Chapter Text
“Hermione? Hermione!”
A frantic voice called out from beyond Hermione’s bedroom door. She set down the book she had been nodding off to on her bedside table and pulled back her quilt, swiftly sitting up and swinging her legs out of bed.
Father? She thought, puzzled. Sleep still clung to the edges of her consciousness, trying to coax her back down.
But the voice called out again.
“Hermione!”
Footsteps thundered down the hallway.
She stood up just as her bedroom door swung open. Her father clutched the door frame, staring at her with wild eyes. His nose was still red from the cold, and his breaths came in great gulping pants as if he had run home from the pub.
“I'm sorry - I didn't -,” he choked out, trying to catch his breath, “I don't know what came over me. I - I spoke the words but it wasn't me. It was as if - as if someone else was using my own mouth to speak. I swear it, Hermione. My love -”
He stumbled forward, clutching at her shoulders. The sickly sharp scent of liquor clung to his breath, oozing out into the air between them.
“Father! What is going on? How much have you had to drink?” Hermione questioned, trying to back away but his grip held firm.
Her stomach twisted up in knots. It wasn't the first time he had come home in the night, drunk and delirious. Though, never before had he seemed so frantic.
“Don't you understand? They mean to take you!” he cried out in despair. Then he suddenly let go of her shoulders and his hands came up to cradle his own face instead and his head hung low, shoulders slumping down in tired defeat. “Oh, what have I done?”
Hermione breathed out a heavy sigh, moving forward to place a hand tentatively on his shoulder. “Everything will be right in the morning, I promise. Let's get you into bed.” She reached over to carefully pick up her bedside lantern to guide their way through the dark house.
He rubbed tiredly at his face as he allowed her to slowly guide him out of her bedroom and across the hall to his own. She sat him down on the edge of his bed and knelt down to unlace his boots. His clothes - and he - were absolutely filthy. But there wasn't much she was willing to do about that at such an hour. Especially not with him in his currently confused state.
Pulling back the bedclothes from the bottom edge, she pulled out the bedwarmer she'd placed inside some hours earlier and set it aside. She patted the lumpy mattress beside his hip.
“Come now, lie down. In the morning I'll go and see if Mr. Byrne has any saffron buns.”
Her father lied down and Hermione pulled the blankets up over his body, tucking him in tightly. He looked up at her with glassy, unfocused eyes. There was sweat at his brow. His thinning brown hair lay limp and damp against his forehead.
“You have to run,” he told her. His words came out strange and stilted but there was a firmness to them, as if he were struggling to impart something very important through the haze of his drunkenness.
She patted his cheek with a small, sad smile. “And how am I meant to do that? It's the middle of winter and I'm in my nightclothes, you dizzy man.”
“Don't go with them,” he murmured, eyes falling closed, “I cannot lose you, too.”
“I'm not going anywhere, I promise,” she assured him, sweeping his damp hair back from his forehead. It seemed unlikely he had heard her, however, as his breathing had evened out and the deep furrow of his brow had fallen slack.
Weariness settled into her very bones at the thought of dragging him out of bed in the morning and convincing him to get to work. She simply couldn't sustain their way of life on her own. Her father hadn't been the same since her mother had died. Nearly an entire decade had passed and still, he had no space left in his heart for living, in the midst of his grief. Which meant no space left for caring for her. So, she'd been doing all of the caring ever since.
Dutifully, she carried the bedwarmer, along with her lantern, down the short hall to the main room and returned the bedwarmer to its place beside the fireplace. The fire had burned down low, nearly to nothing, so she added a bit more wood and stoked it back to life as best she could. They hardly had any firewood left. Her bare feet were freezing cold against the floor.
As she was turning towards the hall to return to her room, she nearly leapt right out of her skin at the sudden loud, insistent banging on the front door. Her blood turned to ice. Surely her father's warnings had been purely drunken, nonsensical ramblings… right? If not… who were they? Where could they possibly want to take her?
She crept over towards the front window on quiet feet, lifting the very edge of the curtain and peering cautiously out of the corner, crouching down low against the wall. The angle wasn't great, but she could partially make out a person standing right outside the door. They knocked again, even louder that time, pounding against the wooden door in an impatient, relentless rhythm. Then, a muffled voice called out, “Crown business! We know yer home!”
Hermione glanced at the door. Father hadn't even bothered to lock it. Fear curled her tongue, acid rising up in the back of her throat. What did they want? Her father must have done something quite awful if Officers of the Crown were coming to look for him.
It seemed pointless to try and hide, or ignore them. Eventually they'd just come in the unlocked door, she assumed. She had never been in such a situation before, and felt entirely out of her depths.
