As Long As You Need Me

Chapter XIII

"I am." she quickly said, "No, really I am. But other than the occasional ravens and squirrels, we haven't seen much till now...and we've come all this way..."

If truth be told, they were only taking a break because of her; she had to jump over the puddles that had formed because of the recent bouts of rain, climb over particularly huge logs and be extra careful to not slip and fall over mossy stones or gnarly trunks of fallen trees. Snape was always finding it rather easy to navigate his way around all of them and couldn't even be found with his breath elevated. If only something was bothering him were his robes, which kept getting caught on the prickly bushes. She knew he would have trouble with his usual clothes here.

"Here...you can hand it over." Hermione reached out to take his cloak.

"No, that's fine, you don't have to carry it-"

"It's okay, I'll put it inside the satchel. I've charmed it to expand from the inside." She took the robe and stuffed it inside the bag, which magically swallowed the entire cloth in, without making it look fat from the outside.

They started off again and this time the trees grew thicker, with much denser undergrowth and canopies of wild creepers overhead, along with a more noticeable chill in the air. Snape cleared her previous concern by saying that the really rare beasts were not going to be presented to them on a platter by hovering at the edges of the forest, but would be hiding in the more interior parts of it, such as where they had reached by then.
"Don't stray too far away." he cautioned, keeping a watchful eye on every direction.

"Look there." Snape pointed out and there perched on a branch was a pair of bluish-gray Jabberknolls. They quitely went after the birds from behind and Snape muttered a silent binding incantation; one got trapped in it but the other managed to fly away. He pulled it down to their height and narrowly avoided getting clawed by its talons, while Hermione carefully picked a few of its feathers.

The bird didn't make a sound although it struggled vehemently and Snape explained that it only made noises right before it was about to die. Then he let it go and they carried on.

"Jabberknoll feathers are used in Truth serums and other memory potions and..what the-?" Snape jerked around as he felt a wiggle in his ear. It was a custard-coloured Pygmy Puff that was trying to use its long slender tongue to pick bogeys out of his ear and he snatched it up in his hand, trapping it tightly in his palm and letting Hermione take a closer look. She was rather confused as to why he would hurt such a cute little fluffy thing.

"Pygmy Puffs' or Puffskeins' hair can be used in certain potions like the Laughing potion. Do you have something to shave it?" he asked her.

Hermione rummaged through her bag. "Um, I have a pair of scissors- will they do?"

As they were cutting off a few strands of its hair, a group of Puffskeins came bobbing up to them, and Snape let the first one go to join the others. As Hermione was putting the hair inside a small packet, he touched her arm, conveying his concern. "There are too many Puffskeins here. Do you know that they eat spiders? We might have come too close to the nest of Acromantulas. We need to get away from here."

He looked quite serious and Hermione quickly wrapped up her things and made to go. But suddenly, she slipped on some muck and landed on all fours over something smelly and gooey, that looked like dung. "Shit." she cursed. "Yuck!"

"Ms.Granger, you should be more careful about your footing." he said, exasperated, although offering a hand to help her up.

"Sorry, I just-"

But he was more concentrated on what caused her fall. He went down on his haunches to inspect the dung closely. "That is not just any excrement." He scratched his chin, nodding. "That's Mooncalf dung."