- A/N - I am a huge fan of Vanillusion, a writer on this site, and when I read the disturbing tale 'Better Than This' I was floored for a week in admiration and horror. When I was finally capable of coherent thought again, I took up my keyboard and started this little tale. I wanted, you see, to join Vanillusion in the darkness and the stink of the dungeons. It seemed clinical and horrible and brilliant, so brilliant it made my chest constrict. So if you see some shadows of the other author's genius in here, it is only my way of saying "Well done, Van. Well done indeed." Without further ado...let the pain be brought.
N.R.

Giving Up

There is a certain emancipation in giving up. In laying there on the stone floor after yet another brutalization and making no move to stand up or cover yourself or wipe at the little trickle of blood that is running down your cheek.
Hermione didn't even glance up to watch her tomentor leave. It was enough that he was gone, and the door locked and barred behind him. Her body hurt, that was undeniable, but the greater pain came from her soul.

A young girl expects certain things from life. Not particularily difficult things for the world to provide, really. It was simplicity itself; safety, hope for the future, mental stimulation, freedom from pain and misuse. Maybe to meet someone wonderful and get married. Have children. Sit outside in the fading sunset with her happy family and know that all was right with the world. These were things that should have been hers by right. But now, here on the flagstones watching her blood drip into a mirrored dark pool centimeters from her left eye, Hermione had no expectations whatsoever, not even the raw hope that she would be released.

It seemed like years, though she knew by the marks on the wall it had been only two months. Marks she'd dug in the grimy stone with a shard of rock that had come loose from the sleeping platform. Two long months since Voldemort had won and given over the traitors to his loyal followers at Durmstrang. Two months since Harry and Ron and Hermione and Ginny and everyone else who used to call Hogwarts home had been tossed casually into the dungeons beneath the drafty castle far to the north.

There had been death, of course, and torture.

Sometimes she could hear screams off in the distance somewhere, down the long corridors behind locked wooden doors. She could never tell from the screams just who they belonged to - the sounds were too inhuman. Noises that no human being should ever have to make, that she didn't remember ever hearing before even in her most desperate nightmares. Their collective tormentors used a variety of crude and outmoded tools on the prisoners, whips and cats' paws, Spanish Boots and iron braces, the pear, the wheel, the smoky branding irons with their crispings of flesh around the edges. Thank god, thank any gods at all that might be left and listening, Hermione hadn't been brutalized too horribly. A few light beatings, some verbal abuse, some threats...that was all. Her captors didn't bother to wear masks or even hoods. They were cruel to her in a bored way, almost as an afterthought. The true sadism was saved for other prisoners. Prisoners like Harry, she was sure. Whatever awfulness he was going through, she couldn't imagine. It was terrible, awful, beyond enduring to not know.

And yet she somehow did just that. Endured. Day in, day out...even though she no longer had any idea what was day and what was night. Always the dim light, always the flickering torches on the walls and the occasional glow from a spell in the hallway. Roughly crafted black iron bars covered the front of her cell, making it feel more like cage than anything else. A pale blue light, a mage-barrier, hissed up and down the length of each bar. Until the spell was released with the proper pass key, touching the bars would bend her very soul with an excruciating pain that would last until someone thought to release her. And she was certain that no one would wish to do that right away. All of her cleverness left her in the bleakness of her situation. No hope, no hope at all.
Only the freedom of giving up, as she knew they wished.

Durmstrang was haunted. Not in the pleasant way that Hogwarts had been, but on a deeper and more disturbing level. Everything felt tainted and slimy, as though hundreds and maybe even thousands of innocent lives had been roughly ended by brutal means somewhere down the corridors. Hermione closed her eyes, blotting out the light.
Someone, somewhere in the bowels of the castle, was sobbing softly. Further down the hall, she could hear a key turn in a lock, then begging, then the unmistakeable sounds... Crude laughter, grunting, weeping, the ruthless rhythmn of violation sending spasms of nausea through Hermione's body.

Sooner or later, she knew, they would get around to doing the same thing to her.

