Dark Days

Dark Days – Blood and Chocolate

Dark blood flowed softly, reverently from gaping wounds forming a pool on the ground, black and sticky as it congealed; a black pool that never seemed to end. How much blood there was, was impossible to tell, surely one body could not hold so much. A sudden realisation dawned, there was not one body, there were many. All twisted in positions of agony and of torment, all bleeding, endlessly bleeding, eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling, mouths open eternally mouthing screams and pleas. Black walls enclosed the place, the blood was right up to them now, would it begin to rise? A man rose out from the centre on the pile of corpses, hands outstretched, pleading. His hands were stained with blood that was not his. Somehow his body was still clean.

“Help me,” he cried, but no sound came out.

The blood was higher now, right up around his knees; a look of utter desperation in his eyes.

“Help me!” he screamed this time it seemed, but still there was no sound in the black tomb that was to hold him and his victims.

Slowly he lowered his arms, resigned that no help would come, a look of betrayal and pain in his eyes. Slowly, but somehow more swift than time the blood continued to rise. Cold indifferent eyes watch the scene. The watcher met the eyes of the man and as the blood rose ever higher. They did not look away until he was completely covered.

Darkness fell completely over the scene as the watcher stepped out on to what was blood moments before, but now only cold stone and earth were there. Lying forgotten on the ground was a ring, plain, unadorned and simple, but somehow significant. The watcher bent and picked it up, squeezing it in a shaking hand. Then opening the hand only powder fell from it; silver shimmering flakes that swirled around the watcher. It formed a barrier around the black clad figure and was speeding up, faster and faster it swirled, bearing its passenger ever higher.

Suddenly it dispersed becoming distant stars that twinkled cold and distant, leaving its burden to fall back to earth. The figure hurtled downwards, spiralling out of control. Black robes billowed around concealing their wearer from view. After and eternity of falling the journey was ended with a thud and the crumpled figure lay for a moment as if dead, unmoving on the floor.

Looking up the hard earth of before was gone, there now was blooming grass and gravestones in all directions. The two in front the figure avoided looking at beginning to run in the opposite direction. The stars began to fall around the runner scorching the grass and destroying all graves except for those that were being fled from. Eventually the figure was forced to return to them and look upon the names engraved there. A hand reached into the black robes and pulled out the silver ring. Laying it on top of one of the grave stones, the figure turned and walked away.

No stars were falling now, the sky was black, and no trace of light was there any where, the grass and earth faded away beneath soft footsteps, turning back to the blood that it came from.

* * * * * *

Hermione woke with a start. Sweat covered her brow and the sheets of the bed were a tangled mess around her. Outside the sun was rising, a faint orange streak on the horizon of which only the very first rays were beginning to filter through the crack in the curtain. She lay back on to a rather pummelled pillow; the other was presently decorating the floor. Her mind was filled with the disturbing images from her dream. It was not the first time that she had had such dreams. Ever since her parents death they had plagued her sleep. Those first few weeks had been the worst, day and night had merged into one horrific nightmare. She struggled against the bonds that chained her to a bed and raved and screamed in the madness of despair.

She sat up and pushed the tousled mess of hair out of her face, squeezing her eyes tightly shut to try to be rid of the images that she did not want to see. Even though she was no longer bound to the bed, her mind being clearer now, or at least she wasn’t raving, she still felt trapped. She was pinned down by an invisible force somehow more of a prison than any bonds could be.

Harry and Ron had hovered by her side every waking moment, and she suspected that they had been watching her in her sleep too. She was touched by her concern but it was definitely claustrophobic. As she had got all plans of vengeance and a painful, possibly fiery death for Severus Snape out of her head she didn’t feel it necessary to have a watcher at all times. Maybe they were afraid she would throw herself off a tower and end it all if they left her alone.

She sighed and extricated herself with some difficulty from her sheets. She dragged herself to the mirror. The reflection staring back at her was not one that she recognised. Three months ago, before the death of her parents and the betrayal of the only man she had ever truly loved, the reflection had shown a healthy happy young woman with glowing golden brown hair, and bushy hair tamed into a simple ponytail or hanging loose across her shoulders. The eyes would sparkle and dance and she stood proud and erect. The woman that stared out of the mirror now was pale, almost pallid, there was no life in her eyes and the hair was limp. She stood with her arms around her as if trying to hide from the world.

