Hello, my pets.

Firstly, so terribly sorry about being slow-to-update; I'm back at school and let me tell you it does a number on my writing time. Everything is settling down just fine, though, and so I shouldn't take too long to update, once I get a routine established.

Disclaimer: I own neither Little Red Riding Hood nor Harry Potter. The only thing I am responsible for is the way they are combined in the following paragraphs. I would be much obliged if you did not steal them.

Reviews make me unbelievably joyous.

Edited 06/26/2014

Once upon a time, there was a village nestled against a thick and foreboding forest where lived a girl who was as beautiful as the day was long. Her eyes were large like two white-blue moons and her hair shone like spiderwebs in the sunshine. She had rose-colored lips and high applecheeks and everyone agreed that surely she was the most exquisite creature to ever grace the little village. When she was born, her mother named her "Astoria." Astoria was named for a purple-yellow shock of a flower that grew when the weather was warm and the word that some dead civilization used for the stars. Astoria: Lovely, frail, and pale. She was everything that beauty should be, but something in her eyes hinted that there was poison under her porcelain skin. She smiled just a little too wide at the village boys and laughed a little too loud at silly jokes. Of course no one hated Astoria – it was a small village and hatred was a very dangerous idea to throw around, especially in these dark times – but they knew to be nervous around her the same way cattle know how to be wary of hungry howls carried on the wind.

All admired Astoria for afar, but none loved her. None except for Hermione, that is. Hermione, named for the virtuous and beautiful queen of some dead poet's vision, was everything that Astoria was not. Her hair flew indecisively about her head and her eyes, though a decent shape and size, were an average, muddy brown. While not a soul could say that she was not comely in her own way, she was distinctly plain and no more appealing than dirt when placed next to the ethereal and airy Astoria. This did not deter Hermione from befriending the statuesque young girl, though.

While the village kept the quiet and lovely Astoria at a distance, they held Hermione to them with warm and loving arms, for Hermione was as kind and intelligent as her friend was lovely. "Ah!" Many a villager had lamented, "If only Hermione had Astoria's features or Astoria, Hermione's gifts and heart! What a lovely girl that would be!"

The two girls had been friends from childhood and never was one seen without the other. This was very well and good as far as the rest of the village was concerned; it was better to have them together than apart, after all. Strange things happened when either girl was around, but less frequently when they were together. Still, the unexplained events that followed the unlikely pair like shadows were not discussed. Such talk could be seen as unnecessary – or even dangerous- these days.

In recent times, a plague of deaths and bad luck had invaded the little village, and instead of speaking in laughter and smiles, the denizens scurried about their business with their eyes rolling and their lips thin. There had been Trouble, strange Trouble, and it had come from the woods.

The Trouble was first announced by Vernon the Farmer when he ran into town, announcing that his flock had been slaughtered in the night.

"Wolves," The elders nodded to each other, their eyes flying anywhere but on the bloody and deflated bodies of Vernon's sheep.

A week later, Trouble returned on quick feet, when the screams of Hannah Abbot echoed around the village square, the sound bouncing off of the high trees and scaring the horses. A troop of men with torches and pitchforks found her lying in a teary heap, just on the edge of the forest. Mr. Granger (the town barber-surgeon) had reported that there was not a mark on her body. When the girl had recovered enough sense to explain, she just shook a trembling head. All she could remember were pointed faces and barking laughter.

"Terror of wolves," Agreed the elders, talking amongst themselves and leaving the stricken girl too soon to hear Hannah's tripping tongue decree once, and only softly to Hermione, that the wolves had spoken, although in a language she did not understand. "Crucio," She told Hermione, her eyes wide with honest fear, "That's all they said."

A mist settled like water over the town next, and with it came a bleakness and misery that spread like a sickness through the houses. Shops closed and windows stared vacantly out at empty streets.

Tom the Crier began acting strangely. His face was pale and his eyes were dead. His wife, Mary, whispered tearfully to her neighbors that he had been rising in the middle of the night and walking into the dark woods, which swallowed him instantly from her view. She never followed him, of course. She was heavy with child and the woods were dangerous, besides. No one went into the woods anymore, if they could help it.

And the elders could not explain this, but felt no need to. These were dark times, after all, and men sometimes did strange things.

Less than a fortnight after Mary had brought her fears to the elders, Tom killed her. Mrs. Dursley had walked into Tom and Mary's kitchen to find Mr. Riddle's hands clasped around Mrs. Riddle's purpled throat. The only sound was the drip, drip, drip of the tears that ran unchecked down Tom's cheeks. Vernon and his enormous son, Dudley, were forced to break Tom's fingers to remove them from Mary's throat, and by then, her body was as cold as stone.