Smoothing out her nightdress, she tiptoed over to the door and pulled it open just a sliver. There, in the dark, stood two men dressed in dark woolen cloaks and tricorn hats. One was tall and trim, and the other quite short and round.
“Good evening, miss,” the taller one said, “we're here on business of the Crown. Is this the home of Richard - er,” he glanced over at the other man.
“Granger,” the short one supplied gruffly.
“That's it - Granger. The Miller. Have we got the right house?”
Hermione hesitated for a moment, considering slamming the door in their faces and hiding beneath her bedsheets. The way the tall man was slyly grinning at her sent a shiver of disgust down her spine. It was undoubtedly uncouth for her to be standing before these strange men on her doorstep in nothing but her nightdress. She stepped further back behind the door.
“Yes…” she answered quietly, “I'm afraid he's gone to bed. You'll have to return in the morning.”
“You his daughter, then?” the stout man asked.
“Yes…”
The tall one smiled - a disturbing, crooked thing. “It's no trouble at all then, is it - we aren't here to see him. We're here for you.”
“Me?” Hermione exclaimed, taking a step backward into the house. Her toes were bloody frozen. Which was nothing compared to the icy grip of fear that was tightening its hold on her ribcage.
“Don't worry, love, we only want to talk,” the officer assured her in a perturbingly gentle tone, “you see, the King has been searching for girls with a unique way about them… and we think he would be very interested in that special talent of yours - the one your father has been bragging about to the whole village.”
“Talent?” she repeated, completely bewildered, “I haven't got any special talent!”
She backed up further into the house and attempted to close the door but the shorter Officer caught it with his enormous palm, pushing it fully open.
“Father!” Hermione cried out, turning to look over her shoulder down the dark hall.
He wouldn’t hear her - he was dead to the world. Curse him and his bloody cups! He wouldn't be of any use to her anyhow, stumbling around as he had been. She would have to figure things out for herself.
Again.
She turned back towards the men who had fully entered the house, dirty boots and all. Trying to sound polite, she bit out through a forced smile, “I appreciate the offer but I will have to ask you to return at a later date. I'm not at all prepared for a trip to the castle, you see.”
The taller man stepped briskly forward, catching her by the elbow. “I'm afraid we haven't got the time to wait around. Come now, don't make a fuss. We'll take you on a nice carriage ride to the castle. It's much warmer there.”
“Unhand me at once!” she insisted, attempting to wrestle away but his grip was bruising.
The other man took hold of her other arm and they began to drag her towards the door.
“Please!” she whimpered, “I can't leave my father, he needs me!”
Tears pricked at her eyes. For all she knew, they might not be Officers of the Crown at all. Was she being taken away by two strange men who planned on assaulting her?
She screamed.
They strong armed her out of the house like it was nothing, despite her kicking and shouting. One of the men wrapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her pleading words. She was unceremoniously dumped into a carriage. And some carriage it was - there wasn't even a bench. Only cold, hard, bare wood.
“You've nothing to fret about, as long as your father was telling the truth,” the tall officer told her gruffly before slamming the doors shut. She heard the sound of a lock sliding closed and then she was alone, shivering in the corner of an empty box, lit up only by the small slivers of moonlight that bled through the cracks in the panels.
“The truth about what?” she shouted through her tears, “I don't even know what he's told you!”
There was no answer, save for the snorting of a horse and the rattling of the carriage as the two men seemingly took their seats in the front.
The journey was long and bumpy and cold and she sorely wished she had been able to at least bring her cloak. Her bottom ached from resting against the hard floor of the carriage, each bump and jolt shooting achingly up her spine. She curled up into a frozen little ball, mind whirring with horrible anticipation about what was going to happen when they made it to their destination - wherever that was. It was difficult to believe they were truly planning to take her to the castle - it was too absurd. What could the King possibly want with a girl like her?
Eventually, the carriage rolled to a stop and Hermione sat up straighter, fearing the worst. Pressing her ear flat to the wooden wall beside her, she strained to listen, hoping to gain some insight as to where they were, and what was going to happen to her. The distant sound of men speaking amongst each other floated in through the cracks in the wall, though they were too far away for her to make out any of the words. Hooves stomped audibly against the ground, clomping loudly as if hitting stone. They must have entered the city.
Shortly after, she heard the grinding creak of metal on metal, and the carriage began to slowly roll forward. They must've entered a gate. Perhaps they truly were going to the castle.
But, if that were the case… Why?
