So sorry about the delay, guys. I don't have any decent excuse, and as slowly as this is going I hope you all stay interested. I will try to pursue this with more prompt posting.

Hermione prayed for death. She recalled the story of the deathly hollows, and at this moment she would gladly greet death as an old friend. Shedding her cloak of lifewas not as simple, however, for every time her body began to end her struggle with the battle of survival, a feeling of rejuvenation coursed through her veins.

At first, Hermione believed it was simply her own will to survive, but after that hope was long since gone she realized it was through other means that she clung to life.

"Now now now little Muddikins, I thought you'd fight for life a little harder than that." Bellatrix cackled as she sent a spell towards Hermione. Unlike the others prior, this one was silently cast, and covered her with the warmth of a rudimentary healing. It wasn't enough to completely restore her from Bellatrix's thorough torturing; however, it was enough to sustain her weakening thread of life.

Bellatrix would build her up, only to once again break her down.

This maddening woman, bringing her to the brink of death to snatch her back and go around once more, was looming over her with a sadistic grin of pure bliss. When Hermione looked up at her captor past the velvety hem of her black dress, she saw Bellatrix lovingly rolling her wand throughout her long fingers. There was an almost lusty stare at her wand, almost the same psychotic seeming devotion gracing her dark eyes that she showed when in the presence of the Dark Lord.

'Damn the wand.' Hermione bitterly snarled despite her massively dwindling will to even exist. If it weren't for that cursed item she wouldn't be here in the first place.

"I don't understand, Muddy, aren't you enjoying my company?" Her pouty lips puckered with a mockingly childlike voice. A bastardization of innocence. With that Bellatrix laughed her harsh laugh and flicked her wand, pinning the battered girl, her back flat against the ground. Slowly she crawled on top of Hermione, until she was met with a rather similar position from the last torture session that she had endured from the dark witch. The only difference, this time, was that nobody would be bursting in to save her. Hermione was on her own with the insane pureblood.

"Now, tell me, little Mudblood, " Her dark eyes pierced the half-lidded ones like a predator bird piercing prey. Glaring from below "there is a real reason you returned to me. " Her sharp nails played with Hermione's throat, as if to coax out her prisoner's voice with a chilling ultimatum. At her weak silence, she continued. "It couldn't have been that you missed me," her right hand twirled a strand of hair, and gently stroked against her collar bone while her left only seemed to bruisingly grip her. "Or maybe wanted another mark…" At this she pulled her wand out from her sleeve and trailed it to the still fresh cut, jabbing the M with its electric tip. A weak cry emitted from the still paralyzed witch. Hermione felt like cattle being prodded. "It couldn't have been an attack; there would have been more of you. So, Speak up!" Another Jab, this time to the U. Black spots danced in her vision.

Hermione let out a soft sob. She tried to speak, knowing that her silence would cost her dearly. Her dry, choked throat only let one small word escape.

"Wand."

Bellatrix looked up from her slow torturing of Hermione's scar to her face. Her sharp eyes held a fierceness, and Hermione thought briefly between the spotting in her vision she saw a flicker of alarm across the woman's face as she scrutinized her victim. Bellatrix always handled herself well though, and crazy or not she was still able to perfectly mask any emotion she didn't want seen. Her little bit of worried shock faded with the transformation to a cold, evil looking smile.

"Wand, Mudblood? What about it?"

Hermione didn't have the strength to even begin to answer her question. She barely had the strength to breath right now. Bellatrix loved watching Hermione squirm, and the both of them knew it.

"Well Mudblood if you can't answer me then it's obvious that you're lying." They both knew she wasn't. There was nothing Hermione could do to change this woman's mind though as she dug the young girl's grave deeper and deeper. She may as well not even have a voice, it wasn't as if she could use it.

"No muddy, i don't think it was the wand," She slipped the dark object back into her sleeve, confusing and slightly relieving Hermione at the same time. Maybe the torture would be over for now, a slight bit of respite in her near future. Maybe, if she got a few peaceful moments she could collect herself long enough to come up with a plan of escape, away from the Evil witch and the wand that mesmerized her into risking her life for an answer.

