Chapter Text
May 3rd , 2001
In the end it didn’t really matter who died first. They all left her anyway.
The morning after the Battle of Hogwarts Hermione didn’t wake up wrapped in Ron’s arms in his tiny bed in the highest room in the Burrow. She didn’t hear Ginny’s swearing or Fred and George’s hysterical laughter. She had dreamed of that moment for almost three years, ever since she left to hunt Horcruxes with Harry and Ron and long after the war had settled deep in their bones.
She would’ve slipped out of Ron’s embrace without waking him and wrapped herself in a robe before sneaking downstairs. The smell of freshly made pancakes would reach her and she would eagerly step into the kitchen to find Harry and Arthur devouring their breakfast while deep in conversation about the inner workings of the television.
Harry, of course, would be indulging his future father-in-law, but Arthur would be excited to the point of agitation. Molly would then step back into the kitchen, after having scolded the twins for whatever prank they pulled and Ginny for her language, only to scold her husband for obsessing over “muggle trinkets.” It was a perfect morning, the perfect morning after all the blood and suffering they endured during the war.
Except it never came to pass.
Hermione’s eyes snapped open and she struggled to adjust to the faint light entering the room through a tiny barred window over her head. The lack of warmth and laughter hit her like a bucket of icy cold water. There was no Ron hugging her in his sleep. No twins playing pranks on their sister. No Ginny hexing them into oblivion, her fiery red hair making her look maniacal in the morning light. No Molly, no Arthur… no Harry.
That one hurt the most.
The memory of her best friend’s body lying on the courtyard, blood pooling around his head while Voldemort forced a pair of battered glasses onto him flashed behind her eyes and she let out a soft whimper. Her heart shattered. As if it hadn’t already crumpled to pieces multiple times in the past two days.
Where had it all gone so wrong?
She had never felt a flicker of doubt. Even when they were almost desperately apparating from one place to the next, wandering aimlessly across the countryside with no idea where the next horcrux could be, or when they had spent day after day training under Kingsley at the Order headquarters, she had never doubted that in the end they would prevail. That Harry would manage to find and destroy all the soul pieces, that he would kill Voldemort and that only light would remain.
She realized now that for someone who claimed that Divination was the most ridiculous subject taught at Hogwarts, she had unconsciously based her hope and determination on Trelawney’s prophecy. To her, it had always meant that Harry not only had to defeat Voldemort, but that there was no way Voldemort could defeat him .
She could see now how very wrong she’d been.
How illogical .
That truly pissed her off. She was a person who claimed to be highly logical and inquisitive. She rarely made assumptions and her entire life was based on research and reason. How could she have been so stupid?
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs pulled her away from her chastising thoughts and her eyes snapped towards the source of the sound. It was too dark to make out entirely, but the soft morning light seeping in through her only window gave shape to her new world. Nothing was as it should have been, not anymore. Where there should have been dark wooden floors, there was only icy cold stone. There was no bed in her “room,” instead, there was only a dirty bucket in a corner - her bathroom - she guessed, and thick gruesome bars instead of walls.
Caged… like a dog.
There was a loud creak as the door at the opposite side of her new home swung open and a tall, sour looking man with greasy hair stepped into the room. Hermione’s lips curled with distaste, but she kept her jaw tight and her words unsaid.
Snape made his way towards her, his face impassive as ever, and didn’t say a word. He waved his wand over the lock to her cell and pulled the bars open.
If Hermione had still been in possession of her wand then she might’ve tried to kill him and run. At least, she liked to think that she would’ve. That she still had some fight left in her.
As it stood, however, she was wandless and alone. Even if she could find a way to overpower her former professor, she had nowhere to go. Everyone she had ever trusted was dead. No more Kingsley. McGonagall. Hagrid. Pomfrey. Weasleys. The only reason why she was still alive was because Snape had been the one to capture her, because for some reason he had decided that she was worth more alive than dead.
As she watched him now, a sneer etched on his face, she wondered if all those years as a double – or was it triple? – agent had made him soft. She scrapped the thought almost immediately. Snape had never been soft, not for one second. Not even if Harry had been right and he had been in love with Harry’s mother. The fact that they could’ve been friends, a Muggleborn and a Death Eater, it only proved to her that he was ruthless. It took a different type of evil, to be able to turn your back on your best friend and have her murdered.
