PREFACE: The characterisation of Antonin Dolohov as a Russian, and the characterisation portraying Alecto Carrow and Antonin Dolohov as an unhealthily obsessed with each other is the intellectual property of Canimal, author of "The Dark Mage's Captive." I write them this way with her full knowledge and permission.


Witch Hunting

By Kittenshift17


Chapter One


Deranged cackling was the music that dragged her into consciousness and the curly-haired witch groaned against the dull throbbing ache in the base of her skull. She blinked blearily, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Sprawled on the floor of a dank cellar, Hermione Granger hissed as she realized the laughter came from Bellatrix Lestrange where the bitch loomed over her, rotten teeth on display as she screeched manically.

"Wakey, wakey!" Bellatrix shouted shrilly, and Hermione dragged her broken body into a sitting position, trying to make sense of this strange reality.

"Where am I?" she asked of no one in particular, blinking in the dark when she realized she wasn't alone. At least a dozen witches lay prone upon the floor surrounding her, many of them in similar, or even worse states than herself.

"You've awoken in one of your darkest nightmares," a low, husky voice came from behind her and Hermione spun, her hand fumbling for her wand only to find she was without it.

A dark-haired woman leaned against the wall behind Hermione, her dark eyes glittering in the torchlight. Hermione narrowed her eyes on the other witch, trying to place her face. A scan over her reclined form drew her gaze to the Dark Mark branded into the woman's arm, and to the faint, finger-shaped bruises around her delicate throat.

"Carrow?" Hermione asked, frowning in confusion. "Are you… are we all prisoners?"

Carrow's laugh was cold and detached, as unkind as it was unsettling.

"I wonder which poor soul's going to run you down, Granger," the witch sneered. "Pity the poor bastard who's been matched to a mudblood like you."

"As opposed to such a delightful specimen as yourself?" Hermione retorted instinctively before recalling that she was somehow sitting in a prison cell despite having no memory of even being captured.

"Still got some fire in you?" Alecto Carrow huffed, looking amused, those dark eyes assessing her carefully. "Better save your strength, Granger. It'll be a long, hard night for you."

"What is this? Why have I been captured?" Hermione demanded. "And why are you here, instead of out there with that barmy cow?"

She nodded in the direction of Bellatrix, where she was still cackling from beyond the bars of what appeared to be a cell.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" Carrow asked, tipping her head to one side and smirking cruelly, looking intrigued. "I could've sworn they told me you were intelligent."

Hermione scowled at the other witch, crawling toward her in the dark and leaning against the wall in the small space next to the Death Eater. She didn't know why, given that the other woman wore a Dark Mark, but she felt a strange camaraderie with the witch.

"It's All Hallow's Eve," Carrow told her when Hermione simply sat there, waiting to be given the answer, having not the foggiest of why she'd been taken prisoner alongside a Death Eater. "It's a Witch Hunt, Granger."

"A Witch Hunt?" Hermione asked, paling. "As in, pursued through the streets and burned at the stake?"

"We're not muggle-hunting," Carrow scoffed, glancing at her. "It's a Witch Hunt. The pagan rite. A festival of betrothal."

"Betrothal?" Hermione hissed.

"Ready to run, little mudblood?" Bellatrix sneered from beyond the bars.

Hermione glared at her, watching the woman flick her wand at another witch on the ground with long blonde hair.

"Luna?" Hermione gasped, reaching for the girl.

"Hermione?" Luna asked. "Oh no, did they get you too?"

"Carrow, what the bleeding hell is going on?" Hermione demanded, helping Luna sit up and intertwining her fingers with those of the younger witch.

Alecto Carrow laughed coldly again.

"I already told you, Granger. We're the prize in the witch hunt," Alecto said.

"A witch hunt?" Luna asked, her usually vague tone sharpening at the mention. "As in… oh, dear."

"Your little friend gets it," Carrow said.

"A witch hunt is a pagan rite, Hermione," Luna told her quietly. "In past years, on Samhain, a collection of young, unmarried witches was rounded up and matched to unattached wizards. We girls are taken prisoner since we usually haven't agreed to the match and aren't even aware we've been matched up with anyone to begin with, while the men are forced to drink fermented pumpkin juice, which makes them mad with lust. We'll be set loose at moonrise and told to run into the forest. Usually witches are given the sporting chance of a minor head start before the wizards are unleashed. They will run us down and lay claim to our bodies, wrestling us into submission. Usually, for the sake of the Rite, each wizard has a wedding band on his person and if he manages to wrestle one onto the finger of a witch whilst pleasuring her, the two are bound."

