Chapter 3

"What do you want Malfoy?"

"I want to see how good you are," he said when he turned around. He threw her wand at her. "Come on, Granger, you get past me and you have freedom."

She knew he was messing with her head, and she knew he was good. Still, he was right, she did have the smallest chance. She shot him a hex, which he deflected expertly.

"Why are you doing this Malfoy? Are you so unhappy with your life you have to tempt fate by engaging unnecessarily?"

He shot her a hex and she had to step back with the power of it. He really was strong.

"Now, from your perspective, I would have thought this was highly necessary."

He shot one she tried to reflect, then another which cut into her leg making her cry out with the pain. She clamped her jaws shut to keep herself from screaming.

"Oh, that would have hurt." His typical smirk spread across his lips.

"There is seriously something wrong with you."

He shot her a hex that knocked her into the wall behind her, making her hit her head. She was dazed but she managed to block it. He hit her again and again, relentlessly, and she was barely holding her own.

"It's amazing you are the last one to survive-you're not that good."

She shot a hex she had perfected a while ago. He deflected most of it, but it cut into his cheek. He reached up and tested the injury, seeing the blood. She gave him a pointed look.

He hit her with a cruciatus that she couldn't block. She fell to her knees with the pain of it and he wasn't letting up. It felt like an eternity of excruciating pain. She lost track of herself and even who she was at the relentless waves of pain hit her. She could hear screaming, but didn't connect it as her own.

Finally it let up. She tried to raise her wand but she had been exhausted by it.

"Pointless as I thought," she heard him say.

He moved forward and kneeled down. The point of his wand pressed into the soft skin under her jaw. She could only look at him, unable to make out what he was thinking. His grey eyes held nothing in them, just cold consideration. But he was thinking something over and she didn't know what. Why wasn't he killing her already? She felt the tip press painfully into her skin. She knew he was done with her and expected that her end was here. But the moment pressed on and she could see muscles of his jaw working.

After an indeterminable period, he grabbed her roughly by the neck and apparated them. They arrived somewhere equally gray, but much colder.

"Welcome to Banchory, Granger. You'll love it." He forced her roughly along by his rough hold of the hair at the back of her neck. He didn't say anything further, just kept a relentless pace as he forced her along. "Oh and so you don't get any ideas," he said and brought out her wand in his other hand, which he snapped through the force of his grip. "You won't be needing that anymore."

He spent a short moment watching her reaction, before dragging her along as well. She refused to react, just stared at him defiantly. She wanted to fight, but she didn't have any strength in her at the moment. He snorted before forcing her to move again.

She knew that she was in the middle of enemy territory. This was the village that Voldemort had commandeered and the centre of his power structure. From what they had gathered, Voldemort liked the cold and they had all moved north, taking over most of Scotland-clearing out the muggle population through murder or fear.

There had been great fear in the Order of the Phoenix that they would move south, but the push hadn't come and Voldemort seemed content with Scotland for the time being. Although everyone knew it was just a matter of time.

The influx of magical people into Scotland had been surprising and distressing. Wizards and witches from all over the world had moved in, wanting a magical nation where they weren't living amongst muggles, hiding what they were. It had been a bitter pill for her and Harry to realise that there was a large portion of people who were welcoming Voldemort. He was building his Utopia and people were supporting him, buying into it. Apparently tyranny was a price they were willing to pay-well, the purebloods did, no one else fared well under this new structure.

The village was alive with people seemingly going about their business. The women were dressed in finery the likes Hermione had never seen before. They were wearing dresses adorned with precious metals and stones, including intricate sewing work.

He dragged her past a statue of Voldemort, standing at least twenty feet tall with his wand up high, looking extremely arrogant. Hermione knew that he required complete obedience and that worshipping him was a requirement for everyone living here. She was astounded that people willingly agreed to it. Surely people were stupid enough not to see through the self serving needs of a raging, lunatic narcissist. But no, it seemed.

She also knew that he didn't engage with the fighting like he'd used to, now he was amusing himself with the rampant intrigue and politics around the bestowing of his favour. Draco had taken over the unpleasant business of dealing with the floundering and disintegrating resistance. And apparently he was out of work now. Hermione fought the lump in her throat. She absolutely refused to cry in front of him.