He had forced her to do the same. He had made her watch Voldemort and his followers exterminate her friends and family before dragging her to Malfoy Manor, where she’d been stuck in a cell ever since.
She had screamed at first, when Harry’s body plummeted to the ground, limp and lifeless. She had tried to free herself from her former professor’s grasp, to run and fight to the death like her friends had done. Snape hadn’t allowed it, he hadn’t released her, or killed her himself when she tried to attack him. He hadn’t listened when she had crumbled into hysterics and begged him to end her pain. Begged him to kill her after seeing Ron’s brain matter spread on the ground in front of her.
“Are you an Occlumens, Granger?” Snape droned and Hermione was pulled away from the previous day. She shook her head, unsure about the question itself. She knew he was a Legilimens, which meant that he was perfectly capable of entering her mind and figuring it out. Snape seemed to weigh her answer for a second and an emotion she couldn’t recognize briefly flashed on his face. Before she was able to fully register it, however, he had schooled his expression back to one of disinterest.
“Pity,” he muttered, “Occlumens have a better chance of maintaining their sanity.”
At those words, panic flooded Hermione’s body and she felt her heart rate increase. She knew she wouldn’t be one of those, the strong prisoners that somehow keep it together. Whatever they had in store for her, it would break her.
He grabbed her by the collar of her raggedy shirt and pulled her to her feet, making her wince. Her muscles ached from having been on the stone floor all night, yet she had a feeling that she hadn’t known real pain yet.
Snape seemed to think the same thing as he dragged her up the stairs and into the too familiar drawing room. It was dark, the light that had so easily entered her cell seemed to cower away from the room, leaving the shadows to rule.
Her eyes instinctively shot towards the too familiar chandelier, the one that had almost seen life leave her eyes a bit over two years ago. So many people had died since then. People she hadn’t even known were allies to their cause. It had all been for nothing. Despite it all, the chandelier still hung high above the center of the room and dread pooled down at her feet, turning them to lead, when her attention focused on the figure underneath it. Right under the crystal chandelier stood the monster she’d hoped to never have to see again.
“My Lord…” Snape offered as an introduction, he bowed slightly before shoving her to the ground. “Potter’s mudblood.”
Hermione’s body froze with fear, eyes focused on the bare feet in front of her, the yellowing nails that looked like they belonged to a corpse instead of a man, but she could practically hear Voldemort smile.
“Ah! Wonderful, Severus. Wonderful! Have you seen this, Lucius?”
There was a shuffle to her right and then a second pair of feet, these fitted into expensive looking dragonhide shoes, stepped into view. Somehow Lucius Malfoy’s voice brought her even more rage than Voldemort’s had. She’d seen his crimes, after all. She’d seen him kill his own son.
“Do you wish for me to kill her, my Lord?” he asked, and rage bubbled within her chest. She knew she needed to contain herself, to be as quiet and small as possible, yet she’d never been one to hold back in the end.
“You mean like you killed Draco?” she spat, finally looking up at the pair that stood over her. The room, which had until then been filled with light chatter that she hadn’t identified, fell into an eerie ominous silence and she knew that her end had come. To her surprise, however, Voldemort let out a supernatural cackle.
“Oh!” he bellowed, “the Mudblood still has some fire.” He raised his wand to her face and Hermione braced herself. “Draco chose his own fate when he drew his wand on me, stupid girl. You, on the other hand... Oh, you lost any choice on your fate when you fell under Severus’ wand. You see, Mudblood, we were a bit hasty yesterday, weren’t we my dear friends?”
There were some light chuckles and a murmured assent. Voldemort stepped away from her, as if she cared about his speech and his theatrics.
Just get it over with and kill me.
“I had all of these plans, Mudblood. I wanted slaves, wanted revenge. But you all just had to fight too hard. Your friends forced our hands, they’re dead because they willed it so. And now… well now my men deserve a prize.”
At those words, Hermione blanched. She had expected a quick death, maybe some torture, but there really wasn’t much else that she could give them. They’d essentially exterminated the Order of Phoenix. She had no information to be interrogated for, her only value were her skills and intelligence and they knew she would rather die than let them use her in that way.
This, however… this she had not expected.
Her pulse quickened and her magic thrummed through her bones. Without a wand to defend herself she was helpless. She was also terrified. But she refused to let them see it, to let them take pride in having broken her. Mustering all the courage she had left she glared at Voldemort, who was now watching her curiously, an unfamiliar glint in his eyes.
