The holding cell was just as damp and cold as it was last time, but now quiet memories lined the walls. Memories of another place, with just as cold walls, and a screaming witch standing above her. Her wrist burned, again. She wished, not for the first time, that she could simply obliviate the memory from her mind, but it had not worked when she tried it. She had forgotten some pieces of the war, things that Harry and Ron had filled her in on. Small things, like how they had camped out in the woods, something she'd always wanted to do with her parents. Big things, like Ron's splinching and Ron almost dying in a lake.
The grey, flat door behind the table in front of her slid open, and in stepped an Auror. It was a different one from last time, not that she particularly cared. Behind the Auror stepped in the crazed madwoman who'd carved her face into Hermione's mind. That, Hermione mused, was the worst part. The fact that she would indefinitely have the right hand of the most foul wizard in all of Britain, maybe all of the world, etched into her mind for the rest of her days, as pitifully short as she expected them to be.
The witch slumped on the chair before her, her head lolling at an unnatural angle and her entire body slack, a sack of potatos in rags with a manic grin to top it all off. "So, mudblood comes back to see what Bellatrix is going to do? Does mudblood think Bellatrix is a zoo animal? I wonder, does mudblood realize that mudblood is going to die?" The witch cackled, her laugh filling the tiny space with it's raucous glee.
There were no wands at Hermione's side this time. She hadn't brought them, she didn't trust herself, not after casting one of the unforgiveables with such ease. She reasoned that the war had desensitized her, but she had no wish to cast any more terrible curses. The war was over. She just wished her mind would realize that fact.
Bellatrix flopped her head to the other side from where it hung, limp, as if the strings weren't supporting the marionette. "Cat got the mudbloods tongue? Or maybe mudblood does realize mudblood is going to die. Oh how fun! One more dead mudblood, my Lord would be pleased. Would be." The childlike glee had left the dark witches voice when she mentioned her Dark Lord, the Black witch straightening and bringing her full, vicious gaze upon Hermione. "You despicable thing. Your death will be the mudblood death I enjoy the most. I enjoyed every one, but yours. Yours I will enjoy the most. Pity I couldn't kill those filthy blood traitors you call friends."
Hermione hadn't responded yet. Hadn't even said anything to the witch sitting across from her. She couldn't bring herself up to say anything. She knew that she should. She knew that there had to be some way to get the witch to remove the curse coursing through her veins. She didn't have hope, no. Hope was a dead emotion. She simply had what had to exist. What she refused to deny because denying it meant that she would be with nothing left, and she refused to give up the last string that might save her.
The witch sitting across from her made a curious noise. She had resumed the curious look on her face from before, but stayed just as attentive. "Little mudblood looks like she's been through Azkaban, doesn't she. Ooh, Bella didn't know she could do that! I stole someone's soul, hm? Oh, pity me, that I couldn't actually use it. But I did break yours, hah!" The lopsided grin on the vicious womans face was almost genuinely happy. It perturbed Hermione, in a way that the mad, cackling childishness and the cold fury had not.
Hermione straightened, as best she could with the weight that she felt pressing down on her. "You know why I'm here." She lifted her arm and rested her wrist on the table, the letters that oozed black face-up. It almost seemed as if the black, viscous fluid flowed more freely in the presence of the other witch. Hermione wouldn't dismiss the thought.
Bellatrix lowered her gaze, inspecting the letters with a mad grin on her face. For that truly was how her smile sat, mad eyes glinting in fascination and mouth wide in a vicious, lopsided, toothy smile. Before Hermione could move, the Black witch had grabbed her arm, gripping it and holding it in place. "Just what you are, isn't it, mudblood?"
Hermione had gasped in shock, and at the first sign of her pulling away from the older witch, the Auror in the room had stepped forward. A quick restraining charm on Bellatrix had solved the issue of her moving anymore, but her hand was still clenched around Hermione's wrist.
"The charm doesn't prevent you from letting go. I'd advise you remove your hand from Miss Granger's, before you lose it." The Auror had his wand held at the base of the mad witch's wrist, settled firmly into the hollow between two bones. Hermione imagined it must be painful.
When Bellatrix did remove her hand, the pain in Hermione's wrist cascaded down her arm, reaching its long fingers into her chest. She feared she would lose consciousness, and she felt herself swaying. The excruciating touch of the curse kept reaching, snatching at her breath, pulling it away and preventing her from being able to take even a gasp. It felt as if everything seized in her chest. The only sounds she could hear were the beating of her heart and the wheezing inhales that gave her no air.
Hermione hadn't noticed Bellatrix being removed from the room. She hadn't felt the apparition away from Azkaban, nor did she perceive being laid out in a bed in St. Mungo's. The terrible, coursing fingers of pain drowned out all sensation.
She did not know how long her agony lasted, only that at some point, the dark fingers that had their clutch around her lungs eased, her breathing reapproximated normal again, and the pain in her wrist settled back to something akin to what she had felt since the scars appeared on her wrists five years ago.
When her mind cleared and she could actually think, she finally heard the frantic voices that had no doubt been worrying over her condition since they had come into the hospital.
"Harry. I can't lose her. She's my best friend. She's been with us through thick and thin. I'm just-" Ron's voice was the first she heard, and the pain in it hurt her in places she didn't want to feel.
Harry's voice was strained, but soft, empathetic. Harry truly was the one that centered them all. The steady rock that they needed when Hermione thought too much and when Ron felt too much. "Ron. Ron. She'll get through this. I swear to you. We've been through everything and then some together, and we both know that witch is stronger than both of us put together. She'll get through this, and we'll be right beside her to help." Hermione looked over, and she saw the black-haird wizard embracing the ginger. She wasn't used to seeing Ron's shoulders slumped in defeat. The young Weasley always tried to put on a strong showing, even when his brother died.
Ron's shoulders began shaking, and Hermione felt a peculiar sadness that Ron was crying for her. His voice, when he spoke, cracked and warbled with his tears. "Harry. We've been through so much, but what if this is the last time I ever see her? What if this is the last fight we fight through? We've tried everything. We've done all we could. I'm terrified, Harry." Ron had pulled away from Harry halfway through speaking, his head downcast. Hermione could see the tears coming down his face, how his eyes were squeezed shut, and how his lower lip trembled.
When Harry's eyes met her own, he gave her a wan smile. She imagined that it was supposed to be comforting, though for herself or for Harry, she wasn't sure. It did not comfort her, she knew that.
The black-haired wizard gently turned Ron so that he faced Hermione. "See, Ron? Told you she'd be fine." Harry was back to looking at Ron.
With a rush of crying ginger, Ron embraced her. Her reaction was delayed- Not from any lack of reciprocation, though it was hard to bring herself to reciprocate the intense emotions of her friend, but due to a simple inability to react quickly anymore. The idea disturbed Hermione.
"'Mione. I can't lose you yknow. I don't care what the rest of em say. I don't care who says what but you're the best damn witch I've ever known and I just-" Ron's voice broke, he shook his head and clung to her more tightly. "Hermione. Don't die on me alright? Don't scare me like that and don't you ever, ever die on me." Ron's voice trembled, a tone she was simply not used to hearing from the usually strong wizard. It made her heart wilt.
She lifted her unblemished arm up, wrapping it in a much-too-weak hold around Ron. A token gesture, she felt, for the pain that he must be feeling. It made her feel more terrible than she already felt, that there was someone that cared this much for her, that this is what her curse would leave behind. Broken hearts and a world still reeling in recovery.