Born in Captivity, a harry potter fanfic

Written for Season 4 of the QLFC, Round 8.

Title: Born in Captivity

Team: Wigtown Wanderers

Position: Chaser 2

Position Prompt: What happens to Hogwarts?

Optional Prompts:

10. (quote) 'It's my turn to show you a sight you've never seen before' - Haruka Nanase, Free!

11. (word) blush

15. (dialogue) "Well played, Voldy."

Word Count: 2,900

Beta(s): CrazyRopeDragon, NeonDomino, Dolby Digital (Thank you!)

I've been told that the place where I grew up was a magical school once. Considering it's where most members of the Black Guard were educated, I'm surprised they let scum like me near it. They probably didn't have the magic blood to spare on such a pointless task. To rebuild the destroyed castle shouldn't have been such a monumental undertaking. I don't know much about magic, but what I do know I've learnt from the castle.

I've been working on the east entrance my whole life, and every time we build it up, it falls down at dawn. It's an endless, rewardless task. A young red-headed Guard once suggested that the reason 'Hogwarts' would not be repaired was because of what it's new occupants stood for. He looked at me, at us, and then at the stubborn castle runes. He said: "This isn't what Hogwarts stood for, and it won't stand for it."

We didn't see him again. I think it might have been his first day.

Sixteen years after the formation of the new world order, on the morning of the 1995 Treason Trials, they call my name: "Hermione Granger."

I'm the first to the plinth this year. I climb the splintered, timber staircase to the platform far above. The sun glares down on the rickety structure, making the tar soft and pungent; I feel too close to the sky. I'm a little weak: I haven't eaten in over a day. I'm strong enough for restricted rations and the Black Guard know it.

I'm panting from the effort of the climb, and at this height I feel winded by the breeze. I must be higher than the fortification wall as the unbroken wind is otherworldly. I try not to look down. I know all there is to see is stone. Will it be polished marble? Gravel? Will it still be stained with blood? The stories vary. The imperius curse doesn't make for the clearest of recollections.

The initial part of the Trial is rudimentary and brutal: a high dive. If my body cracks, and bleeds: preliminary repairs will be cast by the Primary Examiner, and I'll be dragged aside to be tested with Veritaserum. If I make it to the ground unharmed, or give any indication of theft of 'magical legacy', I'll be incinerated. Dying is also considered to be a pass. They are searching for Muggleborns and they are about to find one. I am wholly braced to die. Hope told me I could make it through this, or at least I think that's what she meant.

The wind is so loud.

"Well played, Voldy," I mutter to one of the writhing posters of the Lord Minister tacked onto the railing. It's said he spends his summers in the castle rooms facing the Central Internment Camp, overseeing our progress on its reconstruction. Unfortunately for the last dozen head architects appointed, no headway has been made in the sixteen years of work. The castle won't stay up. It's getting worse.

I shudder, imagining the snake-like creature watching from one of the rotting castle's windows as I crash to the ground. I refuse to look at it, turning to the crowd behind me instead. The women from my part of the camp will be made to watch, but they won't see the landing, they'll only hear it.

The night before my Trial, the eldest woman in east bunk told the story of my birth. It was something I had witnessed before. Hope Lupin did it before everyone's Trial. All the women bore scars from their own dive. It's supposed to be comforting to know you won't be forgotten, should it come to the worst.

They all had the good fortune to be unmagical; the Black Guard said we should be honoured that one of the girls from our bunk had died on impact. Hope called them Blaggards. The prisoners found it so appropriate that even the men from west bunk say it now.

Verity, the girl closest to my age, was next to me that night, twisting her hands in her lap. I remember her dive. She didn't scream, but I did.

We sat away from our cots, in a circle around Hope. We had taken off our itchy tunics, and wrapped ourselves in the cotton of our sheets.

Hope had lived among wizards. She says that I'm like her boy. Her hair runs down her back in a thick black plait, and she's the only woman with skin almost as dark as mine. Her voice is hoarse and genuine.

"I know it's hard to remember that we were our own people once, but for Hermione, there was no chance of it," Hope said. I pulled my sheet closer around me. The floor was poured cement. Hope was amazed that Blaggards had even thought to use it.

"We weren't given an explanation. For hours, we weren't even given any milk. There was no mention of who had given birth to this child, still wet with amnion." I'd heard the story a thousand times, but I listened.

"You were the first person born in the camp. That night you were the only person alive who had never taken a breath beyond their toxic lake and their wall of bone. We didn't even know whether you would be allowed to live. What did we learn from that dark beginning?" She looked to me for my reply.

"A seed that is planted at night may still bloom in the sun." It was the prayer for all the children born in captivity.

"Here's to that, to you, and our family."

"Here, here," the women spoke softly, so as not to draw attention. It was illegal to gather in such a large group. I felt their pride for my self-control and ducked my head.

Verity leaned close to me and whispered: "This feels like a funeral." I elbowed her, because it always does.

I know that it wasn't just their pride in me that made me blush. Their love for me, their trust, it made me ashamed to deceive them. I wouldn't see them again whether I survived or not, but I couldn't tell them that. I couldn't bring myself to ruin our quiet gathering with my disgraceful confession: that I was a Blaggard. I needed them to believe that I was good.

