Sirius: 24
Remus: 44
Threesome: 4
(Sirius is getting owned in the polls)
A/N: The next chapter will be back with the rest of the group at Hogwarts, then the one after will be back with Hermione. I'll try and get 'em up as soon as possible, though my birthday party is Friday and there's a dance Saturday night, so...I'll do my best. You might actual have to wait a few days – I think I spoil you all too much, hee.
Enjoy!
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Hermione was already awake and sitting up on her cot when the auror came to retrieve her. She looked up from the blank spot on the wall upon which she had been devoutly staring as the gears grinded magically in the lock with a high-pitched screech of disuse. They'd kept her in the farthest dungeon cell of the Ministry building.
The man who entered was wearing plain black robes and looked particularly uncomfortable being there. "Come on, Miss. Your trial is starting."
Hermione nodded. She hadn't eaten since they'd taken her from the Great Hall and her stomach rumbled when she stood. She hadn't slept well, either, and her short bouts of sleep had been fitful at best.
The man stepped aside to let her pass, keeping his wand aimed at her chest. She stepped out of the barely lit cell to an even drearier hall; stone walls with far-interspersed torches. Two more aurors blocked her path as her retriever closed the cell door and moved to walk behind her. The two guards stepped against the wall and let them pass. All of this was done in silence.
When Hermione finally spoke it made the man jump and the wand tip he'd pressed between her shoulder blades dig a little harder.
"This seems an awful lot for a seventeen year old girl." Was what she said in a raspy voice brought on by lack of use and too little water.
"I don't give the orders, miss," the man said, and it was with a great deal more politeness than she'd expected. "They're saying you're dangerous."
Hermione didn't know what to say to that. She'd been called many things in her lifetime, and most were unkind, but never had she been labeled as 'dangerous'.
"Just surprised is all, sir," she replied. "You're just doing your job. I can find no fault with that."
It was hard. So hard to walk a straight line. So hard not to cry. But if she could just keep a civil conversation, then things wouldn't seem so bad. She kept telling herself this over and over, hoping the repetition would make it true, and so she missed the startled faltering of footsteps behind her.
"You sound so calm, Miss Granger." He guided her down the next hall and she moved slightly to dodge an overhanging cobweb.
Hermione shrugged, uncaring. "Ranting and raving won't help me get released."
They were approaching a large wooden door with a heavy bronze knocker. It was the only door in the long empty hall.
"So you're innocent then?" He asked, grabbing a hold of the metal ring, and letting it fall back against the wood with a resounding whump!
Hermione stepped back as the door was pushed open from the inside.
"No," she whispered when the grating of wood on stone was too loud for him to hear her. "I'm not."
Hands grabbed her upper arms in an all too familiar fashion and she was dragged away from the polite man and into a large stone room. The sudden onset of a multitude of torches was like a camera bulb going off in front of her face and her eyes instantly watered. Blinking away the reflexive tears, the temporarily blinded Hermione allowed her handlers to drag her into what she assumed was the middle of the room and shove her down into a chair.
Something jabbed painfully into her Adam's apple and she sat docilely at wandpoint as they locked her into her seat, even going so far as to lift her arms complacently onto the chair's armrests for them to lock her wrists in with thick metal bands.
Still blinking rapidly, she heard and felt them, rather than saw them, check her restraints once, twice, and then once more before the pressure on her throat disappeared and two sets of footsteps echoed away from her. The man hadn't been exaggerating when he said they thought her to be 'dangerous'.
She could see properly now, see the raised levels of seating along the three walls in her sight range and most likely the fourth behind her as well. Wizards and witches filled each seat, certain details of their faces escaping in the shadows of the levels farther up. They were whispering, all whispering, in a hushed rising wave of unintelligible conversation that dripped secrets and reeked of a prideful superiority.
Hermione felt insignificantly small, and she didn't realize that she was adapting to fit the part – trying to curl in on herself – until she felt the strain on her ankles and forearms from her forgotten bonds. She forced herself to look away from the imposing witches and wizards with their buzzing murmurs, and changed her focus to the high podium rising up like an Egyptian obelisk before her.
