Unknown Date, 1996, Somewhere
He ached.
That was the only way he could describe the feeling, just a bone deep ache. His back. His arms. Everything just ached. Well, almost everything. The exception of everything aching was something which was warm and comfortable and was curled up tightly against his side and wrapped in his arms.
Slowly he opened his eyes and glanced down watching the mass of familiar brown hair. He inhaled deeply, reveling in her scent and closeness. Unknowable feelings squirmed in his stomach and chest.
Pushing those feelings aside he softly whispered her name,"Hermione."
She jolted awake, her whole body tensing for a moment before she relaxed back into his chest and released a deep sigh.
"Hermione," he whispered again. "Are you alright?"
He felt her nod into his chest. "I'm fine, Harry."
"That's good. Not that I'm not perfectly happy with you in my arms like this, but I think we need to get up, and figure out exactly where we are."
She was muttering something under her breath as she slowly detached herself from his side. Once that was completed, they both sat up and looked around.
They were at the edge of a beach, but still in the woods that apparently surrounded it. Gleaming white sand dropped down to blue water. A steady breeze came from the water, which carried a heavy scent of salt and fish. The sun was barely above the horizon, and burned white hot. Its reflection was scattered across the gentle surf in a thousand sparkles of light and fire.
Harry blinked.
This was something outside of his experience. Nothing in his life had ever prepared him for a place such as this.
A warm arm wrapped around one of his, and then he felt Hermione lean her head onto his , he tucked his head to the side, resting it on top of hers.
"I've never really seen the sea before," he muttered.
Hermione's head shifted slightly, in an approximation of a nod. "This is more like the beaches of southern France than the ones you find in Britain."
"It's beautiful," he said in a whisper, a feeling of awe resting lightly against him. "I... I think I could probably stay here on this beach forever."
He felt her chuckle slightly. "I'd be more than willing to stay here with you, but sooner or later I'd want a book or two."
Harry laughed.
As the laughter faded, he heard a snap from the woods behind him.
Prior to that noise, he had not been paying much attention to anything but Hermione wrapped around his arm, and the water in front of him.
With that noise, he twisted his body, to look at the woods, his eyes scanning for the source of the disturbance.
The woods almost looked normal. There were hundreds of trees and a dense cluster of bushes. He did not recognize any of the plants though, but figured he would not since Hermione said the water did not look like it did in Britain. Dark shadows hid everything beyond a few meters.
An uneasy feeling settled across his neck, and Harry quickly stood up. He watched the woods, and held out a hand towards Hermione to help her stand as well. A familiar sense of foreboding crashed against him; that same feeling he had when the portkey had dropped him and Cedric into that graveyard.
"Somethings watching us," he whispered as Hermione stood beside him.
Part of him noted that her eyes were wider, as if she was trying to figure out what type of trees she was seeing, and failing to do so.
There was no sound, no flash of color to draw his attention, but he noticed a slight disturbance in the brush heading towards him.
When it broke through the last of leaves, it appeared to be just a ball of wind. Almost invisible, but clearly a sphere of some sort.
Acting on instinct, he grabbed Hermione and pulled her to the side as he moved out of the ball's path.
With an almost whistle, it slashed past him, and they both turned to watch it hit the water where it seemed to explode.
"I've never seen that spell before," Hermione said, her eyes still wide.
Harry nodded as he pulled out his wand. "Neither have I, and I'd rather not get hit with it."
More sounds and movement, and the bushes parted to reveal an animal of some type. It was short, roughly three feet high where it stood on its hind legs, looking just like some type of miniature dinosaur. Its skin was a bright pink and its long tail, swished behind it.
The creature's chest swelled, and then it leaned forward slightly opening its mouth to reveal long sharp teeth. A carnivore's teeth.
Harry blinked in surprise, and missed the bubble that emerged from the creature's mouth.
At least until it slammed into his chest.
Pain erupted through his body, and his breath exploded out of him. He found himself tumbling backwards into the sand as stars flared across his vision.
Hermione's scream of his name, echoed across the beach even as he struggled to stand and regain his breath.
"Reducto!" Hermione shouted again.
Harry opened his eyes, expecting to see the ball of energy flying towards the creature.
