Edited 10/13/15

Prologue: Just Beginning

My dear, my darling one

The cleaners are coming, one by one

You don't even want to let them start

They are knocking now upon your door

They measure the room, they know the score

They're mopping up the butcher's floor

Of your broken little hearts

[O Children, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds]

Hermione gasped at the wrenching pain roaring through her body as she clutched at consciousness, and opened her swollen eyes to slits, seeing only deep shadows, and the bleak grey of cold, damp stone above her. It had been a dream - it had just been a dream she realised, despair closing in on her like death and it hurt because it had all seemed so real. But it was gone. It had all been a pretty lie.

The solidity of the dream began to dissipate like smoke in the wind as the pain forced her further into cold, cruel consciousness, and she mentally snatched and clawed at the fantasy, her heart sinking as the happiness drifted away from her. Not real, out of her reach, and even as Hermione tried to grasp it and at least remember it, the details began to fuzz and blur in her mind. She was losing it, losing to that strange jumble of half-remembered dreams that you couldn't articulate once you woke.

Her mind swam for a dizzying moment, and then with a flash of hard horror Hermione remembered the last real thing that had happened - Draco bleeding and unconscious, being dragged roughly to his feet by the Death Eaters, who had finally grown tired of beating him and enervating him whenever he passed out to beat him some more. His face had been unrecognisable with swelling and bruises and blood, and he had hung in their hands like he was dead.

She had lost her voice from screaming at them to stop a long time ago, and she had whispered his name desperately; Draco. As though saying it aloud was a talisman against him dying, which was so stupid and pathetic, but it was all she had, and then a voice behind her had snapped 'stupefy' and she had known nothing else, until now.

She lay on the freezing, uneven, hard stone, on her back. There was stone ceiling high above her, slick moss growing in the damp cracks between the stones. She automatically took an inventory of herself as she waited for her head to clear - her mind still fogged from the Cruciatus and stupefy, and not quite operating properly yet.

A jut of stone from the floor dug into her hip, and another into her back, her ankle was a mass of pain, and her shoulder ached fiercely from where she'd hit it on the floor in the explosion at Gringotts. The skin on her face felt swollen taut and stretched and painfully hot from the beating she'd taken, and her every nerve felt fiery with the lingering echoes of the Cruciatus. Her throat was raw from screaming, and her hands stung and hurt, especially around her nail beds - and she vaguely remembered clawing at the floor until her nails tore and bled, in a pitiful attempt to get away.

Get away.

The reality of the situation hit Hermione hard, and she choked out a wretched, rattling sob as panic seized her, and her shoulders shook and her chest heaved and juddered with it, and pain flared through her body. She had been captured - they had been captured, and her mind was suddenly filled, to the exclusion of all else, with thoughts of Draco. She rolled her head to the right, the movement painful, and saw nothing but floor and wall. Rolled her head to the left, wincing - and there she saw him. Crumpled in a bloodied heap in the corner of the cell, still and limp, and her heart beat wildly in her chest and she started to hyperventilate with terror.

They couldn't have killed him - they wouldn't have; they had said that Voldemort would be pleased to make an example out of Draco, so they couldn't have killed him. Hermione forced herself to sit up, gritting her teeth at the hurt of it, her badly bruised shoulder throbbing and aching as she shoved herself up weakly with her hands. She made herself crawl to him, every bit of her aching and hurting, wanting to cry out but holding it back, because she needed to be strong, for both of them. She had to keep it together, until they were rescued, or…well, she just needed to keep it together. That was all there was to it. She reached Draco's side and clamped a hand over her mouth, whimpering and shaking as she stared down at him.

She couldn't tell if he was breathing, the way he was lying, crumpled on his side, and she was too weak to roll him over and didn't want to hurt him by moving him anyway… So with her heart in her throat, Hermione's cold fingers slid beneath Draco's swollen jaw and found where his pulse should be. It thrummed weakly beneath her blood-smeared fingers, and Hermione let out a ragged breath, relief swamping her. He was alive. He had been brutally beaten and tortured to the point that Hermione didn't know how he was still alive, but he was.

