The wolves he had heard were indeed wolves, not werewolves as far as he could tell, but real wolves. A real wolf had not been seen in England in centuries, but as Neville was forced to leave Hermione in the bedroom, warding the bedroom door behind him, he found himself fighting against the very thing on the narrow stairs. When the wards fell, a part of Neville stung, and then he was physically fighting off a wolf.
He could hear windows smashing in the kitchen and in the empty and repaired parlor. There were shouts and then as Neville managed to get a bared foot in the soft belly of the wolf, kicking it down the stairs, he began hexing with pinpoint accuracy. The wolves were harder to pick off as they struggled to reach him on the stairs, but the human figures were easy to hex and stun.
As darkness fell darker, Neville knew he would not be able to fight off an army of wolves and men as he was forced up the stairs as hexes and stunners began flying toward him, slamming into the walls around him.
When a stunner grazed past his injured shoulder, Neville grunted and stumbled on the old worn carpet runner in the corridor in the middle of the upstairs. Then three wolves jumped up the stairs and he was torn—run to the bedroom where Hermione had fainted, or draw them away.
A voice shouted from below and suddenly the door to the bedroom opened, and a wolf turned, snarling, yellow eyes glowing.
"NO!" he shouted and the wolf turned its attention back to him as Hermione stood in the doorway. It took a moment for Neville to realize a glove hand was wrapped around her throat, a throat he had just had his lips upon. She was nude still, her curls falling down over shoulders and face. He could tell by her eyes that she was not quite conscious.
The wolves began advancing toward him and he stunned one wolf while another lunged. Then he felt a presence behind him, and Neville glanced back just as Hermione began to shout his name, and Neville saw the sole of a large boot. The world tilted then, and he heard Hermione scream and then stop in a strangled gasp. The sound of a bodies falling to the floor made Neville blink as he heard snarling, different from the wolves, and then Hermione was lying next to him, golden brown eyes wide and leaking tears.
"…stun it! For fucksake, stun the beast!"
"Don't…move…" Hermione whispered as suddenly a huge paw, black, stepped between Hermione and Neville's eye line.
Neville felt ill, knowing, in a distant part of his brain, he had a concussion, and he could feel his injured shoulder tear loose and blood beginning to ooze where the stunner grazed him. He did what Hermione asked, and kept still as above him a beast growled low and long over her. There was a strange odor, like grave dirt and burning leaves.
Hermione's nose was bleeding, and her eyes closed as the voices of men sounded all around them, and when a stunner hit Neville in the back, ricocheting off whatever was standing over Hermione, he saw and heard no more.
His head was splitting and his mouth was as dry as the desert. Everything hurt, and it had been a long time Neville felt so rough.
"…hear me, Nev?"
The voice was distorted, echoing through his brain.
"I need to know you are…"
He was lying on his belly, his head and right arm hanging over an edge…the air was damp, and musty. There was light coming from somewhere, but it was a cool light, early morning, and there was a strange warmer flickering.
Hands were touching him, small, gentle hands that smoothed his brow, over the swelling in his face. He could feel subtle magic suffusing his skin and muscles, and it was warm and calming. There was still pain, but it was tempered, and slowly he began to become aware of the heavy manacles around his wrists.
"Nev…please…open your eyes," she whispered urgently.
And he did, finding she was sitting next to him in a large room. It was mostly empty, and he was lying on a ruined bed, the tick mattress mildewed and old. The room was dusty and disused, but by the plaster décor, it reminded him of a fancy manor house room left open to the elements. The three sets of French doors were boarded over, a corner room, and the light he had noticed streamed in through cracks between the boards. The room had a door, but he could tell by the latch it had a new lock and surely several wards. There was an antique wash stand in a nearby corner, and oddly enough, a simple and small Muggle electric lamp that was lit that was the source of the warmer flickering.
Neville jerked, lifting himself up from the bed, startling Hermione who slipped off the bed and thumped into the dusty floor. He stood and scanned the room again, noting the water stains in the plaster and the mold on the papered walls. Slowly, he got control over his panting and looked down at Hermione who was shuddering, cuffs about her wrists and chains running to a ring set in the middle of the floor of the room. His own chains were set there as well.
