It had been quite sometime since Hermione had found out that Voldemort lost the war. That outside of the miserable household that she dwelled in, there was a world that was returning to its formal peaceful glory. Almost every Death Eater or snatcher was either dead or locked away in Azkaban by now.
She knew this because Scabior was drinking more and was also becoming more aggressive towards her. Even though physically that wasn't good for her, but she still took his behavior as a good sign that the numbers of all of the snatchers under his command was depleting; and as each snatcher was captured, that only meant that the Ministry was one step closer to finding Scabior and her.
Hermione would have to bite her tongue to keep her from smiling whenever Scabior would barge through the front door severely wounded. That meant that he was almost caught. What cruel irony for him to find out the hard way of how all of the muggle-borns had felt when he would hunt them down, just like he did with her.
Poor Scabior. Hermione thought with heavy sarcasm.
"I don't like that look you've got on that pretty face of yours sweetheart."
Hermione snapped her head up from the book that she was re-reading again to see Scabior from across the living room, glaring at her with suspicion. For a while he had just been staring into the fire, which didn't bother her as she was very glad to have these precious moments of quiet and no physical contact between the two of them. She didn't miss the almost empty bottle of firewhiskey in his hand.
"I don't know what you're talking about." She defended, her face a blank mask. The mask she was accustomed to wearing.
Scabior chuckled dryly as he simply dropped the bottle onto the floor with a small clattering noise and reached into his inner jacket pocket to pull out his cigarettes and lighter. "You were thinking about something that I wouldn't like I bet." He said as he lit his cigarette.
"Hoping again that I'll leave one day and never come back?" Scabior pulled the cigarette from his mouth long enough to let out a puff a smoke before placing it back between his lips. "Or that someone will rescue the helpless princess from the nasty dragon?"
The way he laughed and looked at her from across the room made her skin crawl.
"How much have you had to drink?" Hermione swallowed, eyeing the bottle. Obviously it wasn't his first if he was already behaving this way.
"Not nearly enough." He clicked his tongue.
Scabior stood suddenly and walked calmly over to Hermione and didn't stop until his hips were just hovering a mere inch from her face. Hermione kept her gaze on the page of the book that she had long since stopped reading, not wanting to look up at him or look at what she knew was right by her.
Hermione let out a yelp in pain as she felt his hand make a fist in her hair and yanked her head back so that she was looking straight up at him.
"How many times have I told you to stop wishing for something that will never come?" He questioned. His voice was surprisingly still calm and collective as the back of his fingers from his free hand caressed the side of her face.
A small spark ignited deep inside of her. Occasionally this spark would show itself when it came to Scabior; it was her spark of hope. So long ago he had extinguished it and it stayed that way until the day when he killed the man named Finn, and found out that her friends were looking for her. Hermione had hope again, so sometimes she would gain the courage to fight back. Unfortunately the consequences were never good for her in return.
"You're just afraid." Hermione snapped and ignored another painful pull from his fingers as she took notice his eyes narrowed dangerously down at her. "You're afraid because you know that it'll be your turn to get snatched up soon and sent back to Azkaban!"
She was expecting a slap in the face or for him to throw her out of the chair, or even place a curse on her - like he'd grown accustomed to doing lately. Instead, she saw him pull his cigarette out of his mouth. After he blew out the smoke, she expected him to put it back in his mouth, except he didn't.
Hermione let out a scream of agony as she felt his cigarette press into the base of her neck.
She cried as he continued to put out his cigarette in her skin by pushing harder. The smell of the tiny area of her flesh burning, and the sound of the cigarette making a sizzling sound was sickening. Finally, he flicked away the cigarette, but the pain was still clearly there.
Scabior bent down and whispered into her ear with a growl. "It seems that I have to remind you yet again about your predicament."
He used his hand that was entangled within her thick hair to his advantage and yanked her from out of the chair she sat in, the book that was in her lap landed on the floor with a loud 'smack' as he dragged her out of the living room and up the staircase.
Once they made it to the bedroom, he released his painful grip on her and sat her roughly down on the bed and crouched down so that he was just a little below eye level of her, but still looked up at her with a piercing stare.
"It doesn't matter whether or not your friends come to save you because they will never truly have you. When I said that you're forever mine, I meant it. You will never be free of me."
