Apologies for the lateness. This chapter is sitting at over 17 000 words, despite multiple rounds of editing, which is why it was so difficult for me to get done quickly. I do hope the length compensates for my tardiness.
Please note that this chapter involves the depiction of slavery. There are mentions of beatings, but nothing too graphic or detailed. I hope to have been successful in avoiding this looking like slavery-p/rn. That year of Hermione's life is a core component of the plot, and I've done my best to deal with the subject in a sensitive manner.
CHAPTER 8. THE SHACKLES IN THE DUNGEON
August 15th, 1601
The magical brigade had forced Hermione into a dark room. There were no windows or lamps; not a sound could be heard, except for her own heartbeat. She inhaled deeply and tried not to panic. Her wand had been taken from her, she was the only one left, and there was nothing to hope for anymore.
She would die.
They would call the Terror on her and have her killed.
She could not fathom any other outcome to her predicament.
All there was left to do was sit and wait.
And thus, it was what she did. She sat in a corner, her legs crossed, and her hair tied up. She rested her back against the wall and tried to breathe, to steady herself.
She wondered for a moment if she could possibly kill herself. She had the ribbon keeping her hair tied up, and Orpheus' string still deep in her pocket, where she kept it at all times since first finding it, dissimulated in the fabric of her dress. It was pure chance that it pertained more to legend for most wizards—even if it had been found, no one would have given it a second thought. It would have been deemed a simple piece of rope, and that would have been the end of it.
It was still better for it to be with her. She wondered if its length would be sufficient for her to hang herself, but she soon came to realise that, without anything to attach it to above her, the quest seemed ill-advised and fated to fail. She placed her hand around her throat, but could not will it to harm her. Her body was tricking her into survival.
Sighing, Hermione closed in on herself, resting her head on her knees. Death would come to her either way, though she would rather have it be done by her than by Gaunt's creature. A public death, ordered by him and his men was bound to stifle the flame of resistance that was still spread across the kingdom—and that flame was too weak to survive it. A death at the hands of the Terror meant a long-lasting humiliation, the destruction of her name, her legacy. She would rather die quietly, in a dark room, and let them suffer the consequences of this gesture. But her body refused to cooperate—and her mind did not have the tools to overpower it.
She rubbed her forehead on the ripped fabric of her dress, relishing in the idea of feeling something—anything. She was still struck by the sudden violence of what she had witnessed, back at the house. The memory of the flames licking the walls, eating at everything they had built, nurtured and cared for made her sick. But the shock was still too big for her to react to it—she was numb, dazed. There was nothing left for her to care for. She even missed her anger-fuelled fights with Ron and Harry. She would have happily given up all she stood for if it meant keeping them alive and safe. If she had, she would have died with them. She wouldn't be alone in the corner of a prison, waiting for her sentence to be executed.
Soon, the lack of light and sound lulled her to sleep. She had no idea how much time had passed when she woke up—it could have been minutes, hours, even days. The absence of light was unchanging.
Maybe they had forgotten her.
Maybe they had no idea who she was—maybe they had simply found her there, watching the house burn, and thought to take her away for good measure. Locked her up and forgot about her. Maybe she would die of starvation, or sadness—whichever came first.
It pained her to admit that the thought was comforting. Everything she had done, everything she had worked for—just to die alone and forgotten, locked away, with no one to ever utter her name anymore. Maybe she would forget it too—forget herself, her sins and her desires, her fighting instinct, her thirst for justice.
It seemed like too peaceful a conclusion for the life she had led. No, there was suffering ahead—of what nature, she could not guess yet. But she could feel it crawling her way, itching to slip through the door and invade her.
For now, all she could do was wait. And wait she did. She lay down on the cold, hard floor and counted sheep. Rolled to one side and recited arithmancy formula. Raised her legs, pressed them against the nearest wall, and declaimed poetry in mermish. Did some sit-ups and spouted random spells, her wandless hand performing the accompanying gestures. Got up and walked around the room, her fingers tracing the walls, trying to guess how much space she had. Not much, it seemed, but enough that she could stretch her legs and move about unencumbered.
She was midway through a thorough recital of Shakespeare's Richard III when the door flung open, letting an array of light flood the room. Hermione shielded her eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, and thus could not make out who was walking in.
"Hermione Granger," a voice called out to her. "You have been summoned."
The man walked towards her and shackled her hands with a swish of his wand. Hermione barely registered what was happening to her and followed her warden out of the room. The corridors, still too bright for her light-deprived eyes, were bare. She kept her head down, eyes glued to the floor, a budding migraine blossoming in her head. The noise, the light—it was all too much, too sudden. The only thing she understood was that they knew who she was—thus, the end was near.
They walked for about ten minutes before stopping abruptly. They had reached a large gateway—behind it, ahead of the man, was a room. It was small, draped in cardinal red curtains, with only a few chairs in it.
"I have the Mudblood with me," stated her warden.
"Thank you. You can leave." Hermione couldn't see who spoke. The voice was unrecognisable to her.
The guard did as he was told.
"Step forward, Mudblood." Hermione felt compelled to obey, though she wasn't sure why. The agonising shock, the loneliness in the cell, the thirst, the hunger, the despair. Perhaps she had nothing left in her to fight.
So she walked.
The door closed behind her. She kept walking, until she could make out the figure sitting ahead of her—he had his back turned to her. She didn't recognise the hair, nor the arms.
"Sit."
She did, choosing the chair farthest from him. From there, she could see the side of his face—a long, crooked nose, a small, beaded eye, grey, or perhaps blue, thick sweaty skin, a forehead longer than Hogwarts: a History was thick, and thin, papery lips. He vaguely reminded her of Ulric Hemsforth, Chief Warlock.
He turned to face her.
"Hermione Granger, the Mudblood." He licked his lips. A predator faced with his prey.
"I would have hoped to see you dead. It seems you had the idea to run off, which I cannot say I'm happy with. But new circumstances bring me new ideas, and your lack of death might be the right opportunity for me." The words poured out on her like boiling water, burning her skin and making her spine ache. "You are being accused of two crimes. Stealing magic, for one, and treason, for another. I have decided to sentence you to slavery, for as long as you shall live."
Slavery?
Hermione's head buzzed with doubt, her lips paper dry with thirst and shock, her brows furrowed.
"We have found a family willing to take you on as their slave. You are familiar with them, I believe, as their son went to Hogwarts with you." The corners of his lips twisted in apparent disgust. "An error that we are hoping to avoid in the future." He waved his statement off, like she was a simple glitch in an otherwise well-oiled machine. "You are headed to the Goyle Manor in one hour." He straightened his back and Hermione wanted to protest—only to realise she had no voice to speak with.
Hemsforth laughed—a hearty laugh, filled with malice and cruelty. "No need to try. All Mudblood slaves are rendered silent—we would not want you to inconvenience your masters, after all." Hermione swallowed—this seemed a fate worse than death. She hadn't even envisioned it as a possibility—not that she was unaware of the existence of Mudblood slaves. She simply assumed they would want her killed as quickly as possible—why they were extending her lease on life was a mystery she could not even begin to comprehend.
"Well, off you go, Mudblood. I'm worried you'll infect me," he croaked. "The guards at the door will take you back to your cell while you wait."
Hermione got up and dragged her feet to the door silently, still too shocked to understand what was happening to her. She pushed the door open with her shoulder and was met with two guards. They each grabbed one of her arms and dragged her back to her room. The skin on her feet was burning with the pain of the rough stone tiles rubbing along, and she soon felt warm blood trickling beneath her and seeping into the cement joining the tiles together. One of the guards seemed to notice this—he shoved her ahead and she stumbled, falling at her feet.
"What are you thinking, letting your poisoned blood leak on the pristine floor of the Ministry?" he shouted in disgust.
Hermione opened her mouth, but no sound came out of it.
The guard spat on her. "Mudblood vermin." He vanished the blood away and retreated away from her.
"You take her back to her cell. You're half vermin anyway, you're not at risk," he scoffed at the other guard, turning his back on them and walking away.
She noticed that there was no protest. The other man, the Half-Blood, simply pulled out his wand and levitated Hermione. She floated all the way back to her cell—there, he let her down gently. He was about to close the door when he paused and turned to face her, his eyes turned away.
"My mother was Muggleborn. She was enslaved and tortured to death. I hope there's a better fate awaiting you," he breathed out in a whisper, careful not to be overheard. "Many of us still believe in you. Maybe… maybe the fight isn't dead yet." He turned away and shut the door—Hermione sunk back in the dark and sobbed.
October 29th, 1601
Richard Goyle was a cruel man. His imposing stature, glacial eyes and rough hands spoke to his character—pity was not part of his vocabulary. On her first day, he had slapped her for being three seconds late in bringing him his meal. By the end of her first week, she was covered in bruises and marks. Richard Goyle liked to use his hands to beat the servants—he never used his wand. It seemed touching the skin of a Mudblood did not repulse him, and Hermione could not tell if this was a blessing. Magic, Dark Magic especially, could inflict wounds much graver than simple beatings—but being broken with hands, being deprived of her humanity and dignity by the touch of another was othering. It was an intimate violence, one that coursed through her veins long after the actual blows. The pain never relented—it dulled a little, only to be reignited at the next outburst.
Hermione was at least thankful that the Goyle son was nowhere to be seen—she was not sure she could withstand the violence of the son in addition to that of the father's. Gregory Goyle had learned the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, when Snape had been headmaster—and she knew for a fact that he was quite the virtuoso in the matter. He would not have resisted the urge to break her down with an onslaught of Crucio's. As far as relief went, it was so minuscule it barely counted as such—but it was something. She had nothing. She had to hold on to the crumbs God sent her way, if he even listened.
She did not believe in Him anymore, so perhaps not.
That morning, Hermione was once again brutally awakened by Agnes, who rang a bell beside her ear and removed her shackles. As the only Mudblood, and the only slave, Hermione slept alone in the dungeons, shackled to the wall, with both wrists and ankles bound. The others slept in the serving quarters—most were the bastard children of previous servant women, themselves Muggleborn but not enslaved at the time of their service. Hermione suspected Richard Goyle had fathered most of them—they resembled each other: long aquiline noses and light green eyes. She even confused one for Gregory, once, until she noticed how he was dressed. Agnes, on the other hand, seemed to have been fathered by another Pureblood, and this was why Hermione suspected she was in charge of waking her up in the morning and shackling her at night. She had light blonde, nearly white, hair and Hermione often wondered if Lucius Malfoy had anything to do with her parentage.
