Nein
Hermione Granger considered herself a bit of an expert on being captured. It'd happened often enough, after all.
She knew how to keep quiet and not give in to your captors. How to trick your mind into not feeling the full weight of the cruciatus curse. How to extend her magic beyond a wand to create weapons and facilitate escape. How to wait, wait, wait until the right moment. How to never reveal secrets.
She'd considered writing a training manual for Order members. She had actually taught them all the basics of withstanding capture before things all went to shit.
What she’d never expected or accounted for was what one should do when one is captured not by the enemy, but by your allies.
She'd never had occasion to consider that.
She'd helped build the wards for the dungeon the Order threw her in. She'd read muggle psychology and law books for months to help them develop the interrogation techniques they were using on her now. If things had been different, she might have gone to uni. She might have added muggle psychology and law to the list of degrees she’d hoped to work toward. Maybe if the war ended.
It hadn't.
She'd taught half the people in the room how to duel, for Godric’s sake.
Had they forgotten?
The people surrounding her were younger than her, hufflepuffs and gryffindors she’d never been close to. By the time they’d joined the Order, she was considered a senior member; they'd come to her with questions and advice for Merlin’s sake.
They were doing this all wrong.
They weren’t pushing the right buttons, there was not a single legilimens among them. They hadn’t even brought out veritaserum for godric’s sake.
They asked her questions she didn't know the answers to. They asked her about Rosier and all she knew about Rosier was what Fred had told her. Dungeon in France, experiments, a creepy room devoted to her every action. Just what Fred had told her, just that. They could ask Fred themselves if they didn’t believe her.
Fred was unavailable.
Was he okay?
One of them squirmed when she asked them that. Hermione frowned. One shouldn’t squirm in front of prisoners. It shows weakness. She’d have to talk to someone about that later.
They'd have to come to their senses soon. Insanity or not, useless or not, she was an Order member and their distrust of her left her somewhere disbelief and rage. She could almost laugh at the absurdity of it all. She actually did laugh, incredulity clear on her face whenever they brought her to the blank interrogation room.
What was wrong with them?
Her captors just continued to squirm. None of them met her eyes. Not once.
It'd been five days since she'd been thrown down here. She’d asked for Fred or Harry, she’d asked for Ginny, or Neville, or Remus, or anyone really. She’d even asked for Ron or Lavender. But she was denied each time. They were all busy. None of them could be reached.
The first night, she was sure that was a lie. She’d heard the voices of various Weasleys laughing from the open door at the top of the stairway. She’d called out to them. Begged for help.
“Ginny! Bill! Ginny please!”
The laughter stopped.
One of her captors ran up the stairs, rushing an apology to an aggravated sounding Molly Weasley before shutting the door and blocking all sound filtering to and from the dungeon stairwell.
There were other prisoners here. That was another thing. They weren’t kept in separate cells but in one large one. A stupid idea really. What if there was an uprising? What were two guards who’d never been particularly good at casting an impedimenta going to do against a cell full of death eaters if the death eaters chose to fight back?
Not that the death eaters looked like they could fight back. Most were skin and bone. Hadn’t she told Moody the importance of keeping them healthy? How they’d be more eager to defect and help the Order if they were shown kindness? She’d given a whole presentation on this. How given that so many families had been coerced into helping You-Know-Who, freeing those families from his grasp and extending help to them would be a gradual way to topple His power while they figured out what was keeping the noseless bastard alive.
She ran her hands over her face, releasing a breath that sounded somewhere between a sigh and a huff.
Her interrogators exchanged nervous glances.
“Look, Miss Granger, we really don’t want to call Moody in here. He will be far less patient with you.”
“Call him,” Hermione said blankly. She lifted her chin in defiance. One of the prisoners, he couldn’t have been older than 14 for crying out loud, locked eyes with her and shook his head sharply. He had burn marks on his arms and she’d began healing his and the other’s injuries the day before but it would still take a day or two before the pink of his skin would heal without proper salves or potions.
She'd requested those salves and potions. She'd been denied. Her captors ignored her explanation that prisoners deserved basic medical care.
The prisoners had yet to speak to her.
Another thing. The Order didn’t keep prisoners. Not unless they were truly dangerous. Snatchers or inner circle members. There was a catch and release policy for anyone else. An hour or two at most for general questions. Show kindness, she had said. We need to show the wizarding world that we are the better side. The kinder side. The side that will restore justice and safety. That the propaganda they have spread about the Order was wrong.
But everyone here had been there longer than she had. They’d take them into an adjoining room from time to time. One or two at a time. Then bring them back without fail.
She didn’t recognize any of these prisoners. A mother and two small children huddled in the corner opposite her. A bedraggled man cried for his daughter occasionally. Boys and girls who were still Hogwarts age huddled in small groups, dirty and shivering in the cold. Not knowing how to warm themselves without a wand to cast a warming charm. She cast one for them, wandless and wordless. Saw their shoulders sag in relief.
A guard told her to knock it off a moment later.
These kids, these children, were far too young to be imprisoned. They were child soldiers and no child should be forced to carry that burden. She remembered her mother telling her about her uni days, going to anti-war protests and generally being outspoken until she was put on some sort of list. She stopped after that, to an extent. Being respectable well-to-do dentists really masked some of her parent’s more radical opinions.
Mum still went to protests. Dad did too. Hermione sat on his shoulders as a child while they marched and chanted and held signs, Hermione shouting out with them, holding out her own carefully made signs, lettering painstakingly painted much to her parent's amusement.
