"I spy with my little eye…"

"Tic Tac, I swear if you don't shut up-"

Hermione smiled tiredly at Sam and Scott's bickering.

"Come on, Sam. It's something blue…"

Hermione chuckled quietly. Even here in this horrible place, it was nice to know that some things never changed. For some reason, the ridiculous normalcy of their relationship acted as a balm to her currently very battered spirit.

She had no idea how long they had been here - Clint had estimated close to two weeks, but with no natural light to be found, there was really no way to tell.

"At least he's not singing anymore." Clint remarked.

"I kind of liked the singing." Hermione murmured quietly.

She could hear the smile in Scott's voice. "Thanks, Hermione!"

There was a moment of silence before Hermione heard Clint's voice trickle through the corridor. "How're you doing, Granger?"

Hermione knew that the archer already knew the answer to that question before he had asked.

Her jaw and at least one of her ribs were broken, without a doubt - Not that she had received any medical attention since arriving at the Raft. No, she and Wanda, who was in the cell beside her, were treated as little more than dirt. If the straightjacket holding her arms down uncomfortably wasn't a testament to their treatment, the tight shock collar attached to her throat made their intentions clear.

Hermione and Wanda weren't treated like the others who were imprisoned here with them. The witches' powers weren't derived from a suit or equipment. Their powers came straight from their very beings. There was nothing that could be taken away upon their incarceration that would make them any less powerful.

And that scared their captors to death.

Hermione had realized early on that the guards would do anything to give themselves a little peace of mind while around the two witches, even if that meant electrocuting them to the point of unconsciousness while they deposited their daily food ration.

Honestly, if either of the women did anything that would be considered "threatening", they would immediately find themselves writhing and screaming on the floor.

"Oh, you know." Hermione responded to Clint, the terrible rasping in her throat giving her state away. "Just closing my eyes and thinking of England"

The laugh she heard from Scott's cell made her feel better about her awful joke.

"Wanda?" Clint called. "Roll call, kid."

There were several moments of silence before Hermione heard the soft response from the younger girl. Hermione knew that Wanda had been struggling with being here more than the rest of them. Wanda had gone through so much in the past few years, from losing her twin, joining the Avengers, and coping with the aftermath of the terrible press she had received. Hermione was afraid this was what would finally break her.

Hearing the clank of a door opening down the corridor, Hermione glanced as far down as she could from her spot on the floor of her cell.

"Alright, witch - Against the wall!"

Hearing the sound of shuffling, Hermione closed her eyes tightly, hoping she could convince her mind to drift elsewhere in order to block out their current reality.

Even knowing what was going to happen, Hermione still winced at the sound of Wanda's screams piercing the previously quiet corridor. The yelling from Clint's cell only added to the chaos of the moment as he began hurling obscenities at the guards. It was several seconds before the younger woman's screams died down to a pitiful whimper, and Hermione heard the cell slam shut quickly.

Feeling her body begin to tremble with the knowledge of what she knew was coming, Hermione quickly bit back her fear. Jutting her chin out defiantly, she waited for the guard to come into view, and stared him down when he did.

"Against the wall - now!" The guard growled.

Before Hermione even had time to follow the command, she felt the electricity course through her body. Refusing to make a sound, she held her lips together stubbornly even as she felt her teeth bite down painfully on her tongue.

"Now." The guard commanded again. "Against the wall."

Hermione used her feet to scooch herself across the floor slowly, knowing that attempting to do anything else would result in another jolt from the collar.

In the first few days of her being on the Raft, she had seen an opportunity for escape. Using the wall, she had attempted to push herself onto her feet in hopes that she would be able to attempt a very risky apparition out of the God forsaken place, but before she was even able to get to her knees she had been hit with the collar.

In hindsight, it was probably for the best that she hadn't been able to attempt the apparition. Her half-cocked plan had been completely mad. Because she had no idea where they were, there was no way for her to know if she was even in range of anywhere familiar to which to apparate, nor if she would even be able to successfully apparate with her arms pinned in a straightjacket.

But it had made her realize that they must be keeping a very close eye on them - It seemed like everytime she even thought about escaping, she was suddenly writhing on the floor in agony.

Finally making her way up against the wall, the guard stared at her suspiciously before quickly depositing her daily food ration onto the floor of her cell before slamming the door quickly. Taking a breath, he continued looking at her like an animal at the zoo.

"Can I help you?" Hermione asked sarcastically before she could stop herself.

Although she knew it would happen, the wave of pain searing through her body from the collar still caught her off-guard. If her ears hadn't been pounding, she would have been able to hear the screams pouring from her own mouth as she writhed on the floor in agony.

"No, I think I'm good." The guard replied with a chuckle when the collar was finally switched off.

Hermione could faintly make out the sound of the guard walking back down the corridor. She didn't know how long she had laid there before she heard Clint's voice once more.

