One of the guards coughed slightly. Umbridge looked sharply at him.
“Warden, Sussex is — they're saying it's permanently out of commission — due to the — the accident there. And Dolohov's — dead.”
Hermione felt a flush of triumph through her terror as Umbridge's face fell.
She'd hoped Dolohov would die. The only person she hated more than Antonin Dolohov was Voldemort.
“It's confirmed then?” Umbridge's voice was sharp.
The guard gave a reluctant nod.
Umbridge sighed and looked disappointed. “Pity.”
She jabbed her wand against Hermione's sternum. “Crucio.”
Hermione screamed, and her legs gave out. The hand in her hair held her in place. Her body was bathed in agony until her muscles began spasming so violently she thought her tendons might snap. She screamed until her throat was stripped raw and her voice faded into sobs; she hung in place as her body jerked and spasmed violently.
The spell didn't stop.
Hermione could feel her brain scrabbling to escape; to break free of the agony. Just break. Just break.
No. She couldn't.
“I am not fragile. I am not going to break. Please believe that about me.”
She hung in place, shaking in agony.
The spell finally stopped. Hermione was dropped heavily to the ground, her muscles still twitching. She felt as though she'd been torn into pieces. Whimpering sobs came from low in her spasming chest.
She forced her eyes open and stared up. She could see the Astronomy Tower over Umbridge's shoulder; Molly was dying.
Umbridge studied Hermione on the ground and gestured over her shoulder again. “I want this one, once her magic is suppressed. I imagine she'll require my thorough interrogation. Put her back.”
Umbridge giggled and began turning to leave.
Thorfinn Rowle paused as he was passing by. “You can't have that one, Warden.” His voice was slurred, and he gestured jerkily towards where Hermione lay on the ground. “I helped bring her from Sussex after they caught her. The Dark Lord said he wants her kept intact in case he decides to interrogate her himself. It's on the transfer paperwork.”
Through the agony and shock her body was going into from the torture, Hermione felt her blood run cold.
Umbridge's expression fell. “But they die so quickly when he does it.”
Rowle straightened and narrowed his eyes. “Doubting me, Warden? I can call the Dark Lord here, if you doubt the paperwork.”
Umbridge gulped, and her chin wobbled as she shook her head rapidly. “No. No. I would never disobey the Dark Lord. If he wants her intact, she will, of course, stay intact. This—” she gestured down at Hermione,“—was only a few minutes for her — defiance. I would never question orders from someone as important as yourself. My disappointment got the better of me.” Her voice grew simperingly sweet. “After all, you — are one of the Dark Lord's most trusted.”
Rowle squared his shoulders, and his barrel-chest rose. He looked at Hermione and nudged her with his boot. “I doubt she matters. He's got dozens more important — terrorists he plans to interrogate — if she ends up forgotten—” He shrugged. “No one will care what you do with her then.”
He gave a barking laugh and continued on his way.
Umbridge looked back at Hermione in silence for several moments. “When her magic is suppressed, I'll take care of her personally. We do want to be sure we follow our orders to the letter and she stays intact .”
Hermione was pulled off the ground and thrown heavily back into the cage.
She curled tightly on the ground as her body kept spasming and jerking, but she barely noticed. She was frozen with terror.
Voldemort had marked her for his personal interrogation. The mere thought had her more panic-stricken than anything Umbridge might want to do to her.
Her mind was filled with memories of Draco.
It was an almost impossible number of memories to try to occlude or misdirect from.
If ever you're under interrogation by a truly accomplished legilimens, you'll never keep them out with the sheer strength of your mental walls. If you were a minor member in the Resistance, they'd probably just kill you rather than go to the effort of getting in. But you're an Order member. Potter's Golden Girl.
...If I hadn't gotten you I would never have had a chance to encounter a brain organised like a filing cabinet.
She pressed her twitching fingers against her mouth and crammed herself into a corner of the cage as she struggled not to panic.
“Are you alright? She kept that curse on you for — I don't even know how long.” A boy in the cage came over and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder.
“I'm fine. Don't bother me,” Hermione said in a tight, shaking voice as she jerked away from the touch. “I need to think.”
She drew a deep breath, using her occlumency to force her attention away from the spasming pain in her body.
Voldemort would realise she was an occlumens. He would realise it and then tear her mind to pieces.
He'd find Draco.
Even if her death under interrogation was quick, Draco's punishment for his betrayal would not be.
It would be a worse death than the one she'd tried to save him from by bombing Sussex.
It Voldemort found their relationship, he would likely use Hermione as a means of punishing Draco. That was what he'd done with Narcissa. He'd used what Draco cared about to torture him.
Draco had always been more driven by his fear of what could happen to her than of what Voldemort would do to him.
She had to hide him. Bury the memories so deeply they'd never be found.
A brain organised like a filing cabinet…
She gathered all her carefully, meticulously examined and sorted memories of Draco, Ginny, and the hocruxes, and pushed them as far back in her mind as she could; she placed them in the furthest reaches of her memory; beyond her parents, beyond the very earliest memories she possessed. She pushed them all as far away from her consciousness as was possible.
Then — she hesitated and swallowed nervously, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. She squeezed her eyes closed and drew a shuddering breath as she moved through her mind again, tearing down all the walls she had built over the course of the war.
Her neatly compartmentalised life. All her separated emotions and memories. Her grief and devastation over her lost relationships with Harry and Ron. Her bitter, poisonous resentment towards the Order. All the things she'd pushed away and ignored in order to stay focused, to stay on mission. The things she'd hidden away and refused to think about in an effort to stay sane while she kept working.
Colin's death. Colin. The first death. The way he screamed as his skin was sliced off his body, off his face, his eyes. Until he stopped screaming, and Hermione stood there, too devastated and guilt-stricken to look away, as he was carved away into a skeleton. Layer after layer.
All the victims from the first curse division that she'd spent months trying to heal and save. They died. Everyone died. And died. And died. They always died. She tried to save them, but in the end they always died.
Harry had died. Ron. The Weasleys.
Her life was a graveyard.
She pushed it all into the forefront of her mind.
When Voldemort came, all he would find would be the endless death toll of the war, year after year. An unheeded voice in the hospital ward. Just a healer. All the Order meetings when she'd argued for lethal spells and been dismissed and scolded. She wasn't a fighter. Just a healer. What did she know?
Sussex would look like her revenge.
She was lost in her memories when the door of the cage shrieked, and she was roughly dragged out of the cage again. Cold metal clamped around each wrist, and she was pulled towards the castle. Everyone hanging from the Astronomy Tower was dead but Remus.