Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
•●•●•●•
You work the perimeter the way Hermione taught you: slow, methodical circles, wand skimming bark and bramble, murmuring the charms under your breath until it catches and settles like a film over the trees. The air isn't right here. There's no moths batting at your sleeves, no far off wings of birds beating against the air. Even the leaves feel like they're too still.
You pause, palm on a rough trunk, and look back. Through the lattice of branches, the tent throws a faint orange glow—small as a candle cupped in two hands. They're close, you tell yourself. You could shout and they'd hear. You could run and make it, if need be.
Something cracks behind you.
You turn too slow. Red light whistles past your cheek and blows apart a fern at your ankles. Your wand is already half-raised when the second spell snatches it clean from your grip.
"Got her," someone says, pleased as sin.
They step out of the trees one by one: five of them, filthy boots and leather coats, faces smeared with soot like war paint. Snatchers. The stink of damp wool and smoke rolls off them. They can into a half circle without needing to talk about it, the points of their wands glinting. You feel the ward at your back like a thin skin. If you move the wrong way, you'll trip it and give the whole lot of you away.
The one in front has a grin that doesn't reach his eyes. He tips his head as if admiring a shop display. "Well, then." he drawls, "look what's wandered out for us. She's Potter's blood. Cousin or sister or something. Bounty on her head's delicious."
You set your shoulders. "You've got the wrong girl."
"Do we?" His grin turns lazy. "Shame, that. Could've retired off you."
A wand flicks to the right and a stunner goes wide, scorching the bark inches from your ear. You don't flinch. You can't. If you bolt, they'll chase; if you scream, the wards ripple. You take a breath and measure the ground. Your wand sits three paces to your left, half-hidden, mud shining wetly on the handle. There's a notch of stump you could reach in two strides if no one thinks to hex your legs.
"You're camping along, are you?" another one jeers, younger, meaner. "In the middle of nowhere. Lucky night for us."
"Unlucky for you if you try anything," you say, a little hoarse. "I have people that will look for me."
The group laughs, as if delighted by your pathetic attempt at a threat.
"Yeah, we've heard that before," the younger one sings.
"Ain't no one stopped us yet," the leader adds. "Hands where I can see 'em."
You raise your hands, fingers spread. Sap tackies your palm. The forest has gone so quiet you can hear the wheeze of their breaths and the shuffle of their boots. Behind you, the ward hums like a live wire—faint enough you could have imagined it. You hope you didn't.