Hermione shivered from the way his words sunk into her. They weren't true. She knew it. He was just trying to break her spirit like he always did. Reminding her every single day that she belonged to him was something he always did, it was programmed deeply that sometimes she really did believe it.
Not this time she didn't. Hermione wanted to say something, but feeling the still stinging pain from the cigarette burn reminded her to keep her mouth shut.
She saw him smirk, knowing that he had won yet again and pulled out his wand. She closed her eyes, already expecting what was to come.
After she felt a cool breeze against her bare skin, she reopened her eyes and knew that both her and Scabior were completely naked.
Scabior pushed her onto the bed so that she was on her back as he rose from his crouched position to climb on top of her. He slid his tongue from her navel and made his way up her body while leaving behind a trail of his saliva until he reached his destination and shoved his tongue into her mouth.
Hermione didn't bother to fight the kiss, it would only make things harder for her. He was being gentle now, but she knew before long that the gentleness will turn into aggression. It was always like this when he would have to "remind" her that she was his possession.
Hermione knew that she was in for a rough time for the next few hours.
Hermione awoke just hours after Scabior had finally finished with her and they both drifted into a sleep of exhaustion. Her body ached and she could still feel the tiny burn on her neck from when Scabior had burned her.
She looked at her surroundings to see that they were both entangled in the same sheet, but he was laying on his back and his face faced the opposite direction of her. She was glad that he was still asleep, and he was going to stay that way for a while. He slept a lot longer after a night of drinking and spending several hours doing sexual acts with her.
Hermione made as little movement as possible as she rose from the bed in a zombie like manner. She wasn't afraid of him waking up or forcing her back into the bed. It wasn't like when she was first brought here. Scabior wasn't worried if she would do something to harm herself, and he knew that she knew that there was absolutely no means of escaping. He could rest peacefully while she moved about wherever in the house.
She entered the bathroom after closing the door softly behind her. She was about to head to the bathtub and soak in the warm water for a while to help her sore body before going downstairs to cook a meal for him when he awoke, but the sight of her reflection caught her attention.
Hermione hesitated for a moment. She didn't like looking into mirrors, she tried to avoid them as much as possible because she didn't want to look at herself. She didn't want to see what she what she had become. There wasn't any need to look into any of the mirrors in the house anyway. Her clothes were the same and Scabior didn't give her make-up to wear, so all she had to do was just run a brush through her hair until the knots were out and she was fine. But now for the first time in what seemed like forever, she plucked up the courage and turned to look at herself in the bathroom mirror.
She was horrified by her own reflection.
Her hair was the typical bed head style from sleeping, but it was the rest of her that stunned her.
Her skin was pale from months and months of no sunlight, she had bags underneath her eyes from the little rest she was having lately, and her eyes were red to add on from her exhaustion.
Scars were all over her body. A lot were bite marks from him, since he loved to bite her to clearly show his dominance. Some where from burns from times when Scabior had burned her from either his cigarettes or some curse he would use on her whenever she was being defiant and was certainly in no mood to deal with her defiance. Others were cuts from when he used restraints on her and put them on so tight that they would dig into her skin, and he had restrained her from several different areas of her body; Scabior always found a way to get creative with her.
Hermione had several bruises covering her arms, legs, and hips from him holding her so hard when having sex or just being forceful. Her lips were bruised as well from him kissing her roughly earlier.
Hermione raised a shaky hand to the mirror and her finger tips touched her reflection as tears swam at the line of her vision.
She wasn't Hermione. She was just a poor, broken, dirty, and used version of the girl that was once called the brightest witch of her age.
Scabior really had destroyed her mentally and physically.
Hermione kept silent as the tears streamed down her face. There was a maelstrom of emotions swirling all around inside of her. She was furious that she was helpless and couldn't do a thing to prevent any of this from happening to her, and wretched as she gazed upon herself while so many memories of his torture on her over the last year or so was all so vivid.
Before she could think, her fist went into the mirror and shattered it, several shards of the glass falling into the sink followed by droplets of blood from her fingers and knuckles.
She stood there frozen for a couple of minutes, expecting Scabior to walk through the door and see what she had done, clean it up, scorn her, and Merlin knows what else; all depending on his mood. But he didn't come in. He was still sound asleep in the bedroom.
