A/N: I'm? starting? a story? Idk why tbh. This fic was inpired entirely by Hozier's new EP which i lOVE, hence the title. I'm mad into Greyback and I wanted to write something a little different to the normal Hermione/Greyback stuff about so I don't know how well (if at all) this will be recieved. Please be nice.

Day 31. Despite the world ending only thirty-one days ago, the water droplet on her cell bar remained undisturbed. Inching slowly from the ceiling, it overcame rust and imperfections in the iron, it retained its shape – small and round until it caught on some painted casing of the metal and succinctly dropped to the floor. It didn't make a sound or leave any visible puddle. Hermione had been watching it for 34 minutes. When there was finally nothing left to watch, her eyelashes fluttered closed, refreshing her tired eyes. They stung in the warmth of her own eyelids. It had been a while since she slept.

It had been a while since she had done anything healthy. 31 days ago everything changed. She and her friends and her family had all fought for their lives and they had all lost. For the past month Hermione had been kept in this mildew-y cell beneath Malfoy manor. She knew it was Malfoy manor; she could feel the weight of the house above her as if the bigotry and the evil were sitting upon her very shoulders.

In this one month she had eaten 7 meals with no real regularity. A bowl of scraps to keep her alive and a goblet of water passed through the bars. She had peed and relieved herself in the corner furthest from the cell bars in some attempt at privacy. She had tried to hold it and the first time had been humiliating and demoralising. Now she wished she had done it closer to the bars, if only to piss off her guards with the stench. It would at least give her the furthest corner for herself to sleep in, at the back in peace.

The heavy door at the head of dungeons swung open and shut, heavy footfalls descending the steps into her crappy little home. "Munchblood!" A deep, charming man's voice rung out through the dungeon cellar. If the man was close enough to see her she might have rolled her eyes, but in the honesty of her lonely cell, they brightened with the anticipation of some company.

"Right." He said as he found her cell and parked himself on a small wooden chair in front of her bars. He opened a copy of the Daily Prophet in front of her and lowered it to his lap. He looked up at her and winked. "How is the cell going?"

She blinked once. "Great actually. Could do with getting the heating fixed," she glanced up at a drafty hole in the wall, where two bricks didn't quite meet, "but perhaps that's a job for another day." She looked back over to the man who was now engrossed in whatever tabloid story had made today's main news.

"Uh huh, uh huh. And how does that make you feel?" He said, feigning deep interest without looking up.

She almost laughed then. "I didn't realise wizards had therapists."

"Mind healers, darling." He drawled. Thorfinn Rowle did have a very sort of drawl-y voice, she supposed. He was a larger man, not enormous but beefy and muscular, most likely from sport. He had blondish soft hair pulled up into a bun and quite a handsome face. He was posh and pure and not an idiot. Most notably, he was frequently assigned guard of her cell. Others took over from him sometimes but she had spent most of her time beneath the manor in his company. She had known Rowle as a Slytherin quidditch player in seventh year when she was in her first. She never interacted with him then but now they were well acquainted with one another. She used him for human company and he used her as an excuse to get out of doing anything else for the Dark Lord.

"Seven across, golden treasure of Gringotts. Well that's ridiculous! Nobody knows what Gringotts holds, that's the whole point!" His brow was knitted in confusion at his newspaper and he looked up at her for assurance.

She sighed. "Galleons."

He shut his mouth and narrowed his eyes in annoyance at her. He scribbled on his crossword without a word. Perhaps he was an idiot, she thought. "Is there any big news on the outside?" She asked, not really caring either way.

"Wand prices have soared. But then half the forbidden forest was bombed so not really sure what people are expecting Ollivander to make them out of." He mused, flicking through various pages of the Prophet whilst keeping a thumb out so as not to lose his crossword. "Oh and there are job postings up for snatchers." His nose wrinkled in disgust, Hermione wasn't sure if it was snatchers that appalled him or the idea of having a job.

"Does that mean one of the current ones died?" She asked, marginally hopeful.

He nodded, inking in another answer for his crossword. "Most likely."