When he lifted her to her feet, finding that she was dressed in an ill-fitting under slip of beige. The top was too large and it barely covered her chest.
"Are you…?" he started and winced, his shoulder twinging again.
The bandages were clean, but he was still not healed properly. A proper Healer would have knitted the wound in no time, but neither he nor Hermione were proper Healers, and in the indeterminate time that he had been unconscious someone had seen to the wound, but not healed it.
"I-I'm okay," she whispered, "Are you? They…they hit you in the head and stunned you…"
Slowly they sat down together on the bed, her hands in his. She pulled a fettered hand free of his and swiped hair from his face, and Neville winced.
"Headache, shoulder…but okay. Is there water?"
Hermione nodded. "Clean water. There's food on the shelf under the basin, just basic bread and fruit. There's a waste bucket behind that screen…"
Neville turned his back to look behind him, finding indeed there was a dusty oriental screen. The bed was only just wide enough for the two of them, he figured, and the basic things like food and water were provided.
"How long have we been here?"
Hermione did not know, and instead ran a hand over his chest, which was bare. Neville found that he had on a pair of slightly too small denims and a pair of dragon hide boots that just fit.
"A few hours at least, a day at most…I-I just woke a bit ago. You were in and out. I-I don't know where we are…but I hear the sea, or I think it is the sea. I just…" she stumbled and her eyes filled with tears. "This is all my fault."
Hermione Granger crying, weak, was not something he liked, and he pulled her near, burying her face in his chest. He began studying the room again, even though his head pounded, he could sense wards on the boarded up French doors, on the door out of the room, even on the chains. Hermione's cry began to fade and he realized that she had fallen asleep against him. He eased her down, letting her lie on his uninjured left side. He lay down with her, holding her close, listening over the pounding of his heart in his ears. Neville could feel that something was impeding his magical ability. He knew what it felt like, this impediment, having experienced such a thing as a child without knowing what it was… He tried a few wandless spells, and nothing happened. As far as he knew, his wand was still at his house, knocked free and most likely in pieces. It galled him. He was an Auror, and not to have his wand…
He was the failure he always believed himself to be.
It was also the chains. The manacles acted as some sort of barrier that trapped his magic inside. He could feel it swirling around just behind his eyes. Or, it was the concussion.
At some point he fell asleep, pushing the pain aside. He did not recall dreaming, but knew he had not slept long when Hermione's screams woke him. He realized she was still against him, but clawing his chest. She felt as though she was coated in sweat and as he understood what was happening, held her tighter as her screams and fighting began to calm as he did the only thing he could think of—hum. It was not melodic, but it was a deep hum that he hoped told her dreaming self that he was there, holding her.
"Nev…?" she whispered.
"Yeah, I'm here…"
The only light came from the flickering lamp, no more light shone through the boards, it was night.
"I was dreaming of the big black dog."
"Black dog?"
She nodded against his chest, her voice small and childlike. "It comes to me in my dreams, usually, and it is clawing me to death…"
Neville said nothing, but ran his left hand down her back. Lifting his hand up, he came back with traces of blood. Neville moved quickly, and Hermione gasped as he stood her up, turning her seeing that her scratches were oozing blood, not a lot, but enough to color her borrowed shift and his hand. When Hermione saw the blood in the flickering yellow lamp light, her knees gave out and once again Neville caught her, laying her on the bed.
"Tell me more about this dog," Neville whispered, trying to distract Hermione from the blood. "Is that what I saw…?"
Hermione was licking her lips, looking very pale. He believed she was going into shock.
"At your home?"
Your home, the words sounded strange to him, especially since very little that he knew of the house was there.
"I think it is what I saw…"
Hermione's eyes were very wide, and Neville moved to the washstand finding a white plastic cup behind the basin and pitcher. His chains rattled as he poured what smelled to be fresh water, and rattled again as he moved around to the side the bed and helped Hermione drink. She seemed to calm at his touch and the drink.
