The holding cell she was shown into was tiny, less than 5 meters to each wall. There was barely enough room to contain the desk in the middle and the two chairs that sat across from each other. She wondered if the discomforting environment was intentional. It certainly seemed like every part of this dreadful prison was intended to suck the life out of it's prisoners. Were she in any better of a mood, she might have resolved to put an end to the usage of the foul prison, but her mind was lost in a multitude of directions.
The terrible, terrible scar on her wrist, her terror at seeing the one who had inflicted it, her desire to be anywhere but this place, this soulless ruin of a place. Everywhere her mind turned, it turned grey and dark and moody. She wished that she could leave but she needed to know, with absolute certainty, what her fate was. If she could get through to the darkest witch of her age.
The door on the other side of the room opened, and an Auror stepped through. Behind him shuffled in the black-haired witch that had haunted her mind for the past five years. Her eyes were sunken hollows, and they stared forward flatly, gazing at nothing. Her skin hung from her bones like there was nothing underneath it, and her hair was matted and filled with filth. The dark witch seemed to finally notice her. Bellatrix straightened, as much as she could with the chains that held her wrists and ankles together. Her eyes still held that dead, faraway look, but her lips flattened to a thin line and her nose scrunched as if she had smelled something foul, but she did not speak. She stepped to the desk, slumping on the seat, and all of the energy seemed to leave her, her shoulders slumped and her head downcast. Hermione could only see the top of the womans head and the tangled matted hair that hung from her like a shroud.
With a deep breath, Hermione spoke. It was hard to get the words out, and even harder to summon the bravery to even begin speaking. "Bellatrix Lestrange, you- What?" She had been interrupted by a soft word by the other witch. Almost imperceptible.
"Black. Bellatrix Black. My name is Black." The older witch's voice was so quiet, Hermione could barely hear her. Every word sounded like glass, brittle, almost breaking, but the dark witch's voice did not crack.
"Bellatrix Black. Five years ago, you placed a curse on me. As I'm sure you're-" Hermione's voice did crack, and she took a moment to compose herself. "Well aware, the caster of such curses can reverse them. I have come to demand that you reverse the curse you placed upon me." Hermione's hands squirmed in her lap, and she rested her hand on the two wands strapped to her thigh. She knew it was stupid, bringing a wand into Azkaban, but it made her feel more secure, knowing that she could retaliate in case the witch did something. What, she did not know, but she wanted to be sure, just in case.
The dark witch lifted her head, the flat look in her eyes almost gone as she stared into Hermione's own eyes with something akin to vehemence. "I am Bellatrix Black. I am the right hand of the strongest wizard of the age. I would not help a mudblood. I would not help a thief. I would not help a cursed, vile, disgusting thing like you! You stole everything from me! You stole my lord, my life, my magic, everything! You don't ask anything from me when you stole so much from me! No! NO! You don't get to come here after you stole magic, stole my master, stole EVERYTHING!" As she continued speaking, Bellatrix grew more agitated, rising up from her seat until she was leaning forward, the manic, crazed look that Hermione remembered so well from that night on her face. The dark witch was close enough for Hermione to feel her breath wash over her face.
Hermione froze. She couldn't think, didn't think as her hand found the wand strapped to her thigh, pulled it out, and pointed it at the witch that had destroyed her mind, destroyed her body, and whose curse would soon take her life. She didn't think when she uttered a single word, the magic flashing from her wand and impacting the woman sitting across from her. "Crucio." She did not know why she had cast that curse. She put the walnut wand back, placed it at its place at her thigh, her mind numb, her body numb.
Bellatrix, for her part, did not curl up in agony. She stayed standing, her hands gripping the table, her knuckles white. Her teeth were clenched in a vicious grimace, the crooked, unkempt grin of a madwoman. Her eyes still stared at Hermione with hatred in them. Somehow, she spoke. "Mudblood. You don't know how to use that curse. Give me my wand and let me show you what a real witch is made of." Every word was punctuated by a breath, as if it took effort to even say the words. Hermione imagined it truly did, considering what she remembered of her experience under the curse.
When Hermione released the curse, Bellatrix did not collapse. She stayed standing, though it was obvious it took her effort, if the trembling was anything to go by. "Bellatrix. You will remove this curse. I will be coming to Azkaban every week, until you get it into your head that you are removing this damn curse. I will not let you win. I fought Death Eaters, I found and destroyed Horcruxes, I can take a single, half-dead witch who still clings to dead ideals like she clings to her dead master."
The next time the Black witch spoke, her voice was more firm than it had been since she had first spoke. "Mudblood thief has no clue how to even use what she stole." The sentence was punctuated by a scornful scoff, the witch that stood in front of Hermione returning to her seat in an ungraceful slump.