Hermione could hear her blood pumping in her ears as her heart banged against her chest while she stared into the sink to see all of the many shards of glass, big and small. Then her already bloodied hand grabbed the largest and thickest piece, then walked out of the bathroom quietly.
Her assumption was right that Scabior was still in a deep sleep. For once his heavy drinking was working in her favor.
Hermione climbed onto the bed and straddled his waist. Both of her hands were raised above her head as they gripped the glass so hard that it was cutting into her skin, but she ignored it as she drove the glass into his chest.
Scabior's eyes snapped wide open and a noise signaling his pain came from his mouth. Him being awake only stopped her for a split second but Hermione kept stabbing the glass into his chest, his neck, and anywhere that she could drive it. For a few seconds Scabior's hands had tried to stop her but he had already lost his strength to fight back after the first few stabs. His blood was spattering across her face and naked body but she still didn't stop.
Hermione kept up the stabbing motions for another minute or two, her anger and fear were getting the best of her. All of the emotions that were buried deep within her from all of the months of pain and anguish were finally being released. Finally, she stopped. She looked down at Scabior, breathing heavily, to see all of the gashes and stab wounds oozing out deep crimson liquid as the smell of metal sunk through her nostrils.
Scabior was dead.
Hermione jumped immediately off of him, discarded the broken piece for the mirror and backed up the wall and just stared at his mutilated body for a moment, a fear deep in the back of her head that he would get up and come after her with retaliation. It took her another few minutes for it to really click in her mind that he was indeed gone for good.
Hermione began to laugh.
She slid her back down the wall until her bottom was on the wooden floor and her knees were tucked up against her chest. She continued to laugh, pushing her hair out of her face, not caring that she was smearing both her and his blood across her face and into her hair while doing it.
Hermione was so lost in her own laughter and glee that she didn't hear the loud bang come from downstairs followed by several shouts. She didn't even notice the room be filled of people until she felt a pair of hands move her arms away from her head and pulled her into a warm embrace.
Her laughter died and her first instinct was to pull away from the strong arms that was incased around her. But she didn't as she looked in the room to see so many familiar faces.
Kingsley and some other man were standing over Scabior's body in the bed, there was Mr. Weasley, Bill Weasley, and Neville searching through the room while also occasionally looking at her to keep making sure that she was fine.
Her eyes peered through the corners to see shaggy black hair and the frame of glasses being pressed into the side of her head, it was Harry hugging her, and judging by the other pair of arms circled around her - it was Ron.
Hermione broke down and cried until exhaustion finally took over and she succumbed into unconsciousness.
Tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…
Hermione's eyebrows furrowed in frustration. What was that annoying sound? She opened her eyes to see that she was in a small white room. She assumed that was in St. Mungo's, and deeply hoped that this wasn't just a dream.
There was nothing in there besides a sink with a cabinet above it, a couple of chairs and to her left was a clock ticking away. It read: 10:17. Her eyes snapped to the window that was on the other side of the clock and saw bright sunshine peering into the room.
How long had it been since she knew what time it was? Since she had seen sunlight?
Hermione pulled off the pink sheet that was over her body and pulled her legs over the side of the bed. As she stood up she noticed that she was wearing a paper thin pale pink hospital gown. She felt the material briefly before walking to the window and stared out it. All she could see was a clear blue sky and the sun hovering over the Earth below, shining it's beautiful light that so many people take advantage of.
She unhooked the clasps of the window and slid it open, welcoming the breeze that flew in full of fresh air. Hermione took in a deep breath and relished it. It had been too long.
Hermione jumped and turned around when she heard a door open so suddenly and two people rush in. She half expected to see Scabior still. But it was only a woman wearing the standard nurse's uniform for St. Mungo's and Harry.
"Ms. Granger, I'd like to ask you to step away from that window." The nurse said calmly, raising her hand slowly so not to alarm Hermione. Why would she be acting that way?
"Excuse me?" Hermione questioned, her back facing the window but didn't move away from it. Didn't they know that she wanted to feel and smell the air again?
"She's not going to do anything." Harry looked at the nurse sternly before walking over to Hermione and gave her a hug and pulled away enough to look at her. "How are you feeling?"
"Okay." Hermione answered, still having a questioning look on her face. "Why aren't I allowed near the window?" She asked as Harry walked her back to her bed and sat her down.
