Chapter: One
The Prisoner
The room they kept her and the other girls in was cold and dark, save the one light that hung in the center of the room. It swayed back and forth casting warm beams on the girls they stuffed in the filthy iron cages that filled the basement of this retired old manor. There were three girls to a crate, and they all fought for a chance to be under the warm light. Hermione would watch as they kicked, scratched, and bit one another, all for a few moments of artificial sun.
Yesterday, she looked on as one girl with matted blonde hair, bashed her cellmate's head into the iron bars, all because she refused to give up her seat in the light. Hermione's cage was tucked away in the corner, in the far back of the room, away from everyone and everything, but more importantly, far away from the swinging lightbulb in the center of the room.
She wasn't sure how long they'd all been down here, days, weeks? There was no way to know for sure. All she knew was that they threw a few more in each week. It was the same song and dance with each of them. They would shout and bang their fist on the bars the first few days, then on the third day, that's when reality set in and the tears would start to fall. They would sob, and they would wail so loud that the others would shout at them to shut up. And then finally, on the fifth day, there was silence. The silence meant many things, but more than anything, it meant they had finally accepted their fate.
Hermione was one of the first to be captured. A death eater with a scar under his right eye caught her just outside of Hogsmeade. She had been separated from Harry and the others when she found herself surrounded. Not long after she was told the war was over, that Voldemort had won, and Harry Potter, one of her best friends in the entire world, was dead. At first, she didn't want to believe it, but as time passed, she had no choice but to accept the truth. And now, a part of her wanted to die too.
Hermione felt her small cell rattle just before a loud crackle reverberated across the room. There was a thunderstorm approaching. Hermione quickly picked herself up from the stone floor and crawled on her knees to the back of her cage. The iron bars didn't touch the wall, but if she pushed her face as far as she could between two rods and stuck out her tongue, she could catch a bit of rainwater that would run down the walls from a leak on the first floor.
Hermione heard a pair of footsteps coming down the basement stairs and she quickly flung herself into the corner of her cage and tried to make herself as small as possible. She didn't hear screaming or crying, which could only mean one thing, they weren't bringing someone down, they were taking someone up.
Hermione didn't recognize this Death Eater. His hair was white and peppered with grey, and he wore a scowl better than anyone she'd ever seen. She watched as he squinted in the darkness. Each crate had a number, and he was searching for a specific one.
When he reached Hermione's cage he gave her a toothless smile, "There you are."
As badly as Hermione wanted to leave her small prison, now that the time had come, she couldn't bring herself to move.
"Come on, now," The old man bent down and slapped his knees and tried to coax her out like a human would a dog. "Let's go, we got someone here for ya."
When she wouldn't budge, he stuck his arm into the crate with lightning speed and yanked her out by her hair. Hermione screamed and tried to fight him, but it was no use, she was frail from weeks without eating. When she stopped thrashing, he picked her up and slung her thin frame over his shoulder. Soon he was carrying her upstairs to whatever fate awaited her.