Note: The characters here represented are the property of JK Rowling. Absolutely no profits have been derived from this work, and no copyright infringement is intended.
….Hermione gave a shriek as her legs slammed to earth, and fell against the dusty interior wall of a tiny wooden structure. There was a grimy window with a pane missing, some shelves with rusty gardening shears and shovels strewn about, stacks of clay pots beside them and in piles here and there on the ground. Snape had dropped down beside her, and was pulling aside a stack of burlap from the damp earth, revealing a trap door secured by a heavy padlock. He produced a key from his vest and fitted it to the lock, turned it to open and then tucked away, then wrapped his hand around the door's handle and flung it open. He stood, seized her by an arm and pulled her towards him, but the muscle of her thigh – so recently shredded – failed, and she stumbled with a whine. He stooped and grabbed her around the legs, threw her over his shoulder, and began their descent into the earth. Hermione gasped at the sensation of being lifted, and grabbed two handfuls of the robes at his back. She went rigid but kept still, not wanting to affect his balance, induce a tumble, and probably provoke him to kill her.
They reached the bottom of a large, earth bound room, like a cellar but much bigger: dirt floor, low beamed ceilings, wet and cold. A single bulb dangled from the center of the space, a heavy iron hook suspended a few feet to the right of it. Snape lowered himself to a knee to set Hermione on her feet. Feeling her boots touch the ground she made to step back from him, but he thrust a hand into her hair from the nape of her neck up to the high point at the back of her skull, and closed his fist in it. It didn't hurt, so she didn't make a sound, just stared at him wide-eyed and waited for what would come.
His hand still buried in her curls he rose up to his feet and pulled her closer to him, tilted her head up and began to speak down into her face.
"I have gained my composure," he began. "This is lucky for you, isn't it?"
"Yes," she whispered. "I'm sorry, I—"
He closed his eyes slowly, and half opened them, looking at her now as though through a tunnel, as though he were flickering in and out of consciousness – a drunk and dizzy look. "Don't apologize," he whispered, "or I will become angry again."
She nodded, and he seemed to come back to himself. He stooped a little closer to her, and she could see nothing but his black eyes, hear nothing but his voice, feel nothing but his grip on her.
"Do you want to learn to see, without being seen?"
"Yes," she answered, searching his face with her eyes.
"Do you want to learn to listen, manipulate, and steal?"
"Yes."
He leaned closer, until his forehead was almost touching hers, and she could feel his breath on her mouth when he spoke.
"Do you want me to teach you to kill?"
Her eyes got glazed and lusty, her heart pounded in double rhythm.
"Yes."
He released her and took a large step back.
"To give you this, I must first take away all of who you are. I will hurt and humiliate you. For a time, your body and mind will not be your own. For a time, you, will not exist. This is necessary. Do you accept?"
Hermione glanced around in panic. She looked back to him, to his tall body and his long hands. She wondered how many weapons he had on him, and how many ways he knew to kill her, maybe torture her. She felt faint and suffocated, and absurdly, she knew her cheeks were burning in a fierce blush. Then she became aware of the simple fact that she could refuse. He had not locked her in, nor threatened her. He had simply asked if she accepted.
And what was it he was offering? She remembered Rowle's triumph over her as he cast Crucio on her helpless body – the return of that intolerable sensation of impotence; the stupid little girl, trying to play spy-assassin with grown men, and needing once again and again and again to be rescued by someone stronger. No more.
"I do."
"Then strip."
"What? Why?"
Snape stepped forward and slapped her across the face.
"You do not ask why. You say 'yes Sir,' and nothing else. Is that understood."
Hermione clutched her cheek and froze. Not six months ago this gesture would have been unthinkable, especially from a professor. But this was another Hermione. This Hermione had been punched and pinned and strangled by the darker dimension of the Room of Requirement. This Hermione had seen death and known torture. This Hermione did not go to pieces over a smack on the cheek. She dropped her hands.
"Yes Sir," she said, and with trembling fingers, began pulling off her robes.
He watched her without a hint of interest; looking at her slowly revealed body like a man looks at the sky when he is thinking of other things. But he did look, and his gaze was the most baffling and humiliating thing she had yet known.
Completely naked, her robes in a pile in the dirt, Hermione clasped her hands together and twisted them in front of her mons, curled her shoulders in, trying to hide her scarred breasts behind her arms.
"Stand up straight and put your hands at your sides," he barked.
Hermione jumped and blushed furiously. Tears welled up in her eyes as she made fists of her hands and pressed them to her hips. She raised her chin up, but kept her gaze locked on the floor.
"Look at me."
A tear rolled down her face and she let go a tragic whimper.
"Hermione, meet my eyes."
Her face red and tears streaming, she looked at him.
"You are not a young woman," he said, "You are a machine. You are not a student. You are a soldier. This is not life. This is war. Repeat, I am a machine."
"I am a machine."
"I am a soldier."
"I am a soldier."
"And what is this reality?"
"It is war."
"Whatever happens in the course of war is not a part of life. Life will come later, or it will not. If it does for you, you will not carry the wages of war into it. Do you understand."
