WARNING: This chapter contains explicit depictions of torture. If that type of content potentially bothers you, then I recommend you read the sanitized version or skip this chapter altogether. Feel free to reach out to me for a sanitized chapter, or visit my website at to find the sanitized version of the chapter on my website (but I warn you it's still dark). Also, thanks to all the lovely people who have reviewed and/or subscribed to this story!

Reality came rushing back to Hermione in a disorienting melange of unfamiliar sensations and impressions. Her head ached down to the roots of her hair, and she was sprawled out on the floor of a room she didn't recognize. She could hear the sound of jeers and derisive voices coming from nearby, causing a nauseating sense of apprehension to creep up her spine.

She scrambled to push herself up from the ground, but a boot on the small of her back pushed her back down, forcing her to remain prone on her stomach.

"Well if it isn't our favorite little mudblood," spat a gruff and unfamiliar voice from directly above her. A few chuckles and murmurs of sinister greeting followed his words. She couldn't tell how many people were in the room with her, and the uncertainty caused a sickening pit of anxiety to crystallize in her stomach.

N-no! Nonono this can't be happening!

Hermione let out a panicked scream and began struggling fiercely to get out from under her captor, but her previous exhaustion and comparatively smaller frame meant her efforts were in vain. The boot ground further into her back the more she struggled, until she was left gasping in a combination of pain and breathlessness.

"I've been waiting a long time to have you just like this," the voice continued gleefully, "Right beneath my foot, where you belong."

The more she struggled, the harder he ground into her back, until she could feel her ribs creaking and her lungs aching. Realizing she was only making things worse for herself, Hermione stilled. Her mind was racing as she sought to catalogue the room's exits and inhabitants while the vile man above her spoke.

She knew that nothing she could say would help her in this situation, so she chose to remain silent and catch her breath.

"That's right, you dirty mudblood bitch. The Sons of Salazar are going to make sure you learn your place," the gravelly voice growled, "It's long overdue, don't you think?"

Consequences be damned! Despite her resolution to remain silent, anger and frustration boiled indignantly in Hermione's veins. It's useless to beg. Knowing she was doomed whether she spoke or not, she gasped for breath and ground out, "Eat shite you degenerate p–"

In an instant the boot pushing her down disappeared, only to catch her in the abdomen with a swift kick. She cried out in pain and curled into herself as the boot returned again and again to brutally punish her midsection.

Her captor chuckled under his breath, crouching low next to her, "You'd do well to shut the fuck up if you know what's good for you, lass. The only thing I want to hear coming out of those pink little lips are your screams."

His companions laughed and taunted her as they circled ominously in the periphery, seeming to close in on her. It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, and Hermione was struggling to maintain a rational train of thought. One door. One fireplace. N-no windows. Th–three or four people minimum.

Her eyes darted beyond the predatory figures circling her, and landed on the fireplace in the background. In a split second, her frightened gaze noted a few environmental details in disjointed chunks—roaring flames, the familiar Hogwarts stone beneath her, and remnants of glittering green Floo powder smeared on the far end of a rug.

Before she had a chance to process any of those details, the man crouching next to her reached out to caress her tearful cheek with the end of his wand. He dragged it lazily past her jaw and down her neck until it was resting above her heart. There, he jabbed the thin piece of wood roughly into the skin of her heaving chest and growled.

"Crucio."

Hermione's world exploded in a world of all-consuming agony she'd hoped to never revisit again in her life. As her body contorted and buckled with the immense shock of pain, her shrill scream cut through the muted atmosphere of the room, and all rational thought fled her mind.

Too much! It's too much! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!

There was no room left in her anymore to plot escape, nor to be angry. There was only room to survive, to somehow remain afloat amidst the searing waves of fire licking through her insides. Reality narrowed down to the careening rollercoaster of punishing sensations coursing through every nerve of her writhing body.

After an indeterminable amount of time the curse was lifted. Although her anguished screams died out, the echos of its wrath continued to radiate throughout her twitching limbs. Distantly, Hermione could hear her tormentors cheering at her suffering, goading and taunting her as she lay helplessly before them.

"Brightest witch of her age, they said. Fat lot of good it did you," her captor crowed with a smirk of triumph.

A large hand slithered into her hair and yanked her head up, rotating it awkwardly to force her bloodshot gaze to meet that of the man who'd been speaking the entire time. She didn't recognize his grizzled face, but she recognized the bigotry and hatred simmering angrily in his eyes. She would bet everything that this man had been—was still a Death Eater. A quick glance at the visible portion of his forearm confirmed it.

