She hibernated.
She drifted.
Hermione existed in fragments and pieces, a self-imposed fugue state. Time passed by around her and continued on its merry way, and she found that she simply could not bring herself to care anymore.
Everyone that she loved was beyond her reach.
She flicked disinterestedly through the Daily Prophet. No news, nothing of real substance. Photos of the High Reeve, thinkpieces on the future of the Dark Lord's regime. How it was inevitable that Greater Europe should cooperate (when just months ago, Rita Skeeter had been predicting that they would immediately kow-tow). The war seemed to have disappeared from most peoples' minds as they moved onto the next current event: declining birth rates, fetal abnormalities.
It seemed that in the Ministry's eagerness to cultivate a pure genetic pool, they forgot about the dangers of inbreeding. Or, more likely, they knew about the dangers and dismissed them — why let trivial matters like population health get in the way of unfettered bigotry? Opinion pieces debated the merits of allowing and/or encouraging half-bloods; a few even proposed the idea of cultivating a population of surrogates, to boost birth rates.
Hermione felt bile rising in her throat at the idea. She pushed the newspaper away and climbed back into bed, letting sleep swallow her up once again.
"Get up."
The words were whispered harshly. A hand was on her shoulder, shaking Hermione roughly. She stirred instantly.
Narcissa's pale white face loomed above her. There was fear in her eyes.
"Get up and get dressed, now," Narcissa commanded. She withdrew from Hermione's side and stood waiting and watching as Hermione fetched her clothes and quickly pulled them on.
The sudden appearance of Narcissa in her bedroom and the urgency with which she spoke did not bode well. The hairs on Hermione's arms stood on end, an outward symptom of the internal alarms that had been raised.
Her fingers shook as they pulled on her clothing, smoothed back her messy curls. She finished dressing and followed Narcissa out of the room, curiousity piqued. They strode quickly through the dimly-lit halls, heels clicking on the marble floors, until they reached the entry hall.
There, Draco stood waiting.
His expression was closed off and indifferent as he observed them: Narcissa striding forward quickly, with a slightly disheveled Hermione in tow.
Hermione hadn't seen him in weeks. She didn't know what she had expected from him. She knew he held the title and estate now, along with all the obligations of such.
She half-expected him to start carrying the signature gold-topped cane that Lucius was fond of, but he had not. He wore his typical Ukrainian Ironbelly body armour. The war may have ended but he was still a soldier.
His eyes flit to her face and she glanced away instantly, as if burned. She was unwilling to see what was there. Afraid of what she might discover, for longing and yearning would be just as terrible and painful as total indifference.
She could still feel the deep cuts of betrayal. A wound that never healed, a scar that never formed. It still felt as raw and painful as the night that she sat there in crowd, watching with growing horror as he pressed his lips to Daphne's.
Time had done nothing to ease the pain.
"Let me do the talking," Draco muttered to Narcissa. She did not respond but her lips grew thinner, if possible. Draco reached one gauntleted hand out to grasp Narcissa by the arm, and the other to grasp Hermione. Her heart stuttered for a moment.
She felt the sharp jerk of Apparition behind her navel, and then they were gone.
When they landed outside a set of oddly familiar gates, Hermione thought there must have been a mistake.
It was unmistakably a summer evening; she may have been drifting for months, but she was aware of the changing of seasons. Instead of the mild and balmy breeze that she had been expecting, an icy chill swept around them.
There was no scent of meadow grass or wildflowers on the air. The air was stagnant somehow, despite the raging winds, and smelled of death and decay. Dark Magic seemed to permeate the air, settling heavily on her skin and coating the back of her throat with each breath. All grass and vegetation had died back around them for hundreds of feet, singed and twisted and black. There was not a single living thing around them.
As Hermione gazed around with horror, she realized their surroundings.
Draco had brought them to Hogwarts.
Hermione was marched roughly through the castle by Draco, with Narcissa keeping up behind them with every step.
There was something wrong with the castle.
What had once been gleaming stone was now dark, weeping ruins. Entire wings of the castle had been destroyed and reduced to nothing but rubble. The parts that still existed were nearly twisted beyond recognition.
Gone were the charming portraits and cozy candle-lit sconces that illuminated the castle. Hogwarts was dead and buried, and what remained was shrouded in tattered darkness.
She was dragged into the ruins of the Great Hall and roughly forced to kneel with her face pressed into the damp stone floor. The scent of blood, rotting flesh, and bodily fluids was heavy in the air — rank and pungent, with a trickle of sickening sweetness. Hermione's stomach rolled violently. She wondered how many had died in here; how many she had known and loved. Panic began to overwhelm her system, and Hermione felt her breathing growing faint. She kept her head down, too terrified to move.
Draco and Narcissa bowed deeply behind her.