She didn't have any ‘unique talents’ - she was simply… a girl. A girl from a little village who tended to her father and picked up his slack at the mill when necessary. A girl who much preferred the company of her books to other people, and whom no one had ever particularly noticed. No one she knew would ever claim she held an interesting bone in her body. What had her father been thinking?
She fidgeted with the pendant of the necklace that hung over the center of her chest - one of the few things she had left of her Mother's - and prayed silently to whatever God or deity may be listening that she would make it through her current plight and live to see another day. Live to return to her father, whom she knew would languish without her. Her thumb traced over the circular shape of the serpent pendant, over and over, in a bid to calm her nerves, stroking rhythmically over the tiny garnet eye on the head of the snake.
Could her mum hear her? Did her soul still exist, in some unseen place? Was she looking out for her?
The thought comforted her panic-stricken mind.
Some time later, they rolled to a stop again, and shortly after, she heard the lock on the carriage doors sliding open. Flattening herself as flush to the back corner as possible, she hugged her knees to her chest, watching the doors open with growing dread.
She was forcefully dragged out of the carriage, kicking and screaming, and swiftly led into a side door of a great, stone-walled building before she even had a chance to examine her surroundings. They travelled down a very narrow corridor, dimly lit by a lantern held by the shorter man as he led the way. Hermione could hardly see in front of her own face. She was ushered down several narrow staircases, until the damp in the air was palpable, and the musty, dank scent of underground filled her nostrils. Her wrists ached where the two crude men gripped her bruisingly tight.
By the time she was shoved into a small, dark room, she had given up on protesting. Who would hear her? Who would care?
They pushed her inside, handed her the dimly lit lantern, and slammed the door in her face, locking it securely from the other side.
She stood stock still, heavy lantern dangingly from her fingers, feeling freezing cold and absolutely terrified. Hesitantly, she held up the light, glancing around at her surroundings. The room she was in was small, the floor - or rather, the ground - was grimy dirt beneath her bare feet. It was nearly completely empty, save for a lumpy grey rectangle in the far corner that she supposed was intended to be a bed.
She was in a prison. A dungeon? It was so silent inside she could've heard a pin drop.
What was she meant to do? They'd dropped her off and left without a word…
On the bright side, being locked up in a prison by herself was much preferable to the many horrors she had imagined the pair of men might put her through during the long carriage ride. At the very least, she could be grateful for that.
Feeling defeated, she wandered over to the small mattress on the floor and shined the lantern over it, examining it closely. It looked utterly disgusting, and the straw that it was stuffed with was poking out of numerous rips and holes, but she figured it might be somewhat warmer than sitting on the cold, dirt floor. So, she collapsed down onto it with a resigned sigh.
A long time later - or perhaps not that long at all, for time passed by strangely in the silence and the dark - she heard the lock on the door jiggling and she sprung to her feet, instantly on high alert once again.
The door burst open and several men came bustling through, pushing - wheelbarrows?
She backed up against the damp stone wall, wishing to keep as much distance from the strange men as she possibly could.
They brought in three large wheelbarrows piled high with mounds of… something. She couldn't quite make it out in the dark.
Then, two more men carefully entered the room, straining under the weight of the large spinning wheel they carried together and sat down in the center of the room with exaggerated grunts.
Hermione was beyond befuddled.
One of the men who had taken her from her home - the thinner, taller of the two - stepped toward her, a smug little smirk marring his ugly face. “Your father claims you have some remarkable talents,” he said, growing closer and closer as he spoke, “Let us see if you can actually spin this straw into gold.”
Wait…What?
She thought at first that she had heard him incorrectly. It was the most absurd thing anyone had ever said to her. Spinning straw into gold? That would be… well, magic. No one could do magic.
Not anymore.
It was plain to see that the Officer didn’t believe for a second that a lick of it was true - based on the look on his face - and he seemed very much amused by the look of shocked fear painting Hermione’s features.
“But - that’s -” Hermione stuttered out, shrinking back against the wall as he continued to advance on her, “gold? There’s been a mistake - my father is unwell! He doesn’t know what he’s saying - please, just let me go home.”
Tears ran down her cheeks as she pleaded with him but he appeared completely unaffected. Rather than pity in his eyes, there was only an unsettling leer, his gaze dragging up and down her shivering form. She wrapped her arms tightly across her chest, remembering that she only wore her thin, white nightdress.
“Finish the task by morning, and you’ll be rewarded. If you fail, you and your father both will have to answer to the Crown,” he said with one final glance up and down her body. Then he smiled - and what an awful sight it was.
“Sweet dreams,” he called out over his shoulder in a falsely sweet tone as he left the room, locking the door behind himself.
