Hermione awoke to the familiar dull ache in her lower belly. How her body still had the reserves to bleed was beyond her. Her once soft, supple body had become a thing of the distant past, one that felt like an entire lifetime ago.
She supposed it was.
The Hermione Granger who departed Hogwarts at the end of sixth year, shaken in the wake of Dumbledore's death, was not the same Hermione Granger who returned on on the second of May. Returning to bear witness to the final battle at Hogwarts.
The day the Order fell.
The day Voldemort won.
The day Harry Potter died alone and afraid in the Forbidden Forest.
That Hermione Granger had been lean, her small frame composed of nothing but muscle and bone. Calloused hands and strong thighs from almost a year on the run.
What softness her body once held was eroded by war. Food rationing and months of camping in the woods had morphed her body into hard muscle. Her once round face hollowed out into sharp angles with dark under eyes and sun-kissed skin.
That Hermione was full of hope, and hope was a dangerous thing.
It was her undoing.
It was hope that kept her frozen, standing in the Hogwarts courtyard.
She should have done something.
Anything.
She could have fired the killing curse at Voldemort as he gave his grandiose speech. Or grabbed Ron and ran, living to fight another day.
Instead, she stayed rooted in the spot. Gaze fixed on Harry's unseeing green eyes, as Hagrid cradled and wept over his broken body.
She wondered if he had held Harry the same way when he delivered the infant to Four Privet Drive all those years ago.
The Boy Who Lived, what was supposed to be the saviour of the Wizarding World, looked so small and frail in Hagrid's large arms. Arms wrapped protectively around the boy as if to shield him from the carnage around them.
As if he too, had hoped that those green eyes would suddenly fill with life.
When Neville Longbottom sliced the head off Nagini, he raised the sword of Gryffindor in a scream of triumph. His roar was a battle cry that launched the last remaining members of the Order into action. And as they sped past her, wands out and hope still shining on their faces, Hermione stood still. Jets of red and flashes of green fired in all directions, yet she didn't flinch.
Blood. There was so much blood.
How can one body produce so much of it?
It coated his chest, dripping on the cobblestones below. Harry's throat was slashed so deeply that if it wasn't for Hagrid holding him together she thought his head would topple off.
She didn't put much thought into how Harry would die. Only that he would. But in a clinical sense, she supposed Voldemort had learned his lesson. Harry had already survived the killing curse once. No matter how much she hoped, he would not survive this.
Blind hope, naive notions of good triumphing over evil, love over hate, were not going to be enough. She was the Brightest Witch Of Her Age and she knew that they had already lost.
Their war was lost the moment Lord Voldemort killed Harry Potter.
And her hope slowly died as her eyes stared at his.
Pulled from her memories, Hermione rolled over on the filthy and stained cot that was her bed. A worn canvas stretched over a rusted frame, with no pillow and only a frayed, thin blanket to shield her from the chill in her cell. She cupped a hand under the waistband of her Azkaban-issued clothing and felt the wetness gathering there. Pulling her hand back up she stared at the bright red blood glistening on her fingertips. The only burst of colour in her damp, mouldy cell.
She tenderly sat up, her bones screaming in protest as she cast aside what little warmth her blanket provided and padded across the room to relieve herself.
The dim light shining through between the bars of her small window was the only indication it was morning. The positioning of the window, high up on the wall across from her cot ensured what little warmth the light could grant her was always out of reach. And with the sky charmed around the prison to stay in a constant cloud, Hermione knew that the muted light would provide little comfort.
Azkaban was not a place built for comfort.
She returned to her cot, lying down to resume staring at the jagged rock wall across from her.
She did not have the energy to do anything else.
So she simply stared, slept and occasionally got up to consume the slop that would magically appear in her cell three times a day.
Hermione existed in a catatonic state, without the need or desire to do anything other than nothing. Her fight had gone out, her body had given up and her heart was in pieces. Mercifully, for the first time in her life, her mind was quiet.
The only images she was able to conjure were two sightless green eyes and a pool of Gryffindor red.
Time was a difficult thing to keep track of, but Hermione believed she'd managed to develop some semblance of a routine.
She would wake and relieve herself on the grimy ring of what the prison wardens had deemed a toilet, before proceeding to try to clean herself up using the stained sink. With only one working tap that dribbled out icy, yellowing water she would begin the task of rinsing her three makeshift rags. Two, torn from the hem from the bottom of her Azkaban-issued trousers and one small scrap torn from her thin blanket.
