Hermione had known it would come to this eventually. While she was widely numb to the world around her she was still aware; she still had a keen mind. It was a curse in a way, being less lucid would have been a blessing. She had seen the guards, sensed their simmering fury; it had started when she had first been brought into the holding cells at the Ministry, and she hadn't expected anything different here.

Ron had been every bit as popular at Hogwarts as she was unpopular, and he had only become more esteemed afterwards. He always had time to stop for a drink after training with the guys, was always happy to share another tale of the 'adventures of the Golden Trio'. Ron was affable, relatable, charismatic and for once out of their shadow.

What Hermione had done, whatever she had done, had taken away one of their own, the guards viewed her as the enemy and she couldn't fault their assessment. So she knew she was going to have to pay. Though her lack of reaction wasn't affected, they wanted more from her, they needed her to suffer.

There were three of them that day when they came to take her on the weekly visit to the shower block; Hermione had eyed them slowly, moving her gaze from face to face. She saw it there, on the set of their jaws, in the tension in their shoulders. If only she could have given them what they wanted, maybe then this would never have had to happen. Then again she had never been one for pretence, even when her life was at stake, she had never been an actress, and right now she couldn't have screamed and begged if her life depended on it, which in a way, she supposed it already did.

When they made it into the outer room of the shower block, Hermione was roughly pushed down into a hard backed chair. She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead as the door was warded, kept it straight ahead as a rusted pair of scissors were produced, and kept it straight ahead as the long strands of her once vibrant curls fell to her feet.

Hermione recalled the story of Samson and Delilah, having heard it first from an overzealous Sunday school teacher after she had been forced to attend by her mother. Jean Granger had been going through one of her 'make Hermione social phases', maybe if she had headed her mother she might not have got to this point, it was a pointless rebuke.

From what her fuzzy mind could piece together she remembered Samson's strength lying in his hair, though that had never been the case for her, she was well aware that the guards were not attempting to take away her power, which had long since been taken. No, they were looking to tear away another piece of her identity.

When to tell them that it had already gone?

Once they began brandishing the reflective metal in front of her face, Hermione averted her gaze. They may have spoken to her; she couldn't be sure, she got lost again, staring at the worn tiles and tracking the fluttering brown strands. It took an age, but eventually, once her head felt impossibly light, the two male guards left the room, leaving her with the mean looking woman she had seen upon entry.

Hermione was unceremoniously stripped and pushed into the nearest shower, to stand under water so hot it instantly burnt her skin. She was pulled out again after a few minutes and was left to stand naked in the cold room, until the clothes she had been wearing were thrown at her. Typically they would be issued 'new' things, but Hermione was pretty sure as far as she was concerned there would be very little protocol being followed. Once she was dressed she was taken back to her cell, none of the guards said another word.

Hermione waited until they were entirely gone, not just in sight but noise too, all her time in the dark was forcing her to rely on her other senses. In this place just because you couldn't see a threat, didn't mean it wasn't there. Once they were far away, she raised a hand falteringly to her head to feel the short, uneven crop that was left behind. The downy fluff felt so foreign against her skin that she moved her hand away. Instead, she ran her fingers over the top of her worn robes, where locks of her hacked hair gripped among the fibres. She pulled out the longest strands and delicately laid them side by side next to her cot as if they were cut stem roses.


It didn't take much time for a routine to be born, unsurprising as life varied so little here. Tracking time was impossible, so Hermione focussed on filling moments.

She carefully picked her robes clean; she scratched at the collected dirt on her shoes. She laid on her cot, first one way and then another and she tried to remember.

All the time, she tried to remember.


When she had been told she had a visitor Hermione had sat in the room she was taken to and straightened her robes. She couldn't think of a single person that would have wanted to see her, at least, not for any interaction that was likely to end well for her. She didn't move when the door opened behind her, not until her vision was filled with familiar bright blonde hair and pale skin.

"Hello Hermione," Luna said calmly.

When Hermione felt Luna's eyes on her, she lifted her head to meet them. She hadn't gone that in months, not since that night, well, not counting her interaction with Evander. But this was different; this was someone from her life, someone who had known her before she began her broken, twisted, half existence. Words wouldn't come, maybe they never would, but she could do this, offer some small semblance of her forgotten humanity.

Luna didn't stay long, didn't ask any questions, she just spoke. Her words so soft and light they bathed Hermione in a gentle kindness that she found harder to deal with than the more common abuse. Luna's demeanour remained open as she filled her in on the news from outside. Jobs people were taking, plans that were being weaved together, all delivered with a serenity that made Hermione's skin itch.

Harry was going to get married.

The was the last thing Luna said, though whether it had been deliberately saved that way Hermione wasn't certain. She was too busy trying not to panic as her throat closed instinctively as soon as the words were uttered. But even then no sound would come out.

She supposed she should be happy, they were moving on if that was happening. She was sure Ginny would make a beautiful bride.

Before she left, Luna deposited a large box on the table, filled with books, lots of them and even a couple of decks of muggle playing cards.

