AN: First of all, I don't own any of these characters. They belong to J.K. Rowling. This is purely for my own amusement as I experience writers block or frustration in my own original writing. This is a story originally started under the username dosiab that was taken down from that account a long time ago. I've been given permission to finish this and her other unfinished stories here. There will be some changes to them as I revise and publish - but I was asked to complete them as i see fit since dosiab does not expect to find time to finish the stories. The Lift, A Muggle at Hogwarts, and The Feeling of a Moment will all be finished by me and then I'll start adding my own works!
I hope you enjoy this story! I would love to hear any thoughts - good or bad - as I progress through this story. Even if it's just a word, any feedback as I work on this is a great support.
My plan is to make weekly updates.
-Eugenei
The Design of a Fighter
Chapter 1
Deep, deep down a calling and a question came. Nothing more than a dream, and yet so real it felt. Come to me, it said.
Not yet, she despaired, staving off the sweeping chill threatening to cover her body. Perseverance.
But soon, soon you will know.
Know what? When she asked, she was submerged and a vision came, hazy, but threatening to shatter everything in her world order. Her body and mind begged to know what called to her, but to know without experiencing - it was her preferred type of knowing. Safe and clear. Logical and neat.
So she fought and her stubbornness held out in dream after dream, night after night, always resisting the call she'd known since Harry's disappearance. Ever since -
"Mudblood!" The shriek of Bellatrix Lestrange shattered the still quiet in the dungeon of Malfoy Manor. "Mudblood it's time to wake up!"
Hermione Granger's eyes reluctantly opened and she turned, automatically, onto her side to face the stone wall beside her. Her hand grappled in the dark, before her fingers finally closed around a sharp pointed rock.
"Mudblood you better be upstairs in two minutes!"
The torches from the dungeon halls flared, now providing enough light for Hermione to see the etchings in the wall beside her. A series of tick marks stretched farther up the wall than she liked to think about. She sat up, rubbing out the stiffness in her neck before she reached up and dragged the rock in her hand against the stone wall. Another day in captivity. Four hundred and twelve.
She let the rock fall with a light clatter onto the floor and she stood, combining the movement with a futile gesture to brush the dirt of the floor off her person. Futile because she was always filthy - filth was in her nature. Now, her exterior rightly matched her interior. As below, so above - they reminded her of that every day.
Squaring her shoulders, she braced herself for another day serving the masters of Malfoy Manor. The property was, by now, 'Malfoy' in name only. It was run fully, and cruelly, by Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione had given up on any hope of escaping this infernal hellhole long ago. At one time, the daring and comforting schemes of escape would bubble to the surface of her mind, a sure sign of the fire still within her. Lately, she wasn't sure that fire was still there.
Upon opening the heavy wooden door to the first floor, Hermione found herself facing sets of floor to ceiling windows in a marbled hallway, showing the outside to be bathed in the first morning sunshine in what felt like weeks. No dreary, overcast clouds to hide the blazing sunrise in all its glory. It was almost inspiring. But Hermione couldn't linger and she couldn't be late. She followed the bright windowed hallway to the left until she met a set of grand double doors and opened them into a dreary, heavily curtained Great Hall. The room was of an antiquated style, with ornate decorations and lavish furnishings; it was clearly intended for the Lords and Ladies who lived here in the times that such titles were still acknowledged with fervor in the wizarding world, just like the muggle world. Such tendencies had been long out of fashion, but not for Bellatrix and the rest of the Death Eaters. As if inspired by Divine Right, she sat at the head of the hall, watching her most prized prisoner make the long walk to the end of the aisle to bow before her in sight of eight other masked Death Eaters.
Any warmth in spirits drained from Hermione's being upon catching the particularly deranged gaze on Bellatrix's face this morning. Her dark soulless eyes honed in on her prey as the grandfather clock in the great hall chimed the hour with six booming tolls.
"You know what time it is, mudblood. Bow," she crooned, watching with a lazy, satisfied smirk as the younger woman bowed before her. It didn't take Hermione long to conform to this daily task, as the constant Crucios would have eventually driven her to the point of madness. With all else lost, Hermione was determined to keep her wits about her.
She kept her head down, having also learned never to meet Bellatrix's eyes unless directed.
"You will kneel, but raise your face to the ceiling. You are not to make eye contact nor look at any of us," Bellatrix stated.