She rose from the dusty floor on which she slept and winced as her sore muscles stretched and moved. Despite having slept there for nearly three months, her body protested every morning—her nights were usually short, only beginning once she fainted of exhaustion.
She followed Agnes to the kitchens and quickly ate her morning oatmeal alongside the others. Aside from sleeping in the dungeons, she was treated much the same—assigned similar chores, beaten with equal fervour when her work was not up to Goyle's standards, fed the same bland oatmeal twice a day. It seemed her existence had been erased from the record—she was no longer Hermione Granger, member of the Order of the Phoenix, enemy to the powers that be. She was just another Mudblood serving girl, too dirty to sleep with the Half-Bloods, but not of any relevance aside from that. If she worked hard enough, finishing in a timely manner, and created no disturbance, she was usually forgotten. No beatings, no insults. From this came a strange sense of peace, one Hermione was uncomfortable in acknowledging.
But she was shackled and voiceless, entrapped in the manor for her remaining days. She could not ignore it—that peace had a steep price, and she resented her sense of injustice for impeding her from feeling it to its fullest extent.
Maybe her wish had been granted after all. She was forgetting herself.
The morning chatter in the kitchens buzzed around her, and she listened intently. Rendered voiceless, mute, she felt she had no choice in the matter. This was her only access to communication—listening, understanding, taking in.
"'eard tha' the Goyle boy is comin' home soon," uttered Agnes by her side.
Hermione opened her eyes and focused in on the conversation happening beside her.
"Why's that? He's neve' he'e!" complained Peter, from the corner of the large table.
Agnes shrugged. "Some affairs for Gaun', I s'pect!" shouted Joan from the other side.
Peter grunted but did not reply. Hermione stared down at her oatmeal, nauseated. She pushed her bowl away, unable to stomach anymore after learning this.
"Ar'n' ya gonna finish?" exclaimed Agnes.
Hermione shook her head and pushed the bowl towards her neighbour, who happily crammed down what remained, letting out a resonating burp once she was done.
Beatrice, the governess of the Goyle household, walked in and clapped her hands. "Time to get to work! Your chores have been inked," she commanded.
Hermione looked down at her right wrist. Every morning, a list of chores appeared, inked in her skin. With every one she accomplished, a strike would run through the word—if she was too fast, another chore was added. She had learned to be careful with efficiency—enough to avoid the beatings, but not so much that she was burdened with more work. She noticed "cleaning the master bathroom" was listed first and she scrunched up her nose in disgust. Reluctantly, she got up from her stool and walked out of the kitchen, heading up the stairs.
She was never supervised when she worked—being mute and wandless was deemed enough protection from her, and the others seemed displeased to ever be seen near her. Meals were the only time she had company, as there was no space for her to be excluded. She noticed there was usually more distance between her and the others than there was between the rest of them, but she hardly found it displeasing. She was close enough to listen in, but no so close that she suffocated. Agnes always sat by her side—not that she had any choice in the matter, seeing as her duty to wake Hermione up forced her to be the last to join the kitchen.
As per usual, the master bathroom was coated in a grimy, musky smell. Chamber pots, used by the Goyles during the previous night and day, were placed in a corner. It wasn't that the manor was not equipped to handle this waste—plumbing was a feature in most ancient wizarding homes, just as it was at Hogwarts. This was a power tactic—forcing the servants to deal with their waste. It was degrading, inhumane—as it was intended to be.
Hermione opened a window to let the fresh autumn air in. She walked over to the corner and picked one of the chamber pots up, holding her breath to avoid as many of the fumes as she could. She left the bathroom and rushed down to the gardens, where the excrements were turned into fertiliser by the gardener. He patiently waited every morning for the servant on bathroom duty to bring him his daily batch. Hermione waved with one hand to greet him and extended her other arm, holding the pot by the tips of her fingers.
"Thank you, sweetheart." He was the only one who showed her any grace. He did not seem to care that she was Muggleborn—it was refreshing.
She made another trip to bring him the second one and smiled brightly at him before returning to the bathroom. There, she scraped and scrubbed both pots, the bathtubs, sinks and floors. She finished right on time and finally let herself breathe fully, relishing in the fresh air brought by the open window. Her knees were scraped from kneeling on the hard floors every day and she felt the familiar pang of soreness once she got up. The chore was then promptly scratched from her wrist, a large black line inked over it, and she moved on to the next one—tending to the gardening tools.
She smiled—this one had to be her favourite. John, the gardener, would always talk to her while she did it—he spoke enough for the two of them, stories flowing out his mouth like waterfalls, always fresh and heavy with details. She enjoyed listening—it brought her solace for the two or so hours she spent there. It was her only real moment of companionship.
That morning, he told her about his wife, who passed in the early days of Voldemort's reign, before Hermione was even born.
"That woman could whip up any meal asked of her, I tell ya kid, it was like she had magic in those hands of hers!" John was a Squib—had he not been a miracle worker with plants, Hermione suspected he would not even be here. He often acted like magic was a thing of legend, only rarely catching himself on the few occasions he realised his wording was that of a Muggle. Hermione could sense he had spent much of his life living amongst Muggles, and it made her feel closer to him. "She could even make good ole Sir Goyle nice! One night, oh, I assure ya, it was such a feast. Christmas dinner, 1575. A sucklin' pig, so juicy and tender, glazed for the gods! It made Sir Goyle weep. He wept, kid! Thanked her an' cried like a lil' baby. He didn' beat no one for an entire week, it was pure madness, I couldn' believe it." He replanted a flower, heaving from both the effort and the force he had put in his words. He spoke in a constant stream of consciousness, never quite pausing to think through his words. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and huffed and puffed. Hermione set down the pick she had been scrubbing and kneeled beside him, pushing the soil towards the repotted plant. "Thanks kid," he mumbled, sitting down on the grass to catch his breath. "Better hurry, though, I think yer time's runnin' out!"
He was right. The chore was glowing red on her wrist, indicating she had less than a few minutes to finish. She grabbed the last shovel and scrubbed it forcefully. There was a spot of dirt that wouldn't leave—it was encrusted, etched into the wooden handle. She roughly pushed the rag against it, the friction rubbing her skin raw, but it wouldn't give.
And just like that, time was up. The chore remained red on her wrist—worse, it had no line running through it. It was deemed incomplete.
She could try and finish, but she only had a few minutes to reach the kitchen and help prepare lunch—she could either have one incomplete, or two late tasks. Either way, she was getting a beating that night—there was no way around it.
"I'm sorry, kid," mumbled John. "It's all my fault."
Hermione wanted to protest—of course, she could not. She simply shook her head, handed John the shovel and ran back to the manor, tears flowing down her cheeks. That spot of dirt was not natural—she felt it in her bones. Someone had messed with the tools to get her punished. Someone who had access to a wand.
She arrived in the kitchen right on time, her lungs burning from the effort. She wiped away her tears, straightened her back, and joined the others. Lunch was never a chore one did alone—there was always the chef, and three servants to help him. On special occasions, that number doubled.
Amidst the steam from the boiling pots, Hermione noticed three people working in the kitchen—which meant today was business as usual. She found comfort in that—an error on a special day would have ensured she would return to the dungeons bloody-lipped and fractured. Perhaps she wasn't being sabotaged after all.
As she began chopping the vegetables for the soup, she tried to understand the dynamics at play, to separate what was plausible from what was sheer conspiracy. She had been treated much the same as the others since arriving—sleeping in the dungeons seemed too kind a punishment for Hermione Granger, senior member of the Order of the Phoenix and well-known Mudblood. She had spent a little over two months in the comfort of her routine, thinking she was safe from retribution, safe from the violence that seemed to follow her everywhere. This peace had to be a lie. It was time for her reckoning. It was time for her to pay the price of her birth to its full extent—had she been some random Mudblood, maybe she could have avoided it altogether… but even then, she could not be sure. The only question that remained was: who?
Perhaps one of her peers… Half-Blood servants were an altogether different species from Pureblood aristocrats, or even Pureblood peasants, for that matter. Their hate for Muggleborns was deeply ingrained in their sense of self—they did not hate others, they hated part of themselves, because that part ensured they could never lead lives of power and strength. Those Half-Bloods who made it amongst the Purebloods came from powerful families, where the Muggleborn parent was recognised through marriage, upheld as spouse, birthing legitimate children, not bastards. Even then, those children were rare—Harry was the exception to a generally well-respected rule. Son of an aristocrat Pureblood and a martyr Mudblood, sole survivor to the Killing Curse, chosen by a prophecy. He might as well have been a Pureblood. If Voldemort had never existed, he would have been adored by all and granted the position of Minister for Magic with a snap of his fingers.
Hermione tossed the freshly chopped carrots in the boiling water and placed a wooden spoon in the pot, gently stirring the vegetables. The flavour made her mouth water, and she suddenly regretted giving the rest of her breakfast to Agnes. She would starve until dinner—or breakfast, if the beating lasted long, which she guessed it would. Ensuring that no one was looking her way, she scooped up a piece of carrot and shoved it in her mouth, swallowing it without chewing. It burned her tongue, clogged her throat and she feared it would choke her. Turning away from the others, she hit herself in the face until she felt it give. Panting, she tried to straighten herself up and act like nothing had happened. There was a definite perk to being the only Mudblood in the household—no one paid her any attention. It seemed her small act of rebellion had gone unnoticed, and she returned to stirring the vegetables.
"You there." The chef never took the trouble to name her—even calling her "Mudblood" seemed like an effort he could not be bothered with.
Hermione turned to face him, red in the face from the hot steam—and perhaps from fear of being caught.
"Go check the cold chamber, I need some mutton chops," he ordered her.
She nodded and scampered away to the back of the kitchen. Her fingers were trailing the shelves looking for the meat when she heard the door close.
She was locked in.
