A/N: So with this posting, I now officially have two stories on the go at the same time. Biting off more than I can chew? Probably. What can I say? The idea was born and then chewed on the inside of my brain until I gave in and wrote it down.
Hermione, Ron and Harry and all things from the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling. Everything in "World A" is mine.
Hermione pointed her wand at the tent and muttered the incantation. The tent shrunk down until it was the size of a teacup and she put it in her bag.
"You do that so easily," Ron said. He hazarded a half smile at her. She glared back at him. She still hadn't forgiven him for leaving them, even if he did save Harry's life and destroy a Horcrux. And even if she loved him, which she didn't, she couldn't forgive him for abandoning Harry and her.
They'd been traveling for weeks, never staying in one place more than a few days. Ron had left them just before Christmas and Hermione and Harry had traveled for weeks without him. Then last night, Harry walks back to the campsite with Ron in tow as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Harry forgave him so easily, Hermione, not so much.
She walked past Ron without looking at him. It was hard, staying angry at him. She wanted to throw both arms around his neck and hold him tight, to tell him she's so happy that he's back and safe. But she couldn't. Her pride wouldn't let her.
"Ready to go," she told Harry. Harry glanced between Hermione and Ron over her shoulder. She suppressed a sigh, wondering what ridiculous hand gestures Ron was making at Harry behind her back. Hermione whipped her head around and Ron dropped his hands so fast the air swished. He smiled sheepishly, like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Hermione's knees wobbled a little under his gaze. She turned away quickly and made a show of stomping off.
Harry joined her and Ron stood on Harry's other side. They all joined hands and apparated away.
Hermione felt like she was being pulled apart and not the way she normally did when she was apparating. This was stronger and it hurt so much more. She opened her mouth to scream but the sound was snatched away.
Then, it stopped. The ground jarred her legs and she fell, throwing her hands out just in time to stop her head from hitting the dirt. Her head spun, she felt like throwing up. She felt like someone had played tug-of-war with her arms and legs and then tried to stuff her in a tiny box. Hermione looked up. Harry and Ron lay in heaps on the ground near her.
Ron moaned and clutched his head. Harry had managed to sit up and was rolling his shoulders with a pained expression on his face.
"What happened?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know," said Harry. Hermione looked around with wide eyes. The forest was alive and green. Sunlight filtered through the thick canopy, making the ground of the clearing look like a contorted checkerboard. Animals whose sounds Hermione didn't recognize were chirping and shrieking at one another. Gone was the blanket of snow that one would expect from England in January. In fact, the temperature felt like it was April or May.
"Are we still in England?" Ron asked.
"I don't think so," answered Hermione. "I've missed before when Apparating but usually just by a few hundred metres. I've never missed by a whole country."
Harry was the first to get up. "Come on," he said. "We'd better figure out where we are." Ron sprung to his feet and offered his hand to Hermione. She took it out of instinct, remembering too late that she was supposed to be angry at him. As soon as she was standing she pulled her hand back. She let a curtain of hair fall over her face, trying desperately to hide the blush spreading over her cheeks.
"Soooooo," Harry drew out the syllable. He sounded as awkward as Hermione felt. "Let's pick a direction and start walking."
Then, the underbrush rustled. All three of them jumped. Hermione looked around madly, her mind racing. Who was it? Snatchers? Death Eaters? Or worse? How could they have found the three of them? They didn't even know where they were.
Hermione felt something bump into her back and she jumped, barely stifling a yelp. It was just Ron and Harry. They'd unconsciously moved so their backs were to each other, forming a triangle. Clearly, their fighting instincts from the incident in the Department of Mysteries were still intact. She noticed that she was holding her wand and didn't remember pulling it out. Another instinct.
Suddenly, people burst from the bushes around them: two, three, four of them.
"Stupefy!"
"Expelliarmus!"
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Something hot shot past Hermione's ear. She gasped and jumped back. Something hard connected with her right wrist. Pain shot through her hand making her drop her wand. And now she was being hit. She tried to fight back but she didn't have her wand. She was hit in the shoulder and once in the back of the leg. She fell to her knees, hard. A hand closed around her wrist and jerked her forward. Then she froze. She recognized the object being pressed against her neck by a fierce looking man. It was a pistol.
Under normal circumstances, Hermione wouldn't have been scared. But she didn't have her wand and she was in a strange place and the man holding the gun looked so ferocious. Hermione wanted to scream. She stared fixedly at the weapon. She had never seen a gun up close before.
A fifth man appeared from the shadows, breaking the tableau. He was at least six and a half feet tall, bald, with skin a shade or two darker than Dean Thomas's. The attackers all turned to him as he approached. Hermione was sure he was in charge. He had that air about him.
Hermione tore her eyes away from the gun and glanced at her friends. Harry and Ron were in similar situations. A young woman had Harry on his knees facing away from her. She held a gun to the back of his head. Two men were sitting on Ron to hold him down as he struggled. The gun trained on Harry had stopped him from struggling but Ron didn't know to be afraid of it. So, he thrashed around as the two men tried desperately to keep him down.
"Just stun him," the tall black man told them. The two holding Ron looked at each other and then at him.
"Ha! Right. Good idea," one of them said. He hit a button on the back of the gun, pointed it at Ron and fired. Hermione screamed. But instead of a bullet, a beam of light shot from the end and hit Ron in the arm. He slumped down.
"Calm down, Girlie," said the man holding her. "Ain't you ever seen a stun ray before?"
"N-no," stammered Hermione.
The man scoffed. "What rock you been livin' under?" he drawled. He sounded American and he had a twang to his voice. "Well then I'll tell ya. He's just asleep. He'll wake up in an hour or two."
Hermione trembled. She sank down so she was sitting on her ankles. Despite herself she started to cry. This was too much. A minute ago they'd been on their way to a new camping sight. Now they were God-knows and where being held at gun point. Tears dripped off her chin and she gasped for breath.
"Hey, no. C'mon Girlie, don't cry," the man holding her begged. "I ain't gonna shoot ya. Look." He put the gun into a holster hanging from his belt.
"We know she's no officer," laughed the girl holding Harry. The others chuckled too.
Hermione took a deep breath and managed to stop her tears. Officer? What were they talking about?
The two holding Ron had gotten up, now that he was indisposed, and were going through their things. One of them picked up Hermione's bag and gasped at the weight.
"Whoa, what you got in here?" he asked Hermione. He opened it and looked in. His eyes widened.
"Look at this, Barbossa," he said. The big black man walked over and looked into Hermione's bag.
"What world are you from?" he asked.
Hermione and Harry exchanged a confused look. Barbossa saw it.
"Not this one, obviously," said the girl. She let go of Harry and he sank down to sit on his ankles like Hermione. They were in another world?
"Where are you from?" the girl asked more kindly.
"England," answered Harry.
The girl looked at Barbossa. "England. Which world is that?"
"C or D," the man holding the bag cut in. "Doc Philips will know. Or the Cap'n."
"Yeah, Cap'n will know," Jamie said. "And Cap'n will know what to do with 'em, eh Barbossa?"
Barbossa nodded curtly.
And so, they picked up the unconscious Ron and led Harry and Hermione through the forest.