She didn't dare try to make anymore. She couldn't afford to take any more of the fabric that offered her the only shield from the chill.
Besides, three was enough.
One to wipe clean her face and body, one to use and rinse as a substitute for the lack of toilet paper, and one for her periods. A recurring pointless reminder she thought as if the passing of time held any relevance to her here. But she supposed, her body had yet to catch up to what her mind knew. Her time had already run out.
For the first time in her life, Hermione Granger could not think of a way out of this. At least not without her wand or an army of Order members that no longer existed.
The international Wizarding community turned a blind eye to Lord Voldemort even before the Order fell, so she doubted they would be much help.
And even if they did, it's not like they would waste the manpower and resources to rescue one muggle-born witch.
Ron would try and probably fail, but she had thrown out that hope early on. Ron was gone. Either dead, captured or hidden away in a safe house somewhere. She hoped it was the latter. But it had been a long time now, at least it felt like that for her, he would have come for her if he could.
If he even knew where she was. If he thought she was even alive.
She's calculated her odds of escape from this cell. Including all possible scenarios and factors, it was low. Incredibly low. And that wasn't including getting off the island.
The reality was, no one was coming for her.
Her only chance for escape sat squarely on her shoulders. But she had already examined every inch of her cell, attempted to chip away at the stone walls with little success, she even tried to ram her door down using the frame of her cot.
In one desperate attempt, she tried to climb out her small barred window. Climbing up by using the uneven rocks on her wall as footholds. She'd only barely managed to pull herself up to the bars, unable to even squeeze her head through the tight gaps before a passing Dementor made her lose her footing.
In all her attempts, none proved even remotely successful and as time passed, she felt herself grow weaker until she didn't even have the strength to try. The lack of food, warmth and light eroded what little resolve she had away.
Even if she somehow managed to escape from Azkaban, she would have to travel outside the UK undetected with no magic and no help.
Simply put, it was impossible.
It was easier not to think about it as she went about her daily grooming routine. Placing her rags on the edge of the sink in an attempt to dry them. The best result she could manage so far was turning them from sopping wet to heavily damp.
Satisfied with her placement she began the daily struggle of combing her hair with her fingers.
Her hair was a wild tangle of curls even before imprisonment, now nothing more than a matted heap on her head. She had the privilege of being able to watch this transformation, thanks to the stained mirror magically sealed above her small sink. A mirror in Azkaban seemed like a joke at first, as if anyone would care what they looked like in this place.
But as she began to watch her olive skin fade into a pale yellow, her jawline sharpening and her eyes shadowed with purple, she realised that this was a special breed of torture.
Hermione thought about using one of the sharp rocks she pulled from the wall to cut off her matted, filthy hair. But it was the only thing that kept her neck and head from bracing the cold.
She'd experienced cold before, on the run with Harry and Ron they spent many nights huddled in that tent. But the cold in this prison was unnatural.
It seeped into her bones.
The floor was so icy, it burned the pads of her feet in its intensity. Numb purple fingers and stiff hands became a natural state for Hermione. Steam lingered in the air with each ragged exhale. Nothing could penetrate through the frigid entity that seemed to invade her blood.
Cold like this should kill, no human body could survive this. Not even a magical one.
And yet it did not claim her.
Even on the nights when her bed frame rattled from the violence of her shakes.
She concluded then, that this was the second breed of torture developed for the poor souls inhabiting Azkaban.
She finished her morbid self-inspection before padding back to her cot, exhausted after only a few minutes of standing. Climbing back in and wrapping the thin blanket tightly under her chin as she rubbed her feet together to try to circulate the blood back into her toes.
And then she resumed staring at her wall.
The Dementors continued their circuit past her small window, coating the bars in ice. The frost branched out across the far wall like vines, before fading when they assessed her huddled in her cell. She watched them come and go, drifting past in an almost graceful manner. Hermione couldn't decide if she was grateful or not that they had yet to enter.
Longing for the dementor's kiss had started as an intrusive thought. Lately, she has turned it over in her mind more often than not. Insanity or death were the only reprieves she could hope to receive.
Perhaps those in the cells surrounding her were luckier. If they had no happy memories left, then maybe the bad ones wouldn't seem so bad. The pain could be bearable if pain was all one knew.
It was a cup that first alerted her to the Death Eater's presence inside the prison.