"My Lord," they murmured quietly in unison.
Then, Draco spoke.
"I have brought the Mudblood, my Lord. As you requested."
Voldemort stirred slightly at this, and Hermione chanced a peek upwards through her lashes.
The enormous hall was lit only by a few solitary sconces upon the walls, cloaking Voldemort in shadow. He was situated on a throne where the teacher's table had once been, but she couldn't make out his figure in the darkness. Only his eyes were visible — blood red and shining, a crimson beacon that cut through the black. A dozen pythons were coiled around him, slowly twisting and undulating.
"Do you know why I have brought you here, High Reeve?" Voldemort asked. His voice was cold and high-pitched, bringing to mind the terrifying screams of air raid sirens before a bombing. The Great Hall, empty and desolate, rang with each word. His snakes hissed around him, a cacophony of shattered glass-sharp warnings.
"I do not, My Lord," Draco replied deferentially.
Hermione held her breath, hardly daring to breathe. The air felt heavy and oppressive, as if she were breathing in toxic miasma along with the scent of rotting corpses. Something was shuffling and scraping along the stone floor, getting closer to her.
Dragging itself towards her.
She gave a whimper, her entire body trembling so hard that her knees knocked bonily against the stone floor.
"It has been monthssss … sssince the Battle of Hogwartsss," Voldemort whispered. His tone was light and casual, but Hermione could detect the note of malice there.
Draco could too, she presumed, because she felt him stiffen behind her.
"And yet I find myself … tired … withered—," Voldemort trailed off.
"Weak," he finished with a sharp hiss. The snakes twisting and rolling beneath him echoed his hiss with their own, beginning to rise and twist in agitation. They became a writhing mass of flicking tails and forked tongues.
The scraping noise coming towards Hermione was getting louder.
"Weak," Voldemort continued on. "It has been months and I am still weak. My body, my regenerated body … it was the Potter boy's blood that fed me. Ancient Dark magic would have, should have ensured my strength and yet, I am a sssshadow of myself …"
A heavy, thick python had wound itself through Hermione's bent form. She would have screamed with fear if she could have breathed in; her lungs seemed to have been frozen with fear, crushed by the sheer oppressive, malignant Dark Magic that rolled off Voldemort.
"And I ask myself how it is possible that the Insurgency should realize my power … my treasured objects, protected most carefully … the safeguards to my immortality. My tethers to this world. Gone."
Voldemort's last word was hissed with such malice and rage that Hermione flinched.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees, until Hermione could suddenly see her breath in the air. Her cheek, still pressed to the stone floor, had gone numb with cold.
At the same instant, the python began tightening itself around her. Hermione felt the creak of her ribs flexing under its body. An entire thick length of hard, sinewy muscle was suddenly wrapped around her like a straitjacket. Her breathing shallowed until she was panting, light headed.
She gave a desperate sob as tears began to leak out from her eyes, still squeezed shut hard. They froze against her skin, halfway down her face.
"You are the most powerful wizard in existence, My Lord. There are none alive who could compare, none with the knowledge and power that you possess," Draco murmured. His tone was respectful and full of quiet awe, but it was not enough.
"Silence!" Voldemort snarled. "Someone had the knowledge. Someone knew of my tethers. The loss of my tethers … the death of Nagini … these were not careless mistakes. Ssssomeone working from within the Insurgency knew."
"They are vanquished, My Lord. Moody, Shacklebolt, Weasley, Potter. You triumphed over them, they are nothing compared to you," Draco said.
"And their secrets died with them! Your doing, you killed them," Voldemort hissed back, deadly rage in his voice. "I cannot interrogate a corpse. What is the point of an attack hound if I cannot control him? Crucio!"
Draco collapsed down next to Hermione, body spasming wildly. His armour clanged loudly against the stone floor but Hermione could hear the deep groan of pain. It sounded like Draco had grit his teeth hard to try to ride through the torture.
After a few moments, he suddenly fell still. Then, he slowly clambered onto his feet once more, panting all the while. Voldemort had not held the torture for long.
"My Lord," he rasped.
"You will figure out exactly how this came to be, High Reeve. The Insurgency's knowledge of my tethers … how they tracked them down, every responsible party. I want names of anyone that had involvement. Everyone that aided them. I want them slaughtered. I want their families slaughtered."
Voldemort's voice was ice-cold. Clear and crisp in the air, it ringed through the room.
"I want their bloodlines ended," he whispered.
Hermione's blood chilled.
Draco bowed his head once.
"I will make sure of it, My Lord," he replied. His voice was soft once more, but the tone was deadly. He was fully compliant. Ready to slaughter on Voldemort's command, at the snap of his fingers.
"And to ensure your compliance … to ensure that you will not fail," Voldemort continued. Hermione could feel Draco stiffen. He seemed to be holding his breath.
