Author's note:
Hello everyone! :) Here is another (unfortunately short) chapter. Because I received some negative reviews concerning the last chapter. Hermione and Ron were snogging and nothing more. The H/Hr development will be slow, so please be patient!

Please review the story, I would really appreciate it! Thank you :)

Chapter 7: Homenum Revelio

If you are not afraid, you have no imagination.

- Erich Kaestner

Harry and Hermione ran as fast as they could towards the camper. Swirls of dust appeared under their feet where the dry ground was touched as they accelerated their motions. They had to get back as quickly as possible. The group was split, Emilia and Ron still asleep leaving them vulnerable to possible attackers.

Hermione's rapid breathing was accompanied by a anxious tremble of her body. She was shaking with fear and could barely keep the wand in her hand.

"They can't be in danger, we haven't been away for long time", Hermione was anxiously thinking when she was almost in eyeshot of their camp site. Just around the rock and they will finally know.

"It was probably just a false alarm"

They sprinted around the stone as if their life depended on it. As if the life of their friends depended on it. Hermione hesitated for a moment before she looked in the direction.

Please

Finally, she moved her view to the camping site.

Nothing.

She looked again.

Nothing.

It was all gone.

She couldn't feel her stomach anymore, the knot in it too heavy to bear. Her feet were rooted to the spot and not a single sound was escaping her lips. Harry abruptly came to a halt next to her, his expression full of worry and fear.

They stood in the very same position for several seconds, neither one of the two brave enough to make the first move. The silence was deafening. Then Harry tried to make a step forward around the rock, exposing him to the danger that lay ahead.

Hermione awakened instantly from her trance and grabbed his arm fiercely.

"Are you mad? Stay here!", she whispered in an alarming voice.

Harry felt too devastated at this moment to free from the grip of Hermione. But he had to go back, he had to make sure his friends were okay. No matter what the person next to him said.

"Hermione, we have to do something"

He was fidgeting heavily, the initial shock gone completely. When he turned his head towards Hermione, his piercing glance showed nothing but determination.

Hermione knew that look, as she had observed it several times over the last years. She had always been impressed by Harry's strong will. His intentions were always pure and driven by the love for his friends, but today she had to interfere in his resoluteness to keep the boy from harm. The grip on Harry's arm didn't loosen but instead was close to cause him physical pain.

"HARRY, we can't! We have to think of something, we need a plan. They vanished, but probably the attackers aren't. I - I think we need - "

"Homenum Revelio." Harry's arm was outstretched and the wand in his hand pointed towards the rock.

Nothing happened.

"We are alone."

Hermione quickly repeated the charm, but came to the same conclusion. Apparently not only their camper vanished, but also the tent of their neighbours. The camp site was deserted with Harry and the Hermione being the last lost two souls wandering through its surroundings.

Again silence spread over them. Desperate words were buried in their lungs and no one dared to excavate the sentences that they both feared to hear. Instead of speaking, their feet simultaneously started to move towards the spot where their belongings had been.

Harry and Hermione found fresh skid marks in the dirt, evidently someone drove the camper back to the road. It took them several minutes to find another piece of evidence.

"HARRY! Come here, quick!", Hermione cried. She was bent over and examined something on the ground. Her initial excitement gradually turned into a worrying facial expression when she picked up a item in front of her. First she rolled it thoughtfully between her fingers then suddenly she was shaking. Her knees began to buckle and a second later she was lying on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Hermione…", was all Harry managed to get out. He was close to follow Hermione's emotional reaction but a soft voice in his head told him to fight his urges. When he stood in front of Hermione and looked at her, he could feel a cold dagger piercing his heart. She was still sobbing, her eyes red from tears and holding a longish object in her hands.

Harry's voice trembled noticeably when he spoke.

"Is this - is this - Ron's wand?"

Another heavy sob escaped her mouth. Then she nodded slightly.

The dagger seemed to have moved from Harry's heart to his guts, slitting everything on its way. He had known something must have happened and now they found evidence. There was no way Ron would leave his wand behind voluntarily. Just like Hermione had calmed him down moments before, it was now his duty to comfort his friend.

He slowly lay down next to her and took her hand into his. It felt surprisingly cold even under the given circumstances and Harry started to move his thumb tenderly over her palm. The sobs seemed to soften at his touch and a few seconds later their fingers were entwined. He didn't pretend to only do that for Hermione, it helped him just as much as her.

"We have to contact your parents as quickly as possible. They could have driven anywhere, we can't search for them alone."

