The Silence
folder
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
4
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7,261
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Category:
Harry Potter › Het - Male/Female
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
4
Views:
7,261
Reviews:
7
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own the rights to Harry Potter and do not make money by using it here.
The Awakening
She didn’t sleep. For three days and three nights she lay there on the hard stone, a leak in the roof dripping on her left shoulder, the names reverberating in her mind. They should mean something, but didn’t. The numb consumed her and she knew there was something, just there, just out of reach, that she should be striving to find. But instead, she lay within the realm of bliss. They’d taken her from that wooden bunk when she didn’t rise. But they were the fools. She would lie there just the same whether it was stone or wood. The spells ripped through her, the voices swept over her. But she could only think of one thing.
That face. That face dark as night with the eyes that pierced through her. Her chest ached not being able to go to him. When would they let her out? She had to go back, even if his words terrified her. He knew everything. It scared her. No one knew. No one here knew.
Not even her.
_______________________________________
Dean suffered throughout her absence. It had been five days now and his stomach churned as he stood next to the damnable gate, waiting for her silhouette to appear through the fog. The night was silent but for the soft rain and his feet sank into the mud beneath him. Soon it would be too cold to come out here.
Where was she?
His fingers dug into the chain link and he wondered for the hundredth time why there was no alarm on this one. There was on every other. The boys had tried them all. But this one that separated the girls and boys had no alarm. It made no sense.
He waited anxiously, his whole body trembling against the cold. She had to come. Hermione had to be there.
But what if something had happened to her? What if they’d caught her coming to him? What if she was being tortured or killed? Or was it just because his words had scared her? And why would they? Had something happened to Harry and Ron that he didn’t know about? Had they died and she was grief-stricken over it? And why did she start every time he said her name? What had happened to the Gryffindor Princess?
A movement in the fog startled him and he squinted through the white to the dark figure moving towards him. His heart stuttered as her form neared. She’d come. She’d finally come back.
He took in her disheveled appearance. She was so thin and pale; it was hard to get over. Her hair was matted and all over like it had been since he’s first seen her but now it was glittering with droplets of water. Her face was hollow, her feet bare and caked with mud. Her “dress”, if one could constitute it as such, was dirty and hanging off her tiny frame. But she was the most beautiful thing he’d seen. She was hope.
He held out her hand and she looked at it a long while, her lank hair falling across her face, before she took it. Her fingers were tiny, chapped, freezing. He pulled her closer and rubbed her hand in his trying to warm them.
“Where have you been?” he asked, knowing she probably wouldn’t answer. She didn’t disappoint. Simply hung her head further.
“Look at me,” he implored. She raised her head reluctantly and he could see the hollows of her cheeks, the blank look in her eye, the bruises and scars. He knew he couldn’t look much better. He’d lost maybe a stone since coming to this hell hole. “Don’t turn away, look right at me.” She held his gaze. “Do you know who I am?”
She started to turn her head away but his hand shot forward to stop her. “Look at me, please! I have to know. Do you know me? Don’t you remember me?”
What if she didn’t? Had they wiped her memory?
Her chin quivered, her eyes widened. She looked terrified at the prospect of answering a question. What the hell had happened to Hermione Granger? This was her, he knew it was. But this wasn’t the strong, smart, witty girl he remembered. Slowly, slowly, her head moved up a fraction of an inch, down a fraction of an inch. A nod. Barely, but it counted. It was a start. They hadn’t stolen her memory.
“What’s my name?”
Her fingers squeezed in his but she didn’t answer.
“Hermione, what’s my name?”
He expected her to pull away, at the very least look at him terrified. But she did neither, just stood there, looking at the mud where the rain was spattering down to join the oozing mess.
“Hermione.”
Still she didn’t look at him. Her hand was warming slowly in his and he could see all the cracks, the dry spots, the calluses, the blisters. On his he saw much of the same. Scars, chapped knuckles, a bruise from yesterday. When she lifted her head he watched her as she licked her dry lips. Her mouth opened, moved and he leaned down to be sure he could catch what she was trying to say. She seemed to be trying to form the words. What had they done to her? And why was he so terrible at reading lips?
