A/N: Thank you, James Birdsong, Guest, St3phP33l, kfawcett1998, Honestly don't you two read, meldz, once upon a galaxy, Guest, and pianomouse for the reviews. I always appreciate feedback and constructive criticism.

Thank you, followers and those who put this fic on their favorite list.

So far for the pairing polls, our dear Steve Rogers is in the lead.

Chapter 4: Lullaby

For whatever reason, Hermione thought her evaluation meant leaving her room. On the contrary, here she sits at her desk, a thick booklet in front of her and four more at her feet. The booklets are exams. Question-heavy exams. Each booklet has five hundred questions, and she's not even halfway through when a guard comes in with a tray of breakfast. He serves what look like pancakes, and she inhales the warm scent, deeming them more potato-y than bready. On the side of the crisp potato patties are sliced apples. They're browning, so she starts on those first.

A single booklet takes her all day and into the night to finish. Hermione assumes all day. She got three square meals and by the time she's finishes, everything hurts, especially her head and hand. When she goes to bed, her sleep fitful, and she's dreaming of impossible questions with funny answers. And failure. She mostly dreams of failure.

What if she fails?

They won't send her home.

Hermione takes a little comfort in the fact that she hasn't been asked to demonstrate her abilities. It means her evaluation isn't based solely on academics.

She needs to impress them. This is all about convincing them to, not simply to keep her, but keep her alive. Regardless of all the concocted fantasies she's created, there is no going home to Mum and Dad.

Lord of the Flies, she thinks. The boys did what they thought they had to in order to survive.

"I don't want to be Simon," she whispers to herself. She swipes at the pesky tear on her cheek.

She manages to fall asleep and when she wakes, the booklet she finished is gone. The remaining three are stacked on the desk next to a bowl of porridge. How does she keep sleeping through whoever is coming into her room?

The second booklet is mathematics as opposed to English. Many of the problems she comes across, she needs to write out, and there's no calculator. She's doesn't complete the booklet until the following midday because she wants to be careful. A mistake could cost her more than a reprimanding.

World history is next which she knocks out in less than a day, and the science booklet takes her a day and a half like math had.

She wakes the next morning and realizes she's been in the room for days. There's a paperback book reading Beginner's Russian on her desk. She opens the book, browsing through it while downing her porridge. When she's done with her breakfast, she focuses on the words and translations until a guard comes. He's leaves the lunch tray and collects the breakfast tray. He's not there to collect her, and she sags tiredly in her chair.

It dawns on her she's in a type of solitary confinement, and she chokes on a sob. She closes the book and walks the room over and over again until she's calm enough to focus on her reading.

Hours later, she presumes, another guard comes and tells her she needs to wash and to gather her clothing. She obliges and gasps when she's out in the hallway. There's…There's other children.

"Eyes forward," snaps the guard.

Hermione jerks her attention to the large man leading her down the hallway while trying to sneakily catch glimpses of the other kids through her peripheral. This is unnecessary, she soon finds out. Once in the washroom, they're all gathered and naked under each showerhead. Boys and girls. Hermione sees their faces and everything else.

She wonders if any of them are like her. Do they have special abilities?

None of the other children look at her or each other, and Hermione sees that Robert isn't among any of them. But, all the kids look no older than nine.

She wants to ask them questions. She wants to talk. She yearns for companionship and when the guards order them to towel up, so they can return to their room, tears slide down her cheeks. She clenches down a sob, refusing to make a sound.

She mustn't be weak. She must think ahead. They weren't going to keep her in the room forever. What would be the purpose for that? Spend ten thousand rubles to lock up a little girl? That doesn't make sense.

Returning to her room, there's fresh clothing and even the scent of fresh sheets and dinner on the desk. She eats, reads, and goes asleep. In the morning, she wakes because someone enters her room. It's the woman from before- Ms. Bērziņš—and Hermione clamors out of bed.

"Come, child," the woman orders.

She and Ms. Bērziņš leave the hallway and come to an elevator which moans while rising to the top floor. The door slides open, and Hermione stares wide-eyed at the professionally styled atmosphere. There's carpet and sofas and a reception desk sporting an elderly woman and three guards.