Hermione breathed in. There had to be a simple explanation for this—perhaps they had cracked open a window to let the steam out and the fresh autumn wind had simply sent the door closing. It was only an accident—she would retrieve the mutton chops and let herself out. It had to open from the inside—it simply had to.
Forcing herself to remain steady, she rummaged through the shelves until she found the chops and made her way out.
The door wouldn't open.
She pushed and pounded on the door, trying to feel it give, but it remained shut. It did not move, try as she might. Panic began to work through Hermione's mind—the cogs of her mind went rolling, pumping out scenarios upon scenarios of consequences, of reasons for this to happen, of culprits responsible for this. Sickness was a given—the cold chamber was built into heavy stone walls, creating an isolated cave that was always cool. Cool enough in the summer to preserve meat for a few days—cold enough in the winter that staying there for too long might kill her. That alone was terrifying—but she also knew there was a permanent charm locking in the temperature, ensuring the food could be kept for longer than a few days.
It then dawned on her that this was not meant to last long enough for her to die. It was meant to run out the clock on her duties. Worse, being caught in the cold chamber would have her misconstrued as a thief—what other explanation could there possibly be for her to be there outside the realm of her kitchen duties? No one would believe the Mudblood crying sabotage, even if that Mudblood could talk. Which she couldn't. She couldn't cry out for help.
Hermione decided she could not remain paralysed in fear. Waiting out her punishment was only going to worsen every single aspect of her life at the manor. Dropping the chops on the floor, she rummaged through the shelves, hoping to find any metal item she could get her hands on—there had to be something stored somewhere. Her hands picked up and displaced any and everything she could find—the lack of light forced her to rely on her sense of touch. She suddenly felt a hard cold tip pierce through the skin of her palm. Warm blood trickled down her hand, but she paid it no mind and simply pulled out the object. Feeling it with the tips of her fingers, she realised it was likely to be a chimney servant.
She walked back to the door and began banging with all the strength she could muster. The resonance of the metal chimney servant against the thick iron door sent reverberations across the room, the loud clang filling her ears until it drowned out her thoughts.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The door flew open. Peter was standing in front of her.
"Dumb Mudblood," he muttered. "You locked yourself in?"
Hermione nodded. It was best to follow the script handed to her—it assured her the most leniency in the long run.
"Get out," he simply sighed, stepping away to let her through.
Hermione hurriedly grabbed the mutton chops and handed him the chimney servant before rushing back into the kitchen. The cooking chore was blinking red on her wrist—she handed the paper-wrapped meat to the chef and nearly sighed in relief. The chore was now black, a thick line running through it.
She spent the rest of the day carefully eyeing everyone coming across her, trying to weed out the suspects from the others. It was a fruitless effort—no one paid her any attention. She was the Mudblood—a slave of little concern, here to do household chores all day long, another cog in the well-oiled machine that was the manor. Everything had been tailored to have her avoid interacting with anyone. The spell inking her chores in her wrist made her efficient, the warning red always keeping her on track, the struck-through duties letting her know that she was done, the muting spell effectively keeping her in check. There was no reason to want her sabotaged—unless one wanted her killed.
Still, it surprised her that she was still alive, nearly three months after her arrival at Goyle Manor. Every night, as she waited for sleep to find her, she wondered why they hadn't handed her to the Terror yet. It seemed like poor-decision making to simply have her be another faceless nameless slave—there was political gain to be had from declaring her as yet another victim to the Terror. But Hermione knew better than to think they had forgotten about her—having her here was strategized, a plan hatched from the higher minds of the Ministry. It served a purpose—and to not be able to figure out what that purpose was filled her with a constant dread, weighing down on her heavily. She would never make peace with being a slave—but it was harder on her to exist in the limbs of uncertainty, not understanding the choices that had been made for her. If she had been yet another slave whose identity had been snatched and trampled on, she would have fought to escape.
Knowing there was a worse fate out there for her left her with a fear etched so deep within her that it forced her to obey. To be subservient and accepting of her situation. She could not say there was no dilemma tearing her apart—she was Hermione Granger, after all, and the fighter deep in the pit of her stomach was not gone, only dormant—but she had decided to take a page out of Ron's playbook and let strategy make uncomfortable, difficult choices for her.
The problem now, of course, was that she had become the victim of a malevolent presence. Someone in the manor wanted her dead, by any and all means possible.
Which meant there was no use in being a subservient slave anymore. That well had run dry—she needed to leave.
December 24th, 1601
Christmas Eve. Gregory Goyle was returning to the manor that evening. Every servant had been spread thin for the past week—decorating the walls and multitudes of rooms, preparing extravagant meals, cleaning the unused wings until they were spotless, polishing the silverware, tending to the gardens, shovelling the snow out of the pathways. Hermione fell asleep every night as soon as the shackles were tied around her wrists and ankles—she had nothing left in her to plan her escape.
Not that it mattered. She had first assumed that escaping would be possible, at the very least, due to the general lack of oversight she experienced. One morning, while working on the garden with John, she had offered to go get some wood in the nearby forest. She had gestured senselessly for a full minute, pointing to his aching knees as the reason for her offer.
He had simply laughed. "You can't just leave like tha', kid." He had pointed to the tall iron gates just border of the forest. "See those? Tha' lil' charm on yer wrist is imbued wit' a location spell. You can't never go near those gates, or they'll be on ya like Dementors on an Azkaban prisoner!" His guttural laugh had unsettled her—like it was a neat little trick, a handy piece of magic, and not a horrifying curse.
She had never come to know who they could possibly be—she hardly believed Richard Goyle would bother himself with keeping servants in check. He enjoyed beating them for the pleasure it brought him—keeping track of their location hardly seemed like it would be any of his concern. The punishment that followed was the only thing of interest to him.
There were no guards in the manor, either. Hermione had to assume some of the more highly ranked servants were tasked with keeping track of them. Perhaps Beatrice, the governess, or Walter, the maître d'hôtel.
She had gathered that she needed a wand if she wanted to leave. There was no shortage of wands in the manor—some of the Half-Blood servants had them, all the members of the Goyle family had them too, as well as the odd visitor who showed up for a dinner or a late lunch. Stealing the wands held by those she worked with was the easiest path—but a fruitless endeavour. Those wands were restricted to household spells—none of them could perform the kind of magic she needed to escape. All that remained was stealing from the Goyles themselves—a near-impossible task. For one thing, she was not around them enough—she was never on serving duty at dinner, and she'd had no incidents happen since October that would warrant a beating by Richard Goyle. It wasn't that the saboteur had stopped trying—it was more so that she had become more adept at untying his plans at their root, which she now found to be at her detriment. There was still the possibility for her to wilfully sabotage herself, either by leaving chores incomplete or by being too slow to do them. Or by letting the saboteur do his job. It was not an unreasonable solution—but Hermione could not find it in her to harm herself in such a twisted way. Every knot that came her way was wistfully untied by her calloused hands—she felt, sometimes, that it happened against her will.
When she had learned Gregory Goyle was coming home for Christmas, she decided to bide her time. He was skilled at Dark Magic, but he was still daft as ever—she could steal his wand. She hadn't planned how; she simply knew it had to be done.
He would need no excuse to punish her. She would let him find her and hurt her. This was as far as she had gotten, and though she could feel it was flimsy in the best of circumstances, the exhaustion did not let her plan any further than this.
Her ill-conceived plan was thwarted just as the afternoon came to a close. As Hermione was scrubbing the dining room floor for what felt like the thousandth time, Richard Goyle entered and locked the door behind him. Every fear Hermione had drummed up since her arrival bubbled up to the surface and seeped through her thoughts.
"Mudblood." He walked over to her. "Get up."
She obeyed. Her hands were shaking in terror—this was not the sign of a beating. It was the sign of something else, something much darker, something that had blossomed in the depths of her guts on her every first day upon arriving at the manor.
He pulled out his wand and pointed it at her face.
What he did next shocked her—it was the last thing she had expected.
He uttered a litany of glamour charms, each one more complex than the one that preceded, his eyes never leaving hers, his mouth in a constant movement, a series of whispers. His wand spat shots of colour at her—burgundy, ivory, indigo, violet.
"That should do it," he declared after the last spell, letting his wand arm drop by his side.
If there had been any perfect time to steal a wand, it would have been this one. He was too busy examining every inch of her face to see her as a threat—but, of course, she was too paralysed in shock to act on it. She waited there, the roots of her limbs weaving themselves in the floor, like she was a statue built on the grounds.
Richard Goyle, seemingly happy with his work, suddenly slapped her. "Back to work, Mudblood."
He turned away from her and walked out of the room. Hermione rushed to the closest mirror and inspected her face—her hair was blonde and, oddly, curlier, almost frizzy; her eyes were no longer chestnut—they were emerald; her lips were thinner, her nose straighter, more imposing; her forehead had been extended by half and inch and her cheeks were fuller, mimicking those of a well-fed child. She brought her hands to her skin and traced the lines of her new face, seeking meaning in the changes. Goyle had done everything in his power to make her unrecognisable to Gregory—the only visitor who would be joining this evening. Everyone else living here at seen her at least once.
Her plan had been snatched from her—Gregory was not going to seek her out to punish her—he would not be able to recognise her. The only other way for her to be close to him would be to—
Hermione shook her head. This went far beyond strategizing. She knew she would never be able to do it.
She noticed the chore on her wrist was blinking red. Wasting no time, she rushed to the floor and finished her scrubbing, getting that last speck of dirt out of the pinewood floors. She would need to figure something else out during dinner—it was her last chance to come up with a plan, no matter how flimsy or poorly thought-out.
Packing away her tools in her bucket, Hermione headed towards the kitchen.
She was forced to a halt by Beatrice.
"You'll be having your dinner alone, in the dungeons," commanded the governess. She grabbed the bucket from Hermione's hand. "Oh, and, before I forget…" She pointed her wand to Hermione's wrist, and another chore appeared.
Serving dinner
"The others have the evening off. You will be in charge of serving dinner and cleaning the dishes after. I expect the kitchen to be spotless after you're done."
Hermione winced. Even after spending a gruelling week, just as tiresome and tedious for her as it had been for the others, she was reminded that she was in a category of her own. The Mudblood slave. Sleeping in the dungeons, and spending Christmas eve serving those who enslaved her.