"Take a good look at the men who are going to make you pay for your crimes against purebloods, once and for all," the wizard said with insidious satisfaction.

Hermione's tearful gaze hardened, her eyes narrowing as the full scope of what lay ahead became clear. With his hand still tangled painfully in her hair, her captor painfully jerked her head around to meet each of the leering, hateful gazes of the room's other inhabitants. She didn't recognize the other older man circling her hungrily, and although she'd been expecting Malfoy, she was surprised to see Theodore Nott there too.

Hermione quickly worked to compartmentalize her fear, self-pity, and pride, shoving them deep in her mind using Occlusion so she could put as much distance between herself and those distractions as she could. Past experience had shown her that these emotions would only get in the way right now.

Just make it through this.

Her head was thrown to the ground violently, causing her skull to bounce against the cold stone with a sickening thud. Apparently finished with tormenting her for the moment, her captor heaved himself up and called out.

"Mulciber?"

The other older man, presumably Mulciber, leered at Hermione but deferred, "You know I like my slags well and broken, Selwyn. Save the best for last."

Selwyn shrugged and gestured at Malfoy, "Looks like it's your lucky day, boy. Why don't you show our guest a proper welcome?"

"With pleasure," Malfoy responded darkly as he strode towards Hermione's trembling form with his wand pointed at her throat. Even the sting of betrayal felt distant to her in that moment. It was all she could do to breathe past the residual pain radiating throughout her body.

"Exanimo," he hissed, coming to a stop at her feet.

At first, Hermione felt nothing. It gave her a moment to realize she didn't recognize the malicious hatred seething in Malfoy's gaze. For all his past antagonizing, she'd never seen him with such a murderous glint in his eye. She wondered if he'd just been that good at hiding it this whole time.

You despicable snake.

Her train of thought was quickly dashed as she began to gasp for air. Slowly—ever so slowly, she was beginning to lose her ability to breathe—the bastard intended to suffocate her! Despite understanding the importance of remaining calm so as not to exacerbate the spell, Hermione felt herself begin to spiral deeper into panic as the seconds dragged on. She thrashed on the ground, grasping at her throat helplessly, no longer able to make intelligible sounds, emitting only weak gargles and gasps.

Malfoy smirked down at her with his head cocked to the side in amusement, twirling his wand absentmindedly as he watched her struggle. At length, he lifted the curse and began to slowly pace around her as she fought to regain her breath with ragged gulps of air.

He casually flicked his wand and cast Exanimo again, this time immediately following it with another curse that caused her skin to erupt with the sensation of hundreds of invisible crawling, biting bugs. Her whimpers died out into garbled and choked gasps as she began to run out of air again, but her writhing only grew more desperate.

"It's all about the mindfuck, isn't it Granger?"

He continued to circle her, taunting her in a droll voice, "All it takes is a few well-placed curses, and your mind does the rest of the dirty work for me."

Hermione was too far gone to pay attention to his words. She was desperately scratching and gouging at her now bloody skin, frantically trying to rid herself of the bugs that were wreaking havoc on her sanity. Yet the harder she struggled, the quicker she ran out of breath.

By the time Malfoy lifted both curses, Hermione was writhing on the ground, hysterical from a lack of air and an overabundance of panic. Her vision had progressively darkened around the edges, and the part of her mind capable of rational thought had gone completely silent.

A disorienting flash of light erupted from beside them, and Hermione distantly realized she and Malfoy had been photographed. The sound of raucous laughter filtered into her awareness in chaotic shards of brief clarity, but she was too distracted by the memory of hundreds of tiny insect legs and pincers digging into her skin to care.

"I didn't know you had it in you, Malfoy," Nott drawled, coming to stand next to him with a self-satisfied smirk, "You've done Slytherin proud. For once. I'm not nearly as imaginative, but no matter."

Nott casually pulled out his wand and pointed it at Hermione's curled form.

"Crucio."

For the second time that night, Hermione's world exploded in the type of agony only the Cruciatus seemed capable of inflicting. The nauseating memory of crawling bugs was chased away by the all-consuming anguish of flames racing through her veins again, and Hermione lost herself to it completely as her back bowed from the pain.

The overwhelming deluge seemed to last for an eternity. She could feel her mind being pushed to the brink, and it was all she could do to hold on while she screamed herself hoarse.

Although she couldn't tell how much time had passed, she was sure that she'd endured the Cruciatus tonight for longer than she had at Bellatrix's hands. This agony seemed never-ending, all-consuming, and inescapable. All Hermione wanted to do was retreat further and further into her mind where she could lessen the psychological trauma she was experiencing.