"You've got to learn to keep that mouth shut, Granger."

Hermione ignored the pain from her throat as she spit a bit of blood onto the floor.

"I'm not sure that's fair coming from you." She snipped back at him. "Aren't you the one that slammed the guard's head into the bars a few days ago when he got too close?"

"Yeah, but I'm not the one that's getting barbecued every time I step out of line."

"He's right, Hermione." Sam agreed. "You need to back off. Cap is going to come soon, and we need to make sure that you are alive long enough to see it."

Hermione leaned back up against the wall, thinking over their words. The stickiness she could feel underneath her collar reminding her that their advice was probably warranted. She had developed a terrible habit of snapping at the guards whenever the opportunity presented itself, and she had paid for it each and every time.

She idly wondered how long it would take for Steve to find them, and if she would be included in the rescue if he did find them. Hermione didn't feel like Steve would be the type of person to leave a mostly innocent team member in a hell hole such as this just because she hadn't been willing to fight against one of her closest friends.

Allowing herself a small pity party, she thought of Tony and Stephen miserably. She missed the two ridiculous men terribly. Hermione would give anything to be back in the Sanctum's library, heatedly debating with Stephen about her most recent read, Wong sitting in the corner occasionally interjecting his opinion and laughing openly at their bickering. She desperately hoped she would have the chance to get back home to apologize to him for breaking her word...

"Hermione?"

Hermione blinked as she heard the small voice that had come from Wanda's unseen cell.

"Yeah?"

"Will you talk to me?"

Hermione felt her heart clinch painfully at the defeat that could be easily heard in Wanda's voice. Clearing her raw throat, she began talking about the first thing that came to her mind.

"You know, growing up, I didn't know that I was a witch. I lived with my parents in a suburb of northwest London. They didn't even know that anything was odd about their baby girl until I began levitating biscuits out of the tin at age three."

Hermione smiled at the memory despite the bleakness of their circumstances.

"When did you find out you were a witch?"

Hemione thought Wanda must have pushed herself near their shared cell wall, because, although her voice was barely above a whisper, she was still able to hear her.

"By the time I was eight, I realized that all the other kids weren't able to make things happen the way that I could, but I never actually knew what I was until age eleven. That's when I received my letter to Hogwarts, our magical boarding school."

Hermione closed her own eyes, allowing herself to drift into the past as she continued talking.

"Hogwarts is where I met my two best friends - Harry and Ron. Harry's parents had passed away when he was an infant, and he was an only child, but Ron was the second youngest of seven. We had so much fun together, back then."

Feeling her eyes prick at the memories flooding her mind, Hermione continued.

"This one time, we were convinced that one of our professors was jinxing Harry's broomstick, so I snuck up behind him and set his robes on fire to break the spell. We didn't find out until later that we were very much mistaken."

Hearing a huff of what she was hoping was laughter, Hermione continued.

"My parents were dentists, though, so you could imagine their surprise when they found out that their only child was a witch, of all things. But they were always so incredibly supportive of me, even after they found out. As much as I loved Hogwarts, the summers I spent with my parents were irreplaceable. My mother and I would bake chocolate biscuits and pastries almost every week. The kitchen would always be a complete mess, and my father would always nick one or two every time he walked through when Mum wasn't looking. It was always so funny to me that he, as a dentist, loved sweets more than anyone."

Hermione paused in her story as she felt her eyes begin to water. Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she took a deep breath.

"My mother and I liked to cook together as well, when we were able."

Hermione paused at hearing Wanda's soft voice. She waited, hoping the younger woman would continue.

"Our family was never well off, but we were so happy. In the good times, my mother and I would make palacsinta. It's similar to a crepe, I suppose. We would all gather around the table, and we'd fill them with anything that we had on hand."

Chuckling softly, Wanda continued. "Pietro always wanted to fill his with strawberries, but we were never able to get them. I can remember one time that our father surprised him by bringing home a small basket of them. The smile on Pietro's face was infectious. That night was one of my fondest memories…"

Hermione closed her eyes, smiling softly at Wanda's words.

The clang of a door sliding open at the end of the hall made Hermione's eyes snap open suddenly. Quickly scooting herself back to the opposite side of the cell, she had barely settled against the wall when a man in a white lab coat came to stand in front of her.

"Alright, let's start with her." He said simply as he pointed to her.

Hermione's eyes widened as she was suddenly hit with the collar, once more. Screaming in pain, she was only minutely aware of the sting of a needle in her thigh. She desperately tried to crawl away from the door as she continued fighting against the pain of the collar.

As her limbs began growing heavy with the effect of the injection, she was vaguely aware that someone had grabbed both of her ankles and were dragging her along the floor.

The shouts from Clint and the rest of the team followed her down the corridor as she slipped into unconsciousness.