Ma…Ma something...there was an ‘M’ in it, he was sure of it. And an ‘N’, an ‘R’. Hermione. She was mouthing Hermione. Like it was something foreign. He watched her and her head snapped up, her fiery gaze on his.
“My name,” she croaked.
“Yes, it’s your name. Hermione.”
He was startled when she ripped away from him, turned her back, ran a few steps and sank to her knees in the mud, leaning over her body. Her shoulders shook as the rain picked up and he heard her sob.
“Hermione-,”
A crack broke through the air, making him jump and Hermione whip up. They both looked around and although Dean saw nothing, his couldn’t make that sick feeling go away that told him something wasn’t right..
“Hermione, go back, go to your barracks, quickly,” he said, his voice calmer than he felt. His stomach twisted in fear. Had they been caught? “Hurry, run quickly!”
She scrambled to her feet and looked back at him, her dark eyes haunting, before turning away and running back the way she came. When she’d disappeared into the thickening fog, he turned tail and hurried back to his own barracks, not stopping or slowing until he was hidden beneath his blanket. He slammed his eyes shut and listened to the blood roaring in his ears. Working through the fear, he willed sleep to take him.
_______________________________________
She felt fear for the first time in months. She was Hermione. She felt deep inside, knew she was there, somewhere, just waiting. Waiting for what? What was she waiting for? Hermione, Hermione, Hermione. The Brainiac. The Know-It-All.
The Mudblood.
That’s why they were all here, wasn’t it? Their blood. All it was was blood. She was, a Mudblood, the daughter of Muggle parents. Her parents. Mom. Dad. Yvonne and Douglas. They were hers, her parents. And she was a witch. The best friend to Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. The girl who always raised her hand in class, the girl who had cried over Ron and Lavender, the girl who had taught Harry how to Summon for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. The memories assailed her as she shivered beneath her thin blanket and she hugged it around her.
She was cold. It was something she had grown so familiar with she no longer felt it. But now she did. It surrounded her, a constant ache. Every bit of her hurt and she reveled in it, rejoiced in the pain, in the feelings. As she remembered everything, the troll in her first year, her cat Crookshanks, following Harry into the Ministry in their fifth year, the Battle of Hogwarts in her sixth, hugging Ginny as she cried over Harry, she felt tears rolling down her face. Their faces raced through her mind. Harry, with his messy jet-black hair, Ron, with his bright blue eyes and freckles, Ginny, with fiery hair and a quick smile, Neville, with his sweet round face and nervous hands. There was Luna, sweet, wacky, Luna. The Weasley family; Fred and George, always quick to make a joke, Percy, stern as ever, Charlie, buoyant and full of life, Bill, quick-witted and on his feet. There was Mr. Weasley, the father of all, Mrs. Weasley, the worrier, the sweetest woman on the planet. Remus, Tonks, Kingsley, Mad-Eye Moody, Professor McGonagall, the Creevey brothers, Parvati, Padma, Lavender, Seamus and-
Dean.
Her heart pounded and it was suddenly hard to breathe. Oh, gods, Dean. Dean was here, he was in the next camp. It was Dean.
Hermione felt as if she’d just woken from a very long nap. She remembered everything that had happened, but it felt as if she had simply watched it, like a movie. She hadn’t actually lived it. She’d been so numb. What was wrong with her? She looked around her room at the women sleeping. They were all here for the same reason. They’d been born to Muggle parents. She curled into a ball and hugged her blanket closer.
She had to get them out of here. Dean had said something. What was it? That they’d been waiting for her, hoping she was alive. They were relying on her and she’d let them down.
And Ron and Harry. Oh, gods, were they alright? Had Harry survived the last encounter? She remembered seeing Ron as an arm had hooked around her, lifted her from the ground where she was trying to heal Penelope Clearwater. Ron had turned and looked when she’d cried out. He screamed something terrible and ran for her. She’d reached for him, dropped her wand in a puddle of Penelope’s blood. His fingers had been so far away, she’d never gotten to them.
