A great wizard once said, 'The best way to learn about another culture is to live with its people. The best way to destroy another culture is to force them to live with you.' So it has been with house-elves. For more than a thousand years, they've been kept, owned, and traded by Wizards, and yet few of their owners know anything of their history, their folklore, or even how they spend their leisure time. Despite the loss of their early heritage, house-elves have developed a rich culture, and cultivated a deep sense of pride in what they have preserved. Their past is tragic, but not without hope. Perhaps someday they will be recognized as the intelligent Beings they are, not as the Beasts they have been defined.

And that's all I have to say, so nyah!

Hermione swirled her quill across the page and threw it on the desk. "Done, finally!" She leaned back in her chair and stretched, then let herself hang limply from its wooden form. "Well, not really." There were edits, and revisions, and fact-checking. How was she ever going to get all this done before Stibbons blew her top?

She sat up and re-read the last paragraph, and especially the last sentence. I'll never get this publishable, she thought, laying her forehead down on the page. Given how badly her scars were throbbing, she'd consider herself lucky if 'and that's all I have to say, so nyah' was the worst of her writing sins in the final chapter.

Sitting up, she reached into a nook in her desk for a bottle of red ink, but just couldn't bring herself to pick up the quill and start editing. A manuscript needs some time to 'cool off', doesn't it? Maybe she could do some planning for her next project instead. Just a start, nothing serious. She could finish out the day with that and start editing her book tomorrow when she was fresh.

Hermione took out a sheet of parchment and wrote "Werewolves—Planning" at the top, then jotted down ideas for background research. She already knew there were barely any books in the library. Maybe something in the periodicals? What about interviews with werewolves themselves? Remus would certainly help her, but he was just one person. Where else could I find some leads? She reached into her bag and pulled out Roma Darcy's card. Oh, no, that's a terrible idea. I had my chance to ask her questions already, and I don't need to be burning any bridges. Was the Werewolf Registry restored after the war? She thought it was. I wonder when the best time to visit the Registration Office would be?

Actually, that would be now, wouldn't it? The full moon was that night. The Capture Unit would be busy, but the Registry wouldn't. New werewolves would have registered earlier in the month, and older werewolves would have more on their minds today. Hermione glanced at her clock. It wasn't even 4:00 yet, and the Ministry didn't close until 5:00. She wouldn't even be cutting it close. Why not?

Hermione grabbed her jacket and went down to the Institute's main Floo connection. If she ever made professor, she'd have her own in her office, but her current quarter-sized one was awkward enough for calls. Traveling through it was right out.

In a few minutes, she was in the Ministry of Magic. She went through the wand weighing station with no problem and made her way to an information desk. "Excuse me?"

The man behind it looked up with a warm smile. "Yes, may I help you?"

"How would I get to the Werewolf-"

"Level 4, right-hand hall, seventh door on the left!" he shouted, pushing his chair away from her. "Get your butt down there now!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't you know what time it is?" He waved his wand at her, and some invisible force shoved her so hard that she sprawled across the floor. "Go!"

"I'm going!" she said, picking herself up. Oh, she was going, all right. Whatever had set him off like that, and whatever was on Level 4, was bound to be interesting. She took the elevator and soon was in the bare tiled hallway of the Magical Beasts and Beings Division. A sign above the right-hand hall read "Magical Beasts", with "Magical Beings" over the left. She turned right, and counted seven doors on the left, to the room marked "Werewolf Support Services." Inside were two people covered from head-to-toe in dragon hide. They must have been from the Werewolf Capture Unit. They were talking to a normally dressed man—well, normally dressed for a wizard—seated behind the desk.

"I hope that was the last of them," one Hunter said.

Hermione leaned into the office. "Excuse me, but I—"

He cut her off with a loud curse, and his partner grabbed her arm and dragged her back toward the lifts. "Why do you mutts cut it so close?"

"Gently, gently!" the third man called after them.

"Now wait a minute!" Hermione tried to jerk away, but the other Hunter grabbed her free arm.

