Author's Note: So, this is my first foray into Harry Potter fanfic, and into Hermione/Sirius. This being the case, I would absolutely love some feedback, because I know that people do feel strongly about this fandom, and I want people to enjoy what I write. Hopefully, you'll enjoy, and please, please, please (a thousand times, please) review!! =)


There are plenty of ways to hurt a person without using magic—using a curse or some sort of magical aid was just a bonus. Voldemort might have been gone, but his supporters—the ones that weren't captured and put in Azkaban—were still trying to get their revenge, and taking great delight it in when they did. After the Battle of Hogwarts, they scattered and it seemed that they were gone. But instead, they gained a following—mostly people who just wanted an excuse to inflict pain on another living being. The Aurors were immensely talented, but they weren't superhuman, and there were always those few that managed to slip between the cracks. And the ones that slipped between the cracks helped others slip between the bars of Azkaban.

"Everyone has a breaking point. It's just a matter of pushing hard enough," Yaxley said, clearly delighted at his apparent stroke of luck. After all, it isn't every day that one gets the chance to meet the best friend of Harry Potter, let alone torture her. And his mind was overflowing with all the wonderful ways he could push her beyond her breaking point.

Hermione sat in the corner of the room—if it could even be called a room; it was more like a cell—unable to move thanks to a rather strategic body-bind curse. Mentally, she was berating herself for being so careless as to let herself get caught. Well, she didn't exactly let herself get caught—she had put up a damn good fight—but she was still there nonetheless. Her right eye was swelling shut, and blood trickled from her split lip. Everything ached—her feet, her hands, her head…and she knew that it was only going to get worse.

"Don't forget that we do have to get information out of her. If she goes batty before we get what we need, this has been for nothing," another voice answered. Hermione couldn't see his face, but the voice was faintly familiar. She wasn't entirely sure where she had heard it before, so she started thinking over all the Death Eaters she had ever come in contact with, trying to remember which ones were free and which ones were dead. Before she could get very far, Yaxley hit her with a Crusiatus curse, and she was unable to think through the haze of pain.

She had only experienced the Cruciatus curse once before—back at the Malfoy Manner during what she now called the Dark Age—but it seemed worse than she remembered it. The pain was overwhelming and all-encompassing. The pain was sharp and yet somehow indescribable. It was searing hot, and then icy cold. It never stopped or got any weaker, but the pain instead seemed to increase the longer the curse went on. Perhaps if she could just scream…but she couldn't move.

Finally, after an eternity, relief came. The pain ebbed away, and she was left in a limp, boneless heap on the cold floor of her cell. Even breathing hurt—each breath brought a new, sharper pain tearing through her chest. Salty tears were streaming down her cheeks, stinging the dozens of tiny cuts on her face. She closed her eyes and tried to put herself somewhere else, because if she were somewhere else, she could think. If she were somewhere else, she wouldn't be in this kind of pain, and she would be able to think clearly. But no amount of imagination could put her anywhere other than where she was.

"Not that I'm not enjoying myself, but remind me again why we're not just using Veritaserum?" Yaxley asked, a wicked grin on his face as he studied Hermione.

"Because whoever made the last batch did it wrong, and it killed the bloke, remember?" the other one answered. Hermione listened carefully, trying to discern any sort of clue as to where she was being held. She tried using a silent summoning spell to get her wand back, but for whatever reason, she couldn't. They probably have spells in place to keep me from doing it, she thought through the haze of pain. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take off that body-bind curse. It just isn't the same when you can't watch them flail about."

She heard steps of someone coming across the room to her, and pulled her eyes open to study them. The face before her was one that she would never forget, no matter how aged. She was staring into the eyes of Antonin Dolohov—the bastard who had killed Remus. His eyes were dark and empty, as if he had never had any compassion for another human being. There was no lively, playful spark in them that she was used to seeing in her friends. Instead, they were cold and calculating—calculating how best to make her talk. She couldn't suppress a shiver.

"Well, you look lovely, Miss Granger. The bruised and battered look works well for you. Now, as I'm sure you heard me tell my associated, I need some information from you. But first, I thought that maybe we could become better acquainted—"

She spat in his face.

At first, he looked enraged, and Hermione was afraid that he would kill her then and there. But after a moment, he regained his composure, and grinned at her. It was a sick, twisted grin that didn't quite reach all the way to his eyes. This grin was more terrifying by far than the look of rage that she had seen, for in that grin, she saw his capacity to be cruel. He was actually looking forward to the challenge, looking forward to seeing just how far he could push Hermione Granger before one of two things happened: she died, or she broke. Either way, he was clearly excited about the opportunity.

"Thank you, Miss Granger, for the opportunity to be a part of this. I hate that I wasn't there to watch your experience the first time around, but I was otherwise occupied."

