March 23, 1998.

She could feel her breath rasping in her throat, feel the fire that lit in her veins, feel the flames burning in the flesh of her arm.

There would be no coming back from this.

In her intellectual mind, she knew that a scar was no more than a mark left on the skin by a stubborn wound. It would be an angry red as it healed, then a blush mauve, then a soft white. Worst case scenario, it would never fade, and she'd be left with a mark as infamous as Harry's lightning scar. And surely, it would be infamous: the witch whose breath washed heatedly over her face would never miss an opportunity to gloat. A heavy knot settled into her stomach.

Hermione Granger would forever be identified as mudblood if the wrong side won this war. She would be a traitor to wizard-kind, to magical humans and creatures alike. And yet, all she could think of were the roses that had bloomed from the end of her wand when it had chosen her.

A whimper escaped her, echoing in the quiet air around her and swallowed by the vaulted ceiling above.

"Come now, wretch, you can be louder than that. Crucio." The words hissed in her ears, so close it seemed they were in her own head. A shriek sounded; the delayed pain in her throat told her that it was her own. Searing, pinching, unbearable heat pierced her. She twisted, contorted, but every movement made it worse. There was no escape, no position that could relieve the agony.

"Aunt Bellatrix, end this."

The pain did not stop, but it diminished. Hermione took a deep breath while her lungs were not so much afire. She willed herself toward sleep, toward unconsciousness. You gave them something they think they can use, that's all you're good for. Harry and Ron have a chance. She will kill you.

"You'd deny me some fun, Draco, when you should be having some, too? Cissy told me this mudblood slapped you in third year."

She was halfway to sleep, but pride glowed through the fog in her mind. Amazing. Bouncing. Ferret. She might not have transfigured him, but she could still feel the satisfying sting in her palm and the ringing of her skin against his from the day he had insulted Hagrid the year before. I am a Gryffindor.

A new moan ground out of her throat. Hermione rolled over onto her stomach. She was a Gryffindor, but sometimes the bravest thing to do was run away. Her arm moved out in front of her and pulled her body forward across the hard, cold wooden floor. Her clothes and the blood on them made her slip, but she still made progress with every motion.

"The Granger I knew might be worth something, but this is a different creature. She's pathetic. She hasn't even tried to stand her ground."

The pain grew even less, and Hermione had to grind her teeth together to keep herself from turning around. If they think you're broken, maybe they'll let you go. Or at least parade you as a prize of war. She could effect change if they did. Subtle change, but perhaps it would be enough to turn the tide. Merlin, you should have lived while you had the chance. Gone to Bulgaria. Found Luna. Made a difference that didn't end with the people you made it for dying anyway.

"Suit yourself," crooned the high, delirious voice.

A knee slammed into Hermione's back, and she let out a cry. Her neck pinched, her scalp burned as her head was pulled back by her hair. Long-clawed fingernails twisted and tangled and pressed new cuts into her skin. "Where are you going, little kitten?" Revulsion sparked in Hermione at the belittlement of her House's mascot. "Did you think you could just crawl away and we'd let you go?"

Hermione shook her head as carefully as she could, wincing at the pressure of the woman's nails against her scalp. Cold steel pressed to her throat, and she took a sharp breath inward.

"You won't get a merciful death from me, dear," said Bellatrix. Hermione bit her lip to keep her sob contained. "My nephew might, but that depends on how quickly he inter-"

Footsteps vibrated in the floor beneath Hermione's body. The air filled with shouts.

Time seemed to stop mattering as Hermione was hauled up by her hair, the steel of the dagger against her throat slowly warming. She felt it prick through her skin and knew she would have a second new scar. This one, though, she could erase. It was not cursed. It was different from the letters carved into her arm.

Mudblood.

She closed her eyes and opened them again, and when she focused on the chandelier above her head, what she saw was sharper than anything she had comprehended in the last several hours.

Large ears, grass-green eyes, and a pair of socks she had knitted last Christmas.

Inside her chest, Hermione's heart glowed. She lowered her eyes to the men standing across the room and recognized a dark head and a red one, both staring at her. She shifted in panic as they began to lower their wands - but the screeching of the chandelier gave them their chance.

A force knocked the wind out of her and propelled her forward; the wound on her neck stung in the open air, but arms closed around her and pulled her out of the way as the chandelier crashed deafeningly into the floor behind her. Everything was a blur. The coherent thoughts in her head screamed behind a foggy glass barrier, trying to find a way around it but not succeeding. Hermione couldn't think; she could barely feel. She felt like one of the blank canvases that had held a photo of her at her parents' house: staring out at the world, missing the focus with which to understand it. She caught the flash of a spell on Harry's glasses and saw white-blond hair fly backward in the reflection.

But the only thing that anchored her to the world were Ron's arms and his blue, blue eyes, daring anything to come to close to them.

Ron's arms didn't let her go when they twisted tightly through what Hermione recognized as Apparation, didn't let her go when they landed hard on a wet sand beach, didn't let her go when Harry saw the house elf blood on the silver knife.

And all the while, the coherent voices inside her head screamed for Dobby, for Harry, for Ron, for her parents, for revenge. They screamed for her wand. They banged around, but she couldn't put a voice to their words, couldn't move. Her body felt frozen with Ron's warm arms wrapped around her.

Hermione had been burning, but now she was chilled, and all she wanted was to thaw.