Captured

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Pieces

Hermione was a ball of nerves as she paced back and forth in front of her window. The snow had long since given way to sleeting rain, and though she also loved the rain, not even the soothing sound of the pounding drops against the glass could help calm the roiling anxiety within her.

Draco had finally come to see her, and rather than being able to discuss everything that had happened like she had been hoping, he told her that Voldemort had decided to drag her out and display her like a prized dog in front of the Death Eaters and their allies to "increase morale."

He had been colder than before, detached, and when she had asked if it was her he was upset with, all he had done was sigh, say "No," and then leave.

That had been a week ago, which meant today was the day of... whatever they considered this to be. It sounded disgustingly like a party.

A party in the middle of a war.

A party, to celebrate all of the people they had killed and would continue to kill.

Nausea came over her in a wave and she had to pause by the window, leaning her forehead against the cool glass and taking deep breaths to stop herself from getting sick.

She had been desperate to get out of this room but not like this. She'd rather stay locked up and restless than have to face this.

No wand, surrounded by predators likely wanting nothing more than to tear her apart, sounded like the worst place she could possibly be.

And she was no closer to figuring out a way out of here.

She had tried continuing her practice of wandless magic, focusing on that predominantly in the days since Draco had told her what was coming. While she hadn't done it intentionally, having cast a wandless disarming charm, she was more aware of her raw magic now, just slightly. When it had happened, the feeling had come from deep within her. She envisioned it as a ball of light, like a tiny sun held within her, that all of her magic drew from. Like the sun, it was tumultuous and overwhelming, difficult to control if you didn't know how. She could recognize the feeling of it, could feel its warmth burning within her, but it was as if it was kept in a locked box, one that she couldn't access without her wand.

It changed how she went about practicing. She tried to will the sparks back into her veins, tried to will tiny tendrils of that sun to snake through her so that she could use it but she hadn't been able to replicate what had happened when Lucius had come to her room.

It frustrated her, almost more than it had prior to this, because now she knew she was capable of it and still couldn't do it willingly.

She knew that it was likely that the overwhelming responses triggered by the unknown threat poised by Lucius had been strong enough to break through, but she couldn't seem to be able to force it to work for her without it.

Though she had noticed that being more aware of her own raw magic had in turn made her more sensitive to magic in general. She knew now, for example, that Draco had changed the wards on her door and added additional protections, because she could feel the additional magic when she laid her hands against the smooth paneling of the wood. She couldn't decipher individual spells, or how many there were in place, but she found that if she focused, she could almost feel a soft humming within her that indicated there were multiple layers of charms and spells in place.

Of course that didn't help her much, considering she had no way of undoing them. If anything, the constant practicing and attempts at wandless magic were exhausting her, which didn't help her already horrible sleeping patterns.

The nightmares had begun to become more infrequent the more time she spent with Draco, and the last night they had spent together she hadn't had any at all. Unfortunately, Lucius and Bellatrix's attacks had brought them back in full force. She was lucky to get a few hours of sleep, if even, before she was chased from sleep by faceless death eaters and phantom cruciatus pain. She knew it was evident, she could just see herself reflected back at her in the window, and the deep purple bags beneath her eyes stood out in stark contrast against her almost sickly looking skin. Bipsy was fretting over her endlessly whenever she was able to appear, worried about Hermione's visibly deteriorating state. At least she wasn't starving or dehydrated, like she had been when she first came here, but she was so anxious about the upcoming gathering that she wasn't eating nearly as much as she knew she should be.