Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I probably should have put this on the first two chapters, but I forgot and I'm too lazy to go back and change it right now.



From underneath his invisibility cloak, Harry followed Hermione soundlessly. Something about Hermione had been wrong this evening. She'd been nervous for the last week, had hardly eaten anything, and had acquired a haunted look you'd expect on someone who'd been tortured by Lord Voldemort for a month straight. After he thought about it, he realized that she had been unusually downcast lately, almost depressed. She wasn't the bossy know-it-all that she'd begun Hogwarts as, but Harry had just assumed that constant exposure to him and Ron had mellowed her out. But now he'd seen a pattern.

Concerned, he'd followed her all week, wondering if Malfoy was the reason for her unhappiness. If that bastard had laid a finger on Hermione . . . .

But no, she was ducking into Professor McGonagall's office. That was strange; why wouldn't she have told them she was meeting with the professor? McGonagall made no secret of the fact that she liked Hermione. Everyone knew that the animagus treated Hermione as her protege. His curiosity roused, he slipped in after her.

He noticed that Hermione's face was pale, and she seemed to have developed a slight twitch in her left cheek. What could be so bad about a meeting with McGonagall? Then he heard the professor, summoning Hermione to her desk. But the tone, the blatant sexuality in that voice, that couldn't really be McGonagall, could it?

Bewildered now, he followed Hermione up to the desk. What he saw there boggled his imagination, made him wonder if he was hallucinating. That couldn't be McGonagall trussed up like a muggle dominatrix . . . could it?

As Harry watched, Hermione bent down and kissed McGonagall's boots. Then it struck him. This couldn't be the first time this had happened. Hermione was too calm, too obedient. His mind reeled; she often came in late to other classes, after talking to McGonagall for lengthy periods of time. In fact, she had been a half hour late to potions on Tuesday . . . when she had stayed after transfigurations to talk to McGonagall. Then he had a second flash in understanding; and it was one that turned his stomach. She had been reckless, frightened and depressed since sometime during their second year. This had been going on for three years now.

He watched, horrified, as this transformed McGonagall opened Hermione's robes, exposing two small breasts, both covered with an assortment of scars and bruises. His disgust deepened as the head of Griffindor house growled in satisfaction and proceeded to roll one of Hermione's nipples between slender fingers until it hardened before cruelly digging two of her long nails into either side. Hermione whimpered and flinched, but made no move to stop it. Harry was close enough to see the tears trailing down her face as McGonagall let go of the nipple, and leaned her favorite pupil back on the desk, so that she was standing between Hermione's legs.

"What are these tears for, my dear? Aren't you enjoying yourself? There aren't very many students who are allowed your enviable position. You should be quite proud. Most teachers wouldn't choose a muggle-born witch, no matter how much talent you have."

But tears continued to stream down Hermione's face as she lay with her head hanging off the end of the desk, staring at nothing. The blank look in her eyes terrified Harry. Without thinking, he stepped forward, McGonagall's tirade drowning out the noise of his footfalls, and pressed the left side of his face to Hermione's cheek. She started slightly, and life flooded back into her eyes. To silence her, he placed a cloak-covered hand over her mouth and dared a quick flash of his face. Her lower lip trembled, her eyes closed briefly and humiliation plastered her face into an immobile cast. Then she opened her eyes and he saw that the horrible blankness had returned.

And still the tears ran down her cheeks. She seemed a statue, bleeding salt water. Clear white skin and dead eyes; not seeing, not hearing, not moving.

"Are you listening to me, girl?!" McGonagall shrieked, a demon goddess engorged with wrath at being denied her rightful sacrifice. The gruesome metaphor who had once been his transfiguration professor chilled Harry to the core when she screamed at the impertinence of her student and raked a handful of long, sharp nails down Hermione's exposed torso, ripping open five parallel gashes that ran from collarbone to pubic hair.

Hermione's eyes snapped open and she let out one long scream as her half- naked body convulsed on the altar, writhing around the sacrificial wounds that were slow to disguise themselves with blood.

And still Hermione screamed, long beyond when her lungs should have been emptied of air. Desperate, Harry kept his face pressed tight against his friend's, holding her close and murmuring useless words of comfort that even he could not hear.

He looked up defiantly, expecting to see some form of shock on McGonagall's face. That glance cost him what little shred of innocence he had still clung to.

McGonagall simply stood there, staring at the wounds she had inflicted with unmistakable lust. Even as he watched, she closed her eyes and tilted back her head, with all the calm of a connoisseur enjoying the playing of a fine pianist. Then she shoulders tensed and she shuddered as a gasp of pleasure escaped her lips. A powerful orgasm shook her, amid the pain-filled screams of his best friend.