That’s when it had gone black and she’d woken in a cell. She’d later learned she’d experienced what was called among the prisoners as the “Blackout”. At seemingly the same time they’d all blacked out and woken up in their barracks. Except for Hermione. She’d been in a cell. She remembered the day they’d branded her with her number. Right on the back of her neck.
0000001.
She was number one. The first Mudblood. They’d all thought it hilariously funny. She’d still been fighting then. When had she stopped? She never stopped.
It was the strangest thing. She remembered fighting and she remembered being…well, the zombie she’d been walking around as. She had been no better than the Inferi. But what had changed?
She decided not to dwell on it and instead focused on what she needed to do now that she was…for lack of a better term, awake. She kept her mind on her boys, on Ron and Harry. That was what she needed to do. She needed to focus on them, on the reason she was fighting. She needed to believe they were alive, that they were trying to get to her, that they were still fighting. How long had she been in here? It had been freezing cold outside tonight, not the nipping cold of a spring night. It had been April. April 22nd when she’d left, when she’d been stolen from the fight. How long had it been since then? She remembered counting days straight into August, but she didn’t remember what day she’d counted until. It was obviously not summer any longer, her frozen fingers and toes were evidence of that.
Her eyes closed after a while, her mind finally wearing out and sleep took over. When she woke the next morning it was to a Dementor dragging out the lifeless girl in the bunk below her.
___________________________________
The work was endless, grueling. How she had never noticed it before was a mystery. Her back ached, her arms protested as she hacked at another branch of a willow tree. A group had been taken to the woods that day to get wood for wands. The work was hard and tiring. When she was given lunch she ate with a ferocity she hadn’t had in a long time. She tried not to look any different. She kept her head down, her mouth shut. She didn’t want any reason for the Death Eaters to take her in for questioning again. She kept going because she knew that when night fell she could go to Dean, they could figure out together what to do. She would get them all out of here. It was only a matter of time.
She lay as still as possible when the Death Eater can in for the last check to make sure they were all in their bunks. All the other girls slept soundly, exhausted from their hellish lives. She counted off ten minutes after the silver masked bastard left and she crept silently to the floor and out into the night.
The rain pounded her body, the wind whipping at her thin dress. Her muscles convulsed at the bitter cold but she ran as fast as she could, winding her way between the buildings as she’d done so many times before. She reached the gate and grasped it, looking about. She waited patiently for a few minutes before she grew nervous. Where was he?
It had only been maybe five or ten minutes, but when his dark figure materialized out of the night she smiled in relief.
She smiled. When was the last time she’d done that?
He didn’t stop running until he was inches from her, separated only by the gate. He took her hands and searched her face.
“Hermione.”
She nodded and smiled up at him. He smiled hesitantly back.
“It’s Dean, remember?”
“I remember you,” she croaked. Her throat was dry and scratchy from non-use. He grinned.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I thought they’d taken your voice.”
She shook her head.
“They didn’t Obliviate you?”
She shook her head.
“Then what is it? Why have you been acting this way?”
Hermione thought back. There had to be a reason. She remembered the beatings, the spell practice. She remembered the utter pain, the agony, the terror she felt every moment. And then the humiliation, the degradation, the anguish when they mounted her for the first time. Tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered the torment of knowing she’d lost her virginity to those monsters. She thought back to all the things they’d done, the pain she’d endured. She’d thought she was going to die, there was no way someone could have survived that. And then she remembered the young girl they brought in with her, the young girl they slaughtered when she refused to tell them Harry’s whereabouts. She could still see that innocent face, the terrified blue eyes, the pain that had crossed her features as she’d been tortured over and over while Hermione was forced to watch, as she’d been raped repeatedly while Hermione’s own body had been violated simultaneously.