The lamp flickered out and Neville believed her eyes glowed for a moment, an eerie red, and then the lamp came back on and he knew he had a slight concussion.
"I think…" she began. "I think it is a black dog…as in a capital 'B', capital 'D' Black Dog."
Neville frowned. Her behavior was strange, as if she was the one with a concussion.
"I've seen him across the river from the house, watching the house, they can't cross rivers, you know…"
He did not.
"I think that is what scratched me in Puzzlewood."
"What do you mean?"
Hermione licked her lips again and reached out to touch Neville's hand holding the cup and he offered her another drink. When she finished drinking, her eyes implored him to let her say no more, but with a sigh she began what appeared to be a recounting that caused her mental and physical anguish.
"I remember Greyback killing Ron. I remember seeing his eyes go flat and then when Greyback moved toward me, something stopped him…something attacked him. It was a dark, but something began to attack Greyback and he fought. I was hurt, Greyback had hexed me, shattered my arms, my hands, and I was working so hard…so hard to try to cast, use my wand…" she whispered, her eyes sliding shut, her body trembling. "When he turned to me, stalked me down while I tried to crawl away, something attacked him, and I think I passed out… It was only a little while and when I came to, Greyback was dying, being mauled by a huge dark thing…darker than the dark. I tried to use my wand again, and I think I cried out, bones splintering through my arms, the thing turned… Its eyes were red fire, like looking into hell, and then it was on me."
She was crying again, silent shudders and tears squeezed out between her lashes.
"It sniffed me and pawed at me, tearing my clothes, my skin, turning me onto my back until I was forced to stare up into its face. I saw hell in its eyes, I think. It frightened me at first, but then…I wasn't, and I was…I don't know…I was…"
She reached for Neville and he took her hand, opening her eyes.
"Then Greyback was hexed, stunned, tied up, and I was sitting against a tree, screaming…screaming when Hornsby and his pack found us."
Neville blinked his gaze away from Hermione, and set the cup on the floor before turning back to run a hand across her cheek. He recalled what Hornsby had said— there were more dangerous things in Puzzlewood than Greyback .
Slowly, Hermione moved, her chains falling over her lap until she embraced him. "That's why I think this is all my fault…and I think they are listening…"
Neville sighed. He could not see a direct connection, not really, and he just assumed they were being watched. But if Hermione were right, he was just in the way—they wanted her, for what he was not sure yet.
They lay down again, arranging their chains so they were not tangled. Slowly, in the quiet, they slept again. Once again, Neville did not recall much of his dream. He thought he was at the Longbottom House again, lying on his belly in the sunny eastern parlor, surrounded by pots of all the plants his old Uncle Algie sent him before he passed away before the War.
It was a rare pleasant dream, even more pleasant when he would surface just enough to know that Hermione was curled warmly against him.
Morning came again, and Hermione was washing herself at the washstand, nude. Neville watched her in the flickering lamplight as the sunlight through the cracks began to change the ambiance in the room. He knew she was aware of his observation, her eye catching his in the mirror over the basin.
Hermione wiped away the dried blood with a towel hanging on the side of the stand. The metal fetters about her wrists were chaffing and her skin looked pink and irritated. She wiped around her face and hair and Neville saw her skin pimple up.
His shoulder ached, but it was no longer oozing blood, and he sighed feeling that his groin was going to rip through his ill-fitting denims. He mentally cursed himself for his own masculinity and his want for her… Neville closed his eyes and tried not re-adjust himself lest he just make it worse.
"Neville…" she whispered, and the rattle of chains and the soft indentation on the ruined mattress signaled her return to him and Neville opened his eyes. He felt odd, being half dressed, and odder still looking over at Hermione Granger, naked.
She smelled like blood, old blood, and faintly of the white gardenia soap.
Kissing him, her hair tickled his stubbly cheeks, and he sighed as his hands wrapped around her upper arms. Hermione froze, and he knew she believed he was going to push her away. Instead, he pulled her nearer.