* * * * * *

Fawkes perched elegantly on Dumbledore’s shoulder; head cocked to one side as if trying to catch what the conversation around him was about more clearly. Dumbledore himself sat with his head bowed and hands clasped together. Harry was slumped in a chair opposite and Ron was pacing the room. All three looked troubled.

“Has there been no sign of him anywhere?” Dumbledore asked, the very smallest tremor in his voice.

“None since Mr and Mrs Weasley saw him at the Burrow. Wouldn’t he have shown his face again somewhere if he really was working for Voldemort again?” Harry wondered out loud. Ron shuddered at the name, he never had gotten used to using it.

“I don’t know Harry. He could be biding his time, waiting until he can inflict the most pain and hurt to us. Or…”

“Or he could have been captured and this all be a frame up,” finished Harry.

Ron snorted, leaving them in no doubt about which scenario he thought to be more likely.

“Maybe I was to quick to condemn him the other day,” sighed Dumbledore, “It’s just that times like this makes you inclined to distrust even yourself. No, part of me still believes that Severus is innocent and would very much like him rescued if that is the case.”

“And if it isn’t?” snapped Ron.

Dumbledore’s eyes hardened, “If he isn’t then I would very much like you to kill him Mr Weasley.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, nobody fucking hurts Hermione!” He stopped and glanced guiltily at Dumbledore, “Sorry...”

“I beg your pardon Mr Weasley; I seem to have gone temporarily deaf and consequently heard nothinat yat you just said.” His eyes glinted and Harry and Ron grinned remembering a very similar conversation in Hagrid’s hut years ago.

“Do we tell Hermione?” asked Harry then, suddenly serious again.

“No, lets not confuse her; she’s only just getting over her trauma after all.”

“Is she though?” asked Ron. “She hardly eats, she tosses and turns in her sleep but refuses to take dreamless sleep potions, she won’t talk about what happened. She hasn’t even cried, and if anyone mentions her parents or the graves she changes the subject.”

“Ron, she has been through a great trauma. So much so that it drove her quite mad at one point. One does not get over that so quickly. She’ll cry in her own time. We have to let her deal with this in her own way.”

“So that means leave her be instead of following her and watching out for her all the time I’m guessing,” asked Harry, a lopsided grin on his face.

“You guess correctly Mr Potter, lets’ let her deal with this so that we can have our Hermione back shall we?”

“And in the mean time we try and rescue a man that I personally can’t stand, great, isn’t life peachy? Personally I’m not getting my hopes up that we’ll find him innocent.” Ron scowled.

Dumbledore smiled faintly and selected a cake from the tray on the table.

* * * * * *

The lake was perfectly still and the grounds around Hermione were quiet. While she had been laid in her room the su ter term had ended and the few students left had gone home for the summer. Hermione lay stretched out on the banks of the lake watching the giant squid basking in the warm shallow waters. Her mind was blissfully empty and she was enjoying a rare moment of solitude. How long she lay there she did not know but as she did the sky began to darken. Looking up she sighed, another day gone and nothing done. She hated this rut that she was in. She did not feel like doing anything buen sen she did nothing she felt oddly worse. Dragging herself off the now damp ground she began to dawdle back to the castle.

Cho was in her room when she got there; there was a of of tea on the table and hot cookies on a plate. She sighed, feeling guilty that she did not feel pleased to see Cho and exasperated that her solitude would now be broken. Wearily she dropped into a chair without so much as a hello. Cho poured her a cup of tea and the two women sat in silence.

The room darkened around them and still they did not speak. Eventually Hermione broke the silence.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine,” she looked more than fine, radiant even.

“Married life seems to be agreeing with you.”

She beamed, “Yes I suppose it is, wish we could have had more of a honeymoon but…well with things as they are we couldn’t. We’ll go away properly when it’s all over.”

Hermione couldn’t bear to deflate her but something inside was telling her that this war would never be over, or if it did end, it probably wouldn’t be for the best.