She sulked back to the dungeons and waited for her portion of oatmeal. It was delivered to her by Beatrice, who made sure to set it several feet away from her, so as not to be contaminated by her dirty blood. Hermione crawled in hunger to retrieve it. When she was finally able to take her first bite, she noticed it tasted distinctively of sugar and milk—a welcome change. The thick sweetness of the meal coated her mouth in an explosion of flavour she hadn't been able to taste since her days at Hogwarts. She gulfed down her portion in a couple of seconds and licked the bowl clean, soon regretting eating this fast. She downed her glass of water to quench the burn of thirst in her throat.
She set it down next to her empty dishes and closed her eyes, hoping to figure out another escape plan. She would be alone with the Goyles in the dining room—this meant three wand-bearing dark wizards against a wandless her. It was a losing bet, no matter which way she looked at it.
She tried to find a more creative angle—perhaps if she retrieved a knife from the kitchen and hid it beneath her robes, she could threaten their son's life and force them to surrender—it could work in the very short run, but it did not ensure that she made it out alive of the manor. It was even a sure-fire way to ensure the Terror waited for her right out of the gates.
Soon, Hermione ran out of time. She walked out of the dungeons and into the kitchen, where a flurry of expertly cooked dishes in gold plates awaited her. Sighing, she grabbed the first plates ahead of her—the soup, for starters. She walked them over to the dining room, trying not to wince when she finally spotted Gregory Goyle sitting opposite his father. She set down the bowls in front of them and walked back to the door, where she waited for them to finish. Soon, the slurps of the soup being swallowed and the clinks of the spoons against the porcelain lulled her into an uncharacteristic comfort. The warm chimney fire was enveloping her into a warmth she had lost the habit of knowing.
Hermione stifled a groan, the sensation warped by the pain in her tired legs. She patiently waited for the soup bowls to be empty, scooped them up once they were and walked back to the kitchen. As she settled down the bowls, she was struck with an idea. Perhaps…
She quickly rummaged through the pantry—she knew she had seen some the last time she was on kitchen duty. She found them just as her wrist began flashing red—dried poppy petals. She carefully picked some out but found herself unable to grind them with the mortar and pestle. They lay there, untouched. Once again, Hermione could not explain this lethargy that overcame her, this inability to conceive plans, worse even—to enact them. Seeing the clock run out on her, she randomly shoved the poppy petals in the pantry, quickly gathered the plates, and brought them to the dining room, where she gently laid them down in front of the Goyles. She watched as they began eating and found herself salivating after their meals, so much so she could not pay any attention to what they were saying.
Until she heard a familiar name being spit out.
"Gaunt is sending me on new missions," began Gregory Goyle. He paused to chew on his food and, after swallowing, began to talk again. "In fact, he has said that I would be able to track down the last remaining member of the Order of the Phoenix."
Hermione opened her mouth in shock, unsure of what she had just heard. She waited for the blow to come, for her name to spill out of his mouth, for him to say that there was a manhunt about to go down for her.
"Kingsley Shacklebot." The name had been dropped like a hot potato out of a burning hand. Hermione wasn't sure what she had heard. Kingsley was dead. Kingsley had died. Kingsley was never coming back, and he was certainly not the last member of the Order of the Phoenix. She was. She was the only one who was still here. The only one who was still alive. Richard Goyal simply nodded as his son explained where he was trying to look for Kingsley. At no point did he attempt to interrupt his son, to correct the trajectory that he was on. In fact, it seemed like he was pleased in learning that Gregory, his only son, was being misdirected by their leader.
Hermione could only wonder why, because it made no sense. Unless it was the very reason she had been made to look like another. If Gregory had been led to believe that Hermione was dead, then it was logical that she had to be hidden in the home where he lived. She wondered for a moment to what extent Richard Goyle was acquainted with Augustus Gaunt. He was senior enough that he was harbouring her and aware that her life had be kept secret, her name murmured only in hushed tones in dark corners of the mansion.
This raised another question. If Richard Goyle was the only one to be aware of the secret of her existence, that meant none of the servants knew who she truly was. After all, no one here knew what she really looked like. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people had met with her, chatted with her, but none of them worked in the manor. It made sense that they would also have been led to believe that she had died. It was, in fact, the most intelligent idea that Augustus Gaunt could possibly have had, because it meant that, with her, died the spirit of the revolution.
She stifled a grunt of frustration—this was all speculation. If she was wrong, she could land herself in a sea of troubles.
As Hermione divulged further in the implications of her theory, Richard Goyle spoke up.
"I would not waste my time on this, son. The Order of the Phoenix is as good as dead." He shot Hermione a strange look and she stiffened, highly aware of the smug satisfaction at the corner of his lips.
"Which brings me to… do you remember the Granger Mudblood?" he asked Gregory.
"That little pest, I sure do. Always around Potter." He spat Harry's name like it was poison.
"Some say she was powerful." Richard Goyle was chewing his pork and tried to appear dismissive. "Do you know if these claims hold up?"
"Who cares?" shrugged his son. "She's dead, isn't she?"
Richard Goyle exploded in roaring laugh, bits of his pork flying out of his mouth. "She sure is, son. And if she weren't, it would only be a matter of time, anyway."
Hermione understood this for the threat it was intended as. She straightened her spine and leaned against the door for support, feeling her legs weaken. She now understood why Gregory had not been shushed by his parents—this was an attempt to keep her aware of the ledge she was standing on, to remind her that Richard Goyle had not forgotten who she was behind the disguise of the subservient Mudblood. However difficult this was for her to digest, it was useful to her endeavours. It seemed she was, for all intents and purposes, dead.
It was only then that she realised for the first time she had never, not once, since her arrival at the manor, been called by her name.
No one knew her to be alive, save for a few selected members of Gaunt's government.
Being placed here was not something that had been done at random—there was an express intent, a plan unfolding in the background, something she had always felt deep in her guts but had been hesitant to accept, perhaps out of fear.
There was no denying it anymore. The plank was not far off—perhaps she would walk it tomorrow, or in a few months, or in a few years. There was no telling how long they were planning on keeping her shackled here, forced to do the bidding of her worst enemies. They were perhaps waiting to break her down until she had nothing left in her to fight, until she was easy prey for whatever mechanisms they had conceived for her death.
Hermione's legs wobbled as she gathered the plates of the main course and walked them back to the kitchen. She picked up the Christmas pudding with shaking hands and prayed to whatever deity may exist out there that she wouldn't drop the dish.
She made it to the dining room unscathed.
She found her spirit wandering off during the end of the dinner, not paying attention to her surroundings. There was the physical exhaustion, the constant churning of the wheels and the cogs, and then, there was this—this looming sense of dread spreading through her nerves, working its way through her skin, through the layers of her organs, making her heart ache and convulse.
Her mind shifted to another realm, to another time. She was back at the Order of the Phoenix, in the early days, sitting in the War Room alongside Harry, Ron, Ginny, George and Kingsley. Plans were laid out on the table, jugs of wine spread amongst them as they prepared their first real attack—they had heard of a village being taken over, with the homes being used as a space to detain Muggleborns who were about to be transferred to their new masters. The peasants inhabiting the village had been turned into guards—this was when Hermione first suggested trying to make allies of them, instead of enemies. Everyone had protested and she hadn't tried to double down, knowing pushing them would only hurt her case.
"Mudblood," Gregory Goyle's voice spread through the room, thick in its disdain for her. "We are done. We should not have to tell you to pick up our dishes."
Hermione rushed to pick up the empty plates and return to the kitchen. She was sure to be punished for this—she would have to worry about it later. She began washing the dishes, attentive to the noises in the hallways. The distant clinks of the whiskey glasses told her they were still in the dining room. She rushed through the kitchen cleaning and dashed to the dungeons as soon as she could. Beatrice was waiting for her at the door—she pulled out her wand and removed the glamours before heading down and shackling Hermione to the wall.
Hermione waited. She knew she would not go unpunished, and the fear rendered her paralysed, unable to even feel the exhaustion of the day. She was soon overtaken with the familiar tickle of pain in her wrists and upper arms. The dungeon was silent, as seemed to be the manor. She wondered why no one was coming… perhaps the wait was part of the punishment. She could never tell—there was always a surprise in store.
Hours later—or perhaps minutes—she heard someone enter. She discerned Richard Goyle's stature in the shadows and instinctively recoiled against the wall.
Without uttering a word, he detached her from the wall, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out of the dungeon. The harsh stone tiles rubbed her skin raw, and every bump as he pulled her up the stairs layered another bruise on her sun-deprived skin. She moaned in pain, though no sound came out of her mouth.
"It seems you have forgotten your place, Mudblood," he stated as he dropped her on the floor in the foyer. "Beatrice noticed the poppy petals were misplaced when she inspected the kitchen. You will be punished for this."
Hermione shielded her face instinctively, waiting for the blows to come.
They did not.
After a moment of silence, she looked up and noticed three of her fellow servants lined up, elbow to elbow. Peter, Marlene and Marius.
"Did you think I was just going to beat you, Mudblood?" cackled Richard Goyle. "That would be far too lenient a punishment for your attempts at murder. Tonight, you will watch your friends die. I hear it's not the first time, so I do find there's clemency in this."
Hermione attempted to yell and thrash, but it was no use. Richard Goyle had raised his wand, slashed it across the line of servants, and uttered Secare faucium. Three hands of smoke appeared in the air and brutally slashed their throats—the blood spattered on Hermione, running down her face, her back. Its metal tang landed in her mouth, coating her tongue, and she felt her dinner rumble in her stomach.
"From now on, for every toe out of line, I will kill one more."
Hermione whimpered.
He smacked her across the face.
April 2nd, 1602
The days at the manor wasted away like tree leaves in late autumn. Hermione's resolve to escape had died in her. It had become a festering organ hanging onto her skin, never detaching, as a reminder of her failures.
