Secrets and Masks

22. Another one bites the dust

18th April

The weeks following Hermione's audience with Voldemort were a blur. A blood-soaked, nightmarish, fucking scream infested blur.

Once Voldemort had the reassurance that the Demon Hex was effective, he became obsessed, drunk with bloodlust, demanding that his 'prized jewel' be utilised at every opportunity. She was taken on missions almost daily, thrown under the hex, forced to attack and kill Order members in every base and covert mission that presented itself.

They were smaller missions to begin with; disarming muggle bases, invading airfields and destroying the tanks and helicopters that Voldemort despised. The muggle armies had clearly been briefed about Hermione's position within the Order beforehand, must have been told about her importance to Harry and the rest of them. She knew this, because each time a muggle soldier saw her, each time they got a good look at her face, they lowered their guns.

And then Hermione would slaughter them without mercy.

Wherever Malfoy was, she was dragged along to follow, another dog on a leash. He stayed by her side on each excursion, checking her eyes, ensuring she didn't break free of the hex - her leash - before the end of the assignment. A bodyguard she didn't want, and certainly didn't need.

She was absolutely lethal while under the hex, everyone could see that. She was terrifying. Ruthless. Inhumane.

The Death Eaters who accompanied them on missions - the one's who'd snickered and hissed degrading insults at her when she'd first joined them- weren't merely just giving her a wide birth anymore. They were practically bowing at her feet, in awe of her brutality and cold-heart.

The opposition never stood a chance. There wasn't a curse too dark, not a spell too brutal that she wouldn't cast it. Hermione cut people in half with a single hex. Exploded their chests from the inside out. Pulled their arms from their bodies, and slit soldiers' throats so severely she almost decapitated them.

She spared no one. Not a single hostage was taken when she was being utilised, the hex simply didn't allow it.

She tried not to think about the people she'd killed, tried to blur their faces in her mind. She tried to tell herself that this was a good thing, that she was sparing the poor sods more pain later on down the line. Saving them from hours and hours of cruel and barbaric interrogation. That she was granting them a torturous mercy.

She tried to tell herself that, but in the end, she knew it wasn't true. It didn't help, not in the slightest. They were still people. Still men and women who'd stared at her with wide, terrified eyes before she'd snuffed the life out of them. They still haunted her at night, tormented her in her nightmares, chanting that it was her fault. That she should have let Malfoy die. That she should have pushed Collin out of the way and let that Avada kill her all those months ago.

She was driving herself insane with the need to overcome the Hex, to find a loophole, a way around it, just some fucking way to beat it.

Each time she was put under the vile spell, she fought it, used every ounce of strength she could conjure. Clawed at it until her head throbbed and her psyche felt sore, like an overstretched rubber band. She tried everything in her power, every mind blocking and meditation technique she could think of to try and force herself to wake up.

And each time was a disastrous failure.

Each time she felt it getting stronger, feeding off her misery and pain like it was the finest delicacy, threading its vines of thorns a little deeper and demanding her cooperation.

Yes, Hermione's routine had become the most tedious torture. She felt trapped in her own personal hell loop, her punishment to atone for the sins she'd committed since the start of the war;