Love And Revolution

XII

[TRIGGER WARNING: Bondage and abuse]

Hermione's daze had been broken somewhat as she was roughly shoved to the ground of what appeared to be a stinking dungeon, with her hands tied behind her back. Her captor was mumbling gleefully to himself, "That Townsend caught a real good fish tonight! That little wanker hadn't got a clue who she was...no matter, CJ will be so pleased..." as he locked up behind him.

Hermione struggled to push herself to her feet and banged at the hatch, making as much noise as she could. "Hey! Let me out!" The sound echoed off of the walls but no one seemed to hear her.

"It's no use," came a frail voice from somewhere inside this room. There was very little light and Hermione searched about to find shackles hanging from the walls, at the far end of which lay an infirm body, that could easily have been mistaken for a dirty rag cast on the floor. She had manacles on her arms and legs and a dog collar around her neck, that was chained to the wall. 

Hermione pushed herself across the floor like a worm to reach her; her breath caught in her throat, witnessing the state that this woman was in. She must have been here for quite some time- tortured and starved. 

"I've tried so many times...' she continued, the foggy light that fell on her face made her eyes seem visionless, "I've been at it since...gosh, I can't even remember- years, now? It must be years...Yes, first an abusive husband and now strapped to chains, rotting away in this dungeon..."

Hermione stared at her, as she listened to her austere mutterings. Then she jumped to her feet again and banged at the iron bars with renewed passion, kicking at it, hurling herself against the doorframe, pushing with her shoulders. Gritting her teeth, she squeezed her eyes closed, trying desperately to wring out the last ounce of magic from her, but without her wand, it was all in vain. She checked to see that she had lost the connection that she had in her mind with Snape. She couldn't tell him where she was.

Disgruntled, she dropped down to the grimy floors again, defeated. The woman seemed to have gone back to her hibernating state, her body didn't seem to even have the energy to be bothered by what was going on.

"I-I'm Hermione. And you are?"

There was a long silence and it wasn't clear whether she heard her, but then Hermione realized that she might be taking a moment to remember. It was a shock to her that it must've been so long that she even forgot what her name was. "Jaimie..." she croaked out finally, "My name is Jaimie."

Hermione observed that she wasn't much older than her and had very delicate and beautiful features, which were masked by years worth of pain and sorrow. She blinked out of her eyes the tears of pity that came and said, "We have to get out of here, Jaimie. We have to find a way-"

"You have a lot of fire in you, Hermione. We all had..." a frail hand indicated the other shackles that were still hanging, "...till the icy coldness seeped into our very souls and drowned it out. This place does that to you..."

Hermione had already started to gather it now; there had been other captives here, just like her, perhaps kept here for days- weeks, before being transported somewhere else, or meeting a more definite end that she didn't wanna think about. "So..what, Scar just kidnaps the people Townsend informs him about, kills them and dumps their body on the street, staging it as the work of dark wizards? Does he use the muggleborns and the half-bloods as sex slaves too?"

"He keeps them here for a few days, then takes them somewhere else," she managed to inform through her increasingly congested voice, "His boss, maybe, I dunno...Except when they are women, he sometimes rapes them first." her body shivered as she recalled, "Children...little girls...I thought it would help if I- if I complied...But he kept me, as his favourite...I would rather be dead...be dead...."