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I was caught.
For three hours I was tortured with the crucio, being demanded to hand over secrets. Secrets that would ensure their triumph: battle plans, locations of safe houses, the amount of resources we had.
I bit my tongue and refused to speak.
They found me amongst the dead. A comrade from my side had fallen on top of me when he died, trapping me beneath his heavy body. I was weak from fighting, and had fainted from the impact.
I awoke to a booted foot nudging me at the side, and then cool fingers pressed against my neck, feeling my pulse.
"She's alive, barely," I heard a woman call out.
They were well organized, and soon I was shackled and thrown into a cell that smelled of damp and sewage.
I lay there, trembling, unable to move and breathe deeply. After the blinding headache subsided a little, I crawled to a corner and vomited what little I had eaten earlier.
As if on cue, the door swung open, and the same woman who discovered me entered. She carried a tray which bore two stale hunks of bread, and two glasses of water. Stepping carefully around the puddles, she knelt, wrinkling her nose at the smell.
Her gaze was unsettling, worse than the torture I had just endured. A bright, red flush started from my neck and worked its way up to the roots of my shorn hair. I was thin-bone thin- and my dress robes were in tatters, the blue splattered with blood red. It covered just enough to make me still feel decent, but what despaired me was that it was barely recognizable.
"Dinner," she said softly, "for the Mudblood."
She handed me the bread, and set the tray down. Her piercing eyes never once left my face.
"Two choices for your drink," she pointed to the two identical looking glasses. "Water from the river, or water from the lake."
It hurt to snort.
"What does it all matter?" I asked, my voice scratchy and dry. I saw the shadow of the guard posted outside move impatiently.
"The river contains blood and filth, while the lake contains poisonous moss. Your choice. The first or the second?"
I scowled, more from the way her voice hurt my ears than the words itself.
"I'll have the bread only, thanks," I replied scathingly, still studying the pacing shadow.
"Very well," she rose and took the tray bearing the water away. "You will give me your answer soon enough."
The door clanged shut. I heard the guard acknowledge the woman as she left. I went back to my vomiting.