Beauty and the Beast by Mrs Skinner
Translated by SnapeSeraphin
Chapter 2: Hermione
Four years later
Hermione was seated in a comfortable chair in the teacher's lounge, reading the newspaper.
She was paying particular attention to ads which people had taken out to sell some of their possessions; you could get great bargains if you bought used books. Her teacher's salary certainly didn't stretch far enough to go to the bookstore in town and buy any and all books she liked. No, it was better to keep one's eyes open and then make one's move. She smiled as she remembered the really good deal she made recently: the man that had been clearing out his mother's house after her death, hadn't even realised what treasures he was all but giving away. He wanted to just get rid of the, as he called them 'irksome dust-collectors', which were stacked almost to the ceiling of a small side-room. Hermione had only taken a quick look at a couple of them, before she knew she wanted the lot. Not just scholastic books, but also special editions of novels and even almost all of Shakespeare's works were to be found. So she agreed to pay the man who was looking disdainfully at her new treasure, a ridiculously low price. The next day, she borrowed a car and ferried all of the books back to her own little house.
She sighed. Technically, her house was already too small to hold all the books she currently owned. However, she just couldn't resist them. Other young females bought wardrobes full of clothes, her tastes simply ran to books. What was the difference?
Ever since she had left the wizarding world behind, books were the only thing that gave meaning to her life, apart from her profession. She had dissolved her parental household and sold the house. After paying off all remaining debts, the existence of which she had been blissfully unaware of up until then, left just enough to pay for her education. She majored in chemistry and physics at a Muggle university, with minors in mathematics and English history. It went without saying that she finished her studies sooner than all of her compatriots and passed with flying colours. Because of this, she had no trouble whatsoever in finding a job. The fact, however, that she had no inclination to be found by any of her former friends, after her wretched departure from the wizarding world, forced her to turn down the well-compensated jobs at universities and large corporations.
She moved to a small town, far away from London and became the physics- and chemistry teacher at the local school. She loved her job and she loved, as always, her books; there was nothing more to her life. Well.. except Michael, of course.
Shortly after starting on her new job, Michael had come into her life. He was a sports teacher and taught at the same school she did. He was tall, had curly brown hair and was very handsome. All of the female students were in love with him as was, Hermione was certain, a fair amount of the female staff. She seemed to be the only one who found him merely agreeable. Time and again, Michael made it clear that he liked her; he often tried to persuade her to go out with him. Every once in a while, Hermione would relent and go to dinner with him or to see a show at the local theatre. His attempts to get closer to her were rebuffed without exception, though. She hardly ever allowed him to put his arm around her shoulders and she flat-out ducked whenever he tried to bring her face closer to his, in order to kiss her. He was disappointed by her resistance, yet it didn't seem to discourage him, convinced as he was that she would give up sooner or later and yield to his desires.
"Every time I see you, you are reading. Do you ever do anything ordinary, like sleeping or eating?" Speak of the devil... Hermione let the newspaper drop into her lap as she looked up into the smiling face of Michael.
"Of course. Sometimes I sleep and every once in a while I eat as well," she responded and attempted to continue reading.
"I was thinking we should go out sometime soon." The guy was unrelenting.
"Tomorrow, for instance; as you probably know we have the day off. We could..."
Hermione interrupted him. "I can't, I already have plans for tomorrow. It says here that there will be a market for used books." She indicated a small add in the paper that had drawn her attention. Michael took the paper from her and looked at it in disgruntlement. "It also says it's in Thornhill; that's more than ten miles from here! How are you going to get there without a car?"
"I'm going to walk. Like you said, we have the day off, so I have plenty of time. Besides, the weather's supposed to be really nice tomorrow. So...I can walk." Hermione hardly ever found herself without a response. Especially not when she had a plan she wanted to implement.
"Hermione, Hermione.... what am I supposed to do with you?" Michael sighed theatrically.
"You could come along, if you insist," she offered rather half-heartedly. She didn't particularly value Michael's company. And he could tell. Besides, he wasn't the least bit interested in a book market.
"I think you'd better go alone. You'd better watch yourself though, stay on the road and don't wander into the forest; they say it is haunted."
Hermione gave the sports instructor a disbelieving look. "I can't believe you want me to think you actually believe this nonsense?"
"I don't believe in ghosts, Hermione. But there is something out there, people saw strange things. Twigs snapping unusually loudly, somebody moaning. Only yesterday my neighbour told me that when he went to collect mushrooms in the forest, he saw a hunchbacked figure limping through the forest. When he went to check, it had disappeared. The idiot. Who goes to the forest to pick mushrooms anyway nowadays? He should have just bought them at the supermarket around the corner," Michael blathered.
Hermione pulled up her eyebrows and responded: "However it may be, I am determined to go there tomorrow. If I happen to encounter a monster, I'll pop him one."
She grinned insolently and with that, the subject was no longer up for discussion as far as she was concerned. 'Monster, hunchback....if this jock only knew what kind of things I've seen in my life, his eyes would fall out of his head in surprise.' Hermione shook her head and determinedly focused her attention on the paper.
The next morning, she got up very early, her first thoughts concerning to the weather. Fortunately, the sun was shining merrily and all of a sudden she was looking forward to her outing.
After a small breakfast she slung a – for now – empty backpack over her shoulder; when she returned, it would be filled to the brim with new books. She counted out the money she was willing to spend and headed out of town.
She was making good progress. As she arrived at the edge of the forest, slightly sweaty by now, she halted and considered her options. The dirt road through the forest slung itself through the landscape like a snake; if she chose to follow it, she would be forced to take all these twists and turns, undoubtedly needing more time. If she were to go straight through the forest, however, her path would be significantly shorter. She estimated it would save her about an hour and a half; in her book, that was an indisputable argument to not follow the road, monster or no. She didn't want to waste time and effort which were better spent in dragging her books homewards on the return trip.
Determinedly she turned her back on the road and was swallowed by the undergrowth of the forest in a matter of minutes.
For a while, she paid a lot of attention to her surroundings. She kept looking around and behind her, listening to every sound: every snapping twig, every small movement in the underbrush. She couldn't detect anything out of the ordinary.
Focusing on the nearly invisible path she was following, she shook her head in contempt. Rumours, nothing but old-wives-tales... She was an idiot for having believed, even for a second, that there was anything extraordinary going on in this forest.
Thus, she made her way through the forest, without a care in the world. The sun rose in the sky, sweat droplets appeared on her skin. Every once in a while she halted to wipe her brow. She was moving ever deeper into the forest, when all of a sudden she froze. Something had changed. A moment ago the forest had been filled with life, but now there was no sound. She heard no bird, nothing, only the soft rustling of the trees. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she got the eerie feeling she was being watched from the underbrush. She whirled around: nothing.
Carefully, she lowered the backpack and moved stealthily, turning around again and again, towards a large tree; she wanted to have some cover at the very least. She felt the irregular structure of the bark as she pressed herself against it, sweat now running in little streams down her face. This time it wasn't because of the temperature, however. For the first time since she had snapped her wand, she actually felt sorry for doing it; she would have felt a whole lot better if she had been holding that seemingly insignificant piece of wood right about now.
That was when she heard it. A deep, threatening growl. Her head jerked around and she looked directly into the biggest, yellow eyes she had ever seen.
AN: Ooh, poor Hermione! How will she get out of this one?