"Some of you may recognize her, but all of you will know her name. Hermione Granger..." Bellatrix paused for the rustle of movement and the hushed whispers and gasps emitted from her audience. "...was captured over a year ago. Lucius had been keeping this little gem a secret for some time. I only discovered soon before his death...Potter's dear little mudblood, found! After four years on the run. Not surprisingly, Lucius did a poor job of breaking her in. But I've remedied that…" Bellatrix stepped down from her throne and took Hermione's jaw in her hands, pinching her thin, bony fingers sharply into Hermione's cheeks. At all costs, Hermione kept her eyes averted from the hideous and manic face, framed by a dried out mane of dull black hair, now looming above her own. "She's learned that the pureblood is mightier than the mudblood."
"Is she...tarnished?" one of the masks asked.
"Nothing more than this, here," Bellatrix said, holding out the bare arm on which Mudblood was still inscribed for all the rest to see. "In fact, you can watch as I renew it today."
Without the slightest warning, Hermione found herself prostrate on the floor. Her jaw collided with a bang off stone, sure to leave a bruise. Hermione knew what was coming, and knew it would be the worst time yet as she was then flung onto her back and her body forced into complete immobilization. She could sense Bellatrix standing beside her, only just out of reach.
"I like to remind her of what she is. This is, truly, my greatest handiwork to date, I must say."
An musty odour radiated from the wretched woman who then crouched over her, wrenching Hermione's arm out to the side of her body, palm up. Silent tears pricked at Hermione's eyes in anticipation of what was to come.
Bellatrix twirled a silver knife with a black smudge across the tip right in front of Hermione's face.
"This time we're using a mixture of Genthis poison and Verrabon serum." As Bellatrix spoke, Hermione could make out the scent of putrid sulfur rising from the smudge. Had Hermione been capable of moving, a struggle would have ensued. Genthis - a tiny scorpion like creature with venom that did not cause death, but the most excruciating pain where inserted into the bloodstream. As it was, all she could do was feel her heart rate quicken and her body fill with horror, incapable of being addressed. And the Verrabon would ensure she couldn't pass out, even if the pain became so intense her mind shut down. There was truly no escape.
"She will feel this for some time after," Bellatrix said loudly, now speaking to her audience. "Days, maybe weeks or even a month, depending on the strength of the venom. And I bet this is strong. It's always strongest in young ones, and I took this from one only two weeks old."
At first only the knife. With the first arch of the 'M' reopened, Hermione was foolish enough to begin thinking that maybe the mixture wasn't as potent as Bellatrix had hoped. By the time the second arch was completed, tears had started to pour silently from her wide open eyes.
"Ah yes, there it goes. Oh it's a powerful mixture, no doubt about that."
Her arm burned and it spread, spread even as far as her toes until her entire being felt consumed by an invisible fire. "Let's see how she does without the constraints, shall we?"
And then the charm was lifted and Hermione realized she had been silently screaming, as just as soon as the charm liften, her voice in a sharp and desperate cry broke the tense silence of the room. She tugged and twisted and contorted her body in an attempt to get away, but in the pain she found herself weak and utterly incapable of challenging the strength of Bellatrix, now halfway done with the word. So Hermione screamed louder, now begging for her to stop. Begging for someone, anyone, to step in and make it all just stop.
But of course no one did. No one moved or made a sound, not until Bellatrix was finally done and Hermione felt the last tug of the knife closing the 'D'. But even in the absence of the knife, a burning still coursed through her body.
"So much dirty blood," Bellatrix observed, running her forefinger over the wound, agitating the fresh opening. Hermione yelped and was smacked into silence.
"That's enough, mudblood." She flicked the blood into Hermione's face, and the warm liquid slid slowly across her upturned cheek. "I have quite the surprise for you today, little mudblood. There have been inquiries..." Bellatrix whispered
What kind of inquiries? Hermione would've vocalized aloud once. She might have even chanced a glance at the Death Eaters surrounding them, watching the display with keen interest. She couldn't tell from their faces, but the energy in the room was rife with curiosity, even desire.
As Hermione summoned her will to keep her mouth shut and eyes averted from her tormentors, she longed, not for the first time, for the days when Lucius Malfoy was still alive. So deranged was this woman that even Lucius Malfoy seemed decent. Decent. A man who planted a horcrux on a little girl of eleven to just to stoke the fire in a decades long blood feud. That man was decent.
Hermione realized soon after her capture that Mr. Malfoy didn't keep slaves because it brought him joy. He did so because those were his orders - orders which over time, Hermione believed he cared less and less about carrying out. The Malfoy patriarch, despite the apparent victory of the pure blooded cause, lived in complete and utter misery. He hated his position, and from snippets of overheard conversation, it was clear he never regained his once high status with his Lord and Master. Most peculiar to Hermione was the indication he gave, privately, that he didn't even seem to care. Lucius Malfoy finished his days as a husk of a man, living like a ghost in his own home, doing the bare minimum to keep up appearances in front of other Death Eaters. Servants were only ever asked to come up for minimal cleaning of the house, when he thought visitors might drop in, checking up on his management. Sometimes, prisoners were called out for interrogations. These, Hermione learned on various occasions, were half hearted attempts at gleaning any information of use for finding Harry, who was still missing after four years.