He wanted to tell her that it was not her fault, none of it. He wanted to tell her that she was so beautiful. He wanted to tell her that he was so sorry that she had had to suffer. He wanted to tell him that he wished they could just have dinner together, be normal. And he wanted to tell her to hurry and open his denims…
Their chains, heavy and in the way, tangled about their legs as Neville moved to turn Hermione's back to the mattress. He struggled with his boots first, then the denims, but soon was free of them but not much else as her thighs tightened about his waist. Hermione's breathing hitched as he moved down her body, and ran the tip of his nose over her scars to her core. Her fingers found hair, and dug down to his scalp as he nuzzled against her pelvis.
She tasted like Hermione, an impossible thing to explain, he realized, but it was not unpleasant and it was not like honey. It was her, and she was wet. He lapped at her, pressing his nose to her bundle of nerves, the button that would unwind her, and after his jaw began to ache, he moved to that place and sucked…hard.
Hermione cried out, her back arching off the bed, and Neville grinned against her.
Chains rattled and slid over her legs as he crawled up her body and kissed her, tongues fighting, her voice trapped in her mouth as he did not hesitate to thrust into her body. Neville was the one who was forced to break the kiss, groaning as he reached up to grab the headboard of the bed and dig in deeper as her legs wrapped about his waist, angling him deeper…
She clawed at his back as the rhythm they had not been able to gain previously was established, brutally.
Hands moved to plant on either side of her head, Neville held himself above her, watching her face go through the rise and fall of orgasm. It was sublime. When her eyes met his, her mouth moved to say his name. Chains slithered over his back from her shackles and slowly she reached up to his neck and pulled him down so she could kiss him and breathe through his mouth.
"Please…" he thought she said, but still she plundered his mouth.
The bed creaked and scraped across the uneven wooden floor, and Neville shook his head, breaking the kiss as the coiling low in his belly finally sprung and he tried to pull away, only managing to slip out of her clutching body to cum in the tightness between their bodies.
"Hermione…" he whispered as she stared up at him, lips trembling. She sighed, and he could feel her whole body tremble with the come down of orgasm, shivering with cold, shivering with delight.
"Nev…Nev…I…"
The door banged open then, their manacles and chains melted away, and before Neville could begin to think to fight, he was torn away from Hermione, who was being pushed down by figures whose heads were wrapped with gray gauzy fabric that matched their robes. Her eyes flashed like flickering flames as the door was slammed and Neville was carried, two men under his shoulders, two men grasping his kicking feet. He was shouting her name, trying to fight, when the one figure that had his injured shoulder squeezed the gunshot wound and Neville saw stars.
It was hard to concentrate, but Neville tried to take in his surroundings even as he began to struggle again. He was in a grand house, or one that had been at one time. There was plastic sheeting and scaffolding in places, and the smell of fresh cut timber. He was in a house that was being restored, it seemed. Through wide, dark corridors, one of Neville's captors dropped his left foot and Neville kicked.
In what looked like a Louis XIV style living room, he found himself free for a moment, and he fought. He was wandless, but he was not defenseless. An Auror's training involved a fair amount of physical preparedness in martial arts. Neville had become quite good before he stopped practicing and became more of an investigator. There really weren't any Death Eaters to fight anymore. All the same, Neville had managed to knock one of his attackers out cold with a sudden jab to the face, and had broken another's arm. Meanwhile, his nose was broken and his shoulder was bleeding badly again. He fought in the dim light, body coiled to strike and ready to run back to Hermione.
And then, wands were drawn, and Neville fell flat on his back with a Petrificus Totalis. There was no fighting it, except that ever since First Year had had trained his mind and body to shake free within a few seconds…thanks to Hermione Granger.
He was lifted up again, under his shoulders, and dragged. Nothing was said, none of the men, and he figured they were men, made a sound. They dragged him down a narrower corridor and then down stone steps that curved, and halfway down, he was free again.
"Motherfu—" one finally said as Neville twisted and kicked one of the men down the stairs into the dark. He threw his left fist, albeit not his strongest, into the covered face of the other man and began to run back up the stairs.