"Crucio."
The spell rang out coldly and lazily. In an instant, someone above Hermione had collapsed.
For a split second, she thought it must have been Draco once more, but the fall of the body was much softer and quieter.
Narcissa began shrieking.
She did not have the fortitude of her son. She let out blood curling screams of agony, so high pitched that they were nearly whistles.
Draco stood, shaking, until the screams died off of their own accord. Narcissa had stopped shuddering and thrashing on the floor, and had gone still without Voldemort having released his grip on the curse.
"A pity that I must do this but you always performed at the highest calibre when properly motivated, High Reeve," Voldemort murmured silkily. Draco remained silent but after a long moment, bowed his head once more in deference.
"Bring her to me."
Hermione had thought that the order had been given to Draco until the python wrapped around her began to shift rapidly. She gave a whimper as she was half dragged, half carried the distance to Voldemort's throne. The python shifted and glided up the steps, until Hermione was held bodily, just a few feet from Voldemort.
Up close, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
Up close, the smell of rotting flesh became stronger.
She took in his form and recoiled in horror. The snake twisted itself tighter around her, holding her still.
His body had wasted away without the horcruxes and Harry.
On some level, it seemed that a physical form did indeed lean upon a soul as its scaffold. The frame of his body existed still, yet his muscles had wasted away.
Voldemort was as gaunt as a corpse. His skin was grey and sunken, yet glistening with a strange, mucosal wetness. His face was skeletal in appearance, and his eyes looked like rubies set within a skull. Despite all this, Dark Magic poured off him in boiling, bubbling waves.
"Hold her up … hold her up for me …"
The python twisted itself round and round and Hermione was thrust to roughly eye-level with Voldemort.
His consciousness stabbed through hers like a searing knife. Hermione began shrieking in agonizing, horrifying pain as every nerve in the pathway from her eyes to her brain was suddenly stimulated, firing rapidly and burning her as they went.
The human brain wasn't designed to handle so much sensory input. Hermione could feel herself fading into blackness as the pain took over, but just when she thought she'd pass out, Voldemort dug deeper. Layers upon layers of agony, new levels of horror exploded within her own mind.
She could feel his malicious presence in her consciousness. He seemed to delight in her pain and took his time tearing into her, before he began to focus on her memories. He skipped along lazily, browsing without truly searching.
He didn't know her role.
He didn't know her part in it all, because for all intents and purposes, Hermione had been a meek little Healer. Nothing extraordinary.
Through the haze of torture, Hermione tried to recall Snape's words.
"Prepare yourself and focus on pushing me out. If you are unable to directly force me out with the power of your mind, try to re-direct me to more mundane memories. Less painful ones. Ones that might satisfy my curiousity, were I a Death Eater. Lose the battle to win the war, so to speak."
Hermione scrambled, sobbing and whimpering desperately. She was a wounded animal. She was cornered. She needed something. She needed to distract Voldemort, lead him away from the dangerous memories. The damning evidence.
Harry sprang up at the same instant, reaching for his wand, but Voldemort was ready.
"Avada kedavra!" he screamed. A beam of green light hit Harry directly in the face, cracking his askew glasses completely in two. Harry's eyes went blank and he crumpled again, for the final time.
Her heart shredded in two each time. The pain felt as fresh as if she were in the moment once more. She could smell the smoke of Hogwarts burning, feel the exhaustion sagging her body down. Hear the screams echoing through her memory. She re-lived Harry's death, over and over and over. A dozen times. Voldemort was intensely fascinated by it; he kept viewing it, seemed to take intense pleasure at seeing the light fade from Harry's eyes.
Until apple-green were blank and empty.
Until the light was extinguished in Harry, like a candle being blown out.
Ron, who had screamed with just as much anguish as Hermione and surged forward to retrieve Harry's body, had been thrown back by a laughing Lucius. A muttered curse later, and Hermione watched in sheer terror as Ron's flesh melted off his very bones.
Hermione wept. She could hear herself begging and pleading incomprehensibly as the pain carried on, burning and flaying her alive. Her body, suspended within the loving confines of the python, was shaking and jerking wildly as her nerves fired spectacularly in response to the stimuli. The agony crescendoed until Hermione could feel copper on her tongue; her vocal cord was hemorrhaging from her suspended screaming.
As suddenly as the pain came, it broke.
Her body pitched forward and sagged into the snake; if the python unwound itself, she would've crumpled to the floor in a boneless heap.
Even though the pain was gone, everything in her body kept burning. Kept spasming. It was as if her muscles didn't know what to do anymore, without the scorching of her nerves. They twitched continually, her entire body vibrating, like aftershocks of an earthquake.
"This one … I have much planned for her," Voldemort said.
There was an undertone of anticipation — he liked what he saw.
He wanted more.