The man in the black cloak paused. There was no way his face could be that well obscured in the shadows naturally; he was using some sort of charm.
He looked around at everyone, standing perfectly straight, chests out, arms at their sides; completely uniform.
"At ease," the man finally said and everyone relaxed. "I'd like to welcome our new potential recruit, Miss Hermione Granger… Mrs. Hermione Weasley some time soon, if I'm not mistaken?"
I nodded. "Yeah."
He stared at me. Everyone stared at me.
"Yes sir," said Draco, speaking up. "She is engaged to be married to Ron Weasley, sir."
"Hm." He looked me over; it made me a bit uncomfortable how long his eyes lingered over each part of me. The little bit of his mouth I could make out formed into a grin.
"Step forward. Right here." He pointed his wand and dust flew over a spot directly in front of his feet. I looked at Draco and he nodded. I froze for a moment and then, against my better judgement, obeyed.
He looked in my eyes; I looked away. What was he doing?
"Look… at me," he said assertively, and… I don't know why, but I instantly obeyed the order. It was unnatural. Something about this man was unnatural. Someone that shouldn't be.
And then I felt his mind crawl right into mine, as if he was entering straight through my eyes… he crawled in deep and effortlessly and I knew he could see anything and everything he wanted to see. I could feel him touch all my thoughts, every facet of my personality, every secret, every doubt, every quickly accessible memory and every insecurity. Everything.
After only a minute, he was done. I came to again, still standing in front of him. Some of the people around us were still watching, while others were zoned out, as if this were a part of the routine. They'd seen this before; nothing exciting.
The cloaked man looked over to Draco and chuckled. "You've had fun with this one, I see…"
"W- I-" I opened my mouth to protest being spoken of this way, like an object, a toy, but the man flicked his wand and I instantly fell silent; I couldn't speak. Couldn't move. I was frozen.
"But yes, this one is perfect," he finally said. "Perfect," he added again, with greater emphasis. "She has no idea what she's truly capable of…"
What could he mean by that?
"This may seem cryptic now, but you will understand it all eventually." The cloaked man waved his wand and then stepped out of the room and I followed, against my will. Everyone else trailed behind me.
"We will show her our most recent prisoner, explain all of the basics and then… we'll see what happens."
We walked down several flights of stairs, down into a dungeon, another dungeon… how far down did this place go?
I tried to keep track of how far down we had gone and it was impossible. The number vanished from my mind every time I'd try to count. Part of the enchantment in this place, I was sure.
There were multiple staircases going in many different directions; even without some sort of magic going on here, it would be very difficult to keep track of where all of this was going without writing it all down.
Finally we reached a door at the bottom of a staircase. The man opened it and led us down a hallway. There at the end, past many doors, was nothing. A wall. Or that's what it looked like. But then the man reached out, flicked his wand, and turned his hand as if twisting a door knob. The door knob must have been there too. I heard the sound of his skin touching it, heard it turn…
Everyone else entered after us; the man pointed his wand back behind us and the door closed itself. I turned to look ahead and saw a horrifying sight…
A man was held up against the wall, as if chained there, but there was nothing physically restraining him there. He was half naked, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs. The man looked like he was in his mid-50s and every inch of his body was covered in cuts.
I felt the strongest urge to gasp, to scream, to cry, but not a sound could escape. My face could not show my reaction. I was the cloaked man's puppet…
He pointed at the man restrained against the wall.
"This is a 'retired' Death Eater. His name is of no importance. He's a member of a group that call themselves the Wizard Empowerment League."
The cloaked man lashed his wand through the air; blades lifted off the ground from all around the room and darted toward the prisoner, cutting, slicing at his skin meticulously. The prisoner screamed in agony.
"This man claimed to have reformed after the fall of the Dark Lord… so it may have seemed for a few years. Then he traveled across the Atlantic and came here to New York…"
The cloaked man gave his wand a wave. The blades stopped, but continued to hover, the cold metal right up against the prisoner's skin as the clocked man explained everything.