“I vow to you, Tom,” she spat and the thrumming in her veins grew louder, “I will kill you and every single one of your followers for what you did to my family, to my friends, and for what you’re going to do to me.”
For half a second, something that almost looked like concern seemed to flash behind Voldemort’s eyes. But before she could decide what it had been, it was gone, and instead he was giving her the most maniacal grin she’d ever seen. It made her tremble to her core.
“I suppose that means I shall make the honours, my dear friends.”
He turned to them once, arms extended to his sides, and all the Death Eaters present bowed. Hermione watched them through the corner of her eyes, which were still locked on the half man half snake that stood before her. He turned back to her; wand pointed at her face.
“And now you,” he hissed, “bow to me Mudblood. Crucio!”
The words had barely left his mouth when Hermione doubled down in pain and a scream tore out her throat. She collapsed on the marble floor at his feet, body contorting as the spell ravaged her from the inside out.
It felt like she was being stabbed with a thousand knives while fire burned her insides and she couldn’t do anything to stop it. No matter how she shifted, how she contorted herself, she found no relief.
She twisted on the floor, praying to die, until she heard the snap of a single bone. It echoed in her mind, dampening the sound of her sobs. Slowly, other bones began to crack. She wasn’t strong, she wasn’t proud, she screamed until her blood pooled in her mouth and she began choking on it. Fire crept up and down her body and around her others were laughing, relishing in her suffering, yet the only sound she could hear was Nagini, hissing as she slithered around her. Eager to eat.
“Not today, Nagini,” Voldemort cooed, “we’re going to have our fun first.”
As sudden as it had begun, the spell stopped, and then only the pain remained. The room was silent once more, save for a few chuckles and Hermione’s whimpering. Somewhere deep inside her mind, a far away place where she still had some sanity left, she wondered why he had stopped. She didn’t need to think to hard for that answer.
“Yes, Pettigrew?” Voldemort’s annoyed voice broke through the silence.
“F – forgive me m’lord,” Pettigrew stammered through his words, “you asked me to come find you at this hour for your interview with the Prophet.”
Silence.
“Tell them to meet me in the dining room,” Voldemort finally replied, and she heard the distinct shuffle of Pettigrew’s steps as he retreated from the room. “Very well. Bellatrix, you’ll come with me to the interview. Severus, heal the girl, but only enough so she doesn’t die. Lucius, your prize. Do not kill her or drive her insane, I am not done with her.”
Voldemort’s words barely held any meaning to her, but as Snape knelt by her head and the warmth of his healing spells began to spread through her body, she let out a relieved whimper. Her bones snapped back into place, but she could feel the tenderness around them. They were weakened and she knew it wouldn’t take much for them to snap once more.
While Snape healed her, the rest of the room moved with informality and the clink of champagne glasses tickled her ears. As the healing eased the pain and her mind was momentarily cleared of its stupor, realization suddenly dawned on her. It was a party, and she was the main attraction.
Maybe it was a sign of early insanity by Voldemort’s Cruciatus or the overwhelming pain lodged in her heart after having seen every person she ever loved die, but while the Death Eaters gossiped and Snape healed her, her shaky hand shifted from underneath her body and gripped the warm hand of Severus Snape. She didn’t care if he pushed her away or cursed her or broke every single bone in her body once again. For that fleeting moment where she held his hand she felt safe, and she knew she’d never feel this safe again.
Except Snape didn’t push her away, sneered or cursed her. Instead, he gripped her hand back as tightly as she had while he continued to heal her. Hermione didn’t have the energy to react, to show confusion or sadness. She simply lay on the floor where Voldemort had left her and absorbed as much warmth as she could from her former professor’s grip before he announced he was finished and got to his feet.
Once more, she found herself alone in the center of the drawing room, trails of tears staining her cheeks, and staring at the chandelier hoping it would be the last thing she ever had to see.
“Thank you, Severus,” she heard Lucius say in the distance, far away from the safe little hole she’d found deep within her mind, “now who here wants to see if Potter’s Mudblood is still a virgin?
