He felt pain he had never felt before. Excruciating pain. Blinding pain. He fell onto his hands and knees atop the wet ground, his head bowed. His glasses fell from his face but he paid no heed. His eyes were closed anyway from the agony.
Suddenly, he felt hands touching his cheeks. He gasped and his eyes flew wide open. He saw her face - her sweet, beautiful, and worried face - looking at him closely. The full moon shone brightly in the sky and illuminated her features. He saw her clearly even without his glasses; saw the freckles dotting her cheeks, saw the tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. He couldn’t decipher if it was because of the light of the moon or his heightening senses.
“Hermione,” he gasped her name. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe. You need to go, now!”
“I don’t… I don’t want to leave you,” she whimpered, the tears finally spilling.
Shakily, he brought a hand up. With difficulty, he wiped away the sadness from her cheeks. “I’ll be okay,” he whispered, even as his body convulsed once again. “Please go. I... I can’t bear it if I hurt you.”
With a desperate sob, her arms closed around his neck in an embrace. He allowed the warmth of her body to soothe his pains for a moment before she pulled away.
“You better be okay, Harry Potter,” she told him sternly, her eyes seeking for a promise. “Please. I’ll be waiting for you.”
She kissed him on the cheek and then she was gone. It was so quick that his brain didn’t even comprehend it happened until another shock wracked his body.
His head looked towards the moon. It was calling to him. Beckoning. He closed his eyes and allowed the change to engulf him.
Green eyes blinked open amidst thick, black fur. The werewolf stood on its hind legs and howled at the moon.
Even as it ran away from the clearing, one painfully human thought cut through feral instincts.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Micca’s Notes: A drabble written for Two-Hundred Words Drabble Tuesdays from the HMS Harmony Discord server (link)... even though I definitely went over 200 words! I will be posting this on my drabble collection called “Pensive” on FFN and Ao3 eventually.