Harry sat besides her but looked at her hesitantly. As if he was trying to figure out what to say without getting her mad or hurting her feelings. "Well…the doctors don't think you're in a right state of mind right now…"
"What!" Hermione half-screeched, making Harry flinch. "I'm perfectly normal!" Despite the months of torment she faced with Scabior, she was okay. Judging from the lack of ache in her body and that her arms didn't seem to have a mark on them anymore, she seemed to be okay. Why would her mental health be in doubt?
"It's just that judging from how long you were with that snatcher…and how we found you…the doctors just want to make sure you're absolutely fine before clearing you to go home." Harry answered.
Hermione glanced over at the nurse who appeared that she didn't want to be there, as if she had better things to do. When she noticed Hermione looking at her, she waved her wand and bottle of ink, a quill, and a notebook appeared out of thin air and landed on her hospital bed.
"The doctor said that when she woke up, she needed to do some therapy with drawing simple pictures," She glanced over at Harry sternly. "alone."
Harry looked like he wanted to argue with her, but must've decided against it as he stood up and gave Hermione a gentle pat on her arm and a kiss on top of her head. "I'll be back in a little while Hermione, I'll try to bring you back something good to eat."
But Hermione didn't answer him as he left. She just stared at the notebooks and was half tempted to throw them out the window. She couldn't believe that they wanted her to draw pictures. What was this, kindergarten? Why couldn't she have Harry or someone in the room with her? She had spent a year alone with Scabior and the last thing she wanted now was to be alone.
A flash of Scabior bloodied underneath her, and then of her kneeled down on the floor laughing flashed in her head.
I'm not going crazy. Her thoughts whispered.
It was self defense. Finally she had gathered up the courage and attacked him at the most opportune moment, how could anyone blame her and doubt her sanity? How was she to know that they were all going to show up right after she killed him?
Hermione checked the clock, it read: 12:29. It had been over two hours since the nurse and Harry had left her alone in the room to do some therapeutic drawings.
In the last couple of hours she managed to have drawn about four different drawings that weren't really nothing. Each one of them were of the scenery she remembered seeing when she was searching for the horcruxes with Harry and Ron.
Sighing, she closed the notebook in her lap and drummed her fingers against the hard surface of the cover. She really didn't feel like drawing anymore, so hopefully someone would come in here soon to check on her and hopefully Harry would keep to his word and bring her back something delicious to eat.
Hermione closed her eyes for a brief second and inhaled another breath of fresh air from the breeze that came through the window, re-opened them and screamed.
Scabior was standing at the foot of her bed just staring at her with his predatory look. When he reached for her, she let out another scream and threw the notebook at him and ducked her head between her knees, preparing herself for his retaliation.
All she heard was someone come barging into the room and felt a pair of hands shake her shoulders lightly. "Hermione, are you okay? Hermione what happened!" The voice belonged to Harry. Didn't he know that Scabior was in the room?
Hermione snapped her head up to warn Harry, but all she could see was him sitting on the bed with her. There was no one else in the room besides the two of them and a different female nurse than the one before. Where did Scabior go?
"Hermione?" Harry asked again, looking worriedly at her.
Her eyes looked into his confusingly. "How did he get in here?"
"Who?"
"Scabior!" Hermione shouted. "He was right there!" She pointed at the foot of her bed. Harry looked behind him briefly but turned back to face her and shook his head.
"Hermione…nobody has been in this room besides you since I left."
"You're lying! You need to put wards up in here…he's coming back to get me!"
"He's dead Hermione. You killed him, his body has already been turned to ashes and dumped in the sea that surrounds Azkaban." Harry sighed and looked over at the nurse, who only gave a small nod with her head. "Ask her the questions Mr. Potter." She commanded more than simply asked.
"Ask me what?" Hermione questioned. She was still lost in her own confusion when she heard the nurse. Why was Scabior there? He was dead. She killed him. Why was she seeing him?
"The doctor wanted to run some questions by you and he thought it'd be better that I asked since you're more comfortable with me than a stranger right now." Harry said before taking her hand in his. "How long do you think you were at that house Hermione? How long do you think it's been since we were at Malfoy's house?"
"I don't understand why you're asking me this Harry. You were there. There wasn't any clocks, calendars, or signs that I could tell if it was day or night. I don't know." She shook her head.
