How Did This Happen?!

Conversation

Hermione felt like she had been waiting forever for him to come back. In fact, she had become utterly bored and decided to find something to contain fire, it was many years since her days as a girl guide, but she could remember how to set up a fire pit. She searched for long enough to collect far too many rocks and twigs. She eventually sat down to wait some more.

Just when she decided that it was long enough and that she needed to find him (he might be lost), he returned with his arms full of firewood.

"What took you so long Draco? I've been sitting here for a really long time!" she snapped, not wanting to admit she'd been worried.

He half-smiled and replied, "Well honestly I've never had to find wood for a fire before so I wasn't really sure of what I was doing. I didn't know if it mattered what size or what kind to get. So I ended up getting these medium-sized dry branches."

'Finding firewood is it?' she thought to herself, 'I think he vanished for such a long time to have a little 'alone time' - but that's just me with my head in the gutter.' She giggled for a moment before noticing he was staring at her.

"Oh, well that'll work just fine. Umm, put it all over there in one big pile."

She pointed to a clearing next to the forest so they wouldn't have to sleep next to the dangerous river, it would provide some shelter from the wind.

He walked over and sat all the wood down in one big thump on the ground. Hermione walked over and grabbed a few pieces and set them off to the side where there wasn't any grass or leaves to catch fire. Setting fire to the forest wasn't going to keep them inconspicuous.

With a flat rock she dug a deep-ish hole and lined it with other rocks, she grabbed some of the nearby grass and scrunched it into a ball, and placed it in the middle of the pit. The little twigs were leaned on top and the larger wood piled in a cone-like structure over the top.

She pulled out her wand, poked it into the middle 'nest' of dried grass, and whispered, "Incendio!". The whispered words gently lit the grass, which in turn lit the small twigs and then the larger branches. Before long, a fire was burning nicely.

"You know what Hermione, I'm actually really hungry. What about you, are you hungry too?" Draco said, punctuated with a growl from his stomach.

She nodded her head in response and "Yes I'm starving, why do you have something we could eat, or are you just teasing me?"

"Well, that depends. How do you feel about eating snake?"

Hermione had an odd expression on her face as she responded. "I've never eaten a snake before, it sounds... erm... different."

Draco pulled out his wand and said, "Serpensortia!"

A snake came shooting out of the end of his wand and landed on the ground in front of him facing Hermione, hissing and ready to strike. Draco walked slowly up behind it, grabbing a big rock on his way. Hermione knew what the rock was for, but didn't want to watch, she closed her eyes and heard a thud...

From somewhere, Draco pulled a potions dissection kit, Hermione wasn't sure where it had come from. It took a few minutes to clean the snake of its innards, and it was washed clean with a gentle stream of water from his wand. That left them with a gutted snake and no idea what to do next.

"Now what?" Draco asked, looking at Hermione.

"Erm..." she said, looking around her and settling on the little metal case the knife had come from. Its other contents were emptied out and the metal tin enlarged to the size of a cooking pot. Hermione filled the pot with water and suspended it over the fire with magic.

"Snake stew." Draco commented as he threw in the reptile.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"You were right Draco, this actually is reasonably good." Hermione said as she gingerly took another bite, carefully teasing the flesh away from the many ribs.

"I told you, it mostly just tastes like chicken but better if you're starving in the middle of where ever the hell we are." He laughed to himself.

"Uh Draco?"

He looked up at her and saw that her smile had faded away.

"Yes?" He asked and she scooted a little closer to him to talk to him seriously.

"Well, two things... firstly, what sort of chicken do you eat?" His response was a laugh, "And secondly, I was wondering... When you pulled me from the water, what did you see?"

"What do you mean what did I see, I saw you. The river must not have affected me, that's all."

Hermione gently shook her head. "No, it doesn't work that way. It can't. Its whole purpose is to keep people from getting across it by drowning them."

"So then what exactly are you trying to say, Hermione?" he said, confused.

She looked at him for a second then thought about if she should mention it or not.

"Never mind, maybe we'll talk about it some other time. I'm really tired right now. I think I'm just going to go to sleep now. Goodnight."

Draco stood up with her and walked with her a little bit away from the fire.

Hermione pulled out her wand, pointed to a tree, and said, "Mobiliarbus."

At that moment the tree that she was pointing to moved up next to another tree, and both shuffled closer to the fire, their roots creaking in protest. Once they were close enough for what Hermione wanted to do, she pulled her wand down and the tree was stationary.

Draco realized what Hermione had planned so he walked back to where she had removed her robe. He grabbed it and started to walk back when he heard her muttered a spell and saw rope fly from her wand and neatly tied itself between the two trees.

Draco handed her the robe, which she placed on top of the rope forming a very small tent for them to sleep in.

"Well, I guess I'll just sleep here then. G'night Draco." She repeated herself nervously.

As she went to sit down in the self-made tent, Draco stopped her and said, "You're just going to sleep on the hard ground? No way! Step back a minute.

Orchideus!" He said this a few times until the ground where she was going to sleep was full of heavily scented flowers to sleep on.

"Thank you." She simply replied.

She turned and gave him a small kiss on the cheek as she lay down in the thick beautiful flowers. As Draco turned to walk away, Hermione decided to explain the earlier conversation.

"Draco, you know how I said that the river makes you see only something that you've lost, something that is special to you and you want it back?"

"Umm.. Yes, why?"

He asked very hesitantly. She looked into his eyes and replied, "Well because Draco.... you saw me."