"Draco," she whispered, throat burning as she spoke, voice hoarse and rasping. "Draco." Her shaking fingers brushed his blood matted hair back from his face with light, tender motions, and he stirred and let out a pained whimper at her touch. Hermione didn't try harder than those few whispers to rouse him - perhaps it was better to let him stay insensible. If she woke him, all she would be doing was making him aware of the pain, and the utter, desperate hopelessness of their situation.

She told herself harshly not to fall apart, not to sink into despair - pulled herself together with an effort. She had to figure out the situation, to take stock of the pros and cons, and try to make a plan, even if the plan was only to hold on and not let herself be broken for as long as possible.

Sitting back, careful of her ankle - leg stretched out awkwardly in front of her - Hermione checked what, if anything, the Death Eaters had left to her. Everything that had been hooked onto her belt or stuffed in the pouches attached to it was gone, bar some bandages and the dittany, and the single dose of pain potion they always carried into battle, and Hermione was pathetically grateful they'd left those, and then hated herself for feeling that gratitude. She had an entire small vial of dittany left, and if Draco still had his, he should have about three-quarters left after what he'd sprinkled on her hands earlier. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.

She sprinkled a tiny bit of dittany on her bloodied fingertips and hissed at the pain as she scrubbed her hands together, trying to get as much coverage as possible from the smallest possible amount. It helped, and at least now she could use her hands without cringing.

She smeared some more dittany over her puffy, bloodied lips like lip-gloss, and dabbed a little sparingly over the cuts on her face - working on touch, it seemed like her eyebrow was split, there was a another split over her right cheekbone, and her left earlobe had been torn somehow. They couldn't afford to get infections, so open wounds were the priority - she didn't put any on her bruises, although she wished she could.

There was nothing she could do for her broken ankle either, except for strap it up firmly with one of the three bandage rolls she had, so she did that, tears leaking from her eyes at the pain of it. It was swollen to well over twice its usual size and black with bruising, and every touch started a bolt of agony up her leg, but Hermione just clenched her jaw and made herself do it.

It was hard not to think ahead and let panic and despair take over, but Hermione knew that she had to focus on what she could do now, in the moment, and let the future take care of itself. Hermione hated that feeling, that complete dearth of any control over what happened to her, but she just had to suck it up and deal with it, she told herself harshly. It wouldn't help either of them if she crumbled and fell apart.

They had dittany and bandages, and they were at least in a cell together - she couldn't imagine how horrible it would have been to wake up alone, and not know if Draco was alive or dead. Just the thought made her want to shiver apart into a useless heap of panicked tears.

She scanned the tiny, dark cell, taking account of their surroundings. The room was stone, chill and dank, and the door set in the middle of one wall was made of iron, with a small barred window at the top - the only source of light for the cell. There was a slot at the bottom of the door, which Hermione guessed was to shove food and water through, and Hermione could see at a glance that there was no way they were getting through that door unless someone on the other side opened it for them. There was a fist-sized hole in one wall that looked like it was there for air circulation, because a cold draught wisped out of it and made Hermione shiver. In one corner, there was a heap of blankets that were really little more than rags and for a scared moment Hermione had thought the pile was actually the shrouded body of the cell's last occupant.

She slid around awkwardly on her bum in a circle, careful of her strapped up ankle, and looked at the wall behind her. All that was there was a rusty bucket, and she stared at it blankly for a moment, before she remembered the bucket in the cellar when Draco had first arrived at Godric's, and her stomach lurched and she felt sick.

A bucket, out in the open - that was their toilet now, and Hermione went hot with anger and horrible humiliation. For some strange reason, it wasn't the pain, or the hopelessness of their situation, or Draco's beaten state, which made Hermione fall apart. In the end it was the realisation that that bucket was where she would have to relieve herself from now on, that finally drove her into helpless, despairing sobs.

Everything hurt. Everything hurt, and someone was crying, and Draco groaned and licked his lips with a dry, furry tongue and winced at the pain the tiny movement caused. He tried to open his eyes, but they were both swollen shut to bare slits, and all he could make out was a welling darkness, alleviated by flickering washes of grey.