The dark-haired witch glared almost petulantly at Hermione, an expression she had never seen before on the dark witches face. Cruel glee, vicious anger, and fanatical devotion, Hermione had seen them all in the battle at Hogwarts and at the Manor. Hermione did not know how to interpret the child-like mood of the dark witch, put out at what Hermione had done. If she didn't have terror coursing through her veins and fury at the witch for everything she had done to her, Hermione might have even just laughed at the woman's expense.
The petulant expression left the Black witches face when she spoke. "Cat got your tongue, Mudblood? For all your fiercesome declarations you still can't use magic. Hah. A mudblood using magic. What a joke." The dark witch who stood in front of her had straightened from her slump, eyes no longer manic, nor the original flat, dead look she had had when she first entered the room. They examined Hermione, and the look made her uncomfortable.
Hermione stood, stepping away from the desk. Her eyes met the Aurors. "Take her away." She turned her back to Bellatrix, opened the door to leave, and stepped out, her stomach absolute ice.
She heard, behind her, Bellatrix's words. "Come back when you can cast a spell, Mudblood." The words made her blood positively boil.
Hermione had no energy anymore. When she got home to her small apartment on a forgotton corner of London, she usually collapsed into her bed moments after. Tonight was no different, except she could not sleep. Her mind refused.
Hermione wasn't scared of Bellatrix anymore. She told herself that, and she almost believed it. Almost. Were she honest with herself, she was terrified of even being in the same room as the witch. But she refused to think about it.
Her hands idly toyed with the walnut wand between them. Over a foot long, polished to a mirror sheen, and with wood as dark as the night. The war had worn her own wand down, the grain was visible, and Hermione couldn't bring herself to polish it properly. She had no energy, when she could barely lift herself out of bed. She couldn't take care of herself, let alone her wand. The wand in her hands, however, stayed polished and smooth, the dark wood not showing any signs of age. She wondered, not for the first time, if it was enchanted that way. It was a terrible thing, she thought, that such a beautiful instrument could have such a terrible, horrific story. She placed the walnut wand on her bedside table.
Her thoughts returned to the owner of the wand that her hands had been idly on. The witch's fury, the terror Hermione felt coursing through her veins at every movement. It wasn't good, to dwell on the despicable woman, Hermione knew, but she had to remember everything. Had to find a crack in the Black woman's armor to try and find some way in.
Were Hermione being honest with herself, which, lately, she had not been, she would have stopped. She wouldn't have intently searched her memories for some sign of weakness that simply wasn't there. She wouldn't have refused no for an answer. But she was no longer honest with herself. There simply was something she was missing, simply something she hadn't added into her calculations. She would find a weakness in Bellatrix. She couldn't not. She was the brightest witch of her age and she refused being defeated by the most mad witch of her age.
Her mind kept turning, spinning over the day as if it were a time turner itself, constantly re-remembring everything the Black witch had done, every mannerism, every word. Idly, her mind contemplated what the witch had meant about not knowing how to use her magic.
Hermione pulled her own wand from it's place on her thigh, flicking it once to turn the lights in the tiny room on. It was filthy. She hadn't bothered picking up after herself for- She didn't know how long. She imagined she hadn't given it a good cleaning since she had first moved into the apartment. The once-fastidious witch resolved to do it later. A later, she knew, in the back of her mind, would never come.
The witch stood, shuffling from her bedroom to the tiny vanity that lie recessed against the back wall of her bedroom. She looked terrible. Her eyelids were sunk in, she could see her collarbone through her shirt, and the light shone on the imperfections on her skin- Clogged pores and blotchiness that never would have been there if she had actually been taking care of herself. A small bit of irony came to her, that she looked very similar to the witch she had just spoken to earlier that day. Her eyes were dark and her cheeks were hollow, and there wasn't a hint of a smile on her features. She couldn't remember the last time she smiled, honestly smiled in happiness. She thought she might have after the war had ended, when they had all assembled for a feast of sorts in Hogwarts' grand hall, but she couldn't be sure. She misplaced many memories nowadays, and she couldn't be bothered to keep track of all of them.
She picked at a pore, eyes searching the reflections' own for any sign of life, any sign that she was the brightest witch of her age. Any sign of hope. She knew she wouldn't find any. Hope was a memory. A thing she grasped long ago to get the boys and herself through the war. She had lost hope when the war ended, when the letters on her wrist began indelibly infecting her bloodstream. She looked down, through the mirror, at the word. She examined the black secretion that beaded up, along the edges of the scars. It never obscured the word itself, always flowing around the raised flesh and down her arm, as it did now. It was fascinating, almost, the dark magic that infected her wrist. The one who inflicted the curse had definitely wanted her reminder to never be forgotten.
Hermione stepped away from the vanity, breaking her thoughts as she broke her eyes away from her reflection. Dwelling on things was no way to fix them. She had to keep telling herself that, she couldn't stop moving, she had to keep things going forward. She was dangerously close to stopping, dangerously close to not stepping out of her tiny apartment tomorrow. She didn't know what her future held if she stopped moving, but she did not wish to, either.