They walk passed them and down a hallway with landscape paintings. Neighboring the door they enter is a painting that makes Hermione gape. It's a…man, she thinks. A man dressed in an elite officer's uniform, and he's has a red face and hollowed out nose.

Johann Schmidt, reads the golden words at the bottom of the frame.

She read about him in a book once. There was speculation he had some sort physical defect.

The author wasn't wrong.

"Stop dragging your feet," says the woman and beckons her to enter.

Hermione walks over the threshold and sees The Baron at the head of a long, shiny table. There's a plate of food in front of him and another plate of food adjacent. He's tucking into his meal, knife and fork working at his meat, and he smiles and stands. He gestures to the empty seat with the food.

"Sit, Hermione. We have much to talk about."

She cautiously goes to the chair, needing to climb onto it to sit down. Her eyes hungrily eye the full English breakfast in front of her, and she licks her lips. Her belly growls, and The Baron chuckles.

"Tuck in, my darling."

"Thank you," she replies, unravelling her utensils from the napkin to lay it on her lap.

The food is familiar. Wonderful. And hot. It's slides into her belly with ease, and she's both surprised and disappointed to see how quickly her plate becomes empty, save egg yolk smears and bread crumbs.

"Did you enjoy it?" asks The Baron.

Wiping her mouth with the cloth napkin, she nods her head. "It was delicious, thank you, Mr. Baron."

He seems pleased with her politeness and leans closer to her. "Hermione, I wanted to reward you."

"Reward me? For what?"

"You are," he begins and gets up from his chair, hands splayed, "brilliant. You are one of the most academically gifted children I've ever met. And you are so young, too, which means you are not even at your best, yet. By your exam scores alone, you are pure potential. But you are not just a budding brain of brilliance, are you?"

"I can do things!" she all but shouts. Excitement and relief flood her system. She's impressed him! She's impressed The Baron, and oh, what euphoria! She claps her hands. "What do you want to see?"

He appears taken back by her behavior but then grins. "I hear you can move things with your mind."

Pride swells within her, and she clocks the vase in the middle of the table. Not all the blossoms are looking lively. "I can do more than that."

She scrunches her face in concentration at the dead, shriveled petals at the base of the vase. She extends her arm and makes a circular motion with her hand, her mind resting on how she's secured herself. She didn't fail the tests, and The Baron wants to be assured that all parts of his investment is true.

At first the petals shake and then float upwards, their color brightening and the texture becoming lush and plump as they reattach to the stem which also morphs into a more vibrant green.

"Fascinating," says The Baron. His expression is enlightened, but Hermione expects more of a reaction.

Fascinating? That's all he had to say?

"Hermione, I heard you can control animals."

"Oh," she says, chewing her lips nervously. Is that what he wants to see? She doesn't really like doing that and has only done it once…no, twice.

The Baron reaches underneath the table and places a caged bunny rabbit on the surface. Hermione hadn't even noticed it was there. Grinning, she reaches through the small gaps of the wire cage and pets the bunny's soft fur. So cute. Maybe The Baron will let her keep it. The long hours in her room wouldn't be so bad with a little friend.

The Baron lifts on one side of the cage, leaving an opening for the bunny which twitches its pink nose and then hops onto the table. All Hermione wants to do is pick up the fluffy thing and bury her face in its white and gray fur. She wants to smooth its ears and perhaps even give a quick kiss to the brow.

Twenty Minutes Later...

Hermione walks down the hallway leading to her room with the woman. They pass the room and go to the showers where she cleans the blood off her. Her brain shut off somewhere between leaving The Baron's office and the elevator, and she thinks it's better this way. When she can't comprehend, she can't understand. When she can't understand, she can't feel.

Back in her room, she puts on another pair of trousers, underwear, and a t-shirt. There are new books on her desk, and there's a note. She's to read the first chapter of each book. Her classes start the next morning.

Sitting down, she opens the first book of the stack and thinks, I killed it.

The numbness wares off right then and there, and she breaks down. She mumbles out a mantra of apologies, even though she had no choice.

Mr. Baron is not a good man.

This is not a good place.