"How long do you believe that you were there?" He asked again. Hermione just stared at him while she thought for a second. "I'm not sure. A year, maybe a little more?"
Harry looked down at their hands and didn't say anything. Hermione squeezed her hand in his. "Why? You should know better than I do."
"I do." Harry mumbled.
"What's wrong? It's been a little bit over a year, it hasn't been that long."
"Hermione…" Harry started as he looked back her with sad eyes. "you've been with him for over three years."
It felt like a thousand knives had stabbed themselves into her chest. No, that couldn't be possible. Even if she couldn't count the days, it wasn't that long. What kind of sick joke was he playing with her? Hermione looked him in the eyes and the pain in her chest only tightened…he wasn't lying to her.
Over three years…
"Oh Merlin." Hermione groaned as she buried her face into her hands and was glad that her friend didn't bother to remove her from that position. Instead, she heard him get up and retrieved the notebook that she had thrown at Scabior a few minutes ago before sitting back on the bed. She heard him flip through the pages before asking, "How many pictures did you draw?"
What did he forget how to count?
"Four." Hermione mumbled.
"Of what?" He asked.
Hermione rolled her eyes underneath her closed eyelids and mumbled out loud enough for him to hear. "Two are of the scenery that I remember from when we were in the Forest of Dean, one from when we were by the lake in the mountains, and the other of the gardens at the Burrow."
"You drew ten pictures. And none of them are of what you just said."
Hermione looked at him with a fierce glare before yanking her notebook out of his hands and flipped through the pages herself, surely this time this was a joke. Except it wasn't.
Page by page she flipped through slowly and her face shown nothing but pure horror. He was right. There were ten pictures and all of them were drawn by her own hand…and each picture was anything but innocent. They were all dark and gruesome. It looked like a very disturbed patient scribbled these pictures but she knew that they were sketched out by her.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she wanted to wish away the images that she had drawn herself. She snapped them open when she felt a pair of lips at her ear.
"Did you think you could get rid of me that easily?"
Hermione turned her head to see Scabior with a dark look on his face as his eyes traveled lustfully over her body that was only covered by a thin hospital gown. She looked around to see that no one else was in the room. Where did the nurse and Harry go?
This was just a hallucination.
"I'm afraid it's not sweetheart." Scabior chuckled as if he had just read her mind. He pushed her back onto the bed and climbed on top of her, his lips biting and kissing at her neck. Hermione began to scream and kick against him. Why wasn't someone coming in here to save her? Where was everyone?
As quick as a blink, she saw Harry looking down at her as he was holding her arms tightly to her sides with the help of the nurse to keep her from hitting him. He was breathing just as heavily as she was.
After what seemed like minutes passed of the nurse and Harry making sure she was fine, she never really answered them because she wasn't sure herself.
Hermione blinked and saw Scabior leaning against the wall, just looking at her, and with another blink he was gone again.
"I don't know what's real anymore." She whispered, tears leaking from her eyes.
Weeks passed since her "episode" of when Scabior was attacking her. Every now and then she was visited by Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna, George, Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, Harry, and a few other friends she had known from school. Only one person was allowed in her room at a time with a nurse. The doctors believed that too many people in a room with her would set her off again.
All the time she would see Scabior again. While she was eating, when she would walk around the room, when she would just sit and read, and even when she had her friends come to see her. But she tried her best not to show them that she was hallucinating him while they were talking to her. She also tried her best not to let them see how much their sadden looks bothered her.
A lot of them carried great news as well as bad news. Ginny and Harry were getting engaged as well as Neville and Luna. Ron had gotten Lavender Brown pregnant, Fred died in the battle along with Tonks and Lupin who just had a little boy named Teddy Lupin. Bill and Fluer had a little girl as well.
The only person she had paid attention to was Neville when he broke down crying in front of her. He blamed himself more than anyone else for her condition and what she was put through. He confessed that he had fought against Scabior as well as the rest of the snatchers and blew up the Covered Bridge to keep them from going into Hogwarts and hoped to kill them. He should've known that it wouldn't have been that easy to get rid of them and he should've been more thorough. If he had only killed Scabior himself, they might've been able to find her sooner.
