An Outlandish Affair

Chapter 4

Hermione landed with a thud. Landed... why had her mind come to the word 'landed' first? That would imply she had been airborne at some point, but she hadn't left the ground, had she?

She tried to open her eyes. Everything was bright. Too bright. Her head was pounding and she could hear her heartbeat thudding.

Breathe, she told herself, breathe, you probably just bent down too quickly, or hit your head, or maybe both.

She tried to recall the last few minutes but it was like trying to swim through mud. She had seen the circle of stones, and then she had heard the buzzing. No, it was the other way around. She had heard the buzzing first and then seen the stone circle, right?

Hermione tried to open her eyes again. There, it wasn't quite as bright now. She could make out some shapes like trees and clouds. She tried to sit up. Her head spun but she managed it without losing her stomach.

Looking around, Hermione was still inside the stone circle. Her satchel was still strung over her shoulder and upon inspection, it was still mostly full. She was only missing the newest ingredients she had put right on top of the bag, of course it had to be the dittany though, she thought angrily. Her wand was thankfully still in her back pocket where she had placed it before her search. She moved to push herself into a standing position and that's when she noticed it. The diamond from her engagement ring was gone. She frantically searched the ground, panicking about what Ron would think about the missing stone so soon after their fight.

Sitting back on her feet, Hermione took a deep breath and took another look at her surroundings. Had that tree been the same size a moment ago? Where was the dittany patch she had just harvested from? Even the sun looked like it wasn't really in the correct position for the time of day she thought it should be. Had she really been knocked out that long?

She couldn't have been; Ron knew her typical harvesting spots and even though she had strayed a bit further than usual he still would've been able to find her. Unless he didn't care to. Unless he hadn't bothered to come find her at all.

Hermione stood up and spun on the spot to apparate back to the edge of Hogsmeade. Nothing happened. Her heart rate spiked, that couldn't be right. She spun again and felt a small tug of magic and then... nothing. Pulling out her wand she attempted a simple wingardium leviosa on a nearby pebble; it remained stationary.

Now she was really beginning to panic. Typically Hermione was fairly level-headed but being without magic was a surefire way to get her heart racing. She tried spell after spell and received nothing more than a few sparks from the tip of her wand.

That has to be a good sign, right? Hermione thought to herself, my magic isn't entirely gone, it's just diminished. She ran through every cause of magical failure and memory loss she could think of. Nothing significant had happened to her that she could remember, so her best guess was some kind of head trauma that could potentially account for both symptoms.

I need to get back to Hogwarts, Poppy will know what to do. She repeated this to herself like a mantra as she began walking in what she believed to be the right direction.

She had only walked a couple hundred yards when she thought she heard noises in the distance. Hermione stood still for a moment, and then altered her course toward the noise instead. She figured that anyone out this far was probably doing something similar to her anyway, foraging for ingredients or hunting for beasts. Maybe they would be willing to side-along apparate her back to Hogsmeade.

Her pace slowed as she got closer, what could possibly be making those metallic noises? It sounded like a toddler banging pots and pans with, well, more pots and pans. She was in a wooded area now, and the noises were getting louder. She could see a large clearing coming up ahead where the source of the noise was certainly coming from. There was a large bush along the edge of the clearing through which she could see hints of red and blue and green, and flashes of movement. Hermione hid herself in the dense shrub and peered through the branches.