He remembered them beating him and reviving him, over and over until he was biting his tongue bloody to keep himself from begging them for mercy. He refused to give them the satisfaction. He remembered the all-consuming agony of the Cruciatus Curse, and the convulsions that came with it. But then there was just nothing until he had stirred to consciousness and felt the blaze of pain, and the sound of ragged sobbing had filled his ears.

He was lying on his side, and he tried to move but all he could summon was a twitch of his fingers, and even that small achievement fucking hurt. So he tried to speak, instead, because even though his ears were still ringing and he was half deaf from the blows to his head, Draco recognised who was crying those miserable, broken sobs. Hermione. Fuck, Hermione was here, and they had both been captured, and now they were totally and absolutely fucked. Draco licked his lips again and swallowed painfully, slurred: "H'ione?"

The sound of crying cut off sharply, and scrabbling, rustling noises came closer to him, and then her face filled his vision, blurred, hanging over him - she was pale where she wasn't bruised, features swollen, one eye half-closed, and her cheeks streaked with tears.

"Draco!" she rasped and she sounded like she'd been choked half to death, and he remembered her screaming for the Death Eaters to stop hurting him until her voice had failed her. Her hand slid over his temple, shaking and cold as ice, and he tilted his head slightly, trying to push into the comfort of her touch.

"Please tell me that Potter and the others have rescued us, and this is just a really shitty hospital," he croaked - he'd screamed himself hoarse too, in the end. But he hadn't begged. He hadn't begged. Hermione's lips trembled and she glared at him, all watery and choked.

"Don't joke, Draco. It's not funny. It's not -" And then she started crying again. He lifted his hand to her face, suppressing a moan of pain, and cupped her cheek very, very gently.

"It is, a little bit," he tried, a smile twisting his mouth for a brief, painful moment, and she scowled at him with helpless not-really-anger and sobs shook her like a leaf, and then she wrapped her arms around him very carefully and clung to him. He could tell she wanted to squeeze the life out of him, and was glad she refrained, because he was afraid he might start crying with the pain if she gripped too hard, and that was embarrassment he really didn't bloody need, right now.

He rested his hand on the back of her head, tentatively, and curled his fingers into the soft tangle of her hair, letting out a shaky breath that ruffled her hair, and shut his eyes. They were fucked. They were completely fucked, and Draco knew that it had to be his fault, somehow - somewhere back along the line, he had made a decision that had led her to be in this place with him. It had to be his fault. He wished she wasn't here. He wished that it was just him, alone, but it wasn't, and he had to live with that until they killed him, because there was nothing he could damn well do about it.

All he could do was hope that Potter and Weasley cared about Hermione as much as Draco thought they did, and would do whatever it took to get her back. At the end of the day, Draco didn't care if he, Potter, and Weasley all died, if it meant that Hermione was rescued, alive and whole. He knew without asking that Hermione would rather die herself, than have anyone die for her, though. Stupid, noble Gryffindor.

A moment later Hermione drew back from him, wiping her tears gingerly away as he watched her blurrily.

"They left us our dittany," she said by way of explanation as she fumbled with something at her belt.

"Shut your eyes," she told him, ghosting her hand over them and Draco obeyed, hearing the sucking pop of a cork before something damp sprinkled his face lightly, like a mist of rain. And then her fingers were firm on his tender, throbbing flesh, spreading the sparse quantity of dittany over the injuries that covered his face, and he ground his teeth together and jerked out a groan at the touch, and she apologised abjectly, over and over as she hesitantly continued.

"It's all right," he gasped, fingers cramping into claws, interrupting her self-flagellation. "I'm fine. It just - ah fuck - fucking hurts, that's - all. I - I know you…have to… Just hurry up. Please."

"God. Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry, Draco," Hermione apologised miserably one last time, and then they fell into a silence only broken by his half-stifled winces, and her uneven breaths.

"What else hurts?" she asked worriedly when she was done, and the dittany began to slowly work its welcome magic on his battered face. Draco laughed, which devolved into racking coughs that made him clench his fist and tense all over as the pain grasped at him with greedy fingers, pulling him down into the suffocating mire of it.