"He started a business here… a charity. For Muggles, no less. But it was a cover. This man joined some of his fellow 'former' followers of the Dark Lord and many newcomers with a goal that must have seemed appealing to him: to bring about the rise of Wizarding kind over Muggleborns in America, starting by suppressing the Muggles and the Mudbloods into a state of terror and fear… They've tried not to make too much of a stir yet… it's all been quiet so far… but this is the first public crime… this man's crime. I'm sure he and all his friends must be frustrated that the media is trying to keep it all quiet."
The cloaked man pulled out a sheet of copy paper, with a photo printed over an article… It was a little girl, smiling. Happy. Ironic; that was certainly not what she looked like when they found her.
"This was in Muggle news… and, as you know, the girl was a Witch. Our news acknowledged that. Well… both news sources detail her brainwashing, the violence, the murder… the suicide. What neither tells you about is the details… in this case, they make all the difference."
He looked into my eyes again and I could see the people, some of the location, as if I were there… but it was abstract. I couldn't quite make out the exact place. The surrounding walls and ceiling were nothing but black. I heard the cloaked man's whisper.
"This is the memory of one of the policemen at the scene. Wizard police. We have friends everywhere. The little girl had gone missing for a week. The police found her, returned her home to her parents, intending to continue an investigation into what appeared to be a kidnapping. Then they were called back by the parents, who said the girl was in a violent, dangerous state, her magic out of control. The parents weren't there when they showed back up at the scene. Not alive anyway."
Wizard police stood around the girl as she sobbed uncontrollably… her friend was at her side on the floor, barely breathing, nearly dead…
"F-filthy… mudblood…" the girl sobbed, pointing at her friend. Then she looked in a mirror… she screamed, pointed.
"FILTHY MUDBLOOD!"
She screamed it at her own reflection again and again before the mirror shattered, the glass zipping toward her… repeatedly slicing at her skin, just as I had seen the cloaked man do to the prisoner, the alleged monster behind all of this.
Some of the glass darted toward the girl's friend… a police woman knocked her out of the way, taking cuts from the glass.
The little girl stared at her reflection again, fell silent… and then the chain attaching a chandelier to the room's ceiling snapped, dropping the chandelier down toward her friend…
The police woman leapt on top of the girl's friend. The attempted recipient, the child, survived. The police woman who took the blow was not so lucky.
The chain from the lamp swooshed through the air, slapping a police man in the face inadvertently.
"I deserve this. Mommy… daddy… filthy mudbloods… had to… had to… and me too."
The chain swept around the little girl's neck, beginning to tighten-
"NO! STOP! STOP! MAKE IT STOP!"
I screamed until someone grabbed me and the vision subsided. That was what it took; that level of terror to break the cloaked man's enchantment…
I looked at the prisoner… sobbing. I couldn't breath. I couldn't stop the sobbing.
Finally words came.
"Did you do this?"
The man looked at me… nodded… then spat in my face.
"I'd do it again… dirty-blood bitch deserved to have the blood on her hands, was smart to put herself out of her misery… I'd fix your mind up too if I had the chance… Hermione Granger… I know who you are… Mudblood… mudblood… mudblood… Not until after I had a little fun with you first though… I bet you'd be a better fuck than the little girl was…"
I shook my head at the prisoner and realized how pathetic he looked. I saw him trying to act brave, saw him holding back tears and suddenly I didn't feel like crying. I was better than him. I looked him up from his feet, toe nails yellow, unkept… I looked up his pale, fat legs up to his briefs, a sad excuse for a bulge just barely visible through the fabric… up his round little tummy, his flabby chest, his plain, round face…
And then without thinking, my wand was in my hand, pointed right at the prisoner's chest.
The blades swept in… Stabbed him. Everywhere. Right through his flesh. One right through his heart.
I moved in closer, looked right into his cold, dying eyes, and spat right back on his face.
"As long as I live, a pathetic joke of a little baby cock like yours will never so much as touch me," I whispered as he died, right in his ear so there was no doubt in my mind that it was the last thing he heard and the last thing he would reflect on as he died.