Before she had thought of doing so, she was ripping away from Dean, falling back into a puddle that splashed around her, a sob ripping form her chest. He was calling out to her, his hand reaching through the fence, his face a mask of sorrow. For her.
Her fingers curled in the mud, the brown substance squelching between them as she fell back into it, her face to the sky. She couldn’t stop the sobs bursting out of her, couldn’t help the tears or the memories that rushed through her head. What use was she to anyone when she couldn’t help herself? When she allowed a child to be molested and butchered right in front of her eyes? And she’d done nothing.
The mud displaced around her, holding her in, the cold turning warm with her body heat. The rain pelted her face and her body, freezing her all over again. She didn’t want to get up, she didn’t want to feel anymore.
Arms came around her, pulling her to a chest, a warm, strong chest, and she was being held as she hadn’t in so long.
“Don’t do this, Hermione, do let go again. We need you here. I know it’s hard, I know you’ve probably been through things that would make me sick to think of but you have to stay strong. Please, Hermione, stay with me. Stay with me.”
Since when had Dean been so nice? He’d always been a warm, friendly character, someone who had always stood up for Harry, who’d always had a quick joke when things got tense. But she’d never seen this side of him. Perhaps she’d never looked.
“Come on, Hermione. Please, just stay with me.” He was stroking her hair, rocking her as a babe. “I need you.”
I need you. The words echoed in her head. She could see Harry sitting on her bed back at headquarters saying the same thing as he asked her to help him find Rowena’s horcrux. As Ginny said it while crying over Harry. As Molly said it while trying to cook up a Wolfsbane Potion. As Ron said it while she’d fought him about going on a mission. They needed her. Dean needed her. All the people in these camps needed her. Hermione Jean Granger.
So she clutched Dean hard and stopped crying, because tears were getting her nowhere. They held on to each other tight, drawing strength and warmth and hope.
“I’m sorry,” she choked.
“No,” he said gruffly. “Don’t start. You’ve been through too much. It’s not fair for me to ask this of you but I have to. I’m not like you. I need your help if we’re ever going to get out of this.”
She nodded against his neck. His warmth and familiarity was comforting in the pouring rain, in the loneliness of the night. She held him harder and they simply sat there watching the puddles around them rise. It was then she realized…
“The gate,” she ground out. She looked up at his dark eyes, much like her own, inches from her face. He shrugged.
“Wasn’t so bad. Thought the alarms would go off but they seem to be disabled on this particular fence.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. It was hard to keep the images of her confinement at bay, they lingered at the corner of her mind, threatening to pull her down. She shivered.
“Tell me a story,” she begged. “Something from your childhood.”
He was quiet for a minute before starting in on the first time he had shown powers. His velvet tones flowed through her and he weaved a beautiful scene of his London home and the small incident that involved him levitating his younger sister Cassidy when she wouldn’t leave him and his mate Benji alone. It seems Benji ran all the way home screaming and told him mother about it and Dean never saw Benji again. As for the reaction from his sister and his parents, Hermione never heard for she had fallen asleep to the comforting words.
______________________________________
Dean watched her sleep for a while, not wanting to let her go for several reasons. One was the fact that he was warmer than he’d been in months, despite the torrential rain. Another was the calm written on Hermione’s face. He doubted she’d had much rest and if the women were subjected to the type of work the men were, he knew she was well and exhausted. He himself felt his eyelids tugging down, sleep threatening to overpower him. But he couldn’t let them be caught and they were due to have another check up soon. So he roused the sleeping girl and told her to hurry back to her barracks. She nodded, gave him one last squeeze, and disappeared into the night, hunched against the rain. Dean got to his feet and scaled the chain-link as he had before. When he’d seen her go down his heart had leapt to his chest and he had reacted without thought, realizing much later that they could have been caught. Tumbling down on his side, he jogged to his bed and crawled into it, ignoring the amount of mud and muck on his clothing. He’d have to make an excuse for it in the morning.
The wooden board and thin blanket were little comfort in the chilling night. But the memory of holding Hermione in his arms was enough to lull him to sleep.