They got to a door and Draco kicked it open, pulling her into a room with a low ceiling and a man sitting behind a rough wooden desk.

"Another to serve," Draco said and pushed her sharply forward until she lost her balance. He looked down at her for a moment without any expression on his face, then turned and left without looking back.

The portly man behind the desk stood up and walked around the desk. "What have we here, a feral one?" he said tucking his thumb into his waist. "Muggle or mudblood?"

"I am a witch," Hermione said defiantly.

"Oh ho, spunk in you, isn't there. Won't be for long. It won't serve you here. You're nothing and the sooner you realise that, the better. If you outlive your usefulness, that will be rectified quickly and trust me when I say they find creative means of doing it. Good entertainment and all," he said nastily. Hermione hated the man. He was the worst kind of wizard. Ugly in mind and body, and everything in between.

"Well then," the awful man said. "Let's get you out of those clothes."

"What? No." Over her dead body, she thought.

"No muggle clothes here, mudblood. You can either change or you can go naked, I don't really care which, but I will inform you that it gets very cold here at night." He sneered at her maliciously. "And no one here would really care if you froze to death. This way," he said sharply.

He cast a hex that whipped across her back when she didn't move. She wondered if she was bleeding from it, it felt like it. He stopped by a cupboard and grabbed something before continuing to walk.

"There is no hope for you here," he said facing away from her. "There is no where to go and no one will help you. You're the last of the resistance or so I hear. Not sure why he brought you here, I have a feeling you will be more trouble than you're worth."

He walked down a set of stairs into a basement, but he turned back to her before opening the door. "You'll never leave here and the sooner you readjust to that the better, it will be beaten out of you if you don't. There is no where to go and things are as they should be. Don't forget that."

He opened the door to a large grey room and grabbed her arm, pushing her in, then pushing her down the further stairs with his foot.

"Burn those clothes before I come back, or I will whip you all," he roared before slamming the door shut.

Hermione's knees ached from landing on the frigid stone floor. She looked around and there were people staring at her.

"Hurry girl," one of them said. Hermione only stared at them, until one of them stepped forward.

"You have to take those clothes off and put that on," she said pointing at the floor where a piece of material looking exactly like a sack lay. She raised her eyebrows in surprise and looked back on the people, who were all wearing similar sacks. "You must, now." The woman looked fearfully at the door. They all were.

Hermione stood up and started to undress. She felt a bit self conscious, but by the look of fear on these people's faces, she knew she had to comply. She considered not doing it, stubbornly refusing, but she also knew it wouldn't be just her that were punished for her defiance, all these people would be and that made it a lot more difficult.

The sack barely fit her, it only came to mid thigh and the material was very uncomfortable as it roughly covered her skin. It actually had 'grain' written on the side of it.

"I'm Mary," the woman said as she took Hermione's muddy and torn clothes and shoved them in the fire.

"Hermione."

"This is Stephen," the woman said pointing to an older man, "and Samarah," indicating a young girl of around twelve. "We're mudbloods too."

Hermione stood up and introduced herself to the others.

"We serve," Mary said.

"Serve?"

"Fetch, carry ,serve... whatever is asked. We take orders from everyone, even the elves."

Hermione looked around the room, there was a big table in the middle and a stove over on one side. This was some kind of kitchen.

"We sleep here," she said. "We sleep near the stove where it's warm. There is a spot for you. It used to be occupied by someone else, but they..." the woman drifted off. "Never mind. Your blood status is important here."

Hermione knew as much. They had heard things about Banchory, but over time they had lost contact. Their informants had dried up as the regime did their best to root out all supporters of the resistance.

Mary returned to the stove and was frantically preparing food, while Samarah polished silver cutlery.

"We must serve lunch," Stephen said.

"Are there more of us?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, scattered all over the village. A few muggles to."

Hermione looked around and sighed. This is not what she had expected, or the fate she had foreseen for herself. She had fully expected that she would die in the fight and she had no idea why Draco didn't kill her. He probably wanted this final humiliation, she recognised.