I cried in my bed. I was trying to chip the paint on my cot to spell the word 'sorry', like the cowardly, two-faced Blaggard I was. I noticed a figure approaching, and I bit my lip against my snivelling.

"It's alright." I recognised Hope and I released the sob that had been waiting.

"Oh God, what am I going to do?" My voice was hysterical and whispery and not as quiet as I meant it to be.

"Ssshhh!" a woman hissed from a few cots over. Hope ignored her; she owns east bunk, she can ignore who she wants.

"Please don't cry; you don't have to be afraid. I'm coming over here to tell you that: don't be afraid." Hope reached out and grabbed my hand. I clung to her, her palms were familiar and warm. "I love you."

"It's hard not to f-feel afraid, when your family is saying goodbye." I sat up and tried to see more than her outline in the dark.

"You're not going anywhere." I didn't have a choice then, I lost it. I broke down. She pulled me against her.

"I'm so sorry, please don't hate me. I didn't mean for it to happen. I'm not like them, I swear I'm not," I babbled. My hands were stiff as I pulled at her clothes, trying to drag forth some reassurance.

"I always said you were like my boy, Hermione." I loosened my grip a little.

"I know, thank you. I know what he meant to you."

"He went to Hogwarts." I pulled away, my eyes wide.

"The old school in Blaggard castle?!"

"Yes."

"The wizarding school." There was just enough light for our eyes to meet. Hope was focussed on me, like a laser.

"Yes. For my boy, and people like him."

"Like me?" I breathed, hardly making a discernible sound. Hope put a finger to her lips. She knew.

"He could do amazing things. Once he fell from a tree and bounced. It was so unexpected, it stunned all the passersby. Made them hesitate, made them slow. For the moment after it happened, he could've done something unpredictable. He could've taken advantage of the element of surprise if he'd had reason to."

"I'm not like him," I lied pathetically.

"Yes you are. You're a Gryffindor if ever I met one."

"Don't say that, it's treasonous."

"That's what they sentenced him for." The penalty for treason is death.

"I'm sorry.".

"It's fine. I couldn't be prouder. He fought for us; he used his power to defend the vulnerable, not because those were the rules, but because it was right. A girl like you should never have been put in a cage, left to build up a tower and watch it fall. You're used to it, I know, but tomorrow could change that. You could feel the wind, hear birds." I shook my head.

"Do they come when you die? Verity told me they sing."

"You're not going to die."

"This still feels like a goodbye."

"Oh my sweet child." She ran a thumb along my cheek, wiping away my tears. "Just don't forget us. Listen for the birds."

If I understand Hope, she thinks that whatever display of magic I make will serve as its own diversion, and then I'm going to have to seize the opportunity to 'gain the upper hand'. I think she wants me to steal a wand, which isn't a great idea for any Muggle who wants to survive. Not to mention the only wand in the arena is in the hands of the Primary Examiner below, ready to strike me down.

In the sea of distant faces gathered to see my dive, I struggle to see my family. I know I should face forward, but I can't turn away. I don't want to take in the sun-bleached barren grounds, sprawling out in every shade of brown and grey before the Blaggard's towering castle. Will Verity scream? Will I hear it?

A magnified voice says: "Imperio." I'm erased. "Turn, and move to the edge." Those words are the only things that exist. It is so easy to walk to the edge, the path is so clear. How did I not see it? "Step forward." I topple thoughtlessly into the breeze.

The moment I follow the order, my thoughts jumble back into place and I understand Verity's silence. The momentum of my fall presses in on my lungs, leaving me too breathless to cry out. My grey tunic thrashes around me. I don't know if my magic will do anything. Will I float? Bounce like Hope's boy?

I'm trying to breathe, and then air rushes into my lungs. I've never felt so much magic spring out of me at once. It fills me with both relief and fear. I am caught in that shocking wind, billowing about like a piece of loose parchment. Tumbling around at random. Then the breeze picks up. I blink in the sun. A jet of flame shoots toward me. A portion of the Blaggards scatter over the ground and direct their wands at me.

"Hermione, go!" It's Hope. I feel the heat of the Examiner's fire, but like a hot air balloon, the flame lifts me before I reach the ground. I have no control as the wind tips me up and over in a sprawling tumble, and carries me away.

I see the wall pass underneath. The air is thinning and I feel faint.

Beyond the wall there is a lush green forest, vibrant in the sunlight, and it's there that the wind dumps me. It's here, crumpled and bruised in the branches of a gnarled oak, that I take my first breath. The branches scratch my arms and prod me; it occurs to me that I could fall through the canopy if I make the slightest move.

But my God, the smell. I have nothing to compare it too. It's good. Empty. The air is empty and clear. The branches crack and I tense. There's a thick branch below me and I reach to grab it, just as the limb sticking into my back gives out. I tumble forward and grapple onto the branch. I brace myself against the body of the tree and see my distance from the ground. This is not ideal; I'm trapped high above the damp earth.

Suddenly, a booming voice blasts through the forest, and a dozen flocks of birds shoot up into the sky from the forest canopy. My chest tightens. Nothing feels real.

"Fugitive and traitor, Hermione Granger, present yourself for sentencing," the announcement says. The birds twitter, and I try to focus on them, but they aren't singing. They're screeching. The announcement seems even louder the second time: