Marooned - Fred Weasley

Chapter 70: Lost in the Woods

AN

fun fact, chapter 70 and 71 were originally just one regular chapter, then it became a longer chapter, and then, with tears streaming down my face as I continued writing, it stretched to over 7k, I therefore felt obligated to split it. enjoy!

lots of love,

s

__

Sarah, Selena and Hermione were scouring through books, trying to find answers from the bits of information Dumbledore left them. It seemed a bit sadistic, Sarah thought, maybe it was the last joke Dumbledore had played, giving them only crumbs and expecting them to retrace the steps of the recipe along with the ingredients. Which so far seemed impossible. If that terrible metaphor told Sarah anything, was that she was hungry.

Hermione thought of everything except of food. That had been discovered the first morning of their layout. Their stomachs were in knots the day they had arrived, and a cup of boiling tea sufficed to calm them down, but when Ron woke up from a long nap in the afternoon, he asked if he could have something to eat. Under Sarah's order, he didn't move around for the day, which is why he asked Hermione. She had cereal bars, a handful of them, and before Harry and Ron could let their nerves out on her, Sarah and Selena swooped in.

"We didn't plan on camping in the middle of a forest for weeks, so we didn't bring much," started Selena.

And Sarah continued, "-But if we ration it right and use our NEWT knowledge in Herbology, we should survive."

"Water is set thanks to that stream Sarah and Fred found, I have some seeds, we can plant them and grow some potatoes or carrots? I think. Not entirely sure."

"There were some oats back in a cupboard back at Grimmauld Place that I packed, also coffee, a few packs of Cauldron Cakes and honey."

"Oh, and I also brought canned soup. Which is what you'll eat now, Ron," Selena announced and took it out of her bag, walked over to the small corner they set up as the kitchen, it was more a drop-in corner with the pot they used to boil the water for the tea last night.

Selena warmed up Ron's soup and handed it to Hermione after she'd noticed a small glance she interpreted to be her silently asking if she could do it.

"Aren't you just perfect?" beamed Fred, he and George walking up behind them.

"Splendid how you've thought of everything," George went on proudly.

Sarah and Selena exchanged an amused look while they took out the small bag of seeds. Selena told her quietly she wasn't sure what those seeds were, or if she will manage to grow anything from them, but the two of them ought to find a way.

"Well, we have to, don't we?" giggled Selena, turning to face the twins, her normally neck-length black hair was now a bit longer and held by a small claw clip at the back of her head, a strand of hair escaped its clutch when she whipped her head to face them.

"Exactly. You two act like you're twelve most of the time, someone has to be responsible in the relationship." Sarah had tied her hair into a side braid, she would have given anything for a hot shower, to get the dust and rain off, but the closest to that was the freezing water from the stream they warmed up in the mornings to wash up quickly.

It reminded her a bit of the bucket of water Olga had given her back in the Malfoy cellars. The humidity of the air around them was making her hair act up, all fuzzy and indomptable, that hairstyle was the only one that didn't make her look like a deranged woman.