Hermione fell silent, and then began to shake as well. Though still silent, these tears were no longer the sorrows of a statue, but sobs that racked a thin body too young to bear the weight of her scars. She curled on her side, instinctively protecting the wounds.

Harry's heart hardened at the sight. He hated Voldemort, hated how the evil bastard had killed his parents, hated what how he killed without warning or mercy-wizards and muggles alike. But that had always been something in the distance, a hate he could detach himself from, one that he could ignore for a while. The hate that filled him now was white-hot, blinding, and pure. A raw emotion that lent him a power he would not have otherwise possessed.

"Crucio!" he yelled, even before he realized that he held his wand in his hand. McGonagall writhed on the floor, screaming as Hermione had screamed only moments before. He pushed as much force into the spell as possible, wanting the aged professor to suffer, wanting her to be driven insane from the pain, so that when she opened her eyes, all that she could show would be the blankness that had filled Hermione's. Or perhaps terror. Driven insane so that she spent the rest of her life suspended in a moment of pain and terror. That would be good.

"Harry," came the soft command. He turned toward the desk, where Hermione lay, to find her eyes staring at him. His concentration broken, the spell dissolved, and his new-found hate was overwhelmed by concern for his friend. She was staring at him, her face filled with fear and humiliation and pain.

"How long has this been going on?" he asked her.

She stared at the floor, only to be confronted by McGonagall's still- twitching unconscious form. Unlike Harry, she felt no hate; all that she could feel was a dull acceptance, that this was all there was to life. Once she had hated. Once she had been able to hate. But that was years ago. Why shouldn't Harry know? It wasn't like her life was worth saving, like she really cared whether or not she lived, much less what kind of a life she lived. She only deserved suffering. Why not add to it? Why shouldn't she destroy her last remaining compass? If he knew, then Ron would know and she'd be done with the lies and deceit and she could finally end the charade of happiness.

"Two and a half years," she said, staring at the wall. That's what my life is like, she thought idly; just as blank and emotionless as that wall. The only things I can feel anymore are humiliation and pain. At that thought, she looked down at the five claw marks on her torso. Experimentally, she put a fingernail to one and pushed, immersing herself in a small wave of pain. At least she could feel that.

Hearing a sharp intake of breath, she looked up, and saw the predictable disgust and pity on Harry's clean, untouched face. Then he was helping her to her feet, muttering about getting her to Madam Pomfrey. He hurried her through the halls, at least as fast as she could go. Her legs wouldn't quite hold her and everything seemed to be passing in a dream. It didn't really surprise her that they literally ran into Neville, the blood from her wounds soiling his robes. She was so light-headed, that his expression of horror and concern seemed comical, a parody of his usual self. Although his usual self was still fairly comical. If she hadn't been going numb, she would have giggled. She came even closer to laughter when Harry told Neville that McGonagall had done this, and had been for two years. What an idiot. She'd done this to herself; it had been Hermione Granger, the know- it-all who was such a frigging dunderhead that she had let McGonagall get hooks into her. Hadn't figured to fight back until it was too late. Even now, she hated herself for waiting until Harry stepped in to save her. But she knew that McGonagall wouldn't be deterred by this. It would simply be a minor setback. Everything would go back to the way it had been. And it was all her fault.

Her robe gaped open, and she wondered whether or not it would be funny to stand up and fling it open, giving Neville the look he'd always wanted. She tried to stand, but her legs gave way. Oh well, she thought. Sorry Neville, baby, but I'm spoiled goods. You want the insufferable little twit Hermione, but this is all that's left. And it sure as hell ain't much.

Then she was in the hospital wing, and Madam Pomfrey was gasping in shock. Dimly she heard Harry telling the alarmed matron what had happened. Everything was fuzzy. Was it from blood loss? She didn't feel any pain, was that a normal thing? Or was she just shutting herself away again? Was this what death would have been like if she had slit her wrists on one of those nights when she stayed awake, playing absentmindedly with a knife. It wasn't nearly as bad as people said it was. Then she drifted into darkness.



A/N: Hey everybody, sorry about the long wait, I just have too many evil ideas and I've been trying to figure out how to fit them all in. Anyways, I think I have everything planned out, so I should be able to finish this soon. It's probably only going to be another two chapters, maybe three if I get really long-winded. PLEASE REVIEW!!!!! I'm an attention whore, and I feel really stupid just hanging this out to dry and not knowing what people think of it. Thanks for putting up with my sickness thus far! And yes, I do realize that this chapter is really REALLY angsty, but hey, everybody's gotta have a hobby! Don't worry, next chapter will be better.