The Winter Witch

Part One - Chapter One

The Winter Witch 

I:I

*

Hermione realized it began with a sense of Impending Doom.

Her danger sense wasn't as finely tuned as Harry's, of course, but they didn't survive years at Hogwarts, and then a year on the run on just Harry and his incredible luck. Hermione's knowledge certainly helped, and of course, after a while, Harry's sense of 'something wrong' rubbed off on her. It hadn't always – she still felt the stinging shame of her sixth year to this day – but she learned from it and did her best to adapt.

Which was why she felt Impending Doom settle on her shoulders the further she walked in the forest.

It was the end of summer in 1999, she was nineteen, turning twenty, and put off a job working for Kingsley Shacklebolt at the Ministry of Magic for a gap year to help Professor McGonagall and the other Hogwarts professors rebuild Hogwarts. Hermione, not always magically powerful but magically intelligent, oversaw documenting what needed repairs and maintaining the inventory before moving on to the library and working with the books, repairing and copying them. (And if she copied them for her personal collection, well... Harry and Ron's less than pristine morals had rubbed off on her over the years, too.)

But she didn't quite understand Professor McGonagall's latest order, of venturing into the Forbidden Forest in search of the remnants of the Centaurs, to treat with them. Firenze was unable to, due to his exile, but a witch from Hogwarts was a better choice? Hermione didn't argue, but she was disgruntled. The last time she had been in the forest was during the final battle – and before that, in her fifth year leading Umbridge towards Grawp and the Centaurs (that wasn't her brightest move, she'd admit, but she did get vindictive pleasure out of the terror in Umbridge's face), and before that, helping Sirius escape and nearly having her soul sucked out by Dementors. She didn't have fond memories of that forest.

Yet, here she was.

That Impending Doom she felt earlier? Well, it was strong enough that after she met with McGonagall, Hermione marched straight back to the Gryffindor dormitory, packed hardy clothing for an overnight trip, and re-established the spells on her beaded purse. Impending Doom was telling her being prepared – like how they had been during the war – would be a good idea. Hermione decided to listen.

That had been three days previously and she was still in the forest.

"Honestly, you'd think I'd have come out at the other end already," she muttered angrily under her breath, her wand flat in the palm of her hand, spinning wildly. "Point Me Hogwarts!"

The trees were unrecognizable: their trunks were too large and thick, the leaves the wrong shape to anything she knew, and the lack of magical beasts to snack on her – werewolves, or acronumantula, or centaurs – was worrisome. Where was she?

"This is useless," she continued to mutter. The air was growing colder as the sun set, streaking through the thick canopy of leaves above her. The forest itself was quiet, with birds beginning to wind down their chirps and songs for their nests; other noises, the rustles of leaves and branches, began to grow louder instead.

With a deep sigh, Hermione squared her shoulders and dropped her beaded bag on the hard ground in front of her. She knelt, opening the flap to the bag and then stuck her arm in. Had anyone been around to see her, they would have been astonished to witness Hermione's entire arm disappear into the bag as she knelt over, her head tilted to the side as she pushed through, searching for something elusive.

The young woman's brown eyes lit with joy as she finally found what she was looking for. She gave a hard yank and fell backward with momentum. In her hand was a small, flat green square of shiny material.