When We Were Beasts

Before: Part Two

Everything inside Hermione Granger came to a screeching halt. Her fear and adrenaline and pain slammed into her sudden disbelief at what she was seeing: that sweet Hannah had murdered Seamus. Hermione could see it the evidence from where she was standing, even as she tried to rationalize that Seamus had died from something or someone else.

Hannah's eyes met hers. Hermione's skin felt disgustingly clammy, her stomach in knots.
Then Hannah began to laugh.

"He screamed like a girl, didn't he?" It didn't even sound like her; Hannah's voice was too high, too fast. As if someone has sped up her words through a filter in her throat.

"I wished he hadn't screamed. I wished he didn't struggle so hard. I didn't want to do it."

Hannah pressed her red fists against her temples. She rocked back and forth. "But the room made me. It made me, Hermione." Fat tears spilled over the girl's cheeks to plummet and splat onto Seamus's chest.

Nausea rolled like a vicious wave inside Hermione.

What had happened here, that this situation was even real? Hannah had never been a violent girl. She'd always been kind to Hermione, polite at her worst and sweet at her best. And even if she was violent...Seamus was a friend to all. As much a Gryffindor as any of them.

Hermione's voice finally returned.

"What do you mean the room made you, Hannah?" Her words came out crimped, like run over paper. She wanted - needed - to calm down so she could assess things. Hermione still didn't even understand what kind of magic they were dealing with in this place.
She tried to lock her panic and confusion away with occlumency, but she was too frazzled to bury much under the surface of her mind's garden. Her hands were still shaking violently to the point that Hermione gripped her robes to try and stop it.

Hannah just stared at Seamus.

"The words are there, Hermione. To explain why I did this." Hannah's voice seemed faraway. Detached. She wasn't laughing anymore. "Just turn around."

Slowly, cautiously, Hermione turned back towards the door.

Except the door was gone. In its place was a bland wall, robins egg blue in color. The trim was Umbridge pink.
Written in hauntingly large letters across the entire space was a phrase that made Hermione gasp.

Only one may leave. Good luck.

Hermione heard Hannah sob from behind her.
"We tried everything, Hermione! But we don't have wands, and nothing was happening no matter what we did. I swear we tried. And I'm really sorry. I'm so sorry-it'd been days, and we were both so tired- so hungry-"

"Hannah, did you murder Seamus?" She was staring at them, at both of them. At the paleness of their skin, the gaunt cheeks and greasy hair. At the Hogwarts uniforms. One red and one yellow.

At Seamus, dead, not because of a curse or spell but from the very muggle method of a knife slitting his throat open. Hermione noticed the knife beside Hannah's left knee, red from blade to hilt.

Hannah's sobs pounded through her. Hermione could barely stand. She tried to push aside the grief and shock and pain long enough to make sense of things, but her mind was a twisted ball of yarn.  Every occluded emotion and hidden thought was coming right back to the forefront of her mind, as if rain were washing the soil right off of everything she carefully buried. Hermione needed to take a step back to think. To understand.
Her hands were shaking so hard that her robes were rustling in her grip.

"Hannah, I need you to-"

"You made the door leave, Hermione." Hannah cried so hard Hermione barely understood what she was saying. "You're going to make me do it again."