Warning: Ravaged is a dark and violently upsetting story. Expect to see elements of non-consensual sex, torture, excessive drinking, dark themes, murder, smut, toxicity, drama, character deaths, violence, blood, raw, heavy contents of war and psychological trauma. This story is a slow burn and isn't for the faint hearted, you have been warned. Reader Discretion is advised.
This story follows the conclusion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
beta work present has been done by franklyneptune and MioneNiffler2309. Any remaining errors are faults in my own original work and will hopefully be fixed in future edits.
Author's Note: A brief notice for me to credit JK Rowling for any of the characters present in this story except for Y/N L/N. Every other character does not belong to me.
Semper eum protegens ~ A charm that shields one's memory in protection of a loved one.
𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝐧𝐝, 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟖
Y/N woke to the bitter smell of smoke and burning flesh.
She tried to lift her head off the ground, but the world stretched and distorted before her eyes in every other direction. The midday heat burned unforgivingly into her skin, and balls of beaded sweat rolled slowly down her temples.
Was this the afterlife?
She squinted through the brightness, and all of the blurred shapes and white spots seemed to stretch until the light faded suddenly from her eyes. That's when she realised the shadows which consumed her were real. So real, that she in fact, had been tucked away in a nook of some sort.
Y/N blinked the dust out of her eyes as she slowly picked herself up. She glanced down at her hands and knees, both of which were bloodied and bruised. Smears of dirt were spread across her jeans that now bore great rips, and little speckles of mud were embedded deep beneath her nails. She staggered to her feet with a groan.
She licked at her cracked lips, a bitter, irony taste spreading across the surface of her tongue when she then felt a sharp twinge in her side. Y/N pressed a hand against her ribcage and took slow, cautious steps out of the shadows, revealing the horrible world she'd dreamt about in her nightmares for years.
The courtyard, a place where she once loved to bask under the sun and read, was now littered with corpses, many of them people she'd grown up with, waiting for her to join them. Ash floated through the air like dirty snow. Bodies of the fallen rotting away in the early-May heat. Hogwarts was a hellfire of dust and danger.
Y/N balled her hands into fists as she tried to absorb what was left of her home. Fires burned in the distance and bits of old parchment skidded across the bloodied grounds. In the midst of her shock, she couldn't feel even the faintest trace of wind blow against her skin. Her world had gone still.
Her eyes turned to the floor. Cluttered piles of brick laid on top of the dead, small hands and legs hardly visible through the gaps. Y/N swallowed the bile in her throat. The castle was in ruins, the air was thick with death, but worst of all, she was alone.
Not a single soul seemed to be alive in what remained.
There were no masked Death Eaters gloating in victory, but there were also no joyous parents pushing through crowds, holding Harry's face in their hands as they kissed him all over, thanking him for saving their world and their children.
Asides from the crackle of burning fires, there was just still, unending silence.
Had they lost?
"Harry?" Y/N called out. Her heart thrummed in her chest as she walked on, searching the bodies on the ground. But for as far as she could see, none belonged to the Order. After being met with more silence, Y/N scanned from left to right, searching...
"Ron?"
She could feel the heat of the sun growing against the back of her neck.
"Hermione?"
Surely everyone couldn't be dead, could they?
She stepped over the rubble, looking around like a helpless, frightened child. She swallowed back a whine as the desperation inside of her grew. "Hello?" She called out.
No response.
"Is anyone here? It's me, Y/N."
Crunch, she heard. A crunch of gravel.
With a loud thump of her heart, Y/N whipped her head around, looking from side to side. "Hermione?" Y/N called out again, a little more hopeful this time.
There was another crunch. This one was quieter, shorter. A simple footstep. And this time it was right behind her.
Y/N froze. She drew in a sharp, short breath in through her nostrils, the smell of rot and blood invading her senses. Whoever it was, they made no attempt to make the first move.
She was okay.
She wasn't alone.
Y/N pressed her lips together, fingers crossed by her sides as she prayed this wasn't her final moment of freedom. There was nothing to worry about, she told herself. It was just Hermione, it was just Hermione, it was just Hermione...