And the elders did not look each other in the eye and Tom was hanged and life limped along in the village as best it could, although none went near Tom Riddle's now empty house, if they could help it.

"It's got to be someone like us," Hermione whispered to her friend as they walked the Granger's horse to the stream. Everything was whispered these days, even when there was no one else around to hear.

"They say it's wolves," responded Astoria in her articulate and ineffectual way.

"But you don't actually believe that, do you?" Hermione replied, rolling her eyes, "You can't seriously think that everything that has been happening here recently is because of a pack of silly wolves? There haven't even been wolves iaround here for almost a hundred years!"

Astoria's enormous eyes turned languidly on Hermione, "I think," she said quietly, "That it might be bad for us to start telling people that someone like us is making these things happen. I think it would associate us unnecessarily with the wrong people. Besides," she tossed her platinum head, "We can only turn sheep pink or make candles light just by thinking about them. Neither of us has ever conjured mist or made a man kill his wife."

Hermione weighed her friend's words. Astoria had always been very good at looking out for them both and keeping them out of trouble. So, Hermione let the subject drop, trusting her friend's conniving mind.

Later that same morning, a letter arrived in town for Astoria from her Grandmother. Astoria's mother had died shortly after childbirth, and consumption had claimed the lives of her father and elder sister later that same year, leaving only the baby Astoria and "The Greengrass Witch" to carry on the family name. Of course, everyone knew that the old Greengrass woman could not be a witch (such things were not real), but the entire family had been distinctly odd.

One could always count on the Greengrass Witch for a tincture or brew to cure ailments, but only if the enquirer was brave enough to travel into the woods to her cottage. Due to the events of recent months, however, the number of souls brave or foolish enough to pass through the dark trees had decreased. Not even Astoria ventured into the woods any longer, although no one was too surprised at that. She had been living with the Grangers for many years and traveled to see her grandmother only when the Witch needed something from town delivered.

The letter that came into town today, clutched in the talons of the speckled brown owl that The Greengrass Witch kept as a pet, carried an unwelcome mission for Astoria. It demanded supplies from town and urgently, too.

Astoria looked unhappily at Hermione. She hated her grandmother and made no secret about it to her friend. "I don't want to go," she said simply, "The old hag can starve for all I care, or shrivel up, or do whatever it is that old hags do when they don't get supplies."

Hermione, who had always rather liked the old woman (she had an endless supply of books, which Hermione greatly appreciated), smiled appealingly back. "She's not all that bad," she tried to reason.

Astoria's bottom lip trembled. "But it's dangerous to go into the woods now! She has to know that! Oh, I hate her! I hate her!" She covered her pretty mouth with a dainty hand, muffling a sob.

Hermione felt her own heart softening at her friend's tears. "Surely it isn't as bad as you think it is," she wheedled, throwing a comforting arm around the younger girl.

"But I can't think of a way to get out of this, Hermione! I can't think of anything at all!"

"Well," said Hermione, reluctantly. She wasn't entirely sure that what she was about to suggest would be a good alternative, but really, what choice did she have? Astoria had never been particularly brave. Not like her, anyway. "I suppose I could run a basket of things out to her," she pronounced slowly.

Astoria's outlook changed in a flash, and Hermione knew she had been played as astutely as when Astoria convinced boys to fetch her flowers from the edge of the wood. "You really wouldn't mind?" she asked hopefully.

"Well, I suppose not," conceded Hermione finally. She had already offered, and how dangerous could a few silly, nonexistent, wolves be, anyway? Hermione was sure that she could take care of herself. "I've got to return a few book to her, besides."

"Oh, thank you, Hermione!" sang Astoria, "I'll even lend you my riding cloak, if you'd like. The pretty red one!"

Hermione, who had always secretly loved the thick red material, found this to be some consolation, at least.

A few hours later, just as the sun was reaching the highest point in the sky overhead, Hermione threw the red cloak over her thin shoulders and picked up the basket from the table.e "I'm leaving," she said, secretly annoyed with the haste Astoria had made to prepare everything for her journey. "I'll be back by nightfall," Hermione promised, and stepped out of the door and into the woods.

The woods were lovely, although eerily silent, as though all of the birds and small creatures were holding their breath while the girl in the little red riding cloak walked by them.