They sat in silence again, Hermione did not feel like making conversation and Cho did not know what to say. Years of acquaintance and then friendship seemed to have dissolved and they were awkward again.

“What’s that?” asked Hermione eventually indicating a parcel besides Cho.

“Oh I forgot…” she made to pass the parcel to Hermione. “Lavender left this for you, she was here earlier.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” said Cho, smiling faintly, “You’ll have to open it and see.”

Hermione made no move. Eventually Cho put the parcel down on the table next to Hermione’s untouched tea. “I suppose I’d better go anyway,” Cho murmured then. “I’ll leave you in peace, Harry’ll probably be wondering where I’ve got to.”

Hermione nodded. Her friend stood up, paused for the briefest of seconds as if expecting a farewell or a comment of some sort, but when none came she turned and made for the door, “See you later.”

Hermione sat silently after she had gone, not bothering to put on any lights. At last she got up to go to bed, but then curiosity got the better of her. She pulled off the wrapping on the parcel and gazed down at a huge box of Honeydukes Chocolates. She gazed at it in disbelief. Chocolates? Chocolates? What good were chocolates? She threw the box across the room scattering its contents across the floor and swept out of the living room to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

* * * * * *

Dreams came once more to Hermione as she lay tossing and turning in her bed.

The restraints held her down, cutting into her flesh where she forced against them too hard.

“Let me go!” she screamed.

“No,” came a disembodied voice, calm, reasonable, hateful to her.

“I have to get out, the room is closing. You’re going to let me die! The room is swirling, closing! The roof’s all gone and the stars are glaring at me!”

“There are no stars Hermione, its okay, its daytime.”

“No, dark, it’s all dark.”

She began rhythmically banging her head against the pillow, writhing in her bonds. Then she sat as upright as she was able to in her bonds.

“I my my wand…Have to kill him for what he did,” her eyes blazed. “Fucking murderer! I hate him.”

“I know, we hate him too…”

“He took all the light away.” She cowered back into her bed.

“What light Hermione?”

“NO! You did it, give it back! Give it back…I’ll kill him! He has to die…Room swirling, twisting, make it stop…” her voice trailed off and turned into feeble whimpers.

She woke with a start; the room was black around her. Savagely she pushed back the sheets that had wound themselves around her again and staggered to the window. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Suddenly she turned and swept the contents of a shelf on to the floor with one vicious swipe. Books crashed to the ground, lying in a heap, some half open and bent, she picked up the vase of flowers on her desk and hurled it at the far wall. It shattered, spraying water across the wall, and the broken glass cut through the fragile flower stems. More breakable items seemed to leap into her hands and they too followed the vase into the wall. She screamed loudly, venting all her pain on anything left in one piece. Then leaning back against the wall behind her she slid to the floor. One lone bottle in the room seemed to still be intact. It had been in the bottom shelf of her desk. Absently she picked it up and smelt the contents, dreamless sleep potion. She looked around at the room and put it back. She half stood up before changing her mind and picked it back up again. She quickly drank the whole contents and sat drowsily on the floor. The potion took effect rapidly and she soon fell asleep curled up into a ball on the floor surrounded by debris.

* * * * * *

It was raining, that slow sullen drizzle that you hardly notice but that soaks you to the bone. Harry and Ron were standing huddled under a tree, trying to keep out of the rain as much as possible. They had been gone from Hogwarts for a week now, a week in which it had done nothing but rain. Neither of them had told Hermione where they were going, saying only that they had work to do for the order. She had hardly noticed them leave; she seemed to be drawing further and further into herself with each passing day. The one outburst of emotion she had shown in which she had destroyed most of her possessions had passed leaving her quieter and more distant than before.

“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” asked Ron sullenly as a particularly large and cold raindrop ran down his neck and further soaked his already saturated cloak.

“Because Dumbledore thinks that there’s a chance that Snape had nothing to do with Hermione’s parents,” said Harry reasonably.

“Yeah well if you ask me the man’s a bastard and he’s as guilty as Lucius Malfoy and all the others.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Do you believe he’s innocent?” asked Ron pointedly.

Harry paused, “I don’t know, but I do know that Hermione loved him, and we owe it to her to try to find out for sure.”