And she knew this. Even before she got to Riga, and she was on the boat, she knew whoever arranged to take her from England had to have been a bad man.

Mr. Baron forced her to kill the rabbit. She didn't want to. She pleaded with him. Begged. He was having none of it. He lost patience with her and brandished a gun, pressing it to the back of her head and ordering her to make the animal skewer itself on a steak knife.

She held the steak knife.

After everything, he'd been pleased again, not even upset she vomited all over the carpet. He just replaced the muzzle of the gun with a patting hand and told her to imagine.

"Imagine, my dear girl. Imagine the possibilities."

Hermione could be purposefully naïve when it suited her, but she's not dumb. He's going to use her. He's going to want her to do something like that again.

She knows she'll be lucky if it's an animal next time.

She can't let this happen. She can't!

The Baron and Ms. Bērziņš talked after what he made her do. He dislikes how emotional she is. How caring for the unnecessary she is. She has potential, but he fears she's too old, and she'll take longer to mold.

Mold.

He used that word, and she thinks she knows what he means.

"She's not too old to be cleaned," said The Baron.

Ms. Bērziņš had raised her brows. "She'd be the youngest to sit in that chair."

"Do it." The Baron's eyes rested on Hermione. "She's not like most children here. She's not an orphan. She's got parents and remembers them. Make her forget."

Hermione reaches down beneath her desk. It's an old, rickety thing, and she noticed a couple of days a loose screw on the metal bar below the seat. She removes it and stares at the tip. It's not as she'd like, but it'll do. She looks down at her body, deciding where and what she wants to carve.

It's her turn to carve something.

She knows she can't put her initials or her parents'.

She thinks of her mum and dad, and she misses them so much. What she misses the most besides from the obvious…

She misses how they'd read to her at night, lulling her to sleep with fairy tales.

Fairy tales.

Snow White was her favorite.

She sits lays out the towel and sits down, narrowing her vision on her left forearm. She presses the tip to her skin and then backs off, hastily grabbing a sock. She chomps the waded material between her teeth and continues, digging the screw into her skin. The tip is dull, and what she's doing is beyond effort. It's dedication.

Blood springs up and dribbles on the towel.

Scar, she thinks furiously. Scar, scar, scar, scar, scar and never fade. Never hide.

Lazy, dark gray tendrils pour from her working hand and sets into the wound, making it flicker. The pain amplifies, but her fire is fueled. There's no stopping now, and soon she's done. She manages to slash a section of the towel to wrap around her forearm, tying it tightly. She bled quite a bit, and her head is woozy.

She folds the towel as neatly as she can, setting it on the tank of the toilet before settling on the bed and falling asleep. Her last thought is a hope more than a passing fancy. She hopes her scar will lead her home when she forgets who she is.

As she falls into a deep but troubled sleep, red stinging wetness seeping through the white towel, creating a shape.

An apple.

The Next Morning...

At the sound of gibberish echoing off the walls in her quarters, Hermione jolts awake. Her heart pounds, and she wraps her head around the sound of an intercom in her room shouting phrases in different languages. It gets to French before English, the voice stating to put on her trackers and go the door. She scrambles off the bed, yanking her make-shift bandage off her arm and hurriedly scrubbing the wound at the sink. It's not bleeding, but the wound is deep and puffy on the edges. She dives for her trackers underneath the bed and shoves them on and hurries to the door which instantly opens. At the threshold, she sees the other children at theirs. Some are jumping up and down. Some are stretching. One is yawning. All their faces are pink and flush from sleep, too.

A horn sound echoes in her room and inside the hallway, and the children take off running. It takes a moment for Hermione to realize she should probably join them and picks up her feet. She follows the children down the hallway into the hospital-like corridor and down the tunnel where she first came. They pass the parked military vehicles and go outside where it's freezing. Snow falls from the dawning sky and the asphalt is slick and, unsurprisingly, she falls and scrapes her knee, tearing a hole in her trousers. The graze stings, but it takes her mind off her burning lungs and the deep pinch in her side. With falling and never having run since she was probably two, she falls behind.

