“Something isn’t right,” Ginny whispered to herself.
’What?’ Harry asked, using his thoughts, since his throat potion hadn’t arrived just yet.
“That isn’t what your body looked like while you were in the world, Harry. They look dead!” Ginny explained. “Madam Pomfrey, can you please come in here? Something’s wrong!”
**********
Hermione opened her eyes and shook her head to recover from the dizziness. She looked around and tried to place where exactly she was.
A gorgeous blonde was standing next to her, reaching his hand down to help her up. He smiled a smile she couldn’t resist and she took his hand, letting him lift her gracefully.
When she was on her feet again, she realized how tall this boy was. She only reached his shoulder. She looked up into his face, but when she got to his eyes, she jumped. His eyes were black. It was such an extreme difference; blonde hair, black eyes, and she shook her head to get back to reality.
She was being manipulated! Where was Ron? They’d come together, right? He’d made it into the world with her, right? She looked around frantically, trying to find the red headed teenager who would make everything better.
She felt the blonde wrap his arms around her waist and pull her close to him. She couldn’t help but smile and, in turn, wrapped her arms around his neck.
She jumped out of his embrace when she heard a loud grunt coming from the ground next to her.
Ten horrifically revolting women were sitting on the ground, surrounding a familiar freckled boy who Hermione yearned to see. She looked up at the blonde and shrieked at his hideous face.
She fell to the ground and pushed the women out of her way. She laid herself beside Ron and kissed him softly. She found his hand and squeezed it hopefully. Her heart was pounding. Surely he was alright, right?
Her entire body relaxed when she felt a strong squeeze of her hand.
He opened his eyes and stared at her in awe. His mind never stopped asking how he’d gotten such an amazing girl.
Any trace of another man or woman around them was gone.
They got up and started walking around; trying to find something, anything, that would help them figure out how to destroy the unknown world they were occupying.
They found a field of grass and Hermione dropped Ron’s hand, running out into the field and spinning. She’d always wanted to do this. Was that what this world was about? Finding the perfect things in each person’s mind?
Ron bit his lip as he watched Hermione in the field. He couldn’t help but think of things he wanted them so badly to do together.
Hermione looked up at his face and smiled, shaking her head. Ron’s thoughts always sketched themselves on his face. She walked to him slowly and stopped arm-distance in front of him.
He continued to stare at her with a devilish look on her face.
She smiled, shyly. She reached out and grabbed his shirt, pulling him toward her slowly.
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hard. He removed her shirt and laid her down on the grass.
**********
“Ahhh! Hahahahaha!” a woman’s screech and laugh echoed throughout the field.
Ron jumped up from where he was on the ground, with Hermione and grabbed his pants, throwing them on swiftly. “Damn women! What the bloody hell? We barely got to even finish…” his voice trailed off as he realized what was going on.
He looked down at the ground and smiled at Hermione, flushed and trying to dress quickly.
She stood up and straightened her shirt. She tried to fix her hair a little, but gave up when she realized that it was no use.
Ron chuckled as he watched her. He shook his head and moved closer to her, placing his palm on her cheek. “I love you,”
She kissed him lightly. “Me, too,”
Ron pulled away, suddenly, and shook his head, his face screwed up. “How are we talking? I couldn’t when we first got here!”
Hermione shrugged. “You didn’t try to,”
“Weeeee!” the woman’s voice screamed.
“Who is that?” Ron demanded, his face getting red with a mix of anger and fright.
“It’s coming from over there. Quick, let’s go see,” Hermione grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the voice.
After walking for what must have been just short of five minutes, they found a lake full of orange liquid that smelled distinctly of pumpkins. In it swam a tiny woman who looked to be thirty or forty years of age.
“Is that pumpkin juice?” Ron asked to no one in particular.
“Why, yes, it is, young man!” the woman exclaimed.
Ron rid of his shirt, a grin across his face, and prepared to jump in.
Hermione grabbed his arm and screwed up her face at him. “Are you mad? You will not be jumping in there. Put your shirt back on!”
Ron blinked at her for a few seconds before sulking over to where he threw his shirt. He put it on and walked back to her. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Hermione smiled lightly. She leaned up and kissed his cheek. He couldn’t help but let a small smirk creep back to his face as he remembered what they’d done not twenty minutes before.
“Who are you?” Hermione asked the lady.
“Oh, my darling, I am a Prince,” the woman told her.
Hermione nodded. “You’re the Princess of where, exactly?”
The lady shook her head and looked up at Hermione softly. “No, no…I am a Prince,”
Ron screwed up his face. “Oh, gross! You mean you’re a man?”
The lady giggled softly. “No, dear boy! I assure you I am a woman. I am a Prince! My Lord freed me and put me here, in this world, to be happy forever!”
