Chapter 2: Return to the Basement

A small, fragile-looking figure lying on a large bed under a black comforter began to toss and turn as she dreamed. Her chocolate-coloured hair lay in a disarrayed cloud around her head, spilling off the pillow and over the edge of the bed. Her face carried a look of pure fear, fear so deep it would chill you to the bone as sure as an Arctic wind and twice as thoroughly. After several seconds the look of fear melted to mix with one of pain and torment as she thrashed around fighting past battles. She began to whimper and cry out, tears streaking her cheeks and soaking the covers. Dark locks of her hair were soon plastered to her face. Her semi-quiet whimpering soon began to increase into screams of terror and pleads for help that would never come, not even in her dreams.

Hermione woke up to find herself face down in her drenched pillow. Her pajamas clung to her damp body, creating a feeling of suffocation. She was shaking badly as she slowly sat up, checking in the dark for anything amiss. Upon not seeing anything, she relaxed a tiny bit. It had all been that damn nightmare yet again. Was her life never going to be right again? What was wrong with her?

Hermione stared out her darkened window at the quarter-moon beyond it, trembling vaguely as she took in the deep, impenetrable dark. The dark was her enemy forever now and it scared her almost as badly as Eric himself. She felt more vulnerable in the dark, as if Eric could just walk through the walls of her room and rape her all over again. After all, it was the darkness that had allowed Eric to rape her. She knew this wasn't true, but her mind wasn't convinced, not after what he had done to her and the pain he put her through.

Hermione bit down hard on her lower lip and fearfully turned on her light, feeling a little less exposed in its soft, warm light as she scanned the area for Eric, expecting to see him prowling in the shadows around every corner. She shuddered at the awful dream; one of the worst parts being it had actually happened and that it wasn't just a nightmare. Although she wished with all her being that it had never happened, she knew it had. She knew her life was forever changed, in a bad way. She knew she really had been all alone with Eric in the basement, he really had hit her, her parents really had been gone, the neighbours too. The worst, most shattering thought was that he actually had done it. Eric, her parents' best friend, really had raped her, torn her young life apart and broken it into a zillion pieces. Nobody else knew about it, that awful night. She just couldn't bring herself to tell anyone, not even Harry and Ron. Although Ginny, too, was her friend, she just didn't want to talk to the younger girl, not about this. She wanted to tell someone so badly, yet she couldn't.

Shaking her head in a vain attempt to chase the disturbing thoughts from it, Hermione shakily edged out from beneath her warm, soft covers and put on her slippers. Even though she wasn't sure why she did it, she crept down the hall, past her parents' bedroom where she could hear her father snoring, down the stairs, took a sharp right, padded down another hall, crept down another flight of stair and turned on the light.

In front of her lay the room where she'd been to hell and back. It looked nearly the same but for a few changes. The papers that had lain on the floor covered in blood had been removed, probably by Eric himself. Chairs that had been broken in the struggle prior to the rape were upright and repaired, looking as if nothing had ever happened. There was no evidence left of that night, which she relief and disappointment at. Had she just imagined it? No, you can't imagine something that awful without it actually happening to you.

She wasn't sure why, but Hermione decided to start cleaning the basement. She ran back upstairs and into the kitchen, where she grabbed a box of trash bags and flew back down into the basement. Tears streamed down her face as she stuffed moldy documents and crumbling boxes into bag after bag. It was as though by cleaning the awful place she could clean herself of the memories and the pain. Choking sobs wracked her small frame as she threw the cellophane wrappers into the bag she was holding.

Finally she collapsed into an exhausted heap as the last paper was crammed into a bag, the bag tied off, and threw it onto the pile of other garbage bags. Tears streamed down her face and she trembled violently, screams of fear ripped from her throat as if she were an injured animal. Her mother raced downstairs to find Hermione in a fetal position, rocking and crying hysterically.

"What wrong, Hermione?" Sarah asked worriedly. She sat holding her daughter in her arms while, with one hand, she smoothed her damp hair.

All Hermione could do was cry her distress and pain out. As much as she wanted to tell her mother what was wrong, she just couldn't. It wasn't the she was afraid of her parents' reactions; she was scared of Eric's. She knew without a doubt that he would gladly kill her and wash his hands of her. He would have killed her the night of the rape, he even thought he had, but she had somehow survived it, somehow survived him and his wrath. She could only wonder why he had decided to go after her, violate her, instead of some other girl he didn't know, not that she wanted him to hurt another person, either. Why did he have to rape any girl? The answer was simple – he didn't. The damn bastard just chose to do so because she was easy prey, pure and simple.

"Hermione, what's wrong, love?" Sarah repeated again as she began to become scared herself.

"What's going on?" her father, Isaac, asked as he came downstairs into the basement with them.

"I-I can't tell you!" Hermione replied through her tears as they fell even harder.

"Why can't you?" asked her dad as he settled next to her on the floor.

"Be-because he'll k-kill me!" she choked, turning even paler and crying harder than she already was

"Who, sweetie?" Sarah asked, trying to remain calm. Much as she tried, however, she couldn't keep her own fear out of her voice.

"I can't tell you!" she replied, half screaming in her panic.

"Hermione," Isaac reasoned, "we can't help you if we don't what's wrong and who did this. Look at me, honey." Her dad gently turned her tear-stained face towards his own. "Trust me. What did they do?"

"I-I, the n-night you t-two were g-gone," she began through her tears, "he-he came in-into the-the house wi-with the k-key you g-gave hi-him." She cried so hard she began to cough intensely and choke. It was hard, nearly too hard, to tell them what was wrong. "H-he was dru-drunk an-and he h-hurt m-me."

"How did he hurt you?" asked Sarah, holding her more tightly.

"He-he pulled a knife on me a-and he c-cut me," she sobbed, burrowing against her mother's comforting shoulder.

"Then what?" she asked her daughter gently as she began to calm down a little bit.

"He…he…raped me," Hermione finished in a voice barely audible.

Isaac's eyes seemed aflame when she dared to look at him. Whimpering, she shrunk down against her mother. Her parents spent a good deal longer talk to her about what had happened and finally she gave in and told them Eric had done it. The information only confirmed Isaac's suspicions. Sarah took her daughter up to bed her and sat with her, speaking nothing but gently stroking her hair until she fell asleep once again.