"No! Stop it! Stop!" Hermione's heart broke for Ginny as the younger witch pounded on the wall separating her from the love of her life. As Harry's screams grew deafening, Ginny bolted to the door and pulled with all her strength.
"You got muscles, girl, but it won't open," Rookwood explained. "Only opens from the hall."
"Which means you're locked in as well," Ginny pointed out. Hermione felt a wave of pride at her ability to think clearly through the sounds of her boyfriend being tortured.
"Yeah, well, somebody's gotta watch you lot," Rookwood shrugged. "Can't have you getting any ideas."
"And the moment we try to escape, you'll harm Harry further, correct?" Ginny asked.
Hermione, unable to think straight through her best friend's cries, marveled at Ginny's levelheadedness. Hearing Harry was bad enough - if it were Ron in the other room, she didn't know what she'd have done.
She wondered if this was how Harry and Ron felt at Malfoy Manor. She gave a great big shutter and collapsed on the bed, remembering clearly the agony of her own torture. Ron was beside her in an instant, his eyes red-rimmed. Able to read him like one of her many precious books, Hermione knew he was revisiting that horrid night as well. He put his arm around her and she snuggled into his embrace.
The screaming eventually died down, replaced by soft whimpers they could nevertheless hear clearly through the wall. Ginny knelt before the wall and put a hand to it.
"Harry..." she choked out. "Be strong. Please. I don't know when and I don't know how, but one way or another, we will get out of this. You just hold on, you hear me?"
"He can't," said Rookwood, doing a crossword puzzle out of the Daily Prophet. "He can't hear anything outside that room. You can hear him screaming for his life, and I'd wager he knows it, but he can't hear a word you say."
"I don't care," Ginny growled. "Harry, I don't care if you can't hear me, because I love you. I will never stop loving you until the day I die. Please, Harry, stay strong. We'll get you out of this, I swear we will."
"How touching," Rookwood said. "Oi. You there. Mudblood."
"Don't call her that," Ron growled dangerously.
"What are you going to do, fight me off with a banana? Mudblood!"
Hermione lifted her head from Ron's shoulder in what felt like a great feat of strength.
"I've heard you called the brightest witch of your age. Perhaps you can answer seven across."
"Like she'd help you," Ron snarled, pulling Hermione into a protective embrace.
"So be it, then," Rookwood said cheerily. "I'll just let the others know to prolong Potter's next torture session an extra minute or so."
"What's the question?" Hermione sniffled.
"That's more like it," Rookwood grinned, revealing yellow, prison-rotted teeth. "Let's see here, seven across, seven across... Ah. 'Author of Hogwarts: A History.'"
"Bathilda Bagshot," Hermione said instantly. She felt another shiver up her spine, recalling Harry's scream as Nagini wriggled out of Bagshot's skin and sank her teeth into his arm. For a split second she was sure she was back there again. Harry's shout sounded so real.
She realized after a moment it was.
"Stop it! Stop it!" Ginny implored, the desperation transparent in her voice. "Take me instead. You can break him so much more by taking me."
"Not part of the plan, sweetheart."
"And what exactly is the plan?" Ron asked. Hermione could see on his face, plain as day, the desperation to keep talking, to distract himself from his little brother's howling next door. "I mean, that Carrow bloke mentioned it, but I didn't really follow. Why keep us unharmed in a comfortable room and only torture Harry?"
Rookwood put down his paper and leered. "To prove a point."
"And what point would that be, then?" Ginny demanded sharply, turning to face their guard but keeping one hand on the wall.
"Your beloved boyfriend killed the Dark Lord," Rookwood explained. "With Dumbledore dead, Harry Potter is our biggest threat. So we eliminate him, breaking all four of you in the process. Potter will be damaged beyond all hope, and you three will be a shell of your former selves, living to tell the tale of how the servants of the Dark Lord snapped your savior's mind like a twig, slowly and steadily."
"You're wrong."
All eyes turned to Ginny now. She had turned her back on the wall, standing firm with her fists clenched at her sides and her brown eyes blazing.
Rookwood laughed. "I think you'll find not even Potter can withstand the Cruc - "
"They will find us." Ginny's voice was calm but cold. "Perhaps you've forgotten that the Ministry is changing. Kingsley WILL find us."
"The Ministry's numbers are few," Rookwood countered, waving off the threat.
"But the Weasleys are not," Ginny pointed out. "I can guarantee you now that our family knows we're missing. They know you took us, and while they don't know where, they'll have everybody you've ever wronged out looking for us. Lord Voldemort slaughtered by the hundreds, only to fall by Harry Potter's hand. Do you really believe no one is looking? Do you really think no one can stop you?"
Rookwood bit his lip for a moment before regaining his composure. "All those who know of this place are already here."
Ginny merely raised an eyebrow before turning back to the wall. Hermione could see her friend's shoulders shaking. Her back turned, she was allowing her facade to fall.
Harry's wails were still going strong, and they continued for several more minutes before dying down.
Eventually Rookwood switched out for a different guard - Walden MacNair. The former executioner didn't say much, opting instead to stare each of his prisoners down. Ron and Hermione avoided his gaze, and Ginny's back remained turned.
Several more torture sessions passed, each one making Hermione bite her tongue to keep from crying out alongside her friend. Finally, after what could easily have been an eternity, night fell and the screaming ceased.
"Eat up, dearies," Alecto Carrow leered, bringing in steak and kidney pie and treacle tart. Now that the torture had stopped and she could think straight, Hermione noticed that there were just enough for the three of them.
"Does Harry get any?" she asked suspiciously.
Alecto snorted. "You wish."
In a very un-Ron-like act, Ron scowled at the food and dismissed it. "This is Harry's favorite," he grunted, his nose upturned. "You've seen how little he is! If he doesn't have this meal, I don't have this meal."
"Fine, then," Alecto scoffed. "More for the ladies, then."
Despite the sick sensation in her stomach, specifically as she thought of Harry - curled up, alone, in pain and hungry - Hermione took a small slice of the pie, leaving the tart untouched.
"You know Harry wouldn't want you to starve yourself for him, Ron," Ginny pointed out as she dug into an equally miniscule slice of the treacle tart.
"Nah, I'm not gonna starve," Ron said, seeming to use all of his strength to put on a smile. "I've got a banana."