Hermione comforted him, flinching only slightly when a small flash of her vision showed Scabior slashing his wand towards Neville but disappeared as quick as it came. She explained to him that it didn't matter. Even if he had killed Scabior, she would've eventually died from starvation since Scabior did provide her food. They wouldn't have discovered her location any sooner probably. It hardly helped ease Neville's guilt.
She was glad that finally visiting hours were over and that she could relax in her room alone and listening to the rain from the storm outside patter against her window. As much as she didn't want to be alone with the very realistic visions of Scabior, it was much better to face him alone than to have her friends see her in her state. Hermione didn't want to keep looking at their faces, how they were full of pity and guilt when they looked at her.
Harry was the only one that came to see her more than anyone, and she knew that he was probably sleeping on a couch in one of the waiting rooms downstairs, refusing to leave. It was her turn to feel bad. He was always sleeping at the hospital and it was putting a strain on his and Ginny's relationship, but he wouldn't leave unless someone else stayed in his place that he trusted. Which was always either Ron, Neville, or Luna. They all took turns staying the nights, and they were planning to keep at it until her she returned to full health.
But Hermione knew that it wouldn't be anytime soon.
Her health was anything but getting better. She still stayed underweight and pale. Her appetite was long since lost and it was certainly hard to keep the smallest portions of food down when she was having her "episodes". Hermione had never been outside in the gardens, as the doctors didn't deem her fit enough to be around the other patients. Hermione looked just as unhealthy and weak on the outside as she did on the inside.
"I told you that you will never be free from me." The familiar velvet like murmur came from the other side of the room.
Hermione didn't want to look up, she didn't want to see him, she didn't want to give into her mind tricks again.
"You're not real. You're not real. You're not real." She kept repeating over and over again, hoping to wake up from this illusion. They never last long, but even a few seconds was too long.
She heard him chuckle as his boots carried him over to where she was laying in the bed. "You think that I'm not real?" He grabbed her by her hair and yanked her head back and the pain she felt didn't seem to be any kind of illusion. "I'm very real love." He whispered right before he disappeared yet again.
Hermione regretted her decision when she turned down the blinds for her window. She had gone so long without a vision of the outside world, she didn't want it again. But with it thundering and lightening out, it made things only more real.
With each flash of lightening that entered the room, she could see Scabior come and go. He would be in the far corner, then he'll be sitting on the countertop of the sink, and then he'll be right in front of her.
You will forever be mine.
His voice echoed all over the room followed by his low laugh.
No more…no more…please…Her thoughts whispered in her head as she pulled at her hair in frustration, hoping that feeling pain would help her; it didn't.
It doesn't matter whether or not your friends come to save you because they will never truly have you. When I said that you're forever mine, I meant it. You will never be free of me. The very last words he had said to her before she killed him were heard so clearly that she could've sworn that he was whispering the words right into her ear. He probably was.
His words were swirling in her head…
The images of him constantly raping her over and over…
The flashes of light in her room from the storm…
The sight of him every other second…
"MAKE IT STOP!" Hermione screamed, giving her hair another pull and shutting her eyelids tight as she began to cry. She couldn't take this anymore. She couldn't keep living this way with him always there. He was right, she belonged to him. As long as she was alive she belonged to him…
Hermione released her grip on her hair and sat up, she didn't see him in the room with her and she was glad for that.
Walking over to the door, she found that it was unlocked. Of course it would be, the nurses never believed that she would want to leave the comfort of her room. Why would they want to lock in a patient that was no threat? It would only be a hassle to have to unlock it anyways if they needed to get to her quick.
She didn't bother to think anymore on their lack of preparation as she walked down the hallway. It was the middle of the night and nobody was out in the hallways, and the few nurses that were stationed over night were most likely downstairs in the cafeteria.
Hermione kept walking, until she came across a sign that showed her how many flights of stairs she would have to climb up until she reached the top floor. Only three. That wasn't so bad.
"Look who finally decided to leave her little room." Scabior sneered, leaning against one of the stairway railings as she climbed, but she only ignored him as she continued forward. Turning on another platform for the next set of steps and she could see him sitting on the steps, lighting a cigarette, mocking her yet again with words she didn't listen to as she just kept her pace going by him.
"Where are you going beautiful?" She heard his voice echo.
"What are you doing?" She heard him ask again.