But all of that changed the day he died - the last time any members of the Order tried to liberate the captives of Malfoy Manor. There had been so many casualties that day on both sides, but she knew the Order must have been weakened drastically after that valiant failure...Ron...Hermione had seen it, only moments after Lucius fell, a false flash of victory before every hope crumbled around her. She could still see the last light of his defeated, watery blue eyes fade in her dreams before the voice came, before that call to the unknown.
Bellatrix quite suddenly snapped her fingers and a mean little house elf materialized at her side.
"My Mistress has called?"
"Take her away and do as I instructed last night," Bellatrix ordered the taciturn elf. If Hermione should be afraid, she didn't have the capacity to feel it now.
"Yes, my Mistress," the elf said with a low, gallant bow.
The elf clutched her arm in it's cold, spindly hand and a second later, she landed on a surprisingly soft surface. In her muddled, pain addled state, she barely registered her surroundings - a serenely decorated room with a small bed covered in white linens, a cream chaise, and a vanity table.
"You will drink this," the elf said after she was guided to the bed. "For sleep."
In a healthy state of mind, Hermione would never have taken anything provided by the house elf of Bellatrix Lestrange, but sleep under any circumstances appealed to her desperate need to shut out all the pain coursing through her body.
A few hours later, Hermione woke to find another elf busying itself around the room.
"What was it you gave me to drink?" she demanded, sitting up on the be to watch the elf set out vials on the vanity table. She wondered because it couldn't have been a simple sleep potion she'd been given. Hermione felt better than she had in days. Four hundred and twelve days to be exact.
"Not the mudblood's business," it replied.
"Your Mistress couldn't have forbidden you to answer that question," Hermione said, pushing her luck. In fact, she knew Bellatrix likely wouldn't have told the elf one iota of information
The creature glared at her. "My Mistress said it was a rejuvenation potion," he replied coldly, hating to answer the questions of such a filthy human. "I know nothing else and wouldn't tell you if I did." Even the elves here were taught they were superior to muggle borns; the most wicked among them reveled in their only source of superiority to anyone or anything.
"Follow me," the house elf ordered.
Hermione followed the elf down a dimly lit hallway to a glittering candle-lit washroom.
"Bath. You have thirty minutes, then put this on," the elf ordered, tossing her a wrapped parcel and slamming the door shut as he left.
Hermione was left alone, wondering. She didn't consider how to use this time alone to her advantage - all thought of escape was futile now, she knew. Even if it had entered her mind, the window looking out over the grounds told her she must be at least three stories up, and therefore too high for escape. Had she even been able to escape, dementors surrounded the Manor and had for some time. But the blazing sun of the late afternoon also told her that they must not be out there today, which was odd. She wondered why that might be. And why that would coincide with her position, in this washroom, finally able to clear away the filth she'd accumulated. She wondered, but she didn't protest. To fail in doing what she was told would end in far greater disaster. So she bathed and then dressed, pulling on the robe from the parcel just in time for the elf to burst in without a knock.
"Quickly now," the elf said.
"Where are you taking -" but then she couldn't hear her own voice.
"No questions," the elf said. "More grooming and cleaning. Quickly now or we'll be late."
The elf disappeared, dragging Hermione in silent protest along with him.
They landed back in the room where Hermione had slept before.
She felt the robe fall from her shoulder and around her she sensed at least three elves working on her hair and attending to her makeup. Hermione balked silently as they started removing hair all over her body. Grooming. Apparently grooming of all kinds and it was this that led to the first inkling of what must be in store for her tonight. They covered her in mild, sweet scented lotions and styled her hair so it fell in soft waves over her shoulders.
Hermione watched with zero satisfaction as her tired and dull appearance from living in the darkness of a dungeon transformed into soft, glowing beauty. The knots in her stomach tightened and shifted as the the elves wrapped her in a nearly sheer flowing, silky gown. There could be only one reason for the extent of this improvement.
"Let's go, we are almost late," the same ornery elf said, pinching Hermione's wrist in it's slender fingers. She didn't have time to protest. She hardly had the energy. She went to her doom feeling lower than any other moment in her life and it seemed that for the life of her, she'd lost the will to find the will to hope.
