Hermione crept through the hallways, her dark hair dripping uncomfortably down her back as she went along. She threw up the hood of Bellatrix's robes, hoping her disguise would allow her to pass the hired head a hundred meters in front of her. He stood, guarding a door that was ominous and appeared to leer. As she got closer, she realized that it did, in fact, leer. It was carved with an ornate woodcarving of gargoyles, smiling as they committed atrocious deeds upon varying villagers. Hermione shuddered internally as she looked at it, careful to keep her eyes up, but her head down, as she entered the room. The guard before her did not take notice, she thanked Someone for his being stupid enough to base his knowledge of her identity on the clothes she wore.
Inside the room, Hermione gasped. Fortunately, she was alone. Or was she? A cabinet against the back wall greatly resembled the ancient torture device known as the Iron Maiden, and the dark pool of liquid beneath it made her gag. She suppressed the vomiting and gingerly explored the room, pushing the hood back. Her damp curls shook into her face as she milled around, examining the devices. Each shone like new metal, but yet they were old steel, turned black with age, and some tinted red with old blood. She reached out to touch a manacle, so similar to the ones she'd been strung up in just days ago, and jumped back as the chains jangled of their own accord. She held back a shriek and realized something. Feeling around, she could make out the shape of a human head, that grunted, though it appeared to be made of naught but air. She grabbed a handful of the material that covered the apparent body and yanked. Off came the Invisibility Cloak to reveal an old, old friend.
Ron hung by his arms, legs dangling dangerously just above the floor, stomach drawn open like a pig in a slaughterhouse. Hermione clapped her hands over her mouth as she screamed, falling to the floor. Whoever had done this to him had just barely had time to leave the room before she got there, for Ron's lungs, barely visible, pink and glistening with blood, still heaved laboriously. Fighting back tears, Hermione got to her feet. Ron's face twisted in pure agony, and he tried to scream, despite the ball gag shoved cruelly into his mouth. The gag was so large that it had torn the corners of his mouth, and twin streams of blood ran down his chest to the gaping wound in his gut. Hermione tried to stroke his cheek, the only part of him still free of blood and pain, and he wriggled away as best he could, drawing another scream from his full throat as the torn muscles in his torso twisted and sent messages of pain. The pain, the torture they'd made him endure, it had driven him mad. He no longer recognized his friend, his one-time paramour, and that twisted Hermione's heart. What twisted it more was what she knew she needed to do. Drawing a breath, she pulled Bellatrix's wand out from the pocket of the robes she wore, and shakily, looking into Ron's eyes, she focused on the pain and suffering that the blue orbs were immersed in.
"Avada Kedavra!" She shrieked, delivering the curse she'd just performed on the cruel woman who'd raped her brutally to the boy she'd once loved. In an instant, Ron stopped struggling, and the lungs ceased to inflate, and Hermione could swear she saw a wisp of soul floating up and away from the hanging corpse. She felt it, if she didn't see it. A warm, grateful feeling in her stomach and heart that swelled and made her feel almost powerful, strong, and she knew, in that moment, that she would make it through this.
Or would she? Hermione flinched as she heard footsteps in the hallway, approaching the Gargoyle Door. She looked around for a place to hide, and then remembered the Invisibility Cloak. Whipping it over her shoulders, she quickly swept into a corner and huddled, not wanting to see who was coming into the room.
Lucius Malfoy's voice carried through the door as he greeted the meaty guard at the door, and seconds later, the doors swung open, revealing the beautiful man in all his glory. He wore a black cape, fastened with ornate silver hooks and eyes, and beneath that, black flowing robes made of a fabric like velvet that hung perfectly over his slim frame and accentuated all the right parts of his body. Hermione couldn't help but notice that his hair shone in the dim light of the candelabras that hung about the room. He was gorgeous, and she felt ashamed that she couldn't hide the feeling that rose in her stomach, a feeling she'd only had for a couple of people in her life. Hermione was not easily attracted to people, and when she was, she knew it was intense.
Lucius looked over at Ron's hanging body.
"So the pathetic whiner finally passed, eh?" He said, to no one in particular. Hermione shuddered to think of how many other people he might actually be talking to, how many others were stashed around the room. Hermione practically crossed her fingers in an effort to wish that he would not deduce that Ron's death had not, in fact, been at his hand, but at the hand of another.
Lucius stepped towards the body of Ron, which still dripped blood and thicker things to the floor beneath him. Pulling a key out of thin air, he unlocked the manacles, and the corpse fell to the floor, crumpled.
"Evanesco." He uttered, pointing his wand at the form of what had once been Hermione's friend. The blood and the body vanished in one shimmer, and Lucius slipped his wand back into his small staff, with the silver head shaped like a serpent. He strode across the room, cloak and robes sweeping behind him, gently over the floor, and to a cabinet.
The cabinet was carved of black wood, probably ebony, Hermione thought unnecessarily, and she gasped as he swept open the doors. A shock of red curls billowed out the doors and a pale faced girl, dressed in barely anything at all, tumbled out. Hermione silently clapped her hands over her face and mouthed one word, breathing it like a prayer.
"Ginny."