It was well after midnight, she could tell by the silence all around, when her light slumber was disturbed by the arrival of a hooded figure at the entrance to her cell.
"Oh God..." Hermione moaned, anticipating another beating. She drew her skinny, dirty bare legs up against her chest and huddled against the side of the wall, trying to make herself as small a target as possible.
"Tut tut, Miss Granger. I had thought you were made of sterner stuff than this." The low, cultured voice was unmistakeable. It was Lucius Malfoy.
The hood was drawn back, revealing his sleek golden hair and proud aristocratic features. A snake about to strike, a knife glittering in the firelight, a shiny Death's Head beetle clicking in the gloom. He was all of these things, his very presence shouting a warning to any and all who did not love pain to run, run, run away.
Hermione whimpered, unable to look away from him.
Slowly, the tall man surveyed her cell with an air of extreme distaste. He began to pull off his black gloves, a finger at a time.
"You must forgive me, young lady, for not visiting you sooner. I have been diverted elsewhere these past few weeks. Your little friend Harry has provided most...amusing...company."
"What have you done to him?" she found herself asking, and was gratified to note that her voice trembled very little. Lucius gracefully lowered himself to sit on the very edge of her sleeping platform, smiling at her in a most unpleasant fashion.
"I shall tell you, my dear. First I had him tied down very firmly, arms and legs spread out like a star. He was simply charming, pleading for me not to hurt him in the most heartwrenching manner. 'Oh please oh please oh god no no no!' It was quite dramatic."
Hermione moaned and hid her face in her hands. She hated this man, HATED him!
Harry.
Oh no, Harry. What did they do to you?
"Then I took a rod of nice, rigid steel and flogged him until the blood ran down over his body like a river. You really ought to have seen it, little Hermione. I was most impressed with the boy's resilience. He didn't lose consciousness for quite some time. Of course, he was shrieking like a baby and choking on his own vomit, but all in all -"
"You BASTARD!" Hermione cried hoarsely, leaping to her feet and rushing towards him. Lucius languidly waved his hand with a word, and she collapsed against the far wall as though flung.
"Really, Miss Granger, this outburst is most unbecoming. Most unbecoming. One might question your manners, interrupting a superior like that. I shall have to give you over to Draco for a few hours if you can't behave. He seems to be developing a taste for, shall we say, brutalizations these days."
"Damn you, damn you, damn you..." Hermione sobbed, her head pressed to the floor by the potency of his spell.

"Not very nice at all, really. And I had thought to recommend that the guards feed you this evening. I understand it's been rather a few days now. You must be famished."
He moved to kneel in front of her, haughty and clean and well-fed and triumphant. With mocking gentleness, he tilted her chin up and forced her to look him in the eyes.
"If you please me, I might arrange for a change of cell for you, my dear. Come now, can you use that pert little mouth for anything besides screaming obscenities? Hmm?"
Hermione was too sickened by the very thought to even respond verbally. She mustered all of her strength to draw in a breath, and then spit a small wad of bloody foam right into his face. He slapped her, hard, across the cheek.
"Little bitch! You'll soon learn not to trifle with your betters." He hissed angrily, wiping away the offensive material. He rose to his feet, then kicked her hard in the side with one immaculate black boot. She wailed in pain, pulling away.
"Sadly, I have several other things to attend to this evening. Enjoy your repreive, precious short though it be. I shall return, little Hermione. I hope to find you in a more compliant mood. Or not. It makes no difference to me. The end result will be the same however hard you struggle." He actually harshed a laugh at that, and turned on his heel to leave. Hermione heard the lock click behind him, but she did not have the energy to roll over again. She stayed where she was, facing the wall, seeing in her mind the awful vision of poor Harry being beaten to within an inch of his life for no other crime than his birth. It was an image that caused every single nerve in her body to scream with sympathetic pain. Her rib ached where Lucius had kicked it, and her lip was bleeding again.
'I want to die.' she thought, but she knew they would never allow that.
It would be too easy.