to thump.
"Oh my god"
"What?" Ron asked quickly.
"We don't have our wands…" Hermione softly said, as if this were the end of her…
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Author's Note: Yep, this chapter is kind of long. But I noticed how short my chapters were, so I tried to make this one a little longer. It's not the best, I tried to spice it up a bit since you all will probably think it is a boring one, but it was one-shot. I know you guys really wanted to know what happened next, so I just posted…
Please remember to review! Reviews help me with my story and the updating process tremendously, the more reviews I get, the quicker I will respond by updating. Reviews are the things that keep this story going and alive.
I hope you all like where the story is leading to, I have a lot to write and a lot planned for this story…so hang on, this one will be my best!
And all of you who reviewed! THANK YOU SO MUCH! You have no idea how much it meant to me and my story, but remember to do so…
With lots of love,
Your Writing-Faerie