When We Were Beasts

I Miss the Rage

Four Days After Draco Malfoy's Betrayal
Hermione pulled her knickers up, her face red with shame, and adjusted her skirt.

She'd passed through eighteen rooms since Malfoy left her to die, and not one had a damn loo.

Two rooms held food that she devoured and stored away in the makeshift bag she created from her robe, one held a floor made of pillows that allowed Hermione the most comfortable sleep she'd had since being in the BackRooms, and the rest were so boring and deserted and thank Merlin safe that she passed through them swiftly.
But she hated, hated, the humiliation of squatting in corners. The next time she laid her eyes on a toilet, she'd weep with gratitude.

Hermione slid down the plastic slide and found herself transported into a new room, a room with a ceiling made of glass and walls made of prison bars. There was no apparent exit. She'd likely have to go through some sort of trial to leave this place.

"Bollocks." Hermione muttered to herself as she rattled the bars.

"Bollocks, indeed." A male voice chuckled behind her. Hermione spun around.

He stepped out of the shadows.
"I don't think we've met," He purred, hands in his tailored pockets. "But I'm glad the Dark Lord gave me someone delicious to devour. The last person in here..." he tsked, shaking his head as if he truly mourned them, before gesturing to the pile of mangled meat and bones in the shadowed corner. Hermione choked back the urge to gag as she surveyed each broken piece. "Well their blood was quite sour. But I have a feeling yours will be much, much sweeter."

Hermione had come to fear men more than monsters.

At least mindless creatures didn't have favorites, didn't ogle girls with desperate gazes and greedy hands. But Hermione knew if Malfoy was still with her, she'd still be the focus of this man's attention. And she had much more to fear from him than being eaten. He could take so much more from her than her blood and bones.

But he seemed to be both man and monster. When he smiled, she saw the needle-like fangs.

Vampire.

They circled each other for a brief heartbeat before he lunged, mouth open wide to consume her.

Hermione dove for the pile of bones. She grabbed the first one she could grasp, ignoring the slimy film of decaying meat on her fingers, and screamed as the vampire flipped her on her back and pulled him underneath her.

"Did you know blood tastes better when it's pumped full of fear and adrenaline?" He ripped her blouse open with one hand as he pinned her arm holding the shard of bone to the cold floor. "It tastes almost bubbly."

He licked from her collarbone to her ear lobe. Hermione screamed as she kicked and bucked underneath him.

"How much will you scream when I'm inside you?" He whispered. Fear flashed through her like ice water. Tears poured off her eyes as she continued to fight.
"Let me go!"

"Scream harder, darling."

"Please, stop!"

This wasn't how she was going to die. She couldn't let the shock and terror puppeteer her into locking up. If she didn't act now, he'd likely bite her and drink her dry while he raped her.

Hermione saw, out of the corner of her eye, how exposed his neck was when he bent to kiss and lick her bare shoulder. She swallowed any second thoughts until they were buried in her occlumency garden. She only felt raw determination, anything else pushed behind her walls.
As the vampire continued to suckle on her flesh, his teeth not yet puncturing her, Hermione lunged upward and bit his throat with as much force as she could muster.

He stiffened with shock, but she only bit harder, using his surprise to her advantage as she freed her arm and stabbed his heart with the sharp end of the bone. Black blood pooled into her mouth. As she pulled away, a chunk of his flesh came with her. She spit it out as she pushed his stiff body off of her. Her chest was wet with his blood.

He gasped, over and over,  a floundering fish.
That rage she had felt building inside of her since she crawled out of that pool rose to the surface. Hermione was breathing in air like she'd been choked.

Use him, It cooed. What a perfect outlet. Use him!

Hermione roared as she stabbed him, over and over again, his black blood spraying her.

"You think you can rape me?" Another stab, another river of blood flowing from another wound. "You think you can kill me?" Another another another - "Hannah tried to kill me, and she failed. He tried to kill me, and he failed. You tried to kill me and you failed." She laughed, the sound maniacal and shrill and borderline insane. "When will you people learn that you cannot kill Hermione Granger?"

She rolled off of him. Hermione eyed the glass ceiling, and she pictured Voldemort just on the other side, his red eyes gleaming as he watched her morph into a beast. This was his reason for the BackRooms. To make any order member no better than a DeathEater. To make the lines blur to the point that they'd kill anyone who threatened their survival, the same way Death Eaters killed Muggle-Borns.

Before, she might have cared about keeping her innocence as intact as possible. Hermione would have prided herself in staying brave and not falling into Voldemort's trap. She might have sobbed at what she'd done, the same way she sobbed after killing Hannah.
But that part of her was either at the bottom of the drained pool, or with Draco Malfoy. It wasn't with her anymore.

So instead of curling into a corner and throwing up, instead of falling to her knees and sobbing, Hermione continued to picture Voldemort watching her as she dipped her fingers in the vampire's blood.

Hermione gave the glass ceiling two fingers as she stepped back and looked at what she'd spelled in the vampires blood.

WHO'S NEXT?