Obliviate

Chapter Eight | Like Clockwork

The next couple of days dragged on for Hermione.

After Voldemort's explosive fit of rage toward her, Hermione hadn't been summoned since. For two days, she'd sleep, wake, shower, and eat. Nothing else. Hermione tortured herself over the recent events with Dolohov, reliving it when she dreamt, and reliving it when she blinked.

His face was permanently embedded into her mind. Thankfully for her, she was grateful that nobody had wanted to see her, or requested her assistance with anything. She just wanted to sit and wallow in her own self pity.

She felt pathetic and she knew it. She wished she could've helped, but due to the recent information from Severus, it now made sense as to why she couldn't. Or did it make sense?

Hermione couldn't tell.

If something was concealing her memories, she could only place it on depression. During her arrival at Hogwarts, she could barely remember a thing. Dolores Umbridge and Madam Buckshire had assigned Hermione with the smallest cell, and eventually, she lost track of the days. She was almost certain she'd been in there for a year.

Hermione paced across her chambers, her mind frantically searching for answers to Severus' news on her diagnostic. When she'd used dark magic to take down Dolohov, Hermione blacked out totally. She'd had no idea how long for, but she saw somebody. A girl. She was in a room.

The harder she thought about the memory, the more her name slipped out of reach. Eventually, Hermione felt as though the memory had been tucked away neatly, wrapped in ribbon at the back of her mind. Like dreams, eventually she'd forgotten about it. And the harder she thought, the harder it was to remember.

Hermione exhaled, with a complete feeling of uneasiness. The sun had settled into the evening sky, as the waters outside Hermione's room had returned once again to a state of desolation. Darkness.

Every little noise startled Hermione, from the footsteps down the corridor to the sounds of her floorboards setting back into place. She constantly felt on edge. Even in sleep, she was still awake - watching, listening. It had been days since she slept through the night without waking.

She had returned to the ghost of her former self again. The girl who was captured at the end of the war. She wasn't just a shell of her former self - she was somebody worse. Weak. Scared.

She lay there, still. Until her mind slipped away again. Until she dreamt of a better life.

When she awoke, Hermione stared at the ceiling, lacking the motivation to do anything. It was the day. The day she could see her dreams in person.

Except, they wouldn't be quite the same. She'd probably be locked up in a different cell - except instead of hearing nothing, she'd hear the beauty of the streets of Paris.

Hermione dragged herself from bed and forced herself to shower. She could still feel Dolohov's hands across her breasts - she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. When she blinked, there he stood.

"Strip."

She let the water drown her skin. Her hair. It ran throughout her scalp, slowly wetting the entirety of her raven curls, the water making them more prominent.

Hermione's hair now reached the bottom of her back when down. Long, like a lions mane. Except Hermione wasn't a lion. She was a rabbit, looking for a hole to run down - to waste away, where nobody could find her.

Steam filled the air around her. Hermione let her back slip down the wall, leaving her sat on the ground. She tucked her arms around her body and cradled herself, protecting her from her deepest fears. She was falling apart.