Author's Notes: Warning for torture, violence, dubious consent, and Stockholm syndrome.
She wasn't afraid of dying.
Blood bubbled up, slicking cracked lips with copper, as she laughed, pulled herself forward one more grasping inch. Hogwarts gleamed like a bastion of safety, one she knew she would never reach.
She wasn't afraid of dying, but she was afraid of dying alone.
The dust settled in her open wounds, road grit rubbing across bloodied skin until she felt she would scream at the rasping irritations. The Death Eaters had found her in Diagon Alley. She was alone, but she put up a fight. Until Bellatrix snapped her wand and the others seized her as the pain of that ran through her nerves, live as any current and stronger than the Cruciatus.
She still didn't know how she'd gotten away from the Manor. Accidental magic, perhaps. She was strong, but she wasn't strong enough to perform non-verbal magic without a wand. But it had hurt, Dolohov tracing her ribs with the tip of a wand that felt like a thousand knives, and she could see bones glistening, and she'd thrown up on him, and when he shouted, his eyes blazing, she'd somehow reached and stretched...
And with a very small pop, she'd found herself sprawled on the road before Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was the end of June, the sun was going down, and she couldn't see a single person through the gates.
So she dragged herself because she was too weak to crawl, while blood painted the road and her breath fogged the air in front of her. Until finally, she could reach out and touch the gates. The metal was cold beneath her fingertips, but she was too worn out to care. She collapsed there, vision dimming.
She didn't want to die alone, but she had no other choice.
A rumbling, from the track behind her, and Hermione lay there, not caring anymore. Perhaps it was Bellatrix or Dolohov, come to retrieve their toy. She hoped they killed her. Dolohov was angry enough to. Bellatrix liked toying with her too much.
"Is that a person?" McGonagall's voice, and Hermione felt like laughing. Perhaps she wouldn't die alone after all. Footsteps crunched across the gravel, and as the levitation spell hit her, she couldn't help but scream. The pain was a relief, though. She knew she was still alive.
She stayed in the Hospital Wing until the start of term. Her parents visited once, special charms poured on top of them until they could barely breathe, just so they could see the room where their little girl lay, not a crumbling ruin. They didn't return. Hermione didn't expect them to. It was bad, seeing their sixteen-year-old daughter broken. Her arms had been flayed, her ribs had been shattered. Her face...she didn't want to know what her face looked like. Madam Pomfrey said that it wasn't as bad as she thought it was, but Hermione knew the Mediwitch had a habit of softening the truth. It didn't matter anyway, really.
Seventh year started, and Hermione had never felt more alone. You Know Who was still gaining prominence, Dumbledore kept waffling away in Order meetings, and everyone treated her like she was made of spun glass. Harry and Ron acted like everything was all right, but she knew it wasn't. Her whole body was interlaced with scars, and sometimes she felt like the scars were the only things still holding her together. She woke screaming in the night more times than she could count, and her Silencing Spells only just held. When she woke, all she could think of was Bellatrix's lips on hers and Dolohov's fingers against her throat, and she wanted to vomit.
"I want revenge," she said one cold October morning, sipping her tea with determination and studiously avoiding Harry's and Ron's faces. Sometimes she could pretend there was no pity that way.
"On who, Hermione?" Ron asked. Of course it would be Ron. She sighed and set her teacup down.
"Who do you think?" she snapped before she could stop herself. "Bellatrix! She's the one who destroyed me, don't you think I deserve the chance to destroy her, too?"
"You aren't destroyed, Hermione," Harry tried to placate her, but it wasn't enough. She left the room in stony silence, only her will keeping her from dissolving into tears in the middle of the Great Hall.
That night, she had a different sort of dream. Bellatrix circling her, coming closer to her. Being gentle. As if that bitch knew what being gentle meant. Her fingertips on Hermione's cheek, brushing a tendril of bushy brown hair away. Eyes peering into Hermione's as if she could flay right down to her soul.
"You're mine, Mudblood," Bellatrix murmured, almost tenderly, and Hermione woke with a jolt, realising with shame that her fingers were stuffed in her knickers and her palm was damp.
She threw herself headlong into her studies, as if books could take away the crackle of pain along her nerve endings that woke her on bad nights, or the scars that etched along her face. Harry and Ron left her to it, and even Ginny gave up on trying to pry her away, after she almost got hexed into next week. Hermione had a very itchy trigger finger these days (and her replacement wand not being a perfect match helping), and no one could blame her.
The dreams grew worse. As bad as the nightmares had always been, Hermione would take Dolohov's overly imaginative curses over this new torture every time. Bellatrix touching her, murmuring what a good girl she was, while she writhed in place and whimpered...it wasn't to be tolerated. She stole Dreamless Sleep from the Hospital Wing once, but it didn't help. In fact, it got worse, because she couldn't wake up from Bellatrix tying her to a sumptuous, green-and-silver bed, couldn't stir from Bellatrix removing every shred of her clothing, couldn't get away from the Death Eater touching her and kissing her, the woman's husky voice filling her ears, her mind, her soul...