This was the way Hermione had spent the month since the end of the war. She watched Harry skewered on his own sword by Voldemort, Ron sold to the Macnair as a slave – he was killed a week later after Macnair had gone too far with the torture – and she was all that was left of the golden trio. Not much of the light did survive the war and she assumed that anyone else was killed during the death eaters week long 'purge'. Not that Hermione could say this was surviving. She was aware her eyes were sunken, her cheeks hollowed and her skin deathly pale and ashy from lack of sunlight. Her hips and breasts had disappeared too and now she was skin and bone. She was sure her limbs would have fallen off if it weren't for wakeful nights that kept her pacing the confines of the cell, wondering which of her organs would be the first to shut done from lack of nutrition.

"12 down, Australian semi-aquatic carnivore." Rowle's voice cut through her depressing reverie. She looked up to him peering at her, hopeful she might have the answer.

She was ever-glad for the distraction. "Umm, what letters have you got?"

"Six letters, fourth is a 'y'" He tapped the feather of his quill against his chin in thought.

She thought for a moment. "Bunyip? That's a thing, I think?"

Rowle's expression cleared and he happily wrote in the remaining five letters. "You're a star, Munchy!"

She smiled half-heartedly. She couldn't fool herself into thinking Rowle was her friend. In fact she'd spent more than enough time on the other end of his wand to ensure that. He thought her dirty for her muggle lineage and she thought him a murderous bigot for his murderous, bigoted criminal record. She hated him, of course, but it was nice to have some sensible conversation. She couldn't help that.

The heavy iron door to the dungeons swung open once again and both heads turned to the intruder of their lovely morning together. These footsteps were lighter than Rowle's and more hurried as they descended the stairs. A thinner, lithe man came into view as he approached. Hermione almost didn't recognise Draco Malfoy, he seemed from another world, another time long ago when she was just a child. But there he was, dressed in pristine black and silver robes, his white hair smoothed back.

He looked to her once then swallowed before turning to address Thorfinn, who was sitting casually in his chair. "He wants her now."

What did that mean? Why did he want Hermione? Wasn't she going to rot out the rest of her days here as some sort of eternal hellish punishment for being born? She looked to Rowle with concern and saw his knitted brow.

"He wants her? What does he want with her after weeks of nothing?" He asked, folding his newspaper away.

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?!" Draco snapped. Both Hermione and Thorfinn drew back at his outburst. Even Draco seemed to straighten himself up in shock.

Thorfinn held out his finger at Draco, pointing it in his face. "Now." He wagged his finger. "That is no way to talk to your elders!" He pouted at Draco. "Boop", he said, poking Draco in the nose.

Draco slapped his hand away. "He's ready for her now. So bring her up. Quickly." He turned and headed for the door without another look toward Hermione, leaving them with the heavy grinding of the iron door closing behind him.

Hermione looked back to Thorfinn, "what does that mean?"

"Fuck should I know?" he grumbled, fishing through his robe pockets. He pulled out some ancient looking keys and shackles.

Hermione's gaze dropped to the floor. This was it, a month of nothing and then a death she can do nothing to escape. No last fight. She wasn't sure why she was scared, she had spent the past month barely existing, surely this would be a relief. She wasn't relieved at all, some sort of primal instinct within her was still compelling her to keep her heart beating, to be very afraid of death.

She shook as Rowle opened up the cell door and stepped within her cage. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the smell of her, never mind her dirty blood. Having not washed in a month, she smelt distinctly of something stale and dying. He took her wrists and pulled them together behind her back, locking the shackles around them with a whispered spell.

He pushed her forward and so she walked. Out of the cell, down the corridor, up the steps.

Once out of the dungeon, it took only a few minute of walking through the manor to reach the large dining room. Hermione wished she had made note of the way but the sudden onslaught of light after weeks of such darkness had left her blinded for the last few minutes. She looked up into the room blearily through watering eyes and saw the dining room of Malfoy manor before her.

There was no dining table here as she had expected; the room wasn't at all the way Harry had described it in his dreams. The room was long, armchairs and small tables lining the edges of it and in front of them, death eaters. She recognised some of them from build alone but they all had masks on. She looked up to Rowle behind her and found his face was masked now just like the rest of them. She swallowed thickly, suddenly feeling much colder and much more alone in his grip.