"Yes Sir."
"Get on your knees."
Hermione, no longer crying, lowered herself to her knees with a wince of pain.
"Crawl to me."
She leaned forward and put her hands on the earth, her hair hung down and waved in front of them as she crawled towards his feet. When the black boots came into view she paused.
"Sit back on your heels. Spread your knees slightly. Rest your hands, palm up, on your thighs. Straight back, chin up, eyes down."
Hermione did as she was told, and waited.
"This is called position one. It is designed to engage nothing but your obedience and your mind. Meet my eyes."
Hermione raised her eyes to his, so very very far above her, two glinting obsidians atop a tower of black.
"You are physically weak," he pronounced. "Malnourished, dehydrated, and poorly exercised. What will you do to correct this?"
"I should—"
"I said, what WILL you do."
"I will eat well. I will drink enough water. And I will exercise."
"When you are not hungry, or you are restless, or lazy, or uninterested in water, you will remember that your body is a machine. Care for this machine and you may survive. Neglect it, and you will die, stupidly."
"Yes Sir."
Snape lowered himself all the way down to where she knelt, stooping a little to come face to face with her. He took her jaw in his hand, pushed his thumb into her mouth and pressed it firmly into her soft pallet.
"You will never attempt a murder so poorly prepared again."
She nodded her head.
"What do you say."
Hermione's brow furrowed and she tried to pull her jaw from his grip. He resisted the movement firmly.
"What do you say."
"Yes Sir," she attempted, the words muffled and ridiculous coming out around his thumb.
So brief she could have imagined it, one of his dark brows quirked up in the faintest trace of amusement, and then his hand was gone and her head shoved callously back as he rose once more to his full height.
Hermione licked the salty taste away from her split lip and curled her tongue under itself, feeling the soft tissue he had pushed into.
Snape stepped around to stand behind her, and she could feel the heat from him against her bare back.
"Where is your wand," he asked.
Hermione's heart dropped, her mouth fell open, and her eyes grew enormous.
"Oh my god. I—I think, I think I may have left it behind."
"You think," he said, "you left it," his voice now dangerous, "behind."
She nodded at the ground and began to tremble, the horror of her mistake washing over her. The body would be found, and her wand with it. Or, they would have to return now to the scene of the botched crime and recover it from the dark. Perhaps it was already too late, perhaps everything was already lost, perhaps—
All thought dissolved as Hermione felt her back split in two by the crack of an unseen flay. She couldn't scream; instead she choked on her breath. Her spine arched forward and her shoulders flew back, arms and fists rigid as thought charged with electricity.
"Get on all fours," Snape snarled.
Hermione remained immobile, too shocked to move or even to comprehend his words. She felt his hand on her brutalized back, and then she was shoved forward. She doubled over her hips, suddenly limp as a rag doll, then felt his hands wrap around her naked pelvis, pulling it up to set her on her knees. Her elbows in the dirt and her hair sprawled out around her, she dug her nails into the earth and felt the second blow fall. She screamed, full throated, into the ground.
"You waste energy in screaming. You must learn to accept the pain, rather than fight it."
She moaned and began to pant.
"That was two, three more now."
Hermione went rigid. She shot from her elbows to her hands and tensed all over like a bristling dog. The next blow came, this time to her prone bottom, falling across her right side just where the biggest muscle met the top of her thigh. It was exquisite, like fire or ice to the skin. She arched her back and tucked her head, but didn't scream. The next blow mirrored the one before, this time falling on her left side. Her little feet came to ballerina points, but again she did not scream. The last strike fell, right down the center of her back, right along the spine. She sucked in a breath of air like someone drowning, and pulled her body into itself, tucking her knees under her hips and wrapping her arms around her torso.
The contact of her dirty feet against the whipped skin was agony, but the need to contain herself was more important. Her feet felt sticky, and she felt little rivulets of blood running down her back. She began shaking uncontrollably, and sobbing silently over her knees. When she felt something impossibly warm and heavy drape around her, she cried a little harder, as though comfort were intolerable after such violence. She felt arms reach under her elbows, and felt herself lifted up to unsteady standing, and that heavy fabric wrap all the way around her body under the gentle pressure and support of the arms. She felt the rhythm of a soft rocking motion, side to side, side to side, supporting her now around the ribs, a sway so subtle it was almost secret.
This went on for a long time, until she had stopped crying and simply stared, then longer still, until the staring ceased and Hermione became pliant and dreamy, drunk on endorphins and the comfort of a man's arms. Snape lowered her once again to the ground, and with a flick of his fingers beckoned her clothes to come close. He pulled his massive cloak from her shoulders, and where she expected it to stick to her wounds, it did not. She ran her hand over her back and down to her legs, and felt the skin as smooth as it had been the day before, but warm and tingly. The magical cloak he wore must have been impregnated not only with a warming charm, but with a healing charm also, and probably many others.
"Dress now," he said. "And come up to the shed. We must return to the castle."
"Yes Sir," she whispered.
"Good girl," he said softly, and turned to climb the stairs.
When Hermione lifted her own cloak from the pile, she found her wand within.