The Dream
Harry
The moonlight barely penetrated the dense canopy, casting eerie shadows across the forest floor. My heart pounded in my chest as I ran, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Beside me, Hermione stumbled over a gnarled root, nearly losing her footing.
"Keep going!" I hissed, grabbing her arm and yanking her forward.
A cacophony of savage howls shattered the stillness of the night, sending a chill down my spine. The wolves were closing in, their predatory growls growing louder with each passing moment. But as they came into view, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. These were not ordinary wolves - their fur was a twisted mosaic of human hair, ranging from sickly blonde to fiery red to jet black. And their eyes...their freakishly familiar blue, green, and brown orbs held a sinister intelligence that seemed almost too human for comfort. Fear gripped me as I realized these were not just beasts - they were something else entirely.
Hermione’s eyes widened in terror. "We can't outrun them," she panted.
I scanned their surroundings desperately. The trees all looked the same in the darkness, a maze of twisted trunks and reaching branches. I spotted a small clearing ahead, with a single tall tree.
"There!" I pointed. "Maybe we can—"
A low growl cut me off. I froze, slowly turning my head. A pair of yellow eyes gleamed in the shadows, mere feet away. The wolf's lips curled back, revealing razor-sharp teeth. A paw shoot out grazing across my leg and ripping through my pants.
I yelp in pain as I try to ignore the blood dripping down my leg.
Hermione grabbed a fallen branch, brandishing it like a club.
"Harry, run!" she shouted.
But I couldn't move. More wolves emerged from the darkness, circling them. The pack had caught its prey.
As the first wolf lunged, I screamed.
Hermione swung the branch with all his might, catching the wolf mid-leap. It yelped, crashing to the ground.
"Come on!" she yelled, grabbing my hand.
They sprinted toward the clearing, hearts racing. The tree growing larger as they drew closer. Their last hope.
Behind them, paws pounded the earth. Hot breath steamed in the cold night air.
"The tree!" I gasped. "If we can just—"
A scream rent the air and turned watching Hermione stumbling. A wolf had clamped its jaws around her leg, dragging her down.
I spun around, terror etched on my face.
“Harry go! Leave me, its too late!” Hermione screamed.
I grabbed the stick she just dropped ready to slam it down, but another wolf just out of my sight jumped and wrapped it’s jaws around her throat.
Suddenly, the world began to blur. The wolves, the forest, even Hermione seemed to melt away into a swirling darkness. I felt myself falling, falling...
With a gasp, I bolted upright in my bed on the ground, heart racing and body drenched in cold sweat. My eyes darted around wildly, taking in the familiar surroundings of the Dursley’s hut, Collin curled up beside him.
I pressed a trembling hand to my chest, feeling my heart hammering against my ribs. The terror of the chase still coursed through my veins, the howls of the wolves echoing in my mind.
"It was just a dream," I whispered to myself, my voice shaky.
"Just a nightmare."
At least it was different than my usual nightmares of my parents dying in the mine. I’d had that one for as long as I can remember. Long after it had come true.
I stood up on weak legs, wincing slightly at the pain from walking in the forest yesterday. I glanced down, half-expecting to see the wolf's scratch on my calf. There was nothing there, of course, but the phantom pain lingered.
I padded over to the window, pushing aside the curtains. The sight of District Twelve greeted me with its run down shacks and nervous backward glances. No dark forests, no snarling wolves – just the quiet night.
As my breathing slowly returned to normal, I couldn't shake the vivid memory of Hermione in my dream. It had felt so real, so intense. And in a way it was. Everyone left me in the end.
As the adrenaline of my rude awakening began to fade, I couldn't help but wonder: What if it wasn't just a dream after all?
*****
Hermione
I scowled at Mom as she fussed over my hair, trying to tame it into braids.
"Come on now, we need to contain some of that puffiness," she said, her fingers working quickly. "You know how important today is."
I wanted to pull away, to let my hair be free like I usually did. But I knew better than to argue on Reaping day. Mom's hands were gentle but insistent as she separated my hair into sections.
When she finished, she turned me to face the mirror. A rare smile softened her features. "There. You look so pretty."
I had to admit, the braids did frame my face nicely. But I wasn't about to tell her that.
We walked in tense silence to the town center. Everyone was already gathered, a sea of anxious faces surrounding the stage. My eyes were drawn to the large glass bowl sitting ominously at its center.
Rita Skeeter who did the drawing every year stood out starkly against the subdued crowd. Her wild blonde curls seemed to dance around her head, defying gravity. Her outfit was something out of a story with its flashing green scales covering her body like a dress made out of body armor. As she approached the bowl, you could feel the collective intake of breath.
My heart pounded. The air crackled with nervous energy as we all waited, hoping desperately that our name wouldn't be the one pulled from that bowl. In that moment, my neatly braided hair was the least of my worries.
Rita’s claw like nails painted a garish shade of blood red snag on a piece of paper. She pulled it up to her gold cat eyed glasses and read from the small sheet of paper. My name fell off her lips.
The sound of nails scraping against paper sent a chill down my spine. Rita's claw-like fingers, painted a garish shade of blood red, snagged a slip from the bowl. The crowd collectively held its breath as she raised the paper to her face, peering at it through her gold cat-eye glasses.
Time seemed to slow. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, drowning out the whispers of the anxious crowd. Please, not me, I silently pleaded. Not me, not me, not-
"Hermione Granger," Rita's voice rang out, clear and sharp.
Suddenly the world around me blurred. I felt lightheaded, my legs threatening to give way beneath me. The carefully braided hair my mother had so lovingly arranged this morning now felt suffocating, too tight against my scalp.
I could feel the eyes of the town upon me, a mixture of relief and pity radiating from their stares. My mother's hand found mine, squeezing it tightly. When I looked up at her, I saw tears welling in her eyes, her earlier smile now a distant memory.
As the reality of what just happened sank in, I realized why she had been so insistent on making me look my best today. Somehow, she had known. And now, as I stood frozen in place, my name echoing in my ears, I understood the true weight of those pretty braids.
On shaky legs I made my way up to the stage to stand beside the vial women who just defined my fate. The rest of the drawing went by in a blur from me until a chilling cry cut the air in two.
“I volunteer, as tribute,”
My eyes focused on the skinny face of Harry Potter, who stood trembling next to his brother Collin who two Peacekeepers had started dragging up to the stage. The crowd was frozen with shock and surprise. From the hard determined look in Harry’s eyes it wasn’t hard to figure out what happened. Collin had been selected and Harry had chosen to take his place. What was surprising was that Harry did it in the first place. Loyalty to one’s own blood only stretched so far when death was on the line. No one in District Twelve had volunteered for one another in at least a hundred years. They would be talking about this event long after their bones had been laid in the earth.
Especially since Hermione had a feeling it would be happening very soon indeed.