Never again, Hermione vowed, and Poppy's store of Dreamless Sleep went untouched-by the seventh year Gryffindor, anyway.
She wasn't afraid of pain, but she was afraid of the pleasantries, and nobody could understand that, could they? Ron couldn't. He paired with Lavender Brown, and she couldn't begrudge them, although she did slip away to the Room of Requirement one night and destroy everything the Room threw at her in a shower of red and gold sparks. It wasn't fair, but since when was life fair?
It was winter break before Hermione decided she'd had enough of it all. She was as ready as she would ever be, and if she had one more dream about Bellatrix Lestrange whispering sweet words of obsession into her ear, she'd explode or end up in St. Mungo's. She wrote a multitude of letters, splotched with ink and a few angry tears, and left them on her bedside table. The house elves would distribute them. Hopefully, she'd be coming back.
"I will come back," she told herself fiercely as she laced up her winter boots and settled her cloak around her shoulders, and tried to ignore how those words felt like lies. Her fingers ached with the cold as she trudged outside, and she fancied she could still see bloodstains around the metal bars of the gate. She'd been so afraid of dying, but now she knew living was worse.
Turning on the spot, she Apparated.
It was only later she questioned how she knew where to Apparate to, but there was no time for thinking when she stumbled into a dimly lit room, and Bellatrix was right there, wearing only a gossamer-thin black robe and a smirk.
"Hello, pet," Bellatrix said calmly, and Hermione found herself frozen, wand slack at her side.
"You-" Hermione couldn't get the words out, her throat was too dry, her words too garbled. "You..."
"That's right, Mudblood," Bellatrix grinned. "Me. Didn't you think your escape was a little too fortuitous? I let you escape, pet. Because I knew you'd come back. And here you are. What a good Mudblood."
"I'm not-shut up," Hermione hissed. Bellatrix clicked her tongue in disapproval.
"That's no way to talk to your Mistress, now is it? Bad pet," Bellatrix said, in the same way one might scold a recalcitrant puppy, and Hermione felt her cheeks burn. The woman's wand came up, the tip of it digging into Hermione's chest.
"You know what happens next, don't you?" the Death Eater asked. Her smile was almost gentle. "Crucio!"
Pain lashed Hermione and she crumpled over, nearly biting her lip through in her efforts not to scream. Don't scream, don't scream, she chanted inside her head, but it hurt, oh Merlin how it hurt, and her nerves splintered with the agony, and she could feel her hands and feet spasming, feel everything curling around the massive, fluid core of pain-
And then it ended, and she crouched on the dusty wooden floor, her heart beating like a terrified rabbit's, her breathing hoarse and stuck in her mouth. Blood painted her chin and dripped down her neck.
"Much better," Bellatrix approved. Hermione could see the woman's bare feet. They were terribly pale and ghost-like, and the nails were painted in scarlet.
Bony fingers circled Hermione's upper arm and yanked her to her feet. She swayed, feeling nausea uncurl in her stomach as she struggled to keep her breakfast down. She didn't think Bellatrix Lestrange would approve of a Mudblood vomiting all over her floor.
"You're mine, pet," Bellatrix whispered, her eyes piercing into Hermione's as she leaned closer, breath ghosting across Hermione's lips. "All mine. Aren't you?"
Against her will, Hermione felt herself nodding. She felt dizzy as her Mistress leaned forward that much more, pressed her lips against her own. The kiss was rough and harsh and reminiscent of so much more, and Hermione felt sick again when Bellatrix finally lifted her head, licking her lips to get the last trace of her pet's taste.
"Good girl," Bellatrix laughed, and Hermione wept.
And opened her eyes to find herself hanging slack in dungeon chains, blood painting her front, and her ears full of Bellatrix's laughter.
"Did you really think I would let you escape, Mudblood?" Bellatrix sneered, slamming her body against Hermione's shattered one. Her robes were slick with Hermione's blood as she ground into the open wounds, her mouth pressing insistent kisses against Hermione's throat. "And take the chance of you not coming back? I think not, pet," she murmured, teeth sinking into Hermione's ear lobe and provoking another pained cry.
"It was all..." Hermione couldn't even finish the sentence as her hopes were ground into dust by the madwoman in front of her. Bellatrix laughed and twirled away, glistening in bright, sickening red.
"All fake," Bellatrix confirmed. "Your mind is so delightfully malleable, pet. I could do anything, make you believe anything..."
Hermione sagged against the rough dungeon wall.
"You're mine," Bellatrix hissed in her ear. "Always. Crucio!" And the torture curse strummed along her nerves once more.
Blood bubbled up and slicked her teeth as she hobbled along the dungeon wall, listening for the sounds of fighting up ahead. Of course they'd come to rescue her, how could she have ever doubted?
She was so afraid of dying, but she couldn't die alone...