Chapter Text
It was a dark and stormy night-
No. No and a thousand times no, Hermione Granger thought to herself, slamming the poor excuse of a book closed. Its pretty cover sparkled offensively, having lured her into it with false pretenses. She tossed it on the seat next to her. Was that all there was to books anymore? It was highly misleading to dress a story that atrocious between such lovely clothbound covers. Borderline unethical.
Hermione huffed in her disappointment. How she’d let herself fall into such a trap was beyond her. And now, due to her perhaps losing her touch, she would be forced to endure a journey draped in the eerie ambiance that was the Savernake Forest. A ridiculous name for a geographical location, if anyone asked her. The carriage jostled, the wheels having hit a rock or something similar. She wrung her hands into her skirt, peering into the foliage behind the window. A hoot, the flapping of wings, scratching, the wind. The sounds made a shiver run down her spine; much good it did, being a Gryffindor.
Unsurprisingly, the tiny space of the carriage soon began to feel quite oppressive. Hermione tapped her wand against her knee in a nervous attempt to calm down. One might’ve pondered, why a witch as adept as Hermione, was forced to endure a trip through a forest in such a vehicle. The explanation was quite simple. For you could not apparate somewhere you had not been before and the nationwide floo network was unfortunately inoperative for the remainder of the month. Her destination? The McGonagall House.
For tumultuous reasons, our dear heroine’s departure from London had been most swift in its essence. When she’d received the letter, Hermione had wasted no time in packing her suitcase and taking the earliest train up. And how lovely and warm and dry were trains compared to carriages? Under the red wax seal, there had been an open but insistent invitation for her to come and entertain her aunt for a while. The aunt in question was none other than Minerva McGonagall, who’d settled into her retirement days in the countryside. Naturally, she wasn’t her real aunt, something people persistently liked to remind her of; Hermione was still after all a muggleborn premièrement .
The way in which Hermione had come to call her former Head of House and Professor her aunt was bittersweetly heartwarming; at least to her. During her sixth year at Hogwarts, Hermione had lost her parents in a turn of events that the Ministry had labeled “unfortunate”. There had been an incident, something about a failed Appare Vestigium going off in the middle of Oxford Street. The Ministry had flooded the road, desperate to obliviate the dozens of muggles. It had been a wholly “unlucky” day for Mr. and Mrs. Granger to be doing their weekend shopping in downtown London. Of course, they couldn’t have possibly known there was a pair of a muggleborn’s parents in the crowd. And no one could’ve anticipated that a poorly trained Obliviator in training could cast a memory charm that would remove her parents wholly of all their knowledge related to magic. It was quite sad that “knowledge related to magic” included their daughter, very sad indeed. The Ministry was very sorry that they hadn’t found ways to reverse the spell.
Professor McGonagall had been there with Hermione, when a blundering official had explained the mishap to her in the Headmaster’s circular office. Professor McGonagall’s firm but comforting hand around her shoulders had turned into a weekly ritual of afternoon teas. At first, Hermione had thought she’d been invited out of pity, but each cup and scone taught her more about the commanding woman that was Minerva McGonagall. And in a chain of events, she had become Hermione’s legal guardian. Therefore, when your aunt summoned you to her estate, you didn’t refuse, you simply boarded the first train.
Hermione had still half a mind to curse whatever twist of fate had placed her in this God forsaken sardine can of a carriage. And surely she had had no true reason to make the journey in the dead of the night. At least, she could’ve taken the time to pack proper books. Hurrying always backfired.
A lightning bolt hit the muddy ground, making the world flash blue. Hermione let out an involuntary scream. Her brain began calculating how probable it would be that the next one would strike her untrustworthy steed that swayed left to right like a drunken sailor. Very probable, actually quite highly probable. Would she get electrocuted? No, she remembered something from her early years of physics at elementary school how the electricity traveled around the surface like magic- Magic! She was a witch for Christ’s sake, she could form a protective field around herself, all would be well!
But the thoughts of swishing her wand fled quickly from her head, as the carriage jostled again in a highly menacing manner. And she knew she shouldn’t have looked out of the window, for when she did, all she could focus on was the steep decline of the ground. Time stopped for the second it took for her to blink. She felt her head hit a sharp corner in the darkness. And when Hermione opened her eyes, she was hurtling towards her guaranteed, and premature, demise.