_____________________________________
The next morning while Hermione clung to a branch fifteen feet up in a tree, she peered over the quiet woods and her mind raced. The trees and brush were daunting, but there was hope. Glancing at the women below her, tired and beaten, she knew they had to try.
_____________________________________
XOXO
RynStar15
yourcookiedoughbaby@yahoo.com
That face. That face dark as night with the eyes that pierced through her. Her chest ached not being able to go to him. When would they let her out? She had to go back, even if his words terrified her. He knew everything. It scared her. No one knew. No one here knew.
Not even her.
_______________________________________
Dean suffered throughout her absence. It had been five days now and his stomach churned as he stood next to the damnable gate, waiting for her silhouette to appear through the fog. The night was silent but for the soft rain and his feet sank into the mud beneath him. Soon it would be too cold to come out here.
Where was she?
His fingers dug into the chain link and he wondered for the hundredth time why there was no alarm on this one. There was on every other. The boys had tried them all. But this one that separated the girls and boys had no alarm. It made no sense.
He waited anxiously, his whole body trembling against the cold. She had to come. Hermione had to be there.
But what if something had happened to her? What if they’d caught her coming to him? What if she was being tortured or killed? Or was it just because his words had scared her? And why would they? Had something happened to Harry and Ron that he didn’t know about? Had they died and she was grief-stricken over it? And why did she start every time he said her name? What had happened to the Gryffindor Princess?
A movement in the fog startled him and he squinted through the white to the dark figure moving towards him. His heart stuttered as her form neared. She’d come. She’d finally come back.
He took in her disheveled appearance. She was so thin and pale; it was hard to get over. Her hair was matted and all over like it had been since he’s first seen her but now it was glittering with droplets of water. Her face was hollow, her feet bare and caked with mud. Her “dress”, if one could constitute it as such, was dirty and hanging off her tiny frame. But she was the most beautiful thing he’d seen. She was hope.
He held out her hand and she looked at it a long while, her lank hair falling across her face, before she took it. Her fingers were tiny, chapped, freezing. He pulled her closer and rubbed her hand in his trying to warm them.
“Where have you been?” he asked, knowing she probably wouldn’t answer. She didn’t disappoint. Simply hung her head further.
“Look at me,” he implored. She raised her head reluctantly and he could see the hollows of her cheeks, the blank look in her eye, the bruises and scars. He knew he couldn’t look much better. He’d lost maybe a stone since coming to this hell hole. “Don’t turn away, look right at me.” She held his gaze. “Do you know who I am?”
She started to turn her head away but his hand shot forward to stop her. “Look at me, please! I have to know. Do you know me? Don’t you remember me?”
What if she didn’t? Had they wiped her memory?
Her chin quivered, her eyes widened. She looked terrified at the prospect of answering a question. What the hell had happened to Hermione Granger? This was her, he knew it was. But this wasn’t the strong, smart, witty girl he remembered. Slowly, slowly, her head moved up a fraction of an inch, down a fraction of an inch. A nod. Barely, but it counted. It was a start. They hadn’t stolen her memory.
“What’s my name?”
Her fingers squeezed in his but she didn’t answer.
“Hermione, what’s my name?”
He expected her to pull away, at the very least look at him terrified. But she did neither, just stood there, looking at the mud where the rain was spattering down to join the oozing mess.
“Hermione.”
Still she didn’t look at him. Her hand was warming slowly in his and he could see all the cracks, the dry spots, the calluses, the blisters. On his he saw much of the same. Scars, chapped knuckles, a bruise from yesterday. When she lifted her head he watched her as she licked her dry lips. Her mouth opened, moved and he leaned down to be sure he could catch what she was trying to say. She seemed to be trying to form the words. What had they done to her? And why was he so terrible at reading lips?
Ma…Ma something...there was an ‘M’ in it, he was sure of it. And an ‘N’, an ‘R’. Hermione. She was mouthing Hermione. Like it was something foreign. He watched her and her head snapped up, her fiery gaze on his.