Y/N slowly began to turn on her heels, about to meet her culprit—
"Stupefy!" Hissed the voice, her body crumpling into the awaiting arms of her captor. A moment before Y/N felt her eyes drop, the view of the outside world rotated to the ground, where she was greeted with the blood-stained stones of her school.
How had she found herself deserted in the aftermath of a battle, neither the enemy or the ally in sight?
Several hours had passed by the time Y/N woke, and this time it was to the pungent smell of hospital disinfectant.
Her eyes snapped open, a bright, agonising glare of light beating down against her face. She squinted her eyes, staring hard at the white ceiling tiles above her head. A horrid, clinical smell could practically be tasted at the back of her tongue as she tried to make sense of where she was.
She was on an examination table. Presumably still in Hogwarts.
She could hear the sound of someone peeling a pair of gloves from their hands. Footsteps followed shortly after. When she heard the door open, she looked to her right. A pair of blue, surgical gloves had been left abandoned on a small cart. On the same cart was a cloth lined with neat rows of knives and surgical tools.
There was a sharp stab in her chest. She looked around, internally panicking. What— she thought, the luminous room stretching before her eyes. It was so bright, so white, so weirdly light. What did they do—
Her eyes searched the knives. All clean. But the towels besides them said otherwise. They were blood soaked, as though they'd just performed surgery. Y/N's breath caught slightly as she looked down at herself. She was dressed in a thin hospital gown.
She lifted both of her arms. On her left wrist was a small marking. 207 . A prison number, she assumed.
The door suddenly opened and Y/N dropped her arms back against the bed, her eyes squeezed shut. She could hear short, clicking steps coming towards her. "Here she is," said a voice above her. "All bright and shiny."
There was a small hum. "Is she awake?"
"Doubt it," the voice responded. "Most patients tend to be quite fatigued after the operation. I recommend you levitate her out, just to be safe. "
Operation? So they had done something to her, but what?
Her body lifted from the table. The door swung open and they levitated her out into the hallway. She could hear voices down the opposite end of the hall, discussing quietly amongst each other. The guards were close, she could tell by the proximity of their footsteps.
She cracked an eye open. There was a guard in front of her and two behind her. Clearly they didn't want her out of sight.
Perhaps— perhaps she could cause a distraction. Give herself enough time to run.
Y/N looked to the guard in front of her. His wand was in his back pocket. It was a foolish mistake really. She looked down to the guards behind her. They indulged in quiet conversation.
She had to get out of here... get back to the Order...
Y/N slowly extended a hand, reaching, groping...
Her fingertips just grazed the end of his wand. She just needed to get a little bit closer...
Finally, her fingers enclosed around the wand and plucked it free from the guards pocket. The guard felt the movement in his back pocket and looked over his shoulder, surprised to see Y/N with his wand gripped in her hand. Caught by surprise, the force around her body disappeared and she dropped to the ground.
The guards shouted in alarm, wands drawn as she rolled away from their rough hands. Y/N spun around, her weight rested against her elbows, and whipped the wand towards the two guards that had been standing behind her.
"Stupefy!" She watched the two guards drop to the ground, the third one calling for backup.
With enough distraction in place, Y/N staggered to her feet and ran. She didn't have a plan from here on. All she had to do was run. Run until she found a window or a door, somewhere where she could hide— somewhere she could escape.
Heavy footfall thudded down the hallway behind her. She could hear angry calls of her name. When a spark blasted past her ear, Y/N gasped for air and had to force herself to keep going.
She sprinted down the hall, her pulse beating against the wand in her fingertips. She was quickly approaching a corner. Y/N felt her throat pulsate. Another curse shot just over head. She quickly turned and shot a curse over her shoulder in response, hearing a grunt of surprise behind her.
She peered over her shoulder once more, seeing a guard with his face smashed against the floor, ropes conjured around his ankles.
She held back a laugh. She'd be lying if she said that didn't feel good, but as for now, she just had to focus on getting out of here.
