The terror coursing through her body had her frozen.
It was a hallway. Just a hallway, she told herself. She was allowed to be there. There were no commands holding her back—
There were no commands holding her back...
...just herself.
After standing there for several minutes, trying and failing to force herself to move, she abruptly sobbed and huddled closer to the door.
She couldn't remember the last time she had cried. Long ago in her cell.
As she stood there shaking and hyperventilating in the hallway of that empty wing of the manor, she cried. Over everyone who was dead now. For everyone Malfoy had killed. For all the girls back at Hogwarts being sent out into a world of horror. Out of rage over the manacles locked around her wrists, and the manacles she found she had somehow locked around her own mind.
She went back into her room, closed the door, sank onto the floor and kept crying.
It took her a full day before she could force herself into the hallway again.
She was determined to make herself overcome the panic. The next morning, she opened the door wide, crouched on the bed, and made herself stare at the hallway until her heart stopped pounding painfully in her chest from the mere sight.
She would lose all chance of escape if she couldn't even walk out of her room without having a mental breakdown.
She sat in bed and ate the breakfast that appeared while she contemplated the problem.
It had manifested when she was alone. She wasn't sure if it was because the manacles' compulsion to be obedient had previously distracted her from it or if it were an insidious form of mental trauma; that being imprisoned for so long had damaged her to the point that being controlled by others was the only way she knew how to function now.
She hoped it was simply the manacles, but she feared it was the latter. Imprisonment had eaten away at her psyche in ways she felt afraid of fully realising.
She steeled herself. She was determined to overcome it. Whatever it took.
When her dinner appeared that evening, she made herself eat it while sitting by the open door. Her hands shook so much she dropped half the food from the fork. By the time she finished eating, the trembling in them had eased enough that she could drink water without spilling it down her front.
She stared down the hallway. She stared at all the shrouded furniture and the many portraits of cold faced, pale, aristocrats.
She tried to remember what she knew of Malfoy.
How had he managed to climb so high in Voldemort's ranks at such a young age?
He — had been involved in Dumbledore's death at the beginning of sixth year. The circumstances of that had never been entirely clear. She remembered being awakened abruptly by the castle's screaming wards during the aftermath. Minerva McGonagall and the rest of the professors had been pale with shock and horror as they frantically tried to discover what had happened. Malfoy vanished in the chaos.
It was the first and last major event of the war that Hermione associated specifically with Malfoy. After that he disappeared into Voldemort's ranks. Another faceless Death Eater.
His mother had died several years into the war. Hermione remembered hearing about Narcissa Malfoy's death in Lestrange Manor. It had happened during a rescue mission. Harry and Ron had been caught by Snatchers. When the Order went to rescue them, a Death Eater lost control of a fiendfyre curse and burned down the manor with Narcissa and Bellatrix inside it.
Narcissa's death had driven Lucius Malfoy insane. He had slid easily into Bellatrix's vacated shoes of madness. He'd placed the blame for Narcissa's death squarely on Ron and Harry and devoted himself to avenging her by hunting down the Weasleys. Arthur Weasley's brain damage and the near death of George during the war had both been caused by Lucius. He became a loose cannon within Voldemort's ranks. He'd been too useful and deadly for his insubordination to get him killed, but he'd constantly danced on the line.
It had occurred to Hermione that Lucius might be the High Reeve, given how vicious, hate-filled, and quick to murder he was. Since he wasn't, Hermione wondered if he was still alive. Perhaps following the war he had finally overstepped and gotten himself killed. Hermione hoped so. The way Lucius had laughed while Ron died screaming in agony — Hermione would never banish the memory.
But Malfoy…
She didn't think he'd been treated as particularly important or considered a significant Death Eater during the Order meetings she recalled. Whatever he'd done to claw his way to the very top must have occurred toward the end of the war. Perhaps he had been involved with whatever caused the Order's plans during the final battle to fall apart.
Because she'd been a healer, Hermione hadn't been there for the entire battle. Something in their strategy had gone wrong. There had been far more Death Eaters than the Order had anticipated. Voldemort had cast a killing curse and Harry had fallen. Then he had commanded Lucius to confirm Harry was dead.
Harry hadn't been dead.
So Voldemort cast another killing curse, and another, and another, and another. After half a dozen killing curses, Voldemort had gone and confirmed for himself that Harry was dead. For insurance, he had Harry's body dragged up into the air and hung from the Astronomy Tower. Everyone watched as Voldemort cursed Harry's body with a fast acting necrosis curse and the entire thing rotted away before their eyes.
Harry's blank green eyes — Hermione saw them every time she closed her own. The expression on his face; the realisation he had failed had been written into it in death.
Hermione shook as she thought about it.
Her best friends had died before her eyes. By some extra cruel twist of fate she hadn't been allowed to follow them.
They had left her behind.
She squared her shoulders and forced herself to step into the hallway. She had faced all manner of horror. She wasn't going to be defeated by her own fractured psyche and a hallway.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Her breathing grew fainter, and she clenched her hands into fists until she could feel her nails sinking into the skin.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
She froze and looked down. One of her hands was dripping blood into a trail on the floor.
It was the same shade as her dress.
She stared down at it until a puddle the size of a knut gradually collected by her feet.
Then she continued down the hall. She counted the dripping sounds instead of her footsteps until she reached the end.
She had no destination in mind, so she turned around and started back, trying the knobs of doors along the way. Some were locked. Others weren't. She peeked into more empty bedrooms filled with shrouded furniture. She would return and explore them all carefully later. Perhaps something that might prove useful would be found in them.
She was shaking as she re-entered her room. Feeling drained, she immediately crawled into bed.
As she fell asleep, she dreamed of Ginny.
Ginny — from near the end of the war, with hair cut above her shoulders and a long cruel scar down one side of her face. She was huddled next to a bed and looked up sharply at Hermione as though startled.
Ginny's expression was twisted in anguish, covered in tears. She was sobbing uncontrollably.
“Ginny,” Hermione heard herself say. “Ginny, what's wrong? What happened?”
As Ginny opened her mouth to answer, the dream faded away.
When Hermione woke the next morning, she knew she must have been dreaming. What had she been dreaming about? She couldn't remember. Something — something sad. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and tried to remember it.
She couldn't bring herself to go near the door that day. She huddled by the window and looked out at the misty gardens that lay outside. There was a hedge maze to one side. She traced her way through it with her eyes.