Fudge himself was presiding.
He disgusted her. Like a worm he'd entrenched himself as Minister, feeding off Dumbledore's advice until his pudgy body was so bloated with stolen wisdom and false confidence that he slinked away from his teacher and burrowed deeper and blindly into the filth of the earth.
The ground would shake and the tremors of the world would vibrate around him as he burrowed, always burrowing. But he was too bloated, too far out on his own to feel them. Ignored and unfelt, the problems disappeared, not only from him, but the other worms lured in by the weight of his promises and the heaviness of his stolen morality. It's been years now, and if he finally realized how far into the earth he's dug it would not matter. He is a worm...and worms are always burrowing.
Hermione lifted her chin defiantly and hardened her features. She was not the worm, and never would she abject herself before it. She was the griffin, proud and brave, with goodly attributions that filled the worm tunnels, in their filth and their dirt, with the cleansing flood of rain.
This man, whose cowardice outstripped that of Pettigrew himself – he was insignificant. He was small.
The tower he'd hidden himself upon was no taller than a blade of grass in Hermione's eyes. His dais was only a soapbox; his pyramid a grain of sand.
The worm was weak. She was strong.
All she had to do was stare up into that pudgy, rouge-tinted face, with its beady eyes hidden beneath bushy caterpillar brows, and the whispering, haunting faces in the torchlight melted away.
The worm had served a purpose after all.
"Good morning, Minister," she said politely, but loud enough to be heard. The courtroom was instantly silenced. "Or is it afternoon already? I've lost track of the time."
Fudge's fingers curled around the edge of his high box seat and he leaned forward and nearly out of his seat to look down at her, rounded face framed in childish surprise. Hermione's chin rose a fraction of an inch higher. Worms were stupid. Her politeness and civil tone must have seemed a great deal odd to the wizard, but he seemed to feel rude not answering, because he did reply.
"Still morning, Miss Granger," he said, wavering between judicial curtness and general politeness. "A quarter past nine."
"Is the sun out today?" She asked, as if they'd just sat down to a warm cup of tea.
He was slow in answering. "No," he said finally. "There is no sun."
"Good," she declared immediately. "It would be dreadful if it were. One would think the weather ought to reflect one's situation, would you not?"
Fudge was looking around as if to ask if such conversations were normal occurrences. The faces she could see in a quick glance were surprised as well. Honestly, all the death eaters' wailing and moaning and threatening to hex your legs off wasn't doing them a knut worth of good. Personally, Hermione didn't see the point.
"I suppose..." He began. Hermione interrupted.
"I mean, I don't think I could rightly wish someone a pleasant day, all things considered," she went on explaining. "So, I'm rather glad there's no sun."
Fudge cleared his throat and smiled uneasily with a few glances to each side to see if he was allowed to do so. "Miss Granger." She looked up at him with an expectant expression that held a subtle trace of...was it impatience? He wasn't sure and he cleared his throat again. "Perhaps we'd best get started with the hearing."
She nodded compliantly. "Of course, sir."
There was a rustling of papers as Fudge leaned back into his seat and after he unrolled a crisp new parchment it was obvious his words were being read off of it. "After an extensive investigation, you, Miss Granger, were found to be guilty of a lengthy list of crimes, the most heinous of which being the use of dark magic to alter the present time. Do you have anything to say in your defense?"
"Excuse my ignorance, Minister," she said in a tone that belied her apparent humbleness. "But isn't the point of this hearing to decide whether or not I committed these crimes?"
The wizards and witches around her tittered, and Fudge joined in with his own chuckles after a cautious moment. "My dear, I don't know how things work in your muggle world, but here trials are for the defendant to defend themselves."
He laughed at his own joke, and Hermione's mouth had gone dry for a half-second or so, before the loathing she had for the man in charge of her fate rose above her sudden anxiety. "So it's to be guilty until proven innocent?" She deadpanned.
Fudge's hitching laughter died.
"Minister, if I might have the floor a moment?"