She tried to imagine she was anywhere else in time and space, far away from this horrific moment and the wretched idiots who had wrought it. She pictured herself flying through an open desert at dusk, effortlessly slicing through the pinkish landscape under the twilight sky until everything was a blur. It wasn't enough, but it was something to hold on to.

"I've always wanted to do that," Nott smirked with satisfaction when he lifted the curse, "Now don't you go anywhere, Granger."

He pointed his wand at her legs and broke both of them with a loud crack, drawing anguished keening from the disheveled witch. This in turn invited a louder round of laughter from the room's inhabitants. She remained motionless on the floor, too weak to do more than blink sluggishly at the sight of Malfoy and Nott retreating to stand by the fire with their companions. She had no idea how long it had been since she'd been kidnapped, nor how long it had been since she'd woken up in this hellish situation, but her adrenaline was quickly fading and leaving a bone-deep exhaustion in its wake.

C-conserve energy. Think of a plan. Fo-focus.

Dimly, she watched with half-lidded eyes as Nott and Malfoy made their way over to their companions, who were drinking and celebrating by the fire. It was small comfort, but definitively knowing how many people were in the room with her made her feel minutely better about her chances of eventually escaping, even if escape seemed like a pipe dream given her current state*.*

One door. One fireplace. No windows. F-four against one. She had to focus damnit! She was too dazed to even contemplate moving, but she knew she had to think of something.

Suddenly Nott turned to Malfoy with his wand drawn, and restrained him with a deft Incarcerous.

"Piss off Nott!" Malfoy spat angrily as he struggled to free himself, "What do you think you're doing?!"

Nott shrugged and drawled, "I'm doing what you couldn't, Malfoy. Avenging the pureblood cause."

As Malfoy continued to shout, the two older wizards stepped up to flank Nott wearing sinister grins. They pointed their wands at Malfoy and simultaneously hissed, "Finite Incantatem."

Although the group was standing a few meters away, Hermione noticed an immediate change come over Malfoy. He stumbled backwards, losing his balance because of his restraints, and landed on the floor.

"W-what?!" she heard him whimper in alarm.

Malfoy's body language had changed completely, as had the expression on what she could see of his face. He looked absolutely terrified and panicked, much like she had felt upon waking in this room. He also looked far more confused than she had, though. Her brows furrowed in confusion as she watched the events unfold from her position.

What's going on?

In a split-second, his bewildered expression transformed into one of pain. He stumbled backwards as if he'd been physically struck and proceeded to fall prostrate dangeorusly close to the fire while screaming.

His pale profile was cast in silhouette against the dancing flames, and some remote part of her noted his aristocratic features cast against the firelight as he reeled in pain. She was too exhausted to feel alarmed by these musings. No matter how scandalous, her thoughts helped distract her from the pain still coursing through her own body. Her hooded gaze remained locked on his contorted form as a sickening crack portended a gush of blood from his now broken nose.

"Every ache. Every pain. Every pathetic emotion. Everything our modified Imperius has suppressed in the past 24 hours—you're feeling it again, Malfoy—all at once, and much worse," Selwyn taunted, guffawing loudly as he belittled the younger man's suffering, "It's the beauty of illicit magical experimentation!"

Malfoy was under the Imperius when he kidnapped me?

A modified Imperius, to be more specific, but what did that even mean? Hermione had never before heard of successful modifications to the Imperius, nor of modifications to any of the Unforgivables. This was perhaps because it involved such incredibly dark magic, not to mention an immense amount of power.

"It's a shame we didn't give you a harder time last night," Selwyn remarked lightly, "I suppose we'll have to remedy that now that you've fulfilled your purpose for the time being."

He cast the Cruciatus, his cruel smirk widening into a sickening grin when Malfoy began convulsing and screaming even more loudly.

"Sing for me, son," Selwyn drawled as he and Mulciber hovered over Malfoy's writhing form.

Nott had retreated to a nearby armchair to sip at the drink he'd poured himself. He looked bored and self-satisfied. No one paid Hermione's limp form any mind as she lay silently on the ground a few meters away.

She found it difficult to tune out Draco's anguished screams, but she hardened her heart and strove to push away the sound for the time being. Imperius or no, he had kidnapped and tortured her. She needed to focus on getting out of this situation before she could even begin to contemplate how she would handle him.