Hermione shook her head. This wasn’t making any sense. “How long have you been here?”
The lady sighed a smile of content. “Oh, a couple of weeks, I’d say,”
Ron chewed his lip as he was deep in thought. “How’d you get in here?”
“I don’t want to leave!” she yelled at him.
Hermione shook her head frantically. “No, no, miss! We don’t expect you to! We were just wondering how you got into this world!”
“I’m not going back! I don’t care if you go back home, but I won’t go with you!”
“Ma’am, we aren’t asking you to, we promise!” Ron offered.
“We are students at a school called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and we found this world there,” Hermione explained.
The woman’s eyes glazed over and she looked up into the light blue sky. “My son goes to that school. Have you seen him? His name is Severus. He’s a Prince, as well!”
**********
“You let my son and my future daughter-in-law go into a world that you both almost died in?!” Mrs. Weasley asked incredulously.
Ginny scrunched up her face in guilt. “Yes,”
“What am I going to do with you four? What am I…I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Mrs. Weasley stuttered, slipping into shock.
“Molly, take a sit. Here’s some water, drink it up. The last thing we need is for you to faint on us. Alright, do the two of you know how long the Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger will be in there?” Madam Pomfrey asked.
Harry shook his head and looked over to Ginny.
“It just depends on how long it will take them to figure out how to destroy the world. That time added to the amount of time it will actually take for them to actually rid of it,” Ginny said, speaking for both her and Harry.
“Molly, if it’s any consolation, their bodies are quite still and calm. They’re stronger in that world, since they are together. There isn’t much manipulation going on. Probably some, but not enough to really affect them,”
Mrs. Weasley sipped her water and nodded her head. She relaxed a little and took a deep breath. “We’d better call for Arthur. He’ll want to know what’s going on,”
Madam Pomfrey nodded and waited for Mrs. Weasley to get up and walk out of the room. She gave Harry and Ginny and look of death before following the other woman out to the Headmistress’ office.
“Your throat still hurt?” Ginny asked with clear concern.
Harry shrugged. The last thing he wanted was sympathy.
“Hey, don’t give me that. You may not want sympathy from anyone else, but I’m a different story. If anyone had the right to sympathize for you, it is the woman whose heart you have, alright?”
It was a rhetorical question, so Harry didn’t bother answering. Instead, he grabbed her and pulled her into a deep, fervent kiss.
When they pulled away, Harry smiled.
“Alright, you only have four of those left,” Ginny whispered, referring to their bet the night before.
Harry shook his head. ‘Nope. I have a lifetime of them left,’
**********
“You are Snape’s mother? Eileen Prince?” Hermione asked in disbelief.
The woman snickered. “No, actually, but I am Severus Prince’s mother. And yes, I am Eileen Prince,”
Hermione shook her head. This was unbelievable. She grabbed Ron’s arm and pulled him away behind a tree. “We can’t leave her alone. You go look some more about how to blow this world to hell, and I’ll stay here with her,”
Ron nodded. He kissed her nose sweetly and whispered a last, “I love you,” before running off into the forest and grasslands.
Hermione walked back to Snape’s mother and sat down against a tree as she watched the lady swim in thick orange sludge.
There was a comfortable silence for a while. Hermione’s thoughts were filled with Ron and what he was doing right then. She wondered if he really loved her. He had to, right? Because they were in this world, and they seemed to be free of manipulation. But what if he didn’t really love her? What if he was off sleeping with some random girl right now?
“You have every reason to be nervous, you know,” Eileen told her after around an hour.
Hermione screwed up her face. “Excuse me?”
“I can tell that you’re nervous about that red head that just left. You don’t think he really loves you,”
“You don’t know what the bloody hell you’re saying, so shut your trap!” Hermione demanded.
Eileen laughed. “You know he’s cheating on you. Right now, with some absolutely gorgeous girl. Admit it, girl. He just doesn’t want you,”
Hermione stared at the woman with utter astonishment. How could this lady be saying this to her? Who the hell did she think she was? Hermione could feel her face get hot with anger.
It must’ve been a little over an hour that Ron had been gone. What in the hell took that long? They’d searched for only around two hours earlier before they’d gotten…side tracked…in the grasslands.
Hermione secretly yearned for the ability that Harry and Ginny had. She wished that she and Ron could love each other enough to be able to communicate through their minds. She’d searched for a week straight after she found out about their ability and she couldn’t find anything that said anything about speechless communication.
If she just had that ability and could ask Ron where he was right now.
It took another half an hour before Ron showed up.
“Ronald, what took you so long?” she spat.
“I was trying to find any clues, love. Is everything alright? Did something happen?” he asked, taken aback.
