'I'll ask you one more time, and then I'll get really angry. What else did you steal from my vault?!'

Bellatrix was screaming at the top of her lungs, but the girl-shaped lump underneath her did not move, and did not make a sound except for the quiet sob that escaped her.

'ANSWER ME, YOU FILTHY MUDBLOOD!'

Hermione opened her eyes at last, hoping, just hoping, that perhaps Bellatrix's face wasn't so close anymore. Her wish wasn't granted. The second her eyelids parted, she was greeted with the sight of deep, dark, and droopy eyes that showed more wear than anyone Bellatrix's age should. The woman smiled maliciously, showing yellow and black teeth, some of which were clearly missing.

My parents are dentists, they could fix that and prescribe a well regulated regime of dental hygiene, and you'd have a beautiful smile in no time, Hermione thought, trying to distract herself from the fact that this woman would kill her without a backwards glance. She would simply pull out her wand, as she was doing now, and whisper a spell, and Hermione's life would be over.

When finally common sense gave out and her voice let her speak, it was timid, riddled with shakiness. 'We – we didn't steal anything. We've never been in your vault, I swear!'

'LIAR! You've been in my vault! I'll teach you what happens when you lie!' And with that, Bellatrix pulled out her crooked wand and held the tip so that it was poking deep down into the skin above Hermione's heart. The woman leaned close, her enormous black hair creating a curtain around both of their faces, a kind of perverted sense of privacy. She smiled gleefully and whispered in Hermione's ear: 'Crucio.'

The scream that pierced the air was something unlike that which the boys downstairs had ever heard coming from their best friend. Even Draco, who was standing off to the side, trying not to look, who had never even liked the Granger girl, felt a twang of guilt and regret at her, his classmate, being treated like this. What had she done wrong anyway? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Somewhere during the scream, she heard someone else scream her name. It was no use. Ron it's no use, she tried to tell him telepathically. There was no way she would be able to speak. Not for a long time.

Maybe I can get used to this level of pain, and then it won't hurt so much, and then I'll be able to help Ron and Harry and we can leave and take the sword and finish this. I know a hex that I'm sure Bellatrix doesn't, I'll use it on her as soon as the pain settles and -

And she carried on screaming, all the while trying to distract herself inside her head.

She felt a tingling on her arm. It grew and grew until she recognised the texture of teeth, biting into her skin. Her scream seemed to amplify, if even that was possible.

The scream stopped as suddenly as it had begun as Bellatrix stopped, and Hermione's head flopped around on her shoulders, as if the echo of the pain was still there, and she couldn't deal with it.

The girl, who now felt less than two inches tall inside, opened her eyes slowly as the pain gradually receded. Bellatrix was consulting angrily with her sister.

Hermione couldn't help anything at all as she let the tears run down her face. She could feel the pain in her arm still, sharply, from the bite, even though the rest of the pain, from the curse, had gone. That meant the bite left actual damage.

She turned her head slowly to look. Brightly coloured stars clouded her vision as she moved, and she was certain she blacked out for a couple of seconds. When she came around, she opened her eyes to see what had been done.

There, on her forearm, written in deep gouges and her own blood, was the word 'mudblood.'

'Branded forever,' she whispered to herself. She was giving up. She could feel herself giving up, and she had resigned herself to her fate when she heard shouts from the stairs leading into the basement.

It happened in a blur, with her head still slipping in and out, as if she wasn't sure what was going to happen. I'll end up like Neville's mum and dad. Ron and Harry and Ginny will come visit me in St Mungo's and I'll be happy because I won't know what's going on. Oh, it'll be nice to not know what's going on, for once.

Then she snapped awake and to attention at a too-familiar tug from behind her navel.