She turned around the corner to her left and continued to run. It was a long hallway with no turns at the end. Only one, singular door.
Please don't let it be a dead end...
Multiple guards slid into the hall behind her. She could hear them shouting after her, their footsteps ascending on her. Her legs were growing tired... her heart was thrumming rapidly against her chest... she could hear the pounding of her pulse in her ears.
Her hands turned into fists, hot tears watering against her waterline as she forced herself not to blink, the door in sight coming closer and closer, stretching and widening beyond her vision— she ran harder— faster—
A flash of black suddenly apparated in front of the door, inches away from her face. Before she got the time to skid to a halt, a pair of arms enclosed around her. "Gotcha!"
Y/N turned her head and spat at their masked face, kicking and flailing... she had been seconds away from running through... she was so frustrated, so angry. The wand still hung loose in her fingers, which fortunately was just enough for her to murmur a quick—
"Augamenti!"
A surge of water pushed both Y/N and the Death Eater back against the door, but with the force of the spray, the door opened behind them. And at last, the light from the outside world flooded into view.
Y/N's heart fluttered in her chest.
She immediately rolled onto her hands and knees, trying to rush forward when the Death Eater's hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her back into him. Agitated, she kicked a foot at his face, struggling to regain her composure.
But it was enough for her to crawl on, the Death Eater giving a hiss of irritation behind her.
An instantaneous surge of relief flooded through Y/N's spine when she felt the cobble beneath her hands, warm from the heat of the sun.
A hand grabbed her foot and yanked her back, again, making her hands slip away from the light.
Y/N grunted before she rolled over onto her back, trying to land another swift kick in the Death Eater's face as his hands grabbed at her calf, reaching for her thighs, trying to drag her back...
Her heart rattled in its cage as her hand flew behind her, reaching for the wand that had just skirted past, her fingers grazing it's smooth, wooden base when—
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Y/N's throat tightened, unable to summon the urge to scream as her insides twisted, the curse expanding from head to toe. Her entire body screwed up into one uncomfortably, stiff position.
Her eyes remained open, so she had no choice but to look up at the new Death Eater that had entered the hall. He lowered his wand that was trained on her, but his eyes remained locked on her own as he offered a hand to the Death Eater she'd been wrestling.
Before much more could be done, two guards came from behind and wrenched her up from the waterlogged floor, a hand under each armpit. Unable to resist, they began to drag her forward, but right as they passed the two Death Eaters, one of them dropped the curse.
She immediately began to thrash, struggling in the grips of the guards, mostly to the Death Eaters amusement. "Let me go!" She hissed, knees buckled as she tried to drop to the ground, but they kept her pried up.
Y/N's eyes watered in frustration. She took one last glance over her shoulder at the door that led to freedom, watching as the Death Eaters began to close it after her, the light from the outside world fading from her eyes.
"Looks like this one is going to need a special cell," Chuckled one of the guards, prying a weighty, steel door open all while she thrashed, trying to resist their attempts to drag her inside with the little might she had left. Still, the guards shoved her into the cell and left her to drop onto her hands and knees against the floor.
She looked up as they retreated, the keys to her cell in hand. "Wait!" Y/N begged, staggering to her feet. "Wait— please—,"
The guards grabbed the door, ready to lock her in.
"Please!" Y/N rushed forward, watching the slim gap of light fade as they started to shut the door. "Don't leave me here— don't you dare leave me here—," Her voice came out as a cry when the door finally slammed on her face. Y/N banged her fists against the steel, screaming at the door, hoping they'd hear her through it.
Bang after bang, her voice grated against her ears and began to give way, her fists starting to crumble against the steel. Several helpless minutes later, Y/N sunk to her knees, her hysterical sobs filling the small, enclosed cell.
She continued to bash her fist against the door, time and time again, each time weaker than the last. She pressed her head against the metal, numb to the sharp, icy pain that sank through her skin.
From this point on, she'd be utterly consumed by the dark, and there was no telling of when she'd next see the light.