She knew exactly how long she'd spent strapped to the stone table in the dark room. There was a tiny window, like the one in the cell she'd started in and she could track the little square of light that it cast in it's arc across the floor.
Compared to the other prisoners, Hermione was certain that she was treated well. The dark wizard remarked several times that she truly was as powerful as everyone had said and that she would defend the castle against every assault. He came in every day and personally ensured that she ate and drank and relieved herself and made her jog around the room again and again before repainting the runes on her skin and covering her with blankets.
The routine was tiresome, but Hermione was intelligent and with every lap of the room she managed to memorise more of the complex runes etched into the floor.
After six weeks, she knew that she could replicate the enchantment, she knew that she could improve the enchantment but without her magic, she couldn't break it. She couldn't wipe away the runes with her wrists and ankles bound and she couldn't damage the runes on the floor with her bare feet and hands.
So she bided her time, counting the days and waiting for something to happen.
It did, but not in the way she had expected.
Spell fire and shouting echoed through the window, blasts shook the ground and dust drifted from the ceiling. After only minutes of this, the dark wizard appeared through the door, but he didn't look anything like someone who was losing a war, despite the proximity of the offensive outside. His robes were artfully singed and he had red juice dribbling down his chin; berry juice, if she smelled correctly.
He wiped the runes of her stomach with a cold cloth, then hurried out of the room. A moment later, footsteps were hurrying down the corridor and new, unfamiliar voices called out in a huge variety of languages. She heard doors banging and Russians crying out. At last, someone came for her.
'The Grindelwald girl!' Someone called, then a witch was bending over her.
'She looks good.' The witch called, using her wand to open the chains that held Hermione in place. A wizard appeared, a pink dress in his arms. It was an ostentatious affair that Hermione would never have worn herself - old in style, but promiscuous and ill-fitting.
From there, things started to get strange. They seemed rushed, but they insisted on brushing out her hair and they handed her wand to her but didn't listen as she tried to tell them that something was blocking her magic and voice. It was little more than a pointless stick in her hands.
She was led out into the corridor where the others already waited. They too had been dressed up and she noticed the famous bearskin cloaks had been returned, although they looked ragged. Oddly, many of them wore makeup and they all held wands or staffs.
Hermione ended up next to Petrovna at the end of the line and they shared a puzzled look. Then the dark wizard appeared, unbound and unhindered, dressed in a plain trench coat and a pair of gleaming shoes. Only his sword remained belted at his waist.
'They are ready.' He told one of the witches and Hermione swallowed nervously. Clearly they were not free - they'd known that he was secretly revolutionary, just playing at being traditionalist, so if he was friendly with their 'rescuers', then the rescuers must be revolutionary too.
Hermione knew that this was certain to be some new plot; one that would have her playing a part which she was determined to spoil.
He waved his wand and tight rope manacles wrapped around her ankles, almost cutting off the circulation and binding her into a human chain. Then they were forced forwards at wandpoint, the pace slow and shuffling. Agonisingly, they made their way up the steep spiral staircase and through a doorway that had been blasted off it's hinges. A bright camera flash blinded her momentarily as soon as they emerged.
Hermione felt like she knew death; she'd fought inferi at 9 and a war at 10 but the smell that met her upon her emergence into the bright light of day sent her reeling. Decay, putrid rotting flesh and the cloying smell of burning hair.
It was dark and torches flickered, obscuring their features to anyone who hadn't spent days in a dark dungeon. Conspicuously, Hermione saw none of the traditionalists in the waiting crowd. Something had happened, and she desperately needed to know what.
A chorus of boos met their appearance and the crowd parted to reveal the way to a large cart. Their escorts forced them up onto the grubby seats and Hermione complied, still eyeing up the sword at the dark wizard's hip. Her ankles were bound, but her hands weren't and unlike most wixen, she was hardly defenceless just because her magic was gone... so long as she could get her hands on a weapon.
The cart was drawn by a massive sleipnir, but it was a very different animal to the glossy beasts that pulled the Grindelwald's carriage. The mob trailed the cart to what looked like something between a medieval camp and a World War One trench. Mud splattered everything, coating the large tents which might have once been brightly coloured. Fires burned in pits, surrounded by exhausted looking aurors.