"Everything," he grated when he finally regained the ability to speak, a tilt of bitter amusement to his tone. "Fucking everything hurts, Hermione."

She rubbed shaking hands over her face and dragged in a breath, shaking her head. "Please, Draco. Don't… I can't - I just can't, right now. I - just tell me what I can fix, please."

"I'm rather certain my shoulder's dislocated. Do you know some fancy Muggle way to -"

"Yes," she said breathlessly, and Draco could see Hermione took comfort in the fact that he had given her something she could do. "I think so."

It hurt like hell to move, and they were both clumsy and weak, and the air resounded with grunts of effort and bitten back whimpers of pain as Hermione helped Draco sit up. She took off her belt and tripled it over for him to bite down on, and then bent his elbow so his arm was arranged at what she said in a shaking voice was a ninety degree angle, and he clenched his jaw hard, teeth indenting into the leather, hissing at the pain.

"Is it…?" she asked him, worried eyes darting to his face, and he nodded.

"Keep going," he growled, barely understandable around the belt, and she nodded, white as snow and shaking, although her grip on his arm was firm. She helped him rotate his arm out, and then up, and then slowly raise it above his head, and tears of pain welled up in his eyes despite himself. And then, with an odd sound and an even stranger sensation, the joint slipped back into place.

"Fuck,' he breathed gratefully around the belt as the pain began to dissipate, and they both sagged with relief. Draco pushed the belt clumsily out of his mouth with his tongue, and slumped back against the wall, trying to ignore the pain that created in his back. "Thank you, Hermione," he mumbled, letting his eyes slide shut and just enjoying the lowered pain levels - far more bearable now. He heard scuffings and winces, and then something brushed against his upper arm, and she let out a sigh.

"Jesus. I never want to have to do that again," she said tightly, sounding on the verge of tears, and Draco leaned his head back on the cold stones behind him, and tipped his mouth up in a faint smile.

"Believe me; neither do I."

"What else can I do to help?" she asked from beside him a short moment later, still anxious and tearful sounding, and Draco catalogued his many hurts in his head.

"There's a cut on the back of my head, and my…stump…got torn up a bit, there's still glass in my back, I think more than a few of my ribs are broken or cracked, and I'm bloody well bruised all over and…well, that's about all you can fix with just dittany. Although you should probably leave the bruises, and save the dittany." There was no point in telling her about the rest of his hurts, which she couldn't help with - it'd only upset her worse than she already was, and right now she needed to be strong. They both did.

"I was going to leave the bruises," she said with a faint, weak smile. "Sit forward then," she told him, and he did as she asked, tipping his head forward and feeling her part his matted hair - like straw from the blood dried in it. And then she began smearing dittany-covered fingers over the gash there, and Draco grimaced and tried not to give into the instinctive urge to jerk his head away from the pain she was causing.

"Done," she said a moment later. "Give me your arm."

"I - I can do it…" Because he still felt all bloody kinds of weird and uncomfortable with her touching his stump so openly and purposefully, and she had always been so tentative and hesitant with it, and Draco still hadn't decided if it put her off.

"Don't be silly. Let me," she insisted though, and he opened his now far less swollen eyes and watched her face as she took his arm and laid it over her lap. "Sorry if this hurts," she said pointlessly, because it would hurt, and there was nothing they could do about that, and then began sprinkling on the smallest amount of dittany possible, and spreading it out over his blood encrusted stump.

Her touch was exceedingly tender and gentle, and she had drawn her lower lip up into her mouth, caught between her teeth as she frowned down at his arm in concentration. Even like this she was beautiful, and even feeling as fucking horrible as he did, Draco still wanted to kiss her, and slide his hand over that smooth, silky skin hidden beneath her leathers, tracing out every part of her.

"I have bandages, so I can strap your ribs at least - and you should have some bandages and dittany on your belt still too - and a pain potion," Hermione said when she was done ministering to his stump, and Draco shifted so she could unhook the little leather cases that held what the Death Eaters had so fucking generously left them with.

The bastards.

She helped him strip down to his skin from the waist up, accompanied by the constant stream of foul language he spat out, which funnily enough actually helped make the pain more bearable. She gasped when she saw the bruising the beating at the bank had left him with.