She'd been given some opportunities to try—poisoning, bludgeoning, strangling, slaying, butchering. It did not matter how easy the kill seemed to be—she could never find it in her to go through with it. The image of Peter, Marlene and Marius' lifeless bodies haunted her. Their blood soaking her rag, her clothes; the chittering sound of the saw as she dismembered them; the foul scent of their organs splashing and sploshing about as they fell to her feet; her knees rubbed raw by the scrubbing and the scraping of the foyer; the nauseating fumes from the lye as she attempted to revive the blood-stained carpets; the bile sweating through her pores as she disposed of their limbs in the wood burner; the thick smoke of burning flesh invading her lungs. She could never forget. She would never forget. Every day since, she had walked alongside the memory of that night. It held her at night, choking her in her sleep, leaving her empty. She was drenched in terror, from dusk until dawn—not even the first blooms of spring had managed to revive her.
She was another lifeless body in the treacherous waters of the manor, sinking deeper with every new morning.
None of the servants ate with her anymore—her meals were brought to her every morning and every night by Beatrice. Even chores had become a rarity—she was often locked for days in the dungeon, her hands and feet shackled to the wall, the everlasting darkness swallowing her up, as if time itself had stopped for her, and her only. The bustling life of the manor kept on going beyond the walls as she lay there, forgotten and despised.
On rare occasions, she was dragged out to work—always alone. She never worked in the gardens anymore. She was only ever assigned to the bathroom, or to the kitchen, where she was sent to chop vegetables by herself in a corner of the room. Once a month, she served dinner to the Goyles—and, once a month, she pondered how to kill them. She prepared the knives, polished them, hid them beneath her tunic… but never brought them out. She remained quiet, hidden in the shadows, standing by the door, while they finished their meals.
She never questioned why her resolve had become so faint. She stayed aloof, silent and subservient. Something she'd never dreamt of becoming.
On that warm spring morning, Beatrice removed the shackles.
"We have a visitor today. You will be serving the meal."
Hermione nodded and promptly followed the governess out of the dungeons, relishing the movements in her muscles. The atrophy ran another few laps in her before finally bowing out once Hermione shook her limbs. Her spine was still sensitive to movement, and a sharp pain overtook her, but she remained straight and steady, only allowing herself to wince every few steps or so.
It seemed odd that she would want to appear healthy and to hide her pain. It seemed odder that this was the least questionable of her latest endeavours—she had stopped paying her behaviour any mind, considering the matter closed. She was haunted by images of her past and she was reacting accordingly. There was no point in putting anymore thought into it.
She was led to the kitchen by Beatrice, where the freshly cooked meals awaited to be served. Hermione felt saliva gather in her mouth and harshly swallowed it, knowing even a bite could end the life of another.
"Wait."
Beatrice pulled out her wand—and, just like Richard Goyle had done on Christmas Eve, she enchanted Hermione's face with a series of glamour charms.
"You can go now." The governess turned her heels and walked away.
Hermione placed the entrées on a tray and swiftly moved to the dining room—anticipation and dread coursed through her as she wondered which visitor warranted such a level of secrecy. She could not rule out the Goyle son, and the very idea made her fingers twitch. She was convinced the only reason she wasn't dead was because Goyle Sr. had prevented his son from punishing her the last time he was around—not to protect her, of course, but to protect himself. To keep his secret well-guarded.
"I do not like you sending my son on pointless missions, Augustus," she heard Richard Goyle roar as she stepped into the dining room. "The boy may not be a strategic mastermind, but he deserves to be treated just as well as his comrades, who, I have heard, are handed out assignments worthy of their rank!"
Augustus Gaunt was sitting across Richard Goyle. He was there, in the flesh. Hermione put down their plates and hurried back to her corner, anticipating the moment she would be forgotten. Why the master of the manor had wanted her to serve this dinner, to witness this exchange, she could not say—but she felt she might as well make of it what she could.
Augustus Gaunt was a short, stout man. He had flaming red eyes, the likes of which she had only seen in Voldemort—but even then, his eyes had been like a snake's. Gaunt's were human in every aspect other than colour. His nose sat in the middle of his face, a crowning jewel amidst the desert of his otherwise faceless expression. He had no hair—not on his head, not above his eyes or under his chin. He was, in one word, terrifying. She imagined the Terror did not look too different from him.
"Your son needs to learn discipline, Gaunt. Were he not your spawn, were you not his father, he would not be amongst my ranks anymore," he said, twirling his fork in his food.
"I have done you a great service by keeping the Mudblood alive, hidden from all. I would have hoped you would have remembered that." Goyle stabbed a piece of venison.
"A service that will soon be superfluous, my dear friend. I have finalised my plans for the Granger Mudblood." He engulfed a chunk of venison in his mouth, barely taking the time to chew before he swallowed it.
"I was not made aware of those plans of yours. Am I not eligible to attend the meetings anymore then? I wasn't told." Sarcasm poured from Goyle's mouth, who seemed to find more enjoyment in torturing his food than he did eating it.
"I am here to tell you personally, that should be considered enough." Gaunt seemed wholly unaffected by his host's behaviour.
"On my dime," whispered Goyle, high enough for all to hear.
Gaunt ignored him and retrieved the napkin on his lap to wipe his mouth, still oily from the sauce the meat had basked in.
"Now," he neatly folded his napkin and placed it back on his lap, "the Terror has been rid of its last glitches. We want a public unveiling of its capacity, one that would shock and resonate through all of England—and hopefully end this unrest I am simply tired of hearing of. On the day of the unveiling, I want to reveal Hermione Granger, starved from slavery, but very much alive. She must appear weakened and dying, like that one." He waved in Hermione's direction, and she stiffened. "This will show, once and for all, the hold we have on the Mudblood population. Then, we will finish her off properly—by feeding her publicly to the Terror."
Goyle's jaw had dropped, revealing the half-chewed meat in it.
"You're going to take my slave from me?" he spat.
"Come on, now, Richard, you must have known the girl was meant to die." Gaunt tsk-tsked, like he was dealing with a capricious child.
"I've only had her for nine months, Augustus, barely! I've yet to cut off any of her fingers. I thought we had an understanding—I keep the Mudblood dead to the world for you, and, in return, I get a few years of service out of her. Until she's worn down and useless. She still has functioning knees!" He had yelled those last few words, as if faced with a prejudice of great breadth.
Hermione sunk into the floor. Her legs wobbled, her hands shook with tremors—certainly, she had conceived that her death would look something close to what she had just heard, but she hadn't thought it would be this fast, or this humiliating. She was the puppet of Gaunt's entire political operation, the doll of his machinations. She was thankful to be hungry and starved—otherwise, she might have emptied her guts right there and then.
"We will not be negotiating, Richard. I'm giving you an additional six months with her, plenty of time to break her down! If you want your son to be handed out proper assignments, you will not resist."
"And what if I do?" Goyle had risen from his chair, his cheeks red with fury. He grabbed his plate and threw it to the wall where Hermione stood—he missed her by less than an inch.
"Are you resisting, Richard?" Gaunt's words sounded like a threat.
Richard Goyle seemed undeterred. "Of course I'm resisting. I'm keeping the Mudblood. I want to break her down entirely before you kill her. This was our deal." Hermione remained stiff as a tree. She now understood why she had been asked to serve—this was yet another means to torture her, to keep her subservient. It was only by sheer coincidence that the discussion veered the way it did—and that she bore witness to it.
"I am asking one last time, Richard. Are you resisting?" Hermione pursed her lips—it seemed that, in all his rage, her master did not understand the deeper implications of that question.
"You're damn right about that, Gaunt!"
It was too late. A flash of green light illuminated the room, and Richard Goyle fell to his feet, limp and broken.
He was dead.
"You," Gaunt called out to her. "Remove the body and clean up the room."
Hermione nodded nervously.
Gaunt walked towards the door, giving a slight nudge of his foot to Richard Goyle's corpse on his way out, his red eyes shining with disdain. Hermione was still frozen in shock, unable to process what had unfolded before her very eyes just minutes earlier. She had been made an unwitting pawn in a scheme far beyond the reaches of her very own condition—when, ironically, she was the king of the scheme, sitting on the edges of the chess board, waiting for the next piece to move and knock her out from across.
She did not know whether she was thankful or resentful for what Gaunt had done. He had switched out her jailor for her executioner, which she did not look at with much optimism; but perhaps shaking Richard Goyle loose gave her a better chance at escaping both her fates, at creating a new one for herself. Mrs. Goyle was a tepid woman—limp, living in the shadow of her overbearing husband, never peeping a single word in the presence of others. She could very well be a storm brewing under the surface of tranquil waters, a theory Hermione was not too quick to discredit as of yet, but that she deemed altogether unlikely.
She was still stiff, staring at the immobile cadaver across the room, when she heard a wail, so deep, so thick, that her eardrums threatened to explode. It was the sound of a grieving woman.
"Now, Mrs. Goyle, I do not believe these are the manners of a proper lady of the manor. Let this be a lesson to you and the rest of your family—no one stands in my way. I will have the slave girl in six months. If you fail to comply, you know what fate awaits you." The palpable disdain in Gaunt's voice made Hermione shiver—she doubted the man was even human. Much like his deceased relative, he spread death as easily as one sprinkled salt on a dish and showed no remorse for it.
Perhaps he was the Terror, after all.
The large oak doors at the entry of the manor shuddered as they locked, shutting the evil out of the manor's walls, the ashes it left behind piled up in the dining room. Hermione was still finding herself unable to move. She remained there as Mrs. Goyle burst through the doors and ran over to her husband's corpse, sobbing as she fell to her knees.
The tears lasted for what seemed an eternity. Waterfalls of pain, rain of despair, they salted the earth, signing away the renewal of life on these now haunted grounds. Hermione watched as the lady of the manor shook with tremors, her pain travelling through the walls, drenching the floors, her limbs shaking loose from her body—contorted, distorted. The scene was vile, and Hermione had to turn her eyes away.
She stayed there, focused on the chimney servant placed at her side, until she heard the weeping voice of Mrs. Goyle call out to her.
"Go back to your quarters, servant." It was a soft sound, scratchy around the edges. The voice of a woman who did not speak, who had always been wrapped in an oath of silence.
Hermione nodded and hurried out, careful not to open her mouth, not to let her know of the very silence she was forced into, the only real marker of her true identity. It seemed Mrs. Goyle was not aware of the ruse operating under her very eyes—if she knew the glamoured servant was in fact the slave responsible for the lord of the manor's massacre, she might not have let her out of the room alive.
