1 AM THE FOREST OF DEAN
Wolves howled excitedly in the distance and Hermione's haggard breath rattled in her chest, she had been running for the past mile. The sun was still awhile from rising. The lumos spell her want held gave her enough time to jump and dodge the worst of the roots bracken and trunks, the rest she just ploughed straight through, using her momentum to keep her going. She needed to reach the others – and quick.
The evening's investigation had started seemingly well – each team of a main investigator with a team of guards had each chosen a different part of the forest to search, taking marks of potential werewolf inhabitation – things like claw marks on bark, or horribly mauled animal corpses. However, shortly after nightfall the plan had turn very awry. Fenrir had staged his little celebrity appearance and in the confusing ever-the-same appearance of the forest her colleagues had quickly become lost, and separate from one another. Hermione had been paired with Hagrid, Fang and Mundungus Fletcher. Mun-bloody-dungus has apparated just as the sun had set and Fang had gotten a fright and went charging through the rough underbrush, Hagrid following, calling loudly into the twilight. Hermione had ran with him, but his hugely longer legs had propelled him far away from her in a short amount of time, and her calls to tell him to slow down had fallen on deaf ears in his blind panic to recover his beloved hound.
Quickly assessing the situation, it was clear to her that they'd been set up. Her only option now was to locate the others, find Hagrid and do so very, very quietly. Slowing her pace down to a walk, she'd then lit her lumos. Her brain still arguing between the necessity of having to see her next steps opposing the obvious attention the light would bring to her and defiantly make her a lot easier to spot. Unsettlingly enough she also realised that a werewolf's sense of smell was on of their best assets, so quickly uttering a simple charm to disguise her as a particularly smelly pine tree, she added in another mutter "point me"to her wand. Her group being the southernmost she headed directly north, desperately hoping the others hadn't come to any harm.
She'd wandered for what felt like hours, and upon reflection, indeed was. It was hard to gain much ground quickly in this place however, crawling, pushing, climbing and going around bramble bushes, knotted roots and twisted trunks that seemed endless. Frequently she'd stop, use her compass spell again only to find that she was now heading east, instead of north. In frustration she stamped her foot, and after the extra sound she heard a low growl nearby.
'Granger, you absolute twat, now you've just attracted on of them!' In an instant she'd nox'ed her wand, and slid herself stealthily beneath what she presumed was a gnarled old oak. Now keeping as absolutely still as she could, she felt rather than saw the thing that had moved to stand where she was only moments ago. But my, could she smell it. Rank. Rotting. Flesh.
'Don't vomit, don't vomit, don't vomit, don'tvomit' she ordered herself. Sensing the werewolf looking around, hearing him paw the ground and sniffing the air, great, lungfuls of air. Hermione wordlessly fortified her pine-smell charm, and waited. Then away in the distance came a harrowing howl. Hermione couldn't tell if it was human or werewolf at this distance, and that chilled her to the very bones. The half-human in front of her instantly bounded off towards the howl, frighteningly fast.
Hermione waited a few more minutes before following. As she pushed herself through yet another tangled mess of branches there came a whoosh of light at her side. Her knees almost giving way in fear, she luckily recognised the light. A silver Jack-Russell Terrier – Ron's patronus. It began speaking to here as soon as it had leapt onto a fallen log in front of her, Ron's voice coming out in a barely audible whisper.
"Hermy, I hope you're alright. It's a set-up, we've been attacked. No-one hurt yet, we're holed up in a cave right around where we started. I haven't yet had word from group 1. Head this way if you can."
Feelings of relief and increased anxiety wove into Hermione at Ron's words. Upon the terrier vanishing, Hermione was in an internal struggle.
'Severus is in group one! Along with Dean and Bill! Should I send word? Don't be daft, that might give away their position! But what if they don't have a position? They're smart; they'll have figured something out. But what if-' She silenced herself by biting down on her lower lip. Hard. That brought her straight back to her senses. 'I've got to head to where Ron's group is; from there at least I can gather what's happening.'It took the quick-thinking witch another hour to reach where Ron said they must be – she could hear shouting of spells and once more could sense movement in the forest. Concentrating hard she used a disillusionment charm on herself, making her fade slightly – it wasn't much, and she wasn't practised at it. But it would help. Sending her partonus ahead to warn the others of her arrival she decided to shield herself and make a straight run for the opening of the cave which she could see multiple wands firing spells out from. This was the best thing for it – no other way would give her the same percentage of success, she'd have to wing her safety on surprise, and two simple charms. The 20 metre sprint had felt like 20 years. And there was certainly no way she'd forget the sounds of the snarls from the wolves as they'd realised she was slipping right past them. Nearing the cave, time seemed to speed up again until it seemed like she'd burst into the caves mouth in a millisecond, running straight into George.
In the next second Hermione had taken charge of the situation and demanded from the boys if any word had come from the last team. A scream answered her. Turning her nausea in anger she flung her own wand out the mouth of the cave and began cursing, hexing anything that moved. She hadn't recognised the voice, but she couldn't lose another friend. Not now.
In ten minutes the werewolves had broken their attacking formation, half of their numbers stunned, or dead. Another scream and a yell from the west, and that was when Hermione Granger started running. Pulled through the bushes like the pained yelling was an earth magnet, her thoughts scrambling on a mane of blood-stricken black hair, a broken cold body in billowing black robes, and knew she had to run faster.