Her food tray no longer appeared in her cell three times a day. Instead, those footsteps would approach her steel door, open the metal slate and drop a cup of slop down onto the floor before sliding shut. Its rancid contents spilled all over the dirty stone floor.
She learned quickly that one cup was all she would get for the day.
Some days it never arrived at all.
So she would collect every drop she could back into its cup before licking what remained off the stone floor.
There is no dignity in hunger.
The prison started to swell with sounds of life as more prisoners were brought in. A stark contrast to the eerie whispering of the wind.
Voices cackled and cursed in distant corridors. Their footsteps were long and unhurried as the Death Eaters patrolled the prison. Where those footsteps went, nightmares followed.
The creaking of steel doors became the worst of all sounds.
Because the screams always followed.
She would cup her hands violently to her ears in a desperate bid to block out the other noises that burned into her consciousness. The pleading, the cracking of bones, the laughter, skin slapping against skin….
The horrors she heard made her heave the contents of her stomach. Retching until bile burned her throat raw.
When they would leave, doors slammed shut and chains tinkered. Mostly, silence followed. Other times sobs and unbridled wails rose like a haunted choir.
The sobs were worse than the silence. Because she knew it wasn't over.
Eventually, they would come back. They always did.
Again and again and again.
And when silence finally fell she would cry in relief for them and wonder when she would be next.
Hermione grew used to the dark and the damp. She even started to develop a tolerance for the cold.
But she never grew used to the screams.
When she couldn't stand the sounds anymore she began to sing.
As a little girl, she would beg her mother to sing to her every night. She loved the feeling of being tucked tightly under her mother's arm, head resting on her chest.
There was no greater comfort in the world than being rocked to sleep in her childhood bed. Maybe it was the love Hermione held for her mother, but she swore Jeanine Granger's voice held magic greater than her own.
Now, with Hermione's wand taken and her magic trampled by cold and hunger, she clung to her mother's voice singing her to sleep.
We all live in a yellow submarine,
A yellow submarine,
A yellow submarine.
As a child, she had understood the concept of hell. Her parents would drag her to the church doors every Christmas for midnight mass, despite the fact she didn't believe in God.
Hell was a story to scare Man into following the will of the Church.
She always thought herself too clever to be scared of stories.
But as she sang herself hoarse, palms over ears, bottom and back blistering from rocking back and forth against stone, she realised Hell was not some metaphorical place below the earth.
It was an island on the North Sea.
Her weight had dropped dangerously.
The one meal she was granted was not enough to sustain all the energy her body was generating to try to keep her warm. The shivering had stopped weeks ago. Or was it days? She wasn't sure.
Her tattered uniform bottoms slung effortlessly off her protruding hip bones. And as she stepped out of them she noticed her knees and ankles jutted out sharply against the atrophied muscle in her legs.
Her numb fingers fumbled on the buttons of her shirt and she only made it halfway before pulling the whole thing over her head and discarding it on the floor.
Reaching the sink she grabbed her sodden rag and began her bathing routine. It felt like no matter how hard she scrubbed, a thin layer of grime always clung to her body. But she found peace in the movements. Meticulous tracing the lines along her body with frayed cotton.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Rinse. Ring.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
It was the only thing she could do for herself. The only thing that did anything to improve her situation. It made her feel human. Less like a filthy Mudblood, they thought her to be.
It was the one thing she could control.
She checked herself over in the mirror, ensuring she hadn't missed a spot. She didn't recognise the face peering back at her, she didn't think it was possible, but her reflection became more horrifying every time she gathered the courage to look. Hollowed cheekbones and sunken eyes. Rib cage and sternum jutting out of her chest. She could count every vertebra on her spine now.
Her eyes drifted to her forearm. She tried to avoid looking at it, but her eyes snapped to that spot on their own accord. The word MUDBLOOD stood out sharply. Its crude red lines are more prominent now against her sickly white skin, her natural olive tones long gone.
A sick reminder of her time on the drawing room floor in Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix's rank breath. Manic cackling. A blood-stained dagger.
She tore her eyes away and examined the rest of her body.
A faded scar on her left knee from a bike accident as a child.
A small burn on the inside of her wrist from a straightening iron she'd tried out over school break. It had been her first and only attempt at taming her hair before she learnt of the wonders of Sleekeazy's Hair Potion at the start of her fourth year.
