Of Boxes and Blood Status
Hermione was light-headed with exhaustion. The noodles she’d had for dinner almost twenty hours ago had been, as ever, insufficient for the day’s labour. Her hands were shaking and her peripheral vision had blackened hours earlier. She glanced around, trying to see past the light spots flashing in her eyes, and deduced that she’d be able to duck into the barn unobserved if she was quick, and there she could have a moment’s rest.
The barn was cool and dim compared to the bright sunlight outside. She leaned against the planks and blew out a breath.
The problem with stopping, she’d found, was that it allowed grief to catch up with her.
She missed her boys. She knew her meagre rations were barely enough, but she’d trade them for information. She just wanted to know if Harry and Ron were still alive - and Neville, and Luna, and Ginny. Where they’d been sent, and how they were doing.
The camps were organised by blood type. She was surrounded by other muggle born witches - and supervised by female Death Eaters. Apparently, it was so they couldn’t breed more mudbloods; it seemed the rest of the camps were mixed gender. Hermione pointed out that since they all had magical abilities, any children they produced would surely be half-bloods - just like Voldemort himself. That had earned her a night in the box, and of all the horrors of the farm, that had been the worst. She’d toed the line since then.
She’d lost track of time, but weather told her it had been weeks or months, not years, that she’d been on the farm. It felt like a lifetime.
She wondered, sometimes, if the blood traitors ranked above or below the mudbloods. She’d almost forgotten how to think in any other terms; forgotten how little blood status had mattered to her, before.
She stared at the trough, wondering if she was thirsty enough to drink from it. Her decision was made for her when Bellatrix ducked into the barn and grinned maniacally.
“Skiving, are we?” She sing-songed.
“N-no,” Hermione stammered, clutching her broom. “I was sweeping outside and I thought I heard water spilling in here, so I came to check. The trough is dirty so I was thinking about what equipment we have to clean it before the animals come back in for the night.”
“Liar,” Bellatrix whispered, her voice like velvet. Hermione swallowed, and the wood of the box seemed to bite into her back again, a phantom horror. “Kneel,” Bellatrix demanded.
Hermione hurried to comply, letting go of the broom in her rush. It fell into the straw, and she kept her eyes on the knotted handle, biting the inside of her lip, hard. The memory of the lid slamming closed, the impenetrable darkness, the utter inability to move an inch - the burn and smell of urine streaking her legs…
“You may clean the trough,” Bellatrix said smoothly after agonising seconds of quiet. “You will do so with the help of one other person of your choosing, during the farm’s dinner.”
Hermione’s heart sank. She’d miss her evening meal - and so would someone else, someone she had to pick, because she’d been weak and selfish enough to give in to the temptation of a break.
The flaws were in her blood.