He had more bruised skin than clear patches, and was coloured in vibrant hues of dark red and purple tinted black, and Hermione just stared at it all for a moment, hand clasped over her mouth.

"I hate them," she said viciously as she helped him lean forward so she could get to his back, to pull out the remaining shards of glass. "I hate them so much."

"Good," Draco said, flinching as her fingers plucked out a piece of glass. "Hate them. Be angry. They're - they're going to try to break us, Hermione, and it's easier to withstand what - what they're going to do if you're angry."

"I - what do you think they'll do?" she asked him in a small voice, still finding and picking free bits of glass, and Draco wondered whether her should tell her or not. He didn't want her to be dwelling on it, and making it all seem even worse in her head than it would be anyway. But there wasn't much point keeping it from her, especially as she knew most of what they would be likely to do anyway. Partly, he just didn't want to say it aloud, and he sure as fuck didn't want to think about it.

"Draco?"

He sighed. "They'll use the Cruciatus, of course. They'll probably beat us, pull fingernails and toenails, use cutting hexes and stinging hexes and every other non-fatal, painful type of spell they can think of, and then heal the injuries just so they can do it all over again. They'll starve us, and then do something merciful, to try to fuck with our heads. They'll try to use us against each other - they'll make us watch each other be tortured, and tell us the other's torture will continue until we break."

His throat tightened and nearly closed up as he omitted the other sort of torture they would be sure to use, unable to say the word. He knew it was coming if they didn't escape soon, and he couldn't think of Hermione… An uncomfortable silence fell, before he cleared his throat and finished.

"They're Death Eaters, Hermione - for the most part, they're sadistic monsters, and they enjoy thinking of new ways to hurt people. It…won't be fun." He looked up at her, grey eyes meeting firewhiskey brown, both sets surrounded by real bruising now rather than the faux-bruising of stress and sleeplessness.

"You best hope the Order finds us quickly."

Hermione looked down and away at that, not answering, and Draco damned well knew that she was thinking she'd rather they didn't if it meant people died in an attempt to save the two of them.

"Do you - do you have any idea where we are?"

"No. I don't recognise it - I've never been here before, as far as I know. Not on this side of the door, anyway," he added with a dry bitterness, and Hermione's fingers jerked away from his back for a moment at the reminder of whom and what he'd been. And then she resumed her careful, painful work on his back, and he rested his forearms over his drawn up knees, and laid his forehead down upon them, sighing.

"How long was I out for?" he asked, for something to fill the silence.

"I don't know. About an hour after I woke up, but I don't know how long I was unconscious and we can't see outside to see if it's light or dark, so… I'm not that hungry yet though, and that, along with the look of our wounds, well, I don't think it could be longer than half a day at most."

He grunted in acknowledgement, and then made an mmphing sound of protest as Hermione had to wriggle one particularly deeply lodged bit of glass out of his back.

"Sorry," she said and he just buried his forehead harder against his forearms and clenched his teeth. Fuck it hurt. And it was only going to get a lot worse before it got better, Draco thought, mind on the torture that he knew would be coming, all too soon.

She watched the muscles in his back and shoulders ripple and slide under his skin with fascination as she plucked the glass free, dropping each freed shard with a tink into the growing pile beside her leg. He tensed each time she pulled a piece free, and his shoulders bunched and his back flexed, and a little hiss she didn't think he was aware of slid from between his teeth.

His back was bruised nearly all over, and speckled with dried blood and glass - a minefield of it, and fresh trickles of blood joined the old as she wiggled the deeper pieces free. In the strangest kind of way, it actually soothed her, doing this. Repetitive work, that took some but not too much concentration, where she got a rhythm going and settled into the flow; it was like knitting - almost meditative.

It helped Hermione to keep from dwelling on what Draco had said, about the torture. She knew what he had avoided saying, and a sick, horrified revulsion coiled in her belly at the thought. But she made her mind stay on the job in front of her; Draco's lean back, the pale skin replaced with dark bruises and blotches of blood. It hurt just to look at.

