One Bite ✔️ (#Wattys2017)

Chapter 2

Hannah (Demeter) was a wise old bat, the animal Ginny used to describe her, and she knew something was up when her heart seemed to ache. It ran through her body like some distant drum, numbing her like some deadly poison. Then she felt the sound of weeping girls in her blessed fields. Quickly, the goddess of the harvest rushed away from Mt. Hogwarts as fast as the summer breeze could take her. She soon got to the small meadow where the sounds of sorrow were coming from. Her heart beat out of her chest as she realized this was where she had sent her daughter for the day.

"My dears, what is the matter?" she asked, fear coursing through her ichor filled veins. One of the girls looked up and her brown eyes widened. Her lips trembled as she thought about what she was going to say.

"Madame!" the girl shrieked and, throwing herself at the goddess, hung onto Hannah's (Demeter's) long chlamys.

Soon the other girls joined in shrieking, "Madame! Madame! Madame!"

"Girls!" she yelled for they made so much noise at once that they sound like a pack of sirens. They stopped, cowering back in fear of the Harvest Goddess as they felt the glowing aura brush against their own, "Tell me, what is the matter, calmly?"

"Hermione!" one shrieked.

"Gone!" another yelled back.

"Swallowed by the pond!" another echoed.

Hannah felt her heart stop; it was her daughter... and she gasped. Tears sprung loose from the waterworks hidden behind her peachy eyelids, "What?"

"Hermione-," the girls tried to say, but Hannah raised a shaky hand to silence them.

The mother goddess dropped to the grass, her legs too weak to try to keep standing, "My baby girl is gone."

The nymphs stayed silent as the goddess, who always seemed to be content, was swept away in sadness and sorrow and was weeping before their feet like some common mortal. One of the nymphs felt pity toward this new childless mother and was brave enough to step forward and place a gentle hand on the goddess' shaking shoulder.

Hannah only cried harder, her body racked with uncontrollable sops. Her cries of sorrow echoing across the land and the crops heard her cry. Then another hand joined the other until every girl had at least one hand on the goddess, each giving her the strength and comfort she desperately needed. 

But, there was an extra pair of hands that belonged to an extra body that was not there before. The girls did not seem to notice, nor the harvest goddess, however as soon as they landed on her, all her sorrow was swept away from her mind. She felt healthy and revengeful. It was as if Hermione's disappearance had never affected her. Soon the sun started to set; Hannah stood, the nymphs backing away from her.

"I shall go to Father Harry (Zeus)," Hannah announced to them, her golden eyes still wet from her weeping though her heart held no crack in its finish even though she just lost a daughter, "Maybe he will know who took my darling baby girl," and, without waiting for a noise from them, she was gone. 

She raced across the land and everywhere her shadow fell, the once green plants turned to russet, decaying within. In the morning upon the Earth, the mortal farmers would be puzzled, but they knew Hannah must have been angry at them for something. In fact, it was a darker force that had taken over Hannah and controlled her.

Quickly, Hannah came to the entrance to Mt. Hogwarts and the gates burst open, for the Seasons, which guarded their palace, saw something was wrong and hid behind trees and bushes. Their soft winds rusted the branches as they watched carefully from their barriers.