Three pale scars dot her shoulder from the Weeping Willow, so faded now they are nearly invisible.
Dolohov left his mark under her left breast, the red raised skin splashing down her ribs. A reminder of her near death in fifth year at the Department of Mysteries.
All marks she can account for, every one of them accompanying a memory she can revisit.
Except for one.
Five digits were tattooed on the side of her neck. Two runes, representing 'female' and 'prisoner', followed by the numbers '331'. Utterly meaningless and yet forever etched into her skin. A new name was forced upon her, one to match her Mudblood scar.
One moment she had been Hermione Granger fighting in a war. The next; wandless, helpless, hopeless. Reduced to nothing but her blood status and a number.
There was a battle.
A stunning spell.
The sensation of falling.
Then waking up here in this cell. Dressed in Azkaban-issued clothing. Not one single thing she had in her possession with her. Not even her name.
Female Prisoner. 331.
She reached for her rag again and began cleaning the marks with a renewed frenzy.
No matter how many times she scrubbed, both remained.
In all her reading during her third year, she never came across any information regarding the structure of Azkaban.
She knew it to be located on an unknown island in the North Sea. An Unplottable fortress run by Dementors, designed to strip its prisoners of their happy memories, their minds and then their lives.
Sirius Black was the only prisoner in recorded history to ever escape unaided. And as she was not an Animagus, she couldn't shift and squeeze through the slat in her door the way Sirius had done.
She did know from her minute research that Azkaban cells were almost always composed of steel walls, with clear access for Dementors to feed on its inhabitants. Her prison walls were composed of jagged rock with only a small inaccessible window. Hermione concluded that she must be being held in a cell separated from the main body of the prison. Carved into the rock face on one side of the prison to offer some protection from the Dementors.
Other than their dark forms floating past her window, they had never once tried to claim their meal. As wardens of the prison for the past two centuries, they could easily come floating through her door. Yet the door had stayed shut the entire time she had been here. And until the Death Eaters had arrived, even her meal slot remained unmoved. It was clear that Lord Voldemort had instructed his shadowed pets to leave her be. As to why Hermione didn't know.
Other than herself and the footsteps that accompanied her next meal, there was no other movement surrounding her.
They had to come for her eventually she thought. When they did she would fight. If she could just get a hold of a wand, she could take out as many Death Eaters as she could. It didn't matter if she had no means of retreat. She would get to look them in the eye while she went down. It was the best death this place could offer her.
With a singular course of action, Hermione spent her time preparing. Time moved faster now that she had a purpose. She would stretch her frozen limbs before completing a circuit of push-ups, jumping jacks, lunges and sit-ups. Her weakened body stretched what should have been a twenty-minute workout into a two-hour affair. She would consume every drop of slop that spilled on her floor and fill the rest of her belly with water from the sink tap. It wouldn't be enough to restore her strength, but she needed every edge she could get.
Wandless magic proved impossible, she couldn't even conjure a whisper of magic. So she practised her wand movements with an empty hand. Controlling her shivering limbs and shaking hands took immense difficulty due to the cold. But she was nothing if not a quick learner. At night she would lay in her cot and whisper her goodbyes to her parents, Ron, Crookshanks, Neville, Luna, Ginny and the rest of the Weasley family and her classmates. Even though she knew they couldn't hear her, might not even be alive, it lulled her to sleep.
When Hermione could complete her circuit within an hour she decided she was ready. She told herself that she'd prepared as much as she could. Her strength was weakening day by day, she couldn't afford to waste any more time. It had to be now.
Hermione braced herself as she crouched against the steel cell door. Shoulder and ear kissing the metal, she listened for any indication of approaching footsteps.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Her knees were locked in, joints sealed and feet numb from the cold or the awkward position she couldn't tell.
When Hermione finally heard heavy footsteps her stomach dropped. Heart racing, she stood and positioned her body right beside the meal slate. The footsteps paused outside, blood rushed to her ears as she held her breath.
The slate opened and a black-gloved hand tentatively reached out, its wrist almost brushing her nose. Hermione stared wide-eyed, frozen in disbelief as the hand wandlessly deposited the cup down to the cell floor, not spilling a single drop.
In the face of a change in routine, albeit minuscule, Hermione felt herself waver. The cup was always thrown to the floor. Always. Why had this changed? Why now? Her hesitation lingered. A part of her knew she was clinging to this divergence as a reason to wait. Waiting one more day meant another day of living. Another day of holding on to the memories of those she loved.
