"..."
"Excuse me, who's over there?"
"..."
(ー`′ー)
"Me!"
o(′^｀)o
"Ah! I finally found you!!"
Beside the Whomping Willow on the edge of the Forbidden Forest—a place no one dared visit lightly, where they risked getting beaten up or even losing their lives just to find out what it was like to court death—Hermione Granger had finally found the Professor Annie from her Magic Open Class, just as she had hoped.
"!!"
"Thank goodness!"
Hermione knew that after catching some of the Fantastic Beasts in the Forbidden Forest, a certain little girl would often hide here to hold a barbecue party or cook Potions—though Hermione had no idea what was so great about either. So, after failing to find her in Hogwarts Castle or get any answers by asking around, Hermione had first walked along the lakeshore, then gone around Professor Pomona Sprout's greenhouses, where she cultivated her plants. In the end, she had indeed found the little figure here.
Hermione had just been thinking that if she couldn't find Annie even here, she would have to go into the Forbidden Forest to look for her...
But she wouldn't dare run into that dangerous forest alone. She wasn't confident enough to think she could handle every unknown danger lurking in its depths! Besides, Hagrid, the Forbidden Forest's groundskeeper, definitely wouldn't let her in. She didn't want to barge in and get Gryffindor points taken away!
"Annie, I've been looking for you all over the castle, but I never expected you'd be hiding here..."
Hermione went straight over, because she knew that with Annie there, the terrifying Whomping Willow wouldn't swing its dreadful branches at her—the kind that could smash a carriage window or a rock with a single strike.
"I'm not hiding!!"
.(??ˇ?ˇ??).
Seeing the familiar Hermione, little Annie didn't