“No, nothing. Stay with her, it’s my turn,” Hermione told him.
Ron walked over to her and grabbed her arms. He turned her to face him, but she just looked at the ground, refusing to meet his eyes. “Hey, ‘Mione. Look at me. Everything alright?”
Hermione took a deep breath and nodded, never looking into his eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.
He nodded, deciding to let it go for now, and kissed her forehead. “Okay, if you say so. Be safe, yeah? I love you,”
Hermione nodded and turned away from him, heading in the opposite direction of where Ron had gone.
So many thoughts were occupying her head. Surely Snape’s mum hadn’t been right. Ron had to love her. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to be here.
She started to run. She ran through the forest and the trees, through the grass and the flowers, and she cleared her head.
It must have been fifteen minutes before she saw a guy standing by a tree. She glanced at him, but kept running, because if felt too good and she still had so much energy left.
Another fifteen minutes passed and she saw another man, this one more attractive than the last, sitting in the grass. Once again, she passed him, enthralled in the thoughts of her mind.
Ten minutes more and she came to a house. Three amazingly striking and sexy men stood on the porch of the house. Hermione slowly came to a stop in front of the house and stared in awe. This was her dream house; the house she always imagined herself raising a family in. It was perfect and she never wanted to leave it.
The men approached her slowly and she was captured by their good looks. One of them leaned forward and kissed her softly on the cheek. She giggled. Another one of them came up from behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He buried his face in her neck.
“Ron,” she moaned.
Her eyes opened as wide as they could and she gasped. Ron! She was being manipulated. This couldn’t happen!
“Ron!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Ronald!”
**********
“Harry, wake up!” Ginny shook Harry with all her mite as she tried and tried to wake him up.
His eyes snapped open and he sat up quickly. “What’s wr-” he stopped himself quickly as a blast of awful pain shot through his throat.
“Look! Hermione’s body is freaking out! Something’s wrong!” Ginny explained frantically.
Harry glanced over at where Hermione’s body lay.
Her face was screwed up and her mouth hung open like she was screaming. Her breathing kept getting heavier and heavier as she continued to jerk around. This wasn’t just manipulation. This was so much more.
*********
“Hermione!” Ron shouted as he followed her voice.
It took him at least twenty minutes to find her. She was in front a large house, lying on the ground. No one was around her, so he ran up to her and knelt down to see if she was alright. She was breathing heavily, but she wasn’t moving.
“Ron,” she whispered.
Her body went limp.
**********
“Harry, she isn’t moving! She isn’t breathing! We have to do something!” Ginny cried.
Harry shook his head as he tried to think of what to do. ‘Gin, we have to go there. We can get them, we can save them. It’s the only way,’
Ginny nodded no hesitation or reluctance in her mind. She walked over to Hermione and Ron’s bed and grabbed the locket from their still hands. She walked quickly back of to Harry and sat down next to him. She opened the locket and took a deep breath before her finger joined Harry’s on the picture.
And everything started spinning. Ginny closed her eyes tight and only opened them when the spinning stopped.
She was in a room in a house. She looked around hastily and found the door to the room. She yanked it open and started descending the staircase at the end of the hall.
At the bottom of the stairs she ran into Harry and they stopped and came together. She shook her head to signal that she hadn’t found Ron or Hermione yet.
Just then, Ron’s voice echoed through the house. It was easy to tell that he was outside. Harry and Ginny raced outside to find Ron, hysterical and kneeling on the ground holding Hermione’s lifeless body in his arms.
Harry didn’t know what to do. He could get himself and Ginny back without a problem, but he couldn’t take Ron and Hermione back. Hermione needed to be awake and aware if she wanted to take Ron and herself back. Harry shook his head. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be losing one of his best friends. He looked over at Ginny. She had to have a plan. She had to make this all better.
Ginny cringed at Ron’s painful cries. She shook her head. This was not going to happen. She wouldn’t let it. She knelt beside her brother and placed one hand on his shoulder and the other on Hermione’s knee. She looked up at Harry and hoped that he could read her face.
Harry took the hint and mimicked Ginny. He knelt down and placed his knee under Hermione’s shoulder, one hand on Ron’s open shoulder, and the other on Ginny’s waist. He closed his eyes tight and wished with all his strength that he wasn’t losing his best friend.
The ground started shaking. Trees began to fall over as it began to get more extreme. Harry clenched his hands tighter, as if he could just hold onto his friends. It was too much. He didn’t think he could handle it. There was no way they were going to make it through the ending of this world.
And far off in the distance, all four teens heard a very disturbed red-headed mother scream in horror at the sight of their four bodies.
Never what it seems by Rons chick
Chapter Notes: And here is chapter 16. Sorry for the long wait. Please review!
Manda*