"Getting rid of you." Hermione snapped at the illusion, finally reaching the final flight of stairs just as she heard an alarm go off.
Scabior was in front of her, shaking his finger back and forth. "Someone knows you're out of bed beautiful." Hermione took off in a run, taking two steps at a time.
Finally she slammed herself through a door and was immediately soaked from the pouring down rain as she ran over to the other side of the roof, leaning over a little to look down. She couldn't see anything but darkness as the scenery was completely engulfed by the night and the storm.
"You can't get rid of me that easily!" Hermione looked over to see Scabior looking completely calm and dry, not bothered by the rain one bit as he glared at her. She couldn't help but smirk a little as she heard the small panicky tone that was in his voice. She was doing the right thing.
"Hermione! Stop!" This wasn't from Scabior, as she looked to see that he wasn't in sight yet again.
She turned around to see Harry about fifteen or so feet away from her along with a couple of nurses.
"Come here Hermione, please." He asked softly but loud enough that she could still hear him over the pouring rain that banged against the concrete of the hospital roof.
"Ms. Granger, you need to go back to your room, it's not safe here!" A nurse called to her.
Hermione just shook her head and took a step back onto the ledge. "He won't go away…I can't blink without him being there…"
"Please, Hermione you don't need to do this." Harry pleaded, taking a step forward but stopped when Hermione raised her hand for him to stop. "I'm going to help you get rid of him, everyone will. So you can come home and you can be happy."
She looked past him and saw Scabior standing in the beam of light that shone onto the rooftop from the opened door. He was just standing there smirking, watching her. He knew that she was going to listen to Harry, that she was going to give into her friends pleads and go back to her room so he could continue his torture with her.
Scabior was truly right all along. She was his. He had claimed her body and soul and there was no way of escaping him besides one way.
"I'm so tired Harry." Hermione cried out. "He's been with me for years…I'm tired and I want it all to go away."
Harry looked like he was going to cry himself, but he took in a deep breath and tried to coax her off the ledge. "I'll help you forget. We all will. You just need to let us. Please, come here Hermione…I can't lose you again."
She felt a small stab of guilt, and a part of her wanted to walk to him and give him a hug. But her desperation to finally rid the snatcher from her life was so much stronger. She had to keep herself from laughing from the thought that if someone told her that this was where she'd be four years ago, she'd laugh right in their face or scorn them for making up just a nasty thought.
Her sanity was really far gone.
Everything was silent as she looked around. She couldn't hear the rain pound against the roof, she couldn't hear the thunder boom through the clouds, nor could she hear Harry's protests for her. The only thing she paid attention too was Scabior standing just a few feet behind Harry, snarling and shouted out his own words of anger.
Hermione could only give a small smile as she closed her eyes and leaned back until her she could feel that her feet were no longer touching the concrete surface.
I belong to no one.
A/N: There you have it! The final chapter of Maelstrom. I'm sorry if the chapter is "blah" but like I explained in my last A/N, I'm cutting this story short because I've lost muse in it and there really wasn't much I could really drag on you know? PLEASE DON'T HATE ME FOR KILLING SCABIOR. Believe me, I didn't like it. The man is my husband (shut up, don't judge me) and I killed him off D: But I did make him out to be a really cruel and evil guy in this fic, so you guys should've known that there was going to be no happy ending for him. Also, please forgive me for what I put Hermione through. I love her to death but like a friend of mine said, I have a habit of writing sad or cruel twists into my fics. It's just how I am! I can't help it. But I can assure ya'll that there are plenty of "happy ending" Scabmione fics in the making from me! :D
Too be honest, I was going to add to the ending that Hermione was actually dreaming about being at the hospital and wakes up next to Scabior. After seeing that he's still next to her, (I was going to give him a little smartass line too) and then she freaks out and then that's the end. I was totally going to twist the ending to something like Nightmare on Elm Street or something xD But I know that a lot of ya'll would want a sequel, or get pissed at me for making such a lame ending. I was really going to do it though. Seriously. I actually wrote it up and everything. But after some thinking I deleted it. I didn't know if it would've made it a better or really lame ending D:
I'd like to say thank you for the reviews I received for this chapter! I hope all of ya'll enjoyed reading it and look forward to seeing an update of Hesitate soon as well as more upcoming Scabmione fanfics from me!
Have a wonderful day!