The group of kids are getting farther and farther away from her, and she struggles to keep up. Her legs scream at her to walk or rest as does her lungs, but her head tells her to clench her teeth and trudge through the pain. They run around the facility ten times, during which, Hermione vomits, and when they return inside and go directly to the showers, she's hobbling behind. Half the children are already undressed and under the showerheads while the other half are wrapping themselves in towels and scurrying off to their quarters. Hermione removes her dirty clothes and places them in the hamper. She turns on a showerhead and waits for the water to heat. A girl next to her, dips her chin. She's Asian with the short black hair. Very short. Like it's growing out a buzzcut. Now that Hermione notices, all the girls' hair are on the short side. None of them have hair passed their shoulders.

"Hi," Hermione tries.

"I was slow, too. You'll get faster," says the girl, and Hermione couldn't place her accent.

"Where are you from?" The girl shrugs.

"South Korea, I think."

"You think?"

"It's been too long. I can't remember for sure, but I lived in Paris before I came here. You're English."

Hermione nods.

"How old are you?"

"Seven. I'll be eight in September. You?"

"Just turned seven. Soap?" The girl offers the plain white chunk of sudsy ivory soap. "What happened to your arm?"

Hermione takes it, avoiding the question by asking, "How long have you been here?"

"Almost a year." The girl puts herself completely under the water, rinsing off the foam from the soap. "Why are you here? Is it because you're brilliant or something else?"

"Something else?" Hermione's going to play dumb because her gut is telling her to.

"The twins over there," the girl nudges her head at the two boys at the opposite shower wall, "are strong. Really strong. They've been here the longest and know nothing else which is probably why they've never escaped."

Setting the soap on the shelf, Hermione rinses and turns of the shower. "Interesting," she manages. "I guess I'm really smart."

"Me, too." The girl kind of smiles, but it comes out more like a grimace, and there's something off about her that Hermione can't put her finger on.

"What's your name, anyway?"

"They haven't given me one yet."

"What?" Hermione frowns, and they both fetch their towels and wrap themselves up in them.

"You're nameless here. You don't get one until they say so."

"They?"

"Our teachers and The Baron. I've heard from others most don't get theirs until they graduate."

"I've met The Baron. He called me by my name," disputed Hermione.

"He does when you first meet him, but afterwards, you're just a sheep in the flock with a number. I'm 54."

"I'm…I guess don't know yet."

There's a different set of clothing on her bed when she gets back to her room—black trousers, the same light-weight material as the khakis, and a gray t-shirt with a number on the front and back. She is 17. She puts on the clothing, her loafers, and brushes her teeth before putting in several minutes of reading when the intercom goes off again, alerting her of breakfast time. The doors will open in five minutes, and Hermione realizes the week contained in her room is up. She passed the preliminaries. It's time to join the flock.

The door opens and she and the other children are herded to a part of the facility she hasn't seen. The cafeteria. Hermione almost loses her footing at the sight of everyone at the tables. Kids, ranging from five to seventeen, stand in line, metal trays clutched in their hands. All together, there are probably fifty kids. The line to get her porridge and fruit is long, so Hermione surveys the population and sees each age group decreasing in number the older it is. There are only three seventeen-year-old kids and ten five-year-old kids. In the masses, she sees Robert who's sporting the number 48 and a buzzcut. He sees her, and she barely turns up the left corner of her mouth. He vaguely lifts his fingers at her in a milquetoast wave, and she can't help but be a tiny bit proud of him despite the circumstances. He looks to have passed his preliminaries, too, and the buzzcut must be part of the initiation process. His fellow peers don't share the close-cropped do.

The porridge is lukewarm and the apple slices a tad brown, but she's fed and ordered to go to "school". School consists of sitting at a desk with her fellow group for six hours—lunch after hour three. There is a seventh hour, but it's not really academic, and it doesn't last for an hour but three.

Physical Education is putting it mildly.

Jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, chair-dips, lunges, and burpees. Reps and reps of these to do and when finished, there's the climbing-rope and an obstacle course. The next two hours are dedicated for tumbling, Kung Fu, and stretching. When she returns to her room, on the desk is—what takes her a few minutes to realize—a dissembled gun, a time clock set for one minute, and a track-keeping chart. There are no instructions on how to assemble the gun. She's still fiddling with the magazine when the timer goes off. According to the chart, she must repeat three times. By the third try, she's got the slide in the barrel because it looks like they could go together…potentially. She's way out of her element with this. Never in her life has she seen a gun assembled. Not even on the telly or in movies.

