Chapter Text
“There is no great genius without some touch of madness.”
- Aristotle
The smell hit her first. Dank, moldy wafts of stale air clogged Hermione’s nostrils. It was heavy, full of moisture, and painful to breathe. It was also cold. Too cold. She hugged herself tighter. Where was her blanket?
With surprising difficulty, she extended her limbs—stiff from clutching herself in a ball—and groaned as hard protrusions dug into her side, hip, and back. Stone?
Her jaw hurt from the instinctive chattering of her teeth. She splayed her hands across the unfamiliar jagged surface, searching. When her fingers found nothing, she blinked her eyes open and lifted her head, squinting at a dim, distant light.
The poor illumination revealed the floor-to-ceiling iron bars of a prison cell. Hermione’s pulse raced in delirious confusion.
Fear-stoked adrenaline propelled her to her feet, the movement too fast for her aching body. Wincing, she frantically took stock of her surroundings. Three thick walls, probably constructed of the same stone as the floor. No windows. No objects that she could use as tools or weapons.
How did she get here? Where was here?
Although terrified, her training kicked in. Identify potential assets and dangers. She dropped to her knees, desperately feeling around the uneven floor, then up the walls, fingernails digging into every minute crack. There was hardly any chipping mortar, no loose stones.
And no sign of her wand.
“Hello?” Hermione’s voice was raspy with disuse. She coughed to clear it, then called out, “Hello?” as loud as she dared.
She held her breath, listening for fellow prisoners or other signs of life. All she heard was the steady plop of a slow, solitary leak, dripping into a puddle somewhere to her left.
Despair threatened, but rationality conquered.
She wasn’t going to give up and die. Her apparent imprisonment in this cell was a problem to solve, not an impossibility. There had to be a way out.
If she had enough time, she’d find it.
Squatting down in the cell’s rear corner, Hermione scraped at the seam between two large hewn stones. The most obvious long-term solution was working a stone loose and using it to bash her cell bars or her jailer.
If nothing else, the repetitive task occupied her hands. Her mind raced to find something more efficient.
She studied the bars, lightly crusted with rust, over her shoulder. By her estimation, they were only five inches apart. Could she shimmy through? Find a place to hide and eventually escape?
Tentatively, she extended her fingers. As they neared the bars, a slight buzzing tickled her skin.
Thinking better of it, Hermione withdrew her hand and dug her nails into the fabric of her sleeve. It wasn’t enough. She growled in quiet frustration and began to bite and gnaw at the cuff. She pulled at the seam with her teeth until she finally tore a piece free. Wetting the fabric with her spit, she rolled the thin material into a cylinder and poked at the iron bars. A steady vibration hummed along the fabric and up through her fingers, tingling her palm and wrist.
Just as she’d thought. An embedded Stunner.
She was trapped—a prisoner of war.
Torture. Death. Faced all alone, with little hope of rescue.
After repeating a useless search of her cell, Hermione sat on the ground and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stem her tears.
Five long years of fighting hadn’t prepared her for her turn in hell.
Worse still, she couldn’t remember what had happened to bring her here.
Ginny goading her into a pick-up Quidditch match—
Bill showing her and Parvati a cursed jewel, pried from the hilt of a dagger he’d found in Iran—
Susan giggling while Ron poured her another glass of wine—
No. She’d been on a mission but had returned safely. As had Tonks, Harry, Zach, Cormac, and several others.
Hadn’t she?
Images of her friends and fellow fighters became muddled. Her mind was betraying her. Frustrated tears welled in her eyes. She remembered everything; why not this?
Hermione stood, wrapped her arms around herself, and stalked the edge of her cell, scanning the corners and the seams where the walls met the floor, hoping she’d missed something. Running her hand along the uneven stone, her fingertips hit the occasional cold trail of water. The tiny rivulets presence only amplified the scratch of her parched throat.
If the walls were damp, maybe she was underground.
Or in Azkaban.
Wiping her hand on her trousers, she gazed upward. The ceiling didn’t show any more variety than the walls or floor.
She ground her teeth, fighting the urge to scream.
The sharp tap of boots on stone approached from the right. Hermione sucked in a breath.
Maybe the guard wasn’t coming to her; there had to be other prisoners. But if he was, she could buy herself time by pretending to be asleep. Her escape plan could wait until she had more—or any—usable information.
Or maybe the stranger would be willing to make a deal with her. There was plenty the Order could offer that might sway an avaricious or unwilling jailer. And maybe…
Maybe she knew him. A handful of her classmates had joined in Voldemort’s service, either on their own or under threat. If this guard were one of the latter, she might be able to plead her case. Maybe he’d be open to helping her return to the Order safely.
The footsteps grew louder. She had to choose.
But which option would give her the best chance of escape?