She gritted her teeth, bracing herself for the pain. She waited and waited, and still it never came. Instead, she felt hands that were almost gentle—almost—working at the buttons at the front of her shirt, his intentions infinitely clear. Immediately, she jerked violently away, kicking at him, trying to keep him at a distance. She got in a few good kicks and several solid hits before the all-powerful pain of the Cruciatus curse was overtaking her again. In those moments of weakness afterwards, he pulled her shirt open. She started to twist and roll on the floor, anything to keep him from touching her. It wasn't until Yaxley helped to hold her down were they able to get her still.

"You've got some fight in you. Good, that always makes it more fun," Dolohov said, his voice low and seductive, as if talking to a lover. As he pushed up her skirt, she clenched her thighs tightly together, desperate to keep him from getting what he wanted. Pushing on a pressure point in her thighs, he was able to part them as she shrieked with pain.

She knew that she couldn't stop it, despite her efforts. She continued to fight, still jerking against her captors, still trying to hurt them in any way, shape, or form, but it was obvious that she was going to be unsuccessful. In her mind, she started to try to think of anything she could to keep her from what was happening to her.

Wingardium Leviosa is the levitation charm that is usually the first spell taught to first year students at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Accio is a summoning spell, which Harry used in the Tri-Wizard Tournament to fight the dragon. Expelliarmus is a disarming spell that is quite useful when fighting a wizard duel. Stupefy is a stunning spell that is not all useful on blast-ended skrewts unless it strikes them in the soft underbelly. Expecto Patronum produces a Patronus Charm…

No amount of spells could keep her from feeling it. She felt dirty and disgusting and low—and it wasn't a feeling that was going to fade any time soon. Her hips ached from being pressed against the rough concrete floor. Her wrists ached from Yaxley's unrelenting grip, thought it was nothing compared to the other pains in her body. Dolohov hadn't bothered to be gentle with her, and each of his movements brought with it a new wave of pain. She clenched her fists, determined to keep from crying out—though that resolution was broken very quickly.

"Please," she whispered. "Please stop." The words escaped her mouth before she had a chance to think of what she had said. She wasn't the begging type. No, she was Hermione Granger, and she had dignity…except that right now, she just wanted it all to stop. And for a the briefest of moments, he did stop. But just when she started to feel relief, he started moving once again—this time with more force than before.

"Please," she asked again. "Please…you didn't even ask me a question…"

And then time started to move very strangely for Hermione. She ceased to judge time based on minutes and hours and days and weeks, because those were not important anymore. Instead, everything was judged on her torture. They developed a cycle: Cruciatus curse, beating, rap—no, she couldn't think of it—and then they would get creative. They used everything: pins, needles, pliers, wands, potions. Then, once they had gone through the cycle, they repeated it. She might have slept sometime in there, but she wasn't sure. If she had, it wasn't doing any good, because she was just as tired at the beginning of one cycle as she was at the end.

At first, she tried to make it stop—hitting, screaming, kicking—only to be held down. Then, she tried to find her escape—reciting spells, potion recipes, ancient runes—only to find that the pain kept her from completely retreating. Finally, after several cycles, she stopped responding all together. She just lie still in the floor of the cell, staring at the puddles of blood on the floor—her blood—in silence.

"She's not responding anymore. You broke her," Yaxley whispered, annoyed at the failure.

"No…She's not broken. Not yet. She'll tell me what I want to know," Dolohov answered. Yaxley looked skeptical. "She fears death…we just have to convince her that this is it, that she's really dying and we can save her. Then she'll tell us what we want to know."

"But you haven't even asked the question yet!"

Dolohov crossed the room and kneeled beside Hermione, who looked completely different from the woman he had taken off the street. Her blouse was gone, her skirt stained and tattered. Her hair—which had been in a neat French twist—was now matted with blood and filth. Her face was an unrecognizable mass of bruises. He smiled, proud of his handiwork.

"Hermione…you're not doing very well—"

She cut him off. "I'm dying. And you still haven't…asked your damn question. This has all been… for fun, hasn't it?" As the words left her mouth, she started to think of everyone that she was leaving behind. Harry and Ron would be crushed. They tried so hard to keep their families, which included her, safe. Her parents would be devastated to lose their only child to dark wizards after she helped to defeat the greatest one in history. The Weaselys...would her funeral be at the Burrow? Were they even going to return her body?

But then, maybe it wasn't so bad. The pain would stop, and she would know people. Remus and Tonks would be there with welcoming words, as always. And Dumbledore, with his kind-hearted smile. Snape would probably lament that a know-it-all had invaded his space, but he would learn to share. And Sirius...she was undecided about Sirius. He was a fighter. Even now, she could hear his voice in her ears, yelling at her, telling her to fight. She could see the exhilarated look that he got during battle, and wondered if she had that same look on her face right then. After all, she was going to win. She might die, but they still wouldn't know whatever they were going to ask...Yes, Sirius would be proud of the fight she put up.

"I can save you—"

"But you won't. I'm not telling…anything…" she gasped.

Dolohov shrugged. "Fine then. Any last wishes?"

Someone…please, someone has to help me…make it stop, please…someone, please…hear me…she thought.


Ten minutes later, a janitor found a man pacing the corridors of the Department of Mysteries claiming to be Sirius Black.