The only difference was her parents left the protests before things could get dangerous. Herded Hermione back home before things ever had a chance to get out of control and arrests or rioting could even have a chance to begin. When that would happen, they'd watch it all silently on television while her parents cursed silently, one on each side of her on the couch.
Would explain to her the importance of fighting injustice whenever possible before kissing her forehead and instructing her to go to bed or to study, their murmured conversations and phone calls gently filtering from the kitchen while Hermione complied.
Murmurs were the soundtrack to her childhood. They made her feel at peace. Her parents were warriors but upstanding, she wanted nothing more than to be like them and make them proud.
She tried to remember the dinners, friends of the family engaging in debate and humoring her endless questions and prim opinions.
She missed them so much.
Well, there was no use for it now. Melancholy was not something she could succumb to. She would hold her head up high and show her captors her innocence by virtue of her demeanor.
No doubt they hadn't allowed Fred to come see her. Hadn't informed Harry or he'd order them to release her for sure. Would tell them the horror of the whole situation and he'd make things right. Harry always did. Despite her mixed feelings about Dumbledore, he'd made sure to encourage the bravery and goodness that encompassed Harry's heart.
She missed Fred. She asked for Malfoy - the hallucinations had stopped and she shook her head at herself for believing the last one that led to her being locked up here, but the scars on her body still swirled and spread and she'd caught the others looking at them with either fear or awe. They'd all look away as soon as she'd notice. Maybe Malfoy had found out more about her condition, maybe he'd vouch for her improved sanity and they'd let her out.
All a misunderstanding, she was sure. She just wished she understood what it was all for, why they'd started treating her like a traitor when she very clearly wasn't and never would be.
She wished Malfoy came back from his mission safe. Solely so he could help her get out, she told herself. The news of his and Astoria's split crossed her mind more than she cared to analyze.
She didn't miss him, no, that would imply friendship and they were very much not friends. He was an ally. A fellow Order member. One that made her feel safe and did strange things to her heart's rhythm but surely that didn't mean much, did it?
She didn't try to escape. She knew it wouldn't be long before they all came to their senses and let her go. It was taking longer than she'd anticipated sure, but no matter, it'd be fine.
She just had to be patient and show them no signs of guilt. She wasn't guilty of anything. The thought brought her comfort while she shivered; the guards had prohibited her from using warming charms on herself, too.
If she didn't know better, she'd think they'd have cast cooling charms just to make the prisoners uncomfortable. Between that and the measly half-rotten food they'd bring in twice a day, they were very much succeeding at the uncomfortable thing. Was the Order so lacking in funds they'd been reduced to half-starving their prisoners?
Food and supplies were rationed for Order members, yes, and variety was a luxury they'd abandoned years prior, but these conditions were inhumane.
She couldn't wait to speak to an inner circle member so she could bring this all their attention.
On the sixth day, Moody finally chose to speak to her. She endured six rounds of Crucio that day. She added that to her list of injustices that would need to be fixed. Prisoners were not meant to endure torture, they were better than that.
Still. She tried to remember that when they finally dropped her in her cell. She told the prisoner who'd braved coming to her and helping her that it was all a mistake. That it would all be fixed. They'd be let free soon.
The prisoner cleaned her cut marks with rags stripped from clothing the other prisoners had volunteered and dipped in their rationed drinking water. Created a cold compress out of a cold rock and a torn bit of sleeve to press against her bruises.
It wasn't just crucio Moody had used to get answers from her. The truth of what she knew didn't seem enough. Moody promised to get more information out of her tomorrow. To break her until she was honest.
She told him she already was.
The prisoner tending to her glanced at the guards to make sure they were looking away. She bent down to Hermione. Whispered, "Don't worry, Your Highness."
Hermione was sure she'd imagined that as her body drifted off to sleep off the pain.
Draco Malfoy stretched his neck and cracked his knuckles.
"You should sleep now," Lupin told him. "I'll stand watch and wake you when it's time to go."
"When did they say they'd be here?"
Lupin looked at the sky.The sun would be rising soon.
"At least a few hours."
Draco nodded. Still he did not close his eyes.
"You're worried," Lupin said.
Draco slammed up his occlumency shields. Lupin merely chuckled.
"Werewolf senses," he said. "I can hear your heart."
"I just have a feeling, I don't know what it is."
"She'll be fine," Lupin said, ignoring the way Draco tensed immediately. "Hermione's practically invincible."
"Oh really?" Draco scoffef.
"She's bright that one. If anything happened, we'd hear about it."
Draco nodded.
"Get some sleep," Lupin repeated.
This time, Draco did sleep. He closed his eyes and dreamt of brown curls
When Sirius Black arrived in the castle in France, the portkey he hadn't realized was a portkey stopped humming.
The dial that had been stuck on the number two on what looked like a pocket watch moved backwards, landing on the number one before it.
There was another, smaller watch within the other. It was still stuck on the number three.
His legs shaked, no doubt a side effect of international portkey travel.
He couldn't see or hear the presence beside him but he knew it was there.
He followed the cold air. Bodies still lay strewn on the ground. The whole place looked ransacked.
He climbed up the grand staircase with a heavy sense of dread.
He wasn't surprised to find the injured man in the study. He wasn't surprised to see the name and photo on the tapestry though he knew he should have. Somewhere inside it just made sense.
The presence prodded him. He began the task of healing Evan Rosier.