Thanks for the reviews :) It's nice to have positive feedback, and that you for pointing out my errors as well, I'll try to fix them next time. Mmmmm this is the second chapter :)
Oh I have a question; I'm repainting my room, and I'm deciding between three colors: lavender, baby blue or a lightish lime green colour? If you'd take the time out of your busy schedule and just let me know which one would best suit a room, I would appreciate it greatly :D also, I'm getting new furniture (it's like a whole room makeover! :3) and carpets, so no worries with matching colours... yet.
DISCLAIMER: JK ROWLING.
***
A month passed and Hermione was spending her time at the beach, cooking, fishing, eating, or sailing. She had met most of the small town's inhabitants, and had befriended even more people with her laughing eyes and her genuine smile. Life was falling into a lovely routine that Hermione never wanted to break.
She'd wake up at sunrise, in time to see the sun rise in the horizon as it lit up the waves in a glorious display of color. Then, she'd have breakfast, read the news that Persephone would bring her from May's, and then walk down a lovely little path to the beach, where she would sit, read and tan until lunchtime. For lunch, she'd drive to town and cook at a local restaurant (she offered), where she learnt all kinds of trade secrets. Hermione had a secret longing of learning to cook without magic, and it turned out she had quite a talent. Moving on, after lunch she'd sit and eat and gossip with the women of the restaurant - May, Lisa, Roxy and Joanne. After lunch, she'd go fishing and or sailing with Ben, a cute waiter at the restaurant that had quickly befriended the pretty brunette. After the sailing was done, it would be around five or six, perfect timing to watch the sunset, and then May would come over to her little cottage and teach her more cooking secrets, and that would be the end of her day. She told stories about her days of school to all the muggles (leaving out everything about magic, of course). She told them about her mother and father and her arch enemy at school, a boy who called her names and hated her and all her friends. She explained about the houses in her "boarding school" and about the segregation between them. Hermione mostly focused on the fun parts of school and it relaxed her mind remembering the good times she had and she found herself enjoying the little town more and more.
Hermione woke up on February 2nd, feeling as if life couldn't get any better. She was a lovely golden brown color, and the steep climb down to the beach had toned her slender body. She smiled as she thought about Ben, the cute guy she'd met. He was perfect, with black hair and a cheeky smile, and he was brilliant at sailing. He contributed to her good mood greatly, because today, he would be sailing them over to a little island off the coast. Hardly anybody had been on the island before because it was "hidden" from most eyes. Hermione's inquisitive, scholarly nature overtook her and she brought a clipboard and various devices she could use to take down plant specimens or any other new objects she would find.
Ben knocked on her door at precisely 9:35 am, grinning his cheeky smile that had many older women in the town swooning.
"Are ye ready, lass?" he asked in his strong Scottish accent, reminding her greatly of Oliver Wood.
Hermione was wearing a pretty green sundress with a black bikini underneath - it was daring, but she wanted to get to know Ben better and perhaps today would be the day. Hermione giggled to herself, thinking of how she resolved to stay away from romance - but she couldn't help being swept away by this charming young man.
"Never been more ready in my entire life," she nodded, "Just one second though, let me go and grab my bag."
She slipped inside and ripped her sunflower dotted waterproof bag off the counter, tucking her wand safely inside the pocket of a jacket she shrugged on atop her sundress. She met Ben outside once more, admiring how the sun played with his black locks, and they were off, climbing down to the patch of beach where his small, two to three person sailboat was moored.
As they walked along the pretty path, they exchanged light conversation, and soon the topic strayed to Ben's childhood. He had been born on the mountains, overlooking the town, and he went to a boarding school a little bit away with the money his parents had saved from fishing and farming. He had dropped out after "highschool", a term that Hermione recognized to be of a period of the last four years in a young muggle school. He went back to his homeland and carried on the family business, which was a small bakery in the bigger town down south. However, he was here for two months, visiting his grandparents who lived in the countryside.
The breeze played with Hermione's hair and she combed a stray lock behind her ear. Her hair wasn't bushy, as Malfoy liked to taunt in her schooling days - at least it wasn't anymore. It was simply... big, but it wasn't unattractive. Hermione mused this fact as Ben and her chatted along the path towards the beach. She wasn't unattractive but there was nothing special about her, nothing that singled herself out from other girls (besides her huge, puffy hair, of course, but she wouldn't take that into count). She wasn't tall or lanky like those voluptuous models that adorned the catwalks, but small and slender - she often went as far as to think weak. Because of her small stature and small limbs and small everything, Hermione prided herself in being smarter than all the other girls and being top of the class constantly. She liked feeling like she was on top, and since she couldn't do it with looks, she would do it with sheer willpower, elegance and intellect. And that's what she did - she loved knowledge and learning and being smart and knowing things.