Hermione's eyes swept over the raised levels of seats on her right and they alighted on a standing figure she hadn't noticed when she'd first entered. It was Dumbledore. What was he doing here? She hadn't thought he'd be allowed to sit in on the trial because of his personal relationship with the defendant.
Fudge looked clearly against allowing such a thing, but the other witches and wizards of the Wizengamot were all looking at the Chief Warlock, waiting patiently with his hands tucked into his sleeves for the Minister's permission.
"Albus." Fudge said in way of allowance.
"Miss Granger is clearly unaware of the rules and structure of wizarding court. If I might act as her Iuris?"
Hermione's brow furrowed at her Headmaster. "Iuris?" What was he doing?
"Lawyer," the aged wizard answered patiently.
She instantly and instinctively shook her head. "No. I'm perfectly capable of representing myself. Thank you, sir."
Dumbledore's expression bore no outwards sign of his emotion as he reclaimed his seat, but his eyes were solemn beneath their frames of golden wire. Fudge looked absolutely pleased with himself, but his thin lipped smile immediately disappeared at the cold look on Hermione's face. She'd found another use for her training mask.
"Let us continue," she suggested curtly, the pleasantness of the trial's beginning evaporating.
Fudge's eyes widened imperceptibly and he nodded, unaware that the young girl was slowly taking control of this trial. "I'm going to ask you a few questions."
Hermione nodded.
Those beady eyes darted over another parchment and after a moment he folded his hands across the podium and leaned forward a bit. "Miss Granger, in regards to the charge of 'manipulation of time', were you acting alone?"
"Yes."
He frowned at her automatic answer. "Was there anyone, anyone at all, who aided you?"
He was trying to burrow his way into her now, dig inside of her like a parasite and swallow up the information inside her. She was not some death eater, who would sell his peers for a chance at freedom. She was a free Gryffindor and she had no names to give him.
Curbing her tongue as best she could, she gave her answer. "You seem to be under the false pretense that I am of the same moral level as the likes of death eaters, sir," she forced the title at the end, and it burned her tongue.
The sinister smile that warped his red face made Hermione instantly recount her words, wondering what she had said. "To the contrary Miss Granger. Of the charges listed, 'death eater' is among them."
Hermione choked on her very breath. Dumbledore was instantly on his feet. "There is no proof which you could have that would—"
"Mr. Dumbledore!" Fudge interrupted in a nasally boom. "Unless you wish to take the witness stand, please...return to your seat."
Dumbledore moved resolutely towards the stairs, when Hermione's shout brought the entire house of cards tumbling down.
"No!"
The entire Wizengamot looked at her in shock. She couldn't let Dumbledore take the stand, she just couldn't. The whole reason she'd agreed to help him, was because he couldn't afford to be persecuted; to be found out. He was the icon of good for the wizarding world, and if he went to prison then Voldemort would surely win. Hermione would not put him in a position for his secrets to be found out.
"You have no say, Miss—"
"Excuse me, sir," she insisted, lifting her voice – forcing it to be heard. "But I believe that Professor Dumbledore's judgment is not without bias. I do not deem that he is thinking clearly on the case due to our personal acquaintance."
Dumbledore was shaking his head furiously at her. "Hermione—"
"I would like to ask for his removal from the courtroom," she said quickly. There was no sound. She would not look at her Headmaster, preferring to keep her eyes on the man she did not care about, sitting yards above her.
There had been something akin to infantile glee on Fudge's face as the words had poured automatically from her mouth, but now his face held a condescending sympathy as if she'd just signed her own death warrant. Hermione dug her fingernails into the wooden arms of her chair and she ground her teeth to keep from saying anything rash.
The source of her infuriation nodded and with a gesture of his hand, the two auror guards that had locked her into the chair moved to escort Dumbledore out of the room. There was nothing he could do.
Straightening his robes, Dumbledore refused the men's arms and showed himself slowly out, the aurors trailing uncertainly behind him, as if they weren't sure they could return to their posts without ensuring the wizard indeed left. When the doors closed shut behind him, Fudge turned back to Hermione.