“My name,” she croaked.
“Yes, it’s your name. Hermione.”
He was startled when she ripped away from him, turned her back, ran a few steps and sank to her knees in the mud, leaning over her body. Her shoulders shook as the rain picked up and he heard her sob.
“Hermione-,”
A crack broke through the air, making him jump and Hermione whip up. They both looked around and although Dean saw nothing, his couldn’t make that sick feeling go away that told him something wasn’t right..
“Hermione, go back, go to your barracks, quickly,” he said, his voice calmer than he felt. His stomach twisted in fear. Had they been caught? “Hurry, run quickly!”
She scrambled to her feet and looked back at him, her dark eyes haunting, before turning away and running back the way she came. When she’d disappeared into the thickening fog, he turned tail and hurried back to his own barracks, not stopping or slowing until he was hidden beneath his blanket. He slammed his eyes shut and listened to the blood roaring in his ears. Working through the fear, he willed sleep to take him.
_______________________________________
She felt fear for the first time in months. She was Hermione. She felt deep inside, knew she was there, somewhere, just waiting. Waiting for what? What was she waiting for? Hermione, Hermione, Hermione. The Brainiac. The Know-It-All.
The Mudblood.
That’s why they were all here, wasn’t it? Their blood. All it was was blood. She was, a Mudblood, the daughter of Muggle parents. Her parents. Mom. Dad. Yvonne and Douglas. They were hers, her parents. And she was a witch. The best friend to Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. The girl who always raised her hand in class, the girl who had cried over Ron and Lavender, the girl who had taught Harry how to Summon for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. The memories assailed her as she shivered beneath her thin blanket and she hugged it around her.
She was cold. It was something she had grown so familiar with she no longer felt it. But now she did. It surrounded her, a constant ache. Every bit of her hurt and she reveled in it, rejoiced in the pain, in the feelings. As she remembered everything, the troll in her first year, her cat Crookshanks, following Harry into the Ministry in their fifth year, the Battle of Hogwarts in her sixth, hugging Ginny as she cried over Harry, she felt tears rolling down her face. Their faces raced through her mind. Harry, with his messy jet-black hair, Ron, with his bright blue eyes and freckles, Ginny, with fiery hair and a quick smile, Neville, with his sweet round face and nervous hands. There was Luna, sweet, wacky, Luna. The Weasley family; Fred and George, always quick to make a joke, Percy, stern as ever, Charlie, buoyant and full of life, Bill, quick-witted and on his feet. There was Mr. Weasley, the father of all, Mrs. Weasley, the worrier, the sweetest woman on the planet. Remus, Tonks, Kingsley, Mad-Eye Moody, Professor McGonagall, the Creevey brothers, Parvati, Padma, Lavender, Seamus and-
Dean.
Her heart pounded and it was suddenly hard to breathe. Oh, gods, Dean. Dean was here, he was in the next camp. It was Dean.
Hermione felt as if she’d just woken from a very long nap. She remembered everything that had happened, but it felt as if she had simply watched it, like a movie. She hadn’t actually lived it. She’d been so numb. What was wrong with her? She looked around her room at the women sleeping. They were all here for the same reason. They’d been born to Muggle parents. She curled into a ball and hugged her blanket closer.
She had to get them out of here. Dean had said something. What was it? That they’d been waiting for her, hoping she was alive. They were relying on her and she’d let them down.
And Ron and Harry. Oh, gods, were they alright? Had Harry survived the last encounter? She remembered seeing Ron as an arm had hooked around her, lifted her from the ground where she was trying to heal Penelope Clearwater. Ron had turned and looked when she’d cried out. He screamed something terrible and ran for her. She’d reached for him, dropped her wand in a puddle of Penelope’s blood. His fingers had been so far away, she’d never gotten to them.