Not wanting to press her luck, Hermione rushed back towards the dungeons, where Beatrice was waiting for her. Hermione's race came to a sudden halt—she felt the tickle of fear reach her lungs.
"I won't say a word," promised the governess. Hermione's eyes opened wide in shock. "I have no pity for you, Mudblood. But you've been punished enough as it is. God forgives even the dirty of blood."
Her eyes trailed the contours of Beatrice, and she noticed the stamp hidden in the crook of her neck, hiding beneath her thinning hair.
Beatrice had been part of the first Mudblood slaves. Those who were branded and distributed across the country to drum up excitement for Gaunt's rise to power—those who had been brainwashed to oblivion, who were pressured to enter an indefinite cycle of self-loathing and denunciation. She could hardly believe she hadn't noticed it earlier—she was faced with one of the first slaves. Those who came before the Terror. Those who needed to be beaten into shape, forced into submission, who had yet nothing more to fear than wands and spells and hands.
Those who were now all presumed dead, having been force-fed to the Terror as a means to ensure the submission of those who would follow.
Only one remained. And, despite the meticulous effort to have her hate those of her nature, despite the constant beatings and the overwhelming violence she experienced for existing as she did, the smallest pang of empathy remained in her. She was choosing to save Hermione when she could have very well thrown her under the carriage to be stomped on by the horses.
Hermione nodded and followed the governess to the dungeons, where she was promptly shackled. Beatrice pulled out her wand—how she had one, Hermione did not yet understand—and removed the glamours one by one.
"I should warn you not to step out of line. Master Goyle's death might seem like freedom to you—but it's far from it. A man of that nature does not marry gently. My son Marius would know."
August 3rd, 1602
Clarity had never come so easily to Hermione Granger. Goyle's death had removed a chokehold attached to her mind, one whose origins she could not yet trace. In the months following his death, she had regained the status of a lowly servant, assigned chores on a daily basis, and eating along with the others in the kitchen.
None of them sat beside her anymore—they still resented her for the deaths of Peter, Marlene and Marius. It mattered little to her, though—she heard their conversations, which was enough. She found that their words reached her differently now—they were sharper, easier to untangle and to scrap of their superfluous meaning. Conversations flowed through her brain like they did prior to her enslavement, edging her closer to revelations, to deep wells of information.
For one thing, she finally understood the charm inking chores on their arms. She couldn't believe it had taken her nearly a year to understand the roots of that magic. The magic of the manor. They were closely monitored by the very foundations of the building and its grounds—the objects that were placed in it, the very bones of the walls, the tapestries hanging in the rooms. It was Agnes who said, one morning: "I 'eard they're makin' a statue for the late Goyle. Beatrice is exhausted because it's takin' them so much time to anchor it." Anchor it.
Hermione did not understand the expression when she heard it. It made no sense to her.
She had spent the following days listening to the walls, observing the objects, scrutinising her every task—nothing. Nothing to lead her to understand what that could have possibly meant. She understood the basics: all the objects were tied to the manor's magic. This was why the chores knew they were completed, or not. A neat little timer charm had been added to ensure the time limit was respected, but there was nothing more to it. It was, at its core, old magic—funnelled within the depths of the stones, traced along the lines of the manor—but it was not complex magic. Its logic was as straightforward as that of Lumos—let there be light, and so there was.
Anything that entered the manor was immediately attached to it—remove it, and it lost its tether, going back into the world, forgotten by the old stones and the veins of power running through them.
Humans, she was not yet sure about. The death of Richard Goyle had created a humming sound, buzzing through the walls at night, as if the stones wailed and wept. Beatrice, whose circumstance she was still unable to fully comprehend, seemed in tune with those sounds, mimicking them in the evening, when she led Hermione down the stairs to the dungeons. It was as if the murmur emanated from her skin, humming through the layers of her, rather than coming out of her mouth—it was, to say the least, eerie.
That morning, Hermione had finished her chores early. It seemed the saboteur had gone silent, perhaps afraid she was responsible for the master's death, and scared to be next. Truth be told, it was not an unfounded fear—she had been the indirect cause of Goyle's murder, and she was now branded for execution. The circumstances of this upcoming event were a constant buzz in her ears. It seemed no one yet—apart from Beatrice and Mrs. Goyle—understood quite well who she was. But they knew enough—she was to be sentenced to death in a nearby town, on the public place. Thus, they despised her still, but silently. Either within the trenches of their minds, or outside the bounds of the places she could not be present in. It mattered little to Hermione—she had other things to tend to. Hundreds had been invited from all over England to come witness this event—dignitaries, barons, counts, dukes, all Pureblood and, of course, all owners of Mudblood slaves themselves. Word would travel from their throats to the ears of those they owned, a warning to not act out, should they not want to meet the same fate as the great Hermione Granger. Leader of the Mudbloods. Soon to be purée in the stomach of the Terror.
She was scheduled to be executed in a month.
And she was determined not to let it happen.
She walked in the gardens, her hands lightly grazing the flowers, as John talked. She had tuned him out, enjoying a few minutes of freedom, her last before the next chore was onto her.
"Ya know, kid, it's like this house is alive."
She paused and turned to face him. "I coul'n' believe it myself the first time I thought about it! But being a Squib comes with perks, I'm guessin', because all that magic is strange to me, so I can see it clearly. Ya know, ma parents sen' me off to live with a Muggle aunt, so I never really knew magic. Didn' grow up with it or nuthin' kid!" A bee buzzed near her head, and she turned away, no longer interested in John's childhood retellings. She had heard them a million times—they had made her feel safe, at first. Now, she could only find herself annoyed at them.
The house is alive.
And that was then that she understood.
She had no enemy in this home—no human enemy, at least. Of course, they all viewed her as less than human, all treated her like she was disposable, but never did they attempt to sabotage her.
The manor did. Its magic was buried deep within—there was a heart, and lungs, and a stomach, digesting the very people living in it and ensuring they kept their assigned roles. The manor had digested her in the dungeons, while she was shackled to its walls, forced into submission by its masters—the manor had labelled her an enemy. The manor had etched marks into the shovel, locked her in the cold chamber, traced mould in its bathroom when she was tasked to clean it. The manor had tried to urge her out, to force her into an untimely death, if not an immediate ousting. The manor was the saboteur. It had forced her into a constant state of drowsiness, unable to form clear thoughts, unable to follow through with plans of murder and escape, pulling her hand away from the poppy petals and the knives, keeping her subservient enough that she found some comfort in her condition and relinquished hopes of ever getting out.
But now, its master had died—and thus, the manor had given up. It had found another enemy, one who lived far from its grounds, one who was scheduled to come back in a month.
Which meant Hermione finally had an opportunity.
She patiently worked through her next chores, eagerly waiting for the moment she would be alone again, in the dungeons. For the first time in a year, the isolation worked in her favour—instead of filling her head with more dread, it was an opportunity for her to plan her next moves.
If the manor had resented her this violently for simply being a slave despised by all, she could only imagine the breadth of its fury once Gaunt would return. She had little hope that he would die—and even then, he would simply be replaced by another, much like Voldemort had been. But, and this was what mattered most to her, perhaps he could be incapacitated, even for a short time. Perhaps he would go mad. Perhaps he would be paralysed, left to be devoured by the walls he had haunted. Whatever happened, however it happened, it needed to give Hermione enough time and agency to flee the scene.
She needed a wand—this much, she was sure of. Another's would be ideal—a nameless Half-Blood's, paradise on Earth. If she stole one belonging to anyone of importance, it would easily be tracked down the minute she used it.
She straightened her back and leaned closer to the wall, relishing in the feeling of the cool stone against her burning skin, and she pondered.
She then came to realise that, if she managed to get her hands on her own wand, her odds might be best. After all, if she was supposed to be dead, there was a chance they would not bother tracking it.
Which meant she had to appear like she died.
Escaping the manor before her execution was madness—no matter which way she looked at it, she figured she would be caught before she even stepped out the gates. No, the reason she needed Gaunt to cause a commotion was not to escape there and then, she decided; it was to find herself prepared and equipped before being carried out to her place of execution. It was to ensure she could properly fake her own death and flee the scene unseen and unencumbered.
But she knew he would never come. He would send his minions her way. He would never set foot here again willingly—his dutiful slave master was now gone.
Hermione sunk further down, realising this was the least of her problems. Because the Terror was to be her executioner. The faceless monster, responsible for the deaths of so many of her own, rumoured to be the vilest and most unforgiving of creatures, was set to eat her. She didn't know nearly enough about It to convince herself that she could safely escape its jaws.
She needed to sabotage the execution before it even happened. She needed to ensure the Terror would be away and replaced by a wizard.
She fell asleep before she could find the answer to her dilemma.
The next day brought her no comfort, neither did the following one, nor the one after that. As August flew by, its days piling up at her feet, the urgency of her situation grew heavier in her mind, and no amount of regained clarity could help her solve this conundrum. She had no wand, no belongings, no plan. Only a vague idea of what needed to be done, and why it had to happen—the how, the when, and the where remained mysteries wholly impenetrable to her, their walls a pulsing organism pushing her away.
It wasn't until three days before she was due to die that she made some headway. As she was sitting in the kitchen, eating her bland oatmeal, she noticed Beatrice looking at Marius' chair longingly—and she remembered the stamp. Marius was in his early twenties—he could not have been conceived during the first wave of enslavement, a mere three years ago. Yet, he had been here, working as a servant—in fact, Hermione remembered him to be the very man she had confused for Gregory Goyle.
Marius was Beatrice's and Richard's love child. Beatrice was a Mudblood with a wand, with the ability to speak, with responsibilities around the home. She was the mistress—a shameful secret, kept away from the walls of the manor, until Richard Goyle could not bear to see her beaten into submission and forced into silence in the homes of his Pureblood peers. She had been saved by him, placed here by him. She was the only surviving slave from that first wave—the brainwashed, beaten down, pre-Terror slaves.
And she was the key Hermione had been searching for. Because Beatrice, despite her self-loathing, despite her conditioning to hate all things Muggleborn, held another enemy higher on her list of priorities. The man who had murdered caused her son's untimely death by placing Hermione within the bowels of the manor.
