A/N: Hello again! This ought to be a long(er) one, I love writing about these two. Sorry in advance for any spellling mistakes - I don't have spellcheck on the program I use (which is the only program my computer has...). Who doesn't have spellcheck, you might ask? Well, i'm still stuck in the 90's, along with the rest of Hogwarts. I don't need spelling, I have magic. So ha.
Disclaimer: This is me, owning nothing.
The only sound was her heartbeat, thumping loudly in defiance of her oncoming death.
She wished she could be braver, like Harry. She knew he would face death head on when it came time, because it would be the right thing to do. He would be scared, but he would face things with a nobel grace, a calm acceptance - and she just couldn't do that. She wasn't that strong. She wished she had his courage right now, as she is dragged by a sharp hand in her hair towards the center of the room.
The room is cold and she is thrown to the floor, her knuckles bruising instantly from the impact. There is dirt caked onto her nails, cracked and bent, and her hands are riddled with cuts and bruises that continue up her arms. She feels her hair, matted and rough, covering her face like a screen. Good. No one should see her now. She wants them to remember her like she had been, not the stranger she had become.
Because she's not brave. She's clever - and it's not much good being clever when you're about to die. And she was going to die, she knew it -she knew as soon as Bellatrix had kept her.
"All... all except for the mudblood."
Ron - her Ron - had screamed and protested, begged to be kept instead; and though she wished she could tell him not to, that it was useless, she hadn't stopped him trying.
Because Hermione was scared.
She didn't want to die.
Not until the pain started. Then she wished death's sweet oblivion would take her quickly, life could never be good, not with these screams echoing through the air - her screams.
There's no pain in darkness.
She screamed and begged and pleaded, her eyes screwed shut in agony. Her throat felt raw from screaming and her muscles weak from thrashing. If nothing else, she would put up some kind of fight. She owed Harry and Ron that much.
She felt the many pairs of eyes of her audience in the manor locked on the scene, but couldn't look up to meet them. Right now, there was nothing but her and Bellatrix. Her and death.
Bellatrix continued, getting her sick pleasure from Hermione's pain, at the same time her anger only growing from the lack of information.
"How did you get into my vault?" Bellatrix had shrieked, her voice echoing through the manor.
Maybe Hermione was a little braver than she thought. The words came clear through the pain, a last attempt to save those she loved,
"We've never been inside your vault... It isn't the real sword! It's a copy, just a copy!"
But Bellatrix didn't believe her. And now she was going to die, die at the hands of this crazed woman, not a brave death but one filled with overwhleming agony and failure and she didn't even get to say goodbye -
A crash. Everything stops.
The next thing Hermione knew, Bellatrix is thrown off with a bang and slumps down the wall, unconsious. A strong hand grabs her waist and pulls her upright, and she hears a whisper in her ear, at first soft, grow panicked; outraged yells and anger surrounding them; and the familiar feeling of being forced through a tight tube, the air squeezed out by an iron grip -
The faint rustle of leaves and the light of the sun shines in her eyes before the darkness takes her.