"You'll have to share these I'm afraid," she said, "you can't have anything in your… room, but I am told you are allowed these in the shared spaces."

Hermione said nothing.

She stood to go, and Hermione sucked in a long breath as Luna reached forward and twined her hand through hers. The moment the other girl's pale flesh collided with hers something inside Hermione broke, she hadn't been touched, not with kindness since… since…

She understood the visit for what it was when Luna left the room. Hermione reflexively clenched her fingers against the edge of the table, once again cursing her lucidity. Even then she still couldn't find the words to thank her former friend for her gentle goodbye.

Back in the cell, after enduring the cards taunts as they threw the books at her, Hermione curled up on the dirty cot as silent tears streamed down her face.


The third time Evander saw the girl her hair was gone, not trimmed, not shortened, gone. Hacked. As she slumped down the wall clutching a book as she had done before, he regarded the uneven strands and the closeness of her hair. He could see her scalp in places, those little tufts of coarse hair doing more to awaken his darker impulses than anything had in years.

Once it had only been one person that brought out his darkest side. There was a time when just looking at his father would bring forward emotions that the old man had long thought his son incapable of. It wasn't true of course. Evander hadn't ended up with a brand in his arm as a reminder of good deeds after all.

But now as he looked at the girl he could feel it fluttering on the edges of his conscious, the need to remove their skin as they had shorn her hair. The desire to hold them down to look at them more carefully, as if examining insects under a magnifying glass, to make them twitch in discomfort like they tried to do to her, to give them no room to breathe.

Fear me. For I never needed a mask to cover the violence that I am capable of. For my face was forever calm as slowly I snuffed out life.

Evander felt more than saw the reactions of the room around him. While no one from the side of the so-called light, let alone someone as prominent as her, could have been considered welcome, there was an us and them that came into force while in the prison, the traditional rules didn't apply. If the guards had done it to her, they could attempt to do it to them.

Being a Death Eater, and surviving the inclusion in their ranks was all about politics. Some may have considered Evander in a weaker position because he had not been housed with most of the others while at school, but it was no matter. He had been a quiet child, with a father to avoid, he was more adept at reading an unspoken shift in a collection of people than most, and he felt it then, could feel the room reforming around him.

In a way that the guards would never understand, in a way that the girl herself probably wouldn't even have considered, everything had changed. That crop was as efficient as a mark being branded into her arm. She was one of them now, she hadn't chosen it, much like he hadn't, it didn't change the outcome.

What have you done? He asked the keepers of the gate, I ask as what lays before you now is your own doing. We would have been quiet, tired enough to live out the rest of our days without incident.

Never throw kindling on a fire to check to see if it still burns, lest you become engulfed by the sudden flames.

Thoughts of brands made Evander look at the skin on her arms; he could see faint burn marks, whatever it had been it hadn't been enough to blister, just sufficient to leave swathes of unusually red skin.

His eyes skimmed along her flesh to her hands; they were clear, no knicks or bruising.

She had let it happen.


Hermione's first thought as she jolted awake was one of mild surprise that she had been asleep, it took a moment to register the absolute pain in her throat, it was raw, ripped to ribbons. Her heart rate was not just accelerated; it was pounding, the violent beating in her chest making her torso heave unnaturally.

She had been screaming.

Her dreams, a pastiche of shaky, bloody hands, too white flesh and spell fire, undercut with pressuring anxiety, faded.

She settled her body back into the cot, reaching for the insubstantial blanket to cover her now damp robes. It was moments before other anguished yells permeated her panic attack, the noise ripping through the brick.

Was this the first time her wails had joined the lost soul's chorus?


After Evander had come over to her that first day, he made a point of coming to sit next to her for a least a few minutes of their stretch in the room. He seemed pleased with the additional reading material and would often finish a particular page or paragraph only to push the paper into Hermione's hands for her to read also. She would nod her head when she was done, and he would take it back. Sometimes he would talk to her, little things about the routine, like how they came to the room once a week, Hermione couldn't be sure if she had assumed it was more or less time passed between stints.

Sometimes others would come over, mainly to just take a closer look at her before they walked away, though Thorfinn Rowle would stay a little longer at times, sitting down next to Avery so they could whisper among themselves.

Hermione was struggling to finish an unfamiliar verse Evander had pushed in front of her when quick steps sounded in front of them.

"Stay still," he whispered calmly into her ear, his words ceasing her fingers path along the bottom of the line she was reading and she complied immediately.

Rabastan Lestrange came to a halt in front of her, Hermione didn't look up, but she could hear his laboured breathing, could identify him from the skin she could see, exposed by the trouser legs to his robes that didn't quite reach the ground. Evander circled a hand around her wrist, and Hermione suppressed a flinch at the surprisingly warm touch, he had never done that before. It was different to how it had felt when Luna reached for her, her friend's hand had broken some of her walls down, Evander's fortified them.

"Out of the way, Avery," Rabastan snapped aggressively, moving forward, his canvassed feet almost on her crossed knees.

"Fuck off Lestrange," a voice sounded from the other side of the room, and Thorfinn moved around the stationary observers to settle on her other side, arms folded and leaning, relaxed against the wall.