But it also meant another day of cold and darkness and suffering. She was tired of feeling tired. And so, in the split second, before the hand passed back through the slate, she lunged.
Using all of her strength she snatched the hand back towards her, tugging it forward violently before biting down on the exposed forearm. The man on the other side of the door screamed. She bit down harder, through skin and flesh. Copper filled his mouth as she tore a chunk out of his arm and spat it to the side. It was only when she went in to bite again did she realise that she had bitten directly into his dark mark, gouging out the middle.
She latched her teeth into the same spot with renewed frenzy, hitting bone. The screams turned into animalistic roars and the arm flailed around desperately as she attacked. Pushing her body forward she wrenched the arm back towards the door, twisting it at an unnatural angle. A sickening crack rang out as the man attached to it screeched.
"STOP!" He begged as she bent his fingers back.
Then, just as she had hoped, his wand appeared through the slate, firing spells erratically. She dropped her assault on his arms and lunged for his other hand. Digging her nails into his knuckles she tried to tear his wand out of his vice-like grip.
"Stop! Let go!" He pleaded as they battled for his wand. She held fast between his two outstretched arms, one battered and broken, one unyielding.
Hermione was feral, like a rat chewing through its leg to escape its trap. But so was he.
The hand she was tugging suddenly went limp, causing her to lose her balance. It was all he needed. As she lost her grip, he thrust his arms back through the slate and out of reach.
"NO!" She roared, shoving her outstretched hand out to follow his, "No, no, no, no!"
She thrust her arm out through the slate, clawing at the air. She felt her hand brush his robes and she gripped them tightly, tugging them towards her.
"Open the door, you bastard!" She wept, tears streaming down her face, "Open the fucking door!"
She tugged harder, tearing fabric. She was so close.
So close so close so close.
"OPEN THE DOOR!" She wailed, sobbing uncontrollably.
Hermione collapsed against the door, all anger gutting out as her sobs wracked her body. Still gripping his robes through the slate, the figure on the other side stood frozen.
He remained motionless as her cries echoed around her cell. She couldn't bring herself to let go. This was supposed to be her final moments, her last fight. She couldn't bear the thought of continuing.
"Please" she murmured, "please just kill me."
The body attached to her grip stiffened.
"Granger?" He whispered.
Hermione paused, grip loosening. She heard his ragged breathing as a warm hand brushed hers.
"Hermione Granger, is that you?" He asked.The sound of her name tore her out of her grief.
Oh god. He knows. No. Oh no. What have I done?
"No" she replied, letting go of his robes and pulling her arm back into her cell, "Penelope Clearwater", she answered instinctively.
She crouched stiffly and held her breath.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
There was no movement behind the door but she knew he remained standing there, mulling over her poorly made lie.
This was a mistake.
Now he knew who was here, knew she was here. What she heard through the walls was nothing compared to what they would do to her. She was Harry Potter's best friend. She would be the example.
Her hopes of a quick death were dashed as she sat in a silent trial with the Death Eater behind the door. She didn't consider surviving the attack, she should've. It would be much worse now.
Reckless. Rash. Stupid.
She heard him swallow, shuffling his feet and grunting in pain. "I'll be back" he promised, his voice betraying nothing.
She stayed sitting as his footsteps echoed away.
She waited for the horrors she knew would come.
She waited for her slow death.
She waited.
But he did not return.
Hermione Granger was not a religious person. She was born of flesh and logic.
Silly things like fate, destiny and God were just things humans used as a way to bring meaning to their mundane lives, scapegoats they could use to justify their worst attributes, and weapons they could wield to hold power over others.
Her parents believed her outbursts of magic were some divine miracle. They were pragmatic people, but products of their upbringing. The gospel was passed down from their parents and their parents before them. But despite her parent's best efforts, God died with her.
The only time she had questioned her lack of faith was when she stepped out onto the cobblestone path of Diagon Alley and entered the Wizarding World for the first time. It felt like every moment in her life had been leading up to this one.
But as she learned quickly, magic had rules and laws and reasoning behind it. Something tangible that she could grasp and use to prove its existence. Magic, for the most part, always explained itself to Hermione.
God had yet to do so.
So as she waited for the end in a dark cell, mad with hunger and cold and despair, Hermione Jean Granger began to pray.
She prayed to magic.