She removed the last piece that she could get out without a pair of tweezers to grip the smallest bits of glass, or a needle to dig about with, and started to sparingly anoint his back with dittany. And then after that, she strapped his ribs firmly, and made him drink half of one of their pain potions - just enough to take the edge off the pain for the next few hours.

She shook out the pile of rags - and they really were just rags, and laid them out beside Draco - they might be filthy and thin, but they provided a layer of insulation between the cold hard floor and themselves, and Hermione careful helped Draco get dressed again, and shift onto the rags. And then, after that, she realised with a lurch that she had run out of things to do.

She'd run out of tasks to occupy her and distract herself from the reality of their situation, and she sat down beside Draco and stared down at her hands, smeared with blood and nails torn and ragged, resting uselessly in her lap. There was nothing left to do but wait. Stare at the door, and try to ignore the pain, and the fear, and the growing gnawing of hungriness in her stomach, and wait.

For what? For the Death Eaters to come through, and hurt her, and hurt Draco, until they were broken and screaming and lost in madness like Neville's poor, mad parents, who had died in the attack on St Mungo's?

Hermione swallowed and her fingers flexed. No, she wasn't waiting for that. She didn't want Harry to make any deals that would end up hurting the war effort in order to get them back, and she sure as hell didn't want him risking death to get them back either. But she had to hope for something, had to have something to cling onto, even if it was just a fantasy. So, she told herself that she would wait for Harry, Ron, and the rest of the Order to come and save them. That was what she would wait for.

She squeezed her eyes shut and locked her hands tightly together in her lap. She would wait for Harry and Ron to come and get them. She was waiting for Harry and Ron to come through that door, not people with cruel faces and grasping hands.

Harry.

And Ron.

Harry.

Ron.

Harry.

Ron.

"Hermione. Fuck, Hermione, stop it. Stop it, Hermione." Draco's voice was rough and urgent, nearly angry as he shook her, and it snapped through the haze that had taken over Hermione's mind. She realised that she'd been muttering to herself, and all but rocking back and forth like a mad person, and her nails were digging deep into her hands. She rattled in a gasping breath and swallowed hard, trying to pull herself together. She opened her eyes as Draco's hand settled over her two, firmly teasing her hands apart, his eyes silver and storm clouds in the light, and worried and guilty on hers.

"Come on, Hermione," he grated out, fierce and harsh, eyes boring into hers. "You can't fucking fall apart on me now. All right? You have to keep it together. You can't…can't go to pieces on me. You're fucking stronger than that."

His hand cupped her chin, forcing her head toward his, eyes roaming over her face searchingly, looking for her acknowledgement. But all Hermione could think about was the fact that they were going to be tortured and hurt and humiliated and violated and broken, and there was nothing she or Draco could do to stop it. They were utterly powerless, helpless - at the Death Eaters' mercy, and they had no mercy.

She pressed her lips together hard and a shudder seized through her body. Draco held her hand in his and she clutched on so hard their bones slid and ground beneath the skin, unable to stop thinking about what they were going to do to her, and to him; unable to block the fear and the anticipation and the reality of all the horrible, awful things out of her mind.

She had lost all control. They could do whatever they wanted with her and Draco, and she couldn't stop them. It was like the manor all over again, only so, so much worse, and she couldn't take it. Couldn't be strong. Couldn't go through it again. Not again.

Hermione knew vaguely, as though from a vast distance, that she was starting to hyperventilate, and black spots danced in front of her unfocused eyes, and Draco was half-snarling at her to pull yourself together and snap the fuck out of it and this isn't bloody helping, Hermione, a note of frightened desperation in his voice. And then she broke against him, crashing against him like a wave, all coming to pieces and washing away, nothing left but the fear.

She fisted her hands in his bloodied Auror leathers and buried her face against his chest and cried, and cried and cried, while he stroked the back of her head and helplessly said things like, it's okay, Hermione, and, I'm so sorry, and, you can get through this, I know you can.

And everything Draco said to her was a lie - all lies, lies, lies, Hermione thought frantically, and she knew for the first time in her life, with absolute certainty, that she wasn't going to get out of this okay.