Round 3 Little Leagues - Prompts - Western.

"I'm telling you, I saw Madam Lestrange," Hermione Granger insisted, waving her arms around her dramatically in the small Sheriff's office. "You and I both know that she's after me."

"That may be so, but you have no proof that who you saw was who you're saying," Sheriff Potter replied, removing his boots from his desk and shuffling some papers.

"I think I'd recognize the woman who scarred my body and gave me nightmares!" Hermione was angry and embarrassed, arguing with the Sheriff over her life whilst his Deputies watched on with faces that showed their shock and worry. "Okay Sheriff, if you don't believe me, I'd best be going." She stormed out, the doors swinging behind her and with a growl of frustration, the Sheriff stalked out too.

"What was that all about?" Deputy Finnegan questioned, leaning back in his chair and chewing some tobacco.

"There used to be something between them. Feelings of the romantic sort," Deputy Weasley answered, sighing. "She got hurt one day and he never forgave himself. Ruined everything they'd been building."

Hermione Granger was furious. That blasted Sheriff thinking that he knew best! He had been there when her life had been threatened the first time, he'd been there when her life had changed dramatically from the threat being followed through and he had been there when her life had been threatened the second time. Though he did have a concussion at the time.

She growled with annoyance and hitched up her skirts, running towards her beautiful horse, Buckbeak. If she wasn't going to receive any help from the authorities then she would bloody well save herself.

Sheriff Harry Potter ran both hands through his hair and sighed heavily.

He'd grown up in the town, Hogsmeade, and it had always been peaceful and quiet, which made the job of Sheriff a lot easier. But all good things come to an end. A famous bank robber, Tom Riddle, had arrived in/come to town suddenly and had attempted to steal every coin they had with the help of a few miscreants - Bellatrix Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy and Antonin Dolohov - all of whom were Wanted.

His father had been Sheriff at the time and had been seriously injured in the capture of the criminals. With the position opening after his death, everyone voted for the next Potter. So here he found himself with a lot of stress and petty crimes and disagreements to deal with instead of his farm lifestyle that he'd preferred before.

Only Dolohov, Malfoy and Riddle had been captured within the bank and since then sightings of Bellatrix Lestrange hadn't been uncommon, all of them turning out to be false or just kids hoping to get a slice of the reward money. Hermione wouldn't have-

Oh God.

Oh sweet Jesus.

Hermione wouldn't lie. If she saw her, then she saw her and if she saw her, then...

He swore loudly before turning and running back to the Sheriff's building, shouting out for Ron and Seamus as he climbed onto his horse, Prongs, and galloped to Granger's ranch. She really was in danger and he was a fool for letting his guilt and stress get the better of him.

When they survived this, he wasn't letting her go. Not again.

Bellatrix waited patiently in the family home, eyeing her surroundings with distaste. She didn't want to be here, but she had to so that she could finish the job. The young chit had recognized her from her Wanted posters almost immediately as they walked through the bank's front doors. She'd been the reason that the whole event had failed and she was almost ready to rip her to shreds there and then; only the arrival of the Sheriff and his son stopped her from doing so and instead, she promised retribution and made her getaway.

A week later had allowed the older woman to finally get her hands on the young wench in the privacy of the town's forest when Hermione had been reading.

It didn't take her long to subdue the younger woman and slowly allow the Black madness to filter into her mind as she tried to break the girl beneath her. She hadn't considered that Hermione might have been waiting for someone and so the arrival of Potter had been a terrible shock that she had quickly tried to overcome.

Knocking him into a tree head-first had been enough to subdue him, but he wasn't the only one arriving to meet with the girl, and so with a muttered threat, she left.

Now she was here to finish what she started.

The sound of hooves hitting the ground and a whinnying noise alerted Bellatrix that the harridan she'd been waiting for had finally got home. She twirled the knife in her fingers lovingly and sighed silently with joy when the doors opened.

They needed to get there quicker! Prongs seemed to understand the urgency and was galloping faster and harder than he'd ever done before but they were still a few minutes out. He'd only been five to ten minutes behind her from when she left the Sheriff's office to the time he realised what a fool he'd been, but they'd caught some of that time up - assuming she hadn't pushed her horse to its/his limits on the journey home.

There it was!

"Come on Prongs, we're almost there," he informed his horse, leaning down to whisper in his ear instead of shouting. As he leaned down, the sun shone on his Sheriff's badge and he felt a sham for not doing his job and taking her statement seriously. Stress or no stress, guilt or not guilt, he should've been doing his job.

That was his last coherent thought before Prongs skidded to a stop and Harry jumped off, pistol out of his holster as he raced towards the open door with Ron and Seamus following closely behind him. Bursting into the home that he'd visited many times, he immediately noticed a mess in the hallway, indicating a struggle, and by following the mess he could determine that they were or had been in the living room. Guns raised, the trio burst in and Bellatrix whirled around, knife raised ready to do damage, but Harry shot her quickly in the stomach. Ron and Seamus followed suit - either by knowing how angry he was or just instinctively - but they did and she fell dead next to Hermione.

Next to a living, crying Hermione whose skirts were torn and bunched around her, used as some sort of defence. Harry rushed over and cradled her to his body. "Shhh, you're okay," he comforted her and slowly her sobs subsided. "I failed at my Sheriff's duty, ma'am," he told her solemnly, ready for his punishment.

She looked up at him with tearful, yet forgiving eyes. "But you saved me in the end."