"That's barbaric!" Hermione exclaimed, aghast. She opened and closed her mouth in horror, trying to form a coherent and fittingly furious argument against such treatment, but finding herself entirely too horrified.

"That's how all marriages used to be decided," Carrow corrected her snidely. "My mother ran in a Witch Hunt."

Hermione blinked, looking sideways at the Death Eater and shaking her head slowly from side to side, wondering if she'd chosen to run in the hunt. Was this something witches and wizards regularly signed up for? She'd never even heard of it until now. It couldn't only be a pureblood tradition, since she'd been hauled into the cell alongside everyone else.

"Is that why you're here?" Hermione asked nosily. "People actually volunteer for this kind of barbarism?"

Carrow scoffed.

"Oh, I didn't volunteer. Why do you think I'm sitting in this wretched cell next to you?" she asked. "I was kidnapped, same as you. The only difference is, I know who my kidnappers were, and I know whom it is I'll be running from when we're set loose."

"Who?" Luna asked.

Carrow's lips twisted unhappily before she answered. "Dolohov," she breathed.

"Oh, thank Merlin!" Hermione exclaimed thoughtlessly, her relief evident when she hadn't yet known she was even worried about being foisted off on Dolohov. "Better you than me!"

"Oh, well that's friendly," Alecto laughed, more amused than offended.

"I'm sorry, was there something about you calling me a mudblood and you being a Death Eater that lends itself to friendship between us?" Hermione asked mildly, smirking just a bit. She could hardly claim friendship with the witch, even if she did feel a mild camaraderie with her.

"Merlin, I pity whomever drew you."

"They draw us?" Hermione asked, frowning, needing to know more about the ritual and just why she'd been snatched from… where had she been? Grimmauld Place? The Burrow? Hermione blinked slowly, her brow furrowing as she tried to recall how she'd been caught in the first place. Were Harry and Ron out there somewhere, worried sick about her?

"There's a scepter," said Alecto, oblivious to Hermione's spinning thoughts. "A bit like the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts, it reads the wizard's soul when held, and a name is chosen from the man's psyche as being someone his soul has recognized as it's equal. The wizards don't get to find out who they're matched to until the race begins. They're as in the dark as us, though most of the time they sign up for this. You two will find out just who it is you're matched with when someone tackles you out there in the forest, intent on fucking you stupid."

"Then how do you know you're going to be hunted by Dolohov?" Hermione demanded, utterly baffled. "You can't possibly be certain that this potentially mythical scepter has landed on you as Dolohov's… what? Soul mate? Is that the idea? This sounds very barbaric. And the kidnapping surely hints that this amounts to rape. You do know that, don't you? Being run down like a fox by hounds and then forced into coitus is rape, no matter what pretty ritual you dress it up as."

Carrow snorted.

"And you're fun, too," she smirked wickedly, glancing sideways at Hermione. "I bet you're paired with someone who likes to argue. Hmmm… Whom among my brethren likes to… Oh!"

Suddenly Carrow laughed and Hermione's insides twisted with dread.

"You think you know who I might be matched with?" she asked in a low voice.

"I could take a guess. When I saw you, I almost hoped that you'd been matched to Antonin, what with his silly little obsession with you after that mess in the Department of Mysteries. But then I remembered that if that was the case, I wouldn't be here."

"Why not?" Luna challenged. "Maybe someone else is matched up with you."

"There's no one else. Scepter and ritual or not, no one else would dare," Alecto shook her head. "When the moon rises, that Russian bastard is going to run me down and crawl between my legs as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow."

"Who do you think I'm matched with?" Hermione demanded, queasy with her dread.

"I'm not about to tell you, mudblood. You can figure that one out on your own. It won't take long. To make things easier we'll all be given our cloaks, and he'll know you by the colour you wear. He'll be wearing one to match."

"There are cloaks involved not, too?" Hermione asked, frowning.

"Mudbloods are so sheltered," Carrow sighed, leaning her head back against the stone wall of their cell and closing her eyes as though merely talking to the two of them had wearied her.

"It's a ceremony, Hermione," Luna took pity on her, explaining. "The Witch Hunt begins with the scepter. All the eligible young men are rounded up, they hold the scepter, and their match is determined. On All Hallow's Eve, they're given fermented pumpkin juice to drink and they're cloaked in cloth woven from pure magic – Daddy once told me that it was made of mermaid hair – but I saw the mermaids in the lake once and they didn't have very nice hair. It wouldn't make very good material for a cloak... Each one is dyed a separate color. You will be given one, just as he will be given one. Your two will match. It's to make it easier for the wizard to pinpoint his target."