Very soon, she came to a fork in the road, and there she stood for a moment to consider a patch of flowers that was illuminated by a jagged mouth of light which had somehow fallen through the trees. Ought she to pick some for the grandmother? Everyone knew that you were not to leave the trail, but surely, a few feet and a handful of lovely white daisies wouldn't hurt anything, would they? She decided that the Greengrass Witch would be happy with a few pretty flowers, and probably also for the Monkshood that was growing a little further from the trail.

She had gathered an armful of daisies and herbs and was heading back toward the path when a smooth voice from behind her called out, "Good afternoon, Young Miss. And what, pray, are you doing?" Hermione's heart rioted at the noise, and her hair and her cloak whipped behind her as she turned.

She was quite perplexed by the sight that greeted her. Leaning against a tree was a handsomely dressed gentleman. His arms were folded lazily over his chest and a slim piece of wood was held loosely in his fingers. The most remarkable thing about this man, though, was his face, which was hidden behind the mask of what looked like a large gray dog.

"Good afternoon," she replied, curtsying and sounding much braver than she felt.

The well-dressed young man unfolded his arms and stalked toward her. She took an involuntary step backward.

"I'm afraid," said the figure's drawling voice again, taking a step forward, "That this is a very dangerous place for young girls to be walking these days."

She bristled slightly at this, despite her fear. 'Little girl'? Who did this fellow think he was? She asked him as much.

He chuckled and spread his arms wide, bowing deeply to her. "Why, I am simply Mister Wolf, and a pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss...?"

"If you're only Mr. Wolf, then I suppose that I'm only Red Riding Hood," she quipped before she could stop herself. There was something at once thrilling and terrifying about this young man, and although answering in this way sent a thrill of terror down her spine, it also invigorated her. She caught the wolf's gray eyes with her own, and something hungry stared back at her.

"A fitting response, Miss Hood," purred Mr. Wolf, "But alas! I've lost my way, you see. Tell me, do you know where I am?"

Now, Hermione was no fool, and it was obvious that Mr. Wolf was lying, and although better sense warned her to simply leave now, curiosity was stronger and so she responded. "You are in the Black Forest, at the fork of the Path of Needles and the Path of Pins."

"And where does each path lead?" Asked Mr. Wolf as he circled her. She turned in place, keeping her face on his. The cloak rustled the dead leaves around her feet, sounding like applause or quiet laughter.

Hermione licked her lips before answering again, "They meet again at the Cottage of Lady Greengrass."

"Is that where you are going today?" inquired the wolf, too politely.

Ah yes. Now Hermione knew what he was after. "I'll not tell you that," she replied firmly. To her surprise, he merely chuckled at this and she had the overwhelming feeling that he was laughing at her.

"Very well, Red Riding Hood. But tell me this, at least: Does the Greengrass Witch have a granddaughter?"

"Yes," she said in a slow and puzzled voice. This was certainly an unusual question to be asked by a stranger in the wood.

The man in the mask took a graceful step forward, dead twigs snapping like bones under his boots, "And tell me true, Red Riding Hood, for I have heard it said that the Greengrass Witch is a most accomplished seamstress."

"That is one of her many talents, yes," Replied the girl in the cloak cautiously, taking an involuntary step back as he moved forward again.

"Then certainly the Greengrass Witch would use all of this skill to craft something lovely for her young granddaughter?" He suggested, his voice sounded half like a growl and half like a purr, and as he took another step forward, he twirled the thin piece of wood between kid-gloved fingers.

She clutched the cloak tighter around herself protectively, "That would be a logical assumption, yes," said lion-hearted Hermione, her voice clear and loud despite her mounting terror.

The man in the mask made to take another step forward, but as he did, the dry leaves on the ground before him burst into flame. He paused, looking coolly down at the newly-sprouted bright blue flames for a moment before saying in a clear and disinterested voice, "Aguamenti." A stream of silvery water shot from the end of the thin stick he carried and he directed it at the flames.

Steam curled between them like ethereal fingers and he turned his cold gray eyes back to her face. "Well, well, well," he said in his low and unbothered voice, "That is an interesting trick you have, Little Red Riding Hood. Now, tell me this, which path do you plan to take today?"

Too shocked to do anything but tell the truth, she told him, "The Path of Pins."

He shook his long gray face, "No, it would be best to take the Path of Needles, for the light is fast fading and that road is much the shorter. You'd do well not to stray from the path again," He warned ominously as he bowed out of her way, "There are terrible monsters in these woods that would like nothing more than to devour delicious little girls like you. Run along to your grandmother's house and pray stop for no one."

Without even bothering to correct his assumption that she was the Greengrass Witch's granddaughter, she hastened down the path, the red cloak billowing wide and terrible like a great vermilion beast close on her heels.