Warning: you-know-who (no, not Voldemort...) is back and he's NOT a pleasant person. In any way. So again: read with caution.

Hermione was jerked back into the room and heard the slam of the door as Ed kicked it shut behind her. She was too shocked to resist. A wave of terror rushed over her, threatening to drown her entirely. Ed was back. Once again, he was inside her home, where she was supposed to be safe. And once again, she was powerless to stop him from.

She met Lucius's gaze for a second, and could tell that he was almost as frightened as she was. He was too far away to intervene physically, and stood absolutely still, following Ed's every movement with a calculating look. Desperately, Hermione tried to remember where Lucius kept his wand. She hadn't thought much about it in the months he had been zoned out. Out of sight and out of mind. Had he used it since he woke up? Maybe in the bathroom? She hoped fervently he had it in one of his pockets, somewhere close at hand. Because she was fairly sure her wand was lying on the kitchen counter.

"You stay away, or I swear I'll kill her right now," Ed warned Lucius.

Lucius didn't answer, but something in his expression seemed to anger Ed further.

"I'll do whatever I want to her!" Ed growled and angled the knife slightly. "You can't stop me!"

Hermione nearly succumbed to the panic when she felt the sharp sting across her throat. With all her might, she struggled to keep some semblance of calm, but she couldn't stop the trembling.

"Stay still!" Ed barked in her ear, before he continued talking to Lucius. "This bitch took away seven years of my life. Seven bloody years! Death is no more than she deserves ."

He's going to kill me, Hermione screamed internally. She was going to die, and she hadn't even had a chance to defend herself, to prepare. Why hadn't she asked Harry to get her extra protection? She had waited too long, and now she was pressed against this horrible man. A slice away from death.

If she was lucky, Lucius might know a forceful enough medical spell to heal the wound if Ed did cut her throat. But he wouldn't have more than a few seconds to get his wand, incapacitate Ed and save her life. And that was if he knew of such a spell. She certainly didn't. She was going to die.

The sheer hopelessness of the situation was oppressive, and Hermione could feel the sure signs of a panic attack coming on. Her arms and legs felt numb, her field of vision was narrowing, and her heart beat so hard in her chest she could hardly breathe.

"Hermione," Lucius said sharply. "Focus."

"Is this your special friend, Hermione?" Ed asked sweetly. "Does he get to fuck you like I did?"

Hermione felt bile rising in her throat, and could see Lucius pale face become white with anger. He clenched his fists, but what could he do?

Ed spoke quietly into her ear. "Or maybe I should show him how it's done?"

Hermione winced as she felt his grip tighten and one of his hands begin to wander down her body. It travelled down her chest at first, freely squeezing her breasts, roaming across her tummy and moving down to the junction of her thighs.

"Stop," she begged. "Please stop."

"I don't know what you did to me, Hermione, but it backfired", Ed continued in a gloating way. "For seven years I have been forced farther and farther away from you. From England to the continent. From Germany to Russia. I've been to bloody Siberia and still I couldn't find any peace! Something you did forced me to keep moving. India, China... Australia." He grabbed painfully at her, ignoring the tears running down her cheek. "It was you, wasn't it?"

Hermione desperately sought Lucius's eyes, but he was staring at the point where the knife met her throat. FThen, so quick she might have imagined it, she thought his gaze flickered to something behind her and Ed. But then, he continued to watch the knife.

Hermione's famous intellect seemed to have broken down. In any other situation she had been in, no matter how hopeless, she had fought to find a way out. And more times than she could count, she had found it. But right now, she felt completely helpless. And she knew Lucius too was helpless. He was too far away to try to intervene. Too far away from his wand, and if accioing it had been an option, he would have done it already.

She hoped he would be able to get on with his life after this. He had come too far to give up now. She didn't know what made her more sad: the knowledge that her life was at an end, or the thought of Lucius returning to his old self.

Ed interrupted her musings: "And speaking of Australia... Guess who I happened to meet there?"

Hermione froze. No!

"Yeah", Ed said in response. "I did."

Suddenly, he was dragging her backwards until they had rounded the dining table. He was still turned toward Lucius, but quickly turned her around so that she was face to face with him. Casting a warning glare at Lucius over her shoulder, he pressed the tip of the knife against her throat and pushed her back against the table until she was almost sitting on it. She had to lean back uncomfortably in order to get as far as possible away from him and the sharp knife.

Hermione had barely had a chance to see him when she opened the door, but now she was forced to look at his face. Seven years had done no wonders for him. He looked pretty much the same as he had before, but there was something haggard about his complexion. She found herself wondering if he had been living on the street, or perhaps abused drugs or alcohol. Gone was the youthful cheerfulness that had been a part of his appearance in the past. There was a sharpness to his features, something unhealthy in both his skin tone and his gaze. Still, his eyes were the same. Those menacing eyes that she had looked into over and over again in her nightmares and flashbacks. Meeting his gaze now made her feel as if she was at home on that couch again, terrified and humiliated.

Ed grinned darkly. "You can imagine my surprise when I bumped into my own dear brother and his wife in Canberra of all places. I thought they might be able to tell me something about my favourite little niece, but they couldn't even remember her. Can you imagine that?"

"What did you do to them?" she whispered.

"Me? Nothing at all. But you did, didn't you? You made them forget you. I don't know how, but there seems to be a lot going on around you that normal people have no clue about. Did your parents know you were a freak? Is that why you did it? Do you hate them for being too ordinary?"

"No!" Hermione whispered, feeling tears beginning to pool in her eyes and slowly run down her cheeks. She knew now why she had obliviated them: because of Ed. It had been another way to push the memory of what he had done farther away from her. She had given up her parent's love in order to escape the pain of remembering him.

"If I didn't know better, I'd call you a witch, Hermione", he said. "And you know what happened to those in the good old days, don't you? Are you a witch? Don't you deserve to burn too, for the evil you have caused? Because they're hurting so bad, you know. Not from missing you, of course. You made sure you couldn't be blamed. But your dad spoke a great deal about how worried he was about his wife. Your mom has been depressed, you see. Having children was so important to her and he felt bad because he obviously couldn't give her that. I wouldn't be surprised if it was his turn next to visit the psychiatric award."

Hermione knew he wanted to hurt her, but he wasn't saying anything she hadn't thought or feared herself. It was true. She had done that to them. But seeing the satisfied look in his face woke something up inside of her. Resentment. After all, he had been the one to ruin everything. He was the reason she had no parents anymore. He was the reason she had spent six months just trying to survive the pain of remembering what he'd done.

"So you see?" he growled. "You deserve anything that I do to you".

"I do not", she whispered, withstanding the impulse to close her eyes. She didn't want to look at him the moment he slit her throat, but then again, she would not back down. She may be a trembling, helpless mess, but she would not back down.

"What did you say?" he asked, a touch of surprise in his voice in the midst of his gloating and anger.

Hermione thought she saw something from the corner of her eye. Something in a vivid orange-brown colour that stole towards Ed from behind along the floor. Suddenly, Ed yelled and took a step back, trying to kick something and waving the knife around. She could hear vicious hissing. Crookshanks, she realized. That brave, clever, stupid cat!

But then she registered the sharp stinging pain on her throat, and her mind went numb. She felt a hand grab her shoulder from behind and pull her backwards so that her back touched the table, and then a figure brushed past her and threw itself over Ed. While her brain registered that there was fighting going on right next to her, it was as if she was in a bubble.

Her trembling hand went to her throat, where she felt the pain. There was something warm and wet there. Slowly, she sat up, feeling a little dizzy. She lifted her hand and stared at it.

Blood.