He blinked in surprise, when he realized there was nothing.
"Reducto!" She shouted again, her wand slashing through the movement.
And again there was no flare of magic. No light of a released spell. Nothing
Then one of those balls of solid air slammed against Hermione's chest. She screamed in pain as she was flung backwards. Harry finally managed to get to his feet. He darted forward, intending to physically beat the creature.
As he neared, the thing twisted around, and Harry felt the tail slam into him hard. The impact lifted him off his feet, and flung him to the side, back towards the edge of the beach near some bushes.
He landed with a loud crash, as he skittered into the bushes, until he was stopped by something fuzzy and soft.
He opened his eyes, to find himself looking at a small ball of black fur. It had two cat-like ears, and large blue, pupil-less eyes that glowed slightly. But no legs or other type of limbs.
He blinked.
It blinked in return.
"Hello," it chirped in a happy, cheerful voice.
"Hello," he mumbled in shock, even as he noted that there was no mouth for it to speak out of.
"I'm Botamon. Who're you?"
"Harry."
The thing bounced forward and seemed to sniff him, and then giggled.
Suddenly, there was an explosion of sand, and Harry turned and looked towards the creature that was still advancing towards him. He glanced around, and saw that Hermione was still on the ground, close to the water's edge.
He flicked his wand, and shouted "Stupefy!"
He could feel the energy flowing through him. Could feel it gathering in the wand. Then he even felt it release.
But the spell did not emerge from his wand.
Botamon giggled, and bounced forward.
"Peiu!" it seemed to yell, and a small bubble flew out of Botamon and slapped into the larger one.
It stumbled backwards slightly, and then growled. It was a harsh, angry sound.
"Peiu! Peiu!"
A groan attracted his attention, and he looked over to see Hermione lifting her head. He scrambled up from where he was sitting and darted across and knelt down next to him.
"'Mione, you okay?"
She nodded. "My magic's not working. How're you?"
"I'm alive, and apparently made a new friend. And my magic's not working either."
There was another explosion of sand, and a high pitched squeal.
Pain flared across his chest, and Harry twisted to see the black ball of fur flying through the air. "Botamon!"
Harry raced to Botamon's side, Hermione next to him. He knelt down, and poked at the furry thing.
"Botamon? Are you alright?"
There was the blink, of blue eyes, and that cheerful voice replied. "I've been better."
Harry nodded, "Stay behind me, and I'll see what I can do to stop this thing."
Then he stood, up and once more turned towards the pink creature.
Absently, he heard Hermione gasp. A glance over his shoulder showed that she was kneeling next to another of the legless creatures. This one was pure white with dark eyes and kitten ears.
Spinning in the air between Hermione and the legless cat was a glowing crystal shard. White light shone in its center, and its edges where a dark red. A symbol that kind of resembled a heart was etched on it.
He watched as Hermione reached out and grasped the crystal. There was a flare of energy, and suddenly she was holding a device that looked like the one that Harry had found that started this mess. Except hers was red.
A vibration against his side drew his attention, and he reached down and grabbed what was there. As soon as his hand touched it, he knew that it was the same device that he had picked up from the ground.
He looked down at the screen and saw that it was flashing with the image of Botamon.
Then the word "Digivolve" flashed across the screen.
"Digivolve?" he read out loud.
The device beeped, and he could feel a slight draw against his magic. The screen suddenly flared to life, and Harry instinctively twisted its face away from his.
He unknowingly pointed it towards Botamon; and as soon as it was, a beam of light flashed out and struck the black furry creature.
Botamon seemed to tense for a moment, before yelling out in its happy, cheerful voice, "Botamon digivolve to Koromon!"
Energy flared across the space between Harry and Botamon, and the light grew even brighter.
The small creature seemed to grow larger, his body twisting and changing. There was another flare of light. When it died, something different was sitting in Botamon's place.
It was still a round ball, but this one was pink and smooth rather than black and fuzzy. Additionally, it was twice as big and had a mouth that was displaying a big smile; a smile complete with a handful of sharp, pointed teeth. Large blue eyes with a distinct pupil glittered, and the cat ears had turned into something like long ribbons that flapped on the breeze.