Hermione turned her head towards Harry. Her breathing had steadied and no tears escaped the watery eyes anymore.

"We can't. Harry, we are in the middle of nowhere, I don't have my mobile phone with me. I left it in the camper."

"Then let's go back to the road. We can wait for a car there"

Harry quickly got to his feet and stretched out his hand to Hermione. Her expression softened when she noticed his gesture and she gladly took it. Then they ran towards the street they had arrived a few days ago.

They came to a halt after a few minutes. They were standing in the middle of the road, and had arrived from the left, following the trail from the camp site. On the right they could see a big dense forest. Harry's eyes were fixed on a spot on the right side of the road.

"What is it, Harry? Do you see something?"

"I am not sure, look at the bend in the road there. Can you see the small track that leads in the forest?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"I think there are skid marks"

They quickly moved to the aforementioned track and examined the marks carefully.

"Are you sure that these are from the wheels of our camper?"

"I am not sure, but they look like it"

"Harry, wait for a moment. We have to be careful. There are a few things that are odd", Hermione began to speak. She was pacing up and down, lost in her thoughts.

"First, were they kidnapped by muggles or wizards? We can't rule out the first option, or they could have just disapperated with Ron and Emilia. Then why do they bother and take the camper with them? On the other hand muggles couldn't have disarmed Ron so easily, I reckon"

"Second, why would they drive in the forest here? We don't know what they want, or why they did it but it seems odd to drive on a track that is visible from here. They know someone will search for them."

Harry looked surprised when he heard Hermione's rational words, but he couldn't find answers for her questions.

"Hermione, I don't know. But we must assume the worst, meaning Death Eaters kidnapped them. Probably they want to search the camper for information about the Order and us. We either stay here and wait for a vehicle, which to be honest could take hours, or we follow the track in the forest. I can't stand here doing nothing, so I vote for the latter"

Hermione was close to tears again, her face displaying helplessness and frustration. Her pacing stopped and she took a deep breath.

"Alright, it's the best we have. We must be extremely careful, Harry. It could be a trap"

Harry didn't seem to have fully considered Hermione's last sentence, as he had already began to stride along the path into the forest. Hermione quickly followed and together they walked side by side towards their unknown destination.

The sun has reached its highest point in the sky and still barely managed to penetrate the dense layers of tree leafs that were shielding the plants from direct sunlight. One could claim that the leafs transformed the sunny weather into a darker and cloudy appearance, that one could not escape when living underneath them. It was the price the inhabitants of the forest had to pay for their protection.

Something similar could be said about Harry's and Hermione's confidence in their plan. When they started following the path into the forest, they had been sure to have decided for the best option. Now as they were walking deeper and deeper into the woods their determination was starting to fade.

They had been walking for about an hour and only slowly progressed. Whenever a sound was audible they quickly hid behind trees or rocks and waited for several minutes. Naturally inside a forest there could be a lot of noises that resembled human movement and after an hour they had already stopped five times because either Harry or Hermione thought they heard someone move.

Their increasing paranoia became unbearable after another half an hour. So when they passed a especially big tree trunk, Hermione pulled Harry to the side.

"You still sure, we are doing the right thing?", Hermione asked in a low voice. She looked tired and restless and her eyes were directed at the ground in front of her. Her hair looked messier than usual and some of her curls were permeated with dirt.

Harry didn't look or feel any better. The exhaustion wasn't visible in his always messy hair but rather in his pose. His eyes were also fixed on the ground, not being brave enough to look into Hermione's eyes and afraid to find looks full of doubt and reproach. The posture of his walking went from a proud strut to a buckled shuffling.

"We can split up. Go back to the street and wait for a car there. I will go deeper into the forest and look for them. At some point the track has to end. Maybe I will find the camper there"

He still couldn't look at her, but if he could he would have seen the hurt expression that was now visible on Hermione's face.

"No! We have to stick together, it would be foolish to split up. See what happened to Emilia and Ron as soon as we left"

The words seemed to rest a lot longer in the air than usual, as if Harry and Hermione needed some time to process what they just heard. Hermione quickly put a hand to her mouth and stared in a shocked expression at him.

"I - I am sorry. I am sure they are alright, I mean, they have to, right? Why would anyone …"

The rest of the sentence got stuck in her throat when a pair of green eyes looked back at her.

"Come on then, we shouldn't waste more time"

He reached for her left hand and Hermione gratefully let him take it as they continued their walk along the track, that was leading them deeper and deeper into the forest.

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