Before she knew it, she was totally alone once again. Her lantern had almost burned down to nothing, and she had what was surely a death sentence - or at the very least, a long stay in prison - hanging over her head. How could her father have done this to her?
What a ridiculous thing to lose her life over… A silly, made up story that was surely overheard at the pub. She collapsed back down onto the horrible bed, totally defeated, covered her face with her hands, and began to sob out her despair.
It just simply wasn't fair. Her life had only just begun, and here she was, about to meet her end for no good reason at all. She hadn’t had the chance to do anything yet. All of her time had been spent taking care of her father and trying to keep their heads above water. She was barely twenty years old!
She cried for a long, long time, until her head ached from the strain and her nose was so stopped up that she couldn't breathe through it anymore.
She cried for herself. For her father. For her mother, and what she would think if she could see her now. She wished she could go back in time and curl up in her own bed one last time, with a familiar book and a cup of tea. She wished she could tuck her father into bed one last time. And wallop him over the head a few times as well, for good measure.
Just as she had nearly cried herself sick, and her sobs quieted down to pathetic little hiccups and whimpers, she was startled, nearly jumping right out of her own skin. An impossibly deep, dark, silky voice had called out to her quietly from the darkness.
“There’s no need to cry…”
“Who’s there?” Hermione cried out, scrambling up to her feet.
Her lantern was but a muted spark of ember. The darkness felt suffocating. She hadn’t heard the door open. How was there someone there? Had he been hiding in the dark the entire time?
“Tell me what plagues you,” the voice called out, cautious and soft, as if it were afraid to startle her further.
As if he were afraid. The voice was unmistakably male.
She stumbled blindly backward until her back hit the damp wall again. There was nowhere to go. Her heart thrummed in a panicked rhythm against her ribcage. Thump thump… thump thump… thump thump. It thundered in her ears.
“Go away - please -” Hermione rasped out, holding out her hands in front of her chest as if to block an impending attack.
Her voice was failing her; she had cried herself hoarse.
“I have no intention of harming you, I promise,” the man said slowly.
All of a sudden there was a flash of light and her lantern lit up with a fresh blaze of fire, burning bright and strong as if the fuel had been mysteriously refilled. She gasped, blinking rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the renewed light. As soon as the spots left her vision, she caught sight of the mystery man standing only a few feet in front of her face.
He cut a very imposing figure - standing at least a head taller than Hermione, with raven black hair that brushed just past his shoulders. His clothing was all black as well - an intense contrast to the pale pallor of his skin. His chest was a neat row of shiny dark buttons, his shoulders draped in a heavy black cloak that extended all the way to the ground.
“Who are you?” she whispered, “What do you want?”
“I only wish to help you,” he said smoothly, examining her with sharp, scrutinizing eyes.
Eyes that were just as black as his hair. As his robes. He was an odd looking man. A man with very… distinguishing features. Narrowed black eyes and a very oversized, aquiline nose that overwhelmed the rest of his face.
She eyed him suspiciously from the corner, unwilling to trust anyone. “Help me with what? And why?”
“Your task - your plight,” he said simply, gesturing towards the spinning wheel with one pale, long-fingered hand.
His voice was oddly hypnotic… Smooth and rich and reverberating from somewhere deep in his chest. Hermione felt drawn to him somehow, as if there were something achingly familiar about his presence. Except she could say with unwavering certainty that she had never seen him before in her life. No, she definitely would have remembered.
Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you know about it? And how could you possibly help?”
“Word spreads fast in the castle…” he said enigmatically, waltzing with long strides across the room towards the spinning wheel, “and I assure you that I can help…”
Hermione watched him with growing intrigue as he pulled an empty spool from one of the wheelbarrows and began to set up the spinning wheel with the provided straw from another.
Was he mad? He had to be. There was no other explanation. However, he was far too well dressed and clean to be a prisoner…
He began to operate the spinning wheel and a bizarre, sharp, acrid scent filled the space. It was not unlike the smell that drifted out into the street as she passed by the village's blacksmith on her daily stroll. A restless, buzzing sort of energy began to travel across her body, spreading gooseflesh over her already chilly skin. Her mouth fell open in wonder - in utter disbelief - as the empty spool began to collect a shiny golden thread, winding tightly around the wooden center.
Cautiously, she moved forward across the room to get a closer look. His hands were flying deftly over the wheel with expertise. The itchy, crawling sensation beneath her skin only grew stronger as she grew closer to the strange man. She couldn't look away. Couldn't stop herself from moving forward. It was as if something was calling to her - as if something deep-seated and foreign was awakening in her chest.
