C is for

Chains, Crack, Curse

Chains

Hermione breathed as she tried to calm her thoughts. Her hands were tied together with rope before being wrapped with a heavy sack of anti-magic weave that would force any magic she got out back into the bag. She didn't need more restraints other than a door and solid walls but they still added it. Her waist was tied to the wall and her feet encased in a wooden stock with her feet only an inch or two apart.

The chains didn't allow her to sit down until they loosened it. She standing on her cot as she waited. Finally she was allowed to lie down and thanked the guard as he put the bare thread blanket over her. He had tossed her food in before but didn't realize that she couldn't eat until she begged free her hands to eat.

The man looked at her in pity and asking another man to cover her, he locked himself inside with her, and then fed her every meal personally. She didn't know his name but she swore to think him. He kept her from starving and dying of thirst as he cared for her.

Crack

Hermione looked at the cracked floor and sighed. Her chains were loosened that she could sit and after three weeks the bag was taken off for an hour for her meal. She could barely hold her spoon and glass they gave her,but she was grateful for it, and didn't even try to escape. It was better than the other option and escape wasn't on the table.

Her life was one broken mess after another. Her mother had cracked when she found out she had a mage as a daughter. The next day, Hermione saw something she'd never forget, her mother dead as her father looked at her hatefully before he attacked her. She managed to save herself but he died by her hand.

She was on the run after her neighbors saw her head parents. She wasn't on the list to learn and they executed and enslaved the mage potentials that weren't on a list for a school. She never thought she'd be caught but it was only a matter of time before she was executed.

Curse

It was the day of her trial. She had been washed and got a change of clothes to go in front of the council and plead her case. They looked down at her from their spot and she opened her mouth and nothing came out. She tried to speak again and a shot of pain filled her arms.

They spoke above her and argued for her punishment. She wasn't there to prove her innocence or guilt. She was there to know how she would die or her punishment. She tuned them out and put her head in her hands.

They finally decided that she was to be put to death. That was when the guard came in smirking. Then she found out the other option was cursing her to follow the Adventurer's guild. She would get training, and a power limiter inside but be allowed to live and earn her freedom by joining questing groups. It was a dark pit with winding tunnels but she had no choice but to accept and was cursed.