A/N: Here we are with the third installment! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on their daring escape plan :)
Trigger warnings: Mentioned torture, mentioned blood
Now that she knew there was a definite plan in place to kill her, Hermione's anxiety levels skyrocketed. Whenever someone came down the steps, her heart palpitated with fear that maybe now was the time and they had come to escort her to her death.
Her team of torturers became more careless, apparently liberated by the knowledge that her life wasn't of much value anymore. If she would be dead soon anyway, there wasn't much need to hold back. When Narcissa came to her next, it took half a dozen healing spells to bring Hermione's pain down to a level where she could even think straight. Lying there on her back, she looked up at Narcissa through the bars and found hesitant compassion in her eyes.
"I do not have much time," she whispered, reaching an arm between the bars to hold Hermione's hand, giving it little squeezes whenever her eyes drifted shut and she looked like she would slip unconscious. "When I return to collect your tray, I will need you to be awake and alert." There was determination in her hard gaze and Hermione focused on it, letting the little bud of hope bloom. "Rest now, but do not give up." She patted Hermione's hand like an afterthought and retreated. Hermione was asleep before Narcissa had shut the door.
Hermione was woken by a whispered "Enervate," and groaned at the aching in her body. She felt groggy, but when she opened her eyes and saw Narcissa standing above her, her head cleared a little.
"Don't move too much," she ordered when Hermione tried to push herself to a sitting position. Hermione complied and lay there, waiting for Narcissa to speak. "If we are to escape," she began, giving panicked glances to the door, "we must do it tomorrow night."
Hermione stared at her, both stunned and frustrated. Her heart jumped to her throat—what time was it, anyway?
"That allows thirty-six hours for you to recover and for me to make preparations." Narcissa shifted closer, bracing herself on one of the bars so she could lean nearer to Hermione and speak even softer. "These bars will free you when they come into contact with my blood," she explained, and Hermione wrinkled her nose.
"That's barbaric," she managed.
Narcissa gave a small, elegant shrug. "It is our way. Now, there is a stash of wands in a supply room on the first floor. I can steal a wand for you before I make my way here. As I am bonded to this house through marriage, I will be able to guide you safely through the wards."
Hermione gave a feeble nod from the floor, feeling her adrenaline begin to pump at the fact that they were really going to escape. She didn't know how she'd managed to persuade Narcissa to help, but she was immeasurably grateful for it. She watched as Narcissa took the uneaten food off the tray and levitated it to the corner where she usually slept, disillusioning it there. Hermione tried to give Narcissa a smile and thank her, but the woman's wand was aimed at her yet again and she felt the warmth drag her to sleep before she could move her lips.
It goes without saying that there was no clock in Hermione's cell. There was no calendar, either, or a window, or anything at all that could be used to measure time. Hermione had absolutely no idea how long she had slept, or what time of day it was, or how long she'd been captive. She could hardly remember Narcissa's plan; she'd barely been conscious when it had been explained.
She ate the disillusioned food when she woke. The fact that it was invisible to her made absolutely no difference in the darkness of the dungeon. Hermione's stomach twisted with anxiety over the fact that in the coming hours, she would either be executed by Death Eaters or attempt a dramatic escape with none other than Narcissa Malfoy. Sitting there, alone in the dark, her imagination presented her with a hundred scenarios. They varied greatly; some had her and Narcissa fleeing in a flurry of wandfire, taking out Voldemort on the way and winning the war for the Light. In others, they were caught in various stages of their escape and brutally tortured before being killed. They became more creative, more outlandish and exponentially more improbable as the time passed and Hermione had only the darkness for company.
Hermione dared not sleep in case someone came. She needed to be alert when Narcissa arrived, and if Narcissa failed and Death Eaters came to take her away, she would need her strength to fight back. She wasn't sure how she'd achieve the latter, but she knew she wouldn't let them drag her along without putting up some sort of resistance, however successful.
What if Narcissa would be the one to collect her for death? What if this escape plan was a ruse, to lull Hermione into a false sense of trust and safety? Maybe Voldemort and his friends were sitting around a dining room table, cackling as Narcissa told them how the silly Mudblood prisoner actually believed she would help take her to freedom.