At the other end of the room sat Voldemort in his throne. She looked to his left and saw the dishevelled Lucius Malfoy. His misery gave her some comfort, the thought that his life, too, had been invaded and forever changed by Voldemort gave her some sick satisfaction. Hermione thought at this point, she'd take whatever satisfaction she could get.

Rowle shoved her forward into the centre of the room and whispered, "good luck, Munch." He walked away to join the other death eaters but she didn't watch him. She stared straight at the smiling Voldemort ahead. He looked like instability incarnate. She was terrified for her life.

"Brightest Witch of Her Age," he paused. The air hung thick around her mouth, drugging her on her own fear. She licked her lips and prayed she looked more confident than she felt. "Kneel." He breathed.

She held her chin out in defiance at him and even dared to narrow her eyes but she did not kneel. Murmurs broke out in the crowd around the room. Perhaps a hundred death eaters surrounded her and they seemed to all be flicking between Hermione and Voldemort, anticipating the next move.

Voldemort's smile widened. "Let's get right to it, shall we? I gave you a chance, out of kindness. That was your only one. Lestranges," two figures stepped forward from the right of his throne. "Be good parents and teach this girl how to respect her superiors."

Bellatrix, identifiable by her large bust and mountainous black curls stepped forward, removing her mask. The man next to her, tall with a long ginger braid stepped forward with her and too removed his mask, revealing the dark tattoos framing his eyes. Hermione's eyes widened and her heart started beating rapidly as Rodolphus Lestrange pulled a long enchanted dagger from his robes, one Hermione had seen before. He handed it to Bellatrix and approached Hermione, pulling her hair to hold her flush against his chest.

Bellatrix was positively giddy with bloodlust and Hermione's lip trembled but she didn't dare beg for mercy. Rodolphus' leather-clad hand held Hermione's chin up, exposing her throat.

"Mmmm the good one, the special girl. She is special, Roddy! Been waiting." Bellatrix raised her arm, the knife clutched in her talons. Hermione didn't notice that Bellatrix wasn't really making much sense. She was sure she was going to die. That mad bitch was going to run the knife straight through her throat.

A dry sob forced its way out of Hermione's throat and she broke "please. Dear God, please." She whispered to herself, to anyone willing to listen.

Bellatrix flicked her wrist slightly and Hermione felt a sharp sting snake across her neck. Hermione opened her eyes. She wasn't dead! She breathed through the pain, crying real, relieved tears at the shallow depth of the cut.

Bellatrix growled and marched forward, whipping Hermione around to face Rodolphus and tore her sleeve open. She could feel stares burning upon the scar reading 'mudblood' across her wrist, left from the last time she had met this dagger. A second passed and then white hot pain rippled into her skin as Bellatrix reopened the scar, re-carving the slur into her skin. The blood was warm, angry as it painted red down her hand. Bellatrix was cackling manically but she could hear nothing through her crying and, looking up through the tears, she locked eyes with Draco once more. Unlike before he couldn't take his eyes away.

"Enough!" The high pitched voice sounded ominously through the hall and the pain started to subside finally. "Kneel." Voldemort was angry now and Hermione couldn't even register the danger she was in through the pain in her arm and neck. "Make the mudblood kneel."

Rodolphus spun her back to face the throne and pushed downwards on her shoulders until her legs buckled and she knelt.

"Impolite indeed. I don't think we can let insolence slide anymore." Voldemort stood and, as he did, all other masked persons knelt down on one knee, looking to the floor. Voldemort seemed to not take any notice of this and continued walking towards Hermione on the floor. "This is my day and the time of misbehaviour is over. You're a mudblood in a pure world. You are filth and I can't let scum have the easy way out."

He paused, caressing her cheek, humming gently at the warmth still flowing behind her skin. She recoiled in disgust and he seemed to remember himself. "This is not the world you're used to." He snarled, "There are consequences for your actions and a place for everyone on this earth. Yours is at the bottom, far beneath real wizards. You'd do well to remember that."