"Don't even think of fighting us today, bitch. We are not in the mood." They picked her up off the floor and carried her into the lift. As the doors closed, one of them unzipped her jacket while the other tried to pull it off her shoulders.

"Stop it! What are you doing?"

"Come on, off with it. What possessed you to wear a dress today? You know loose clothing won't transform with you."

"Get off of me!" Hermione planted one of her feet against him and kicked him back as hard as she could as he started on the buttons of her dress. His partner pointed his wand at her and said, "Placidus", and a ball of blue light flew from the tip and struck her squarely in the chest. She stumbled against the back of the lift as the light spread throughout her body. Weakness followed it until her legs would no longer support her weight, and she slumped to the floor. She tried to move, but her limbs only made vague attempts to follow her mind's instructions.

"We ought to let her shred them," the Hunter said as they removed her dress. "Should we take her slip, too?"

"Let her eat it. Maybe it'll teach her to show up earlier next time."

The elevator dinged open, and the larger of the Hunters hauled Hermione over his shoulder.

"What should we do with her clothes? We don't even know who she is," the other said as they carried her down a dark stone hallway. Cold, moist air clung to Hermione's bare skin, and a dank, moldy smell assaulted her nose.

"Just toss them in a box. We'll let her out last tomorrow, and whatever's left will have to be hers."

They carried her into a circular room, as cold and dank as the hallway. Concrete boxes stacked three high made up the walls, with a grid of steel bars fronting each box, and people peered out of them - men, women, and even small children.

One of the Hunters waved his wand, and a steel grid on the middle tier slid open. He threw her inside, and the grid slid back into place with a loud "CLANG!" "Worthless plague rat," he muttered as they strode out of the room.

It was so cold! The concrete sucked the warmth from Hermione's skin. It did wake up her numb limbs, but she wasn't sure she wanted to feel them at the moment. As best as her disobedient body could, she curled up against the cold.

"Hey, girl. New girl." Was someone talking to her? She tilted her head back; the words had come from a scruffy middle-aged man lying on his stomach on the edge of her vision thanks to the room's curvature.

"I know it's hard for you to move right now, and it's cold," he said, "but if you curl up like that, you'll get hurt when you turn. You better roll over, or at least stretch out."

"What do you mean?" she asked, the words slow and thick on her tongue.

"Look around you. You won't have enough room to turn around in a minute."

Hermione looked around the inside of the concrete box. She barely had enough room to turn around now. The box was long, but so narrow she could easily touch the walls. "Where are we?"

"Man, they must have hit you hard. Honey, you're in the Ministry of Magic's Werewolf Isolation Center."

"What?!" That got her moving; in an instant she was on her knees, pulling herself toward the steel grid.

"No, honey, lie down. You're better off on your stomach, trust me. This must be your first time here." He shook his head. "You shouldn't have made them trank you, sweetheart. I know it sounds weird, but it goes easier if your body can tense like it wants to. Otherwise, you end up like Diz over there, two boxes to your right and one down." The scruffy man pointed. "Comes in drunk as a skunk every full moon and screams his fool head off every single time. I guess he doesn't remember it in the morning, but hearing him sure doesn't do the rest of us any good."

"But I'm not—"

A horrible choking sound cut her off. The scruffy man tensed, and his face began to elongate, fur forcing itself out of the skin. The sounds of half-choked groans and stifled cries of agony filled the air. To her right, a man started screaming as though he were being skinned alive. Hermione clapped her hands over her ears, trying to drown out the symphony of pain. Something hit the edge of the steel grid hard. The rush of adrenaline threw Hermione back, and she could see the tip of a wolf's snout sticking into the air beyond. Throughout the room, the steel grids started shaking, the werewolves throwing themselves against the grates, desperately thrusting their noses through the bars. The wolf above her started digging at the concrete between them.

Oh my God, they smell me! Hermione squeezed herself into the far back corner of her cell. How long would the steel bars hold against the onslaught? If a werewolf pushed through their own, could they pull hers down, too? She looked up toward the frantic scratching above her. How hard were a werewolf's claws? How thick was the concrete? This late in the year, there were 14 or 15 hours until sunrise. How much time would it need to dig through?