“Yeah, yeah I know. That’s the only reason I got talked into doing this in the first place, still don’t like it though.”

Harry gave him a quick grin, “Come on the rain’s slacking off, lets go.”

The pair pulled invisibility cloaks out of their bags, (Ron had procured one some months ago) and disappeared under the silvery material.

* * * * * *

Jai’mea and Keria lounged indolently in the sitting room that they shared in the splendid house, once the home to a wealthy muggle. Two young muggle girls lay sprawled in a corner, vacant eyed and cold, mute evidence of the boredom they had vented that morning. Several marks and abrasions marred their pale, soft skin, and one had a patch of sticky crimson blood congealed in her chocolate brown hair.

“What time is it?” asked Keria idly then.

“About two hours before midnight why?”

“Didn’t Draco and Lucius invite us to their revel tonight?”

“I’d forgotten about that. Are we going to go?”

“It’s not a terrible idea, besides; Draco’s really gotten to be rather gorgeous in recent months…”

Jai’mea laughed, “Cradle snatcher.”

“Whore…” Keria retorted grinning. “Are we going then?”

“Why not?”

Minutes later they had flooed down to the Malfoy’s revel and steeped out into a grand hall decked with black, green and silver drapes. Death Eaters milled around everywhere and terrified looking muggles were chained here and there against the walls. In another room, young muggle women and several young boys were providing entertainment for many of the company.

A tall blonde young man who had been lounging against the wall beside the fireplace watching the people around him stepped forward then as the two women brushed themselves down.

“And so we are honoured with your presence ladies…” he drawled lazily.

Keria spun around, her long black and pink hair whipping around her head and falling in appealing soft twists against her cheeks.

“Draco…” she murmured throatily.

He inclined his head ever so slightly and Keria looked up at him speculatively through thick dark eyelashes. He returned her gaze with only slightly less consideration and interest.

“Is your father here Draco?” asked Jai’mea then.

“He’s around somewhere,” he said blandly.

“Thanks!” she spat sarcastically, mouthed cradle snatcher at Keria and disappeared amid a large crowd of Death Eaters.

“So,” said Draco, “What’s your pleasure my Lady?” His voice was ever so slightly mocking and the first trace of a sneer was forming at his mouth.

“Well…” she murmured softly moving closer to him and whispering in his ear. Then she pushed him backwards through a door into a quiet antechamber and shut the door behind them.

In the meantime Jai’mea went in search of Lucius. He was seated in a quieter room talking to Lord Voldemort, a mixtured look of terror and honour on his pale face. They nodded briefly to Jai’mea who joined them, running one finger across Voldemort’s cheek before she sat down herself.

The conversation she found boring and soon tuned out, so that she did not even notice when Lucius left. Voldemort watched her for a moment before pulling her seat around so that she faced him.

“Yes?” she enquired.

“Would you be particularly disappointed if we left?” he asked.

“Why?” she asked coyly, “You have something better in mind?”

“That depends, would you define torturing someone you hate better than sitting idly round a bar?”

Her answering grin was vicious. Together they left the party and slipped out of the huge house.


* * * * * *

The room was not quite a dungeon if you were going to be particular about terminology, but it was close enough. The one small window up near the ceiling had been bricked up and there was a rank smell of stagnant water, vomit, urine and sweat that hung in the air and clung to clothes if you got too close. It was draughty and damp and there was no furniture to speak of, a bowl of water sat on the floor with a piece of bread too mouldy to even contemplate eating however hungry a poor prisoner may be. The heavy wooden door was bolted and barred and there was usually at least one guard outside it. The prisoner in the room was one whom the captor most definitely did not want to escape; there was still far too much fun to be had with him yet.

The door swung open, banging off the wall and echoing hollowly throughout the room. Two people strode into the room, the shorter of the two; clearly a woman hung off the arm of the tall lean man. She looked around in confusion, not immediately seeing the purpose of entering this foul smelling, dank room. The pile of rags in the corner was not immediately recognisable as a man.

“Good evening,” intoned Voldemort sarcastically. “I trust you’ve been well?”

The pile of rags in the corner shifted slightly, his head was now just visible through the gloom and the tangled mass of hair and beard.