❃❃❃
July 10th 2001
Hermione didn’t see Snape for over two months after the victory celebration at the manor, but she saw a lot of other people. Lucius was a constant visitor, given that she was living under his house and he thoroughly enjoyed having his way with her. He often dragged her out of her cage and into the drawing room when he had visitors. He even had her “attend” one of his parties, dressed in a red slip dress that barely covered her legs. He called her the Dark Lord’s guest of honour and insisted that everyone should have a taste.
Bellatrix, on the other hand, was particularly interested in using her to practice the Cruciatus curse. As if she needed it. Although she was always careful to space the curses out enough so as to maintain Hermione’s sanity. That had been the Dark Lord’s specific request, after all.
Some of her other “regulars” included Crabbe and Goyle Sr and Jr, as well as Dolohov and Rookwood. They came in groups, always drunk out of their minds. She was almost grateful when she saw them, they were never too rough, and couldn’t keep it up for long enough.
All of them, however, paled when compared to Peter Pettigrew. It had become a little joke amidst Lucius and his Death Eater friends. They’d bring Hermione out, drop her in the center of the drawing room and watch her spit and yell and curse violently. Then they would call Peter in and revel in watching as the blood drained from Hermione’s face.
“He must be a fucking degenerate if he can get that reaction from the Mudblood filth.”
“Pettigrew tell us your secrets.”
“Peter, my man! Have a drink with us and tell us what you do to her.”
It was all a joke to them, but it made Pettigrew feel like he was walking on water. With every taunt and every wink, he grew more and more confident. And that made him turn vicious.
She was lying face down on the icy cold stone floor, trying to will the pain away after Pettigrew’s latest visit when the door to the cellar creaked open once more and her heart skipped a beat. The thought that he had come back for more made her heart shrivel to a stone. She was certain death was merely one interaction with Pettigrew away.
Instead, Snape’s dark curtain hair came into view and she inadvertently let out a sigh.
“Up, Granger,” he hissed, but Hermione couldn’t move even if she wanted to. Snape unlocked the cell door nonverbally and stepped towards her. He didn’t crouch, probably realizing that what covered the floor wasn’t water. “Granger,” he repeated, and the toe of his shoe tapped her shoulder softly.
She screamed.
It was barely a tap, a younger Hermione probably wouldn’t have felt it, but she wasn’t who she used to be, and her body wasn’t the body she used to know. She bit down on her tongue until blood pooled in her mouth once more and stifled her sobs as the sound of her shoulder shattering echoed in her mind. Snape cursed under his breath and fell to his knees beside her.
“Why aren’t you healed?” he whispered, and he ran his wand over her body, carefully stitching her back together. She grimaced.
“He – he doesn’t heal me anymore,” she said, choking on her own blood. Snape waved his wand over her mouth once and the wound in her tongue disappeared.
“Who doesn’t heal you? The Dark Lord was very specific with–”
“Pettigrew,” she whispered.
“That little shit.”
He continued to heal her in silence and he even scourgified the floor once he was done. Hermione rolled onto her back and watched as he siphoned the dampness from his own robes. He looked so familiar, he had watched her grow up, and yet he was nothing but a stranger. She felt a twinge of pain unlike the ones that had been so common in her life for the past two months. Her chest tightened and she couldn’t hold herself back any longer.
“Why,” she breathed, and Snape’s eyes snapped up from where he’d been trying to rid his robe of a particularly nasty stain. He arched a brow, and she was suddenly transported to the Potions classroom in the dungeons. Back to when she hadn’t known pain, when tragedy had been nothing but a late night thought. Her chest tightened once more. “Why did you betray us? Dumbledore trusted you… I trusted you.”
Snape’s face soured visibly at the name of the long-deceased wizard but instead of replying he knelt by her side once more. He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a thin silver chain.
“Dumbledore was a bastard who was willing to sacrifice Lily for the greater good,” he whispered, and Hermione bristled at the insult. Dumbledore had been their saviour, their only hope in the war. She hadn’t realized it then, but the moment that Snape killed the headmaster atop the Astronomy tower, they had lost the war. It had all been because of him, because of the absolute betrayal.
“You betrayed him,” she hissed, “I think that makes you the bastard.”
Anger flashed through his otherwise impassive features and Hermione cowered, shrinking against the wall in instinct. She’d stopped being the brave swot after that first night at the Manor. Snape seemed to notice her fear because he immediately schooled his features back to the ones that were familiar to her.
“I never stopped following his orders, Granger, and what good did that do? He was nothing but a puppet master, pulling strings behind the scenes and never bothering to care about whose lives he ruined.”
