Harry Potter and its characters are the property of J. K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing them.
Hermione's breath caught in her throat and her eyes shot open. Her left sleeve, where she had been using her arm as a pillow, was damp. She had been crying in her sleep again, yet she didn't know why. It had been over two years since her last dream, or at least one she could remember upon waking. Considering how frequently she woke up in tears, she was thankful she didn't remember them. Hermione used her other sleeve to dry her eyes. It was morning, but in the dungeons it was never obvious. Her routine had become so ingrained into her being that she simply knew - it was 5am and she needed to start the day.
She twisted on her pallet, moving a makeshift sack curtain aside. The dungeons were perpetually dark and musty, having no windows or candles to act as a source of light. The sole source of illumination arose from a large hearth, shared between the servant sleeping quarters and kitchen. The fire had burnt down to embers in the night, casting a dull orange glow on the sleeping house elves. There were almost twenty in the room, curled up on the dirt floor in small groups. Another twenty resided in an adjoining chamber, and she suspected even more lived in the eaves. The building was large and difficult to maintain, even with their magic. Hermione had attempted to learn their names, but elves often didn't last long in this residence. There were only two of the original group present when Hermione arrived that remained three years later. The others had been buried in woodland surrounding the property, a job that no elf thanked her for.
A strict hierarchy was in place amongst the servants, with Hermione placed last. Many of the house elves were wary of her - she had been a witch, once, before they took her wand. Now she no longer had a right to possess a wand, making her practically a muggle, but some of the elves instinctively feared her. The construction of her makeshift bed had caused tensions within the group, with one elf in particular thinking she was reaching above her station, but none of them reported it to their master. Fear kept them all in check.
Her back ached from the awkward sleeping position and she winced as she stretched out her muscles. Trying not to disturb her chamber mates, she tip-toed around the edge of the room and moved through a low archway into the kitchens. In a routine she had carried out every morning for over three years, she pulled a pail of water from an underground well and tipped it into a cracked basin. She then scrubbed her skin almost raw with the icy water, making herself presentable for upstairs. Her ragged nightdress was replaced by a simple black dress, her uniform. The hem fell mid-calf, with a simple ribbon-tie around the waist to pull the fabric in. It was designed to make her plain and conspicuous, the role of every servant, but the material was an expensive dyed wool. It reminded the other elves that she was not like them - she was a prized possession, a trophy from the battle, a reminder to others what happened to those who opposed the Dark Lord.
Voldemort derived a sort of perverse pleasure, parading Hermione as his personal servant. Her training for the role had been brutal, with him expecting his every wish and whim obeyed without words being spoken. After all, he could never lower himself to actually ask a mudblood for something. If she did not guess correctly, she would be punished. The remnants of those punishments scarred her entire body.
The novelty of owning a member of the 'golden trio' had worn off after the first year. Hermione was no longer flaunted and publicly humiliated at his parties. She worked long, gruelling days but at least she was largely ignored. Any attempts by visiting deatheaters to taunt her fell on deaf ears, although she had become accustomed to acting out the response they wanted - tears, gasps, sobs, she could do it all. Voldemort never tolerated her simpering, true or false, and so she quickly learned the art of looking pained without attracting his attention. Her punishments were few and far between now, and sometimes she thought that Voldemort had even grown attached to her. The previous month, Bellatrix had suggested they torture Hermione to relieve the boredom of a rainy afternoon, but Voldemort had disregarded the deatheater's wishes. Sometimes she thought that the Dark Lord had begun to appreciate the work Hermione did for him.
As she moved to leave the kitchen, her eyes fell on a second black dress, still hung up by the hearth. Its owner, like herself, had been a trophy from battle. Katie had grown too confident in her situation, a sentiment that had been fatal. Hermione hung her head in shame. There were no certainties here.
She began to climb up the stairs to her duties.
Every morning she moved along the lower floors, lighting fires and straightening the main rooms for the meetings that day. It was the most time-consuming task, requiring memorisation of several household members' schedules. The upper floors were less work, as they were normally occupied by the upper echelon of Voldemort's deatheaters on his specific invitation. The houseguests typically brought their own servants, removing rooms from Hermione's list.
That morning, her tasks felt more like a ritual as she tried to remove the memory of Katie from her mind. She had thought all traces of the Bell girl's existence had been blotted out when she was buried alongside the other servants. Katie Bell had been taken by the Dark Lord as a message to the Bell family, who had a modern habit of marrying muggles or half-bloods and thus diluting their bloodline. These unions had been dissolved under Voldemort's new rule, with the resulting offspring slaughtered except one. Katie was taken as a threat to the Bell family to obey, and as a warning to other families which threatened to revolt. The Dark Lord wanted to keep as many pure bloodlines alive as possible.
Hermione knelt down at the hearth of her first room and began to sweep the ashes out into her wooden pail, being careful not to mark the carpets. When Katie had arrived, she was not the girl Hermione had once known. Katie's spirits had been broken, replaced by an insatiable fanaticism for pleasing Voldemort. Wanting to remove any taint from their shared past, Katie had shunned Hermione, but she had gone too far in her attempts to gain favour. There had been several nights where Katie had not returned from her work to the kitchens. One such morning after, Hermione had to collect the body from Voldemort's chambers, and that was that.
Hermione repressed a sigh. In silence, she continued to move about the palace in her duties. In a way, she appreciated the monotony of the tasks, yet she knew she could not avoid the inevitable.
Once she had finished, she returned to the kitchens to wash her hands and collect Voldemort's breakfast. The kitchens were now a cacophony of noise, alive with activity. The breakfast was already laid out on a silver tray, waiting for her.
Voldemort resided on the third floor, overlooking the central courtyard. Hermione would awaken him at 8am every day with breakfast in bed, and would stand in the corner of the room in silence until he had finished. Voldemort would usually ignore her, being either deep in thought or in conversation with Bellatrix Lestrange, a common guest to his chambers. It was at those times that Hermione would realise that the Dark Lord wasn't a monster, but simply a man.
That morning, he did not accept his meal in silence. 'We're heading out this evening,' he said, as if speaking to an empty room. He unfolded a black cloth napkin slowly, embroidered in gold with the monogram LV. 'We're attending a party at Malfoy Manor.' Hermione bowed her head in acknowledgment.
'I will make the arrangements, Dark Lord.' She replied meekly.