"I don't want to be a target," Hermione protested.

Carrow snorted out a laugh but didn't open her eyes.

"It's a little late for that, Hermione," Luna said softly. "The magic of the ritual determines that you're fated to the wizard you're matched with. When the moon rises, we'll all be given our cloaks and set loose. We run, and they run after us. You can put up a fight. There are no rules to the ritual once the Hunt begins. They hunt us all down and they wrestle us to the ground. They'll be out of their minds with lust until the sun rises, and they'll all be trying to work rings onto the fingers of their matched witch."

"Who in Merlin's name even thought this up?" Hermione demanded. "This is madness! They kidnap witches. They force them into a race where they've got to run for their lives and their virtue, and then those witches are summarily raped and given a wedding ring? That's what you're telling me? Because some stick told them to? This is ridiculous."

"They don't have to fuck you," Carrow said. "Some don't. The fermented pumpkin juice is administered to make them out of their minds horny because back in the days before the Hunt was outlawed, some folks used to be displeased about whomever they were matched with. They used to kill each other if they weren't interested in marrying. The thing about finding your soul-match is that there's no guarantee you'll like the bloke."

"Since I suspect this is a Death Eater exclusive event, I hardly think I'm going to like the bloke," Hermione huffed. "We're expected to let them run us down? What if we don't run?"

"You'll run," Bellatrix Lestrange interrupted from outside the cell, her cackling finally ceasing. "Trust me, Mudblood. The running is half the fun. Gets your heart racing, the adrenaline rushing, the fear poisoning your limbs. When your husband catches you, you'll fight. You'll fight as though your life depends on it – as well, you should. When he finally pins you down and thrusts inside you, you'll scream out your defiance and your defeat and your bond will be struck. Before dawn he'll have a ring on your finger and he might've even fucked a brat into your belly."

She smirked wickedly, looking utterly enthralled, as though she was excited for it.

"Bella's marriage was struck through a Witch Hunt," Carrow told them with the terrible woman began to hum a little tune to herself, her fingers pinching her nipples through her dress. "Rodolphus ran her down. She's running again tonight. So's Narcissa. I'm told it's addictive. There hasn't been a hunt in a long time, but those who participate are never the same. It's a fight for your life and the prize is a soulmate you might not necessarily want. But look at her. She wants it. She loathes her husband with a fiery passion, but tonight she'll welcome him between her legs and she'll scream with joy when he claims her all over again."

Hermione shook her head, her stomach clenched with dread even as the first little pinpricks of pity wormed their way through her.

"You loathe Dolohov, too?" Hermione asked of the Death Eater.

Alecto opened her eyes.

"I despise him," she said. "And yet I crave him, too. I'd gleefully stab him with a million little knives, but I know I'd let him stab me with his cock in return. It's a terrible thing to know the identity of your soulmate. There's nothing romantic about it, like your muggles like to believe. There's nothing happy about finding someone who is your match. You will have your similarities and your differences, to be sure. You'll like and loathe one another. You'll rue their existence and pine at the thought of being parted. After all, once you know, that's it. There's no taking it back, no finding someone else who doesn't make you want to peel their face off every single day. You're stuck for life."

"Then why on earth would anyone sign up for it?" Hermione wanted to know.

Here, Bellatrix began to cackle again, and Alecto gave a short laugh, too.

"You think they had any more choice than you?" Alecto asked. "Antonin might be obsessed with me, but he doesn't want to tie himself to me, and he knows I don't want to tie myself to him."

"Then why?"

"The Dark Lord commands it," Alecto said softly.

Hermione felt ill and she felt Luna squeeze her hand reassuringly, as though to offer some small sense of comfort. The only comfort Hermione found was confirming that Luna was even alive. She took no pleasure from knowing the poor girl had been dragged into this alongside her, and she couldn't stand the thought of what she was about to endure.

"I won't do it," she said bitterly, gritting her teeth at the urge she had to cry in her terror at the thought of being run down and raped in short order.

"You will," Carrow murmured. "We all will."

Hermione shook her head, looking at Luna and expecting solidarity and stubbornness to gleam in her blue eyes. Her heart sank with terror when instead, she found Luna's eyes filled with quiet acceptance and resignation, mingled with just a sparkle of pity.