Cheers mixed with jeers as the cart squelched it's way up to a hastily constructed platform inside the largest pavilion - it looked like it was little more than split logs nailed over dining tables with torches burning at either corner for illumination.
The dark wizard clambered up, the whole structure creaking alarmingly beneath his weight.
'Today, my friends, is a day of victory!' He called and the crowd hushed immediately. 'You, the people, have fought back against the corruption of the covens. Through the power of the people, we have defeated an alliance of dark wizards and those whom were once vaunted as the most powerful wixen alive.'
Another round of jeers swept through the assembled mob and several large globs of stinking mud splattered against the cart and the faces of those inside it. Horrified, Hermione could do little but listen and watch. She wondered if this is what the French aristocrats had felt like, and the Russian Tsars - a kind of numb belief that this was actually happening; that people she had fought so hard to protect were now chucking mud and falling for the honeyed lies of the person who had terrorised them.
'The Baba Yaga and their allies have been caught red handed - you have seen their magic in the wards and in the spells which drove the Pestilences... Pestilences which were caused by a foul released at their own meaningless ritual. Now, we shall have our justice!'
One of the escorting wixen climbed up into the cart and cut loose the ropes that bound the maiden and the crone. The maiden openly wept, tears making the makeup run over her gaunt cheeks. Powerless and voiceless, the witches were forced up onto the platform. More mud was thrown as the witches were forced up to the nooses and the dark wizard tightened the rope around their necks.
'For an equal future!' The dark wizard cried and flicked his wand. The mob echoed him as the ropes snapped taught with a sickening crack and the two Baba Yaga were jerked into the air. They flailed like marionettes, scrabbling at their throats and necks and jerking like fish on hooks. Hermione looked away, unable to watch as the crowed cheered.
It lasted for an hour - the snap and crack of the gallows pulling taught and the cheering of the mob as every body was cut down and tossed back into the cart. Petrovna's clammy hand gripped Hermione's tightly as the number of dead slowly outnumbered the living in the cart. The other young witch looked ghoulish in the torchlight as makeup ran and her shoulder's shook with silent sobs as her family were slaughtered to the applause of her people.
Then they were the only ones left. They were hauled out of the cart and forced up onto the platform, which swayed beneath them. Beside her, Petrovna's dark eyes were fixed on the noose but Hermione had eyes only for her last, desperate hope.
A crowd of savage, pale faces gleamed beneath her in the torchlight, baying for the blood of children.
The dark wizard stepped up next to Petrovna and slipped the noose around her slender neck. It was stained with blood where it had cut into the throats of those before them and the crimson smeared Petrovna's cheek like war paint.
Then he was in front of Hermione, reaching behind her for the noose.
She took her chance.
His decorative sword slid easily from the sheath and was sharp enough to slice him from navel to neck on it's upward arch. Without a pause, she twisted sideways and hacked through the rope above Petrovna's neck. Wielding the flouncy sword in one hand and her wand in the other, Hermione jumped off the stage. The crowd backed away hastily; they hadn't been told that the witches were silenced and as powerful as muggles.
Petrovna dove at one of the guards, clawing at his groin with the desperation only someone who'd escaped death as closely as they had could manage. With the guard down, she seized his staff and came up by Hermione, slashing at anyone who got too close.
With the guards unable to fire without hurting their own subjects, the two witches made it the the fabric walls of the tent. Hermione slashed at the guys, bringing the fabric roof crashing down around them and the crowd. Within seconds the torches that burned around the platform had seared through the fire retardant charms and the canvas was catching alight.
Hermione cut herself free, then dragged Petrovna through the gap as well. As wixen desperately tried to put out the fire and save those still trapped inside, the two young witches dashed away. Away from the mob, away from the gallows and away from traditional Russia.
They stumbled across the darkened landscape - no idea where they were going of how they were going to get back to safety.
Then wings blotted out the sky and a familiar voice called her name. Silvery scales flashed beneath starlight and a hand reached down, pulling her up onto Katana's back, . Lady Grindelwald's Granian touched down just next to them, hauling Petrovna up before they took to the sky again.
Gellert's unique smell enveloped her as he wrapped his strong arms around her. Parchment and horses, leather and metallic magic. Exhausted and terrified, Hermione fell asleep.