Day 173

Hermione woke up shivering, again. The cold dankness of the filthy cell seemed to seep into her bones, draining the little energy she had. She turned over and winced. The steel manacle had cut off the circulation again while she slept - it was impossible to find a comfortable position. Her fingers were alive with pins and needles, and her wrist stung where the manacle had bit into skin already rubbed raw. Hermione thought idly that it was only a matter of time until these small wounds became infected - perhaps they already were, it was too dark to tell.

A faint line of light seeped from under the heavy cell door. That line of light had become an important part of her world - a lifeline. Hermione blinked a few times and stared at it. The light was steady and white, and not yellow and flickering. Daylight, not torch-light. So it was day again.

"Hannah?" she whispered. No response. Please don't let this be the day.

Hermione leaned to the left, as far as her chains would permit, stretching out into the dark. She felt around, until her hand landed on a foot. She shook it.

"Hannah, wake up. It's day again," she whispered gently. She didn't know how long Hanna had been here - longer than her, too long. The lively Hufflepuff girl she remembered from school had already faded to a wisp of a person by the time Hermione had been brought here. She seemed like she'd already given up. Hermione had had increasing difficulty rousing her to eat the abysmal food they were given. Every day Hermione faced the terror of the possibility that Hannah wouldn't wake up.

She shook the foot again, and was rewarded with a groan. "Leave me alone," came the reply. Relief flooded Hermione's chest. Not today. Thank god.

Hermione withdrew, and busied herself with her daily routine. She believed in routine - it was another of her lifelines. It gave her something to hold onto, something to do other than lay on the rough, slimy stones and think about - no. She blocked the thought. Focus on the routine.

There wasn't much one could do chained to a wall in a dirty dungeon, with no wand, no books, and no light, but Hermione Granger made the best of it. First, she felt around for the small piece of gravel she'd found her first night here. It wasn't exactly sharp, but it was enough to etch a tally mark in the moss that covered the stone wall. She felt her tally marks, counting them, as usual, finding her place. It had been 172 days, to the best of her reckoning. She added today's mark.

Next, she stood up and did her exercises. The chains quite restricted her motion, but she made the best of it. She jumped up and down, counting. Two hundred little hops, chains rattling noisily. She did her push ups, her sit-ups. She stretched. Hermione had never been particularly interested in exercise before, but this was about survival. She could tell she was getting weaker, and no wonder. But she had to do what she could.

The task that followed was always the hardest. Attempt wandless magic. Intentional wandless magic was one of the most difficult magical abilities to master, and very rare. Far more difficult than casting spells wordlessly. As far as Hermione knew, the only wizard in recent history known to have some ability in the area was Dumbledore himself, and even he preferred to use a wand. But she had to try. The logic was inescapable - she had no wand, thus, if she were to have any chance of defending herself or escaping, wandless magic was the only option. It did not matter that the chances of success were very small, because she had no better ideas. Hermione was nothing if not logical.

She had researched it when she was younger, of course. Her insatiable curiosity - and, if she were honest, her ego - had made her interest in any sort of rare and impressive magical ability guaranteed. But there hadn't been much on it in the Hogwarts library, and when she hadn't succeeded in her first hour or two of trying, she'd given up and moved on.

Hermione retrieved her precious piece of gravel, sat cross legged, and held it in the palm of her hand. Her goal was to levitate the small stone. Reach into your magical core, and pull. Your mind must be clear, your intentions clear. The wand ordinarily focuses a wizard's magic for him, you must focus it with your mind. The inscrutable words she'd read a lifetime ago rang through her mind. For the hundred and seventy second time, she tried. She imagined the pebble levitating, how it would feel if it lifted off her palm. She directed her desire for this to happen - felt it fiercely, reveled in it. She forced her will onto the stone with all the determination she could muster. She tried whispering the incantation, not whispering it, shouting it in her mind, everything. Like every time before, nothing happened.

