Chapter 6: Waves (Hermione)
Charles was alone, sitting on the beach, gazing at out at the waves. I cherished the warmth of the sweet smelling air as I walked outside and sat down next to him. I dug my toes into the chill sand, "Hi" I said in a happy tone. He was preoccupied with examining a small shell, "Hi" he said in a plain tone. I looked at his terrified and sad silver eyes,"What's going on?" I asked "Why are you out here?", he looked up at me and tightened his expression a bit "Nothing" he said, slightly hesitating. I looked into his eyes "I brought you something" I said, smiling. I pulled the chocolate frog out of my pocket and held it out in front of him. "Thanks" he said, forcing a smile. I had never seen a child not light up at the mention of candy. He quickly grabbed the sweet and stuffed it into his pocket.
"Charles?" I said, remembering why I came over to him, "What?" he said, sounding annoyed. "Can we talk about the torture?" as soon as I finished speaking, he flinched and starting shivering. He looked at me, his lip quivering, tears threatening to prickle from his eyes. He turned away and ignored me for a couple of minutes. To try to calm him I apologized and rubbed his back in circles, he slowly calmed until he began to examine the same, small, shell. I held out my right forearm, the one with the word "MUDBLOOD" scratched bloodily into it. He looked over and his face twitched with shock.
"You were tortured too?" he asked. I simply nodded and said "Now will you tell me what happened?". He simply nodded and strained his eyes in painful recollection and thought. "After we were put into the cell, You Know Who knew I knew something he didn't" he said depressingly. "What do you know?" I asked, hoping it was something useful. "That's the thing, I don't remember…" he said in a guilty tone.
Realizing how important that information was I urged him to go on. "So Peter took me out of the dungeon where everyone was eagerly staring at me." Remembering how packed the room was a image flashed through my mind. "Bellatrix then ordered me to speak, but I refused" I thought of the evil witch known as Bellatrix as I felt a surge of sympathy. "So they brought a muggle girl out and ordered me to kill her." my eyes widened, wondering how any person could order a 12 year old to murder. "I refused, and then they hit me with a curse I didn't recognize." "What curse?" I asked. "I don't know, all I can remember was my entire body going numb." "The Imperius curse." I said, "It puts you under their control." I explained. "He kept telling me in my head to kill her, but I resisted and it stopped." surprised at how a kid could resist the Imperius curse I told him to go on. "Then Bellatrix yelled and hit with an extremely painful curse…" I then realized the sheer amount of tears falling down my face. "Draco Malfoy cringed and stopped her." surprised at how Malfoy had some mercy I made a mental note to remember to tell Harry that. "Then she got on top of me and did this" he held out his scar. I noticed he was silently sobbing. "Then they used the Cruciatus Curse on me for about a minute" I was stunned.
No person, ever, had survived the curse that long. I was too baffled to speak. "Im so sorry" I said, crying more then he was.
"Its ok." he reassured.
"NO ITS NOT!" I yelled, as a surge of motherly sympathy went throughout my body.
He put his arms around my back like it was the most important thing in the world.
"Lets not worry about it now" I said as I put my emotions in check. "Why don't you open the frog?" I said, smiling and wiping the tears of my face.
"Okay" he said, and for the first time in a while, I saw a look of pure happiness dawn on his face.
He opened the candy and the frogged jumped straight into the air. With lightning fast reflexes he grabbed it and stuffed it into his mouth. When he was done eating the sweet, he started uncontrollably giggling.
"What it is it?" I asked, smiling at the sound of laughter.
"Uric the Oddball!" he said in-between giggles.
I couldn't help but laugh at the odd wizard with the octopus on his head.
The sound of an incredibly strong wave interrupted the giggling. I was able to get up in time, but unfortunately, Charles was not. The instant the freezing water hit his body he stopped giggling and started shivering.
"Here" I said handing him a blanket I had pulled out of my bag. I also grabbed the jar of fire and used a charm to make it slightly bigger and warmer.
We chatted until it got dark and then headed inside.