Author's Note: Beware the Ides of March, unauthorized Portkeys, blatant foreshadowing, strategically placed cacti, and practise CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
It's said that good friends take on each other's attributes. In the case of Harry, Ron, and Hermione this was absolutely true. Before she had known the two boys, Hermione would never have spent her summers being kidnapped by diabolical agents of ambitious evil overlords, or, depending how you saw it, ambitious agents of diabolical evil overlords. Unfortunately, although proximity to the boys provoked these situations, they did little to remedy them. For the most part, Harry seemed to save his neck out of sheer luck. She would not even escape with the portkey, for it turned to ash in her hand. Still, Hermione had read enough action/adventure books to understand what was expected of her. When everything stopped moving, she hit the ground running. She managed to duck several curses and fired off some in return. She rolled behind a handy piece of furniture and prepared to continue defending herself.
That was the plan anyway. The first flaw she encountered was the fundamental difficulty of running if you land flat on your back. She dealt with that easily enough but the most important flaw was not apparent until she had clumsily rolled behind a glockenspiel. No one was attacking her simply because she was alone in the room. She stood up, feeling a little silly after all her evasive action. She was in an octagonal room with a high balcony running around near the roof. It appeared to be a storage room for odds and ends of all this place's residents. The glockenspiel she had hid behind showed signs of heavy use. The only thing the room lacked was Death Eaters.
It was all very clear when Hermione thought it through. The portkey had been enchanted during their visit the to bookstore. Because it was not known when the group would arrive at the bookstore, it was not known when she would arrive in the room. People would be arriving soon after all the noise she had made. She would have only a few seconds to prepare for the arrival of goodness knew how many Death Eaters. She had only one real option if she wanted to get out of her situation alive. She broke her wand's casing deliberately, hoping she had caused a minimum of damage to her dragon heartstring core. She hurriedly pushed the wand as far as she could into the glockenspiel.
Logically, she knew she had made the right choice. If Voldemort had gone to such lengths to kidnap her specifically with the ersatz book, the purpose of the plan was unlikely to be her death. Even if it were, avada kedavra was unblockable with a wand. If she had been caught to catch Harry in a trap, however, she might be able to recover her wand. Still, it hurt to give it up.
She had not acted a moment too soon for three Death Eaters came streaming in through the doors. She was momentarily mildly insulted she only merited the attention of three henchmen. She threw her hands in the air, fingers spread. There was no point in getting hit with any more curses than she needed. The first Death Eater pulled off his hood triumphantly, sneering down the length of his wand, and Hermione felt a shiver of doubt as she met the cold smile of Draco Malfoy.
Hermione was awoken by the sound of Peter Pettigrew's silver hand clanking against the clasp of her knapsack. She was lying on the floor of a tower bathroom. There was a small window on the wall opposite her. She could see little but trees and suddenly a large spider darted between the branches. She noted its five furry legs and gasped.
At the sound of her indrawn breath, Pettigrew left off his mutter of, "..I have to search for the wand just because Malfoy's brat couldn't find it with his summoning charm.. You're up!"
"Evidently," Hermione replied tersely. She stood up and brushed the dirt off of her clothes. Everything she had seemed to be in place. She even still had her safety pin holding together the rip by her hemline. Pettigrew, who had been watching her inspect herself smiled nastily.
"It's not there," he said.
"What isn't where?"
"Your wand. You haven't got your wand, have you?"
"Hardly. I had put it in my other bag of books before you kidnapped me," replied Hermione smoothly.
Peter's eyes widened, "You had another bag of those things? You had about twenty in the bag you had with you." He noticed Hermione fiddling with the safety pin. "What's that," he asked as he drew his wand nervously.
"A safety pin. It holds cut garments together. Look, it's just a pointed bit of wire."
"Hand it over. You're not allowed to have access to any sharp objects. I'm supposed to be checking your possessions."
"Are you telling me Voldemort's power is so tenuous he is worried I might overpower his Death Eaters with a safety pin?"
Pettigrew flinched at the Dark Lord's name but brightened with his next statement, "The Dark Lord believes you might find your situation so dreadful you would try to take your own life to escape him."
"Then why am I in a room with both a window and a mirror; both of which I could smash and slit my wrists with?"
Peter looked around in panic, ran to the window, and vanished the glass. He turned to give the mirror the same treatment, but was cut off by Hermione's laugh. The worry about suicide meant she was being held with a purpose and was unlikely to be killed in a fit of pique.
"Now I could jump out the window and fall to my doom."
Peter restored the glass and transfigured it hurriedly to bricks. His transfiguration was not very good. Hermione could see through several of the bricks and others appeared delicate enough to be smashed.
"Now I can bash my brains out against the brick wall."
She would have continued this game for some time longer but a voice rang out, "Let the mudblood keep her toy, Wormtail. We will put her safety under the duties of a competent Death Eater since one mudblood seems too powerful for you. Bring her down to the main dungeon. We are all waiting."
Voldemort was waiting with a contingent of Death Eaters in what appeared to be the main dungeon. The walls were solid stone and chains were scattered across the ground. The only thing missing was bloodstains; Hermione chalked them up to the fact Voldemort could not have been using this place as a hideout for long. The walls were inscribed with the markings of former prisoners: Down with McCliverts, MacBoons Forever, and a few highly original anatomical suggestions for the McCliverts.
Hermione's analysis of her surrounding was broken off as Pettigrew shoved her hard in the small of the back with his silver right hand. "Kneel before the Dark Lord," he intoned. She complied, less out of a sense of respect, than a desire to not add the first bloodstains to the room.
"So, Mudblood, the great Albus Dumbledore has failed in his protection at last. He could not stop the plans of Lord Voldemort. But don't flatter yourself too much, little mudblood. You have no value to us other than as a lure for Potter. Your friends will come rushing to your rescue as they always do, and I shall have him."
"Perhaps my friends are smarter than you give them credit for, Lord. Even if they are so foolish as to not see this as a trap, the adults around them will know."
"But how can they stay away," Voldemort replied softly, nodding to a Death Eater who produced parchment and a quill, "when they receive a heartbroken, pleading letter in your own hand?"
"You want me to write my friends' death sentence? There is no way I would ever do that. Don't threaten me with the Cruciatus, either. You know as well as I do that prolonged use of the Cruciatus cause madness or death. My friends are not fool enough to rescue a corpse. I'm sure you don't want to use up your big guns this early in the game."
Voldemort seemed angry that Hermione had brushed aside his threat. "They told me you were clever. Apparently, not clever enough to know not to antagonise your captor, especially when power is so unevenly distributed. The Cruciatus curse is not the only option. The medieval families that once held this castle left a great collection of torture instruments, both wizarding and muggle. Some of their uses are unknown but I'm sure we could improvise. Alternatively, I could put you under the Imperius curse, your writing style might suffer, but, according to our Severus's assessments," he added gesturing languidly at a familiar face under a hood, "I doubt your friends would tell the difference. So, will you write the letter, or do I order my Death Eaters to start spring cleaning?"
Hermione's mother had always said that her daughter's habit of analysing situations and speaking her mind too fast would get her into trouble. Hermione had learned to hold her tongue in check since her run in with Lavender over her rabbit. Her mother would be horrified at what her daughter's Cassandra-esque penchant for awkward truths had gotten her into now. She knew what she should do, she ought to stand up to torture for her friends. Looking into the red, catlike slits that served as Voldemort's eyes she could not see the wisdom in such a plan. She fiddled absently with her seams and pricked herself on the safety pin still holding together the tear.
"I will do as you ask."