She glared at him and rage that she hadn’t felt in a while bubbled under her skin.
“I suppose when you spend half your life lying you eventually forget how to stop,” she snapped.
Snape seemed to be losing his patience and he glanced at the cellar door.
“Believe what you want, I don’t care. But take this,” he pushed a vial with familiar looking silver hairlike wisps into her hand. She eyed the memories curiously, “and this.”
Without waiting for permission, he pushed the silver chain over her head and let it rest around her neck. Hermione looked down at it and her eyes widened.
Hanging from the chain, was a small, peculiar looking, time-turner that seemed to be glowing faintly. It wasn’t anything like the time-turner McGonagall had given her during her third year. That one had been gold and dainty. This one was silver and studded with gems. It felt heavy in her fingers and she let out a surprised gasp when it started to emit a soft hum.
Snape gripped her face between his hands and she winced from the pain that shot down her neck. “Change it all Granger, change it all and save us.” His dark eyes scanned her face with something that looked like desperation and his final words were a broken whisper. “Don’t let me betray her.”
Before Hermione’s foggy brain could process his words, before she could say anything to stop him or ask the million questions that were suddenly rushing through her mind, Snape thrust something else into her hands and placed his wand on the time-turner.
“Tempus Peragro,” he whispered. His shimmering black eyes locked on hers and she barely had a chance to open her mouth before the world disappeared, Snape along with it.
She was surrounded by a white cloud and the too familiar stone floor of the Malfoy cellar vanished. Instead, she was floating, and if it hadn’t been for the burning time turner on her neck, she’d be sure that Snape had just killed her to end her suffering. Either way, she was grateful. Dead or alive, she suspected this meant she was escaping the Manor.
Suddenly, and a bit too soon for her liking, the cloud around her darkened, its whimsical wisps turned into sharp lines and curved forms as the world slowly materialized around her.
In the blink of an eye the cloud disappeared as quick as it had arrived and Hermione collapsed onto a warm and unfamiliar wooden floor. It creaked with the impact of her body crashing against it and she let out a loud scream as several of her bones cracked at the impact, severely weakened by the months of torture and incorrect healing.
She allowed herself a few seconds on the floor as she tried to calm her hyperventilating heart. The last twenty minutes flashed in her mind as she tried to make sense of Snape’s words and actions. Shivering, she sat up and glanced around.
She was definitely out of Malfoy Manor, it was evident by the way moonlight entered the room she was in. Whatever Dark magic had taken over the Wiltshire Manor that didn’t allow any form of light in wasn’t present here. A long and almost overwhelming sigh left her lips yet her eyes still scanned the room. A part of her, a very hurt and damaged part of her, didn’t trust Snape and suspected this was another of Voldemort’s tricks. The one that would finally break her.
It would’ve been a perfect plan really, tricking her into believing she was safe, that she had managed to find an ally in the lowest and darkest point of her life. Once she felt safe and secure, revealing it was all a ruse would have meant the last straw of her sanity. She scanned her surroundings with suspicion.
The room she had fallen into was circular and much smaller than the Malfoy drawing room, yet a large chandelier also hung at the center. One glance at it had her insides recoiling and she dragged herself towards the wall, set on putting as much distance from herself and the ornament despite the pain that fired from her shattered bones.
After two months of enduring more pain than she had ever imagined possible, Hermione had become quite numb to a lot, but as she finally managed to reach the wall, the effort of pulling herself up to a sitting position was too much for her weakened bones and her right wrist cracked loudly. The crack hadn’t finished echoing around the circular walls when Hermione’s desperate wails joined it. She lifted her arm and cradled her wrist as she tried to push down the pain. The magnetic taste of blood spread in her mouth as her lip tore under the pressure of her teeth and yet the pain in her hand refused to let her be distracted.
She was so consumed by the pain that she barely registered the sound of voices in the hall behind the partially closed doors of the circular room. There were a few whispers and a groan before the doors flung open and a witch accompanied by a house elf stormed into the room. She had barely had a chance to look up, when an unfamiliar boom echoed in her mind. If she had been able to maintain any semblance of control over her body, she would’ve doubled forward and vomited across the floors from the sharp pain that suddenly erupted behind her temple. Instead, she was barely able to let out a small whimper... and then the world turned to black.