Rabastan looked down at her with a sneer lighting his lips. "What the fuck are you doing here Granger? How did the Order's pet genius manage to get herself thrown in her with the damned?"

She didn't respond, though, as had become her custom, she glanced up to meet his gaze, Rabastan looked like he would froth at the mouth.

"Come on, fair's fair, you know why we're here," he called mockingly and dropped to his knees in a quick movement that made Thorfinn reach an arm forward that he battered away.

"Fuck you Rowle," he spat, before ripping up the sleeve of his thin robes and shoving it under her nose, "See Granger, you know our secrets."

The Dark Mark against Rabastan flesh was faded a little now, the lines around the skull and snake marginally blurred, the entrenched ink looking like a child had painted slightly outside the lines. The body of the tattoo was no longer black, more muted in colour.

Murky grey, just like everything else.

"It still hurts," Rabastan muttered, falling back to sit on his bum and folding his legs in front of him.

Hermione moved her hand to cover Evander's fingers, gently pulling them apart and releasing her wrist from his solid grasp. Never taking her eyes from her forearm, she moved up the thin material of her sleeve and exposed the jagged scarred lettering that would never heal. She laid upturned against her knee, mirroring his pose.

"Still hurt?" Rabastan croaked.

Hermione nodded.


The route to the shower block took Evander past the cell that housed her. Hermione.

He thought about her name often. It had never even stuck in his brain before. At meetings, she had been 'Granger', the unfamiliar name being a reminder to all of her other moniker 'the Mudblood'. He didn't use her name, not out loud at least; he had a feeling she wouldn't answer to it at present.

On their way passed Evander would turn his head as much as he could, against the force of the collar, just in time to get a glimpse of her folded up on the cot, staring blankly at the ceiling. But today she was sat in the very centre of the floor, resting on her knees, holding her hands out in front of her and away from her body.

Like she was afraid of them.


There were three thousand, two hundred and seventeen slick grey bricks that made up the walls of her crumbling cell.

She was taken for a shower on a Monday, though she had no idea whether it was a consistent time.

On Wednesdays, the guards came in for a cell 'inspection' though their behaviour varied. Some of them just liked to stare at her, to try and make her uncomfortable, some whispered taunts, and some roughed her up a little. One had even undone his belt once, stalking towards her and listing off all the ways he would make her scream.

Hermione had looked back at him, as blankly as ever, though inside her heart had begun to race. Something in her vacant expression made him pause. He left soon after that, though he slapped the side of her face as he left, spitting at her when she crumpled to the floor.

She reflected that they still weirdly feared her, even in her obviously incapacitated state.

Fridays she was thrown into the room with the Death Eaters, all that remained of them, or so Avery had told her.


It took months, maybe longer, but finally, with some gentle coaxing from Evander, Hermione moved to sit at one of the tables when she came to the room now. He sometimes looked over what she was reading or invited her to swap books with him; there wasn't a lot to pick from.

Luna had not been back.

Hermione barely took in words, but it was something to do. She often wondered how old Hermione, whole Hermione, would feel about her now. Even reading was lost to her, the words scattered and danced about the pages, mocking her blankness.

As she sat trying to thread the latest sentence through her mind, a chair in front of her was dragged across the floor, and Louis Travers dropped languidly into it.

"Slow," Evander whispered in her ear, and Hermione softly placed the book she was holding on the table in front of her, before instinctively moving her arm towards Evander. Without any further word between them he gently circled his warm fingers around her wrist, in a secure loop, it was enough encouragement for her to move her eyes from the top of the table.

Hermione had always thought that Travers had a 'kind face' and had mulled over whether that was an aid or a hindrance in his chosen profession. Despite his incarceration, he looked much the same as he ever had, his skin, unlike hers, had retained his sun-kissed colour.

"Your screaming," he began, approps to nothing, "you should start practising Occlumency."

Hermione looked up at him, her face revealing nothing.

"It helps with some of the darker thoughts," he explained looking at her intently.

She pondered that for awhile, not sure whether she could even be considered as having thoughts at all anymore, regardless of their place on a spectrum. Her brain now only seemed to list things rather than think of anything, though she supposed she did expend most of her mental energy trying to separate reality from either imagination or hallucination, which didn't leave much for high-level reflection.

"You don't need a wand," he continued before he looked at Evander, the two men stared at each other for a few moments, silent communication moving between them until Evander nodded and Travers looked back at her.

"I could help you."


When Evander woke from a dream, it was to the bizarre sensation that he felt peaceful. He couldn't remember all of it, only dregs, like the bottom of an abandoned coffee cup remained.

He had seen the bird again, it was still broken, still lost and in the wrong place but it rested on the ledge at the crack in his cell wall and looked out. In the dawning light, he could see how its feathers had been cropped close, though they had looked better, healthier than Evander had remembered seeing before.

All things in good time.


A/N Thank you to everyone that has added to lists and reviewed, super happy so many of you have clicked to have a look at this very rare pair. Will be aiming to update this one weekly on a Monday, see you next week!