Hermione buried her head in her hands. She couldn't afford to think this way. She'd managed to maintain her mental integrity so far and now was definitely not the time to slip into hysteria. For now, she would put her trust and her faith into Narcissa and her plan. If that turned out to be nothing but betrayal, then she would deal with that when the time came. Wasting her mental energy on morbid possibilities like that was the last thing she needed.
With that grim determination in mind, Hermione fell asleep. It was the most restless sleep she'd had in what must have been over a week and she woke after what felt like a few hours. She stayed curled up in her corner and let her thoughts drift over happy memories to keep the fear and anxiety at bay.
When the door clicked open, Hermione's heart jumped to her throat. It would have to be Narcissa; no Death Eater would ever open the door so gently or walk so quietly. Sure enough, Narcissa appeared with another tray. Was the food a disguise for her intentions? Was it time?
Hermione crawled to the bars quickly.
"I will come back in three hours to retrieve the tray," Narcissa told her in a hushed whisper. Hermione could see she, too, was struggling to keep calm. "Be ready then."
Before Hermione could get in a word, Narcissa had gone.
Hermione struggled to eat, but forced herself to since she knew she would need the energy. As she chewed, she realised that if their plan failed, this would be her final meal. She thought of the Muggle tradition of letting prisoners choose their last dish. Hermione had no idea if this was also done in the Wizarding World. It was hard to tell, considering she technically wasn't supposed to know of her impending execution and she doubted that Voldemort would be that charitable.
Besides, the Ministry didn't use the death sentence. The closest they had was the Dementor's Kiss. Were inmates on death row granted some sort of final wish before their sentence was carried out? It probably wasn't even called death row. Maybe "kiss row," or something like that.
Hermione pursued this line of thought for a while before she realised that she was thinking about one of the most morbid topics available and quickly moved on.
Where were Harry and Ron? Were they even still alive? She assumed that at least Harry was, since the Death Eaters were not celebrating. She wondered whether they had found anymore Horcruxes, where they were at the moment, and what they assumed about her fate. She could imagine the debate they must have had over whether or not to try and rescue her from the snatchers that had taken her. Hermione smiled and shook her head at the arguments they must have made. She was glad that they'd clearly decided that to try and find her would be suicide, but couldn't help the sadness the separation produced in her heart. She was so lonely and afraid and her best friends, her allies from the start, didn't even know if she was alive.
Once again, Hermione remarked on the fact that Narcissa Malfoy was the only one remotely on her side; wife of Voldemort's right-hand man, mother of her schoolyard nemesis, and sister of the witch who had driven Neville's parents to insanity. This woman was right in the middle of the web of Hermione's enemies, and Hermione wondered whether she was the spider or the trapped insect.
It was unbelievable that this woman who was intimately related to so many terrible people and who, Hermione understood, had actively supported them was now risking her own life and those of her loved ones to help Hermione escape. If she wasn't part of it, Hermione probably wouldn't have believed it. She wondered if she really had lost her mind and smirked into the darkness.
There were so many possible motives. Hermione couldn't list them all. Slytherin self-preservation seemed the most probable, but it didn't quite line up with Narcissa's obvious concern for her family. It didn't seem likely that that would trump any political ideologies, either, but then again she doubted that Narcissa had ever been as actively invested in politics as her family. Hermione couldn't work it out just yet.
A muffled noise broke Hermione from her thoughts and she tensed, holding her breath and squinting into the darkness as her heart raced. There were voices and another, louder sound, and Hermione's veins turned icy.
The door banged open and what sounded like a stampede came down the stone steps. Torches on the wall were lit with bright flames (how had Hermione never noticed those torches before?) and Hermione came face-to-face with Bellatrix Lestrange, who looked more livid than Hermione had ever seen her.
"What did you do to my sister?!" Hermione scooted backwards to press herself against the far wall of her cell so Bellatrix's flailing arms couldn't reach her through the bars. "You thought you could trick her, didn't you, Mudblood? Thought you could take advantage of a poor woman so you could escape back to your filthy friends?" Bellatrix was more hysterical than ever before and Hermione had never been more afraid of her. Her fear was consuming her; she couldn't breathe.
She dared to look past Bellatrix and spotted a herd of Death Eaters, all of them with revolting grins on their faces. Two of the larger ones were holding Narcissa between them and her head was sagging over her chest. Hermione wasn't sure if the woman was conscious and she felt nauseated by fear. What had happened? What had she done?