Hermione looked up at him, past his disfigured, inhuman face. "It's all well and good trying to scare me, but I'm not afraid." She told him. "You have taken everything from me. I have nothing left to lose so don't threaten me with death because it won't work; I'm not scared." She spoke lowly with hatred filling her voice.

He snarled and slapped her cleanly across the face. "You stupid girl!" He grabbed her by the chin to force eye contact. "Death is a mercy wasted on you. If you bow down, accept your place in our world then you might survive the changes coming." He threw her to the floor and stood straight to address his followers. "Mudbloods needn't be destroyed. Valuable magic shouldn't go to waste. It should be controlled, and yielded for the gain of our species. Like the strength of an ox harnessed to plough fields for the future, we will harness the magic stolen from us. We will take back our rightful place in this world. Indeed, before we let this Mudblood escape this life, it should atone for its sins against our kind. To make an example of it, to show what we intend in our new age." There were nods about the room and Hermione started to understand the weight of the situation.

"So who," Voldemort looked around at the Death Eaters lining the walls of the dining room. "Who will step up to the very noble plate of training the cattle, of paving the way forward in our coexistence with these beasts?"

Shouts broke out around the room, men everywhere removing their masks and calling out for the chance to own her, the prize of the war. Hermione's head whipped back and forth at the nightmare unravelling around her. Voldemort, however, seemed to enjoy the chaos and smiled viciously at the violence intended by everyone wishing to own the Mudblood.

Fights started to break out between one man with black hair and Alecto Carrow who both wished to own her. Bellatrix was even pleading with Rodolphus as if she were asking him for a puppy. There was nowhere Hermione could turn for mercy. After everything she was somehow alive in a room full of people who all seemed to wish some degree of pain on her.

Out of the fray stepped a figure. He did not have robes or a mask, and he made no shouts, just a beeline straight for Hermione and Voldemort in the centre of the room. Hermione saw him and swallowed thickly. "Please God, anyone else." She whispered.

Fenrir Greyback was taller than she remembered and broader too. He stood a head above even Rowle and his stature was not toned muscle so much as rippling bulk and strength. Dirty, unwashed hair, half tied back to keep it out of his face matched his greying beard, long and plaited and his face was painted with tan and grime. A scar crossed through his eyebrow but his eye seemed able and unscarred and she felt bile rising in her throat at the look of them staring straight at her. A smile formed on his face, revealing blood-stained and yellowing fangs that seemed much too animal to be human. He looked as if too many shifts under the moon had permanently merged his human and lupine features into some sick, hellish monster that now stood before her.

"I'll take her." His voice was low and his words growled and whilst he physically looked down at Voldemort, he was clearly waiting for permission.

Voldemort chuckled. "Oh, will you?"

"Well," he reasoned, the crowd around him starting to simmer and quieten. "Who better to train a bitch and make a useful slave out of her than myself. I'd be happy to take her off your hands, my Lord." He made a face at his last words but smiled through it nonetheless.

Voldemort seemed to consider Greyback for a moment. "And why would I offer my prize to the dog?" He smiled at the obvious baiting, well aware that he was testing Greyback, waiting for him to prove his disloyalty. "I've plenty of loyal wizards here that are surely more worthy?"

Hermione looked between Greyback and Voldemort from her place on the floor between them. She watched Greyback bite back the violence in the back of his throat and hold his tongue. "Well, how much lower can our resident Mudblood be? Thrown to the… dogs." He ground out.

Voldemort didn't take notice of the vicious attack Greyback seemed to be keeping behind his teeth. Instead he looked down at Hermione. She felt a serious burning hatred swell within her and she stared back through the tears lumping her lashes together, her hatred simmering in the space between them.

He stepped aside, out from in between Greyback and Hermione and gestured toward her. "You're welcome to her. But mark my words Dog, I want her kept alive. If she dies, it will be your bitch on my table, fed to my men."

Greyback did snarl then but didn't move. His voice took on a distinctly inhuman growl as he spoke "I'm gonna enjoy you, darling." He pulled her up to her feet and pulled her close to him, sniffing and licking along her neck.

Fresh tears rolled hot down Hermione's cheek and she swore to herself she'd kill everyone in this room.