She did not understand what she was doing wrong. She didn't understand what it meant to "reach into your magical core." She'd read about magical cores in books of course, but she couldn't feel it. She tried again. She tried for what felt like hours. Nothing. Familiar frustration crept in, tinged with despair. She hated these futile attempts at wandless magic, they always made her feel like this. What was she doing? What was the point? This could never work, she was just fooling herself, just pointlessly distracting herself from the reality that - unbidden, a memory of her best friends laying spread-eagled and glassy eyed on the ground slid across her mind, and her breath hitched. No.

More time slipped by in the darkness, despair pulling her down into its labyrinth of painful thoughts. No, no, no. Hermione was afraid that if she let these feelings overwhelm her that she'd fall apart, that she would lay down like Hannah and not get up. No, I'm not giving up. More time slipped by, and she fell asleep.

When Hermione woke, the thin line of light under the door was dimmer, but still steady. Evening? Her stomach ached, and she wondered why the food had not been brought today. Sometimes they skipped days. Finally she heard the telltale sounds of the tray of gruel and water being shoved through the tiny flap in the door. Back to the routine. She forced herself to eat the repulsive food, cajoled Hannah into eating as much as she would, drank the water. As long as she was busy, the despair stayed away, mostly. The routine was all she had.

Next, it was time to review her studies. Today she chose Advanced Arithmancy, one of her favorites. Arithmancy was one of the few kinds of magic one could study without a wand. Granted, magic was still required to execute the spells one built with arithmantic logic, but nothing stopped a wandless person from deriving arithmantic proofs of spells. Hermione loved the way the symbols could be combined and analyzed - how one could build layers upon layers of them to make a complex spell. It reminded her of muggle maths - or programming. She had loved maths in primary school, and it had been a relief to discover there were some uses for logic in the magical world.

After a brief stretching break, she returned to her cross legged pose, and pictured the textbook in her mind. Chapter 5: Lumos, an Illuminating Proof. It was quite challenging to work through the entire proof in her mind, without the benefit of a quill and parchment. But it was the sort of challenge Hermione had always enjoyed. She lost herself in it, her mind too busy keeping track of dozens of arithmantic symbols and adroitly manipulating them to have any space left for dwelling on her present condition.

Sometimes, part of her would cynically whisper that this was a waste of time - how could it not be? The world in which it made sense to revise for her NEWTS had been utterly destroyed, this was nothing but pointless escapism. Escapism that would not help her escape. But when she indulged this idea she always felt the creeping return of those thoughts, rank with grief, shame, and helplessness, and that was not better. Hermoine knew that this was another lifeline, one should could not afford to give up.

She had nearly completed the proof when she was rudely interrupted by the sound of a key in the lock. Her eyes snapped open. This was a new development. She could see the shadows of boots in the line of light beneath the door. The arithmantic symbols fled her mind, and her heart began to hammer. The heavy door scraped open, and indirect daylight flooded the chamber. It hurt Hermoine's eyes. Two men walked in.

"Which one is it?" the tall one asked.

"95623," the other answered, squinting at a small piece of parchment. The tall one kicked Hannah, who groaned, and dragged her up by the arm.

He wrinkled his nose. "They stink," he observed with disgust, and examined Hannah's inner arm. "It must be the other one."

The man who'd held the parchment shoved it in the pocket of his robes, and approached Hermoine with a leer. He hauled her up as well, and read the serial number tattooed onto her inner arm. A malicious smile split across his face.

"Well if it isn't the Gryffindor Princess," he sneered, "miss your little friends?"

Hermoine glared at him. "Do I know you?" She was surprised by how scratchy her voice was.

"No, but I know all about you. The little mudblood bint who thought she was better than everyone else. Tell me, how did it work out there, with your precious little trio? Were you letting both of them fuck you?"

An image of Ron holding her hand in the tent while he slept, his features peaceful, flashed across her mind. Her heart clenched. But thankfully this time the rage came faster, and she opened her mouth to retort. She only got a few syllables out before he flicked his wand.