She's exhausted and achy from everything, but she still has to, what 54 called earlier during stretching, dinner and a movie. Despite her activities, she's not all that hungry, but she's curious about the movie. She supposes turning off her brain for a little while will be all right.

It isn't that kind of movie.

There's a theatre in the facility, and all the children are required to attend the nightly showings of propaganda reels for HYDRA. HYDRA? Each day, Hermione has a repeat of running, showering, breakfast, school, and physical education, then dinner and a movie. There are multiple films, but she's watched them all by week two. After that, they start over. Every film ends the same. It shows a lovely teenage girl and a handsome teenage boy dressed smartly. They salute the audience with both arms up and shout Hail HYDRA! The audience in turn, salutes back. Hermione does it to comply. Even with the movies, she's still not yet sure what HYDRA is. The teachers and guards line the walkways, so she goes along. 54 on the other hand, shouts the phrase reverently as do the twins.

A Month Later...

A month passes since she first arrived and she's summoned to The Baron's office again, this time after the nightly film. He smiles expectantly at her and calls her 17. "Hello, 17. Are you enjoying your stay so far?" She nods. She's not stupid as to say anything else like that she thinks she hates him, and he's a bad man in charge of this horrible place. She wants to scream at him. She wants to hurt him like he made her hurt that poor rabbit.

Her chest tightens at the image of forcing him to run himself through a knife. Well…she doesn't want him to hurt that bad, maybe. But she does want him to understand force is a terrible thing. Something inside Hermione's head clicked, and she now understood what the reels were about now. No, The Baron wouldn't understand, would he?

"17, I haven't heard any incidents from you," he tells her. "Aside from always coming in last at the morning run and having yet to assemble the pistol, you haven't shown any opposition. Nor have you been reported in using your talents at all. I dare say, I'm almost disappointed. Why don't you use them?"

"I…I didn't know you wanted me to, sir,"

"Mmm, yes. It wouldn't be fair to many of the others. Do you practice in your room?" She shakes her head no.

He sighs narrows his eyes, and she sees him zeroing in on her arm. He gets in her space and crouches down, yanking her arm close to his face. "What is this?"

Hermione says nothing, and he drops her arm. "I've consulted with Ms. Bērziņš on a procedure we think would be of benefit to both of us. Follow me." Oh, she really doesn't want to. She recalls him discussing the chair with Ms. Bērziņš, and anxiety eats away at her as she shuffles behind him. She bites her lips to keep from crying, and she fantasizes escaping. She imagines being able to make The Baron let her go, to even directly hand her over to her parents. She wonders if she'll ever be able to be that powerful to control someone. Not that she wants to. Animals aren't too hard, but people are different.

They take the elevator down to basement and take a short tunnel to a chamber with machinery connected to a chair. Ms. Bērziņš is there waiting for them, a guard right beside. "Put her in the chair," she orders, flicking switches on the machinery. Hermione hears whirling and electrical sounds, and she's afraid. She wants to kick and scratch at the guard, but her limbs refuse to do anything. She's placed in the chair, and her arms are strapped down as are her legs. The guard shoves a bit into her mouth and while he walks away, Ms. Bērziņš appears with sticky pads attached to wires.

"You are so young. We don't need to give you the full treatment."

Hermione closes her eyes, a lone tear slipping down her face. She thinks of her mum's voice and her dad's laugh. In her mind, she goes back to her bed in Surrey. After her bedtime story, her mum sings in her native tongue and pets her head and caresses her cheeks, each stroke loving and patient.

Nani nani to pedhi
Oso na 'pokimithi
Oso na 'rthi i mana tou

The whirring sound from the machine attempts to cut through Hermione's safe place in her mind. She concentrates harder.

Na tou feri louloudha
Ore na tou feri loulou—

A thousand million sharp pin pricks hit her skull and flood into her brain, billowing into a blossom of pure torture. Her mother's voice is silenced.