"Botamon?" he asked, hesitantly.
"Nope, I'm Koromon now," the creature replied, in that same happy, cheerful voice.
Harry blinked, and shook his head.
Koromon bounced forward, and seemed to swell. Then it released a ball of flame.
The fireball flew across and slammed into the miniature dinosaur.
From his left, came a ball of air, similar to the ones that Botamon used. He glanced that way, and saw the plant thing that Hermione had found was bouncing forward and sending out a stream of the bubbles.
Another bolt came from the dinosaur, and slammed hard against the ground near Koromon. Sand exploded, as Koromon yelped.
Hermione's voice yelled out, "Digivolve!"
Another of those cheerful voices called out, "Snowbotamon digivolve to Nyaromon!"
Harry glanced over his shoulder to see another flare of light, this one with a reddish tint. The small bear cub thing shifted and grew larger. Its fur darkened, turned orange with brown tiger stripes. The bear cub ears twisted becoming cat like, and a long tail twirled out from its back.
A stream of pink bubbles erupted from it, larger and brighter than the ones it shot earlier. They slammed against the dinosaur creature, exploding into multi-colored blobs as the creature wrenched its head away from the attack.
Harry shifted back to look towards Koromon again, and watched in amazement as Koromon spat another blob of fire. This one caught the dinosaur in the mouth as it was drawing in a breath to attack.
The creature stumbled back with a cry of pain. Its whole body twitched and then flickered. It froze in position like a hung computer game. There was another of those odd flickerings where it seemed to stop existing for moments before reappearing. Glowing white lines slithered across its body creating a grid of glowing lines.
The glowing lines pulsed, and the squares that had made up of the grid expanded outwards slightly, and then they began to drift up and away. As they did so, they began flickering. A moment later, they had all flickered away, and not returned.
In the space of a few seconds, the entire creature had disappeared in this way. In its place was a handful of squares of light.
Harry walked over and looked down, frowning at the squares.
Koromon bounced over and looked down as well.
"Just some junk data left over from the deletion," Koromon said, with a tone of voice that Harry knew would have been accompanied by a shrug had he said it.
Or had Harry knew what Koromon was talking about in the first place.
He glanced towards Hermione who was holding the cat thing. For a moment, he wondered if she was just lucky enough to find the only cat monster or if it was some other effect by whatever magic brought them here.
"Harry," Hermione said, her voice holding a tense confusion. "This is Snowbotamon. Snowbotamon, this is Harry."
"Hi Harry! But Hermione was saying wrong. I'm Nyaromon now." Nyaromon said in one of those cheerful, pipping voices.
"Uhm, hello," Harry said in reply. He felt distinctly odd and uneasy in talking with whatever these things were.
Koromon bounced towards them, humming an odd jaunty song as he did so.
Harry scrubbed at his face for a moment. "This place is beginning to get to me. Our magic's not working, and we have talking cats and balls of... pink, that can shoot something, and then dinosaurs. I have no idea what these... things are."
Koromon laughed. A sound of cheerful, tinkling bells. "We're digimon! More importantly, we're your friends!"
Harry looked at the thing, and blinked. He raised a hand and rubbed at his scar.
"Do you know where we are?" he asked Koromon.
"We're on File Island, of course."
"File Island?" Hermione said, her voice still held that odd tenseness. "I've never heard of any place named that before."
Again, Koromon seemed to shrug invisible shoulders. "I know it's not as big a place as Server, but it's where we're at."
Harry sighed, as he again scrubbed his face. Then he focused his attention on Hermione. "I know I saw some of the others being picked up as well, do you remember seeing anyone else?"
Hermione shook her head. "I know that Neville, Ron, Ginny and Luna were there with us, when that wind picked us up. But I don't remember much after you grabbed my hand."
Nodding, Harry looked around, and then pointed in one direction. "Well, I say we head this way. I'd like to see if we can find any of the others before we try and figure out a way to get home."
Hermione glanced the way Harry pointed, and then focused on him again before nodding her head. "That sounds like as good a plan as any."
Together, they started walking along the edge of the beach. Water on their right with the woods on their left. Besides each of them, their digimon bounced along following.