"Miss Granger, you have been seen frequently in the company of one Severus Snape – a known death eater."
'Former' had been on the tip of her tongue and it had come so instinctively in defense of her professor that she almost hadn't caught it in time. She swallowed the tiny piece of information known only to Order members and merely said instead; "He is my professor, sir."
"One that common knowledge says you 'despise'?" He seemed amused by something.
Hermione moved unconsciously to press her legs together until she remembered they were locked fast against the chair's supports. "A good friend told me he was worth the effort, sir." She thought of Lily and her resolve wavered as the faces of Harry and Ron came unbidden to her mind's eyes. Sniffing quickly she sat up straight in her chair and turned on Fudge. "It is unlikely that I will be able to dissuade you of the age old 'guilty by association' adage, though – as you can see," she nodded her head downwards. "I bear no dark mark."
The flesh of her bared forearm was clear and unstained.
"Shall we continue?" Hermione was back in control.
At least that's what she thought.
"Names," Fudge demanded. "I need the names of your accomplices."
"I can't give you that which there are none of," Hermione replied, growing terse.
"Names!" He shouted, and his pudgy fists banged against the wooden tower with such force she could have sworn it rattled.
Hermione's hands curled into fists, pressing her forearm up into the metal band clamped around it. The sharp edge cut painfully into her skin, but Hermione was beyond caring.
"I don't know who has come to you claiming this nonsense you keep spouting, but they are lying! The people I know will do anything they can to keep me out of Azkaban. I know what I have done and I will accept my punishment."
"You are a very bright witch, Miss Granger. I find it hard to believe you could commit such heinous crimes with such a strong moral responsibility as you have just spoken of," he sneered. She watched his pencil lips disappear into the rolls of his jowls with disgust. "It is a shame that you have drifted off the path like so many others."
It's a shame Dumbledore didn't become Minister when he had the chance. Any trace of civility Hermione had once held was now gone as she said "I have only myself to blame, sir". Instead, it was a mockery of cordiality with hardly a trace of etiquette. She strained almost unnoticeably against her bonds, if only for the sake of doing something in defiance of him; that worm upon his sandcastle.
The metal bands held strong.
"Then I have no choice."
Hermione's breath died on her lips.
"Miss Granger, under the charges of: illegal usage of dark magic, alteration of the time-space continuum, illegal use of an unregistered Time Turner, the brainwashing and coercion of six Hogwarts students, suspected allegiance with Voldemort's forces, and the endangerment of human lives this court hereby sentences you to a lifetime's imprisonment in Azkaban prison."
The Wizengamot was in an uproar, as Fudge signaled for the two guards one last time. The stands were clamoring for the vote they'd been denied, Fudge was signing his name to the bottom of her sentence parchment, and Hermione was struggling to find the words.
"You never gave me the chance to defend myself!" she had to shout to be heard over the hundred other voices. "This isn't right, Fudge!"
"You brought this upon yourself, Miss Granger," he answered with false solemnity.
The guards flanked her chair and one even grabbed her arm as she strained futilely against the chains. The ground was trembling beneath her and her teeth were rattling in her jaw. There was a loud pounding at the door that was all but ignored as Fudge sent the signed parchment away.
"Goodbye, Miss Granger." He mocked her with his civility, when she snarled at him like a cornered beast.
"You snake!" She screamed over the thundering pounds against the door. "Worm!"
He didn't even stand up as the floor disappeared out from under her, and she screamed as she fell.
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"Welcome to your new home," the muscled auror barked as he shoved her at the bars.
They shimmered slightly and flashed incorporeal long enough for Hermione's propelled body to pass through. She hit the wall with a sickening smack! and pressed her body against it to keep from crumpling to the floor. Her head was reeling from the hit and the instant it subsided long enough for her to notice the stench, she stumbled to the corner and retched violently.
It reeked of defecation, mold, vomit, and rotten food. The man laughed at her.
When her stomach was purged and all that was left was dry heaves, she choked them back and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve.
"The Dementors are going to have a fun time with a pretty little thing like you."
