IMPORTANT A/N: So after much struggling I have finally figured out the right e-mail combo to log back in. This story has been finished for years, but due to changes in what can and cannot be posted I finished it on a different website. I will post the thirteenth chapter here, but please keep in mind the full story is on a site with adult and fan fiction in the name. This site won't allow me to post the link so I apologize for that. I posted it under the name Ms_Pond.
Drip…Drip…Drip.
Pain. Mind numbing, gut-wrenching pain. It took an extreme effort to fight back the grogginess; somewhere in the recesses of her mind she knew that the darkness threatening to swallow her whole was better than any current reality. Hermione had tried to escape despite Tom's warning. Tried and failed. And now the baby was gone. Her eyes were too swollen from the beating to see, but she could feel every drop of blood escaping the long knife wound on her stomach. There wasn't much time now. No one was coming for her and she didn't care. The baby was gone. The baby she and Severus had created. Severus would never forgive her now. Instead of staying and fighting things out, she'd wanted him to chase her; all in an attempt to scare him, to show him who was boss. Now she had so foolishly lost her life, and that of their child.
"This is your fault Hermione." She was too weak to fight back; too weak to move when his hand stroked her face. She just lay there: helpless, alone, lacking the will to fight back. When they tortured her, it was the baby that kept her going, the baby that motivated her to escape. "I told you not to try to escape. Stupid, head-strong girl."
Tom slapped her blood encrusted face but Hermione didn't feel the pain, she saw it: a flash of blinding white light engulfing them right before the darkness won out. After, there was nothing. The blood stopped dripping. There were screams: an unholy sound and for a second before she slipped back into unconsciousness she thought she'd heard his voice; that rich, beautiful timbre that only Severus seemed to posses. The mind was a cruel, cruel thing.