“What? No greeting? That’s terribly bad form old boy,” chastised Voldemort striding over to his prisoner. He halted near him and bent down to talk to him more closely, “Do we have to have another talk about manners?”

The man looked up into his face, a fierce hatred in his eyes yet he spoke no words. There was a quiet dignity in that, despite his chains and grime that Voldemort could not match and it struck a nerve. He took a step back and kicked the man hard in his side. No sound escaped the prisoner’s lips and he continued to glare infuriatingly and defiantly at his captor.

“Do not hope to aggravate me in the hope that I will kill you more quickly,” he commanded. “It will not work; you are mine and shall be so for many more long torturous months yet. Maybe even years,” the final words came out as a hiss. “As a matter of fact I have a treat for you tonight.”

The man did not shift his gaze from Voldemort.

“A delightful young lady has come to pay you a visit, isn’t that nice? Say hello.”

The man did not move. “His all yours my darling,” said Voldemort crossing to Jai’mea and crushing her lips in a forceful kiss. “Have fun…”

The woman’s eyes sparkled; to be allowed free reign on this most prized of captives was almost too good to be true.

* * * * * *

Two silent figures huddled together under invisibility cloaks in the rain, wishing for nothing more than a warm fire and a glass of old firewhiskey to warm them up. Possibly several glasses.

“Look,” said one, pointing at the door of the large house they were watching. Too black clad figures had just left and were strolling along casually paying no heed to the rain.

“Isn’t that Voldemort?” asked Ron then.

Harry nodded, his eyes blazing.

“Oi, don’t go getting delusions of grandeur. No is so very much NOT the time,” said Ron forcefully. “There must be thousands of death eaters in that house you’d come boiling out the minute you so much approached the bastard, and in case you’d forgotten, we don’t have an army behind us, it’s just us two! So keep those violent tendencies of yours under wraps.”

“Who’s that with him?” asked Harry then by way of changing the subject.

“No idea but she’s hot, replied Ron.

“Padma will skin you alive if she hears you talking like that about other women Master Ronald Weasley,” said Harry grinning.

Ron returned Harry’s grin with a lopsided one of his own, “Yeah, but Padma isn’t here!”

“Come on lets follow them,” said Harry.

“What for? No trying to kill Voldemort, I don’t want to have to scoop up bits of you from the floor after thousands of death eaters have had their way with you!”

“Don’t worry I’m not going to do anything stupid,” Ron looked doubtful, “I just want to see where they’re going. It might be useful.”

“Okay,” Ron sighed, with an air of one under long suffering, “We might as well get wet over there as here I suppose.”

The two men ran softly down the hill they’d been standing on and began to follow the pair. Their shoes made not noise on the wet grass. They were led to another large house about ten minutes walk from the manor that Volrt hrt had come from. The door swung open immediately to admit Voldemort and the tall, darkly beautiful woman. Harry and Ron slipped in behind them before the door slammed shut again. The hall was ornate, decorated in black and gold with tapestries on alternate panels and highly polished black wooden flooring. Grandiose doors led off the dazzling hall in all directions but Voldemort ignored them all and went instead to a plain black panel on the far wall. He felt around for a moment and found a tiny catch which made the panel swing open to reveal a long, dark downward sloping passageway.

Ron’s foot found a squeaky floorboard as he followed them across the room. Probably the only bloody one in the entire well tended house. He bit his lip in a desperate attempt at restraining himself from swearing out loud. The woman spun around, looking suspicious but Voldemort seemed not to have noticed. He stepped into the dark entrance and made his way downwards,

“Jai’mea, come on,” he commanded.

The woman stepped in behind him and the panel swung shut behind them.

Harry and Ron carefully made their way across the rest of the hall, having been too wary to follow immediately after Ron’s squeaky floorboard. Harry began to feel around for the catch that had opened the secret panel. After several painfully slow minutes he found it. The black panel swung silently open again.

“Come on, lets go,” said Harry.

“I hate our job,” murmured Ron, “Bloody giant spiders, brains with tentacles, dark creepy enclosed passageways where we’ll probably be within inches from Voldemort; we get all the best jobs.”