But where to start? Her only option for escape seemed to be the door, and it was too far to drag herself towards without attracting attention. If she was indeed still within the walls of Hogwarts, apparation would also be out of the question, even if she'd had her wand. But that begged the question—if they were still at Hogwarts, then how had these two Death Eaters remained undetected?

Given the wards and protective spells she had personally helped McGonagall cast during the summer, they shouldn't have been able to set foot in the castle without multiple people on the staff knowing about it immediately. So either she wasn't still at Hogwarts, or she was missing something.

As she watched Malfoy's torture unfold with glazed, horrified eyes, something in his mussed hair caught her eye. There. So she wasn't imagining it. In fact, she'd noticed it earlier too. Floo powder. Strands of his platinum blond hair were stained with small patches of glittering green floo powder residue, no doubt because he'd fallen in front of the hearth. Why did that seem so odd?

She was momentarily distracted by another flash of light, and realized it was Mulciber taking photos again. He'd photographed Draco seizing on the floor. It was sickening to behold such trivialization of human suffering, such dehumanization.

Hermione only realized Selwyn had lifted the curse when Malfoy's screams stopped abruptly. He had fallen on his side facing her with his eyes and jaw clenched shut. His face was a bloody mess. It was only from this position on the floor that he finally noticed Hermione in the room with him once his eyes blinked open.

His eyes grew round at the sight of her, and he weakly attempted to sit up.

"Wha–Granger?!" he muttered, bewilderment and concern apparent in his voice, "Get out of here! Run!"

The sincerity of his reaction was making it harder and harder for Hermione to believe he'd willingly taken part in any of what had transpired tonight. It made her feel marginally better, but she didn't allow herself to dwell on it lest it distract her.

"Ah, so you've noticed our guest of honor, have you," Selwyn said, "Who do you think put her in this state, hmm?"

Malfoy shook his head in denial as the implication in Selwyn's words began to dawn on him, "There's no way I would have done any of this to her! You lying ar–"

"You sure about that, Malfoy? Cause only one person in this room hasn't had a go at her, and it sure as hell isn't you," Nott interjected with dry amusement from his armchair off to the side.

Malfoy continued to sputter and shake his head frantically, horror and remorse beginning to bleed into his wide gray eyes as he continued to hold her tired gaze.

"Granger, you have to believe me, there's no way I would have–"

Selwyn cast a Silencio with a bored flick of his wand, and Malfoy's protestations fell silent.

"Much as I would like to spend all night punishing your insolence, you're not the reason we're here tonight. What's more, you could still be of use to me. It's the only reason you're getting off easy—not that you'll remember any of it."

With a hissed Obliviate followed almost immediately by a Stupefy, Draco was knocked unconscious, presumably with no memory of what had just happened.

Selwyn gestured to Nott, "Get him out of my sight. I don't care if he makes it back to his room as long as he doesn't attract suspicion until tomorrow. I'll be in touch."

Nott nodded and heaved himself onto his feet, ambling over to Draco's still form and levitating him. Without another word, he strode out of the room with Draco's unconscious body floating behind him. Hermione tried to see what was on the other side of the door but it was too dark to tell.

Meanwhile Selwyn prowled closer to her. Her breathing sped up as he neared, until she was nearly hyperventilating by the time he reached her.

"Do you know why we've allowed your foul gaze to witness any of this, mudblood?" Selwyn queried with a sneer.

"It's because you won't be alive for much longer to tell anyone about it," he bit out with cruel satisfaction, "But we're going to have some fun with you first, isn't that right Mulciber?"

In the midst of her renewed panic, a stroke of insight momentarily distracted her from Selwyn's threat, so much so that she tuned out Mulciber's response. As Hermione ran through the frantic surveillance she'd attempted since she'd woken up, one detail suddenly leapt out at her. Floo powder.

If she was still at Hogwarts, then why was there Floo powder residue on the ground? Why was there any Floo powder at all? In her 7 years at Hogwarts she'd never seen it anywhere else on campus, save perhaps Dumbledore's office, because none of the other fireplaces were connected to the Floo network.

Either she was still in the castle, in which case its Floo restrictions had potentially been bypassed—something that would have seemed unthinkable before 6th year. Or she must not be in the castle anymore, in which case she no longer had to worry about the school's Floo travel restrictions.

In either case, her chances of successfuly escaping by Floo seemed far higher than her chances of successfully facing whatever might lay beyond the room's lone door. Even if she was still at Hogwarts, escaping through it only meant that her captors would be able to chase her in the castle's empty hallways, depending on what time of day it was.