Augustus Gaunt.
It mattered not that Goyle had killed Marius—if Beatrice had wanted revenge for that, she would have gotten it. Perhaps she held out hope that she would birth another child from Goyle's loins, a replacement of the first, of the one who had so unjustly been killed. Or, perhaps, she had learned to forgive him, thankful to have been pulled away from the death she was certain to meet had she remained a slave.
The risk was tremendous. If she was wrong, she would be denounced—she was as sure as dead.
But Hermione was already sentenced to die. The payoff was worth the risk—whether she tried nothing at all, or whether she tried and failed, she would pay the same price. Trying—and succeeding—was her only hope. She would have to trust someone other than herself, someone who she could make a promise to.
That evening, she thrashed and pushed against the shackles coming close to her. She waved her hands aimlessly, trying to show her jailor she needed to communicate with her.
"There's no need to try and resist now," said Beatrice, though she seemed annoyed more than she seemed enraged. Perhaps this was a good place to start.
Hermione did not relent. Instead, she pointed towards the stamp, her hand trembling frantically, her fingers stiff as stones.
Beatrice instinctively moved her hand to her neck and rubbed it—it looked like a gesture she had produced time and time again, perhaps in an effort to erase the mark inked in her skin. "What about it?" she asked, her voice a dying breath trapped at the back of her throat.
Hermione was growing frustrated with the silence forced upon her. She pinched her right index and major and mimicked writing with them in the palm of her left hand. Beatrice seemed to understand, because she materialised a quill, an ink bottle, and a piece of parchment with her wand. The shackles lay on the floor, forgotten by them both.
Hermione grabbed the quill, forcefully dipped it into the ink and began writing.
I know your past. I know who was Marius' father. I can avenge them both.
She turned the parchment to Beatrice.
She was welcomed with a cackle. "I don't believe that's possible."
Hermione frowned, snatched the parchment from the governess, and scribbled again.
I'm Hermione Granger. I helped defeat Voldemort. Of course I can. You need to give me a chance.
Beatrice seemed to hesitate. She sat on the dusty floor, facing Hermione, her hands sitting in her lap. "Theoretically—if I were to allow this to happen… what would you want from me?"
Hermione paused. This was her very last card—she knew if she refused to show it, she would be turned away. It could very well be her downfall—Beatrice could just as well go running to Mrs. Goyle and tattle on her.
No matter. She was left with no other choice.
I need my belongings with me. The dress I came with, my bag, and my wand. I need to leave the manor with them hidden on me. And I need Gaunt's orders to the Terror to change, on the day of. I need the Terror to be elsewhere. Unable to be found.
Beatrice seized the note and stared at it, deep in thought. Hermione felt her breath escape her chest, like it had been imprisoned there for the entire year she had spent in the manor. She was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel—whether that meant the light of the afterlife or the light of day, she could not be sure.
"Fine. I will do it, on one condition." Hermione eagerly nodded. "You will find a way to remove the stamp. And that's along (she emphasised the word) with killing Gaunt."
Hermione nodded again, her head bobbing up and down with no rhyme or rhythm, her enthusiasm threatening to burst out of her chest. They sealed the deal with a simple handshake—but Hermione knew their oaths to each other to run deep within them, as strong as any Unbreakable Vow. The promise of two women, in the dark of the dungeon.
September 3rd, 1602
Dawn had a peculiar taste on this day—like the morning light touching upon the haunted grounds of the manor found it difficult to be there, like it wanted to back away and leave the souls living within these walls to wallow in the dark of night.
Hermione had not slept a wink. She waited, the rumble of anticipation and fear keeping her wide awake, sensitive to all manners of stimuli, whether it be the rattling of her chains, the thump of her own heartbeat, or the shadows lurking deep within the corners. Shadows she knew she could only possibly have imagined—representations of her darkest fears painted on the walls, on the stone, painted in the dark by the hands of her mind.
She only found relief once Beatrice walked down the stairs, through the door, and detached her from her metal prison.
"Here." She motioned for Hermione to lie down. "I'm going to be sewing your bag into the inner layers of your skirts."
The bag, Hermione's trusted knapsack, had been reduced to the size of a pea—it was barely visible to her.
"Your former dress is in it. The wand, however," added Beatrice, "I can only secure once we leave. I'll sew it into your skirts once we're in the carriage—Mrs. Goyle has requested my presence there, which is thankful." The words drummed out of her mouth in a constant hum, abuzz with the rhythm of her anguish, the thump and the pulsing of her inner organs.
"Mrs. Goyle said she wants me to destroy it in front of you. I believe she has not shared those plans with Augustus Gaunt, perhaps because refusing to relinquish it to him is her warped attempt at revenge. Mocking the man who killed her husband by making a fool out of him once he demands it."
Hermione nodded—it seemed rather in character for meek, mousy, silent Mrs. Goyle. A revenge that had the taste of a practical jest—she wondered how such a mild woman ever ended with Richard Goyle in the first place. She shuddered thinking of their marital bed and shook herself out of it—she really needed to leave this dubious manor and its dubious influences.
"As for the Terror… listen, Granger, I can't be sure it worked. I contacted Gregory and reported a sighting—Justin Finch-Fletchley. I know he died, because Richard maimed him relentlessly when he served here—but I don't believe Gregory ever knew of that, because he wasn't here when the boy was a slave. If my instincts were right, the Terror will have been sent off to chase the scent of that boy, and we can only hope Gaunt does not catch on until you're due to be executed. It's… a risky wager. But there was nothing else I could do."
Hermione smiled as a way to thank her. It was more than enough. As long as she had her wand, as long as she was out of the manor, no longer tethered to it, she should be fine. Terror, or no Terror.
Though, no Terror would be ideal, of course.
Beatrice went about sewing the pea-sized knapsack on the inner layers of her skirts, close to her left hip. They left the dungeons shortly thereafter.
"The carriage will be there in an hour." Beatrice pointed to the foyer. "Mrs. Goyle instructed that you stay here while you wait."
Hermione did as she was told. She shivered with excitement, not quite sure yet whether this was a delusion or a truth she could behold and cherish. Her eyes moved about the large foyer, for the first time taking in the intricate details of the moulding, the savant structure of the arch, the detailed patterns of the rug she had once washed blood from. Time ticked by, weakening her resolve, melting her into the walls of the home that had done everything in its power to rid itself of her.
Soon, sooner than Hermione had hoped, the hour was up.
The thud of heavy horseshoes rattled the gravel outside the heavy oak doors, and Hermione's nervous feet fell flat to the floor, her toes curling in anguish, her breath rapidly rising in her chest, a thud against her ribcage. She counted the seconds as footsteps came closer, until she heard the familiar creak of the hinges.
She stopped breathing entirely.
A man dressed in the Gauntian guard uniform stepped forward.
"Hermione Granger?" he asked, turning to face her.
She nodded.
"Where is the woman meant to accompany you?" he frowned, as if blaming her for the absence of the governess.
"I'm here!" Beatrice was red in the cheeks, a thin film of sweat covering her porcelain skin. She came to a halt and bent over, trying to catch her breath. In her hand, Hermione noticed her wand—she was seeing it for the first time in a year, and her heart swelled. A familiar tingle spread through her limbs, a renewal of her bond with magic.
"Are we good to go, ma'am?" asked the guard, annoyed at Beatrice's need for a break.
"Yes, yes, let's go." She was out of breath still.
She walked towards Hermione and grabbed her arm. They silently followed the guard to the carriage waiting for them—it was made of iron, a sturdy structure. A prison for one.
They walked in and sat on the benches built within, one on each side, facing each other.
The guard walked over to them and pointed his wand at Hermione.
"By the powers vested in me by Augustus Gaunt, I remove you from the chains tying you to Goyle Manor."
A flash of indigo light burst from the tip of his wand and hit Hermione in the throat. She gasped in shock—
The gasp echoed within the carriage, bouncing on the iron, resonating beyond.
Her voice had been returned to her.
The guard closed the door without a word, his duty accomplished. Like most of his kind, he did not deal in ethical ramifications—he followed orders blindly, no matter how absurd.
Soon, they felt the carriage depart, the rhythmic thud of the horses' steps lulling them into a manufactured sense of comfort. An illusion of peace.
Beatrice, however, chose to not waste any time—there were things to be done, a plan to be coordinated. She pulled out her sewing tools from her bosom, where Hermione imagined she had nestled them in secret, and roughly grabbed Hermione's skirts. She created a pocket within, one that would fit the wand she had taken from the manor. Her hands were undisturbed by the movements of the carriage—they moved deftly along the fabric, creating straight stitches, well-proportioned crevasses, like she had done this all her life.
"I have done this since I was a little girl," she said, as if reading Hermione's thoughts. "My mother, bless her heart, was an apprentice for Madam Malkin. She was a Muggle, had no conception of magic, but she wanted to make a living in the wizarding world to be able to afford the Hogwarts tuition. Madam Malkin told her that if she could sew as fast as and as well as the others, without the use of a wand, she would be hired." She smiled. "And she was. Perhaps she was no witch, but that woman had pure magic in her fingers." She grabbed Hermione's wand and slid it in the pocket. "There," she said, as her fingers sewed the pocket back up, closing it, hiding it from the world.
"I don't know how to thank you," croaked Hermione. Her voice was barely more than a hum, her vocal cords still asleep after being shut off for so long.
"You made me a promise, child. Keep it, and you'll have thanked me." Beatrice's voice had slipped back into its habits, those of the governess ordering around the staff at the manor. It left no room for excuses.
"I will."
The silence stretched between them, longer with each new mile distancing them from the manor. Hermione's mind buzzed with a final question for Beatrice, one she feared could strike a sudden end to their deal.
She remembered that April evening, in her cell. God forgives even the dirty of blood.
The question slipped out of her before she could stop it.
"Do you really resent Muggleborns?" The last word was a rasp, dying in her throat, hitched by the burden of a year of silence.
Beatrice stared back at her. "Why do you ask?"
"You said… you said," Hermione stumbled on her words, unsure if the difficulty stemmed from the question itself or the fact that her body was still adjusting to speaking. "You said "God forgives even the dirty of blood." But…" She paused, swallowing, trying to get the words out. "But you're Muggleborn, just like me," she sputtered.