He only made it to the top to come face to face with another hex, this time an Incarcerous around his chest, arms, and knees. Neville grunted as he fell to his injured right side and was quickly kicked in the face for the second time in as many days.
Distantly, Neville could hear her screaming his name, but he was being dragged down…down into the dark. By the smell of it, he was in a cellar, and there was no light except the firelight coming from a brazier under an arch between dark stone columns. It was a large cellar by the echoing of the chains and manacles being reapplied to his wrists. Forced to his knees, he realized for the first time that he was nude, having shucked the boots and denims during his lovemaking. The floor was cold under his knees, his wrists forced tight together as the hands that moved and fought him left him and a door was shut behind him.
Neville shook from rage on his knees, his eyes glazing over from pain and anger. He looked to the light, and ground his teeth as something behind the light began to move. Blood was dripping off his right elbow, sending a reverberating sharp sound through the indeterminable space. His breathing was ragged and came out in gasps. Then, there was another sound, a deep rumbling from the shadows beyond the brazier, and Neville's breathing faltered. The air was warm and stale in the cellar, but the floor was cold, and Neville knew that he would not be able to fight his way back her, to Hermione.
His vision swam; the blows to the head had made him feel the pull of blackness. He began to sway on his knees when the reverberating rumble sounded louder, nearer.
…can see you, boy…
Neville sank forward, bracing his bound wrists and palms against the floor, and felt nausea course through him. He really did have a concussion, and it was crashing through him to the point he was beginning to hallucinate.
…do you know why you are here, boy?
He groaned, and in doing so, vomited what little there was in his stomach. Neville tried to wandlessly Vanish the foul bile, but he could not manage something so simple as that with the warded manacles. There was a chuckle, a deep, dark chuckle.
…listening to the wards and the spells, listening to see if I can get out…
"Wh-what?" he muttered, falling to lay on his left side, too out of the moment to care about the odor of the vomit near his face.
…wards in this place, been testing them since they caught me, caught us…not bad…not good…and now they bring you to me…
"Who are y-you?" he asked softly, moving his face back toward the brazier. "Where are you?"
It was behind him then, and Neville could just smell something strange through his broken and bloodied nose. The heat of breath against his twinging shoulder made Neville's breath catch again and he tried to lie very still.
…you might survive this…Neville Longbottom...but you have to ask me…give me…let me…
"What? Let you what?" he rasped, his body shuddering, his legs curling up so that he moved into a fetal position. He closed his eyes as the breath seemed to scald his skin. It smelled like grave dirt, an odor he knew well enough finding the mass graves not mentioned in the press, graves where Death Eaters during the first rise of Voldemort had killed whole villages searching for the Potters…the Longbottoms…
"Hermione…you were in the house…"
…yes…
It was chuckling and Neville felt the drops of salvia on his ribs and hips. It felt like scalding water.
…hit you hard, oh my yes…
The voice was masculine, deep, familiar…
His voice.
…love her? Want to save her?
"Y-yes…"
…then you will let me in? I can feast on that darkness in you…plenty in you…so much pain, so many bad memories…
For a fleeting moment he could hear his mother screaming, his father screaming, and then Hermione. He was failing them, all of them, all over again…
Neville was not sure if he said yes, or if he shook his head, but the bite hurt, it hurt worse than the kick to the head or the broken nose. It hurt worse because the bite was in his wounded shoulder, and the blood, already tainted with infection, ran black.
The cellar seemed to shake around Neville, and he realized he was on his back, shouting his pain until dust rained down from the stone around him and the brazier tipped over, sending embers and fire across the floor.
Blackness took him then, and for once in a lifetime, he rested without dreams.
The hood was pulled away and Hermione saw only stars above her. Slowly her eyes adjusted as the sound of crackling fire and the warmth of light began to seep into her vision. Hermione had been forced to kneel in cool grass. At some point they had wrapped her in robes, giving her a modicum of warmth and modesty. But, they had bound her hands behind her back, bound her ankles with a short chain, and gagged her so that she could not even open her jaw. Hermione had been forced to calm herself to breathe.