"Silencio," he hissed. Her choice remarks were swallowed by silence, and he laughed. Then, "Scourgify." Hermoine felt most of the grime, sweat, and dirt on her skin vanish. She'd longed for a bit of cleanliness for months, but now it only amplified her dread.

The tall one tapped his foot impatiently. "She's clearly still alive, we should go report back. He's waiting on us."

"Give me a moment, Scorpius, its not everyday blokes like us get to meet such a famous criminal." He leered and stepped closer. His hand snaked under her tattered robes, groping towards her chest. Hermoine twisted away in rage, but with another muttered spell her muscles froze and she found she could not move. The hand found her breast, and squeezed. The man moved even closer, and she could smell him. The hand then moved down. No. She felt a wild terror, but could do nothing. He slid a long, filthy finger between her legs, delving into her most intimate area. She felt his overly long fingernails, and they hurt. All Hermoine could do was furiously blink away tears of humiliation.

Hermoine heard someone cast a stinging hex. Her assailant suddenly yelped and jumped back. "You bastard!" he cursed, rubbing his shoulder. Scorpius smirked.

"You know the rules, they're not yours to manhandle all day. They belong to the Dark Lord. If you want to bid for this one after she's processed, be my guest, but I doubt a talentless scumbag like yourself has the coin. If you do that one more time I will turn you in."

Her molester spat at the tall one, who just laughed and ushered his companion out of the cell. The heavy door slammed shut, returning her world to darkness.

Neither of them had bothered to remove the binding spell. It took hours for the spell to wear off to the point that she could collapse, muscles still painfully rigid. The memory of that horrible man touching her, and the words they had exchanged, played over and over in her mind like a cassette on repeat. After all the things that had happened, maybe it hardly mattered what they did to her now - what were a few more physical indignities, after all the death she'd seen? But for some reason she couldn't stop crying.

I hope you have never cried until you have no more tears left, but if you have, you will know that at the end there comes a kind of calm, an emptiness. This was how Hermione felt, after a time. There was a merciful blankness in her mind, the terrifying and grief-filled waves of emotion all spent. Her attention was idly drawn to physical sensations - the rough texture of the stones beneath her, the rhythmic rise and fall of her breath. Her body hurt but this too seemed to be just another idle observation - like it was happening to someone else, or maybe that it just didn't matter. She had the irrational thought that maybe her body was garbage. If that was what her body was going to be used for, maybe it was just garbage, so what did it matter if it was cold, or hurt?

More time passed. That thought, too, eventually slid into the darkness.

She picked up the little piece of gravel, turning it over in her hand, feeling its contours. She was so grateful to have this little rock, who could have guessed what a difference something so small could make, in these long dark days? It had been a true gift from the fates. She felt lucky, to have something so precious. Maybe I'm losing it, she thought. But she let that thought slip by and pass on. She didn't have the energy to ruminate on it.

They could violate her body - she had no reason to believe it would not happen again - but could they break her? What part of her was her? She turned her neutral observations on herself, feeling her heart beating, noticing the heaviness in her chest. Her limbs were so cold, but there was a faint warmth in her chest, near her heart. No, not quite that… something that felt like warmth, but wasn't. She let her mind settle on this feeling, waiting, not demanding. After all, she had nothing but time. After what seemed like an hour, her awareness of it slowly expanded into the space she had made for it in her mind. Now it seemed like more than a warmth, like a pulsing blue light, maybe, although Hermione wasn't sure why she envisioned it that way.

Hermione was quite sure she was imagining things, that she'd finally cracked, but it no longer seemed to matter. It was oddly peaceful observing this little blue light, even if it was some strange dream. It seemed friendly. Her pebble and this light, her two companions in the darkness. She imagined the light stretching out, enveloping her, protecting her. She imagined it reaching out, and touching the pebble.

In her hand, she felt the pebble move.