Hermione let a shuddered sigh out which she saw Bellatrix slowly drift her hand to her Corset clad chest. Her fingers traced the laces, ghosting across the black leather until she reached its very edge. She softly grazed onto her pale flesh, her fingertips hardly touching the center between two peaking breasts. Perhaps the most delicate the young witch had ever seen the dark woman in front of her. Hermione hardly realized she was staring so intently at the woman's actions until the woman let out a throaty chuckle.

"Ah no Muddy, you didn't come because of the wand." She smirked as she saw the woman's confused and alarmed look, as if broken from some half lidded dream. Hermione's eyes grew wider as Bellatrix's hand drifted deeper down her flesh, under neath the leather corset.

Slowly the dark witch withdrew her hand from her chest, holding something which made Hermione's curious look switch to a poorly veiled terror. She should have considered herself a fool to think that this evil witch would only have one. This was a twin to the one currently laying at her bedside table back in shell cottage.

"I think, Muddy, it was the knife you missed."

Darkness.

It was probably a good thing that she couldn't see herself right now. Seeing the damage would probably make the pain even worse. As it was she felt as if she was nothing but shreds. She hadn't moved from the floor, even though the spell keeping her locked there had long since been removed. She felt the wet stickiness of her own blood in small pools around her body, a warm and slick halo to her entire body.

She had managed to stay conscious during a good part of it, and she was certain that Bellatrix had much to do with that. She was sliced for what felt like an eternity, until her body had moved past the shock of blood loss and she stopped shivering.

Bellatrix cast a simple blood replenishing spell, and another to stop her bleeding. It was enough to ensure that she wouldn't die, but definitely not enough to end the searing pain. Bellatrix hadn't said or done anything when she was finished. She was completely silent as she cast the bleeding witch on the ground one last cold glare before disappearing from the room.

Once she left the dim lighting faded almost instantly. Hermione didn't have the strength or heart to lift herself from the bloody floor. She knew that she would probably remain in this exact spot until Bellatrix decided to return, whenever that was. How had she let the wand get the best of her? Normally she was such a reasonably logical person. There was no reason for her to be stuck in a dank dungeon, facing death with every labored breath. Something terrible sank into Hermione's heart as she truly assessed the situation, the unlikely chances that she would live for much longer. The near impossible chance that she would ever see her loved ones, or anyone other than Bellatrix, ever again.

Part of Hermione wished that she would drift to sleep, and simply let death claim her. But the other half hoped beyond all else that she would live long enough to discover what the allure of Bellatrix's wand was, and why that fear flickered briefly within the dark witch's eyes.

Above within the Black Manor, Bellatrix sat in a high-backed chair facing the simmering coals in her fireplace. She sipped from a blackened wine glass, hiding the liquid within. The dying flame created illusions on the falls, and dark shadows danced around her, on her. In the light her liquid black eyes shimmered like mercury. Her right hand balanced the glass while her left delicately rolled her wand between her long fingers, both nimble and precise.

That Mudblood was nothing but trouble, nothing but a thorn in her side, nothing but a thief. A Thief of magic, of her wand. But she had it back. Her wand, her precious precious wand was back.

It had been a gift. It wasn't always her wand. Though she hardly remembered a time without it. Hardly remembered a time without such absolute power, of which all other wands seemed to pale in comparison.

It was a gift from The Dark Lord Himself. He presented her with it when she had became of age, shortly after she had been given the Dark Mark. Shortly after she had became a powerful witch and not simply a pureblood bride. A gift that gave her tremendous power, she loved the very feeling of the want within her grasp, the electric pulsing it sent every time she shot an unforgivable at all of the unworthy people which surrounded her. Every time she would do the dark Lords bidding, she would feel its surge of power wrap around her, strengthening her. An Unyielding Loyalty for an Unyielding Wand.

And that Mudblood tried to take it all away.

But no matter, the wand knew where it belonged. And it returned to her, as it always did. And The filthy witch would pay, as she was paying now while laying in her own blood on the stone ground. But that was only the beginning. She would deal with the Mudblood, punishing her for all the trouble she had ever caused the Dark Lord.

Should she alert her master about Hermione's presence? No, she would do better than that, she would use her to capture that potter brat. Then She would be rewarded, and forever the Dark Lords second in command. Her wand pulsed at the thought.

Then she would kill the Mudblood. She already knew too much.