They did not hurt her like she knew they were hurting Neville. Hermione could hear him fighting and shouting through the house before they managed to get the gag on her. She had tried to fight herself, but a well-placed knee between her shoulder blades had forced every bit of oxygen out of her lungs…that and the sudden binding of her hands behind her back.
Something in her wanted to rise up and destroy everything and everyone that held her down and was hurting Neville. Something dark, something that made it feel as if her back might rip open and something horrible would come out. The bag went over her head and she began to panic.
"Calm…calm down," a voice whispered and she could not tell if it were a male or female voice. "You won't be able to do anything just now…"
Hermione felt them lift her and drag her through dark spaces, past windows with light coming in, and through rooms—all this she could discern through the weave of the bag. Then she was laid down again, this time in a warm place, and her body was wrapped in robes.
"Sleep now…night comes soon."
And despite her hesitation, Hermione slept.
It was maybe for minutes, it was maybe for hours, but when hands touched her again, she woke. Hermione did not struggle as they walked her down cold floors until her toes felt grass and dirt.
There were about twenty figures around her, forming a circle around her. A brazier was set before her, and on either side stood Padma and Parvati Patil. Oddly, Padma had a horrible black eye and cut lip. Hermione let her eyes moved to the other figures, all hooded in gray, all wearing a sash with the symbol Liminality used on their chests. She was in a garden, but she could not tell if it was the same garden in Cumbria or not. Hermione had no idea where she was, and even as she lifted her eyes to the stars, they told her nothing.
The sound of bodies moving behind her brought her attention back to the terrestrial plane, and with a thud, Neville's body was tossed down into the grass unceremoniously to Hermione's left. He was naked, covered in blood and bruises, and unconscious. Hermione felt her heart began to thump heavily in her chest and she rocked on her knees, her bottom resting on her heels as she studied Neville.
He was bound, but his hands were in the front while hers were still bound in the back. Hermione watched as his back rose and fell slowly, and his hair rustled where it fell down into his face. However, as she assessed his injuries—broken right hand, broken nose, bruised ribs—her eyes fell upon the gore that was his shoulder.
"B-bitten…?" she whispered.
Whispers rose up around her and Hermione stiffened as a hand ran along her shoulder. She had not heard anyone move near, and soon her chin was pinched between fingers and her mouth plundered.
"We've finally come to this…" he said, pulling back, standing to his full height in the light of the brazier. He was not dressed as the others, not even the Patils were, who moved to Hermione's sides and released the bonds that held her arms back. The twins wore the same gray robes, but no sashes. "It was a long time in coming, wouldn't you say?"
Hermione winced as the muscles in her back and shoulders protested the freedom.
She considered trying to run, but to where? Leaving Neville behind was unthinkable. Instead she began to crawl toward him.
"No, no…" he said and the Patils seized her and pulled her away from Neville…Neville who needed protecting. She would not be idle again…
Hermione hissed as she was pulled back to where she had knelt, hands forcing her head to turn and look at him.
She had trusted him, and maybe that was her first mistake. All those years, she had needed to trust someone, and he had offered himself to her in the guise of setting aside old school rivalries. There was even a time she had considered his offer to date seriously. There was even the few times they had been together, he was so gentle and so attentive…and she had almost loved him and the way his fingers would trace her collarbone as he would croon soft Enrico Caruso love songs to her afterwards, always making her smile.
"I know you feel betrayed, I know you feel as though I have led you on," he whispered as he bent down and ran a hand over her cheek.
Her eyes burned as hot as the brazier only a few feet before her. When he grinned at her, his teeth white and perfect, she wondered how she looked to him in that moment. She had seen him shot by one of the Patils, seen him fall, and obviously was deceived. Her mind raced, trying to understand. With Padma's injuries, maybe it had been a mistake, maybe they had wanted to kill Neville or her…
"Everything we have was real, Hermione, it was necessary to get to this point, to prove once and for all that you…you…" he trailed, his dark eyes studying her face and slowly, he began to back away, his attention moving to something just behind she knelt.
