Hermione turned and could vaguely make out two large men standing behind Stroud. Their eyes were cold as they stared down at Hermione.
Stroud cast several monitor wards on Hermione that rose up, shimmering around her body. After she had inspected the projections for a few minutes, Stroud turned and strode away, her healer robes billowing out behind her.
Hermione stared up at the ceiling, trying to absorb everything that had happened to her that day.
She felt like she should be crying, but she couldn't summon the tears.
Resignation and hopelessness had entwined themselves with her soul since the moment she watched Harry die.
After watching most of the people she loved die in agony, she'd known her turn to suffer was lying in wait.
Now it had come.
Death had never frightened Hermione. Her fear had always been in the manner of death. She had watched the worst ways to go.
Harry's death had been a mercy killing compared to the torture the Weasleys, Remus and Tonks had been subjected to.
Lucius Malfoy had been standing mere feet from where Hermione was caged when he looked up at Ron and snarled “This is for my wife!”
Then he cast a curse that turned Ron's blood gradually into molten lead. Hermione watched as the curse slowly crept through Ron's body, destroying him from the inside out. She'd been helpless to do anything — helpless to spare him in any way.
Arthur Weasley had been left permanently addled by a curse during the war. He cried, not even understanding why he was in pain or that he was dying.
They had left Molly for last. So she'd watch all her children die.
Remus had lasted hours longer than anyone else. His lycanthropy kept healing him until he just hung there, unresponsive. Finally someone shot the Killing Curse at him out of boredom.
The deaths had replayed themselves before Hermione's eyes so many time she would have thought that eventually the pain of them would ease.
It never did.
Each time felt just as sharp. Just as fresh.
A wound that would never heal.
Survivor's guilt, she thought, that was the Muggle term for it. Such a paltry description. It didn't capture even a fraction of the breadth of agony in her soul.
For Hermione, being bred by a Death Eater was a fate that had never even occurred to her. Being raped — the risk had been considered. This felt like rape in slow motion. However, the situation was far more complex than simply that. Whatever she had hidden in her mind, it had been important. More important to her than anything else. She couldn't let it fall into Voldemort's hands.
She wasn't afraid of having her corpse rot in the Great Hall. That fate was nothing compared to giving up what she was protecting. Or compared to being raped and forced to carry a child that would be torn from her the moment it was born.
Escaping, she realised, was likely a luxury she couldn't afford to pursue. The important thing would be to die quickly. Before she could be stopped and kept from further attempts.
She lay quietly in the bed and schemed.
The days passed slowly. None of the prisoners brought into the hospital wing dared speak to Hermione with the guards constantly beside her bed.
Healers arrived several times a day to appraise and treat her. They took vials of blood and a bit of hair away for analysis. A therapist arrived to treat Hermione for the torture. For the tremors.
Eventually most of the intermittent spasming stopped. Hermione's fingers still tended to twitch spastically at unexpected sounds.
She wasn't used to noise anymore.
She remembered life being full of noise in the past; in classes, at meals, in the hospital ward after battles. Now any unexpected sound caught her off-guard. The banging of a door or clatter of boots, the sound waves from them — they felt like physical sensations on her flesh.
She'd twitch.
The nervous mind healer came frequently with Healer Stroud to examine Hermione's brain and psychological condition. There were concerns about her overall stability. They'd cast simulation spells on her brain to see how she'd react to crowds, tight spaces, physical contact, gore. If she was going to mentally snap, they wanted her to do it in the hospital wing.
Apparently, despite the twitching, Hermione was regarded as stable enough. When the most severe torture tremors stopped after four days of therapy, they decided she was ready for training.
On the fifth day, she was released from the hospital wing. The guards took her straight to the Great Hall.
There were rows and rows of chairs arranged facing the front of the hall. The chairs were filled with women dressed in drab grey dresses.
Umbridge was standing on the platform in the front, speaking with saccharine cheer. She was dressed in a subdued shade of pink with a large pendant hanging from her neck. One of her hands was heavily bandaged.
“You have been chosen to help build the future that our Dark Lord has envisioned. You have been granted the privilege of bringing it forth,” she said, and simpered. “You are the few found worthy of it.”
Umbridge sounded mechanical, staring down at the girls with eyes glittering with hatred. The false smile plastered firmly across her face. Her eyes kept flickering up toward a corner of the room.
Hermione turned slightly to look and saw two Death Eaters standing there unmasked; Corban Yaxley and Thorfinn Rowle. They were watching Umbridge with expressions of bored amusement.
“The Dark Lord has commanded that you be trained in order to fulfill your duties without fail. This is a great honour he has bestowed upon you; you do not want to disappoint him. You are important to the Dark Lord. Because of that, you must be protected from others as well as from yourselves.”
Umbridge's smile suddenly sharpened, showing a malicious edge. She gestured toward the back, and Yaxley and Rowle came forward. Umbridge turned to the prison guards lined up along a wall.
“Stun them all. Be thorough about it.”
A few of the seated women cringed or tried to shy away, but most of them barely moved as guards started hexing them. The bodies slumped down in the chairs or fell forward onto the ground.
Hermione was standing toward the back. She watched the girls fall. She recognized a handful of them; Hannah Abbott, Parvati Patil, Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, Cho Chang, and Romilda Vane. Hermione thought some of the others might have been in the older and younger years in Hogwarts. There were a few slightly older women too, although no one who appeared over thirty. There were nearly a hundred of them.
Umbridge saw Hermione standing toward the back.
“Stun her too,” Umbridge said, glaring venomously at Hermione.
They hesitated.
Healer Stroud appeared from the periphery of Hermione's vision.
“Do it,” she said with a sharp nod of approval.
Hermione was knocked out before she could brace herself.
“Rennervate.”
Hermione sat up groggily. She'd been moved, and found herself lying beside the rest of the girls.
They were laid out in rows. Some were still unconscious, and the guards went down the line waking them. Others were sitting, staring at the manacles around their wrists. Hermione looked down at her own. The magical bracelets looked different; a bit wider, and now without any clasp. A perfect circle of copper wrapped around each wrist.
“Property of the High Reeve” was engraved into the shining surface of both of the manacles.
Of greater concern to Hermione was the cold object beneath the metal that she could feel pressing slightly against her inner wrists. The manacles were so closely-fitted she couldn't peer under to discern what it was. It was clear — the reason they had been stunned was in order to remove and replace the manacles. Presumably with something worse than what they already had been.
The clock on the wall indicated that hours had passed since the stunning had started. Whatever the process had been, it had taken time.