Apparation was also out of the question—she was too weak, and the risk of splicing too great, even if it had been possible. No, her safest bet was to attempt to Floo to a public fireplace where it might be harder for her captors to pursue her.

But how to get to the fireplace, much less throgh the Floo when she couldn't walk? Her train of thought was interrupted when Mulciber's ruddy face appeared above her unexpectedly. He'd kneeled by her side wearing an infuriated expression, and was poking at her ribs with his wand.

"I'm talking to you, you stupid cunt," he growled, "When a pureblood speaks, you listen!"

He reached out and backhanded her so hard her head snapped to the side. Hermione reeled and her vision blacked out for a moment as she lay with her head in the position it had fallen. Save for her twitching muscles she remained motionless, now illogically afraid to catch Mulciber's attention or ire by making a single wrong move despite the fact that he was looking right at her.

Sensing her fear, he chuckled darkly and reached for her chin, roughly jerking her face towards him. The moment their eyes met, he whispered, "Legilimens," and having caught Hermione completely unprepared began to brutally delve into her mind. The sound of her own shrieks was quickly drowned out by the chaos of her inner world.

Her only saving grace, weakening by the second, was the Occlusion she'd already had in place to compartmentalize the massive knot of writhing fear and negative emotions that had been steadily building within her as the night dragged on.

Despite her best efforts, Mulciber found purchase within the chaotic mess of thoughts in her head. He landed in a memory of a vacation with her parents during the summer before 4th year. There he began to wield the cruelest form of dark torture Hermione had yet to encounter.

He began to slash through her happiest memories with wild abandon, annhilating everything in his path and leaving only tattered remnants of remembrances in his wake. As his agonizing campaign of destruction went on, Hermione could feel each memory being extinguished and leaving behind a hollow depression in her psyche, like so much sand slipping through her fingers.

Unwilling to go down without a fight in the one domain where she actually had the power to retaliate, Hermione channeled her anger, humiliation, and fear into trapping Mulciber within the confines of her mind while Occluding, uncaring of the potential damage it could cause her.

In the feral struggle against this man's darkness, Hermione was no longer concerned with self-preservation if it meant making sure he didn't get to walk away unscathed. She would sacrifice every happy memory she had to make this motherfucker pay if that's what it took.

Although she'd by no means become an expert Occluder over the past few months, she'd certainly had time to practice as a means of distracting herself. She drew upon her mental fortitude to keep her writhing knot of Occluded emotions at bay for a few moments longer, fanning the flames of her own misery like a bellows, encouraging the swirling mass of negativity to swell.

Next, she reached inward to connect with what was central to who she was at a witch, that wondrous core of power that had bequeathed her with magic by some universal coincidence, blood status be damned. She felt it rise to the occasion to greet her, closer to the surface than she'd ever felt it since she'd started using a wand.

With grim determination, Hermione coaxed her magic out further, satisfied to see that her work with wandless magic had paid off with lateral benefits. She felt more in tune with her magic than she ever had before—a disorienting feeling of triumph given Mulciber's ongoing mental attack and her poor physical state. She let her magic suffuse her psyche, stoked its crackling intensity, and let it flood her system until she felt at one with it.

Without a second thought, she stopped Occluding the seething mass of darkness she'd held at bay in an effort not to lose herself to tonight's torture, and it exploded into her mind with the force of a tsunami. The sudden shift took Mulciber by surprise, and in the next instant his mental assault sputtered to a stop as he went on the defensive.

A psychic battle was being fought within Hermione's mind, but the one advantage her opponent didn't have in this fight was access to his raw power as ammunition within her mental landscape. He'd invaded her mind and violated her body, and now she would make him pay **for the intrusion.

Without knowing how she was doing it or why, guided completely by unleashed magic and intuition, Hermione began coaxing her way into Mulciber's mind despite the immense pain and discomfort it caused her to do so. It shouldn't have been possible given the fact that their engagement had started with his invasion of her mind, but she forced him back mentally, bit by bit, cleaving through his mental essence indiscriminately. Once she was more inside his mind than he in hers, she engulfed him in a conflagration of magic, incinerating all conscious thought in her path.

She watched through their locked gazes as his expression slackened, and she felt their mental connection waver and weaken considerably. Panting, she continued to wreak havoc upon his mind using the brute force of her teeming magic until she felt fire blazing through her veins, the feeling akin to an eye-watering migraine. When she could no longer keep her eyes open from the pain, she broke their mental connection and let her eyes sweep closed, essentially dooming Mulciber to something akin to temporary brain death.