The boat was lovely. Hermione had been on it a couple times, and he had taught her how to sail it decently well. She stepped in the water until it was up to her thighs and clambered over the side of The Marianne, Ben's boat, laughing as he unmoored it and slipped as he was doing so, drenching his shirt with water, and stripping it off. Hermione swallowed and looked away, trying not to get distracted by his sculpted body and toned chest, licking her lips and suddenly feeling very hot and self-conscious. However, Ben put on another shirt and smiled at her, taking in her flushed cheeks and wide eyes.
"Makin' ye nervous, am I, lass?" Ben grinned roguishly, and Hermione felt her stomach flutter with the boldness of his statement.
She grinned and looked away, not answering but feeling like her silence just confirmed it.
Ben chuckled and ruffled her hair as the wind caught in the sail he had just unfurled and began to tug the small boat away from the coast. The scenery was gorgeous, cliffs rising on either side of them and towering in the distance; the sea was a gorgeous turquoise colour that sparkled like a sheet of diamonds as the sun bounced off the rolling waves. The wind tugged at the boat, leading them at a steady pace and Hermione felt her heart lost in this lovely new world that was so peaceful and so different from her bustling life in London. The only sound she could hear were the seagulls chirping and the sound of her beating heart as Ben manned the boat from the back. She turned back at him, her face radiant.
"This is gorgeous!" she laughed.
"No' as gorgeous as you, Hermione," Ben smiled.
And Hermione was content.
***
An hour later, they reached the beautiful, small island that Ben had spent the previous fifteen minutes telling her about. It rose out of the water, towering above the little boat that expertly sailed around it. Ben explained that it was something like a tropical kind of island – there was a little bit of beach surrounding the entire island, and the beach turned into thick vegetation a few meters later. They hopped out of The Marianne about six meters before it got too shallow.
"Are you sure it'll stay? Wont the waves pull it away?" Hermione asked, looking back at the bobbing boat.
"Ach, it'll b' fine, lass, don'tcha be worryin' now," Ben laughed. "It'sa well secured."
Hermione, clutching her sunflower bag above the water so it wouldn't get wet, made her way towards shore. The sand was grainy underneath her flip flops and the crystal water swirled around her thighs, getting lower and lower as they approached shore. It wasn't a terribly big island, she deducted. The boat had circled around it once, quickly, before finding the perfect part of beach to let it rest, and it hadn't taken very long.
Hermione made it to shore and gasped in wonder. The beach was pristine white, with no footprints on it whatsoever. There were a few scattered pieces of wood, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, she DID feel something odd, the telltale sense of magic, swirling around the air. Hermione had read books about how some of the islands scattered around this area were full and throbbing with magic, as they were hundreds of years old and untouched by most humans, but she never thought that she would be able to explore one. Her curious nature overtook her, and she blew out a sigh. With Ben here, she couldn't just run off and start jotting down all the magical plants she found, right? But if Ben had been here before, wouldn't he have noticed something was off about this island? What if there had been Swamping Vines, vines that shot out of swamps (hence the name) and grabbed you and pulled you into swamps? What about the fauna of the island? What if there were magical creatures that Ben had seen? It was dangerous, as he was a muggle and had no idea how to defend himself. Also, if word got out about a magical creature he found? Well, to put it lightly, the Ministry wouldn't be very happy. Hermione's mind buzzed as she sat down on the sand, pulling out a large checkered blanket and setting it down.
"Wowwwee, where'd ye ge' the space ta pu' tha', eh?" Ben asked in admiration, looking at the giant blanket Hermione had settled over the sand.
"Oh!" Hermione laughed, waving it off. "I have a big bag, that's all. And very good packing skills." She didn't include how she had placed an enlargement charm on the bag that allowed her to put as many things as she wanted to without it being heavy or too big.
Suddenly, a flurry of movement in the edge of the vegetation caught her eye, and she turned around to look at the sudden movement. Her eyes widened in shock. It was a semion, a magical creature that was almost extinct. It resembled a miniature lion, however they had marginally smaller ears, and two curled horns that protruded from above the eyes. Also, their fur was pure white, besides the stomach and mane, which were both an aqua blue. This little one was playing along the side of where the vegetation was, and it was only a baby. Hermione recalled reading about these curious, rare magical animals. The young semion mewled quietly, opening its mouth and letting a royal purple tongue emerge along with a puff of what seemed to be white mist.
