The Fallout by EveryThursday (reposted)

Seven

Day: 1000; Hour: 16

Hermione has been here for several days. Several days and then several more. She remembers getting to Grimmauld Place after wandering the front yard of the safe house dazed and frantic for thirty seconds. The place had been almost empty, except for Moody and two Aurors who were bounding down the steps as she burst through the living room. Moody had pushed something into her hand, and she had had just enough time to be thankful that her wand was wrapped in her hair before the madness kicked in.

She remembers having to retreat, falling back as Death Eaters closed in, but she had kept her mind about her. The air was open and clear, and she could see and think and know. It had been Ginny who had activated the coin, her urgency evident in the level of heat it had brought, as they had been grossly outnumbered until the call for backup came.

It had been hectic, screams rebounding off the walls, and spells missing the mark more than they hit. Hermione didn't think she had been at it for more than an hour before she backed around a corner and found herself stunned. She had not had the luck of looking up to find an apologetic face, instead triumphant eyes greeted her through a bone mask, and she was sunk with immobility and the coldness of her dread.

There had been walls, and awkward body positions; hushed voices that hit her eardrums with incoherent noise, and then the blinding pain of a Cruciatus before everything had gone black.

She had found herself in a cell when she awoke, small and stone, the bars uneven and tight together. She spent days waiting for them to come back to get her and bring her to Voldemort, or to do the things she had heard in prisoners horror stories. She had spent even longer waiting for her friends. But no one came.

Day: 1002; Hour: 1

There had been the foulest scent in the very beginning. Like feces and rot, and she gagged on the stench of it every time she breathed. She had gotten used to it though, which is unfortunate. The stink had put her off to food, and now all she can think about is eating. She doesn't care if it is something she hates, like meatloaf, because Hermione thinks she could eat a human being right now. She could close her eyes and eat her own kind, because she had never known a hunger like this. Her stomach was tangled in knots, hard to the touch, and woke her with pains.

Her thirst was different, but the same in need. Her lips were chapped bloody, her saliva slow and unhelpful, and her mouth dried out like it has been baking in the sun for all these days. Even the walls of her throat feel like sandpaper, and all she tasted was dust and dirt on her palette.

The darkness was constant, engulfing. All she had were her thoughts, and sometimes she realized they were growing more irrational. She thought about faith, and religion, and she wondered if she was already dead and waiting for something from that great unknown that people spent their entire lives trying to figure out. It could be hell; her here, in pain, in the dark, alone forever. Who she was, what she has done, all that she knew no longer mattered here.

She thought she might die here, and she is terrified, constantly. But then she doesn't, because she knew this was what they wanted her to believe. She had always been stronger then what they thought she was. Always, and always, and always.

Day: 1003; Hour: 15

She knew of delirium though she had never experienced it before. Sometimes she heard footsteps or murmurs, and other times she thought she saw shadows though there was no light at all. And that was why, when her vision turned bright white and then hot red, she believed she was dying or imagining things. Even with the shriek that followed, and the sudden mad jangled noise of metal hitting metal.