The mental break caused Mulciber's body to slump on top of Hermione's chest with a groan. Hermione grit her teeth and stared at the decorated ceiling with an anguished grimace while she deliberated about what to do next. Before now, she'd had no idea what she'd done to Mulciber was even possible.

She was losing what little energy and adrenaline she had left to the maelstrom raging in her mind, and although her number of opponents had now dwindled down to one, she didn't think she had it in her to do much more than she already had. Still, she was so close to freedom. If she could just hang on, she might actually get out of this one alive.

She weakly tried to move her body with little success. The most she could bring herself to do was move her arms around a few centimeters. In the corner of her eye, she noticed Mulciber's wand sticking out from between their bodies, and with slow and shaking movements she pulled it out of his slackened grasp.

A strong feeling of relief flooded through her body when she surreptitiously tested his gnarled wand and found it somewhat responsive to her magic. Her exhaustion deepened until she swore she could feel it in her soul—the only thing keeping her going at this point was the incandescent magic she'd lured to the surface of her being.

Hermione gripped the stolen wand tightly and let it fall by her side, slightly hidden in the space between her leg and her shivering arm, hoping that Selwyn wouldn't notice it. Now if only she could figure out a way to take him on in this state.

Selwyn saved her the trouble of figuring something out when he called out for Mulciber and received no response. He immediately ambled into view, and rushed over to them with his wand drawn when he saw Mulciber's body draped over Hermione.

"What did you do to him you foul bitch?!" Selwyn accused, reaching down to grab Mulciber's shoulder and turn him over. Despite his words, his behavior showed he was sure in the conviction that Hermione couldn't possibly pose a threat after what they'd put her through.

Instead of responding, Hermione waited until he drew closer and then aimed her stolen wand at him and whispered a strained, "Stupefy!"

Selwyn crumpled atop her immediately. His weight settled with suffocating pressure on top of Mulciber's body, and in a fit of panic Hermione tried to squirm away, gasping for breath until she remembered she had a wand now. It took her a few tries given her injuries, but eventually she was able to levitate both men off of her. By now she was gasping from exertion. She wished she could just curl up on the floor and rest now that the threat had been momentarily dealt with, but there would be no peace for her as long as she remained in this room.

Laying spread eagle on the floor, she turned her head in the direction where she'd deposited Selwyn a scant meter away and weakly cast an Incarcerous on his unconscious form. She followed it with a sticking charm, as well as any other bit of magic she could think of that would prevent him from getting back up or making any noise once he awakened.

Hermione quickly Stupefied him again out of an irrational fear he'd wake up, and then sagged into herself in relief. With a sigh, she let her head roll to the other side, and was met with Mulciber's vacant gaze. There would be no recovery for him for quite some time, if ever, she realized grimly. Somehow, she'd essentially given him what amounted to a magical lobotomy, but she was mostly sure it wasn't permanent.

I regret nothing.

Dispassionately, she attempted to heal her legs only to find that it required more energy and skill at healing than she possessed at the moment. Figures. With another resigned sigh, she considered her options, feeling emotionally flattened after this night of absolute, unbridled hell.

All she needed to do now was test whether she'd been right to assume that the fireplace was connected to the Floo. But how would she reach the fireplace?

Hermione zoned out while she tried to think through her exhaustion to come up with a solution, but she drew a blank after a few minutes. She didn't know how long she spent staring into space, but was so terrified at the thought of Selwyn waking up that she shot another Stupefy at him just to be safe.

Resigned to the knowledge that she'd have to do this the hard way because she was too tired to think of anything better, she numbed her legs as much as she could and tried to temporarily relieve the pain anyway she knew how. Then, she began dragging herself centimeter by painful centimeter towards the hearth.

She blacked out a few times on the way, sobbing in frustration and determination. She was thankful every time she roused back into consciousness because it meant she still had a chance at surviving, and tried everything she could to convince herself to keep going, from stupid games to yelling to pep talks to soothing placations.

After what felt like a hellish eternity, Hermione finally dragged herself so close to the fire that she could feel its punishing heat sinking into her shivering frame, nearly singeing the ends of her wildly disheveled hair. With determined gasps, she Accioed the Floo powder sitting on the mantle and grabbed a large handful.

With one last paranoid glance back at the room and its unmoving occupants, she threw her handful of Floo powder into the fireplace and tremulously called out, "St. Mungo's Emergency Ward."

Using the last of her strength, she tumbled headfirst into the brilliant green flames and disappeared into them.