Those two things, the tongue and the mist, were the cause of the semion's near extinction. Its tongue was a very potent poison when ground up, however, it was a delicacy when sliced and fried. The mist that the semions produced, when bottled, could be used as a substitute in almost any potion and when used it high dosage could produce very powerful results. They used to be farmed for their tongue and their mist, but they quickly began to die out, as they were heavily inbred. Now, only a few of them remained.
Hermione knew this would be one of her only chances to see a semion. If she followed it back to its mother or den, maybe she could get the Ministry to issue a warrant for the protection of these almost extinct animals. She had two choices: to stay with Ben, talk about frivolous things that she probably wouldn't remember in a year, or two: go and see this semion, possibly the only one she would ever see in her entire life.
She quickly made her choice, feeling guilty and slightly angry with herself for being able to choose so quickly. Hermione apologetically turned to Ben, pulling out her wand silently. "Petrificus Totalus!" she thought in her mind, having trained in nonverbal spells for a long time.
Ben stiffened as the curse hit him and fell onto the sand, completely bound. Hermione put a sleeping charm on him quietly and also a quick-stick spell so he wouldn't roll away or anything. She felt guilty, but as she turned and saw the semion begin to lope away, the guilt dissipated almost immediately and she darted after it, casting a concealment charm over herself to not startle the semion. For extra measure, she also cast a silencing charm over her feet to not make sound, and a de-smelling charm so her smell wouldn't attract any unwanted visitors OR alert the semion to her presence. Just in case.
She tore through the underbrush, chasing the young semion as it nimbly hoped along the branches and vines growing on the dirt floor. Hermione noted almost everything was a magical plant or some sort of magical fauna - she recognized almost each and every plant she saw, thanks to hours reading in the common room about plants and animals. She reminded herself to come back and look for all of these plants later, and to scribble down everything she saw in her Quick Notes Notebook (thanks to Anna Mesber, Rita Skeeter's much less sly and definitely better liked cousin). The semion seemed to speed up and Hermione almost growled in annoyance as her steady pace had to increase dramatically.
Some fifteen minutes later, Hermione was panting and sweating and feeling a lot nastier than she should've been. The bloody semion was not slowing its pace and was tearing through underbrush, spinning circles around Hermione and causing her to take several sharp turns. She almost felt like giving up and going back to Ben and unfreezing him - however she knew that this was her chance to SEE the semion! And a full grown semion possibly, too! How wonderful would that be? That thought pushed her on and she kept running, feeling twigs crack under her bad choice of footwear. A little bit later, Hermione found herself stumbling back onto the sand where she first came out, but something had drastically changed. The semion darted back into the forest, but Hermione didn't seem to notice. She was too shocked.
First of all, The Marianne was no longer the only boat to be harbored by the shore: there was another one close to it, a more wooden, worn down, smaller boat. Four men were circling the beach and one was still in the boat, though he seemed to be getting out soon. They were dressed very oddly, with white tunics hidden under billowing robes of a navy blue color, and high, almost knee high black boots. Hermione kept her mouth shut as she backed back into the forest, feeling her back connect with a tree.
Hermione crouched in the shadow of the large tree near the edge of the vegetation, watching in anticipation. Who were these people? Why were they dressed so strangely? If they had been a couple, for example, Hermione would've jumped up and immediately started introducing herself. However, five burly men who looked like they all could kill someone without blinking made her feel like she should just hide in the trees and watch silently.
Stop profiling! she muttered in her mind. Maybe they're very nice people.
She looked at Ben, lying motionless and stiff as a board, and felt slightly guilty. One of the men went up to him and prodded him with his boot, chuckling slightly. When he didn't move or react, he kicked him harder. Real nice, Hermione thought. Ben was completely vulnerable and she wasn't doing anything to help him. Maybe if she cast a protection charm or some sort of concealment charm (as you can tell, Hermione loved those charms), he'd have a better chance of surviving? She wasn't too far away; she'd be able to hit him easily, and without a sound. She could also attempt to hit the big man, too, with a stunner, and maybe even the other four...
She opened her sunflower bag and pulled out her wand, unaware of the shadow creeping up behind her. She drew back her arm to take aim when a gloved hand firmly caught her small wrist. How could this person see through her concealment charms? She was shocked still for a moment before gathering her wits and jerking wildly to turn around, twisting her neck at an odd angle, trying to glimpse her captor. However, something long and hard poked into her neck (a wand, get your mind out of the gutter), and Hermione stopped moving immediately. She'd rather not have her head blown off.
"If you were attempting to stun my men, I'll advise you now - that would be a very, very bad idea," a somehow slightly familiar, silky voice drawled.
***
Feedback please ^^
xxLC
Kay, will someone please tell me how to add an extra space between paragraphs? :( I keep trying but when I save the stoopid thing they just all disappear, and you're right, it is cramped :(