The question hung in the air, disrupting the quiet comfort of the carriage ride. It was the key to Pandora's box—the last wall standing between them.
"I don't, I…" For the first time since meeting her, Hermione saw Beatrice lose her footing, her self-assurance. "I resent being born as one."
The words slashed through the air, heavy with history and memories, relics of another time.
Hermione barely had the time to take them in—the carriage had come to a halt. The guard knocked on the iron doors—
"We're here. Time to get out."
Hermione's heart jumped in her throat, threatening to leave her body, to remove itself from the equation. She stood up, her legs weak and soft, as if deprived of bone and muscle. Beatrice grabbed her by the arm before she could slip, and out they went.
The town of Dover stood before them, grey and wet from the morning summer rain. A tall wooden platform had been erected on the public place, a pillar in its centre. Some curious folks had already gathered, whispering among them, but none of the invitees were here yet. Dignitaries and aristocrats never showed before the sun hung high in the sky.
The guard tore Hermione away from Beatrice.
"You can stay and watch," he said to the governess. He stated it without emotion—he was just repeating the script that he had been fed by his superiors.
Hermione gave a longing look to Beatrice before she was tugged and pulled away. She was taken to the cellar of a nearby tavern.
"You're not to move from here," ordered the guard as he locked the door behind him.
She waited, sitting on a barrel in a corner. The cellar was dimly lit, its only window so far up the wall and so small she didn't notice it at first.
She waited and withered in the corner, now used to the loneliness, to the isolation, to the darkness, retreating into the depths of her mind.
It took her an inordinate amount of time to realise she now had a wand and unbound hands. She hurriedly retrieved the wand from the pocket sewn in her skirts and paused. She couldn't Disapparate. It was the obvious solution—but it was also a fool's errand.
There was pain ahead, and she had to prepare for it.
Should the Terror come, she might have to Disapparate—but she counted on Gregory Goyle's stubbornness to relieve her of that fate.
Should the Terror not come, the execution could not be called off. There was too much at stake for Gaunt—he had held the last member of the Order of the Phoenix, the infamous Hermione Granger, locked away and stripped bare of anything that made her human. He had used his puppet to enslave, torture, and break her down. He would want her dead, no matter the means.
If not the Terror, the means would have to be…
She remembered Buckbeak. The executioner and his axe.
Wincing at the idea, she raised her wand and twirled it around the corners of her body, whispering hushed words—her shoulders, her neck, her knees, her wrists, her ankles, her navel, her hips. Imago membrorum. Phantom limbs.
Click—
Hermione stuffed her wand back into its place of hiding and placed her hands in her lap. This would have to do. It simply would have to.
An open door. A burst of light. The guard walked back in the cellar.
"They're all waiting for you." He pulled her out and dragged her across the growing crowd, before tossing her on the platform. Her knees buckled as she stood up, and he roughly pushed her up, his rigid stature giving her no respite. Her back was pressed against the pillar—splinters of wood etched themselves into the fabric of her clothing, making her skin prickle and hurt. The guard summoned a rope and tied her hands behind the pillar, ensuring she was humiliated and vulnerable for all to see.
She stood there, the ache in her arms never dulling down, while the audience grew and grew and grew. Hundreds of pairs of eyes scrutinised her with curiosity and hunger. They were hungry for death.
"My beloved subjects."
The greeting echoed throughout the square, forcing the crowd into silence.
"I am pleased to announce the public execution of the last known member of the Order of the Phoenix: Hermione Granger, the Mudblood."
Oohs and aahs made their way amongst the crowd. Hermione's skin recoiled in disgust.
"I know many of you have heard that the Terror was a failed experiment, that it's now a forgotten idea, a simple demonstration of ego. And it is true that we have had some difficulties with it during the last two years—I want to be transparent with you, my subjects." The word creeped Hermione out. "But, as with all experiments, there comes a time of trial, a time for us to regroup and question the endeavours we seek. That trial, I am pleased to announce, is now well into its conclusion. We are moving into an era of Light and Knowledge. We are modernising the wizarding world, making strides never seen before across our seas—the French, the Italian, even the Prussians will soon envy us. For this very reason, I have brought forth the Terror to put an end to the Mudblood scum—and what better way to do that than with the most famous Mudblood of these parts?"
This was the moment of truth.
"I captured Hermione Granger on the day we burned the Order of the Phoenix down." Hoorays echoed throughout the crowd, with some throwing their hats in the air, in celebration of that night. "Yes, yes, it was formidable. I will admit I wanted her to burn down along with the others, but it seemed more important to me to show you, my beloved subjects, the extent of our capabilities. In an effort to do just that, I kept the Mudblood enslaved, far away from here, meticulously breaking her down and letting her drown in her sorrows. I let you all believe she was dead, not out of cowardice, I assure you, or to bide my time, but simply to let your souls rest at peace that she would pose no further danger with her tainted blood. Today, she dies—she dies in front of you all, as proof of what I am capable."
Feverish claps were heard, growing louder with every second, threatening to burst Hermione's eardrums.
After a moment, they began to die down.
Nothing was happening. Gaunt, still invisible, seemed to be gone—he had stopped speaking entirely, and there was nothing to confirm the Terror's upcoming appearance. Hushed whispers and grunts of frustration soon replaced the silence, making their way from one mouth to another, heads tilting in waves of disapproval.
Hermione did her best to repress the smile itching to manifest itself. She was dizzy with anticipation. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the guards hurrying to a house across the square—likely to be where Gaunt had set up camp, hidden from all.
As the nothingness stretched further and further, the hushed whispers turned into full-blown clamours of anger. Men and women began shouting, demanding for Hermione's head. Chaos took over the crowd, pushing its way down their limbs, and she witnessed with horror some of the men at the front walking closer to the platform. Perhaps to do the job themselves.
"Let's just Avada the whore!" cried a man in the midst of the crowd.
A loud uproar of approval resounded through the crowd and Hermione noticed many among them had pulled their wands out. If Gaunt did not put a stop to this soon, she would die, and not amount of Imago membrorum would save her.
It was as if God had heard her very thoughts. Just as one of the men in the crowd pointed his wand at her, a chant began, halting the chaos.
Wand thieves, Mudbloods and vermin,
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
And cut off her magic with a carvin' knife,
What would you do when faced with such strife,
And the poison of the vermin?
The hundreds of mouths facing her began to chant, their movements so eerily timed that Hermione wondered if they had perhaps been enchanted. The verse was sung three times until silence regained the town square.
"You have come here for an execution, and it is only right that I give you one. It seems the Terror will not be joining us today but rest assured that this is not the last you will hear of it. As for the Mudblood… let us all enjoy the show!"
An unusually large man in a dark hood made his way through the ecstatic crowd. He was holding an axe so tall it nearly reached the skies. The eyes of the crowd followed him all the way to the platform.
"Mudblood, prepare to die!" shouted the same man who had threatened to use Avada Kedavra on Hermione earlier.
Slowly, the executioner removed the rope tying her to the pillar.
"Petrificus Totalus," he then uttered, pointing his axe at her.
He had carved his wand into the handle of his weapon.
There was no need for the spell, of course. If Hermione had tried to run, any number of people could have simply killed her in a heartbeat. She supposed it was to add to the spectacle.
Sounds of protest could be heard. "Let us see her suffer!" "If she's still, she can't cry!" "I want to see her cry!" He paid them no mind.
Lying stiffly on the platform, she waited. Her executioner raised the axe high, far above him, so far it became a but a distant flash to its victim. And, with one swish, one movement, he cut off her right arm where it met her body, at the shoulder.
The pain, the loss of the limb, travelled through Hermione like burning fire. She wanted to cry out, to thrash, but the spell prevented her from moving. She could only lie there, feeling her body empty itself of blood on the pristine wood and down the sewers of the cobbled square. She saw her severed arm roll away from her, its bone and muscles no different than those of her peers when she had to saw them off and throw them in the fire to be burned. The vision hit her harder than the dizzying pain—her stomach twisted and churned.
"Come on, remove the spell! She can't escape now!"
The hooded man seemed to hesitate—ultimately, it seemed as though he agreed.
"Finite Incantatem."
Perhaps the spell worked as intended, because Hermione finally felt the pain overtake her body so roughly, so violently, that she blacked out entirely.
September 4th, 1602
Hermione's eyes opened suddenly. It took her a long moment to get accustomed to the dark, to understand where she was. Perhaps it had all been a dream.
She tried to get up, but landed on the flat of her neck, bone clinking against the surface, flesh squishing and sloshing, the distinct rust of blood floating to her nostrils, as if her neck had been severed.
It had been severed.
In the dark, Hermione made out the silhouette of her remaining limbs, all detached from each other, scattered across a wide metal plate, perhaps waiting to be exhumed so she could be paraded around. The now Dead Mudblood.
She was in a mortuary chamber.
And, now that she was up, the pain came back to her in a sudden rush—her other limbs shook as her mind did, remembering the torture they had been through. She could have simply stayed there and sobbed—
But she had to prioritise her survival first and foremost.
She conjured her right arm and made it crawl to her skirts. Commanding detached limbs was a painful, tedious task—they fumbled and stumbled, only vaguely aware of the mind ordering them around.
Hermione's blood-splattered right arm moved about the inner layers of her skirt for a while before her fingers finally managed to break down the stitch and reach for her wand.
"Simul reposuit."
Slowly, the detached limbs of Hermione Granger crawled back into place, returning her to her former self. She felt a dull ache at the intersections of her and the loss of blood, while still largely prevented by the spell, made her dizzy with nausea—it was perilous to Disapparate.
But there was no other alternative.
And thus, Hermione Granger, last living member of the Order, escaped the fate she had been assigned.
End of Act II
I will be going on a bit of a break for the next couple of months. I'll have to be honest and say that this chapter was very hard for me. I need a bit of a break from this story. It is also due to the fact that I signed up for two fests with close deadlines, and working on those on top of The Hunt and my real life responsibilities is a sure recipe for a burn out. I'm hoping to be able to fully dive back in this story in February. Apologies for this short hiatus, I honestly wish I didn't have to. You can follow me on social media for more frequent updates. Happy holidays to you all! I will see you soon.