The auror was still standing outside her cell. He wouldn't be so bold if he hadn't had his wand. Hermione scowled at him from behind her hair and stalked towards the bars. She reached out to find the metal poles solid once more and her slender fingers curled around them with knuckle popping force.
"Please, go away," she ground out through teeth so angry they refused to unclench.
He clicked his tongue at her in a lewd fashion and strolled away and out of sight. As soon as he was gone, like moths to the flame, the prisoners in the cells around her appeared from the shadows. Their white faces so smeared with grime and their own feces that they were barely distinguishable from the darkness until they pressed themselves to the gleaming metallic bars.
The entire prison was filled with the screams of the insane and demented.
"Who've we got here?" A lanky man in the cell kitty corner to hers hissed. The hair that clung to his face by some unknown adhesive was knotted nearly down to his waist and may have once been an attractive burgundy. Now, like the rest of him, it was brown filth.
"Shiny," He giggled at his own joke and rubbed his cheek along the bars. "Young and fresh."
Hermione shrunk away from the bars, keeping a faint contact with it by her fingertips – almost afraid that if she let go completely she'd be swallowed into shadow.
"Duckie, duckie," came a thick British accent right across from her. "Youngest death eater yet..."
She looked up into a face ten years older than hers, betraying a voice as young as her age. His once blonde hair had waved down almost to his shoulders and the thick mane hinted that, had it been given a proper washing, it would have been curly. She took a step closer to decipher the color of his eyes, but the weak torchlight made that impossible and the glittering black orbs matched those of every head peering out between two bars.
"I'm Hermione Granger." She was proud to hear her voice come out steady.
"Bitch!" A shrill voice shrieked from her right. "Mudblood! Whore!"
This was followed by a screeching string of indiscernible curses and whooping cries that made Hermione shrink back in fear.
"Potter's spy, Potter's spy!" Wailed the woman.
Like a greedy child, the prisoners surged against their bars reaching and clawing at Hermione as if they could grab a hold of her and pull her back into the light. This only frightened Hermione more and her body began to shake.
The stench was nearly overwhelming her again, and though there was nothing left to regurgitate, she tasted bile on the back of her tongue and had to fight the urge to dry heave. The stone walls at her back were threatening to close in around her and her panicked anxiety was like a buoy bobbing in the middle of her throat. It hurt to swallow.
She wanted to go back to the bars; away from the shadowed walls and their slime and mold, away from the pitch black corners where more than her recent vomit festered with flies and maggots. The dividing hall was nearly as dark as the cell itself, but it was that faint flickering of torchlight visible in the top left corner of her barred wall that drew her, that gave her a sense of hope.
Hope? Since when had something as meager as a torch become a beacon of hope to her? Had she already begun to despair? She looked as far down the hall as she could without moving closer to the flailing arms, and noted pools of light only every five or so cells. Imagining spending her sentence in the complete darkness between lights was inconceivable to her, and she was grateful for her tiny torch, no matter how seemingly insignificant.
"Shut yor gob, Blabber," the British blonde growled and the screams beside her died to pitiful whimpers and Hermione heard the diminished scuffling from the next cell over as the woman scurried back into the farthest corner.
"Blabber?" She asked, cautiously moving back into better sight of the boy across from her. The light was heavenly.
"Talks too much," He grinned at her, and his rows of broken teeth flashed into a twisted saffron leer that caused the veins in his neck to stand out.
The buoy bobbed and Hermione gasped. "You're mad."
The lanky man burst into high pitched giggles that hitched with each breath and rebounded off the walls with echoing clarity, filling the corridor with a cacophony of deranged screaming laughter. "We're all mad here."
Without warning, there rose an unbearable wailing, matched by each prisoner in every cell. Screaming and wailing, the monsters scurried back into the shadows leaving a quaking Hermione standing alone at the bars. And then there was such a sudden silence her eyes went wide as saucers and a shiver ran down her back. Far to her left, there was the sound of a door opening and closing, and, like a bucket of ice water being dumped over her head, her blood ran cold.
The Dementors had begun their rounds.