"Finally," Bellatrix hissed at the elf as they materialized in front of Bellatrix waiting quite anxiously outside a set of double doors through which music and conversation could be heard. "The guests are getting impatient."
"Sorry, Mistress," the elf said bowing low.
"Go inside and check on the refreshments," Bellatrix ordered and the elf scampered off.
"Such improvement," Bellatrix said, circling Hermione. "You will behave and you will do anything that I ask of you, is that understood?"
"Yes," Hermione replied, bowing her head.
"You know there will be pain if you resist. So I'd advise playing along."
"Yes," Hermione said again. She didn't need these affirmations to know what her fate would be if she resisted anything Bellatrix had in mind.
Bellatirx then led Hermione into the room, which was a brightly lit dance hall by the looks of it. In one corner a band played and in another food and drinks were offered in plenty. Around the entire perimeter of the room was a balcony with doors that led off to other parts of the Manor that Hermione had never seen. Hermione was ushered through the throngs of people and then placed Hermione in a chair on a platform at the head of the room. From there, Hermione sat alone, watching the party unfold around her and it didn't take long to realize the purpose of the gathering. Death Eaters filled the room, engaged in what they considered pleasant conversation, but there were others in the same style of robes as Hermione. Other slaves. Some walked arm in arm with particular Death Eaters as a display of ownership. Men too walked about in robes of the same colors, but flattering for the masculine form. All were there for one thing - to be sold and used for sexual favors with the Death Eater who bid the highest.
Just below Hermione's seat on the mocking throne, Bellatrix and Narcissa stood debating:
"Your husband is no longer here, Cissy," Bellatrix admonished, but then took on a softer tone. "I know you want them. I see it in you, in your eyes. Any one of them would have you, and they'd do anything you want. Because look at you..." It was true that Narcissa possessed a true beauty. But Hermione wretched at the truth in Bellatrix's words. There were more than a few muggleborn men here clearly hoping to be used by the powerful Malfoy matriarch.
"It has been some time…" Narcissa agreed as her eyes fixed on the tallest, broadest dark haired man in the center of the room.
"He is yours," Bellatrix crooned, following her sister's gaze.
"You! Johnston!" Bellatrix yelled out. Quickly the handsome man made his way to his master.
"Yes, Mistress?"
But Bellatrix stepped away and Narcissa moved forward. The man couldn't even hide the shock or desire from his expression. Narcissa led him to a private corner, where they proceeded to talk some and touch more. More couples had paired off and weren't making any attempt to hide their activities in the various corners and enclaves of the room. Some were kissing, others were getting handsy through their clothes, and Hermione could clearly see against the far wall, another muggleborn's top fully removed, as the pureblooded man pushed her to her knees before him.
"Now for the highlight of the evening," Bellatrix cooed with a frightening leer at Hermione before facing the crowded room. She magnified her voice and effectively brought the room to a curious silence. "Rumors have been circulating regarding the reason for tonight's gathering. It is because I have the pleasure of making the first bidding of a very special prisoner. Arguably the most valuable any of you will ever come across. One who will be worth the high price put on her flesh. The prized mudblood - Potter's own!" Bellatrix screeched with a high cackle.
"Hermione Granger will go to the highest bidder for the night! Yours play with as you wish!"
Lecherous eyes gazed greedily upon her person.
Reading the impatient tension in the room, Bellatrix reiterated: "But none shall touch until you have my permission. She will go to the highest bidder!"
None dared approach without the explicit permission of Bellatrix Lestrange, but it didn't make them any less menacing.
This was to be her ultimate humiliation. She dug deep in the recesses of her mind for how she could cope with this. Escape. Desperate and possibly deadly escape could be the only way. And her eyes roved, taking in every exit, every dark, hidden corner. Anyone who looked even just moderately weaker that she could use or manipulate for a way out. There were few, but a couple other prisoners who looked dead outside or just as uncomfortable as she was. She could try to communicate with them and come up with a plan. But she knew, ultimately, that it was no use. She had no wand, she had no power, and she had no connections. Alone she would meet her undoing; her defilement at the hands of one of the wicked men, or even women, in this room.
Her heart raced and her head throbbed. The stinging of the freshly opened cut in her arm was starting to resurface. Once more the urge to fight that for so long had only existed in her dreams pushed through into her waking mind, fought its way into her consciousness - but no matter how she considered it, she could see no way out.
Despair was about to take hold, and that was when she looked upward - only to feel her heart suddenly stop beating at the sight of who stood before her. None other than Draco Malfoy stood on a balcony, looking down upon the scene, upon her, and their eyes locked.