That’s when it had gone black and she’d woken in a cell. She’d later learned she’d experienced what was called among the prisoners as the “Blackout”. At seemingly the same time they’d all blacked out and woken up in their barracks. Except for Hermione. She’d been in a cell. She remembered the day they’d branded her with her number. Right on the back of her neck.
0000001.
She was number one. The first Mudblood. They’d all thought it hilariously funny. She’d still been fighting then. When had she stopped? She never stopped.
It was the strangest thing. She remembered fighting and she remembered being…well, the zombie she’d been walking around as. She had been no better than the Inferi. But what had changed?
She decided not to dwell on it and instead focused on what she needed to do now that she was…for lack of a better term, awake. She kept her mind on her boys, on Ron and Harry. That was what she needed to do. She needed to focus on them, on the reason she was fighting. She needed to believe they were alive, that they were trying to get to her, that they were still fighting. How long had she been in here? It had been freezing cold outside tonight, not the nipping cold of a spring night. It had been April. April 22nd when she’d left, when she’d been stolen from the fight. How long had it been since then? She remembered counting days straight into August, but she didn’t remember what day she’d counted until. It was obviously not summer any longer, her frozen fingers and toes were evidence of that.
Her eyes closed after a while, her mind finally wearing out and sleep took over. When she woke the next morning it was to a Dementor dragging out the lifeless girl in the bunk below her.
___________________________________
The work was endless, grueling. How she had never noticed it before was a mystery. Her back ached, her arms protested as she hacked at another branch of a willow tree. A group had been taken to the woods that day to get wood for wands. The work was hard and tiring. When she was given lunch she ate with a ferocity she hadn’t had in a long time. She tried not to look any different. She kept her head down, her mouth shut. She didn’t want any reason for the Death Eaters to take her in for questioning again. She kept going because she knew that when night fell she could go to Dean, they could figure out together what to do. She would get them all out of here. It was only a matter of time.
She lay as still as possible when the Death Eater can in for the last check to make sure they were all in their bunks. All the other girls slept soundly, exhausted from their hellish lives. She counted off ten minutes after the silver masked bastard left and she crept silently to the floor and out into the night.
The rain pounded her body, the wind whipping at her thin dress. Her muscles convulsed at the bitter cold but she ran as fast as she could, winding her way between the buildings as she’d done so many times before. She reached the gate and grasped it, looking about. She waited patiently for a few minutes before she grew nervous. Where was he?
It had only been maybe five or ten minutes, but when his dark figure materialized out of the night she smiled in relief.
She smiled. When was the last time she’d done that?
He didn’t stop running until he was inches from her, separated only by the gate. He took her hands and searched her face.
“Hermione.”
She nodded and smiled up at him. He smiled hesitantly back.
“It’s Dean, remember?”
“I remember you,” she croaked. Her throat was dry and scratchy from non-use. He grinned.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I thought they’d taken your voice.”
She shook her head.
“They didn’t Obliviate you?”
She shook her head.
“Then what is it? Why have you been acting this way?”
Hermione thought back. There had to be a reason. She remembered the beatings, the spell practice. She remembered the utter pain, the agony, the terror she felt every moment. And then the humiliation, the degradation, the anguish when they mounted her for the first time. Tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered the torment of knowing she’d lost her virginity to those monsters. She thought back to all the things they’d done, the pain she’d endured. She’d thought she was going to die, there was no way someone could have survived that. And then she remembered the young girl they brought in with her, the young girl they slaughtered when she refused to tell them Harry’s whereabouts. She could still see that innocent face, the terrified blue eyes, the pain that had crossed her features as she’d been tortured over and over while Hermione was forced to watch, as she’d been raped repeatedly while Hermione’s own body had been violated simultaneously.
Before she had thought of doing so, she was ripping away from Dean, falling back into a puddle that splashed around her, a sob ripping form her chest. He was calling out to her, his hand reaching through the fence, his face a mask of sorrow. For her.
Her fingers curled in the mud, the brown substance squelching between them as she fell back into it, her face to the sky. She couldn’t stop the sobs bursting out of her, couldn’t help the tears or the memories that rushed through her head. What use was she to anyone when she couldn’t help herself? When she allowed a child to be molested and butchered right in front of her eyes? And she’d done nothing.
