Her hands trembled as she tried to reach out for the blasted lilac potion. Her blurred vision did not help the slightest – the little phial ended up on the floor as she missed the glass' neck for the third time.

Her uncontrollable sobs became louder in her ears as she desperately sought for more of the remedy – without the drug, the worse days were beyond her endurance. The numbness lessened her pain and every time she took the potion that Harry had found it in Snape's old text book, it made it easier to bear.

Not that the damn letters let her have that craved numbness that easily!

They felt like burning on her arm as they leaked maroon blood, so deep red that it resembled brown. Brown like mud.

Her eyes widened in realization as a sob escaped from the tight lock of her teeth. Pain that was burning and expanding like wildfire within her veins was hard to ignore. She was just thankful for the muting spell that she had casted on her bed at the beginning of the year. At least her room mates couldn't hear her whines whenever this happened.

The aches were worse than nightmares of any kind.

They came in tremors, suddenly and without any fore signs. One moment everything was fine, and the next she knew she was on the floor, wailing in pain like a dying animal. Mrs. Weasley tried a lot of clever tricks and even Percy looked for something to help her during the summer – but it seemed none were match to a crazed Bellatrix's turn of mind.

"Enough," she sobbed, her hoarse dry and her entire body covered in perspiration. "Enough!" The hysteria erupted from her lungs however it did nothing to ease the pain – it felt like it had even heightened it. She felt the empty tears surge down on her cheekbones, leaving a hot trail after them which were like gasoline to the fire.

"Enough!" she boxed in her pillow as it muffled her cries, her potion on the floor, long forgotten. Hermione wanted to survive this night, and nothing else.

It was like Bellatrix's soul had stuck to this land just to torture her further – she could swear she heard her sniggers in her ears as she tried to coax information out of her mouth, but only receiving fervent cries and shrieks. In her tired mind she could feel that horrid woman's boney fingers playing over her body, – like it was a bloody piano! – her claws grazing her tender skin, just enough to draw some blood out.

She was shaking in fear, seeing the bitch's smirking face in front of her eyes.

"Hermione!"

She felt cold fingers clung to her wrists and the panic swelled in her chest. She was unable to see through the veil of tears in front of her eyes, "No! No, no, no! I won't tell anything Lestrange!"

She clawed Bellatrix, kicked and pushed to get away. She tried to punch her with hands that felt powerless and were uncontrollable.

Her shrieks muted when she felt the burning go away – an entire goblet of ice cold water did the deal for her as she peered up at her 'attacker' with eyes of a deer caught in headlight.

"Lavender?" she sat up immediately, letting her bloodied hands down that still held the girl's wrists in it. The deputy Head Girl looked away in shame, unable to meet with the worrying hazels, her wet hair sticking to her face pitifully. "I'm sorry."

Lavender shook her head as if this all would have been nothing to her, "You were crying Hermione, and scratching your own skin. I heard something hit the floor when I woke up," she let out a little sigh, "I'm... worried for you, 'Mione."

Hermione just listened to her with half of her mind, "Hit the floor? The potion!" and she bent down from her position, pulling the four-poster's heavy drapes to the side in panicked rush, but didn't see the phial on the hard wood parquet of their room.

"Hermione!" Lavender snapped at her, squeezing her shoulders with a hand as she shook her. She hissed at her, the aches in her body still not subdued – Lavender seemed to notice it as she removed her hand from her skin at the same moment. "It's here," she chided and before the other could snatch it out of her hold she took a step back and sat on the bed, out of Hermione's arm reach without climbing through the mountain made from her Gryffindor-maroon bedding.

Hermione scowled.

"You should talk about it with someone," Lavender said, offering her help with a blatant hint. However, it did little to persuade the brunette.

"I first need my potion."

"It will knock you out."

Now, now, she actually has something to work with – Hermione snickered inwardly as she started to dry her hair with her wand, and clear away the blood from under her nails.

The actions weren't even that strange for the two girls.

As she was preoccupied with scourgify she thought about her offer. Hermione appreciated her gesture, really did, but Lavender was not the person she would like to tell this particular story. Knowing her, she would just blab it out accidentally as she was the uncrowned queen of the Hogwarts' gossip mill. And Hermione didn't want that.

Trying to find an easy way to get away with this conversation, the sudden idea materialised in her mind as she blurted out her next words without consideration, but when saying the words, she knew she had just lost a friend with it.

"Then are you ready to talk about Dolohov?"

Even in the poor lighting she could see Lavender's face drain of blood as she paled to the colour of a whitewashed wall. She visibly gulped and jumped on her feet immediately, throwing the craved phial at Hermione as she fled from their room, before she could utter an 'I'm sorry'.

Biting her lips, she wondered – Lavender wasn't ready to talk. She, also, wasn't ready.

Were they ever going to be ready?

Her teeth sank deeper in her lip before getting a sip from the lilac potion. It'd give her enough time to calm down – she would miss Transfiguration though, but it was still less of a problem than face the war's traces once more.

So she slept, glad for the dreamless night. The first in a fortnight.

Thoughts on this one? ;D