Harry grinned from under his cloak, “Those first two were entirely our own fault,” he whispered stepping into the dark entrance.

“Yeah and this one’s entirely yours,” said Ron climbing in after him. The panel closed behind them leaving them in total darkness. They felt their way ahead of them by trailing their hands along the wall. “If this passage turns off we’ll have no chance of finding Voldemort.”

“We’ll just have to keep straight a and and hope we don’t miss him,” said Harry.

“You know, most people, sane people would be quite pleased to ‘just miss’ Voldemort.”

The passage wound slowly downwards and there were no passages off the main one. At length they came to the end, torchlight now lit the square room they were in and several plain, heavy oak doors led off from it. Two death eaters in black robes were sat on crude chairs in the centre playing dice at a wobbly old table.

“What now?” whispered Ron.

“We wait, not much else we can do. Voldemort’s got to come back this way eventually.”

Ron decided not to suggest the idea that there could be a thousand other ways out from here that they did not know about.

There seemed to be groaning coming from behind several of the doors and a melancholy rattling of chains. Harry and Ron slumped wearily in a corner of the room to wait, trying to make as little noise as possible, although the two guards seemed decidedly more interested in their dice than any other activity in the room.

“That’s Voldemort’s voice,” said Harry suddenly.

“Where?” asked Ron.

“Behind this door.”

They moved stealthily across the room and positioned themselves at either side of the door to listen.

A woman’s laugh echoed around the room and chains clanked harshly against stone. “Had enough already?” came a voice. It was rich and smooth and somehow managed to be both icy cold and warm at the same time. It was clearly the woman’s voice, Jai’mea, Voldemort had called her.

“Surely not? We’re having such fun!”

The man that she taunted had curled himself up into a tight ball, hiding his head with his arms. Jai’mea wrenched his arms apart and pinned them back against the cold stone wall. He was too weak to resist her. She sat atop his lap and ran one long nailed finger down his pale cheek drawing blood. Voldemort leaned idly in the opposite corner enjoying the spectacle. He did so love to watch the girl at play.

She got up then and began to pace the room, her hands almost unconsciously it seemed explored the curves of her body as she walked, she was fully aware that he was watching, and she had pinned the prisoner in such a way as to ensure that he was too. She fingered her wand suggestively and cast one lingering, wicked glance at Voldemort. Then without warning she uttered a curse, the man in the corner writhed as every bone in his body broke, several ripped the skin apart in the process, but still he refused to scream.

With a wave of her wand she mended the bones and looked down at him, “So brave,” she said, her voice scornful. “Refusing to scream. Trying to spoil my fun?” She pouted looking rather like a petulant child.

She waved her wand again and this time a sense of well-being such as he had rarely known swept through his body, his hurts faded away and he felt almost strong again. But the pleasure lasted only a moment; next second he was writhing again ad his blood began to heat up inside his veins.

So it went on, pleasure pain, pleasure pain until he thought he should go mad with it. But still he refused to make a sound, and had bitten through his own lip in the attempt to hold back the scream that was building up inside him. Over and over again his bones broke and then were mended; he endured icy cold and dreadful heat, needle-like things that forced their way slowly up beneath his nails and curses that literally tied his insides in knots. But it was not only the physical pain that he had to endue. Wave upon wave of mental torture was set upon him. The woman seemed to know exactly what would hurt him most of all. Memories from his childhood, memories of all the things that he had done as a death eater, all the people he had killed. And most of all the face of a golden haired young woman who glared at him, her eyes filled with pain and hate. It was this image that finally broke him. The woman before him had become the golden haired girl. It was she who was causing this pain, she who wanted him dead, but not yet, not until he had suffered sufficiently.

“NO!” he screamed, closing his eyes and trying to get away from that terrible glare.

“What?” asked the woman amused, the great Severus Snape? A fool for love?” She laughed, “And you are a fool you know. She hate’s you now, you will never see her again and she will die believing that you betrayed her.” She laughed again and the cold sound of it chilled the very bone. Tears poured down Severus’ cheeks and he tried desperately to curl back into a ball.

Outside the door Ron and Harry turned to each other despite not being able to see the other, looks of total shock on their faces, hidden by the invisibility cloaks.