Within minutes, he had filled an entire spool and then he paused, turning to meet Hermione’s eyes with an air of self-importance, as if he were relishing in the frozen, awestruck expression on her face.
“Is it really? But how -” she reached out a hand to brush the spool of golden thread with her fingertips, “that's - that's impossible.”
“As you've just witnessed it with your own two eyes, obviously it is not impossible.”
“But - magic is gone - it's -” she was stuttering and gaping, forgetting all of her discomfort and fear in her utter shock.
Her mother had regaled her with tales of the Sorcerers that used to be prevalent in the land, some generations before Hermione’s. Before the King at the time had grown fearful of the threat of their abilities, and had waged a fiery war on their small communities. They had swiftly been wiped out by his armies, and now, the only magic that remained was in the stories passed down from parent to child. But this strange man - he had to be one of them.
He rose one dark, sardonic eyebrow as he looked down his hooked nose at her, crossing his arms imperiously over his broad chest. “I am willing to help you…”
A glimmer of hope burst through her chest. Perhaps tonight wasn't the end of her days after all…
“... For a price,” he continued.
Her stomach plummeted straight down to her feet.
Of course.
There was always a price…
She took a hurried step backwards. “I don't - I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid I have nothing to give you in exchange…”
His glittering black eyes swept up and down her narrow frame and a furious rush of heat suffused her face.
Oh.
No….
“...And what of that necklace you wear?” he said, his gaze zeroing in on her chest.
Her hand flew up to cover the tiny serpent that adorned her chest. She shook her head vehemently.
“It's my - it was my mother's,” she explained in a rush, “it's one of the only things I have left of her…”
He contemplated that for a lingering moment.
“... I understand,” he conceded after a brief pause, “I am certain, however, that giving it up is preferable to imprisonment…”
There was a cold, unfeeling lilt to his words.
Her previous sorrow returned in full force and she nearly dropped to her knees with the weight of it.
“It's not worth anything, I'm sure of it - it's purely sentimental…” she reasoned weakly.
He shrugged. “Even so. Nothing is free, girl. I find it hard to believe that you don't already know that all too well.”
He was right, of course. Still, it was difficult for Hermione to fathom being so needlessly cruel to another human being. The man was a complete stranger, though, and she supposed she had no reason to expect anything else.
She reached up to unfasten the clasp of the necklace at the nape of her neck and then let the chain pool up in the palm of her hand. Staring down at the scarlet-eyed serpent for several long seconds, she traced her finger over the comforting shape of the pendant with shaky hands, a fresh batch of tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
It occurred to her suddenly that perhaps this very moment had been the purpose of the necklace all along. Her mother had always told her there was no such thing as a coincidence.
Thank you, mother, she prayed silently in her own mind, determined to do whatever it took to survive another day. With a deep sigh, she closed her fingers around the necklace.
“... Take it then. If you must…” she whispered after a while, reluctantly holding out her closed fist.
He strode forward to meet her, holding out a hand expectantly. Hermione let go of the necklace, allowing it to spill through her fingers and into his waiting palm. He held the pendant up to his face and observed it with an appraising look in his eyes for a moment before he gave her a perfunctory nod and then tucked the jewelry away into an inner pocket of his cloak.
“It seems we have an agreement, then,” he told her with some satisfaction, then immediately turned and headed back towards the spinning wheel.
“How will I explain this?” Hermione asked.
The man paused, glancing over his shoulder at her and waving one hand in nonchalant dismissal as if her concern was completely irrelevant. “Tell them you can only perform in the dark of night… in total solitude. I very much doubt if they will ask too many questions.”
They didn't speak to each other anymore, after that.
Hermione wandered back over to the filthy mattress and sat down to watch the enigmatic man - sorcerer? - work his magic on the remaining piles of straw. It truly was a mesmerizing sight. She could hardly believe her own eyes.
Earlier that day, she had been having a perfectly ordinary, boring, repetitive day, just like any other. And now, mere hours later, she was trapped in a holding cell in the bowels of the castle, watching a stranger turn straw into gold with nothing but his own two hands.
She stared at the spell-binding movement of his clever hands, soaking up every bit of the image she could until the weight of her own drooping eyelids became far too leaden to fight any longer.
The next thing she knew, she was jolting awake to the sound of a door slamming open.
Blearily rubbing the sleep from her dry eyes, she had hardly registered the arrival of a Crown Officer in her holding cell before she was hearing his sharp intake of breath and then a litany of curse words muttered under his breath.
She sat up on the mattress just as he turned to face her with a look of disbelief - and perhaps a touch of fear.
“How in the world -”