The mud displaced around her, holding her in, the cold turning warm with her body heat. The rain pelted her face and her body, freezing her all over again. She didn’t want to get up, she didn’t want to feel anymore.
Arms came around her, pulling her to a chest, a warm, strong chest, and she was being held as she hadn’t in so long.
“Don’t do this, Hermione, do let go again. We need you here. I know it’s hard, I know you’ve probably been through things that would make me sick to think of but you have to stay strong. Please, Hermione, stay with me. Stay with me.”
Since when had Dean been so nice? He’d always been a warm, friendly character, someone who had always stood up for Harry, who’d always had a quick joke when things got tense. But she’d never seen this side of him. Perhaps she’d never looked.
“Come on, Hermione. Please, just stay with me.” He was stroking her hair, rocking her as a babe. “I need you.”
I need you. The words echoed in her head. She could see Harry sitting on her bed back at headquarters saying the same thing as he asked her to help him find Rowena’s horcrux. As Ginny said it while crying over Harry. As Molly said it while trying to cook up a Wolfsbane Potion. As Ron said it while she’d fought him about going on a mission. They needed her. Dean needed her. All the people in these camps needed her. Hermione Jean Granger.
So she clutched Dean hard and stopped crying, because tears were getting her nowhere. They held on to each other tight, drawing strength and warmth and hope.
“I’m sorry,” she choked.
“No,” he said gruffly. “Don’t start. You’ve been through too much. It’s not fair for me to ask this of you but I have to. I’m not like you. I need your help if we’re ever going to get out of this.”
She nodded against his neck. His warmth and familiarity was comforting in the pouring rain, in the loneliness of the night. She held him harder and they simply sat there watching the puddles around them rise. It was then she realized…
“The gate,” she ground out. She looked up at his dark eyes, much like her own, inches from her face. He shrugged.
“Wasn’t so bad. Thought the alarms would go off but they seem to be disabled on this particular fence.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. It was hard to keep the images of her confinement at bay, they lingered at the corner of her mind, threatening to pull her down. She shivered.
“Tell me a story,” she begged. “Something from your childhood.”
He was quiet for a minute before starting in on the first time he had shown powers. His velvet tones flowed through her and he weaved a beautiful scene of his London home and the small incident that involved him levitating his younger sister Cassidy when she wouldn’t leave him and his mate Benji alone. It seems Benji ran all the way home screaming and told him mother about it and Dean never saw Benji again. As for the reaction from his sister and his parents, Hermione never heard for she had fallen asleep to the comforting words.
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Dean watched her sleep for a while, not wanting to let her go for several reasons. One was the fact that he was warmer than he’d been in months, despite the torrential rain. Another was the calm written on Hermione’s face. He doubted she’d had much rest and if the women were subjected to the type of work the men were, he knew she was well and exhausted. He himself felt his eyelids tugging down, sleep threatening to overpower him. But he couldn’t let them be caught and they were due to have another check up soon. So he roused the sleeping girl and told her to hurry back to her barracks. She nodded, gave him one last squeeze, and disappeared into the night, hunched against the rain. Dean got to his feet and scaled the chain-link as he had before. When he’d seen her go down his heart had leapt to his chest and he had reacted without thought, realizing much later that they could have been caught. Tumbling down on his side, he jogged to his bed and crawled into it, ignoring the amount of mud and muck on his clothing. He’d have to make an excuse for it in the morning.
The wooden board and thin blanket were little comfort in the chilling night. But the memory of holding Hermione in his arms was enough to lull him to sleep.
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The next morning while Hermione clung to a branch fifteen feet up in a tree, she peered over the quiet woods and her mind raced. The trees and brush were daunting, but there was hope. Glancing at the women below her, tired and beaten, she knew they had to try.
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XOXO
RynStar15
yourcookiedoughbaby@yahoo.com