Hermione felt fire against her back, and for a moment, considered turning to see what was behind her.
"See, my friends, do you see it?" he whispered, a hand moving to gesture at something behind Hermione.
The circle of gray clad followers began to mutter louder, and press nearer. Hermione shuddered and felt oddly faint as the Patil twins moved quickly away from her and moved behind him…
…Blaise Zabini.
"This is what I was telling you…possession."
It made no sense, what was coming out of his mouth, and Hermione looked down to Neville and the bite mark on his shoulder. What had bitten him? It was only the first quarter, maybe closer to half-moon…
"And now Longbottom is bitten…we only need to prepare and wait."
"Wh-what are you talking about?" Hermione stuttered, feeling very odd, very cold, and weak. Whatever heat her body had was against her back, leaving the rest of her body shivering.
"Don't break the circle, my friends, we should get started…" Blaise said addressing those in the robes.
Hermione fell onto her side then as she felt something tighten about her neck, her fingers moving to her throat and finding nothing there. It was some sort of magical garrote, maybe a sealing ward, but her consciousness wavered and she reached toward Neville.
"No!" Blaise roared and Hermione hesitated as her skull felt close to exploding. "Take their hands!"
She screamed as strange hands grasped her, but the scream was hoarse, a screech as her wrists and ankles were suddenly bound and she was twisted to lie on her back in the cold grass. Figures had also grasped Neville as well, but Neville was still unconscious.
The clanking of metal against metal startled Hermione and she watched as Blaise pulled something from the brazier. What she was seeing was not making sense to her, and Hermione knew she was about to lose consciousness again.
"No, watch carefully, and remember their faces, their names," a voice whispered to her, and suddenly her eyes opened wide. The Patils and others were holding Neville as Blaise held a smoldering branding iron.
When the brand was pressed into Neville's left palm and then the right, he shouted out, his eyes flying open. The eyes were blind, and did not see the stars above them or Hermione or the figures that struggled to hold him still. Those warm hazel eyes were not there, and were replaced by burning red orbs. Even as he mouth opened, his teeth were elongated, bestial.
The smell of burning flesh was heavy on the summer air, and Hermione whimpered as the brand was placed back into the brazier. She stared at Neville as slowly he returned to unconsciousness, eyes and mouth shutting. His fingers were curled around his brands, but he was held fast as if they feared he would fight again.
"Take him…"
She was screaming then, screaming Neville's name, and as they pulled him out of the circle, she felt as if a string was being pulled taut. Something connected them now, and to be apart from him…
"Now her."
The hands that held her, tightened, and Hermione felt as if she were about to burst into flames. Her entire body burned and she could feel sweat soiling the robes they had put on her…but it was not sweat and when the hands holding her were knocked away and the tightness around her throat strangled her, she could see the darkness crouching over her.
From her vantage point looking upside down at Blaise, she saw he had raised the branding iron up like a defensive weapon.
"Get back in the circle, you fools!" Blaise hissed, and the invisible garrote she felt returned and the shadow that stood over her was gone and she felt the fire shift back into her body. "Hold her!"
Hermione tried to fight, wriggling her body even as hands grasped her again, pinching and goading her to open her fists. She cried out as they eventually broke her fingers so she couldn't close her fists.
The brand into her left hand caused her to scream louder than she thought possible, and then the garrote about her throat tightened, cutting off her scream. The brand into her right hand was so horrible that she passed out, her eyes full of standing tears.
The blackness was so complete and in it Hermione felt safe. Something warm and soft curled around her body, and she was safe, protected. The pain was gone, and she wanted to believe that she could simply drift off into the dark into death.
"No…we do not die."
For a moment she thought she knew who had been speaking to her, like remembering a dream after years. It was a voice as familiar as her own, and it began whispering to her, softly, but Hermione did not want to listen yet. Somehow the scenario seemed very familiar as well, and she twitched in the black softness.
"We will rise and we will not be alone…"
Her mind was adrift then, and Hermione knew no more.
